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Success story is a Square partner. Now your favorite neighborhood spots run on Square. You know, I was just at Panther Coffee here in Miami last week. And beyond the incredible cortado, what struck me was watching them seamlessly handle the morning rush.

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The barista mentioned they've been using Square.

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To manage everything from inventory to building their loyal customer base. It's so much more than just that little white card reader that we all recognize. Square knows that local businesses can be big businesses. And as things get more complex, Square meets you at every opportunity. So whether or not you're expanding to.

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New locations, building a loyal following, even.

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Meet you there. In this Lessons episode, we're talking about the math that nobody wants to do. How much time you actually have left with the people that you love. If you've been telling yourself there's always next year to visit your parents. If you assume you have decades left when you might only have a dozen visits. If you've let geography or busy schedules make all of your relationship decisions for you, this one's for you. I'll show you why you've already spent 90% of the time that you will ever spend with your parents, what the actual numbers look like when you do the math, and how to make conscious choices and about how you spend time with your loved ones. So when you do spend time with them, you can be intentional, fully there and just present you want to hear something messed up. By the time you're 35, you're going to have experienced 90% plus of the total time that you will ever have with most people who actually matter to you. Let me explain how this math makes sense. Like last week I was interviewing a CEO for my podcast when we got onto the topic of work life balance and I mentioned something that I'd read from Tim Urban. He's a blogger. Once you move out of your parents house, you've already spent about 90% of the total time that you'll ever spend with them. And my guest, the CEO, he stopped mid sentence. He's like that can't be right. So we did the math together. His parents were 74, he was 47. He saw them every other month for a weekend and after pulling out his calculator, he went pale. 48. That's the number, 48. He figured it out on his calculator. If he was lucky, he would have 48 more visits with his parents before they passed away and we finish up the interview. He canceled everything that he had on that afternoon and he drove straight to his parents house. We were texting later that evening and he texted me a photo from his parents dining room. He said, I just drove three hours to see them. It was worth it. Now let's talk about how this calculation actually works. So I just said 90% of your time is gone. Sounds like clickbait, but the math is actually surprisingly straightforward and scary. Let's say you're 35 and your parents are 70 years old. So for the first 18 years of your life, from being born to 18 years old, you lived with your parents, right? So even if we conservatively estimate that you spent just three hours of quality time together per day, say meals, conversations, homework, help, driving places, that's about 10, 95 hours per year over 18 years. That's 19,710 hours. And to be honest, three hours is probably low. You think about weekends, number of vacations, family trips. The real number is probably much higher. After you moved out, if you're like most people, this was the dramatic shift, right? So college meant seeing them on breaks maybe 60 days a year at first. And then you got a job, then you met someone, then you had kids of your own. So now you see them, what, like once a month if you live nearby and every few months if you're across the country. And let's be generous and say it's 10 days per year total holidays, birthdays, occasional visits. And during those visits, between work calls and managing your own kids and the general chaos of life, maybe you get six hours of real quality time per day. So that's 60 hours per year. And if your parents live to 85, 15 more years, that's 900 hours remaining. So that means that your total lifetime hours are 20,610 hours with your parents. You've already spent 9,19,710 hours with them. So the percentage that you've already used is 95.6%. Now, these numbers are going to vary based on your situation. Maybe you call every day, maybe you live next door, maybe you're estranged. But for most people who've moved away from home, the pattern is identical. The vast majority of time with your parents happens in the first 18 years. Now, when I first speak about this math, people push back right away. And the responses Are very predictable, right? But I talk to my mom every day. Or we're closer now than when I was a teenager. Or quality. Quality matters more than quantity. All true and all missing the point. A daily phone call is wonderful. It maintains a connection. The emotional intimacy, the shared life. But a 10 minute call isn't the same as living in the same house. It's not breakfast together before school. It's not teaching you how to drive. It's not falling asleep on the couch watching movies. See, the relationship might be better now. Many people grow closer to their parents as adults. But closer doesn't mean more time. You can have a deeper relationship with less actual contact. In fact, that's what most of us have. But you still have less time with them. Now here's something that I actually didn't understand until very recently. Time moves differently depending on where you are in life. So this is also something that is a little bit scary to think about. When you're 10, a year is 10% of your entire existence. So summer vacation feels endless. And the school year, it drags on forever. Because again, it's such a significant amount of your existence. When you're 40, a year is 2.5% of your life. So you blink, and your kid went from crawling to kindergarten. But here's the cruel part. While time speeds up for you, it's racing for your parents. So Your mom is 70. The next five years represent a huge chunk of her remaining life. Her health could change, her memory could fade. Her energy is definitely going to decline. Now you're 40. So the next five years, you barely notice them pass. Your life is busy, full, demanding. You are in the thick of career and kids and mortgage payments. And this asymmetry creates this very painful gap. The years when your parents need you most, their 70s and their 80s are the exact years when you're busiest with your own life. And there's another problem on top of this time. Asymmetry. Let's talk about geography. In 1940, 90% of Americans died in the same state where they were born in. Today, that's less than 60%. We're more mobile than ever. And that mobility has a cost that we don't usually calculate. So if you live next door to your parents, which is becoming increasingly rare, you might see them multiple times per week, right? Like quick dinners, weekend coffees. They watch the kids say, call it 100 plus days per year of contact. Which would mean you get a lot more time than that math I just did. You live in the same city, 30 minutes away that Means weekly dinners become bi weekly, monthly becomes every month, and you're down to 40, 50 days per year. If you live in a different city, maybe say a two hour drive, well, now it requires planning, right? So weekend visits every month or two holidays, maybe 20 to 30 days per year. If you're in a different state, there's a flight required. Well, everything becomes an event. Thanksgiving, Christmas may be a summer vacation, and you're at 10 to 15 days per year if you're diligent. And if you're in a different country, you might see them once or twice a year, a week each time, if you're lucky. So each jump in distance roughly halves your contact. Once you need a plane ticket, spontaneous visits disappear entirely. And more and more people are living again, not down the street from their parents. Now, once you start to understand this framework, you're going to see it in all your relationships. So your children, you get about 18 years of daily contact, that is roughly 6,570 days. And after they move out, if you see them weekly, and you won't, once they have their own families, that's 52 days a year, you'll spend more time with them in their first five years than in the 30 years after they turn 20. But that could be healthy. Your kids need to build their own lives. The reduction in time often correlates with their own growth into independence. But just know that there will be less time. Just be aware of it and savor and be present with your siblings, right? You share 18 years under one roof, probably annoying each other daily. And then everyone scatters. Holiday gatherings, weddings, maybe a shared vacation. The siblings you fought with every day become someone who you see 10 times a year. And then sometimes that distance improves a relationship. You become friends instead of forced roommates, but again, just be present when you have that time with them. College friends, right? Four years of basically living together. Every meal is shared, every stupid decision made together at 2am and then graduation hits and you'll scatter to different cities and different careers and different lives. And the group chat stays active, but the actual gatherings twice a year, if you're exceptional at planning. And then the work friends, right? You spend more waking hours with colleagues than family. Five days a week, eight, eight hours a day for years. And then someone gets a new job and then you never see them again for the rest of your life, right? That person who you ate lunch with 200 times a year, become someone who maybe you text them on their birthday and, and this isn't meant to be tragic. It's just meant to be something you're aware of. Some relationships are meant to be intense but temporary. Others are meant to be occasional but permanent. The problem is we don't usually choose consciously. We just let geography and circumstance and time and life decide. And I think it's just really important to be purposeful and to understand that when you're with somebody, be with them, be present, because there's a chance that that's going to be the last time that you're with that person, or at the very least, the last time where you spend as much time with that person. Now, I've shared this idea with hundreds of podcast guests, thousands of newsletter readers, friends, family, and the response falls into very predictable categories, right? So there's sort of four ways to respond to this information because it is heavy information. Group one denies it, right? About 30% of people say, well, this is too depressing to think about. And they change nothing. They're the same people who don't look at their credit card statements and then they wonder why they're in debt. Second group of people is panic, right? About 15% of people panic, right? I need to quit my job, move back home, right? And they make these dramatic, unsustainable changes and they last for about three months for reality sets in because you can't actually pause your entire life and your parents don't want you to. Group three, third group is guilt. About 40% of people feel guilty as hell, I'm a terrible son and daughter. And they spiral into this self recrimination, but they don't actually change anything. They just feel bad every time they see their parents, which makes them want to visit less, which makes them feel worse. And the last group is adjustment. About 15% of people actually understand what this means. And they're more intentional with the time they have with the people that they love. And they make these small, very specific, sustainable changes. And the fourth group, this adjustment group, it interests me most. This is how I think most people should react to the information that they only have a finite amount of time with the people that they actually love left. So what does this group do? They schedule regular calls and they treat them as unmovable appointments. Not just, oh, hopefully we jump on a call this weekend. No, it is something that is set in stone. They put their phones away during visits, completely away, not just face down. They plan regular trips instead of vague, we should get together trips. They say yes to, invitations they normally skip. They ask more questions, especially about the past. They show interest in people who they love. They record conversations, they take more photos, they save voicemails, and they move closer. Not next door, but maybe from a plane ride to a car ride. And they include their parents in their life instead of just visiting their parents. Life small changes. But when you only have 900 hours left, an extra phone call per week, that's 26 hours per year, is nearly 3% of your remaining time. Now, if you really want to feel the weight of these numbers, go visit a nursing home. This is what you're going to hear. You're going to hear things like, My son lives 20 minutes away. I see him on Christmas. Or, my daughter's very busy, very important job. I understand. Or, the grandkids probably don't remember me. It's been a few years. And the saddest part is the adult children probably think they're doing well. They usually think they're doing well. If you ask these people in the nursing home, if you ask their kids, you know, how is their relationship with their parents, they're going to say things like, well, I call every month or I visit on holidays. Every month, holidays to someone who has maybe 20 months left, right? And if you do the math, I broke this down for somebody in my grandma's nursing home, and a resident actually did the math for me. She said, I have maybe 500 days left. My daughter visits four times a year. That's maybe 10 more visits. 10 more times I'll see my only child before I die. And she thinks she's doing great because she calls on my birthday. I'm not telling you these numbers or asking you to do this math so you can be sad and depressed. I'm not telling you to quit your job and move back to your hometown. I'm not saying you should feel guilty about living your own life. I'm not even saying you need to change anything. Some people genuinely need distance from their families. And some relationships are toxic. Some parents were absent, some parents were abusive. Some families function better with space. If that's you, the math doesn't apply the same way, and that's okay. But if you have parents who you love and who love you, and you're operating under the assumption that there's always next year, well, maybe there is, but not as many years as you think. So the question shouldn't be, how do I maximize every relationship? Question is, am I making conscious choices about how I spend my time, or am I letting life make those choices for me? So if you're listening to this and this is concerning to you, here's a few practical Things that actually work. After years of conversations about this topic, these are some changes you can make in your life that people actually stick with. So the Sunday call. Pick a time every week, same time. Don't negotiate with yourself. Don't skip it when you're busy. Especially don't skip it when you're busy. Monthly visit if you live within driving distance. Again, kind of like the call. Pick a day, first, Saturday, last Sunday, whatever. Make it recurring. The regularity matters more than the frequency. The grandkid facetime. If you have kids and distant parents, set up a weekly video call same time every week. Even if it's just 10 minutes. Your parents don't care if the kids are cranky or if the house is a mess. Also, you can do a question project. So every time you visit, ask about something specific from the past. Record the answer. You can say things like, tell me about your first job. How did you meet your best friend? What was your dad like? These stories disappear when people die. And also shared activity. Find something to do together. Watch the same TV show and discuss it. Read the same book. Follow the same sports team. Share something beyond just updates about your life. And the preemptive yes. When they invite you to something, default to yes instead of no. You can always cancel if you really need to, but starting with yes changes the dynamic. So after listening to this, I want you to try something. I want you to pick one relationship that really matters to you and be specific. It could be your parent, your sister, brother, doesn't matter. How old are they right now and how often do you see them? And be honest. How many hours do you visit when you actually connect? And then based on average life expectancy, how many years do they have left? And then multiply visits per year times remaining years, and that's your number. Write it down. The actual number, not the lots of time left. But write down approximately 73 more visits if that's your number. And then ask yourself, am I okay with this? If yes, good. Now you know you've made a conscious choice. If no, then what specifically are you going to do to change? It's not spend more time together, but it could be visit monthly instead of quarterly, or it could be call weekly instead of monthly. Or it could be move to the same city by next year. See, vague intentions don't change anything. But knowing you have 73 visits instead of decades, that might change something. So this leads us to the truth that really nobody wants to talk about. Your parents also probably think about this more than you do. They're doing Their own math. They know their friends are dying. They. They feel that the bodies are changing. They see their time horizon, but they won't tell you. They don't want to guilt you. They don't want to be a burden. They're proud of your busy life, your important job, your beautiful family. So they wait for your calls and they cherish your visits. And they pretend they're not disappointed when you cancel. But you know what? Your mom's counting, your dad's counting, your.