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Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of The YouSchool Podcast. I'm the host, Scott Schimmel. Today we're going to talk about a really, really short but simple, powerful tool, whether you're a parent or an educator or a coach. For years, I'm not exaggerating, for years I've been asking, it's essentially a survey question, whether we're working with parents, teachers, coaches, the question essentially is this- What do you hope your kids become like? Not, and that's a very different question than what do you hope your kids do?
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That path, and we'll have the conversation too, and ask that question, is around success. It's around, getting into college getting a job. But when we shift it and say, "Who do you hope your kids become?", what we start to hear about are these hopes and aspirations that adults have for the kids and their lives around what I would just sum up as emotional intelligence. And I hear them say things like: I hope they have good friends. I hope they understand themselves. I hope they make a difference in the world. I hope they know how to
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be a good neighbor, good friends. I mean, it's those kinds of things which emotional intelligence as a category, having been popularized 30-40 years ago, is a broader set of skills and abilities to be able to navigate wealth through relationships. And also so self-awareness, self-management, healthy relationships, responsible decision making, there are these components of emotional intelligence. And it then if those are the things that we want for our kids, then it requires a different design for it, if that makes sense. So if that's the end goal, if that's the hole in the golf, on the green, how do we work backwards from where we are now? And what does it look like to anticipate that our kids would become those things, because of the experiences and inputs that were getting them along the way. That's the very simple, simple idea. And today, I am stealing
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an idea that's already been in another podcast episode. And in fact, it's a guest's I've had on twice one of my closest friends in the world,
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Charlie Ruce, he's a trained, licensed therapist. He serves now as an organizational coach, and consultant to CEOs. He trains a lot around trauma and the nervous system and how to build capacity. And we've had him on a couple of times, if you want to look back in previous episodes, to talk about trauma to talk about helping kids navigate through big things going on their lives is and he's one of the most, gosh, how do I say it? The way he shares about very complex things is a very understandable, relatable and simple to practice. So this very short episode, is to talk about something Charlie's already talked about, and I now apply in our family. And I hope it pays dividends. I trust that it will. The idea is this- we need to cultivate for our kids a rich inner life. Now how do you do that? And a rich inner life, meaning they're self-aware about their emotions, their reactions, their, their nervous system, they understand themselves, when it when they are stressed, and overwhelmed, or feeling anxious or feeling afraid. They actually know that rather than acting in response to it, which then the emotions and whatever's going on their bodies takes over, and they have big reactions and make poor choices. We want our kids, I want my kids to be able to understand themselves and make good choices. And it starts with us modeling this very simple concept that we can do without them ever knowing it. Number one, we talk about the externals. For instance, the end of the day, dinner time, after dinner, we're hanging out with them. We don't need to wait for them to ask us how our day was because they probably won't if they're four years old or 14 or 28. They probably won't ask, "How was your day, mom? How was your day, Dad?" But we can anticipate that that questions there. They are. They are curious. Let's just anticipate, let's just assume that they are. And so we talked about the externals, this is what I did, this is where I went this is what happened. This is who I talked to, this is where the meeting I had, the event I did, the the itinerary that I kept. The externals, and then
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talk about the internals. And I felt, and that's when I would start saying, I felt anxious going into that meeting, because I was worried that they wouldn't think that I was fully prepared. I felt kind of frustrated when I took my car for an oil change, because the guy asked if I wanted to rotate my tires, but I just had my tires rotated. So it felt like he was taking advantage of me.
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I was feeling super tired, because I didn't get good sleep last night. And so I found myself when I was in a meeting, I was actually kind of falling asleep on the inside. So we we model that. And then we shift it and inquire with curiosity about them. What did you do? Where did you go? The externals. What happened? Who are you with? What did they say? Then where, and that's we're inquiring. We're asking questions. We're curious, but not just about the externals, that's where mistakes are made. That's where we forget to talk about what's underneath the surface, the internals, the internals, is where all the good stuff is, and to help kids explore their inside, their interior world to find and grow a vocabulary over time to understand the sensations, the emotions, the feelings that they had, from both a physical body perspective, but also from an emotional perspective. What was that? What was that like? Who did you sit with at lunch? What did they say? What did you talk about? And then how were you feeling? Do you ever feel like... And asking a bunch of interesting, open-ended questions? Because over time, the more we do that for the modeling it and and then having conversations with them about it, we are actually building and developing emotional intelligence, skills, capacity for them. And that will serve them forever. So short episode, that's it. Externals. Internals. When you model it, you wait, don't wait for them to ask you. Just share, and then inquire for them.
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Where were you? What do you do? Who do you talk to you? What happened? What did they say? And more importantly, how did it feel? What was going on in the inside?
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Self awareness and self management are absolutely critical life skills for anybody to live life well. They are learnable skills, but they have to be caught. They have to be seen and experienced over time. This is my encouragement for you- Model emotional intelligence and guide your kids to become more and more self aware.
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Hey, thanks for joining in on The YouSchool podcast, we'd love to share with you the resources available on our website at theyouschool.com. Not just articles, ebooks, worksheets and other podcast episodes. But specifically you should know about a free course we have available called The Real Me course. It's digital, it's interactive, and it'll guide you to get clear about who you are in the great story you could tell with your life. So go register for a free account and get started on The Real Me course today at theyouschool.com That's the you school dot com