Raising Children Who Know Their Own Worth

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0:44 Denzel Washington, welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. Kerry, welcome to the show. Well, thank you very much. Doctor Doug so great to thank you. Oh yeah, thank you. So we've had a conversation before we got on live, so anyway, we've had some good times here. But Harry, what I'd like you to do is kind of introduce yourself, share a little bit of your background and quite frankly, why are you doing what you're doing. What brought you into this focus in your life. That's a good question onto itself. It is, it is, it really is. So thank you, doctor Doug, and I'm really happy to be here with you and with your audience.

1:32 I appreciate it very much. I am Harry Bean and I am the author of Abra Cadabra. I. This is let's put it this way. This is like a second career almost right, because I'm a bit older. You know, in sixty three I was born, which will come up later on again, I'm now here in this phase of my life where I'm taking care of my elderly mom who is ninety too, so on top of everything else, you know. There we have it, and this book came upon me and this whole mission I'm calling it a mission because I really believe it is. Aber Kadabra is a very very special message and it's come at an extremely poignant time in our society right now.

2:21 And the focus is children focus. Is honestly, I think it spans the generations, doctor Doug. I was absolutely blown away that two and a half months ago I had a seventy one year old man who wrote me and said, Terry, your book is coming at such an important time in my life. I found it. I'm dealing with rheumatoid arthritis. Your positive message is exactly what I need right now and is exactly what my physical therapist and I are talking about, which is mindset. Right. So yes, imagine mindset to children. It's a story, right, It is a story.

3:02 Absolutely, it's a story. Yeah, it's a story. It's a fiction story. Again, it's amazing. So Danny, Danny is my child and the story who's running Just imagine she's running away from the house where her parents are on the front porch arguing, and you can see that, and Danny runs down to the lake and all of a sudden, she sees her image, and her image starts to talk to her or her image is her sage, who's talking to her about the power within her to create a beautiful life and how to navigate some of her emotions. Oh well, that's wonderful. Well look forward to talking about that a little bit more. So, what is your own personal history growing up and how has that motivated you into this type of topic.

3:55 Well, there we go. So this is where nineteen sixty three is going to come up. So when I was born that year. The term blended was not even a term. Okay, a blended family, which is very typical nowadays where you are parents coming in and coming with children from different marriages and then we have a blended family. On sixty three, that wasn't a term, as I said. And my parents came in. Dad had two, mom had one. Then when they married, they had me. So I was listened to this book. I'm an only child, but I'm not. I've been through a divorce, but I haven't because I was an only child. There a sunshine child, right, So I always wanted to be happy. I always wanted to mediate.

4:44 I didn't understand that there was any kind of angs going on and all of that, because that's all I wanted. And I went through the divorces because there was a lot of there was a lot of tumultuous you know, just times and just things that would come up about all I'd want to do is run into my room from the elevator. I'm here in Queens, New York. From the elevator, run into my room and just create my little box of happy. And this is because of the past divorses and still the drama. That yeah, exactly, so they got so they were going through a lot. I mean, I had my sister who I was growing up with. She was five years older than me. But yeah, and then as and I grew into an adult, I went through a lot of I was talking to this about this the other day. I went through a lot of rebellion because I really thought I had it. I knew how to be an adult.

5:41 At the age of eleven, I sat my parents down and sang, Billy Joel, this is my life at eleven years old, you know. And I just did my thing, and I was quite quite independent, and as I went through life, I stood pretty strong, even though I was bullied. I was terribly bullied in fifth and sixth grade, and that had an impact on me. But again I always found my my I guess my grounding, you know, my grounding, and I always had some kind of self esteem and confidence to move through it. Yes, I was looking outside a lot for approval, which a lot of kids do, and even more so now today we'll talk about that a little bit more with social media and everything. Yet, as I grew and I moved away, there was still a lot of cynicism around me. So about fourteen and a half years ago. I wrote Abercadabra, and it was that long ago. So what happened is it just was timing.

6:50 People will ask me all the time, why did it take so long? It's timing, and a lot of that is timing, you know. It's I always knew it would be published, I just wasn't sure when. And back in November twenty four I put it out on my Facebook that I needed an illustrator, and you could imagine what happened. I just pounded, pounded right, and I shut it down. I shut the whole thing down. It just became too overwhelming. Then back in March twenty twenty five, I joined with Mind Valley. I'm not sure if you know of Mine Valley and Viishan Lakhani and I got into a cohort where we were all going for a certification for our life and executive coaching. Okay, So when you surround yourself by people who are seeing you and seeing what you do and hearing what you do, and they're standing for your full potential, you're typically going to step into it.

7:51 And that's what happened. That kind of support just catapulted me. It was like a big catalyst and I decided to go out and I went out to fiver her believe it or, and I found myself an extraordinary illustrator, just extraordinary. The timing, the synergy, just the collaboration was nothing I've ever experienced before. Is beautiful. And I hope that jumps off the page. Well. And you know, what I find interesting about what you just talked about is the importance of surrounding ourselves with people who are supportive, who are positive, because in today's world, it just amazes me to watch some short reels, podcasts so forth, where they're talking and they're really kind of trying to destroy something, or you know, they're very angry about something, and they just feed on each other.

8:46 And we're seeing that in general, is people keep feeding off of each other with the media, with social you know, with all of that type of thing. And I don't know, I don't really, I don't know that people realize what that's doing to them. I have. I've developed this whole emotional intelligence project and concept, and what fascinates me is is we look at this ladder of emotions and you know down there and the anger, the frustration, all of that type of thing. What I know through my studies and personal experience for years is that as we surround ourselves with people who are lower on that emotional scale, they remain there. And the only way to move up into that level at least of you know, a sense of hope, a sense of contentment, and so forth, they've got to start surrounding themselves with people who are also at that level. So we tend to mimic the people with whom we surround ourselves with. And again social media too.

9:54 So the fact that you did that and to see then what difference that made in your life, I think is so amazing and such an important point for people to understand. It's extraordinary, it really is, and so much fun, which I think is the importance of everything. And you know that's the last sign in my book, which is actually comes from Esther Hicks. I don't know if you knew the teachings of Abraham and Esther Hicks and Esther Hicks and her book asking It is given, you may want to take a peek at it. She's got the whole emotional scale there and she talks about them the emotional scale, which is fabulous. And I truly believe that life is about perspective at every moment in time, every moment we have, we have the ability to shift our perspective. And you know, if you have something it's like, you know, when you have something that hasn't come into fruition yet and you're worrying about it, what is the worry? Howth or it doesn't help at all? It just doesn't help, you know.

11:03 So when you shift that perspective again and you either distract yourself or you get into nature or whatever it is to do to make you feel good, so that journey feels good, that's the way to manifest which I could talk more about later on as well. But I just I love this work, doctor Doug. I've been in this personal development work, probably talking a different language since I've been eleven years old, singing Philly Jo, this is my life. Well, you know, I just smile as you're talking about that. And I actually have been influenced strongly by the Emotional Guidance Scale, by the Ton Scale, by a number of different ones which kind of helped me to develop my own concept on that. But I've just been asked to speak this week, well this Sunday actually on this topic Brightness and hope and you know, I think that's so important for people realize that, you know, what, hope is always there in their lives. And you know, with your book and as you're talking about how we can move forward in such a positive way, here's my question for you.

12:13 You know, I know that you're focused on the individual and how do they develop and so forth, But you talked about your own childhood and all the tremendous experiences, difficulties and so forth that you had. But what's your message to parents? How do parents help? I had a conversation with my son just the other day, bless his heart, and you know, he was he was expressing to me, quite frankly, how much you appreciated his experiences as a child, and how he's so how he's so concerned about his own children now and how can he be the best parent that he can be? And you know that, to me, that's such an important topic because I don't know that parents realize how important their influence is on their children.

13:02 And you know, we all go through all these tremendous experiences. I'm sure your parents are going crazy when you were rebellious and doing all that type of stuff, and even imagine what what would you say to parents as far as helping children to get on that right path for. Themselves, really really terrific question, and parents do have it a bit more of a challenge I think today than ever because of technology and so much is coming at their children, but even more importantly at them. You know, they're being bombarded. So there's a lot to be said.

13:45 And congratulations, by the way, and your son appreciating you, because appreciating each other every day, I think is the way families stay together, you know, focusing on what's working, not what is not working. Focus on what is working, how you stand what your values are and communicate those, acknowledge your child for the feelings that they have. When Danny runs down to the lake and she sees her image, one of the first things that the image says to Danny is, Danny, you look sad. Well, it's okay to be sad, Danny, right, not just kind of wiping it away, or don't cry, or you know, keep happy, or go play with your sister or your brother or you know, any of these things. Just acknowledging is a big, big part for a child, and then asking them, you know, how do you want to feel? How do you want to feel? And then all of a sudden, that child owns feelings right, and they can start to play in that way, which is not typical of what we do.

15:01 And one of the things I find fascinating, and again I have studied this for years, and this is part of what I'm doing with my personal portrait, is that you know, we have three different lives that we live. We have that innate who we are, but then we also have that social personality of who we need to be according to society, according to parents, according to religion, according to all of that type of thing, and then we obviously have who we actually are being right now based on those two coming together. And what I find so interesting and I experienced this, I mean I came from there were six kids in my family, and my dad incredible classical voice, teacher, and boy, he was motivated to make sure that we all were going to be successful and we were going to be professional and all of those type of things. And you know, as I look back on that was that positive. Absolutely did. It also put us into a situation where we are living, to some degree his life rather than our own. And I think for parents that's so difficult to understand that you know what we want, what's best for our child, but the only way we can determine that usually is by our own perception of what's best for us, rather than allowing the child to grow and beginning to understand

16:33 what's going to be best for them them who they are. That's exactly right. So when so when I'm when Abergababra is read by a six to nine year old, which is an extremely important age right where they're just developing the sense of who they are and their self. Parents. You were saying before, not necessarily that the child steps into the parent's life, but the parent steps into the child's life. Sometimes a parent is trying to live vicariously through their child, right, So it's really important that a parent, when you talk about your son, knows who they are, right, is leading by example based on what their confidence is.

17:18 Their focus is on their child. But they're also very independent of the child, so the child also keeps some independence. I'm not talking about separate. That's what I'm talking about, because a family is beautiful when it's there's cohesiveness and it's a full blown cohort. Like I said before, with that appreciation and love for another, it's a beautiful thing to see when you see a family who really wants to be together. Now, one thing that's not in that family all the time is competition. And competition for families within brothers and sisters can be healthy or it could be really detrimental. And right now, with what's going on with uh, we started the conversation here actually, with this whole one up system, with the battle, with the bickering, this is what's going on. It's like everybody thinks they know everything. Why because we all have Google and we're all brilliant, right, we all have the answers and I have a better answer than you do. And this is and it's this battle. I hear it all the time, all the time. And if we could just take a breath, put our phones down and start listening to each other, start connecting with one another. Because AI and everything else and what COVID did in terms of people living alone, we have a lot of people who are super, super lonely right now, you know. And because of the way we're set up in society now to be able to work from home and everything, I think people are going

18:50 to be in dire need for touch, for physical interaction with people literally seeing each other instead of on the screen in person very much. So well, and you know, you talk about social media. I was, I was kind of smiling myself this last Sunday at church, and you know, being in Thailand, you can imagine there's not you know, most of them are Buddhists, but you know, so there's a small number that are going to different Christian churches and so forth. And so anyway, I'm sitting there and I'm looking around a lot of children, and I'd say five or six of those children were sitting there on their phones the whole time, not listening to anything that was being said. And you know, you talked about social media, and hey, I'm guilty of it.

19:36 I'd love to get on and watch a few things here and there. But what I find interesting and here's what I do when I when I'm on social media and someone makes a statement of truth, I go Okay. Then I go on to AI and usually i'll you know, I'll use Gemini or chat GPT or whomever, and I'll say, all right, this statement was made. I want to know is it backed up by truth or is it just a common opinion? And usually it'll come back and say, all right, well, you know absolutely false is just a narrative that they're trying to do, or you know there's some truth in it. Here's the truth part of it, but then here's the other part, or you know it's absolutely true.

20:18 Right. So, when we're building the confidence and self reliance and children to start making decisions, because then they understand the consequences right of doing certain things, and they'll stop before and make a decision. Do I want to do homework before or after dinner? Should I should I? Should I play with my brother now or my sister now? Or should I do my homework first? You know, there are all these things that come up in a child's life, right that will help them in developing that tool and that muscle and their brain to make those decisions that they feel good about, because to start having them understand that feeling is a big part of that making of a decision. I call it our wizard, our wizard inside of us, doctor Doug. So you have one, I have one, We all have one. It's our inner wizard that we can always go to and we could always ask. But the first thing we have to do is stop and listen.

21:29 Listen to ourselves, sin to what we really want, what we really think, what we really feel, don't react so fast. And as you say, you know, when we talk about that inner wizard, who is that inner wizard? Is that truly an independent inner wizard of who you are? Or is that the wizard of someone else? That's place that wizard within you? And I think that's so important. So one of the things you know, you talk about and particularly as you mentioned the older gentleman that got in contact with you, so we're not talking just about children. But you know, you look at people and we all experience this. You know, I experienced different things in my life.

22:09 We all do, and you know, at times we look at that and go, wow, why why am I experiencing this and realizing that to a huge degree, we are creating our own experiences. I don't like this victimhood of saying, well, why did God let this happen or whatever he did this to me or whatever. We experience what we experience because of who we are and the energy that we put out. But how do you help people as you're working with them, how do you help them to learn that number one, they have the power, but also how do they choose their thoughts, their feelings, their path. That creates an outcome of truly joy and peace. And we all go through suffering and all those challenges, but there's an a approach that we take that hey, is this happening and we understand that versus I'm a victim and how could this happen to me? How do you help people to get to that point?

23:11 Thank you for the question. There are two things that come up for me right now. One is one of the first things I talk about is accountability and responsibility. So we all have responsibility for our actions, for our words, for our our reactions, all of that. And when we hold ourselves accountable for those and we truly take that to heart, that's when things shift. That's when things should start to shift. Because if you wake up in the morning and you decide that morning that you're going to feel like crap, and you hold on to that or you you know, you spilled your coffee and now the whole day is going to be ruined and guess what, that's exactly what you're going to create. But when you step up in the morning and, like Wayne Dyer says, say thank you with both feet as you plant them on the ground, okay, or on your floor, which is what I teach children to do and decide on what affirmations with children do not know what they are. But this is a great teaching moment with Abracadabra and my coloring book in terms of what do you want to say when when you get up in the morning, how would you like your day to look? How would you like to intend your day? And when this again is another muscle you'll have a child like I had the other day when I was doing a children's reading and uh,

24:42 I asked her, how do you like school? I don't like school. I don't like going to school. And by the time we were finished with the book, she I sit there with a whiteboard and the kids write down some words and phrases and it's not it was not I am I am happy? She wrote, I am happy to go to school today. And I said, Okay, that's powerful. That's really really powerful. When children understand again that they have the ability to think the thoughts and we do too. It just will take time as adults a little bit longer to get there because we've been programming ourselves for so long in such a way and it's almost comforting, even though we don't like it and don't love the life that we're leading. For whatever reason, it's comfortable. I don't know if you know this stat there is about a little over eighty five percent of adults that actually do not like their life and are not happy. That is massive in the United States. That's a massive number.

25:50 It's a massive number. And that's exactly why I'm doing what I'm doing. I'm on this mission because in my mind, I feel that when you empower children understand that they really can create lives that they love, that they will grow into kinder, more connected adults, not only to themselves but others around them, which means they'll be happy. Well, and yeah, I think you've hit on such an important point. You know, how do we how do we change? And I think anyone who's really honest with themselves and really looking at what's going on in society and saying how can we change this? And you know, it's so often we focus on, you know, the adults, how do we change that? Do we change that? But you've hit the key. It's going to take time, but the only way to truly change it is to change the situation.

26:46 For our children where they start to grow up in a better situation mentally and understand that they can create that life of happiness and joy and. Peace exactly, and it will bring them peace, you know, because when you're connected with yourself and you're taking on that responsibility and such, it's not you know, the book stops here and are you going to be happy or not? There? When we talk about perception, I talk about with people perceiving and figuring out the gift, because there's always a gift in almost everything, good, bad, and indifferent. Figure out the gift and focus there. That will tell you something as you're moving through life.

27:32 So let's talk about social media, and let's talk about it for children, and then as we can grow into adulthood and later on in our lives, what do you see happening with social. Well, unfortunately, right now it's that full one up and goodness, this life looks so great. I can't believe that person's living that life. And now all of a sudden you're feeling competitive and need to some how fix your life. My life. I have to fix my life because I just saw some someone do whatever I wanted to do, and I haven't done it. Yet So what's happening because of that, unfortunately, is a lot of people are trying to create their lives from what from lack right, I don't have it, I want it. I don't have it, I want it, I need it. Right. So there's a very big difference in energy and vibration when it comes to desire versus yearning. And you feel the difference between desire and yearning. It's massive, it's big, but a lot of people it's so it's such a fine line, but it's a really big shift in energy. And I think so many kids now are looking for those thumbs up and the accolades that are coming from outside of themselves.

28:52 Everything's coming from outside of themselves. And once again we empower them to understand. And parents have a huge part in this of what they think about different things, you know, and then acknowledge them, acknowledge them. I've seen too many families, many of them put you know, put the kids down for what they think or it's not good enough. You know. That is the underline. I'm not sure if you know this. That is the underlying cause of so much anxiety in this world. Is one thing that people are walking around thinking that they are not good enough and.

29:33 They have been told that, which is interesting because and again, you know, parents have so much to deal with and one of the things that I find so interesting. And you know, my kids and I talk about this all the time, and you know, you talk about the negative part. Fortunately we're at the point where we laugh about those negative parenting situations, but after But but the point is is that you know, my dad may say to me X Y and Z and my perception as a child may be A, B and C, And all of a sudden, I'm thinking that he is telling me that I'm not good enough, when in reality, that's nothing that he said. Now, there are those parents that are actually to the point where on that you know, emotional scale, that yeah, you're just not good enough. But I think it's important for us to understand, not only as parents, but in general, in our communication with people around us and with family and friends and so forth. Oftentimes we will we will make a comment with a specific intent of understanding what we're saying, and the person that's hearing that comment may take it in an entirely different way based on their own personal, subconscious beliefs and experiences and so forth, And I think the important of being able to stop, and this gets into the communication part of it, to be

31:05 able to stop and say, Okay, is this what you were saying? No, no, no, let me explain this is what I'm saying. Oh, okay, now I understand. To be able to get into that communication as adults can be done. Not that everyone does it, but now you get into the children and parents and how important it is for a parent to be able to communicate in a way that really helps them to understand what the child is hearing and experiences and allowing, as you say, the child ultimately to become who they truly are, that wizard within them, rather than keep trying to tell them who they need to be exactly.

31:48 And I love that because for the parent to give that kind of acknowledgment to a child is actually treating them with respect, right, And when a child feels respected, it really boosts their self esteem tremendously, tremendously instead of you know, putting them down or you know, putting them against the brother and sister or whatever whatever. This because sometimes we do that. I think and thinking that maybe maybe my child will learn, maybe my my my child will will raise its sense of motivation and all of that not necessarily true. You want a child to be self motivated. Let's try, and you know, teach your children that they can really depend on themselves right, and to be self reliant, and the confidence will build and that will step into some beautiful adults. And I'll tell you and I may not be here for when that occurs, you know, when the world really shifts. But I have this vision with Abercadabra which is really interesting. And I said to you earlier during our little conversation earlier that you know, books really are not the thing. It's a tool and such. But I see Abercadabra as being such a huge turning point for a child and their parents

33:22 in terms of their dynamic. I have a beautiful a companion for teachers and parents when they're reading Abercadabra. So I feel like I see a child who's now thirty years old, knocking on their parents' story, you know, wanting to get upstairs to the attic or downstairs to the basement because all their crap is still there, and they go, where is that book Abercadabra? You know, I need to find that book Abercadabra. And that's what I that's my vision, because I don't know that I'll be here to see that the total shift, but I will see if it, see it one by one, just like I saw it in that little girl who wrote on that board, because that was extremely special, really was.

34:10 You know, the reality is and you know, I think about this a lot, and I think for everyone that is really honestly trying to make a difference in the world and in people's lives, to realize that it's not about the hundreds of thousands. It's not about the thousands. It's not about the hundreds, it's about the one. And if you can make the difference in one life over time, that's going to com pound to the point where it'll just be amazing. You know. One of the things you talked about and you know, how we want this and how we want that, and you had mentioned the word mindset early on, and you know, I think about the ego and and how how much we are affected by ego, and we want to feel important.

34:57 Therefore we want the car, we want the house, we want this, we want to feel like okay, and mindset is such an important aspect of that. And so for just a few minutes, I want you to talk a little bit about your perception of mindset and why mindset that's just a word, What does that mean and why is it important if it's handled in the correct way. Well, you brought up something because you brought up ego, right, So I think when we're taking we're taking a look at ego and mindset. You have to see when you're you have a task at hand, or you want something, where is it stemming from? What's the meaning that you're putting behind it? Because there's meaning to everything, and then there's meaning to nothing at all. Right, because everything, the only everything has whatever meaning you're going to put on it, period end of it. My meaning may be be different than your meaning, but does the meaning actually feel good?

36:01 That's where mindset kicks in. Mindset kicks in when you know that you have abilities to shift how you're thinking about something and that thought is going to make you feel also a different way, and then that feeling and thought is aligned and you feel super aligned at that point in life. That's where mindset is well. And yeah, and I think that's how important. One of the things that comes up often in the podcast is how as those negative emotions come up, something triggers us, and that comes up, and now you have the mindset of either I don't want that, I'm going to fight against that. And I use this phrase a lot. You know that which we resist persists absolutely, you know, versus with the mindset of, oh, okay, that has just come up.

37:00 To look at that a little bit further and then just move forward. And then ultimately, maybe through meditation, maybe through just contemplation, whatever it is, that you go back and go, Okay, why am I getting triggered by this? What is the emotion that's coming up? And why? And when we do that, all of a sudden, we start to realize that, you know what, it's okay, we don't have to fight against that. But as we continue to just kind of and I just put out a pin on this, if we just kind of walk with it and realize that, okay, ultimately that trigger and that whole belief system subconsciously starts to minimize. It doesn't go away, but it's no longer has the power to affect you the way that sometimes it does.

37:48 You know, when we're in different different places in our life and we have a conflict, right when we take a look at that conflict where you are going to be in blame or victimhood or any of these other emotional responses that are negative. What we're actually doing is giving our power away, completely giving our power away. So if we're talking ego the power away and we want to say, hey, I want to take that back, that's taking the responsibility that we need to. Then take that certain situation right, mold it and decide what the gift is and look at it in a completely different way.

38:34 We have the ability to do that with everything in our life. After you're talking about everything in our life. It's amazing, it's amazing. We really do. As we're coming to a close, I normally ask you to share a special thought, but you just did, so. Typically do that. So how do people find your book? What's the website you want to promote? Right? Yes, oh my goodness, well I'm going to give you too, but that's okay. Www. Dot Terry with A Y T E R or Y being author Terry Bean B E A N author dot com is where you'll find both of my books. The website that's going to be coming out that's extremely exciting to me is uh the Inner Magic Club dot com that is going to be absolutely stupendous and when it comes out, I will get it to you. You'll get it to your people. You can go online now you can see the landing page and kind of the portals that are going to be created.

39:35 And it's going to be something absolutely tremendous for kids, for parents, for teachers, everybody. Yeah. Oh, very exciting, very Thank you so much, thank you, thank you, doctor Doug. Truly a great conversation. I appreciate it, and I hope this has made a difference for you. I hope that there's some things that have been said today that my just change your thought process a bit where you can start to do that introspective work and realize that you know what you can create the life that not only you want, but that you deserve. So anyway, this is doctor Doug saying, thank you so much, have a wonderful week. Look forward to having you join us again soon. Now I'm mistake You