Living Across the Globe, Optimism, and Similarities Between Parenting and Angel Investing with Jachin Cheng

• [00:40] - Introduction of today’s guest, Jachin Cheng

• [01:25] - Can you tell us more about your family?
• [01:54] - How did you and your wife meet?
• [03:09] - Perspective as a child raised by a single mom
• [04:48] - The benefits of playing Piano
• [06:19] - Jachin’s career journey across the globe
• [07:36] - Why Singapore?
• [09:17] - Fatherhood and parenting in a different country
• [10:58] - Comparing parenting styles of different countries
• [12:40] - HOw did you adap in those countries?
• [14:56] - Parenting style in Switzerland
• [18:36] - What helped him in parenting?
• [21:07] - Lessons learned as a parent
• [23:21] - Similarities of being an angel investor and a parent
• [25:48] - One thing Jachin would do differently as a parent
• [28:54] - What's one area of parenting that you are looking to grow in?
• [31:35] - What does discipline look like at home?
• [35:37] - Lesson learned as a parent in tech
• [37:37] - Connect with Jachin Cheng

TRANSCRIPT

Qin En 00:40

In this episode, we speak to Jachin, Senior Product Manager at Google Pay and Google AI. Jachin was born and raised in the US, before joining Google in 2007 and his 15 year career with them has brought him across Israel, the UK, Switzerland and finally, Singapore. His globe-trotting career along with his wife and three children, aged 10, 7 and 3, has shaped his views on parenting, taking bits of inspiration across the diverse cultures. Jachin is also an angel investor, and we speak on the similarities between parenting and angel investing, among other topics.

 

Hey, Jachin, welcome to the Parents in Tech podcast.. To begin, could you tell us a bit more about your family. 

Jachin 01:25

Sure. Yeah, absolutely. And thanks so much for having me on, I'm really excited about this topic and happy to be part of the podcast.

My wife and I moved here to Singapore two years ago, her name's Jessica and we have three kids, a 10 year old boy and two daughters, seven and three years old. Right now, they're being educated at the Swiss School in Singapore because we moved here from Switzerland and wanted to bring forward some of those experiences for them.

Qin En 01:54

Very nice. So I have to ask again, how did you and your wife meet? 

Jachin 01:59

So we actually met in California. We were both born and raised in the US, and it was probably in our twenties. We met through a nonprofit that we were working at pretty early on. We kind of agreed, or both shared the goal of starting a family and having kids.

So that was one of the things that we clicked on early on in our relationship. 

Qin En 02:23

Beautiful. Okay. So tell me a bit more about those conversations, where you realize that both of you had this desire and love for children. 

Jachin 02:31

Yeah. I think it started with the question where do you want to be in five years? And when we were dating her response to that question was, Hey, I see myself having kids.

I want to be a full-time mom. I was fortunate as well to have kind of grown up with a full-time mom at home with us until we were in junior high, high school. And I thought that was super valuable and it aligned with a lot of my values. And then we talked a little bit about how many kids and definitely more than one. I have three in my family. I have two brothers. And so three seemed like a round number. Yeah, it was early on that we were considering kids. 

Qin En 03:09

Wow. Okay. So you mentioned that you were brought up while your mom was a full-time mom and your wife had that same desire. I'm curious. Did you see a lot more benefits to having a full-time mom or less of the benefits? Because I know for some, actually having a full-time mom is good, you get more freedom, we get more flexibility. But maybe tell us a bit more about your growing up years and how that shaped your perspectives as a parent. 

Jachin 03:33

Yeah, that's a good question. So my mom was at home. She was quite hands-on with our education. I grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, and so we had a confluence of different forces that affected our upbringing. One is that both my parents were first-generation immigrants to the U S. Came over without a lot of means, but we're making a new life with new opportunities and kind of wanted the best for us as children growing up.

And so for better, for worse, we did have a lot of pressure to succeed whether primarily early on. I was academically. And so my mom was quite hands-on with our education. We went to public schools throughout, but we moved to a town that had really good public schools. I was part of the decision on where to live. And then my dad was working a full-time job as a teacher and later as a, actually as a proverbial rocket scientist, designing guidance systems for intercontinental ballistic missiles with Draper laboratories, which is related to MIT and the Boston area. We also had a lot of other extracurriculars, mainly around team sports and piano is the other big thing that was a big part of our growing up. 

Qin En 04:48

Okay. Piano. It's something that is common, at least for many generations. Tell me a bit more about that. Did you enjoy learning? 

Jachin 04:57

Absolutely not. It was something that I did dutifully as an Asian American boy growing up in the Boston area. But I would say I did yield the benefits of it. And there's been a lot of studies about how, especially for developing minds. It helps to, if you think about it, it helps to accelerate the growing synapses and connections in your brain because. It's a very complex set of things they're doing all at the same time. You're learning a new language, reading notes. You have eye hand coordination that you have to perform. And on top of that, you have to kind of layer in expressiveness and emotion and so forth when you're playing. And so I think it's super food for the brain and I definitely encourage it for my kids and my kids don't really enjoy it yet. 

Qin En 05:48

Okay. So you have three kids. When did they start learning piano? What's the process like? 

Jachin 05:54

Yeah, so we started here in Singapore about two years ago. So what, eight years old? Five. And actually our youngest just started last year, uh, because she saw the older kids playing and just wanted to join. I think three is a little bit earlier. Obviously every kid is a little bit too early, but obviously every kid's different. We go to a private piano teacher who lives nearby and they take weekly lessons. 

Qin En 06:19

Got it. Okay. Jachin, I want to understand a bit more about your career journey and especially how you moved across, because of course you say, born and raised in the US that, it sounds like you spend time in Switzerland. And of course now you're in Singapore. Maybe take us briefly through that journey. And where did you get married? Have kids along this journey. 

Jachin 06:37

Yeah. It's a long journey. I'll kind of give you some highlights. So my wife and I had met in California soon after I started working, I was in an MBA program at UCLA and started with Google full-time soon after in LA. So I worked there for two years. Eventually Google was growing so quickly, internationally, and there was just all kinds of opportunities to go work abroad. And so our first stop outside of the US was Tel Aviv Israel for two weeks. Our son was born there. Actually the first week we arrived there, we found out my wife was pregnant.

So we're having a baby and living across the globe and another culture. That was an incredible growing experience. Then we spent 15 months in London and then we moved to Switzerland in 2014, beginning of 2014, and then had two more kids there in Switzerland. Well, we're all us citizens and the kids have been born kind of all over the world. And now are now being raised here in Sydney. 

Qin En 07:36

That is incredible. And so what caused you to move to Singapore? I mean, you work in the headquarters, Google US, then of course, in Europe and the Middle East. Why Singapore?

Jachin 07:46

Yeah. Both personal and professional reasons. On the personal side, we want it to be closer to my wife's extended family. They're Korean, they live in Seoul. And so that's just an easy plane right away, without COVID. On the professional side. I really have been looking ahead to see where's the growth and will the opportunities be, and really this next decade, obviously we've seen the comeuppance of China in this region, but overall Southeast Asia, south Asia, east Asia.

The growth globally, both population-wise, online growth, mobile growth, it's all going to be coming from APAC. And so that was really exciting for me just to look ahead since we're fairly mobile, and we've been used to living in different countries, coming out here, just being close to some good growth opportunities.

Qin En 08:38

And do you foresee yourself potentially moving after a few years or is this gonna be probably where you have wrote that in the foreseeable future? 

Jachin 08:45

Yeah. It's getting harder to move. So when we just had a kid who's two years old, you can move anywhere basically, and they don't even know. The other consideration is their friends, their education family, extended family.

And then also our friends. And so I think it's a little bit hard for us to say, but definitely we haven't experienced the full Southeast Asia experience because we've been here primarily when COVID has been around. And so I can see us being here for the foreseeable future. 

Qin En 09:17

Got it, got it. Yeah. I agree. As kids start to grow, they want a certain level of certainty, stability, familiarity, and that’s become hard . Especially when you have three kids. Okay. So Jachin, I want to bring back to your first born, your son. And this is fascinating because you just moved out of the country, you landed in Tel Aviv, you realized that your wife was expecting. Tell me a bit about that journey. Was it challenging? Because in a new place, you probably don't really have friends, probably don't have family there, having to deal with all of this. How was the pregnancy journey and also of course, your entrance into fatherhood in a foreign country, in a foreign place. 

Jachin 09:56

Yeah, I would say that looking back, one of the things was I didn't have, or my wife nor I had a data point to compare to, we were actually maybe one of the first in our friend group who started to have kids. So we didn't have our friend's kids to compare to. We'd never had a kid in the US so we didn't know what that was like, but of course, like you said, we only had a few friends around us. We didn't have extended family, and other parts of a support system. It was quite isolating to give birth to our first child in a foreign country.

I would also say that fortunately, It provided a lot of interesting opportunities for us to learn. So culturally we were not Israeli, but we were around a lot of Israelis, got to see how other people raise their kids. Same thing when we had our two daughters in Switzerland. So I would say our parenting style is a bit of an amalgamation of different things that we've seen in all these countries we've lived in.

Qin En 10:58

This is really fascinating. So maybe tell me something that it's unique or that you'd note about how Israelis parent their children, at least what was surprising or what you didn't expect. 

Jachin 11:09

Yeah. I think both in Israel and in Switzerland, it's much less of a helicopter parent, hands-on, always hovering and making sure your kids are doing the right thing, and it's a lot more hands-off.

So we would hear stories of and observe just kids out, running about the neighborhood, really young kids. We went to the beach with a colleague who had a son about three or four years old, just learning how to swim. But at the public beach, he let his son run off, how you're not worried about him drowning, you're not worried about him getting lost or. And that was specific to Israel, there was a lot of mentality of looking out for each other. So he trusted all the other adults on the beach to make sure his son wouldn't swim, wouldn't get abducted, would just be safe. And so there was a kind of a, a group mentality or a community mentality of looking out for each other's kids there. And so that was eye opening. 

Similarly in Switzerland, parenting, there is very much about fostering independence, even for  very young children. So by the age of five, when they're walking to kindergarten, they're expected to walk alone, cross busy streets, learn how to use a crosswalk, learn how to wait for cars to slow down and stop, and then cross the street, learn how to be around dogs in the neighborhood.

And so, so our son, yeah. Walked to school at five years old by himself, a 10 minute walk away, and we felt super safe about it. But it comes with the cultural context that you trust your neighbors, you trust the people that do the right thing around you. 

Qin En 12:40

Right. That just sounds so intriguing. It's almost a bit hard to relate sometimes to just imagine three to four years old, you'd let the kid run around the beach .I mean, especially a few for Asian parents, that would be something that we would get very protective over. So what's that perhaps one thing that you realize you had to adapt, you had to change as a result of being in a very different culture. 

Jachin 13:04

Yeah, I think so, but in a good way. So we have friends in the U S who lived in Southern California, and wanted to let their kids walk to school. Literally two houses down and their neighbors are calling the police on them. Hey, you shouldn't be letting your kids walk to school. And so it was actually because that's child endangerment or whatever, and make it see the schoolyard from their front lawn.. So it's a very different context for us. It wasn't so much an adaptation and more of, we just felt much more relaxed in those countries.

And similarly, I would say here in Singapore, part of the reason why a lot of people from all over the world like to move here is the safety and security. We also see young kids going to school, coming back from football practice on their own, on the MRT. And we feel quite safe with our kids here as well. 

Qin En 13:56

Yeah, I think that safety it's something that often before you become a parent, you don't really think it's that important. I mean, of course the basic level it is, but I think when you have children and especially one individual independent that becomes all the more important. 

Jachin 14:11

Exactly. And I think that the word “independence”, that's really important for me. Part of it is also thinking back to how I grew up. So I grew up in suburban Boston, seventies, and eighties, and we were roaming the neighborhood on our own, on our bikes, through the snow for many hours at a time. And our parents had no idea where we were. And not that I necessarily have to give my kids the same exact experiences that I had growing up. But what I found was those experiences being out either by myself or with my friends my age, really developed a lot of self-confidence and independence that is hard to replicate when everything is super scripted and kind of spoon fed to you, the whole time.

Qin En 14:56

Yeah, exactly. So the move from Israel to Switzerland, what was perhaps another new thing that you learned in Switzerland that you didn't learn before, you didn't experience?

Jachin 15:08

So we did stop in London for 15 months between those, but just comparing Switzerland to Israel. It's definitely a study in contrasts.

So in Israel there in Hebrew, there's this term “Balagan”, which means just a mess. And it can be applied to everything from a super messy, but delicious meal and platter of hummus and different types of foods. All the way to the way businesses are done, and stuff gets done but it's kind of messy and unstructured, and a lot of heated debate and back and forth, but stuff gets done. In contrast to that in Switzerland, stuff also gets done, but it's very calm. I mean, even just walking through the train stations or the airport or going into a bank, everything is so super calm, super quiet. I think roughly each country has about the same size population, but just their national character of Switzerland is everything's very thorough, very planned, nothing's rushed. You don't see people conducting themselves in a kind of “balagan”.  It's very planned, very structured, some could say efficient. Israelis might look at that and say it's boring. It was kind of a really interesting mix of cultures to live in.

Qin En 16:33

Yeah, as you say that, what comes to mind almost like if I transplant a New Yorker into a place like Switzerland, it will be quite hilarious because the person will probably walk at twice or thrice the pace. Wow. Okay. Even at that point, when you moved from Israel to London and to Switzerland with our young son in tow, were there any challenges in terms of just getting used to everything, like where the medical facilities are, even milk powder that you take probably it's quite different from Israel compared to London to Switzerland. Tell me a bit more about those adjustments. Were there any challenges around those? 

Jachin 17:11

Yeah. In retrospect as a father, I don't feel like I gave my wife the credit she deserved for adjusting to those types of things. So on a day-to-day basis, the majority of my week, number one, it's all in English because I work at Google. The work's about the same, the colleagues are about the same, I worked globally. And so I personally didn't have to adjust as much as my wife did. Right. But even in some of the examples you mentioned, it was hard for a couple of different reasons.  Both Israel and Switzerland. One, because of the language, two just some of the basic things that I figured would be so simple, like where do we find Pampers and the specific brand of Pampers, or where do you go to buy good, but reasonably priced winter clothing, we weren't familiar with the brands we weren't familiar with leasing or renting a flat. Each country has its own norms and techniques and so forth. And so a lot of the day-to-day challenges, even around asking the salesperson who doesn't really want to speak English for a particular product, which has a different name, it could be a different spice – the same spice is called something different. What is an Abrazine when we're asking for eggplant? So all of these kind of small, almost trivial things actually add up in aggregate and it was quite challenging, especially for my wife. 

Qin En 18:36

Got it. Well, but I think it's never too late to show your appreciation. And I guess that this podcast is out. You should definitely get her to listen so that she knows that you appreciate this. I guess also on that topic, looking back at your entire career and your entire journey as a parent navigating through these transitions, what were perhaps one or two things you found to be most helpful in supporting your wife and your family through this?  Cause I guess for you, like you said, you are pretty much with the same company, there's a certain sense of familiarity and stability, but perhaps your family, they often had to deal with the change. From your perspective, as a husband, as a father, what are perhaps one or two things that were helpful. 

Jachin 19:15

Yeah. It's interesting. You asked that because recently I read and saw an article from McKinsey that talked about how parents, especially mothers, but also fathers across a longitudinal study, are actually more empathetic leaders and managers in business.

And I would say there are transferable skills that I've picked up, hopefully to be also an empathetic leader at work, but it came at the cost of learning by failing at home, my kids and my wife. And I guess a big part of it is learning to listen and not try to solution right away. This might be an old trope for the difference between men and women.

But oftentimes I find myself, I hear a problem. And the first thing I want to do is solve it. And look, it's so easy. Let me solve it for you or toss off this idea and that idea, and actually it's the process and it's the feeling and it's the time to listen and hear, either my wife out or my kids out, that's actually the real solution to the problem. That's really what they need before any practical solution to their challenge. And so I also try to apply that at work as well, which is number one, we're not cogs in a wheel, we're human beings, and while algorithms and machine learning, and technology might replace certain tasks at work. Hmm. What motivates us and what gets us to deliver our best results and output is actually some connection between what's meaningful to us and how we feel and the work at hand.

And so I would say that's, yeah, maybe it's a draw, the connection between my work and career. And what I learn at home, my home is a big laboratory for how I also want to be a leader at work. 

Qin En 21:07

Yeah, I think that's so true. And I think that there's so many qualities and training that we get as parents each day with our kids, especially when they're young, that it's so transferrable and so applicable to being a leader at work. So perhaps Jachin, what is one thing, one lesson that you learned from being a parent that you're applying. I hear what you mentioned about not solutioning and being able to empathize. You did mention also you go through a bit of failures on, I would say failures, but mistakes. Humor us with one, perhaps that you try, you learn sort of the hard way and you are now a better person because of that.

Jachin 21:43

Yeah. I don't know if I have a specific example, but thematically one of the lessons that I'm trying to apply is about optimism. And whether you're managing people or raising your kids, it's about bringing out their best potential, and not necessarily looking at their failures and their performance right now.

And I would say that's a connection about working in technology and having kids, which is philosophically, I think you have to be an optimist. You'll go through ups and downs and you'll go through hard days and so forth. But stepping back and looking at being a parent and working with tech, I think one of the biggest things that make people successful is they're just optimistic about the future.

I also have friends and acquaintances who don't want to have kids because they're not optimistic. I'm not about kids specifically because they don't have them, but about the direction that society and the opportunities that will exist in the future for children, people just aren't optimistic about and some are choosing not to have children because of that.

So I would apply optimism both at the global level. Like, yes, I believe the future will be even better than it is today. I want to help create that future, both in the technology and products and innovations that I contribute to at work. And I want to contribute to that positive future through raising good kids who contribute to society and maximize their potential contribution to humanity as a whole. I would say that's kind of one of the thingsI think about both as a technologist and working in tech and as a parent.

Qin En 23:21

I really liked that, the idea that you have to be an optimist and really seeing the good and making it happen. So I hear you Jachin the similarities from being a parent and a tech leader. Now, perhaps a little more challenging topic that I want to pose to you is the similarities between being a parent and an angel investor, because I know you do angel investing too. So talk to me a bit about it.

Jachin 23:45

Yeah, I think it's the question of how hands-on and how involved you are with either your children or the founders that you're working with. And so part of the mindset, I would say one of the differences is you can pick your investments, you can't pick your children. I mean, you can decide whether or not to have children. The children are born with the inherent traits that they have in their nature. And it's up to you, how you want to nurture them.

And depending on your philosophy, I believe nurture makes up a big portion of how kids turn out. But it's the question of how hands-on and how prescriptive you are to raising your kids. I think similarly with founders, when I decide to invest in a company, we also have a discussion upfront, like how involved do you want me to be?

Here's areas that I can help you and maybe areas that you're not even thinking about. I can help you see things because I've seen them in my own career. I can help you make connections and introductions that you don't have right now. But it's a balance between adding value and getting in the way with founders. 

They have limited time. They have to be focused. They have to devote a lot of energy to getting, especially these early stage companies off the ground. And so as an angel investor, I want to actively provide advice and suggestions for things they might not be thinking about. But when I can't do the work for them and I can't think for them, I can just provide advice.

So I think that's similar to raising kids as well, which is, I can't grow for them. I can't learn the lessons for them, but I can provide environments. I can provide opportunities and I can talk through teaching moments with them to help them grow. And so yeah, finding that right balance between not being too much, but not being completely absent – I think that's a big similarity. 

Qin En 25:48

I really liked that because it's also about knowing what you can do, and to a sense how effective you can be. On one hand, of course, you could try to impose your way, do things your way, but it sounds like a big part of that it's just being able to take a step back, know where you stand, establish that, and then that often sets you up much better to serve both of your children, as well as the founders that you invest in. Wonderful. Thanks for sharing that, Jachin. So 10 years in, let's say you could turn back the clock and tell your tenure younger self, what you would perhaps do differently. What is perhaps one or two things you would share? 

Jachin 26:25

I think the number one thing that I wish I knew, or I wish somebody had told me 10 years ago was you can be intentional about how you parent your children.

In other words, by default, I think most parents, parent with the style that they were raised with. So they parent like their dad raised them because that's what they know. Yes. And we read books, we read parenting books and we talked to a few parents, but when push comes to shove, when you write down in the moment, you default to your instinct and your instinct was likely shaped by how you were raised.

Yes. I wish I had thought earlier that I can break certain cycles. I can be a different parent than my parents, and that is the style sometimes with which I discipline my child or correct them, or try to motivate them. All of those things for the first few years was just by instinct. And when I look back, it was very much like just the way I was raised, and not all of those behaviors are healthy, and not all of those tactics or techniques that I deployed by instinct actually were beneficial. And so I'm trying to rewind that a bit now, especially with our younger kids, but also with our oldest to say, I can unlearn some of the things that I was doing earlier as a parent. And so it's a growth journey for the parent as well. It's not just the kids are growing up, but we're developing and we're learning as parents at the same time.

Qin En 28:01

Yeah, absolutely. I think that the whole idea that it's actually a lot got to do with us, that we can take ownership, take accountability for. And not take things as a given, just because we were raised in a certain way, therefore that's how we need to act. That's so true. And I think what stands out to me Jachin is  your realization that, Hey, it's not too late. The children are always a work in progress. You can still have the opportunity to mold them. I think that's wonderful. 

Jachin 28:28

That is one of the core things that I hope to instill with our kids is that growth mindset that it's not some fundamental, “well, I'm bad at math, or I'm just lazy”. No, you're not lazy or you're not bad at math. It's just, we haven't spent time and we haven't applied. And so having that mindset for myself, hopefully that can also translate to instilling that growth mindset with our children. 

Qin En 28:54

Absolutely. Now talking about growth mindsets, what's one area of parenting or family in general that you are looking to grow in, or that you're curious about at this point?

Jachin 29:06

I think one of the areas that I'm changing or in the process of changing my thinking around regarding parents is how to connect with my children. And so for better, or for worse, I was raised in a, maybe a fairly traditional Asian household where the parenting style was very strict discipline. It was more stick than carrot, I would say. And truth be told, looking back, I don't have the closest relationship with my parents right now.

I mean, we still love each other. We talk and so forth, but both they, and I, you know, looking back wish that we had a more closer family relationship. And so when I think about my own kids, looking ahead, when I'm 60, 70, and what kind of relationship do I want? One of the conversations, recurring conversations, I have with my wife is what if they turn out to be high performing, whatever well to do, established individuals, but you don't have a great relationship with them.

Is that what you want 20 years from now? And so maybe to answer your question succinctly, I would say I'm reevaluating my own values and my own hopes and aspirations for the future, uh, for the future, in my relationship with my kids. And actually now prioritizing that higher, versus achievement in any regards.

And of course I want them to be normal functioning adults who can take care of themselves, take care of the family and so forth. Maybe more important than that at the end of the day, I'd say one of the most valuable things we can have in life is the relationship that you have with family. 

Absolutely.

And if my behavior now in ways of parenting them is actually damaging that future relationship because I'm too strict or too harsh, or whatever. I'm trying to correct those and reset. And like I said earlier, be intentional about raising them with a view towards the longer term goal of not just producing high performing kids or that turn into high-performing adults with having meaningful close relationships.

Qin En 31:35

Yeah. Thanks for that. And being so real, I a hundred percent agree. I think also just looking back at how I was brought up, I completely empathize with the desire for our parents who want good outcomes for us, mostly in schools and academies,  and of course, when we grew up in the work. But we need to keep an eye on the real prize, which is what is the relationship we have with each and every one of our family members. 

And like you say, ultimately, that's the thing that lasts even though no matter how much satisfaction the job gives us. Ultimately, we are all pretty, I would say dispensable, but I would say we are indispensable to our children and to our spouses. So thank you very much for that. Related to that note, I guess, therefore there's a balance that your dish strives between to build that relationship. And also, I guess, for your kids, because they are younger. Discipline. So what does discipline look like for you at home?

Jachin 32:31

Yeah, that's actually something that's evolving right now. So we use it to do the traditional timeout, go to your room, close the door. But a lot of my current reading and study and practice has been more around creating connection first, before disciplining.

So a typical scene would be, I hear yelling and I come in and I start yelling “What's going on here?”. And then I instantaneously ascertain who's wrong, and then discipline them, we don't spank. Maybe like we were spanked growing up, but a lot of yelling and a lot of stand face, the wall type of thing.

 I think the process that we're in is, and something I've read recently is helping to shine a light on this, and that is at the moment in which they need the most connection, which is that we understand we get down to their level. We give them space to feel what they're feeling, not act out and not completely go out of bounds. But at that exact moment, when somebody is in trouble and they realize it, the type of discipline to go give somebody a time.

Is actually doing the reverse of what they need. They're being isolated and being cut off as opposed to feeling connected and feeling heard and feeling seen. And so that's actually one of the biggest areas where it's a struggle for me, because again, it goes against my upbringing, it goes against my instinct, which is to slow down, step back, and come into a more objective frame of reference, understand what's going on and try to create connection with the child so that they feel heard and not immediately shamed it, and to not immediately discipline.

And the other technique that I've been trying to practice more is actually to address difficult situations after the fact. And this is really hard. After the fact. After things have cooled down, not like in the moment, because that's when these little people's brains are like much more open and receptive to being corrected or looking at the situation more reasonably true.

And so that's one other thing that I've been learning along the way, which is, it's kind of obvious, but it's not at the moment. And that is, brains are not developed and you can't just treat them like little bad behaving adults. 

Qin En 34:53

Agreed, agreed. 

Jachin 34:55

And so what that looks like now, and it's something where I'm trying to practice more. and my wife as well, is coming back to a difficult situation. Coming back to teaching moments after the scene has settled. And I'd say that takes discipline, that takes a fair amount of willpower to come back around because. Life is just so busy and you move on to the next thing and you move on to the next thing. And then there's this thing. And by the afternoon, you've forgotten about it.

But especially for the big teachable moments for the big life lessons, I've been trying to practice to bring that back around later, maybe later that day, later the next day, and to talk them out and a more calm situation. 

Qin En 35:37

Wow, fully agreed. Cause sometimes the punishment we deliver, it's really more as a way to manifest our emotions, but it's the lesson actually communicated.

I think that's really the key pertinent issue. And often when, even when we have quarrels or disagreements as adults, once the emotions cool off, we kind of don't want to talk about it, but I take this toll practice of being able to bring it back and rationalize and explain that's wonderful. 

So Jachin, if there's one lesson you've learned as a parent in tech, what would that be?

Jachin 36:12

I think it applies both to tech and to parenting, and that is you have to keep learning because as soon as you figured it out, the game has changed. 

And that means as soon as you figured out this one particular technique to keep your two year old happy and engage them. Two years and two months and a totally different person, and it just keeps moving. And so you have to evolve and you have to grow.

 I think it's the same with tech as well. So one of the areas that I'm trying to learn about is blockchain. 

Yeah.

 I've been hearing about it four or five, six years ago, but there's so much to learn. And as soon as you learn it, the whole market's shifted, and there's something new.

And I think that's particularly exciting. It keeps things fresh. You've never outlearned your kids. You've never outlearned technology. There's always something evolving. And so even though I have my day job at work, I'm also perpetually trying to stay up on new emerging technologies, even if it's not part of my day job at work.

And likewise with kids, it's always a bit of looking ahead because I have no idea what challenges lie ahead for a 12 year old. We have to be in the moment we have to take care of now. But I think also having an eye towards the future is the biggest lesson I would say. 

Qin En 37:37

True. To know what's coming away and to do whatever you can to be prepared for it. That's wonderful. It's such a joy talking to you today, Jachin. If some of our parents would like to connect with you, how can they best do so? 

Jachin 37:49

Yeah, absolutely. I do. LinkedIn is the best way. You can see a little bit more about what I've done professionally, nothing in there about my other job as a parent, but hopefully you got some insights from this.

Qin En 38:08

Absolutely. It was a joy to speak with you. Thank you so much for joining me.