Episode 136: Getting Your Child to Speak, Feed and Lead with Jackie Bailey – Transcript
Rennie Gabriel 00:10
Hi folks, welcome to Episode 136 of the Wealth On Any Income Podcast. This is where we talk about money tips, techniques, attitudes, information, and provide inspiration around your business and your money. I'm your host, Rennie Gabriel. In past episodes, we spoke about how to understand the numbers from your business, how to measure the level of pleasure based on where you spend your money, how to track your money in 5 to 10 seconds, what determines how close you are to Complete Financial Choice®, and how to run your business without being in your business. Last week, we had Filip Fucic, who is a business analyst by trade, specializing in helping solopreneurs to easily double and triple their fees. Today, we have as our guest, Jackie Bailey. As the international conversation coach for kids, Jackie Bailey gets kids talking to their parents, making healthy friendships, and feeling confident and courageous to speak up and speak out. She is the best-selling author of four books, the founder and director of a nonprofit and a champion speaker. You'll find out where to find her when we get to that later in the interview. But Jackie, welcome to the Wealth On Any Income Podcast.
Jackie Bailey 01:37
Hello, Rennie. It's delightful to be here with you. Thanks so much.
Rennie Gabriel 01:42
Well, I am chuckling as I read the bio thinking about getting kids to talk to their parents, which sounds like a monumental task. But tell me more about that and why you're doing it.
Jackie Bailey 01:59
Well, I developed curriculum in public speaking after I made it to the World Championship of Public Speaking contest as a semifinalist. And a group of parents came to me and said, 'We want someone to teach our kids public speaking because they won't talk to us.' And therefore, the foundational aspect of our curriculum is, Hey, let's teach these kids how to have meaningful conversations, because I felt that the reason they weren't talking to parents is because they didn't know how, they weren't sure what they could say, and they didn't have the courage or the confidence to know that they could actually contribute to a conversation. And that's where we started. So we have the five rules of effective conversation that we teach our students to get them right away talking to their family, initiating conversations, and knowing how to respond appropriately, so they can keep those conversations going longer. And the parents are very appreciative of that.
Rennie Gabriel 03:01
Got it. So it kind of sounds like a trick to me that you get them to do public speaking and now their parents get to hear what the kids want to say.
Jackie Bailey 03:11
Absolutely. Well, you know what, as parents, I'm a parent. I'm a grandparent. And for some reason, we have these things in front of us a lot today that we didn't have when we were kids. And unfortunately, we're putting a barrier between us and our kids. And they're learning that if Mom is asking them a question while she's texting someone, she's not really listening to them. So why should I take a long time, or use my breath, to answer that question when I know Mom's not really listening? So there are a lot of ways that we as adults, can also help our children to feel more comfortable communicating.
Rennie Gabriel 03:49
Yeah. And from my stepdaughter, she would get very annoyed with her mom, because her mom was on the phone a lot if they were spending time together. And she said, I'm not going to be with you if you're going to be on your phone.
Jackie Bailey 04:06
Good for her.
Rennie Gabriel 04:07
Yeah, yeah, she spoke up. Yeah.
Jackie Bailey 04:09
I like that.
Rennie Gabriel 04:10
She doesn't have a a problem speaking up.
Jackie Bailey 04:13
Good. But it is interesting, when I talk with my daughter who has four children, they seem to only act up when she's on the phone talking to me. Like that's when they want to get mom's attention and you know, behavior is communication. And when our kids start behaving certain ways, we have to try to figure out, What are they trying to tell me and really listen, besides more than just words, you want to listen to the behavior that's happening.
Rennie Gabriel 04:41
Thank you, insightful. Now, as you know, I donate 100% of the profits from the work I do teaching people how to handle money powerfully, gets donated to various animal and veteran charities. Tell me about a cause that's important to you.
Jackie Bailey 04:57
Well, as you mentioned in my introduction, this is a nonprofit that I run, it's called the Speak Feed Lead Project. And it takes 24 hours of my day in focus to make sure that we're reaching kids. In 2020, which is the latest statistics we have, 1700 children were killed in abusive situations. However, 600,000 reported abuse cases came in to the authorities. That means that more than half a million kids who haven't died in abuse, thank goodness, but they're being silenced. They're being told not to tell and they're being told to lie. And that is a tragedy. It's a tragedy that 1700 kids are dying every year. But also as tragic are the children who are being silenced and not being heard. So what our mission is, is to reach those kids, to reach all kids and give them the courage and the confidence to speak out. And that is the program that I'm most passionate about right now.
Rennie Gabriel 06:05
Thank you. And, yeah, there are a few cases, maybe a handful of cases that get in the news that create the awareness. I had no idea that number was that large, it's frightening.
Jackie Bailey 06:19
Yes, it is. But you know, we think that maybe abuse is the only time kids are silenced, but it's not. When we think of the global pandemic that we had recently, and kids were taken out of their normal routine, from school, from social situations, from sports and music. And that happened in a day. And without the life experience of knowing there's an end to this, we're going to be fine, it'll all turn back to normal, so many young people took their own lives, because they just couldn't see an end to it. And this was, in so many cases, the end of their world, and they were silenced in a lot of ways. So it doesn't have to be an abusive situation. There's lots of experiences in life that silence our kids as well.
Rennie Gabriel 07:04
Yeah, you know, things have happened in society, I get it. Tell me the target age of the people you're trying to reach.
Jackie Bailey 07:13
Our sweet spot is the middle school age group only because they still respect authority, to some degree, but they're also very curious and willing to experiment with their own feelings and to be able to share them and still be silly and not worry about people judging them in being silly. So we do like the middle school group as far as improvisation and communication skills. But we teach children that are in grades 4 - 5, so anyone as young as 10, and older, are our students. We also have wonderful programs for high school kids and those who are bound for college. Because they get to college and if they don't understand their value system, they don't understand what their passions are, or who they are, even how to communicate well, they can be tossed to and fro with whatever political or social issue is happening at the time, and they can get lost, and perhaps even confused in all of that. So by helping them get to college prepared, we feel like we're creating some really strong human beings for future leaders. But we also work with adults as well.
Rennie Gabriel 08:22
Okay. And so this is a two part question. Tell me what personal or business failure you've had, what insight you gained from that, or what you're doing based on that experience?
Jackie Bailey 08:36
Wow, I got a lot of business failures. Let's just talk about, you know, when, because I run a for-profit business, which I've had for about 16 years. And then this nonprofit I began about 3 1/2 years ago. And I didn't start either one of them because I had business prowess in any way. I did it through passion. So there's a lot of mistakes there. And every day I make more mistakes. You learn through the process, and you hope that somehow you're making a difference, even with your imperfections. But I will tell you . . .
Rennie Gabriel 09:11
I'm going to go back farther.
Jackie Bailey 09:13
Okay.
Rennie Gabriel 09:14
There was something that I want to say, inspired you when you were 11 years of age, someone named Debbie.
Jackie Bailey 09:22
Oh, yes. Debbie is my biggest regret. Because here I was in the throes of my own childhood abuse, which started probably when I was around 8 years old, as far back as my memory can go, and continued through my teenage years. But Debbie was my best friend when I was 11 years old. And she and I rode the same bus to and from school. She was always picked up before me and dropped off after me, so I never really knew where she lived. But we enjoyed sitting next to each other. And she was very meek, mild, in fact, I believe she may have belonged to, looking back now I think she belonged to some religious order where she had to wear dresses, and she spoke very politely. And well, kids like that often get bullied. And Debbie was no exception to that. On one particular day, the girl who ended up bullying her was actually a friend of mine. We were in several classes together and she never bullied me. But she had an older sister who rode the same bus with us. And on this particular day, those older girls were on the bus with us. And they were getting ready to get off at their stop, which was before the stop that I would get off, and then Debbie would get off. And at that moment, Debbie stood up, or Debbie put her foot on into the aisle to kind of get ready to stand up herself. And one of these girls tripped on her foot accidentally, and she was injured. She hit the big engine part of the bus, right. And this was Lexie and she hit her chin on this engine part. And it was bleeding. Well, because her older sister was there, she got very angry thinking that Debbie had done this on purpose. So she pulled Debbie off the bus. And I went with Debbie off the bus, it was actually going to be my stop. And so I got off the bus with Debbie being pulled off the bus. And immediately these older girls started hitting her, kicking her, they knocked her to the ground. Here she was wearing this little dress with black patent leather shoes, white bobby socks, you know, she's just this neat girl. She kept saying, I didn't do it on purpose. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. Of course, they didn't listen to her. And I didn't do anything. Rennie, I didn't do anything. I stood there paralyzed. I don't even know why. But at 11 years old, maybe I thought I didn't want to be a target myself. And if I stood up for my friend, maybe I would also get a beating. I don't know why. But someone in the neighborhood where this stuff happened to be must have witnessed what was going on because it wasn't long before a police car showed up. And the girls that were bullying, doing the bullying ran away. Debbie was okay. I mean, she was crying. There were muddy tears streaming down her cheeks because she'd been rolled in the dirt and so forth. She seemed okay, but of course frightened and she was crying. The police officer put her in the car and I assumed took her home. And I never saw Debbie again. She didn't come back to school. And because I didn't know where she lives, I wasn't sure how to find her. Or you know what I would even say to her, I just felt so bad. And that's why I regret to this day that I did nothing for my friend. I didn't stand up for her. There was an injustice happening, and I did nothing. And so today, I feel that what I'm doing might, in some way help a child to avoid being bullied, maybe even change the mind of a bully when they understand that everybody has value and maybe develop some empathy in them through public speaking and empowering skills like that. Maybe they won't bully. So in some small way I feel like I'm trying to redeem myself for that mistake.
Rennie Gabriel 13:26
Well, with all of the people that I know you've supported and helped, I think in a large way, you've made up for that situation with Debbie. Let's say that there's a parent, or I don't know if any children listen to my podcast, but is there a valuable free resource that can direct people to something that will further help them with this issue of communication?
Jackie Bailey 13:50
Yeah, actually I have contributed to a book that's called, No Problem Parenting, Raising Your Kiddos with More Confidence and Less Fear. My chapter talks about how to talk more with your kids. And so I have that chapter available if you don't want to get the entire book, which is an amazing resource, by the way, but my chapter I'll give to you for free as a downloadable PDF that you can read because it tells my story about why I'm doing what I'm doing. But it also gives parents great opportunity to change the way they're relating to their kids and communicating with their kids and the right types of questions to ask to get the information you're looking for. So I'm happy to give that away,
Rennie Gabriel 14:36
Please provide a link to that PDF for me, please email that to me, and I can add it to the show notes for people to download.
Jackie Bailey 14:45
Yep, happy to do that.
Rennie Gabriel 14:46
And is there a question that I should have asked you, that would also give some great value to those who are listening?
Jackie Bailey 14:53
Well, maybe you should ask about how parents find out about our courses?
Rennie Gabriel 14:57
Okay, how can parents find out about your horses?
Jackie Bailey 15:01
Thank you. That's a wonderful question. We are at, speakfeedlead.org. You can see that behind me, because we help children to speak with empowered voices to feed others through their words, and to lead with positive influence. So speakfeedlead.org is our nonprofit website. And once you're there, you'll see a tab that says public speaking courses. And there are all kinds of courses. We offer eight week courses that our basic foundational public speaking skills. Of course, we start with the conversation skills. We also have very specific courses for podcasting, Podcasting 101 for Teens, which many of our middle school students have already done. They develop their own podcast. They've been able to interview fabulous guests, people that they admire, or those that are in the industry that they want to be in. We also have a course for getting your child on a summit. We have become a broker of sorts, with our students now recognizing that they have voices they want to put out in the world and messages to share. So now summit organizers are asking us to allow our students to be on their summit as speakers. And so many of our speakers are students, actually 60 of them last year spoke on Summit. And so we have a course now that will help you get ready, help your student get ready for that. And then for those of you who have kids that are going into college, we have a course that's called ACE that Application, which helps them to create their personal essay, whether it's going to be in a written format on that college application, or whether, because some colleges require a video, we can create the script for that and help you create the video. All of the students that we've helped with that have gotten into the college of their choice. So that's really exciting. We have lots of courses out there. And of course, I offer private coaching as well. If you want your student to work with me for just a month because of a special occasion or an internship they want to get into, I'm happy to help them there. So all sorts of ways that we can develop that confidence encouraging your child to not remain silent anymore. We want them to be out there and speaking.
Rennie Gabriel 17:18
Fabulous. That is so terrific. Jackie, thank you for being on the Wealth On Any Income show.
Jackie Bailey 17:25
Thank you.
Rennie Gabriel 17:26
And to those who are listening, or watching, if you'd like to know how books, movies, and Society programs you to be poor, and what the cure is, then log on to wealthonanyincome.com/TEDx. You'll hear my TEDx talk and can request a free 9-Step Roadmap to Complete Financial Choice® and Philanthropy, and receive a weekly email with tips, techniques, or inspiration around your business, or your money. And if you'd like to see how you can increase your wealth, and donate to the causes that touch your heart, please check out our affordable program, Wealth with Purpose. To my listeners, thank you for tuning in. Next week, we'll have Jonathan Jay, who has been successfully buying and selling businesses for over 30 years, also talking about how it can be done with no money. You can listen to the Wealth On Any Income Podcast on your favorite platform. And please rate, review and subscribe. Until next week. be prosperous. Bye bye for now.
