Sean Stemphenson

Let’s do this.

Sean Stemphenson

Sure.

So, I’m inspired these days on this calling that reached out. It’s almost like a sub-set of my life purpose. My life purpose is to rid the world of insecurity. I’ve been working for this mission for years now a lot through teaching and entertainment.

There are lots of different ways to reach people to get them to realize that they are enough and that the insecurities bug us down. They get us to make poor choices that end up causing pain to ourselves and others.

As I continue down this life purpose, I found that it’s hard to change an adult’s mind.

It’s super effortless to influence a child’s mind.

Sean Stemphenson

This is why we’ve created this program called “Raising Confident Kids.” When you give a child the right environment to succeed and be confident, they do so almost effortlessly compared to an adult that you have to wrestle their limitations, fears, excuses, and insecurities.

And so, we are now looking at this as I’m creating a train the trainer program to do conscious parenting.

Sean Stemphenson

I’m equipping parents with the necessary tools to make sure they can handle the challenges in raising the kids as well as passing the tools on to the children. This is done, so these kids grow up with a strong sense of self-worth, positive self-image, a healthy body image, a healthy set of confidence where they are capable of handling challenges.

And so, we have created this new sub-set of my mission. We’re seeing wealthy parents are interested in learning more from my 17 years of being a therapist working with adults and parents. I get to see the result of lousy parenting.

Unfortunately, lots of people come in to see me for therapeutic purposes are still dealing with the scars from childhood often. It’s because their parents were ill-equipped in raising them with a solid self-image.

Sean Stemphenson

Absolutely.

Sean Stemphenson

One of the things is you got to look at all your commitments, and then match them up to your priorities.

Everybody’s got commitments like responsibilities at work, with their house, or in their marriage. There are lots of different commitments that we sign up for. In fact, if you want no responsibilities, get ready to be homeless. It’s not something I recommend.

We always have commitments, and that’s why we have to sift through them and see what the highest priorities are amongst those commitments.

Sean Stemphenson

Being there to build a solid foundation for your child is the highest priority.

Being a parent is the most important accountability and job title you’ll ever have in your life because you’re molding a human being’s beingness.

Whatever you’re saying around your child is becoming their internal dialog eventually.

This is why I tell parents “Don’t worry about what your child is going to do without you.”

Your kids have been around you for years. They’ve figured up what kind of person you are, and they can pretty much guess what their mom or dad would’ve said to them if they would ask a question. So don’t worry about having the need to prepare them.

Sean Stemphenson

I recommend the best thing you do once you picked out the fact that your child is your highest priority above all these other commitments is through conscious parenting. Remember the term “Monkey see, monkey do.”

Sean Stemphenson

If you want to do conscious parenting and raise a confident child, you must work on your self-confidence. If you want your child to be in healthy marriage, work on creating a healthy marriage or a healthy relationship.

Sean Stemphenson

I recommend people work on themselves to do conscious parenting.

People come to me, and they’re like, “What do I need to tell my child to get them to be stronger?” And I’m like, “Telling them isn’t going to do as much as showing them.”

Conscious parenting is showing them what it looks like they handle disappointment. Show them from a place of character and strength. Show them what it looks like to handle defeat, handle lost, dealing with challenges. Show them what a high integrity person looks like.

As parents, the best thing we can do is to create an incredible, influential example for a child to reference in their mind.

Sean Stemphenson

I’d have to explain my definition of confidence to help somebody become confident to do conscious parenting.

Sean Stemphenson

Confidence is the result of taking acts of courage.

Confidence is a by-product of making acts of courage, and I learned this from one of my mentors. He’s a psychiatrist that mentored me for a few years. He said, “Sean, every time we take an act of courage, we gain a point in confidence no matter how the outcome pans out.” This is an interesting concept because confidence is sexy and it’s crucial in conscious parenting.

Everybody wants confidence, but it’s courage that’s messy. Courage is those acts that we’re scared, but we know we need to take them because they’re going to propel us forward in our life.

Sean Stemphenson

And so, one of the tricks I would teach the old dog is, “Why are you not taking enough acts of courage?”

It takes a level of courage to go into a fitness facility when you’re out of shape and get on a piece of exercise equipment in front of everybody watching you and start working out even though you’re not in shape. That takes an act of courage.

Every time you’re working out, you walk away a little bit more confident. And then eventually, you leave from a bit more fit, and healthy. Until eventually, you turn into that person that picture of health you always wanted to be.

What you did took acts of little courage every single day to fight against those insecure demons that say, “What are you doing in here? You look like a fat pig. You’re on this treadmill, and you’re far from your goal. You might as well just go home and enjoy those Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

It’s taking those acts of courage and fighting in the face of those insecurities. Then you walk away a little bit more self-assured.

The best thing that I would say to be successful in conscious parenting is to take more acts of courage. What are you not doing in your life that you know if you did it with more repetition and consistency, your life would get better?

Sean Stemphenson

When I hear discipline, conscious parenting has a different perspective on it.

I don’t believe we need to look at discipline as a raft to get them to do the right thing. That’s how a lot of people interpret it. Not to say that you thought that, but I just want to make that clear to your listener that you don’t need to see discipline as a raft.

Sean Stemphenson

Rather, we frame discipline as you setting boundaries for your child to respect themselves. It’s not even about respecting you and your rules, and your authority.

Sean Stemphenson

When they are doing things that are not respectful to themselves in their behavior and their choices, then you have to enforce a boundary. A boundary is, “You’re not getting your cell phone tonight.” Or, “You’re not getting access to the car.” Or, “You do not have that sleepover.”

That’s not because you’re trying to bring down some raft to rule upon them and to bring them some pain. Rather get them to realize “Oh. My decisions add a result that leads to a consequence. Whereas, if I’ve would have made a decision that would have increased my self-respect and respected my environment around me, I get more privileges, access, and freedom.” And as we teach our children to respect themselves, to respect their surroundings, and the things around them, we get to reward them.

So I have a different perspective on it. You have to look at it that as a parent who does conscious parenting, you have a choice. And, this choice is how flexible you are going to be and how much you are going to enforce boundaries.

Sean Stemphenson

I see this based on the spectrum. Some parents are way too flexible. They have no boundaries with their children, and their children walk all over them, and we all go and point fingers and judge that parent.

Then, there are the parents that over enforce boundaries and have no flexibility. Their child ends up resenting them. The child doesn’t learn respect for themselves and their environment. They end up just hating their ruler, and we end up pointing fingers and judging that parent.

I think conscious parenting is a balance of being flexible and enforcing a boundary. That means knowing that sometimes, the rules will need to be bent based on the context of the scenario. Also, knowing that sometimes, you have to lay down the law by saying, “We made it very clear. We had an agreement. You broke the agreement and so, therefore, all I’m doing is enforcing the boundary that we agreed upon in advance.”

Sean Stemphenson

When a child understands why you’re doing what you’re doing to them, why you’re taking something or giving something to them, they will begin to draw the conclusions in advance. It’s when we keep them out of the loop, and we let our anger get in the way. And that’s the issue with conscious parenting.

If we can do things with not in a place of snapping, do something where we develop our internal sanity, and our internal compass, so we’re not using our child as a pin cushion for when we’re overwhelmed, and we come down, and we pass our bricks on to them. When we break that cycle and come from a place of respecting the rules you set out ahead of time, the child will eventually see, “My choices are impacting my reality.”

Sean Stemphenson

Absolutely. I don’t know if we need to be as obsessed of “Am I doing a good job?” as we are.

That obsession of “Am I doing a good job,” another way of saying it in reverse is, “Am I screwing the kid up?” That’s what I hear often. It’s like “Did I screw my child up? Is it too late for them?”

Sean Stemphenson

Exactly.

I heard once, and I loved it. If a parent comes at the end of their life taking their last breath, and they know their kids love their lives, they can close their eyes in peace and go to sleep for eternity. I love that because if you have done conscious parenting and shared with your child examples of what it looks like to love your life, they’re going to pick up on that.

Sean Stemphenson

And so, whenever you’re worried “Am I doing a good job?” That’s just another reminder that you got more work to do on yourself.

I heard Jim Rohn used to say, “Don’t work on your business, work on yourself. Your company will take of itself.” I say the same thing with conscious parenting.

Don’t worry about your raising your children. Put your attention on building yourself and becoming a better example to them.

You can’t be the only example of your kid’s life. They’re going to go to school. They’re going to surf the internet. They’re going go to a friend’s house. They’re going to have many different influences in their life, but when they go home, they need to see a positive impact. They need to see an example of mom and dad or mom or dad as a solid stable being that loves their life and that works for themselves.

Sean Stemphenson

The challenge that I see in the personal growth industry and the consumers of the personal development industry is we wait too long. We get to 40, 50, or 60, and then, we sneak over to the personal growth section, and we grab a book on the shelf, and we go to that table, and read “Why am I so screwed up?”

As opposed to, what if our parents said that personal growth is not a result once you’ve messed up but rather, personal growth can be implemented now while you’re young. And you perform personal growth rituals into your family life.

On Sundays, on nights before bed, or before dinner, you had personal growth routines. You talked about “What did you do today to become more of what you want to be?” And you start instilling personal growth rituals and conscious parenting into daily life.

Personal growth is not something that you should get around to in and around your busy schedule. Personal growth should come first. And then, fit the rest of it around that. Because, what’s the point of everything you’re doing? Is it to accumulate more stuff? Good God.

When you come to the end of your life, you don’t want to be like, “I’m glad I’ve obtained all these stuff.” That’s a sad existence. Rather, come to the end of your life and think, “Damn. I became who I wanted to be. I was that great example for my child because they love their life and I love mine. And I had a great marriage, and I have had \much fun learning from this existence of mine.”

I like to work backward in my life. And I get parents and children to work backward. To the end of your life, who do you want to become? It’s so easy to get caught up in achievement and like, “We need better grades with our kids. We need to have a bigger house, better car, better clothes for them, and a larger amount of stuff.” That doesn’t matter. What matter is when you’re around the dining room table, are you laughing?

Sean Stemphenson

When you look into your lover’s eye and your parent, and your children are looking out an example of love? Are you showing them what two people in love that are healthy look like? Are you showing two people that are taking care and working toward each other?

I have incredible parents. They were amazing examples to me. What I loved that they put their marriage ahead of me, so I always felt safe. I knew mom and dad had a stable relationship, and then they took care of me.

A lot of parents put their kids above their marriage and makes the child scared on an unconscious level. So personally, my opinion, not everybody’s going to agree with this.

Your marriage needs to be solid. Your relationship needs to be trustworthy with yourself above your marriage even.

If you don’t like yourself, it’s going to be very hard to like your partner and your partner to like you.

These are just my interpretations of life. I just hope the things I’m learning and revelations that I’m coming across can impact your listener and help them with conscious learning.

Sean Stemphenson

Yeah.

Sean Stemphenson

I appreciate that because I rolled up my sleeves. I’ve read the marriage clinic. I did the homework with my wife. I figured out something before we were even engaged and when we were just dating. We decided, “This is something we’re building. This relationship is a third party. There’s you, there’s me, and there’s the relationship.”

We treat our relationship as a third entity, and we asked ourselves “Yeah. This might be good for you. This might be good for me but is this good for the relationship?”

Sometimes, that one surprises us because we’ll be like, “No. It’s good for you and me, but it’s not good for the relationship.” And, we will pass on a decision that’s not good for the relationship.

I think that children are looking to their parental units, and many of them don’t even have examples of love in their lives. And so, they have to find it later somewhere else.

I mentored a lot of powerful, successful people, and I recently was talking to an individual who makes hundreds of millions of dollars. He is successful, and I said to him, “Would you die for your children?” And he said, “Absolutely.” I said, “I get that, and I believe you. But, I’m not building a healthy relationship. You’re not living for them.

Lots of people would die for their children but are they living for them? This is why I deal with a lot of times, mothers. It’s not always. Sometimes, it’s the fathers, but typically, it’s the mothers. They work so hard for their children, for their spouse, for their company. They’ll put everything and everybody else but nothing into themselves.

I’ll tell the mothers, “Do you want your kids doing that?” They’ll say, “Heck, no.” And I’ll be like, “But that’s what you’re showing them to do. You’re showing them that you need to give everybody but yourself to be a person on this planet. That’s the example you’re setting for them. Is that the example you want to continue to set for them?”

I love working with parents because I have an incredible leverage and that are their kids. I’m making my subtle secretive objective a little bit clearer in this interview, and that is, people will work harder for their children, and they will find themselves. So I use their children and conscious parenting as a leverage point for them to work on themselves.