Speaking and Communicating Podcast

A lot of us feel like we know better than the next person of how to raise our children. And so nobody can tell me how to raise my children, not my mom or dad, not my sister and brother, and definitely not my neighbor. And that's the problem.

I think now we've figured it out so much, and we're so intelligent, we're so educated, that we're the best people to tell our children everything. And that's so far from the truth.

Welcome back to The Speaking and Communicating Podcast. I am your host, Roberta Ndlela. If you are looking to improve your communication skills both professionally and personally, this is the podcast you should be tuning in to.

Communication and soft skills are crucial for your career growth and leadership development. And by the end of this episode, please log on to Apple and Spotify and leave us a rating and a review. Now let's get communicating.

Now let's get communicating with our guest today, Olaolu Ogunyemi, who is an award-winning children's book author.

He is a leadership mentor, who is a marine and a parenting advocate, who is here to inspire us to all contribute to raising the next generation of leaders. And before I go any further, please help me welcome him to the show. Hi, Olaolu.

Hello.

How are you doing today?

I'm doing fantastic. How are you?

I'm doing well. It's a beautiful day, and I'm very excited to be here with you. I've been looking forward to this conversation, so I'm ready to have a great conversation with you.

Ready to rock and roll.

1:43

Why Raise Leaders

Now of all the things you could have done with your life, why focus on raising the next generation of leaders?

That's a great question. It's because I grew up in an area where a lot of my friends didn't really make it out. So I have some really good friends who grew up and they just were always in trouble, and I hung with them.

I did nothing to inspire them to do the right thing, but I allowed them to influence me to do some things that I probably shouldn't have been doing.

And I was blessed to have parents who always looked out for me and kept me engaged and always pulled me back in. Whereas sometimes, their fathers weren't in the picture, and another time, sometimes the mothers were just working so hard.

God bless them. They're working two and three jobs just trying to make ends meet and so on and so forth.

So now that I've gotten older, I've realized that I can do something to influence others, and I can be a part of the solution to help people to motivate their children and inspire them to really raise up the next generation of great leaders.

And so that's what I'm doing now. I'm really trying to help build a community of teachers, parents, mentors, caregivers, coaches, whatever your profession is.

If you interact with children at all, I'm trying to help build that community, so that way we don't lose children through the cracks.

No matter whether their parents are working multiple jobs or their fathers can't be there or whatever is happening, I'm trying to help build a community so that we can help inspire that next generation.

So it comes from a personal place for me, I've really tried to help others, and it helps me with my children, of course, to bring a community around them and to raise them to be the best people I can be.

Absolutely. And we're going to come to that in a second, but your parents, so your dad is Nigerian, was your mom born in Nigeria as well?

No, my mom was actually born in the United States.

Oh, okay. Because speaking of parenting and making sure you stay out of trouble, one thing about Nigerian parenting, it's more or less very similar to South African parenting.

So I can fully relate when you say, they make sure that even though your friends were trying to steer you in the wrong direction, your parents pulled you back because there's no way that they will allow that, at least of what they are aware of, your

Absolutely.

And that's something I would want to stop right here and commend those parents. Because a lot of us, as we've grown up, especially, we talk about like millennials and different generations and so on and so forth.

But a lot of us, I think we've discounted the work that they did. So my dad, I met my mom in college, but he came to the United States for college and to build a better life for himself.

And then when he had family, he made all these sacrifices and decisions for the best interest of his family.

And so a lot of things that he was doing, trying to persuade us and teach us, like you're saying, and really sometimes it was the persuasion was a little bit more heavy handed than I'd prefer.

But I needed it, personally, Olaolu Ogunyemi needed that kind of leadership because I was going the wrong way and sometimes I just had to be knocked back in the right direction.

And what I realized sometimes it's easy to overlook those things that they did, those sacrifices they made so we can be where we are today.

So I commend every single parent out there, especially those who are constantly with their children and constantly trying to keep them out of trouble. And it seems like that that child is being rebellious, because I was indeed a rebellious teenager.

I did some of everything you can imagine, but my parents never gave up. So for those parents out there who are working hard, you made so many sacrifices and it seems like your child, like me, I had a mohawk at one point. That's just part of my story.

I did everything again, everything you can think of.

Mohawk with African hair? I'm trying to picture.

Yeah, exactly. It was terrible. So what I did is I went to the store and I bought, it was like the Axe Moose, I think it was.

It was like something that made it stiff. And I legitimately took my hair and I spiked it straight up. I kid you not.

So it's sitting on top of my hair like a feather. And my dad sees me and he's just like, what is my son doing? But that was just who I was.

I knew he didn't like it, but I was doing it to rebel against him. But he never gave up. He was consistent.

He was persistent. And he made sure that he was always investing in me, even when I was doing stuff that's just completely out of right field, like the Mohawk. I laugh about it now, but the Mohawk is just indicative of the kind of person I was.

But yet he didn't give up. I learned from his sacrifices. I personally have not immigrated from one country to another, but I can imagine how hard it is.

I can imagine the sacrifices you have to make as a parent. And you're giving up a lot of things. You're leaving family and the things that are familiar to you, so you can start a new life.

Only look at your child and see them doing some things that they probably shouldn't be doing. So I commend those parents. I commend my parents for always investing time.

And I commend every single parent listening or watching. I just want you to know you're doing a phenomenal job. Don't give up.

I am an example of what happens when you continue to work on a child. It may not seem like it's getting through to them, and they may do outward things, like an ugly mohawk sticking on top of their head.

But I promise you, what you're saying is going to soak in at some point. And now my parents are my biggest advisors. They're my biggest friends, my mentors, my guide in my life now.

As a husband and father and a professional in the Marine Corps and a writer, I talk to them very often. If not every day, it's almost every day, because they are my mentors and guide.

And it's because they invested that time with me when I needed it most.

Kudos to your parents and even more so shout out to all the parents, because this literally has got to be the hardest job in the world. I don't know what it's like, but raising children certainly is the hardest job in the world.

Now, talking about the ones whose fathers are not at home.

My mom goes to a church and sometimes they have these youth camps where if a church member and the dad is not there but they have a son, then they'll ask the other fathers in the church to play the dad role during the camp weekend or whatever it is.

Do those things really have an impact in the long term? Because it's just one weekend and then life is back to normal on Monday and your dad is not there again.

That's a great question and I want to say 100% they have an impact. And I'll tell you why, because those people in that community, especially those men, are an extension of the home.

So whatever the mom is saying, especially if it's in the church, that my assumption is they share values, they have the same beliefs, they're going to mentor that child in a way that they need to go.

And so what I noticed is a lot of the things that my dad would say or my parents would say, sometimes it'll go in one ear and out the other.

But when you hear that again from one of your people that you look up to, let's say, for example, when I was in playing sports growing up, there were guys, older gentlemen who went to my church who would go out there and play basketball with me.

My dad was a soccer player and he ran track, but he never was a basketball player. And so he never could relate to us on a basketball court.

But those guys who were out there playing basketball with us, they're sharing those moments and really investing that time and they're establishing a connection with us.

So when they sat down to have a conversation, it felt different and it sounded different coming from them.

And so I 100% agree that those men that are at those camps or whatever event that they're in, they're creating connections with those other young men. And what that means is that now they have that connection, they can guide them along the way.

Because there's one thing I learned from a book. It's called Hold On to Your Kids. It's by Dr.

Gabor Mate and Dr. Gordon Neufeld. Those two created a book.

And one of the things they talked about is connection before direction. And that's what's happening when they send those men to those camps, to those young boys, they're helping them to establish a connection.

So that way they can see an example of what's right. And because that's extremely important, seeing an example of what's right. And then when the time comes, they can actually guide and mentor them and tell them which way to go.

So that is very effective in lives, whether the parent, the father's at home or not, it's extremely effective.

9:25

Community Parenting

Now, let's talk about the work you do.

Let's start from the beginning. So how do you then implement these programs of raising this next generation and keeping kids away from potential trouble?

Absolutely. So the first thing is to build a community of parents, adults. I started off with a book series.

It started off with me creating something for my family. I want to sit down with my children and create a story that we can sit down and enjoy together. The way my mom did with us.

My mom really helped spark a love for reading in us because she would sit down and bring stories to life. She was very animated. When she talked, especially she chose books like Dr.

Seuss, the ones that are upbeat and they rhyme and it's really exciting. So you could get behind it. And so I encourage you, first of all, start with your children as early as you can.

I say when they're in the womb, if you can. Start reading to them and start playing music with them because it's scientifically proven that that works.

So start having those rhythmic moments, be excited, have a lot of inflection in your voice, make reading exciting for them because I promise they'll stick with it.

So that's the first day where parents and adults are encouraged to sit down with children and enjoy moments with them. And those moments will become teachable moments in the future because as you read through stories, there's always a storyline.

If it's a good book, there's a storyline where you can actually learn a lesson from it. And it's the adult's job to bring that lesson of life for the child. So that's really the first thing.

So in the work that I do, I go out to schools. First thing that I'm doing is going out and connecting with the students. I'm sitting down with the students beside the teacher.

In most cases, if I can have the teacher at the front of the room with me, or at least somewhere in the room, I'm showing them that, yes, I am the guy who's here to read to you, but your teacher is my partner.

I'm partnering with your teacher in this endeavor.

So that way they know that the teacher, the librarian, their parents, whoever, they see me interacting and they say, okay, well, if my parent is in the room and they're clapping their hands and they're engaged with the story time, then that means

that this is actually something good. There's no disconnect between the guest who's here reading and the parent or the teacher or the librarian, whoever. There's no disconnect between them, and that means that now there's a strong community.

Another thing is when I go out, there are students, I allow students the opportunity to engage. So I may read to them initially. Sometimes it's a little bit at the younger age, I may do a Q&A, it's a little bit different.

Let's say five, six year olds, the Q&A may not be that long because their questions are going to be about the book, and I may talk about coloring and things of that nature.

It won't be really in-depth questioning, but when you start getting to older age, so I would say somewhere between six and nine or pre-teens or even teenagers, I extend my Q&A session to allow them an opportunity to talk, and we want to talk about

the books. And a lot of times, especially with the older groups, they start talking about things that they need help with, problems that they're having and things of that nature.

And that's the best time for me to bring the teacher back into the room. I've had to bring the counselor before and now connect these resources for the children. So now we have this united front.

We have a teacher, we have a guest who just read to them and talk to them about stories and open the conversation.

And then you have the counselor as the resource provider who are all in the room and able to bring in these students and these children and teach them something. So really, that's what it's all about. That's how I do it.

It's all about bringing the adults into the room and providing resources for the children through a more fun and interactive way.

And it sounds like a village type of upbringing for me. They will say in Africa, you are raised by a village.

When I was growing up, because we wear uniforms, if I think, okay, obviously my dad's at work, but my mom went to town and she's going to be gone the whole day so I can skip school and hang out with boys, knowing that she won't see me.

But if one of the neighbors see me and it's 10am and I'm not at school wearing uniform, they're going to tell my mom and my dad to not be in trouble.

So I wasn't just raised by my parents alone, but the neighbors as well, where sort of like my parents in the absence of my parents. So I would be in my best behavior in front of them as well, not just in front of my two parents.

13:30

Modern Parenting Challenges

That's a perfect, I love what you're telling that story because that's perfect.

That's what we want to bring back, because what I've noticed is in today's world, and then I'll use two examples.

First, as a children's book author, one of the things that I want to do, I want to go to the traditional publishers because I want to make sure the book had the best distribution, best editing. So I went to the traditional publishers.

One of the things that I was told when I went there is that your books have adults and like an adult figure sitting down with a child and they're sort of guiding them. And that's not today's book.

That's not today's things that the children are buying, believe it or not. What they're saying is they almost want the child to be enlightened themselves.

So they want the child to sit down with the book, read and to come to a bit of a self-enlightenment, which, okay, I understand. I see that. And you can even see it in the movies, for example.

If you were to compare the movies to great movies, let's talk about Lion King, which also I think is a phenomenal movie, and Frozen, which is also a phenomenal Disney movie.

If you look at the difference in Lion King throughout the entire movie, there was some adult that's giving some kind of guidance.

Even if it was Timon and Pumbaa, they were a little bit funnier, but they still were giving guidance to Simba throughout the book. They were clearly older. They felt like uncle role, if you will.

And then you watch the movie Frozen. Within the first five minutes, the parents were dead. And so the guidance came from more of a self-discovery.

And that's what almost the message that we're teaching. And so what that does is it almost isolates our children in a way to make them feel like they have to figure out life for themselves.

And even more so, now parents are saying, well, I'm not going to mess with that child because I don't want to get in that business. And so all these parents are now in their own silos.

The children are in their own silos, and everybody's just trying to figure out life by themselves. But what you're describing is a village.

It's truly a community where now the child is going out and they know they're going to be cared for and nurtured, no matter where they go. They know if they get in trouble, they're going to get in trouble no matter where they go.

So there's this community that's surrounding them and raising this child. They're taking responsibility for the child.

And that's what I'm trying to encourage, that all of us, no matter what community we're in, we have a responsibility to mentor, guide, and help children out. You'd be surprised how many people I've seen.

I'll see a child run in the middle of the road, and nobody would get out and tell the child, hey, make sure you look both ways. And I think that's important.

Instead, you'll honk your horn at the child, and you just sit there and wait for them to move.

No, this is the perfect time for you to get out and teach them something, because perhaps nobody's out watching them, or they got ahead of their parents or something.

And if they get used to adults kept stepping out and saying, hey, make sure you don't go out into the road until you look both ways, parents are okay with that, just say, oh, I saw you correct my child. Thank you so much.

That's really how we raise better children. I say that because that just happened today. A child rolled out on the road on his scooter, didn't check.

Luckily, I was paying, because I always, when I roll into the neighborhood, I'm looking for those kind of children, but he didn't think about it.

When he noticed me, he froze in the middle of the road and then tried to jump off the road really quickly. But that's a teaching moment. It's okay to teach that child.

But a lot of times, we shy away from that because we're like, well, I don't want the parent to think this and this and that, and it's because parents have become a lot more enclosed with their children.

But what you're describing is what we need to be, and I love that. That's a beautiful picture that you're painting. I hope you share that message and that vision with a lot of people because that's what we need today.

Certainly.

I hope my people don't let go of that as they move to suburbs and the big city.

Just as a parent, like we said, it's the hardest job in the world just knowing that you are not alone, just you and your husband raising your children, even in your absence, your neighbors are looking out for your children.

I just came back home to South Africa and I spent the last five years in Chicago. I did notice that there's that element of it's none of my business a little too much.

If a child, something happens to them in the street, everybody thinks it's none of my business, just keep working. Just when I was about to ask my friend that I stayed with, why are people like this?

I know it's an individualistic society compared to where I come from, but why are people thinking it's none of their business if something happens to a child?

And she said, actually, sometimes it's the parents who say, my child is none of your business, Olaolu. So you stay away because you don't want to get in trouble with me by interfering with my child.

Apparently, that's what I was told is sort of like the culture in the United States. So correct me if I'm wrong.

Yeah, no, you're spot on. And it's a culture that we've shifted towards. Because I grew up in Louisiana, that was very much so.

When I go out, everybody was auntie to me. That was like, yes, everybody was auntie. Everybody was auntie.

If I was hungry, I knew I could go to auntie's house.

But what I knew as well is if I went to auntie's house begging for food, she would give me food, but she would call back home and say, hey, just so you know, Olaolu came over and he had this meal, in which case my parents would follow up and talk to

me about, just to make sure that it was closed. Like we were a family, the loop was closed. And that was not a thing. The whole thing about being mind to your own business and standing to yourselves, it came from a place of too much ego.

A lot of us feel like we know better than the next person of how to raise our children. And so nobody can tell me how to raise my children, not my mom or dad, not my sister and brother, and definitely not my neighbor. And that's the problem.

I think now we've figured it out so much. And we're so intelligent. We're so educated that we're the best people to tell our children everything.

And that's so far from the truth. It's not even funny because I've always been a fan of having a team to help get to a solution, to help solve a problem.

And that's where we're starting to, I think we've shifted away from that and we just have to get back. And that goes back to why I'm doing what I do is to remind parents that, hey, you're not out here alone.

Like you said earlier, you're not parenting alone. You're not leading these children by yourself. There are other people out there that have phenomenal ideas.

I was just talking to a man today whose son is at Yale, and I'm standing here with my son at a football. They're taking pictures today and I'm talking to him about it.

I'm like, man, your son is a junior at Yale preparing to go to law school after this, which is obviously he's done something to influence his son to get to that point. His son didn't even want to apply to anywhere else. He was fixed on Yale.

I'm going to Yale and he's determined. So when he got to accept this letter, he was very excited. He's sharing this with me.

And I'm like, man, that's something I can learn from. I didn't feel intimidated by him. I didn't think that, oh, well, you know, when my son gets up there, I'm going to make sure he's ready for Harvard.

I didn't think any of that. I said, man, that's something I can learn from you from. And I think that's what we have to get back to the point of what I believe is called intellectual humility.

And that is that we are now thinking that I can learn from the next person. The next person, if they didn't even have a child, can still help me learn how to be a better parent and a better human at that.

And I think that's really where it comes from. We're now so educated and we're now so intelligent that we are the only ones who know what's best for our children. And so now it's like, that's just not your business.

Stay away from me. So I hope that a lot of us can start coming together and learning that. No, we're not more educated than the whole group of us.

One person is not smarter than all of us. And so hopefully we can come together and realize that's not the case.

And it's such a lonely road if you think like that. We are humans, we are social creatures. Why do you want to create a situation where you don't reach out to anyone, you don't have a connection with your neighbors, your community?

I mean, even when I was there as well, one of the things that they highlighted was that there's a loneliness pandemic.

There's things that were new to me because we greet each other as we would walk the street down the road, strangers, chat like we've known each other forever and we just met. And I did miss that when I was in Chicago.

I did miss it and I'm happy to be home in that sense. But the very thing that people are craving, they are not giving to their community members. That's the irony of this whole situation.

Oh yeah.

And they don't realize that by doing that, you're creating the environment that you need, not just that you want, you need. And it starts with one person. I think in our minds, we're like, well, you know, it's such a bad problem.

It's where we've gone in the United States. So this is where we're going in the world, that we forget that it starts with one person. It starts with you smiling and waving to one person.

And that one person is like, man, my day feels better. And maybe they're now encouraged to smile away for somebody else. It starts with you coming out of your comfort zone and going to speak to your neighbor.

I've heard that thing many times and I've been near the city. I'm not a city guy. I actually don't prefer to be in the city, but I've been in cities where they're like, oh, you just spoke to me.

Why are you speaking? What's going on? What do you want?

It's like you're almost combative. Like, why are you speaking to me? Or they just straight up ignore you.

And it's like if you don't grow up in that culture of just strangers saying hello, does it create some form of suspicion that you're up to no good?

I think so.

But I believe that it's because again, it's just become the norm. If you go to, for example, New York, I was walking around New York and just out of habit. When I see people, I wave to them.

I just remember you could tell the ones who were tourists like me, they will wave and smile and talk back. And then there's a few New Yorkers to give them credit.

But there was a lot of them that sort of looked at me like, get away from me, maybe that's it. I have no idea. I wish I did know, because maybe I would just walk up and say, hey, I don't want anything.

I'm just saying hi. Just saying, how are you doing?

Because as I said, the culture, it does not mandate that. And so people find it really weird, strange, or even scary. And that's why the pushback.

Now, speaking of today's children, like you said, there's this thing of what the publisher said, or the child is supposed to be enlightened themselves and find their own knowledge. Why is it that, comparatively speaking, I could be wrong?

Why is it that today's kids don't seem to be as resilient as when we were growing up?

What we were able to just not even think about happened, and then something makes you cry, five minutes later, you wipe your tears and you play with your friends again. But now, it's very different.

Why isn't there as much resilience with today's kids as it was like a generation or two ago?

I love that connection you made there. It's because they're coming to that realization themselves. It's because they're being guided and influenced.

We'd like to think that they're really coming to it themselves, but they're being influenced by somebody.

In many cases, if they're not being influenced and taught and guided by an adult, they're being influenced or taught by social media, or more importantly, usually by somebody who's directly over them, so an older sibling or an older friend or so on

and so forth. Now, the problem with that is the older sibling is doing only what they know to be best, which most times they don't have the experience, the life experience, they don't have the education, they don't have any of those things that they

would actually need because they've only been on the earth two, three years older sometimes and they don't have the ability to care for them. And then the second time is they don't have the nurturing idea yet.

They're not thinking about, I'm doing this to nurture and develop you for the future. Instead, it's almost survival. Like when you have an older sibling who's taking care of another, it's their idea is to teach you to survive.

Like I have a household, so it was six of us that grew up in the same household. My two older sisters are 14 and 12 years older. And my oldest brother is four years older than me, then two years, then me, then five years younger is my little brother.

And so those boys are like very close in age. And the ideas, the ways that we grew up and the ways we treated each other were out of love. I think it was out of a great heart.

But what we're trying to teach each other is that, hey, you don't let people break you. You stay encouraged and don't let anybody get you down. I can punch you right now.

You should be able to get back up. That idea is great, but they don't have the nurturing spirit that my parents would have.

So my parents can teach me that same lesson, but they're doing it in a way that's going to nurture me and actually teach me how to be resilient and not, hey, I'm gonna knock you down, let you scrape your knee, and then you figure out how to fix it

yourself. No, they're gonna teach me how to fix it from their experience because they know how to fix it. And I think that's where the problem comes in because the children are learning from whatever the influence is.

And of course, when you start talking about social media and all these other influences in the shows and movies and things that our children are exposed to now, they are learning how to be resilient from these people who have no vested interests in

their well-being. And that's the problem, especially when you start talking about movies and social media. This is how it works in a capitalist society. Their only priority is making money.

And so that means that if they are now coming to your children and they're teaching your children how to be resilient, they're not necessarily teaching from a place of a pure heart. They're teaching from a place of money.

And so they're going to tell your child whatever they need to tell them so they can make the next dollar and to continue to earn money and income from children following them.

And so that's why it's important to invest that time because your children are going to be influenced. They're going to figure it out, quote unquote. If you push them down, like my brothers will push me down.

And to be honest with you, I think that was part of me growing up and learning. But then there was my parents in the background saying, hey, that's enough of that. Hey, let me tell you why you need to do this.

So let me explain why you need to do that. Let me tell you how to get better. And that's what's missing.

It's the children are getting knocked down and they're scraping their knees and then they're just figuring it out. And I believe that's what's causing them to be less resilient.

Things that you and I and a lot of the people probably listening would consider, whether it be grades or hey, I have a lot of homework, which in today's school, I would be what they consider a lot of homework and many times is not even close to what

we would have had. It's just amazing to see the things that get to them. But in many cases, I believe it's because that lack of adult mentorship and influence in their lives.

I am so grateful. Listen, some good comes out of social media and yes, we all use it, but I'm so grateful. I grew up in the 80s with no Google and seeing people's pictures of fancy foods and all of these handbags.

And I'm thinking even TV had limited hours. You would just watch TV one or two shows, your dad watches the news and then it's time to go to bed. I didn't have all these opinions of people and what they think about this.

And me thinking I'm being left out if I don't have this, because I think that's just this constant barrage of, I'm missing out whenever you're on social media. Can you imagine growing up as a teen and you see all this, what it does to your psyche?

All these insecurities, feeling like you're not good enough because somebody, and the thing is people post a snippet of their lives and you think that's their entire life. All this fabulous, the food and the travel and the handbags and the clothes.

Can you imagine what it does to you and how you feel about yourself?

That's what social media, as it connects us across the world, is awesome. But it also does exactly what you're describing. It exposes us to things that we just didn't have growing up.

Your point about TV just turning off, legitimately TV would go off. That's something that I recall and I couldn't believe.

I was talking about it one day and I sort of laughed because I'm like, I don't think I'm that old, but I can recall TV like they were playing like the national anthem or something, or I just remember that literally the broadcast was just in.

TV is over for tonight, you know. My dad will finish watching news and TV is done.

And I'm like, okay, well, there's no, unless you want to watch a movie on VHS or something, you just, there was nothing else for you to do after, I think it was like 11 o'clock, it was when TV went off.

It was just one of those things that you didn't necessarily have exposure to a teenager or an elementary student somewhere else where they're living this high life. It just wasn't a thing.

The only thing you'll see is that you may see a rapper on TV, like when I was growing up, Bow Wow was starting to grow up.

I think he's a little bit younger than me, but he was starting to blow up and I'm like, oh, you know, he's a rapper, you know, older, you know. I'm watching some of these people who are growing up and it's like, okay, I can see that.

But generally speaking, I'm looking at all my peers in the area I'm in and we all are about the same place, right? I mean, there may be one or two people who have some Jordan shoes or something like that and I will want those.

But aside from that, we were just about in the same place. But you're right. It does create this, now everybody has this perception and this life that they're living only on the screen.

And it does make you compare. I believe it does bring more insecurities that we just quite frankly didn't have to deal with. So it's just another thing for us to look out for as adults who are raising children in our community.

Just know that they have insecurities that may be appearing that you didn't have to deal with growing up.

30:17

Nurturing Child Purpose

The children that you mentor, when they come to you and they say, Olaolu, I feel this, I feel like my life sucks.

I don't have this, I don't have that. How do you still encourage them to keep going if all of the influences and the noise around them makes them feel less than?

Well, the first thing I tell them is first, I appreciate you for being able to express your feelings because believe it or not, the beginning of emotional intelligence is being able to accurately identify what emotion or feeling you're having.

And the second thing I do is I start to tell them, okay, let's take a second to not even think about what you do have or don't have. Let's talk about something different. Let's talk about your purpose.

What do you think you're here on earth to do? That's where I go with that. Immediately, I try to tie everything that we're doing on this earth back to our reason for being here.

What do you enjoy? What are your passions? Not the thing that you're doing on the weekends or what is your true passion?

What makes you smile when nobody's watching? If you could turn off all the cameras and nobody else is watching, what thing would make you smile? That's what I always try to redirect them to.

What is your purpose? Let's talk about that. We go through the emotions first, of course.

They're like, well, I feel like I'm missing out. I feel like I wish I had this. I wish I had that.

I wish my parents were here. I wish this, whatever it may be. Then I say, okay, that's awesome.

Then I start talking to them about what is your purpose? And once I see that lightbulb go off and I see them start to get excited about the thing that makes them passionate, that's when we hone in on that and then we write it down.

We try to capture it in some way because I want them to know that no matter how old they are, you can talk to a five-year-old about purpose. Again, the conversation is going to be a little more elemental than talking to a teenager, of course.

But when you start talking to them about, hey, what makes you smile? And if they say something like five-year-old, for example, if they say, well, it makes me smile when I make other people laugh.

Boom, now you have something that you can focus them on.

And then you start working with them to find healthy ways to help people laugh and smile and encouraging them in that regard and say, see, you don't need all those things to make people laugh and smile. All you need is to do whatever it is.

And that's what I do to try to help children focus is say, hey, focus on the thing that you're built for, not necessarily the things that everybody else has, because those things can come and go.

Shoes get old and people, sometimes people don't even wear the shoes they buy, they just put them in a closet, which I think is insane.

I've seen that on TV. I thought that.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, spend thousands of dollars on shoes and they just put them in the closet.

They don't want to touch them. You know, it's just like I have it's a collector's item, which is fine if that's what you want. For some people, that's not your reality.

You don't have the funds to do that and that's okay. Just focus on the things that bring you joy. And once you learn those things, then none of that stuff matters.

And the earlier you learn it, the better.

So, we've spoken about how the community and mentors like you can contribute to raising this generation. But is there something that these kids can do in the community to help them feel good about themselves? Some kind of service act?

Because they say when you do something good for someone else, you feel good. Are there things like that that they do?

Oh, absolutely. So, every school... I did some research on this, because in the research shows that children who participate in extracurricular activities to include community service tend to perform well or to perform better in school.

And it's because they become a part of... They feel like they're a part of the school and a part of the school's mission.

And so, I 100% believe that children who connect and especially serving others, that's one of the ways that it really brings something about us.

And that's why I love organizations that encourage community service and encourage them to get out and serve others. It brings us a kind of joy and peace inside to know that I did something for someone else and didn't ask for something in return.

And so, that does help children to develop and grow. And so, the more you have opportunity to do that, the better it is for you as a child or as an adult for that matter.

I always tell people that if you can get your children in community service, get them into soup kitchens, get them into nursing homes, to just read to the elderly and work with them or whatever it may be. Get them to clean up the neighborhood.

They see a piece of trash, pick it up. That's one of the things that we teach people. If you see trash at your school, take a second to pick up the gum wrapper off the floor, whatever it may be, and throw it in the trash.

Don't just say that's somebody else's job. You be a part of the solution. And that is a perfect way to get them engaged and understanding that the community is all of us.

That just solidifies the message that we're saying right now, that it's all about community. It takes a village to have an impactful life.

Do you have any message, one last message, for the parents on how they can raise leaders at home?

Absolutely. So first of all, I have to commend you as parents. If you're listening to this, it's because you're trying to get better.

And that's really the biggest thing. Always strive to get better every single day. And I usually tell people, one of the non-negotiables that you should have is that you should always look for four things every single day.

Look at your physical health, your mental health, your spiritual and your emotional health. Find ways to invest time in that. Somewhere at least 10 minutes a day, you want to invest time bettering yourself in those areas every single day.

So that way you can continue to grow yourself and that way you can pour into others. So if you don't remember anything else we talked about, invest in yourself so that way you can pour into others.

Words of wisdom from Olaolu Ogunyemi, who is a Leadership Mentor, award-winning author for children's book and a parenting advocate. What is the title of your book and please tell us where we can find it.

Yes. So I have three books. My first book and my favorite is called Crow From the Shadow.

And you can find that on Amazon, Barnes and Noble or anywhere books are sold. Or you can find me or any of the things I'm doing is called www.parentchildconnect.com.

And you can find all my blogs, my resources, my books, my content partnership with YouVersion Bible app. You can find all those things on my website. Again, that's parentchildconnect.com.

parentchildconnect.com is where you'll find all information on Olaolu that we've spoken about today.

Thank you so much for helping parents who do basically the most difficult job in the world, which is to raise children. Thank you for contributing to raise the next generation of leaders.

Thank you so much for having me. It's a wonderful conversation.

I enjoyed it as well. Well, my pleasure. Don't forget to subscribe, liberating and a review on Apple and Spotify.

Stay tuned for more episodes to come.