518. Josh Leibowitz, Author of The Parenting MBA - a podcast by Will Bachman

Josh Leibowitz spent 13 years at McKinsey and was elected partner in New York. He then moved to Miami and grew the office there before joining Carnival, the largest leisure company in the world. He talks about the  ideas behind Parenting MBA, a book that aims to help parents give their children the skills they need to be successful in life. Josh joined the cruise line Cunard as Chief Strategy Officer, and eventually became president of the luxury brand Seaborne. Post COVID, he was tasked with supporting the relaunch of the line, and made it his goal to ensure every employee was back to work. This spring, Josh left the company after bringing back 4,000 employees and launching a new expedition division. Josh explores misconceptions people have about the cruise industry, explaining that most people don't appreciate how special of a way it is to see the world, as it's 70% water. He added that Seaborne specialized in three different kinds of places: big cities, secondary cities, and remote expedition destinations like Antarctica and Greenland. During lockdown, as a father of three children, Josh had more time to reflect on how much time work took from family life. He reflected on how  his experiences from work could be used in parenting and decided to write the book, Parenting MBA, which applies the principles of success in business to raising and preparing children for life as an adult. He stresses the fact that he is not a parenting expert and that the book merely puts forward points that he has found to be successful in his life. 

 

An Inside Look at the Book, Parenting MBA 

The book is divided into three sections: getting the vision right, managing the day-to-day, and long-term performance. The first lesson of the book is to act as a mentor to your children and show them unwavering support. Josh believes this can help you raise incredible human beings. 

He provides a case study example from Harvard, in which a student suggested that rather than firing an employee who was underperforming, they should mentor them instead. Josh reflects on their own experience with mentors who overlooked mistakes he made, and how mentorship helps people develop and achieve goals.

 

Josh talks about what it takes to be a mentor. Josh explains that the first characteristic of being a mentor is having an unmatched belief in the mentee and what they can do. Even as an adult, it can be difficult to believe in oneself and thus having a mentor who has an unmatched belief in the mentee is special. The second characteristic is having close and meaningful interactions. Mentors often know more about the mentee than the mentee knows about themselves. Trust and honesty is a key component of the relationship, and the mentor should also be demanding, providing encouragement while also pointing out errors. 

 

Management and Branding Techniques Applied to Parenting

 

Josh talks about the concept of applying management techniques to parenting, including: setting a vision, creating patterns, building trust and honesty, and helping children overcome barriers. One of the points, defining a brand, is the idea of linking marketing and branding to a child's self worth and understanding of what they are all about. 

He focuses on the concept of helping people, and especially children, understand themselves and their brand better. The idea of a brand having two sides is presented: the intrinsic side, which is the brand values, and the extrinsic side, such as what the brand delivers or what skills the child has. He proposes three intrinsic values for consideration, starting with being a good person, then striving to reach one's full potential, and finally, finding one's voice. The idea is to encourage children to find their own brand values and to use them to become successful people. He suggests talking with children about their favorite brands and asking them what they think they stand for. He also discussed the balanced scorecard to manage the day-to-day challenges, which is used to evaluate the performance of a company, and suggested applying this to parenting by looking at the child's core skills, activities, relationships and good person attributes. 

Being a Vacation SuperHero and a Lifelong Learner

Josh is curious about the concept of taking vacations seriously and conducted a global study with over 100,000 respondents and focus groups. He believes that being a vacation superhero is important and gave a TED talk on the topic. He shares a story where he was at a resort in Miami with his wife and family, in the pool with the kids but still distracted by work. The idea behind being a vacation superhero is to treat vacation time as seriously as one would treat work time, in order to gain the most out of the experience. Josh talks about the concept of the indispensable complex and how it can be used to better balance work and play in our lives, and the idea of focusing on taking time off and treating it as seriously as one would treat work because this is often when the best ideas break through.

Josh and Will discuss inspiring lifelong learning, suggesting that continuous learning is key to staying relevant. He encourages stimulating curiosity, engaging in self awareness, and being flexible and adaptable. Finally, he emphasizes the importance of lifelong learning with passion projects such as a TED talk and his book. He also reads a lot of both fiction and non-fiction to get ideas. He has recently been focusing on the intersection of human and artificial intelligence. Finally, he suggests taking long-term time off to increase learning capacity.

Timestamps

04:13 Josh Leibowitz on His New Book, Parenting MBA 

11:05 Mentorship and Mentor Characteristics 

12:59 Parenting Strategies for Raising Successful Children 

16:46 Branding, Balanced Scorecards, and Parenting 

21:33 Raising Balanced and Compassionate Children 

24:38 The Benefits of Being a Vacation Superhero

33:46 Lifelong Learning and Choosing Books to Read

Links:

Website: https://www.parentingmba.com/

CONTACT INFO:

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

Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Further episodes of Unleashed - How to Thrive as an Independent Professional

Further podcasts by Will Bachman

Website of Will Bachman