How to Guide Your Teen Through Challenges And Help Them Find Grit And Resilience
Jesse LeBeau is one of today’s most highly sought-after youth speakers and teen coaches. His unlikely underdog story has inspired millions of teens through his speaking, best-selling books, and youth programs.
He is one of the world’s premiere basketball trick artists and is regularly featured on TV, film, and international tours. Jesse travels all around the country, speaking at schools to youth, and has a reality series called ‘The LeBeau Show,’ where you can follow him around the country and see firsthand his significant impact on youth, particularly teens who are struggling.
Jesse is also the founder of The Attitude Advantage Program (TAAP), which is a comprehensive approach to helping teens build incredible confidence, grit, and resilience. His program transforms teens’ lives by teaching vital life lessons to improve self-esteem and positively impact the direction of their lives.
I can’t wait for you to get to meet Jesse and hear him share his story, share with us what we can do to help our kids today and learn more about his program, how he can support your kids and the radical difference he is making in kids’ lives.
Let’s dive in!
What You Will Learn:
- What are youth struggling the most with?
- What’s the most important factor in helping our youth today?
- What are some things you as a parent can do- how to guide your teen through challenges and help them find happiness and fulfillment?
- Building resilience in children through sports and life lessons.
- Developing mental toughness in kids through sports and mentorship.
- Empowering youth and parents through a positive mindset.
Where to find Jesse LeBeau:
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And here is the episode typed out!
Welcome to the Moms of Tweens and Teens Podcast. If some days you doubt yourself and don’t know what you’re doing. If you’ve ugly cried alone in your bedroom because you felt like you were failing. Well, I just want to let you know you are not alone, and you have come to the right place.
Raising tweens and teens in today’s world is not easy. And I’m on a mission to equip you to love well and to raise emotionally healthy, happy tweens and teens that thrive.
I believe that moms are heroes, and we have the power to transform our families and impact future generations. If you are looking for answers, encouragement, and becoming more of the mom and the woman that you want to be, welcome. I am Sheryl Gould. And I am so glad that you’re here.
SHERYL: Well, Jessie, welcome so much to the Moms of Tweens and Teens Podcast; I am so excited to talk to you.
JESSE: I am sorry. I was trying to read what it says in the back there. “You have my whole heart for my whole life.” Okay, there’s some love in that house over there. Yeah, that’s amazing. It’s good to see you too. And I love you. You’re pumping me up already, just with a little slogan.
SHERYL: Yeah, well, yeah, I’m excited to talk to you. Because as we were talking, I started following you. And oh, my gosh, I mean, right now, you’re traveling across the country. People may know you as Joe from the pop TV sitcom This Just In.
You are a basketball trick artist; could you tell them about that? You’re a celebrity teen coach turn motivational speaker; you help young adults who struggle with mental health, self-esteem, anxiety, depression, self-harm, phone addiction, and connecting socially.
You’re the founder of the attitude advantage or the host of the bonus show. Oh, my gosh, there’s so much more. And you have a powerful story about being an underdog. And so I wanted you to tell them your story, where you came from, and your roots.
JESSE: Well, that’s a lot of work. You deserve an applause break here or some water. I’m exhausted just from hearing you say all that. I need to take a nap. I appreciate that. I like someone who’s very, very fortunate and very blessed.
You know, my big dream was basketball my whole life. And I was able to tweak that dream into something different than anything I ever planned that I’d be able to do. And I still get to use basketball quite a bit.
Like you said, I’m on our little basketball tour bus here. We have a basketball hoop on the back, and it pops down. So as I travel around, we’ll have a little basketball competition and basketball fun everywhere I go. So yeah, it’s it’s it’s been quite a journey. So, I was born on a little island in Alaska called Ketchikan. Have you ever heard of Ketchikan?
SHERYL: I don’t even think so.
JESSE: I don’t think anyone has.
SHERYL: It sounds familiar. But I think I’d be lying.
JESSE: About half a mile wide by three-quarters of a mile long, just maybe 30 or 40 homes today, and no roads or stores or anything. So we took a boat every day just to get to town. It was like we were going to the big city. Is it one road going left and one road going right? For stoplights. And then, there’s a fence on either end of about 15 to 20 miles of road; you’re trapped there; there’s nowhere to go.
There’s nothing to do in Alaska. It’s also dark almost all the time during the winter. So I’d go to school, it would be dark, get out of school, and be dark. And it rained about 13 feet a year. Usually, we call that liquid sunshine more than that; they have a measuring stick in the center of town. And it’s like how much water it’s gotten up to. It says liquid sunshine on it.
So, as you can imagine, for all those reasons, there were a lot of problems with drugs, alcohol, and depression, all across the board, from not seeing the daylight to being isolated. There are more bars than churches; that’s one of the things that little town is known for, which is a weird thing to be known for, probably not a good thing.
And for me, I felt kind of trapped and isolated. And I felt like I couldn’t go and achieve my big dream. And that big dream for me was to be a basketball player. I wanted to go to college; I wanted to get a scholarship. And I eventually wanted to get paid to play basketball and be a pro basketball player.
The problem with that is I was by far, and if I stood up, you’d be able to see, but I still am quite small. I was the smallest kid, smaller than all the girls. So when I would tell people, hey, I want to be a basketball player. They would laugh in my face and tell me I wouldn’t ever be able to do it. I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t big enough.
And I had a series of stories where these kids bullied me in pretty embarrassing ways. And it just made me feel alone. And I just was isolated. The shift for me was I decided I could control my attitude. And I can decide to listen to all these outside forces telling me what I can’t do.
Or I can do the thing that I want to do. I can be the master of my attitude. I can go for it. I can create the life that I want to live. Then, I can team up with the right people around me who won’t be tearing me down but will build me up. And when I made that decision to team up, it transformed my life forever.
So, I started waking up every morning at five. I took that boat over to town and went up to the school. This janitor, his name was Larry. He went by and opened up the gym for me every day. He wasn’t supposed to do that. But out of the goodness of his heart, he did it.
That one small act of kindness from him completely changed everything for me, and I went on to have a good high school basketball career. I got to play college and get my education paid for. Then, I used basketball and learned how to do tricks to break into entertainment.
So, I started doing commercials and movies and TV shows. My very first commercial was with Kobe Bryant. I put on his shoes and take on all of his powers. It was the dream commercial, and I got lucky. Some luck, hard work, and the right time and place. And I got this dream commercial.
My friends, who had been in the industry a lot longer, were like, how did he get this one on the first try? And I’m like, oh, man, Hollywood will be a piece of cake. And it wasn’t. And I did a movie with NBA superstar Kevin Durant called Thunderstruck, which was a lot of fun. And it led to more commercial movies and TV shows.
I got to have arguably the best day of work I ever had. I got to be hand-fed cheeseburgers by supermodel Heidi Klein. Watch that. They paid me to be in that. Can you believe that?
SHERYL: The Graduate, what was it like?
JESSE: Oh my god, Dustin Hoffman. They had my hair kind of how it is. Worked out. Yeah. And yeah, and it was all because of basketball. The thing I was told my whole life I wasn’t supposed to be able to do, and so what happened from there is, you know, a lot of different things.
But the condensed version is I started playing street ball professionally, and I got to travel the world and be teammates with Allen Iverson, one of my favorite Hall of Fame NBA basketball players; I had his poster on my wall. I mean, I practice his moves. I watched his games.
This was like a basketball dream heaven for me. And what would happen is after these games, kids would line up for – I don’t want to exaggerate.
I want to say miles, but we would be out there for hours for them to come and take a picture and hang out. And it was mostly because of Allen Iverson. And I was just the guy on the team.
And that happened everywhere. We went to all these different countries. And eventually, we returned to my hometown, that little Ketchikan, Alaska, I was telling you about. And we did the same thing. And they lined up just how they did and all the other places.
But in this particular situation. They were kids whose families I knew; I knew their older brothers and sisters and their parents. And it just hit me; I caught my lightbulb moment. And oh, this is what I’m supposed to do with my life. It’s not supposed to entertain for an hour with Basketball Tricks and fun, which is great. But I could share my story.
I could write a book, start speaking, and do more than just dribble a basketball, but I could still use that as the hook to capture their attention. And that was that lightbulb moment. I wrote it all down in the notes on my phone on the flight back to California.
When we left Ketchikan on Alaska Airlines, I remember very, very vividly, and I slowly but surely went and did all those things, wrote the book, and started speaking and traveling worldwide. And it turned into us having a program and, you know, shooting television shows and programs. It’s just been an unbelievable journey.
And I’m so grateful because I feel like we are at a place where kids are hurting and lonely, just like how I felt in Alaska all those years ago, even though they all have this phone. They’re connected on the internet and social media more than ever in the history of time.
There have never been more kids who feel disconnected. And not truly having meaningful relationships where they spend time with them in person. And I don’t care what anyone says. And there’s not anyone who will argue with me. But you can’t replace a one-on-one or group in-person connection through a screen.
This is great; you and I are doing this right now. But it would be even more powerful and impactful if we were in this room. So I’m on this mission now to help kids team up and find their group, find their tribe, find their community that they enjoy being around, and develop social skills that they can do life with.
Because we all know the quality of our life depends on the quality of our relationships. So your life’s going amazing, you’re doing great, and you need people to celebrate it with you. And you do the same thing with them, or else some billionaires and multimillionaires seemingly have it all on the outside but are very unhappy.
On the flip side, going through life’s difficult times, which we’re all going to go through, which I know isn’t very motivational for me, but tough things are gonna happen, and you need people that are going to be there for you.
It’s just like you will be there for them and do life together. And that’s something that’s kind of missing today. You know, that community that we used to have in person.
SHERYL: Yeah, it is so lonely, and kids are so lonely now. And I agree with you because I do so much on the screen. And I can get lonely and isolated because there’s a different energy when you’re with somebody, you’re whisking on, and you’re right there. And so we are behind our phones, and kids are comparing themselves.
How many likes am I getting? And it’s, and then gosh, the way that the algorithms, I know, that was a huge issue with the pandemic work and all the eating disorders that started because they want to get healthy. Still, they just start getting all this body stuff in their feeds, and I don’t measure up to what I’m seeing. And then that creates even more, you know, issues and lower self-esteem.
You talk a lot about developing resilience. And you talk about the challenges, or our kids are having challenges, and how to help them develop that grit resilience. And that’s what you had to develop, like you had to realize that I want more for myself. I can, and what happened there? Where was the light bulb switch moment that activated that in you?
JESSE: Yeah, great, great question. And just to go off of something you said a little earlier, it is. I saw some research today that people are more depressed now than they were at the peak of COVID-19. And during the pandemic, and it’s because we got used to being isolated, and now, like, I don’t want to go to work anymore.
I got off a call this morning with a girl in our program who’s not going to school and doesn’t want to go to school; we’re getting that all the time. But then they’re isolated and lonely. Now that the world has returned to quote-unquote, normal, but then when you aren’t connecting with people in real life, as you said, it just takes a piece of your soul and your happiness.
And we’re meant to be around other people, even though it’s nice to curl up and watch Netflix, and we always have the screens. There’s just no replacing that. So I love what you said there. And I know you have an amazing community of moms. And I’m grateful to come and spend some time with you guys here today.
So, as far as building that grit and resilience, my dad taught me many lessons through sports. And so we would go and watch the older kids whether it was little league baseball, or we had football later on, but mostly basketball, soccer, and baseball where I was, which in Alaska, it’s outside their snow, it’s dirt and not grass. It’s a whole different ballgame.
But we would watch, and we’d watch the best players, and we’d see how they respond, not when they hit the home run, not when they had the game-winning shot. But they made mistakes when overthrew first base, struck out, and dropped a pass. What did you do at that moment? Did they blame the umpire? Did they cuss out?
The referee did not hustle out to the field and fired their teammate. Because that is what defines it; it’s like that whole character. When nobody’s watching, it’s easy to have a good attitude when you’re the star.
But how was your attitude during the hard times? That’s when you see what someone is made of. So I’m so thankful to my dad for teaching me the power of attitude through sports, but more importantly, to carry over in life, which is more important than any sport because as much as we love our kids, we want them to all be pro athletes. Many of them are never going to do that. And I see many parents project that, and you’re missing the whole boat completely.
Suppose you’re not working on these life lessons skills. So, what kind of teammate are you going to be? What kind of attitude will you have when things don’t go your way? What’s your work ethic? Are you blaming other people when things don’t go your way? Is it the coach’s fault, the weather, or all these different things?
That’s the whole point you should be looking for in sports. And if you win some games along the way, you can get, you know, a scholarship or even go play professionally. Well, that’s still just a small portion of your life. So you want to have those other things in order.
But to come full circle for your question. Parents coddling them is the biggest thing holding kids back from grit and resilience. And this is something that they are doing with the absolute best of intentions. They love their kids.
They want to see them thrive. And they see that hurting when something goes wrong in their kid’s life. They see them struggling to make friends. They see them not doing well in school or not making the team. You want to comfort them because we’ve learned today that we know so much more than our parents, and our grandparents knew where it was.
Just kind of everyone’s still trying to figure it out. And now we know how you treat and talk to them, and what happens with their cell phones is important. Steam in handling trauma.
But if you put this bubble around them, and they don’t ever experience failure, if they haven’t experienced struggle, if they don’t ever experience pain, then they won’t be able to handle that in the real world. And that’s all the world is filled with.
There’s a quote you’ve probably heard. Still, it’s a lot of parents today are going ahead of their kids and preparing the road, smoothing out the bumps, getting rid of the cracks and everything so that it’s a smooth ride, instead of preparing their kids for a bumpy road because the road is going to be bumpy ahead.
And so if you can have them learn, Hey, it’s okay to fail, Hey, it’s okay to not succeed and have people know about it, everyone else’s life seems perfect on their phone, but it’s not. That’s the highlight reel. And for you to achieve anything, you’re gonna have to fail way more times than you succeed, and that intro that you read, with all those cool things that I’ve gotten fortunate to do if you read all the things that I was trying to do, would still be going because I failed. So, I have a list somewhere; I don’t even know where it is anymore.
But I had a list at one point of everything I was like. This is close to some amazing breakthroughs happening in my life. And it didn’t work out, and I failed, or the person kind of tricked me. And like, Alright, cool, because every time you get that failure, or that no, it gets you that much closer to the yes, that can change your life.
So, to boil it down in just a few words, it’s leverage failure strategically. And that’s a good way to talk about those things when they happen. And everything’s a lesson, even when you, as the mom or parent, mess up and lose your temper or react in a way you’re not proud of. That’s one of the most powerful lessons that you can talk about.
Look, here’s even I did it wrong. And next time. So many times, we don’t like to do that because we want to be a good example. But admitting your mistakes is one of the most powerful tools you can have in your belt as a parent, and then recognizing that and having that conversation of here’s how I could have handled it better. And here’s what I will do next time when that happens. And you hold me accountable.
SHERYL: Yeah, oh, my gosh, you said so many good things, Jesse, and I just have to go back because I’m just really struck by how your dad because my son played baseball, and then he played Division One baseball, and then he was drafted by the Oakland A’s.
So you know, I’ve lived in that sports world, amazing mind, it was so easy to go to the games and say, look at what that player is doing that. So you know, look at how talented -he just hit that home run or focus on those things. That’s not bad, to focus on what they’re doing.
But to focus on how is that player handling striking out? Or, whatever it is, how are they handling when they’re not winning? If we focused more on developing that character in our kids, like, “Oh, what’s that person doing when they get that?” And were they courageous enough even to go for it? And go after it. And they heard a no, but wow, they kept going like you heard a no. And you had to keep on going.
JESSE: Yeah, that’s that. And that is the difference between someone who’s playing at the highest level and someone who’s just could be that far away from a multimillion-dollar contract. Often, it’s the mental; it’s the mind game, right? So you know, and if you can get them to lean into their passions.
So, for this son, it might be baseball. Okay, so what are the lessons that we can learn through baseball? Now, let’s find people that are a good shining example that is baseball-centric and oriented, that is going to be something that he’s interested in, he’s passionate in, and it’s going to come through to him, as opposed to maybe another kid who’s into art or theater or all those things.
So, leaning into those things they enjoy and having that conversation can make all the difference. As for me with athletics, I made fewer mistakes on the basketball court because I was smaller. One of the things that I would see is that the people I play against would waste energy and focus, blaming the referee and coach, and the floor be wet.
And when they would be wasting that time and energy, I’m like, I have them now because I’m not going to do that. And I’m solely focused on this, which gives me a little edge as an athlete. So to that kind of thing carryover in life and be like, alright, find those people who are great examples.
I feel like it can be difficult to find mentors. A lot of times, kids are drawn to these people who are maybe famous, or maybe have a big following, which is famous to kids now, if you got a blue check and all those things, but helping them locate how is this going to translate to your life because you can go and watch eight hours a day of other kids playing video games. And that’s probably not the best use of your time. And if you can work on that time management as a piece of that, I think that’s huge.
SHERYL: I think comparison can get in the way of the dreams, too, because they see so much of this influence or this person doing this, and they’re so much better than me. Versus, I’m gonna go for it. I want to live out my dreams and what I aspire to, which can affect them negatively because they see so much out there and compare themselves to others.
Well, I want to hear what you have to say. But you have a program that you’ve developed. And I want you to share about that the attitude advantage. And when you started that, and you’re mentoring, I looked at your site. So many people are sharing their testimonials, how their lives are changing, and how their kids’ lives are changing. So tell us about that.
JESSE: Yeah, well, thank you for that. I am. Yeah, those are the things along the way on your journey that just make everything just so like, this is why we’re doing this. And when you get that feedback from parents, kids, and educators, that kind of thing. But I wanted to say before that I am with you 1,000%.
I heard someone say this; I can’t remember who it was. But I want to give credit that it wasn’t my original thought that I think just like with cigarettes, where there’s a surgeon general warning, they’re going to come up with the same thing when it comes to social media and the internet because I see it devastate kids’ lives.
During the last couple of years, I would make about 10 to 15 calls with moms daily. So, I would hear the same patterns of issues that kids are going through repeatedly. And I don’t have to be a rocket scientist or Tony Robbins just to recognize simple patterns like this, which is really what’s happening. And that’s something I’m working on now.
What is the relationship between kids and their phones? And how can we keep it from absolutely stealing their innocence and putting them in danger? Every week, I talked to a different parent whose kid had been tried to be groomed by an older person pretending to be someone else. And they’re talking through Snapchat or one of the different apps. So it’s really scary. It’s really serious.
I think the difficult thing that saddens my heart is as a parent, a lot of times, it’s like, well, how do I not let my kid have the phone? Or have a limited use of the phone? When literally every other kid on the planet does? What would your response be?
If you said, Well, every other kid is doing drugs, or every other kid is robbing banks, or every other kid is depressed, anxious, self-harming, and having all these other different mental health issues when it comes to this epidemic of loneliness and all these things?
Well, you wouldn’t want any of those things. So, and that’s what’s happening. So it’s hard either way. And it can be hard having your kid go through the eating disorder because they’re influenced by the things they were seeing on tick-tock during the pandemic, as you mentioned, or it can be hard battling heads, saying, Hey, I know this isn’t easy. I know this isn’t what you necessarily want to do.
But I’m doing this because I love you. And I don’t want to prepare the road ahead of you; you need to develop the skills and figure this out on your own. So you can limit your time and how you will interface with it. But if you don’t have those systems in place, and that’s what I’m putting together of exactly what that can look like for each kid and parent, you don’t stand a chance to what you said earlier of comparing yourself.
I am a grown adult who has been on TV a lot and has had some success, accolades, and those types of things. I couldn’t handle it; I would look at things like, how come he got that TV show and has a million followers? I worked harder and deserved it more, and I’m better looking and funnier, all those other things. I’m trying to make myself feel better.
And if I am an adult who’s pretty grounded in who they are and has been through tough times and had good times, how’s a kid who hasn’t had any life experience able to do that? So I think you’re totally on the money. And it’s a tough one. It’s easier said than done.
But some steps can be taken to do that. So I just love that you said that. As far as the program, we have an amazing program. It started with me going and speaking over the last ten years, and I’ve got to speak to over a million kids live on stages. Middle school, high school, and youth conferences are my sweet spots; I have so much fun and still do about four or five a month nationwide.
And next time I come to Chicago, I will call you, and it will be really fun. But the frustration with that model of what I was doing is I go there; they’re all excited, they line up, they want to take a picture, I could show you videos, hours of them crying and talking about the most horrible things you can imagine that kids go through. And it’s all because I was vulnerable and shared my underdog story, getting bullied, and the hard things that connect and show them humanity.
But I would leave, and I go to the next town, or I’d go home. And how many of these kids followed through or even knew how to make a SMART goal, execute it, and surround themselves with great people? So I got frustrated after a while because I felt like, oh, yeah, they’re all excited. They all write a comment online; they might send a nice message. But how do we help them make that change?
And so that’s what the program was born out of. And we’d work with them. We have a school version of the program that they do as a curriculum. And then we have one that parents come to us in, whether their kid is struggling in whatever area or they’re just trying to excel and get that, you know, that scholarship to get that D one baseball time and go on to the pros, with people like our mutual friend, Dr. E, who’s a sports psychologist, I’m just the fun guy who comes in, like this morning, I had a first session with a girl.
And I’m like, you’ve done therapy halfway through it. I was like; you’ve done some therapy and counseling, right? And she’s like, Yeah, I’m like, this isn’t anything like that, is it? She’s like, No, she was laughing when she showed me animals on her ranch. And we’re having a good time. Because what we do is we develop a friendship or relationship.
And all anyone kid or adult wants is to be seen, heard, and genuinely cared about. And that’s the same thing with speaking when you go up. And you are genuinely mean; what you say makes all the difference.
Then, I brought awesome people who are smarter than me and have more credentials to do the one-on-one coaching and teaching these different things. And we just work them through these different life lessons.
In some of them, I’ve touched on the big ones’ attitude and surrounding yourself with amazing people in forgiveness, all the things that we don’t learn in school but need to be successful and happy and navigate this difficult thing called life. So it’s just been an amazing time.
And in 90 days, kids come in. And we’ve seen, as you saw, it sounds like in some of those testimonials, they’re completely transformed. It’s like, I remember, we had one kid who had low confidence, and he came in, and the first on the first session, he was like this; it was just that he wouldn’t share his face.
So, if you’re listening, I just turned off my camera. And then he came on the second week. And we could see the top of his head. And then the next week, we saw his forehead and his eyebrows, and I was like, Hey, you’re a good-looking dude, man, we need you to, we need you to show your face.
By the end of those 90 days, he could show his face and make the basketball team; he had a new group of friends, and we would be on our group call. And he would be texting, laughing, and saying, Hey, you did not pay attention. What are you doing? Be like, oh, one of my friends just said something hilarious.
He went from being a kid who was reserved in his shell to having some confidence by making new friends and making the basketball team. And it was cool to see a transformation like that. And what’s cool is every kid is different. So we work with the kids. We work with the parents too, because so much of it. And all the moms listening right now, I would. I know we talked about this before.
I have two just things that I would say. One is they are watching you; whether you think they are or not, they are picking up on your things. So if they’re struggling with anxiety, we get a kid in there that’s anxious, that’s depressed, we look at the parent, a lot of times there’s an anxious or a depressed parent.
So the number one thing you can do is start with yourself and be the best you you can be, so you know, hey, you know you’re telling them to get off the phone. We’re talking passionately about phone time, all that stuff. But then, they’re not if you’re always on your phone and at the dinner table. It’s gonna go in one ear and out the other.
So start with yourself. And that’s why I passed over this earlier, but that’s the thing that’s cool with what we do: we got the same message but a different messenger. So most of the staff are saying the same things that most parents shouldn’t be saying or are saying, and so they’re just hearing it from someone who isn’t mom or dad.
And I’m guilty of that very thing in my own life as an adult. I remember I interviewed this cool NFL football player. And he said something cool. And I told my mom, I was like, Oh, you’re not gonna believe what he said, you know, he said, You gotta work hard and treat people, right? Isn’t that such a good piece of advice? And my mom was just like you, you dummy. I’ve been telling you that for the last 15 years; what are you talking about?
I was like, Oh, this is a perfect example of not wanting to hear it from my mom, who’s great and has always been in my corner. But she’s my mom; I don’t want to always, you know, listen to what she has to say. So start with yourself.
Second, if any parent or mom is struggling, you’re hurting and see your kid going through a tough time. I’ve been on these calls. And they almost always end in tears. And whatever the situation is. And if you’re here listening and part of this community, then you are one of the 1% of the 1% who is taking your time to see how you can help your kid turn his life around and just be a happy and fulfilled young adult.
So you’re already exceptional, and you aren’t alone. You aren’t alone in this; many people struggled before the pandemic. After going through this, I realize it’s a difficult time. And if you can just offer yourself a little bit of grace, whether you’re a kid that requires a lot because he’s on the autistic spectrum, or whatever it is just a kid having trouble connecting or getting bullied, you aren’t the only one doing this, you’re doing the best you can and think things can get better.
So I feel like so many of us are back to that loneliness thing; we feel like we’re a failure. And that’s what I get from so many moms. They feel like it’s their fault. But it’s hard. It’s hard to be a mom; it’s hard to be a teenager; it’s hard just to be a human person and manage everything going on in life. So that would be my little encouraging word to any mom who finds herself in that situation and is listening.
SHERYL: Ah, so good. Yeah, I agree with you. And I think moms, that’s one of the things we can be so hard on ourselves, but then that feeds us trying to do more because we feel like we’re not doing enough because our kid might be struggling, and then we’re hard on ourselves.
And we think we must be doing it wrong. Versus this is just part of the journey that our kids have to go through. So I love that you said that because whoever’s listening, and the moms in my community as well, I always tell them that, too. You are here, you’re showing up, you want to learn, and you want to grow to support your kids more. And that’s huge.
And you’re modeling that wanting to learn and grow up your kid, and that does speak volumes for kids when they see us trying to learn and grow.
Well, I am so happy to meet you, Jesse, because I’m going to recommend you to so many parents; we’re going to be sharing this on our blog, and it’s on YouTube and the podcast because I was so touched, just watching you on all your videos.
How you relate to the kids, you can just feel it and see that you have such a connection with them. Yeah, this is what you are meant to be doing. I mean, the difference that you’re making is just so apparent. And I just want to thank you for taking it to the next level.
Because you saw that, there’s a much bigger need out there. And you want to serve, and you want to help our youth and help parents, and so I love what you’re doing, and I want you to share where they can find you.
You also have a non-profit we didn’t discuss; you have your podcast. So, just let them know all the different ways that they can connect with you.
JESSE: Thank you for that. I feel the same way about you. And thank you for letting me be on your platform and connecting with everyone. And I’d love to help in any way that I can. So, what you said about that is cool because I feel the same way when you find your thing, why, and passion. It is completely 180 in the way you show up in the world.
And I found the more fun I have with the kids, whether on stage or in smaller settings, the more fun it is for everyone. It took a while to sort of figure that out. And now it’s like, alright, let’s just go in and have a blast, and that’s how you get them to connect and open up and all those things.
So, Yeah, I get this question. So we put together a site. It’s https://theattitudeadvantage.com/welcome.
And on that page it has, they can subscribe to the podcast and join our Facebook community. I go live in there once a week with different experts and people like yourself and just let them share all their tips, all free. We have the team and school programs, and I speak many different things there.
So https://theattitudeadvantage.com/welcome is the best place to go check out, and you can get lost in the rabbit hole there for a long time. So, I’ll put that out there upfront.
SHERYL: And it’s a good rabbit hole because I was so inspired.
JESSE: Amazing. Well, I’m so glad for this. Even though it was through a screen, we’ll have to do one in the future in person, either you in Scottsdale or me out in Illinois.
SHERYL: Would love that. Absolutely. So we’ll do that, and I would love to come to your show too. I’d be happy to do that and talk to the parents, so we will do it.
