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1 Critical Way We Are Crushing Our Daughter’s Spirits · Raising Daughters

0:05
Speaker 1: Welcome to Raising Daughters, the podcast that helps parents learn
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Speaker 1: the best ways to support their daughters as they navigate
0:11
Speaker 1: the high levels of stress, anxiety, pressure, and uncertainties so
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Speaker 1: pervasive in our culture today. Doctor Tim Jordan is a
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Speaker 1: developmental and behavioral pediatrician who has specialized in counseling girls
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Speaker 1: for over thirty years and shed's light on the realities
0:24
Speaker 1: of today's young women in all facets of their lives.
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Speaker 1: This is your opportunity to learn how to better support
0:30
Speaker 1: your daughters, making them feel safe, secure, and truly loved
0:34
Speaker 1: in the midst of life's ups and downs. Here is
0:37
Speaker 1: your host, Doctor Tim.
0:45
Speaker 2: Hey, friends, welcome back to Raising Daughters. Doctor Tim Jordan.
0:50
Speaker 2: Here every week I'm here giving you some information that
0:54
Speaker 2: I hope is helpful in raising daughters and understanding your
0:58
Speaker 2: daughters as well. And today I'm on my high horse
1:03
Speaker 2: and it's and the reason I'm on this high horse
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Speaker 2: is there's a something going on in our culture that
1:08
Speaker 2: I think is really hurting our children. I think, in essence,
1:13
Speaker 2: we are crushing the spirit of kids today with how
1:16
Speaker 2: we're handling their futures. I'm wondering if you're aware of
1:21
Speaker 2: the pressures on kids today to have their whole life
1:24
Speaker 2: figured out by the time they graduate high school. Our
1:27
Speaker 2: worst shot even earlier. I see girls now in early
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Speaker 2: high school. I see girls in middle school. I see
1:33
Speaker 2: girls in grade school who are stressed out about their future.
1:38
Speaker 2: I've mentioned this, I think in previous podcasts about an
1:40
Speaker 2: exercise we do sometimes in our weekend retreats or summer
1:44
Speaker 2: camp story we called cross the line, where everybody stands
1:48
Speaker 2: on one side of a rope, and then we give
1:50
Speaker 2: them topics. We'll say things like cross the line if
1:52
Speaker 2: you have an annoying sibling. Then they get to see
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Speaker 2: how many people have that in common with them. And
2:00
Speaker 2: what we've noticed in the last oh half dozen or
2:02
Speaker 2: so years is when we say cross the line if
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Speaker 2: you ever worry about your future, that almost all the
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Speaker 2: girls go running across the line. And that's great schoolers.
2:14
Speaker 2: Those are fourth and fifth graders I'm talking about. Did
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Speaker 2: you know, you personally know when you were fourteen or sixteen,
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Speaker 2: or eighteen or twenty one, did you know what you'd
2:29
Speaker 2: be doing in your life that you're now doing whatever
2:32
Speaker 2: it is that you're doing in your life, whatever your
2:34
Speaker 2: calling is, whatever your work is. Did you know that
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Speaker 2: you were going to be doing that when you were eighteen.
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Speaker 2: And when I asked that question of adults, which I
2:42
Speaker 2: have done literally thousands of times across the globe, almost
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Speaker 2: nobody knew than with what they're doing now. And yet
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Speaker 2: we expect that of our kids. Our kids are being
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Speaker 2: conditioned with this whole one path thing that there's this
3:01
Speaker 2: definition of success which is about attaining wealth, having a
3:05
Speaker 2: great job and status. By the way, by climbing the
3:09
Speaker 2: institutional corporate ladder, you're supposed to know your destination. You're
3:14
Speaker 2: supposed to have a goal, you're supposed to work hard,
3:17
Speaker 2: grind it out, stay the course, and you're supposed to
3:20
Speaker 2: fit this mold in order to climb the ladder. You're
3:24
Speaker 2: not supposed to veer off. You're not supposed to veer off.
3:29
Speaker 2: In the early nineteen hundreds, educational reformers, which are primarily
3:34
Speaker 2: politicians and big business people by the way to Carnegie
3:37
Speaker 2: kinds of people, they decided to redesign schools. They want
3:42
Speaker 2: the schools to teach kids to be little robots, if
3:44
Speaker 2: you will. It was a factory model. Even the part
3:49
Speaker 2: about the bell rings and you start to class was
3:53
Speaker 2: meant to basically prepare young people to enter factories. So
4:00
Speaker 2: there was this principle of ruthless efficiency that was put
4:02
Speaker 2: into schools. Standardized grades, standardized tests, standardized textbooks and curricula.
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Speaker 2: We had semesters, they got diplomas. Everything was supposed to
4:15
Speaker 2: lead to a standardized career in this meritocracy, if you will,
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Speaker 2: that would be available to everybody. Just do the same
4:23
Speaker 2: things as everybody else, but do it better. That's how
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Speaker 2: you rise up. So the conditioning gets becoming, and especially
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Speaker 2: in this day and age, is you're supposed to be
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Speaker 2: at the top of your class. You're supposed to be
4:35
Speaker 2: the best team. You're supposed to be beating everybody in
4:38
Speaker 2: high school to get into the best college. And once
4:41
Speaker 2: you get into this top college, you're supposed to be
4:43
Speaker 2: the best one there as well, so you can get
4:45
Speaker 2: the best grad school. And then once you get the
4:48
Speaker 2: best grad school, you're supposed to beat everybody there so
4:51
Speaker 2: you can get the best job. Then once you get
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Speaker 2: your job, you're supposed to beat everybody at your job.
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Speaker 2: Do you get the best promotion and the highest salary
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Speaker 2: and the most status. It becomes a zero sum game,
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Speaker 2: some game where one person's game becomes another person's loss.
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Speaker 2: We're preparing our kids for this perpetual hunger games of
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Speaker 2: social opportunity, if you will. By the way, that's not
5:15
Speaker 2: a dis on the Hunger Games. I love those books,
5:17
Speaker 2: I love the movies, but that's what it was. Only
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Speaker 2: one person ends up on top, only one person lives,
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Speaker 2: if you will. Everything became standardized, and so our standardized
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Speaker 2: work and our standardized jobs led to the standardized education,
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Speaker 2: which led to a standardized career. Everything was on that
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Speaker 2: path and still is. And do you know what was
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Speaker 2: not included in that formula if you will, fulfillment that
5:48
Speaker 2: was never part of the formula. Think about the college system,
5:53
Speaker 2: even the colleges have become like this fixed path. You're
5:57
Speaker 2: supposed to start right after high school, and you're supposed
5:59
Speaker 2: to stay for four years if or five. Riever, it
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Speaker 2: takes everybody's required to do the same number of hours,
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Speaker 2: no matter what your major is. Do you want to graduate,
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Speaker 2: no matter what your degree program is, it's the same
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Speaker 2: number of hours. So everybody's supposed to march along the
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Speaker 2: same path at the same pace to reach the same
6:19
Speaker 2: way stations, if you will. And that's great for the institution,
6:24
Speaker 2: it's great for the colleges. To manage their budgets and
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Speaker 2: to allocate their personnel. But it's not great for our
6:30
Speaker 2: kids if you try and veer off the path with
6:34
Speaker 2: a gap semester. Our God forbid a gap year. Oh boy,
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Speaker 2: that's that's highly discouraged. You're supposed to do it this way,
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Speaker 2: the one pathway. And what that means too for our
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Speaker 2: daughters is they're supposed to suppress their yearnings God delay gratification,
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Speaker 2: delay happiness in this long march, this long slog if
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Speaker 2: you will to retirement, and then someday happiness will be
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Speaker 2: the reward for staying the course and doing it this
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Speaker 2: way the way you're supposed to do it. As you
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Speaker 2: can probably tell, I have a lot of energy and
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Speaker 2: forever for this for this particular issue. The other thing
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Speaker 2: I see is that everything has become future directed with
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Speaker 2: our daughters so early on in school, even in early
7:31
Speaker 2: as grade school, middle school kids get placed on these
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Speaker 2: accelerated class tracks where you get you take that you know,
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Speaker 2: the tougher classes, the challenge classes. Eventually in high school
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Speaker 2: it's the ap classes. You push to be the best
7:46
Speaker 2: and take the best classes, and they and not just
7:49
Speaker 2: to get good grades. We get to get not just
7:51
Speaker 2: a four to h even to get a four point six.
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Speaker 2: I think that's the top one I saw grow my
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Speaker 2: counseling practice recently. Who was really justus point in herself
8:01
Speaker 2: because she did not have all A plus's last semester.
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Speaker 2: She had one or two a's that was and she
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Speaker 2: said to me she felt like a failure. She actually
8:13
Speaker 2: said that that's what she's absorbing from the culture. So
8:19
Speaker 2: he's supposed to push, push, push best classes, jamuar schedule
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Speaker 2: through all these extracurricular activities, and everything is about being
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Speaker 2: accepted into things like the national and our society to
8:30
Speaker 2: get to get accepted into a top college. And what
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Speaker 2: is lost is there a love of learning. My son John,
8:40
Speaker 2: when he was in I think it was eighth grade,
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Speaker 2: I guess, he took algebra. He was good at math,
8:45
Speaker 2: didn't really like it that much, but he was good
8:47
Speaker 2: at so he took the he took algebra as in
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Speaker 2: eighth grader. So then in ninth grade he took geometry
8:52
Speaker 2: and kind of took algebra two I guess as a
8:55
Speaker 2: sophomore wherever it was. But anyway, I remember sitting with
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Speaker 2: my wife and him at the beginning of the of
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Speaker 2: his I guess there was his sometime in his junior
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Speaker 2: year in high school with the counselor. They were just
9:06
Speaker 2: talking about classes in college our first visit, and this
9:09
Speaker 2: school counselor was encouraging John to take AP calculus his
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Speaker 2: senior year, and John pushed back and said, I don't
9:16
Speaker 2: want to take AP calculus. I've got enough math credits.
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Speaker 2: I don't like math that much. I know i'm good
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Speaker 2: at it, but I'm not going to be an accountant.
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Speaker 2: I'm not going to be a statistician or something. And
9:26
Speaker 2: this counselor would not let it go. And my son,
9:31
Speaker 2: to his credit, pushed back and said, I'm not taking it.
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Speaker 2: I'm not willing to take that. I don't care if
9:38
Speaker 2: it looks good on the college transcript. I want to
9:40
Speaker 2: take something that I like to do. He took an
9:42
Speaker 2: extra history class because he loved history. I saw a
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Speaker 2: girl not too long ago in my counseling practice, a
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Speaker 2: real spitfire. She's an eighth grader, and she told me
9:55
Speaker 2: that when she was five years of age, that she
9:57
Speaker 2: decides she wanted to become a vegetarian. And she said,
10:00
Speaker 2: I have a very clear memory. She said it was
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Speaker 2: Christmas Eve, and I told my parents at the dinner table,
10:06
Speaker 2: I said, you know, it's Christmas Eve, a day of peace,
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Speaker 2: so why are we eating duck? That's good for her
10:16
Speaker 2: already at five years of age, and now she's starting
10:20
Speaker 2: a new school in eighth grade. She changed schools and
10:24
Speaker 2: her parents are pushing her to join a golf team
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Speaker 2: and even a rowing team, because of course it'll look
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Speaker 2: good on her college applications. Both her parents, by the way,
10:34
Speaker 2: were Ivy leaguers. And what this girl's told me was,
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Speaker 2: I'll call her Ava. What Ava said me was, I
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Speaker 2: hate it when my parents talked like that because it
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Speaker 2: takes all the fun out of it. Oh beautiful. This
10:51
Speaker 2: is one of the reasons why I'm doing the podcast today.
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Speaker 2: It's because she motivated me to talk about where I
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Speaker 2: think a lot of girls here I hate it when
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Speaker 2: they talked like that because it takes all the fun
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Speaker 2: out of it. But everything is about your future. I
11:07
Speaker 2: saw a study that was done in twenty sixteen, a
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Speaker 2: Gallup study, and they were asking students about school and
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Speaker 2: their motivation and all that. What they found was they're
11:18
Speaker 2: looking for the percentage of students who were disengaged from
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Speaker 2: the school, not into it just burned out. Fifth graders,
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Speaker 2: twenty six percent were disengaged from school. By eighth grade
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Speaker 2: it had risen to fifty five percent, and by high
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Speaker 2: school seniors, two thirds of them felt disengaged. And another
11:39
Speaker 2: Gallup study showed that sixty seven percent of employees are
11:43
Speaker 2: disengaged at their jobs. And I wonder why. I think
11:50
Speaker 2: it starts when they started becoming over focused on their futures.
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Speaker 2: So the purpose for their grades, the purpose for doing
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Speaker 2: well in school, purpose for their activities, the purpose for
12:02
Speaker 2: their sports, their music, their dance, all that, making club teams,
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Speaker 2: all that is to achieve a college scholarship down the
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Speaker 2: line and entrance to a top college. And by the way,
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Speaker 2: this is starting in grade school. This isn't like a
12:17
Speaker 2: second semester senior thing. You might want to add this.
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Speaker 2: This is like starting in grade school. Everything is future directed.
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Speaker 2: And what is lost again is doing things for fun,
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Speaker 2: doing things for the love of the game. God forbid,
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Speaker 2: your daughter in fourth grade would play soccer because she
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Speaker 2: likes to be with her friends, it's fun, and she
12:39
Speaker 2: loves playing soccer. That's what they're losing. I think it
12:44
Speaker 2: also raises in a lot of kids anxiety and stress.
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Speaker 2: Everything they're doing now as kids is going to affect
12:51
Speaker 2: their future that is in their brains starting in grade school,
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Speaker 2: and that's pressure, undue pressure, undue stress, necessary pressure, and stress.
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Speaker 2: The aim is to be successful now and may be
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Speaker 2: happy later on in life once you achieve your goals.
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Speaker 2: They are mortgaging their childhoods to achieve this grand distant
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Speaker 2: future that the adults around them, parents, teachers, the educational
13:19
Speaker 2: system that we're setting out for them. Let me say
13:22
Speaker 2: that again. They are mortgaging their childhoods to achieve this
13:26
Speaker 2: grand distant future that we're setting out for them. Now,
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Speaker 2: what I would rather we do is to all along
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Speaker 2: the way ask kids why they like what they're doing,
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Speaker 2: Like what they like about school? What kind of grades
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Speaker 2: do they want that they say I want? A's Always
13:47
Speaker 2: ask why why is it important to you? And listen
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Speaker 2: to them, think about and go deeper into why do
13:55
Speaker 2: I like school? Why do I like dance, Why do
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Speaker 2: I like soccer? Why do I want to do well
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Speaker 2: in school? What is my reasons? I've talked to so
14:08
Speaker 2: many kids over the years and asked them questions about
14:10
Speaker 2: why they love what they're doing. I saw a girl
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Speaker 2: who I will call Hannah. She was sixteen, and she
14:17
Speaker 2: was really into dance, really into theater, and I said,
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Speaker 2: what do you love about it? You're putting a lot
14:20
Speaker 2: of time into that. And this is what Hannah told me.
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Speaker 2: She said, I love dance and theater because I love
14:27
Speaker 2: communicating with the audience and telling a story. That is
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Speaker 2: her intrinsic motivation, not because it's going to help her
14:36
Speaker 2: get into a top college, but because it feels good
14:40
Speaker 2: to her. She loves telling stories and communicating with the audience.
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Speaker 2: That's beautiful, right. I remember that a gymnast who I
14:47
Speaker 2: talked to years ago. I think I've told this story before,
14:49
Speaker 2: but so sorry if I'm repeating, but she told me
14:52
Speaker 2: she loved gymnastics not because of the blue ribbons, not
14:55
Speaker 2: because of the trophies, not because it was going to
14:57
Speaker 2: gain her accollege scolpship, but because, she said, when I'm
15:00
Speaker 2: out there on the floor routine and I'm staying on
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Speaker 2: the on the corner of that mat and all eyes
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Speaker 2: are on me, I'm the only one on that mat
15:09
Speaker 2: at that moment, she said, I get this rush of excitement.
15:13
Speaker 2: I'm in the moment. She said, I'd love to perform
15:16
Speaker 2: for people. That's beautiful in the moment. That's why she's
15:22
Speaker 2: doing it. It's not about her future, it's about the
15:25
Speaker 2: here and now, loving what she's doing. I saw a
15:31
Speaker 2: girl one time in my counseling practice. She was at
15:36
Speaker 2: the time, I think around sixteen, and he her mom
15:39
Speaker 2: was really worried about it because she said she's so unmotivated.
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Speaker 2: She's lazy, you know, she procrastinates, she doesn't want to
15:48
Speaker 2: do anything. She sits around. And she told me, I'll
15:51
Speaker 2: never forget this. She said, she is so lazy that
15:53
Speaker 2: they if they ever invent a remote control for the
15:56
Speaker 2: TV set operated by just blinking your eyes, she'll be
15:59
Speaker 2: the first one in line to buy it. And I remember,
16:04
Speaker 2: actually this was during a talk one time with a
16:07
Speaker 2: group of moms, and one of the moms said, what,
16:09
Speaker 2: I don't think she's on motivated. She said, she's amazing
16:12
Speaker 2: with kids. Every time we go to somebody's house in
16:16
Speaker 2: the neighborhood, all the kids flock to her. She described
16:20
Speaker 2: her as the piper of the neighborhood. And this girl
16:24
Speaker 2: had told her mom that she wanted to be a
16:25
Speaker 2: preschool teacher. She loved working with kids, and her mom
16:29
Speaker 2: was discouraging her because of course, you can't make enough
16:33
Speaker 2: money being a preschool teacher. One of the most important
16:37
Speaker 2: jobs on the planet is being a preschool teacher and
16:41
Speaker 2: giving kids a good start with their education. But that's
16:44
Speaker 2: not good enough because it's not going to make her
16:47
Speaker 2: a lot of money. So we need to start asking
16:51
Speaker 2: our kids those questions about you know, what they like
16:54
Speaker 2: to do and why they like to do it, and
16:57
Speaker 2: to stop putting everything on the future. Make it about
17:01
Speaker 2: what they like about it. Now. Need to give kids
17:03
Speaker 2: agency meaning to be able to take responsibility for themselves,
17:08
Speaker 2: to pick what they want to do, to pick the
17:10
Speaker 2: things they want to sample and try. The autonomy to
17:14
Speaker 2: choose what they pursue based on their gut, their urges,
17:19
Speaker 2: their intuition, what interests them, what they have passion for.
17:24
Speaker 2: That's so important. The autonomy to pick what they're doing
17:28
Speaker 2: is what leads to kids being more engaged in things.
17:32
Speaker 2: Is that full engagement in things that creates them becoming
17:35
Speaker 2: better and better at what they're doing and to become fulfilled.
17:39
Speaker 2: They're not fulfilled by being excellent at something, but by
17:44
Speaker 2: being deeply engaged with something that they chose, By being
17:48
Speaker 2: deeply engaged with their thing. That's what fulfills them? Not
17:52
Speaker 2: being the best at it, not getting a reward, not
17:55
Speaker 2: getting a college scholarship, not being on a club team,
17:58
Speaker 2: not winning a national championship, but engaging in something of
18:01
Speaker 2: their choosing. I read a story about this, this guy,
18:06
Speaker 2: Alvaro Jemarillo, and he said he always liked birds, and
18:12
Speaker 2: so he decided to go into some kind of a
18:15
Speaker 2: program had to do with ecology, and he was in
18:18
Speaker 2: his PhD program and he was assigned to study ants
18:23
Speaker 2: for a semester in Ecuador, and he was kept talking
18:27
Speaker 2: about how he loved birds, and they said, no, you
18:29
Speaker 2: need to stay away from birds because they're not that interesting.
18:31
Speaker 2: There's no real there's no real future in studying that.
18:35
Speaker 2: And while he was studying ants in Ecuador, he would
18:39
Speaker 2: find himself bored a lot because it wasn't really really
18:41
Speaker 2: wanted to do. But he realized he loved looking at
18:44
Speaker 2: and discussing all the tropical birds all around them with
18:49
Speaker 2: non academic people, the people from the small towns, and
18:53
Speaker 2: he finally had an epiphany where he dropped out of
18:56
Speaker 2: his doctorate program. He started his own company called Alvaro's Adventures,
19:02
Speaker 2: and what he did he took guests out on burning
19:05
Speaker 2: tours all around the world, bird watching, happy as a
19:09
Speaker 2: clam and fulfilled doing his thing. So instead of ignoring
19:16
Speaker 2: people like Alvaro, ignoring his passions, we need to ask
19:20
Speaker 2: his questions. Teach them to ask those questions of themselves,
19:23
Speaker 2: to dig deeper to find their real motivations for things,
19:28
Speaker 2: what some people call micromotives. Ask questions like is this me,
19:34
Speaker 2: this thing that I'm doing? What matters to me? What
19:38
Speaker 2: makes me tick? What puts me in flow? Why do
19:44
Speaker 2: I like what I'm doing? Or why do I like
19:45
Speaker 2: this experience? What is it about that? Because the more
19:50
Speaker 2: your daughter understands herself, the better she'll be able to
19:54
Speaker 2: judge good fits for herself. She understand her urges and
19:58
Speaker 2: her yearnings, she'll feel them, should be aware of them,
20:02
Speaker 2: and she'll understand what they mean for her. They can
20:06
Speaker 2: start learning to ask themselves those questions when they're kids.
20:10
Speaker 2: Being in flow, By the way, I'm sure you probably
20:13
Speaker 2: know what I'm talking about, but some people call it
20:15
Speaker 2: the zone of genius. That's what flow is. Being fully
20:18
Speaker 2: engaged in things that you choose to do, being fully
20:21
Speaker 2: engaged in things that you're good at. When you get
20:26
Speaker 2: in flow, That's how you end up experiencing your greatest fulfillment.
20:31
Speaker 2: Our kids are drawn spontaneously to things to engage in
20:36
Speaker 2: that they love to do. You don't have to push
20:39
Speaker 2: them to do that. They're drun to those things. Activities
20:42
Speaker 2: that consume them intrinsically are rewarding to them. It just
20:46
Speaker 2: feels good you do it because of the love of
20:48
Speaker 2: the activity, becoming totally engaged in what you're doing, losing yourself.
20:54
Speaker 2: That's the reward. Not money, not a prize, not an
20:59
Speaker 2: a plus, but just the activity itself flow in and
21:06
Speaker 2: of itself, is a type of intrinsic motivation because you're
21:10
Speaker 2: doing it because you like doing it. You're learning for
21:13
Speaker 2: its own sake, its own sake, and that part is addicting.
21:17
Speaker 2: You want to repeat that feeling of feeling happy and fulfilled.
21:20
Speaker 2: That's why you keep doing what you love to do.
21:25
Speaker 2: I read a book a couple years ago called Dark
21:29
Speaker 2: Horse by Todd Rose, and I tried to get a
21:35
Speaker 2: hold of him to see if he would be a
21:36
Speaker 2: guest on the podcast, and I never heard back. So
21:40
Speaker 2: I'll talk about a couple of things from his book.
21:44
Speaker 2: Dark Horses, by the way, are unexpected victors who had
21:48
Speaker 2: been overlooked because they didn't fit the standard notion of
21:51
Speaker 2: a champion. They were a dark horse, like in a
21:54
Speaker 2: horse racer horse nobody though would ever win, but they
21:57
Speaker 2: ended up winning. An example of one a woman named
22:03
Speaker 2: Jenny McCormick. She discovered an unknown planet in New Zealand
22:10
Speaker 2: back in two thousand and five, and she discovered a
22:14
Speaker 2: new asteroid in two thousand and eight. She has co
22:17
Speaker 2: authored more than twenty papers in academic journals despite having
22:21
Speaker 2: no high school or college degree. Did it a different
22:25
Speaker 2: way huh? She was a single mom. She said, I
22:30
Speaker 2: never felt like I fit in. I didn't like the
22:32
Speaker 2: way I looked because I was always judged because of
22:34
Speaker 2: the way I looked. But she was very stubborn and
22:37
Speaker 2: she did not listen to her parents and didn't get
22:40
Speaker 2: much guidance from her parents anyway, And she remembered as
22:44
Speaker 2: a kid just wanting to get out of her house
22:47
Speaker 2: to do her own thing. She dropped out of high
22:50
Speaker 2: school at fifteen, started cleaning horse stables to earn some money.
22:55
Speaker 2: She took her ged exam and failed. Became a single
23:00
Speaker 2: mom at age twenty one. But she remembers one night
23:04
Speaker 2: she was out with her family and they were looking
23:06
Speaker 2: at a volcano. This is in New Zealand, and somebody
23:10
Speaker 2: handed her some binoculars and told her to look up
23:13
Speaker 2: in the sky in the Milky Way, and she said, wow,
23:17
Speaker 2: She said, I was hooked. I was amazed. I fell
23:20
Speaker 2: in love. I fell in love with the stars. So
23:24
Speaker 2: she spent the next eleven years learning all she could
23:27
Speaker 2: on her own about astronomy, how to make precise observations
23:33
Speaker 2: from increasingly larger and larger telescopes that she put together
23:37
Speaker 2: herself with cast off equipment that she found. She became
23:43
Speaker 2: the first amateur astronomer to discover a new planet since
23:47
Speaker 2: seventeen eighty one when Uranus was discovered. Now that's a
23:53
Speaker 2: different kind of person who found their motivation, did it
23:57
Speaker 2: on their own, became fully engaged, and was fulfilled all
24:01
Speaker 2: along the way. God Rose in his book Dark Horse,
24:10
Speaker 2: he researched and found lots of dark horses over history,
24:15
Speaker 2: people who would ended up doing incredible things and who
24:18
Speaker 2: were fulfilled all along the way. And what he found
24:21
Speaker 2: was those dark horses. One of the things in common
24:24
Speaker 2: with all of them was they valued fulfillment and passion
24:28
Speaker 2: and sense of Persian purpose. They were in deeply engaged
24:32
Speaker 2: in what they did, and what they had discovered was
24:35
Speaker 2: that the pursuit of fulfillment was what had led them
24:38
Speaker 2: to success. That's opposite of what we're teaching our kids,
24:44
Speaker 2: which is grinded out, become successful and someday you might
24:47
Speaker 2: be fulfilled. So the pursuit of fulfillment was critical, it
24:53
Speaker 2: was crucial for their success, instead of waiting for some
24:57
Speaker 2: payoffs down the road someday. Maybe they were not fulfilled
25:02
Speaker 2: by being excellent at something. They were fulfilled by being
25:06
Speaker 2: deeply engaged with their own thing, their own passion, something
25:10
Speaker 2: that they chose to do. And what dark Horses also
25:16
Speaker 2: found was being engaged in fulfilling work maximize their ability
25:20
Speaker 2: to learn and to grow, to perform, to stick with
25:23
Speaker 2: things when it was hard, to persevere when things got tough.
25:29
Speaker 2: But their first step was to prioritize fulfillment, to honor
25:36
Speaker 2: their deepest yearnings and their aspirations. And I'm worried that
25:40
Speaker 2: we're not doing that with our daughters today, and so
25:44
Speaker 2: a lot of them are becoming stressed and unhappy and disengaged,
25:49
Speaker 2: not just as kids and teens, but also when they
25:52
Speaker 2: become adults. That I saw a girl recently that the
26:01
Speaker 2: only thing she liked about school was playing soccer at
26:04
Speaker 2: recess and also on the school soccer team. So I
26:07
Speaker 2: asked her why she liked it, and she said something about, well,
26:11
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's kind of fun, by said. I
26:12
Speaker 2: kept asking her, we'll keep going, why else, and she
26:16
Speaker 2: realized that what she loved was the teamwork part of it.
26:19
Speaker 2: She loved working on a team, being on a team.
26:21
Speaker 2: She also loved being outdoors. When kids learn things like that,
26:28
Speaker 2: what they love about things that will leave them on
26:31
Speaker 2: to the next thing, and the next thing and the
26:34
Speaker 2: next thing, because all those kinds of interest and motives
26:37
Speaker 2: can be can all those things can be translated to
26:41
Speaker 2: other areas where they can succeed later on. My son TJ.
26:46
Speaker 2: Was not trying very hard in school. He got good
26:49
Speaker 2: grades because he was just good at school. He was smart,
26:52
Speaker 2: But we didn't see passion, we didn't see perseverance, we
26:54
Speaker 2: didn't see hard work. He did what he had to
26:57
Speaker 2: do to get good grades because he had some sense
26:59
Speaker 2: of that might be valuable. But where we did see
27:02
Speaker 2: his focus and his perseverance was teaching himself how to
27:08
Speaker 2: play guitar when he was in high school pulling tabs
27:12
Speaker 2: off of the internet. He taught himself. He's a really
27:15
Speaker 2: good guitar player. We saw that that kind of autonomy
27:20
Speaker 2: and choosing what he wanted to do, the passion, the perseverance,
27:23
Speaker 2: the hard work, all that can translate into anything else
27:27
Speaker 2: in his life. So it's good for kids to learn
27:32
Speaker 2: to choose experiences and choose environments to do those experiences
27:35
Speaker 2: that fit them fit who they are. In order to
27:40
Speaker 2: do that, they need to know themselves, and that helps
27:42
Speaker 2: that they've been questioning themselves all along the way. Now.
27:48
Speaker 2: The very process of pursuing fulfillment causes people to change
27:53
Speaker 2: and to grow and develop in ways that are probably unpredictable,
27:59
Speaker 2: and so their motives and their little micromotives, their motivations
28:02
Speaker 2: in that moment are going to change over time. Their
28:06
Speaker 2: motivation when they were fourteen or sixteen, or eighteen or
28:09
Speaker 2: twenty or twenty five may not fit them when they're
28:12
Speaker 2: twenty eight or thirty or whatever. All along the way,
28:14
Speaker 2: at every step, they need to step back and redefine
28:17
Speaker 2: who they are and what their micromotives are. Now. They
28:22
Speaker 2: need to let go of any ropes holding them back.
28:25
Speaker 2: Other people's expectations, the shoulds being on they're supposed to
28:30
Speaker 2: be on this one set path like everybody else. They
28:33
Speaker 2: need to let go of all that at every step
28:36
Speaker 2: of the way. Ask themselves, now, what do I want? Now?
28:40
Speaker 2: What is my passion? Now? What do I want to pursue? Now?
28:44
Speaker 2: Who am I? Their motivations are going to change throughout
28:49
Speaker 2: their life because they change. Let me say that again.
28:54
Speaker 2: Their motivations will change all along the way because they
28:58
Speaker 2: keep changing all along the way. I think it's true
29:03
Speaker 2: for your daughter, it's true for all of us that
29:05
Speaker 2: we tend to get better at the things that we
29:07
Speaker 2: care the most about. Now. Most of the dark horses
29:15
Speaker 2: in Todd Rose's book went through periods when they didn't
29:18
Speaker 2: fit with the rest of the people in their lives,
29:21
Speaker 2: and it was tough because they were going off course.
29:26
Speaker 2: Sometimes they they gave in and did things because it
29:29
Speaker 2: was the stable thing to do, because it was expected.
29:33
Speaker 2: But they realized it didn't feel right. They weren't being themselves,
29:37
Speaker 2: and so they got back on course with their life
29:40
Speaker 2: and their path. I read a story about a woman,
29:44
Speaker 2: Corinne block b e l Ock. She always had a
29:49
Speaker 2: strong desire to help people, and so she got into
29:53
Speaker 2: politics in her early twenties and she stayed there until
29:55
Speaker 2: her late twenties, but she got kind of burned out
29:59
Speaker 2: and she had in the EPIF when she realized that
30:02
Speaker 2: what she really liked to do was organize things. That
30:06
Speaker 2: was one of her micromotives. It was one of the
30:09
Speaker 2: things that she was good at. It was one of
30:10
Speaker 2: the things that she was passionate about, and that fulfilled her.
30:14
Speaker 2: And so she launched her own business called Urban Simplicity,
30:19
Speaker 2: which was which is a full service luxury professional organizing
30:23
Speaker 2: company who has operations in New York City and Palm Beach.
30:29
Speaker 2: She achieved her personal success by knowing what mattered to
30:32
Speaker 2: her most. By knowing what mattered to her most, She
30:35
Speaker 2: started with what fulfilled her, what she loved to do,
30:38
Speaker 2: and then she became successful because of that, not the
30:41
Speaker 2: other way around. So let me summarize with some things
30:46
Speaker 2: I think that we all can do to support all
30:48
Speaker 2: of our children so they someday can become fulfilled in
30:52
Speaker 2: whatever they choose to do, and that they can become
30:55
Speaker 2: fulfilled today as an eight year old, a twelve year old,
30:58
Speaker 2: at eighteen year old. We don't need to wait till
31:01
Speaker 2: the future. They can get fulfilled in what they're doing
31:03
Speaker 2: now if we encourage them to sample different things that
31:07
Speaker 2: they're drawn to, and they're drawn to it not because
31:10
Speaker 2: of some future reason, some future prize, but because they
31:15
Speaker 2: like it in the present moment. It's fun, it fulfills them,
31:18
Speaker 2: it makes them happy. They love doing it. We need
31:23
Speaker 2: to ask to our kids why they are doing what
31:25
Speaker 2: they're doing, why they're drawn to it, why it fulfills them,
31:30
Speaker 2: what they like about the activities, what they like about
31:33
Speaker 2: getting good grades, why they like their hobbies. Help them
31:37
Speaker 2: right from the start become aware of their micromotives and
31:40
Speaker 2: talk in that language that's their intrinsic motivation. Help them
31:45
Speaker 2: become aware of that it's so important it would be
31:49
Speaker 2: for the whole rest of their life. We also as
31:52
Speaker 2: parents need to let go of that one path thinking
31:56
Speaker 2: and to start thinking more in terms of how can
31:58
Speaker 2: I support my daughter and finding her path so she
32:03
Speaker 2: can do that in her way and in her time,
32:05
Speaker 2: even if it goes against the grain. I want our daughters.
32:11
Speaker 2: I want you to encourage your daughters to embrace the
32:15
Speaker 2: winding path. Because most adults will tell you they didn't
32:19
Speaker 2: go from point A to point z a is when
32:22
Speaker 2: they're eighteen, Z is when they're fifty and doing this
32:25
Speaker 2: incredible thing that they're calling they love doing it. Most
32:28
Speaker 2: people don't go right on the line to that. Most
32:31
Speaker 2: people zigzag their way to their thing they're calling. Which
32:36
Speaker 2: is why I always encourage girls to interview every adult
32:39
Speaker 2: they bump into and say, how did you get here?
32:42
Speaker 2: What was your path? So they can see that that
32:45
Speaker 2: most people who are successful and happy and fulfilled didn't
32:50
Speaker 2: do it the prescribed way. I also want us to
32:55
Speaker 2: be teaching our daughters this not the pursuit of excellence
33:00
Speaker 2: that leads to fulfillment, but rather, the pursuit of fulfillment
33:05
Speaker 2: is what leads to excellence. I want them to get
33:07
Speaker 2: that right. It's the pursuit of fulfillment that will lead
33:12
Speaker 2: to them being good at what they do and loving
33:14
Speaker 2: what they do. It leads to them having mastery over something.
33:20
Speaker 2: I want every one of your girls to find their
33:22
Speaker 2: place in the world, or even better than find their place,
33:25
Speaker 2: I want them to make their place in the world.
33:29
Speaker 2: That's how they will ensure that they will have a
33:32
Speaker 2: life that's fulfilling to them if we let them do that,
33:36
Speaker 2: starting with their kids. All along the way, that's how
33:42
Speaker 2: they will ensure that they create a fulfilling life. But
33:49
Speaker 2: I hope that was helpful interesting. I think it's a
33:53
Speaker 2: different way of looking at things. We have got to
33:55
Speaker 2: get ourselves out of this future stuff where everything is
33:59
Speaker 2: about a future prize of future accolade, about a select team,
34:04
Speaker 2: about a national championship someday, about a college scholarship, about
34:08
Speaker 2: a top tier college, about making a lot of money,
34:10
Speaker 2: blah blah blah. All those things, to me keep kids
34:14
Speaker 2: from funding their path, the one that really fits for them.
34:18
Speaker 2: So let go of that. Help them learn to enjoy
34:20
Speaker 2: things in the moment, to be aware of their micromotives
34:24
Speaker 2: today and why they love to do what they do.
34:30
Speaker 2: I appreciate you listening to these podcasts every week, and
34:32
Speaker 2: I especially appreciate you passing them on to friends so
34:36
Speaker 2: that my reach gets bigger. If you have questions, comments,
34:41
Speaker 2: email me at my wife's email and a n n
34:46
Speaker 2: E at Dr Tim Jordan dot com. Also, if you
34:50
Speaker 2: have any ideas about future podcasts, I would appreciate that
34:53
Speaker 2: as well. I have a bunch of books that I
34:56
Speaker 2: have read on this topic over the years, so I'm
34:58
Speaker 2: going to list those in my bibliography. So just go
35:00
Speaker 2: to my website at Dr Tim Jordan dot com like
35:04
Speaker 2: doctor Dr Tim Jordan dot com, and you will find
35:07
Speaker 2: that list of books. I hope you enjoyed them as
35:10
Speaker 2: much as I did. I'll be back here in a
35:13
Speaker 2: week with a brand new podcast. Thank you so much
35:16
Speaker 2: for stopping by.
35:24
Speaker 1: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Raising Daughters.
35:27
Speaker 1: Hopefully you've learned something useful about girls and young women
35:30
Speaker 1: and how to help them navigate the pressures, challenges, and
35:33
Speaker 1: opportunities of modern life. If you want to become a
35:36
Speaker 1: more effective parent, keep listening to the show at doctor
35:39
Speaker 1: Tim Jordan dot com and let the conversations shape you.
35:43
Speaker 1: Build that one of a kind connection with your daughters
35:45
Speaker 1: in the most profound and meaningful ways possible, shaping them
35:49
Speaker 1: into strong, confident women of the future. That's all for now,
35:52
Speaker 1: see you next week for another episode of Raising Daughters.