Hello and welcome to this episode of I don't know Jack, about parenting, where I'm going to talk about how parents need to start telling their kids to truth or I could say it this way. Stop lying to your kids. I'm going to talk about that in this episode.

People are scared of the truth

Hey, welcome back to this episode of I don't know, Jack about parenting where I'm going to talk about telling the truth to your kids and how important it is to start telling them the truth and here's the thing. And stop lying to them. Hold on. I'm going to tell you where I'm going with this because I'm a little bit passionate about this. I've been listening to some personal development guys, some Internet Marketing Gurus, and what people don't want to hear. I always say it. People are scared of the truth. There is actually a movie out there. I'm not a big movie guy. I forget the name of it is. Those of you who are movie buffs will know... Tom Cruise was in the movie and there's A. There's a point of where he goes, you want the truth, you can't handle the truth, and it's. I forget the actor's name. I can picture him, but he's like, you want the truth? You can't handle the truth. I believe the name of movie is, a few good men, and it's the truth.

People don't want to hear the truth. People want to hear what they want to hear and because people want to hear what they want to hear. As parents, we think that dads, we're doing justice to our children by telling them what we think they need to hear. Let me give you an example.

But she's lying to that child

Not too long ago, I heard a parent telling a young child, six, seven years old, his child was like, hey mom, I want to be an astronaut. She's like, well, that's not really practical son. You would probably be, and I'm exaggerating here... You'd probably be better off working at Mcdonald's. That's a secure job. You could get that job, and I was like, really? You just told your child, that he can't be an astronaut? Why not? That's her truth. She believes that she can't be an astronaut. She believes she's qualified to work for Mcdonald's or somewhere like that, and she was speaking her truth, but she's lying to that child who has endless possibilities in his mind. Any little girl who says, I want to be the president, their parents should be saying to them, honey, let me tell you the truth, and here's the truth, young lady, if you put your mind to it and you put your energy behind it and I believe in you as your parent and because I believe in you, you should believe in you, and if you take the proper steps to becoming president of this beautiful nation, you can be the first woman president.

If it doesn't happen before you get there and Mommy and daddy support that that's the truth, If she believes it and she takes the proper steps towards becoming that, it all she gotta do is look and see what other people had done to become president. She too can be president of the United States. Don't share your own truth or your own what we call limiting beliefs of I can't, or that's not realistic, there is no realistic dream. If it's realistic, you're not dreaming big enough. And here's the beautiful thing about children and the horrible thing about parents is this. Parents stopped dreaming at some point so they feel the need because they live in the real world.

The world just doesn't work that way

Kids don't live in that world. They feel the need to crush the dreams of their own children because it's not realistic to them. I think it's our job as parents to empower them to think limitlessly and start telling them the truth, that the world is their oyster. You start telling them the truth that they could do anything they put their mind to. You start telling them the truth and tell them that mommy and daddy believe in them greater than anybody else does in my belief in you as a child transcends anything that happens outside of this house. So when the world kicks you down, you think about the person who loves you most and that they believe in you. Let's see. Here's the problem. Parents keep sharing their truth of their realistic world and their negative outlook on life and then their child starts walking through this thing we call life with doubts because the person they trust most, the person who created them, the person who feeds them, the person who shelters them, the person who builds them up or rips them down, the person they love, the most and trusts the most, keeps telling them the world just doesn't work that way.

You too are going to lead a life of mediocrity. That's what I mean by stop lying to your children because there's no reason your children should live any life of mediocrity, but it's your words as a parent that are going to power them or dis-empower them to believe those statements. And here's the thing. Even if they grow up and they recognize the world for what it is, a bunch of doubters and naysayers or they sit there and look at you and say, why did you lie to me? Actually know somebody who has this scenario in their life, their their child grew up to be a man and said, mom, you didn't tell me about the real world, and she did. She told her, her children that the world was wonderful and amazing, and through his twenties and thirties, he was frustrated and angry at mom for lying to him. But here's the thing. He's now lived some challenges, lived through some challenges, lived through some life at this point. Now he's coming back around to his mother and saying above, thank you for giving me that gift. I'm sorry it took me so long to recognize it.

Santa Claus is going to get him a clubhouse

Stop lying to your children and start telling them the truth about their ability, not your ability or what you think their ability is, but what their ability is and their ability is to become anything they put their mind to as long as they have the belief in support of you, but if you keep knocking them down before they even enter the real world, they're going to have challenges. So I don't. I don't know where my son got this from and I'm gonna share a story that just happened a day or two ago and I thought to myself, why is he even thinking that type of stuff? I mean, he's seven years old. He's still believing in Santa Claus. He's still sitting here telling me that Santa Claus is going to get him a clubhouse that's going to be put in the backyard. And I said, well, I think he builds toys. I don't know that he does club houses because I didn't know that we're getting a clubhouse here in a couple of days. And uh, I said, you know, he is elves build toys. He goes, it's else could build anything. Then I said, well, you know, I don't know that I could disagree with you there.

I just don't know anyone who's ever gotten a full clubhouse. I don't know. We can fit that on this sleigh. He's like, have you ever seen the bag that they put all those toys in? That thing is huge. He could fit a clubhouse in there. I was like, man, you're probably right. See, he has this amazing imagination and I'm validating. Yes, anything is possible. You're right, as I'm saying, I don't know if we're going to get a clubhouse in the next couple of days. He's telling me how it can happen and I'm saying, yeah, maybe you're right. Thanks for reminding the daddy the magic of the holiday of Santa Claus, of dreaming big and believing that it can happen. So guess what? My job is to make it happen.

Dad, I'm scared

But in that same token somewhere along those innocent lines of dreaming of being big. The other day he says to me he say dad, I'm scared. I'm not going to be able to get a good job, so I want you to get a good job. He says, you don't. I said, no, good jobs suck. He's like, he laughed. He goes, are you ever worried about getting a good job? I said, no, daddy has the best job in the world, so he don't think I work. See, he sees me at home. He sees me on the phone, coaching my coaching business. He sees me making videos. He sees me enjoying the things I do and therefore he doesn't think daddy works.

What an amazing gift of giving my son. He doesn't think I work yet. We have a beautiful home. We have a beautiful family. We have all of our necessities we have everything taken care of and he doesn't think that I work. What a beautiful gift us the jobs are, are I don't want you to get a job. I said, as a matter of fact, if we want to call it a job, you already have something you're supposed to be doing. He says, what's that? I said, I just need you to go to school and pay attention and do the best you can, and in that process, I hope that you find things that you love to do.

My job is to empower you to do more

That's why they give you writing assignments. You may learn to love to write. That's why they give you math. You may be a scientist one day, but we're not going to know if we don't go through these processes, so I want you to just go to school and do these things and naturally you'll find something you love to do. And daddy's job, listen to what my, what my job is or what I believe my my job is to empower you to do more of the things you absolutely love to do so that one day when you're earning a living, you don't think it's work because you just love doing it.

And he's like, you don't want me to get a job. No I don't. As a matter of fact, people I don't want my child to even go to college. The only reason I want him to go to college is to have the experience of going away for four years and having a good time. Learning to intermingle and create relationships with other people going through a similar situation. However, I don't believe that I want him to go to college to learn how to get a job because it's not the world we live in. I don't want him to get a job that's not dreaming big enough. Now if happens to do that and he wants to get a job and that's what makes him happy and he finds a career he loves to do. I'm perfectly content with that, but if someone asked me, is your desire to put your kid through college? My answer would be no. I want to put him through life school while he's under my roof so that when he's old enough to go to college, he's prepared with enough life schools to flourish regardless of what he wants to do with the rest of his life.

You're not capable of running a marathon

Those were my goals, but I keep telling him the truth. I keep telling him he's capable of doing anything. I keep telling him his one of his main goals should be to be happy. One of his goals should be to explore new things. He's seven years old. We talk about goals. He just witnessed me running a marathon. You'd know what he said to me, he says, Dad, I want to run a marathon. Some parents will say, you're not capable of running a marathon. I said, if you put enough time, energy and effort like daddy did, you could do anything. I think you could run two marathons back to back. I think he goes, you think I could do that? I said, I do.

So when do we start training? So when you want to start, he said, now, I said, let's go for a run. We went for a run. He says, Dad, this is hard work. I said, I don't know that it's hard work. You're just haven't put enough time, energy and effort into it. This is the truth. You haven't put enough time, energy and effort to be really good at it, but I'm telling you right now, it's not going to get any easier. He goes, it doesn't get easier. I said, no, you don't want to know what the best part is. You get better. That's the truth. Life doesn't get easier. Just the more life you experience, you get better at life.

I even struggle in this podcast

And these are the truths that I want to share with my child. Now, if you keep sharing your truth and your truth is a negative side of truth, your kid is going to end up with a negative outlook on life. So what I would say to that in my book, be the dad you wish you had. One of my chapters I talk about, don't tell them what you don't want them to do, tell them what you do want them to do, so I even struggle in this podcast to say to you, you know, don't lie to your child. I don't want to say don't lie. What I want to say is tell your child the truth, but tell them the truth with endless possibilities and dreams so they can experience life through their lens, not through your tainted Lens. Tell them the truth based on dreams, childlike dreams that you wish you had somebody empowering you with, because there's a lot of people out there.

I was just watching a lot of Gary Vee for you don't know who Gary V is. He's got a foul mouth on him, but the man speaks the truth. So many times people ask him, Hey Gary, I've been doing something for two weeks and I'm not getting any traction. What do I need to do? He says, keep doing what you're doing. For how long? Until you gain traction. Well, how long is that going to be? I don't know you. I don't know your audience. I don't know your mediums, but I know that if you keep talking about something long enough, somebody's going to pay attention so you just keep speaking it. You'll get better and better at delivering that message, so keep speaking it and they say, well, how long? He says, it took me nine years before someone paid attention, but I talked every single day, so that's my truth. That's my experience and I can't give you a shortcut. That's not what people want to hear, but it's the truth.

You got to put in the work.

You got to put in the work as parents and you need to tell your kids and empower them with positive a message every single day so that they know the truth is mommy, Daddy, or whoever is speaking to them that loves them the most, believes in them Go believe in your kid and tell him the truth. We'll see you in the next episode.