Learning How to Grow Up When You're The Parent

Welcome to becoming Wiser with Dr. Robert A. Rome. For more information or products by Dr. Rome, please visit personalityinsights.com use coupon code podcast10 to receive 10% off eligible products and personality assessments. Thank you for joining us today. And now, Dr. Robert A. Rome.

What if you knew for sure that the person or the situation that you're going through right now that perhaps is causing you one of the biggest challenges of your whole life was going to turn into the biggest blessing and give you the opportunity to help many, many people all around the world? Well, guess what? That's exactly what happened to me and what I'm going to be sharing with you on this week's podcast. Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert.

A. Rome, author and world renowned public speaker. As he shares stories and involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good, spirited, positive and fun way.

Here's Dr. Robert A. Rohm. Hi, I'm Dr. Robert Rome. Welcome to this week's podcast. I have a super duper special guest that I'm going to be introducing to you in just a second. This thrills my life because I guess I've waited my whole life for this particular podcast. Today I'm going to be welcoming as our guest and interviewing my oldest daughter, Rachel. Many of you have heard Rachel's stories. She was my first child. She was my first daughter. And I just remember July 31, 1973 like it was yesterday and she was born and I held this little thing in my arms and looked at her and I mean, something happened to me and I've never been the same. It's just something about children that change all of our lives. Someone has wisely noted you can go to the hospital and everybody at the hospital is upset and sad except, except on the maternity floor and they're all laughing and carrying on and pointing to a child saying, that's mine. Well, that's how I felt when Rachel was born and I'm so happy she's on our podcast. Today we're going to be sharing a little bit about our struggle together in the past and how we overcame that, how it turned into a real blessing and actually an opportunity on six different continents to help a lot of people. Rachel, welcome to the podcast today.

Thank you. Good to be here.

All right, so tell me, what is it like being Rachel.

Better now that I know and understand myself.

A lot better? It's. It's interesting understanding this information and having interacted with this information for decades now, it, it still astonishes me that how I'm wired How I was wired at 12 and how I'm wired to this day. Actually, last week I took a profile and my graph two, which is the one that consistently stays the same throughout our lives. It is the same. It's almost exactly the plotting points where. Where my D falls, which is super high, where my C falls, which is just above the midline, where my I and my S down below the midline and even further below. Areas that I've gotten to work on, very challenging. And I'm very thankful that I have been able to be aware and work on these areas. But the things that are my strengths are that's how I'm layered and I can't imagine not knowing this. I'm super thankful that you, dad were interested enough in trying to figure out and understand me, to get along with me and help me. But ultimately this information has helped both of us.

Yeah, that's very, very true. For those of you that are watching, and if you're not watching, it's okay, you can be listening to this. This was Rachel's graph. This was the graph I first saw, first one I ever saw in 1985. And if you're watching this, you can see her D is very high and her C is above the midline. That's why she was a dominant, cautious style personality with her I and her S below the midline. And the purpose of this podcast is not so much to, you know, explain graph reading to you, is to let you know that we all are genuinely wired a certain way. And a friend of mine who showed me this graph, he gave the Rachel the assessment. And I'll never forget, he said to me, wow, she's a real high D. And I had never heard that before. I said, what do you mean? He said, you know, dogmatic, domineering, driving, demanding, determined, decisive, dictatorial, defiant, a doer. He started naming off all the D words. And I said, yeah, how'd you know? And he said, well, that's how she scored. And he said, do you ever have any trouble with her at bedtime? And Rachel, do you remember this? He I said, he, I used to say to Rachel, rachel, you need to be in bed by 10 o'. Clock. And this look would come over her that was like, why are you telling me that? You know? And so I told my friend, I said, I tell Rachel, you need to be in bed by 10 o'.

Clock.

He would look at me and go, that's what you say to her? And I said, yeah, she's 12 years old. She needs to go to Bed. He said, robert, when you say to a D, you may. You may say, you need to be in bed by 10 o'. Clock. But that's not what she hears. What she hears is, do you want to fight? And I never will forget thinking to myself, that's the oddest thing I've ever heard. And so he coached me for about two hours on how to talk to Rachel. I hope you're listening to this. Here's a. Here's a girl that I had been living with my daughter for 12 years and a friend of mine who had been with her about 12 minutes. And he understood her better than I did. So the next night, after two hours of coaching, you remember what I said, Rachel? I said, hey, Tiger. That's been her nickname her whole life. I said, hey, Tiger, you can go to bed tonight, anytime you want to. You're in charge. You're the boss. I'm turning it over to you. You make this happen any way you want to. And the next night at 10 o', clock, tell everybody what happened, what was going through your mind.

So you said that 10 o' clock was the limit. And I mean.

Just saying it different, just, just realizing, okay, that's the limit. That's the limit that gave me. What you didn't know is what I did with the choice that you gave me to make 10 o' clock the limit. So you said, 10 o' clock is the limit. And I was in my room and I had a daybed. And the daybed had a corner right, you know, kind of above my head. And it had a ceiling fan which had the light on it. And so I thought, all right, 10 o' clock's the limit. I don't want to turn that light off before 10 o', clock, but I'll turn it off at 10 o', clock, but I don't want to turn it off until 10 o'. Clock. So I tied a string for. I didn't have a lamp right there by my bed. So I tied a string from the light, the cord, the pull cord light to the little corner of that day bed. And I. I made sure it was just right so that I could, you know, it was, it was tight enough to where when I pulled it. And right at 10 o', clock.

I put my arm down and the light went out. I put my arm down on that string. Anyway, click. And the light was off.

I didn't know he was standing on the other side of the door. And dad, you can say what happened on your end.

I was shocked because two things happened that night. One, we went to bed peacefully because up until then it had been a war. It seemed like every night because no matter how I told you to go to bed, you didn't want to. And. But then that night, what was happening? The second thing was, it was the first time I had ever consciously and deliberately worked with you according to your personality instead of according to my personality. See, I didn't understand these. This is 1985. Oh my gosh. This is, you know, a long time ago, almost 40 years now. I could not understand that these like, control Ds like to be in charge of things. These like to have a, a purpose. They're on a mission about everything. And so when I was saying to you and my friend was again, he was trying his best to help me understand you because he had been doing this longer than I had. He said, robert, you got to give these choices challenge and control. When you just tell them to do stuff, it doesn't work very well. But when they begin to have a sense of ownership or control, then they go into a whole different mode. That's why there's some of the most successful people in the world. And I know, you know, in what you do in life and business, you and your husband Tim are very successful. And. But, you know, you and I have been talking about this. I think one story I would like to hear you say, since you're the special guest today. When we lived in Dallas, Texas, and I was going to graduate school on Wednesday, you would be in, I never will forget, you would be in school. You're going to First Baptist Academy, and I would drop you off early in the morning and before, you know, you'd go to, to childcare before school started. And then afterwards, you stay that afternoon because we had church services on Wednesday night. So you were there from like 7 in the morning till 8 at night. And so you got pretty bored. What did you do to find yourself something to do?

Well, I'll never forget this. So it was about, you know, 12, 13, 14. And I know that these are the age between 12 and I know some autonomy and the independence for some kids start at 16, maybe 17 a little bit. I, I felt like I needed it.

If I could put it into words a little bit earlier than that, like I needed choices. The problem is when you're 12, 13, 14, 15, you don't know a lot. You don't know how to do a lot. You are not experienced. And it's, it's really hard to be in a position of authority when you don't know anything. However, I was so bored. I was so bored. And so I remember going to. So after being there week after week and seeing I'm just stuck here, I'm stuck here, I'm going to be here. And I hated just.

Sitting around and not doing anything. And so we would eat dinner. The, the, it was called Coleman Hole and it would open at 5:30 and from 5:30 until 7 the dinner was served.

And I went to the guy who ran Coleman Hole and I said, is there anything that I can do? Anything, I mean, I'm, I'm here, I'm not doing anything. And he said, well I said, you don't even have to pay me. Just is there anything you can get me to do? And he said, how about this? I'll put you on the yogurt machine, the frozen yogurt machine. And I said, great. So I don't remember who. I think it was a different person each time that I would work with, but I was there and I was committed. I mean it was fun. He told me the limit on how high to make the yogurts. It was like the frozen yogurts with a cone. And so again, the limits for a D. It really helps me to know the limits. He told me the how high to make it. He said just be here from 5:15, 5:20 on. And so I was there for the first couple of weeks Every, every Wednesday night. The first couple of weeks. The frozen yogurt machine stopped working about 45 minutes into the, into the dinner. And I wasn't in charge. So I just kind of watched what happened. Well, the person, whoever it was, would go get Jim and then it's the man who was in charge. And he would go to the back and he would get this big container which was in a plastic, thick plastic that had a hole at the top where you could screw the lid off up for of the yogurt that would be frozen. And he would go get it and he come out and open it and you could see it down into the machine that it was, there was nothing left in there. And so he'd get the bag and he'd pour it in. And I watched this for about three weeks. And after the third week I realized it's running out. Why don't we add some before it runs out and keep it going? Because once it ran out, it was so hard to get it going again. So on about week four, I went to him and said, would it be okay if I just added some? I won't pour the Whole bag in. But if I could just carefully open it, now that I've watched you open it and pour the whole thing in, if I could just carefully open it and then pour about half of the bag in and then close it back, put it back in those in the refrigerator, would that be okay? And he said.

Sure. I don't know how it could hurt.

That never happened again. It never. We Never were stopped 45 minutes into the evening again. And I felt so happy because I solved a problem. And it really wasn't a problem problem, but it was something where people. It was a frustrating situation that week after week after week was happening. And I able to contribute and I was able to see, here's what we can do, this is a solution, and determine this could possibly work. And then a very important thing is being under control and saying, would it be okay if I. And then if he had said no, it would have been. I would have had to stay under control. But it's, it's, it was really, it was empowering to me to be able to contribute, to be in charge of something and to do it well, to fix it, to make it better.

That's such a great story. You know, I hope everyone who's listening today not only hears that story, but they hear all the little nuances. Ds like to be in charge of something. Ds like results. Ds like, if something's going wrong, fix it. Quit whining, complaining, sucking your thumb, moaning and groaning. Come up with a solution. I honestly believe the wealthiest people and some of the most successful people on this planet are people who have a lot of D in their personality. I've jokingly said, you know how the earth rotates on its axis? Well, that's energy from Ds making it rotate. Now, of course, I know scientifically that's not true, but I recognize, I hope you heard in Rachel's comments that she was bored, she wanted something to do. She asked someone if she could be in charge of something. They turned it over to her. She made it happen, she fixed it, and they never had that problem again. And I can still remember, Rachel, you being in Coleman Hall. I think you wore a little apron or a hat or something. I can't remember what all you were wearing, but you had something that you were. You were known as the yogurt girl. And you would do that every week. That was. Those were.

So let me ask you this here is. As we start to wind this up, we're not trying to. We probably seriously could do a weekly podcast, just the two of us on all the things we've gone through together. Your teenage years were tough on me. I did not understand what I shared on last week's podcast. If you're listening this, last week's podcast was called it's becoming wiser podcast.com 069 it was our 69th podcast, but again, becomingwiserpodcast.com 069 hey, Rachel, I don't think it was a mistake. You were with me when I made that podcast broadcast last week. You heard every word of it. And in that, I talked about how during the teenage years, the child starts breaking away from being a child and becoming an adult. Yet, as you have wisely stated, you can't turn over all the responsibilities of being an adult, the house note, the car note, insurance, taxes, utilities, and 101 other things to a child. Yet you can't treat them like a child anymore because they're looking for something to do. Share a little bit about maybe your feelings and angst during that blackout period or during the time we sort of got disconnected.

I think that the frustration for somebody who's a kid, I mean, I Ds being 10% of the population.

I, I don't know if it's understood sometimes the frustration within me that I felt growing up as what I learned to be was a high D female. I remember you saying that I was harder to raise than my three sisters combined. And I thought, well, I didn't want to be. I wasn't trying to be. And I knew you didn't say that negatively. It was just, there was a, there was something more. There was something about me that was more difficult. And me with me, I can, I have experienced.

I, I don't want to be my own worst enemy. I want to be on my own team. Sometimes I don't like being told what to do. And when you're a kid, that's going to happen a lot. But what is awesome is if you realize as a kid, God wired you this way. And one day, if you can get yourself under control, one day you're going to have a lot of options, a lot of choices. But you have to, you have to keep yourself in a place where you realize, I'm not there yet. I'm going to be there one day, but I'm not there yet. And until you understand your personality or your, your, the person who is the adult in your life helps you or understands that part for you as an adult with a child.

It'S, it's not anything. Then the only way to describe it is just pure frustration. So I love the fact that I began to understand because I didn't want to be difficult. I liked being put in charge of things. I remembered that I was able to at 15.

Very soon after that whole Coleman hall experience, I checked into would it be okay if I worked? And I remember right at 15, 16, getting a job at Chick Fil A. And I loved it. I loved it. I think Ds need a little bit more.

Control. I guess that's the best way to put it. And I know that if there's a parent who has a lot of D, this is a challenge because me as a grown, grown up, when I'm around any kids that are high Ds, I appreciate what's going to happen because I realize, here's the good about this kid. When this kid is challenged and when they make up their mind, nobody will be able to change their mind. And when that's a positive thing and when that's a good thing and when that's a bad, a healthy choice, I mean you, that's it. Nobody's going to change my mind. So you want to steer them and you want to guide them. I was bowling last week and I saw this little girl and she was bowling with those bumpers up. And I think if parents can put those bumpers up and help guide the kid doesn't want help the kid make choices. The kid needs control of something. That's the way God wired us.

Help them aim towards something. And otherwise it's going to be this fight between the two of you or just heart, you know, you're heartbroken on why. Why won't they be kind or sweet or. I like being sweet.

Sometimes I have to be determined to be sweet.

I never will forget I shared one night. Of course, I've shared our story all over the world of six different continents. And it never fails. People come up to me afterwards and they say, I have a Rachel. And you know, we all have a Rachel. It may be our daughter, it may be our wife, it may be, you know, our mom or dad, brother, sister, somebody we work with. I have a Rachel, meaning I have somebody in my life I'm having a hard time getting along with. And I'm glad that we learned this information so we could share it. I don't think you ever sat down in your life and said, today I'm going to be difficult. I take full responsibility for not knowing how to raise you. But listen, parenting comes with no instructions. Marriage comes with no instructions. Life comes with no instructions. And this thing is difficult. We have to kind of figure it out. And I remember thinking to myself on many occasions that this is just so hard. And I have made the statement, you're exactly right, that you are more difficult than your three sisters combined. But your three sisters are two eyes and an S in there. You know, much more people oriented and much more congenial to fun and activity and excitement. You're more focused on tasks and results and making things happen and being in charge. So I'm just so glad that in time it took some time for us to develop the fact of me understanding you. I mean, I'm telling you, I was on my knees in my bedroom praying, saying, God, there's something so wrong with Rachel. It would have been a big pill for me to swallow if God had said, she's not the problem, you are. But if you can learn how to work with her, I'm gonna take you around the world and let you share this message of hope and understanding with other families, with businesses, with, with other teams so they'll be able to have better relationships. So it's been an exciting journey. I don't think it's over yet. We just got through being together for a week and I remember when we couldn't stand being together for five minutes, but we just spent a week together and enjoyed the whole time. If you were, had one more opportunity to share with our audience today and you were wanted to give them a little hope and direction. Let's, let's talk maybe to those parents who have maybe almost given up hope, who've almost said my child's hopeless or I, I don't, I've tried everything. I know nothing works that, that sort of thing. What would you say to them?

It is not hopeless but you need tools and the understanding yourself and then understanding your, your child, teenager, any, any other relationship is the best way to, to find that lifeline of hope. We're not our personalities again like we were talking about the very beginning. The way that we're wired is not going to change. And I think when people are the 10% of the population, the very, very, very high Ds.

It'S interesting to me because as a D now and I want to be under control and under control D, I know when I'm interacting with a D. And so parents, if you've got these kids, you're going to, you're going to start to think, wait a minute, maybe they're not just difficult, maybe they're wired different. Maybe God has put something in Them that I need to understand a little bit better and then help guide, like the bumper pads up on the bowling alley where you help them, help them get on track. So the personality information really does help.

They're going to grow up and they're going to become adults, and they're still going to be wired the way that God wired them.

Instead of it being a frustrating thing, it can be something that they understand and that you understand, and it can be a blessing and not something that is frustrating and hard.

Recently I went. I was at the grocery store, and there's a lady at the grocery store who, when she's there, I look for her because she's a very high.

Don't know that she knows it, but I know it. And I look for her because I know if I get her in her line, I'm going to get out of there quick. And so I was in her line and I had gotten some soup in a container and I. I had to put it in two containers and the lid didn't fit. And so the guy wrapped it up for me and she started kind of unwrapping it. And I said, oh, are you going to have to take that whole thing apart? And she said, I'm good at my job.

And I thought, okay.

I'm not mad at her right this second, but I know she's good at her job. And I said, you want to know what? I know that about you. And I actually look for you when I come here because I know if I get in your line, you're going to get me in and out of here as quickly and efficiently as possible. And she stopped and looked at me and said, you look for me? I said, heck, yeah, I look for you. I said, you're amazing. And it made me feel. She said, well, I didn't know that. And it made me feel happy to be able to interact with her like that and give her a little bit of credit and just to kind of help her a little bit. But I thought, gosh, does she even know how she's wired? Does she know that it's okay, it's okay for her to be good at her job. It's okay for her to take pride in what she's doing. God wired her this way. And so I think between parents, kids, knowing kids are going to grow up, get them some tools, get some tools yourself, do what you need to do to start understanding and not just take a profile, but understand what these graphs mean. Understand what being a high D and talking to a high D. I am A high D. And my I is very low and my S is very low. So guess what I've been working on. I've been working on being fun, and I've been working on being sweet. And my C isn't super high, but my C is. It, you know, it's a little bit more of a strength than a weakness. So I go and I work on the things in my life that I need to work on because I know I'm wired super strong in this particular area, but I want to be sweet and I want to be fun. I'm not going to be as fun as a high. I probably, but. No, definitely. But I. I do think we all have areas to work on in our lives. And I think if you get some awareness and some understanding, how could that hurt? How could that hurt anything? It's only going to make things better.

Wow, that's well said. Thank you so much. I. I have this saying that many people have heard before. You can't beware of something until you are first aware of something. And awareness does create a lot of help for a lot of people. Rachel, thank you for being our guest today. I want to make. I'm going to put you on the spot. Would you make a promise you'll come back and be a guest again sometime?

Yes, I'd be all right.

Thank you. Folks, let me just. If you are close to giving up or feeling like you're in a power struggle with somebody in your life, don't give up. There's hope. I never thought Rachel and I would ever even speak to each other. We. I didn't want to take the low road and talk about all of the challenges that we had together, but it wasn't nice all the time. It was very difficult. But I'm just grateful. I mean, you can tell today we not only love each other as father and daughter, but we like each other as friends. And this is possible for you. Please let me encourage you, if you have not yet done so, take a personality profile assessment. You take one on yourself, have one on your child. You're able to show. We give you some help online of how to interact with different personality styles that are different from yourself, how to understand their need, their needs and communication. There is a solution. I believe there's a solution to every problem in the world if we'll just take time to have an attitude of, I don't want to be right. I just want to get this right. And when you learn how to get things right, it's just like heaven on earth. So we have a special. You can click on it and see where we've got something very, very special for you. If you'd like to do the assessments, these are for two people, not just one. So you can learn how to interact. Don't ever say to somebody, I want you to take an assessment so I can find out what's wrong with you. Our assessments aren't designed that way. They're designed to find out what's right with you. But I would always say, I've got an assessment, I'm going to take one. I've got one for you if you'd like one. I don't think I'm working with you correctly. Maybe if I took this, it'll help me to do a better job. Always point the finger at yourself. Find out how you can do better and you'll always be the winner for it. I'm Dr. Robert Rome, President, Personality Insights. Go to our website, personalityinsights.com and check us out. We would love to help you and we have solutions that can make your life better, your family life healthier, and your business and financial life more successful. I look forward to our next time together. Thanks so much. God bless you.

Bye.

Bye. For more information about this podcast, please visit www.becoming wiserpodcast.com.