Mr Chazz is a teacher of teachers that is helping adults truly see, guide, and trust children.
351 Rethink Your Ideas About Kids
Mr. Chazz
Why should we shift from old-school punishments to a more respectful, mindful way of parenting? Because when we know better, we do better. Mr. Chazz is an internet sensation who translates children’s language in a way that any adult can understand. He gets it!
Rethink Your Ideas About Kids - Mr. Chazz [351]
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*This is an auto-generated transcript*
[00:00:00] Hunter: We speak the same language and in very different voices. I really love that about you because we both talk a lot about changing generational patterns and for me, I had a very clear generation pattern that I wanted to break. I got spanked when I was a kid I got yelled at and it scared me and I’ve forgiven my parents and all that is under the table now.
I’m just curious because for me I was yelling at my two-year-old and I was scaring her. And I was so disappointed in myself. I know you don’t have any kids yourself, but you’re working with parents and teachers to help break these generational cycles.
Is it really personal work for you in the same way that it was for me?
[00:01:01] Mr. Chazz: So yeah, we all have our upbringing and all our experiences and most of us grew up being spanked and yelled at, and that’s all a part of my story too as it is a lot of people’s story, but where a lot of my work is inspired from is working with children.
And when I first started to work with children as a Montessori teacher in a classroom of 30 children I really quite honestly had no idea what I was doing. I just got a job because I needed a job. And, I knew that I was good with kids, but I really needed a job. And that’s really what it was about.
And once I got the job, they gave you a little three-day training where a part of it is about HR policies and background and paperwork and all that stuff. And get a little bit of training about what to actually do in the classroom. I still remember that they put a VCR and for my training, and this was a big part of the training. It was a VCR video of play, that’s how old it was. And that’s how the orientation was. And that should give you some kind of clue of how ill-prepared I was to go into this classroom and try to help with all these different emotion. When I had two children, three children, your emotions, everything is just multiplied and, when you think about a classroom with 30 children and just all of these different emotions, personalities, people, upbringing, it was something I was not prepared to handle or really to help with.
And I struggled a lot with that because I understood the gravity of what I was doing, being a part of growing the next generation of humans. But I didn’t really know how to do that in a helpful way, in a good way. And I’d go in these situations of conflict and I would come out of it and try to help them with their problems. But by the end of it, maybe they’re yelling at each other and now they’re hitting each other like that didn’t work. What am I doing? And a lot of it, when you first start off, logic is the first, like I’m logically explaining what they should be doing and what should be happening, but it’s not working.
I fell in all the traps that most people do whether you’re trying to, become a teacher for the first time or parent for the first time and a caregiver in general, I would say this doesn’t just apply to parenting or teaching. It applies to leadership too, and it applies to how we engage in relationships in our lives. Back to the story of just how this kind of became really, personal, how this all came about. I remember struggling.
So like the visceral feeling of in my body and struggling, like going on break and literally thinking, I don’t have the strength to go back in there and to try to help. I was overwhelmed. I was stressed and a big part of it was I just didn’t understand what was happening and I didn’t have the tools and I knew that and I went searching. And I think this is a moment that a lot of people have, like this isn’t working, the breakdown comes before the progress.
And before I get back to the story, anyone who just like, just heard that, when you do break down or you do feel like you’re having a breakdown or maybe you’re in that spot right now. That can be for so many people for myself included and for a hundred thousand people I’ve talked to, that’s the pivotal moment that breakdown.
That’s where there’s an opportunity for everything to change, free to completely shift directions. Breakdown was happening. And I needed answers like, there’s gotta be a better way. There’s gotta be a way to do this. There’s gotta be more than this VCR 1962 play video.
There’s gotta be more to this. So over time, and luckily for me I had a leader who really believed in me and I was in a company that really did a lot of training. They sent me to trainings. I was reading books on my own, listening to podcasts, constantly trying things and reflecting, like my reflection process is intense, to the point where one of my bosses came up, created a verb for what I would do at the end of the day.
She was like, oh, are you Chazzing me? And what that meant was at the end of the day are we about to have a long reflective conversation about what happened and why it happened, what to do differently. But this is the process of learning and growing and improving.
And over time, I did that, I improved to the point where I started to feel more confident and people start to ask me for advice. And I still didn’t see myself as like a mentor, someone who could help other people, but other people started to notice my growth. And they started to ask oh, how can you help me?
Can help me with this. And I remember, another light bulb moment for me was someone just casually asking, “Hey, I’m really struggling with this child in this situation, can you help? I offered some advice casually, what felt casually to me and they came back and there was this, like my whole day has changed.
It changed the child’s day. It changed my day. I need more of that. And that’s when I’m like, man. Yeah. So I’m growing this next generation of humans and I love the impact that I’m making with my community of humans. But if I can impact teachers, my impact can be exponential. And so I became an educational specialist and that was pretty much my role.
And I worked with eight to 10 different schools depending on the time, in a larger company of about 60 or 70 different schools. So there were times where I worked with the other schools, but my focus was like, 10 different schools in my district, so to speak. That really was like a dream job. People asked “oh, what’s your dream job?”
This is my dream job. I know people don’t see early childhood is something like as a career. But that is I am feel so fulfilled by what I’m doing and I’m making impact and I’m growing, I’m learning, I’m getting it. I’m growing as a person like this is what else could have asked for.
Then the pandemic happened. Children went home, parents went home, or parents were already home. They went home to the parents, teachers went home. And I saw through conversations I was having with parents and through social media, I really saw how parents were struggling during that time.
And just observing and listening to parents. It was one of those moments, another one of those light bulb moments, where I felt in my journey of learning and struggling and feeling like I’m ruining children. And I have learned so much on my journey. If I could share that, my experience, my journey and my growth, that I knew that would help so many people with their struggles.
Because again, I know what it’s like, like there’s gotta be an answer to this. There’s gotta be a better way. But I don’t know it, and it’s really frustrating. And in the meantime, thinking I am ruining this child, this human being in front of me, and that is a heavy feeling. Even as a teacher that is a heavy feeling.
It’s just that a big part of where our challenges are is that we’re just repeating unconsciously sometimes consciously, but more times than not unconsciously repeating unhealthy habits of behavior that we learned from our adults when we were young and that have been conditioned into us. And a lot of times we don’t even know, a lot are like “oh, I didn’t realize that all this stuff to work through until I became a parent.
And then my, the child, my child maybe realize that, oh, actually I thought I worked on that. Like I thought I worked on that before, but clearly I still have more work to do. Those generally tend to pass on those generational patterns, unconsciously in a big part of what I do in my content is helping us see what those cycles are. And not just doing it because it was the way that we were raised, but actually being conscious of it, “Okay, that was the way that I was raised. I felt some way about it, but let me be conscious about what I’m saying and what I’m doing and how it’s impacting the other person.
Someone asked me like, which one of the labels do you identify with the most like gentle parenting or peaceful parenting or respectful parenting and
I would say like the big thing, and I kind of thought, I was reflective on this question, that conscious parenting feels most accurate. Conscious discipline, conscious parenting, but the descriptor is conscious. Being conscious of what we’re doing. And I think that is what I’d say is the most accurate label, not a big fan of labels, but if we’re going to label it.
I’d say that’s the most accurate label for what we’re all talking about in doing right. Because even like gentle parent, like people’s idea of what gentle is, right? Some people would feel. When you’re holding a boundary and you feel really overwhelmed, it doesn’t feel, you may not describe yourself as like gentle, right.
That’s not a gentle feeling that you’re having. But it’s essential and gentle and respectful, whatever. Like putting boundaries is a big part of it. But some people will hear at gentle gentle parenting and
[00:12:33] Hunter: no boundaries.
[00:12:34] Mr. Chazz: And maybe cause it’s like the action of like maybe even the same thing for, being the peaceful parent, maybe sometimes I don’t want to be peaceful. Maybe there’s a time. And if we just say, Hey, instead of be gentle, be peaceful, be respectful instead, let’s try to be conscious. Let’s try to be aware. And then we can make the choices based on our awareness. I think that might be a message that’s more digestible.
[00:13:08] Hunter: It just makes more sense. That’s what mindfulness is about. It’s let’s be aware, let’s not like reflexively do the same things. Let’s make a conscious choice. Let’s actually make a choice. And that requires us to look at research, look at what really does work, look at what really doesn’t work.
What are the effects of the ways that our parents parented in the past, is that really effective? Even if you turned out okay, is it really effective, right? And instead can we like look at and be aware of what is actually effective? And I think that’s what you’re pointing to right.
Is let’s just open our eyes a little bit more and not just say, that’s the thing about parenting is we go into it and we say, we get training to drive a car training, to teach in a Montessori classroom, training to be a barista at Starbucks. And then we go into parenting and we’re like, we’re just gonna wing it and do whatever our parents did it’s all instinctual. Yeah. And then we repeat those patterns. So what are the things that aren’t effective, that we don’t want to repeat. What are some of the things that parents habitually do? And I’m really interested also in you speaking to this too, because as you’re like a black man I’m a white woman.
And a lot of times like the dads in mindful parenting have a hard time hearing the message that we both speak to in our own different voices. From, a woman, who may have a certain perspective. And so I’m always really eager to talk to men because men in general, in our culture are like taught to be put in a little box, right about feelings, put in that little man box, to be tough and you don’t have a lot of feelings.
It’s a little bit stereotypical, but it’s there because it’s still pretty common that a lot of dads are very interested in let’s get those timeouts and punishments and hold these kind of things. And so I’m interested to hear.
From your voice about this. So then maybe it’ll be a voice that some people will hear that it might’ve been just harder to hear, from my voice or whatever,
[00:15:59] Mr. Chazz: Yeah. The first thing I want to say, you asked what are the things, what are the unhealthy patterns?
First thing I want to say here is that’s where everyone starts off, but we can’t stay there. When people start on their journey, it’s like I don’t want to do the things, you’re coming to realization. I don’t want to be my parents. I don’t want to raise my kids that way, but we can’t stay there because if you focus on what you don’t want, you’re going to get more of that.
You want to focus on what you do want. And so, you want to create a vision, values and a culture around what you do want, the parent that you do want to be and be very clear about that within yourself and with the people in your family.
That’s the first thing that I’m going to say. Now, in terms of before actually saying what’s unhealthy and giving examples of unhealthy habits. In terms of men and women having a different perspective. I actually want to tease into why I think that is and why traditionally, where that comes from talking about these generational cycles.
Because it didn’t just happen like in this generation and even the generation before us, where like all of a sudden we decided okay, we’re not going to have any feelings and we’re going to do our very best to try to condition our children.
[00:17:44] Hunter: They’re suffering from this too.
[00:17:49] Mr. Chazz: 100%, but let’s think about even like centuries ago because generations, we do have to go back that far. We can go back even further and talking about our brain and how we are just the males has been meant to be the protector, the protector and the provider. And it makes sense in a primal world where, you’re just trying to survive and that it would make sense to ignore your feelings. If there’s a lion staring down at me being sad or disappointed or afraid and feeling my feelings in that moment, probably isn’t the best thing for my brain to start to do to survive.
It’s probably ignoring the feelings in the moment. Maybe drawing on fear or anger, but ignoring like sadness to get through the moment to push through, to survive. It makes a lot of sense. And it would make a lot of sense why that kind of responsibility traditionally would fall on the male, the protector.
The problem is that the lion is no longer staring down at us. In that moment, when you stone-cold ignore your emotions, you fight the lion or you flee or whatever, use whatever survival skill that you have to do it, probably not feeling your feelings and or taking the perspective of the lion or anything like that. That’s good for the moment, but when we have that habit over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, and that becomes our habit that will slowly kill us. It doesn’t if we have a short lifespan and we’re only gonna live to 25 or 30, then it doesn’t matter as much because we’re not playing the long game, we’re playing the short game
[00:20:08] Hunter: Long enough to reproduce. I really appreciate this like perspective because it does have benefits, right? There aren’t benefits and I think. That’s so cool that you brought those out.
[00:20:19] Mr. Chazz: Now let’s fast forward to present day where this isn’t the situation typically, right? When your toddler is touching things or when your partner does something that is triggering to you or you’re in the workplace and something doesn’t go your way or something doesn’t happen as you expect. You’re not in that same position where the lion is going to attack you.
Like you’re not about to die, but our brain has been wired this way. Our brain is still wired for that survival because we’ve been in more of a kind of a survival mode for longer than we’ve been in this thriving mode. So our brains are still wired that way. Just because we changed the way that we lived and we’ve updated our technology doesn’t mean that the wiring of our brain updates along with it, we still see the child and we feel like out of control and we feel like they are disrespecting our authority.
We still see it as that lion. They still react as that lion. And instead of the healthy thing to do, the healthy habit that we want to create. So we live longer, healthier, more meaningful, happier lives is to acknowledge what we’re feeling. Don’t ignore the feeling. Don’t unconsciously, just react to the feeling, become conscious, aware of it, acknowledge it, give it a word.
See what story you’re telling yourself about that. Breathe. Go through those things. Maybe different situations. You’re overwhelmed, cry, right? This is what our body needs to do to work through emotions. Now what happens when we don’t, and males or females, it doesn’t matter.
What happens when we don’t. Just because we ignore an emotion doesn’t mean it goes away. It’s still, it doesn’t disappear. Ignoring your emotions doesn’t make them disappear. They get stored in your body and they are manifested in other ways. Could be through misbehavior that your trying to figure out how to stop off the behavior, not realizing that there’s this underlying thing that’s happening and the behavior is just the symptom, they can’t express how they feel, they can’t express their feeling.
I want the toy back. You took my toy. I’m so mad at you. They can’t express that verbally. They have to express it physically, but through hitting. Then we see the behavior, like “Why are you hitting?” “Stop hitting” “There’s something wrong with you!” And then we try to punish or timeout.
But really, it would be most helpful to teach them the skill to express how their feeling so they don’t feel like they have to get it out with their hands because they’re trying to solve their problem, that this internal conflict that they have, they’re trying to solve the problem and a skill that they have, they’re using the survival skills of hitting.
But we can teach them the skill of expressing it verbally. And that’s the healthier, more pro-social way to do things. And those are the skills that we want to teach. Those are the humans that we want to raise. We don’t want to raise humans who, when they get triggered, they’re hitting people.
When they get triggered, they’re having a conversation in a way that’s not attacking the other person physically or verbally. But that requires us to acknowledge our own emotions and deal with and work on our own emotions so that we don’t just attack them.
Back to the question…
What happens? It manifests through misbehavior. It can manifest in poor gut health. It manifest in a weakened immune system. The body and the brain are so connected, they talk to each other. The body system is very much connected to our feelings, our nervous system. And so when we are ignoring our feelings, as we’ve been conditioned this way, especially if you are a male, but also many women. Being conditioned the same way, generally in society, I think males probably get more intense message of it, maybe a little bit more of it, but I think we all receive the message. But also, our life expectancy for males are not as long as females. Also suicide rate is higher for males, because we don’t know how to express our feelings, deal with our feelings in a healthy way, because we’ve been conditioned to ignore them.
And unless we’re conscious of this we’re likely going to pass on that same pattern to our children, to whoever you’re caring for, to the child you’re caring for.
[00:25:30] Hunter: Because they’re modeling from you. If you’re acknowledging your feelings, then they’re learning to do that. If you’re stuffing it down, they’re learning to do that.
We know now that the bullies are the ones who are bullied themselves, because that’s what they were doing. Our kids are often terrible at doing what we say, but often great at doing what we do. They’re great at just modeling that. So yeah, and sometimes it’s funny, I think as parents, like we get into a situation we’re so frustrated with our kids and we’re like, “if you will just change your behavior, then I will be able to calm down.”
It’s like basically the subtext of what we’re saying and it’s crazy because we’re the adults we’re so have the fully developed brain, right? Like it’s incumbent upon us to be the adults to make that shift, but it’s not easy. It’s also a big ask that we’re both asking people to do is to say, you have a pattern that maybe you may have trauma in your DNA.
May have patterns that have been going on for generations and generations, and there’s so much suffering. And to transform that suffering is a big ask, but I think that our kids can be a motivator to transform our own suffering, to start to develop those healthy ways of mindfully processing our feelings rather than shoving them down or exploding in rage.
It just shows how I think that can be an exposure to how little control we have. We think we’re very strong, but it’s actually a form of strength to deal with your feelings in a healthier way, to acknowledge them is an incredible form of strength.
[00:27:30] Mr. Chazz: That is strength because it’s really, a lot of times what people will describe as strength is really fragility. You’re afraid of your feelings. You’re afraid of dealing with disappointment and fear or not having control. So you shove it all down and we’ve been taught to avoid the emotion and be afraid.
So I, a hundred percent agree with you. And on the note of the, if you just change your behavior, then I’ll be able to change my behavior. That’s so true that we say all the time and just thinking about. Behavior change is hard for adults and for children. And if we’re going to have the expectation for a child to change their behavior, then why wouldn’t we have the expectation for ourselves to change our behavior?
Knowing that the only thing we have actual control over is our own behavior and our own behavior will influence their behavior and will impact their behaviors. So instead of trying to control the things that you can’t control and trying to micromanage and spend so much energy, trying to control children focus on the change that we can.
And if you don’t think, if you have any doubt in your mind, if you’re out there listening, you’re like, yeah. I try the language, I try the modeling, but they’re not getting it or they’re not going to get it. If you don’t think that modeling and modeling language is impactful, this is what we’re going to do.
This is what I want you to do. Okay. Let me play a little game. For the next week, you don’t even got to do it for a long period of time, for the next week. If you’re a teacher listening to this, go in the classroom. If you are a parent, just your household. Start dropping the F bomb and the S bomb and C bomb and see what happens.
I bet they’re going to learn some new language, right? It we’re so aware of that. Some people curse around the kids. Some people don’t, whatever, but people who are like, I really don’t want children learn curse words. And especially as a teacher, you’re really hyper-aware of it.
Cause one child will start saying words and you know, you’re hyper-aware it. We know, we’re afraid that they’re going to use the language that we’re modeling for them, but then we’re skeptical that they’re going to learn from hearing the language that we’re modeling for them.
[00:30:06] Hunter: That’s a really good point Chazz. I’m stealing that example right there. That’s a really great point. I want to get into the point of view of the skeptical parent here. A parent might say something like, my child is being disrespectful to me and they are, they’re giving me the sassy no and they’re throwing their stuff in the ground and whatever they’re being disrespectful.
How do you respond to that kind of situation?
[00:30:41] Mr. Chazz: The first thing, whenever we use the word, being disrespectful over saying that another person is being a way and we’re using it as a way to justify our actions. The first thing I invite people to reflect on is
What is disrespect? And are they being disrespectful or do you feel disrespected? Because those are two really different things. I can feel disrespected that you didn’t compliment my shirt that I’m wearing. That doesn’t mean you’re being disrespectful. And if I have a trigger that’s already there, cause I really care about my appearance and maybe, growing up my parents would always get on me about what I wear and fashion and maybe even in school that was a big deal.
And so that’s something that’s really in my world view, that’s something that’s really important. And if someone doesn’t compliment my shirt or someone doesn’t give me a good enough compliment or makes any comment, then I could be triggered by it. And that’s because that’s my trigger.
This is what I want people to hear. This is the important part. When you’re triggered. That’s your trigger. So not someone else’s to trigger your trigger, right? There’s something in you or there’s a button that you have and someone pushed it. Yeah. Someone pushed your button, but that button is yours.
That’s your stuff that you’re dealing with. So likely often when the child’s being disrespectful, it’s really the child’s triggering something within you that probably has nothing to do with the actual child. When we really unpack it, like we really have the conversations, so why do we need to respond with, why do we respond harshly?
Why is this the response? Probably for disrespecting, and then it goes into the story. Then we start to hear the story, it’s because they’ll never learn how to respect authority and if they’re talking back to me, then they’ll never get a job and they’ll never learn to be a respectful human being.
They won’t be a good human. And these are the stories that we’ll tell ourselves like, okay, so this is the story.
Hunter: It always ends up with your child being a sociopath.
[00:33:25] Mr. Chazz: Eventually we always get somewhere, maybe they’re a sociopath or they’ll never be successful in life, something like that. And let’s deal with that then. Okay. So that’s the real thing that you’re struggling with? That’s the real fear. That’s the trigger.
That’s the thing that they’re triggering in you. Let’s talk about that. Let’s not only talk about that within you and unpack where that’s coming from in you. So you can be aware and conscious of that and realize that has actually nothing to do with your child. It has nothing to do with your three-year-old, it actually has more to do with the way that you were raised and your conditioning that your mom, your dad, or your growing up had this role.
And now you feel like it’s gotta be a thing, but that’s not necessarily true, but that’s the story you’re telling yourself, right? So unpack. And then we talk about the tools that we use to help that child, because the child is being disrespectful. It’s again, they’re likely trying to get a point across, they’re trying to express something that they’re feeling and maybe they didn’t do it in a pro-social way they didn’t do it in the best way. And in the most respectful way. Which is also true for us adults too. How many times did we get overwhelmed with emotion and you don’t see things the way that we wish we would have or the way that we would, if we were completely regulated.
[00:34:57] Hunter: I know sometimes we have higher standards for kids than we have for other adults. We often do, especially around if you’re asking them to do something good Lord, but continue.
[00:35:07] Mr. Chazz: Yeah. And we don’t, we don’t always see it that way. We’re not always conscious that we have higher expectations. And so then I go into how can we actually help this child? So really it’s how can we help the child get their point across and express what they’re feeling in a better way. In a more respectful and effective way because teaching children to advocate for themselves is really important.
Because if you don’t know how to advocate for yourself, you don’t know the process. You don’t know, like you don’t even know that there is a process or do you feel like you’ll always be shut down? You don’t know if there’s a way, then you’re probably going to go to the lower parts of your brain, using a little more survival skills and the more emotional part of your brain and yelling and trying to power your way into it.
But if you have the process and things to keep in mind, do some perspective taking, validate how the other person’s feeling, talk about. And this is something that you’re building over, this is an ongoing conversation over a long period of time, right?
Obviously your toddler, you’re not going to be doing a lot of perspective taking as they’re trying to advocate for their needs. But if you can do some perspective taking and modeling that language in terms of I see you’re feeling, this, wanting that. That’s all, you’re already building the foundation for that.
You’re already helping them learn that language so that they can use that language when they have a big emotion and they feel really strongly that they should have more screen time. And that doesn’t mean that they’re going to necessarily get the thing that they’re advocating for.
But you make it clear that they can advocate and there’s a way to do it and you’re going to be listening it. You’re gonna listen to them and not be dismissive. I’d get disrespectful too if I felt like I was trying to advocate for something and you were ignoring me and ignoring me and I felt like it was really important.
At some point I’ll probably get disrespectful too so give people the skills. Hopefully in my consciousness I will breathe and regulate and try to, think of a different way and try to reach the other person. But that takes a lot of work and who can blame them.
Children have to learn that. We have all have to learn
[00:37:39] Hunter: What you’re describing though, is that learning process, like first we do something for our kids, right? And then we do something with our kids and then we watch them do it, and then they do it on their own. And that takes a lot of time for different skills.
It takes a long time and it takes a lot of modeling. It takes a lot of repeating ourselves in a skillful way for our kids to learn some skillful language and that’s okay. That’s normal.
[00:38:08] Mr. Chazz: Repeating ourselves in a skillful way. I like the way that you phrase that too because a lot of times, we turn into robots, right?
You read a script or something, and then it’s like a thing you say over and over again. And maybe it’s not working because it’s not authentic. You’re just using that as often. An example is All your feelings are okay.
And it’s okay to feel this feeling. And yeah that’s true. And that’s really good that at some point, it’s probably more for us to know, something we need to say to ourselves, because if we’re just doing the thing when they’re emotional to try to just to get rid of the emotion and to try to stop the thing and be like, I see you’re angry.
We’re not really present in that moment and that’s not authentic and it’s patronizing and it’s, it gets translated into calm down.
[00:39:10] Hunter: It’s like emotional dishonesty. Cause if we’re seething inside, it’s I hear you saying.
[00:39:22] Mr. Chazz: And they know that it’s not authentic. And they know that especially if you’re doing it over and over. Like they’re going to learn oh, this isn’t something you’re trying to do. Often our intentions are when we’re trying to validate an emotion or even I made a song and called it a breathing song and it was really helpful for a lot of people, but something that was a little, I got to make another video about is that people were using it when their child was upset, they would like, shove the phone in their face and say oh, Mr. Chazz singing to you. And some people were like, oh that actually really helps my child. And I’m sure for some people and some moments, context, situation, a lot of things. There’s a lot of variables there. We have to be conscious that can be taken as just calm down, stop your emotion. I’m only validating your feeling so that you get over it and we can do the next thing. Yeah.
[00:40:31] Hunter: It’s nonacceptance and say, yeah, it’s just fix this problem. I don’t really accept you for who you are. And then it’s a manipulative intent. It’s not a really authentic intent.
[00:40:46] Mr. Chazz: Yeah. And I want to tie it back a little bit to our experience as adults, because that’s sometimes what helps us empathize with, imagine, you’re at work and there’s something that you’re upset about something you feel like you have a really… maybe you felt disrespected in a meeting, maybe you’re working longer hours than what was agreed upon. Maybe you’re taking on some more work than what was agreed upon, maybe doing other people’s jobs and you go in and you’re like, Hey, you go in and you have to talk to your leader and say, Hey, I have a problem.
I want to talk to you. And they do okay, come into my office, like okay, let’s have this conversation. And then you start sharing about how you’re feeling and that you felt really disrespected or whatever the story was. And then they just start reading from their HR sheet of what the response is supposed to be to you.
How are you going to feel? You’re gonna probably be even more PO’d than when you walked in that office. Because you really don’t care you really just want to, you’re just dismissing me another way. You’re just dismissing me in a patronizing way to just get moving on. You don’t actually care.
I don’t actually feel seen. And I’m probably going to quit. This is what we do here. So just imagine that, like a lot of times we are that, we see with all the best intentions, on social media or listen to podcasts, trying to get information, trying to learn, trying to grow so that we can provide a better life.
A healthier, an emotionally healthier life than maybe what we had growing up. And so it was all the good intentions. So we use a script like, oh, that is better to say then suck it up. And I didn’t have any language for it because it wasn’t modeled to me. And so I don’t have any language so let me use this script and then use it.
And then it just becomes this robotic thing. And I’m not saying scripts are like evil or bad and we should never, ever use scripts, but they have the utility sure, but don’t get stuck in scripts. Use that as a stepping stool, like use a script and build, understand what the script is trying to communicate.
[00:43:11] Hunter: It’s the raft to get to the other shore. It’s not the destination.
[00:43:19] Mr. Chazz: Yeah. I would say that it is just like an ore.
[00:43:26] Hunter: Yeah. It’s not even the raft. It’s like the ore, or it’s like the seat,
[00:43:34] Mr. Chazz: Right? It’s just a tool to help you.
It’s not going to get you there on your own. And by the way, there’s no destination. And this is the most important part of this whole conversation that we have to have before I go. There is no destination. Perfect doesn’t exist. I always say avoid being a perfectionist, be an improvist.
The goal isn’t to be perfect every day, the goal is to improve a little every day. So often we will see the Instagram mom, dad, or whatever family, the pictures or whatever, the postcards and we see it and then we will shame ourselves and be like, we’re not the perfect family.
And we’ll shame ourselves for where we’re at in our journey. Not even realizing that, that curated picture or feed or whatever, it doesn’t even exist. That’s not even a representation of their actual reality. It’s not, but we’re comparing it like their perfect curated life to our, what we know about our real, the realness of life, right?
The ups and the downs, that they have to, whether those sharing it or not. But we see that and like, why am I not perfect? And we mess up and make a mistake. We shame ourselves. Like I’m such a bad. Insert label here. I’m such a bad parent. I’m such a bad teacher. I’m such a bad mom, dad, such a bad, whatever it is.
And that actually stops us from improving. That actually slows us from improvement. That’s like the current against the raft. And instead we want to move with the current, instead we want to say Hey, acknowledge that I did make a mistake. I may be experiencing some guilt. That’s okay. To feel guilt.
The difference with guilt and shame is guilt is okay, I feel bad about something I did. Shame is more like I’m a bad person because of whatever something I did or whatever the reason is. And so it’s okay to feel guilty about a mistake that we made or messing up. That’s a part of it too.
That’s an emotion again, the emotions are information from the body and they’re telling us something. We want to listen to that and sit in it and feel it and be like, yes, I do feel guilty and let that inspire us to make a change to do so to improve a little, to make a little improvement, the next stage to do something a little different, that does take a lot of effort because it takes conscious effort because you’re stopping a cycle, it’s almost like stopping a moving train. I don’t know if you ever saw that Spider-Man meme, but it takes a lot of efforts, a little bit of improvement and when we shame ourselves, we’re stopping ourselves in our tracks. So avoid being a perfectionist, be an improvist. The goal is not to be perfect every day. The goal is to improve a little every day.
[00:46:36] Hunter: Absolutely. Yes. So true. You have permission to be human dear listener, and I think that’s what Chazz is giving you an as well as all those wonderful perspective and advice here.
Where can people find you and your wonderful videos my friend?
[00:46:58] Mr. Chazz: Oh man, you can find me on Tik TOK, Instagram, Facebook, all podcasting platforms. And you also get access to one-on-one coaching with me through www.patrion.com/MrChazz. I’m Mr. Chazz on pretty much all platforms and that’s Mr Chazz with 2 z’s. But @mrchazzmrchazz on TikTok, mrchazz mr chazz on Facebook and @mrchazz on Instagram.
[00:47:28] Hunter: I think that’s pretty clear. I want to thank you. And like I said, for anyone who’s a longtime listener of this podcast, you can see all the incredible, why I wanted Mr.
Chazz to come on here because of the way he speaks to the things that we’ve spoken to for many years in such a wonderful, refreshing way and with a lot of compassion for us as parents. And I think we need that kids and parents need a lot of compassion to make those bit by bit changes every day.
So thank you so much for taking the time for sharing your voice with us today. I really appreciate it.
[00:48:08] Mr. Chazz: I appreciate you having me on and listeners too feel free to check out my podcast, Mr. Chazz’s leadership, parenting, teaching podcast, and I hope this was helpful, I hope it was valuable. And I’ll see you on the interwebs
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