191. How one dad is redesigning work for parents, with Amit Singh Kalley
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got to turn up and be a dad and grow a business. I mean, what's that feel like? It's been hard to cope with the idea that my business, you know, I'm not growing it at the pace that everybody on LinkedIn tells you you should be growing it at. I reached out to no clients today. I earned no money today because my daughter's got a great big scar that goes from sort of her neck down to her belly button.

And every now and then we'll see it and we'll just sort of look at each other and we laugh now. We say, how the hell did we get through that period alone? We must have gone to Great Worm Street a dozen times. I never stepped foot inside the hospital. I wasn't allowed in. You know, how dare you as a hospital not allow me to have access to the consultants that are going to operate on my daughter.

Feels like there's lots of stuff out there for working mums, but there doesn't seem to be so much out there about male or caregivers or working dads. I think there is still a stigma associated with men asking for parental leave. You know, my father and his generation are very proud of the fact that they never changed a single nappy in their time as dads. And they frown upon us when we are, you know, on our hands and knees changing nappies.

pooey nappies, you know, three times a day. Women were just told, this is your job, you're running the kitchen, you're running the home, you're running the family. And then the anxiety comes in because my ADHD diagnosis came with OCD and anxiety disorder. And I struggle to sometimes sleep at night. Oh, I don't like that term, actually. And it's quite a divisive term in the neurodiverse community.

Hello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. We are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.

My name is Al and I'm a business owner. And we are here to help you create amazing workplace cultures. Now before we start, I kind of messed up. I told you on Tuesday that Nick Huber from the Sweaty Startup is our guest for this week, but it's not. I messed up, sorry. No, no, he is not. But we all make mistakes, Al. These things happen. We've teased Nick, so those people that are really excited will have even more anticipation. Well, that's why I did it. That's exactly why I did it. Exactly.

Actually, in this, we've got a lovely guy on today with lots of real life experience. Now, regular listeners will know that a lot of our guests have been talking about this massive kind of disconnect between what companies say about supporting parents and what they actually do in practice. So today is the first time we're getting a male's perspective on this and hearing from a dad.

Yes, today we are speaking with someone who lived through this all firsthand and ended up completely changing his life because of it. Imagine having a high-flying career in education, a baby with serious health problems, and then trying to navigate that during COVID lockdowns when hospitals would only let one parent in.

And by the way, you're also dealing with undiagnosed ADHD that makes all of this a hundred times harder. That's a situation Amit Kali found himself in and it led him to question everything about how workplaces treat parents, especially dads who often get left out of these conversations entirely.

But Amit was not going to take all of this lying down. Instead of just complaining about it, he's actually built a business which helps companies create genuinely parent-friendly workplaces with well-thought-out, proper structural support. And he's doing this while balancing the cultural expectations of his Sikh community.

background where traditional gender roles around parenting are still pretty strong alongside running a second business with his wife. So after this very short break we'll be joining the conversation about what workplaces really need to do to support working parents, why dads are still getting the short end of the stick and how mental health plays into all of this. Don't go anywhere.

Al, you've spent hours on Tumblr, haven't you? Yes, I have. I jump on for just like five minutes and look up and it'll be 11 o'clock. Well, guess who's just solved a huge problem for Tumblr? Mm-hmm. I think I know the answer. You do? It was HubSpot. HubSpot to the rescue yet again. So this is what happened, right? Tumblr needed to move fast to produce trending content.

But their marketing team was stuck waiting on these engineers to code every single email campaign. And Al, you know how engineers want everything to be perfect. Well, fast forward to today and they now use HubSpot's customer platform to email real-time trending content to millions of users in just seconds. And the impact? Well, it's had three times more engagement and double the content creation. Very nice. I know. If you want to move faster like Tumblr, visit HubSpot.com.

Welcome back. One quick thing before we go and meet Amit. He recently went viral, as the kids say, because of a brilliant LinkedIn post where he created the periodic table of sinister emojis that kids seem to be using these days. He was picked up by Fox News, BBC and loads of other news outlets for helping parents properly understand the meaning of these emojis. If you've seen that thing on Netflix, Adolescence, which is pretty famous and also pretty...

tough watch. You'll have discovered, just like I did, that emojis don't always mean what we think they mean. And some of the meanings are just downright scary and weird. Now, we recorded this interview with, I mean, before he created the post. We don't talk about it here, but there is a link to that particular post in the show notes, which is essential reading for anyone with kids.

Okay, so on that note, let's go and meet Amit Kali, who founded ForWorkingParents.com and hear his story. My name's Amit Kali. I am a storyteller, speaker and coach. And what might I be famous for? It's a really good question. I have a very, very small following on social media. So the odd person is...

might recognize me from the work that I do on social media. I guess that's probably about as famous as I get. Let's just start with Four Working Parents, which I think is the organizational company you've started. Can you just tell us what led you to start it and tell us a bit more about it? So I used to be a vice principal in a secondary school and then decided almost over diet, although not quite as dramatic as that, to leave education, leave my job.

And then sort of slowly thought that, you know, I've built all this experience working with parents and working with young people over all these years, that there is something to do for parents, but from a different angle. And so I retrained as a coach, started doing some speaking and some keynotes, and then sort of wound up almost accidentally setting up this business for working parents, which is all about creating an inclusive workspace for parents and carers, whether that's through storytelling, whether it's through coaching or training,

Or upskilling, you know, helping parents understand the 21st century challenges better and ultimately understanding how they might be able to parent more effectively in this digital age that our children live in. You just mentioned the phrase digital age there. How has parenthood changed over the last, say, 20 years? Oh, gosh, I think if you speak to any parent now that is parenting a child under the age of 18, they will probably say it's changed dramatically.

Massively. I mean, because, you know, what we have access to now on social media, what we have access to on our phones, the addiction element, the online kind of predatory behavior element, the secrecy element. There's so much that goes on online that parents are just unaware of or indeed don't know how to manage or don't know how to limit.

that I think it's added a whole new dimension to parenting. You know, when we, I always use this one example of bullying, for example, you know, sadly, bullying has existed forever and it will continue to exist forever. That's just the way the world works as much as we try to stop it.

But if you think back to times when you and I might have been bullied at school, we knew that when we walked into our house and closed that door, we were safe until tomorrow. There was nothing anybody could do to us until we went back to school tomorrow. Now, actually, the data shows that more bullying takes place in the home than it does in schools. Why is that? Well, because schools are getting better at dealing with bullying in school.

But mobile phones and cyberbullying has gone up massively, and people are abused and things like thrown out of groups and all of those kinds of things at home. Now, those children are bringing that baggage home with them, all those difficulties home with them, sometimes not talking to their parents about the issues that they're facing. And so parents are unaware. They don't know what's going on. They don't understand why the child can't just delete their Snapchat. You know, what's the big deal? Just get rid of it. They don't understand that children are ultimately attached to the hip

um to uh to snapchat and so it's it's created huge challenges now that i think lots of parents are just struggling to deal with i'm going to come on to because i've got in my notes that you have a few more challenges than perhaps the average family does but i want to talk about this idea of essentially starting a business entrepreneurialism and also being a good dad it feels like you can't start a business

and start a family and be good at both? I'd like to think that you can. I'd like to think that I'm half decent at least at both. You'd have to ask my wife and my children and people that I work with about that. But no, I think...

I think the world, again, in that sense has changed as well. I think if COVID has taught us anything, it's that we don't need to be tied to this idea of nine to five workplace and being in the workplace. I think a lot of us now are exploring that flexibility, are exploring things that we have passion for or might be good at. And I think actually, although running a business, setting a business up from scratch, growing a business, which is still very much what I'm trying to do, is stressful, it's difficult.

I'm still at home. You know, I still get to spend the time that I want to spend with my children. So if I want to block off an hour in my diary or more or block an entire day off, I have the liberty, the luxury to be able to do that. And I think that's something I wouldn't have been able to do, certainly not able to do if I was still working in education, which despite being an incredibly, you know, promoting inclusion, it's probably the least inclusive environment.

industry out there because you've got to be on site five days a week. There's no other way of looking at it. And so I think you can be good at business, a good husband and a good father at the same time.

So you talked then about physically separating out, blocking off time to spend with your family. But let's talk about it actually mentally doing that. I don't know about you, but I really struggle to stop thinking about work when I'm outside of work. And conversely, if I'm doing something and I'm really into work.

And then we've got dogs, which is no way like having children. But, you know, the dog starts barking, wants to go outside for a pee or something. I get really frustrated because I then lose my train of thought and getting back into it. It's that switching cost. How are you able to sort of get the work done when you're at home, when there are potentially other distractions, and then stop thinking about it when you're actually with your family? I'm not.

that's the that's the truth so what one of the things about my story is last year after years of knowing I was diagnosed with ADHD which has impacted me massively of my I mean I'm even talking here I've got some blue tech in my hand and I'm just fidgeting around with here because that's just one of the things that I use as a

as a coping mechanism. So for me, that ADHD can be quite crippling. I really struggle to separate work or business from personal life. And often when I'm lying in bed at night, I reflect on how little I got done that day because the ADHD might have taken over. I was procrastinating. I did everything other than

what I was supposed to do, and at the time felt that I was achieving something and doing something meaningful. Then when I lie in bed, I realize I did nothing to progress my business today. I reached out to no clients today. I earned no money today. And then the anxiety comes in because my ADHD diagnosis came with OCD and anxiety disorder. And I struggle to sometimes sleep at night. So for me,

The biggest challenge that I've got is separating the professional amic from the personal amic. I'm not often able to do that. And I think the ADHD for me plays a big part in that. So if you're already predicated towards anxiety with your anxiety disorder, and you're at night lying in bed worrying about what you didn't do, which then affects your sleep, potentially your energy for the next day, you've got to turn up and be a dad and grow a business.

I mean, what's that feel like? On a bad day, it can feel very, very stressful. It's, you know, I've gone through ups and downs with my mental health over the last couple of years since, you know, since not being in employment. I have had days and prolonged periods of time where I've felt

you know, like I'm in the gutter, basically. It's been really, really difficult. And it's been hard to cope with the idea that my business, you know, I'm not growing it at the pace that everybody on LinkedIn tells you you should be growing it at. I'm not earning the kind of money that everybody on TikTok tells you you should be earning. And, you know, I guess part of that is the social media kind of issue. But yeah, there have been times when I have been really, really down, really down. And it's hard to get yourself out of that. But

You know, you have a good day where you might achieve a little something. And, you know, I try to take things small steps at a time. I don't set myself a day and say, right, today I need to bag £5,000 worth of work over the next month. It doesn't work like that for me.

It's a case of get a few meetings in, have a few conversations, coach the parents that I work with, get the affirmation that I need to say that I'm doing a good job, whether that's from clients, whether that's from potential customers, whether that's from my wife or my children. That's what often then lifts me out of that. But it's peaks and troughs. And with the ADHD, I'm in a battle at the moment around getting access to medication. That's a whole other story. I haven't got access to the medication that I need.

which means I'm still sort of battling that diagnosis, that ADHD, on my own, really, which can be quite a challenge. It feels like, and potentially there's just the algorithm, but it feels like there's lots of stuff out there for working mums, but there doesn't seem to be so much out there about male or caregivers or working dads. I mean, is that the case? I think in terms of balance, it definitely is the case. I think we're still...

far more balanced towards the support quite rightly that working mums need. Um, but there are more and more people out there now, uh, who are advocating for and promoting the work of, uh, working dads, you know, fighting for things like shared parental leave, um, fighting for things like, you know, helping and supporting the stresses that working dads, um, have so that, you know, we're getting better at it, I think as a society, um,

But we are nowhere near, nowhere near where I think we need to be in terms of ensuring that working dads, and that's dads who might be in employment or dads that might be running a business or whatever it is they're doing. I don't think we're in a position where they have the support they absolutely need at the moment. Who should be giving this support? That's a good question. I think, look, I think part of it needs to come from the state. I think the state has a responsibility to

to ensure that all working people are given the appropriate support they need. So things like paternity or parental leave, as we should be calling it, you know, there is absolutely no reason why dads should not have equal access to parenting leave in the same way that mums do. You know, some of our parenting leave is, I think, amongst the worst in the developed world. You look at countries like Scandinavia, in Scandinavia, where they have

you know, months and months of parenting leave. Ultimately, the objective for the state should be that if you look after your working parents, A, you're encouraging them to raise and be there for their families, but you're also enticing them back into work because the workplace is showing compassion, it's showing empathy, it's showing the support they need.

But for some reason, we are just so far behind on this. But also it's the responsibility of organizations. There are some organizations out there that are taking individual responsibility for building better parental leave policies for their staff. And that's really great to see. The burden shouldn't fall just on the state. It should fall to organizations as well. But organizations, of course, are based on profit. They've got to make sure they're doing what makes financial sense for them.

So I think it's a lot of joined up thinking that's needed. If a man wants to go and ask for time off so they can some parental leave, I wonder if there's a stigma attached to that for a man going to a boss and saying, I want some time off compared to a woman. And the second question, the second part of that question is, if it's a smaller business, are we not just, are we not just then putting more and more pressure on the business that now 100% of all our employees get parental leave?

So in answer to your first question, I think yes. I think there is still a stigma associated with men asking for parental leave. I think in the work that I do and the people that I sort of work with, I think the thought around parenting is still very much that it is mum's job and dad should be the breadwinner. I think from a cultural point of view, certainly in my Sikh and South Asian and Indian kind of culture, I think it's very much the case that parents

mums should be looking after the children and dads should be out working yes it's changing it's changing slowly but it is changing so i think that stigma probably still does exist i think some men probably feel they're going to you know be made to look like an idiot if they go into the boss and say i need some parental leave um but that does need to change of course um and the second question

Yeah, of course it puts pressure on businesses. Of course it does. But a business has got to work out whether they are willing to, you know, take up that pressure and say, okay, we're going to give shared parental leave and we're going to allow people to take the time of their need on the basis that those people are going to come back and be incredibly productive.

and loyal to the company that's given them so much, or whether they feel they're happy for this father, let's say, to leave the company based on poor parental leave, and I've then got to pay for recruitment costs, I've then got to pay for training costs and all of those things to bring somebody new in. You've got to weigh that up as a business as to what you think works best for you, I guess. Do you think then that if a

a father is at work, they don't have parental leave, then the quality of work might decline because they're trying to balance too many things. Is that a thing? I don't know if that's necessarily a thing. It would obviously depend on circumstances at home and how present dad feels that he needs to be. But I think from a productivity point of view,

If I was employed and my employer said to me, I'm only entitled to two weeks parental leave at statutory pay, which was the case when I was working in education. Um,

my education is different because it's public sector. So I didn't feel, I didn't necessarily feel bad about my school that I was working for that. I know a lot, but you know, in a business point of view, I think you would get some dads that will frown upon and look at that business and think, well, if you don't give a damn about me and my needs, I'm not interested in giving my all to you or indeed working for you. And I think you'll find more and more people who,

will leave workplaces that don't provide them with the support that they need to be able to thrive both at work, but also in life. If COVID has taught us one thing, if there was one positive that come out of COVID, it's that more and more of us now are putting our lives and our

well-being and our relationships before work and i am all here for that i'm here for that every single day work is important 100 we need to work we need to earn a living we need to be loyal to our work great but goodness me we need to be there for our our family and our friends first and you know this idea of going above and beyond for your boss and sending an email at two o'clock you know that's gone now but you people are going to be more loyal to their employees if their employees if into their employers sorry if their employers show them

that they mean something. After this short break, we'll hear more about how working parents can better balance their families while doing great work and what Al actually said that made Amit react like this. No, I don't like that term actually. And it's quite a divisive term in the neurodiverse community.

Leah, do you know who I think is awesome? Me. Well, yeah, of course. Yes, of course. But also my long-term hero and former guest, Joe Thea, who's the host of Hustle & Flowchart podcast, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Of course. I remember when you booked Joe as a guest last year and you were so excited. Yeah, he's just an awesome guy. I've been listening to his podcast since about episode 100, long before we joined the network. And I tell you what, if you like systems...

mindset tweaks, reframes and strategies to actually enjoy the process of being in business. And this podcast is right up your street. Now it's true. Joe does love talking about building business systems, which isn't entirely my bag. But when you bear in mind that he loves talking about these systems so he can work less and live more, I'm there for it.

He also has loads of guests I know our listeners are going to love too. Yeah, like episode 644 with a guy called Robert Glazer, who's an author and an employment expert. He's advocating for a new way to manage the resignation process. He's got a book called Two Week Notice and explains why two weeks notice is the wrong way of doing things. And well, obviously, I'm not going to spoil the surprise. You need to go listen for yourself. Episode 644 with Robert Glazer. Listen to Hustle and Flowchart wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back. Let's get back to the interview between Al and Amit. You mentioned that you're Sikh culture, which is something which I think a lot of people wouldn't have any experience of. So tell me, what's your experience of being a proud dad who also wants to take time off work and spend with kids? How is that different to someone who's perhaps not Sikh? How much the fact that I'm a Sikh has anything to do with that? Yeah.

I guess just from an anecdotal point of view, if I was to sort of share that with, you know, elders in my sort of family and friends and wider Sikh network, some of them might think I'm being a bit ridiculous that, uh, you know, why do you as the dad need to be at home? You know, what do you need to change that piece for? What do you need to help with the feed for all of that kind of stuff? So there is that generational issue, I think, where, um,

My father and his generation are very proud of the fact that they never changed a single nappy in their time as dads. And they frown upon us when we are on our hands and knees changing pooey nappies three times a day. And so that stigma, as much as they say that it's a joke, there is still that rooted kind of stigma towards what a parent looks like.

and what a parent should be. And I don't know if that transcends across different cultures. It may well do. I can only obviously speak from my experience and what's specific and unique about my cultural experience and upbringing. So when perhaps the elders do walk into a room and you're changing a nappy, do you feel guilt or shame or is it hurt?

I think initially there was that, gosh, why am I doing this? Because, you know, they're laughing at me, they're mocking me, and one day I'm going to be them. And here they are mocking me. It's only through conversations with other kind of dads of my generation in my culture, and also conversations with my wife, that it's actually a case of, you know what, society has changed. Times have moved on. The suffering that you as fathers put your wives through

because it was culturally acceptable, it was the norm in those days, isn't the norm today. We want our... I mean, we're filming this at a time of International Women's Day and I'm sort of incredibly proud of my wife running her business and I want my daughter to know that there's no obstacle that should be in her way

In those days, that didn't exist. You know, women were just told, this is your job. You're running the kitchen. You're running the home. You're running the family. My job is to go out and earn. And I expect food on the table when I get home. And I expect my clothes ironed and so on and so forth. And, you know,

Times have changed. Yes, we can laugh and joke a little bit about that with our partners now, but we certainly can't behave in that way. Nor do I think a lot of us would want to behave in that way. You know, if we believe in true equality, we've got to live that true equality. So if there was just like one message you wanted to get out around this to a new father who perhaps might have felt the same way as you, like, oh my God, they're laughing at me.

What do you want them to know? I think what's important is how your children are going to remember their childhood.

And, yeah, maybe changing nappies is something they're not going to remember. But I think, you know, what the elders in my culture perhaps don't realize is that they're, not all of them, of course, but some of them that don't have positive relationships or very good relationships with their children, it's based on the way they parented and potentially the lack of parenting, certainly from a male point of view. And I would say to dads, whether it's in my culture or others, you know,

It's easy now to say you don't want to do this and you can't be bothered to do this or it's not your place to do this. But in 20 years' time when your children are living their own lives and are their own independent adults, what kind of childhood do you want them to remember? Do you want them to remember that you were present, that you were there, that you were part of it, you were doing everything that mum was doing? Or do you want them to remember that dad actually wasn't around very much? Dad couldn't be bothered very much. Dad said it wasn't his job very much. In which case,

that's going to impact the relationship that you have with your children in the future. And it's also going to impact the kind of adults that your children would ultimately become. So that, yeah, I would say the message would be, yeah, think about the kind of childhood you want your children to remember. If a father...

is working hard and had to choose. I'm going to, I'm going to choose promotion, money, good pension, be able to provide for my family over actually being there. That sounds like a really tough choice. What would you say to someone who has to make that decision? I totally respect people that are driven to succeed in their careers and, you know, success looks different

to, you know, success looks different to different people, I guess, doesn't it? For some, it's financial and some want to reach the top of their game and they want to earn lots and lots of money. And to do that, you need to work hard. I'm not bashing anybody that works hard and has to make sacrifices. And sometimes those sacrifices are time spent with your children.

But I think a lot of workplaces now are becoming more understanding of the need that, yes, I want my employees to work hard. And if you want to be the CEO of a multi-billion pound organization, you've got to commit to that. But at the same time, I also want to make sure that your children are able to not just reap the financial benefits of what you're providing, but are also able to reap the emotional benefits of what you're providing. And therefore, companies that offer a bit more flexibility, companies that offer

um you know more support for parents forget not just working dads for parents generally um you know there's no reason why we can't be uber successful um in our careers and at the same time be uber successful as um parents we've just got to find organizations that are more open-minded about how we can make that happen let's talk practically how do you manage how do you manage all of these responsibilities

You said your Blu-Tack was a coping strategy, but what more sort of concrete that other people can actually perhaps use? It's difficult. I'm not going to sugarcoat it and say that it's easy and, you know, this strategy works and that works. You know, I think being neurodiverse, sometimes I have to use things that are specific to the way that I operate. I mean, I'm getting better now at writing out every morning to-do lists and

And I separate those to-do lists based on professional and personal. I'm getting much better at using my diary. So my phone is now my, you know, the calendar in my phone has everything in it. My wife and I share a calendar. So we put things in there. There's no sort of overlap. But also, you know, trying, I try not to put too much pressure on myself. Of course, there are financial pressures. You know, I've got a mortgage to pay, bills to pay.

uh three children to raise and so of course there are financial pressure so i you know we're never going to be able to escape those necessarily but i try not to put too much pressure on myself by saying today i have to achieve this because sometimes life happens you know i might get a phone call from school to say daughter's unwell she needs to come home between me and my wife one of us has to manage that uh and so what you plan to happen doesn't always happen but you know someone like me

may then look back at that to-do list and see this day as a failure because I didn't tick off all of those things. I'm trying to be kinder to myself, trying to be more gentle in my approach. I mean, obviously, I run this business for Working Pairers, but my wife and I also run a separate business called Mixalo, which is a chai business, and we're sort of getting that off the ground. That's only a year in. So you can imagine that

what our, what our house looks like in terms of living together, parenting together, working together, um, and me trying to work on a separate business as well. It's, it's, it's, it's chaos basically. And there's no sugarcoating that, but it's finding ways that I think are going to, uh, allow you to succeed, um, both professionally, but also personally, it's making sure we're looking after our mental wellbeing and our, and our health, you know, again, at the time of filming, the weather here is just beginning to improve a little bit. So it's, you know,

We took a walk yesterday, which we haven't done for a few months now. It was just brilliant to be in 13-degree sunshine and enjoy that. So it's creating a day

that works for you and not putting too much pressure on yourself, I think. Let's talk about support, father-to-father support rather than outside of work. Is that a thing? I mean, I'm not a dad. I don't know. Do you go and talk to other dads? Is that useful? Oh, yeah, absolutely. So there are so many people out there that have created communities based around fatherhood and fathers and males in general.

that I think are incredibly positive. I'm part of a few. I'm part of a few around dads that are building businesses. I'm part of a dad's mental health one. I'm part of a men's well-being one. And these are just, you know, free communities, whether it's on WhatsApp or on one of these kind of communication apps. And sometimes there's no real objective to those groups sometimes. It's not a case of, you know, we're business networking or anything like that. It's sometimes you'll go onto WhatsApp and somebody's posted a message saying,

their kid fell over today and they're feeling a bit low and they just, you know, lots of dads just, you know, cheer that dad up. So there's, yeah, there's, and I'm just part of a handful. I'm sure there are hundreds,

if not thousands of groups out there that are supporting dads and men's well-being in general. Well, let's take this mental well-being idea for a second. Tell us what mental health challenges you've got and then tell us how that actually adds further pressure to being a dad and an entrepreneur. You know, I've always had ADHD. I only got diagnosed last year. So that's always caused a lack of understanding in who I am. It's led to friendship issues over the years. It's led to

challenges that at the time I didn't know why they were challenges. It's only now in hindsight, I'm able to look back. But then, you know, losing my mother was a big thing for me and losing her to ovarian cancer at, you know, a young age. The circumstances around her death, she died four days before my 30th birthday, six months before my wedding. That really sort of

um sent me into a bit of a spiral but the the real i guess what what saved me from going completely out of control was i was starting this new life as well i was getting married and you know i was going to build this this new life so losing mum was probably the start of where the mental health issues really came from and it was where i started questioning my

almost my place you know i don't want to go as far as saying i was i was suicidal i wasn't and you know i i would never try to um belittle those that genuinely are um i yeah that sort of started the journey around what i wanted to do with my life and where i wanted to be i'd been on this route to headship in schools and i knew i was going to get there and i was pretty young and i was on my way and i just decided slowly that maybe this isn't for me and then our daughter was born during covid

so you know we all remember what that what life was like then she was born with three holes in her heart and and that was huge as parents first-time parents for us to deal with that i didn't have mum around um my my wife is from tanzania her parents still live in tanzania and so her parents weren't around our extended family and friends were all shut off from us because of covid restrictions and

And so we were dealing with this trauma of a very, very unwell daughter constantly going into Great Ormond Street for appointments and consultants and emergency surgeons, all this kind of stuff. And all of these things really just built into this kind of me thinking, I'm done here. You know, I'm done doing what I'm doing. I need to do something different that allows me to

Be successful because, you know, I am quite ambitious. I am quite a driven person. But at the same time, be happy. And goodness me, for me, being happy was...

cherishing that time with our daughter. We didn't know whether we would get to see much of our daughter, actually. We were told that it was, you know, there are children that are born with holes in their hearts that don't make it. And she had open-heart surgery at 10 months of age after lots of cancelled operations and lots of other surgeries she had to have. And it was, yeah, that really got me kind of thinking, I've lost my mum.

almost lost a daughter. I need to have a bit of a rethink here. Give us the sort of timeline around that. So were you still in education at this point? I was. So my mum died in January of 2018. And I was, yeah, very much still in education then. I didn't have the courage. I mean, I wasn't in the headspace to think of leaving at that stage.

um for me it was just i've got to carry on you know i've got to get on with work and my and my school at the time was very supportive um it was when covid came that i really started questioning whether i wanted to stay in education i didn't and this could be the adhd i don't know but you know i was jealous of the fact that my wife as an accountant was able to work from home all the time and i in between lockdowns and all of that had to be in school and i was dealing with covid tests and i just wasn't interested and i just and it was

There was the superficial level, which was, I don't care about this. But there was the deep-rooted level, which this is actually impacting my happiness. I get up, where I used to get up in the morning and think, I can't wait to get to school today. Now I was getting up in the morning thinking, I don't want to go today. And then what I decided to do was...

Maybe I need to change an environment. I'd been in the same school for nine years and I decided to change environments. I became a deputy head of the school in East London. And then for the first few months, that change in environment did re-energize me because I was on a new project. I was doing something new. But then those doubts started creeping in. And I, at the point of a year of being in that school with this map towards headship, you know, I was going to start applying for headships. I just had it in my resignation and said, I'm done. I'm done.

That was in April of 2022. So mum died in January 18, daughter was born in May 20, resignation handed in or left my job in April 22. So by April 2022, your daughter thankfully is now on the way to recovery. Obviously you're still mourning your mum, but it has been sort of five years at that point. You just hand your notice in, your resignation, talk me through...

the like hour or two hours after you handed that resignation in? So I'd spoken to my head teacher a few weeks before about just say I was struggling with my mental health and, you know, I don't know what I sort of want. And he, he had, you know, we used to email over the weekends that it was just okay for us. And I remember he emailed me on the Sunday to just say, you know, how things going, let's have a chat tomorrow. And then I said to my wife, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. And, you know, we'd been talking about it for a while, obviously. And she said, look, if it's what you want, do it.

And I wrote him an email, you know, one of those formal emails, dear, you know, please take this as official notice of my resume, whatever it was, you know, watched over the send button, hovered over it and then just sent it. And then he texts me saying, that's not what I expected. But let's chat tomorrow. And then, yeah, we just chatted. I just said, look, at the end of the day, if I didn't do it, I would have continued to be in this job, although I was looking for headships.

But I also hold myself up to high standards. I wanted to be the very best at what I do. And, you know, I was losing the love for it and I was dropping the ball and realizing that, you know, my heart's not in this and I can't give this everything that I, that I need to give it. And so I don't want people, you know, thinking that I'm not very good at my job. That would bother me. Uh, and so, yeah, how it felt, I felt liberated, I think at the time. And I felt like I'm now opened up this whole world of,

what I'm going to do, but I just had no idea what it was that I was going to do. We had someone called Dr. Nancy Doyle, who's amazing, neurodiverse. And she said that she runs, I think it's called Genius Network, which is a really, really cool organization. But she says that often people

People who are neurodiverse have a superpower. So do you think with ADHD, OCD, and anxiety, have you got a superpower that others don't? No, I don't like that term, actually. And it's quite a divisive term in the neurodiverse community. I don't see it as a superpower at all. And I just find that phraseology quite patronizing to those who are not neurodiverse. I know better than you just because

I'm neurodiverse. I'm different to you. That's all it is. I'm different. I think the people who use that term, because when people with ADHD get stuck onto a task, it might take them a long time to get onto that task. But when they get onto it, then there's nothing stopping me. Nobody can disturb me. Nothing in my diary is going to get in the way of me doing that task because you've got my 120%. And you almost feel a little bit superhuman at the time. But the crippling

impacts of ADHD when it gets the better of you, I think can be very damaging. So I never use the term superpower. I find that a real

uh, yeah, not for me. So let's just talk about what, how you want the world to be. You've obviously got experience of business. You've got experience of working of employment. You've got, you've got experience of being a father. Imagine that you could mandate that all organizations have to do certain things for fathers. What would that look like? I think I just want organizations to be more than work. I think the definition of work

needs looking at and needs changing. I want organizations to be something, you know, a lot of people spend more of their time in their place of work than they do in their home if they're, you know, if they're based in office. And I just want organizations to take more responsibility for looking after the well-being of their employees, whether that's dads, women, whether that's disabled, neurodiverse, race, gender, whatever it is, you know, just

provide a space where everybody is able to thrive both at work and at home because you will you know there are studies out there that show the productivity goes out it goes up excuse me when staff feel that they are cared about by their employees employers and so yeah the ideal world for me would be a workplace that

out for its staff and treats its staff with dignity, creates environments where compassion and empathy can thrive. Whether you do that through DEI, whether you do that through financial benefits, however you do it, listen to what your staff are saying and act on it. The business sort of future, the next 12 to 18 months, theoretically,

It feels like it's going to be tough for business. There's, you know, interest rates continue to be high. It feels like inflation. Everything's just stopping people from spending money. It's more and more difficult to make money in business. If what we're saying is that we have all these added pressures to be profitable and to build, but we also need to put resources into making the workplace a great place.

I can see some people going, I don't have the money to make it a great place. Is there anything you can do which wouldn't cost me money as a business owner? Well, firstly, just on the money part, I think, um, there's gotta be some long sighted views here, which is that if you invest in your staff, they're more likely to be more productive for you and therefore increase, you know, money that you might be getting back out of the, depending on the nature of your, of your business. Um,

But yeah, there are things that staff companies can do for free. You know, flexible working doesn't cost an employer a penny. You know, if somebody says I need to log off at 3.30 to go and collect my kids, can I log back in at 6.30? Who cares?

Does it really matter? Unless they're client-facing and they have a really important meeting they've got to attend, does it matter if they work from 6.30 to 9.30 in the evening, but it suits them better, it makes their life easier, and it makes them value you as an employer more? So I think there are a number of things that organizations can do for free that will just, you know, small changes that makes your employees feel better, feel more valued, feel like they're able to...

excuse me, balance their work and personal life better, why wouldn't we do it? So I have a question. I'm going to ask it very delicately, but you described about your daughter at 10 months having this operation. Previously, you said lots of cancelled operations. It sounds like it was a really tough time with your daughter. You're not only balancing parenthood, you're balancing parenthood, mental health, work.

and the added thing of having a very sick daughter. Talk me through what that felt like and how you managed to get through that period. I was employed still at that time. And because it was sort of in and out of COVID, my work was very supportive. I'd been at that place for a number of years. It was incredibly, incredibly difficult. And sometimes my wife and I, you know, because my daughters have a great big scar that goes from sort of her neck down to her belly button.

And every now and then we'll see it and we'll just sort of look at each other. And we laugh now we say, how the hell did we get through that period alone? Because, you know, as I say, my mom had passed my, my in-laws live in Tanzania, um,

We just sort of felt very, very alone. And there were, you know, I remember going to Great Ormond Street and for all the times we went there, we must have gone throughout the year of 2020. She was born in May. She was diagnosed in August. So 2020, the end part of that, we must have gone to Great Ormond Street a dozen times. I never stepped foot inside the hospital.

I wasn't allowed in because they had, because of COVID restrictions, whether we were in or out of lockdowns, we were still in COVID, weren't we? One parent was allowed in and it was horrible because I felt, you know, how dare you as a hospital not allow me to have access to the consultants that are going to operate on my daughter?

And what it was doing was it was putting strain on the marriage between my wife and myself because she was going into the hospitals and she felt she was doing all the heavy lifting in terms of medical jargon, learning about this and being told this. And, you know, I would ask her afterwards, did you ask this question? No, I didn't. Why didn't you ask this question? I didn't think about asking that question. Well, why not? And, you know, all I was doing was walking around London. I mean, I used to talk about getting steps in. I used to do sort of, you know, five, 10 miles walking around London, deserted London, walking

trying to dial on whatsapp and listen to the conversation hospitals have no signal and so you know there was there was some resentment on both our part as parents we'd made the choice that mum was going to go in and do the kind of being with the baby again that's probably a a choice based on the fact that the baby our daughter was you know needed her mum more than me at that time um and that caused

That was really, really difficult, really difficult. I don't know how we got through it. We just, sometimes it was adrenaline. And part of me thinks that actually being alone was better for us than having extended family around because sometimes extended family, although they have the best intentions in the world, often ask too much. They want to come around all the time. They want to sort of get involved. And you just sometimes just need that space. You just want to be on your own sometimes. And so COVID, to an extent for us,

might have been a bit of a blessing that we were able to get through that period on our own and update our family via whatsapp let me ask you then i'm curious about this you mentioned your mom and this may well be too personal a question and you're very welcome to swerve it you mentioned mom a lot but did you have a relationship with your father and has that potentially changed or influenced your direction of what you're doing perhaps both professionally and with your own

Yeah, I think going back to my dad, he was more of that old school generation, you know, not around much during my childhood, not necessarily because he was working hard, but because he was enjoying his life. And that's what, you know, a number of Asian men in that generation did.

and i you know i he wasn't around a great deal wasn't very actively involved in um my schooling for example mum would come to parents evenings he was actively involved in in the turning off and the and the repercussions because the adhd i mean i was going through my reports as part of my diagnosis i still kept all my reports from school all set the same thing too chatty distracts others you know finishes work and you know distracts others arrogant loud cocky all those things so i'll

But since mum has died, it's been difficult. It's been hard because he's grieving the loss of his partner, you know, his wife. I'm grieving the loss of my mother. We haven't necessarily always grieved together. We've done our own grieving in our own time. Obviously, it's been seven years now, so the grief journey is looking a bit different. And, you know, sadly, it's horrible and I feel tremendous guilt for this.

but you know you you don't think about it as much as you did initially and you know i've got three children now i have other things going on in my life um so i mean the relationship is there it's it's it's a it's a father-son relationship i wouldn't say it's necessarily one where their best mates where we go around the pub for a beer all the time but at the same time i wouldn't say that it's one that's completely strained where we're not communicating with each other it's just a

a father-son relationship. Your organization started for working parents. Have I got that right? Well, tell me more about it. What does it do and why would someone listening potentially want to get involved? So for working parents, it's all around creating a culture of compassion and empathy in the workplace, primarily aimed at working parents and carers and people who are caring for family. And we do that through coaching. So I do one-to-one and group coaching for...

staff who might be going through parenting challenges. We run lots of parenting webinars and training around upskilling parents on 21st century challenges, whether that's screen time battles, whether it's looking at youth crime, whether it's looking at drugs, whatever it might be, things that are relevant to parents.

And then I also do a lot of storytelling. I go into the workplace and I share my story, um, because that is ultimately, I believe a really important way to create that compassion, that empathy. You know, I've gone into workplaces, shared my story, much of which I've shared with you today. Um,

And I follow it up sometimes with a kind of internal storytelling morning where I train colleagues to be confident in sharing their own story, whether it's body language and verbal kind of things. And somebody will stand up for 15 minutes and share their story. And you look at colleagues and they'll be like, gosh,

She's worked here for eight years, and I had no idea that she had been through or is going through that. And suddenly you see the outlook and the way people treat each other change. And that is why I do what I do. That compassion and empathy in that human-centric workplace that storytelling can build is exactly why I do what I do. So it's all around coaching, training to support parents, and storytelling to empower and create growth.

compassion and empathy. For those people who want to know a bit more about you, where's the best place for them to go? So my website is www.forworkingparents.com. I'm pretty active on social media. So on LinkedIn, it's at Amit Singh Kali. And on Instagram, Facebook, and on TikTok as well, it's at For Working Parents.

That was Amit Kali from 4 Working Parents. If you want to connect with him, check out 4workingparents.com or find him on LinkedIn. He also has a newsletter called Parent Up, definitely worth checking out. If you're a parent looking for great advice and resources, we'll put all the links in the show notes. I mean, Amit's

Life is very different to ours, Lee, isn't it? And I mean, as we've said before, no children. So neither of us really pretend to know what it's like to juggle kids, businesses and everything else. I feel like we're looking at this from the outside, but we now understand it a lot better after chatting with Amit. Yeah. And I think the emphasis really does need to be on how this conversation isn't happening in workplaces, how we support parents, how we support children.

dads. The research consistently shows that fathers, not just mothers, experience significant career impacts after having children, but it's rarely discussed. And I really liked as well how honest Amit was about the generational differences in his Sikh community. I think the moment where he talked about the older men being proud they'd never changed a nappy. Oh, and let's be honest,

that is also applicable to probably a lot of men in the boomer generation, the Gen Xers, and maybe some of those millennials as well. Maybe. I think as well, the neurodiversity element adds another layer of complexity and challenge for Amit and his family. It's interesting how

He pushed back on that superpower narrative around ADHD. And I understand because it undermines the impact that this way of thinking can have. And I've seen this in the research. For many people, these conditions bring genuine challenges that aren't always offset by special abilities or toxic positivity. And that's why we need to expand the equity, diversity and inclusion conversation. It's not enough to have

groups for fathers, groups for mothers, groups for people with neurodiversity. There are people who are all these things and the best workplaces out there will genuinely recognize people's different realities and create the flexibility that works for them. Absolutely. Bravo, bravo. Coming up next Thursday, if you like interviews, we are joined, can you guess? Drum roll, please. This will be a surprise to everyone. Nick.

hoover entrepreneur and one of our heroes yes nick hoover is the sweaty startup guy nick has built businesses that do more than 30 million in annual revenue and employ over 325 people plus he recently bought a controlling share of somewhere.com the recruitment company that's helped over three and a half thousand businesses hire more than 6 000 remote workers you're not going to want to miss it

Until then, make sure you subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you're using. And if you're enjoying the show, we'd be very grateful if you could leave us a little review. It genuinely does make our day. Or leave a comment on Spotify. That makes my day too. Somebody was very excited about James Hawkins from Post Hog. That's episode nine. I just hope you enjoyed it.

Lovely. So yeah, do all those things. It is really lovely to hear from you. And we will see you on Tuesday for our regular This Week in Work episode with our weekly news roundup, our spicy hot take and our world famous workplace surgery where I'll put your question to me. If you have a question for the surgery, we always leave the email. In the show notes, you can send it in to hello at truthlivesandwork.com. Yes, please do that. So we will see you very soon. Bye for now. Bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.