100TH EPISODE with Guest Host Steve McDermott | Best self improvement podcasts

In this episode, guest host Steve McDermott celebrates the 100th episode of the Unlocked Podcast with regular host Ricky Locke. They discuss advice for young people entering the world, the importance of living life according to your values, and the role of parenting and being a role model. They also share tips for handling discipline challenges and prioritizing mental and physical health. The conversation concludes with a discussion on the best books and quotes that have influenced their lives.

Takeaways

-Live life according to your values and do what makes you happy.

-Be a role model for your children and lead by example.

-Validate your child's feelings and understand their perspective.

-Prioritize your mental and physical health to be the best version of yourself.

Chapters

00:17 Introduction and Celebrating 100 Episodes

01:17 Advice for Young People Going Out into the World

03:49 Parenting and Being a Role Model

07:23 Discipline Challenges and Validating Feelings

11:53Advice for Mental and Physical Health

18:20 Best Book or Idea of the Year

23:45 Favorite Quotes

24:23 Conclusion and Farewell

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steve (00:01.843)

Hello and welcome to the Unlocked Podcast. Now you might have noticed this isn't Ricky Lock's voice. I'm the guest host, Steve McDermott, maybe more about me in a minute. And I've been invited in just for this one episode because we're celebrating 100 episodes of Unlocked, a podcast that helps you be the best version of yourself. And I'm very excited because I've got a very special guest who's in point of fact, the normal host of this podcast, Mr. Ricky Lock. Hello, Ricky.

Ricky Locke (00:30.006)

Weee! Hello mate, how's it going? This is quite cool, isn't it? A bit different.

steve (00:31.091)

Whoo good this is show other four isn't it? Yeah so what I like about podcasts right is to dive straight into the meat of it right so I'm just going to ask you a question because you're my guest right off the bat and it's at the front of my mind young person going out into the world for the first time so I don't know 16 maybe 18 what one bit of advice would you give them?

Ricky Locke (00:36.869)

Yeah, yeah, it's quite nice to sit here. Yeah, nice.

Ricky Locke (01:00.906)

Wow. Okay. That's a very good loaded question from the beginning, Steve. That's good. Okay. Wow. Let's get to me. Okay. So 16. So now putting my dad head on now, right. Thinking about Alma when she's older, right. Biggest thing piece of advice I think is to, I'm allowed to swear on my own podcast episode. Okay. We can do that. Yeah. I believe that because of what I've learned in and the last couple of years of doing these episodes,

steve (01:05.264)

innit? Let's get to the meat!

steve (01:11.666)

Yeah.

steve (01:20.123)

I don't think you can bleep it later.

Ricky Locke (01:30.274)

Fundamentally, this is all about living life to your values and just doing whatever fills your cup and not. And we'll talk about this probably a little bit later on, you know, the whole treading eggshells thing, as I mentioned. But this is all about fundamentally. Fuck everything. Look at what you know, everything else we know, but I'll bleep that out. But this is just about fundamentally understanding that to be the best version yourself, you've just got to go out there and live your life to your values.

not dictated by anyone else, not dictated by what we see society norms and all that, but fundamentally what makes you happy and doing the things that fill you with joy and fills your cup. Because I just believe that for so long, especially in my life as well from a lot of these episodes, that life is dictated by society, dictated by what we believe, which we know in what the work we do. Often it's not true. And actually you can just waste and coast so much of your life.

worrying about things that aren't in control and doing the things that just don't make you happy. So why would you wanna do that? It's very easy said to do it, then it's easy to say that than doing it.

steve (02:34.175)

Yeah. Okay, I think I totally agree. My switch on it being a little bit older than you will be that most 16 year olds, including me, have no clue what gives them joy and what the values are. And your values change. But I think it's like having that in your mind and saying you might need to go out there and try out a load of stuff. So if you're asking me that question, if I say 16 year old, go look, you won't have a clue. You might think it's this that you want to do.

Ricky Locke (02:47.298)

Yeah, true, true. Yeah, true.

Ricky Locke (03:01.535)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

steve (03:04.147)

might be chasing the car, the status, the whatever. You know this, if you've ever spoken in a school rickety right and there's a load again 16 year olds the only question they want to know is how much money do you earn? Comes up right they go well you know that's you got a fake mortgage but that's the kind of really low down on my thing so it's good advice i agree right so first question right and it ties in with the next one because what's in on my mind right now depending on when this podcast goes out

Ricky Locke (03:09.442)

Mmm.

Ricky Locke (03:15.253)

Yeah, that's it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

steve (03:32.731)

But as it's been recorded, we're two weeks away from my first grandchild.

Ricky Locke (03:39.146)

Oh, yeah. Yeah, of course. I thought you'd say two weeks away from my birthday. But yeah, that's important as well. Isn't it? Yeah.

steve (03:41.263)

And people, well, you know, so it might, you know, and it's interesting, a good friend of mine asked me, he said, I've been to see how you feel when your grandchild's born compared to how you felt when your three kids were born. That in itself is interesting. But the thing I was also reflecting on was, how, what advice would I give to my grandchild that I didn't give to my kids, right? So my next question is, how old's Alma now?

Ricky Locke (04:08.802)

She's two and three months or no, two and two months. Yeah.

steve (04:12.087)

Yeah, I don't know because I saw the little video on Instagram when you took a little adventure and you went to Bruce on your staff And he said that was it. I think he said the word fascinating, which is of course one of our favorite words in it, right? um, but knowing what you know now What would be your top tip to a? a parent What you believe makes a great parent and be a grandparent

Ricky Locke (04:18.438)

Oh yeah, yes, that's right, yeah.

Ricky Locke (04:24.141)

It was, yeah, yeah.

Ricky Locke (04:34.412)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (04:40.206)

Oh, interesting, isn't it? Yeah. Okay. So let's go for that first one then for the parent thing. So for a lot of my studies in this personal development world and what we do, I've come to believe now through, I think just becoming a parent as you do, the question I often ask myself is what lessons am I teaching Alma? So whatever I do now, the thread that just runs through everything, if it's a piece of work that comes in, you know, one of our values is fun, right? We like working with fun people. If something comes in into the business and it's like, that doesn't

feel like it's really fun, you know, I don't want to do that. And I wouldn't want Alma to like go off and do things. It doesn't make her happy, you know, fill a cup and all that sort of thing. But I've now come to this point where it's like, okay, so if everything is Fred is that is what lessons am I teaching my daughter? The advice for me is like to be a role model. I'm a parent now. I've got to be a role model. So I can't expect her to do any of these things if I'm not doing it myself. So I'm now starting to really practice, you know, be my own preacher and practice what I preach.

you know, being a bit more honest, you know, my whole life as a kid, I was taught to say, yes, freebacks for we don't challenge stuff, Ricky, you know, just walk on eggshells. And it's just it just doesn't work. You know, it causes pain, anxiety, and all these sort of things. And when you then start self reflecting, go, God, the pain that I felt in my life, I don't want that on her. So the best tip I'd say about parenting is obviously, it's about role model, everything that you do now is asking yourself that question is what lesson am I teaching my kid or my child?

You know, yeah, when I'm not losing my shit. Yeah.

steve (06:08.763)

Okay, give me a specific, right? Because we've had this conversation off my phone, which is, that's great, isn't it? When they're behaving. Whatever behaving looks like, right? And we've got to be careful with labels, you know, terrible twos and all that, and you know, terrible teenagers, trust me, my mind all grown up, there's not a real age when there isn't some challenge, right? But let's get really specific, so we might have some young parents listening to this. And as I said, my...

Ricky Locke (06:36.632)

Yeah.

steve (06:37.019)

my son and his partner Danny about to have their first grandchild, going against the convention at the moment, which is to know the sex in advance. They've gone all school, so we don't know if it's going to be a boy or a girl. And there's some labels there as well, in there, between boys and girls that we've got to be careful as parents, right? So when I was a parent first time round, the number one thing, because it was what was taught on the telly really was if the kids were messing about, you put them on the naughty step. Right.

Ricky Locke (06:40.051)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (06:46.75)

Ah, nice, cool. Yeah.

Ricky Locke (07:04.374)

Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah.

steve (07:05.895)

From my three, I will remember Megan on the top step, Philip middle, Tom on bottom. I'm assuming that we've moved on from that. So let's say it's not normally Monday's yours is daddy daycare, innit? So say what's the worst? Well, give us a real example of one time recently when Alma can have maybe got out, what was your parenting thing for dealing with discipline challenges while still being a role model, right?

Ricky Locke (07:18.31)

Yeah, yeah, Monday Fun Day.

Ricky Locke (07:27.919)

What? And daddy, yeah. Well, when daddy lost his shit. Yeah. So, so baboon mode, right? It's very hard, right? As, as parenting firstly, right? It's definitely challenging, but it's fun as well. It's very magical as well. So to Tom, you know, you know, good luck, mate. It's going to be fantastic. Wonderful. Right. What I've come to realize is that,

Alma and, and obviously as she has Tom will now start to understand and yours having a grandchild, they, the children haven't developed the logical part of that brain, that left kind of side of thinking. And it's just baboon mode, freeze, fight, flight. So quite often where I have lost my shit recently, where Alma's in this mode now, toddler throwing stuff, chucking stuff everywhere, but she doesn't sit there and go, daddy, I'm going to really piss you off right now and chuck things at the telly to make you angry. Cause I just want to.

No, it's just like, hey, I'm just in baboon mode. Like I want to have fun. Let's explore, but boom, wow, you know, out of the cage. And she hasn't understood that. Okay. That's daddy's very expensive television. I should not throw things at that. She doesn't understand that. So what you have to realize is like, okay, let's just, you know, take a step back there. Great book here. You might want to read this as well. So you're probably Tom as well. Recommendation out here is called, there's no such thing as naughty. Fantastic book. And the first thing she teaches you is the SNOT principle. SNOT, S-N-O-T.

steve (08:49.343)

Okay.

Ricky Locke (08:50.818)

which means it's not about you. They are going for like massive feelings, huge feelings, and it's very, very important. So as a kid, it'd be like, Ricky, pack it in now, stop it now, get that bloody naughty step right. But actually it's about validating the feelings then understanding what they're actually going through and trying to be a little bit less hard on them. But I have done, Steve, I've had to take Alma onto a timeout. I did do the naughty step and I roared my eyes out after because I was like, what the hell have I done? I've upset my child.

steve (09:17.287)

Ahahaha

Ricky Locke (09:19.822)

But what happened was, um, you know, she was throwing stuff and I told her, you know, in a really calm voice, Alma, those toys are for playing with, not for throwing. And then she goes, and starts it again. I'm like, I'm fucking pissed off now. You know, one more time, you know, Alma, I told that he's told you, you know, and one more time. So I said, well, okay, we're going to time out, but I had to like drop a boundary and say, daddy's taking the toy away from you rather than saying, give that to daddy, cause she's not going to, I said, I'm taking the toy away from you.

and I took it to the time out and she was crying. I said, look, daddy, you know, just in a really calm voice, I'm going to get down to a level. I'm not going to like get shouting over bearing. She's going to talk to you in a really nice level and say, Alma, you know, toys are for playing. It's not for throwing. Okay. You understand? And she went, yeah. I said, should we go pick them up? She said, yeah. And then she did. And then we made it really fun. So I started like to distract a brain, distract that pattern and go, Oh, let's make it really fun. Let's pretend we're animals. And she did it. And it was really great. Now the quickest way, easiest thing to do is to just go.

On that naughty step, I'm going to tell you off because of conditioning parenting. That's what boomer parenting my mom and dad used to do. Right. But it's about now understand this new world is about. Let's validate what's going on. Let's understand Tom and you will do this and Cammy will do this quite a lot. I often say this. It's okay. Daddy understands. Even if you don't understand at all, you just go, daddy understands. And she goes, yeah. And you say, you got some big feelings, Alba. And she goes, yeah. And then you go, okay, let's do it. So yeah.

steve (10:37.251)

Okay, great, great tip. Yeah. It's a massive topic. So all I would say to you with the gray hair of experiences, you've got to be easy on yourself as a parent as well, because you're not always gonna get it right. And even though you've read all the books, they still don't always behave what you expect. My number one tip actually, seamless response, whether it's that, I understand it's just, and it's cliches, often cliches, because they're true, counting to 10 before you go to Def Con.

Ricky Locke (10:45.367)

Mm.

Ricky Locke (10:48.746)

Yeah, it's coming. It's coming.

Ricky Locke (11:05.175)

Yeah.

steve (11:06.503)

You know, I remember years ago with Megan, who's now 28, when she was maybe four, five, and she was kicking off, I remember saying, got quite angry, didn't create that moment, and went, if you keep doing that, you're never going to the cinema ever again. Right. I think consequences for your behavior are important, but you've got to just count to 10, right? We need to move on, right? We've got two more questions for you, and then we'll see how we are for time, right? On my podcast, this 100th episode.

Ricky Locke (11:10.431)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (11:22.598)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (11:28.146)

Yeah.

Ricky Locke (11:32.698)

All right.

steve (11:36.475)

Right. Let's talk about mental and physical health next then. You...