Dr. Becky: Your Kids Don’t Need a Perfect Mom. They Need a Leader.

24:20And if we don't listen to it, it is like a toddler. If you don't listen to an annoying toddler, they're going to escalate and escalate. And one day they are going to scream so loud at a totally inopportune moment, like why is chicken for dinner again? But it actually has nothing to do really with that moment. That moment was just the time when your anger bucket was completely filled and you had no more space. And so we have to listen earlier and start to meet our own needs earlier. It comes back to - Revolutionary thought. Right. But it's like, if you're talking to yourself, if you're understanding your own needs, you're getting there earlier.

24:56A hundred percent. Yeah. Now, so many of us women, this is really important because this is where the empathy piece comes in. One of the ways we really learned we were valuable as kids, what our role was and therefore how to adapt and survive was to distance ourselves as much as possible from anything we might need internally and instead become complete experts at our external environment and notice what everyone around us needs. So what I always tell moms especially is, okay, I know we're going to work on this rage or reactivity thing. We're totally going to make progress on that. It actually starts by understanding why ignoring your anger was actually really adaptive.

25:39We have to thank an internal process. It must have been adaptive for 18 years of your life. Yes. For you to distance yourself from anything you might need for yourself. That's actually, I think what it means. I'm going to be a good girl. I don't like such a, she's such a good girl. I really think it means she has become expert at it completely ignoring anything she might want for herself and instead becoming completely attuned to what everyone wants from her. I gaze out exclusively and gazing in was associated with danger. Well, fast forward to being a mom, we don't just reverse processes immediately that used to be adaptive and were put in place for our survival.

26:21So actually understanding that from a place of almost gratitude for the past is actually the first step to making a productive change. I mean, it is so, I feel like this will be making so much sense to so many women. I have so many friends that I think live in service of their families, right? That's all they do because it's everybody else before them. And then they wonder why they're miserable. And I'm like, look, look at how you live. Look at what you do. So how do you, if somebody is there right now, how do they reverse that? I have a friend who once said to me, a very wise woman, she said, Emma, you're only ever as happy as your most unhappy child.

26:58And I know that feeling of carrying the emotions of my own kids. like around like they're mine. And that is why I feel like so many mothers end up in this position of like, it's everybody else, but it isn't me. So how do you get out of that if that is where you are? So look, I don't want to, I don't want to distill this down to something overly simple because I think it doesn't do justice to, you know, a little bit of a longer process, right? And I'm all for practical, at least first steps, even if it's not final steps. I'll take it. Okay. So one of my good friends, my co-founder, she says this about me.

27:31She goes, Becky, you underestimate how powerful your relationship is with your own calendar in your mental health. And it's something I've learned from you and women need to learn. My calendar is everything. Now, that doesn't mean what people think it means. If you think about a calendar and a mom's calendar, how many of them? I mean, soccer practice, the carpool, the school plays, all things that matter. But if a mom looks at her calendar right now, I want her to ask herself, what on my calendar is for me? and she'll say, oh, well, I'm making cupcakes. That's not for you. By the way, great. That's not for you.

28:07What on your calendar is for me? Well, if you don't put things on your calendar concretely for you, you will go week after week, month after month, and you will become completely depleted. And my metaphor for this is it's like the part of you inside who's not all about caregiving, which there should be other parts of you, who like to see your friends, who like to move, who likes to do anything that lights you up. If that part of you doesn't get fed, then she's starving and she will scream out to you for her own survival. So a very concrete first step I would say is you need to start somewhere.

28:45It could be this week and you need to book something on your calendar and keep that appointment the way you would keep your kid's school play. Literally, it could be, and this is the other thing I want to say to so many people, They say, but I don't even know what I want. I don't even know what I would enjoy for myself. We can't use that to stop us from trying something. Again, Emma, if your friend was starving and hadn't eaten food for a month and she was at a restaurant and said, I don't even know what I'd want on the menu. You'd say, order anything, by the way. Then you'll know I like that, I didn't like it.

29:20And you'll know more the next time. Just do something. But if you've been starving, the answer isn't to order nothing and wait to know what you want. The whole reason you're starving is because you've learned to distance yourself from what you want. So put to the side that you're supposed to know what would feel good. You could try a walk. You could call a friend who you know is good at self-care and say, can you give me three things? I might hate all of them, but you seem to have a whole range of options. You lean on community, but do something that's going to feel awkward at first and unenjoyable because people need to know anytime you do something new, it's going to feel awkward and uncomfortable, but that doesn't mean it's wrong.

29:59It just means it's new. Just means you're out of practice. You are totally out of practice. Your body's saying, I don't really know this. And you can say back to your body, of course you're reacting exactly the way you should. This is new. You're right. Yeah. My goodness. That is like, it's, it's a huge thing to take in. The idea that you are not doing, so used to not doing anything for yourself that you don't even know what to do is wild. But that's so, I mean, I can't even tell you, and this is so many powerless other things for women. I think about so many of the 20 year olds, 32, I'd seen my private practice and they'd start telling me often about the guys they started dating.

30:34Many of who sounded really unimpressive, frankly. Okay. And I'd be like, you're this like amazing woman. Okay. And they talk and they talk and okay. I think, you know, I think he likes me because of this. And I, the the most terrifying question I'd say, what do you like about him? What? Really? Which is a way of saying, can you gaze in? Do you know what you want? What matters to you? And it really would bring on a panic attack almost because yes, women in general, we've become so good at gazing out that anything that involves gazing in feels panic inducing purely because it's so new. god you are so right about that like panic inducing panic and do I want most of us as women we know we only know what we want after we don't get it but not proactively yeah right I mean definitely yes then we feel angry yeah yeah I wonder why we feel angry Right.

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34:08I want to skip into this idea around mum girl, which is something I talk about with my friends and with everybody all the time. It's something that I feel like I perhaps have a little bit of an unpopular opinion on in some ways. I'm dying to get your opinion as the expert, right? Because again, I think the mum guilt comes down to this idea of wanting to be a really good parent. And I feel like there is so much chat out there about work-life balance, about this idea of trade-offs, what we should be doing, what we shouldn't be doing. What is your point of view? And can you contextualize for the audience?

34:46Like again, because my point of view is if you don't know what mom guilt is, if you don't understand it intrinsically, if you haven't been able to contextualize that yourself, you will never figure it out. So can you just speak a little bit about it? And then I want to have some of your opinions on work-life balance and what that actually means. So I think we just misunderstand guilt. Mom guilt is one of my favorite topics because I think we don't understand guilt accurately. Guilt is a very important feeling. Guilt is a feeling we have when we act out of alignment with our values. Oh, that's such a lovely sentence.

35:21When you act out of alignment with your values, meaning you're doing something that doesn't align with the things that are important to you and your family. When your behavior out here doesn't match your values inside, you feel guilt. And you should feel guilt because it allows you to say, oh, I'm acting out of a line with my values. Thank you, body, for giving me such a powerful feeling that I can reflect on it. Yes. Okay. Now it does require you to know what your values are. But isn't that the starting point? A hundred percent with anything. Am I out of a line with my values or am I just doing shit that I want to do, that I need to do, that I think is important?

35:55That's right. Okay. I'm going to sit back a little bit. So for example, if I no-showed to your podcast and I was like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not just in the mood. Like if something happened, I'd feel guilty because I'd be like, it is not in my value system to no show. Okay. Helpful. I'd say, well, why did that happen? It would make me reflect and hopefully bring my behavior the next time back in alignment with our values. That's what guilt is. Whenever we talk about mom guilt, it's so interesting. When I ask for examples from people, well, tell me, tell me the last time I had mom guilt. They'll say something like this.

36:25Okay. Well, look, I'm home with my kids a lot, you know, and there's a night my friends are having dinner and I really want to go to this birthday dinner and my husband or my wife or my babysitter, my mother-in-law, whoever it is, is going to be home with my kids. And then my kids, when they see me getting ready, what? I want you to put me down tonight. And you know, Dr. Becky, I feel too guilty. I wouldn't even enjoy myself, okay? Or here's what matters to me as a mom. I know, like I'm a full-time working mom. I love my career. I love my kids. There are always moments that one feels out of balance, but I want to try to do both.

36:58Okay, those are my values. So then let's say that first example. I say to that woman, okay, is it within your value system to once in a while during your motherhood years have dinner with your friends? And it's so interesting. I mean, everyone's like, yeah, that is okay. So I said, so this is interesting because right now when you go to dinner, you are acting in alignment with your values. So what's going on? And this happened, and I don't think this is guilt. So here's what I think is happening. Going back to so many of the themes we've talked about. As women, we have been conditioned to look at other people's uncomfortable feelings and kind of take them into our body, metabolize them.

37:41And then we call that guilt. That is not guilt. That is the process of taking what is in someone else's body. That is their feeling state and taking on, not from a place of care, you're taking responsibility for feelings instead of caring about feelings. This is so important for every human to know. Caring about feelings is completely different than taking responsibility for feelings. First of all, I mean, this applies to so many things and not just guilt, right? So many things. We as women are conditioned to absorbing everybody's feelings all over the place, all over the time, and then taking them in and thinking that they're us.

38:22That's right. And it does a disservice to everyone, including your relationship. So let's go through this visual because I find it the most helpful thing for kind of quote mom guilt, which we now know is just not guilt at all. So let's say I'm the mom going out to dinner. I'm on one side of a tennis court. So I'm on a tennis court at the baseline and my kid who's upset that in my family would be dad's putting her to bed is on the other side. Okay. Now on my side of the tennis court, my decisions, my values, I know I'm around a lot. That feels good. I also know I want to go out to dinner sometimes or go on my work trip.

38:54That's my side of the court. On my kid's side are my kid's feelings. My kids' feelings when I go out to dinner are upset, sad. It's so powerful to almost watch how the sad feelings seem to come out of my child's body on their side of the tennis court and come over to my side. And what I encourage moms to do, and this is important, is actually like put their hands up and to give the feeling back to its rightful owner. That feeling isn't yours. And something really interesting happens when you take it. you then don't actually empathize with your kid's feelings at all. Because to empathize with someone's feelings, you have to have a boundary and you have to know whose feelings they are.

39:38I actually have to give the feelings back to my daughter in order for me to say, you wish I wasn't going out to dinner. Now, by the way, Emma, I'm still going out to dinner. I can hold that multiplicity. But as long as I take the feelings into my body and call it guilt, I'm going to say weird things to my daughter. Like, don't you want me to have friends? Like what? My eight-year-old's like, are you really asking me that question? that mom for real. It's like, all right. Can you imagine asking your employee that? Like, don't you want me to, what? Like what an, that's a terrifying experience. Or I don't go to dinner and I tell myself it's because I empathize.

40:08You did not empathize because you did not help your kid feel safe with that feeling. You just took on the feeling and now you're trying to placate that feeling, not because of your kid, but because you took it onto your own body. It's actually almost like a selfish endeavor. Yes. And so that is not mom guilt. So I think the whole reframe involves, we have to know what our own values are. And that might not be the same as someone else in our neighborhood. Right. And then we have to really say this uncomfortable feeling I'm experiencing. Is it because I'm acting out of alignment with my values or if I'm acting in alignment with my values, am I doing that thing where I'm taking someone else's feeling?

40:45Yeah. So, so talk to me about this part then, because I, what you say is so true, So, but there is this other side of things, right? Where if I look at like this week, I'm here, I'm in New York. I have not put my kids to bed. I have not taken them to school. I am not doing things that would ordinarily be aligned with my values. And so we come back to this idea of like work, life, and this idea of balance, whatever that might be. So what do you say when the feeling is real, when you've been traveling, when you've been putting in the hours, when you're having a moment that requires you to be all in on that thing that isn't your family and you do feel guilt and the guilt is real, then what?

41:27So you may say, okay, so for this week, like if I have multiple burners, right, of my stove, my burner of work is really high. My burner of family connection or presence is lower than I want it to be. That's what you're kind of saying. Yeah. So number one, I would say to anyone, how any given week goes is information and doesn't define who you are. This is another core thing that we talk about at Good Inside, separating behavior from identity. We also struggle with this. I'm a horrible mom. I'm never with my kids. Maybe I just had a work trip for a week. Now, maybe that does give me good information.

42:02And if that's me in your shoes and I'm feeling like a little disconnected, I might look at my calendar. Again, I live by my calendar and say, okay, let me look at the next couple of weeks. Okay, you know what? I was invited to this dinner. I'm actually not going to go because I know I'm going to cancel it even. now that I'm realizing it. I'm just going to RSVP no. And you know what? I'm going to move that meeting a little bit later because I know I want to drop off my kid one day. And so now I'm going to use the information of the guilt not to tell myself I'm a story that I'm a horrible parent.

42:31That actually just keeps me frozen. But it's actually good information to make different decisions going forward. And that's the trade-off. That is exactly what I'm talking about because my life is a series of me saying, I have to be all in here and therefore I'm going to take a back seat here. But in order to make that feel a little bit better for me, I'm not going to do this other thing. And the point is, I don't always get what I want. I'm kind of fine with that. That's part of what it is. But again, this mythical balance that everybody feels is potentially out there for women is just a big fat lie.

43:06What it is, is a constant series of trade-offs, a constant conversation and learning and knowing for yourself. And also sometimes things change. Sometimes I am all in one place and other times I'm all in the other place. And you have to feel comfortable with that, but you can't measure yourself by what everybody else is doing and by what everybody else might be feeling. And you can't measure yourself by a single day or a single week. We really lose the bigger picture of what it means to be in a relationship with anyone. If the truth feels like like a day versus, and you're talking about a series of trade-offs, but I also think you're really talking about a much longer time horizon.

43:44Yes. Not judging yourself by each zoomed in moment. Right. And that is a really, really important thing. And the other thing I'll say that I think is so important, especially for working moms, is make space for your kids to be upset. Again, as soon as you become kind of less scared of that, you're gone for a week. as soon as you can say, I know it's a long time. Yeah, and you're gonna, but this week you're missing my, I know. And look, next month, just so you know, I'm not, I'm gonna be there for this play. And I get that you're upset about it. I get it. You and I are gonna get through it. You're allowed to feel that way, right?

44:24That is such an important piece of it too. Because for so many kids, it's not just a difficult moment or not having a parent there that actually bothers them. It's not having a parent understand that they were upset by that. Yes. That really bothers them. And again, back to what you said in the beginning, they want to feel seen. They want to feel understood. They want to know that you care about their feelings. And if you show that care and you understand and you make a different plan, that is okay. Yes. That is okay. Yes. I wanted to understand what you do when you feel stretched too thin and when you feel like you're in a bit of a spiral, what is the reset that you do?

45:07After I, you know, spiral and wake myself up at 2 a.m. telling myself I'm a horrible parent after that's happened. Those ones. Yeah. I think there's a couple of things I do. I always find it helpful to talk to like a handful of people in my life who I know I can just kind of vomit it to and they'll just be a container. Like I just have to always get it out. I find that to always be helpful for me. You can't underestimate that, right? the power of releasing yourself from it, like saying the thing, talking to someone. Like for me, I always write everything down because like all of my good friends are on a very different time zone to me.

45:40So I can't always call them, but sometimes just getting it on paper. I'm like, okay, it's out of my system now. Yes. I think that's exactly right. In general, how we feel about something has to do with a feeling and how alone we feel in it. And we can't change a feeling. We can't kind of change the hard, but we can change the alone. And so I always try to like remove the aloneness as step one. Step two, I think I do try to ask myself, okay, what is the thing that's out of alignment? Oh, I worked later than I wanted to. I missed too many bedtimes. I should say that I do think looking ahead in your calendar and thinking about the overall life you want rather than the specific day you want is really helpful.

46:25So I do generally have a rule. Like I generally go out with my husband, often friends on a Saturday night, and I will at most go out one weeknight. Now I'm not trying to put that out there. Like everyone should do that. That's what I know. That's your rule. That's how you feel good. And so what's interesting is someone says like some awesome work event on a Wednesday night and I'll look at my Wednesday night and my calendar will say it's free, but I don't do that before I say yes. I look at my week. I see, oh, I'm out on Tuesday night. And so I'll say, oh, I'm not able to make it technically, and this is again, the difference between gazing out and gazing in my calendar tells me I'm free, but my calendar isn't the boss of me.

47:00I'm the boss of me. And I know that if I do that, I'll feel awful. I don't want to do that. I'll be exhausted. My kids' behavior will get worse because I just know like it's only one night that feels like right for the balance. But you have to make those rules for yourself. And my big trick is then communicating that to everyone around me. Because let me tell you, when the invite comes in, my assistant, they already know that I'm going to say no. Exactly. Because they know my boundaries. They know that for me, it's probably three nights a week that I go out. Right. But that's my lot. Like there isn't a fourth because I prefer to be more home than I am out.

47:34So it's already like, no, sorry, she can't come. So it takes away all the questioning. But sometimes there is a problem communicating for ourselves, right? I think that's right. Because again, it goes back to this idea of saying no to others, right? It's so powerful to just twist that and saying, if I have trouble saying no to others, that's not my problem. My trouble is saying yes to myself. That's what it is. And how do you say yes to yourself? Well, you have to know what you want. Yes. And then it becomes less about disappointing others. So many of us have gotten so accustomed to disappointing ourselves all the time.

48:09We need to put ourselves back as the protagonist. So it changes it. Most of the things I hear from people. Oh, I can't say no. They're going to be upset. If you think about who the subject is in that book, it's the other person. It's the other person. You're going to be upset. Yeah. You matter. So why would that person come before you? Exactly. But I think there's so much of this again, you talk about it in the sense of having an alignment with yourself, having these principles. I think about it in terms of like, I have a plan. I'm a big planner. And at the beginning of the year, I'm like, I want these trips.

48:38I want this vacations. I want these moments to happen. and I have to do da, da, da, da, da. But I also plan for my family and what I want there. And so when it's set out and it's set in stone and then you have to start subtracting from that, you feel that deeply. You're like, but that wasn't what I wanted to do. That's exactly right. And I just want to share just because it's so concrete and anyone can use it. Okay. It's kind of a line that really helps say no, especially in an email when you're like, oh, I know I don't want to go that I find so helpful is just some version of I promise myself.

49:07Thanks so much for including me. I promised myself I wouldn't go out more than one week night. And so unfortunately, I'm not able to make it. And the reason it's so helpful is the reason most people get upset when you say no is they think it's a reflection of how you feel about them. And then the reason they say, why can't you come? No offense, it's usually not about you. They feel insecure and they're just trying to undo that feeling. And so when you state something where someone can really, my language is always locate you, right? And I'm sure you too, you know when you're with someone you can locate.

49:35That feels so sturdy. They know who they are. They know their values. So when you say to someone, I promised myself I wouldn't add more meetings to my calendar this month they don't protest I generally get the same response back to that email every time wow thank you for telling me that I love the way you said that it's like bringing me closer to someone Dr. Becky that might be the best thing that you said because also it's a reminder to you right I promised myself you know it's like you wrote it down it's there and like I hope I can say this in this podcast only a real asshole wants you to break a promise with yourself like if someone writes back really you're like wow you should come I don't want to come now.

50:09Exactly. Exactly. That is amazing. Give me, what do you think is one mindset shift that all mothers could benefit from when you start to think about what would make our life easier? What's the one thing we can do? I have two. Okay. So the first one is just kids don't need selfless martyrs. Kids need sturdy leaders. And I just think this whole selfless martyrdom, I guess it's not what we want our kids to say. Like my 20 year old kid, oh, my mom loved me so much. She ran herself into the ground. No, my mom showed me. She looked like shit my whole child did, but she was always there. Full of resentment.

50:43I could just smell the resentment on her body. No, like I want my kids to say, my mom really showed me what it was like to take care of other people and take care of yourself at the same time. And now that is something that has been modeled for me. So I know it's possible. That's what I want. Right? I mean, yeah, I want to like stop you and rewind you like immediately in this moment. Yes, I think that that is what all of us want. That is what all of us want. We want to teach our kids and model for our kids how they should treat themselves. And if you're not treating yourself well, how can you expect that?

51:15I don't think any parent on the planet would say, I want to show my kid what it is to put yourself last, to constantly walk around feeling like shit, to live in a guilt spiral. No one wants that. So why would we show up that way? I think that's right. I think we have to stop calling that love and parenting. And then the other side of it, given that this feels so new, is I always say to moms, the most powerful, the best leaders I know take so much pride in education, right? I think about investors going in to a startup meeting with a CEO who says, I just do this by instinct. I'm never going to get a coach.

51:48I just, this comes naturally. I mean, is there a faster way to end a meeting than that? You want a leader who is open to learning and who knows learning, real resources, real education, that's a sign of strength, right? And so I just think anyone listening, they think, okay, this makes sense, but like how would I actually put this into practice to know there are resources out there. And as a mom, if it's not natural to stay calm in a tantrum or know what to do when your kid's clinging to you, join the club. The idea that this should all come naturally has held us back so much from feeling more empowered.

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53:12I found that even small changes like that can really shift how I feel day to day. It's not about doing more, it's about choosing things that support how I actually live. Those little moments of intention helped me reset, especially during busy seasons. Nothing complicated, nothing over the top, just thoughtful upgrades that make everyday life feel so much better. These small rituals from Macy's make winter feel a little lighter and honestly worth celebrating. So if you're looking to reset your space or your routine in a way that feels simple and accessible, Macy's makes it easy. January is that moment every year when we all stop and reflect, what worked, what didn't, and who do we want to become next?

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55:08I have an 11 year old and nine year old and twin three year olds, and you just think you got it down. And then, you know, my son just started middle school and I'm like, what is happening now? I didn't read those books. I haven't got there. But I, you know, it's like I have a therapist and I talk to her specifically about my children. And that really helps me because I'm in constant learning mode for the time that they're having in their life. And I read everything and I try to absorb everything. So what do parents do to stay on top of their learning? as it tends to be an apparent. And again, there's a fine line.

55:42This is not to say, I don't recommend making any decision until you've consulted someone. No, those are two extremes. But if you're hearing this and if you're thinking, I do want to stay calmer with my kid, right? Or I'm not really sure what to do when my kid is in a hitting stage or they're lying. There are just so many resources at different price points. There are books. Books are a great place to start. Ask a friend for a recommendation, right? Start a couple pages and see if it resonates with you, which again, Emma's important, check in. Does this make sense to me? Does this feel maybe a little uncomfortable because it's new, but not the uncomfortable, like my heart's saying this is wrong, right?

56:19So that's one thing. People have therapists, people have parenting coaches. The whole reason we started Good Inside Membership, our app, is because I wanted parents to have in their pocket what I was giving people in private practice. Absolutely. And so our app is, you know, it's less than a co-pay a month. And no matter what you're going through, we can help you. We have live coaching sessions. And if this doesn't resonate with you, there could be other creators that have that too. Will you talk to me a little bit about your philosophy? How do you think about, you know, again, I'm so impressed that you've built an entire business around this.

56:54How do people get involved? How do they use it? What do you see as like the practical implications of the work that you're doing? And how are people taking that into their families and really using the information? Yeah, so I think, you know, this started as kind of ideas and it turned into a book. And the reason it became a bigger business, which probably is our app and our membership, which I think the thing I'm proudest of there is our members come from 110 countries. Wow. It's so international. It's so global. Wow. It's amazing. And like we have a, it's amazing. We have a black parents room.

57:25We have a parents of neurodivergent kids, just so many micro communities within that community. Is I thought, it was a couple of years ago. Honestly, I just thought, and you know this, every part of my life is digitized. I can deposit my check from my phone. I can do so much. And some of that isn't great because it's almost overly convenient. But parenting is the hardest job in the world. And I know for me, even after I wrote my book, which might sound funny, I just thought when I'm in a hard moment with my kid in the moment, I'm not opening up a chapter of a book. I don't know about you. I'm just like, it's not happening.

57:58So I was like, why is it that there can be amazing apps for working out, for giving me a quick tip about something I want to know about my food, But when it comes to managing a tantrum, knowing how to repair after I yelled, handling a sibling argument, handling a sleep issue in the middle of the night, it's like we put our hands up and be like, I don't know, I guess we'll just get, why? This is our kids' mental health. This is the world that we're gonna create. And so I just thought, what if I took everything I know but made it accessible, right? There's, yes, there's like an amazing chat bot in it.

58:30There's different programs you can go through. We have live coaching sessions with our coaches every day. Why can't that just be more accessible and when I turned my head kind of wondering well who's doing this and I realized nobody was doing this I said you know what at Good Inside that's what that's what we're going to do because we just feel like parents deserve that. They really deserve it. Yeah. They really deserve it and as you've been building this business because again you've been incredibly successful you do have a best-selling book you have an incredible podcast you have this app that I'm now understanding is in 110 countries.

58:58Yeah. All of this takes a lot so what is your own journey with the idea of work-life balance and I know I understand it's like you have this calendar, but how do you, how do you feel every day as you're doing everything that you're doing? So I, I do want to say I feel different things on different days. So I'll give you a couple, you know, tastes of that. So first of all, I am just a natural morning person. And I want to say that because I know there's like morality around people who are morning people and we can like, I'm one too. So I'm not judging you. You're all good. You're all good over here.

59:29It makes my world go round. I naturally get up in the fives, which allows me to work out some days, catch up on emails. That's when I do my best writing. Some mornings I wake up with a new idea and I just have to get my coffee and my computer and kind of just get it out of me, you know? And that's when my house, I feel like the world is quiet from 5.30 to 7. Then what I try to do is like put my phone away, right? And have, it's really only like 25 minutes with my kids who are 8, 11, and 14, basically, before they get on the bus to school. And so to me, that is so important. As a working parent, if you are with your kids in the morning, for me, I can just tell you what's been successful.

1:00:08My phone has to be behind two doors. It's not one door. If it's one door, I am like a beat of honey. I don't know. I just hear a ding. It feels like it's so important. Two doors. Not there. Because really, when we're not near our phone, what we're saying to our kids during that moment is, there is nothing more important than you. Someone having your full attention is the ultimate connection builder. Oh, yes. And connection is the foundation of everything we want. Resilience, cooperation, right? Why aren't our kids listening to anything we say? Well, there could be a million reasons, but one of them is I don't listen to people when I don't feel connected to them, right?

1:00:44So connection is really at the core. Then I think throughout my day, the different feelings I have, or depending on the week, is, you know, some balance of, okay, right now I'm doing exactly what I want to do. Right now I'm doing nothing I want to do. And there definitely are some nights when I feel like I'm drinking from a fire hose, but I try to remind myself there often in times of transition, okay, school just started. Okay, we're coming back from a vacation. And I think one of the things I've learned to do better and better over the years is just make sure I have the right support. We recently hired a new president at Good Inside.

1:01:16That allows me to have, yeah, and a lot more time to do the things that really light me up for work. Not as much of the things that frankly I'm not as good at and don't light me up. And then it just gives me time back. And the time I am at work feels so much more fulfilling because a bigger percentage of it, I'm doing the stuff that really, really matters. Forget about what it's doing for your business because your business is also going to grow and you're going to feel great about that too. That's exactly right. And then I do think scheduling time with each of my kids, I really do put it like on my calendar.

1:01:46Same. I mean, when you have, listen, when you've got more than one kid, I think you have to put it on your calendar. There is no other way. It sounds ridiculous, but for me, it's like, I have to put individual time in with each of them because otherwise it would never happen. And then just saying, I'm not able to make that work. But, you know, oh, can you meet that? I'm not able to make that work. How about these times? People adjust accordingly. They really do. Whatever we fear is so much bigger than the reality of the moment. And so I'd encourage people to just experiment a little bit with that.

1:02:17And this makes it seem like I have it all together. And then other moments, you know, I've said to my husband, I used to have a good life. You know, before all this, I used to have a good life, you know? And just allowing that to feel true and to feel light at the same time. It's so true. I was going to ask you actually, despite all of your experience and your expertise, what is the one thing that you still struggle with? I mean, a bunch of things. I think, first of all, for everyone to know, anyone who talks a lot about a topic, people think that means they're expert at a topic. I think it's always people who are just trying to work through their own problems in public.

1:02:49That's what, so I talk a lot about sitting with feelings, sitting with discomfort. That's hard for me in my own personal life. I'm quick to action and it makes me look very productive, which can be a good thing, but our strengths can always be our weaknesses. It's hard for me to sit with uncertainty. It's hard for me to sit with hard moments when there's actually not really a solution. It's just a situation we kind of have to wait and see. That's very, very hard for me. And so that's something I'm definitely always working on. And there are just some situations that just like wait and see are, I don't have an answer for that right this second.

1:03:21There are. And I think I've learned, it's funny, this actually caught fire on Instagram, but often the most powerful parenting strategy is doing nothing, is waiting and seeing. Literally, my kid says, I hate you. You know what, in this moment, I'm just gonna, let me just wait 10 seconds. So interesting. You wait 10 seconds, how often a kid will say, that's not what I meant, or I'm sorry, or can I try that again? Because I didn't just react right away. So doing nothing and waiting personally and sometimes even in parenting. Yeah, those are things I'm working on. I mean, I think the reason that caught fire in the best possible ways was because it's so counterintuitive, but like busy, incredible working moms to just go, I got nothing.

1:04:02I'm just gonna wait and see. But it is powerful. And sometimes you do just need to wait and see. I go back to like my son who's starting middle school. I'm like you're just gonna have to go through like the next couple of weeks and we'll just wait and see like I don't have any good advice right now and I think also the more you know if you're someone who really likes to be productive it's a really good flag for your parenting yes because so much of parenting let's say your son starting middle school like a lot of kids who start middle school their friendship group shifts a little bit you're like are they being left out the routine shifts you know everything changes and no one likes change that's right And probably the best thing for a kid in those situations is to be present, right?

1:04:44You want to hear them out or notice, but it's probably not calling that other parent and getting them invited to something they were left out of. It's not clamping down right away because when we do that in the name of us feeling productive, we get in our kid's way of kind of figuring things out. You are so right. Okay, I'm going to move to some rapid fire. Oh, love it. What's the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? First thing I do when I wake up in the morning is make coffee. And the last thing you do before you go to bed at night? Kiss my husband. What's the first thought that runs through your head when mom guilt sets in?

1:05:20That I wonder if this person is really feeling guilt or if they're just taking responsibility for someone's uncomfortable emotions. What's a mantra or a phrase that helps you reset? This feels hard because it is hard, not because I'm doing something wrong. What's a book that changed your life? Oh, Internal Family Systems by Dick Schwartz. That's a great one. Best. It's such a good book. Everything by him. Yeah. I'm so glad that you said that because it's a really important book for all parents to read. Yes. Something that you used to feel guilty about in your 30s that you've let go of now? Saying no to other people in the name of saying yes to myself.

1:06:00What is something that used to really matter to you when you were starting out in business or as a parent that no longer matters? Probably doing things that the elusive should told me to do, as opposed to doing things that really come from gazing in and kind of coming from my own value system. Yeah, that feels absolutely about right. Amazing. Dr. Becky, thank you so much. So happy to have you today.

1:06:36If you're loving this podcast, be sure to click follow on your favorite listening platform. While you're there, give us a review and a five-star rating and share an episode you loved with a friend. We'll be so grateful. Aspire with Emma Greed is presented by Odyssey. I'm your host, Emma Greed. Our executive producers are Corrine Gilead-Fisher, Derek Brown, and me. Our executive producers from Odyssey are Maddie Sprung-Kaiser, Leah Reese-Dennis, Asha Saluja, Lauren Lagrasso, and Jenna Weiss-Berman. Stephen Key is our senior producer. Sound design and engineering by Bill Shultz. Angela Peluso is our booker.

1:07:11Original music by Charles Black. Video production by Evan Cox, Kurt Courtney, Andrew Steele, Carlos Delgado, and Arnie Agassi. Social media by Olivia Holman. Special thanks to Brittany Smith, Sydney Ford, my teams at The Lead Company, and WME. Maura Curran, Josephina Francis,

1:07:36If you have questions for me, you can DM me at aspirewithemagreed. Greed is spelled G-R-E-D-E. That's aspire, A-S-P-I-R-E with emagreed. Or you can submit a question to me on my website emagreed.me.

1:08:00the bureau hund and then plopped the chat on kantine like always a little later you look up the like always mickering portion and think you're just we should have to go to mcgis for the big mcdonald's hunger try the new big gouda and the big tasty red steakhouse with 100 % rindfleisch from deutschland so long the forrat is not to our breakfast Rechaunters attorney broadcaster.