How to Build a Family Culture That Brings You Closer and Makes You Stronger with Steven Shapiro and Nancy Shapiro Rapport

Steven Shapiro 00:00:00  I think one of the challenges for parents and for people raising families is, in many cases, it’s the first time that they’ve been the architect of their own culture. Most of the time, we’re culture passengers.

Chris Forbes 00:00:18  Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like garbage in, garbage out or you are what you think ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don’t strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don’t have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it’s not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf.

Eric Zimmer 00:01:03  After this conversation, I couldn’t stop thinking about my son. He’s 27 now, and like every parent, I can think of things I did well and things I wish I’d done differently. Talking with Steven and Nancy Shapiro reminded me of one core truth. You don’t raise kids by having the right answers. You raise them by creating the right environment, what they call family culture. Not just ideas, but actions. Shared language, small, consistent practices that define who we are. And while this is aimed at families, I think what they’ve created is really about how we create culture in all the groups we’re part of, because culture is always there, operating behind the scenes, and we always have a chance to improve it. I’m Eric Zimmer and this is the one you feed. Hi, Steven. Hi, Nancy. Welcome to the show.

Steven Shapiro 00:01:56  Thanks. Great to be here.

Eric Zimmer 00:01:57  For those of you who are listening. You are not seeing this, but the three of us are sitting in a room together in Columbus, Ohio, and Steven and Nancy are people that I’ve become friends with over the last year or two years, probably. And I wanted to have them on to talk about something that they’ve created called Our Family Culture, which is really about how to create a culture really in any group of people.

Eric Zimmer 00:02:21  So we’re going to talk about that. But before we do, we’ll start like we always do with the parable. And in the parable, there’s a grandparent who’s talking with her grandchild, and they say, in life there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandchild stops. Think about it for a second. They look up at their grandparents. They say, well, which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed. So I’d like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do.

Steven Shapiro 00:02:56  We love that parallel era, and both of us are educators and parents. And so we hear that parable through the lens of parents and families. And I think when you think about feeding as a parent, the minute a child is born, you make an immediate decision about feeding your child.

Steven Shapiro 00:03:11  Are we going to nurse the child or are we going to bottle feed the child? And as you go a few months later, we’re going to introduce solid food. And how are we going to do that? And what’s the best way to do that in the healthiest way? And as the kid gets older, we make decisions about things like how do we get them to eat healthy foods? How do we convince them to eat vegetables? Like that’s a constant parent battle? How do we get them to like fruits and vegetables and not become addicted to sweets and junk food? And so we think a lot about how we feed our child because we want their physical health to be good. And so I think in the light of this parable, we are also feeding our kids emotionally. We’re feeding our kids not just food in their body, but we’re feeding them ideas and values that nurture their souls and their well-being. And so when I hear that parable I think about as a parent, how do I make conscious decisions about what I feed my child emotionally, not just about what I feed my child physically?

Eric Zimmer 00:04:03  Makes sense.

Steven Shapiro 00:04:04  Yeah.

Nancy Shapiro 00:04:05  And as a middle school counselor, I was a middle school counselor for almost 30 years. And so also a parent and an educator. And so when I think about that, I would add to that, that that the emotional food that we provide for our, our kids is, is what makes them who they are. And if we’re not very intentional about how we are feeding them emotionally, what what are our kids walking out of the house each day feeling? Are they feeling safe or are they feeling, kind? Are they feeling protected or are they feeling, Or are they sensing stress and and anger and, perfectionism? What is it they’re walking away with? And so when we talk about feeding our kids emotionally, we want to make sure that that we are being super intentional about how we’re feeding them emotionally because we have this, as you know, I’m sure this this terrible crisis in mental health with with young people. And so there’s a lot of loneliness, depression, sadness. And so if we have this base of being well fed both physically and emotionally, then we’re putting kids out in the world who are ready to to tackle whatever comes at them.

Eric Zimmer 00:05:19  You used a word in there that I want to come back to, which is intentional, because we can talk about this in the culture of a family. But every group of people you put together ends up having a culture for sure, whether you intend it or not. It does. And intentionality in that culture is what’s critical for it to be the kind of culture that you want, whether that be your family, your children, that be a group of friends, a place that you work, a support group you’re part of. There’s always an element of, we can just let it kind of shape the way it does. Or we can direct it to a certain degree. And I think what you guys are really focusing on is directing that culture to a certain degree. Now, you guys are not saying, here are the five things you as a family must do. You’re offering up, what, 50? 50 fundamentals?

Steven Shapiro 00:06:16  Yeah, I think 44.

Eric Zimmer 00:06:17  The family would go through or a group would go through and choose. Here are the 10 or 12 that are really important to us that represent who we are. And then what you’re trying to do is then provide them with very small, very easy things they can do to build their family around that idea. Give us an example of an idea.

Steven Shapiro 00:06:37  Well, I think if you if you pull back, if you ask, we ask many, many parents as we were doing this work both in our careers and then as market research in this, in this work, what kind of kids are you trying to raise? What kind of family are you trying to have? And what we found, and it was actually quite surprising, is most people, when they thought about what kind of kids am I trying to raise would say. Kind. Honest. Let’s see. and they were kind of stuck there was those two. Everybody wants their kid to be kind. Everyone wants their kid to be honest. But usually people got stuck there. Now, that isn’t to say that people don’t care about a lot more things than that.

Steven Shapiro 00:07:15  Deeply and passionately. It’s just that they’re not at the front of people’s minds. Right? And so what we’re trying to help parents do is say, let’s really plumb the depths to say, what do you really care about? What really makes your heart sing? What could a parent say to you about your kid at a parent teacher conference that you’d be like, yes, that’s the kind of kid we’re trying to raise. If we can identify those things and bring them to the forefront. And so you ask for examples. I think one of the in addition to practicing kindness or showing integrity or doing the right thing, a lot of parents really want their kids to be resilient. It’s really important when our kids are all going to face obstacles and hardships, and a lot of parents really want to make sure their kids are able to weather the storm. And so we have a fundamental called bounce back. When something hits you hard, we bounce back and let’s practice building our resilience. And there’s a wide variety.

Steven Shapiro 00:08:03  I think some families are really committed to respect and hard work. Some families are really committed to creativity and self-expression. There’s not a right way to have a family. It’s just figuring out what kind of family you want to have.

Nancy Shapiro 00:08:17  But Eric, what you said, I think is, is very important about when you recognize the intentionality and the fact that all groups of people, when they come together, are a culture. So you either are a culture by default or a culture by design. And so what we’re trying to do is if I asked you about what your family culture was like growing up, I’m sure you would have some some memories that would start popping up and thoughts that would come up. We do too. We were raised by the same parents and we had.

Steven Shapiro 00:08:45  The same.

Nancy Shapiro 00:08:45  Home, in the same home.

Speaker 5 00:08:46  Even when you said, I don’t know if you said that, oh yeah, we’re a brother and sister, You live in the same home. How’d that happen?

Nancy Shapiro 00:08:54  That’s so.

Speaker 5 00:08:55  Weird.

Nancy Shapiro 00:08:56  But. But I think. Instead of just allowing color to happen by default, we recognize that families don’t identify as cultures necessarily. And so we’re sort of elevating that idea that when you’re a part of a family, you are a culture. And in fact, we want that culture to be the strongest part of who you are as you’re building the person that you’re going to become in the world.

Steven Shapiro 00:09:17  And we want that culture to be really deeply aligned with what you care most about. Like, why not? When you have a kid, you have dreams and hopes. How do you make those things come to life with intention and purpose?

Eric Zimmer 00:09:27  Yep. I want to jump back up for a second. I went a little deeper than I wanted to at first, because I want to go back to something you said about kids mental health crisis. So I have certainly read all of the data on this. And if you really pay close attention, there’s some factors in there that are being reported in ways that are not necessarily accurate, as in a certain number of years ago, we started reporting teen issues differently, and all of a sudden you saw this jump go up because the way things were reported.

Eric Zimmer 00:10:00  So there’s a lot of there can be a lot of noise in that data. And I’m not really here to to debate that one way or the other. What I would like to do is actually say, as educators, as people who work day by day with kids, what have you actually been seeing, regardless of what the cultural narrative is?

Nancy Shapiro 00:10:18  Yeah. I mean, I can speak to that in my work as a middle school counselor. And of course, you know, middle school is it’s a kooky time anyway, for for kids. And by the way, I work with incredible kids, like, there are some kids who are really grounded and really know who they are and what they’re about and are great leaders. But but more kids are really trying to figure it out, and they don’t know who to look to to figure it out. And so they’re they’re kind of unmoored. They don’t know what they believe. They don’t know what they think because you know. Think about the other. The other food coming to them in their lives, the other feeds that they get.

Nancy Shapiro 00:10:54  They’re all of their social media stuff and all and and just the normal peer relation and peer pressure and all that kind of stuff. So there’s there’s a lot of confusion for that young brain to try and figure out.

Steven Shapiro 00:11:06  Yeah. One of the things I observed a lot is anxiety. And the anxiety is usually rooted in, and this is really disturbing, but I’ll say it out loud, I think a lot of kids feel like their entire childhood is an audition for a college admissions officer. Their really, their whole life is going to be determined by which college they get into. And so they’re making decisions about what’s important about what they do in their life based on what will look good on a college application. And their fear is that if they don’t get into the right college, their life will somehow be diminished.

Nancy Shapiro 00:11:35  Or their parents fear their fear or their parents fear, which is which is what they’re feeding their kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steven Shapiro 00:11:41  And so in some ways, rather than living to some set of values or some principles, they’re really just trying to achieve some external validation, as opposed to having some sense of who they are independent of that.

Eric Zimmer 00:11:52  Right? I was saying to you, Stephen, the other day, I was I don’t remember what I was listening to, but somebody was talking about purpose and about, you know, about people knowing what they want to do with their life. And they, they I don’t know how accurate this fact is, but but it was interesting. They said only two out of ten kids in their 20s really have any idea. And of those two out of ten, 80% of them are religious, meaning the vast majority of kids who have any real sense of where they’re going in their 20s are the ones that are religious. That makes sense, right? That makes sense, because if you are raised in a home where religion is important and and I think this is a critical and it works for you because it doesn’t for a whole lot of people. Right? And it works for you. That’s ideal. That’s wonderful. What I like about what you guys have done is that you’ve you’ve moved beyond any sort of fixed belief system, and you’ve made the field wide enough for parents to be able to say, here are the things that are really important to us as a family, and they can be whatever they are.

Eric Zimmer 00:13:00  You get to make your own unique sort of combination of them, and then the next thing I think is really important and is somebody who has a book coming out next year called How a Little Becomes a Lot, right? It’s about how little things accumulate and how trying to do too much at once often is unsustainable. And as parents, I mean, I’m a parent. My son is 26 now, but as a parent, I can think back on, you give me some big program I need to start doing to build family culture. It is not going to happen. Overwhelming. I’m not going to be able to do it. And so what you’re providing are these really small things an activity per day, per week, or a question or a short conversation that you can have as a family as a whole to talk about that idea? So if we’re talking about bouncing back, about being resilient, there’s little things to talk about and do each week in that regard.

Nancy Shapiro 00:13:52  Right. So an example of that might be. So what would happen is you would get something each day like you said. An example might be when you experience a disappointment. You know, people often try to help you feel better by saying don’t worry, it’s okay. You’ll get over it or a sadness or something. So the question might be, what are what is something that people could say to you that would feel better? Then it’s okay, don’t worry about it. Because and so and so we’re asking kids to start identifying and families to start identifying when you are feeling upset, sad, disappointed, like a failure, whatever it might be. What can we say to you that’s going to make you feel better?

Steven Shapiro 00:14:33  And this is aligned with the fundamental bounce back right. So if we want to help you bounce back, what would be the right thing for us to say that will give you. So I got cut from the team. It’s like, oh don’t worry about it. It’s like I am worried about it. That didn’t work.

Steven Shapiro 00:14:45  So what would be useful on a kid? Might say it might be useful for you to remind me about that video we watched where Michael Jordan got cut from his team, and about how that made him stronger. And it’s like, oh, if I if you say that to me, that’s going to inspire me a little bit more. And so we’re feeding parents all of that stuff to help them build that culture about resilience, in this case.

Nancy Shapiro 00:15:04  With the notion that that each one of the fundamentals is action oriented, there are values that are seeped in to these actions. So bounce back is the action. And so once you have practice, bounce back over and over, then all of a sudden instead it’s a shortcut. You don’t have to go through all the all the different things. It’s like, oh gosh, I you know, I didn’t get the grade I want out of my test. Oh, how are you going to bounce back?

Steven Shapiro 00:15:29  So simple. I would say in some ways, like you’re focusing on this the way that this shows up.

Steven Shapiro 00:15:34  And I would say that’s actually part three of the system. Part one we’ve talked about a little bit is alignment. Like just identifying what do you care about. I mean, I think and strangely, I know this is hard to hard to express, but if people are listening right now and I would just say to you, make a list of the ten most important things you want to raise your kid with, or that you want to build in your church group or your, you know, you know, focus whatever group you want to focus on. Most people have a lot. It’s work to figure that out.

Eric Zimmer 00:16:03  Oh, it’s a tremendous amount of work.

Steven Shapiro 00:16:05  So like if you start with that, so what we’re providing people with this list is choosing. Now you’ve got alignment. Now we know what we care about. Yeah. Second thing. Language right. We’ve got words. So if we say resilience is important, we’re giving you bounce back. Now this is code word and these become shorthand language.

Steven Shapiro 00:16:22  So now we have a way of talking about resilience in our family. And we use the phrase bounce back all the time. I think one of our fundamentals is called Leave it Better Than You Found it. And it’s a great one because once you get leave it better than you found it in your mind. You will not walk past a piece of trash without thinking.

Eric Zimmer 00:16:38  That is my fundamental. I don’t know what they’re called. Like razors, right? A razor, which is just the simplest thing you can have. And when I tried to boil down everything that I believe in, want to do all that into, like, one razor, one sentence that I could use it was that I want to leave every person, place, or thing better than I found it. It just gives me the simplest orientation. If I’m trying to make a decision between two things well, which which is going to do that better? And so you said language is number two. And then number three.

Eric Zimmer 00:17:08  Practice practice.

Steven Shapiro 00:17:09  Okay. So you got alignment.I know what I care about language I know what what I call that and then practice which is I get to bring that into conversations with my kids and actions with my kids. So it’s it’s both what we’re providing with people is once you have and this is one per week, so say this is bounce back week. Throughout the week we’re going to give you questions you can talk to your kid about. We’re going to give you scenarios you can present to your kid and see what what you do in this case videos. Eric I think this is my favorite part of our system. I do I mean, I think I watched all the seasons of YouTube. I mean, I watched literally thousands and thousands of videos to find these amazing, like two and three minute videos that align with each of these fundamentals. So like if you’re doing Bounce Back, there’s this great video you can watch of Michael Jordan being interviewed, talking about being cut from the basketball team, for example. Or there’s there are a whole bunch of them.

Steven Shapiro 00:17:56  And so you’re just in you’re in this conversation with your kids about bounce back just for one week, and then you move on to the next one. And if there’s 15 of them, you do them for 15 weeks.And then on 16.

Eric Zimmer 00:18:06  Year.

Speaker 5 00:18:06  Round, you’re back to bounce back. Yeah.

Steven Shapiro 00:18:08  But eventually, over time, this is how culture gets built, this slow way where language becomes shared and conversation. In some ways, we’re not only helping you build a better family and build better kids, we’re actually helping people have better conversations with their children.

Nancy Shapiro 00:18:21  And have better relationships with their partners. If they’re if they’re parenting with a partner.

Eric Zimmer 00:18:26  And just in general being more intentional about their own lives. Right? This is it is intended. Most parents are going to take it on for the children. But an example, me doing this podcast, just talking about this sort of stuff all the time, changed who I was on a consistent basis.

Nancy Shapiro 00:18:43  Yeah. We worked with a gentleman named David Friedman who wrote a book, Culture by Design.  And so he has done this culture building work in business. And when we read his book, in fact, at the end of it, Steve, we were sitting at Steven’s kitchen table. He said, sis, listen to this. And he reads out loud. And David says, many people often ask me if I use this same system when raising my family. And the answer always is, I wish I had. Yeah. And so it’s funny because because we’re working with David and, and sort of building off of his system with, with our background and history and expertise. And there are a lot of people who have asked him in, in the work that he’s done. Do you have anything like this for families? And I have a feeling what’s going to end up happening when families are using our family culture is people are going to say, hey, do you have anything like this for schools or for business or for? So it’s just so symbiotic that way

Eric Zimmer 00:19:40  Once you start thinking about culture, you suddenly recognize how ubiquitous it is and how important it is. And you realize you’re in a bunch of different cultures. Yeah, unless you just stay at home all the time, in which case you’re in a culture, you’re still in a culture because you’re watching TV or reading or whatever. But but yes, you’re you’re in one. And I think as soon as you start thinking about it, at least for me, I start to see it everywhere and I start to go, oh, okay, that’s a great culture. But this other one I’m in doesn’t feel so good.

Steven Shapiro 00:20:10  I think one of the challenges for parents and for people raising families is, in many cases, it’s the first time that they’ve been the architect of their own culture. Most of the time we’re culture passengers. Rarely are we culture drivers. Yes. Right. I think one of the advantages when I look at my own parenting journey, my wife and I were both educators. She was an elementary teacher. I was a high school teacher. The beauty for us was that we had five years of teaching experience before we had kids.

Steven Shapiro 00:20:34  So we had practiced creating a culture in our classroom. And then when it sucked after the first year, we were like, okay, we could do better the second year, and by the third and fourth year, we figured some things out. We figured out what we cared about. We figured out how to make that live for many people, like their family is the first time that they’ve actually been in charge of designing the culture. And that’s a tough place to start because it’s the most important culture you’ll ever build. And it’s your first try at it.

Nancy Shapiro 00:20:58  And many are simply unaware that that’s what they’re doing.

Eric Zimmer 00:21:32  When I heard about what you were doing, I certainly was like, I wish I had this when Jordan was little.

Nancy Shapiro 00:21:37  Like we say that too.

Speaker 5 00:21:38  Yeah. I mean, I feel like we have.

Eric Zimmer 00:21:40  I feel like I did lots of things. Good. Some things probably not so good. But there wasn’t this level of intentionality and this level of consistency. And that’s what I think is really important.  It is the little things repeated. Yes, because I created a program called Wise Habits, and I think there’s a lot of overlap. And I set it up as there’s like three core problems that we kind of have to solve. Right? First is just busyness. Everybody’s super busy, so whatever you do has to fit. Second is the problem of forgetting. You just forget to do it. You have the best intentions on Sunday evening, and by Thursday you’re like, what happened? And then the last is way too much information. Way too many things to do. Do this, do that. You know. And I don’t mean I don’t just mean like, tasks, I mean information. Like, if you’re like, oh, I want to be a parent, I’m going to I want to be a good parent. There’s a thousand things coming at me, a thousand different posts. I could read eight blogs before breakfast, right? But none of that. I won’t say none of it. Rarely does that translate into a path forward, because that path has to be consistent. To a certain degree, it has to go in a certain direction, and then it needs to kind of loop back on itself. Right. Because we don’t get it the first time. And, you know, the first 50 times I was in an AA meeting, they say the same thing every time.

Eric Zimmer 00:23:02  Both good and for good and bad. I mean, like, you know, there are times I thought I’m going to kill me. I mean, if I have to hear this again, that’s what’s going to cause me to drink, right? If I have to listen to them read these 12 steps again. And yet it was the consistent going back to these foundations that I believe was one of the big reasons for transformation. It’s because I was exposed to the same thing consistently, again and again and again, the same idea. And that’s partially what you guys are doing. There’s a there’s a Jewish system known as Musar that does this also. There’s a certain number of traits or character virtues that you pick and you go through them maybe 13.

Eric Zimmer 00:23:40  There’s 13 of them. And when you get to the end of 13, you start right back over. You do it four times a year and you keep going. And and over time you are deepening yourself further and further into these things. I want to ask a question about the language, though. I’m really intrigued by not values, but actions.

Steven Shapiro 00:24:00  Behaviors.

Eric Zimmer 00:24:00  Or behaviors.  Say more about why that is that way.

Nancy Shapiro 00:24:05  I think the reason it’s that way is because when you look at a list, you know, there’s lists of values. You can talk about trying to pick values. I mean, schools do this all the time. What do we value? Our businesses. What do we value? How do we want to pick our core values? You look at the lists and the words. They’re usually words a single word responsibility, respect, compassion, whatever the words are. And they mean different things to different people. So if the word respect is there and you come from a military background, that means something really different than somebody who is trying to make change in the world.

Nancy Shapiro 00:24:43  Policy change in the world, let’s say, in respect, might look a little bit different. And so when you look at those words, there’s a lot of different interpretations of them. In addition, what we wanted to do was to have actionable behaviors so that, you know, if I think about, oh, we have to be respectful, you know, that’s really hard. But if I. Well, that’s that’s not the best example.

Steven Shapiro 00:25:03  Indian culture isn’t what you believe.

Speaker 5 00:25:05  It’s what you do. It’s what you do, right? That’s what that’s.

Steven Shapiro 00:25:07  How you know.

Speaker 5 00:25:08  People.

Steven Shapiro 00:25:08  You know, you can go into the locker room and say a whole bunch of stuff, right? But the question is like, now what? Now what.

Speaker 5 00:25:14  Do you you know.

Steven Shapiro 00:25:15  If you’re I mean, coaches are great culture builders. Every, every team has a coach is trying to build a particular culture that has to show up at practice, that has to show up in in the way you talk to your team, that has to show up in how you respond when people violate.

Steven Shapiro 00:25:28  So behavior is what drives culture. For sure there are no underlying fundamental beliefs or values that shape that, but its behavior. That is the face of culture, right?

Eric Zimmer 00:25:39  What I think is really interesting about this is I do a lot of work with people on figuring out values. And you’re right. You give somebody a list of 50 values. And at least for me, that exercise was always paralyzing. Yeah, right. It was just like, well, I agree with all of them. Like, who doesn’t want respect? Who doesn’t want honesty, who doesn’t want adventure? Who doesn’t want kindness, who doesn’t want. Sign me up for all of them. And you know, my old, the old maxim in project management was if everything’s a priority, nothing’s a priority. So choosing is is difficult. And I think in your program, it’s still difficult.

Eric Zimmer 00:26:12  You got 50 words. But I like this idea of instead of having to define a value and then define an action that goes with that value. You’re kind of right to the actions. And it seems like there’s a that’s a nice it’s a nice step that I mean, life is complex. No system gives you the answers for everything that you come across in reality. But this is a is a shortcut, you know. Leave it better than you found. It is a I mean, I could tell you what the value is underneath it exactly. But it’s a pretty straightforward thing. Bounce back. Same thing. The ability to okay, I bounce back when I’m in a difficult situation.

Steven Shapiro 00:26:51  Should be fun. Like we have a we have a fundamental called love yourself.  But not too much. Right. And so that’s like. Confidence plus modesty.

Steven Shapiro 00:27:00  Love yourself but not too much. So you know, it’s when your kid is down on themselves. Love yourself when your kids overdoing it but not too much. And so it’s it’s in some ways these are shorthand. So we can actually talk to each other about the way the actions are shaping up.

Steven Shapiro 00:27:13  And I think to a point you were making earlier, I think a lot of parents join up with our family culture because they want their kids to be a certain way, but what they realize in the process is it’s not just about what your kids are going to be like, it’s about what you’re going to be like 100%. Yeah, this is this is family culture isn’t just for the kids. We’re all in this thing, right?

Eric Zimmer 00:27:30  Because as you said before, behavior is is critical. You can say all you want. You can have all the conversations you want about, showing up for others. This is another one from your list. But if you don’t show up for your kids, it doesn’t really matter. I mean, right? Having the conversation is better than doing nothing.

Steven Shapiro 00:27:47  And hilarious thing about this, I think a beautiful thing really, is that if you say we show up for others and then you know somebody, you know, you know, somebody dies and you’re like, I should go to the funeral, but I don’t really want to.

Steven Shapiro 00:27:58  There’s a show I have on your kid is going to say to you, hey, dad, what about show up for others? I feel like you need to go to that funeral. And suddenly, like, our kids can actually push us towards our cultures, our family, culture, values. And so that’s a beautiful thing, is when we’re in this together with kids, I mean, a big part of what we’re trying to do is shape family culture, not just fix kids. And I think creating these conversations in your family is powerful. And one of the things that we have amongst our daily prompts is something we call vulnerability questions. And these are questions that ask parents to get vulnerable with their kids and talk about maybe where they fell short in living out that fundamental in their youth. And this is a really interesting conversation. So if you’re practicing kindness this week, and the prompt may be parents, tell your kid about a time when you were unkind to someone. Tell them a story about what happened and ask them for advice on what they think you should have done, or maybe what you should do now.

Steven Shapiro 00:28:53  And so suddenly, a parent sitting down with a kid and saying, you know, when I was in high school, there was this kid, and they’re telling the story. They’re acknowledging their own failings, they’re showing their own vulnerability. And the kid is saying, oh, geez, dad. Like, that wasn’t very nice. He was like, I know, I still feel like I’m I’m this old and I still feel bad.

Nancy Shapiro 00:29:10  We all have those, right? We all have.

Eric Zimmer 00:29:11  Those. I’m glad to know that because I have one for sure. For sure that I, you know, I run through, I think I even when I was doing like aa amends tracked this person down and I’m sure they were like, oh, like. Why are you coming to me to talk.

Nancy Shapiro 00:29:24  About as a school counselor? You have no idea how tempting it was to be like, Trust me, you’re gonna regret this later.

Steven Shapiro 00:29:31  But it’s so, so special when a parent can share that vulnerability and the kid can then say, dad, you know, here’s what I think you should have done, or here’s what I would like to think I would do in that situation.

Steven Shapiro 00:29:38  Or maybe the kid says, dad, can you find that person on social media? Have you ever, like, apologize to them? And suddenly you’re talking about what it looks like to practice kindness with your kid where they’re advising you instead of you’re advising them. And that’s really what culture is.

Nancy Shapiro 00:29:52  It’s so empowering.

Eric Zimmer 00:29:54  To I think that’s when I say speak when spoken to it. Is that on the list?

Eric Zimmer 00:30:07  So I want to go back for a second to this issue of being overwhelmed by all the choices, so we could get a values list of 50 values. And you look at them and they go, they all sound good. I look at your list of values translated into action, same thing. They tend right. They tend to all look pretty good. How do you encourage people to narrow this down to what’s foundational to you?

Nancy Shapiro 00:30:36  Yeah, yeah, that’s a good question. We get overwhelmed sometimes when we look at it and when we talk about the fundamentals, which one is.

Nancy Shapiro 00:30:44  So we have a lot of discussion about the different fundamentals, what we recommend when families start when parents start this, this endeavor is that they take the list of fundamentals separately and they go through them and look at them and see like which ones are the most important to me. And so if you’re parenting with a partner, then each of you does the list separately. You come together, the ones that you both have. Well that’s easy. And then the ones that maybe one of you has but the other doesn’t, then you have a conversation and you and you figure it out, which is one of our fundamentals. Figure it out. But the other thing that is also true is that some of the fundamentals sort of overlap, right. And that’s okay, because you’re just going to pick the ones that you want to do, and then you’re going to not worry about the other ones. So pick the one that sort of best fits you and what it is you’re trying to do.

Steven Shapiro 00:31:36  Yeah. And I would say we encourage parents to think about.  I mean, everything’s good like you say, but if everything’s important, nothing’s important. What are the things that really matter to you? And so, for example, one of the questions might be if you went in to a parent teacher conference, what could the parent what could the teacher say about your kid that you’d think, yes that’s fine. Yes. And I’ll give you an example. I would go into a parent teacher conference for my kids, and the teacher would say, and they’d always set the gradebook out, especially as the kids got older and they’d say, oh, well, your kids turned in all their assignments and I’d be like, okay. Like, I’m glad they turned in all their assignments. But like, compliance is not really a core. Like, it didn’t make my heart sing. That wasn’t the thing

Eric Zimmer 00:32:13  Unless you’re me. In which case compliance is a really big step.

Speaker 6 00:32:16  Yeah, exactly.

Nancy Shapiro 00:32:18  Exactly.

Speaker 6 00:32:18  So if it is.

Steven Shapiro 00:32:19  That might be like, oh my God, thank.

Speaker 6 00:32:20  God my kid is on there. It showed up this week through. Yeah. If that’s the thing, then that would make your sound. That’s why I wouldn’t.

Steven Shapiro 00:32:27  Choose itm Maybe you would.

Steven Shapiro 00:32:28  But, you know, like, one time I went in for a conference and the teacher said, you know, this was middle school. And they said, you know, your daughter Caroline. Every day when the bell rings, she gets up, she walks out of the room and she stops at my desk on the way out and she says, thank you. And I thought, that’s my kid. Yeah, yeah, that’s my kid. and so you you have to think, what are the things that really make your heart sing? We have a fundamental called include others. And if you practice, include others in your family. And you make that a core part of your conversation. And so you know that you have to include others. Week every 16 or 18 weeks, however many fundamentals you have.

Steven Shapiro 00:33:06  And then you go in for that parent conference. And the teacher said, you know, we had a new student move in and your kid went over and said, hey, I know you probably don’t have any place to eat. Would you like to have lunch with us? You think that’s my kid? Yeah, yeah. And so it’s when you think about what are the things your kids could do that would make your heart sing? Like, that’s the kind of kid. For some people it’s, it’s it’s put in the work. We have a fundamental call put in the work. Some people will go into that conference and say, you know, your kid’s not a natural student, but I’ve never had a student that will work and work and work at something until they get it right. And some people are like, that’s my kid, right? So I think it’s like thinking about those things. What are the things that you will really light up with joy when you see your kid exhibiting?

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When I think about doing values work with people, there is a number of different exercises that that people can do. One that I particularly like is called Pick a Guide. And you think about someone you admire, and then you reverse engineer what it is. What is it about that person that makes me admire them? What are the qualities of that of that person? There’s also a you know what? Think about when you were happiest, when you were proudest and when you were most fulfilled.

Eric Zimmer 00:35:06  Okay. What does that point at? And as a family culture, I think for me, thinking about the things that did make my son happy and fulfilled would be important parts of me choosing. Because yes, of course, culture I’m bringing most of it, but I also want to imbue it with some aspect of who they are. I mean, now again, if you’re if you’re starting this with a six month old, you may not may not be a whole lot to work with. A six year old may not have, you know, has not been very proud or fulfilled. Yet. Some moments of happiness and many other moments of what.

Speaker 6 00:35:40  The hell is going on. Because when you look at all the baby, it’s just like there.

Steven Shapiro 00:35:45  You know, I think you raise an important point because people are entering this work with us at very different stages. You know, some people are at the early stage where their kids are three and four and they’re like, we’re just really forming who we are.

Steven Shapiro 00:35:57  Other people may enter where they have a 14 year old and a ten year old, and it’s never too late to focus on your family’s culture. It’s not I mean, you know, high school coaches get kids who are juniors in high school, and they create a powerful culture on a team with a bunch of 17-year-olds.

Eric Zimmer 00:36:11  Oh, yeah. I mean, I had a high school teacher who created a culture around him that totally, you know, made a huge difference.

Steven Shapiro 00:36:19  Yeah. So, you know, we can create culture at any stage of the game. But I think there are two things I would say about this. One is when you have kids that are already behaving a certain way, some people will choose fundamentals because this is really important to me. Some people will choose fundamentals because my kid really needs this. So, for example, if you have a kid that really struggles with flexibility, you might choose roll with it as a fundamental. And the reason you want to practice roll with it is because, you know, your kid struggles with like adjusting when things.

Steven Shapiro 00:36:50  And so if we practice, roll with it as a family and we make that a family culture thing, it will make it easier for my kid to be flexible. And that’s great. So that’s one. You know, you may choose it because you care about it, or you may choose it because it’s important for that kid. Yeah. I think the other thing I would say about this is that when you have older kids and I think this is really exciting, if you have older kids, is the choosing of the family fundamentals doesn’t have to be done exclusively by the parents. Right. When your kids are old enough, you can actually engage them in building the family culture with you, and they may do it for the same reason. They may say, this is really important to me. you know, they may be really committed to social justice, and they may want to fight for what’s right to be one of your family’s fundamentals. And that may challenge you to be a little more socially conscious, because that.

Nancy Shapiro 00:37:34  Or they may choose one that they want their parent to improve on. Totally. Yeah. So listen generously. Well, you never you know, when I, when I talk, you just give me answers or give me, solutions. I just want you to listen to me, listen generously. Can we practice that?

Steven Shapiro 00:37:48  So that’s really special when the kids are, kids are participating in creating the culture now. They own it with you. And I think even if you have a kid that’s, you know, a senior in high school and a junior in high school, like, what an amazing last couple of years with your kids in the home. I think I saw a statistic that I think parents will spend 90% of the time with their kids before they turn 19, almost all the time you’re going to spend with your kids when they’re young. Once they’re gone, you’ll see them in bits.

Speaker 6 00:38:13  You know, we all yeah we know. Yeah. You see them in bits. Yep.

Steven Shapiro 00:38:16  So if you really want to have that impact even if they’re 16 or 17.They’re still with you every day.

Eric Zimmer 00:38:20  Still have some time

Eric Zimmer 00:38:44  Let’s talk a little bit about how doing this work has changed you guys. You’ve both said that your kids are up and out on their own, so it’s not going to have changed your direct family culture in that way. What ways has it changed you personally?

Nancy Shapiro 00:39:03  I think it just elevated our consciousness as well. It’s we’ve had a lot of very interesting talks about just what our parents taught us and what our family culture growing up was like. and, you know, for example, our father passed away at the age of 56. We were both in. I was in my early 20s. Stephen is, of course, older than me,  but my dad was very, just naturally good at being an attentive parent and meeting us where we were. And so there are a lot of things that he taught us without being as intentional as, as we’re trying to, to help people be.

Nancy Shapiro 00:39:48  But what’s interesting for us is that we see in our children. Our children, of course, never met our dad because he died before we got married. And so they espouse some of his values. We see it in them because it was just passed through us because it was so important. And and now they are living those values as well. And so to, to me, like, that’s one of the most beautiful things that has come out of it It’s like just even our noticing of. Oh my gosh, look at what? What? You know, Emily just did. That was something that dad would have been so, so excited about, right.

Steven Shapiro 00:40:25  It speaks to generational legacy. It makes you think, like what I’m doing raising my kids will exist in my family after I’m gone.

Eric Zimmer 00:40:32  In both good and bad, hopefully. Right. For better. Yeah. So it’s like, that’s our challenge. You know, if I were to be doing some of those things, my father has passed. However, there’s a lot of behaviors there that I would be very unhappy to see of in my child. Right. Of course. But it’s the intentionality that allows you to kind of know that.

Nancy Shapiro 00:40:51  When we started doing this work and and talking about how we wanted to bring this work into the world, and there have been many iterations. One of the things we used to talk about was that people parent one of two ways. They either parent the way they were parented, or the exact opposite.

Nancy Shapiro 00:41:11  And not many people like say, you know, pick and choose like, oh, that was that was something that was really useful. But let’s try and avoid talking to our kids this way.

Steven Shapiro 00:41:21   Right. Both. Both. Doing what your parents did unthoughtfully or doing the opposite. Neither one of those are choices. They’re both just reactions.

Eric Zimmer 00:41:27  Yeah, exactly. Yes, 100%. And I think that is the the importance of intentionality is that who knows where the things that happen automatically come from? They come from countless, you know, countless causes and conditions. We could never unravel them.

Steven Shapiro 00:41:43  We’ve thought about generational legacy a lot more. We thought about what the legacy of our impact on our kids is going to be, and our kids are entering the age where they might consider having kids. And we’ve thought a lot about how this system can help support them in bringing some of the things that we brought to our family, to their kids in a more intentional way. And then I think, just to be honest with you, I feel like I just become a better person in small ways over and over again, not because I’m practicing the fundamentals, but because I wrote them and because I wrote the content and because I watched all the videos, and because all the work that we’re doing surrounding these is just heightening my consciousness daily, all the time. I’m seeing places, and Nancy and I laugh because we can’t watch. You know, if you watch the team win the championship, I guarantee you guarantee you on that podium when they’re talking about what it meant to be a champion, they’re going to mention 3 or 4 different fundamentals.

Steven Shapiro 00:42:36  They’re going to say them. We did this. We did the bounce back. We always said we we stick with 0:42:37  it. We look. We look.

Nancy Shapiro 00:42:42  At each other and we put it in the work. Yeah, yeah. We put it the.

Steven Shapiro 00:42:44  Way whatever it is, it’s like, yes, we see the fundamentals everywhere. It’s like they just show they just like shine out. And so we’re just being in this work has actually heightened our own personal consciousness as we love our lives about you know, I do want to make a difference. I want my life to matter. And so I think about how am I making a difference every day I think about leaving it better than I found it. You know, I think about, you know, bounce back is a big one. I mean, my daughter was diagnosed with type one diabetes when she was three years old, and it was such a hit to our family. We had a baby and we had these three year old and like.

Steven Shapiro 00:43:16  And the first thing we did was after we suffered for a little bit is like, we have to help raise money to, to solve this problem. And we organized a family walk team for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, and we invited people we we were raising 20, 30, eventually $40,000, our family team every year. And the money that we raised help advanced diabetes research. But it did way more than that. What it did was it showed our kids that this is how we respond to hardship in the show. This is what Shapiro’s do. This is the Shapiro way. When you get hit. You bounce back. You take action. You take, you know, positive, forceful response as opposed to just letting yourself be a victim of hard times. And all the money we raised probably pales in comparison to what we taught our kids about how to show up when things get hard. This is what we do, and I think this is the thing that every family searches for is how do we how do we teach our kids through our example and through our conversations, the way to be in the world that’s going to be really an example of what we value the most. And it’s a conversation we’re having, unfortunately, very rarely, unless we have some intentional way to do it.

Eric Zimmer 00:44:24  Well, we are as a culture, everybody is unmoored.

Steven Shapiro 00:44:28   We’re all too busy to think about anything.

Eric Zimmer 00:44:30 00:44:29  We all, race around. Meaning is it doesn’t exist for a lot. A lot of people, myself included. It only exists to the extent that I take the time to find meaning and for me, articulate it and then make whatever halting attempts I make to live it. Because I could see why kids could feel so unmoored. Here’s something that’s interesting, though, to think about, is when the values that the family has actually end up being at odds with. What? Yes, the kid who comes of age and starts to, right. You may have a family that values being successful in the world. Now, we could argue whether that’s a good value or not, but but that is okay. You are. You are going to be a success.  And the and and the child is like, that’s not the way I want to live my life. I don’t want to orient my life around success. Right. And so all of a sudden, you know what? How does this play out in that scenario?

Nancy Shapiro 00:45:25  Well, we’re such we’re so early we don’t even know. But it’s a great it’s a great question. Because it all falls.

Speaker 6 00:45:30  Apart. But you know I may have seven. First of all, we were careful not to create fundamentals that are like specific like I want my kid to make a lot of money.

Speaker 6 00:45:41  Right.

Steven Shapiro 00:45:41  Like it’s not there’s nothing like that in there. These are these are kind of core fundamental things. So and so you may say, you know, I want my kid to put in the work and in your mind you might have been thinking, I want them to put in the work so they can get into med school. And they may think, I want to put in the work on my art, you know, or I want to put in the work on my in my fitness or in my relationships. So I think that the fundamentals are flexible enough that they can be applied in different ways. but I also think there’s probably some interesting conversations that happen as well.

Eric Zimmer 00:46:07  And I think that’s the important thing, though, is if you’re doing this work, the conversations are happening. Right. And that’s where for me, the problem was and I and I see happening is that the conversation isn’t happening. There’s just someone saying this is what’s important or this is what we believe in. And the other person who doesn’t believe that is either retreating into the corner and trying to hide, or they’re coming full bore in a fight. But there’s not a respectful discussion about how, like you said, we could talk about, okay, maybe you don’t value working, you know, to the extent in the ways that I have, but do you value x, y or z? And so I think it’s this it’s back to the intentionality that I think this gives people in guiding what they want their family to look.

Nancy Shapiro 00:46:51  And the openness to be able to have that conversation is, is critical.

Steven Shapiro 00:46:56  Talk about I mean, one of the things we say is, you know, raising emotionally healthy kids in close knit families. And so part of this is, is not just about raising kids who are amazing and live out amazing values, but it’s also about being connected to each other. Yeah. And I think I’m sure you’ve seen it. You’re out of the restaurant and, you know, family’s out to dinner and everyone’s on their phone. Yeah. And I’m thinking this might be a good time for you guys to talk to each other. There’s probably some interesting. But again, it’s hard sometimes. You know, one of the things I trained teachers, I was a teacher for many years, but I also trained teachers at Ohio State for probably 20 years. And I didn’t fully realize how hard it is to ask a good question until I trained teachers who were trying to lead a discussion. Yeah. Incredibly. Unsuccessfully.

Eric Zimmer 00:47:37  And getting certain kids to engage and even a good question is often a eyeroll.

Steven Shapiro 00:47:43  For us, part of what we’re doing is we are taking all of our experience to design good questions for you. And also we have support videos in the app. So you can like how to have a great conversation. Here’s six tips on how to have a conversation work. And so we’re trying to help parents not just raise kids with these values, but also train parents in how to have effective and healthy conversations with their kids around those values and those in addition to the values that you shape and the way the fundamentals come to life, it’s just teaching you to be more connected to your children and teaching them to be more connected to each other. And, you know, my wife and I raised three kids, and I retired from education recently. And somebody said, what’s your greatest accomplishment? And really, I’m so proud of all the work I did in schools and with kids. But I’m like, my greatest accomplishment is my wife and I raised three kids who absolutely love each other and will take care of each other for life. Like if the two of us were to perish tomorrow, they’ve got each other and that’s a parent can rest easy when they know that.

Nancy Shapiro 00:48:40  That’s a very healthy model, right? Not every person who is going to engage with, our family culture or who even just is a parent engaging in life. It’s hard out there. It’s hard. It’s hard to be a parent. It’s hard to be a parent who works. It’s hard to be a parent who doesn’t have a partner. It’s hard to be a parent who had a partner and is not with that partner anymore, or the partner no longer is alive. I mean, there are so many versions of family, and I.

Eric Zimmer 00:49:09  A parent that’s wrestling with their own emotional and mental issues.

Nancy Shapiro 00:49:14  Oh, I could tell you so many stories of of of people like adults who would come into my office and exhibit the exact behaviors that their kids exhibit, and they can’t figure out why their kids are acting that way. It happened all the time because there wasn’t that awareness.

Nancy Shapiro 00:49:31  But I think I think it’s really important to point out that you don’t have to be a married couple. I mean, Steven’s family and my family were very different. I was a I was divorced, I had two kids. One of my kids is autistic and, and, needed and continues to need a lot of different kinds of supports. then our other kids and it impacted our family tremendously. And so we’re very intentional about saying your parenting partner because the parenting partner could be a spouse, or it could be a parent of your like, it could be the grandparent of the child. It could be your neighbor across the street who you support each other on things. It could be one of your closest friends, a parent care provider. It could be so many different things. And so I don’t I don’t want people to think, oh, well, if we do this then we’re going to have x, y, z outcome. It’s like, no, if we do this, then what we’re doing is making a commitment to trying to to build the healthiest family culture possible and put out the best kids and the best vibes we can in this world, because the world needs it.

Eric Zimmer 00:50:37  Yeah, absolutely. I think that you could do all of this. You can take your program and do it all perfectly and still have family problems.

Eric Zimmer 00:50:44  Life is just complicated and complex and difficult. And I also believe there are always, no matter the circumstance. Wherever we are, there are ways to move in a positive direction. They may not be huge steps, right? A single mother with an autistic child has less just free cycles to pour into this. Then maybe someone like Stephen did. And there are ways that you can make things better for yourself and your family. Little ways by being intentional about what matters. That always sort of steers the ship in a better direction.

Steven Shapiro 00:51:22  Yes, and there’s no guarantees, of course. Like this. We all know as parents.  We know. You learn quickly. You don’t control all this.

Steven Shapiro 00:51:30  But we certainly have probably more impact and the potential for more impact than we realize. And I think one of the things that Nancy and I have really struggled with is super hard. We’ve had so many focus groups with parents and parents of kids who are grown, and parental regret is so painful. It’s so painful to talk to a parent who said, I wish we had. I wish I had spent more time with this. Or, you know, a really common one is self-reliance. People are like, my kid doesn’t know how to take care of themselves. I wish I had given them more responsibilities or put them in charge. I mean, practice self-reliance is one of our fundamentals. And it’s like and there are activities like, have your kid changed the air filter in your car? Your eight.

Speaker 6 00:52:09  Year.

Steven Shapiro 00:52:09  Old can change. I mean, I’m.

Speaker 6 00:52:10  Telling you, you’re I’m.

Steven Shapiro 00:52:11  Telling you, if you get on YouTube and look at how to change the air filter, you.

Speaker 6 00:52:14  Just unscrew.

Steven Shapiro 00:52:15  A thing, you open it up, you.

Speaker 6 00:52:16  Go to. It’s really amazing. Look at Riley’s auto parts and you ask, what’s for that model?

Steven Shapiro 00:52:20  And you just drop it in.

Steven Shapiro 00:52:21  But most people are like, I don’t know how to change any. And totally you do if you just saw how easy it was. And so it’s.

Speaker 6 00:52:27  Like.

Nancy Shapiro 00:52:27  He tried to get me to do it.

Steven Shapiro 00:52:28  And she wouldn’t do it. I say, that’s it.

Eric Zimmer 00:52:30  It brings flashbacks to me of any project I tried to do with my father, and I was not good at it. Like, I can’t get the screw off and all of a sudden it’s anger and fear.

Steven Shapiro 00:52:42  Laundry. My kids don’t know how to, you know, there’s so many things, you know, there’s that snowplow parent they used to talk about helicopter parent. Now they talk about snowplow parent. And snowplow parenting is the parent that gets in front of the kid and plows all the problems away from them so that they can drive easily down the street. And if you want to raise a self-reliant kid, you have to let the kid shovel some of the snow themselves.

Steven Shapiro 00:53:01  You have to give them. And so again, it’s it’s all of this stuff where you start to give the opportunity for kids to, you know, you don’t have to look back and go, like, I wish I had given my kid more of a chance to grow up in this way or to develop this thing. It’s sad to reach that point, and we get one shot at this and we’re never going to do it perfect. But our hope and the reason that we’re pouring our lives into this, we’re retired. It’s like people are like, how’s retirement are like. I don’t really know, why are we working so hard.

Steven Shapiro 00:53:28  We’re working so hard because we really want to help parents have less parental regret and feel great about the kids that they’re raising and feel like they’ve done their best. They’ve left it all on the field.

Nancy Shapiro 00:53:36  We want to make a difference.

Steven Shapiro 00:53:37  That’s it. One family at a time. That’s what we’re trying to do.

Eric Zimmer 00:53:40  Before you check out, pick one insight from today and ask, how will I practice this before bedtime? Need help turning ideas into action? My free weekly Bites of Wisdom email lands every Wednesday with simple practices, reflection and links to former guests who can guide you even on the tough stuff like anxiety, purpose and habit change.

 Feed your good wolf at oneyoufeed.net/newsletter again oneyoufeed.net/newsletter. I think that’s a great place for us to wrap up. We will have links in the show notes to where people can get the app. There’s a coupon code you’ll have there for people to get a discount. Absolutely. And thank you both so much. It’s been a real pleasure.

Nancy Shapiro 00:54:23  This was a lot of fun. Eric. Thank you.

Steven Shapiro 00:54:24  Great talking with you. Thanks, Eric.

Eric Zimmer 00:54:26  Thank you so much for listening to the show. If you found this conversation helpful, inspiring, or thought provoking, I’d love for you to share it with a friend. Share it from one person to another is the lifeblood of what we do. We don’t have a big budget, and I’m certainly not a celebrity. But we have something even better. And that’s you just hit the share button on your podcast app, or send a quick text with the episode link to someone who might enjoy it. Your support means the world, and together we can spread wisdom one episode at a time.  Thank you for being part of the One You Feed community.