Good Life Project - Queen Bees, Wannabees & Cultures of Dignity | Rosalind Wiseman

Episode Date: November 26, 2019

Teaching self-defense to young women in her late twenties, Rosalind Wiseman saw a world she never expected; one where girls and young women would destroy each other. Not physically, but emotionally and socially. And, it wasn't okay with her. So, she stepped in, started to listen - really listen - not to adults, but to the young women, then all kids, and began to build coalitions in an effort to create better ways to be with each other. That eventually led her to write Queen Bees and Wannabees, a book that stormed onto the scene, rattled people to their core and started not just a conversation, but a global movement.Wiseman has since devoted herself to helping communities shift the way we think about children and teens' emotional and physical wellbeing. Through her teaching, speaking, curricula which is now taught in schools around the world, and media appearances on relational aggression, ethical leadership, the use of social media, and media literacy, she works with educators, parents, children, and teens to help them navigate the power dynamics that influence their lives and relationships. Seeking to scale the impact of her work to more people, she recently launched Cultures of Dignity, an organization that helps adults in positions of power support the children around them. But the journey has not been easy. And, we cover the highs, lows and in-betweens in today's conversation.-------------Have you discovered your Sparketype yet? Take the Sparketype Assessment™ now. IT’S FREE (https://sparketype.com/) and takes about 7-minutes to complete. At a minimum, it’ll open your eyes in a big way. It also just might change your life.If you enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend. Thank you to our super cool brand partners. If you like the show, please support them - they help make the podcast possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

So in the early 2000s, exposed to the often horrifying ways that kids were treating each other, Rosalind Wiseman decided to write a book that eventually was called Queen Bees and Wannabes, helping her daughter survive clicks, gossip, boyfriends, and the new realities of girl world. She had no idea what would happen when this book moved out into the world, but when it did, it exploded into the public's consciousness, revealing pervasive social cruelty, bullying, and injustice among kids and young adults, especially focused on girls. It also became a bit of a manifesto for a movement of change,

leading her to develop curriculum and travel the world on a mission to teach parents and educators and teachers and community leaders and anyone else in a position of trust and influence for kids how to create environments that foster more dignity and shared humanity. And along the way, she also did something radical. She invited those very kids and young adults to become advisors and contributors, giving them a genuine voice in developing the programs and the curriculum and the ideas that truly resonated with them. So now as the founder of an organization called Cultures of Dignity. She's on a mission to work with communities to really shift the way we think about young people's physical and emotional well-being.

It has not been easy, but she is committed to this and making a profound global impact with her work. It is truly making kids' and young adults' lives better and in turn, the lives of their families, and the bigger ripple is the state of the world. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist,

whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required. Charge time and actual results will vary.

Mayday, mayday. We've been compromised. The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were gonna be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference

between me and you is? You're gonna die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. You have been on my radar for quite a number of years

through my wife, actually. Oh, okay. She's a number of times, she's like, she's doing such powerful work. This, I can't understand why this is not in every school around the country and around the world.

So it's great to be able to actually sort of like coordinate times and be in the same time. Because I know you're on planes, trains, and automobiles all the time also. Yeah. I want to dive deep into a lot of the work you've been doing over the last few years and then some of the stuff you're doing right now. Okay. Let's take a step back in time, though, and sort of like trace a bit of the origin story. You're originally from D.C. I am.

I am originally from Washington, D.C. And I lived there, grew up there, and then went to college in Los Angeles and then came back to D.C. and then was there and built a life there, you know, raised my kids for the first 10 years. And then we moved to Colorado. We just pulled up all of our roots and we just moved. What was behind that? Well, my husband really didn't like living in D.C. And he said, you know, I put 20 years into this and I'm really not connecting to the culture here. And he was unhappy. And so we moved and we like took every, we had a wonderful community in D.C. We lived in Mount Pleasant. We had a wonderful community in D.C. We lived in Mount Pleasant. We had a wonderful community. But we just uprooted everything, and we moved to Colorado.

Was Colorado the only place in play, or were you certainly looking at different places? Well, so like a lot of people, you get to a place where you decide, well, where am I going to go? And Colorado becomes the place that, I mean, we're not unusual where you end up being in Colorado. Our journey was not unusual in the least. So, yeah. So, not in the least. I almost feel like it's that if you haven't been here, you're like, okay, so I could see how that would be one of the five places I would consider. But then why don't you come here?

Yeah. I have friends who have lived in Boulder for years. I don't know if this is local, but like one of them said to me, yeah, like we kind of consider Boulder 10 square miles surrounded by reality. So you start out in DC, you're out in LA, you go to Occidental. What did you actually, you were, what'd you study? Oh, poli sci. Was that a passion of yours or was it sort of? It was. I always thought I was going to be a litigator, go to law school, you know, some kind of, I knew I was going to do some kind of advocacy. I didn't know what it was going to be, but I always knew that I was going to do some kind of advocacy.

And I come from a family of attorneys. So I just felt natural to me to argue, you know, and to be able to advocate for oneself. And basically, in some ways, there's actually a huge amount of correlation between what I ended up doing and political science. So, in fact, actually much of the work that I do is based on political theory. So I just work in the world of young people. So you come out then back to D.C. And I guess simultaneously with you studying poli sci, thinking I'm going to be in activism or law school. Yeah.

You have a side passion, I guess you'd call it, in martial arts. Yes, I do. Where does that come from? So what happened is the way I got there was that when I was in high school, I was in a relationship with a boyfriend that was really complicated and really unhealthy. And there was lots of reasons why he was having drug and alcohol issues. I was really confused by all of it. And it was extremely unhealthy. And when I got to college, I was always a competitive athlete. I was actually, I played tennis and always hated it.

Pretty much always hated it. But I played tennis and I went to college and I just hated it. And so I stopped doing it. And, but I always needed to manage my, you know, sort of my energy and all of that kind of stuff. And it was just part of my day to work out. So a friend of mine got me involved in martial arts. And as soon as that happened, you know, I was a sophomore in college that and I was

taking political science and all of these things started to come together about my empowerment, my sense of self and agency. And it just really struck me that at the time I talked about it in terms of women. I think this is appropriate for everybody that if you've experienced some kind of abuse or violence or just being a woman in this world that you've been told that no matter how competent you are, you can't protect yourself, you can't handle that, that when you are given the tools to be able to do that, that it really changes the way that you see everything about yourself walking down the street in your relationships with people. And so my experience of martial arts was incredibly profound. And I am not the only person who's had this experience. Both men and women have had this experience. And it really hit me very hard. So I got obsessive about it. I

got completely obsessive about it. And it was the physical outlet that I had always looked out for and didn't know about. So I got really involved in it. And then I came back to DC after college to get a job. I was going to try and get a job in refugees and that kind of international work. I was really, really wanting to do that. But I was shocked at how hard it was to get a job. I was so surprised that it was hard to get a job. I was like, wait a minute, 91, which is really bad for getting a job. That was a bad time to get a job. I was like, wait a minute, 91, which is really bad for getting a job. That was a bad time. I came out of law school like just after that. And it was this time where for lawyers, it was brutally hard. The whole job market was kind of like in this really low then.

It was horrible. And so I freaked out. But at the same time, what happened is my boyfriend at the time, who is now my husband, had moved back to Washington with me. And we, I think the story, I think if I'm not mistaken, we were at some kind of holiday party. And, oh yeah, this is right. And, you know, I come from a Jewish family of lawyers. And so, you know, it's not a big deal in my family to get a law degree. It is an enormous deal to get a black belt. It is so beyond my family's culture. It is so beyond. So when I remember going to these holiday parties and people were like, wait a minute, what? What did you do? Like, what are you talking about? And it was just so different in the culture that I grew up in. And so one of the things that happened was that some of the parents asked me, and I was 22 at the time, if I could teach their daughter self-defense.

And so one of my better and worse qualities is that I say yes to things that I have no idea, like what I'm doing. So I said yes. And my boyfriend, husband now, we both did it. And we went to this private school that my parents and my brother and sister graduated from. There were like 25 girls that showed up. Oh, wow. It was shocking. I was like, oh, well, this is easy.

Have you taught anything before that? Well, I taught martial arts, but I had taught martial arts by that point, and I had my first degree black belt at that point. I went on to get my second degree. And then – but we were really upset. I was really obsessed with how do we get women's empowerment with self-defense. And that was happening around the country. But also the thing that was happening was that I was listening to these young women who were truly like four years younger than I was at the time. And I was listening to them. And it was back when we were,

and we're still talking about these issues, and unfortunately, sometimes the same way, about date rape and about like the rights of women and how do women advocate for themselves. And I was really concerned, like deeply concerned that we were giving people rights without the competencies and the skills to back up those rights. It was incredibly, it felt so naive to me to say, and it does to this day, to say, you have the right to do whatever you want, which by the way, of course, you have responsibilities to other people. But at the same time, also, you can't tell people that they have the right to do whatever they want without them being able to advocate for themselves or be able to take care of themselves or to be able to have a realistic understanding

of this context in which they're in. And I felt that we were giving girls these things like these soundbites of what their rights were without giving them the skills to back it up. Yeah. It's like permission without power. Totally. And I was completely annoyed by that. And so I, I mean, because I think it's dishonest. I think it's incredibly dishonest to do that. And also just a waste of time, basically. And you're setting up, in this case, young women for being able to say like, this is what I get without the ability to back it up. And I just thought that was intolerable. So I started listening to girls talk about what was going on in their lives that were getting them in situations where they couldn't or were struggling to advocate for themselves.

In sexual harassment situations, in dating situations, in relationships. And I started really listening to girls and it really started to hit me that the experiences they were talking about also very much had this hidden thing in it, which is that they were very focused on how other girls were seeing them in those situations, and that the more girls could support each other, the safer they would be. And if they didn't feel that support, what was going to happen? And then my brain just went, what? Wait a minute. And I literally, I think it was six months later, after listening to this, started a nonprofit with my husband and wanted to do the work I was doing for all different kinds of girls. And so I started

working in teen parent programs and public schools and private schools all over the area. And just every day I would go to these schools and I would teach and private schools all over the area. And just every day, I would go to these schools and I would teach and I would make lots of mistakes. And the girls would look at me and be like, no, you're not. And then some schools said, you know, because this was back in the day when we didn't have like really codified programs like this. We're like, oh, you're good with young people. Can you go talk to our boys about sexual harassment? So again, I was like, okay. And I really started listening to boys. And I thought, okay, we've got to be able to figure this out. And we've got to be able to listen to young people. And my biggest, I guess, epiphany was we cannot lecture to young people about their social lives

or the decisions that they're making in their social lives or sexual interactions with each other without listening to them first about what their experiences are. I have to listen first, then I have to develop the content that I think is going to work for them. But that's not good enough. I have to have them actually critique it and I have to have them keep critiquing it so that we keep looking at them as the subject matter experts of their lives. And then we give them the material that makes sense to them. And when I started doing that, that's pretty much what I've always done. At that time, and even today, how unusual is that approach? You know, I didn't even think about it at the time. I literally, it just seems so natural to me. Like, why would you tell people what to do when you haven't listened to them first?

Or why would you not have young people critique what you do? It literally didn't occur to me to do it any other way. Subsequently, I have found that it is extremely rare to do that. We are still lecturing young people. Social media, are you kidding me? We lecture young people constantly about social media, and yet we don't ask them what their lives are like on social media. So it's actually still incredibly rare to have young people really be part of the conversation as we craft what they need. And that's different, for example, than like focus groups for young people because, oh, we know we're going to write a book or we're going to do a program. We're going to do focus groups. We're going to get young people in a room. We're going to ask their opinion. Well, that's extracting information from them.

That's not asking them and acknowledging them as the experts that they are to craft with you the content of what you're doing. Yeah. And, I mean, focus groups are also sort of like notoriously skewed because they're, as a general, whether they're teens or, you know, like 80 years old, there's like a script running your head that says, what do they want me to say? And like, let me give them something that creates a good dynamic in the room and validates whatever it is that they're looking for, rather than this ongoing conversation that says, no, your voice actually matters. And if we're wrong, tell us. Do you have a sense that the fact that you came from completely outside of this world of academia and sort of like studying

it and stuff like that allowed you to come in and do something radically different in a way where if you had come up through sort of like quote the system, it wouldn't have happened that way. Yeah. Unfortunately, yes. I was talking about with two colleagues of mine who have lots of letters after their names and they were laughing about that exact issue that I never, ever would have done what I did if I had been in academia, which is incredibly sad that academia wouldn't give that kind of flexibility. But absolutely, you've hit it on the head. And I felt it's really been a struggle for me. I did a program when I was about 25 for a year, like a certification program at Harvard where I would go up once a month and do programs and learn and things like that. But, you know, and I've been

trained and certified in all different kinds of programs from trauma to, you know, young people in depression and curriculum, things like that. But I have never gone to graduate school for any of this. I've never. I don't have my PhD, I don't have any of this. And it has been a source of like, oh gosh, how do I have the ability to do this? Because now I teach teachers. That's really, right? And oftentimes people will introduce me as Dr. Wiseman. I'm like, I am not Dr. Wiseman. There's nothing in my bio that says that. I'm going to get caught for lying when I really haven't lied about my resume. Somebody has to give you an honorary doctorate.

I know. Someone has to give me an honorary degree. Just so you can say that. Yes, I am. I am a doctor. Why, yes, I am. Yes, I am. Yeah.

So it's – so it has been a point for me of like, oh, my gosh, like I really – I should have gotten my graduate degree. But at the same time – and I've suffered as a result there. I mean, in some ways, right, there's parts of the world that don't want to listen to me because I don't have a graduate degree. Absolutely. There's the more kind of established kinds of educational. There are parts of this, the world that I work in that are not interested in what I've done because of that reason. But would I sacrifice the fact that I actually have a body of work that is based on something I'm incredibly proud of, based on working with young people from all over the world, all different kinds of demographics, that is a constant, inconstant

motion that constantly reflects young people's experiences? I mean, it's a sacrifice, but it's a sacrifice worth taking. Yeah. And at the end of the day, you know, if the thing that you're really in this for is to make a difference, you know, then, okay, so I guess it's this juggling act over time where it's like, okay, so I could go back and get the PhD and do that. But the five to six years it would take me to do that if I was just heads down developing and evolving curriculum and out there in the world and training and training and training, what is the comparative difference of how I would spend those five or six years? Oh, my gosh. A hundred percent. Yeah.

And also when my career was – so I ran this nonprofit for a long time and I made like $500 a week. It was really, really tough times. And I mean it was great. It was passionate. It was awesome. I worked with amazing people. We created this amazing organization. It was amazing. And I'm making like $500 a week. And so this thing happens where I decide, I'd written a book when I was like 25 called Defending Ourselves. And so it was all about self-defense. But it was also my experience with publishers where they don't listen to you, where you actually know the demographic better than they do, and they don't listen to you about that. So I had that experience. And I mean, it was fine. It was a lovely little book, very early 90s. And my hair is absurd on

the back of the thing. It's like, wow, wow. And so then I percolated and really was in what you're – like my head was down working for the next five to six years where I was doing all this work with young people. And then what happened is I write this – I have this title in my mind, this Queen Bees and Wannabes title. And right when I'm doing this, I also start having children. So at that point, I'm thinking, well, okay, graduate degree, how do I – I can't – there's no way. There's no way I can do this. And so I made a decision, which was, you know, work 80, 90 hours a week, have children, have your career, take a really weird turn, and just go for it. Yeah. So you have this idea in your head for Queen Bees and Monobees.

The book actually comes out in 2002. It does. Right. How long was that concept and the book idea percolating? Like what was the window between when you're like, oh, this is a thing and it actually goes out into the world? That's a good question. So I was thinking about it. I was thinking about it. I was thinking about it. And I actually, I had an agent for Defending Ourselves and I gave her the idea. I'm not quite sure. I can't quite remember when I did, but she turned me down. And that was a bad decision on her part. I mean, I've looked back on that and been like, oh, man, I wonder what that must have felt like. Because my agent, you know, you never know when something's going to be successful and you never know why. Like, truly,, like I'm not taking away from my work to say, and you really don't know why. I mean, it had a good title. It's like the 20 something publishers who passed on Harry Potter. Right. Exactly. Well, gosh, I mean, that's a huge comparison, but, but, you know, you do, you never know and you never know why something's going to be successful. You really don't. And so, and in any case, so I had found another person to represent me and I had his card on my desk for a while.

I mean, like a year. And I kept thinking, yeah, I really need to do this. I really need to do this. I just need to sit down and write a book that imagines like what adults need to understand about their daughter's lives because they don't seem to understand it or they seem to forget. You know, my life really changed at that moment. I mean, that really was like a demarcation. I had no idea. I was so involved in the work that when I finally got the proposal together and I remember going around to the publishing houses and everybody, like everybody we met with was like, we want it, we want it, we want it, we want it. Most of these people had teen girls too.

And they just, there was so much interest in it. Most of these people had teen girls too. And they just, there was so much interest in it. And I had no idea. I had no idea why. I had no idea about any of that. I was running a nonprofit making $500 a week, a month, if that. And, you know, just, I remember, I vividly remember coming home to my friend's apartment in New York and hearing that there was a bidding war on the book and that Random House Crown had bought the book. They'd done like a preemptive bid. And my agent calling me and saying, this does not happen. And I remember walking into her apartment and literally just like collapsing onto the ground because I just couldn't believe that this had happened. I just couldn't believe that this had happened. I just

couldn't believe it. What was it? Why couldn't you? I don't know. I mean, because having spent years seeing like the vast volume and depth of the pain that was out there in the world and the lack of connection, was it that you couldn't believe you like got a book deal, that the concept was ready, that it was that people were validating? I mean. It's a good question. I guess I, for a lot of, I, it, a lot of things that seem obvious to me are not, you know, I have lots of experiences of like, I get confused about, like, I was just so in it. I was so in it that I, I didn't even, I couldn't even – I don't know. It just seemed so obvious to me. And at the same time, I guess, to see that all of a sudden it was obvious to other people because I was talking about it. I definitely was talking about it.

And people would get really – well, two things would happen. I would talk about this work I was doing about girls. And then two things. One would be that somebody would start talking to me about their experience of like middle school, which would go on for a really long time. Like whether like, you know, it's a cathartic moment of like, oh my gosh, I remember. And they'd say, tell me your name and all this kind of stuff. Or they would just be completely mystified by it and have no idea what I was talking about. And so I don't know.

I just remember feeling like how – maybe it's a little bit of both, right? Like how could this be happening to me? And wow, people are finally getting what I'm talking about. Maybe that was the combination of it. I just, it was absolutely shocking to me. Yeah. It's almost like external validation at scale and with money behind it. Yeah. Yeah. And truly like things were rough. I'm not, no joke, like running a nonprofit as a young woman is really rough. And I mean, part of it is sexism. At the time, I don't know about now, but at the time, most of, on the outside, I mean, it looked somewhat successful, but

most of the foundations were run by women. And I was getting grants that were like $5,000, $10,000 for like one time. And my male, I had a lot of male colleagues who are my age who were starting nonprofits too around the same time and they were getting way more money, way more money, more money, multi-year. They just were taking so much more seriously than I was. And the majority of the people that were making those decisions were women.

Lots to unpack there. Yeah, I had some feelings about that at the time. Yeah. Judging by the smile on your face. Just a little bit. I mean, just a little bit. Yeah. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

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The pilot's a hitman. I knew you were going to be fun. On January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him.

Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. So when you actually, you get to the apartment, you collapse, you realize like you've got a deal. With a situation like that, you know, like generally that means real money on the level that you had been struggling for a year to support the foundation. How does that change what you feel you're capable of doing at that time? That's such a great question. That, when things like that happen, it's so complex because, well, first of all, I have to work on the book now, right? Because I've sold the book and I only had one title and outline.

You sell a proposal instead of a book. I sold the proposal. There was no book. There was one chapter. There was a title. There was an outline. So then I had to write no book. There was one chapter. There was a title. There was an outline. So then I had to write the book. And so now what I'm doing is I'm probably 29, 30, and I'm writing the nonprofit. I'm pregnant with my first child, Elijah, was born in December. And I think the book was due – I mean, I just remember the first four or five months of his life. I am writing in between naps, his napping, not my napping.

And so I'm trying to balance these things as much as I can, which, of course, is a ridiculous concept. And so what was easier was that people in my world knew that I had a book deal and I was writing a book, but nobody had any idea that it was going to become this enormous thing. And I certainly didn't. And so what we did, it really didn't immediately impact what we were doing. It didn't. I was just focusing on the work and trying to just get through the day, right? And like sleep for a couple of hours a day. So for you, it's almost like it adds another substantial burden to what you're doing. Oh, huge, huge. And shifts, I mean, and then it's got to shift a lot of the sort of forward-facing work into more sort of like internal generative creative work.

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And you've got a newborn. And I have a newborn. I have a newborn. It was a tough time. I mean, it was a, thank goodness, Elijah liked, there was, you know, one of those little swingy things and he really liked that a lot. So thank goodness for that. But it really was, it was this enormous creative time and it was very internal. And I, you know, I look back on it with a lot of fondness in some ways because I didn't know how complex, for better and for worse, the success of this was going to be. So I was just doing this in this bubble of just creation. And I mean, if anything, you look back on the book that you had done a couple years prior and say, okay, well, that's my track record.

So you can't really project forward. And like you said, the publishing world is kind of the wild west. Oh, it's brutal. Super brutal. I mean, I knew by that point that I needed to work in partnership with them. And so what I did do, because, you know, being the native Washingtonian that I am, like I knew that networking was incredibly important. So the other thing I was doing was I was going to every single association that I had had connection with by that point and was making connections with them about, okay, this is happening.

I'm doing this. You know, I'm working, I'm doing, I'm working, I'm working, I'm working on doing this. So I was really networking as this was happening at the same time, you know, and, and that, that was something that I really honed and really focused on. And that really, really helped me when the book finally came out. Yeah. I mean, so then the name Queen Bees and Wannabes, such a fantastic name. The other thing that often happens in the publishing world is you

come in with a name that you want and the publisher at the end of the day has control, especially when you're sort of like younger in your career as an author, like they can change the cover of the title, pretty much anything. I'm curious, was there any internal dialogue around? So there was no dialogue about the title. Everybody was like, that's a great title. We're keeping that title. But there was a lot about the cover. And by that point, because I had had a lot of disagreement with my first publisher, and I think I was right, about what the cover should look like, I had a lot of opinions about that.

I just kept saying, I know the demographic. You don't know the demographic. I know the demographic. You don't know the demographic. I know the demographic. And by that point, I could also give it to the girls that were helping me write the book and say, what do you think about this? And so it wasn't just me being the difficult author. It was, no, actually, I have 75 girls who are saying to you, yeah, they want to see this. They want to see that. I mean, the first cover was just ridiculous, just ridiculously 90s. It's just so like the girls have these big old hats. They look like Nirvana from like 1989.

It's adorable. But there was no racial diversity on the cover of the book. And I couldn't stop that. So it was second time around, we did a much better job. So I've never really, the cover stuff is really hard. It always is. And yeah, you have power when you're a successful author, but it's a tough one. It's always a tough one. Yeah. Being in the book space also, it's always such an interesting dance and the power dynamics are constantly shifting every time you go back to the table to have that conversation. So the book comes out, 2002. It becomes this literally global phenomenon. Does that happen right away or is it more like a slow? Nope. It happens right away. So in about six weeks before the book came out, the New York Times Sunday Magazine did a cover story on me and the issue. And I'm the profiled person in it. And

my life literally changed when that came out. The day that that came out, my life changed. I mean, by that point, I'd already been, book hadn't come out yet. I'd already been on Oprah twice. You know, I was in the media just starting to be like a talking head, but nothing changes your life. Like being, in my experience, like being on the cover of the New York Times Magazine and being the subject of that cover story. And so that changed my life for a lot of different reasons. But all of a sudden, it was sort of like the graduate school that I didn't go to. Yeah, that was sort of like going to graduate school. Right. Because you get that and everyone's like, oh, you know what you're talking about. You may have a PhD, but I don't cover the New York Times Magazine. Right. Which

would you prefer? Right, exactly. You become like the zeitgeist for like two minutes. But not for two minutes. I mean, for a while. So yeah, that was the shift. That was the huge shift. And that's when things got complicated. How so? Because everybody thinks you're way more successful or way, have way more money than you have. People get jealous. People get, you know, it's just weird. It's weird to be the subject of something like that.

That was, you know, it was just a lot. There was a lot going on. Like, did you just become the subject of and the spokesperson for this issue? And so now I have, that comes out, I'm still not getting any sleep with kids. I'm still running the nonprofit and I'm handling maybe 20, 25 media calls a day. Like, and this, and the book hasn't even come out yet. So there were six weeks in between when the magazine came out and when the book came out. And so my publisher, of course, was like over the moon. They were over the moon. I was just-

Say yes to everything. Right. Exactly. I was just trying to keep up. I could not believe what was happening. I just couldn't. I couldn't believe what was happening. Yeah. So it's like from that day, you're kind of holding on for dear life. Exactly. And then the book comes out six weeks later, explodes into the scene. I'm guessing then just the spotlight piles on and gets magnified dramatically. What did, so there's the complicated side, there's the taking away from personal time, there's the managing all this new stuff coming at you side of things. With the blend of the publicity you were getting and the message of the book and the success of the book and the reach

of the book, how does that change not just your personal trajectory and what you're doing on a day-to-day basis, but also what's possible for the message that you have, the program you want to develop, the impact you want to have? Oh my goodness. So the reason that I'm laughing about that is because the complication with queen bees and wannabes and the subsequent book I wrote several years later, Masterminds and Winged Men, is that I find it helpful to label behavior and to put words to things that people don't put to words. I'm always looking for how to do that, how to just make things that we all know to be true to be able to talk about them more easily. So that's been a real focus of mine for my entire career. So one of the results of that is coming up with these labels for social dynamics of girls like queen bees or bankers

or pleasers or wannabes or whatever. And I did it with boys as well, with boys helping me. And it's helpful to a point because human beings naturally slot people's, you know, they can analyze. Even though you say you don't. Right. You do. That's where your brain works. Exactly. But I was always saying, in every subsequent edition of Queen Bees, I try and do it more to the point. I was always saying, this is a label to understand one's own behavior or the behavior of other people around you, but you are not stuck in this one place and one label for your entire life. And it's not helpful to go around and say like, oh, she's that, she's that, she's that, she's that. Because it's a way

of not looking at one's own behavior. And one of the things that was really frustrating to me, and it was one of the reasons I stopped even talking about these labels, ironically, like I have this book called Queen Bees and Wannabes. And if you have me come to a parenting lecture, I'm not talking about that. And the reason is because parents were so focused on, well, now I understand this girl that I don't like, that's a friend of my daughter's or has been mean to my daughter, she's this, this, and this, and this. And I thought, and I, it was so frustrating because I wanted people to be able to understand behavior so that they could do, they could have more agency over themselves and be able to speak in ways that they could be taken more seriously by other people. So the more you understand yourself

and the power dynamics around you, the better you're able to do that. So, and that's really difficult. And it was also really difficult and understandably difficult for, we're talking about academia, for people in academia because what I was doing was I totally agree with this, that it gets, there's a fine line between being able to see girls' behavior this way and also being able to superficialize girls' behavior and not take it seriously. And so, and that was really something for better and for worse that was happening with this work was that people were, some people saw the complexity of it and it really, really helped them, really helped them. And I was so grateful for that. And then I think that in some ways,

it was, you know, when I remember going into like a Walmart and seeing a Queen Bee's backpack, and I just, you know, I was like, that's just not what this is about, right? I mean, I saw, like I would see t-shirts of like, my daughter's a queen bee. Like, that was a good thing to be. I was like, okay, well, that's not cool. You know, and it was really, it was sad for me. And it was understandable that, you know, you see something that labels people and people don't want to give it the complexity that it's due. Yeah. It's the, you know, it's the upside and the downside of having something like that is on the one hand, it distills it and simplifies it on a level where you can have all of a sudden like the core concepts enter the public conversation. It becomes part of the zeitgeist and millions more people are a level of nuance, which allows you to really get to a deeper set of sort of like observations, behavior changes and resolution and like really make a difference. And it was important to me.

There was a lot of stuff in there about racism and homophobia and classism and all of this stuff. And people weren't asking me about that. And so it was just this stuff on these labels. And so I was like, wait a minute, there's so much going on here that contributes to how girls show up in the world that we need to look at and understand. And so it was, you know, it's just been a real thing for me to negotiate and navigate, you know, since it's come out. I mean, so how does that, you know, because, you know, we're sitting here in 2019 now, so this is 17 years since then. And there's been a whole lot of new stuff that you've developed.

But after that comes out and you're seeing how it's actually landing, what's your response to that? You know, you get months or a couple of years into that and you see this pattern repeating. How do you then say, okay, how do I harness the best of what's been created by this and redirect it so we can now take it to the next level and sort of like not just have the conversation locked into sort of like these reductive terms that people seem to keep reverting back to? Yeah. So I think my commitment is to have young people constantly review and critique my work. And so I throw out, I let go of things constantly. I just threw out something.

So in Queen Bees and Wannabes, there's this thing called Fruit Cup Girl, which I loved. I had a deep affection for Fruit Cup Girl because it was this moment when I was teaching with these sixth grade girls, and one of them admitted during class. It was this big, wonderful moment of vulnerability and all this, where she said that she gone to a field trip and it was at lunchtime and she couldn't figure out how to talk to this boy. So she pretended she couldn't open her fruit cup so that she could go over to the boy and ask to open the fruit cup. And we just did this whole debate. And this was so wonderful and it was so fun and so great. And it was so actually wonderfully feminist, amazing. Like these 12 year old girls are sitting there talking about self-agency around a fruit cup and what do you

give up and what do you gain in the moment of I'm pretending I'm not as competent as I am because I want to be able to connect with somebody. So I'm going to fall back on these stereotypical tropes of women's incompetence, right? They are 12 years old and they're talking about this. It was such a great, such a great moment. And so I love Fruit Cup Girl. And so I'm doing, literally just like a couple months ago, a couple months, not, maybe a month ago, I have these high school editors who are going through some of the lesson plans that I do. And I'd kept it in there for one thing. And all of them, all of them said that it was bad and it had to come out. And it was so sad. It was so sad. It was like, really?

We're going to let go of Fruit Cup? I love Fruit Cup Girl. But they're the experts. And so I very – it took me a couple days. I had to have like a little thing. I got rid of Fruit Cup Girl. There's no more Fruit Cup Girl because I had a group of young people look at me like that. You know, young people give me this look sometimes of like, oh, you're nice and we

like you and that you're doing, you're doing your best and you really have to stop doing this one thing. Like you really do. So this is another curiosity of mine, right? Because when you start, you're in your early twenties. Yeah. And like you said, and you're way back in the day where sort of like transitioning martial arts but also women's empowerment. And even sort of like, so you're not actually that far away age-wise

from the women and girls you're talking about. Yes, yes. But over time, over a couple of decades, you know, like the age difference starts to-

It's bigger and bigger. Right, so at some point like in the early days, it's like, okay, relatable, you know, like, oh yeah. But then like, there's gotta be like this the early days, it's like, okay, relatable, you know, like, oh yeah. But then like, there's gotta be like this moment where it's kind of like, huh, okay.

Oh, it's awful. It's not, yeah. Oh, it's awful. I remember turning 36 really distinctly and thinking, I am twice as old as the senior girl, young people that I work with, right? And so as these years have gone by, you're like, oh my gosh, like, oh oh, my gosh, I'm so like, oh, my gosh, I am so not them. Right. And I clearly am not them. And and so it's something I think about a lot. And there are times when I do feel like, do I have the right to be in this position that I'm in, basically. And the only way that I feel that I have the right, and this goes back to what I was saying earlier, is that I really felt like I had to stop being the talking head and, you know, just running to an interview and saying what I thought was true. Because at a certain point,

when you become a talking head, this is my experience at least, that you lose the contact that you have with your source material basically. And I just felt like, I mean, I remember at one point being on a morning show and I was on about something and I thought to myself right before like the little red light went on, do I have the right to be talking about this? Do I know what I'm talking about? Like who, what young person, what group of young people have I talked to that gives me the right to speak about this? And I couldn't come up with any. And I was, it really, it really hit me really, really hard. And so it was, that moment was really a start of like, what am I here to do and why? And so that goes back to your question about as I get older, if I'm feeling like I'm in contact with and more to the point,

more in relationship with young people, then I feel that I have the credibility to be able in some way to be able to represent them. And even more importantly, to be able to look for ways to give them a platform to be able to speak for themselves. Does part of that involve with your current work or in the plans, putting them forward as representatives and spokespeople and advocates for their own community? Yes. And so one of the things, like I haven't done this in a while, and actually it's the first time I've talked about this is because it's pretty brand new. It lies off a couple of weeks. So I just finished this enormous curriculum.

I've had this curriculum called Owning Up that I've been working on forever. That was a social justice program. Yeah, it's like an anti-bullying prevention program, but I don't like using the word bullying because kids hate that word. So I've been differentiating. So basically not get too much in the weeds. It went from being this like middle school thing to being classes, lessons for grades, separated by grades, which is if you're in education, that's an enormous undertaking. It was a total slog. I'm actually not quite done, but I'm really, really, really, really close. I've been working on this for like the last two years and really like down in doing this work and talking to teachers about what they need and what young people need and expanding all the social media stuff that we're giving them and just giving teachers the lessons that they can do that will not be so intolerable to young people. Because this kind of work that happens in schools is like kids don't like it.

They really don't like it and they have good reason to not like it. Like, hi, boys and girls, let's talk about your friendships. I mean, that's awkward and weird, even under the best of circumstances. So I've been doing that like intensely. And then I thought about three or four years ago, three or four years ago, that's funny, three or four months ago, maybe I'm ready to write something else. So then I thought about it like a book and I was like, yeah, let me tussle that around for a little bit. And then I thought, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I don't want to write a book right now. I'm working with young people.

I want to do something visual. And so what I'm doing, and we just made an agreement with Bloom House, the production company, the film company that did all of Get Out and Us and all those things. So they have a news documentary division. And I've just signed an agreement with them to put together, we haven't sold it yet, it's really in its infancy, to put together something about having young people come forward about the things that they are dealing with in life and doing it as a docu-series. And so my plan is to be on camera, but to allow and to really facilitate young people to come forward.

So, for example, everything about snitching is actually a really complicated issue, from the tiniest of school shootings are happening and where young people have the highest level of anxiety that we have ever seen, ever seen, as we have been evaluating these kinds of things. Reporting takes on a whole life of its own. There's an anonymous reporting system that's somewhat complicated called Safe to Tell, which does wonderful things and also can be manipulated by kids. So there's a whole world of that. And I want young people to be able to say what that feels like and what it looks like, because we see it on the news of when something horrible happens. Why didn't anybody say anything? Why did the kids record it and they didn't do anything about whatever it is? I want the young people to be able to explain

the world that they're living in and do it in a visual medium. So that's what I'm actually just about to start working on. That sounds amazing. So it's really about choosing a medium and a format and a channel that is native to them, to young people, and also allowing them to sort of like share in their voice. It's really about educating adults. It is. But in a way where young adults actually get to do it in sort of like the most native format to them and the most comfortable. And I guess probably in a way that they can feel that they'd be most honest. Absolutely. And I mean, we could do one.

There's so many things we could do. But like, you know, memes, just the concept of memes. Memes are not like in some ways they can be really stupid and silly and whatever, but memes actually can be hugely political and have tremendous amount of meaning. Like eighth grade boys who we don't usually associate with like tremendous meaning and profound depth of thinking, they can have very deep memes about the way in which they're communicating with each other. Group texts of boys. I want to do just a show on group texts and boys because that is their place. Young people are always trying to create privacy in the public sphere of social media, right?

I mean, it's like the most public of places, but they're always trying and doing pretty well sometimes at creating privacy within those spaces. Group texts for boys are intensely intimate, like who they let into those groups and what they're saying in those groups. And the freedom to say what they feel and in all different kinds of ways, like that's huge. And most parents have no clue that that is as important in boys' worlds as it is. Yeah. In fact, I would almost imagine that most parents feel the exact opposite, like put your phone down, go hang out with these people. Instead of having a dozen kids on a group text, just go somewhere, be face-to-face. And yes, I can actually see the benefit of that. But at the same time, and this is why it's so funny because I've had so many conversations around people on the age of 25, basically, and the reliance on technology as a social mechanism.

And I think, you know, I'm 53. People my age are kind of like, it is the worst thing in the world. I can't understand it. Because we didn't grow up. It's not in any way sort of part of our experience in the way that we relate to other people, and we only see the downside of it. But similar to you, I mean, there is so much upside. There's so much potential to harness technology and social technology and something as simple as group text for real good. Yeah. And I think we, I mean, to be able to actually have young adults sort of like show us that

without necessarily showing us what's in the group text. Oh, yeah. But actually demonstrate the fact that like, we're not just being lazy. We're not just, you know, like wasting time. We're not just sort of like ignoring the world around us. But this is what's sustaining us sometimes through massive anxiety leading to depression. And this is what's actually making us remotely okay. I think that is a message that old folks like me really need to hear.

Yeah, we do. We need to hear a lot of things, actually. I mean, I am so... What else are you seeing? What else am I seeing? Oh, my gosh. It's really important. All right, well, okay.

I mean, my big one, which I've been working on significantly for the last... Oh, gosh. I mean, for my whole career, but I've just gotten much more focused on it in the last couple of years, is this difference between respect and dignity and how much young people are being... That the word respect is being manipulated. So schools love to use the word respect and adults love to use the word respect. And respect actually is across the board in all different kinds of cultures, this thing of respect your elders, right? That's just what we do. And, you know, if you're listening

to this, like, I really want you to hear me. I'm not saying, like, don't respect your parents just off the bat, right? Or don't respect your grandparents or your teachers or police officers or things like that, politicians. But the issue is, is that respect, what it actually means is to admire someone's actions and the position they have because of those actions. So in Latin, it means to look back and admire someone. So that's where it comes from. And it is imperative to be able to acknowledge that people who are in positions of respect use their position to get away with abusing power. And we all know the experience of having to show respect to someone that we don't respect. And it's enraging. And young people have this experience more. And at any part of your life, that is when you're gonna have that experience. And especially if you're a person of color.

And so it is imperative. There are all these people, young people in this country who hate going to school. They have good reason for hating going to school. They can't see the relevance of what they're learning. And there are adults who are using their position to go after them. And then there's other well-meaning adults who don't know what to do when they see those adults do that. There is good reason why young people don't like

going to school. And yet we say to them, you have to respect us, you have to respect us, you have to respect us. Or give it another way. Like if you're in seventh grade and a group of kids go after you on social media and just horribly humiliate you, you go to your teacher and you say, or an adult, and you say like, these kids are doing this to me. It is a normal reaction from a teacher, even one who goes to like a teaching college, where they will say, you don't have to be friends with this child, but you do need to treat them with respect. And when the child hears that, they're like, why? Why would I have to do that? They're making my

life miserable. They're telling me to go kill myself. You're telling me I have to respect someone who's telling me that I have to kill myself? And so it disengages the child and it makes them feel like adults have no clue what's going on. And when it happens with adults where you talk about an adult doing that to you and the other adult that you're going to says, well, they're an adult, so you have to respect them, it is enraging. It is enraging. And it also, for young people, makes them silent about the abuse that they're experiencing. So, I mean, one of the reasons why our religious communities have been so, and people within those religious communities have been so effective at abusing young people or coaches or teachers or any adult who's been with children. If they're going to abuse children, one of the most important reasons why they can do it is because of their position of respect because young people know that you can't go up against that.

And it doesn't have to be sexual abuse. It can be psychological abuse, emotional abuse, humiliation. I mean, think about a coach who's screaming at a young man who, you know, I don't care how big he is. He could look like, you know, he could be six foot eight. I don't care. And a coach is screaming at this kid. And if this young man looks away because he's being screamed at, which by the way, in their brain development, I mean, just human beings don't like being screamed at two inches away, but in their brain development, they literally are in a fight or flight mode. So the young man is doing everything he can in that moment. And it's like 17 year old self,

16 year old self. And he looks away right from the coach as he is being screamed at. And that looking away is being seen as defiance. That is insane. And adults use that to then go and discipline or excuse me, punish young people for disrespect and defiance against adults. We do not understand or we don't understand or won't acknowledge the hypocrisy of our behavior. So for me, this word of respect is so co-opted in schools or with young people that it is a way to make them comply with whatever messed up situation they're in.

So instead, like that's the bad part. The good part is if we use the word dignity to be worthy and it's a given. So if I say to a seventh grader, hey, that is horrible that those kids are telling you that. You don't have to be friends with those kids and you don't need to respect their actions, but you do need to treat them with dignity. And dignity means to me that you don't go after them or you don't this or that. Let's figure out how we can do this.

Now, that's not the perfect, perfect answer. I've had a young person come up to me that I've been working with and said, you know, I don't even know why I should treat a teacher with dignity who like gave me a humiliating nickname and then let all the other kids humiliate me with that same nickname in class for the whole year. Why should I treat that person with dignity? I don't know the answer to that question, but at least we have to have the conversation. Yeah. It's almost like respect is earned, dignity is born. Exactly. Respect is earned. It always has been. The other thing that's really

empowering is that it basically looks the same. And when I say to young people, especially ones who've been like really hate school and are seen as like, you know, sort of have authority problems and that kind of stuff, is that if I say to them, hey, look, showing someone dignity and showing someone respect actually looks quite similar on the outside. But you know in your heart that it's totally different because I'm telling you that you don't need to respect the actions of an adult who's abusing power, but you do need to treat them with worth. Let's figure out what that looks like to you. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X.

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Yeah, I mean, thinking about it, it feels like respect is about in addition to sort of like being earned and being born like respect is about behavior dignity is about humanity exactly it's about acknowledging the fact that somebody may be doing behaving in a way which is completely offensive. And underneath all of that, there is still a human being who may be suffering in profound ways, who may be dealing with their own okay, let alone, there's no way you can respect that person because it's just the behavior is so not validated or to then look at the person who's behaving this way and saying, but you still have to treat them with dignity. It's got to be so hard. You still have to go searching for where is the humanity behind the behavior that still makes them worthy of dignity.

That's, forget about kids. You know, like for grown adults, that is a brutally hard proposition. It's a brutally hard proposition, but this is the thing about why I love working with young people, because when you actually have these conversations with them, they're like, oh my, it's basically like, oh, finally, someone's talking about this.

Like, oh my gosh, thank you so much. And they, like, you have young people who, you know, who start with me, who say, oh, this is going to be so stupid, right? Like all of this stuff is because of this stuff, you have to respect people, you have to be kind, you have to be nice. What in the world does that mean? Especially when people are being horrible to you? So it is imperative that we have these conversations because young people want to have them and they will come forward and talk to us and they will be able to actually engage in ways that are much more meaningful and they will tell us when things are going wrong. Because adults are still abusing young people right now. I mean, and we've got like, I'll just say something super extreme. We have child pornography online that is unprecedented, unprecedented.

It is disgustingly, nauseatingly horrible. How can we get a young person who goes to school, who might have a person in their family or an extended person, neighbor, whatever, who has somehow been able because of a weak family structure or whatever it is that has made them vulnerable, that they are exploiting that child. There has got to be a teacher or someone in that school who sees that child, who just connects with that child. And that is and treats them with dignity.

And it's the feeling of being treated with dignity and being seen that that young person is so much more likely to go to their math teacher, their science teacher, their school resource officer, their counselor, that if they feel that way, they can then talk about, with a little bit more likelihood, they can talk about this nightmare that they are dealing with at home. And that's an extreme example, but it's not something that it's, but it is happening. And so we need, we like desperately need young people to be able to come forward and say, hey, I know you see me, so I'm going to trust this adult. I'm going to trust this adult because they see me.

That is life-changing for young people. So how do we get those adults to be in a position where they're actually, they have the skills, the abilities to, I mean, because take teachers, for example, okay, because we could literally talk about every person in the community of adults who could potentially play that role, but teachers, you know, like the, we look at the average teacher who's like goes into the profession because like it's noble, they want to help, they love teaching. Very quickly, they find out that there's a lot of bureaucracy and complexity around that. So already a lot of teachers are struggling

just to function within the system that they're in. They're going out of their own pockets to pay for supplies. They're working tons of hours just to kind of keep up and be there for purely the academic needs of the kids to then go to those teachers or administrators, support people within the school and say, there's a whole nother level of stuff that's happening in your kids. You may or may not be aware of it, but it's happening. And you could potentially be the person who can be hugely

catalytic and then being okay. But you also need to make yourself available on a whole different level. And you need to go and get a profoundly different set of skills to play that role. How do you, and I know that's a bigures of Dignity with this young man who had, who's not so young anymore, he's getting older, named Charlie Kuhn, who started with me when I was writing the boys book and then quit his job to work with me full time. And then we started this company called Cultures of Dignity. And the reason is to do, is to answer what you are saying, which is to work with teachers, to give them the skills, but also to say to them, you do not need to be a counselor. You don't, because you don't need to go back to get a master's in counseling to be able to be a math teacher. It's not what we're saying. But we are saying that we can give you some skills to be able to handle when a young

person comes to you. So for example, if a young person comes to a teacher, they're going to come to the person they have the most relationship with, right? So they're going to go to a math teacher. They're going to go to an English teacher, a Spanish teacher. If you like children, one of the things that happens with teachers that they don't talk about, and we think that teachers should be able to do everything, right, is that teach Spanish. And also, if they're good teachers, then they're, you know, a child's going to come up to them and say, hey, guess what? My family's in an abusive relationship or I've got an immigration issue. That's been a huge, huge issue for us in the last couple of years, is young people terrified of immigration status, not maybe of themselves, but of their cousins, of their moms, of their dads. And math teachers

are taking in, for example, this kind of anxiety, and we're not teaching them how to handle that anxiety. So we are teaching them how to handle when a young person says to a teacher, hey, can I talk to you for a second, which is never going to be a second. And they say something like, you know, the kids are bothering me. Well, because usually young people will start off with a very general question because they're sort of sussing out like how you're going to respond. And so the answer to that is not, oh, don't let them bother you. It's okay. Don't worry about it. Just show that you're a stronger person, which are understandable things to say, but are absolutely seen as a blow off, is to say instead, oh my gosh, can you tell me a little bit more about that so I have a better understanding of what's happening so I don't make assumptions?

And then they tell you, and then no matter what the answer is, you say, I'm really sorry that's happening to you. Thank you for trusting me to tell me. Let's sit down and figure out what's our next best steps about this. So it's giving us boundaries for the teachers. And it's saying to the young person, like, I can be in this conversation with you. When we give teachers, this is the thing, teachers can be really burnt out. And they can say things like, not one more program. Don't give me one more program, right? When I get teachers who come in, and they're like, oh, gosh, I'm so exhausted. I

just, ugh, I don't want to do anything more. And I'm like, I get it. I totally get it. When we give them these scripts and when we give them, they make them their own, but when we give them these things of here's what you can do and here's what you don't have to do, there's some boundaries for you about how to take care of yourself. Jaded, cynical teachers move forward so fast. And they're so grateful. And they are like, oh, my gosh, thank you for telling me what I can say to these young people.

And then they're there. And then we can expand from there. So that's what we do is we are working in all different kinds of capacities with schools around the world right now to be able to give teachers a way to be successful in their relationships with their students and in a way that is safe for the teachers and appreciates and acknowledges what they're up against. And also how to be able to give them a way to say, okay, I've now reached my place where I just can't, I can't do this anymore. Now I need to go to somebody else. We are giving them a blueprint and a path to be able to move forward. And we're also bringing young people in so they can be a

voice to help us understand how to do that in the best way possible. So we're always looking and working with schools to figure out how to create places where young people can have more voice and give more of their expertise so that the school is more informed by their experiences. Yeah. And I would imagine it's not just about scripting or templating the moment, but it's also about how it's almost like the nature and the quality of the ongoing relationship that you develop, like the culture that you create in your classroom. Oh my gosh, absolutely. I remember a couple of years ago, I think it was now,

we had Michael Reichardt on who did this like really fascinating study on boys. And he was saying that they asked like the young adults, not the adults, what are the different elements that would make it like most conducive to learning, to actually trusting your teacher and learning? And by a huge margin,

the single biggest one was the relationship with the teacher. And because he said, people always thought boys weren't relational. They didn't need that to flourish in class and to actually learn. And he's like, it is the exact opposite. That is the single most important thing. And it was across all genders right now. I love Michael's work too. Yeah. It's so fascinating. So actually just to give you like some hope with this is that one of the most successful things

that we do with teachers when we're doing our teacher trainings and programs, one of the things we start with is we ask them, when you were a young person, like the age of the children that you teach now, who was a person in your life that was in any capacity a teacher that you respected or you disrespected and why? And so then we give them some time to really think about that and talk about that, including like super jaded teachers,

right, who are like walking into my training thinking this is going to be a waste of time. And then we say to them, okay, so now what I want you to do is think about how did that relationship and that experience with that person inform the way that you work with young people today? And we just need to give them a lot of time. I mean, teachers have these moments of, oh, my gosh, that's why I got into teaching. I didn't even realize that in this moment, right? I had a tech teacher who saw me every day and I was having a miserable life for whatever reason. And it was my place. It was my oasis. And I, oh my gosh, I became a tech

teacher. So it's really powerful. They just need the time to remember. And the negative ones can actually be incredibly powerful too, of course, is many teachers will say, I had a teacher who humiliated the kids in class, and I promised myself I would never be that person. These are really important experiences that teachers need to remember. Also remember, based on the question that you very astutely said a little while ago, what is the connection between academic competencies and social emotional learning and the social lives of young people? And if you cannot create a space in a classroom where young people will take the risk to learn, which means to maybe be wrong sometimes, that they're going to disengage. And so actually these things are absolutely intertwined with each other. If a teacher shows up and sees young people, makes a mistake like I did last year with a group of seventh grade boys, I made a mistake where I was super sarcastic with them. And I said something really snarky. It was like three of them together. And as soon as I said it, I thought, I was like, oh God, why did I say that? That's bad. That's bad. That's like exactly what

I would always tell teachers never to do. And I felt awful about it. And I was like, oh, God, why did I say that? That's bad. That's bad. That's like exactly what I would always tell teachers never to do. And I felt awful about it. And it was like I was obsessing about it. And I was like, how am I going to talk to them because I can't make a big deal out of it because then they'll freak out and all this stuff. It will be weird and awkward and all of that. But I need to do it. And so the next time I ran into two of the three of them, I remember having a moment of nervousness because a lot of teachers think that if you apologize, you lose power, which actually, of course, is the opposite. So I called them over. And I always say to teachers and parents, like pretty much all

meaningful conversations you can have with kids, especially boys, you can have in like a minute, right? If they want to talk more, great. But like you can pretty much like three minutes tops and don't repeat yourself. So I said to the boys, hey, you know that thing I did yesterday when I was talking to you? I'm really sorry about that. And of course, the boys looked at me and they said like, I don't know what you're talking about. And you had this moment of like, am I going to repeat this horrible thing that I said? No, I'm not, right? So I said, well, you know, I just want you to know that I feel bad because I feel like I came across as sarcastic and I need to apologize and I'm really sorry about that.

And the boys went from pretending they didn't know what I was talking about to their whole face and their whole bodies changed and said, oh, cool, great, excellent, wonderful. Like, you know, see you in class tomorrow. And I was like, the whole movement, the whole moment shifted. And I had those boys from being disengaged to being way more engaged in the next class because that relationship was built with me saying, hey, I care about you enough to realize that I just realized I did something wrong to you and I need to take responsibility for that. Yeah.

And also modeling, I mean, modeling integrity and responsibility from somebody who like they very likely perceive as being like, well, you know, there's always a front. And that is like the type of behavior that I would imagine is the thing that earns respect. And treats them with dignity. Right. And treats them with dignity. It's sort of like the two blended together. As we sit here having this conversation, we are in the throes of a political season and a climate, not just in the US, we have listeners from around the world. And we see this happening all over the world right now, where anxiety is ramped, fear is ramped, and it feels like civility and the recognition of the humanity of people who don't look and see and believe the things you believe has been greatly diminished.

I know you're developing lesson plans that sort of like speak to this in a certain point. What's bubbling in your mind around this right now? venue or my particular area. And I mean, our president gives a really, really good example of not respecting someone's actions, for my opinion, and that you need to treat them with dignity. And that's a tough one. And it's really a place of, for me, about practicing what I preach, which I really believe. So all to say, actually, and I work in really conservative communities, and I work in really liberal communities. And my experience with really conservative communities is they're not as conservative as they think they are in a lot of ways. And liberal communities are not. And progressive communities, like the community we're in right now in Boulder, is not as progressive as

it thinks it is. So specifically what I'm doing is I'm creating, with Cultures of Dignity and some other wonderful colleagues in the United States, we are creating lesson plans and materials and resources for schools on the election, on the upcoming election, because we were caught flat-footed last time. And there were a lot of people who got so upset about the outcome of the election last time who were teachers and educators and parents, and we abdicated our responsibility as adults to young people. It was like we sort of curled up into a fetal position, or we got so angry, or we became paralyzed. And there were schools that I was, there were a few schools that canceled classes. And that was more for the teachers than it was for the students after the election,

because people were so upset. And, you know, honestly, I think this is a moment of we are adults. What is our responsibility and how are we going to conduct ourselves? And now we have to we really need no matter what you think about the who you're voting for or anything like that, is how are you going to show up in a way that treats people with dignity? Because it is so easy to have a self-righteous temper tantrum. I don't care what political bent you are. It is so easy to have a self-righteous temper tantrum, I don't care what political bent you are. It is so easy to have a self-righteous temper tantrum and it doesn't work because nobody listens to you. So it might make you feel better in the moment, but you're being completely ineffective. So we've got to figure out how to do this, not because we want to be nice and kind. We need to be effective

because, you know, one of the cliches that I talk about a lot in my parenting speeches is it takes a village to raise a child. That's a cliche. Villages are complicated. You know, there are people in our village who can be completely crazy or really, really disagree with about stuff and do really crazy things and we get really mad. And I think what's happening in the country, and I do work overseas, and I think, and I agree with you about this feeling of anxiety is I think some of our anxiety is about the feeling that our villages are falling apart and that the foundation is falling apart. I also think one of the reasons we're feeling so anxious is the way I define happiness is like meaning beyond oneself and a sense of curiosity and meaningful social connection and a place to process and find peace in this world. Our culture is actually really good at convincing us the opposite is true for our happiness, right? Just focus on yourself. Success is getting a lot of money

or like a lot of eyeballs on your social media. So don't have meaningful social connection. All of those things and never find a place to process and find peace because then you'd realize how miserable you are. So it's one of the reasons why we're so anxious. So what we're doing is we are creating content and resources for all different kinds of people to manage ourselves better through this process, because our leaders are not going to help us with this. They're not. We don't have a leader that I can see who's going to help us with this civility thing. It's going to come from us saying, our villages are losing, we are collectively losing our minds. We've got to stop. And you know where we can start, honestly?

Honestly, is, and this might seem really weird for people, but for every parent who's listening to this in the United States who has their child in travel sports, I think travel sports and paying for teams for young people is one of the worst things that's ever happened to this country. It's one of the worst things that's ever happened for our villages. As soon as adults started getting paid to teach children and coach children in these teams, and as soon especially as Adidas and Under Armour and all those places got involved in young people's sports, this whole insanity of young people, of parents thinking that their kids are going to get Division I this and they're going to, and the glory that we get when they're nine years old and we get these crazy ideas in our heads.

We are literally not seeing the abuse and the bullying that is happening of adults and the bad role modeling that is happening every single day in this country, across the country. I don't care what your politics are. You can be in the most progressive community in this country and you will go to a soccer field, a basketball court, a football field, whatever, a lacrosse field, and you will see a parent or a coach or a ref abusing power to other people in totally egregious ways. And our young people see this every single day. And none of the adults do anything about it. And yet, so we can look at the politicians and we can blame them for how bad things are. Let's start with us.

That's actually one of the first places that we need to start. And also young people won't tell us what's going on with the coaches that are abusing them or the whatever adults who are misbehaving because they're so afraid of the expectations that their parents have. They don't want to tell their parents because the parent's going to tell the coach and then they're going to get punished. So this is such a part of our country that is like right in front of our face that nobody is doing anything about that actually – I mean people are writing about it. People have written about how horrible AAU basketball is. People have written about gymnastics. Are you kidding me with this?

And yet we don't collectively in our own lives think about the programs that we are putting in our and getting our children involved in. I mean, the last part of this is because I worry so much about children's safety, is that if I go to a public school in the United States, I have to go get like a police, you know, my fingerprints, all that kind of stuff. None of those programs, AAU basketball, any of those, the hockey, any of those things, very rarely, like very rarely. And I have not seen a system mandate that any of those coaches have to have some kind of background check. And yet those coaches are with our kids like independently. They're driving them all over the place sometimes. And they are with our children alone and yet they don't have to have any kind of background checks

and coaches yell and scream and humiliate our children in ways that a teacher, if they were doing that systematically, they would get called into the principal's office so fast. I mean, it's just the system in education at least

does not allow for the humiliation and the emotional abuse of children. Athletics does all over the place. Yeah, and I guess bigger picture, the message is, yes, when we look at what we're seeing on TVs and with sort of like the leaders, and like you said, across all parties, we're, I think, increasingly horrified. And at the same time, we can almost always find that near identical behavior in our own backyard. Absolutely. And if we feel powerless to do something on a larger scale, well, maybe we focus in on a much smaller scale.

And that's actually the level that we can feel like, oh, I can actually say something or do something. Like on this level, I can make a difference. And if we do that at scale, it becomes more grassroots. Oh, my gosh, that would be amazing. I mean, imagine if people went to a school board meeting and demanded civility amongst the people that were speaking at the school board meeting. I think we could change the country. I want us to come full circle in this conversation. One of the things you shared with me before is that you have been, you know, as you're developing all these different things, as you're creating amazing tools and processes and programs and ideas to go out into the world and help millions of people, you're also one person who is also interested and curious about your own personal development and evolution.

And so you've been kind of contemplating a four-day walkabout slash fast also. Yes. It's because I live in this state. You gotta tell me more about this. It's happened to me. I'm not like hiking up the mountains barefoot with like a backpack of rocks in my, you know, now, because that happens in this town.

Highly more irritating is like when I'm hiking and I see people going up and down the mountain multiple times, which also happens here. So I'm not at that level yet. But, you know, it's been a rough road. It's been an exhausting road. I often feel like I'm talking about things in ways that people – it's just been – it's just exhausting. No, you know, I'm not going to, you know, go around that.

It's been really, really tiring for a lot of different reasons and frustrating. And, you know, so how do I maintain myself through the process? And I have a team of people that's growing and it's extraordinary what's happening with that. And in particular, in the international school world, we're doing more and more and more work. And it does feel like school administrators are moving into these conversations faster and more competently than when I first started out.

And another thing about social media is young people are much more engaged with us in ways that never were possible. We have young people all over the world who are editing our work. I mean, truly, we have editors and advisors from all over the world who are editing what we do. So that's amazing. And at the same time, how, you know, you're asking me about like, so I've never really had a hobby. I've really been, I like to read like novels. And, but I've been working hard for a really long time. So I'm getting ready. And I guess I'm going to say this out loud, since it's going to be much more likely I will do it, is did my husband make you do the reset you have for this? So yeah, I'm going to do a vision quest where, so there's these ones called the School of Lost Borders that my 18-year-old son went to when he was 15,

16, and my husband went on it too. A little too intense for me because it's 11 days and four of those days are you're by yourself in the nature, not eating anything with like a jug of water. I think I need to build up to that. So I'm going to go on a five-day retreat, which is also outside. And again, I'm a Washington DC person. I didn't really grow up like going outside except for like the sidewalk. So I'm going to go outside and I'll be outside and I'm going to, you know, really take a moment to disconnect and to think about what is it that how I want to show up in the world and how I want to continue to show up in the world and how I want to with this new project with these young people. How do I I mean, maybe that I won't think about this at all, but I want to figure out how to contribute in the best way I can to the issues that you raised about where we are in the country and how can we be more civil? Because the thing that, the incredible

gift that I have, I'm so grateful for this, is because I get to go to all these different communities, right? Rural communities, conservative communities, super religious communities, people that might really differ with me politically, but I have wonderful, wonderful, respectful relationships with those people. And I respect the work that they do. I respect the things that how they show up in the world. I feel treated with dignity by them. And we talk about difficult things. And, and so I have the benefit of being able to go around the country and be with people that are different from me all the time. And so I have more optimism about the ability for all of us to actually talk to each other. I don't demonize people because I get to have these experiences constantly with people. And I think that's, if there's anything I'm incredibly

grateful for, it's that, because I just get to talk to people that really disagree with me about things and it's okay. So as we sit here in this container of the Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? So for me, it's about being courageous to be uncomfortable, but also knowing when it's too much. And to stay in relationship with people, even when it's incredibly, incredibly hard. And it feels to me like if we do that, or if I'm able to do that, then I'm able to build the community that will be able to support me and selfishly be able to support me and be able and I will be able to contribute to my community in a meaningful way. And that to me gives me purpose and meaning in a way that, you know, as I've talked about,

things have been hard, really hard. But it sustains me and it gives me a lot of faith and a lot of feelings of optimism about being able to carry on. So for me, that's really what a good life is. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you so much for listening. And thanks also to our fantastic sponsors who help make this show possible. You can check them out in the links we have included in today's show notes. And while you're at it, if you've ever asked yourself, what should I do with my life? We have created a really cool online assessment that will help you discover the source code for the work that you're here to do. You can find it at sparkotype.com. That's S-P-A-R-K-E-T-Y-P-E.com.

Or just click the link in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, be sure to click on the subscribe button in your listening app so you never miss an episode. And then share, share the love. If there's something that you've heard in this episode that you would love to turn into a conversation, share it with people and have that conversation. Because when ideas become conversations that lead to action, that's when real change takes hold. See you next time. The Apple Watch Series X is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X.

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