243: Losing Your Child at the Playground Is a Bad Idea

Steli Efti:

All right everybody, this is Steli Efti.

Hiten Shah:

And this is Hiten Shah.

Steli Efti:

And in today’s episode of Startup Chat we’re gonna do an out there episode which  is … I’m going to share how I lost one of my children on a  playground and why that’s a bad idea and what to do about it. We might  even find a learning or two in there for you in your startup. We’re not  sure yet. You know I realized Hiten, one of the more polarizing episodes that we  did in the past were the ones where we did some crazy shit, like when  we talked about religion and its role in startup, even some more sad ones or  kind of intimate ones on how the death of our parents affected us as entrepreneurs.

Hiten Shah:

Yeah.

Steli Efti:

So I was thinking lately, shit we’ve done a lot of like tactical shit but  we haven’t talk about that side of things as much. Then, just last week I  had something very personal happen to me. I’m still digesting it and kind of trying  to work through it emotionally so I thought who better to talk to this about  than with you and share it with the whole world.

Hiten Shah:

Let’s do it.

Steli Efti:

I’m not sure what we’re gonna learn …

Hiten Shah:

All good.

Steli Efti:

… But I’m sure something is gonna come out of it. Here’s the deal, right,  I have two boys a five year old and a three year old. Five years  into being a parent, I never lost a child. I didn’t know that you should  be proud of that but for now I’m trying to tell myself that that was  a good thing. Last week that winning streak of not losing my children ended when  I was on the playground with my kids. It was very large playground that went  to for the first time. There’s a school there. There’s multiple playgrounds for kids. There’s  a big pond. There’s all kinds of stuff going on. It’s a pretty big area  and I decided to go there with my kids. They were playing in one of  those playgrounds. We were having a good time. I was chilling. At some point I  told both of them, “Hey guys, we’re about to leave. Five minutes and we’re leaving.  We’re going back home.” My older son captured my attention and wanted help with something  and then I put on his shoes. Basically, got all of my attention for like  20 seconds or so and then when I was looking for my younger son to  grab him for us to leave I couldn’t find him. At first, I had this  like, I’m looking around this playground. It’s a fairly small one on this bigger estate.  I’m like, you know, screaming his name and can’t find him, can’t find him. I  had this like, “Where is he? Huh?” It’s not usually hard to find … My  children have never run away. I’ve never had any issue looking for them so it  was kind of like, “This is odd.” I’m looking at the playground but he’s not  here and I’m looking around and I don’t see him but he must be here.  Eventually my older son joins the search. He screams and calls his name and tried  to find him, can’t find him. So now I’m a little concerned. I’m going further  away from the playground to the better overall like kind of view, can’t see him  anywhere. Now I’m like, “What is this? How is this possible? I should be able  to see him but I can’t see him.” So at this point, here’s what’s happening,  now my older son is starting to cry, right? He’s getting into a panic because  he thinks he lost his brother.

Hiten Shah:

Aw.

Steli Efti:

And he’s right. He’s right. We lost his brother.

Hiten Shah:

But he’s right, dammit. He’s right.

Steli Efti:

He is actually right, right?

Hiten Shah:

He lost him.

Steli Efti:

We fucking lost him.

Hiten Shah:

Okay, I get it.

Steli Efti:

I still can’t believe it, like I’m still like super in doubt and in shock  like, “What? This is not possible.”

Hiten Shah:

Totally get it, yeah. You’re like, “Yeah, he’s here. He’s here. I got him. He’s  here.”

Steli Efti:

He must be here, just my eyes cannot locate him but I’m sure he’s here.

Hiten Shah:

I know the feeling. He’s here, he’s here. Yeah.

Steli Efti:

So I’m trying to calm down my oldest one and eventually I take him, I  put him on a bench on that playground. So, I tell my oldest son, sitting on this bench, “Look for your  brother. I’m going to run around and look for him. Don’t move and I need  your help. We’re going to look both for … You look here. I’ll look everywhere  else, but sit, stay here.” I start running around, running further away to try to  find him and I realize this was a big mistake. This is a bad idea.  Because now I’m worried about two children. Right? I’m worried about the-

Hiten Shah:

I was going to say.

Steli Efti:

Yeah. That was dumb, right? But just in the moment I didn’t think it through.  So, I’m running around looking for my younger son, but now I’m worried that the  older son is going to walk away and now I’m going to lose both of them. So, I do this for a few minutes and then I realize, “All right.  I need to run back to the playground and I need to ask for help.”  And so I find another parent and I’m like, “All right. Can you do me  a favor and look for my oldest kid. I need to find my younger child.”  And she’s like, “Yeah. No problem.” So, she sits with him and now at least  I’m not worried that I going to lose both kids. So, I’m running further and  further away to try to find him. I’m screaming his name everywhere. I can’t fucking  find my kid, right? It’s crazy. And eventually some parents started … Some dad starts  asking me, “Hey, have you lost your child?” I’m like, “No, I’m just running around  and I start screaming for fun.” I’m like, “Yes, absolutely. I have.” And he’s, “Well,  describe him to me.” And I described him and he tells me, “I think I  saw him and he was walking into the right direction towards the street.” He’s like, I’m going to look in the opposite direction. You go there and look for him.  I’m like, “All right.” Thanking the dad and I’m running in that direction and looking  for him. And I can’t find him anywhere in that direction. Eventually, I come back  and now I’m starting to actually involve more and more parents in my search. And  honestly, this was a bright bottom on this episode. But humans are sometimes really awesome.  Within a five to ten minute span, I had like 20 parents searching with me.

Hiten Shah:

Yeah. Saying, “What does your kid look like? What’s he wearing? Let’s go!”

Steli Efti:

Yeah. I mean and people

Hiten Shah:

Nobody wants to deal with that. They can feel your pain.

Steli Efti:

People were organizing. They’re like, “All right. Give me your number. We’re going to be  texting if we find him.”

Hiten Shah:

Aww. That’s awesome.

Steli Efti:

And like different directions. Humans can be awesome, right? That was an awesome moment.

Hiten Shah:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Steli Efti:

A lot of people and I was asking two, three people for help and like  10, 15 more just joined.

Hiten Shah:

Yeah.

Steli Efti:

They could see something happening, “All right. Let’s organize. Let’s find him.” So, we’re all  running around. We’re all looking for the kid. Eventually, like 20 minutes into this, I  am like pouring in sweat. I’m running. I’m screaming and I’m like, “All right. I  need to call the police now.” I don’t know what the right time is to  call, but I feel like now is the right moment to call. So, as I’m  running around, I’m on the phone and I’m giving them all the answers, the name,  the loc, the where the park and all this and we’re discussing this and here’s  the deal. I’m constantly running back and forth but mainly focused on the area that  one parent thought he say my child is, right? I took that information.

Hiten Shah:

Yeah.

Steli Efti:

That was kind of main data point that I was going off on. Eventually, one  parent runs to me as I’m talking to the 9-1-1 lady and says, “Hey, we  found him.” So, I’m like, “All right. I’m going to stay on the phone with  you. Let me run back to the playground and confirm that it’s my kid.” So  the 9-1-1 lady stays with me. I run all the way back and there he  is. There’s a huge group of parents. Everybody’s super emotional about it. And my, Leo,  my 3-year-old is like … And I was thinking, “Is he scared? Is he alone?  Where is he?” He was like, you could tell he had no idea what the  fuck was going on.

Hiten Shah:

He’s just playing.

Steli Efti:

He was looking at people going like, “What is going … Why is everybody so-

Hiten Shah:

What’s up?

Steli Efti:

What’s up here?”

Hiten Shah:

I’m right here.

Steli Efti:

I tell the 9-1-1 lady, “All right. Confirmed. It’s my child. Thank you.” I hang  up. I thank all the parents profusely. I pick him up. I kiss him. I’m  like, all right, I’m not going to make a big fuss out of it right  now. I’m like, “Buddy, where were you? I was looking for you.” Turns out, he  was all the way in the other direction. So, this one parent that told me  he saw him didn’t see him, which is a big lesson learned for me in  like eye witnesses in a moment of stress.

Hiten Shah:

Yeah.

Steli Efti:

He doesn’t know my child. He saw some other blonde child and he thought that’s  probably him. People will tell you they saw things and it’s not that reliable of  an information. So, it was not that great-

Hiten Shah:

Yeah.

Steli Efti:

That I was going the opposite direction the entire time. But he, Leo, when I  said basically what happened was when I said, “Hey, kids. In five minutes we’ll go.”  And I turned around and I gave my oldest son the attention. My youngest son  started running to be the first back at the car.

Hiten Shah:

Oh.

Steli Efti:

And the car was parked fairly far away. Right?

Hiten Shah:

Yeah.

Steli Efti:

So, I didn’t think of going all the way back to the car at that  point. Especially because it was the opposite direction of where the guy told me he  saw my son.

Hiten Shah:

Yeah.

Steli Efti:

So and then he was just sticking around the car. And he picked up some  flowers. So when I found him, he gave me a flower.

Hiten Shah:

Aww.

Steli Efti:

He was just chilling, right? Not a worry in the world. My oldest son was  super upset with him, scolding him-

Hiten Shah:

Of course.

Steli Efti:

For scaring us.

Hiten Shah:

Yeah.

Steli Efti:

The crazy thing was we went all the way back to the car. I didn’t  make a big deal of it, because I wanted to first collect my emotion, my  energy before I said something. But here’s the trick, the entire 25 minutes where I  was searching for him, I emotionally, I was incredibly calm and I was actually at  times had an inner dialogue, “Why don’t I feel anything right now?” I didn’t feel  panic or fear. I was running and I had a high level of intensity, but  I was not totally panicked or afraid. And I was wondering, “Is this me, just  compartmentalizing?” While I was running, I was wondering why I don’t feel anything. And I  was wondering, “Am I compartmentalizing? Or can I sense intuitively that there’s no danger here?”  Now, having said all this, the moment we walked back in the car, the moment  I started driving back home, I started feeling a lot of emotions coming out, right?  And it actually took me … I brought the kids back. We talked to mom.  I talked to my son when I was calm. And then I went on a  four hour walk to calm down, right? It was a lot of amped up emotions.  So in hind sight, it seems like I compartmentalized, pushed all the emotions out just  to be able to focus on the task at hand. But, holy shit, that suck,  right? So, losing your kid sucks. Now I know. It’s not a good thing. Don’t  do it. And it was a super intense episode. Now, I’m wondering, have you ever  had anything like this? I assume no, but I’m wondering. Have you ever lost a  kid?

Hiten Shah:

Not for more than a few minutes, right?

Steli Efti:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

Where I was like … And usually, if I’m alone I just am very prescriptive  with the kids. Like, “Hey.” I have two kids. One’s seven and one’s three. My  son’s seven. My daughter’s three. I make my older son, “Hey, when we go out and it’s just daddy, you’re helping daddy. Got it?” You know?

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

“Let’s make sure she’s cool. Obviously, I got you, but let’s make sure she’s cool.  “Because she’s three, just like your younger son and they tend to be three, right?

Steli Efti:

Yep.

Hiten Shah:

And she’s definitely more open to the world and not as conservative as my son.  So I use that to my advantage. And, obviously, he’s much older compared to your  older son, so I think there’s a little more responsibility in his mind about things,  right?

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

As we get a little bit older.

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

And so I just do that and that’s helped me a lot because then, just  like your older son started helping, he’d start helping too. And then they’re always tattle  telling on each other, just like kids do. So that’s always great too. So, yeah,  I’ve had a moment where I’m like, “I can’t find one of them.” Right? And  I tend to worry a lot more about the younger one than the older one,  because the older one is also, again, a lot more conservative. He never was one  to go far and not go somewhere where he can’t see us. Well, my daughter  doesn’t care. She’ll just go wherever. If she sees something and she wants it, she’ll  go after it.

Steli Efti:

Yep.

Hiten Shah:

Yeah, I’ve had moments like that, so I can imagine. I totally get the four  hour walk. My theory on this is I think you get into this whole mode  when you have a problem. And you just want to solve it. And you won’t  stop until you solve it. And that’s how a lot of … That’s how human  beings are, especially when there’s a crisis. I think you were in your body, your  mind … I think the intuition’s a separate topic. We probably have a longer set  of episodes on that. So, let’s save that one. But my theory would be that  you just got into problem solving mode.

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

Because you had this big problem, right? You can’t find one of your kids. And  you, being who you are, a little different than me, you enlisted people around you  because they could feel it like that. For me, I’m usually not one to enlist  people, in that same way unless it gets really far for me, which is probably  a bad thing or whatever. It’s a different personality. If you enlisted people, I know  how important and how scared you were. I think you let the whole problem solving  nature of yourself come out, the critical thinking side and you just had a problem  to solve. And it’s the number one thing that you have to solve. But I  think you in … It sounded like a good 20, 30 minute episode, right?

Steli Efti:

Yep.

Hiten Shah:

And so, obviously, you needed time because I don’t know, as a parent, it’s all  you … It’s much harder than business to me. Where like, when you have a  problem and it’s one of these, there’s too many what ifs, right? And you need  to get … I think you went for the lot to get all of those  what ifs out of your head, right? To get that just like peacefulness again. Like,  “I’m okay. I’m a good parent. It’s okay. Nothing happened. It’s cool. Thank, God. Nothing  happened.” Kind of thing. Here you are and also focusing on the good parts of  it, of people wanted to help and lots of them.

Steli Efti:

Yeah.

Hiten Shah:

And they’re the ones that found your kid and is actually really smart because if  you get a whole bunch of people involved like that, it’s obviously less likely that  anything bad’s going to happen, right? As a result. Because now everyone’s looking and there’s  more eyes on it, which is cool. And I love that about you, that you  would just go do that naturally kind of thing. So, I don’t know. I get  it. I think you were just in problem solving mode. That’s my theory. Crisis mode.

Steli Efti:

Yep.

Hiten Shah:

And you know what to do in that mode, solve the fucking problem. Right. Yeah.

Steli Efti:

Problem. Yeah. I think so too. In hind sight, that’s what I think happened there.  The thing with the helping people … The lessons that I took out of this,  that are more universal-

Hiten Shah:

Yeah.

Steli Efti:

Are I should have actually, in hind sight, I should have asked for helped earlier,  right?

Hiten Shah:

Right.

Steli Efti:

It’s one lesson that I … Because for like good 10 minutes, I didn’t enlist  any other parents because I was in this denial of “It can’t be.”

Hiten Shah:

Right.

Steli Efti:

“This just cannot be.” I never … My kids have never run away or anything  like that, so I’ve never experienced anything of that nature, so it was like, “This  just does not seem like what’s really happening. I can’t believe, to some degree, what’s  happening.” So, I was just trying to fix the problem on my own.

Hiten Shah:

That’s a good point.

Steli Efti:

I feel like that was the right mode for first few minutes, but once I  took a big round around run and I covered a good amount of distance and  I hadn’t seen him or found him yet, I think that’s the time where asking  for help, somebody take care of the little one, that was a good step, but  it came a little late. And then enlisting people and we probably would have found  him earlier if I’d asked for help earlier.

Hiten Shah:

That’s true.

Steli Efti:

It’s just not something that I would … To me, it’s like when there’s a  real crisis, not just when something … I’m not asking for help for every little  thing, but when there’s a crisis, I need help. You need help. You need to  ask for help.

Hiten Shah:

Yeah. Sure.

Steli Efti:

You need to ask for help early. And the other thing is, I don’t know  if it’s applicable in all areas, but maybe if you jump up high enough is  that, again, when there’s a crisis, maybe you can’t fully rely on humans giving you  data points. Of course, you need to get help, but when you’re in a panic  and you’re asking for somebody to tell you if they saw something or if they  know something, maybe the information they give you is not totally reliable, not because they  don’t or they’re not well meaning, it’s just because the situation is such a panic  situation that they might think they saw something or know something and it may or  may not be true. So you can’t fully rely on that data, even if it’s  well meant, right? And then, I don’t know, this is one of those weird episodes.  Maybe somebody’s going to take a lesson learned from it or find it interesting or  at least appreciate-

Hiten Shah:

Of course.

Steli Efti:

Appreciate the transparency here. But I thought it’d be interesting to share that experience, because  it’s such a stand out thing for me. And somebody else out there has experienced  anything similar or different or can relate it to business or start up experience and  wants to share any of that with us, we always love hearing from you. So just shoot us an email @gmail.com and share these experiences. Because we learn from each  and every one of you.

Hiten Shah:

Absolutely.

Steli Efti:

All right. Don’t lose your kids, people. That’s the lesson here. We’ll hear from you-

Hiten Shah:

Now you know what to do if you do.

Steli Efti:

Hopefully you don’t have to use it, but if you do might take some lessons  learned from me. All right. We’ll hear you very soon.

Hiten Shah:

Bye.

Steli Efti:

Bye-bye.