Lainie Liberti

0:05 Welcome to the Leadership Passport. I'm excited to chat with my special guest today, Laney Liberty. Welcome, Laney. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation. No, I'm so glad to have you here, so tell me a little bit about yourself and what you do. Sure. So I primary primarily focus on serving teens, teens, adolescents, sometimes tweens and sometimes adult young adults. And I served them in several ways. My son and I Co founded a project called Project World School and the teens and young adults that we serve are primarily self-directed learners. So some people call them homeschoolers, some people call them unschoolers, some people call them autodidactics, but primarily those that are involved in alternative education in some form or another. Now, Project World School has been around for about 14 years now.

1:08 We've served thousands of families and teens, and what we do is we create these immersive learning experiences in different places in the world that have that follow, sort of like the methodology of experiential learning. So depending on where we go, the learning comes from not curriculum, rather from having the experiences in those countries. Now the, the experiences are curated, of course, and they, you know, each day follows another yet sort of cultural deep cultural dive.

1:49 And they're, they're different because cultures around the world are very, very different. Sometimes we're focusing on like for example, when we run our programs in Greece, we're obviously focusing on, you know, the the rich heritage of myths and, and origins stories. And even modern Greece where we look at not so modern, but we look at the development of governments and we go the anarchist zones and really explore what it means to to see the world through that lens. And then we look at the current contemporary immigration issues that are really prevalent in that country.

2:37 And we look at it through this really collective lens of where, where are we standing from historical perspective. And now looking at it, you know, how did we get here sort of thing. When we're in South Africa, obviously we're looking at a totally different paradigm. We're looking at history, we're looking at colonialism, we're looking at nature and all of these other things that are really fascinating to see through the lens of the people that live there and how all of these different types of, of cultures types came together. Some not, not, you know, by choice and others just by geographical, you know, proximity. And we look at at how colonialism has has, you know, changed those directions.

3:34 And then where it's become, we look at human rights, we look at all of these different things as well as that the, you know, the world of nature in South Africa that, you know, we look for the big 5. Yeah, we do. We go to and do a photographic safari and things like that. And I could tell you stories from all of these different places around the world. But the, the, the biggest thing that we're really focusing on is the balance between our outer world experiences and how they're a reflection of our inner world experiences. So there's there's great hair and detail focusing on kind of what's happening in the inner world. How are our individual world views affecting the way that we're having these experiences?

4:29 And what is our comfort zone? And why do people in our host countries have different perspectives or different ways of living that are not similar to our way of living? And what does our comfort zones tell us about who we are and our experience in the world? And so like the, you know, it's a very, very broad approach. Yeah. Yeah. So how do you, how do you draw that out of teenagers that you're talking about some very sort of deep, critical, reflective kind of conversations and practices there that I know many adults might struggle with?

5:13 How do you bring that to the surface with teenagers? Well, first of all, believe it or not, all of our retreats through Project World School are run through this is going to blow your mind consensus. And that is not majority rules because majority rules or democracy, as we've discovered when we went to Greece, means that there's a class of people whose voices are not heard and we feel like it's really, really important to empower each individual on our trip. Everybody has an equal say, including the facilitators.

5:53 We're we're no better or no worse than any other individual on, on the trip. We have equal, you know, wait. And if we cannot come to a consensus as to what we want to do for that day or how we wish to handle it, then we keep we stay, we stay in every night. We have a circle and the circle we unpack the day and we talk about the plans for the next day. And before the teens come on our trip, we do have a set of agreements that we ask them to agree to and they sign a contract to it. And then the first day of the trip, we go over the agreements and talk about them and how they're defined.

6:39 And they're basically things like, you know, we agree that one of the, the benefits or one of the pillars of, of coming on this trip of self-care. So if if my needs are not being met, then I need to express them and share what needs to be, you know, met in that moment. That's, that's crucial. That's knowing oneself. But we also agree to participate fully in the community. And you can hear that those two agreements sometimes may come up with a conflict.

7:20 And conflicts are actually welcomed in our community. So conflicts are looked at as an opportunity and whether you're directly involved in the conflict or just somebody's who's holding space for the conflict to be resolved, we all have 100% say in that. Sometimes it's, it's exhausting, sometimes it's, you know, very easily remedied. But what that does require is communication, cooperation, collaboration. And sometimes it's compromised, but it's never forced compromise.

8:02 And what this does is it actively expresses the worth of an individual like my my needs are important and I am accountable for sharing them. And as we come together as a community, this is not just one or two days. We're talking, most of our trips are are two weeks, 2-3 to four weeks. And the first week, yeah, everybody's on their best behavior. But you can't hold up or wear continued to wear these masks when you're with somebody 24/7 for this amount of time. And the real BAM becomes revealed. And sometimes it's, you know, what we see the first week is filtered through the lens of not having confidence or through self doubt or through fear even or discomfort.

8:57 And it's OK to show up who you are and as you are. And sometimes these really big hard conversations are held during our evening circles. Now every night we unpack the day and we started with what worked today. You know, we go back and we review the day and we really talk about like all of the the things that through the lens of positivity. And then we talked about what didn't work today. And this isn't like who's at fault. This is me personally. I felt that this moment in time that we experienced together today didn't work for me. And here's why.

9:40 And I'm accountable for sharing that. And then we do other things and we talk about, you know, what's happening the next day. And then we talk about, you know, does this feel in alignment with everybody? And the consensus, the invitation to have a consensus is not like this. This feeling of, of forcing it. It it's the feeling of I am accountable for my portion of what I'm giving to this community. And sometimes getting fifteen teenagers to agree, you know, it's not easy. And sometimes our circles last two hours and, you know, everybody's voice is important and saying that is very different than having the experience of feeling it. And sometimes, you know, I could tell you of an experience where we did this learning, you know, a temporary learning community, or we call them retreats, but it really is a temporary learning community in Japan.

10:42 And everybody was feeling so overwhelmed. And we had this really big because of travel and activities and stuff. We had this really big conversation about this, this temple that we were we had scheduled to go to. And we all decided not to do it because what was more valuable was having a rest day. And we we unpacked what the consequences were, what we'd be missing. We unpacked kind of how the shift in making changes to our our schedule would impact kind of the coke like the the what's the word I'm looking for when when you take things and you pile up on pot cooperative.

11:32 Not quite. Accumulative. Accumulative, thank you word, word, how the cumulative experience would be actually affected. And we all looked at, you know, there's some people were really, really exhausted and some people had energy, but yet being able to hold space for other people in our community when they needed, when they had needs that needed to be met was really a beautiful transformational experience. And that again, the experience of, of knowing that one 2-3 people's needs were important, that it did affect the whole group. We with Grace decided to hold the space for those that needed more time.

12:20 And it was just lovely to have that experience. I'm just going to tell you a teeny another experience that happened in Japan. We had a couple of teen girls that were really in alignment with their core values of feminism, and that really lit them up in a really individualistic way. And when we did the cultural experience of learning how to do a tea ceremony, they were confronted with being challenged to do the service for the boys in the group. And that really touched something that was really powerful inside of them because they agreed to be a part of a cultural immersion and learn about a culture that in some aspects were not feeling like they were in alignment with their current perspective.

13:21 And it, it gave a lot of of, of space for unpacking what it meant to have these two kind of differing and in opposition viewpoints at the same time. And that was really a beautiful experience. So again, stepping outside of your comfort zone and getting comfortable with the discomfort and holding space for others while they're having that really creates the strong community bond as well as learning how to create a consensus and how important that is. And, and having the patience to to allow the time for that to really unfold while learning all of these culturally beautifully, you know, deep experiences or learnings about other cultures that are not your own. Yeah.

14:21 Yeah. So how do you mentioned you've been doing this for quite a number of years now. So how did it all come about? What sort of prompted or or what was the impetus to try this? Well, I personally don't come from an educational background, a background of, of, of, you know, working in education, although I do have a degree, a college degree in fine art, which has nothing to do with anything that we're talking about. But my biggest qualification is I'm a mom. And I mean, I'm from United States. And in 2008, I owned a branding agency and I worked in advertising for almost 1819 years.

15:12 And so my focus has been very, very, very different. And this was what, 17 years ago? And in 2008, I own this agency in LA and the economy crashed. We had a really big crash in 2008. And I start seeing my clients go left and right. And at the time, and I still am, but at the time, I was a single parent. And one of the things that I heard from my son over and over is mom, you're always working and you never spend any time with me. And you know what? It was true. He went to a traditional school in Los Angeles and he was at school.

15:53 I was working, he came home, I was working, you know, like the the time that we had together was so strained. And when I went, when I knew at the end of 2008 that I was going to be closing my agency and I was overwhelmed and overworked and stressed. I remember looking at my son one night saying, Miro, what do you think of we just get rid of all this stuff and go have an adventure. And he said, are you serious? I said, yeah. And so we did. So we it took us about six months. We, we sold or gave away all of our stuff and I closed up my agency and you know, I, I finished up my projects and we set out for what was to be a one year trip. My son was 9 at the time.

16:45 That was 17 years ago. We never went back and we ended up, you know, traveling around the world. And what I realized as we started doing this in partnership was that I too was learning from these experiences. And travel was such a great way to learn. And I also understood that the one of my biggest superpowers was something that I suppressed for a long time, which was this natural curiosity. I always had questions about the world. And once I allowed that to come back into our our relationship and our life together, we were side by side learning together. And we just wanted to go here and learn this and learn that. And, you know, we went on archaeological digs and we went to museums and like everything was new and we were just in this constant state of learning.

17:44 And when my son, so we did this for four or five years and then when my son was 1314, we really wanted to have community. And at the time I was, I was becoming this advocate about, Oh my gosh, this natural state of learning and travel and this and that. And I was writing blogs and I was writing in magazines and, and, and guest pieces and all these different things. And we started to get invited to speak at conferences and things of that nature. The first time that my son had encountered or met other self-directed learners called unschoolers, he's like, wow, there are crazy, you know, free learners like me.

18:29 This is great. However, I just don't want to go back to the United States to continue to learn. So we came up with a plan and the plan was let's bring them to us. And so I headed down this educational path, self-directed learning path, and I learned everything I could about not only creating and facilitating learning communities from and using the university structure as what I would, because learning communities, there wasn't a whole lot of studies about learning communities for undergrad for people before college. And so most of it was through materials that I was reading about university level learning communities.

19:16 And so I learned everything I could about that. I learned about facilitation. I learned about nonviolent communication and this led me down the path of learning everything I could about the adolescent brain and learning about, you know, adolescent development and psychological development and how to hold space and how to use tools and healing and all of this other stuff. So it really start, you know, propelled me down this path so I can learn everything I could as a self-directed learner, so I could facilitate other self-directed learners in a very safe space. That made sense.

19:59 And so yeah, that's that's how this whole thing started. And like I said, we've served thousands of teens. Crazy amount of teens on our trips, and we've hired other facilitators to help us and yeah, it's just been an amazing path. Also, during 2020, I've focused on the mental health side primarily because of course, nobody was traveling during 2020 and the years right after that. So now my focus is both of those things. Obviously before it was, you know, with the the inner and outer worlds, but now I have a whole tool belt filled with tools to help teens and adolescents overcome certain, you know, challenges as as they arise.

20:55 Yeah, so we'll, we'll get on to that. I'm interested to find out a little bit more about that and your approaches in a in a few minutes. But I'm wondering, I hope this isn't too personal a question, but I wonder what does your son think as he reflects back on that kind of different experience of schooling and traveling and learning in different ways now that he's an adult? How does? What are his reflections and and thoughts on it? Well, he is so incredibly grateful that that was his experience. He's now 26. We both live in the same town here in Mexico. And one of the, the, you know, this is kind of outside of the scope of your audience's interest.

21:38 But one of the things that we've really focused on is what I call partnership parenting. And the partnership parenting piece is really a radical way of parenting. And I've worked with many families throughout the years to help them step into this modality of parenting. And it works really well with self-directed learning. But it also, it's, it's like taking conscious parenting, which deals with the accountability of 1's own inner world as a parent and not becoming triggered in all of these, these tools that you use to be very consciously aware.

22:19 But it takes the relationship into the realm of, of partnership from recognizing that both people are are, you know, independent, sovereign human beings. But we are just working together for the same goal. And the goal is, you know, I'm raising my my child and I want to make sure that he becomes somebody who is happy, healthy, and has this deep love of learning. And so I did, you know, achieve those things with him and he's very, very happy about that. You know, he's living, he's living his best life. He's got several projects that he works on. He actually teaches self-directed teens at an online school or, or, or tweens, actually self-directed tweens at an online school.

23:13 He focuses in on history and myth, which are his two favorite topics, but he's also a board game designer and he also does voice over for audiobooks and has many books on Audible right now. So he he does a lot of different things. Plus two years ago we both had this idea to open up a board game cafe. So we're partners in that. So as a, as a human being who's an adult, you know, being raised this way, he's very comfortable in the world. And he also says to me all the time, I'm so glad I didn't grow up in LA.

23:54 I'm so glad you took me out of LA because I, he, he feels like the, the world view is this big and what he got growing up around the world is massive. So he really knows who he is and he really knows how he fits into the world and feels comfortable in the world and has these beautiful partnerships with everybody that's in his life and, and chooses to continue partnerships with me, his mom, where he doesn't have to. But we have businesses together and we still run Project World School to get together when we run our trips. So we only do right now, we only do two or three a year, where when he was growing up, we live nomadically and went from place to place and did about six to seven years.

24:44 So yeah. So moving on a little bit now to you mentioned your work more recently with teenagers and, and supporting them. What are some of the, in your experience, some of the biggest misconceptions that people have about teenagers in terms of their needs, how they act, how they behave? What are what are some of those misconceptions people have? Well, there's a lot, and actually I wrote a book in 2022 and chapter 3 is all about team myths and I think it's really important to look at those and dispel them. Some of the team myths that are in the dominant culture, right? We grew up with thinking teens are irrational, teens are erratic, teens are disrespectful teens, you know? Well, I'm sure there's a whole list of things that you personally can think of in terms of these quote UN quote teen myths.

25:53 And we're lucky now to be in a time where there is there has been a lot of research done on not only adolescent development, but neurobiological development and psychological development. We do know that the centers of the brain that control emotional development to develop first versus the areas of the brain that control rational and long term thinking. And that can actually actually determine consequences. That doesn't get fully developed until they're age 25. So when you have these two things, you know, hyper emotional States and did they have the most dopamine receptors in their brain during any time of their life, It's going to be during the teen years. So that means that novelty and newness drives them. These really big emotional states are part of their experience and the inability to determine whether or not that this choice that they make can indeed have a long term effect. They don't have that ability.

27:10 If we can understand that as parents and facilitators and teachers and those that are and coaches and those that are in the life of of teens and help them recognize that there's nothing wrong with them. They're this is where they are developmentally. And I'm here to be the person that not with judgment, but to help you determine these long term consequences that doesn't take their big emotions personally, that can help them use tools to regulate their nervous systems. Once you know they get dysregulated. If we can approach this from a very rational perspective as those that are holding space for them and keeping them safe, we can then be the support for them that they need during these times versus you're irrational, go to your room. Why are you rude to me?

28:15 And all of these other normal responses that like my parents had before, we recognize that there is an actual neurobiological reason for these things to happen. Now this is not like here's here's a ticket for you to be a jerk, but let's let's unpack what happens and what's going on when these big emotions happen. And as the parent and as the partner, the the rational person who's supporting the teens while they're having these big feelings and big emotions, let's not take it personally, but let's hold space for them while they can process these things and let's make repairs because what's most important is the connection.

29:06 And again, if you want to be somebody who has an adult child, who has a strong connection, who doesn't even, you know, like my son, you know, yes, let's partner, let's let's create a business partnership because we have this trust and connection, because I'm not there trying to control him. I'm not judging him. I'm seeing him as a full human being based on his capabilities. And trust me, I love the fact that my son, all of his, his rationality, please come online now because I can almost exhale in those those responsibilities and I meet him where he is. It takes a lot of inner work as a parent to know what's going on inside of you, heal your own childhood wounds so they don't become part of your own children's childhood wounds. And all of you have to have a big healing party when everybody's an adult.

30:08 Time for you to do that as an adult or as a parent yourself. So As for, let's say parents listening or teachers, educators listening, what do teenagers need most from adults? Is it that kind of space to be understood? Is it someone to listen and to help them through that kind of process, to help them understand their own what's going on in their heads with their emotions? What is that? Well, I think you just touched on it's just so funny that that that it's you almost said the name of my book. My book is seen, heard and understood.

30:48 And that's what teens need. They don't need for adults or caretakers or teachers or coaches to solve their problems. They need to see them for who they are, where they are, and that is so important. That gives them safety and security. It gives them confidence that what they're feeling is real. It gives them confidence to understand that their their needs, their beliefs, their thoughts and their feelings matter. Whether or not you know they don't feel it or think that in 5 minutes, in this moment, it matters.

31:28 They need to be seen, heard and understood. And his parents, caretakers, coaches, teachers, we need not to solve their problems. We need to create safe spaces so they could be exactly where they are. Also, in my practice, I, I, I work as a coach for parents and for teens, primarily for teens, but I have worked with many parents in service to their teens. Right. And what I find is using tools, tools for mental health become the best way of approaching it. They're objective. They're outside of yourself.

32:10 Nobody's telling you you're wrong or right. They're giving you an opportunity to see things in a totally different way. I've got tools for reframing, tools for understanding, you know, how beliefs are created, tools for doing shadow work to, you know, some that go really deep, some that are just about exploring tools for regulating your nervous system. Tools we're, you know, having first, you know, having control and power over that voice of the cell sub subconscious and you don't things about understanding our own, you know, the way that we work.

32:58 That's important. Every single time I teach a course, I teach these 12 week courses for teens online that teach them these tools. We go through this whole series. At the end, they're exhaling like I thought something was wrong with me. And now I know that every single person here in this group felt the same way. And now that it's understood, I don't feel so crazy. I don't feel like, wow, I'm just going through what it means to be human in this stage, and that's so important. And now I have these tools that I can use to facilitate my own, you know, challenges. Whatever comes up for me, I have a tool for that. I have a tool for this.

33:47 I have a tool for that. And they have this whole, you know, booklet of, of tools that they can access throughout their life. And that is empowerment and that is confidence. And I think you touched on a little bit there, but what do you see as some of the the longer term outcomes for kids and teens that go through this kind of process and learn these tools and practice them? Is it in later in life? Are we you trying to build resilience and grit? Is it ability to deal with stress? Is it ability to have great interpersonal relationships? What do you see as some of the things that you know this blossoms into?

34:32 All of those things, healthy relationships is is a big part of it. I believe as humans, the only way that we can actually grow and heal and know ourselves better is through relationship to other. Sometimes it's interpersonal relationships, sometimes it's work relationships, group dynamics, but also we are who we are and reflection of others as as well. And so we need to learn all of the different levels of that. There's more to just understanding self. It's understanding and experiencing self.

35:15 Yes, grit and and resilience happens, but it's not the goal. We're not doing the grit course today or the grit tool. It it, it is the effect of knowing oneself and having the ability to pivot or adjust or take responsibility or be accountable and make mistakes and make repair. So that's learning about life, That's this that that's what we need. We need courses in this in schools. We need, you know, if they're not in schools, so This is why Ioffer them.

35:58 But these are the the core subjects that people need to learn in order to know how to be human. Yeah. And as someone who works in schools, I see we see a group, you know, just an increasing need year on year of, you know, kids and the adults in these spaces needing to know these skills and needing to be able to work on them and develop them is really just so important. And, you know, I think there's a lot of assumptions there that we we expect kids to demonstrate these things without, like you said before, teaching them the skills with giving them the tools and the toolkit to be able to navigate this when sometimes even as adults we can't do that ourselves.

36:48 It's so true. Early on when I first became a parent, I assumed that, well, just having a child, having a baby, we're going to be connected. And that was so the farthest thing from the truth. And I sat down and read every book I could about being a mom. And you know what is parenting? And that brought me into my very first entry into attachment parenting, which was so powerful to me. And I thought I needed this book. I needed the knowledge that that wasn't part of my upbringing, but I needed to learn.

37:29 I as the adult was accountable to learn. And so not that there is there are these assumptions that just because I had a child, we're going to be connected and they're going to love me and I'm going to love them and that's it. But that's the farthest thing from the truth. Or just because I love working with kids, you know, we're going to be connected. They know that they should know that I'm there and you know, they should feel privileged that I chose to be there. Well, it doesn't work that way. It's about relationship and that's really important. And if you, you know, I love the the analogy that you can't pour from an empty cup.

38:10 Well, how do you fill your own cup? You fill your own cup by knowing what's inside yourself and who you are. Also, you have to look at the emptiness of the cup as well, because that's part of who you are. Because we all come with empty and full and anywhere in between at any given point in our lives. And we've got to know who that is. So if I put myself in a situation where I know that I'm going to be exposed to things that trigger me or are unhealed in me, I have the accountability as the adult to say I need to remove myself from the situation. So I could ground myself in this moment.

38:52 If that's, you know, if the situation, if that's possible. But that's my accountability. And it's my accountability to heal those wounds inside of me so that when somebody walks in and accidentally slams the door, I don't go off the handle. Because I had a parent who did that when I was a child and it triggered something inside of me that wasn't, you know, appropriate for that moment. Maybe it was just the wind, but I'm accountable for the me that I bring in this moment. And that's those are the the, the sort of vulnerability, the the vulnerability of being human, that kind of connection that we need to bring into all of our relationships.

39:38 Yeah. OK. So that seems like a good place to almost draw things to a close. And I have a couple of quick questions for you, if that's all right. So what is your favorite book and why? What is my favorite book and why? Well, there there's a book that informed my professional work for many, many years. It's called Brainstorm, The Passion and Purpose of the Teenage Brain, and it's written by Doctor Daniel Siegel and that.

40:19 You know, informed me so much it, it taught me so much and it, it gave me permission to go deeper and to even write my own book. And I refer to his work quite a bit in in my book. And it helped me to understand the teenage experience, the adolescent experience in a really beautiful way. I've read so many books on this topic. I have some favorite novels, but yeah, just leave it there. Leader. I think I'm going to have to say something that you're probably not going to expect. There was an artist, and the reason why obviously I come from an art background, but there was an artist named Joan Miro from Spain.

41:14 And I loved his work so much because in the quiet subtleness of his work, there were political tones. But he had the power and confidence to create a new language through his expressions. And he saw things in a very childlike, playful way. And I think the cornerstone of being human comes through play. Play brings us to creativity, creativity connects to imagination, and imagination is where we solve problems.

41:56 And all of that combined together in the subtleness of his art is in fact a way of visually leading a whole, you know, audience into accessing their own power of play through imagination. And finally. Not what you expected, right? No, it wasn't. It wasn't, but so wonderful. And did I hear correctly perhaps the name of your son after the artist? Was that right? Exactly.

42:39 Exactly. My son's name is Miro. And finally, last question, best advice you've ever received? Think slow down. And I know that sounds so simple, but in every single context, it works in Western culture, and I'm sure even where you are, there is a culture of busyness, and busyness relates to achievements and goals and productivity and value. And I think one of the biggest sort of challenges that we've had as human beings is having the permission, giving ourselves the permission and culturally taking permission to slow down and just be be silent and be quiet with where we are and being OK with that.

43:44 You know, obviously it's about a balancing act, but most people forget to slow down. Most people forget that there is calmness in the sense of self. And that's really important. Thank you so much for joining me today, Laney. I've I've really enjoyed our conversation and I really appreciate your time. Thank you so much. My pleasure. Thank you. Thanks so much for listening to the episode. If you enjoyed this conversation, don't forget to subscribe, like, follow, etc. Drop a comment below to let me know anything you'd like covered in upcoming episodes or suggestions for future guests. You can also connect with me on Instagram and LinkedIn.