Kids (And Employees) Know More Than You Think with Dr. Becky Kennedy | A Bit of Optimism Podcast

someone feels your intention more than they feel your intervention intention is am my intention right now to teach and make better or is my intention to vomit my own frustration onto my child as a form of catharsis which is usually what we do feels so good though feels so good no it feels we do we do it work all the time we do all so good so good so good um it's therapy unto itself if you have kids then you probably already know Dr Becky in fact you may have used her app when your kid

was having a meltdown she's the author of good inside the name of her app also but more important she is an absolute genius at understanding human beings both the little ones and the big ones yes she talks about parenting and yes we talked about how to be a better parent but my goodness the amount that I got out of this conversation about how I can be a better leader absolutely invaluable this is a bit of optimism I live in Los Angeles we're recording in Los Angeles uh we've had these fires families have been traumatized when

something happens to a family and it's hard enough for the parents to deal with what they're going through what are we supposed to say to Children First of all when unimaginable horrible things happen there's no perfect approach and there's no perfect words and so I just always want to tell parents that like what's the right thing to say there's no right words for a situ ituation that's wrong ever so let's just get that out the window the principle that always drives me cuz I tend to be driven by first principles and anything I think about

is that information doesn't scare kids as much as a lack of information scares kids because kids are expert perceivers of the world even more than we are because their evolution their survival depends on it kids are so dependent on adults for survival right we all need food shelter water but me and you Simon we can get food shelter and water kids get food shelter water love from their parent and so they have to be especially attuned to what's going on did my environment change where is my parent might I need my parent now for survival

and so when they're in a situation where they have black smoke around them packed bags ready to go a parent crying on the phone fire evacuation person's house burned down and then the parent goes off the phone and says sweetie no nothing's wrong let's watch that show together a kid panics they act out they cling and my you know then my apparent thinks why are they clinging right so noticing things that are off and not having a narrative to understand them is terrifying for a kid and so just to start this what would a parent

start by saying is you'd probably start by saying to a kid hey you're noticing blanking and then this is really one of my favorite lines to build true confidence just you're right to notice that things have changed let me tell you what's going on it might be there's a fire the smoke from the fire blue here the fire's not here we're safe we might have to leave our home that's why we have a bag my number one job is to keep you safe and I take that seriously and I'm paying very close attention it might

be we're about to leave our home I'm going to tell you what I know and I'm going to tell you what I don't know and more than anything I know we're going to get through this together you know I can't help it it's like as you're talking I'm running everything through the filter of my own work and you know one of my favorite books to recommend to businesses and leaders for how to be a good listeners how to talk to kids so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk which is a age-old parenting

book because it's basically the same validate people's emotions and all the rest of it right and as you're giving this parenting advice that's very topical to now I can't help but run it through the leadership filter is it's the exact same thing we do with any human being which is they're not idiots they're aware of things changing they're aware of tensions amongst the executives and we put on smiley faces because we think that if we're happy then they'll be happy we hide stress we hide tension we hide all these things as opposed to just telling

people and even saying I don't know what's going to happen yes people can deal with good news and people can deal with bad news it's uncertainty that the insanity and the going down the rabbit holes and the and the looping starts and and it also disallow for questions right because if you give me information even if it's bad news I can ask a question if you give me nothing and you lie to me and you hide from me it leaves me even in a worse State and so what I find so fascinating is everything you're

saying is is true for adults too is probably just more exaggerated for for kids I mean I don't think good inside is a parenting approach it's a leadership approach leaders what I say to parents what parents say especially ones who are really in our system for a while is we help parents become sturdy leaders that's the phrase sturdy leadership it's why I think I'm actually asked often your good inside book was recommended in my management consulting slack groups are you a Management Consultant and I used to say no and now I say I am it's

just the system I tend to operate in is a family system but being the leader of a family system is also about setting up the conditions for success and that has to do with setting boundaries having a kind of sense of your own authority as a leader and staying connected seeing the good ins side people and thinking about how to bring it out and whether you have children or employees or athletes on your team it's all the same stuff you when somebody ask you are you a Management Consultant and if by Management Consultant you mean

do I give advice to people to take better care of those in their span of care then the answer is yes 100% yeah uh because that's what good leadership is it's being responsible for for those around you it's ensuring that those around you will rise build confidence all of these things it's all exactly the same thing that's right and when it goes back to the information you know two things happen when people notice things in their environment en and they're not given a story to understand they either make up a story themselves and almost always

that story is that it's their fault and that goes back to our childhood good segue here okay which is styles of parenting have changed over time like styles of leadership have changed with the times and you know when you and I were kids and we got in trouble our parents said what did you do this time and these days it seems when kids get in trouble it's the the parents say what's wrong with your teacher I I get a kick out of the criticisms older Generations had of of younger Generations like damn this generation we're

like wait wait wait wait wait how are they raised is always the question I want to ask which is is it is it is it the people we have a problem with or is it the parents we have a problem with I don't know if I'm the best cultural Anthropologist of parenting so I'm going to answer a version of the question because what I think you're getting at is I think a lot of my friends the way we were raised was kind of you did something wrong it was like go to your room what's wrong

with you right and so in a way what you're saying is the blame is in the child and now what you're saying is the blame is in someone else right I it actually I always go back to something my son said so astutely where my husband was mad at him because he like left the door open when we were backing out our car and it kind of you know scraped on the garage and my son ended up yelling back to my husband like it's not my fault and my husband goes so it's my fault and

then my son said something that I think is so profound and actually to me epitomizes what our approaches and parent he goes dad sometimes bad things happen and it's nobody's fault and I I honestly think the obsession with fault is like a really interesting thing okay is it my kids's fault is it the teacher fault what is that a useful framework it's I actually would say it's not a useful framework so I think we've gone from go to your room to what you're noticing now I don't think it's every parent but it's kind of shifted

from I don't care about my kids feelings nobody cares about feelings they had a bad behavior fix your behavior if I look back on that I don't know how people thought people were fixing their behaviors but there was a lot of focus on just that's not okay go to your room and learn how to do it better and now there's this think about it right I always think about a kid being like you can't swim go to your room think about how to swim and come back when you know how to swim yeah not very

effective but we've done that for Generations but now there's a little bit of my kids feelings not only matter but like dick what I should do as a parent that's equally dangerous and that is definitely not a good inside approved approach the way I see it is neither okay where like at good inside like this approach we have to leadership and to Parenting really comes from two kind of first principles number one kids are born good inside like I really believe there's not a baby who's born saying like oh I'm going to wake up my

parents tonight I'm going to like f them over like I hate my parents no they're born good inside and the other Inconvenient Truth is that they're born with all the feelings and none of the skills and to me that visual Gap explains basically 100% of children's bad behavior and if you think about it from that perspective or you think about your own kid or any kid you know who acts out oh my goodness they're born with all the feelings I have with all the intensity and they're born with no skills to manage those feelings and

at any point in life feelings without skills manifest as bad behavior the reason people yell at a waiter or yell at a partner is because I don't know they're angry they're disappointed High feelings and they don't have the skills to regulate low skills and then for Generations what we did with that Gap is we sent kids away almost like the feelings were the problem the feelings have never been the problem the lack of skills is the problem it's nobody's fault that kids don't have skills it's not the parents fault it's not the kids fault it's

just true that's how they come out of the package they come so you have to program why don't we teach them the skills because if you think about feelings without skills you can't bring down the feelings you can't get rid of the feelings but if you level up the skills that changes Behavior today and puts kids with the ultimate privilege in adulthood which is having skills to manage the entire range of feelings you will always feel for the rest of your life you're not just teaching people how to parent you're teaching people how to be

people you're teaching you're teaching human skills and and I I I always make the joke like you know cats don't have to work very hard to be cats there's are naturally good at it but it takes an unbelievable amount of work to be a good human being so there's two skill gaps right which is my kids have feelings and no skills and I'm supposed to teach them the skills that I don't have that's right and so I have a broken partnership with the person who's who you know uh if we're raising the kids together I

have an inability to communicate or listen and now I'm supposed to teach skills that I don't have to a child who doesn't have them it's whammy that is my sweet spot I think what happens when you become a parent and no one wants to say this because it's like daunting is everything unhealed about your childhood just gets triggered over and over with your children like we think our children are going to heal us and they trigger us over and over and we have this choice I can either allow that generational kind of wound or trauma

whatever you want to call it to then just be passed on generation to generation or I can use this opportunity not only to give something different to my kids but actually to like heal myself and be the sturdiest most confident version of me and when you do that at the same time it's it's like addicting it's amazing and it's hard work let's take the the question of the the the kid with the door and let's just change it slightly sure right you let the door you left the door open and the dog got out okay

right so you were told to close the door we always close the door everybody knows to close the door you were the last person out you didn't close the door and a kid says well sometimes bad bad things just happened and it's nobody's fault what is the right thing to say when they should have actually closed the door and they shed a responsibility right I just think fault it's actually powerful to be I don't know if it's a useful framework for anything fault is inherently shameful shame makes people freeze freeze is anti-ar seems ineffective okay

so first of all someone feels your intention more than they feel your intervention so I know you didn't mean to leave the door open so intention is in my intention right now to teach and make better or is my intention to oh the intention of the parent okay vomit my own frustration onto my child as a form of catharsis which is usually what we do feels so good though feels so good no it feels we do it we do it at work all the time so good so good so good so good um it's therapy

unto itself somewh okay so my kid left the door open dog got out here's how again I don't know if I would actually do this but what I would want to do situation in the ideal in the ideal yeah yeah okay so let say my son is Sam hey Sam look the door was open look you and I both know that whoever's around the door it's they're job to close the door right so I think that's an important starting point don't try to catch your kid do you know it's your job don't ask your don't

ever ask whoever it's everybody's job right yeah just don't ask a question you know the answer to it's like a horrible experience on the other end all the time never do that we both know that I I know you were the last one at the door it was open let's figure this out look I think the most important thing is figuring out how you can remember more often to close the door so okay what would you need to remember now my kid's going to be like I don't know I'll just remember look I'm not satisfied

with that and it's not because I don't trust you I know you want to remember the truth is I forget things all the time too it's just what people do I wonder if there's anything and this is where I'm going to lead my kid to the well I wonder if there's anything someone could do like my kid says nothing like is there like do they like has anyone invented like a piece of paper with like a like a sticky thing that like one could like put near in my sense be like oh a post what

a oh my goodness what would you do with the post it oh I could probably write closed Sam genius genius okay and this is what my son would do so could you write that for me no sweetie you know why I'm not going to do that for you cuz the rest of your life you're going to be in situations not about a door but with some situation where something goes wrong and you're going to have to think about what to do to improve the next time M and I'm not going to take away something from

you that's going to really help later which is the process of actually doing the thing yourself because it's actually going to feel really good to you not like fun good but no I'm going to expect that and just to be clear and this is if I had to say this I'm going to expect that by 800 p.m. and I just want to be clear with you about that because I really want to set you up for success and you know why most people don't do that as parents and definitely don't do that in leadership is

because it takes time but it doesn't I actually have to jump in this it takes time it takes it does it takes time and it takes patience no you have to set that all up you have to learn how to say it you have to wait for No we have to learn no no no no I I agree with you but I just know in my experience in leadership most people will not do the work that I talk about or write about so here's a great example because it takes time it takes energy takes effort

sure I remember I was giving a talk to a bunch of senior Executives at some company whatever it was and they were going through really hard times and I was talking about leadership and taking care of people and making them feel safe and blah blah blah blah blah right and one of the executives literally this happened he raises his hand and goes I can't do anything that you're talking about you have to understand Simon the pressure that we're under I don't have time for the stuff you're talking about and my response was I hear you

don't have time I got it I understand the the stresses and the pressures are great my question is what were you doing in the good times like how come you weren't making building those those environments in the good just my question is what were you doing in the good times but it goes back to the point where people feel pressure and they don't feel like they have the time and it's the same reason people micromanage is because for you to for me to let you try it and screw it up and then I have to

give you feedback and still not great and then I have to let you do it again and maybe by the seventh time it'll be good just do it myself it's because you have to have patience in time yeah I guess the way what I would say parents say this to me all the time too I don't have time to learn these things I say look I have no idea about your schedule and your time and I'm not going to lecture you about how you spend the time the things you value not my style but here's

what I know we either spend time preparing or reacting and if we're used to spending time reacting we don't quantify it as time because it's just our default and all I know from parents is it actually takes a ton of time to yell at your kid to watch something go wrong all the time and it takes a lot of time to fall asleep at night when you're feeling really guil to your spouse instead of watching TV you're just used to it so you don't mentally account for it that's good so that's that's so so so

I'll amend they don't want to spend the time before it's just new but they're happy to spend the time after it's just anything that's new anything that's new feels uncomfortable and we always misinterpret discomfort as a sign of something wrong when it's a sign of something new so I would say the person you're right it will be a new way to spend time and it will mentally feel longer because anything in that new circuit does because it's unfamiliar I want to change the subject so you and I have something a little bit in common uh

which is both of us have careers that kind of happened by accident you know we were both kind of doing our thing and then something happened and now we're doing something different yes you know and um neither of us saw it expected it planned for it had any idea it was going to happen uh it wasn't in any plan uh and just for those who don't know uh you had zero minimal social media presence I think when you started would you probably had like everybody else like 50 followers your friends yeah and then something happened

you put out a statement it went viral and all of a sudden you're the you're it there's so many things before that that feel like really pivotal parts to that it takes a long time to become an overnight success I just I i' had been having all these ideas because in my private practice just to give a little backstory what I was doing just a couple days a week in private practice I was seeing adults for therapy like you me therapy I was doing couples therapy individual therapy and I was seeing teens and then in

other sessions I was seeing parents of younger children for parenting work and what started to strike me and it just started to get louder and louder in me and felt so wrong was oh my goodness I know the way I'm working with adults and teens and couples is like right and I know it's right because it's this mix of different things and I'm just watching them change their lives right but then I have this next session with parents and what I hear myself saying to them based on the training that I thought was right is

from a first principal perspective the complete opposite of I would never have an adult like if you came to me and said I did this bad thing I would never take your phone I would never shame you I would never punish you you never come back to me as a therapist I said okay that's not great let's figure it out right I'd give you some experiments I'd give you practice but I was talking about timeouts punishment sticker charts that's what I was trained to do and I heard myself saying it and the the juxa position

from one session to another it it it just it just exploded out and I ended up saying to a couple I was like I don't believe what I'm telling you I'm sorry this is so awkward but I need I need a couple days to figure out this whole parenting thing did you have kids at the time I had kids at the time I think that was part of it because once it wasn't just learning in a vacuum about like time out and yes and so linear so everything you got from a book yeah and from

actually a very esteemed extra training institution and parenting the one that was considered gold standard I couldn't believe I got into this program and um but then I had kids and I feel like you're going to get this but there was all this like evidence-based in Psychology I believe in evidence I believe in science okay and and I think what struck me in my practice was this evidence in my body that this was wrong yeah it it felt wrong and once I said this thing to this couple which I was like I I don't I'm

telling you to do times outs I'm sorry I don't believe in this like I don't know what to tell you it led to these months of writing it it opened something up I was up at 4:00 a.m. I couldn't stay in bed I had it was like something a damn and I was talking to my husband I was talking to my husband and I remember one night he's like you should you should really put these thoughts somewhere I think part of him was like I'm trying to watch the football game um and then boundaries boundaries

boundaries I put up my first post February 28th 2020 and 2 weeks later and this was the viral moment New York City shut down for Co I had 200 followers exactly that day I remember it wases March 13th and at the time what would happen is I'd write these posts just based on ideas I had a full Private Practice I I wasn't I don't know what I was doing with it I just I felt more relieving than anything else I had to get these ideas out and I wrote this long Carousel post okay in the

moment was the first part of it just said our kids will remember more about how their family home felt during the Corona virus 19 epidemic than anything about Corona virus itself our kids are watching us and they're learning how to deal with uncertainty let's wire them for resilience not panic swipe for nine ideas how and then this Carousel had nine ideas that were basically like 20 years of therapy crammed it's like how I do into a post so here's why I think it wasn't a surprise my husband would always edit my things CU I'm 0%

perfectionist I put things out all the time that just works in progress and he'd be like there's a typo here there's a typo here and I remember him looking at this post and saying to him stop I I have to get this out I I and I look back to who to my to my mom's friends who are following me on Instagram who don't even know how to use Instagram like who it was I was like who did I have to get that out but there was there was this like thing and so I did

and it went crazy it started to become part of the Z started to become part of the zeist and people wanted more and more and I think around this time I called my sister who's younger I was like how do you do an Instagram story people want me to do stories I I wasn't on social media I was telling all my clients to get off social media I thought it really bad but this felt different and then I just started putting out more and more and I think during that time with so much uncertainty it's

not unlike the time with the fire people want a sturdy leader MH sturdy leaders they're not afraid to tell the truth MH and I think in general being told the truth by someone who you feel likes you and believes you being even told the hard Truth by someone who likes you and believes you is like a really amazing human feeling and and we love getting it CU it's so rare in our life and I think that's probably what was compelling from your data and I'm sure it changes over time but I'm curious in in now

um what skill is most lacking boundaries say more I want to go down deep in this because I think it's an unbelievably misunderstood concept and just from a work standpoint I've had many conversations with people who talk about that they have boundaries and they want their boss their company to respect their boundaries and then the great irony is they respect no nobody else's anyway I I could give you specific examples but I I'll start with that so I want to give you my definition Mis understanding of what they are and how they work that's exactly

right having clear definitions of what things are is like the foundation for doing something well Clarity so I'm going to share my definition of boundaries because I hear this all the time too I'm setting boundaries to my kids and they don't respect it my mother-in-law doesn't respect it and and then I say give me an example and almost always I'll say like with love and respect that's not a boundary so give me an example of one that's not a boundary I tell my kid over and over not to jump on the couch they know not

to jump on the couch they're old enough they know better they do that I tell my mother-in-law not to stop over unexpectedly like she has to tell me and she keeps doing it they keep violating my boundaries neither of those are boundaries here's my definition and it's super simple and usable a boundary is something you tell someone you will do and it requires the other person to do nothing okay give me an example okay a boundary with the Mother-in-law who stops by would sound like this hey look I I don't wanted to get to this

I think I've asked you a lot of times please call before coming over there's a reason for that it's the order of our day I don't do great when I'm startled and so I just want to tell you this is new and I hope it doesn't get to this but the next time you come over unannounced I will come to the car and say no I can't have you here for a visit I know it's going to be hard for both of us that is what I'm going to do a boundary is something I tell

someone I'm going to do and it requires someone else to do nothing so someone doesn't respect my boundary it's not even part of the equation because when we say that we're saying I'm giving away all of my power to someone else what if a boundaries unreasonable what does that mean um what if uh it is the other way around where it's the parent-in-law who says these are my grandkids I'm going to come over to your house I'm going to come house if you don't let me in then I'm going to sit in the driveway you

know like like they'll do they follow the same you know schematic except it's an unacceptable boundary it's not their family not their home you know it's I found your key and I got a come whenever I want I just want to let you know that great so if you don't let me I just let myself in it's just that's my boundary right to me the I love the idea of this I I'm just seeing how these things escalate into fight I want I want so a boundary is something you tell someone you will do and

it requires the other person do nothing the reason that matters and is so usable is anytime after someone hears that definition and they set what they think is a boundary they can just check themselves did I tell someone else and does it require the I want to say it again because it's really important a boundary is something that you will enforce and they and they have to do nothing that's right now another more General way to think about a boundary is just not as practical and actionable to like evaluate whether you're setting on is I

believe a boundary is a way of telling someone what you need to continue being in a relationship with them that feels good to you that's really why boundaries strengthen relationships this is what I need my mother-in-law I need you to come over be while you've announced it because that's what I need to still feel good in our relationship I want to preserve that feeling so if someone said to me hey I just want to let you know I'm going to come over to your house and I already have a key and I'm going to open

the door whenever I want to come in what I would say back is O that does not work for me that does not work for me boundary V boundary yeah that does not work for me and and I try to diffuse it by trying to get to the underneath it sounds like you want to see the kids a lot more than you have access to them if that's what you're let's figure that out I think there's another way you want to see them more I want some you know announcement that we have to have some

Middle Ground okay so this this is really really important what is happening here it's not boundary versus boundary it's listening skills which is when somebody sets a boundary that you and I would interpret as uh inappropriate or unacceptable because such things exist the person on the receiving end of it instead of saying absolutely not don't you dare I don't want this to become a fight what you were talking about is listening skills and I what I heard you say was I hear that what you want is to see more of the kids that you want

access to the kids I hear you and it's not saying that their boundary is wrong it's helping them get the thing that they want that's right but in a way that is conducive to the relationship and to your family let's sit down and go through our calendars and and find all the times you can have with the kids let's give you that let's I mean to me that's a super power from a communication standpoint and I talk about this parents all the time this happens with in-laws this happens with kids all the time where when

someone doesn't feel like they're being taken seriously or when someone doesn't feel like they're being believed this is true for all of us we all escalate the nature of our communication to try to get believed that unfortunately enough leads the other person to usually get more aggressive and invalidate more which sadly enough leads the other person to escalate the expression even more and you can see this awful cycle so I would say it's about do we want to be right or do we want to be effective you know we try to be effective so if

you want to be effective and this is a person whether it's your mother-in-law or your kid or someone at work that you want to stay in a relationship with the skill to develop is what is the wish under the escalation what is the thing that needs to be believed I think the thing my mother-in-law needs me to believe is that she really loves my kids and she really wants to see them and she feels shut out one way of solving that is coming over unannounced with a key but she's probably only bringing that up because

she almost feels so desperate to let me know how much she wants this and if I don't respond on the surface to the escalated words but kind of respond to like the pain and the Very believable wish underneath that we're probably going to be able to get somewhere and as you said if you fight the behavior all you're doing is invalidating the feelings and it Mak somebody double down on whatever they're trying to achieve or get or feel seen or feel heard whatever it is why do we fight with our parents or get triggered by

our parents in a way that nobody else triggers us like I am I I I can I have a temper with my parents I don't have temper with anybody y well I think what you're really also saying is just like what what are our triggers right so why do parents more than anyone else in our lives bring it out in us they're the people you have the closest attachments with so triggers are memories of our past that are interrupting in the present that's what they are they're things that we're never Tri are memories from our

past that are interrupting in our present okay triggers are unhealed memories and they're not just one memory they're patterns from our past that come alive in our present so what might that mean if someone say whenever my parents say something even in the realm of criticizing which is like oh you brought this salad for Thanksgiving and I heard this recently from our friends like you're always criticizing me and I can never be good enough for you and later the person's like wow I don't know maybe my mom just was surprised I brought a rugula you

know whatever it was okay so that would be a trigger so what's going on inside right this is a memory and the reason I think the word memory around triggers really matters is people say all the time I don't remember how my parents responded to my Tantrums I don't really remember how my parents responded when I made a mistake we have such a limited definition of memory as if memory is only the thing we can verbally produce for someone else memories that we can verbally produce were integrated for us people taught people gave us a

story that's why we ingest a story and can verbalize a story most of our memories do not exist the vast majority of them were things that happened that lived in our bodies meaning my body registered my parents looking really disappointed with me if I got anything but a 95 or above or my body had so many times where I made a small mistake and I was met with immediate criticism instead of curiosity why did you you always forget your you I you always lose your jacket Simon versus hey you're forgetting your jacket like you're a

smart kid I know you want to be responsible what's the system we can come up with so let's just say that was true in your childhood in general when you struggled it was meant with criticis and judge criticism and judgment rather than some type of like boundary curiosity actual skill building like we've been talking about then what does your body do your body's always forming circuits right you're born with 25% of your circuitry by age three it's 75 by age five it's 90 these are yeah okay and so when people say I don't remember it's

always interesting your body and how you react to your triggers are your best teachers for everything that happened in your early childhood and if you start to look at them that way you have an unlock for all of the things that need healing and reworking to be the sturdiest version so then what probably happened little Simon right when you were younger was like alone with this oh my God I'm a bad person I always lose my jacket and I get a bad grade in my math test and I hit my and I only hit her

because she said I was a poooo head but no one even knew that and so you're left with this affect that's called unformulated affect why is it unformulated because kids need adults to formulate it for them hey you hate your sister totally not okay but what happened oh now I integrate it unformulated aect just lives free floating in your body and so if that happens not one time as a pattern I always feel criticized I'm not seen for the good inside right in those moments then when things happen in our adulthood where someone says oh

you brought that salad our body goes in and basically does an inventory what do I know about how to respond in situations like this well you do the same thing you probably did as a kid as a kid you know what you had to do to cope with that you probably had to yell at yourself what's wrong with me I'm a horrible person I'm always criticized you have to make sense of it you have to blame yourself if you don't have a story and so here you are in adulthood reliving something that honestly isn't even

happening in 2024 or 2025 it's probably happening in like 1980 so I had a terrible terrible terrible temper as a kid it's non-existent now I think most of my friends even the team most people have never seen me angry and I'm not repressing it I'm just much very good at managing anger and expressing it I can say to somebody I'm really angry right now but as a kid I mean like like bad inappropriate tempers and screamed at yelled at told to go to my room cuz this energy has to come out somewhere broke things smashed

my room up got yelled at for smashing up my room got yelled at for screaming and yelling and kicking things in my room and things like that so it just made it worse and I got even more and it stopped when I took my favorite thing and I broke it and then when I finally calm down I'm like I just broke my favorite thing totally personally accountable right and they' always this has been my story which is my temper stopped when I realized it was only h me but but yeah but you know I was

going to say but you know I was going to say that but in this session mhm talking to you I've realized what I wanted was in these periods of losing control and fully aware that I've lost control fully aware that I'm not in control of my own all I actually wanted was to for somebody to make me feel calm and safe and it didn't happened I got locked in well not locked but left in my room until I calmed down yeah and now now and I think of myself as an adult you talk to any

of my close friends the biggest compliment I give to my close friends they all know this is thank you so much for making me feel safe right and I think back to those times when all I wanted was to somebody to move in uh and the times now when I when I'm I won't say acting out but nervous saying the wrong thing I can speak in very exact terms which I think when can be very jarring for people people and what I really want is for people to lean in yeah and contain you and contain

it and be like I'm not going to let you speak like that yeah yeah I know yeah I'm not going to let you speak like that cuz you're a good person and I love you and you know and it's not again it doesn't come out in temper tantrums but I can be very exacting yeah in my words to the point that I don't people don't know what to do with it well you you know I always think anger anger is so misunderstood anger is a feeling that we have it's our best feeling because it tells

us what we want and we're not getting anger is access to desire and it's why women don't like like to feel angry cuz when we had Tantrums we were really sent to our room as little girls yeah and it's what and what we learned is not that our Tantrums are bad but that our desires you're a person with a ton of ideas and a ton of want and desire so you probably did have more anger than the average kid because of that for sure for sure right and now you figured out how to channel it

yeah one of my worst habits as a leader uh and I'm looking at it differently now after talking to you instead of saying I need to fix that which I do but now I'm saying okay where is it coming from is a interesting question yeah I'm a reactor right so somebody will show me something and I'll go through all the things that are wrong with it and I make somebody feel bad and demoralized about the work that they do I think the work's great I just found a few things wrong with it and I go

straight to everything that's wrong and I always forget to say or I often forget to say this is great work thanks for putting in all this effort I have a few comments right so make somebody feel I don't I leave that little Preamble out and then I'm like ah I hurt somebody's feelings let me go backtrack and be like and and now I'm looking at it through through a new lens rather than a how can I how can I stop being a reactor going all right where did that come from when we want to change

something in a relationship with someone else we always we generally get the starting point wrong we can't change how we interact with someone else until truly concretely we change the way we interact with ourselves and so if you know that happens and by the way I'm the same thing I'm just so quick to being like no no no but I and then in my head I'm like that was an amazing meeting I love that person it's exactly the same I'm like I love that person I love having in the team and they're like oh I

can't do anything right and that's and I think the only success I've had and my husband has actually pointed this out cuz he said to me I used to think you were hard on everyone and hard on me but he said to me I realized oh my goodness imagine Becky's monologue to herself if that's the way she said like imagine how hard she is on herself and he was like it totally changed like I felt like oh I felt so much more compassion and I really took that in from him and I think what that

led me to do is f moments where whether it's burning the garlic not leaving enough time to manage traffic um oh my goodness I didn't respond to that email actually truly saying in those moments and this to me is a good framework I'm a good person who didn't respond I'm a good person who didn't leave enough time yeah actually practicing the validation first with myself you need to build that up before you're going to yeah give it out what is a client you've had something you've done in your professional life that filled you up more

than sort of anything else ever has so this really snarky teenager I remember the first session she the first thing she came and I had I did have a relatively old computer and she goes that's your computer you're pathetic the first thing she said in the office and and and I and I was like game on you know I was like ready and I was like okay and she was a cutter she was cutting and so I said okay well tell me how long have you been cutting and she was 2 years like that's a

long time your parents told me you've never seen a therapist before and she goes wow my parents wanted to send me to therapy 2 years ago and I told them if you send me to therapy basically you're saying I'm up and I'm a messed up kid and you're kind of like saying you don't love me is that what you mean and if you send me to therapy I'm going to go and I'm going to make up lies and I'm going to miss the appointments and I'm just going to waste your money my heart's racing so

fast Simon as I'm telling you this and then there was something in me I don't I just knew to say nothing and probably after 30 seconds the entire mood shifted she went from that exactly how I said and she just looked down and when she looked up at me she said can you believe they let me make that decision wow the kids who act out the most are in the most pain it just so misunderstood and I don't blame parents because again being able to see someone's pain and fear and Desperation under their nasty words

and behavior that requires skills and practice and support and resources and and the only thing we're told at the hospital is that we should get a car seat and so these were such amazing well-meaning parents they just they didn't understand her and so that's taught me a lot about kids it's taught me a lot about boundaries so interesting I was sharing this with someone in our community the other day whose kid was giving the hard time about therapy and said Dr Becky I used exactly what you said which came from this we're going to a

therapist that is my decision and it's a decision because I love you and I believe in you you can go you can lie my job is to get you there I'm going to leave work early every Thursday I'm going to drive you there what happens in the room I have no idea and is up to you but there's nothing you can say that will change my mind about how important it is for me to do my job and we're going to start that tomorrow you've helped a lot of teenagers you've helped a lot of Cutters

you've helped a lot of misunderstood kids you've helped a lot of kids of parents who are struggling and just don't have the skills what is it about this one this one young woman who again of all the kids you've helped she's the one you want to talk to me about you know what it is I guess like I really have a thing for the kids who everyone labels as bad as difficult as defiant as dramatic the Misunderstood kids if I think back to my own childhood why I was actually the opposite I was way too

good as a kid if I think way too good took me too long to kind of get into my own desire and power and separation it was so good so maybe that's like the most repressed part of me me or maybe part of me envied by them I don't know but I think all the time I would hear from parents um you know oh my kid hits and they're such a bad kid and they're poor sister and and it's so interesting my framework was always different like yes the poor sister we've got to protect her

we have to protect your other kid this kid is going to build their identity as the bad kid we have to protect that kid too that kid is in desperate need of protection and I guess I feel yeah I guess I feel like a someone needs to be a champ ion for these really good kids who are having a really hard time and are in desperate need of support and coaching and help and Leadership you practice the thing you preach so well so well I know too many people who write the book but then you

meet them and you realize it's or maybe it was true up until they had Fame and Fortune and then it stopped being true you know and you are so true to yourself and true to your work you are the embodiment of the the stuff you talk about what an honor what an honor to sit down with you such Joy I thank you I I thank you I'm taking that in that feel thank you feels really good I could literally talk to you for forever you've challenged me as a leader you've challenged me as a like

I'm like I've had free free therapy you don't even realize this how many how many things how many little epiphanies and light bulbs have gone off of triggers and things that they're manifesting in all kinds of my relationships this has been the best free therapy I've ever had uh thanks so much for coming on I can't can't wait for our next session then apprciate it thank you thank you if you enjoyed this podcast and would like to hear more please subscribe wherever you like to listen to podcasts and if you'd like even more optimism check

out my website simon.com for classes videos and more until then take care of yourself take care of each other