Ep 119: How to strive for greatness in parenting! with Saul Blinkoff, "Life of Awesome" podcast host

Ask Dr Jessica epiosde 119. In this conversation, Disney animator, motivational speaker and "Life of Awesome" podcast host, Saul Blinkoff shares his insights on raising children and helping them pursue their dreams. He emphasizes the importance of discovering one's unique purpose and stepping out of the comfort zone to achieve personal growth. Saul also highlights the significance of supporting children's dreams and providing them with the belief and encouragement they need. He discusses the difference between happiness and a meaningful life, and how parents can nurture their children's gifts and passions.  In this conversation, Saul Blinkoff shares his insights and experiences on being a devoted parent and emphasizes the value of investing time and effort in parenting. He encourages parents to strive for greatness and to continuously grow as human beings through the act of being a parent.

Takeaways

• Create memorable experiences with your children by engaging in imaginative play and taking them to different places.
• Invest quality time in your children and prioritize open communication to build trust and connection.
• Motivate yourself to be a devoted parent by reflecting on your own experiences and the impact it has on your children.
• Love is about giving and being present for your children. Focus on giving your time and attention.
• Strive for greatness in parenting by continuously growing as a human being and putting in the effort to be the best parent you can be.

Your Child is Normal is the trusted podcast for parents, pediatricians, and child health experts who want smart, nuanced conversations about raising healthy, resilient kids. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Hochman — a board-certified practicing pediatrician — the show combines evidence-based medicine, expert interviews, and real-world parenting advice to help listeners navigate everything from sleep struggles to mental health, nutrition, screen time, and more.

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The information presented in Ask Dr Jessica is for general educational purposes only.  She does not diagnose medical conditions or formulate treatment plans for specific individuals.  If you have a concern about your child's health, be sure to call your child's health care provider.

Transcript

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Hi everybody, I'm Dr. Jessica Hochman, paediatrician, and mom of three. On this podcast I like to talk about various paediatric health topics, sharing my knowledge not only as a doctor, but also as a parent. Ultimately, my hope is that when it comes to your children's health, you feel more confident, worry less, and enjoy your parenting experience as much as possible. Hi, everybody. Thank you so much for being here and taking the time to listen to ask Dr. Jessica. This week, I have a very special guest, his name is Saul blink off. And he's the podcast host of life of awesome. He's also a speaker, a film director and animator, a life coach, a devoted husband and a proud father of four. If you're looking for some inspiration, inspiration to be the best parent you can be, or really the best human you can be. You're going to love this episode. And before we get started, please take a moment to subscribe to this podcast and leave a five star review. All of this really helps the podcast grow. And I thank you. Alright, so Sal blink off, I am so excited to have you on I just love you as a person. I love your energy, you have a podcast, you're a speaker, you're a father, there's so much that I want to learn from you. And I'm so excited to share your voice with my audience. So thank you for being here. Thank you, Jessica, and right back at you so excited. Every time we get to see each other, just your energy, your positivity inspires me. And I'm also really excited to be introduced to your audience. So everyone who's tuned in, it's a pleasure to virtually meet each and every one of you. So tell everybody what you do for work what you do for a living. It's funny because sometimes my kids come home from school and like Dad, I'm trying to explain to one of my friends what do you do? My own kids like that. What do you do? So I do four things, but they're really all under the umbrella of the same thing. So one of the things I do is I'm a Hollywood producer, I've spent my career as an animator director for the Walt Disney Studios. Animated on films like Pocahontas hunchback Mulan, Tarzan became a director at Disney directed Winnie the Pooh movies, Doc McStuffins. There you go. For any doctors in the audience, and did llama llama for Netflix Barbie Dreamhouse adventures recently produced the Madagascar a little wild preschool show for DreamWorks. So part of my life in one in one. Capacity is animation producer. Another is I'm a podcast host like you mentioned, I host a podcast called Life of awesome. Because as I always say, Don't just settle for life when it could be so amazing. Don't Don't settle for good when it could be great and don't settle for great when it could be awesome. Well, that's part two. Part Three. I travel the world as a motivational, inspirational speaker sharing messages, messages about how do we grow? How do we become our limitless potential in every aspect of life, not just career. But you know, in fatherhood, motherhood, being a parent, being a spouse, just growing as a human being. And I share those messages of corporate keynotes and communities. And then the fourth is I'm a life coach, personally helping people one on one, develop those skills, those tools to reach that limitless potential and wake up every day with that wonder that we had when we were children, but as adults to really live life, awesome. So all four of those things really fall into the same thing. That is what do I do for a living? I try to grow myself personally, through the act of helping others through the act of impacting humanity. That's what I do for a living. And people can't see me because they're listening on audio, but the whole time you're talking, I have this big smile on my face. Because do everything that you're saying I find so positive, so inspirational. And we need more people like you giving this message giving this energy out there in the world. And I'm so grateful to know you. Well, actually, I thank you so much. But I would I would change that a little. We don't need more people like me, we need more people like them. You see, because at the end of the day, every single one of us is created unique and special. And our job in life is to figure out what is my unique purpose. And the truth is because each one of us is created unique. It means not only do we have a unique purpose, but we are not in competition with anyone else because no two people have the same goal. So our job is to figure out every day how can I tap into what makes me unique and share it with the world through doing that. That's how I get that ultimate taste of awesome that's such a beautiful message because I do feel like often people tend to be competitive. There's a competitive spirit which maybe there's not it's not all bad, it maybe it makes you motivated to be a little bit better. But I agree with you. I like the motto that a rising tide raises all ships because I agree with you. I think the more we all tap into our unique beautiful qualities, the better it is for the world. That's right and you know also Oh, you know, being a parent, it's such a reminder along the way that we can grow ourselves. You know, I have four kids, my oldest is 19. And those of you that are parents, remember when you're your first kid, or any of your kids for that matter took their first step. Usually it happens at about a year old, right. And it's an amazing moment. And we freak out as parents. I mean, for us, we were actually at the Apple Store, here in LA. And our daughter took her first step, and we went crazy. We were videoing it, the entire store actually went crazy. The videos online, it went viral, of a girl taking her first step at the at the Apple Store. And if you stop, it's a little strange, because all of us, for the most part are walking. And we're not freaking out all day, when we take our steps every day. Why is it such a big deal? Because the difference between a child who can't walk and who can take those first steps is amazing, because they get to experience the ICANN mentality. Because a day earlier, they couldn't walk, they couldn't take those steps. And now they can. And they take those first steps. It's not about what they're doing. It's about their mindset of going from something I couldn't do, too, I can do, by the way, look at a vocabulary for a child from six months to eight months, eight months to a year, a year to two years. It's incredible the growth. But here's the truth. Every single time, we observe anyone around us accomplishing anything, whether it's a child taking their first steps, Michael Jordan, winning six championships, anyone doing anything great that inspires us. All that is, is a reminder to us that we can grow ourselves. Think about it for a minute, those of you that are listening right now, let's say you're 40 years old. Are you the same now from when you were 35? Okay, maybe your body changed a little bit, maybe your hair turned a little grey? Other than that you're basically the same if we're the same every year, then what are we living for? Because the truth is, if a child could grow so much, and do so many things from six months to a year, what's stopping us from growing from 40? To 41? From 45, to 50, the goal of life has to be how do I get out of my comfort zone and turn each moment into an opportunity to grow? That's got to be the goal. And that's a constant reminder for us, you know, no, I agree with you. And I think that's why one of the reasons why I love working with children and being around children being in their presence is they are so inspiring, because they have those dreams, where they feel like all too often adults lose that lustre. And kids remind you to keep that spark going. Right? We have to do that as parents, because the problem for us is, the older we get, the more cynical we get. Why do we become cynical because we have more experience of failure. So we start to wake up with that attitude of, you know what, this probably isn't going to work, my marriage is probably going to remain mediocre. You know, I will not be able to control my anger as a parent, when it comes to my kids. It's just not going to be me. There's other parents out there, they're going to be able to do it, but it's not going to be me. But the truth is we do have the potential. The problem is, we give in, we end up giving up. You know, we have a tool my wife and I talk about all the time. And it's like, you know, you set a goal. Where do you want to go in life, who you want to be who you want to become? You know, imagine getting in your car, and you set and you're like we live in LA? Now let's say we decide with our family. We're going to the Grand Canyon, we pack up the entire car. It's going to take us I don't know four or five days to drive there. Whatever it is. Imagine you sit that navigators get it says five hours on there, and you make a wrong turn. Like five minutes out of the gate. You make a wrong turn, you were distracted, whatever. What are you going to do? You're not going to go to the Grand Canyon. Now. Of course, you'll go to the Grand Canyon. What's your navigator gonna do? Redirects, you redirect you reroute? That's what we need to do in life. Maybe getting off course a little bit. You saw some flowers? Yeah, new. You've write a new coffee shop. Beautiful is bad. It's not always bad. Right? Right. Exactly. I love that you said that. There's a new adventure, a new opportunity to grow. But at the end of the day, once we have that goal of the life that we want to live in the person we want to become as we make wrong choices and wrong turns. We just have to reroute. And a lot of times I find that parents give their kids all this advice. Well, I'll tell you what they'll say to their kids and I want you hanging out with the right kids when you're teenagers because I want them to influence you, you know the proper way. I want you to have their values. Okay. What about for us? Who are we hanging out with? The same advice we give our kids is we need to live, we need to live those devices are the values of the people that I hang out with. And by the way, how do you know the values of the people that you spend your time with? Just ask them? What is it that you value? What do you value in life? And by the way, how do you know what someone values in life two ways? First, what do they do with their money? Because money is seemingly the most valuable thing we have. What do we do with that money? How do we invest it? How do we give it? What do we do with it? That's the first but the truth is, money is not the most valuable thing we have. Because you know what we can all every single person listening right now, you can easily open up your phone and see to the penny, exactly how much money you have. You know exactly how much you have. And also, you can all make more. Every single one of us if we wanted to, could actually make more money. Some of you are listening right now you're like, Well, no, that's not true. Because I'm waiting to get promoted. And I haven't got that. But hold on. You can't go to Starbucks on Sunday morning, beg them for a job, sweep their floors, be a barista learn something to make a couple 100 extra bucks. If you wanted to. You could we all know how much money we have. And we can all make more. But money is not the most valuable thing we have. You see the most valuable thing that each one of us has is our time. And at the end of the day, not only can none of us ever get more time, not even Jeff Bezos, not even Elon Musk can get any more time. Not only can we not get more time, the truth is, none of us has any clue how much we have left. We don't know. If you're listening right now. And you're like, Yeah, I got another 30 years you don't know. Every day we look in the news, something happens, things happen. Does that mean you should live in fear? With this pessimistic attitude? No, it's reality. And that means the most valuable thing we have is our time you want to understand the values of a person. How do they spend their time? How do we spend our time? What do you do on a Sunday? You know, as a parent, like we have I said four kids, our oldest is 19. My wife and I, our favourite thing is Sunday, Sunday is like free day to be with your kids. It's your day to go to the zoo, take a hike, go to the ocean, go to a museum, go to a place that will inspire them that you don't even like yourself. But you're doing it for your kids. Because someday you wake up and they want to be with their friends on Sunday. They're gonna leave the house and you will wish to God you had one more Sunday. I agree with your message wholeheartedly. I believe it's so much I think about it all the time. I just finished reading this book actually called die with zero. It talks all about this this relationship between money and time. And at the end of the day, if you die with too much money, was that how you wanted to spend your time? So for example, he gives the example would you rather be a broke teenager or Warren Buffett right now? So Warren Buffett, I don't know how old is he is he's in his 90s Yeah, you know, things are harder for you, the older you get. And so that money becomes less valuable. The older you get. That's where you want to make sure you are really thinking about maximising your time and spending it doing with what you want to do what your dreams are really think about your dreams. Because it's it's fleeting. It's not forever, as you pointed out. That's right. And we we often give up on our dreams and like for me, you know, my dreams started when I was a kid. I was 11 years old, I saw the movie ET and that made me go, I want to be a filmmaker. You know, I grew up in New York. And I didn't know any filmmakers. I didn't know any Hollywood people. I didn't even know that was a job you could do. All I knew was people who were doctors and lawyers and had businesses and teachers. I didn't know that you could have a job in a creative place. All I knew was when I looked up to that screen it called to me so I went to the library and I got books on cameras lenses storyboarding. I found out that Steven Spielberg who directed et made movies every weekend with kids in the neighbourhood. So I got a film camera and got my twin sister, my older brother, kids in the neighbourhood. I started making movies, murder movies, monster movies, I made a kidnap movie a time my sister up to a tree really tight. I remember we go to the house after and show my parents the movie. My mom was like, I liked the movie. But where's your sister? I'm like, well, she's still tied to the tree. What's wrong? You know? So I knew I was going to be a filmmaker. And then I got to high school. So when he came up to me in high school and being like, what are you going to do when you get out of high school? And I said, Well, I'm gonna go be a filmmaker, that like, you don't want to do that. I said, yeah, do they go? No, you don't. Because if you want to do that, you're gonna have to move out to Hollywood. And Hollywood is filled with strange weirdos. They looked at me and said, you don't want to end up a weirdo, do you? And I said, No, I don't And right then in there, I gave up on my dream. Because one person told me I would end up a weirdo. And of course today I do live in Hollywood. And my four kids would tell you daddy is a weirdo. So some hunch for that. But at that point in my In life, I give up on that dream. And it's amazing to me how many times in our lives, we allow other people to define how we feel about ourselves. To define if we actually believe that we can accomplish I gave up on that. My parents like, well, what are you going to do? Like? Well, I'll go back to drawing that was the thing I love to do since I was six years old. And I'm very, very lucky because I have very supportive parents. They hired an art teacher to come to my house, private, and teach me to draw from life. You know, which set up a bowl of fruit she teach me pencil pastel oil, painting acrylic. I remember the first day she said to me, she just saw drawing. It's not about copying something to look real. It's about seeing. Drawing is about seeing developing your eye to look at the world a certain way. And it's actually a good message for all of us. Like, what lens do we choose? To see the world in? You know what if you're driving your car, somebody cuts you off. And you freak out. You're angry. I can't believe this person cut me off. You get on the phone with your spouse, I can't believe this person cut me off. They almost crashed my car with and you're all angry. Yeah, you could choose that lens, or there's another lens, the lens of honey, you're not going to believe this. I came this close to being in a car accident. And I'm totally fine. The pleasure of of embracing life that could choose that big deal. You got cut off, you didn't get into an accident. Absolutely. what lens do we choose to see the world and this was an incredible art teacher. I loved her. She taught me a great perspective. As a matter of fact, she told me to to go to cafes drop people, like from life. So I bring my sketchbook and they go to restaurants. And I did pages and pages of drawings. And I showed her the pages and she looked at it one day, I'll never forget. She's like, I see you're drawing all these people. But I noticed that all of your drawings, none of the people have hands. Did they not have hands at the restaurant? And I said no, that then hands the restaurant. She goes, Why didn't you draw the hands? I said, well, because drawing hands is difficult. She said, Great. Here's your homework. Every night before you go to bed, you're going to draw your own hand from a different position. And six months later, I got really good at drawing hands. And she taught me one of the most valuable lessons in life. We got to get out of our comfort zone with the singular mindset to turn our weakness into our strength. It's empowering. amazing teachers. I was going to be an artist. And then then I went to the movies and I saw another movie that changed my life. I saw the movie The Little Mermaid. Yeah, we're talking late 80s. I'm watching the screen. I remember I tapped my mom at the end of the movie. I'm like, Mom, that's what I want to do someday. She's like, you want to fall in love with a fish? I'm like, No, No, Mom. I want to work in animation. Because animation combined my two passions, my love of drawing my love of animation, and film put it together. Disney animation. So I had a dream. I was a junior in high school. And I knew exactly what my dream was. My dream was to become a Disney animator. I just had one problem. I had no idea how to do it. Today, you want to be a Disney animator, you go to a little thing called Google. You type in how do you become and you'll find out in about a second. Back then. In the olden days, as my kids call it, right, there was no internet. So what did I have? Well, I had the most supportive mom in history. My mom took me not my older brother, not my twin sister took me on a trip to Disney World to walk me around Disney World to ask all the Disney cast members how her son could become a Disney animator, and restorative. What I love about this story is that your parents are really supportive of your dreams. Oh, it was amazing. We finally the lady at small world says look, take your son to the Disney casting building was four minutes away from where we were in Disney World. Can you imagine how beautiful a Disney office building was look like? It was incredible. I finally get there for the interview. And the woman at Disney says can I help him? Uh, yeah, my name is Sol and I want to be a Disney animator. She says, Well, we don't hire those here. I'm like, Well, who do you hire? She does. We hire people that work the rides. People that make the tea cups spin around people that make the Dumbo ride go up and down. Like that's not really my dream. She goes, Well hold on a second. She walks out of the room comes back in two minutes later, and hands me a piece of paper. That piece of paper became the most valuable piece of paper I have ever held in my hands. Other than my wedding contract, of course, he told my wife I said that. It was a piece of paper that was a list of eight schools, eight art schools that Disney recruits they're artists from and she said to me, if you want to be a Disney animator, you need to go to one of these schools. Boom. That was it. That was the equation I was looking for us. All plus, go to one of these schools will equal dream. And I ended up going to one of these schools and I will tell you, in reflecting on this moment, if it wasn't for my mom, supporting me, encouraging me and taking me to Disney World to find out how many times I have students come up to me all the time, Jessica, I have a student come up to me. They're an artist. Their dream is to be a Disney animator work at Pixar, something in Hollywood. And I'm looking at their portfolio. And it's okay. And I say to them, where do you go to school? They'll be like, well, I go to University of Michigan. I go to Boston University, I go to Tufts University, and those are good schools, but not for art. Why didn't you go to a school that specialises in that? And the answer I always get is, because my parents wanted me to have something to fall back on. Because it's difficult to have a career in art. And I turned to the girl's parents, and I say, You know what you told your daughter? I don't believe in you. I don't believe in you. Is it competitive to make it as a musician? Sure. Is it competitive to make it as a filmmaker and artist and he created, of course. So you just work harder? Yeah, it's competitive, I believe in you, we're gonna send you to the Top Gun of music schools, the best of the best, because I believe in you. That's what we have to do. As parents, our job is to nurture the soil that these seedlings are growing in. That's our job. Not to say, You know what, it's not gonna work. Let me put you at another school. I'm so happy to hear you say this, because I'm using this as such inspiration for myself as a parent, because I'll tell you, you know, myself and my husband, we're both doctors. And while it's a difficult path, with school and exams and whatnot in the in the time it takes to get there. It's a pretty well demarcated path. We know what's coming next. And we're pretty, we're pretty sure all along that we would have a job. It's a very employable profession. But now we have kids that are different from us. And my youngest daughter in particular, while she's eight years old, she's vocalised pretty clearly that she wants to be a pop star. She wants to be a dancer, she wants to be in theatre, and I don't want her to smell my fear that this is not a career that is likely to come to fruition. If that makes sense. I want her to know that I believe in her. So what I'm hearing from you, I'm gleaning some good advice that I should just let her know that I'm backing up this dream of being a pop star. It kind of pains me I have to be honest. Okay, here's my thing. First of all, she's eight years old, right? She's eight years old. So now I do I do ignore her a little bit. I have to be honest, which is the best tactic. Not everybody is going to be Taylor Swift. But you look at Taylor Swift at eight years old and 10 years old and 12 years old. All she did was one thing. Write music. Yeah. And perform music. Here's the thing. I think it's yes, you want to encourage your kids to go for their dreams. But just because and listen carefully, just because someone achieves their dream of becoming a filmmaker or a doctor, whatever their dream is. It doesn't mean it's gonna give them a life that's meaningful. Let me tell you what I mean. If you ask 99% on the world, what do you want? Everybody's gonna tell you the same thing. I want to be happy. Everyone listening right now we all want to be happy. What do we think is going to make us happy? Well, money. Getting extra zeros in your bank account wouldn't make you happy. You wouldn't have the financial pressure. How am I going to pay my mortgage? My rent I want to take a vacation with my kids. It's fun that money. You do things I have a friend he's a very wealthy guy. He's a songwriter, Desmond Child. He wrote the song livin la vida loca. He wrote dude look like a lady. He wrote living on a prayer Bon Jovi actually had him on my podcast. He's amazing. And he was saying that he grew up in poverty streets in Miami. And it wasn't fun. He says things would break down he goes, it was boring. I've never heard anyone describe poverty that way. But he's right. Like you can't do things. It's fun to have money. But at the end of the day, money doesn't necessarily bring meaning. If you asked me when I was trying to get into Disney, why do you want to get into Disney? I would have told you because I just want to be happy. I want to sit at a desk, drawing Mickey Mouse all day because that's my dream. That's what I love to do. The problem with that is it starts with the word I I love to do it. Once we grow up we have to realise it's not happiness we're going for what we really want is a life that's meaningful. How do you have a life of meaning? You know, you see it beautifully in the movie The Lion King. You can learn life wisdom from films, Simba things in the beginning. He wants to be king he sings a song I just can't wait to be king. And he thinks being a king. He can do whatever he wants. Mufasa his father actually tells him at the beginning of the move us in the movies Simba. There's more to being a king than getting your way all the time. Simba There's more. Wow What could be better? Finally, spoiler alert dad dies right? It is a Disney movie they always kill off a parent right? But anyway, after dad dies similar things is his fault and he goes and lives in. Hakuna Matata world number Hakuna Matata. Well I don't want right he goes off there What does Hakuna Matata mean? You remember just right? It means no worries means no worries. Everybody wants a life of no worries. That's why I want to go to Hawaii because if I can get myself and my family to Hawaii, I will sit on the beach. And I will have two words. Hakuna Matata. That's what we want. If you want a life of no worries, by the way, don't get married. Don't have children. Because life is there's worries. And after he's there who shows up at the end of the movie? Who shows up to see him you remember who finds them there it's the little lioness Nala Yeah, you know your Disney. So now this shows up and she's like symbol. It's so good to see you. They sing their song, right? Can you feel the love tonight? Right? They're rolling around the sun is setting there's a scene where they're about to make out. Remember that scene? We always cover our kids eyes, the like, Dad, it's just lions and like, still inappropriate. Do you not watch that? And after they kiss and do whatever they do, they decide to speak. They talk about stuff and she's like Simba. Good to see you. But you got to come back with me. He's like, What do you mean? Look where I live. I live here. Hakuna Matata. It's beautiful to lush waterfalls. He sleeps in a hammock hangs out in a Jacuzzi. It's colourful, why would anyone ever ease in the Garden of Eden basically, why would anyone leave? And then she says to him Simba. Maybe I didn't make myself clear. Scar has taken over everything. And if you don't come back with me, everyone's gonna die. And you You are responsible for for making everyone okay, you're responsible. Then you know what he says? Hakuna Matata? I'm staying right here. She's like, when are you going to grow up? And you know what she does? She leaves him when I thought you loved him. She loves him because of his potential for greatness. She actually sings it. She sings Why won't he be the king? I know he is the king. I see inside. That's she's really singing to all of us. When are we going to be the king and the queen? When are we going to be the greatness that we're destined to be? There's one way she leaves him alone. Refugee comes over hits him on the head, you remember, he sees his reflection in the water looks up to the sky, sees his father in the clouds and hears his father say the words. Remember who you are. Simba goes back defeat scar. And lion king becomes the biggest animated movie of all time. B F before frozen. Do you know why it's the biggest animated movie of all time? Not because we love movies about lions? No. Because that mu, that movie gave us a taste of what true greatness is, you know what it is waking up with the mindset to take responsibility for the world. The goal is parents the goal for us individually has to be how do I take my goals? How do I take my passions, my abilities? How do I take those abilities and turn them into response ability? Because responsibility really is wherever in life I have the ability to respond. response ability is the ability to respond. That's what we need to teach our kids. What does that mean? It means Hey, you like art, you like drawing, maybe we can figure out a way to take some of your art and show it to other people. Maybe there's an old age home, where you can take some of your art and bring it there and give it to some elderly person who's sitting isolated and alone. And watch how your art can impact their day. That's what we need to do for ourselves. And ultimately, that's the nurturing and encouragement we need to give our children when you were talking about the beginning how each one of us has our own unique gifts. Yeah, it sounds like the key here is to find each one of our unique gifts and figure out how we can share it with the world. That's right. And the gifts are not what we do well. Listen carefully. Everyone always says, Oh, the gifts are oh, he was born talented. She was born talented. She was born with a gift. She could sing beautifully. The gift is not what you do. Well, the gift is what are you interested in? What are you interested in? That's the gift, then what are you going to do about it? No, it's true because you might have a child that's really gifted at playing the piano. But that may not be what their passion is. That may not be what drives them to continue and to stay motivated about writing or maybe they aren't musical musical but they don't do anything about it. It's our job from my wife and I we we would take our kids to the guitar Centre at almost every age and just let Been roam free and see what instruments gravitated for them. Because we could have been like, Okay, this kid's gonna play piano and this was gonna play guitar. And while we expose them to all these instruments at the end of the day, it's what calls to them. Then it's our job as parents to get them a teacher and encourage them. So wait, tell me the age of your kids. You have a 19 year old, we got a 90 year old daughter, a 17 year old daughter, a 15 year old son just turned 15 And then a 10 year old daughter, have you found what each of their gifts are? And do you support them along the way? Oh, yeah, but it's changes every day. It does change, right, it changes because they're growing so much. And you know, we we just tried to expose them to a lot. A lot of different things, you know, music from kids and even food. I'm gonna go out to eat with our kids when they were like five, six years old, and they're just ordering sushi and they're getting seared yellowtail or spicy tuna and other parents are looking at this, like, what the hell? Right? Give me your your kid eats yellowtail raw fish. We have the same problem with our kids. They love sushi. And it's become an expensive habit. So I'm a little bit regretting it. But it is amazing to see that what you expose them to, can later become a young age. Yeah. And they and then they're totally into it, and you've influenced them. It's a lot of fun, right? But it's it's very important with nutrition. Like how do you get your kids to eat their vegetables, here's what we would do when they would come home from school, like pre K, kindergarten, whatever, whatever the vegetable was, that's gonna be placed on the plate at dinnertime, my wife would make that a little earlier. So while they were colouring or doing homework or playing, she would put that vegetable in a bowl next to them 20 minutes before dinner, and they would devour those vegetables. Why? Because there's nothing else on the plate. Right? Right. I mean, I call it I call it lazy parenting. Okay, maybe this might seem extreme. I hope this doesn't offend anyone. But if you think about it a lot. We're so busy as parents. So sometimes it's easier to put your kid in front of an iPad easier to give them a device easier to just not fight with them about vegetables and salad and give them their fries and corn dogs or whatever the heck, you're gonna feed your kid. It's not good. It takes a little more effort and more time. But you know, here's the thing. It's just an a metaphor for what are we willing to put in with our kids? You know, when you go to Ikea with your kids, most parents dread it. I don't want to do that again. I gotta walk with them. I gotta it's do you understand what IKEA is? IKEA is a life size dollhouse. That's what it is. So if you have to only go to Ikea for 30 minutes at an hour and bring your kids and walk around room to room and play with them in IKEA. Let them pretend that the kitchen there is their kitchen. That this is your bedroom. This is your house. It's so much fun. How about this Home Depot? What parent wants to go to Home Depot, none of us. I had my six year old son on the car one day. And I said to him on the way to Home Depot son, you don't have like wood has different looks. There's like there's different kinds of wood, there's oak and there cedar and there's maple. He's like, I never noticed that. I'm like, You know what, not only do they look different, but they smell different to we're going to a store that sells all these different kinds of wood. We're going to go see them. And we get to IKEA to a Home Depot. What did I need to get in Home Depot, I needed to get one little knob or something. I don't go there. First, I go to the woods section, the lumber section, I think my son around I show him. Then we go outside. You can smell rosemary, thyme, fresh basil, all these herbs. Go with them. It's Disneyland. I thought you said it's Home Depot. It is. It's like Disneyland. It's exposing them to life and investing the time with them to nurture them. Because the end of the day. We all have these windows of time with our kids. You think when your kids 16 They're gonna come with you to Home Depot, go smell wood, they're gonna laugh in your face. But if you want to have that relationship with your kid where they know that I trust my parent, my parent nurtures me to see how beautiful it is to be alive. You got to start right away. What I'm hearing from you is you're taking what could be mundane, life day to day experiences and you're making beautiful memories with your children. That's what we got to try to do. My wife we call it windows of time carpool. You pick up your kid at carpool. We have a rule. When our kid gets in the car. When we pick them up from school our rule is we will never be on a phone. The last thing your kid deserves is to get in the car at the end of the day and have their mom and dad go on a work call. The first thing that kids should feel at the end of the day for what age every age is I love you How was your day? And what is the window of time of carpool from the time you pick them up from school till you get home. That's your time to talk to your kids. And if you talk to them, you listen you're going to find out what they did that day. What is a two year old going to tell you about or three or four year old going to tell you about what they did? Every single thing I use the red crayon I used a blue crayon All right, I went to the bathroom. I flushed the toilet, I washed my hands, it's probably too much. You pick up a 16 year old? Ask them about their day? How was your day? Fine? Would you do nothing, somewhere between four year old and 16 year old, like everything you did, and nothing is where we really want to be. But the real magic, my wife and I noticed is it tuck in time, for every age. Don't just run, don't just read your book, kiss your kid and go out to binge watch your Netflix show. No, don't do that. Sit with them for five minutes. And just listen. Because you know, they're going to tell you, then I can tell you what they did during the day. They're going to tell you what they felt about what they did during the day. That's when all the emotions come out. You really want to understand what's going on in your child's life, no matter what how old they are, sit on the edge of their bed, we still do with our high school kids. Tell us about your day. How did it feel, they just open up all the emotions come out. And then they know my parent listens. And if you want to have a relationship with your kid, when they're a teenager, where they trust you enough to tell you what they're really going through in life, they need to know that my parent listens without judgement, by the way, without judgement, just listen, be there for them. It's such beautiful advice. And I completely agree with you. There's something really magical about the end of the day, the kids are so much more willing to open up and talk to me. We can snuggle I can hear about their day I can hear about their hopes, their fears, what went wrong at school, what their thoughts are about their friends, their teachers. And it really feels good. I feel like we definitely have a connection. If we can talk at the end of the day, myself. You know, my job. Sometimes I get home late like last night, I had to round at the hospital and I got home. And bedtime was happening. And I didn't get it as long as I wanted to. And I told my sister that my day didn't feel right, because I was complaining to her about how I love my job, but I hate when it gets in the way of bedtime, because I miss that connection with my children. So I agree with you. It's such a priority. And I think, you know, I've recognised that as parents, we can't get it perfect all the time. But that is what you did. What you just said is perfect for two reasons. Number one is you're teaching your child even though I feel like being with you more than anything in the world, I still have a responsibility. One of the things we have to teach our children is you have to do things, even if you don't feel like doing them. Because if we coddle them so much, and only have them do things that make them feel good, or that they want to do how's that setting them up for life? Right, that's number one. Number two, the more time you go without your kids, the more you have a hunger to be with them. That's a gift. I wouldn't get a job in South Korea for three months, I was away from my kids for two of those months that came from you were one month. And I can tell you for that one month afterwards after they left Korea because they came to visit me to put them on that plane and say goodbye to them. And all I wanted to do is get on that plane with them. It was the most difficult day being a dad. But I knew deep down that someday they would know that this is what it means to be a parent. Get to do whatever it takes to provide for your family sometimes even being away from them. Thank you for saying that. You know, you've kind of you tried to make up for it in ways that you can like this morning, I got the kids up 15 minutes extra early. We stopped and got chocolate milk. We had more of a connected morning. So even if you can't get it perfect all the time that kids can feel that. Yeah, I'm there for them. And that is the quality not the quantity. Right. Absolutely beautiful. Thanks for saying that. You're relieving my guilt, which I always Oh yeah. You're doing, you're doing the real work. How do you want that to be? How did you know to be such a devoted dad? Is it something that you've really worked at? Has it come naturally to you? My parents were divorced when I was like, I don't know, a year and a half old. And then I saw my dad my biological father every day, or not every day every weekend till I was about 13 And then he was totally estranged from us. We just stopped speaking my mom remarried. Incredible guy. And my biological dad just didn't make the time to see his kids and we just never heard from him. And it brought me so much pain. I didn't I didn't end up speaking to him for 18 years. So much pain. I remember watching the Lion King in the theatre when his dad dies. And I was in I was like, where's my dad? I remember watching Mrs. Doubtfire. And there's a scene where Robin Williams character. He's telling the courts my kids are my oxygen. I can't breathe without them. And I remember watching that movie in tears going, how can my dad breathe without his three kids have a twin sister an older brother? Are we not his oxygen? So what motivated me to want to be a great dad, a present dad a nurturing loving father? Because I didn't have one for my biological father. Whatever pain we go through in life or trauma we experience we can't blame. We have to turn that into motivation to write those pains by becoming the best of our potential. That's what we need to do. And Look, there's no such thing as a great the greatest dad or a perfect parent. We're all flawed. But the goal has to be check this out. How do I grow as a human being through the act of being a parent? You see, when you're single you stand on stage. It's just you. When you get married, you share the stage with your spouse. It's a 5050 thing. Should your spouse show love to you? Sure. Should your spouse say I love you too. Sometimes. Absolutely. Do your kids Oh, you love now? Do your kids have to say I love you too. You know, you know what your job is? You stand behind the curtain. You see, when you're in a marriage, you're giving 5050 When you're a parent, you're giving 100% Anything you get back that's just icing on the cake. Your job as a parent is one thing. How do I give to this human being? Because that's the essence of what love really is. Love is not how I feel as a result of someone else. Love is one thing, giving it's a verb. It's choosing to give to another human being. And what are you going to give a child? Everything? What's the most valuable thing your time? So beautiful. I'm so I'm so sorry for this little saw that had heard from his father. But it's so incredible that you've channelled that into being who you are. Because when I talk to you, and I'm sure everybody listening can sense this wholeheartedly. But you're such a devoted father. You're all about being a dad, a husband, you love what you do. You're such an inspiring, positive human being. And I'm sorry that it took you going through something difficult for you to be who you are today. But what an inspiration you are. Thank you. So I'm really lucky because I married my best friend. And we have the shared values. And she was an incredible mother way before she even had kids. Because I just noticed her when we were dating, she would always reach out to kids around us at a restaurant and we both worked at Disney. She was an associate producer at Disney World. And we both have kids. Yeah, we met that's another podcast episode. Okay. We went to high school together. My question was it was it the F or a F? Oh, before frozen or after for us. So we went to high school together. We never spoke in high school. We ended up meeting in a mall in South Florida. When I was promoting the film Pocahontas. I was dating a different girl. I met her backstage at Disney years later. And through one insane story after another finally I woke up and realised Oh, I should be dating this girl. She's amazing. And I proposed to her at Disney World actually. And we have we have a magical marriage, you know, you know that means here's your workout. It means we work at it. That's what it means. If you look around the world, you see anybody that seems to have anything that seems perfect. If it's really great. If it's really awesome. It means it takes work. That's it. My son asked me what the day is like that I want to do I want to do track in high school, you think it'd be easy? I said, Well, depends how good you want to be. If you want to be good at it, it'd be easy. If you want to be great at it, it's going to be difficult. If you want to be awesome. The best in the world. You're gonna have to bleed, you're gonna have to sweat, you're gonna have to wake up or how bad do you want it? And that's the question. Each of us has to ask ourselves, wherever my life is right now. Most of you listening are like, Yeah, my life is pretty good. Why settle for good when it could be great? Why settle for great when it could be awesome. And with that being said, Tell everybody your podcasting. Remind them again, your podcast where they can call life. Thank you. Yeah, it's called Life of awesome. Some episodes are me interviewing people that have inspired me like Alan Menken or George Foreman, or Rudy ruettiger. From the movie Rudy, his true life story inspired me. Some of them are me sharing ideas on raising kids on marriage on just appreciating every day of life. And yeah, so I have the podcast life of awesome. I'm also on Instagram, Saul sau, l dot blink golf. And if you want to see everything that I do, just go to my website, Saul, blink golf.com. It's all there. Thank you all for being you. I so appreciate your words of wisdom. I'm so happy to have you. As a as a friend of my life, you and your wife. I'm so happy to know you guys. And I appreciate you coming on today. Thank you so much. And I just want all your listeners to know that I most of you probably have not gotten to meet Jessica in person. I've gotten the honour my wife and I to meet Jessica maybe three or four times now. And whenever we meet, it's always in a room with like 50 people. And there's all these people and they're all nice, sweet people. But whenever we get to Jessica, there's something always so real. When we're with you and so sincere, and it's an honour to know you I wish you continued success with your podcast with your parenting In everything you're doing in the medical field, and it's just, it's a really wonderful, awesome addition to our lives to have you in it. So thank you. Thank you, Sal from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much. Thank you for coming on. And your words mean more than you could know. So I look forward to many more many, many more get togethers in person. Awesome. Can't wait. Thank you for listening. And I hope you enjoyed this week's episode of Ask Dr. Jessica. Also, if you could take a moment and leave a five star review wherever it is you listen to podcasts, I would greatly appreciate it. It really makes a difference to help this podcast grow. You can also follow me on Instagram at ask Dr. Jessica See you next Monday.