Your Toolkit for Preventing Burnout and Improving Resilience In Tough Times | Mel Robbins Podcast

You gotta get this woman on your podcast. I'm tracking her down and we're getting Jenny Wallace on the show. And I just want you to get ready because we're not only gonna talk about how you break free from the grind culture and how you can get your life and your peace of mind and your control back. We're gonna talk about a deeper topic because she says that the way that you break free from grind culture and toxic achievement is to actually focus on something else. The thing that you and I are both. And we're gonna explain what that is in this conversation. Hey, it's your friend Mel. And welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. All right, today I have to talk to you about something that happened this weekend. I know you're gonna relate to it, but here's what happened. So I'm in the middle of the fall of my son's senior year of high school, so we are in the thick of it with college applications, right? And one of the things that I've loved about living in Southern Vermont is that nobody really talks about it. So I haven't really felt the pressure cooker that the college application process can be. But, oh, my God, something happened this weekend. And I had no idea that I was internally freaking out about this topic because on the surface, I've been super cool. So I was out and about and I bumped into a woman that I know, and we were just chit chatting and all of a sudden question came up. So does Oak know where he's applying to college? And I said, yeah, actually, he's figured it out. There are four schools he's going to apply to. And I think personally he'd be super happy at two of them in particular. And so she said, does he have a first choice? And I said, as a matter of fact, he does. He's going to apply early decision to this particular school. And she paused and said, oh. And I was like, yeah, I know it's a really competitive school, but he does have the grades and he's right in the range of the kind of student that they accept. But these days, everything is so competitive that you just never know. And she said, well, we thought that too, about our son. So he applied ed and he ended up not getting in. They took two other people from the school, but they didn't take him. There was something about the way that her tone of voice was that my heart went. And I don't know what happened. I became that freak. I became that psycho parent. There was something in me that was like, what do you mean. What do you mean? You mean he's not going to get in? You mean he's within range and they're going to take somebody else? And I became that parent that all of a sudden started to own the their kids choices and success and their outcomes. And I came racing home and I was like, oak, Oak, have you written your college essay? How is the process going? Can I take a read of it? Can I see it? And he's like, yes, you can read it. And he sent it to me. First draft. I'll be honest, not that great. It made my heart go even more. And then I go to say to him, is this done? I mean, this is not what you're submitting. I mean, this doesn't even sound like you. And he's like, mom, could you back off? I'm working with it at the counselors at school. This is the first draft. Can you get off my back? It's all we fucking talk about at school. Would you.

Ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba ba.

Whether you're in the college application process or not, you have experienced it yourself or with somebody that you love. And you know, there is something psycho weird about how competitive things have gotten. I mean, I always joke that when I applied to College back in 1985, if I were applying today, I would never get in because of how crazy competitive things have gotten. And I have prided myself on not getting sucked into this. I have meant it when I have told you that I do not put the bumper stickers on my kids cars, that their achievements are not a reflection of my parenting, that my kids need to own the process. They will end up where they're meant to end up, that they will get the lessons they need. They will figure it out. I believe that. But there was something about somebody going, oh, well, that didn't happen to ours. That made me go. And I went crazy for about 48 hours. Well, thankfully I bumped into another friend of mine, shout out to Paige. And Paige and I were talking and she was saying that she was reading this incredible book. And I was like, really? What is the name of the book? And she's like, yeah, it's so incredible. It's called Never Enough. And you gotta get this woman on your podcast. And I'm like, what's it about? And she said, the entire book is about something called grind culture and the way that we are prioritizing what this author calls toxic achievement. How parents have gotten super sucked into it, how we've gotten super sucked into it. I said, paige, Say no more. You are like an angel from the heavens who is hitting me with a sledgehammer saying, Mel Robbins, you gotta talk about this pressure we are all feeling. And so you know what I'm gonna do? I'm tracking her down and we're getting Jenny Wallace on the show. She has written a book called Never Enough. You may know Jenny Wallace at least her work because she has been an award winning Harvard educated journalist from 60 Minutes. She is also a journalism fellow at the center for Parent and Teen Communications at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. And I got of this book, Never Enough. I dug into it and I just want you to get ready because we're not only gonna talk about how you break free from the grind culture and how you can get your life and your peace of mind and your just control back. We're gonna talk about a deeper topic because she says that the way that you break free from grind culture and toxic achievement is to actually focus on something else. The thing that you and I are both seeking. And we're gonna explain what that is, but in this conversation. So please help me welcome Jenny Wallace to the Mel Robbins podcast.

Thank you so much for having me, Jenny.

Thanks so much for jumping on so quickly with me. And I just really want to jump into it. You have this term that you call the grind culture. And I think even though we don't know what the definition is, we all feel that we're in the thick of it. It's this stress and this pressure to. To do more all the time. And that when you're not doing more, it's never enough. So no matter how successful you are, it's never enough. No matter what school you get into, it's never enough. And so I want to start off with the terms that you use in your research. What is the grind culture?

Grind culture to me is a set of messages that tell us we are only as good as our productivity, our performance, what we make, the grades we get, the college we get into. So it is grind culture, to me is your worth is contingent upon your performance.

That makes a lot of sense. And I think we all understand what that is because we all feel this, like, vice on our heads right now. But you also use this term in your research, toxic achievement. What exactly is toxic achievement?

Toxic achievement is, you know, running for the next goal because you feel like you are not worthy until you hit that next goal.

I worry about our kids because I don't feel like I felt that pressure when I was their age. And I know a lot of you are worried about either your kids or your nieces and nephews or your grandchildren, or you felt this pressure. And even though you're through college, you feel this pressure to climb the ladder. You feel this pressure compared to what you're doing, your friends are doing. You feel this pressure because you're not making the money your friends in finance are making. So if that's toxic achievement, what is healthy achievement?

Healthy achievement is recognizing your strengths, recognizing that you need other people to reach for these high goals. And if you miss it, if you miss a goal, to not feel as though it's an indictment against your worth.

That makes a lot of sense. And so here's how I want to handle this. Because your work is primarily focused, Jenny, on the toxic, toxic achievement and grind culture aimed at children and teenagers and young adults and how it's impacting their mental health and how it's backfiring and not working. But it relates to all of us. And so here's what we're gonna do in this conversation. Number one, I want you to unpack your research for us, okay? And then what I wanna do is I want to go to the deeper conversation that relates to all of us, which is the root cause of toxic achievement. We can all feel it. It's never enough. But how the hell did we get here?

What's happening today is that parents are becoming, in the words of researchers, social conduits. They are trying to prepare their kids for this uncertain competitive future. And it comes out in our parenting, we tend to become more controlling. We tend to become more perfectionistic in what we're demanding of our kids. And again, not to blame parents, but why not?

Hold on a second. I blame myself, and I don't have a problem with it. And by the way, this is so relevant to me as a boss, too, to take responsibility for how you take the pressure that you feel and pass it on to somebody else. You have a huge impact in other people's lives based on how you process and handle the pressure that you feel, whether you just jam that down your kids or your colleagues or your friends throats, because you can't tolerate it yourself. And so I think there is a massive role that parents play that they need to wake up and start taking responsibility for.

I don't disagree with you, and I agree that it's. Blame is the word that I'm tired of. I guess what I'm trying to tell parents is to zoom out and put into context the anxieties and the fears that they are feeling. So that they can see them. It's not personal. Every parent is feeling this. I mean, I. As I mentioned, I worked with a Harvard researcher to conduct a first of its kind parenting survey. And we were hoping to get a sample size of a thousand parents. And within a few days, 6,500 parents had filled it out. And there were these universal themes that parents today are feeling. I feel responsible for my children's achievement and success.

Does that concern you?

I mean, it concerns me because that's what. That's when our parenting behaviors are not necessarily conducive to raising healthy achievers. But, you know, when I was in the 70s, when I was growing up in the 70s and 80s, like my parents, yes, they would buy me a tennis racket or a pair of running shoes, but they didn't feel like they had to push me to the front of the pack. And I think today parents feel that responsibility. But here's one other thing I want to say. Not only do they feel that responsibility, they think other people are judging them on that as well. I asked how many agreed with others think that my children's academic success is a reflection of my parenting. 83% of parents agreed with that statement. So it's not only that we feel responsible for creating these sort of safety nets for our kids and making sure they're successful in the future, but other people are judging us.

In fact, this is the first time in US History that kids are worse off than their parents. Worse health outcomes, life expectancy, higher anxiety rates, higher depression rates, worried about the environment, the changing job market. It's no wonder everybody is stressed out.

I asked parents, so we're talking about the stress that they're feeling in their homes, right? I said, how many of you agree or disagree with this statement? On a scale from 1 to 4, I wish today's childhood was less stressful for my kids. 87% of parents agreed with that statement.

I want to know who are the 13 that didn't. I mean, my God, maybe they read the question wrong.

At the end of the survey, I asked parents if they would be willing to be interviewed. And hundreds of parents reached out. And so I traveled the country listening to these stories over and over again. It was the same story. The sleepless nights by their kids in order to cram in, all the AP classes. The weekends spent at soccer tournaments, missing family gatherings, missing birthday parties. The mother in Alaska told me her kids never understood what a Thanksgiving meal really was because they were always on the road going to soccer tournaments on Thanksgiving. So I guess what surprised me the most was how universal this feeling was and how honest parents were about it.

That makes a lot of sense. And I can't wait to hear what we need to focus on in order to get back to the kind of life where you are focused on healthy achievement instead of being driven to the race to nowhere based on this toxic grind culture and this pressure that we feel. I mean, when I explained that story about how my friend said something, and next thing you know, I, like, swoop in and start pressuring my son because now I'm all freaked out and I'm buying into this, that's exactly what we're talking about. That there's the ability to strive and to want to achieve something and to do it in a very healthy way rather than amping up the pressure and the stress that we feel. So how do we get there?

Yeah. At the root of all this suffering is an unmet need to feel like we matter for who we are at our core.

Seriously. I mean, I thought we were talking about achievement. Now you're talking about mattering. I mean, that's kind of a squishy topic. You're gonna have to break this down for me and for the person listening, because you're talking about doing, doing, doing as the problem, but somehow being, being, being, and feeling like you matter. How are we gonna get there?

Mattering is a core need that we all have to feel important, significant, and like we make an impact on the world to matter. We need to feel valued for who we are at our core. By our families, by our colleagues, by our friends and our larger community. And importantly, we need to be depended on. We need to be relied on to add value back to our families, to our colleagues or friends, and to our larger communities. When we experience that feeling valued and adding value, that's when we have a high level of mattering. And mattering acts like a protective shield against anxiety, depression. It's not that the students that I met who experienced this high level of mattering who were striving in healthy ways. It didn't mean they didn't have failures or setbacks. But what mattering did is it acted like a buoyant. It helped to lift them up when they had a setback, when they felt like they were failing. It wasn't an indictment of their worth. So as part of my research, I went in search of the healthy strivers. I wanted to know what, if anything, they had in common. What was home life like for them? What was their relationship like with their peers? What was school like? And I found about 15 or so common threads that these healthy achievers had in common. And. And as I was looking for a framework to present my findings, I came across the psychological construct of mattering. It's been around since the 1980s. It was first conceptualized by Morris Rosenberg, who brought us the idea of self esteem. And what he found in the 80s was that students who felt a healthy level of self esteem felt like they mattered, that they were important to their parents and, and known for who they were at their core. Their value wasn't contingent on their performance or what they looked like or what team they made. And they were also depended on to add meaningful value back to their families, to their friends, to their communities. They experienced this high level of mattering because they had social proof. They believed at their core that they were valued. And then they saw it in action with how they were adding value to those around them. So when they stumbled, when they had a setback, they didn't feel like it was an indictment of their worth. They were able to bounce back. The kids who seemed to be suffering the most were kids who felt like they only mattered when that their mattering was contingent, their value was contingent. The other group that seemed to be suffering the most were kids who felt like they were valued at home. But no one ever depended or relied on them. So what happens is they lacked social proof that they mattered.

This is the exact same thing that all the research has proven to be true about people who succeed at work and people who don't. That there is this underlying theme of feeling like you matter to the people that you work with, to the person that is your manager, and that your contributions are important. And so it makes sense to me that this would be the exact same construct that would either make a student feel invisible, or that they mattered, or make a student feel like I only get the attention I need at home when my grades are amazing and my parents have something to brag about. I wanted to pull this apart just a little bit more because I immediately latched on to you saying if you don't have social proof, that can plummet your self esteem. What do you mean by social proof?

Right. So social proof tells a student or an adult that you are important in this world. You make a positive impact on the world around you. The idea of mattering, whether it's for students or for people at work, or for people who are retired, mattering matters throughout life. Young, old, rich, poor. There is what researchers call an instinct to matter. So beyond food and shelter, it is the instinct to matter that researchers say drive all of human behavior for better or for worse. When we feel like we matter, we show up in the world in positive ways, we achieve in healthy ways. We. We want to give back to society, we want to be a good neighbor, we want to be a great colleague, we want to lift people up because we have this deep core of mattering. When we feel like we don't matter, when we are made to feel marginalized, we can either fall inward, get depressed, anxious, lean on substance abuse substances to feed our loneliness, or we can act out. So a school shooter is among the most tragic examples. You don't think I matter? I'll show you I matter. This is a universal need that we all have. And we are living in a society where it is going unmet for too many people. And that to me, is the driving force behind the loneliness we're feeling, the anxiety that we think we're not worthy, the depression when we, when we feel invisible, when no one cares about us, or when we think no one cares about us.

So it sounds like we all have this innate, important, critical need to feel as though we matter in the world at large or to other people, that we have something to contribute, that that is the core issue that most of us are struggling with. And the symptoms that it's not being met are things like loneliness, despair, feeling angry, anxiety. All of those things rise to the surface when this core need isn't met. I really want to dig deeper and deeper into this because I think when our audience, which is now in 194 countries, when people write in, I have no friends, I don't know what to do with my life. I believe this is an issue, that this person has no social proof that they matter. And so can you give us examples of what is social proof that you matter?

In a corporate event, a 30 year old raised his hand and he said, sometimes I feel like I don't matter. Is there a mantra I could say to myself to help me put myself in that mattering mindset? And I said, no. I said, here's what you need to do. You need to go down to your cafeteria and you need to smile at the cafeteria lady who always smiles at you and asks you how your day is going. And you need to say to her, these days have been a little rough for me, but knowing that you're going to be there greeting me with this delicious meal, making me smile, you brighten my day every day. I just want you to know that unlocking the mattering in other people feeds our own mattering. So instead of a mantra, better to go out and be kind and caring to the person at the drugstore who's ringing up, who's probably being attacked day in and day out for not moving fast enough or not. And just thanking them, Just thanking everyday people, thanking a friend who's been there for you. Just a quick text. Mattering is felt in big moments when we are celebrating a milestone birthday and somebody gives a toast to us and tells us why we matter to them. But it's also found in little everyday moments, too. And those little moments of mattering or not mattering pile up. I just remember distinctly I was at an office party with my husband, and a guy was talking to me, but on his phone and texting the entire conversation. And I thought to myself, wow, I really don't matter here. I really don't matter to this guy. He wasn't being rude to me. He was just showing me, yeah, you don't matter as much as this phone. So when we. When our kids come up to talk to us and we're scrolling or we're doing a work email, they. They can be getting those small signals of not mattering. Like I got at that.

At that office party you recommend when kids come home from school, that there's one question that you ask that shows that you matter. What is that question?

I lead with lunch.

What does that mean?

So what I used to do before researching this book is my kids would come home and I'd be thinking, how'd you do on the Spanish quiz? How'd it go on your report today? And what I realized in doing the research was that the signal I was sending my kids, one, was that achievement mattered. Two, this is what I'd been thinking about all day while they were at school. And so instead, now when they walk in the door, I lead with lunch. I ask them, what'd you have for lunch today? And I got that idea because my grandmother, in every conversation I would have with her, she's since passed away. It would always be, what did you have for lunch? It was, I care about you. I care about your nourishment. I care about things that have nothing to do with how you look, what grade you got, how your career is going. I just care about you and your basic needs.

And what did you see change in the dialogue with your kids when you started asking about lunch instead of the Spanish test?

Well, first of all, what I have realized and what the research shows is my kids don't need me to ask about their Spanish test. They already are. Getting the signals everywhere that achievement matters so much. So what I've realized is that my home needs to be a place for kids to recover, for my teens to recover from the pressure they're feeling from their peers, from their peers, parents from teachers, from the college admissions process. My home needs to be a haven from that pressure. So I don't need to ask about their Spanish quiz because they're going to tell me it's already on their minds.

So is the same true when your partner comes home from work or your roommates come home from work? How do you signal that they matter to you? What's the question that you ask?

I think you know what was the best part of your day? I think it. What mattering to me is, is that I value for who you are at your core. It is not contingent on your performance. It's not contingent on how you look that day. It's not contingent on how many dates you're going on. You matter no matter what. Unconditional mattering. And we need to be a source of unlocking it in other people.

And if you want to build your own self esteem, put your attention on other people and unlock it in them. Make eye contact, smile, point out what you appreciate that people are doing for you. Thank people, compliment their nails like it's so easy to do and not enough of us are doing it. And you do get back this reciprocal exchange of energy that makes you feel important because you just made somebody else smile or you just made somebody else light up when you said their name. There was a Gallup study that was done that I found to be shocking that something like 80% of people haven't been told by their boss that they're appreciated in the last year. Not a single acknowledgement that what you do here matters. And I appreciate you for doing it. And that to me is stunning. Except for the fact that the same research showed, if I recall correctly, that most people assume, you know how I feel about you. And that's the huge mistake that we're all making. That we assume that our kids know that we love them. But we never say that, that we put our attention on other things like the Spanish test, which then cues to somebody, that's what she cares about. That's all that she cares about. She's really happy when the team wins. She's not so happy when we don't. And so I think what you're revealing, real thin veil that separates us from one another that we don't realize we need to have to get super, super.

Proactive about one of the reasons that people research finds this, that we don't tell people how much they mean to us and how much we appreciate them is because we think they're going to be embarrassed by our feedback.

Really?

Yeah. There's a research on gratitude about why people don't express their gratitude because they underestimate how the other person will receive it. And sometimes they think they'll embarrass the other person. But the research does not bear that out. So just to clear up any misconceptions.

You just said that 80 plus percent of parents believe that if your kid is doing poorly on a test or gets bad grades, it is a reflection on your parenting. But you've got this amazing reframe. What does a bad grade mean?

Yes. I got this wonderful advice from child psychologist Lisa Damore and I have used it in my own home as well. So when a child brings home a bad grade, instead of dismissing it or saying that's okay, help them widen their perspective. Here's what a bad grade on a one off test tells you. It tells you that that's what you knew that specific day. It doesn't mean how much your teacher loves you. It doesn't mean how well you're going to do in the future. It doesn't define who you are as a student. Student. It's one test on one particular day. And we all have bad days.

I love that. I love that you have this incredible family motto that you. I would love for every family to adopt this, but can you share it with us?

So in our family we have a mantra which is to never worry alone. And that's true of us as parents and also of our kids. And what I hope to instill in my kids with that mantra is the idea that we are worthy of support. We are worthy of being held and nurtured and supported. When we are having setbacks, we are not our setbacks. Our worth is our worth. And when we worry with others, we feel validated. We hear our worth. We see it in the support that others give us. We get that social proof that we are valued no matter what. Whatever you do, don't worry alone. That's when we get into trouble. So reach out for support. We think as parents our job is to raise self reliant, independent adults. And that is an important thing to do. But there is a more profound lesson that our kids need to learn if we want to raise them to be healthy. And that is the skills of interdependence. How to rely on others and how to have others rely on them in healthy ways. And so that's where the don't worry alone comes from, is part of the skills that I'm trying to teach my kids of interdependence.

Oh wow, that's so important. You're right. And we do focus on kind of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and being self reliant and taking responsibility. That modeling healthy connection and interdependence, getting support when you need support, talking about your feelings, that we gotta model that too. And if you're not, you're teaching somebody to suffer in silence the way that so many of us have for generations. One other thing that I love that you wrote about was this idea that being good enough is way better than being perfect. Why is that?

Yes. So I talk about this in the book that when my oldest was born almost 18 years ago, I thought about going back to graduate school to get a PhD in psychology so that I could be the perfect parent with the latest research and I know. Crazy, right? Yes. And what I found is that perfection as a parent does not serve me and it does not serve my kids. What serves us both better is this idea of being good enough. And the good enough mother is responsive to her kids needs. She doesn't meet every need because she can't, only no one can. But to be responsive, to acknowledge it, to validate the need and to do the best that you can do. And that takes us off the hook as parents not needing to be perfect. And it helps our kids, you know, regulate their emotions when they get a little bit disappointed and frustrated that they can't have the perfect parent in this situation.

It reminds me of this thing that you wrote, that the difference between getting a 91% on a test and a 99 is having a good life.

That is it. That is it. And you know, as parents, I certainly fell into this trap myself. The idea that we had to put our needs behind our kids at every turn. And I certainly subscribe to that idea of needing to be the perfect mother. And then I realized that I was getting burnt out. And I would say the thing that really changed my mind about all of this is the research. The number one intervention for any child in distress is to make sure the primary caregiver, most often the mother or the father, that their well being, their mental health is intact because a child's resilience rests fundamentally on their caregiver's resilience. And caregiver's resilience rests fundamentally on the depth and support of their relationships.

I want to make sure everybody heard that you're saying that based on the research, if there is a child that is struggling, the most important intervention that works to help the struggling child is to give the caregiver of that child deeper levels of support.

Yes.

If you're somebody that's listening to us right now and you're like, jenny, Mel, that sounds great, but I don't have anybody, or I don't even know where to start, or who the hell am I going to ask? Because everyone that I know is also burnt out. You have a framework for this, so can you lay it out for everybody listening?

Sure. So this is a study that was originally started by Sonia Luthar, one of the leading researchers in the world on resilience. And she did a series of studies including people who were busy mothers and also had a busy professional life. And she wanted to find out if, one hour a week for three months, one hour a week with a small group of four to five people in the same sort of kind of world, if they could be sources of support for each other. And what she found was, no mother bowed out even when the busyness of their professional and home lives were calling for them. One hour of the week, they met, they talked about their struggles, and at the end of it, she measured their cortisol levels. Those had lowered. She measured, well, being relationships with their kids and relationships with their parents. And what she found was that you only need one hour of deliberate support a week. One hour.

And for those of you going, but I don't know where to get. Churches have free daycare, and they have a lot of support groups that would be a great place to start. Community centers, looking in your town's Facebook pages for events that are going on. You're not gonna find it sitting on your couch complaining to yourself about it. You're gonna have to put yourself out there. You also say it's critical that we tell our kids and our colleagues and our friends our failure stories. What does that mean?

So my daughter was in seventh grade, and she considered herself a good writer. And her seventh grade teacher gave her her paperback, and it had red marks all over the place. So she was so discouraged. And I said, caroline, come to my computer. And I pulled up an early article I had written for the Washington Post science section. And it was edited by a really seasoned, wonderful editor. And it was a bloodbath. I mean, there were comments, there was. I don't understand this. Can you add more here? I need another interview. Where is this study? And my daughter was like, oh, my God, I can't believe they let you write for them. And I've been writing for them for 10 years now. And I said, see, at first I was embarrassed. I told her to need all that work to see all those red marks. And then I thought about it a different way. I said, oh, this person is trying to invest in me. They are trying to make me a better writer. So I now I welcome feedback is what I said to my daughter. You know, I sometimes even say out loud to myself in my office, well, that's enough for the day. Like, just that, because I have a tendency to overwork. And so I have to put the brakes on myself. And I want to model that out loud to my kids.

You have a nicer way of saying, I'm always like, well, I just fucked up again. And then they're like, mom dollar in the swear jar. Like, I'm going to be paying for your college tuition with the amount I'm swearing around here because I screw up all the fricking time. I'm really curious for you to share with us what are the top things that parents say or do that we have no idea that is eroding or erasing the value that your kids need to feel?

Yeah. So the first thing that we do is criticize. And most of us know not to be harsh critics of our kids. Right. This generation is very aware of not being overly critical, but really, criticism impacts our kids up to five times more than a compliment does. Wow.

Really?

Yeah. Yeah. So what I try to keep in my mind is that to create this kind of healthy environment in my house, I need to keep a ratio in mind. I need to think that for every one criticism, I need to at least have five positive interactions with my kids. We are wired as parents to look for the negative and to try to help our kids overcome the negative. But really what we need to do to have that kind of connection is we need to focus on the positive things that are inherent about them. What is it about them that's unique? And so when you look at the research on achievement culture or on healthy connections, it is having that warm relationship with a parent, a minimal criticism, and prioritizing affection. That is what helps us create this connection at home. So when I asked the leading researcher, Sunya Luthar, what's one thing I could do tonight in my house to buffer against any achievement pressure in my home, she gave me a phrase that I've kept in my head, which is minimize criticism, prioritize affection. She said, the kids who were the healthiest in her studies who went to these competitive schools at home. Their parents were not critical of them. They were able to separate the deed from the doer.

And can you define criticism? Because I'm thinking about a situation with our daughter the other day where she's moving back to la, she's out of college. I still consider her a kid because this stuff about mattering is for all of us. And we were talking about the fact that today, while you and I are talking, she's on an airplane heading back, and she got her knickers in a pinch because she wanted to put all of her shoes in a box and then ship the box. And I was like, dude, that is. No, that's gonna cost like, $100, for crying out loud. You get two checked bags for 25 bucks, and I can check a bag with your shoes. So I criticized. Right? Is that what you're talking about, or are you talking about criticizing her for being stupid?

Criticizing her. That's exactly right.

Okay.

It's separating, like, you did the deed from the doer. She's not dumb. Spending a hundred and whatever to send shoes. That's kind of dumb when you can spend $25.

Exactly. And now she's on a budget. It's amazing how you don't have champagne taste anymore when you're paying for it yourself. You know what I'm saying?

I do.

And that leads right into something else that I think is super important for everyone to hear, based on the research. Chores, Chores, Chores. Chores matter. They not only matter because you need the people that you live with to be helping with chores, but chores impact this instinctual desire to matter. How so?

What chores do is not only build a work ethic and, you know, a sense that they're competent. More than that, it shows them that they are an important part of the family. And family is the first introduction to society for a child. And to show them how to be a contributing member of the family is one of the most important lessons that we have as parents if we want to start developing a healthier society than what we're seeing now. So instead of saying to your kids, you need to set the table. I'm sick of setting the table. You could reframe it.

Were you here last night, you could.

Reframe it and say, hey, dad's cooking dinner. I'm working on a deadline. Who can pitch in and set the table? So teaching kids how to look at other people's needs as well, does that make sense?

I love that. And I'd Like a few more scripts. So let's role play here. Because the old Mel. What I've been doing to date is. Oakley. Your room looks like shit. Look at that pile of laundry. You smell disgusting. You need to do some laundry, dude. I'm not your maid. I'm not. There's no laundry fairy that lives in this house. You gotta get the laundry done. What would be a more effective and better way to say that?

Say, I am really busy this week. I have so many deadlines. Can you do me a favor? I really need these pants cleaned. When you do your laundry, can you throw a couple of my things in too?

Wow. I just got something. Jenny. I hate doing laundry. And so I resent the fact that it's building up. Cause I do. Ask him in a very kind way. Hey, bud, could you stop by the grocery store on your way home from practice? You know, it'd be a huge help if you could pick up these three things. Cause I need him to make dinner tonight and he's delightful. But we are in this, like, kind of standoff, like, let's go get your laundry done. And I'm kind of making fun, but I'm not as supportive and effective in the laundry. Cause I don't want to have to do it. I don't, you know? But I like what you're saying. Help me with this. Can you throw a load in? It'd be a really big help. Yeah, I love that.

Yeah. And then it's not a power struggle, then it's asking for help. It's reaching out for support.

That's true. That's true.

Yeah. I would say one of the things that was an eye opener for me was how important it is to ask our kids for their opinions about things. So when we don't ask our kids for their opinions, we tell them, your opinion doesn't matter right now. And instead we can empower them. We can ask them advice. We can, you know, planning a vacation, having them go on and look for the best rate on a hotel room or the best price for a rental car. Show them they have an impact. Show them they can add value to the family. To matter is to feel valued at our core by family, friends and community, but also being relied on and depended on to add meaningful value back to the family, to. To the school, to the community. So, you know, knowing about mattering has changed the conversations I have with my kids. There is a phrase by a Brown sociologist, Brown University sociologist named Gregory Elliott, that really resonated with me. And he said, what gets in early gets in deep. And when you are growing up and you are told you don't matter, we don't want your opinion. We value your brother more than we value you. When you're interrupted, when nobody sees what is interesting and unique and special about you as a human, that gets in deep. And it takes a lot of work to get it out. And I don't know that it ever leaves this unmet need to matter. But I do know that it doesn't take much to let people in your life, strangers, the people you love, to let them know they matter. It happens in small, everyday interactions. It doesn't have to be a big, grand gesture. These small interactions build.

I feel like there's a number of things that you stopped doing. You stopped criticizing, you stopped ignoring their opinions, and you stopped praising them. Is there anything else that you stopped doing or that you changed after doing this research project?

Yeah, I stopped prioritizing having a perfectly organized house.

Oh, yes.

And instead, I invest that time in my friendships. You don't want to look at my closet, but instead of spending two hours to clean my closet, I spend that time going for a walk with my friend, having a cup of coffee. At some point, I will get to my closet. But right now, with the book launch, I've needed more support from my friends. So I'm like, you know what? In this kind of stressful time, I'd rather lean on my friends than have a perfectly organized closet. So a lot of the wise parents that I met had a volunteer mandate in their family. So you know how some parents say, I don't care what sport you play. You can play soccer, anything you want to play, but you have to stay active. That's a value in our family. I now have a volunteer mandate with my kids, and it's for everyone in our family. We devote time every weekend to. To that. Just like some parents would with sports.

I love that. I love that.

I'll tell you another thing I've stopped doing.

Please.

I used to praise my kids. I used to say, you're so good at this. You're so good at that. Wow, you're strong in math. I have found in the research that a child's sense of self becomes stronger less by being praised, which can feel like pressure, and more by being known for who they uniquely are. So I've gotten what I call a PhD in my kids. I study them just like they're studying me, and I see what makes them tick uniquely. And that used to be something that was hard for me. You know, my Peers and colleagues would talk about their kids strengths and this and that and I'd say, I don't know what my kids strengths are like. It doesn't stick out to me. And so as a family we did something. It's a free online tool that is called the VIA Survey Via Values and Action Survey. And it tells you your five core strengths, things that are inherent about you. And so as a parent, I now focus on these strengths. We are no longer looking at weaknesses and sort of zooming in and focusing on weaknesses which are sort of normal for a parent to worry about a child's weakness. You know, we are, we all have this negativity bias and we are programmed by evolution to focus on the negative. But what taking the VIA Survey did is that it helped me see the inherent strengths of my kids and it made my kids feel seen and known by me.

I'm stealing that from you and I think we should do it as a team at work.

So the research on values was eye opening for me. And what the research finds is that the environments that we are living in, our homes, our neighborhoods, our workplaces, activate certain values. So if you have a child that's going to a competitive school, they are saturated by these extrinsic values that are saying, reach that goal, get that gpa, make the A team look good. And at home, what I have to do. Values operate like a zero sum game. So the more you spend on those extrinsic values, the less room in your life you have to focus on the intrinsic ones. You just have so much time in the day. So what the research says is that parents need to really focus on the intrinsic values at home to balance out the values in our environment. The values that tell our kids, you need to look a certain way, you need to weigh a certain thing, you need to, your hair needs to look this way, you need to get all these likes, you need to make it into this college, make it onto that sports team. So at home you need to focus on the other things, the intrinsic values. You're such a good brother. Thank you so much for always cleaning the table and taking out the trash without even anybody asking. You just always see when there's a need in the family and you meet it. And there are different ways that we can point out these intrinsic values to our kids. One way is to do that via survey that we talked about. Another way is to listen to what adults in our children's lives say about our kids. So for example, the teachers in my kids schools write a little narrative along with their grades. And I've stopped focusing on the grade and instead I focus now on the narrative. And it's always about their strengths. And I do it with a highlighter and a pencil and I annotate them. And I'm like, oh my gosh, I see this too at home. Wow, you always do this with your sister. I try to balance out their values. And here's why. Because extrinsic values. When we are overly focused on extrinsic values, research finds we are more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, and substance abuse disorder. So that is why it is so important at home for a parent to focus on the intrinsic values that act as like a protective force of our self worth.

One of the things that Chris and I did that if you. That I want you to steal. Because, you know, our kids went to public high schools, we didn't get really big write ups. So when we go to the teacher meetings, we would always just say, we don't want to talk about the grades and the schoolwork. Tell us what kind of a person they are when they're here. Talk to us about who you see here and how they are with their peers, how they are with you. And it's a way for you to get that intel from another adult if you're not getting those kind of reports from whatever school. And by the way, I just keep coming back to the fact that all of this is relevant to all of us. I just assume most people are walking around with a deficit in feeling as if they matter, that most people feel that they don't. Most people have a deficit when it comes to the amount of times they're celebrated, the amount of appreciation that they get, and that if you go through your day, whether it's with your kids or your colleagues or with your friends, your partner, and you really just assume most people have not been told that they've been appreciated in a week or a year or ever in their lifetime. This stuff matters. And people need to be lifted up, especially now. And we all have a small part to play and I would argue a responsibility in unlocking it in other people. And you'll be surprised how when you put the focus on calling out what you truly appreciate about other people, the difference they make for simply smiling, for simply being there for it, really comes back to you tenfold. You know, I always think about that saying, be kind to everybody because you have no idea what they're dealing with. And I think it's safe to assume every person that you meet is dealing with a ton of shit. And most people have not gone to therapy. They do not have the tools. It's one of the reasons why I'm here twice a week. Because most people, it is. It got in early and it got in deep. And it doesn't even have to be your family. If you were, like, the only brown kid in your entire elementary school class, that seeps in. If you experience racism and bias, that seeps in. If you struggle with constant poverty, if you're being neglected or abused physically, emotionally, it seeps in. And it can come in in just infinite ways. And your research and the simple things that you're saying actually make a difference in your life and in anybody else's life when you bother to use it. So, Jenny Wallace, thank you so much. The book is never enough. Get it, read it, apply it, because it matters.

Thank you so much, Mel.

Thank you, everybody. Let's give it up for Jenny. Thank you for your expertise, your insight, and for really going deep on this very real problem that we all face. And I think you gave us incredible tools. And what I find the most empowering is that you and I hold the keys to helping other people feel like they matter in this world. And when you really think about that, isn't that a beautiful thing? Isn't that a beautiful thing to be able to do for another human being, to tell them and to make them feel that no matter what you do or you don't do, you belong here. I see you. You matter to me. And simply calling somebody by their name, looking them in the eye, putting the phone down, being present, telling them that you appreciate the little heart or the little leaf they put in the top of your coffee, that's enough. That's enough to flip the switch for somebody. And it also explains why I always end our conversations the same way I always end by telling you that in case nobody else tells you, I want you to know that I love you. And I mean it. And I say it because I want you to know that you matter to me, that I think about you on this walk with me, and that's why I say it. So thank you for spending your time with me. Thank you for sharing this conversation with other people in your life. Thank you for showing up for yourself. I love you. I believe in you. And I believe in your ability to create a better, more meaningful life. All right, I'll talk to you in a couple days. Are you ready for me, Jesse? Yes. Okay. So it's cool to do that. Okay. Can you turn down the return just a little? Awesome. Thank you so much. Oh, I don't know how to do that. Okay. I mean, I don't have a pro. Hold on a second. Let me try that one more time. Something like that. Good. Okay, great. Oh, I think we should add one more thing. Oh, yeah. Do you want the this or no? Okay, great. Great. Thank you, guys. Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know, what the law lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist. And this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. And for you watching on YouTube, first of all, thank you, thank you. Thank you for being here. And watch this one Next. It's with Dr. Lisa Damore. You heard Jenny talk about her, and the episode is going to help you help anybody in your life that's struggling. Enjoy.