Episode 191 · 24 April 2025 · 51:47

How one dad is redesigning work for parents, with Amit Singh Kalley

Featuring Amit Singh Kalley

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The gap in support for working dads
interview#working-dads #parenting #business
From vice principal to For Working Parents
interview#for-working-parents #career-change #education
How parenthood has changed in the digital age
interview#parenthood #digital-age #parenting
Late ADHD diagnosis and the reality of masking
interview#adhd #diagnosis #masking
Why support still skews towards mums
interview#parental-support #gender #mums
The stigma of men asking for parental leave
interview#parental-leave #stigma #men
Guilt, culture and changing nappies
interview#guilt #culture #parenting
Mental health challenges and the breaking point
interview#mental-health #adhd #burnout
How Amit wants the world of work to change
interview#workplace-change #leadership #future-of-work
Where to find Amit
outro#contact #social-media #resources

Show notes

How One Dad Is Redesigning Work for Parents — with Amit Singh Kalley

Guest: Amit Singh Kalley — former deputy headteacher turned founder of For Working Parents, storyteller, speaker and coach.

Amit's mission is simple: make workplaces genuinely parent-friendly. But his journey here wasn't. After the traumatic birth of his daughter during lockdown and a late ADHD diagnosis, Amit reached breaking point. What followed was a powerful pivot — one that's now helping hundreds of parents and employers build cultures where family and work don't have to fight.

He joins Al and Leanne to talk about why parental support — especially for dads — is essential infrastructure, not a perk. They dig into the stigma men still face asking for parental leave, why "ADHD as a superpower" is an unhelpful myth, and how storytelling — not policies — is what actually changes workplace culture. Plus, Amit's viral Periodic Table of Emojis, and why it's more useful than you'd think.

Top 3 Takeaways

Parental support is infrastructure, not a perk. Amit argues that supporting parents — especially dads — isn't a "nice to have." It's essential for retention, culture and basic human decency. The stigma around men asking for parental leave is still very real, and it's costing families and businesses alike.
ADHD isn't a superpower. Amit is candid about his late diagnosis and the unhelpful pressure to be "productive" while masking neurodivergence. He pushes back hard on the "superpower" framing — what he needed was understanding, not a motivational poster.
Storytelling changes culture more than policies. Amit's lived experience — the traumatic birth of his daughter, losing his mum, his ADHD diagnosis — is shifting conversations inside businesses. By making space for honesty, not hype, he's helping employers see that the perfect parent myth is hurting everyone.

Connect With Us

Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect

Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Full transcript

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Al ElliottGot to turn up and be a dad and grow a business. I mean, what's that feel like?

Amit Singh KalleyIt's been hard to cope with the idea that my business, you know, I'm not growing it at the pace that everybody on LinkedIn tells you you should be growing it at. I reached out to no clients today. I earned no money today because my daughter's got a great big scar that goes from sort of her neck down to her belly button. And every now and then we'll see it and we'll just sort of look at each other and we laugh now. We say, how the hell did we get through that period alone? We must have gone to Greyhound Street a dozen times. I never stepped foot inside the hospital. I wasn't allowed in. You know, how dare you as a hospital not allow me to have access to the consultants that are going to operate on my daughter?

Al ElliottFeels like there's lots of stuff out there for working mums, but there doesn't seem to be so much out there about male caregivers or working dads.

Amit Singh KalleyI think there is still a stigma associated with men asking for parental leave. You know, my father and his generation are very proud of the fact they never changed a single nappy in their time as dads, and They frown upon us when we are, you know, on our hands and knees changing pooey nappies, you know, 3 times a day. Women were just told, this is your job. You're running the kitchen, you're running the home, you're running the family. And then the anxiety comes in because my ADHD diagnosis came with OCD and anxiety disorder, and I struggle to sometimes sleep at night. Oh, I don't like that term, actually. And it's quite a divisive term in the neurodiverse community.

Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast Where behavioural science meets workplace culture. We are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.

Al ElliottMy name is Al, and I'm a business owner.

Leanne ElliottAnd we are here to help you create amazing workplace cultures.

Al ElliottNow, before we start, I kind of messed up. I told you on Tuesday that it's Nick Huber from The Sweaty Startup is our guest for this week, but it's not. I messed up. Sorry.

Leanne ElliottNo, no, he is not. But we all make mistakes, Al. These things happen. We've teased Nick, so those people that are really excited will have even more anticipation.

Al ElliottWell, that's why I did it. That's exactly why I did it.

Leanne ElliottExactly.

Al ElliottActually, in this, we've got a lovely guy on today with lots of real-life experience. Now, regular listeners will know that a lot of our guests have been talking about this massive kind of disconnect between what companies say about supporting parents and what they actually do in practice. So today is the first time we're getting a male's perspective on this and hearing from a dad.

Leanne ElliottYes, today we are speaking with someone who lived through this all firsthand and ended up completely changing his life because of it. Imagine having a high-flying career in education, a baby with serious health problems, and then trying to navigate that during COVID lockdowns when hospitals would only let one parent in. And by the way, you're also dealing with undiagnosed ADHD that makes all of this 100 times harder. That's the situation Amit Kalley found himself in, and it led him to question everything think about how workplaces treat parents, especially dads, who often get left out of these conversations entirely.

Al ElliottBut Amit was not going to take all of this lying down. Instead of just complaining about it, he's actually built a business which helps companies create genuinely parent-friendly workplaces with well-thought-out, proper structural support. And he's doing this while balancing the cultural expectations of his Sikh background, where traditional gender roles around parenting are still pretty strong, alongside running a second business with his So after this very short break, we'll be joining the conversation about what workplaces really need to do to support working parents, why dads are still getting the short end of the stick, and how mental health plays into all of this. Don't go anywhere. The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.

Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot. Because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.

Al ElliottNice. Check out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.

Leanne ElliottWelcome back. One quick thing before we go and meet Amit, he recently went viral, as the kids say, because of a brilliant LinkedIn post where he created the periodic table of sinister emojis that kids seem to be using these days. He was picked up by Fox News, BBC, and loads of other news outlets for helping parents properly understand the meaning of these emojis.

Al ElliottIf you've seen that, that thing on Netflix, Adolescence, which is pretty famous and also pretty tough watch, you'll have discovered, just like I did, that emojis don't always mean what we think they mean, and some of the meanings were just downright scary and weird. Now, we recorded this interview with Amit before he created the post. We don't talk about it here, but there is a link to that particular post in the show notes, which is essential reading for anyone with kids.

Leanne ElliottOkay, so on that note, let's go and meet Amit Kalley, who founded forworkingparents.com, and hear his story.

Amit Singh KalleyMy name's Amit Kalley. I am a storyteller, speaker, and coach. And what might I be famous for? It's a really good question. I have a very, very small following on social media, so the odd person might recognize me from the work that I do on social media. I guess that's probably about as famous as I get.

Al ElliottLet's just start with For Working Parents, which I think is the organization or company you've started. Can you just tell us what led you to start it and tell us a bit more about it?

Amit Singh KalleySo I used to be a vice principal in a secondary school and then decided almost overnight, although not quite as dramatic as that, to leave education, leave my job, and then sort of slowly thought that I've built all this experience working with parents and working with young people over all these years. that there is something to do for parents, but from a different angle. And so I retrained as a coach, started doing some speaking and some keynotes, and then sort of wound up almost accidentally setting up this business for working parents, which is all about creating an inclusive workspace for parents and carers, whether that's through storytelling, whether it's through coaching or training or upskilling, you know, helping parents understand the 21st century challenges better. And ultimately understanding how they might be able to parent more effectively in this digital age that our children live in.

Al ElliottYou just mentioned the phrase digital age there. How has parenthood changed over the last, say, 20 years?

Amit Singh KalleyOh gosh, I think it's, I think if you speak to any parent now that is parenting a child under the age of 18, they will probably say it's changed massively. I mean, because, you know, what we have access to now on social media and what we have access to on our phones, The addiction element, the online kind of predatory behavior element, the secrecy element. There's so much that goes on online that parents are just unaware of or indeed don't know how to manage or don't know how to limit that I think it's added a whole new dimension to parenting. I always use this one example of bullying, for example. Sadly, bullying has existed forever and it will continue to exist forever. That's just the way the world works as much as we try to stop it. But if you think back to times when you and I might have been bullied at school, we knew that when we walked into our house and closed that door, we were safe until tomorrow. There was nothing anybody could do to us until we went back to school tomorrow. Now, actually, the data shows that more bullying takes place in the home than it does in schools. Why is that? Well, because schools are getting better at dealing with bullying in school, but mobile phones and cyberbullying has gone up massively and people are abused and Things like thrown out of groups and all of those kinds of things at home. Now, those children are bringing that baggage home with them, all those difficulties home with them, sometimes not talking to their parents about the issues that they're facing. And so parents are unaware. They don't know what's going on. They don't understand why the child can't just delete their Snapchat. You know, what's the big deal? Just get rid of it. They don't understand that children are ultimately attached to the hip to Snapchat. And so it's created Huge challenges now that I think lots of parents are just struggling to deal with.

Al ElliottI'm gonna come onto, because I've got in my notes that you have a few more challenges than perhaps the average family does, but I wanna talk about this idea of essentially starting a business, entrepreneurialism, and also being a good dad. It feels like you can't start a business and start a family and be good at both.

Amit Singh KalleyI'd like to think that you can. I'd like to think that I'm half decent at least at, uh, uh, both. You'd have to ask my wife and my children, uh, and people that I work with. About that. But no, I think the world again in that sense has changed as well. I think if COVID has taught us anything, it's that we don't need to be tied to this idea of 9-to-5 workplace and being in the workplace. I think a lot of us now are exploring that flexibility, are exploring things that we have passion for or might be good at. And I think actually, although running a business, setting a business up from scratch, growing a business, which is still very much what I'm trying to do, is stressful, it's difficult, I'm still at home. I still get to spend the time that I want to spend with my children. So, if I want to block off an hour in my diary or more or block an entire day off, I have the liberty, the luxury to be able to do that. And I think that's something I wouldn't have been able to do, certainly not able to do if I was still working in education, which despite being an incredibly promoting inclusion, it's probably the least inclusive industry out there because you've got to be on site 5 days a week. There's no other way of looking at it. And so, I think you can be good at business, a good husband, and a good father at the same time.

Al ElliottSo you talked then about physically separating out, blocking off time to spend with your family, but let's talk about it actually mentally doing that. I don't know about you, but I really struggle to stop thinking about work when I'm outside of work. And conversely, if I'm doing something and I'm really into work, and then we, I mean, we've got dogs, which is nowhere like having children, but You know, the dog starts barking, wants to go outside for a pee or something. I get really frustrated because I then lose my train of thought and getting back into it. It's that switching cost. How are you able to sort of get the work done when you're at home, when there are potentially other distractions, and then stop thinking about it when you're actually with your family?

Amit Singh KalleyI'm not. That's the truth. So one of the things about my story is last year, after years of knowing, I was diagnosed with ADHD, which has Impacted me massively over my— I mean, I'm even talking here, I've got some Blu Tack in my hand that I'm just fidgeting around with here because that's just one of the things that I use as a coping mechanism. So for me, that ADHD can be quite crippling. I really struggle to separate work from, or business from personal life. And often when I'm lying in bed at night, I reflect on how little I got done that day because the ADHD might have taken over. I was procrastinating. I did everything other than what I was supposed to do and at the time felt that I was achieving something and doing something meaningful. Then when I lie in bed, I realize I did nothing to progress my business today. I reached out to no clients today. I earned no money today. And then the anxiety comes in because my ADHD diagnosis came with OCD and anxiety disorder and I struggle to sometimes sleep at night. So for me, the biggest challenge that I've got is separating The, um, the professional Amit from the personal Amit. I'm not often able to do that, and I think the ADHD for me plays a big part in that.

Al ElliottSo if you're already predicated towards anxiety with your anxiety disorder, and you are, you're at night lying in bed worrying about what you didn't do, which then affects your sleep, potentially your energy for the next day, you've got to turn up and be a dad and grow a business. I mean, what's that feel like?

Amit Singh KalleyOn a bad day, it can feel very, very stressful. It's, you know, I've gone through ups and downs with my mental health over the last couple of years since, you know, since not being in employment. I have had days and prolonged periods of time where I've felt, you know, like I'm in the gutter basically. It's been really, really difficult and it's been hard to cope with the idea that my business, you know, I'm not growing it at the pace that everybody on LinkedIn tells you you should be growing it at. I'm not earning the kind of money that everybody on TikTok tells you you should be earning. And I guess part of that is the social media kind of issue. But yeah, there have been times when I have been really, really down, really down, and it's hard to get yourself out of that. But you have a good day where you might achieve a little something and I try to take things small steps at a time. I don't set myself a day and say, right, today I need to to bag £5,000 worth of work over the next month. It doesn't work like that for me. It's a case of, you know, get a few meetings in, have a few conversations, coach the parents that I work with, you know, get the affirmation that I need to say that I'm doing a good job, whether that's from clients, whether that's from potential customers, whether that's from my wife or my children. That's what often then lifts me out of that. But it's peaks and troughs. And with the ADHD, I'm in a battle at the moment around getting access to medication. That's a whole other story. Um, like, you know, I'm, I haven't got access to the medication that I need, which means I'm still sort of battling that, uh, that diagnosis, that ADHD on my, on my own really, which can be quite a challenge.

Al ElliottIt feels like, and potentially this is just the algorithm, but it feels like there's lots of stuff out there for working mums, but there doesn't seem to be so much out there about male or caregivers or working dads. I mean, is, is that the case?

Amit Singh KalleyI think in terms of balance, it definitely is the case. I think we're still far more balanced towards the support, quite rightly, that working mums need. But there are more and more people out there now who are advocating for and promoting the work of working dads, fighting for things like shared parental leave, fighting for things like helping and supporting the stresses that working dads So we're getting better at it, I think, as a society, but we are nowhere near, nowhere near where I think we need to be in terms of ensuring that working dads, and that's dads who might be in employment or dads that might be running a business or whatever it is they're doing. I don't think we're in a position where they have the support that they absolutely need at the moment.

Al ElliottWho should be giving this support?

Amit Singh KalleyThat's a good question. I think, look, I think part of it needs to come from the state. I think the state has a responsibility to ensure that all working people are given the appropriate support they need. So things like paternity or parental leave, as we should be calling it, there is absolutely no reason why dads should not have equal access to parenting leave in the same way that mums do. Some of our parenting leave is, I think, amongst the worst in the developed world. You look at countries like Scandinavia, in Scandinavia where they have You know, months and months of parenting leave. Ultimately, the objective for the state should be that if you look after your working parents, A, you're encouraging them to raise and be there for their families, but you're also enticing them back into work because the workplace is showing compassion, it's showing empathy, it's showing the support they need. But for some reason, we are just so far behind on this. But also, it's the responsibility of Organizations. There are some organizations out there that are taking, you know, individual responsibility for building better parental leave policies for their staff. And that's really great to see. You know, the burden shouldn't fall just on the state, it should fall to organizations as well. But organizations, of course, are based on profit. They've got to make sure they're doing what makes financial sense for them. So I think it's a lot of joined-up thinking that's needed.

Al ElliottIf a man wants to go and ask for time off so they can— some parental leave. I wonder if there's a stigma attached to that for a man going to a boss and saying, I want some time off compared to a woman. And the second question, the second part of that question is, if it's a smaller business, are we not just, are we not just then putting more and more pressure on the business that now 100% of all our employees get parental leave?

Amit Singh KalleySo in answer to your first question, I think yes, I think there is still a stigma associated with men asking for parental leave. I think in the work that I do and the people that I sort of work with, I think the thought around parenting is still very much that it is mom's job and dad should be the breadwinner. I think from a cultural point of view, certainly in my Sikh and South Asian and Indian kind of culture, I think it's very much the case that Mums should be looking after the children and dads should be out working. Yes, it's changing. It's changing slowly, but it is changing. So I think that stigma probably still does exist. I think some men probably feel that they're gonna, you know, be made to look like an idiot if they go into the boss and say, I need some parental leave. But that does need to change, of course. And the second question, yeah, of course it puts pressure on businesses. Of course it does. But a business has got to work out whether they are willing to take up that pressure and say, okay, we're going to give shared parental leave and we're going to allow people to take the time off they need on the basis that those people are going to come back and be incredibly productive and loyal to the company that's given them so much, or whether they feel they're happy for this father, let's say, to leave the company based on poor parental leave. And I've then got to pay for recruitment costs. I've then got to pay for training costs and all of those things. to bring somebody new in. You've got to weigh that up as a business as to what you think works best for you, I guess.

Al ElliottDo you think then that if a father is at work, they don't have parental leave, then the quality of work might decline because they're trying to balance too many things? Is that a thing?

Amit Singh KalleyI don't know if that's necessarily a thing. It would obviously depend on circumstances at home and, you know, how present Dad feels that he needs to be. But I think from a productivity point of view, if I was employed and my employer said to me, I'm only entitled to 2 weeks parental leave at statutory pay, which was the case when I was working in education. My education's different 'cause it's public sector. So I didn't feel, I didn't necessarily feel bad about my school that I was working for that I'm no longer, but in a business point of view, Yeah. I think you would get some dads that would frown upon and look at that business and think, well, if you don't give a damn about me and my needs, I'm not interested in giving my all to you or indeed working for you. And I think you'll find more and more people will leave workplaces that don't provide them with the support that they need to be able to thrive both at work, but also in life. If COVID has taught us one thing, if there was one positive, that's come out of COVID it's that more and more of us now are putting our lives and our wellbeing and our relationships before work. And I am all here for that. I'm here for that every single day. Work is important, 100%. We need to work, we need to earn a living, we need to be loyal to our work. Great. But goodness me, we need to be there for our family and our friends first. And this idea of going above and beyond for your boss and sending an email at 2 o'clock, that's gone now. You're— people are gonna be more loyal to their employees if their employees— if to their employers, sorry, if their employers show them that they mean something.

Leanne ElliottAfter this short break, we'll hear more about how working parents can better balance their families while doing great work and what Al actually said that made Amit react like this.

Amit Singh KalleyNo, I, I don't like that term actually. Um, and it's quite a divisive term in, in the neurodiverse community.

Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?

Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.

Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.

Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking. And you're not gonna say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—

Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

Amit Singh KalleySeamless, seamless.

Al ElliottTell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work.

Amit Singh KalleyAnd we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people It is.

Leanne ElliottIt's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?

Al ElliottIt can.

Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?

Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.

Leanne ElliottBut thanks. But come back.

Al ElliottYeah, come back.

Amit Singh KalleyDefinitely come back, 'cause Nudge isn't as good as this. So come back.

Al ElliottI'll cut that out.

Amit Singh KalleyKeep that in.

Leanne ElliottWelcome back. Let's get back to the interview between Al and Amit.

Al ElliottYou mentioned there your Sikh culture, which is something which I think a lot of people wouldn't have any experience of. So tell me, what, what's your experience of being a proud dad who also wants to take time off work and spend with, spend with kids? How do you, how is that different to someone who's perhaps not Sikh?

Amit Singh KalleyHow much the fact that I'm a Sikh has anything to do with that. I guess just from an anecdotal point of view, if I was to sort of share that with elders in my sort of family and friends and wider Sikh network, some of them might think I'm being a bit ridiculous that why do you as the dad need to be at home? What do you need to change nappies for? What do you need to help with the feed for? All of that kind of stuff. So there is that generational issue, I think, where my father and his generation are very proud of the fact that they never changed a single nappy in their time as dads, and they frown upon us when we are on our hands and knees changing pooey nappies 3 times a day. And so that stigma, as much as they say that it's a joke, there is still that rooted kind of stigma towards what a parent looks like. And what a parent should be. And I don't know if that transcends across different cultures. It may well do. I can only obviously speak from my experience and what's specific and unique about my cultural experiences and upbringing.

Al ElliottSo when perhaps the elders do walk into a room and you are changing a nappy, does that, do you feel guilt or shame or is it hurt?

Amit Singh KalleyI think initially there was that, gosh, why am I doing this? Because, you know, they're laughing at me, they're mocking me, and one day I'm gonna be them. And here they are mocking me. And it's only through conversations with other kind of dads of my generation in my culture and also conversation with my wife that it's actually a case of, you know what, society has changed. Times have moved on. The suffering that you as fathers put your wives through because it was culturally acceptable, it was the norm in those days, isn't the norm today. We want our I mean, we're filming this at a time of International Women's Day and I'm sort of incredibly proud of my wife running her business and I want my daughter to know that there's no obstacle that should be in her way. In those days, that didn't exist. Women were just told, this is your job. You're running the kitchen, you're running the home, you're running the family. My job is to go out and earn and I expect food on the table when I get home and I expect my clothes ironed and so on and so forth. Times have changed. Yes, we can laugh and joke a little bit about that with our partners now, but we certainly can't behave in that way, nor do I think a lot of us want to behave in that way. If we believe in true equality, we've got to live that true equality.

Al ElliottSo if there was just like one message you wanted to get out around this to a new father who perhaps might have felt the same way as you, like, oh my God, they're laughing at me. What do you want them to know?

Amit Singh KalleyI think what's important is how your children are going to remember their childhood. And yeah, maybe changing nappies is something they're not going to remember. But I think what the elders in my culture perhaps don't realize is that they're, not all of them of course, but some of them that don't have positive relationships or very good relationships with their children, it's based on the way they parented and potentially the lack of parenting, certainly from a male point of view. And I would say to dads, whether it's in my culture or others, it's easy now to say you don't want to do this and you can't be bothered to do this, or it's not your place to do this. But in 20 years' time when your children are living their own lives and are their own independent adults, what kind of childhood do you want them to remember? Do you want them to remember that you were present, that you were there, that you were part of it, you were doing everything that mom was doing? Or do you want them to remember that dad actually wasn't around very much? Dad couldn't be bothered very much. Dad said it wasn't his job very much, in which case, That's gonna impact the relationship that you have with your children in the future. And it's also gonna impact the kind of adults that your children would ultimately become. So that, yeah, I would say the message would be, yeah, think about the kind of childhood you want your children to remember.

Al ElliottIf a father is working hard and he had to choose, I'm going to choose promotion, money, good pension, being able to provide for my family over actually being there. That sounds like a really tough choice. What would you say to someone who has to make that decision?

Amit Singh KalleyI totally respect people that are driven to succeed in their careers. And, you know, success looks different to different, you know, success looks different to different people, I guess, doesn't it? For some it's financial and some want to reach the top of their game and they want to earn lots and lots of money. And to do that, you need to work hard. I'm not, I'm not bashing anybody that works hard and has to make sacrifices. And sometimes those sacrifices are time spent with your children. But I think a lot of workplaces now are becoming more understanding of the need that, yes, I want my employees to work hard. And if you want to be the CEO of a multi-billion-pound organization, you've got to commit to that. But at the same time, I also want to make sure that your children are able to not just reap the financial benefits of what you are providing, but are also able to reap the emotional benefits of what you are providing. And therefore, companies that offer a bit more flexibility, companies that offer more support for parents, not just working dads, for parents generally, there's no reason why we can't be uber successful in our careers and at the same time be uber successful as parents. We've just gotta find organizations that are more open-minded about how we can make that happen.

Al ElliottLet's talk practically. How do you manage, how do you manage all of these responsibilities? You said your Blu Tack was a coping strategy, but what's more sort of concrete that other people can actually perhaps use?

Amit Singh KalleyIt's difficult. I'm not gonna sugarcoat it and say that it's easy and, you know, this strategy works and that works. You know, I think being neurodiverse, sometimes I have to use things that are specific to the way that I operate. I mean, I'm getting better now at writing out every morning to-do lists. And I separate those to-do lists based on professional and personal. I'm getting much better at using my diary. So my phone is now my, you know, the calendar in my phone has everything in it. My wife and I share a calendar, so we put things in there so there's no sort of overlap. But also, you know, trying, I try not to put too much pressure on myself. Of course, there are financial pressures. You know, I've got a mortgage to pay, bills to pay, 3 children to raise. And so of course there are financial pressures. So I, you know, we're never gonna be able to escape those necessarily, but I try not to put too much pressure on myself by saying today I have to achieve this because sometimes life happens. You know, I might get a phone call from school to say daughter's unwell, she needs to come home. Between me and my wife, one of us has to manage that. And so what you planned to happen doesn't always happen. But, you know, someone like me, May then look back at that to-do list and see this day as a failure because I didn't tick off all of those things. So I'm trying to be kinder to myself, trying to be more gentle in my approach. I mean, obviously I run this business for working parents, but my wife and I also run a separate business called Mixalo, which is a chai business, and we're sort of getting that off the ground. That's only a year in. So you can imagine what our house looks like in terms of Living together, parenting together, working together, and me trying to work on a separate business as well. It's chaos basically, and there's no sugarcoating that, but it's finding ways that I think are going to allow you to succeed both professionally but also personally. It's making sure we're looking after our mental wellbeing and our health. Again, at the time of filming, the weather here is just beginning to improve a little bit. So it's, We took a walk yesterday, which we haven't done for a few months now, and it was just brilliant to be in 13-degree sunshine and enjoy that. So it's creating a day that works for you and not putting too much pressure on yourself, I think.

Al ElliottLet's talk about support, father-to-father support rather than outside of work. Is that a thing? I mean, I'm not a dad, I don't know. Do you go and talk to other dads? Is that useful?

Amit Singh KalleyOh yeah, absolutely. So there are so many people out there that have created communities based around fatherhood and fathers and males in general that I think are incredibly positive. I'm part of a few. I'm part of a few around dads that are building businesses. I'm part of a dad's mental health one. I'm part of a men's wellbeing one. And these are just free communities, whether it's on WhatsApp or on one of these kind of communication apps. And sometimes there's no real objective to those groups. Sometimes it's not a case of we're business networking or anything like that. Sometimes you'll go onto WhatsApp and somebody's posted a message saying their kid fell over today and they're feeling a bit low and lots of dads just cheer that dad up. And I'm just part of a handful. I'm sure there are hundreds, if not thousands of groups out there that are supporting dads and men's wellbeing in general.

Al ElliottBut let's stick with this mental wellbeing idea for a second. Tell us what mental health challenges you've got, and then tell us how that actually adds further pressure to being a dad and an entrepreneur.

Amit Singh KalleyYou know, I've always had ADHD. I only got diagnosed last year, so that's always caused a lack of understanding in who I am. It's led to friendship issues over the years. It's led to, Challenges that at the time I didn't know why they were challenges. It's only now in hindsight I'm able to look back. But then losing my mother was a big thing for me and losing her to ovarian cancer at a young age, the circumstances around her death. She died 4 days before my 30th birthday, 6 months before my wedding. That really sort of sent me into a bit of a spiral. But the real, I guess what What saved me from going completely out of control was I was starting this new life as well. I was getting married and I was gonna build this new life. So losing mum was probably the start of where the mental health issues really came from. And it was where I started questioning my, almost my place. I don't wanna go as far as saying I was suicidal. I wasn't. And I would never try to belittle those that genuinely are. Yeah, that sort of started the journey around what I wanted to do with my life and where I wanted to be. I'd been on this route to headship in schools and I knew I was gonna get there and I was pretty young and I was on my way and I just decided slowly that maybe this isn't for me. And then our daughter was born during COVID So, you know, we all remember what life was like then. She was born with 3 holes in her heart and that was huge as parents, first-time parents for us to deal with that. I didn't have mum around. My wife is from Tanzania. Her parents still live in Tanzania. And so, her parents weren't around. Our extended family and friends were all shut off from us because of COVID restrictions. And so, we were dealing with this trauma of a very, very unwell daughter constantly going into Great Ormond Street for appointments and consultants and emergency surgeries and all this kind of stuff. And all of these things really just built into this Kind of me thinking, I'm done here. I'm done doing what I'm doing. I need to do something different that allows me to be successful because I am quite ambitious. I am quite a driven person, but at the same time, be happy. And goodness me, for me, being happy was cherishing that time with our daughter. We didn't know whether we would get to see much of our daughter actually. We were told that it You know, there are children that are born with holes in their hearts that don't make it. And she had open heart surgery at 10 months of age after lots of canceled operations and lots of other surgeries she had to have. And it was, yeah, that really got me kind of thinking, I've lost my mum, almost lost a daughter. I need to have a bit of a rethink here.

Al ElliottGive us the sort of timeline around that. So were you still in education at this point?

Amit Singh KalleyI was. So my mum died in January of 2018. And I was, yeah, very much still in education then. I didn't have the courage. I mean, I wasn't in the headspace to think of leaving at that stage. For me, it was just, I've gotta carry on, you know, I've gotta get on with work. And my school at the time was very supportive. It was when COVID came that I really started questioning whether I wanted to stay in education. I didn't, and this could be the ADHD, I don't know, but you know, I was jealous of the fact that my wife as an accountant was able to work from home all the time and I In between lockdowns and all of that, had to be in school and I was dealing with COVID tests and all that. I just wasn't interested. And I just, and it was, there was the superficial level, which was, I don't care about this, but there was the deep-rooted level, which this is actually impacting my happiness. I get up, well, where I used to get up in the morning and think, I can't wait to get to school today. Now I was getting up in the morning thinking, I don't want to go today. And then what I decided to do was maybe I needed to change an environment. I'd been in the same school for 9 years. And I decided to change environments. I became a deputy head at a school in East London. And then for the first few months, that change in environment did reenergize me because I was on a new project, I was doing something new. But then those doubts started creeping in and I, at the point of a year of being in that school with this map towards headship, you know, I was gonna start applying for headships. I just handed in my resignation and said, I'm done. I'm done. That was in, uh, that was in April of 2022. So, uh, mum died in January '18, daughter was born in May '20, resignation handed in, uh, or left my job in April '22.

Al ElliottSo by April 2022, your daughter thankfully is now on the way to recovery. Obviously you're still mourning your mum, but it has been sort of 5 years at that point. You just hand your notice in, your resignation. Talk me through The like hour or 2 hours after you handed that resignation in?

Amit Singh KalleySo I'd spoken to my headteacher a few weeks before about just saying I was struggling with my mental health and, you know, I don't know what I sort of want. And he had, you know, we used to email over the weekends that it was just okay for us. And I remember he emailed me on the Sunday to just say, you know, how are things going? Let's have a chat tomorrow. And then I said to my wife, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. And, you know, we've been talking about it for a while, obviously. And she said, If it's what you want, do it. And I wrote him an email, one of those formal emails, dear, please take this as official notice of my resume, whatever it was. Watched over the send button, hovered over it, and then just sent it. And then he texts me saying, that's not what I expected, but let's chat tomorrow. And then yeah, we just chatted and I just said, look, at the end of the day, if I didn't do it, I would've continued to be in this job, although I was looking for headships. But I also hold myself up to high standards. I wanted to be the very best at what I do. And I was losing the love for it and I was dropping the ball and realizing that my heart's not in this and I can't give this everything that I need to give it. And so, I don't want people thinking that I'm not very good at my job. That would bother me. And so, yeah, how it felt, I felt liberated, I think, at the time. And I felt like I've now opened up this whole world of What I'm gonna do, but I just had no idea what it was that I was gonna do.

Al ElliottWe had someone called Dr. Nancy Doyle who's amazing, um, neurodiverse. And she said that, uh, she runs, I think it's called Genius Network, which is a really, really cool, um, organization. But she says that often people with, who are neurodiverse, like have a superpower. So do you think with, or with ADHD, OCD, and anxiety, is there, have you got a superpower that others don't?

Amit Singh KalleyNo, I don't like that term actually. And it's quite a divisive term in the neurodiverse community. I don't see it as a superpower at all. And I just find that phraseology quite patronizing to those who are not neurodiverse. You know, I know better than you just because I'm neurodiverse. I'm different to you. That's all it is. I'm different. I think the people who use that term, when, because, you know, when people with ADHD get stuck onto a task. It might take them a long time to get onto that task, but when they get onto it, then there's nothing stopping me. There's no, nobody can disturb me. No, nothing in my diary is gonna get in the way of me doing that task 'cause you've got my 120% and you almost feel a little bit superhuman at the time. But the crippling impacts of ADHD when it gets the better of you, I think can be very damaging. So I never use the term superpower. I find that a real, uh, yeah, not for me.

Al ElliottSo let's just talk about what, how you want the world to be. You've obviously got experience of business, you've got experience of working, of employment, you've got experience of being a father. Imagine that you could mandate that all organizations have to do certain things for fathers. What would that look like?

Amit Singh KalleyI think I just want organizations to be more than work. I think the definition of work needs looking at and needs changing. I want organizations to be something, you know, a lot of people spend more of their time in their place of work than they do in their home if they're based in office. And I just want organizations to take more responsibility for looking after the wellbeing of their employees, whether that's dads, women, whether that's disabled, neurodiverse, race, gender, whatever it is, you know, just Provide a space where everybody is able to thrive both at work and at home because you will, you know, there are studies out there that show that productivity goes up when staff feel that they are cared about by their employers. And so yeah, the ideal world for me would be a workplace that looks out for its staff and treats its staff with dignity, creates environments where compassion and empathy can thrive. Whether you do that through DEI, whether you do that through financial benefits, however you do it, listen to what your staff are saying and act on it.

Al ElliottThe business sort of future of the next 12 to 18 months feels like it's gonna be tough for business. There's, you know, interest rates continue to be high. It feels like inflation, everything's just stopping people from spending money. It's more and more difficult to make money. in business. If what we're saying is that we have all these added pressures to be profitable and to build, but we also need to put resources into making the workplace a great place, I can see some people going, I don't have the money to make it a great place. Is there anything you can do which wouldn't cost me money as a business owner?

Amit Singh KalleyWell, firstly, just on the money part, I think, um, there's gotta be some long-sighted views here, which is that if you invest in your staff, They're more likely to be more productive for you and therefore increase money that you might be getting back out of them depending on the nature of your business. But yeah, there are things that staff companies can do for free. Flexible working doesn't cost an employer a penny. If somebody says, I need to log off at 3:30 to go and collect my kids, can I log back in at 6:30?

Al ElliottWho cares?

Amit Singh KalleyDoes it really matter unless they're client-facing and they have really important meetings they've got to attend? Does it matter if they work from 6:30 to 9:30 in the evening, but it suits them better? It makes their life easier and it makes them value you as an employer more. So I think there are a number of things that organizations can do for free that will just, you know, small changes that makes your employees feel better, feel more valued, feel like they're able to, excuse me, balance their work and personal life better. Why wouldn't we do it?

Al ElliottSo I have a question. I'm gonna ask it very delicately, but, um, you described about your daughter at 10 months having this operation. Previously you said lots of cancelled operations. It sounds like it was a really tough time with your daughter. You're not only balancing parenthood, you're balancing parenthood, mental health, work, and the added thing of having, uh, you know, a very sick daughter. Talk me through what that felt like and how you managed to get through that period.

Amit Singh KalleyI was employed still at that time. And because it was sort of in and out of COVID my work was very supportive. I'd been at that place for a number of years. It was incredibly, incredibly difficult. And sometimes my wife and I, you know, because my daughter's got a great big scar that goes from sort of her neck down to her belly button. And every now and then we'll see it and we'll just sort of look at each other and we laugh now. We say, how the hell Did we get through that period alone? Because as I say, my mom had passed. My in-laws live in Tanzania. We just sort of felt very, very alone. And there were, I remember going to Great Ormond Street and for all the times we went there, we must have gone throughout the year of 2020. She was born in May. She was diagnosed in August. So 2020, the end part of that, we must have gone to Great Ormond Street a dozen times. I never stepped foot inside the hospital. I wasn't allowed in because they had, because of COVID restrictions, whether we were in or out of lockdowns, we were still in COVID, weren't we? One parent was allowed in and it was horrible because I felt, how dare you as a hospital not allow me to have access to the consultants that are gonna operate on my daughter? And what it was doing was it was putting strain on the marriage between my wife and myself because she was going into the hospitals, And she felt she was doing all the heavy lifting in terms of the medical jargon, learning about this and being told this. And I would ask her afterwards, did you ask this question? No, I didn't. Why didn't you ask this question? I didn't think about asking that question. Well, why not? And all I was doing was walking around London. I mean, I used to get— talk about getting steps in. I used to do sort of 5, 10 miles walking around London, deserted London, trying to dial in on WhatsApp and listen to the conversation. Hospitals have no signal. And so, yeah, there was some resentment on both our part as parents. We'd made the choice that mum was gonna go in and do the kind of being with the baby. Again, that's probably a choice based on the fact that the baby, our daughter, needed her mum more than me at that time. And that caused, that was really, really difficult. Really difficult. I don't know how we got through it. We just sometimes was adrenaline, And part of me thinks that actually being alone was better for us than having extended family around because sometimes extended family, although they have the best intentions in the world, often ask too much. They want to come around all the time. They want to sort of get involved and you just sometimes just need that space. You just want to be on your own sometimes. And so COVID, to an extent for us, might have been a bit of a blessing that we were able to get through that period on our own and update our family.

Al ElliottLet me ask you then, I'm curious about this. You mentioned your mum, and this may well be too personal a question, and you're very welcome to swerve it. You mentioned mum a lot, but did you have a relationship with your father, and has that potentially changed or influenced your direction of what you're doing, perhaps both professionally and with your own children?

Amit Singh KalleyYeah, yeah. I think going back to my dad, he's— he was more of that old-school generation, you know, not around much during my childhood, not necessarily because he was working hard, but because he was enjoying his life. And that's That's what a number of Asian men in that generation did. And he wasn't around a great deal, wasn't very actively involved in my schooling, for example. Mum would come to parents' evenings. He was actively involved in the telling off and the repercussions because the ADHD, I mean, I was going through my reports as part of my diagnosis. I still kept all my reports from school, all said the same thing, too chatty, distracts others. Finishes work and distracts others, arrogant, loud, cocky, all those things. So I always get in trouble from dad. But since mum has died, it's been difficult. It's been hard because he's grieving the loss of his partner, his wife. I'm grieving the loss of my mother. We haven't necessarily always grieved together. We've done our own grieving in our own time. Obviously, it's been 7 years now, so the grief journey is looking a bit different.

Al ElliottYeah.

Amit Singh KalleyAnd sadly, it's horrible and I feel tremendous guilt for this, but you don't think about it as much as you did initially. And I've got 3 children now. I have other things going on in my life. So I mean, the relationship is there. It's a father-son relationship. I wouldn't say it's necessarily one where we're best mates, where we go down the pub for a beer all the time. But at the same time, I wouldn't say that it's one that's completely strained where we're not communicating with each other. It's just a—

Al ElliottYeah.

Amit Singh KalleyA father-son relationship.

Al ElliottYour organization you started, For Working Parents, have I got that right? What, tell me more about it. What does it do and why would someone listening potentially want to get involved?

Amit Singh KalleySo For Working Parents is all around creating a culture of compassion and empathy in the workplace, primarily aimed at working parents and carers and, and people who are caring for family. And we do that through coaching. So I do one-to-one and group coaching for staff who might be going through parenting challenges. We run lots of parenting webinars and training around upskilling parents on 21st century challenges, whether that's screen time battles, whether it's looking at youth crime, whether it's looking at drugs, whatever it might be, things that are relevant to parents. And then I also do a lot of storytelling. I go into the workplace and I share my story because that is ultimately, I believe, a really important way to create that compassion, that empathy. I've gone into workplaces, shared my story, much of which I've shared with you today. And I follow it up sometimes with a kind of internal storytelling morning where I train colleagues to be confident in sharing their own story, whether it's body language and verbal kind of things. And somebody will stand up 15 minutes and share their story and you look at colleagues and they'll be like, gosh, she's worked here for 8 years and I had no idea that she had been through or is going through that. And suddenly you see the outlook and the way people treat each other. Change. And that is why I do what I do. That compassion and empathy and that human-centric workplace that storytelling can build is exactly why I do what I do. So it's all around coaching, training to support parents and storytelling to empower and create compassion and empathy.

Al ElliottFor those people who want to know a bit more about you, where's the best place for them to go?

Amit Singh KalleySo my website is www.forworkingparents.com. I'm pretty active on social media. So on LinkedIn, it's @AmitSinghKalley. Um, and on Instagram, Facebook, and on TikTok as well, it's @forworkingparents.

Leanne ElliottThat was Amit Kalley from For Working Parents. If you want to connect with him, check out forworkingparents.com or find him on LinkedIn. He also has a newsletter called Parent Up, definitely worth checking out if you're a parent looking for great advice and resources. We'll put all the links in the show notes.

Al ElliottI mean, Amit's life is very different to ours, Leanne, isn't it? And I mean, as we've said before, no children. So neither of us really pretend to know what it's like to juggle kids, businesses, and everything else. I feel like we're looking at this from the outside, but we now understand it a lot better after chatting with Amit.

Leanne ElliottYeah. And I think the emphasis really does need to be on how this conversation isn't happening in workplaces, how we support parents, how we support dads. The research consistently shows that fathers, not just mothers, experience significant career impacts after having children, but it's rarely discussed. And I really liked as well how honest Amit was about the generational differences in his Sikh community. I think the moment where he talked about the older men being proud they'd never changed a nappy— oh, and let's be honest, that is also applicable to probably a lot of men in the boomer generation, the Gen Xs, and maybe some of those millennials as well.

Al ElliottMaybe.

Leanne ElliottI think as well the, the neurodiversity element adds another layer of complexity and challenge for Amit and his family. It's interesting how he pushed back on that superpower narrative around ADHD, and I understand because it undermines the, the impact that this way of thinking can have. And I've seen this in the research— for many people, these conditions bring genuine challenges that aren't always offset by special abilities or toxic positivity. And that's why we need to expand the equity, diversity, and inclusion conversation. It's not enough to have groups for fathers, groups for mothers, groups for people with neurodiversity. There are people who are all these things, and the best workplaces out there will genuinely recognize people's different realities and create the flexibility that works for them.

Al ElliottAbsolutely. Bravo, bravo.

Leanne ElliottComing up next Thursday, if you like interviews, we are joined— can you guess? Drum roll, please.

Al ElliottThis will be a surprise to everyone.

Leanne ElliottNick Huber, author, entrepreneur, and one of Al's heroes.

Al ElliottYes, Nick Huber is the sweaty startup guy. Nick has built businesses that do more than $30 million in annual revenue and employ over 325 people. Plus, he recently bought a controlling share of somewhere.com, the recruitment company that's helped over 3,500 businesses hire more than 6,000 remote workers. You're not gonna wanna miss it.

Leanne ElliottUntil then, make sure you subscribe to the podcast on whatever platform you're using. And if you're enjoying the show, we'd be very grateful if you could leave us a little review. It genuinely does make our day. Or leave a comment on Spotify, that makes my day too. Somebody was very excited about James Hawkins from PostHog. That's episode 9. I hope you enjoyed it. Lovely. So yeah, do all those things. It is really lovely to hear from you, and we will see you on Tuesday for our regular This Week in Work episode with our weekly news roundup, our spicy hot take, and world-famous Workplace Surgery, where Al puts your question to me. If you have a question for the surgery, we always leave the email in the show notes. You can send it in to hello@truthliesandwork.com.