Season 1 | Episode 46 | Special Guest, Rob Hayes St. Clair -- Parent from Peace Journal

Foreign.

What's going on?

Hey, this is episode 46, man.

What?

Yeah, we do this 46 times.

I think we're gonna hit, we not think we are gonna hit 50 before the end of the year.

So you know what? I say, let's go big.

I would like to take a poll. Everybody in the RT community who thought, when we launched our first episode, who thought we wouldn't make it past a few episodes, probably, you know, us two doing a podcast together.

I, I, I was like, yeah, I told, I told Jennifer, my wife, about it when we first started talking about. She's like, podcast what? And yeah, not Jennifer really believes in me, but she also knows me. So this is a definitely cool thing to get to do with you. I think it's all your fault, Rhett. Um, so.

Well, you know, in a second I'll let you introduce our guest. But it's the, the thing that's cool about a podcast, it gives you an excuse to have cool conversations with people that maybe they wouldn't have with you in normal life.

That's true.

So you get to contact them and say, hey, come on the podcast. Let's have a conversation. So I love that.

Yeah.

Let's do a couple of quick announcements and I'll let you introduce your guest. I think the first one, I just want to say is that on the Thursday, December 18th and Friday the 19th, our good friend Ron Deal is doing the smart step family therapy. And it's a, it's a live stream training workshop. You can earn 12 CES. We love Ron. We love listening to his work and stuff. So if anyone is interested in doing that, I think the best way to go log in for that are to sign up is just go to rondeal.org yeah, backslash events. I'll put that in the show notes. But rondeal.org backslash events. I think that'd be a great workshop. You have any other announcements you think.

You know, we just got the level one trainings coming up. We have Jason Wilkinson's coming up in Portland. I would definitely recommend Jason's. I just love the way he talks. So, so I don't know, he just has like that, that je ne sais quoi type attitude. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I mean, Jay, when he's talking to you, he really means it and, and he's a brilliant man and he's got his, when, when you're hearing from him, it's, it's definitely going to be powerful and then rob someone. You know, Michael Cox is going to Be doing a training here, and I think his is in January as well, towards the end of January. So level one trainings coming up. And I should have checked on Megan's coaching. I know She's. She's done that. I know. So we. We gotta check in on. On Megan's.

Yeah. So Jason's is in person January 9th and 10th, and then Michael Cox is in person January 23rd and 24th.

Nice.

And I don't have anything right now for Megan, but we'll.

We'll.

We'll contact her and find out kind of when the next training will be. So good stuff happen.

We need you. Well, you want to talk about today? You want me to talk about today's guest?

Yeah, let's introduce him.

All right, man. Today we have a.

A.

A man from down under.

And.

And when I say down under, I'm talking about Australia. This is a guy who is a dreamer, a guy who has a passion for families and just a guy. If I could have. The way he says his. My name is just like. It instantly warms my heart with his Australian accent, but just. Just very excited. Rob. Rob Hayes Sinclair. Trying to say that a bunch of times Quick used to work at JH Ranch. For those of you that's like a big parenting thing that. Where people send. Go with their kids and work through. It's like you get these amazing breakthrough experiences. Serve there for how many years, Rob?

20 years.

You know, just a little bit of time, you know, of his life. And has three kids who are just as cute as can be. Well, now, Manly Pierce. Yes. But, uh, and, uh, in an awesome wife. We love Edith. Uh, but Rob, welcome to the podcast brother dialogue.

Yeah. And Rhett, we're so grateful to be here.

Good to meet you.

Rob also reps Vuori. So we just want to thank Vuori, our unofficial sponsor of the podcast Vuori. We. We just want to just thank you for creating cool quality clothes. Get your worry clothes.

I love it.

I love it, I love it.

I. I don't know. I had a quick question, you guys. Like, I don't know much about JH Ranch. Can we start there? Like, where that is and what that experience is about?

Yeah. So, first of all, thanks for having me on. As I was telling Lance and Rhett before we began, it's a little bit of a miracle that I'm even here today. Just so grateful to be a part of this process called restoration therapy. It's had a huge impact on our marriage and our children and some of the work we're doing. Right now. But yeah. So I came to the states 25 years ago to study architecture in Texas. Rhett, just down the road from you at Texas A and M. Yeah.

Giga maggies.

Giga maggies, that's right, whatever that means. My roommate was a Christian. He said you should go work for a Christian summer camp. And I didn't know what that was. And so I googled Christian summer camps and JH was top five. And so I just had enough money for a backpack and a sleeping bag and a plane ticket and flew out to Aetna, California. And it was a ranch started by a family named the Johnston family. And they started a program for high school students to teach them how to take ownership of their faith and how to learn to live out of their life purpose. And I had a bunch of questions. I'd just become a Christian, Rhett and Lance. And he answered all the questions, the founder of the ranch. And I thought, this is amazing. And then during the summer they did a one week program for parents and teenage kids. And that's what really piqued my interest. And so you would come out there as a dad or as a mom and you'd spend a week with your, either your son or your daughter. It's about 200 people a week that would come out there and it would be a combination of incredible content, amazing adventure, God's presence being outside of your comfort zone and in an undistracted environment. And for the first time, most of parents would have great conversations with their teenage kids in a very unique way. And so I ended up bringing my family through it. They were not believers. And I invited my dad up, led him to God at the ranch, and then led my mom up and she renewed her faith and then my sister. And so it really became a family affair. And so I met my wife through the ranch, ended up leaving business and going and doing that for the last 15, 20 years and did a variety of things. We got to take JH overseas to Australia and New Zealand and just had an incredible career with jh. So yeah, that was a little bit of. That's a little bit of background on jh.

Did you, did you ever go back to Texas A and M? Are you just like I'm staying at the ranch?

Yeah, no, I did. So I grabbed. So I did a one year exchange program at Texas A and M in the architecture school.

Very cool. Yeah, very, very cool. I was looking at photos online earlier and that place looks amazing.

Yep. Yeah, it's incredible place. A lot of great memories out there. So yeah, it's fantastic. If you're a parent with a teenage child and you're looking for a one week experience. I send everyone I know with a teenage child out to JH Ranch.

Is it up to 18?

Yeah. You can go beyond it. You know, I think it's, I think it's sweet spot is while you're in high school. But you know, I remember we would get like, I took my dad when I was 21, so we will be on some of the content. But the experience was amazing.

What do you, what do you think? I'm sure there's a lot but like, what's, what's like the one thing you think that makes it so magical that you're like, if you have a teenager, this is where you should go.

Well, I think, I think there's an interesting correlation between some of the stuff we did at the ranch and restoration therapy. And so one of the, you know, there's, it's kind of three kind of, you know, areas that, that I really feel like I learned restoration therapy from. First of all was from, from, from Lance. We, we really quickly. We, we. During 2000, my wife lost her, her mother during the pandemic and, and our, our. The, the conflict in our marriage went through the roof and we really needed some help. Someone recommended that we meet with Lance and I remember sitting in his office and him whiteboarding out the essentials, the two essentials. And because I studied architecture, I kind of see things in kind of like diagrams and frameworks and so it just made sense to me. And I remember sitting there and as we started applying it and seeing obviously the more we practiced it, we saw the change that would happen. And then our kids started asking us like, what's different about you, mom and dad? And so we started using it with our kids and it started working. And then, and then we would go up for our summers up to jh. And I think one of the things that was really unique, Rhett, was that I would pass off this comment from a lot of dads that came to the ranch. And so they would come and after about a few days, like five, six days in of a seven day program, they would come up to me and say, Rob, I had the greatest conversation with my daughter this week. She finally opened up to me. You know, we talked about stuff that we never talk about, you know, and I was like, I always thought, well, it was the undistracted environment, you know, like how often do we take a week off with one child in our teenage years and take them somewhere and just focus on them. Right. Or is it the fact they were on a team? Or was it the great food or was it the adventure? Or was the mountains of Northern California? Like, a lot of ingredients, but one of the things that I've come away with realizing is that these two essentials, the ingredients of great relationships, that you know that you're uniquely loved and that you're predictably safe. In a week long span, these teenage children felt loved, uniquely loved by a parent focusing on them for a week. And then, then they felt safe. You know, dad can't get angry at me. He can't do anything. You know what I mean? Like, he. He has to regulate himself for a week. And. And because of that, when that happens, teenagers open up. Yeah. And then that said. So in effect, what we were doing was we were creating somewhat of an environment that made it easy for parents to step into their peace cycle unknowingly. And so then the parents would open up and they would feel loved and they would feel unique, and then they would feel awesome because their kids are finally talking about stuff that they always wanted to talk about, you know, and they finally got to have the conversation that they wanted. And then. And then it just started. Like they got into this, like, you call it your flow, you know, And I'd see these parents, not all the time, but most of the time parents, teenage kids, get into the flow. So, yeah, I think that's one of the. That's one of the things I really came away from and kind of led us down this pathway of wanting to see how we could use restoration therapy and even relate strong in the context of parents and teenage relationships.

Yeah, I know, because you mentioned it. I know you must have been listening to some episodes, but I think that reminds me of, like, when I stepped on the Gonzaga campus and I had this strong feeling that this was a loving and trustworthy environment. You know, there was something unique and different about it than my other experiences on campus, you know, and so I kind of imagine that when you step on the property of jh, especially for you, who's now starting to view things through an RT lens.

Correct.

You can probably see and feel things that other people don't have language for yet. That's really powerful. I love that.

Yeah. Yeah. And then we were really curious because, you know, we all understand that we can have these powerful mountaintop experiences in life. Right. We get into environments. I'd always give this analogy at the ranch. You would walk down this hill at this big top tent, and that's where we would do all our messages at night. It was the bottom of this valley and there was this kind of obscure building that you'd walk past called the JH greenhouse. You know, it's just kind of lean to building, you know. And at the end of the week when I, when guests would leave, I'd give a closing talk and I would say, you know, your life is very much like a greenhouse. We've been like a greenhouse this week. We've created the right environments for you to grow. But you can't live your whole life in a greenhouse. At some point that plant has to go be planted somewhere and it has to learn how to be successful and needs to be healthy on its own outside of the greenhouse. And we've given you all the ingredients this week to be successful. When you lead the ranch, what does it look like when you go home? And it was always fascinating to me the people that, the parents and the kids that took a couple of the very simple practices and finished the practices and it became a part of their life, those were the ones that always would be the healthiest. And it reminds me of the times we had with Lance, even when we went overseas and took RT to Australia. And some of the follow up I've had and I've heard Terry and Sharon speak on this at length and that is, is that, you know, I kind of the pain peace cycle and discovering it to me is a little bit like getting surgery. But surgery without physical therapy never works. Our son tore his ACL in high school playing high school football. And the surgeon said, as he said, rob, the surgery is going to be successful. You know, this is going to be amazing, but it won't be successful long term if he doesn't do physical therapy. And I was always curious. I felt like the ranch was the, was the, was the surgery, but it was the physical therapy that came after it. And that's really important. And the same thing is true with restoration therapy.

Yeah, that's using your four steps and really engaging in the work, I think. Yeah, you're so great. I just love the way you're talking.

I was telling my wife last night because I'm doing physical therapy for a knee injury. But of course it's not my knee. It's that everything else on the chain is weak from all the running. And I was thinking how yesterday, and I've done physical therapy before, but this is a good reminder for me about RT is the physical therapist comes in and she demonstrates this exercise for me and then she watches me do it. And then she leaves me to do it and practice it and then assigns me to do it at home. And I'm type A, so you better believe I'm at home practicing, practicing, practicing. And I told my wife, as a therapist, RT therapist, it's like just getting better at bringing people in, demonstrating to them the practice, watching them practice to make sure you're helping them and then encouraging them to go out and practice it. And that's how people change.

Yeah, it's.

Yeah, it's boring. It's kind of boring work, you know, most of the time, day in and day out. But it's so powerful.

I remember, Rhett, we were in San Diego. We had taken Lance and Jen so graciously to Australia. They gave so much of their time and energy and to fly. It was so hard.

It was so hard.

I remember Lance so bummed that he.

Had to go all the way down Turf and Noosa. Right. And so gracious, you know, because we. We booked and then we had to rebook and then we finally got down there and it was amazing. You know, it was the right people at the right time. And.

And then.

And then this couple that was in the program came up to the states and wanted to train. And so again, Lance was awesome and Didi at Pepperdine was amazing and hosted us for like a week. And. But I think one of the things that was so poignant for me is we went down to San Diego and we're in this kind of. We're at Lance's office and I can't remember the name of the therapist, Lance, that you work with, but we were walking from lunch to back to one of the sessions and he talked about this idea that he said, you know, before I drive to work in the morning, I warm my car up and I do the four steps. And then when I drive home, I sit in my driveway and I do my four steps before I go in, because that's when my most important work is going to begin for the day is when I go home. And it just really hit me that I'm like, you know, like I've been doing my four steps, but do I do it like reactively or preemptively?

Yeah.

And that's what led us to developing something we're doing right now, which is We've created this 90 day written journal that is about 60. It's 260 pages long, but 60 pages of it is introductions to RT and how to discover your pain peace cycle. And it gives you all of that information. But then there's a morning and evening. It's about five minutes, three, four minutes in the morning, three, four minutes at night. And the whole idea is to get the practice of doing the four steps before the day and then after the day in the context of raising teenagers. Right. Because every day when you're raising teenagers, there's an opportunity to become dysregulated. Is that right?

Is that a thing that happens?

Yeah. And so I was like, I want to do a better job at this. Like, I want to become a better parent. And, you know, as I've spent time with parents, you know. You know, when you go into a group of parents, you say, hey, what is the number one thing you're dealing with? So many of them say, we're dealing with social media and anxiety and dating and all of these decisions that we have to make during high school, you know, And I realized after doing our own RT work that those are all downstream issues. But the upstream issue is emotional regulation, because everyone is going to tackle the downstream issues differently. If you put 20 parents in a room, they'll all talk about dating differently. They'll all have different standards. Social media, different standards, money, different standards, relationships, different standards. But the one thing that is common is, is that if I'm parenting from pain, it doesn't matter how good of a book I read on dating, I am going to deliver that message from a place of dysregulation. So that's why we, were, like, so curious on this, on how we could create a way for parents to rethink. I love what Ron Deal says. It's a paradigm shift for marriage. It's a paradigm shift for relationships. But raising parents, being a parent and saying, hey, all of that other stuff is downstream. What's upstream is the idea that if we can emotionally regulate on a daily basis, if we could spend five minutes in the morning, five minutes at night, and get our four steps in, there is going to be a marked difference in the way that we approach our teenage children and imprint emotional regulation into their lives and how they then walk into the world and face the challenges of not feeling loved, you know, and not feeling unique and not feeling safe on a daily basis.

Yeah, I like. I like the idea. I mean, I think having. It's really interesting, like, when you write as well, the difference it makes for people. So I think this journal that you guys have come up with, with. I know you got to work with, you know, Michael and Dede as well, um, I think you even. Yeah, you. We were emailing with Terry as well. So. So, you know, so there's this moment where I was like, oh, this is cool. This would be great. And I was thinking about practicing this on a regular basis. Like, this is like, you know, for. For your clients. I think one of the big pieces we t hard times we run into with RT is like, how do we get our clients to practice their damn four steps? Like, I feel like if. If you could, like, ever write, like, whatever gets Lance in his pain cycle, because I feel like a failure when it doesn't happen, is like, how do I get them to practice their four steps? And I'm always trying to come up with creative ideas. And I love the idea of having a journal that you can do in the morning and the evening that's going to allow you to engage. So I think this would be good for clients to. To recommend. So for if you're a therapist and you got a client that's got a teenage kid, you know, getting like, enc him to parent from peace and going through that, I think that's a. It's a really good idea. And I'd be excited to see, like, that practice, you know, that practice piece of using the journal.

Yeah, we started to. I think, personally, I'll share this, that, you know, there's. We learned this and kind of had this observation at the ranch, and then we started looking into our own personal lives, you know, and I had a moment with my youngest son that I share when I do a workshop now. It's my most unproud parenting moment. And. And I was. And I had gotten into a little bit of a conflict with him, and we were. We were coming back to it later, and I was apologizing for it, and I'll never forget what he said. He said, dad, it's okay. I've gotten used to it. And, oh, I mean, as a dad, words you never want to hear, right? Broke my heart. My son had become used to me being a reactive parent, you know, and that's what really drove me personally to say, you know, what, Beyond a notebook or beyond a process, I've got to get this in my own life, you know? And so we started practicing it and practicing it, practicing it, you know, and when our. When our children would get into conflict, instead of trying to play Switzerland, you know, between the two teenagers, we would just start saying, hey, this is what we want to do. Timeout. I get you're both in upset. Why don't you go into your own rooms and do your four steps. Do your pain, peace, cycle, and do your four steps and then come back out and then we'll talk about it, you know. And it was amazing how quickly it would resolve itself because now we attacked it from empathy and understanding. And so then we did some more research and realized that even the data suggests it. The Surgeon General released a report last year about this idea of parents being under pressure. And it's such a common theme when I talk to parents when we spend time with them. They don't necessarily talk about pain, but they talk about pressure. I feel constantly under pressure, you know, and the pressure uncovers the pain. And so it's almost like they're in a pressure cycle. You know, that's really a pain cycle. And, and when we were going to this workshop the other day, I asked the parents, I said, why'd you come? You know, outside of being invited? And they said that, they said, we saw a sign that said Parent from Peace. And we said, if anyone can help me gain more peace with my teenagers, I'm in. You know, because those two words really are rarely exist in the same sense in teenagers. Right.

Unless your parents giving you their. A piece of their mind. But that's a different type of peace.

That's the different. Yeah, yeah.

Where is the journal right now in terms of. Of and like in the process of either like publication or availability? What does that look like right now? Because I'm sure people listen to this would be like, all right, where do I get my hands on?

So we have a wait list. So you can go to parentfrompeace.com and you can, you can pre order it right there. It's a 90 day. It's going to be a really beautiful linen bound, like I said, 260 page journal. You can sign up for it. They're going to launch at the end of Q1 of next year. So we had an initial design done. One of the things we learned, Rhett was and Lance, which is really interesting, is that we found that not only parents want a journal for themselves, they want a system to also have the conversation with their teenage child. And so what we decided was, is we were going to slow down on the production so that we could design a second journal which is called the Teen and Truth Journal. And it will be a companion journal. So it will be a version of the parent from Peace Journal, but for teenagers it'll be a stripped down version. And the idea is, is that a parent would do this for let's say 90 days and learn the process of self regulating as they parent. You know, we used to say at the ranch. It's so much more court than it is taught. In other words, that like what worked for us was not me going and teaching the kids their pain peace cycle. It was watching us become regulated. Parents come on and then they wanted it. And so we're going to encourage the parents to do this for 90 days and see what the emotional temperature will change in their home. Particularly because it doesn't mean you don't have to discipline, it just means how you discipline. You know you're going to discipline from pain or peace. You know you're going to talk about dating from pain or peace. You can talk about social media from pain or peace. Right. And so then after 90 days then they can buy the Teen and Truth journal which we're designing at the moment and that will become the companion journal. And here's the kind of the bigger picture vision for it is that this is if I could go back to when my kids were starting high school, I would love to be able to do a parent from Peace and Teen and Truth journal with them all through high school and meet with them once a week, do my four steps once a day, do my five minutes in the morning, five minutes at night, meet with them once a week. And then at the end of high school when they're going off to graduate, I can bundle up all their journals. And the reason why we invested quite a bit of time and money into designing these so well is because we said hey, wouldn't it be awesome at the end of high school if you could hand off to your children the last four years of what they learned on how to emotionally regulate so that when they go off to college or when they go off to an internship or if they go off to a gap year they've learned how to emotionally regulate with mom and dad at home and they have the confidence to go out into a world and be and know how to self regulate. Yeah.

And I serious I, you know sometimes people, if you see me looking away, I'm taking notes but I hopped on the Parent from Peace website. That is a beautiful looking journal. Like I, I have worked with a lot of journals over the year like daily journals and like the five minute journal and meditation journals and different practical stuff and the parentfrompeace.com that is a rob that's a great looking, just high quality journal and I love the visuals in it that you all have. I mean anyways, well done. I'm excited. I, I just put my name down the list so you're on. Hey, my son doesn't know it, but we're going to be doing a parent from Peace Journal here pretty soon.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

To win right over. I mean, red is red, like when it comes to style and like flow, Rat's got it going on.

Knows this probably because you've done a lot of work, but there's just sometimes not a lot of quality material out there or stuff is done on the cheap. It doesn't look good, it doesn't feel good in your hands, and it's not something that is aesthetically pleasing to look at or to work with. And I love. I don't know, I just. I think that's really important. I think that's really important for the restoration therapy community, you know, to do good work and to do quality work. And I think so many. I don't know, Rob, what you think about this? I think so many teenagers and kids now are going more analog because they're tired of being digital. And I see it in my own kids, see it in my daughter with books and vinyl records and journals and things. And so. And I just think the way that our brain works, I think it's great that you have this like physical journal away from screens to help people. I don't know if that's something you guys were thinking through when you thought about material. Do you do online stuff or do you do journal stuff?

Make an app?

Yeah, it's a great question, Rhett. You know, we. I think that in. In such a digital world, what does an analog lifestyle look like? And how do we make this process of writing stuff down and recording it, remembering things, you know, and I think that having a journal that records probably one of the most important things you're going to learn in high school is to learn how to deal with dysregulation and regulation. You know, I was listening to a guy speak recently and he said that, you know, he said there are three things that everyone. Three qualities of what people love to be around, you know, that they just love to like. When I think of, like, for example, when I think about my relationship with Lance, why do I love to hang out with Lance? He said the three things were that they were. They were non judgmental, they were really good at listening and they were empathetic. And he said that when they asked, they did a study of 25,000 people across all continents and they said, how many people in your life right now have taught you that? Have taught you those three things? Did you versus just self discovery? And they said only a third of those people found that out from learning it from somebody else. And of those third, only 50% of those learn it from a parent. And of that 50% of that third, only 3% learn it from their father.

Wow.

And so I look at that, and I look at the CDC study that was done, like, 18 months ago, and they. They studied across socioeconomic lines across the US and they asked me, I said, what's the number one thing you need, you know, teenagers? What do you need from your parents? You know what they said? And this is why we're so passionate about this. They said, we need an emotionally regulated parent because we live in a world that's really scary, and we live in a world that's constantly changing, and we live in a world. Well, because of social media, our identities are constantly under attack. You know, am I liked? Do I belong? Am I enough? Am I included? Will I be invited to that party? If I wear this, Will I look good enough? All the questions that are rolling around, is my body, the body that God's given me? Is it an. You know, am I going to be pretty enough? Will guys want to follow me from girl, you know, all the questions that rattle around, you know, and they're dealing with that from 8am to 3pm, 4pm, 5pm every single day, right? That's their world. That's their sandbox. And then they come home to a home, and the home is supposed to be the beacon of hope. You know, it's supposed to be the safe harbor. But if you come home to a dysregulated family, then you're also battling that on the home front. And my idea, and I know Michael shares this, and you guys share it. Terry and Sharon share it, is that what would it look like if children came home to a home that was fully regulated? Not perfect, but regulated. And then out of that regulation, the parents could teach their children that same regulation so that when they have kids, they can then pass it down to them.

It's so huge, man. Like, I. I consider myself lucky. I mean, I had. I grew up in a house. I. My dad, I guess, is part of the 3% that would actually listen. But, I mean, it's. I do. But my dad became everybody else's dad, right? Like, he would call. He would call everybody in the near. Like, all my best friends, he call him son. I grew up in the south, so this is just the thing you do come here, son, and. But like, my best friends still, they. They'll come over my house even when I'm not home, like. Or even if I'm not in Virginia. And like, so I, I think this idea of like shifting the dynamics around, like having someone that can be, and this is, you know, the product, right, of the peace chart of non judgmental, you know, empathy and listening. I mean, those are like huge things that we do in peace. So parenting from peace, getting that mindset is so huge. And I think it's crazy because I feel like the pressure to provide, the pressure to, to do, like to, you know, fill in the blank hits father so heavily versus thinking about being, you know, a father, right?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, it's interesting. You know, a friend of mine said it this way. He said, rob, after listening, after having conversation around this topic, he said, you know, I believe that teens trade on emotions and parents want to trade on influence. And the ability for a parent to trade on influence is directly correlated on their ability to regulate their emotions. In other words, you know, if you look through, and I know Michael has talked about this at length, but if you look through the scriptures, you look what Paul talked about, you know, fathers do not exacerbate, do not put a pressure on your children, you know, and there's a lot of insight there around that. And oftentimes we want to know the right actions to take as a parent. How do we talk about dating? How do we talk about social media? How do we talk about decision making? All these questions that parents ask us. It's interesting. We did a little survey with some families from a southeastern city not too far from us, and here are the top 10 parenting challenges. They said they feel helpless when their teen withdraws. Number one, their teens anxiety that's beyond their control. And so watching their child suffer emotionally. Number three was the coaching trap. They give too much advice and not enough listening. Number four, they said social isolation and loneliness of their teen. Number five was not knowing if they're helping or hurting. You know. Number six was their teens phone and social media addiction. We could do a whole podcast just on that, I'm sure. 7 Is perfectionism destroying their teens joy. And then the last three was they were walking on eggshells around their mood swings, watching their teens confidence disappear and fear of losing connection before time runs out when they leave home. That was just on a cross section of families. And as I think about restoration therapy and what you guys have done such a great job with the podcast and what Terry and Sharon have done such a brilliant job with doing this therapeutic process is that we now have a common language we can share with our kids and we can share it from a very honest, vulnerable position, and we can practice it in the home. You know, I remember Michael telling me, he said, rob, you need to speak your four steps out loud. Your kids need to hear what you're going through, you know, because that will create an invitation for them to want to do it themselves.

Gotta love Michael.

That's convicting. Practicing that more in front of my kids.

Yeah.

Out of curiosity, do you remember who you were listening to or that study that talked about those three things? Nonjudgmentalness, empathy, and listening?

Yeah. I'm going to look down at my.

No, that's okay.

I'm like, phone while. While I. While I find it for you.

I'm taking notes as we talk. And I. I think I. You. You talking about that made me curious to want to go listen to that also.

Yeah, this was that. I'm. I'm just going to preface this by saying that a friend recommended this podcast, and I saw this on emotional regulation, and I noticed that it had an E next to it. So I just want to clarify that there is some language in this podcast, but there is some interesting points in it. It's called Modern Wisdom, and it's by a guy named Dr. Mark Brackett.

Mark Brackett.

Yeah.

Anyway, our podcast has an explicit rating as well.

Well, and I tell people when you set up a podcast, which I did through Spotify, one of the criteria is for an E is if there's going to be content that could be emotionally triggering for people, or you discuss things like trauma and different things. They want that to be an explicit rating before people, but not that Lance is going to come on and talk like a sailor or something.

Certainly not.

You know, that reminds me a little bit of. I don't know if you guys remember that long longitudinal study back in the day, that professor at usc, Bankston. I think they did it over the years, but they talked about how faith is transmitted through the generations through family. And the most important criteria that came up was what they described as warmth. Warmth in the relationship between parent and child. And that's what determined how faith moved from one generation to the next. Not if you had all the right answers or all the right theology, which is kind of what I hear you saying. You can think you have all the right parenting answers, but if you are not in your peace and your kids don't experience you right as loving and safe, it just doesn't matter.

Yeah. Yeah. I think I may have said this already, but I always thought that our parents, our kids were shaped more by our Actions, I think in the teenage years, they're shaped more by our reactions. And so learning how to self regulate on a regular basis, I think we. We lose authority when we react. We lose that ability to transfer down if we're reacting on a consistent basis. But the beauty of this process is, is that we can also do the work and then regain that authority. Yeah, because they're looking to us, you know, and I look at all the fruits of the spirit. We used to have a talk at the ranch talking about how to spend time with God and we'd talk about the fruits of the spirit, you know, and so I had to, you know, you just have to memorize because you gave the talk so much, you know, And I've always been curious on why Paul put self control at the very end of all the fruits of the Spirit, you know. You know, it's one of the most challenging ones, right, to actually master our emotions in the moment. Sometimes I wonder if with teenagers, are we really dealing with disrespect or just dysregulation? Because sometimes it can be a combination of the two. But this idea of preemptive work, you know, practice. Preemptive practice, walking through. One of the things we wrote in the journal in the practice was saying, hey, if you can think about an example with your teenager today that you think is going to trip you up or that you think is going to get you dysregulated, think about it and then write it down. And then in light of that, do your four steps. And how would you approach that differently today? You know, I'll tell you one other quick thing, Lance and Rhett, that we discovered as well, doing it was that, you know, when you think about what our kids need, you know, it's all tied into some of the stuff that's written in Ron Deal's Mindful Marriage book. You know, they want to belong, right? They want to feel safe, you know. And so one of the practices we started doing as a family, and this will probably be a product downstream for us with parent from peace. But on the way to. Here's a great practice we started doing on the way to school. You know, you have kind of five, 10 minutes, some, some of us 15, 20 minutes. And, you know, you never. Sometimes it's like they're tired, you know what I mean? They got a test coming up. You know, sometimes it was hustling to get out the door, you know, where someone's lunch or whatever.

Yeah, sometimes.

Sometimes, right. And so I started doing this thing and I was like, hey. And my wife Edith did it more, and she's like, hey, what is your truth today? And I had the most fascinating conversation with my youngest son the other day on the way to school, you know, because I'll let them pick anything. And then I love what dede does. You know, when we were doing this marriage enrichment in Nashville recently, and she was doing the pain peace cycle with the couples, and they would choose their truth. And I think, Lance, you did this in Australia with us. He said, well, go ahead and defend it. How do you know that's true? And where have you seen that to be true? You know, it's amazing how it is. I don't do it every morning, but probably two or three times a week. We'll get in the car. Kids kind of know when I'm going to start doing it. You know, I'm like, hey, what's your truth today? You know, why do you believe that? Where have you seen that show up in your life? You know, and here's my favorite moment out of all of it, is I wait for this right before I pull into school is I say, hey, Pierce, I know that because I've seen that here, here, here, here, and here. Right? And the only reason I know it is because I've kind of helped him with his four steps. If I wouldn't have had rt, I would never have known how to join the dots and have a common language. And it is. It's amazing. You think about your kids getting out of the car, putting the backpack on, going into school, and at least for the first five to 15 minutes, they've got a fighting chance of remembering this is what's true about me. This is what is amazing about me. I can enter this day knowing this is what is true about me. And if I can rewire my brain and renew my mind against what is true about me before I go into school, then it could have an impact on the way that I face the challenges of my day with my friends. Friends and my teachers and sports and social media and all of that stuff.

So good. Getting a ritual built in for your kids in the morning. And the flow. That's the flow. Flow right there. That's what we talk about.

Yes.

This. This is all that pressure piece you're talking about, too. You know, there's. I'm just sitting here thinking. Yeah, when you're constantly under pressure, you don't have the bandwidth to do some of these things that are so helpful. And again, if you're under pressure, you don't. You're not emotionally regulated.

Yeah.

So I like the idea of intentionally setting aside rituals and things to practice. I like what you said. I'm curious who that was on Lance's staff, but I tell clients all the time when you pull into your driveway, sit in your car for a few minutes, and walk through the four steps and practice breathing when you leave the house. You know, to do that, to build in some ritual and some bandwidth into your routines. And now we got this, like, beautiful journal to engage, easy practice.

I.

You know, and Rob, I don't know you well, is. Have you always been, like, entrepreneurial? Does your brain work that way where you're like, you had this idea and you, like, saw the avenue to. To, you know, to use this beautiful tool, to, like, to put it into a journal and to help people? Was that something you thought of? I'm curious about. Or is that between you and your wife or.

I think it's a combination, you know, Like, I. I don't know if it's part Australian. You know, you're kind of, like, always seeing great opportunities, you know, you always want. You always see opportunities, you know, like. And I remember coming to the States for the first time. You're like, wow, this is such a great economy. There's so much opportunity here. You know what I mean? Like, you can go find a designer and find, you know, like, this access to printing resources and a market. Market everything. You know, even though we're going to print these offshore, you know, there's just such a great resource here. But, you know, I think it's. I always go back to the fact that, like, I see these gaps in the market, you know, Like, I. Like, I would. I remember when we started going through restoration therapy in this context, Brett, to answer your question, like, in this context. And I remember Lance texting me the sheet, you know, the sheet of the. Of the four steps or the pain, peace cycle, you know, And I would start to just. I had it saved on my phone under favorites, and I started using it. Like, when I would start to get angry or I'd get upset about something, I'd be like, okay, all right, I know where this is going. Or I just messed up and I got reactive. I'm going to pull out my sheet, and I was like. And that kind of, like, clued me in. And then I met the guy at Lance's office, and. And then I started doing some research and realizing I was like, you know, people, like, I've got a journal. I use one of those black Moleskine journals, you know, for my times, I've got a whole stack of them. And then I was just sitting there one day going like, man, this needs to be a product. We need to, we need to get people into a ritual and a habit of doing this, you know, and then if you see it out on, we want to make sure that it looks good. So people want to put it on their coffee tables and their nightstands, and then if it looks good, then maybe teenagers will go, yeah, I want one of those, you know, and, and so.

Anyway, no, I mean, I, I buy these every quarter on Amazon and I give them to, I give them to clients with like worksheets in them and I, you know, so whoever's listening and maybe Rob's going to be the guy to create this. There is a gap in the market for RT therapists, for simple tools to give to clients and to help them.

Yeah, it's actually funny you say that, Rhett, because we're, we're going to do a 90 day version. And then recently we got some feedback from a friend that said, hey, would you ever do a 30 day version? Would you make it like a, like the, like more like the what you showed us, you know, so we're going to, we're going to trim it down and it won't be a full 90 days, but it will be a abbreviated version. It'll be like 68 pages and it'll have enough for 30 days of journaling in it, but it'll be a little bit more. It'll be a lower price point and we'll put them in bundles anyway, just to let you know that.

No, I'm glad. Yeah. No, this is good stuff. Yeah, I'm excited.

I'm calling.

How about this, Lance? The viori of parenting journals or is it more like the Rolex? Is it more higher end because it's so nice looking.

I'll take Viori.

It lasts forever and it's quality.

Yeah, I love that.

I mean, we're looking for a sponsor, so Bjorn, if you're listening, I guess we would take.

I, I don't know what I would do with a Rolex. I mean, I would feel so awkward if I was hated at Rolex.

You're like, hey, what time is it in therapy session here?

Yeah, just imagine my clients looking at, looking at me like, what?

You've known Rob for a while. What's a question? We're not asking him that. You want to know, want people to know, sitting here listening to all this.

I think one of the things I really appreciate. I Mean, we. So after we concluded our, like, time together of our, you know, relationship there, I think one of the cool things is the way that the work took on his heart and his soul and passion for, for healing among. For all people. You know, I think this is like in the, in the 12 steps, you know, this is like the 12th step of like, you know, take sharing the good news. And I feel like Rob is an evangelist of, of the good work that restoration therapy does. I mean, his heart to take something to a whole nother country of his country, you know, and so I, I really do appreciate that. And I think, you know, Rob also has. We haven't really talked about Edith much, and I think she's like a secret weapon there in the, hey, Sinclair household. Um, she's such a. A gift from the Lord. I was, I was hoping she'd be here too, but like, even when she. She says my name is warm too, which, you know, so like, you, if you have an accent that's just like, just right. And when they say it, it just feels good. But yeah, I think. I don't know if I'm asking a question. I'm more making a statement. Maybe we can riff on that. But I guess this is kind of the, the heart of like restoration therapy of like, this is a, like, the idea of like, this isn't just a therapy. This is a movement, right? To me, like, this is something that offers, you know, this has just been my heart, like, long term heart. Like when I pray about this work that we get to do is like, this offers people such an opportunity to just be different, you know, to offer change. Like, there's so much things that are out there that say just be the same or accept the person across from you. But what we're saying is, no, you could actually be different. I think that's one of the things I see with Rob and Edith is they are. They are people that have been changed by the work. And. Yeah, I'm trying to think about how I can put this in a question form, though.

No, there's no question. I was just curious. You know, you've known him, you've been dos joy with him, and you know, I. It's cool to have somebody on who's a part of the community who's in a different role and position than typically. Like, we get a lot of therapists on and. Yeah, I think that's why I'm excited because I like to see the work that we do in the room be. Have tools that we can pass out to the Community. Because at my heart, I love to teach. And I think that what you guys are creating is a really a good teaching and transformative tool.

Yeah, I think this might be. I, you know, one discussion that might be. We have just, like, 10 minutes left here, but, like, one thing that might be worthwhile to discuss. I'm going to give us two choices. Okay. One is we could just lean in on Rob's intervention of the truth, and we could try and take a moment to, like, live in our truths for a moment. The other option would be, like, you know, when to think to help other therapists to think about, like, okay, you get to work one on one with people. But how do you take this to your local school? How do you take this to your church? How do you take this to businesses, you know, or, like, you know, parenting groups? I mean, this is like, mom co is out there. I think this is something that. What Rob has been doing. I know you've gotten to. You've been so blessed with, like, some of our favorite people with Dee and Michael Cox. Like, I mean, so I think we. So that would be, like, the two things. I don't know what would be best, um, for us to do right now. I'll let y' all choose.

I. I think I'm gonna go second and maybe see if Rob has any wisdom or advice. Like, if you are, like, you obviously have this. You see gaps in the market. You see ways to take what you're learning and to transfer it on. And I think that sounds like it started. It not started, but JH Ranch was a huge piece of that, I think. And so for people I don't know. Yeah, I love that for therapists who are practicing every day and the work with clients, like, how do they think about taking that next step and taking it beyond into their communities, and how do you look for opportunities?

Such a great question.

I just threw a lot of questions at you.

Yeah, no, it's great. I don't know if we have a succinct answer or necessarily the answer. I can tell you what we've been working on and see if it resonates, but we reached out to a friend of ours who's the principal of a local school here in Nashville, recommended us to his family minister at his church. You know, and I said, I just reached out and explained the process and some of the fruit that we've seen, particularly on the marriage side. And I said, we're developing something for parents and teenage kids so they can have this conversation around emotions. And so she Brought us in for two hours. And this is what we did, is we kind of gave three things to them. I shared out of my own personal journey, the struggles I had with my kids, the challenge we had with our marriage. And then I mapped out my own pain, peace cycle and four steps in the.

In the room with them.

In the room with them. And so they can see it. They can see it in real time, and they can be thinking through it. And then what I did is I. I asked my. My daughter, who's 17, who does this as well, who's. Who's an incredible communicator, by the way, and just took the house down. She. And she got up and shared her four steps. She went through her pain and peace cycle, and she talked about how we talk about it as a family and talked about some very. Just real examples that. You know, the thing that I love about RT is that it makes you be really honest with yourself. You know, there's no. There's no. Can't put on a show with her. You know, you have to share out of what's going on. And so she did a phenomenal job with that. And then we wrapped it up and so. And we said, hey, here's what we'd recommend. We'd recommend for the next 30 days. Days as parents. And I'm. Part of the thing we did is we gave away a digital version of the journal, and. And they took that, and I said, we're available if we can help with anything. And some people reached out for that. And so that's a great way, you know, because I think that there's a lot of, like, family pastors out there that are looking for great resources, you know, I know. Relate strong. Scott. Amazing. Like, we. We just did one at our church, a. A Saturday workshop in Nashville through one of our pastors, and he did an anxiety workshop with a bunch of young adults. But in the parent teen space, I know this. Both of our kids go to schools here, obviously, and these school counselors are looking for answers, not only recommending. The thing I love about it is that then we can say, hey, if you need help beyond discovering your pain and peace cycle and your four steps, if there's an issue beyond that, hey, here's a resource. And we know that it's a great resource. You know, one of the things that we were so blessed to meet Lance was, is that we were recommended to him by people that already knew him. A lot of people looking for help, but don't know where to begin. So if you can Recommend a restoration therapist. You know, you know that they're. You know that it's a there. You love the process, you love the content, you love how it works. And so I think family pass is a great avenue. That's who we're working with. That's one of the channels we're working with. And then with schools, you know, private educators are probably the best avenue right now, you know, because you don't have to go through all of the hoops with public schools, but the private education space is, I think, a great opportunity to help them and give them a tool so that they can then work through them and follow up with them and give them some frameworks and how a common language. Yeah.

And I love, you know, Lance, the fact that, like, Rob and his wife ended up in your therapy room, you know, and it impacted their life in such a way that they're taking that forward. And then it just like, you know, because you can be in the room as a therapist all day and wonder if you're actually impacting lives sometimes or changing lives, you know, and. And to just be faithful to that work and to see the work that Rob and his wife, the way that RT impacted them and that they've done that, and the beautiful stuff that's coming from it, that's just. I just want to say it's inspiring, you know, and it's really encouraging to hear that, you know, and I'm going to leave this conversation encouraged to, I don't know, think more deeply about how I want to do this and also just think about my own parenting with my son at home, my daughter's at college, and.

Yeah.

And practicing, I think, my four steps more in front of them. It's such a good reminder, you know.

I know we have just a few minutes left, Rhett and Lance, but one way to kind of. If I could share a quick story, just in closing, maybe a way to say thanks to Lance, you know, you know, we're just, you know, I get emotional, just so grateful that, you know, we were in a very, very different place as a couple five years ago. And, you know, people have paid forward their lives into our lives over the years. Right. And they really. It really marks you, you know, and I'll never forget, I think it was like a year ago. Yeah, it was about a year ago. We were deciding whether or not to move to Australia permanently. It was a big decision. You know, we're deciding between Nashville and Australia. And I walked into the living room one day, and my youngest son, and he has given Me permission to share this story, by the way, but he just. He was really edgy, you know, like, really edgy, and was almost just, you know, just edgy towards me. And that would have turned. That would have turned old Rob into a very reactive dad, you know, And. And I'd done my four steps, and. And. And I just paused and I said, hey, bud, do you want to go and go play some tennis? And so we got in the car, grabbed the rackets, went to the local court. On the way there, I just said, hey, hey. I noticed earlier that you were just a little bit off. You know, what's going on? And he was quiet. I said, what do you feel? You know, he said, dad, I just feel, like, out of control. You know, his decision to go to Australia is just, you know, just a lot, right? And he said, I just feel out of control. And when I get out of control, I just want to, like, I just want to take it out on people. And I'm sorry, that early, I probably just took it out on you, you know, And I was like, oh, Bo, it's okay, bud. I get it. It's a lot, you know, empathy, like, try to be empathetic with him. I said, but what's true, bud, you know, what's true about this? And what. He goes, I know that God's got a plan for us, and he's never let us down. And he's got. You know, it's like, what, Lance, I love what you say often. It's like, I know that I'm cold, you know, And I just was like, you know, bud, he's got a plan for you, he's got friends for you, he's got a school for you. He's got a future for you. I said, I know that when you know that. You know that you are so engaging and you can relax and you can trust him. And then he was like, thanks, dad. We went off and played tennis. That is the fruit of this, you know, Like, I would never have been able to have that conversation with my son that way without guys like you and Lance, like, you pouring into my life, practicing a. You know, Terry and Sharon, if you listen to this, thank you to you guys, you know, and we get to then pay it forward to the next generation. That's really our. That's really our heart and vision, is that generationally, kids would be like, oh, my goodness, I got to learn how to navigate my emotions and this world from a place of peace because my parents showed me.

That's awesome. I don't even know what to say with that.

Beautiful.

Let's just. Rob, that's so nice.

Thank you.

We appreciate you taking the time to be on this episode. We'll put everything in the show. Notes, please, people. Definitely. Check it out. ParentFromPeace.com it's beautiful. And we'll have you back on Rob when we have more time.

And it's. I. I think the truth is, it's just like tennis, guys. Like, it starts with love. I mean, that's. That's how we start, and then we. Then we can keep score.

You should have ended this podcast this minute earlier.

Oh, I'm sorry.

That's a good one. Cheers, you guys.

Later.

Thank you.