My 3 Tips For Parenthood And Life

I've been through that process of being expectant father, a new father, then a father of two young boys, and looking at the career that I was in and thinking, I don't want to be here. This is not going to be conducive to being the type of father that I want to be. You're listening to the Circle C Project. Welcome to the Triple C Project, the podcast that helps you gain clarity, boost confidence, build courage so you can live lifeless. I'm your host, Ron Ryan Spence, the big lord, rock hat, life coach, author, speaker, lover of hoodies, hip hop and big, hairy, audacious goals. If you're tired of living the life you think you should want and ready to start living the life you do want, this podcast will help you get from where you are to where you really want to be. So now with friends, I invite you to grab a drink, take a seat, and allow me to guide you towards living a life that's lit. Hey, welcome to episode 82 of the Triple C Project. And the fact that I'm here means that I survived. I survived the 10k race I've been talking about for the last few episodes, but not only did I survive, I thrived. So I wanted ideally to do the race in under an hour, but given my late start to training that I've talked about and issues with my back, which I'd also talked about, I was kind of happy if I did it in below an hour 10. But what actually happened is it was perfect conditions for race day. It was a little bit overcast, there was a little bits of rain coming down, it's a little bit cloudy, not too hot. And the. The course was flatter than I expected given that Sheffield is full of a load of hills. As again, I've spoken about some of the hills I encountered on my last training run. But I finished in under an hour, 58 minutes, 37 seconds to be exact, which I was very, very pleased about. And not only that, I felt great afterwards. And in fact, I felt so great that I've now signed up for not only for next year's race, but another one in November, a trail race here as well, another 10k. So I'm really pleased with that. So that's my update and I'm back, I'm here, I'm ready to go, I'm feeling good. So before we dive into today's episode, I wanted to just shout out a couple of things, a couple of ways that you can support the show. So if you be listening to the show, you get value from the show. You feel that what you're hearing here is helpful for you, for people around you. You're sharing it, you're talking about it. I thank you for that. And I just wanted to give you three additional ways that you can also support the show. So one is by leaving a review. A review. It just helps me know what's jiving with you. What will you like, what you get out of it. 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So I just kind of wanted to drop that in here. Okay, let's get to the show. So just over a year ago, I was asked to speak at a summit for lawyers. And one of the things I was asked to speak about was about being a parent and being a lawyer, so in particular being a father. So I was on a panel with two other women who were mothers, and I was on there as a father as well. And it was a really good discussion that we had, a really good round table. And from that, I actually got invited by one of the other speakers to do some coaching. So she runs a company that basically goes into law firms and talks about how law firms can support parents and why supporting parents is. Is a good thing. Because there is a lot of lawyers who, once you become a parent, particularly big Law, it's not really a conducive environment to supporting being a parent and the unpredictability of being a parent, mothers or fathers. So the work that they're doing is fantastic. And they say recently they. They say they've got a retainer for a firm to give coaching to expectant fathers. And they asked me if I wanted to be a part of that, which I was so happy to do, partly because then before I became a father, when I was in that process of knowing I was going to be and not really knowing what to expect, having all those things. And that transpired into a post that I did, which was my three tips for parenthood, which I'm going to share with you today. But think about these three tips. As I was writing them, and as I read back through them, I realized that actually, although I was writing them from the viewpoint of a parent, becoming a parent, these are actually universal. These actually have applied to me in business, in changing the way that I live my life and setting up my own mission away from big law and going in a whole new direction. So although these are called three tips for parenthood, they're actually three tips that are useful for anyone, particularly anyone who is thinking of changing where they are, changing their situation, who is thinking of making a pivot, getting a new job, taking a new direction, just doing something different from the norm, different than what they are expected to do. So whether you're a parent or not, I'm hoping that these three tips are going to be valuable to you, are going to give you a different way of thinking about things, thinking about change, thinking about doing things differently. So three tips for parenthood and for life. So the number one tip I've got, and this will be no surprise, to you. If you've been listening to the show, you've read the book, be clear on your core values. So you'll know that I'm big on clarity. Clarity is the, is the foundation. Because until you're clear about what it is that you want, you can't know which direction you're going to head. You can't know the steps that you need to take, the people you need to speak to. And that starts with values. It starts with that GPS system that allows you to make decisions easier because you, or making them based upon something that you fundamentally believe in that is really important to you. Because you're going to have to make difficult decisions as a parent. I mean, how do you take care of your kid? How do you interact with your in laws or your own parents when they're not doing things the way you want them to do? Where do you send your child to school? What vaccinations do you, do you get them to have? I mean, who do you hang out with? Where do you live? So many decisions you're going to have to make. If you're in big law or in your corporate job and you're miserable and you're unhappy and you're unfulfilled, you're gonna have to make decisions about do I quit, do I move to a different department, Do I find a way that I can manage being in this world, in this environment, or is it just all too much? Do I need to get out? Do I change careers completely? Do I go off and travel around the world for a year and try to find myself? There are lots of decisions, but again, core values, being clear on those core values is going to help you to make those decisions. It's going to make making those decisions easier. Not easy, but easier. So that's the number one tip. Be clear on your core values tip number two, accept nobody has the answers. Everybody's winging it. Now this is really apparent when you're a parent. There are all of the books out there that you can buy, you can read. And there are all of these people, parents in laws, aunts, uncles, friends, all well meaning, who all have their own opinions on how you should raise your children, how you should be, how you should discipline your child, what you should feed them, how you should dress them, where you should send them, but nobody knows. Everybody's giving you information based upon their own experience. And that doesn't mean that you just discount it, but what it means is that you have to look at it through your own filter, through your own lens. You've got to look at it through going back to the first tip, your own values. How do you want to do it? Because people can have all the experience of the world, they can have written all the books in the world, but ultimately they're not you. And they have done things the way that they thought that they should be done, probably the way that their parents or their grandparents told them or society told them how to do things at the time. But nobody has the perfect blueprint for anything. No one has the perfect blueprint for raising children. No one has the perfect blueprint for what to do if you really hate your job and you're miserable. No one has the perfect blueprint for what to do if you realize the career that you've chosen is no longer the career that you want and it's not going to give you the life that you want. Nobody, even I don't. But what I can do is I can share my experiences with you and you can take from that what serves you and leave what doesn't. But you have to use your own critical thinking and look at it through your own lens. Don't look to other people to be the expert. And look, this is not. I'm not talking about dismissing science, for example, for climate change, but I'm talking about you and your life and how you want to live it. Don't look at other people to be the expert of your life. You are the expert of your life. You just need to gather in the information and then filter it through your own lens, filter it through your own filter system, your own values, to figure out what it is that you want to do and how you want to try things. And also know that you can change course if that's not working. So tip number two, except nobody has the answers. Everybody else is winging it. So don't compare. And tip number three, recognize you're doing the best you can. Now, you will be the only one who knows if you're doing the best that you can. But typically we are. We're trying to navigate uncharted waters with the information that we have and the experience that we have, not knowing really what we are doing. So you get home from the hospital with this new baby and it's kind of like, okay, what the fuck? Now what do I do? And you realize that you've maybe forgot to change your snappy on time or you forgot to feed it or they get a bit older and you take your child to school on the day when there's a teacher training day. I may or may not have done that, or, you know, you send them to school in the wrong uniform or whatever it is. There are all of these balls in the air that you're trying to juggle. And you're always going to feel like that amateur juggler who can't juggle, who just drops things. That's going to happen. And I want you to know that that doesn't make you a bad person. It just makes you human. We're all trying to juggle all of these balls in the air. And for all the talk of finding balance, finding work, life, balance, as I've said on an earlier episode, balance is an illusion. Balance isn't a destination. It's fine to strive for balance, but if you're going to keep beating yourself up because you're not in state of balance, then you're going to be beating yourself up for the rest of your life. So give yourself some grace. Recognize that there's a lot on. There's a lot in life that's going on. There's a lot of demands, a lot of distractions, a lot of shirts. And you've got to kind of figure out, okay, I can't do everything, so what is it I need to do right now? And recognize that times when you do drop the ball, because you will drop the ball, you may drop multiple balls at the same time. But recognize doing the best that I can, evaluate the situation and maybe ask yourself, is there a way I could have done things differently? But don't beat yourself up about it, because you just keep beating yourself down to the point where you won't want to get up and do anything, and everything will just fall by the wayside. So I just want you to, as I said, give yourself some grace. Recognize you're doing the best that you can. And you're going to feel like you're dropping things, but you're human. That's what's going to happen. So to recap on the three tips for parenthood and for life, number one, be clear on your core values. You will have many difficult decisions to make, and knowing your core values will make them easier, but not easy to accept that nobody has all the answers. Everybody else is winging it. So don't compare. Don't compare yourself to where other people are. Run your own race. And number three, recognize you're doing the best you can. You'll always feel like that amateur juggler who can't juggle drops the balls. This doesn't make you a bad person. It makes you human. So they're the three tips I want to share with you today. There are many, many more, I'm sure, but those three really hit me as I was thinking about getting into coaching some of these new dads that I'm going to be working with. I'd love to hear which of those tips really hit you, really made a change for you, really create a shift in your thinking. And I'd also like to know what would you add to that list? Whether you're a parent or not, it doesn't matter. As I say, these are three tips for parenthood and for life. So I'm really intrigued and interested to kind of hear what you would add to the list, what you found useful as you progress on your own quest through your life. Whatever it is that you're doing, wherever it is that you are heading, send me an email. Hey@iamryanspence.com hit me up on Instagram @I amryanspence or over on LinkedIn. Find me at Ryan Spence and let me know. Always great to hear from you and hear what you think and what you take away from these episodes. And don't forget to share share the episode with anyone that you find think would be helpful. It could be an expectant parent, a new parent. It could be somebody who's in a tricky situation is just trying to decide which way to go. If you think these tips would help them, send them, share them, share the show with them. Okay, that's it for me this week. You could probably hear as my allergies are kicking in again, which is really frustrating. But I hope you've got everything you need from this episode. Look forward to hear from you. See you next week for another episode of the Triple C Project. Until then, stop living a life of lethargy. Start living life. Thanks for tuning in to the Triple C Project. In the spirit of the Triple C, here's three things that you can do to support the show. Head to ratethispodcast.com cccc or over to your favorite podcast app and leave a review. Reviews really help people checking out shows to see what they can expect and how this show can help them. Second thing you can do share Share this episode Share a previous episode with a friend, someone who you feel could benefit from what I'm throwing down on this here show. And number three, head to iamrinespence.com get on the main list. I'll be sharing news about the show, news about what I'm up to, my new book start writing soon. So to be the first to be in the know, you need to get yourself on the list. Really appreciate you being here. And until next week, stop living a life of lethargy. Start living life Net.