EP46: Leading By Example – and Calendar – at Work

Interview with David Newson / Chief Marketing Officer, Working Parent Advocate

HOSTED BY PAUL SULLIVAN

David Newson has risen to the upper echelons of the marketing world. He’s a leader in his field. As a husband and a father, he does something so simple but important for other Lead Dads in the corporate world. He blocks out two hours each morning to get his son ready for school – and he keeps it sacrosanct. It’s not hard yet it’s impactful. As a partner and member of the management committee of his firm, doing this sets an example that allows other parents to be honest at work, to not lie about being a worker, a parent, a human. Listen to him talk about how he decided to be open about parenting as part of work, and what challenges he’s had to confront. 

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Transcript

00;00;04;29 - 00;00;25;10
Paul Sullivan
Today's guest on the company of dad's podcast is David Newson He does something in his work and family life. Then when I heard about it, I was floored. I mean, in a good way. Like, he'd been reading my mind and I needed to talk to him immediately. And what he is doing is so groundbreaking that it can change company culture for fathers.

00;00;25;13 - 00;00;50;17
Paul Sullivan
But it's also something that any senior leader can model. More on that in a second. First, some introduction on David. His background is in marketing and he's risen high in his profession. He's a chief marketing officer and also a partner at Charity partners, a fast growing wealth management firm. He's married his husband, David, has a senior role at the Sierra Club, and they have a four year old son, Zander.

00;00;50;20 - 00;00;53;29
Paul Sullivan
David, welcome to the company Dad's podcast.

00;00;54;01 - 00;00;56;01
David Newson
Happy to be here, Paul. Thanks for having me.

00;00;56;04 - 00;01;00;14
Paul Sullivan
All right, I don't I keep the listeners waiting longer. One of the things I obsess about is.

00;01;00;14 - 00;01;01;25
David Newson
My calendar.

00;01;01;27 - 00;01;23;00
Paul Sullivan
Work, family, fun. It's all in there. And a month or so ago, I was at a cocktail party in New York with one of your partners. And, we were talking. You talking about the company of dads, and she said, you've got to meet. You know, David, you won't believe what he does with his calendar. And once she told me, I said, we have to speak because we are brothers from another mother.

00;01;23;00 - 00;01;48;13
Paul Sullivan
This is what I do. And so you have become known within your firm for publicly blocking out time to do things with your son. And this is something I wish so many other senior executives would do, because they'd be a model for something that is essential. So talk to me about this. Your son is four. But how did this how did the blocking out of that time for him or for your husband, his family time agenda?

00;01;48;13 - 00;01;51;27
Paul Sullivan
How did that blocking out start?

00;01;52;00 - 00;02;20;21
David Newson
It started. You know, interestingly, like as my schedule and demands at work continued to rise, I found myself increasingly at various intersections where I just felt like, gosh, you know, how do I do? How do I do more with like, less? I need to be doing more things like with in, you know, a shorter period of time.

00;02;20;24 - 00;02;44;24
David Newson
And, I, I hired some folks to help me with that. Right. So call them an executive coach. But this group was a lot more than that. And, one of the first things we started evaluating was, gosh, you know, let's, let's evaluate, like, your level of what makes you feel alive, right? And, the one thing for me.

00;02;44;24 - 00;02;47;08
Paul Sullivan
That was the answer, the answer wasn't PowerPoints, is that.

00;02;47;10 - 00;03;12;23
David Newson
It was definitely not PowerPoints. Right. Like what made me feel alive was like looking inside, looking at my husband or my son's eyes and seeing the magic and the sparkle of life right. And that is not, like work allows me to do these wonderful things in the world, and I'm super grateful for that. And so we focused on what makes you feel alive.

00;03;12;25 - 00;03;38;05
David Newson
And that's my family, right? Activities with my son, being present with my son and not, oh, gosh, what's looming over. Right. Like just really focused on, like, being with him in the activity and and being focused on it. And so one of the things that, one of the tools I learned was like, okay, you know, and there's lots of debate in the business community, like, okay, do you block your calendar or you do not block your calendar?

00;03;38;05 - 00;03;59;26
David Newson
Some people believe in it. Other people don't believe in it. Right? So, for me, I made the decision, like, I need to block my calendar, of what I would refer to as, like, inviolable space. Yeah. And I had to really think through, like, what are those times? What will you be doing? And are you willing?

00;03;59;28 - 00;04;13;04
David Newson
The challenge was put to me. Are you willing to create a solid boundary around it. Because those things that you care about, you put boundaries around and you stick to them. And so that's what I did.

00;04;13;06 - 00;04;27;06
Paul Sullivan
Let me, I said how do you, what do you, I mean give me an example of what it would say if I, if I were looking at your calendar now, what would it say in relation to you know, the other meetings that you have, you know, during the day? What does it say?

00;04;27;08 - 00;04;39;16
David Newson
So I'm looking at it right now. So between 6 a.m. and 8 a.m. every single day, says Zander. Getting ready for school. And then there's a dash, and in all caps it says, dad time.

00;04;39;18 - 00;04;42;09
Paul Sullivan
Okay. And it's Monday through.

00;04;42;09 - 00;04;43;19
David Newson
Friday of every week.

00;04;43;21 - 00;05;03;08
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. Now here's the interesting part that I didn't mention in the intro. Sort of on purpose, but, you know, I'm talking to you from the East Coast. You live on the West Coast in Portland, Oregon. So like if somebody on the East Coast and your firm is national, but, you know, sure, a lot of financial services, there's a pull of gravity to, to sort of New York time.

00;05;03;10 - 00;05;20;08
Paul Sullivan
You know, if somebody's in in New York, you know what, 6 to 8. I'm going to block that out, for my son, that wouldn't be such a big deal. But for you, that was really a conversation. You had to have your partners because, you know, New York time, you know, that's. I'll do the quick math with people, you know, that's 9 to 11.

00;05;20;08 - 00;05;36;23
Paul Sullivan
So, you know, let's be honest, 9 to 9, 30 people are kind of, you know, finishing their coffee, talking nonsense. But by the time you hit ten, you know, you're, you're starting to, to, to ramp up, you're starting to have meaning. So talk to me about, you know, you know, your partner, you. But you're you're one among equals.

00;05;36;23 - 00;05;41;10
Paul Sullivan
So how did you have that conversation with with your colleagues?

00;05;41;12 - 00;06;05;17
David Newson
Well, I think I, I think it comes down to planning. Right. And also, having conversations like, I'm fortunate enough to be on the executive committee of the firm. And, you know, we are a, a group and a team that values each other. Right? And every dimension of who we are as human beings. Like, you know, we share this, common bond called work.

00;06;05;20 - 00;06;22;09
David Newson
But we also care deeply about each other as human beings. And how that shows up is when we're when we're actually planning for the year. We're talking through calendars. And so we made, you know, there's a fair amount of travel required to and, and so we like what days or meeting days and what times you're going to work for folks.

00;06;22;09 - 00;06;35;13
David Newson
And you know, there's, you know, some sometimes spirited debate over those times. But we all kind of landed on okay, like on Fridays between this time and this time. And we just made sure like I made sure like I was advocating for like it's after 8 a.m..

00;06;35;15 - 00;06;52;23
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. And what happens, you know, somebody you know, I it's it's set now people surely know this around your firm. But in the early days I'm sure people looked at that and said, oh dad time I can call him then, you know, he's not on a, not on a client call. So what would you do when when somebody called you up?

00;06;52;25 - 00;06;55;01
Paul Sullivan
During that time that was clearly blocked out.

00;06;55;03 - 00;07;20;05
David Newson
So I'd let so one I would if they're calling my phone, which is kind of rare these days. Right. Like people aren't kind of slow to pick up the phone. You might get a text message, you might get a team's message or some other instant messaging type of, you know. Right. So one, I have a choice to not answer my phone, but if it's somebody, you know, important somebody one of my partners, for example, or, you know, I would be inclined to pick up the phone, right?

00;07;20;05 - 00;07;44;15
David Newson
And also, you know, politely but firmly, you know, let them know, like, you know, this is time that I blocked out for my son, and I'm happy to have this conversation. But at a time where I'm actually free, right at a time where I can ask you where that individual actually has access to all of me, right? Like, not encumbered by, like I'm in dad mode, right?

00;07;44;15 - 00;07;59;09
David Newson
Like I am focused on my son right now. And you want me to be focused on you when I speak to you, right? So, once you have that conversation a couple of times, I don't really stop happening pretty quickly or not.

00;07;59;10 - 00;08;19;03
Paul Sullivan
Fair enough, you know? Did you get any. You know, I want to go in there, right? But did you get any pushback? Did anybody, you know, grumble, about this? Did you have to, you know, kind of explain the obvious that it's, you know, 7:00 and small children need to be fed before they're, you know, need to have the parent for the sent off to school or, I mean.

00;08;19;06 - 00;08;45;09
David Newson
Generally speaking, it's been pretty good, I will say. I mean, I, but I have had I have had a few experiences where, I mean, as you might imagine, like, is anyone in the workforce today? Sometimes, you know, calendars can get pretty squirrely pretty fast, very, you know, filled up really quickly and very difficult, challenging, in fact, to get on a calendar, right.

00;08;45;09 - 00;09;21;14
David Newson
If something's urgent or if there's like, a communication or a, let's say it's a firm wide zoom that they're requesting my participation to present or speak on. Right. And they book it during one of those times this has happened. They booked it during one of those times. And I, politely, you know, declined the meeting request, you know, and put in, you know, and I added my comments like, you know, you know, this is during that time and, you know, happy, happy, happy, happy to like, rearrange things on the calendar to accommodate this.

00;09;21;17 - 00;09;38;26
David Newson
Unfortunately, this is one of those time blocks. It's, you know, not going to work. And the response I got, the pushback was, David, we really need you there. And I said my response to that was, and I really want to be there at a time I'm available.

00;09;38;28 - 00;09;49;28
Paul Sullivan
All right. That's fair because, you know, I thought, and my son really needs me to in the morning. But I mean that you you that way in marketing and I'm not that today at the response and I would have given.

00;09;50;00 - 00;10;09;08
David Newson
You know and it's interesting you have a you have those conversations a few times and and believe it or not, I mean, it's, it's human. Right. Like when we're at work, we want to get a lot of stuff done, right. You know, I, you know, and I'm grateful to be in a, in an environment with a lot of high performing people who want to get a lot of things done.

00;10;09;10 - 00;10;20;05
David Newson
I support that completely. But what allows me to do that so well is me also being able to focus on time with, you know, my son and my family.

00;10;20;07 - 00;10;43;20
Paul Sullivan
I'm an optimist. And I do believe that that people if, if given, you know, polite pushback or polite direction will ultimately do the right thing because I mean, you're on the West Coast, they know you're on the West Coast, your partner, you're the chief marketing officer. None of that is, you know, hidden. But like, if you had a call set up and you were in New York and every day at 6 a.m., New York time, somebody would call you.

00;10;43;20 - 00;11;14;03
Paul Sullivan
That would get old pretty quickly. Oh. Yeah. And but I think about this in a different way. If you are having a meeting, you, you, you work at a wealth management firm in, in managing billions in millions and millions of dollars. If somebody, another partner had, an all partners meeting and then they got a call from your fourth largest client, who was very upset or very happy or very something that involved tens of millions of dollars.

00;11;14;05 - 00;11;28;09
Paul Sullivan
I mean, would anybody ever push back and say, hey, why aren't you on that call? You're, you know, you were you were meeting with our client, and you're not on that call. A do you see an analogy to that of sort of putting those boundaries around things that are, essential? Sure.

00;11;28;11 - 00;12;04;04
David Newson
This is an interesting question. And, and one that in my position, I'm, I'm generally not inserted into those like, client facing discussions. I'm insulated from that just by a degree. But what is also so I can pontificate on it though, right. So from a marketing standpoint. Right. From a marketing standpoint, for our client facing for my client facing partners out there, I would advocate, like, you know, if there's something that you feel strong about, like family.

00;12;04;04 - 00;12;39;04
David Newson
Right. If that's one of the things that like, I'm not saying that people don't, but like, everyone has varying degrees of their, involvement or in, whatever, whatever their balance looks like is different for everyone. So I recognize that. But like for those that feel strongly like I do, about having this time with members of their family because it nourishes and feeds and allows them to be who they are and really, do their best work at work.

00;12;39;06 - 00;13;11;12
David Newson
Yeah. By having this time with their family, then, I would tell them, like, you need to have those conversations with your clients. Because here's the thing. Like if you like in wealth management, like it here's what's the beauty of wealth management to me is, these are really deep relationships that are, that deepening grow over time, from a client in an advisory relationship because you're sitting at kind of the intersection of lots of financial complexity.

00;13;11;14 - 00;13;32;20
David Newson
And with financial complexity comes a lot of complexity of what it means to be a human right. So there's like complex financial scenarios when it comes to, you know, children going to college or, you know, various, you know, what's happening in Silicon Valley. Folks are wondering, am I going to have a job tomorrow? Like there's a lot of planning issues, you know, that that are confronted by those folks every day.

00;13;32;22 - 00;14;03;03
David Newson
And their financial advisor is, you know, that could be the very first person that they call like, oh, my gosh, this is happening. What do I do? Right. But if they also know that through that relationship, they are going to understand what you value. And I would find it very hard to believe that a client would want to end a relationship based on you sharing and sticking to a value that you hold dear.

00;14;03;07 - 00;14;10;20
David Newson
I mean, yeah, I can't imagine. And I would also posit that, you know, if they do, maybe that's not a great client.

00;14;10;22 - 00;14;12;12
Paul Sullivan
There are there are other wealth management firms out there.

00;14;12;14 - 00;14;15;21
David Newson
Yeah. I mean, that's my opinion though. So,

00;14;15;23 - 00;14;39;04
Paul Sullivan
I do feel that we're at a tipping point because there was a time where, you know, And. Look, let me just back up and say, you know, working moms have been dealing with this forever of life, and they've been taking the brunt of this. But if there's one thing that Covid and work from home changed, it was the sort of, you know, dads being able to to think like, hey, this balance has been nice.

00;14;39;04 - 00;15;07;19
Paul Sullivan
I'm still hyper productive. I'm still doing well, but they're a podcast I did recently was with a, consultant, longtime consultant for Deloitte, who, wrote a paper on essentially the the focus of it. It's called the Everyday Man Report. Had a ridiculous consultant, title, but it was what they found was really interesting in that it talked about how, men now want to bring their whole self to work.

00;15;07;22 - 00;15;34;10
Paul Sullivan
And if you know, this is some guy who is a rabid fan of fill it in the New York Yankees, the San Francisco Giants, whatever he wants to talk about that at work. You know, men who are fathers also want to talk about that. But one of the things that this report found that I found so interesting is that for men who are not, you know, at your level, partner level, CMO level, who are not leaders in the company, they only feel that they can take that time or be that old person.

00;15;34;13 - 00;15;57;06
Paul Sullivan
If your executives, like yourself, are modeling that behavior. So you explicitly putting in your calendar 6 to 8. You know Zander that time that it that's why it is so important. It's been important for you and for your family. But it's so incredibly important, for, for the, you know, your company and the workforce more broadly. Have you noticed since doing that?

00;15;57;09 - 00;16;14;15
Paul Sullivan
Any more people, at the firm feeling more comfortable to block out, you know, time to be with their own family and not having to lie about not having to say, you know, soccer game when really it's not a soccer game. It's just you want to spend some time with your daughter and get it. Sure.

00;16;14;17 - 00;16;54;15
David Newson
I haven't directly observed that, but I have noticed the increase in uptick and the, ability to talk about it, like the ability to, to share, what's going on outside of work. And, as it relates to family and kind of normalizing the chatter. Right, even amongst my own team. Right. The pandemic brought it into incredible focus when, you know, at any given moment of the day, you know, Zander could open the door, walk in and crash your meeting.

00;16;54;15 - 00;17;28;17
David Newson
Right. And, you know, it wasn't that long ago. And I the podcast you're mentioning with the the, former Deloitte Consulting, consult, like I listen to last night, as a matter of fact and, and it it's fascinating because pre-pandemic, that behavior would have been called out as well. Someone might have called you after. Right. And actually called you out and said, hey, that's not really professional to kind of have your kid walk in and then like, crashing the meeting, like, not okay, not cool.

00;17;28;17 - 00;17;35;27
David Newson
And then Covid comes along completely destroy these, these frankly false narratives.

00;17;35;27 - 00;17;37;08
Paul Sullivan
Yeah.

00;17;37;10 - 00;17;46;02
David Newson
About what it means to be a parent and work and want to be like, I want to be my full self and what it means to be a fully what I feel.

00;17;46;05 - 00;17;50;09
Paul Sullivan
Like, you know? Yeah. Another part. I have a child or, you know. Yeah.

00;17;50;11 - 00;18;20;04
David Newson
Exactly. And it's so funny. Like, I think over time, we, we started compartment hyper compartmentalizing work like it's this thing that exists. And what wound up happening is it started consuming more and more and more of who you were. Yeah. And I think the beauty, the silver lining perhaps of Covid was it just shattered those, kind of false narratives, if you will.

00;18;20;06 - 00;18;42;15
David Newson
And kind of opened the door to Zanders. My pride and joy. Right. And when people see me interact with my son, even on a zoom, because, like, I don't shoo him out, right? He can come in, I'm going to give him a hug. He can say hello now. It will be brief. Yeah. And then he will exit.

00;18;42;18 - 00;18;46;19
David Newson
But I'm not going to pretend that he doesn't exist. What does that tell a child?

00;18;46;21 - 00;19;02;15
Paul Sullivan
Exactly. And you're not going to, like, you know, move over here. So nobody. Yeah yeah yeah yeah. No no no no no. Yeah. What is this over here like I don't know. Yeah. No but let me ask you there's you know I apologize. The listeners have done math and I'm going to have to do math a second time in this podcast.

00;19;02;15 - 00;19;30;18
Paul Sullivan
But Zander being four, he's kind of balance there on, you know, work from home and coach. So he was born about 2018. So what was it different for you? And I you know, I've got three kids. The early years are a real blur. But what's the difference for you when you think about how open you were able to be as a father, pre-COVID versus how open you are now?

00;19;30;20 - 00;19;31;29
Paul Sullivan
I guess post. Well, post, you.

00;19;31;29 - 00;19;58;23
David Newson
Know, so so it's interesting, like the initial reaction, that's kind of a visceral thing. So I'm just going to kind of like let it out. But my initial reaction is like, gosh, you know, you can come out of the closet like you come out of the closet at work. At one point it was like, hey, you've got to come out in order to, like, write for the movement itself in order to get accepted, you know, for acceptance in the world to change, you need to be out and you need to be an out professional if you can do that.

00;19;58;25 - 00;20;24;25
David Newson
Like what? Telling people I'm a dad is a problem. It's just not. It's just for me, it was just not a thing. Yeah. But I also see, like, in, in the, you know, in the straight world, that's not how it's been set up. Right? Like talking about being a dad can be, you know, fraught with all kinds of things.

00;20;24;28 - 00;20;41;25
David Newson
And so in some ways, I feel, lucky because it's like, well, gosh, you know, like, okay, it came out, there's this very big, kind of earth shattering thing in my past. So like the dad thing, like kind of coming out as a dad at work was not really a thing. It's just like, this is who I.

00;20;41;26 - 00;20;43;14
David Newson
This is who I am. And.

00;20;43;17 - 00;20;57;18
Paul Sullivan
Yeah, okay. But I mean, when was the first time you put it in your calendar? Do you remember when was the first time you started blocking? We blocking out that time in a pre work from home March 2020, or is this something that sort of evolved.

00;20;57;20 - 00;21;22;25
David Newson
No, it it evolved. It evolved. It is interesting. So pre-COVID, my husband and I left the San Francisco Bay area in 2017, in anticipation of our son's birth. And, went remote in 2017. So he was at the Sierra Club. I was at, a legacy firm that wound up merging with my current firm.

00;21;22;28 - 00;21;40;08
David Newson
And I was one of ten partners at that firm. And I like, you know, at the time, you know, just said, like, hey, we're moving to Portland. I mean, there's a little bit more delicate things, but they're basically, we're moving to Portland. Your move. Right. The Sierra Club was very open minded to that. And my partner I.

00;21;40;08 - 00;21;48;16
Paul Sullivan
Mean, I think as long as you live near a tree, you're okay with this guy, right? Like that's the guy. You know how many trees around you? All right. That's fine. And he. Right? Yeah.

00;21;48;18 - 00;22;27;04
David Newson
Did it totally. And I feel grateful and lucky. I had, partners that were, like, awesome. And we worked it out, you know, so we, my point there being in 2017, we luckily had the experience of going remote in an environment that was not really used to it yet. And then Covid hit and we did not have the, we did not have the issue of, oh my gosh, we're working from home every day.

00;22;27;09 - 00;22;48;23
David Newson
Right? Kind of a thing. Right? The only added complexity was like, oh my gosh, we're working from home all day, every day. And we have, a little one running around, right. Our gosh, was he still crawling around? I can't remember, I mean, like, he's small, you know? Oh, yeah. Probably should have had a nanny, but we didn't.

00;22;48;25 - 00;23;03;21
Paul Sullivan
I don't I don't want to. I don't want to put you on the spot. I don't want you to have to speak for if he hasn't. But I mean or say any bad of. Yeah, but but is he able to do the same thing? Is he in a position where for his work, he can block out the same, you know, square of time, you know.

00;23;03;24 - 00;23;34;06
David Newson
So yeah, I mean, I don't want to speak for him, but for the conversations that we have, I have got to say what the Sierra Club is doing, the people front and a cultural front is, at the forefront of what I've seen anywhere, right? I mean, it is celebrated. It is. It's just it's it's quite, an example, if you will, that's out there today.

00;23;34;13 - 00;23;41;23
Paul Sullivan
That's pretty good to hear you. You don't want to hear that the Sierra Club is like squeezing. Well, no, of course, like, you know, I don't know. It's like, you know.

00;23;41;25 - 00;24;01;14
David Newson
There's intentionality behind it. There's, a lot of care and like, it's it's, And, you know, I'm drawing this big contrast and like, oh, does that mean let's be partners? It's not this way. No. They're just they're they're different. Right. And I've got to give kudos to the Sierra Club. They've been kind of at the forefront of this.

00;24;01;14 - 00;24;02;18
David Newson
So it's fantastic.

00;24;02;20 - 00;24;29;19
Paul Sullivan
Yeah. I got to ask you this, you know, and I'm sure, you know, we're all starting to go back to conferences or, you know, meeting again, you know, super spreader events. You know, I was at one yesterday. I'm sure I'll have Covid by the weekend. But, you know, when you think about, you know, colleagues, you know, other people who are, you know, senior market executives like you and other firms that are out there and they're going to they're going to hear, you know, listen to this podcast and hear what you're doing.

00;24;29;21 - 00;24;51;20
Paul Sullivan
You know, what's the advice that you would give, you know, to other firms to to embrace this, to just be open about, you know, people need to have the ability to block out time to be parent. And if you hire good people, you can trust them. You can trust them to get their job done. You're not really, saying you your son and you're, you know, I don't know, doing yoga, which would be fine, too.

00;24;51;20 - 00;25;06;23
Paul Sullivan
But, you know, you you really have a reason. What's the advice that you would give, you know, other companies who are struggling with this or the culture maybe isn't just right yet that allows people to do it? You know what? What encouragement or what advice would you give them?

00;25;06;26 - 00;25;28;19
David Newson
Oh, gosh. Let's call it encouragement. I advice is kind of a dicey term. Or maybe one that I just try to shy away from, like, I don't necessarily see myself as this, like, fountain of. Yeah. But anyway, encouragement. Yeah.

00;25;28;22 - 00;25;37;23
David Newson
And I actually do see signs of it, like there are signs,

00;25;37;25 - 00;26;01;14
David Newson
There's even research, and I can't point to the specific pieces of research, but the research has been done. Happier people or, you know, happier people outside of work are more engaged and productive at work. And it's almost like, wow, did you really need to do research on that? Because like, that just kind of intuitively makes sense as a human being.

00;26;01;14 - 00;26;21;18
David Newson
Like, if you were to like, go out into the woods and like meditate a little while, you I think you would probably come to the same conclusion that, like, gosh, when I'm grounded and rested and like connected to the things that matter most to me, it allows me to show up at work in a connected, dynamic, very focused way.

00;26;21;21 - 00;26;51;07
David Newson
Whereas and, and I think, you know, for companies considering things like it's kind of like goes back to human centered design, like when you when you start thinking about how humans move through the world, how do we design work that allows for people to be most productive? And I think that also included in that has to be like, gosh, we recognize like, you know, you're helping like, and this is even I guess some folks aren't.

00;26;51;10 - 00;27;01;00
David Newson
I was just reading an article the other day, like, we should be planning for the demise of you know, human beings, right? Like I think it was in the Atlantic I just saw this morning that's like, okay, there's folks out there that think that. Right?

00;27;01;00 - 00;27;02;18
Paul Sullivan
But yeah.

00;27;02;20 - 00;27;31;26
David Newson
If we are creating, or helping to raise the future of tomorrow from a people standpoint, then doesn't it make sense as a work culture that you would want these, you know, kind of leaders or people working in the workplace to be spending time investing? And even if we were looking at it from a pure like equation standpoint.

00;27;31;28 - 00;27;53;22
Paul Sullivan
Let's you and that's going to be edited out. You didn't the courts. No. You're right. But if you look at it and I see it, you know, my wife, you know, I've been the lead dad, you know, everyone knows before the company dads, I was a longtime New York Times columnist, and it was they had to figure it out while, you know, working full time, while, you know, writing books, you know, giving keynote talks.

00;27;53;25 - 00;28;17;10
Paul Sullivan
And my wife, you know, the wonderful she's, you know, credits me for saying, you know, my husband being the dad allowed me to fulfill my full potential. What's great to hear, but the flip side of this is, you know, one of her longest serving employees, is is elite dad himself. You know, his wife is, a doctor and, you know, and their daughter as daycare and all this.

00;28;17;10 - 00;28;33;29
Paul Sullivan
But it is, you know, every parent knows, you know, daycare works until it doesn't work and it never doesn't work. On a day when you have nothing to do, it always stops working on the day when you have meetings and all this. And you've got to scramble. Now, pre-pandemic, that was harder. Post-pandemic, people get it, keep kids, get sick all the time.

00;28;34;02 - 00;28;50;13
Paul Sullivan
But it she's really gotten a real appreciation for it because, you know, I've been the lead dad, in our family. But here is this this great God's great employee, who is, a dad. And it's that. But he's also in his 30s. And so there's a part of me that thinks, you know, you know, I'm in my 40s.

00;28;50;13 - 00;28;52;18
Paul Sullivan
You're are you any 40 to. Oh, yeah.

00;28;52;18 - 00;28;54;07
David Newson
Oh, yeah. You're kind, but, yeah.

00;28;54;08 - 00;29;10;28
Paul Sullivan
You're in your 40s. You know, I was talking to a guy earlier today. Is in his 70s who loves the idea, but. But believes that we're all going to go back. To work five days a week in the office. And I said, you know, he he died to this place. It has a really fancy cocktail. And I said, I'll bet you one of those fancy cocktails.

00;29;11;00 - 00;29;11;16
David Newson
That.

00;29;11;18 - 00;29;25;18
Paul Sullivan
There's no way that's going to happen. It's just not going to happen, is it? Yeah, I think no, because people in their 20s and 30s are living their lives differently. And this is the human centers that and companies I believe are going to adapt to them. What do you think? Yeah.

00;29;25;20 - 00;29;30;13
David Newson
I actually know from my own experience.

00;29;30;16 - 00;29;36;26
David Newson
If I want to do more, I have to slow down and do less. Right, if that makes any sense. Right.

00;29;36;26 - 00;29;40;24
Paul Sullivan
So this is Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize winner. Yes. Thinking slowly.

00;29;40;24 - 00;30;05;21
David Newson
Yes, yes. And what's fascinating about it is like, if you've been like for me, I'll speak. You know, I've been doing marketing as a craft for a long time, right? I'm way beyond 10,000 hours. I'm way beyond like these other measures that, you know, are out there, the research. And so there is like that. And it wasn't thinking fast, thinking so like where they're doing the like, oh, is it a is that a passenger jet or is that a fighter jet.

00;30;05;21 - 00;30;29;06
David Newson
Like needing to make this like very gut instinctual decision based on like all kinds of hours, you know, behind it. And it's like, did did you make the right call. Right. There's elements of that at work no matter what you do. And in my own personal experience, if I in order to go faster, I need more time being silent.

00;30;29;08 - 00;30;50;20
David Newson
And that's like, even from my family, right? There's a personal component where it's like, okay, David needs his time in the woods. Like, literally like Portland is a wonderful. But, like, I need my run. My trail runs in the woods to make sure that, like, okay, I'm I'm okay with my own center before I can even then be a good dad and a good colleague at work.

00;30;50;23 - 00;31;11;13
David Newson
But the moment that I slow down, it allows me to come into work, look at my calendar and be incredibly focused, like in between meetings, or if I have time blocked out to do certain tasks, like incredibly focused. And I some days will look back and be like, wow, that was like the productivity in that day. Yeah. Could not be measured in hours.

00;31;11;15 - 00;31;45;11
David Newson
Yeah. And I think that's where we get it all messed up. Like many times at work we're thinking of productivity and hours and not necessarily like what is the value creation of the output. Yeah. And I think if you were to actually study it over long periods of time, like okay, when people are, you know, actually focused on things that matter most to them for me, family, my son, then I show up at work very excited about what I can deliver because like, I mean, it's you can go back and look at it through like Maslow's hierarchy, right?

00;31;45;11 - 00;31;53;16
David Newson
Like, yeah, these needs are being met, like, and then, okay, it allows me to show up at work and really, like, kind of crush it.

00;31;53;18 - 00;31;58;22
Paul Sullivan
David Newsome, thank you for being a guest in the Company of Dads podcast. I've thoroughly enjoyed our conversation.

00;31;58;25 - 00;32;00;04
David Newson
Thank you. Likewise.