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Casey O'Roarty 0:04
Hey, what is up podcast, listeners, I am so glad that you have found yourself at the joyful courage podcast. This is a place where we celebrate real and raw conversations about raising kids with conscious parenting and positive discipline. I'm your host. Casey o'rourdy, I'm a facilitator. I'm a parent coach. Most importantly, I am a mom of two teenagers, and I am walking the path of more mindful, intentional parenting right alongside of you. Please know that this podcast is created for you. I create it for you and for our community. And if you love it, feel free to share it with all of your family and friends over social media. Let's spread the word. Let's get as many people as possible listening to this show. Please write a review on Apple's podcast, formerly known as iTunes, and join the Patreon community, where parents, just like you are contributing just a small little amount each month to the show and enjoying perks like monthly webinars and community conversations about the content you hear on this podcast. Check the show notes for links and more details on all of that. I am so, so grateful that you are here and now enjoy the show. Hi listeners. My guest today is Sid. Garza Hillman. Sid is a podcaster and YouTuber. He's the author of approaching the natural a health manifesto and raising healthy parents, small steps, less stress and a thriving family. Sid graduated from UCLA with a BA in philosophy, and is a public speaker, certified nutritionist and small steps coach. He teaches people around the world his unique small steps approach to healthy [email protected] his latest podcast, what Sid thinks is currently available on iTunes. Sid is the wellness programs director at the Stanford in eco resort. He's an ultra runner and race director for the Mendocino Coast 50k trail ultra marathon. I am tired just saying that. Sorry. Sid lives on California's Mendocino coast with his wife and three children, horse, dog and two cats. Hi, Sid. Welcome to the podcast.

Sid Garza-Hillman 2:30
Hi Casey. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, please

Casey O'Roarty 2:33
let the listeners know a little bit more about you and what you do.

Sid Garza-Hillman 2:37
Well, yeah, the you know, in the bio, there was really a mouthful, sorry that you had to read that whole thing. You know, my main, my, my, my main job began about 10 years ago when I, when I went back to school to become a certified nutritionist and started working in that field. But it quickly expanded as I realized that, as I was handing people, you know, nutrition plans and Okay, based on what you want and what your goals are, here's the here's what you do. And found that most people weren't sticking with my recommendations. And so literally, within a couple months of me becoming, you know, working this way, I changed my entire approach, and that's when I crafted my small steps approach. That's when I wrote my first book, approach to the natural, because I realized it was that we know more about nutrition than ever before, and yet we're getting less healthy. I realized that it was knowledge is only a very small part of the picture of how to actually pull this off. Most of it is implementation, and that's that's where my focus began and became and solely stayed there. I launched a podcast back then called approaching the natural podcast. I ran that for 222, episodes, all dedicated to the small, my small steps approach. I later expanded it even further into the parenting realm. Hence the new book that, that I'm sure we'll talk about, or whatever, but that that's, again, you know, I really liked your in reading up about you, I was like, Oh, we completely lock up on this, you know, like, this is a challenge, and how do we crack the nut that's that's kind of where we're both focused. It seems like, yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 4:04
I love that. And I definitely see the overlap with having. I mean, there, there couldn't be more information about parenting, right? I mean, there's blogs and podcasts and books and experts, and there's so much information. And just like the same with nutrition and then the dedicate, you know, we wake up in the morning, or we go to bed at night and decide, you know, tomorrow I'm going to stay calm, I'm going to be more present and connected. I'm going to do all these things because I know that this is what's going to serve myself and my family, my kids. And yet, we find ourselves in those old patterns, right? And like, Oh, if I just wasn't so mad, then I'd be able to stay calm and present,

Sid Garza-Hillman 4:48
yeah? I mean, the old patterns and habits, you know, people have to understand those are years in the making, yeah? And we and we want to undo those tomorrow, and it's just never realistic that way, you know? And it's interesting, I was working. With clients before I wrote the parenting book. And the inspiration for that book, because I was working with clients and just helping them to be healthier and to eat well, and they exercise the whole the whole picture, right? And yet, a source of the I started to realize that a large source of a lot of the of my clients stress came from the family. It came from, you know, like you just said, like trying to, you know, be they're frustrated with themselves because they weren't handling things the way that they want to handle things, etc, etc. And I thought, wait a second, this is interesting. This is completely bleeding over. This isn't separate from being a healthy person, your family can be a source of stress, the same way that commuting can be a source of stress and junk eating junk food a source of stress. It's all kind of that whole deal. And so, you know, it is that, that picture of how you, how do you pull this off better? But the question is, how do you do it in a way that sticks and you can't, you know, the expectation of fixing it tomorrow, when you have, when you have, you know, years of the making of habits is a lot of times unrealistic. I When the book first came out, hasn't been out that long. I was interviewed, and they said, Well, why, you know, why do you feel like you're qualified to write a parenting book? And I said, Well, I'm it's not a parenting book. I'm not telling people how to parent their kids. I'm not telling you how to talk to your teenager so that he or she does his homework. What I am saying is that however you choose to parent, you do that when your stress is low and you that's basically what you just said that that's what this book is about. This is however you want to parent. You can't pull that off unless you're feeling good in your life. And that's and that was the inspiration of the book. Completely.

Casey O'Roarty 6:29
I love that, and I love, I really appreciate that, because I think that's one of the biggest hurdles for really, whether it's, you know, grazing in the pantry at 4pm or handling, you know, like just last night, I started a new live workshop, seven week workshop, and I had run my kids around all afternoon. I had this window of time before I left to meet this new group of parents, and the kids were, God bless them. You know, they were on the My kids are 16 and 13. They were on the couch together, laughing at some something on their phone, and for whatever reason, well, not for whatever reason. I was nervous about my class, but that wasn't necessarily in my consciousness. All I knew was that I was agitated, and I knew that they were going to be in charge of their dinner. I knew that they had things to do. I knew that there were things I wanted them to do and get done and have done before I got back a few hours later, and the delivery was, I mean, I was just like a lunatic, and they kind of sat there and they're like, Okay, okay. It wasn't until I was in the car on the way to the class that I realized what that was all about, which was ultimately just, you know, very healthy, normal nerves for, you know, not, I don't get that nervous, but, you know, it's a new group. It's a new space and and so I think that whatever the theme, right, whether it's nutrition or exercise or parenting or, you know, job performance, I think self regulation is ultimately and and be and growing the observer that we are, so that we can recognize, like, Oh, I see what's happening here. I'm a little nervous about this thing. The kids are fine. Everything's gonna be fine. I don't need to be a huge bitch, right? Or like, Oh, I think I'm hungry. I want to go, you know, nibble down the Ritz peanut butter cracker sandwiches that I got for my kid for, you know, school lunches. That's a quick and easy snack. But instead just pausing and asking myself, like, Am I really hungry? Is this what's gonna fuel me? Am I gonna feel good after this, like being the observer of self? And I'm guessing that small stepping has something to do with this. So you tell us a little bit about what what is small stepping Yeah,

Sid Garza-Hillman 8:42
I will, but I'll share like a quick I'll share a quick story, because very similar to what you were talking about. And I'll just say that for me, the approach begins even before observation. It begins with self knowledge, like knowing who you are as a human being, knowing who you are as a parent, really defining that for yourself, so that you know where your sort of anchor, your go to is. And then I'll now sort of, sort of talk about but my own challenge, and it still is. And I think, I think, like, I always want parents to know and people that I work with to know, like, it's never the expectation to be like, well, now 100% I'll never act like that again. You're not going to turn into a robot. We are human. And there are going to be times where you're going to be stressed about something. It's just, it's just what it is. But I think if we can sort of tip the scales in our favor most of the time, then we win that. We win the day. And so, you know, that's again, like kind of that really. But for me, it was coming home, you know, I'd be listening to the news or whatever on the way home. I'd get home and I'd be kind of irritable, not again, like you, like not consciously, necessarily, but I'd sort of walk in the door with this kind of and I'm checking my phone. I just got home from work, but I'm checking my phone for email, and my kids are there, and I've got nine year old twins and a 14 year old, and my wife's there, and we're hanging out, but I'm so. Not there and I'm irritable, and why aren't they now, I gotta watch the dishes. Why aren't the dishes? Why we gotta? And we're kind of this whole thing, right? Yeah. So what I did was in that, in my own practice, which I'll talk about, but I decided that what I would do is not watch the news anymore, not listen to the news on the way home. That was number one, because I started to look at that's not ice. The way I looked at it is like, that's not me. The person who walked in that door like that is not me. I didn't beat myself up over it and say, You're a bad person. You're a bad parent. I said, Who is that guy that that's not even who I am. So I then asked the question, all within the same context of my practice, what is driving me to be that guy that I'm not like, who? What's the one of them, I realized was the news. And the other thing I did is I spent, I spend like a crazy person, my wife looked out the window the first couple times, like, what are you doing? But I would sit in my car. Before I get out of my car, I would take about five to 10 deep breaths. And it was literally a 32nd endeavor, but that was just enough for me to reset the clock. No news. On the way home, 10 deep breaths, walk in the door most most days I win. Most days I win. There are still days where I, because of the day I had at work, it's just going to be one of those things. But most days I win. And that's and I think that's the name of the game, and that's the challenge. I think that you have the exact same way with your group. Oh

Casey O'Roarty 11:16
yeah, oh yeah. Well, and I think that what I'm hearing you say, which I want the listeners hearing this too, because I think we live in a culture that values, you know, perfection and not making mistakes, and that really works against us. Because especially, like, I love that you said we're not robots. I say that all the time, like, we are not robots. Our kids aren't robots. We're humans with human emotions and experiences and lenses, and it's just so messy. So to expect any kind of formula, any kind of like, you know, like I said, I had a new class last night, and I said, you know, if I had a script to give you that would eliminate all the challenges that you have, I'd be making a lot more money that does not exist, right? But the way we be, if we can really focus on how we be and how we show up, that's going to inspire and form, empower and influence what we do and that, you know, I do have some one liners, I do have some tools, but, and I learned this in another training I coach for an organization called boldly and body life, and they have a coach training. And one of the activities we did the last time we were together was to look at, you know, we have tools and then we have users, but the outcome of whatever we do is based on the user of the tool. So there's the user the tool, and then there's the user of the tools So paying attention and being aware and mindful enough to recognize what is contributing to the irritation, the stress and overwhelm, the DIS ease that you're experiencing in your life, because that's something we have control over, whether or not the dishes are done when we walk in the Door is not something we have any control over

but how we respond to it and what's contributing to how we respond to it. I think that's where we can make choices. So I really appreciate that.

Sid Garza-Hillman 13:17
Yeah, no, that's, that's, that's exactly right. I mean, on the nutrition front people, oftentimes they'll say, you know, Ben and Jerry's, that's my that's my problem. You know, ice cream is my problem. Cheese is my problem.

Casey O'Roarty 13:26
Anyone saying Ben and Jerry's is a problem is should be damned.

Sid Garza-Hillman 13:32
But what I but, but in but in all honesty, what I say to them is, I go, that's your solution. And I really want people to remember like, you have a bad day at work and you're stressed, and you come in the door, that's the thing that helps you deal with the stress. It really, really is. The question is, are there better ways to deal with the stress or not? But to say that's my problem, that's not your problem. We're we're we're you read the news. You know, I've said this before, like, I dropped my kids off at school and like I did this morning, and not a day goes by, and actually not a day goes by where I don't have a little moment of pause, because you read the news about the horrific things that happen in schools, and I drop my kids off, and this is, this is just a drop in the bucket of what parents and individuals have to deal with in the modern world, knowing what we know, the craziness of this. This is a very, very challenging time, and so we need solutions. We need to be able to dissipate the stress. The only questions, are we doing most of the time healthy behaviors to dissipate the stress, or are we doing unhealthy behaviors? If we're doing unhealthy behaviors most of the time, then that's going to snowball into us being more unhealthy, more stressed, etc, etc, and sort of just breaking that that up a little bit. So, yeah, I mean, it's, I totally get. I just want people to not blame, you know, not getting like I didn't want myself to get mad at myself for the way I behaved in the house. I wanted to look at it say, if that's not who I am, because I know who I am, then what circumstances that got me to that place, then you can actually be empowered to make an actual change in. Instead of trying to willpower a change tomorrow, you can actually start setting the stage for actual change. And that's that's the exciting thing about about my small steps approach. I think

Casey O'Roarty 15:09
so, coming back to knowing who you are as a parent, I think that that can either be a really simple invitation, or it can also be a really challenging invitation. Mostly, I say that because so much of the typical human existence is spent at the surface and in reaction to what life throws at us. So how do you support and HOW COULD YOU IF listeners, somebody's listening right now, and it's like, who know who I am as a parent. Like, what does that mean? Well,

Sid Garza-Hillman 15:44
so, so one and I meant to comment on the perfection thing. So if I could just for a second. So what I do with people is I tell people either chuck the concept of perfection, because that tends to get us into trouble. Or if you're really going to talk about being a perfect parent or a perfect human being, then you have to use the definition of what a human being is, which is that we are flawed. So just to say, I'm a perfect human being, therefore I never make mistakes, well then you're no longer a human being. And so the idea is like, understand the nature of the being first of all, then say, what's the perfect version of that? Well, the perfect version of it isn't one that doesn't make mistakes. Maybe the perfect version of it is the one that makes mistakes. But how do they handle the mistakes? Maybe the perfect version of a human being is one that that is about self care and compassion and has a core of ethic that informs their actions most of the time. Maybe that is perfection. So I want people to play with that idea of it. So. So with that said, on, on the idea of, of the, sort of the perfect parent idea. I have a very specific thing. It's actually in my book, with a little area that you can write this. I call it the first task, because I don't have a lot of imagination for names, so I call it the first that's good. It's the first task. And so I do this for both individuals that I'm working with, but also for parents. So in the in the raising healthy parents, it's the parenting version of the first task. And what it says is this, imagine that you have, you have a shroud over your head. You can't see. You have no idea what's going on in your life. It's been erased. But somebody says to you, Casey, you are the perfect parent. Like you don't, you don't see what's going on. But let me tell you you are the perfect parent. Describe to me what you do every day and and that's begins that exercise where you write in and I do it in present tense. So it's like, not I will do this, but like I come home. So in other words, here's what I would write, a little did, a little couple. I would say, I walk in the door at the end of the day and I'm not stressed. I'm calm. I hang out with my kids. My phone goes away. I hang out with my wife. We sit and we have dinner together. I take I eat really well most of the time. I exercise. I spend tons of time with a family. I'm straight with my kids. I don't lose my temper. These are, this is how I would define in my first task. This is harder than people think. They go, okay, but the problem is, it isn't actually a shroud. So you kind of know, it's interesting. When I'm working with individuals in the on the health nutrition side, if, if, let's say somebody I'm working with is significantly overweight, which sometimes that happens in their first task, they will write, often, I'm at a healthy weight, they and then what I say to that as when they write that, I said, just so you know. And this is not Woo, woo, word game crap. This is real. This is boots on the ground. I would say that is who you actually are. That you are overweight means you have not been living in line with actually who you are in the parenting realm, when I say I walk in the door, not irritable. That's who I am. I now I know that. Now, can I feel bad that sometimes I don't do that? Or can I say, Well, now that I know who I am, what steps can I take to be more that guide more often than not? But that's how you define. You have to take a few minutes, literally, a few minutes per day. I mean, people don't you know, and just say, well, if I were living as an ideal parent, really, what would it look like to me? You can't the other work to become that is, is useless unless you know where you're going, like unless you really know who you are. That's why, for me, it's it is that knowledge. Knowledge is important, like I said in the very beginning, but then it's all about the implementation. But you gotta know. You gotta know first. And that's how I would that's how I guide people to do that, that exercise,

Casey O'Roarty 19:24
right? And to me, what helps me wrap my head around it too, is like, who am I at my best? Yeah, and it's such an anchor. It's such a lovely anchor, especially when, because there's a lot, I'm sure you've seen this, you know, the parents I work with, there's, there's so much beat up, there's so much self doubt, there's so much Oh, I failed. The word fail comes up a lot, and yeah, and I appreciate this simple recognition of oh, this happened, and that's not who I am, and I'm going to move towards doing what I need to do. To be that person that I know that I am, and having, like, a really clear picture of that I think is so important, and visiting it like you just said on a daily basis. You know, whether it's a mantra, I love post it notes. I have post it notes all over my world, but post it notes just as a little friendly reminder, like, hey, check yourself, because this is who you are, yeah, yeah. I love that, yeah.

Sid Garza-Hillman 20:26
But you gotta, you gotta, you gotta know for, you know, as you said, you gotta know first, I feel like, a lot of times in the, you know, I keep it's all one thing so, but I'll talk about sort of the nutrition side of things. People often go like, I'm fat, I'm ugly, I'm, you know this, they have these messages they've heard their entire lives. I'm a Binger. They'll come to me. I'm a Binger. I can't control my my eating. And yet, in the first task, they write, you know, I don't binge I have a healthy relationship with food as the as then the implementation through my through the small steps, begins. They start to see glimpses and glimmers of the true them emerging. And that's the most exciting thing, because then all of a sudden I go, you know, you've been defining yourself by how you've been in the external world when that's been in complete conflict with actually what you stand for and what you value, and that that's interesting. So again, I can define myself as a crappy parent because I walk in the door, irritable, or again, I can just say, That's not who I am. I know that now and now I'm going to take steps to not be that. And every time I succeed, it feels right because it feel because it's completely like, it's natural, it's like, oh, wait, that's, that's who I am, that that, oh, that's how that's supposed to feel. You don't feel. But one of the coolest things that happened when I launched small steppers, was the response overwhelmingly. And I did not see this coming. People said, I'm not beating myself up anymore. And I realized, like, that is and for me too, like we all, oh my gosh, right, people are beating themselves up. It's like, yeah, because you're defining yourself by what you're doing. But that not that may not necessarily be who you are. You got to get back to you. You You got to start living life on your terms. And that's that's the job of this. And how much and how necessary is this for our kids, right? I mean, if you want to raise kids, well, this is it. You got to do this for yourself first.

Casey O'Roarty 22:16
Hey, everyone, Casey here, just interrupting this interview to remind you that you have this great opportunity for giving back to the joyful courage podcast and receiving in return. I mentioned it in the introduction of the podcast. I mentioned it as I leave at the end, but Patreon. Patreon is where you can go and you can show your support for the value that you receive from this podcast. I get emails. I get messages all the time talking about the way that you all are consuming and loving and putting into practice all that you hear on this show. Patreon is a place where you get to contribute and give back. So at the $10 level, you also get to be included on some monthly webinars and other perks. But you can also just give $1 a month. You can give $5 a month, whatever works for you and your budget. Something really special happens when we know that we are giving back to the service, the product, the companies, the podcast that is giving us so much so I encourage you to head on over to patreon.com/joyful courage. That's P, A, T, R, E, O n.com/joyful, courage, and decide how much the podcast is worth to you. Thanks. I love being transparent about this process to our kids, like, even when we make a mistake, so even when I was all caught up in my stuff and on the surface last night and just kind of reacting to them from my place of stress, you know, by the time I got to where I was going, I pulled out my phone and I sent them both a text, and I acknowledge, like, you know, what, I was kind of a nightmare before I left. I just want to acknowledge that I realize I'm a little nervous about this class that I'm about to teach. And so those nerves kind of made my body feel weird. And so I was just kind of looking for a way to release that, and it, you know, and it turned out, you you got it. And so when I get home, I'm going to show up loving and connected and present. So, you know, love you guys. And I think even when we make our mistakes and our flaws show up, it's also an opportunity for our children to witness what the human experience is, and they get and we get to model what it looks like to say, Huh, wow, I could have done that better, owning it, you know, because every time we make a list of life skills that we want our kids to learn to embody in my classes, personal responsibility shows up, accountability shows up. You know. Making it right, fixing our mistakes. All those things show up. And if, if they're not seeing and experiencing the healthy adults in their life doing those things, you know, then they don't, they don't know what it looks like. Yeah, they want up the skill.

Sid Garza-Hillman 25:14
I mean, arguing, arguing is a perfect example. Like my wife and I get into an argument, you know, like any I've been married 25 years, like we, you know, we're going to get into arguments, and we don't hide that from the kids. We don't go into another room, and so that they have no idea when they get into a relationship and they start arguing that that's they're going to think that's abnormal. Well, my parents, I never saw my parents argue, so this must be abnormal if I'm arguing with my spouse. Well, that's insane to me. Like they I need them to see that I'm nervous when I speak. I want them like I tell them that I go I'm scared when I get on stage. I need them to see what it's like to have fear, to feel fear, and to continue through it. I need them to see that when their mom and I, you know, when Lisa and I argue and resolve that, they see that arguments are real. They are going to happen, and how you resolve them is the name of the game. I need them to see the mistakes like you, like you just said. So that that that to me, is the cool that's perfection. If you're going to say perfection to me, that's perfection of saying I screwed up. Here's how I handled it. I'm owning it. I'm accountable for and when I come home, I'm going to make it right. What better lesson can you give your child? I mean seriously, like, what better lesson can you give your child that's going to benefit them in the workplace, when they screw up and get reprimanded and they but they don't quit, they just go, oops. Okay, I totally got that wrong. Let me fix this, you know, own it.

Casey O'Roarty 26:31
Fix it. Move on. Yeah, totally. And I think that that is so underrated. It is, you know, such a missing conversation, I think, right now, and I you know, on on the main stage right now, there is all sorts of examples of how sideways that can go when adults haven't had those opportunities in their life. But we won't get into that. So what's task number two? Will you tell us? Well,

Sid Garza-Hillman 26:58
it's funny, because in tasks, so there's first task in the parenting in my normal small steppers practice, there is a second task that's totally geared toward in small steps in general, and I haven't really talked about my small steps approach. But the second task is, imagine a world where you where there is no this is, again, like totally the nutrition side of what I do, but you imagine a world where there is no food or beverages, like not even for pleasure, like zero, no coffee houses, no restaurants, no food, no grocery stores, and then they do a quick quantification of about how much time they would save. So in other words, you know, they'll go like, well, you and this is not a joke, like some people spend an average of and a lot of people actually hour to three hours per day on food and or food related that goes for cleaning dishes and shopping and preparing and everything else.

Casey O'Roarty 27:49
Does that also include, like, I wonder what I should eat? Should I eat? What am I going to eat? That's

Sid Garza-Hillman 27:54
right. So that's the thinking time. So no, it absolutely does. So you quantify all that, you go, Okay, well, I'm spending three hours to possibly more when you figure into thinking and that's gone all of a sudden. What do I do with that time? And that's the question that people ask, and the answer is, often, I spend more time with my family. I can hang out with my friends. I travel. I write a I write the novel I always wanted to write. I learned how to play guitar when they realized the things that they would kind of, you know, really be the enjoyment of their life would increase significantly. Then begins the small step process of incorporating those things in ways that are now bringing food and beverage back in small steps comes into play. Like, Okay, where can I fit these things in, in a way that begins the process of actually including that for real, but it's just a way of like, if that were gone, what would you do again? It's sort of a next incarnation of what would your ideal life look like? The first task for individuals, not parents, is simply, I'm living my ideal life. What does that look like? And then begins the process of small steps.

Casey O'Roarty 29:02
So so when we shifted into your raising healthy parents, book and what you share there, where do we go from knowing who you are as a parent? How do we use that? What are some like little tips and takeaways, little starting places or stepping stones for now, incorporating, like being who we are as parents. What are some of the tools that you offer

Sid Garza-Hillman 29:26
well? So this is, this is now getting into the nitty gritty of the small steps. Of my small steps approach, which, which? You know, a lot of people talk about, no, I'm not the only one who talks about small steps. I have a unique definition of small steps. So some people talk about, oh, you got to break down your things into two minute increments, or this or that. How I define a small step is an action the size of which is going to cause you only an adaptive amount of stress. So adaptive stress is that stress that we need to grow and evolve, and it's how we strengthen and embolden too little stress is us sitting. On a couch doing nothing too much stress is us having to expend a lot of willpower and eventually burning out. Adaptive stress is that kind of nice little window where you're doing things, you're active, you're engaged, you're aware yourself, you know, you're conscious, but it's not too much and not too little. Sort of the Goldilocks effect of stress. That's kind of how I refer to it sometimes. And so, so that's to me as a definition. So in other words, I've had clients nutritionally come in to me with cancer and and they haven't already, and they're like, Look, I just want to eat better. Tell me what to do. They change their diet overnight. Because, to me to them, that's a small step, because it's not causing them in an order, they're not going to burn out. But for most clients that I've had a small step for them, maybe. And this is not a joke. I started a woman off one time with a single stock of celery per day because she was on a free meal of junk food per day, and she had done 50,000 diets already by the time she came to me. And guess what? Failed every one of them, even though I don't call it failure, I just call it. You never set up for success with those that kind of model of the quick fix, but she had already done the drastic change and burnt out. When you begin the small step approach, you are simply incorporating things in a size that you determine, not me. I empower people to make these decisions for themselves. So an answer to your question is, now you know who you are, as your parent, and you're saying, I, you know I, or let's say, an individual, a lot of times people go like, I play guitar, but, but in the parenting world, you know, guess what goes on the back burner? Creativity for I don't have time for that. I gotta

Casey O'Roarty 31:30
raise money. Yeah, there's a big time conversation having happening all the time,

Sid Garza-Hillman 31:34
exactly. So, so to me as a to me, my this is just me speaking personally. Sid, personally is, to me, part of me being a good parent is having, and actually a good husband too, is having things independent of the family that bring me joy and lower my overall stress. And so one of those things is, you know, my podcast and you know the books I've written, and also music, because I used to be a full time musician, and, you know, I toured and had a band, and all goes up. And I want that for myself, because it one brings me joy, and two, makes me a better parent, because it brings me joy. So in the small steps approach, and I used to do this full time when I was in Los Angeles. I spent hours every day doing it well. Now my life is different. So for me, my small step in music, and this is for real right now, is 10 minutes per week. That's what I do. If I try to do more than that, and I have, I can't hack it, because it just my way. My schedule is I have a different job now, but 10 minutes a week I can do, and when I can do that, I feel good about it. I have, I'm accomplishing. I don't have that message of, Oh, I'm such a failure. I can't play. I'm not even playing music. I'm such an idiot. I should be playing. I should be playing. I should I hate the word. Should be playing. Me. I should be. I'm like, No, I'm doing it. I'm actually playing at the point where 10 minutes becomes, maybe it becomes where I'm like, Well, that's easy. I could do more than that. Fine. Then I bring it up, but I still make sure I'm always maintaining it in that same stress area, not too much, not too little. If I took on if I went from 10 minutes a week to an hour a day because I felt like I could, I might find out soon that that's too much, and I would bring it back down to maybe 10 minutes a day, try that back and forth. And that's the that's essentially where I as a coach, I'm coaching people how to learn that system of of a regulation and adaptation, to keep themselves in that minimally stressful, but still stressful area, and to bring in things that bring them joy. Listeners,

Casey O'Roarty 33:28
did you hear that? Because I was ready for you to say 10 minutes a day. And when you said and I thought, oh, I can already hear the Yeah, buts in the crowd. I love that you said 10 minutes a week. Because people you have 10 minutes, yeah, right, yeah, or five, or, you know, and yes. And the conversation around having, you know, and I know a lot of my listeners have kids under five, although I'm, you know, talking more and more about teenagers as my kids move into the teen years. So what up parents of teens? But I, you know, it's busy. Like everybody knows we're busy. There's, you know, some of us that are working outside the home. Some of us are working at home. Some of us are just being at home, not just, you know, with young kids and oh my gosh, it feels like there's no space. So a little takeaway, I want to invite everybody to take a look at your week ahead and notice the pockets. Notice where there's pockets. And if you need to ask for help, ask for help, but find that 10 minute pocket. Well, first, figure out, what is it that brings you joy? What did you, what did you, you know, perceive that you had to let go of having children, and where can you bring 10 minutes of that back into your life? So I just want to really challenge everybody that's listening, because, man, that time conversation is just wild, and I have it too. I. Why

Sid Garza-Hillman 35:00
do I head to hence the 10 minutes a week. And again, I'll stress this again, I used to be a full time musician, so it's a transition for me to say, Well, I used to do this full time. It's how I identified well as an adult now. And I sort of like acting like an adult. I can say, well, this is not my life yet, but I still love music. So what can I do? So remember, I kind of glossed over this, but I have twins. Yeah, I heard you, I heard that, yeah, and they're nine, but, but when they were, you know, my wife works. She's a graphic designer. I work full time. I'm a runner. She, she, know she runs, but here we are with twins. And my eldest daughter was four and a half, so it wasn't like she was, you know, 16 when we had the twins. So we, we've got twins plus three small kids. Well, all of a sudden exercise became a thing. So we could easily have said, well, we don't have time to exercise. We so we've got twins, and we just have to object. But what we did do is we had a little mini trampoline, and we put the twins on a little blanket, and we would jump on a trampoline in the living room and and people, and I'm a runner. I'm like, a I'm the guy who goes out the door ultra marathon.

Casey O'Roarty 36:00
I don't even know what that means. Does that mean, like, it's a little bit more, anything over

Sid Garza-Hillman 36:04
anything, exactly, a little bit more, instead of 26.2 it's 26.3 No, it's, it's like, I'm an ultra Yeah, it's anything over a marathon, and it's on trail. So anyway, so here I was, here I was 10 minutes on a trampoline few times a week because, because I could either say I don't have time to exercise, and then I have to hear the language in my head of I should I'm out of shape. I should be exercising. Instead, I go. I'm exercising. I'm moving my body. I'm winning this. I'm winning the day. You know, like my kids are here. I'm with them. I'm jumping on trampoline. That's doing if I didn't have trampoline, I would dance to music in my living room. Just move my body well. And

Casey O'Roarty 36:46
I think too, like how our conversations about our kids and about our parenting shifts when we're taking care of ourselves, because I have no time to do anything, can very easily lead to, God, these kids, they're so needy, and they're this, and they're they can and, you know, and I love, I use the metaphor of the iceberg a lot. It's a, I mean, I didn't invent it, but, you know, I learned it through my training in positive discipline. Is the first place I heard it. I've seen it in a lot of places since, but when in this context. So coming back to knowing who you are as a parent, that ideal, not perfect, but who you want to be as a parent. And then that's above the surface, right? And then under the surface are all of these things, like, and I'm not, you know, and notice listeners that we're not talking about, this is what you say, so that your kids are easier at bedtime. Like, that's not even what this is about. It's about fulfilling ourselves in our inside of our role, so that no matter what happens at bedtime, we can be that much more easygoing, we can be that much more connected and present. And so I'm just really appreciating this conversation, because discouragement is really real. And sometimes, you know, sometimes you end up with twins, or sometimes, you know, there's other kinds of things that life will throw and they're painful and they're powerful. And the language, you know, the way that I talk about it is, there's things that happen and we feel like we're just face down in the muck. And I try to encourage, you know, my invitation is, like, what's one thing you could do that not to, like, leap out of the hole, but to simply roll over, that's right, and see that the sky has not fallen. Yeah,

Sid Garza-Hillman 38:33
you and I are so locked up on this, like, it's a little scary. But my my terminology I use, and I use it in the book too, as I call it, stealing moments, okay? And the reason I say that is, first of all, I want people to think in moments when you're standing in line in Starbucks to get a coffee. We don't think of that as valuable time we have. We have our phones out, and we're watching the news, we're looking at the news, we're reading email. But that's a very amazing let's be real. Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, a month ago i i got off all social media. I'm literally social media free. I have not one social media account, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Strava. And even know what that is, all went into the trash. Yeah, Strava is like an athlete's kind of thing again. So if you stand, if you're standing in line at Starbucks or in the market or something, that's a moment, that's a moment for you to take a few deep breaths. These are the things that add up during the day. These are the moments like turning over is what you're talking about. That's a that's the small step. That's the these moments add up the 10 minutes a week that I play with music. People might go, that's only 10 minutes. What does that do? Well, what it does is, it's 10 minutes of joy first of all, but it's also me not beating myself for not playing music at all. And number three, I think about music during the week. There's this added bonus when you're doing something and it's in your life that you're thinking about it. And so if I'm standing in line in Starbucks, I might be thinking about music because I'm doing it. It's in my life, and that's for me, music, it's for somebody else. It's whatever, but or writing a novel or something, one of my greatest success stories as a nutritionist. Was a woman who was came to me to, you know, eat better, presumably. And I knew pretty quickly that she she knew she had the knowledge. But in the small step process, in the first task, it came out that she was a writing a novel in her first task, and that she had begun one and stopped writing it a year ago. So there was the language I'm not writing. So we small steps. She started off with 10 minutes in the morning, which she had she's single and no kids are out of the house. 10 minutes in the morning was her small step. It changed her eating habits. It literally, I hadn't even gotten to I hadn't even started talking about food. Yet we were small stepping into every area non food related. And sure enough, within weeks, she said, I got home and I usually snack. I walked in the kitchen and I was like, I was like, I have other stuff on my mind. That those were her words. She said, I have other things on my mind. That's because she was doing something that was bringing her back to herself, and that was an amazing thing. And if you can apply that as a parent, steal those moments back and understand that moments do have power. You don't need big chunks of time. You actually don't need big chunks of time to be highly successful as a human being.

Casey O'Roarty 41:01
I love that, right? They come to it like they come to me for parenting, they come to you for nutrition, and it's all personal growth and development. It's absolutely

Sid Garza-Hillman 41:08
true, right? It is absolutely true. It's a funny that's why my and I think yours too. But mine changed. My approach changed so much because I began as a nutrition here's your plan, eat these things. And I was like, oh geez, no big surprise, people aren't, aren't sticking to this stuff.

Casey O'Roarty 41:24
Oh yeah, that's what I would hear, like, I really like what I learned in your class, but I get so mad that it all goes out the window. I can't access them. That's

Sid Garza-Hillman 41:31
right, you got it. You got to hit the baseline first. You got to develop yourself first. Then you can implement it however you want to be as a

Casey O'Roarty 41:37
parent and and I'm guessing that you probably this will be another place where we're the same. But I another thing that I often will say, and I want everybody listening to hear me again, because I say it a lot on the podcast. We can't wait for the big moment to practice, you know, like what I really appreciate when you're talking about stealing back those moments and using them, using them to feel your feet on the floor, using them to observe yourself, using them to notice what's alive currently in your body, and is that where you want to be? And how can you shift? Using them and noticing what you're thinking in the moment. Because that's going to be if we can, you know, wire that practice, then when we are high stress, and we do happen to listen to the news on the way home and forget to do our breathing and walk in and are irritated, okay, where are my feet? What's going on in my body? How can I shift? Right? But if we haven't, we don't practice outside of the moment. You know, then forget about it. It's like the Super Bowl teams don't just show up to play. They've, yeah, they don't

Sid Garza-Hillman 42:43
just show up. And they actually, they don't just play football when they train. They do, like all not seemingly non related things to actually playing football. They're in the weight room, they're running and we as parents need to diversify our for the good of the family and for the good of our joy. You know, like you're called joyful courage, for a reason. There's a joyful aspect of this, and that's because that's really what we're after. It's not about getting your kid to do homework. We want to do the things that mean the most as human beings, which are relating to other human beings and having these relationships. Well, that that's about joy, and that's the you know, that is the challenge, and we've got to diversify instead of trying to tackle irritability when you walk in the door. Yes, I want to change it. Okay, how? Well by doing by looking at other areas in my life, that's how you change irritability.

Casey O'Roarty 43:31
You gave me a great segue. I'm going to ask you my last question, which is in the context of all that we've spoken about. Sid, what does joyful courage mean to you?

Sid Garza-Hillman 43:39
Yeah, yeah. Well, you know basically what I said, the even the I would say, even listening to people who listen to your podcast, I would say people who who are even thinking about making improvements as a parent, there is a huge to me and inspiring level of courage there that we are saying in the midst of a very challenging world. That's, I'm sure, always been challenging, but we always think this is the most challenging. But for whatever reason it seems challenging that

Casey O'Roarty 44:08
we're in, it's the most challenging for us, exactly, and we're

Sid Garza-Hillman 44:11
and we're and in spite of that, and in spite of the things we read on the news about horrible things that happen in schools and all these kinds of things, in spite of that, we're showing up and we're taking our kids, and we're and we're doing the best we can, and we want to do better. And there's an amazing amount of courage in that. Simply that decision, then to take that further and say, I not only want it, but I want to do it. Is it again? It's just it actually is courageous. And the real, true meaning of the world, where I see joyful part of that is, to me, my interpretation of that is that it is all to the end of joy. It is all to the end of we do this because we love our kids, and we do this because we want to have a meaningful life, and that includes raising families for many people. And you know, the most meaningful thing for me is raising my children, and like we talked about before, you know, letting them see. See my flaws and letting and my wife letting them see her flaws and and understanding there's a certain beauty in that, and a joy in that, and growing strong kids to be okay with their flaws is, is it's just awesome. So anyway, that's where I see joyful courage,

Casey O'Roarty 45:16
beautiful remind listeners, where they can find you and follow your work?

Sid Garza-Hillman 45:20
Well, since I'm not on any social media, they can go to very

Casey O'Roarty 45:24
brave. That's very courageous. Business wise,

Sid Garza-Hillman 45:29
yeah, I know, I know. I had to make a decision. I was like, No, it was quality of life. It really was, anyway. So, Sid, so Sid, Garza hillman.com and I am, I'm a big YouTuber, so technically, YouTube is social media. I don't see it that way, but people are like, What about YouTube? I was like, Okay, you got me anyway. So my podcast is what Sid thinks. My YouTube channel is Sid Garza Hillman and my website, sidgarsley hillman.com and that's how they can and oh and smallsteppers.com. Is my 12 week program where I with live Q and A's every week and emails and stuff. I teach people my approach,

Casey O'Roarty 45:59
great. Well, I will make sure all of those links listeners are in the show notes. Thank you so much. This has been so great. I love this conversation, and I'm so glad that there's so many people that are having it with me. So thank you, Sid,

Sid Garza-Hillman 46:13
you're awesome. I'm so glad that you, that you had me come on here. Thank you so much for for everything and for the work you do, especially

Casey O'Roarty 46:24
joyful courage community. Thank you so much for tuning in each and every week. Big thanks and love to my team, including my producer, Chris Mann at pod shaper. Be sure to join the discussion over at the live and love with joyful courage group page, as well as the joyful courage business pages on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to the show through Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Play. I Heart Radio, really, anywhere you find your favorite podcasts. Also, I mentioned Patreon at the beginning of the show. Check it out. Www.patreon.com/joyful courage. This is where you can contribute to the show and take advantage of patron perks like content rich monthly webinars and deeper discussions about what's being shared on the podcast. You will like it. Www, dot P, A, T, R, E, O n.com/joyful, courage. Any comments or feedback about this show, or any others can be sent to Casey at joyful courage.com I personally read and respond to all the emails that come my way, so reach out. You can also sign up for my bi weekly newsletter at joyful courage.com just go to the website. Sign up for that. Take a breath. Drop into your body, find the balcony seat and trust that everyone is going to be okay. Big Love to each and every one of you have a beautiful rest of your day.

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