[00:00:11.920] – Speaker 1
Well, hey, everyone. It’s Chris Tompkins, and welcome back to the Shaping Our World podcast. My goal is to invite you into a conversation that will leave you more confident in understanding and inspiring the young people in your life. Each episode, we talk with leading experts and offer relevant resources to dive deeper into the world of our youth today Today, we actually have a guest who’s been on our show before, all the way back in season one. And what a great repeat guest. Dr. Karyn Gordon is the CEO and founder of D. K. Leadership, a company dedicated to developing great leaders at work and at home. She has 25 years of experience as a professional registered therapist and executive coach. She holds a doctorate in marriage and family and certifications in leadership, emotional intelligence, and career direction. She has spoken to over half a million people in 17 countries, including Fortune 500 executives, family businesses, entrepreneurs, professional associations, and school boards. She’s written a Wall Street Journal bestselling book called The Three Chairs, and she is a popular media personality having appeared on Live with Kelly and Mark, Good Morning America, and City Line, to name just a few.
[00:01:21.480] – Speaker 1
Today, Dr. Karyn is here to talk about an upcoming event D. K. Leadership is hosting, specifically for young people, called Leadership 101 Youth Edition. I can’t wait to hear what she has to say about how we, as parents and caregivers, can help nurture leadership skills in our kids. Before we meet our guest, a quick word about an opportunity at Muskoka Woods. Starting as a staff member here, I found it to be more than just a job. I discovered a pathway to personal and professional growth. We are committed to intentional staff development, providing training, and building a network that can propel your career forward. Imagine working where you’re nurtured to grow with access to amazing facilities and staff care events. If you’re seeking a role that prepares you for what’s next, visit jobs.muskokawoods.com for more details. Now, let’s get into the heart of our show. Dr. Karyn, welcome. It’s great to have you back.
[00:02:20.920] – Speaker 2
Well, thanks, Chris. I’m so excited I’m invited back. It’s a good sign.
[00:02:25.470] – Speaker 1
Well, it’s encouraging, and we haven’t had many guests repeat, and you’re definitely one of them. We’re excited for this conversation. To give some of our listeners context, Karyn lives up where I work in Muskoka, and we know each other well, and she does a lot of great work with our students, which we’re going to talk about what she’s up to now, but also weave into the life of young people. Karyn, as we get going, what shaped your world when you were a teen? What influenced you growing up?
[00:02:52.880] – Speaker 2
Oh, wow. What a great question. What shaped me? I would actually say definitely, obviously, my family me in different experiences. But the thing that I would say shaped me the most was my diagnosis of my learning disability when I was in Grade 8. If anybody’s seen my TED Talk, I go into more detail about that. But it definitely shaped me significantly because it was the first major, major hurdle that I experienced and how I had to deal with that and face that really is where my leadership journey started. People often think that leadership starts with a title, and I don’t believe that. I believe it starts with a mindset and it can actually start very early. For me, that is where my leadership journey really started, facing that and having to ask for help and learning how to navigate it. I would say for me, that’s what it would be.
[00:03:43.340] – Speaker 1
Well, that’s great. It’s so interesting how a diagnosis like that or something that could seemingly send your life off into one direction actually helps shape your world and your future. Before we get into the work that you’re actually doing today, particularly with young people. Tell us a little bit about you. What’s shaping your world? You got two boys. They’re very active. You live in Muskoka area. Tell us a little bit about more of you.
[00:04:09.750] – Speaker 2
Well, in terms of the personal side, as you know, I’m married to a great human, Brent. We’re coming up on our 24th year, which has been just amazing. And so he is both my best friend, but also business partner. So we have a lot of things that we actually do together, which has been great. Our twins are now in grade 12, about to hopefully go off to school next year. That has been really exciting. For me, doing this work with young people, it’s really fun for me to learn it academically, professionally, and then apply it to my own children. They have their own stories about when I start going off on a tangent, they’re like, Oh, Mom, not another TED Talk. Or I’m like, Oh, let’s get on our leadership manual. We’ve been working on this leadership manual since grade four. They find that actually quite funny. But I really, really believe strongly in what people see when they see me, whether it’s speaking or in TV, that this is who I am. This is the authentic. I’m not going to try to teach and preach one thing and not try to live it myself.
[00:05:13.540] – Speaker 2
Really try to work hard on creating structure and building a business, but with balance and having a lot of fun in the process. We’re doing our first family race. My first 10K race is Saturday. We are training up for family adventure races. The boys and my husband did their first one in Escoca last month, which was crazy. Just really expanding that piece. It’s a really exciting… This is a very exciting life stage, and so we’re just trying to really go full throttle and embrace it and love it.
[00:05:45.770] – Speaker 1
That’s amazing. So much going on. I think, what do they say, Doctors make the worst patient sometimes? You get that. Totally. You work with young people a lot, and then your child looks at you and says, Is this what you do with all kids? Do this work? Do you think this works? Yeah.
[00:06:00.560] – Speaker 2
But honestly, Chris, part of it is, as you know, you know my family as well. My father was a pastor. A lot of people who are pastor’s children, they don’t like it because there’s such a hypocrisy between what you see on stage and who’s at home. My family, my parents, my father in particular, was very, very adamant to be the same person. I got that modeled as a young person. I didn’t, at the time, realize that my work and my job would be on the public stage. But that actually really helped prepare me because I often think that my boys see me in a different lens, but I want them to know that what I’m teaching and preaching is really with what I’m trying to do at home, too. I’m certainly not perfect at it, but I do try to be congruent in terms of my external and my internal world.
[00:06:52.570] – Speaker 1
Yeah, what a great example. I’m sure that pays off in so many ways. You talked about really busy, lots of stuff going on in your family. Tell us a little bit about what’s shaping your world, professionally and then maybe specifically around your work with young people and families.
[00:07:10.520] – Speaker 2
No, it’s a great question. As you know, I started doing this It’s coming up on 30 years, which is so crazy. I was actually speaking in an event last night, and actually is the first time I actually use that number. I’m coming up on my 30th year doing this work. Started with families at a private practice, and then was encouraged to expand and take my doctorate in marriage and family, and specifically family systems. I was encouraged by businesses to take that knowledge and apply it into organizational systems. That’s where I spend about 80% of my time now is working with businesses all across the US in every state, all across Canada. We have some clients actually in Asia and Europe now as well, and really helping them in terms of leadership, and more specifically, an entrepreneur business system, and really getting their system in place so they can grow and scale their business. But what’s really What’s fun about this work is that because I started with families, I still leave 20% of my time still working with families, both on a private practice, but also doing work like the work that I do with Muskoka woods.
[00:08:12.380] – Speaker 2
You fall under that umbrella, the work that I do with the CEOs, because I really, really believe strongly that we can… Obviously, both of these areas are so important, but I can learn all these tools on the business leadership side. But I really love to take it back to family saying, if you want your kids to be successful, however you define success, because obviously success is very personal, these are the things we really have to be paying attention to. I really like working with both sides of the coin. I love working with businesses in different organizations, profit and nonprofit. But taking then feeding it back to parents saying, Listen, this is with what is happening culturally. For us to really help our kids, we need to be proactive and focus on these fundamental skills. I bring to the table, I a very relevant perspective for parents. Last night, I was speaking at a private event, as I was sharing with you. It was a beautiful private event on the water here up in Nescoca. It was a group of business leaders, but it was interesting Chris, they wanted me to talk about marriage, and they wanted me to talk about parenting.
[00:09:20.180] – Speaker 2
These are topics that really relate to all of us around what do we need to do to really properly prepare our children to lead in this next generation because obviously the culture is actually so different.
[00:09:33.400] – Speaker 1
When we do our CEO program, we always want to expose young people to people like yourselves who have the experience and expertise in the business world, but also love young people. I think that’s been what’s really significant about what these young 15 and 16-year-olds get exposed to in that program. They get to hear from someone like you. I also know you love it, and you mentioned about families and helping shape families and young people. I just maybe want, before we get into all this stuff on parenting and young people and goal setting and all that stuff, maybe just what is it that you love about young people today? When you get to work with them and when What do you see? You could not carve out 20% of your time. You could just spend 100% doing what you’re doing. It might even be more lucrative, but you create space, and particularly with us, to get in there and spend a day with these young people. Why do you do that?
[00:10:32.410] – Speaker 2
Well, I love it because I’ve always loved young people. I started my practice when I was 22 years old. I had my master’s in counseling, and I didn’t even realize I loved young people until actually I started practicing. It happened very organically, and I was so young. I started my practice, and there was 200 medical doctors in this medical office. I started, really, essentially my first business at 22 years old. I was so young that the only clients that would really come see me were ones that were younger than me. So it doesn’t really give a whole lot of age groups. It’s different counseling kids. But teenagers, it was during that time, and I was at that practice for 10 years, I just loved the energy. I love their energy, I love their curiosity, I love their questions. I didn’t realize at the that there’s a lot of counselors that don’t even like working with teenagers. I was like, Are you kidding me? This group is awesome. Teenagers are very… They can pick that up. They know if people like them or not. If you are that safe person, they’ll just open right up like a flower.
[00:11:46.470] – Speaker 2
My style is very solution-oriented and very tool-based and very action-oriented. It was really an ideal fit. I loved working with them, and I still continue to work with young people at that capacity. But I loved how they could learn tools. A lot of the things, even back then, I was teaching leadership, even though I didn’t realize it was under that umbrella. They could learn leadership tools that literally could help create a foundation for them to help them through their whole life. In fact, I had a former client of mine reach out maybe about two years ago, and she would have been in my very first year of my practice. I remember her almost 30 years ago, and she would came in. She was a teenager at the time. She’s like, this is, again, almost 30 years later. She kept the book. She had this book of all the tools that I was teaching her. She goes, Karyn, I have kept this book for almost 30 years by this point. I go back to it when I feel stuck, when I feel like, what was the tool that Karyn taught me? To me, that just brings me so much joy.
[00:12:48.950] – Speaker 2
It’s so satisfying. It just fills my cup to know that young people can learn these fundamental skills so early, and then it can bless them their whole life. So So that’s my why. That’s why I love it. And it helps not only them, but it helps their friends. It can help their family, all of it. There’s a ripple effect when we actually help other people.
[00:13:12.320] – Speaker 1
So you have a course coming out for young people on October 24th called Leadership 101 Youth Edition, and you give a live online course on that date, but then after parents can access the course on demand for up to a month. So as we want to unpack a little bit of this, a little bit of a precursor to what they can expect and maybe like a little crash course in what’s coming up. Maybe I want to start. You talked about leadership skills being important as a ripple effect to build foundation for their lives. Why else is it important for kids, young people, to develop leadership skills at a young age?
[00:13:48.060] – Speaker 2
Well, it’s like a language. The earlier we can learn these leadership skills, it means that they’re going to be able to benefit in every part of their life. As a leadership expert, but I’m also a mental health professional, I still practice, I still have my license. When we see the mental health crisis, I mean, absolute crisis that is happening, not just with young people, but also in adults, when you dial it back, a lot of it, not all of it, and there’s certainly exceptions to it, a lot of that could be fixed by learning leadership skills. For example, one of the biggest issues with a lot of young people is around stress. Stress, obviously, Adels feel that actually as well. But for most people who feel stressed, the root issue is not stress. The root issue is time management. When we have too much on our plate, when we take on too much, when we don’t know how to say no, when we don’t know how to set boundaries, the result is stress. Anxiety is another one. A lot of times when people have anxiety, it’s because they’re focusing on the future. They’re focusing on things that they cannot control.
[00:14:54.210] – Speaker 2
One of the things I love to do is leadership, when you really dig into it, you realize if you can really learn these skills, not only are you going to actually help you achieve really the life that you want and whatever success looks like for you, but you can also increase your happiness, but also significantly reduce the chances in terms of some of these mental health issues around stress, anxiety, even depression. Wow. Yeah. There’s a lot of correlation between leadership and mental health, which a lot of people may or may not think about, but when they logically think about it, it actually makes sense.
[00:15:25.000] – Speaker 1
Totally. I want to dive in a minute to things like time management and other things. But before we do, what can parents and kids expect through this course? What are some of the essential leadership skills that young people could be developing in this season of their life?
[00:15:41.180] – Speaker 2
There are two main leadership skills that are foundational, not just for teenagers to learn, but also for adults to learn. I actually really encourage… We teach this course once a year live. People can obviously watch the recording of it later, but the live is much much better to do it if you can. Also, I encourage families to do it together. My own boys actually do it. These are skills we’ve been teaching our own kids since grade four. But the two skills, the first one is around vision casting and goal setting. It’s really important for young people and adults to start thinking about, What is it I want? Where do I want to go? What is the vision that I have for my life? These are really big questions, and a lot of people are like, I don’t know. I don’t even know what I’m going to have for breakfast tomorrow. A lot of us, we don’t think about it. We think we’re much more reactive. Life happens to us instead of actually designing how we want our life to turn out. So there’s two parts of the course. The first part is actually really getting people to and young people, specifically, to think about what are the goals, what’s my vision and the goals that I want to set up for myself in the next year.
[00:16:52.280] – Speaker 2
For the older students, we actually get them to do it actually for up to three years. And that’s why we like to do this course in the fall, because I think it’s a great way for young people to really put pen to paper around what are the goals that they actually would like to do. But we do it in a really, really fun way, and it’s super engaging. There’s music and there’s vision boards, and it’s highly creative, so the time just flies by. But that’s the first part. Is there really good clarity? Because if we don’t have clarity, we don’t know what to say yes to, we don’t know what to say no to. That’s first part is the goal setting and the vision. The second part is once you know that, then the second part is the time management. Time management is It’s the vehicle to making sure that we are prioritizing our goals. I do a lot of this work, for example, college and university students, a lot of them crash around this time because they haven’t mastered time management. If we don’t master time management, we’re going to have major your major issues around stress, anxiety, depression, if we really get backlogged with it.
[00:17:51.540] – Speaker 2
I show us a system about what is the best way to actually set up your time. And it’s the same process, Chris, that I do when I do executive coaching for C-suite on businesses, it’s exactly the same exercise and the same tools. Obviously, the day looks different for a CEO of a company versus a teenager. But the process is actually exactly the same. We have to get clear on our vision and our goals, and we have to really craft and identify with what is our ideal daily high performance time management system so that we can make sure that we’re actually achieving our goals. But we do it all in a super fun interactive way. The The best way to do it, I find, is get families to do it together. It’s so much more fun. We do this every year, and our boys have been doing it since grade four, and it’s very cool. They go back and they have all of their goals that they have actually written out since grade four. Then that gets put on the fridge and you know them with what is everybody chasing? Everybody needs schools. And not just…
[00:18:52.150] – Speaker 2
Part of the thing with goals, a lot of times when you talk about goals, teenagers will be like, Oh, seriously? Because we think about goals We think about school. That’s one of the six categories, but there’s five other categories that are super important, like your plate goals and your physical health goals and your friend goals and your financial goals. So there’s other buckets that are much more exciting for a lot of young people, so I think they like it. So once we get to the end of it, it’s a very holistic framework on understanding what does success look like for me this next year? And what do I want to do? But also how am I going to do Well, we’re not going to spoil all the details of these things, but I think if we could dive into these topics one at a time just to understand them a little bit more.
[00:19:39.110] – Speaker 1
You talked about stress and mental health. What’s the correlation between effective goal setting and a reduction in stress and anxiety for young people? How do these things fit together?
[00:19:49.630] – Speaker 2
Yeah, they’re very correlated, actually. It’s actually one of the reasons that around why I wanted to go into leadership space, because I started in the mental health space and everything was already… Things were already a problem. People are had anxiety and stress and depression. It was very high. But I realized I’m like, Oh, if I teach these tools, not only are they going to feel better about themselves, but it’s actually going to reduce their stress, anxiety, and depression. I realized, You know what? I can still do it in the family context, but what about if you just focus completely on the leadership side, then all of a sudden it’s much more proactive. The reason why they’re correlated is because somebody who has clarity on their vision and clarity on their goals, and they’re stepping on the gas. Now they have clarity on their goals. They’re taking initiative towards those goals. It builds what’s called self-efficacy. It’s a big fancy word, which basically gives a person a sense of, Oh, my goodness, I can have control over how my life turns out. Instead of me being a passenger in my life, I’m an active participant. That whole exchange helps drive confidence.
[00:21:00.290] – Speaker 2
It’s one of the best ways to build confidence is by goal setting things that are important to us. It’s one of the best ways to build confidence. There’s been a lot of research, a huge amount of research, around the more you actually build confidence, it’s like a teeter totter. The more a person builds confidence, then actually the other side comes down, which is stress, anxiety, and depression. Those three are highly correlated with confidence. That’s why it’s interesting. I see all the stats on mental health crisis and all of that, and obviously it’s alarming. But the hope story in this, or there are very, very simple things that people can do that are free, that can massively impact and change in terms of their overall mental health and their leadership. And goal setting is one of them. And that’s, I think there’s other ways. There’s lots of other ways to do it. But goal setting, I know Ms. Scoca-woods. I mean, this is a great… You guys are incredible. As you know, I’m like a super fan of Muskoka woods. I’ve been for years, and I just love how you’re encouraging. You create a safe environment for people to set goals, to stretch themselves, to have courage, to do something you’ve never done before, whether it’s water skiing or doing a sport or speaking on stage.
[00:22:13.510] – Speaker 2
All of those opportunities for young people to really stretch themselves is incredibly powerful. That’s a way for people to build confidence. That’s how those things are correlated.
[00:22:27.780] – Speaker 1
We call it challenge by choice in a lot of our activities where kids at the beginning of the week set out what they want to accomplish. There’s no set formula in order to get this level, you have to do this. Because we said for some kids, just getting strapped in and going halfway up the climbing wall is success. For others, doing the zip line can be in. But we still want them to name at the beginning of the week, what does success look like for the week?
[00:22:58.230] – Speaker 2
Oh, that’s great. Oh, I didn’t know you did that. It’s fabulous. I love that.
[00:23:05.770] – Speaker 1
Let’s take a moment to talk about Muskoka Woods CEO Leadership Program. This isn’t just a summer program. It’s a stepping stone for your future. Teenagers can earn a grade 11 high school credit or complete community service hours, all while developing leadership skills in a supportive environment. Our team of passionate staff ensures every CEO has a remarkable and educational experience experience. Interested in joining this July or August? Find out more at mscokawoods. Com. You did Say, like young people, when you hear about goals, I can just imagine around the table like, Okay, we’re going to set goals. And you’re like, Oh, that sigh. Like you said, because a lot of them think it’s maybe academic or like, achievement in that sense of what we might define as, or what my parents want me to be doing as success. Other than coming to take your leadership 101, what are some ways as parents can we help kids to think about goals and determine what they are and help them set them for themselves?
[00:24:16.250] – Speaker 2
It’s a great question. So a couple of things. One is, I use the word goals because it’s something that actually everybody knows. That being said, the best word to really engage young people I have found is, what’s your vision? What’s the vision vision you have for your life? What’s the vision you have for this year? Even in camp, what’s the vision you have for yourself this next week? Somehow the word vision is there’s more of a positive correlation to that word than goals for a lot of people, and even adults, actually, I think. Because to your point, when we think about goals, it’s about academics and it’s about what parents want for us. That is not going to build confidence. What builds confidence is what’s the goal that I want for myself? What is meaningful for me? Am I going to step on the and start taking initiative? That’s where the confidence can start building. It’s very, very important in the exercise, certainly even that we do it during our course. I love it when parents are there because then they’re actually learning. I encourage parents to do the exact same exercises with They’re young people.
[00:25:16.410] – Speaker 2
They’re preteens or teens when we teach it. But I actually don’t want parents to give input because I want them. I want young people to really lean into their own life. So that is one thing. It’s like using the word vision, I think, instead goals. The other way is expose your kids to different people that might be inspiring for them. So this past week, and we used to live in Toronto, as you know, and I hardly go to Toronto anymore. Because I do so much work in the States, so if anything, I just fly to the Toronto airport. So I haven’t been to Toronto in six months. Anyway, I was down there for a few things this past week, and I brought one of my sons. We had a great time. It was just the two of us. We had a fabulous weekend in Toronto, and we ended up seeing family friends, and our family friend is a lawyer. My one son who’s thinking about a variety of different areas right now for school, he was able to pick his brain a little bit about that as a potential career choice. It was so interesting.
[00:26:16.110] – Speaker 2
These are things that I’ve told my son. I’ve had this conversation. All parents, you know what I’m talking about. You could say the same thing to your kids, but then get somebody else to tell your kid, and they’re like, Oh, my goodness. That’s the best advice ever. It’s like, Hello.
[00:26:29.060] – Speaker 1
Yeah, they’ve never heard before.
[00:26:31.030] – Speaker 2
I’m like, I’ve been telling you this for the last five years. But it was great because he found this conversation. It was very inspiring. This is this guy’s field. He’s an expert in it. He was able to give my son some things to think about. We had a great conversation about it on the way home. Giving your kids exposure to people who would be inspiring for them. When you spend time with them, you’re like, Oh, goodness. It helps you expand your thinking. People that they’ve just done unique things with their life, their God-given talents. Try to expose your kids to those people because it’s going to light a fire for them. Then in addition to putting your kids into different environments that are going to, again, encourage spreading the wings, encouraging that expansion. Environments like Ms. Gocalwoods, environments like whether or not it’s a student abroad program or part-time jobs, huge. I’m a big, big, big advocate for teenagers getting part-time jobs. So exposure and expansion versus just staying home and be on social media and playing video games. It’s going to really close up our kids, and we want to make sure that we’re helping them to see of how the world is a great place.
[00:27:47.780] – Speaker 2
We just have to be willing to go out there and try different things.
[00:27:51.230] – Speaker 1
I love that exposure experience. I love the approach to that. And I think even you framing it as vision, I I think some of the engagement we need to have with our kids is about expanding horizons and having bigger conversations, not about accomplishing more, but about what’s possible and, like you said, how they want things to go. Then you can talk about what steps you need to take to get there. I think that’s a great participatory role for parents to engage with kids in is helping them see themselves in their lives and getting them next to people that can expand those horizons. I think that’s really encouraging. I do want to dive into the time management piece a bit. I think it’s interesting to me because I think that’s a really interesting topic to talk about with young people. And I think, and forgive me because we’re going to go more culturally relevant. A lot of people are talking about how social media impacts our lives today. I do hear with parents, and even in our own house a lot, it’s like, if only they weren’t on their phone so much, they could accomplish more.
[00:29:00.600] – Speaker 1
But we all get lost in that. And so how do you think social media or technology now has impacted kids and our own time management skills? And what advice or input would you have for parents, for ourselves and for our kids, around navigating that?
[00:29:20.400] – Speaker 2
It’s a question I get asked a lot around, even since I’ve been doing this work, how have things changed? It’s interesting. Goal setting, time management, I was teaching that 30 years ago. So the concepts around vision casting, all that, exactly the same. But how we need to learn and apply the tools is different. One of the things I try to do is I try to teach principles that are timeless. When it comes to time management, it’s actually a little bit of a geek when it comes to time management. I love time management. There’s a few topics that I just absolutely love. I love financial literacy and teaching kids about financial literacy. I love I love about goal setting. I love vision casting. I love just, again, these foundational tools. The reason why time management is just so powerful is that when we created a plan for our time, our time is our precious, precious resource. When we really understand this is a precious resource, we have to be careful of it. We need to make sure that it is in alignment with our vision and our goals. Otherwise, what happens is the end of the summer comes and goes and a person says, Wow, I don’t even know what I did over the last nine weeks.
[00:30:30.800] – Speaker 2
I think that’s one of the reasons why I like financial literacy and time management is because those are two things that we have a limited amount. We have to be very, very careful with that resource. That’s why in terms of even how I do the course, I get people to do the vision-casting, goal-setting First, we’ve got to get clarity. What is it you want to do? Then let’s look at your time, which is a limited resource, and let’s figure out how you can actually achieve what you want to do. There’s a number of different exercises that I get people to do in that. One of them is I get people to differentiate between what’s a project and what’s something that you’re going to build into your daily routine or your weekly routine. When we get people to do their goal setting, it usually is around 10 to 12 goals for the year in six different buckets. They end up usually having about 10 to 12 goals. Then when we get them to do that, then we get them like, Okay, let’s look at the goals and let’s look at what’s something that has to be built in every single day and what’s a project.
[00:31:29.100] – Speaker 2
You want to It’s on your bedroom or something like that. Just even helping people to differentiate what’s a project versus something a routine is really helpful because right away, a lot of times people be like, Oh, you know what? There’s only four things I really have to figure out. All of a sudden, it becomes more manageable, it becomes more doable. That’s one little trick. The other trick to it, and we help people through this process, is realizing that it’s really your energy management, your emotional energy management we have to figure out. A lot of people don’t know this, but we each have 24 hours in a day, but those hours are not weighted the same. There’s certain times of the day, it’s much, much better from a science perspective to do certain exercises than others. For example, in business, they say you shouldn’t be negotiating in the afternoon. You should be negotiating in the morning. Any business deals in the morning. Meetings should be happening in the afternoon. Most strategic thinking needs to happen in the morning. There’s certain times that they’ve actually figured out is better for certain activities because our mind is sharper.
[00:32:27.360] – Speaker 2
I teach this concept, and young people quite love it because they’re like, Oh, this is so logical. I totally get this. The whole reason I can get teenagers to really get behind it is because I’m like, I’m going to show you how we are going to take your 24 hours in a day and you are going to get everything done that you need to regarding your school or academics or fitness or whatever, and we are going to carve out 2 hours of free time per day. It is really, really, really important for people to have downtime, unscheduled downtime. When I can show them how we can design it, it’s really exciting. They just light right up. They’re like, Oh, my goodness, I can’t believe this is possible. It’s this whole idea that you can actually drive your productivity and you can lower your stress. They get quite excited about it. Like I said, I really want parents to be doing the same thing because if you can get households on the same similar routine, it makes the whole family operate much, much healthier as a system. Then everybody’s happy because things get done and stress is low, lower.
[00:33:28.930] – Speaker 1
Yeah, lower, yes. Lower, yes. Yeah, I think that’s really helpful and great. I love the way you unpack that and the tools. When you said we only have a certain amount of emotional energy, too, that also connected to me with social media and our technology of sometimes that actually does drain our energy, right? And so even if we are checking something or going on, when we’re doing it, why rob the most productive time when we’re scrolling? Use a time in your day that is less consequential of that. I do think one thing to even offer, too, is when we talk about tools, is I think for parents, it’s easy to see devices and technology as the enemy of all this stuff. In many ways, it can be. But those tools can also be used to help time management, to put a calendar together, to find apps or other things that track some of the things. I’m sure in your course, you unpack how to do that practically. But I also know that technology actually can help with our time management if we use the tools appropriately. I think that’s true for me in my work as a leader in an organization, and I think that’s true for people that work with us, and I think that’s true for young people, too.
[00:34:46.040] – Speaker 1
So it isn’t always just like social media is the enemy of good time management there. For sure.
[00:34:53.120] – Speaker 2
I 100%, yeah. No, you’re 100 % right.
[00:34:55.970] – Speaker 1
It might rob it and impact it, but it can also be I wonder if you have some insight on this, Karyn. We did a research project on young adults, Gen Zs, and one of the things that’s interesting, which I think is true for most people, so I’d love for you to speak into it, but one of the things that we saw is a strong disconnect between the things that young people valued and where they spent their time. So they would say, sleep is really important or hanging out with my friends is really important. And we have Christian young people that work with us. My faith is very important. So on the value and important scale, it’s off the charts. And then you go to where you spend your time. And The time management, I think, gets in the way. But also I’m wondering, and I think I’m slowly getting at what you’re doing about vision and then goals and then time, because how do we help people decrease that gap? Sleep was a big one. People thought sleep was really, really important, but then they didn’t do it much. They didn’t spend a lot of time.
[00:36:06.550] – Speaker 1
How do we close that gap between the things that we say are important and where we spend our time and how we manage our hours in the day?
[00:36:16.050] – Speaker 2
Well, I think it’s a great question. And you know what? Honestly, Chris, I see the same problem when I’m dealing with all generations and even adults. People say they want something, but then what you want and what your actions are It’s like a very disconnect. For sure, I see it with Gen Zs, but I see it really across all generations. Even last night, this event that I was speaking at, asking the audience, what is it that you want? And what are you doing to help yourself achieve that. Everybody’s like a deer in headlights. It’s really quite interesting. A lot of us just don’t think about it. A lot of us, we put a lot of energy and focus on our careers and our businesses, and we’re very reactive it comes to our personal life. We’re reactive with our marriages. We’re reactive. We don’t create strategic plans. That’s essentially what I’m doing when I do these courses is getting people to create a bit of a strategic plan on what is it you want and then having a plan to do it. Because if you don’t have a plan, we tend to be like, Oh, I’ll just go to bed when I feel tired, or I’ll just call this person.
[00:37:23.670] – Speaker 2
We’re just very passive about it. To close the gap, we have to, step one, get clear about what it is that you want. That’s really big because some people don’t even know what that is. Then the second part is, Okay, then I’ve got to look at my limited resources of time and then design it to the best that I actually can. Then the other piece, and I forgot to mention this around social media, also in that process when we teach it is to highlight what are some of the distractions? What are the things that you think are going to prevent you from following this plan? We’ve had students over the years where they’ll be like, You know what? I realized that I’m spending way too much time on Instagram or TikTok, whatever. We’ve had literally young people in our course before where one of their goals is where they actually had a time limit on how much time they’re going to be on social media because they realize that they need to be so cognizant of that to remove that distraction. Otherwise, it’s going to block them from achieving some of their other goals. There are ways…
[00:38:28.380] – Speaker 2
We just want to always be pro active with what it is that we want. We’ve got a limited time on this precious Earth of ours. To think about a limited time, how can I use my God-given talents and really maximize the time that I have? We just don’t want anything to be wasted. It’s a very cathartic, I think, exercise for a lot of people to do it. It’s very reflective. Like I said, we use tons and tons of music and just make it super interactive and fun because I think it can be quite energizing. When people start tapping into their vision, it’s very energizing. Then when they can see the plan that they’re creating, all of a sudden they’re like, they have hoped. Like, Oh, my goodness, this is actually doable. The whole exchange is I love doing it. I love doing it. Like I said, my own boys will be doing it. We’ll be doing it with us on the 24th.
[00:39:22.200] – Speaker 1
Just to even add into that, one of the things I think that’s really interesting and I think helpful is even simply doing an inventory of where do spend your time. I think so often that’s one of the things that just gets away from us is like, you end a day and you’re like, Where did the time go? What did I do all day? And I think a lot of us, particularly young people, haven’t really done a reflection on where they do spend their time. They don’t even know what they’re managing in the hours. So I think that’s really interesting, too, to do an inventory. I think most of us would be surprised if we really went through and said, Where do we spend time in which buckets? You’d be like, I didn’t realize. I thought I spent more time with my friends than I actually do, or whatever it is. So I think that’s interesting. Listen, we’re wrapping up our time in this conversation. There have been so many good things, and I think a bit of a precursor and teaser to the leadership workshop that you’re doing in a little bit here. So beyond signing up for that and going to that, what are some other resources that you can recommend to parents who are going, All right, I’d like to help my kids develop more leadership skills.
[00:40:30.910] – Speaker 1
Feel free to refer to anything you do and also just anything else you thought that’s been helpful.
[00:40:36.310] – Speaker 2
Well, one thing I was thinking of that would be really fun for a lot of parents is at our website, dkleadership. Org. We have a We’ve got a number of free resources for families. We’ve got lots and lots of YouTube videos that we do. But one of the resources I think would be super helpful for your audience is we have a parent report card. I created this report card years ago from one of my clients who said to me, I want to give my feedback to my parents, but I don’t know how to do it. I created a report card, and she was actually able to help me craft it. This is a great starting point. Parents, if you want to really work on becoming a stronger influence in your child’s life, your child, pre-tean, pre-tean. I would print it. If you’ve got two kids, print two copies. You’re going to get different answers and basically be open, say, I’d love to have a great relationship with you. That’s one of my goals. That’s one of my visions that I have for this next year. Can you give me some honest feedback about what am I doing well and actually what needs work?
[00:41:40.860] – Speaker 2
It’s a really, really great practical tool to lean into that relationship. So many of us as parents, we would probably say, most of us would say, that being a parent is one of our most precious and most important goals. So this is a great way to lean into it. And the feedback can be scary. Sometimes we can get feedback that we don’t necessarily want. But that is the way that we really lean in and learn to become a great parent and a great leader for our children. So that is for sure a great resource. But we also have lots of videos. Again, they’re free for families just to help them learn different tools, both in their parenting, but also in their marriage, and also in their business and their career as well.
[00:42:24.640] – Speaker 1
I know you have so many resources that people can access through your website in general, even about if there’s adults that are interested in leadership skills. And we talked about this through the interview as well. Just to add to that, not to put… Well, I’ll put a little words in your mouth. Let your kids get jobs. Have them try activities, send them to summer camp. I think there is a lot of research on how camps, day camps, summer camps, whatever that is, inputs into developing leadership skills. It’s one of the proven outcomes of being involved at camp is the development of leadership skills. And so I think that’s the same in having a part-time job or being involved in clubs. I think those are other ways to build upon the resources that you have and that so many other experts like yourself are writing on is to get kids to expand their horizons and get involved.
[00:43:21.620] – Speaker 2
Yes, 100 % agree.
[00:43:23.440] – Speaker 1
I want to add that. So, Karyn, thank you so much for your time and look forward to see if anybody can sign up for that course and get involved and be part of Leadership 101. Thank you for your time today and really appreciate all you do, not just for us at Muskoka Woods, but for all of the young people, families, and leaders that you serve.
[00:43:45.100] – Speaker 2
Awesome. Thanks so much, Chris.
