Todd & Cathy discuss evidence-based ways to be an effective leader and how to teach and demonstrate leadership to your children. They discuss the importance of early and ongoing social emotional learning, and how everything begins with self-awareness. They also process Adam Grant’s research around give and take, why knowing your “why” is important, and why feedback hits differently depending on your background and experience. Link to Podcast Episode on our website.

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Time Stamps

1:52 ZPR Moment on Feedback

15:06 Raising generous kids

20:04 The double bind of generosity for women

  • Who Does What? Podcast #698
  • Women Aren’t Nags, We’re Fed Up- Podcast #495
  • Real-Time Emotional Labor- Podcast #440
  • Emotional Labor is an Unpaid Job- Podcast #405

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1:04:03  Pop Culturing

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Summary

Raising Leaders Through Feedback, Generosity, and Self-Awareness

In a recent podcast episode by Todd and Cathy Adams of Zen Parenting Radio, the couple explores the essential elements of raising leaders, including the significance of feedback, generosity, self-awareness, and living a life aligned with one’s integrity. The conversation also delves into various topics such as gender and cultural differences, social emotional learning, and the importance of passion and purpose.

The Adams couple emphasizes the importance of feedback in leadership development. A good leader knows how to give feedback at the right time and in the right way, while also striking a balance between seeking feedback and not caring about what others think. Feedback is a crucial aspect of growth and self-improvement, and fostering a healthy attitude towards giving and receiving feedback can help develop strong leaders.

Generosity plays a vital role in raising leaders, as Todd and Cathy discuss Adam Grant’s work on givers, takers, and matchers. Research findings highlight a connection between concern for others and academic success, indicating that fostering generosity in children can lead to positive outcomes. The couple also touches on societal expectations and stereotypes around gender, ambition, and emotional labor, emphasizing that cultural, gender, and racial differences shape people’s experiences and perspectives.

Another key factor in developing leaders is self-awareness and social emotional learning (SEL). Research shows that a self-aware leader leads better, and that leadership with character begins with personal self-awareness. Introducing SEL in children can improve their leadership abilities and success later in life. Cathy points out that a leader’s mission can get hijacked if their “why” becomes unclear, but SEL can help prevent this. The couple also highlights that dictatorships and authoritarian parenting lack empathy and understanding, contrasting with the importance of SEL in leadership.

Todd and Cathy address the importance of finding one’s “why” and living a life in line with one’s integrity. They argue that success and leadership look different for everyone, and it’s not always about being number one or making the most money. Helping children develop a passion and desire to lead in a way that works for them and aligns with their integrity is essential. The couple emphasizes prioritizing work they love with people they care about over increasing their podcast’s reach or downloads.

They also acknowledge that not everyone can always pursue what they love due to various life circumstances. However, they assert that if people used their skillsets and did what they loved for a living, most would be happier. The Adams couple recognizes the value in taking less desirable jobs, as these experiences can help young people understand what kind of work they ultimately want to do.

In summary, Todd and Cathy Adams of Zen Parenting Radio explore the essential elements of raising leaders, such as the significance of feedback, generosity, self-awareness, and living a life aligned with one’s integrity. By addressing a wide range of topics, they highlight the importance of understanding and embracing the diverse experiences and perspectives that shape individuals and their leadership journeys.

Transcript

ZPR#706 – How to Raise Leaders Full Episode Transcript – DOWNLOAD

Todd: [00:00:00] Here we go. My name’s Todd. This is Cathy. Welcome back to another episode of Zen Parenting Radio. This is podcast number 706 Wireless to Zen Parenting Radio because you’ll feel outstanding. How’d I do on the Fadeout that time, sweetie?

Cathy: Much better. It’s much better.

Todd: And I always remember our motto, which is “The best predictor of a childhood being is a parent’s self-understanding.”

Todd: On today’s show, we’re gonna talk about leadership, how to raise a leader, how to raise a leader. But first I want to invite anybody out there that hasn’t already on Team Zen. It’s 25 bucks a month. Team Zen is our virtual community. Call it, I don’t know, our special persons community, our VIPs.

Cathy: Or Yeah, I mean, or the offering that, you know, going from the other side, it’s something that we offer so people can have access to all of our podcasts, special podcasts special Q and As.

Cathy: We’re actually doing one. We did one yesterday with the sister project where, you know, Team Zen gets to come on and just ask them questions. And

Todd: we’ve had, and you did a recording raising our daughters, understanding Our daughters and John Duffy, Dr. John Duffy and myself will be doing Understanding Our Sons on May 12th, and we’re gonna have Mike Doish in on May 16th.

Todd: So we have a lot cooking. So,

Cathy: and it’s all in an app. So the thing is people have been on Team Zen before, like we’ve had a lot of listeners come and go or stay. A lot of them stay, but now it’s like all organized and in an app and it’s easy to access and Todd and I are just really proud of it. So I really highly recommend you if you like the show and you like what we talk about and you want more resources like this.

Cathy: Heck yeah.

Todd: 25 bucks a month. Cancel at any time. Yeah, try so. Oh, and I’ll, maybe I’ll send you a pair of Zen Parenting socks, which are warm and fuzzy. I wore mine this morning, or a t-shirt. But first I want to play a clip of a song that has to do with your Zen Parenting moment from last week.

Todd: Sweetie, what’s the name of that song? Talk. And who’s it? By? Old Play. And why did you include this at the opening of your Zen Parenting moment, which comes out every Friday. And if you haven’t already subscribed in the show notes down below.

Cathy: So the Zen Parenting moment that I wrote was called, it was around feedback and getting feedback.

Cathy: And I don’t know, like I said, sometimes songs just come into my head when I’m writing something and I think that quote or that lyric from that song it’s like a, we’re looking outside of ourselves for validation and verification that what we’re saying and doing is okay. And we then don’t always receive the thing we wanna hear, and then we get confused about, do I do what other people want me to do or do I do what I wanna do?

Cathy: And what I wrote about in that feedback Zen Parenting moment was about how to. Find that balance and really, I don’t have a final answer. It’s just that both are necessary. Like there was the Wayne Dwyer quote Wayne Dyer Dwyer, Wayne Dyer quote at the beginning of it. Alright. Do you have it in front of you?

Cathy: I can’t remember what he said.

Todd: The moment itself, I do you just at

Cathy: the very beginning of the moment, he said something that I used. The

Todd: first paragraph says, A teacher once told me that we couldn’t, shouldn’t care about what anyone says. I don’t see any, Wayne. Yeah, that’s it. Is that it? “A teacher once told me that we shouldn’t care about what anyone says and always seek feedback from others.”

Cathy: Yeah. So we shouldn’t, so that’s, and I got that from Wayne Dyer. He was the, oh, I didn’t, he told me that. Okay. So. He said, we should always seek feedback and never really care about whatever anyone else thinks. So there’s a paradoxical nature to that, and I think that obviously we have to find the balance and what we’re seeking feedback on.

Cathy: You know, it’s one thing to write a paper and then have someone edit it because you may not have an eye for grammar, but it’s another thing to write your thoughts and feelings and have somebody say no, you can’t have those thoughts and feelings. That’s a very different kind of feedback. And you know, I, we don’t have to go into a deep dive about it, but Todd, you and I often disagree about feedback.

Cathy: Like I, Todd likes feedback more than I do. I like help and I like support and I love people’s expertise. You know, there’s certain people that I just depend on them for their expertise, and I don’t think I have, I don’t know anything. Here’s

Todd: what I realize about feedback. There’s an art to giving feedback.

Todd: And you know, today’s not the day for that, but it’s not like, oh, well you sucked at this. Like, that’s not very helpful. So there’s a lot of, so what do you

Cathy: mean by that? Like, you g you gotta dive deeper. Like there’s

Todd: an art in, there’s an art to how to do it. And the way I like to work, I like to work in framework.

Todd: So like for instance if you did a presentation and I would ask you, are you open to feedback? Step one. You may not be in a position, it may be too raw. You may have just finished and you’re really kind of fragile or vulnerable and you don’t wanna hear any feedback. So that’s one thing a lot of people don’t even ask permission if they’re other person is even interested in getting feedback.

Todd: So that’s one thing. And then if, let’s just say that you are up for some feedback. The first question that I’ve kind of been working with is, will you first tell me how you think it went? What did you, what do you think that you did really well? And what do you think you could have done differently?

Todd: And then after that, then it would be, all right, so now it’s my turn to tell you this is what I think you did well, and this is what I think you could have done a little bit differently. And it’s not just the words, it’s the energy behind the words. So that is, you know, I mean, we could take a deep dive into feedback and I don’t think we’re going to today, but when you say, what do you mean?

Todd: That’s what I mean.

Cathy: Well, and you know, it’s actually what we’re gonna be talking about, you know, raising leaders today.

Cathy: And this is really connected to this, you know, because feedback a good leader knows how to give feedback at the right time, in the right way. I think sometimes it, because you’re right, it, I think sometimes people ask for feed.

Cathy: Like you said, like if I just finished a presentation and then, and this has happened with you and I Oh yeah. And then I walked in. We a podcast about it, I think. I think we did. And then the first thing you said to me is, are you open to feedback? Right away. I know you wanna tell me something I did wrong.

Cathy: So as much as I want, I appreciate that you’re like, trying to make this feel better for the other person. That doesn’t feel good if I came if it was more organic where I was done and you said, what do you think? How did it go? And then I said, well, this is how it went, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Cathy: But I struggled in this area. And then you were like, why’d you struggle? And I said, I struggled because of this. And you said, well, what if next time you asked for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I opened that door to you. But if I walk in and I’m like, I just finished. And your first thought is and this isn’t really you have, I don’t think this is your first thought, but do you know what I mean?

Cathy: Like even if you did a presentation for men living, and then the first thing you got back from someone on men living is, are you open to feedback? Wouldn’t you feel like. Well, they’re obviously wanna tell me something I did wrong?

Todd: Well, what’s the thing with Men Living is it’s built into the framework of what we do.

Todd: So, right. Whenever, every time I lead a meeting and there’s somebody else, another facilitator on there, I immediately ask them for that. So, but that’s,

Cathy: so Can I ask a question? You guys ever say it was fine?

Todd: No, but fine. Like, we first talk about the good.

Cathy: Correct. What I mean is, do you think everything necessitates feedback?

Cathy: Because I do

Todd: not, it just depends on the person. Yeah. For me, I always want it. I know not always, almost always. So it just depends on the person. Yeah. Yeah. And I’m, I work at a company that for 30 years and I have yet to get any feedback from my boss and I stopped asking him for it. I’ve never gotten, that’s not a hundred

Cathy: percent true because you get feedback in a lot of ways that aren’t traditional.

Todd: He blesses me. He’s like, you do great. Yes. But I’ve said, what can I do better? He is like, you’re doing great. Right. And I’m like, Jim, Gimme something more than that. Right. And I stopped asking cuz he just doesn’t do it.

Cathy: Well. Okay. The totally different I’m like, my question is, do you really wanna go down that road?

Cathy: It’s like, I want you to go here and I want you to go there. Yes. I want you to do this. Yes. Okay. Because then you would feel o obligated

Todd: to do all that. I wanna do the best I can for the company course and I of course can’t see it. I can’t see my performance from a clear, objective lens. Yeah. Cuz I’m in the middle of it.

Todd: Yeah. I need somebody else to look at me. And then, and by the way, just because they might say something and I don’t believe it to be true, doesn’t mean I have to take that feedback on.

Cathy: Yeah. I and I think that this is, it’s not that we’re so far apart, I just think that I am constantly looking for how to improve and having a self-awareness about I’m struggling in this area, or this person really excels here.

Cathy: Or the language this person used was so good. I wanna learn that I am. Yours is, you’re looking for the external to come in and say, do this different. And I’m constantly looking for ways to better the way I do things or say things or write things. So I don’t always need in the moment you’re doing this wrong.

Cathy: Cuz a lot of times I’m like, I know. I’m struggling in that area. I’m working on that. Yeah. Or this wasn’t a, you know, sometimes the things that you and I have discussed or I’ve been frustrated at is you give me feedback about things I can’t change. You don’t know that I can’t change it, but it’s the structure of the interview.

Cathy: It’s the structure of what they wanted. They didn’t want me to, they wanted me to go 30 minutes and

Todd: not 60. And let’s say give you horrible feedback. Yeah. Let’s just say I do that then that’s fine. It

Cathy: is. But I don’t take.

Cathy: I think, and you know what the, why this is difficult is this gets into other dynamics like with gender.

Cathy: Okay. Because there are there and it could be personality too, it could be gender, personality, how you’re raised, all that kind of thing in what feedback means to you. Because you, as someone in the world who has been propped up, you’re like, well, tell me how I can do better.

Cathy: Cause I’m way up here and there’s a lot of people who have had to work in a different way and have had to, you know, figure out for themself what it means to be excellent. So when someone’s telling them they’re still not doing it well enough, they don’t have enough, they don’t have as much ground grounding as you do.

Cathy: Well, you know what I mean? I

Todd: remember when I picked up the coaching soccer for Dummy’s book 10 years ago. Yeah. Because I don’t know Didley squad about soccer and my daughters were playing soccer. Right. And I found myself being the coach. Yeah. And one of the things I learned in that is you gotta say 10 nice things for one.

Todd: Critical piece of feedback right now. Maybe that’s for human beings or maybe that’s just for kids. But I feel like when I bring up feedback, you always think of the what you

Cathy: could have done better. Do you wanna know why? Why? Because the majority of my life, that’s the feedback I get. Not just because, not because of me personally.

Cathy: And I don’t mean I that’s happening now at 51. But women live in a paradoxical experience in life because they’re told to achieve something and they’re told they’re being too big, and then they’re told to work really hard and then they’re told to relax and then they’re told to get worked up about something and then they’re told they’re neurotic.

Cathy: So there’s always this like place where you constantly, I, and the reason why this is so fresh on my mind is I was just writing something about this place where, and it’s not an excuse of like, and that’s why Todd, it’s more difficult. I just want you to see it. Rather than people should want feedback. As far as like why it may feel different to someone like you than it does to me or somebody, you know, somebody of a different race, somebody of you know, a different socioeconomic upbringing.

Cathy: Like it feels

Todd: different. That’s why I started out like, this is an art, it’s an art form. It is an art. There is no one way to do it. Right. And if it doesn’t land, it’s not valuable. It’s not helpful. Then figure out feedback giver a different way of doing

Todd: it.

Cathy: Yeah. And that’s the thing is to take it off. Just feedback for a second.

Cathy: Like, I, when I say that, I don’t, I wanna make sure I’m very clear that I don’t mean women can’t handle it. What I mean is we’re dealing with it all the time. You know, you have all your human rights, but we’re gonna strip your human rights. You have all these, you know, you have all these abilities, but no, we’re not gonna let you climb the ladder.

Cathy: Like, we’re constantly battling that. So there’s a, that doesn’t mean you can’t give feedback, it just means it hits different, as Taylor Swift would say. It like has a different feel sometimes where it’s not, sometimes I’m like what I need right now. Is just you saying you did, you went in there, you used your expertise, you have a specialty in this area, and you may look at it and be like, you could have done A, B, C, D, and E, but that won’t make me better.

Cathy: That won’t make me better. What will make me better is you reminding me of that I [00:13:20] have the ability to do this. Not that I’m perf you don’t lie. Do you know what I mean? Like that. I think I agree with you with the word art because there are sometimes when you know, I just know like for example, there was something you did the other day where you’re like, I don’t think I did that.

Cathy: Well, you did a podcast. I didn’t even listen to it. And I know I could say to you, I’m sure you did fine. And the reason I said that is not cuz I heard it, but because I know your skill level. I know that you may not have felt perfect or that it could have been better, but there’s no way I’m gonna listen to that and go, yeah, I agreed you sucked because I know you.

Cathy: You know what I mean? I’ve, I have faith in you.

Todd: Right. Well, and I need to call myself out here for a second because yes, there was a podcast I was on. I felt like I didn’t do that good of a job. And I’ve asked you and a few other people I trust to listen and give me feedback. And I still want that feedback.

Todd: And I’ve also experienced moments where I’m like, yeah, give me feedback. And they give it to me and it, I wasn’t ready for it. Yeah. You’re like, that I feel wrong. I’m like, oh. Oh no. But I already gave that person the blessing to say, yeah, hit. Right. Give, gimme the good, gimme the bad. And I’m, I wasn’t ready.

Cathy: And the final thing about it is that sometimes it’s just someone else’s opinion, Todd. That’s all feedback is. I know. And that’s my point. That’s what I wrote about, like, you know, is that what you have to realize is it’s great ask for feedback, but also recognize it’s just another person’s perspective and they’re coming from their place of what success means to them, of what they think is most important.

Cathy: And that may not be your value system.

Todd: That’s absolutely true. Right. And what I say to anybody that I ever give any feedback to is take what works and throw away the rest. Yes. Beautiful. So, okay. All right. So the name so what do we calling this podcast?

Cathy: How do, how to raise a leader or Raising Leaders?

Todd: So, what got us started on this is I’m subscribed to Adam Grant’s. And I think it comes out every two weeks, something like that. He wrote an article or an email called The Most Meaningful Way to Succeed is to help others succeed. So that’s gonna be the launching point. And Cathy’s got a bunch of stuff that she’s gonna share, but he had five different bullet points cuz he wrote a book called Give and Take.

Todd: Which came out 10 years ago. And he has three different types of let’s see. It was about the surprising quan consequences of being a giver rather than a taker or a matcher. So he has three different labels for it. A giver, a taker, or a matcher. A matcher is just transactional. A giver gives and a taker takes.

Todd: But the one thing I do wanna say that the very first bullet point he says he wishes he would’ve wri written this chapter when he wrote the book, but he didn’t. Okay. And he would like to add this chapter, and it’s called raising Generous Kids. And what I love about Adam Grant, because Cathy and I talk about what feels right to us.

Todd: But sometimes we bring up research, but we’re not a research based

Cathy: podcast. We’re not, we try and bring it into like, prop up what we say, but we don’t have access to it the way that Adam Grant does. And

Todd: because this deals specifically with, you know, we’re a parenting podcast and he is talking about raising generous kids.

Todd: I just wanna mention these three different things he wrote in this email. Okay. In Italy, the eighth graders with the best grades aren’t the ones who got the highest marks five years earlier, but the ones who were rated as most helpful. So if you want your kids to get good grades the, one of the best indicators is not if.

Todd: Good grades five years before, but instead they were rated as the most helpful. That was in Italy and the US middle schoolers who believe their parents prize kindness, who believe their parents prize kindness get better grades than those who think their parents put academic and career success first.

Cathy: I know that research, we actually did a whole show about it a few years ago, that there were, when they took a poll of kids, most kids said that their parents prioritized grades over kindness. And we talked about what kind of message that’s sending, right?

Todd: And then lastly, in Canada, boys who are rated as helpful in kindergarten go on to earn more money in their thirties.

Todd: A focus on concern for others lead to a stronger sense of purpose, deeper learning, and richer relationships. So,

Cathy: so that last sentence? Yeah. Read that one more time.

Todd: A focus on concern for others. Concern for others leads to a stronger sense of purpose. Yep. Deeper learning. And richer relationships. And as a result, along with fueling achievement, caring also boosts happiness.

Cathy: Right? So I wanted you to just talk about that aspect of it, because I think that’s the thing that we often miss is sometimes we get into these discussions about what creates success. And I think Todd and I have talked about success, you know, so much over the last 12 years about, you know, what that means because you, there are different definitions for success, I think because we live in the United States and it’s a capitalistic culture, we put success with money. Like, it is the, we’re like, well, if they’re successful, then basically that means, or we put it with high profile, they got into a high profile college or an Ivy League school and then they get a good paying job. So they’re successful and there’s complete disregard. Or if not complete disregard, there is a definite number, you know, down to 3, 4, 5 as far as are they, do they feel good about what they’re doing?

Cathy: Do they have good relationships? Do they have healthy mental wellness? You know, and these are the things that, what from the res, and I will talk about research because I teach this all the time in my social work classes, happiness or a sense of purpose or what success really means is ha being in alignment with yourself.

Cathy: It means integrity. So as we know, if you are making a lot of money, but you feel like crap about how you’re making that money, you are not feeling successful. You may have a boat, you may have, you know, you may be paying your bills, but you, there is a sense of you have a hole in your life, right. You feel empty.

Cathy: And again, this is such an interesting discussion because I feel like we argue about these things, but I can’t think about the amount of people that we have watched who have, you know, found fame and then completely disintegrated. Because they can’t, it, they never wanted, they thought that the money and the fame would cure all their problems.

Cathy: Success.

Todd: Well, let’s, that’s all the race to nowhere stuff.

Todd: Correct? Yeah. Yeah. So I wanna, so one resource that Adam puts in this email is that parents and teachers are endlessly curious about how to nurture generosity. Correct. And one of his favorite things is that nouns are more effective than verbs when we shift from, thank you for helping to thank you for being a helper.

Todd: Kids are more likely to internalize giving as part of their identities. Love that.

Cathy: That’s pretty cool. Right? Ooh that’s a new one to me. I like that.

Todd: So the.

Todd: He has five bullet points. I only wanna go over one more and then we’ll get into your stuff. Okay. Okay. And this one is pretty an interesting one.

Todd: The double bind of generosity for women. Yes. Adam writes, when I searched for stories to illuminate the data about achieving success through helping others, most of the ones I found were about men. I failed to recognize one of the major causes of that disparity. When men help, it stands out more.

Todd: Psychologists find that when we tend to stereotype men as ambitious psychologists find that we tend to stereotype men as ambitious. Ambitious. Okay.

Cathy: Stop for a second. Do

Todd: that one more time. Psychologists find that we tend to stereotype men as ambitious and women as caring. Yes. That means that women are more likely to be asked for help, but less likely to get credit for it.

Todd: Last paragraph. When a man A says yes, he gets showered with praise and rewards. I never ex if a woman says Yes, it’s taken for granted. She loves to help. So my two real world examples of this, do you have any idea which one? They,

Cathy: it’s all parenting stuff, right? You take Well, yeah. The kids somewhere and they’re like, oh my God, you’re the best dad.

Todd: And so there was a time when Cathy went to Mexico when her Skylar wasn’t born yet, but it was just Jason and Cameron and I had an infant and a toddler. And I went to Charlie’s birthday party or something. And you know, it wasn’t, I didn’t think it was that big of a deal and the amount of accolades I got from the people at the party that I showed up to a party with an infant and a toddler without my partner. It was unbelievable. Meanwhile, You did that every other day of the year. And my guess is nobody showered you with anything. Well,

Cathy: and your mom was with you that weekend. She didn’t go to Charlie’s party. Right. But your mom came over, right?

Cathy: So like you showed up at the party, right? But then when you went home, there was somebody else to ha support or hand off?

Todd: Not sure if my mom was there when I came home, but put it this way, she was there. My mom was part

Todd: of the weekend.

Cathy: She was part of the weekend. Say that You’re right. I mean, it may not have been as literal, but why I say that is because you were on your own.

Cathy: But like you said, majority of time I was on my own and a lot of times you were not around. Most of the time I wasn’t around. Correct. So like the expectation is that this is what you do. That’s what I do. And then for you it’s, and so, you know, it’s, and this is kind of what I mean, you know, this is connecting to what we were just talking about with feedback.

Cathy: Now, if we were to turn those tables and say, a woman, and this is obviously, this happens all the time, who becomes very successful and becomes CEO of the company or is starring in her own movie or whatever it may be, and she has children, what’s the first question they ask?

Todd: Well, what’s what? Who’s with the kids?

Todd: Yeah. Who’s

Cathy: with the kids? Well, how are you raising your kids? Yeah. If you’re doing this. So it’s, you get al you get the accolades. Sure. Is that the word? Is it? Yeah. Accolades. Accolades. Okay. I wanna put an l I get the acc. Accolades.

Todd: Accolades. I get the accolades. You get the judgment.

Cathy: Correct. And that’s what I mean about feedback.

Cathy: So we’re kind of coming full circle. Yeah. Do you see how like, you kind of often feel like you’re in a no one situation because society tells you to be something, but as soon as you’re being at people, like you’re not doing it right. Yeah. So that’s no one situation. It just hits different. So anyway, I totally agree.

Cathy: And I think that, you know, that this is the generosity, bind is the challenge too. You know, you could use a, the nice bind, you know, like with a man, if he’s leading a meeting and he’s kind of harsh and he’s you know, a Logan Roy type character, he’s, you are going to, people are gonna be like, wow, he’s tough.

Cathy: He’s gonna get things done. A woman does that. She can’t do that. No. She’s gonna be one of the B words.

Todd: You’re conditioned to be nice. Correct.

Cathy: And we’re not. And you are conditioned to believe that I should be nice. Yeah. So not so I may be like, I’m gonna override my conditioning. And I’m gonna say what I want, just like my boss before me did.

Cathy: But you are conditioned that I’m nice.

Todd: The, on the other example I have, and we won’t, we don’t talk a lot about it, but I do these birthday videos for our kids on their birthday. It’s pretty much one of the only things they do to prepare for a birthday party. Cathy does the other 99 things, invitations, decorations, gifts, dealing with family timing schedules.

Todd: And then, you know, whenever I show the video, everybody showers, we. With blessings. Yes. It’s

Cathy: everyone’s favorite part of the party. Have you thought about the fact that we, that JC’s birthday passed and we didn’t do one? I did.

Todd: I just don’t have any footage of her. I know

Cathy: it’s weird. I think you said when you started doing them, I will do this till they’re 18.

Cathy: Yeah.

Todd: And now we have two, I think I said college, I think, I don’t know if I said college or what, but yeah.

Cathy: Well maybe we’ll do like a summary one when they graduate from college or something. But anyway, JC’s now 20 and Cameron’s 18. So you’re only doing them for skylar now?

Todd: Yeah, we’ll see. But I think I did one for JC last year, so I might owe Cameron one more.

Todd: We’ll see. Okay. So the last thing, and then we’ll go into your direction, sweetie. Okay. Is he talks about emotional labor. We’re not gonna talk about it here. Yeah. Because we’ve done that. We’ve done that so many times. But I did search in the Team Zen Circle app. Okay. Searched for emotional labor. These are some of the podcasts.

Todd: We, we’ve done podcast number 698, who does what. That’s when we actually went through the list. Oh, that was interesting. Yeah. Podcast 495 Women Aren’t Nags, Were Fed Up.

Cathy: And that was Gemma Hartley’s

Todd: article. Podcast 440 Realtime Emotional Labor. I don’t know what we talked about, but I’m sure you and I were struggling with something.

Todd: And then lastly podcast number 405, Emotional Labor is an Unpaid Job. So if you wanna listen to, about Cathy and I talk about emotional or invisible labor. There you go.

Cathy: You know, something I just realized, and I’m gonna say this because I feel like this is a big part of our show. I know sometimes that when Todd brings something up and I question it or I’ll say, well, that’s not how I see it, or how everybody sees it.

Cathy: And it’s not, I’m not saying that just to you. I want, I wanna be clear. I think one thing that’s really important is that sometimes what our society perceives as normal. Is normal to white male culture. And so we call it normal. And we’re like, but this is the way you do it. But there’s not an understanding that was built.

Cathy: And when I’m gonna use the word patriarchy, I’m not even using it in a negative way. I’m just talking about the reality of that all the norms have been based on white males. Right. It for generations and generations. So we call the things [00:26:40] that is, that are done normal. And all I’m trying to do when we have these conversations is demonstrate that there isn’t just one normal.

Cathy: That, and there’s many normals that I am not aware of, you know, when it comes to sexuality or fluid, you know, gender fluidity or you know, being black or being Latino or they’re, everybody has different norms because of their culture or their, the way they’re raised or their perception. And so we just, I’m always.

Cathy: What I always wanna do is just make room for that. And it doesn’t mean now I’m right. You know, and even me just explaining this is me understanding that people get frustrated. You know, I’ve gotten feedback like, well, Todd will say this and you won’t agree. And I’m like, it’s not that I disagree with him, it’s that there is a norm that everybody says this is normal, but it’s not to everybody that I think that goes without saying.

Cathy: But the reason we talk about emotional labor and things like this so often is because we just don’t question. What is considered normal.

Todd: The reason we talk about it is cuz it’s a problem.

Cathy: Yeah. And there and the solution is just making space. I mean, we don’t really even have to, I mean, of course there’s systems that have to be broken down.

Cathy: Like this is bigger that I’m making it, but what if we expand it instead of contracted? Yeah. What if we were like, oh, for me feedback feels normal because I understand my history and who I am in this com, you know, this world and how I’m perceived. And so feedback doesn’t hit a certain way where with women or with somebody else that, you know, may be like in, it may even be another man who grew up differently than you, who is like, but it doesn’t feel the same way for me because of my history.

Cathy: Yeah. And that you’re still. But I’m still

Todd: right as well. Well, and what I think I’m right about is how I experience it. You experience it. Exactly. I can’t say how you experience or how my daughter’s experience, or my brother or my workers or my friends, well, woman of color or a man of color. No, I’m just giving you my experience.

Todd: Correct. And there’s no certainty in anybody else’s. There’s not even certainty in my own.

Cathy: And that’s kind of, you know, the thing that people who are really afraid want is certainty. Yeah. That if you are super afraid about how you are, you know, how the world is or what you, your beliefs are. If you’re someone who’s like, I have to have certainty.

Cathy: This is the way things are, there shouldn’t be any change in this. I don’t wanna alter anything that is you’re saying certainty is a positive thing, but really you’re afraid of change.

Todd: Well, and you know, one of the, one of the attributes you and I hold in such high regard is curiosity.

Cathy: Right. And like, you know, I just am, you know, it’s hard to be.

Todd: Curious and certain at the same time. Actually, I think, I don’t know if it’s possible.

Cathy: Yeah. Like you can be certain about wanting to be curious. You know what I

Todd: mean? Like we can get into, and curiosity is a good thing. I could be certain about that, but

Todd: Yeah.

Cathy: It’s, but it’s just one of those things where sometimes when we hear people who are su, you know, they give speeches, like, you know, unfortunately, I saw some speeches from the NRA convention in Indiana this weekend, and I, you know, we always have to deal with politicians who are making crazy speeches or saying things on Twitter, and they’re just so certain, you know, like, these people are bad and we’re good and we’re gonna, and I’m like, there’s just no they’re so afraid.

Cathy: And I’m saying this as a therapist, not just as a human being, but it’s so obvious you’re terrified and that doesn’t mean that you’ll be like, oh yeah, I’m afraid they, they may not even know. But the certainty makes them feel safe. They’re like, there’s only, you know, you can’t do this and we can’t be this, and Bud Light can’t support anybody who’s trans.

Cathy: And if they do, then you know, I’m out. You know, and it’s so black and white. Yeah. There’s just no room. Yeah. There’s just no growth. And and it’s, and I think it comes from fear. I mean, you know, let’s go to the bottom line of the thing we used to talk about all the time, Todd, in the first couple years of Zen Parenting, you have two choices in every situation.

Cathy: It’s either fear or it’s love. It’s the most like common therapeutic understanding. It’s the most common, like self-help understanding. It’s the mo it really, when you look historically, how did people choose? Did they choose based on their fear or did they choose based on love? And that, I think that’s so clear.

Cathy: And so it, it’s hard to deny that one

Todd: truth. All right. Where do you want to

Cathy: go? Okay.

Cathy: So I, when Todd said he wanted to talk about this, I thought it was so interesting because I just read one of Ja JC’s taking this leadership class, and she sent me one of her papers and I was like, wow, this so connects to everything we’ve been talking about lately.

Cathy: So she’s been having to do research on leadership Todd. So she’s been having to like, figure out what leadership style or what does a leader need to succeed? And when I say succeed, I mean that word, she even like had to flesh out that word. Yeah. Like, what does that mean? And it, you know, it came down to the number one thing.

Cathy: The most important thing is to understand yourself Before you lead, this is just like parenting, right? The research around leadership is the greater self-awareness you have, you know, the best predictor of a child’s wellbeing is a parent’s self-understanding, the best predictor of the success of a company is the leader’s understanding, right?

Cathy: I don’t know if I did that perfectly, but that is statistics, like data-wise, a self-aware leader is going to lead better.

Todd: I just put into the chat, whatever that chat bot thing, AI, and say, gimme the definition of leadership. And it’s whole paragraph. I’m not gonna read it, but the first Her sentence is, leadership can be defined as the ability to inspire, motivate, and guide individuals or groups.

Todd: Of people towards a common goal or vision.

Cathy: Yes. Which is, you know, how do you do that? Like there. And the most important thing is understanding your own strengths and weaknesses, how you communicate. And that, you know, understanding, this is what I thought was really interesting about her paper, was that your leadership style is based on your personality and skillset, right?

Cathy: And that you, every leader has areas they need to like kind of beef up a little bit, right? Yeah. I remember when, you know, tech was really exploding and obviously it still is. And a lot of the leaders were people who understood coding and people who understood like how computer science worked, but they couldn’t communicate it very well to other people, or they couldn’t inspire other people to be as interested as they were.

Cathy: So they had to really focus on their own social emotional learning, not their knowledge base in the area that they were leading, but their social emotional learning to help. You know, inspire their company to rise with them, you know?

Todd: Yeah. And for me, and you know, I, if you, depending on the day, I’d probably give you 10 different definitions of leadership.

Todd: But I think the best leaders are the ones who can get. Others to, it’s not about, you know, I’m the leader, so I’m in front. It’s empowering others to be their own leaders.

Cathy: Okay. You know what I mean? So, perfect. The number two greatest leadership qualities is exactly what you said. Developing leaders with character, and this is, I’m taking this directly from the research.

Cathy: Developing leaders with character is a process that begins with personal self-awareness, including our character strengths, and then figuring out those strengths in our peers, colleagues, and subordinates. So you don’t just take the self-awareness and say, now I understand myself. This is just like parenting everybody.

Cathy: This is why Todd and I always say universal principles, right. You learn about yourself and what you have to offer and where, what your strengths and weaknesses are. And then that allows you to understand other people better and you are able to understand their strengths and weaknesses better. See, it’s not just a naval gazing, I wanna know just about me.

Cathy: Knowing about you allows you to understand and relate to other people. Yeah. This is like a continuum. Yep. So do you want me to keep going? So here’s the part that I loved which is not gonna be shocking to most everybody, but we just did a podcast a couple weeks ago with Jessica Lahey, who wrote the Addiction Inoculation and also The Gift of Failure.

Cathy: And it was a wonderful discussion and we spent the first. 20, 30 minutes talking about social emotional learning, often called SEL. And there’s been a real push in this country as we discuss with her about belief. You know, there’s this, and I laugh only because, you know, the thought is that sel l is indoctrinating our children.

Cathy: Like, that’s the negative take on SEL when really what SEL is trying to do is to create or allow for thinking and learning and curiosity and connection and empathy and it’s doing the exact opposite. But you see that’s projection. That’s, there is a desire to not have people to think, right.

Cathy: To have people like just adhere to whatever people are telling them. And so when SEL is presented as being something harmful, it’s because people have a desire to keep that thinking from occurring. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, there’s always like a reason behind it. But the thing about social emotional learning is that one of the studies said that, a lot of this, like leadership can be created, developed if there is social emotional learning in the process so children can understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others.

Cathy: Establish and maintain positive relationships and make responsible decisions. Again, coming straight from research, that’s why I’m reading it like that. If you start this early with kids, their leadership abilities and their abilities to be successful are heightened. They’re increased. So this is not a leap like, you know, I don’t feel like I’m telling anybody anything new, but I just wanna like keep validating the fact of how important.

Cathy: Social emotional learning is not only for us individually and then the way that we connect within our family and in communities, but also for the ability to manage

Todd: business. Well, and what’s business is people. People. So we need to thank you. You know, step one was self-awareness. SEL is all about self-awareness, right?

Todd: And then step two is how do we use that understanding of ourselves to better understand others and how help them understand themselves.

Cathy: Right? So I’m gonna bring in something that you’ll like. One of the ways in research what they found that things can get really murky for leaders is when leaders aren’t sure of their why.

Cathy: Okay. So some Simon Sinek. Sure things here. Yeah. What is your why? You know, why do you wanna run this company? Why do you wanna be an entrepreneur? Why do you wanna start a nonprofit? What is your why, because having a sense of why helps you stay on task and stay in your integrity. So what the, this is what the research says.

Cathy: Leadership can get hijacked when the mission of your why gets murky. And s SEL curriculum can keep this from happening. This is why dictatorships. And so that dictatorships is come, goes along the line of authoritarian parenting. Yep. Where the whole idea is my way or the highway. Do what I want. Only do what?

Cathy: You know what I say? Dictatorships always lack empathy and understanding. And these, and this is in quotes, leaders fall out of touch with their own emotions and their why. It stops becoming about the people and it becomes like servant like leadership. It’s about power and control. Yeah. So the problem is like, okay, so Todd and I were discussing before we started, I really wanted to use Succession in this discussion because Todd and I watched Succession.

Cathy: He thinks that maybe not as many people watch Succession and I don’t know. What

Todd: do you think? Yeah, I think that we get invested in a show and maybe Succession is the best show in America right now, but even the best show in America maybe. Being viewed by 15% of America.

Cathy: Okay. I hear that because peop there’s so many things for people to watch.

Cathy: Yeah.

Todd: So if we surveyed Zen Parenting listeners, I think less than half of the people have watched Succession. I could be 100%

Cathy: wrong. Yeah. Well, let me just say this. I think Succession is it’s a brilliant show in that obviously the basics, the writing’s amazing. The acting’s amazing. They’ve got the best people in the best roles.

Cathy: But it’s saying something as well about our capitalistic, our capitalism that we live inside of, and what it does to us as people, what it does to families, and should. A family, be that wealthy and have that much power and control all over our country and what’s gonna, and not just our country over global,

Todd: you know, and for those who have never seen it, it’s this fictional character named Logan Roy.

Cathy: He’s the cap dog who is modeled after Rupert Murdoch and Red Stone and a lot of other moguls like that.

Todd: And he’s got four kids. One of them is a with a different mom, right? Yeah. So,

Cathy: I always wanna call him Cameron. It’s Connor, but I say Cameron because it’s, you know, Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s.

Cathy: But yeah, Connor his mother he doesn’t have the same mother as the other

Todd: three. So it’s just a show that has a lot of drama and a lot of [00:40:00] interesting, I would say, Most characters in that show are, how do we describe.

Cathy: Well, it’s all about power and control. Like

Todd: their SEL is not very high.

Cathy: It’s, they they didn’t get, they didn’t get anything.

Cathy: Yeah. From their dad. Well, their mom or dad, like what they got was wealth. And that the most important thing was having power and

Todd: people’s, what they learned, screw people over to get

Cathy: what you want. Relationships don’t mean anything to these people. They don’t know how to manage relationships.

Cathy: They don’t know how to take care of themselves. They don’t know how to connect. They don’t like, you know, there was one scene that I don’t, I can’t remember if it was this season or last season where I think it was episode two where Logan is saying something to the, to his kids cuz they’re kind of turning against him and Kendall.

Cathy: Dad, are you sharing a feeling like they’re like, what are you even trying to do? Yeah. Like, we’ve never seen you feel. Right. And they are so lost because of it. And then it’s always about this desire for power. But the thing is that power is gonna turn over again. Like, even if you know one of these characters, cuz this is what the last season is about, who’s gonna get the power?

Cathy: They’re not gonna have it very long. You know, like it’s everything they, it’s going to turn over. Everybody is backstabbing. There’s no health in it. And there’s no health in them.

Todd: So, so do you want me to play that little clip from Roman Roy? Just for the people who do watch

Cathy: Succession? Well, I didn’t, I you said it was gonna be kind of hard to cut out.

Cathy: Well, it’s all

Todd: right. I’ll bleep it. Okay. But cuz he,

Cathy: so Roman is kind of, kind of most people’s favorite kind of mine just has, it’s totally my favorite. Some humor. But this is Karen Culkin

Todd: champion. So he’s he’s in a sound booth and the person is asking him to say nice things about his dad, which is obviously difficult for him to do.

Todd: He’s been my greatest champion and my hero. Congratulations on 50 years at the top of the biz. I love you, dad. That was perfect. You wanna try one more? If it was perfect, why would I want one more? Why don’t we just do one more where maybe you really excel how you’re feeling. Yeah. Okay. Let’s

Cathy: do it. All right.

Cathy: Take four. What up? Brick clicks. It’s me, Dr. Moron.

Todd: I’m a ding,

Cathy: dumb doodlebug dip ship. My dad hates all of you. How was that? Was that good? Which, here’s the funny thing about Roman. He is the most honest about how things are going, and I think he was the most traumatized. Maybe physically and emotionally.

Cathy: There’s some story with Roman that we don’t know yet. And he is the most empathetic, if you can even call him empathetic. Because he talks like that to people all the time. Yeah. But he has moments where I’m like, he’s the only one with any empathy. Yeah. Like the whole thing with Carrie’s purse the other night.

Cathy: Like, he’s the only one trying to help her. Like he, he’s like, do we really have to be this mean? Yeah. And he’s still mean, but he at least has an inkling of maybe this isn’t okay. Yeah. And so I guess my point is I feel like Succession, even though it’s a fictional show, it’s based on people who are really in our world.

Cathy: Yeah. And they’re, and we know what’s so frustrating to me. Is these conversations about leadership and about success and about power. And we know what happens. We know these people aren’t really happy yet. We keep trying to reach for something that’s not real or we’re like, we keep reaching for, you know, how many actors have set, you know, and again, those who do listen to armchair expert hear this from Dax all the time and he asks his guests this all the time.

Cathy: How many actors have been like, I made it, I made a million dollars on a movie, or 10 million and I’m still unhappy. Yeah,

Todd: it doesn’t, I’ve arrived at the thing I thought I wanted and it’s not what I thought it was gonna be like, I’m

Cathy: empty. So it doesn’t mean then don’t let your kids act or don’t let them be in business.

Cathy: It means teach them a why. Help them come up with a why. What do, what’s important to them? How do they feel like they’re in their integrity? Now there’s a possibility. Then they won’t run the biggest news network, but maybe they’ll run a news network that’s, that feels good to them, or that is actually doing good things in the world.

Cathy: Like then we’re like, but then they won’t be number one. But what does number one mean? Yeah. Like I kind of feel like this is the argument we’re always having is, you know, people are like, there’s only one winner, really. Like, what does win mean? Right? Like, because everybody is gonna sound so cheesy, but I’m gonna try it.

Cathy: Everyone can win in their own life. If they’re in their integrity, it doesn’t mean everybody gets a trophy. What I’m saying is that if you feel good about living on a farm in the middle of nowhere, painting with just one other person in your life and you’re like, I am so fulfilled, you have succeeded. Or if you’re someone who’s like, I wanna go out and run a bank and you know, hopefully do it in a way that’s honorable and you have a lot of money, then you have succeeded in your life.

Cathy: If your why is in integrity it’s not one thing or the other. And I think that we have been trained in this country to raise our kids in a way where we think there’s only one way. Yeah.

Todd: And I, it’s funny cuz right before we pressed record we thought of like different, cuz we have this idea of what leadership looks like.

Todd: Right? Right, right. Think of presidents, think of military generals. Think of, I don’t know, Greek gods, like whatever. Yeah. And leaders can look very different. Yep. And I just threw out another fictional movie character Margie from Fargo.

Cathy: Fargo. Oh my God. We love Margie. Margie Olmstead.

Todd: So this is a movie that I think, I’ll put it this way, I’ll bet you more people have watched Fargo because it’s been around for whatever, 20 years.

Todd: Okay. Than. But this, we’re totally all over the place in this podcast, but who cares? Cares because Margie is, for those of you who haven’t watched Fargo, Margie is a, like an eight month pregnant sheriff of some small town near or around Fargo, and she’s investigating a kidnapping in the Twin Cities, and she has this kinda, she doesn’t look like the prototypical leader, right?

Todd: No, but she’s strong as a, as an ox, and she’s

Cathy: mentally, emotionally like Margie is. And she doesn’t I, we can’t swear on the show, but she doesn’t take people’s crap, right? Like she’s, she knows who she is and what she’s doing, and, but she’s also as kind as can be. So she’s just an interesting protagonist.

Todd: So this is a scene from Fargo, guy named Mike Yita. Mike Yita. Former classmate of hers who looked her up cuz she was in town and he does an inappropriate thing in the scene where he sits next to her.

Cathy: He’s trying to get close to her cause he’s lonely. Yeah. Huh. Yeah. But there’s not a heck of a lot to discuss.

Cathy: Okay. Well what about you, Mike? Are you married? You got kids?

Todd: Yeah. Yeah. Well,

Cathy: I was married. I was married to you. Mind how I sit over here? I was

Todd: married to

Cathy: Linda

Todd: Cooksie.

Cathy: No, why don’t you sit over there? I prefer that, huh? Oh,

Todd: Hey.

Cathy: I didn’t, no. Just so I can see. You don’t have to turn

Todd: my neck. Oh, sure. So she set a boundary, but was not mean about it. Right. And she was kind, you can set boundaries with kindness. Of course. You can

Cathy: say, I’m not okay with that. Yes. And you can, and this, that’s the thing. It’s like, this is, you’re right. It’s such a weird example out of the blue to bring Fargo, but we, Todd and I were just talking about like characters that we like movies or you know, people that are in pop culture that you like what is it about their leadership that you really respect?

Cathy: You know? And sometimes there’s just certain, you know, it’s like a, and this is, that won’t work. I was gonna say it’s like a Forrest Gump character, but that’s all about, you know, things just happen. So it’s not the same way, but it’s like sometimes what we perceive a leader to be, you know, like what the prototype is not really the best leader, right?

Cathy: It’s somebody who knows their why, who is inspired about what they’re doing, and then they pass that on to people where they’re willing to support them and stand up for them.

Todd: Well, it could be quiet leadership, quiet leader. Like there’s times when leaders need to give big inspirational speeches. Right?

Todd: For sure. Right. But those are the only types of leaders that get any attention, right. When in fact, there’s really wonderful leaders out there of businesses, organizations, families, whatever, that have a different way of doing it. Exactly. And I think that’s the only thing that, that’s the reason we want to talk about this today is that there’s so many different ways of what leadership looks like.

Cathy: And so when we’re talking about like raising leaders, like helping your kids understand that, you know, helping them develop like a passion or desire to lead in a way that works for who they are. Yeah. You know what I mean? Rather than trying to put them, you know, into like the square peg, I always get this thing wrong, putting a circle in a square peg

Todd: Square peg in a round hole.

Cathy: Yeah. Or you instead focus on what their skillset is and what they do well and support them in leading in a way that works for them in their integrity. Then their why is really clear. The why, like, the why is something like, it can be like a vision statement. Like for example, you know, some of our why’s come from like things that we wanna do for the world.

Cathy: Like, our Todd and my vision statement is making the world a more civil and compassionate place. By doing work we love with people we care about in a way that is aligned with our values, personality, and lifestyle. Todd and I worked really hard on that statement because I had to make sure that felt right to me.

Cathy: Like by doing work we love with people we care about. So like this podcast, if you notice, sometimes we definitely have people on who are, you know, thought leaders or authors or friends of ours that are like really doing amazing work. But that’s not always what we’re focused on. You know what I mean?

Cathy: We’re not focused on how do we get the most downloads. And what are gonna be the clickbait things. And that can be really difficult in this line of work when everyone else seems to be doing that.

Todd: Well, we could probably become a much wider or reaching podcast if we had more interviews, maybe, and if we invited those interviewees to sh you know, share us on social media and blah, blah, blah.

Todd: And we have. Decided that we would rather do it in a way that makes us feel good. And hopefully there will be growth as a result. But it’s not, we don’t do things because of the growth. We do things because does feel good. It feels, and it makes me think of like any artist, anybody who’s singing songs.

Todd: Anybody who’s making movies, they’re making movies that they wanna make hopefully. And that’s the stuff that ends up having a little far impact reach if you’re doing it just for the other person. It’s not gonna sustain.

Cathy: Well, and let me say this, sometimes the thing that a someone, an actor or a songwriter or something that they do, you’re like, that’ll have the further reach.

Cathy: Maybe not, but it may not. But they still feel good about what they did. Right. You know what I mean? Like, I love hearing about people’s, you know, favorite experiences because a lot of times it’s not the movie that made the most money or the song that was the big hit because there’s a lot of song.

Cathy: There’s I’m gonna say songstresses. Where does that word come from? There’s a lot of singers that won’t play certain songs anymore cuz they’re so tired of it. But that’s the one that made them the most money. But they hate it. Sure. Because it didn’t mean anything to when they made it. Right.

Cathy: It’s not their song. So it’s like, what? It’s a, and there’s always like a playing around with this. There’s a lot of gray. Like sometimes it’s like, well sure we’ll do this marketing thing or we’ll do this. But if it’s super out of integrity, then your why comes rearing back where you’re like, well, wait a second.

Cathy: What are we doing here? What’s the point? Yeah. And so it’s like, Do you, with that mindset, are you going to always be at the top or be number one? No, but I think we’ve done really well. Yeah. We’ve stayed, you know, like I, you know, I always say to Todd, we’ve got this many thousands and thousands of listeners, what would another 10 people?

Cathy: I would love it and I invite people, but it’s not like we’d be happier people. It’s not like we’d then be like, well now, you know, we’ve been doing a podcast for 12 years with lots of listeners. It’s good. Yeah. You know, and so, and I feel in my integrity and that’s why I like getting up in the morning

Cathy: and

Todd: such, but, and that’s why we’re doing it every Monday.

Todd: Like it’s does not seem like the

Cathy: burden. And other people’s, like, you know, I wrote down a few other mission statements or why’s, you know, to leave a positive impact on people’s lives so that they can realize their true potential. That can be a why to consistently grow, develop, and challenge myself so that I can be a better person than I was the day before.

Cathy: So when it comes to our kids, when they want something, our question is what’s your why? You know, like, and they may say, because you know, when they’re young, you’ve gotta work with the, where their brain is. Like some of them are just gonna wanna be better than a peer or they’re just gonna want, you know, some kind of what to, you may see a seem a superficial outcome, but that’s developmentally typical.

Cathy: Yeah. But what you wanna start [00:53:20] instilling in them, Is in the big picture, it’s about your why. You know, why do you do what you do? What makes you feel good? What are your skillsets? What are your strengths? And you talk to them about utilizing those. So then when they’re doing the work that they love, it doesn’t feel like work.

Cathy: Yeah, it may be hard, but they enjoy it. That’s kind of what Todd was saying about what we do. We’ve talked

Todd: about sure. We talked about this a long time ago, but we’re watch, I think we’re watching an interview, George Lucas, and he was being interviewed by Oprah and maybe it was about success or something like that.

Todd: He’s like, you know, you’ve arrived when you come to work and you look at the clock and it’s 4:00 PM Exactly. So now there’s like eight hours. He was writing,

Cathy: he was talking about that he was writing his screenplay and that all that time would go by.

Todd: So that’s when you’re in flow. Right. It’s the best, you know, think about all the problems.

Todd: Let’s just focus on adults for a second. Any adult that’s in therapy or being coached, including, you know me, I sometimes seek out support because I feel stuck on something. I feel like most of our society’s problems would be minimized if we all did something that we loved for a living. Right.

Cathy: If we were actually using our skillsets.

Todd: Right. If we’re like, what would you do if money were no objects? Yeah. And we did that thing and then got compensated for that thing. Yeah. I think most of us people would be. Quote unquote, happier. Yeah.

Cathy: Well, and sometimes that’s possible because of where we are, and sometimes we just have to do what we have to do to pay bills.

Cathy: Like that’s the thing about living in our culture is that now where I am in life, I can do those things, but I couldn’t do those things in my twenties or even in

Todd: my early thirties. And then talk about parenting. It goes to those things like also our kids are gonna need to take those crappy jobs. Yes.

Todd: To understand what it means to be in a job that you like. Yes. So you have to have the difference. One of the criticisms of this generation, and I don’t even know if it’s true. So let me say that, is they’re just waiting for that inspirational job to come around and they won’t start. Working for any company until they find that, and like I said, I don’t even know if they’re any different than we were 30 years ago.

Todd: Well,

Cathy: let me say this about Gen Z I think that they do take a lot of different jobs and they want to feel inspired and a lot of times they aren’t. And so they’re not gonna spend their time there anymore. What they’re realizing is that they don’t, they’re not going to be in a, you know, an autocratic kind of business situation where people are like, just do this cuz I said so, and I’m gonna treat you poorly.

Cathy: Some people have to like, this is why this is really murky and gray is because I understand, you know, there was jobs that I had for years and years where I wasn’t treated very well, but I couldn’t leave. You know, that’s just the way of things. But I think what this generation has is exactly what you said, Todd.

Cathy: They have a dream. Yeah. They know what would make them happy. They’ve seen things they have seen more than we. You know, they, they know what, they have a better understanding of what makes life fulfilling. Yeah. And then people will come back with, well, all they care about TikTok or all they care about is taking selfies or all they care about that.

Cathy: Yeah. That’s part of their culture. But they’ve learned from that as well. They’ve learned that even in influencer, you know, doing this and making some money, they still feel a hole. Yeah. Unless they have a really strong why, unless they’re doing something with their influence. Unless they’re doing something beyond selling clothes, they, that’s when they start to feel fulfilled.

Cathy: And so I feel like this generation. You know, this was part of the research too that I got from all of this work of jcs. It says, no longer our employees willing to pay the price of abuse, humiliation, or burnout to climb the ladder. In today’s culture with this generation, talented employees seek supportive work environments where empathy, support, and compassion are the norm.

Cathy: Although there’s no magic pill for CEOs and team leaders to know the hidden emotional burdens of employees, you know, that kind of thing. They have begun to reevaluate from Goldman Sachs to Starbucks, have begun to reevaluate how they approach mental health and mental wellbeing like, If we, the, this generation and the millennials too, they are pushing us to a healthier place.

Cathy: So people get mad like, well, I didn’t get to do that. I had to work for in the crappy job or whatever. But now the push is teaching the biggest companies, Hey, we gotta focus on mental health. We have to make these, you know, paid leave a priority. We have to focus. People’s humanity and not just their output at work.

Cathy: And I think that’s really valuable. Yeah, no doubt. You know, so,

Todd: anything else my darling?

Cathy: Well, I think, you know, I think we got it. I mean, there’s, I have pages and pages of this research, but I think the point we made is that if you, there’s not much difference in what we’ve been saying for however

Todd: many years.

Todd: Yeah. We’re just trying to come up with a different way

of

Cathy: saying the same thing, like leadership teaching your kid leadership is about self-awareness. And then it’s about helping them understand how other people think. And it’s about posing questions like, what is your why and what do you think the why is of other people?

Cathy: Again, it’s not just about them, it’s about looking at a team. It’s about listening to other people’s needs. It’s like what Todd and I were doing at the beginning of this podcast where I was saying, Can you hear that? I experience feedback different than you and he can. It doesn’t mean he’s wrong.

Cathy: It means it’s different. And I think that we’re such we just come from this duality, this binary where we’re like, you’re right and I’m wrong, or I’m right and you’re wrong. And everybody can have a different kind of perspective. Do we make room for it? And I think that is the question.

Todd: I’m gonna finish with a few quotes.

Todd: Okay. Let’s hear it. I’m actually putting them in the chat box so you can read the first one and we’ll go back and forth on it. Can you pull up the chat box in the zoom meeting that you and I currently reside in? Chat box. Okay. You read the

Cathy: first one? Okay. Let me scroll down. Starting with a good leader.

Cathy: Yeah. A good leader takes a little more than his share of, can we say his or her? Sure. A good leader takes a little more than his or her share of the blame a little less than his or her share of the credit. That sounds fair. That’s pretty good. Fair.

Todd: Yeah. Next one is it’s by Simon. Oh, that was by Arnold Glaso.

Todd: Yeah. Or whoever that is. Second one is, leadership is not about being in charge, it’s about taking care of those in your charge. It’s very Simon Sinek. Yeah. Read the next one by John Wooden.

Cathy: Okay. John Wooden, great leaders are willing to sacrifice their own personal interests for the good of the team

Todd: truth.

Todd: And then lastly my great grandfather, John Quincy Adams. I’m just kidding. Oh you’re probably some relations. I think maybe if your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader. Yeah. John Quincy Adams. That’s pretty good.

Todd: And then I do have a few quotes on giving. Okay. Let’s hear it from Anne Frank. No one has ever become poor by giving. Correct. Winston in Churchill said, we make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. And then lastly, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the purpose of life is not to be happy.

Todd: It’s to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. Yeah. What’s interesting, if you do all those things, you probably will be happy. Right?

Cathy: Well, and that’s the thing. It’s this big cycle. It’s this big circle that the thing we’re searching for.

Cathy: We think it’s this direct line, and really it’s this circle of experience and giving back and then feeling the reward of that giving back. Like, it is selfless, but it’s not selfless because you get the experience of giving. Yeah. You know what I mean? It’s like this big cycle and then you receive, and then you give again, and then you make a mistake, and then you learn how to give in a different way.

Cathy: Like everything is a cycle. But the bottom line is the way that, I mean, you know, If you guys don’t already know this, if everyone doesn’t already know this, we are hardwired to I, this is what I say with my social work students like 80,000 times. So they’re always like, we know we are hardwired to connect to other human beings.

Cathy: That’s why we’re here. Right? That is why we are here. So with that understanding, It’s about relationships, it’s about family. That’s where joy is gonna come from. It’s also about, in the world of work, how we give help, support, take care of others. And so our why means to include something about other people and not just us.

Cathy: And not just about making other people wealthy. It’s about inspiring people. And then if wealth comes from that, great, you know, we don’t have to demonize any part of this. We can be somewhat neutral, but then, you know, anything can go, you know, just money is one of those other things that’s neutral.

Cathy: Depending on how you use it, it can be amazing. And then it can also manifest in really negative things. So, you know, that’s just the way I look at it. Two

Todd: more quotes. Okay. I heard this, that Tony Robbins workshop, I’m sure he didn’t come up with it. The secret to living is giving, right? Doesn’t get much more simple than this.

Todd: And this one I like. It’s by an unknown author. If you wanna touch the past, touch a rock. If you want to touch the present, touch a flower. Okay? And if you want to touch the future, touch a life. Yeah. That’s

Cathy: nice. Essentially. Nice. Yeah, that is. I like to touch rocks. I love

Todd: touching rocks and flowers. I don’t really like touching flowers.

Todd: I like to smell them, look at them, eh, smell sometimes depending on what type of flower it is. Well,

Cathy: everybody just last week we live in Chicago and it was absolutely gorgeous, like 70 degrees, where Chicago people become like different human beings and we’re like outside in shorts and such, and then it’s snowing now, but it’s okay.

Cathy: I’m not going to complain. I’m just going to say it because I have lived in this kind of weather for 51 years. Well, I just know

Todd: it. I feel like our challenge, my challenge is can I be in as good of a mood? Right when it’s windy and raining and snowing and cold as I can when it’s sunny and warm and nice because I do feel like we have the ability to have our own internal weather compass.

Cathy: You know what I think is that human beings like novelty and when we have been in cold for a long time we want hot to shake up what we’re doing. Just like how when we’ve been in summer for a long time and we’ve been hot and wearing the same shorts and everything, we get excited for a fall like day.

Cathy: And so I just think it’s novelty. I think that what happens though is we start to. Get reminded of what summer feels like and the smells and the wheat. Todd and I went to a baseball game and we’re like, we’re back. And then you have to go backwards. But that’s Chicago, that’s Midwest. I, that’s what we do.

Todd: We’re tough. We are tough. Jeremy Crafty’s, a Baldheaded Beauty. If anybody’s out there looking to refinish their basement, redo their kitchen, paint their house, reach out to Jeremy avid co.net 6 3 0 9 5 6 1800 men living. It’s a virtual and in-person community of guys connecting deeply and living fully.

Todd: No requirements, no creeds, no gurus, no judgements. All you have to do is just show up. And then lastly, about last night, we’ll be coming out sometime soon. So

Cathy: last week, three’s Company came out. Okay. And if you didn’t listen and you liked Three’s Company, please go listen, because Tan, I had such a good time doing it, and I don’t think anyone, well, this isn’t true, but I don’t think there’s a lot of people who have given over an hour to discussing the ins and outs of Three’s company.

Cathy: It was really fun. And Todd played this like 80 times. I’ma knock on our door. We’ve been waiting for you.

Todd: Oh

Cathy: Jack. Oh Jack. He’s so silly. And then about last night, I loved that conversation.

Todd: 1986 version. Rob Lo, Jim Belushi to me more. Elizabeth Perkins. Perkins. Is that right? One of our favorite movies.

Todd: So that’ll be coming out this week sometime. Great.

Cathy: Do we have another Pop Coling

Todd: after that? Well, you wanna do Pulp Fiction? There’s just a lot. It was what was easiest cuz about last night. Nobody’s ever like investigated about last night. It’s just this silly rom com from the eighties that you and I love.

Todd: Whereas Pulp Fiction, there’s like extensive books I know

Cathy: written about that movie. I know you’re right. That’s why I don’t wanna do Ferris Bueller’s Day Off cuz it’s the same thing. And I feel like so many people have discussed it that I’m like, what new thing are we gonna bring to it? So maybe we should do something more obscure.

Cathy: I don’t know. We’ll see. We’ll talk about it. Thanks

Todd: for listening everybody. Keep trucking. See you soon. Join Team Zen. Bye.