86: How to Lead with Calm and Connection at Home and Work w/ Mary Wilcox Smith

Ever wonder why you overreact in high-stress situations and what it means about your leadership?

In this powerful episode of No Limit Leadership, Sean Patton sits down with parent coach, speaker, and author Mary Wilcox Smith, creator of The Microstep Method. With four daughters and decades of experience helping overwhelmed parents, Mary shares a neuroscience-based approach to self-leadership, emotional regulation, and connection that applies just as much in the office as it does at home.

You’ll learn how triggers reveal deeper stories you carry, how calm is a skill you can train, and why true influence is built not in big moments, but in the small, everyday interactions we often overlook. Whether you're leading a company, a family, or both, this conversation is filled with practical tools and mindset shifts that will immediately change the way you lead.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode

• 00:41 – Who is Mary Wilcox Smith and why parenting is a form of leadership
• 02:14 – Why Mary created The Microstep Method and how it works
• 06:19 – The real reason parents (and leaders) overreact, and what to do instead
• 11:06 – Understanding the stories behind your emotional responses
• 13:55 – The 4 survival states: fight, flight, freeze, and fawn
• 15:17 – Why parenting mirrors your leadership triggers
• 17:47 – Calm isn’t a personality trait—it’s a trained leadership response
• 20:06 – Why authority is given, but influence is earned
• 24:46 – Connection before correction: how to build trust and cooperation
• 26:12 – The power of mirroring and how kids (and teams) respond
• 30:33 – Why being heard calms the brain and builds influence
• 31:03 – Business, parenting, and Arab warlords: Sean’s leadership analogy
• 36:07 – How to repair a moment and rebuild connection after a rupture
• 37:14 – Milestones vs. moments: what really shapes performance and mental health
• 40:06 – How emotional anchors shape resilience in kids and culture in teams

Connect with Mary Wilcox Smith

• 💻 Website: marysmithparentcoach.com
• 📚 Book: The Microstep Method
• 🧠 Free Self-Story Quiz: Take it here
• 🔗 LinkedIn: Mary Wilcox Smith

📬 Want more tools for high-impact leadership and self-mastery?
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👉 https://nolimitleaders.com/growth

No Limit Leadership is the go-to podcast for growth-minded executives, middle managers, and team leaders who want more than surface-level leadership advice. Hosted by executive coach and former Special Forces commander Sean Patton, this show dives deep into modern leadership, self-leadership, and the real-world strategies that build high-performing teams. Whether you're focused on leadership development, building a coaching culture, improving leadership communication, or strengthening team accountability, each episode equips you with actionable insights to unlock leadership potential across your organization. From designing onboarding systems that retain talent to asking better questions that drive clarity and impact, No Limit Leadership helps you lead yourself first so you can lead others better. If you're ready to create a culture of ownership, resilience, and results, this leadership podcast is for you.

Transcript

Sean Patton (00:00)
If you've ever found yourself overreacting in a stressful moment, and let's be honest, who hasn't? Maybe it's snapping at your kids, your team, or even yourself? This episode is for you. Mary Smith is a parent coach, speaker, and author of The Microstep Method where she teaches overwhelmed parents how to lead themselves and their families with calm, clarity, and connection. In this conversation, we explore how your triggers are actually leadership signals, how to rewire your responses using neuroscience, and why the smallest moments

Not the milestones are what shapes lasting influence. Whether you lead at home or at work or both, this one will reshape how you show up.

Sean Patton (00:53)
I am very excited to be joined by my friend, Mary Smith. She's a

parent, coach, speaker, and author who helps overwhelm parents reconnect with their purpose and their children, one small intentional step at a time. As the creator of the micro step method, she blends neuroscience, mindfulness, and real world parenting wisdom to create lasting change in family dynamics. She has four daughters of her own and has a gift for cutting through the noise and getting down to what works. So we're going to talk about self leadership, leadership on the home front and how that applies in all aspects of your life. Mary, thanks for being here today.

Mary Smith (01:24)
Sean, thank you so much for having me. I'm so happy to be here.

Sean Patton (01:26)
And I am really excited. We met through a speaking program and I've been following your content and you know, it really hits home. ⁓ you, you're the veteran here. I might be a veteran in the military, but you are the parent veteran with four amazing, ⁓ grown daughters now. And I have my own, you know, almost five month old baby son that I'm trying to figure out. So I'm tuned into your content around, ⁓ parenting and

Mary Smith (01:39)
I'm a veteran.

Aww.

Sean Patton (01:54)
As I did that and the more I read and saw it, I just saw so many parallels with leadership across the board. So that's why I knew we had to have you on.

Mary Smith (01:54)
Hmm.

Sean Patton (02:02)
Yeah. So you have now four daughters and how old's the youngest one? Cause she's.

Mary Smith (02:06)
Great.

It's a good question. The youngest one just graduated from college. So yeah, so she literally just finished it. It only went late because you probably saw my post. was in the, you know, they went to the NCAA Final Four. So they graduate, but then they don't really finish till they finish out their sports. But she literally just came home yesterday. That is it. Number four.

Sean Patton (02:11)
Wow, congratulations.

Wow, that's awesome. Yeah. Well, let's just start with your micro step method. Why the micro step method when it comes to parenting?

Mary Smith (02:29)
Yeah, so it's exciting.

Yeah, so that's a great question.

It's depends on how much backstory I give you, but very, so briefly, four kids, which is obviously a lot and busy, but really whether you have one or four, still feels crazy. ⁓ It fills up your time regardless. But I had, I came from some real trauma in my childhood and my coping mechanism was perfectionism. So no one would really know. I went through life and did all the things that you're supposed to do and looked and checked all the boxes. And so I kind of thought parenting would be the same. You go, you win at it.

My kids are never gonna have like chocolate on their face or yell in a restaurant. And yeah, no. Yeah, exactly.

Sean Patton (03:15)
I just love the phrase, win at parenting. You're right, that's kind

of the mindset you have. I'm gonna be the best, we're gonna do this. You see the kids crying in the corner like, not me, until your kid's crying, the plane.

Mary Smith (03:31)
And I obviously I say it facetiously, but that's kind of what perfection does when you're going through life. Like I'm going to get the best grades. I'm going to get into a good college. I'm going get into a good business school. I'm going to do well. I'm going to get a good job. So, you know, that was kind of my win at parenting. I like sort of like saying that too. And then, you know, you get into it and you find out.

Well, first of all, one of mine had medical issues and I had four children born within five years. So there was a lot going on. And as I mentioned, I had had my own trauma. So you bring your crap to the table and that's just the same in leadership. You bring all this stuff with you that become your stories. I call them parent traps in the parenting world.

they become your stories and they drive how you parent. And unless you bring that awareness to the surface, it makes it very hard to change what you're doing because it all feels so right, right? Because as you know, it's all connected to the survival system. So with or without my baggage,

I am a frenetic mover. Like I do a hundred things at once. I move, I'm type A, I'm sure you're just the same. Like I'm always going a hundred miles an hour. And so when we got into what I call my dark years, like we really did have some hard years and you know, part of it was how I was handling it. Part of it was that there were three...

in my family that were these natural athletes. And with that comes sort of, they were all good at school, but with that just comes a social life and a, you know, it just, it can be helpful, right? And one of them was tube fed for six years and in and out of hospitals. And, know, was a completely different experience. So when they hit those tween years, it just got hard. The sibling rivalry got hard. My understanding of what to do got hard.

And this is, know, empathy will come up. And it was a huge one. Just understanding my daughter's situation wasn't just about fixing it. It was about understanding it, And understanding the impact it had on the family.

So fast forward to them starting to go off to college, all in high school, and I decided to go into parent coaching. And my choice to go into parent coaching was, I'd always kind of wanted to go into psychology. I liked that. I'd always study it. I did a lot of my own therapy because I did grow up with my own, you know, with stuff in my own house.

I started to understand neuroscience more because once I started to understand how the brain worked, it helped me understand how I worked. And I was the one being mean to myself. Like we can change our brain. We can change how we experience life.

And what I realized is I was paying these therapists, Cause my kid, you know, especially the one with some medical issues, you know, needed some help. So I was paying people at the wazoo, but you know, oftentimes I'll say, you um, I was paying therapists, you know, for me, for them, for the dog, like I would have hired her for the Roomba had it looked at me wrong. You know what I mean? It's like whoever. Exactly. Let's all get one. But what I really wish had happened is that one of them had kind of.

Sean Patton (06:15)
It's like Oprah, right? It's like, you get a therapist, you get a therapist, you get a therapist.

Mary Smith (06:25)
grabbed me by the shoulders and sort of said, you you feel like you're giving 150%, Mary, but what if I were to tell you that it's not about doing more, that it's about doing it slightly differently some of the time? Like changing how you do things and not even all the time, some of the time. And...

That's what I wish had happened. So that's why I went into parent coaching. Cause I thought this didn't have to be this hard. every time I have a client and after, know, clients who can change on a dime and not everybody can, and maybe don't have the deep layer of issues that some people that come to me have, after six weeks, like, this is it. I'm living a completely different life. And so,

The reason I went into parent coaching and not therapy for kids is because I firmly believe that the parent is the change agent. Not always. Sometimes you have a lot going on. Sometimes you need therapy for children. Teens need their own therapist also, right? That's a, you're at a whole different level. But when these kids are little, there are certain emotional needs that they have. When they're not getting them all met, it shows up in different ways.

And when we change, 99 % of the time, they change. So on top of realizing that, knowing how frenetic I was, as I said at the beginning, like with or without my history, I am someone who just moves fast, trying to do a hundred things at once. You know, I probably have ADHD. I like for the last minute to happen so that my brain kicks in. So I started writing these things where I'd lay out something that happened to people.

And then I wanted to simplify the brain science, because the brain science helped me so much. I wanted to simplify it for parents. So then I would simplify the brain science of what was happening in that moment, suggest how we could respond slightly differently, and explain why that would build connection and resilience in children. And I called that a microstep moment.

Because in that moment, you have the opportunity to deepen your bond in so many moments. We have millions of these opportunities every single day, and you don't have to get them all right. But to deepen your bond and to build resilience, which is effectively my way of saying mental health.

Because my real passion, I do come from anxiety, depression, suicide in my family. Like there's, you know, there's real, there's also, you know, brilliant lawyers. Like it's sort of got everything. But resilience and mental health is my passion because we're seeing it more and more with kids. So I built these moments and I started sending them out as emails. And then someone said to me, you know, they're like, well, you want to write a book? You've got all your content.

So then I put them all in the book, I sandwiched them with anecdotes of mine, I split them into sort of emotional needs of kids. So I have, eight moments per each, you for connection and safety and curiosity and resilience or whatever. And then resilience isn't a need. You know, letting them struggle, for example, would be one of the buckets. And then I said to myself, okay, I've got this moment.

And what people told me they really liked, what parents really liked was when I had a script. And there's arguments out there, you can look it up. Some people say scripts are bad to give parents. Some people say they're good. I used to poo poo them because I'm like, what are you talking about? I can talk to anybody. I'm normal. I'm bright. Why would I need a script? But when we're lit up, when our brain is in fight or flight and we're trying to parent, our thinking brain's offline. We don't have, we're not reaching for the right words because we can't access them.

So then I decided always to have a script. So in the micro moment, I'll have a script. So the micro step is actually the parent, what I give the parent to do in that moment. That's the micro step. And then the micro moment is what is actually happening that helps sculpt your kid's brain for connection and resilience and a long and happy life. That's a very long explanation, but that's how I got there.

Sean Patton (10:17)
I know I love that. So, and I want to get into those. You brought up a good point there about our brains being in, you know, fight or flight, like fight, flight or freeze, basically these three responses when we're elevated from a stress response of some kind. So while those things, and I want to talk about when those things happen and having scripts, cause I believe in that in leadership too, but what can we do to sort of insulate ourselves to provide.

more self-awareness and ⁓ more resilience for ourselves so that in these high stress moments, whether it's parenting, whether it's leading ourselves, whether it's the jerk on the road that can't drive right because everybody else is a horrible driver and we're amazing, Or whatever. That to me, that is really a ⁓ master skill of self-leadership. How do you view that and how do you train?

Mary Smith (11:05)
Yeah, well, first I'm so glad we're both the best drivers on the road. That bonds me to you a little bit closer. So that, mean, if we could solve that, we would both be millionaires already. But

Sean Patton (11:08)
Obviously everyone else sucks so much.

Mary Smith (11:21)
⁓ Awareness, And if you don't have the awareness, so one is awareness. And so for me, let me answer it first. With parents, what I do is I try to identify what I then coin their parent trap, which is really the story, the story that is driving what's coming out of their mouth when their children are doing things that bother them. And I'll use an example.

of, and I'm remembering your question is, what do we do to insulate ourselves so that we can lead? An example would be, here's a great one. ⁓ My child needs to respect me. They need to learn to listen to me and do what I say. That can come from a story that we tell ourselves.

And that story is, and this doesn't happen to be my trap, mine's much more around worthy, like I will be worthy when I'm perfect. That's sort of what a lot of my story is. It's just probably like yours. But I, you we all have two or three of them, but the respect one is, why does no one ever listen to me? How come no one ever does what I say? So that story is your story. That's in your brain. So when your third grader looks at you and rolls her eyes,

Sean Patton (12:14)
Mm.

Mary Smith (12:33)
That parent, the story is, why does no one ever respect me? And what comes out of the parent's mouth is, you go to your room. Don't you dare look at me like that and come back down when you can be a good kid.

Whereas if she didn't have that story or if it was some other child rolling their eyes because they, I don't know, they dropped their ice cream and she felt compassion for them because she wasn't triggered. Because when we're triggered, the story dives into our implicit memory and out comes the amygdala and they pull out all these old memories and now we're operating in a survival loop. If she took a deep breath,

realize the child rolled her eyes because I don't know, whatever had happened, she might be able to say, yeah, you didn't like what I said, did you? Can we talk about what's going on? Doesn't mean I'm gonna excuse the eye rolling. If I don't want eye rolling, we can do that at a different time, but it doesn't look like a disconnecting moment of me sending to her room and telling her that I'll talk to her when she's a good kid. So the story is driving it. So in leadership

So many of these stories, are you following me so far? So many of these stories, as you know, and I just wanna add something really quickly. You said this fight, flight or freeze. There is a fourth one which probably exists in leadership to a certain degree, but definitely exists in parenting, which is fawn, they call it. And fawning is I need to fix this. I need to take care of this.

Sean Patton (13:34)
Mm-hmm. Definitely.

Mary Smith (13:52)
So when we're triggered that it's uncomfortable that my child may not get into the honors class in eighth grade, we call a tutor immediately and we look at the kid and like they say, you got a B? That's ridiculous, you're going to a tutor.

because we have to overprotect. so much of it comes from our survival system, which as you know, is rooted in fear, right? When do we have to do things to protect ourselves? And these are very similar for leadership and for parenting. Fear of losing control, fear of not being respected, fear of not being good enough and worthy.

fear of repeating the past, So the one thing that I do with the parents, to go back to my example, is help them understand what their traps are. So that if they know that when they're feeling disrespected, they're probably gonna lose it, then we can come up with a tool that says, the tool may be, don't say anything, right? Or the tool may be say,

looks like you're really upset, I'm gonna give myself an hour and then we'll talk about this later. There has to be a tool to stop that moment, because anything that's gonna happen in that moment is not gonna work. And I'm assuming leadership can be similar. And so when your nervous system is in survival mode, so is your leadership. So is your parenting. So go ahead.

Sean Patton (15:08)
I was going to say, I don't see a difference between parenting and leading. Like I think parenting is just the purest expression of, of leadership. And so these exact same scenarios that are playing out with a three year old are the exact same scenarios that play with the 23 year old, you know, or the 35 year old. Um, the triggers may be different. The behaviors might be different, but.

⁓ All of the tools and the situations to me sounds, it's the same parallel. mean, to me, leadership is leading yourself, leading your family, leading your organization. It's the same things, And I guarantee you, if people are hearing this and their parents, if this is happening with their three-year-old because they don't feel worthy or they don't feel respected,

Mary Smith (15:49)
Yeah.

Sean Patton (15:53)
You can't tell me, but at work they're handling it perfectly, right? Like at work when, know, when, Tom says something, or gives her an eye roll, then it's fine. Right. It's like, it shows up everywhere. so in some ways, it's almost a magnifying glass,

on, on your own self leadership and your own leadership ability is these parenting moments. And it's, and in some ways I think the way you're describing it is it makes it clearer.

Mary Smith (16:17)
It makes it clearer,

Sean Patton (16:18)
because it is this magnifying glass, you know?

Mary Smith (16:19)
because it is the same. Interesting, you're right. I love that. It's a magnifying glass into you, because also you might still be triggered at work by it, but the love you have for that child trumps everything. So when you're nervous that the child's not going to succeed or that the child might not love you, like he's just told you he hates you, right? Someone says at work, you're like, that doesn't feel good. And you might react.

really deep down worried that you might not be loved by your child. The mama bear or the papa bear comes out, right, with full claws. But I love the idea of it being a magnifying glass because it really is. And to what you're saying, calm isn't a personality trait. Like leadership isn't a personality trait. It's a trained response.

Now you may be gifted with leadership traits. I think, I believe some of you can be gifted with something. Mine might be a loud voice, that's all I got. No, but you're gifted, that, back to your original question, what do we do? Calm is a trained response. So you have to train yourself.

Sean Patton (17:30)
And I love the fact that you're giving us this tool of this parent trap or this trigger. So when you build the awareness that whether you're at home with your kids or with your partner or with, or at work, when you, we all know when those responses hit, we all know when we're, when that is, mentioned, right? Like that reptilian just like, brain is coming out or that fear is when we know when fear is driving us ⁓ versus calm.

I even like the juxtaposition of, fear and scarcity and love and abundance, right? Where are we coming from? Right? When we're confident and we're calm in the situation, there's no need for this. Like we don't feel that same, ⁓ that like, that, that very like primitive drive that to this emotional response. And so I love how you said, you know, maybe make a note of that, right? When that happens, like, what is the story I'm telling myself that's driving this

Mary Smith (18:01)
Yes, yes. ⁓

Correct.

Sean Patton (18:23)
this response right now because

like that's the work, right? Like that's where we need to head is what I'm hearing from.

Mary Smith (18:28)
I can offer it to anyone who's listening and they're welcome to do it. And then we just, they have to just email me and tell me we talked about this. Cause I don't know that I don't have a page set up for them to go do it, but I can have a questionnaire they can do and it'll give them their top two or three stories. Like whether it's, you know, I have to be perfect. or like, like.

unrelenting standards. It's never good enough. Because if you're doing that to yourself, you're doing it to other people.

Sean Patton (18:51)
Yeah, we will definitely put a link for that in the show notes because that is a powerful self leadership tool that stealth awareness that all drives from the software. And so that.

Mary Smith (18:59)
In fact, it's so great. We'll make it, we'll make it,

in fact, so everyone, there's a link for it, exactly. And then you go in, it'll take you 20 minutes or 25 minutes, and then I'll send you the results. It's very easy. But ⁓ I was gonna say, First of all, you're gifted, you already have the authority. When you're the leader in the room,

And that's what I say to parents all the time. You don't need to prove your authority. It's been gifted to you. And that's the same with a leader at work, right? Whether it's your company or you've been promoted and you have three people, that leadership has been handed to you. So you don't have to prove you're the leader. You just really need to figure out what you want to get out of that leadership. Like you don't have to prove you're number one. Does that make, do you agree with that? Does that make sense?

Sean Patton (19:38)
No, a hundred percent. think that, there you're already, like if you're already structurally in that position, then, you're already there. but usually when you are responding emotionally or overreacting or being triggered by something, that's from your own insecurity.

Mary Smith (19:45)
Y-yes.

Sean Patton (19:59)
That's not from something external, right? Like no one's making you feel that way. And so that's the time to really think about why, why is, uh, why is that happening? Because, you it's funny, and maybe this is going to be too far, but I always go back to, do you remember the dog whisper? Like Caesar Milan, right? And I, and, and this is something that I noticed when I was, you talk about the difference between parenting leader stuff, leadership, military business.

Mary Smith (20:15)
yeah.

Sean Patton (20:24)
I learned so much in my twenties as a young platoon leader. Yeah. You know, cause what he talked about was like dogs follow calm assertiveness. And it's like, I noticed that with 23 year old soldiers when I was lieutenant and you know, the same and it's not even just like soldiers, like human beings, I think.

Mary Smith (20:26)
It's no different than raising a dog.

Sean Patton (20:45)
naturally, that's why think, you know, this leadership concept is so primitive, right? I mean, it's like in our genetic code. I mean, we're tribal creatures. We developed in tribes and, and we developed in family units, right? With leaders, like you're, if you're freaking out and you're angry and you're throwing chairs, like, is anyone like, that's the guy I'm going to follow, or that's the mom I'm going to follow. Like I'm right behind him. Sounds great. You know, whatever they need. No. Right. Or if you're frozen in fear or you're indecisive, but if you're calm,

you mentioned calm being that superpower calm but assertive it's like man just watch that work with a know basset hound and it's also going to work with your three-year-old it's also going to work with your 35 year old director it's just like this calm assertive personality

Mary Smith (21:24)
And what's... Yeah,

and I just had a curiosity, because I was thinking this through, right? Because what then, the next level after the calm is what happens. And with the dog, presumably they go shrink in the corner. I guess they might start biting. You they might become aggressive, but either, so they're either gonna become aggressive or they're gonna shrink. But with a child, it's gonna look like they push back.

Not because they disagree, but because they want a little bit of control in their life, or they didn't feel included, or they might get sarcastic or defensive,

in the workforce, they'll nod in compliance, but maybe never speak up or they'll avoid risk, right? But what happens in the military, I just be interested, right? Because I mean, the military, we all look up to the leadership that's built and learned there. Like clearly you do a lot, right? But how do they push back? So, right?

Sean Patton (22:15)
Yeah. So,

⁓ you get some sarcastic comments. ⁓ but you also get very much like, I assume you get what you would get in business or maybe in your families is you get just enough, right? I mean, I think that's a difference, right? Like if you're just managing or they don't respect you, but you're in a position of authority, like they might do the bare minimum, exactly what you said, but they're not going above and beyond. They're not.

Mary Smith (22:20)
so you get sarcasm.

You get just enough.

Sean Patton (22:40)
⁓ really truly invested in, what's going to happen. ⁓ and you know, there's been a few, I'm going to date, date myself with my military reference, but I remember like when brand Banda brothers and other things like that came out and you had very clear examples that I think were pretty accurate in terms of the overbearing commander, right? Who was just like cracking the whip and angry and do this stuff. And the reality is like, they may do it.

Mary Smith (22:52)
and the brothers and other things like that came out. And you had very clear examples that we could pretty accurate in terms of the overbearing.

Sean Patton (23:07)
just enough of what he says, but that is not really leadership. Like they didn't respect him. They didn't willingly follow him. ⁓ And the same thing happens.

Mary Smith (23:16)
And more importantly,

the piece to add to that, because you said they're not respecting, they're not following, but they aren't reaching their potential, I'm also hearing.

Sean Patton (23:24)
Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. And the unit, the unit falters. So everyone's going through the motions, right? And you see this in business all the time. Everyone's going through the motions, but no one's engaged, right? So employee engagements down. same thing, soldier engagements down. They're not fully invested. And you don't have that cohesion of, of a leader of people actually wanting to follow you. I you're not actually leading like just because you're in a commander's role or just because you're the director or, know,

Mary Smith (23:28)
and the unit folders.

Sean Patton (23:51)
just because you're the parent. a of people, biological parents, but they're not leading. Their child or their family unit is not looking up to them as a leader. So leader is less about position and it's about being a person that other people want to follow.

Mary Smith (24:06)
And that is, it's funny that you say that because I had to, even recently I did it again. I kind of looked up cooperation because we say that a lot. say when children feel connected.

They want to cooperate. And the bottom line is, and I am sure this is the same, although people are older when you're doing leadership in jobs and companies. So, you they're a little more stuck in some of their ways, but nobody wants to be a jerk. Nobody wants to not do well, right? I think you have to believe that people want to do well and a hundred percent with kids, especially, you know, especially under 14, you know,

I mean, even teenagers too, but I'm just saying that you can then become a little bit more manipulative, but everyone wants to do well. And what cooperation is exactly that? Is when you feel heard and seen and respected, your brain calms, you then are in the better part of your brain and that brain wants to do well, wants to support you and wants to do the right thing.

So you've created a scenario now where they're pushing themselves to do the right thing. Not because they have to, but because it's neurological, they want to because of the connection you talk about.

Sean Patton (25:24)
Hmm. So as a parent, are some, what does it look like when you do the right things to, to establish that?

Mary Smith (25:31)
So that's a great question. You know, I'm

gonna give you a really simple example. mean, cause obviously there's a million different things, but a really simple one. So many people come to me and will say, my kid won't listen to me. And I say, yeah, well that's the culture. We live in a, look what they're doing all day. Nobody listens to the parents. Nobody listens to authority. But aside from that, they say they don't listen. And then I'm thinking of one client in particular. And then she says, she won't do this when I ask her, she won't do that. And she won't do the other.

And so then we talked about how she was saying it. We talked about the fact that she was really frustrated with this child, had the perfect older brother. So that kid was easy. he was without even her meaning to, he was getting kind of the good vibes and the girl was getting the, really, do have to be such a pain in neck vibes? Even if you don't mean to be doing it. Like we ooze it and they feel everything.

⁓ You've probably heard my joke where I swore like just so you know kids absorb everything my four-year-old swore. That's why I on my reel my four-year-old swore in front of someone right a bad word like the f-bomb she dropped and because they're absorbing everything that we say they just they get us on such a cellular level the f-bomb was not cellular, but ⁓ so

Sean Patton (26:25)
Yeah.

Mary Smith (26:41)
All I did with her is what I think the issue was, was the child was feeling disconnected. The child was feeling that she was the difficult one. She's only tiny, right? I think also there were some issues of control. There were a couple other things going on, but I think my biggest concern was she was feeling unheard. She was feeling like the mom liked the other person better and the mom was an amazing mother to both of them. Like this is not, like she was amazing.

And so all we did in this particular case was switch the wording she was using when she was correcting the child and for her to spend, I think it was five minutes twice a week, making sure that she was hearing what the child said and what I call parroting, which is really mirroring, but parroting back what she was saying so that the kid felt heard. So if the child would say,

It's not fair, Johnny gets to do this. Instead of saying, don't be ridiculous, like he gets to do that because he got his homework done, right? She would say, sounds like it doesn't feel very good that Johnny gets to play on that right now and you have to finish your homework. She didn't say you don't have to do your homework. She didn't say you'll never do your homework again, go play the game. She just said, huh, sounds like you're disappointed that he gets to play.

Sounds like you, I could see how that might make you think I like him better. I think we used that sentence even once. I had her use that. By the end of a week and a half, I'm not even getting two weeks, the child was just responding differently. You would ask her to do something and she would do it. And then for the next few weeks, it was more about increasing control, giving her more control. And that was slightly different, but that's an example of...

the child feeling a disconnect. And I think of connection as like a chain, a link of, a chain of links. And it's very normal. We rupture all the time, but they feel it. And usually when you're just going to deal with your child or you're not feeling good, which you probably don't have quite yet with a three-year-old, although they can get difficult. No, three months, five month old, right? Yeah, yeah, you can, you're not going to feel it yet. ⁓

Sean Patton (28:37)
Five month old, yeah, yeah.

Mary Smith (28:40)
Usually what we're feeling, even as a parent, is the pain of the disconnection that that argument is causing. Because you said it earlier, we all want to be connected. And so we can add, if we have time before we go in, is just how you repair it. But that child is feeling the disconnection. So then when the mother's saying something, they're doing what you said. They're kind of being sarcastic, but without being sarcastic, they're saying, no, I'm not going to do that. I don't want to. I'm going to go do this. I'm going to ignore you.

They're not articulating it because they can't, they're too young, but they're doing things to say, if you're not gonna listen to me, I'm not gonna do what you want me to do. You repair the connection and it's not like it's 100 % compared in your goods for the rest of your life. It's a rupture repair, rupture repair. get it right, practice it, get better at it. And then they grow up a year and you gotta change everything you're doing anyways. That's not true.

Sean Patton (29:27)
Well,

I think that connection piece as a principle is so important. I think of relationships with its friends or with spouses, right? sometimes feeling disconnected manifests itself in these other behaviors that you see in your other relationships too.

So how do you, so, go ahead.

Mary Smith (29:45)
And in leadership, you

know, cause you always think, oh God, shouldn't people just do what they're told? But that's what you're hearing everywhere where people like you in leadership are talking about is, you know, why do I have have empathy for my people working for me? And it's not that you have to run around telling them they're amazing. know, I'm not even sure you have to buy them all beanbags and snacks, which is what Google does did or whatever. But it's saying, it's, it's somehow saying I get it.

and I believe in you, and I know you can handle this.

Sean Patton (30:14)
Well, I think about that, talk about the parroting or just like the mirroring, but the connection, I love the other phrase, you know, connection before correction, right? Like, you know, so making, connecting with someone, I use this, story one time when the first time that I first got into business and I was giving a talk at a small chamber of commerce or a bunch of business owners somewhere.

Mary Smith (30:21)
Yeah, it's a great one.

Sean Patton (30:36)
It didn't go over well. This story did not go over well at first, but I, ⁓ I feel a story. said, you know, what I found is that doing business with Southern businessmen is a lot like working with Arab warlords. I got a, I got a bit of a, I I didn't get any laughs. Let me say that. I thought I was going to get some laughs. Did not get that. I got a bunch of stares. I said, ⁓ let me explain. Because when you go work with, ⁓ that culture, it was always, we never talked business in the first meeting.

Mary Smith (30:51)
Yeah.

Sean Patton (31:03)
It was always like, they have to get to know you and you get to know their family and they have to build that trust and that connection. just like down, it's true anywhere, but especially down here in the South compared to some other places like the Northeast. I feel like the Northeast, if you give a good, here's the business plan, it makes sense, we all make money, you can get something done. But in the South, it's like, oh, where do you live? How long have you been here? Oh, who's your dad? What's he do? What church do you go to?

Mary Smith (31:03)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Sean Patton (31:30)
It's it's it's they have to have that level of trust

before they move forward. And that's just like the culture. But I think that's such a human that's just a naturally human thing. And so the same thing with leadership and it sounds like, you know, the same thing with parenting. So I love this principle of like, if something's off with your relationship in any facet of your life, but especially with with parenting or with kids like. the is there a problem with my connection and how do I reconnect that? So, you know, you mentioned like

Mary Smith (31:36)
That's such a human, that's such a naturally human thing. And so the same thing with leadership and it sounds like the same thing with parenting. So I love this principle of like, if something's off with your relationship in any fashion, especially with parenting with kids, like, it's the key.

Sean Patton (31:59)
What are some tools if we feel like the connection's lost?

Mary Smith (32:01)
So there's one thing that we just, that can work with anything. I'm sure it's harder in the business world and it's even hard with parents. Because when I talk to parents about apologizing, some parents just can't imagine you would ever apologize to a child because it shows weakness. So the very simple, the simple repair, and I want to add this quickly because this is quite interesting is that people will say to me, well, I yelled at my kid the other day because he did this. And then two hours later,

he came back and he really apologized and he said he was so sorry. So I know he knows he did the wrong thing. So they're sort of saying to me, I know he knows how to do better, so I'm gonna expect him to do better next time. Well, the reality is the child comes back not because they know they were wrong. They've made the story about themselves so they feel wrong. That's already one thing, but now we're setting them up for the parent traps that we're trying so hard to avoid, because they're making the story about I am a bad kid.

I made my mother yell, that's the story. But they're really coming back because the connection is so critical to them. They need that connection so badly that they are trying to repair. And it's really fascinating because they are the child. Whereas it's our job as the adult to hang on to that connection. So the repair looks like, it doesn't look like

Okay, come home from work, I'm tired, my kid won't brush his teeth. So I yelled at her to brush her teeth, told her why couldn't she be like her sister, and then she went to bed with no book. So the next day the kid comes home, I'm so sorry, I know I'm supposed to brush my teeth. The repair looks like, Susie, in a quiet moment when you're putting to bed the next night, doesn't have to be right away. I came home, I wanted to apologize about last night.

And the apology doesn't look like you were a bit of a pain in the neck. You know that I don't like when you're don't brush your teeth. So I got angry. And that goes back to what you said a minute ago, Sean. You said, when I get angry, cause something happened, that's me. I own that anger. That's, I can decide whether it'd be happy it's raining or sad it's raining. That is my choice. It doesn't feel like a choice, but it is our choice. ⁓ So instead of saying that we say, I was tired. I'd had a long day.

and I yelled at you when you didn't brush your teeth. And I am sorry for yelling at you because I can see how that might make you think that I think you don't care. But I know you care.

And then now you've said you've taken responsibility for your piece. I haven't said we're never gonna brush our teeth again, right? They may need help sorting that out. But in that moment, it's all about me saying I did something and I'm gonna work on that. I'm working on my yelling, because I don't like when I yell at you. I'm sure that doesn't feel good. So that was my fault. And now you're taking the blame off of that child.

As opposed to, am a bad kid, I cause bad things to happen. The story is, mom was tired, she yells, she's trying to get better at it. And then a different conversation at a later time is, seems like we're having a hard time brushing our teeth at night. What do we need to do? And this is where I say to people like, come for one session, I can tell you exactly. I mean, I can tell you if you want to know, but like, we can figure it out. If it's teeth brushing, we can figure it out. You just got to stick to the plan.

and they'll do it because they want to do the right thing. But so that's what the repair looks like. It takes ownership for your piece in it.

Sean Patton (35:16)
Yeah. owning up to your response and, it reminds me of what you mentioned before about sort of like that fawning or we know what I like almost call it, like heroing or like trying to fix like over owning, you know, and over owning as opposed to what you're talking about is like just owning your piece of it. and not overstepping and

Mary Smith (35:30)
over owning.

Sean Patton (35:40)
that allows them to own their piece of.

Mary Smith (35:42)
Not groveling is oftentimes the word I'll use. Like, please like me again. I'm so sorry. I'll never do that. Right. That's, that's different. Exactly. To, I apologize for yelling. I think we probably need to think about how we handle projects going forward. Cause if every time you hand your project in late, yeah, I can stop getting mad, but the problem is still the projects are late. So it's kind of, you got to separate them. You being, you being disappointed and having a boundary that projects can't be late is one thing.

You yelling when it's late is another and the yelling is probably not going to fix it anyways. And the kid's situation is not going to. Sometimes it will, but it comes at a cost usually.

Sean Patton (36:15)
Yeah, it comes across of that connection, right? And that trust. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You same. Same. Exactly. And one of the things too you talk about is the importance of moments over milestones. Can you explain that?

Mary Smith (36:19)
Correct, correct, which has long term. And the same with you. Same with leadership. Yeah.

Yeah.

So I use that a lot because I'm always trying to explain to people like the culture this day and age and not just where I live, it's in a lot of the country, like is a win at all costs. You know, almost, right? You gotta win. Your child's gotta be number one. They gotta make the A team. In fact, they don't have to make the A team. They gotta make it by the time they're seven.

You know, like there's this thing that everyone has to win and it's a very youth obsessed culture. Like it's all about the children. So it's become a little too much. And so then as parents, it's easy. First of all, it's easy. You take your child. It's all milestones. When did they first sit up? I don't even know if he sat up yet.

happens right around now, right? When did they first open their eyes? When did they first poo? When did they first drink this much? When did they first sleep through the night? When did they first, you know, do this? When everything is milestones. And then...

You know, now we have kids graduating from kindergarten. So now they get to graduate from kindergarten. And did they win the award for being the best speller in the class? That's a milestone. When did your kid read? You know, can he do a math problem? Can they do the alphabet? Those are milestones. And they're important. And I think of milestones as the Instagram reel. And so the one I was talking about the other day is a kid doing well in the sport. That's fun for me to grab onto. Look at me, my kid did well. Like, this is amazing.

But milestones is the Instagram reel. It's important. It tells your story. gives you a place. It's your life. But it's these little behind the scene moments. It's the connection for one minute. It's the hearing someone's perspective when you don't feel like it. It's the holding the boundary to say, actually, no, I need that tonight, you know, in work. Or saying, you know, I'm just sorry. The rule was you can't go to your friend's house until your room is clean.

I'm not gonna have a fit about your room not being clean, but you're not gonna go to your friend's house. Done. Those moments are what build, they're the emotional, I call them emotional anchors for the foundation for your child's mental health. So they're the foundation that allows those milestones to be as high as they can go.

And what I show on a chart is like, you think of mental health being on one chart, resilience, know, empathy, that's a skill, like all those skills and characteristics you need and time on the lower one, as we get the most moments more right, the curve kind of goes exponential, right? So people do better and better, whereas you can get all A's and be the top of the class and be the top of the team, but at a certain point,

that's no longer going to hold you up.

Sean Patton (39:10)
you

Mary Smith (39:10)
It's

not really giving you what you need at your core, which is your mental health and resilience and connection, because that's part of it. So that's when I make a distinction between that. So the moments, the example I used was, you know, great, look at there on the way to the final four, amazing. And everyone's like milestone. Yeah, God, she's gonna be so successful.

It actually comes in the moment with a little, because I coach K2 and it happened the other day with a little girl, you know, literally didn't win some game that we were dumb little game we were playing. She cried and it's happened with more than one couldn't. My, my meeting responses, my gosh, what are we doing wrong? They shouldn't be so upset, but really I catch my breath and then I, I just stand there and then I say, you really wanted to win, didn't

and you let them sit with it, and then their body processes, and then they do the three cartwheels and go on to the next thing. So now what we've told her is A, doesn't change what I think of you when you win or lose, I'm still here. Two, I know you can handle this, so I'm not gonna say to you, gonna give you an extra piece of candy at the end of the day anyways.

because I know you can handle this. And that's a tiny moment. And when we do, that emotional anchor happens over and over, you start sculpting the brain. And that's what we're doing as parents. We're sculpting their brains so we can let them go on in life.

Sean Patton (40:35)
I love that. Mary, this has been awesome. I really appreciate your time. And I could do this for hours to learn. And then people do need to follow you, whether parents or ⁓ not parents in leadership, because the stuff you put out and the basis behind it with the neuroscience background and the social component is really powerful. So if they want to learn more about you, where do they go?

Mary Smith (40:57)
⁓ you can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me at ⁓ marywilcoxsmith.com, although you can put one L or two Ls in Wilcox. Also marysmithparentcoach.com if that's easier, whatever is easier to spell. And then all the links to there are there. That's probably the easiest, right? And then my LinkedIn is marywilcoxsmith. Two Ls.

Sean Patton (41:10)
Okay.

Awesome, well

thank you so much for your time, Mary. It was awesome and ⁓ keep doing what you're doing. It's such important work. I know I'm gonna be, you've got a follower for life here. I'm just trying to figure this thing out right now.

Mary Smith (41:30)
No, Sean, I love your stuff and thank you so much for having me. Until next time. Until next time.

Sean Patton (41:36)
All right, until next time.