What Your Kids Actually Need from You

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Automatic transcript, lightly corrected for names, with profanity masked. Some passages may contain transcription errors.

Welcome to Inner Circle. I'm Mike Brown, and I'm here with Kevin Dahlstrom, and the whole idea of this show is just to have the conversations that we're having anyway, behind closed doors and letting you into our inner world here. So, so today, we're starting with a quote that Kevin posted recently, the greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of the parents, that's Carl Young. Kevin, what do you have to say about that? Man, Young is full of bangers, isn't he? I think he's the original banger. The original, yeah, he would've done so well on X back in the day. Yeah, so, man, I love that quote, because what I've observed observed over the years is that many parents, when they have kids, they sort of surrender their own life.

And they dedicate their entire life to their children, which, you know, the intent there is obviously super positive. But the consequence of that can be sort of negative. And the reason is that kids don't need a martyr, they need a model, they need you to model the behaviors that healthy behaviors you want to instill in them. And so look, the first thing I always say any time I have a discussion about parenting, I have to say that the disclaimer is anyone who says they have parenting figured out is a charlatan. I'm not going to claim to have it figured out Mike. We've all made huge mistakes, but I will say, you know, now that I'm an empty nester, I just became an empty nester.

And, you know, you know that something I'm big on Mike is I make my judgments based on results. I like to look at the evidence and I'm proud to say knock on wood. And my girls at ages 19 and 21 the product has turned out pretty good so I I can only share what has worked worked for me and I'll say you know related to this the young quote is that I think what a the mistake that a lot of parents make especially young parents is they tend to focus on specific behaviors like you need to study or you need to get better with money or whatever. And to me, those are all like tactics the strategy that I always tried to focus on is instilling good judgment because that one thing if you do that one thing.

Everything else is downstream from good judgment if you're just a good decision maker, then whether it comes to money or them finding a partner or their career whatever if they are good at making decisions, then that that that's something that applies to everything and so the way to teach that, as as young implied is by living it you know we need to model the behaviors. behaviors that that we want our kids to have and it's easy to say hard to do right. I thinking I think you nailed it and I take this quote from young slightly differently, which is I think so many parents project their unlived dreams on their. Their kids, or sometimes even worse, what's worked for the parent they project that on their kids so so here's a great example is so many entrepreneurial parents, like have this need for their kids to become entrepreneurs and

At least they're not unemployed like most people, the stress is just simply not worth it. Yes, there is massive upside and entrepreneurship is a choice but like you have to have the right personality for it and I think the vast majority are finding a really good job that that serves, you know, the life that they want to live, because entrepreneurship is so hard. and yet, you know, parents, and you see this like youth sports, is the worst right that the screaming hockey dad or baseball dad, you know, trying to make their kid a state champion because they never were. Look, I don't want to be too myopic about it, but I just think that is is ksi is soe.

So many people try to control outcomes for their kids. Yeah, in reality is you can't control the outcome. That's right. I mean, that's funny is like, I think most of those parents who just try to assert their will on their kids. Of course, the intent is good. I mean, nobody wants, you know, nobody, everybody wishes the absolute best for their kids. it just doesn't work and I'm reminded when you were talking, I was reminded of the quote, you don't you get the kids you want you get the kids you deserve. They, my daughters and both of them but one in particular, she's so different from my wife and I'm like where did you come from like, she sees the world so

every single time I make the mistake of assuming that she sees the world the way I see it or I try to enforce my way of doing things. Not only does it not work, it backfires in a major way. Yeah, I mean, one of my favorite parenting stories is, you know, my son, and to this to this point, like I thought I was going to get a little mini me. And turns out my son is a very sweet sensitive kid and definitely the son that I deserved. Yes, has taught me so much but early on we were in T ball he was hee was probably five and look he was never gonna, gonna be a a great T ball player like I was never in danger of raising a state champion T ball player.

And he he was on second base standing on the base and the kid at the plate got a hit and he was like looking up at the sky, and he didn't run. And all of a sudden all the parents, the coaches, the coaches, everybody is shouting at this kid to run and he's just staring up at the sky and then he realizes he's being yelled at. And he jumps out of his skin and run straight from second base off the field and into my arms. And at this point, I can feel all the other eyes of any sobbing in my arms I can feel all the other parents just going, you're going to get him back out out there right like we got to show him who's tough, tell him to man up that tell him to man up right and I just I just looked at my son who's sobbing in my arms. And he was just like I want to go home I want to go home and I was like, let's go home.

And I and I walked out of there, you know, to with the with the judgmental eyes of all the all the other parents. But, you know, in that moment, my son needed me to show him that he was safe, right there's plenty of time in life to show kids how to be resilient how to, you know, dust yourself off and get back up. And I think those are super important. But I think that discernment is like he needed to know that I had as back in that moment. You know, as a parent, like as a parent, part of having good judgment yourself is knowing when you tell your kid the equivalent of man up. I mean, I wouldn't use those words.

But at the same time, it doesn't always have to be hard. Yeah. And that's it. Right. Like, and again, I think there's a there's a difference in, you know, a five year old kid playing youth sports versus a 16 year old kid. Yeah. And he was clearly not having fun in that moment. And I want to risk ruining sports for the rest of his life because because he He's going to have all this pressure on him. Well, yeah. And, I think like if it the situation was not on the baseball field just having fun, but it was like your son, ran out of like the

SAT test and wanted to cry in your arms. You might have a little bit different response to that. And that's the judgment. Yeah. And I'm going to pivot a little bit and I have one tactic that I'm a huge believer in that I don't think it's talked about or used very much. Is I'm a big believer in just the power of words and specifically of words said repeatedly over many years and you might even call it a mantra. And, and, you know, I famously have this sticky note that's hung on our, our family refrigerator for many years. And it's, you know, to the point where my kids roll their eyes every

time, you know, use good judgment. The fact that they roll their eyes is actually a very good sign to me because that means I've said it a lot and, you know, those things things actually stick if I think what it is is like as a leader in a way like as a parent, you're in a way like a leader. You have to make it clear what the values are and what the expectations are. I know they make good grades because they tell me and I believe them and my wife has probably done a good bit of looking at it. But I haven't but they do know the expectation. Wee work hard.

We use good judgment. You know, but at the end of the day, we're big believers in investing in experiences like we're here for the experience, not a short term outcome. I think this idea of like making the ground rules super clear in the form of specific words that has real power. I, you're going to love mine. We have two family models. One is Browns have each other's back and I think that should go without saying, right? You only get one fancy. You know, it should go without saying but there's huge power in saying it. Over and over, right and they know and even, you know, if my son is disparaging my daughter or vice versa, you go, hey, hey guys, Browns have each other's back. We don't speak poorly of each other in public. Right. Like this is this is not something we do injure that and it actually has really shaped the way

the way they relate to each other. Like they know they have to have each other's back and. And then two is Browns can do hard things. Right. And the nuance there is Browns don't always have to do hard things. But we can do hard things. And you know, one of the the biggest challenges for me as a parent is for both my wife and I school came very very easily., right? The expectation from our parents that we got good grades. But we were going to get good grades anyway. Right. Like school came fairly easily. My son is wildly dyslexic and dysgraphic school has always been really hard for him. And I think the difficult piece here is it's actually hard for me to relate. Like I can't relate to how difficult school I mean school is not designed for a dyslexic

kid. I mean we just everything is based on reading and writing. And it's exceedingly difficult. And so for me, I've learned so much just finding compassion for our differences. And also still encouraging him to do hard things is like, Hey, this is your job. Like we got. We got to get this thing done. But if I had some expectation that my kids going to get all a's like I'm going to be sorely disappointed. I'm going to be banging my face against the wall. Yeah. I think your point about expecting your kid to be just a mini me is a powerful one. I think we all are fall victim to that thinking to some degree. And I'll tell you one thing that's been very eye-opening to me. It's the simplest thing in the world. But it's just like the Enneagram test.

So number one, like the Enneagram is the simple personality typing test. I understand like, Oh, she's not wired just like me. I can't, you know, who knew, right? Like me and she's not being difficult. and then you can apply that same thing to your kids. And you realize that the world completely different. And guess what? When you embrace it, it's awesome. But there's a tendency if you have this many me expectation that like anything that deviates from the mini me is wrong and something to be beat out of them. And actually like you want people to become like the way to win in life is to double down on who you are, like be your best you.

This is it. I mean, my question is like, what do you actually want for your kids? Right. And I'm asking you kind of like, what do you want for your kids? Like what do you think a successful role as a parent? You know, what is? What is that outcome? I think to, um, well, I'll go back to like the, the use good judgment, which is upstream of everything, but what does that specifically mean to me? I'm a huge believer in the power of just not doing stupid things. You know, I repeat that Tolstoy quote all the time about like people will put all this effort into doing all these smart things when sometimes the most powerful thing is just to avoid doing dumb things to me, honestly, like just doing that creates a pretty good baseline

for life. Um, and so like a dod dodged those bullets and avoid those kill shots that take out so many people, whether it's addiction or just one bad bad decision, a bad mirror, whatever. Um, and then everything from there is gravy. And I think, um, you know, again the foundation of that is use good judgment, like point yourself in good direction. No, no one to hold the hold it, no one to fold it, no one to walk away, no one to run. Um, but I'll flip that on you. Like that was, um, I've never actually, I don't think explicitly a the

to your sweatshirt There are a a million paths to being successful. I was recently there was one that dropped out of high school and not a graduate college until 28. There are so many paths. We have this, work hard, get good grades, go to an elite college and that's the only path to success. I-I have no idea what college 90% of baby bathwater members went to. And these are all super successful people. I mean, there are a lot of middle, Kentucky, eastern state type folks

that took a very, wild path through life and still wound up as massively successful. Oh, dude, I mean, let's let's pin this one because that's an episode in itself of this many paths thing. And if I like if I could tell my 20 year old self, literally one thing and like if I could pass one note, that would probably be it. That like find your own path and it sounds so simple. And yet, you know, I went most of my life without even knowing that that was an option, like to create my own path was an option. Rock climbing strangely enough was the thing that exposed me to a completely different world. I didn't even know existed and ended up like completely blowing up my life mostly in a good way. So absolutely,

like I think that's your answer is better. And if I had to, to give, give us a sync dancer, I would restate it as like for them to find their own path and not do stupid s*** along the way would be like the chef's kiss. Let me let me kind of try start wrapping this thing up because we could talk about this topic forever. But I had the one thing I wrote down. Before we got on this this recording was the best piece of parenting advice I ever heard. And it came from someone who I have a lot of respect for as a person, which is Laird Hamilton, the pro big wave surfer slash philosopher. And the story that was told by his wife Gabby was that she was at home one time

and he came in and she was just sobbing and, and he's like what's wrong. And, and then love., we have to ask ourselves like you're here and you love them. Well, is love on your terms, like is it performance based or is it unconditional love,

which is kind of what you're talking about. What you did with your son is a great example. And so I repeat that that story from Laird all the time because it really is. It's that simple and that hard at the same time. Yeah, I mean, this this for me, a similar quote. And this is from my friend Dan Martell. It's one of my favorite things that he says is no one has to change for you when right. What that means is like I can be a great loving parent and it doesn't matter if my kid goes to Harvard or if he works at 7-Eleven, right? Does he get is he being who he is, is he is he loving his life? Like is he fully expressing himself like that's all I want for my kid? And he and the big thing I try to instill is you

you never have to earn my love. Like there is nothing you have to do. There's nothing you could do to make me be a lot more and there's nothing nothing you could do to make me love you any less. And that's it. It's that simple. Well, it's a it's a form of your core message, which is essentially like process over outcome. And if you?

Yeah, definitely. Well, as always,