Show Notes

BUSINESS AS USUAL

In the last episode of In the Middle of It, I talked to Oie Dobier about the business she’s created with her daughter, Nya, and her husband, Darren. Project Who Am I is a program that helps teens navigate the process of determining what direction to take in life, based on their natural talents, interests and passions, values, and work preferences, in order to make an impact on the world.

It’s a business that emerged from their own natural talents, interests and passions, values, and work preferences, and the work that they’re doing is making a huge impact on the way teens are choosing career paths and educational tracks as they graduate from high school and move into young adulthood.

You should definitely check out episode 134 to hear more about it if you haven’t yet.

In this episode, however, I’m talking with Oie about something that fascinates me about Project Who Am I, and that is her partnership with her daughter, Nya.

Nya is a 19-year-old college sophomore who is involved as a full partner in P Project Who Am I. She has an integral role and all the responsibilities that go along with it.

I was curious about what the day-to-day looks like for Oie and Nya as business partners and as mother/daughter. How do they navigate all of the things?

THE STRUCTURE

Oie, Nya, and Darren started by clearly defining their roles. Darren is in charge of the back-end things, like tech and advertising. Oie and Nya are the faces of business, with Oie covering the parent perspective, and Nya covering the teen perspective.

Because Project Who Am I focuses on teens, Oie and Darren really value Nya’s 19-year-old perspective on the various topics they cover.

THE TEEN PERSPECTIVE

Oie shared, “It’s great to just say, ‘Hey, Nya, this question came up, or the student is having this problem, or this parent is having this problem. What’s your thought on it ?’ It’s been amazing to hear her take on it. Because it’s so different than mine, and us as parents, and she’s very insightful. She has a lot of empathy for people. So she’s very observant of people and what they’re thinking how they’re feeling. She’s very good at asking people questions, too. She has really good insight. And even for herself, she can give insight into how she feels about something, and how she processes it. So that’s been amazing. There are moments in our working together where I literally just stare at her in awe. Because just, wow, you’re only 19. And you’re thinking about those things already. It just amazes me and how she feels empowered to tell the world about it.”

NAVIGATING ANXIETY

Like many of her peers, Nya sometimes struggles with anxiety. When it comes to the business, she’s sometimes pushed outside her comfort zone. Oie and Darren work with her to push past it. One of their challenges is letting her work her way through those feelings and resisting doing things for her.

She explains, “Yes, as a co-owner of a business with my daughter, there are plenty of times where I have to resist doing something for her. Because, as a parent, I’m just like everybody else, I don’t want to see my daughter go through pain. And so anytime she’s going through pain, especially with anxiety, it makes me actually want to come in and help her rescue her. But I have to resist that because it’s not going to help her deal with reality and figure out how does she get through her thought process around doing things and having anxiety around it. If I save her from that she’s never going to learn herself how to cope with it. And so I’m there to support her, but I cannot do it for her. And so that’s really really important.

SETTING BOUNDARIES

“The other thing that I’ve had to really be careful about is treating her like a co-owner versus her mom telling her what to do. It’s very hard. There are times when I can tell I’m being the mom because she’ll shut down. Then we just kind of go our separate ways. And then a couple of days later, we come back and say let’s start over.”

It can be hard when our older teens set boundaries. To respect the edge, the line where you have to stop. It’s hard to transition from treating them the same way we did when they were younger, and stopping when they ask us to stop.

For Oie, it’s a careful balance, letting go and letting Nya make her own decisions as a young adult, in conjunction with owning a business with her.

RISKY BUSINESS

Oie explains that she and Nya are sometimes like oil and water and other times they’re exactly the same. “It’s been so amazing to be able to jam with her. Because we’re on the same wavelength as far as trying to understand teens and helping their parents and helping them find their full potential and careers. It’s a passion for both of us. We get into these moods, where we uncover something exciting, and we both get giddy about it. We’re so excited. And it’s super fun. I could have never imagined having so much fun with her because we are so alike in that way. So that’s been surprising.”

NYA’S BEST ADVICE FOR PARENTS (ACCORDING TO OIE)

Within Project Who Am I, Oie shares that Nya has talked to parents about how to work with their own teens. Her best advice is that parents need to be more hands-on.  She’s seen a lot of the students struggling because the parents are being too hands-off. They don’t talk about career discovery. They’re not helping their student enough.

At the end of the day, teens don’t know what they don’t know. As their parents, we need to support them and help them through some of the things they’ve never experienced before.

Nya cautions parents to help them in a way that is supportive and provides guidance rather than telling them what to do. Don’t be too hands-off, but don’t tell him what to do, either.

One way to do that is to ask open-ended, leading questions that are pointing them in a direction without pushing them in a direction. Ask good questions then really listen. And That’s the buried secret treasure of parenting – digging out those questions and figuring out how to use them so that we’re respecting our teens and validating them. Nudging and pointing them in a direction and inviting them to go that way. Inviting them and then giving them a voice.

According to Oie, that’s what teens really want:

• To be respected
• To trust the adults in their life
• For their parents to be there for them
• That the adults in their lives not treat them like a kid anymore.

OIE’S ADVICE FOR PARENTS

Oie’s advice for parents helping their kids navigate careering is to encourage teens to base their careers on who they are as a person, and not around societal expectations. Base it off of what’s important to them, who they are as a person. Search for careers based on that.

WANT TO START A BUSINESS WITH YOUR TEEN?

Oie emphasized that it’s easier to work with your teen if you can focus on the amazing part of them as a person. “They’re turning into beautiful adults with their own thing going on, and if you just concentrate on that I think it makes it easier.”

EPISODES REFERENCED