On Parenting and Leadership

         I recently finished reading this book:


It really got me thinking about a lot of things. For instance, how might Life be seen as a "Battlefield", and what exactly is it we are all fighting over? How might the world be different, if parents saw themselves as Leaders of their children, and oriented their family life around a clear Mission Statement? The book contends that "There are no bad teams, only bad leaders." If this is true, could it also be true that "There are no bad kids, only bad parents"?

As a consequence of these considerations and more, I have embarked on a journey to incorporate the principles discussed in Extreme Ownership... into a book that is specifically oriented towards parenting. This may mean the actual parenting of children, or, if someone doesn't have children of their own, it may be a kind of refresher for parenting or re-parenting themselves. I hope to include information from two other Udemy courses I've taken, with instructor Gregory Caremans, "Neuroscience for Parents: How to Raise Amazing Kids", and "The Science of Leadership". Both of these courses draw on the application of the Neurocognitive Behavioral Approach or NBA, originally established in France as l'approache Neurocognitive et Comportementale by Dr. Jacques Fradin. You can get a very brief summary of NBA principles from the free course "Meet Your Brain: A Short Introduction to Neuroscience".

Now people who already know me may be wondering: "Lori...You don't have children of your own. What makes you think you can write a book about parenting?"

Truth is...I've been thinking the same thing for many, many years now. But something in Extreme Ownership... changed my perspective on all of that, in part because the authors discuss that very feature of being a good leader; i.e. having a broader perspective. They write:

 As a leader, if you are down in the weeds planning the details with your guys, you will have the same perspective as them, which adds little value. But if you let them plan the details, it allows them to own their piece of the plan. And it allows you to stand back and see everything with a different perspective, which adds tremendous value. You can see the plan from a greater distance, a higher altitude, and you will see more. As a result, you will catch mistakes and discover aspects of the plan that need to be tightened up, which enables you to look like a tactical genius, just because you have a broader view. (Page 214)

I've always sensed that I had the life experience, the education, and the capacity for this "broader view" even without having had children of my own.  Furthermore, I am very cognizant of what I experienced as a child growing up with my mother, father, and siblings, and how those experiences shaped my life for better and worse. I know the challenges I have had to face that were made that much more difficult by not having had more functional and effective parenting. Honestly, I feel I've been playing "catch-up" all of my life because the first 20+ years did not really count for much, especially with respect to training and disciplining my pre-frontal brain during that critical period from infancy to 24 years of age.

And that last part is why parenting is So Critical in every person's life. It is difficult if not impossible to reach our full potential as human beings, with a capacity for emotional self-regulation, perspective taking (empathy), creative problem solving, etc., all results of mature pre-frontal brain functioning, without the adults around us guiding our pre-frontal brains through the developmental process. It Will Not Get There On Its Own!

While I've been more on my own, other people have been "in the trenches," struggling to raise their children. I suspect many of them have never read a book on parenting or childhood development because they just didn't have time to while working and raising their kids, and dealing with all of the other distractions that are part of modern life. I suspect few have had or thought to take the time to step back and try to get a broader perspective.

In contrast, my whole life I've felt more like I was on the outside looking in. I did not get married early and have children. As a consequence, I've had more time to read, to go to college, to continue reading, and taking on-line courses, etc., much of which has been focused on childhood development, leadership, and neuroscience. And now I see where all of that can be focused to help "the troops" by providing a broader perspective that might help motivate and guide them to carry out their "mission" as parents more responsibly and effectively.

Now all I have to do to "lead" that effort is to put together a "plan," rally my "teammates" and take what discipline I have managed to acquire post 24 years of age, and follow-through. It's exciting and daunting at the same time, but I feel better now about my "resource base" than I have in a long, long time.

So now, in the words of Jocko Willink and Leif Babin, I simply have to "Get After It!"

* * * * *

Update: July 2017 - Stayed motivated for a while on this subject and then redirected. Got off on a bit of a tangent considering "God" as a leader, trying to get some feedback from religious leaders I know on "Commander's Intent" and no one got back to me on that with any kind of real answers! (Which is something to think about in and of itself!) Anyway, still an option for future writing. Will add, however, Jocko Willink has a new book out now The Way of the Warrior Kid: From Wimpy to Warrior the Navy SEAL Way which I have read and thoroughly enjoyed. I wish that I had had an "Uncle Jake" in my life when I was growing up. I might have more discipline around my writing now if I had! Will just have to continue to "muddle through" as best I can! Either way, in effect, it is a kind of "parenting" book, and I hope more adults read it, especially if they still need to do a little better parenting of their "inner child"...as well as their own children.

What's In Your Back-pack?

Once upon a time a little girl was born. On that day her mother gave her an invisible back-pack very similar to the one her mother was carrying. The mother reached into her own back-pack and pulled out two large invisible stones, one was named "My Self-worth" and the other was named "My Life Purpose". She put these two stones in the little baby girl's back-pack.

Now the little girl may have struggled at first to carry those stones for her mother, but since they had been there from the day she was born she really never knew what life would have been like without them. It was almost like a test: once her mother realized she could carry those stones, she continued to add more as the years went by. Some of those stones were given to her mother by other people and society, like "Do Well In School", and "Be a Good Christian", but then there were some unusual ones that were fairly unique, like a Really Big Stone called "Be a Prophet (with me) and Help 'Save the World'"!

Eventually her mother's stones included, "My Fear that the Mafia and Your Dad are Out to Kill Us (and stop us from carrying out our 'Mission from God')", and "My Need to 'Protect' You by Not Letting You Have any Kind of Close Interpersonal Relationships with Anyone But Me", and later "My Physical Health and Well-Being", "My Happiness", and "Food, Clothing, and Shelter Needs for My Life (as well as your own)". It's really amazing that the little girl did not crumble under the weight of all of those stones!

However, after the little girl had grown into a young woman and started going to college, still looking after but not actually living with her mother anymore, she came in contact with a "mentor" instructor who took the time to really listen to her, and (at least indirectly) notice that she was carrying this really heavy back-pack full of her mother's stones. This person suggested that she see a school counselor as he would help her take a closer look at all that she was carrying and decide what really belonged to her and what did not.

Eventually, under the counselor's direction, this young woman confronted her mother and showed her the stones and said, "These belong to you, not me, or any of the other people you've blamed for the problems in your life." A few weeks later, the mother had a "break-down", and was found by the police wandering around outside her house. Since the mother had spoken about trying to kill herself, and had at least managed to bruise the back of her neck really badly, the police and other "authorities" were able to commit her to a mental hospital shortly thereafter.

However, it was that long-night in the emergency room with her mother when this young woman was finally able to empty out many of the stones from her back-pack, especially "Be a Good Christian", "Be a Prophet and Save the World", and "My Fear that the Mafia and Your Dad are Out to Kill Us". She also set aside the ones named "My Self-Worth", "My Happiness", and "My Life Purpose" that had all come from her mother.

Nevertheless, she kept the one for "Food, Clothing, and Shelter (for herself)" as well as "Do Well in School" and "Keep Up with Your Minimum Credit Card Payments". She had also added another since being on her own in college called, "Be Attractive and Sexually Available to Men in Order to Get them to Like you and Care About You." And finally, she inadvertently replaced the "Be a Prophet and Save the World" stone with another very large stone called: "With Little to No Understanding or Support from Anyone Else, Especially Your Other Family Members, Continue to BE STRONG and Just Learn to GET OVER all of the Emotional Trauma and Lack of Functional Parenting of Your Childhood, ON YOUR OWN, Even If It Takes You the Rest of Your Life, and Maybe Somewhere Down the Road You can Write a Book about It".

Now, needless to say, that was still a Really Heavy Load for this young woman to carry, and interestingly enough, her back frequently hurt from it - for real! And she stumbled around a lot, and when she did try to connect with potential friends or partners, this huge load on her back always got in the way (especially when it bumped into the heavy loads those people were often carrying as well).

The problem for everyone was that these back-packs and their heavy stones were INVISIBLE! And how can you really deal with all these things when they're INVISIBLE!?

* * * *

Many, many years later, as this now much more mature woman was continuing to try to "GET OVER" the emotional and practical challenges of her early life; after she had piled-on and then dropped other various expectations that she had for herself, her relationships, and her life purpose; after she had stumbled around and ALMOST fallen, over and over again; after she had learned unconsciously that one of the few ways to not Fall Down was just too KEEP MOVING - she had a Break Through!! ... While continuing her education studying neuroscience, her instructor offered up an image and a concept that she had never considered before: Demands and Expectations vs. Means and Resources...!

The instructor explained that when "Demands and Expectations" far outweigh "Means and Resources" (for meeting those "Demands and Expectations") this can cause a great deal of psychological stress. (Duh!) Furthermore, although it is possible to build a larger "resource base" to support meeting "Demands and Expectations", it is actually a lot easier just to reduce expectations first! The instructor illustrated these ideas with two pyramid-like structures that looked something like this:

Upon seeing these images, it was as if a bright light were turned on in her head. This now much more mature woman finally realized that when "Means and Resources" do not match or exceed "Demands and Expectations" instability is inevitable! And it was in this simple illustration that she was finally able to SEE the biggest problem of her own life (and possibly that of many, many others as well)! Her "invisible back-pack" was Way Too Full of "Demands and Expectations" compared with the "Means and Resources" she had ever had available to her or managed to gather together for herself to help her "carry the load". (In fact, she had never even really thought practically about "Means and Resources", maybe in part because she had had so few of them most of her life.) And furthermore, she realized she was now the single person Most Responsible for keeping that back-pack overfilled with Her Own Expectations of Herself and, therefore, distancing the very people who could help her because they would feel threatened by her self-created instability!

Being a fairly intelligent woman, she knew what she had to do, and so she went right to work Emptying That "Back-pack"!! She also took some time to "inventory" her "resource base". As a consequence, she made much more conscious decisions about what stones she could keep - what expectations she actually could fulfill for herself, and her present life circumstances, and with the people she cared about.

(Now here's the cool thing: Since this woman had been struggling to carry that Really Heavy Load all of her life, her legs and back were actually still pretty strong. And when she shouldered the now Much Lighter Back-pack it was really no great surprise that it was Much Easier for her to carry!)

Furthermore, she learned how to see and talk to her friends better about the loads that they were carrying, and to help them do an inventory of their own "resource base" for carrying those loads. And finally, she started focusing more and more on building up her own resources so that, when the time is right, she can get back to those Really Great Things that she wants to accomplish with her life.

With renewed gratitude for all of the help and support she did actually receive through the course of her life, and especially for the instructor who created the neuroscience course she was taking that allowed her to make this critical discovery, and with the increased understanding of how it was Her responsibility not to overburden herself in the future, this woman now lives her life more happily, freely, stably, and productively, than she ever has before!

* * * *

There's a credit card company out there that asks in its commercials: "What's in Your wallet?" Maybe, where your overall well-being and "life balance" is concerned, the far more important question to ask is, "What's in Your Back-Pack?" And "Can you really afford to be carrying all of Your 'stones'?"