255: Big Deal, Little Deal: A Stress-Busting Leadership Tool

[00:00:00] Randi Rubenstein: My name is Randi Rubenstein, and welcome to the Mastermind Parenting Podcast. At Mastermind Parenting, we’re on a mission to support strong-willed kids and the families that love them. 

[00:00:10] Hello. Hello, beauties. How are you this week? I have been thinking about y’all and I’ve really been thinking about the last Masterminding Monthly call, which is a free coaching call that I’ve been doing every single month. I’ve been having a lot of fun. I usually turn into a pumpkin at night, but you know, I’d heard that parents, especially parents with little kids, they are busy. They are busy all day long until the kids go to sleep. 

[00:00:45] I remember. I haven’t just heard. I remember. I remember being there. And so I decided I’m going to bite the bullet. I’m going to do these calls at night. And, shockingly, I love it. I love it. It’s like my night out and I don’t have to go anywhere and I get to interact with so many of you and it’s been a really good time.

[00:01:05] So for now, I’m planning on doing ’em every single month. I do it on a Thursday, so if you haven’t attended one of ’em, I highly encourage you to attend. We will, I’m sure the link is gonna be on in the show notes. 

[00:01:19] So on the last Masterminding Monthly call we were talking about school starting, and we were talking about the stress in the morning, which I remember well. I remember well. I had three kids and it was all me in the morning. My husband would go to school. He would go to work really early for many years. And so I had, kids varying in ages and it was fast and furious. And for many years before I learned about boundaries, my dad would show up and it was kind of a shit show for a while, for a long time, if I’m really honest.

[00:01:59] So, the last call, we were talking about school mornings and how to take away a lot of that stress and help them, help your mornings just run more smoothly. And, I really hit hard on this one, thing that I really wanted everyone to remember. And it was all about this topic of agency, helping kids to have agency over their mornings and their responsibilities. 

[00:02:30] And agency, I think another way of talking about agency is also talking about autonomy, where they do their part. It’s different than independence. They do their part to help the team run smoothly. So I want to go deeper on this topic, and it is also going to feed into what I’m going to be talking about this month in September in our Masterminding Monthly call, which is going to be all about homework, that dreaded topic, homework.

[00:03:04] We all hate homework. Our kids hate homework. We hate homework, and how do we get the kids to do all the things? How do we get them to do the homework? How do we get them to take care of their business in the morning? 

[00:03:17] And so when we dug into agency, what I really wanted people to understand is, when you have felt a sense of agency in your own life, and I walked all, I walked all the parents on the call through a time in your life where you were responsible for something that you accomplish, you know? 

[00:03:38] So we went through and we did an exercise and we talked about, you know, one mom, it was like, what, what did she feel really proud of that she had accomplished? She’s like, when I beat my older sister at Monopoly. I remember she was like, I was seven. She was 17. She was 10 years older, I think. And she beat her older sister at Monopoly. Somebody else had gotten an invitation to be a part of the Houston ballet. I was talking about when I won a spelling bee, right? And so we were all kind of thinking about things that we felt proud of from our own childhoods that we had accomplished. 

[00:04:17] And then I said, and what was your parents role in that? Like the, the person who got the invitation to the Houston ballet, I’m sure her parents had done a lot for her over the years to, to make that happen. But they weren’t out there doing the dancing, right? She was the one out there practicing. She was the one that ended up loving who she was on that dance floor. She was the one sweating and working hard and practicing. 

[00:04:51] And I said, when you got that invitation or when you won that game of Monopoly, were you feeling like your parents were really the reason that you accomplished this thing? And everyone was like, no, it was me. I felt proud of myself for my own hard work. And I said, that’s right. Because you felt a sense of agency. 

[00:05:14] So the definition of agency, it’s the sense of control that you feel in your life, your capacity to influence your own thoughts and behavior and believing, believing in your ability to handle whatever comes your way. So when you feel like you believe in yourself, you feel like you have agency over your life and all of a sudden, responsibilities and tasks, they’re not a drain because you have some sense of ownership over that. 

[00:05:48] And you know what doesn’t help kids to accomplish agency is when we take ownership over their things. 

[00:05:59] So the mom who, whose daughter is in dance and the mom’s constantly reminding her of all the things, dragging her to the practices, guilting her about, I signed you up for this and you’re not doing it and you haven’t been practicing, whether it’s piano or ballet or whatever it is. The minute the parent owns the responsibility more than the kid, that sense of agency is blown. It’s just going to continue to be a constant struggle and a constant drain. 

[00:06:37] So I want to go a little bit deeper on how we help kids to develop agency in their lives. Because remember, we’re playing the long game. You might get your kids to get dressed and to pack up all their crap and to get off to school and to get to school, even on time. You might do that day in and day out, but if they don’t have a sense of agency in taking ownership over their responsibilities in the morning, you know what it ends up looking like day after day after day? Exhausting, draining. Like, you can’t sustain it, right? You can’t sustain it.

[00:07:22] So if we think of the family as a team and you and maybe your co-parent are the pack leaders of the team, right? So you’re the leaders of your team and you want your team members to develop a sense of agency. I want you to think about a great leader, if you’ve ever just had a boss that you loved, or even if you played team sports when you were a kid, I want you to think about a great leader that has, you know, been in a position of authority in your life, and how they helped the, their team members develop agency over, you know, whatever your job was, was okay? So let’s just say it’s a work situation and you had this amazing boss, okay, who was a really effective, encouraging, motivational leader.

[00:08:23] So what was that leader thinking, right? What was the leader thinking about you? What made them such a great leader? Was that leader constantly, like the head of the company, constantly coming and, reminding you, hey, did you call so and so back? Uh, did you remember to send that email? You, you haven’t been to work on time. How can I support you in getting here on time? Do you need me to come pick you up? Oh, yeah. You forgot your lunch. Well, next time, you know what? I’ll just run to your house and get your lunch for you. 

[00:09:07] It sounds ridiculous. Does it not? That leader, that amazing boss, they stayed in their own lane and they believed in you, and they allowed you to do your job. And chances are it was a job that was a positive experience because you felt a sense of agency and ownership over your job. You felt proud of yourself for the things you accomplished. 

[00:09:33] Every time, let’s say you made a sale or you wrote something that you felt super proud of, you weren’t thinking, well, thank God for my boss, because they did, they really did the hard work. Right? Like you felt pride in your work because that boss showed up as a great leader. And that’s what I’m, I want to invite you to think about in terms of your family team. Like, how can you show up the way a great leader shows up? 

[00:10:09] So what do great leaders think, right? Do they have sentences running through their head like, ugh, they won’t do what needs to be done unless I give them the constant play by play, right? And thinking that causes the leader to feel annoyed and that their time isn’t being respected. 

[00:10:33] That was a sentence I heard from Lori when she presented a scenario about her school mornings in her household with her family team. She said, we’re always asking the kids to get ready, and giving the play by play of what needs to get done, usually right up to the time they leave. It’s annoying and time consuming. How do we get them to take ownership of doing the things, getting dressed, brushing teeth, hair, putting on shoes and grabbing backpacks? I know they’re capable, but I’m not sure how to put it into action. 

[00:11:07] Unfortunately, Lori, and I think this is the case for many females, is that we haven’t been conditioned to know how to show up in positions of leadership, how to help the people. Maybe we’ve never been in charge of anyone before now, and now we’re in charge of our family team and we literally don’t have the skill set. 

[00:11:34] How do I get them to do that? Do you think a great leader of a company is thinking any of those thoughts? No, they have skills, right? They have skills. Don’t worry. I’m going to help you to walk away from this conversation here, having more of those skills and really thinking about things differently.

[00:11:55] Okay. So does a great leader encourage agency, right? The people that they are in a position of authority of, do they think about these people? Ugh, she always wants my help and causes me to be late every morning. That’s what Dana said. So Dana’s scenario that she presented was, I’m afraid of waking her up too early and then I end up rushing. I always wake up before her and I start getting ready But she always wants me to help. I’m late every morning What can I do better? Right? 

[00:12:32] So she wants my help. So think about a great leader. Are they constantly on top of the people, or helping the people do every little mundane task. I mean really think about it, right? Just because someone wants your help constantly. What does a great leader do? What does a great leader do? What does a great leader think? 

[00:13:03] So does a great leader encourage agency by thinking, oh, both my babies caused me to be nervous for them? Oh, they just caused me to be so nervous. I’m just so nervous about them. That’s what Christie said. She said, my son, who’s 10, ended the year last year terribly. The start of this year is already causing anxiety. My daughter who’s eight is starting a new school and as much as everyone loves her, she is still very shy and reserved. She reaches out to the person sitting alone, but will not try and make friends herself. Both my babies cause me to be nervous for them. 

[00:13:38] So is a great leader of a company thinking, oh, you’re so nice, but I just don’t know if you’re going to be able to pull it together. I just don’t know if you have the confidence. How would that make you feel if your great leader was even thinking that? Wouldn’t you know, just by their energy, wouldn’t you know that they weren’t really believing in you? Is that how a great leader shows up? 

[00:14:03] So what does a great leader think? And more importantly, what does a great leader feel and do? A great leader might feel, instead of annoyed, instead of nervous and anxious, a great leader might feel determined. Determined to help you gain the skills to have agency over your work, over your responsibilities. 

[00:14:30] A great leader might feel determined to push themselves as a leader, to help you believe in yourself more, to help you learn the skills that you don’t currently have. Practice them. A great leader might help bring in the support that you need. It might be that you need to take a sales training. A great leader might offer you options. 

[00:14:57] Is a great leader showing up, giving you all these ideas in the heat of the moment when you’re stressed? Or does a great leader schedule a time to meet with you and to let them know they believe in you and there’s something to figure out, right? 

[00:15:14] How does a great leader feel about you? What kind of energy are they bringing to the situation when it’s, when something, when there’s a problem that needs to be solved?

[00:15:26] Maybe a great leader might feel curious, Hmm, Hmm, I wonder what’s going on here with her, right? Like, she hasn’t been showing up to work on time. And it seems like she’s got a lot of prospects, but she’s never quite closing that deal. I wonder what’s going on. I wonder if she’s got something going on at home. you know, I know she’s friendly and I know that she knows how to connect with people. I wonder if she’s having trouble just making the offer. I don’t know, we’re going to figure something out. A great leader might just be curious.

[00:16:07] And then when they sit down with you and have that conversation, they’re not telling you all the things that you’re doing wrong. They’re bringing that curiosity into the conversation. They’re collaborating with you. Right? You feel like they are on your team, right? 

[00:16:26] A great leader might feel confident. And they might just choose to have confidence in their people. I know that’s how I show up with my team, whether it’s my personal team or my work team, right? I have total confidence and I have total confidence in the people that are surrounding me. 

[00:16:45] I’m like, yeah, I’m not worried. That’s what I always say. I’m not worried about you. I know we’re going to figure this out. Right? You’re you. You’re amazing. Of course, we’re going to figure this out. I just choose to have confidence in, and I choose to surround myself with amazing people. Which you might say, well, you don’t really get to choose your kids, but my kids know that I believe in them. I know they are capable. 

[00:17:10] It doesn’t mean they’re perfect. It doesn’t mean that they don’t fall off their responsibilities sometimes. But when we come back together, I choose to show up confidently and I choose to have confidence in them. It’s a choice. 

[00:17:22] So what does a great leader do? They learn to show up and discuss the situation, at the right time. Timing is important. A great leader takes the time to think about things, out of the moment, and then shows up respectfully and lets their team members know we got to discuss something. There’s something to figure out. 

[00:17:52] A great leader isn’t scared to set expectations, right? And come up with a plan and let their other team members know, like, there is something to figure out and we’re learning, right? We’re learning this. This is what we do. This is just part of being a human. We’re always learning. We’re always growing. Nobody’s ever expected to get things perfectly right. Right? But there is something to figure out and we’re going to figure it out. I’m not worried about us. I believe in us. 

[00:18:26] A great leader spells out the plan for the oops mornings, right? Like, hey, there’s something to figure out. And we sit down and we talk about. I’ve noticed that you have a really hard time getting up in the morning. Tell me what’s going on with that. I don’t know. Well, is it annoying when I come in and then I come in again and then I come in again? Tell me about that. 

[00:18:53] Great leader listens to the people that, that are involved in the situation. It gets them talking, listens, reflects back, you know, believes them, sees their perspective. And also after we’ve laid out the plan, lets them know, like I expect a lot out of my people. So here’s the thing, because we haven’t been doing things this way, it might take a minute for us to get the hang of this. 

[00:19:28] So I just want you to know that the car, whether it’s like the car leaves at this time. And if you’re not in it, you know, if you have an older kid, then you’re on your own getting to school or you’re going to have to deal with that unexcused absence. Or, I’ll be in the car at this time. This is the time I’m in the car and I’ll just wait. And if we’re late, we’re late and you’ll have to deal with the repercussions of being late. 

[00:20:06] Also, I won’t be reminding you anymore about all the things that, you know, you need to remember. Like if you forget something, forget your lunch or your homework, just know you’re going to have to deal with that situation. 

[00:20:22] Like, unless I’m going to college with you – this is something that I said to my kids many times – unless I’m going to college with you, which, not gonna lie, that does sound pretty fun. Um, but it might be weird if like, we’re both sleeping in a twin size bed in your dorm room, I don’t know. I mean, I’m kind of game for it, but I don’t know. Do you think that’d be weird? 

[00:20:39] Unless I’m going to college with you, I got to help you learn how to be responsible for this. So if I keep doing all these things for you… I know it feels helpful right now. it’s not helpful because there is going to come a time where you have to invest in yourself. Know that you can trust yourself to be responsible. So we’re going to start doing things differently. So from now on, I just want you to know I’ll be waiting in the car and if you’re tardy, you’re tardy. And if you forget stuff, you’re going to have to figure it out and deal with it.

[00:21:15] So it doesn’t mean that this stuff is easy, right? Great leaders, let me tell you something, they have to struggle with many things. Like, the time I didn’t take my son’s soccer stuff up to school and he had a game and he was panicked. I had a pit in my stomach all day long. Right? And guess what? At the end of the day, when he came home from that game and I said, oh, you played? He was all sweaty and he was in soccer gear. He was like, oh yeah, well, so and so has a broken arm. And so he had his stuff at school. So I just borrowed his stuff. It’s like, oh, you figured it out. He’s like, yeah, I figured it out.

[00:21:58] You know what else this is? My daughter right now just had a whole situation. She’s traveling. She’s in Brazil and then she’s going to Costa Rica and she realized that when you’re flying from Brazil to Costa Rica, you have to have a special yellow fever vaccine, which if you fly from America to Costa Rica, you don’t.

[00:22:18] And so she had to scramble. You were supposed to get it 10 days before you flew, yada, yada, yada. It was crazy amounts of anxiety and she figured it out. Literally this morning we got a text basically, and it said, uh, just landed in Panama, about to get on the flight to Costa Rica, like she figured it out. She made it happen. 

[00:22:46] And my text to her was, of course she figured it out. The world always works for Avery Rubinstein and she’s like, yeah, it does because I believe in her. She has had agency over her life for a very long time and that’s what it’s translated to for a 22-year-old. Right? She was informing us of what was happening there, but there was nothing for us to do. She had to figure it out. She had to know that she could figure it out. And so the years and years and years of me not running up to bring that extra thing or do that thing for her. Ultimately, she developed the skills. She has agency over her life. 

[00:23:29] A great leader doesn’t do all the jobs. They just hold their people accountable when they fall short without shaming and berating them, right? They just believe in them. They problem solve with them. They iterate the plan and they do it out of the heat of the moment. Right? They take the time to do it out of the heat of the moment. 

[00:23:53] So this is what I want you to remember in terms of what can I think, as a great leader of my family team, what do I need to think to help my kids have more agency? Right? To help my kids have more agency. 

[00:24:12] So thoughts like, I have a tool that I teach, Big Deal, Little Deal, which is a thought that you can think, right? Whether you have a third grader or seventh grader or 11th grader and they, you know, they’re having a stressful morning, they can’t remember their thing, they forgot to do their homework. What about their lunch? They didn’t wake up to their alarm clock. Now they’re running late. They’re going to get in so much trouble.

[00:24:40] And they start to download all this anxiety onto you, and you feel their anxiety, but instead you remember this one tiny tool, this one tiny thing to think. Big deal, Little Deal. Big deal, Little Deal. In the scheme of things, no one’s life depends on this right now. It’s going to be fine. It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine. 

[00:25:08] Big Deal. Little Deal. Because when you bring that sort of cool as ice cream energy, you’re not downloading their anxiety. So you’re not adding to their overwhelm. This is what helps them to figure it out and work through their overwhelm. It’s going to be okay. So I’ll be in the car. You’re running late. Just get ready as soon as you can. I’ll be waiting for you. 

[00:25:42] You’ll figure it out. I’m not worried about you. Tomorrow will be better. It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re in third grade. You’re in seventh grade. You’re in 11th grade. I promise you it’s going to be okay. We’ll get there when we get there, right?

[00:25:59] So spiritual folks call this cool as ice cream energy. They call it surrender energy. Okay, and it is the opposite of grasping and anxiety and feelings that make us as leaders feel disempowered.

[00:26:24] So when the leader kind of downloads, not even downloads, uploads, is it uploads or downloads the energy of the anxious person who’s scrambling and not doing their things and bring all this nervous energy to it. But mom, I can’t find my shirt. And the leader matches that energy, it’s disempowering for everyone. 

[00:26:51] But when the leader is thinking thoughts like Big Deal, Little Deal, cool as ice cream. No one’s life depends on this. That’s what you’re saying to yourself. Less words. 

[00:27:04] Because if you’ve got a scrambling, stressed out kid who’s not getting their things done, and you add words and words and words and admonishment in the moment. You’re going to be exacerbating the situation accidentally. You’re going to be adding to their anxiety, right? You, that’s not that cool as ice cream, surrender energy. 

[00:27:32] So Big Deal, Little Deal. That’s the tool. That’s the tool I want you to take with you when we’re blowing it out of proportion in our mind where we’re so worried. It’s like, whoa. What I say to myself a lot of times is settle down sister. Like it’s going to be fine. It’s going to be okay. It’s going to be okay. No one’s life depends on it. 

[00:27:55] And I know many of you are like, but my kid has this diagnosis. They can’t, they won’t. I’ve coached many a parent on this who didn’t believe that their kids could do it. They truly, they didn’t believe they had all of the diagnostic tests to prove. And I have lots of different ways that I disprove that. 

[00:28:21] And every single time when the parent changes how they’re thinking about their kid, they start to believe in them. They start Big Deal, Little Deal. We’re going to figure it out. It’s going to be rocky for a little bit. We’re disrupting a pattern of me doing all the things and not allowing my kids to have agency and to fail on the way, right?

[00:28:48] When I haven’t allowed that, then it’s just day after day of not smooth mornings and total exhaustion and nothing changes. The kid never develops agency. And then we have a kid who’s going off to college, who still needs mommy to make them doctor’s appointments, we have a kid who doesn’t know how to do their laundry, isn’t responsible for their things, right? Isn’t getting themselves to class on time. 

[00:29:28] So if we’re really playing the long game and we’re thinking of the future and we’re thinking of… and I’ve not gotten this a hundred percent, right? I just put a post on Instagram today about my 17-year-old son who just got his first job working at a sandwich shop, which is really ironic because I always joke that I’ve been a major ass wiper when it comes to food. And I have a 17 year old who doesn’t make himself a sandwich, and now he’s working at a sandwich shop, learning how to make sandwiches. It’s fine. Guess what? He knows how to make a sandwich now, right? He knows how to make a sandwich now. 

[00:30:06] And I’m not all tough love all the time. There’s plenty of things that, I joke that my kids are, in many ways it’s like turn down service and mints on the pillows at night. Um, there’s been plenty of ass wiping that’s gone on here and I’m not going to stop all of it. It’s sort of my pleasure on certain things. But not when it comes to getting yourself ready for school. Like the morning is a scramble. We all got to take care of our own business. And everybody has to, has to do their part, right? And to have agency over their stuff so that the team can run smoothly, And yeah, it’s my pleasure to, most of the time, make my kids a sandwich. It is. I like to, it’s fine. Okay. 

[00:30:58] So if we’re always getting them ready and we’re always giving the play by play of what needs to get done, it’s never going to be any different. It’s like the definition of insanity. Right? If we want it to be different, we have to do something different. We have to learn these leadership skills. 

[00:31:21] So the one leadership skill that I’m giving you today is all about thinking the thoughts, managing the sentences, running through your mind so that you feel an empowered emotion, right? So that you feel determined or curious or confident. And when you’re feeling that and you’re a Big Deal, Little Deal, and you, you’re able to show up cool as ice cream, you’re able to do what follow through on the things that you said you were going to do that were discussed out of the moment, right?

[00:32:02] It’s not a surprise. I’ll be in the car. What? I can’t find my… And you just go get in the car, right? That dysregulated kid is going to figure it out. And yeah, we might be late. We might be late to school for a while. They might be going and getting the tardy slip after tardy slip after tardy slip. 

[00:32:23] And you might be in the car saying, you’re in third grade, you’re in seventh grade. No one’s going to die here. Yeah. It’s going to be a little embarrassing getting the tardy slip, and this is going to help your brain to remember. Because it’s hard to get up and do all these things in the morning, but I believe in you. I’m not worried. You’re getting a little bit more responsible every single day. It’s getting easier and easier every single day. I am not worried about you. You got this. And we’ll, we’ll get it together. 

[00:33:00] See that energy. I read through the scenarios from the Masterminding Monthly and there’s, there were just so many of them. There was so much anxiety. There was so much parent anxiety. I get it. I understand. We want our kids to be successful and we want them to get all their things done and we don’t want to be the parent that has kids show up unprepared and, and, and not on time. And there’s, it’s loaded, it’s complicated, right? It’s layered. But when we’re learning better leadership skills, I promise you, I promise you it will change everything. It will change everything. 

[00:33:42] When you start to show up using tools like Big Deal, Little Deal, bringing that cool as ice cream energy, taking your deep breaths, walking away, not adding extra input where there’s a dysregulated human being. And just going and doing what you said you were going to do, get in the car, the car leaves at this time. And then when they get in, finally, there’s no berating, there’s no shaming, there’s no, you just turn on the music and drive them to school. 

[00:34:20] So that’s what I’ve got for you this week. And I know that this is a bit of a mindset shift for most parents, right? We want to just focus on our kids. What do I tell my kid to do? How do I get my kid to do? It’s like, you do you. Manage your energy. Great leaders understand that they know that they have to be on their A game and everything trickles down from that, right? We set the tone. I believe in you. You’re listening to this for a reason. Have a fantastic rest of your week. Bye for now.

[00:35:05] Thanks for listening today, guys. I hope you picked up some tips, tools, maybe some baby steps for creating more balance and boundaries in your life. And I just wanted to let you know, if you want to continue moving the needle forward in creating this for yourself, having a happier household, I want you to go to my website and check out mastermindparenting.com. We have three beginning programs, and if you need some accountability and more support then please look for the one that would be a good fit for you.

[00:35:40] And, as always, we’re on all the social channels under mastermind parenting, on Instagram it’s mastermind_parenting. And, you know, periodically I do pop up on different Instagram lives, Facebook lives where I give you teaching and coaching and I love engaging with you live to help you help your strong-willed kids so that they can feel better, because when they feel better they do better, and I love, love, love getting to know you guys. 

[00:36:13] So thanks for listening. If you like this podcast, please don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review. Super super appreciative