Lori Woodley: The #1 Thing Kids Need from Adults Right Now

34:53all the oughting, shoulding that we're doing on each other is something that we take on and do it like it gets done to us. We don't like it. Then we do it to others and they don't like it. And so there's just this kicking the can around of responsibility. And I think for me, the biggest piece of activation from wherever we might be is just truly deciding, noticing that we're not maybe as happy as we want to be. and that I think we have to get there viscerally like so I think that we can't just say it I think there's a lot of people out there like just these are the things to be happy well in order to first take on any of all these great tools like I have great tools but other people have great tools too there's a lot of tools out there but people aren't embracing the tools and if they are it's sort of peripheral and there's not enough deep change.

35:47And so I feel like we have to decide. And in order to decide, we first have to recognize where we are and really place it in this perspective of the limited lifetime we have here. So I like to ask people, it's like a little bit of a hard question. Like how many of us know someone who didn't get enough days? Everyone does. Like if even most kids today, when I was young, I didn't lose somebody I knew till I was, you know, close to 20. But, you know, with COVID, like with so many things, most of our kids know someone that they've lost. And if somebody didn't get enough days, and we put it in perspective that this is our responsibility to do a good job with our lifetime.

36:30And am I living the life I hope? And then take accountability, like, I'm waiting for somebody else to give me the life I wanted. I'm waiting for somebody else some that thing to happen out there like there's this disconnect and accountability right so if I'm accountable for the life I want to live and I'm recognizing that I'm not being the person that I feel good about then I can maybe there's a crack enough to go okay so what could I do and what you know tools sort of meet me where I am. Some people will be as far as you're talking about, like things from birth and even before birth and like what you came to earth to do.

37:12And that's big that for some of us were right there. And others are like, I don't even know what you're talking about. Can I just like sleep at night? You know? And so we want to, I think, let everybody be where they are and then decide for themselves that it's enough, but then own it. If it's enough to sit and watch TV every day and do nothing but go to work and complain about the things that you don't like and not enough of a paycheck. And, you know, I'm not shaming that. Like if that's consciously what somebody wants and they can detail it and say, yep, I'm good. And everyone around me wants to be around me.

37:52They like who I am. I like who I am. Choose that. But I think when we look a little bit, like we pull open that crack a little bit, there's at least a little more that would help us express our greater version of ourselves. And in that, we would feel more fulfilled.

38:11Darin Olien:Yeah, fulfilled and happy and feel some more joy. Who doesn't want that? Right. And you also have to give up a little something of the current patterning. Yeah, attachment to what has always been. Right. And there's also that comfort in that. At least I know what this outcome is going to be. Yeah. Oh, for sure. I mean, I think that's the greatest thing about why people don't want to have the crack opened and look through it or pull back the curtains a little. Because I think once you know, you can't unknow. So there is ignorance is bliss. I understand as I've grown up and gotten older, right, why there is something to that statement that makes sense to some people.

38:54Like if I don't know, if I don't have to recognize that my bad mood is really pushing the people I love away, but I can blame them for never talking to me, but not have to look in the mirror about who I'm being, that makes me unapproachable. because change, then knowing that means we have to either consciously say, I refuse to change, and those are hard words, or consciously go, hmm, maybe it could be better. And I want more of that.

39:27Darin Olien:Yeah, even the act of asking that question. Yes. What else is possible here? Yes. And then you don't have to know the answer. Yeah, right. Right. Which is the willingness. You know, I find it so interesting how sometimes unwilling, how unwilling people are to just allow themselves to perceive another reality. Correct. Yeah. And they'll shut it down before they'll even allow themselves to think about it, which is such a wild, because you've already created the steps of how you can't get it, so therefore you're not going to think about it. Right. Because then you can justify where you're at by blaming everything else, right?

40:13So these are a little bit, I call them outches. Like, you know, when we start to unveil what's really sort of underneath and how maybe what we're doing in my world with students or with each other or, you know, and now we're training in corporate, you know, settings. Like, you know, the uncovering of our protections is a really hard thing. And that's where I think, you know, the work that I do helps us get there. And that's experiential work. Like, I'm about being in a situation where we create the crack where people don't really have a choice to not look at it. Right. And then they, because when you're just at home, you know, it's easy to not look at it.

40:57It's easy to pretend everything is fine, even when, you know, everything about our little voice is like, this isn't fine. Right. Yeah, exactly.

41:04Darin Olien:What are some of the kind of techniques for you with kids and then maybe adults, too? Like, how do you open the how do you present the crack enough so that they don't recoil? Yeah. But then that they there's a potential to lean in. OK, can we do it right now? Oh, shit. Yeah. Super easy. It's not a trap. Okay, just cross your arms. Cross my arms. Yeah, like this is easy for this because everybody listening can hear. Yeah. All right, so how hard was that? Not hard. Right. Did you have to think about it? No. Right. I call that autopilot. We're always on autopilot. Autopilot just takes over. it's you know how we set how we either snooze or don't snooze the alarm in the morning it's how we make a dinner like we just aren't really thinking yeah it's just routine right but nothing changes in autopilot right so now i want you to cross your arms backwards behind me no no put your arm cross your arms backwards put the other one on top okay okay yeah now what did that take i it took me a second to like oh wait a minute because because the autopilot was easy because I always had a way I would do it.

42:25Darin Olien:But then doing the other one, I had this, it, it, there was a neurological, like, a shift. And what'd you have to do to make it happen? I had to think about it. Yeah. I had to step in and be conscious. Yeah. And, and you could feel that in your body. Yeah. Yeah. So that's what we call two steps forward. In order to create something new, we have to first cross backwards. And it's uncomfortable, not impossible, not really even hard, right? Some have to think about it. But it didn't take that much time to have to think about it. Like it's not such a huge thing that everything else in life has to drop so you could do that.

43:12Right. But in order to be off autopilot, you have to cross backwards. And if you just play that way, like as soon as you lean into the bad mood that you're used to, the misery mining conversation that you're stepping into, like if you just like, no, cross backwards, what do I want instead? So for me, that is like I can be in a training of 100. I just did a training of 135 people. And you just open that way. And the invitation is, is today we're going to cross backwards and we're going to go two steps further. And we ask people, look, can we count on you stepping into two steps further than you want to go or that you believe you can go?

43:56Because they're different. Many of us stop short of the next thing. Like a teacher might stop short of asking a student a deep question because they don't think they can handle the response. Not because they don't care. Or, you know, a parent might not believe that their very movement-oriented kid could sit still to read a book. So they never really require or ask them to.

44:25Darin Olien:Right. So they've already decided based on what they're getting. Right. So if we cross backwards and we believe in ourselves for two steps, not a whole lifetime change. because I believe that once we take those two steps, one step might be enough to step right back. But you go two steps forward into it, and you have enough of a beat to be like, oh, this isn't as bad as I thought. This isn't as scary as I thought it might be. Oh, that reaction from the person on the other side of me, they actually leaned into me rather than ran away from me. Right, right. So I feel like that whole silly, it's pretty simple, cross backwards thing is an opportunity for us to open the crack and then we step into having a lot of fun like in trainings or some of the ideas in the book like everything doesn't have to be hard and heavy it can be kind of fun to start to think about what we need rather than complaining right like oh nobody's ever asked me i don't know when i was a kid if anyone really ever asked me and I had good parents.

45:36But I don't know they ever asked me, what do you need? I didn't know how to answer that question until Shailene asked me as an adult, right? Like sometimes our kids are our greatest lessons, right? And so my kids asked, do you love yourself? Like, I look at the way that I was raised, the way I became who I am today, and I just hope we can just help people get there sooner. It's been a beautiful life and it took me a long time to get to this moment.

46:14Darin Olien:Yeah, you're also turning 60 and you're pumped about it too. Yeah, almost 60. What does that feel like for you and what kind of reflecting back and kind of owning that space, what does that feel like for you? I feel excited. Well, first off, I don't feel different today than like, you know, it'll be a number. I've always thought the fives in the middle were harder than the zeros on the decade turns. It does feel a little daunting, like 60, the next decade is 70. Wow. So there's that. But, you know, I feel vibrant and I feel grateful. Like my life has been a journey of growing, literally. You know, now I do keynotes for thousands of people.

47:00But if somebody told me I was going to be that person when I was a teenager, I would have been like, what are you talking? Like, you don't even know me, right? Like, I was afraid of everything, but really ultimately what I was afraid of, of myself.

47:13Darin Olien:Right. Right? Like, I didn't see my purpose. I didn't see that I had something to offer. But what did drive me forward, which I hope everyone finds, is purpose. Yeah. I was lucky enough to find something I was good at. I got results from. And then the purpose of elevating others, well, at the same time, probably slower than I wish, you know, in hindsight happened. I was reflecting on my own growth, right? And so I feel really blessed to be here in this moment, to be healthy, to, you know, write and publish a book for the first time. And also still have the opportunity to be in front of people.

47:54and invite them to cross backwards and laugh out loud with us. Well, at the same time, developing the tools to design the life that they could maybe never even think about.

48:08Darin Olien:Right. And opening the door for them to do that, literally as simple as that example is,

48:22Darin Olien:it brings me back to this whole other thing which is probably way too much stuff, but I got to study with a Toltec shaman like 25 years ago. Wow. And he came from, he was 80-something years old. He came from Don Juan Matus and Carlos Castaneda, that whole line, that whole lineage. And one of the teachings, when I'd be with him, he goes, which way do you go to the market? Don't go that way. Huh? Go the other way. And how they would frame it was interesting. They said death is always stalking you. So they would bring in the life. Like if you are just repeating, to your point, unconsciously doing something, you're kind of not alive.

49:14Yeah.

49:14Darin Olien:Right? To the point where I just do that and I don't think about it. But then I've got to. And it's silly. It's the same principle, but also there's chemistry, there's neurology, there's all of this other stuff going on. But it's so simple, but yet so disruptive to the patterning of the sameness to allow the opening for other things, other opportunities. So once you open, kind of going back to what you're saying, once you open that sliver, you have these tools. Because everyone can be excited about a workshop. Right. Right. But then from what you've written, what are, so give me some examples of some of the tools that you would lead people with or show them so that they could take that on.

50:03So like a couple, like the muscles themselves are just the first one is one of the biggest one for people is to quit taking things personally. Now we hear it. Like, I don't think even like my organization's called All It Takes, people just use those words all the time and they're not really thinking. It just comes out of people's mouths. And don't take it so personal. So we're in judgment of each other who don't react the way we want them to to something we've said. And so we're like, don't take it personal. Well, when you reframe it in, it's a tool that I can use that will bring me so much peace when I can offer benefit of the doubt that I don't know what's going on over there, but it's really on them, not me.

50:43There's a lot of freedom in that. And if we can just release the tension by not taking things personal. And then people are like, well, how do you not? It's like, I don't have a magic wand. Some of this is work, right? Like you have to think to cross backwards. Well, you have to think in that situation where you would normally take it personal, then you get fired up. And then how do they respond? Fired up. and then you just have a power struggle escalating and nobody's getting anything they want.

51:16Darin Olien:And further and further destruction on top of it. Correct. Yeah, absolutely. Like the one-upmanship and it's like, if you're going to take me out, I'm going to take you out more. So there's that. And then there's the accountability piece in muscle too, like talking an I rather than you. The minute we reframe anything from you did, you made me because of you, like if I say those words to you or to any listener like and you just hear them instantly it's like it's cringe for sure it's defensive in our bodies yes but if you listen just listen to both ourselves and the world people are not saying well you know what my experience was and this is what I'm needing which is muscle three like paying attention that we don't need a cell phone, we need to feel connected.

52:07And the cell phone is a tool for that. But really, what is it that we're needing that's missing when we get triggered? You know, what is ultimately, like, I want to feel in relationship with somebody who I care about that we don't talk. What do we need, right? Like, so those are, you know, just a few of the tools of the muscles and, And, you know, how we do, some of them are like, we do this thing called the approach. Have you ever paid attention to how you like to be appreciated? And we ask people to get up and move around the room and pick their poster. You like to be appreciated publicly. You like to be appreciated with a note.

52:52You know, or individually come to me and say it. Like there's a variety, but people never think about that. But here's what happens. Someone calls me out publicly in an appreciation and pretty much I shrink. So the person's expecting me to be all happy, but I can't even hear the great news they want to say to me because it feels embarrassing or on the spot. Right. And so somebody's doing something good, but it's missing who I am or someone else is. So then I don't respond in a way they think I should. And then this good thing that was intended well now has just split a relationship, you know, fractured it.

53:38And I think that if we can stop taking some of that personally and step back and look at it with a new lens, the cross backwards lens, then we can apply what matters to us in a way that we are in service to both ourselves and others.

53:57Darin Olien:feeling proud of it yeah what i mean i know that for me i think i've had some accomplishments i wouldn't have planned you know at all like um but i don't sit there and go yay like i just because i'm like driven and so I'm like yeah but I gotta do this and I gotta and also some of it is because I feel because some of those other operating systems are well because you don't feel you know you don't feel worthy you don't feel adequate all of those you know right away those things so then I'm like I'm not sitting there receiving your many awards that you continue to get right and and And so how do we then, so where is it landing for us if we're just diverting this?

54:55Darin Olien:Because like you said, it's not then so kind if someone's being kind and we're not receiving that. Right. And or not kind to us. It's like the difference between, we're not talking about pridefulness necessarily. Right. We're just talking about like, oh. Yeah, sinking into the gratitude for the recognition. And for those of us in service to others like you are and I am, like our work is service work, right? Our hearts are service oriented. I think that personality style often has a harder time taking in because for me anyways, I'm always thinking about, okay, yeah, great. And what's next? And it's so bad, especially like I really had to recognize it with my staff.

55:41Like I take other people out by constantly like, okay, great, good job. Now what? And I have done that to myself forever instead of just sitting in the joy of the recognition or the accomplishment. And that has been a lifetime lesson for me that I still am not great at, but at least now I see it. And I can consciously go, okay, take a breath. Sit with this. even if it's really uncomfortable, and just really enjoy that you are where you never thought you'd be. Totally. You've accomplished something you never could have dreamed of. You've said yes to universal opportunities that you couldn't have imagined, and those are great gifts.

56:29It's hard for me to sit in the great gift.

56:32Darin Olien:Yeah, and especially in an organization or corporate setting where there's always the next thing to do. And it's not like, okay, let's just all like pause on our Zoom meetings. Thank you. Thank you. You know what I mean? And it's also, as a man, I just like, what else is there to do? Like, let's, you know, I don't have, you know, on the one hand, I have a massive empathetic side that my father kind of revealed later in his life that I share with him. But at the same time, I've always been like fight and go and push and all of that stuff. So it's like rectifying that. So as I'm listening to you, it's like I'm also listening through that side of things.

57:25Darin Olien:And then the way our convenient world is set up, there's very little resilient space to be cultivated. or maybe not resilient, but the receptivity, the acknowledgement. I mean, this is a, Laurie, this is a wild world. Like I contemplate, this is probably my Scorpio inside me, but I have big world views. Like I sit in that space more than, like how can I, I'm not being audacious to say like I want to help change the world in a better way. Not saying that I can change the world, but I want to help it. Be a contributor to that. I want to contribute. I want to leave it better than, it's at depth to my soul.

58:13Darin Olien:As much as I push it away and try to accomplish other things, it's like if it's not aligned in that, I don't care. Give a shit. Yep. Right? And so there's this, there's a very strong pull. And at the same time rectifying, like we were talking before, I had to cancel on you twice because I was like, I was a mess on my couch for two weeks. And it's just impossible for me to get in that position if there wasn't freaking God, spirit, universe just going, boom, you're done. Because you weren't going to slow down on your own. Right. And so we're met with this world that just because it's the world doesn't mean it's the world that was meant.

59:00Yes. Yeah. Oh, for sure. this is the world that was meant why would we continue to be here like yeah yeah and we've

59:08Darin Olien:created all these constructs to be like oh we've got to do this and we got to do this and now we live in a world where we're staring on our phones and we've got ai and it's like i don't know like it's the hustle yeah yeah the hustle versus the calm and the moments and i think that's where grace comes in, like where we can learn to be our unique individual self. Like for quite a few years up until the last few years, I felt a lot of shame around not resting. I sleep well. So like that's kind of, I sleep well. I pretty much most of the time sleep well. And so that's sort of my rest. But you know, there's people who are like, well, you ought to be doing this and you have to do that and you have to do this and you shouldn't do this and you shouldn't answer emails at six in the morning.

59:54And I felt a lot of like responsibility to what I'm not doing right. Well, I already did that to myself enough. I didn't need their help.

1:00:02Darin Olien:Right. Right. We're very good at helping each other feel bad when we're already feel bad ourselves. Like, what is that? And so then I was like, wait, this is I get to be me. And which parts of what they're saying that's coming from their deep care does does seem to work for me, because if I just get offended taking it personally, like they're wronging me, then I can't hear anything and I'm not going to change anything. I'm never going to cross backwards. Right. But if I listen, it's like, oh, they see me hustling. Maybe, oh, maybe my mood is bad and that's what they're seeing and I'm not seeing it.

1:00:38So, but applying and that's kind of my formula. It's like, I don't have someone's answers. I have some tools that they get to plug their own life into because I think it's, I don't know I think it's a slippery slope to think we know the answer for someone else's life who's living you know in so many different cultures and communities and small towns and big towns and you know concrete jungles and you know wild wild west like at like there's so many different ways people are living yeah and if we can just take the way we live and up level it if that would make us live lighter and happier yeah then great um so i i think that for me like i i do need to look at the slowdown but i'm probably still going to be me yeah and it's okay yeah

1:01:31Darin Olien:yeah i mean these are really important things especially when you're in a world of of everyone's got opinion everyone thinks they're right and then amplification on social media and things like that um and then how do we you know and then the lack of responsibility you know because god this this matrix is just built to just go point fingers well if you would literally just change that i would be fine. Yeah, well, there's the you, right? That's muscle too. I said, like, if you would change that, I would be fine. So it's all about you. So I get to, you know, I get to blame everything. I think one of my greatest gifts was a 16.

1:02:18I was 16 in high school. And one of the teachers who did do something that was positive for me made some statement. I don't even remember exactly what it was, but it literally was somewhere around radical responsibility. And it was a psychology class. and he was a great human. So it wasn't like a finger point. It felt like I was kind of like, aha. Like I've always felt shy and kind of depressed and sort of like, woe is me. And he said something around, you know, like how you are and who you are is your choice. And it, like I remember that, you know, it's like 44 years later and I remember him saying it and the shift in me like oh if you want to be happy stop waiting for your parents to do this

1:03:08Darin Olien:this and this you need to do it and love that guy right yeah before Tony Robbins totally before Tony Robbins and then you know in my 20s I did a bunch of workshops that kind of were more of that on an adult version and I was like wait radical accountability love it and I think that there's something to that. And, you know, I went a little far and decided that I had to do everything by myself, which then was my own journey for like, oh, how do you lean in and let others contribute to you? Right. That is a tricky one. It is. But I still would prefer to lean into letting others in than the everyone else is responsible for my happiness.

1:03:51Right. Yeah.

1:03:52Darin Olien:That radical responsibility, I think that's one of the greatest superpowers. The irony is that people don't want to take it, and they're subverted through the world, not kind of, even though it's trying to reveal itself at all times, I think. Like that little feather touch is like, I've been here for a long time. Now you're only listening because I threw you on the couch and you can't move. Right. But you can travel back. That communication, I think communication to us, the truth is always trying to get to us. And I think that was huge for you to get that at 16. Oh, yeah, I really feel so lucky.

1:04:37I really do. I think that I feel lucky to have embraced, to be able to hear it like an epiphany, and then also to sort of embrace it.

1:04:47Darin Olien:Yeah. And that now I write to it, right? Like, you know, but just an example, like schools, parents blame, you know, the schools for not taking care of their kids. And I'm like, wait, I was a public school person. We care about kids. Right. We care about your kid. But then the school's like, well, they don't hear me and they're not giving me, you know, or a teacher, you know, they're not giving me the respect I deserve as the educator. And then, you know, so then both the kids sitting over here sort of now on social media doing their own thing. Well, the adults are arguing about what the kid needs and the kid's voice isn't brought into it, which they should be.

1:05:24I think really young, they should be part of the conversation about their own life. And so, I mean, that's happening in, you know, again, workplaces. It doesn't matter if you're working at a coffee shop or, you know, some big tech company or you're in schools.

1:05:40Darin Olien:Like we're pointing fingers and not saying, how do I contribute to what's broken? And how do I contribute to what might elevate the solution here? Those are big shifts of a different way to phrase a question. Yeah, because, again, it's so it's so it perpetuates the toxicity. and it takes that changing the hand position to go what I don't have to react this way and and we're all it seems to me nothing good comes when you're emotionally reacting to anything you know aside from maybe receiving something from someone's yeah thank you like yeah maybe we could yeah some of us get better about that yeah that that actually would make the person saying it happy and yeah yeah so we'll practice that one um but but that that that contribution to something better and and you know even from an educator perspective when they have all these kids that don't see them and they're trying to get respect from these young kids and like it's just it's never going to happen but if you give it more than likely you'll get it yeah yeah there's You know, saying lots of people have said it, but we have a high school teacher says it on one of our films.

1:07:10You know, kids, students, I'm going to just say humans don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. Period. Yeah.

1:07:19Darin Olien:That's the film, The Trusted Space? Well, it's in that series. So he's, yeah, he's in the Decoding Behavior and the Navigating Storms films. And then he has a five-minute clip that's just him talking about invisible wounds. and really if we're not paying attention to our care and here's the thing Darren that I think's really important a lot of people say I care and we just expect the other person to believe us but words are truly empty if the actions are not aligned if we are not caring we're not trustful trustworthy but we say we are we somehow like it's that we're in an illusion in our own brain about who we are versus what the world says if you know the kids in your classroom or the teenagers at your dinner table or the you know staff who work for you are like yeah I don't trust that person we can say we're trustworthy but it is not about us really that's a radical kind of shift in perception.

1:08:30It's really less about us than it is about other people's perceptions.

1:08:34Darin Olien:Right. Do you think that, like, if you were to come in and wave a wand of some of the most powerful things you could do in the education system right now, and just off of what you said, I'm like, because the kids are going through, Jesus, so much, like hormones and their peer groups. Fear. Like, look at what's happening in our world. Their friends are getting picked up off the streets and shooters come into schools and people don't have food. Kids don't have food to eat. Like, it's a lot. That's a lot. So do you think that if the caregivers, if the teachers, if they took that one thing and just showed care, do you think that that would, I'm coming from my experience, I'd be like, yeah, that would be massive.

1:09:30Darin Olien:rather than I can't because of the union, I can't because they're an idiot, whatever they're saying to themselves. That's what they're saying, yeah. They don't care, their parents didn't teach them right, all the things. Right. I think if 80 % of a school on a given day were a safe landing spot for kids, meaning, and I don't mean safe like I'm going to lean into you and cry my eyes out, because most kids don't want to do that. But they know that if they walk by, you're going to smile and say good morning and mean it, right? You mean it. Like I'm going to try to seek out your eyes. I'm going to try to be like, hey, good morning.

1:10:13And it comes from a genuine, not autopilot, morning, morning, but hey, good morning, good to see you, glad you're here. I think if 80 % of who our kids bumped into on a campus a day could do that, That we would change, first off, the culture of safety and community and connection. And then we would change, from there we change attachment to school. From there we change, oh, I belong here and they believe in me. What does my life look like? Where am I going? So then we become curious about what education can be for us. Sure. Rather than a place to be babysat or, you know, for so many kids just feel like they're imprisoned for the day at school, right?

1:11:00So I think a culture of care is critical. I think 80 % is fair. I think it's probably lofty, but I say that because we need to have a good 15 % to 18 % of the staff be able to have their lives too. the staff member who got an untenable doctor's result in the morning right the teacher whose parent just passed away yeah right like educators are still human and they're going through their thing so if we could give grace for me to have my life moments and you and you know and then a couple percent for the teachers who just honestly don't care and don't want to care and aren't going to change. But I do think that most people are in education because they care and they don't know what to do.

1:11:55They feel indoctrinated in a way for some of them, especially older, you know, veteran teachers, educators who are like, make them fear you before you can make, before you show them love. I mean, it's just so backwards.

1:12:09Darin Olien:That's so many of those. Right. Almost. Yes, that's how it was. And And it's still, sadly, we thought after COVID, after the pandemic, it would change. And many of us in education are kind of heartbroken right now that there's a real tight grip to go back to what it was. And, you know, that's discouraging. But I have to look at the encouraging studies, the statistics, the people who do care. Well, the truth is what you're talking about is not a billion-dollar grant that needs to come in. It's not this big hurdle physically. Right. It is a cultural shift and a mindset shift that is exponentially better for them.

1:13:00Darin Olien:Yes. As well as the students. and then it will go back and forth because kindness, we already know, is healthy for you. Even fake it until you can. I'm not saying like going back to your saying I don't care, but like it takes a little bit to get out of the rut that you're in of just, I'm tired, I'm whatever. But like that little grace, of course. but if we can adopt that and because listen putting it on a teenager is ridiculous but the adults could make a massive change and then vice versa and like I know what we've already talked about the the shift in me based on people that respected me and um was was everything you know and then those assholes that were assholes then I'm giving you a hard time.

1:14:04Darin Olien:Yeah, and they still exist on our campuses. In fact, way too many of them. But I think that, you know, even people who are assholes who show this, you know, wall, many of them can shift. They just need to be invited into it in a way that doesn't shame them for who they are, but opens the opportunity for who they can be and then invites them to walk through that door. for themselves. And I, that's where we see, you know, kind of the, the shift from the naysayers to the champions or naysayers to at least I'm going to try because they can feel for themselves what it would be like if they tried. And that's, you know, we, we, who wants to go to work and be miserable all day long, every day.

1:14:55Darin Olien:Exactly. Well, you have the, the, the hardest things you have an old pattern but you have all of the data statistics physiology all all of the all of the support if it's done yeah right and then the x because what would that look like we have no idea the positive change that that could make on this foundational level because i think Like you probably see so much arguing is happening over. That's not the point. You're arguing over something that is not going to shift that which you are struggling internally with, both yourself and those children. We're just in a spin cycle. Like, you know, it's the cesspool drain, right?

1:15:44Like, I'm going to complain. I'm going to do it. I'm going to be staunch in my rigid beliefs about the way it should be. I'm not looking at kids for who they are today. I want to look at them through the lens of who I was and how I was. And, you know, it's just not the same. We don't parent the same. We don't educate the same. Our kids are not being raised the same. They have a whole different set of worries and anxieties that we never thought about. And, you know, being attached to going back is just not serving our kids.

1:16:17Darin Olien:Yeah. Yeah. And this is not just school. This is business cultures. This is because younger and younger people are coming in the workforce. But also this is home. This is as parents, like looking at yourself, like what kind of positive impact are you having? And a lot of times for parents it's a little bit different because parents are like, oh, I just want them to have a happy childhood. Because we felt in many ways a lot of current, like adults, at least my generation, are like, oh, we're pretty repressed. And the psychology is like, oh, we should let kids have a say, and we want to have them self-express.

1:16:55And so we sort of build a culture with our kids of that, which is great. But what I think we missed is having a say, expressing our feelings doesn't equal getting our way. And so what we have is like parents who are just like, oh, my gosh, what do I do with this child who's, you know, I talked about right at the onset of this adult temper tantrums. Well, we have teenage ones and we have, you know, we're all talking about two-year-olds and the two-year-old temper tantrums. Well, they're happening at every level, at every age. And I think that from a parent perspective, moving into the training, the developing our kids into accountable, resilient, dream drivers.

1:17:44Like, I think we should know, find out who we are and dive for our dreams, but not at the expense of having to earn our way.

1:17:54Darin Olien:Yes. Right? Both socially and financially and, you know, all the pieces. Back to the accountability. Back to when things don't go your way as you're projecting your dream in the world. Have some resiliency. Have some tools. Correct. To kind of navigate because then it's not going to just because you figured a few things out doesn't mean you figured everything out. Exactly. We're still figuring things out, aren't we? We are definitely. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for your work. This is so powerful. And naturally, as I'm kind of sitting here, I'm remembering so much of my childhood, my education, my teacher.

1:18:34Darin Olien:I haven't thought of certain teachers in my head for such a long time and the impact that they had. And I'm just in that space right now of just like clearing up things so I can, you know, keep going. But this was so powerful. And I love the dedication that you've had and the foundational things that you're bringing in so that real change can happen. Yeah. Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity to be here and to meet you and to, you know, listen to you one-on-one versus listening to the podcast that I'm listening to. Exactly. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Nice. Wow. That was great.

1:19:21Darin Olien:Okay. So much fun. You have so many.