Episode 49: Julie Lythcott-Haims

August 20, 2025

WATCH THIS EPISODE LIVE ON YOUTUBE

Guest: Julie Lythcott-Haims

With a background in law, higher education administration, and activism, I'm a non-fiction writer whose books and talks inspire humans to be better versions of themselves. I serve on the Palo Alto City Council where I prioritize equity and belonging, housing, and youth mental health. My partner Dan and I have been together for more than 37 years, and we've raised two humans we're exceptionally proud of.

Episode Transcript

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Mark Entrekin: Hello, and welcome back to another inspiring episode of the Achieving Unity Success Formula weekly podcast, where we turn chaos

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Mark Entrekin: into connection, and purpose into action. I'm your host, Mark Intraken, the founder of the Achieving Unity Success Formula, making life better by encouraging, inspiring, and including others.

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Mark Entrekin: Today's guest is Julie Lithcott Hames, and Julie is a dynamic speaker, A… an acclaimed author? Educator?

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Mark Entrekin: And public servant whose work is rooted in a profound belief in human dignity.

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Mark Entrekin: Personal growth and authenticity, something that we all need each and every day.

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Mark Entrekin: She was born in Lagos, Nigeria, and raised across New York.

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Mark Entrekin: Wisconsin, and Virginia, Julie has built a remarkable career focused on fostering resilience, independence, and inclusion.

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Mark Entrekin: Julie holds degrees from Stanford University, Bachelor of Arts, Harvard Law School, her Jewish Doctorate, and California College of the Arts. She has a Master's in Writing.

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Mark Entrekin: Reflecting a lifelong commitment to intellectual rigor and creative exploration.

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Mark Entrekin: But first, Before we engage into this insightful discussion.

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Mark Entrekin: Let me quickly introduce my company.

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Mark Entrekin: Reality Focus Dynamics, where this all began.

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Mark Entrekin: As you see on the first slide, I have a gift for you. I hope you'll take this gift. It is our Achieving Unity Guide, and it talks about the things that we speak on so often.

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Mark Entrekin: And it's ending some of the disconnection.

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Mark Entrekin: Or hate, or… Sometimes the… Frustration, or the anger. Maybe some of the disconnection.

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Mark Entrekin: the…

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Mark Entrekin: prejudice and the prejudgment. It talks about that, and would love to have your feedback. You can have access to the guide on the bottom left with the QR code.

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Mark Entrekin: And on the bottom right, you can go to my blog, which I have all of my newsletters out there that comes out on the first and third Thursdays of every month. I have a new copy coming out tomorrow. I hope you'll sign up.

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Mark Entrekin: Look at my newsletter, give me feedback. Thank you for being here.

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Mark Entrekin: This is, again, our Achieving Unity Success Romeo weekly podcast. We're here every week. This is number 49. We're coming close to our first year with the podcast. We are every Wednesday, 1 p.m. Pacific time.

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Mark Entrekin: 4pm Eastern Time, and please, put it on your calendar. Come see us. Every week, we have new guests.

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Mark Entrekin: Bringing up new information, sharing a lot of the information that we need to know going from day to day. Oh, and let me say one thing, too. I've come down with a cold, flu, virus, allergy, so my voice may be a little bit different today, and I may be drinking a little bit of water during the podcast, but just to let you know, thank you for being here.

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Mark Entrekin: Reality Focus Dynamics. Success Focus Solution. As you see.

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Mark Entrekin: Our logo is on the slide, and it truly represents the heart of what we do.

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Mark Entrekin: Notice how focused sits right in the center?

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Mark Entrekin: That's because everything that we explore from reality-focused dynamics, to Success Focus Solution, Revolves around clear, intentional direction.

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Mark Entrekin: In fact, that idea of focus is so central to us.

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Mark Entrekin: It's even built right into our business phone number. That's right. 303-362-8733 spells 303 FOCUSED, On your phone pad.

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Mark Entrekin: So it's easy to remember our number. Anytime you have questions.

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Mark Entrekin: Troubles, issues, want to talk. Just remember, get focused. 303 FOCUSED.

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Mark Entrekin: We believe that we can create meaningful change and achieve lasting unity being together.

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Mark Entrekin: What we have is proven, compassionate strategies that turn all the conflicts that we have into a lasting harmony. This is at home.

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Mark Entrekin: At work, and in every relationship that truly matters.

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Mark Entrekin: Are you ever frustrated by tension?

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Mark Entrekin: By arguments?

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Mark Entrekin: Our 7-step roadmap comes through our course, gives you the tools to move from conflict to collaboration quickly and confidently.

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Mark Entrekin: It helps us in craving stronger trust.

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Mark Entrekin: And connection.

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Mark Entrekin: Discover communication tactics that build respect.

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Mark Entrekin: Repair relationships, and unify teams and families alike.

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Mark Entrekin: We help you transform conflict into connection.

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Mark Entrekin: Together. Achieving unity.

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Mark Entrekin: Unity inspires in the home, it shapes society, and transforms workplaces.

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Mark Entrekin: We help you turn that trans… that frustration into understanding.

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Mark Entrekin: Sometimes when we don't understand, do we just want to say something, like, what the frustration?

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Mark Entrekin: Okay, maybe that's not the word we use.

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Mark Entrekin: But we should, because frustration is our biggest challenge.

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Mark Entrekin: We can find value in our actions instead of reacting in anger or letting that frustration win.

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Mark Entrekin: We show that anger holds no value.

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Mark Entrekin: Anger is just actions not gaining effective results. A-N-G-E-R. Actions not gaining effective results.

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Mark Entrekin: We know that life happens in every relationship.

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Mark Entrekin: From personal to professional.

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Mark Entrekin: We work with people from parenting time to partnerships, in the boardroom, in the bedroom, in every room in between.

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Mark Entrekin: We show you how to embrace those challenges and encourage a more inspired and inclusive future.

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Mark Entrekin: That's our EII. I have several articles in…

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Mark Entrekin: ideas that come from EII in our newsletter. I hope you'll join.

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Mark Entrekin: We have one vision, One goal.

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Mark Entrekin: Achieving unity in every area of life.

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Mark Entrekin: What's our call to action?

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Mark Entrekin: Well, let's ditch the drama. Let's get stuff done. This works on the personal side.

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Mark Entrekin: Close on the business side, and on the social side.

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Mark Entrekin: We show you how to turn your life from what may seem like a dumpster fire into a well-oiled machine.

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Mark Entrekin: Achieving unity is the path.

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Mark Entrekin: To stronger relationships, inspired leadership, and lasting change.

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Mark Entrekin: We help through coaching, consulting, our courses, and keynote speeches. Contact us today. You can reach us at www.realityfocuseddynamics.com.

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Mark Entrekin: Reality, we can go to MarkEntrica.com or AchievingUnity.com.

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Mark Entrekin: But you can contact us today by calling 303-362-8733, which is 303-FOCUSED. Hope you give us a call.

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Mark Entrekin: Our upcoming podcast.

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Mark Entrekin: Again, on August, we're focusing on the moms, the mothers, and the parenting from…

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Mark Entrekin: that side of our relationships. And next week, Martha Burrick comes, and she speaks on, yes, you can raise happy.

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Mark Entrekin: Responsible children.

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Mark Entrekin: It's a great concept, it's a great thing to work with.

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Mark Entrekin: 1st of September, Sue Patz comes in and talks to us about a new beginning.

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Mark Entrekin: starting in the second week of September, Scott Schilling.

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Mark Entrekin: Creating authentic relationships that truly matter. That's important.

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Mark Entrekin: Then, on September 17th, Myla Johansen.

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Mark Entrekin: Self-publishing is easy. It's as easy as 1, 2, 3 for anyone at any age. So if you've ever thought about writing a book, come talk to us on September 17th.

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Mark Entrekin: And then, on September 24th, Michael Davis comes, talks about a storytelling power trio.

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Mark Entrekin: How to put storytelling into your conversations.

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Mark Entrekin: Now, what I've been waiting for. I'm so excited.

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Mark Entrekin: Talk to Julie Lithcott Hames, from raising adults to reimagining Belonging.

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Mark Entrekin: Julie is a New York Times best-selling author, Former Stanford Dean, Palo Alto City Council member.

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Mark Entrekin: And Julie has degrees from Stanford, Harvard Law, and California College of the Arts.

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Mark Entrekin: Julie brings a powerful mix of lived experience and professional insight. She has the lived experience and the education that tops it off.

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Mark Entrekin: The groundbreaking book, How to Raise an Adult.

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Mark Entrekin: challenged modern parenting norms, and inspired a viral TED talk.

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Mark Entrekin: The award-winning memoir, The Real American shares Julie's journey as a Black and biracial woman in white spaces.

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Mark Entrekin: The most recent book, Your Turn.

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Mark Entrekin: How to Be an adult is a refreshing, honest guide to a thriving in adulthood.

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Mark Entrekin: Today, Julie advocates for equity.

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Mark Entrekin: housing, climate, and youth mental health in Silicon Valley, while continuing to guide audiences toward courage, growth, and authentic belonging.

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Mark Entrekin: Her URL is in the bottom right, her link, just www.julithames.com. Please connect with her. But if you would, please help me welcome Julie Lithgott Hames.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Rookie mistake.

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Mark Entrekin: I was muted. How are you?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Pleasure to join you. Thank you for having me. Great to be with you and your listeners.

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Mark Entrekin: Oh, Julia, so great having you here. Thank you for coming. It's exciting to be able to talk about someone that thinks a lot of the same ways that I do, and I want all of us to do, and the work that you're doing is tremendous. Can you just give us a quick introduction of yourself, and tell us, what do you do?

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Mark Entrekin: And why you do it?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. …

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I'm 57. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I'm a mom of a 26-year-old and a 24-year-old.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And I've raised these kids with my partner, my husband, Dan.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: been together for 37 years, so since we were in college. My mother was recently, until recently, a part of our life. We all lived in a house together, and she just passed away about 5 months ago.

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Mark Entrekin: Oh, I'm sorry.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Thank you. But living multi-generationally, has taught me… has given… been a laboratory for me to…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Work out some of my own issues, try to, you know, be a better daughter, try to be a better mom and partner. I'm really motivated by a… in my work, I'm motivated by a desire to help humans thrive, and …

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: More specifically, help humans

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: really kind of discover who they are and give themselves permission to go… go be that person, do that work that you're passionate about, as opposed to what you think you're supposed to do because of societal expectations. And I think I'm drawn to this work because having been that kid who was

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Black, biracial, growing up in white spaces.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: across America, I was often authorized, I was often… …

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Presumed not to be capable, or presumed not to be worthy, or presumed to be problematic.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And those early childhood experiences of being, kind of.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: pushed to the margins made me want to ensure no one else is pushed to the margins. I… my… whether as a lawyer, or as a university dean, or as a non-fiction writer, or as a public servant, I think one of my core values is I want to make sure we're putting our arms around everybody, and giving everybody

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Kind of the opportunity to be a part of, you know.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: the community, and this world, and this life, and, you know, to really feel accepted for who they are, and … so that's… that's my why. I'm interested… I root for humans.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And my work is about, you know, trying to help people identify the obstacles in their way. And, I, just love having the opportunity to talk with folks who are similarly curious about the human journey and the human experience.

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Mark Entrekin: I think that is just awesome what you're doing, Julie. I was just trying to find my articles just quickly. I wrote an article on put the E for excellent back in human, and you put the E on the end of human, what do we have?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Humane.

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Mark Entrekin: Humane. Exactly, thank you. Because that's the way we all need to be.

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Mark Entrekin: And… our learning?

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Mark Entrekin: Our culture, the things that we have caught on to as we've grown up.

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Mark Entrekin: Sometimes it doesn't lead that way, does it?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Right.

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Mark Entrekin: Well, you say you root for humans. Can you tell us more about what that actually looks like in your daily life?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah, first of all, I believe fundamentally that we're all born good.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And, I think when we encounter people who are difficult, problematic, maybe who violated rules or norms, I'm super curious about who was that person before, they kind of became or were perceived to have become problematic. So I bring a real compassion.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: to every human interaction I have. I'm aware that anyone I interact with, from my family member to a stranger on the street, and everyone in between, they have a set of life experiences I don't know much about, if anything. So, I try to bring compassion to my interactions, and I think that shows up in my eye contact.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: You know, making eye contact, if you're able, is such a profound way to literally embody the phrase, I see you. We all yearn to be seen.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: That is, to not be unseen, or to be… we are not to be ignored. We want someone to give a darn about us, and eye contact is a great way to signal, I see you, I care to see you, I am present.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Beyond that, then, in terms of the actual rooting for.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I would say I've encountered so many people who feel they ought to study a certain thing, or have to become a certain profession, or adopt a certain career. This sort of sense of, I need to live my life in furtherance of what others expect or value.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And I know the joy that comes from listening to that inner voice that says, but even though everyone is going into engineering, I've always, you know, felt…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: most at home with my paintbrush, or, you know, digging in the garden, or, you know, floating down a river as a river guide. I'm here to say, like, when you figure out who you are, what you're good at, what you love.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: and can give yourself permission to be that person, that's how you're gonna make your greatest contributions to society. Being yourself and getting better at being that self.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And listening for your own voice, as opposed to the… what I call the cacophony, the noise in your head, which is societal expectations, family expectations, peers. And so I'm rooting for all of us to figure out who we are and what we're good at.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: and then go be that person. You know, I'm rooting for you to be who you are, whether it's work, your identities.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: … what matters most to you. I'm rooting for you to give yourself permission to simply be you.

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Mark Entrekin: I so agree with you, and thank you so much for that, because that is…

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Mark Entrekin: Powerful. For each of us.

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Mark Entrekin: to be able to accept ourselves, and that's… we keep saying we need others to accept us. Well, if we can't accept ourselves.

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Mark Entrekin: we're gonna have struggles within. I'll talk about this a little bit later, but…

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Mark Entrekin: If we're not being who we want to be, who are we being?

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Mark Entrekin: Right?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: You know, Mark, that's an excellent point, and I've actually, you know, worked this concept into one of my keynote speeches, which is essentially derived from my own journey from this lonely place of being that Black and biracial kid in white spaces, where I was really the only child of color.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I was so different. I looked so different than everybody, and so there was a lot of this exclusion, unbelonging.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: stuff, and it took me until my 30s to really do the inner work to address some of those early experiences that had really made me form a negative sense of self. So my self-worth really came from what did others think of me, which is terribly unhealthy.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And once I…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: kind of got to the root of that, that I was yearning for other people's approval, probably because I had met with so much disapproval when I was young, and was able to name it, identify it, like, really sit with it.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: you know, that need for external approval really started to dissipate. It's not entirely gone, but…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: you know, it's not predominantly what influences how I feel about myself anymore. It's, you know, I have a sense of my own self, who I am, my identities, what I want, what I'm good at, what I'm working on. And what I tell people is.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: you know, when you finally understand who you are, and, you know, in your identities, you know, and you love that self, you actually accept, this is who I am, and I like myself, and I'm working on things, yes, but I'm fundamentally okay with who I am.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: then you belong to yourself. You know, you're not at odds with yourself, so then you have this protection of, like, self-love. I sort of describe it as a bubble that you… that surrounds you, so when you are self-loving, when you are self-accepting.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: You know, when you feel that sense of self-acceptance, then you do belong everywhere, because nobody…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: they can't hurt you. If you're looking to them to approve you and validate you, and they don't, then you break. But if you go into any situation, a board meeting, a community meeting.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: a family conversation, an interaction with your peers, with that self-love, you're so protected from, any of the slings and arrows that might, you know, intentionally or unintentionally be being sent your way. And, so that's… that self-love turns out to be, quite protective when it comes to.

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Mark Entrekin: ghosts.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: How hard it can be sometimes to interact with other humans.

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Mark Entrekin: I love what you're saying there, too, Julie, because…

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Mark Entrekin: When we accept ourselves, we can promote ourselves.

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Mark Entrekin: And through that promotion, we can develop that self-confidence.

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Mark Entrekin: That we are somebody… No matter who we're around.

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Mark Entrekin: All of us. And one of the things I talk about, and I'd love to have your feedback on this.

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Mark Entrekin: Is that we all

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Mark Entrekin: come from one of four blood types, and I speak about this in a couple of my speeches.

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Mark Entrekin: We're either Type A, type B,

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Mark Entrekin: Type AB, and type O. There's a positive and negative for each one of them.

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Mark Entrekin: But the bottom line is there's 4 blood types. If you're in the United States, if you're in Russia.

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Mark Entrekin: If you're in China, Scandinavia, Iceland, wherever we are from, It's Nigeria?

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Mark Entrekin: There's still just 4 blood types.

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Mark Entrekin: If we were to get injured, like I was in southern Mississippi.

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Mark Entrekin: They didn't run back to my hometown and say, hey, Mark's hurt, he needs blood.

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Mark Entrekin: Who has blood that's, you know, a tall.

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Mark Entrekin: Light-skinned guy, going to college, do you have some people like that that have blood for him? No. It's whoever donated blood in the small town of Hattiesburg, Mississippi, kept me alive.

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Mark Entrekin: It didn't matter about anything about… did they have two tattoos? Did they have dark hair, blonde hair? Were they tall? Were they short? It didn't matter.

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Mark Entrekin: Because we are truly all the same, right?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah, yeah.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah, I love that point. I'm glad you got the help you needed. I'm Type ONEG.

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Mark Entrekin: Thank you.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: With a special something that makes me suitable for preemies, so I've got the, like, universal.

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Mark Entrekin: Wow.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: blood, and….

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Mark Entrekin: First with owner.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: but I also have a phobia of needles, so I've really had to work on that, like, I want to be of service, I want to be of use, can I overcome my own fears so that I can, you know, be a blood donor? And I've worked at that over the years, …

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And, you know, I love the notion that, look, when you cut us all open, we all bleed, there's only 4 blood types, and….

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Mark Entrekin: J.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: We are quite different, and it's different in Hattiesburg, Mississippi than it is in Palo Alto, California, versus, you know, Nigeria, or Scandinavia, or Taiwan. And those differences are beautiful.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: They created an incredible variety in the human community.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And I think where we want to get is, yes, we have a lot of differences. They don't make anybody worse or better than anybody else. When we begin to… That's right.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: value to the cultural differences and get into this sense of, well, these people are, you know, superior to these. That's when, you know, we really see, societal fracture and rupture and violence

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: you know, when we can get to this place that, hey, we… we are quite… we all got, you know, one of these four blood types, and a whole lot of other differences. Let's be curious about the differences.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: But not in a way that exotifies somebody, or that demonizes them. You know, let's be delighted by the difference, and embrace the fact that underneath all those differences, we're all the same.

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Mark Entrekin: That is so true, and we can focus on those differences, and we can create some of those differences. Simple solution.

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Mark Entrekin: And… I'd like to just kind of touch on this. I was in Pensacola, Florida last week.

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Mark Entrekin: So I've come back with a little bit darker skin. I got some sunshine when I was down there.

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Mark Entrekin: I'm a darker-skinned person now. Does that make me any different? Am I better off? Am I worse off?

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Mark Entrekin: Because I think that's one of the things we need to think about. You know, talk about racial differences.

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Mark Entrekin: The color of our skin?

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Mark Entrekin: Part of it's given to us at birth, right?

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Mark Entrekin: And then part of it, we have some control over.

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Mark Entrekin: So it's what we do with ourselves That makes our tomorrow better.

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Mark Entrekin: are not better.

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Mark Entrekin: So it's up to us to make… those differences…

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Mark Entrekin: that we can do something about. What's that song that says, I want to be different like everybody else?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Mmm.

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Mark Entrekin: we can do some things and say, it's good that we're this way, instead of saying, oh, there's something that I don't understand, so I'm going to put them down, because they're not like me.

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Mark Entrekin: When they said, because, hey, when we could say, hey, they're not like me, let me find out more.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah.

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Mark Entrekin: Right?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yep, and I think also, we can do a lot of conflating, outcomes…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: with, intentions or efforts, so, you know.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Fortunately, I was not born in a time or place where my parents needed to be refugees.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: But that ain't got nothing to do with me, my effort, their effort. It's sort of right place, right time, wrong place, wrong time.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And, and I'm clear on that. Like, I, you know, I had the good four. I was born in Lagos, Nigeria, as you mentioned, but I was born to an American diplomat. My father, my daddy was helping to eradicate smallpox.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: as part.

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Mark Entrekin: Oh, wow.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: from the United, you know, Centers for Disease Control had a team, my dad was part of it, he was headquartered in Lagos, and …

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I was born to him and my mother, who was British, in this third country, so I'm born to an American dad, a British mom in West Africa, and…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Such privilege. You know, we were a middle-class family, and you know, we never… in the grand scheme of things, we never really wanted for much. My parents were educated, they had good work opportunities, they provided that to me.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I'm super clear that, yeah, my parents worked hard, and their hard work resulted in greater, bounty for me, their child, but there's a lot of luck involved in the fact that, you know.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I got to be raised in America, in a place that was, you know, that did offer opportunity and education and healthcare and so on. And I'm not here to judge the people who were born

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: into a different circumstance, who have a much harder life. I don't look down on them and say, work harder, what's wrong with you? You know, I say, like, wow, you know, to be born in a war-torn area, or an area with famine, or, …

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: what have you, you know, like, I feel such compassion for humans who were born in circumstances far less privileged than my own, and I think there's a humility

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: that when we are privileged people, privileged financially, privileged in terms of the country in which we live, you know, to bring a humility to that, as opposed to, like, well, you know, if you just worked hard, you'd be like me. It's not that simple, you know? Yes, hard work is important.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: But some of us have fertile ground within which to grow from the start, and many people, you know, are born into really barren circumstances.

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Mark Entrekin: They are, and actually, I'm working with the…

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Mark Entrekin: a close friend, Samuel, who is in Nigeria, and another friend, Damien, that's working out of Rwanda, and we're helping build a hotel in Rwanda.

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Mark Entrekin: But 10% of all earnings at the hotel will go back into the community and help in food.

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Mark Entrekin: Clothing, shelter, education, and finding a job for the people there, because there's so much.

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Mark Entrekin: there's some, even here in… I mean, Mississippi right now, there's a lot of people here in Mississippi.

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Mark Entrekin: They don't know.

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Mark Entrekin: Some of the basic things that we all need to know.

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Mark Entrekin: But there's a lot of people around the world.

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Mark Entrekin: that just don't know that that world that you're talking about, Julie, does exist for all of us if we just put it together. That's one of the things that we do have, even in Rwanda. If we can show more people

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Mark Entrekin: That they can do. A lot of them right now are growing farmers.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yep. They grow potatoes on their roof.

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Mark Entrekin: There's things… you probably know much more about this than I do.

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Mark Entrekin: But there is a way that we can educate them and software. And… Yeah.

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Mark Entrekin: where they can earn money with jobs on the computer. And that's one of the things that we're trying to grow in that area, because the opportunity is there, right? But they don't have…

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Mark Entrekin: That reach… yet.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah.

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Mark Entrekin: They can't touch it yet.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I love that you're doing that work in Rwanda. One of my favorite Stanford students, I was a dean for more than a decade, and I had a freshman one year from Rwanda. He had survived the Rwandan genocide as a 4-year-old.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And he and his family were refugees, first in Uganda.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And, and then other countries ultimately, you know, made it to…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: a good high school in the United States and made it to a place like Stanford University, and my job was to root for him to be successful as his dean, knowing he might encounter some

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: stumbling blocks along the way, because he hadn't had the same preparation, that his peers had had. In other ways, his struggle as a refugee and as a survivor of genocide gave him a sense of personal accountability, hard work, goal setting.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: don't trust anybody, like, you can only rely on yourself. There's a lot of skills that came from that hardship. Fast forward to today, he's an engineer.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: He lives in the South, I think he's in Alabama now, and, after, helping, coffee farmers, back on the continent of Africa, micro farmers, you know, squeeze more dollars out of their production, and so as to be able to, to really create livable,

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: you know, conditions for themselves, in an industry that's been, you know, where there's… there's so much exploitation of coffee farmers, and he was really trying to empower them and did. Then he developed a company that can predict

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: How weather patterns are going to influence, foliage and trees potentially falling into power lines.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: So when we know a hurricane is coming, you know, he can, you know, through AI and software, they can look and figure out

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Like, this is where these communities need to invest their resources today, over the next 72 hours, to trim the trees so that the branches don't fall in the lines and cause devastating, potentially life-devastating power outages. And, you know.

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Mark Entrekin: Wow.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: continuity to solve that problem, which is… it's technology that any municipality could benefit from, you know, particularly as we're seeing increase in climate, extreme climate.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And that… those ideas came out of this kid, you know, who… who had to survive underground for 3 weeks during the Rwandan genocide as a 4-year-old.

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Mark Entrekin: Wow.

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Mark Entrekin: Such a shame.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: But so much came, right? He's just brilliant and driven, and he has so much sense of possibility. He… he, he developed a solar oven when he was in college, a foldable, you know, blanket that could be used, as… as an oven, and boy, to help people boil.

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Mark Entrekin: Aggressive.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: rice.

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Mark Entrekin: That is. Well, let's talk about you for a second. How has…

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Mark Entrekin: Your own upbringing influenced the way you approach, well, even parenting, and the mentoring that you do today.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: How has your own upbringing influenced you? Yeah.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: My parents, my dad was in public health, my mother was a school teacher, and then a professor of education. They had high expectations for me around achievement. I got rewarded for straight A's, and, you know, there was that pressure.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: But they didn't tell me what I had to be. And…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: So I was able to kind of forge my own path.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: But yet it gave me a lot of compassion for, you know, sometimes we can feel that our worth is our grades.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Or, you know, we're loved more when our grades are high, and we're loved less when our grades are low. And, you know, so my work centers around valuing, you know, each individual, and encouraging everybody to be their best, but not driving them like racehorses or dogs.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: in a greyhound dog race. And I think part of that comes from my own upbringing, which was fairly strict, and…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: …

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: you know, high expectations and not a lot of wiggle room for, you know, when things went wrong. I, …

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: you know, just in raising my own kids, I'm here in Silicon Valley, which is a very pressure-filled community. We… we have a high suicide rate here among our teenagers, ….

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Mark Entrekin: Oh, no.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: me greatly, and I'm one of, you know, the many adults here who are constantly asking, why is it so hard to be a child

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: in this community that so many people wish they could live in, because it's the heart of Silicon Valley, it's the heart of innovation, it's the heart of all of these disruptive technologies, the whole dot-com.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: you know, internet, it's the heart of the place. The shadow of Stanford University, you know, falls over this city, and, you know, it's full of bounty and possibility, and yet it can be really hard to be a child here, I think, because the expectations

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Are so high and so narrow, and…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: So this just brings me back to, like, everyone matters, figure out what you're good at, and even if it's some… if it's not robotics or engineering or software, like, go be that wilderness naturalist, go be that…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: EMT and save lives from the back of an ambulance. Go be a 4th grade teacher. The world needs all of those things, and if that's your passion, go pursue it and get great at it.

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Mark Entrekin: And don't feel bad about any decision that you make for yourself.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Right.

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Mark Entrekin: If you are with it, Go for it, don't worry about how other people judge you, right?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Right.

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Mark Entrekin: In your memoir, that Real American.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yes.

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Mark Entrekin: That explores identity.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yes.

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Mark Entrekin: And it explores belonging.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yes.

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Mark Entrekin: There you go. Alright, good.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: One year old. You can tell from the look of my face, I already knew something was wrong.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: No, that's true.

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Mark Entrekin: That's great, that's a great picture of you.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Coming to a place of self-love, for sure. This is…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: a journey so many of us are on, whether we look like you, or we look like me, or, you know, anyone else listening. For many of us, we are told that who we are is problematic, that our people are lesser, or, you know, that our identity is not valid, and I know the joy that comes from

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Doing the work to finally accept that self, and makes me keenly interested in helping anyone else

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: who's struggling with who I, you know, you know, can I be me? You know, my answer is yes, I will sit with you and listen with you and just be a mirror and reflect back to you, you know.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: All the things you're telling me about yourself, you know, it's valid.

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Mark Entrekin: It's so true, and as I mentioned earlier, back on November 5th of 2024, my article put the E back in human.

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Mark Entrekin: Because what is a human?

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Mark Entrekin: If they're not humane.

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Mark Entrekin: I'll be read that article, give me feedback. Yeah. November 4th… November 5th, 2024, it's on mine.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah.

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Mark Entrekin: Blog.

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Mark Entrekin: Okay. But that's what all of us need to think about, because where we're born doesn't matter. I take it back to the four blood types.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah.

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Mark Entrekin: Doesn't matter where you're born, you still have one of those four blood types. We're still the same. We can create differences. One of my speeches, I talk about labeling.

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Mark Entrekin: We label each other.

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Mark Entrekin: And I talk about just one of those, what are they, 3 foot by 6 foot tables that you fold up and lay against the wall. Well, if you take that little table out and you unfold it, and you put it there, and you put a tablecloth on it, it could be for serving food.

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Mark Entrekin: Could be for putting paper on it?

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Mark Entrekin: Or, if you put a computer on it and pull a chair up there with a monitor, it's now a desk.

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Mark Entrekin: You label it based on how we use it, and if we use it right, we use it well, it's going to be a positive label. Stop looking for the negative label.

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Mark Entrekin: That's what we need to take.

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Mark Entrekin: Our lives, and when we look at each other, right?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: 100%.

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Mark Entrekin: How did navigating what you call white spaces.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah.

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Mark Entrekin: Shape your perspective on authenticity and resilience.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: You know, if you look at me, I'm very light-skinned, I'm half black, half white. My dad was African American, my mother's white and British, so…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: That's my ancestry. But you can see my skin tone is not very dark, and …

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: you know, I got this curly hair, …

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: But I, as light as I am.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I was the darkest thing they had seen in Middleton, Wisconsin, where I went to high school.

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Mark Entrekin: Oh, wow.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: 1,200 kids in my high school, and two Jewish kids, me, and that was pretty much it for the racial and ethnic diversity. And so, it's ironic that, you know, as light as I am, I was still way too dark for many people. They really… I might as well have been from Mars.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I was… I was quite an oddity to them, because they had grown up in a quite homogeneous environment.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And of course, I've moved now to a much more diverse place. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. There are people here from all over the world. Every continent is represented, every skin tone, every hair texture is here.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And I'm, you know, keenly aware that as a light-skinned African-American.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I haven't had so many of the kinds of encounters that my darker-skinned brothers or sisters have had. I'm also financially privileged and highly educated, and so, in many ways, I've not had a typical Black experience. So to go from being, like, the Black kid.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: you know, in an entirely white space, to being like, oh wow, there are many ways in which my experience is different from the typical Black experience. It's… I'm still the same person in either space, you know, but my identity or my perspective

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: has certainly shifted as, I've become, you know, less on the margins and more part of the mainstream. You know, I'm, I'm sort of,

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: aware of, frankly, of greater empathy for… for people who, for whatever reasons, have been, you know, labeled, like you said. I think it does develop in you. It can either crush you, or it can create a lot of resilience. Resilience is built by going through hard stuff and surviving it.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And that makes us, you know, more capable of surviving and handling and coping with the next difficult thing that happens. And so…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: you know, I… I think I do have a lot of resilience. I think it can also make us build up walls to protect ourselves, and I think…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: you know, that it feels safe, but, you know, if you're distancing yourself from your fellow humans, you're really not getting the most out of this human experience, so the ideal is, I think, to be able to…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: develop that self-love, it doesn't matter what they think of me, I'm still me, they're not gonna stop me. If I believe in myself, and I love myself, that's what matters. And rather than.

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Mark Entrekin: So true.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah.

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Mark Entrekin: I'm so glad you say that, and your resilience is outstanding. You're very impressive. I knew this when I was just learning about you. It was so interesting.

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Mark Entrekin: But I came from an interesting position

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Mark Entrekin: when I was just finishing second grade.

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Mark Entrekin: It was during all of the segregation of the schools down here in the South, and…

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Mark Entrekin: A lot of the fighting, and it was very traumatic down here. And we moved from Care of Mississippi.

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Mark Entrekin: to Lovington, New Mexico, and so I went from one community to another, and the community I went to was…

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Mark Entrekin: labeled as Hispanic.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And….

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Mark Entrekin: Of course, as I've talked to people.

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Mark Entrekin: It's one of those situations when somebody is 1, 2, 3, 4 years old.

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Mark Entrekin: They play together, they don't even think about it, but then as they get that 4, 5, 6 years old, 7, 8, 10, into the teens.

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Mark Entrekin: they… we build at these prejudices. I played basketball, so I played with a lot of people. I just say, darker skin, one of them, we're still close friends. I'm a little bit lighter-skinned than he is, a little dark-skinned than I am, but…

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Mark Entrekin: We're still friends, we're still great people when we're together as being a friendship.

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Mark Entrekin: So I went through a traumatic…

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Mark Entrekin: Changeover, in some ways, in that process.

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Mark Entrekin: But then again, I went through a divorce system that built on the deadbeat dad syndrome. So I got destroyed trying to see my children. Now, how crazy is that?

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Mark Entrekin: We have so many prejudices we're always finding wrong.

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Mark Entrekin: What can we do to start finding the right, to put that E back in human, that we can be humane about each other? How can we do that going forward?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I'm sorry you went through that, I just want to acknowledge that, you know?

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Mark Entrekin: Thank you.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Must have been quite painful, and you know, I just want to offer compassion to you for that.

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Mark Entrekin: Thank you. It was challenging, to the point that the judge let my ex take my kids from Denver to Chicago.

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Mark Entrekin: But a huge separation, all through a guardian ad litem, who was very prejudiced and…

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Mark Entrekin: I'll just say that attorney's being, and they could see that if they just watched the decision that attorney made as a guardian ad litem, attorney for the child.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah. It was obvious.

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Mark Entrekin: The first attorney I went through was the same way with the judge, the judicial system, but…

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Mark Entrekin: It's one of the things that we want to work on.

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Mark Entrekin: But let's talk about what you're doing today, and what you're achieving, and…

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Mark Entrekin: Tell me more about your personal balance, how you're embracing your identity while helping others feel included.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Well, you know, the best thing that ever happened to me was my partner, Dan. He was 19, and I was 20 when we fell in love.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And, we've just celebrated our 33rd wedding anniversary, and….

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Mark Entrekin: Congratulations.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Thank you. He was quite unique as a young man in the late 80s. He turned to me and he said, if we ever have kids, I want to be home with him.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And here I was, you know, trying to get educated, trying to work hard, and the message women were getting in the 80s was, you can have it all. You can, you know, raise kids, and have your man, and work a professional job. And they were saying you could do it. Nobody was saying it was going to be easy, because it's hard to play all three of those roles. And, …

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: So to have a partner say, you know what, I think I want to be home with kids, which was a direct response to what he saw in his childhood with a very hard-working but absent father, and divorce, you know, he wanted the opposite for his own relationship with his kids.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: So, I had the benefit of, you know, I had the full-time career, my partner worked part-time, my mother bought a home with us, she was also helping raise the kids, so we really did have that village, it takes a village model of multi-generational living, where our kids benefited, we benefited, my mom benefited.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And I just have to give them kudos, because whomever I've become professionally is definitely supported by an amazing

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: husband, and, you know, my mother was quite, quite, an important factor as well. ….

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Mark Entrekin: Great.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I… you know what? I'm… I'm working on my next book, and I want to tell you about it. It's….

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Mark Entrekin: Please.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: It's called The Bonus Years.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And the subtitle's gonna be something like, The Definitive How-To Guide for Parents and Adult Children Living Together.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: You know, as you know, Mark, this is an increasing trend in America, very common in other cultures. China, India, you often have multi-generations in one, you know, under one roof, or very near….

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: It's not been the norm in the United States since, World War II.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: When, you know, we built the suburbs and encouraged everyone to go out and, you know, live on their own, and we really had that engine, that economic engine going, and people sort of moved out.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: But it's now unaffordable in so many communities, including mine, for a young person, even if they're educated, even if they have a full-time job, they can't make rent, because housing costs have escalated, and salaries and wages have not kept up.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And so a lot of people, even if they want to move out, they can't afford it. It's not their fault. It's society's fault. I think we have failed to look out for young adults with our macroeconomic policies.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: So I know, you know, of course, it makes financial sense often to move in together, or maybe somebody needs elder care, childcare, you know, we want to spread the expenses, but living together with your adult child, or with your parent when you are the adult child can be really hard at the relational level.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: How do you go from the hierarchy of parent-child, where, you know, the parent can dole out consequences to a child whose room is dirty, or, you know, who came home too late? What do you do when you're, sort of, you go from vertical to horizontal, we're all adults, we all want to be respected and valued.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: We have different amounts of money and different amounts of time, but we all want to be treated with dignity and kindness.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I'm working on a book that is fundamentally about communication.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: communicating about all the various aspects of running this house so that, you know, we are collectively doing it, and everyone's getting their needs met while caring about, what do I need to do in order to help you feel you're getting what you need out of this living situation.

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Mark Entrekin: I love that book. I hope I get to see it soon.

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Mark Entrekin: And if you want to… Have an example that I work from.

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Mark Entrekin: You've probably heard of the Pareto Principle, the 80-20 rule, where 20% of the people owns 80% of the world.

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Mark Entrekin: I look at it a little bit different. I call it the 20-60-20 principle, where there's a 20% extreme on each side, but there's a 60% where we can all live together.

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Mark Entrekin: Now, it's not always 20%, sometimes it's 3, 60, and… what'd it be, 47%, or 37%.

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Mark Entrekin: The percentages aren't exact by any means, but if we can work on that middle, that medium.

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Mark Entrekin: And get off of those extremes, even with prejudice.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: That's what we need to stop.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Because even in a home.

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Mark Entrekin: The parents… We have to… it's a husband and wife is just…

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Mark Entrekin: The spouse, we have to think about ourselves first.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: It's just like when we talk about the airplane.

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Mark Entrekin: When you're on an airplane, oxy mask comes down, who do you put the oxymask on first?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah.

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Mark Entrekin: Yourself. You can't take care of anyone else if you can't take care of yourself.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Right. So the parents come first in their relationship.

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Mark Entrekin: And then the children come in with their own ability to participate, and, as you're talking about, with communication, and sharing, so that you can all pitch in together, so it's not always running to

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Mark Entrekin: mommy or daddy or whoever it might be, I need this. And then they have to stop what they're doing, whoever they're around.

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Mark Entrekin: And help that.

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Mark Entrekin: Child or someone else.

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Mark Entrekin: When that child or someone else could be doing that themselves, right?

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Mark Entrekin: They can take on that responsibility and accountability, right?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Absolutely. You know, my first book, How to Raise an Adult, …

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: which, you know, sort of put me on the map as a nonfiction author, led to a TED talk. You know, I talk about…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: how harmful it is when we control our kids so much that we end up making all the decisions for them. We think we're helping them, but we're actually depriving them of the life experiences that'll teach them how to be problem solvers and decision makers, and also to develop resilience for when whatever they chose didn't go so well. And, …

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: It's, you know, we get quickly to a parent's ego, and why is it that you feel a need to control your child, and ensure every outcome? You know, prepare the road for the child instead of letting, you know, preparing the child for the road.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And often, our own personal relationships, you know, if we're raising our kids with a spouse, with a husband or wife,

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: often those relationships just get put on the back burner, because we're so focused on cultivating our child's every moment, and then we look up after 18 or 20 years, you know, the child's out of the house, and you realize you don't know your spouse at all, and you want to try to reinvest in that then, and I would say, like, good luck, nice, you know, good intention, but….

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Mark Entrekin: It was intention, but….

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: owing along the way, you know, you'd have that good marriage still, and you showed your kids that you have to prioritize a relationship. You know, it's not selfish to focus on our marriages, it's actually helping to ensure that the environment in which we're raising our kids is loving and healthy.

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Mark Entrekin: Because they do learn from us. That's what our… the culture is about. Yeah. It's a whole learning system.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah.

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Mark Entrekin: The 5 people that you're around the most is who you're most alike.

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Mark Entrekin: So that includes your parents, and what our parents teach us, what I teach my children, And my friends.

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Mark Entrekin: It's all about doing what's right as much as possible.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yep.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Agreed.

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Mark Entrekin: And helping each other.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yep.

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Mark Entrekin: I think we can do that. Well, you have several books, and raising… the child. Tell us more.

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Mark Entrekin: And more about your new book, if you would.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah.

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Mark Entrekin: What about 8 more minutes?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: So, my first book, How to Raise an Adult, is sort of the, you know, how not to be a helicopter parent, how not to…

437
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Julie Lythcott-Haims: so micromanage your child that they feel like, you know, a racehorse in the Kentucky Derby, and you're riding them like a jockey, or you're the one that goes home with the trophy for their achievements.

438
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Julie Lythcott-Haims: look at my child, my masterpiece, you know, as if we can take credit for who they are. …

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I say, no, we gotta fundamentally respect, you know, that this child is a gift from God, or the universe, or however you believe we got here, and our job is to feed them, love them, shelter them, and get out of the way.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: So that they can figure out who they are and, you know, become that person. I have a sequel to that book, which is called Your Turn, How to Be an Adult.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: It's a pretty big book, and it's kind of a Bible on how to live your best adult life, from, you know, relationships, to money, to what to do for work, to self-care, to coping with tragedies, and …

442
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Julie Lythcott-Haims: you know, just becoming more self-sufficient. This is a how-to with a lot of practical lists, for various things, but also every chapter ends with stories of people whose lives kind of reflect the lessons I'm trying to teach in a.

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Mark Entrekin: Excellent.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah, and then we've talked about Real American, which is my memoir on being Black and biracial, in various towns and cities across this country.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: The new book, The Bonus Years won't be out, I think, until June, January 2027. I'm very much still writing that book, haven't even turned in a draft yet, but super excited to try to… just like my first book really met people where they were, we had so many parents who were starting to…

446
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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Who are really adopting that helicopter trend, and my book really points out quite bluntly how problematic it is.

447
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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I'm also trying to really meet the moment of multi-generational living, which is, I've said, is a trend. People need help. They're finding themselves in these home environments.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And really struggling with the interpersonal dynamics, and I'm trying to serve by writing nonfiction. So, writing this book, I'm really trying to help the millions of people who find themselves living this way.

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Mark Entrekin: Oh, wish you the best. I can't wait for that to come out, because some of your writing has been so needed, as you're saying, and when you have the multi-generational families.

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Mark Entrekin: Sometimes we just don't know, but be able to have the guidelines that we can turn to a book like yours.

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Mark Entrekin: And see, what are some ideas that we can use To make life better.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yep.

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Mark Entrekin: Make life livable.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah.

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Mark Entrekin: I like that.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: But here's a… here's a little hint. As I've interviewed people about their multi-generational family.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I've learned that rituals… turn out to really, … foster connection.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Rituals like, you know, we have dinner together every night, or…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Twice a week, whatever it is.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: everyone counts on it. They know it's happening, they know they're expected, they know that it's a time of connection. You know, it's like, park your troubles, sit down, share how things are going, like, dinner isn't the time to talk about what's wrong with somebody. Dinner's the time to connect.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: around, you know, what's going on in people's lives. But rituals can be as simple as, like, we always walk the dog together, and on those walks, we talk. And that's when, you know, the real stuff comes out, and the real connections are made. It could be a regular board game night, you know, with your family.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: It could… it could be anything. It's the intentionality of, like, we will carve out a little bit of time in our collective busy lives for each other.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: And when we have those rituals in place, it ends up being, you know, like, a little bit of balm, a little bit of lotion, a little bit of easing of, you know, a circumstance that, you know, quite naturally has some tensions inherent in a bunch of people living together.

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Mark Entrekin: That's beautiful. Yeah, that's that helpful to help people understand that going forward. That's…

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Mark Entrekin: your insight on helping others, I think, is so profound, because you're looking at situations that

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Mark Entrekin: Is normal to a lot of people, as you're saying.

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Mark Entrekin: But we don't quite know where to turn at times.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah.

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Mark Entrekin: And you're giving us those ideas, and that helps, so thank you very much for that. That's awesome.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I appreciate.

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Mark Entrekin: We have a few minutes… oh, thank you, and what you're doing. We have a few minutes left.

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Mark Entrekin: So we can… If there were one key idea.

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Mark Entrekin: from your work. Now, helicopter parenting, I think, is wonderful, what you're talking about, but…

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Mark Entrekin: Other than that, from your work.

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Mark Entrekin: If the people that are listening today, the people that will replay this later.

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Mark Entrekin: What do you think you would want them to take home?

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Mark Entrekin: and apply today. What would that be? Your one key idea? Julie, what do you think that might be?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Yeah, you know, for someone like me, one idea is hard, Mark. I'm sure it's the same for you, but, …

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I'll go to the parenting stuff, because this is your… August is your month on moms and parenting, and I did a little graphic trying to summarize the key points of how to raise an adult. and I have… I have 7 points, so I'm gonna try to pull out the key one.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: … I can empathize and empower instead of swoop in and solve.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: As parents, we want to keep our kids safe, of course. Our job is to keep them safe until they can keep themselves safe, but often we over-parent by making sure nothing ever happens. They don't experience life

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: we think everything's an emergency, we have to handle it. And so I tell parents, you know, like, yes, your heart is like, I need to get involved, I can solve it, I should solve it, I should fix it, I should talk to the teacher, I should yell at the coach, and that's what I call swoop in.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: and solve. And I say, instead, you gotta back up, regulate your own emotions. What am I feeling? You know, work on all of the stuff that's anxious in you, soothe yourself.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Give you a little distance and just empathize. Oh, that looks hard. I'm always here for you, buddy. But you know what? Although this is hard, you do hard things.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: You say that, it's empathy, it's empowering, you smile. Smile and walk away is another one of my tips, like, don't over-talk it, don't over… just…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Say it, smile, leave. Sometimes we physically have to leave and let them try the thing. I'm not talking about when they're in the ocean for the first time, or standing on a cliff at, you know, the Grand Canyon. Don't abandon your child in a dangerous situation, but most.

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Mark Entrekin: Right.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: is not a dangerous situation. It's an opportunity for them to learn if we get out of their way.

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Mark Entrekin: That is beautiful, and I love that, and I hope we can all listen to this and put that into action, and that's what we want to do with this, and…

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Mark Entrekin: Your message is so clear, and so…

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Mark Entrekin: Bountiful and so beautiful. Julie, thank you so much. I want to extend our heartfelt thanks to you, Julie Lithcott Hames, and that is her URL, that's her link, which is julilithcottHames.com, and thank you for joining us today, generously sharing

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Mark Entrekin: Your life story, your insights, your wisdom, your books.

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Mark Entrekin: Because your passion for uplifting others

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Mark Entrekin: Fostering that authenticity in advocating for equity has truly inspired us.

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Mark Entrekin: The listeners that will listen to this?

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Mark Entrekin: Julie, we're grateful for the time, the energy, and the honesty that you bring to us in our conversations.

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Mark Entrekin: And it's a true privilege to walk alongside you.

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Mark Entrekin: Even for just a few moments, even just for a few minutes, because of your remarkable journey, and I hope we can continue this going forward.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I appreciate it. Our journeys are….

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Mark Entrekin: Oh, my pleasure. Our journeys are a powerful reminder that unity and raising an adult begins within, as we talked earlier, through self-awareness, resilience, and the willingness to grow from our failures, and we will at times.

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Mark Entrekin: But today's message perfectly mirrors the Achieving Unity Success formula.

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Mark Entrekin: Turning that chaos into clarity.

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Mark Entrekin: Isolation into inclusion, and broken trust into purposeful collaboration.

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Mark Entrekin: We all can do better working with others, because we cannot do it alone. We must remember that unity isn't just an ideal.

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Mark Entrekin: It's a daily choice to lead with empathy, act with integrity, and uplift each other along the way.

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Mark Entrekin: So if you felt a spark, as I did, with what Julie brought us today.

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Mark Entrekin: With anything that I have said today.

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Mark Entrekin: Please, follow that feeling. Contact me. Contact Julie. Again, just, it's just our names. Mine's MarkEntraken.com, Hurley, JulieLithgottHaynes.com.

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Mark Entrekin: Talk to us. That influence and recognition that we learned here from Julie Lithcott Hames, her message, contact her. Find her on LinkedIn.

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Mark Entrekin: I appreciate that. Julie, I appreciate you. If you have any closing comments? Closing remarks?

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: just gratitude, for everyone who's been listening, if, as Mark said, if anything came up for you as we were talking, hey, we're not talking about you, we don't know what your life situation is, but if your body gave you a little clue, like,

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: You know, that's… that's important. That's evidence from your own self that we were maybe hitting a nerve, or…

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Pressing on something that is worth your further investigation. So whatever came up for you as we were talking, that's valid, and I would say take it forward. Take it into conversation with a friend, with a therapist, with a pastor, like, whomever. Like, whatever came up for you, that's a clue from you to you that there's some valuable work to be done.

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Mark Entrekin: Thank you, Julie, that is so well said. I appreciate that for each of us, and contact her, contact me.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: Until next time!

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Mark Entrekin: Let us continue turning that chaos into connection. Let us keep achieving unity. www.achievingunity.com.

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Mark Entrekin: Call us, 303-362-8733, which is 303-FOCUSED, as we can stay focused on turning chaos into connection, as we are achieving unity by harnessing that power

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Mark Entrekin: The power of encouraging, inspiring, and including others in building better businesses.

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Mark Entrekin: Better lives, and a better world. Life is truly what we make it. So let's make it awesome together.

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Mark Entrekin: in unity.

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Mark Entrekin: Thank you all. Thank you, Jamie. Again, thank you for being here. I appreciate this. This has been… I'm sorry, Julie, not Jamie. Jamie on my mind.

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Mark Entrekin: Thank you so much for being here, and for your message, and helping others. Julie, your time and your commitment

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Mark Entrekin: is awesome, and I appreciate it.

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Mark Entrekin: Hope to see you again soon. Let's talk again soon.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: I look forward to it. Thank you so much. Appreciate it.

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Mark Entrekin: Talk to all of you again next week.

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Mark Entrekin: Thank you.

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Mark Entrekin: Julie, take care.

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Julie Lythcott-Haims: You too. Till then.

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Mark Entrekin: Thank you. Cheers.

Episode 49: Julie Lythcott-Haims

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Guest: Julie Lythcott-Haims

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