In and out, in and out, I quietly sit, watching my daughter breathe while she is sleeping truly a miracle. Anna lays between Laura and me peacefully sleeping on the eve of her surgery. I can’t help but feeling such a huge range of emotions. Over the past 10 months I have built such a tight bond with my little girl, my first concern is providing for her, protecting her and keeping her safe. Since Laura has to go to work early in the morning, she feeds her in the morning and then leaves my little daughter next to me to let us both a little extra sleep. Sometimes I wake up before her and I watch her wake up and it is one of my favorite moments in the day. For such a little person, she has so much personality and has brought so much happiness into my life and into the life of our entire family. Since becoming a father it is amazing how a switch flips inside you, and your world turns upside down. You grow a parental 6th sense for your child, learn their little idiosyncrasies and what makes them an individual. As sappy as it sounds songs, I find myself getting really moved songs that choke me up inside. I mean I love Guns N’ Roses, but when I hear sweet child of mine I well up inside. The song The Suburbs by The Arcade Fire really touches me especially this lyric: So can you understand? Why I want a daughter while I’m still young I wanna hold her hand And show her some beauty Before this damage is done It touches me especially because I want to show my daughter beauty and protect her. It has been 19 months since I found out I was going to be a father and 10 months of actually getting to hold my little girl in my arms. I find I am getting to re-experience everything through my child’s eyes. On a trip to the zoo, I get so much joy watching her eyes light up. As we get closer to Christmas, I look forward to seeing Anna get excited as she gets to experience it for the first time. I write this blog tonight because I can’t sleep. I haven’t been able to sleep much lately. Tomorrow will be a tough day, but we will get through it. Anna is a tough little girl. While she woos everyone with her cuteness and personality, I know she is a fighter like her parents and will be fine. This year I have felt the full range of emotions...
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I became a father over 5 months ago, and it has definitely been a game changer in my life. I have also been involved in several start-up companies both before and during my foray into fatherhood. However, since I became a father, I found there were some very interesting similarities to working in a start-up. 1. Noticing the smallest patterns Whether it is managing your product or your baby, it is all about spotting the small patterns. What is causing them to respond, what do they like, what don’t they like? It could be the slightest difference in what you do or how you do it but it can have an impact. Discovering those patterns is key in helping to scale your business or keep your baby happy. If you are able to discover what makes your baby happy, you can replicate it, and use that knowledge in other situations. Feedback is key to the entire operation. Granted, a baby’s cry is significantly more ambiguous than a clear pattern in business, but over time you start to learn what they need. Now, I wish that my baby was as easy to understand as my customers, but again it requires a combination of intuition and testing in order to figure out the best way to approach things. Start-ups, like fatherhood, require constant and regular iteration. If your baby is not responding favourably you can’t keep doing the same wrong thing for a day, a week or a month. Start-ups are no different, from the standpoint that you can’t afford to sit on bad strategy or tactics long. In learning to live life with the baby, you need to see how the situation evolves and continually iterate while noticing patterns in the chaos. 2. Serve multiple constituents I find you need to serve multiple constituents when you become a father. Think about it this way – your baby is your client, your wife is your co-workers and your parents are your investors. Your baby is everything, and you need to be responsive and serve their needs. Respond in a timely fashion and keep them happy. With a baby, your pay-off is a smile that warms your heart. The correlate pay-off in business is word-of-mouth referrals from your clients. Your wife/partner is in many ways your co-worker or staff. You are both working together towards a common purpose, but sometimes get worn down by the constant demands of the baby (or client!). In this case, it is important to look for opportunities to alleviate stress and do little things to show that you care even in the face of adversity. Sometimes a...
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