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(Breather) This show will help you understand the importance of perseverance (aka grit) and illuminate how easily youth are getting off track today due to the addictive nature of dopamine triggers (reference my breather show about Dr. Lustig’s new book, The Hacking Of The American Mind, for details).

Some great parenting and personal reflections come through in this episode, one being just how important it is to let your kid get angry, frustrated and so forth, but never discouraged. I share the story of a life-changing conversation I had with my son when he was in 7th grade and feeling completely burnt out from basketball. After he abruptly quit the team, he felt terrible and just totally down on himself. Even though I didn’t have all the parenting tips I have now, then, I knew that it was crucial that I communicate one lesson to him: do not be discouraged. We have to let our kids feel out all their feelings, but we cannot let them spiral into a web of self-doubt, which is easy when you’re feeling emotional. But that’s what you’re there for – to help them see what works and what doesn’t, and to show them where to draw the line with certain behaviors.

Since dopamine overdose downregulates serotonin, constant praise actually creates a terrible cycle for your children. According to studies, people who are on the receiving end of way too much praise are the types who “quit when the going gets tough.” This is a problem because it causes one to miss out on the intermittent reinforcement that comes with failure – that is what teaches the brain that frustrating spells can be worked through. But children who are complimented too much don’t develop persistence – no wonder, since they’re told how fabulous they are all the time, they have nothing to work towards! In fact, in college-aged kids, esteem-building praise has been linked with a noticeable drop in their grades! So watch what you say to your kids, and when you do praise them, make a point to praise the effort, not the result.

Consider cooling off a bit and placing less importance on your kid’s everyday doings and struggles. Perhaps tone down efforts to boost your kid’s self esteem and let it happen naturally. Maybe do the same for yourself, getting over yourself and being mindful to deliver maximum effort and be a good person. Land the helicopter, praise the effort, don’t comment on everything, and place the emphasis on being a good person and other important character attributes. Yes, it’s a bit different from old-school ideas about effective parenting, but guess what? That’s why it works! This episode will alter your communication with your children for the better, open your mind to alternative methods of parenting, and change the way you look at praise. Maybe your kids are all grown up now, but remember that it is never too late to change your methods. Or maybe you’re not a parent yet, but these lessons are still applicable to your own feelings about yourself and your childhood. Ask yourself, what generation of parenting was I raised in? Research what kind of parenting was thought to be “superior” back then, and try to identify how that has affected you. Maybe there are some things so deeply programmed in your psyche from your childhood that you don’t even know how far those roots reach. You might also find my show with Anat Peri, who hosts personal transformation retreats, very helpful, as she focuses on healing patients by going as deep as possible into their flawed childhood programming. Just remember: no one is perfect, and no one is a perfect parent or child. But we can all work on the ways we approach failure and success, and a huge part of that is simply getting over yourself.

TIMESTAMPS:

You must never get discouraged and get down on yourself.  [03:54]

It’s okay to quit. [06:31]

Research suggests overpraised kids’ primary concern becomes their image.  [07:21]

We become dopamine addicts and can learn to respond to failure with grit. [08:59]

Young people, especially males, become addicted to porn and video games. [13:54]

Parents do not need to make the kid’s life their life! Parents can be supportive and caring without giving up their own lives. [15:27]

The wise parent can learn to redirect, not fix, the child after a disappointment. [18:01]

High self-esteem is not necessarily the winning ticket that we think it is. [20:11]

Athletes who are doing well struggle with getting over yourself concept. [24:37]

Offering praise has become a sort of panacea for the anxieties of modern parenting. [28:34]

We want the kids to call the shots. {30:23]

The most important thing in life is to be a good person. [33:23]

LINKS:  

QUOTES:

  • “The parents’ idea quite often becomes a bad idea. And the kid’s idea almost always becomes a good idea and comes out well.”
  • “The most important thing in life is to be a good person.”

LISTEN:

Download Episode MP3

Get Over Yourself Podcast

Brad: 00:00 Welcome to the get over yourself podcast. This is author, an athlete, Brad Kearns, discovering ways to be healthy, fit and happy in hectic, high-stress, modern life. So let’s slow down and take a deep breath. Take a cold plunge and expertly balanced that competitive intensity with an appreciation of the journey. That’s the theme of the show. Here we go.

Brad: 03:24 Here we go. people. Thanks. Hey, it’s surprising parenting tips. Part two, starting with don’t let your kids listen to hip hop has bad words in it. Oh yeah. That’ll keep them clean and protected from the bad influences of modern life, won’t it? Or is it just art to appreciate? I don’t know. It’s up to you. Actually. It’s up to your kid.

Brad: 03:54 Where did we leave off with that wonderful part one talking about the inverse power of praise. Ah, yes. I was going on about the basketball experience of my son. My reference points. So picking that up, uh, and talking about, uh, redirecting the, uh, praise based on effort that’s a meaningful and productive rather than on results. Uh, I remember a turning point in my son’s basketball career. He, uh, was playing in the AAU the tournament, uh, programs that are really a high level on these poor young kids. It’s very intense and competitive, but it’s kind of the track that, uh, you want to choose if you want to excel at the high school level. Uh, and after a summer of just seventh grade, he’s still in middle school and this kid who loved basketball his whole life, uh, decided to quit and he wouldn’t say why. He wouldn’t go out and shoot, didn’t do anything. Uh, for maybe a month in the summer. He just rested after this intense, uh, tournament schedule of, uh, crazy weekends where you play three or four games and you’re in the gym all day long. Uh, finally he coughed up that he was feeling discouraged and it was the, uh, he intense feedback, the criticism and the highly competitive environment that had gotten to him. I mean, just the little kid sensitive little kid and it was thrown into the wolves, uh, thrown into the fire. So we had a life changing talk at that time. And I explained, I just came up with this, I guess, uh, out of nowhere, but I said, you know what?

Brad: 05:32 You must never ever get discouraged. You can get a lot of other things. You can get angry, you can get upset, you can get frustrated. Uh, you can have all these negative emotions. It’s going to happen in the athletic arena, but you can’t allow yourself to get discouraged and get down on yourself. And I think he took that to heart and understood the distinction from that point on, from having a struggle and facing that struggle, leaning into the struggle as they say, versus getting those self-limiting beliefs and negative self talk going like, I’ll never make it. I don’t belong here in law school. I’m not smart enough. Uh, these guys are going to blow me off the court. Whatever those things that we work through in our minds that serve no positive purpose whatsoever, as opposed to, I mentioned this a little bit in the previous show, uh, maybe your kid feels like, uh, he or she deserves to be in the starting lineup and they’re not.

Brad: 06:31 All right, we’ll take that energy, take that frustration and go out there and practice more, dive for loose balls and practice like I mentioned. So that’s a great spot for a parent to step in and say, Hey, look, uh, you know, you seem discouraged and that’s absolutely unacceptable. It’s okay to quit, says Brad Kearns. I don’t know about all parents thinking that, but if something’s not flowing for you, it’s not working life short, man. It’s okay. And I’m going to put that out there for parents that think that persevering is the end all solution to anything. Uh, it’s up to the kid really to decide whether they want to persevere or whether it’s something that’s not worth pursuing that’s not giving them the joy and the happiness. And, uh, you know, for my son there, he, he quit or he pushed back for a month. But you know, the deep love of basketball that he had, you knew he was going to continue on.

Brad: 07:22 Okay. So never ever get discouraged. That’s a big point you can convey to your kid. Uh, and then going back to Carol Dweck research, uh, you know, what happens, why does a kid get discouraged? Could it be too much early success and too much praise of that success? Too easy of a route, and then all of a sudden you hit a roadblock, uh, namely kids a head taller than you and the same grade or whatever it is when the, when the going gets tough and the funnel narrows and you don’t have the coping skills. And so you’re going to default over to a self limiting beliefs and discouraging thoughts. Uh, Carol Dweck research on overpraised. kids suggest that image maintenance becomes their primary concern. Hm. And one of the, uh, indications of that is, uh, tearing others down, engaging in that gossip and that negative social behavior that’s so common, especially, uh, in females of those school aged adolescent age. A great movie, Eighth Grade, I think it was nominated for Academy awards and stuff. It was a spoken from the point of view of an eighth grade girl and she was trying to build her YouTube channel and not getting enough likes, not getting enough views and you could just feel that pain of the desperate need to be popular and how important that is. Possibly a contributory factor of parents praising results and emphasizing the wrong stuff. Okay, so that image maintenance, you want to definitely get your kid out of any indication that that mode is kicking into gear. Uh, the studies are very alarming, the negative effects of them.

Brad: 08:59 So let’s go to, um, uh, the next topic here in part two. Uh, leveraging all the talk we had in part one and that would be, uh, the success attribute of persistence. Uh, we also call this grit, a very popular term and the purveyors on their Ted talks with millions of views. That grit is what it’s all about. The ability to repeatedly, repeatedly respond to failure, uh, with continuing on exerting more effort instead of giving up a highly studied trade in psychology. And this is believed to be the number one success factor to getting a lot of popularity, uh, for good reason. Right. Um, now, uh, the author of this article, I’m sorry, I, I don’t have the title. Just the notes, um, is talking about some research, uh, supporting the concept of grit and talking about the work of dr Robert conjure at Washington university in st Louis. He’s located a circuit in the brain called the orbital and medial pre frontal cortex that monitors the reward center of the brain and intervenes when there’s a lack of immediate reward when there’s a lack of a dopamine hit. When it switches on the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex, it tells the rest of the brain to keep going, to persevere, to apply that grit, uh, reminding the, the human that there’s a dopamine reward around the corner.

Brad: 10:28 And this goes back to, uh, the, uh, show about Dr Robert Lustig’s book, the Hacking of the American Mind, how we become a dopamine addicts, uh, and finding all assorted ways to get immediate short term gratification. Pleasure, get that dopamine hit that’s so important to human behavior. That’s our primary motivational force is that instant gratification. Now, as I talked about in detail on the other show, we’ve disgracefully abused these dopamine pathways with modern cultural and economic forces. Uh, trying to pull us into, uh, an addictive sort of lifestyle where we’re just going hit after hit after hit, whether it’s social media, whether it’s porn, whether it’s addictions to sugar, alcohol, street drugs, prescription drugs, we’re all about the hit the rush and continuing down that pathway at the expense of things like grit and perseverance and the longterm happiness and fulfillment that these, those types of behaviors, uh, convey.

Brad: 11:31 In other words, exhibiting grit and persistence and perseverance gets you to that point eventually where, uh, you persevere through a difficult challenge and you feel good about yourself. You feel happiness, contentment, fulfillment. Um, so the people that have grit and the people that don’t, uh, distinct in research, you can identify this. Uh, Dr. Coniger says, um, when he puts people through MRI scans, this, uh, trigger happens in certain people regularly and in others it doesn’t light up at all. So the orbital medial prefrontal cortexes are dulled out, uh, possibly as Dr Lustig argues, because the dopamine pathways have become flooded and when those dopamine pathways become flooded, they down regulate serotonin. Serotonin is the happiness, contentment, a neurotransmitter that comes from a persevering through challenge, right? If you’re following me, okay, so a dopamine overdose, down-regulates serotonin. So your pursuit of instant gratification, your pursuit in this context, uh, with the, the parenting discussion, uh, getting praised constantly, constantly, constantly, and then you don’t get it. You fall off the rails. Conan jurors, research confirms this. People who get too much praise quit when it gets tough. His quote, the key is intermittent reinforcement. The brain has to learn that frustrating spells can be worked through. A person who grows up getting to frequent resorts will not have persistence because they’ll quit when the rewards disappear. Okay? So now it’s starting to make sense. You know how some people just light it up in life? They just get up off the mat, as Johnny G would say, and keep going no matter what. And then others will struggle through a pattern of one failed career or one failed relationship after another, uh, getting into their stories with their blames and their excuses. Could it be possibly because those dopamine pathways are flooded out and serotonin is suppressed accordingly so that there’s no aptitude for perseverance? There’s no possibility for grit because, uh, I guess you could use the word spoiled when you’re talking about a parent child relationships, right?

Brad: 13:54 Yeah. It’s getting pretty scary now, huh parents? All right, let’s continue listening and learning from the experts, huh? Doctor Lustig conveying the frightful insight that there’s a trend among modern young males to become addicted to porn and video games because they get this incredible instant payoff. The video game is all about mastering one’s environment and in the multiplayer online games, uh, about winning, about, uh, achieving, uh, instant success, killing all the people and being the last survivor. And of course, the porn is the way to hijack one of the most profound dopamine pathways for sexual pleasure. So, so the coming of age male who’s optimized with the hormones, the motivation, the physical strength, the drive, the desire, when they’re in that prime of life going out there to conquer the world, they can easily get their pleasure, their needs, their most powerful needs met through these hijacks, these hacks, a porn and video games. Whew. How’d they get that way? Ooh, did the parenting contribute to that? That they’re all about praise and instant gratification because that’s what they’ve been socialized to their whole life. That’s pretty scary. And if that’s not enough motivation to redirect your parenting efforts into a meaningful effort-based praise, specific, meaningful effort-based praise, rather than a emphasis on the results, I don’t know what is, man.

Brad: 15:27 Here’s a pro tip on that topic. Coming from someone who’s out of those, uh, adolescent, uh, heavy parenting years. Maybe you don’t have to make your kids’ shit the end all in your own life and in your family life. Uh, this insight comes from the behaviors of previous generations. Our parents and our grandparents did not live and breathe, uh, their children’s day to day efforts. It wasn’t such a big ass deal. Right. Um, my parents were wonderfully supportive to my athletic endeavors and all the other things that I pursued in my life. And I remember, uh, the great achievement of my high school crowning achievement of my high school running career was that I qualified for the state finals. I had an incredible race in the qualifying. I wasn’t predicted to make it all the way to the finals. And I did it. And, uh, my dad sent a telegram from LA to congratulations on making the finals.

Brad: 16:21 Good luck. And it, uh, it was a wonderful, I have it cut out in the scrapbook. I don’t know how he could still figure out a way to send a telegram that was pretty old school. Uh, but I was thinking of the compare and contrast. Like if my son had qualified for the state finals, I would have jumped on a plane from any spot on the planet Earth and, uh, you know, forded great rivers and climb snowy mountains, uh, to watch him in the crowning achievement of his high school career. But my dad was, uh, supporting me in a different way and he didn’t necessarily need to break his back and reschedule his weekend plans. Uh, just to watch me run four laps around the track. He could hear me relate about it after and continue to be the, uh, the support and the unconditional love that he gave me that made me, uh, be the best I could be.

Brad: 17:06 Hey, my mom was there, she came up to Sacramento to watch the race with their sister and, uh, my surprise qualification for the finals caused her to, uh, change her return flight cause we were so sure that I wasn’t going to make it that I said, yeah, you can go home on June 4th, but instead she had to extend her trip. So there you go. And this stuff can apply to all manner of goals big and small. So, uh, your wonderful top student kid, uh, doesn’t get into law school or had a worst score on the MCAT than expected. Right. Okay. Uh, what do you want to have for dinner? Uh, want to go to the movies tonight? I want to go on a hike, so what time to move on. But if the parent is showing signs of devastation and all that kind of thing, wow, that is going to have a potentially adverse psychological impact on the poor kid.

Brad: 18:01 Remember we talked about uh, being a show pony in the first show where you’re telling your kid his whole life, I’m so proud of you, you did such a great job in the play. I’m so proud of you. You qualified for the state finals. That’s a lot of pressure man. And there’s a lot of ways to diffuse that pressure and one of them is to engage in dopamine triggering behaviors and not take on life like you could and so on and so forth. I have another anecdote on this topic and that was my son’s tragic moment in his life when he was denied admission to the only college that he applied to because he had his heart set on attending UCLA since he was 11 years old. And he did everything that society asked of him throughout high school, getting his A grades and excelling in athletics and turning in a wonderful application.

Brad: 18:49 And then they send you an email basically saying, fuck you, we don’t want you, and we’re not telling you why. And the poor kid was like almost in a catatonic state. He was so devastated staring at his screen. He waited the entire spring break to open up the, uh, the, the admission letter so he wouldn’t ruin his spring break. Uh, but the father stepped in at that point and said, okay, let’s go to plan B, which is to attend junior college and transfer into the school of your dreams. And it was about a five minute delay from this devastating, the most devastating news he’d ever received in his life. And pretty soon we were on the website navigating the path, uh, the alternative path to get there to your goals. Okay. So, uh, I’ll give myself a little parenting credit for thinking on the fly and redirecting quickly. But it’s also should be said that there’s alternative paths and there’s things that are meant to be and not meant to be. And so trying to, uh, force your kid through a perfect life or projecting your beliefs and values and priorities onto them. Boy, that is a recipe for, uh, not just, uh, you know, failure, but true disaster and rebellion and all those things. I have a great one liner from Dr. William Hughes. I’m gonna end the show with on that topic. So we’ll come back to them.

Brad: 20:11 So then we get to the topic of self esteem and it gets a little confusing because we’re coming from the old days in the 70s where the self esteem movement, uh, was, was a big deal, has now been pretty much trashed. And the idea of just boosting your kid’s self esteem as an end all goal, uh, is being reconsidered. The every kid gets a trophy is a common example, uh I criticizing that rather than that rather than praising it, which I’m sure they did when they started these trends. So, uh, the constant praising of results has been a rightfully trashed and rethought. Uh, there’s a scientist named Bauermeister who’s quoted in the article I read suggesting that or revealing that high self esteem is not such the winning ticket that we think it is. I’ve read some other commentary on this subject and they draw the reader in with this uh, paragraph of a clever colorful prose, uh, describing a young lad who was a great leader and excelled in a military school and went on to motivate, uh, troops and succeed. And of course they were talking about Hitler. And so like it was all positive attributes that culture, values, society values. And then the punchline was a pretty funny that this guy had tremendously high self esteem.

Brad: 21:35 He was good at uh, motivating, influencing others, blah, blah, blah. So high self esteem according to the researcher, Baumeister is not the winning ticket. We think it is high self esteem is not associated with higher grades, career success, or protection against getting in trouble. In fact, esteem building praise has been shown to cause college kids’ grade to sink lower. It’s also been shown that highly aggressive violent people tend to think highly of themselves. Uh, debunking the a this is the wives’ tale or what have you, that uh, people who are overly aggressive, uh, are trying to make up for low self esteem. Not so, so this breaking down of the, the prior movement that self esteem was the centerpiece, um, the researcher Bauermeister suggests that maybe, just maybe where’s this coming from? It’s coming from the idea that when parents praise their kids, they kind of able to praise themselves in the process.

Brad: 22:48 That kinda hurts. But I think that possibly could hit home. Right. And we get talking. I mean, almost everybody’s favorite topic, uh, if you pepper them is to talk about their kids and their kids’ exploits. And it’s easy to draw people in and they will go to town and talk about how their kids, the lead investigator and they got another award. And we very freely speak highly of our children, a much more so than being able to just go on and on about your own exploits. It’s kind of a joke where the grandma can’t stop praising all my little granddaughter, she’s so wonderful. Yeah. So when praising their kids, it’s not that far from praising themselves end quote. So maybe we just forget it and let a child build their self esteem naturally and also convey this, get over yourself message that self esteem might even just take a back burner these days.

Brad: 23:41 It’s not that big a deal. Huh? So where do we go with that? Let self esteem go on the back burner and let your ego go on the back burner and just be mindful and present and try to be a good person and do your best through life. I feel like, personally, this is one of the great gifts of getting older. I feel like I’ve made a shift in my personality and my priorities where I go out there, I do what I do, I do my very best, I compete, I’m intense, I’m passionate. I enjoy the heck out of my, my career and my athletic pursuits, but I’m really trying and I feel like I’m succeeding to some measure. Maybe I’m fooling myself. I don’t know, uh, in getting over myself now. Uh, just to be a clear and honest here, I absolutely don’t mind, uh, self promotion and being a goofy intentioned seeker in order to inspire and motivate others and draw more listeners to my podcast or more readers to my books.

Brad: 24:37 I’m playing the game. I don’t mind it. I think it’s, uh, it’s fun and I’m not thinking twice. However, I also feel like, uh, there’s a little bit of, um, distance or perspective that I’m not immersed into myself like an idiot. There’s a critical distinction there that I might compare to the triathlete of my younger days where I was still fighting that battle. I still had some awareness that I didn’t want to be all caught up on myself when I was succeeding nor super duper down on myself when I was losing. Uh, but it was a difficult battle for a young person in such an intense competitive environment where it’s very, very easy to get caught up as an athlete. So today. Huh? Speaking of that, I read my athletic bio, my triathlon bio, like it was someone else. It was so long ago. I have really little connection and relevance to that person.

Brad: 25:32 It’s hard to remember what I was all about at that time. Uh, but again, to, uh, face this issue directly and let’s talk about my recent a Guinness world record performance in my sport of speed golf. And honestly, I felt a huge burst of joy and pride when I broke that world record and didn’t mind in the slightest, uh, promoting the crap out of it and talking about it incessantly, doing an entire hour long podcast on my pursuit of the Guinness world record for the fastest hole of golf ever played. Uh, but I also realized, and I tried to convey this in the show and in the long blog posts that I wrote about it, that the real joy here, the real, uh, relevance and value was in the journey. And the ability that I had to prepare for an attempt to record that whole entire journey, whether or not the result came true or not, it was putting myself on the starting line in the competitive arena.

Brad: 26:29 It was so wonderful to share the experience with friends and family and that that’s the true beauty of life rather than just knocking off a resume, accomplishments. And the same could go for anything doing at work or even as a parent. And my fondest reflections, uh, of being a parent and raising my kids was just being there along the way for the journey. Uh, win or lose a success or failure is just a wonderful gift every single year. What were the funnest years? Uh, every year was fun because the kid was getting older and growing and developing. So that’s my answer is just so amazing. And now to see, uh, to relate to kids, uh, as adults rather than these little kids that you raised up. And I love reminding them, Hey, remember when we ran around the house pretending we were chickens? We did it every night. No, I don’t remember that.

Brad: 27:25 What? That’s pretty funny to realize that there’s not much, uh, recollection of the first what, four or five years I think in most cases. So anyway, that healthy perspective that you can get, and I’m sharing my own story to convey that. I have a little bit of perspective about the speed golfer who broke the world record. You know, I might as well be talking about my twin brother when I’m promoting the crap out of it. I’m not entirely immersed. Okay. And so if you can kind of get there as a parent too, I feel like that would be a really powerful and effective position to parent from, and that means that, you know, it’s still allowed. It’s still cool to celebrate your kid’s success. I’m sure it’s going to be a great day to celebrate my son and my daughter when they graduate from college or achieve life goals. It’s certainly better and more fun than dealing with failure. But if there is a failure or a struggle or a challenge or something serious to deal with, you have to face that in a graceful way and not overdramatize it not overdramatize the failure or the success.

Brad: 28:34 Ah, how about that for a ramble. And here’s another one from Poe Bronson, the author of the magnificent article, the inverse power of praise and the coauthor with Ashley Merryman, my former podcast, guest of nurture shock and Top Dog. And this is some pretty heavy stuff. So listen up, he’s talking about these revelations of studying Carol Dweck research and applying that to his parenting. And he’s got a five year old kid. So luckily he caught on early. Obviously the articles written a long time ago. Uh, but here he goes. So Poe Bronson saying offering praise has become a sort of panacea for the anxieties of modern parenting. Out of our children’s lives.from breakfast to dinner, we turn it up a notch when we get home in those few hours together, we want them to hear the things we can’t say during the day. We’re in your corner. We’re here for you. We believe in you in a similar way. We put our children in high pressure environments seeking out the best schools and the best sports teams and all that stuff that we can possibly find, and then we use the constant praise to soften the intensity of those environments. We expect so much of them, but we hide our expectations behind constant glowing praise. The duplicity became glaring to me. Eventually in my final stage of praise withdrawal, I realized that not telling my son he was smart meant I was leaving it up to him to make his own conclusions about his intelligence. Jumping in with praise is like jumping in too soon with the answer to a homework problem. It robs him of the chance to make the deduction himself.

Brad: 30:23 Oh, okay. In summary, first and foremost, get over yourself. You have less influence on your kids’ success and life path than you realize. There are many innate influences and many peer influences that take over for parental influence. For example, lousy parents can motivate a kid to kick butt in life and be a good person and great parents can raise train wreck kids that don’t model their character values. If kids can be raised in the same household and be called to different paths, ah, it’s out of your hands. Just do the best you can. Now that said, I do believe it’s possible to screw kids up. That’s why these two shows should be taken to heart. And you also might want to read Carol Dweck book N, Ashley Merryman and Poe Bronson’s book Nurture Shock, and also books called Positive Discipline and Your Child’s Growing Mind by Jane Healy were very helpful to me. Uh, when I was bringing the kids through the early years. Another great book, I had an opportunity to meet this guy in person. He’s got a great angle. Uh, he wrote a book called Raising Winning Kids without a fight by Dr. William Hughes. And he uttered that great quote that I teased at the start of the show. Uh, something like, uh, anything that’s the parents’ idea quite often becomes a bad idea. And anything that’s the kid’s idea almost always becomes a good idea, almost comes out well. So we want the kids to be the ones calling the shots. Dad, mom, I wanna take more piano lessons. I love it so much. Once a week is not enough. Dad, mom, I wanna join the competitive travel soccer team because I’m so passionate about the sport as opposed to, Hey, wouldn’t it be great if you blank, blank, blank.

Brad: 32:19 Okay. So the quick takeaways, going back to both shows, first one, land the copter man. Land the helicopter. Let your kids live life. Let them fail and struggle and figure shit out for themselves. Even stuff like you’re smart, you’re pretty, you’re a good athlete. Let them figure it out themselves. Praise effort made toward improvement effort that’s contributing toward improvement. Deemphasize the results and reject the attachment of self esteem to results. Don’t allow them to get discouraged. That’s simply not allowed. Make sure that your praise is specific and authentic and realize that not everything deserves comment. For example, many failures are obvious. Your kid comes home with a huge dent in the bumper of their car. They made a mistake and got into a car crash. Do you really need to comment and offer, uh, some helpful driving insights at that time? I think the car crash is enough.

Brad: 33:23 Even a huge success doesn’t necessarily deserve comment. So when your kid hits the winning three at the buzzer of the basketball game, maybe the best thing to do is greet them with a smile and ask them, uh, which ice cream store do they want to go to? As a parent, emphasize the most valuable pursuits of life, like being a good person, a good citizen, exhibiting good sportsmanship, controlling one’s emotions, and realize, Hmm, this is interesting. Guess what? The world has enough freaking anesthesiologists and corporate lawyers and politicians and CEOs, there are enough of those. We have enough high income earning .com kids vacationing in Cabo with bottle service right now too. We have enough of all of them. So your kid can carve their own path in life and do things that are meaningful to them without having to ascribe and adhere to the conventions. And measuring, judging forces of society, especially first and foremost their parents.

Brad: 34:30 Dang people. This reminds me of Eddie boy, my good friend, where I got the name of the bloody show from. That’s right. Get over yourself. Was this profound advice that his father dispensed to him in the middle of the night. One night he was a star high school quarterback and he threw a pick six for his team to lose the game. He was getting heckled in the parking lot after the game. He was so frustrated. He couldn’t sleep. So he got up in the middle of the night and started throwing the ball through the tire, hanging from the tree into the canvas hanging against his house, you know, trying to get his reps and work through his frustrations. And so when you throw the ball through the tire hitting the canvas, it makes a thud. So over and over in the middle of the night, this thud is happening in the front of his house pump pump, right? So it wakes up his father who was also a football coach and a man of few words, but very profound advice. In this case. So his father went out to see what the ruckus was, opens up the front door, sees Eddie boy doing his thing and he says, Ed, get over yourself. He closes the door, goes in, goes back to bed. What better way to handle that incident than what Dr Rashan did to his son? Fantastic advice right there on the spot. No, not it’s going to be okay. Don’t worry. You’re a great quarterback. You’ll get them in the next game. No, no, no, no, no. Just get over yourself. Okay. So that’s how I got the name of the show and, and a similar insight from Eddie boy and his dad, uh, came from Eddie’s speech on his 40th birthday to a packed house and a wonderful restaurant gathering. And he said, you know, my dad said something to me that I remembered when I was young and he said, the most important thing in life is to be a good person. That’s it. Thanks for listening to the show.

Brad: 36:38 Thank you for listening to the show. We would love your feedback at getoveryourselfpodcast@gmail.com and we would also love if you could leave a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. I know it’s a hassle. You have to go to desktop, iTunes, click on the tab that says ratings and reviews, and then click to rate the show anywhere from five to five stars. And it really helps spread the word so more people can find the show and get over themselves cause they need to. Thanks for doing it.

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