[00:00:00] Donald Knight II: Work-life balance is being able to label all of the priorities in your life and allot the necessary time to make sure that they remain a priority for you.
[00:00:14] Priya Krishnan: Hello everyone and welcome to another bonus episode of The Work-Life equation. I'm Priya Krishnan, Chief Digital and Transformation Officer at Bright Horizons. 
[00:00:22] Paul Sullivan: And I'm Paul Sullivan, founder of the Company of Dads and your co-host on The Work-Life Equation podcast. Today, we're thrilled to welcome Donald Knight II, father and a commercially focused HR leader with a remarkable track record of driving financial results Business growth and asset value through innovative people strategies with experience living and working abroad. Donald has a knack for finding and optimizing talent on a global scale. He knows how to get the best out of people while saving cost and boosting performance. He's also going to break some news on our podcast today and tell us about his new job. Welcome Donald to the work life equation. 
[00:01:01] Donald Knight II: Paul. Priya.Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here. And. Very timely title for the podcast work life equation as if humans have not already tried to figure this out. So this is pretty cool 
[00:01:16] Paul Sullivan: First question Donald, you know your prolific user of LinkedIn is all of us know. It's a great way to connect Professionally, but one thing that sticks out to me in a very positive way About your profile is right there under your name You say that you're a father and you name your two children. What motivated you to highlight this as a, as a working parent and HR leader? 
[00:01:43] Donald Knight II: Yeah, great question. I would, I would say two things that kind of motivated me. I think the first one is so much of who I am as a human and the way that I show up for family, friends, or folks that I don't even know, my, my favorite title is being a dad, like it's something I've always wanted to be since I was a little kid, I thought it was pretty amazing to be able to see like, not only my own father, but other dads that were really active in their children's life. And I've always wanted to be one. So I think a part of it is just, I find so much joy in that part of who I am as a human and I think the second part of that is, So much when we meet strangers, people ask you what you do, but they're typically asking you that question because they want to know like, Priya, what is your occupation? And I was like I don't know if that's like my headline. Like if I'm not leading with the fact that I'm a father, I don't think you're actually getting to know who I really am as a person. These jobs, they come and go, but being a father is something that I'll always have that title forever. And it's I think it's my biggest responsibility. So letting people know that up up front that I'm a dad and then the calling out of my Children. That's really just because they're so important to me. And so, like, when you if you really want to connect with me, I want you to know the genuine side of who I am that supersedes what I may do from 9 to 5 or what title I may have. So that's the biggest part. I've kept it there, though, Paul, because I've had it. So many other leaders talk about the importance of showing up as parents in the workplace. And what does that look like? And particularly women have been the biggest champions of me keeping it there. And I've seen other dads flip their profiles as well to start listing off that either their dad or naming some of their children. So it worked out. So yeah, Avery and Daylen, very, very big parts of who I am as a human. 
[00:03:41] Paul Sullivan: That's great. And how old are Avery and Daylen? 
[00:03:43] Donald Knight II: That's the cool part. So they're in very different times time spaces. My son is 13,who believes he's 21. Yep. So he's a 13 year old middle schooler, rising eighth grader. And then my daughter is five months and she already runs the kingdom known as the house of night. So she's everything already centers around her. I'm absolutely wrapped around her finger. I know it. There's nothing I can do. I'm actually embracing that side. 
[00:04:16] Priya Krishnan: that's wonderful. It's the five month old already running the house. That's pretty cool. It's great. It was one of the first things I wanted as well. It's interesting. I knew I wanted to be mom first before I wanted to be entrepreneur, pilot, working, whatever. It was, it's, it's a calling and it's amazing that you've got that on. I'd love to know how being a working parent has shaped your professional life and what it means and how it's influenced you being a chief people officer, various organizations.
[00:04:52] Donald Knight II: Yeah, Priya, great question. The first thing I would say is my level of empathy for other humans is a lot higher than the average human, right? I mean, as a parent, there's definitely times where You know, my daughter could be crying where I remember when dealing was a baby and he was crying and I tried to figure everything out. And he's still crying. It's not a diaper. It's not food is could be teething. And there's nothing I can do. Or it could with my daughter. It could be thrush and there's nothing I can do. And so I think those things have made me more empathetic as a leader, not just because of the work life dynamic of being a parent and also being someone who works at an organization. I think I have that empathy for other humans. But just like. Regular day to day frustrations, knowing that people show up every day with so many things that are impacting them outside of the business and it impacts the way that they show up inside of the business and giving people that empathy or that grace period trying to understand where they're coming from. And all of these different dynamics that influence the way that we show up and are driving impact. So I think that the empathy part is very, very big for me. I think the second part, though, is in many ways, I feel like being a leader, the first gauntlet or boot camp for me was becoming a parent, right? Like, I have my son when I was in grad school. And so my wife and I, my wife's a pharmacist. We've seen our own leadership styles shift and evolve because of being a parent and trying to understand, like, Daylen's always in season, so getting him to and from football and to and from wrestling and to and from track and still helping him on homework, like the different context switching that we have to do throughout the day in just being a parent, it's so transferable to the workplace and trying to understand that. I keep talking to Priya and she's working on a big project, but Paul's trying to figure out how do we go close this acquisition. And Donald could be working trying to figure out how do I get home as quickly as possible because my six year old just got sick at school. Like context switching as a leader and that situational leadership I think is what Kim Blanchard would call it so I think it's made me a more well-rounded leader as well. 
[00:07:10] Paul Sullivan: Donald, hearing you talk about that and thinking about the age gap between your, your two 13 years, what was, You know, parental leave, like for you, you know, the, the first time around versus the second time around given, you know, how important parental leave is now for, for all parents, how did it differ between and, and Avery?
[00:07:33] Donald Knight II: Another great question. I would say, first of all, the amount of time that I was offered when I had Daylen is very different from the amount of time I was offered when we had Avery. Right. I think with Daylen, we were offered two weeks. I was working as an employee on labor relations specialist for the government department of defense specifically. And we had two weeks and Paul, to be honest with you, I never took it. I thought it was taboo to take Parental leave as a as a young person as a young parent and as a male, like I didn't have examples of men taking parental leave and, you know, what was fed to me was this idea of, like, climbing in your career and the importance of being present all the time. So I didn't take any leave with Daylen for better or for worse. I just did it. I think the better part of it was. I learned what not to do moving forward. The worst part is there's a lot of memories that my wife has with Daylen or my siblings have with Daylen when he was young. I had to see those things on replay. So the first time he laughed or the first time he tried food, I wasn't there. I was in the work. And I made myself a promise that, you know, if we were blessed with another child, I would change that moving forward because I never wanted to give that office the only example for people on my teams. And so I was a leader very early, early in my career. And I feel like I sent the wrong message. So with Avery, like I took the full 16 weeks. I've been very present with her. I, yesterday she tried avocados for the first time. So that's pretty cool and like her first time laughing was with me. Like I was like playing with, tickling her toes and she starts laughing and. Those types of moments. You just can't get those back. And so my hope is that for my teams that that they will prioritize when they're expanding their family, whether it's with adopting kids, fostering kids or, you know, having kids traditionally, like whatever way you find yourself in the parenthood. My hope is that they'll use my example as one of many leaders that shows them how to show up for their family first. 
[00:09:50] Paul Sullivan:  I love that avocado example has taken me back. I've got three daughters and at one point, Donald, I had clothes that I would wear around them because avocados, that's easy. They don't really fly that far away to the blueberries, strawberries, you know, Matt, that stuff really stained. And then that was that one set of clothes, then another set of clothes that I actually wear outside, which were, you know, free of all that. 
[00:10:11] Donald Knight II: There you go. Yeah. I'm a, I'm a big ice cream guy and I want an ice cream to be her first ice cream food. My wife told me there's no way that was going to happen, but I have a friend. Yeah, it wasn't happening, but I have a friend at my last company at Greenhouse, Christina. She's very big on avocados. So when Christina hears this, she will laugh because avocados her favorite food. And that was Avery's first, first food. So this is going to be fun.
[00:10:38] Priya Krishnan: And that you like it is the important thing. 
[00:10:41] Donald Knight II: Yeah, she did enjoy it. Yeah, that is, yeah. She did enjoy the avocado, so that was pretty fun. 
[00:10:48] Priya Krishnan: I'll flip my question. The last one was how has being a parent helped you be successful at work and as, you know, in your role in HR. How in your role in HR, and now that you're a working parent, one is the role modeling and the fact that you took 16 weeks off and that almost gives permission to younger people around you to do it is, is incredible. But in terms of other things that you've done to support people, both in your previous roles and, you know, in your upcoming roles, what, what is. What, what are the areas that you're truly intentional about? And a second part of that question is it's a multi-generational workforce. So there is equity of benefits that everyone is seeking. So how do you think about this as the workforce is evolving? 
[00:11:36] Donald Knight II: Yeah, two phenomenal questions. I think the first part I would say is being on people teams or what some of your listeners may call HR teams. I think the, the bar of excellence of demonstrating what it means to show up both for your family and for the business, that bar is a lot higher for us. I feel like if you see CHROs that, or chief people officers, or VPs, SVPs, doesn't really matter the title, if you see that part of the organization not prioritizing their family in a meaningful way, regardless of what policy or values you have, The learned behavior will be that they can't show up for their family. So I recognize that responsibility. And at least from my team, they know if they're sporting events or if you're, you're, your children are sick and you prioritize the business, that's a, that's a red flag for me. Like I want you to demonstrate to the organization that on the people team that we put the people in our lives. First. I think the other thing that I would say on that first part, Priya is, Trying to figure out how do we curate an environment where people can do their best work. You mentioned this on the second question, which is the benefits. We do have a multi generational workforce. And so I have to prioritize fertility benefits because humans are waiting longer these days to have children for a host of reasons, whether it's student loans, whether it's trying to figure out, can they afford a home down payment? There's a host of reasons humans are waiting to have children. And that's a global thing, right? Like if you go to Asia Pacific, there's actually certain countries right now where they're actually paying 70, 000 to families to have Children because just the birth rates are not what they used to be. And so knowing that fertility can be a headwind for many families and trying to make sure what does that look like? But also prioritizing the fact that people are living longer. So you have people working longer in businesses and trying to figure out how do you prioritize like lower testosterone or menopause? And what is those? What are those benefits even look like? And so I also think, you know, the people teams are at this great intersection of if I have to worry about is my medical coverage or the benefits that I need if they're not provided by the workforce or by the by my employer, then It's going to show up the way I, I create innovation or the way that I drive creativity, because if I don't, if I have to worry about those things, I can't show up focused on the business. And so I also think there's a, another added responsibility for people, teams, HR teams. And the way that we've tried to do that is like try to build almost like a benefit feedback loop from employees to really figure out what are the needs that we have and those needs change. And then trying to figure out how do we make sure that our benefits are reactive to the needs of the employees. I've worked at companies where the average age was 46 and those benefits are very different from the company I just left where the average age is 29. They're just very different, not, one's not better than the other one, but they have a different host of requirements, a different host of needs. And so trying to make sure that we constantly curate and modify the benefits that are needed for them to be able to thrive. That's what's important to us. So I don't really normally call those things benefits anymore. I call them essentials. If we give Priya, if we give all the essentials, they need to thrive, they'll do their best work. 
[00:15:16] Paul Sullivan: I'm going to sort of pick up on Priya's question, Donald. I loved her question. I loved your answer. You think about this idea of, of essentials but what's essential to one person may be different from the other. So as a Chief People Officer, you want to have a broad array. But I want to kind of take this down the, the avenue of sort of the, the different lived experiences that people have and people at different ages.And you were recently asked if, if the weight women have to carry in male dominant careers would ever be eliminated. And you answered the question. With some really insightful advice that your, your mentor gave you and your answers along the lines of in spaces where allyship is truly present, the weight is never eliminated. Instead, it's shared by those willing to stand side by side to carry such a weight. Talk about how people can become true allies when, you know, perhaps their experiences were, were vastly different, or even the, you know, the, the first time parent Donald versus the, the second time parent Donald in your experience. How, you know, can people become true allies? True allies of each other and stand side by side to carry that, that weight together. 
[00:16:27] Donald Knight II: You've done your research. That was, that's really good, Paul. He said, he said it as good as I did, if not better. I have a mom, I have a wife, I have a sister, and now I have a daughter. And while my daughter has not been able to communicate what those varying expectations or different experiences are my sister, my mom and my wife have. And I realized as a leader that the weight that they've been carrying is just, it's heavier than mine and the headwinds that they have to force, they're forced to address whether it's what, what time do meetings start in the workplace? Or how long do I stay? How do I continue to network, but I still have to prioritize my family? And what does that look like when you're thinking about extracurricular for kids? Do the kids suffer and they don't get any extracurricular or does your career suffer? And like all of these different, they call it emotional labor. And like the things that my wife has to think about. Unfortunately, it is unfair, but she thinks about things that I don't even think about. And we're both, you know, parents, working parents. And so I think as when you think about the lens of allyship, I think part of it is number one, like what behaviors am I demonstrating to let people know that I see the, the things that you have to traverse. I see some of the dynamics that you have to traverse and that in itself is very powerful. Like I'll give you, I'll give one for you and the listeners. My sister told me this. If she's walking down the sidewalk and a man is approaching her, women are more inclined to move out of the way before the man does. Which is crazy to me. So then once I start noticing it, oh my goodness. Like I like hop out of the way. I like I go above and beyond and it never fails. Whoever the woman is, that's approaching from the opposite direction. She feels more seen. And she typically smiles the way Priya is smiling right now. Cause it's like, oh my goodness, like this doesn't normally happen. Right. So that's what I mean by like, just default behaviors. What are your default behaviors that you're demonstrating in the workplace? When Daylen has a game, like, or my daughter has an appointment, that's on my calendar. Cause I want them to know that it's okay for it to be on their calendars. So the part of it is just like default habits and behaviors that you're demonstrating. I think another part of it is like the mentorship piece, which is like, how are you like coaching and consulting? leaders on your team. And it's not just pigeonholing for women, like coaching men, how to demonstrate this as they grow in their career, but also coaching women that it's okay to prioritize these things in your career as well. It's like the mentorship or the coaching piece. But the biggest piece for me is the sponsorship, which is like part of the way that I'm even like right now, like I just finished parental leave, you know, almost a month ago, and I'm transitioning into a new role at a different company. But I had sponsorship as well. I had leaders who was who were bringing up my name in rooms that my I was not physically present. And we're bringing me up for opportunities that I could not advocate for myself. And in this particular case, you know, Paul, like I've benefited from being on leave and having someone do that for me. And I had multiple opportunities that I could vet. I don't feel like we do that enough for mothers. Like, how do we make sure that parental leave is not viewed as a detriment to their career growth? And how do we make sure that the sponsorship that they've earned happens even when they're not present? And so I think that in itself, you know, between the behaviors, the mentorship, the sponsorship, to me, that's how you carry that weight. And I had a, I had a young lady tell me this on my team. She was like, you know, I'd never thought about putting the fact that I'm a mom on my LinkedIn profile. She was like, being a mom has never been viewed as an accelerant to my career. I had a colleague who was in our C level who told me that she intentionally would not put up pictures of her children in our office because she didn't want that to be viewed as a detriment to why she could be promoted. And so to me, I think even something as subtle as putting my kids on my profile is at least being viewed by some as an accelerant to like progressing in the workplace and allowing people to be both parent and leader. So that's to me is how you share that weight. And I'm sure there's a host of other ways that we can demonstrate that but that's, that's how I'm trying to do that at least. In my, in my small world of influence or sphere of influence 
[00:21:21] Priya Krishnan: And I love the fact that he said you jump out of the way, because what your sister said is absolutely true. And I'm sure every woman who's listening to this will, you know, will sort of come, will feel. A sense of empathy around how we do it. It's unconscious, almost and it's interesting that, you know, just the fact that you jump out of the way makes people feel like they're seen it just it brought the smile to the face. And it's true. We just don't realize that. That's what we do.  I actually among the set of things that I was reading  when in terms of what you've spoken about, Donald, one of the things you said is the fact that during COVID, I think. The people people's relationship with work and maybe people's relationship or reflection on life change and we do have a changing workforce and. 40 percent of our workforce by 2030 is going to be Gen Z, and expectations from Gen Z workers are higher. And, you know, you've spoken about the fact that we will have more Gen Z workers next year than we would have boomers, and they will be the largest part of the workforce. How do you, again, in the role as an HR leader or a people leader and as a father, think about how to support younger generation of younger gen folks within the younger generation and some of these things that they take a stable states like diversity, equity, inclusion, allyship. How do you foster a relationship that. Or an environment that allows them to thrive, you know, function well and find their work life equation, which is really what our podcast is about. 
[00:23:13] Donald Knight II: Yeah, Priya again. Phenomenal question. I think the I've been fortunate to work with a lot of folks that from an age perspective fall will fall within that generation. Right? The Gen Z. I'm also fortunate enough to have my youngest brother. Is Gen Z and as a result of when he landed on the planet, which he didn't get to control. And when I landed on the planet, which I didn't get to control, we just see the world differently. There were different defaults that occurred. One is like, I didn't grow up getting a tablet in school. He's always grown up having a tablet in Zoom. Zoom wasn't around when I was in school. Like that company hadn't even been thought of. Zoom is like his default. When he thinks of a meeting, he doesn't call a meeting. So he like calls them Zooms. So like there's different defaults. So I think the first thing that I've learned is seek to build credit with that generation, not critique that generation. Credit meaning take a genuine interest in what are some of the defaults that they've had to experience. As opposed to critiquing them why they do things very different from us, right? I think the other thing that I've learned is there's this value of collaborating with them to create. And what I mean by that is like, as a result of when my, you know, my brother and other folks in that generation landed, they do have a different level of savviness with different things. One would be like technology. And so I think automation, more automation will happen under their watch than ours, because. of how much that is their default and so as a leader, what that does for me is like, I try to play to their strengths and trying to figure out what are some of the things that I can learn more as a, as a leader. And then as it, as it relates to the environment, how do I curate an environment where their voice is heard? Like, As opposed to, you know, tell them why they have to conform. My grandfather, I lost my grandfather two years ago, but my, my youngest brother was able to meet him and they just like grew up in different times. And my grandfather worked for the same place for 25 years. The chances of my brother working in the same industry for 25 years, it's like so far fetched. And one's not better than the other one. They're just, it's just a different host of defaults. And so I think as leaders in the workplace. Whether it's trying to figure out how do we give them the essentials. How do we learn from them, but also like the in order to reach you have to in order to reach you have to be willing to learn. And I've been willing to learn from them on how their life is different from ours or how their defaults is different from ours. What I have also found though Priya is that for the most part we want genuinely the same things though, they just go about it differently. They want a sense of purpose and impact in the work that they do the same way we want a sense of purpose and impact. They want to be able to spend quality time with their loved ones, family and friends, just like we want to spend the quality time and they want to feel like they're contributing to something bigger than themselves the same way we do. How they go about it may be slightly different. And that's where I think we have to create, you know, room to understand that, to your point, their work life equation may look slightly different from ours. It's like my brother. is already older than the age when I first became a parent and he probably won't become a parent for quite some time just based on the way he's navigating or traversing his life and that's okay. It's my hope is that whenever he does become a parent that he'll view me as someone that he can learn from and how do we then make sure that he's at an employer that gives him The same opportunities that I was given when I was a parent. And so I think that's where we have to, we have to be more nimble and again, less critique because Lord knows that younger generations throughout the history of humans, older generations have done a phenomenal job critiquing those that come after them. I don't think we need more of that. I think what we need is more, more collaboration and more credit building with them so we can learn how we can reach them. 
[00:27:35] Paul Sullivan: Don, this is great. We're coming up on our, our, our three question lightning round at the end, but I want to at least squeeze in, you know, one more question on my end. And, and, and, you know, listening to you talk about the span between your grandfather and your, your younger brother I mean, that's sort of generational change that, that moves slowly. The person who worked at one company his entire life, the person who may work in various industries throughout his entire work career. That's, that's slow transformation. But the past, you know, four plus years since the, the COVID 19 pandemic, that's been fast change, or that's been things changing very quickly. And then employers and employees, you know, Having to adapt, sometimes doing a pretty good job at it, sometimes not doing a pretty good job at it. When you look at this from the perspective of, of an HR leader, of a, of a, of a chief people officer, you know, what are the things that you think employers could, you know, really focus on to have? A big impact and, you know, as a corollary to that, what are the things you think that, you know, employees who are mothers, fathers, caregivers in general, that those employees could focus on to have a better impact at work and in their own lives.
[00:28:45] Donald Knight II: I always try to break this down, Paul, to like, it's the most simplistic terms. So one of those, I think food is a universal language. I think music, dance are universal languages. And then I think often like, There's like universal symbols, like a traffic light is a universal symbol. You can go anywhere on the planet and see a traffic light. It means the exact same thing, even if you know how you define or how you say red, yellow and green, maybe different. And so for me, it's like, that's how I try to figure out, like, how as a leader, we're going to have to be able to traverse the next. You know, a few years or decade. I'll give you an example. I think there's three different skills that are paramount for leadership moving forward, and we don't talk about them enough. You talked about the rate of change. I think that means we have to build resiliency. I think in the past, to your point, the rate of change was slower, right? You think about from where we went from I mean, just look at the history of America. Like, right. It hasn't even been around that long. 1776 was like around the corner from now. It was, it was not that far back. And yet, if you look at the amount of change that has happened in the last 10 years, as opposed to the first 10 years from like 76 to 80, - 1776, 1786, the amount of change that happened in those 10 years hails in comparison. And so I think the resiliency of the rate of change is something we're going to have to instill in all humans, young and old. I talked about the empathy piece already, which is. To your point, like we got five different generations working in the workplace. And so having empathy with other people, knowing that their default habits, actions, and behaviors may be different from yours. I think it's the second one. I think the last one, though, is going to be around storytelling in the past. Like, you don't have the luxury of building a communications plan for a full year to roll out a new change, right? Like, you know, if Levi Strauss was around and I have a lot of friends that work there, but like, He could build out a whole communications plan around why you should go to Levi Strauss to buy pikes and shovels and blue jeans, like, no, like there's disruptors in in e commerce now that is trying to gobble up Levi Strauss market share and so like the nimbleness of around the organization. And then how you tell that story in order to compel Priya, Donald, Paul to continue to buy jeans from them is a lot higher. And I think that's where we have to get to. It's like the storytelling on how you communicate with different generations around the rate of change in order for them to be resilient and empathetic to drive companies, wherever you want to drive them. Those are the things that we didn't do in the past, or we call them soft skills. They're not soft skills anymore. These are some of the biggest human skills that I believe companies that are Thriving are instilling in their leaders and in their employees at a higher rate. And so that's why I think we have to, those things have to become more universally accepted similar to ice cream or dance or music or food. And I think when you start to see companies that are able to do that, particularly in a global setting where you might have offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, London, Paris, New York, Atlanta, Boston. If you are able to do that on a global, at a global level, I think that's where you'll start to see the humans inside of those organizations be way more resilient and be able to drive way more impact for the business.
[00:32:28] Paul Sullivan: That's great. Priya, should we go into our final three questions for, for Donald? Do you, do you think he's ready for these? He's done a great job so far. 
[00:32:38] Priya Krishnan: These, we've had some great answers on this to, so no pressure, but this is, you know, this is where you get created and you have some tough competition from previous podcasts post on this, on this podcast.
 [00:32:52] Paul Sullivan: All right, Donald, in your own words, define work life balance. 
[00:32:58] Donald Knight II: Work life balance is being able to label all of the priorities in your life and allot the necessary time to make sure that they remain a priority for you. And I think that's going to be different for everybody and so I often go to the blender, and if you label the blades in your life, like a blender, the most important things in your life as each blade of a blender, the goal is to keep the blender turning. And so you may have a lot more time to one blade than the other, depending on what season of life you're in. But as long as you can keep that blender turning, I think you'll have a pretty good work life balance. 
[00:33:36] Priya Krishnan: I'll remember the blender analogy. What is your go to way to unwind during the pressure moments when you're not leading at work or trying to handle couple duties or trying to feed avocado? What is your me time? 
[00:33:52] Donald Knight II: Me time? Well, a lot, a lot of my time right now is Avery, but my me time mostly is yoga and meditation. I have found that if I'm able to feel my cup first, That the rest of the world, including my family, can feed off the overflow. And so I have a pretty strict, strict meditation and yoga game in the morning, and I got about four mats over here. You can't see. And I even choose the color of the mat based on my energy in the morning. So yeah, yoga and meditation is. All about me. That's my me time. 
[00:34:28] Paul Sullivan: Fantastic. Alright, third and final question. As a father and a professional, what advice would you offer to fellow dads who are navigating the challenges of balancing career ambitions with family responsibility?
[00:34:43] Donald Knight II: That is a great question. I want to say for the listeners, they did not tell me these questions in advance, so this is pretty good. Paul, I'll say this: by the time this comes out, I would have started my, my new role as an SVP at Warner Brothers Discovery. And one of the reasons why I'm fascinated with those types of companies is because I have found that the art that they create is able to span multiple generations. Like your parents had their favorite cartoons. We had our favorite cartoons. Our kids are going to have their favorite cartoons or animated characters. I think the thing that I would tell fathers is something my grandfather told me, which is when your grandkids hear about your story, what do you want them to hear? And as a dad, like I want my children to know that I prioritize my dad title. I want them to know that I prioritize helping humans. Do some of the best work of their lives, regardless of what companies I work. I parked my time, talent, and treasure in and so for me, that's what I've been focused on. I've been focused on this story that I want to be said about me. And hopefully it's a very positive one. I'm sure there's definitely room for improvement. At least my wife tells me that, but my hope is that other dads will realize the responsibility and the opportunity that they have, and that they'll go write some pretty amazing stories. 
[00:36:09] Paul Sullivan: That's a fantastic. Thank you, Donald Knight, for being our guest today on The Work-Life Equation Podcast with Priya and Paul. 
[00:36:19] Priya Krishnan: Thank you, Donald. Clearly, you have like some amazing, you know, analogies that people can take away from. You know, all the best with your new role at Warner, and I'm sure you'll have equally amazing impact out there, and hopefully they create tons of little stories that you're proud to tell your grandfather about.
[00:36:39] Donald Knight II: I hope so. That is the hope, but for real, thank you both Priya and Paul for having me. I really appreciated this conversation.