Good Inside with Dr. BeckyHow to Raise Kids Who Can Handle Failure | Dr. Becky and Astronaut Kellie Gerardi
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
45 min read · 9,272 words- 0:00 – 2:07
Intro: what if confidence means surviving failure?
- BEDr. Becky
What if the most important thing we need to build for our kids for them to be successful later in life is total comfort with failure? What if confidence isn't the belief, "I'm gonna be successful," it's, "Even if I struggle, I can survive it"? My guest today is one of the best examples of this I've ever met. Kellie Gerardi grew up in Jupiter, Florida, not far from the Kennedy Space Center. She was a quiet kid, a daydreamer, a lover of science fiction and space, and she wanted to go there. But there was a problem. There wasn't an obvious path for someone like her. She wasn't a military pilot. She wasn't a test pilot. She wasn't on some predetermined astronaut track. She built her own path, and in November 2023, Kellie flew to space as a researcher on a dedicated science mission aboard Virgin Galactic. What I wanna understand with you today is something I am actively trying to figure out in my own life with my own kids. What happened in her life to get her there? Not just become an astronaut, but what happens in someone's early experiences that allows them to say, "I can figure this out. I can take the next step. I can overcome the obstacle. I know this isn't gonna be easy, but I can do it anyway." I, I think that's what we want for our own kids, and so to have someone who had all of that happen for them through the process of struggling and failure and a ton of uncertainty, oh, I feel like together we have to learn from her. And that's what we're gonna do. I'm Dr. Becky. This is the first of a four-part special series with Hot Wheels. I'm sitting down with risk-takers, high achievers, big dreamers, and people who have been faced with impossible odds, and they keep going. Years of hard work, facing lots of big hurdles, and every one of them at some point said, "Challenge accepted." All right. Let's jump in. Kellie Gerardi.
- 2:07 – 5:02
Who Kellie was at eight years old
- BEDr. Becky
Okay, Kellie. Before we talk about space-
- KGKellie Gerardi
[laughs]
- BEDr. Becky
... I wanna talk about little Kellie. Who were you at eight years old?
- KGKellie Gerardi
Ooh, at eight years old I was a very curious child, I think. I was a very imaginative little girl. Um, I was also an only child, so I had a lot of time to myself-
- BEDr. Becky
Oh
- KGKellie Gerardi
... a lot of room to learn how to entertain myself. Um, and just a lot of endless curiosity about the world.
- BEDr. Becky
So if you think about your parents or adults who saw you at that age-
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah
- BEDr. Becky
... what, what, what did they see in you? Like, what did... What was, what was their sense?
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah, a couple different things. I think, you know, my curiosity probably manifested in a couple different ways. I think I was the kid who always had her nose in a book. And, and not to say that these were always educational books, it's just I loved reading genuinely [laughs] and generally. So, um, that was probably the biggest punishment and threat-
- BEDr. Becky
Mm-hmm
- KGKellie Gerardi
... in my house, was taking a book away, because there wasn't that much that would bother me besides that. Also, I think it's important to caveat I grew up in the early '90s, so this was pre-iPhone, pre-iPad, pre-internet in my house. So if you were a curious kid and you wanted to know anything, it was like books were your gateway.
- BEDr. Becky
Yep.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Um, so I think that's so much of what my parents always tell me they remember. My mom jokes that it was always such a joy to spend time with me [laughs] in the car because I would just be in the backseat kind of not speaking-
- BEDr. Becky
Wow
- KGKellie Gerardi
... immersed in my own world. And I'm getting a full dose of that with my eight-year-old now. She is just, you know, on the way to school and the way back, she's got her head in Diary of a Wimpy Kid, just silent like a chauffeur. So I'm getting a little taste of what it must've been like for my mom. [laughs]
- BEDr. Becky
[laughs] Okay, so that's what they saw. And, and yeah, what was going on inside you that maybe couldn't... people couldn't see?
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah. I, you know, I don't think I probably would've described myself back then as curious. Like, I, I don't think I would've put that language around it. I definitely felt like I loved to dive into obsessions. I loved to dive deep. For example, if I really loved a book series, it wasn't enough for me to just read the book. It was like I was-
- BEDr. Becky
Mm
- KGKellie Gerardi
... dressing up. If it was Harry Potter, I was in a robe. I was at the midnight book release, you know, at Barnes & Noble.
- BEDr. Becky
Yeah.
- KGKellie Gerardi
I was fully immersed in the world, and you know, that crossed over to science, to space. I wanted to see things in real life that I read about. I wanted to be a part of the community. I, I've never been a-
- BEDr. Becky
Yeah
- KGKellie Gerardi
... casual fan of anything my entire life. I've always wanted to be [laughs] part of the fandom, part of the community, all in.
- BEDr. Becky
You know, uh, one of the interesting things for me is thinking about these traits in kids that can be inconvenient and annoying-
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah
- BEDr. Becky
... in their environment in some ways. But when you look at them in a bird's-eye view, like, oh, that, that's amazing, right? It seems
- 5:02 – 9:58
Why your kid’s obsessions matter (yes, even squishies)
- BEDr. Becky
so positive. So one of the-
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah
- BEDr. Becky
... things you're saying is your questions led to more questions. Your interests led to more interests. It was like never enough. That's how someone could say, "Oh, it's not enough to have the books. You need to dress up. You need to go to that next step." You'll learn one thing, you wanna know another thing. And there is a demand that puts on an environment, 'cause my guess is at eight you weren't driving yourself around in a car.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah.
- BEDr. Becky
You needed-
- KGKellie Gerardi
Absolutely.
- BEDr. Becky
Right? Um, and at the same time, obviously we see you now, and we'll get to that, but when you look at it without the day-to-day of being a parent, when you're like, "I have to drive, and I have to go get that next book," obviously it's... What an amazing thing to nourish in a kid. A, you were a kid where learning was never enough, where one piece of something, you wanted the whole thing. You were so hungry.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah. It's true, and I give a lot of credit to my parents. Um, and now being a parent myself to two little girls, like you mentioned, I get to see that in a different light and get to have a little bit more appreciation for what that effort looked like from parents. Um, and I think one of the things that my parents did particularly well was nurtured my curiosity but without trying to control where it was supposed to go.
- BEDr. Becky
Mm.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Like, if I was obsessed with something, they let me go deep on it. And, and look, like, no, I, I couldn't always get what I wanted. It's not like I was being allowed to buy every Beanie Baby I saw or all the time. But I think whatever my passion was at the moment, whether it was a book series I loved, whether it was science and space, which was carried through, or whether it was-
- BEDr. Becky
Mm
- KGKellie Gerardi
... Barbies, they kind of met me where I was at. And-
- BEDr. Becky
Mm
- KGKellie Gerardi
... I see that- And appreciate that so much as a parent because I think, you know, like you said, you d- you don't know what part of a childhood obsession is going to turn into something that's a little bit bigger and a puzzle piece of a future, like, character trait. Like, my daughter right now is obsessed, along with the rest of the country probably, with squishies. I, I don't know if you're fam- okay, you're familiar, obviously. Stupid question [laughs] .
- BEDr. Becky
I don't live under a rock, Kellie.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah [laughs] okay, right. So, like, do I entirely get it? No. But I'm meeting her where she's at, and I know the difference now between crunchy squishies and slushy squishies. I'm searching for them in... I, I know what stores have drops sometimes. I even brought a little dumpling with me on my last microgravity research flight for her to free float it, and it was just... I'm enjoying watching her enjoying it and being-
- BEDr. Becky
Yeah
- KGKellie Gerardi
... able to participate in that. So I, I love that my parents modeled a lot-
- BEDr. Becky
Yeah
- KGKellie Gerardi
... of that for me.
- BEDr. Becky
I, I have two kind of practical things that are coming to mind that I feel like might speak to questions on a parent's mind hearing this, okay? So number one, our kids are obsessed with squishies, or they're obsessed with Beanie Babies. Chances are, in their 30s, 40s, that's not gonna be the thing. But the thing that's happening under the surface is a kid is learning, is it okay to want to know more about things? Is it okay to be curious? Is it okay to take that next step? Is that something to nourish in myself in general? Because by the time they're older, and you want a kid to love what they're interested in, to know what gives them a passion, to be like you, to go [laughs] into space, that circuit started with Beanie Babies, but it's the same circuit that leads to your interest in space or science or something else. So I think when you think about it at the circuitry level, we're less critical about the ridiculous things on the surface our kids seem to be obsessed with, even though we had different ridiculous things. And you think, "Wait, they're actually building a circuit of what it's like to be interested in something."
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah, and, and what it's like to be part of a community that has-
- BEDr. Becky
Yes
- KGKellie Gerardi
... a shared interest. I mean, one of the things that's so fascinating for me to watch that I think also has echoes back to whatever our early childhood obsessions were is that sense of kind of looking at everyone around you who is similarly obsessed with these things and saying, "Oh, which ones did they get? Which ones did they find? Oh, should we trade? What does this look like? Oh, I haven't found that one yet," or, "We both love this one more than that one," and the social element. And I think obviously Beanie Babies, Pokemon, uh, Ba- I was gonna say Barbie, but that's not true. Barbie has carried on into my adult life of my loves still. But, you know, what did carry on from a lot of those fandoms is the fact that I still love seeking and building community.
- BEDr. Becky
Oh.
- KGKellie Gerardi
And so I, I do think there are sometimes echoes of what-
- BEDr. Becky
Yes
- KGKellie Gerardi
... children have the freedom to explore in their own-
- BEDr. Becky
Yeah
- KGKellie Gerardi
... little passions.
- 9:58 – 10:58
Saying no while still feeding your kid’s curiosity
- BEDr. Becky
say to my kid, "First of all, I love that you love something so much. You've learned so much about these types. You're teaching me. You're learning where they have these different things in our neighborhood. I think it's so cool that you're the kind of kid who knows what you like and then you want to take action. You want to learn more. Let me just say that. I'm not able to go to the store today." Right? Like, just... And, and we think we always have to, we can almost do one or the other, but it's powerful to just realize, wait, I, I can set a boundary and say no, but still build that part of my kid.
- KGKellie Gerardi
There's been so many times that my daughter has heard "Absolutely not" from me, like, "We're not going and buying something new," but we were able to make our own. You had a couple of balloons-
- BEDr. Becky
Ugh, yep
- KGKellie Gerardi
... that weren't inflated. We have Vaseline at home. We have water. We have shaving cream. We have little beads. And that is almost just as fun and unique of an experience as going and hunting for one in a store. So I, I do think there's a lot of ways to continue to nurture that curiosity and that kind of drive without needing to, you know, spend a lot of money
- 10:58 – 13:07
Growing up near Kennedy Space Center
- KGKellie Gerardi
every single time. [laughs]
- BEDr. Becky
Okay, so you grew up close to the Kennedy Space Center.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yep.
- BEDr. Becky
And you could watch launches. And I'm curious about at that time, did the thought begin, "I want to do that. I want to go to space"? Was that happening early on?
- KGKellie Gerardi
A little bit. I don't know that I had the language at a very early age to be able to articulate, like, "Yes, that's it. Aha, that's gonna be my career path," but I do think Jupiter was a very unique hometown for someone with my kind of passion for a few reasons. Obviously, the name is very on brand. But also, like you mentioned, the proximity. Cape Canaveral is right up the coast, and so this was just part of the backdrop of the adolescence of anyone who grew up in my area. Human spaceflight was, you know, part of our experience. They used to file us onto the football field to catch a glimpse of shuttle launches, things like that. So you, the exposure was already checked as a box. And then I think for me, it was seeing that this was an activity that was so close to me growing up, that there were humans that were living and working off of Earth, and that was really exciting to someone who had a big imagination as a child. Um, and I, I do give my parents a lot of credit because they didn't make anything in my life. And, and to be very clear, my parents have no background in science or space. My dad never had the opportunity to go to college, so it, it wasn't as though they were able to be like, "Hey, this is the science track for you. Let me help stoke this very particular interest." But what they gave me instead was- Equally, if not more powerful, and it was the mindset that whatever your interests are, like, w- we want you to have this contradiction of, like, humility and confidence to know that, like, no one's dreams are guaranteed. You see something like that, it's extraordinary, you wanna do it, awesome. Like, it's not a given, but if you work hard enough for long enough, why not you, you know? And I think that's-
- BEDr. Becky
Mm
- KGKellie Gerardi
... what stuck with me more than anything. So when I saw human spaceflight, I never had the limiter in my imagination that was activated to say that, "Hey, that's not for you. That, that won't ever happen for
- 13:07 – 17:33
Taking a kid’s dream seriously without promising the outcome
- KGKellie Gerardi
you."
- BEDr. Becky
I- I'm just struck by that combination, taking a kid's interest really seriously without guaranteeing the outcome.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah. I mean, we've had it recently with my daughter with, uh, her first-ever concert. I took her to the Eras Tour, and she saw Taylor Swift perform. She, like many young girls who probably saw that concert, walked away saying, "I wanna do that when I grow up" And, you know, it's i- y- that conversation can go either way. It can-
- BEDr. Becky
Yeah
- KGKellie Gerardi
... it can sort of go in the direction of like, okay [laughs] , you know?
- BEDr. Becky
Mm-hmm.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Or it can be like, "Tell me. Tell me what you love about that."
- BEDr. Becky
Oh.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Like, I could see so much of you on that stage. Do you love the singing, the performing, the writing? Like, you know, and being able to just dig a little bit deeper into what it is that's captivating her, and then being realistic without being sort of discouraging, being like, yeah, I can only imagine the amount of work it took for Taylor Swift to get to where she is today. But gosh, if she can do it, you can do it.
- BEDr. Becky
No, I think this is so helpful 'cause I know the parents listening to this podcast, like all of us, we're, we're trying to do the best we can. We want our kids to be confident, be resilient, to do great things that are right for them. And figuring out how to actually action on that i- is, i- is trickier. And so I think about kids who say, "I'm gonna be an astronaut. I'm gonna be in the NBA."
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah.
- BEDr. Becky
"I'm gonna be the next Taylor Swift," right? And there is [laughs] sometimes this instinct, I gotta bring my kid back to reality, right? [laughs] Not because we're mean, right? But in some ways we feel like we're protecting them, and I think what you said gives people this other option.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Mm.
- BEDr. Becky
Like, there's something you love about this. Tell me more.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah.
- BEDr. Becky
And tell me more in some ways isn't about whether they're gonna become an NBA player or not. It's finding out more about the thing that is clearly lighting them up, and we want to stoke that.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Exactly. And, you know, for me, I think that played out in such a fascinating way because when I looked, all that I had exposure to as a child was a very sort of specific profile of what an astronaut-
- BEDr. Becky
Uh-huh
- KGKellie Gerardi
... looked like. I had the profile of a government astronaut who had a very specific, usually military test pilot background. I, uh, there w- there was just a, a profile that was very specific at the time, and that was kind of what the extent of my exposure was. So when I said as a young child and then kind of young adolescent and then adult, you know, "I wanna become an astronaut one day," when we peeled back the layers of what I actually wanted to do, it wasn't necessarily follow that very specific pathway where I wanted to go become a military test pilot. I wanted to do X, Y, Z. What I actually wanted to do was use space as a laboratory to benefit humanity. I was interested in the science. I was interested in different elements of, of space and space exploration and research. And so that did lead me on, on a different path, and being able to open up space and access to space for the next generation of scientists in a completely different way. And so I, I think similarly when my daughter is, you know, captivated by someone like Taylor Swift, it's like I wanna understand what the layers are beneath that because perhaps it's not reverse engineering Taylor Swift's career and needing to move the family to Nashville [laughs] or, you know, whatever it is. But perhaps it's something else. Perhaps it's like what I really love is being able to communicate my emotions in song, or my thoughts in words, or being able to perform and connect to someone on a stage, you know? And whatever that next layer down is, that's what I wanna kinda pour my, my attention and energy into helping stoke.
- BEDr. Becky
I love that visual. Like m- uh, uh, our kid says something, "I wanna be Taylor Swift." If you think about that as one layer, but really it's just a door. It's like a door to a whole room. But you said, "Okay, let me not take that as the whole story. What's the next layer down? If I'm just interested in that, it leads to a really good place." So, so good. Uh, okay, so you went to my next kind of area of questions for you, so thank you for guiding this conversation in the way that I had organized it in my head. Um, your path was not the same as others, and you kept, you know, taking a next step. And I wanna know in that path, was there ever a point of,
- 17:33 – 23:57
The kindergarten clock meltdown that changed everything
- BEDr. Becky
who am I kidding? Who am I kidding? I can't do this, or I just got a rejection and, yeah, may- maybe, maybe this is not gonna happen. Any, any mini stumble like that?
- KGKellie Gerardi
I, I mean so many. The, the path just quite literally didn't exist in, in this form until my research institute sent me. But I th- I think even far before that, I, I do think I had a pretty unhealthy relationship with failure very early on in my childhood that I, I had to first, y- you know, get over before I could go after bigger dreams. I, I just remember, and this came up the other day for me because I, I was asking my daughter about a, a similar memory where she was very crushed by something, and it brought up this memory of me. I don't remember a lot of kindergarten, but I do vividly remember we were learning to read, uh, analog clocks when I was younger, and I just, I didn't understand it. It was like hieroglyphics to me. But instead of raising my hand and telling my teacher that I, I didn't get it, I let- Time passed, and I sat there silently, and then two weeks later, like too much time had passed, and then it was even more embarrassing that I hadn't said anything than it was to be like, "I don't understand how to read a clock." And there was a little quiz, and I just remember being kept off to the side and told that tomorrow, the next day, I was going to need to stay in during recess to have one-on-one time. And I was so upset about it that night when I went home. Like, anxious, embarrassed, nauseous. Like, i- it was a tiny little thing, um, but in my head it was catastrophic. And, and then it repeated again the following year, and I think it was music this time. In first grade, we were learning to read a treble clef, and everyone was learning F-A-C-E, and I, I just... It didn't click for me, and the same pattern emerged, where I didn't say anything. I was embarrassed or ashamed or whatever it was, and the problem just got bigger and bigger until there was a test, and I came home, like, nearly puking [laughs] and just broke down to my mom and was like, "I don't know how to do this. I..." You know, and it was just a disaster. And I remember that she kinda helped me put it in perspective. I think she also made a joke about it at the time, which sent me over the edge. Like, she made a little pun about facing the music, and that was like, [laughs] "Not the time, Mom."
- BEDr. Becky
Not the time, Mom.
- KGKellie Gerardi
And, uh-
- BEDr. Becky
[laughs]
- KGKellie Gerardi
But then, then suddenly there was... It, it wasn't an aha moment. It was more of an anticlimactic, like, oh-
- BEDr. Becky
Mm
- KGKellie Gerardi
... all they're doing is memorizing F-A-C-E. Okay, I get it now. And, and then I moved on. And so I think it took a few of those experiences as a very little kid to, like, break this habit of me, where I was almost interpreting, okay, if I don't understand something immediately, I must not be good at it, or this isn't going to ever happen for me. And I, I think that was just really formative for me to get through, um, because I ended up making a 180 in adulthood, where I almost used uncertainty as armor, and I, I kind of have lived my life, the last decade or more, very transparently, very publicly shouting all of my dreams out in real time, and very publicly failing at a number of them, and just learning that you can survive being seen failing. And so I, I think that was critical for me going after a dream as big and audacious, perhaps, as flying to space as a civilian scientist on a commercial spacecraft. Like, that just path hadn't been done before. And it's the same thing. I, I've lived the last, uh, near-decade of my life of secondary infertility and my IVF journey. I've shared publicly, transparently, in real time, in a very different way, but still putting out a dream publicly into the universe about what I want, and being willing to, to show what life looks like when it doesn't happen for me, and where it goes the, the opposite of what I could've hoped. And so I think I've kind of given [laughs] myself, in some ways, a lot of exposure therapy of just being willing to put my dreams out there, being willing to be seen publicly failing or not reaching them, or having things not go the way that I want, and not taking that as, um, you know, evidence of anything about me as a person.
- BEDr. Becky
Okay, I just wanna pause for a second to explain why we're here talking about the challenger spirit today. It's because we teamed up with Hot Wheels to create this miniseries, Challenge Accepted. I have this saying, we're preparing our kid for the road, not preparing the road for our kid. And what I mean by this is we want our kids to be resilient. We want them to trust themselves, not just to handle the smooth parts of the road, but to handle the road whatever shape it ends up taking. Which means we don't just want to give them a smooth, straight, easy road all the time, right? That's really the heart of Challenge Accepted, of this miniseries we're making right here with Hot Wheels, because Hot Wheels believes it's so important for kids to be able to try, fail, try again, still struggle, learn from mistakes. You don't just hand kids a Hot Wheels track that's already assembled and tell them, "Have fun." You let them build it. You let them struggle to build it. You let them try to click the tracks in place and experiment with the angles of the loops and have that not work a bunch of times, have the car fall off the track, and that leads to more testing, different speeds, more play. That's what it's all about. What we're trying to understand in Challenge Accepted is what it actually takes in the early years to become resilient later on. How did our amazing, bold, successful guests on these episodes learn to try and fail and struggle and try again? What parenting lessons can we learn from them? And how do we help our kids build the type of growth mindset they all have? We're going to get to the bottom of this in this miniseries, and I wanna thank Hot Wheels so much for making this possible.
- 23:57 – 27:20
Is confidence believing you’ll succeed, or knowing you’ll survive?
- BEDr. Becky
Something I debate in my head a lot about whether confidence is, like, this belief you're gonna succeed, or whether confidence is this belief that you can survive failure. I, I don't know. Which one resonates more with you?
- KGKellie Gerardi
The latter probably resonates most with me. It's like I, I think that that's the thing that I had to learn that was able to unlock a lot more of my potential. And I'm also, you know, not, not in a woo way, but I'm also a big believer that putting your dreams out publicly, visibly, loudly helps create a lot of momentum and serendipity for them, because you never know who's listening, who can remember, like, oh You know, I know Kellie wants more than anything X, Y, Z, and is able to be like, "Have you talked to so and so?" Or-
- BEDr. Becky
Yes
- KGKellie Gerardi
... "Oh, have you thought about this?" Or, and so i- it's twofold. On the one hand, you're building this entire, you know, stadium and community of support and cheerleaders who are, are, are kind of helping the momentum and serendipity and are there to cheer if things go well. On the other hand, which I've also experienced, you're building this community of support to help pick you back up when you don't get to where you were hoping to go, or where you need a little bit of empathy and support and community. And I've experienced both sides of that spectrum and, and so I, I do think for me it's the latter.
- BEDr. Becky
I, I think that's the same for me, too. B- And I think it has really profound implications because I think we think confidence is the other one, and so we'll say, I don't know. Let's say there's a meeting I'm preparing for in adulthood-
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah
- BEDr. Becky
... or for my kid it's a tryout. I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna work really hard and I'm gonna prepare for every single scenario, and that's gonna make me confident." And without a doubt, we have to prepare and do all those things, but if that's what I'm optimizing for, then any stumble, I, I kinda crumple.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah.
- BEDr. Becky
Versus if I prep and I said, "And you know what? Even if the meeting doesn't go the way I want, even if I don't get the job," or a kid, "even if I don't get on the team, I'll, I'll still be me."
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yep.
- BEDr. Becky
"I'll survive. I'll, I'll live to tell the tale, and maybe I'll be less afraid of trying out for the next team, not because I make every team, but because I see I can be a kid who shows up to school even when everyone knows I didn't make the team." It wasn't, it, it wasn't so catastrophic.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah, absolutely. I, I mean, it, it, it really becomes part of your, your muscle. It becomes part of your story. Um, and it becomes part of what is gonna make you even better at the next attempt at something that's really important to you.
- BEDr. Becky
You know, I was a pretty hard-on-myself kid about a lot of things, a little perfectionistic. And I'd think about if I didn't do well on a test and I think a well-meaning comment was like, "You're gonna do great on the next one, don't worry." But I think what I maybe needed to hear was, "Nothing about you changed."
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah.
- BEDr. Becky
Okay, bad test. Same great, smart kid, right? Um, a very different message, but I, like, I think about now even saying those words feels [laughs] feels healing.
- KGKellie Gerardi
It, it does.
- BEDr. Becky
[laughs]
- KGKellie Gerardi
I, I agree. I think that's such a powerful message to receive as a kid, not, you know, "You'll get 'em next time," every time, although sometimes I do think we can all use a little pep talk. But-
- BEDr. Becky
Yes
- KGKellie Gerardi
... I think w- really hearing and being forced to really hear the message that nothing about you changed after this bad result, you are still just as capable
- 27:20 – 33:15
Letting your kids watch you be bad at things
- KGKellie Gerardi
as you were yesterday.
- BEDr. Becky
That's exactly right. Okay, bring this all around to your parenting. Right now, you are the parent. You have two girls. How is it for you to kind of watch them struggle with things, to be left out, to not be able to read yet? Like, how, how do you exper- how are you as a parent in those moments?
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah. Oh, and it's hard. It's hard to see your kid, you know, uh, suffer in any way, right? Um, and I, I think I do try to take a page out of my parents' book of really trying to put things into perspective and also understanding that in that moment, like it did for me when I was a child in kindergarten or first grade and experiencing some of these setbacks and feeling those emotions, it is that serious in the moment, right?
- BEDr. Becky
Yes.
- KGKellie Gerardi
It's like these, these are very real emotions. They, it, the, it feels all-consuming, and so trying not to be dismissive while also trying to force the perspective shift. That's something important for me.
- BEDr. Becky
Mm.
- KGKellie Gerardi
And then I think also leading by example. Like, I think a lot about the fact that I wanna make sure that my daughters also watch me try things that I'm not innately good at.
- BEDr. Becky
Mm.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Like, I think it's very important for me to demonstrate that in real time and for it to be known that skills are thing- and competencies are things that you build, not things that you're just innately born with. Um, you know, for me, o- one of those things that's been really fun and that I'm, like, not good at but I show my daughters that I'm trying, I got to play myself on an episode of, of Phineas and Ferb, Agent P Under Sea. It was super cool. They wrote me in as a character. I got to voice myself, and it just kinda lit this spark under me a few years ago where I was like, "I wanna do more of this. I wanna get involved in STEM education and media and children's television and film." And I wanted to try to audition for more things on the side, and so I, I had sent in and have sent in a number of auditions and gotten so many rejections. And, um, or not even rejections. Most of the time you just hear nothing. You send a silly little recording of yourself out into the universe and radio silence. But I love that I'm doing it anyway, and that my girls-
- BEDr. Becky
Yeah
- KGKellie Gerardi
... see me, uh, trying something, using such a different part of my brain, such a different part of my personality. And I did ask a casting director at Disney, you know, "What would someone who wants to do this, like, what do you think that they should do? How can they get better at this?" And she said improv classes are one of the best ways. And so I take a weekly improv class at my community center, and my girls watch me go. And, um, it's sometimes a little bit, uh, vulnerable or embarrassing. I'm not good at it, but I'm also not doing it because I'm guaranteed or promised that something's gonna come from it and I'm gonna be great. You know, I'm, I'm doing it because maybe I'll get better. You know, maybe it'll lead to opportunities. But either way, I'm enjoying it, and, um, I don't wanna be someone who loses the ability to try new things or to experience being bad at something. And I, as a parenting style, want my girls to know that being bad at something is often, like, the price you have to pay to become good at something. And so, like, you, you gotta get comfortable living in that and just-
- BEDr. Becky
I-
- KGKellie Gerardi
... trying to stick with it.
- BEDr. Becky
Ugh. I mean, I think about how limiting it is to only do things where you kind of have a guarantee that you're gonna be good at it. It's a very small bubble, right? And I think what you're saying also that I know the parents listening, like I, I need to hear too, is it's so important not to just talk the talk.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah.
- BEDr. Becky
Like, there's nothing more powerful than what your kids witness, right? And I think kids, especially when our kids are younger, we don't even realize how much we overwhelm them with our capability. Like, you and I, Kellie, pretty good at putting on our shirts the right way these days, right? Like, tags in the back. Pretty good at getting our socks on. And, like [laughs] it's laughable, but, like, all of those are tiny things that our kids are like, "Ugh, uh, uh." And it would probably be really hard for you to learn improv if you were only surrounded by 50 of the best improv people in the land.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Absolutely.
- BEDr. Becky
And if our kids are learning everything in life surrounded by parents who seem, I don't know, expert at everything in life, it's just... It's a hard, it's a hard learning environment for them to be in. A- and I think the added layer you have, which i- is next level, is can we have joy in the things that we're not good at? Not only am I doing them, 'cause, like, I know my family, my kids are obsessed with Wordle and Threads and, um, spelling bee. I am by far the worst at my wh- e- everyone. My nine-year-old, nine, 11, 14-year-old, all of them, and definitely my husband, all amazing. And I, I, I don't say I have a ton of joy when I do them. I kind of like, like, "All right, guys," and, "How many words you get?" I'm like, "I got four."
- KGKellie Gerardi
[laughs]
- BEDr. Becky
And they're like, "Well, I got queen bee." And I'm like, "Cool." You know? But I think there's those two different things, and they both matter. Do things you're not great at. Your kids have to see you struggle.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yes.
- BEDr. Becky
And if you can find... Like, you know what? I have joy playing Scattegories. I'm so bad at Scattegories. Whatever. Clearly, word games are... I'm just putting it all together. Like [laughs] not my strong suit.
- KGKellie Gerardi
[laughs]
- BEDr. Becky
Um, and I do have joy, and I'm not very good. And I, and I think, you know what, it's gonna prompt me. I'm gonna play Scattegories this weekend, uh, with my kids.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah, exactly. I, I, I think what you said was just so well-phrased. Like, your, your kids have to see that, have to watch you struggle with something, and I think that can be a really powerful visual. And also to just find joy in things-
- BEDr. Becky
Yeah
- KGKellie Gerardi
... without some, you know, achievement
- 33:15 – 38:06
Secondary infertility and a scientist’s mindset
- KGKellie Gerardi
outcome necessarily needing to be attached to it.
- BEDr. Becky
Yeah. You referred to it before. Can you tell me a little bit more about your struggle with secondary infertility? And do you feel like at that point, this mindset of, you know, "My, my failures, my struggles don't define me," and, you know, "I can stick with things before I see signs of success," like, did that help you through that period? Or are you like, "Dr. Becky, let's be honest. It all totally, you know, went to shit-
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yes and no
- BEDr. Becky
... and I just had a hard time like everyone else"?
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah. I, uh, the truth is a little bit of both. I, I do think that my career in science and my background in research helped me sort of just from the perspective of having the mental muscle to, like, look at data and interpret it kind of objectively without viewing, you know, a failure just as personally, um, and being able to try to step back a little. That doesn't mean I was able to, like, intellectualize my grief in any way. Like, it still-
- BEDr. Becky
Yeah
- KGKellie Gerardi
... sucked. It was still really, really hard, and there were incredibly low lows and, and heartbreaking times. Um, but I, I do think I was able to take some of the mindset, I guess, that I've adopted professionally that's served me well and apply it to my personal life, where it's like, "Okay, you know, it, it definitely didn't go the way that we wanted this round. We have a little bit more data, and so we're gonna tweak the protocol, or we're going to do something slightly differently, and we're going to try again. And we're gonna, you know-
- BEDr. Becky
Hmm
- KGKellie Gerardi
... play with some of these variables that we do have control over and see if that can influence the outcome next time."
- BEDr. Becky
Hmm.
- KGKellie Gerardi
So I wouldn't say that it took away any of the, the difficulty or the emotional weight of that, but it definitely allowed... I'm also an exhausting patient. Like, imagine someone like me, who's, like, coming in with the, [laughs] the peer-reviewed studies and being like, "So I've got some ideas." [laughs] It's like, that's-
- BEDr. Becky
Sorry, Kellie, I'm full.
- KGKellie Gerardi
[laughs] Yeah, that's tough for a doctor. Um, and so, uh, but, but it was, it was a partnership, [laughs] uh, me and my medical providers. And, um, and it ended up, uh, with great success. My, my youngest daughter was born earlier this year in April, um, Baby Max. She's a, a girl. And, um, yeah, it's just really... It was a difficult journey. But I, I do think a little bit of the mindset that I've used professionally was able to help me pick myself back up in some ways.
- BEDr. Becky
You know, you're embodying something I, I think about and say a lot, actually, which is how we feel in any situation is a combination of the feeling and the story we tell ourselves about what the feeling means. And, and I think what you're saying, and I, and I really [laughs] think it's important for us all to digest this, the best it gets is having the feeling. No story takes away the feeling. No one's like, "I'm going through infertility, primary, secondary, and I have such an amazing mindset that I feel the exact same way as I did a couple years ago when this wasn't happening." That would just be weird. That would be a human who's not experiencing life. But there's a big difference between the feeling of, "I don't know exactly what it was. Dude, this hard. This sucks. I'm so frustrated. I wanted this," and you said a line that I love, "This isn't what I wanted. This isn't what I expected." But what ends up making that feeling, instead of feeling like a hole, I think feeling like an abyss-
- KGKellie Gerardi
Mm-hmm
- BEDr. Becky
... isn't the feeling. It's the story. "Something's wrong with me. It's never gonna happen. I, I can't live like this." What, what- And it sounds like when you said both, you still have the feeling, and I love that you said-
- KGKellie Gerardi
Oh, yeah
- BEDr. Becky
... you're not gonna mindset your way out of a feeling. And when you are someone who's learned a story that's a little more adaptive and a little less self-blaming around struggle, the- the feeling is still there, and it's probably a little more manageable.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah, absolutely. It's like I- I was not a sunshine and rainbows, optimistic, you know, personality where it's like everything will work out or everything that's meant to be will be. Like, sometimes things don't work out, and it's just terrible, and it just-
- BEDr. Becky
Yeah
- KGKellie Gerardi
... is awful, and there is-
- BEDr. Becky
Ugh
- KGKellie Gerardi
... no rhyme or reason for it. Um, but so I wouldn't say that it was like, oh, I was filled with hope every step of the way. But I- I think what I came out of this with was a f- a more functional version of hope, which was like even if I don't get to where I wanna be, I believe that I will still survive. Like I, you know... And that's, and not that I want that to be the outcome, but I can, you know, survive anything is kind of how I feel. And I, I think that that was kind of like believing less in the outcome and believing more in my own ability to get
- 38:06 – 43:03
Writing a children’s book and creating your own “yes”
- KGKellie Gerardi
through whatever the outcome was.
- BEDr. Becky
Ugh. And that's that confidence again.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah, yeah.
- BEDr. Becky
I can survive it. I will be on my feet at some point. Okay, you wrote Luna Muna-
- KGKellie Gerardi
[laughs]
- BEDr. Becky
... a book about a little girl dreaming about space. And then hold on a second because that book got read from the International Space Station. Like, I feel like the term s- full circle was built for this moment. There's something about like the orbit, the book-
- KGKellie Gerardi
[laughs]
- BEDr. Becky
... your story. What was that like?
- KGKellie Gerardi
So special. It was amazing. I, you know, a dream come true, and that, that was another example of sort of pursuing, you know, these multitudes in life that I didn't necessarily see for myself when I first said, "Oh, my passion is science and space." It's like writing a children's book doesn't necessarily fall onto that roadmap, but being willing to try something new and-
- BEDr. Becky
Yeah
- KGKellie Gerardi
... and it did face a number of rejections. Um, when I first pitched it to publishers, I- I did get a lot of nos.
- BEDr. Becky
Yeah.
- KGKellie Gerardi
But I eventually found a yes.
- BEDr. Becky
Ugh.
- KGKellie Gerardi
And I, I also like to tell people that I, even if I hadn't found a yes, I would've created a yes for myself. I would've just self-published. If I hadn't found a publisher who, like, saw the vision for it that I had, I would have just self-published it because I wanted it to be in existence. It's as simple as that. So I was very lucky and very grateful, you know, to the publisher that, that sort of saw in it what I was trying to communicate with it and was able to take it to market in a bigger way than I might have been able to by myself, for sure. But, um, I always like to make that point because I think when you think about these things, or at least as I explain it to my daughter, you know, it can feel very far away to be like, "You wrote and published a book?" Like, that, it just seems, like, kind of out of reach. And it's like anyone can write a story. Anyone can write a story. And my, my daughter actually just entered, um, a, a writing and illustration story that Diary of a Wimpy Kid had put out on their website, and I just thought that was so fun. Uh, and it took her multiple nights and a lot of effort. And you know, she, she and I both know, don't know if it'll go anywhere. But I loved that, the idea of putting in the effort like that and just completing something like a story because-
- BEDr. Becky
Yeah
- KGKellie Gerardi
... even if it doesn't win a contest, I intend to laminate-
- BEDr. Becky
Yes
- KGKellie Gerardi
... those pages in our house, and that's a, that, that's going on our bookshelf.
- BEDr. Becky
Ugh.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Like, I think it's a great story, and she enjoyed writing it. And so with any of these sort of, um, I don't know, uh, achievements we'll call them, like writing a book or a professional milestone, I do try to break it down for my girls into more accessible, digestible pieces about the why and what if it hadn't happened that way, that it did.
- BEDr. Becky
But I think you're also doing something else that's a really good lesson for parents. In some ways you're focusing more, "I wrote the story," than you're focusing on someone decided to publish it.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yes, exactly.
- BEDr. Becky
Uh, because, and I think about what you said about the squishies, I think it's the same thing. I'm interested in the squishies, right? Well, if your parent can't take you, okay, agree, 10 out of 10 version for you is going to the store and getting it. That's your 10 out of 10. Not happening. Okay. Is there anything between a 10 and 10 and a zero out of 10 that's under your control? Because a kid will say something like, "Well, I can make my own squishies, but they're not gonna be as good." It's a great time to say to a kid, "You're 100% right."
- KGKellie Gerardi
Mm-hmm.
- BEDr. Becky
That is yes. Yep, you can make it on your own, not gonna feel as good as if I got you one. And, uh, only, you know, I don't know, is that gonna feel better than none? I don't know, right? Okay, you can write a book. Maybe someone doesn't publish. And is there anything I can do to make it possible to feel, you know, closer to what I wanted, even if I can't get the whole thing? That is such an amazing framework to bring to your house.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah, I, I, and I, I love the way you sort of, uh, you know, repeated that back. It's like so succinctly. It's like not waiting for anyone or, or, or not letting the experience hinge on someone giving me to, permission to pursue it or not is basically what it is.
- BEDr. Becky
Yeah.
- KGKellie Gerardi
It's like I want to do this thing. If someone takes a bet on me, amazing. That is the 10 out of 10 experience that I really want. But is there something between not doing it at all and never having the story see the light of day and having a publisher take it to Barnes & Noble? Yeah, there's a lot on that spectrum, and I would've been prepared to go on any one of those ladder rungs.
- BEDr. Becky
For anyone listening who is understandably cynical, like, yeah, well, my kid is like, "But I'm not doing that," there's something magic to just saying to your kid, "You're right," as a starting. "But I want this, and that's what I want." "You're right. That's, you're totally right. Not happening. That stinks. You're right. That's the best option." Then there's a ... 'Cause I think we skip that part sometimes.
- 43:03 – 46:08
What “challenge accepted” means, and when quitting is the right call
- BEDr. Becky
need you to just admit that's not the same."
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah. [laughs] Yeah, you're not being honest. Yeah.
- BEDr. Becky
Be, just admit it, okay? Um- Okay, I wanna end with this phrase, challenge accepted, because I think you and I, I could tell, challenge accepted doesn't mean I'm not scared. I know I'm gonna win. I'm definitely gonna succeed. You are someone who has accepted, who seeks out, who embodies what it means to take on challenges. So what does challenge accepted mean to you?
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah. I mean, I think challenge accepted, to me, means staying faithful to the core of your dream while being really flexible with all of the details around it. Like, I-
- BEDr. Becky
Oh
- KGKellie Gerardi
... you know, I think about this so often with my daughter and the things that she says she wants or wants to do versus, like, the distance between her actually, like, following through on, on some of those things, whatever it is. It could be sports. It could be a ballet class. It, it could be writing a short story for a contest that she said she really wanted to enter, and then it's time to actually finish it, and she's like, "Oh, but I wanna watch TV." Right? Well, or whatever it is. I think the, the challenge accepted is really figuring out, like, do you want this? And, uh, and this part is maybe a little controversial, but I think sometimes quitting is the right decision. Like, I don't think we do favors of telling kids that perseverance means that you have to, like, keep doing every single thing that you've ever started forever. I think you're allowed to change your mind. I think you're allowed to decide you don't love something or that you love something else more, and you can also realize that whatever strategic approach you're taking isn't working.
- BEDr. Becky
Hmm.
- KGKellie Gerardi
But I think that if what you're finding is you're just, like, frustrated or embarrassed or, like, you just assumed you'd be better at it by now, and that's annoying you, and that's, you know, why you're not willing to say challenge accepted, like, then I would probably ask you to sit with that a little bit more if I was talking to my daughter because I, I think back to what we were saying earlier, it's like, you know, the being frustrated by something or by y- needing to, like, practice something more, not being great at it, like, that is often the price that you have to pay to be able to get better at something. And so I think you often don't have enough evidence yet of what you're capable of. So I, I would really say, to me, challenge accepted means sitting with yourself first and really interrogating, like, what is it that I want, and do I really want it? Okay, yeah, then I'm gonna go for it, and some of the details may not materialize exactly the way that they did when I laid them out on the vision board. But I'm gonna keep moving in that forward direction towards them.
- BEDr. Becky
I love that. Thank you, Kellie. You're incredible. You-
- KGKellie Gerardi
Likewise
- BEDr. Becky
... take very complicated ideas and make them very usable and simple and pictureable, and so thank you. I, I love talking with you.
- KGKellie Gerardi
Yeah, likewise. Thank you so much for having me.
- 46:08 – 48:14
Dr. Becky’s plan: interest month
- BEDr. Becky
So right after we finished taping, I told Kellie something, and my team said, "You should make that as the outro," so here we go. Kellie truly just inspired me to do something I've never done with my kids. I want to create a real space for their interest and curiosity, so here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna talk to each of them individually and just say something simple like this: "You know, I had an amazing conversation with someone today who really reminded me how cool it is to be interested in something, to be obsessed with something. I want you to think about something you're interested in. No wrong answers. Mom isn't gonna say, 'That's not important,' anything. And my job next month, to make it a little easier for you to learn more about that thing, to have that interest turn into something. We'll figure out exactly what that means together, but just tell me something you're interested in, and the next month is gonna be interest month. We're gonna figure it out together." You know, we live in this world right now where we're constantly in reaction mode. We're shown so many things on social media, right? So much is coming at us that we're always reacting to. Reaction mode is kind of the opposite of origin mode, meaning what originates inside me. What am I interested in? Not what am I reacting to, but what is an interest that generates in me, and can I build that? That's what I wanna focus on a little bit more with my kids, and so if that resonates, take it on with me. Send me a message. Write an email to podcast@goodinside.com. Send me a DM. Say, "That's kind of cool. Here's what it led to with my kids," or, "Here's where I'm stuck." Truly, we're in this together, and I feel like it's just gonna lead to somewhere good. I don't know what it is, but I think it's gonna be good. Let's end the way we always do. Place your feet on the ground, and place a hand on your heart. And let's remind ourselves, even as we struggle on the outside, we remain good inside. I'll see you next time.
Episode duration: 48:21
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