0:00

If you in any way are using your child

0:02

for your own emotional regulation

0:04

or your own emotional needs

0:06

to be met , please

0:08

evaluate that relationship deeply . You should

0:11

love your kids , be proud of them

0:13

, all of that stuff . But if you ever kind

0:15

of get into the territory of using them

0:17

to meet your needs , that's

0:20

not the nature of a healthy relationship . You're

0:22

there to serve them and bring them into the world

0:24

so that those children can

0:26

serve all of us for the rest of our

0:28

lives . Our job with our kids is

0:31

not to be their best friends , to meet every one of

0:33

their needs . It's to prepare them

0:35

for life , and you alluded to

0:37

that a little bit with you know we're not

0:39

here to be their best friends , we're

0:41

not here to be their enemies , but

0:43

we're here to guide them . They're

0:46

having their own hero's journey and

0:48

we're here to guide them towards

0:50

being a self-sufficient , critical

0:53

thinking , sovereign little being

0:55

.

0:55

And that goes back to kids being anti-fragile

0:58

. If you train the kid to be able

1:00

to see pretty

1:02

much anything that they get exposed to and

1:04

be able to have an immune system response

1:06

to it to be able to recognize , is

1:09

this really makes sense , is this harmful

1:11

? That's what you're trying to do as a job

1:13

as a parent is not tell them how to think . Tell

1:16

them how , or teach them how , they

1:18

can think for themselves and handle that information

1:20

as it comes in . What we're entering , though , is an

1:22

age where AI is going to absolutely

1:25

astronomically lift

1:27

the quality of the education up

1:30

to a mass level scale that we've

1:32

never seen before .

1:33

Kids are geniuses . They can download

1:36

so much more information and retain it

1:38

than we can for the first several years

1:40

of their life . And so what goes

1:42

into their head ? If you can

1:44

just train a critical thinking filter

1:46

so that they come home and

1:48

they say , I heard about this

1:50

and you don't just say , well

1:53

, that's not the that person's lying

1:55

and don't . If you can have a conversation

1:57

that guides critical thinking for

2:00

them and you can , you repeat that exercise

2:02

, you repeat it , you repeat it . The

2:04

kid is going to feel comfortable

2:07

questioning anything . Welcome

2:11

to the positive network podcast

2:13

. I'm the host , mike hi , and I'm

2:15

your co-host , andrew . You know we

2:18

are here providing that lighthouse

2:20

in the dark for the positive network community members

2:22

. We are addressing real world problems

2:25

, giving real world solutions to

2:27

the things in this world that are starting to make you

2:29

feel uncomfortable . And today

2:31

our topic is children

2:34

, sovereign children . This is

2:36

, for Andrew and I and many

2:38

of you listening , one of the most passionate

2:41

topics we will ever touch on . We

2:43

geek out on money , we geek out on mind

2:46

time , all this stuff . We're

2:48

both dads , we love being

2:50

dads . There's a lot of lessons , a lot of trials

2:52

within it , but sovereign

2:54

children are our future

2:56

. This hits

2:58

me so deep . And even

3:00

if you don't have children , get a little

3:03

bit closer to the speakers here and listen to this

3:05

. The children

3:07

that are growing up in the world

3:09

around you today are the

3:11

ones that are going to run this

3:13

planet . They are going to take care

3:15

of you in old age . They are going to make

3:17

the decisions that affect the outcomes of

3:19

the rest of your life . They

3:22

are seeds that we are planting , and

3:27

whatever we plant is what is going to come out of the ground . It's going to bud , it's

3:29

going to flower and pour

3:32

their gifts , or they're

3:34

going to pour their hesitation out into

3:37

the world . And if

3:39

you have children or not , if you have

3:41

a niece , nephew

3:43

, if you have grandchildren , everything

3:46

you can pour into them is what you're pouring

3:48

into the rest of us . We all inherit

3:51

the ripple effects of these beautiful

3:53

little souls , for good or bad

3:55

. So , andrew , we've

3:57

shared this before , but when you

3:59

became a father , what changed

4:02

in your world ? What ? How did that play out

4:04

for you ?

4:04

Oh man , like everything they

4:06

tell , I had so many people tell me before I

4:09

had my first kid like , oh , your , your

4:11

life is never going to be the same . And I'm like , well

4:13

, yeah , but you know , I'll still be living . And

4:17

like I think that first five minutes

4:19

of being a dad I was like and

4:21

yes , it

4:23

actually started off pretty traumatically

4:25

too , because when my son was first

4:27

born , his lung collapsed and

4:30

he needed immediate emergency surgery

4:32

, otherwise he was going to die . He would have died

4:34

if he wasn't born in the hospital . Luckily there was

4:36

a team right there and

4:39

so immediately it's

4:42

like the first moment of childhood I went

4:44

into I might

4:46

be losing my son and like

4:48

this intense feeling

4:51

, like I had to care for him and

4:53

be there but I couldn't do anything , like

4:55

I was literally helpless and

4:57

I felt so I

4:59

don't know a billion emotions all at once , because

5:02

this was my first taste at being a parent

5:04

, being a dad , and

5:10

immediately my kid is , my kid's life is in jeopardy and there's

5:13

nothing I can do about it other than just sit back and watch

5:15

. And it was extremely hard . It took me a while

5:17

to unpack everything that happened , but

5:19

it was . Luckily he was fine

5:21

. He's a happy , healthy guy now , and

5:24

I'm very , very , very thankful that the doctors were

5:26

able to fix him . The point is

5:28

that moment I became a dad , everything

5:31

changed , because your whole concept of

5:33

living is always about yourself

5:35

, as you're a kid . Up

5:37

until you have your first kid , I feel like

5:39

everything is about you

5:42

, or you and your wife , or you and

5:44

your loved ones . But once

5:46

you have your first kid , everything changes

5:48

to it's all about my kid

5:50

. I have to protect them , and even

5:52

the stuff you do for yourself ends up being

5:54

for your kid , and

5:57

so you can also go too hardcore

5:59

where you ignore your own health too much and

6:01

favor your child . I did that

6:03

as well , and I had to learn my lesson , but

6:06

something that I figured out and I'm not there

6:09

yet as like the master dad but

6:11

something that I really believe is that

6:13

you're not your . Your

6:16

job is not to be a child's friend

6:18

, like primarily , like . Definitely

6:20

you need to be loving and caring , but

6:22

the most important thing is you need

6:24

to protect them from any existential

6:27

threats that would kill them right

6:29

like that's huge and keep them healthy . And

6:31

then the next one is you need to prepare them

6:33

to be sovereign individuals

6:36

themselves . Yeah , you know , our

6:38

job is to prepare them for this world yeah

6:40

, those are the two key jobs

6:42

you need to do and I was feeling that first one

6:44

keeping them healthy and alive .

6:46

You were feeling that from the first two seconds

6:48

, first two seconds , and I was like , oh shit , he's not breathing .

6:49

It's like

6:51

the emotions are running strong , me and my

6:54

wife , after everything , settled down

6:56

and we knew he was going to be fine

6:58

. He was sleeping

7:00

and then we just cried together for

7:02

a while Cause . I was just trying to process everything

7:04

that happened , so it was like I didn't even

7:07

realize how much emotion I was going through , until

7:09

, you know , several hours later

7:11

, when all the dust settled , I

7:13

was very like calm in the moment , cause I kept

7:15

telling myself he's going to be okay .

7:17

Yep . Well , you , you , you show up and

7:19

you know many

7:25

of the men listening to this podcast . You may resonate with this . When there's

7:27

a crisis , there's a mode you go into and it is it's service

7:29

and it is it's strength and you're there

7:31

. And the

7:34

part that you got to honor about yourself

7:36

afterwards is what you were feeling , and

7:39

so you've got to come full

7:41

circle on that . As provider protector

7:43

, you're strong and afterwards

7:45

it is about it's

7:47

about showing up and feeling

7:50

the feels right . There's nothing

7:52

wrong with that . So my

7:54

experience , andrew

7:56

, and thank you for sharing that is our

7:58

. I always spoke with my wife

8:01

and everyone would tell us like , for your wife

8:03

, you're going to feel , she's

8:05

going to feel that baby from from day

8:07

one . There's a connection , there's a bond

8:09

and it's building . And it's building . And

8:12

us dudes are like , well , I don't get it . What's

8:14

going on ? And through that

8:16

nine month cycle , you're , you're not quite connecting

8:19

to the baby . You know mama might be like , aren't

8:21

you excited ? Aren't you feeling this ? Don't you feel these

8:23

things ? And I'm like , yeah , it's

8:25

kind of exciting , but we're just not getting it . And

8:27

I had a mentor tell me said , when you hold

8:30

your baby and for in our case , it

8:32

was a girl , for our first , first little one . When

8:34

you finally hold your baby , all

8:37

of that's going to hit you at once , and

8:39

it did , and my

8:41

experience it was . It was a traumatic

8:44

first birth . It didn't go well , um

8:52

, it was really hard on mama . I was there , protecting , doing my thing , um . But

8:54

when I held my little girl for the first time , time expanded

8:57

. I went from

8:59

being all proud of being a business owner and

9:02

having these five-year plans broken down

9:04

into one-year plans , broken down into quarterly

9:06

plans , and suddenly I'm like I

9:08

got 50 , 60 , 70 years here

9:10

. I got to figure out in a hurry what

9:12

am I doing here ? What is my

9:14

purpose ? It all

9:17

just like flashed . There was no answers

9:19

. But time expanded and

9:21

it was . It was a beautiful thing and

9:24

as we took our baby home and

9:27

we went through life , you know , we had an

9:30

event where COVID shut us down for a while

9:32

and we're literally sitting at home for 10 , 12 weeks

9:34

unable to work six , seven days a

9:36

week , like we had been . That

9:38

was another point where we were like we had another

9:41

baby , you know , in utero coming

9:43

into the world soon . At that point we're like we're

9:45

doing this all wrong , like we are doing

9:47

this all wrong . We're playing out in the system

9:49

that was designed for us to turn

9:51

our kids into what the system wants it to be . It's

9:54

like we need to disconnect . So we had

9:56

our second child . That was a very healing birth

9:58

for us . It was very . It

10:00

really helped us with a lot of our fears and our

10:03

concerns from the first delivery

10:05

and by our third kid . First two

10:07

were in the hospital with midwives . The

10:09

third baby was born outside

10:11

uh , summer day , as the sun was

10:13

setting , waterfall in our yard and a little

10:15

lazy river running through . I caught our baby

10:17

out in the yard . It was like it was

10:20

mind boggling . So let's

10:22

call that a sovereign delivery , right . We're

10:26

like literally everyone's crying and all of all , like it was just , it was magical

10:28

. And so when this happens

10:30

and you're in the right place

10:32

in your life , or you're forced to get

10:34

in the right place , it becomes

10:37

transformational . And for those of you

10:39

listening that don't have children

10:41

, this experience is

10:43

something that you could listen to and take in and

10:45

understand about the beautiful

10:48

people in your life that do have children , that you

10:50

can , you can start to understand how transformative

10:52

this is . So in sharing , you

10:55

know us . You know experiencing our

10:57

children . Come into the world and

10:59

go into the comments below and share

11:02

what you felt as your child

11:04

came into the world , or if you played a special

11:06

part in a family member bringing a child

11:08

into this world and you're you're part of that child's

11:10

family . Let us know below how

11:12

that made you feel what changed

11:14

. Did anything change ? Did nothing change

11:17

? Let's have a conversation about that

11:19

.

11:19

Yeah , I'd be super interested to hear what people say

11:21

on that . Um , I'm going to go into

11:23

the comments and be replying to any questions

11:26

that are , or even the conversation that we

11:28

strike up . It'd be really interesting to see

11:30

how other people feel . The

11:32

main hypothesis is that childhood

11:35

, or being a parent and entering

11:37

parenthood , is a huge , probably the

11:39

biggest change in your entire life

11:41

, I would think . Bigger than getting

11:43

married , bigger than getting

11:46

your first house , bigger than graduating

11:48

school , because who you are as

11:50

a person and who you feel

11:52

like you're living for changes

11:55

irrevocably . And the biggest shift

11:57

is my child has

11:59

to survive in this upcoming world in

12:02

20 , 30 , 40 years from now . Oh

12:05

crap , the world's going in a really bad

12:07

direction . Again , comment

12:09

, if you've ever like how do you feel about the

12:12

direction of the world ? Is it going in the right direction

12:14

or not ?

12:14

Which leads us to how

12:17

we're going to prepare these kids Exactly

12:19

so . These babies are here and , like you alluded

12:21

to before before , I shared a little bit

12:24

about my kids coming into the world . Our job

12:26

with our kids is not to be their

12:28

best friends to meet every one of their needs . It's

12:30

to prepare them for life , and

12:32

you alluded to that a little bit with

12:35

you know , we're not here to be their best friends , we're

12:38

not here to be their enemies , but

12:40

we're here to guide them . They're

12:46

having their own hero's journey and we're here to guide them . They're having their own hero's

12:48

journey and we're here to guide them towards being a self-sufficient , critical thinking

12:50

, sovereign little being that can go out into

12:52

the world , step off the cliff and make

12:55

decisions for themselves . Which

12:58

way am I going ? What am I doing ? What do I think

13:00

about that ? At some point point we

13:03

will transform in a healthy

13:05

relationship from parenting

13:08

them to just being their parent

13:10

, right To being there . And

13:13

you make you got to make things a little tough . They've

13:16

got to fall down , get themselves back

13:18

up . They got to try to tie that shoelace

13:20

30 times , no matter how frustrated you are

13:22

. They have to do

13:24

. You know , as Jordan Peterson says do

13:26

dangerous things safely under

13:28

your supervision . They have to grow

13:31

and expand . They have to . They have to fill

13:33

this shell that they're growing into , and

13:35

part of that is not

13:37

holding their hand and doing everything for them

13:39

. A sovereign child can't

13:42

wait to do something , to see if they can

13:44

do it , even if it's a little bit wrong

13:46

.

13:46

Yeah , they're not going to be sovereign if they're not self-sufficient

13:49

enough to do it themselves . Exactly . So

13:51

part of it is assessing whether the

13:54

situation is dangerous for their existence

13:57

or health and if it's not , allow them

13:59

to fail in that safe environment . That's

14:02

your job . When you're doing that well , you're

14:04

allowing them to make as many mistakes

14:06

as they possibly can without

14:08

hurting themselves . They're like , hey

14:10

, I wonder what it would be like if I crossed the street without

14:12

looking both ways . Well , that would not

14:14

be a good mistake to make , so let's not let that

14:16

happen . The other stuff that you

14:19

know oh , I didn't tie my shoes right . Oh , I

14:21

dropped mud on , you know , my

14:24

shirt no big deal . Those

14:26

are all minor mistakes , and I think

14:28

that's why it's good to get kids into activities

14:30

with low stakes mistakes

14:32

. Yes , I

14:35

have a background as a piano teacher and

14:37

I think that , like music , is a phenomenal

14:39

place because you're going to make a billion mistakes

14:42

and how it trains you how

14:44

to think about what happens when you

14:46

make a mistake , how to adjust your behavior

14:49

and how to move forward quickly , and

14:51

if you don't get that right

14:54

line of thinking down , you won't make progress . So

14:56

it's a really good forcing function for

14:58

training your mind

15:00

to operate in that kind of a thought

15:02

process .

15:03

Absolutely so

15:09

. Again in the comments , let's start a conversation about parenting styles . And

15:11

do you do everything for your kid from the moment they wake up to they

15:13

go to bed ? Do you feel that that's your duty , or

15:16

do you make things a little challenging

15:18

? Do you feel that that's your duty or

15:21

do you make things a little challenging ? Do you make things really challenging ? These

15:23

are great conversations to have and there'll be a few things come out of these conversations

15:26

that might enlighten you or give you some new ideas

15:28

. One thing we've talked about before on

15:30

this podcast on the Sovereign Mind episode

15:32

was emotional regulation . Now

15:35

this one is amazing from the aspect

15:37

of what you learn about yourself . Again

15:40

, recapping kids from zero to seven

15:42

years old approximately . They're running

15:44

in high theta waves , brain waves

15:46

. So they're just , they're learning

15:49

, they're feeling everything , and you'll

15:51

see these emotional outbursts from joy

15:53

to sadness to rage , and they're in a

15:56

split second second and you might find

15:58

yourself reacting to them . But

16:00

here's the thing it is our job as parents

16:03

before the age of seven to teach as

16:05

much emotional regulation as

16:07

we can . What we mean by that is it's

16:10

okay to feel the feelings . We talk

16:12

them through it . We don't say that . You know crying

16:14

is bad I mean that happens to a lot

16:17

of us is stop crying . You're embarrassing me . Stop

16:19

screaming . There's a reason

16:21

behind what's happening with them sometimes

16:23

, and sometimes there's no reason

16:26

. It's just all of the emotions

16:28

flooding in at once and 10 minutes later they're right as

16:30

rain and you're not okay . Now

16:32

I challenge you to think about this . I

16:34

realized that I had very low emotional

16:37

regulation when I saw my kids

16:39

not regulating their emotions , and so

16:41

if I'm rising to their anger to

16:43

try to squash it , or if I'm trying

16:45

to stop them cry , that's mostly

16:48

something that I probably haven't dealt with

16:50

, and so you can switch . When

16:52

you're teaching emotional regulation , you can

16:54

switch the experience you're having of I need

16:56

to fix this , I need

16:59

to stop this . You're embarrassing

17:01

me . Switch it to what

17:03

am I learning about myself through

17:06

this experience ? It's uncomfortable

17:08

or it's joyful or what

17:10

is it . And you'll learn as much

17:12

about your kid as you do about yourself

17:14

in these processes , and you'll learn as much about your kid as

17:16

you do about yourself in these processes .

17:17

Yeah , what do you think one story is that really hits home for you

17:19

to , that encapsulates that for you , like , where's

17:22

the first time , or maybe one of the most important

17:24

times , where you're like , oh shit , this

17:26

really teaches me a lot about who I am

17:28

.

17:30

I think it would be with our first , when the

17:33

tantrum started and logically

17:35

they were over nothing . So in

17:37

my adult brain , like this is

17:39

not a big deal . The screaming

17:42

and kicking and crying and just

17:44

blowing up like this

17:46

has to stop to the

17:48

point where you know you try to pick your child

17:50

up , you try to hug her , you try to console her and

17:52

and they're just inconsolable and

17:55

as your blood gets up and you're , and you're

17:57

at home , you're not embarrassed or anything , You're just like this

17:59

is not like how do I ? Like you're like we have

18:01

to stop this , we have to stop

18:03

this and that . That was coming from my childhood

18:05

, unbeknownst to me at the time , and so it was

18:07

the second or third time that I would put her in a

18:10

room , sit her on her bed and say you

18:12

can come out when you calm down and close the door

18:14

. I think it was the third time where I was like that's

18:17

abandonment , that

18:19

is , she doesn't feel safe

18:21

and now she feels less safe and

18:24

through conversations with my wife

18:26

and through processing that and

18:28

figuring out where it was coming , it took it still

18:30

took years after that to figure out where it came

18:32

from . For us that discovery was amazing

18:34

, but we're supposed to be there for

18:36

them and they need to feel safe

18:39

in whatever state they're in . We got pushed

18:41

down the hill . We had to figure this out and make some changes

18:44

, because what we were doing did

18:47

not sit right with us , though we had

18:49

no tools to do anything else at that time

18:51

. So you got to learn quick and

18:53

there's there's there's time to change If . If

18:56

that's something you're doing and you're comfortable with it

18:58

, you're the parent , that's up to you . But if you're not

19:00

comfortable with it , there's

19:02

almost like the emotions he was feeling were almost like

19:04

contagious Right .

19:20

Like the energy when he would be mad

19:23

. Right , then

19:25

I would be kind of

19:27

like , why am I getting mad too ? Like

19:30

I'm picking up what he's feeling

19:32

and I'm mad that he's mad . I

19:34

was like , why , why is that ? Like that makes

19:36

no sense . I should be

19:38

able to just keep my calm and , you

19:41

know , just be there with them . And

19:43

I had to do a lot of examining , like

19:45

, well , maybe I had beliefs

19:48

that , uh , were almost

19:50

like driving me behind the scenes and saying

19:52

like , oh , acting that way is not , is

19:54

not right , so we need to stop

19:56

it , we need to get it stopped . And

19:58

then , oh , I can't find a way to stop it . So

20:01

then I got frustrated and then got

20:03

mad . And then you know you're like

20:05

, oh crap , I'm not a good parent

20:07

. Yeah , all the stuff comes

20:09

up , yeah , yeah . And then you're like I need

20:12

to fix this . What , what am I doing wrong ? How can

20:14

I adjust it ? Um , and so again

20:16

, next stage was like , okay , let's try putting

20:18

it as very similar to your story . I was like , oh

20:20

, let's try putting him in his room and see if he can figure

20:22

it out and he can come back

20:24

when he , when he figures out his emotions

20:26

, I was like , well , he's not really equipped for that

20:28

. You figure that out pretty quickly . They

20:40

go . It gets worse . Yeah , cause they don't know how to like bring themselves back . It's not a

20:42

skill they have yet . So you , you realize later like , oh , actually you need to be there with them

20:44

, you need to almost like . Um , it's like if you have a gym trainer right Like

20:46

a personal trainer , they're there beside you

20:48

, they're motivating you , they're keeping you on track . That's

20:51

kind of what you're doing is you're coaching them and

20:53

kind of teaching them . Just like you

20:55

teach how to ride a bike , you can

20:57

teach someone how to get

20:59

their emotional regulation under control .

21:01

And there are , in the day and age of

21:03

internet and a million courses out there

21:05

. There are some amazing content creators out

21:07

there . They're easy to find to teach

21:10

you different ways of going about it . Each

21:12

kid is different . Each parent is different , so

21:14

different styles will work for you . Parts

21:19

of one style will work for you , parts of others . Combine them all and put those things together

21:21

so find the resources and learn from other people . The

21:23

counterbalance to this is , you

21:26

know , if you're listening to this and you're feeling like

21:28

, well , you can't just coddle your kids

21:30

, and you know you just talked

21:32

about making life a little tough and now you're talking

21:34

about . You know you just talked about making life a little tough and now you're talking about you

21:36

know , letting tantrums happen , and there's a balance to this and

21:39

that balance is intuitively

21:42

and in your heart , knowing , as a parent , when a

21:44

kid feels unsafe and is not okay

21:46

and needs you , versus

21:48

when a kid is going . I figured

21:50

out how to get what I want and

21:57

this is tricky territory , because this is this , literally , is your own experience with

21:59

your child . And if you've got a smart one , if you've got one

22:01

that figures out how to manipulate you and use

22:03

you cause they're going to do it . They don't know any better . They're going

22:05

to push their boundaries . Then you've got to

22:08

figure out on the fly whether

22:10

they need you or whether you've

22:12

got to be there for them , but not go

22:15

too far into acquiescing

22:17

to their demands . If it's demand-based , really

22:21

think that through .

22:22

if it's literally a meltdown , they

22:24

probably need you yeah , it's like you're training

22:26

their neural network and then you have to monitor

22:28

is the training going the way you

22:30

want it to be going ?

22:31

and then tomorrow , their model has updated

22:33

and they're like let's try it this way . Yeah

22:36

, let's , I bet you I can get the

22:38

and you can half the time you can , maybe

22:40

more than half , you can see the

22:42

next level of . They're like , hey , let's

22:44

go over here , and sometimes

22:47

, if you're in the moment and you see

22:49

it and you , you catch it the right way . They're

22:51

, they almost are like darn , yeah

22:54

, crap , and it doesn't elevate , and sometimes it

22:56

elevates no matter what . So remember , if

22:58

you're feeling like this conversation is about

23:00

coddling your kid , no , it's about balance

23:02

.

23:02

Something that's kept in my mind is , if

23:06

you think of your kids almost like plants

23:08

, right ? One of their primary

23:10

nutrients , like there's water and sunlight . For plants

23:12

, obviously , you need good soil , but one of their primary nutrients

23:15

is they need to feel safe , they need to

23:17

feel loved and they also need

23:19

room to grow so that

23:21

they can expand and fill a bigger

23:23

space . So the problem with

23:25

if you over coddle them , you're

23:27

containing them . Where

23:29

the line is is that you don't want to contain

23:32

them , but you want to allow them to safely

23:34

grow out , right ? It's

23:37

a really difficult balance and that's one

23:39

of the biggest challenges that you're engaging

23:42

with this other human being

23:44

who's at a much lower level of development

23:46

but is constantly changing .

23:48

So you have to continuously update and adapt

23:50

your strategies you do and

23:53

at the same time this

23:55

is is slightly related , but I feel compelled

23:57

to share this if you in any

23:59

way are using your child for your own

24:02

emotional regulation or

24:04

your own emotional needs to be met , please

24:07

evaluate that relationship deeply . You should

24:10

love your kids , be proud of them , all

24:12

of that stuff . But if you ever kind

24:14

of get into the territory of using them

24:16

to meet your needs , that's

24:18

not the nature of a healthy relationship . That

24:21

is a deep topic we'll go into on a

24:23

future podcast . But you're there to

24:25

serve them and bring them into the world so

24:28

that those children can serve all of

24:30

us for the rest of our lives .

24:31

That's a good point . Mike , I actually want to ask

24:34

you , because you've talked a lot about before

24:36

, 30 days worth of food and water , now

24:38

pivoting that towards children

24:40

. How does that relate

24:43

? There's an existential threat to not having

24:45

that food and water . How does that tie into

24:47

your children ?

24:49

Thank you for bringing that up . I think the

24:51

way that resonates with me is it

24:54

becomes even more important . We talk , talk

24:56

a lot about , you know , having a sovereign

24:58

food supply , which in most cases , most

25:00

crises , you need 30

25:02

days worth of food and water . If you need more than

25:04

that , I mean there's some shit going on in the world and

25:06

it's a whole different conversation . But most

25:09

people will go buy , you know , their next

25:11

stock in Tesla . They'll go buy man

25:14

their next laptop or iPhone before

25:16

building up a 30-day food and water

25:18

supply , like we've talked about . You've got car

25:21

insurance , house insurance . The business owners out there

25:23

have business interruption insurance . Most people

25:25

don't have insurance over the next 30 meals

25:27

, 30 days of meals and water going onto

25:29

their table . And kids hit

25:31

this that much harder because now

25:34

you're a protector , now

25:36

you are a mother or a father

25:38

and one of your freaking

25:41

jobs on the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy

25:43

of needs food , water , shelter . So

25:46

30 days hits hard when it comes

25:49

to children , because you

25:51

know you can't just in a crisis , you can't

25:53

take your spear and net to the grocery store and

25:55

catch yourself some food .

25:56

Yeah , and I think it's one of those quick , easy wins

25:58

. If you're a parent is like if

26:01

you haven't done this already , it's so easy

26:03

and fast to do this and now you've

26:05

checked off a huge existential

26:07

risk .

26:08

Once we mentioned this to people and show the gap

26:11

that was sitting there in their lives , that's like they've

26:13

seen it for the first time . Oh

26:15

my goodness , I actually don't have

26:18

protection over one of the base needs

26:20

of my kids , and so I

26:22

urge everyone follow us

26:24

on that topic and learn more about getting a 30-day

26:26

food and water supply .

26:27

Yeah , absolutely Like . Subscribe to the YouTube channel

26:30

. There's going to be more videos and content on that

26:32

, as well as our social media

26:34

and other links that are out there . They'll

26:36

be included in the description . We can update them from

26:38

time to time as we make stuff

26:40

available . Yeah , absolutely yeah .

26:43

So let's get into a fun one . Okay , I want

26:45

to . Not that these aren't all fun

26:47

, but homeschooling

26:49

, oh nice . So now

26:51

this is a triggering word . Yeah

26:53

, this is , this is a fun , emotional charge

26:55

one , and I want to . I want to preface this . If you're already

26:58

ready to check out and say I'm , I'm done

27:00

, my kids go to public school because

27:02

of this , this and this . You can do homeschooling

27:05

while doing public schooling . You can

27:07

do both . Andrew was homeschooled . I

27:10

was not homeschooled . I homeschool

27:12

my kids . Andrew homeschools his kids . I've

27:14

I've made the switch no-transcript

27:41

and see its extreme shortfalls . And if

27:43

you're on this podcast and you're at all

27:45

a sovereign individual , you already see

27:47

the shortfalls . But you may be in a trap where

27:49

I don't have enough sovereign time or

27:52

sovereign money to do anything about it . There's

27:54

some super good tools that are coming

27:56

up there is . Well , let's talk about those tools , but

28:05

first let's talk a little bit about the public school

28:07

system and the role it serves in current society . Okay , tell me

28:09

about it . Here is how I view this . We have a current construct of society that

28:12

serves us . We all have jobs , we have functions

28:14

in society . We go and serve

28:16

our peace . We're a police officer . We go and serve our peace

28:18

. We're a police officer , a fireman . We repair

28:21

roads , we

28:23

do electricity , we teach children , we

28:25

go out into society and we serve , and we're compensated

28:28

with money , which we just

28:30

had an episode on that . If you haven't seen it , go

28:32

back and check out the one before on sovereign money . These

28:34

are the cogs in the wheels that keep society

28:36

running . We pay part of our proceeds back

28:39

in taxes , which are , in

28:41

our opinion , extremely mismanaged , to get

28:43

those services provided , and this

28:45

is how things work . These

28:53

are our social contracts . That's great . Well , back in the early 1900s

28:55

, the ruling families and the bankers of the world needed to change from one system to an industrial

28:58

revolution system , and we needed

29:00

to produce people out

29:02

of the school system that fit into the Prussian

29:04

system . That created workers and soldiers

29:06

. We needed people that would become

29:09

factory workers , produce goods

29:11

, line up , say yes

29:13

and follow orders . You know , take

29:15

certain breaks at certain times of day and

29:18

that's all fine , that's all well and good . But

29:20

the world has changed drastically in

29:23

the last hundred plus years and we're

29:25

still working inside of a system that doesn't

29:27

equip kids for what we've already

29:29

moved into and beyond . We

29:31

hit the information age . It didn't change

29:34

enough . We're already heading into the next age

29:36

, which you can talk about a little bit , andrew , and we're not preparing

29:38

children . Next stage , which you can talk about a little bit , andrew , and we're not preparing children

29:40

Absolutely .

29:41

So this goes down to the second point

29:43

of your job as a parent is to prepare

29:46

your , your

29:51

child , to be a sovereign individual going forward that can take care of themselves , can operate

29:53

and basically create a life for themselves , and if they're not

29:55

prepared to enter

29:57

a workforce or to go into the world

30:00

and to basically do stuff because

30:02

they've been , you know , miseducated

30:04

or mistrained , then

30:06

that's a major problem and that is your responsibility

30:09

as a parent to address , and you don't have

30:11

to fully take them out of the public school system . One

30:13

tool I want to highlight is stuff like

30:16

and a lot of people are already

30:18

doing this where they do extracurriculars

30:20

, right , like you hear about people going into

30:22

soccer or martial arts

30:24

, and they might go to , like , afterschool learning

30:26

programs . I think Kumon is like

30:28

one of them , right , so there's all these extra

30:30

things that people are already doing . What we're entering

30:33

, though , is an age where AI is

30:35

going to absolutely astronomically

30:38

lift the quality of the education

30:40

up to a mass level scale

30:42

that we've never seen before . So

30:45

there's things like synthesis AI . That

30:49

is amazing for math

30:51

. There's a whole bunch of other programs out there

30:53

that we can list , but the point

30:55

of this whole discussion is that if

30:58

you can't take your kids out of school

31:00

and do it full-time because of different constraints

31:03

, that doesn't mean you have to just completely

31:05

ignore everything else . You could still fit

31:07

in extracurriculars to ensure that

31:10

they're mathematics . I'm going to tell you a pretty interesting

31:12

statistic that I heard . I

31:15

need to confirm it again , but I

31:17

believe this is accurate . So in San Francisco

31:20

, they banned algebra . Why

31:23

? I've never heard this ? Because

31:25

the kids could no longer do it

31:27

. Oh what ? At 14

31:30

, 15 years old , 70%

31:32

of the students were illiterate

31:34

.

31:35

Wow , this is the statistics I was hearing . So would

31:37

this be ?

31:37

this would be another one of those political maneuvers

31:40

to eliminate something I'm

31:42

guessing here , so that it makes the school

31:45

statistics look good enough to pass a

31:47

certain threshold yeah , kids

31:49

could no longer do the math because the math

31:51

had fallen off so badly that

31:54

, in order for the school teachers to not get

31:56

fired , they change the curriculum to make

31:58

themselves look less bad . Weird . I

32:01

have another personal story where my

32:04

brother hired someone straight out of high

32:06

school who could not read a clock

32:08

and could not do basic mathematics

32:10

.

32:11

And this is a graduate of high school , where this should

32:13

be basic level stuff we've

32:15

employed a lot of people that can't read a standard

32:17

clock and had to , literally

32:20

, in one of our companies , put up little digital clocks

32:22

everywhere because , like

32:25

old knowledge is just disappearing

32:27

. Now you can make the argument that , well , it's

32:29

irrelevant , everything should be digital , okay

32:32

, but it behooves

32:34

you to have a deep understanding of where things

32:36

came from and how they came

32:38

to be today .

32:39

And a clock is a basic thing . You see it in hospitals

32:42

. Still , it's not like we only see digital clocks

32:44

. So the fact that they're

32:46

still everywhere and you can't read it and technically

32:48

it's part of kindergarten and

32:50

you can't do that it's like do you want me to tie

32:52

your shoes for you too ? Like

32:55

it's basic stuff . These

32:57

are indicators that are pointing

32:59

to this . Failings of the school system falling

33:02

apart , yes , and that is then failing

33:04

our children , and if we don't recognize that

33:06

that's not up to par , then that's

33:08

our job and our responsibility to

33:10

step in and supplement to

33:13

make sure we've covered number two on that

33:15

list , which is prepare your children

33:17

.

33:17

And , on this topic , if you're in the public

33:20

school system with your kids or you're homeschooling

33:22

or you're doing a hybrid right now , here's

33:25

the most important thing that you can teach these

33:27

kids Critical thinking

33:30

, letting them form

33:32

their own opinions of what is being

33:34

told to them . Because if

33:37

you feel you are at the mercy of dropping

33:39

your kids off at school daycare

33:42

for the workforce I'll say that unapologetically

33:44

so you can go to work to earn money

33:46

in this system that was created for us

33:48

, which does service right now Then

33:52

you're putting your kids in the care

33:54

of someone else to fill their head

33:56

full of what ? Their

33:58

ideas . You're not pre-approving every message

34:01

going into your kid's head . They're sitting with 20

34:03

, 30 other kids and

34:05

those kids are putting stuff in your kid's head which

34:07

comes from other families , other belief

34:09

systems , other ideas , opinions , or

34:11

kids are just making stuff up , like

34:14

all of this is happening . Kids

34:16

are geniuses . They can download so

34:19

much more information and retain it than we can

34:21

for the first several years of their life

34:23

. And so what goes into their head

34:25

? If you can just train

34:27

a critical thinking filter so

34:30

that they come home and they say I heard

34:32

about this and you

34:34

don't just say , well , that's not the

34:36

that person's lying and don't if

34:38

you can have a conversation that guides

34:41

critical thinking for them

34:43

and you repeat that exercise , you

34:45

repeat it , you repeat it . The kid

34:47

is going to feel comfortable questioning

34:50

anything .

34:51

And that goes back to kids being anti-fragile

34:53

. If you train the kid to be able

34:55

to see pretty

34:58

much anything that they get exposed to and be

35:00

able to have an immune system response to it , to be able to see pretty much anything that they get exposed to and be able to have an immune system response

35:02

to it , to be able to recognize , is

35:05

this really makes sense , is this harmful

35:07

? That's what you're trying to do as a job

35:09

, as a parent , is not tell them how to think . Tell

35:11

them how or teach them how they

35:13

can think for themselves and handle that information

35:16

as it comes in thinking is not memorization

35:19

of facts given to you .

35:21

That is not thinking . That is not intelligence

35:24

. No , intelligence is parsing

35:26

through as much information as your

35:28

brain is capable of and

35:30

forming a belief out of it . Yeah

35:33

, let's put it that way . And that belief

35:35

, if you can instill the

35:37

idea that being wrong is a celebration

35:40

because you're about to learn something new or

35:42

improve what you know , that

35:44

will serve your kid for the rest of their

35:46

life Absolutely , it's

35:49

okay to be wrong .

35:50

Yeah , even as a parent , if I don't know the

35:52

answer to something or I'm wrong , it's

35:54

critical for my own behavior

35:58

to model that it's okay that I made a mistake

36:00

and I learned something , and I apologize

36:02

if I made a mistake . That needs an apology .

36:04

This part blew my mind when I got into

36:06

a business and identifying

36:10

and what would make me successful . I

36:12

had a rough time in public school , like

36:14

I went in and crushed grade eight for the first

36:16

half of a year and then I would checked out that everything

36:19

I could to socialize , skip school , get out

36:21

of it , barely pass , you know . So I didn't

36:23

get kicked out of the house , that was one of the rules . But

36:25

think about when you get down to

36:27

test time and the

36:29

room goes silent and you get nervous

36:32

and you're not allowed to look

36:34

at your neighbor , you're not allowed to see what answer

36:36

they've come up with , you're not allowed to collaborate

36:39

. That

36:41

is the opposite of success in the real world . In the real world

36:43

, if I don't know an answer before

36:45

ChatGPT came out , I'd just call Andrew and

36:48

Andrew's like wow , this is what I think

36:50

you know like collaboration , looking

36:52

at the answers from the person next

36:54

to you is success in a community

36:57

. It's success in a business . It's success

36:59

of a family home sharing

37:01

knowledge openly .

37:03

You look at communities and they solve problems

37:05

together . Imagine a community

37:07

where everyone tries to solve the same problems

37:09

, but individually . And if it's not

37:11

, your strong suit .

37:13

So you've got kid A over here who's an English

37:15

whiz . You've kid B , who's a math whiz

37:17

. Math whiz should be rocking

37:19

out the services of math and English

37:21

. Kids should be rocking out the services of English

37:24

and make something beautiful together

37:26

. Absolutely , that is cooperative

37:28

, cooperation , community , that

37:31

is progress . But early on , don't

37:34

share information , don't collaborate

37:36

. It's cheating . I

37:39

feel like it's a box put around the mind

37:41

that really stunts our youth absolutely

37:43

, totally agree with that .

37:44

So actually I want to ask you what do you think are

37:47

the best takeaways

37:49

from homeschooling that you've taken away

37:51

so far ? Obviously , like there's probably more

37:53

than just two , but what are the top two

37:55

that kind of come to your mind that really

37:58

impacted you since you started this journey before

38:00

?

38:01

a certain age and certain subjects kick

38:03

in . It is a very small

38:05

amount of a day that a kid needs instruction . So

38:08

if you're fortunate enough to be in a position

38:10

where you can homeschool before seven

38:12

, eight , nine , 10 , depending on how much information

38:15

your kid is soaking in , it can

38:17

be 30 minutes when they're

38:19

younger to an hour and a half of

38:21

school a day as they get older and they

38:23

will learn everything they need to know in

38:26

that period of time that they do in an eight hour school

38:28

day . Plus they can go out to the garden

38:30

and learn how to plant , plus they can go for walks

38:32

, plus they can go out to the playground and meet

38:34

other kids and play and like . All

38:37

of that can still be done . They go to the

38:39

shopping store and they learn how to shop

38:42

and price out products and do

38:44

math . They cook with you , they learn you

38:46

know measuring , they learn math , they learn um

38:49

, all sorts of stuff , science , like . All

38:52

of this stuff happens in everyday life and it's

38:54

life skills that are learned . Yeah .

38:56

Learning happens outside the classroom just as

38:58

much as inside .

38:59

And what I can see that you alluded to

39:01

and spoke about is the stage

39:03

after that where it starts to get a little more

39:05

intense and they're a little more like what about this

39:07

subject ? Or you find out what their brilliance

39:10

is and you go , oh crap

39:12

, I don't like this topic , I don't know

39:14

anything about it . How do I support them

39:16

? Ai is coming fast

39:19

to teach kids from kindergarten

39:21

to literally university degree

39:23

level education and think

39:25

of AI this is how I frame it the

39:27

infinitely patient tutor

39:29

that will , time

39:32

and time again , with one-on-one

39:34

instruction , figure out how your

39:36

kid learns and figure out a way

39:38

to teach the information to them . No

39:40

judgment , no ridicule . Teaching

39:43

them that being wrong Again , I said this

39:45

before teaching them that being wrong is awesome

39:47

. Okay . Well , now , how do I figure

39:49

it out then ? Well , that didn't work either . How do I

39:51

figure it out ? So AI is

39:54

going to change everything , and that's

39:56

coming so soon . It's already here , like

39:58

in things like synthesisai . And that's coming so soon . It's already here , like

40:00

in things like Synthesisai , co-founded with Elon Musk , for math

40:02

. Both our kids do that and

40:04

it's been incredible .

40:06

Yeah , actually touching on Synthesis so they recognize

40:09

too because there's going to be objections from people

40:11

that they think , yeah

40:15

, well , it's cool if my kid knows facts , but they also need to know how to work together as a

40:17

group to accomplish things in the real world , which is a hundred percent valid because

40:19

that's how the world works . So what synthesis did is they

40:22

also created like whole

40:24

groups of kids that come

40:26

together and they do projects

40:28

and they meet on things , and this I think it's

40:30

a limit of like eight or nine or something like that

40:32

, where they come together and once

40:34

they hit that , then they meet , they

40:37

work together , and so it's teaching them the socializable

40:40

aspects of group projects

40:42

and stuff like that Teamwork .

40:43

Yeah , I love it .

40:44

Yeah . So I think that's a really important thing , because

40:47

the AI is going to be great for the

40:49

one-on-one interaction and getting you to understand

40:51

concepts and then taking the

40:53

knowledge and then applying it to projects

40:56

and to work output is really important

40:58

. Collaboration yeah , that's beautiful . Yeah , so

41:05

there's going to be that as well . I think Synthesis is really on the cutting edge

41:07

. They were originally employed by Elon Musk to build something called

41:09

Ad Astra , which was a custom school for

41:11

the SpaceX kids , and then they

41:13

went off , I believe , maybe on their own

41:15

, maybe with some funding or something , and then they founded

41:17

Synthesis . They

41:20

started with the group projects and then they moved

41:22

into the AI Tutor , so now they're doing both of those

41:24

and it's a very phenomenal place . I'd

41:26

highly suggest it .

41:27

Let's leave a link below on our YouTube channel

41:29

for this episode so you can go and check out

41:31

. Yeah , go check out Synthesis .

41:34

Yeah , I'm just a really big fan of it . I

41:37

showed it to my kid and

41:39

he was in right at the very beginning

41:41

when it first started , and he's laughing

41:43

and smiling and he's learning about , like how Egyptians

41:45

count in numbers , getting

41:47

into all these things and then slowly building

41:50

up , in a really fantastic way

41:52

, any problems he ran into . You could just

41:54

hit the question mark and you would have another

41:57

patient answer and be like , well , what about exploring

41:59

it this way ? And so now , at the age

42:02

of I think he's just seven

42:04

, so he's not even supposed to be really doing

42:07

the stuff he's doing , but he's already got

42:09

12 times tables done . Nice

42:11

, all the way up to that . I love it . It's

42:13

crazy how fast they learn

42:15

when they have a patient

42:17

one-on-one tutor instead of

42:20

a distracted classroom . So we're seeing

42:22

a complete overhaul to education . So

42:24

if you send your kids to public school , you're

42:26

sending them to the Windows

42:28

95 version

42:31

30 kids

42:33

, one teacher .

42:34

If you have a specially gifted kid , they

42:37

get nothing . If you have an average

42:39

kid who needs a little help , they're

42:41

not getting enough attention to get through the things

42:43

that they need help on on certain subjects

42:46

, and more and more , the

42:48

teachers are being forced

42:50

to spend all their time and I hear this from teachers

42:52

all the time . They're being forced

42:54

to spend their time with kids with zero

42:56

regulation . Yeah , and it's

42:58

massively disrupting to the

43:00

kids that are there legitimately to

43:02

learn and excel . It's a big

43:04

challenge , and so we feel that , and so

43:07

comment um comment below if

43:09

you are homeschooling or public

43:11

schooling or both . I'm very curious to

43:13

see how many people fit into each category

43:15

. I especially if you're homeschooling

43:18

and public schooling at the same

43:20

time . This would be very

43:22

interesting to people . Maybe leave a little bit more of

43:24

a comment of like how you balance that and

43:26

what the things you're doing . Let's all learn from each other

43:28

. At the positive network , we're crowdsourcing

43:31

humanities , brilliance , and this is just another

43:33

example of that . So , all right , andrew

43:35

, let's uh , let's wrap up here

43:37

here . So thank you for listening to the positive

43:40

network podcast . Please go

43:42

out and follow us all on our socials

43:44

. Uh , we're on twitter , we're

43:46

on tiktok , we're on youtube , instagram

43:49

, facebook , um , check us out

43:51

. We're getting ready to launch a community website

43:53

. I can't wait to bring that to you and

43:55

uh , yeah , get out there and follow

43:57

us absolutely so .

43:58

if this is , uh your first time watching

44:01

us and you haven't subscribed , and you love the energy

44:03

that we're bringing , the vibrations and all that good stuff

44:05

, then subscribe up and follow

44:07

us for future content . We're going to be posting a lot

44:10

more stuff in all these different related fields

44:12

. I think you

44:14

guys are going to love the stuff that we're planning in the

44:16

future . The community , as Mike mentioned , is

44:18

going to be absolutely huge for connecting us all

44:20

, so we're not so isolated . We can

44:22

connect and and basically build

44:24

off each other's genius and our

44:26

uh our strengths together

44:29

are going to make us a much stronger force

44:31

than uh being separated

44:33

and alone . I love it .

44:35

Yeah , all right , as Andrew said , if you vibe

44:37

subscribe . If you vibe subscribe

44:39

, see you all soon .

44:41

Bye .