We guest on the TomoClub podcast

We talked with Avinash (TomoClub founder) about students, mental wellness, and how to help them operate better in life.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Absolutely absolutely, So guys, thankyou Matthew for that great point. We'll
be talking more, so let mestart. We happy to read again.
So hi guys, welcome, welcome, thank you for tuning in on a
Saturday morning. I'm so happy tosee everyone joining in and we'll like in
the meantime, I would love toknow like good city you guys are joining
in from. You can put thatin a chat and we'll be happy to

(00:20):
know that. In the meantime,let me produce myself. I'm a Nashmuncil,
your host today, and i amco founder of Tumo Club, which
is an educational gaming company to learnto teach social and emotional learning to get
I personally have been a great advocateof the importance of mental health across every
age. We tend to discount thesematter a lot in early childhood, and
through several studies, it's proven thatthese are the concerns which pile up to

(00:42):
become bigger issue while growing up.Today. To address these issues, we
have with us our pro guests,Bill Lennon and Barbara Say. They have
co founded the Heart Program where theyteach mental wellness skills for life success to
all the people of different walks oflife, so they take preventive skill bit
approach to mental illness. So thankyou so much guys for take note time

(01:03):
and joining us. Why don't yougo ahead, any toduce girls at Barbara
go first, Okay, I'm goingto do that. My name is Barbara
and I am an occupational therapist bytraining and focused especially on mental health.
And so the past few several yearsafter that, I've been working predominantly with

(01:25):
teenagers from middle school sort of thinkthirteen years old up to young adults college
age twenty four, kind of twentyfive years old, working with them on
managing depression and anxiety. And itwas from this background of working in a
hospital program with people who are,you know, fairly seriously acute, that
I learned the things that help peoplein this environment, the skills we actually

(01:49):
should be teaching them earlier. Right, we should be learning these things in
school or in our homes so thatwe don't get to the point where we're
in hospital trying to learn them.So that was my background. My name
is Bill Lennon. I'm I've spenttwenty five years in software development, software
engineering, and product management large companies, small companies. I met Barbara five

(02:12):
years ago, three years ago.She wanted to know how I got my
software teams to do things that peoplesaid was impossible on a pretty consistent basis.
And when I explained it, shesaid, oh, you use the
skills we teach in the hospital.And I said, what's that. It's
said It's called dialectical behavior therapy,and I said, well, that's awesome,
but I've never heard of it before, and tell me more. And
so I got to learn language tohelp me explain to people and break down

(02:38):
process and practices so that they canbe successful. A quick story about this.
My younger son at the end ofCOVID, when he went back to
school, he had a really badcase of social anxiety. He was going
from a pretty small school into aschool that was literally five times as big,
and he wanted to be one ofthe stay at home students, and
his mom and I both thought thatwas a bad idea, And so while

(03:00):
he was reluctant and anxious, heand I talked about it, and so
I used the skills and I createda solution for him, and we talked
about it for amount thirty minutes,and I got him to commit to a
week of experimentation on campus. Atthe end of the week, he came
back to me, but he hada totally new problem. He had too
many friends and he wanted help withtime management. The names of the skills

(03:21):
that we used are slow exhale beat, slow exhale breath, the Big three
plus one values and priorities, aset of skills as an acronym called give
and an opener. This is what'spossible when you know all this stuff.
That's it. Wow, Well,that's definitely quite a jenny, guys,
and so let's stark. Let's starttoday's discussion by starting understanding the basics of

(03:46):
mental business. I think we allknow. I mean all, I have
a lot of different definitions in mymind, but I want exposed to start
with defining the basics. As inthe background, there's some noise in the
background, I was trying to managethat. So you put in your description
of the of the webinar, Apretty good example of what people usually think
about is mental wellness, right,it's our mental health. It's like,

(04:10):
you know, you've got to hitcertain milestones as you're growing up and evolving.
You've got to learn some social emotionalskills. So that you can interact
best well with others and effectively,and then you've got to learn how to
cope in their problems, right,And it's that last component that is interesting,
to cope when there's problems. Andwe see this in general healthcare as
well. We only go to thedoctor when we have a problem, right,

(04:31):
we don't think well, okay,So maybe we're increasingly now thinking about
wellness more in the healthcare field.Same thing in mental wellness. So mental
wellness is a complex equation that hasmany different influencing factors. And I think
that we've been spending a lot oftime and a lot of energy on the
things that are kind of outside ofour individual control and looking for ways to

(04:53):
change a lot of the big societalissues that distress us. And this is
an admirable goal and and it's alsoone that can make somebody, do you
feel very hopeless and helpless because themagnitude of the change seems so great and
the process seems so slow. Andso I see a lot of the teams
now coming in with a lot ofdistress around. I mean, they have
their own personal distress and anxiety,but they also worry a lot about what's

(05:14):
going on in the world and insociety, and if we're focused a lot
on the stuff that we don't havecontrol over, it's very easy for us
to get very distressed. So thepoint about how do we cope, you
know, when they are problems,It goes to the point of focusing on
what's within our realm of control,what's what is outside and we have a
little bit of control, and what'swithin us that we have a lot of

(05:36):
control over. Because that last bitabout coping with problems, it's much deeper
than just basic stress management skills orwhat do we do, you know to
put a band aid on things.There's a vast portfolio things that we can
do ourselves to enhance our own mentalillness. And we're going to talk about
this more today, so remember thatconcept for later, Okay, to put
it in different language. I tendto think about root cause analysis, and

(05:58):
I fully admit this is because ofmy ante background, but I always think
about what's the underlying not just thesurface symptom, but how do we get
down to a fundamental level to solvea problem, not just get rid of
what's going on on top and havinga preventative approach and a skills based approach
is what allows us to do that. Guys, I think that's quite a

(06:19):
brief interduction, I would say,and necessarily helpful. It definitely put things
in perspective. But even though weall understand the basic concepts, it's actually
very hard to identify the early stagesof I would say, anxiety, depression,
or even you know, problems inour child. So like, we
can you appreciate some ideas to us, which can be very helpful take aways

(06:40):
for all of us, but howdo we identify those early traces? Absolutely?
Yeah, So you know, it'sa spectrum, right, There isn't
one mode that everybody goes into whenthey're feeling anxious or depressed, and we
aren't there necessarily one percent of thetime. We kind of move up and
down across the spectrum of from wellnessto not wellness, right from wellness to

(07:02):
distress, and we do it withinthe year, within the week, within
the day, with sometimes within thehour. You know, we might be
sitting in a moment and ourselves andwe'd go back and forth between being okay
and not being okay. So Ithink we have to think about what are
some of the things that appear whenpeople are distressed and where can that go
if it gets worse? Right?So, some of the examples of things

(07:23):
that we see in teenagers as wellas younger kids and as well as adults
is things like emotional outbursts. Right. You know, we know with toddlers
and with teenagers, and even youknow with the kids in the middle,
that emotional outbursts aren't unusual. Theydo them all the time. But when
there's an outburst that seems larger thanone might expect for the situation. Do

(07:45):
you remember when you're toddler would doa huge outbursts in the middle of the
grocery store because they couldn't have somethingright, and they're on the floor,
screaming, kicking everything, and you'relike, whoa, Okay, I'm just
gonna sit here and wait for mylittle person to calm down and come out
of that emotional outburst because there's ahuge wave of hormones and emotions and stuff
like that that's passing through their bodyright now, and for me to try

(08:05):
and reason with them right now,it's not going to be very effective.
So I'm just going to leave themfor a while. Right. That kind
of emotional aptburst happens in teenagers andadults as well. We just don't handle
it the way we used to handleit with a toddler. We expect people
to continue to function even though they'rein an emotional situation. So when we
see an emotional outburst that's stronger thanone might expect for the situation, that's
a key to you know, howhas that handled? How does that person

(08:28):
handle that emotional outbursts? Are theyable to come back from it readily or
does it overwhelm them and take overa kind of their lives? Right?
And why is it that they're respondingso strongly to this particular situation. So
that's kind of a nice indicator ofwhen things might be going a little bit
awry depending on how they handle thoseemotional appurts. Another example, yeah,
absolutely, I would both have definitelyone strong you know, identify over which

(08:50):
weekend you don't keep put that one? Yeah, anybody else? But more
okay? And so another one isthe the experience of anxiety starts creeping up,
like like your fight fight fight flightresponse, right when you go into
that kind of i'm scared, i'mfrozen, i'm running away, i want

(09:13):
to fight kind of response. Thatstress response like it's life or death.
That kind of fear or panic oranxiety to a situation what might seem like
an everyday situation or our activity.Kind of like Bill talking about the anxiety
that his son was experiencing when thinkingabout going back to school. For us,
seems like people do it all thetime every day they go back to
school. And now he's having thisbig fight flight response come up in him.

(09:37):
Right, it's similar to the emotionalresponse, and it's focused around not
just anger, but you know,panic and fear. Right, So,
that kind of anxiety is another indicatorthat the way the person's handling their concerns
may not be the best, themost efficient or effective. Okay, so
ahead, Oh so don't have Barbara'sclinical experience. But I have two kids

(10:03):
that I've been monitoring right since theywere obvious in their babies. I tend
to notice when they're when they startavoiding things, like they don't do emotional
outbursts, They just there, theysay they want something, but then they
avoid it like they're basically it's theirwords and their behaviors aren't lining up.
And I start to get curious aboutthat because I want to catch it as

(10:24):
early as I possibly can and figureout what do we do right. So
I noticed when they're when their behaviorsand their words aren't lining up, and
also when they when they're becoming veryavoidant of things. My older son,
at one point in time, startedbecoming more avoidant of social things at school,
and he talked about wanting more friends, but he wasn't actually doing the

(10:45):
behaviors that would get him those friends. So what he was having was also
a kind of social anxiety. Andso we worked that out and I figured
out how to help him with someskills also. But I want it for
me. It's about what's the earliestplace I can find it, And and
one of my mental models is thateverything in the world is easy for somebody,
and getting from struggle to easy isa process of learning skills. We

(11:07):
talk about swimming all the time andthe water as a metaphor, and if
you know how to swim and youfall off the boat, it's not a
big deal, Matthew, when you'refishing, you can relate to this,
right, But if you don't knowhow to swim and you fall off the
boat, that's a whole other levelof problem, like you could die.
The other thing about swimming is it'sa gateway activity to a bunch of other
stuff. So learning how to swimmeans you can go in the ocean and

(11:31):
you can maybe learn how to gosurfing, and maybe you can learn whitewater
rafting, and maybe you can learnwater polo. It's like that with the
skills that we're helping people learn,is that oftentimes they're gateways to bigger things.
Because if you don't know how toswim, taking up surfing is a
really, really bad idea. Butif you do know how to swim,
then it's a whole lot easier.And so that's part of the beauty of
people learning these skills and having thesestacks available and recognizing we're looking at our

(11:56):
kids, what are the super earlysigns that's something that you know is easy
for one person is emotionally struggle forthem because they're avoiding. I got three
points, definitely. I'm pretty sureBarbara has more to add. So we've
got emotional outburst, we've got afight and flight responses, and a feeling
of avoiding things, got it,Yeah, Barbara, you can getinue on.

(12:16):
Yeah. So that feeling of avoidingthings comes along with reluctance to engage
in anything that seems like unusual oruncertain in your in your daily life,
like the new things. So ifpeople are like avoiding those new things that
they have to engage in in orderto move to the next step, you
know you like you think about itas from a game perspective, right,
as a game developer, you've gotlevels, and in each level, very
often you've got challenges or things thatthey need to learn in order to get

(12:39):
to the next level. That's thewhole point. That's what life is about.
We've just turned it into this littleencapsulation of life in a game.
But the idea of being reluctant toengage or to explore the game setting to
find out, you know, what'sover here or what's over there, you
know this area, if you juststay in that area, that's an example
of some kind of mental struggle oremotional processing issue. That means that the

(13:00):
person is not able to be curiousand kind of expand out of their comfort
zone a couple more really quick,so that we can move on. And
that ties in with this the difficultyof being uncomfortable and the desire to cling
to what's familiar in what we knowand then things like self talk which is
really negative, or viewpoints like ouropinions of ourselves that are negative and seem

(13:22):
excessively focused on the downside of everything, as opposed to and throwing away sort
of our upsides are positives. Couplemore that go in line with that fear
of criticism or being judged right.So if we judge ourselves first, somebody
else won't judge us right. Sothat's a good example of someone if they're
constantly judging themselves, or if they'reafraid of being judged or being criticized or

(13:43):
given feedback by other people, that'sanother example of having trouble to process what
we essentially call growth mindset. Andthen the last one is about so that
this listlessness or lack of engagement ormotivation internally, right, we need to
be pushed by the people. Weneed to be rewarded outside if if you
do this, I'll give you that. If you do this, I'll give
you that, as opposed to Ihave the curiosity to go and do this

(14:07):
thing. So those are examples ofareas that you know they are like early
developing concerns that are cracks in ourmental wellness down and the factors involved in
how we how we develop those areour responses to those kind of situations are
you know, we very oftentimes kidsand adults misinterpret what's going on. They
misread they have their own internal dialogue, other people have something else going on,

(14:30):
and they will assume that they knowwhat the other people are thinking.
And you know, that changes theirown emotions, that changes their thoughts or
behaviors and everything, and it helpsthem, helps them, It causes them
to develop habits that might be ineffective. And very often we get this from
our role models. And who areour role models and our kids, Well,
there are the people around us.Yeah, the people around us,

(14:52):
and we've not been taught any betterhow to handle these kinds of things.
We've developed them on our own.So, you know, get us some
cut us some slack, right,But you know that's the point is that
our role models struggle if they're nottrained explicitly or systematically, and so it's
hard for us to know what dowe do in the situation when we get
effectively thrown into the water off theside of the boat and now we have

(15:15):
to swim. Yeah, that's whatyou're going to be coming back to that
metaphor a lot today. Yeah,absolutely, I think that's siving example is
gonna come back aground again and again. But Barbara, like a very genuine
question coming from a parent's point ofview. All these examples that you shared
with us, whether it's emotional outburst, ignorance, lack of curiosity, lack
of engagement, aren't those things prettynatural with kids? Like? Yes?

(15:37):
Like, honestly, if they aredoing so, we can assume they're being
fuzzy, they are being lazy.How do we so? Sometimes it becomes
a problem of either we should takethem too seriously or should we let it
go because to cut them slack asyou said, right, So, how
how can you, I would say, break these complex mental health equation into
a simpler model that will be givingme more perspective of it. Well,

(16:00):
let's kind of use this as anexample. If your kids are constantly asking
you for you know, when they'rehungry, they want to eat something sweet,
candy, pastries, some kind ofsweet sugary stuff that we all love
to eat, and that's what they'reasking for all the time, and they
refuse to eat anything else, whatwould you do? Would you let it
slide? I mean in and ofthis moment right now, it probably is

(16:23):
not such a big deal, right, Okay, maybe they'll get a stomach
ache, but if you can kindof control the amount of it, maybe
it's okay. Right. Well,if they develop that is their habit and
that becomes what they eat all thetime, even if it's only a little
bit, what happens over time isthat they develop all sorts of health problems.
Teeth start falling out there, youknow, the body doesn't have the
nutrients that they need, and theyhave these sugar spikes and all kinds of

(16:44):
problems of eating food that's not necessarilyhealthy for us. So if we engage
in behaviors that are not necessarily healthyfor us, and we do it even
a little bit all the time,because we've developed we're developing a habit that
sets us up for struggles down theroad when we encounter situation that require us
to have developed other skills to handlea difficult situation. Right, So this

(17:06):
is I understand that a lot ofthis behavior is totally normal, and it
completely is and that and and weneed to learn a more effective response to
it so that we can teach ourkids that more effective response early on,
so that we can avoid the bigproblems later on. M No. I
think that's a good example to keepin mind that if it is happ happening,
pus this tempty, then that becomesout. It's bad to notice,

(17:30):
right right. Yeah. So oneone of the things that I think about
all the time is what's my kidsdesire? If anybody's watched the TV show
Lucifer, you know his thing iswhat's your desire? And people tell them
the truth? Right? Yeah?For me, figuring out how to drive
behavior of my kids by channeling theirdesire has been really really effective. My
younger son got into cars, andso I had to struggle to get him

(17:55):
to work on his car. Initiallybecause he was afraid of criticism. He
was afraid of getting it wrong.He was afraid of being bored, he
was afraid of wasting time, hewas afraid of being away from his friends.
But because I, as his parent, was willing to do the struggle.
Now he has friends involved who wantto come and help him work on
his car. He's excited about workingon the car. This is a place

(18:17):
where we as parents can leverage ourexperience in our intellect and put ourselves in
a place that's uncomfortable on purpose becausewe understand the ROI of doing that work
will in the long run, helpour kids have a better mental model.
Right. And now my son isnow driving himself, I mean driving,
He's pushing himself in the direction tolearn a bunch of things related to his

(18:41):
car because it's his desire. Andso now he's learning all of these transferable
skills, which for me is thehuge win. And I don't really care
how he learns transferable skills. Ijust wanted to learn transferable skills. And
so my job as his dad isto figure out how to get him in
the right context. And even thoughup front it was hard for me because
I was like, Nope, Sundaywe're working on the car. You're gonna

(19:03):
spend two hours on the car.Now it's easy. Now he's like,
hey, Dad, on Sunday,we're working the car because I need to
do this stuff. And I'm like, sure, no problem, Okay,
great, you know we're in there. But getting the kid's desire to be
the the trigger of their learning,this is what montatory schools do. Monatory
schools are really focused on kids willlearn things based on their curiosity, and

(19:26):
for me, that's been really helpfulto get that intrinsic motivation for him to
be doing things. No, that'syeah. The encapsulation of that in a
few words, make your why biggerthan your butt, That's what it is.
This is definitely going to get acaption of this videcord video. Why

(19:47):
must be bigger than the butt?And you can say butt with two teas
and the kids really enjoy that,and that's okay if it helps them remember,
right, Wow, that's definitely I'mgoing to remember for sure. I
made to take away from this andlike, your why bigger than your bat?
But I think we touched upon atopic that how we can break the
complex mental cultiquation into a simple model. I think would you like to throw

(20:08):
some light on that part? Yeah? Absolutely, this idea of mental wellness
very often, you know, outthere on the internet you see all kinds
of self help givers and people thatsay, oh, you should learn breath,
or you should learn yoga, oryou should do self care, or
you should do this kind of exerciseor eat this food or something like that,
and all of it can be true. But the thing is that because

(20:30):
we are complex beings, we havea lot of complex equation going into our
mental wellness. So there's a lotof different factors involved. So here's an
easy way to think about all thosedifferent factors and kind of group them into
an easy looking image. I wantyou to imagine a triangle. And in
the triangle, the top tip ofthe triangle is your body, and maybe

(20:53):
the tip over here on this sideis your emotions, and then the tip
over here on this side is yourthoughts. So on each of those tips,
you've got your body, your thoughts, and your emotions, and those
three categories of factors involve or affectyour mental illness, and then they affect
each other. Right. So hereas an example, if you walk into

(21:17):
oh, if you're if you're goinginto a like a convention hall with lots
of people and it's a networking event, and you're supposed to go and meet
up with them, right, Andthis is like kids going out on the
playground. It's it's fun. Ifyou've got your friend with you, right,
I've got my work colleague. Wecame together. Let's go raid the
dessert table or something like that.Let's go get a drink. It's fine
if you feel like you have companion, But if you if you don't,

(21:37):
you're what do you feel? Youfeel a little bit nervous, right,
you think, oh, I don'tknow these people and they don't maybe they're
not interested in meeting with me,or you know, it's hard to meet
people. It's hard to strike upconversation. So then my emotions go to,
well, if it's hard, Imust be distressed. I'm worried,
I'm fearful. I don't want tobe judged. I don't want people to
reject me. And then what doesthat do to our bodies? Then we

(22:00):
start, you know, getting tense, and we start winding ourselves up,
and we start feeling that kind ofpanic, fear, fight flight response.
So again, the whole point ofbody affects emotions, affects thoughts. Right,
this triangle, and you can thinkof it this way, is like
a stable triangle. Right, whatmakes the platform stable? So if you
can affect that body response and say, okay, I'm going to calm down,

(22:22):
I'm gonna use my breath, myslow exhale breath to slow down my
heart, right, slow down mybreathing so I don't feel so panicky.
Okay, that controls my body.I'm going to tell myself that these people
don't know me from Adam. They'renot judging me. I don't know what's
going on in their heads. They'rejust as nervous as I am. You
know. It's like that whole imaginethat you're speaking to people sitting in their
underwear because it makes you feel,you know, less nervous. So this

(22:44):
idea that might be cultural thing,I don't know, or an old school
thing. So the idea that youcan tell yourself that your thoughts are I
don't want to say imaginary, butyou're over amplifying the situation through kind of
self limiting thoughts, right, andthen have that affect your emotions and say,
you know, I'm actually going tothink of this as an enjoyable activity.
I want to meet somebody new todaythat's could be fun. Who knows,

(23:04):
And this is part of part ofmy goals. So now I'm working
on making my y bigger than mybutt. Right. So all those things,
the body, the emotions, andthe thoughts combined together as a simple
model to support the complex equation ofmental wellness. This is called the cognitive
triangle. We talked about this inpsychology as a cognitive triangle. You guys,
don't need to know that, butyou know, maybe giving it a

(23:25):
name might help you remember cognitive triangleall those areas. It's true that you
have outer factors things outside of youthat can affect those three component areas,
and you also have a lot ofstuff within you to manage those three component
areas. So it's about about howdo you learn the skills to manage those
stories so the stuff that affects youfrom the outside isn't so strong quarter No,

(23:48):
definitely, I think that triangletiority candefinitely really helpful to break this complex
thing into a very simple model.And thank you for shadding that. So
if I literally try to break downour discussion from a first principal thinking by
asking why littit things literally, Soso as we discuss the basics we identified
the early science and now the mentalhealthy question, the thing that actually pops

(24:11):
in my head is what are thekey skills like v as parents need to
develop to support mental illness? Wellnot to know how you'll answer them that,
So I'm going to tell you interms of areas of skills, because
there are there are a lot ofskills that we learn. We can you
know, any complex activity we canbreak down into smaller and smaller chunks.

(24:32):
Right, you think of cooking.Cooking is a complex activity because there's the
preparing, there's the actual cooking,and then maybe there's a plating or there's
the organizing buying of the food,and then the you know, the washing
and the cutting up and the smallmaking it smaller, and maybe there's cooking
steps involved, like first I haveto saute this, then I have to
combine it with that. Then Ihave to let this sit for three hours,
and then I gotta cook it ina you know, like, it
can be very complex and there's lotsof steps. So how do we break

(24:53):
down each step into a smaller setof skills? What is it to satte?
What is it to dice onions?Right? Same thing with mental wellness.
Okay, so here are the mainareas, five of them that we
need to develop skills in so thatwe can think about, Okay, this
habit that I do, maybe inthis area, maybe I need to learn
a different way of doing it.So the first one is our own awareness

(25:15):
of what's going on with ourselves.Self awareness, right, Self awareness is
about being. You can use mindfulnessor other kinds of strategies like the halt
skill to understand why am I feelwhat I'm feeling today? Why am I
thinking what I'm thinking right now?And you know, break down the where
are my emotions going? What ledup to this that put me in this
emotional state right now? That's aself awareness exercise, and the skills for

(25:37):
self awareness involved being able to internallylook at yourself like kind of come out
of yourself like a like you know, like you're looking above yourself and say,
oh, I am cranky right nowbecause I didn't eat my lunch.
You know, I went straight fora morning and I was rushing and all
this stuff happened. And now it'sfour in the afternoon and somebody's asking me
for something and I've exploded at them. That's kind of unusual for me.

(26:00):
Why is that? Oh, becausemaybe I'm hungry. That's hungry, angry,
lonely, tired. Halt Right.So, we as adults need to
do this from time to time,and we need to teach our children to
learn to do this, because whenwe're out of touch with what's going on
with our own selves, it's hardto manage, right. We need to
know to measure before we can manageokay, And that's just that's not just
our body, but that's an importantpart of it. It's also our thoughts
and our emotions being able to knowthem. So the second area, this

(26:25):
is a huge area. It's calleddistressed tolerance. Distress tolerance refers to being
able to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, to be okay with not being okay
or life challenges us all the time, and how how do we level up
our game, just like we doin your video games, so that being
uncomfortable is an evolutionary process that pushesus to change and evolve and to do

(26:48):
things in a different way, toexplore our options and maybe come up with
a different response that is optimally moreeffective. And sometimes in in many things,
like particularly with we're mental wellness,unless we've got good role models that
are already doing this kind of thingand they help explain it to us,
it benefits us to get some helpfrom elsewhere to find those more optimal ways

(27:10):
to respond to our distress. Andthis is like having a game walkthrough or
a hack or you know, agame guide. You've seen those. I'm
sure you've got to a level andyou're trying to fight a batty or a
boss and you just can't seem toget it. So you go onto YouTube
and you look for a game walkthrough and there it is. They let
me lay everything out for you.You got to get this post and then
you do it that way, right, same thing with us. It helps
us as as individuals managing our mentalillness to get a like a game walkthrough

(27:34):
or a hack as to how howdo we handle a more difficult situation.
And we need to because when weget higher up into higher levels of life.
So when the kids go from elementaryschool to middle school and all the
emotions kick in, and then theygo to high school and they've got all
these thoughts in their heads, andthen they go off to college and they
don't have the support that they normallyhave. Guess what happens that they drop
out and they come back. Soyeah, yeah, so all right,

(27:57):
so distressed, holler and super importinto resilience, persistence, and self confidence
because when you can handle difficult situations, you feel good about yourself. It's
fundamental. That's two areas, soself awareness to stress tolerance. The third
one is emotional management or emotional regulation. It's a fancy word. It's basically
how do we reduce our vulnerability tostrong emotions and kind of smoothing. So

(28:21):
you go, and they've already I'mnot sure from anyone. Is that somebody
talking? I mean, yeah,that was somebody talking. I just needed
them, okay, I thought they'reasking. That's okay, all right,
So let's see where were we.Emotional management it's about reducing our vulnerability to

(28:41):
strong emotions and we're basically smoothing theroller coasters. So when our kids become
teenagers, they get more emotional becausethat's what's going on in their bodies,
right. Their hormones are driving themto be more emotional. And at the
same time, their brains are evolvingand they're shifting from you know, they're
shifting to thinking about things in ain a logical, rational kind of way
using their their cortex, the frontalfrontal lobe, because that's evolving as their

(29:06):
teenagers. But they haven't totally doneit yet. So they're in this process
and so they're starting to reason,but they're still using their emotions to reason.
And and that's why, especially duringthe teenagers, we have to teach
our teams to manage their emotions better. And that usually is described as not
just in the moment that's more likedistressed holans, but also leading up to
it. What can we do tomake sure that we're in a good place

(29:27):
and not doing hard things when we'reat the bottom of our battery, you
know, like we're losing our charge. It's so it's perfect example, It's
Friday evening, you get home fromwork and your spouse says, why didn't
you do that? You know,have you finished the bloody blow that needs
to be done whenever right on Monday? And you're like, right, you

(29:48):
explode back because you had a craftday at work or it's been a long
week. Yeah, I didn't thatbe book? Right? So why are
we talking about this on Friday?Can it wait till Saturday morning, after
we've had a nice breakfast and youknow, arrest and you know, glass
of wine on right and our orwhatever, you know, whatever works for
you. Can we just pick timesto talk about hard things when we know
we're fully charged. This is aperfect example of emotion regulation. Okay,

(30:10):
the fourth one is interpersonal effectiveness,and this goes to the skills that facilitate
good communication, especially in difficult situations. Right, So again that that one
about knowing when to pick to havea hard conversation, to make sure that
the person is available and listening andin a good place. That's a very
important personal interpersonal effectiveness skill. Butalso just you know, understanding where the

(30:30):
person is. There are a numberof skills that we can use to present
our issues in a more sort ofpalatable, accessible way. So those interpersonal
effectiveness skills also important. And that'sthe fourth area than the fifth area,
and this, well, they're allreally important. I can't say one is
more important than the other. Thefifth area walk in the middle path.

(30:51):
This is about really recognizing that otherpeople's opinions have value as much as we're
stuck to our own. And I'mfully Bill can tell you that I'm guilty
of doing this all the time.Walk in the middle path to validate and
value other people's opinions and other situations, like, for example, when we
get into the teenage years, we'retrying as teenagers, they're trying to develop

(31:12):
their own sense of identity, theirown decision making processes, and of course
those adults, we want this tohappen. We just don't want it to
happen until they leave our house,right, We want we want them to
listen to us until we get toa certain age and then they're going to
go and do it their own way. Well, it doesn't work that way.
We have to give them the gradualramp up. So during this time
period when they're still with us,we have to have them learn how to
walk the middle path. And weas parents have to learn how to walk

(31:33):
the middle path with our kids sothat we don't cause problems, you know,
between us and our kids, whereour kids have that problem when they
go off, you know, ontheir own. So those five areas self
awareness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and walking the middle
path. Those are the main ones, you know, barb. So you

(31:55):
know, to kind of to addto that a little bit, you know,
Barbara talks about role models. Thisis the thing that we as parents
really have. The big responsibility iswe kids are smart, Like they're really
smart, right, and if we'rebeing hypocritical and we're telling them to do
something that we won't do ourselves,they're going to see it and they're not
going to trust us. And soI need my kids to trust me,

(32:15):
right, Like that's a critical thing. So why I tell them they need
to work out well, guess whatI'm working out, and I tell them
about my exercise. I tell themabout when I'm distressed and I'm upset and
things are really emotionally hard. Sothey get the distressed tolerance message that despite
it being hard, I'm still doingit. I always think about contextual conversations,

(32:37):
and so with my kids when Italk with them, I try to
make sure that this is interpersonal effectiveness. I put things into their context as
much as I possibly can not mycontext, and so they get it right.
They get it at a very easyto access, almost physical level,
and so it's not like I'm tellingthem to do something that's highly cerebral that

(32:58):
they've got to spend a bunch oftime or they may never actually connect to
it. And again this is backto as parents, we have to model
this for our kids, because otherwisethey're just going to be like up mom
and dad are They're trying to manipulateme and I don't like it, and
I'm not going to pay attention toit. And so you know, one
of our fundamental perspectives is if you'rea parent, you gotta learn this stuff
and be able to do it yourself. I can tell you it completely change

(33:21):
the quality of my life when Istarted learning these skills twenty years ago,
even though I didn't actually have thestructure, but each time I learned something,
I was like, oh, thismakes my mother so much better.
And it's the modeling for our kidsthat really helps them to get it to
move forward. Right. Yeah,no, definitely adding to both of your
points. Of course, you've coveredquite a lot of skills, but for

(33:43):
me, one of the major takeawaywas followed before you feature, So I
think I think that summarizes what wassaying and one thing that allized during my
personal journey that all those we knowabout these things, we hear them all
the time today. Also, thislive in our I'm pretty sure a lot
of our audience who are listening rightnow and who will watch this latter,
they do know these things at someplace, but the difficult part is to

(34:07):
follow them on a regro basis.And that's why I always talk about having
those mentors in life, having thoseyou know, non obediated on neutral people
in your life, which can bringyou back on tracks, right, and
that becomes really helpful. And thatis that is I think something that you
guys do at Heart program as well. Where you guys become an expert and

(34:29):
you know, work walk with theparents and the rat re basis, because
I'm pretty sure all these things whichare saying they look jargons when the real
situation comes, because then it's atesting time to implement it. Let's say,
if the kid is being fuzzy abouthis grades or her know her career
or anything at that amount of time, are you able going to be able
to remember all this and then comeout like that? That is the hardest

(34:49):
part. So I know, Iknow, I would love to know about
your program as well, because Ithink that mentor part which I'm coming from,
or something that we discussed about itearlier as well. So right,
two part of this is you haveto practice this stuff every day, right
Yeah. The idea I think aboutcompound interests. I'm not a math whiz,
but the metaphor of compound interest worksfor me really well. For me,
it's about how do I make myskills one percent better every day?

(35:12):
Because one percent better every day isa really really small increment to improve and
to practice the skill, but atthe end of the year, that's a
three hundred and sixty five percent improvementfrom where I was to begin with.
That's a gigantic change, right.Someone has a quote that we underestimate what
we can do in a year,but we overestimate what we can do in
a day. I think about what'sthe little tiny pieces I can do every

(35:36):
day to get it better, Andthen a year later I'm like, holy
cow, I'm doing something I couldn'thave imagined doing a year ago. And
that's one of the key pieces isyou don't just learn it and then not
practice it. It's like swimming,right, you can read a bunch of
books on swimming. What's that youlove swimming? I must say, oh
I do, yeah, total waterrat Yeah yeah. But you know,

(36:00):
reading a bunch of books about swimmingis not swimming. That's reading being in
the water and getting wet and holdingyour breath and getting you know, all
the stuff that's oh, hey,I'm simming freestyle. That's actually swimming.
And so you have to you haveto do the practice so that when you
fall off the boat, it's nobig deal and you can laugh about it.
Right, maybe it's cold, right, I'll get I'll grant that.

(36:22):
But but if you if you justread about swimming and then figure you'll practice
it. When you fall off theboat, you're dead. That's a game
mode, right. You have toactually be practicing all the time and building
up your skills a little bit ata time along the way so that when
you do hit that really critical moment, it's easy because you've already got that

(36:43):
stack of skills and you're like,oh, hey, this is I've already
done this before. It's not abig deal, right, And that way
all this stuff makes sense. Yeah, agree, I agree, that's definitely
that's program, you know, ifyou can explain that to an audience.
So the Heart program is basically,at its heart, funny curriculum that puts

(37:10):
together all of these kinds of skillsthat we talked about those five areas of
self awareness, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, and personal effectiveness and walk
in the middle path. So theunderlying foundation for that is the self awareness
and self management and that's where westart. We combine our online curriculum with
Zoom workshops because we know that people, you know, you can go and

(37:36):
read this online. You can likewe've pulled together as professionally pulled together this
information. Have been teaching it tomy patients for the last six years and
this is what's gone into our curriculum. It's possible to find it all out
there, you know, in thebig wide world, and it's it's hard
for people who don't know where tostart looking. So that's one of the
benefits of this program. It's allexplicitly laid out in a nice systematic way.

(38:00):
Is it's got names on it,so it's easy to remember teaches,
the skills and the strategies for eachof these areas. And because they have
names the skills, they stay kindof in the front of your head,
and it makes it easy for youto go, oh, you know what,
this is the situation that she talkedabout. I can use this skill
right now, and lo and behold, here I am at home and I
am having this difficult conversation. Butyou know, the next day, I'm

(38:20):
at work and I'm starting to havea difficult conversation. Oh yeah, I
could use that same skill that Iremember the name of because it's in the
front of my head and I useit then and now I can use it
now. So that's one of thereasons why the heart COOKU marks is because
that systematic teaching for a kid,this is about learning them learning to manage
themselves more effectively. For parents,this is about helping your child to use
the skills to manage themselves, andthe side product of that is that you

(38:45):
start learning how to manage yourself aswell. So what Bill talked about is,
you know, we need to practicewhat we preach effectively. It's very
important. And I recognize that parents, you know, very often they want
to focus on their kids. Therethey're really happy to put a lot of
energy into their kids, and theycome kind of second. Right, we
sacrifice stuff for our kids, sowe spend time on our kids stuff and

(39:07):
maybe less on our stuff. Sotelling a parent that they need to take
a course to be a better parentand sometimes challenging because parents are like,
well, I'm super busy, right, I don't have time to do this
course that you want me to do. But if we if we're learning the
skills to help our kids and buyas a side product, as a symptom
side effect, we also learn theskills ourselves and use them ourselves, what

(39:28):
better What better result can you have? Right? So that's one of the
benefits of this program is that wework with a family as a unit,
not just the kid, and expectthe kid to learn stuff on their own
without the support of their family network. They're easy to watch sport videos.
And we have the small group ofcoaching and you know, we what we
teach has a broad evidence base.And I'll just you know, blind you

(39:50):
with science and throw out some names. We've got dialectical behavioral therapy, cognitive
behavioral therapy, radically open dialectical behavioraltherapy, positive psychology, psychological neuroscience,
health psychology, mindfulness based production,sensory management, and how a bit training
all packed in there somewhere. Youknow, I curricul him to help you
respond better and work with your kidsbetter. Wow. So putting that in

(40:10):
a different perspective, just from myexperience. So I spent twenty years piece
meeling this together. So yes,you could spend twenty years piece meeling this
together. If I've done it,you know anybody can spend twenty years doing
it. The challenge that I hadfrom leading software teams was I regularly had
executives and other product managers asked melike, Okay, we knew you weren't
going to be able to do this, We knew that was impossible. Your

(40:32):
team got done a month early.How And I would say some version of
I take really good care of mypeople. Yeah, and they would want
to learn and I couldn't explain it, right, I could do it,
but I couldn't explain it. Ihad no idea what I was doing.
I mean, in terms of languagethat I could teach people. I didn't
have a transferable skill set, andso and you know this one on for

(40:52):
a lot of years, right,people would be like, hey, teach
us how you did that, andI'd be like, I'm just doing me
right, which it's not really aneffective transferable skill set. Now I know
how to actually explain people exactly allthe things that I've been doing for all
those years to help my teams tocontinuously get better, perform better output all

(41:13):
this stuff, and also to getthe executives to be on board and support
everything we're doing. I now knowhow to explain that, right. And
this goes back to Barber's point aboutthe name skills. I couldn't do that
before because I didn't have the wordsto explain all this stuff that I had
learned on the fly, intrinsically unconsciously, right, kind of like you know.

(41:34):
A corollary to that is that mydad has amazing distress tolerance skills like
off the chart, right, becauseof how he grew up. He didn't
know until a few months ago thathe had distressed tolerant skills because he'd never
heard the terminology. And I've beentalking about it and talking about it and
talking about it an all the way. One day he goes, oh,
my god, I have amazing distresstolerant skills. And I'm like yeah,

(41:59):
and he says, I never reallyput two and two together. Is that
all these things I've been able todo was because of my distressed tolerant skills
Because no one ever said that whenI was growing up, And so when
I was in Dad had no wayto teach it to me. Right,
I had to go figure this stuffout of my own because my dad didn't
have the language to be able totalk to me about values and priorities and

(42:19):
HAULT and all these other skills.So I had to go struggle a ton.
I'm having a little bit easier timewith my kids because I now have
language that I can teach them.No, that's definitely very important point.
Actually it's coming from the first point, which Barbara mentioned self awareness. So
and I think I'm very happy toshare that with other audiences as well,
that Barbara and Bill they are workingin getting parents aware of these skills through

(42:43):
the therapy session, through the counseling. Something similar we're trying to do but
with kids at Tomo Club. SoI will take a liberty to introduce that
as well to my team. Notpromoting, but it's likely promoting that.
What I'm trying to do at TomoClub is we are creating educational games and
these games are multiplayer, so againthe concept is similar that they would actively
together in the live call like avideo call, and when they talk about

(43:04):
it, when they share their knowledgeabout it, then they start to learn.
Just for refluence, I'm gonna sharethat quick video. It's gonna be
too many video for everyone, andit will explain that how our session actually
work. So give me a second. Yeah, oh yeah, that's I

(44:57):
love to see that videogame again.But you saw that in that video as
well. That's exactly what you're saying, that kids do things very naturally,
but when you give a name toit, when you give a word to
it, that helps. And oh, I just realized you could not hear
the audio part, didn't you?Ope, never mind, But I hope
they were the subtitles. So that'swhat we're going to do. And now,

(45:19):
since we're running out of time,I would love to open up the
questions for everyone who Actually we've gotquite a bit of questions. So there
is one question in the chat Iwould like to address. Yes, sure,
live right, and this is abouthow do you handle a child that
experiences anger? And this is thesame for a child as for a teenager,
as for an adult. If wetry to be reasonable and rational when

(45:45):
we're extremely distressed and upset, likeangry, it's very hard. So it's
hard to tell somebody, you know, calm down and think about this in
a rational way when they're like blowingup, right. So the first thing
we have to do actually is toaddress that anger and the distress and say,
you must be really angry about something. Somethings must have really set you
off, right, What can wedo to help you calm down? Right?
Now? I can see that thisis really bothering you, So you

(46:07):
validate the kid and you try andfind ways to help them become more calm,
and you do it. To justtell them to calm down is invalidating.
We all actually have to say youknow, I can see you're angry,
and there must be a really goodreason for it. So let's find
a way for you to get overthat anger, to let that anger dissipate,
so then we can talk about whatthat reason is, right, and
that allows them to let go ofthe emotion because they feel they're being heard.

(46:29):
Otherwise they'll hang onto it because you'rejust telling them stop being angry,
and they're like, no, Ihave to be angry, right, So
validating and then helping them manage theemotion handle a distress right, distress tolerance
skills. So that's the first step. And in there there's a little bit
of self awareness exercise, right becauseyou're telling them I can see you're you're

(46:52):
fuming. You know, you looklike you're about to hit something or throw
something. I can see that you'rereally angry, and it helps them recognize
that emotion in themselves. And onceyou get past the distress tolerance, then
you can think about, okay,well, let's explain why why is it
that you're angry? What is itthat has happened, what's pushed your buttons?
What is it that you're interpreting ofthe situation? Did you know somebody

(47:13):
do something that made you feel mador hurt your feelings or whatever it was.
And in that process, us asparents, we have to take a
step back and not say, oh, but what Jimmy did was okay,
because you did something really bad.When they're expressing their anger, you have
to allow them and valid it.You know, Jimmy did something that was
really hurtful, and I can seehow you would feel about that, you

(47:34):
know, right, So so firstaddress those those feelings and understand where they're
coming from, and then talk about, well, what escalated that situation.
So those are the processes. Andyou know, somebody talked about using art
to help express their emotions in ahealthy way, and this is actually helpful
for a lot of people using theirart to express their emotions as helpful.

(47:55):
And we also want to teach ourkids to use their language to press their
emotions with other people, right,because when they get to be twenty seven
and they have a partner, theycan't just use art to describe how they're
feeling to their partner when they're upsetwith them. They actually have to be
able to use their words to interactwith you know, a work colleague or
whomever, to say, so youdid this, and this frustrated me,

(48:20):
and that's you know, maybe myanger is not appropriate response. So I'm
going to try and manage that.But this is what started the cascade.
So let's talk about what, youknow, what did I do to contribute
that, to do that situation orhow did that all happen? Right,
So using your words, that's abig part of it. Well, that's
definitely that interesting point, and we'llbecome one more potion, I think is
all that is Alexander. She hasput up quite a few potions, but

(48:43):
let's start with this one. Anyone of you, Bill or Barba can
take it up that what key skillsshould we teach and how to a child
who struggles with emotional regulations, especiallyif we did allay to this anger?
Right, I'm sorry, okay,okay, how can we shift their motivations
from external rewards or acknowledge done?This is interesting? Yeah, that's a
big one that has to do withcriticism, and I think Bill can speak

(49:06):
to that all. Yeah, soyou know, it goes back to what's
the kid's desire? Right? WhenI was twelve, I took up scuba
diving and I learned Bernoulli's law,and I learned a bunch of mechanical stuff
about how Scooba regulators worked, andI learned about gassiout saturation and liquids.
Right when I went to high schooland they started teaching that, I already

(49:29):
knew it all right, it waslike all of a sudden, this stuff
from in my high school science classwas super boring because I'd learned it years
earlier. If you give kids athing that fires up their brain, they
will learn all kinds of stuff.What most of us don't recognize is that,
and we don't teach our kids thiswell enough, is that real world
experiences are much more alive in termsof brain chemistry, and they're much more

(49:50):
exciting than a video game is.And yes it's hard. Like my son
is learning that playing with his carand driving his car is way more exciting
than ever any video game he everused that had a car driving simulation.
Right, he doesn't want to playGT anymore because he wants to drive a
real car on real roads. Nowhe wants to get into car racing,
which I'm one hundred percent behind forhim. Right, But giving our kids

(50:12):
those kinds of real world experiences wherethey recognize that it's way more fun and
exciting, and then they want tolearn more about it, they want to
understand it better. This is thewhole thing with internal motivation, right,
And so I don't want to tryand tell my kids what to do,
right. I want to support themin being productive. I want to make
sure they're not eating candy or theequivalent of eating candy. But their desire

(50:35):
and their drive to be productive istheir drive. It's not my drive.
Right. So, my older sonthought he wanted to be a neuroscientist.
He's in college. He's decided thatthat's not what excites him. But right
now, what he realized is hereally likes writing, completely different thing.
Right. I'm like, wow,that's a shift, and one hundred percent
support his writing, and I encouragehim to write more because writing is a

(50:57):
good thing to be able to do, right, And I don't really we're
get about long term where he's goingto end up. I want him to
really pursue his skills right now andbe happy and confident about it, because
I recognize that skills are highly transferable. He could become a copywriter, he
could be writing books in the future, he could be ghostwriting books. There's
lots of stuff he could be doing. I don't want to tell him to
be a neuroscientist right now, rightbecause back to somebody else's question, the

(51:21):
intrinsic motivation is what makes him comfortable, not what makes me comfortable. Yeah,
And so once he's got the intrinsicmotivation, he's going to learn all
kinds of stuff, right. Youknow the amount of stuff that I learned
when I fell in love with divingwhen I was twelve, It was amazing.
Right, There's all kinds of stuffthat I picked up that a lot

(51:43):
of adults still haven't picked up,right because I was like, you know,
I deep dove because of my becauseof my desire. So if we
have to put the thing is toget kids comfortable in those contexts right where
they'll go and dive deep on things, and we need to kind of help
help them, you know, toget there, to find a really good
starting point and to go play withit, and and and you know,

(52:05):
maybe it's uncomfortable for us to beginwith, but so what, right,
we're adults, we're parents. Weshould have our own distressed tolerance skills.
If we don't, there's a coursethat'll help you with that that we teach.
But you know that's the thing isgetting out of our own heads and
letting them go find their desire andagain not having candy. Right, you
know, you can't spend your lifepoint video games. You need to actually

(52:25):
be in the real world doing things. Yep. Right, Well that's definitely
I'm gonna good. So I've beenon that and I think we are definitely
exceeding out of one out of thething. Any enemy works that you know,
Barbara Will would like to give toour audience on the entire topic of
social and emotional they'll be off kids. Yeah, I would like to do
a little overview verse brief as Ican about this. One of the things

(52:49):
that really affects teams and kids iswhen parents affects their motivation and their curiosities.
When parents could size kids and tellthem that what they're doing doesn't have
value and what they should be doingis something else, right, something whatever
that something else is, and thatshift of you shouldn't be doing that,

(53:13):
you should be doing that is whatis one of the key factors that stops
kids from having internal motivation or curiositybecause somebody else is telling them what they
should be doing. The minute wehave to rely on somebody else to tell
us what to do. We startlosing our own intuition, our own motivation,
internally, our own drive, andwe just wait for somebody else to
tell us what to do, whichmay or may not be useful. When

(53:37):
you become a cog and the worksand you know, how much cog are
you? Right? How much creativitydo you engage in? And as you're
working for somebody else. So Ithink that we just have to be more
careful to try and look and asparents walk the middle path to say,
you know, what is my childdoing right now? Is because even if
they're spending a lot of time ontime on games, maybe we try and

(53:58):
look for the things on the gamesthat they're they're benefiting from, like exploring
new realms or trying touching everything andtrying stuff right and saying, okay,
well this is great in this space, and can we encourage that in the
real world space as well somehow,you know, so that we'd balance.
But we recognize that what they're doingin that space is actually valuable, we
just have to encourage it somewhere else. So that's the middle path, right,

(54:19):
validate what they're doing, and thenencourage them to do it elsewhere as
well. Yes, I'm hoping thatthat example can be a fundamental fift in
how we view our interaction and ourguiding of our children to make sure that
what they're doing we recognize the valuein so that they they do more of
their own stuff and their internal motivation, you know, is developed. Thank

(54:40):
you so much for that. ButI've been any ending a bus now,
you know, this is all it'seducation for everyone, right. I didn't
know this stuff. You know,my parents didn't know this stuff when I
was growing up. As I said, my dad couldn't teach me distress tolerance,
even though he was really, really, really good at it. As
parents, really, if we wantto, you know, take care of
our kids, it's behooves us tolearn all these skills, to model these

(55:05):
skills for our kids, and tohelp them understand the value. And really,
you know, one of the coolestthings for me is when my kids
tell me they're teaching their friends theskills to help their friends with their anxieties,
right, because that's the network effect, and that really creates a much
better world for all of us.Yes, that's true. I would like
to also end it with a statementthat you know, being mentally healthy during
a childhood actually means you know,reaching a development or a mistone like emotional

(55:30):
mystone and the way we learn howto manage the social skills, it becomes
a copen ganzem for overall problems.So I think there's a lot of synergy
when I discussed with you guys aboutHeart program, Tomo Club, about several
new programs out there, and happythat they are coming up every day.
So I think it was amazing interactingreyways, and thank you everyone for joining
in on a Saturday morning, andI hope that we come up with more

(55:53):
and more better discussions and guests,So the next time, thanks so much again