Why Genuine Leadership Matters Today

0:00 The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are solely those of the hosts and their guests, and not those of W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates. We make no recommendations or endorsement for radio show programs, services, or products mentioned on air or on our web. No liability, explicit or implied shall be extended to W four WN Radio It's employees or affiliates. Any questions or common should be directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W four WN Radio. This is Beyond Confidence with your host d W Park. Do you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do you want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional, and financial goals? Well? Coming up on dvaparks Beyond Confidence, you will hear real stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers who have stepped into discomfort, shattered their status quo, and are living the life they want. You will learn how relationships are the key to achieving your aspirations and financial goals.

0:52 Moving your career business forward does not have to happen at the expense of your personal or family life or vice versa. Learn more at www dot Dvpork dot com and you can connect with vants contact dants divpark dot com. This is beyond confidence and now here's your host, Dvpark. Good morning listeners. This is Devi. It's Tuesday morning, and I'm thrilled to be here with y'all. So talking about kindest stories, I want to share something very beautiful. Like I was at a bank, at a local bank, and I was just reading in a line, and what I saw was that there was a mom with a little kid, and the kid was probably two or three years old, and he was getting a little and see, I mean, you know, that's not a place for the kid to be. I guess, because you've got to stand in line. And mom was trying to, like, you know, sue them and all that. And the teller stepped out and said that would be okay if I gave him a candy, and mom said sure, and she gave him a lollipop and there is this beautiful smile breakout on that little child's face, and everybody smiled at him, and it was just that that the whole environment in the whole bank changed just in that one moment.

2:21 So think about it. You can do a lot with a little kindness. A little kindness goes a long way. And for those of you who have got our books, thank you. If you have not, get the books and you will see a difference in your lives and shared the message with other people because our goal is to impact as many people as we can through our podcast for our messages, through books and through any other media we can. And also part of the profits from the books proceeds go to keep a dot org so your health being entrepreneurs.

3:01 So let's bring in our guest. Welcome Sally, Hi Divia, it's good to be here. Thank you, good to me. Have you. So seally share with paths as too. Do you have a special person? Do you have a special moment in your life that you cherish even today? Oh, I absolutely do the one person. I'd say. I have two sons and both of them are amazing, but my eldest, the moment he was born, I had this very strange experience. My brain told me something that I would not have told myself. As I watched him being lifted up out above me for the first time and I got to see him for the very first time, my brain said, here is the one who will teach you all you need to know. And I was twenty five, and I thought, no parents teach their children all they need to know. But my brain told me this other thing.

4:27 And I don't know where that came from, but honestly, that boy has been the most incredible teacher all my entire life. And he was a superstar and he committed suicide at twenty three. Yeah, I'm so sorry. Well he's still teaching me. I had to learn so very much because I was just becoming a psychotherapist when this happened, and I just barely had the tools to possibly cope with the grief and the pain and the loss, the shock, everything. But as I did, I realized I also had the tools to find out what I missed, and that just threw me into a complete anthropological dig of our entire lives to find out the stories I must have missed that took a superstar to suicide, And over twenty eight years, I found them, and none of them died with him. They're all happening right now to young people, and so it became my mission as a mom and a psychotherapist to tell his stories in a way that would help other people survive what we didn't.

5:53 And that's what that one, that child has been doing for me ever since he was born. Hm. Hm, It's. It's very powerful how you have taken what has happened in your life and turned it around for the better and good of other people. And when we do that, there is so much more power to it. So I'll share with you. I get a lot of different clients from. Young parents and to young professionals, to like you know, who are just having a baby, and then they talk about the issues like you know, how they don't have time to.

6:41 A lot of different folks professionals. You know, they could be like VP or in executives or mid managers, and they're saying that everything is going great, but I'm not able to communicate with my children. Yeah, that stress is pull me down. I'm really worried about them. And actually one of my clients shed that our manager, like the manager who was reporting into a VPI, that she was a star performer great, like you know, like she had joined three years back, but her son was in high school and things were going and that she was going downhill and she did not know what to do and how.

7:28 To support it. So, because what happens is the corporate world, like the work needs to go on. What can people do? So first of all, you mentioned that you missed out on the story. So even before it comes to this, share with us how parents can see what stories they're missing and what could they do so that they don't have to miss those stories. Oh, that's such a beautiful question, Pat Diva. I spent twenty eight years trying to find that answer out and in my book. I wrote a book and there are eight tears to our personal growth. Every single person goes through the same eight tiers. If you understand the core issue, it's a growth issue that we face at every new tier.

8:27 At birth, the first issue in life is trust or mistrust. And that baby is sentient. He is or she has been in the womb and paying attention, able to hear, able to feel completely aware of its surroundings. And when it's born, can it trust the environment? Do people love it and hold and take care of it and give it the attention it needs, or do they just ignore it and let it cry? I mean that baby is paying attention and so what it learns at the very beginning of life is going to affect it for the rest of its life. And in my case that little baby that I had, which was very wanted. This little boy named I named John after Jonathan Livingston Seagle because his father was an airline pilot. He was born and he was crying and crying and crying, and the doctor just kept telling me it's colic, it's just colic, and you know, you just have to wait it out. It's three months, and it was just miserable. And after three months he was still crying so hard, and I, you know,

9:58 it was just a terrible thing. And I called the doctor and he said, well, maybe it's the four month colic or the five month colic. And I got so mad I hung up on him. Another got another pediatrician immediately went to see it. Took my son to see him the very first day. And he was examining John and he was feeling around his collarbones and he said, oh, look here, he said, feel right here. There was a lump and he said, he's had a broken collarbone. That's why he's crying. Oh my goodness. And it was never diagnosed and I couldn't tell because he was so it was just a teeny little guy.

10:41 I didn't it was. It was not all the way broken out, but it was it was broken, and so that was why he was crying. And so he learned to mistrust because I couldn't I didn't help him, I heard him, and that affected him for the rest of his life. And then but you know, the next stage of life, it's you know, the children are learning how to move and how to get to where they want to go, and so their their whole thing is about autonomy. They want to move and be free to move and check everything out and they're so curious and they want to learn how to how to move and how to how to find out about every single thing and put it in their mouth and you know, play with it at whatever.

11:29 Yeah, like, the more the more you tell them, know, the more they want to do those things. Oh of course, of course, so you know, and so that that they really need to feel like they can accomplish things. They can feel you know, pride in the fact that they can get to where they want to go. And that's it's called the stage is called autonomy versus shame and doubt because if they can't succeed in just getting to where they want to go, if they're constantly frustrated, that if they're constantly unable to do that, they're going to feel bad about themselves and that yes, yes, yes, yes yes. And so it's really important that children get success experiences, that they get to be able to do these things that they're so desirous of doing as long as they're safe. So the parents' job is just to create a safe space so they can go anywhere and they're fine. And so you give them places what to do.

12:32 You can do this, you can do that, you can do these other things, but you basically baby proof the house so that they can't get on a certain height, you know, right, right, And so at every age there's a new issue, and each one is a growth one. It's helping them become more than they were. And it's inside of us. It's inside. Nobody sees it, nobody hears it, but it's there. And so if we know those stages and we know what's important at every stage, then we can really help our children grow. And so with my son, when he was about ten years old, I think I told him, I said, you know, this is why, because he would shy away from you if you tried to touch him. He just you know, back away. And so I told him, I said, this is why you do.

13:29 That is because you know of when you were born, you had a broken collarbone that wasn't diagnosed, so every time I touched you or picked you up, it probably hurts you. And I said, and that's why you don't you do this. It's an automatic response now, But that's not who you are. I said, it was just a misunderstanding from the doctor. And he, you know, once I went to a new doctor and learned what happened, then everything was fine. But in the meantime, you learn not to trust. So he wouldn't let you touch him. And so I tried to tell him that and his response was really interesting. He said, well, it's good to know where I got it, but what do I do about it?

14:14 And I said, I don't know, But I said, but knowing that this isn't who you are is really important. That this is just an effect of something that happened to you, but it isn't who you are. And so, but that's mistrust. If you have mistrust at the beginning of your life, you are a higher risk of suicide later on. So you've talked about the early stages, what about the later stages in life, like you know, as they're growing and so many times they could be in college or even grown ups. Yes, and in the middle stages like around college. Their whole issue is establishing an identity and establishing you know, who am I? You know, and it's really important that they do that among their peers because their peers are going to be the people who they're going to be with for the rest of their life. And it's really important that they get reflected back as to their own personality, who they are and how they are. And once that is in place, that's a very that's a very positive thing.

15:32 But it's either identity or role confusion, they just become confused and lost. And that's another place, that's a very serious place where children do end up falling, and that's when breaks happen, schizophrenia happens. That's a very dangerous time. So can you tell us a little bit more about the role confusion. Yeah, Role confusion is when you can't establish a coherent identity. You just can't. You know, you're you're not getting you don't have friends, you don't have interests, you can't find your way in society, you're not getting great good grades, you're falling, You're just not not getting the support you need to feel strong and clear and able to succeed.

16:30 And that's one of the things that I really want to talk about, because we aren't teaching children or you know, people of any age, how to speak effectively. We're not teaching them how to self regulate their emotions. We're not teaching them how to listen, and listening is the key to growth and to learning and you know the more. And we're not teaching the very qualities that chill their need to cohere a solid, integrative identity that they can trust and grow through the rest of their life with. And so this is where we are lacking as a society.

17:13 We do not teach social emotional skills in school and that is a huge, huge problem, and they expect the parents to teach it, and they've never been taught them either. And so it's a real catastrophe that's going on right now in America. And I am really dedicated to turning that around. And so for the last twenty one years, I am invited into high schools for free and I lead an eight week class in teaching social emotional skills to the students and I teach them to these are a high school juniors. And every year I walk in and I see a sea of dead eyes, just dead bored eyes. And eight weeks later, you can't believe the light in those eyes and their hands are constantly raising.

18:13 Everybody's excited and they're realizing as they're learning the skills of how to get along with other people, how to make a difference in your voice, in your eye contact, with your body language, with everything that you can make a difference. You matter, your stories matter, and every kid learns from every other kid, and it just creates a wave and there's no end to the possibilities. It's just absolutely a phenomenal thing. It's not very pastic. What's that you're doing? So now, like you know, we have the medium to share with her audience, So share, like, you know, what are some of the basic things that parents could teach.

18:56 You mentioned that you know a lot of responsibility lies with parents. Well let's start. Let's start at that phase, Like, you know, share with us some practical. Ways where the parents, whether it is or whether it's like you know, leaders and the corporations that let's say, the young fresh graduates are coming in and if they're lacking, you know, what are some of the practical ways that they can teach that social emotional learnings. Well, you want to you want to teach First of all, corporations are not really educating the new people coming on board of all the different uh, the you know, the life of a corporation, the kinds of things that we face in a corporation. Uh. They really need to understand the mechanics of a corporation so that they cannot take things personally, because that's a big problem, you know. And with my son when that was the immediate cause of his suicide was he was, yeah, he was had been hired as appointment on a development team in Silicon Valley.

20:10 It was a very high, high level job and so he was the one who was supposed to be competitive with Microsoft and Apple and that kind of thing. And he was very excited about this job, and he was doing really well and he loved his boss. He thought it was great. And six months in he went to work one day and they said, okay, you're being transferred to a different part of the department of the company. And they brought him to this new place and introduced him to his new boss, and he started saying, what about I done wrong? And they said nothing, You've done nothing wrong, and he couldn't believe them because he was being demoted and he was like, what what what? What has happened? And he went into shock. And he was a boy who had never got to be in his whole life. He was he was a superstar, he really really was, and so he thought he had failed, which was inconceivable for him, and and that that that nobody was able to tell him anything. They just said, you're doing fine, everything's great. This is just what we have to do right now. But he wasn't getting any answer with regard to what had happened, and that's when he actually killed himself.

21:39 Oh I'm so sorry. Yeah. But years later, after I was somewhat healed, I started to research that company because I wanted to find out what happened to it. And what I found blew me away because what I found was that exactly at the time John was demoted, that that same day, the company was in talks with IBM to merge, and they were merging with IBM, so his job was going to be gone, but they weren't ready to publicize this fact. Yeah, so it wasn't it wasn't it wasn't time for them to publicize it, but it was going on, you know, it was, it was happening, and so he was being he was being put in a place where he would that would survive the buyout. They were trying to keep him, and but they couldn't tell him about the fact that it was there was a merger going on.

22:51 M hmm. Some situations like this, what could be done? That is when I really believed that they should be you know, should give some kind of a movie or film or something about the dynamics of corporations and how they work and the kinds of things that happen in corporations that have nothing to do with your you know, your work or your ability or your performance or anything like that. But these are just things that happen in inside corporations because they are a money making thing and they're an entity that only is existing to make money. But then there's other companies and there's competition, and buyouts happen, and so if people know the lay of the land in a corporation, they'll be better able to understand the meaning and not take things personally where they end up, you know, setting themselves up for failure.

23:47 M and this goes back to the communication piece that you were talking about earlier, that it's about communicating and letting them know that there are things worked with a lot of my clients who say that, you know, we are going to do lay offs and I cannot tell them and it's coming. Yeah, So but they could be warned ahead of time. They could be well, sometimes they're not able to get warn but like here's the thing, Like you know that when you are sitting and delivering that message, that's the key moment and prepping them during that time that I want to share how I see you as a strong candidate, as a strong person, and illustrate everything and then just be transparent that there are things that are going on that we're not at liberty to disclose and just want to share with you that this has got nothing to do with you. And like it's not just at during that time. It's during that time of a leader working with the client or working with the employees, right like you know, working with the reports, letting them know that they appreciate they're heard, and creating that nurturing environment where they can grow and building that trust. Going back to what you had said initially when your son was young, so like it's the trust is so fragile, so that like, you know, building that trust continuously, not waiting till the last minute. Absolutely, it would go long way. So kind

25:19 of coming back to parents. Now, corporations have a responsibility, but before that, like you know, most of the time, like especially when they're young, kids do spend time with the parents. So what could parents do in the forming years? What techniques like if if you have any practical, actionable techniques that you can share that parents would do, that would be great. Yes, I one of the things I'm you know, Okay, this goes back to my grandmother. She was a very definite pioneer. She had come across the prairie and a covered wagon when she was two years old, and she was this flinty old pioneer lady. And when I brought my son home and she came to visit for the first time, the first thing she said was, well, don't keep the house too clean. Kids need dirt for their immune system. It makes them stronger. And I thought that was that blew my mind because it was the opposite of what I was going to do. Of course, I was going to absolutely sanitize that house to pieces, and she was like, no, kids need to live, learn to live with dirt. It helps strengthen their immune systems. And so that was a mind boggling message which I helped me a lot. And the other thing she says was and the other thing she said is turn on the

26:51 vacuum cleaner the minute he gets home and keep it on for three days. Then he'll sleep through anything. But what she was really telling me was something even more profound. She was saying, let children deal with difficulty. It helps grow them from the inside out. You can support them, you can, but you don't take it away from them. You don't give them a flat playing field. You want them to have issues come up, and as they do, they need to learn the skills to regulate themselves and how to cope with difficulties and how to overcome them.

27:36 And the more you overcome difficulties, the more resilient you become. Otherwise you don't get those skills, you just don't. And that's the problem today, there's a real problem. A lot of people with the gen Z kids aren't even hiring them because they don't know how to cope because the parents took care of everything. So that nothing bad would ever happen to these kids, and they've learned no skills as a result, they've learned no way to resource themselves, and they could have all the way along. So I really believe that, you know, some difficulties are absolutely appropriate and necessary for children to encounter and deal with. You know, of course, if there's something serious, you can certainly, you know, support them and believe in them and give them ideas, but don't just give them a flat playing field where everything is taken care of. The Other thing is that we we we can we really tell our children, and our kids experience grades. If they don't get an A, it's a fit. They feel like they're failing. I mean, if you get a bad grade, it is not a problem.

28:55 It means you're at a new edge. It means you're right on the verge of new learning. It is not bad in itself. It is not And we sit there and punish children for bad grades when bad grades just mean they're at a new learning edge, and that's a good thing. And every single thing you learn what to do instead of you know, the mistake, then you learn what to do, and that makes you feel good. I had one of the most amazing young men I had as a tenant one time, who's now in Einstein's seat told me once he said, you know, I'm not that smart, but he said, I'm unusually determined. And that's what success is all about. It's about never giving up that mistakes are to learn from. They're not bad in themselves. There's something you can learn from and that makes them good.

30:01 And so no way do we sit there and punish our children for being at a new edge. We sit there and support them and say, yep, there's an answer, there's a solution to this, and you're going to come to it, and you can help them a little bit, but let them do the work because they are going to that's going to help them for the rest of their life. If that makes any sense. Of course, it makes a lot of sense, because life is not flat, no, and hmm, well like so, usually what happens is what I've seen is that parents themselves, parents themselves are they may have gone through something through their lives and they want to give better lives to their children, and then the quest of that they forget.

30:58 And I have done that myself too. But the key is, like you know, we keep on learning and understanding that. And as you're saying that, you know, that's why it's so important to talk about this. So tell us, like, let's say your kids have grown up. Now you've missed the chance to it of them become resilient when they were young. What could people do? So you're asking about what you can do if the kids have not. Yeah, like let's say, like you know, and there are a lot of parents because this is not taught to us. Yes, as to that, like, you know, go ahead and look at your children's psyche in this way or if they're like that, it's passed on from generation to generation. And going back to the original story or the original client story that I was sharing about, that the parents had done the best they could. Now the kid was grown up and they were having issues communicating with them, and her boss had come to me, what do I do? Like, you know, I'm trying to support her, and yet it's the work needs to continue. So what can parents do at that stage?

32:11 Well, I would say parents need to allow their children to make mistakes, but they also want to believe in those children and make sure that they are given the tools that they can use to get you know, click get the the education, the information that they can use, but not to give it to them. The parents aren't to give it to them. Get a book, get classes, get get tutoring, get something like that so that they have a way to succeed. There's just so much available.

32:54 But if it's if it's not happened already, then it's never to As long as a child is alive, there's never it's never too late. It's too late if they're not alive. They believe me, in life, everything can happen, and you and I really believe that making sure the children take responsibility for their learning and their growth and their their behavior is really important because that's what's going to make sure that that's going to ensure that they will be successes in life. If they just take responsibility for what they don't have or what they do have, or are what isn't working. If they take responsibility, nothing can stop them. And I have a great example of that, if you want, of course, please go ahead. Okay, my little son, my son who was a year and a half younger than his brother, who is a superstar, who never got to be when he was growing up underneath his brother. When he was very young, he thought he was a loser because he couldn't possibly cope with you know, he couldn't couldn't match his elder brother. He wasn't old enough, and he was differently calibrated, and so when he went to school, school put him in special Ed and they considered him deficit. They said he had learning disabilities and

34:27 speech impediments and all these things. But his teacher was a very unique young man and he saw a lot of potential in my own my son, and so he was giving him extra work and then complaining about how much how much he made him stay up late at night grading his papers, and of course that made my son do more until he basically tested out of special Ed and he got out of special Ed. But at that same time he had lost two real years of school, so he was really really behind, and so he was He stayed a one point zero GPA until he was fourteen, and at fourteen he quit school and he became the biggest truant San Marcus High School ever had. He has the highest number of cuts ever recorded from San Marcus High School. And every day I would get the call and I would leave work and go flying past San Marcus High School. Looking for my truant son. And I live in Santa Barbara, and I'd always end up at the beach, because where else is a truance going to go but the beach in Santa Barbara. And I'd go and I'd scour the perimeter like a buzzard and have to go back to work because I'd never find him.

35:54 I'd be mad. I'd come home, just really furious, and there he'd be, and I yell, hit Stonewell. The next day he'd do it again. But what I didn't know, Davia, which is so important, is that he brought a book to the beach with him every day, and the book was called Getting Straight A's Oh. And he read that book and reread it at the beach. I don't know how many times I have it. It's completely destroyed. And when he went back to school the next year, he went from a one point to a four point wow, because now he knew how to learn, he knew the steady skills, he knew how to really apply himself. That book taught him everything he needed to know, and that's not being taught in schools either. And it didn't dawn on me, but he took the responsibility of getting that book and reading it and reading it and reading it again.

36:58 And so he went to a became a four. You went to a four point zero. He maintained that through City College, went on into cal Poly and aeronautical design engineering, and graduated with an offer from Lockheed, which he turned down, saying, I don't want to be an engineer. And I was like, well, what do you want to do? And he said, I want a model virtual reality with a computer geniuses. And I said, if you've done what you just did, you can do anything you want. So he took a minor in computer science and a few years later he was the head of all the production of all three Lord of the Rings movies.

37:39 Oh wow. And so what he had taught me there is that if you take responsibility for your situation, no matter what it is, there's ways you can learn and grow on your own, and then you own your success. You own it in a way that nobody else can take that away from you ever. And so he's a superstar. He's become a superstar on his own. And when his brother committed suicide, it was a really hard time, and on the way to the funeral, he said something that really hit me so hard. He said, you know, Mom, as long as John was alive, I knew I was part of a really smart family that at the time he didn't think he was so smart, but he knew he had the genes and that gave him hope. Oh, that gave him hope. And so in a way, his brother was hard on him because he was always the ceiling he couldn't possibly get, you know, match when he was younger.

38:50 But John also gave him hope that he too had the same genetics, he could do the same, and he did. He did. So I think that's a beautiful thing. If you teach children to take responsibility for their actions or their inactions, nothing can stop them. It's a beautiful story. And Sally, I know you've written a book. Why don't you share with people? Where can the connect with you? And the name of your book? And thank you? Thank you so much for sharing your story and your heart with us. Oh, thank you so much, Divo for this opportunity. It's so important. I'm eighty one years old now and I don't feel it, and I feel like I really have a lot to tell people from what I've had to learn the hardest way possible. And the whole reason was for the book was to tell Jones's story in a way that would help other people avoid the kind of fate that he had. And whether it's suicide, or whether it's drugs, or if it's criminality or any of these other things that children can fall prey to, those are all basically they're kind of a passive suicide. They don't kill you, but they will destroy your life. And so I just want people, all children, I want them to grow to their full potential. I want them to just have a wonderful life. And so I'm using my sons

40:20 as a cautionary tale of what can happen that can go wrong at every age, because at every age something did go wrong for my son, and I didn't have any idea about this at the time. Parents are not taught about the stages that children go to through as we grow and the toggle that is alive and well in each of these stages that helps grow us to the next level. And if we don't support these children in the way that works for their inner growth, they're set up for failure. And we're not teaching in school.

41:01 And so that is what I created a book that would give people the tools to see exactly what to do from what we didn't do that created so that they can take the lessons and survive and thrive for the rest of their lives. And then off the book, it's called Yes, this is a Son I Knew too late, a guide to help you survive and thrive. And that is my promise. This is not a negative book. It's not a downer. It's a very powerful book because it's taking the real true stories of my son and it's teaching them in a way that's going to help other people live and know how to live every step of the way from birth to old age. It works. And so I'm very proud of this book because I had angels helping me write it, and it took an enormous amount of time, but I'm so it's on Amazon. It's four point six stars right now, and it's the stories of the people. The reviews of the people reading it are just so wonderful because it's proving that it's doing exactly what I hoped it would do.

42:17 That's beautiful. And the listeners. You can connect with Sally at Sally A Raymond dot com and get that book and it will help you live the life you deserve and help you, help you if you're a parent, oh, well to help your children. So thank you Sally, Oh my pleasure. Divya. It's such an important issue right now because our whole nation is splitting and it's completely unnecessary. Well, it's because we just haven't been taught the skills we need to have to have a great society and a happy life. And it's all connected absolutely well.

43:00 Thank you for joining us, and thank you listeners for joining us, because without you, the show would not be possible. And thank you for being part of her family and reach out to us and let us know how can we serve you, How can we support you so that you can live that joyous life that everyone deserves. And thank you one for making the show technically possible. Be val and take care until Lin's time. Thank you for being part of Beyond Confidence. With your host Divvia Park, we hope you have learned more about how to start living the life you want. Each week on Beyond Confidence, you hear stories of real people who've experienced growth by overcoming their fears and building meaningful relationships.

43:43 During Beyond Confidence, Diva Park shares what happened to her when she stepped out of her comfort zone to work directly with people across the globe. She not only coaches people how to form hard connections, but also transform relationships to mutually beneficial partnerships as they strive to live the life they want. If you are ready to live the life you want and leverage your strengths, learn more at www dot wpark dot com and you can connect with wads. Contact at dwpark dot com. We look forward to you're joining us next week.