weeks working on the online course and getting that filmed.
Getting an online course now that's exciting. Yes. Any aspirations with that? What are you
hoping to accomplish with the online course? Seven figures, baby. Nice. Awesome. Seven figures. How
many people will go? Is it a course for the kids or is it a course for the parents? Well, actually
both because and we can talk about this in the interview. The course is for parents but the
number one complaint parents offer is that they don't know what to say or how to say to their kids
about body safety. So I'm actually going to film videos where I speak directly to the kids. They
can watch together as a family then have a conversation about. That's brilliant. That's
awesome. And you are so right. Do I use that word? Do I not use that word? What have I already
learned in school? Is my ex going to get mad at me for teaching this? That's a whole bag of awesome
that you're producing for parents. Thank you. We have a parents everywhere. Thank you. I can
reference this too and be like, she said it, not me. And she's a professional. I'm glad you're
enthusiastic about that because you're my test audience here. I am. I'm loving that. Okay.
Awesome. So all right. Let's see here. What are, all right, there's proactive parenting
and protecting those kiddos. What are three like ultra secrets about proactive parenting?
I would say, first of all, you and your child have more power to protect them than you may think.
That's the number one secret. A lot of people think that they don't have the ability to protect
their kids when their kids aren't around or that their kids don't have the ability to protect
themselves when the parents aren't around. And that is not true. Number two is that confidence is
the number one predator repellent. So when you raise a competent child who is comp, who knows
how to trust her intuition and set boundaries and defend those boundaries, they are less likely to
be a target for predators. That's huge. Yes. And then third, I would- All right. Welcome in to Vision
Pros Live. With Jackson Calame, I'm your show host. We'll be doing interviews for visionary
entrepreneurs and guest leaders who are building fantastic visions out there.
Awesome. Welcome in my friends to Vision Pros Live. I'm your show host, Jackson Calame,
founder and CEO of First Class Business. I am so, so, so excited to have CJ Scarlett on stage.
If you're not doing it already, Google her name. You will learn awesome things about her. She is
the bad A grandma. I'm going to avoid saying her title for the sake of making sure this reaches as
many people as possible. But she is that cool. She's dope. She's fresh. She's an OG. Whatever
cool slang word you want to use, she's absolutely amazing. And she helps parents learn how to
protect their kids from concerns, harmful things that exist online, in person, et cetera. She's
super cool. We're going to be bringing her on in just a minute. So be prepared for that. CJ are
going to rock this session. It's going to be a lot of fun. I have four kiddos. I don't know if you'll
know that. I have four kiddos that are my world from 12 to 3 years old. Every time I get to talk
to CJ, and we've talked about 8 to 10 times now on different things she's up to with the brand and
her vision and how awesome it is and what she's doing with Bark, et cetera. There's so many cool
things about what's going on with her. I get to learn a little bit more about how to help my kids.
So every endeavor I have with her is 100% selfish in addition to the fact that I also
may get to have some influence on the direction of the vision too on occasion. I'm humbled by that.
Let's talk about these sponsors real quick. Patrick Creighton of Laidback Languages.
So Patrick is, he knows six different languages. He's mastered six languages and he's an amazing
teacher. He's got an amazing heart. If you're in a position where you want to learn a foreign
language for whatever reason, he's your guy. This guy has incredible capacity to understand
who people are, understand about the cultures, and guide people towards learning languages fast.
As somebody who speaks Spanish myself and knows what it takes to learn another language,
I can say that his principles and mine align completely. I was able to pick Spanish up and
learn it fluently in about four and a half months. It's not because I'm some super genius. It does
have a lot to do with the diligence and determination, but there are other secret factors. I won't
steal his thunder. Whereas I talked to him about what he does, I was like, ooh, that's why you're
that amazing as a coach for language. So then there's Detail Publishing. Detail Publishing,
for all of you entrepreneurs out there, she is my content marketing queen. She is one of my
favorite entrepreneurs on earth. One of my favorite people on earth. This is Ashley Detail. She's a
book publisher, as well as content marketing strategist, worked with the Nomad Capitalists,
helped them revamp more than 2000 articles, most of which she also wrote, and the amount of R&D
that it would take to write for one of the top performing financial advisors in the world.
We're talking about people coming to his conference in Costa Rica who are billionaires
and multi-level millionaires. It's just insane how deep her brain goes into difficult territories.
While also having the capacity to publish a book called Wallace the Westy, a Christmas story about
a puppy, and she's an amazing singer. She's so well-rounded. Why is that important? I find that
the best entrepreneurs and the best servant leaders, those who are helping people win, tend
to be extremely well-rounded individuals. And as I mentioned, I've worked with thousands and
thousands of entrepreneurs in different capacities, from restaurant industries, POS companies, to real
estate and beyond, and she is one of my absolute favorite people on earth. So detail publishing,
if you're in the process of considering writing a book, publishing a book, or sprucing up your
content going into the new year, you can't go wrong. Ashley's up to you. And last but not least,
the water project. In fact, I would say most importantly, if you have access to clean drinking
water, then you probably don't think about it too often. There are millions of people who do not,
and I love the water project because I can choose which community I'm helping based on what type of
project is being done, how many people are going to be affected by it, and your contribution to the
water project has a generational impact, where kids don't have to go look for water when they
should have the ability to just focus on school. I love the picture that's on the screen right now.
These kids look like they're in Christmas Day, and it's because they got access to clean drinking
water. The humility and the gratitude that exists with that, again, urges my heart to say, you know
what, how can I help more of these communities do this? Now, I don't have the budget to be able to
fund every single one of these projects, but I do have a voice, and I can share this for people,
and I can contribute what I can. My request of you is this, if you're not in a position to contribute
financially, simply share this. You never know who in your network will end up contributing to this
by simply putting a voice to the cause. If you feel there's another cause that you'd rather see us
contribute to, then please drop that in the comments as well. We'll take a look. We might even put it
on the show as well. We're all about giving back. There's 8 billion people in this world who need a
tremendous amount of help. Without further ado, let's dive into how we can protect the children
with CJ Scarlett and her cause for helping parents become excellent parents and proactive in their
parenting. CJ, welcome to Vision Pros Life. Jackson, thank you so much for having me today.
I've been looking forward to this for a long time. Absolutely. So from your military background to
being able to teaching self-defense and going on media tours, and I've just seen your passion and
dedication to the process of protecting children and empowering parents, I'd love for you to pull
out some of your own highlights though. What are some of the highlights of your path and journey to
get to where you are right now? You've got a picture of me there on the screen as a firefighter
for the US Forest Service. Back when I was 18 years old. Oh my, that's a hard firefighting job too.
Yeah, and there was in Arkansas and Oklahoma that I fought fires. Now you've got me on the screen as
the honor graduate of my boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina when I was in the United
States Marine Corps as a photojournalist. Wow. And that's just a picture of me and my boys when
they were about six and nine maybe. Awesome. And then I believe you have a picture of me with my
grandkids that's several years old. And I want to say, Jackson, I follow you on Facebook and see the
pictures of you and your gorgeous children and you guys look so happy and you look like such a great
dad and kudos to you. I do my best and they raise me well. I'm sure they do.
Absolutely. So let's again, let's dive in a little bit further too. So some of the,
you know, let's just dive right into what's your vision for those that you serve, CJ?
My vision for those I serve, I serve parents, grandparents and other caregivers of kids zero
to 18. And my vision for them is that they will feel confident in their own ability to
protect their kids more than they're doing so now. A lot of people have some misunderstandings
about how dangerous the world is. One on one, the world is safer today than it was when I was born
in 1961. Crime, however, online is going up precipitously and it terrifies a lot of people
and it should. And parents are often confronted with these online dangers. They don't know what
a lot of the online dangers are, but what they do is they're not going to be able to do it.
And they don't know what the online dangers are, but what they do know scares them and paralyzes
them. They don't know what to do about it. And there's a lot that can be done. And I hope we'll
dive into some of that today. Absolutely. So you said something that I'm a big fan of. And it's,
because I'm assuming it's based in truth, but rather than scaring the entire world about how
worse everything is getting, you said that at a different angle, that the common mainstream is
that it's not going to be safe. And I'm wondering if you could talk about it because it doesn't
drive any clicks. It doesn't drive any fear. You said that the world's kind of getting safer.
In what ways? I see it too. What ways do you see it? There's less domestic violence. There's less
sexual assault. There's less one-on-one crimes, robbery, burglary, all of it. The crime statistics
have been going down and we live in the safest time in human existence. Right. You mean like
people's heads off or breaks them to the ground. Pikes and yeah, exactly. And destroy his neighbors
for not paying their rent. I don't have to worry about my landlord doing that to me.
My role, my goal is to avoid scaring the devil out of the parents and the kids. That's my whole
goal. There's a lot of information out there that is scary, but I try to add perspective to that
and add hope by letting them know what they can do to combat those things. I am also a little
inappropriate and snarky here and there to lighten it up a little bit because these are heavy topics
we're dealing with. I were talking about bullying and cyber bullying and child sexual abuse and
assault and kidnapping and sex trafficking. I mean, these are very, very heavy, dark topics.
Yep. But so I use levity in some cases to keep the parents engaged and keep that coming back for more.
It's important. You can easily drown yourself in darkness in those areas and I appreciate that
as well. And I know it's hard. Vision Pro is for listening. Sometimes it takes a little bit of
breathing just to go through these types of conversations, breathing techniques to make it
through. I used to have before the water project, our was the entity, the cause that I supported for
years and years and years and I still support it. It's Operation Underground Railroad and they help
fight child sex trafficking as well. And I had a team member who absolutely was resistant to us
continuing with that cause as what I supported because of just the nature of how dark it was.
And we let go of her before we let go of it, I will say. A love or death, but there's no place
from hiding from darkness that exists. Putting your head in the sand doesn't make it go away.
It does not make it better. That's correct. And so I do really appreciate what you're standing for
and that's why we wanted you on the show. What's your vision for you,
CJ? My vision for me is to be the best version of myself. I believe that we, I don't know if we all
have a predestined purpose here in this life, but I believe that if we take life as it comes,
that we have choices at every juncture to stay depressed or to become a victim or to become a
perpetrator or to overcome. And in my case with the history of child sexual abuse and two teen
sexual assaults, and I was almost looking to a sex trafficking ring at the age of 19, I had a lot
of darkness in my life and I was very much, I clung to the victim mentality myself for a lot of years
and it was not productive and it didn't get me anywhere. And when I finally claimed my power
and began to heal from those things and work through the process of healing those things,
and work through the process of healing those things, I discovered that I am not at the mercy
of other people in life. I choose all the time. I choose. And so my goal for myself, my vision for
myself is to make the best possible choices that will lead me to be the best version of myself that
I can be. I like that another way. I 100% endorse that because that's my humble path as well. Like
I'm trying, that's what I figure life is about, is being my best self. It took me a while to get to
where I appreciated that. As I made that transition, I found more peace and happiness in what I do.
Let's talk about some of these online tools for a minute. So there was something you talked about
there that got my brain on a tangent. And it was about the danger of these online tools or these
online programs, shouldn't call them tools, these online programs that people utilize. And even as
an adult, I need to be protecting myself from what exists out there. And as somebody who also
specialized in digital marketing, it's not uncommon for a client to say like, why aren't we using
Snapchat? Why aren't we using TikTok for growth and all of that? I don't have a hard and fast rule
against it. There's still not enough case studies to convince me that we should go all in on a path
that way. But one of the challenges I face and one of the reasons why I will never allow my kids,
I don't know what the other side of the equation will say or do, but TikTok and Snapchat,
you can open that app, go right to it without any filtering or knowing who you are. You have no idea
what's going to pop up on that screen. And my kids don't need exposed to that. That's not at their
age. They wouldn't know what to do with that or how to react with it. It's hard for me to endorse
and proactively go into a platform that I have to also protect myself from the moment I open it.
What are your thoughts on that? Well, as an example, a child's first exposure to online
pornography occurs around the age eight. And the children aren't looking for that. They stumble
upon it. Mine was four before the internet. Yes. And back when we were kids, you probably ran into
your dad or your brother's stash of magazines, 30 magazines. But now the information is all over
the internet. So your child could be researching something for school, something innocent,
and be led by because of the algorithms, be led down a path into darker and darker content until
they're viewing pornography and even child abuse scenes online. And so you don't know what you're
going to get. That's a problem. And a lot of parents let their children have unfettered access
to these apps and the texting and the chatting and the instant messaging. And where a lot of the
online conversations go on that are the most dangerous is with the instant messaging and the
texting. And they don't know what they're they don't know what they don't know. But I also think
in some cases, they're being willfully ignorant. They it takes work to monitor your child's
activities. I'm really happy to say that I'm partnering with bark, which is the world's
leading parental monitoring app company that has apps and a smartphone that monitors your kids
online activity. And you don't just find your kid, what they do is if they alert you when your child
accesses content that's not appropriate. If they talk about suicidal ideation, if they view online
pornography, if they start talking to somebody they don't know in person, bark will the bark app
will let you know that this is happening so that you can take action. So you don't have to constantly
spy on your kid. You can just be alert to these to the monitoring that's going on in the background.
So public reveal, I have not revealed this. I think I've told you about it. I don't know if I
told you the whole concept. I'm writing a book on parenting. Excellent. Did we discuss that book
in depth? Well, I need co-authors for it. So if you're interested in co-authoring the book with me,
it's actually a very simple concept, but it is so neat. And it's on this subject. It's called the
third parent. And that third parent didn't exist before the internet. But now kids go online to
see what their parents meant about what they said. And they Google it, Google being the third parent.
And we got a series coming behind it, the fourth parent, Facebook, the fifth parent, Instagram,
et cetera, to expose what's happening there, what children are seeing as answers to also prepare
parents for the conversations that our parents didn't have to prepare for. That didn't exist.
They could say holistically, you know what, you're just going to have to trust me on this. Or you
know what, you just don't get it yet. And I bought that. I believe that. And my parents, they were
protecting me. Nowadays, we have to have more transparent open conversation. So we'll talk about
this after. But I would love to talk about that. And we are digital immigrants, you and I.
The internet came into our lives when we were in our, you know, for me, I was in my 30s, my late
30s when I started using the internet. And I guess I was in my mid 30s. But our kids are digital
natives. It's like a fish in water. They don't even know there's water there. They're so immersed
in this online world that it's difficult for them sometimes to tell fantasy from reality.
And you know, they don't know what's real. They don't know what's true.
What a powerful correlation for people who relate to that, which I do. That's awesome. Okay. We're
going to dive into some leadership aspects for the vision pros out there. You've been in leadership
and you've done so much with your brand, as well as working for other brands, including the military.
What's your worst leadership experience ever? When I worked for the North Carolina Attorney
General's Office as the Director of Victims Issues in the mid 90s, I initiated and co-led
the implementation. This is a mouthful of the nation's first automated notification system,
which notifies victims before their perpetrators are released from custody. So jail or prison,
it notifies them 48 hours beforehand because in the olden days you could be standing at the grocery
store and turn around and your rapist is right behind you and you had no idea that he was even
out. And so this was being done at a city level, but it had never been done at a statewide level.
Well, I was only 35 years old when I implemented this and the people I had to bring together,
all the courts, all the prisons, all the law enforcement agencies, the prosecutor's offices,
everybody who had different computer systems and didn't even talk to one another and convince them
to all get in the same boat together. And they were so used to competing for funding and attention
and everything like that, that they saw each other as the enemy. And then to compound that,
so I had to manage these very difficult relationships and bring them over to the table.
But also they looked at me like, who do you think you are? And there were two women, the head of the
North Carolina Victim Assistance Network and the head of the North Carolina Coalition Against
Domestic Violence that challenged me every step of the way. They tried to sabotage this. It was
going to help their constituents, but they didn't like the fact that this 30 something woman,
year old woman had a project this big in her hands. I mean, I got the million dollars to grant money
for and everything. And so they tried to make my life a living hell. And that was really one of
the most difficult leadership experiences I've ever had. I did bring on a gentleman who was
the head of the court, excuse me, head of the prisons to be my co-chair. And that really helped
bring everybody to the table. So one of the things I learned there was that when you don't
necessarily have the experience or the cache to lead yourself, bring in partners, supplement
your, what you don't know with people who do know. And create those relationships.
Absolutely. So that's great. So what would, you mentioned that part of it was related to
an inferiority complex perhaps, and those two leaders, I mean, it was that age. And then
what else would you define as characteristics that drove those two individuals to lead so poorly?
I don't know if it wasn't because it wasn't their idea or they just thought I was an upstart
or, you know, I'm actually not sure what it was. In fact, the chief justice of the state
Supreme court didn't want the project to go through either. He challenged me. And I'm happy
to say that this is, it's now been almost 30 years and that system is still in place.
That's awesome. Absolutely. And there's people who, there's different motivations for challenging
situations, you know, but there was definitely some clarity around at least the, the perhaps
the inferiority complex or the politics too, that goes in behind the scenes. That's why it's so
important to have diplomatic skills, you know, when you're, when you're leading. What would you say
your best leadership experience has been? This could be yours. This could be anybody's, this could
be a movie that you saw, but what would you define as leadership? In every leadership role I've had,
where I've been CEO or in the C-suite, I have encountered tremendous challenges because of the
growth curve, because I was a military brat and then I was in the military, then I was a non-profit.
And so moving to government and to corporate was a very different game. And so there's a lot I didn't
know. And so as challenging as that was at every step, I had the best teachers. I believe the
bigger the butt head, the better the teacher. So the people that we, we say are our enemies or have
are want to sabotage us or, or have it in for us, like those two women with that program are our
best teachers. And so my best leadership experience has been growing more humble and more appreciative
of the lessons I can learn from the people who support me because they're really there for my
growth. They're really helping me. They don't know that they're helping me, but they are helping me.
Right. Sometimes they do know that would be the, that would be like Denzel Washington,
representing the coach and remember the Titans, right? He's, he certainly had a
player's best interests at heart, but he wasn't, you know, he wasn't going to mince words about
what you did wrong or what you did right. And that's, that's an inspiration to me in a world that,
oh, struggles to embrace that personality these days. I like that the bigger the butt head,
the better the teacher. That's funny. Funny and true. What powerful lesson, all right,
if this was the last thing you could share with us, what powerful lesson can other visionaries
learn from your experience CJ? I would say that what I would hope they would learn from my experience
is that nothing is impossible. If you are willing to do the work, if you are willing to take the
hits, if you're willing to get up again over and over and over again, you will succeed in some way.
It may not look like what you originally envisioned, but you will succeed in one way or another.
So do not give up no matter what, no matter how far away it looks like you are from your goal.
You may have to shift your goal and pivot, but you will, you will be happy with the results if
you stick with it. I love that. I, and that's, I love that you combined it. I don't have to do it
now. Nothing is impossible. And my immediate thought was, yeah, when you've been as diligent
as you have, right? Yes. When you've done the work, you know, I'm pretty sure that you've done
the work. I mean, I'm putting the effort, you've paid your dues to understand what it is, you know,
you're going for and after. And then you talked about the pivots as well that occur. That was
beautiful. That's a morning mantra to wake up to if you're listening and you might just cut that
segment and listen to that over and over by CJ for a few weeks and see your, your, your life flourish.
All right. So let's dive in a little bit further now on, on protecting the kids and, you know,
proactive parenting. What, which route do you want to take us CJ on that? This is your call
because it's your subject. We can go into your books. We can go into talking about the online
course that's coming up or your active programs currently. Well, I would love to talk about the
online course actually, because when I talk to parents, the number one complaint I get is that
they don't know what to say or how to say it to their children about body safety. And so they say
nothing in my case, my parents didn't teach me anything about my body, boys, bodies, sex, anything.
So not surprisingly, I became, I got pregnant at 15 and didn't know a thing about what I was doing
or what was what, forgive the dogs in the background. We love dogs. It's all good.
Because they were too embarrassed, because they didn't know what to say. They left me unarmed.
They left me unprepared to deal with a very rural world with, with, you know, boys in it. And,
you know, again, we didn't have the online world to deal with. It's so much more complex for kids.
We cannot, we can say we understand where our kids are coming from right now, but we simply cannot.
Because of the issues they face and the challenges they face in their world today is so
distinct from the one that we experienced that we can do our best to listen, but we cannot
really get it. They are living in a totally different reality than we lived in. And the
good news about that is that they have a lot to teach us. And the other good news is that
their children have more power to protect themselves than we may believe. If we take action.
Right. I'm sure it feels loud on your end. On our end, your dog sounds very pleasant.
Okay. Makes me want to pet your puppy. So the, all right. So going into the children and confidence,
what are some things that we can do to empower our children with a healthy, healthy dose of
confidence in who they are? Yes. Because as I mentioned earlier to you, you know,
confidence is the number one predator repellent. Predators look for children when they're looking
for victims, they look for children who are unsure of themselves, who need attention or affection or,
who clearly are not going to put up resistance. And that is not the fault of the child in any way.
I'm not victim blaming in any way. It's totally the fault of the predator, but they look for easy
victims. Well, in addition to those who aren't as confident are less likely to communicate.
Yes. Right. That's I'm going to talk, you know, like I'm going to talk. And so I can see why
I wouldn't be on somebody's radar. You know, same is true in business. Somebody wants to take
advantage of me in business. They know I'm going to ask all the hard questions. I'm going to make
sure that the contract makes sense. And they're just going to go away right away because I don't
want to, I'm going to do my due diligence. Right. And again, it doesn't justify the criminal
and what they're doing at all, but you know, it's a very important thing to consider if your child
struggles to communicate that may be a sign that they're struggling with their confidence. So yeah,
go ahead and help us see how do we, how do we empower them with confidence?
We start, it starts with air and diapers. And of course, if you, your child is eight or 10 or 12
or 15 now, you can start today wherever they are, wherever you are. But you do things like teach
them about what intuition is, how to trust their gut. And I talk about all these in my books and
I'll be talking about it in the online course. But if you teach them about their, how to trust their
gut and their own intuition, you're giving them a magic key that will help them in almost any
situation. Once they learn how to check in with their gut, or even the parent in their head,
you know, if you teach your children, what would you think about what I would tell you to do in
the situation? And your voice is in their head already anyway. But if you teach consciously do
that and to consciously check in with their gut first before they do something, and if it feels
okay, and it aligns with their more, their morals and intuition, then go for it. And if it doesn't,
they need to extract themselves from that situation immediately. The other is to help them set strong
boundaries. And this, there are exercises you can do with your child to help them establish
what those boundaries are. Everything from, we don't have to hug someone, we, you know, even grandma,
if you don't want to, you don't have to allow anyone to touch you, you don't have to tolerate
bad behavior, you don't have to let someone talk to you in a mean way. And teach them not only
what the boundaries are, but then how to use their moxie to take action to defend those boundaries.
So you can teach them, they can say no. If Jackson, if I'd known that I could say no,
to the people who were hurting me when I was a child, most of the things that happened to me never
would have occurred. Because I was not going to tell. I was clearly a child who was desperate for
attention and affection and was not going to tell. And that's why I was victimized so many times.
And so if I had been given that permission to say no to adults and other kids, because
this is a tip for parents, a child is more likely to be molested by another kid than they are by a parent.
And so you can't just think that they're, and the other thing is, is that strangers are responsible
for less than 7% of crimes against kids. And when it comes to kidnapping, for example, we think kids
are being plucked off street corners by strangers. In 2018, only 65 kids were kidnapped by complete
strangers. The rest of the time they were runaways or throwaways, or they were kidnapped by a
non-custodian, or they were kidnapped by a non-custodian, or they were kidnapped by a
non-custodial parents or other relatives or people they knew. And so there's a lot of misconceptions
out there that I talk about in my books and I try to set things straight so that parents have a
realistic picture of what's true. Then they know how to follow the advice I share to empower their
kids so that their kids know when their boundaries are being violated. They know when their intuition
is going off like a fire alarm and how to take action. Well, you bring up an important fact too
about the stats. And we're not going to talk about the detailed stats for those who are listening,
but you can do your own due diligence to gain clarity around realities. And one of the things
that CJ said was being kidnapped by the non-custodial parent. And I do take issues with
that reality because my... And don't get me wrong, I understand there's parents that you have to be
protected from. My dad kidnapped my brothers one summer to bring them down and it was his custodial
right to have the children. And his ex-wife had called the cops. And so when the cops pulled him
over with the children, he said, I'm their dad. This is my time with them. They let him go.
They let him bring my brothers down to see me. And so the world has become a little bit more
restrictive in relation to that too. Again, not to say that there aren't horror stories. That's why
we sometimes lean towards, I'd rather stop fully at the stop sign than California roll through it,
or that's why I'm going to get a ticket for it because a freak accident, something happens.
It's devastating and it looks bad to society beyond blah, blah, blah. And it's hard. So I
want to talk about one other angle on this. And it's one thing to prepare kids to know that
to know that they don't have to accept hugs. Rather they have that healthy boundary.
It's another to scare the living daylights out of a child and reinforce that time and time again,
like a tooth brushing experience. We're like, okay, tomorrow you don't have to have grandma.
Tomorrow you don't have to go to grandma. Tomorrow you don't have to go to like, what's that child
going to think? They're going to be traumatized about that relationship because we took the
instruction too far. An anxious parent can make for an anxious child. What I recommend in my books
is that you have monthly family meetings where the family all sits together. They have pizza
during the meeting or after the meeting or whatever. And everybody takes turn being the leader
and the timekeeper and the secretary and all that stuff, even for kids as young as five.
And you help the family get on the same page about what you're going to do for vacation,
whether you get a puppy, but you also have a body safety topic at the month where you talk about
something simple and you have a conversation about it and then move on. But there's also
opportunities for daily sharing. You don't want to do what you were saying, Jackson, which is hit it
over and over and over again and make your child terrified of the world because the world is not
as dangerous as we think it is. But you do want to give them enough information that they know what
they're doing. And so with a few strategic tips, like if they're going to their friend's house to
spend the night or whatever, you know you can call me and you can even call me if you feel
uncomfortable or afraid, you can call me and I'll come get you. You can even lie and say that you
feel sick to your stomach and I'll come pick you up. That's a conversation you have one time.
And then every time they go to their friend's house after that to spend the night, you say,
remember, you can call me. Just that little sea, that little reminder, but you don't have to be
a dead horse and scare your kid to death. Right, correct. And you know, I don't think, I think
every family has a different boundaries too, right? In terms of what's acceptable and what's not.
I'm a no sleepover guy due to my experiences with sleepovers growing up.
And you know, my ex, my first ex-wife, she's okay with the sleepover stuff.
And it's so hard, you know, to balance the realities that, okay, we have different healthy
boundaries and I've got to, now I've got to prepare my kids in this situation. Now you said
this quote and it's what defines the difference between a concerned parent and an expert is you
know where to go to for your glossary of like confidence and how to help an ancient, an anxious
parent can make for an anxious child. I'll be the first to admit, if you haven't caught it in my
shows, I'm an anxiety person. Like I deal with anxiety. My, in our relationship, we both deal
with that from different angles too. So I asked that question from my own selfish desire of, okay,
how do I, how do I help my child when the stranger danger aspect is so predominantly pronounced,
you know, on the other side of the equation, how do I balance that out and help them understand that
the world's not as dark and scary as, as it may be indoctrinated on the flip side to throw myself
under the bus too. My first child is, we're in church, right? She has big heavy doors and she's
playing in this little foyer that's like silent. It's cool. She can make as much noise as she wants.
That's not affecting church. So I'm out there playing with her and I'm watching from the couch
and I see the door starting to shut and her little finger is going to get caught in this heavy door.
Right? So helicopter dad mode, boom, Superman jumps up. I hit that door to open. What I didn't
take into effect, end of account was the bottom of the door. So I saved her finger. I crushed her
toes. Oh no. Yeah. So she, all of her toes, all tear up and boom, just start bleeding. You know,
I did it. Oh, it was so awful. And I was like, Oh my gosh, she wouldn't have lost her finger.
She would have been fine. My overreaction completely made this a mess. We're all susceptible
to making these types of mistakes. It's a little bit like foreigners imagine in United States that
we have, that they'll get, if they come to our country, they'll get shot instantly. I mean,
that there are constantly shootings going on. There are shootings going on that you need to
be aware of, but it's not the level of threat that people on the outside perceive it to be.
And it's very much the same way with the parenting and the dangers to our kids.
Parents, some parents believe don't look at the dangers at all and are oblivious to it. They put
their head in the sand. Other parents are obsessed with the dangers and can't let them go. And
there's a happy medium. There's a happy medium. You can find where you are educating your child
and empowering your child and giving them the confidence they need without scaring them to death.
Yeah, absolutely. So if you're in that situation where you've kind of, you're trying to be the
voice of happy medium reason, what are some tools as a parent that you can utilize to balance that
equation out? Well, the daily sharing is an exercise. You know, your kids come home at the
end of the day, just like you, if you go to work and you have a bad day, you come home and you vent
to your spouse or your partner. And it feels good to do that, to just let it off your chest. Well,
our kids need the same thing too. And if we're trying to make dinner and fiddle on our phone
while they're trying to talk to us, they're going to check out, they're going to stop talking to us.
Or if we say, how was your day, sweetheart? And they say, fine. And we just let it go with that.
His day wasn't fine. It was filled with epic fails and laughter and mistakes and all kinds of things
that you could, that are great to talk about because there are learning opportunities.
And so those daily sharing opportunities are a great way to stay, to keep your child's pulse.
Which book of yours dives into the daily sharing the most?
All three of the parenting books. I have three books for parents, Badass Parenting, which is
not PG rated. Heroic Parenting, which is PG rated. Those two books are for parents and kids.
And then Raising Badass Kids, The Safi Parents Guide to Predator-Privileging
Tweens and Teens is coming out in mid-January. And all of them cover the daily sharing and the
monthly family meetings. They're basically, they all cover the same kind of content.
Although I will say that I have a chapter in the new book on how to teach your children about
sexual consent. That is probably the most important thing I've ever written.
Right. Yeah. Okay. That's good. And again, I'm kind of thinking selfishly on this path, you know,
where am I with my- Heroic Parenting is a book for you.
Heroic Parenting. Cool. I'm going to get it. And that aspect, you know, when my children were in
kindergarten and first grade, one of my challenges was I kind of expected that by the time they were
three, we would be able to play chess. I was like, wait a second, this doesn't work.
Add water. Just add water. Right. And so as we start talking about school,
you know, I'm getting these fine answers. You're like, it was good, but like they just,
you know, they're kindergarten. They want to talk about Paw Patrol, you know, or what's coming next,
not necessarily what's in the past. And so- That's where open-ended questions really become
important instead of saying, you know, how was your day? It's like, what did you learn today?
Did anything funny happen? Did anybody get hurt? Did anybody get sad? It was what made you happiest?
Kind of roses and thorns things about what was the hardest part of your day and what was the best part
of your day? Questions like that invite conversation. Yeah. And don't shut it down.
True. True. Absolutely. And I've noticed too, as they get older, they have more patience for the
process. You know, again, versus like, I thought we were going to go get ice cream. You know,
or I want to do this now. And I was like, man, I just want to be the- can't you just let me be
the concerned parent? The parent that's trying to understand the day. But that was definitely
a challenge for me. All right. So with, we got a couple of minutes left, which I'm excited about,
because we have more time to dive in than we normally do. Protecting kids. What other aspect
can- what other things can parents be aware of that's not talked about enough online?
I would say it's bullying. Bullying has always existed. As long as there have been
as long as there have been humans walking this earth, there has there have been bullies.
And people, you know, schools like to tout their zero top, zero bullying policy, zero tolerance,
bullying policies, but there's no such thing. In North Carolina, for example, like six years ago,
North Carolina reported zero bullying incidents, whereas 30 something percent of kids report
bullying incidents. So there's a disconnect clearly. One of the exciting things is, is there's a way
your child can train bullies to leave them alone. And so there are, there's so much that can be done
that there's so much content in the books and in the online course that I'm getting ready to put
together. And if I had a vision for parents, it would be every parent was required to read one of
these books, not necessarily just my books, but a book on how to teach your kid about these kinds of
things. So that they are more confident, they are savvy, or they are more empowered, and they can be
safer kids as a result. Parents have so much power to make their kids safer. Absolutely. So
the book that has the bullying concept, which which book, all three books, all three books as well.
The only thing different about race about the third book, the one for teens and tweens and teens is
that I do not cover abductions, but I do cover sex trafficking. And I also have the additional chapter
on how to teach a child about sexual consent. But otherwise, the books all have the same basic
content of who the predators are, what the dangers are, how to teach them about cyber bullying,
and what to teach them, and what it, and in the in her old parenting and badass parenting, I actually
break it down by age group. How do you, because how you talk to a three-year-old, your three-year-old
is very different than how you would talk to your 12-year-old. Right. So in 2024, what does bullying
look like going into the future? There's so many different types of bullying. And now that the
online world is our reality, anybody, any person will say and do things online that they wouldn't
necessarily do in person. And so with that veil of anonymity, kids especially will say and do things
to troll and humiliate and harass and bully other kids. And the bad, the worst of it is, is that
other kids will join in partly because they don't want to be the next target. So they will join in
with the bully. Right. And partly because they don't feel a sense of responsibility because it's
online and you know, really it's almost invisible at that point. Yeah, that's a real danger.
That no accountability. And so they're, and then you're learning bullying techniques from the best
of the best. Yes. You have access to, just like, you know, when I was growing up playing the trumpet,
you know, I could listen to, you know, Dizzy Gillespie, you know, or Louis Armstrong, whatever
CD I had, right. I couldn't download whatever music. Now I can go to YouTube, right. I can,
I can put in trumpet and I can see people do things that will teach you exactly what to do to
make that happen. Like you're instantly learning amazing things and extremely far more. Yeah.
For good or ill. Yeah. So I'm really glad you brought that up. I know the bullying instance
that comes to mind. I had a friend in his early thirties when he was having a birthday, he went
on to Reddit and he asked for his birthday. He said, he said, I want you guys to roast me.
And this is a gentleman who struggled with self-confidence. And I told him like, dude,
delete it. I was like, you're, what are you doing to yourself? You know, why, why are you asking
people to do this to you? Because, and so roasting is for parents who don't know that's, you know,
hey, make jokes about me or this person, you know, that are as bad as possible to make this person,
you know, feel lit on fire. I imagine that that's happening with children as well.
Yeah. And, and you know, girls do not get a pass on the bullying because they could,
they're, they're relational bullying is some of the worst because it's emotional and it's so
emotionally damaging. I mean, you know, a bully can shake his fist in your face and it scares you and
it's traumatic, but these girls who can do these, not just girls, of course, boys do it as well,
but, but you see exclusion tactic to take somebody and make them the pariah of the school
that can follow a child all the way through the rest of your school career.
Right. You know, it's scary. It is absolutely. There are things they can do.
Then, yep. And then there's a manipulation of imagery as well. That's, that's becoming
more common with AI and stuff like that. So educating ourselves is the empowerment towards
helping our children understand what's going on in the world, which leads them to feel much more
confident, much safer and be protected. And I got so much out of this conversation. I know our
audience did too CJ. So I just want to thank you for being on Vision Pros Live. Anybody who's
listening into, if you have a vision to share, it doesn't always have to be entrepreneurship,
you know, or related to business. It could be about protecting children. It could be about saving
the wells, et cetera. Feel free to apply to be on the show. CJ, do you have any last thoughts
you'd like to share before we go? Oh, I think I lost a little bit. I just want to say that
the techniques I teach, the advice I give is so simple and it's so doable. And I would encourage
all the listeners who love a child, whether it's your own or somebody else's to learn these
techniques because you could literally save a child from being abused or molested or bullied
or worse. I mean, there are real dangers out there, but they don't have to, you know, you,
you can make your child not predator proof because that's a promise you can't obviously,
I cannot keep, but you sure can make them a whole lot safer. And that is worth every bit of effort.
You can put into it. I love that. Absolutely. And on that, that higher end note to building kids,
helping kids become more confident leads to more success and better feelings for them as well. So
yes, all the way through adulthood are good as well. So everybody have a fantastic rest of your
day and thanks for joining us on vision pros live. We'll see you on the next episode. Thank you,
Jack. Thank you for being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned into vision pros live. I'm
looking forward to seeing your reactions as these episodes continue to move forward. This is going
to get more and more fun. We'll have more and more engagement as well. We'll invite people to
participate in the show and thank you for giving us your time and attention. Have an.