S6 E12 | The Keys Are Gone

In this episode, you will learn how to upgrade your DNA for your children, for your future, and for the world.

I like that plan, Brittany. Upgrading the parental advisory units. Like, how are we making. How are we being better parents?

Yeah.

How are we doing this?

You said upgrade your DNA.

Yeah.

I feel like there's some book or science or something behind that. So you just explain it to the people. Yeah. Where you heard that and how it works, because I'm already seeing it working in your life.

Thanks. I, I. Where did I hear it? I. Truthfully, I think I heard it from David Goggins.

Yeah.

So I don't know if he's a credible source or not, but I think it works because he said, hey, I'm taking this life and I'm just going to make it a thousand times better.

Nice.

And I'm going to go out and I'm going to run. I'm going to conquer, I'm going to complete. I'm going to go do things I didn't think was possible, and then I'm going to see them as being done, and I'm going to go do them, and I'm going to feel complete. I'm going to feel accomplished. So he started doing that, and it did change his life, though dramatically. I mean, now he's one of the most recognizable faces on Earth, you know, probably top 300. Yeah. It's incredible. And I still love the fact that he has a 0 Instagram. Like, he doesn't follow anyone. He has. Sorry, yeah. He has no followers. He has like 10 million followers. So he follows zero people. Not a single person. It just cracks me up. Anyway, upgrading your DNA, David Goggins, that's where I learned it from. And it's the process of just diving deep and doing things for your lineage that your entire ancestry probably has never done. So now it's up to you to carry the boats and make some massive.

Changes, which is just funny concept to think about.

Yeah, it is.

That what you do is now making it possible for your child. Like, I could just start playing piano. And now it's like, piano runs in the family. And it's like, I just happen to do that. But people like to see it done. It's an internal, subconscious permission slip. So the sheer fact. And on one of our side conversations after these podcasts end, you said, oh, yeah, I just went out and ran 100 miles a week ago, and I asked, do you even have to train for that anymore? And he's like, no, not really. Like.

Wow, that is not something I ever aspire to do, but I'm impressed by it. And now your kids are going to be assumed that they could be runners like their daddy. But you were not always a runner.

No, no.

You're not always a runner. Just decided to become a runner. And now it's expected your kids might be runners. Just like Ray Lewis played football, it's expected his kids will play football. Jay Z and Beyonce have a daughter. It's expected she will sing and dance. But it's just something we choose to do. But it absolutely affects what your kids are gonna think is possible. So we're not gonna speak that alcoholism runs in families. We're not gonna say that runs. Obesity is your choice when you're choosing to make those bad decisions. It's not something your kids have to do as well. Most of my relatives are actually, like, far relatives are obese. Like, big obese. But I can still choose to learn and do bodybuilding competitions because I choose to. Again, all choice. My point is, how are we choosing to upgrade our DNA so our children, now that we know we have some and they're watching us.

Yeah.

What are you doing intentionally?

You know what's amazing? So the whole. The belief, like, the shift that to me, it's so obvious. Like, Jason, this kid.

Copy. Human. This is a copy. This is a wild child. So much I love y', all, but my God, this child. Cool. So sweet and so wild.

He is wild.

I never met a kid as well. I've met a lot of kids.

I'm sure someone said that about me when I was three. Like.

Yes. And I say that without judgment.

No, I know.

It's wildest kid.

Yeah. He's amazing.

Wow.

But he loves to guess what? Run.

Really?

Oh, my goodness. Kid loves to run.

It's wild.

So we run at least two miles a day.

No.

In the house.

So we have this six miles for him.

Probably. Yeah. Probably feels like it. He loves to run. He loves to chase me. He goes get me and starts running, so I gotta chase him. And I get him and he's like, I get you. And then I run. Yeah, but we'll do that for like a good hour.

Wow.

And then. Then he'll want to do a dance party. And dance party is he puts on music and runs.

That is.

That's what a dance party is. It's wild. So, again, talking about carbon copy, right?

Yeah.

And. But again, to your point, I wasn't always a runner. In fact, I almost. I really never ran more than a mile, I don't think, until probably 2018.

Wow. Yeah.

So I didn't run. I wasn't a runner by any stretch of imagination.

Why? My kid doesn't. Like we were laughing earlier about.

Yeah, tell us. Tell us.

This is fun. This kid. I was not. I would not say he's. I don't want to speak that he's ocd, but I was not an OCD person. I still wouldn't say I am, but I own a resort. It's a luxury freaking resort.

You like being clean?

I'm clean. I mean, I'll roll in the dirt, though. I don't. I'm okay with that. I'm that girl. But he will walk around the paths of the island, and he will see a leaf in the pathway of, like, the white walkways, and he goes, oh, no. He goes, oh, no. Picks up the leaf, looks at it, and, like, throws it on the side. He cannot stand stuff out of place on the island. It's so funny.

And I'm like, obsessive cleaning disorder, maybe.

I was not like that as a kid. So I don't know if it's something you said earlier. You know, there's like, an energy that your kid is around that. Even if I wasn't like that as a kid, my energy is making him notice everything out of place. Yeah. Which is something I definitely do. I was like, you know, that's what made it great. I was the arc. You know, I was the designer. I made sure the construction project all went great. Like, that was my baby. To make sure that place is beautiful the way it is. And so, of course, I still catch all the problems with it. But, yeah, he's doing that, which is funny.

Okay, so speaking of funny, what's, like, the funniest thing that bear's done? It's made you crack.

So he's almost a year and a half. Yeah. He's a genius. Of course.

Yeah.

Child's brilliant.

As every parent. Every parent.

Every smartest kid, way advanced, top one percentile.

Well, right now, I don't know. He's obviously very into throwing everything. It's like a tornado goes through my house. There's no way you can be clean. There's no way. But he grabs my headphones, and I used to let him play with, like, opening, closing, opening, closing it until he grabbed them, looked at me, and goes running, takes my AirPods and throws them in the toilet. And so it was not that funny.

At the exact moment Now, Yeah.

If we. If we're not watching him and we're just doing anything else, we just hear and he'll do it. He just. He starts going, no, no. And we're like, he's doing something bad. Cause he's telling himself.

He's telling on himself.

He's retelling himself. No, that's funny. He knows he's not supposed to do it.

That is funny.

And I go in there and there's like 10 things in the toile. Everything's in the toilet. And I don't know why he wants to put it in there.

I haven't had that. I haven't had the toilet. Really? No.

That thought this.

That's a bear thing.

So advanced.

He's just so smart. He throws everything in the toilet.

He's a genius. But no. Yeah, everything's in the toilet. He speaks a lot of Spanish.

Cool.

Which is really cute because he was like saying this thing and I was like, no, that's a cookie. And his nanny was like, no, that's this like, whatever, really long Spanish word. So thank God he's learning. He speaks a lot of Spanish, which is really cute.

That's fascinating.

It's actually precious.

Oh, my gosh.

We love it. He's a water thief. Walks around airports stealing old people's waters.

Does he?

He tampers with people's bags.

Interesting.

He's a tamperer. He's exactly what the warning is, but he will. He's obsessed with agua and yeah, that's aqua.

This is the coolest.

And he'll grab old people's water and run off with it. It's really funny.

That's funny.

Funny, yeah. What about you? What's the funniest thing? Jason Jeroumi's probably not into that.

He's not doing anything funny yet. Yeah, he's.

How old is he now?

Nine months. He's just a squish monster. He's so cool.

So cute. Oh, my God, What a delightful baby.

Good looking baby.

My gosh dang cutie.

Looks just like me. So good looking.

He looks like Svetlana.

I know.

He looks just like Svetlana.

He's so awesome. Jason comes up to us one random day. This is probably like, yeah, three, four months ago. Me and my wife are sitting down on the couch. It's probably like 4 o' clock in the afternoon. I just got home. She just got home. Jason walks up to us and goes, keys are gone. And I'm trying to like figure out what keys are gone means. And I look at my life real quick. Yeah, we figured out pretty quick. Did you drive the van? You know, and she's like, yeah. I'm like, did you take the keys of the van? Did you put them in this house? She's like, oh, dang it. I think I did. I think it was on the counter. I was like, you left the keys on the counter? Jason, where are those keys? He goes, they're gone.

They're gone. And he kind of pointed, like, just in this general direction. I was like, did you throw the keys in the canyon? He goes, yeah, they're gone. And so I was like, okay. So I was like, jason, can you show me where you throw the keys? He's like, yeah. So he holds my little finger. Like, he walks me out. And so we live on a cliff.

Yeah.

And. And there's this valley. And he goes, they're over there. I was like, thanks, buddy. Appreciate that. So I put them on my shoulders, go down there, try to find it. Haven't pointed out to it. Can't. So I start. I have to look for these keys, like, three hours.

No.

But I end up finding them. You know, the general vicinity where he said they're going to be, they were there, just there on the ground. And I found a lot of other things.

He's throwing things down there.

He's been throwing things in the canyon for months. I mean, I'm finding basketballs. I'm finding shoes. Like, I also wonder. Those shoes went, oh, my God. Hats. All random things. Because, again, he also loves to throw.

Oh, man.

I mean, this kid was. If he wasn't Joe Montana, like, I don't know. He loves throwing. He's always known what sports were. When he started walking, he knew what basketball was and wanted to dunk the basketball and wanted to shoot basketball and play basketball. Like, he always knew what that was. I've never watched a basketball game with him in my life. He just knows what basketball is. He knows how to dunk. He knows how to. It's incredible.

I have a nephew that knows all about Spider man and has never watched anything Spider Man Wild. It's very weird. Wild.

It's so fun.

Yeah.

So it's. You know, I love spending time. And you mentioned the word intentional. So one of the things that I try to do, and maybe this is a good time to do some parenting tips. I don't know. Let's do it. The intentionality for me is I, every single day, will get on his level.

That's sweet.

So what that means is, for me, I get down to where he's at. I'm on the ground so that he can see me as an equal.

Right.

So he can see me as a friend. He can see me play as a kid so that I'm not always serious, which might surprise people, but I have a hard time not being serious sometimes. Like, I like to be focused and diligent and dedicated and devotional to whatever I'm trying to do.

Yeah.

And so breaking out of that mode to just be silly.

I thought you'd be more silly.

Right. I know a lot of people do.

But just with me.

Do you think I like playing with him? It's super fun rolling around with him, wrestling with him. So, dads, if you have sons, I'm sure a lot of you do, but I know most of you don't. Wrestle with your kids. Wrestle with your voice.

All right.

For sure. Beat them up a little bit.

All right, well, my kid's been trying to, like, beat the crap out of Jeremy since he was, like, four months old.

Awesome.

But then he'll also beat the crap out of me. Yeah, you teach them the line. Because we have, like a. Wait till he's a little older to teach him to beat the crap out of you because he's beating me and Linda.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, we talk. We have to tell him. We have to tell Jason. Listen, you can only fight rough with daddy. Can't fight rough with mommy.

Well, how old? Until they understand that, probably like three. Okay, we're not there yet.

Yeah, two and a half. Three.

Yeah.

But even now, he still kind of slips up. Every now and then, we'll just like, punch spent right in the butt, nice and hard, and she'll go, jason, don't punch my booty.

Yeah, exactly.

He's a lefty, too, which is so cool.

Oh, wow.

Like, where'd you get left handed from? Awesome. But I get on their level. And another thing I do is I let him take his shoes off. He wants to take his shoes off. Because, you know this about me. I don't like wearing shoes. The kid doesn't like wearing shoes either. Fun fact, right? I mean, he's just like, he's my carbon copy. Every time I go to the park, he takes his shoes off, his shirt off. And all these California moms are always coming up like, oh, interesting. Is that your kid with his shirt off? Like, yeah.

At least it's not his pants, lady.

Yeah, yeah, that too.

Right?

I'll say, like, yeah. Hey, he's got pants on, got shorts on, but no shirt, no shoes. He's always running, getting muddy.

Like, there's a song about that, knocking.

Kids over, being a bully. It's awesome. Just this huge little bowling ball.

Bully.

Just this huge little bowling ball.

I want to take a quick reference to the basketball game that has been referenced in previous episodes.

Tell me, may that not run in his family?

Nice.

That was.

Yeah.

I don't want that to run anywhere.

Flashback. No running.

Yeah. I don't want any running of any kind to happen for him in any basketball game ever.

Would be nice to listen to previous episodes.

Yeah. That's funny. It was good. That was good to call back.

Yeah.

I do get on their level. Wrestle with your kids. Let them get dirty. Let them not wear their shoes. If they want to walk on grass, let them walk on grass. Like, let them get dirty. That's some of the intentional things I do. What about you?

I love that, you know, we're, we're speaking about being intentional. And in everything in life, you can survive it and just barely get through or you can stop. Ask yourself, if I'm going to be raising the next generation, how can I make sure that I do it the way that I really want to? Ask yourself, Start by really defining what is being a good mom or a good dad look like to you? Because the world will always be selling you on something you're not.

Yeah.

And you don't want to feel like a failure in this pursuit. So I really did take the time to define what does being a good mom look like to me. And my mom is like the most incredible mom in the world, Gold star mom. And the way in which she parented it was like, I mean, I could only ever dream to be like 5% of what she is. But because of the other things I'm doing in my life and my purpose, I have to have a different way of going about being a parent. But yes, we're very, very intentional about that quality time. I have a lot more quality time than I do quantity time. Because we're still doing these amazing other things around the world, saving babies. I'm not gonna have to pick. I still want to do that calling. But he's obviously an incredibly important priority. So prioritizing that quality time, really making sure that it's special, making sure that it's memorable and it's been awesome. We do have a full time au pair that lives in our home and is teaching him Spanish. And that has been such a blessing. If you guys have that or are really interested in the right good help, that's. I cannot recommend finding the right person for that as a game changer for your family. So she's been able to give him like a level of quality time throughout the day when I'm on meetings. That has been just so fun to have him have like so much different experiences and activities. He goes to the beach, he goes on hikes. He goes and pets the animals. He learns this. He speaks in Spanish most of the time. And then I get my quality time. I get to take him to the pool, I take him to go see the horse. So it's been really a blessing for our busy life, which is one of the top questions everybody asks us. But we have no screen time. That's one of the big things that we do. We have zero screen time. I will say the two times he's been extremely sick, we have put on some nice like child age appropriate educational stuff just to like calm down. But that was it. It's been two times. So no screen time. Hit. He is so advanced. He really is learning a lot. He's doing so much and he's not expecting. I don't know, it's weird like when you don't have screen time how much you see it affect the other kids. And I feel like them watching the screen is like sucking his brain out of him. Now I know there's good shows out there that's possible, but it's something especially in these years. We really want him being creative and learning and playing outside as much as possible.

Yeah, I mean we, we are probably pretty good on the screen time too. I like movies, so I'll watch with him. But it's an hour a day. And you know, maybe generally for us, like if we're going to a dinner or we're driving or on the plane and we know that he's not going to be. I mean, you said the word wild. Yep. Yeah, that's a great word. Great adjective.

Yeah.

On a plane. It's fun. It's really fun. But we don't give them screen time. Right. So we, we understand like, hey, one of the parents is going to have to play with them or walk around with him or hold him or talk to him or play or wrestle with him or both, right? Yeah, both. And to that point, we really, really are doing our absolute best as long as we possibly can to keep these kids of ours off of devices. That's a big, big one for us because they're addictive. They're very addictive. They're very. Guys, girls. I am addicted to my phone too. I'm addicted to my phone and I'm sorry.

So annoying.

I'm sorry. I don't know how it happened. Brian. And it's like, I will, I can go without it. I can do anything I need to at any point in time for at.

Least 30 seconds, man.

Yeah, good old 30 seconds. But you, you'll, you'll feel this impulse of like, where's my phone? You know, it's strange. And it's okay. At the same stage that both you and I are operating a lot on our phone because we're running businesses and we're doing things. And so that's a good, fine, awes sounding excuse. But at the same time, I don't want him to also see me on the phone all the time.

Right.

So I'm doing my absolute best to just give quality time with my kids. No screen time if I'm with them. I'm doing my best to not be on my phone and really just play with them.

Yeah, absolutely. And having those set times and blocking it off, like you block meeting.

Yep.

Obviously if there's like other things pop up, you can, you have to do that. But blocking it like a meeting, being present with them, like they are important is super, super important. And again, I think they're gonna feel the love. I'm really busy person. My child still wants my attention. He still wants mama. He still wants me to play with him. And I'm so grateful that with everything else I've done and been able to do, I still have that level of quality that he. I'm still like the first choice, which has been great. One more really cool tip is we actually let him do dangerous things. So people ask us all the time. They're like, oh, are you not worried about this? Are you not worried about this? I'm like, we obviously watch him and we let him do it and we let him walk right up to stuff and we let him see things and touch things. And I've let him fall. Not hard, but I've let him see that there are consequences if you get too close, be careful. And so we're not that helicopter momming and. Nope. But we are. We're going to let him do dangerous things. We're going to let him be confident. Is one of the best things my parents did for me was to. My parents let us do the most dangerous things all the time. But they really did teach all of us that we can do things, we can do them on our own. We can always figure it out. And that, that confidence is something that I thought everybody had until I was around other people. They really don't believe in themselves. Right. They don't believe in themselves. To even be strategic with their finances or to get out of a bad relationship and not believe that that person has to be forever if they're horrible to you. That's. That's everything. There is a level of confidence. I want to make sure Bear knows that he is smart, he is strong, and he will be able to figure it out. He can tap into God and find answers and do great things in this world. That's. That's my number one priority that I want to instill in him. What do you have for your kids that you want to steal in them?

Danger is my middle name.

Danger is his middle name. I know.

That's cool. I know. I like that. I do the same with Jason for sure. Like, I let him jump off of everything. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely. There's helicopter parents and I am not that person. I'm like, I'll see. I'm like, this is gonna be a train wreck. But whatever, let it happen. He's safe. Like, he's not going to be physically damaged for a long period of time. It's gonna hurt for the next hour. Okay. Long way to find out.

Good.

I think the big one for us, for me and my wife is we make sure that our kids see us love each other.

Oh, yeah.

And be really, really happy haking out.

On the kitchen table all the time.

Yeah.

You guys. You and your make out habits. It's a lot.

It's a lot. And I want them to see us really happy. I want them to see us in love. I want them to see and know what safe, kind, compassionate love looks like. And so we really don't shy that away. Like we. I've just noticed a lot of people might feel ashamed to do that around certain people. But I think the ultimate goal is if God is love. I want them to know and understand and realize what love is and what it feels like.

Love that. Stealing it.

Take it.

All right, we will see you in the next episode.

If you've been inspired by the work of aerial recovery and you also want to join the the force for good, go to our website, aerialrecovery.org and fill out that application that says serve with us. We're always looking for incredible human beings to save lives and stop evil with reach out. Come on a mission trip with us. Give your time, talent, and treasure to helping us with these causes. We need you and we so look forward to helping people with you.

Sam.