Eps 260: Nurturing a Growth Mindset with Alexandra Eidens

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Casey O'Roarty 0:03
Music. Hello, friends. Welcome to the joyful courage podcast, a place where we tease apart what it means to be a conscious parent and a conscious human on the wild ride of parenting. I am your host. Casey o'rourdy, positive discipline trainer, parent, coach and mom walking the path right next to you as I am perfectly raise my own two teens. Joyful courage is all about grit, growth on the parenting journey, relationships that provide a sense of connection and meaning and influential tools that support everyone in being their best selves. Today's show is an interview, and I encourage you to listen for how grit shows up as my guests and I tease things apart. Thank you so much for listening. I am deeply honored to lead you. I am grateful that what I put out matters to you, and I am so so stoked to keep it coming. Thank you for who you are and for being in the community. Enjoy the show. You Oh,

hello, listeners. Today I am super excited to be interviewing Alexandra. Eden Alexandra is the founder of big life journal, a growth mindset company for children and teens. I'm sure you've heard of it. Alexandra's company specializes in creating practical tools to help parents and teachers integrate growth mindset into their children's everyday lives. Their guided journals are now used by over 500,000 children worldwide, when not creating journals. Alexandra is reading the latest research on brain science and the mind body connection. Hi, Alexandra, welcome to the podcast.

Alexandra Eidens 1:45
Hi. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be here.

Casey O'Roarty 1:49
I'm so glad that you are here. Can you please share your story about finding yourself doing what you do? Yes. So

Alexandra Eidens 1:56
I am currently the chief creator, the founder of big life journal. And I started big life journal together with my husband. So we actually co founders, and we started it in 2016 as one of the ideas that we worked on together. We worked on many different projects together. So it was born from our own need, because we were at that time, we were born with our pregnant with our first son, and both my husband and I are very much into personal development. So read tons of books, and we attended tons of courses and seminars and trainings, and very much into understanding our brain and mindset and how it all impacts success and happiness. So we wanted to translate it all into our children, and we didn't know how to do that exactly, because all these big concepts are difficult to explain to a child, and that's how the idea was born. So how do we kind of get this personal development world or growth mindset world, and put it into child's language, into something they would understand and accept, and a journal was just a tool, right to do that. So we started in 2016 we had a crowdfunding campaign, and kind of started from there. And

Casey O'Roarty 3:10
your team consists both of adults and children, right? I mean, you've got a team of kids who are going through your products and giving you feedback and offering some pretty valuable thoughts. Right now,

Alexandra Eidens 3:22
it's kind of an informal team of all the children of our team members, but we are actually starting a formal kind of we call it big leaders club, and it is children that are not our own children. They are from our community, and they're going to be children who will provide us feedback on everything that we make, and our goal is to make the resources very child friendly, so it doesn't look like homework, it doesn't look like something they have to do, but something they want to do. Because it's one of the biggest struggles that we see parents facing, is that, how do I get my child to do this? And they're so resistant, and, you know, I can't make them do anything. So we don't want to make them do anything. We just want them to want to do it. So that's why creating this club, and it's going to be super fun, and it's going to be real children giving real feedback to us,

Casey O'Roarty 4:10
yeah, well, and I love that, and I think it moves us right into what you and I are going to focus on today, which is your new ebook that focuses on how to nurture our kids' growth mindset, and I was privileged enough to get to take a look at it and give it a read. And I know it's focused on parents helping kids to develop that growth mindset, and I couldn't help reading it through the lens of personal growth. For the parent I love that you mentioned you and your husband and your you know, you showed up to parenting already having this interest and curiosity around personal growth. And I think for a lot of people, they come into parenting and realize, oh, I might need to actually engage in some personal growth as I move through this journey. But. Your book, it just really holds, you know, all the values that I speak of through joyful courage, which is growth, relationship and tools and the examples you share a picture of what it looks like in real life, you've just done such a beautiful job of breaking everything down step by step, and it's all very respectful of both parent and child, and sets up such a powerful space for connection. So you've been creating these journals over the years. What motivated you in writing this particular book,

Alexandra Eidens 5:30
it was kind of born out of need, and like you said, a lot of parents are going to this and finding out resources and realize that they need to work on their own mindset. And the other kind of problem that this book is solving is, how do we integrate growth mindset into our day to day life? How does it look like in day to day? Because one of the parents said that I was talking to she said, Well, that's great, but I can't give my child a lesson on competence and resilience on Sunday morning and not talk about it for the rest of the week. Like I need a daily practice. I need to know exactly what to do every single day in little moments every day, how do I respond to them? What questions do I ask? How do I react to them? So that I cultivate that growth mindset, and that's exactly what this ebook is about. So it is to help parents, you know, who need the tools, who need to know what to do day to day, who need the talking scripts, who need to like, see the examples. How does it look like when my child is throwing a tantrum, or like they're super upset, they keep going? What do I say? So it was growth mindset. Because the other thing is, what I hear sometimes is a parent would say, Well, I thought I was doing growth mindset, but I wasn't, you know what I mean. So there's a lot of confusion out there, and parents are really trying so hard, and it's, you know, we just want to help. And it's very affordable resource that is kind of giving you step by step directions, basically,

Casey O'Roarty 6:54
yeah, and I love that that parent had, you know, it already says something about that parent that she could recognize, Oh, this isn't a one time conversation. This is an ongoing way of being with my child to develop over time, this way of being for them, I love that, because I think that often parents, you know, even as we are really wanting our to develop this in our kids, we might not realize that we're actually sitting in a fixed mindset, right? And I think that when we believe that, you know, I told them once, what's their problem, and then we get frustrated and discouraged, we don't realize that we ourselves are sitting inside of a stuck, fixed mindset. So let's just deconstruct growth mindset. And I'd love to know how people are misunderstanding it. What are the myths? And you talk about this a little bit in the book, too. Yeah. I

Alexandra Eidens 7:48
mean, growth mindset has been around for quite some time, and it was developed by Dr Professor Carol Dweck, and she is the Stanford psychologist. She is still doing a lot of work studying mindsets. So what she said was there are two types of mindsets, a growth and a fixed and a growth mindset is when you believe that you are capable of changing and learning new things and developing yourself throughout your entire life, and you're essentially are able to kind of mold yourself into whatever you want to be, and fixed mindset is the opposite. Is when we're thinking that we have set skills and set abilities, and we kind of born a certain way, and we are good at something and we're not good at other things. So it's kind of like putting yourself into framework and saying, This is who I am, and this is what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life. And you know, so it is, as you can see, the difference. I mean, certainly it's much more beneficial to have a growth mindset. But it's not just a wishful thinking and positive thinking. It is based on science of brain science and neurogenesis and neuroplasticity, and the fact that our brain does change through our entire life, and we are capable of wiring and rewiring our brain and changing different patterns in our brain and changing ourselves completely, and not only from intelligence perspective, but all sorts of things, relationships and your character and your personality and kind of like your Even athletic ability. So humans are and brain is just fascinating. So growth mindset is understanding the power of your brain and your mindset.

Casey O'Roarty 9:28
I love that. You know, I know this book was written for parents talking about their kids, and I just can't help but, but like see the parallels too, because so many of you know I feel like big life journal and this conversation, it definitely fits underneath this umbrella of positive parenting, right? And many of us are coming out of childhood experiences and early young adulthood experiences, you know, with whatever kind of conditioning we have, and then we have our kids, and we decide, okay, I'm not going to do a. That way, I'm going to do it this way. This is the way that feels right to me, and then we find ourselves bumping up against that conditioning. And what you just said about growth mindset reminds me of how powerful it can be for parents to recognize, to truly recognize, that no matter what you're coming into parenthood with, and I speak primarily to parents with adolescent kids, and you know, even sometimes that's when it lands, of like, oh, personal growth is being called right now. You know, there is always room for you as a parent to grow and develop and learn and shift and be who you need to be, so that the environment that you're holding space for with your kids, and the questions you're asking in the relationship you're nurturing is one where they can also be developing growth mindset. So I mean, I just as I read through your book that I just kept coming back to that again and again. What a gift it is both to be as a tool for parents in developing their kids growth mindset, but also such a beautiful example of how we adults aren't done growing either, yeah,

Alexandra Eidens 11:01
exactly.

Some parents that we talk to, they say, Well, if only I knew about this, if only I had known about growth mindset when I was my 20s or my 20s, whatever my life would have been, my only and like, and we realized that how powerful this understanding is, and you could just think about, you know, think what maybe would have taken more risks, and you would have tried different

Casey O'Roarty 11:34
risks, perhaps,

Alexandra Eidens 11:37
and tried new things, you know, because Even I was, for a very long time, I was, for some reason, defining myself as finance professional. And I was in finance for 10 years. And I don't know why I got this idea, you know, because I really didn't enjoy that much. But I went to school, I went and got my masters, I had an MBA, and then I had this, you know, different jobs, and then suddenly I just realized I wasn't very interested in that, but the fact that I was kind of like defining myself, oh yes, I'm in finance, and this is what I do, and I wasn't looking anywhere else. And I think most of my 20s, I probably had a pretty fixed mindset myself, and then kind of like getting a realization and getting out of it was quite a process. And I can certainly relate to anyone who is realizing it and kind of trying to transition from a fixed to a more growth mindset. Yeah, it's not easy, for sure, but then again, like whatever you're going through, modeling that to your children and showing the process to your children is super valuable. And you know, sharing your steps and your thinking process, and what you're learning, and how you're going outside your comfort and into a stretch zone, and all these things are so, so important. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 12:47
the modeling of the human experience is so powerful for our kids to see, like, oh, it's messy, and grown ups make mistakes. And, you know, I'm someone who is pretty extroverted. And I remember we moved to a new city not too long ago, and there was this, like, knitting, crochet group thing happening in my neighborhood, and I was like, you know, I think I'm gonna go. And then that night, I was really nervous to just show up to a group of people that I didn't know. And I think my kids have this idea that I don't ever feel nervous just because of the way I present myself to the world, and so I made a point to speak into my nerves and like I feel weird walking into a room full of people I don't know, but you know what, you guys, I'm gonna do it anyway, because maybe my next best friend is gonna be in this room. She wasn't, but Right? And it was still an opportunity. So you talk in the beginning of the book, you highlight seven practices that lead to a growth mindset. And I again, I think that they're so powerful for all of us, can we just quickly go through them a bit?

Alexandra Eidens 13:51
The first practice is being process oriented versus outcome oriented, and that's important in all areas, including how we talk to our children and how we're praising them, or how we're giving them feedback, and just what are we paying attention to, right? And we also talk about the learning goals versus performance goals. And you know, a lot of people are trying to teach their children goal setting, which is great, and if we also can teach them to set learning goals, meaning that my goal is to learn this, and my goal is to get this skill, and my goal is to improve here, not necessarily pass the test or win this championship. You know what I mean. So there's a difference there, for sure. The second one is say yes to rejection. And we always say that if you want to live a big life, or if you put in anything out there for anyone to see, you should expect to be rejected by someone, right? And that's what we need to tell with children. So rejection is not a bad thing. It's just an indication, it's an evidence that you are putting your things out there and you know for people to see, and you're trying to live your full life, learning the art of receiving. Feedback, and the feedback is a big part of a growth mindset, yes, and it is how we receive the feedback. And not a lot of people love receiving feedback, and it's all usually kind of like people go into undefensive Right? And now with children too. You can even see young children, they don't like being given feedback, but at the same time, we can explain that a growth mindset is assumes that you can listen to feedback, reflect on it, think about it. Is it true? Is it not? What am I supposed to learn from this? And kind of like, how can I get stronger and more resilient? Alexandra,

Casey O'Roarty 15:35
I'm just gonna interrupt you really quick, because I realized there's an art to receiving feedback. I know, for me, that's a lifelong lesson. Whether it's positive feedback, I'm really good at, like, talking like, oh, well, you don't really know, but thank you. Or, you know, growth feedback, you know, can feel like, Oh, you don't like me. So I'm also wondering. So that's my own personal work, but there is also the art of delivering feedback as well. You know, do you have anything just real quick for parents that are listening around the delivery? Yes,

Alexandra Eidens 16:08
we have a huge section in their ebook about how to deliver feedback to your child. And I would just say, for me, what really works with my oldest son is when I speak in terms of what works for me when I say I instead of you, because as soon as we say, You You did this, or you did this, I look at what you did, you know, that's where they go into this fight or fight mode, right? That's where they start. They shut down. They don't want to listen. You reframe it and say, Well, you know, this is what works for me. This is when I do this. This is how it works, right? So that works for me very well in my family, but we do provide tons of suggestions on how to deliver feedback to a child,

Casey O'Roarty 16:45
and we have one in positive discipline that we love, called Connect before correct. And I like my daughter's 18, and she's doing some work for my business and creating graphics, and I have to be very thoughtful in how I respond when I need her to make a change. You know, I always start with, you know, gratitude and pointing out what is working, what I like, and then offering the places where I'd like for her to make some tweaks or some changes. Because I can feel granted. We're also in a mother daughter slash boss employee relationship, which is messy in and of itself, but I can feel the tension and the energy between us when I have to say, Oh, you're almost there, you know, let's just tweak it this way or that way. Yeah, so I'm glad that the book covers that as well. Okay, number four. Number four

Alexandra Eidens 17:32
is when we are making a habit of learning new things. And it's, again, all about brain science, because when we do learn new things, we kind of exercise our brain, right? So it is super important for your brain health to do that and for cognitive health. And in terms of children, you know, some children are they don't like to be exposed to new things because of the fear failure or them not being able to perform or not knowing what to do, what to say, and what are the rules, and, you know, all these things. So we cover, you know, how do you prep your children so to say, what are the small things you can do to improve the success of them trying a new thing or going into a new environment? And then number five, we talk about embracing a struggle in adversity. And what kind of like doing this on purpose, and that's how we grow, right? So kind of looking for challenges and overcoming challenges and growing from that. And, you know, go into that stretch zone and try new things, and again, that can be done on purpose, so that we can increase in profound potential. And then we talk about comparing ourselves to ourselves, only

Casey O'Roarty 18:44
I love that one, and adults well, and

Alexandra Eidens 18:48
adults too. But oh my gosh, my son, you know, don't get me wrong, like I face all these things in my parents, and every single day, he's so competitive. He can always compares himself and to us and to other friends. And, you know, usually my phrase is, well, you know, how did you do last time? And you know, how did you improve and how did you feel? I try to always bring it back to him and his emotions, his feelings, and so that he can remember what he did last time. And was it improvement? Was it not? But it's quite difficult, but at the same time, you know, as social beings, we'll always compare ourselves to others. That's not going to go away, but at the same time, we can compare ourselves, but not in a detrimental way, right? So not to beat ourselves down, not to shame ourselves, but more about well, this person is doing great, and what an inspiration, right? And then the last one is engaging in deliberate practice. And deliberate practice is a concept that I recommend to everyone to look up and understand what it means, because we do say that you know, as long as you practice, as long as you work hard, you will succeed. And that's not necessarily always the truth, because effort does not equal time, you know, and effort does not equal. Progress, there are different types of practices that you can engage in. Your child can engage if they're doing the same thing over and over again. Let's say, I'll give you an example. If they're trying to memorize a word, right? If they are learning a foreign language, let's say Spanish. And they're trying to memorize Spanish words, and they repeat the words again, again, again for 20 minutes, over and over, and then they're done, and it looks like they kind of memorized it, but then they walked away, and half an hour later, we could ask them, and they don't remember right? So that kind of practice is not as effective as other different types of practices, where you create challenges around learning, integrate learning into real life, or have them repeated with different intervals, and instead of repeating one word for 10 times, you would have them repeat 10 words. So there is a whole science and how you need to learn things. Plus, if you, let's say, a doctor, and you practice, you keep practicing the same thing for 10 years, doing the same thing, the same process, the same treatments. And you know, that's not a deliberate practice, that's just a naive practice, right? So you're not improving as a doctor, per se, as a professional. In that sense, you're just keep doing the same thing. So when you say, I had 10 years of practice, then I would like to know what kind of practice did you actually have, right? How much did you learn? How much did you expend and stretch your abilities and new things you learned? And did you have a mentor? Did you, you know, read new research, like all these different things, right, right? And

Casey O'Roarty 21:23
that makes me just think about, like, there's so many variables when it comes to life. And, you know, I'm thinking about my own practice and how I speak into it with parents. And you know, when everything's going really well, and my people are all pretty agreeable. I don't actually get a lot of time to practice because it's not being invited. It's easy. We're going through the motions. I can be curious, I can be encouraging. I can do all the things. It's when my day, my child, my partner, something shows up and goes sideways. That's really when the practice, I think about Michael Phelps, and he does laps over and over and over again in the pool when he's alone and he's practicing, he's learning the muscle memory, and then it's the Olympics, and there's the other people in the pool, and there's the crowd, and there's the pressure and there's all the things, but because he's done it over and over and over again, he's going to be ever better at navigating when the stakes are higher, and so I love that deliberate practice. It's something that I speak into a lot with parents, just in the growth mindset of you know, the messiness of parenting is not an indication that everything's going wrong. It's simply what it looks like. And if we can choose in when it's hard, the way that we choose, in when it's less difficult, the better the outcome. And it's the process, it's the process, and it shows up again and again and again, right? It's not just like, okay, and now we've mastered that, so I won't see you know, defiance, disrespect, back, talk ever again. No, that is not the reality of the situation. Yeah, I love that. And I love that you highlight in the book, comfort zone versus stretch zone. As I keep mentioning, I really focus in a lot on the parent experience, and I'm often sharing my own stretch zones. I think that the stretch zone really shows up on the parenting journey when the narrative we're holding is challenged. So in my experience, and my listeners have heard me talk about my daughter and her, you know, she had some struggles with mental health. She opted out of high school and got her GED like, there's been plenty that has come up that I didn't even realize I was holding as a narrative. And then I was like, Oh, we're gonna take this kind of turn so in like just anyone coming into the teen years, once we're really honest about recognizing how much control we really have. Again, growth mindset opportunities are endless. And I'm curious if this is a place where parents are creating their own struggle because they come into parenting having a fixed mindset about behavior and their kids and what their kids should be doing. Does that show up in your community? Do you see that much? Yeah.

Alexandra Eidens 24:05
I mean, I know how difficult teen years are, and I don't have teenagers, but we do have a journal for teens, and I have worked with teens to create the journal with professionals who work with teens, but at the same time, if you start this work, hopefully before they are teens, right? So that's the goal, right?

Casey O'Roarty 24:27
But all is not lost, parents. All is not lost. I just can't tell you that

Alexandra Eidens 24:32
there's hope. You know what's interesting? Because, of course, teens don't, you know, they don't listen to parents and all these things. And they don't when you start, when suddenly you decided they needed a growth mindset, that's probably not going to go very well, but, but at the same time, I would say two things. One is what we find is teens do respond somewhat okay to the science portion of it. So. You kind of like, put away all the emotional stuff and how it can benefit them, you know, just the science part. So understanding the brain, the power of the brain, and how thoughts and how visualization, this is all science, right? So even when you spoke about Michael Phelps, I remembered how he does a lot of visualization, and when he was competing at some one, I don't remember that time, but he couldn't see because of his goggles were fogged or something. He was able to still complete the whole swim because He visualized it so many times, the brain knew what to do. And it's remarkable. So you can just, you know, with this kind of examples of like, this is the power of your brain. This is so remarkable. So I would go there, right? And then the other thing is, I would still model, but being vulnerable in terms of your own experiences with them, right? And opening up to them, kind of like, what are you going through when you're learning things and kind of like barking on new projects, and this is what's happening, and I'm overwhelmed, and but then I do these things when I'm overwhelmed, right? And you know, even if you think that they are not listening right, or they're tuning you out, we have seen time again the parents come to us and say, oh my god, I can't believe this. He was listening this entire time. The fact that he told me this today, you know what I mean, so and we see this over and over again, and even if they don't necessarily go into, you know, kind of play back the growth mindset to you in their teen years, they will remember when they're, you know, their 20s and their 30s, yeah, absolutely, they will remember. So it's all worth it. That's my point. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 26:35
trust the process, right? That's a big mantra, definitely. Yeah, talk

Speaker 1 26:40
a

Casey O'Roarty 26:47
little bit about temperament, because there is some wiring that our kids show up with. Have you done any studying around how temperament can come into play, and how do you advise parents to be with the child they have.

Alexandra Eidens 27:02
Children are very different. And you know, the strategies that we give in the book, they're general strategies. But you have, as you read through the book, you know your child well, so you would know, okay, well, this is not going to work, you know, which is fine, but at the same time, we want you to approach it with a growth mindset and give it a chance, right, right? But you know, what's interesting is, yes, children are different, and the more we accept them as they are. And it is difficult, I know because you know my son, the oldest son, does have a you know, he's a wild child, but at the same time, when I accept Him as He is, and I give him space for his temperament, his emotions, and it's hard. I know it's hard at like, two hours after him screaming, you'll be like just, you know, I can't do this anymore, right? But I know it. But at the same time, this is so critical and so important for their emotional health, and the more you welcome this, the more you welcome their temperament, the more you welcome their emotions, the less they're going to show it to you in the way that they process. And they don't have anything story inside. So you're given the child you're given, right? And the best thing you could do as a parent is to love them unconditionally. That's the best thing you can do. And I also say it in the book at the end, is there are children when parents start teaching them growth mindset and different strategies and trying to teach them and know how to approach life and setbacks, some children start feeling that parents don't accept them as they are, and they want to change them, and there's something wrong with me, and my mommy doesn't want me to be this way. She thinks I need to change. So that's a slippery slope, right? So we need to make sure that the way that we deliver this information does not send this message, so we still love them. They're perfect as they are. There's nothing wrong with them. And what we can say is, I want to help you develop your superpowers. I want to help you realize how powerful great you are already, right? So you can do whatever you want to do in life. And that's kind of like the

Casey O'Roarty 28:53
message that you want. I love that. And I just want to offer to anyone who's listening, who maybe is realizing they've been on the slippery slope. I know I've lived on the slippery slope that Alexander's talking about. It is super powerful to go to your kids when you've realized, like, you know, I may have been sending a message that I want them to be different than who they are. And let's just go to our kids again, using that vulnerability that you're speaking into Alexandra, especially when our kids are older, like teenagers, and really own that, you know, and it can sound like I've really been pushing you towards X, Y or Z, and we've been having all these conversations, and I wonder if it feels like I want you to be a different person than you actually are, and, like, just pull back the curtain and open up the space for your kids to be able to say, Yeah, it really hurts my feelings. Or, yeah, it does feel like that. And then, you know, the beautiful thing about kids being older and really holding this non judgmental, neutral space is they will open up and begin to share, especially when we come with humility and recognize where we've gotten it wrong and maybe not. Maybe the answer is like. No, I'm good. It's okay. It's just annoying. And you know, you never know the feedback that you're gonna get from your kids. But I think that once you realize you've made perhaps and even our younger kids, you know, opening space to say, I wonder, you know, how does it feel when I tell you, you know, to try it a different way, or when I offer you ideas about having more of a growth mindset and just letting them speak into it. And really, the whole point is you get to gather more information about your child and how they're experiencing you and your feedback. And I talk about this a lot. I think parents make a lot of assumptions about their kids without actually going to the source and saying, Hey, I'm wondering, do you feel like this versus just, I know you feel like this, and that's why you're acting like this, and it's you know, and sometimes we have it get it right, and sometimes we get it wrong.

Alexandra Eidens 30:47
So based on what you just said, I have three questions that I ask my son on regular basis, and I highly recommend asking your children on regular basis is, what should I stop doing? What should I start doing? And what should I keep doing? And you would be amazed by the answers you get from your child. Yeah, that's how you will reveal what's on their heart. You know, they can say, Mommy, I want you to stop telling this. And even sometimes, my son says something that I, you know, say to my husband once, and he doesn't like me saying that. You know, they watching everything. It's just remarkable, right? So, and that's how you can get to know your child. And then you will say, Yeah, I want you to keep, you know, tucking in at night or whatever, saying this to me or whatever. So they know what they want, right? So try these three questions and start. And maybe initially, they will look at you, like, if you're a crazy person, because they've never asked them before. Maybe try with one question first, but then, like, make it a routine and kind of something that you do on a regular basis. And imagine when you have teens, right, if they are able to tell you honestly, you know the answer to this three questions. I mean, that could transform your relationship, for

Casey O'Roarty 31:54
sure. And parents of teens, you get to be in your own humility, and you get to receive the feedback. Sometimes we're open in a box that doesn't always feel great, but I love that, and I love that your work, starting with this book and even this conversation, Alexandra, it's so easy to take, no matter the age or stage of your child, like this is such a rich conversation for everyone. And I even see those three questions in different contexts. So for my son, you know, when it comes to the conversations we're having about school, he's fully remote learning, and so asking those three questions in the context of school with my daughter, you know, kind of reflecting on our boss employee relationship and asking those three questions. And you know, even with my husband, who's you know, on his own health journey that I'm supporting him through, that I can see those questions being really valuable inside of that relationship too. So thank you so much. Yeah, so good. Yay. So I always end my interviews with the same question, and I would love to know from you, Alexandra, what does joyful courage mean to you.

Alexandra Eidens 33:02
It means to be brave to do whatever you want to do in life, and kind of taking this step of into unknown, and, you know, kind of creating the life that you want to live, right? So first step would be to understanding what kind of life you want to live. And I know that it's actually not an easy step to kind of, you know, visualize your ideal life. What can it look like? But then, you know, that's the joy part of it, and then the courage is to actually do it. Yeah? I love that.

Casey O'Roarty 33:31
Please share where people can find you. And big life journal and this amazing new ebook of yours, yeah? So the

Alexandra Eidens 33:40
glove journal.com, that's where we reside. And then we have a newsletter, which always welcome everyone to sign up for because we provide weekly growth mindset activities and printables for free. And we also provide parenting, growth mindset parenting tips, so super valuable. And also, if you are on Facebook, we also have a private Facebook group, which is called Raising kids with a growth mindset, and it's also super helpful. Yeah,

Casey O'Roarty 34:07
and I follow you on Instagram. I love you. Know, the nice thing about your work and the work of your company is it's not only really valuable content, but every single time it is displayed visually. So it's such a visual invitation too. So props to graphic designers.

Alexandra Eidens 34:27
Thanks so much. We have a lot of them. Yes, yeah, they're doing a good

Casey O'Roarty 34:32
job. And so then the ebook is the ebook on the website? Or where can people find that

Alexandra Eidens 34:36
it is on the website? Yep. Okay, great. Okay. Well,

Casey O'Roarty 34:39
thank you so much for coming on and being in conversation with me. This was so great. Thank

Alexandra Eidens 34:43
you, Casey, it's been a pleasure.

All right,

Casey O'Roarty 34:53
thanks again for listening. If you feel inspired and you haven't already, do me a favor and head over to. Podcast and leave a review. We are working super hard over here to stand out and make a massive impact on families around the globe. Your review helps the joyful courage podcast to be seen by even more parents. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Also follow joyful underscore courage on Instagram. I'm also on Facebook. We love connecting with you on social media, and don't forget to sign up to help me with some research as I create even better offers for you, offers that you want. Sign up to talk to me at www dot joyful, courage.com/research. Love you. Have a beautiful, beautiful day

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