What do you teach your children about hard times when you know you can't protect them from everything?

Not if they'll face heartbreak, loss, or situations they didn't see coming — but when?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately. The person I am today was shaped largely by hard times. This podcast wouldn't exist without those experiences. Not just the recording or content — but going through difficult things forced me to learn resilience, find joy, be disciplined.

Here's the thing: I can love my children with every breath and still know I can't shield them from life's hardest lessons.

So instead of trying to prepare the world for them, I'm preparing them for the world.

I want them to know that people will show up differently in hard times — and that's about capacity, not care. That healing is theirs to build, like a warrior seeking out the dragon before it burns down the village. That there's a better version of them waiting on the other side of pain. That even in the darkest moments, life is still passing by — and finding joy in small things isn't giving up, it's choosing to live.

Because maybe the goal isn't to spare them from hard things... but to give them the foundation to move through them with grace, self-respect, and unshakeable resilience.