the best investment i made didn't earn me a dollar

the older i get, the less interested i am in investments that make my portfolio bigger, and the more interested i am in investments that make my life better.

in march of 2022, i received a voice note from my 6 year old son. "dad, i have a genius idea! genius idea. how about.. um...how about you and me.. just you and me... go on a trip together. okay? love you." kids today don't say bye; i think because characters on tv don't say bye (try and unsee that now that i mention it).

how can you say no to that?!? and (thankfully) i didn't.

when i got home from work that day, we started to plan. where did you want to go? what did you want to do when you get there? what made you think of this?

starting with the why: "why did he even ask?" was my first question.

when i was between my first and second start up, during those 6 months while i didn't work, i took my boys on multiple trips over that thanksgiving and Christmas holiday season. we went to maui, seattle, sacramento, texas, denver, plus day trips to monterey, santa cruz, and sf. i was determined to use up all those points i had earned over the past two decades, and we did!!

for me it was a chance to get out of the house rather then worrying about being unemployed, and my boys were 6 and 8, so missing a few days of school at that age probably didn't preclude them from their future as supreme court justices.

for my boys, in retrospect, i realize it was the most dedicated time they had with their dad. where they were the only thing that matters. i'm tearing up as i write this because me and my self proclaimed (dare I say proud of being) work-aholic self hadn't spent more then a weekend with them since i took time off when they were born. i was physcially present but not mentally or spritually present for more than a few hours at a time. a week in maui with just them and having no day job fixes that in profound ways.

and it made enough of a mark with my son that he had a genius idea. and it was a genius idea! that year, he and i went back to seattle and did many of the same things we did before - arcade, aquarium, hang out in the hotel and order room servce, ride the giant wheel, drink hot chocolate and pastries until we were buzzing with sugar highs. BUT it was just him and me this time.

one of my mentors, Jay (whose name you will hear a lot in these writings), gave me the great idea to prepare a bit - what do i want to talk with him about? where do i need to check in?

what a mind alerting approach to the trip! what secrets of his internal life did i hope my 6 year old would unlock?

so i asked him about his faith (we're practicing Christians, but what did my 6 year old think of God and the universe? turns out, he's wiser then most adults i know). we talked about him and his brother, how he hoped his brother would be nicer to him, and i gently pointed out how he was the one who typically escalated the conflict with his brother (his part in the tougher parts of their early relationship). i learned more about pokemon and kirby then any 40 year old man should know. and i found out my son worried about finding a girlfriend, having a family, and being as succesful as his dad.

that last one hit the heart directly - i had the presence of mind to tell him he was already more successful then i was because he was so confident and kind and generous at such an early age. i had had to work to be those things, they didn't come naturally to me. and if he just continued to be that way, to be who he was naturally, he would far surpass anything i could ever do.

i don't know if i had ever seen him smile so big. always the best in our family at accepting compliments, he said, "thank you!" and meant it.

i repeated the soul-stirring experience with my oldest son. that first year my oldest and i went to portland and played arcades, went to the japanese garden (in my top ten favorite places on earth), and ate more pizza and desserts then i thought existed on God's green earth.

we have repeated our annual sojourns every year since. four years running now, and we've been to los angeles, san diego, sf, boise, and vegas. we've played at an arcade in every town, gone boujee and budget, and had a meaningful conversation every time. i have more priceless memories from these trips then i do from most of the year of our active, far too busy life.

one of the big unlocks the second year was when i started asking for feedback about how i was doing as a dad. i found out the things the boys loved about me and my parenting (that i was kind, funny, a good cook, and played video games with them) and the things they didn't like about my parenting (that i yelled some times, that i could be tough on them and my punishments weren't always fair, that i worked a lot and wasn't home). because of that feedback, i have worked on all three of those shortcomings, and i do follow-up feedback specifically on those topics every year. what a novel idea? ask the people being affected by your parenting how it's affecting them.

i know we don't all have the money to hop on a plane for a long weekend with each kid, but you could take your kid camping for a few days. or stay in a hotel a few hours away, just you and them. even go to visit grandparents just the two of you, but be purposeful on what you talk about during the car ride. do some prep work on what you want to know. listen more then you talk, admit when you were wrong and don't be afraid to apologize, and ask "how am i doing?" even if they say great, you just learned something exciting and can be a bit easier on yourself.

but please do it. start a new tradition this year. take a one-on-one trip with each of your kids. with any kid that is 4 or older. even if they're 35, start now. it will be one of the best investments you ever make, and will pay dividends the stock market could never match.

this post crafted with: 2023 turley ueberroth vineyard zinfandel