How to Raise a Kid Who Can Survive Failure | Challenge Accepted

What if confidence isn’t believing you’ll succeed, but knowing you’ll survive it if you don’t? Dr. Becky talks to astronaut and scientist Kellie Gerardi.

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

• 0:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  What if the most important thing we need to build for our kids for them to be successful later in life is total comfort with failure? What if confidence isn't the belief, I'm going to be successful? It's even if I struggle, I can survive it. My guest today is one of the best examples of this I've ever met. Kelly Girardi grew up in Jupiter, Florida, not far from the Kennedy Space Center. She was a quiet kid, a daydreamer, a lover of science fiction and space, and she wanted to go there. But there was a problem. There wasn't an obvious path for someone like her. She wasn't a military pilot. She wasn't a test pilot. She wasn't on some predetermined astronaut track.

• 0:45Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  She built her own path. And in November 2023, Kelly flew to space as a researcher on a dedicated science mission aboard Virgin Galactic. What I want to understand with you today is something I am actively trying to figure out in my own life with my own kids. What happened in her life to get her there? Not just become an astronaut, but what happens in someone's early experiences that allows them to say, I can figure this out. I can take the next step. I can overcome the obstacle. I know this isn't going to be easy, but I can do it anyway. I think that's what we want for our own kids. And so to have someone who had all of that happen for them through the process of struggling

• 1:29Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  and failure and a ton of uncertainty, oh, I feel like together we have to learn from her. And that's what we're going to do. I'm Dr. Becky. This is the first of a four-part special series with Hot Wheels. I'm sitting down with risk takers, high achievers, big dreamers, and people who have been faced with impossible odds. And they keep going. Years of hard work, facing lots of big hurdles. And every one of them at some point said, challenge accepted. All right, let's jump in. Kelly Girardi. Okay, Kelly, before we talk about space, I want to talk about little Kelly.

• 2:13Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Who were you at eight years old?

• 2:15Speaker 01

  Oh, at eight years old? I was a very curious child. I think I was a very imaginative little girl. I was also an only child, so I had a lot of time to myself, a lot of room to learn how to entertain myself, and just a lot of endless curiosity about the world.

• 2:36Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So if you think about your parents or adults who saw you at that age, what did they see in you? Like, what was their sense?

• 2:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, a couple of different things. I think, you know, my curiosity probably manifested in a couple of different ways. I think I was the kid who always had her nose in a book. And not to say that these were always educational books. It's just I loved reading genuinely and generally. So that was probably the biggest punishment and threat in my house was taking a book away because there wasn't that much that would bother me. Besides that, also, I think it's important to caveat, I grew up in the early 90s. So this was pre iPhone, pre iPad, pre internet in my house. So if you were a curious kid and you wanted to know anything, it was like books were your gateway.

• 3:23Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yep.

• 3:24Speaker 01

  So I think that's so much of what my parents always tell me. They remember my mom jokes that it was always such a joy to spend time with me in the car because I would just be in the backseat, kind of not speaking, immersed in my own world. And I'm getting a full dose of that with my eight-year-old now. She is just, you know, on the way to school and the way back, she's got her head in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, just silent like a chauffeur. So I'm getting a little taste of what it must have been like for my mom.

• 3:51Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay, so that's what they saw. And yeah, what was going on inside you that maybe people couldn't see?

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, you know, I don't think I probably would have described myself back then as curious. Like, I don't think I would have put that language around it. I definitely felt like I loved to dive into obsessions. I loved to dive deep. For example, if I really loved a book series, it wasn't enough for me to just read the book. It was like I was dressing up. If it was Harry Potter, I was in a robe. I was at the midnight book release, you know, at Barnes and Noble. I was fully immersed in the world. And, you know, that crossed over to science, to space. I wanted to see things in real life that I read about. I wanted to be a part of the community. I've never been a casual fan of anything my entire life.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  I've always wanted to be part of the fandom, part of the community, all in.

• 4:44Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, one of the interesting things for me is thinking about these traits in kids that can be inconvenient and annoying in their environment in some ways. But when you look at them in a bird's eye view, oh, that's amazing, right? It seems so positive. So one of the things you're saying is your questions led to more questions, your interests led to more interests. It was like never enough. That's how someone could say, oh, it's not enough to have the books. You need to dress up. You need to go to that next step. You'll learn one thing, you want to know another thing. And there is a demand that puts on an environment because my guess is at eight, you weren't driving yourself around in a car.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 5:24Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Right? And at the same time, obviously, we see you now, and we'll get to that. But when you look at it without the day-to-day of being a parent, when you're like, I have to drive and I have to go get that next book, obviously, it's what an amazing thing to nourish in a kid. You were a kid where learning was never enough, where one piece of something, you wanted the whole thing. You were so hungry.

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true. And I give a lot of credit to my parents. And now being a parent myself to two little girls, like you mentioned, I get to see that in a different light and get to have a little bit more appreciation for what that effort looked like from parents. And I think one of the things that my parents did particularly well was nurtured my curiosity, but without trying to control where it was supposed to go. Like, if I was obsessed with something, they let me go deep on it and looked like, no, I couldn't always get what I wanted. It's not like I was being allowed to buy every Beanie Baby I saw or all the time. But I think whatever my passion was at the moment, whether it was a book series I loved, whether it was science and space, which was carried through, or whether it was Barbies,

• 6:34Speaker 01

  they kind of met me where I was at. And I see that and appreciate that so much as a parent because I think, you know, like you said, you don't know what part of a childhood obsession is going to turn into something that's a little bit bigger and a puzzle piece of a future, like, character trait. Like, my daughter right now is obsessed, along with the rest of the country probably, with squishies. I don't know if you're familiar. Okay, you're familiar, obviously, stupid question.

• 7:01Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I don't live under a rock, Kelly.

• 7:02Speaker 01

  Okay, right. So like, do I entirely get it? No, but I'm meeting her where she's at, and I know the difference now between crunchy squishies and slushy squishies. I'm searching for them, and I know what stores have drops sometimes. I even brought a little dumpling with me on my last microgravity research flight for her to free float it. And it was just, I'm enjoying watching her enjoying it and being able to participate in that. So I love that my parents modeled a lot of that for me.

• 7:34Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I have two kind of practical things that are coming to mind that I feel like might speak to questions on a parent's mind hearing this. Okay, so number one, our kids are obsessed with squishies or they're obsessed with Beanie Babies. Chances are, in their 30s, 40s, that's not going to be the thing. But the thing that's happening under the surface is the kid is learning, is it okay to want to know more about things? Is it okay to be curious? Is it okay to take that next step? Is that something to nourish in myself in general? Because by the time they're older and you want a kid to love what they're interested

• 8:13Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  in, to know what gives them a passion, to be like you, to go into space, that circuit started with Beanie Babies, but it's the same circuit that leads to your interest in space or science or something else. So I think when you think about it at the circuitry level, we're less critical about the ridiculous things on the surface our kids seem to be obsessed with, even though we had different ridiculous things. And you think, wait, they're actually building a circuit of what it's like to be interested in something.

• 8:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. And what it's like to be part of a community that has a shared interest. I mean, one of the things that's so fascinating for me to watch that I think also has echoes back to whatever our early childhood obsessions were, is that sense of kind of looking at everyone around you who is similarly obsessed with these things and saying, oh, which ones did they get? Which ones did they find? Oh, should we trade? What does this look like? Oh, I haven't found that one yet. Or we both love this one more than that one. The social element. And I think obviously, Beanie Babies, Pokemon, I was going to say Barbie, but that's not true. Barbie has carried on into my adult life of my loves still. But, you know, what did carry on from a lot of those fandoms is the fact that I still

• 9:30Speaker 01

  love seeking and building community. And so I do think there are sometimes echoes of what children have the freedom to explore in their own little passions.

• 9:40Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  A hundred percent. And for the parent who's thinking, look, my kid too obsessed with squishies and, you know, the budget's tight. Whatever it is, all those realities, my schedule doesn't allow me to go find the drop. You know, it's helpful to remember I can separate the interest from the action. Like, I could say to my kid, first of all, I love that you love something so much. You've learned so much about these types. You're teaching me. You're learning where they have these different things in our neighborhood. I think it's so cool that you're the kind of kid who knows what you like, and then you want to take action, you want to learn more. Let me just say that.

• 10:15Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I'm not able to go to the store today. Right? Like just, and, and we think we always have, we can almost do one or the other, but it's powerful to just realize, wait, I can set a boundary and say no, but still build that part of my kid.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  There's been so many times that my daughter has heard absolutely not from me, like, we're not going and buying something new, but we were able to make our own. You had a couple of balloons that weren't inflated. We have Vaseline at home. We have water. We have shaving cream. We have little beads. And that is almost just as fun and unique of an experience as going and hunting for one in a store. So I do think there's a lot of ways to continue to nurture that curiosity and that kind of drive without needing to, you know, spend a lot of money every single time.

• 10:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay. So you grew up close to the Kennedy Space Center and you could watch launches. And I'm curious about, at that time, did the thought begin, I want to do that. I want to go to space. Was that happening early on?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  A little bit. I don't know that I had the language at a very early age to be able to articulate like, yes, that's it. Aha, that's going to be my career path. But I do think Jupiter was a very unique hometown for someone with my kind of passion for a few reasons. Obviously the name is very on brand, but also like you mentioned, the proximity Cape Canaveral is right up the coast. And so this was just part of the backdrop of the adolescence of anyone who grew up in my area. Human spaceflight was, you know, part of our experience. They used to file us onto the football field to catch a glimpse of shuttle launches, things like that. So you, the exposure was already checked as a box. And then I think for me,

• 11:55Speaker 01

  it was seeing that this was an activity that was so close to me growing up that there were humans that were living and working off of earth. And that was really exciting to someone who had a big imagination as a child. And I do give my parents a lot of credit because they didn't make anything in my life. And to be very clear, my parents have no background in science or space. My dad never had the opportunity to go to college. So it wasn't as though they were able to be like, hey, this is the science track for you. Let me help stoke this very particular interest. But what they gave me instead was equally, if not more powerful. And it was the mindset that whatever your interests

• 12:36Speaker 01

  are, like, we want you to have this contradiction of like humility and confidence to know that like, no one's dreams are guaranteed. You see something like that, it's extraordinary, you want to do it? Awesome. Like, it's not a given, but if you work hard enough for long enough, why not you? Yeah. And I think that's what stuck with me more than anything. So when I saw human spaceflight, I never had the limiter in my imagination that was activated to say, hey, that's not for you. That, that won't ever happen for you.

• 13:07Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I'm just struck by that combination, taking a kid's interest really seriously without guaranteeing the outcome.

• 13:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, we've had it recently with my daughter with her first ever concert. I took her to the Eras Tour and she saw Taylor Swift perform. She, like many young girls who probably saw that concert, walked away saying, I want to do that when I grow up. And, you know, it's, that conversation can go either way. It can, it can sort of go in the direction of like, okay, you know, or it can be like, tell me, tell me what you love about that. Like, I could see so much of you on that stage. Do you love the singing, the performing, the writing, like, you know, and being able to just dig a little bit deeper into what it is that's captivating her and then being realistic without being

• 14:00Speaker 01

  sort of discouraging, being like, yeah, I can only imagine the amount of work it took for Taylor Swift to get to where she is today. But gosh, if she can do it, you can do it.

• 14:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  No, I think this is so helpful because I know the parents listening to this podcast, like all of us, we're, we're trying to do the best we can. We want our kids to be confident, be resilient, to do great things that are right for them. And figuring out how to actually action on that is, is trickier. And so I think about kids who say, I'm going to be an astronaut. I'm going to be in the NBA. I'm going to be the next Taylor Swift. Right? And there is sometimes this instinct, I gotta bring my kid back to reality. Right? Not because we're mean. Right? But in some ways we feel like we're protecting them. And I think what you said gives people this other option.

• 14:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Like, there's something you love about this. Tell me more.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:50Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Tell me more, in some ways, isn't about whether they're going to become an NBA player or not. It's finding out more about the thing that is clearly lighting them up. And we want to stoke that.

• 15:03Speaker 01

  Exactly. And, you know, for me, I think that played out in such a fascinating way because when I looked, all that I had exposure to as a child was a very sort of specific profile of what an astronaut looked like. I had the profile of a government astronaut who had a very specific, usually military test pilot background. There was, there was just a, a profile that was very specific at the time. And that was kind of what the extent of my exposure was. So when I said as a young child and then kind of young adolescent and then adult, you know, I want to become an astronaut one day. When we peeled back

• 15:42Speaker 01

  the layers of what I actually wanted to do, it wasn't necessarily follow that very specific pathway where I wanted to go become a military test pilot. I wanted to do XYZ. What I actually wanted to do was use space as a laboratory to benefit humanity. I was interested in the science. I was interested in different elements of, of space and space exploration and research. And so that did lead me on, on a different path and being able to open up space and access to space for the next generation of scientists in a completely different way. And so I think similarly, when my daughter is, you know, captivated by someone like Taylor Swift, it's like, I want to understand what the layers are beneath that because

• 16:24Speaker 01

  perhaps it's not reverse engineering Taylor Swift's career and needing to move the family to Nashville or, you know, whatever it is. But perhaps it's something else. Perhaps it's like, what I really love is being able to communicate my emotions in song or my thoughts in words or being able to perform and connect to someone on a stage, you know, and whatever that next layer down is, that's what I want to kind of pour my attention and energy into helping stoke.

• 16:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I love that visual. Like, our kid says something, I want to be Taylor Swift. If you think about that as one layer, but really it's just a door. It's like a door to a whole room. But you said, okay, let me not take that as the whole story. What's the next layer down? If I'm just interested in that, it leads to a really good place. So, so good. Okay. So you went to my next kind of area of questions for you. So thank you for guiding this conversation in the way that I had organized it in my head. Um, your path was not the same as others and you kept, you know, taking a next step. And I want to know in that path, was there ever a point of, oh, am I kidding? Oh, am I kidding? I can't do this. Or I just

• 17:37Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  got a rejection and, you know, maybe, maybe this is not going to happen. Any, any mini stumble like that?

• 17:43Speaker 01

  I mean, so many. The, the path just quite literally didn't exist in, in this form until my research institute sent me. But I think even far before that, I, I do think I had a pretty unhealthy relationship with failure very early on in my childhood that I had to first, you know, get over before I could go after bigger dreams. I, I just remember, and this came up the other day for me because I was asking my daughter about a similar memory where she was very crushed by something. And it brought up this memory of me. I don't remember a lot of kindergarten, but I do vividly remember we were learning

• 18:24Speaker 01

  to read analog clocks when I was younger. And I just, I didn't understand it. It was like hieroglyphics to me. But instead of raising my hand and telling my teacher that I didn't get it, I let time pass and I sat there silently. And then two weeks later, like too much time had passed. And then it was even more embarrassing that I hadn't said anything than it was to be like, I don't understand how to read a clock. And there was a little quiz and I just remember being kept off to the side and told that tomorrow, the next day I was going to need to stay in during recess to have one-on-one time. And I was so upset about it that night when I went home, like anxious, embarrassed, nauseous,

• 19:05Speaker 01

  like, it was a tiny little thing. But in my head, it was catastrophic. And, and then it repeated again the following year. And I think it was music this time. In first grade, we were learning to read a treble clef and everyone was learning F A C E. And I just, it didn't click for me. And the same pattern emerged where I didn't say anything. I was embarrassed or ashamed or whatever it was. And the problem just got bigger and bigger until there was a test. And I came home like nearly puking and just broke down to my mom. It was like, I don't know how to do this. I, you know, and it was just a disaster. And I remember that she...

• 19:47Speaker 01

  Kind of helped me put it in perspective. I think she also made a joke about it at the time, which sent me over the edge. Like she made a little pun about facing the music. And that was like, not the time.

• 19:56Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Not the time, Mom.

• 19:57Speaker 01

  And then, then suddenly there was, it wasn't an aha moment. It was more of an anticlimactic, like, oh, all they're doing is memorizing F A C E. Okay, I get it now. And, and then I moved on. And so I think it took a few of those experiences as a very little kid to like, break this habit of me where I was almost interpreting, okay, if I don't understand something immediately, I must not be good at it, or this isn't going to ever happen for me. And I, I think that was just really formative for me to get through. Um, because

• 20:35Speaker 01

  I ended up making a 180 in adulthood, where I almost used uncertainty as armor. And I kind of have lived my life the last decade or more, very transparently, very publicly shouting all of my dreams out in real time, and very publicly failing at a number of them, and just learning that you can survive being seen failing. And so I think that was critical for me going after a dream as big and audacious, perhaps, as flying to space as a civilian scientist on a commercial spacecraft, like that just path hadn't been done before. And it's the same thing. I've lived the last near decade of my life of secondary infertility

• 21:20Speaker 01

  and my IVF journey. I've shared publicly, transparently, in real time, in a very different way, but still putting out a dream publicly into the universe about what I want, and being willing to, to show what life looks like when it doesn't happen for me, and where it goes the, the opposite of what I could have hoped. And so I think I've kind of given myself, in some ways, a lot of exposure therapy of just being willing to put my dreams out there, being willing to be seen publicly failing, or not reaching them, or having things not go the way that I want, and not taking that as, um, you know, evidence of anything about me as a person.

• 22:07Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay, I just want to pause for a second to explain why we're here talking about the challenger spirit today. It's because we teamed up with Hot Wheels to create this mini series, Challenge Accepted. I have this saying, we're preparing our kid for the road, not preparing the road for our kid. And what I mean by this is, we want our kids to be resilient. We want them to trust themselves, not just to handle the smooth parts of the road, but to handle the road, whatever shape it ends up taking. Which means, we don't just want to give them a smooth, straight, easy road all the time. Right? That's really the heart of Challenge Accepted, of this mini series we're making right here with Hot Wheels.

• 22:49Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Because Hot Wheels believes it's so important for kids to be able to try, fail, try again, still struggle, learn from mistakes. You don't just hand kids a Hot Wheels track that's already assembled, and tell them, have fun. You let them build it. You let them struggle to build it. You let them try to click the tracks in place and experiment with the angles of the loops and have that not work a bunch of times. Have the car fall off the track, and that leads to more testing, different speeds, more play. That's what it's all about. What we're trying to understand in Challenge Accepted, is what it actually takes in the early years, to become resilient later on. How did our amazing, bold, successful guests

• 23:33Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  on these episodes learn to try, and fail, and struggle, and try again? What parenting lessons can we learn from them? And how do we help our kids build the type of growth mindset they all have? We're going to get to the bottom of this in this mini series. And I want to thank Hot Wheels so much for making this possible.

• 23:59Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Something I debate in my head a lot, about whether confidence is like this belief you're going to succeed, or whether confidence is this belief that you can survive failure? I don't know, which one resonates more with you?

• 24:11Speaker 01

  The latter probably resonates most with me. It's like, I, I think that that's the thing that I had to learn, that was able to unlock a lot more of my potential. And I'm also, you know, not, not in a woo way, but I'm also a big believer that putting your dreams out publicly, visibly, loudly, helps create a lot of momentum and serendipity for them, because you never know who's listening, who can remember, like, oh, you know, I know Kelly wants more than anything, X, Y, Z, and is able to be like, have you talked to so and so? Or, oh, have you thought about this? Or, and so it's twofold. On the one hand, you're building this entire, you know, stadium and community of support and cheerleaders

• 24:54Speaker 01

  who are, are kind of helping the momentum and serendipity, and are there to cheer if things go well. On the other hand, which I've also experienced, you're building this community of support to help pick you back up when you don't get to where you were hoping to go, or where you need a little bit of empathy and support and community. And I've experienced both sides of that spectrum. And, and so I do think for me, it's the latter.

• 25:18Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I think that's the same for me, too. And I think it has really profound implications, because I think we think confidence is the other one. And so we'll say, I don't know. Let's say there's a meeting I'm preparing for in adulthood, or for my kid, it's a tryout. I'm like, okay, I'm going to work really hard, and I'm going to prepare for every single scenario, and that's going to make me confident. And without a doubt, we have to prepare and do all those things. But if that's what I'm optimizing for, in any stumble, I kind of crumple.

• 25:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:48Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Whereas if I prep, and I said, and you know what, even if the meeting doesn't go the way I want, even if I don't get the job, or a kid, even if I don't get on the team, I'll, I'll still be me.

• 25:59Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 26:00Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I'll survive. I'll, I'll live to tell the tale. And maybe I'll be less afraid of trying out for the next team, not because I make every team, but because I see, I can be a kid who shoves up to school, even when everyone knows I didn't make the team. It wasn't, it wasn't so catastrophic.

• 26:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it really becomes part of your, your muscle. It becomes part of your story. And it becomes part of what is going to make you even better at the next attempt at something that's really important to you.

• 26:32Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, I was a pretty hard on myself kid, about a lot of things, a little perfectionistic. And I think about if I didn't do well on a test, and I think a well meaning comment was like, you're going to do great on the next one, don't worry. But I think what you maybe needed to hear was, nothing about you changed.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Okay, bad test, same great, smart kid. Right? Um, very different message, but I think about now even saying those words feels, feels healing.

• 26:57Speaker 01

  It does. I agree. I think that's such a powerful message to receive as a kid, not, you know, you'll get them next time, every time, although sometimes I do think we can all use a little pep talk. But

• 27:08Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yes.

• 27:09Speaker 01

  I think really hearing and being forced to really hear the message that nothing about you changed after this bad result. You are still just as capable as you were yesterday.

• 27:21Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  That's exactly right. Okay, bring this all around to your parenting. Right now, you are the parent, you have two girls. How is it for you to kind of watch them struggle with things, should be left out, to not be able to read yet? Like, how do you experience, how are you as a parent in those moments?

• 27:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. Oh, when it's hard. It's hard to see your kid, you know, suffer in any way, right? And I think I do try to take a page out of my parents' book of really trying to put things into perspective, and also understanding that in that moment, like it did for me when I was a child in kindergarten or first grade, and experiencing some of these setbacks and feeling those emotions, it is that serious in the moment, right? It's like, these, these are very real emotions, that it feels all consuming. And so trying not to be dismissive, while also trying to force the perspective shift, that's something important for me. And then I think also, leading by example, like, I think a lot about

• 28:22Speaker 01

  the fact that I want to make sure that my daughters also watch me.

• 28:31Speaker 01

  Try things that I'm not innately good at. Like, I think it's very important for me to demonstrate that in real time and for it to be known that skills are things and competencies are things that you build, not things that you're just innately born with. You know, for me, one of those things that's been really fun and that I'm like, not good at, but I show my daughters that I'm trying. I got to play myself on an episode of Phineas and Ferb, Agent P. Undersea. It was super cool. They wrote me in as a character. I got to voice myself and it just kind of lit this spark under me a few years ago where I was like, I want to do more of this. I want to get involved in STEM education and media and children's television and film.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  And I wanted to try to audition for more things on the side. And so I had sent in and have sent in a number of auditions and gotten so many rejections and, or not even rejections. Most of the time you just hear nothing. You send a silly little recording of yourself out into the universe and radio silence. But I love that I'm doing it anyway and that my girls see me trying something using such a different part of my brain, such a different part of my personality. And I did ask a casting director at Disney, you know, what would someone who wants to do this? Like, what do you think that they should do? How can they get better at this? And she said, improv classes are one of the best ways. And so I

• 29:57Speaker 01

  take a weekly improv class at my community center and my girls watch me go. And it's sometimes a little bit vulnerable or embarrassing. I'm not good at it, but I'm also not doing it because I'm guaranteed or promised that something's going to come from it and I'm going to be great. You know, I'm doing it because maybe I'll get better. You know, maybe it'll lead to opportunities, but either way, I'm enjoying it. And I don't want to be someone who loses the ability to try new things or to experience being bad at something. And I, as a parenting style, want my girls to know that being bad at something is often like the price you have to pay to become good at something. And so like, you gotta

• 30:41Speaker 01

  get comfortable living in that and just trying to stick with it.

• 30:46Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Oh, I mean, I think about how limiting it is to only do things where you kind of have a guarantee that you're going to be good at it. It's a very small bubble. Right? And I think what you're saying also that I know the parents listening, like I need to hear too, is it's so important not to just talk the talk. Like, there's nothing more powerful than what your kids witness. Right? And I think kids, especially when our kids are younger, we don't even realize how much we overwhelm them with our capability. Like you and I, Kelly, pretty good at putting on our shirts the right way these days, right? Like tags in the back, pretty good at getting our socks on. And like, it's laughable, but

• 31:29Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  like, all of those are tiny things that our kids are like, oh, and it would probably be really hard for you to learn improv if you were only surrounded by 50 of the best improv people in the land.

• 31:46Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 31:47Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And if our kids are learning everything in life, surrounded by parents who seem, I don't know, expert at everything in life, it's just, it's a hard, it's a hard learning environment for them to be in. And I think the added layer you have, which is next level is, can we have joy in the things that we're not good at? Not only am I doing them, because like, I know my family, my kids are obsessed with Wordle and threads and Spelling Bee. I am by far the worst. Everyone, my nine-year-old, nine, 11, 14-year-old, all them, and definitely my husband, all amazing. And I don't say I have a ton of joy when I do them. I kind of like, like, all right, guys, and how many words you get? I'm like, I got four. And

• 32:30Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  they're like, well, I got Queen B. And I'm like, cool. You know? But I think there's those two different things and they both matter. Do things you're not great at. Your kids have to see you struggle.

• 32:41Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 32:41Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And if you can find, like, you know what? I have joy playing scatagories. I'm so bad at scatagories, whatever. Clearly, word games are, I'm just putting it all together, like, not my strong suit. And I do have joy and I'm not very good. And I think, you know what? It's going to prompt me. I'm going to play scatagories this weekend with my kids.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly. I think what you said was just so well phrased. Like, your kids have to see that, have to watch you struggle with something. And I think that can be a really powerful visual. And also to just find joy in things without some, you know, achievement outcome necessarily needing to be attached to it.

• 33:17Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Yeah. You referred to it before. Can you tell me a little bit more about your struggle with secondary infertility? And do you feel like at that point, this mindset of, you know, my, my failures, my struggles don't define me and, you know, I can stick with things before I see signs of success? Like, did that help you through that period? Or you're like, Dr. Beck, let's be honest, it all totally, you know, language went to shit and I just had a hard time like everyone else?

• 33:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. The truth is a little bit of both. I do think that my career in science and my background in research helped me sort of, just from the perspective of having the mental muscle to like, look at data and interpret it kind of objectively without viewing, you know, a failure just as personally and being able to try to step back a little. That doesn't mean I was able to like, intellectualize my grief in any way. Like, it still sucked. It was still really, really hard. And there were incredibly low lows and heartbreaking times. But I do think I was able to take some of the mindset, I guess, that I've

• 34:30Speaker 01

  adopted professionally that's served me well and apply it to my personal life where it's like, okay, you know, it definitely didn't go the way that we wanted this round. We have a little bit more data and so we're going to tweak the protocol or we're going to do something slightly differently and we're going to try again. And we're gonna, you know, play with some of these variables that we do have control over and see if that can influence the outcome next time. So I wouldn't say that it took away any of the difficulty or the emotional weight of that, but it definitely allowed. I'm also an exhausting patient. Like, imagine someone like me who's like, coming in with the peer-reviewed studies and being like, so I've got some ideas. It's like,

• 35:12Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Sorry, Kelly, I'm full.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's tough for a doctor. And so, but, but it was, it was a partnership,

• 35:20Speaker 01

  me and my medical providers. And it ended up with great success. My youngest daughter was born earlier this year in April. Baby Max, she's a girl. And yeah, it's just really, it was a difficult journey. But I do think a little bit of the mindset that I've used professionally was able to help me pick myself back up in some ways.

• 35:43Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  You know, you're embodying something I, I think about and say a lot, actually, which is how we feel in any situation, is a combination of the feeling and the story we tell ourselves about what the feeling means. And I think what you're saying, and I really think it's important for us all to digest this, the best it gets is having the feeling. No story takes away the feeling. No one's like, I'm going through infertility, primary, secondary, and I have such an amazing mindset that I feel the exact same way as I did a couple of years ago when this wasn't happening. That would just be weird. That would be a human who's not experiencing life. But there's a big difference between the

• 36:26Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  feeling of, I don't know exactly what was through this hard, this sucks, I'm so frustrated, I wanted this. And you said a line that I love. This isn't what I wanted. This isn't what I expected. But what ends up making that feeling, instead of feeling like a hole, I think feeling like an abyss, isn't the feeling. It's the story, something's wrong with me. It's never going to happen. I can't live like this. And it sounds like when you said both, you still have the feeling. And I love that you said, you're not going to mindset your way out of a feeling. And when you are someone who's learned a story, that's a little more adaptive and a little less self-blaming around struggle.

• 37:06Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  The feeling is still there and it's probably a little more manageable.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. It's like I was not a sunshine and rainbows optimistic, you know, personality where it's like, everything will work out or everything that's meant to be will be. Like sometimes things don't work out and it's just terrible and it just is awful. And there is no rhyme or reason for it. But so I wouldn't say that it was like, oh, I was filled with hope every step of the way. But I think what I came out of this with was a more functional version of hope, which was like, even if I don't get to where I want to be, I believe that I will still survive. Like, you know, and that's not that I want that to be the outcome, but I can,

• 37:55Speaker 01

  you know, survive anything is kind of how I feel. And I think that that was kind of like believing less in the outcome and believing more in my own ability to get through whatever the outcome was.

• 38:08Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  And that's that confidence. Again, I can survive it. I will be on my feet at some point. Okay, you wrote Luna Muna, a book about a little girl dreaming about space. And then, hold on a second, because that book got read from the International Space Station. Like, I feel like the term's full circle was built for this moment. There's something about like the orbit, the book, your story. What was that like?

• 38:34Speaker 01

  It was amazing. You know, a dream come true. And that was another example of sort of pursuing, you know, these multitudes in life that I didn't necessarily see for myself when I first said, oh, my passion is science and space. It's like writing a children's book doesn't necessarily fall onto that roadmap, but being willing to try something new. And it did face a number of rejections. When I first pitched it to publishers, I did get a lot of no's, but I eventually found a yes. And I also like to tell people that I, even if I hadn't found a yes, I would have created a yes for myself. I would have just self published. If I hadn't found a publisher who like saw the

• 39:14Speaker 01

  vision for it that I had, I would have just self published it because I wanted it to be in existence. It's as simple as that. So I was very lucky and very grateful, you know, to the publisher that that sort of saw in it what I was trying to communicate with it and was able to take it to market in a bigger way than I might have been able to by myself, for sure. But I always like to make that point, because I think when you think about these things, or at least as I explain it to my daughter, you know, it can feel very far away to be like, you wrote and published a book like that. It just seems like kind of out of reach. And it's like, anyone can write a story. Anyone can write a story. And my daughter actually just entered a writing and illustration story

• 39:56Speaker 01

  that Diary of a Wimpy Kid had put out on their website. And I just thought that was so fun. And it took her multiple nights and a lot of effort. And, you know, she, she and I both know, don't know if it'll go anywhere. But I loved that the idea of putting in the effort like that and just completing something like a story, because even if it doesn't win a contest, I intend to laminate those pages in our house. And that's, that's going on our bookshelf. Like, I think it's a great story and she enjoyed writing it. And so with any of these sort of, I don't know, achievements, we'll call them, like writing a book or a professional milestone, I do try to

• 40:35Speaker 01

  break it down for my girls into more accessible, digestible pieces about the why and what if it hadn't happened that way, that it did.

• 40:44Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  But I think you're also doing something else. It's a really good lesson for parents. In some ways, you're focusing more, I wrote the story, than you're focusing on someone decided to publish it.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Yes, exactly.

• 40:56Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Because, and I think about what you said about the squishies. I think it's the same thing. I'm interested in the squishies, right? Well, if your parent can't take you, okay, agree. 10 out of 10 version for you is going to the store and getting it. That's your 10 out of 10. Not happening. Okay. Is there anything between a 10 and 10 and a zero out of 10 that's under your control? Because a kid will say something like, well, I can make my own squishies, but they're not going to be as good. It's a great time to say to a kid, you're 100% right. That is yes. Yep. You can make it on your own. Not going to feel as good as if I got you. And only, you know, I don't, is that going to feel better than none? I don't know. Right? Okay. Can write a book. Maybe someone

• 41:38Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  doesn't publish. And is there anything I can do to make it possible to feel, you know, closer to what I wanted, even if I can't get the whole thing? That is such an amazing framework to bring to your house.

• 41:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, and I love the way you sort of, you know, repeated that back. It's like so succinctly. It's like not waiting for anyone or not letting the experience hinge on someone giving me the permission to pursue it or not, is basically what it is. It's like, I want to do this thing. If someone takes a bet on me, amazing. That is the 10 out of 10 experience that I really want. But is there something between not doing it at all and never having the story see the light of day and having a publisher take it to Barnes and Noble? Yeah, there's a lot on that spectrum. And I would have been prepared to go on any one of those ladder rungs.

• 42:31Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  For anyone listening who is understandably cynical, like, yeah, well, my kid is like, but I'm not doing that. There's something magic to just saying to your kid, you're right as a starting. But I want this. And that's what I want. You're right. You're totally right. Not happening. That stinks. You're right. That's the best option. Then there's, because I think we skip that part sometimes. Yeah. We're like, but homemade ice cream is the same as an ice cream sundae at fancy ice cream place. Like, it's not. Like, no, it's usually not. Okay. Like, I would, no. And now my kid's rejecting my idea in part because they're like, I need you to just admit.

• 43:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're not being honest.

• 43:06Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  Just admit it. Okay. Um, okay. I want to end with this phrase, challenge accepted. Because I think you and I, I could tell, challenge accepted doesn't mean, I'm not scared. I know I'm going to win. I'm definitely going to succeed. You are someone who has accepted, who seeks out, who embodies what it means to take on challenges. So what does challenge accepted mean to you?

• 43:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I think challenge accepted to me means staying faithful to the core of your dream while being really flexible with all of the details around it. Like, I, you know, I think about this so often with my daughter and the things that she says she wants or wants to do versus like the distance between her actually like following through on some of those things, whatever it is. It could be sports. It could be a ballet class. It could be writing a short story for a contest that she said she really wanted to enter. And then it's time to actually finish it. And she's like, oh, but I want to watch TV. Right? Well, whatever it is. I think the

• 44:13Speaker 01

  challenge accepted is really figuring out, like, do you want this? And, and this part is maybe a little controversial, but I think sometimes quitting is the right decision. Like, I don't think we do favors of telling kids that perseverance means that you have to like, keep doing every single thing that you've ever started forever. I think you're allowed to change your mind. I think you're allowed to decide you don't love something or that you love something else more. And you can also realize that whatever strategic approach you're taking isn't working. But I think that if what you're finding is you're just like frustrated or embarrassed, or like you just

• 44:56Speaker 01

  assumed you'd be better at it by now, and that's annoying you, and that's, you know, why you're not willing to say challenge accepted, like, then I would probably ask you to sit with that a little bit more if I was talking to my daughter, because I think back to what we were saying earlier. It's like, you know, the being frustrated by something or by needing to like, practice something more, not being great at it, like, that is often the price that you have to pay to be able to get better at something. And so I think you often don't have enough evidence yet of what you're capable of. So I would really say to me, challenge accepted means sitting with yourself first and really interrogating, like, what is it that I want? And do I really want it? Okay,

• 45:39Speaker 01

  yeah, then I'm going to go for it. And some of the details may not materialize exactly the way that they did when I laid them out on the vision board. But I'm going to keep moving in that forward direction towards them.

• 45:52Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I love that. Thank you, Kelly. You're incredible. You likewise take very complicated ideas and make them very usable, simple and picturable. And so, thank you. I love talking with you.

• 46:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, likewise. Thank you so much for having me.

• 46:10Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  So right after we finished taping, I told Kelly something and my team said, you should make that as the outro. So here we go. Kelly truly just inspired me to do something I've never done with my kids. I want to create a real space for their interest and curiosity. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to talk to each of them individually and just say something simple like this. You know, I had an amazing conversation with someone today who really reminded me how cool it is to be interested in something, to be obsessed with something. I want you to think about something you're interested in. No wrong answers. Mom isn't going to say, that's not important, anything. And my job next month, to make it a little easier, for you to learn more

• 46:54Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  about that thing, to have that interest turn into something, we'll figure out exactly what that means together. But just tell me something you're interested in. And the next month is going to be interest month. We're going to figure it out together. You know, we live in this world right now, where we're constantly in reaction mode. We're shown so many things on social media, right? So much is coming at us that we're always reacting to. Reaction mode is kind of the opposite of origin mode, meaning what originates inside me? What am I interested in? Not what am I reacting to? But what is an interest that generates in me? And can I build that? That's what I want to

• 47:37Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  focus on a little bit more with my kids. And so if that resonates, take it on with me. Send me a message. Write an email to [email protected]. Send me a DM. Say, that's kind of cool. Here's what it led to with my kids. Or here's where I'm stuck. Truly, we're in this together. And I feel like it's just going to lead to somewhere good. I don't know what it is, but I think it's going to be good. Let's end the way we always do. Place your feet on the ground and place a hand on your heart. And let's remind ourselves, even as we struggle on the outside, we remain good inside.

• 48:14Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I'll see you next time.

• 48:22Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  I want to say something that might sound controversial, but it feels too important and true not to say out loud. When it comes to ADHD, two things can be true. Number one, your kid's brain works differently. They have different strengths and they have different struggles. And yes, they need a different approach. All true. Here's the second thing that's true. And I think somehow this has started to get missed in some places. Your kid is still capable. They can be capable. They can do hard things. And ADHD doesn't mean we stop having any expectations. It means we have to figure out the kind of support your kid needs to meet reasonable

• 49:06Dr. Becky Kennedy?

  expectations. That's what our ADHD program is about. Understanding your kid's unique brain and helping them become that capable kid you know they are. Find it at goodinside.com.