EverydaySpy Podcast - CIA High Performance SECRETS | EverydaySpy Podcast Ep. 20

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

Every parent worries about the trauma they cause their child. And every adult knows the trauma they endured growing up. But what most people don't realize is that there is a formula that can turn childhood trauma into high-achievement. The same children that grow up feeling ignored, unloved, and not-good-enough can become the adults that do amazing things. CIA knows the formula, and today Jihi and I are giving it to you. Find your Spy Superpower: https://everydayspy.com/spyquiz Learn more from Andy: https://everydayspy.com/ Join the SpyTribe: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EverydaySpy/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everydayspy/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/EverydaySpy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

CIA taught us that there's a connection between childhood trauma and high performance. CIA calls you in on the first day of orientation. They sit everybody down. They say, welcome to CIA. You take your oath. And then they basically roll into a whole presentation about how you're all a little fucked up. So it makes it so great for the job. And it makes you perfect for the job. And they say, hey, you are all victims of some level of childhood trauma. And that trauma is what has made you who you are today. I just had an awesome weekend. at space camp with our son. I had no idea it was going to be so much fun.

Really? Space camp. Well, I'm not even talking about space camp. The space camp was cool, but the time with him. Oh, yeah. Like the one-on-one time with our son was amazing. Yeah. I mean, we left on Wednesday.

We had two days in Huntsville, Alabama, just the two of us. And then we had two days camping at the Huntsville, Alabama, Space and Ruff. Rocket Center for two full days. And that was also awesome. But man, that was four days and four days and four airplane rides. And like, it was just amazing to be with him uninterrupted for that time. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know that you've had that before. I had it last year. I sent the kids to different camps, just experimenting. And so I know I had one week with Sina alone. But this was the first time I've been with a lie alone. And I was actually a little bit scared to be alone with our six-year-old. I don't, I mean, I'm not surprised to hear that because you guys have an interesting relationship.

Yeah. I don't really understand sometimes how you view your relationship with the kids and especially not with our daughter, our youngest. Yeah. Because both of you have like chili pepper tempers. Yeah. So what was it like for you? Because I mean, I can tell you full on my time with our son, my time was seen it was amazing. Yeah. What was it like with a lie? So on the first day, actually, she voiced what I had been concerned about the last few weeks where she had like halfway through the day.

She was like, mom, and she's six, right? Mom, I didn't really know if I had had fun with you. I was like, oh, I was like, why is that baby? She's like, I didn't think we would get along. I was like, oh, and that's exactly what I'd been thinking. Like, what if we don't get along? Because normally we're budding heads, right? Our tempers clash or like we're just like two Rams all the time.

Right. But being alone with her was amazing because I realized what happens is she needs, she's a different age and a different temperament. She needs a different level of engagement than our son does. Our son's just so much like me. Like he wants to put on his audio book and just go do his own thing. And I realized that especially because being with him for four days, I felt like I was with you.

I felt like I was with the best parts of you. and the best parts of me. Yeah. Because he really is a mix of both of us. But it seemed really, it was really easy for me to be around him because I was like, oh, I know how to be around your mom. Yeah. So I know how to be around you.

I can tell when you need quiet time. I can tell when you need space away. I can tell when you need, you know, a word of encouragement. Yeah. So I was concerned because our daughter needed, like, our daughter needed, like, constant engagement. And I'm an introvert. And so I was like, what am I going to get space?

But it turned out that she just needs engagement. She wants to know that you're there with her. She had this whole thing, like we went and got Manny Petty's together. She had this whole thing about being twinsies and, you know, doing things together. But when we weren't doing things together, she had her, she would put on her audio book and then go do her own thing. And I had a quiet house and it was amazing. You know, and I found that without the distraction and the overwhelm of having more people in the house and of having other things to do because I also chose not to work when I was with her.

So I got to spend really just quality time focused on her. I was so much more patient. She was so much more pleasantly engaging. I didn't get yelled at once in four days. I mean, that's a record, you know. She yells. She yells. She yells a lot.

Yeah. She yells a lot. And I'm realizing that, I mean, I've suspected that she yells to compete. Yeah. Because she's six, her brother's 10. so if she wants to be heard over him, because he'll just, he just goes on a, like, he'll just talk. He'll talk about his day. He'll talk about his ideas. He'll just talk. And the only way she can be heard is to yell over him. And then he's also kind of a sensitive boy. So sometimes she'll

yell, like, as a verbal way of punching him. Yeah, like a verbal punch in the face. And I swear she does the same thing to you, that, like, you interpret her volume and it, like, it aggravates. It's your, I mean, it seems to affect your anxiety. It makes your anxiety spike. It seems to affect your, like, emotions. When she's loud, it hurts you. Yeah. So it's interesting because I think that your, like our time kind of apart and then our

solo time with the kids during this trip really gave us amazing reflection time because I was able to reflect on, you know, why does she yell? how does it actually make me feel? Why does our son react the way he does the things? And, you know, I didn't grow up in a house where we yelled. You know, yelling wasn't a thing you did. We lived in a one-story house. You know, the rule was you walk over to talk to somebody.

The only time we got yelled at is when you were actually in trouble. And then really, it was really my mom, like with a wooden spoon, smacking it on the table, like threatening you, you know? Yeah. great. So the yelling really has been like a trigger for me, but I know that I also yell. Yeah. Yeah. When you lose your temper, when you lose your cool, you absolutely. I really, it's like a volcano exploding. It is. I mean, and it's always been that way with you. You've always been the person who's kind of slow to anger, but when you, when you tip, it is a

That's it. Big mess. It's a big molten lava mess. Yeah. And I know it took me a little while to get used to that when we were dating. Mm-hmm. And then I think since we've been married, I've kind of learned how to bring you up to boil but not make you boil over. Yeah.

The kids don't know how to do that, though. Yeah. And it's funny because, you know, one of the things that I talked about with Sina when we were gone was asking him why he feels the need to be so apologetic. And we've talked about this. Yes. Because our son, he has a tendency to over-apologize. Yeah, for the last, at least year, I've noticed this really serious over-apologizing, which I do. Yep.

And I know why I do it. Like, I know from my childhood why I am the way I am. But I was like, why is my son doing it? And I thought, well, maybe I'm modeling it, right? But our daughter doesn't over-apologize. Correct. And what we're talking about here is his answer to almost every child. challenge is I'm sorry. Yep. Everything. If you say, you know, hey baby, can you, you know,

pick up your shoes. I'm sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Yes. I'll do it. Sorry. Yeah. Right. Please don't eat this or please don't go there. Or can you please call me when you. Sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. It's just, it comes out so fast. And you're right. Like you, you also do that. Yeah. And it's always been kind aggravating to me because I'm not correcting you. Right. I'm not saying that you've done anything wrong. And literally just sometimes asking for a favor, sometimes just challenging your point of view, right? Ask probing for a little bit more, right? Tell me why you want to go see the new Sonic movie. Sorry, Dad.

I just, I really think, no, I would like to know why you want to see the Sonic movie. There's no apology needed. Right, right. And that's the key is there's no apology needed. You're apologizing for something that requires no apology. And then the, you know, I started reading about, my concern was what is behind that. I'm sorry, right? Because.

How did it happen for you? You said that you know why you do it? Why do you do it? Well, for me, I grew up in a household where, you know, my mother ruled the house. And, you know, I just remember there were little things like, you know, B was for bad, right? I remember that my mom's saying that. Like, if you brought home a B from school, like B is for bad. For real?

Yes. B is for bad. And I, you know, I was a high performer. I was a high performer like throughout elementary school and then middle school got harder because I started going to these advanced programs and the coursework got harder. And then my social life started to get in the way. But, you know, there was like a very high expectation of the way that you were supposed to be. And I was expected to fall in line, right? Like my mom grew up in a household where children were seen and not heard and, you know, spare the rod and spoiled child. And she didn't raise us that way. And she didn't raise us that way. but you could see through her parenting that that's the background she came from. And there was still an element of authoritarianism in the house. And so, and I am, I have the kind of personality that it's easy for me. I want to people please. And so it's easy for me to fall into that over apologizing to try to please people.

The problem is that the more you apologize when you are not supposed to be apologizing, the more your self-esteem takes a hit, right? Because suddenly you hear yourself, like you are, you're saying I'm sorry so often that you start to internalize that you are actually sorry. Like it's your fault, like you're to blame, that you are the problem. And that's not accurate at all. And so when I started seeing our son do it, I was like, we have to nip this in the butt. Like whatever the cause is, we have to stop it and reverse it for his, like for the sake of

his future. Yeah. You know it's funny and it's not funny, but it's what I call it funny. Like in my household, B wasn't for bad. B wasn't anything that made people proud of you. And my mom was someone I was always trying to make proud. Yeah. I was always trying to make my stepdad proud too.

I mean, it was just, I don't think that guy, he was in his own world the whole time that we were kids, which I'm also starting to relate to as a parent. Yeah. Sometimes it's hard to not to like pull yourself out of your own world and recognize that your kids have their own world too. Yeah. But, I mean, I spent a summer grounded because I brought home a sea in math. I lost my whole summer because I brought home a sea. And I'll never forget that. That was a hard, it was a hard lesson for me, right?

Yeah. And then I grew up in a household where we were hit. I grew up in a household where I was hit. My sisters, my half-sisters sometimes had a different experience. But, I mean, I was hit with hands. I was hit with leather belts. Yeah. I was hit with whatever people could get their hands on.

I was scratched and clawed sometimes, right? When we were in the car for a long road trip, if my mom couldn't grab something fast enough, she would just reach back and scratch me. And your mom was raised in a household where... Everything was very competitive. Yeah, very competitive. And there was, you know, physical discipline.

I'm sure I think your stepdad's older than your mom. He's old school. Like, I think physical discipline, I'm guessing, was a part of his household too. Yeah. Well, and I think what I'm noticing here, and, I mean, it wasn't necessarily... like a therapist that helped us through this, but CIA taught us that there's a connection

between childhood trauma and high performance. And it's a really humbling day when CIA calls you in. And that's how it works. CIA calls you in on the first day of orientation. They sit everybody down. They say, welcome to CIA. You take your oath. And then they basically roll into a whole presentation about how you're all a little fucked up.

That's what makes you so great for the job. And it makes you perfect for the job. And they kind of throw it in your face right away. And they say, hey, you are all victims of some level of childhood trauma. And that trauma is what has made you who you are today. And it's a powerful lesson to realize that childhood trauma, the stuff that makes our childhood so painful is actually what makes us stronger and more resilient as adults.

It's what makes us successful. For those people who have it, they know exactly what I'm talking about. And for those people who are raising children, we're all asking ourselves the question of, are we raising soft children? Are we raising hard children? Are we raising successful children? Are we raising children that are going to fall behind? And I know for you and I, we are always wondering, how do we introduce, how do we raise our children in a way where they will succeed without having to cause the trauma? Right. That we have been taught is so vital to their success.

Right. And I think, you know, trauma is, you know, one word, but I think, you know, really it's adversity, right? And like trauma is a way that adversity can come into your life. But you have to be so careful because, like we've seen with our son, like when you asked him, when did you start over-apologizing, right? Yeah. He said he was about seven years old.

Yeah. It was so interesting because when I, I asked him, I asked him, when do you start remembering saying you're sorry for everything? And he specifically, like almost instantly, he was like, I was about six or seven, which was only, what, four years ago, three years ago? Yeah. And I don't, I was like, what happened? What happened when we were six or seven? I don't remember what happened that would make, what was the light switch?

And I knew exactly what he was talking about because when he was seven was when we moved back to Tampa from the UAE. It was during COVID and we had to leave. and we left our nanny. We left our nanny. We left our whole lifestyle. Our whole support network. And it was like right in the middle of the pandemic and everything was shut down. And so we had to catch, like we spent months just trying to catch a flight to get to America

because they had repatriation flights that they would fly you just anywhere in the country. So, you know, we had tried to fly into D.C. That flight was canceled. Tried to fly into someplace else. Yep. And so we ended up. taking, you know, catching a repatriation flight into Chicago, you know, landing there after 15 hours, we had to get an apartment from the UAE. You were looking, you know, so it was just really

hard. Like it was sight unseen. We showed up and, you know, we took what we could get. Like, we were trying to buy a used car at the time, which was like almost impossible. So, you know, there were all these challenges happening. And then when we came back, we had no support network because we had to come back so fast. And you were still working full time, right? You were still building the business. And then I ended up being with the kids. And it was really stressful for me.

And so I know exactly what he was talking about because that was the time when I started to yell. And it never happened when you were home because when you were home, you were my buffer, right? So when you were home and I was about to lose it, I could walk away and there was another adult there. But when I was by myself and I was trying so, hard, but there were just moments that, like, I didn't even, I couldn't even anticipate that I was

going to lose my temper because I was like, I'm doing good. I'm taking my deep breath. I took five minutes. I'm just going to step out on the porch. And then suddenly it's just, you know, one more time, the fifth time that I've asked you guys to brush your teeth and you have either yelled at me, no, or you have completely ignored me. And then, bam, yelling. And then it's like, when you've talked about it, like an actual volcano. Like, it's not just a yell, right? It's this deluge of, like, lava that comes out, like, just this word vomit of, like, you guys never listen to me, blah, blah, blah, and I'm so stressed out, and your dad's not

here, just with you, you know, just on and on, right? Which, to a child, like, we can't conceptualize at all what you're going through. So it was really... And he was seven. He was seven. Yeah. And a lie was... Three.

Three. So she has no recollection, I am certain, but he does. And that was a really pivotal point for him, right? And so we can see that my actions and that adversity that I caused for him, you know, has created this over-apologizing that down the line will not create grit, right? That's not going to be helpful for him. So I think, you know, one of the things that I'm thankful for that the CIA has taught us is ongoing a subject. Right. Like we are continually assessing our parenting impact on the kids. I think, you know, I know, I think most, a lot of people parent, you know, the way that they were parented and they don't think about it and they think, you know, I turned out fine. I mean, my, I know our parents are always, we've all heard that.

We've all heard that. My kids turned out fine, right? But for you and I, like, we're, we're constantly assessing over time the impact that that we have on our children. Yeah. And because we are making that constant assessment, we can pick up on things like that. this early on to mitigate and you know stop stop the the adverse effects of our actions and turn it around and try to do something better and you know like I want to create

adversity for our children but positive adversity right so they can get some grit in there and so they can you know have jobs where you know when the going gets tough like you know how many like Delta Force guys have we met that the stories I've heard from them are so incredible. And they go through that. And, you know, I've been told that, you know, they have psychologists that they speak to before they go out on a mission, when they come back from a mission, but they still have to process all of that, right? So what is, you know, what are these personality traits? I mean, I feel like so many parents, you know, that's the question. How do you properly prepare your children for the adversity that's the come?

So I feel like you just, you just gave us a lot of delia. You're just. of a sort right there. You went to like four awesome things. I'm so passionate about all the stuff I've done wrong. It feels so horrible to be like, oh my God, I'm the one. Like, I have to stop. Like, I have to fix my yelling problem, you know. So it's interesting because you, you, I think you're right that, you know, 20-ish

was when life got really difficult for us. Because we came back from, we were on a big, very lucrative contract overseas. And we came back to the U.S. and it was in the middle of COVID, just like you said, everything was difficult. And the business was not slowing down. The business was expanding. So I was gone. Yeah. I remember those days. I remember those months traveling during COVID, which were some of my favorite months to travel because the airports were empty, the airplanes were like the hotels were empty. Everybody was on their best behavior. Yeah. But I mean, that was months away from home. And I remember you telling me that it wasn't easy.

when I was gone. And I always just kind of assume that what you meant is it wasn't easy for you. I never imagined that I was gone. And what that meant is that you were losing your temper with the kids, yelling at the kids, reprimanding the kids, like that your stress was being manifest and projected onto them. Yes. And it didn't strike me until Sina. And his over-apologizing is something I've noticed, but it was something you really kind of turned me on to. You were like, I don't like this. Yeah. And I think you know it because you've grown up that way. You're 43 years old now, and you still say you're sorry about things that don't have any, they're not your fault. So you saw this in him. We started exploring it in him. And I, I mean, it was hard to hear him say like, yeah, it was about seven years old.

And then as soon as I mentioned that to you, you knew it was because you, I mean, essentially, you were, I mean, you were abusing the kids. Yeah. With your own words and your own actions. Yep. And he remembers that. Yeah. That is super heavy.

And I hope you don't feel like I'm blaming you because what I'm feeling. Yeah. Is that I was absent and my absence is what started that whole thing. Yeah. Because you, I mean, you, from the time we got married, you told me, don't ever make me a stay-at-home mom. I did. Don't ever leave me alone with the kids. You were telling me that before we even had kids.

And yet somehow, after all of that conversation, we still found ourselves in a situation where we did exactly what we told each other and ourselves not to do. So you know what's really fascinating is, you know, when you're at the agency and you're planning a mission, right, we always have contingencies, right? The reason that, you know, officers that go out into the field or train the way that they are so that they can make decisions in the field on the fly, right? Because situations change. And I feel like if you look at our life, that's exactly what's happened.

I married you because I thought you were going to be like... I don't even know if I want to hear this. I was like, he was in the... I was like he went to like a military academy. He was in the military. Now he's in the government. Like, Golden. Like here's this steady guy.

We're going to have like government jobs and retire with the pension and do, you know, the whole nine things. to five and commute, you know, three hours to work and whatever. And, you know, put our kids in school and be, you know, the whatever. And, you know, the family that they make sitcoms about. But instead, our life has completely pivoted, right? So when, when, not when we got married, I would say when we decided to have kids, in my mind, I was like, I will have kids because Andy is my partner, right? I always knew I would only ever have kids if I had a partner to support me because I had a dog once and I learned the hard way that when I am stressed out and I am alone,

it's like it's not good. Like I can't handle the stress of caring for another living creature if I don't have support. So I was like, Andy's going to be there. Andy's going to co-parents. We're good. And then we stepped away from CIA. We stepped into the business. We have another kid, right? So now we have two. And now the business requires you to travel. And now I'm alone with the kids. With two kids. With two kids. With two little creatures that depend on you. So I feel like now we're in like the portion of the mission where we got on the ground, right? The primary plan has failed. Yes, exactly. The alternate plan has failed. Exactly. And what is our contingency plan? Right. So now we're really having to like reassess this.

situation and be like, you know what? Because I think in the beginning, we were like, travel's going to slow down, travel's going to, you know, like maybe not stop it. It'll slow down and I'll be home a lot more and whatever. And the truth is that our business continues to grow at a rate where that's just not possible, at least not for the next, definitely not for the next year, maybe not for the next three years. And our kids are still little, right? And I'm still me. Like my core personality traits aren't going to change. So now we have. So now we have. to you know we have to figure out how do we approach this mission of raising children while growing a business in a way that will make us successful that will you know

make sure that the kids are successful that we are successful like how do we how do we do this now because it's not at all the way that we had originally planned it but now we're in it so we have the plan on the fly right which I think the CIA gave us like really amazing training and skills to be able to do that and what's interesting is the agency taught us that there's a connection between childhood trauma and high performance. And then we tried so hard not to cause trauma, only to find out that we are causing trauma. Like what what what has happened to our son that has led him to over apologize is the definition of childhood trauma.

Absolutely. My traveling, my being gone for some of the core years in our daughter's life, the reason that she's so sweet and so attached to me is in part because we have caused I have caused her trauma. So even in our every effort not to cause trauma, right. We are causing trauma. Right. And we know that the trauma we cause will potentially lead to a high performing adult in our children. So two questions. My first question is now that you have kind of come to the realization that you have traumatized our son with your temper. How do you feel about that? I feel horrible. I feel like an absolutely horrible person.

Even though you know that the trauma that you've given him is going to be what translates into part of his success in the future. I think it's only going to translate if I pivot now, right? Like I think if I were to continue down the path that I have where when you leave, I, you know, I try to be super mom and then it never works out because I am in no way a super mom. So if I continue down that path and let myself continue to have these explosions randomly where the kids can't predict and they don't understand,

I think that that type of trauma will be detrimental to them. I don't think it will lead to high performance and success. So then my second question is, what would you say to other parents who have all... also kind of landed on the same conclusion. You know, all the traveling parents, all the temperamental parents, all the tired and exhausted parents

who realize that their behavior is having a negative effect on their children. What would you say to them? I think that you have to take, I mean, the resources you have access to are different for everybody, but I think the first step is the assessment, right? You have to make an assessment,

you have to, to take all the data that you have. So you have to sit down and think about, you know, what are you, like, what actions are you taking that are affecting your children? And then you have to think about why is that happening, right? So I know that I just get overwhelmed. If I don't have somebody else there to help me, I get overwhelmed on my own by the two. So once you have the data, you can start making and you've made the assessment,

the initial assessment of, you know, what's happening and why, then you can start thinking about how can I mitigate this? And I think you recently came up with this really amazing idea because you're so good at thinking outside of the box. And I just, I'd never thought about it before I was like, I just need to get a nanny or it's full time. That's eight to five and whatever. And then the other day you were like, maybe you should just get a cook because cooking for the kids really stresses me out. Essentially, what I thought of is that we've hired nannies. We've been hiring nannies for our children since 2019. Yeah.

And it hasn't improved your temperament. Right. So then I think the idea I landed on, and I'm a little embarrassed to tell you, is maybe I should just get a nanny for you. Oh, that's not a... But that was my thought. Yeah. My thought was the children don't need a nanny. the children need a mom who won't make them feel bad about being kids.

And you want to be the kind of mom that doesn't make them feel bad about being kids. But the problem is that them being kids drains all of your assets, drains all of your resources. It drains your energy. It drains your time. And then it just compounds with all the complexities of being a mom. So my thought was, what can I do to basically support all the mom stuff?

that drains you. Yeah. All the cooking, all the cleaning, all the planning, all the organizing, right? The grocery shopping. Yeah. I was like, if I could take that away from you, then theoretically, you still want to be a mom. You just don't want to be a stressed out mom. Yeah.

And, you know, when I was a targeter, you know, I think I've talked about, you know, I loved targeting because it was so focused. I could just focus on one thing and go down the rabbit hole and be there for eight hours. But the kids, nothing is focused, especially when you have two. Like, everybody's asking you for something at the same time, all the time, all day. And so it's just overwhelmed for me. But once you had this idea, like once you voiced this idea of like, maybe you should get a cook, suddenly it opened up the floodgates of all this alternate solutions that we could do.

So we've thought about like maybe we can get a cook, maybe we can get a tutor. A tutor. Maybe we can just have somebody come and, you know, take the house cleaning off your hands. Maybe, I mean, I had the thought the other day, I was like, maybe I should hire somebody at a nanny who covers the kids, not from 8 to 5, but from 12 to 8. Because, you know what, in the morning, we have awesome energy with the kids. Like, I love mornings with the kids. But that's that nighttime that I'm stressed out and I'm tired and I don't have the patience. So if I had somebody to take them from lunch to brushing their teeth and then I took them the rest of the way, like that would resolve a lot of my stressful hours with them, right? Like there's so many solutions.

And I think, you know, the agency we do this too where we'll have these brainstorming sessions where you just throw everything up on the board, right? You whiteboard it out. You put everything up there and then you sit back and you, you know, you discuss like what can we actually do? Right. Right. But just put all that crazy stuff up there because maybe it'll work. Yeah. I mean, it was CIA that taught me that every good idea starts from a bad idea.

Yeah. So you have to say your bad ideas. Yes. So that other people can take your bad ideas and brainstorm them into good ideas. Yeah. Your crazy idea might not be that crazy. Seriously. I mean, all kinds of how many things, how many like operations have gone forward that started from an

idea that at first you're like, that's nuts. But then you have something there. Yeah. I mean, and there's been plenty of ideas that have not gone well, too. Yeah, that's why you put on a whiteboard first. Yeah, exactly. But I think the thing that's so interesting to me is that we were talking about how these elite operators from Delta to the Navy Seals to CIA, they are, they're forged in this fire of hardship.

Yes. Right. And there's a balance in trauma. When we talk about childhood trauma, I want to be clear, there's a very specific area of trauma. Right. So if trauma is on a, if you put childhood trauma on a spectrum, right? Here you have no trauma at all. And here you have a great deal of trauma, right? Like think about the most horrendous things that happen to a children. Yeah. Right. So from zero to the most horrendous acts ever. Essentially, the childhood trauma band where high performance happens is like just to the, just off of the middle, closer to the low trauma side, right? You want, CIA is looking for people who had an absentee parent. They're looking for people who had a busy mom or dad who was active in their job or active in their career, where the only way that the child would get mom or dad's attention is by doing something good.

Yep. Right? By high performing. The child who followed the rules, the child who became very compliant with the school, the child who won the awards in band and the awards and track. They're not looking for awesome superheroes. They're looking for people who directed their energy into a very narrow area to win approval from someone else. Win approval from mom, win approval from dad. They're looking for those people who had a parent die or had parents that got divorced or multiple divorces. I mean, we've known friends who had parents who were drug addicts and the kids had to like keep themselves alive and their parents alive still within that band of trauma. Because those people are like when they become adults, there is no end to what they are capable of doing.

Yeah. In order to survive and to make like make ends meet. On the low end of trauma, you have all the people who never really had to deal with. that, right? Mom and dad always love them. Mom and dad always kind of said nice things to them. Their life was easy. So now as adults, they assume, like, life is easy. This is just the way it works. This is where I fit into the world. So I don't have to overachieve. I can just minimally achieve. And that's the way it works. And then you've got the larger band of people who have had too much trauma. Yeah. Right. So much trauma that they've developed unhealthy coping mechanisms

to deal with that trauma. Or they've, they've been like, mental. or physically altered in some way. PTSD, you know, some sort of, you know, physical trauma that has... Brain injuries. Yeah. Yeah, that has made them not neurotypical. Yeah. So the band of high performance that's tied to childhood trauma is a very narrow band.

And there's a ton of people who are in that band. And I think one of the things that's been most fascinating to me is when we come across those people in our lives and in our business. because now that we have seen and worked beside elite operators who have become elite because of their childhood trauma, and we've seen how they've kind of accepted their trauma. For so long, we fight it, right? I remember when I used to complain about my dad beating me with a belt. Now I'm kind of like, oh, it's a little fucked up, but I'm kind of glad he beat me with a belt. I learned to respect a belt. And I also learned that like you have to kind of grin and deal with it sometimes.

Sometimes, like sometimes you just have to bear the pain to get to the other side of the finish line. There are so many people out there who have never been hit by their parents who have no idea what that's like. Well, maybe in the younger generations. I would say in our generation, yeah. I mean, there's five generations alive right now. Yeah. Right?

That's crazy. Yeah. I guess there's always five generations alive, but to be the third oldest generation. Mm-hmm. And see. In the middle there. Yeah. Yeah.

right we hire two generations below us yeah the parents who raised us are two generations above us like it's nuts to see yeah all of it happening right now but uh but yeah so that that the idea that childhood trauma is what makes you a high performer and to think that no matter how hard you work to keep trauma away from your children there is still a benefit to the trauma that gets through because you're not creating soft, weak children unless they are truly, like, nearly trauma-free. So all those parents who work their ass off, all those parents who are building a career, building a business, who feel bad at night or they feel bad in the office about missing bedtime or whatever else, yes, they are traumatizing their children to a certain extent.

Oh, but that trauma is going to make their child so much stronger as a lot. an adult. And I think I think studies have been done that that talk about how different people handle the trauma differently, right? There's a spectrum. And so, you know, government agencies in the military have the benefit of being able to choose the strongest, right? Or I don't know if the strongest is the right word, but they can put you through a battery to identify the optimal combination. Exactly. The people who have the personality, the temperament, the mental grit, whatever you want to call it, that helps them overcome the adversity and the trauma that they've faced in their life, right? Because by the time they get to the government level, they've spent,

you know, they're adults. They've spent their life and they have proven that they can do that, right? But when you're a parent and you're raising kids, you have to keep in mind, too, that your kid might not be that kid, right? Your kid might not be the kid who's going to make a good, you know, who's going to be a part of the Delta Force, right? Like it's just not everybody is that. Right. And so, you know, it's important to, like we were talking about before, be assessing along the way the level and type of adversity that your kids are being exposed to because your kid

might be less tolerance, might have, you know, less ability to overcome the same adversity that their sibling can, right? I mean, I hear about the stuff that you've gone through in your life. And I think to myself, I don't know that I don't know that. I would have come out the same way as you did. You know, it's funny because the reason you said that part of the reason you married me was because you thought I was going to be this stable, predictable government of play. I was like, Andy's.

I was like, Andy's child was kind of messed up, but he's like perfect. Like there's nothing wrong with Andy. For you, for you. I was like, he's got no baggage. When I married you, I was marrying you because you had this incredibly loving family. Yeah. Like when I met you in your 20s, you're, you were. a kid anymore, right? And not only were you not a kid, you had achieved all the stuff that your

mom slapping the table with her wooden spoon had told you to achieve. I had made it. Yeah, you had made it. You checked all the boxes. Yes, I did. And I was like, this woman is amazing and her family is amazing. And it wasn't until I then married into your family and became a son in your family that then I started seeing the trauma for myself. Then I started seeing like, oh, this family is ruled by your mom and like your dad has come to his own relationship with how that dominance works and seeing it firsthand and feeling it firsthand from our wedding all the way through to like, you know, how we raise our own kids. Like we're constantly questioned about the choices that we make with our kids too. So it is really fascinating. But I want to make sure that we

leave time to answer a question. I think we have a great question for today that came from one of our viewers. One of the comments recently asked us the question, how do you do you do? discipline your children? How do you discipline your own children? And there were some other context in the question, you know, to make sure that it wasn't too much discipline or too little discipline or making sure that one didn't feel like the other one was getting it easy and the one was getting it too hard. But I love this question because thanks to you and thanks to your own experience, being alone with your dog. And I remember some of the sad stories that you've told me about owning a dog when you were alone and single. You were very full. You were very full.

focused on this question of having a discipline strategy for the kids long before we even had kids. Yeah. So I kind of want to kick it to you, how to, in your own words, how do we discipline our kids? So before we had kids and when we were pregnant with our first, we read a lot of books because I was, I definitely wanted to have, I wanted us to be on the same page. And I didn't want, you know, I, what happens is when when people are under stress, they revert to what they know. What they know.

What they're familiar with. What they know is what their parents did to them. Exactly. And neither one of us wanted to do that. And so we read a bunch of books and, you know, and decided on a strategy together. And so the way that we discipline our kids really is kind of through hugs. It's a great way of describing it. So there are, so we do, you know, like raise our voice sometimes, like sternly and say, you know, don't do that or stop doing that or whatever.

Like in the moment if we, yeah. I try not to raise my voice because if I raise my voice at all, then it might turn into a yell. So you do a good job of like raising your voice to a level that gets their attention. I generally try to get close to them so they can hear me and I get their attention by putting my hand on their arm or by, you know, making sure they're making eye contact with me when I'm speaking to them. But then it flows into a physical contact like touching their hand, touching their hand, touching. their arm, their shoulder, even holding them, and then talking about whatever it is. Right. So you're talking, you know, what you're describing is loving touches. Yes. And I want to make sure that it's clear because sometimes I feel like you talk and it's not

very clear. Okay, please. I mean, that's why I married you. You're my, you're my translator. But, I mean, what we practice is something that came from a book called unconditional parenting. And it's the idea that at all times, through any disciplinary effort, we apply. We need to make sure the kids understand that they are loved unconditionally. Right. So we never want to discipline them in a way that makes them feel like we are taking our love away because they did something bad. Right. Instead, we're trying to always engage them.

I love that word that you used earlier. We're trying to always engage them in a loving way to have a discussion about the choices that they made. And we have that benefit because our kids are homeschool kids and they stay with us and they're around us all the time. Right. So I have always loved the fact that somehow you are able to do that and just get in close and you always know when to when to hold them, when to hold their hand, when to touch their shoulder, when to have them sit in your lap. And you'll just sit there with them and you'll let them cry and you'll let them scream and you'll let them do whatever they want to do until they calm down and then they can have a meaningful conversation with you. And then for me, you're right,

I use a stern voice to interrupt them. Yeah. And a part of the reason I do that is to interrupt their thought process because they spiral, right? Children spiral, just like you spiral. Yep, that's exactly. And sometimes all it takes is a voice that's just louder than normal, but not loud enough to be an attack to just get them to stop the spiral for just a second, right? A cognitive interrupt. Yeah. So that you can then give them express instructions. Tell me what happened. Tell me how you're feeling. Tell me why you made that choice.

Yeah. Always with an eye towards making sure they feel and accept the love that we have for them despite whatever error they may have made. Yep. And the other book I read that I found really helpful was the whole brain child. And I use a lot of, I actually read a number of books by that same author. And part of what's been helpful is it's helped me understand my own brain. and because I also have really big emotions.

And so sometimes the verbal doesn't come right away. So, you know, I've found with the kids, like when they are emotionally hijacked, you're not going to be able to ask them what's wrong. You just, you have to wait for them to calm down, which is why we just hug and we hold each other and they just calm down or we'll sing a song or just something to get everything to calm down because I'm exactly the same way. You know, and I would say, just because, you know, we've talked about it. in this last hour, that when I yell at the kids, I am not disciplining them.

My yelling at the kids is in no way, shape, or form me attempting to discipline them. Me yelling at the kids is me losing my temper, right? It is not the right thing to do, and it is very counterproductive because then I end up spending the rest of the night or the next two hours walking that back, right? reconnecting with them, apologizing, you know, talking about what happened and why I exploded, right? So that's all the stuff we wish our parents would have done to us. Yes. There is so much value in apologizing to your children.

It's so true. So much value. I make mistakes all the time. And I tell them, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have said this. This is what's happening in my life. Yes. This is what's happening with the business.

This is what's happening with me. my stomach doesn't feel good, my head doesn't feel good. And I yelled at you and I shouldn't have. Or, you know, I got lazy and I made a bad dinner, whatever it might be. Telling them what's really happening has been incredibly valuable. Yes. So one of the things that CIA taught us is that all adults are really just large children. Right?

Like adults behave just like children with 30 years of experience. Right. But we're still children on the inside. And if you can understand the child inside each adult, you can essentially control the adult. And that's what's become kind of a superpower for us in our professional lives, in our personal lives, and even in our relationship with each other. Because when I talk to you, I understand I'm not talking to 43-year-old Gihi. I'm talking to like 9-year-old Ghi. And I know that when you talk to me, you understand you're talking to like a 9-year-old.

version of me. Yeah. Who needs a hug. A hug fixes so many things. It's so true. Yeah. So when we talk to our children and when we discipline our children, so much of that is tied to the fact that we understand who we are talking to right now. Yeah. Is the 25-year-old adult? Yeah. Is the 45-year-old mother or father? Is the 70-year-old grandfather or grandmother? They are who they will always be. And we are shaping their future with every minute that we interact with them. And I think that's why we try to discipline them through a lens of love because we know what it's like to be disciplined without that love. Always wondering if you did something so bad that your parents don't love you anymore.

Yeah. And I think patience has a lot to do with it as well, right? Like when we talk about disciplining, it's not like we give our children a hug and then they don't do it again. Yeah. Right. I mean, you just, you have to understand that they will do it again, right? Yeah. I do things over and over again that I should.

Right. So, you know, you just have to be patient with them and understand that it's going to happen again. You're going to have to have the same conversation again. Like they really didn't mean to spill the milk, I promise you. You know, it's okay, right? So folks, thank you so much for joining us today. we had a great conversation. I don't think we intended for it to go in this direction at all. We just kind of, we found ourselves honestly talking about what childhood was like for us and what

childhood is like for our kids. And we hope that you found value in that. Please leave your comments below, especially if you have any thoughts at all as to how you were raised, how you wish you were raised, or how you raise your own children. Leave your comments below. Let us know what you do. What do you do right? What do you feel like you do wrong? Did it anything we mentioned today resonate with you specifically. And for those of you out there who know you have had childhood trauma, who recognize that you have had just that right amount of trauma to be a high performer, I want to encourage you to see that as a superpower, like see that as a benefit for yourself, not as some kind of, you know, hebbity-bibbibety life-coaching betterment. Like, no, it's because there are literally

people who will never try as hard as you. And then there are people who are mentally incapable of achieving what you achieve. So if you yourself are a high performer, I want you to know that you have found the right place to be here with us, here at Everyday Spy, as part of the Spy Tribe. So leave your comments below, leave your thoughts below, leave your questions for us below. And then of course, if you want to learn more about how to turn your childhood trauma

into something that's super powerful, make sure you click on the links in the description, come visit us at our homepage, come take our spy quiz, come be part of the Spy Tribe, and unlock those superpower abilities that you have that you may not even realize that you have. And with that, I guess we'll save our next conversation for the next day.

See you soon.