Dad and Company
Join hosts Jacob Espinoza and Dylan Schmidt as they explore the joys and challenges of modern fatherhood. Each episode features candid conversations about parenting, work-life balance, and personal growth. Dylan and Jacob share their own experiences as dads and welcome guests to discuss topics like bedtime routines, discipline strategies, and building strong family bonds. Expect honest talk, practical advice, and a supportive community for dads at all stages of the parenting journey.
Dad and Company
Building Businesses and Raising Kids With Colin Landforce
Welcome to the season finale episode of Dad and Company!
In this final episode, we're talking with Colin Landforce about:
- How he balances running multiple businesses while being a present father
- His approach to teaching entrepreneurship to his 5-year-old daughter
- The value of building things and following your passions
- And much more!
Learn more about Colin:
Website: https://landforce.co/
I won't deny it, I'm a straight rider that is a throwback.
Speaker 2:That was a good era.
Speaker 2:You know some would say the best like west coast really came and just made things sound incredible, got people fired up to be in California and me in Oregon. I felt like I kind of jumped on that energy a little bit. We started repping the West Coast a little bit harder, just hit after hit after hit coming out of the West Coast. This is before Atlanta took over hip hop. You know that was a special moment. Let's go. Let's go. Are we gonna talk about diss tracks? Do we want to do that?
Speaker 1:let's I mean we can, we can lean into it.
Speaker 2:I don't know how deep down this rabbit hole we want to go because I could literally talk about battle rap for like a podcast. I could have a new podcast just talking about battle rap, so just maybe, maybe we'll turn this back around, just keep the focus on dad and. Or I could have a new podcast just talking about Battle Rap, just Battle Rap. Maybe we'll turn this back around, just keep focused on dad and company stuff.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you this, Jacob how do you manage your ambitions as a writer?
Speaker 2:It is a. I didn't even understand the reference until just now, so thank you for circling it back. I think it's keeping things in context it is. I think it's having those moments of just acknowledging there are going to be different seasons where you're gonna have to turn up the heat and earn, like if you're starting a business, it's going to require probably more time and resources and just kind of you understanding the decision you're making.
Speaker 2:A conversation I have with clients a lot it's a conversation I've had with my coach as well is what you don't want to have happen is you're so focused on climbing a ladder that you don't even stop to check what building you're on.
Speaker 2:Like you don't want to wake up every single day, just so focused on getting to the top of this ladder, that you get to the top of the building and and then you look around like this wasn't even where I want it to be, because I think a lot of us we kind of there's a risk of ending up in that place if we're not intentional about the time, what we're spending our time, where we're spending our energy, but if we just take those moments to look around, make sure we're in the right place, make sure our priorities are in check, we reduce the risk of that happening and we can really build lives that we are proud of.
Speaker 2:You know, prioritizing the things that are important to us, not worried, not being as worried about what people around us think, and I think that's the important piece. Like I feel like it's okay to be ambitious, it's okay to work really hard, it's okay to have seasons where you're going to have to put in a lot of hours, but you also need to make sure you're spending time with the people that mean the most to us. If that's a partner, that's your kids but also making time for yourself, which is the hardest part. I have a quote on my wall that came from a conversation yesterday I don't do the things I need because all my energy is spent providing what everyone else needs, and for a lot of dads, I feel like we end up in that place, like we're so focused on being there for everybody else we forget to do the things to fill up our own cup, which allows us to not be as effective for the people around us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's that classic dad-ism Families all doing their thing and the dad just wants to, like, nap on the couch or whatever you know, and I think a lot of that probably stems from probably just giving, giving, giving, giving, and then dad doesn't have his moment or he just wants to watch sports and kind of check out, you know, and I wonder how much of that just comes from not giving yourself enough what you need during the the week 100 like that.
Speaker 2:One trip, family trip every year is not going to be enough to like maintain the relationship with your kids like you need to be consistently like making deposits and making time for them for sure yeah, and in yourself, don't know.
Speaker 1:We associate ambition with like work and career and growing and making more, like that's ambition, but then it's like, yeah, how ambitious are you with your family, with your friends, with yourself?
Speaker 2:How ambitious are you with yourself? I love that. Yeah, that's great. Drop the mic, dylan. Drop the mic.
Speaker 1:Who are we talking to?
Speaker 2:Who are?
Speaker 1:we talking to right now? What?
Speaker 3:is this, is this mic on.
Speaker 2:Right now, dylan's crushing. What are we doing?
Speaker 1:ready to just throw it all away and just become a yes a poet?
Speaker 2:yeah, you should. Yeah, for sure, I think that would be. There's a question that I ask often, just on dates generally, but like, if there's like a job, if you could do any job that money wasn't, like money was no object, you could do any job, what would it be? And then I'm always like, okay, what's my answer gonna be? And I think it would be, I would just be a poet, I would just write and like observe things and like put it down on paper. So I think we're in a similar space there. My friend colin lanforce he would just keep building things. I know that for a fact and it was awesome hearing his perspective on how he balances things and just to kind of. I don't think I've ever had this specific conversation with him. He's been a good friend of mine for like literally going on 20 years now 20 years a long time.
Speaker 2:So we both got to know each other in the music world like he used to be a dj, I was a rapper. He had a friend that was like got he, it's pretty. He did pretty well on youtube for a while. He's trying to grow a rap career. Um, he was managing him. So we've kind of known each other in a few different circles of life and have kind of, you know, stayed in contact through it all. But he, uh, he's always just been a really supportive person, like is always available to provide feedback and honest thoughts and he's a super smart person, you know. So it's always just. I really always value his opinion a lot. And then these last few years, I think really things have really been clicking for him on the creator side for sure.
Speaker 1:So it's awesome hearing him talk about how he just balances things do you mind sharing like a little bit about his like, uh, for people that don't know about what he does, because it is, I know it's kind of like a lot yeah, so on the creator space, he uh, he's been creating short form content not that long, probably a year, but he's like one of the bigger golf influencers now.
Speaker 2:He talks a lot on like how to create a golf brand and he started a cohort, with a couple of friends as well, called cut 30, which is similar to the space you're in, where they're kind of guiding you through the process of creating short form videos that connect. But he's a president of letterman, which is a consumer cannabis product company based out of portland um, it's ltrmn, that's how you spell it. So he does. He has this full job, full-time job as well. In addition to that, and he's always just like building things on the side as well, he'll get like interested and like how will this work? And like find a way to put things together and see how he can earn you know different ways creatively online.
Speaker 2:His wife has a direct to consumer brand that she runs, so they kind of have this cool like entrepreneurial family. So he's always doing a lot and I always kind of like have trouble wrapping my head around like how are you making time for all of this stuff? But I love like one of the big takeaways from this episode I had is just like follow your passion. Like don't be afraid of leaning into things before you have all the answers. You don't necessarily need to have everything figured out, like if you're excited about something, like lean in, test it, you know, see what happens, and I feel like that's. That's a cool lesson we all can learn from.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:Here's our conversation with colin landforce I wanted to talk about how are you balancing everything? Because people think I do a lot, like I have that conversation with people often and they're like how do you do so much? And then I look at somebody like you who I feel is like 10 X the output of what, what I'm doing, and man, like what is that? What does that even look like for you?
Speaker 3:I mean, how do I do? It is probably like in a pretty mediocre fashion is the honest answer to that. In a lot of ways, I don't really think about it as balance. I had like one run in my career where I was like, all right, I'm going to focus on this thing from a like working creative project perspective and see if that works out and see if that has the outsized results that may come from being focused.
Speaker 3:And I did that and the world is complicated, so that one didn't get me rich either and I kind of said, all right, I need to like just go back to what makes me happy and I think at this point I'm 37, like what makes me happy is like hanging out with my people, which is my, my wife and my daughter, and like building shit. Uh, I think working on whatever I want to work on right exactly now is like a core part of the building shit component and I don't know it's not a balanced thing. It's like I'm with my people or I'm making stuff and I make, make a lot of stuff, and that's just how I am.
Speaker 2:I love that that look behind the curtain, because I think so many people are focused on how you optimize your day as productive as possible, like set your calendar up and like what time do you have to get up in the morning. But in reality, like, if you're in a place where you're building things, you can legitimately just decide. Like what I'm excited about right now is what I'm going to work on, because, outside of the content creation which you have just been crushing, now you have the cut 30 cohort which you're spending a lot of time on and your group is so engaged in that cohort as well. There we go, give this man his flowers, give this man his flowers. Like, uh, your, your whole crew is so engaged in that cohort like anybody that joins. Like you're super hands-on, which you know is time intensive as well. But you're also running a company. Like outside of all of this, and I think people that don't know you maybe don't even realize that that's part of like.
Speaker 3:What you have in your world is like running a big you know a big cannabis company in oregon well, yeah, I mean not big, I think it's like 28 or 30 people and I think with that, like I have the luxury of like I've been doing this for a long time. I'm very process oriented, so I don't actually run this company like I make sure that it stays on the rails. I think, largely in terms of like a bandwidth and time thing, it's very, very, very manageable because we've got a great team. That's kind of a dodge of that.
Speaker 3:But process baby build the system, build the business or should set out to like create a job for themselves, and I think that, uh, that is not what we've done here and it's not what we plan on doing, and that allows me like my hands-on tactical energy is spent like in this business, is spent like working on new products and like very specific things, not on running the business. I think my leadership, energy and presence is like the important part of that aspect.
Speaker 2:Fire. I love that. How many kids?
Speaker 1:do you have, by the way? Presence is like the important part of that aspect fire.
Speaker 2:I love that how many kids do you have?
Speaker 3:by the way, one how old? Uh, she turned five today happy birthday.
Speaker 2:Let's go, let's go.
Speaker 1:How like do you want because you probably want to teach right like how you're doing it, because it's so different than having a job that you show up like a nine to five does she just watch you or do you like consciously try to show her how you do different things? I know, five is obviously like still so young, but how do you do it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, we started our affirmations on day zero, so five is not too young, I mean. I think, like entrepreneurship is my path, right. I think that in that, hopefully, there are a lot of things that she can learn from me and from her mom out of our entrepreneurial activity that will be useful for her whether she's an entrepreneur or not. But we, we talk about how we're builders like constantly. You know, obviously I use that in the context of building businesses or whatever project, but for us that manifests in like building a good foundation on the magnet tile tower that we're building and, uh, we connect those dots like crazy.
Speaker 3:But again, it's like more on the like, a thematic level, like I, like you know, I've been telling her she's a good problem solver and a fast learner since day zero, because I think those are, those are things that will be valuable, like no matter where she takes her life and I think, importantly, because those are things that can't really be proven wrong, right, I never tell her she's smart because, like she going to have moments where she feels like she's an idiot and I think, like that, that kind of, that kind of compliment only goes so far.
Speaker 3:But if you know, you're a fast learner and a good problem solver, even in those moments you feel like you're an idiot. You can, you can power through and sort things out. So, like I really like trying to it back to those kind of basics and then from a possibility standpoint, I don't think a whole lot about gender roles in my life, but it's very important to me that she knows that her mom is an entrepreneur, much more so than she doesn't go to the office like dad does, and I think that's a very important distinction for her, at least in my eyes.
Speaker 2:I love it and there's an infamous I think it was an Instagram story where Kelsey, colin's wife she has the e-com business and Cece's packing orders and Colin's like, what are we doing on Saturday? She's like packing orders and it was just a fire moment of her just stepping into the business and being excited about it.
Speaker 3:A couple of weekends ago we were all in the backyard and her mom and I were working on ads for her mom's business and Cece wanted our attention. She walked up and she's like, ah, you guys are always up to something, and it was. It was. It was another pack and orders moment. It's like, yes, that's what we do around here.
Speaker 2:And I think it is. It is interesting Like that conversation. I'm curious how you look at this Cause. For me sometimes, like it would be kind of hard for me to like watch my kids not become business owners, like I want them to have that sort of mindset. Um, I love that you acknowledge like we can't really pick our kids destiny, like whatever they do, we're going to support them. But would it be, would it be kind of challenging to see her just grow up and have like a regular job? Or have you already embraced yourself? So that's, that's a possibility.
Speaker 3:I haven't thought that much about it. I think, like I don't know, it may shift as she gets older. My thought process with her mom is, like you are this extremely valuable person and it's in our family's best interest to harvest that value in a way that, like a job, is never going to with her mom. I'm not sure that that shifts as she grows up and becomes a real person. I think my dad is a business person, not an entrepreneur at all. My mom is a public school teacher, so I don't think there's really anything that I can do and I think I just come back to these core principles.
Speaker 3:I guess, if you will, I feel very lucky to be as blindly confident and capable as I am and I think about what. What fostered that in my parents a lot. Actually, I guess I started thinking about it you know when, when my daughter was on her way, and think about it pretty much every day now, and those things are like this, this, like pretty blind support and and like these core values of like do what you say you're going to do, and and uh, and remember, remember who you are and who you represent, and like besides that, like whatever you're doing is amazing and we got you Um, and so that's like that's what I try and give her and who knows what she'll do with it. I like I don't care, you know she'll, she'll. I would be surprised if she doesn't end up like creative and and making things and kind of taking, taking the world into her own hands.
Speaker 1:but we'll see. That's her deal. Yeah, uh, but when you didn't have your daughter, all the uncertainty that comes with making any business decisions when you had your daughter, like, have you noticed looking back over the past five years that how you've made decisions has evolved, matured or just different at all? Or is it kind of the same game plan that you always been running?
Speaker 3:I think it's the same. Honestly, I'm pretty like I'm reckless maybe not the word I'd use publicly, but I like have this disease where, like I know that if I was naked with $0 in a field tomorrow, like my only problem is how mad my wife would be. So I like I don't. I'm risk averse and I honestly don't think it has. I think it has on the micro where it's like my. You know, for me the hours of like 7 to 8.30, because I do mornings with my daughter, so like 6.30 to 8.30 and then like 5.30 to 7.30 on the smallest scale possible. There's got to be a really good reason that I'm doing something that's not being around the house with them during those hours, but not in the grand scheme. That's really a reflection of me, though I think I'm a bit of a moron, for better or for worse.
Speaker 1:You need that, like not being too risk.
Speaker 2:averse you, he not gonna have no risk, no reward, right yep, amen yeah, I think for me it did like force me to turn the like when I stepped into the entrepreneurial world full-time, as like recently divorced, still have my kids, it's like I gotta be like full steam ahead or it's not gonna work.
Speaker 2:If I'm half-assing anything, it's not gonna work and then I'm certainly to fail. So, like, even if this is wrong, I have to be so fully committed into this wrong decision because there's no way it's going to be right if I'm like half committed into anything and I do think a lot about like what example am I setting for my kids? Um, what are the risks involved if I lose my house? Because like that's a very real deal when you're in business, like things could go sour, like you could like lose a lot and it's just kind of part of the process, especially as you're just getting started. But if you don't get out of your comfort zone and take those risks, like nothing great can ever happen. And for me I feel like I never want to one set that example for my kids.
Speaker 3:But I also don't want to live a life of regret where I can look back like man, what could I have done had I applied myself? Yep, I mean, I think risk is all relative, right. So, like I'm never, like I maybe was doing ballsier things before I had a daughter in terms of like things that could have like a long-term, like a long-term impact, but like there's very few decisions that I could make today that, like Matt, like have a longer term impact than more than like a few weeks or a month, like negatively speaking, right. Like I'm not betting the house on anything, why? Like that would be stupid, right, and I think that like maybe more so is the case.
Speaker 3:Like I was more apt to like drive myself into personal credit card debt while I'm like hustling on a business before I had CC, but even then those are all like very had cc, um, but even then those are all like very, very short-term things, um, uh, anything that's in this like fairly trivial. We're all like competent people. The worst case scenario, and certainly any of the three of us and most people I know, is like you just go get a pretty good job for sure like like yeah, there's not that big a risk to be taken.
Speaker 3:Or not like triple leveraging the mortgage in order to buy commercial real estate in a volatile market. Like Like I wouldn't do that yesterday and I'm not going to do it tomorrow either.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the big like. To me the risk almost seems more like time, like if it's going to require my time that I can't have. I have a similar thing in the mornings and then the evenings where I'm like I just that's the time where I want to be with my daughter. When you say and you both actually said this like a question for both of you, it's kind of deep and introspective here, but full steam ahead, like you both just push through, what does that look like during those times when you're with your kid?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I definitely. I think about this a lot. I think about the number of mornings, in particular, that I have, um, because done mornings with her since as soon as it no longer required mom. I think deeply about the fact that there's probably a thousand of these left right, something in that, and that it'll shift over time in terms of what that looks like and whether or not a morning qualifies as what it currently is, doesn't qualify as as what it currently is, but, um, I think about this a lot and I think the biggest thing that I try and do is when I have the moment, during those, during these times when I'm like with her and trying to be present, where I need to go and like look at a thing.
Speaker 3:Like I tell her, like my main thing is like we're not here and I'm checked out, and like you're not actually experiencing this, I'll be like, hey, I need to, I need to put focus on this for a minute and talk about a thing, and then I'm going to be back right here with you building these blocks or whatever, and I think that that holds me much more accountable rather than being able to like, oh, I need to look at this and just kind of like drifting away and all of a sudden it's been 20 minutes. It just like gives me some framing and it makes sure that she knows that I'm not going to just be zoning out. Sometimes she'll catch me If I get carried away. She's going to be like dad, you said it'd only be a minute. I'm like all right, cool, cool, cool, because I think I'm like anyone else where it's like you can absolutely get distracted by these things, god knows, with business or work or whatever else.
Speaker 3:The business that SP mentions Cut30, this course business that especially is very labor intensive on us, the founders, right now from a Slack feedback perspective, and that's the biggest threat, I think, to my personal time is that thing, because at any moment that could go off and I need to make sure that those customers are basically getting what we promised them. But that's the same story. I'm trying to physically disconnect from my phone some and then, in those moments when I need to just like say it out loud so everybody knows what's going on, and like shift expectations temporarily, yeah, that's.
Speaker 2:That's a huge lesson there, especially I've noticed because I work primarily from home, and especially in summer, when my kids are here and, like the summer break for them, they want to hang out. So I have to let them know like I have meetings during this time. I need to get things done, like during these hours and then, like I'll be free from here till, like we can hang out and, you know, do what you want to do, and that does help so much because then they understand, okay, dad does want to hang out with us. I understand he has to like make money and make a living, um, but just like setting that expectation is so big where it's not me just avoiding them, it's just setting expectations.
Speaker 1:Here's what I got going on after that, like me and you like we're gonna, we're gonna hang out, because I'm looking forward to that yep amen you said that it's interesting too about the cut 30, because I feel like there's this uh misconception that a digital product fulfillment or service fulfillment you know like, oh, you just can sit off.
Speaker 3:But it's interesting to hear you because you also have the physical product that you're doing yeah, I mean, I mean I got a lot of stuff, but yeah, with the course, I mean, part of this is just like what that product is right now. It's very feedback intensive and I think that's going to mature and shift some. It'll always be present, but a little bit of what we're selling there is like look, when you join this, like me, us, the three of us are going to be giving you feedback on these things and we're very cognizant of that. That's not going to be forever, or certainly not in that capacity, and I think a lot of these types of businesses aren't actually like that.
Speaker 3:But for us, that business is the definition of we got together like we should do this. What if we gave ourselves 30 days? What would that look like? And then we went for it, and how we've bridged the gap with really a minimum viable product in place is this thing that doesn't scale. So a little bit of that is the nature of the beast, but it's definitely something that's going to be designed out of it over time, which is community managers. We have one community manager I'm not sure I guess that's what we'd call him right now and that'll increase over time.
Speaker 2:But yeah, how is the business going? Man Cannabis life. What does that relationship look like? Like being a dad heavily involved in the cannabis industry? Does that come up at all? Are you preparing for conversations in the future around that?
Speaker 3:I mean we all live on the West Coast right. There have been weed stores on the corner here for 25 years, so it's not on my radar, partially because I've been doing it so long, but I think it's pretty normal here.
Speaker 3:If anything, it peaks more interest than it should and at part it's not that interesting. It's like widgets. We make widgets. We put widgets on trucks 's. It's not too special. It is a bummer that like I don't have this, this office certainly. I think technically she can't come and and like hang out all day, but uh, uh, it doesn't really impact things. Otherwise, when I come home these days smelling really loud, it's like I smell like pineapple because we're making pineapple gummies. It's not like a lot of days, at least it's not like I smell like jacker air yeah, does it?
Speaker 1:does it impact anything from like a safety security standpoint of like thinking about stuff like that or no?
Speaker 3:I think it has in the past. But I think it's one of those things where there are a lot like a convenience store clerks probably just as likely to to run into some bullshit over a little bit of cashes, as we are, you know, I think, especially in the case because we're not retail like nobody knows this outside of these windows that I'm sitting next to, like nobody knows what's going on in here, and so it's pretty low attention from that standpoint. It ain't fancy, it ain't special.
Speaker 2:No, you are, you are fancy and you are special. And I'll say this, colin, I really appreciate you, man. Like anytime I reach out to Colin, he's always challenging me to think differently, think bigger, you know, to really have perspective on decisions that I'm making. And I do feel like a lot of steps in my life I've taken I wouldn't have taken without conversations that I've had with you, and it's just been a lot of fun watching your journey, you know, watching how you have you progressed over the last you know, 5-10 years, and it's always, it's always awesome having someone like you I can reach out to and just chat through an idea with. So I appreciate you, my friend. Likewise, some people would say I'm just kind of like a bully with opinions, but I like your spin on it better. Yeah, that's like the optimist and like the other side of the same thing. For sure I love it, man.
