54. Unexpected Joy: How do we redefine success so we can find joy?

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And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do hard things.

We are back.

You are back.

We are all back.

Here we are together again for We Can Do Hard Things.

It's almost the end of the year, which is so wild.

It's insane.

And so we have been thinking about this year.

We actually, sister and Abby and I spent a lot of time together this past week, and we've been talking so much about

the unexpected

joy of this year, which has been this podcast,

this time together, this community, this completely new creative project for us,

it's really led to us thinking about how this all began, about how this podcast, this We Can Do Hard Things podcast that has come to mean so much to us, began.

And so, I was thinking a lot about how many months ago, and you know that I have no idea how many months ago, it could have been one or 13.

So, see how many months has it been?

When this, when we started dreaming this thing up, you first brought it up in February, and then I just skillfully avoided it writing back about it for a solid month.

So I just kept kind of being like, look, Neagle, to try to get distract you from it.

Yeah.

But then you started, you, you became unrelenting about it in like April.

Okay.

So that makes perfect sense because

I think it was right around this time last year

that I just started feeling like something was off and wrong.

And, and I was not, I felt like off mission and like untethered in my work.

And,

and this is because at that point, we were just coming down or not even coming down yet from the untamed extravaganza, which was just like constant interviews, constant daily, like talking about

the book.

talking about

to people I didn't know, to interviewers, to people, just all these people that I did not know, talking about the work.

And I just started to feel very untethered.

And so

we went away for a couple of days.

And that is super helpful to me sometimes to get out of my house because when I'm in my house, I love puttering and house domestic things so much that I can distract myself very easily.

Just like mo, I, I could, I could wake up in the morning and move things around my house all day.

And that's my joy.

Just move things around.

It's unbelievable.

Right.

So it's fun for me and it's my joy, but it's also a way of staying distracted.

So I don't have to figure anything out.

So go to the house.

Most people scroll on their phones and you just scroll through your house.

I scroll through my house.

I'll catch her looking at a bookshelf,

just staring at it.

Yeah.

And I'm thinking, oh, no.

In a few hours, that whole bookshelf will be on the floor in front of me.

Yeah.

And I will have to figure out how to put it back together differently.

That's right.

Because I'm an amazing starter of things and not a finisher.

And every relationship needs a starter and a finisher.

Because without the starters, nothing gets started.

Without the finishers,

all the books stay on the floor forever.

Because the starter begins with a very hopeful version of herself.

And then the starter gets tired.

The reality of the project sets in.

Right.

And that's from where you shine.

That's where I shine.

I mean, look, it's also

just purely based out of like wanting the house to be finished looking.

Right.

Yeah.

Otherwise, the starter doesn't care.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Starter doesn't really care.

So,

so

we go away.

I'm stuck with myself in this room.

And I realize that the reason I feel untethered and I feel off mission is because I've been talking about my work to people I don't know for a year.

And what I love and what I do and what my work is is to speak directly to my people

about whatever the hell is happening right now.

And so I had this removal situation where, you know, when I, when I started writing on the blog, it was me to you, like you, listener, not you, sister, like me to you.

Every day I'd wake up in my little house and I'd go into my, actually it was a playroom back then.

And I would just write my

inner self to directly to you every day.

And that is what I did.

And

so, what I realized is, oh, things have gotten bigger and wider, and I need to get back to the small and directness, right?

So then I started doing the morning meetings.

Yep.

To directly me to you.

And that I used to do them on Instagram.

And that was awesome, except it wasn't exactly right because it was social media.

That was one of my challenges: wait a minute, I want to be having these really nuanced, tender,

vulnerable vulnerable conversations about the gray of life.

And I'm hosting it,

trying to host those kinds of conversations on social media.

And

there's some beauty there.

We all know that.

There's also, it's a very hard environment.

And maybe it's hard because it's not designed for that and never was.

I felt like it wasn't safe for me.

I never felt fully safe there, being my most vulnerable self.

And I, the, the worst part was that I kept feeling like maybe this is not safe for my community.

I'm inviting them to a place over and over again where I'm not sure actually it is the best place for them to share their most vulnerable selves.

So, what was the solution?

What was the solution to this?

And then one day, Abby had been saying we should start a podcast forever.

I thought podcasts at that point were for like boys talking about sports.

Like, I had never listened to a podcast.

I had no idea what a podcast could be.

Right.

And it was that few days away.

I remember writing to you and thinking,

what if we

do it this way?

What if a podcast is a way where we can actually have,

first of all, we can speak directly to our people again

in a way where we kind of create the rules for the community, where we create the vibe, where we are able to be safe

because it's a little bit removed from

social.

And there's no audience for it.

Like it felt like it was us having dinner, a really intimate conversation over dinner that we got to invite one person to the table

every time, you know, and that, and just speak directly with that one person.

So it felt more intimate.

It's not like you're hosting a giant, you know, circus like social media sometimes feels.

It feels like a, like having dinner together.

Well, and you've said this before about like being a creative artist.

So much of your work, you write a book, takes a long process to create.

And then you go out and you have to talk about the art that you just made.

And so over time, that just becomes soul-crushing.

It does.

You know, and so I think that what was really beautiful about this last few months, watching you come alive

again by creating, you know, directly.

By creating something that was going directly to these pod squatters and by also like for you to be in the process of creation is life-giving for you, right?

Like I could tell you were more active, you were more upbeat, your mood was more positive.

And yeah, you had bad days, but I think over the whole, it was a much more stabilized confrontation with your inner world because you weren't at a like you, your, your being needs to be creating.

And there's a difference between creating and promoting.

And that's a very strange part of my job, which is

make a thing and then go talk about the thing.

That's right.

So

the point is, it's so wild because here we are.

We decided to do this thing where we would come back together, just the three of us in this small way, sister and her, where you're in Bobby's bedroom right now.

Yeah, my son's little window seat.

Yeah.

So you and I finally got out of the bathroom and the closet.

Yeah, we've had a few different places.

Remember, we started this when we were still living in Florida.

Oh, my God.

And by the way, might I remind you, I wasn't going to be a person that does this.

You weren't even occupying it.

No, it was just you and Sissy at first.

And then somehow you rope me into it.

No, no, I wasn't.

Nope.

It was just supposed to be Glennon at first.

Let the record show that it was Glennon's podcast with Glennon.

And then we got conscripted like it's a damn army.

Oh my God.

I forgot about that.

Remember, I recorded a bunch of these.

I started recording the podcast.

The podcast was going to be just me, and I was alone in my closet recording these things.

And then I realized they sucked.

Yeah, they were, they were pretty.

They were just sucky.

Long-winded of you.

They were just boring.

And I remember thinking, oh,

okay, so maybe a podcast is a conversation.

And so the problem is, is that I'm alone.

I'm doing this all wrong.

I don't know how to podcast.

So you two

came in and that is such a better reflection of who I am now anyway, is just who I am is this relationship really between the three of us.

And so we did this little small thing.

And then

Freaking last week,

somebody wrote to us and told us that Apple had decided that our little we can do our things podcast is the number one podcast of the entire year

we were like

wait what i know and we were actually all together at the time that this came out and that that news came out and i just remember being like

why

and and then i felt sweaty because i was like wait I don't, that means other people are listening to it.

Yeah.

Like, that's scary.

What, what have we said?

A lot.

Yeah.

I mean, yeah, number one new podcast of 2021 with Apple, top podcast of the year, Amazon.

It's on all of the lists.

And to me, it just shows how much

we really all have a deep need for

to be in conversation and to laugh and to connect and to just tell the truth and how much we

aren't doing that.

I mean, I, it's not like a way of life.

I wasn't doing it before

doing it here, you know, and I think that it's just, it's just beautiful to me.

And also how amazing it is that people, um,

like the threads that run

among people that you would have no idea just from walking out in the world, you know, when you say something and throw it out there and you're like,

this is odd, but this is what I'm thinking.

If I didn't care that you would think I was crazy for saying it.

And people are like,

also me.

Also me.

You know?

Yes.

It makes us feel.

suddenly like we're all stuck in these little weird worlds.

And then when we share our weird, weird world, we realize it's not a weird world at all.

It's just the world.

Like

this is all of our internal worlds.

And then that process over and over again, what I have learned through this is that then we just feel more cozy and brave.

Yeah.

I mean, remember the

bathroom episode for me, going into bathrooms, the anxiety?

Oh, yeah.

Do you know what's completely subsided?

Wait, tell, remind them of that.

So as a reminder, I have

pretty much since I cut my hair short, have been getting confused for being in the wrong bathroom when I'm in a woman's bathroom.

You know, I definitely present more masculine.

My hair is short.

I'm tall.

I'm very muscular, or at least I was for many, many years of my life.

And ever since I talked about it on this podcast, when I heard from people

about how this happens to them too, it made me feel like,

oh, not only that I'm not alone here,

but like, oh, I think that it's my responsibility to also like get over it because I'm just going to carry this with me for the rest of my life if I don't just like get over it.

And you don't deserve that.

And stop letting other people have that, that personal power over me so that I feel like in a weird way, I'm like this, a leader in the world.

It's like, oh, I've got to be, I've got to get myself over this so that I can prove that it's possible.

And then one day you came home.

And this was just a few weeks after the, we talked about it on the podcast.

And you said something, you, we sat down upstairs on the living room couch.

You said, something weird is happening.

I'm not getting upset in bathrooms anymore.

Yeah.

And it's not that anything had changed.

People were still reacting the same way.

Oh, yeah.

They were still giving me the weird looks the whole bit.

And also, I have to remember when I'm in there because my MO is to get in there and to do my business and literally

probably like in from some people's perspectives, like run.

Yeah, you do.

Running out of the bathroom because

I don't want to freak anybody out.

And now I'm just like, I'm taking my time.

And it was just the sharing.

It was just the sharing.

It was the sharing and the hearing back the me too's that changed the entire experience.

And that's how my whole life is.

Yeah.

I feel less scared all of the time.

Not

scared, but less scared all of the time, all the days

because I know that my experience is not unique.

Well, it's like, it's this whole idea of once you say the thing that you might feel ashamed of, because I think I was carrying shame around with it.

Once i said it out loud it just completely takes away this shame thing so

what we want to say is these awards have been pretty cool but what we know is that we are going to stick to what is our job and our mission which is

no matter how wide things ever get we are going to stay deep

We are going to stay small.

We are going to keep talking directly to you

about our lives and our hearts and the truth.

And if you keep showing up, we're going to keep showing up too.

That's right.

Right, Sissy.

That's exactly right.

And I think that this is a cool time at the end of the year to be, you know, not only thinking about this whole year, but thinking about next year and the conversations that, you know, we want to be having.

And we definitely want this to be a conversation.

So we want to hear from

everyone in the pod squad of what you want to talk about and what matters matters to you and what you're struggling with, and all of that.

So, I think that we should

keep those ideas coming because this is a fluid conversation, and we want to be responsive to what is on your minds, too.

Yeah.

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Let's talk about what

the actual impact that this pod has made in our lives.

Like what have you learned?

Personally?

Yeah.

What have you learned about yourself?

Or what would you say has had the biggest impact on you from this?

Are you asking me?

I am.

Can I be honest?

No.

Well, okay.

So I think one of the things that I was afraid of, and this is kind of why I was a little bit at first letting you kind of do it with sister.

Not letting you, but just like being very okay being on the periphery.

It's because

i

didn't know how we would work together on something that was like your creative baby

now what i we work a lot together we do we do speaking events together we are um out in the world together we have worked together so this is not like the first time but this would be the first time i was going to be kind of jumping on board with your creative vision.

Yes, because usually we're doing stuff for other people.

For other people.

And so I get to show up as myself and you get to show up as yourself.

I'm not trying to like make you boss happy.

Right.

I'm not trying to please you, boss.

I'm trying to like be Abby and be wife.

Yes.

And I think that that was really nerve-wracking for me at first.

And it's interesting because, you know, we spent this last week together.

And one of the things that I

have been understanding, I've developed a little bit of anxiety over the last couple of weeks or months by doing this.

Not by doing this, but I've realized what about the last few months has changed and this is the thing that has changed the most

and so i've been thinking a little bit about it and what i think i have put my finger on correct me if you think that i'm wrong here but

you both have a process

of of of how to achieve best results for yourselves in creativity

And Glennon, I know what your process is.

And sister, I think I'm pretty aware of what your process is.

And basically what your process is, is to

create this beautiful idea, but also be as prepared as you possibly can be prepared.

Because at that point, then you feel free to be yourself.

Right.

And I've never operated that way.

And I don't mean to say this in a flippant way.

And not that I under-prepare,

but that I rely on myself

to show up

as my present self.

And that is what my magic is.

I have found.

But watching you two kind of walk through this creative process and seeing how you both

spend hours and hours preparing for every single person.

It has made me feel insecure.

It has made me feel woefully insecure.

So when I sit down in this seat and I put my mouth towards this microphone, I think, I'm the worst one.

I'm the weak link.

And that is a very strange place for me to be in.

What a foreign concept to you.

Yeah.

You're like, what?

I've actually, the last

week since this realization of how this anxiety has manifested,

I've been thinking about that.

Like, what, what does weak link mean to you?

And all of this.

And it's like, oh, no, no, no, no.

This is a team.

If I'm given the space to be myself,

to show up completely as myself.

I will thrive.

In your way.

In my way.

Because it's not just you.

I mean, I think you're being sweet to say, to not bring up my part in making you feel

contributing to your insecurity, because

why don't you tell them about the time you had to sit me down and ask me to not be so mean with my eyes during the podcast?

There is a vision.

There's a vision.

For every podcast, what everyone needs to know, pod squatters, is that there is a vision for the beginning, middle, and end of this.

It feels like it's just a conversation.

It's like when I'm on stage and people are like, oh my God, you're so natural.

I could never just come up with all of that.

And I'm like, neither could I.

I've been practicing this.

I write it.

I write it.

I write it, then I record it.

Then I speak it into a phone.

Then I spend hours listening back to myself on a phone with my dogs.

I have this vision of

the episode, right?

And then there's a through line.

And I get very nervous when you don't stay on

the thread.

Yes.

And you're not a threader.

And so here's the thing.

I noticed early on in those first couple of episodes that I was more present on and contributing to that anytime I would go on a tangent, the eyeballs of my wife.

would get big.

And then she would also point to the screen where I have some notes.

She has some notes.

And she would make a reference.

She would do a circular motion.

Rapid show.

Rap

Wombach.

Like giving me the energy because she can't say it.

Right.

So pod squatters, you're just right there listening.

You can only hear me.

So you think I'm sweet.

You can't see me.

You are sweet.

My laser eyes.

But you have

to have a grander plan.

And I know this.

So of course I oblige in those moments.

And you get nervous and I make you nervous.

Yes.

And so it forced me to have to have a conversation with you.

Yes.

On behalf of myself.

And though sister never told me, I knew that she was thinking the same thing.

I had to have a conversation with you about

the difference of process that I have.

Yes.

And how sometimes when you're so worrying about that, that thread, that line that we're supposed to be

maintaining throughout the conversation, that it's stifling my ability to actually have conversation it steals it steals your magic yeah because we have different magic yeah and marriage is hard because it's combining two different magics and respecting each other's magic that's right because i will tell you

that it is a old story and it is not true but the old story for me is people who don't prepare say that their magic is presence, but really they're just lazy and don't want to prepare.

That's right.

like my god please see every person who has ever every best man or matron of honor who has ever stood up at a wedding and say you know what i'm just gonna speak from the heart and i'm like you are an asshole who failed to prepare for your best friend who is standing up there on their most prepared day of their life and deserve your best and you just want to speak from the heart

how about some how about some index cards that's right how about a plan people so So yes, I operate very much from that story.

I've spoken from the heart at weddings.

I'm crushed.

Okay.

People came up to me after sister and were like, that was the best wedding speech I've ever heard.

I'm like, I know.

Okay, so here's, so the thing is, I'm saying that I, I don't know if sister's there yet, but I am saying that I understand that part of that is just an old story.

And so Pod Squatter sweep, I'm so worried now about anyone who's ever stood up and said they're speaking from the heart.

We're not saying you were wrong.

We're saying,

well, you were wrong, probably.

You were wrong for you.

For me.

For you and for sister.

Sister and you would never be

able to do that comfort-wise.

I would only, well, I'll say it this way.

I would only be able to speak from the heart if I knew that I had spent the time inventorying my heart for what would be of highest value in honoring that person.

That's right.

And for me, because my love language is helping, I view it as you have failed to take the time and consideration to know what would actually be of highest value to that person.

You're going against what happens to be in your heart.

I actually think it's super fascinating because it speaks to everything.

It speaks to how we show up for everything.

Like, do we just, I, for one, I had to, because I ended up in this situation somehow where I'm constantly having to show up to do scary things, like speaking on podcasts to millions of people, being on stages, being on whatever, and also being an anxious person.

I had, I used to have different phases where I was like, okay, phase one, prepare.

Prepare for whatever's about to happen.

Prepare with all of your little might.

Phase two, dread it, stress about it.

Rue the day you were born.

Phase phase three.

See all the 10 ways you can cancel.

Exactly.

And pray for a monsoon.

Exactly.

Then phase three, show up for the thing.

Okay.

So now horrible.

Now, right.

Well, I have over the decade and a half I've been doing this, mostly

ruled out phase two.

And then when I get to the thing, I have this deal that with God that's like, okay, I showed up, your turn, you show up.

And then it is a relinquishment of all anxiety and of all past preparation.

It's It's like I need, I did it all, but now I'm not in my head trying to remember all of it.

It's just poof.

And now I'm present because

of the preparation.

You are able to be unlocked when

you're prepared.

So your preparedness unlocks who you are.

Yes.

And Abby's showing up present without the burden of thinking there is like 14 things I must say.

I want to say them.

That is what unlocks her magic: she's fully present and can be responsive to it.

So there isn't like a right way, there's just a right way for you.

I do feel that no matter who we are and what we're doing, what I have learned

is: if I'm going to keep showing up in any way, it's big or small, there has to be this, and I would recommend this for everybody listening: there has to be this

insistence, this relentless reminder and insistence that whatever way you is best for you to show up, that when you do and if you do,

what you have in that moment will be enough.

And that is the only way I can continue to do this work in any way.

And by the way, I think, I always think I'm tricking myself because I'm like, there's no way that it's going to be enough.

But like, let's just decide.

that it is.

Well,

and that enoughness has to be decided on from every individual because I can't take on

your preparation strategy and use it as my own because then I will always feel completely like unprepared and that I have not prepared enough and that this is going to go horribly wrong.

And then,

and it does.

Can you please tell the story of the one time that you tried to do Glendon's preparation style?

Because I still pee in my pants when I think about that time.

I can't believe

tell the people.

the firefighters story yeah i'm sweating already okay

well this is when i was trying to make you like me

you were trying to do your best for her i'm sure that's what you're trying to do i just have to preface this that this is

the biggest bomb of my life for sure like professionally speaking this was the the the worst performance i have ever in my life had

so I was asked to come and participate and do this speech a couple years back.

It was for Time's Up, right?

It was a Times Up right after Time's Up had all happened after.

They did this conference and they were like, hey, why don't you come and talk, give, you know, I had just done the Barnard commencement speech and Wolfpack book had yet to come out.

And so they were excited.

I was going to come and, you know, rile them up and excite them and in all my feminist glory ways.

And so I, Glenn, and I brought you.

we we flew in at the time to LA and the night before there was a dinner and Glennon looked around and she saw tons of fancy people.

Well, I saw tons of women activist people

and people that were in the zone of women and activism.

Yes.

I just looked around and realized, oh shit,

this is like really

important.

We got back to the room and

I just started spinning.

I just started losing it because I realized whatever, what I believed was that whatever you're going to say to these people is going to change the trajectory of the world.

Yes, that's right.

And so that night I had my questions because I was going to be in conversation with this woman in a fireside chat model, right?

So it was just her and I up there.

She would ask me a question and I would answer it.

Emphasis on the chat.

Yes.

Chat.

Chat.

And so Glennon starts to write down because she wanted to practice some of my answers.

Like, hey, what, oh, here's a question.

Like, what would you say?

You know, and I would give the answer.

And she's like, all right.

So here's what I would say.

And

these are the three points I would make, you know, during the answer of this question.

I'm like, okay, great.

So she writes this out and in essay form.

In essay form.

And immediately I start to develop a kind of anxiety.

Like,

because y'all don't know this, I have real memorizing anxiety.

Like,

I have a blockage, I cannot do it.

And when your wife, who we were, you know, this is like still new, we were very new at the time, when your wife is writing down all of this stuff for me to regurgitate, I was like, you know what will make me feel a little bit better is if we get these all down and just print it out so I can look it over and just have it.

You know, I'll just have it.

I'll just have it in case they need to reference it beforehand.

Yes.

Right.

Before the fight.

So I gave you like.

And it was really good.

It was so good.

Very good.

Five.

It was like 10 pages.

It was another amazing commencement speech.

It was what it was.

It was like five commencement speeches.

The problem is, again, I have struggled to memorize.

So I brought the paper up to the podium.

I think like Natalie Portman was in the front row.

Every, like all the time set, lawyers, politicians, everybody, Amy Shu, everybody

in this room.

We get it.

We get it.

In this room, there were a lot of people there.

And this is like the worst bomb of my life.

And so she starts asking me questions,

the moderator,

and I forget everything.

I forget.

And so I pull paper.

I pull the paper out of my pocket.

And I was like, you know what?

I'm just going to, I made some notes.

So I start

in a fireside chat.

I start reading an intimate conversation.

Glennon's words

because I'm she Glenn is in the audience and

I want

to say the words correctly.

The worst part was she was trying to pretend she wasn't reading it.

Like

the lady would say, so what do you think about this?

And Abby would act like she was off the.

She off the cuff.

She'd go, well,

what do I think?

And then she'd pull out the paper and read it verbatim

i mean it was so embarrassing and so the

this could this moment couldn't end quick enough and i sit down

people

leave the stage and i sit down

and i just next to glenn and i couldn't even look at her and i was like well that was just the worst thing that ever happened to me in my life

And I can't wait to get out of here.

Like, we need to leave this place as soon as possible.

The lesson here, folks, is to just not ever leave yourself.

Yes.

Yes.

Is to not ever leave yourself behind and like do it your way.

But I was trying to help.

I know.

I know you were.

I know.

But you were helping in the way that would help you.

Right.

This is our big problem in our marriage: is that when you help people, you actually have to help them in the way that will help them best,

not in the way that it would help you best.

Oh, retweet.

In a relationship, you have to actually

help them in a way that helps them

instead of

how you wish it should help them.

Okay, so it's not treat others as you wish to be treated.

No, it's not.

It's treat others as they wish to be treated.

As they wish and need to be treated, yes.

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I feel like we've been talking for absolutely ever, so maybe we should get to a couple questions from our sweet pod squatters.

We're going to hear from Francesca.

Hi, my name is Francesca.

I am a middle school teacher.

And my question is, what is your opinion or advice on how to teach children who are not your children how to do hard things?

I feel like as the years go on,

the students that I teach are less and less willing to even attempt hard things.

The minute that it gets difficult, they want to just shut down or quit or find an easy way out.

And I try to motivate them through pep talks and some exercises to teach them to persevere.

But if you have any additional ideas, I would love that.

Thank you so much and have a wonderful day.

Love it.

Francesca, thank you for being a teacher.

Yeah.

I was a teacher.

That's how I started my life.

And I

just have such a deep, deep love and respect for teachers.

So thank you.

It makes perfect sense that kiddos right now now

would

struggle with seeing perseverance as something that they can

commit to.

Because the memo that our parenting generation got was like, don't let your kids struggle.

The second your kid struggles, rush in and fix it for them.

That's what we were told.

That's what we believed was good parenting, right?

Protect your kids from pain, protect your kids from struggle, don't let them hurt.

And so

because we have fixed and fixed and fixed and rushed in every time things get hard for our kids, me for sure included, what we accidentally taught them was that they can't do hard things.

Because if they could, if we believed that they could do hard things, we wouldn't keep rushing in and fixing it.

So what they learn is, oh.

I guess I wasn't meant to do this hard thing because

this is when the older people swoop in and save me from it.

Right.

So,

so it makes sense.

I wouldn't for sure not say it's not these kiddos' fault.

We just haven't allowed them to sit and struggle enough to let them figure out that they can, in fact, overcome struggle.

I mean,

I love the idea of just changing what success means for kiddos.

We have one little one who,

when she started playing soccer,

every game,

once that her team started losing, or if she did anything wrong, less than perfect.

She would stand on the field and just cry.

And sometimes it wasn't even about losing, or it was when the intense pressure built up.

Yep.

It would just, we'd, Abby would go, uh-oh,

here.

She's losing it.

And she would stand on the field and stop moving and just ball.

Okay.

Now.

Because that comes crying in public.

Crying on the sports field comes with its own embarrassment.

right?

So she was, she was stunned.

She was stunned by the woman,

and then the cycle of crying, and then stunned by herself.

Yeah.

And then, of course, Abby wouldn't let me rush and get her because that would worsen everything.

So we would just have to sit there and she would ball.

Okay.

So

is the game still like actively happening around here, Russia?

It is going.

It is happening.

And then, and then the embarrassment from the crying, but you know, you can't stop crying once you started.

So

one day

we

talked to her and she shared sort of with us about how it just felt like the end of the world when they were losing or when something went wrong.

Like it just felt like the end of the world because that was failure.

And so we had this long talk with her where we decided, okay, so honey, we're going to like

move the goalpost for you.

Okay.

We're going to change what the idea is of success and failure for you during your game.

Okay.

Success for you is not if your team wins.

Success is not if you make any no mistakes.

Success for you is when things start to go wrong.

And they will.

And they will.

When you start losing, when you miss a ball, when you, whatever happens, terrible.

And she said, I'm not going to cry.

And we said, oh, no, no, no, no, no.

Crying is fine.

Success is going to be when the thing goes wrong, if you start crying, you're just going to keep moving.

You can't stop playing.

You're going to cry and play.

That is raging success for this family.

Okay.

If you screw up the game

and you burst out crying on the field, but you keep running,

we are going to be wildly proud of you.

That is the biggest win in our family that

can ever happen.

None of us.

Just keep swimming.

Just keep swimming.

Just keep swimming.

And we still say it a decade later.

We still say, just cry and play.

Cry and play.

Cry and play.

So I don't know.

Basically, what we were trying to teach her is the struggle is the success.

It's not the failure.

It's not a sign of failure.

The feeling of the struggle, the hard, and staying in it

is the success, is the win, which is kind of the same for a kid who's in the classroom with Francesca and is like trying to do a math problem and it's not coming easy for them, or trying to do cursive, and it's not coming easy for them.

And their brain tells them because we have accidentally told them failure, failure, failure,

as opposed to feeling the heart and being like, oh, this is the good stuff.

This is where I, if I keep going, this is where I make progress.

This is where I learn.

Right.

I have a little bit of a different perspective on the motivation thing because my struggle with it is different.

With

my son's ADHD, I think for me, I've always viewed motivation as like you sit down and you continue working on this thing until it's done.

Like, how can you just like

tap out, you know, like, we're going to sit down and we're going to do it.

And it, and it led to a lot of struggles with us.

Kids with ADHD, she said,

it's very hard to get them to,

what did she say, like persevere through what gets difficult.

And it is very typical for, for kids like my son to have very low frustration thresholds.

That's a very typical sign.

So what

may look like early,

you know, copping out of something is actually a reflection of my actual threshold for frustration is lower.

than somebody else's threshold with frustration.

And it actually, ironically,

I always viewed it as lazy.

I mean, with apologies to myself and my family, like that's just was my perspective on it.

You're, you're just, you're giving up so early.

You don't care about doing good things.

Like, you, and, but it's actually the clinical word for a low frustration threshold is perfectionism, which blew my mind

because

I was looking around and I was like, I don't see any evidence of perfectionism around here.

But it's because I am so afraid that I can't do this perfectly that I am cutting bait before

I even get thwarted in it

at all.

So there's that piece of it.

I think it's viewing it as perfectionism instead of like laziness and helping them work through to that.

And then I think the other part of it is that we would sit down and I would say, like, we are not getting up until this is done.

You know, we are going to learn to have some perseverance and be motivated and get through things.

and after a few times and he would just looked at me one time he just looked at me and he said my body

needs to get up and run oh

and i realized in this moment that i have been teaching these kids over and over and over again since they were babies to trust their bodies and trust themselves and I was letting my biases about what being motivated looks like, what success looks like, what being willing to lean into the hard looks like, that I was making him deny the needs of his body.

And so we just have a new understanding of that.

It's just he, you know, when we're doing something, we're like, you have six minutes of this and then you're going to run for five minutes.

And then we're going to do six minutes and then you're going to run for five minutes.

Because for me, that's just as important that he understands himself that way.

Just like my daughter knows she doesn't have to hug and kiss any relative that she doesn't want to, just like it's no one in my family has to clean their plate.

Just like, no, you know, continuing to turn into their bodies is going to be how they'll trust themselves to know that they can push through things.

It's turned out to be the theme of this episode.

It reminds me of like me trying to help Abby

according to my own mind and spirit and body needs.

And love is not that, right?

Love is like.

Help him as he would like to be helped.

And the way he can be helped is to work through it and then do what his body needs and then work through it and do what his body needs.

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All right, so let's jump right into our next right thing because we had an awesome question that we're going to use for our next right thing.

My name is Erica, and I know we can do hard things, but how about an easy thing?

I cannot figure out how to leave a rating for your podcast.

I like it.

So I would like to leave a rating and I can't figure it out.

Help me do an easy thing.

Thank you.

Goodbye.

Erica is our matron saint of the fact that we can do hard things, but we cannot do easy things.

Y'all, I didn't even know that

you could rate this.

Yes, it's a big deal to rate because

it helps us in some way that I'm not sure what it is.

And I don't know how to rate.

Do you know, sister?

I bet you.

I do.

I do.

So every platform is different.

So you will have to go to wherever you listen to your podcast.

It might be Apple.

It might be Spotify.

It might be Amazon.

You can do one where you just do the number of stars and you go to look at the reviews and it has all the stars and you click on the number of stars that you like or there's actually a place a link that says submit a review you scroll down to where you're looking at everybody else's reviews click submit a review you can write one up and submit it but only do that if you love our podcast if you don't love our podcast forget everything we just said and move right along.

Oh my God.

And while we're doing this for the next right thing, go ahead and leave a review and a rating.

That would be amazing.

And also, can you all please write to us or leave a voicemail or just contact us and let us know, what do you want us to talk about as a community in 2022?

What kind of topics, what kind of guests, what kind of thoughts, ideas, any of it?

We want this to be a conversation, not just us talking at you.

We want to hear what you want this to be in this coming year because we are committed.

We are going to keep showing up in 2022.

We don't know what kind of year it's going to be.

In general, human beings are not making predictions anymore.

But we do know it's going to be hard.

So we're on, we're on theme, okay?

We don't know much, but it'll be hard.

And it'll be together.

Okay.

The phone number is 747-200-5307.

That's 747-200-5307.

We love you.

We can do hard things.

We'll see you back here soon.

Bye.

I give you Tish Melton and Brandy Carlisle.

I walked through fire.

I came out the other side.

I chased desire.

I made sure I got what's mine.

And I continue to believe

That I'm the one for me

And because I'm mine

I walk the line

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks are map

A final destination

We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find

our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a heart pain.

I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new start.

I'm not the problem,

sometimes things fall apart.

And I continue

to believe

the best

people are free

and it took some time

but I'm finally fine

Cause we're adventurers and heartbreaks on that

our final destination

We stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives

bring,

we can do a hard thing

This were adventurers and heartbreaks on that

We might get lost but we're okay with that We've stopped asking directions

to places they've never been.

And to be loved, we need to be known.

We'll finally find our way back home.

And through the joy and pain

that our lives bring,

we can do

We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios.

Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it.

If you didn't, don't worry about it.

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