Ep 58 | Parenting - Inside & Outside the Office

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Better at business, better at health, better at relationships, just better at life. Let's get into today's topic. Today I'm going to be discussing some parenting advice, parenting advice that I received from Dr. Laura Markham, a clinical psychologist and a very well-known parenting expert. I want to talk around parenting, and stick with me here because if you're not a parent, that's okay. Maybe you will be soon. Or maybe you'll be a grandparent, or everything I share here today, this parenting advice shared here, continue listening because you're likely going to find a relationship between what I share here and the leadership you have to display in your business each day in working with your teammates, your clients, your industry peers, your employees. So I want to focus on parenting advice because if many of you are experiencing what my wife and I are experiencing, which is the kids are home for summer, we're spending a lot more time together, and call it what it is, I love my kids dearly, but you know, getting 10x the dosages of them right now it can be challenging at times. And so I've gone back to some advice from Dr. Markham and I've reviewed it and I thought it'd be good to share with you. She shared this information with me about 7 years ago and I want to, I'm going to share with you the 4 thoughts or tips that resonated most and I think are most applicable in my world today around my approach to parenting. So number 1, with your kids. Coach instead of control. Your job as a parent is to support your child so that she can or he can flourish and develop. Doing things for him or her robs her of the opportunity to become competent. To develop skill. Doing things with her teaches her how and builds confidence. So parenting advice number 1: do your best to coach instead of control. Do things with the kids to show them how it's to be done and allow them to build confidence, and not for the kids. This is very difficult. Why? Well, because sometimes it takes them a while to get it done. Maybe they screw it up a handful of times and, and that's challenging, but the point is let them get after it with you as a guide versus you doing it for them and allow them the opportunity to learn and build confidence. Number 2 parenting advice from Dr. Markham: Perfection is not the goal. When your kids set out to achieve something, step back and and let them tackle it on their own, as we just discussed. If this is their first time working on a task, they usually hit many roadblocks, and they usually get frustrated, and there's a good chance, especially if they're younger, tears may even be involved. However, eventually they're gonna make it to the end. Now the end result may not be perfect, It may not be how you would have done it, but the task is completed, and that is really all that matters. So by allowing your kids to work through a task, their confidence again builds, and they have this newfound sense of accomplishment. So perfection is not the goal. We're trying to, we're trying to coach, we're trying to influence, we're trying to lead, Perfection is not the endgame, but letting them get out there and achieve something, letting them tackle it on their own, and letting them get that win allows them to build confidence and a sense of accomplishment. Number 3, parenting advice number 3, encourage, encourage, encourage, and teach self-encouragement. Helping kids, in Dr. Markham's opinion, and I feel the same way, Helping kids learn self-encouragement is integral to their growth and their development. So constantly encouraging your kids to do their best, constantly encouraging your kids to work hard is such a great thing. Always reminding them that they can do it is such a positive thing. My wife and I have, have made many a mistake, but one thing I think we do half decently is teach our kids self-encouragement. We've taught them from a young age, "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can," like the Little Engine That Could, and as they got older, it's the same thing. You can do it. Affirmations. You think you can, you can. Get it done. Believe in yourself. Anytime they're struggling with something, we go right back to the "I think I can," I think I can, I think I can affirmation mantra. So when we cannot be there to encourage them, they gotta have their own inner voice to remind them that they can do this. I can do this. And I think the only way to help build that inner voice is to create that repetition, create that mindset, that thought process before they get to a point where they're independent of you such that they have this confidence to proceed forward. Number 4, last bit of parenting advice from Dr. Markham: focus on effort, not results. Stating things like, "I see you worked so hard on this," or, "How did you learn how to do that?" These are such great things to focus on effort and not results, saying those sorts of things. Giving positive feedback about specific things that he or she has control over, like hard work, like perseverance, like mindset, rather than feedback on things that they have no control over, like being smart. It's just such a better area of focus, effort versus results. The point is never the product. These are kids we're trying to develop them. The point is never the product. You don't want her necessarily resting on her laurels at the age of 6 or at 16. Your goal is for her to keep trying, keep practicing, keep improving, and for her to learn that when she works hard, she can accomplish her goals. So effort, effort, effort, not results. Doesn't mean I don't want a high five every now and again when we win. But I want to figure out— I don't want them resting on their top accomplishment at the age of 12. I want to keep making certain that, that they're going to keep trying, they're going to practice, and they're going to improve. So to wrap this up, uh, yes, this was parenting advice, but if you are leading people in your business environment, this stuff probably resonates as well. Coaching instead of controlling your people. What is that about? It's about teaching them how to think. Perfection is not the goal. Yeah, sure, you map out a process and it would be nice if we followed it perfectly, but I'm married to the result, right? Like, I'm married to the endgame. I'm not always married to the method by which we get there. The third thing, encourage, encourage, encourage, and teach self-encouragement. If you have anybody working with you or for you that you're leading, We all know the importance of encouragement. We all know the importance of getting them to believe that they can do it versus you diving in and trying to take it on yourself. And then lastly, yes, results matter in the business, in business, in the workplace. We're adults though, but results matter. That being said, it's the efforts, it's the activities, it's the lead measures we should be holding accountable to because if honored, if the activities are honored, if the effort is performed, the results will come. Unless there's a misalignment between the activities and the efforts, in which case you as leader may have set them up for failure. So you need to reflect. So the focusing question for you today: as you're parenting and/or leading people in the office, Do any of these 4 apply? And if so, maybe you have some changes to make. What changes might you make today? Are you violating any of these rules? If all 4 of these you're nailing, it's probably a good chance that maybe there's something, a spin-off of one of these, a version of one of these that you could focus on and work on. So the focusing question, where's the opportunity lie for you within these 4 or even outside of these 4, provided that it sparked some degree of thought and consideration. Where do you have work to do today? What action can you take today to change the way you're parenting as we're into the summer, as well as change the way maybe you're leading those around you? That's all I have for you today. The No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. So let's get after it.