Teenage issues and parents intervention.

fixed mindset to a growth mindset. What I love most about what I do, seeing how people I work with not only improve in performance, but also their attitude and perspective. When you make that shift in your mindset, you can let go of unconscious decisions that are holding you back, not just in sports, but in school, career, and life. Whenever I'm not working, I love to spend time with my kids. We love going to the family camp every summer by the lake. I also love baseball. I played and coached for over 50 years. And in the winter, I love to ski. The best way to reach me is by visiting my personal website, CoachBarnehide360.com.

Welcome back. I'm honored to have this week Rico Sharp join us. Rico was born to a teenage mother who lost both of her parents as a child and then struggled to raise 3 sons. Rico faced many obstacles along the way, including running away from home at age 13. He lived his teenage years as a big-time drug dealer. He was at one point homeless, eating out of trash cans, addicted to powder cocaine and marijuana. He had a drug overdose, was beaten by 10 guys and left for dead, was arrested 19 times and sent to prison 3 times. Today, Rico is a pastor, motivational speaker, and mentor. He firmly believes in the power of positive thinking and personal growth. As a motivational speaker, his passion is to change lives by sharing his own hard-fought journey. While in prison for the 3rd time, Rico became self-motivated and re-enrolled in educational and vocational courses to gain interpersonal life skills. He never lost sight of his goals and continued to work diligently to turn his life around. For three decades as a pastor and entrepreneur, Rico has offered life-changing tools to empower people to reach their goals. A family man at heart for over 33 years, Rico understands unique obstacles we all encounter along our paths. Today, he is living proof that with faith, perseverance, and hard work, anyone can overcome any challenges in life. Let's welcome. Rico Sharp. Welcome. We are honored to have you. You have quite the story and an important story to tell. So, uh, I am so glad you were able to join us and, uh, have a conversation. So, all right, well, one of the First question that I kind of have for you is, you know, it's important to talk about what the mindset is that turns people around, helps them transform. But I'm also always interested in what is it that allows some of those decisions to happen in the first place, right? What is that kind of mindset when they're young that leads them, you know, leads you to make some of those decisions? Do you want to speak to us about that? Yeah, sadly, that, that, that is the case far too often. I've had A few former students, and I've always worked with kids on the fringes who've found those early graves. So yeah, it's a tragedy when that happens. How were you able to avoid that early grave yourself? And now you did say in the introduction I have, right, it was your third time in prison. When things began to change, what was— why the third time? Why wasn't it the first or the second time? What, what was different there that third time that helps you make those changes? So was there, let's say, one person? Was there one moment? Was it a combination of things that, that finally kind of got you to make that real realization? Um, did it— you know, what was it from within, or did somebody from outside kind of help, help you wake up, so to speak? Yeah, that's— yeah, you just mentioned that you heard the judge, you know, say that you need to be locked up, that you weren't safe or what have you to be out on the streets. And it's amazing to me, sometimes one little line, one comment can be all it takes, you know. And, and as parents, as coaches, as, as, uh, mentors, as whoever, it's never to give up with, you know, keep delivering that message because you never know when That is finally going to hit home. I had a student, uh, not too long ago who we were really questioning whether he belonged in the program I had going on. And we're having serious conversations about, no, this really is not the right fit. He's not in the right place. And he turned it around like that. And we were trying to figure out how'd that happen. And his mom said, She had a conversation with him that she said, you know, so-and-so, who was a student that that this student used to go, oh man, he's a terrible student. You know, he's awful. He's a bully. He's all these things that he never wanted to be. And she said, you're him. And that was that was the that was a wake-up call now. There was a lot more work to do, but that was the trigger that got it started. So you never know, right? You never know. Now, I think it was on your website, maybe I saw you had a son when you were in prison, right? So how did that factor into that change and all that? Yeah, that, that's marvelous. It's, uh, it's wonderful that you were able to see that, right? That, that all came back to you. And, uh, it's— it kind of reminds me of that, uh, you know, I call them those, um, Ebenezer Scrooge moments where you are— your past comes back up and, you know, it can Sometimes it can really do good things for you. Sometimes it can haunt you a little bit if you don't, you know, deal with a negative thing the right way. But it can have a way of kind of putting you back on that, on the right path too. Um, so, uh, yeah, that's very wonderful. Yeah, right. Yeah, well, you know, um, decisions, right? I— with some of the work I do, I talk about 5 stages that I gotta take people through to kind of, um, reset or change a mindset. And one, you gotta be in a place to take responsibility. That means take responsibility for your time, the labels, your memories, uh, all these types of things. Then you got to clean up your past. And cleaning up your past is what's often overlooked, but it has a profound impact. You know, some of these beliefs that we had handed down to us from observation, from modeling, from you know direct like this is what we believe in this family kind of thing. And families are families are complicated, you know, to say the least, right? And Um, when, when I do a family component, we've got to look at some of those unwritten rules that get passed down too that may or may not be supportive, right? They may not be the best rules to be operating by, and we've got to own that and learn how to kind of move on from that. So it sounds like that's what happened to you, right? You Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's, uh, you know, it's, uh, it's dynamics that are Profound, really. You know, the impact that family and friends and all that have on, on the directions we have, and, and being able to, uh, um, when the family unit really isn't quite what it should be, to try to repair that or move on from that can be, can be quite a, quite a challenge. Now, you are a pastor, so Talk to me a little bit about faith, because I, I have— what I say is everybody has faith. You cannot live life without faith. The question is, what do you put your faith in? And is what you put it in really worthy of having it? Like, we may or may not have faith in ourselves. We may or may not have faith in other people or institutions or a higher power. So when did When did your faith begin to shift from whatever it had been to— obviously, as a pastor, you have a, you have a religious faith as well. So you want to share that journey? Yeah, the, uh, the confidence piece, you know, it's really— I just Just wrote a book on confidence for teens, so it's that's kind of a a big thing with me, right? And it really yes, it does stem from from repeated successes, right? You get more confident as you do something well over and over. That's that's definitely true. But it the really unshakable confidence from what I've been able to gather from research and personal experience comes when you know. Deep down that your personal worth is not connected to any specific outcome out there. You are— your worth is not connected to that. It's unique. It's given to you. And this is where you and I seem to have the same belief. It's given to you by God, right? We're made in the image of God. So when you have that kind of belief, You know, sometimes it probably is not a good analogy, but it's kind of like people who are really good at poker are ones who have nothing to lose, right? They have, you know, then they can do well. And when you have that belief that, you know, I'm made in the image of God, he loves me for who I am, and yes, I make mistakes, but I'm going to get back on it. That kind of confidence is just, it's unshakable. You know, it's, it's, it's not always easy to develop, but it's when you do, when you get there, it's, it's really something special. So when you go to schools, when you do your mentoring, you do all this stuff, what are some of the key takeaways, important messages you would have for parents? There's 2 things I want for the parents who Maybe hearing this is one, like, what might be some of those warning signs that somebody's— a teenager's mindset really isn't in a good place? What are some of the things they should be looking for? And then what do you tell them that they can do about it when they see it? Yeah, you know, I, uh, once, uh, a number of years ago had a, had a student who exhibited some real serious behaviors in, in school. Um, he had been sent to a Um, school outside, you know, with, with heavy-duty mental health counseling and all that, was coming back to school. And his parents were well-educated, upper middle class. Um, and I, you know, I, I want to be careful not to like necessarily place blame on them, but they also had this belief that, you know, they could let the— instead of eat dinner with them, They'd let him go play his video games. They would let him do things. And there was no— for a number of years, there was no connecting, no bonding, no communication. And I don't question their love for him, but he didn't really recognize that. And, uh, you know, it led to— it led to lots of problems. And until that— until that issue got resolved, He was exhibiting, you know, a number of problems. So I Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I got one other question for you. So we talked about what your kind of advice is for parents and all. So when you are dealing with teenagers now, you know, in a motivational setting, there's so much that you can do. But if you get a mentoring kind of Uh, situation with a kid, what, what are some of those messages as you try to do those 2 contexts? One, as a motivational speaker, and 2, if you, you know, if you have them a little more consistently as a mentor, um, how do you go about kind of using those 2 venues to, uh, to get them to, to begin to wake up? Yeah, they, uh, they need to hear that, that message. You know, you talk about loving yourself and the Great Commandment, love your neighbor as you love yourself. And that my— what I often say is that is what we see, because a lot of people don't love themselves, and therefore they treat others with that contempt that they have for themselves. And until you begin to switch that love inside of yourself, you will continue to treat others as you feel about yourself, right? And, um, you know, that, that's kind of where it all begins. So I love your message and I love what you're doing. Uh, what's the best way I'm going to put your You have a website, so let me put that up on your thing there. So ricosharp.org, right? So is there any other way if somebody wants to get in touch with you, they can go to the website? Is there Facebook or LinkedIn? Do you have— Awesome. Thank you so much for joining us. And, uh, I'm sure you, the listener out there, got a lot out of it. There was, uh, so many gems in that conversation. And, you know, the bottom line is wherever you are in your life It's not you. You can change. You can transform, right? And it begins with your mindset. It begins with the thinking. But it doesn't matter where you've come from. It only matters where you're going, and you are in control of that aspect. As always, if anybody's interested in learning more or has issues with their own teenagers and they're kind of looking for some answers and struggles. Uh, you can go to coachchuck360.com, and there I've got all kinds of stuff. You've got my social media, my podcast, uh, you've got, uh, my, my blog articles. There's lots of information out there, and I always encourage you to, if you need some help or looking out, book a discovery call with me. We can have a conversation so I can begin to try to figure out what it is you need, Where are you at? Where's your teenager at? What do I offer? How can I possibly help you? And see whether it's a match and see where we can go from there. But it's real important to keep your eye on your kids and never, no matter where they might be, never give up hope. All right, never give up hope. So next week, I'm going to have a conversation with Dr. Amrudi Borad. Who— she was a self-professed perfectionist who, as she got into becoming a doctor, ended up suffering from burnout. So we'll have a conversation about that. So until next week, have a great week. Awesome. All right, I've stopped recording there. Let me, uh, stop recording on my