Modern Wisdom - #243 - Sevan Matossian - A Growth-Minded Guide To Raising Superhuman Kids

Episode Date: November 9, 2020

Sevan Matossian is a filmmaker and a parent. 90% of people will have children at some point in life, yet we're never given the same insights for raising kids that we learn for our own personal growth. Expect to learn the key principles that Sevan focusses on when parenting 3 young boys, how to keep your relationship stable when having children, why a home birth might be your best option and much more. Sponsor: Get 20% discount on the best coffee in Britain with Uncommon Coffee’s entire range at http://uncommoncoffee.co.uk/ (use code MW20) Extra Stuff: Follow Sevan on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sevanmatossian/ Follow 3 Playing Brothers on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/3playingbrothers/  Get my free Ultimate Life Hacks List to 10x your daily productivity → https://chriswillx.com/lifehacks/ To support me on Patreon (thank you): https://www.patreon.com/modernwisdom - Get in touch. Join the discussion with me and other like minded listeners in the episode comments on the MW YouTube Channel or message me... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ModernWisdomPodcast Email: https://www.chriswillx.com/contact  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi friends, welcome back my guest today is Sevan Matosian. I have been a massive fan of him for years and years He's made umpteen award-winning documentaries He was the guy behind so much that was great about CrossFit's media team for basically all of history and He has recently started making a name for himself being a parent It sounds a little bit weird making a name for yourself doing something that 90% of people do, but there is a very unique, very growth-minded, very forward-thinking approach, which him and his wife have taken toward raising their children, the way that they die at the way that they train, the way that he deals with discipline and boundaries and

structure, and I just wanted to get him on to have a discussion about what it is that makes his parenting style so unique. As someone who doesn't have kids, but one day wants to, hearing the language of bringing up children spoken in a way that resonates with the personal development and the progress that I'm used to in other areas of my life, really, it struck a chord in a way that I haven't heard any sort of parenting advice

done before. So if you are a parent or just considering coming, becoming one at some point in the not too distant future, I think that there is so much to take away from today. And I would love to hear your feedback. Head to the Modern Wisdom YouTube. I want to hit 100,000 subscribers. Before Christmas, please, thank you. So go to the Modern Wisdom YouTube, hit subscribe, and then fire a comment on the video. Let's know what you think.

There will be an interesting discussion down there. Certainly a non-typical approach to parenting children, but I failed to see why this would be a bad idea. So whether you think it's good, bad, or something else, I want to know what you think. Monomized on YouTube, head there, and tell me in the comments. But for now, it's time for the wise and wonderful, Sevan Matosian. We're going to talk about today. We've got a lot of different avenues that we can go down. What's your reckon we're going to talk about? I am a very simple man with not a lot to talk about. So you better nail it right on the button. Or else it's going to be a real doll poid podcast.

I disagree massively. So, OK. First question is, how come you have made a name for yourself doing a thing that 90% of humans do, which is raising kids. Who? I love publishing. I love creating stuff. I use social media as a cheap publishing platform. It is not something that I use to really scroll around on, even though they're always tempting me and the reels with those girls like doing all those fancy dances and barely clothed. And I bought a computer to, I got a computer in the editing software that Apple released,

the day it released it, and 2000, whatever. I was living in my car, I plugged the computer into my cigarette lighter, and from that day forward, I've used Final Cut Pro Adobe Premiere Some video and I've been creating video for over 20 years TV shows movies commercials YouTube Instagram and so basically what happened is I have my three I've been I now I know what happened I've been preparing all these years because now I have my three favorite subjects of all time, my three sons, Avi who's six, Ari and Joseph

who are twins who are three, and they are not only my Sistine Chapel, they're gonna be my greatest work ever, but I'm gonna record it because that's what I enjoy to do. And so, they do some stuff on Instagram that's got them some attention. And so that's how I think our paths have crossed. And we both crossfit. I think we're both sort of in that ecosystem. A lot of people take videos of the kids though. You know, it's every, every mum that I know

is so trigger happy with the camera. So how can, what, what, what makes you worthy of people caring what you do with them? So that in, um, so, so one, I have 20 years of experience of creating videos. So maybe I, and, and my, in my previous life, I created more than probably in 2007, eight, nine, I created, I don't know, I want to say a piece of content every single day for CrossFit Inc.

And there was even a joke at CrossFit Inc. that it should be called Sevan.com and not CrossFit.com. I think there was a day where they published my stuff 42 days in a row in 2010. And so I've had a ton of practice, right? So I know on some level how to intuitively, I guess, to present my kids in a manner that would be intriguing, but not only intriguing, educational. My main goal of publishing is I just want to add value to people's lives, right?

So I want people to see, 50% of it is, is I just want to add value to people's lives, right? So I want people to see, for 50% of it is I just like to create stuff and on the other side, the other 50% is I want it to add value to their lives. And because I'm a crossfitter and because I have this unwavering belief in the Crossfit methodology, which the foundation is diet and then up from there it's movement and that struggle causes adaptation, that's how I'm raising my kids. I basically there's two basic premises for how I'm raising my kids. I'm using the CrossFit methodology and then I'm sort of using dower's principles or principles of the journey to enlightenment through like maybe like a depositor or creating space or not still in the mind but watching myself

and making sure that I'm making the best decisions for my kids as a human being. I know that was a lot. I was really trying to condense in it. But those are sort of the two outside things. You're seeing physically how I'm training them and the things that I'm asking them to do and show them to do and the diet that they're consuming on my platform. But then You're seeing physically how I'm training them and the things that I'm asking them to do and show them to do and the diet that they're consuming on my platform, but then you're also, and I've only recently started sharing this. I'm sharing with people how I work through

the hard times, you know, whether it be their temper tantrums, they're pressing back, and I do that through, really in the simplest way, Dallas principles, or just really, really staying still and sort of becoming nothing. And by nothing, I mean, no thing, not, you know, no thing. And so that they can resolve their own, their own problems.

It doesn't always work out. Did you always know that you were going to be some savant sage of experimental child rearing? No, no, and I don't, I don't know. And I don't accept that, like I don't think that about myself, and I didn't accept that, like I don't think that about myself, and I didn't know that, so my wife and I were married, we're been together 20 years. And the entire time the plan was not to get married and not to have kids, I had no interest in it.

I thought people who got married were just tools of the man, just followers, and I thought that there were enough kids on the planet who am I to contribute, what can I contribute? And then we were living with some friends and they had a baby. So we were in a house and now there's a baby. And then my closest friend in life, he had a baby. And somehow that triggered my wife at 39 years old was just like, I mean, it was so just casual. And something happened. I can't like biologically, emotionally, mentally. There's this Taoist saying, stop thinking and all your problems will go away. And that's basically, I'm 48 years old.

And I point my age out because my 30s were my grinding years. So I don't know how this would have turned out if I would have had a kid at 34 because I was so, you know, I shot movies in a hundred different countries. I mean, I was on the ball. And so now I don't wanna do anything. Something just happened,

I don't wanna do anything but be something just happened, I don't want to do anything but be with my kids. That's it. Like I have no... Like, that's it. I don't, I don't, I don't, I... That's terrifying to hear, man. Like, that absolutely terrifies me.

And I've been talking about this a lot, especially this year, that there is an archetype for women who hit sort of 30 and then perhaps start to get a little bit more serious about settling down. But for men I don't think that we quite have that and we live through archetypes right we live through these sort of cliche grand narratives where we look up to the classic. sick roles that people play in movies or in books or whatever it might be. And there isn't an equivalent for the young guy who has served his time burning the candle at both ends and now really wants a family, likes the idea of a family, and to hear that that there is a switch somewhere inside of us that none of us knew even existed. And at some point, all of the other guys who are listening, who have been loving being independent, sovereign agents with upward mobility and freedom to

do whatever they wanted. I'm going to Dubai tomorrow because I can. What's a point in having Fokki freedom if you never say Fokkiw? And at some point, I can potentially have this switch turned on, which completely flattens my entire world view and makes me become at the mercy of these little miracle creatures that I've just brought into the world and the rest of my life's going to stop. That's like beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Let me, let me, maybe I'll shed some light on it and what I don't know if what I'm saying is true, but let's say that we go out in search of life and when we go out We're just mirrors and we're just looking for perfect reflections of ourselves, right?

And so that's the struggle of life that we can't find that perfect reflection So we move from relationship to relationship and coffee shop to coffee shop and job this job and buying car to car And we're either is trying to scratch something inside inside or outside but we're looking for that perfect reflection. Maybe I've never explored this except for just now. Maybe what happens is these guys came out and they just start reflecting me perfectly and bam, they got me. Why do you think the reflection is what we're looking for? Through my personal experience of what I call watching my mind, but some people call meditating, watching, it's not just my mind, it's watching my body, all sensations. I see things arise, whether it be a scratch on my arm or a thought that I'm hungry or

owe my toe hurts or owe my back hurts and they come in sensations and words and emotions, there is then a desire to move or act to alleviate or respond to that sensation thought, whatever came out of you. So you look for an external fulfillment. external fulfillment you look for something externally instead of letting it pass so you're hungry I'm working on my computer editing a podcast at 10 o'clock at night. I'm hungry I turn the volume up on the podcast so I can hear it as I go to the kitchen and stuff myself with two handfuls of macadamia nuts, right? or I could just let that pass. And it is gonna pass, but most people,

I shouldn't say this. In the past in my life, as I grew up, I wouldn't let that pass. I would itch every single. And so that's where I come up with the mirror thing. We're looking for something outside of us to alleviate the discomforts that come inside. That's why people lie and just all sorts of stuff.

You're looking to alleviate discomfort. It's sort of, and that's what makes us kind of like flies. We twitch from one pile of shit to the next because we're looking to alleviate discomfort. Any, and I use the word discomfort super broad, like, you know, and so the goal would be to just let those things, well, different subject, but when I'm around my kids, I'm especially focused on letting those things pass.

And it's pretty easy to let those things pass because they're giving me every I need. Did you want a dog? They're reflecting me perfectly. Did you want a dog before you had kids? Great question, yes. I did, I want a dog. I had three great Danes in my motor home. And then I had this little after that

I have this little tiny chihuahua. Okay, which was hard to raise. The Danes, it's a lot of shit. It's a lot of shit. She evolved. Yes. They, oh man, you I saw like morning peas that would be like two minutes long from my dog. It just destroying gardens and like, I mean, it's a moaning everywhere. Yeah, Danes are so much harder. Go ahead. Okay. So I think that people who are considering having children really couples really should try and raise something that's similarly dependent, i.e., you know, a dog, or I get a cat, even catsitude independent, right?

I definitely think that that's a nice on-ramp. Did it prepare you? Did having dogs before helped prepare you for having kids? I don't know, but I will say that the dog, when I would hear people get have kids and then they would say they neglect their dog, I would be like, I would never do that, I would never neglect my dog. I was wrong. I absolutely neglect my dog.

I used to spend a lot of time with my dog. Now I spend zero time with my dog. I mean, I just opened the car door and he jumps in, and then when we get home, I open it and he gets out. Like, I don't know what, he's an accessory. So, I feel bad for him. My wife is much kinder to him and still gives him attention. But I don't know if it made me better,

but I buy it. I buy what you're saying. Okay, so you haven't planned this. Some arguments might arise, right? I mean, it's superficial as it sounds. When you have a kid, like, are you gonna circumcise the kid? Are you not gonna circumcise the kid? Are you gonna send him to school?

Or you're not gonna send him to school? Is it okay that he choose gum? It's not okay that he choose gum. I see couples fighting about that shit everywhere I go. It's, and so if you get a dog, maybe like you guys will argue over grain-free food or spending the extra money to get raw food, and like you guys will argue over grain free food or spending the extra money to get raw food and you guys can work out some of those, work out some of those problems.

Have some arguments and see how it's going to go. Well, learning how to negotiate when a third party is dependent on you is very different to what most couples have until that happens, right? I want this. You want that. Maybe my parents think that we should do this, but they're not a dependent, they're just a third party sticking their nose in and making life a bit more difficult.

But yeah, I think that the dog thinks a good style, but okay, so you've had dogs, you say at 39 for your misses, which is quite late, I guess, by normal standards now, although more women had children under the age, over the age of 40 than under the age of 20 last year in the UK, which is an unbelievable statistic. So you decide to have kids 39 and you were... I'm 48 now, my oldest is six, so I must have been 42 or 43. So you decide to have kids 39 and you were... I'm 48 now, my oldest is six, so I must have been 42 or 43. Yeah.

What happened there? The switch gets flicked on, but you don't know none of this. You don't know that you need to build, I'm jumping ahead, but you don't know that you need to build like the biggest playground made out of soft area things and learn about mindfulness for your kids and stuff like that. You just have a life-evilived experiences, which is quite vast and you're a mindful guy that's self-reflective and quite truthful.

So I think you have a strong foundation for it, but obviously, you have none of this skill. So do you just start reading books when you find out that your wife's pregnant? What happens? So we start going to birthing classes. It's a three hour class once a week for eight weeks. We're in that class, and that was pretty incredible because it would be three, I couldn't remember the last time I was spent three hours of uninterrupted time with my wife, right? We're just in the class sitting in a chair our arms around each other and they have you practice doing all sorts of stuff that I wasn't comfortable doing like whispering affirmations into her

ear and just all this stuff, right? And at the end of every three hours I was like stoked. It felt like it like I felt closer to my wife from that and even though and so when we went let me go back a little bit. So when we went into that class, our plan was to go to the hospital and have the baby, right? I wanted the safest, best medical treatment possible. And then about halfway through the class, the instructor said, hey, you don't want to do a medical birth.

You don't want to do a birth in a hospital. I'm like, yeah, I do. And she goes, no, you don't. And I go, how do you know? She goes, I listen to the way you talk. And I can tell you do not want a hospital birth. So I disregarded what the teacher said. But then finally one day when we were visiting,

what it's called, an OBGYN, my wife's OBGYN, I said a couple of things to her. I said, hey, are you going to be at the birth? And she snapped back at me. What, do you think I worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week? And I was like, whoa, whoa, easy. And then I asked her something else. I can't remember. And she pushed back and got really angry. And then also told me that though that this

birth is going to be a partnership. And I'm like, she's lying to me or she has a total different view of what a partnership is. So we started looking at the home birth route and we had Avi at home, a home birth just in the living room of our house. This is to answer your question. So the midwives leave, and then there's this dude. It's just me and my wife and this new dude in the house. You know? And you're pretty high. You don't sleep for like a couple of days.

You're like on your sky high, like someone put cocaine in your coffee every morning. I mean, you are just out of your mind high. And fortunately, she just started breastfeeding them. And I just kind of just hung out and made sure I took care of my wife. I just faked it, I guess. I don't know how I knew what to do, but I just faked it. Just make sure there was plenty of food for her. And she just basically sat around and breast I'm on demand for the first two or three months then she started getting out of the house. I know a lot of women get out of the house sooner than that

but she hung tight in the nest. And then she's that important. And she's that important. Oh yes, for the woman to hang tight. Yes, I think when I hear, I mean, and who the hell am I, I'm just some dude, but when I hear women already going out for walks and stuff after a week, I do not think that smart. What? I think that there's very few times that human beings should stay still. And that is one of the times. The woman's body has just been through a tremendous amount. And it's a time to for the woman to reflect and really, really focus on herself and focus on her baby. And the fact that they, the term I hear a lot

is they go stir crazy, that they need to get up and move or they need to get out or they need a little cup of coffee or they need a little bit of wine or like, yeah, okay. You know, I'm not judging those people, don't get me wrong, but I do have really strong opinions on it. I'm really glad my wife didn't drink coffee leading up to the pregnancy. I'm really glad she didn't drink wine. I'm glad she really stayed still and took care of her body. If a woman

does get up too early and start moving around and be active, she'll start bleeding again. It's a tremendous, it's a tremendous toll on the body, I think, to produce all of that milk. You want the body to heal. Literally, when she, so she breastfed Ovi for 18 months while the twins were in her growing. Then a month before the twins came out, she stopped breastfeeding. And then the twins came out and then she stayed in the house for another three months. Imagine that. Like I bought it. My very first car I ever bought was a van. My wife and I bought a brand new van. And when I pulled it up to the house, that was the first time I was like the kids were like two and a half three months old The twins. That was the first time she came from the backroom and looked outside. Oh, I got a new car

And this is my wife who's very active who did crossfit throughout her entire pregnancy You know the woman has abs. She is she's a beast and Yeah, the healing and maybe she's, the twins came when she was 42, right? And we had those at home also, which is illegal in the state of California. And, wasn't that amazing because women, I guess, aren't allowed to do what they want in the United States of America.

Is it the fact it was twins? Yeah. So you can have one, but you can't have two. Yeah. Can you have three? I don't know. So it's two, it's anything over one. So one, one and a half, they're also very fair question.

I can only make the assumption that three is also illegal. Wow. So you've got illicit. Your children were brought into this world, smuggled into this world, under the cover of darkness. And when you have kids at home, they don't get... Like, when you're having a hospital, I can't... I don't know exactly how it happens, but I think they get a social security number and they get their names stamped in stone in the heavens and they become official

Americans, right when you have them at home that doesn't happen so you have to take them to some office and it it's a It's a at least in the city of Berkeley, California. It was a pretty low-rent vile endeavor that he Berkeley, California, it was a pretty low-ret, vile endeavor. Just the lines you had to stand in and the places you had to go. One or two newborn children. Yeah. Well, I know, I'm on Mike Kazyu's podcast next week

and obviously him and Adi just had their little one earlier this year. And I know that Mike has him and Adi classic like growth mindset people who are used to consuming a lot of content in any case. They just read everything under the sun about birth and babies and raising babies. And they were, I was talking to him earlier this year and he was adamant about a home birth. Absolutely adamant about it. And he had this big laundry list of reasons as to why he had. So that's two for two on people that I respect with regards to child rearing saying that that is a route that they took.

The second the baby came out, I knew exactly why we did a homeburs because I could not imagine moving my wife and that baby. At all. I couldn't imagine there being tubes in them. I couldn't imagine someone pricking their feet. I couldn't imagine putting that precious baby in a baby seat and then putting it into a car. I couldn't imagine, like, we were in our nest. It's literally like that.

You have the baby and you're in your nest. Now, I don't want to upset anyone. If you had the baby in the hospital, you had a great experience. Kudos to you. I'm not suggesting this. I'm telling you my experience. I could not imagine leaving. I couldn't imagine we're letting anyone want to touch my baby. I mean, I was just, it was perfect. I knew right away. Wow. We're in the nest. It would be crazy to take the baby out of the nest. It's just like you're not supposed to take a baby bird out of the nest, right? Okay, so we've got ourselves to the birth now, but you still other than these

three-hour sessions where you whisper nice things to your wife and hug her, I'm still not hearing you assimilating some amount of information which permits you to do progressive things as a parent. Where does did this start other than other than taking time away from the dog? so When they what so because we crossfit because I know struggle causes adaptation I knew right away that tummy time was important even though people told me not to put the baby on the tummy I started putting the baby on its tummy, and the baby would scream and cry,

and that was really hard because you intuitively just want to go over and grab the baby. So I started setting a timer for like 30 seconds, and I would be like, hey man, it's only 30 seconds, and I put the baby on its tummy for 30 seconds. Excuse me. And then I get pick it up. Then I do it to a minute, then I do it to three minutes.

Then I start noticing the baby's comfortable on its stomach. Then I think I posted a video where Avi was two weeks old and he rolled over. That's pretty unheard of for a baby, right? Then I would also see people who never put their babies down and their babies didn't crawl. Now, I know that's antidotal. I don't have any proof of that. Everything to be done.

I saw it. Man, it doesn't matter. Everything, every time I saw someone not put their baby down and it's hard putting your baby down, man. Here's something you'll love, Chris. This is going to be you when you're dead. I never used a carrier and I hated to use the stroller unless the baby was sleeping. So I would carry the baby everywhere because I figured either I need to be getting strong or the baby needs to be getting strong. So when I got tired of holding the baby, I would just set it on the ground. Coffee shop floor, set them on the ground.

And then just stand over them, just ready to just destroy anything that gets near them. I'll put five foot, five foot, 550 pounds of me. And so I knew right away that you should cause a little bit, you should cause control struggle on the baby's life, you should give him, and I've seen babies in a hundred different countries how they're raised. I spent a lot of time in Africa. I've probably made 10 trips to Africa and spent, I don't know, four or five, six months of my life there throughout all those trips. Those men who I've seen in Africa and like in the really real parts of Africa are made of fucking steel and are strong as, I mean, their freaks of nature. are strong as, I mean, their freaks of nature and their lives are hard. Like I saw, I saw, I saw, you know, one-year-old babies just sitting or standing around in the fields while

the moms were, you know, trying to get water or hoe the fields. I'm going to close this window so the dog doesn't bark. Cool. Excuse me. So I knew early on. I have to give great lessons, CrossFit methodology, like probably, you know, and high-end at 100% credit, but now that I'm my own man, it's all me. But I'm going to have to give, yeah, it's like, it's that CrossFit L1, man, I can't stop talking about it

It's um, it's where I learn about how human beings operate. It's operating manual for the human human genome If you want to know how to best operate or treat a human being then you have to take that L1 And I'll even go as far as to say that if you have kids and you don't take the L1. I think that your Borderline being neglecting your duties. What is the L1? What's the elevator pitch? That's so sorry. So the L1, it's basically, it's a two day course, CrossFit offers it. Nicole Carroll runs the program.

It used to be Nicole and Dave Castro. It's basically all of Greg Glassman's teachings and the modifications in Nicole and Dave and the amazing seminar staff of May to it over the years. And it basically teaches you how to eat and how to move. And there's nothing there. I think these are Greg's words. They Greg invented. These are just movements that God created, like sitting on it, squatting down and taking a dump and being able to wipe your own butt. And if you take it to the extreme, you end up with someone like Matt Fraser. And if you use it to raise a baby,

you'll end up with Avi Joseph and Ari, my three sons. Go ahead. And basically constantly varied, always changing, movements that are natural, like squatting. And as you become better at them, ratchet up the intensity, make it harder. And when the body's put in discomfort, that sucker adapts, right? I also, on the psychological side, I never, my parents didn't push me.

They did not push me. And when they did push me, they didn't follow through. And I have great parents. My parents are awesome and super supportive, but I know that I had crazy capacity as a kid and I spent most of it riding my bike around the neighborhood throwing rocks and chasing girls. And I just feel like I wish I'd dance better and I wish I could kick ass better. So those are a couple of things I'm making sure my boy can do. He takes ballet, he just started tap and he takes martial arts, you know, started it three days a week when he was four and

my twins are three and now they're at five and six days a week. So, um, so the principle that you said there's two key underlying principles. One of them being progressive overload, essentially, um, that you get them to do a thing and then over time you increase the exposure to that thing, you also allow for variation in that. And the second one was, I guess, what Cori Allen would call the mindfulness gap, observing their mind, allowing them to notice their emotions and let it pass and the same for yourself. Is that the sort of two foundational principles? Yeah, are we done?

Yeah, that's a game over. Thank you. See you next time. So I mean, I mean, I mean, I wrote this down. In case you, structure, discipline, follow through love and boundaries. Those are, I wrote those down. Those are like five principles I talk about a lot. And then

you can't let your kids hold you hostage. You can dig into any of those. But yes, those first two things that you say basically put them through and controlled struggle since life is pretty easy here in the United States. And then yes, you have to make space so that when you put them on their tummy, is that dog barking too loud? It might be best if you can knock it off. And I'll just pause this for a second. I've made up a lot of reasons to take a break on podcasts, but it's always because I have to go to the bathroom.

This is, I think, the first honest you've actually done a break, done a proper break. Okay. So yes, got to make space. Let's, let's go through your five principles that you've written down there then let's just go from the top Okay, so They they want to please you and they want to be safe Kids want to please their parents and they want to be safe and so you have to figure out how you're gonna do that What are you gonna have them do you have to figure out how you're going to do that. What are you going to have them do to get your attention?

And how are you going to make it safe? And I don't know, to go back to your previous question, I don't know how I don't remember how I know that. But I just maybe I observed it or maybe someone told me, I wish I could give someone credit for it, how I know that, but I just maybe I observed it or maybe someone told me, I wish I could give someone credit for it, but I know that. I know he really, really, really wants to please me, and I know that he really, really wants to, he flourishes when he's safe. How do you make it safe?

You have to have crazy boundaries for your kid, and the boundaries you set, they don't even need to be, they don't even need to be legitimate boundaries. By legitimate, I mean, you don't even have to justify them. So let me tell you one of the boundaries I have. My kid is never to touch my cell phone. Ever, ever, ever, ever, ever. It's easy. You just don't touch myself.

I don't let you watch movies on my cell phone. You know, watch cartoons on my cell phone. You know, hold my cell phone. That's my cell phone. It's a boundary and I follow through by never, ever, ever breaking it. Now what's my kid know about me? You would think from the outside that they're learning, hey, they're not getting your cell phone, right? That they're learning so much more than that. They're

seeing that I'm in control. When they see that I'm in control, guess what they get? Freedom. So much freedom. I'm in control. I'm sitting at the top of the hill is the big lion looking out over the savanna and they can play freely because I'm in control and how do they know I have control because I have boundaries. There's no toys allowed in this room behind me. There's no exceptions. There's no I I'm sick. There's no, oh, this is a stuffed animal. This room doesn't have toys. Kids can only come in here with the clothes on their back. So another boundary, do they try to break the boundaries? Yes. You have to enforce them. You have to follow through. And all of those within each of those, so there's boundaries, I have to follow through. I can't be each of those. So there's boundaries. I have

to follow through. I can't be three kombucha's deep and be like, yeah, go ahead, go ahead, you can come in. I'm drunk tonight. No, that you that's you're not doing your job. Hey, that's not how I'm painting my Sistine Chapel Chris, right? I'm doing my Sistine Chapel. When I'm mixing my paints, I don't get lazy. I'm not painting when I'm drunk. You know, the days of popping an oxy cotton and drinking two beers and watching a movie with my wife does I don't do that You know that that's 33 that's not 48 with three kids. Do you find it? Do you find it easier to be disciplined with your children and with yourself. You're asking me at a really, really weird time because I'm so hyper disciplined with myself right now.

I'm so disciplined with myself right now. And by that, I mean, I'm not drinking. I haven't had any refined because of COVID. I believe that you're completely inoculated from COVID if you don't had any refined. Because of COVID, I believe that you're completely inoculated from COVID. If you don't eat any refined carbohydrates or sugars. And so like I've made myself bomb proof. You know what I mean?

I have not, the only carbohydrates I have are leafy greens and me, that's all I eat. And so, you know what I mean? I'm on. I'm in ketosis. So it seems to me that what you're talking about here doesn't just require discipline. It's discipline being taught to your children, but the starting point, the inertia that you need to get over in the first place is yourself as a parent.

That if you are undisciplined as a, if you are undisciplined as a parent, there is no hard boundary for the child's discipline to come up against. You mentioned there, you can create boundaries, but inevitably those boundaries are going to be subject to your own desire to be disciplined. So for instance, one night parent X is feeling a little bit down and really wants the comfort of cuddles off his or her child. So let them come into the living room with their toys and their blanket because of this thing. That requires discipline first. The foundation of the discipline is built upon the parent and then broadcast to the child.

Yeah, you know why I'm having trouble. I think what you're saying is true. And why I'm having trouble understanding it and to give another explanation is, I don't have to worry about giving my kid Oreos because I would never allow Oreos in my house in the first place. And that that's actually not true. I've had guests who bring their kids over to my house and their guests don't like the shitty desserts my wife makes without sugar in them. So they bring their own desserts and they, their kids eat Oreos in front of my kids. Now listen, that doesn't mean you're not flexible. I have an absolutely no TV time or screen time when the sun is out. And TV is only for Friday nights and Saturday nights. For the kids of yourself. For the kids of yourself. For the kids. But yeah, for the kids. And I don't watch TV.

I only watch UFC on Saturday nights. But you do have to be flexible. And what do I mean by that? A handful of times I've had a kid who's really, really sick, you know, just like a fever and just shitty, and I've let him watch TV. When I take my kids to Jiu Jitsu and it's a two-hour window, the kid's class goes first and then the older kid's class goes. In that two-hour window, I'll let the kids who are waiting watch a little bit of iPad.

Not the whole hour, I'll tell them, hey, watch your brother compete for a little while or wrestle or practice for a while, and then halfway through you can watch the iPad. So I don't want to sound like there's not a place for it. There are things that there aren't a place for chewing gum. You should never give your kid chewing gum. What?

You're being a bad parent. There's no point to it. You're only hurting your kid. Why are you giving a six-year-old chewing gum. What? You're being a bad parent. There's no point to it. You're only hurting your kid. Why are you giving a six-year-old chewing gum? What? Is that very common? Oh, buddy. Oh, buddy, buddy, buddy, buddy.

So common. I see kids chewing gum all the time. I see kids at Jiu-Jitsu and the instructor has to tell them spit the gum out. Now here, I'm gonna tell you why parents give their kids chewing gum all the time. I see kids at Jiu-Jitsu and the instructor has to tell them, spit the gum out. Now here, I'm gonna tell you why parents give their kids chewing gum. This would have never resonated with me before I had kids, but there's something called

the hostage situation. Parents are always 100% of their waking hours and even in their sleeping hours probably Preparing for the hostage situation and waiting for impact and what that means is you ask me Chris Can I have some gum hiding hiding means dad and Armenian and I say Oh, and I want to say no. I know it's the right answer But I'm in line at Starbucks and I'm next and if I say no you might have a temper tantrum And I might not get my coffee because I have to carry you outside and then I say yes, you might have a temper tantrum and I might not get my coffee because I have to carry you outside. And then I say, yes, you can have a piece of gum.

It's where all the bad decisions are made in the hostage situation. And it's crazy. There's hostage situations everywhere. Every time your kid opens his mouth, you're in a hostage situation. And they're constantly asking for stuff. But you have to follow through and you have to have these boundaries. If you don't, every time you give in, you'll be doing two things.

You'll be shitting on your cysteine chapel, meaning hurting your kid, and you'll be weakening your position for the next time, but you'll also be making your kid feel unsafe. If there's no win, there's no win. That was the sixth principle, right? You had your five and then kind of was the hostage. Don't let yourself be held hostage was number six. Is that correct?

Yeah, I guess I am flopping around. What did you say? You're not going to come on my podcast. Flopper round. That's what I'm here for. I'm here to flip flop around. Um, number one, what was number one? Um, there's struck kids need structure. Yep. Daily routine. Yes. And even I do structure even through their clothing. So I just, I make life so easy for my kids. My kids wear the same thing every single day, basically. They have a, they have these, these pants that they wear and they have a what we call a wife theater in the United States. It's like just a white tank top and I know it could use a better name,

right? And then sweaters. They have a long sleeve sweater and a short sleeve sweater. And they can depending on how cold or hot it is, they can layer up or layer down. And then the shoes are always in their car because there's no need for shoes at home. Why would you have shoes at home? You got to walk to the car. Yeah, you just go barefoot. That's the advantage. It's coming from a man who lives in very temperate climate. True, true. Then the second thing after structure is discipline. And not discipline and the fact that they need discipline like, I guess it's a cousin of structure, not discipline and the fact that they need discipline like, I guess it's a cousin of structure, not discipline like, hey, they need spankings, but they just need to have

things that are organized. They need to understand that, okay, every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, I'm going to do this at 3 o'clock, no question asked. I know it sounds like structure, but it's also discipline because they're kids and they're not going to want to do this at three o'clock. No question asked. I know it sounds like structure, but it's also Discipline because their kids and they're not going to want to do it. So they have to they have to start building habits of discipline Love and attention that one. I don't Man, so I had really loving parents And my parents couldn't keep their hands off me and my uncles and aun parents couldn't keep their hands off me and my uncles

and aunts couldn't keep their hands off me. I was always on someone's shoulder, someone always had their hand up the back of my shirt, someone was always pinching my cheeks, someone was always holding me upside down. I don't know how, I don't know, I don't know, that one's so innate in me, I don't know how you would teach that, I don't know how you would work on that other than maybe to just love yourself more. But you can see love and detention, attention requires time and if you have someone who hasn't perhaps turned the corner that you and your wife have. And another thing to consider is that because you guys

are further through your careers and have lived more life, perhaps some of the open loops, oh, I would have unfulfilled dream X. I would have this particular dream. Why? Those things are now closed. Also, by the sounds of things chasing materialistic goals for you is quite low down the list of priorities, especially in comparison to your kids now. And with that being a fact as well, like, there's no reason to go to work. You know, you've got the classic CEO of a Fortune 500 company, you know, working in the, the, the matron or the opair or whoever they've got comes round and looks after the kids and then he gives it a tap on the head at night and then goes to bed and wakes up three hours later and goes back to the office

or flies off to Japan to do a deal, whatever it might be. Like, that's a way that would very quickly get in the way of attention, right? You can't give a living attention if you're not there, if you're not present. And presence is both physical presence and then mental presence. Let's say that you do decide to take the one week off

with the family, but Big Dick exec CEO man, his thoughts, his brain still in the office, he's still thinking about the emails he needs to reply to when he's supposed to be watching his kids jump in the pool. Right, you nailed it. At the most basic level, you have to be there physically. Hey, you just brought up number six. I might write a book after this podcast.

You should do. Number six, relationship. My relationship. Did you just go from number three to number six? I did, bear with me here. You are your favorite. Number six. Number six, the relationship.

My relationship with my wife is vital. Because of, on the most basic level, every child wants, I can say this about every single child, every child wants a mom and dad that love each other. They just want that. I wanted it, you wanted it, everyone wanted it. My parents divorced, it's okay, it's fine, but you don't get everything you want in life, but I wanted it. My parents divorced. It's okay. It's fine. But you don't get everything you want in life, but I wanted it.

It doesn't mean my wife and I don't fight in front of our kids. We have definitely fought in front of our kids. Do you make a point of trying not to do that? Oh yeah, absolutely. Before we had kids, I was much more aggressive in getting the last word. Now from the second the start fights, I'm trying to shut the fuck up. I'll take her in the back room and, and, and, and we can fucking fight it out there. But I try to just shut the fuck up. I do not want to see my kids ever be rude to my wife and they have.

But. So you, sorry, you're just, just to just to interject there. What you're suggesting is that your kids will mirror the way that you operate. And if they see you being rude to their mom, they may also enact that behavior. Is that the concern you have? Yeah. All of those things. And I never want to see my kids lose, I don't like want my kids to see me lose control. Losing control is the worst way to handle a situation, 99% of the time. And so I don't want them to see me lose control. My wife and I need to fight, not a lot, but we need to fight.

We got some, you know, we just need to fight sometimes. And maybe someday we won't need to, but like, before we had kids, almost all of our reasons for fighting were gone. We almost never thought. Then we have kids and now there's some more reasons to fight again. But I don't want them to see me lose control. You're right.

And I do, you nailed it. I do see them mirror my behavior. I see them when they fight with each other, which is very rare. They physically, they fight nonstop. But I mean, like intellectually and emotionally, they don't fight. And when they do, they, but I mean like intellectually and emotionally they don't fight and when they do, it's my wife and I, they take turns playing us, I don't think they know it, but yeah, totally, you nailed it. But I always, I try not to fight in front of my kids, but I'm not perfect. But where I am perfect in which everyone be perfect, is I always make up with my wife

in front of my kids. Even if I'm not fucking ready, I will fake that shit and make it fake it till I make it. I want my kids to see that it's okay to be humble and that happiness and peace are so much better than fighting and that it's okay to apologize and get over the hump and we can circle back around and finish the fight later or talk later but I and it makes them feel secure and it gives them you know it offers a lot to the household but I always want to make up Because if I don't then it's about me But it's not about me. It's about them. It's about like Have your kids made you a better husband? It's about like, have your kids made you a better husband?

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure, for sure, for sure, for sure, for sure. Oh, 100% better. I am already a loyal person, I'm a very loyal person. I can take a lot of abuse from once I'm locked in with someone. I can take a lot of abuse and still be loyal, but I'm even more fiercely loyal to her, support her in her endeavors because she's painting her sistine chapel too, right? We're working on the same canvas. And so I wanna give her,

I don't wanna do anything to disturb her while she's painting, right? I don't wanna do any ripples that will cause her to be a lesser mom than she needs to be. And so I get that, I get that, and that makes sense, but that, to me, appears to have the, the locus of love be the children rather than each other. Now, you

appreciate that you guys are still a team, but how many couples do we see that have kids and the stress of having the kids doesn't bind them together, but it pushes them apart. And you have couples who've been together and then Johnny's two years old, Alice's one and a half years old, and the relationship breaks down. So I'm trying to delve into the relationship between you and her not in service of the kids. You know, so we, that's a good question. And maybe I've lost sight of that.

I need to think about that. But we were together for so long. So we met as college kids, right? And we partied in the same circle and I courted her for five years and I knew her boyfriend and she knew my girlfriend. And then we got together and then we were together for 15 years and we traveled the world together for work

and then we worked together. And you know, it's interesting, Chris, I forgot about this, but I was living in a pickup truck and I was sitting in the back of a pickup truck and I love us to California, it's a beach town, college town. And I was laying there just with my shorts on and shirt off, just waiting for it to warm up so I could go to the beach

and I was reading the doubt of chain. And I see her walking down the street towards me. And I'm like, oh man, I'm going to talk to this chicken, see if she'll come to the beach with me. I mean, that's the kind of town it was, right? And I had seen her around before. So I jump out of the back of my truck. She's like, what are you reading?

What are you reading? And we start talking and she's also into Lao Tzu and the doubt a chain. And from that moment, and we've talked extensively about it over the 20 years, and we talk about it regularly, we knew that we were both personally responsible for our happiness. And when you're in a relationship with someone like that,

eventually at the end of the day, you can throw all of your fights and problems into that light, and it will shed a ton of light on it, because each person is personally responsible. The blame game really goes away, and so I'd say like 95% of the problems go away. So just quickly off the top of my head, I believe that's the foundation of our relationship. And I believe that's why we've done so well. Of course, who knows what will happen, maybe in 15 years or 20 years when the kids move out,

we'll get it to four. That's a whole, that's a whole nother boundary for people to get over, man. That really is. Like I hear you, I just can't even imagine that my brain, my brain, as you asked me that, my brain just like, there's no fucking way. Like, like, like, you, it's also this. Have you ever had a friend who you played a sport with? And like, you guys are best friends and you do it seven days a week. You

just every single day, you're doing it, you're doing it. And then one of you drifts off and doesn't do that sport anymore. And so your friendship just takes its natural progression and it just it just wanes. It's not you're still best friends, but now you only see them once a year instead of with them 12 hours a day. So I don't know what the glue is, but something's kept us together, whether it be life, these kids, but right now we're closer than ever. I mean, we just, we just, we just work these kids.

That's awesome, man. Okay, so, yeah. We've got one, two, and three done. Structure, discipline, follow through. Follow through. And we sort of touched on the follow through through to because that's part of sort of number So man, maybe there's seven Follow follow through is

If you say something you have to do it and I Screwed this up in the beginning a lot because I would lay down disciplines that I wasn't really willing to follow through with So if your kid if if Friday is moving night and Friday morning, your kid does something to piss you off, don't say, hey, if you do that one more time, I'm not going to give you moving night because that's a long fucking 10 hours for your kid to work on you and change your mind. Do you know what I mean? So he throws something at the, at the breakfast table.

You tell him not to. If he does it again, you're gonna take away movie night. He throws it again and you take away movie night. Now you have 10 hours. And another thing my wife taught me. So my wife taught me that, hey, make sure that you're able to follow through.

The other thing is the follow through ideally and should be connected to, the consequence should be ideally connected to the crime. So you're not necessarily, you take away moving night, but then maybe it's more like, okay, that's the second time you've thrown it, you're dismissed from the table, you can eat again at lunch. I don't know. And you just make them stop eating breakfast or something like that. But you have, once you make threats, you better follow through. If you don't, there is no homeostasis.

It's not like, okay, that's a wash. You're either getting making better kids and being a better parent or you're making worse kids and being a worse parent. There's no like, okay, we're just happily in the middle. It's never, ever, ever like that. And so, the follow through is key, because if you don't, you're going the opposite direction. You're making worse kids. And so you have to be really careful

what comes out of your mouth. And that includes like, hey, I'm gonna, tonight when I come home from work, I'm gonna make Legos with you for 30 minutes. You gotta do it. You gotta do it. You want there to be, and then all of those other things will get bolstered too. You're showing structure. You're showing your discipline. You're showing your boundaries. All of that.

If you can't do it, if your kid asks you, hey, will you make Legos with me tonight, but you're afraid to say no because you know he's going to scream. And you say, yes, anyway, and then don't do it. You're screwing up two of the two of my my premises you've now been held in a hostage situation and now you're not doing follow through how can parents say no more productively Don't, don't lie to your kid, don't sugarcoat it. Don't, don't, don't fool around. In the long run, all of that stuff will just bite you in the ass. If you can't, if you can't tell the truth, don't say anything. Take a few deep breaths, you know.

Let's say your kids in the back seat and you're driving them home from class and they say, mommy, can I stop it McDonald's? And you know when you say no, they're gonna start screaming in the back and you don't wanna hear it. Fine, take a few deep breaths and then say no and brace yourself. You'd be surprised how often they don't scream

once they respect you that your no means no. I would say 95% of the time's kids scream for more than 20 seconds. It's because they know that there's a crack in the dam. They know that you might give in. Once you're consistent with nose and you give it to the kids straight every time, you'll see that go away. You'll really, really see that go away.

I mean, literally people are blown away the fact that I can just walk right by an ice cream shop, both kids outside eating, and my kids won't, you know, at most, maybe one out of 10 times, they'll say, can we have an ice cream? I go, no, we don't need ice cream here. You know that. And that's it. That's it. One of the things that was playing through my mind, as you talked about your right, sorry, sorry, sorry to answer your question. It's never easy saying no. Okay, sorry. I imagine, I imagine that the pulling on the heart strings, like, especially I'm like

quite an emotional person, naturally and quite empathetic. You know, I, I fear the, the size of love that I'm going to have for whatever humans that I do bring into this world. And I imagine that it is quite hard to say no on a number of levels that you want your kid to be happy, you want your kid to love you, all of the self-esteem issues that you've got about wanting to be liked and wanting to be loved by your kid will also still be in there as well because of how you were treated at school, how you were treated by your parents. And then you don't want to deal with the headache of them screaming

and you don't want the public outcry when people look at you as that parent with that screaming child and stuff. So I imagine that saying no is a challenge, especially if you can't say no to yourself. If you're the person that says I'm going to quit drinking once every six months and never follows through with it. I put this in my newsletter not long ago that having faith in your own word is one of the most important things that you can do. You need to treat yourself like somebody you are responsible for helping to Jordan Petersonism. And if you don't have trust that what you say you're going to do after a while, just like the friend that keeps

on never showing up when you invite them for coffee, you're you're going to do. After a while, just like the friend that keeps on never showing up when you invite them for coffee, you're just not going to invite them anymore. Or maybe you're even going to hate them. So you very much need to treat yourself like a friend. And if you are going to bring kids into this world, you really need to sort your own shit first. If you don't have self-discipline, if you don't have structure, if you don't have a growth mindset, if you're not able to let things pass, like all that you're going to do is further ingrain that into your children.

And I think we very much need to see the heritage, the genealogy of your habits, your routines being taken into your children. And this is what was making me think when you're talking about the set of scales about you're either becoming a better parent or you becoming a worse parent and that goes along with better kids or worse kids. There's a quote from Ethan Supli, the guy from Remember the Titans and Walthawol Street, huge huge, like massive 500 pound guy who's now 230 and jacked like 8% body fat. He came on the show and he had a martial arts instructor who used the saying, no bad reps. And what no bad reps means is that you're always drilling something. Every action that you do and this relates to neurologically how we lay down myelin in sheets

in our brain, you are always creating a habit. You don't have the choice of not creating a habit. It's a decision between one particular habit and another type of habit. There is no a habit. You don't have the choice of not creating a habit. It's a decision between one particular habit and another type of habit. There is no no habit. There is only this, that or the other habit. And very much so with the kids, it very, it harks to hard choices, easy life, easy choices, hard life.

And there isn't a okay choice, okay life. There isn't, there isn't one of those. It's always going to be a decision between what's right and what necessarily isn't. Perfect. Perfectly said. Going back to that very first thought about you're going to want, it's going to be hard to say no because you want them to love you. And that is the, that is the, at the end of the day, the equation that will get you the most love is to have really, really strong boundaries with your kids, really, really strong boundaries. So you've got to count, count, boundaries. I'll tell you why. The more boundaries they are, the safer they'll feel.

The safer they feel, the closer they'll come to you. And so, I want to, so, so, and boundaries are very, boundaries are very simple. So let me show you the balance. I have this room behind me that I tell you kids are not allowed in with toys. I have another room that's just their room and it's a free-for-all. The toys in the world. So there's balance there. But once you start setting boundaries with your kid and they start respecting you, they, which should be just right away and your only metric will be to compare them

to other kids, unfortunately. You'll see that your kids are so much what better behaved. There's so much more willing to listen to you. There's so much more willing to talk to you and be open to you. They're just going to feel safe. If you just say yes to everything,

to feel safe. If you just say yes to everything, then just you're gonna have spinouts. You're not, but it's gonna be worse than that. I got it. I haven't thought about this in a long time. I used to really think about this a lot when I was really getting comfortable because it is something you have to get comfortable with

to build boundaries for your kids. What will happen is if you don't build boundaries for your kids is you'll end up having kids that nobody likes. So let me give you you don't build boundaries for your kids is you'll end up having kids that nobody likes. So let me give you an example. You're on your phone talking, you and I are talking, and you have a kid, let's say Chris, you have a son, and he keeps asking you questions

about our conversation, and you keep answering, I'm telling him what we're talking about. Instead of, hey, Chris, junior, I'm on the phone, you need to go step away and give me space. That's what you have to say. It's your time with your friend, Sevan, we're talking. If you don't do that, now you're teaching a kid, hey, it's okay. I don't know if you have friends who have kids, but this is a big problem with kids. The kids are just allowed to interrupt. They have no boundaries. Their parents let them hold their cell phones. they let them talk to them when they're on the phone,

they interjecting conversations. If they want to be a part of mind in your conversation and be adults, then they have to act like adults. Hey, Chris is talking, wait till he's done. Yeah, I mean, you know what I mean? Why've heard you do this? We've been on the phone and I've heard you do this. You know, your kids have been at this,

we continue to have conversations while you're at the skate park and inevitably skate park children floor Like is you know, you don't need to be a genius to work out what's gonna go on there and you can hear in the background Like what I'm thinking on the phone. I'm thinking on the phone Do you need to go like and I'm waiting to hear in your voice, the anxiety, the anticipation, I'm waiting to hear the discomfort arise,

and I don't know whether you're walking over to him or he's coming over to you or whatever it might be, but what a couple of times you said, hey, sweetie, I'm on the phone so you can come here and lick your wounds, but if you do, I need you to be quiet, okay? That was it. And it took 15 seconds for whichever of the three children that was to be just sniffly,

that I could barely hear him. That's just sloppy parenting on my part, taking it to the skate park and scheduling a phone call with the... Robby Tuscany, I'm sorry. Okay. It's funny. I hear parents say that all the time about how you

should multitask. And I have a few friends that when they call me, like I'll always answer, even if I'm like fucking You know neck deep and shit, but uh, yeah, it's um You if you if you have boundaries your kids will love you more the more you say no to them the more they'll love you I know that's a little gross exaggeration and not a perfect equation But your kids have to feel safe around you and And they're they are going to look back when they're older, and they're going to see all the things that you did to them that didn't

help them. They're going to say, like, I never let my parents live it down. Oh, my God, you took me to McDonald's three days a week. I can't believe it. And I was seven years old and you let me order the 20 piece with seven hot mustard. What was wrong with you? You know what I mean? Like, it doesn't mean your kids don't get free time. It doesn't mean that they don't get to rage. They just have to be certain boundaries and they have to be logical boundaries. You'd be surprised.

If you're a quick, short-term gratification guy, yeah, then saying no is gonna be hard, but I can tell by looking at your physique and your dedication to this podcast and your business that you're not a short-term gratification guy, yeah, then saying no is going to be hard, but I can tell by looking at your physique and your dedication to this podcast and your business that like you're not a short term gratification guy, it's going to come very, very naturally for you. I know that I hope that it will, but I also know, I see firsthand we're all our worst critics, right? So we all see our own sort of failings up close and personal. And on top of that, I also know that even as what I would consider hopelessly undisciplined,

I'm still wildly more disciplined than most of the people that I know. Which, you know, it's that old saying where they say, think about how stupid the average person is and realize that half of the people are more stupid than that. If you think about how undisciplined the average person is and then realize that half of the people are more stupid than that. If you think about how undisciplined the other person is and then realize that 50% of people are less disciplined than that person, that's quite scary. Again, it kind of goes back to what I was saying earlier on about the heritage that your children are going to get is very much a microcosm of what you are. We see this even in businesses, you know?

You see coming out the CrossFit world, like think about the internal company culture that you get with an owner like Greg Glassman and a games director like Dave Castro. You see that? You see that? Even if people perhaps didn't want that to be the way that they acted forward, my core industry of Club promo, I could stand on a street corner and look at the different PRs that are going, hey guys, where are you going tonight? Do you want to come to our nightclub, putting wristbands on people? I could stand on a street corner. And without seeing the badge that they have that tells us their company, I could identify

by their mannerisms and by what they're wearing. That guy worked for that company, that guy worked for that company, that guy, because they're just little projections of the guys that own it at the top. Everybody knows this. Right. Right. This is the same in family life as it is in business life as it is in everything else. Right.

Right. You want people to like your kids. You want people to like your club. Set the culture up in your business so that people like your business and set your culture up at your home with your kids so people like your kids. People love kids with boundaries. And at the end of the day, the harsh reality of life at the end of the day is hard work and who you know and who likes you. So those of you who are in high school who are listening to this and you're like, oh, I can't wait to get out of high school and the popularity contest is over.

I have really bad news for you. It's never over. So that's another Jordan Petersonism. Never let your kids do anything that makes you hate them. And that very much so is the case. I think, sadly, I think I was a very easily unlikable kid. I was an only child, wasn't massively socialized. And it meant that I didn't really properly understand the boundaries of social

cohesion and how to really act and play with other kids just time and attention. I hadn't had a lot of time knowing how to do it. And yeah, I totally, totally get that as well, thinking about some friends who are just starting now as teacher trainers, year three, so seven and eight year olds. And in the class, the kids who are the nicest ones that have the boundaries that are the best behaved, they'll gravitate toward them because they'll want to spend time with them because they're cute. And they say, Miss, Miss, can I do this thing? You smell nice or you're at this? And they'll want to laugh and have an interaction. And it very much is a winner takes all environment. You know, we talk about how financial privilege permits people to be in a better position than others, but we never really talk about personality privilege, but the fact that being

innately likeable, which is drawn from being extroverted slightly rather than introverted, the kid who's over the far side doing weird things, I probably was like, naturally doesn't get as much of your attention Firstly because they're out of sight now of mind and secondly because if you do go over and spend time with them They're maybe a little bit you just don't get what's going on with them so much So that really is a different form of privilege that I've never thought about until now But personality privilege absolutely is a thing and the more that you have these boundaries and more that you can make your kids Likeable to other people, you know, if you understand how compounding works, if you can be likeable

by the age of six, as opposed to by the age of 26, which is like around about when it took me to do it, you are going to be so much further ahead because the Gigietsu teacher is going to be fine letting you stay in extra 10 minutes because he thinks that you're cool or the dance teacher doesn't mind about you turning up without your shoes when everyone else has to do this thing because she knows that you're well behaved and you wouldn't have left your shoes if you didn't really mean it to be that way. Or whatever it might be. So yeah, I'm massively on board with regards to the make your kids likeable. Yeah, at four years old, if your kid can say thank you and please, their

leaps and bounds ahead of the other kids, and they will reap the rewards for that in life, they'll reap the rewards for it right away. The kid who says thank you to their teacher when they hand out snacks will get the snack first the next day. All of that being said, some of the greatest people we know had the most abusive jacked up upbringing's ever. And that kind of circles me back around to struggle causes adaptation. And so since my kids don't have any bad shit happening in their life, I have to create it for them.

Yes, absolutely. I have to pour, but I have to pour a cold bucket of water on them at three in the morning just to remind no, don't joking. Let's say we don't get it. I do have to, we do have to create that struggle for them. A close friend of mine, or who was a close friend of mine, I haven't talked to him in a long time, but Russell Berger, he gave a law, he gave like a 30 minute speech on the importance of putting your kids through struggle. And it was fascinating. I wonder if I can, I wonder if it was recorded,

but he nailed it. And that was before I had kids. Maybe that had a huge impact on me. I totally get what you mean there as well, that the amount of comfort that your children have. Let's say that you do make your kids quite likable and an all right amount of extroverted, the amount that they need to get them over the social sort of line, which everybody has to play the social game, we are a social species,

as much as some of us may not want to be. And let's say that you do do all of those things. Without the struggle, I think that your kids would be regressing to the mean. And what I mean by that is that the more ordinary your life, the more ordinary your communications are with everybody else, then the more ordinary your outcomes are going to be. If you want extreme outcomes, you also need to have extreme inputs. And if you have this very normal level of social cohesion and communication and even if it's extra ordinary or in terms of its effectiveness, it's still what you're

aiming for with a lot of social, like they're not going to read Stephen Covey or like the art of persuasion at this stage, it's about just simply being able to be personable. You do need something that's going to set them apart, or else what you're doing is making someone who is really, really, really good at being normal. That was great. So what's next? Number five. You know, you kind of,? You know you kind of look like a little bit. Do you know the show Ray Donovan? No. Do you know Lee Shriver is? No.

Oh man, you got to look him up. He's amazing. You look like him. It's a compliment. Yeah, check out that show. Are you hitting on Ray Donovan? You don't have... No, not yet.

That's all after this show. Okay, hang out. That would be disrespectful to my wife. I would have hit on you in the past, but now that I have kids. Fine, that's fine. I, there was something you said. No, it slips me.

Okay, so love and attention, boundaries, that we talked about the hostage situation. We did, we did them all. Structure, discipline, follow through. I don't know if I did any of them good. You did structure discipline follow through love and attention, boundaries and in love and attention that that's really a time also for you to work on yourself because because loving someone is a lot of it is just really staying still and creating space for them. Boundaries, the hot, the hot, positive situation, and then relationships. Yeah. What's the, what's the number one mistake or the most common mistake that you see parents

making? Putting bad shit into their kids. Bad food. Yep, nutrition. I can tell right away, like, so my kids are wild, but their wildness is focused. It's focused. They're throwing a fucking tennis ball

at the wall over and over and over, right? They grab each other by the head and throw each other down. They swing from the tree. When I put a tiniest bit of sugar into them, that wildness is almost like they start talking to themselves. They start doing like tapping. They get jittery. They start like, um, instead of singing songs, they, they, they, they babble. Even the slightest bit of sugar starts to interfere with the expression of the wildness. It makes it, yeah, it makes it jittery. It doesn't make it clean. It doesn't make it poignant. I know it almost sounds like it's an oxymoron to be controlled wildness, but it's a

controlled wildness. It looks like chaos, but man, like he's meaning to throw that ball a hundred times at my wall until he tries to put a hole in it. Whereas if he wasn't doing that, he might also be screaming or throwing it up in the air. And you see that in classes, the most common thing is, you know, in group settings. So the kids who have poor diet will usually have poor focus. I mean, it's, it mean, it's pretty obvious. I think it's pretty obvious. How do you, what are the rules that you feed your kids on? So, these are the things. You want to try absolutely no sugar at all times. If they do

have to eat sugar, you feed them stuff like a banana. That's the sugar you give them. You give them natural sugars. Your kids should be eating eggs, avocados, chicken, celery, carrots, cucumbers, spinach. My wife kids are kids oatmeal. We give our kids peanut butter. I'm sure it's some of these. Probably doesn't like that. No, no treats.

But they might have something as treats. Okay, so yeah, yeah, so sorry. So a treat would be a banana. A treat would be, so here's one of the great advantages to having three kids. If I do give them something like a bar, like a Lara bar or an RX bar, I give them RX bars. I can, and there's, it's all just natural stuff in there, right? It's like date, smash with nuts.

I can cut it into three pieces. So if it's a 200 calorie bar, you know, let's say, and I don't know how many grams of sugar, let's just say nine, then when I cut it into three pieces, now I have a 60, 76 calorie bar, right, with only three grams of sugar. And sometimes, you know, when I'm smart, I always give the bigger piece to Avi because he's the older boy. So, but I don't do treats like, so Avi did, got after two years of Jiu-Jitsu,

three days a week, he got his gray belt, I bought him ice cream, I bought all the boys ice cream, they got a treat. He skateboarded a hundred days in a row, and I didn't even tell him I was gonna do this, but I was marking the days on being on to him. And then on the 100th day, I took them to the point and I said, today's your day is getting.

Oh, awesome. I didn't know that. And I go, yeah, and you get ice cream. So I do do treats like that. I do do surprises. I want to reward him on the highest level for achievements that are like, that I believe are grandiose, that I deem grandiose, right? But in the end, I'm not doing it because I'm weak, I'm not doing it because I think I'm soft

or he'll love me more, I'm doing it because I think it'll make him better. I think it makes him a better person knowing that there's a reward and that he's being recognized for his good deeds, you know? It's not, oh, I'm just gonna get my kid ice cream because he was good today. Nah, like, I knew in advance.

It's a plan. It's a plan. I wanna make them the best. I think you and I joked about this a little bit. I wanna make them the best mates possible. I want girls to like them and I want boys to like them and I want people to like them and I want them to be able to live up to that

Love that they receive from the world. We've talked a lot about We've talked a lot about the sort of the physical side you get your kids to train They do sort of complex physical movements jumping on bars and balance beams and bits and pieces like that One thing that we haven't really touched on is more the intellectual kind of cognitive cerebral development, what have been some of the realizations that you've got from that? So they do math and reading every single day from the age of three for anywhere between five and twenty minutes. Are you homeschooling? Are you supposed to be in school right now? It's supposed to be a home school program. Even without following the curriculum, he's above and beyond just because from such a young

age at three, we've been doing this five to 20 minutes every single day. I just played chess with him for the first time a couple days ago. I was inspired by something I saw on Instagram, another friend of mine who has three sons who was playing chess with them for the first time a couple days ago. I was inspired by something I saw on Instagram, another friend of mine who has three sons who was playing chess with his kids. I do sight words with them. I do spelling with them. And then he has to read for 20 minutes every day. And I'm like, very like careful not to get injured because I push myself so hard all day with the kids. So like people are like, Hey, why aren't you taking jiu jitsu? It's because I don't mind sitting on the sideline and watching. And then people will be like, Well, you'll get a better outcome if you do it. And maybe they're right. I don't know that. But I have heard that a lot.

That philosophy that you should be doing the activities with your kids. You should be doing soccer. You should be doing wrestling. You should be doing jiu jitsu. Is it not massively that you just don't want your kid to be able to beat you up. Like, there's gonna become a point where are these gonna be able to submit you? Yeah, it's close. If I just put out a limb, he's like all over me. Like, if I just put my hand on his head, like, and grab his head strong, he's all over me. He's gonna be able to beat me up when he's eight.

But, but what I really, really like about all of this instruction is my son's are getting personal one-on-one interaction from professional trainers. They're learning their vocabulary. They're learning all their different personalities. They're learning all their different demeanors. I hear Avi come home from tennis and using words like, you know, Vali and Love and just they know and then he comes home from striking while I'm there. And he's like, hey, check out my faint. And then he's a look at my parry.

And he's like his vocabulary. Or when he goes to dance, he's like, did you know Plier means bend? And, you know, so I really, and I've said this before, and I really mean this first and foremost before any of the physical activity I like just the idea of them getting professional training. I love the idea of them getting Getting this interaction with other adults one-on-one. It's he's really really manned up It's really made him like a fun social animal as a kid But he's still wild and crazy like a kid.

You know, it hasn't taken any of the kid out of him. So for now, I don't know what the long term, well the long term goal is I would love for him to learn everything There is to know about math take math to the fort far reaches of the you know Calculus trigonometry galaxy and then English become a master of the the English language I'm one of the English language. One of the largest vocabularies of anyone I've ever met was Greg Glassman and it truly made him a magician because when you have an enormous vocabulary and your comfortable juxtaposing any words together that you deem can be put together,

you then conduct reality. That's another Taoisein. Nameing is the origin of all particular things. And so I would love for him to be able to diagram sentences and have a complete handle on English and then a complete handle on math and the rest I could give two shits about because hopefully he'll grow up to be someone like you, Chris, who's like a reading machine

and he can teach himself with the foundation I gave him. Very comfortable, I'm getting it. And I was reading the Navalman Act this morning and in that Naval's prescription for anyone in the 21st century, the two skills that they need to learn are maths and persuasion, persuasion could be probably supplemented for English. And his justification for that is that maths forms the foundation for pretty much everything that we do.

If you can do maths, then you understand economics, micro macro, you understand accounting, you understand how to do investments, you understand the first principles that physics works on, you understand how chemistry works. And then from persuasion, it is the other side of that. It's everything else. it's the me and you, it's the ability to convince other people. And you said there that your ability to deploy language is kind of directly proportional to your ability to get on in life. And one of the reasons for that is that fluency and truthfulness are seen as the same thing. This is how charlatans and conmen get past because even though what they're saying isn't truthful, the way that they're saying it is so convincing and compelling because they're able to have this beautiful flow and all of the words are precise and the cadence is

correct and there's no ums and ars, there's no stutters, there's nothing else and the reason that they're able to get past people is because of their delivery. So when fluency is truthfulness by another name, having a good grasp of the English language is important and having the mathematics base. Man, you're going to have some world beaters on your hands. It's going to be fascinating watching them grow up. And I hope as well, I think I speak for everyone who follows you on Instagram that we all are kind of now invested in your kids' development. and we want to see them do very well, which is, you know, that's a beautiful thing. Like, they're likable. I'm presuming that you're not just

uploading the highlight rails and their dicks outside of it, but, you know, the, we see the kids. We see the kids. I am putting them real stuff on Patreon, by the way. Okay. Yeah, man, you know, I want to, I want to see them do well, and I want to see you guys do well, and I think that whatever it is that you're doing, whatever we want to call this, 21st century parenting, enlightened parenting, awakened parenting, whatever particular terminology we do, I think that it's well, well, well, well overdue, and for me, again, is someone who currently doesn't have kids, doesn't have anyone that I can have kids with, but wants them. It's inspiring and it's very eye-opening to see such a familiar structure that I'm used to, the growth mindset, the structured programming, the understanding of discipline,

the first principles thinking, the boundaries, all of that sort of stuff, that I utilize in other areas of my life to see that applied to what really is for most of us, the greatest thing that will ever achieve, which is bringing other humans into this world and making them as good as we can. And to see that laid out in front of me is really, really, really exciting. Between you and Mike and Adi, Kazyu, I think, I've got a couple of good, between you and Mike and Adi, Kazoo, I think I've got a couple of good, how do you say, role models to try and live up to? Thank you.

That's about the nicest thing anyone said to me today. Well, it's only like 10 a.m. your time. How much nice stuff does people said for that to be a competition? I got so many I love you this morning. Oh God. Give hope. Hey, go that, that math, you said you connected something else for me, that math actually ties so closely with persuasion because people who have a firm grasp on math usually are very logical

and they don't let emotion convoluted their thinking which is a huge problem in the United States right now huge problem people are so emotional that they can't think straight they are so passionate on calling two plus two five because they're so emotional about it when like when you're good at math I think you're also less likely to make those mistakes those logical mistakes I saw a hat today. James Lindsay, my buddy who wrote, he did the dog park, grievance studies thing where he conned journals into believing that he was like some feminist scholar.

And he has a website, newdiscourses.com, and he posted, he has merch on there. And this new merch that he just put up today is like a mega looking hat, like a red hat white text, and it just says make two plus two equal four again. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. I love it.

It's great. Just now you went, and I thought I felt spit. Land on my lip, is that weird? You know, there's kinda hot though. Like I thought you stayed on. Come on man. No, honestly, the gay rumors on the internet are absolutely abound because they keep on saying

that I'm first trapping my way into big guests on the show and I'm like, hang on a second. If this was a girl, no one would bat an eye. Like girls have perfectly allowed to first trap their way through life. That's some feminine privilege for you right there. That's where us men are not permitted to do stuff. Look, I've absolutely adored today and I really want to try and get deeper into the weeds about this and maybe even talk about the physical pursuits and how you're

piecing those together. But I think we can probably afford to leave it there for now. I'm really fortunate to have met you, man. I really, again, to the people for whom they need another example of why you should just DM people and not be fearful of it. I just reached out to you as a random DM because I've been watching your stuff for ages and mercifully you got back to me.

And now we have this and we talk a couple of times a week. Like, just reach out to the people that you think are cool. If you reach out to them, maybe you'll make a new friend and maybe you'll have another cool person in your life. So that's one thing. Well, you're dating down. You're dating down a bit, Chris. No, it's a DMing thing.

Thing. Where should people go? Where should people go? Let's say that there's some parents who really want to sink their teeth into what it is that you do, where should they head? So I have two Instagram accounts. I don't know Why but I have at three playing brothers and at seven on metosian. I publish every single day You're absolutely right. I try to answer all of my DMs You can also go to three playing brothers.com and you can go to the patreon account and and most everything on

There's three but if you subscribe, I do voiceovers on the videos and I'll show you some like, like I might show Abbey Catch 12 consecutive balls, but then on the Patreon account you see it took me 300 tries to get that video. But I also go into the deeper stuff that we talked about in the beginning and I try to share with people, hey, this is why I did this. This is why I didn't yell at him here. This is why I did yell at him here and I go into detail. So those are all the places, Instagram, Patreon, but if you just pick one place, they'll all end up, you'll see the whole three-plane brothers world. And thank you to everyone and especially yourself for recognizing the contribution because it's at the end of the day, I just want to add valued people's lives.

because it's, at the end of the day, I just want to add value to people's lives. You're doing it, man. You really, really are. Is it sort of a genuine consideration that you've got to write something to try and formalize this structure down? Yeah, I've outlined it like three or four times. It's just really, I have this motorcycle sitting in my driveway. I know we're wrapping this up. I have this motorcycle sitting in my driveway. I know we're wrapping this up. I have this motorcycle sitting in my driveway for a year that I want to sell. But I had to tell my wife, you must take the kids away from me, because I'm like a crack addict. I'm like, so I can spend 10 minutes online getting this motorcycle online, because if I,

I don't know when I would write a book, because I'm just so obsessed with just being with the kids. Do you know what I'd, what I'd do if I was you? And this is the easiest way that I know of anyone who has an idea in their mind that they want to formalize and structure, but doesn't have the time to do it. I would just box off a day, I would get a buddy

that you know really well that understands what you're talking about. I would get him behind the camera. I'd set it up in either a studio, rent out a space or do it in your house. And I would just fill yourself full of caffeine and speak to camera for like 10 hours. And then you're going to have a 10 hour webinar big chunk of work that you can put on teachable or kajabi. And you can have as long as you'll need to do a little bit of prep, maybe a couple of days prep, but today what we've done today, if you flesh that out, and fuck man, you can make, you would make so much money and have such an impact with that overnight.

So I'm one for one and if you want to see this uploaded, the three-playing brothers protocol for how to raise your kids to be super humans comment below and maybe we'll be able to get that done by the end of the year. Thank you Chris. Brother thank you so much for your time I'll catch you next time. Bye. Oh ja, oh ja, oh ja.