EP 97 - Leadership Starts at Home: Transforming Families and Communities - meet Richard Ramos

Coming up on our Finding Better podcast, I have Richard Ramos of Parents on a Mission back to join me, and he has amazing insights and experiences that he's sharing with us on parenting, on leadership, on relationships and community. And if you just take one of the things that you learned from this episode and apply it to your life, it could absolutely change your life. It is a wonderful, wonderful conversation. Thank you for joining us. Please share this. Here we go. Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to our Finding Better podcast. My name is John Suzuki and I am your host. And this is where we share real life experiences of people who have been there and done that in terms of finding better in their own lives and helping other people find better in their lives. Because, you know, sometimes the best way to success is to copy it. And so, you know, the idea is to. Is to listen and learn, and if some of it makes sense, apply it into your own life. Today is a real treat. I've got Richard Ramos with me, and Richard was with me earlier in the year, and he. He founded a group called Parents on a. Parents on a Mission. Parents on a Mission. Now, how cool is that? Now, here's the thing. This is not just for parents. So if you're not a parent, don't turn this off. It's for all of us. It's about people who are on a mission to make better people and to help people. The people tend to be young people, but young people become people as old as us. And the idea is that if we can do our part to make them better and enrich their lives, they got a better shot of living a good life. And so, Richard, welcome back to Finding Better. Thank you for joining me.

It's my pleasure, John. Thanks for having me back.

You are doing such amazing, amazing things. I mean, you work with parents, you work with schools, you work with prisons, you work with all kinds of things. So, you know, before we get into all that, you know, and this is called Finding Better, right? And folks are. Folks are listening to learn. You know, what, what. What can they do better? How can they. How can they live a better life? And a lot of parents and people are like, how can I help the kids around me? You know, know, how can I help my own kids? So what is, you know, parents on a mission? What is your core purpose? Notice I didn't say mission statement. So you might. You might be having to think through this real quick, but what is your core purpose? And. And what is it that you. What is it that you try to accomplish in your world?

Yeah, John, going Back to what you started with about if you're not a parent, you know, this could help anybody. Because really what I'm doing really is about leadership. It really comes down to that. But my purpose is to develop and reproduce parent and youth leaders for the betterment and quality of life in their community. It's just that simple. You know, I believe that the core of the community, the root of the community, the foundation of a community, or if you want to say a neighborhood where we all grow up, where we all live, where we go outside, our kids play in the yards, they go to the park, they go to the local schools, that neighborhood, that community, how can we make it better? More rich, more quality of life, richness in life? And I believe it is because of the leadership that mom and dad are providing, first of all with themselves, and then secondly, as a model to their children around things like integrity, responsibility, industriousness, ethics, concern for the welfare of our neighbors, those kinds of things. And when you're developing those things in the home, I believe it translates then to the neighborhood, to the local school. Later on, they become employees, etc, leaders in the community. And so that. That's my purpose is to. To develop parent and youth leaders for the betterment and quality of life in their community.

Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh. You just, you just, you just said something that in my, in my mind as you were talking, my. My mind was just spinning, and you talk about leadership. I mean, how cool is that, you know? And. And I realized as you were talking that leadership transcends everything. And, and what I mean by that is that if you're a, if you're a good leader at home, 80% of those leadership skills transfer or are applicable at work or anything you do. And so the thing that got my head spinning was that I thought of all the great leaders, I mean, 100% of the great leaders I was thinking about in my work life are also really great parents. That was kind of a whoa. It wasn't an aha moment. It was really a whoa moment. And so when you talk about building leadership and building leadership skills, boy, tell me something we need more of in this world, right? It's all about love. It's all about heart. And all those things that you talked about in terms of responsibility and ethics and all that hard work, you know, it all starts at home, Right? But at the same time, the community has a lot to do with it too. Right? But I do agree with you that it starts at home.

Yeah, it's, it's. It's you know, it's about the community. But as we teach and parents on a mission, and we, you know, try to emphasize to parents that the community does not build your family. Your family builds the community.

Oh, my gosh. And boom.

Another. The way to think about that is where the citizens of the community come from. Because what is the community? It's not the buildings, you know, it's not the. The streets and the cars, the school buildings and the business buildings and the church buildings and all those things. Those things are needed. But the quality of the life in that community, the thriving, vibrant life is the people in the community and where do they come from? And I always say, you know, citizens go to church, they don't come from church. Citizens go to school, they don't come from school. Citizens go to work, they don't come from work. Where do they come from then? They come from the home. That's where the citizens of the community come from.

And that's what you're focused on?

That's what I'm focused on. And I. I think I've told this story before about.

Please.

Yeah, about the guy who's fishing in the stream, and he. He rescues a. Somebody drowning coming down. Have I told that story?

I don't know. I don't know if you did or not, but please do.

He. He's. This guy's yelling and drowning. He's coming downstream and he jumps in. He saves him. He pulls him out and he, you know, is resus him and making sure he's fine. But as soon as he revives this guy, he hears another person screaming. And, you know, he's. What. What is going on? He dives in again and swims to the guy and brings him out, and he's helping that guy. And then next thing, he hears another. Well, as the story goes, this keeps happening. So eventually he says, I can't do this by myself. So he goes to the community and he starts recruiting people. Hey, there's something going on. I don't know what it is, but people keep coming down this stream here and they're drowning and they're from. I don't know where, but. So he brings the community together. This thing keeps happening. So eventually a whole organization around saving these people and pulling them out of the river. And eventually one of the guys starts to leave and he says, hey, where are you going? He says, oh. He says, I'm. I'm going upstream. He said, I need you here to help. He said, no, you have enough help. He said, I'm going Upstream to find out what the root of the problem is and where these people are coming from. And that's exactly what I'm doing. I'm. There's a lot of nonprofits, there's a lot of good schools, there's a lot of good churches, there's a lot of good programs helping people. But, you know, John, I believe the root of the problem, where we need to focus more of our efforts to build these thriving quality of life communities is in the home. And so that's what I, what I've done.

Okay.

And that's what I'm doing.

And you're right. I mean, because, because as you build, as you build the home, so too do you build up the community.

And it's not.

Nest is not necessarily the other way around. Right.

We want help. We want the, we want the community. As I've said before, you know, it does not take a village to raise a child.

Absolutely agree.

One child can raise up a whole community. And that's why it's important that we look at our children. You never know that one child could be a great leader, a great organizer, a great teacher. One person we know from history, one person, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, whoever you want to mention, one person can influence a whole community, state, nation and world. We know that. So that could be our children. That could be your child, my child, it could be, who knows? But the issue is it's you and I in the home that are raising that child. But what we want from the village, from the community, we want their support, want their support. We don't want their control. And that's a lot of what's happening today. The, the authority of parents is being undermined, unfortunately, by the institutions of our community. And that didn't used to be that way. And I'm saying, no, we need to go back to the authority of parents and in the home.

Absolutely, absolutely. Oh my gosh, there's just so much to unwind there because, you know, the idea. And I, I've, I mentioned this to you mentioned this last time, but, you know, I hear people all the time say, you know, you know, in terms of raising, raising our kids and instilling values, that's. The school's, that's up to the school. I lean on the school to do that. And you just. No, no, you know, and, and so, yeah, I love what you say. Does not, it does not take a village. It takes parents. You know, kids don't. The community don't. Doesn't build children. But children can build communities.

And I think, Johnny, when you and I grew up, I think. I think there was a time where parents and the values that were being taught in school, I think there was a lot of similarity there. I think parents rely on the school and the churches.

That's true.

I don't think that's true today. I really don't.

Yeah, and I mean, you see it all the time. I mean, the schools and in some cases churches, they're trying to. They're hijacking our kids. And it's, it's, it's like, what are, what are you doing? And so there's, There's a lot of improvement. I mean, you can focus on a million different things, but I love the idea that you were focusing on the. On the core. On the core problem or the core challenge. So, you know, as folks are listening out there, you know, you give, you. You share your experience, you share stories and so forth. What are some things, you know, as people are listening to, to our conversation? What are a few things that you have found to be really effective, really effective in terms of what folks can do in, in building those relationships with their kids and, and bringing their loyalty back to the family? What are, what are some thoughts?

Well, I think one of the big things is people today are looking for authenticity. You know, people who are authentic and true to ourself, rather than trying to mimic somebody or, you know, with all their influencers and tik tok and things like that. Portraying. It's not really true. It's really not who you are. But people are looking for that authentic voice, that authentic person who's just comfortable with themselves. What they say is, is what they mean, and what they mean is what they say, you know, what you see is what you get. And I think that's one of the things, at least I've tried to not only teach, but to model to my children just to be authentic, to be who we really are and not trying to. Of course, we have examples. We have people that we look up to. You know, we all have role models like that, and that's fine. But one of the things we try to do is help as far as young people, we try to help them discover who are you? Not who the rap music says you are, not what the TV says you are, not what the influencers say you are. Who are you? Who are you? And once we can help young people discover that, then it's. How can we develop that? So discover who you really are, then develop who you really are and be authentic in that and not feel like you always have to be this chameleon like person putting on this face to try to be a people pleaser to every crowd. I think one of the main things to answer your question is authenticity. That's one.

You know, authenticity is really, really hard. It's really hard. Especially, you know, you talked about social media, and by the way, here we are, we are social media, right? I mean, we're, we're doing a podcast episode here. In my case, honestly, what you just said about the dangers of podcasts and social media is exactly why I started this podcast was because, you know, I wanted to bring real information. I wanted to create a, a safe place can come to where they can listen and they can agree and they can learn to disagree and they can learn that it's okay to be you. Because authenticity and being yourself in the world that we live in right now is, can be really scary, right? Because you don't want, you don't want to look bad. And, and, you know, I mean, and we are inundated with messaging of, what I call messaging of, oh, God, what did I call it? That we're not good enough. That we're not good enough. And it just, we're bombarded by it. And so with this idea of inadequacy, right? Messages of inadequacy, it's just fired into our head that we have to have, we have to wear a mask. And if we, if we are ourselves, we're going to look foolish, we're going to look bad, we're going to whatever it is that we're fearful of. And it's all about fear. So. And this is with adults too, Richard, as you know. So what are one or two things that you do to help draw out that authenticity? And, you know, because like I said, it takes courage. It really does. It takes some guts to, to, to say to the world, all right, world, I'm just going to be me, right? Take me or leave me. How, how do you, how does that happen?

Well, what we teach in personal growth, the first step in personal growth, you know, when you talk about personal growth or emotional maturity or some people call it emotional intelligence, the first thing to be successful in that and a lot of other things is to know yourself. And how do you get to know yourself?

Right? Yes.

And one of the, one of the ways you get to know yourself is to spend time with yourself. And what we tell people, you know, you need to slow down. We are being bombarded with so much noise. There's noise in the morning, noise in the afternoon, noise when you get home tv, radio, texts, emails, music. Nobody can escape it unless you intentionally take time, time out. I just encourage, you know, for me, it's in the morning. It could be any time. But to take time out, maybe pull over on the side before you get home in your car and just turn the radio off. Or on the way home, turn the radio off. Or get up earlier in the morning or go to bed later at night somewhere where you can just get quiet and listen to your conscience and listen to the internal conversation and your thinking about how you think about you so that that helps you to, you know, be the authentic self. How are you? How is your relationship with yourself? Because I believe that all of our relationships flow out of our relationship with ourselves. So that's one practice that you call it meditation. You could call it prayer. You could call it quiet time. But I encourage one of the principles of getting to know yourself and being authentic is to find. Have a discipline of finding that time. And you have to plan it. You know, you have to make it. Make an appointment with yourself, basically, and get quiet. It could be for five minutes, it could be for 20 minutes, it can be for an hour. It's up to you. But the point of it is, what is the internal conversation, Your conscience, how are you feeling about yourself, your relationships, your work, all of those things, and just listen within yourself and through that meditation, prayer process, just for the purpose of knowing who you really are and.

Slowing down, slow down. I love that. I love that. And you know what I have found, I have found for me. And everybody's different, right? Some people. Some people can find that peace by going on walks. Some people will meditate, some people will do some gardening or whatever. What I found works for me is 60 seconds. 60 seconds in the morning, I will give myself literally 60 seconds where I will just. And I won't look at my phone for at least 30 after I wake up. It's not the first thing I look at, but I will give myself 60 seconds. And all I do is I sit and close my eyes and I just clear my mind. And what I used to think is that I had to keep. I had to keep my mind clear and open, and I had to block out all the thoughts that were trying to come into my mind. And then I realized, you want those thoughts coming into your mind right? When you're in a quiet place, let those thoughts come. And I'll tell you, sometimes my 60 seconds grows into something longer. But a lot of times my 60 seconds is done in 30 because a thought will come into my mind and I'll think about it and I'll go, okay, I'm done. And it's amazing how productive that is, right?

Yes.

When you just give yourself, like I said, even 60 seconds of just quiet time and just let things happen, it's been just wonderful for me. And I do the same thing when I go to bed. I purposely give myself 60 seconds, and I kind of say the same thing to myself every time. It's kind of an affirmation. And what I say as part of the 60 seconds is, I'm happy, I'm healthy, I'm strong, I'm smart. Okay. I can tell myself anything. Right. It doesn't have to be true, but I'm. I'm blessed. I'm. I'm forgiven and I'm grateful.

Yes.

And, you know, it's. Then. Then I. I just. I'm not. I am trying to go to sleep, but I'm. During my consciousness, as I'm falling into sleep, I'm giving myself that peace. And so my personal experience is what you just said works, and it's really effective.

That's huge. I wish more people would do it. Take the suggestion you're giving them. I mean, 60 seconds, that might seem like an eternity, but, you know, it's a good practice. And if people. More people would do that, like you said, in the morning or at night. One of the things I used to do, John, when my kids were little and I do more traveling than. Than I do now, before I would go in the house and my wife would be home, had been with the kids all day or all weekend or whatever. Before I would go, I would be in my car, but before I would go in the house, I would just take a moment, I would take a couple breaths, like, you know, what am I going to when I go in there? You know, what's going to be. What's it going to be like? You know, who knows when you've been gone for two or three days or all day. But I did that because I wanted to be present. I wanted to be present of my wife, you know, to her, to look her in the eye and kind of see how she was doing. I wanted to be in tune with her and in tune with my kids versus wanting them to be in tune with me and how I was coming in, how I showed up at home. So I would do that. That was a practice. I used to, and I still do it today. Except that, you know, all my kids are. They're adults now and all that, but that was a practice I would do just so I could go into the home and be present and be in tune with whatever was going on in.

The house, you know? You know, I never did that. And as you were talking, I was thinking to myself, boy, I wish I did. I wish I knew you when I was working. And I wish you would have told me this while I was working, because, you know, stress. Stress. Work is often stressful. You know, maybe once or twice. Right. But. And there's. There. Yeah, there's so many times that you come in hot, right? At the end of the day, you. You are coming in blazing, and you're just going. I mean, you just got the weight of the world on you. And then your kids come up and they hug you. They go, dad, dad, dad. And I'm like, go away. Right? And so I can. I can. I can only imagine that if I just pulled over to the side of the road, a block away from the house, and I just gave myself that 60 seconds of peace.

Yes.

That's 60 seconds of detox. The 60 seconds of letting go of that bullshit day that we just went through.

Right? That's right.

And I'm also thinking in my mind what I would have done is reminded myself of how grateful I am for my family and grateful I am for my kids. And I'll tell you what a life change. I mean, I can feel it in me right now. I can. I can feel it in me as I'm thinking about it, of just everything going right.

Right.

That's awesome. That's awesome.

It's the same practice when you go to work, before you go into the office or wherever you're going, or before you speak, before we get on this podcast, you know, it. It's a practice getting back to authenticity. And one of the principles I'm sharing about a quality of life and being that leader and having practices that build your character and integrity, because that'll lead me to the second point I want to make. But yeah. Yeah, we can practice that at. Before we enter into any other space, whatever that might be.

So, yeah, okay. So authenticity. There's. There's a lot. There's a lot to. There's a lot to it from the standpoint of understanding and, for lack of a better term, meeting yourself, being. Being authentic with yourself. Right. And then having the courage to be authentic to the world. And I'll just say this as we. As we go on to your next point. I believe we're all. We're all made for a reason, and we're all Here. We're all here now. We share common purposes, but I think we are all made differently and we all have our own special reason for being here. And. And, you know, one of the things that. That I. I would love to. Love to be part of kind of shifting in society is stop trying to make everybody the same and, you know, celebrate our differences. Celebrate.

What a boring world that would be.

Right. You know, and yet we live in this world where, you know, we want. Anyway. Anyway, I don't. I don't need to go there in this episode, but, you know, celebrate our differences. We're all so different, and we're all given different superpowers, and. And so, you know, in that. In that spirit, celebrate your authentic self because there's nobody like you and.

Right.

You'll have a lot more fun that way, you know? Yeah. You know, the last thing I'll say, Richard, is I don't. Even though I'm on social media now right now, I don't. I don't. I don't look at anything in terms of. I don't look at reviews. I don't look at. I. My. I tell my daughter to look at the reviews and tell me what they say, because I don't need that negativity of negative reviews and just people out there hating in my life. I just don't need that energy in my life.

Right.

And so I think. And. And all this is to say is that one. One way that I have found that protects me as my authentic self is to block all that out. I mean, I just block it out. I don't need it. Yeah, I don't need it. And so. So anyway, I. Sorry. Sorry for that language, but you get the point.

That's what we're doing. We're having a conversation.

That's it. That's it. All right.

Yeah.

So cool. All right, you're up.

So the other thing about it, I would say, John, is, you know, people are worshiping at the altar of data and information. And really, it's not about that. It's about what people want is an experience. You know, not all this data and all this information. You know, we know that we need data. It has its purpose. We know that we need information. It has its purpose. But what people want is an experience. And that is why we love going to the movies, because those storytellers are so good at capturing our attention and taking us through the, you know, the hero's journey as it. As it. As it were, as it said. And that's how we capture the human Spirit and the human mind. And we have this experience, and that's what people want. Whether again, it starts in your home and it can be in the school, the best teachers and the best speakers are storytellers, whether even in your job, it also goes back to authenticity, because those are where, out of my authenticity, I'm sharing a real experience and people. Yes. And it resonates with people. And that's what gives people that experience that they're looking for. We all know. We all know when we're hearing an authentic voice, an authentication message, and we all know when we're hearing a rehearsed canned speech reading off the teleprompter and something that's just, you know, so rehearsed. And then give. We're giving all this data and all this information to try to impress the crowd or whoever it is or pitch a program or a product. You know what? It's the experience that we're able to give people that draws them, that wins them, that captures their attention. And how much more important is that in our own home with our own children? Starting there. But then whatever other things we're doing, I think that's another thing is giving people an experience that it resonates with them. And they feel like, you know what? I can use that, that, that really helped me. That, that trans.

That was.

That transform. Transformed my mind or my thoughts or, you know, whatever brought me out of a mood or out of a sad or out of depression. Because out of that authentic voice, you're bringing that experience to people. And people need that more than all the data and all the information that we are bombarded with all the time.

Yeah, there's a lot to unravel there. But, you know, when, when you are your authentic self, especially, you know, especially with kids, monkey see, monkey do. Right? And if you're. If you're presenting your authentic self from a place of love and not a pro, not a. Not, not, not so much a place from, of. Of data and information. Right. The thing that resonates the most with kids is love is love. They don't care how much you know data until they know how much you care. Love. And that has. That has been something. And, you know, I just. I just got back from a. From keynoting, a conference of all things Richard, called the Data and Revenue Management Conference. Okay. And the title of my presentation was.

Heart.

In the Data and Revenue Management Conference. And my, My, My talk was, was about all this data and all this information and all of this, you know, the rise of artificial intelligence. Which is going to turn our head, our, our world on its head very, very quickly. Don't forget heart. Don't forget heart. Don't forget your authentic self. Don't forget about experiences and, and yeah, so you and I are on the absolute same page. And I just want to say to the folks who are listening, more important now than ever before because of the world we're going into. In fact, I'm, I'm in the process of co authoring another book. And the name of the book is. Is Where's. Excuse me, I'm sorry. Finding Tin Man. Bringing Heart Back into Business.

Oh, beautiful.

The wizard of Oz. The wizard of Oz. And it's just been, it's just been a joy and a journey of itself putting, putting that together. So. Yeah. So, you know, as you, as you talk about leadership, what is, what, what's the most important thing or two or what, what are one or two most important things in, in leadership?

Well, I think the first thing is, is servant leadership. And servant leadership is a, is a mindset, a paradigm where you understand the purpose of authority and which is not to control people, but to serve people. It's not to overlook people's shoulder, but it's to give people liberty. The purpose of authority is to give people guidance, to give them liberty, to give them direction, to give them opportunity. Because you have authority and you use that authority to resource them and to build them up rather than, you know, you work for me to build my department or my, you know, credibility or my, my, my. It's not about. I'm the one in authority and I'm not the hero. You're the hero, I'm the guide. You're Luke Skywalker, I'm Yoda, you know, and that is what. I use my authority to serve you. And you are the hero. You're out there. Let me, let me help you. And I'm just here to resource you as, as the authority figure. And so that, that's a picture of servant leadership using the authority and the power that I have to liberate people, guide people, build them up, resource them and help them achieve whatever it is that they are, you know, trying to, to achieve. So that, that's one of the things about, about leadership.

I love that and I want you to, I want you to share a second one. But as you're thinking about what that second one is, servant leadership. And if you, and you presented it in a way of people, but if you replace that word people with your children, right? I mean, who thinks of being a parent As a servant leader. Nobody does. Well, I don't know, maybe somebody does, but I certainly didn't do that. But, you know, all the things that you described of building people up and, and, and supporting them and making them better. Right. Everything that you said is what parenting is all about.

That's right. That's right. That's why Parents on a Mission is, Is really a leadership program, but it's helping parents understand we have to lead ourselves first and then as we lead ourselves, because we are an authority. It's ours, parents. And so what is the proper use of authority? Well, I just described it. That's what you have authority and power for, is to serve and build your children. And I call it. You've heard me say this before. Preparation for separation and infiltration on isolation. And that's what we're doing with our authority. We're preparing our children to separate from the home someday and become that contributing, positive citizen out there. And then they just continue the cycle of servant leadership with their families and their children, their workplace. Servant leadership is, is across the board.

Say that, say that again. What you, what you talked about, starting with preparation.

Yeah, preparation for separation. That is my role as a parent. That is what I'm, I'm. My job is to my child to separate from me as a father and, and mother and to go out and to establish themselves in their own industry, in their own job, in their own marriage, in their own home, in their own family. And my role from the time they're born until the time they're. They leave is to prepare them for that separation. The infiltration part is, is that so many parents are fearful of all the temptations and all the things that are bombarding our children in a negative way, and they try to isolate their kids. But I, I'm sharing. Parents, if you isolate your children from the struggles and the things that are out there, you're not. They're not going to be socially strong in order to handle, you know, life as it really is, the reality of life. So that what we can do is that we can immunize them, inoculate them with integrity and character and kindness, and you make them immune to all the toxins that are out there. Not 100%, because, you know, even though we think, thinking from a medical point of view, even if we get inoculated or vaccine, we still get sick.

Right.

But for the part, we, for the most part, we can fight off those things. And that's what I'm helping parents understand. You don't want to isolate your Kids, you want to inoculate your kids. And they become an infiltration into the community as a light and an example of what a son and a daughter and a student and an employee ought to look like. And that's because we've been building them. I call it inoculation. You could call it vaccination, with the things like character and integrity and honesty and industriousness and ethics, as I said earlier. And so when I know I've been planting those things in my child, preparing them for separation, I'm not afraid that I'm sending them out as an infiltration into this dark community where so many people are going in so many wrong ways. And so it goes back to that original purpose I have. I believe that's how we can improve community, by who we send out into the community which are our children.

You know, holy cow. Holy cow. You know, it's. It go. It goes back to the servant leadership. Right? I mean, that's what we're doing. I mean, we. We are given. We are given an opportunity. We're. We're blessed with an opportunity to. To prepare people to leave us. Right? I mean, that's our job. I mean, I say it. I say it differently sometimes. And I say, you know what, Mike? My whole job with my kids is to get them the hell off my payroll. And, you know, it's.

That's one way of looking at it.

Kind of saying the same thing, right? Yeah. And. And you know it. And that's.

That's because they always come back anyway. They're going to come back anyway.

Forever. Forever. And, you know, it's. But. But it's really important to get them off your payroll, to get them to prepare them for the real world so they can go make their own mark and make the world a better place. And you know, the other thing I'll. The last thing I'll just say about your concept of servant leadership, which I think is just. It's not only. It's not only amazing. I think it's a mindset shift. I think those words, just those words, servant leadership, folks, if you guys just put those words into your brain and plant that seed, amazing things are going to happen. And I think of, you know, I was in high tech for 38 years, and I had really great managers and really bad ones. And I'll tell you something. The ones who were real. One of the things that the great managers I've had have had in common is an attitude of servant leadership. And as we were talking, I'm like, I'm thinking I'm going through all, in my head of all these people who are just amazing managers. And then I go through the, I go through the handful of folks who were just terrible and they didn't have that attitude. I mean, it was all about them.

That's right, right, right.

And so, wow. Wow, what a, what an amazing insight. Do you have a third that you can share with us?

Well, the other thing about being a leader, and again, we're thinking from the home, but this could go to the workplace, wherever, is to build cohesiveness. And one of the ways that you build cohesiveness in, in a team, in a family, in your children, and then ultimately in a society is you have to have a culture of dissent and debate, of healthy debate, where people are not afraid to dissent with the majority view. That's why the Supreme Court, when they vote, they always have a dissent. Somebody writes the majority opinion, somebody writes a dissenting opinion because there's a healthy debate. We live in this cancel culture where you, as you said earlier, people are afraid to be authentic and to voice their opinion and to speak up because now you get cancelled. Your friends don't want to talk to you, depending on who you voted for, whether you got vaccinated or not, and families are split apart. Friends are no longer friends. But that doesn't, that doesn't build cohesiveness. That's just politics. But, but in leadership, a good leader, you build cohesiveness by allowing the people that you're leading to speak up, to hear so that they feel heard. And even if you don't agree, you have a culture of agreeing to disagree in an agreeable manner. And that way people feel heard even though they're just. The decision didn't go their way, but they can buy into it because they've been heard and they've been respected. So that culture of dissent and debate, you know, we're losing that. Maybe, maybe have lost it in this country. But in, in the home, I, I help parents to understand, you know, your kids are not always going to agree with everything you decide. And, and we need to allow them to speak up. It doesn't mean we have to agree, but it does mean that we need to let them know that we understand them even though we don't agree. And if you have that healthy culture where you're allowing your kids to have a voice even though they understand you're the authority figure who's going to make a decision, but that voice that you hear might change your mind. And that requires humility, which is Another thing about leadership, to have the humility to recognize. And maybe you need to change, maybe you need to change your mind and maybe you need to see things from a different point of view. So all of that builds cohesiveness and that's another quality of good leadership.

You know, if folks took away just one of the things that we're talking about right now, that'd be a huge win. Just take one of the things that we talked about, you know, and maybe a servant leadership and, you know, it, gosh, there's, it's kind of, it's kind of basic stuff when you think about it, but so, so important. And, and the thing about kids, I think, I think the most important thing that I've learned raising my kids again is monkey see, monkey do, you know, and, and they're going to follow your lead, they're going to follow your actions. The old, the old saying of do what I say, not as I do, it doesn't work. It just does not work.

That's a mistake.

You know, and, and so the, what you're doing, Richard, I, I just love it because you're not only helping parents be great parents and, and raising, raising their kids, you know, parents on a mission. That mission can be at work. Parents at work. Parents on a mission at work. Because everything that we talked about in this conversation applies in just about everything we do that involves people.

That's right. And John, before we end, can I just share one more thing?

Yeah, I love it.

I thought about, since this is the holidays and we're coming up on Christmas, and I just want to remind parents about four things to be mindful of during this time. Number one is tradition. You know, this is a great time. If you don't have traditions, family traditions. I did not grow up with family traditions, but when I started having a family, I created family traditions. And my kids to this day still value those things and we still live by those things. Another, it's a, it's another time. Christmas is a time for family reunion. And not everybody can come together all the time, but whenever you can have that Christmas time family reunion, that's another thing to value during this Christmas season. And then there's family communion where we come together and we have communion in different ways. Whether we break bread together, go to church and just, you know, build on our family traditions, reunion and communion. And then the last one is family reconciliation. And you know, sometimes in these times it is a good time to maybe think about, you know, reconciling with our son, our daughter, our uncle, Our aunt, our mother, our father, our relative, even our friends. Because people are a little bit more softer right now, a little bit more open. It's a Christmas season and made a little good mood. And all of these things speak to loyalty, which is a huge thing that we teach in parents on a mission. So the last thing about forgiveness, I could talk a lot about the reconciliation, but I'll just give one little thing that we teach, because this can be a huge issue we talk about. And you can do this during this Christmas season, even right now, before we get there, we talk about the high touch versus high tech. And there's nothing wrong with emailing people merry Christmas or texting somebody. That's great. But what about when you sit down and hand write a note or a letter to somebody and really express, you know, love, forgiveness, understanding, you know, all for the purpose of reconciliation? And when they get that in the mail, that handwritten note from you, reaching out to them maybe and wanting to reconcile, inviting them over, whatever it might be. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that is a tool that you might want to use this Christmas season because you have tradition, you have reunion, you have opportunity for communion, but there might also be an opportunity for reconciliation. So I just want to encourage you in that and take advantage of the handwritten note is very special because they know you sat down and you thought carefully about the words that you expressed in that letter. So I just want to wish all your people, John, and yourself a Merry Christmas, happy New Year, and a beautiful 2025.

You know, and you know what, what you just said, Richard, we're in the season right now. There's gonna, There. There are gonna be. Those of you who are listening to this outside the holiday season, this applies to. This applies all the time. Right? It doesn't just apply to the holiday season. It. It. You know, and, and thank you for that reminder, Richard, because I'll tell you something. I used to. I used to leave handwritten notes on people's desks. Just, hey, thanks for your input. And I'll tell you, there were people who collected my notes.

Yes.

There were people who, you know, I'll just share a little story on my part. I once coached my daughter's basketball team, and they must. They were in middle school, so they were youngsters. And we were terrible. We were terrible. I mean, what do I know about coaching basketball? I know nothing. You know, it was just one of those volunteer things, and. But we had a great time. And at the end of the season, I had all of the girls write out a. Write out on a piece of paper something about every one of their classmates. And so my daughter's name is Kristen. And the piece of paper started with Kristen is. And each one of the girls were to finish that sentence, Kristen is this. Kristen is that. Kristen is this about each one of their teammates. And I, I took all of this and I put together a little team PUMA certificate. And it said, kristen, try so hard. Kristen is such a good sport. Kristen is this. Kristen is that. And 10 years after that, one of the, One of the, One of the girls who is now a young woman came up to me at the mall and they said, hey, Mr. Suzuki, Mr. Suzuki, I'm so happy. So you gave me a great big hug. And she says, you know that little piece of paper that you, that, that you gave us at the end of our basketball season? She says, it's still up on my wall.

Wow. That's what I'm talking about.

Yeah. Yeah. So it does take time. You can make that part of your meditation. You can make that part of your slow. But, you know, it's all about heart, folks. It's all about heart. And if you didn't get some heart out of this conversation, maybe, maybe we need to come find you as Mr. Tin Man. But anyway. Oh, my gosh, Richard, you give, You've given us so much, so much, so much insight, so many things for us to think about, so many things for us to, to incorporate into our minds now and into our lives now. If people, if people want to learn more about you and go online or whatever, learn about what you do, where can they go?

Yeah, they can go to my website, www.richard R. Ramos. Don't forget my middle initial, Richard R. Ramos dot com. They can go there and find out about what I do. My books are there and, you know, more resources and information. So.

And these programs that you talk about where you, where you go out to churches and you go out to prisons and you go out to schools and you go out to community centers and you work with parents directly, they can get, they can get more information there.

Yes. Yep.

Okay. Richard R. Ramos R a m o s.com and please go there. Richard, you are amazing. Thank you for all you are doing. And you know, I, I talk about, I talk about all of us sharing a common purpose to make this world better than the, than the day we landed on it. And you are doing that in boatloads. And you know, you lift one person, you lift the world. At least that's how I see it. And so I thank you for all you're doing. I love you. God bless you, Richard. Merry Christmas. Have a wonderful holiday. And to all of you out there, have a wonderful, wonderful holiday. If you're watching this on the 4th of July, have a great 4th of July. If you're watching this on a Tuesday, have a great Tuesday. But right now, we're talking about Christmas. And have a very merry Christmas. I love you. God bless you. Here's to moving forward and making the world better with heart. Okay, we'll see you next time. And share this. Bye.