WEBVTT - Decision-Making Like a Boss w/ Emily Oster 0:00:00.280 --> 0:00:03.119 Welcome to Katie's Crib, a production of Shonda land Audio 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:06.640 in partnership with I Heart Radio. Following through is the 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:09.680 most important thing I have found with my son. It's 0:00:09.720 --> 0:00:12.240 also a lesson in like making sure that the threat 0:00:12.240 --> 0:00:14.239 that you made is something you can follow through that. 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:15.600 We were sitting in front of some people on an 0:00:15.640 --> 0:00:17.680 airplane once and they told their kid, if you keep 0:00:17.720 --> 0:00:19.720 kicking the seat like, we're going to leave you on 0:00:19.760 --> 0:00:30.480 the airplane. Guys, I am so excited about today. Welcome 0:00:30.520 --> 0:00:34.440 back to Katie's Crib. You guys. I have someone who's 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:38.120 like pretty much a big deal in the parenting space today. 0:00:38.159 --> 0:00:41.120 Her name is Emily Aust. She might be the most 0:00:41.200 --> 0:00:46.000 different brained person I've had on this show. Emily Astar 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:50.080 is an economist and her brain works, let's just say, 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:52.199 on the left side, whereas I'm sort of more on 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:55.320 the right side creative arts, fartsy type. But she and 0:00:55.360 --> 0:00:58.640 I talked so much about her books Expecting Better and 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:01.840 Crib Sheet, which were staples in my house during my 0:01:01.880 --> 0:01:06.160 pregnancy and when I had small, small babies. We talk 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:08.520 a lot today about her third book, The Family Firm, 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:10.880 a data driven guide to better decision making. In the 0:01:10.959 --> 0:01:13.880 early school years. It's out now be shorted by your 0:01:13.920 --> 0:01:18.520 copy wherever books are sold. She also has been hugely 0:01:18.640 --> 0:01:20.720 helpful to me during this time because she has a 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:24.960 newsletter and on Instagram. She focuses a lot on helping 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:30.720 us parents small unvaccinated children through COVID and is helping 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:35.480 us cipher through all of the information during this COVID 0:01:35.640 --> 0:01:39.320 time of parenting. She and I talked a lot about 0:01:40.080 --> 0:01:43.280 how to run the family in the early school years, 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:47.880 why a business model might work for big decision making 0:01:48.160 --> 0:01:52.040 within your family. She's a professor of economics at Brown University. 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:56.320 Her academic work focuses on health economics and statistical methods. 0:01:56.320 --> 0:01:57.960 Her work has been featured in The New York Times, 0:01:57.960 --> 0:02:00.559 The Wall Street Journal, of The Atlantic, CNBC Ian Moore. 0:02:00.960 --> 0:02:05.320 She's married to an economist, Jesse Shapiro. So I guess 0:02:05.320 --> 0:02:09.400 somewhere far, far far distant, she and I might be related, 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:11.480 or our husbands are related. Who the hell knows. She 0:02:11.520 --> 0:02:15.480 has two children, Penelope and Finn. Emily Welcome to Katie's crib. 0:02:19.960 --> 0:02:22.360 I am so thrilled and honored today to have the 0:02:22.400 --> 0:02:25.880 one and only Emily Auster here, And it's so weird 0:02:25.960 --> 0:02:29.840 because I'm so woo woo and emotional and like actory 0:02:29.880 --> 0:02:33.200 and you're an economist, which I don't even think I've 0:02:33.240 --> 0:02:37.480 said that word in my life. But what I find, 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:45.520 what quiets and eases my emotional headspace is your fact 0:02:45.600 --> 0:02:51.240 finding and your cut and dry factual nature is so 0:02:52.000 --> 0:02:56.200 relatable and accessible to new moms, moms with toddler's and 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:58.480 now moms. Thank you to the Family Firm for the 0:02:58.560 --> 0:03:01.400 early school years. Can you just tell us for those 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.880 listening who don't know who Emily Astar is? First, follow 0:03:04.880 --> 0:03:08.000 her on Instagram, Second, subscribe to her newsletter. Third, get 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:09.840 her books and tell your friends to get her books. 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:12.320 How's that? How's that? That's great? That's a good in 0:03:12.720 --> 0:03:15.360 that's a good good for us? Okay, but first, like, 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:17.800 just in short, because I want to spend most of 0:03:17.800 --> 0:03:20.880 the Today's talking about Family Firm, But can you tell 0:03:20.960 --> 0:03:23.440 us just a little bit for anyone who may not know? 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:28.720 Expecting better and crib sheet the quick pitch, Good luck, 0:03:29.240 --> 0:03:31.680 the quick pitch. So I think it's easiest to sort 0:03:31.720 --> 0:03:34.360 of say why I wrote them, um, which is, you know, 0:03:34.560 --> 0:03:37.640 I am a person who likes data and facts and 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:40.640 who more than anything else likes to understand why. And 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:43.720 when I got pregnant with my daughter, who is now 0:03:43.880 --> 0:03:48.080 like ten, there was a lot of do this without why. 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:50.320 This was a sort of like here's your list of 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:51.840 things not to do, and you'd be like why, and 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:53.240 they'd be like, well, it's on the list. Didn't you 0:03:53.280 --> 0:03:55.080 get the list? We can get you another copy. It's like, 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.720 not have the list, And so, you know, expecting better 0:03:58.840 --> 0:04:01.119 is really kind of like what the data behind pregnancy? 0:04:01.160 --> 0:04:04.000 It's a sort of like crazy neurotic ladies like dig 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.200 in too, you know, how do we think about that data? 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:09.960 What's good data, what's not good data? Why do they 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:12.080 tell you not to have sushi is the same reason 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:14.160 they tell you not to have Deli turkey? It's not 0:04:14.200 --> 0:04:16.200 the same reason. It turns out, like, how can you 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:19.040 sort of parse those different, um, those different things to 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:22.200 make choices that are that are informed, um, that are 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:25.320 sort of your choices. It's like, guys, here's the list 0:04:25.360 --> 0:04:30.159 of why eating sushi during pregnancy factually might be bad, 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:32.560 and here are the statistics and numbers of what could 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:34.599 happen if something goes wrong. And here's the list of 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.360 people who do eat sushi during pregnancy. You know what 0:04:37.400 --> 0:04:39.159 I mean. It's like, I'm just going to give you 0:04:39.240 --> 0:04:42.560 all the hard, fast, true criteria so that you can 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:45.200 make the decision that you want to make rather than 0:04:45.800 --> 0:04:48.400 what we're told, which is no caffeine, no sushi, no 0:04:48.520 --> 0:04:52.320 alcohol whatever. Now between us, I had sushi and and 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.040 then again here I am seeing like I had sushi, 0:04:55.120 --> 0:04:57.320 and I drank wine for both my pregnancies, and I 0:04:57.360 --> 0:05:00.440 had turkey meat. All I craved was DELI me like 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:03.799 craved it. A weirdly large number of people create delling 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:05.920 meats who like to will be like, well, normally I 0:05:05.960 --> 0:05:07.960 don't like to. For me, it was like tuna melts. 0:05:08.080 --> 0:05:11.360 That was like, I was just like in normal life, 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:13.400 I don't I mean, I don't really like a tuna melt, 0:05:13.480 --> 0:05:15.440 but it was just like I don't know, like the 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:18.960 baby is just like I love tuna. Oh hilarious. So 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:22.600 Expecting Better really focuses on a lot of these pregnancy 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:25.480 knows we're getting and you must and you have to 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:27.960 in all of this. And because you're an economist and 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:31.240 your parents are also both, and my husband and your husband, 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:34.279 everyone's an economist. And also, by the way, you married 0:05:34.400 --> 0:05:38.919 Jesse Shapiro, the economist, and I'm married Adam Shapiro, the actor. Nice, 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:43.320 So our children are all Shapiro's. They're all Shapiros. Your 0:05:43.360 --> 0:05:45.800 kids are all Shapiros. Even though you're still alot and 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:49.080 I'm still in Austra. I love it. I love it. 0:05:49.120 --> 0:05:51.640 I love it. Okay, so everyone what I love? Expecting 0:05:51.680 --> 0:05:54.760 better but quickly, even though it deserves so much more time. 0:05:54.920 --> 0:05:58.040 Are there actually things to be afraid of? Because like, 0:05:58.120 --> 0:06:00.760 if you're just have a little iota of critical thinking 0:06:00.800 --> 0:06:04.440 in your head and you're curious, I find that information 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:07.120 is power. When I know I'm all of a sudden 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:09.680 not nervous about it, it just makes more sense. I think. 0:06:09.720 --> 0:06:11.920 The other thing is, you know, I, particularly as you 0:06:11.960 --> 0:06:13.560 sort of move to like end a pregnancy and thing 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:15.440 about childbirth and all this stuff, I think that there's 0:06:15.440 --> 0:06:18.599 like such an information asymmetry that it's almost hard to 0:06:18.640 --> 0:06:20.560 have those conversations about like what kind of birth do 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:22.800 you want to have with your medical provider because you 0:06:22.800 --> 0:06:24.640 don't know anything. And I think there's a little bit 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:26.479 of this book which is like, look, I am not 0:06:26.560 --> 0:06:29.000 a medical doctor. I do not you do not want 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:31.600 me in the delivery room. But you know you read 0:06:31.640 --> 0:06:33.280 this you can get a better sense of like how 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:35.240 should I think about induction? How do I think about 0:06:35.240 --> 0:06:37.880 an epidural? Like how should I understand labor? So then 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:39.960 your questions you're just not like, well where does that 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:42.039 come out of? You know, and it's more like, okay, 0:06:42.120 --> 0:06:44.320 now I understand some of this data and we can 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:48.600 be having more informed conversation. It's so great and oddly 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.960 goes very well with my emotional woo woo l a 0:06:52.960 --> 0:06:56.080 actory mind. So there you have it, okay. And now 0:06:56.279 --> 0:06:59.520 then we had thank God for crib sheet? Did I 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:01.040 get it to you? In times? And I s people 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:03.600 are like you like miss me, my hear you get Okay? No, 0:07:03.800 --> 0:07:05.400 I have a three and a half year old and 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:07.320 I have a seven month old, so I would I'm 0:07:07.320 --> 0:07:09.840 in the crib sheet wonder years like I'm like in 0:07:09.880 --> 0:07:12.440 the perfect spot, but tell us about crib sheet. So 0:07:12.520 --> 0:07:14.840 crib sheet is really sort of this equel so like 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:17.239 expecting better kind of ends in the delivery room. Grip 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:19.240 sheet starts in the delivery room. I think the last 0:07:19.280 --> 0:07:21.720 chapter in the first chapter actually really similar. And then 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.800 it goes through all this early child like early baby stuff, 0:07:24.800 --> 0:07:28.720 sleep training, co sleeping, breastfeeding, you know, kind of ending 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:32.160 around potty training with all the same idea about like 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:33.840 let's think about what the data is. You know, people 0:07:33.880 --> 0:07:35.600 tell you if you don't breastfeed your kid, they'll never 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:38.800 have superpowers, and in fact, like that's not true. They're 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:40.560 not going to have superpowers even if you do a 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.240 breastfeed them. Or like I love the chapter on like 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:46.840 will TV make your child an idiot? It's like, in 0:07:46.920 --> 0:07:51.160 truth like this, the actual studies that exist in the world, 0:07:51.520 --> 0:07:54.480 Emily Austar has looked at them, has gone over them 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:57.000 with a fine tooth comb, Like what's out there when 0:07:57.040 --> 0:07:59.360 you study thousands and thousands of kids in the amount 0:07:59.360 --> 0:08:02.600 of TV they've watched, Like right now, thus far, there's 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:08.240 nothing out there that really says ship. To be honest exactly, 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:10.840 my husband was allowed one hour of TV and the 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:13.280 one hour he chose was The Cosby Show. I watched 0:08:13.360 --> 0:08:17.560 TV on my teenage Mutanta Turtle Dinner Tray every day 0:08:17.560 --> 0:08:20.200 from four to seven Monday through Friday. And I'm an actor, 0:08:20.240 --> 0:08:22.679 so who the hell knows, but we're both actors. See, 0:08:23.040 --> 0:08:25.240 my parents are like very regimented. We could have one 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:28.080 hour of TV a day. It was like only MPBS 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:29.960 we get to watch Square one and my husband like 0:08:29.960 --> 0:08:31.960 watched TV all the time, he like, and so now 0:08:32.360 --> 0:08:34.400 you know, we have the same job. And I think 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:36.080 there's a lot of that stuff in that time where 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:38.280 it's sort of like we don't know that much, but 0:08:38.360 --> 0:08:40.680 what we do know suggests that like for the most part, 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:42.679 it's a little bit dealer's choice, Like you kind of 0:08:42.840 --> 0:08:45.400 should feel confident in whatever the choices are that work 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:47.520 for your family, because you know, is this an opportunity 0:08:47.559 --> 0:08:49.640 to mess up my kids? Like no, it's not neither 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:52.320 an opportunity to mess get up or like optimize your kids. 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:54.880 You gotta do what what makes you happy. So good 0:08:55.000 --> 0:08:57.319 and now this past year, I feel like you are 0:08:57.559 --> 0:09:00.720 part of my everyday life. Emily A. Stir has taken 0:09:00.720 --> 0:09:06.560 her incredible economist fact seeking, fact finding deciphering all of 0:09:06.600 --> 0:09:10.319 the information in the information age for us regarding COVID 0:09:10.840 --> 0:09:14.160 and children, the CDC has kind of left the kids 0:09:14.320 --> 0:09:17.079 have been left out of the equation. So just right 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.360 like because they're not the ones getting very very sick, 0:09:20.520 --> 0:09:23.240 they're not vaccinated, we don't know if they can be 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:25.679 around grandma and grandpa. We don't know if we can 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:28.880 take them to visit family they haven't seen in two years, 0:09:28.960 --> 0:09:32.680 and no one's giving us the answers. Your newsletter has 0:09:32.720 --> 0:09:35.040 been such a game changer. Are you like the only 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:38.520 person helping us? Is there anybody? There are many, I think, 0:09:38.640 --> 0:09:41.840 really good, really good people who are sort of writing 0:09:42.120 --> 0:09:46.679 about this, people in this space, But what there isn't 0:09:46.800 --> 0:09:49.720 is like the CDC, which is kind of what we need. 0:09:49.960 --> 0:09:52.840 So interesting to think about how, particularly in the kids stuff, 0:09:52.840 --> 0:09:55.160 like the difference in attitudes between the US and Europe. 0:09:55.240 --> 0:09:58.760 Europe it's not just that they had more in person school, 0:09:58.760 --> 0:10:00.800 which of course is true, it's also then I think 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:03.920 the whole attitude was like, Okay, kids are not high risk, 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:05.520 and you know, but we're gonna need to make some 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:07.719 sacrifices to protect some older people. But we're going to 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:10.000 try not to make kids sacrifice if we can. And 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:13.079 then you know, once old people are vaccinated, like we're 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:15.280 going to kind of like let kids do you know, 0:10:15.800 --> 0:10:18.560 do their thing. And I think here we're willing to 0:10:18.640 --> 0:10:23.440 make kids sacrifice more and are kind of then having 0:10:23.480 --> 0:10:25.679 a lot of trouble backing away from some of the fear. 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:29.760 Their fear has outpaced there their reality I completely agree. 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:31.560 The thing that I tried to do a lot of 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:34.800 this this year was the sort of like here's the data, 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.480 and here's the decision framing around it. It's gonna tell 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:39.080 you something. It's not gonna tell you everything. People are 0:10:39.080 --> 0:10:41.760 going to have different risk tolerances. You need a way 0:10:41.800 --> 0:10:44.040 to take that data and translated into a decision, and 0:10:44.160 --> 0:10:46.360 that that's the piece. It's so hard. It's not that 0:10:46.400 --> 0:10:48.520 you can't see what the case rates are. It's just 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:50.800 like some abstract number. And I think that's that's been 0:10:50.800 --> 0:10:54.080 the really hard thing. Did you have a newsletter before? Yeah? 0:10:54.120 --> 0:10:57.800 So what happened is my publisher at some point was like, 0:10:58.120 --> 0:11:00.120 this is like December, and they were like, look, why 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:02.360 don't you like start a newsletter. You can like write 0:11:02.360 --> 0:11:04.319 every month or so. It'll be like a good way 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:06.000 to just like stay in contact and when the book 0:11:06.000 --> 0:11:08.120 comes out, you can you know, right a little more 0:11:08.120 --> 0:11:10.160 and like people can. Okay, fine, So I was like 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:13.720 all right, So January I started the newsletter and then 0:11:13.920 --> 0:11:16.240 you know, I wrote two things and then like maybe 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:18.840 the fourth post is like, hey has anyone a lot 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:21.480 of people are asking me about this coronavirus thing? And 0:11:21.520 --> 0:11:24.320 then I started writing much more about that, partly because 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:26.200 people were like asking and asking and asking, and I 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:27.800 sort of started thinking about the data and so and 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:30.319 I think the sort of big pivot was like at 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:32.600 some point in May, I wrote this really long post 0:11:32.600 --> 0:11:35.000 about should I see my camp parents? And that post 0:11:35.040 --> 0:11:37.600 had like a half million views. It got people in, 0:11:37.760 --> 0:11:40.280 and then here we are eighteen months later, and I 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:44.400 have so much giant peanut butter. And also it's a 0:11:44.520 --> 0:11:48.120 totally different job. You know. I spent the whole last year, like, 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:50.120 while I was doing all this stuff, I was also 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:53.160 the chair of the Tenure and Promotions Committee at the university, 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:55.520 and I had, like, I have like a real job. 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:59.720 I read everybody's tenure packets the whole university. How do 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.320 you sleep and you have two children? Correct? We even 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:03.960 talked about this. I did not do a lot of 0:12:03.960 --> 0:12:06.160 economics research over the last year. I did a lot 0:12:06.160 --> 0:12:17.319 of this other COVID research and family firm situation. How 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:20.800 old are your children? Six and ten? Okay, so this 0:12:20.880 --> 0:12:24.679 brings us into your most recent book, The Family Firm. 0:12:24.880 --> 0:12:27.720 I just had my first conversation about like, what are 0:12:27.760 --> 0:12:30.560 you lottering into for public school? And I was like, 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:34.560 B B b b B. This sounds like hell on Earth. 0:12:34.920 --> 0:12:37.960 And so I'm about to embark into the family firm situation. 0:12:38.080 --> 0:12:40.400 So this is your new book. It's called The Family 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:42.960 Firm and Data Driven Guide to Better Decision Making the 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:47.120 early school years. You do use the things that we 0:12:47.160 --> 0:12:49.360 know and love about you from krypteet and expecting better 0:12:49.360 --> 0:12:52.480 than data driven stuff. But things have had to shift. 0:12:53.120 --> 0:12:55.199 Tell me a little bit about this book. This book, 0:12:55.240 --> 0:12:58.079 I think is in some ways really quite different expecting 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.480 better kryptiet. These are kind of like p says of 0:13:00.520 --> 0:13:02.840 this that are sort of exactly that. Next you know, 0:13:02.840 --> 0:13:05.000 there are pieces like, Okay, you know I told you 0:13:05.000 --> 0:13:06.680 about the party training dat or I told you about 0:13:06.679 --> 0:13:08.640 the screen time data in little kids. Now let's look 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:09.800 at this, you know, how do we think about the 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:11.760 screen time data and big kids? What do we know 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:14.280 about social media? And then there's some stuff on schools 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:16.560 and extracurriculus, and like there's you know, there's pieces that 0:13:16.600 --> 0:13:19.000 are kind of the data pieces. How much sleep does 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:21.400 your kid need? How do I learn to read? Like 0:13:21.480 --> 0:13:23.640 all that kind of stuff. But the thing about this 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:26.840 era of like parenting is it is hard in a 0:13:26.960 --> 0:13:30.920 different way. It's almost like the primacy of logistics, sort 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:33.840 of logistics and unexpected decisions, right, and sort of, so 0:13:33.920 --> 0:13:35.839 much of my job is like, like who's going to 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:37.920 drive my kids and stuff? Should they go to things 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:39.920 that we have to drive to? Right? And I think 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.000 part of what happens is we aren't always as intentional 0:13:43.000 --> 0:13:45.720 about those choices as we might be. For example, which 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.360 rank very true to me in the book, but like 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:51.760 my nephew was like, I want to play soccer. He's 0:13:51.840 --> 0:13:54.720 like seven or something, and he got on the travel 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:56.760 League and then all of a sudden, it's what you said. 0:13:56.880 --> 0:14:02.000 His parents spent like six months driving their child all 0:14:02.080 --> 0:14:04.599 over the state of Virginia to play soccer, and the 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:06.480 kid doesn't like soccer anymore. And I'm like, well, that 0:14:06.559 --> 0:14:09.640 was really ridiculous. I mean you could say, like, you know, 0:14:09.720 --> 0:14:12.320 maybe travel soccer is what you envisioned, but if you 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:14.800 didn't envision travel soccer and you sort of said yes 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:17.200 because you kind of didn't think that much about or 0:14:17.240 --> 0:14:18.840 you know, you just sort of like they were whining 0:14:18.880 --> 0:14:20.880 or for whatever reason, like the sort of choices that 0:14:20.920 --> 0:14:22.880 we make, that's going to matter a lot. And so 0:14:22.920 --> 0:14:25.400 I think there's a sort of argument here for intentionality, 0:14:25.480 --> 0:14:27.000 and so there's a big part of the first part 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:28.360 of the book which is like kind of how do 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:31.560 you scaffold that intentionality? And so actually there's some work 0:14:31.640 --> 0:14:33.400 and I think this is a thing that like for 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:35.120 the people who are like I thought you were the 0:14:35.200 --> 0:14:36.800 lady who told me I could have sushi, and I 0:14:36.840 --> 0:14:38.240 read your first book and you said that I could 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:40.480 have sushi and that my kids could watch the TV 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:42.480 and it would be okay, And then like that was great, 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:44.880 and now you're now you give me worksheets. Like now 0:14:44.920 --> 0:14:47.400 you're like the worksheet lady. I'm asking people to come 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:50.280 along a little bit, like to say, like, listen, you 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:52.760 trust me on that stuff. Come along a little bit. 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:56.520 Let's try. I suspect that for more people than realize 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:58.760 this that was sitting with this a little bit and 0:14:58.760 --> 0:15:01.360 thinking it wouldn't be so hard to like write down, 0:15:01.680 --> 0:15:03.440 what are the three things in the day that I 0:15:03.520 --> 0:15:07.040 really want to have? So tell me about this business model. 0:15:07.280 --> 0:15:09.200 Now that you're asking us to come along and do 0:15:09.280 --> 0:15:13.000 a little bit of like some business e organization for 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:16.920 your family, walk me through the framework in the family system. 0:15:16.960 --> 0:15:20.560 The analogy to business is just that businesses do not 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:24.520 make their decisions on a whim. When you are running 0:15:24.560 --> 0:15:26.840 a business, you do not just sign up for travel 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:29.520 soccer just to appease your kid who's winding that minute 0:15:30.000 --> 0:15:32.680 exactly when your employee comes in winds to you about 0:15:32.720 --> 0:15:35.400 wanting like you don't just do things. That's the most 0:15:35.400 --> 0:15:37.600 important sort of business analogy. And then there are some 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:41.280 other like more more really businessy things, which is like, okay, 0:15:41.520 --> 0:15:44.000 businesses have like systems for follow up or assistance for 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:46.840 decision making, and so I've got this basically four step 0:15:46.960 --> 0:15:51.760 system for big decisions. Oh, the four fs. Yeah, so okay, 0:15:51.800 --> 0:15:55.440 the family board meeting is happening. Take us through the 0:15:55.520 --> 0:15:58.800 four FS of if you were going to decide to 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:00.960 send your kid to sleep with kid. The first F 0:16:01.120 --> 0:16:03.600 is to frame the question, think about what are the 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.800 realistic alternatives? The question of sleepway camp has been raised 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:09.080 your kids, like I want to go, you know, Matilda 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:11.160 win whatever it is, you know, and you know, so 0:16:11.200 --> 0:16:13.240 you want to say, like, okay, a is this realistic 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:15.400 like sleep we camp course money. There are some constraints 0:16:15.400 --> 0:16:17.600 in it, maybe that that's like that feasible and we're 0:16:17.600 --> 0:16:20.120 not having that conversation, and that's fine. You kind of 0:16:20.160 --> 0:16:22.240 want to get to a question of like are we 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.400 doing extra y? In this case, it's probably are we 0:16:25.520 --> 0:16:28.040 going to sleep away camp or not? And I think 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.280 then or not? Sometimes I tell people like or not 0:16:30.280 --> 0:16:31.880 not an option, but here like we're not kind of 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:34.360 is an option because it's sort of obvious what the 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:36.360 default is. But I think there's a there's a sort 0:16:36.360 --> 0:16:38.800 of space there for saying there to take a moment 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:40.560 at the beginning and just ask is this really a 0:16:40.640 --> 0:16:42.760 question that we can answer that we would be able 0:16:42.840 --> 0:16:44.920 to answer in a concrete way, So are we going 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:48.400 to sleepway camp or not? Second f is fact find, 0:16:48.840 --> 0:16:52.440 which is a rapper for get all the information you 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:55.120 need and it's something like sleepaway camp. I put that 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:57.640 in sort of a couple invent more categories. One is 0:16:57.720 --> 0:16:59.680 like the question of like what is the data say about? 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.680 Is the say good idea for kids? What are the 0:17:02.800 --> 0:17:05.520 risks and benefits? You sort of dig into the data 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:08.880 on sleepaway camp, which is actually super interesting and it's 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:12.640 actually quite good. There's some very positive aspects of sleep 0:17:12.640 --> 0:17:16.560 wey Camp, but they're mostly about belonging. Sleepaway camp is 0:17:16.560 --> 0:17:19.639 a place that you can be with other kids that 0:17:19.680 --> 0:17:22.200 are not your peer group that are not your school peer. 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:25.520 But then there's also like in this fact finding, this 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:29.600 is a wide space and that information, that data can 0:17:29.640 --> 0:17:31.560 shape a little bit. So if you sort of said, okay, 0:17:31.600 --> 0:17:34.280 like you know, is there something in particular that my 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:36.600 kid really likes, like something you know that they want 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:40.320 to so part of their identity, spend some time getting 0:17:40.359 --> 0:17:43.280 that information. And then the third thing here is a 0:17:43.320 --> 0:17:45.640 final decision. There's a sense in which with a lot 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:48.040 of these big decisions, and Sleepy can maybe less than 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:50.439 some others, but like where you just let it dribble 0:17:50.440 --> 0:17:52.159 and drabble on, like you don't make it, you know, 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:53.760 we sort of like talk about it and talk about 0:17:53.800 --> 0:17:55.200 it and talk about it like here's this other I 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:57.359 got this little piece of information, Well maybe that should 0:17:57.440 --> 0:17:59.760 change our decision or what about this other thing whatever? 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:01.560 And so I think the idea here is to say 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:03.639 there's one step where you get all the information and 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:05.720 another step where you have the information and you're going 0:18:05.760 --> 0:18:08.280 to make a decision. And it doesn't necessarily have to 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:09.880 be a meeting, but I like, I like a good 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:12.080 meeting where you kind of like sit and you decide 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:14.000 and then you try to like implement and you try 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:17.760 to move on. The last f is follow up. This 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:20.639 is the piece that you're the travel soccer situation, some 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:23.480 nice misses. We often make these decisions. We're just like, okay, 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:25.280 we're gonna make it, and then we're like, not gonna 0:18:25.440 --> 0:18:27.639 have a plan to revisit it. But almost all the 0:18:27.680 --> 0:18:31.280 decisions you make of this type could have some revisiting, 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:33.320 even if it's like what school do I choose or 0:18:33.359 --> 0:18:36.960 something sort of bigger, you can change your mind. We're 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.680 always going to have the follow up. Let's also talk 0:18:39.720 --> 0:18:44.320 about the importance of following through. In your book, you 0:18:44.400 --> 0:18:48.119 note that if rules aren't enforced sooner than later, that 0:18:48.240 --> 0:18:52.240 eventually the actions are going to need to occur anyway, Like, okay, 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:54.960 you know you use that example of a mother trying 0:18:55.000 --> 0:18:58.040 to let go and let her kids make breakfast for themselves. 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.479 Like what other sort of tips in research do you 0:19:00.600 --> 0:19:03.680 have that can encourage us to stick to following through. 0:19:04.400 --> 0:19:06.760 It's interesting you say, so. I think a toddlerhood is 0:19:06.800 --> 0:19:12.239 about where that starts toddler on down. Like consistency is 0:19:12.280 --> 0:19:17.199