Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth
01:23:31 · Lenny Rachitsky, Brian Balfour
[01:23:31] S0: And the and the curtain monitor. Very cool. Okay. Two more questions. Do you have a life motto that you often come back to and find useful in work or in life, something you share with folks, something that you think about when times are hard or just generally? [01:23:43] S1: Look. It's a little cliche at this point, but I used to, somewhere around here, I used to have the quote, printed out about, you know, the man in the arena. Right? It's just like, just lots of lots of rare... You know, especially in times like this where so many things are changing and, there's so much competition, but so much opportunity for great. I just I really both respect and enjoy, you know, the game and spending time with folks that are kind of in the arena figuring this stuff out, tinkering with things, and, and just... Yeah. That's that's kinda... A lot what I come... Keep coming back to, especially, you know, been out at Reforge for ten years. That's a that's a good portion of my life, and we've gone through some great periods and some tough periods. And, so I I tend to come back to that. [01:24:30] S0: And that's what's always separated Reforge from so much other content and advices. It's people in the arena sharing their wisdom, not just bunch of influencers. And it's sad that Chamath made that [01:24:41] S1: quote so cringey. I know. I know. That's why I know. That's that's why that's why I said it's a little cliche cringe right now.
01:24:41 · Brian Balfour, Lenny Rachitsky
[01:24:41] S1: quote so cringey. I know. I know. That's why I know. That's that's why that's why I said it's a little cliche cringe right now. [01:24:48] S0: Yeah. Screwed it up for everyone. Yeah. Final question. Brian, you don't know this, but your parenting advice on Adam Fisherman's Podcast really impacted my parenting philosophy, specifically this line you had about independence. Oh.
01:25:02 · Brian Balfour
[01:25:02] S1: And I'd love for you to just share that insight about how you think about raising kids. Yeah. And I wish I could remember where I grabbed this from so I could attribute it properly. So... But, basically, the philosophy is like your job as... If you think about going from when they're born until they're essentially 18 and, you know, leave the home, your job as a parent is to essentially make them more and more independent. And so what that involves is continuously looking for opportunities for them to make even bigger and riskier decisions, for themselves as they grow up, and you're there as, support to those decisions, but letting them make those decisions on their own so that by the time they're 18, they are a fully independent person able to think through those decisions themselves. Now look like my sons are young. Right? They're five and three, so it's not like I'm having them make, you know, life and death decisions or where we might buy our next house or or stuff like that. But it's even small things at this age of, you know, my my oldest, like, and a half is really starting to learn and get curious about, like, money and how you spend money and where new things come from and how you you earn money. And and, and so rather than just, like, buying things for him, you know, we've... He's got, like, money from his grandparents and stuff saved up, and we're trying... We can be like, okay. Like, you can buy that thing, but you're gonna spend this and try to, like, teach him the consequences and, like, all that kind of stuff. And then when he breaks something... Right? Like... So it's just small things like that, but thinking about the time from zero to 18 as the spectrum of independence and being, a supporting role in what you're essentially doing, you're you're trying to move as many decisions... You... As many... The percentage of decisions you make for them down to zero by the time that they're 18. Like, and that's that's kind of something that, I've kinda... I've kept in the back of my head since since really seeing that.
01:27:19 · Lenny Rachitsky, Brian Balfour
[01:27:19] S0: Thank you for sharing that. I know I didn't tell you that I was gonna ask you about this, so that was [01:27:23] S1: a beautiful way of describing it. Yeah. I didn't know where... I I couldn't remember that whole podcast. I had no idea what I said, but you you [01:27:29] S0: can That was it. But that... But that's [01:27:30] S1: a good one. Yeah. [01:27:31] S0: Brian, two final questions. Where can folks find you if they wanna reach out? What... Where can they find the products you guys offer, whatever you wanna plug? And, how can listeners be useful to you? [01:27:42] S1: Check out reforge.com. Check out our new products, like Reforge Insights. They're on the website. You can find me personally, my writing, including a bunch of the stuff that we talked about today. Now on Substack. So I just recently moved. So you can either go to my website, brianbalfour.com, where I have some info or just, blog.brianbalfour.com, where, all of my new writing is taking place. But, those are the two major pieces. Last but not least is that, as I mentioned,, who I used to work with, he used to Slack. We just have... We have this fun podcast. The two of us get on there and riff like we were having dinner every couple weeks about different, like, product and strategy, types of things. And so it's a it's it's a fun format for us. So if that's something you enjoy, it's called unsolicited feedback where we give feedback and advice to nobody that ever asked for it. So [01:28:37] S0: Amazing. Yeah. Title. Brian, thank you so much for being here.
01:28:37 · Lenny Rachitsky, Brian Balfour
[01:28:37] S0: Amazing. Yeah. Title. Brian, thank you so much for being here. [01:28:41] S1: Yeah. Thanks for having me again. This is great. Bye, everyone. [01:28:46] S0: Thank you so much for listening. If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review, as that really helps other listeners find the podcast. You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at lenny'spodcast.com. See you in the next episode.