The Coffee Chat (#46)
My conversation with Khe Hy - Ex-MD at BlackRock, CEO & Founder RadReads, Host Examined Life Podcast and dad to 2!
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Hi there 👋🏽
I find the word legacy extremely loaded and a lot of reflection over the last few months have made me realize that this word alone is responsible for a large source of my anxiety. The idea that I need to do something of significance while I am on this race against time.
This whole idea of creating a legacy, boils down possibly to a fear of mortality. The realization that I am here today only to be gone tomorrow and forgotten day after.
Our modern world where we are trying to archive every little aspect of our lives has certainly dialed this feeling up. The reality though is if you zoom out 100 years, 500 years, 1000 years, 10,000 years from now almost everything and everyone that we think is of consequence right now will not matter.
The biggest impact I will ever have on this world is in the here and the now.
☕ Now, on to today’s coffee chat…
Meet Khe Hy
Khe worked on Wall Street for 15 years and was one of the youngest Managing Directors at BlackRock. At age 35 he left that life behind and started Rad Reads.
Khe has been called “Oprah for Millennials” by CNN and the “Wall Street Guru” by Bloomberg, and RadReads has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, TedX, Time, Quartz and LifeHacker.
I am so thrilled that Khe very generously offered me his time and shared his reflections on parenting and work for the wonderful readers of this newsletter!
Below is my conversation with Khe..
Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your family
So my name is Khe, I am husband to Lisa Manley, an artist, father to two daughters - one who is 9 and the other who is 6.
I followed the playbook of status and income, but was hit with the striking realization: Is this it? At 35 years old, terrified that I'd spend the rest of my life going through the motions, I pulled the ripcord and started RadReads. RadReads is essentially a blog that I wish I could read. One that helped hard-charging professionals step back from their busy lives and ask themselves life's biggest questions. Is this as good as it gets? What does it mean to make an impact? What does a rich and fulfilled life look like?”
What have you learned about yourself after becoming a parent?
A greater appreciation for what my parents went through. So a deep empathy for their struggles, but also the love that they had for us and that they continue to have for us.
I also learned that a lot of things are outside of your control. I've also learned that I don't want to project my desires and my dreams and my ambitions and my insecurities onto them while still providing them guidance and wisdom that comes from being significantly older than them.
As a parent, did you adopt any new beliefs, behavioral habits, that most improve your life?
When my daughter was born, it was a coincidence, but still a bit cliched, I become a meditator. I now having been practicing meditation for about 40 minutes a day for nearly 9 years. I try to walk them to school every morning, put them to bed, eat with them and I try to spend individual time with each of them. This is something both me and my wife do.
The other thing I have started to do is I've learned to own up to my mistakes and share with them. I want them to know that Daddy makes mistakes all the time - I'm not perfect, I'm human, and just really try to step up and own that.
You worked on Wall Street for 15 years and in a professional context were doing very well for yourself. Has there ever been any form of regret that you could have potential created generational wealth for your children and you walked away from it?
Regret - Absolutely not. I am grateful that we are extremely financially secure, we have a lot of flexibility and freedom, the freedom that buys me time.
But I have a saying - money can only solve money problems. And I want my kids to have an appreciation for money, a respect for money, where they understand what it takes to earn it but also not let it control you. And so I think that generational wealth is so unappealing to me, if anything, I'd rather leave them with very little and instead support them along the way, like paying for college, paying for grad school, helping them buy their first house, paying for weddings, that kind of stuff.
I have no interest in generational wealth - I think it's such a burden to a child, instead of leaving your kid with massive sums of money you are better of giving them a balanced good life.
You say "Your Bucket List matters more than your To-Do List" - a lot of parents have limited time and energy for themselves. How have you managed this? What are you doing to manage your energy?
I think there's a few things that I prioritize my health, I prioritize my sleep, I prioritize my mental health with the meditation.
I also have a belief that not every hour is the same. So sometimes 50 minutes being really present is better than three hours of being extremely distracted with your kids. So I try to just honor that.
Also you have to be clear about your priorities. So as an example I love surfing and I have the time and the money to take surf trips, but I didn't want to miss my kid’s bedtime. So I didn't really start taking surf trips until my eldest was eight. And so it really is kind of living your priorities.
I also believe that there's seasons of life for everything. So you've seen me write about the magic window - maybe the first 10 years where you are the center of your child's world. I don't want to miss that at all, but, you know, when they get to be teenagers and they have their own lives and their own friends, then I'll start taking my surf trips again.
Who knows, I might even get a regular job again :)
How do you reconcile being extremely ambitious with being present for your children? Is it harder for women to achieve both?
That's a tough one. I'd say that it's difficult. It's just very difficult. I think that I look deeply into my ambition and some of my ambition is fueled by insecurity and some of my ambition is fueled by aliveness and joy and service.
I try really hard to examine the insecurities that come from a place of insecurity. I think that's the unhealthy kind of ambition. I think that's the kind of ambition where you start neglecting relationships and neglecting your health.
I think the joy based ambition has much more ease to it. It's flow and in a lot of plays can enrich you as a human and help you fulfill yourself when actually makes you a better more present parent.
Now is it harder for women to achieve both? So my wife is an artist, but she's the primary caretaker of our kids. So I always say, if there's an emergency, who are they calling? They're calling mom, not me. And my wife playfully reminds me, you have the ability to shut your door and call it a day. So I think it is definitely harder for women, especially if they are the default primary caretaker. I try my best to just honor that my wife is the primary caretaker and take some things off her plate - Pack lunches, get the kids to bed, bathe them and all that.
Also, we recognize that we have personal seasons where sometimes someone needs to step up and sometimes someone doesn't. We also have done a handful of marriage therapy because kids accelerate any latent resentment that exists in a relationship.
What advice would you give others who are on the cusp of becoming dads? What advice should they ignore?
Trust your instinct. Also, be careful not to project your desires on to you kid. There is a quote by Carl Young that says, the greatest burden a child must bear are the unmet dreams of their parents.
Also, enjoy the magic window when you are the center of their universe - do not let unhealthy ambition take that time away. It's not going to last forever.
I would ignore any advice that is shared in absolutes - Anyone that speaks in absolutes, I would question what authority they have to speak in such absolutes.
Quick-fire questions:
What’s the best thing you have watched recently?
I barely watch any TV - that is a trade off I have made to mind time for my spiritual health. So I read a lot, mediate a lot. I sometimes watch something on YouTube with my daughter. We enjoyed the Ryan Trahan penny series together.
What’s the best thing you have read recently?
The Sympathizer by Van Tiet Nguyen
What’s the best thing you have listened to recently?
Tiger belly podcast with Bobby Lee
🤓 Open tabs…
(I have modeled this section after those “open tabs” that we all have with a few (okay 30-40) interesting links that we promise we will eventually get to one day. These are the links that I had open for sometime that I finally got to …)
⭐ Rest: The case for sabbaticals
Today, it's nearly impossible for most professionals to enjoy such intellectual freedom. In the always-on economy, taking months or a year for unstructured exploration has become extinct. Two weeks of hurried vacation is the norm, if you're lucky. Sabbaticals are a quaint relic, reserved for tenured academics. Yet history reveals the immense value of this "long time.”
⭐Time, productivity, and purpose: insights from Four Thousand Weeks
“Part of living a meaningful life is to be conscious of that fact that we don't get all the time we would wish to have.” Oliver Burkeman is the author of The New York Times best-seller Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. In this episode, Oliver delves into the pervasive idea that time can be mastered, exploring whether maximizing productivity is an attainable goal or a perpetual trap. He discusses the allure of attempting to control time—and, therefore, the future—and shares his personal journey of experimenting with diverse time management techniques that failed to deliver the emotional satisfaction he sought. Ultimately, they explore the mismatch between being a finite human and existing in a world of infinite possibilities and how all of these concepts intertwine with finding a sense of purpose and meaning.
⭐The Trait That ‘Super Friends’ Have in Common
A secure attachment style can help people initiate and maintain friendships. Secure people assume that they are worthy of love, and that others can be trusted to give it to them. People who are anxiously attached assume that others will abandon them—so they cling, or try too hard to accommodate others, or plunge into intimacy too rapidly. Avoidantly attached people are similarly afraid of abandonment; instead of clinging, though, they keep others at a distance. Attachment is a spectrum, and it can change over time; it’s common, for instance, to exhibit more insecure attachment when stressed. But we each have a primary attachment style we demonstrate most often.
📖 My private thoughts from my very public diary…
(My Twitter use has drastically gone down, I am now more active on Threads)
I would love to hear from you, feedback is always welcome!
And if you happen to know an inspiring working parent who should be featured in a future edition (or if you yourself are one) - please do get in touch
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Disclaimer: All views expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer