The Topline: Seeing the Bright Side

It's never easy to work and raise kids, but Doug Ulman and his wife Amy Grace are making it work while seeing the bright side of both worlds. Doug is the CEO of Pelotonia, a massive annual fundraising bicycle event that went virtual in 2020 while still raising funds for The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - James. We caught up long enough to hear Doug's thoughts on combining work and fatherhood in the pandemic and beyond.

What's your scenario right now with kids and work and home and school?

Doug Ulman: We have two kids. They're seven and nine, first grade and fourth grade. Currently in hybrid schools. So they go to school two days a week and they're home three days a week.

My wife and I are home. So I'm working from home, I go into the office once every other week for an hour or two, just to do a few things. But for the most part, we are in our house and we are serving as educators as well as trying to further our careers.

It's hard, it's challenging, it's exhausting. And yet, I'm an optimist. And the silver lining is spending this much time with my kids has been remarkable. I feel like I know more about what they're learning. I feel like I'm more active in their school. And so, as somebody who is always looking for the silver lining, that is it. But that doesn't mean it's not totally overwhelming and exhausting. Trying to keep track of schedules and the like has been stressful.

I think it is so stressful because school is different than when we went. Right?

Doug Ulman: Totally. I mean, they have to keep track of so many things, even in the elementary grades, in terms of their schedules and their work and their technology. In some ways I think this will benefit them in the long run, because their maturity level and need to be on top of everything is dramatically increasing in some ways. Again, I'm trying to see the positives of it long-term, but in the short term, it's been extremely stressful. We're fortunate to have our health, a place to live, food on the table, computers, etc. We talk almost every day about those who are not as fortunate.

In your work from home day, do you get to work a full day in a room with a closed door? Or is it not that clean and easy?

Doug Ulman: Some days it is, some days it isn't. We made a rule in our house that our kids could come in whenever they want. I felt like we had to do that because otherwise it was too hard for them to know what my schedule is. Our son, Sam, loves that he can come in and see dad whenever he needs to. It's become part of the norm for a Zoom call to have kids walking by and coming in.

It's created a little bit of normalcy. But yes, I am in a room with doors that close and have some privacy. And to be honest, I get really bored being in this room all day, so I like going to see the kids or getting out a little bit and trying to get outside if I can as well.

Can you tell us about Pelotonia?

Doug Ulman: We started Pelotonia 12 years ago. It's an organization that exists to fund lifesaving cancer research. And we have been the great benefactors of a community that has been so generous over the last decade. Collectively, this community has raised more than $217 million for cancer research. 100% of which has gone to cancer research because of our generous sponsors who underwrite all the overhead.

But the interesting thing is that most of the money is raised through a massive three-day weekend, which includes a bike ride, a festival, parties, and volunteering. We weren't able to have that big event in 2020, so it's really thrown our work in a bit of disarray.

We went into lockdown in March and your event is normally August, right? When did you feel like you got your arms around what it would be like in 2020?

Doug Ulman: Correct. We were lucky because of our close relationship with Ohio State University and The Medical Center. We had a lot of insights early on. The physician scientists there were telling us, "Look, none of us know where this will go, but it's not going to end anytime soon." And so, in March and April, when August felt like a long way off, they were saying, "August is right around the corner." And the hard part for us was not making the decision to change course, because we made that very early.

The hard part was the psychological disconnect for people who we all wanted to look forward to something, we wanted to be able to say, "Gosh, I hope that in August, I'll be on my bike with thousands of people raising money for cancer research." We didn't want to sort of dampen that hope and that approach, but we also wanted it to be realistic.

The Chief Medical Officer at the Ohio State University Cancer Center said to me, "Doug, it takes hundreds of police officers, doctors, nurses, paramedics, EMS, to execute the Pelotonia weekend. You are not going to get their attention at any point in the coming weeks and months, because they are inundated and overwhelmed." I hadn't thought about it from that perspective, but he was exactly right. And so, we pivoted and made the choice to go with a sort of virtual approach and it worked out great. It was different and dramatically so, but it was the right decision. We're excited for 2021.

How aware were your kids that you were making this big change? Did you talk to them about the decisions?

Doug Ulman: We did, we talked to them a lot. Early in the pandemic, one of the challenges was information was changing so quickly. As hard as it was for us, I think for kids to think two, three, four months ahead is challenging. I remember my daughter at first, it was about her birthday, which was the end of May. "Will I be able to see my friends on my birthday?" And then it was, "Will I be able to go to camp in July?" These were all big life moments for her way before Pelotonia in August.

I remember the questions around, "Well, it's outside. Why can't we be outside riding our bikes? Or what if we all just wear masks?" And so, it was sort of an evolution of the discussion over time. Whereas now, they're so used to grabbing their masks when they go outside. They're fully on board with the way life is right now. And they've been super resilient.

How have your children impacted your career arc?

It's interesting. I love what I do and it doesn't feel like work. People have said to me over time, "You're a workaholic and you work all the time." But it really doesn't feel that way because I'm so passionate about the mission that we're on. I've tried to show that to our kids, to say, "Look, when you love what you do, it's really easy to go all in." And yet, I don't want to miss being with our kids.

The pandemic has been an interesting juxtaposition. In ordinary times I would be at events three, four, five nights a week, fundraising events, community events, etc. And for the last seven months, I've had none of that. I've been home every night and have dinner every night and it has been awesome. I don't say that lightly, because I realize that comes from a place of privilege, being able to work from home and being able to be with my family.

But it has really changed the way I look at certain things. I'm also really proud that our kids know what I do, and they are very supportive of it. Last fall, I was going on a trip leaving in the morning and our daughter was at the breakfast table and she said, "Dad, I wish you didn't have to go to Arizona today." And I said to her, "Oh, I wish I didn't either." And she said, "But I want you to go because you're trying to save people's lives." And I cried the whole drive to the airport.

I thought, "One, I don't want to leave them. But two, if she's learned that, then I feel really good about how we've exposed them to the work that we're trying to do."

So, what would you say to other working parents right now who are trying to help their kids understand?

Doug Ulman: I think there's just so much change. My advice is always to be transparent and to be open and to communicate and over-communicate. I think that's what we found through this changing dynamic. It's hard, because our son, the other day, I was actually going to my office just for an hour. And he said, "You don't have to go to work." Because to him work is here now. Why would I have to leave?

The shifts in the mindset of kids happens quickly. "Dad works at home now." In his mind, why would I ever go back? I guess my advice is the communication and the transparency and trying to take advantage of the time, if we can, because it seems like it's maybe a break in the sort of frenetic pace at which many people have lived.

Not that this isn't stressful, it is, but it's in a different sort of context than the rush hour traffic, or the rushing around town, or the event-to-event that many people go through.

What are the conditions you need around you to inspire you and make you feel creative to have your best and highest ideas coming out?

Doug Ulman: Exercise is a big one. Just being able to get outside and move allows me to think differently. On days when I don't exercise in the morning, I'm less creative and less innovative. I think for our organization, during this time, the removal of all the traditional expectations was so helpful.

Historically, sometimes when organizations are fortunate enough to realize success, they start to think about what others will say. Sometimes they become more risk averse. I think when everything changed so dramatically this year, it actually freed up our entire team to say, "Gosh, we don't have to do it that way anymore. Why have we been always thinking about it that way? We can do it differently and not worry about what anybody would say," because all of the expectations have been re-imagined.

I've been thinking a lot about how do you keep that context? How do you facilitate an environment that removes those external stresses or barriers or expectations to let people do their best work and be as creative as we know they can be?

Does your wife, Amy Grace, have her creativity conditions around her right now?

Doug Ulman: She's a very creative person. Interestingly, she has been more creative over the last six to seven months than I've ever seen. In fact, last night, I just read her new children's book, which she just finished.

That is a project that she just knocked out in the last few months. As we speak now, she is finishing some pottery, because she loves pottery. I feel like I am the least creative one in the family. I think in some ways we have less time today, but we have more time for things that are critical, because we're not filling our lives with things that either we were expected to do or there was some reason that maybe we didn't want to prioritize. I feel like we have more control over our time today than we did nine months ago, which allows her and others to be more creative.

Is there anything the two of you have decided just to let go of, not worry about, not care about in this new normal?

Doug Ulman: I feel like we're still busy, but we're not running from thing to thing to thing, and that has been remarkable. We've actually added meditation to our lives, which is something that we sort of one-off here and there, done. But that's been something we've been doing together almost on a daily basis, which has been great. We didn't prioritize it before because we were exhausted doing everything else. So that's one thing we've added.

What have we taken away? I think just the pace of running from one thing to the next. There's been more downtime, which I've never enjoyed historically. I'm starting to come around to that, time to read.

I need to be scheduled every hour of every day. That's just the way I've been wired and that hasn’t gone away, but I've started to appreciate it... I'll give you an example. I write handwritten notes every day and it's something I've done for years. I try to write five cards a day. During the pandemic, almost daily, I will walk about three quarters of a mile to to the nearest mailbox and I will drop the cards in.

Historically, I would have seen that as a total waste of time. I don't have time to walk there and back. I'll drive or I'll go to the office and drop them off. Now, whether I make a phone call or listen to a podcast or something on the walk, it's just fresh air and it's time to get outside. The pace just seems to be a bit slower than it has been in the past.

Is there anything that's overwhelming in all of this?

Doug Ulman: Every day. I have had more anxiety and stress in the last year than I have ever had in my life, and I'm a cancer survivor. I've gone through lots of different challenging times in my life and my career. So, this is not all rosy. There are days when I'm staring at a screen and I start to almost feel like I'm going to have a panic attack. It's just thinking about the overwhelming nature of the world and the uncertainty, and not knowing when this phase of our lives will change or evolve.

That's a really challenging piece of this. The dishes pile up, the laundry piles up, we're rushing to figure out what are we going to have for dinner, what are we putting on the table. I tend to focus on the positive, but the mental health aspect of this period is challenging both for adults and kids, honestly.

One of the things we saw with the kids a few months ago was really related to the uncertainty. And it was just related to mixed messages. "Well, why can we do this, but we can't do that?" And there was so almost like a disappointment or a frustration that came from not understanding the rules or the guidelines, because they were changing. It was hard for adults to deal with that, much less kids who were processing all this information.

Early on, a lot of the behavior was a reaction to not understanding why. Now, I think they've gotten into a great cadence, but you still see different behaviors in the community and in organizations, and that causes confusion. “Why is so-and-so allowed to do this?” There's that debate and discussion all the time. It's been an opportunity to have a lot of open dialogue. I can't imagine that nine-year-old or seven-year-old's mind having to navigate these changing situations and scenarios.

I think what you said earlier about the transparency is the only way we can help them at this point, since we don't sometimes know ourselves.

Doug Ulman: The other thing is we've seen our kids become very frustrated. At one point in the summer, there was an article my daughter read that basically said, "If everybody wore masks, we could open schools on time." She got really angry, because she wanted to go back to school. She said, "Dad, I don't understand. I see these people outside; they're not wearing masks. Why doesn't everybody just put on a mask?"

It was a good learning for her about behavior. To her, it was very simple. In some ways I was really proud of that, because it showed her, "Hey, we are actually in more control of this than we think. And we could make a big impact." But there are those ups and downs, those moments when kids hear things or are exposed to certain things.

If you were designing a T-shirt right now for working parents to wear loud and proud, what would it say?

Doug Ulman: It seems like overused, but it would either say, "We're in this together" or "I can do this." The positive reinforcement of you're not alone and you can do it. We’ve got to stay positive. Otherwise I think we can take ourselves to a much worse place mentally.

That an important “rah-rah” speech that we all need right now. I want to thank you very much for your time, but especially thank you for your honesty. I appreciate always getting the parent perspective, the professional perspective, and talking about mental health, which is so important. And I'm grateful to you for broaching all of those topics with us today.

Doug Ulman: Thanks for the opportunity.

Yeah, absolutely. And good luck.