Revisited: Kids (And Employees) Know More Than You Think with Dr. Becky Kennedy

Team Simon here! We’re revisiting some of our favorite episodes from 2025. But we'll be back in just two weeks with brand-new episodes of A Bit of Optimism on January 27, 2026. We think you’re going to love them! Today, we’re going back to January of last year when Dr. Becky Kennedy joined us to discuss the hardest job in the world—parenting. It turns out, it’s also one of the best training grounds for leadership. Dr. Becky Kennedy, aka the “Millennial Parent Whisperer,” became an essential voice for caretakers by offering practical, actionable parenting advice that resonated with millions during the pandemic. As a clinical psychologist and founder of Good Inside, she’s now helping parents build sturdy leadership skills that not only transform their homes but also their work lives. In this conversation, Dr. Becky shares how understanding boundaries, emotional triggers, and big feelings can help us become more effective leaders. Whether you’re a parent or a manager (or both!), her insights will help you lead with more intention, connection, and confidence. This… is A Bit of Optimism. --------------------------- Check out Dr. Becky’s work: https://www.goodinside.com/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Someone feels your intention more than they feel your intervention. Intention is, my intention right now, to teach and make better. Or is my intention to vomit my own frustration onto my child as a form of catharsis, which is usually what we do.

• 0:13Simon Sinek?

  It feels so good, though.

• 0:13Speaker 00

  It feels so good.

• 0:14Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 0:14Speaker 00

  No, it feels...

• 0:15Simon Sinek?

  We do it at work all the time.

• 0:16Speaker 00

  So good.

• 0:17Simon Sinek?

  We do it all the time.

• 0:17Speaker 00

  That's what has to be named.

• 0:18Simon Sinek?

  So good.

• 0:18Speaker 00

  So good.

• 0:19Simon Sinek?

  So good.

• 0:19Speaker 00

  Um, but it's not...

• 0:20Simon Sinek?

  It's therapy unto itself. If you have kids, then you probably already know Dr. Becky. In fact, you may have used her app when your kid was having a meltdown. She's the author of Good Inside, the name of her app also. But more important, she is an absolute genius at understanding human beings, both the little ones and the big ones. Yes, she talks about parenting, and yes, we talked about how to be a better parent. But my goodness, the amount that I got out of this conversation about how I can be a better leader, absolutely invaluable. This is a bit of optimism.

• 1:01Simon Sinek?

  I live in Los Angeles. We're recording in Los Angeles. We've had these fires. Families have been traumatized. When something happens to a family, and it's hard enough for the parents to deal with what they're going through, what are we supposed to say to children?

• 1:19Speaker 00

  First of all, when unimaginable horrible things happen, there's no perfect approach, and there's no perfect words. And so I just always want to tell parents that. Like, what's the right thing to say? There's no right words for a situation that's wrong, ever. So let's just get that out the window. The principle that always drives me, because I tend to be driven by first principles in anything I think about, is that information doesn't scare kids as much as a lack of information scares kids. Because kids are expert perceivers of the world even more than we are. Because their evolution, their survival, depends on it. Kids are so dependent on adults for survival, right? We all need food, shelter, water. But me and you, Simon, we can get food, shelter and water. Kids get food, shelter, water, love from their parent.

• 2:03Speaker 00

  And so they have to be especially attuned to what's going on? Did my environment change? Where is my parent? Might I need my parent now for survival? And so when they're in a situation where they have black smoke around them, packed bags, ready to go, a parent crying on the phone, fire, evacuation, person's house burned down. And then the parent goes off the phone and says, sweetie, no, nothing's wrong. Let's watch that show together. A kid panics, they act out, they cling and my, you know, then my apparent think, why are they clinging? Right? So noticing things that are off and not having a narrative to understand them is terrifying for a kid.

• 2:48Speaker 00

  And so just to start this, what would a parent start by saying? Is you probably start by saying to a kid, hey, you're noticing blank. And then this is really one of my favorite lines to build true confidence. It's just, you're right to notice that things have changed. Let me tell you what's going on. It might be there's a fire, the smoke from the fire blew here. The fire's not here. We're safe. We might have to leave our home. That's why we have a bag. My number one job is to keep you safe and I take that seriously and I'm paying very close attention. It might be we're about to leave our home. I'm going to tell you what I know and I'm going to tell you what I don't know. And more than anything, I know we're going to get through this together.

• 3:28Simon Sinek?

  You know, I can't help it. It's like as you're talking, I'm running everything through the filter of my own work. And you know, one of my favorite books to recommend to businesses and leaders for how to be a good listener is How to Talk to Kids So Kids Will Listen and Listen So Kids Will Talk, which is a age old parenting book, because it's basically the same. Validate people's emotions and all the rest of it, right? And as you're giving this parenting advice, that's very topical to now. I can't help but run it through the leadership filters. It's the exact same thing we do with any human being, which is they're not idiots. They're aware of things changing. They're aware of tensions amongst the executives. And we put on smiley faces because we think that if we're happy, then they'll be happy.

• 4:12Simon Sinek?

  We hide stress, we hide tension, we hide all these things as opposed to just telling people. And even saying, I don't know what's going to happen. People can deal with good news and people can deal with bad news. It's uncertainty that the insanity and the going down the rabbit holes and the looping starts. And it also disallows for questions, right? Because if you give me information, even if it's bad news, I can ask a question. If you give me nothing and you lie to me and you hide from me, it leaves me even in a worse state. And so what I find so fascinating is everything you're saying is true for adults, too. It's probably just more exaggerated for kids.

• 4:45Speaker 00

  I mean, I don't think Good Inside is a parenting approach. It's a leadership approach.

• 4:49Simon Sinek?

  It's a leadership approach, for sure.

• 4:50Speaker 00

  What I say to parents, what parents say, especially ones who are really in our system for a while, is we help parents become sturdy leaders. That's the phrase, sturdy leadership. It's why I think I'm actually asked often. Your Good Inside book was recommended in my management consulting Slack groups. Are you a management consultant? And I used to say no, and now I say I am. It's just the system I tend to operate in is a family system. But being the leader of a family system is also about setting up the conditions for success. And that has to do with setting boundaries, having a kind of sense of your own authority as a leader, and staying connected, seeing the good inside people and thinking about how to bring it out.

• 5:31Speaker 00

  And whether you have children or employees or athletes on your team, it's all the same stuff.

• 5:36Simon Sinek?

  When somebody asks you, are you a management consultant? And if by management consultant, you mean, do I give advice to people to take better care of those in their span of care, then the answer is yes, 100%.

• 5:45Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:45Simon Sinek?

  Because that's what good leadership is. It's being responsible for those around you. It's ensuring that those around you will rise, build confidence, all of these things. It's all exactly the same thing.

• 5:53Speaker 00

  That's right. And when it goes back to the information, you know, two things happen when people notice things in their environment and they're not given a story to understand. They either make up a story themselves, and almost always, that story is that it's their fault. And that goes back to our childhood.

• 6:09Simon Sinek?

  Good segue here, okay? Which is, styles of parenting have changed over time, like styles of leadership have changed with the times. And, you know, when you and I were kids and we got in trouble, our parents said, what did you do this time? And these days, it seems when kids get in trouble, it's the parents say, what's wrong with your teacher? I get a kick out of the criticisms older generations had of younger generations, like, damn this generation. We're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. How were they raised is always the question I want to ask.

• 6:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:37Simon Sinek?

  Which is, is it, is it, is it the people we have a problem with? Or is it the parents we have a problem with?

• 6:42Speaker 00

  I don't know if I'm the best cultural anthropologist of parenting, so I'm going to answer a version of the question, because what I think you're getting at is, I think a lot of my friends, the way we were raised, was kind of, you did something wrong. It was like, go to your room, what's wrong with you? Right? And so in a way, what you're saying is the blame is in the child. And now what you're saying is the blame is in someone else. Right? It actually, I always go back to something my son said so astutely, where my husband was mad at him, because he like, left the door open when we were backing out our car, and it kind of, you know, scraped on the garage. And my son ended up yelling back to my husband, like, it's not my fault. And my husband goes, so it's my fault? And then my son said something that I think is so profound, and actually, to me epitomizes

• 7:27Speaker 00

  what our approach is in parenting. He goes, Dad, sometimes bad things happen, and it's nobody's fault. And I honestly think the obsession with fault is like, a really interesting thing. Okay, is it my kid's fault? Is it the teacher's fault? What, is that a useful framework? Is, I actually would say it's not a useful framework. So, I think we've gone from go to your room, to what you're noticing now, I don't think it's every parent, but it's kind of shifted from, I don't care about my kids' feelings. Nobody cares about feelings. They had a bad behavior, fix your behavior. If I look back on that, I don't know how people thought people were fixing their behaviors, but there was a lot of focus on just, that's not okay, go to your room and learn how to do it better. And now, there's

• 8:12Speaker 00

  this, think about it. Right? I always think about sending a kid being like, you can't swim, go to your room, think about how to swim, and come back when you know how to swim. Yeah. Not very effective, but we've done that for generations. But now, there's a little bit of my kids' feelings not only matter, but like dictate what I should do as a parent. That's equally dangerous. And that is definitely not a good inside approved approach. The way I see it, is neither. Okay? Where, like, at Good Inside, like, this approach we have to leadership and to parenting, really comes from two kind of first principles. Number one, kids are born good inside. Like, I really believe there's not a baby who's born saying like, oh, I'm gonna wake up my parents tonight, I'm gonna like,

• 8:57Speaker 00

  F them over like I hate my parents. No, they're born good inside. And the other inconvenient truth is that they're born with all the feelings and none of the skills. And to me, that visual gap explains basically a hundred percent of children's bad behavior. And if you think about it from that perspective, or you think about your own kid or any kid you know who acts out. Oh, my goodness, they're born with all the feelings I have with all the intensity. And they're born with no skills to manage those feelings. And at any point in life, feelings without skills manifest as bad behavior. The reason people yell at a waiter or yell at a partner is because, I don't know, they're angry, they're disappointed, high feelings. And they don't have the skills to regulate low skills.

• 9:41Speaker 00

  And then for generations, what we did with that gap is we sent kids away, almost like the feelings were the problem. The feelings have never been the problem. The lack of skills is the problem. It's nobody's fault that kids don't have skills. It's not the parents' fault. It's not the kids' fault. It's just truth.

• 9:57Simon Sinek?

  That's how they come out of the package.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  Come. So.

• 10:00Simon Sinek?

  You have to program.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Why don't we teach them the skills? Because if you think about feelings without skills, you can't bring down the feelings. You can't get rid of the feelings, but if you level up the skills, that changes behavior today. And puts kids with the ultimate privilege in adulthood, which is having skills to manage the entire range of feelings you will always feel for the rest of your life.

• 10:22Simon Sinek?

  You're not just teaching people how to parent. You're teaching people how to be people. You're teaching, you're teaching human skills. And I always make the joke, like, you know, cats don't have to work very hard to be cats. They're naturally good at it. But it takes an unbelievable amount of work to be a good human being. So there's two skill gaps, right? Which is my kids have feelings and no skills. And I'm supposed to teach them the skills that I don't have.

• 10:44Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 10:44Simon Sinek?

  And so I have a broken partnership with the person who's who, you know, if we're raising the kids together. I have an inability to communicate or listen. And now I'm supposed to teach skills that I don't have to a child who doesn't have them. It's a double whammy.

• 10:59Speaker 00

  That is my sweet spot.

• 11:01Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 11:01Speaker 00

  I think what happens when you become a parent, and no one wants to say this because it's like daunting. Everything unhealed about your childhood just gets triggered over and over with your children. Like, we think our children are gonna heal us and they trigger us over and over. And we have this choice. I can either allow that generational kind of wound or trauma, whatever you wanna call it, to then just be passed on generation to generation, or I can use this opportunity, not only to give something different to my kids, but actually to like heal myself and be the sturdiest, most confident version of me. And when you do that at the same time, it's like addicting. It's amazing. And it's hard work.

• 11:40Simon Sinek?

  Let's take the question of the kid with the door.

• 11:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:44Simon Sinek?

  And let's just change it slightly.

• 11:45Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 11:45Simon Sinek?

  Right? You let the door, you left the door open and the dog got out.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 11:49Simon Sinek?

  Right? So you were told to close the door. We always close the door. Everybody knows to close the door. You were the last person out. You didn't close the door. And a kid says, well, sometimes bad things just happen and it's nobody's fault. What is the right thing to say when they should have actually closed the door and they've shirked a responsibility?

• 12:06Speaker 00

  Right. I just think fault, it's actually powerful to be, I don't know if it's a useful framework for anything. Fault is inherently shameful. Shame makes people freeze. Freeze is anti-learning, seems ineffective.

• 12:16Simon Sinek?

  Okay.

• 12:16Speaker 00

  So first of all, someone feels your intention more than they feel your intervention.

• 12:20Simon Sinek?

  So I know you didn't mean to leave the door open.

• 12:22Speaker 00

  So intention is, and my intention right now, to teach and make better, or is my intention to

• 12:27Simon Sinek?

  Oh, the intention of the parent, okay.

• 12:28Speaker 00

  vomit my own frustration onto my child as a form of catharsis, which is usually what we do.

• 12:33Simon Sinek?

  It feels so good, though.

• 12:34Speaker 00

  It feels so good. No, it feels

• 12:35Simon Sinek?

  We do it, we do it at work all the time.

• 12:37Speaker 00

  So good.

• 12:37Simon Sinek?

  We do it all the time. So good.

• 12:39Speaker 00

  So good.

• 12:39Simon Sinek?

  So good.

• 12:39Speaker 00

  Um, but it's not

• 12:40Simon Sinek?

  It's therapy unto itself.

• 12:42Speaker 00

  So much. Okay, so my kid left the door open, dog got out. Here's how, again, I don't know if I would actually do this, but what I would want to do in this situation.

• 12:50Simon Sinek?

  In the ideal, in the ideal, yeah.

• 12:51Speaker 00

  Okay, so let's say my son is Sam. Hey, Sam, look, the door was open. Look, you and I both know that whoever's around the door, it's their job to close the door, right? So I think that's an important starting point. Don't try to catch your kid. Do you know it's your job? Don't ask your, don't ever ask anyone.

• 13:05Simon Sinek?

  It's everybody's job, right?

• 13:06Speaker 00

  Yeah, just don't ask a question you know the answer to. It's like a horrible experience on the other end.

• 13:10Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 13:10Speaker 00

  All the time. Never do that.

• 13:12Simon Sinek?

  Right.

• 13:12Speaker 00

  We both know that. I, I know you were the last one at the door. It was open. Let's figure this out. Look, I think the most important thing is figuring out how you can remember more often to close the door. So, okay.

• 13:26Speaker 00

  What would you need to remember? Now, my kid's gonna be like, I don't know, I'll just remember. Look, I'm not satisfied with that. And it's not because I don't trust you. I know you want to remember. The truth is, I forget things all the time, too. It's just what people do. I wonder if there's anything, and this is where I'm gonna lead my kid to the well. I wonder if there's anything someone could do, like, my kid says, nothing like,

• 13:45Speaker 00

  is there like, do they like, has anyone invented like a piece of paper with like a, like a sticky thing that like one could like put? And my son's gonna be like, oh, a post, oh, oh, my goodness. What would you do with a post-it? Oh, I could probably write, closed, Sam.

• 14:00Simon Sinek?

  Genius.

• 14:01Speaker 00

  Genius. Okay. And this is what my son would do. So could you write that for me? No, sweetie. You know why I'm not gonna do that for you? Because the rest of your life, you're gonna be in situations, not about a door, but with some situation where something goes wrong, and you're gonna have to think about what to do to improve the next time. And I'm not gonna take away something from you that's gonna really help later, which is the process of actually doing the thing yourself. Because it's actually gonna feel really good to you. Not like fun good, but no, I'm gonna expect that. And just to be clear, and this is if I had to say this, I'm gonna expect that by 8:00 PM. And I just want to be clear with you about that, because I really want to set you up for success.

• 14:37Simon Sinek?

  And you know why most people don't do that as parents and definitely don't do that in leadership? It's because it takes time.

• 14:43Speaker 00

  But it doesn't. I actually have to jump in this.

• 14:45Simon Sinek?

  It takes time. It takes, it does. It takes time and it takes patience.

• 14:48Speaker 00

  No.

• 14:49Simon Sinek?

  You have to set that all up. You have to learn how to say it. You have to wait for it. No, no, no.

• 14:53Speaker 00

  You have to learn.

• 14:53Simon Sinek?

  No, no, no, no. I, I agree with you. But I just know in my experience in leadership, most people will not do the work that I talk about or write about. But I, I, so here's a great example.

• 15:04Speaker 00

  Because it takes time.

• 15:05Simon Sinek?

  It, it, it takes energy, it takes effort. I remember I was giving a talk to a bunch of senior executives at some company, whatever it was. And they were going through really hard times. And I was talking about leadership and I taking care of people and making them feel safe. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? And one of the executives, literally this happened, he raises his hand and goes, I can't do anything that you're talking about. You have to understand, Simon, the pressure that we're under. I don't have time for the stuff you're talking about. And my response was, I hear you don't have time. I got it. I understand the stresses and the pressures are great. My question is, what were you doing in the good times? Like, how come you weren't making, building those, those environments in the good, just my question is, what were you doing in the good times? But it goes back to the point was, people feel pressure and they don't feel like they

• 15:49Simon Sinek?

  have the time. And it's the same reason people micromanage, is because for you to, for me to let you try it and screw it up, and then I have to give you feedback, and it's still not great, and then I have to let you do it again, and maybe by the seventh time, it'll be good, oh, just do it myself. It's because you have to have patience and time.

• 16:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, I guess the way, what I would say, parents say this to me all the time, too. I don't have time to learn these things. I say, look, I have no idea about your schedule and your time, and I'm not going to lecture you about how you spend the time, the things you value, not my style. But here's what I know. We either spend time preparing or reacting. And if we're used to spending time reacting, we don't quantify it as time, because it's just our default. And all I know from parents is it actually takes a ton of time to yell at your kid, to watch something go wrong all the time, and it takes a lot of time to fall asleep at night, when you're feeling really guilty.

• 16:38Simon Sinek?

  And vent to your spouse instead of watching TV.

• 16:40Speaker 00

  You're just used to it, so you don't mentally account for it.

• 16:42Simon Sinek?

  That's good.

• 16:43Speaker 00

  So that's, that, that's.

• 16:44Simon Sinek?

  So, so, so I'll amend. They don't want to spend the time before.

• 16:47Speaker 00

  It's just new.

• 16:48Simon Sinek?

  But they're happy to spend the time after.

• 16:49Speaker 00

  It's just, anything that's new, anything that's new feels uncomfortable. And we always misinterpret discomfort as a sign of something wrong.

• 17:00Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 17:00Speaker 00

  When it's a sign of something new. So I would say to the person, you're right. It will be a new way to spend time, and it will mentally feel longer, because anything in that new circuit does, because it's unfamiliar.

• 17:13Simon Sinek?

  I want to change the subject. So you and I have something a little bit in common, which is, both of us have careers that kind of happened by accident. You know, we were both kind of doing our thing, and then something happened, and now we're doing something different.

• 17:29Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 17:29Simon Sinek?

  You know, and neither of us saw it, expected it, planned for it, had any idea it was going to happen. It wasn't in any plan. And just for those who don't know, you had

• 17:43Simon Sinek?

  zero minimal social media presence. I think when you started, you probably had, like everybody else, like 50 followers.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  At best.

• 17:50Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. And then, something happened, you put out a statement, it went viral, and all of a sudden, you're the, you're it.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  There's so many things before that that feel like really pivotal parts.

• 18:02Simon Sinek?

  Well, it takes, it takes a long time to become an overnight success.

• 18:05Speaker 00

  I just, I, I had been having all these ideas because in my private practice, just to give a little backstory, what I was doing just a couple of days a week in private practice, I was seeing adults for therapy, like you, me, therapy, I was doing couples, therapy, individual therapy, and I've seen teens. And then in other sessions, I was seeing parents of younger children for parenting work. And what started to strike me, and it just started to get louder and louder in me and felt so wrong was, oh my goodness, I know the way I'm working with adults and teens and couples is like right. And I know it's right because it's this mix of different things. And I'm just watching them change their lives. Right? But then I have this next session with parents and what I hear myself saying to them, based on the training that I thought was right,

• 18:46Speaker 00

  is from a first principle perspective, the complete opposite of, I would never have an adult. Like if you came to me and said, I did this bad thing, I would never take your phone. I would never shame you. I would never punish you. You've never come back to me as a therapist. I say, okay, that's not great. Let's figure it out. Right? I'd give you some experiments. I'd give you practice. But I was talking about timeouts, punishments, sticker charts. That's what I was trained to do. And I heard myself saying it and the, the juxtaposition from one session to another, it, it, it just, it just exploded out. And I ended up saying to a couple, I was like, I don't believe what I'm telling you. I'm sorry. This is so awkward, but I need, I need a couple of days to figure out this whole parenting thing.

• 19:22Simon Sinek?

  Did you have kids at the time?

• 19:23Speaker 00

  I had kids at the time. I think that was part of it because once it wasn't just learning in a vacuum about like timeouts and yes, and so linear, so logical.

• 19:29Simon Sinek?

  Which is everything you got from a book.

• 19:31Speaker 00

  Yeah. And from actually a very esteemed extra training institution in parenting, the one that was considered gold standard. I couldn't believe I got into this program and, um, but then I had kids and I feel like you're going to get this, but it was all this like evidence base in psychology. I believe in evidence. I believe in science. Okay? And, and I think what struck me in my practice was

• 19:51Speaker 00

  this evidence in my body that this was wrong.

• 19:55Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 19:56Speaker 00

  It, it felt wrong. And once I said this thing to this couple, which I was like, I, I don't, I mean, telling you to times out, I'm sorry. I don't believe in this. Like, I don't know what to tell you. It led to these months of writing. It, it opened something up. I was up at 4:00 AM. I couldn't stay in bed. I had, it was like something got damn. And I was talking to my husband. I was talking to my husband and I remember one night he's like, you should, you should really put these thoughts somewhere. I think part of him was like, I'm trying to watch the football game. And then.

• 20:26Simon Sinek?

  Boundaries, boundaries.

• 20:27Speaker 00

  Boundaries.

• 20:27Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 20:28Speaker 00

  I put up my first post, February 28th, 2020, and two weeks later, and this was the viral moment, New York City shut down for COVID. I had 200 followers exactly that day. I remember it goes March 13th. And at the time, what would happen is I'd write these posts just based on ideas. I had a full private practice. I wasn't, I don't know what I was doing with it. I just, it felt more relieving than anything else. I had to get these ideas out. And I wrote this long carousel post. Okay. And the moment was the first part of it just said, "Our kids will remember more about how their family home felt during the coronavirus 19 epidemic than anything about coronavirus itself. Our kids are watching us and they're learning

• 21:11Speaker 00

  how to deal with uncertainty. Let's wire them for resilience, not panic. Swipe for nine ideas how." And then this carousel had nine ideas that were basically like 20 years of therapy crammed. It's like how I do into a post. So here's why I think it wasn't a surprise. My husband would always edit my things because I'm 0% perfectionist. I put things out all the time. That just works in progress. And he'd be like, "There's a typo here. There's a typo here." And I remember him looking at this post and saying to him, "Stop. I have to get this out." And I look back, "To who? To my, to my mom's friends who are following me on Instagram? Who don't even know how to use Instagram? Like, who? It was, I was like, who did I have to get that out?

• 21:57Speaker 00

  But there was, there was this like thing. And so I did.

• 22:02Speaker 00

  And it went crazy.

• 22:04Simon Sinek?

  It started to become part of the zeitgeist.

• 22:05Speaker 00

  Started to become part of the zeitgeist. And people wanted more and more. And I think around this time, I called my sister who's younger. I was like, "How do you do an Instagram story? People want me to do stories." I wasn't on social media. I was telling all my clients to get off social media. I thought it was really bad, but this felt different. And then I just started putting out more and more. And I think during that time, with so much uncertainty, it's not unlike the time with the fires. People want a sturdy leader. Sturdy leaders, they're not afraid to tell the truth. And I think in general, being told the truths by someone who you feel likes you and believes you, being even told the hard truth by someone who likes you and believes you is like a really amazing

• 22:46Speaker 00

  human feeling. And, and we love getting it because it's so rare in our life. And I think that's probably what was compelling.

• 22:54Simon Sinek?

  From your data, and I'm sure it changes over time, but I'm curious in, in now,

• 22:59Simon Sinek?

  what skill is most lacking?

• 23:02Speaker 00

  Boundaries.

• 23:03Simon Sinek?

  Say more. I want to go down deep with this because I think it's an unbelievably misunderstood concept. And just from a work standpoint, I've had many conversations with people who talk about that they have boundaries and they want their boss, their company to respect their boundaries. And then the great irony is they respect no, nobody else's. Anyway, I could give you specific examples, but I'll, I'll start with that.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  So I want to give you my definition.

• 23:23Simon Sinek?

  Misunderstanding of what they are and how they work.

• 23:25Speaker 00

  That's exactly right. Having clear definitions of what things are is like the foundation for doing something well. Clarity. So I'm going to share my definition of boundaries because I hear this all the time, too. I'm setting boundaries with my kids and they don't respect it. My mother in law doesn't respect it. And, and then I say, give me an example. And almost always I'll say, like with love and respect, that's not a boundary.

• 23:44Simon Sinek?

  So give me an example of one that's not a boundary.

• 23:46Speaker 00

  I tell my kid over and over not to jump on the couch. They know not to jump on the couch. They're old enough. They know better. They do that. I tell my mother in law not to stop over unexpectedly, like she has to tell me and she keeps doing it. They keep violating my boundaries. Neither of those are boundaries. Here's my definition, and it's super simple and usable. A boundary is something you tell someone you will do, and it requires the other person to do nothing.

• 24:12Simon Sinek?

  Okay, give me an example.

• 24:13Speaker 00

  Okay. A boundary with the mother in law who stops by would sound like this. Hey, look, I, I don't want it to get to this. I think I've asked you a lot of times, please call before coming over. There's a reason for that. It's the order of our day. I don't do great when I'm startled. And so I just want to tell you, this is new and I hope it doesn't get to this, but the next time you come over unannounced, I will come to the car and say, no, I can't have you here for a visit. I know it's going to be hard for both of us. That is what I'm going to do. A boundary is something I tell someone I'm gonna do. And it requires someone else to do nothing. So if someone doesn't respect my boundary,

• 24:55Speaker 00

  it's not even part of the equation because when we say that, we're saying, I'm giving away all of my power to someone else.

• 25:03Simon Sinek?

  What if a boundary is unreasonable?

• 25:04Speaker 00

  What does that mean?

• 25:06Simon Sinek?

  What if it is the other way around? Where it's the parent in law? Who says, these are my grandkids.

• 25:14Speaker 00

  I'm gonna come over to your house.

• 25:15Simon Sinek?

  I'm gonna come over and say, if you don't let me in, then I'm gonna sit in the driveway. You know, like, like they'll do, they follow the same, you know, schematic. Except it's an unacceptable boundary because it's not their family, not their home, you know.

• 25:27Speaker 00

  I found your key and I got a copy and I'm gonna come in whenever I want. I just wanna let you know that. Great.

• 25:31Simon Sinek?

  If you don't let me in, I'll just let myself in. That's my boundary.

• 25:33Speaker 00

  Right. To me, the, I love the idea of this.

• 25:38Simon Sinek?

  Cause I can, I'm just seeing how these things escalate into fights.

• 25:41Speaker 00

  So a boundary is something you tell someone you will do. And it requires the other person to do nothing. The reason that matters and is so usable is anytime after someone hears that definition and they set what they think is a boundary, they can just check themselves. Did I tell someone else? And does it require the other person to do nothing?

• 25:55Simon Sinek?

  Say it again because it's really important. A boundary is something that you will enforce and they, and they have to do nothing.

• 26:02Speaker 00

  That's right. Now, another more general way to think about a boundary, it's just not as practical and actionable to like evaluate whether you're setting one. Is I believe a boundary is a way of telling someone what you need to continue being in a relationship with them that feels good to you. That's really why boundaries strengthen relationships. This is what I need. My mother in law, I need you to come over while you've announced it. Cause that's what I need to still feel good in our relationship. I wanna preserve that feeling. So if someone said to me, hey, I just wanna let you know, I'm going to come over to your house and I already have a key and I'm gonna open the door whenever I want to come in. What I would say back is, ooh, that does not work for me.

• 26:47Speaker 00

  That does not work for me.

• 26:48Simon Sinek?

  Boundary v boundary.

• 26:49Speaker 00

  Yeah, that does not work for me. And, and I try to diffuse it by trying to get to the underneath. It sounds like you wanna see the kids a lot more than you have access to them. If that's what you're, let, let's figure that out. I think there's another way. You wanna see them more. I want some, you know, announcement that we have to have some middle ground.

• 27:06Simon Sinek?

  Okay, so this is really, really important. What is happening here, it's not boundary versus boundary. It's listening skills, which is when somebody sets a boundary that you and I would interpret as inappropriate or unacceptable because such things exist. The person on the receiving end of it, instead of saying, absolutely not, don't you dare, I don't want this to become a fight. What you were talking about is listening skills. And what I heard you say was, I hear that what you want is to see more of the kids, that you want access to the kids. I hear you. And it's not saying that their boundary is wrong. It's helping them get the thing that they want.

• 27:41Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 27:42Simon Sinek?

  But in a way that is conducive to the relationship and to your family. Let's sit down and go through our calendars and find all the times you can have with the kids. Let's give you that.

• 27:51Speaker 00

  I mean, to me, that's a superpower from a communication standpoint. And I talk about this to parents all the time. This happens with in-laws, this happens with kids all the time, where when someone doesn't feel like they're being taken seriously, or when someone doesn't feel like they're being believed, this is true for all of us, we all escalate the nature of our communication to try to get believed. That unfortunately enough, leads the other person to usually get more aggressive and invalidate more, which sadly enough leads the other person to escalate the expression even more. And you can see this awful cycle. So I always say it's about, do we want to be right? Or do we want to be effective? You know, we try to be effective. So if you want to be effective, and this is a person, whether it's your mother-in-law or your kid, or someone at work, that you want to stay in a relationship with, the

• 28:35Speaker 00

  skill to develop is, what is the wish under the escalation? What is the thing that needs to be believed? I think the thing my mother-in-law needs me to believe is that she really loves my kids and she really wants to see them and she feels shut out. One way of solving that is coming over unannounced with a key. But she's probably only bringing that up because she almost feels so desperate to let me know how much she wants this. And if I don't respond on the surface to the escalated words, but kind of respond to like the pain and the very believable wish underneath, we're probably going to be able to get somewhere.

• 29:11Simon Sinek?

  And as you said, if you fight the behavior, all you're doing is invalidating the feelings and it makes somebody double down on whatever they're trying to achieve or get, or feel seen, or feel heard, whatever it is. Why do we fight with our parents or get triggered by our parents in a way that nobody else triggers us? Like, I am... I have a temper with my parents. I don't have temper with anybody.

• 29:31Speaker 00

  Yep. Well, I think what you're really also saying is just like, what are our triggers? Right?

• 29:37Simon Sinek?

  So why do parents more than anyone else in our lives bring it out in us?

• 29:41Speaker 00

  They're the people you have the closest attachments with. So triggers are memories of our past that are interrupting in the present. That's what they are. There are things that were never

• 29:51Simon Sinek?

  Triggers are memories from our past that are interrupting in our present. Okay.

• 29:55Speaker 00

  Triggers are unhealed memories and they're not just one memory. They're patterns from our past that come alive in our present. So what might that mean if someone's goes, whenever my parents does something, even in the realm of criticizing, which is like, oh, you brought this salad for Thanksgiving. And I heard this recently from our friends, like, you're always criticizing me and what can never be good enough for you. And later the person's like, well, I don't know, maybe my mom just was surprised I brought arugula, you know, whatever it was. Okay. So that would be a trigger. So what's going on inside? Right? This is a memory. And the reason I think the word memory around triggers really matters is people say all the time, I don't remember how my parents responded to my tantrums. I don't really remember

• 30:38Speaker 00

  how my parents responded when I made a mistake. We have such a limited definition of memory as if memory is only the thing we can verbally produce for someone else. Memories that we can verbally produce were integrated for us. People taught, people gave us a story. That's why we ingested a story and can verbalize a story. Most of our memories do not exist. The vast majority of them were things that happened that lived in our bodies, meaning my body registered. My parents looking really disappointed with me if I got anything but a 95 or above. Or my body had so many times where I made a small mistake and I was met with immediate

• 31:20Speaker 00

  criticism instead of curiosity. Why did you, you always forget your, you always lose your jacket, Simon, versus, hey, you're forgetting your jacket. Like, you're a smart kid. I know you want to be responsible. What's the system we can come up with? So let's just say that was true in your childhood. In general, when you struggled, it was met with criticism and judgment rather than some type of like boundary, curiosity, actual skill building, like we've been talking about. Then what is your body? Do. Your body's always forming circuits, right? You're born with 25% of your circuitry. By age three, it's 75. By age five, it's 90. These are, yeah, okay. And so when people say, I don't remember, it's always interesting.

• 32:01Speaker 00

  Your body and how you react to your triggers are your best teachers for everything that happened in your early childhood. And if you start to look at them that way, you have an unlock for all of the things that need healing and reworking to be the sturdiest version. So then what probably happened, little Simon, right? When you were younger, was like alone with this, oh, my God, I'm a bad person. I always lose my jacket and I get a bad grade on my math test. And I hit my sister and I only hit her because she said I was a poo poo head, but no one even knew that. And so you're left with this affect. That's called unformulated affect. Why is it unformulated? Because kids need adults to formulate it for them. Hey, you hate your sister, totally not okay, but what happened? Oh, now I integrate it.

• 32:46Speaker 00

  Unformulated affect just lives free floating in your body. And so if that happens, not one time as a pattern, I always feel criticized. I'm not seen for the good inside, right? In those moments, then when things happen in our adulthood, where someone says, oh, you brought that salad? Our body goes in and basically does an inventory. What do I know about how to respond in situations like this? Well, you do the same thing you probably did as a kid. As a kid, you know what you had to do to cope with that? You probably had to yell at yourself, what's wrong with me? I'm a horrible person. I'm always criticized. You have to make sense of it. You have to blame yourself if you don't have a story. And so here you are in adulthood, reliving something

• 33:28Speaker 00

  that honestly isn't even happening in 2024 or 2025. It's probably happening in like 1980.

• 33:36Simon Sinek?

  I had a terrible, terrible, terrible temper as a kid. It's non-existent now. I think most of my friends, even the team, most people have never seen me angry. And I'm not repressing it. I'm just much very good at managing anger and expressing it. I can say to somebody, I'm really angry right now. But as a kid, I mean, like, like bad, inappropriate tempers. And screamed at, yelled at. Told to go to my room because this energy has to come out somewhere. Broke things, smashed my room up, got yelled at for smashing up my room, got yelled at for screaming and yelling and kicking things in my room and things like that. So just made it worse. I got even more. And it stopped when I took my favorite thing and I broke it. And then when

• 34:19Simon Sinek?

  I finally calmed down, I'm like, I just broke my favorite thing. Totally personally accountable. Right. And they've always, this has been my story, which is my temper stopped when I realized it was only hurting me.

• 34:29Speaker 00

  But, yeah. Yeah. But, you know, I was gonna say, but, didn't know I was gonna say that.

• 34:33Simon Sinek?

  But in this session, talking to you, I've realized what I wanted was in these periods of losing control and fully aware that I've lost control, fully aware that I'm not in control of my own. All I actually wanted was to, for somebody to make me feel calm and safe. And it didn't happen. I got locked in it, well, not locked, but left in my room until I calmed down.

• 34:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:56Simon Sinek?

  And now, when I think of myself as an adult, you talk to any of my close friends, the biggest compliment I give to my close friends, they all know this, is thank you so much for making me feel safe. Right? And I think back to those times when all I wanted was to somebody to move in. And the times now when I'm, I won't say acting out, but nervous, saying the wrong thing. I can speak in very exact terms, which I think can be very jarring for people. And what I really want is for people to lean in.

• 35:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. And contain you.

• 35:32Simon Sinek?

  And contain it.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  Be like, I'm not gonna let you speak like that.

• 35:35Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 35:35Speaker 00

  Yeah, I know.

• 35:36Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. I'm not gonna let you speak like that.

• 35:37Speaker 00

  Because you're a good person and I love you.

• 35:39Simon Sinek?

  And, you know, and it's not, and again, it doesn't come out in temper tantrums, but I can be very exacting.

• 35:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:43Simon Sinek?

  In my words, to the point that I don't, people don't know what to do with it.

• 35:46Speaker 00

  Well, you, you know, I always think anger, anger is so misunderstood. Anger is a feeling that we have. It's our best feeling because it tells us what we want and we're not getting. Anger is access to desire. And it's why women don't like to feel angry. Because when we had tantrums, we were really sent to our rooms as little girls.

• 36:02Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 36:02Speaker 00

  And it's one, and what we learned is not that our tantrums are bad, but that our desires. You're a person with a ton of ideas.

• 36:07Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 36:07Speaker 00

  And a ton of want and desire.

• 36:09Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  So you probably did have more anger than the average kid because of that.

• 36:12Simon Sinek?

  For sure, for sure.

• 36:13Speaker 00

  Right? And now you've figured out how to channel it.

• 36:15Simon Sinek?

  Yeah. One of my worst habits as a leader, uh, and I'm looking at it differently now after talking to you. Instead of saying, I need to fix that, which I do. But now I'm saying, okay, where is it coming from is a more interesting question.

• 36:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 36:29Simon Sinek?

  I'm a reactor, right? So somebody will show me something and I'll go through all the things that are wrong with it. And I make somebody feel bad and demoralize about the work that they do. I think the work's great. I just found a few things wrong with it. And I go straight to everything that's wrong. And I always forget to say, or I often forget to say, this is great work. Thanks for putting in all this effort. I have a few comments, right? So make somebody feel, I don't, I leave that little preamble out. And then I'm like, ah shit, I hurt somebody's feelings. Let me go backtrack and be like, and, and now I'm looking at it through a new lens. Rather than a, how can I, how can I stop being a reactor going, all right, where did that come from?

• 37:03Speaker 00

  When we want to change something in a relationship with someone else, we always, we generally get the starting point wrong. We can't change how we interact with someone else until truly, concretely, we change the way we interact with ourselves. And so if you know that happens, and by the way, I'm the same thing. I'm just so quick to being like, no, no, no. But I, and then I had him like, that was an amazing meeting. I love that person.

• 37:23Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, it's exactly the same. I'm like, oh, I love that person. I love having them on the team. And they're like, oh, I can't do anything right.

• 37:29Speaker 00

  And that's, and I think the only success I've had, and my husband has actually pointed this out. Cause he said to me, I used to think you were hard on everyone and hard on me. But he said to me, I realized, oh my goodness, imagine Becky's monologue to herself. If that's the way she, like, imagine how hard she is on herself. And he was like, it totally changed. I felt like, oh, I felt so much more compassion. And I really took that in from him. And I think what that led me to do is find moments where whether it's burning the garlic, not leaving enough time. To manage traffic. Oh, my goodness, I didn't respond to that email. Actually, truly saying in those moments, and this to me is a good framework.

• 38:13Speaker 00

  I'm a good person who didn't respond. I'm a good person who didn't leave enough time.

• 38:18Simon Sinek?

  Yeah.

• 38:20Speaker 00

  Actually practicing the validation first with myself. You need to build that up before you're gonna

• 38:27Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 38:27Speaker 00

  give it out.

• 38:28Simon Sinek?

  What is a client you've had? Something you've done in your professional life? That

• 38:38Simon Sinek?

  filled you up more than sort of anything else ever has?

• 38:41Speaker 00

  So this really snarky teenager, I remember the first session, she, the first thing she came and I had, I did have a relatively old computer. And she goes, that's your computer? You're pathetic. The first thing she said in the office and, and, and I, and I was like, game on, you know, I was like, ready. And I was like, okay. And she was a cutter. She was cutting. And so I said, okay, well, tell me how long have you been cutting? And she was two years. It's like, that's a long time. Your parents told me you've never seen a therapist before. And she goes, wow.

• 39:13Speaker 00

  My parents wanted to send me to therapy two years ago. And I told them, if you send me to therapy, basically you're saying I'm fucked up and I'm a messed up kid and you're kind of like saying, you don't love me? Is that what you mean? And if you send me to therapy, I'm gonna go and I'm gonna make up lies and I'm gonna miss the appointments. And I'm just gonna waste your money. And my heart's racing so fast, Simon, as I'm telling you this. And then there was something in me, I just knew to say nothing.

• 39:38Speaker 00

  And probably after 30 seconds, the entire mood shifted. She went from that exactly how I said. And she just looked down.

• 39:47Speaker 00

  And when she looked up at me, she said,

• 39:52Speaker 00

  can you believe they let me make that decision?

• 39:57Simon Sinek?

  Wow.

• 39:58Speaker 00

  The kids who act out the most are in the most pain.

• 40:04Speaker 00

  Just so misunderstood and I don't blame parents because again, being able to see someone's pain and fear and desperation under their nasty words and behavior. That requires skills and practice and support and resources. And, and the only thing we're told at the hospital is that we should get a car seat.

• 40:27Speaker 00

  And so these were such amazing, well-meaning parents. They just, they didn't understand her. And so that's taught me a lot about kids. It's taught me a lot about boundaries. So interesting. I was sharing this with someone in our community the other day whose kid was giving a hard time about therapy and said, Dr. Becky, I used exactly what you said, which came from this. We're going to a therapist. That is my decision and it's a decision because I love you and I believe in you. You can go, you can lie. My job is to get you there. I'm going to leave work early every Thursday. I'm going to drive you there. What happens in the room? I have no idea and it's up to you, but there's nothing you can say that will change my mind about how important it is for me to do my job. And we're going to start that tomorrow.

• 41:12Simon Sinek?

  You've helped a lot of teenagers. You've helped a lot of cutters. You've helped a lot of misunderstood kids. You've helped a lot of kids of parents who are struggling and just don't have the skills. What is it about this one, this one young woman? Who again, of all the kids you've helped, she's the one you want to talk to me about?

• 41:27Speaker 00

  You know what it is? I guess like I really have a thing. For the kids who everyone labels as bad, as difficult, as defiant, as dramatic. The misunderstood kids. If I think back to my own childhood, why? I was actually the opposite. I was way too good as a kid. If I think way too good. Took me too long. To kind of get into my own desire and power and separation. It was so good. So maybe that's like the most repressed part of me, or maybe part of me envied. I don't know. But I think all the time I would hear from parents, um, you know, oh, my kid hits and they're such a bad kid and their poor sister. And, and it's so interesting. My framework was always different.

• 42:11Speaker 00

  Like, yes, the poor sister, we've got to protect her. We have to protect your other kid. This kid is going to build their identity as the bad kid. We have to protect that kid, too. That kid is in desperate need of protection. And I guess I feel, yeah, I guess I feel like a, someone needs to be a champion for these really good kids who are having a really hard time and are in desperate need of support and coaching and help and leadership.

• 42:36Simon Sinek?

  You practice the thing you preach so well, so well. I know too many people who write the book, but then you meet them and you realize it's bullshit. Or maybe it was true up until they had fame and fortune and then it stopped being true. You know? And you are so true to yourself and true to your work. You are the embodiment of the stuff you talk about. What an honor, what an honor to sit down with you. Such joy.

• 43:02Speaker 00

  I, thank you. I, I said, thank you, I'm taking that in, that feels, thank you. It feels really good.

• 43:08Simon Sinek?

  I could literally talk to you for forever. You've challenged me as a leader. You've challenged me as a, like, I'm like, I've had free, free therapy. You didn't realize this. How many, how many things, how many little epiphanies and light bulbs have gone off of triggers and things that they're manifesting in all kinds of my relationships? This has been the best free therapy I've ever had. Thanks so much for coming on.

• 43:29Speaker 00

  Can't wait for our next session then.

• 43:30Simon Sinek?

  Yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you.

• 43:32Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 43:34Simon Sinek?

  A Bit of Optimism is a production of The Optimism Company. Lovingly produced by our team, Lindsay Garbenius, Phoebe Bradford, and Devon Johnson. Subscribe wherever you enjoy listening to podcasts and if you want even more cool stuff, visit simoncinek.com. Thanks for listening. Take care of yourself. Take care of each other.