Parenting in a Pandemic: Raising Great Kids with Shelly Lefkoe

Foreign. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. I'm Eric Edmeads, and I'm here with my incredibly good friend, Shelly Lefkoe. And the reason Shelly is here is as we continue the discussion of parenting in crisis, I really wanted you guys to go to the person that I go to ask all kinds of great parenting questions about, and more than just parenting. Also, how we assess the right meanings in the life that we're living right now and how we make sure that our children do as well. One of the things I mentioned in our previous episode was I remember reading a lot about children that grew up in the Great Depression and how it scarred them for the rest of their lives, to the point that many of them ended up passing away with millions of dollars in the bank, having never seen the world, having never traveled, having never driven a nice car, having not lived in a nice house because they were so messed up by going through the Depression that it messed up the relationship with money. And so what I want us all to do is make sure that we're taking care of our kids minds. And I wanted to bring Shelly in to talk with you. Please, Shelly, say hello.

Hi, everybody.

Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. I know you've got a very busy schedule of clients working with you every day. I'm glad you were able to slot this in for us. I'm hoping you'll still find time to eat some lunch eventually.

Probably not today, but that's okay. If I could just jump right in. I want to address something that you said, and I know that you meant what I'm going to say, but I want to clear it up. You said people were messed up by living through the depression. And I want to start this conversation by saying nothing that happens to you messes you up. It's what you conclude about it, the meaning that you give it, that turns into our beliefs that become what we believe that messes us up. And I mean nothing. I don't care what horrible thing you've gotten. I do care. But you may have experienced horrible, horrible things in your life, in your lives. And what messes you up are the beliefs that get formed from the meaning you give those events. So if you got out of the depression going, wow, that sucked, Geez, I can't wait for life to be better. You know, I know that things can change. They will. Then you wouldn't be scarred by the depression. But what most people conclude is terrible things happen to us at any moment. You have to be prepared. Like my father used to say, you have to save for a rainy day. Save for a rainy day. And that's what he did his whole life. He was exactly, Eric, what you're talking about, such a child of the Depression. He didn't have shoes. He never wanted his kids to go through that. So he made sure that he saved his money. So, anyway, I just wanted to.

I'm with you 100%. And I believe that the reason that this topic is so important to me is you're absolutely right. It wasn't the Great Depression that messed anybody up. It was likely, largely the way the government, their teachers and their parents behaved around them in their formative years that caused them to form, they say, dysfunctional associations and meanings that then govern their life. And so I think that's why parenting, you know, parenting correctly is even more important today than any other time.

And I love that you're doing this. I mean, it's so brilliant and it's so insightful because your kids come into this world and they don't know anything. They don't know if life is good or bad. They don't know if they're safe or not safe. And they're looking at you and looking at you and wondering. I always ask parents, what is the one word question every child asks? And Zoe is the perfect age to start asking this question. Why? Why can't you play with me? Why can't I have dessert? Why do I have to go to sleep? Why do I have to do my homework?

Yeah.

And the question becomes, why is everybody so scared? Why can't we go out? Why?

Why can't I touch my face?

Why can't I touch my face? Exactly. You know, and if you don't give them good answers or answers that will alleviate that fear and keep them in the moment. This is what's happening today. We are going to be fine. We, we are fine. And there is something happening in the world. People got sick and it can be caught. And so we are not going out right now. But we could play games. I mean, my daughter, I have a six year old grandson and my daughter, finally yesterday, she, she lives on a big piece of property in Hawaii and she told her son, go out and play in the mud. You know, it's pouring there. And she said she just had to get them out of the house. Yeah, but they've been playing board games. They went to the library before this happened. They got a bazillion books. You know, she is doing cooking and baking and science experiments. And the idea is to give your child some sense of normalcy yeah, yeah.

No question. I think that, you know, like, that issue of how you answer the question why? Is always important, but again, more important under stress. And there's, I think, two reasons. The one is, under stress, we tend to be more negative, we tend to be more pessimistic, we tend to be more vigilant. But also under stress, we tend to lock memories in more firmly. And so your kids, all of our kids in their formative years are more likely to remember answers to why now than they were two weeks ago. And so we have to really choose that. And I'll give you one example that really just hit me the other day. I was talking to a mutual friend of ours about her teenage kids and wanting to just, like, order pizza all the time. And she has to explain to them that we can't do that right now. And I said, well, hold on a second. Maybe it's. We aren't doing that right now, rather than can't. Right. We don't want them developing this idea of can't, that it's out of control, that, you know, it's a decision, it's consciousness and so on. And I think you're right. How we answer, why is everything right now?

Yeah, that's a great distinction. You know, it's like instead of telling children we can't afford it, you could just say, you know, it's not in the budget this month. You know, we have other things we're going to spend money on this month. Maybe we'll do it next month.

Yeah, yeah.

So I love that distinction. We can't. As opposed to. We're just not doing that right now, which gets you in the driver's seat as opposed to something outside of you. And that's the other thing about powerlessness and hopelessness. You know, you want to give your kids always a sense of being efficacious, being able to impact their lives. So we can't go out right now, but we could still have fun. We could still go to school, you know, people and tell them, you know, I'm very, very big on possibilities. So, okay, we're not going out right now. I can't go to the gym, but what could I do? I could do an online video. In fact, Blake did that. My daughter did that yesterday with Loki. She said, let's put on YouTube and do an exercise fake together, an exercise video together. So, you know, it's teaching children how to be creative, how to be resilient in any situation.

I was telling a friend of mine the other day that this Is this. I mean, I am separated, unfortunately, from both of my kids right now, which is its own different kind of hardship. But my general goal, and I think that Elise and our very good friend Candy, they're staying with Phil and Melissa, Town that you also know very well, on their big ranch. And they're doing such a great job of what I ultimately want every parent to think. I want every parent to think like this. What do I need to do so that when this is all done, my kids remember it as a super cool adventure. You know, how do I need to live? How do I. How do I need to entertain them? How do I need to be so that when they look back on this 10 years ago, you remember that time we had the lockdown. How cool was that? And I think if we all take that approach to parenting, it would help a great deal. But then we have to balance public safety and dealing with the whys and that kind of stuff.

Yeah, and dealing with the fact that they're going to hear stories. People do die, people do get sick. So it isn't so much, looking back, like, how cool was that? You know, it was cool how we handled it. But, you know, we took a bad situation, we took a scary situation, we took a potentially dangerous situation, and we made the best of it. And that's what resilience is, making the best of a shitty situation. You know, I don't.

That's the technical definition, Shelley. I'm just going to look that up in the Oxford Dictionary. Resilience, making the best of a shitty. It says it right there. Let me bring you around to another very big and topical conversation. And in one of my future episodes, I'm going to be interviewing both John Gray and my good friend Bruce Music, who runs the Love at First fight websites on guess what. The divorce numbers are peaking in China right now as husbands and wives have been forced to live with each other in quarantine. Divorces are going through the roof, apparently. And so we're going to be interviewing some relationship experts to talk about that. But hey, relationship and parenting crosses over. So here's a story for you. I've got a very good friend, she's in San Francisco. She had a fling with a guy. They weren't as careful as they could have been. It ended up making a baby. He is not. They don't get along so very well. They were never in a relationship. So now they're co parenting with a joint custody deal that the courts worked out for them because they could never. So you can understand contentious now here's where it gets tricky. He's a first responder. She's got possession this week. It's his turn to visit today. He's a first responder. She asks him, respectfully, please don't have your visit this week because you're a first responder, you are in the front lines, you're probably exposed, and I don't want to take the chance. He goes, the disease isn't so bad anyway. You know, even if you guys get it, you're not likely to get sick. And he insists on visitation. She insists on not visiting and threatens to, like, not be home when he comes in. He calls the police. The police enforce the custody order and make her turn the child over to a first responder who has probably been exposed. Yeah, this just happened this morning. So what it made me think about all of a sudden is there's not much we can do for her. And I really, I just said to her, listen, on one level, everything is true. The chances are that you're not going to get sick. The chances are that if you do get sick, it's not going to be that bad. And she was always really concerned, what if he doesn't bring the baby back? But I said, well, hang on a second. He's your first responder, he's got to go back to work. And if the police have just enforced it on you, they're going to enforce it on him. But the point of this, Shelley, is that there have got to be situations where parents are not in agreement about the strategy. Elise and I went through the same thing. She was on a boat cruise, she came off the cruise, she hadn't had news for three days, had no idea what was going on. I got on the phone with her, she's like, yeah, I'm coming home. Da, da, da, da. And I hold on, I got to tell you what's going on in the world. And I told her at that point that I didn't want her to come here because if she came here and we were forced to evacuate, she wouldn't be allowed in Canada, I wouldn't be allowed in the UK and our family. You know, it would have been bad. So I made the decision that the safest thing for them to do was to go to a friend's house where they have a 400 acre ranch and food for months. But I had to actually raise my voice to get there. And so I'm curious from your perspective, because, remember, now there are kids involved. What do you think should be happening here? You're kind of having the same thing. You've got people coming over to visit you, and now you've got friends kind of coming at you. What are you thinking? How do you think a husband and wife, when they are not in agreement about the severity of precautions around social distancing or any of that kind of stuff, how do they navigate that in a way that the kids are not scarred by the process or more than that, the kids are even strengthened by the process?

Yeah. So great question, great question. So the first thing is, don't have the conversation in front of your child. That's a number one. Come to some reasonableness. So for me, yelling is never the answer. When somebody yells at me, I just want to do the opposite. No matter what. I would have been home, you know, so that doesn't work for me.

But.

You know, most people would say, err on the side of caution at this point. However, if you're all home together, parents have to wait till the child goes to sleep and then discuss things. Now, I don't know what the discussion is. You're in. Most of us are in lockdown or going to be in lockdown. Now, if somebody wants to take the child out into the world and the spouse doesn't, you've got to have a conversation about that. And at some point, you have to come to some kind of agreement. And I always believe that where your values, your basic values are concerned, never give up your values. But if it's giving a little, taking a little, all right, she doesn't have to wash her face, her hands, 12 times. We don't have to put gloves on her. You know, she touches her face, it's okay. You know, little bits of, all right, I'll do this, but will you do that? So compromise. This is a time of compromise. You know, I've been sitting. Excuse me. Listening. You know, I have a friend who. She's like my sister. We've been friends for over 50 years. And she called me this morning. She's really upset that Britt's coming over. She's really upset. And I believe I am strong and healthy. And even though I am the age that I am, I don't feel it. I don't. You know, I go, I work out, and I take care of myself. So I'm looking, and you're wild, fit, strong, and I'm wild, fit, strong, and I'm having my alka gizer every day.

But.

I'm looking at, what can I do? So if Lisa was my husband, what I might do is say, well, I'M not willing to not have her come over, but I may not hug her. You know, maybe I'll just namaste, you know, and that's gonna be really hard for me to not hug my child. So I haven't decided yet. But that's what I mean, that kind of compromise. Like, all right, I'll have her, but I won't hug her. You know, I'll have her sit. We'll put the chairs out. I don't know. The most important thing, I think, you know, I'm the belief queen, and. And I believe that your beliefs ultimately will win out, and stress is the worst thing for your immune system. So if you believe that you're giving your child positive messages. Sorry, not. If you believe, if you're giving your child positive messages that she or he is going to be okay and you're all going to be okay, you're much likely to be okay, then not. So for people who are crazy and freaked out about this, you know, it's not going to help.

Yeah, yeah, I agree with you completely. We'll come back to the immune system thing in a moment because I think that's valuable. So my takeaway from this is, first of all, what you're suggesting is let's not have those conversations in front of the children. I mean, I'd like to think that's really obvious, but the number of times I've seen parents shouting at each other in the grocery store in normal life says to me that under this stress that's probably going on. So there's a really good piece of advice from Shelly right there. Like, hey, don't have that debate or discussion in front of kids.

If they're little and they don't understand, they get the energy.

Oh, God. And they understand way more than we think we do. I mean, we think they do. So that's takeaway number one. Takeaway number two, I think, is really try to chunk up to the higher values of this. We're trying to keep safe, we're trying to keep healthy, and then try to find a compromise, bearing in mind that you probably do have a common goal. Like, one parent wants to take the kid out, the other one doesn't. Yet if you chunk up, you go, well, we both want them healthy and safe, and we both want them to get fresh air and be outside, because that's healthy and safe. So maybe out in the backyard is, you know. So I think compromise is another path. And then I want to offer my own third one to your two, and that's this Is that right now, at any given point in time, what we're doing is we're weighing up the consequence of being wrong against the chances of being wrong. And so you know what I mean by that is that when Tim Ferriss weeks ago petitioned and twittered at the mayor of Austin asking him to cancel south by Southwest, I admit I thought he was being a bit of a nut bar. I was talking to my good friend Tucker Max. I said, could you talk to Tim about something for me about three days before that? And he goes, nobody can talk to Tim right now. He's sheltering in his compound away from coronavirus. Now today that sounds completely normal. But three weeks ago I thought Tim was a nut bar. But then I became the nut bar and I started posting stuff about coronavirus. And no kidding, one day I posted about like supporting your immune system and being careful about this stuff. And it was my first net follower loss on social media in two years because people thought I was being hysterical. Of course now I upload a video saying the same thing and half a million people have watched it. So I think that what I would tend to offer as the third piece for parents is err, on the side of safety. In my opinion, that's just generally what I would do.

That's what I said, err on the side of safety.

Let's talk a little bit about the stress issue too, you know, because it's funny you said stress is the hardest thing on the immune system. I don't know, I think a bullet would be pretty tough on the immune system. But I'm kidding. Stress is a deep thing, right? Like it's one of the core pervasive things. And by the way, I have a theory as to why that is. I think it's a little bit like this. It's a little bit like, you know, you're on a spaceship in a sci fi movie and it's under attack and stuff and you've got the shields and you want to keep the shields up. But there comes a point where you have to make a difference between you have to make a distinction or decision between life support and the shields. You have to divert power. So eventually go, I got to divert the power from the shields, I got to keep the life support going. And when we go under stress, I believe that's basically what happens to us is that we're going, oh my God. We need adrenaline, we need cortisol, we need to be able to think fast, lower the shields. We need all the energy we can get. And so I've noticed that some of the times when I've developed a bit of a cold or something, it's usually four or five days after I've had something really stressful happen in my life. I've just noticed that pattern. And so right now, yeah, we're in a place where people are going to have to deal with that. And in the work that you do with beliefs, I have got to figure that comes into this conversation a big way. What are your best stress management strategies techniques at the moment?

Well, it's funny, while you were talking I had just this downloaded vision of I talked to a mutual friend. We have a lot of mutual friends. Guys. I talked to Vaughn last night, right. We were on FaceTime and he said I want to show you what my house looks like. And he has an 8 year old daughter and they had the dollhouse and they had the hospital and they had. Her bed was set up and she, it was just like this. She created this little world for herself. And you know, he was just talking to her like hey sweetheart, you know, should we make dinner? And you know, it was like he had created this world for her to feel safe in. And that's what I think we need to do with our children because they're forming beliefs and you don't want them to form beliefs like life is. Life is dangerous and life is scary and I'm powerless and all those things. So I want to see where I can jump into this where I don't make people crazy.

Let's avoid. That's not the object of this show. Let's not make them crazy.

Well, you know, some people have heard me speak and I speak about the fact that events have no inherent meaning. In other words, you don't know anything for sure because something, something happens, right? It doesn't matter or it's not a big deal, right? You know, I use, I always use my husband's death, worst thing that ever happened. I love my husband. I missed him every minute of every day. But the fact that he died does not mean I'm going to starve to death or I'll never love again or I'll never be happy again. So the most important thing think with, with what's going on is to dissolve or not give. It's harder to not give meaning to events but if you dissolve the meaning. So every time you have a negative emotion, every time you feel stress, every time you feel fear, every time your depressed or scared, stop and ask yourself what happened? What just happened? Somebody else got quarantined or something. You know, this virus happened. What meaning am I giving it? Yeah, because it's the meaning that you're giving it. I'm gonna die. This is never gonna end. I'm gonna starve to death. You know, I'll tell you something. Was in a very bad car accident, and I was in a facility for five weeks and in ICU for three days. And if you would have said to me, shelly, you can take five weeks vacation and your business will make it, I would have said, you're crazy. You're crazy. My expenses are so high and we have to produce, produce, produce in order to keep it. You know what? I was in the hospital for five, in the facility for five weeks, and my business made it. And I'm okay. So the meaning that you're not going to be okay is not true. You never saw that you're not going to be okay. You never saw you're going to get sick and die. You never saw. You're going to starve to death. Miracles come from things like this. You know, people are doing exercise programs online. People are doing yoga and meditation online. People are doing all kinds of things online. Now, are there going to be people who lose their jobs? Yes. Are there going to be people who are suffering? My daughter is not working. She doesn't have a huge savings. But she's positive and she knows that no matter what, I'm going to be okay. And we all have loved ones. We all have people who will take us in and take care of us. We live in a country where there are shelters, there are responders, there are people who do amazing things to make other people's lives better. I read a story this morning. There's a woman who is going. Finding out all the elders in her neighborhood, older people bringing food and putting it at the door. And, you know, people are amazing. So be careful. That's the number one thing is it's not just stay positive, like, oh, everything's gonna be fine. That doesn't necessarily work. But if you.

No, no. In fact, Shelly, on that point, we really do have to be careful of that type of thinking because, you know, and I'm a huge believer and advocate in the. In the concept of, you know, conscious meaning assessment. I'm a huge fan of Viktor Frankl's work around logotherapy. And one of the things that he talked about a lot when he was in Auschwitz is that people would start developing false hope about something. They would begin to. The rumors would circulate that the allied forces were going to free them by Christmas. And all of a sudden people would like, not die. And it was like that hope was holding them on. But the minute the allied forces didn't show up on December 25, immediately in the week following that, their immune systems gave out and they just started dying. And so you're absolutely right. Like that false hope thing is just as bad in my opinion as the, as the naysayer negative belief assessment.

Yeah, see, because that's great, Eric, because once you get rid of the meaning, once you get that the fact something happened has no meaning, we don't know anything for sure because this happens now, the fear goes away. Now I can act now, I can take precautions, not take precautions, I can make decisions because I'm not making decisions.

Out of some wild, adrenalized, cortisol filled survival mode.

Exactly, exactly. And that really is the thing. You do not know anything for sure. If you get the virus, you don't know that it's going to be a big deal. That it's going to be, you know, people get it and don't even know they're getting it. I saw a video the other day, this couple has it and they're in a hospital and the guy started tapping, you know, EFT and he said his. No, he said, I didn't clear the virus yet, but my oxygen went from 93 to 97 and this cleared up and that, you know, who knows, you know, I don't know how much of it is beliefs and how much of it is this is the EFT and how much of it is whatever. But I do know that you got to be proactive and not get hijacked by your emotions.

Yeah, it's absolutely true. You know, I think this example I mentioned to you earlier about this woman who's been dealing with this husband in custody thing and so on. She called me very upset because the father had taken the child and she's at home alone and what have you. And so I just started talking through it with her and I was like, well, hold on a second now. Let me ask you something. Is two days break maybe gonna be nice? Like two days where you just can do your own thing, you can, you know, maybe you wanna learn something, maybe you wanna veg out on Netflix. Like it's two days where you don't have to entertain a four year old. And you know, so in a sense what I was trying to do is have her see a different meaning. Cause the meaning for her was I'm out of control, something terrible might happen and that, you know, that reassessment of the meaning was really helpful and I think I really like what you're saying about that. This conscious. Here's an example. There was a headline on one of the fake news outlets. And frankly, as far as I'm concerned, I don't care if it's Fox or cnn, they're just different ends of the fake spectrum. And one of them had this article, 21 year old man dies of coronavirus. Now the crazy thing is that that's an alarming headline. It's a terrifying headline. It's like meaning, meaning, meaning, meaning, meaning. But you see, they know that we assess that we naturally assess survival meanings more easily than optimistic meanings. If you read the article, the guy had leukemia and a bunch of respiratory problems. So it's not that a 21 year old guy died, it's that a very sick 21 year old guy. But equally on the other end of the spectrum, I saw a beautiful story about a 97 year old woman and another 103-year-old woman in Italy that survived. But those stories don't hit our amygdala the same way that.

No, that's, but that's brilliant what you said. And I want to go Back to the 21 year old. So we see this headline, 21 year old dies. The first meaning we give it is oh my God, young people are dying. I'm gonna die if I get it. That's the meaning. As opposed to it could mean that and it could mean that this kid was really sick and they're not telling us that. And it could mean that he's going to die, he died. But that doesn't mean we're going to die. But the fact that a 21 year old kid died, and I say this very intentionally, it isn't that it doesn't matter. It isn't that it's not sad and horrible and my heart goes out to the parents but we don't know anything for sure that we didn't know before because that happened. It has no meaning.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's a good point. I think the news, we really need to be very careful about the news because what's most important to them is clicks. I mean that's the sad reality. They're mostly interested in clicks. And I mean just to lighten it up a little bit, one of my favorite ever headlines on cnn, knowing that they're after the immediate meaning, you try to create my favorite headline I've ever seen on cnn. Lesbians appeal to the Pope. Now, depending on what kind of upbringing you had, you Might assess one of two different meanings. From the headline. All I got was an image of the Pope at his laptop looking at lesbian porn. Maybe I'm a little sick, but they wrote the headline intentionally that way. Now you can get in a lot.

Of trouble for that comment.

Well, these days we're pretty much allowed to say everything.

I don't know. I once said, I just said the word God in a workshop and I got feedback from it.

You know, it's so interesting. I released a video with mindvalley about a week ago, and it's just gone on to spread around the world, blah, blah, blah. And mostly the comments have been really good. But speaking of meaning assessment, just crazy stuff here. First thing is in the video, I said I wasn't really, like, I didn't want to make a video. There's enough people that aren't experts making videos. And I said, the non experts are causing part of the problem here. And I said this. For example, one non expert a week ago said that this thing is under control and yesterday banned flights from Europe. That's not a criticism of Trump, that's an observation that we're all fluid in this situation. But the Russian trolls and the right wing fringe nailed me on it because they created meaning. Not one thing I said was critical. I could come up with many reasons to criticize Trump right now. But you know what? I don't envy him for a second having to navigate this. But my comment had nothing to do with that. But the meanings they assessed were. And then speaking of the, you know, when you get into the religious discussion, I had the same thing. Somebody starts writing to me because I'm talking about evolution and just took all the wrong meanings. So he goes, God will protect you. Shelley, do you know what my answer was? God did protect us. God put healthy food on the planet. Then God gave us free will. If you choose to eat healthy food, God will protect you. A little flippant, but.

No, but that's a metaphor. That's a great metaphor. I love that. I've heard some.

Let me go back to parenting with you for a minute here. Just thinking about the practical realities. I mean, obviously there's lots of great at home activities. One thing that you said early on, when we first started speaking, it triggered a memory for me. I met this guy Rick. And Rick, when he was 17 or 18 years old, had been surfing and he dove into a wave and he misjudged it and broke his neck. And, you know, now he's in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. And he said he was really depressed about that for a long time, until one day he realized it didn't have any inherent meaning. I mean, in a sense, it does. It means he won't walk again. But that in itself.

Yeah, that's the consequence.

Exactly. It's not the emotional meaning.

But that's a very important distinction to make. There's a difference between consequences and meaning.

Exactly right. This is where. Where he turned it around was like this. He goes, it used to mean that there was a million things I couldn't do anymore. And he goes, but now I realize there's still thousands and thousands of things that I can do that I was never going to do anyway, so I may as well do those things. Right? New meaning. And I think that's one of the things we can do here, is that, you know, there are people. I bought a guitar, Shelley. I bought a guitar yesterday. I can't play the guitar, but give me a couple months in quarantine, I'll be able to bang out smoke in the water, no problem.

That's great.

But that's what I'm seeing is now we have this thing of, okay, so there's a lot of things I can't do right now, but aren't there thousands of things we can do?

But I want to illuminate something very important. Your beliefs are always, I can make something happen that I know you intimately well, and that is your go. I believe that I can make something happen. I can, you know, this course and that thing, and let's do this, and let's jump into here, and, you know, I'll get Shelly for 90 minutes. It's like, who does that? It's crazy. But here you are quarantined in a place where, as you said, it might not be safe. What am I going to do? I'm going to get a guitar and I'm going to teach myself how to play. If you. It's so interesting. I spoke to one friend who said, I'm really, really bored, you know, and then my friend posted on Facebook today, right? I learned Italian. I signed up for an Italian course. I played with my grandchildren. I did an online session with my personal trainer, you know, and she goes on and on. And then it was like. And then I watched three episodes of something that is supposed to be hysterical. Lilly Hammer, which I never heard of, you know, but she made her day work, as opposed to sitting in front of a TV and just vegging or just being scared. My point is, your children are forming beliefs, particularly if they're from, you know, 0 to 8, they are forming beliefs that will. That will impact and shape. Shape. There's another word that will inform the rest of their lives. This. And that's why I made 90 minutes available. Because this conversation is more important than anything. Be aware. What is my child concluding out of any interaction? You know, if you're scared and stressed and you're short with your child because they're in the house and it's five days. Listen, I'm. I was a mother, I had two kids. I know what it's like to be in the house with kids on a rainy day. They have nothing to do. And this is more a lot of rainy days. So I'm not saying you shouldn't get short. I'm not saying you're not going to lose it. Be careful. Just always use I statements. That's a good tip. I feel very stressed right now, or I need you to go to a different room right now. I love you. You're important to me, but I can't take it anymore, as opposed to you're driving me crazy or you're doing anything. And I just realized there's a whole other level of this conversation. It's not just what are they concluding about the virus, but how are you being with them under incredibly stressful crazy. And you know, my husband used to say, nothing is inherently stressful. It's a meaning we give it that cause stress. So being in the house with your kid, you know, a lot of us are not in Syria, leaving a country with, you know, our clothes on our back and our kids in our hands. We have food in the fridge. We have stores that are open. We have restaurants that are doing things. You have a house full of every device known to man. You have board games, you have card games. You have your imagination. It's like when you're stuck in traffic and you start to go, oh, God, this is harmless traffic. You're sitting in a temperature regulated vehicle with access to any podcast, music, or any thing you want to listen to. So we have to remember, and I think one more tool, Eric, that I practice, that centers me and grounds me every day of my life, is gratitude.

Yeah.

So when you get stressed and you get crazy and you get upset, just stop and look at. What am I grateful for, Shelly?

I want to tell you that to me, is maybe one of the most powerful tools we can be using right now. You know, my power went out here for about four minutes today. Suddenly I'm a lot more grateful for power. Right. You know, and I Mean, anybody who's sitting at home saying they're bored and still has Internet access, like, get over it. There is something you could be learning, you know, whatever, you know, and then. And then another version of that. And, you know, you'll very much relate to this. And it's the. As do I. You know, you and I are alone in this situation. Anybody who's sitting here going, oh, my God, my kids are driving me crazy. I just challenge you to. To think about what it'd be like to not have them with you. And they don't know. When I see videos of Zoe, I well up. I feel so desperately far away. And by the way, I was speaking to another good friend of mine this morning, Sam, who's got six kids in the house, and she's a single mom with the six kids in the house. And she said the same thing. She goes, look, you know what? It's hard. I'm educating six kids in different age groups. I'm entertaining them, I'm feeding them. And she goes, but you know what? I have them. Gratitude.

Gratitude. That's great. That's really, really, really good. And accepting what is. I'm alone. That's true. And I am, as you well know, an extreme introvert. Sorry.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Let's just edit that out and get that right.

I am an extreme extrovert. You know, I'm out pretty much most nights, you know, two nights in a row. And I'm like, yeah, not so much. And I have to accept what is. This is what it is. And again, gratitude. Well, I'm grateful that I'm healthy. I'm grateful that I can take care of myself. I'm grateful, you know, that I. I can take care of myself. That's it.

You know, and, you know, and to the point we were talking about before, around immune function and stuff, you know, the. The statistics lie a lot about this whole situation because it's like, oh, it's attacking old people. And as we talked about, it's really about a health issue. And so if somebody's young and unhealthy. Shelly. I did some shopping this morning. I needed to get some more frozen meat for my freezer. And there was a man there outside the store. He was 65 to 70 years old. I'm not really sure. He was easily 70 pounds overweight and smoking. And I was like, wow, wow. I mean, those things, like, he basically is just asking for a problem because, you know, we are so. I am just. I am what? I am grateful right now is for both of us. We have our health. You know, that is a big, big deal. I'm really grateful.

I know I asked our dear friend. I was with Mark Hyman on Wednesday night. And, you know, I keep hearing this. And that's the other thing about the news. You know, we keep hearing elderly, elderly, elderly. Anybody over 65 is elderly. And I'm just sitting there going, you know, I have two friends who are 37 years old that I hang out with that love me. I love them. I don't feel different, you know, when I'm with Elise. Elise is my girlfriend. I mean, I don't have that. Elise is Eric's wife. Anybody else know that? But she's my girlfriend. You know, she's just my girlfriend. And I don't think of her as an age. So I said to Mark, I started. Because they started to give it meaning. Oh, maybe I am. Maybe I am. And he said to me, shelly, you are not elderly. You know, I eat well. I go to the gym six days a week. I'm mentally healthy. You know, I'm not. So I don't want people. Just because you're a certain age, it doesn't mean be silly and do silly things. Doesn't mean I'm running out in the street to hug people. But I don't. Again, it takes away that stress of, oh, God, I'm elderly.

You know, Shelly, I can sum it up like this, you know, and by the way, my risk factor doubled today. My risk factor doubled because I turned 50, and on the charts, I am like, it is much more dangerous at 50 than it was at 40. So my risk factor doubled when I woke up this morning. But that is just because statistics are funny that way.

Right today.

Today you're 50. 50 today. Right now, right here.

Oh, my God. Halfway home.

No, no, no. I'm only a third. I'm going for 150, but anyway.

Oh, that's right. I forgot. I forgot. Happy birthday.

Oh, thank you very much. Thank you.

Oh, honey.

But, you know, it was. What I was really getting at with it is, like, this idea of, like, there's this. Elderly is an adjective. You know, it's like a. It's a descriptor. Haven't we seen, like, every now and again you can see, like, a child that acts elderly, like, you know, or somebody in their 30s that acts elderly. And I do think that right now this is also a good time for recognizing that youth is often a state of mind. You know, it's. And gratitude is a big part of that.

Yeah, you Know, I want to keep talking about this, how you actually get rid of Dissolve, meaning so if Eric got up this morning and said, God, it's my 50th birthday. I'm not with my family, I can't go out and celebrate. I can't have a party. Boy, life sucks. He's going to feel really shitty, which, again, is going to affect his immune system. I feel bad. I feel dead. As opposed to, I'm 50, I'm young, I'm healthy, and you know what? When this thing blows over, I'm going to have a blowout 50th bash. So the fact that he's alone today doesn't mean he can't have a 50th birthday party. That's where we go.

We've gone one step further. I'm seriously thinking of having a massive online birthday party with Zoom. If we do it, you'll definitely be told about it, but we have all, like, I can't even answer all the birthday messages from people online. Right? So we're going to probably just open up a Zoom channel and just invite everybody in for a little crazy birthday party.

Can we drink?

What's that?

First of all, everybody will be free. You know, getting five of our friends together in the same room on one day, it's like a miracle. Everybody. But you have to see, now you're gonna have to compromise a little, because I want to have a tequila to celebrate you.

Hey, yeah, I'm willing to compromise your tequila. There's some silly Internet rumor out there that says if coronavirus gets in your throat, vodka and tequila can help, so jump right in.

No, I have a rule. I never drink in the house alone. I'm not a big drinker.

But you won't be alone. You'll be at a party.

Right, exactly. So I get to have a drink.

Good deal. Good deal. Shelley, I really want to thank you for creating the time and the space to have this conversation. And we're going to continue to kind of round up the best people we can to give people what they need during this time. And I'll tell you that the first two recorded episodes are all about parenting, because I really believe that if we come in too late with that information, it's too late. And there's other stuff. Like, we're going to. We are going to talk about what to do with investing and all that kind of stuff. Like, we're going to come up to the other stuff as well. But this topic right here, because it is so impactful in the formative years of these kids. I really appreciate you making the time to share your thoughts and spend this time with me. Thank you so much.

Well, I really appreciate the fact that, again, you made something happen. You took a situation, looked at it, and said, what can I do? What can I make happen? And to serve people like this is just gorgeous. I mean, it moves me to tears. I'm really, really inspired.

Thank you so much. Shelley. Sam.