From Corporate America to Coaching Little League

[00:00:00] Kevin Rice: Welcome to CEOs and ABCs. Real stories from execs who lead at work and show up at home. Career moves, parenting wins and fails and everything in between. I’m your host, Kevin Rice. Here’s today’s episode. Today’s guest is someone I have admired for years. I’ve been following his work since his Taco Bell days through his time at Whole Foods, and I had the privilege to work with him while he was the CMO of Carl’s Jr. And Hardee’s. Last six years, he’s been the CMO of Carter’s. Most of you know his name, even if you don’t. You’ve definitely seen his work. His campaigns have been featured all over Adweek. He’s one of those rare executives who’s mastered both cultural relevance and emotional connection. He’s consistently built brands that move us and stay with us.

But today we’re going beyond the titles and headlines. We’re talking about the personal journey. How parenting, career pivots and purpose have shaped his life, leadership, and his life. Today’s guest is Jeff Jenkins. Jeff, thank you so much for being here.

[00:00:59] Jeff Jenkins: Thanks so much for having me, Kevin.

[00:01:00] Kevin Rice: I really appreciate you taking the time here. You know, you’re my first guest, and this has been a really big passion project for me. So again, thank you. We’ll go ahead and just kind of kick this off and dive in if that. If that works for you.

[00:01:10] Jeff Jenkins: It works for me as much as is a passion project for you. I am hugely about finding that balance and work and family. It’s been a big part of my life, so I am honored to be the be guest number one.

[00:01:20] Kevin Rice: Awesome. So, Jeff, you’ve led some of the most recognizable brands in the world, and a lot of people know your work, but fewer know you. So before we dive into the campaigns and the career moves, give us a picture of what life looks like. Your family, your interests, your hobbies, like, what really lights you up.

[00:01:37] Jeff Jenkins: So job number one is my family, and that involves my wife of, gosh, 16 years now, Chrissy, and our two kids, Avery and Beau, who are 12 and 14. We are in the throes of middle school and all the things that come along with it. And life revolves around the kids and our. And our relationship. I think those are things that we have tried to find balance. We’ve done great jobs at certain points. We’ve done other points where things come out of balance. And how do we always try and find sort of true north in that center? I’m a former reformed tennis player. I’M a new pickleballer.

It’s, I’ll tell you, pickleball is taking the world by storm. So I’ve gotten into that recently. I’m not a great golfer, but you know, my days are spent either a at the office bike. My other big passion in life is coaching kids sports. I’ve been very blessed to coach both my kids sports for the last six years. I’m not good at a lot of the sports that they play, but I love to be around them and I will do anything possible to be around them as much as possible given the constraints of work and travel and all those things. But that’s what our life looks like. I’ve got a son who’s very busy into travel, baseball. So we’re, we’re on the roads on the weekends, up at 5 in the morning, on baseball fields at 8:00am, back at 10:00 clock at night. I’ve got two dogs. It’s, it’s a busy full time job even before you get to the actual job. So that’s, that’s what life looks like for us in the middle of middle school, which is its own layer that we’ve unpacked in the last year.

[00:03:00] Kevin Rice: Absolutely. Yeah. No, that’s beautiful how you’ve been able to kind of manage or blend your personal interests and your family interests so that when you spend time together it’s, it’s probably so much more fulfilling.

[00:03:10] Jeff Jenkins: It definitely is. You know, I didn’t know how much I loved coaching kids sports until I did it, but that also came out of a, you know, I decided to coach kids sports. That came out of a huge failure. As a parent. I wasn’t being a, I wasn’t being as present as I needed to and I was trying to think about what is a way that I can guarantee presence in a way that is week in and week out and part of a routine because I felt like I was failing. You know, it looks great now in retrospect and it’s been the greatest joy of my life to coach both kids. But it was came out of the fact that I wasn’t doing a great job eight years ago.

[00:03:41] Kevin Rice: Yeah, no, I resonate with that. I felt the same thing during a certain period, period of my career where, you know, in retrospect I wasn’t showing up as well as I should have for my kids. And that led me to take some time off and kind of led me to take stock about what’s really important and making sure that when I’m with my kids I’m present with my kids. And it was really difficult when I was at kind of the height of high pressure career life. So it’s a. It’s a process. We’re all learning and hopefully growing as we go.

[00:04:10] Jeff Jenkins: Yeah, no, I think we all have those watershed moments where you’re like, okay, I’ve gotta. I’ve gotta get this under control for me. I was CMO is doing a private equity turnaround sort of job. My wife was taking my daughter out of town for the weekend. She was going. She was the troop leader for the Girl Scouts, and she was taking my daughter on a Girl Scout trip. And my son, as we’re. My wife, was packing up to go with my daughter. We’re all sort of, you know, putzing around the house, trying to figure out what we’re doing. My son looks at my wife and goes, mom, who’s going to take care of me this weekend?

And I. And she looks at me and she goes, well, your dad’s going to take care of me. She’s like, your dad will take care of you. And he goes, well, he’s just going to work all weekend.

And I was like, oh. And I was like, well, we’re going to go over see Mr. Jason, who was the time, you know, someone I was working with. And he goes, you’re just going to work all weekend. And it was that moment where it was like the stab in the heart. You know, even my son didn’t have faith that I could do the dad job because I clearly wasn’t doing a good enough job. And he at the time was five, so he had the awareness at five years old. And that was the moment right then and there that I was like, okay, things change right now.

[00:05:14] Kevin Rice: How did things change? I mean, that’s such a hugely important moment in your life, and a lot of people will have that moment and not necessarily make the changes. So what were you able to change and how were you able to change it?

[00:05:25] Jeff Jenkins: Yeah, I mean, it was pretty dramatic. I changed jobs.

You know, I think I felt like the environment I was in was unsustainable, both from a work perspective, but more importantly from a family perspective. So I, you know, it didn’t happen overnight, but I sort of said, okay, I’m going to have to make a change here. This is not working for our family. I’ve got to find the right. The right space for myself. So I did that. And then my wife and I sat down and Sarah said, how are we going to. How are we going to fix this? Right. The kids are Too important the time we have. Someone once told me that 80% of the time you get with your kid is before the age of 12. And here I was sitting at 6, 5, we’re halfway through the time. How do I really get to change that time period and how do I overcome that sort of gap there? So that was a big part of it and how do I make that effort? There’s.

[00:06:11] Kevin Rice: Yeah. So Jeff, you’ve gone from marketing to, I don’t know, 16 year olds at Taco Bell, connecting with new parents at Carter’s. But during that time you and Chrissy started a family. How has fatherhood changed your approach to communication and leadership? And what advice would you give to executives balancing their career performance and family responsibility?

[00:06:29] Jeff Jenkins: I will say the greatest impact of anything I have ever done on my leadership has been coaching kids sports.

From coaching, you know, what I would call two year old soccer, which is nothing more than kids swarming to a ball, to coaching 9 year olds who are learning how to work as a team, to corralling 12 and 13 year olds who are actually good at sports and starting to develop into that. That has been the greatest gift that I have ever given within leadership was learning those steps. Same thing with my daughter. I coached my daughter on basketball for a number of years and trying to just figure out how do you lead people who have very different interests, very different skill sets, levels of engagement that are different, different approaches figuring out what motivates people. And you’re doing this with 5, 6, 7, 10 year olds who are, as we all know, sometimes hard to control, no different than leaders. You know, people you work with at work can be sometimes hard to control or hard to lead. And so I just think like that for me has been the greatest gift of becoming a parent is this notion that being able to coach and involve in their lives has given me patience, it’s given me ways to modulate sort of how I engage with people. Understanding each person’s trait. I think we all know as parents, each one of our kids is kind of different. I’ve got a 14 year old girl and a 12 year old boy and they’re very different. They love each other and are inseparable. But gosh, they’re different people and what motivates them and how they respond is very different. So I think it’s about all of the gifts that you give in fatherhood or parenthood are really things that you can bring to the office, if done correctly, that can make you a much better leader than you were before.

[00:08:06] Kevin Rice: My hat’s off to you because my son’s only played a couple organized sports. Like he’s played youth soccer, he’s played a couple seasons of basketball. But I watched the coach trying to herd cats and I knew that it was beyond my skill set at the moment. But you’re kind of making me wish I would have taken on the challenge to try it, because I told myself, if Levi wants to pursue basketball and he gets to maybe 11, 12 years old, like, that’s my time. I’m just so competitive and I grew up playing basketball and I played a little bit in high school and I kind of set it aside and figured when he’s ready to take it seriously, like, that’s my moment. But now I kind of regret not using it as an opportunity to expand and grow myself personally, because it sounds wonderfully challenging.

[00:08:53] Jeff Jenkins: It’s not too late to jump in right now.

And I’ll tell you what I found the most exciting about it is I get the most out of it in the sports that I didn’t play.

My son’s big into baseball. I didn’t have a baseball career. I was played a bunch of high level tennis, but never played baseball. So, you know, I’m not bringing what I bring to the table as a coach or an assistant coach is not the X’s and O’s. It is the strategy and the leadership and the excitement and the galvanizing the team, which is, I think if you were to talk to my team, you know, when I’m dressing up in a giant elf costume during the holidays and hiding behind the glass like elf.

[00:09:28] Kevin Rice: And we’re certainly gonna have to talk about that.

[00:09:30] Jeff Jenkins: Yeah. Like those are things that I never would have done because you understand sort of the psychology of what gets people excited and engaged. You know, I never would have done that had I not understood that, like how to engage a 9 and 10 year old. Because I don’t know the X’s and O’s of a baseball, you know, it is. It’s worthwhile doing on all sorts of levels.

[00:09:50] Kevin Rice: Yeah, my, both my kids are more into non traditional sports right now, thankfully. They’ve been kind of leaning or gravitating towards the things that I personally like to do, which is a lot of fun because my interests and hobbies are aligning with my kids. Like we’re learning to surf, we’re doing rock climbing, we go to the beach a lot and a paddle boarding. We do all these things that I would want to do anyways, and now my kids want to do them with me. So it allows me to bring multiple aspects of my, you know, kind of whole self together and spend time doing things that they want to do, I want to do. And it’s, it’s been really beautiful, but we’ll see. I’m not sure if traditional sports are in the future, but if they are, I think you’ve convinced me to give coaching a shot.

[00:10:33] Jeff Jenkins: There you go. Jump right in.

[00:10:34] Kevin Rice: Uh, so Jeff, you’ve moved from a lot of different industries. You started at Viacom, went to NASA, spent some time at Yum Brands, which is actually really when I started following your career. I remember when you guys first launched the Taco Bell online ordering application and then you went to Whole Foods and, and then now Carter’s. You’ve worked in a lot of different industries. There’s presumably a lot of different corporate cultures and you’ve, I think you even moved your family multiple times. What did each transition teach you or maybe even cost you personally? And what advice would you give someone navigating the same kind of career transitions or any sort of identity shifts that happen as you’re growing professionally?

[00:11:15] Jeff Jenkins: Yeah, you know, I think as a child I moved when I was 8 years old. My dad was someone who was in academics, so there was a little bit of like, you know, moving around for academic career. So the idea of moving wasn’t that odd to me. And it saw it as a way to grow my career. In each of the stops along the way, it was like, I can learn something new, I can apply, I can move up a little quicker. But it does, there’s a, there’s a, there’s a bit of a personal cost to it. Right. You’re restarting your environment. I didn’t grow up in a place where my, you know, my entire family had grown up or I’d known, you know, multiple generations live this town. It’s interesting now because we’ve been in Atlanta six years and my kids are in a school that they love with kids who’ve grown up here. And you start to see the, the beauty of being in a multi generational town and having that history. Both my wife and I’s families live not in Atlanta. So, you know, it’s, we’re sort of on our own here, which has always been a bit of the case. We moved to Australia with a 10 week old. I don’t advise that to anyone, but we moved on our own and made it through a year and in another country without family around and you, you learn more than anything to build your professional and your personal network as A support group. It truly is the sort of old adage of it takes a village. And when you move to a foreign country, as we did with a 10 week old, the village is work, it’s, it’s friends, it’s whoever you can find that will help you out that you can trust and build that trust. I think I’ve learned to build trust pretty quickly with people as a part of moving around. I think the downside of it has been a little bit and it’s flattened out as you get older is you also start to realize you can only move so many times as kids get older. They do need stability as you get older. You know, we are in Atlanta now and I’ll never forget we moved here. So we left California, left California, moved to Austin, moved to Nashville and then moved to Atlanta. All between the ages of when my kids were born and when my kids were 6 years old. So they did California, Australia, California, Texas, Nashville and Atlanta, all before they were six and we were settling down here. And I’ll never forget I was walking by my daughter’s room and she was on her iPad with FaceTiming with a friend from school. She must have been probably in third grade and the friend was moving houses. So meaning they were moving from one house in Atlanta to another house in Atlanta because they, you know, the parents had a third or a fourth kid, they needed more space. And I heard my daughter say, yeah, my dad says we’re not moving again too. But I don’t trust him because he said that last time. And you’re like, oh, to the heart, just to the heart. And you know, you know, because when we had moved to Nashville, we had sort of said, okay, this is it, we’re going to stay here. We really like this place. And we end up not liking the place for a lot of reasons. And Nashville is a great town. I grew up there. But, you know, we ended up moving on. And so you learn how to make a promise or should you have made a promise at all? You know, now I’ve told my parents, my kids, like, we love Atlanta, we do not want to leave Atlanta. But you never know what the world holds. And I think exposing them to so many cultures is only good for their future as well. You know, my daughter’s been to Australia, lived there for a year. She doesn’t really remember most of it because she was under a year, you know, a year. But they’ve lived in Texas, they’ve lived in Nashville, and it’s really helped them become very adaptable human beings as well, and it’s helped us become adaptable human beings of finding your group quickly. How do you, you know, really have to put yourself out there when you’re in a new community constantly?

[00:14:23] Kevin Rice: Yeah, yeah. So many things to touch on. I mean. One, Agreed. Kids learning Adaptability and resilience is probably the most important trait that I think kids are going to need to learn as they’re growing up and thinking about the new world that we’re going to be living in. 2. I take my kids traveling all the time and only recently did I start to realize that they do in fact need stability.

I’m a big traveler. I love to explore the world. I love to see historical sites. So I dragged my kids along for two weeks in Europe. We went and spent a week in Rome, a week in Croatia, and it was this amazing family trip. But it was a lot on them. And when they got back, I noticed their behavior was completely dysregulated for at least two weeks.

And as I reflect on it, there’s a huge benefit to seeing the world like planting those seeds, seeing different cultures.

We live in California, so seeing buildings that are more than 30 years old is completely new to them. There’s structures that are 3,000 years old. But it’s been really tough transitioning back, getting back into schoolwork. We homeschool, so they’re basically year round schooled. So just trying to get them back into school, it’s been, it’s been crazy. And so I think we really need to kind of slow down a little bit and give them some stability for a while.

[00:15:39] Jeff Jenkins: Yeah, I know the stability thing is, is real. You know, kids are creatures of habits. You know, that’s one of the things that we, we realized early on. But to your point, there’s so much goodness about going and exposing people. You know, I didn’t travel a lot until I was in my 20s and could do it on my own. You know, occasionally my parents were fortunate enough to be able to take me on one or two big trips. But you know, my, my daughter was very blessed. I don’t know how many countries were in her passport by the time she was 5 years old just because of work trips that she got to go on or living in Australia and seeing the areas around Australia and going to different countries. But you know, it is a fine balance. And I think, you know, it’s just trying to find where is that point where you expose them to new things that make them curious. It, it’s funny how it seeps into the who they are. My daughter is 14. Last year at 13, the school offered a trip to Iceland to study, to study sort of the science and the, and the topography of the country. And she wanted to go.

So she went with, at 13 years old with 2 teachers and 14 other kids to Iceland for 10 days by herself without a parent. And you know, I can’t imagine being 13 years old and traveling to another country.

And she did it and had the time of her life and now is always looking to where can I go and travel? Where can I, you know, she’s going to be our, our child that a, a she’s going to run the world. Mark my words. It’s on this podcast. She’s going to run the world. But she’s someone who wants to go and travel and see things and understand and see how different cultures work. Which is really cool to think about that. Partially it’s probably because that seed was planted early on of being a little bit more transient in her earlier years.

[00:17:08] Kevin Rice: Yeah. But like the amount of confidence that taking a trip, trip like that at such a young age would build. I totally believe you when you say she’s going to run the world someday.

[00:17:19] Jeff Jenkins: Yeah, it is the confidence builder coming out of that was pretty incredible. Yeah.

[00:17:23] Kevin Rice: Yeah. So you have run global teams, you are raising a family to full time jobs. Was there ever a moment or any few moments where both worlds pulled on you equally and what got you through it? What boundaries or rituals helped you show up fully in both of those roles?

[00:17:42] Jeff Jenkins: Yeah, I mean, I don’t know that.

I don’t know that there’s like one moment I feel like it’s a, it’s a constant tension that is always riding along when you’re in these two worlds. It would be really nice if they were all, if there was times when it was perfect harmony. Those times are few and far between and are very fleeting because someone’s needs are always changing. Whether it’s the business world, whether it’s your personal world, things are always evolving. So I’m not sure that it ever stops. You know, I think what we try and do and how we process is ultimately in a job, in a brand, you are most likely only the caretaker of that brand for a certain period of time. Whether you’re founding a company and eventually sell it, whether you are a CMO of a company that’s been around like Carter’s for 160 years and will go on for another however many 160 more. And I got to, you know, lead the company for some six year period. It’s only that fleeting moment. But with my kids, I am with them till I’m gone. And, you know, for better or for worse, I’m the one they got. And so I’ve got to do everything I can to set them up for success. And so the way we think about it is they are priority one. And that’s how we, how we, we ride. But that said, in order for them to be priority one, sometimes the job also has to be important because the job ultimately provides for them. So I think it’s about finding those checks and balances and having, in my case, a part. And my wife, who holds me accountable when things are off and I’m, you know, too buried in the work, she’s like, you know, it’s gotta stop. You gotta find that that way. And I think secondarily, as a leader, finding the right team is what unleashed me to be a better leader and a better father. You know, when I joined Carter’s, slowly put the right team in place of leadership at the marketing team. And that allowed me to, you know, feel confident that I didn’t have to be in every single decision, that I could let them run the team. And that allowed me to have the flexibility to do a little bit more things and say, okay, you know what? I’m not. I’m going to drive to school every day and drop them off every day. I don’t have to be in that 8am or that 7:30 call or whatever it might be right. And I think it’s about those elements are just things that you constantly have to be sort of giving yourself a gut checker. Are we doing it right, we doing it wrong? No one’s going to get it right all the time. And you’ve got to give yourself grace and space to get it wrong. We’re all going to get it wrong. Woman at Carter gave me that phrase during COVID She said, you know, we’re all trying to get this Covid thing right, how to work from home, return to office, all these things. But we’re all going through something. Whether it’s at work, whether it’s at home, everyone’s going through something. So give each other grace and space. Robyn Parker, if you’re, if you ever listen to this, thank you for that gift. But it’s something that allowed me that you also have to give it to yourself, Give yourself grace and space when you do get it wrong, because inevitably we all will.

[00:20:16] Kevin Rice: I think the last time we saw each other was right before COVID and then, you know, the world kind of shut down. Covid actually, while it was tragic for a lot of people, it actually turned out to be a little bit of a blessing for me. I had just recently become a single full time dad. My oldest son was three and a half. My youngest son was six weeks old. I was just before that traveling easily 50% of the time. And then when Covid happened, everything shut down. We couldn’t travel anymore. There wasn’t an expectation for me to be out speaking at conferences, being on site with clients, and it allowed me to be home with my kids. And so you, you never know what’s going to come from, you know, these life events. And for what it’s worth, I think your kids are very fortunate to have you as a father. So it’s definitely for better, not for worse.

[00:21:02] Jeff Jenkins: Well, well, well, thank you. I’m not sure they would share that sentiment at all times. I think there’s times when, when there’s maybe some discipline that they, they’re, they’re not my biggest fans, but that’s, that’s part of parenting is you’re not always their best friend. Um, but no, I, I, I agree. The, the moments to your point, it was a tragic time and it, it impacted a lot of people in a negative way. But you know, in every negative thing, if you try and find those, those moments or those moments of light or joy or things that unleashed, it definitely allowed people to, to re, recalibrate. I think a whole generation of the workforce has recalibrated. What that balance should look like, balance versus harmony should look like. And how, how does that, what is important to the next generation? That’s something as a leader you have to think about. What does the next generation want?

And so I think as a leader, watching that next generation over the last five years come into the workforce post Covid, they have different expectations. They don’t want to work. Like when I did, I was like, I will work 100 hours and do everything I can and grind myself till I’m a miserable part of a piece of a human being that I’ve been ground down so much. They, because that’s what I thought, what it took to get to the top.

[00:22:05] Kevin Rice: Yeah.

[00:22:06] Jeff Jenkins: You know, I think that’s, that’s changed in a positive way. That said, I think there’s also a misnomer that when you try and find harmony or work life balance that you’re, you’re not working hard. I mean, I will tell you and other leaders that you and I know work as hard as anyone and deliver great results, but still try and find that harmony, I think that’s maybe a misnomer, is that harmony means you’re not going to be a good leader or you’re not going to be a good father, mother, or partner or whatever it might be. But I do think, like, I, you know, when I say I find harmony, I still work really hard and really want to be successful, but I found guardrails to not let it get in a place. That’s unhealthy.

[00:22:42] Kevin Rice: Yeah, definitely. When you’re not at work. I think for me, the hardest thing, when I was kind of at the height of Hathaway, the company was growing 50% year over year. The hardest thing for me was when I wasn’t at work and I was with my kids or I was doing some other activity that’s important to me personally, keeping the work thoughts out of my head. So, yes, I was working long hours. And when you’re building, that’s. That’s kind of expected.

But the hardest thing for me, and what I’ve worked on very diligently is when I’m not working, I’m present and I’m fully focused on what’s right in front of me. And if it’s spending time with my kids, building Legos, I’m engaging them, I’m spending quality time and giving them all my presence because I think that’s the biggest gift that we can give as parents. And then when it’s time to work, I focus on work. But when I’m with my kids, they get my attention.

[00:23:31] Jeff Jenkins: Yeah, that’s such a great lesson. And I’m not sure, you know, thinking about it now, as you say, this is like, gosh, I really could do better about that. Maybe the gift for me of coaching is you have to. You have to put the phone down. You have to get away from it all and be on the field. But to your point, I think that that is true because there is constant pings and interruptions from every device that we have. And if you don’t really sit down and focus, not. Not that you shouldn’t even be there at all, but like, your kids know if you’re not fully present. And I think that’s something absolutely kudos to you for. For figuring that out, because I think a lot of us try and figure out, well, we can be half present is better than not present. I’m not sure it always is.

[00:24:04] Kevin Rice: Yeah, I’m definitely not perfect at it, but I. It’s something that I am very conscious of and I’m trying to work on and get better at Because I really do think, to your point, your kids know if you’re not present, if you’re checking your phone, they sense it, whether it’s consciously, subconsciously or just energetically. Like your kids know if you’re there with them and.

[00:24:22] Jeff Jenkins: Yeah, well, and I’m entering the phase now where you have kids that are starting to get devices. So we’re on the flip side of it too, of like, everyone else has to put their devices away when we’re having family time as well. It goes both ways, parent and child. Now, as you’re kind of. Your kids are still too young for it, hopefully, but as they get older and get to be 14 and have a phone, it’s. It’s its own battle. Yeah, sure.

[00:24:41] Kevin Rice: I mean, I’ve heard parents who put out a bowl and when it’s dinner time, all the kids put their phone in the bowl. And that makes them, you know, it’s a forcing function to be present. So do you guys, do you have any family rituals like that that allow you guys to stay, you know, more connected even if you’re not spending a huge amount of time together?

[00:24:59] Jeff Jenkins: Yeah, I mean, we don’t necessarily have the bowl, but yeah, we have a no phone policy at the table. We have a no phone policy at dinner. You know, we. And watch a movie once a week together as a. As a group, no phones, those sort of things. We play pickleball together as a family. Varying levels of talent within it. I’m still learning, but we have a good time. We love to compete and just spending time, you know, we don’t get it right either. All the time. Sometimes we’re on our phones or our devices and we have to sort of remind ourselves, all of us hold each other accountable. Okay, kids, put the phone down. Same with the kids saying, mom and dad, put the phone down.

You know, so I think those sort of things, we try and find as much time as possible knowing that it’s. It’s fleeting. They’re going to suddenly have friends in cars and be going off to do their own thing. And in college in six years, which is unbelievable. Six years away and they’re in college and then. Then they’re done. Then they’re on their own wing, you know, they’re on their. Their own accord. And so, yeah, I think no necessarily, like forcing functions per se, but really it’s about.

Just a reminder for all of us to be present as much as possible.

[00:25:58] Kevin Rice: Absolutely. Yeah. My, my oldest is about to turn nine, and for some reason I’m totally okay with nine that still seems like he’s a kid to me, but once he turns 10, I’m just not ready for that. Double digits for some reason just seem like, oh my gosh, he’s going to be so much older and I’m going to be so less important to him. So I’m for some reason just not, not ready for that milestone of a year.

[00:26:22] Jeff Jenkins: Yeah, look, all those years are great. You know, I can, I can say this because I’m a couple of years ahead of you. Every single year has been better than the one before it. There’s no favorite age. Every time we go forward, one age, I’m like, wow, I really love this age.

You know, I think it’s more now seeing the sort of diminishing time that is more the pain than, you know, not loving the age they’re at. Every age has been fantastic.

[00:26:44] Kevin Rice: You had one campaign that I wanted to ask you about because I thought it was particularly unexpected, bold, and that was the Oshkosh and Gucci collaboration.

I thought it was really fantastic. I was not expecting something like that from a brand like Oshkosh. Was there a lesson there or what is the lesson in risk taking and the instinct you had to move forward with that campaign that you could pass on to other younger professionals, or is there a lesson in risk taking that you could pass on to your kids?

[00:27:18] Jeff Jenkins: Oh, wow. That second one is, I think my kids and my wife would tell you probably they need to learn a lesson to take fewer risks because I take too many more. So professionally I don’t take much. I’m a very personally risk averse person. Professionally, more risk averse. But no, you know, it’s one of those collaborations. I think about collaborations along the lines of very simple. The point of a collaboration is to push your brand into a place that is uncomfortable but not unnatural to the brand in order to expand your audience, to reach new followers, to reach people. And so when you think about a brand like Oshkosh B’, Gosh, which has been around 130 years, that was workwear and overalls and a brand that is beloved and people know and is worn by presidents and presidents, kids from, you know, JFK Jr. To Kim Kardashian’s son, northwest wearing Oshkosh B’, gosh, it is, is known by everyone, but it’s a brand that at the time, before some of these collaborations we did with Gucci or with Kith, that was losing a little bit of like cultural mainstream relevance and was thought of as more of like my Mom’s, my grandma’s brand. And so for us, it was, how do we introduce this brand, which is beloved, into a new generation through something that, you know, takes it in a new direction and gives it credibility? And, you know, we were very lucky to partner with Gucci, who, you know, loves to do collaborations with iconic brands. And both brands are iconic in their own unique ways. And it expanded both audiences and, you know, had a huge impact for us of being relevant again, being in culture. I think today’s marketing, if you’re not doing content at the speed of culture, you’re in trouble. And so trying to find into what is the cultural vein at the time we did the collaboration, I think Gucci, and probably still is to this day the number one fashion brand in the world in terms of sales. And then, you know, just brand reputation. And so the idea of doing a partnership with the double GS and the interlocking GS and all of the iconic iconography that is Gucci was just pretty amazing. And so I think you also have to measure, is it a sales play or is it a brand, you know, reputation and cultural cool play. And that’s really what we were going for that collaboration was how do we just tap into a new audience, tap into a new piece of culture and make the brand relevant again through partnerships in a way that was, you know, a little unnatural. People was unexpected. People like, what are these two brands doing collaborating together? But then when you saw it, you’re like, okay, I get it. It makes sense. It’s not. So it’s that notion of being uncomfortable but not unnatural.

[00:29:37] Kevin Rice: Yeah, no, but it was amazing. It worked. Absolutely. And actually, my kids, I think they wore Carter’s almost exclusively. We purchased mostly through Target, so you probably would have preferred we purchased direct, but I think they wore Carter’s probably until they were five years old. Like, that was pretty much all they wore. So Carter’s, Oshkosh, just wonderful brands that really align with family values.

I think we have time for a few more questions. If you had one life lesson that you could share with the next generation of leaders about living with purpose, not just performance, what. What would those lessons be? And. And what advice could you offer for aspiring professionals who, you know, might be also raising families at the same time?

[00:30:22] Jeff Jenkins: Yeah. My favorite piece of advice to give anyone, and I’ve given it to every leader that’s ever worked for me, and I will continue to give it to the. To the end of time, is there is no traffic if you make your own lane. I Think too often we get times, and this applies to being a parent and applies to being a leader. We get caught up in the. The crime of comparison. You know, at work, there’s 10 associate brand managers. I’m comparing myself. Am I as good as that person? Are my, you know, am I being as good a father? Is this person down the street? The answer is, you’ll always lose when you’re comparing. There’s always someone better. There’s always someone who’s got more money, who’s more attractive, who’s doing a better job at being a parent, who’s being a better job at being a leader. But if you choose your own lane and do it your way, there’s no one else on this planet that can do it your way. And so I think I had to get comfortable in that. And I think if you think about finding your own way as a parent, that’s why I always say I don’t like to give parents advice because parenting is personal, and you’ve got to figure out what works for you. I have one or two things, having worked at Carter’s and being around kids and babies of, like, little tips and tricks on things of like, you know, not around how you parent, but, like, hey, you need. You need 10 white bodysuits when you come home, because you’re going to need more than you think, like, little things like that. But how you raise a child or how you lead are things that are very personal.

And so I think if you do it your own way, it gets you out of the conversation of being compared to others and really shines a light on you as an individual and as a leader. And that sort of seems to elevate you both in the personal ranks and in the professional ranks.

[00:31:48] Kevin Rice: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Completely agree. What’s the quote? It’s comparison as the thief of joy. Something along those lines. So what do you hope your kids see when they look back at your career? Not just the accomplishments, but how you lived it. And really, based on how you’ve described it, how you’ve evolved and grown over the last handful of.

[00:32:06] Jeff Jenkins: Of years. Yeah. Oh, I think my kids, or I hope my kids, quite frankly, are probably too young to have the fully formed memories of me not getting it just right. Not saying I’m perfect now, but I definitely, when they were, you know, 3, 5, 4 in that range was my sort of aha moment of I’ve got to get this better. So I hope they take. They carry the joy and the memories of me being a coach on their sidelines. One of the. One of my best memories is my daughter is someone who necessarily doesn’t love athletics in the way my son does. And she played basketball, and I coached her team, and we were never very competitive. It wasn’t about winning, it was about having fun. And about two years ago, she came to me and said, you know, dad, I think I want to retire from basketball. I said, you know, sure, whatever. That sounds good to me, whatever you want to do. And she said, quite frankly, I would have retired two years ago, but I actually just like hanging out with you on the court. I was like, okay, I’m done here. That’s. That’s all I needed to hear for the rest of parenting was, you know, she was enjoying it just as much as I was. So, you know, I hope they take away the moments of me being present and they can pass that on of how they become parents one day if they choose to become parents. And knowing that you don’t have to get it right, but being present is getting it right most of the time.

[00:33:16] Kevin Rice: That’S a really special moment. Thank you for sharing that. I had a similar moment when my son decided he wanted to quit playing basketball. Halfway through, he came to me and told me, dad, I know you loved playing basketball. You grew up playing basketball, but I just don’t really want to do it anymore. He was mid season. I asked him to play one more game. A few days after that game, he said, yeah, I still don’t want to do it. I said, all right, then I’m not going to push you to do anything you don’t want to do, and you definitely shouldn’t do it just because it’s something I like to do. And yeah, as a parent, you have to make those decisions of do you force them to finish out the season even though they’re not enjoying it, or do you give them autonomy? Because kids don’t really have a lot of choices in their childhood. And so finding opportunities to give them the autonomy to make their own decisions I think is really important. And it leads to some, you know, very emotionally building moments.

[00:34:07] Jeff Jenkins: Definitely that’s a great moment for you. Yeah.

[00:34:09] Kevin Rice: Jeff, I think that’s probably about our time today. I could keep going for hours, both talking about career and family, but we should probably wrap it up here. So thank you so much for joining us today. You’re such a talented professional, prolific marketer, and just a wonderful human. I sincerely appreciate you being my first guest.

[00:34:30] Jeff Jenkins: Well, well, thank you so much. It’s been more than a pleasure and it’s been fun. And as we were talking, it’s been five years since we saw each other in person because of COVID And we’ll have to remedy that next time I’m in California or when you’re in Atlanta.

[00:34:43] Kevin Rice: Absolutely.

Well, thanks so much. Appreciate it.

[00:34:46] Jeff Jenkins: Thank you.

[00:34:47] Kevin Rice: If you’re enjoying this conversation, make sure to hit subscribe so you don’t miss future episodes. CEOs and ABC is all about helping you grow in your career and show up at home. We’ve got many more amazing guests coming up, so tap, follow, and stay tuned.