Call Him Daddy... At Work?

I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand.

It's time for some money rehab.

As you may know, I co-host a career advice podcast with the entrepreneur editor-in-chief,

Jason Pfeiffer, called Help Wanted. And if you heard my episode yesterday,

you know that this week I'm sharing some episodes of Help Wanted that I think will be really valuable for money rehabbers. And the episode today, oh my God, I honestly can't believe that I aired this once and I'm about to do it again.
It is probably one of the most embarrassing moments of my life. But this totally mortifying moment happened when I was trying to answer the question,

when is it a bad idea to bring your romantic partner into work? In this conversation,

we give you a framework to help you decide when your personal life and professional life

should stay in separate lanes. And then just for funsies, we spontaneously call up the guy

at the center of my embarrassing moment. I honestly might delete this at some point.
It is just that embarrassing. So please enjoy it while you can.
This is Help Wanted, the show that makes your work work for you. I'm Jason Pfeiffer, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur Magazine.
And I'm money expert Nicole Lappin. On Tuesdays, Jason and I answer the helpline and help callers solve their work problems.
And on Thursdays, I give you one way to improve your work and build a career or company you love. And it starts now.
Are you going to be able to keep it together for this one? I'm sorry. So, Nicole, we have a real topic to discuss today.
But before we get there,

we got a real story we got to hear. I'm not going to give anything away about this story of yours.

But I will just tell you that I received this voice memo, which you sent to Morgan and I,

we're about to play it. I happened to be sitting in a very drab airport eating a

awful airport stromboli.

And I nearly spat that thing out.

Can we just play this?

Oh, my God.

Yes.

And I guess the only thing dear listeners need to know for context is that in this voice

note, I was describing how I introduced my boyfriend, Jared, to the president of my favorite

professional network, Patow, over email.

And this is what happened and so so i sent this email oh my god okay so jared is saved in my Oh, this is only a recent change. We were watching some comedy special.
What was that guy's name? The British guy. And he was talking about what his baby mama, girlfriend or whatever is saved in his phone.
And we were watching it and I was like, okay, I'm going to change what you're saved in my phone so I save him in my phone as daddy and when he gets the email he's like babe did you know that in the email to the CO or whatever it says

to him and to

Tony

and I was like I thought this was just

for me apparently

it's not

I didn't know

alright we're back

how do you feel about that being heard by everybody

I are you sure we want to do this? Yes, we have to. All right.
All right. Learn from my mistakes, people.
Right. The mistake is telling your friends who you make a podcast with about anything that happens that's embarrassing because it immediately will go in the podcast.
All right. You sent me a screenshot of what this email looked like because I couldn't quite picture it.
So I thought it was saved in my phone and I thought I was the only one who could see it. So when it was sent, no idea at all that the way you save it in your phone apparently is the way other people read it too.

Yeah, I did not know that either. This is a public service announcement for anyone who doesn't know that.
So just to be clear, here's the screenshot you sent me. Imagine looking at an email, right? Everyone.
So first it says the subject line, which in this case is a very boring thing that says re colon brand lift and case study. And then it says from Nicole Lappin, 1051 AM to Tracy, Morgan, daddy.
And if you expand it underneath, it just keeps going with it. This is from Nicole Lappin and then your email address to Tracy, her email address, Morgan, her email address, and then Daddy, which is Jared's email address.
Oh my God. Yeah, or you can see the actual email that I sent where this was all uncovered.
So I was really thoughtful about this idea that this community. Patow, that you have connected Daddy to.

The president, Ryan, has been on the show.

We've talked about it a little lot.

I am a big ad hoc ambassador.

It's an important business community that I've been part of for 15 years.

And I was concerned.

I don't know if that's the right word. I was extra cautious and thoughtful about how I nominated, because you have to nominate executives for membership into the community, how I would toe the line of this is my romantic partner and he's amazing and qualified and he should be part of it.
And I'm recommending him, but I'm not ignoring the fact that he's a romantic partner because that's disingenuous. But I'm saying it in a way that also shows just how much I believe in him, regardless of that.
So this thoughtful email, it took me a minute to craft the right balance. So I say, Ryan, it's with great joy that I introduce you to Jared.
There is no one I know that more closely embodies the ethos of planning to take on the world than him. So Patel stands for plan to take on the world.
He is the CEO of one of the most exciting AI companies out there, Canvas, which proprietarily measures consumer feelings and gauges emotions for the world's biggest brands. Jared's accolades are long and impressive, but none more impressive than the fact that he lives with me and has not completely lost his mind yet.
As you both know, Patau is such a special community to me. I have thought long and hard about whether this intro would be mutually beneficial to the max.
The only answer I kept coming to was colon. Hell yes.
So with that, I hope you can connect and discuss the beautiful shaded part of your Venn diagram while swapping embarrassing stories about me, Nicole. So my goal was to be professional, but also casual and connote the idea that he is important, but also self-deprecating.
And it's like a weird situation because this is a professional and romantic thing. And I don't want him to get extra special consideration because of me for some reason, which he doesn't need.
So I try to write it pretty thoughtfully, thoroughly, use complete sentences, which, as you know, as the recipient of many of my emails, do not have complete sentences. And then I sent off this email and daddy that's very professional email yeah it's like preparing for a big presentation and just absolutely nailing it and then you get off stage and someone was like toilet paper there is toilet paper attached yeah that's How did you know? That's 100% what it felt like.

Digitally. Yeah.
And so finding out that this inside, very, very personal thing first went to this very important community that I care about. And then now it's going to everybody.
Okay. I could just marinate in the absurdity of this all day, but to try to make an actual purpose of this outside of just that I wanted to share it with our listeners.
What's the big idea here? The big idea here is that mixing personal and business relationships, particularly romantic and business relationships can be complicated because. Because why? I mean, you tell me, because you've had to navigate this a number of times, given the number of very professional and personal connections you've made through your dating life.
So what's the balance? What's the thing that you have to walk? Oh, Jason, can't it just be a funny story? Aren't there enough podcasts out there that just vomit on the mic and have no takeaway and no lesson and just two people laughing about crazy shit that happens in their lives? All right, we can dig deep. So yeah, it's a tricky balance to strike, especially when you get together later in life.
You've created rich, full careers with networks and people and texture and contours and all the yummy things of a career well had and a life well lived. I've had that.
He's had that independently. And coming together with that, I think, is a little tricky for a lot of reasons.
It's tricky when you also act like a child and save your romantic partner's name as daddy. So are there boundaries? So I struggled with trying to figure out where the boundary was.
I have a romantic relationship, I think, for the first time in my life that feels very complete and safe and nurturing outside of work. And the shaded part of that Venn diagram is not a core tentpole of what's holding this thing up, which frankly, it has been before.
And I was very fast

and loose with incorporating romantic partners and work. And as you know, work has been my life.
And so that was the thing that I wanted to talk about all day, all night long. And I never really had a boundary and always wanted to be helpful to somebody else and vice versa.
And so now I was trying to figure out where, if at all, these boundaries are around this idea that this is a community that I care a lot about. I have been a complete, full human.
Nobody needed to complete me. This romantic relationship has been only additive to my life.
Like it's not filled me in a way that wasn't already full and complete. So how do I incorporate him into something that already feels pretty great, if at all? And there's other communities.
I happen to think this is the best one. As everybody knows, they do not pay me.
I still pay them. So they can pay me to say these things.
They won't. But is there a boundary? Could that just be my thing? And that could have been fine too.
I have to say that feels like a really compelling question that I relate to. Can this just be my thing? Because when you have a partner who you share a lot with, including professional interests and ambitions, then there are going to be these overlaps.
And some of those overlaps are great. But also, I think many people, as they get deeper into a relationship, they start to ask themselves, what's still just mine? What's mine and not ours? And that's been a very important part of my relationship with Jen, my wife, is we have our own things and then we have our things together.
But we also do somewhat similar work and that we're both in media. And so there are a lot of times where things just overlap.
And what's interesting is that sometimes they overlap in a way that forces a reduction of something. I'll give you a tiny example.
We have a friend named Andy. Andy's a very successful writer.
And we've been meaning for Andy and her girlfriend to come over and catch up with Jen and I who haven't seen for a long time. But at the same time, also Andy and I had a whole bunch of work things we wanted to talk about, like newsletter strategy and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I realized, you know, if Andy and her girlfriend come over, we're not going to talk business. And I actually kind of want to.
And I want to talk about stuff that like Jen's not that interested in, which is like newsletter strategy. So we decided to create two plans.
There was week one, Andy and Julia came over and we had dinner and we talked about the things all four of us are interested in. And then literally the next week, just Andy and I got together and we talked newsletter strategy and other stuff.
And that felt like a really good way to do it because... It's intentional.
Yeah. It's intentional.
You get these intersections and one doesn't subtract the other, right? It's not like Andy and I couldn't continue to develop the kind of worky relationship that we would have

because it doesn't fit into the relationship that I would share with my wife.

And so doing both felt really good and useful.

And I think that that's where I want to make sure I'm always living in.

I want to share as much as we can, but I also want to make sure I'm being mindful of how some things, even things I might share, can still just be mine. I love that.
I mean, you wrote a book with Jen. You also wrote your own book.
So that's an extreme example. Yeah, right.
Here is my book, Build for Tomorrow. Here is our book, Mr.
Dice Guy, wherever you buy your books.

Thank you for the dual book plug. Yeah, Jen and I wrote a book together, and that was a great project.
But we also didn't then immediately start merging all of our work things. In fact, we use each other pretty intentionally in each other's work.
For example, my newsletter, I have found that Jen is a great last sounding board before that thing goes out. So I send my newsletter out Tuesday mornings.
Monday night, I read the newsletter to her. And after that, I've fussed with it all week.
And now I just want her to hear it and to call out anything that doesn't work. And fortunately, she hasn't heard it and been like, this thing is terrible.
You should throw it away because then I wouldn't have anything on Monday night. But I really like that as a process.
The newsletter is mine, but we share this part of it together, which is this check-in just before it goes out. I think that if you have a partner who you have some professional entanglement with, it makes it often more fun.
There's more things to talk about and to do together. But you just have to know whose is what's, if that makes sense.
What is whose? Stick around. Help Wanted will be right back.
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Welcome back to Help Wanted. Let's get to it.
The big question is, is Ryan laughing his ass off right now? Do I ask Ryan? Oh, you haven't asked him? No. So from the looks of the response, he clearly knows.
Has this circulated the whole community? Is everybody laughing at me? Will I never live this down now in every Patel mixer and conference? Oh my God. Would you call him and ask him? Nicole, if you would, if you would call him and ask him, I got some questions for him.
Did you think about saying something? And then also if Nicole noticed and just wrote you and gave you what is the actual explanation, which is, okay, so just to be clear, I don't actually call him daddy.

It was like a joke and it was from the TV show and the whole thing.

Is that worse?

Does that look like you're making up a story?

How do you clean this up?

I guess is the question.

Like, that's what I really want to know.

How do you clean this up?

And what is Ryan thinking? Can we call Ryan? Okay, let's call Ryan. Do you hear a hear? Hello? Hi.
How are you? Good. Do you have a second? Always.
You're the best. I just wanted to check in and have you join Jason and Morgan and I just for a little chat we were having about you and things and Patow.
And we were like, let's call Ryan. I'm glad to be called.
So number one, we are so glad to hear from you right now. Number two, we're going to tell you something.
It's not going to be embarrassing for you. It is going to be embarrassing for Nicole.
So how was your chat with Jared? It was great. Why? That's awesome.
Ryan, I have a simple question for you. Ready? When Nicole sent you an email and introduced you to Jared, did you notice anything funny

in that email?

You know, now that you asked, I may have picked up on something.

How was this brought to your attention?

Well, because when Nicole noticed it, she was mortified.

And then she sent me and Morgan a voice memo about it in which she could barely breathe.

It was possibly the greatest couple minutes of audio I've ever heard.

And our first question is, what did you think?

And our second question is, what did you think? And our second question is, what did you do next? So to the first question of what did I think, I think I was like, good for Jared. That's lofty standards to be entitled such, to be given such a nice title within a relationship.
What I did next was I did think to myself on a scale of one to the most awkward thing ever, how awkward would it be if I reached out to Nicole to let her know and had an internal to debate about that for a little bit. But you did not did not does the entire Patel now know about this of course not you're about to say of course now just everybody who listens to our show knows about it yes we're gonna put you on the main stage and have you tell the story with screenshots and everything.

By the way, it's a great PSA. It is a very important career PSA for the Patow community.
The PSA, Ryan, is that Nicole had absolutely no idea that the way you list someone in their phone is how they show up in the email. That was not a thing she knew.
I was today years old when I discovered that when you save somebody, which is crazy because I've saved exes in the past, like asshole, do not call. I didn't put him in an email with the president of Patow or whatever.
So we were watching a comedy special and the guy had his girlfriend saved as baby or something. I don't know.
And then I was like, oh, we have each other saved as such boring things like our actual names. And so right before I sent that email, I changed it in my phone.
And I just thought that that was for me and nobody else would see it ever. So since you are recording, I just want to let the record state that I don't believe that story for a second.
I can't lie. Ryan, I wish like lying was like a good skill set of my, I just can't.
It's just impossible for me. It's true.
That was the time that I figured it out. And when I said, Hey babe, like, Oh, I sent this email and then he opened it and he's like, did you know that it said daddy on it?

And I said, wait, you can see that?

And so the best part about this is since that is how he was introduced to me, when he emails me now, that is also how he comes up just on his own.

I can't breathe. I can't breathe.
It's a great PSA though. Brian, we'll let you go on your merry way with your very important patow duties.
Well, I hope you all have a lovely weekend and I'm sure we'll chat soon. If you don't chat with daddy first.
And I guess my closing thoughts here are not every professional project has to be yours and not every professional project has to be shared. If you're thinking about having your romantic partner be a business partner in some way, you just need to make sure that it's mutually beneficial.
And if there is something professional that you're sharing with your romantic partner, maybe just don't call him daddy. Help Wanted is a production of Money News Network.
Help Wanted is hosted by me, Jason Pfeiffer. And me, Nicole Lapin.
Our executive producer is Morgan Lavoie. If you want some help, email our helpline at helpwantedatmoneynewsnetwork.com for the chance to have some of your questions answered on the show.

And follow us on Instagram at moneynews and TikTok at moneynewsnetwork for exclusive content and to see our beautiful faces.

Maybe a little dance?

Oh, I didn't sign up for that.