How to balance parenting with success

Embracing parenthood comes with its own set of challenges and new parents often struggle to strike a balance between caring for the newborn and looking after themselves. For Shrini Viswanath, co-founder of a popular wealth management platform, becoming a father served as a motivation to embark on a lifelong and sustainable fitness journey. The personal transformation was not only aimed at moving towards a healthy way of life, but also boosting stamina and strength to support his newborn daughter through her various milestones.
In a conversation with TOI Lifestyle Shrini Viswanath opened up on his fitness journey, making conscious choices towards wellness, and prioritizing mental health.
Edited excerpts:
Your fitness journey and drastic transformation is truly inspiring. How did you manage to achieve this feat while balancing the intense demands of running a startup?
Parenthood was kind of dawning upon me, and one of the things that I wanted to do was ensure that I'm in good health and good shape to be able to spend quality time with my daughter. Obviously, being an entrepreneur, quantity of time may not be so much on my side, so I wanted the time I had with her to be high quality. Some of the things that I generally hear, people in my age group, talk about is make sure you don't have any back pain or that may happen because you have to keep carrying the child here and there. Or that you have to play for hours.
It looks like becoming a father was a big motivation for you to start with your fitness journey.
That was one of my big triggers. I think it's also colliding with the fact that we don't address mental, emotional and physical health as much. Everybody is busy, and looking at getting ahead in their career. We talk about mental health, but how do we also put that into practice? So I thought let me try to take something challenging, something big, and do it in a way that's sustainable. Because I now have another company under me, a startup, which is my daughter. It's going to take up a lot of my time. You cannot do something that's unsustainable, right? So that was my rule that I set. I need to first be in great shape to be able to run the business and also spend time with my family. Also, I wanted to do something that's sustainable, not something that's a quick fix or aggressive, unsustainable thing.
Can you share more details about your health and wellness journey, and the daily routine that helped?
The one thing that I prioritized a lot was nutrition and I did speak to a nutritionist because that's not something where I am an expert. I wanted to get some advice on what is the effective way to eat right and eat healthy. While my physique has improved, I didn't spend endless hours at the gym, I spent about two and a half to three hours a week.
The bigger thing that I changed was what I put in my body. I started eating home food, and whole foods - a little bit more vegetables and whole grains. I deleted food delivery apps from my phone. Most of the food available in the food delivery apps is just not very good from a nutrition perspective.
I made sure I was drinking enough water. I ensured that every day I was getting an adequate number of steps. And for that I didn't have to leave the house either. So that's also something that's sustainable.
How many steps do you take in a day and how?
I was shooting about 8000 steps a day. That was like on a good day. It wasn't honestly that difficult and I didn't have to go outside per se to achieve that. I just ensured I was not sitting for a prolonged period of time on my chair. Either I was standing or at least taking a walk during work.
Prioritizing your health and wellness especially becomes difficult with a newborn. How did you do that with your little daughter because even fathers are more actively involved in parenting these days.
It's honestly about prioritizing your time. My recommendation for people is that they should definitely get enough sleep. That's one thing I want to change in my journey - a little bit more structured sleep. That being said, I think the important thing in terms of managing a newborn is finding the right stress reliever.
When I got stressed as it's a big thing to handle a newborn - it's the first change in your life, you're also figuring it out - I tried not to turn to junk food as it's like a stress buster. In the long run your energy levels and everything will be much better if you resist the temptation. So the effect is that by doing that, I'm able to stay more alert, more present, and more focused. I don't need that much coffee or tea to get me to that place. So that was one of the biggest learnings that I got.
People these days are working in sedentary jobs where they are glued to their screens. What's your advice for them?
I would like to mention two things. One is of course you can invest in a standing desk or stuff like that. You can also just consciously try to make sure you're standing most of the time of the day. And two is please drink enough water and stay hydrated. I try to always keep a full bottle of water next to me and then unconsciously I see myself reaching and having and that helps a lot.
Success often comes at the cost of health these days. Even young people who have just ventured into the workspace often struggle to find personal time for themselves or self-care. So what can be done according to you to achieve this balance?
I think one thing I've learned is that self-care is also a choice. Sometimes we expect self-care to happen from the outside but like how we work towards getting somewhere in our career, I think we have to make some effort in terms of self-care with conscious choices. So like when you're picking a job or a career, you put a lot of conscious thought into it. But when it comes to self-care, we don't actively talk about it. Realize that we need to work on it.
What steps can startups take to prioritize employee well-being so that they can run longer in the race?
First of all, I think, of course, we have this maternity, paternity leave and everything. But unless you go through it personally, you realize what effort people make to be both parents at home and to be co-workers in the office space. So I think one is just first recognize that these people are going above and beyond. That's, I think, step one.
Step two, for everyone to address that mental and physical health, we can do that change of things in terms of external triggers. So if it comes to, say, the food in the office, can we maybe drive some meaningful change. If you change small things here or there, in the long run people may eat more of the healthier stuff slowly but surely. And then I think more conversations on mental and physical health are required. I don't think the solution is getting everyone a gym membership. You have to be internally motivated to do that. External motivation may not always work but you can at least have that conversation and figure out that rather than giving them a solution.
Toxic work cultures have been under the spotlight. What's your view on this and how can companies foster healthier workplaces?
You live in the information age. So probably even because of Covid, the lines between work and home have been blurred. What is work and what is home has been blurred and because everybody has a cell phone or a laptop. I don't think there's one solution that will work for everybody. Every company culture is different. I think people aspire for different things and these kind of things best are addressed by actually openly talking about it. How do you foster high performance but also get that work-life balance coming in there? I think companies have to be - everyone has to be - more conscious. In terms of understanding that there are going to be times when you're not going to be available at work because there's something happening. You know, your kid needs to go to a doctor, this, that.
So I think just foster those open conversations and be accommodating. And then at the same time, I think culture is going to be evolving, right? We live in an age where home and work are going to be blurred. So if that's going to be the case in some companies, then openly talk about what that is. Set the ground rules and then address it from there.
So coming back to your parenting journey, what is the biggest lesson or takeaway you had with this journey till now? What is this new realization from this journey if you could sum it up.
I think being a parent is a full-time job, so I have a lot of respect for folks who have a job at home and a job at work right, especially working mothers. I think with at least men after paternity leave they come back to office and they move on in their career. But I think for working mothers for some reason I feel like the work never actually stops. It's not that after the maternity leave they go back to life the way it was. So being in that firsthand, I'm realizing that and I have a lot more appreciation for that.