7 Transformative Insights on Parenting Successful, Happy, and Financially Smart Children

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Father's Day is coming up, and for lots of dads out there, dad doesn't quite cover it. They're groundskeepers, patio whisperers, and rogue leaf vigilantes too. So this year, show dad some love with gifts from the Home Depot. They've got fast free delivery on handy gear that helps dad do his thing. We're talking Ryobi cordless outdoor tools like the Ryobi 40 volt expanded string trimmer. Find the perfect Father's Day gift at the Home Depot. Shop in store and online@homedepot.com Free delivery subject subject to availability. I don't have kids, but I feel like I had a struggling childhood. And I love my parents, but I also know that they could have done some things differently. And I think there's probably a lot of us in the world who are thinking, I love and appreciate a lot about my parents, but they might have also done some messed up things. However, how do we learn to make sure we raise good human beings without messing them up when we haven't been taught how to be good parents.

What you started with just resonates with me so strongly, and I think it really is the reason I like get out of bed every morning, right? Parenting is the most important job in the world, and it is the hardest job. And it's probably the job we'll have for the longest number of years, 'cause everyone knows it's more than 18 years, right? So, and someone said to me, I'll never forget, It's the only job you care about on your deathbed, which I was like, okay, that's heavy, but I think that's, I mean, I wouldn't know yet, hopefully, but I think that's true. And it's also like the only job that falls under like very difficult, very impactful, very ongoing that we literally get no training for.

Right?

And like if my friend was a surgeon and called me and said, I'm not doing surgery, right? And I'm messing everything up and kind of messed up this person forever and I'm so so bad. And then I started poking around and it turned out she never went to med school or never went to residency. I'm pretty sure I would say to her, hey, this is not that you're a bad surgeon. That's not what this is. You weren't adequately prepared and it's probably time to invest in resources. And I just wanna say too, 'cause I think it's important that if she said, don't worry, I got all my tips on Instagram. I'd say, Okay, I mean, like, you might wanna do a little more in depth than that. You know, I think you deserve a little better, you know, than that. And yet this is what parents are set up for. When I've asked parents the number one reason why they don't get the support they even think they need, the number one reason I get, the number one reason I hear, is I should be able to do this on my own.

It's like a shame underneath.

Yeah, and there's a shame, and I think there's a really strong societal message as a woman. I can say the maternal instinct is like a real thing that people think we should have, which really is a way of saying parenting has kind of traditionally been a woman's job. I think they're shifting around that. It's great. And it should just be something women have an instinct to do, which is a really great setup for any parent when they're struggling to say, I guess it's me. and I think when we're struggling, I mean, I think when we're struggling with anything, we have two paths. And this is where I think we'll be talking about parenting, but you don't have kids. I'm sure some of your listeners don't have kids. This is in some ways about kids, in some ways 0% about kids and parenting. Like when we're struggling, we can either say, what is wrong with me and it's my fault? Or when we're struggling, we can say, what resources and support do I need? And they're two completely different paths. One is activating and has hope, and has a likelihood of change, and one is actually spiraling into an abyss and a freeze state of shame, which makes it impossible to change. And I think parents have typically said to themselves, what's wrong with me? This should be easier. You kind of also see on Instagram, it looks like everyone else got their kid to smile for a holiday card, and you're like, that's not what happened to my kids. And you feel like it's your fault, and then you don't talk about it, and then you fake good, and then the next person's like, well, that person seems to be having a hard time. Then honestly, we feel small. We don't get those resources, we don't feel empowered, and it kind of happens generation after generation until, until it's not supposed to be depressing. This is so hopeful. What we see at Good Inside and we hear all the time from our members is, I came here for my kid. That is not why I'm here now. I now ask for a raise. I now can stand up to my partner when they're mad at me. I now know that it's okay for me to go away for a weekend with my college friends, even when my partner and my kids are upset. have their feelings, like I can have empathy and I can still do the things I need to do for myself. And in that way, I feel like what we're talking about is a lot of stuff you talk about is actually just, I call it sturdy leadership. And what's interesting to me is I feel like we have a lot of models for sturdy leadership in the workplace. Like there's a lot of thoughts now, like you can't really just yell at people and expect them to get better at work. And I even think that's like been modernized on the sports field, like the best coaches, like kind of know you gotta connect Before you correct. And what's kind of amazing and sad and yet we're there, I think hopefully now is like parenting young kids is kind of the last place to modernize where sturdy leadership kind of gets applied and what it really looks like and how it benefits everyone. But that's really what Good Inside is.

You know, it's interesting because I don't think I've ever heard that connect before you correct. And I just had a flashback to all the coaches that used to scream at me when I would drop a football or miss a basketball shot or just mess something up or I wasn't paying attention or what? whatever happened and just screaming at me, belittling me, making me feel less than in front of my peers, my teammates, and shaming me to try to get better. And I remember just feeling resentful and angry all the time, right? And afraid. Now, I would still work hard, but I didn't come from an emotionally good place. So I didn't want that to happen again out of fear of shame, as opposed to someone actually sitting down and connecting with me where I did have great coaches also who took the time to connect with me and ask me questions and why are you so angry? Why are you reacting like this? What's going on? Why are you so frustrated? Why did you foul that person that way?

Yes.

You know, what is going on?

I use sports analogies all the time and connect before you correct. There's a lot of phrases I'll take credit for. That one's not mine. I actually can find, I don't know who said it first, but it's beautiful and it gives you an order of operations, right? Where I think about this all the time, like my kid is hitting their brother or my kid lied to my face about something that, you know, is important. Like, I don't know whether they studied for a test, whatever the behavior is, right? And I find out and I see them hitting and I just kind of send them to their room or I like take away their iPad or something, which I always say is like the worst thing. Because when you're a parent, it really is like, now I have to deal with taking away their iPad. I don't even want to do that. I like when they have iPad time. Right, right, right. Nobody wins. Like, why did I do that? You know? But I think about a basketball coach, and I think about a kid who is missing layups all the time. And I think about watching my kid's basketball coach, if that's my kid.

Yeah.

And the coach is like, you go to your room and you come back here when you can make a layup. And I feel like all the parents would be like, why would that even, what's the theory of why that would be effective? Forget, you think my kid is now going to their room and googling how to make a better shot? Yes, you might have to pull the kid out of the game, but you probably wanna say, Hey, this is not your game right now. I believe in you. And we're gonna get in the gym tomorrow and get to the bottom of this and figure this out. And if that was my kid's coach, I just don't know if the parents would say, that coach is really condoning bad behavior. They're really encouraging. That coach is making it seem like it's okay to mislay. It doesn't make any sense, but we actually have a system of doing that to our kids over and over. And then we wonder why so many teens and adults feel so awful about themselves. Well, when you reflect back to a kid that they're a bad kid during the stage they're forming their identity, that will stick with them for a while.

And it's hard for them to kind of unwire that, I guess, right? And believe that they're actually good.

And totally possible. To me, if there's one thing I ever want someone to take from anything I say is, It's never too late. It is never too late. Repair is amazing. It is never too late. The parent who's listening now is like, oh no, I guess I messed up my kid forever. You did not. By the way, I sometimes say bad things to my kids too. We're human. But to me, it's the starting point of right. Like my kid is good inside. That's why everything we do is called that. And to me, that idea isn't just a phrase that sounds nice. To me, it's actually a core principle that is very different from a punishment or fear-based approach, which is if I believe my kid is good inside, and I always find visuals helpful. So I look at one hand, I'm like, this is my kid, this is who they are, that's their identity, and they are good inside. And then I look at my other hand very far away and say, this is their behavior, this is what they did. And I would agree with a lot of parents telling me, oh, they lied to your face, I would agree. Not great behavior, they hit their sister, definitely not great behavior. But those things are different and it's really important with your hands to keep them separate because you could then look at one hand and say, I have a good kid. who hit their sister. And the only reason we want to punish and come down so harshly on our kids is because those hands collapse. It's because I see the bad behavior and I don't even realize it's so fast in my brain, but immediately I assume I have a bad kid.

That is my kid.

That is my kid. It's collapsed. And to me, I mean, good inside is more things, but everything else flows from the foundation of actually separating behavior from identity, which I think you get this, but not everyone does. So it's important to name. That doesn't mean condoning the behavior. Like trying to understand behavior, we think means approving of behavior. But trying to understand why my kid is missing a layup, I don't think anyone thinks means that I think it's cool that my kid can't make a layup. They're different, but that separation is the foundation for everything.

What would you say are the three biggest mistakes of modern parenting today?

Is it okay? I don't, for some reason, the reason mistakes that when I think about feels very like shame inducing. So it feels like final. So like what are the three things that I want to like myths or things I'd shift? Yeah.

What are the three things that you think parents could do differently today to have a better connection with their children?

I think that would be number one. Number one is that trying to understand your kids bad behavior is the foundation for effectively changing their behavior. So understanding it first.

You can only change what you understand. What if you don't understand it?

That's a great thing to acknowledge.

I don't understand why you're doing this.

That's exactly right.

I'm doing it, right?

And if a parent said to me, I'd be like, really, I'd be like, Louis, that is so beautiful. We know exactly where to start. And this goes back to not having the skills. Like, why would you understand a kid's behavior? It's very complicated. And so it would be like a surgeon saying, I don't understand how to do this surgery. And I'd be like, yeah, of course, well you don't go to medical school, let's get you into medical school. There are places where you can do that, really. So we have to understand before we intervene.

Okay.

Right?

I think that's a principle.

So we might have to learn, research, ask questions, get feedback from other people.

Whatever it might be, right? 100%. There might be experts, there might be the right community, there's courses we can take. There's so many resources out there. Good insight. There's the book, we do a million workshops, right? The reason I do workshops is because I was like, I have this private practice where I see a very limited group of people. And I was like, honestly, at the end of the day, I kind of have some version of the same like 10 to 15 sessions all day long. They're always about the same topics, right? Slightly different story, but same core things. I was like, I would like to democratize access to that. So that's what my workshops are. They're just things that would come up in private practice, but to more people. So there's so many resources. That's number one. Okay. Number two is that our job is not to make our kid happy. That is so important and so countercultural.

Why is our job not to make our kids happy?

Because when we focus on making our kids happy, we actually start to make them fearful and less tolerant of all of the other emotions that will inevitably be part of their life. into adulthood. And so when our kid says, I'm gonna make this up. Like, I'm the only one in my class who can't read.

Okay.

It's like the most painful moment as a parent. Oh, I feel my kid's pain, right? And maybe it. Let's just say it's true. They really might be. We have the urge to say everyone reads at their own pace, or. But you're amazing at soccer. But you're so good at math. I want to. Make them happy. All that does for my kid, because during childhood, kids are not just learning about a situation with a parent. They're taking interactions and they're making generalizations, not for one moment, but patterns about what emotions are safe, what emotions can I deal with, what can I tolerate, and what emotions, as soon as I feel them, do I need to turn off right away? And so when a kid says, I'm the only one who can't read, the truth is when our kid is an adult, they probably won't say that, but they'll probably say, I'm the only one who, whatever it is, didn't get a job yet. I'm the only one of my friends who didn't buy their own house, right? Whatever it is, we're always gonna feel that way. And so when we make our kid happy, what we actually say to them is, I am just as scared of this emotion you're feeling as you are. And so then what they do- I.

Don'T wanna deal with this emotion.

I'm terrified. I wanna run away from it. I wanna do anything but this. And so what a kid's circuit is, I feel, let's say it's this, I feel less than, or could be, I feel jealous, I feel sad, I feel disappointed. And what gets layered next to that in the circuit is my parents' fear, my parents' avoidance. Those things get put together. The irony is when you make happiness a goal of childhood, you actually set a kid up for an adulthood of anxiety because they have a range of emotions that they've encoded as wrong and fearful. And to me, anxiety actually isn't a feeling. It's the experience of wanting to run away from a feeling.

And if avoiding it, yeah, it is.

And you can't really run away from a feeling inside your body. That's what anxiety is. You're like, wait, this is not going to win. And so to me, the idea of we want to help kids become resilient, resilience over happiness, and resilience comes from being able to tolerate and sit the widest range of emotions, not constrict ourselves to.

I interviewed a brain surgeon on here who's also a neuroscientist, a PhD in neuroscience, but also had done a thousand brain surgeries. And I said, what's the number one skill you wish every human being can learn to be better humans? And he said, emotional regulation. Like from doing a thousand brain surgeries and studying neuroscience, the mind, he was like, emotional regulation will support us in being healthier, happier human beings. and it goes back to what you're saying, which is learning how to navigate all of the emotions and be with them and feel uncomfortable and sad and know how to manage them, not avoid, run away, be distracted by them, right? -That is right.

Because, you know, I was joking, when I was in private practice, I saw a lot of, you know, 20-year-olds, 30-year-olds, 40-year-olds, and not one of them came to my practice saying, Dr. Becky, like, I had the best parents. You know those emotions other people feel like jealous and sad and like those hard things. I got rid of them. My parents got rid of them. I've never felt them again. Like that's never, that obviously has never happened. But what happened over and over, even though no one said it, but their stories and behavior really exemplified it was I am now 23, I'm now 45, and I'm literally no better able to regulate frustration and disappointment and sadness than than I was when I was a toddler. Wow. And but the stakes are higher.

Way higher as an adult.

Way higher. So emotion regulation, that is the goal of childhood. I mean, that's the goal of adulthood too, by the way. Right?

It's still the goal. We're all working on it.

You've been called like the millennial parenting.

Whisperer, is that right? I think Time Magazine wrote that one. Time Magazine called you the millennial parenting whisperer. I've had Cesar Millan, who's the dog whisperer on, and you know, people come in to say, hey, how do you fix my dog? And he fixes humans, essentially. He teaches humans how to lead themselves better. And it sounds like parents come to you and say, how do I fix my kid? And you're coming to them and saying, well, you need to learn how to be a better leader and heal and reprogram yourself and learn how to regulate your emotions so you can manage these situations.

Would that be accurate? That is completely accurate. And I think, you know, I double down on that and say, I think when we have kids, we have unconscious wish that they're going to heal us.

Oh.

And they trigger us.

Oh.

That's what happens when you have kids.

Sorry, say it again.

We have an unconscious wish that our kids will heal us, and in reality, our kids trigger us.

Why do we think our kids will heal us?

Because I think in general, we all have the wish that something in the external world, something we can gaze out at, will finally give us the comfort and the sense of safety and security that we've always been yearning for. And part of adulthood, I think, involves learning to gaze in, not from a place of it's my fault, but from a place of actually, like, I have the power and it's hard, but I have the power to do that myself.

Wow. Oh my gosh. Okay, so.

Wanna get to the third thing?

Yes, let's get to the third thing.

The third thing I want parents to know, and like, to me, this is, I should have said it's the first thing. I messed up my order. Okay, so I saved the best for last. Start over.

But the second thing was resilience over happiness. Yes. And I wanna ask you, before you get to the third thing, how do we raise resilient children?

Okay, then this is, I'm excited. I'm excited. We can put the third thing out there. We'll leave everyone with a cliffhanger.

What's the third thing?

This one's important. That one's even more important. Okay, so I think first of all, again, we have to understand before we intervene. So how do we build resilience? Well, what is resilience? Right? And we have to really understand that. And I think that resilience really is our ability to tolerate hard things. And the word tolerate is important because we all think it's the ability to like get through it. The getting through happens when it happens. And the truth is the longer you can tolerate something, not something toxic, that is so not what I'm talking about, sure, or abusive. But the longer you can tolerate something hard, the success is gonna find itself and it's gonna be more likely 'cause you were able to stay in the hard place.

Can you give me an example of what this would be like for a parent and a child?

Sure, I can give you two different examples very concretely. Right, so this is something I teach to a lot of parents in one of my favorite, my frustration tolerance workshop, which is relevant for school, for everything. So let's say, and I'll say my three-year-old is doing a puzzle. I can't do it, you do it for me. You do it for me. This is a good example, right? And as a parent, I get it.

You've got home, you're like, this is.

Like the last thing I wanna do. Tired, I wanna relax. So I was gonna have a nice night with my kid, I get it. But I'm really driven by impact. And so I actually get this sick joy when my kid is on the verge of a meltdown. Really? Yes, especially when I've been working a lot. 'Cause I'm like, if I'm gonna spend 20 minutes with my kid, I'm gonna make it count. And like, it's nice if I'm there for a pleasant 20 minutes, of course, but if I want to have impact, I like literally can picture my impact on him.

So you're like hoping when you come home that having a breakdown of that temper tantrum, that's when we're gonna be a big breakthrough, right?

But in a way, I think that's a really important ref.

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It's like, especially if you're a parent who travels a lot or you're not around a lot to be like, wait, like, I can have impact. It's not easy. It's certainly not convenient. That's the one word parents need to know. Having kids is not fun or convenient in most situations. It's not at all. And this is like your Super Bowl right now. This is your opportunity.

Right.

Wow. You know, because my kid and how I respond to the puzzle is not going to remember anything about the puzzle. Their body, not from that one time, but from patterns.

The nervous system.

Is going to be developing expectations around what can I do when things get hard.

What do I get away with, right?

Or yeah, and what should I expect? What is my self-talk? A parent's words become a child's self-talk.

A parent's words become a child's self-talk.

Wow. Yes.

So what your parents say to you over and over again is what you say to yourself.

Especially when paired with an emotional situation. So when I'm frustrated, did I have someone come, and I always say, like, frustration is now, like, super bright. Do I expect someone to come and turn off the light? No frustration. Or do I expect someone to come and like, by the way, they're present with me, they dim the light. So it's just not so blinding. Not so intense. Emotion regulation. Interesting. Like, that's the best it gets. There are drugs that will do that better for you, but they have, you know, that's not what we recommend for people long term. Like, when we're talking about true emotion regulation, we're talking about a dimmer. Because it's impossible to deal with something when it's a 10 out of 10. Even nine out of 10 is really hard. Once you get to an eight or a seven, it's not pleasant, it's not convenient, but you start to be able to tolerate it. And from there you can, you know, get maybe to a six or a five. That's the goal for our kid. So I'll model this. My kid is freaking out about the puzzle. Now, to be clear, are there some times that I'd be like, I'm giving myself permission to do the puzzle, 'cause.

I can't deal with this.

Of course, I'm a normal human. Sure. Everybody has to give that permission to themselves.

Wait, so Dr. Beck, you're not a perfect parent? Like zero.

No, no, no, no. Everyone listening to what I'm saying, don't.

Think like I actually do this all the time. You're not. Every day you come home and then after a long day, you're just like.

Okay, what do you need right now? And you're stressed out. Okay, I'm gonna do this puzzle with you. And yeah. And that will eventually get to point three. And I wouldn't wish Dr. Becky as the real parent on any kid. It's just like you learn the most, I'm sure you too in life. You learn the most from people who struggle and repair. Of course. Right? So, but here's this like moment. And there's, and I can go through an older kid example too, because it's not as obvious, but like my kid is frustrated. My kid's gonna be frustrated for the rest of their life in higher stake situations. They're gonna be given something from a boss, be like, I don't know how to do this. And I actually don't, first of all, I definitely don't want my kid when they're 25 to call me and be like, can you do my project for me? I don't want that. I don't want them to be indignant, how could this person have, I want them to have some type of weight. I don't know what I'm gonna do, but I have a feeling I can just think this through or get a little further. So if that's what I want there, that is not unrelated to the pattern of how I interact now.

Wow.

So I could say, here's the piece. Once in a while I do that. Not great for long-term resilience. So here's what I might do. Okay? And I'm gonna, my kid is starting to have a tantrum. And even he's saying, do the piece. I can't do it. I'm gonna say, sweetie, sweetie, this is, this is so hard. This is so hard. And I know, I have real kids. It's not like they, are gonna say to me, oh, that's so helpful to hear. No, it's not gonna happen. They're gonna still freaking out. But their reaction is different than the power of my intervention. Also two separate things. I might say this. I might say, oh, so many pieces. I don't know where it goes. Does it go here? Does it go here? Does it go here? And if my kid is like, do it for me. I really, and I've said this to my kid, I said, listen, sweetie, I'm not gonna do it for you. Here's why. I know. you're capable of figuring this out. And the best feeling in the world is the feeling you get when you think you can't do something, and then you wait a little bit and you see that you can do a little bit more, and I'm not gonna take that feeling away from you. And so I'll take a deep breath with you, we can take a break, but I know you can do this. Okay? And when I hear people be like, does that work? Yes. I mean, doesn't that work for adults? Imagine, You having a hard time at your job and you're saying to your manager, you do this one if they're like, Listen, I'm not because I know you're capable. And it's okay if it takes some time. It's okay if you take a break. I can be here to think about where could that piece go? Is that an edge? Ooh, edges in the middle. Probably not in the puzzle. Oh, you're right. Edges go on the outside. Look at you. My kid experiences the win and what their body learns is when I get frustrated, I don't look for the answer for someone to take that away from me and give me immediate success. By the way, if we really want to get into it, if we want to know what entitlement is, entitlement is the accumulated experience of feeling frustrated and then having someone else give you immediate success. Wow. That's what it is. Without you having to do it.

And I'll never forget seeing this family.

Of 16-year-olds who was horrified their kid had a full-on tantrum at 16 because they weren't flying first class.

Oh my gosh.

Every parent's nightmare. And they're like, how do we get an entitled kid? The most well-meaning parents. But this was a kid every time something didn't go his way. And I think money makes it more complicated because you can buy kind of your way out of kids frustration.

You can.

So it's almost hard to resist that if that's an option. But every time it was like frustration, success, frustration, a new option, frustration. I figured it out because someone else did something for me. Well, when you finally get to the point at 16, if that's your circuit, and then you're frustrated because something's surprising. It's not really about first class. Your body actually is like, WTF. I literally was not built to tolerate this. And then it ends up looking awful, but really it's really vulnerable, right?

Super vulnerable.

Super vulnerable. So I wanna give you one more example of resilience. There's three lines I think every parent needs to know. And I honestly can almost reframe that saying, I think every person in a relationship needs to know whether you're in a romantic relationship, a work relationship, it's the same stuff. Because another resilience building moment I can imagine is kind of like what I said to you earlier. Let's say your kid's a little older. I'm the only kid who doesn't know how to read chapter books, or I'm the only one of my friends who didn't get into honors math. So teenagers. Yeah, I'd say that. I'm the only kid who didn't get into honors math. I tried out for lacrosse team, all my kids, my friends made it. And I said, I'm not gonna make it, yeah. Everyone, me included, okay, my first instinct is to quote, make my kid feel better. Oh, you're gonna make it next year. Or you made varsity soccer and none of them made soccer, right? Whatever the thing is. Or we say, you're gonna see it's not a big deal. Okay, so here's the image, I'm big on images.

Well, this is gonna matter in 20.

Years or whatever you're, yeah. We say, right? The truth is we kind of say it 'cause we're uncomfortable and we're just kind of making a kid a pawn in our game. But if you picture your kid on a bench, and if you picture them kind of in a garden, that's what.

I like to say.

The parable for life, the garden. And there's a bench. And essentially when your kid says, I'm the only one who didn't make the lacrosse team, let's say they're sitting on the bench of, what is it? Disappointment, or maybe it's embarrassment, or both, or feeling surprised and let down. I don't know, it's something like that. That's the bench. And as parents, we tend to have two instincts. When our kid is on the bench, kind of of some type of distress.

We either want to tell them that.

Their bench isn't their bench, That's not a big deal. Even though they're like, But I'm, But.

That'S how I feel.

But I'm on it. Or we kind of see a sunnier bench and we're like, Just come with me.

Right?

But like, you're the best at, you know, at soccer and so we're like, right. And both of those reduce resilience. 'Cause resilience is kind of like your ability in that garden of life to like whatever bench you find yourself on, you're able to sit in it. Not drowning in it, but sit in it. 'Cause when you're there, you inevitably will be. You're not terrified it. You're not spending all your energy running away from a bench. If you saw that, you'd be like, dude, just a bench. And so how do we help our kid feel like essentially it's okay to be them no matter what bench they're on, or it's really it's okay to be you even when you don't make.

The lower cost team. 'Cause that's really the essence.

That's the core thing that resilience is about. So how long should they sit on that bench of emotion? Great. So to me, these three lines will play that out. So to me, as soon as your kid says something distressing to you, we have those two urges. We have to recognize them. We're not bad people. Just, I always say, say hi to them. Hello, urge to make it better. And here to me is the first line every parent needs in their toolbox.

I'm so glad you're talking to me about this. To the child, say that to the child right away. When they're stressed out, when they're angry, upset, shameful, any unsettling emotion that you don't enjoy yourself. say back to them, I'm so glad you're telling me this right now.

That's right. I'm so glad we're talking about this. Because, and again, if we think about it in adult context, if I was like, I'm so mad at my husband, he never, whatever it is, he never is home for bedtime. And he forgot the one thing I said. And if I was like, hey, you're never doing anything around the house. And I'm really frustrated if he said to me, you know what, Becky? Well, you're upset, but I'm so glad you're telling me about this. You know relationships, I'd be like, I think we're good now. I don't even know what was I upset about? Because what someone's really saying to you when they say that is this feeling in you that you're feeling is real. And I still wanna be in a relationship with you when you're feeling that way.

Yeah, I still love and accept you.

That's right. And so our kids need to absorb from us, from a resilience perspective, my parent can tolerate this part of me before I learn to tolerate this part of me.

Wow.

That's line one. Line two, I believe you. I always say, if there's one line that would be probably the most healing in people's childhoods and the most confidence building from childhood, it's that. And it's so simple. Because when you say to someone... What.

If you really don't believe them though?

Well, there's always something you should believe. So, right, because like they're like, I didn't make the lacrosse team and, oh, and like, I'm never gonna be able to go to school again or something. It's so embarrassing, right? I'm not saying, I guess you can never go to school again. That's not what I'm believing. I believe that's how you feel. That's right. And you don't have to say that because underneath our kids' extreme verbalizations, we get very caught up in their words. Yes. They represent a world. We believe the world. And so even though like, I'm never going to school again, I would say, I believe it feels that bad. And because I do, it does. And it's like, it is. He's on that bench.

Especially you have someone at that age who doesn't have the skills of emotional resilience, so they're building it still and they haven't figured out how to manage those emotions. It seems horrifying.

That's right.

Seems terrifying.

That's right. And if my kid says, I'm the only one who didn't get a chapter book, you know, I got this picture book and everyone else is reading chapter books, it's so easy to say, you can't be the only one. We actually say to our kids all the time, which terrifies me, I don't believe you. And if we wonder why people don't trust their emotions, it's because when they felt emotions that were strong, they received, not one time, over and over, a message of, I know your feelings better.

Than you know your feelings.

Or just suck it up, or it's.

Not that big a deal, or it's just kind of undermining their emotions.

That's right. And so when I think about I believe you, I do. I have a daughter, I have three kids, I have a daughter. And I don't know how I always picture, like she's at some college party and some kind of uncomfortable situation. Let's just say- How old is she now? How old is she now? She's nine, but let's just say she's nine. She's in the future. She's 20 and someone's like, I don't know, come back with me and let's just, if she wants to, great, but let's say she doesn't.

Yeah.

You know, in those situations, be like, it's not a big deal, you know? Do I want her self-talk to be, I do have a history of other people knowing what I'm feeling better than I know what I'm feeling, or do I want her to be like, like, I know I don't want to go home. I like, I'm gonna cry. Like, I believe myself and I, this person is telling me I want something else, but, like, How could this person know? Because I know what I'm feeling. And those things are completely related. And so that's the second line. And then the third line is equally simple. It's just tell me more. Tell me more. Oh, and then, oh, so they posted the list on the pin board. Wait, so everyone was, oh my goodness, everyone was there. And let's say I knew my son had a crush on someone, oh, that person was there too. And you were like so excited. You were gonna like be on the lacrosse team and that person saw, Saw.

That you failed and...

Exactly. So I'm just like fleshing out the story and now at all these moments that my kid was in pain, which by the way, part of the pain was probably that they were alone. I'm kind of infusing myself in every moment. I'm adding connection, I'm adding leaving. And here's the thing about the bench. In my experience, when you kind of go through this, your kid gets off the bench before you do every time. Really? And then you're like, oh, I guess where are they going next? And when they need you?

They come back.

Yeah, you find them on that next bench.

Interesting.

If you want to have an incredible legacy, you should spend half as much money on your children and twice as much time. See, there is no, kids do not know the difference between quality time and quantity time. There's no difference. It's not up to you to decide that doing Legos with your five-year-old could be a core memory for the rest of their life. And you had no idea. Right. With children, it's just time clocked.

But how do you Scott, when you know managing all these businesses, have all this, you're traveling constantly, you've got coaching tons of people, you're, you know, you're always on the go. How do you find the time, quality or quantity to invest in your family and your kids?

Yeah. So it starts with our structure. Okay, so I've put people around me in my life who agree first. It starts with inner circle. So we have a structure in our world where the five closest families around us and our children have the same values of investing in our families together.

Your friend families.

Our closest families. We are on the same mission and all of the values I just walked you through.

And that could be together as all the families or it could be like on the weekends we do this as Anyone's welcome to come over. We're together on weekends.

Family time, yeah. Travel, like we, this is our inner circle because this is done in community. If you're on an island, it's very difficult. So parenting, I believe, should be done in community. That's just why we do coaching with families all the time at dinner table. So you have to unpack this with other families. You have to have families that align with your values. See, here's the teenager hack. You ready? You need coaches and trusted other adults in your teenager's life that can reinforce the things you care about most. You have to have that.

They may not always listen to you.

They won't after a while. There's a chunk of time.

But if there's five other, you know, coaches or teachers or mentors that say the same thing, they might resonate with them and say, okay, maybe dad was right all along.

You probably have 100,000 teenagers that have listened to you. that go to their parents and go, you guys, I just learned this awesome thing from Lewis.

They're like, I've been saying this my whole life.

Thank you, yeah. But you want to say that to your kids. Yeah, yeah. You want your kids coming to you with revealed knowledge that you've been trying to teach them for 10 years. It doesn't matter who gave them the light bulb. You celebrate it.

It's a thankless job, I guess, right?

That's it. You teach it, but someone else gets the credit. So it starts with your inner circle. We are clear on that piece. And then it goes into structure. And so with structure, my wife and I, every year, we block out stuff first for our family.

Like the whole calendar year.

The whole year. Trips, dates, family stuff, like what we're doing with our kids, big events, like that goes first. Then we can fill in work and other things after. You have to do that. Every Sunday night, we're like going over the week, We're just blocking out date night. We're blocking out when the kids events are. Work fills in that gap, right? That is the best way to focus your time and effort.

So schedule family stuff first, then fill in the gaps with work or other things.

That's exactly right.

Structure, inner circle, is there another element to this?

I mean, going through our six strategies. Yeah, I got the end.

Pay to a point was five.

That's right. Yep. And then, but the last part of pay to a point is like, How do you do first phone? What do you pay for? How do I do car? How do I do college? Are we doing college? Do we care about college? Is it an indoctrination station or is it good? What about the 25-35 year old I love you versus coasting? What do we want to die with? What is our number that we're okay with? How much do we want to give? These are questions that nobody asks their children or themselves. And what our thing is, we need to be open about these conversations. We have to have a roadmap. Because if you don't have a roadmap for this, you're reactive. See, there's all these other parenting, and you've had other amazing parent people here, but there's about a thousand different parenting strategies out there. Free range, gentle, like whatever, helicopter, laissez-faire, there's a million of them. I look at it with one lens. you're either parenting proactively or you're parenting reactively. Most parents are just trying to get through it, get them fed, keep them safe, get them to bed, get them to school. They're being reactive when all these things come up. And that's what causes a lot of these problems. If you can just be a little bit proactive, these are little nudges. Nothing I've told you today is hard, crazy. These are little nudges in the right direction, and then just unpack them with someone and take your first step. See, that's proactive parenting. That's all that matters.

Yeah.

And you don't have to have it all figured out in a weekend or something.

This is gonna take time to develop.

That's right.

Navigate and adjust over time.

Long-term communities.

Yeah.

Yep. So the sixth step for six strategy.

For legacy, what's the sixth one? Inner circle. That's inner circle. And dinner views. Dinner views. Yeah, interview dinners. We, it's part of that hack. What we love to do is Our entire upstairs in our home is wide open for guests and friends and family and board members and investors and those people we love. That thing is full two-thirds of the year. Our kids have a constant cycle of like great people in our lives that come to dinner. And our kids research them and find questions and ask them questions.

Interesting.

Tell me about this. Okay, you married this, how'd you guys get married? How'd you do that business? Tell us about your biggest mistake. What's your biggest fear? How old are your kid? Like our little kids ask good questions.

So it's kind of like a, you know, lunch and learn of a business, but for your family.

For your family.

For dinner.

And they learn.

That's interesting.

They learn from other people so much more. That's fair. A lot of families take for granted the kids and the parents, but when you bring other people that are reinforcing things, it just sticks. You could probably do this. If you took one minute to think what were the five most pivotal moments or conversations of my life? I know my five. Those are with mentors and trusted people and events that happened that completely took my life in a different direction.

Yes.

That had that not happened, I would not be anywhere close to who I am today.

Right, right.

That's the power of doing this with your kids.

How many, I guess, dinner views do you have?

Three a month.

Three a month.

Is it good? That's a good starting point.

Yeah.

Yeah. But just, like, be intentional about this stuff, man.

So here's another thing about inner circle. You know that old saying? It's not what you say, it's how you say it. I think that goes for how we live, too. It's not just what we do, it's the energy, the intention, the presence we bring. And that's exactly what the Range Rover sport brings to the road. The Range Rover sport is built to take on roads anywhere without any unnecessary details. It combines a dynamic sporting personality with elegance and Agility and delivers an instinctive. drive. Its assertive stance hints at an equally refined driving performance. Defining true modern luxury, the Range Rover Sport features the latest innovations in comfort and convenience. The Cabin Air Purification System alongside the Active Noise Cancellation creates a new level of quality, comfort, and control. Terrain Response 2 offers seven terrain models to choose from, fine-tuning the vehicle for any challenging roads ahead. Build your Range Rover Sport at RangeRover.com/BuildYourOwn, /US/SPORT.

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There's a study that came out, and I'm going to butcher the sources, but I think it was Stanford a few years back. They did a study on obesity and network.

Oh, tell me.

Okay, they found huge study. If you have close friends in your inner circle that are obese, you're 45% more likely to gain weight in the next Here.

Oh man.

Say, and I'm looking at this from a different lens, right? Like this relates to families and children. So if that's 45%, but then they took it a rung out, if you don't directly know the person, but it's a friend of an inner circle friend, you're 20% more likely to gain weight in the next year. And if it's a third rung, friend of friend of friend, you're 10% more likely. Wow. And I go, that's the best analogy of inner circle and network that I've ever seen.

It's probably the same thing around money. How is your inner circle related to how much money you make or can make?

Your view of money, your generosity, your investing mindset, your delayed gratification thinking, your up leveling. I've up leveled. I'm not just throwing away friends, but I'm saying I've up leveled my networks 20 times in my life already. And because I want to be around the people that have like stepped in my shoes and they're like in one domain of their life where I want to head as the North Star. And I think that the trick here that a lot of people don't realize is mentors become friends as you grow in what they teach you.

Yeah, as you learn and get to.

A level- They're your peers.

Yeah, exactly.

And what a lot of people don't realize is that. And so some of my best friends in the world were mentors to start.

Wow.

Yeah, we have a lot of older friends that I just, we love them and their families. And now I mentor their children. Wow. It's like a slingshot, right? I have a bunch of young guys in their 20s come over to our house every month around the campfire till midnight and we just train, coach. They're asking, and all their parents are like dear friends of ours. That's the best way to do it. Wow, that's cool.

Yeah.

Campfire, how many times do you do a campfire?

Once a month.

That's pretty cool. Bring them over. We do campfires and s'mores all the time.

Really?

Oh yeah, we're always playing in the.

Backyard and the pool and doing campfires.

They have like the gas fires.

That's amazing.

Yeah, man.

Wow. Okay, so the six strategies for legacy value creation setup, home economy, the three E's, heritage over inheritance, building your family DNA, relationship breakthroughs, paid to a point strategy.

Can I say one more thing on those relationships?

Yes.

We teach the 10 love, the love languages in the 10 states. But we also talk about forgiveness. Because now, because I know the thread of this talk is trauma and money trauma and how we think about this, right? Money trauma is a massive issue. It's the only trauma that we wake up and work for for the rest of our life.

What do you mean?

So when you're a silver spoon kid where things are paid for, okay? You know that you didn't earn things growing up. You're not fully prepared. And then you get there, and you're like, I can't do this to my kids. Hard knocks, tough love, make it work on your own, because you usually screw up somewhere and then it's like, you know, hard, good men, strong times, strong men, weak time, weak times, like bad, weak men, bad times. And then that goes the cycle. This is what happens in families, every generation. You come from like everything was provided for. I never had to struggle and grow to like, you're like, oh, no. And then your kids struggle. You either screw it up and your kids go back to nothing, or the other way where you start from nothing and then you grow up and you're like, I can't do this to my kids. I gotta pay for everything and give them everything. So we teeter-totter. Every generation just teeter-totters back and forth and it causes immense money traumas. And then the problem there is you're waking up every day and working for that trauma. With all the other types of trauma, you're like, how do I not think about this? How do I heal from this? How do I let this go?

Right?

You're trying to like get therapy and help at best and like move through to forgiveness and like this one, you gotta then wake up the next day and figure out how am I paying the bills?

Wow. So how does someone start to heal from these many wounds or many traumas then?

Well, I think that the main thing we gotta understand is we're told to forgive. Like the Bible tells us to forgive. The Bible does, I don't think the Bible teaches us how to forgive.

Just says do it.

Just says do it and do it a lot. Because like, to the degree you forgive others, you're gonna be forgiven. I believe in that, but I don't think it teaches us actually how to let things go. So we got a lot of really good training when we went through some really tough stuff. And it was through some of the top, I won't say all the names, there's like six of them, but they are trauma forgiveness let go. therapists. And what you do is you basically go through a system where you can call forth in your mind what happened. Call the person forward that it was or the situation and declare what happened, okay? And you're in a safe setting in your mind. Then you can actually move and feel that. And then there's a moment in every trauma or painful thing in our life where you can find what I call the gift. doesn't justify what happens. It doesn't make it okay. What you do is you say, because of that difficult thing, I am now this kind of a person. And I'm so thankful for how I love my kids better. I love my new partner better. I'm better in business from this. I care about my health better. That's the gift. And now you can sit in that gift and feel that and swell that overwhelmingly. And when you sit there long enough, It starts to spill over to forgiveness, where you can actually say, I forgive you in love.

What are the strategies that these 100 high net worth families have? The three things they all have in common that keep them in peace with the money they're making and have good relationships with their family and their kids to make sure that money doesn't ruin their lives.

Well, that's the first thing. They have a correct view of what money actually is.

What is money?

But let me back up for 2 seconds, because I'm not just studying the richest families in the world. Half of our families were the richest or were on track to become, well, extremely wealthy, who gave, who were generous, who stewarded it well for their family's investment. So one of the main things I want everyone to hear is like, One of the biggest things I learned with the best families in the world is that they believed in heritage over inheritance.

What's the difference?

Well, inheritance is just leaving them stuff, leaving them money. This is what the whole financial world is trying to get you to think. Your job is to die with assets to take care of them. That's what you should define as love. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. 90% of generational wealth transfer gone by the grandkids.

Really?

Gone. What people don't study, because I'm a 7 million family, this is my world. I wanted to know what was underneath that. Okay, what happens if you just pass on a bunch of money and assets and homes and stuff, because you love your kids and you want to take care of your grandkids?

What happens if you pass on money to kids or grandkids that don't understand money?

That's right. If they don't understand it, you get a whole host of nightmares. Mental health, imposter syndrome, I didn't earn this, I know I didn't earn this, lottery ticket. Why does everyone that wins lotteries go crazy and go broke? They end up giving it all or in bad investments. They don't know how to manage it. They don't know how to create value in the world. They don't have the right relationship to it. And then there's mental health, violence, addiction, estrangement of kids. So many breaks in relationships, divorce, destruction, rampant.

Because of money.

Because of the money and the stuff. Or at worst, they're just waiting for their parents to go. Oh, like how many people, like it's very hard for people to admit this, but even if you're doing well and then you're dealing with assets of an older family member, you're just for the last 10 to 15 years of their life, you're thinking about it a lot. You're consumed by it.

What, like when they're gonna go so you can get their stuff?

Yeah, so then they stop risking.

'Cause they know eventually they're gonna get this.

You stop creating value, you don't take that chance, you don't build that new thing, you don't start that company, like I'm gonna wait for the pay. I got a big, I'm in this boat in a way right now. I've got a big payout coming at the end of the year. Really? From an exit of a company three years ago, like the last 5% is hidden at the end of the year and it's a guaranteed, you know. Big check. And I'm looking at it like, and I'm teaching this and learning this from these families and I'm unpacking and realizing that at least once a week, I'm like, yeah, but that's coming.

I don't have to work as hard.

I don't have to add value here. I don't have to take that chance. I don't have to create that value. I don't have to dive into learning this thing.

I'll do that after this.

That'll give me all the freedom and peace to do it. Give me cushion. The same entitlement mentality. Wow. So inheritance has a lot of inherent problems. But if you focus on heritage, which to me is a last name that means something, The values of the family. It's the mindsets, the skill sets, what we care about as a family.

Right?

When somebody hears the Hou's name in the world, what's the smell? What does it remind them of? It's the feeling. That's it.

What's the essence?

Yeah, the Danish have a term called hygge. It's the feeling you get when you walk in someone's house. That's the smell of their family, the scent, Hugue to me is heritage. So I believe families need to work on heritage instead of inheritance. If you get heritage right and you're training them up the right way, then really the inheritance is less of an issue. You can still leave some. I'm not like tough love, let them scrape. I'm not that guy.

Give them zero.

I'm not that guy, but there's a process for this. There's a difference between an I love you gift and a coasting gift.

What's the difference?

The moment it kills their desire to create more value in the world, you've moved from I love you to coasting. And the bigger problem is that when you have multiple children, one of them might be a high earner. Like if my parents died and left me tons and tons of cash, at this point, I am financially competent enough, six businesses, millions of customers, thousands of employees. I know what to do to steward it well. And it's not gonna ruin my identity. I'm not gonna say who, but other family members, cousins, other people, if they got the same amount of money, would crush them. Really? Yeah. They all want it.

What happens to someone psychologically when they are given a large sum of money that they have not earned, and it's too large for them to really steward in a healthy way. What happens psychologically to a human being when you win a lottery that's too big for you to understand and comprehend too much money or you're passed down an inheritance that is too big?

Yeah, well, it's like a participation trophy on steroids. So this is why if you're not prepared for the blessing, for the reward.

Yes.

You know, there's this verse in the Bible, I don't want to get too Jesus on you, but there's a verse in the Bible that says God's not going to give you more than you can handle. I actually believe that that's not pain and trials. I think that that has to do with blessing and reward. See, what I think is God actually helps us through the hard stuff. The hard and the trials of life. I call them healthy struggles. Okay, our book, Value Creation Kid, the Healthy Struggles yous Children Need to Succeed. That's the point. When you go through healthy struggles, right? Things that grow you, you're refined. You learn how to create value. You learn humility and empathy and strength and inner confidence.

Yes.

Not, Hey, Louis, you're pretty. You're smart.

You're nice.

No, no, inner confidence. What does our friend Alex say? He's like, you don't get confident by chanting incantations in the mirror, but by having like an undeniable stack of like accomplishments to get.

Evidence and proof.

Things you've overcome. So I actually think that that has to do with like, God's not going to give you more blessing than you can handle, more stuff, more opportunity. Because I think if people get there without the journey, without the value creation journey, ruins them. Like, this is how you actually lose faith. This is how you think you can do it all your own. This is where you get imposter syndrome. This is where you get fear, anxiety, or greed misplaced.

Right?

This is all the bad stuff happening.

Titleman, all that stuff.

But if you've gone through that journey, you're refined, you're prepared.

So how do we prepare for the blessings of more money then?

I think it starts with training up our children. This is my world, man. True value creation for our kids is the game. So we have this thing called the home economy system. We could unpack how I got here if you want me to, but I think allowance is socialism.

Okay.

I know that comment right there is gonna get you thousands of pissed off people. But can I unpack that for a minute? Please. What's the- and even chores. If you just do allowance for chores, it doesn't work. and let me, let me explain.

Why is allowance for chores or automatic allowance every week a bad thing for kids?

If you, because allowance is codependency and it's tied in our studies to a lack of motivation and an aversion to work. If you teach children that they get the same amount of money every week just for existing or putting in the bare minimum or putting in the time and effort, you got a problem.

Interesting. You're gonna raise in value.

It's not creating value. That's right. What is money? Let's get into this. What is money? Money is not good. It's not bad. That's what people think. Money is amazing. You should focus on it. Well, that's a keeping up with the Jones's identity trauma waiting to happen. If they say it's bad, that's a poverty mindset. The Bible does not say money is best. It's the love of money, the idol of money. Money is neither good or bad. Money is a tool. that makes you more of what you already are. It is a store of value.

A store of value. What does that mean?

It's a store of value that's created. So when we teach kids and families at our dinner table program, we literally say, create value first. So you want to the number one strategy of the top 100 families in the world. Yes. Okay? It's teach your kids to create value first, not money. Because money is a store of value. You have to go back to first principles. If you focus on value creation, material value, what you create and produce in the world, solving problems, financial reward is the reward of that. Emotional value, good friendships, how you think, how you feel, spiritual value, how you love, how you live, mindset, lifting me lifting you up above your issues to a higher calling. to God, getting out of your ego and like that's spiritual value. So if we can teach our children, hey, we're gonna be value hunters in this home. That is the number one greatest asset you could ever give them. It's an unfair advantage for the rest of their life. And what you don't do is you focus on the money side.

So you don't talk about the money.

The money comes as a result of value creation. So back to the allowance.

The reward.

Allowance teaches them nothing about creating value for money. And then what parents do is they say, well, my kids do a list of chores and I give them an allowance. Okay, so now that's value because they're.

Helping out around the house or they're contributing.

But the problem there is that half those chores, you should never tie to money. You should never pay your kids to make their bed and clean their room, do the dishes and trash, homework.

That should be just a way of living.

That's the role in the family.

Yeah, that's what we do.

We call those expectations.

Yes, standards.

So that's why chores doesn't work at the first part. The other half of those chores should be a menu of ways to earn, and it should be unlimited. Okay? And then, so we call those gigs. So this could be a list on.

The fridge or wherever that says, here's 100 gigs.

Or make it up.

Or make a budget.

Go find ways to create value. I'll tell you how much that's worth for me. And that is the winner for every single family. The moment your kid starts hunting for ways to create value at home or in the neighborhood, we call those community gigs. now they're going out and having a lens to see the world, not what I can get, but how I can create value for others. That is the true hack for all financial competency.

What are the three most valuable gigs that you have at your home that your kid, that you ever gave to your kids or they gave to you and you said, yeah, I'm willing to pay more for that.

Yeah, we're at a point now they have about a dozen gigs that are on the list. And we are our system, the dinner table program. You literally get a printout for the fridge. It's auto repeating. You can pay your kids every week. It's a payday. But remember, we have expectations. We have gigs, but we have expectations. Expectations are separate. That's free.

You don't get, you don't get paid. It's table stakes.

You don't get paid for showing up and living a standard of excellence.

Right.

That's right.

But the gigs, we break them up. So there's action gigs and there's brain gigs. What's the action gig? Action gigs are kind of what you might think of some chores, like sweep the garage, wash a window. get something in the yard, clean a bathroom, make a meal. Brain gigs are my favorite part.

Read a book and give me a report on it.

Yep.

Podcasts, TED Talks. This one right here, kids, parents should be like offering up $4 if their kids tell their parents three things they learned from this and one thing they're gonna apply to their life. We call those brain gigs. No sugar for a week. I am statements every single day for a month.

Interesting.

These shouldn't be tied to value because it's creating value with your brain. You and I, our whole life is creating value with our brain. Way more than our hands and feet. Why are we not teaching that to children? Homework is an expectation, but there should be a ton of brain gigs. So my three favorite, I'll give you my three favorite, and we automate these in our app, okay? Subscription hunt. What if you had your kid- Save me money. What if your kids go cancel? all the subscriptions that you forgot you were paying for, and they hunt and find them and you're giving them a cut.

Yeah.

What a brilliant brain gig. Couponing. The average family in our system, the kids and the teenagers starting as young as six years old are saving them 26% on groceries.

Wow.

By learning to find the four ways we teach them to get coupons.

And they get a cut of the savings.

They get a savings cut. It's all automated. And then plan the next family trip. What if your kids, what if your 10 year old planned the entire, my seven year old's doing it right now. What if they got three flights, three hotels, or VRBO, or Turo, Uber, rental car, and got the best deal? Where are we gonna eat? What are we gonna do? They will save you a grand. I guarantee you they will save you a grand and they will love that trip. They will own that trip and remember for the rest of their life. and then free you up so much time.

Interesting.

Yeah, see our whole system, our job was how do we teach financial competencies and money without the trauma and with a deeper relationship as an end result with the family.

Right.

Because what I just explained to you has no more conflict over chores. Kids never ask for money and stuff again.

Because they know if I want money, I got to do one of these things.

I know where to go. I have power.

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Trick. The third E, we have expectations, extra pay, and then expenses. This is where every parent goes wrong. They think that the way to buy love, no, they don't even realize it's buying love, but it is.

Buying gifts and giving them the things they need.

They pay for everything. They think it's their way to love their kids. So they buy everything that we have a list. They're like, if you start passing off expenses, now you give your kids a motive, an intrinsic motivation to earn and create value for gigs. No more conflict. So these are like toys, starts with toys and games and trinkets, and if they, any sport they do, Have them pay for something like the basketball or the cleats. Have them be in charge of skin in the game. Skin in the game. Social outings with friends. My favorite one, birthday presents for your kids parties that they go to. My seven-year-old Reagan, a couple weeks ago, she was the only kid that went to the Ninja Gym party. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's the only kid at the party that bought the present. Because we told her it's on her list on the fridge. She knew at that time, we didn't have to tell her she knew. She had to make the 12 bucks after save and invest and share. She knew she had to get this present, so she planned ahead. She grabs the present, she puts it in the little bin with tissue and signs Reagan. She's seven, dude. We go to the party. Every other kid just chucks it on the table. Their parents buy them. Anyone listening with kids, we've done this, everyone does this. The kids do not learn generosity with any of that. They didn't even open the presents at the party.

Wow.

But halfway through the party, Reagan walks up to me unprovoked with the birthday boy, our friend Dawson. And she's like, Can we open my present now? I want to see his face. I'm like, Sure. So they sit down in the ninja gym and he opens her present and is on a cloud nine. Big hug.

Wow.

She's beaming ear to ear. All the other parents, they're like, what just happened? I'm like, Reagan's learning generosity. She's gonna be that 25 year old that's like taking care of her friends, hospitable, service-oriented, and they carry, that's generosity. You gotta earn it first. Here's the whole point. Unless you earn as a kid, okay, this is why schools fail this. You can't homework money. We were talking about this before. Unless you earn it by creating value first, you'll never be able to learn how to save or invest or spend or share.

Mm-.

But parents give their kids 10 bucks to go put it to the giving thing, church or whatever.

Yeah.

They don't learn it that way. Kids give them an allowance and say, here's your debit card, whatever, chase for kids or green, like that doesn't work. They're just spending your money.

It's not their money.

They won't learn delayed gratification to save and invest if you're just giving them stuff. So this is why we start with value creation first. And then the home economy system. Like once you implement this, and a lot of people try this, they know what I'm saying, they all agree, but they have to do whiteboards and checklists and Google spreadsheets and stuff that they erase and go grab a bunch of roll of quarters and ones and they do it for a month. And then they quit. Yeah, it's too much, it's too tiring. Right. So our system, like Dinner Table and our app, trains the parents on how to have this automated, auto repeating gigs, print out every week for the fridge, one click payments, it's all set to teach the kids. so that's why we built it is like, how do we make this super, super easy for families to do?

That's great, man. And how do we raise healthy, conscious, happy, thriving humans without over parenting?

I think modeling what that looks like as an adult is really important. I think allowing them space for mistakes. and grace for mistakes is important. I also think one of the most important things that we can do for our kids is to listen and not always feel like because we have more years, because we have maybe more knowledge that it's always right. And I think we don't give children enough credit for what they know and how they see the world. I mean, they really have natural curiosities that they really should explore when we shut those things down, you know, we shut off opportunities, experiences, and ways of showing up for others. And so I think being very active in listening to our kids who are very different, right? So you need more, if you have more than one kid, there's different ways that you have to show up and being willing to do that.

What would you say then, like the five core rules of parenting today? in our society. If you're like, here are the five principles you should learn as a parent right now.

I would say self-reflection.

Self-reflection is number one. What does that look like?

It means to think about how you're showing up, think about your fears, right, your own anxieties, how they're showing up in your parenting, how I can do things differently, Where do I start? What's the one thing that I can do today? How do I begin to separate my own childhood from my parenting? So I think, and it's a constant, right? The way I showed up yesterday for my kids is not the way I want to show up tomorrow, right? So what do I need to tweak? What do I need to do? I know when I was writing the book, when my kids were home, right? Everybody was home during the pandemic. And they would come to me asking questions and I would be in the middle of a thought and I would- Let me focus.

Stop and start.

And so with that, I'm like, okay, this is not the way I want to show up for my kids every day. And so we devise a system, right? I'm going to put a whiteboard here. You write your question down and the minute I take a break, I'm coming to you with that question so we can answer it. So you don't forget, so you don't think you're not- what you're saying is not important. So finding ways to reflect on the.

Way you show up and- Putting boundaries for yourself also.

Yes.

Absolutely. It's not being available for your kids 24/7 to interrupt you whenever you're doing something important for you.

Absolutely.

But also setting ground rules and boundaries.

Is what it sounds like. And kids need that and they want it.

Structure. Structure. Absolutely.

And okay, so self-reflection. Okay, self-reflection. The other thing I would say is modeling the modeling what you want your kids to do and who you want them to be.

By you being it.

By you being it. Yes, right. We can say all kinds of things, but it's in one ear out the other if you're doing something different. So our actions, how you show up, how are you showing compassion, how are you showing kindness, how are you problem solving, how are you leaning into your own curiosities, and what that looks like for your kids.

Right. So being a leader for yourself.

Yes, exactly. And admitting when things are not going well, letting your kids see you do that too. yeah. So the third thing I would say is showing compassion and kindness to yourself. Right. That's the hardest thing for me.

Really?

I have a hard time. I have a lot of negative self-talk when things don't go well for myself. And I have to. I call it the mean girl inside. Right. I have to shut her down. And sometimes, especially with my daughter, I want. I wanted my daughter to hear how I shut that mean voice down.

What are the things your mean girl says and how do you shut her down?

You're stupid. That's not good enough. You're a terrible mom if I make a mistake, right? Or you shouldn't wear that. Nobody wants to see you in that if you're on stage. Different things like that I have to, you weren't kind to your kids. What kind of mom are you? A lot of that. Or if I'm an empath, so I take on all the work that I do. so when I need to take a break, she will say, how do you get to take a break when people are hurting? Oh, man.

So, yeah.

So I.

That's a mean girl. That's not what I said.

So I have to talk that out loud. So if my kids are having that mean thing going on, too, they get to hear how I do that in my head, but out loud so that they can start doing it.

What are you saying?

So I'll say, okay, self. I hear you saying that I'm not a good mom, right? I know that's not true, right? I didn't make a good choice, but I know I'm a good mom. So I am going to do something or say something that's going to remind youself that that's just one time, one mistake.

One moment and then find you.

Exactly, yes. And so having those conversations out loud or having my kids hear me think through a problem, is really important. And then also allowing them to problem solve because it's faster, it's easier. You love your kids, you want to do these things for them. But I do, I try to show up in a way that I'm not doing it for them, like allowing them to suffer through and work through. Like we were talking about earlier, the messy stuff, in order for them to learn how to do it when there's bigger higher stakes.

Yes.

To be involved.

That's cool.

Okay.

Yeah.

So show compassion to self and others. And then number four.

Number four would be be open to getting help.

Oh, yes. Yeah.

So we can't do it all by ourselves. We're not experts in everything. Surround yourself around a village of people who can help advocate for you and can help you fill in the gaps where you need it. It's very hard, I think, as parents, because we don't like to say we get. We don't know as a parent.

Right.

That's.

That's how hard. But I think surrounding yourself around people who can support you is really important. And again, it teaches your kids to do the same that we need each other, right? We need to ask for help. There are some things we need to do on our own, but there are some things that we need help with. And it's okay to find the right people and to get the help you need.

And I think we pressure ourselves too much or others to be experts at everything in life or to know everything in life when we don't have the time or the energy to be experts at everything. And one of the things that I feel fortunate to have created for myself is I wanted to learn all these things for myself. So I interview people. I have people like yourself on my show. But I don't have the time to make this my life. Every topic that I interview someone on, I don't have the time to dive into Neuroscience. I don't have time to dive into nutrition and dive into money and investing and, you know, I don't have the time to do everything, make it my life's mission. So I try to learn what I can and be like, okay, I'm educating enough and then have access to people that I could call upon if I need some support.

I love that. That's a great example.

Coaching, support, help me in my money, help me in my relationships, my nutrition, my fitness, my spirituality, I call upon people for support.

-I love that.

-I don't try to be the king of every topic, you know?

-Right.

-And I think that's, it makes me feel at peace knowing that I have a community of support that I can call upon when I'm struggling.

-I love that. I love that.

-As opposed to like, I need to know it all, or I'm not gonna call on someone because it's gonna make me look weak.

-Yes.

-Yes.

And that is that fear coming in, right? Of worrying about what other people think about you, I love that you put that in the sense of your podcast, but really that's life too, right?

Yes. Yeah.

We need a good team. We need a good village.

You played sports, did you play?

I played softball, soccer, and ran track.

Yeah.

And for me, I make this analogy as well. I did track and football and basketball. And for me, after sports was done for me, I played arena football for about a year and a half after college. I played with the USA handball team for the last 10 years. But really after I was done playing professionally and transitioned into business, I was like, why would I stop having a coach in my life? When this is what coaches helped me learn the most, gave me discipline and structure, gave me feedback in my sport for that three-month season, they made me better in that sport. Why wouldn't I get coaches in my life? So I have a coach in my relationship. I have a therapist coach for my emotions. I and my thoughts. I have a coach for my investing and my business. I have a coach, I have trainers for my fitness. I have a nutritionist because I want to optimize these things. I didn't have all that when I was broke sleeping on my sister's couch, but I had mentors, I had family support, I had people in my community who were experts. And then as I was able to invest in coaches, I invested in coaches. But I think we should be seeking personal advisors in our life. who are more experts at that thing than us.

Yes.

And there's someone you know who works out consistently or someone who eats better or someone that's got a good relationship that you could find that support with that I think in your life.

Absolutely.

So I'm always, I'm very passionate about coaches in my life and I'm always telling people, please find support, find coaches, mentors, family, friends, whatever it is, you know, whether you're investing in it or not. find someone to help you.

Yeah.

And I think, too, we're seeing, I mean, I was watching something on, I don't know if I heard it on NPR or something, but about, you know, the, the rise in mental health issues, you know, post pandemic.

Right.

And the importance of having somebody to, to have those conversations to talk about. Right. It's so important. I think important. Like you're saying, we know our limits, but if we can surround ourselves around people who can, who know us well enough to know, let me get this out of him. Let me support him with that. And I love the analogy of coaches because that's basically what it is, right? Right.

Yeah.

Absolutely. I mean, you know, LeBron James, after he wins the first championship, doesn't say to himself, you know what? I got this basketball thing figured out. I don't need a coach for next season. I'm going to do this on my own because I'm the greatest. I'm going to go do it on my own. No, he's like, no, how can I surround myself with a better team? How can I find the coach to push me more? Yes. So I can stay great.

And he's got meditation coaches.

Everything.

Yeah, right.

Everything, right? So it's like, why don't we have coaches in our life? I think sometimes we have been conditioned to think it's, if we can't figure it out on our own, then something's wrong with us or something's broken.

I think that's part of our society, right? We create that monster in our society about being stronger, not asking for help, being able to do things on your own. And we need to just kind of bust that myth.

Absolutely. And I'm so glad that therapy is becoming more mainstream and it's talked about more because, you know, I've been going to therapy every two weeks for this whole year and it's been so helpful for me. just even if I don't have a problem or I don't have any challenges in my mind or my emotions, it's just like, what can I keep improving on? How can I get feedback and be a better person? How can I make sure to set myself up for if something happens in the future and just be prepared? It's just powerful to be able to talk and have someone listen to you. And I'm not saying everyone needs to do therapy, you know, but it's like we should have a space where you talk to someone consistently, your friend, your partner in a safe space.

So, I love therapy.

It's powerful.

We don't have enough in the Black community, for sure. Yeah.

Is it acceptable? It's looked down upon.

A few things. One, it's Black generations, right? The medical field and Black people have not been the best of friends, right? There's been a lot of science experiments tried on Blacks, you know, sharecroppers and Tuskegee. he syphilis test, those kinds of things. And a lot of older black people have that in their minds that I'm not letting anybody in my mind. So that's one. The other thing is the religious factor. So black community and Jesus, right? That's a partnership that if you go to therapy, it means I'm not having faith or trusting Jesus to fix it.

Right.

So that's another kind of myth that we're struggling with. And the other thing is financial, right? Therapy is expensive. My therapy, my kids therapy, it's not always covered in insurance. It's out of the pocket, right? And then the last thing, I think it is a lot of therapists are not trained in culturally relevant or responsive therapy. And so there is a anxiety tax, right, that comes along with being Black. And if you go to a therapist who is not acknowledging that or not understanding that level, 'Cause they didn't experience that stress. Exactly, right.

Yeah.

So those are kind of the big--.

You- think the Black community should only work with Black therapists?

I don't. My therapist was not Black. My daughter's therapist is not Black. But you need somebody to know the Black experience in terms of being open to recognize that there's an extra stress or something that comes along with being Black or being open to learn that race is a big part of why we need therapy.

Right.

So, yeah, no, I don't think you have to be black, but I do know there's not enough. I think there's one percent or two percent of the psychologists are black women. So it's one percent. I think it's two percent. I think the statistics were. So I think there needs to be more because a lot of people feel more comfortable with people like them. I mean, just like whether you would go to a woman or a man, like, you know, like when I get a massage, I like, I'd prefer a woman, you know, but it's just my preference. So some people do have preferences, but I think there needs to be more educated therapists that are of color.

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

I'm hopeful that within the last couple of years with all the challenges that the world is seeing that people wouldn't want to go and serve in the mental health space and the emotional health space more now and see like this is an opportunity where I can serve people and be of value and go into that field. So I hope that I hope that happens for people.

Yeah, because there's not enough. We have more patients than we have therapists right now.

Yeah, I know. Okay, that was the, I think you said the fourth thing was be open to getting help. What would you say is the fifth rule of conscious parenting and being a great parent today?

I would say to half fun with your kids, right? The pandemic has shown us that we need to slow down, right? And I reconnect with your children for no reason at all, but just to reconnect. And I think we're so over-scheduled that we don't get a chance to really know our children, to really have fun with them in ways that they find enjoyable, that I think we should just make sure we're taking time spending just quality time.

Just like that.

Electronics.

Yeah, just a couple hours a day where it's like we're not scheduling anything. You're not going to a practice or class or homework. We're just being. You want to play, play. You want to hang out in the backyard, hang out in the backyard.

You want to do nothing? Yes.

Cool. To be open to just think and do that.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Why do you think we overschedule so much as parents? I think we think we know what's best for our kids, right? Again, we're trying to close the gaps between our own childhoods, right? We want to live our lives through them. I see that a lot. And you know that.

Of course, these parents are crazy. Screaming at the refs.

Oh, it's so bad.

The 18 year old ref is just like, I'm making 10 bucks an hour just showing up again, screaming up by all these parents.

Yeah, it's crazy.

Yeah.

And I think we are living through our kids too much in ways that it's causing harm.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, part of it is we're trying to find out what they're good at, but then some of it is just really the extra stress on our children is way more enormous than we ever thought.

If a parent today was only able to teach three things to their children, hypothetical scenario, what would you say are the three most important things they could teach their kids?

Kindness, compassion, and I would say what I call radical love. and that's like this all encompassing love that really thinks about others, sees perspectives, and that you're willing to do stuff for other people without anything in return.

Is radical love include loving someone when they do wrong by you?

When they're unlovable, right?

Really?

Yes.

When they hurt you, when they do wrong by you?

It doesn't mean you have to Right. Be friends with them, but it's showing them human love, right? It's showing them that, you know, in spite of your lack, right? I can love you from afar, but I'm not going to allow that to cloud the way that I can, spread joy in the world.

Yes.

Um, and I think too, it's loving even when it's hard, right? Finding a way to love even when it's hard.

Wow.

Yeah.

What's been the thing for you as a parent that's been the hardest for you to forgive?

I think for me, it's not, and we talked about this earlier, it makes me want to cry, not seeing when my kids didn't feel like they belong, all right, not recognizing that early.

In the family or in life?

In life, that they didn't find us, couldn't find a space, that there was something that I could have done differently and shown up differently to help them to navigate that. and I feel still hurt by that, you know, that I didn't get that right.

Really?

Yeah.

What do you mean you didn't get right, though?

I just feel like if this is my life's work, you're gonna make me cry. If this is my life's work, how did I not recognize that in my own home? Like, how did I not see, particularly my daughter, where she was struggling with all assistant this stuff is not who you are. This is extra, but it does not define you.

You mean the activities, the sports, the.

Opportunities, the music, the soccer, the you have to do this, you have to take that class, you know, that is not why I love you. And that does not define my love for you in any way. You could do nothing. And my radical love would be my radical love.

Right.

And I don't think I gave her that message enough for her to feel like she had to perform all these things at a high level. So if I could go back, I would tell myself to plug in more with her and to make sure she recognized that what she does and who she is is different. Or separated.

Yeah.

Well, what do you see yourself now, though, about it? Since you can't go back.

Yes, I have forgiven myself for that, but it is always conscious in my mind of how I show up now. So it's taught me to check in with my kids more. It's taught me to say, okay, you're gonna finish the season because we started the season after this season. If you decide when it's time to sign up next season and you're done with this, you're done with this. Right. You know, you know, we finish what we start, but we can renegotiate, so. I do more renegotiating with my children. You know, like you say, there's still structure. There's still things that I expect from my kids in terms of their, the way they show up in the home. But I am very much more mindful of letting my kids know that they're not defined by the things that, the opportunities that they get.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode, and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode. in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you, and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I wanna remind you, if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.

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