Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
There are as many
ways to parent as there are
parents in this world, but thereis one way to parent that wins
every time, and that's doing itintentionally.
This show is about helpingthings go right before they can
go wrong.
Each episode is chosen to helpparents like you, who may be
overwhelmed or uninspired, findthe ideas and motivation to give
(00:27):
their best efforts to thepeople and place that matters
the most.
I'm Dr Tim Thane, author of thebook and host of the podcast
Not by Chance.
I believe that a family'ssuccess and happiness is not by
chance, so welcome to thepodcast, built especially for
intentional families.
Let's jump in.
(00:47):
Hey everyone.
Thank you so much for joiningme again for the Not by Chance
podcast.
I'm really excited today.
I want to, I guess, convinceyou today that you, as a parent,
have more power and moreinfluence than you actually
believe, maybe because I'veworked with a lot of parents
who've had teens that havestruggled.
(01:09):
But most of the parents that Iinteract with have been
convinced, either by their ownchildren, maybe by themselves
and their own mind, that theyreally don't have much power,
and that's understandable, isn'tit?
I mean, when we've doneeverything we can think of for a
struggling teen and nothingseems to be working, but instead
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they seem to be spiralingfurther and further down.
All we can think of is we justare not effective.
And so we start to look outsideourselves for more power or
more influence.
We look at professionals and westart to think that maybe
that's the answer.
You know, if we can get themwith the right therapist, we're
going to access the poweroutside of ourselves to help our
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teen.
The problem with that thinkingis that there is nobody in
position, like you are, as aparent, to actually have
influence with your teen and intheir life.
And there's a lot of reasonsfor that, if you think about it
I mean, let's count some of theways right.
You love this child like nobodyelse will.
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Nobody's going to come close tothe caring, the love, the
history, the sacrifice,everything you've done to raise
this child to this point, and sothey're not going to care as
much, and that in and of itselfqualifies you beyond anybody
else on the planet, to be thenumber one influence in your
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teen's life.
So let's go beyond that for asecond.
Let's talk about history for asecond.
Nobody knows your child likeyou do Now.
I would admit that some of thehistory has probably spun things
in your mind in a way thatyou're convinced now that you
don't have power, because you'venoticed that in that
relationship, that reallyintense, caring relationship,
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you feel all the pain that theyfeel and so because of that you
feel even more powerless becauseyou really can't control their
emotions.
So it's understandable that youmight have convinced yourself,
because of all that history, allthat baggage, all those
experiences of failure, that youreally have no power.
(03:20):
But again, I'm going to comeback to this point you are the
most powerful agent of change inyour teen's life.
That's my goal today.
I want to convince you of thatfact, which is contrary to all
the things going on in your mindif you're struggling, contrary
to what the society would wantyou to think or tell you to
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think, probably contrary to whatyour teen has been telling you,
either through their actions orout and out, by telling you
things, maybe swearing at youand kind of showing you look,
I'm more powerful than you.
So you definitely see that inour lives sometimes, where our
teen is exerting their power andputting us below them and
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that's actually a reallyunhelpful thing for them, it may
feel good to them at some pointbecause it expands their
freedoms, their options.
But if they're not ready forthat freedom, it's really not
good for them.
So we're going to go throughseveral things today.
We're going to talk about whyit is again a little bit more
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details about why you are themost powerful agent of change in
your teen's life.
We're going to talk about howto get that power back, how
sometimes the hierarchy in ourfamily system is flipped and
there's so much I could sayabout this, but we're going to
confine it to this one principle, and I think it's the very
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first principle that you need toknow is that parents are the
most powerful agent of change intheir children's lives.
If you check your energy level,you might find that the battery
is pretty low, and if youequate energy with power, you're
probably going to say I'mreally low on power, because it
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takes a lot to be a parent overtime, and sometimes your child
the one that you may be worriedabout the most seems to have a
full charge and you're runningon empty, and that's a pretty
challenging scenario where youneed to be the leader.
Now I want to convince you thatif you don't accept this role,
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if you don't say yes, I am themost powerful influence for
change in my teen's life.
There is a leadership vacuum.
There's a vacuum that nobody isgoing to fill, because nobody
can fill it like you.
So think about the downside ofnot at least planting the seed
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and saying you know what?
I may have given up my power, Imay have been convinced that I
don't have any influence, but Ineed to change that and my hope
is that, through this podcastand hopefully some inspiration
you might receive during thisconversation, that you're going
to jot some things down, you'regoing to take some action and,
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as a result of that, you'regoing to end up having a
different experience in terms ofyour kid.
I'm going to share with youthree ways and I know there's a
lot of other ways we do thisthat we give away our power or
we make ourselves powerless inthis role as parents.
A lot of times we actually, ifwe took a look at the
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prioritization of the differentroles in our life and we listed
those out you know one to 10,whatever how many roles you have
legitimately where would youput your role as a parent?
You might value it more thanany other role or say that is
the most important role, but itactually is it in day to day
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life.
Are you putting in the time,the effort, the emotional work
you know, the self-discipline,all of those things to
understand what that role is, toget good at that role and to
actually prioritize it in thereal world with your kids?
If you're not, then it makessense, doesn't it, that we don't
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feel as powerful andinfluential in the lives of our
kids as we should, becauseknowledge is power.
We've heard that and there's noplace it's more true than in
the role as a parent.
But we think, since we had akid, we should automatically
have the knowledge that goeswith that, and especially all
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the knowledge that starts withwhen they're a baby, all the way
through childhood and then thechallenge is adolescence, and
yet we really don't.
It doesn't come automatically.
It's an exercise of study, ofpractice, of self-awareness,
gaining insight and ultimatelyget better and better and better
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at that.
I feel sorry for my first coupleof kids because I really didn't
know a lot and sometimesthere's some experimentation
going on there.
But if it's coming from a placeof care and really you are
trying to do your best, that'sthe best you can do and it's
going to be good enough, butreally make sure you have
prioritized the role ofparenthood, because you need to
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feel powerful in that role.
I remember a long time agoreading some kind of quote from
a trainer of horses.
He said something to the effectof when a rider starts to lose
their patience with a horse,what they need to really
understand is that theirknowledge about how to work with
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a horse runs out at about thesame time as their patience runs
out.
So if we're losing patience,it's probably actually we have
kind of hit the limits of ourknowledge and understanding as a
parent, and that we just needto expand the knowledge and our
patience will expand as well.
So, again, knowledge is key.
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I'm so impressed by so manyparents that I meet who read all
the books.
The best predictor of somebodywho is doing self-development or
self-help, the best predictorof those who would buy a book
like that, are ones that havealready read books like that.
It's because they're in themode of continually developing
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themselves, and so I really lovethat when I meet people like
that who are especiallyprioritizing this role of
parenthood.
Another way that we give awayour power and our influence is
we react to the emotions we havewe let that dictate the way
that we feel, the way we act and, ultimately, whether we have
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influence or not?
We had a young man that weworked with him and his parents.
He had gone to a treatmentprogram and months after we
worked with him he kind of cameclean.
And this young man saidsomething like we were talking
about hey, your dad really madeall these changes, and what was
it like for you?
And he said you know, when mydad stopped yelling, that's when
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I realized I had lost my power.
I realized that my manipulationskills were slipping because
his father had started to haveself-control around the
emotional side and therefore hisinfluence and his power
increased.
Now that's a tall order.
I know that all of us have thesetimes when we are so triggered,
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and it's not always anger.
It could be something evenstronger than anger.
These days we have a lot ofkids struggling so much that
their depression, their anxiety,is so extreme that they feel
like they can't function in theworld, that their depression
might get the best of them.
And they definitely leave thoselittle messages out there that
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I'm not sure I want to livethrough this and, of course, a
parent hearing something likethat.
What are they going to do?
They're going to immediatelystart to operate from a
different place.
It's going to be coming from aplace of fear.
I was talking to a father oneday on the phone and he shared
this that their son had neededto go to the hospital because of
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self-harm and suicide ideation.
And he said, since that time,since he'd gotten home after the
hospital stay, he said,honestly, we're just walking
around on eggshells and wereally have stopped parenting.
So if you ask that father andso many others out there right
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now, what would you say?
Your power, level of power andinfluence in your family life is
, especially with this teen, ona scale of one to ten.
They would say a one or theymight even say a zero.
So that's where they'reoperating from.
So we definitely want to flipthat around, because we do.
We do no good in this mostimportant role of parenthood if
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we don't feel like we can haveinfluence and help our children.
If you look up quotes onleadership, you know and I'm not
talking about family leadership, I'm talking about sort of
organizational government,whatever leadership out there If
you find some good quotes onthat, I want you to try this.
I want you to replace the wordleader with parent or parenthood
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instead of leadership, andinstead of employee, put child
or put teen in its place andfind out that that leadership
quote actually applies probablyjust as well in most cases to
your family and your role as aparent as it does for that
manager in an organization.
Let me share a couple with youthat I think are interesting.
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A leader takes people wherethey want to go.
A great leader takes peoplewhere they don't necessarily
want to go but ought to be.
Now let's, let's slip that toparent and child.
A parent takes a child wherethey want to go.
A great parent takes a childwhere they don't necessarily
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want to go but ought to be.
Fits, doesn't it Really doesfit.
And and here's another one, atthe end of the day, the most
overwhelming key to anemployee's success is the
positive involvement of leaders.
Now let's check it out for aparent and a child.
At the end of the day, the mostoverwhelming key to a child's
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success is the positiveinvolvement of parents.
Absolutely right, thatabsolutely fits.
So what I'm trying to convinceyou of is that, number one,
nobody's in position, like you,to fill this leadership role.
And number two, it is aleadership role and is essential
.
You need to be in a position toplay that role, to provide
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stability, consistency, totransmit values from you to them
, to help them understand how tolive a happy life, how to get
along with others, how tosucceed in life, how to excel.
All of that requires that achild be raised in a situation
where they have leaders showingthem the way and, primarily,
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parents who are showing them theway.
Now we've all seen the circlesof influence.
Right, if you can imagine threeconcentric circles and you've
probably seen the diagram ofthis.
But on the inside you've gotthe small circle, and that is
the circle of control.
Then outside of that you've gota little bigger circle called
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the circle of influence, andthen the larger circle that
encompasses all of those twoplus others outside the circle
of control and influence iscalled the circle of concern.
Now, this has been around for along time.
I don't know who reallyoriginated this sort of concept
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or this idea, but it's got a lotof truth to it and it applies
to what we're talking about here.
Let's talk about the circle ofcontrol.
That inner circle, thatsmallest piece of all the things
we're concerned about, isactually within our control and
when it comes right down to it,there are very few things that
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land inside that circle squarelyand they all are inside me.
For me, and they're all insideyou.
For you, it is the thoughts,the feelings, the actions that I
take.
It is your ability tounderstand and then manage and
also change those three things.
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And as we start to focus onthat inner circle, the
interesting thing that happens,that is inevitable, it is
something that follows, it is aprinciple, and that is that when
we focus on our areas ofcontrol that we actually have
full control over, our influenceexpands.
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So you can imagine those twocircles, the circle of control
getting bigger and the influencearound that even bigger than it
was before, and therefore thethings that fall outside those
two circles of our concerns areless.
But conversely, if we flip thataround and we focus on the
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things we actually have nocontrol over but we're very
concerned about, and this is themost automatic, easy thing to
do if we're not paying attention, that is, to focus on the
things that are outside ourinfluence and outside our
control, and we begin to shrinkour control and our influence
and our hope and our feeling ofpowerlessness it grows.
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So I want to take this into thereal world with you for a second
, going back to the father Italked to about the child that
had attempted suicide, ended upin the hospital.
So this father for a time, youknow, before I talked to him,
they had been focusingcompletely on that outer circle,
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and by the time he got to me,his feelings of control were
shrunk down to probably apinhead.
There was almost no feeling ofany control.
All they were trying to do issort of keep their son alive,
and that threw everything elseout the window.
It's no way to live and it'sactually no way to actually help
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your teen.
So they've got to be empoweredbeyond that.
So that's really the goal ofthis discussion today is I want
to definitely help you start tofocus in on what you actually
have control over and then startto see the ripple effects of
that in your life.
Now I want to make sure youunderstand that when I say
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parental power or leadership, orpersonal control, I'm not
talking about controlling thelives of our teens.
That'll never work If our goalis to try to control them.
Remember that falls outside ourinfluence.
We want to expand our influence, though, and we do that by
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fostering a positiverelationship with them.
We do that by playing aleadership role in their life,
where we are setting an exampleto them by what we do every day.
All right, so I want to tie thisa little bit to what we're kind
of our mission here at trustee.
We're really excited by the waythe trustee app is getting
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close to beta testing.
We've got a parent group rightnow that's meeting every week.
Our goal is, in six weeks, toempower them to feel trust
throughout their family at agreater degree than when we
started.
And so far, so good.
We're into it two weeks.
We're going to be doing ourthird week week next week.
And guess what?
We are talking about these trueparenting principles that
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parents are the most powerfulagents of change, that they need
to be united as co-parentsthat's otherwise their power is
undermined.
And that they, as co-parents,need to be at the top of the
family hierarchy.
Now I'm going to go into thoseother things in more detail in
future podcasts, but all of thatis setting up the leadership
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structure right.
That's parents at the top.
It's not to overpower orcontrol the kids, but it's to
provide leadership.
They have to be there, theyhave to lead from the front.
It's having those parents insync with one another so that
they don't undermine each other,and so they're not allowing the
teens to split them.
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It's a very common thing.
There's so many ways that teenssplit parents, but it's not
just that.
Parents are often splittingeach other and they're creating
a coalition with the teen,making one of them the bad cop.
The other is a good cop, and inthe process, the teen doesn't
receive what they need.
So let's talk about what does agood leader do?
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Right, you could apply theseprinciples at home or in the
workplace.
So a good leader knows thatthey are in a leadership role.
They're in a position wherethey need to teach, they need to
train, they need to be reallygood at communicating.
When there's conflict betweenthem and an employee, they need
to be able to work that outright.
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Same thing at home.
They need to be in sync withthe vision of the organization.
So a good leader in the homedoes the same thing.
You need to clarify what is yourvalues?
What are you trying to actuallylive out day to day and
transmit and pass on to the nextgeneration?
Is that clear to your kids?
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Would they be able to say, yeah, this is what my parents
believe in, this is what they'retrying to teach us.
I can tell you that at leastone value I think I probably hit
the bell or the hammer,whatever I hit this bell
constantly, and so all of mykids I'm sure from a pretty
young age they could tell youthis, and that was dad was all
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about hard work, and I'm proudof that to some extent.
But I think that might havebeen the bell I was ringing more
often than maybe some of theother values I had that I didn't
share quite as much, and sowould your kids clearly know
what you're trying to accomplishin your family.
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Leaders need to convince theothers that this is a good place
to go.
They need to have a sharedvision, and I've talked about
this in the past.
But one of the great thingsthat Roxanne, my wife, did for
us is early on she said we needto have a family motto.
In a way, it was a very shortstatement about our purpose as a
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family, and so we created oneand it was great.
And then we had a family cheer,and this family cheer we'd do
it around the table.
We had a round table and it waskind of fun.
We'd all be around us and ourfive kids and we would say this
cheer.
At the same time, we would hitthe table with our fists and
we'd bump fists all the wayaround the circle until it came
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back to me and then I'd hit thetable again, we'd throw our
hands in the air and cheer andit was fun.
But it was an intentionalattempt to help convey what our
family is all about, what we'retrying to accomplish together
and that we're all in thistogether.
We're doing this as a team.
Somebody has to lead out right.
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Somebody has to be in thatposition to say this is where
we're going and it's a greatplace to go, and we're doing
this together.
Another one is going through theups and downs of life.
As a leader, you need to be thesteady.
You need to find a way thatthey can rely on you, that at
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the worst and hardest times,they know that their mom and
their dad and their parents aregoing to be steady and capable
of weathering the storm,whatever that is.
I remember telling my kids fromtime to time and it was this
Surprise to me, honestly that Iwould feel this way is like it
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was an honor to be their parentduring their most difficult
hours, as painful as that was.
It actually made me feel likethis is what it's all about, and
I think I did a pretty good jobin some of those cases of
helping them know that I wasabsolutely with them and going
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through that together, and thenit was a joy to actually feel
that pain with them.
So leadership is something wehave to step into.
We have to know that that isonly our role.
Nobody else can do it and it'sgoing to take us being our best.
Now, obviously we have somekids that are born into our
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families, sometimes that youknow they sort of raise
themselves, you know they justkind of figure it out really
well.
Other times we have kids thatstruggle along the way and we
might think we're a great parentuntil that second child comes
or that third child, and all ofa sudden we go whoa, I don't
know much about parenting, andthat's when we might wonder do
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we have influence?
I hope I've convinced you todaythat if you will focus on the
things that you have controlover, if you will constantly
develop yourself in this mostimportant role, develop your
knowledge, develop your skillsof emotional management, develop
your ability to interpersonallyunderstand the dynamics going
(25:03):
on between you and each memberof your family and how that's
affecting the whole.
And then I identify what it isin your circle of influence that
you need to change in order tohave a rippling positive effect
on the family system.
As you start to do that, day inand day out, whether you're
(25:25):
tired or not and sometimes we'rereally tired.
That's why it's really hard tobe a single parent.
You need someone to tag teamwith and if you don't have
someone to tag team becauseyou're not at your best, find
other people outside the family.
Maybe you're extended familymembers, maybe you have
neighbors or people in yourchurch or friends that you can
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call on.
I call that the home team,where you can literally call
them and say you know what?
I'm having a bad day and I needto be better than I am right
now.
So I need your support or Ineed you to come over.
I need you to be here, becauseI'm afraid there's going to be
conflict if I don't have anoutsider.
Step in right now.
But if you can do that on adaily basis, over time, just
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like you would, if you're tryingto build your physical strength
, you will grow, you'llstrengthen in this role and
you'll see your influenceincrease.
I know you've been inspired bysomething today and I ask you to
write down what it is you feelyou need to do.
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Maybe it's something you needto stop doing and start.
Maybe it's the thoughts youhave about your inability.
Maybe you need to catchyourself doing that and stop it,
start to think about where yourreal power is, circle back to
that inner circle and start tounderstand that you have great
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power.
Please write down what it isyou're going to do and then
start to implement that in yourlife.
I would love to hear from youHonestly love to hear what it is
you're doing to start toconvince yourself and then see
evidence of your influence beingthe greatest potential
influence in your child's life.
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I'd love to hear about it sothat we can share that with
other people out there.
Well, all the best to you.
This, as every other principlewe're talking about on this
podcast, is not by chance.
These are things we have todecide to do.
Thanks for listening to me andall the best to you as you
capture more and more of yourinfluence and power as a parent.
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Parents, your time is valuableand I'm grateful you spent some
of it with us.
What you're intentionally doingin your home life is inspiring
and unmatched in its importanceand long-term effects.
Ask yourself what am I going todo because of what I've learned
today?