Focus vs Sacrifice
I have a few friends who are on the verge of becoming first time fathers. Here's something they should learn asap...
I have a few new friends on the verge of becoming first-time fathers. In NYC, the social networks of your adult friends primarily revolve around what playground you take your kids to. Their school matters less because your closest playground becomes your backyard and not necessarily close to your kids' school. For us, it's two incredible, gated playgrounds on Central Park West, just a block from our home.
During the summer, our social group expands as new or soon-to-be parents start hanging around these hotspots of chaos, laughter, scraped knees, tantrums, snotty noses, an absurd number of spilled snacks*, water balloons, water guns, water cannons, and just plain buckets of water getting dumped on everyone and everything. These new friendships are born out of fear (on their part) and empathy on ours, having recently been through that particular phase of their journey to parenthood.
Sometimes, they have questions we are more than happy to answer, as it gives us, for a fleeting moment, the feeling that we have our shit together**; if they don't ask, we are a hair trigger away from dumping our weight in unorganized and life-or-death advice that gives them more anxiety than calm. Either way, we are now bonded.
The people I find are the most terrified are, no shocker here, soon-to-be fathers. Why? Simple. Because deep down inside, we're emotional basket cases wrapped in a rugged steel shell within which we've deeply buried any and all emotional responses we've had since the age of 8 (because that's healthy). And this moment, the transition to fatherhood, makes us realize that we soon need to be responsible for a life using skills that we don't have and couldn't have picked up in any gym, baseball field, video game, bar, or on ESPN. It's the moment we realize… we're fucked.
There is a ton of advice to give fathers, from the tactics of caring for a tiny human to the best places to get milkshakes at 1am. One of the most important is the difference between focus and sacrifice.
I often hear fathers worry about what they're going to lose. Will I still have time to go to the gym? A music festival? Out drinking with the guys? I was learning to play the guitar. How do I fit that in? I like sitting on the couch every Sunday morning for 6 hours uninterrupted. How do I keep that space***? I even hear overconfident statements like, "Oh, we totally plan on still traveling the world 6 times a year with a baby because it's totally doable." 🙄
Rather than answer each question independently, I often share this…
Parenthood is not about what you are sacrificing. Looking at it as an exercise in sacrifice is a negative view of what is happening. Becoming a (hopefully) dedicated father and husband involves mastering the art of intense focus. I learned this as an entrepreneur long before I married or became a father. Like anything in life, the more you focus on something, the less room there is for anything that distracts or otherwise takes away from achieving your primary goal.
Here's an exercise for you to do at home. All you need is a pen and a piece of paper.
Start by thinking of the 10 things you want to keep doing in your life, the 10 things that matter most to you, the 10 that define who you are as a person and make you feel fulfilled. Do you like sitting in a sauna every day? Add it to the list. Like running? Add it. Are you happiest with a drink in your hand, lying on a beach, reading a book? Add them (but note those are three separate list items, not one big one). Put them down as bullets in the order that they come to you.
Running
Reading
Playing guitar
Going to concerts
Going to festivals
Working out
Watching TV with my wife
…
Once your list is complete, rank order them with 1, which you cannot live without, and 10, a nice-to-have.
Working out
Watching terrible tv shows with my wife at night
Reading
Running
Going to music festivals
etc.
Now, add two more new ones to the top of your list: the first is being a great father and husband, and the second is your career (whatever that is for you).
Being a dedicated father and husband
My career
Working out
Watching absurdly terrible tv shows with my amazing wife at night
Reading
Running
…
Traveling with friends
Finally, and this is the most important step, take your list, and highlight the first three in green and the fourth in blue. Then, take a pair of scissors, and cut the list in half, just under #4 and above #5. Take that lower list, fold it up, and place it in a locked safe that is timed to open 18 years from now. Kiss those ones goodbye. You're left with the four that become your primary focus areas.
Interesting study finding of the day… "Researchers at the University of Oregon … concluded that the human brain has a built-in limit on the number of discrete thoughts it can entertain at one time. The limit for most individuals is four, according to the research team led by University of Oregon psychology professors Edward Awh and Edward Vogel."
I will jump to some significant conclusions here, so accept that for now. What will you focus on if you can only focus on four things at a time before everything additional item causes the entire list to suffer equally and exponentially with every additional list item? What are the most essential things in your life that will ultimately define who you are and how you contribute to the world? What are you going to be the absolute best at?
Once you find those four things and build a program that allows you to put everything you have into being the best at them, everything else naturally disappears. You're not sacrificing them. You don't have room for them anymore. That's ok because you have other priorities that will require intense focus. If you're doing those four right, you won't have time for anything else.
Does this mean you can't go on vacation? Or go to a friend's wedding? Or ever read a book again? Absolutely not. But you have to selectively choose those things, like cheat days in your diet/workout routine. You get one every so often, so enjoy it, be grateful for it, and then get back to your routine. Or, in the case of reading, include it as a supporting mechanism for another area of focus (ex., reading books on the brain development of psychotic toddlers is focusing on being a great father).
Bay Area tech founders are notorious for having intense focus. Steve Jobs famously only wore the same jeans and shirt for years to eliminate having to make the "what am I going to wear today" decision every day. He found that those 5 minutes a day were better invested in another area of focus. Zuckerberg, Hsieh, and more did the same thing. I'm not suggesting you wear a uniform starting when your kids are born. I am saying that it's time to act like an athlete. Pick the 4 things that will fuel you and make you proud to be alive. Focus intensely on those things, so much that the ones you "sacrificed" become so unnecessary that you don't miss them anymore.
To this day, Arnold Schwarzenegger is still known as one of the most intensely focused Mr. Olympia of all time. It was all he thought about for years, even breaking up with a girlfriend because she wanted him to focus on fitness less over time. His myopic focus made him able to surgically and obsessively fine-tune his physique until he became the most obvious champion in history. Tiger Woods did the same in his early years. It also seems like those two people might not have had their families in their top four lists in their early years, but that's just a judge-y observation on my part.
My areas of focus are so apparent to me that everything else falls away, and I honestly don't miss them.
Being present for my wife and kids
Building Chptr
Working out
Sitting on the couch, watching the most completely garbage reality television shows possible with my beautiful fantastic wife, who can do no wrong in my eyes
Focus is positive, in your control, and feels strengthening. Sacrifice feels, to many, like a negative, like something is being taken from you unwillingly. I choose to stay focused. One day, down the road, I'll pick up my guitar again. Until then, I happily prefer sitting on a bench in Central Park while my kids throw water balloons at me (because their aim sucks when I'm standing) and watching Bravo with my wife.
Thanks for reading and be good to each other,
Rehan
*Listen, if your kid drops 100 goldfish on the ground, do us all a favor and grind them up with your shoe. There is a 2yo named Coco who’s watching you like a sharp shooter in a war zone, waiting for the opening to run over and start eating each one like one of the hungry hungry hippos.
**Editors note - we do not have our shit together at all.
***You can kiss that last one goodbye forever. If you try to hold on to it? I’m comfortable saying that you’re an idiot. Good luck. Your wife is going to murder you in your sleep.