Father’s Day: Michael Rampolla

Michael is a father, a husband and works as a coach in the business sector. We talk fatherhood under the umbrella of Time, Energy and Resources™. Who he is and what he does is essentially the same thing, in his own words. We start our father’s day week with a wonderful discussion with this father of twins.

Questions we tackle

• Does your identity come from your job?
• How important is the drive home from work?
• Does creativity require some conflict?
• What do parents of twins understand that other parents do not?
• What is toxic productivity?
• Is who you are and what you do the same thing?
• Does status affect how much you’re paid?
• Should you go towards the light?
• Are you fully present and can you rise above?

Connect with Michael

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrampolla/

Web: spearity.com

PS – In my intro I say the twins were born in the same second, but it’s actually the same minute as I don’t believe birth certificates have that kind of granularity. 🙂

Full Transcript:

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Who You Are vs. What You Do

Mark: Alrighty then, I am here with Michael. Hello, Michael.

Michael: Hello, Mark. How are you?

Mark: I’m doing well, thanks. How are you today?

Michael: Oh, I’m just peachy.

Mark: So I’m going to do what I normally do, which is I’m going to ask you who you are and what you do.

Michael: Sure. I am Michael Rampolla. I am a father and a husband. I picked up on your recent podcast about the “who you are and what you do” question, and I did a lot of the self-reflection you encouraged. Unfortunately, I came to the conclusion that I’m a bit of an anomaly; I get to answer the same for both. Who I am and what I do is very much the same thing: I help other people do better what they love to do, and I try my best to live that both as a father and as a coach, consultant, and strategist.

The Blurring Lines Between Work and Life

Mark: I appreciate that you listened to that podcast, and I think it’s very astute of you to understand that it’s all you.

Michael: I think most people do see them as separate, and as a result, that’s why most people talk about things like work-life balance and juggling as such a challenge. They see those as being different domains. Especially lately, most of us have realized that those two things need to blend together for us to live fairly happy, normal lives.

Mark: The typical thing for males is that they will get a lot of their identity from their job. If you look at the statistics on things like depression and even suicide, men are affected far greater by being let go, fired, or losing their job than women are.

Michael: Absolutely. So much of their identity is tied up in that role. If you don’t have an identity outside of that role, when that role goes away, it’s literally an identity crisis. The “who am I?” question becomes much more salient.

The Importance of the Daily Transition

Mark: This kind of moves us into the parenting thing, where someone can work hard at their job and it’s stressful, but then they come home and they become the parent because the job doesn’t come home with them. I’ve done a couple of podcasts on the importance of the drive home, which you don’t have when you’re working at home. You walk through a doorway in 0.4 seconds and now suddenly you’re in a different mode. It doesn’t work that way.

Michael: I was just having that conversation with somebody. I said I don’t miss the commute, but I do miss the transition time. I recognized how much I appreciated and valued that because it was a transition in and a transition out. Some of your best thinking happens when you’re in an autonomous mode, so literally, drive-home time was often where I got my best ideas.

Mark: What you’re describing is something I call “alert and bored.” When you’re in a car, you’re alert and bored because driving is not very interesting, but you need to be very alert. So your brain is active, but it’s also bored, and that’s when creativity can kick up.

Parenting Twins and Managing Energy

Mark: You mentioned something very interesting about helping people in parenting. You have two children?

Michael: Yes, I do. Harrison and Grayson are five years old. They are identical twin boys, and they are awesome. A fun fact about our boys is they were born in the same minute, so literally on paper, nobody is older.

Mark: My show’s overarching umbrella is Time, Energy, and Resources, and it’s such a universal thing. Since you became a parent, how did that affect your time, energy, and resources?

Michael: It’s affected all of them. I know my energy comes and goes. Sometimes spending time with them is a drain, and sometimes spending time with them is fuel. A lot of it comes down to what I’m bringing into it. More often than not, I need to meet them where they’re at and take them where they need to go. That’s a great way to describe what I do as a coach: figure out where people are, figure out where they need to go, and help them get there.

The Myth of Time Management

Mark: A lot of books and people will advise you, “we’ll do this, make free time to do X,” but they forget that time is only one of the three elements. I worked with someone who really wanted to play piano as a hobby. They had all the time in the world; they just didn’t have the energy.

Michael: It’s interesting people say “make time” as if it can be constructed. I can’t manufacture it. The idea of time management alone always just makes me kind of put on my consultant grin. I can’t myself call it time management because there’s no such thing.

Mark: Amen to that, brother. You can’t manage time. You can manage priorities, you can manage resources and energy, but you can’t manage time in the way that you might manage anything else and make it bend to your will.

The Dangers of “Toxic Productivity”

Mark: I just saw an article from a reputable source, though the title was fairly clickbait. It said, “Move over burnout, it’s time for toxic productivity.” The point it was making is this: just because you have the time doesn’t mean you have the energy. People are equating your availability of time with the availability of energy, and as a result, the expectations and the demands are being raised like never before.

Michael: That’s fairly accurate. Just because I have time doesn’t mean I have the energy, and the assumption is being made more broadly now that one equals the other, but it’s not true.

Understanding and Rising Above Conflict

Mark: My mantra is “seek first to understand.” There’s a bizarre euphoria when your brain detaches from the lower monkey levels of “me angry” to the higher levels of, “wait, there’s a pattern here, I get this now.”

Michael: It’s such a cool thing to be able to rise above where you sort of go up to the higher level of understanding. If people would just put effort into doing that, it removes a lot of the anger, the defensiveness, and the self-centeredness.

Mark: That’s a good point. Your business is based on that because if you walk into a room of strangers and say, “Hey, let me tell you how you’re feeling,” they’ll go, “Who the hell is this guy?” As opposed to the 50 people in the room who paid a lot of money for you to be there, and now you say, “Hey, let me tell you how you’re feeling,” and they go, “Oh, wonderful, yes!”

The Power of Intention and Going Where the Energy Is

Michael: When people ask what makes a good client for me, one of my three conditions is they have to want to get better. My VP of HR once said, “Go where the energy is.” Don’t spend all of your energy trying to get that VP to listen if they don’t want to hear it. If somebody else is asking for more of your time, spend it there. It’s a mantra I try to leverage in my multi-hatted role here.

Mark: That was actually a podcast I focused on called “Go Towards the Light,” and it was exactly that same concept. If something gives you positive energy, we’ll keep doing it more.

The Hardest Action is No Action

Mark: The thing you don’t do is just as important as the thing you do. Sometimes the hardest thing is to just take no action because when you are especially a male and a fixer and a problem solver, you are geared towards taking an action and doing a thing. But when the opposite is actually what’s called for, you go, “Duh, wait, what?”

Michael: It’s absolutely hard. When I’m fully present and my energy is there, I can let my boys figure it out. I can let them struggle. But when my energy is low and I’m not fully present, then I’m much more likely to do it for them because my patience is less. My default mode is fixer and doer; my intended mode is consultant, question-asker, and guider.

Final Thoughts on Parenting and Professional Life

Mark: I have a final question. We’re talking about time and energy. How has the birth of your children affected the time and energy that you use to interact with your wife?

Michael: It certainly has shifted it. Most of our interactions are about them. It’s a shame because I thoroughly enjoy conversations with my wife that are not about the boys. She’s a fascinating person, and I love her perspective, and I probably don’t get it as often as I used to. It’s difficult.

Mark: Is there anything that we didn’t touch on about parenting that you were hoping to touch on?

Michael: When I’m having a good day with my boys, I’m having fun. When I go in wanting to have a good day with that level of intentionality, I often get it. Operating with intention has significantly increased my likelihood of being successful. And I would say that’s my shout-out for my work, too. What I love to do is help other people do their thing better. If anybody listening believes that they would like some help with that, I would love to help.

Mark: And where can they find you?

Michael: Very easy. Company name is Sparity, you can go to https://www.google.com/search?q=sparityp.com. That’s S-P-A-R-I-T-Y-P dot com. Or you can find me on LinkedIn, it’s M. Rampolla, R-A-M-P-O-L-L-A.

Mark: Awesome. It’s been awesome talking to you.

Michael: Thanks, Mark. I really appreciate the opportunity. It’s been wonderful talking to you.

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