224. Secrets & Science Of Being A Great Father with 25 year Neuroscience Veteran Nathan Wallis

If you love the podcast and you want other valuable tools, resources and coaching that will ignite the fire in you to go to the next level, then look, make sure you jump on the other various platforms. We have absolutely our YouTube channel, Alex Ranieri, and in there you'll find the opportunity to have different coaching and resources and tools and tips, including our podcast episodes in video form, which a lot of people get value from too. But make sure you have a look at everything that we have to offer. High Performance Father is something that is a phenomenal movement that I'm very proud of. It's something that I love in this message that continues continually grows and it grows in more fashions and ways than just the podcast. But I appreciate you tuning into this podcast with a couple hundred thousand downloads now. It's just incredible. So thank you very much. Enjoy this episode, but make sure you do go and use the other tools and the other valuable resources that we have. Welcome to another podcast episode. We've got a phenomenal guest today, definitely one of the rarer ones, and I can say that confidently After 220 episodes, we've got Mr. Nathan Wallace with us and well, firstly before I do a bit of an intro, welcome, Nathan. Great to have you on here, mate.

Oh, it's great to be here. Thanks for having me.

I'm excited, I'm excited. We just had a chat before we, before we hit record, but I was. Those who are listening to this won't be able to see, but some of those clocks you've got there, mate, it's just, it's just incredible. We talk about the concept of time and whatnot. And there's some pretty cool looking clocks you have there, mate.

Yeah, cheers. So Doctor who finish.

So good. But look, those who are listening to this, most of our listeners are men. However, men, I will get you to absolutely provide the opportunity to your, your wives to listen to this as well. This is going to be a fascinating episode where we're talking with a man who's done 25 years of neuroscience research and over 200. I mean, I had to read that twice. I was like, wow. Over 250 times a year, this man is doing events not just in New Zealand, but also internationally, which is incredible. Your own TV show, kids don't come with a manual.

Yeah, that's new.

That's very, very cool. So the reason why I want you men to also get your wives listen is there's going to be a lot of value in a bit of an overview. This is just the start of what I believe will be a great experience for all of you men who are plugged in or connected to HPF in some way. Where Nathan Wallace and essentially his process on not only the first thousand days of your child's life and what that looks like in, I guess, defining or navigating their future, but also breaking down the stages of life because we all know men that it changes physically, psychologically, parenthood, fatherhood, us as men undoing our own best, our own trauma. That's what I really love about neuroscience, which attracted me and drew me into. Into you and your world, Nathan, to really, I guess for those listening, get a bit of an overview on what Nathan does. 250 events a year TV show. He's a father of three and a foster parent as well himself. And you know, it's something that I think you guys should be really excited to listen to over the next 45 minutes or so as well as probably share with your wife to help you not only get an understanding on where things may be on the certain stage and journey of yourself, your own brain, how it's wired, but also your children. But potentially maybe a couple of tools, tips and tricks. Maybe not tricks, but a cool tool, tips, tools of the trade.

Tricks are all right.

Couple of tricks that you might be able to apply to your life as well. But Nathan, I'm excited, mate. Welcome. Thank you for joining us.

I'm pleased to be here. I think if I do my job properly that getting the. The wives to listen will be relatively easy because if the man's amped and she seems to be ignited by it, then she's going to want to know what that's about. So she'll come of her own accord to have a look. That's been my experience. So I've just got to do my job. Well, I'll get it named.

Yeah, of course, absolutely. Because, well, unless there's men listening out here, you just want to keep the secrets to yourself so that you know the children, you become the favorite instead of your wife. But awesome. I'd love to, I guess, start with yourself, mate. And what led you into this space? Because it's quite a fascinating space. But yeah, what, what brought us to be here today where you've got, you know, 25 years of experience in this field and. Yeah. What led to this being your journey, Nathan?

Yeah, I think I just gravitate. I mean, I've become a teacher because I'd always like children and I like interacting. I like people. So, yeah. And when I was a teacher, very quickly I worked out it was a naughty kids I really liked the most and I was fascinated with and had empathy with and, you know, thought and, you know, I thought it was a naughty kid myself. So, you know, I was in foster care and things and I could resonate with those kids. And so I ended up, you know, going back to university doing more qualifications just so I could work specifically with the naughty kids rather than having to teach 25 other ones. And then, and then it was really the age I was at because brain development, the 1990s, the decade of the brain, right place at the right time, really, you know, right there at the burgeoning. So I'd be running parenting groups for a while and did lots of different group facilitation. But I'd always been fascinated in the neuroscience. You know, part of my undergraduate study, and it was part of my first job was I'm being quite involved in brain development and I just loved it. I loved the solidity of it. Like, you know, you know, there's like, teaching is a bit of an art form, you know, and social, emotional, well being can seem a bit abstract, whereas now we've got brain scans that tell us, you know, that stuff. In concrete terms, I think it's like a, you know, a social science has meaning, you know, connects with people meaningfully, social part, but it's got some solidity to it, you know, there's science behind it and I just like the reassurance of that.

It's a valuable, valuable thing in today's world, mate, where there's a lot of subjective truths, so to speak, in position. Position of people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. People really listen with their limbic system. People think, you know, we've got a frontal cortex, it's a home of higher intelligence and people think that's where we live, but really we live mainly underneath of the emotional brain. The frontal cortex is just a toolbox that we go to when we need language or when we need, you know, to justify an emotional, you know, decision that we made. Basically, we live from our emotional brain and people quite easily will just believe what they want to believe.

Very interesting. Isn't it too? Yeah, mate, I totally get that. Moss. As men, I guess historically it seems like we're more logically wired or I guess less emotional, emotionally volatile than women to a degree or I guess.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You would know the hard signs of that, but I'm just observing.

Well, it's interesting, yeah. Men's brains, the emotional part of the brain, you know, essentially is about, usually about 20 larger so that might. I think a man's problem is about the corpus callosum. That's the bridge that joins the left and the right hand brain. Like if I had your brain in my hands, you'd see it's not a bull, it's, it moves in two halves and it's joined by this band of hive is called the corpus callosum. And that's why they say women can multitask, because they've got a much denser corpus callosum than we have. You know, if you think of it as a road that connects the left and the right hand brain, then women have it like a six lane highway, you know, Whereas men in comparison have like a bloody swing bridge at the back, you know, with planks missing in the swing bridge. So men, men tend to stay on the left hand side of the brain and only go to the right hand side of the brain about 5% of the time. Women about 30% of the time there. So what I'm trying to say is we think men are less emotional, but actually suicide statistics would suggest that we're more emotional. And you know, it's not just me, I know I'm very emotional, but when I get with men, especially in a men only environment, they're all really emotional. And so, you know, I think that's, I think we just don't have the structures in our brain to regulate that emotion very well. So we have strong emotion and structures not to regulate it.

I think you guys will need to listen and watch this a few times because I certainly will, because that's phenomenal. And I guess what I'm gathering from that, Nathan, is does that mean there's a potential that the regulation of expressing emotions is more accessible through and with women because of the six lane highway as opposed to men? However, what you're saying absolutely makes sense to me. A, because of the men that we have on the inside with HPF and the bringing down of the walls and B, I look at this from a primal power point of view. You look at anger, rage, all these things that led to survival. That's an incredible explosive force that you're right, mate. Men might not tap into as frequently, but it's absolutely there and it makes sense that it would, would be larger. That's. Fuck, that's unreal. That's hey, goosebumps.

For a long time, me and morale fighting and hunting and stuff, you know, you basically. Yeah, and you know, I mean that's a generalization. A woman or a home doing childcare, you need a Brain that can regulate your emotion. When you have 12 kids, you know, if you say, I'm with two kids, you need to come here, you know, it drives your mental. So 12 kids looks like, you know, you have to have 12 kids in order for two or three of them to survive for most of history. So, you know, they needed a brain that could regulate their emotions, whereas men, to be warriors, needed a brain. You know, you don't want your warriors to regulate their emotion. You want them to be going and charging for it and, you know, full force.

Yeah, and this is the thing too, what you just mentioned then. Like, we, we talk and it's nothing against men or women, but there's obviously, from what you're sharing right now, there's predispositions to a role that a female will obviously be more equipped to. And we see that traditionally. I just came back from a holiday in Fiji and it's again, nothing against men or women. Doesn't say that women can't work or a man can't spend time with his child. However, in this tribe, because we went to a real local native place, the women were doing the quote, unquote, women things and doing them extremely well, and the men were doing the men things. And. Is that what you're saying? Like, I guess that's how our brains wide as well, which is why we tend to.

No, it's not as hard as that. Not as hard as that. Like, when we talk about male and female brain, there's some differences, but it's like a spectrum. Every part of the brain that we could say a male brain, there'll be females at the edge of the bell curve that have that and vice versa. So you don't. It is really a spectrum, you know. Yeah, but mosaic is the theory, the actual word that they use, mosaic theory that we're mosaic. If you. We did all the psychological tests on you, you would find out that, you know, you might be 64% classified as a male and you're thinking and know the rest. And female, you know, you might be more empathetic. Empathy is considered a female trait, but you as a person might be quite much more empathetic than, you know, 30% of the woman population, even though their brains are wired up for it. So you can't say empathy is just a female thing. It's really that all things are both genders. I mean, we are 50% of each, after all. None of us are pure male and pure female. We both got one pair of neat.

Yeah, it makes sense. So there would be There's. There's a range where, you know, I guess a traditional sense would be masculinity and femininity, where obviously, I know there's some feminine inside of me, but then that's where we would see some men who. Passive probably isn't the word, but they would tend to be more feminine. And then there are women who do seem to be more, I guess, dominant, but more masculine. Right. That's what you're saying. There is a range where, you know, there are some women who could potentially.

It's just normal, really, that people don't have a man and a woman. That's the bipolar idea we've got, is that it is a spectrum and that. Yeah, but generally men cluster down that end for most of their traits and women clustered on that end for most of their traits. But, yeah, even, Even. Even, like in your brain, that corpus callosum that I just talked about this, that's responsible for not just regulating emotion, but for lots of multitasking. And if a boy learns a musical instrument, starts to learn a musical instrument formally before the age of seven, it increases the density of his corpus callosum, that it's basically the same as a female. So you could then speculate, it doesn't happen after seven because you're going to have a reasonable degree of neuroplasticity. It's always beneficial, but you're not going to see the same increase in the corpus callosum. You have to start the formal stuff before seven. But that was fascinating to me because that just shows how pliable the brain is, that we can take that very female trait. They're going to regulate your motions that are related to brain. And it's an oversimplification. I got to say. We're not. It's not just a corpus glycine, you know, you just simplify it down. I'm simplifying it down so we can have the conversation. Obviously, everything. The brain is a whole network. There's always a network of things. But, yeah, that's that easy. We can basically make a boy's brain as good as a female. So we keep him in years of lunchbone. The first seven years.

So the piano lessons I took as a little boy paid off.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, females have a lower suicide rate than us, a lower criminal rate. They seem to be able to regulate their emotions a whole lot easier. So, yeah, teach our boys who use a lunch before seven, they could have a whole lot easier life. They're easier. Do you know, we need to be able to regulate Our emotions now got more, more depression than there was during the Great Depression. You know, anxiety's growing every year. Like regulating your emotions is becoming a skill set.

Is that you to a saturation thing though as well because of technology and what we're exposed to potentially like it's a. Yeah, yeah.

We're also going faster and faster and we're processing faster and faster. You just have to look at a television show like, you know, from this black and white and how slowly the whole show moved and they, you know, we would have five shows in that time, you know, from action to action, action to action. And now the Internet speed everything up and now we've got cell phones with instant communication and I see it with the teenagers that I work with and we do have, you know, a great degree of adaptability. We've adapted every other generation. You know, every generation is always thought, oh my God, this generation is going to go to wreck and ruin. But each generation manages to survive and I think they're pretty great.

Fascinating, isn't it? So whilst it's a benefit that there's that, that neuroplasticity or the ability to the brain, for the brain to, to adapt and evolve, there's also that, that caution on I guess how it would adjust when like I look at the scroll, you talk about, you know, the black and white being slow.

Yeah.

With a response rate of 3 seconds people could be exposed to in just 10 minutes of scrolling TikTok or something like hundreds. Like that's that stimulus. And I can't say it's a fact. I remember seeing someone in a similar space Talking about an 80 year old 100 years ago has seen less than what a 12 year old sees today. And I'm like, yeah, full life. And you've got a prepubescent like it's.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Crazy.

That summarizes it really, doesn't it, about how many lives we're living in one life. Because information, everything's just so fast. And we're paying a price for that because we are. It's a multifaceted thing though. I think we also don't live in our tribal groups. So you know, just when I was a child in the 1970s, when I was growing up, 80% of people lived in the same region as their grandparents and aunties and uncles and stuff. Now it's about 25%. So that makes for a very different. Those sorts of things helped you to regulate your anxiety tribes?

Yes, some fundamental things.

It's, it's probably still, it's things we've lost. Not just things that we've added. We've added the Internet and we've added, you know, cell phones. But we've lost having grandparents. Grandparents used to. The grandmothers never used to work in a complete, you know, their job was to be a grandmother. That's a huge help to the family unit. Now you've got both parents working and Nan's working as well and by a perfect parent as well, you know, that want to have good experiences. So yeah, it's hard. It's hard.

You hear some of those old sayings, like takes a tribe or a village to raise and they seem to be lost. But it's like what you mentioned then is just that, I guess that cohesion and stability as well to a degree possibly. Like you said, things that we've got volatility of technology. We've started some pretty high level stuff. Hope you boys are enjoying this. Certainly excited me, I guess. Two things quickly, mate. One which I think you've probably answered. Can we change it even as an adult, can we rewire our brain and change and adjust and like, is it really that, you know, is it. Is that that malleable and.

It is, yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's incredible. We're living in the age of neuroplasticity in some ways because even 20 years ago we didn't think so much, you know, about that because we could predict a lot of your outcomes with a high degree of, you know, accuracy from the age of three. So they suggested there wasn't a lot of neuroplasticity. But now we understand that as we learn more about neuroplasticity, that that's because most people don't receive an intervention. If you've led a life of abuse and neglect and torture for the first, you know, three years of your life, you normally continue that until you're 18. There isn't a magic thing that comes in and sweeps you away and takes you to a nice home. So the reason most of those kids can have their outcomes predicted was because their pathway wasn't changed, not because they were set. So now we understand we've got way more neuroplasticity than we thought. It's actually incredible. It sort of blows my mind just how much that what we think is what happens, you know, like, yeah, I mean, I don't want to lose people in the science but you know, your brain is based. Everything that's seeing right in front of you is 93% prediction. Only 7% of it is light. You know, Pixels hitting the light in your eyes and giving you information because your brain's moved a long time ago. That's not efficient to keep checking if the roof is still there because you have learned to predict the roofs don't disappear and reappear. So you're just predicting that that's there. When you start to take all those mundane predictions together, it's not hard to work out, but 93% of what you're seeing in front of you is prediction. Only 7% is left for if there's any novelty, if the roof does disappear, you'll probably notice it because you know that what that means is that everybody is seeing their story. You know, people think that they have a video camera in their head. That's fundamentally how we see ourselves. We're seeing this objective reality and we don't have a video. It's a story maker. It will easily fool us. The way I get parents to understand that you're not seeing what's really in front of you is that for all of your life, whenever your eyes are open, you can really see your nose. But why do you not see your nose? You know, because your brain goes, oh, well, that's a waste of time. I don't need that there. Not only does it make it disappear, but it replaces whatever is you're supposed to be able to see underneath your nose. You know, bills in the picture. So that's just an example of how we are. We're seeing what we predict to see. And another one is if you'd, you know, you. You get an Audi and suddenly it seems like every second car on the road is an Audi. Because now you are seeing that you're paying attention to it. If you're pretty pregnant, having a baby seems like you just see pregnant people everywhere you go, like you're paying attention to things. Did you see that classic video clip about they doing a basketball game and you have to count how many balls or something?

And then the gorilla. Oh, that's right.

With the gorilla. Yeah, yeah, that's it. Yeah. And the gorilla. When I first watched that, I was like, oh, that's a different clip. That the gorilla wasn't there the first time. I was adamant that I couldn't have, you know, missed a gorilla coming up in the back of this game and waving. But that shows you that we are just choosing what to attend to, you.

Know, you missed the gorilla. You didn't see him?

No, not the first time. No, not at all. I completely fell. So much so that I thought they were having me on I didn't believe it was the same clip they showed me the next time. But, yeah, that was a long time ago.

Isn't. Was ruined for me, mate, because I. I found I had the answer before I got the chance to watch it the first time.

Right. Yeah.

So I don't want to ruin it for the guys listening or watching. But it's. Oh, man, isn't it unreal like when you.

Yeah, but what that means is that we are a collection of our stories. Whatever story you tell yourself is what reality is. It's what you see. It's what you learn to predict. So I think that's fascinating, you know, like, essentially as humans, there isn't a subjective reality. There's our stories that we hold. Everyone's got their own stories. You know, I mean, you know, you might think as an individual that you're altruistic, Whereas, you know, 20 of your friends might think you're tight as like, you know, but you're still. But in your story that you're all twisted. Not you. I'm just saying in general. Yeah, yeah. People have their story and they believe it. Doesn't matter if all their friends don't believe it or, you know, so technically.

There'S obviously a lot of versions. So there's Al's version of who Al is, but then there could be 5,000 versions who I am in their reality and how they see me. And it's. Mate, that's fascinating. Like, I remember seeing. I'm not sure I'd obviously love your. Your expertise on this, but I remember do. Seeing that. I'm not sure if you're talking about the conscious or subconscious, how it's like a computer where our conscious mind can operate at only 40Mbps, which is why for it to be processing everything like you said, which means it fills the gaps in our subconscious. 40,000 a lot. Lot more. Which is. Is that the underlying what you're talking about in the.

Yeah, I mean, there's two different concepts here because I'm talking about brain stuff and there's mine, the brain to mind. You know, two different things. But I overlap, obviously. But yeah, that, that stuff. I started out as a therapist, so I started out that unconscious and stuff. I'm a huge fan of Young's. Carl Young. He's like my favorite theorist. I've got his red book up on the shelf. You know, like, he just captivated me and University.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's incredible stuff, mate, like what you're sharing. Then I remember we were talking off air I mentioned Robert Lanza. That's the stuff he's talking about in Biocentric with the double slit experiment.

Right? Okay. Yeah.

Waves collapsing into particles, like.

Yeah, yeah.

Like I'm sitting here right now in the office talking to Nathan. My car technically doesn't exist. However, there's obviously a filling in the gap because my consciousness in there, when I go there, it's not going to look at all the details and it's black and it's got this writing. It's just. Is that partially what you mean in terms like we're just filling in room in the space and it's just like.

Absolutely.

It's crazy.

And we're predicting. And what I'm trying to say is we're predicting our story. That means that we can change our story quite easy. I mean, let's talk about neuroplasticity. What I'm trying to say is it's real easy to tap neuroplastic. So you just change your story. You know, that's what you need to do to change that story. You can't just tell yourself, you know, if you've got underlying issues that have, you know, your. What's the underlying issue? Attachment, you know, disorder that you're, you know, you don't feel connected to people properly, then you can't just change your story and go, I'm going to feel connected now. You have to actually, truly change your story and you have to really believe that you are connected. You have to believe you've gone through some catechismic or some appropriate, you know, change, but once you believe it. So it's getting people to believe the good stuff in their story. People focus on negative things. You know, I've dealt lots of people with depression, anxiety, and they're, what if. What if I'm bad? Bad? And. And you try and tell them you're one of the best carpenters, and they say, oh, yeah, there's the things that they're good at. They don't want to get any air time to. Yeah, they want to spend all day talking about their anxiety. It's like if you just look at it from a mathematical point of view. If you're spending, you know, how many words today that come out of your mouth? Because your brain pays a lot of attention to what comes out of your mouth. Your brain's basically voice activated. It ignores a lot of your thoughts because they contradict all the time. You think you're gorgeous today, you thought you're ugly yesterday. They change all the time, your thoughts. But what you choose to articulate and come out of your mouth. The brain listens to. So I try to say to people, you know, you spend a lot of time talking about your anxiety and managing your anxiety. You don't want to talk about your strengths and how good you are at stuff and, and how happy you can be. And it feels fake, I think. Well, yeah, it does feel fake because you don't do it. But that's why you need to make it not feel fake. And that takes practice. It takes about 90 times of doing something before it starts feeling fake. You have to persevere with that.

Is that Partially, I guess, yeah. I'd love to. To work a bit more on. On the how sounds to me like, I guess a. A more consolidated hear things like, you know, law of attraction, whatnot. It's not like thinking here's a Lamborghini, but people. No, but it is. But what you're saying is obviously there's, there's a lot that comes out and I, I lost my. Lost my voice about nine months ago. And what you're saying, mate, is fascinating because through the adversities and everything I've gone through, I really vocalize, like, my strength and my power is not just communicating like this. But yeah, I vocalize everything. I even, I even have like what I call a war cry or battle cry where I'll. I'll do affirmations outward and vocally, just from playing rugby over the years and other things. And when I, when I lost that mate, I couldn't believe the, the mess that happened. It almost became this thing where even someone who had all these strengths, like you've mentioned, that we can't. You'll have we. If you're still here. You've racked up at least some wins, everyone. But everything was just like. And it's like that. That old adage, what you focus on becomes your reality. Which sounds like, yeah, but is that a survival mechanism? What is this? Because I hear that a lot focusing on, on the bad and the threat and the danger is that like.

Because possibly negative, any negative feedback is going to give you way more of a buzz to the brain. Because negative feedback is a threat to your survival. Positive feedback isn't. So when someone says, oh, your hair looks nice today, that does not give you anywhere near the same brand reaction as when someone goes, you know, you look stupid because that gives a defensive negative response. You think that person could be hostile, it could be an enemy. They're saying something mean to me. So it just, you know, if you wear a New pair of. I would say to woman, if you wear a new pair of jeans to work and nine people tell you you look fabulous, just one person say, you'll make your bum look fat and you want to go home and get changed, you ignore the nine positive and go with the one negative. Because our brain's focused on survival. And I think a lot of anxiety is getting ready for the worst case scenario. I do that. You know, that can be a good survival strategy, right? What if it all turns to shit? What's the plan? What's plan B and then plan C? Because when those hardly ever do things turn to shit. But it's good to know when they do that I'm nice and smooth and ready to go to plan B and plan C and keep all my shit together. But that can become anxiety if you find yourself over planning. So I used to have to fall back and go, I can be getting a bit anxious about going to do something. Hold on. I'm really, really good at this. It always goes really, really well. And I always really love it. I'm just doing that automatic thing of getting ready for the worst. Stop doing that. I have to consciously make myself stop doing it. Because your brain is focused on negative stuff.

Yeah. And people are so naturally skewed where it can be a strength of, like you said, you know, being able to adjust if things don't go to plan. But it seems like it's skewed in such direction where it's become just a manifestation of people's lives where it's just. It's almost like they don't have control anymore. It's because that's anxiety is. Is in, like you said, anticipation, what's to come. So they're not in the now, are they? They're in the future and looking at.

That's right. And gratitude is the antidote to that. You know, it's the opposite to that. It's like, I mean, I can feel a difference. There's an ad that I play that goes, right, just stop and think of five things you're grateful for right now. I can't hear that without having to do it. So. And it's amazing the change when. Even if you're having a shit day, you know, there's always the, My kids are still alive. All my kids love me. No one in the family has any diseases. Like, you know, and then I think we live in a time where we've got electricity. I'm grateful for electricity. You know, most of human history didn't have that. And things were much harder. Like, you know, all of my children stayed alive. You know, the basic stuff, but for most of human history, that didn't happen. We're actually living in a really luxurious time. So it's. And saying those things out loud releases the endorphins and stuff in the brain. And that thing that we're saying about what you choose to focus your attention on, you just spend, you know, 10 seconds focusing on. Because there is lots to be grateful for. Everybody has misery in their life at some point along the way. It's part of the experience. And everyone's going to have joy, I think as well. But it's how you handle that. You know, that 80% in the middle.

I find a big trap for that potentially is because of the environment people find themselves in, but the assumptions. People assume too much. Like, yeah, my kids will be adults because the average age is 80, yet I've got lots of friends and clients, unfortunately, who've lost their children. And that's.

That's right.

That's horrific.

It's not only about being bad or grateful for it because we've all had friends that have done that. So make sure when you're thinking about things to be grateful. I'm saying people have always got things to be grateful. Grateful. And, oh, you wouldn't be grateful either if you've just been made redundant and, you know, well, if you leave your stuff, it's like, yeah, there is still a lot to be grateful for. You could have died. You wouldn't say that. But you know what I'm saying? There is. No matter how miserable the person's life is, there are things to be grateful for.

I might be a bit of a delusional optimist at times and anything, but I tell you, mate, it's so tiring and frustrating, though, when you look at those people like I'm always looking at. And it's not. I'm not a positivity fairy, but it's like, hey, but you know what, man? You had a job. You got. At least you had a job you got fired from, right?

Yeah.

At least you got chosen for a period of time. Lots of people don't. But. But it seems to be like with. With a certain probably large volume of people, you're beating your head against the wall, like, how do we. And maybe they don't want to be at a deeper level when you said you can change, but there's more than just vocalizing at once, how do we. How do we change and create that? What. What is it? Environment is it is a repetition through other things. Like, how would you.

I mean, it's multifaceted. It's not just one thing, you know, it's like, okay, we could talk about hiptop. How you got to get your brain ready for the sort of cond. Neuroplasticity. But just changing your diet by itself doesn't usually do it. You've got to have the sort of understanding of the basic stuff we're talking about. You know, how you think metacognition and the survival process and the negativity. Yeah. So it's multifaceted. I don't think there's just one simple thing. I normally got people from the. You know, the just increasing neuroplasticity for a start, and trying to have conversations like this where they understand that they can change. When I get someone who's just as like, no bat, no bat, no bat, no bat. I think they're depressed. That's depression. You got the black hat on. Do you know Bono's theories of the different colored hats? Like, it's like seven different hats. It's really old. It's just basic and classic. The black hat is. Let's look at the situation from as negative a point of view as possible. Think of everything that could possibly go wrong. That's the black hat. And I think the yellow hat is the joyful hat. Let's look at the wildest dreams. This is the. What's the best stuff that could happen from this plane? There's basically seven different emotions to look at their situation with. And you have to put on each of the hats. So it's a really good way of forcing yourself to get out of that. People with depression don't realize they're wearing the black hat the whole time. I think, no, that's just how the world is. And you're being all bloody eerie fury. That's just how it is. It's not. It's not. That's not how the experience of life is for most people. That's how it is for you. And Because. Yeah, but part of that is changing that thinking and being open to the fact that you might just think like that because you've developed, you know, a brain that's got depression and that you can do things to help change that by being open to, you know, not just what you're saying. It's that metacognition thinking about how you're thinking. That's what I like about it, is that you're. It's. I'm not arguing with what your particular view is about this rugby game or whatever. But why are you always negative? Why are you always taking the critical way.

Just a layer back on critical thinking, I guess, with. With questioning your thoughts, position, or emotion or stories, like you said. And it's like the old bad luck always happens to me. So bad luck keeps happening. They keep putting into that reality. And sounds to me like if we have 8 billion people here, Nathan, then there's 8 billion realities in essence. Yeah, you know.

Yeah, absolutely. There's no two the same, you know, so we don't have this one objective reality at the time. Yeah, I mean, we've always known that if you've got four people at an intersection on each corner and they all watch an accident, they all report different things and, you know, having a different. Why. So we always knew that witness accounts were not reliable. And now we understand all the neuroscience and how the brain works. We realize that. Oh, yeah, because they've all got story makers and they're all constructing their own story.

It's fascinating stuff, mate. And that was, I guess, the first of two things I wanted to. To cover. The first was change it. But the second one, not that obviously we've been into this podcast for a period of time now, but I guess give us. I'd love to then move into, mate, what is, you know, neuroscience? Like, give us an overview. Like, I know you've been expressing and explaining it, but now coming back. So what. What for? For those who obviously may not be aware or familiar with this stuff, and a lot of our men won't be. But, yeah, what is neuroscience? And then what are some key things that from that your life experience, your studies could correlate valuable stuff for fathers, parenthood, children.

I mean, neuroscience is a very, very general topic. You know, anyone that. Yes, the science of the brain. So anyone that works with that. I mean, I really work in the area of cognitive neuroscience, so I'm not a brain surgeon. I'm not operating anyone's brains. I'm not, you know, I know some of the biology of the brain because it overlaps with cognition and how you think. But, you know, my experience has been working with people who are traumatized and how you heal the brain and stuff. So it's been. Yeah, so I think a cognitive neuroscientist is someone who works out exactly that how you think. And that's what fascinates me more than the. The, you know, how a neuron works. I know the basics of how the brain works, but I don't really need to know the 50 different bloody names of the chemicals that come out of all neuron. Because I'm looking for the meaningful stuff that connects to parents and change with people, you know. Yeah, I think I want to help people on the fast track, you know, to do the cheat sheet thing and just get cut straight to the guts of it. I've just been lucky. I've had jobs where for, like, for, you know, 25 years I've been immersed in, I've been, I've had been had jobs where I've had to be evidence based and I've had teams of researchers supporting me to do it. I've just been in a privileged position. I've been able to get the information that I knew was the accurate information because it comes with the right channels and I've got a good ability to summarize it quickly. That's just. Yeah, it's about doing that great, mate. That's my neuroscience is, to me, it's just about giving you information about how your brain works because it's nice and solid. When you talk to guys about psychology and stuff, you know, which is where I started out, not that many guys are open to that. That's too fluffy. You know, you say you're supposed to love yourself. I don't know how the am I supposed to do that. Like, whereas neuroscience gives you a solid, concrete, you know, you've got an amygdala that you're emotional, that's your emotional brain. And then you've got a frontal cortex that can override that. So when you get angry and your amygdala goes in, you can usually override it. But when you can objectify it like an anger thing like that and see it as a physical thing and think, you've just got to exercise your, you know, your frontal cortex. I just find that people, especially men, take it on board a whole lot more often, grasp it, I can work with it. They can have a level of medical vision themselves, know how their own brains work and they give you some level of control.

Well, you know, it's not just, it's not, I'm against it, but I hear a lot of, you know, big players, I guess in, in the day go, knowledge is power. I'm like, yeah, only if it's applied like it's probably a half truth. Like information alone isn't the key because you could have that information like said in psychology, but what's the point of connection? You saying what you are now is going to make much more sense to our listeners and it's going to hit Home. They might have heard it 30, 40, 50 times over the years. Yeah, makes sense. Didn't fucking take it. But this point. So no, I agree with you, mate. And that's, that's what we share with our tribe. Speed, like speed is the game, accuracy is the key because we, we think 80 years is long, Nathan, but it obviously isn't, mate. But with that being said, so now I love everything you're sharing on getting to the nuts and bolts of it all. Here we are. So I want, I wouldn't mind going into, I guess, some of the core points of those cheat sheets. Here we are. Our men are entering the second half in their life. Most of our listeners, men 30s and 40s, some in their 50s. Our oldest members, 68. God bless you. What a legend. But yeah, generally 40s and early 50s. And here are these in the chaos of life, trying to provide financial freedom. They've got their wife, they're trying to make sure her needs are met as a man, that they very seldom do things for themselves. Sacrificing for the family. And they've got their kids and, and they're growing. It's like this is, this is the, what we call either the pit or the downward spiral or the tough spot where we want men to win the second half in life. Yet they find like they're at a loggerheads with it's opening up and breaking down. What are some of the core things, I guess from your findings? I know we've got limited time today, but this is hopefully the first of many. But what are some core things in your cheat sheets like you mentioned, that could help a father and mother listening to this around parenthood with young children overcoming trauma, teenagers and possibly technology. What are some valuable things you might be able to provide or insights that might help some of our listeners today?

I think like of their 50s and they've got teenagers. It's understanding teenage years can be like really hard. You know, when your primary school kids run to cuddle you, when you come in the door, teenagers grunt and hardly lift an eyebrow, you know, so it's not as rewarding as a parent and we're working really hard, so I think some empathy for the situation that you're in. And so what's a cheat sheet way of having a good relationship with the child? That's what I'll be interested in. And there are some cheat sheet ways. A good relationship is basically about communication. So let's look at what the research says about communication styles and which communication styles are most effective and we look at what the teenagers think about, the parents think. Because there has always been heaps of research on that, you know, different styles of parenting and stuff. And so you basically say there's kind of an algorithm behind having good communication. You know, I worked out that, you know what I mean, meaningfully is that if when teenagers shut down, don't talk to their parents, they don't, they're universally shut down, but they all go to like Sally's mother and spill their guts to Sally's mother and tell Sally's mother anyway, so they're all not talking to their parents, but they're all talking to Sally's mother. You know, when I was at school, we all shut down from talking to the teachers and didn't really open up very much like with the enemy. But we all told the history teacher everything. So what was Sally's mother doing? What was the history teacher doing? They had some communication style that made them privy to a much better relationship and more communication. Because our stereotype appearances, we say, you know, how's your day? Fine. What'd you do? No, you know, they, they're not talking to us, whereas they're talking to Sally's mother. So what I found was that essentially it's because of the emotional brain. It's because what the history teacher was doing and what Sally's mother was doing, even though they didn't realize it was, they were speaking to the emotional brain first. A process called validation. When you say that, basically validation is just saying the emotion behind what the person is feeling before you give a strategy. And if I open up the door, extreme example, but if I open the door and my 15 year old daughter's been, I call her eyes out, snot everywhere, delirious, right? I need to, number one, I need to calm her down. There's no point me going straight to tell me what happened because she can hardly talk, you know, she's upset. So number one is calm down. Number three, I'm missing out. Number two. Number two is validation. Right. But number three is actually the most effective way to change another human being's behavior is a method called cognitive training. You know, our parents argued whether it was a star chart or whether it was a kick up the ass or, you know, what is the most effective way to change behavior? We know from a research base, it's called cognitive training. And cognitive training is basically cognition just means thinking, training your thinking. It's an academic way of saying tell the kid what to do instead of what not to do. So, you know, when I say like 25% of your brain is a parietal load. So I'm talking about the outer slide and the outer visualization. So when I say to people, visualize a blue car, roughly 25% of your brain is engaged to visualize a blue car. Then I say to people, okay, turn that part of your brain off. Nobody picture an elephant. Nobody picture a chicken. Of course, everybody is picturing an elephant and then a chicken because you can't turn that part of your brain off. So think of that in terms of behavior management. When we say, don't stand on the chair, what's 25% of your brain has to immediately picture standing on the chair? So don't hate your sister. 25% of your brain standing on your sister. We like to blame the kids for their behavior, but a lot of their behavior is dictated by our language. Cognitive training is just tell them what to do. Instead, you don't say, don't stand on the chair. You say, sit down on the chair and you say, use gentle hands with your sister. Now, 25% of their brain is picturing sitting down on a chair or using gentle hands with their sister. So in that way, if that's our style of interaction, you stop telling the kids what not to do and tell them what to do instead. Cognitive training, their behaviour improves drastically immediately, you know, pretty much immediately. And that's reassuring because it's really hard to change someone else's behavior, but it's relatively easy to change your own. So stop telling them what not to do and tell them, you know, the more detail you can describe in that cognitive training, the faster, you know, turns up the behavior. So, yeah, that's a. But step number two, cognitive training can just sound like nagging if you don't do the validation. So step number one, calm the brainstem. Step number two, validate the emotions coming from the limbic system, the emotional brain. And then step number three, provide a cognitive strategy, you know, the cognitive training of what you should have done instead.

That's. Yeah, that's unreal, mate. Would you mind giving some examples around validation for our men? Because obviously, like we said, yeah, emotional regulations, right?

So I've opened up the door and my daughter's standing there doing the ugly cry. It's not everywhere. So, number one, I calm her down. So what? You can't just impose how you calm down. You know, I might go for a jog or a run. She's not going to do that. So, you know, her way of coming down to the hype. So I'll Give her a. So what's the matter? She's broken up with my boyfriend. The world's over. I'm never going to fall in love with anyone ever again. Now, if I go straight to my frontal cortex, which is really good at recognizing patterns, that's what a frontal cortex does. And I go, well, honey, based on your previous relationships, I'd imagine two weeks from now you'll be obsessed with the next boy. You would have forgotten all about this one. Now, I could be absolutely right. That could be the pattern. But she. Is she going to feel heard? Is she going to feel like, I understand? Is she going to feel connected? No, she's going to go away and talk to sell his mother. So, yeah, validation is something that I can't rely on with the cuddle. What's the matter? I broke off the water and I say something like, oh, honey, I know you felt stronger about this boy than you know any other boy you've been with, so you must be really upset. Validation doesn't have to be agreement. I could have not liked her boyfriend and be secretly really glad he's gone, but I can still say, oh, honey, I know you felt strongly about this boy than any other person, so you must be really upset. You just talking to the emotion behind what she was saying before you did the strategy. And she goes, oh, he's listening. He understands. He gets it. Then 10 minutes later when I say, only if you just. If you think about other times, it's only really intense for the first two weeks. You just need to get through the next two weeks. That's really helpful advice to give a teenager. Your emotional brain doesn't understand time. And when they really do believe when they're broken up and how bad they feel, they're going to feel that way forever. So listening to me saying it'll only feel intense for two weeks, that's a more achievable goal than dealing with it forever. So what I'm saying is, I really want her to listen to that, my advice. But for me to listen to her, for her to listen to my advice. Well, yeah, for her to listen to me, I've got to listen to her. And she's an emotional teenager. If I don't speak to her emotion, emotion is 90 of their worldview. If I don't speak to that emotion, I've just ignored 90% of their worldview. And when teenagers say, I'm not listening to me, that's what they mean. Because we think we're trying to help be helpful by going straight to A strategy. But actually, if you go straight to a strategy, oh, you should have done this, you're kind of just nagging and they don't feel connected. Like I say, what Sally's mother and the history teacher were doing is that simple. They were doing step number two, validation. It can be as simple as going, oh, you must have been angry. Ah, you must have been happy. Oh, you must have been sad. It's not complicated to do validation. Just name the emotion behind what they're feeling before you go to tell them what they should have done instead. And then you'll feel. They'll feel all connected and loved out rather than just nagged it and told what to do.

But as men, we're Mr. Fix It. So you need to solve the solution now, don't we?

Absolutely. Yeah.

But we're missing that point, which we. Key things I talk about inside HPF is perception of value. Like you said, running. So I've got a gym and my daughter does ballet and netball and she's only 6. And I'm like, well, I'm not going to bring Stella into my gym and talk about hypertrophy, breaking down the muscle, bone density and performance. But however, if I go into her world, what perceives as value, she wants to throw the ball further, she wants to do the pirouette in ballet and I can be like, cool, and I see what she sees as value and then bring her into my world. I found that's worked so well, Nathan, where, I mean, she's six, I'm not getting a lifting weights, but I can bring her into. We can build connection and I know the outcome is bone density, health, chemical balances, all the things that comes with moving your body. However, her, she's jumping higher, she's crushing it in ballet and so on. And I think we focus on two things inside of hbf, seeing what they see as value to go into their world so we can connect them, bring them in ours. And second one is acknowledging him. Is that something like. Is that similar to validation? Acknowledgement, like you're hearing? Yeah, like they're being.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Because what you said, man, that's. That's awesome.

It's similar there. I got a laugh. I mean, acknowledging is also that paraphrase, you know, where I say back to you, what you said. So what you're telling me is that this and this and this. So you actually, you know, before I give my strategy again, that I paraphrase. Yeah.

Wow, that's unreal. What about teenagers, though? They're numb. They don't really communicate with their parents. There's nothing going wrong, but there's just no, there's no connection. Because we get that a lot with our guys, where they just feel like I just can't connect to them anymore. And then they're good, they love me, they hide this, but, you know, it's. Yeah, I'm not sure.

But what. There's still 10 to 20% of the time with their nice. But it's just that their amygdala is deliberately inflamed during adolescence. This is a time when you went out and got as many people pregnant as you could, you know, because you were going to die at 32. Most of human history say, you know, and, and this is, you know, this is the age where we invent things. Like every single invention that has changed mankind in any significant way was invented by a teenager. No adults ever, never need that forgiveness. You know, every single imaging, if they got the computer, the steam engine, everything was done by a teenager. So it's a period of creativity, which means record means, you know, risk taking and stuff. So it was a time we traditionally detached from our parents. Basically your frontal cortex, the brain that's got all your adult stuff in it and got your shit together. It's not going to be fully developed till sort of mid to late 20s, but about halfway in the middle when you're about 15, 16, 17. Basically it's just shut for renovations for three years. So the kid moves, the teenager move back down into their emotional brain. So the brain scan of a 15 year old and a 5 year old are remarkably similar. The structure is different. But what I'm saying is similar because all of the activity is happening in brain number three, the emotional brain. And there's bugger all lights on in brain number four, the frontal cortex that regulates emotions and understands consequences and remembers their PE gear. It is an evolutionary thing that's supposed to shut down for three years and get all this massive rewiring done. If you own a shop and you need to do a shop refit, if you keep the shop open and have to have customers and trying to get the bills to work around the customers, it's going to take a year to do the refit. So what you normally do is shut the shop down, let the builders go for it and they get done in two weeks. It's kind of a good metaphor for what's happening in the brain. There's a lot of changes that take place and they need them to be. For most of human history, we've needed them to Be risk takers. At this age, to have babies and to win wars, you need to be risk takers. So the brain's set up with a big amygdala, the anger brain. They actually see anger everywhere. Like if you put up six different facial expressions and get adults to read them, they get 100% accuracy. Preteens to do it, they get 95% accuracy. Get teenagers to do it, they get 50% accuracy. That's a huge drop because their brain's no longer looking with this frontal cortex that we would look at with. Typically they're looking with an amygdala. They're using their anger center to read facial expressions. So they read most of the facial expressions as being angry. Basically, for a teenager, you're probably, obviously, obviously happy or you're pissed off.

Yeah. And potentially because of what you mentioned then in them inherently looking to be risk takers. But the parents are losing control because it's gone from the physical dependency of a baby to now the psychological connection and a loss of environmental control because they're out here and here in school. So there's a potential for the way they're seeing the world, the way the parents are trying to not control, but guide them. There's this collision they're seeing as rebellious and the parents are seeing as disciplinarian and dominant. Is that why there's a bit of a. There seems to be a bumping heads, so to speak?

Yeah, well, there's certainly a part of it, you know, and we say in the research that the parents who use what's called a backbone style of parenting, you know, get the better outcomes. The research talks about authoritarian, authoritative, but they're boring titles. I like Barbara Coloroso's terms. Brick wall parent, jellyfish parent, backbone parent. So Brick Wall parent is quite authoritarian and makes the kids follow strict boundaries for the. Shut up and do as you told, no discussion. Which, you know, basically that works for a dog because a dog doesn't have a frontal cortex. So you're not trying to grow a frontal cortex. So. But when you treat a child like that, they do have a frontal cortex. They do have thinking, you know, they. So you want them to learn to think. It's like an apprenticeship. You have to do that with them. Shut up and do as you're told. It's not. Not apprenticing them into how to think. So when the backbone style of parenting, I mean, jellyfish has obviously got no spine. So you just let the kids do what they wanted. You can't follow through.

I love that.

But the backbone, because your backbone gives you support and structure, but it is responsive and flexible moment by moment. So talk to a parenting style that does have boundaries and you're in charge, but you negotiate those boundaries. Can be as simple as me going, right, you're going to be at 7:00'. Clock, you know, 7:30, that's your bedtime. It's going okay, right? Well, okay, we're going to need to see your bedtime. You know, your mother and I have been talking and we were thinking like, you know, around 7 o' clock probably seems reasonable. What are your thoughts on it? You might even give them some time to go away and think about it and stuff. You might in your head know that you're going to do it at seven long. But just having the conversation and negotiation is using your frontal cortex. You can't just tell them to shout and do as you're told. That doesn't create intelligence. So the backbone style of parenting, you tend to get way better outcomes with kids. They learn how to make decisions. It's not just on and off.

That's what I was going to say. It gives them the opportunity for ownership over something which I think is important even in the company as adults. It gives them the chance to own an outcome where it's like, like, well, I'd like to be in bed by ten past seven because I like to do this for ten minutes. Or. But yeah, and like you said, you've got in your mind 7, but there's a bit of flexibility. But then they can own the outcome. And that's probably a good. A good movement for behavioral change too, because the outcome is theirs to take responsibility for instead of the brick wall. The jellyfish. We call it the. We have a term being the chief, which is the man who. The chief in the middle has the ability and skills on how and when to be the Vikings. That's the, the. The assertive, the strength. Not authoritarian. But yeah, as a man, that tactic. But also, I think we are all.

Styles, you know, it's just about the balance of that.

Exactly, yeah.

Moments of each.

We call it the panda. The jellyfish. The panda, where it's like laid back, belly exposed, fun and color. Too much of that. Like the jellyfish. Probably not good.

Yeah. Unless you're a grandparent. I've got my grandson. Totally fine to be a panda. When you're a grandparent, it's just your parents that should do all the work and put in place the discipline and stuff.

That's what I'm not. Not that I'm wishing my life away, but I'm excited because I'm looking through all the stresses of your 30s and 40s and building your life. I'm like, man, what am I? Grandparent? I can kick back and run and. But being healthy and fit, be the, the panda or the jellyfish for the grandkids and. But not have the repercussions when they go home to mum and dad.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But you know what? This, that's actually something I want to read here. It's part of a. And a team brain. You talk about what Nathan just shared. Guys, there are 6,000-year-old hieroglyphics carved into pyramids depicting teenagers of the time as being self obsessed, defined and unmotivated. 6,000 year old. That sounds pretty familiar. So this is something that's always been around.

Yep. Shakespeare talks about it in his play the Winter's Tale. He says, I wish there were no age between 13 and 23. But all the youth thinks of is getting winch with child. So you know, it's kind of all over the shape. But all throughout history we've always seen this, this breakdown, this seem to go backwards in their ability to control their emotions. So rates of anxiety, depression, they go all moody and it's like it is. It's about that we can see the biological changes now in brain scans and we can connect it to our history because the brain's always adapting to what we do in the environment. You know, nature accommodates nurture, but it's just over thousands of years. So we're dealing with a brain that is very well suited to be probably going to die at 32. And so, you know, want to have as many kids as possible to find your Life partner at 15, 16. So we've got the biology that we don't want our 15, 16 year olds going out and you know, trying to get pregnant to as many different people as possible. That's a good survival aim because now all the kids won't die of the same disease because they've all got a different father. But it's not the values we have in this world today. We've got the biology for that.

Mario. I wish we said it didn't make.

Parents feel any better, did it?

I wish this was a five hour podcast episode, Nathan, but I know we've got to wrap up in, in the next five minutes, mate, but it's, it's been incredible. I guess just a, just a couple of quick things to wrap up on. Like I said, the first of hopefully many apart from those three steps you mentioned, if we do have a teenager is operating through that lens and trying to figure themselves out, what would be a good way for a parent to. I don't know if breakthrough is the word, but to continue to rebuild that relationship integrity in the relationship. Yeah.

Well, the thing that I find is really, really effective, I often recommend it. I call it a mate date. And it is where you give the kid 10 minutes a week, where they get all the, they get all the power of being the parent and they own you kind of for 10 minutes. Because we spend our whole life telling them what to do and what to feel and how they should think and what the boundaries are. And then we say they don't talk to us, but you know, how often do we let them go? And kids take longer when that little cortex is shut for renovations and they can only go, yeah, no, it takes them longer to articulate it for. We don't give them that time because we jump in even if we're asking questions, we're leading. So it may date as you give the kid a 10 minute period. It's only 10 minutes. So everyone's time poor. It's 10 minutes once a week. It works. And it has to be predictable though, because the brain works so much on predictability, you'll know that. So that's. You can't do it randomly. It's going to make it much better. And take if the kids. Now it's Thursday at 4 o', clock, right? And basically for 10 minutes you set it up with them, let them know that you're not allowed to lead, you're not allowed to interrupt, you're not allowed to have. They can do any. They own you for 10 minutes. Like I'm trying to do this quickly. So now we're running out of time. But in the first week they don't believe that you're going to do it. So they just go, oh, I'm allowed to do anything in this 10 minutes, all right, I'll play the PlayStation. Because they don't normally allow PlayStation, but if that's what they chose, you don't answer your cell phone, you don't do anything else. You. If they only own you for 10 minutes a week and they choose to play PlayStation and you sit and watch that PlayStation for 10 minutes, it's starting to give a message to the kid that you're actually prioritizing a space for them. Or you just shut up for 10 minutes. And remember in that time you're not even allowed to ask a question because that's leading. Only allowed to respond. So you might just actually sit there, shut up for 10 minutes, you know, the second week, they're surprised that you're still doing it, so they go, oh, I play PlayStation again. They're going to do the same thing. You know, this is like a waste of time now. I'm just wasting 10 minutes. On the third week, they start to test it. Usually not predictable, but this is usually what happens. But the third week, teenagers will then swear during the session. Fucking hot outside in the mum, you know, because they're not normally allowed to swear like that. So this is a test to see if, well, I'm supposed to be in charge of two minutes. Are you going to tell me off? Are you going to jump back into the. And you don't, you don't encourage us. You wouldn't say, yes, it's fucking hot outside. But you don't respond to it. You just go, yeah, it's hot outside. Basically, anything they do in that 10 minutes, they're allowed to. By the fourth week, the kid starts to open up and tell you stuff, because I know it's not going to be a consequence and I don't do anything outside the 10 minutes. It's like, again, the zone of God silence. Yeah. I just find it powerfully. It takes four weeks at 10 minutes, 40 minutes investment. The hard part of this is shutting up. Parents have never had to shut up for a whole 10 minutes. You know, they don't even realize that they're leaning when they ask questions and stuff. They find it very hard to not be in control. So it's the shutting up part of the stuff. All the rest of it flows like magic. Just you shut up for four weeks consistently and the kid starts talking to you because they haven't got the time to articulate. They've got space to say it, there's no consequence because you are really listening to them, but they don't know you're listening to them because we're so quick to go with strategies and stuff. It's so quick to interrupt and to lead and to advise and stuff that they don't have to listen to. So this will be 10 minutes a week where they listen to. Yeah, and they can. You have to be prepared if they want to say, you know, I hate how you make all the rules, dad, you're a wanker, you know. You know, you treat Mum like a wanker and you just bowl over top of everybody else because you. The way you say it is, you know, I'm just blanking that up if that's what. Because if that's how he feels. Don't get stuck on whether it's true or not. I mean it probably is but don't get stuck on the fact that it's true. He thinks that he's only got a teenage brain. He might live in la la land and that's his negatively wide brain. It's not whether it's true or not. He feels that way about you. You needed to hear that 10 minutes because you need to work with that. Don't worry about whether it's true or not. Work with the fact that you have a son that thinks you're a control freak and don't listen and you're abusive because you don't want to son that thinks that and you're probably not, you know, so you're still here. What I'm saying is even when it's real bad, it's good that you hear that bad shit. It's not normally. It's normally a positive experience for parents. They continue it. So their childhood and they find is it a really special thing because their.

Theory out of consequences means the survival mechanisms kicked in. So they're not opening up to us because we don't give them.

Yeah, yeah. Policeman with a policeman, you know.

Well yeah, you can do that any age, mate or because we do a thing called special time in HBF where it's. We fill the bucket of attention and power. So my kids are 64 and 2 and 10 minutes they can put makeup on daddy do whatever they want. Yeah. Something that is good for all ages as well you'd recommend or.

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I mean, yeah, I mean yeah, probably. They should be probably 3 or 4. Comprehend what's going on before they eat it. Just giving them full attention anyway. But you know you can do this with 30 year old children. I love it.

I'd say I'd do it with the members but they might, they might do one over on me. Give them 10 minutes. Yeah. I've got to do 100 birds forced me to do some stuff but no. Incredible mate. Awesome. Been great having you on, Nathan. I guess final thoughts for a father or parent listening to this. Something they could do for themselves on themselves. Whether it's reflection, journaling, any. Any sort of small tips or things for us as individuals to be better. So we can give 100 to our children, mate or any final thoughts on.

Yeah, I mean because I've had my grandson here for the school holidays I'm always then reminded of just how much work it is to be a parent. God, I'm, you know, the grandparent and it's exhausting, you know, like, I can see why parents go go on the computer. He's always asked, my grandpa's always asking on the computer and I avoid it the whole time. And yeah, I don't want him doing that one with reactive. He's only here for a few days, so I'm trying to put it away, but I gave in last night and then had the computer. He just went on and on and on and on and on and on and on an hour before that and when he got in the computer, silence. I was like, this is why parents fall into the traffic and the kids get here straight away because you get a little bit of silence. So the thing that pops into my head though is that you're so busy as a parent that you don't put aside me time. I don't mean me time as in being selfish, but doing some ritual that looks after you and nurtures you. Even if it's only 10 minutes that you know, even if she has a. Because it can seem like a waste of time because you've got so much to do. So don't fall into the trap of thinking that you don't need self care, you need self care as well. So do something for your self care. You know, they might just be going for a walk after tea. I mean, I. Yeah, but do something. Don't avoid that because I think it's me and we do look after everybody else first. I don't need that. I'll be fine. I'm guilty of that myself. For all of my parenting. That's the only one I'm reflecting on. I look back and think I would have been nicer, happier and a little less and angry if I had been more friend Nathan and spent some time investing in Nathan the guy instead of being the whole time Nathan the Fowler.

Yes.

I felt like I took up all my time and. Yeah. And Nathan the guy was sometimes nicer than he's about, you know, authoritarian and get things done and you know, brick wall and all of that.

So true, mate. Like I. A few days a week I do a morning meeting with myself. I've got my own board of directors of life and you know, they're visuals of the future version of Al, my mother and father and talking to them through talking to me.

I love that.

It's. It's really, it's really reflective because I. It's. If you think someone's watching you 24 7, you behave differently, 100% you do. But second, it's absolutely just for myself to be like, okay, if I can do this 20 minutes a few days a week, mate. It's the stability over the household and that temperament of being one level above the chaos. You're right. And people need to think about that. Those listening, like Nathan's spot on. If you. It's the ROI, you give yourself 10 minutes. What can I do in 10 minutes? Journaling, having a cup of tea, going for what can I do in 10 minutes that'll make the next thousand minutes, or that's a day, the next hundred minutes better for those around me, including myself. It's great advice. Thank you so much for joining us, man. I'm really looking forward to our future episodes. I'm very confident that we're just scratching the surface and you've got so much.

Absolutely.

It's been unreal, but I hope you guys really enjoyed this again, absolutely encourage you to share this with the teenage kids as well. Nathan, or what do you think?

Yeah, yeah. It's good for them to get an understanding of their own brain, you know, because it's a stressful time for them. It's often invalidating for teenagers to find out, I'm good, so I'm not mental. It is supposed to be that, you know, because their emotions just go through the roof.

Nothing wrong with it.

Everything's huge.

Yeah, yeah. That's a big thing. It's not just me. We find that with our fathers who, like, I'm the only one going through this. I'm like, nah, man. So many fathers go through it. Probably similar for teenagers. Yeah, yeah, agree. But I loved having you on, mate. Thanks so much for your time and hope you guys really enjoy this and looking forward to many future episodes. It's been unreal. Thank you.

Me too.

Well, that wraps up another episode and just as we wind this down, I want you to just reflect and think back through some of the golden nuggets, some of the revelations, some of the sore points, some of the things that might have hit home with you. And then just look at ways that you can apply a different set of actions to change your position, change your circumstances, change your feelings, and change the facts. These episodes are done with your best interest at heart, and there's always something we can get from that. Maybe it's not the first time, maybe it's the second time. We've had members listen to episodes four or five times and then it finally clicks. But either way, I hope you got a lot of value out of this. And also if this is something that you really want to solidify inside of your life, repetition is the key. You've listened to it. Write down your revelations, think about them, read them, speak them. Believe in the changes that you will carve out in the action plan of those re revelations to create change in your life and then share that. And when you teach, you learn the second time, right? So teaching and showing this to others you love and care about is the greatest way that you can remember and make sure you consistently learn and relearn what is it's true and what is it is important to you in your heart. Take care, have an amazing day night, weekday weekend and I'll see you for another one soon. Cheers.