VOY: Once Upon a Time Revisited - With Coach Cam

Approximate Transcript

Coach Cam: I don't care who you are, you feel the wave of anxiety and all that, you know, all the, all the triggers coming off. So she's like, I don't want to deal with that. So I'm not going to be as curious around him, or maybe not as curious at all, I'm just going to keep hiding. I'm going to keep it to myself. I'm going to play.

Because it may make my mom upset too. Welcome to the star fleet leadership academy, leadership development told through the lens of star Trek. Your host, Jeff Akin is a 20 year veteran of the public and private sectors in management and leadership. He specializes in helping people unlock their true potential and is a huge star Trek fan.

And now here's your host, Jeff Akin.

Jeff: Welcome. So much for joining me today. If you remember last week, when we watched Voyagers once upon a time, I think I said about 47 times in that episode that I am not a parenting expert. And even though we were able to talk about a lot of really great leadership lessons in that episode, there was a.

Around being a parent that was left hanging. So I did what you do. I reached out to my friends. I reached out to the village I brought in and you're about to meet the host of our village stories. Coach camp, coach cam is an educator. He's a teacher, he's an athletic director and he's making a difference every single day kids' lives.

And family's lives that bring to bring him here to you in the Starfleet leadership academy. To look at this episode through a very different lens. Chief Kyle, why don't you beam him in

coach cam? Welcome to the Starfleet leadership academy. Ah,

Coach Cam: thank you for having me. Thank you for allowing me in your space. I'm so excited. I'm so happy. I finally got this opportunity. This is my guy. This is my Avril akin. Yo, this is everyone waiting for me. Um, I was like to do my flowers segment on my show.

I have a flower segment or the leadership stuff that he talks about. It's not just talk, he lives it. He does it and bodies it. And you know, that's what I got to say. I got nothing but great things to say about this guy. This is my guy right here. So Ave, thank you for allowing me your space. And I appreciate.

Jeff: Coach. It's my honor to have you here. I'm so excited. We finally found like the perfect match for the two of us to come together. I mentioned that you host our village stories, which you can find@acoachcam.com. Uh, why don't you tell, um, tell us about, about our village stories. Sure.

Coach Cam: Um, our village stories was, uh, created, I, it was a platform to allow parents to express different stories that they've had through their childhood growing up.

Uh, people who have, who have found their passion in the field they're in now, but also a way for children to hear that they're not alone. A lot of what I find in my travels as a teacher is that a lot of our children feel like they have to go through things by themselves. They have nobody to talk to no one to relate to.

So I did what any responsible Dell's supposed to do. Right? We find people who are willing to share their stories. What happened to them in middle school? What happened to them high school, how they found their passions, what mistakes they've made, what they learned from their mistakes. And what I think is one of the most important things is that they're still working on them, their selves.

Okay. We have to realize that it's okay to be a work in progress. I think children need to hear that. So I opened my space up to students, want to share their stories of my space of. Different people who want to share their stories for our children. I've had actors, uh, Latin Grammy nominated singer. My guy from the leadership academy right here, you know, so multiple people coming on to, you know, share their stories.

And I'm really appreciative of them.

Jeff: Fantastic podcast that you have. And you've got a blog, um, on your website as well, both really great. Um, I really appreciate what you're doing and that's a big reason, um, that, and really a conversation that you and I were having that when maybe. Bring you in here. When I was watching this episode to get ready to record my episode, I was like, oh my gosh, I got to talk to coach cam about this because Neil X.

Oh my gosh. So just really quick, just as a quick recap on this, I got the 32nd view of. On voyage or the episode. So on Voyager, Samantha Wildman is an Ensign, uh, out on an away mission. She has a daughter, Naomi Wildman, um, who is under the care of Neil X. Yeah. Well, things don't go well for Wildman to VOC and Paris there.

They're out on the away mission. And Neil X is tasked with keeping, keeping Naomi kind of taken care of during that time, the way he chooses to do that is to just hide everything that's happening and not tell her what's going on with her mom things. Shockingly don't go well. And it all comes to a big head end of the story.

Everybody's fine. Families reunited. It's great. It's happy. Oh my gosh. I mean, I said it in the episode and I was just watching this coach help me understand what just let's talk about, just talk about Netflix. This was, it was not all

Coach Cam: right. So I think Jeff has explained his feelings

Jeff: about Neelix once or twice.

Yeah, a little bit,

Coach Cam: a few times. And I have my own reservations about Neil licks, you know, just out of control and morale officer was supposed to be. Be the morale booster, people won on the ship and all the seems to do is get people riled up and feed them poison routes. Um,

Jeff: they call it Layola Lee. Lila's actually Latin for a, for poison, I think.

Okay. Well that

Coach Cam: explains everything, but, um, it's, it's a simple thing. Like my lens, the lens I'm going to bring is that kneeling is parents. With trauma is something. I talk about a lot on my show where, you know, we, as a, as, uh, as adults don't realize that we parent with past trauma that's gone on through our lives.

We don't even realize that how we respond, what our triggers are, how we, how we react to certain things. And what we find with neon licks is that, um, in this episode, you know, uh, Naomi Wildman, uh, realizes that, that her mom is not coming back and. Netflix knows that mom is in danger. There's something going on with the flyer.

Right. And his automatic responses. Don't tell her, don't tell her anything. You don't want to break her heart. Right. But then the village around new licks is trying to convince him like, okay, we eventually may have to tell Naomi what's going on. You know, because if you don't know. Kids are savvy. And he owned me is the embodiment of a savvy child who you don't have to tell her, she's going to figure it out.

So either you tell her with, through your own lens and try to soften the blow a little bit, but she doesn't feel betrayed. You know, no trust is lost or you allow the child to fall down anyway, and then you lose all trust in general. And what Netflix does is just try to cut it off at the knees. Every time, every time it comes up.

In a personal book, passing the book to everyone else. And, and as there's not a way to express yourself to a child, nobody wants to talk about the possibility of death. Nobody wants to talk about uncomfortable situations, but knee looks just finds ways to just make this complete, complete, and. Mess.

Jeff: You're writing.

Helix had a lot of trauma. He lost his entire family. Right. I think he actually watched his sisters get killed or was close to that in the war with the and they'd launched the Metreon cascades. So that's the trauma really? Right. That's the trauma that Neil X is carrying with them. Yeah, that's

Coach Cam: right.

Absolutely. And what he had to do was rely on the village around him. Right. So when you were on the startup, It's your village, right? You're on your, whatever, how long your mission is. Right. Well, what we just mentioned was like ABC, every 87 years, they had some time to figure out who was in that village.

But, um, what I found fascinating and great was once they discovered that while NINS mother was hurt and he had to convention the helix to actually tell Naomi what was going on, needless has this like. Right on the bridge right here. He like flips out completely. Oh, we can't tell her that he's just going through the motions, but I love what January does instead of January and looking at him crazy and you know, yelling at him and say, no, that's an order.

She's just come to my radio room. Because in that moment, right, as a leader, she recognized, okay, this is not about Naomi, right? This is not about what's going on with Naomi. This is about unique clicks. So we need to help you fix you a little bit. You recognize that so we can go. Oh, go fix Naomi and I, and I love, I loved how she handled that.

Right. Um, and so she calmly pulled him down and then finally started to convince him a little bit that maybe you should just go tell her. She has the support of me. She has the support of the doctor. Right. Yeah. Um, I love the doctor interaction where they're in there talking about the organisms and Naomi's line.

I love this line here and she says, my mom says cooperation is more important than competition. Oh, there's that huge. Love that. And listen, I'm a basketball coach and I believe in competition, but man, the cooperation is more important than competition because the more you cooperate. The easier it is to compete, right?

Because you build the synergy, man. I'd love that light.

Jeff: And I think that cooperation is a form of competition. It's just, you're now you're competing with your best self instead of against someone else maybe.

Coach Cam: Yeah. It's absolutely absolutely necessary because listen, cooperation is a skill that you need to use in real life.

It's a life skill. You have to cooperate with somebody at work, you have to cooperate with your spouse. You have to cooperate with your children. Yes. Right. You, you know, you got to, sometimes there's a little bit of negotiation that has to happen, even though you may not want there to be negotiations. I get that.

Okay. But there has to be some compromise because yes, you are the authoritative figure. Right. You want to figure head. You're also raising an individual, who's going to have the individual thoughts, individual feelings. So if you come across with this authoritative perspective on them all the time, then as they grow up, they feel that's how it has to be.

Like I'm in charge. You're my subordinates. And that's it. So there's no real cooperation. Okay. So it has to be, I think we have to work more towards okay. I make the final decision, but I want to hear your take on what you need. I want to meet you where you are, let me meet you where you are, and I will help you get there, but you have to trust that I'm going to help you get there.

Right? So once I've acknowledged the feeling, right, that's all kid kids really did. Just want you to acknowledge their feelings. Once you acknowledge his feelings, their emotional level comes down a little bit and their logic circuit kicks in. Okay. I was listening to a teacher. Uh, a young lady was talking about, uh, teenagers, how their emotional stability is out of control and is so far away from their logic.

Right? So then when you go to talk to them about an incident that happens, the incident ceases to be important, right? It's now they're just angry at you because you, because you started talking to them and then you don't even know what happened. You don't even know what's going on. So it was important to acknowledge the emotional.

Like what's happening. So it comes down, then the logic circuit kicks in and then you can kind of find that even killed compromise. Right. And then you're better off for it. You're less stress the child feels heard and then they are more willing to come to you when situations come up as opposed to just barking at them.

You know, I think, I think that's something that's very important. So transposing that to me looks right. Netflix never really met Naomi where she was. Right. He she's a very. Intelligent young lady or problem-solver, uh, creative, but he just, in that moment, he treated her like just a child who can't handle things, but you don't know how she's going to handle it unless you give her the information.

Right. If, once again, right. He's parenting through history. There was

Jeff: that scene where she started to smell that something was wrong, you know, something's up things aren't right. And she started questioning him, you know, what has anyone talked to her? What's going on? And he started just, you know, blowing smoke.

Oh, it's probably fine. No, it's this. And she's like, look, Starfleet regulation. This, this dot, this states that she starts, you know, Satan chapter and verse two. And like in that, like my mind blew in there where it could, because, you know, and I talked about in the last episode about how people are never, people are never as stupid as you assume that they are.

Right. But you had said a thing earlier about Naomi and how she's so savvy. She's so bright. Naomi is, and she's on this, you know, big scifi show and doing stuff and she's an alien. She's got an incredible support system and village around her, but that applies, I think, to every kid, right? Like they are, they are all a lot more savvy than most of us are ever going to give them credit for.

They're a lot smarter than we're going to give them credit for. And so when we do blow smoke, we just, just lose credibility with them. Right. And so to kind of pick up where you were going so already. Uh, Neil X here is blown smoke, given her a line of BS. So she's losing credibility. But then on top of that, then he like doubles down and starts leading through his trauma.

This horrible thing happened to me. And so I'm going to do everything I can to make sure it never happens to you.

Coach Cam: Right. Right. And then she does what all kids, do you know what

Jeff: bridge credits, right? Yeah. Going to the bridge.

Coach Cam: Oh, I heard that bridge. And then she overhears a conversation. She gets upset and then near the access to like repair repair, fix repair, fix, fix repair, you know, and, and that's, uh, that's sort of difficult.

That's actually worse because the kid doesn't really, I mean, TV lane, right. The kid was like, okay, I trust you again. Even though she had, um, Chivas. And, and, uh, and, and flatter about the snuff amount, right? When he walked in,

Jeff: like they provided more like emotional support and protection for her. These holographic hollow novel characters did a better job supporting her than Neil licks did a person with we've both kind of touched on this or teased at it, but just an incredible.

And enviable village surrounding. And we talked about the doctor right. Handling her stuff. But I mean, there's that great scene with Harry Kim? Yeah. Right. Where he made the flutter to

Coach Cam: all we've made the flat. Right. And he remembered a story. Oh, I love Florida. Like it brought him back to the stars. I remember that being a safe place for him.

Right. And we have to acknowledge right. We as adults. Right. We don't acknowledge how see space all the time. Wow. Yeah. Right. We don't acknowledge our safety. And, but in that moment, right. He's and in that moment, right. He's scrambling around trying to find out where the fly is on the old leaders rocks. But then in that moment he goes, oh yeah, I love that story.

Like you just saw that innocence, right. That one moment. And it probably helped him. Right. He just took that second just to breathe. Right. So you can get back and focus. So I found that interesting, but as an adults, right. As adults, as parents, we have to do that as well. We had to find that some. Right. It's hard throughout the day, but we got to find those moments to just breathe, find something we're interested in, get back into, you know, out loves even this was five and 10 minutes, you know, we, we, we have to do that.

If we do that, we're better for our children. Yeah, we did have, we did that and he was better for the ship, right. Just by accident, but just, you know, bringing up the memories. So, um, I think that's important as well. Wow. I didn't even, I just, just came out, man. I, wow.

Jeff: I love that one. That's so cool. I think that's a scene.

Like people tend to focus on Neal, it's blowing up. Right. Cause Harry's like, what's going on. He's like nothing, everything's wrong. He freaks out and that's what we focus on, but you really hit it. There's that moment where like he is, he's just like, oh man, flatter, like that's the sweet stuff right there.

You know? And I think too, 'cause I think what really frustrates me about Neil X in his parent role in this is literally every single person told him to do the opposite of what he did at every turn. And that's what Harry was saying. He's like, look, there's this great place. It's awesome. We loved it. Like she's there.

And at that point in the story, He had watched a chapter in the holiday novel where they discovered fire, fire and triggers total triggered for him. Oh man.

Coach Cam: Listen, knowing I triggers, right? Yeah, yeah, no, I got triggers and each try to take her away a part of this story. You skip a part of the story because he was uncomfortable with.

Not her right. Instead of saying, okay, this is the story. This is what happens with fire. We know what happens with fire. Just part of the story, like trying to find that, trying to console her in that moment, immediately reverts back to his triggers once again, right. Something he never got over. Man. It's so dangerous to not acknowledge things that happen in our lives.

Listen, I, everybody listened to, and I'm telling you guys this. I know he said it in the beginning. I'm not like some professional science genius doctor or whatever. I am a teacher and a parent. I seen the kids and I'm a person acknowledging things in myself because I want to be a better person for my children.

Right. If there's stuff that I like, oh, wow. I didn't realize that bothered. You know, I went through stuff that I didn't realize they bothered me until I was an adult. Right. So it's just finding, you know, finding those things and realizing your triggers just so much. So important.

Jeff: Well, because I think, and I don't know.

I mean, you said you're not an expert. Um, I don't know if I agree with that or not, but, but you're not a doctor. I'll agree with that. Like that's the thing. Okay. Okay. Fine. But I'm gonna ask you a question because I think you can answer this better than I can. Yeah. In that chapter, that's the ogre fire, you know, they're discovering that it starts out where Naomi is, is curious.

And, uh, like you said, she's wanting to go problem solve and figure out like, okay, so fire came and flutter evaporated. And what happened in Treevis had, like, I'm curious, I want to learn these things. And then Neil licks freaked out because it had a trigger do actions like that. Could that have a lasting effect on Naomi where like she stops being curious about things because she's afraid that she's going to upset the other people around her.

Coach Cam: Absolutely, absolutely. Absolutely. Because a child doesn't want to upset an adult, right. Especially in an adult that they respect an adult that they love. Right. So if in that moment she notices that he freaks out, she won't bring it up anymore. And then any moments where it curiosity. Uh, curiosity may spark.

She may not say anything to him, right? Because it's like, once again, I don't know what triggers him. I know this fire trigger, but what's the next thing that's going to trigger him. I can't handle. Right. Because when anxiety comes out, when those emotion comes out, energy comes up. Right. And you feel that way from a person.

I don't care who you are. You feel the wave of anxiety and all that, you know, all the, all the triggers coming off. So she's like, I don't want to deal with that. So I'm not. B as curious around him, or maybe not as curious at all, I'm just going to keep hiding. I'm going to keep it to myself. I'm going to play a safe because it may make my mom upset.

Right when she comes back and I know she's on a dangerous away mission and I don't want to upset her. And when she comes back, you see it and it just things cascade. And then you hold things in and then you keep things to yourself. And then you don't tell people about things, Cameron. And

Jeff: I say

Coach Cam: no. And then, and then just, and just, you know, you just apply.

Emotions that you don't know how to deal with instead of just saying, oh, well this is fire. Oh, wow. I noticed that you realize that a flooding evacuated. So you know, that flatter may eventually come back because, you know, water that race and it comes back in the cloud and it rains, I don't know, I'm just making this up, but you know, just, you just, just kind of roll with.

Making it making a learning, make it a learning moment.

Jeff: Exactly. I mean, she, she lives on a ship CA led by captain Kathryn Janeway, who is a scientist. Right. And, and there's a whole science group on Voyager. Wow. Naomi, you're so interested in this. Let me go take you to a meteorologist right? Who you live with, you know, on this.

Right. And they can tell you how this works and stuff. I think again, just such a powerful and great village that, that she lives in. But I also, you know, when I think about what you were just saying, what hits me is how. People, but I think kids, especially, we don't want to upset other people. Right. We don't want to, you know, we don't want to upset the apple cart.

We don't want to be the reason someone freaks out and kids, I think, you know, get trained, you know, really conditioned almost at an early age. If I do this, mom and dad react this way, I don't like it when they react this way. So I won't do this anymore, but I think there's also times. And again, I think this I'm asking you this, cause I don't know this.

But there's times where kids are more vulnerable, people are more vulnerable to those things. When you open yourself up and you expose a part of yourself, you know, to someone, and then they have that triggered reaction. So in the episode, Naomi specific, so that starts with her. With flatter and Treevis doing the thing, Neil X isn't a part of it all.

She invites him in. She's like Neil X come with me. And from the get-go he's like, oh, I don't know, ogre fire. This sounds pretty. And then in that moment where she's like, this is my safe place, this is where I feel good. He freaks out right in there. And so like, I dunno, what are your thoughts on that? When, when, like, just that, that vulnerability, that, that a kid cannot.

Coach Cam: When children invite you into their space, that means they trust you. They're trusting you to make the right decisions. They're trusting you to help them with their emotion because nobody wants to be vulnerable. Okay. It's not something, something, right. It's not fun, but something that should be natural is the complete opposite.

Right. Being vulnerable should be natural. Right? You should be, be willing to open up and share your energies with people, but it's the complete opposite you want to be closed off because you're so afraid of being hurt. Okay. So when a child eventually opened himself up to you, you have to take your guard down.

You just got to walk in with a brave face and just listen to what they have to say. Don't be judgmental. Okay. Don't try to have all the answers in the moment. Your job is just to listen. Okay. Because if they realize that you're listening, they will share more things with you. You know, I talk about, you know, T I do a lot of middle school work where, because I have coach and not Mr.

In front of my name, they come to talk to me. I dunno why, but, you know, growing up, you either went to the guidance, counselor, the Dean, or the, or your PE teacher to go tell them your problems. I don't know why that is. So the kids just come to me and telling me stuff. So I just, listen. I don't know. I don't judge them.

Yeah. Try to have all the answers. I just listen. I just let them open up. Now, if I feel they're in danger, obviously I'll say something, but just open up and then I'm like, oh, okay, well maybe you should do this. Oh, that makes sense. All right. How come you don't talk to your parents? Oh, because as soon as I started to open up, they told me, oh, you're supposed to do dish dish.

There's just have a long list of margin and stuff, but I know what to do, but how do I handle the emotions of the moment we don't teach? No, I think that's the part we forget. We just have a list of how to fix it, but how do I handle the emotions that go along with. So that's something we've got to

Jeff: be mindful.

You and I have, we've suppressed those emotions. Like we've done that over decades and decades. And so when a teenager, I don't know, you don't just push it down and do the thing.

Coach Cam: the starfish leadership academy is supported by listeners, just. You collect the link in the show notes to support this podcast. Parenting can be tough, but sharing stories, even the tough ones are how we come together and strengthen our village. Connect with your team through these stories. Welcome to our village stories, parenting through passion.

To become a villager hit that subscribe button on apple podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcast. I do carry a select line of unique artifacts and gemstones indigenous to this region.

Jeff: Um, you, you had an episode of your podcast a while ago. Uh, That I thought was a great moment of vulnerability where you in front of a it's your school, you shared a really personal story, um, which is great.

Really recommend people check it out as a cool moment in a, in a, in a rough story. That is a hard one to tell, but in that story and kind of why I bring that up. You, you, you gave it a shot. You tried using a little, a little middle school.

And there, and you and I talked about that, right? How like, cause they let you in a little bit, so like, tell me more about that. Like just that moment, like what that kind of exchange was like, Hey coach, there's this, and then you in front of everybody use the thing and what that really

Coach Cam: does. Yeah. Well that shows my human.

Right. That shows that I'm willing to relate, that shows that I'm willing to make a fool of myself and not be perfect. Right. I'm just so happy that I use it in the correct tense in the correct sentence, in the correct way, you know, and the kids actually chuckled the word. If anybody doesn't know the word is capping.

Okay. Catherine me is that it wasn't like. And then I had to, I had to look it up capping means without cat. So there's no level. Right. So if you're capping, that means there's a level you're lying, but no cap means there's no cap to the level of truth that I'm telling. Okay.

Jeff: Yeah, we'll get that. We all learn something or something.

Coach Cam: Right. I relate related to a video game, but, um, and I do, and I appreciate you with that one, because that was a very hard story. So real story behind that one. And I advise everybody to go listen, to check. When people listen to that particular story, literally, my mom texted me. My mom texted me and said, I didn't know.

I'm sorry. Wow. Yeah. She said, I didn't know that about you, but I'm glad that you were able to open it up and share because I literally, I told nobody that story, nobody is because I keep it all in and that's why you make it a point push and talk to our children. You got to tell your children these stories, because you don't know where they're going.

You don't know how they're feeling. You don't know what's happening on the inside of them, especially social, emotionally, especially now with all the social media and everything popping up, you don't know what's going on and just have that conversation at the dinner table. Okay. And then when they come to you and want to talk to you and tell you stuff, put your phone down and just listen, it may not make sense.

Half the stuff they talk about is not going to make sense. I'm telling you that it's not going to be. But just listen. So when you, listen, you learn, when you learn, you understand, when you understand you can help you become relatable

Jeff: in those moments. So, well, I feel like if nothing else, you, you just form a connection, right?

That means something in there is a side note. The episode is, can you accept not knowing our village stories, check that out, but. I have a six-year-old well, I think, yeah. Yeah, she's still, she's almost seven. That's why I did stop. If you ask her, she'll tell you she's seven, but I use a tool with her that I, I started using with the people I work with, um, because it is even at six, she'll bring things to me and I'm just like, I have no idea what you're talking about.

This makes no sense to me. But I don't want to say that. Right. And I don't want to pass judgment on it. So I just, I just look at it and I go, wow, that's really interesting. Tell me more about that. Right. I don't know. And it's not even, I don't think it's even important that I know. It's just that I engage.

Right? Like you said, I put the phone down, I look at it. And I say, wow, that's really interesting. Tell me more about that. You know, and then eventually she's just like, you're not interested cause she's a lot smarter than I give her credit for. Right. But exactly.

Coach Cam: You're not paying attention. I am paying attention.

I'm just,

Jeff: I just have no idea what you're saying. I have no idea what you're

Coach Cam: saying.

Jeff: Right. I desperately want to know I do, but I just don't. So please help me, please help me to understand what

Coach Cam: another tip you can say. Well, And they're going to say fine. Cause it's usually the answer, right? So you could say, tell me one good thing that happened today, right?

And then tell me something you want to work on today, right? Just a little thing. Tell me one thing you want to work on today and tell me, uh, something that happened good today, but you're opening that dialogue. Right. Giving them a chance to speak. And then eventually the conversations just happened like, oh, how would you take

Jeff: nothing?

Well, you know what? I can't

Coach Cam: stand, you know, say, you know, they go through the prompts themselves. But, um, I also want to talk about, uh, another thing that happened in the episode, uh, the other part of the village, where the parent actually got some help. Right. You don't have to feel like you're by yourself.

So, uh, while men has hurt on the. To VOC and, and Tom Paris had taken care of her and making sure it's wounds attended to, and, and she said something to the effect of, you know, not anybody understanding that knowing Naomi may grow up, you know, not knowing her mother or, you know, put out her mother and to VAR calm in his two buck way.

Like, oh, he lets her know. I fully understand I've been away from my child for four years now. Right. But I take solace and no. That my lessons will be passed on because the people that have around her, right. For the people around in his village, he trusted them. So in that way, he's telling her like, listen, no matter what happens here, Naomi is going to be okay because we had the village surrounding her.

We had the village trust in the stories that the lessons that you've given her and that they're going to continue to lose for you. Right. You've done a great job as a. Listen, if somebody was telling you, you did a great job as a parent, it's like give them like 15,000 gold stars. Right. Cause it's like a thing I think was thing.

Right. But he, what he, what did he do? He acknowledged how she was feeling. Right. Gave her a story to connect with. Right. And then gave reassurance. Just like you would do a child, you got to do to the parent, you know, but then in that moment, right. But then to VOC in that moment, shoulders, vulnerability.

Cause you didn't even, I didn't even like, it doesn't even them pass in my mind at two o'clock has children and he's missing his family. He's just too buck.

Jeff: He's got a wife, he's got

Coach Cam: kids, he's got a wife and kids, you know, and for him for two vac to share that side of him to be vulnerable, made the village stronger.

Right. Because now while he knows. Oh, okay. Somebody else I can rely on somebody who gets me, somebody who understands. And that's also important and sharing our stories in between ourselves as an adult, you know, that that's so important. We need, we

Jeff: need to hear those things. We talk about how the village can support the child in there, but you're right.

The village supports the parent. And what we saw in that example was Samantha Wildman being. For being supported. And then the analog we saw to that was Nila, ignoring everyone, everything, everything, everything, you know, 'cause he had, he had captain Janeway, he had Harry Kim that we talked about, even the doctor, you know, that scene with the doctor was so short and there was so much packed into it.

That was awesome. There's the quote we talked about earlier. There's the part where Naomi cited that the mitochondria is the warp. Oh the, to sell, right,

Coach Cam: man, you just

Jeff: got it all figured out kids. Yeah. You're good. Cooperation's better than competition. Mitochondria work core of the cell. You're good. Like, there's really nothing else you need in life.

But in there somebody came in and tried to grab me and like, Hey, there's some news or whatever. And he's like, oh, okay. And the look on the doctor's face. He was just. Dude to tell the kid come on. Yeah, it's just, yeah, it was, it was hard to watch. Just how, how intentionally ignorant looks remained to anything that could have helped him out through this.

But I think a lot of that too, to come back to what we were talking about earlier is because he couldn't see past his trauma. We cannot, it is not possible for us to overstate the trauma that he experienced losing his sisters and his family. Uh, it's huge. It's horrible, but he couldn't see past it, despite every single person around him beating over the head, him over the head with it.

I have so enjoyed our conversations around parenting through trauma. And so. I don't know, just, just rip the helix apart on this one, you know, that's, that's so unfair of me to say, because it's trauma is so real in this, but he had so much help in there. I guess. I guess I just, I'm going to own my ignorance in that whole statement that I said and how it really doesn't acknowledge that impact that trauma has on people.

Coach Cam: You've acknowledged it. I know what happened to his sisters is something that's real right. Abuse happens, neglect happening. Uh, things in people's lives that you don't know, you know, things have been real life things happen, but as a parent and it's hard, you have to acknowledge it. That's the first step acknowledgement that these things are real.

These things have happened to me. Second thing is if you need help, go seek help because people are going to be willing to help you. You can't do it by yourself.

But you can't do it by yourself. You know, and people I know were laughing and people like, listen, I'm talking to myself, I'm talking to you, everybody out here in the podcast. And we had, okay. Um, but you, you can't do it by yourself. See real people who want to help you. If anybody, you know, you get on my Instagram.

I tagged a lot of people and stuff. Cause I don't like to just grab resource. It'd be like, oh, I found this stuff. No, this is the resource. This is what I read. This is the person. If you have more questions, please look me up at, uh, ECOS came on Instagram. If you like looking for parenting tips, check my stories out there.

I'm constantly looking at stuff for self-improvement, you know, for me. So, and I always share information. I think that's the most important thing, uh, to do as the belief. That's my skill. Right? I found something. Like it's the teacher, right? Typical teacher. Oh, I found this cool thing, read this,

Jeff: but also you're not just throwing it up there.

Like read this thing. Here are the citations to back it up. Here's the cause. Cause you were in it, you're an educator and that's what you should do. But I think, but I think on top of that, like there's great resources out there and you, but I, I, it's such an important thing you said. I want to say it again.

Get professional help. Uh, Don't allow society to stigmatize the state of your mental health. If you break an arm, you go to the doctor and you get it patched up. If you, or if you experienced a trauma in your life, you go to the doctor and you work through and process that as you do, if you lose your sisters in a Metree on cascade, you need it in the middle of Workday.

You go talk to somebody and you work through that. Take it out on the kid. And I think, I think the hard part of this, for some people, for Neil it's even, he had the best of intentions. He only wanted to protect Naomi from something he went through. That was horrible, but he actually caused little T little T trauma, you know, to her in doing that because she had to go hear it in real time on the bridge, like how horrifying that must've been for.

Coach Cam: And the back pedal. Oh, kids smelled the backpedal man. Kids smelled the backpedal, but yes, please go seek, help or talk to somebody. You're not the only one who's suffering. You're not the only one that went through it. It may feel that way, especially I'm man. Okay. I'm getting a little emotional because I'm just thinking of it.

Like you can't, can't do it by yourself, especially I know in my community like mental health and all that stuff is like, You know, he's like, oh, just suck it up and deal with it. Yeah. Okay. So for almost 40 years, I've been sucking it up and dealing with him and I can't anymore. Right. And I can't because my children don't need that.

My children don't deserve that my children don't need to see that, you know, I'm not the best version of myself for them. So please go out. I encourage everybody to go awhile and see something. They told us. Because

Jeff: it makes you question, right? Like if you weren't just rubbing dirt on it and moving on, right.

Just, just, you know, deal with it, kid, if you weren't doing that, what would life look like for your kids? You know, what would be different in there? And, and in this case, like, you know, tying it back to the episode, what, how awesome that's a bad word to use? How incredible, how remarkable this experience could have been for now?

Had Neil X addressed his trauma and then came through, in fact it would have made him better and made him better because he could have shared that with her. And then, Hey, look, I've, I've suffered through this. I know what this feels like. Tell me more about it. And this could have been such a supported experience for Naomi that when her mom goes on more missions, when she gets older and goes out on missions, that like she understands that there's support around her and that it's, and that when she don't feel supported, Or when you feel that things are going to go south that's okay.

That you feel that way. Like that's a real feeling and it's okay. But you go talk to somebody about it. Go

Coach Cam: talk to somebody, everybody. If anybody is wondering what pride looks like, look at Neil Elix. Wow. Yeah, that's pride. He's been heartened by what's going on, but that's pride. Okay. So. If you're feeling a certain way, you feeling out of control, don't be a

Jeff: Netflix.

Don't be a new experience, but prideful,

Coach Cam: right. Don't be prideful, but no, don't, don't be Netflix. No, don't be a Netflix open up, listen, accept criticism and help, you know, and understand it's not going to be perfect and get it right. First time, you're going to have frustrating moments. Yeah. But you're not doing it for you anymore.

Well, just for you, I should say, you're not doing it justice.

Jeff: That's great. Such a good point. If only we could go back in time to the future to tell , but, but we, we can't do that, but we can do right here right now is to all of the people that, that we all need to do that, you know, we, we check ourselves, talk to people and just embrace.

I mean, oh my gosh. If you have a child in your life, Your child, someone else's child, whatever, if there's a kid in your life, how awesome is that right? I mean, it's such a joy, but it's also such a responsibility at the same time. Cause we, we are all part, we're all part of the village. Yeah. What are

Coach Cam: the village?

And they're watching his quick story. My, um, and this is how I know children are watching my three year old, my three year old once in a while, comes to me and goes, are you happy? Wow. Are you happy? Hey daddy, are you okay? What does that mean? My body language is horrible. I got whatever I'm thinking about is making my face horrible.

Right. And he's noticing that he's watching me. So I have to be mindful of buying language, how I present myself to him, you know, the mood I'm in all the time. And I could be thinking about nothing. I could just be sitting there. Are you happy? Are you happy to come? Give me a hug. Are you happy? So kids are watching and yadda has gotta be a ups accuse there.

Just

Jeff: got. Yeah, but I think too, like there's a real opportunity, right? Yeah. That's not happy right, right now. And that's okay. You know, I've got you and you, you know, it makes me happy that I'm here with you, you know, or whatever that looks like. You know? Cause I think that's the thing I've struggled with.

You know, we're not that far off in age and when we were growing up, you know, it's, you know, you don't cry, you know, boys don't cry, suck it up, you know, just go, go put a, put a smile on just, you know, whatever. And that's like a built-in reaction. So I have to very intentional, like when my daughter is feeling bad or whatever, just be like, yeah, that's okay.

That's okay. Let's talk about it. You know, let's feel bad. Let's do that thing and not, and it's not my job to make her feel better, like oh right.

Coach Cam: And listen. Okay. And we'll have us talking for another hour. Don't do that because don't, don't open up that. Okay. We, we want to help our children capable. We can't do everything for.

You can't do it for them. You can give them the strategies and can give them the tools, but we cannot do it for them. That's the other part of the trauma piece, right? We want to fix them and help them so bad, but we don't allow for the evolution. We don't go out for the growth. We don't give them time to see if our let's let the lessons that we give them is actually working because it takes time.

But then that's the lack of trust in ourselves and our ability to do that. That's been happening over time. We have to allow them to space. It sucks. It's frustrating. Nobody wants to see the child heard, but it is necessary when they become adults. They appreciate that. Right. Because they've come up with their moment.

They've felt what it's like to have to pick themselves up. Right. And they're better off for it. Okay. You can't be the assistant. There comes a point in life where you have to be. Break glass in case of emergency. Yeah. You know, but you have to work that you have to work towards that. Obviously you can't just go straight to that, but you just have to find comfort in your lessons.

Find confident in your foundation, find comfort in the village that you've formed around your child. Okay. Is so important. Your, your teachers, your aunts, your uncles, your cousins, your coaches, the guy at the deli counter and make sure the sandwiches. Right. You know, everybody. That's a part of your village is important.

So you get to lean on those people to just trusting your work, trusting yourselves. They, nobody gave us a manual on how to be parents. So stop

Jeff: looking for one, right? Well, you said we could spend another hour or so talking about this, but the cool thing is we don't have to, you talk about the. On a regular basis on your podcast, our village stories.

Let's wrap this up, coach cam. I, I can't tell you how appreciative I am to have you here on the Starfleet leadership academy. You have shown a light on this, this episode of star Trek. That there's no way I ever possibly could have. Tell everybody again, where can they find you? Where can they hear more of this incredible stuff that you've shared with us today?

Coach Cam: I like to think of, again, Admiral everybody does my animal. Thank you again for allowing me to your space. I'm really appreciative to find me on Instagram at eight coach cam. It's a Y E coach can. The reason why there's an a in front of, because usually they yell, Hey coach. I had to get my attention. So I just figured I play it by ear coach cam on Instagram, you could find it.

A coach cam.com. I'm also on U2, apple podcast, Spotify. Um, I'm also, I also believe in the village. We have passion and grit, any and everything you do, you do with passionate grit, find your passion to get to it. Um, please go to the store, become a villager sign up for the emailing list for when black postings come out.

And I just, I just loved parenting, man. I love parenting. I love being a parent, loved being a teacher, love working with children and helping them navigate this. So, uh, if you're up to that journey, everybody's what will delight the Atlanta. Just come on in the village. Square has always open,

Jeff: always open it's great work.

It's great. And important work you're doing. I love your podcast. I love everything you're doing. Thank you so much again for coming to the Starfleet leadership academy and sharing all of this. And for everybody who listened to this, thank you so much. Check them out at coach camp. Calm and until you check him out next time, or the next episode of the Starfleet leadership academy, X Astras cyan, chia,

Coach Cam: are you a leader, a star Trek fan. Do you love the lessons and strategies taught on the starfleet leadership academy podcast? Visit jeffakin.com forward slash store to get shirts, mugs, and other great merchandise to show off where you have learned all the great strategies and lessons that are taught on the star fleet leadership academy.

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