Owning Your Own Story, Even When it Doesn't Fit the Story You Were Supposed to Follow

Nellie Harden: 00:00:04

Hello and welcome to the 6570 family project podcast. If you are a parent of a tween teen or somewhere on the way, this is exactly the place for you. This is the playground for parents who want to raise their kids with intention, strength and joy. Come in here all the discussions, get all the tactics and have lots of laughs along the way. We will dive into the real challenges in raising kids today how to show up as parents and teach your kids how to show up as members of the family and individuals of the world. My name is Mellie Hardin, big city girl turn small town sipping iced tea on the front porch mama, who loves igniting transformation in the hearts and minds of families by helping them build self love, discipline and leadership that elevates the family experience. And sets the kids up with a rock solid foundation, they can launch their life on all before they ever leave home. This is the 6570 family project. Let's go

Nellie Harden: 00:01:12

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the 6570 family project podcast. I hope you guys are doing so well. Today, I am going to admit I am tired today. I am so exhausted. It's been it's a Saturday when I am recording this for all of you. And it's just been one of those Saturdays that didn't intend to be but turned out to be the go go go like you wake up. And there's something just scheduled at any every you know, hour of the day, taking kids here, meeting friends, they're going to went to a gender reveal party earlier today and going out friends all good things and all all great things and even you know, quote unquote, relaxing things, but who you get them all together and out in the fall weather and I am tired. And it was an unexpected which leads me into today's topic, which is owning your story, even when it doesn't fit the story that you were supposed to air quotes. Follow, right? We all have that. I don't know a single adult today that they're like, Oh, well, everything in my life went exactly as planned. And if you are one of those people, kudos to you. I don't know what planet or tiny island out in the middle of nowhere you live on. And you're probably not listening to this because most adults that I know, had one or many curveballs thrown their way. And it's really all about balance and rebalance and balance and rebalance. And there was this time I remember when the kids were little. And remember. So my name is Nellie Hardin. By the way, if this is your first time listening, I am a family life and leadership coach and I have four kids and I had those four kids in four and a half years. Now they're between 12 and 16 today, but when they were younger, these four little ladies of mine, I felt like they were going to you know, just get into a rhythm. And we would we would get into this rhythm on Tuesday. And then on Thursday, they would be like, No, we have to do this or there's a visit visitor coming or we need to go do this now. Everything changed. I felt like I was constantly on this balance, rebalance balance rebalance roller coaster going on. And that was throwing me for a loop because I was like wait a second, I thought I had everything Oh, but now we have you know this variable in here. So even in life scripted, the unbalanced can definitely come in. But you know, if you've been listening to this podcast for any amount of time, or if this is your first time, I speak about building leadership into the family and not just and not like I want my kid to go be a CEO someday leadership, I am talking about that inner compass of leadership that we can build within our family and build within our kids so that by the time they leave home, they are equipped for that outside world because they have this inner compass of leadership, self love leadership within them to go lead, whatever that is. It may be something outside of them, but definitely something inside of them. But leadership is the ability to thrive and help others thrive through the expected and the unexpected. And so when we think about that, and we break it down, it really has four components to it, which is discipline, vision, vulnerability and resilience. And that is really what we want to be going into and building into our leadership. But let's break that down even further. So, you I say discipline that you say timeouts, right I say discipline you say spank I say discipline you say yell I say discipline you say, I don't know, Army, you know disciplines and things like that. So let me get more specific with this with you. So discipline in our home looks a lot like rocks and you're like, what? Nilly, you're a little off your rocker. No, I'm serious, it looks like rocks and that is our OC Ks. And that is respect, obedience. And so the respects we talk about all the respects in their, you know, self, others time property all the respects in their obedience to stick to it. And honestly, the quickest way that someone can build self confidence is to say they're going going to do something and do it right having obedience to that. And then we have compassion, and we have kindness, and we have this self led discipline. So why is self led discipline a part of the discipline formula? Well, because as a family, we are handing over this discipline from being the parent doing the one disciplining to by the time they leave home, we want them to be the one that are disciplining themselves, right? We want them to be able to see a situation come up with an action plan, follow through with it and get to an accomplishment, that is Jim Roans definition of discipline. And I love it, that's what I live by. It is the bridge between goal and accomplishment. And so that those are how discipline are broken down. Okay. And then of course, we have vision, right, we want to be able to see be a visionary of our own future, we can be a visionary of all sorts of things you hear about visionaries, a lot of times when you're talking about companies, right? And you know, where this could go, I have this idea now and where this could go and unfold and develop in the future. Well, we mean that for our own lives, too, especially when something unexpected happens, because we need to be able to see beyond it. Vulnerability can't get, it can't go very far, it's kind of like if you're forget your car keys, right, you can't go very far, if you don't have vulnerability, you can get really stuck and build nine, you know, nine foot wide walls all around yourself, but vulnerability is what is going to grow you and help you grow those around you. And then resilience is the ability to rise. You know, my, my words for my life are matter, love and rise, I want to make sure that every day I am making matter, I want to make sure every day I am loving, and I am also feeling loved. And that's also by myself feeling loved, you know, to myself as well. And also rise every time I fall down, which let me tell you is a lot of times as a mom, as a business owner, as a wife, as a person in this world, as a woman, I fall down a lot, but I just have to keep rising and getting back up. So that is what leadership can really look like. And it's the what, right. It's not it's it's just the what I was like, Okay, that's great. And now I need to know what I can or what I can do how I can do it in order to get there. Right. So my friend, Lettie, she is a health and wellness coach, we work together for a very long time. But just like she says, you know, and just like in wellness, we know right to choose the kale over the cookies, we know that that is the better choice. But what is the thought and action process to actually do that. Now, I am a lover life time lover of some really good chocolate chip cookie. So I am not saying don't ever have a chocolate chip cookie, I never want to go on the record as saying that because that is not from me. But my point is we know the better choices to make. But how do we actually make those choices? And it's really about the key mindsets. The skill sets the understandings, and what do you have to know right in order to clear the path toward accomplishing leadership in your home and effectively teaching the kids how to do that in their own life? Right. That's what we want to do. My coaching program, the Family Leadership Academy does exactly this. And I am so thankful for the families that have been through it the family families that will go through it, because it is such a help for them. It is such a help for their kids and their future. And honestly, it comes full circle because it's all it's a huge help for me too. Because the more think about this, what if we had more level headed troops seeking visionary resilient leaders out there in the world? How would that affect our world? It would make it a much better place right? So the more that I can get out there and I teach and help people through the Family Leadership Academy and even our VIP days that we do. The better, right productive parenting, big shout out right there. But all of that being said, what can happen that doesn't fit in your story? There's so many things right? Maybe some of these are a part of your story. Maybe there was a death in the family. Maybe there was a job loss, a pregnancy, an unexpected pregnancy, an illness, maybe there's mental illness issues happening, addiction, maybe just maybe, gonna, you know, bet on this one. There's a world pandemic that you didn't see coming, right.

Nellie Harden: 00:10:45

So let me ask you this, with what we have just gone through and talked about, what would the world have looked like, if leadership was front loaded into the world for adults, and especially kids, before the pandemic had happened? So that people didn't have to scrounge around for it in the trenches when we were in it.

Nellie Harden: 00:11:13

Okay, I just sit with that question for a minute. What if we would have front loaded this leadership, this vulnerability, so people, it's our kids can actually talk to us about how they're feeling, right? And this vision to see what is going on. But we will get past it. And let's figure out all the creative ways to get past it. Right. resilience to rise, when we fall, there was so many people that fell during the pandemic for so many different reasons from actually getting and I'm not saying that the pandemic is over, I heard someone the other day, saying, Oh, now that we're past the pandemic, and I was like, I didn't get that memo. Are we past the pandemic? I didn't think so. Because it still affects my life today. And until it's not affecting our lives, I don't know if I can put a checkmark next to that box and put it in my in my past, right. But anyway, some people were affected emotionally, mentally, physically, all the things right. But what if we would have front loaded some more leadership into our families, before the pandemic ever happened? And we didn't know what's going to happen, right? We didn't know it was coming. And you rarely know when life turns are coming, right? I can only think of a few things like moves, right retirement, your kid going off to college, maybe having a baby, even if it was an unexpected pregnancy, you don't get pregnant and have a baby the next day. Typically, I have seen some strange shows or, or, or stories about that. But it does not typically happen. You usually have you have some runway there, right. But even if the events are known to be coming, right, the emotions will slap you in the face every time the annex are the expected ones. And a lot of unexpected ones. When you are with a loved one that has been suffering for a long time and they pass on, you're going to feel things you didn't expect to feel right. And you are going to you know, the Your feet are going to be wiped out from under you. And you're going to be going through all these things like I expected to be sad, I expected to be mourning. I didn't expect to be maybe relieved a little bit. And then you have the guilt spiral from that. I didn't expect to just be so alone or whatever that is. And I've been there you guys, I've been there. I have lost two dads in my life. My dad died when I was super, super young. I was only one and a half when he passed away. He actually was in an accident when I was nine months old and was in a coma and passed away when I was one and a half. And my mom was widowed at a very, very young age and had to make extremely difficult decisions. And when I was four she started dating this man Steven when I was he got married, so I had a dad again and so. But unfortunately, he passed away suddenly from a heart attack in 2012. And so I have been there I've seen this firsthand, right? And my brother and sister then they they understand this too and and they've been through this and I'm sure you've had these unexpected things happen in your life. And we'll never be able to predict and expect everything good or bad and we can't prepare for specific situations. But we can build up the pillars and foundations of the self love leadership in our lives. So that the waves knock us but don't drown us. Okay, there's a big difference there. They can knock us but don't drown us right discipline to be compassionate during challenging times, right? It is easy to lash out when your emotions are, are spiraling, super easy. So discipline to be compassionate to others, even during challenging times discipline, to be in obedience to get through that pile of bills that you've never had to look at before, and all of the legal schmegle mumbo jumbo that you have no idea what it is. And now it's your responsibility, right? And discipline to be in obedience to get back up the next morning, or set a goal if you can't get back up the next morning, or you don't want to have when you will do it and actually do it, right. A vision vision to see beyond the frustration, the pain and the struggle and vision to see and grow from others perspectives, this is a huge one, you have a very specific set of perspectives that you look at, or look through every single day, and especially during an unexpected time, right? Think of what you see as this series of telescopes, right? You have a you have a long telescope in front of you. But it might have 35 different lenses in it right? And they're all down in there. That is your unique perspective that has been built throughout your entire life. And seeing things through someone else's perspective, by being curious by being vulnerable by asking questions, and really diving in, that will really help you through these situations and be able to help you lead yourself to the other side of them. vulnerability to share with others in a healthy and productive way, with good boundaries on that and resilience to rise back up no matter how many times it takes, again, no matter how many times it takes in so much more. This is where leadership can lead you when you front load it before something happens, right? I love the the mental image of you know, do you if you are standing on a cliff, right? Do you want an ambulance waiting at the bottom? Or do you want someone to move you away from the cliff and help you up there, right? We don't need to crash and burn and then be helped. We can help before a catastrophe ever happens. And again, we can't you know, we can't say or help things that happen outside of us, sometimes even within us if it's a sudden illness or something like that. But our mental strength or emotional strength, we can be in charge of that. Absolutely. That is where self love leadership comes in. So own your story. And you are writing it all by yourself. And there will be surprises. But you can write what happens after those surprises. There is a dot a surprise, a pivot, a massive turn maybe a hairpin turn to what your life is. But you get to write what happens after that. And you do this through building in that selfless leadership. And if we can do that in the family, in the family within these 6570 days, that's how many days you have an 18 years. If we can do that, within that time. Can you imagine what we're setting up our family to be able to handle and get through and thrive through and smile through and maybe even laugh through whatever that is? Can you imagine what you're setting up your family with? But even so can you imagine what you're setting up your kids with that the whatever they'll face and I don't know the year 2060 or 2070, whatever that is, what is going to be happening then that the self led leadership that you are putting in those tactics and mindsets and skill sets that you are putting in right now. And 2021