The Relational Parenting Podcast

Jennie (00:02.459)
In the corner, looks good, cool. All right, welcome back everybody to the Relational Parenting Podcast. We are here this week with Alex Smith. Alex, remind me of your company's name.

Alex Smith (00:18.342)
Medical Money Multiplier.

Jennie (00:20.315)
medical money multiplier and I'm sorry my sound is weird are you guys hearing that

Alex Smith (00:28.406)
You sound fine to me.

Papa Rick (00:28.686)
You're just, yeah, you found good. You're adjusting to the, uh, starting of recording. She always goes fuzzy on me when she hits her cord.

Jennie (00:37.875)
Well, this is the first time my mic feedback was choppy. Sounds good now. OK. See, and I can just cut all of that out. It's great. So yeah, so welcome to the show, Alex. We're so excited to have you. You are not only an entrepreneur, but you're also a father. Yes? Yes. And that's kind of how we found each other.

Papa Rick (00:43.814)
Hmm.

Alex Smith (00:59.71)
Yes, exactly. Yep.

Jennie (01:08.015)
I have a parenting podcast and you're a parent and you are not just a parent, but you're passionate about parenting, about being a good parent. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I'm just really excited for you to be sharing your time with us, to be sharing your journey with us because I think what you have here, your story is extremely prevalent to most men of our generation. I think it's a fairly common thread.

Alex Smith (01:14.506)
Yes. Yeah.

Jennie (01:37.167)
woven into the fabric of our generation. And so I'm just really excited for our audience to be able to hear that story and perhaps not feel quite so alone with what they're struggling with and also get some inspiration for being an awesome parent. So yeah.

Alex Smith (01:55.742)
Yeah, I'm really excited to be here. I appreciate you having me on.

Papa Rick (01:59.246)
You bet. And it helps, it helps people too, to see that, uh, there are struggles, you know, that it's not all just hunky dory and advice. It's like, Hey, we're, we're overcoming things in our generational things in our pasts and everybody's doing it and that's okay. And you know, maybe, maybe find out how somebody else got past an issue or something is, uh, the way I like to, the way I like to see that.

Jennie (02:29.799)
So Alex, what gave you this drive and this passion for excelling at fatherhood?

Papa Rick (02:38.898)
Thank you.

Alex Smith (02:39.13)
Uh, well, I wouldn't say excelling, um, maybe some days. Yeah. As a goal. Okay. Fair enough. Um, yeah, I think the, I think the drive just comes from, so I can't remember when it started and I want to say it was maybe like fifth or sixth grade is when. You know, I started noticing like every, like every Friday and Saturday night, pretty routinely, like there would be a, like a crumbled up paper bag with a six pack of.

Jennie (02:42.887)
As a goal. As a goal, right? Yeah. Hehehehe.

Alex Smith (03:08.194)
Foster's beer in it and like I didn't drink it. My dad was. So I thought like, okay, well that's kind of weird that it's happening so often. Something must not be quite right. Well then like most of Saturday and then like most of Sunday, my mom would get, you know, intentionally get my mom or me and my sister out of the house because dad was hungover and cranky. He wouldn't like, he didn't like physically abuse us or anything. It was all like.

Papa Rick (03:33.282)
Oh.

Alex Smith (03:37.522)
verbal and emotional. But so sure. Yeah, 100%. So she would, you know, intentionally get us out of the house and we would go do things, you know, just to kind of get out of his way, so to speak. And, you know, I just remember, like knowing, I didn't know quite know like what was going on because like I was so young and I didn't like really grasp it. But I knew intuitively like something wasn't quite right.

Papa Rick (03:40.355)
just play.

Jennie (03:40.911)
which we know is just as detrimental.

Papa Rick (03:43.119)
Yeah, yeah.

Alex Smith (04:06.77)
And just based on, you know, like how he would treat us and my mom and my sister, like I just knew from a really young age that I wasn't gonna, if I ever got to become a dad, like I wasn't going to be the case with me and like I intentionally didn't drink until I turned 21. I still don't really like drinking all that much. I just think it's kind of overrated. So like I'll maybe have like maybe a beer like once a month or just like socially. And I'll just limit it to like just one, like even from.

Jennie (04:31.525)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (04:36.098)
You know, like my childhood. So I think it just, and I remember, you know, there was a particularly bad, like Saturday morning or Sunday morning. My mom told me like, Hey, like you have to, like she said, like you have to be the one to break this cycle. And like, I knew that was something I wanted to do before then. So, or that was something like I was going to like work my ass off, like just to do. Um, cause my dad struggled with that. His mom struggled with that as well. I don't know how far back it goes.

Papa Rick (04:53.054)
Wow.

Alex Smith (05:06.21)
But even just with one generation, that's far enough. So I would say it just comes from that. Like me just knowing things just have to be done differently if, you know, yeah, yeah.

Papa Rick (05:20.686)
And so your mom, yeah.

Jennie (05:20.743)
Well, and that personal experience, that personal experience of like, I know that I don't want to be that. I don't want to do that.

Alex Smith (05:27.198)
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Papa Rick (05:28.11)
Yeah, yeah. And your mom kind of helped give that to you too. It's like, don't, you know, validated that you, that's not good. That's not right. You don't want to do that. And made it made you responsible for that kind of, you know, or let you know you ought to be responsible for that. That, you know, nobody can do it for you and all that. That's, wow, that's a huge gift.

Alex Smith (05:32.255)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (05:38.676)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (05:42.879)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (05:49.118)
Yeah, yeah. And our, yeah, and Jenny, the first time we talked, I remember you mentioning that, you know, that must have been a lot of pressure to put on you. I like, I never really, like, some days I think that, like I never really looked at it that way, because it was something that I knew needed to happen and I wanted to do anyway before that, you know? And you know, some days it is a lot of pressure, like breaking at least two.

Papa Rick (06:00.431)
Yeah.

Jennie (06:08.81)
Yeah, yeah.

Alex Smith (06:17.406)
generations of stuff that you don't even know quite the depth or the extent of. Like it's some days it's a lot. You just want to lay on the couch and doom scroll on social media all night. So there are days like that, but yeah, I would say that's where it just comes from that.

Jennie (06:29.541)
Right?

Papa Rick (06:32.486)
Doom scroll.

Jennie (06:39.473)
Well.

Papa Rick (06:39.758)
It's funny how we're wired that it happened, you know, you got the admonition from your mom before it had happened to you. It wasn't like you were 35 and somebody was pulling you over and saying, hey, you gotta change. It was more like a warning, like a horror movie, don't open that door, you know? And well, why not? Well, cause dad went in that door. Okay, well, you know, golly, I'm kind of curious about the door, but.

Alex Smith (06:48.11)
Mm hmm. Yeah.

Alex Smith (06:58.206)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (07:08.118)
Okay, mom, I'm not gonna go, I won't open the door. It's a weird twist of psychology, very interesting. Huh.

Alex Smith (07:11.853)
Yeah

Jennie (07:18.575)
I think there's also kids who wouldn't have seen it for themselves, you know, because there's, I've heard similar stories of kids who like didn't realize that anything was wrong. They just thought that that's, they didn't know anything else. So like, that's just what dad or like everyone in their neighborhoods dad drank, you know? And so it was just

Alex Smith (07:35.09)
Yeah. That's just how it was. Yeah.

Papa Rick (07:37.028)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (07:43.251)
Yeah.

Jennie (07:45.671)
culturally and socially accepted and it's like you talk to your buddies your friends at school and they're like Yeah, my dad yelled at me all weekend like doesn't yours and it's just very it's normalized and that's just the way that it is and so I think that it's like kudos to your mom for For saying that to you and encouraging you to take a different direction But I think you also just intrinsically who you are your personality

Alex Smith (07:53.602)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (07:59.756)
Yeah.

Jennie (08:14.371)
et cetera, you could feel and you knew and you were just like, I don't want this for my life.

Alex Smith (08:19.498)
Yeah. I will say the other thing too, I didn't realize until like fairly recently actually that my mom was very intentional and never let me know that she was like she intentionally put me in situations where I could see what it was like to be a good dad, like through teachers at school, playing like doing football. I don't maybe she didn't do an intentional I don't know. I mean, it, it seems, it seems like it was. I mean, I can't

Jennie (08:36.827)
Hmm.

Papa Rick (08:39.464)
Wow.

Alex Smith (08:49.202)
I can't think of any other way it would have gone. So like I had an idea of what it could be instead of just taking it for, hey, maybe this is just how everybody's house is. So yeah, I did get a glimpse of how it could be.

Papa Rick (08:53.33)
Well, fair. Yeah.

Jennie (08:58.84)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (09:03.247)
Wow.

Papa Rick (09:11.814)
Good for both of you, you know, to, hey, you know, if you're meant for your mom to think of that and for you to pick up on it and make it part of you.

Alex Smith (09:17.13)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (09:21.226)
Yeah, 100%.

Papa Rick (09:22.958)
That's not a real common story.

Jennie (09:26.663)
I love that though, being able to, being strong enough to, to do that, to think like, and accept like my husband isn't necessarily the role model I want my kids modeling after and being like, all right, let's get my kid into this sport with this coach or, you know, get him to spend time with his uncle who's an amazing father or, you know, whatever access people have.

Papa Rick (09:27.878)
Very cool, yeah.

Alex Smith (09:46.866)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (09:52.05)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Jennie (09:56.079)
I'm glad that she was able, cause I know that there are also families that wouldn't have a support system or access to people who were a different example of how to live their lives. So I'm glad that she had that for you guys. So tell me, what were some of the things that you entered fatherhood like, you know,

Alex Smith (10:02.989)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (10:09.226)
Yeah. 100%.

Jennie (10:24.671)
your goals as you entered fatherhood, you know, when you knew you were going to have a kid, what were some of the key pieces for you that you were like, either the things that you were like, I'll never do this, I'll never do that, or I want to do this, I want to implement that. What were some of those things for you?

Alex Smith (10:29.343)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (10:43.774)
Yeah, I'm trying to remember. I w it was a very long list of. Of things that I won't do, which is a good place to start, but it's not, you know, it's never the full picture. So like, I will not.

Jennie (10:51.663)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (10:59.122)
I will not raise my voice to communicate. I will not, you know, I will do my best to not sedate whenever I get exhausted or emotionally fatigued. And by sedate, I mean like, you know, scrolling on social media, just being on, playing video games, whatever that looks like for whoever's listening. Yeah. You know, it was a lot of things like that. And then...

Papa Rick (11:03.431)
Hmm

Papa Rick (11:19.398)
Zone out or escape, yeah.

Alex Smith (11:28.554)
So my wife was in residency when we had our daughter and in residency, at least for her program, like they didn't get, like they didn't get maternity paid maternity leave. So there was a period of, so after like four weeks, like she was back at it. My wife was back at it, not because she wanted to, just because that's, you know, how it had to be. And then, so there's a period of two weeks where our daughter's four weeks old. She can't start daycare until she's six weeks. So it was literally just me and her for two weeks.

Papa Rick (11:40.594)
Wow.

Alex Smith (11:58.07)
And she was like an infant and, you know, talk about the, you know, most men don't get the opportunity to, you know, spend much time with any, with their children in the infancy stage, cause it's all about mom, cause mom has all the things that the baby needs. So, so for me, like you talk about, you know, an opportunity to get thrown in, thrown in the crucible, like, Hey, like this is it. Good luck. Like figure it out. You guys are.

Papa Rick (12:14.162)
100% primary care, yeah.

Papa Rick (12:22.822)
Yeah.

Jennie (12:26.139)
sink or swim, yeah.

Alex Smith (12:27.486)
Yeah, because like our is like our mother in law, like our closest relative was our mother in law, she lives like 20 minutes away from us now. But we lived in Chattanooga at the time, she was like two and a half hours away. So, you know, it's like there's, you know, like there's literally nobody coming to save you figure it out. So and I remember, like, she remember one night, my daughter were just not she was just not going to sleep.

Papa Rick (12:28.177)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (12:55.062)
like no matter what I did. And it was just me, because my wife was working overnight. So like I, it came to the point where I finally got in her sleep, I put her in the bassinet, just so I could like watch basketball or something, finally just like take a break, you know? So basketball starts going and then, you know, two minutes later, she starts crying. So I pick her up, I get her back to sleep and then I just hold her there and then she starts crying again. And I had just like had enough. And like I had a pacifier in this hand.

And then I had my daughter in this arm and I just threw my pacifier, her pacifier across the room. It's like, I just had enough. And, you know, I just had this thought of, you know, like, well, this is, I, I don't know where it came from. I just had this thought of like, you know, what are you doing? Like, this is how, this is how you're, this is how dad handled things just by getting upset and hoping they would fix themselves. And then it started, you know,

Papa Rick (13:29.496)
Hahaha!

Alex Smith (13:51.502)
playing how that scenario could have gone differently in my head is like, you know, what if I threw this thing and I dropped her because I was, you know, so pissed off. Um, so that was when I started formulating a list of, you know, things that, cause I had the long list of things that I didn't want to do, but I didn't have a list of like who, like, how do I want to communicate? Who do I want to be in this whole journey? It was never like, it was always about what I didn't want to do instead of, well, what do you want to do?

Jennie (13:56.613)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (14:21.198)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (14:21.422)
So I didn't have that, you know, like that framework or, you know, that picture to strive towards of who I did want to be. So that was when I started mapping all those things out. Like I, I remember, I forget what book I was reading, but it suggested like, you know, write your own eulogy for things that people would want, you would want people to say about you, you know, when something does happen to you. So I wrote all that out. Um, and that was really like the beginning of.

Jennie (14:21.68)
Yeah.

Jennie (14:42.119)
Hmm.

Alex Smith (14:50.122)
I wouldn't say crystal clear, but that was like the beginning of having like a really clear vision of like, who am I striving to be in this infinite game of parenting. Right. Yeah.

Papa Rick (15:01.542)
having a plan, having a path. You know, your list of don'ts can be infinite. I mean, you're always stubbing your toe on those, having a list of principles to follow. That can be a manageable list. And nice.

Alex Smith (15:09.953)
Right.

Yeah.

Alex Smith (15:17.907)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (15:21.142)
Like the list of don'ts, especially coming from, you know, a situation where, you know, like you have an alcoholic parent or like a drug addicted parent, like the bar, not that there's anything wrong with having a list of non-negotiables in terms of things that you won't do, but that bar is so low. Like all you have to do to be better than the previous generation is like, don't drink. Like that's fairly easy to do, especially if that's not, especially if that's not,

Jennie (15:39.192)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (15:39.471)
Well, yeah.

Jennie (15:47.292)
Right.

Alex Smith (15:50.518)
like a coping mechanism that you have already. So that was when I realized like, hey, you also need to have this list of things that you do want, because the list of don'ts or won'ts is only part of the picture.

Jennie (15:52.984)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (16:03.509)
Excuse me.

Yes.

Jennie (16:06.395)
Well, and from, you know, I've done a lot of thought work, spiritual work, things like that. And in every, you know, every course or anything that I've ever taken, one of the key elements is where your energy, let's see, where your focus goes, energy flows. So if all you're focusing on is what you don't want.

Alex Smith (16:30.305)
Yeah.

Jennie (16:35.099)
Well, guess what's gonna keep happening? I can say all day, this is actually a concept that I teach for handling children for redirection. If they're about to throw something, you don't say, don't throw that. You say, please put that down. You put it into the positive framework of what you actually want to happen. Because then, hey dad, when you do that, can you push your mute button? That's okay.

Alex Smith (16:36.994)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (16:48.715)
Mm-hmm.

That's good. I need to write that down.

Alex Smith (16:56.065)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (17:01.202)
I'm sorry.

Jennie (17:04.247)
I forget it's there all the time too. Um, um, but yeah, so we know, so we know that, that having a list of don'ts is super important. And I, I resonate with that a lot because in my childhood, I remember, um, I was very observant and in tune as well. And I would, I would sit there and watch things happen in my home and be like, I don't want that. I don't want that. I'm not going to do that. You know?

Alex Smith (17:30.238)
Yeah.

Jennie (17:33.367)
And so I remember growing up my whole childhood experience, there were wonderful things. There were wonderful things in my childhood, all of the things, but I remember sitting there going, I don't want that, I don't want that, I don't want that. And shaping my life around that. And it wasn't until I was about 25 when my therapist said to me, she goes, what do you want? I was like, oh.

I don't know. And like that, that's a reframe. Like, so then I had something to strive for instead of like just avoiding all these like terrible things in life. Yeah.

Alex Smith (18:02.422)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (18:07.743)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (18:12.994)
Right. Yeah.

Papa Rick (18:14.702)
Yeah, I like the story of your mom, Alex, being intentional about putting you in the path of good examples of good fathering, good, good parenting. That happened to at least a couple of my kids where they ended up, you know, Jenny's mom and I didn't do that much at that time. We weren't that aware. But.

Alex Smith (18:31.17)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (18:45.446)
Um, they'd run into families later on that they gravitated to, right. As teens and, uh, and saw that. And I was really grateful for that. I'm, um, how'd your mom learn that? Learn to do that. Did she come from a particularly emotionally intelligent family or. You know, that's a, that's a, that's a very smooth move on her part.

Jennie (18:50.747)
We did. Through our friends. Yeah.

Alex Smith (18:51.703)
So.

Alex Smith (19:12.726)
Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I know that there, she's also from a divorce family as her dad had an affair and then he started a family with, um, you know, the lady he had an affair with and so I don't, maybe that was a contributor. I don't really know. I've never thought about that.

Papa Rick (19:37.202)
but she knew it by the time she'd figured it out by the time you got to that point.

Alex Smith (19:42.334)
Yeah, she either she either knew it or it was, I guess, like the best accident ever. I don't know.

Jennie (19:49.687)
or kicked in when she became a mom.

Papa Rick (19:50.638)
Yeah, even if it wasn't, yeah. Yeah. But she didn't just yak at you. She, she let you see how these systems, how this, how this other ways it can work. And that's really effective. Uh, as a parent is let people figure it, let kids figure things out for themselves and just put them where they can see how it works and no amount of, my mother was kind of a yakker, you know, she'd talk at you and, uh,

Alex Smith (19:53.086)
Yeah, maybe.

Alex Smith (20:01.278)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (20:09.291)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (20:13.698)
Yeah.

Jennie (20:15.728)
Now again.

Alex Smith (20:17.439)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (20:19.962)
that, you know, especially at teenage, you know, that's not, it's not as effective. But if you can get them in front of a healthy system, that that'll stick. They'll pick up on that. And you like you did. That's yeah. Like to like to like to get to know your mom and see where she see where she learned all this stuff, you know, this parenting thing is, is you never know what you're going to run into and figuring it out on the fly. That's the game baby is, you know, have, have good.

Alex Smith (20:27.198)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (20:43.486)
No, absolutely not. Yeah.

Papa Rick (20:48.806)
good friends and good sources of information and figure out how to talk to your kids, how to pass things on to your kids. Nice.

Alex Smith (20:56.542)
Yeah. 100%. Yeah. And now as I get, I say later in life, I'm only 35. So I'm still relatively young, but I've also on my, like on my behalf, on my choice, like I've also intentionally sought out mentors that have, you know, not only the business acumen that I want to have, but they also are. Family is also a huge component of that and they're not willing to sacrifice.

Papa Rick (21:22.887)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (21:25.394)
You know, their familial success at the altar of their business. Um, yeah, there's not, there's not many. Yeah. So I've intentionally, yeah, I've intentionally sought people out like that, um, you know, as I get older and now the work has shifted to, um, you know, still refining the list of.

Papa Rick (21:29.67)
Boy, that must be hard to find these days. That's, that's tough to split your time. Yeah. Fine. Finding good role models.

Alex Smith (21:51.99)
you know, things I do want, but also refining the list of in terms of, like, who, what do I want to look like? Who? How do I want to talk to? How do I want to talk to my wife? How do I want to talk to my daughter? How do I want to talk to any other kids that we have? You know, what kind of car do I want to take them to school in? Like all of these different things like focusing on like the identity piece. Because when you like if you focus on like if you use your identity as the North Star,

Papa Rick (22:05.042)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (22:21.078)
Then like your brain and your body will figure out the rest. Like it just needs, like, it's like a homing missile. Like it just needs a target to, yeah, it just needs a target and then it'll figure it out. But, you know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of mental work that goes into that. Also, like it doesn't just happen overnight, but that's the work that's being done now.

Papa Rick (22:28.178)
target. Yeah.

Yeah.

Papa Rick (22:42.738)
That'd be a good title for a book. Do you need a target? You know, to get everybody thinking about where, okay, where are you headed? You know, another way to say intentionality and all that.

Jennie (22:43.163)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (22:46.338)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (22:53.675)
Yeah.

Jennie (22:54.947)
Well, doing the work, that's a phrase. I'm glad that you said it that way, because that's something that I think a lot of people miss that part of it sometimes, is that you can set goals, you can have intentions, you can be intentional. But if you think it's going to be easy or fun, you're gonna fail.

Alex Smith (23:07.265)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (23:22.27)
not. Yeah.

Jennie (23:22.943)
really fast. And even if you don't think it's gonna be easier, fun, you're gonna fail. But knowing, expecting the failure and being capable of overcoming it and trying again, because this is literally the most important thing in the world is how you raise your kids and how they turn out and how they show up in the world and how that world evolves. And so this is...

Alex Smith (23:27.863)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (23:36.331)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (23:40.94)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (23:48.289)
Yeah.

Jennie (23:50.923)
you know, having a healthy marriage and setting a good example for your children and having a healthy relationship with your children will change the world. And so it is the work worth doing. And it's a, it's a phrase that both my husband and I put in our vows. Um, and our friends always, you know, tease us or laugh at us, um, because, and, and they're like, Oh yeah, do the work, do the work. You know, it's not easy. It's not going to be at rainbows and sunshine all the time. Um,

Alex Smith (24:06.625)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (24:16.279)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (24:19.828)
Yeah.

Jennie (24:20.687)
But it is, it's a foundational principle between us and I think between most healthy couples is this understanding of like, sometimes this is gonna suck, sometimes I'm gonna hate you. And if you know that going into it, then you don't just give up when it gets hard.

Alex Smith (24:31.968)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (24:40.618)
Yeah. There's a, I forget where I heard it. No, I know where I heard it. I heard it for the first time, like around when I was getting into entrepreneurship. So like right when COVID happened, which is obviously the best time to open up a business ever. It was from a mentor. And it was, I think my daughter was probably around six months from being born at that time. And

Papa Rick (24:56.964)
Absolutely.

Alex Smith (25:09.066)
You know, the question was, and for anybody that is listening and this resonates with so far, and you find yourself in a similar situation to where I was, but you know, you'd something needs to change. Like just ask yourself, like, who am I choosing to be in this moment? Like that's a huge, like a huge question that you can ask yourself whenever you find yourself, like, just getting frustrated and you just like immediately snap out of whatever mood you're in and you can make the choice to.

be different, do something else. Yeah, exactly, yeah. Yeah.

Papa Rick (25:41.21)
respond rather than react. I call that. Yeah. And that's such, that takes so much, I don't know, old word, self-awareness, you know, to be able to have that presence of mind to make that decision. That takes some practice. Yes, exactly.

Jennie (25:59.011)
Takes practice. Yeah.

Alex Smith (26:00.65)
It does. Yeah. It doesn't happen. Anybody else that this resonates with, this doesn't happen overnight. This is a continual, this is a continual infinite practice.

Papa Rick (26:06.35)
Yeah, you got to practice it like everything else.

Papa Rick (26:13.17)
Is it accompanied by a deep breath sometimes? That count to three thing, you know? Okay, how are we going to react to this crying baby?

Alex Smith (26:17.769)
Yes. Yeah, absolutely.

It's accompanied with a deep breath, a long blink, aka resting eyes. And then, yeah, yeah. And then doing something different.

Papa Rick (26:27.438)
Long blink. Okay, okay.

Jennie (26:27.716)
Right?

Yeah.

Jennie (26:35.651)
What are, Alex, when we chatted on the phone, you said, and I quoted you on this because I liked it so much. You said two things. You said, if you're a good parent, parenting is hard. And then you said, it pushes you to the absolute limit and brings out who you actually are versus who you say you are. And I'm curious if you're willing to share

Papa Rick (26:36.021)
Yeah, mastering our lizard brains.

Jennie (27:06.519)
If there's one or two things that you, that are maybe not your favorite things about yourself that you've discovered since becoming a father, and maybe there are things that you've now overcome or that you're still working on.

Papa Rick (27:18.765)
Oh.

Papa Rick (27:23.25)
hard-hitting journalism.

Alex Smith (27:25.106)
Yeah. So one or two things that I don't like about what, sorry, what was the question again?

Jennie (27:34.212)
that have been revealed to you through fatherhood about yourself, that you've had to kind of admit to yourself like, oh, I own this flaw.

Alex Smith (27:37.729)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (27:43.422)
Yeah. I don't know where this comes from, but I always had a hard time admitting if or when I was wrong. So my daughter's three now. So she's at the age where, you know, she's starting to have opinions, which is great. But there's also, there's also re really annoying sometimes. And, you know, there's, you know, like, like the other day.

Papa Rick (27:54.439)
Hmm.

Jennie (28:00.903)
Yep.

Papa Rick (28:05.301)
Yeah.

Hahaha

Alex Smith (28:10.494)
My daughter was in here, here being the office, and she saw like a pack of her fruit snacks that I ate in the trash can. And she goes, and she goes, daddy, what's this? I said, oh, they're fruit snacks. And she goes, you're not supposed to eat in here. Like just like that. And I was like,

Papa Rick (28:17.564)
Oh

Papa Rick (28:25.339)
Oh, it was a but it wasn't you it was a violation of the rules Okay

Alex Smith (28:29.298)
Yeah, I was like, okay, you're right. I'm sorry. Like, you know, making the, you know, making the choice to admit, yeah, you're right to a three year old, like I'm 10 times your age, but you're a hundred percent right. And I hate that you're right, but you know, you're right. I tell you not to eat places all the time. And then here I am eating somewhere where I shouldn't be. So you're right. I don't have anything else to say other than you're right. You know? Um,

Papa Rick (28:32.658)
Checking on you. Yeah. Oh.

Papa Rick (28:44.19)
Oh, that's so great. Yeah.

Papa Rick (28:57.318)
Well done, well done.

Alex Smith (29:00.222)
And not only that, you know, that's kind of a funnier story, but also, you know, being able to admit, cause my, like my sister and I don't even to this day, we still don't really get along. Like we're just very different people. So, you know, growing up, there was never from either of us in admission of like. When one of us was wrong. So, you know, even to, you know, be able to have, and my wife is like,

Jennie (29:21.115)
Mm.

Papa Rick (29:21.542)
Hmm.

Alex Smith (29:27.202)
I love her, but she's very stubborn and very strong willed and she's an ER physician. So she needs to be. But you know, that's sometimes as to my detriment. So even like with her, like I even find myself, you know, shuddering a bit, like, you know what, you're right. I'm sorry. Or, you know, whatever comes after that, but being able to say like, you're right. So that's definitely one. Um, and then the other thing, I think this is pretty universal for most parents is like, I'm not as patient. I'm not near as patient as I thought I was.

Jennie (29:56.303)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (29:56.874)
Um, yeah. Um, and I find myself, it depends on the day, but I find myself and three-year-olds are going to three-year-old like they're going to take forever to do anything. But like, I find myself like getting most of the time, like unnecessarily worked up about how slow she's going and not thinking of, you know, like probably like

Papa Rick (29:57.711)
parenting will teach you that.

Alex Smith (30:22.878)
Maybe even as soon as like six more years, like she's going to have her own friends and she's going to want to, you know, do her own thing at some point. So, you know, always trying to remind myself like, Hey, savor these moments. Like if you're a few minutes late for things, it's and I'm like, I'm a very on time person. So for me, it's difficult to, it's difficult for me to show up late anywhere. Even if it's just like a casual. Like I'm one of our.

Jennie (30:31.035)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (30:51.946)
One of our neighbors is a good friend of mine, even if it's like meeting him for like a beer or something. Like if he says, hey, let's meet at like 6.30, like I'm there at 6.30, even if like that's not officially the time that we need to be there. So, you know, even if it's a few minutes late, like just savor these moments I do get, cause number two is gonna come along pretty soon as far as kid number two, number three might come along at some point it's just gonna be like.

even more chaotic than it is now. So like, you know, just another thing I need to figure out before number two and number three come along.

Papa Rick (31:23.953)
Yes.

Papa Rick (31:32.614)
That's another thing that just takes more practice is everything's not under our control or, uh, aware of our expectations and, you know, being in the flow a little bit, finding that right balance, cause you don't want to, you can't have just complete chaos all the time, but yeah, you don't want to be upset all the time about things that's that takes a lot of practice too. Kids.

Alex Smith (31:35.266)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (31:48.255)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (31:51.639)
Bye.

Yeah, like today. Yeah, like today at lunch, I made her like my daughter wanted a quesadilla. So I made her one and she just like wouldn't eat it. Like I got it once when I just want to say, hey, eat the damn quesadilla. This is what you asked for. So anyway, we settled on blueberries and macaroni and cheese and she did eat the quesadilla. So no, no. No. Yeah, yeah, separate. Absolutely.

Papa Rick (32:03.568)
Hahaha!

Jennie (32:08.undefined)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (32:09.484)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (32:15.77)
blueberry, not together I hope, not blueberries in macaroni and cheese. That's for spam and hot dogs.

Jennie (32:22.431)
oof

Well, there's, and there's like a, there's a whole undoing of a thought pattern that has been ingrained in you probably since you were young about time and the importance of showing up on time or, you know, and there's, I remember feeling like I was an inconvenience if I needed more time and space to get ready in the morning or, um, you know, and it wasn't, it was just, it, it was like a.

Alex Smith (32:30.754)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (32:35.841)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (32:48.159)
Yeah.

Jennie (32:55.771)
It wasn't like a specific person who made me feel that way. It was just the value of that was instilled of being on time is not a negative value. But sometimes we put so much pressure on it, especially on our children and our young children that it causes that intrinsic feeling of like, if I'm not on time, I'm a burden.

Alex Smith (33:07.575)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (33:21.463)
Yeah.

Jennie (33:21.599)
And so it translates into being 30 or 35 years old and meeting a friend for a drink. And if you show up at 6.35, like nothing bad is going to happen. Like, and so like adults don't have these ridiculous black and white expectations of each other. Why are we doing that to our kids? Well, cause it was done to us. And so you're undoing, you know, 35 years of thought work.

Alex Smith (33:32.446)
Yeah, right. Yeah.

Alex Smith (33:44.598)
Yeah. Right.

Alex Smith (33:51.575)
Yeah.

Jennie (33:51.693)
in order to have that patience for your three-year-old. It's hard.

Papa Rick (33:55.174)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (33:55.358)
Yeah. Yeah, it's hard. 100%.

Papa Rick (33:59.062)
Impose the imposing of. It's interesting. I like this part of the things I like this podcast for is the switch in perspective. I think thinking about a kid's perspective, thinking about parenting perspective. And you know, the parent is imposing things usually because of. Constraints that are the kids unaware of, you know, you know, there's there's.

Alex Smith (34:24.103)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (34:27.498)
You know, we're going to be late for pictures and we're going to push the whole thing back or something and finding the right road through that. You know, how do you challenge your kid to complete a task on time without traumatizing them? Without, you know, yeah, you know, to give you guys an opening here, because that is a struggle and takes practice and...

Alex Smith (34:41.485)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (34:45.749)
Hehehehehehe

Alex Smith (34:53.58)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (34:54.17)
Mastery of yourself like you're talking about Alex with okay. I hear something that needs to happen I don't want to scream. I don't want to hit him with a baseball bat. I don't want to do horrible things But we need to get to this family gathering, you know, not two hours late How do we do that as parents?

Jennie (35:18.279)
I'm gonna hear Alex's answer. Hahaha.

Papa Rick (35:21.529)
Sorry, Alex. I didn't know she was going to put you on the spot so hard here.

Alex Smith (35:23.998)
No, you're fine. No worries.

One thing, one thing I've tried to do and I should do this for, um, you know, things that need to happen at a certain time is setting expectations like the day before or a few hours before. So what if like, for example, like my daughter is in a huge mommy phase right now for whatever reason she just does. So like what my wife and I have been doing.

Papa Rick (35:44.773)
Okay.

Alex Smith (35:53.262)
is and my wife is I don't know how familiar you guys are with ER physician schedules, but they're like they're all over the place. It's different week to week. So, you know, one day like my daughter might say, Hey, mommy, can you wake me up tomorrow? And it's like, well, no, I'm going to be at the hospital before you wake up. But daddy can wake you up though, instead of, you know, not having that conversation beforehand. And then morning comes and then my daughter was expecting mommy to wake her up.

And then, you know, we start the day off on the wrong foot because, you know, she had the wrong expectations of what was going to happen. Yeah. And then, you know, I start getting impatient because I'm not. Understanding where she, where my daughter's coming from of like, Hey, I have, I thought mommy was going to wake me up and she's not here. Like what's, what's happening. So, um, setting, like setting expectations beforehand of like, Hey, mommy's going to be at work tomorrow. She's going to be at work.

Papa Rick (36:26.738)
because she's had a shock, yeah.

Alex Smith (36:49.494)
You know, she has to go to work before we do night night. So I'm going to read you some books. Do you want to read an extra book tonight before we go to sleep? And then she's, then she says, yes. And then she's in a better mood and she's like starting to want to read books now. So she likes reading books, even though she's not reading what's actually happening. You know, that's just something she likes doing. Um, so that's yeah.

Papa Rick (37:09.958)
Yeah, setting expectations is huge. That's even, that's even huge in business or work, you know, lacking, don't surprise people with things and.

Yeah, that's a big one, setting people's expectations in advance.

Alex Smith (37:20.926)
Yeah. That's been a, I don't know how we figured that out, but that was a good move on our part to start doing.

Jennie (37:28.987)
Yeah. And that's part of like, I love that. That's part of structuring a kid's day is letting them know what's going to happen. Not just like kids are not as, as unaware, I think sometimes as we think that they are. Kids are, kids hear everything. They see everything. They pick up on everything and they have, they start forming their own little feelings and opinions.

Alex Smith (37:40.462)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Alex Smith (37:46.753)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (37:51.404)
Yeah.

Jennie (37:58.435)
very, very early on, much earlier than three. They're just getting good at articulating it at three. Yeah, yeah, they can argue at three.

Alex Smith (38:00.589)
Yeah.

Yeah. Now they can say their opinions. Yeah.

Papa Rick (38:05.922)
interpreting it. They experience everything, they just don't have a lot of experience to interpret it with, right? Alcoholism or whatever.

Alex Smith (38:14.422)
Right. Yeah.

Jennie (38:14.943)
Yeah, well, and if they start, if they start thinking, you know, the, they just have a random thought in their head. Like you don't know whenever, when their expectations form in their head, they just form, um, and, and she's three, she's not going to say them all out loud. Um, and so just letting your, your child throughout any given day know like what the next few hours are going to look like.

Papa Rick (38:29.979)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (38:44.51)
Yeah, yeah.

Jennie (38:45.199)
They can emotionally prepare themselves. And then it's like, it makes everything, every transition, everything, they're just like, it helps them feel like they have some say, they have some control and they know what's happening. They're not just blindly following mom or dad around and being blindsided by life all the time, right?

Alex Smith (38:59.23)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (39:04.19)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (39:07.218)
Mm-hmm. They're part of the program. Get with the program. They're part of the, make them part of the program.

Alex Smith (39:13.694)
Yeah, yeah, and I've been trying to go ahead.

Jennie (39:14.683)
The other, um...

Sorry, I was just gonna, the other, I'll give my answer to my dad's question. The answer for how to get a kid too motivated to do something faster, right? Or in a timely manner or whatever it might be. My tool is always teamwork. So a very common one.

Uh, and, and in my own work with children, I've worked with a lot of the toddler phase, like the two to fours, um, and getting shoes on to get out the door is like the bane of any parent, any toddler parent's life is like, got your shoes on. Um, and the teamwork.

Alex Smith (39:54.924)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (39:58.349)
Hahaha

Alex Smith (39:58.381)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (40:02.586)
Velcro.

Alex Smith (40:02.85)
Yeah.

Jennie (40:10.887)
mindset. So any, any issue you run into, if you can, if you can flip a switch to teamwork instead of you need to do this and you need to do it on my time clock, it's, Hey bud, we need to get our shoes on and get out the door in the next two minutes. Are you able to go do that? Or do you want my help or, Hey, this is, so you set the expectation

Alex Smith (40:34.871)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (40:35.398)
Hmm. A choice.

Alex Smith (40:38.463)
Yeah.

Jennie (40:39.995)
This is what needs to happen. And then you can even show them what two minutes looks like. They have special little timers now. If you wanna teach time, you know, whatever. You can incorporate all kinds of things. But the ultimate goal is to let your child know, like I'm here for you if you want my help, if you wanna do it together, instead of just barking in order of like, you need to go get your shoes on, go get your shoes on. Come on, I told you five minutes ago, go get your shoes on. Like...

Alex Smith (40:42.542)
Hmm.

Papa Rick (40:50.672)
Mm.

Alex Smith (40:59.562)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (41:05.847)
Yeah.

Jennie (41:08.075)
and getting that flustered, frustrated tone. And then they just want to like, yeah.

Papa Rick (41:08.598)
And then, yeah, yeah.

Alex Smith (41:11.019)
Yeah.

Yeah, that's the toddler version of a man telling a woman to calm down. It works every time. Yeah. And that's what I was gonna say too, is I've been, we've been intentionally giving my daughter choices. So do you want to wear your pink shoes or your green shoes today? Okay, you're okay. I want to wear pink shoes. Okay, can you put those on? Or would you like, would you like some help with doing that? Or would you like to do one and I do one?

Jennie (41:19.079)
great.

Papa Rick (41:19.258)
So, how excellent. Excellent. Yeah.

Jennie (41:34.268)
Yeah.

Jennie (41:41.463)
Yes.

Papa Rick (41:44.107)
Alternatives. Yeah. Nice.

Alex Smith (41:44.246)
Um, so we've, and then even when she's, you know, acting up and I'd be, Jen, I'd be curious to get your opinion on how we do this is, you know, she's acting up like she's about to jump off the couch or something, whatever it is. It's like, Hey, you can either, you know, get down like you normally do, or I can pick you up and put you on the floor, which would you like to do, but you're not don't jump, please. So we've been, so like we've been doing like that kind of thing.

is like giving her like giving her the opportunity to make the right choice. Yeah.

Papa Rick (42:17.702)
Okay, not yacking about how did we find ourselves in this predicament and blaming and shaming, but like, okay, given the situation we're in, there's two ways to get to the fort. Yeah, guiding.

Alex Smith (42:22.324)
Yeah.

Jennie (42:23.056)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (42:29.278)
Yeah.

Jennie (42:29.955)
No. Well, it's a boundary. It's holding a boundary with no space for argument. Parents often are like, my kid argues constantly, backtalk constantly, constantly. And I'm like, well, that's cause you're letting them. And there are situations where you need to negotiate with your child. That's a healthy skill for them to learn. But when it comes to non-negotiables, like jumping off the couch, that's a non-negotiable in our house. And so I see that you're about to jump off the couch.

Papa Rick (42:41.019)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (42:47.666)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (42:48.026)
Yeah.

Jennie (42:59.279)
and then giving them the choice of how they're going to respect the boundary. Instead of just demanding that they respect the boundary, you switch their brain chemistry so they have to think about it instead of just, I've been told what to do and I'm going to say no, right?

Alex Smith (43:04.675)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (43:17.79)
Yep. Defiance.

Alex Smith (43:18.474)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (43:23.386)
Yeah, you re-channel. It's something you said a minute, a while ago about... Ah, it's gone now. It'll come back, I had a thought. Edit that out, Natalie.

Yeah, the way when you're, when you're in the moment dealing with the kids, um, is when you have to do that, take a breath, be mindful. How do you, how do I, how am I going to deal with this? Arguing, arguing at a kid about a hard and fast rule that they didn't set is kind of pointless for telling them they're breaking it, but giving them an opera, an option of how to behave in the next 30 seconds.

Alex Smith (43:43.704)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (44:03.871)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (44:04.174)
You know, that's okay, that's proximal, that's concrete. That's something they can be expected to do. But we have to, I know what it was, before we had, we're talking about how tough things are sometimes. And I think a lot of times people get caught up expecting things to be easy and not require change of ourselves, right? And what we're doing is we're training ourselves.

Alex Smith (44:12.235)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (44:28.906)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (44:32.618)
Okay, here's a situa- as well as the kids. Uh, uh, here's what I want to happen. How do I say what I'm going to say to get the result I'm looking for, um, without, without adding to a list of bad things that I would rather not have on my resume. Uh, and without causing harm. Yeah.

Alex Smith (44:48.607)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Jennie (44:51.751)
without causing harm.

Alex Smith (44:53.962)
Yeah.

Jennie (44:55.26)
Firm and kind. How can I be firm and kind about this?

Papa Rick (44:59.758)
Yeah, and it takes thought, it takes a change in the parent as well as to affect the change in the kids.

Alex Smith (45:00.119)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (45:03.934)
Yeah. Well, that's like, yeah. And that's like leadership and influence 101. It's just like, you know, you have leadership of self, you have one to one leadership, you have one to many, and then you have like Tony Robbins epic level influence and leadership, but you can't have, but you can't have like the other three. So like one to one, one to many, and then epic before you, you know, you can lead yourself like you can't give somebody else what you don't have. Yeah.

Jennie (45:07.747)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (45:09.563)
There you go.

Papa Rick (45:17.782)
Oh my God. Yeah.

Jennie (45:18.008)
Right.

Papa Rick (45:28.163)
Yeah.

Yeah. So, so back to once in a while when we're talking, it's like, and don't beat yourself up. If you're not doing this for folks who are listening, just take a baby step and keep at it and reminding yourself and give it time.

Alex Smith (45:37.985)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Alex Smith (45:45.098)
Yeah. And the other thing too is, and this is something I, because the reason I started doing this, because it was important for me, it was important for my daughter to see me communicate with her, like when I'm, when I did something where I messed up. So like, for example, if I, you know, like if I get frustrated with my daughter and she's, you know, it's the whole shoes battle and you know, she won't put her shoes on, she was like kicking and screaming, then I just say,

Papa Rick (46:11.035)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (46:11.51)
And to say, okay, like, here's your shoes. You put it on, we're leaving in two minutes. And I just walk away and, you know, immediately, you know, and most parents will probably know like, Hey, that's probably not the way I should have handled this. Yeah. So like sitting down with my daughter and saying, Hey, like, you know, I got frustrated with you a second ago. I'm sorry I did that. You know, this is the first time I've been a dad. So, you know, there's going to be sometimes where I mess up. So, you know, I'm sorry. And.

Papa Rick (46:24.186)
Not ideal, yeah.

Papa Rick (46:32.955)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (46:41.822)
You know, getting on the kids level and saying, Hey, like I've never been a dad before. Like this is the first time. So, you know, we're figuring this out together. Um, you know, can you help me? Can I ask, like, can I get your help with something? And then she'd say, yes. And can you help me by putting your shoes on? And she'll say, okay. And then she puts them on and then we're, you know, out the door. Yeah. And like, yeah. And then, you know, everything's.

Papa Rick (47:00.718)
Yeah. Let them see the struggle. Let them know you're not perfect. You know, that's back to teamwork.

Alex Smith (47:11.774)
You know, as close as close to hunky Dory as possible after that, but, you know, not being afraid to, cause this was something I never saw even with my mom. Um, you know, being, being okay with admitting when you screwed something up. Um, cause that's also like, you know, leadership and influence one-on-one. It's just like breaking the fourth wall of like, Hey, I messed this up, you know, and communicating that like it's. Obviously you don't want that to happen continuously, but

Papa Rick (47:36.016)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (47:41.614)
Yeah, there's situations where you can't do that. If you're the captain of a ship in the middle of a war, that's not the time to go, uh-oh, oops. You know, it's okay, we need to put up a facade here for a minute. But yeah, parenting, absolutely. Let the kids see the struggles and talk about it with them. And they all, you know, instead of letting them figure it out when they're 35. Retrospectively, that's a very good thing.

Alex Smith (47:41.76)
in out.

Yeah.

Alex Smith (47:49.046)
Yeah, right. Yeah.

Alex Smith (47:54.583)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (48:05.258)
Yeah.

Jennie (48:09.499)
Well, and they'll be more like if we normalize imperfection for our kids, then they will normalize it inside of themselves instead of setting these impossibly high standards for themselves and outrageous expectations of perfection in all areas of their life, because they've never had anyone in a role model position admit wrong or fault to them. So I can never be wrong, I can never be, it can never be my fault. That's where it comes like,

Alex Smith (48:26.188)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (48:33.44)
Yeah.

Jennie (48:40.096)
I also struggled with admitting when I was wrong for a long time. And it came from the need to be perfect. If I admit that I'm wrong, if I admit that I screwed up, then my worth goes down. Yeah.

Alex Smith (48:54.654)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (48:55.694)
Yeah. Or even some nameless things. Sometimes you can't even describe why it's a bad thing. You get confronted with some habit you have and you go, well, I don't know why I think that's such a horrible thing. It's just ingrained in you when you were little, you know.

Alex Smith (49:10.614)
Yeah, in doing that too, it also doesn't have to be for like, you know, every single serious, like huge gravity of a situation. It can just be like, um, I forget, trying to remember what, I'm trying to remember what exactly happened. Um, I think my, I think my daughter was watching me like fix the washing machine or something cause it was leaking and like, I couldn't find like one of the wrenches or something. And she said, daddy, what are you doing? And I was like, well, I'm just a goof. I can't find the wrench. And that's silly.

Papa Rick (49:30.607)
Mm.

Papa Rick (49:34.476)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (49:39.146)
And then she'll like, she started cracking up. She's like, yeah, that's silly. You're a goof. So, you know, so they can, so your children can see, you know, like, Hey, number one, I'm funny, but also number two, like, I'm not, you know, like I'm not perfect either. And like, you're gonna like, if you make a mistake, it's fine. Um, yeah.

Jennie (49:41.863)
Hehehehehehe

Papa Rick (49:45.663)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (50:00.306)
There's another way to react other than getting mad or yelling or yeah, you know, like, yeah.

Jennie (50:01.115)
Well, then you're not, yeah, you're not.

hitting the washer and cussing, and then she would be scared, right? She'd be like, ugh, yeah.

Alex Smith (50:07.488)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (50:10.878)
Yeah. And it's important. This is kind of changing gears a little bit, but I've like, I never saw my dad like fix anything, not because he couldn't. I'm sure he could. I just never saw him like fix anything around the house. So, you know, like if something. Yeah. And if something, you know, something needs fixing like

Jennie (50:27.589)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (50:29.018)
He was not invested in the home, somehow.

Alex Smith (50:35.702)
I'll tell my daughter like, hey, I'm going to try it. You know how the washing machine is leaking? She'll say, yeah. And I say, okay, well, I'm going to try to fix it. Do you want to watch or do you want to help? And if she says no, it's okay. Um, but if she's like, I just want her to see me. Like, you know, working on things like in my business, working on things like around the house, um, and so that way she doesn't find like, you know, some dusty boy that doesn't do anything around the house, you know, um,

Papa Rick (51:02.758)
That's right. That's right.

Jennie (51:03.953)
Right? Set good expectations for her, yeah.

Alex Smith (51:05.182)
So yeah, yeah. And like, I don't like, and if she does help me, like I know she's gonna be the worst helper ever because she's three, she doesn't know what's going on. But you know, it's just good to have her, yeah, it's good to have her around and she'll ask questions about like what I'm doing and then probably within two minutes, she'll ask me if she can watch Frozen for the 900th time. So, so yeah, like I've, yeah. So like for any...

Papa Rick (51:07.13)
Be handy, yeah. If you can't be handy, you're.

Jennie (51:15.928)
right?

Papa Rick (51:18.098)
You're laying groundwork.

Jennie (51:26.371)
Yep.

Papa Rick (51:28.154)
Yeah. It's just boring to add.

Alex Smith (51:34.23)
Like any other dads out there, like just be intentional about getting your kids involved in things like they're going to be awful with helping, but like it's whether they can help or not as irrelevant, like they just want to see you do things. So that, that has been important to me as well. Yeah.

Jennie (51:47.143)
I want to be included. Yeah.

Papa Rick (51:47.29)
Yeah. See what it is be part to be helpful. Holding flashlights is good for kids that are helping. Yeah. Shine this flashlight up here. Even if it's in the wrong spot, that's fine. You know, or help them focus while they, while they go through their 10 second attention span for that fixing underneath.

Alex Smith (51:58.026)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (52:03.55)
Yeah, and then like she Yeah, and then she'll go to school and then come home. And like she's invested in if the washing machine works or not. Like, Hey, daddy, did you fix? Does the washing machine work now? It's like, Yeah, I'll fix. Like, Oh, okay.

Papa Rick (52:11.29)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Thanks for your help.

Jennie (52:19.203)
I took care of a couple of kids for a long time who they ended up, like I would include them in doing their laundry. I wouldn't, like I would, sometimes I would do it when they were sleeping, but usually if it was a task they could contribute to, I did it when they were awake so that they saw how a household operated.

Alex Smith (52:42.039)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (52:46.359)
because I think that's another piece of being included in these daily chore-like things is that kids need to understand that life doesn't just happen. Things don't just work forever. Money doesn't grow on trees, right? Daddy has to go to work and daddy has to fix the washer.

Alex Smith (53:02.37)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (53:02.597)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (53:06.271)
Yeah.

Jennie (53:09.839)
Like, so when they grow up and see these things occurring regularly and are invited into the task and learning how to do them when they're very young, it normalizes work as part of life, chores as part of life, instead of being chores, right? And these two little kids, from the time they were like 18 months and three, would insist

Alex Smith (53:26.498)
Yeah.

Jennie (53:39.727)
getting to pull the clothes out of the hamper and put them in the washer for me. And I mean, instead of me bending over 18 times to grab clothes out of the hamper and put it in the washer, I was like, heck yeah, I would just dump it on the floor and then they would load it up for me.

Alex Smith (53:44.418)
Mm.

Alex Smith (53:48.082)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (53:50.802)
That's perfect. You are just the right height for that job. Yeah.

Alex Smith (53:54.602)
Yeah.

Jennie (53:59.363)
And then I would pour the soap and then I would let one of them, we would take turns. Whoever got to pour the soap, the other one got to push the buttons. So, and then one of them got to pour the soap in the little thing and the other one got to push the start button. And it was like one of their favorite things to do with me during the week was like, do we need to do laundry today? You know? And it's, it's when you start young and you just don't like.

Alex Smith (54:07.851)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (54:21.25)
Yeah.

Jennie (54:26.631)
include and invite your children into like the monotonous daily pieces of life. It enriches, it just enriches one, it makes it more fun for you if you can kind of like let go and accept that some chaos might occur. It makes it a lot. It makes the chore that much more fun for you as an adult, but it's also like watching them get excited about something like laundry. And then you're like, Oh my God, this child's gonna be doing their own laundry by the time they're like seven. It's gonna be great.

Alex Smith (54:39.967)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (54:55.658)
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Jennie (54:56.35)
Hahaha

Papa Rick (54:59.294)
Don't wash my delegates with the dark stand. They'll be controlling their laundry and aware. It also sets, I think it sets our expectations, young expectations, you know? So when they go in the longer term, when they go looking for a spouse, when they start running their own households, that's where our idea of what makes sense, what feels right.

You know, it's like they'll know to look for a guy that's not afraid to crawl under a washer and, and doesn't, doesn't pitch a fit when he loses his wrench or the socket or something. And, uh, you know, I think that's where we learned some of those innate. We think they're innate, but they're, I guess they're not innate in human beings, but we learned some of that stuff. It's really, you're really laying important groundwork.

Alex Smith (55:30.22)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (55:50.81)
when you're doing that long term. You don't always get to see the payoff of that, of your parenting.

Alex Smith (55:51.47)
Yeah.

Jennie (56:01.004)
That's why we're out here. That's why we're doing it.

Papa Rick (56:02.742)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (56:06.086)
And the other question I'm asking myself now is, because I'm the first person in, even in my wife's, going back to my wife's family, none of them have ever opened a business. Nobody in my family has ever opened a business. So now I'm wondering how do I show my daughter, how do I show my children that

Papa Rick (56:06.822)
true.

Papa Rick (56:24.999)
Hmm.

Alex Smith (56:35.574)
You know, hard work and money doesn't have to be a one-to-one relationship. Like you can make more money and work less, but you have to have the right. You have to know what the right skills are to acquire and you have to know how to acquire those skills.

Papa Rick (56:40.902)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (56:49.73)
Mm-hmm. It's not always intuitive that I can just work harder and make more money. There's tricks you want to learn. Yeah.

Alex Smith (56:55.434)
Right, right. Yeah, and there's nothing wrong. Like there's nothing wrong with like working hard. But a lot of people have, you know, work and money being like a one to one linear relationship. When sometimes that works out. But, you know, it doesn't always like it doesn't have to be that way. Like you don't have to be digging a ditch 50 hours a week to be able to support your family. Like if you

Papa Rick (57:11.567)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (57:19.238)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Alex Smith (57:25.578)
Like if you know how to code, you could probably make five times more than what you're making now and work 35, 40 hours a week instead of 50. And you're sitting in a desk all day at a keyboard instead of, you know, in a ditch doing manual labor. You know? Right. So yeah, I'm always wondering like how can I teach my daughter like how to...

Papa Rick (57:41.059)
In the air conditioning, in the heat, yeah.

Alex Smith (57:55.234)
just even having a conversation with somebody. Like that's not a skill that a lot of people have, much less like how can you have a conversation with somebody and get them to give you money at the end of it, you know, as part of your job. So like the skill, like influence and persuasion, how to talk to somebody, like all those kinds of things. Like I'm thinking about that like all the time. Like how do I approach that? Yeah.

Papa Rick (58:05.868)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (58:16.582)
Soft skills. That's a tremendous advantage if you can teach that. If you develop it and then you can pass it on because not everybody has those soft skills. Really a lot of parenting we're talking about. That's all soft skills. How to act in front of people, how to, you know, being thoughtful about how you approach people. It's all tied together.

Alex Smith (58:23.53)
Yeah, cause yeah.

Alex Smith (58:30.433)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (58:33.74)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (58:39.082)
Yeah. And I'm, I'm going to sound, I'm going to sound really old and get off my lawn when I say this, but like when I go to the gym in the morning, like I see some students where I work out and you know, like they're Gen Z and there's this, this is not a disparagement of Gen Z, but I know a lot of Gen Z kids are like this, where it's like in between, you can see the generational gap as far as like how they handle spare time. So like all of the Gen Z kids.

Papa Rick (59:05.342)
Hmm

Alex Smith (59:06.442)
They're like on their, like they're looking down on their phone. Whereas anybody that's like my age and older, like they're like looking straight ahead. They're like looking up like what's going on. Where do I need to go next? So I don't know like what my daughter's generation is going to be like. I would imagine it's going to be like something to that degree. Cause like the screens aren't really going anywhere. So, you know, if she's able to have a conversation with somebody, like look somebody in the eye, like firmly shake their hand and like say like, Hey, like I'm here.

Papa Rick (59:09.518)
Nose down, yeah.

Alex Smith (59:36.03)
I'm here to have a conversation like that could just set her, like set her up for her entire life. Like with just having that skill.

Papa Rick (59:43.866)
Mm-hmm. That's a rabbit hole. We could go a long way down talking about raising kids with screen time. Yeah. You know, how do you how do you limit? I think I think it's obvious that limiting screen time is a good thing. How much and how do you handle? That's fine when they're small. It's easy to just, you know, power struggles are easy to.

Alex Smith (59:47.526)
Oh, I know. I know. I know.

Jennie (59:48.039)
I was gonna say you just opened another hour long conversation.

Alex Smith (01:00:01.815)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:00:07.743)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:00:11.086)
win when they're small, when they get to the point where all their friends have phones and, you know, they want to play a game, they want to get good at a game to fit in with their group. It's really gotten insidious.

Alex Smith (01:00:13.004)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:00:17.035)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:00:21.49)
Yeah, yeah.

Alex Smith (01:00:25.726)
Yeah, well, it's the conversation of, I don't think screen time is inherently bad. Like if you're using screen time to like learn something, like learn something legitimate, like learning influence and persuasion and sales or like learning how to code like that, I'm fine with that like all day, do that as long as you want, but then if we're talking about like, you know, I'm going to play Call of Duty or Skyrim for, you know, 10 hours a day, it's like, okay, well, what are you really getting out of this?

Papa Rick (01:00:42.106)
That's the, yeah. Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:00:53.366)
Or even, or even I see kids. Yeah. Just mindless, just mindless games that are not really hand eye coordination. Okay. You can get that with a stick in the backyard. You know, that's a go outside and play.

Jennie (01:00:53.635)
Yeah. Or social media, or... Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:00:55.934)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:01:06.125)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:01:08.667)
Well, it also kills creativity to that level of like, I'm a big believer in, and not just a believer, like there is science on letting your children be bored. Like that is what creates, like you were talking about entrepreneurship and parenting, Alex, and teaching your child how to not trade their time for money.

Papa Rick (01:01:25.051)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:01:34.531)
how you can create something that generates passive income, whether that's a rental property or a product or like whatever it might be, you don't just have to trade one to one, on a one to one ratio, your time and energy for money. And something as simple as letting your child experience boredom and overcome it on their own is what will create children who can grow up and be financially diverse and be people

people, and have conversations because they've sat with their own self and thoughts and worked through something and they've been bored and then had to come up with their own idea of how to fill their time. And that like creativity is a muscle. And if we're constantly just plugging kids into something, so they leave us alone for five minutes, like you're, you're really depriving your child of.

Alex Smith (01:02:06.783)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:02:24.375)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:02:30.473)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:02:33.612)
a life skill.

Alex Smith (01:02:35.762)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:02:35.802)
Yeah. They need to experience their own internal life and realize that other people are just like them doing the same thing. And so therefore, you know, they're not just objects to be manipulated. And, uh, yeah, there's a lot of, how do you teach that? How do you parent that into your kids? You got to give them opportunities to do that.

Alex Smith (01:02:48.29)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:02:58.581)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:02:58.747)
When you gotta set the example, I mean, like watch a movie, watch a movie with your kids or play some call of duty on the weekends or whatever, but like your kids should see you not like this all day. Your kids should see you cooking dinner and having a conversation. Your kids should see you reading a book. Your kids should witness. That's like one of the most powerful tools at our disposal as parents is modeling.

Papa Rick (01:03:11.879)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (01:03:11.947)
Right.

Jennie (01:03:26.511)
being the person that we would want our child to grow up to be.

Papa Rick (01:03:30.234)
Yeah. How do you want to be seen? You said that early on, Alex. Deciding how you want to be seen and then practicing doing it.

Alex Smith (01:03:37.919)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:03:41.578)
Yeah. Yeah, it's not enough to... I forget, I was probably some rapper who said this, but you know, it's not enough to talk about it, you got to be about it too. And, you know, that the being about it, it just comes back to like, we've all heard this in like kindergarten, like actions speak louder than words. So it's one thing to say all these things, it's a whole other, it's a whole other ballgame to actually do it.

And that's tough.

Papa Rick (01:04:13.65)
Talk the talk, walk the walk.

Jennie (01:04:13.967)
Alex, were you ever told, were you ever told do as I say, not as I do when you were a kid by anyone?

Alex Smith (01:04:22.214)
Not directly. Not directly, no.

Jennie (01:04:24.891)
That was such a popular saying in my, like I feel like my teachers would say it to me, dad, you said it to me once or twice. Like there, I feel like it was.

Papa Rick (01:04:39.033)
Was I serious or was I making a point?

Jennie (01:04:43.023)
I think it was semi-jokingly, like when you would cuss and then I would cuss when I was like eight and you would tell me like, you're not allowed to cuss. So like that. But no, I feel like it was such a prevalent saying when I was a kid, like grade school, middle school and teachers would say like, do as I say, not as I do. Like, you know, or if an adult would, you'd catch an adult smoking or whatever, whatever it was that they were doing.

Papa Rick (01:04:49.35)
Yeah, I did teach. I taught you all the stuff, pretty good, yeah.

Papa Rick (01:05:11.275)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:05:12.055)
you know, didn't want to set that example for you. And I'm like, that doesn't work.

Alex Smith (01:05:13.238)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:05:16.827)
when you

Alex Smith (01:05:19.099)
Yeah, the version I heard of that was just do as you're told. It's just an offshoot of that. Yeah. Or because I said so. Like that was one thing on my list of things I didn't want to... Like I always wanted to give my kids a reason for why I'm telling them to do something or to not do something because then they're more likely to actually do it, but when you just say, well, because I say so, and it's like, okay, well,

Papa Rick (01:05:23.546)
Yeah, just be an authority. Yeah.

Jennie (01:05:29.167)
Because I said so.

Alex Smith (01:05:46.582)
Who cares? You know?

Papa Rick (01:05:47.59)
then it's a matter of just who's bigger, who's faster. Yeah. You're too far away from me to tell me that. That's right. That's the thing.

Alex Smith (01:05:51.211)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:05:51.867)
Well, when your kid gets bigger and faster than you, yeah.

Alex Smith (01:05:56.714)
Yeah. So I'll tell you this, anybody that, I'm trying to see if I have the book here, but anybody that, you know, wants to communicate better, there's a book called Influence by Robert Chialdini. And in the first chapter, maybe it's the second chapter, it talks about, like just they studied, they did a study where people were asking to use the copier or something like that. And the people that asked.

can I use the copier because XYZ were like 80% more likely to let somebody to be let in front of the line to actually use the copier. So if you just say, hey, can I use the, can I cut in line? I need to use the copier. Like that's not going to work. But if you give people a reason for like why you need to use the copier, then you're like infinitely more likely to, um, you know, have people do what you ask. And it's the same thing. Like it's the same thing with kids. It's like they need a

Papa Rick (01:06:32.37)
Hmm

Alex Smith (01:06:54.25)
You know, like, obviously, if you're like in a life threatening situation, like that's a different story. But if it's something like, hey, fold your clothes, because, you know, whatever the reason is, like, they're more likely to do it.

Papa Rick (01:07:04.658)
Mm-hmm. I wonder if that's tied to like the, uh, yeah, the injustice thing. When, when things just happen to us, it's an offense. If there's some kind of reason attached to it that we can get behind. Well, now we're now it's teamwork. Now it's helping, you know, it's not like come over here and hold his flashlight just like this, uh, when you're fixing the washer, it's like, you know, would you, and then you get by and influence you get by it. That's interesting.

Jennie (01:07:07.579)
They buy in.

Alex Smith (01:07:10.015)
Yeah, exactly.

Papa Rick (01:07:35.002)
Yeah, that sounds like something really, really deep down in our brains that that's touching on.

Jennie (01:07:45.796)
It's authority. So no one wants to be told what to do. We all have an internal authority. We all wanna be in charge of ourselves. And we're born with autonomy. Sometimes we have to fight for it politically. But we're born autonomous.

Papa Rick (01:07:51.706)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:08:07.251)
We like to be independent and competent.

Jennie (01:08:10.395)
We're born autonomous people and we all want to be seen as competent humans. And that starts in childhood and especially in that two to four range, that is when that part of the brain comes online. And so like those years are the hardest as far as pushback and stubbornness and opinionated and all of those things.

Papa Rick (01:08:27.44)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:08:27.832)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:08:38.239)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:08:39.355)
the most important to let your child experiment with their opinions, with their ability to negotiate, and to reason with them, and not just lay down the law and expect obedience, but those are the years where it's like, I don't want to eat dinner, I want to go, I want to keep playing. And you say, I know you want to keep playing, you're having so much fun.

Alex Smith (01:08:45.442)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:09:09.347)
We're a family. One of our family values is that we sit down and eat dinner together and we eat dinner at this time. Why? Why do we have to eat dinner at this time? Because after this time, then it's time for bath time, and then it's time for bedtime. And if we don't eat now, we're going to run into bedtime and bath time. And then if we don't go to bed on time, then we wake up cranky and we have a bad day tomorrow. So if we eat dinner on time, I'm sorry.

Alex Smith (01:09:13.74)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:09:17.714)
Teamwork.

Alex Smith (01:09:25.527)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (01:09:39.343)
Hold on, my dog just like lost his mind. Okay, he laid back down now. If we eat dinner on time, then we get to our bath on time and we have more time to read books for bedtime. And then we get a really good night's sleep and we wake up and we have a fantastic day tomorrow. And you know, or whatever version of that story for you and your household is, but establishing that we're a family, we do these things together.

Alex Smith (01:09:59.575)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:10:04.816)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:10:08.911)
This is, and this is why there's a timeline of things. Cause kids aren't thinking, I gotta eat dinner so I can get to my bath. They're just like, I'm playing and I wanna keep playing. They don't think two hours in the future, right? But if we can bring them into that, we can offer them that, like real explanation, not we gotta eat dinner so you can grow up and be big and strong. Like, that's like only like a tiny bit real. It's not like real, real. If we can be as...

Alex Smith (01:10:11.639)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:10:17.23)
Yeah. Right.

Alex Smith (01:10:31.202)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:10:36.786)
No, I think...

Jennie (01:10:37.415)
honest as we possibly can with our kids and bring them in to thinking at a higher level, then they're going to feel like they're important, their opinion matters, they're worth explaining things to, and then they're going to buy in because they're going to be like, oh, I do want to eat dinner with my family. I do want to feel good tomorrow. I love bath time. I want to read three stories tonight instead of two. Like all of those things will, and then they buy in and they're on board.

Alex Smith (01:10:40.823)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:10:46.198)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:11:07.779)
And it's not manipulative. They're truly bought in to the values of the family.

Papa Rick (01:11:13.702)
Well, you're just describing the real world consequences and giving them awareness of the passage of time, you know, and, uh, back to teamwork. It reminded me of Alex's example, um, where they're, it's not just, it's not just authoritarian. It's not just, can I take the copier now? It's like, well, okay, there's a, there's a real world thing here. Do you mind if we accommodate that?

Alex Smith (01:11:13.964)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:11:36.749)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (01:11:42.946)
And everybody gets on board with that a lot quicker than, you know, it's not, it's not you and me butting heads about what's going to happen in the next 10 minutes. Cool.

Alex Smith (01:11:48.49)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:11:53.511)
It's like the grocery store line where someone, two people with two carts, one's filled to the brim, one has three things in it. Usually, in my experience, the person with a cart filled full goes, go ahead. You only have three things. People generally want the world to run smoothly.

Alex Smith (01:12:07.33)
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:12:14.642)
Yeah, yeah, we all have that in common. We want a smoother path. We want it to be easier. I love that we're sitting here talking kind of in detail about how to teach.

Alex Smith (01:12:19.362)
Yeah, 100%. Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:12:28.69)
kids that kind of thing. It's like, yeah, life is not easy, but here's how we make these chores or things a little easier, a little fun. We work together, you know, and we all get along together better that way.

Alex Smith (01:12:38.935)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:12:43.274)
Yeah, and this, the other struggle I have too, especially because my daughter's gonna, she's gonna grow up and anyway, how do I teach her to be opinionated and to stand her ground, but not do it in a destructive way? It's like I don't, it's like I don't want her to find somebody that's, just tries to run her over and treat her like a doormat. Like,

Papa Rick (01:13:03.61)
Hmm.

Papa Rick (01:13:12.426)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (01:13:12.626)
know like it's okay to anyway like how do you like how do you tell that line of like not having a child that's like fully compliant but is you know but is obedient enough I don't

Papa Rick (01:13:26.586)
That pretty quick turns into learning to choose your battles, right? You know, you want to, you want to stand your own ground, but not to the point where you're standing on the train tracks and there's a freight train coming. And you know, the, the outcome is predetermined by physics. Um, it's like when to, when to stand your ground and when to yield. So there's authority and bosses and

Alex Smith (01:13:31.488)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:13:34.708)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:13:45.055)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:13:52.258)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:13:55.002)
You know, kind of back to the influence. How do I, I'm, I'm where it's, what's my target? What's my path? How do I get there? Oh, I can't go through the mountain. Let's figure out how to go over the mountain, you know.

Alex Smith (01:13:57.741)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:14:02.775)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:14:06.154)
Yeah. And it's also one thing I get worried about, especially when junior high rolls around is, you know, or even maybe before that is, you know, is my daughter going to get bullied and do I teach her that if she does like number one, like you need to come to jujitsu with me or do something so that way, you know, what the heck to do, but also like, you know, like

Papa Rick (01:14:13.87)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (01:14:28.998)
There you go.

Jennie (01:14:30.759)
Hehehe

Alex Smith (01:14:34.27)
Is it okay for me to say like, hey, if somebody like if somebody hits you like hit him back like you have, you're not going to get in trouble with me if you do that. Like, I don't know. That's an idea. I'm I've been tossing in my head since she looked me in the eyes the first time. So

Papa Rick (01:14:48.026)
I don't have a problem with that. Yeah. How do you protect them? That's your pre, it sounds like you're protective. Your daddy protective coming out. How do I take care of her while she's where I can be with her and when she's not.

Alex Smith (01:15:03.976)
Yeah, but also how do I teach her to take care of herself? Because I want, you know, her mom's not always gonna be there, I'm not always gonna be there. You know, like as she finds herself in like a precarious situation, like in, you know, like a high school party or like a college party, like number one, like you can call me, I'll come pick you up, no questions asked. But also number two, if you find yourself in a hairy situation, like, you know.

Papa Rick (01:15:06.511)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Bye.

Alex Smith (01:15:29.886)
You need to know how to defend yourself, whether it's with a weapon or with your fists or your legs like you need to know. Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:15:31.834)
That's yeah, whatever's appropriate. That's, that's true. I think of all dads. Yeah. My, my, my solution to that was to take them to karate. We went, we went and trained in karate for six years. We're not experts, but we have an idea. If nothing else, it gives them the confidence. It gives them another tool in the belt of where to hit somebody and how to hit them. And when not to.

Jennie (01:15:39.375)
You take her to jujitsu.

Alex Smith (01:15:42.437)
Yeah, I guess so.

Alex Smith (01:15:46.719)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:15:50.219)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:15:56.801)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:16:00.651)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:16:02.114)
Um, that comes from confident. You can, you can teach her those skills and give her those skills. And usually it's still not getting in the situation in the first place, right? It's a soft, it's a soft skill that keeps you out of that neighborhood or out of those situations. And then when you're not, when you happen to find yourself in it, well, okay, here, there's the next level, you know,

Alex Smith (01:16:06.815)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:16:11.402)
Right. Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:16:17.63)
Yeah. And it's also, yeah.

Alex Smith (01:16:24.166)
Yeah, it's also knowing like, how do I teach her that there's the difference between being nice and being kind. So like, you know, if somebody has something in their teeth, the nice thing is to not say anything. But the kind thing is say, Hey, you have something in your teeth, you might want to know that. Right. Yeah. Or like, you know, if there's a new kid at school, like the kind thing to do is to go sit with them because they're probably going to be sitting by themselves at lunch.

Papa Rick (01:16:31.28)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (01:16:40.256)
and not make a big deal out of it. Just you, it's okay, you got something in your deal. Yeah, yeah, don't.

Jennie (01:16:40.727)
Right? And not in front of everyone, yeah.

Papa Rick (01:16:52.259)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:16:53.25)
So like how, like how do you, how do you teach that if she never sees us do it, you know, besides like just telling her that's something that she should do.

Papa Rick (01:16:59.715)
Ooh, that's a good one.

Jennie (01:17:04.039)
She might see you do it.

If there's ever, I mean, if there's, if you guys are ever at a backyard barbecue and you walk up and meet new people or you, you know, whatever communities you're part of, churches, maybe your jujitsu gym, maybe she starts coming to you there, I bet there's a lot of situations throughout your life where you're meeting someone new or greeting someone new, where she's gonna witness

Alex Smith (01:17:23.816)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (01:17:38.151)
It's not going to happen a lot. And then there's also just the conversation is still valuable. So I've even had this conversation once with a four-year-old who had a new boy in his preschool class.

Alex Smith (01:17:40.79)
Yeah. Right.

Papa Rick (01:17:41.594)
Maybe you can engineer it like your mom did. You know, maybe that's the thing.

Jennie (01:18:03.939)
We knew which day he was gonna start and we talked about it beforehand. We were like, you're gonna have a new boy in your class. This is his name. You know, when you're a new person in a room full of people, it's really scary. And you know what helps people feel not scared is when you go talk to them and say, hi, welcome, this is my name. Say hi, this is my name, what's yours? Let's be friends. And...

Alex Smith (01:18:11.576)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (01:18:28.359)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:18:30.999)
And he, and he did, I mean, he literally went to school that day and like introduced himself. And they ended up not being like close friends. He had, I think he ended up not liking him or something. And I think that that's fine. But I think that the, just having the conversation and like the kindness to introduce yourself and make someone feel welcome, um, is huge. It's huge.

Papa Rick (01:18:44.421)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (01:18:46.766)
Thank you.

Alex Smith (01:18:53.783)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:18:56.366)
Yep. You can talk and you can, you can also, uh, do, I mean, if you do find yourself and you think of it, you know, and there's somebody, I don't know what your social life is like, you know, but suggest when you see an opportunity for her, you can go sit down and do it and explain to her why we're going to go sit next to this family or, you know, there's a family at

Alex Smith (01:18:56.606)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:19:18.128)
Mm. Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:19:19.703)
at a function sitting at a table by themselves. You know, it's like, hey, let's go sit with these people. They, you know, they don't seem to have a bunch of people around them. You know, let's go make them feel welcome.

Alex Smith (01:19:27.149)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:19:30.682)
That's the point. It's, you know, a lot of times you just have to be on the lookout. It's back to it's complicated being a parent, you know, you got to be there when the situation happens, you know, and be okay with if we missed it, maybe talk about afterwards. Oh, you know, those people we saw sitting there, I, you know, I did not think to go sit down and then with them. And then your kids will later on going, Hey, daddy, why, you know, then they'll, you know, they want to, they want to do that. Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:19:34.827)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:19:37.763)
endless situations.

Alex Smith (01:19:38.358)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:19:56.032)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:19:56.047)
I'll remind you.

Alex Smith (01:19:58.528)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:19:58.926)
You get more, you get little brain, satellite brains working for you, you know? Yeah, that's a good question.

Alex Smith (01:20:04.348)
Yeah, they'll also tell you to not eat fruit snacks in the office. Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:20:07.494)
That's right, dad. You're gonna make a rule, be thinking about whether you want to follow the rule or not.

Jennie (01:20:07.639)
Uh-huh. Right.

Alex Smith (01:20:13.835)
Right.

Jennie (01:20:15.195)
There's also, I think that sometimes there's also rules that are kid rules and adult rules. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And I think that it's important for kids to understand, to understand that there is a difference. And you know, and maybe, you know, you agree to the rule of not eating in your office.

Papa Rick (01:20:16.783)
I love that about kids. I used to love that.

Alex Smith (01:20:24.704)
Mm-hmm.

Alex Smith (01:20:34.507)
Yeah, yeah.

Jennie (01:20:44.943)
someone that I run into a lot is, we can't eat on the couch, why can you eat on the couch? And like, I mean, the literal real world reason is that their motor skills aren't developed enough to not spill things constantly. And you put that into language that a three or five year old can understand and you explain it to them and they don't have to agree with it or understand it perfectly, but.

Alex Smith (01:21:09.73)
Mm-hmm.

Jennie (01:21:12.183)
You can say something like, you know, I've had 35 years of practice not spilling things. And you've only been practicing for three. So right now you eat at the table, but sometimes I can eat on the couch because I'm not going to spill things. And it can be that simple and it doesn't have to be like, you're Bain, stop. He's just like chasing his tail, growling at his own tail.

Alex Smith (01:21:21.108)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:21:24.971)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:21:30.614)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:21:42.235)
He goes nuts. But he like, if I don't let him in here with me, he pounds at the door. It's he's out of control. But anyway, um, he can't hear you. Uh.

Papa Rick (01:21:42.266)
He's got an itch, Mom.

Papa Rick (01:21:51.46)
Good dog.

Papa Rick (01:21:56.162)
He has better ears than you.

Jennie (01:21:58.887)
Um, ex, uh, what was I say? Explaining that to them and just being honest about it. Like sometimes there are adult rules, sometimes there's kid rules. And then there are sometimes going to be rules that you set as a family that you have, that you, the parent have to suck it up and follow to set a good example.

Alex Smith (01:22:09.858)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:22:16.986)
Yeah. If it's a rule, it's a rule. Yeah. And be prepared when you set a rule like eating on the couch. If you do spill, be prepared for contrition. When your child points out how come you can eat on the couch, you know, that's, uh, but those are all good soft skill negotiating. It's like, yeah, I spilled once in 12 years. You spilled every three seconds when, you know, no spaghetti on the couch.

Alex Smith (01:22:19.702)
Yeah, yeah, 100%.

Alex Smith (01:22:29.089)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:22:38.796)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:22:46.622)
at all. Period.

Jennie (01:22:47.387)
Well, it's also like I know how to clean it up.

Papa Rick (01:22:51.347)
That's right. There you go. A real world consequence. You know, I can fix it. Yeah.

Jennie (01:22:58.427)
You'll pick and choose which ones you.

Papa Rick (01:23:00.246)
It's true. Yeah, it's tricky. You got to figure out what's appropriate in your, in your family, I guess. Growingups get to drink alcohol. Well, not that much alcohol, you know, kids can't drink alcohol. That could be subject to abuse too. So.

Jennie (01:23:05.918)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:23:11.114)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:23:16.741)
Alex, is there anything that we haven't covered that you wanted to touch on today?

Alex Smith (01:23:25.198)
No, I don't think so. I think, I don't know what the demographics of your audience are, what the split is for like men versus women, but I would say for any, even if there are women that this resonates with, like, you know, get your husband or whoever to like listen to this and just have, like just, it's okay for them to know that they're not alone if they're in a situation similar to mine and similar to.

You know, it's a very common situation. Um, the other thing too, I would say is like be intentional with. Surrounding yourself with people that are not where you're at. It could be financially, it could be mentally, emotionally, whatever, but surround yourself at the best you can with people that are where you want to be. And ask, yeah, ask them questions. Um.

Papa Rick (01:24:18.906)
We're near your target. Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:24:24.238)
utilize them as a resource because like you can you can get like you could get pretty far on your own but you can only get so far on your own and you know it's okay to ask for help it's okay to tell if you don't want to tell your spouse or whoever that you're struggling like tell another male like males need to have more conversations like that like not everything's

that everything's going to be perfect and that's okay.

Papa Rick (01:24:56.895)
We are not traditionally as sophisticated emotionally as the girls are. It could be stereotypical, but it seems to be true. Guys need to have other guys to ask questions of ideally.

Alex Smith (01:25:01.29)
Right. Yeah. And

Alex Smith (01:25:10.75)
Yeah. And don't fall into the trap. Don't fall into the comparison trap. Like, what I mean is, comparison is the thief of joy. I know that's a I don't really like saying platitudes and quotations, but that one is 100% true. Like, yeah, every right. And everybody like everybody's running their own race. Just run, like just run your own race. You are where you are.

Papa Rick (01:25:21.158)
Mm-hmm.

Papa Rick (01:25:26.934)
Some of them are platitudes for a reason. Yeah.

Jennie (01:25:27.106)
is.

Papa Rick (01:25:32.274)
All right.

Alex Smith (01:25:38.346)
Some of that is your fault and that's fine. Some of it's not and that's okay too. But just run, your race is your own race. Nobody's running the same race as you. So you might get where you wanna be quick. It might take you a damn long time. But just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Papa Rick (01:25:57.346)
I like that. I like that. That's good. Where are you and where is your target? That's a, that's a, that's an okay comparison, but just because there's somebody else a couple of steps ahead of you, that's not a reason to be unhappy. Keep your mind on your target. Maybe ask him how he got, he got around that last hole.

Alex Smith (01:26:04.428)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:26:08.641)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:26:12.383)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:26:18.45)
Excuse me.

Jennie (01:26:19.748)
amateur.

Alex Smith (01:26:21.159)
Um...

Papa Rick (01:26:24.846)
Hey, Rocky.

Alex Smith (01:26:24.866)
if I keep done this before.

Jennie (01:26:29.403)
That was Alex, that was, that was, oh, sorry. That was one of the many reasons that I was excited when you reached out is that I, and I think I told you this on our phone call is I've been really trying to find more male, male figures and specifically dads to have on the podcast because I think in the parenting space,

Alex Smith (01:26:29.438)
I forgot what I was gonna say something about forgot what it was.

Now you're fine. I don't remember what it was.

Papa Rick (01:26:34.947)
Nah, it's good stuff.

Jennie (01:26:57.811)
Um, it's, the majority is, is women and mom voices. And, um, I think that. That men are just as invested at being good parents. And, um, I think that they just don't talk about it as much. I think women are the ones that talk about it more. And, and especially the, like transitioning into motherhood, there's a whole huge, you know, perinatal.

Alex Smith (01:27:03.584)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:27:16.447)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:27:28.487)
community and services and things for transitioning moms from maidens to mothers. And I think that those spaces naturally open up for women. And I think that there aren't as many avenues for men to find groups of other men and dads to talk and support through the transition into fatherhood and throughout. And so I'm just...

Alex Smith (01:27:46.166)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:27:52.831)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:27:55.175)
I'm so grateful that you gave us your time today and that you're here with us.

Alex Smith (01:27:59.966)
Yeah, 100%. I appreciate you guys. This was great.

Papa Rick (01:28:00.046)
Yeah. Well done. Guy, guy groups are not typically full of guys, um, admitting weaknesses or gaps in skills or, you know, that's kind of, kind of their traditional role and, uh, any kind of little opening for a guy to have a chance to ask advice or, Hey, how'd you do that? Or that's, uh,

Alex Smith (01:28:11.775)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:28:18.271)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:28:31.03)
that's good for society because we're not naturally grown that way, at least up through my generation. Hopefully, we can change that going forward, you know, to skill.

Alex Smith (01:28:35.85)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:28:40.446)
Yeah, well, I think evolution, like it's hardwired into us just because evolutionarily, like if you showed any weakness, like back in the caveman days, like you would get eaten or you get killed or both. Yeah, but you know, right, exactly. Yeah. But like, but like in this bush right out here in my window, like there's not a saber tooth tiger hiding out in there. Like we don't have to worry about any of those things anymore. So, yeah.

Papa Rick (01:28:44.283)
Yeah.

Papa Rick (01:28:48.626)
Mm-hmm

Papa Rick (01:28:51.802)
That was just, yeah, that's just an invitation to get eaten. Exactly.

Jennie (01:28:53.171)
Mm-hmm. Also in mating, it was a big deal in procreating, yeah.

Papa Rick (01:28:59.738)
Protecting, yeah.

Papa Rick (01:29:06.734)
Yeah. The skills are different. It's more soft skills in oriented than it is. Yeah.

Jennie (01:29:07.707)
I'm sorry.

Alex Smith (01:29:10.442)
Right, yeah. So, yeah, so for you to admit weakness, like you're not, like, it's not the easiest thing in the world, but there's not life or death consequences to it anymore.

Papa Rick (01:29:22.543)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:29:25.615)
Alex, we didn't get to talk too much about your business, but tell the audience briefly what you do, because I think what you do is also something that parents, a service that anyone should look into and where people can find you. And we'll link your stuff in the show notes as well.

Alex Smith (01:29:36.362)
Yeah.

Alex Smith (01:29:41.554)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So what I do is I help doctors, nurses, and entrepreneurs, I help them basically multiply their money so they don't have to work for it. So with doctors and nurses and entrepreneurs, there's, you know, like we talked about, there's like a traditionally, at least there's like a one to one relationship with work, how many hours you work is how, like how valuable you are in the marketplace and is how much you can, you know, bring home. Well,

And then the traditional like financial advice is to max out your, you know, like your pre-tax retirement accounts, your post-tax retirement accounts. And, you know, while the vehicles are different, they're all still in the same place. So you're exposing your, that place being the stock market. So you're exposing yourself to a lot of unnecessary risk. You're exposing yourself to a lot of taxes. Um, and I help them get set up with infinite banking. So that way they have an additional stream of cashflow.

but also an additional pool of money that they can use that's not locked up in money jail and tax jail that they can use for, you know, if they need an emergency fund, it's great for that. If they want to finance college, it's great for that. Um, you can use it for literally anything. If you want to buy exactly, if you want to buy like a cash flowing business to increase your cashflow, so you could, you know, not work as much one month, like you can use it for that.

Papa Rick (01:30:57.347)
more liquid.

Alex Smith (01:31:08.859)
So there's a lot of flexibility that comes with adding that into what you're already doing.

Jennie (01:31:14.727)
Awesome. And you're on, are you on YouTube?

Papa Rick (01:31:15.118)
I think that's the wave of the future.

Alex Smith (01:31:17.77)
Yeah, so YouTube is all of my socials are Alex.w.smith10, except for YouTube, which is Medical Money Multiplier. I could not get alex.w.smith.ten for that, unfortunately. Thanks, mom.

Papa Rick (01:31:35.851)
There's an Alex Smith that beat you to the domains.

Jennie (01:31:38.471)
Alright.

Alex Smith (01:31:39.821)
Yeah, there's quite a few of us, unfortunately.

Jennie (01:31:41.063)
Quite a few Alex Smiths, yeah. I'm surprised you got it for social media.

Alex Smith (01:31:47.77)
Well, I kind of am too. Maybe it's the W that did it.

Jennie (01:31:51.127)
Yeah, yeah. All right, awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here, Alex. We appreciate you, yeah.

Papa Rick (01:31:52.018)
There you go.

Papa Rick (01:31:55.526)
Nice.

Alex Smith (01:31:57.418)
Yeah, thank you guys. Yeah, yeah, you too.

Papa Rick (01:31:58.642)
Great to meet you, man. Keep at it. I think you've got the successful attitude. Learn and be thoughtful and have a target. And keep at it. It is hard work, but I think you're ahead of the bunch, not to compare myself.

Alex Smith (01:32:09.972)
Thank you.

Thank you.

Jennie (01:32:18.331)
a relational parent. I should start handing out badges.

Papa Rick (01:32:21.871)
There you go. Some little wing or something. Yeah. We need a fair. Oh, a bee, a bee logo. Jenny B. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

Jennie (01:32:25.936)
Right?

Alex Smith (01:32:25.943)
Yeah.

Jennie (01:32:29.275)
Little bee logo with a relational parenting stamp of excellence.

All right, guys, thank you for being here and happy parenting and good luck out there.

Alex Smith (01:32:45.774)
Thank you.