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- Your Parents Are Smarter Than You Think
The two people on this planet you can trust the most are your own parents.
Father’s Day coming up Sunday (don’t forget!). I’m writing this blog to essentially get out of a buying a gift, absolutely genius move by me.
Parents have more than double the experience in life that you have. It took me 27 years to figure that out. I promise you, they will not let you down.
Mother in yellow, Father far right
The last 6+ months of my life have been filled with tough decisions, which I’ll breakdown below, and they were instrumental to helping me navigate through those situations.
I am lucky enough to have two healthy, loving parents in my life. Not sure what I’d do without them, my mother literally forced me to go to the mall a couple weekends back with her to buy clothes for my sister’s wedding that I never would have done otherwise. That’s neither here nor there.
Let’s get into it this week’s Diary…
The Scouting Report
Father – Dan “Durty” Healey
Started a manufacturing business in the late 1980s that climbed to over 170 employees that he recently sold in 2018
Post-sale, he became a Florida man with a MEANNN ponytail
Texts me on a daily basis asking for betting locks – which I have, just reply to these emails and I’ll provide (DAL / BOS over 213 total points tonight)
Celebrity Comparison: The Dude (aka The Big Lebowski) – fantastic movie if you’ve never seen
Mother – Rachel Healey
Momma got the double arms, sorry Pops
Born and raised in Boston and still a city girlie
Listens to Boston sports radio on a daily basis and talk sports better than you can
I 100% get my athleticism from her
Full-time Lawyer - imagine trying to hide your mischievous behavior in high school sneaking parties with a lawyer as a mother…
Celebrity Comparison: Sandra Bullock – a slightly intimidating, yet charming bad-ass
Side note: My parents got divorced when I was just 6 years old, and I have no recollection of them being together. My mom and my dad were quite literally separated by a single driveway living on the same street for 20+ years. They had a tremendous relationship and still to this day can go on vacations together, spend holidays as a fam and made a massive effort for the divorce to have zero effect on raising four children.
I am extremely lucky. I know this type of relationship is extremely rare for parents who are split up.
I am an Idiot
As stated in the scouting report, my father built and sold a very successful company in the aerospace defense industry. I used to work on the manufacturing floor in the summers in high school, not my definition of summer fun.
Following my college graduation, I wish I had leaned on my mom and dad more for early career advice. They probably would’ve been more adamant that I was never going to make it in the insurance industry.
After starting Morning Blitz in 2019, I don’t know why I never tried to have more business conversations with my father. I never gave him any credit and it was probably because when I tried to describe to him what a “meme” was, and he couldn’t figure it out.
Well Danny you idiot, there’s more important things in life than understanding the inner workings of social media. BUT, I was working in social media at ESPN and with Morning Blitz, so I figured their knowledge was useless to me.
The life lessons you learn from 30 years as a CEO/Founder and 30 years of putting bad guys before bars is far beyond the education Instagram Reels can provide you.
The Turning Point
We need to work on his short game, beard game strong though
When I merged Morning Blitz with TorchPro in 2021, my father was super helpful when it came to the negotiations of my contract regarding my equity position, terms and salary.
Although, he wasn’t very helpful during the three years I spent helping to operate TorchPro and grow the business. BUT… that was completely my fault.
I never asked questions.
Again, I didn’t see the relevance of building an aerospace manufacturing company to a sports media business model. IDIOT DANNY!
Flash forward to late 2023, I am finally beginning to open up my ears to the wisdom of my parents.
Leaving Morning Blitz behind and venturing off into the next step in my career was by far the hardest decision I’ve ever had to make.
My parents deserve all the credit when it comes navigating my decision making during that time period.
Choosing to go work with Shadow Lion, a sports media rocket ship with some INCREDIBLE projects currently in the works and co-founded by my childhood idol Tom Brady seems like an easy no-brainer move.
But it was more complicated than that.
You read the emotion in my farewell note to the Morning Blitz faithful. Also, leaving TorchPro was difficult. A start-up I had given my everything to with a group of guys I truly looked at as brothers.
My mother and father helped me see every angle and opportunity that was on the table calmly guiding me to the best decisions possible. They pushed me to have conversations with people I wouldn’t have typically had confidence in doing so with. They pushed me to stick up for myself in situations I would have normally folded.
There’s something about parents’ advice that never makes you want to listen. Do yourself a favor, just listen.
As I said at the top, parents are no doubt the most trustworthy people in your network. The humans that created you love you very much and want what’s best for you.
One day I hope my dumb-ass son will have the attention span to let me talk his ear off about all the life lessons that will come out in Danny’s Diary.
Time will tell!
Speaking of smart people, here are a few newsletters I read written by smart people to help me feel like I’m not an idiot. Again, I love newsletters and these one’s are GOLD! Take advantage and check them out…
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Thank you all for reading, hope you tell your parents you love them today!
Shoot a response to this email rating this newsletter 1-10. I can handle the heat.
See you next week.
Yours truly,
Danny Healey