Latest / Your Thoughts Your Reality / Empowering Family Communication: Laura Ollinger's Journey from Parenting Challenges to Transforming Parent-Teen Relationships through Curiosity and Trust

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Empowering Family Communication: Laura Ollinger's Journey from Parenting Challenges to Transforming Parent-Teen Relationships through Curiosity and Trust · Your Thoughts Your Reality

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Welcome to your Thoughts, your Reality with Michael Cole, the podcast that shines a compassionate light on the journey of veterans battling through life's challenges.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Michael is a dual elite certified neuro encoding specialist in coaching and keynote training presentations dedicated to guiding military veterans as they navigate the intricate pathways of post deployment life.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Join him as we delve into the profound realm of neuroencoding science, empowering these brave individuals to conquer universal battles procrastination, self-doubt, fear and more.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Together, let's uncover the strength within you to re-engage with families and society, forging a new path forward.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Well, hello, hello everybody.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, we're back on again Same day, a couple minutes later.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: We have amazing Laura Olinger on here today, and you know Laura is an empowering coach and dedicated mother of four teenagers.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: She has been running her own coaching business for over three years, helping parents and teens thrive in their relationships.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: She's deeply passionate about personal growth, empowerment and fostering healthy living practices for families, and I'm really excited to have this conversation today.
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: Her expertise lies in improving communication, building trust and creating meaningful connections between parents and their children, so super excited to have you on, laura.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: Why don't you tell us a little bit more about yourself?
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: Sure, thank you so much, michael.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: So yes, mom of four teenagers, I've got two in high school, two in middle school.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: I'm in Austin, texas.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: I've been here for 16 years but originally from the Midwest St Louis, missouri and then went through Boston for a while.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: So I just am extremely passionate about helping parents and teenagers.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: It started several years ago.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: I was starting a new career and back in school I got my master's in health and wellness education and I also became a certified, a national board certified health coach, health and wellness coach.
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: And around that time is when, unfortunately, very tragically, my nephew took his own life.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: And that was just this massive wake up call to me Maybe realize that it can happen to anybody, it can happen to any family, anywhere, anytime.
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: It's just, you know, obviously extremely just, unexpected.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: And at that time, simultaneously my daughter what my oldest daughter was having a lot of anxiety at the time.
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: And then you know that happened and it quadrupled and I just thought, you know, originally my passion was to help stressed out moms.
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: That was kind of my focus.
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: And then, when all these things happen, I realized, wait a second.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: I think my calling is really to help the teenagers too, and so that's when I kind of combined my approach and I decided I wanted to help both parents and teens.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's, that's absolutely fantastic.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: And I mean, when you, when you look at it, you know obviously I'm a parent, I'm a grandparent and all that fun stuff.
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: I, looking back, I mean you're always questioning, right, as a parent, you know you try different things and those backfire and some things work and so on.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: So you know, I think what you're doing for families is just absolutely fantastic.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: So you know, I am so happy you're on the show.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: No, no, I'm excited to be here just because I know who your audience is and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I just am excited to share some things today, whatever you know they're needing to hear.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: So, yes, I'm totally excited to have this conversation.
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: Fantastic and anybody listening, you know.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: Feel free to comment on their questions.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: If you have something, you have something that we can talk about.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: But, again, we have half an hour and I have a lot of questions myself.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: So, if we can, just before we get started, on the top right corner of your screen there's a blue QR code that takes you to empowerperformancestrategiescom Again, empowerperformancestrategiescom.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: There are free e-books for both families and veterans that I've written.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: There are Facebook groups, again for veterans and separate ones for their families.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: Please be part of the community and part of the mission.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: It's so important just to grow this mission and come together and be connected, so please check that out, all right, with that said, what do you think is one of the biggest barriers parents face when trying to connect with their teens today?
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: Great question.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: So I think it's a broad question and there's so many different types of people and personalities out there, so I think it's like kind of one of two things potentially.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: One is there's this like forced approach, where I've seen a lot of times moms, specifically with their sons, desperately want to have a connection in a relationship while their sons are teenagers.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: And it's kind of like there's this the visual that comes to mind is like you know a turtle when they go into their shell, and it's like the more the mom is like knocking, like come on, talk to me, let's hang out, let's be cool, you know the more that the, the son a lot of times goes into their shell and tightens up.
• 5:11
  Speaker 3: And so I think when it's just such a forced approach, that's something that the parents need to look at and like figure out what their role is in that and figure out how can they like back up a little bit, give their teenager a little more space, let them come out of their turtle shell and not make it feel so overwhelming.
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: And then the second thing is then there's kind of the opposite end of the spectrum where maybe they do have a good relationship, except that a lot of parents are just very reactive.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: They have like this real like short fuse and they're like you did what you went, where you made, what grade you know.
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: There's this like kind of overwhelming, and it's funny because both approaches are a little bit overwhelming for the teenager.
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: And so that parent too can back up and figure out.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: You know how can I be more curious about who my teenager is developing into as a human and what they're up to these days?
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: Right, like kind of, instead of like, yeah, you know that kind of whole, like, it's like that screechy voice is what comes to mind, you know that nagging, but it's like how can you just like emotionally regulate yourself and develop that relationship in more of a regulated fashion?
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: I love that and you know, no one I don't think anyone I know ever appreciates that Right, that in your face, you know it's.
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: It has to be walls down, good communication and in a good headspace, I think, for everybody, for things to really have just great conversations.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: Can we talk about that a little bit?
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: I think communication, you would agree, is probably one of the most important parts of it.
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: I don't do what you do, but as a human being I think that's kind of natural.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: So what kind of role and or tips would you say?
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: Coming from again, maybe a veteran transitioning back to, reintegrating back into civilian life?
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: You know, there's always this honeymoon period, right, the patterns are the same, stories are different, patterns are pretty much always the same, I've found.
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: And so there's a honeymoon period and then be life in, like Les Brown tells us.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: So what are some thoughts of maybe just that opening that communication back up in a real way?
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: That is such another man, great question.
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: So again, I think that there's kind of like multiple approaches and so there's kind of what I would say is like the verbal communication which was what most of us think of communication being.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: So maybe I start with that and then move into the second part.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: That first part with communication is to have that kind of curious mindset, like if you've been deployed and you're coming back and you're like, wow, I really want to get to know who my child is.
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: Now it's kind of being curious and it's not always, I think a lot of times people think it has to be these big, big things, big topics, like you know, and we start like kind of like battering our children with questions like what do you like now?
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: What are you into, what's your favorite movie, what's your favorite sport, who's your favorite teacher, all these things.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: And it's like like again, a down a notch and just just like take it into little, like smaller pieces, like bite sized pieces, and just kind of keeping those questions really open ended, especially with teenagers.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: You know there's classic how was your day?
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: Fine, right, and so just kind of, first of all, learning that open ended communication, you know it could be what was the best part of your day today, what was the worst part of your day today, what was the funniest part of your day?
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: Or, you know, did you laugh or what was funny today?
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: Kind of open-ended and on the listening side there's a couple pieces to listening, but that kind of empathetic listening where if our child is having a big emotion about something, we really want to just validate that and say, oh, I can see why you're so mad that you got an F on your math test.
• 9:19
  Speaker 3: That makes sense that you would be so upset about that.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: And we're not fixing it right, we're just validating.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: We're kind of having empathy.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: You know other big emotions, oh, you know, and kind of we want to match them.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: If they're excited about something and they got an A or they scored the goal or the touchdown or whatever, oh my gosh, that's amazing, right, like we want to match that energy.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: And it's very disappointing when a child has like really good news and they're so excited and the parents like, oh, that's great, right, it's like it's very dismissive to the child and so, whether it's a positive emotion or negative emotion, we kind of want to match that and then also kind of verbally say, you know, oh, I can see why you're so excited about this.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: You worked so hard on that project, right, excited about this, you worked so hard on that project, right.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: And kind of there's that growth mindset where it's not like your innate talents, where that child is a genius and they're actually talented.
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: We want to focus on like the work they put in, the effort, the concentration, the improvement right, because that's where you know it actually starts to build their self-esteem when they hear a parent validating that.
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: And then there's this like nonverbal part I want to shift into a little bit, which is sometimes, you know, again, there's a lot of teenagers who and I believe it or not, because I'm a very chatty person now, believe it or not, when I was a teenager I didn't really want to talk a lot to my parents.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: I didn't think they understood me and I didn't know how to express myself in a way that felt like a good, safe communication for me, without like feeling judged, and so sometimes there's just this, what you know, how little girls play very interactively, like they play dolls together, and boys have that more parallel play where like boys like to go fishing and like just not talk right, like they could just be out all day, or you go out to the golf course and that you get back and like, oh, what'd you guys talk about?
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: What do you mean?
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: We were just golfing.
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: There's not a lot of right.
• 11:22
  Speaker 3: And so sometimes you need to match your child, whether it's a son or daughter, and whether you're a mom or a dad, with what feels right for them, and it's maybe they like to play video games.
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: Maybe you sit down and you play a video game with them, like, instead of being mad, like, stop playing video games.
• 11:39
  Speaker 3: Hey, how does this video game work?
• 11:42
  Speaker 3: Can you show me Can I play with you?
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: How does this video game work?
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: Can you show me can I play with you?
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: Right, and so there's a form of communication that's not always verbal communication, but it's more the being right.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: There's just being with them and connecting with them I think, I think both of those are absolutely fantastic.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: So, um, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna say it.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: You know, man, they don't want to be fixed yeah yeah, it's natural.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: Take a breath and just be, just be present you know, so I think that those are some really important things that you talked about with.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: You know it's not just verbal.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: You know different, different uh, teenagers, kids, humans in general, they, they receive love in different ways, right, sometimes it Sometimes it's a hug, sometimes it's saying you're proud of them, sometimes it's just being involved for a minute or playing a video game, like you said, just so they feel the presence and that you're present for them and they're being seen.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Would you say that's accurate?
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Oh, 100%, 100%, In fact, a lot of times.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: There's Gary Chapman's book, the Five Love Languages.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure if you're familiar with the book, but it is the physical touch, the acts of service, gifts, and so there's five things.
• 12:55
  Speaker 3: Well, on his website there is a quiz for teenagers and you can just take it for your teenager, or, if your teenagers are very cooperative, they can take it themselves, and so that way you can actually find out what your teenager's love language is.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: And, like you're saying, another form of communication is not always verbal, it's these other things, but what your overall, the overall communication is that you love them, you're there for them, you're present for them, and that's what you're communicating through these different methods.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: That's fantastic.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: I know the book.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: I did not know about that test, so that's, that's absolutely fantastic.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, and that's it, with anybody coaching, or as a parent, I mean we're coaches in a sense, right.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: Just, you know, so just having these extra little tips and skills I think is worth a billion dollars.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: I mean it's literally priceless to be able to go in and make it fun, right?
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: If you can get your child to be honest and do the test, you're going to get a lot further than your perception doing it for them.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, absolutely yeah.
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: So let's talk a little more about communication and slowing it down, because I think nowadays human beings struggle with it, period.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Right it's, we're, go, go, go.
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: It's social media doom scrolling it's.
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: You know, we're always so busy in our lives and it's hard for a lot of people, unless they've done the work and know, to slow down and be present for a minute to do so.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: So when you, when you give us some thoughts and tips on how to slow it down for for both of you, so that you can have that real communication maybe, and and really connect.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: Yes, there's well, there's a bazillion ways.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: But what comes to mind is I had this.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: I was giving a workshop, a parenting workshop, one time, and this mom stood up and she said it was at the end.
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: And she said I have a question.
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: And she said all this stuff I learned is great, all your communication stuff is great, but how can I implement it?
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: Because I'm so stressed out with my job.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: She worked with teenagers I don't know if she was a teacher, but I think she was a teacher and she said but then I have to walk into my house at the end of the day and deal with all their stuff.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: And I said okay, so first we need to like emotionally regulate and then we need to form the identity.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: So I said even if you have to sit in your car for five minutes when you get home before you walk in the door and you know that there's hungry teenagers inside or a hungry husband or whoever is waiting for you, and if you can take five minutes and I had taught several I'm certified in I'm a heart math practitioner, which is a nonprofit organization to develop emotional regulation skills, and it uses the heart's intelligence and it's just breathing.
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: If you can just breathe.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, we could go through some breathing exercises, I imagine.
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: Which is I said who do you need to be in this moment?
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: Right, who do you need to be when you walk in this door and you know I need to be calm, I need to be centered, I need to be present, I need to be mom, not teacher, and then just focus on that.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: And she I think she, her children, were very challenging children and I said, okay, how can you rise to the occasion to be that mom for your kids in right now?
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: And she was like, oh, okay, and it made sense, it clicked to her, right.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: And so sometimes it's just that slow it down, connect with your body, center yourself, feel grounded.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: You know there's a bazillion, you know mindfulness tips these days, just on YouTube and everywhere.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: But then, instead of focusing on what you don't want to do like I don't want to scream, I don't want to yell, I don't want to be tempered focus on what, who, what you do want to do and who you do need to be.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: I want to be calm, I want to be a relaxed mom and present with my children.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know those, so many, so many golden nuggets in that, just what you just said in that last three minutes or whatever it was.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: So it brought up something I want.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: I want to add as well Our friends, david Yoloa, with the Warriors and Queens, they work with husbands and wives.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: You know, and so you know, one of the things that they've talked about they've been on the show multiple times is have a transition period.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: You know so that five minutes, like you said, and that's what clicked.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Let let you know your spouse or whatever the case is.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: Let them know that when I come home, I'm going to be out in the car for five minutes.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: I, you know, I, I'm not nothing's wrong, everything's okay.
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: I'm just needed a couple of minutes in me time.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: You know so that everybody knows, and when, when that transition period can happen, when you're coming home from work or whatever the case may be, it really can change the game, because then you, like Laura said and I do want you to talk about some breathing exercises for a second you really do just slow down and you know when you're frantic and you walk into a, everybody feels the energy like you're saying right, so you're going in there and you're going in that wrong headspace.
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: It just starts creating chaos and the whole, the whole house can spin out of control in a sense, you know.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: And then of course no one's being seen and no one.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: You know all those beautiful things that can happen when someone's excited to see.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: So can you just for a second, maybe talk about that just a little bit more?
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: And then I'd like to talk about the breathing exercises.
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: Just maybe give one, just so listeners have that.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: I would love to.
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: And, as you were saying that, what came to mind is you know, parents are leaders and a lot of times moms specifically we don't identify.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: Like I know I didn't identify myself as a leader until I was actually taking a leadership class in my master's program and I'm like, wait a second, I lead four people every day.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Because it said like, who do you lead, who are you in charge of?
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: And I'm like what I never thought of myself and if you can have that identity of, I am the leader and therefore leaders lead and we are responsible for the environment in the home.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: So, just because a parent has had a bad or stressful day, and I just wanna say I really appreciate veterans Like I I I have never been one, so I can't put myself in the shoes per se, but I can, in my mind, imagine and appreciate, kind of what they're dealing with, especially if they're reintegrating back into their families and so yeah, so let's get to.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: So part of that is like coming into the home and like setting this tone and setting the environment and if you want to have a calm environment, that it is up to you and so getting into that breathing stuff.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: So the science of it is there's it's called heart rate variability and that's basically like the amount of time in between each heart beat, and in a healthy sense we want that to actually fluctuate.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: And we want it to fluctuate though in a very like steady, even tone and kind of like nice and smooth, like a nice little fun roller coaster.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: And there's all this science that shows when you've got stress and anxiety and overwhelm, your heart rate variability actually goes down.
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: But the lines on the little EKG chart is like very jaggedy, like this, and so that's the equivalent of like hitting your gas and your brake at the same time of your car.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: It's just like extremely inefficient, like it's like, so like jaggedy, and you're like, oh my gosh, I'm getting whiplash Right, and that's why people become more exhausted because you're burning so much energy, just like your heart rate.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: You know it's all connected to your nervous system.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: So yeah, so we want to get more connected into.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: You know there's the autonomic nervous system.
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: The sympathetic nervous system is higher flight in.
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: The parasympathetic nervous system is the rest and relax.
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: So when we do our breathing exercises, what we're doing is we're actually controlling our heart rate variability and we're making that line much more smooth, and so what we can do is you know, a lot of people have their different techniques, but mine is based off of heart math and it's really to focus.
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, do you want to do it?
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: We could do it.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: Do a simple one.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: Right now.
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: I can just describe it to you Like I just closed my eyes and what we want to do is, as we breathe we might want to breathe a little bit slower and deeper than usual and what we want to focus is in and out of our heart, and that's allowing kind of some extra space to activate that part of the nervous system.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: And what we can do is actually an attitude shift.
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: So if we were coming into the house and we're feeling stressed and anxious and we start to breathe through our heart, we can create an attitude shift.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: So if we want to focus on being more calm, all we're going to do is just think of the word calm and feel the calm in our body.
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: Like you can actually generate an emotion in your body artificially and then it becomes real.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: If you imagine, like, what does calm feel like in your body?
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: And suddenly, like, as I'm saying this, I'm like, oh, like I can feel my body getting a little more calm and feel kind of like my arms and legs getting a little more calm and continuing on just focusing on that breath in and out through the heart.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: And when we feel truly calm and connected with that new attitude shift that we want to have, then we can open our eyes and be ready to go.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: I need two more minutes.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: I'm just joking.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: Like very rushed version.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: Ideally that would be much longer.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, no, seriously, that was fantastic, it really was.
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: I've not done that where literally, like you just did it, where you think of the word calm and so forth.
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: That was fantastic, thank you.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: Yes, you're very welcome.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it could be any attitude you want, right Like if we're going from this emotion, we just choose what we want.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: And it's like if I were to tell you right now, guess what, you just won the lottery a million dollars.
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: Your body would instantly be excited, right, like you're.
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: That is how quickly you can change an emotion, and really you can.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: You can pick whatever attitude or emotion you want to generate in your body and, yes, sometimes it might feel a little forced and it feels a little contrived at first, but you can get yourself there right With just a little more breathing.
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: If you imagine it and you can feel it in your nervous system, then you can become it.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, fantastic, truly.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: And let me just add, if I can the more you do an exercise like this, the more you build the muscle.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Like you don't go into a gym and come out looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger with one try.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: You know, the more you work these exercises um, the the easier they get and the more effective they're going to be as well.
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: So in fact, I have um I don't want to spend too much time on this topic if you want to switch topics, but I actually have this um heart rate variability monitor for people who are really interested in this and this actually just clips on.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: Actually, it's been a while since I used it.
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's, this piece clips on my your earlobe and so it measures your and it connects to your phone and so you can actually measure your heart rate variability and it connects to your phone and so you can actually measure your heart rate variability.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: And yes, they say like the more you use it, the better you get at it and you can become quicker at regulating your heart rate variability.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Oh cool.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: And so the show's not just about tips, it's about tech as well.
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: Yes, exactly Little did you know.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: No seriously.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: Thank you for sharing that.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: I do want to touch base.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: We got about five minutes left.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: I want to touch base on trust.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: I think it's super, super important.
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: So, whether you're just trying to build more trust or you, know, you're out of the trust circle or whatever it is from that movie that's so true.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: More trust, right?
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: So give us some thoughts on rebuilding trust or just building it in the first place.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: But my heart says let's talk about rebuilding even more.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: So, if you can.
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: That's where I was wanting to start.
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: I was hoping you'd say that.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: So here's the thing we're parents and we all mess up.
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: Right, we mess up all the time, and so that's where we break trust or rapport with our kids.
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: And the number one tip is to acknowledge it, and that might mean, after we've had a chance, say you have a big blow-up fight or whatever kind of breach of trust it might be.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: First we get emotionally regulated, we do our breathing, maybe we do our attitude shift and then we go Once our teenager has also.
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: I believe in a cooling off period.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: I'm a big advocate of even getting your heart rate down to under 100 beats per minute so that you can be.
• 26:03
  Speaker 3: You know, there's three parts of our brain and we get into our like lizard brain and it's just that very reactive.
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: And once we come back online and our prefrontal cortex is back online, we go to our teenager and we say, hey, I messed up.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: And then we apologize, and then we ask for a redo.
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: And so you know, I'm so sorry.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: I yelled back there, um, that, that was my stuff coming in.
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: I had a stressful day.
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: I didn't mean to put my stress onto you.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: I apologize.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: Is there.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: Any way we could have another version of this conversation that is, a more positive version, and ask can we redo this?
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, absolutely love that.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: And I just want to you know, point out something.
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: You know, point out something when you do that with your child, when you do that with anybody I found as a leader, whether it's your business, whether it's your spouse, your anybody when you admit I'm not perfect, I make mistakes and then you show how to to to rebuild that or to to heal that with respect to the other person, not only are they going to learn that, or to heal that with respect to the other person, not only are they going to learn that skill because they respect it, but they respect it.
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: And it changes the game in the relationship when somebody says, hey, you know what, if they're wrong, or they feel they're wrong, or they want to talk about this, they're going to talk about it with me and they're going to come back and we can repair this.
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: And I think that's one of the most important things.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: That and my one of them most important things a parent can teach generationally down the line in your family, to teach your children.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: I 100% agree and you know, if we had more time I would go into the four parenting styles.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: But there is one specific parenting style because it's like a quadrant and you know.
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: There's the helicopter style, where we're very permissive, we let our kid do everything because we want them to be happy.
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: There's the avoidance style, where they're just like kind of out of touch emotionally, and then there's the authoritarian and they're like the rules and the dictator and that is where the most trust is broken with that parenting.
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: Well, they're broken with all of them.
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: But you know, with that style, because they're so used to wanting respect and wanting to be in control, and so when that type of parent can say, hey, I messed up and have some vulnerability, that will just do so much for that relationship to rebuild and repair.
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: And if they can kind of keep doing that over and over again, I mean massive night and day change, I would say.
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and thank you for saying that.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: I absolutely think it's fantastic.
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: I would say that when you're doing doing that, you're building trust, even more so because your, your child, your again spouse anybody in your life knows that, hey, they may be upset about something right now, but they're going to come back and we're going to have a conversation yeah, yeah I think that goes a long way.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very cool.
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: All right, we are out of time, we're going to go a little bit over.
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: That's okay, because you know what.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: We own the place.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: So here.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: So, laura, first of all, how do people reach out to you, and I heard that you may be offering some really cool things.
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: I'd really like you to talk about that, if we can.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: Absolutely so.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: I have a free download for anybody who you know it's, for anybody who wants it, and so the way to get that is going to my website, which is positively healthy, coachingcom.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: And if you put in slash vets, I made it vets just for you guys who are the vets are listening.
• 29:38
  Speaker 3: And the free download is called five tips to cracking the parent code and that just goes a lot deeper into what you know.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: We only had so much time today, but that goes just a lot deeper and it's step-by-step.
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: And on top of that that, once you get that download, it'll take you to the next page on my website, which is my parenting course, and I did a huge discount.
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: Normally I I sell it for $197 and I literally made it $20 for the Vets and the and the discount code is just Vets, again right on there.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: And so if you purchase it is amazing course, it is so helpful and it's specifically for parents of teens and tweens and it focuses just a lot on building that relationship, building the connection, building communication, having understanding and empathy for your teenager.
• 30:24
  Speaker 3: And then also the very last module is about kind of building leadership skills in them, and that even goes into talking about bullying and kind of making sure your child is the empathetic, caring person and not the bully out there, because we're seeing so much of that these days.
• 30:40
  Speaker 3: So again, it's just positivelyhealthycoachingcom.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: Slash vets and you'll find that free guide.
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: Awesome, thank you, and Susan, my amazing wife, put that up so everybody can get it.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, perfect, and it's in the Facebook page as well.
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: And, laura, if you do see anywhere else of social media, please throw it in there as well.
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: Oh, I will, and thank you.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: That is so generous and amazing that you did that for our listeners.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: Well, absolutely.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, it would really be my honor if they took this course and I wanted to just make it extremely accessible.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: So I lowered the price and I just want to say I didn't make it free, because people don't do free courses.
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: I can tell you like they don't value it.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: They might start it and be like, oh, I got a free course and then they don't finish it, and so when you have to put some skin in the game, then you take it more seriously, and I really do want people to take this seriously, and it's not for, it's for anybody, it's not just for vets to take their relationship with their teenager seriously, because you only get one shot on this and, um, you know, as you know, they're, they're, they are out of the nest before we know it.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is true, right, Um and and.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: And I agree 100%.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Whenever you're doing coaching, that kind of thing, if there's no skin in the game, people don't take it as seriously.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: So, $20, everybody's not a lot of skin, so think about taking that.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: So, with that said, I want to just thank you again for being on.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: If we can get three tips to get veterans further faster, that would be great.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: If we can get three tips to get veterans further faster, that would be great.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: Yes, further, faster.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: Those are the three things Self-awareness what kind of parent are you showing up as?
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: Emotionally regulated Regulation, getting yourself calm and centered, and then empathetic listening and communication with your teenager.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Fantastic and truly.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Those are game changers, those are literally game changers and start when they're, when they're free.
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: Whatever the case may be, don't wait until they're teens.
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: So, anyway, I just wanted again to thank you for being on the show.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: Time is the most precious resource we have.
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: We do not get it back as human beings.
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: Thank you for spending some of your life and time with us.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: It is greatly appreciated to spread these resources for our mission.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: Thank you, Michael, so much.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: I really appreciate being here.
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and we'll definitely have you back on.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: We have four pillars to go through, four styles of parenting to go through.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: You can spend a whole nother show on all those things.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Yes, Excellent, All right, everybody.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: On that note, we're out of here.
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: Bye guys.
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: Yes, excellent, all right, everybody On that note, we're out of here.
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on another insightful journey of your thoughts your reality podcast with your host, michael Cole.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: We hope the conversation sparked some thoughts that resonate with you.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: To dive deeper into empowering your thoughts and enhancing your reality, visit empower performance strategiescom.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: Remember your thoughts shape your reality, so make them count.
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: Until next time, stay inspired and keep creating the reality you desire.
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: Catch you on the next episode.