Revisited: Kids (And Employees) Know More Than You Think with Dr. Becky Kennedy

0:00Someone feels your intention more than they feel your intervention. Intention is, am I 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.

0:13Simon Sinek:It feels so good though. It feels so good. We do it at work all the time. So good. That's what has to be named. So good. So good. So good. 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.

0:54Simon Sinek:This is a bit of optimism.

1:01Simon Sinek:I live in Los Angeles. We're recording in Los Angeles. 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 situation that's wrong ever. So let's just get that out the window. The principle that always drives me, because 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.

1:44Because 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 thing why are they clinging right so noticing things that are off and not having a narrative to understand them is terrifying for a kid.

2:48And so just to start this, what would a parent start by saying is you 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 blew 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.

3:24And 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.

3:28Simon Sinek: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, the 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 filters. It's the exact same thing we do with any human being, which is, they're not idiots.

4:01Simon Sinek: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. 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 looping starts. And it also disallows for questions, right? Because if you give me information, even if it's bad news, I can ask a question.

4:33Simon Sinek: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 true for adults too. It's probably just more exaggerated for kids. I mean, I don't think Good Inside is a parenting approach. It's a leadership approach. It's a leadership approach for sure. 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.

5:08Are 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 inside 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.

5:36Simon Sinek:When somebody asks 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%. Because that's what good leadership is. It's being responsible 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 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.

6:07And that goes back to our childhood.

6:08Simon Sinek: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 parents say, what's wrong with your teacher? I get a kick out of the criticisms older generations had of younger generations, like damn this generation. We're like, well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, how were they raised? That's the question I want to ask. which is, is it, is it, is it the people we have a problem with?

6:40Simon Sinek: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. 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 approach is in parenting he goes dad sometimes bad things happen and it's nobody's fault.

7:34And I honestly think the obsession with fault is like a really interesting thing. Okay, is it my kid's fault? Is it the teacher's fault? Is that a useful framework? 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.

8:08Go to your room and learn how to do it better. And now there's this - Think about it. Right. I always think about sending 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.

8:20Simon Sinek: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 dictate 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.

8:58Like 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.

9:41And 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. That's how they come.

10:00Simon Sinek:You have to program them. 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 human skills. And I always make the joke like, you know, cats don't have to work very hard to be cats.

10:33Simon Sinek:They're 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. 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, 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 a double 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.

11:11Like 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 like addicting. It's amazing. And it's hard work?

11:41Simon Sinek:Let's take the question of the kid with the door and let's just change it slightly. Sure. Right. 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 things just happen and it's nobody's fault. What is the right thing to say when they should have actually closed the door and they shirked 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.

12:10Fault is inherently shameful. Shame makes people freeze. Freeze is anti-learning. Seems ineffective.

12:16Simon Sinek: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, am I 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. It feels so good though. It feels so good. No, it feels - We do it at work all the time. So good. That's what has to be named. so good so good so good um but it's therapy unto itself 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 right right in the ideal in the ideal yeah okay so let's 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 their 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 you don't ever whoever's 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 right all the time never do that right 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 gonna 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 my son's like oh a post what 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.

14:04So could you write that for me? No, sweetie. You know why I'm not going to do that for you? Because 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. 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 8pm.

14:33And I just want to be clear with you about that, because I really want to set you up for success.

14:37Simon Sinek: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. Yes and no. You have to set that all up. You have to learn how to say it. You have to wait for it. No, no, no. Well, you have to learn. No, no, no, no. Yes. 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.

15:07Simon Sinek:It takes effort. 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. And 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 stresses and the pressures are great.

15:38Simon Sinek: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 times? 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 and time.

16:07Yeah, 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 guilty to your spouse instead of watching tv and you're just used to it so you don't mentally account for it that's good so that's

16:43Simon Sinek:that 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 yeah 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, which is both of us have careers that kind of happened by accident.

17:23Simon Sinek:You know, we were both kind of doing our thing. And then something happened. And now we're doing something different. Yes. And neither of us saw it, expected it, planned for it, had any idea it was going to happen. It wasn't in any plan. And just for those who don't know, you had zero minimal social media presence. I think when you started, you probably had like everybody else, like 50 followers, your friends. 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 that led to that.

18:03Simon Sinek:It takes a long time to become an overnight success. I just, 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?

18:38But 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 principle perspective, the complete opposite. 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've never come back to me as a therapist. I'd say, 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.

19:07And I heard myself saying it and the juxtaposition from one session to another, 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 timeouts and yes and so linear so which is everything you got from a book yeah and from actually a very esteemed extra training institution in 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's all this like evidence-based in psychology.

19:44I believe in evidence. I believe in science. Okay. And I think what struck me in my practice was this evidence in my body that this was wrong. It felt wrong. And once I said this thing to this couple, which I was like, I don't, I'm like, the hell you need to do time's 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 opened something up i was up at 4 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 you know um and then boundaries boundaries boundaries yeah i put up my first post february 28th 2020 and two weeks later and this was the viral moment New York City shut down for COVID.

20:35I had 200 followers exactly that day, I remember. It was 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 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. And the moment was the first part of it just said, Our kids will remember more about how their family home felt during the coronavirus 19 epidemic than anything about coronavirus itself. Our kids are watching us and they're learning how to deal with uncertainty.

21:13Let'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 because 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 have to get this out. And I look back to who? To my mom's friends who were following me on Instagram who don't even know how to use Instagram.