I used to think I was good at crisis management.
I dropped off my wife in her home town with the dog before I left for Italy. A last holiday as a non parent. It would have been difficult to travel for some time with twins - so we decided to make the most of it. No hint of what was about to descend on the world. I had planned a 20 day drip and at about day 10 things started to go off the tracks. Constant news feeds about increasing cases of a yet to be named virus. As we got to day 13 things started to become difficult and worrying for my wife so I decided to go back early. Getting from Italy to China late January 2020, was, well an interesting challenge.
The Logistics Nightmare
COVID was spreading, borders with China were closing (how naive we thought it could be contained!), and I was stuck. Every day brought new flight cancellations. Every hour meant fewer options. I needed to get back before a full blown travel ban.
I've managed complex cross-border operations, coordinated international business deals, navigated Chinese bureaucracy for over a decade. But trying to get home to my pregnant wife? That was a different kind of pressure.
Flight cancelled. Rescheduled. Cancelled again - this time while I was heading to the airport. I finally found a route: Budapest to London to Hong Kong to Nanjing. Not efficient, but functional. Sometimes you take what works, not what's optimal. I asked my parents to drive me the few hundred kms to Budapest not knowing what I would be returning to. The trip was stressful, mask the whole way. Checks in HK, checks in Nanjing.
Landing in China felt like entering a controlled experiment. Provinces had closed their borders. Transportation required connections and favors. I took a pre-arranged private "taxi" to the border between Jiangsu and Anhui, where my wife arranged for a family friend to pick me up on the other side. I was screened, checked and questioned. Finally, they let me in after pulling some guanxi.
Ghost towns everywhere. Makeshift barriers blocking village entrances. It was operational discipline on a massive scale - and it worked. Directives were passed and executed with meticulous precision.
Lunch with in-laws, took the dog for a walk and off we drove from Anhui to Shanghai. A trip that normally takes 5 hours. That day? Three hours and fifteen minutes. Empty highways, no traffic, just us racing against policy changes that could leave us stranded.
We needed to get to Shanghai because that's where we'd registered for the births, had all our documents and stuff, it was home. In China, you can't just switch hospitals casually. Systems matter, even in emergencies.
The Operations Reality Check
During the entire pregnancy I wasn't allowed in the hospital to accompany my wife for any check ups. I would drop her off in her makeshift hazmat suit - anorak, gloves, face mask. New protocols appeared weekly. Additional tests, different entry procedures, evolving safety measures. The authorities were iterating in real-time, adapting their systems as they learned.
Sound familiar? It's exactly how we run startups, except the stakes were our and our children's health instead of quarterly revenue, or some "important" meeting.
The Blue and Pink Candy
Around month six, we went to a "clinic" for gender determination. In China, they can't and won't officially reveal baby genders, but unofficial methods exist.
The technician stayed silent during the ultrasound. She quietly placed a blue candy on the table for the first baby, pink for the second. No fanfare. No dramatic reveal. Just practical information delivered efficiently.
That moment taught me something about communication: sometimes the most important information comes without ceremony. Just clear data when you need it.
The Transformation
I thought I understood responsibility. I'd run operations, managed teams, had people's livelihoods depending on my decisions. But holding those two tiny humans changed something fundamental. Not in an inspirational quote way - in a practical, operational way.
Suddenly, every decision had a new filter: "How does this affect their future?" Every risk assessment included variables I'd never considered. Every time allocation became a zero-sum game between their needs and everything else.
I stopped being the main character of my own story. They became the priority, and we became the supporting infrastructure.
The Operations Manual That Doesn't Exist
Here's what surprised me: there's no manual for twins. No SOP for managing two babies simultaneously. No best practices documentation, I trolled blog posts and forums and ammassed a collection of tips and tricks in hope and vain. We adapted everything to us, our circumstances, our preferences.
You build the system as you go, testing and iterating based on immediate feedback. Feeding schedules, routines, sleep rotation - all invented in real-time under extreme conditions.
It's startup operations in pure form. Minimal viable processes, rapid iteration, success measured by survival and minutes of sleep rather than growth.
The discipline required is different than business discipline. Business discipline is about saying no to good opportunities to focus on great ones. Parenting discipline is about showing up consistently when you're exhausted, overwhelmed, and have nothing left to give.
The Time Audit
Before twins: I thought I was busy. I scheduled meetings, managed priorities, optimized productivity.
After twins: I learned what actual time constraints look like. When you have two 15-minute windows per day for focused work, you become surgical about what matters. Everything non-essential got cut. Not because I chose minimalism, but because maintaining anything unnecessary became impossible. Twins are the ultimate forcing function for operational efficiency.
The skills transferred immediately to business. If I could keep two babies alive and healthy while running on four hours of sleep, managing a startup felt manageable by comparison.
The Contentment Lesson
The strangest thing about becoming a father: I stopped wanting things I used to want. Not from exhaustion or lack of ambition, but from genuine contentment with what actually mattered. Success started meaning something completely different.
A successful day became: both babies fed, both parents showered, no one crying for extended periods. Simple metrics, clear success criteria.
This perspective shift affected how I approach business too. Less focus on impressive metrics, more focus on sustainable systems. Less optimization for growth, more optimization for stability.
Five years later, I'm still figuring out the answer. But I'm more content not knowing than I ever was when I thought I had it figured out.
