What is Generational Leadership Paralysis and How Do I Defeat It? Interview with Skyla Harden

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 and hear all the discussions, get all the tactics and have lots of laughs along the way. We will dive into the real challenges and reason 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 harden. Big City girl turns small towns sipping iced tea on the front porch Mama, who loves igniting transformation in the hearts and minds of families by helping them build self flood 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: 00:01:11

Hello, everyone. Welcome to today's episode. As you can see, hi, I have a very special guest on today. This is my oldest daughter Skylar. She is 16 years old. So I am so excited to have her on because we are talking about something very important today. So if you're like me, or almost any parent that I can think of you're running around like basically a Tasmanian devil tornado, there's laundry, there's work, there's the kids taxi service, right? There's meal prepping, there's helping your neighbor, find the last cat, and your kiddo is watching all of this happen. And they're just sitting there, right? And you ask them to help with something and they just kind of look up from there. You know, fill in the blank electronic device, usually and give you that look like what what why do you want help, right? And I want you to know, you're not alone. You're not alone in this, your kids are not terrible, you are not terrible. It is literally happening happening in almost every home out there. And so let me ask you this, what made you do so much and makes them do so little? That's what we're gonna be tackling a little bit today. And why does this gap exist? And what can we do about it. So today, I have my daughter coming on. And she went through this transformational experience over the summer that really opened her eyes and Hart and she's going to share that a little bit with you. But before we do that, I want to introduce this idea of generational leadership paralysis. So the GLP generate additional leadership paralysis. So this is a phenomenon that happens with parents. And if you're listening to this, chances are This was you too, that you had to rise up, you had to find your way you needed to become resilient, you needed to fail and rise back up again, go through adversity, become the overcomer. Right? Build your life. Now. Those lives are just given to our children, they are living in the aftermath of what we went through in order to get here. They don't know any better. They don't understand what it takes in the work to get there. But you don't know what you don't know. Right? No one does. We don't know what we don't know money doesn't grow on trees literally means nothing for them. When they haven't experienced having to get there. They don't have an experience tied to that. Right. So your card, and they don't necessarily work is hard. And where does your work hard mentally come from? It's a question for you to answer for yourself, and where does theirs come from? They need experiences. They need experiences in order to tie in to this work ethic to tie into the if you want something done, you need to get up and actually do something this. And so we sent a Skyla on this amazing trip. I was a little jealous of it. I'm gonna be honest, I'm on this amazing trip this past summer, which turned out to be amazing in some of the ways we expected and then many more of the ways that we didn't expect as well. So first, my first question I want to ask is so you wouldn't witnessed us? Right? A mom and dad doing the hustle probably most of your life that you remember. And let's be honest, you're the first of four kids and we had four and four and a half years so really your whole life? Yeah, you've watched us do the hustle whether that was like dishes and bottles and diapers or we're Entrepreneurship. But when you see us doing this, what are your thoughts? Are you just is this just nothing as a background noise? Or you're like, that looks like way too much work, you know? So what are your thoughts? And just be honest?

Skyla Harden: 00:05:15

Well, to me, this family has always seemed like a family that was really grateful for the peaceful moments in life. Because most of the time, I gotta admit, we're busy. We have the entrepreneurs and the people who work full time jobs, and then all the children, entrepreneurs, and then all the full time students, teachers, there's so many jobs that go on in this family. Really, yes, yes, we are very busy family. But I think it's a good example, because somebody who wants to get somewhere in life, because we're also a very fortunate family, we go on vacations, we have days off, where we just embrace the peaceful moments. And someone who wants to get somewhere in life. They need to have those days where they're busy. You can't just have be comfortable all the time. Yeah, but the point is, when you are comfortable, give yourself that time off, so you can have a productive time on.

Nellie Harden: 00:06:07

That's so true. That is so true. Yeah, in our family, we make sure Sundays are like, we eat Mexican and go to the beach. I mean, we we do church, and we eat a lot of Mexican we make sure to get in our nachos and burritos. We are creatures of habit. So every Sunday, it's Mexican day for for the happy, hardened family. And so, um, yeah, no, I totally agree with that. And that's something that we need to build in, or we had to build that and we have in order to keep the sanity to because we do we have you guys we have a lot of cogs in our a lot of cogs in our wheels. Now a lot of cogs in our machine. However you want to put that. But we have a lot of things that we do do in this family and we needed that one day that was done all off just together. It's our family day. Okay, so tell me tell our listeners about this trip. Because like, before we get into some more questions about what you learned, like, logistically, what did this look like? What were you guys doing?

Skyla Harden: 00:07:09

So it was two weeks in the wilderness like, complete? You had a tent? You had a bag. Everything had to fit in your kayak. We were kayaking. You had very little to last two weeks, like you left your phones at home. Like it was literally just you and this group? Yes. And let me that's daunting. Like what I told most of my friends, they were like, don't go there murders. I was like, well, thanks. But to be honest, that's where I was leaning, because that just sounds too hard. Yeah, but it turns out, it was one of the greatest experiences of my life, which no surprise there. Most things that are hard turn out to be Mm hmm. First thing I had to overcome out there, though, was dependence on my family. Because as mom was saying earlier, we're used to being the ones who sit there. And then the kitchen is clean laundry is done. Gay like. And it wasn't just that it's also the fact that I had to be out there alone. I didn't know anybody and the rest of these girls that was out there with they didn't know each other. And so I was deeply homesick for like the first four or five days, which turned out to be a waste of time, because I knew I was going to come back home. They weren't murders. Spoiler alert. Yeah. And then I also had overcome the social anxiety because as I said, all those girls knew each other, which is extremely daunting for me being the new one. But then once I started talking to them, it turns out, they're like, really amazing people.

Nellie Harden: 00:08:37

And by all those girls, there was only four. Yeah,

Skyla Harden: 00:08:39

there's only four. So it's a small group. Yeah. And so, but they just completely accepted me. And they were amazing people. As I said, I would say the third thing I had to overcome was nature itself, because I had one clean outfit by day four, because my dry bag that contained all my clothes got like a leak in it. So my clothes were like moldy, except for the ones I was wearing. So I had that one clean outfit, which I continued to wear for the next 10 days. In fact, I had a competition with one of the other girls and I want to who could wear their outfit the longest. So I guess I can flex on that. Yeah. And I was constantly covered in sand. Like when you go to the beach, you get sand everywhere you go home and shower, I didn't I slept. That's what happened. And we were out there in tropical storm. So most of the time it was pouring we had days where you have to get into lightning position, which is a position so that if you get shocked by lightning, you won't die. So that's really uplifting. But or there's nights where you just wake up in water because your tent would flood and it's not like you can do anything about it. The rains not going to stop for you. So you just go back to sleep because what's your other option. However, nature also made up for it because there was nights where the stars literally looked like velvet in the sky and then There was lightning, which was like read, striking the ground. It was so pretty, the sunrises, sunsets were completely surrounded by this gorgeous nature that continued to attack us, but also continued to amaze us. There was also the aspect that every morning we would dive into our Bibles for like, an hour and a half, which for me, he said that we're going to do this for a short time. So I kind of assumed 15 minutes a morning. Because I would only dive into my Bible before this for about 15 minutes, every once in a while. So this was very new to me. But it was actually really good for me. And I discovered God and a whole new way out there between the Bible, this community, this nature, and this was so beneficial for me to discover myself, God and everyone around me in a whole different way.

Nellie Harden: 00:10:49

Yeah, your own relationship with him, your own dependence on yourself, without us. And yeah, I think that's so important. Because, you know, we haven't really talked about this in the podcast yet. But you know, my husband and I, we didn't come to our faith until 2010. So we're still, you know, kind of newbies when it comes to this. But for the kids, that's most of their life that they remember. And so there is this interesting paradox in faith, but also in resilience. Also, in dependency, and everything, where we have, we have this leadership rope that we hold all of when you're born, and then over time, we're passing you more and more and more, sometimes we need to take some back. And then we give you a little bit more. And so it's just it's really interesting. And it was so I, I, it's amazing to see who came back from this trip. And it was the Skyla that has always been there. But it was covered up by such a thick layer of worldly sludge. Yeah, for is kind of how I felt like so. Okay, so you talked a little bit about all those challenges that you face. Now, what did you discover about yourself?

Skyla Harden: 00:12:07

Well, turns out I'm really strong. Like, I can't bench 150 that's really not the type of strong I'm talking about. But my will is so much stronger than I could have imagined. If I had told myself, the person before this that was talking with their friends about how they really didn't want to go on the scary trip. All the stuff that I would have to go through on this scary trip. The girl before this would have been like, Nope, I'm out. Goodbye. But now, I rise to stand in it added some crunch guys. And then you go to bed in a puddle covered in sand. I can survive in one outfit. Because what more do we actually need in this life? Yeah. Like, what more do we actually need? We really don't need all this material stuff. Because Don't get me wrong. It's very useful. That's kind of the whole point of it is to make life more use more eat more at ease. Yeah. But it's not completely necessary to thrive. Because out there I was thriving. Like, I had such a good time to expect by even though there was no worldly entertainment, quote, unquote. All you really need to thrive in an environment is love and laughter and joy. And you're gonna be okay.

Nellie Harden: 00:13:23

Yeah. Yeah. And that is, that's such a realization that you have to come to on your own. It's not something that, you know, as much as I can say that until I'm blue in the face. And, you know, and it's hard because we live in a beautiful home, we live in a beautiful part of the world. And so it's easy for someone then again, living in the after, right? This is not where your dad and I started by any means, you know, I grew up in a trailer park. And you know what I loved growing up in that trailer park, I had some of my best memories there. And it was it was amazing. And we didn't have a lot but I had friends and I had my mom there at the time. And it was just so fun. I had a backyard that led to a swamp and we used to pretend there was alligators and crocodiles back there. imaginations Gone Wild, right? But having our four kids now like living in the after, when we've built to where we've built, it's easy to think, oh, we're happy because of this big house or this nice place. Oh, and these things that we own. And that is not true. We are happy. And we have collected some of these things along the way in order to just play in our happiness, but that's not where it came from. So yeah, that's that's really amazing. Okay, so um, what did you see different when you came home? And I will say before you answer this, that I picked her up, or we picked her up as a family, and there was a, like a potluck that we all went to and I felt Really bad you guys because I they had been eating. So Skylar is a vegetarian. I am to four out of the six of us are. And anyway, she had been eating beans and things for two weeks. And what did I bring to the potluck? You guys had brought a bean salad. I didn't even put it together. I was like, Oh, my gosh,

Skyla Harden: 00:15:20

it was really good.

Nellie Harden: 00:15:22

I felt bad. But are there her first thing she said is when I was telling that she said, You know, I've really grown a great appreciation for beans. And I was like, Okay, all right. Yeah. And so. But my point is, I saw a difference, literally, within seconds of seeing her. And the way that she her scope that she saw life through, I saw that she was seeing life differently than when we had dropped her off. And we were having that tug of war over your phone, in order to put it down and we're dropping you often you're like, really, really? I can't take it. I was like, No, like, what good? Is it gonna be you can't use it. And you're like, but it'll just be with me. And I'm like, No, you don't need it. And this girl did not even look at her phone did not even ask for it or anything for hours after you came home several hours. And so it was I think it was that night, and I just we had everything in, in your room so that you could look at things and whatever. So it was just kind of funny. So tell me, what did you see different when you came home than what you saw? When you before you left?

Skyla Harden: 00:16:30

The answer might be a little bit repetitive. Because again, I'm going to say material things. Because you see things in a whole different light. It's not things you need. It's not like, Oh my gosh, my blankets in the washing machine. How am I going to sleep? Like, I don't know. It's just it's not things you need. But they're so convenient. It felt like presence on Christmas, instead of just home. And guys don't take trash cans for granted. It seems like such a basic thing. But we carried our trash with us. So we wouldn't pollute the beaches. And it sounded like it was smelling if there was bags of trash everywhere, like trash cans are amazing. Let's see fridges, a roof, more than one outfit, air conditioning, these were definitely some of the positive things I saw. But also at home, we don't get to see the stars as we fall asleep. We have we don't have schedules that just follow the rising and setting of the sun. We don't have hours every morning that we can just dedicate to God and being alone and appreciating ourselves and him and everything around us. We have distractions and we have some negativity along with some positivity. But we also have worldly things, and they can be so beneficial. But they can also hurt your journey because you don't realize how worldly they are until you have to go without them.

Nellie Harden: 00:17:53

That's so true. That's so true. And yeah, she cracked me up. When we were asking what is the one thing you miss the most? And I don't know what answers I was expecting. But it definitely wasn't trash cans. And I was like, oh, okay, yeah, yeah, I could see that. And so it just kind of cracked me up. Because when realizing then Oh, so you had a carry all of that trash with you. And it's also very eye opening. I mean, considering we as a family, we also own an eco friendly company, the seaglass company, and we speak on pollution and trash a lot. But until you actually have to carry it on your bag, you probably didn't realize you're like, oh, how much of this stuff do we use? Like, yeah, make and create every time so? Yeah, that was that was pretty amazing. So one of the things that I say in our house all the time, is discipline yourself. So no one else has to. And I know after going through this experience that you probably have a before this meant something and after this meant something because before I was probably like Ferris Bueller's like wah wah wah, you know, and now it probably means a little bit more. So discipline yourself. So others don't have to. What does that mean? Now?

Skyla Harden: 00:19:16

before when it was just a repeating saying on our household, I kind of just translate it in my head. I'm like, Oh, I haven't done my chore yet. discipline yourself or, oh, it's time to clean my dishes. That's just what that saying men and men go do your stuff. But I've discovered that this means that you are responsible for yourself because out there we were a team. We could not function without one another and we all needed one another. We went through some tough stuff out there. We had two people that had arm injuries that they did get before the trip. So they needed help growing and so people would tell them you would take shifts with dinner because cooking on a large pot over this tiny tiny little gas stove is not easy and you have to hold the pot and boiling water with spell like, it's not easy. And but we would all take shifts, and we would all go over when it was our shift, no grumbling, because we know somebody else had just done it. So I think and if someone's in the middle of something, just help them. Being responsible is really what that statement boils down to. Like, you're not just being responsible for yourself, but help be responsible for others and help helping them. Because if the world is full of people who are responsible for themselves and others, everyone will be, like, in such a divine paradox, because everyone has two people, at least watching out for them all the time. And I think that that is really what that statement means. It means be responsible.

Nellie Harden: 00:20:43

Yeah, absolutely. And in their just respect, and that's what you're describing right now. Yeah, be responsible, because that is what respect looks like respect for yourself and others. And with the trash, you know, the world around you. And property and things like that. But yeah, absolutely. And discipline yourself, so others don't have to, and I'll say, so, I had to go away on a business trip, literally. So, uh, Skyler came home at like, seven o'clock at night, the night before I had to leave on a business trip at 5am. The next morning, I was so glad that I got to see her after her trip, but then I had to leave. But I was talking to my husband. And he's like, she woke up early and cleaned the house and made breakfast for everybody, you know, and, you know, here, we were, like, Oh, she's gonna sleep till like two o'clock, you know, and know, she got up early, before everyone else cleaned the house and made breakfast for everybody. And we're like, oh, we're dealing with a different Skyla now, and I like it. I like it. So self led discipline, and is this ability to see a problem and make a decision about it, follow through, like, devise and follow through with an action plan and achieve the results, that best meant that best move you forward and your unique sense of success and gifts, and you are helping yourself, others in the world around you in doing that. That is what the heart of self led discipline, discipline is. So is there I know you don't have kids, if you're 16 yourself, but I'm sorry. But I believe that you have so much wisdom that has stemmed through many life experiences. But this one, I feel like opened the door to you being able to see those other experiences as growth experiences that you maybe didn't see before. So is there any advice that you would give our listeners on how to harness follow through with action and achieve the results that best move you forward in your unique success and in their lives, so these kiddos can launch strong into their life?

Skyla Harden: 00:23:01

Well, I know not everyone can just leave for two weeks with no worries to what's going on back at your home base. But take an afternoon, leave your spouse and charge your kid, just leave your phone at home and take a walk and realize what's really going on around you notice it, notice how nature really connects. In fact, when we are out there, we have something called the baseline. Which means if you're out in nature, just sitting there, after 30 minutes, animals will start to come out because they've realized that you aren't in danger, you aren't danger anymore. You weren't one of the scary humans. And it was called the baseline effect. And the base 30 minutes was the base of where they would start coming back. So you really need to be out there for not just 10 minutes, but just a while to really delve into it. If I'm being honest, delving into it, it was something I had to discover in myself, which may not be very helpful to parents out there trying to help their kids. But you can help your kids through experiences that will help them realize this because it's something you have to do on your own. And I opened this whole new person who could do this. And it was now in my arsenal. It's like, if you were ever playing a video game, and there's just that blacked out body and you don't know what skin it is or something, and you just unlock this new character. It was like a whole new character. And now I'm a mix of the girl I was who took everything for granted a mix of the girl I discovered who realized who took nothing for granted. And I tried to make sure that everyone around me is okay. But I'm also taking advantage of my worldly possessions because that's kind of what they're there for. And I think my big lesson here is that you can no matter how daunting it sounds, you can so what's stopping you from realizing you can Oh

Nellie Harden: 00:24:49

yeah, that's so good. And just knowing Yeah, discipline yourself so others don't have to and opening that door and you can absolutely do it. You can rise up You can see the problem, fix the problem, get to an accomplishment. And if you fail along the way, awesome, I bet you guys failed a lot when you were out there and fell flat on your Sandy faces. And but then you didn't have to get back up. Because there was a job to do, there was a place to get to there were things to be packed up, and you had to work as a team. And working as a team out there is, you know, that's what we practice and preach in our family that we are a team, and it is the six of us, and I need you and you need me and we all need to work together. And mom and dad are the ultimate leaders right now. But especially you being the oldest and the twins are 13, youngest is 11, we are passing this rope of leadership on to you like hand over hand. And you are you are collecting it more and more every time. So so you guys, I am so excited that this was her experience. I'm so excited that she could come on here and share about it today. But the whole point is this generational leadership paralysis, your kids aren't bad, your kids aren't lazy. And you know, I've heard all the words and they aren't bad kids, it's just that they don't have the experiences yet to unlock the potential and knowing of what to do. And so you're running all around, help them understand and open their eyes by giving them some of these experiences. And I'm not saying that you can you know, accept laziness until they're 16, send them on a trip. And then everything is you know, magic and fairy dust. That's definitely not the case. I mean, we have chores, we have responsibilities, we have disciplines, we have consequences, and all of these things and we constantly talk in our family. We sometimes probably exhaustively talk and our family and communication is huge, always asking the questions and waiting for the answers and helping dive further into that. But this was an experience that open doors more than anything else that i've i've seen us do. So thank you for being here today. All right, everybody. I hope you have a great day and I look forward to talking to you next time. Happy building. Alright, Bye, guys.

Nellie Harden: 00:27:14

Hi, everyone. Wasn't that amazing? You guys, I tell you the the Mama's heart and the trainer's heart and the leadership, family leadership, coaching heart, all of those exploded when she came back. And it was so amazing to see that it wasn't just a flash in the pan change either. This has been a consistent change that she is applying toward everything in her life. She's a junior in high school. And she had big challenges this fall when school started. She's dual enrollment. So she's doing college, she's doing High School at the same time, a new college and a new high school at that. So everything that she learned over the summer, all of those self led discipline, all of that teamwork, all of that leadership, she is really applying to everything today from from school to work to her faith to her servitude out in the community, to what she's doing here at home with her sisters and with her family and with her friends. And so it really has been amazing to see. And if this is something that really piqued your curiosity, I would really love to invite you to a boot camp that is happening a family boot camp that is happening, you can get to this through just going into the vault, the Nelly Horton comm slash vault you will find the opt in right there at the top of the page. And in this Bootcamp, we are going to be going through my learning based communication methods so you can rewire your child for leadership so amazing how to bulletproof your child's future even if they're not doing so well in school. So we're going to tie in education in here and what that looks like the three biggest mistakes parents are making when it comes to building in work ethic today. And the top secret formula for building respect and leadership no matter how old your child is. We are going to go through all of that in here. And it was truly amazing to see all of this that I'm going to be talking about in this family boot camp, go into practice and then be amplified by her leaving out we had no contact for all of those two weeks no contact whatsoever and everything that we were had built into her was amplified during this experience and has only shown that much brighter than she's gotten back. So I can't wait to share all of these with you. Again that you can find it in two places. It is right in the vault for our family success vault members. And you can go and it is at Nelly harden.com slash boot camp. You can find the the form in there so you can get your name on the list and be sure to join us for that. Which is going to be October 4 through the eighth and it is online you don't have to go anywhere you can even wear your slippers and comfy pants. That's the way I like it right? Okay so I hope you all have a wonderful day and happy building.