New podcast with Dr. Paul Jenkins: Live on Purpose

Parents, is your teen college ready? Are you feeling overwhelmed, stressed out, or excited about your teen applying to college? Do you know what colleges are looking for? And if your kid gets in, do you know what you'll pay for it? College admission has never been so competitive or expensive. Shellee Howard will take you on a journey to help you and your teen get college ready. Now here's your host, Shellee.

This is Shellee Howard, the CEO and founder of College Ready. Today I have the honor of sharing with you an amazing guest, Dr. Paul Jenkins. Can you please share with our audience a little bit about yourself?

Shellee, thank you. I think the main thing that I would want people to know is that I am a professional psychologist. Now, I share that with some people and they want to spill their whole life story, and other people don't dare tell me anything, right? But basically, I practice positive psychology, which is kind of a newer area of psychology. I spent about 15 years in a traditional psychotherapy practice after I got my PhD, and then I made a transition over to positive psychology. And I'll probably say a little bit more about what that means as we get into our conversation today. But I've been doing this for about 30 years now.

No way!

Uh, I know. Have you noticed that time accelerates as you get older?

Yeah, I just hit the pause button. That's it.

Oh man, well, when I have children who are having children and I remember when I was their age, my son has a PhD too. So, you know, I'm— it blows me away sometimes to see how quickly life comes at you. Um, but practicing psychology for now 3 decades, I've learned a lot. About what makes people tick and, and really how to operate the equipment of our own mind. And, and that's the value that I think I bring, uh, with my experience. You know, it's, it's kind of fun for me because my job is to illuminate the obvious, which is so cool because I get paid to tell people things I already know. But there's, there's a lot of obvious things that are completely unnoticed, you know. And, and if we go there for just a minute, obvious but unnoticed, like your clothing. Can you feel it on your body?

Yes. Now normally you don't think about it, right?

You kind of tune it out. And it's obvious once it's called to your attention, but it's unnoticed until that point. Or the fact that we're speaking English. Did you notice?

You would notice if you're speaking with somebody who doesn't speak English.

Yes, exactly. So, this is an example of how there are obvious things that we don't even notice until they're called to our attention. So, that's my job really, is to call those things to your attention, specifically as it relates to how to operate the equipment of our own mind. And that is huge when it comes to relationships, mental health, parenting, dealing with teenagers, okay? Or whatever it is that we apply it to. It's important to understand how our mind is operating so that then we can drive that. I tell my clients all the time, either you drive your thinking or your thinking will drive you.

That's a fact.

So that's what we're all about here at My Practice Live On Purpose.

I love it. Even your title just resonates with me. And in our program at College Ready, it really is all about the student being the best version of them and then finding them the best college. We don't take and shove them into a college. We actually care about the human being they're becoming. So I want to ask a first question.

Okay.

Being a parent of 4 myself, I often think when a student says, I'm overwhelmed, I'm stressed out, how do you know as a parent that they need help or if they're just saying that because they're hearing it? It's always a mystery. A parent will call me and go— I just had a call right before I got on. I won't say the name, I almost did it. So-and-so is overwhelmed, super stressed out. I don't know what to do for her.

Yeah.

How do you know when somebody like you is— are we there? Or how do I support that young person?

You know, it's interesting to me that we have very common experiences as human beings. Stress is one of those. And I think in your question, I'm hearing, you know, how do we know if it's— this is kind of a normal experience, human experience of stress versus is it crossing the line over into kind of a clinically significant area where we need some serious help? Has it become a problem or a disorder? And it's hard to tell sometimes.

Okay.

Now, obviously, if it hits a point where it's affecting regular daily activities or self-care or their ability to function at school or at work or whatever, then, you know, we're probably bumping up against that line. But, you know, if you take your psychological health, your mental functioning, your emotional well-being, you put all of that on a spectrum or a continuum. Clear over at the left end is the sick end. All right? That's where we have diagnosis and pathology and treatment. All right? That's over here on the left end. Then there's this other end, okay, that I get really excited about, and I think that you resonate with because you try to help people get over to this side of the spectrum. To understand what that other end is, let's go to the middle first.

Okay.

Okay.

The middle is health. Now, you'd think health is the opposite of sick, but I put it right in the middle, meaning not sick. And this gets right back to your question, uh, because imagine over here on the left end, you know, you can be sick in bed with a fever, throwing up, there comes a time when you can get out of bed and you're not sick, but that doesn't mean you're truly fit, thriving, prospering. That's over here at the other end of the spectrum. And so when we think of it as more of a continuum or a spectrum, a lot of us, a lot of us, maybe all of us, at, at some time or another, we're kind of there in that middle range. It's like, well, we're not— I mean, if we were more sick, we'd know to go to the doctor, right? But we're not quite there, but we're certainly not prospering either. And we're in this middle range where we experience stress, overwhelm, right? Anxiety, depression. I'm not talking severe clinical depression. I'm talking about the kind of normal human experience that we all have. Yeah, and it's, it's obviously in a range where it's affecting our functioning. We're not, you know, heading off to the hospital, but we're truly not clicking either. And it's in that range, I think, where we end up a lot of times. And teenagers get thrown into that. I mean, between the hormonal changes that they're going through and just regular life development and the big decisions that they need to make about college or future career, and, and they don't feel fully equipped to do that yet. I mean, they're in this middle range a lot.

Yeah.

And I think that puts them at risk, you know, for slipping down into the pathology side.

Okay.

But there's principles that we can apply to help them not only manage the stressors or the, the challenges that they're facing there, but to, to move beyond that to a place where they're really clicking. You know, where they can truly thrive and prosper.

So as a parent, right, I'm listening, I'm— I can put my mind on each of my kids and where they're at on the spectrum, and I'm like, okay, this is good. But what if there's one of them that just has never been fully on the upward positive side? What are some things a parent can do to help them get there, or know it's possible? What does that look like, and how can we support them?

You know that I love your question, Shellee Howard. And one of the things that I've discovered— we, we have a YouTube channel where we put out a lot of positive parenting content. In fact, any of you who are listening, you can go over to YouTube and just look up Live On Purpose TV. And you'll find us there. We've got over 700 videos, and it's— as parents, we get so concerned about our kids and we wonder how to help them, just like you, you illuminated in your question. The very best thing we can do for our kids is to understand personally how our own mind is working so that we can show up not just to teach them a principle, but to show them how to apply it in real life. A lot of parents come into our coaching programs and realize really quickly after they get in the door that this is— parenting is the number one personal development program on the planet.

Doesn't come with an instruction booklet, right?

Right. I was interviewing Dr. Lily de Hoyos Anderson on my podcast, which you've also appeared on because I interviewed you on my podcast too. But I remember when I was interviewing Dr. Anderson and she said that the ultimate outcome of good parenting is the parent.

Mm.

Ah, wow. No, I think, I think good parenting is really essential for the kids too. But when you think about it, you know, what other personal development program on the planet has auto-enrollment, multiple opportunities for practice, and huge rewards?

Absolutely.

It's just, it's amazing what we can do to, to work on our own development as parents. Now let's go back to your question, because how can we help our kids? You put yourself in the very best place that you possibly can. I think the ultimate gift we give our kids is a fully functioning parent. And so when I teach these principles, so I have a, uh model that I've designed that helps people understand how to operate the equipment of their own mind. We call it Positivity, but really it's all about understanding how to operate the equipment, right? And I'm not here to tell people how to think. I don't have that kind of authority, um, but as I illuminate the processes that are going on in their own mind they can take a more conscious, intentional approach to their own mental health, and that becomes the very best thing that they can offer to their kids.

Interesting.

They can also share the model with their kids, um, which is far more powerful when you're actually implementing it and practicing it yourself. You and I both know from our own parenting experience and all of the parents that we've worked with over the years, your kids will see what you're doing a lot more than they'll hear what you're saying.

For sure. I talk to parents about— I've had pregnant mommies call me about when should we start planning for college. I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa. But I'll never forget, I had a lady who contacted me and she said, you know, I have a 3-year-old, I want to start planning for college. And I said, the best thing you can do is to open up a book, put your cell phone in it, and don't ever let your child see you on your cell phone. Be present. And what monkey see, monkey do when they're 3, right? If you always have your cell phone, they want a cell phone. If you always have a book, And that's how my firstborn fell in love with reading, is because I went during bath time, I would sit next to him and get caught up on my reading. So he thought, Mom enjoys reading, it must be pretty cool.

Yeah.

And he's a prolific reader now, which helped him with all of his tests, and he attributes a lot of that to just loving reading, right? To your point, it wasn't that I did anything in my mind that remarkable, but I paid attention to what he was watching me do.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yes.

Amazing.

This is a— well, it's good news and bad news, I guess. I mean, when we realize that what we do really, really matters, sure, that can feel like a burden or like a stress, but you know what? How much better is our life going to be as we personally get on top of some of those principles that allow us to be joyful? You know, one of the mistakes that I see a lot of parents of teenagers and young adults, one of the mistakes that they make is to try to compensate or make up for what they missed out on personally. By trying to live vicariously through their kids, and it creates unnecessary pressure. It becomes about the parent instead of about the child. So we have to do what we, we need to do to take care of ourselves. In fact, I have 4 rules of parenting that I share in our coaching programs. Rule number 1: take care of yourself.

Works for me. I like rule number 1.

Man, it's just like Vicki and I just came home from an international trip. We took a tour of Israel over the holidays. And so we were on a lot of airplanes getting there and back. And every time you get on the airplane, they go through the safety routine and they say, look, if we lose cabin pressure, these oxygen masks will fall from the ceiling. The attractive little yellow cups, you know, you just fasten them on with a rubber band. And they always say, if you're traveling with children or someone who needs assistance, please put your own mask on first. And they say that because our natural inclination is to take care of the kid. But guess what? If we're out cold in the aisle, we're part of the problem now.

Yeah.

So you got to take care of yourself to be in a position where you can really help your kids. And I, I guess I would invite any parents who are listening today to just be really honest with themselves about their motivation for wanting to put their kid through college, for example. And I'm not saying it's a bad thing, it's not. It's obviously a really wonderful thing. But if it's about the parent fulfilling some unmet unmet needs, that creates a dynamic and an energy between the parent and the child that actually has the child being resistant to what the parent wants to do. And, and a lot of times when we see that resistance, we really need to take a look at our own motivation.

Yeah, sure, sure. That's so insightful because I think a lot of times we look at the child as angry, they're depressed, they're anxious, they, they, they, they versus— what is that saying where first put it, point the finger back at you, and what is your part in this? I think is a wise place to be. I'm going to pivot a little bit because there's another, there's another side of college and parenting that I think would be helpful for my listeners. Um, in my program, when students are getting ready to graduate and leave for college, Parents call me very anxious, overwhelmed, and, and sad because the empty nest thing. And for me, I tell them my story about when I dropped off my son at Harvard and I was the only parent not crying. And my son said, Mom, are you going to be okay? Like, will I blow up or explode later? And I go, you know, if you were at home on my couch very ill I would be crying, but you're about to embark on the coolest journey of your life. But not every parent gets to look at it like that. How can you advise a family who may be going into the empty nest time of their life? How do you advise them that this is a, a good thing? It's part of a positive thing. I try to, but I'm not a professional. What would be your advice?

I love that question, Shellee, because it gets right to the fundamentals of how to operate the equipment of our own mind. And I mentioned earlier there's a model that I've developed. I'm going to give you just a quick little preview of that so that you can see how, how we can tie the answer to that question right back to how to operate the equipment of our own mind. And for those of you who are listening, don't worry about taking a lot of notes about this or, or anything. I've got a little mini book that describes the entire model. I'm offering this for free to anyone who's listening today. You just go to drpauljenkins.com/college-ready, if you could remember that because of this podcast, and I've made that available for you so you can get a full description of what I'm talking about here. Here's the short version. You remember I said that there are processes that are obvious but unnoticed?

For sure.

And one of those is metacognition. Okay, now that's a fancy psychological word. If we break it down, all it means— cognition means thinking. Metacognition is a higher level. It's thinking about thinking.

Okay.

Now, do you notice as I mentioned that, that you can do this? Yes, you can think about your thinking. All right, be careful with it, you can hurt yourself. But just notice that you can do this. Now, as you think about your thinking, I want you to notice something else. You are constantly judging Mm. In the model, I call it evaluation, but the word that most people relate to is judging. You're constantly judging. Do you see this?

Yeah.

You judge yourself pretty harshly sometimes.

Probably more so than most people.

You judge your kids and how they're doing in school. You judge their attitude. You judge your spouse. You judge your community. You judge the weather, you judge the government, you judge the economy, you're judging me. It's cool, I'm judging you, right? You can't turn it off. Now notice this: judgment or evaluation implies comparison with some standard. Okay, now you can see it as I bring it to your attention. So Is it good? Is it bad? Well, I don't know. It depends on what you compare it to. So, Shellee, you were just talking about dropping your son off at Harvard.

Yeah.

Okay, some parents might look at that and say, this is a really sad day. And it is when you compare dropping your kid off to keeping your kid snuggled up next to you. You might see that as a sad day. But what if we were to compare it to dropping your kid off at the hospital with a traumatic brain injury?

Ooh, I got chills.

Oh.

Now suddenly, how do you feel about dropping your kid off at Harvard?

Yeah, or any school for that matter where they're doing something positive for their life.

I had a dad sitting right here in my office, and he's going on and on and on about his son. Okay, 17-year-old son, and he's doing this, and he's— and, and at school he's getting into this and that. And I said, wait, wait, wait, wait, hold on, you have a son? He rolled his eyes because he wasn't thinking about, you know, the, the possible scenario that he didn't have a son. And it brought him back. And then I said, and he's in school? Like, do you see? We take all of these things for granted sometimes. Metacognition, where we can start thinking about our thinking and we see, oh, I think this is a problem because I'm comparing it to something that wouldn't be.

Right.

But if I compare it to a bigger problem, then this seems pretty awesome.

Sure.

What a great problem to have. Yeah, right?

That positive, that positive thought process.

You're going to compare your what it is. You've heard the phrase, it is what it is.

Yes.

And that can be kind of annoying depending on who's saying it and why, but all it means is the way things are right now without changing anything. Mm-hmm. Your brain has to judge or evaluate what it is.

Correct.

And either you're conscious and aware of it, or it happens subconsciously, but you're going to judge it. And your brain will say, this is good, this is bad, this is hard, this is easy.

Mm-hmm.

Whatever your brain is saying about it is in comparison to some standard. And if you don't have a standard, you'll make one up. Oh my, you got a really good imagination.

Sure.

Now check it out, it could always be better. True.

Always in your mind you can always think that there's gonna be something better, even if— absolutely, even if it's the very best, there's always got to be something more around the corner.

Well, I would— I was meeting with a couple about their 13-year-old daughter who was struggling in school. Okay, that's what they told me as they set up a consultation with me. I get into the conversation with them and I don't know, I've got all my own standards for what struggling in school means. There were 2 of her classes where she didn't get an A. Hmm. Okay, just to give you an idea. Now, could it always be better? Yes. What if your kid's getting straight A's? Yeah, but their attitude is— or whatever. I mean, you can always imagine something better, and when you compare what you've got to something better, you feel worse about what you've got.

Hmm, beautifully said.

Yeah, this isn't rocket science. It is, however, psychological science. That's a different study.

Yeah.

Now, what happens if you compare what you've got to something worse?

You feel pretty good about it, about what your situation is, or you feel bad for the other situation, depending on how you look at it.

You know what, Shellee Howard, I worked for about 8 months during one of my rotations in my PhD program on— in a school. I'll start with that. In the school, the school was located in a correctional facility on a murder unit for juveniles.

Whoa.

Everyone in the unit was under the age of 18 and had killed at least one other person.

Oh my.

Now how you feeling about your own kids' placement? Yeah. I mean, when we, when we take what we've got and we compare it to something worse, we feel better about what we've got.

For sure. So help our listeners know, how can they reach you? How can they, other than the book, what if they're like, you just don't understand, I, I need help, or my kids need help? How, what's the best way for them to reach you?

And welcome to the planet, by the way, because we all need help.

Yeah, in some matter, I'm sure.

And you're, you're never wrong about how you feel. How you feel is 100% consistent with the way your brain is doing the two processes. I've only shared one with you, the evaluation or judgment. Yes, get the book. That's the best way to connect with me immediately to get the, the model that I'm sharing. So go to drpauljenkins.com. That's my website, and it's spelled with a D-R. You'll find other resources there. But do a little forward slash college ready and it will take you right to this mini book where you can get a free digital download. If you want a physical copy, it's cute, it's a little mini book, it'll fit in your pocket or your purse. If you wanted a physical copy, just pay for the shipping and I'll send one to you. It's a free book, just pay for the shipping and we'll get it out to you. I mentioned YouTube too. You can go over to Live On Purpose TV at YouTube, and those are probably the best ways to connect with me right out of the chute. Can I just address another little part of your question real quick?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Because as you were painting this scenario, okay, so dropping your child off at college, at Harvard, no less.

They all went to different schools.

Wow.

But yeah, what a sad day, right? Or a joyful day. I mean, pick a position. You get to evaluate it. But here's what's next, because we're not done yet. The other thing that your brain is constantly doing— and this is in the model, it's in the mini book, okay— the other thing your brain is always doing, you can't turn it off any more than you can turn off gravity. When's the last time you got up and thought, huh, I wonder if gravity's on today? It tends to be, right? And this is too. It's called creation. Creation of what is to be. And that doesn't exist yet because we haven't created it yet.

Hmm.

But you have a really great imagination. Okay. And your imagination is one of your primary creative tools. I just taught a seminar this morning on the 6-part creation process. By which we create all of our outcomes. And it's so exciting to see how powerful our mind is to create what's coming. Hmm. Now, it doesn't exist yet. So the only place we can see it is in our imagination. Mm-hmm. Do you remember how I mentioned you can always imagine something better?

Always.

And you can always imagine something worse.

Unfortunately.

So check it out. How do you feel when you imagine or predict or expect? Because you don't know. I mean, check it out. How you doing next week? Yeah, you don't know.

I'm doing—

you've got some traffic, you've got something to do. Well, you hope, you plan, you imagine.

Yeah.

And that affects how you feel. So check it out. When you imagine or predict or expect or anticipate that what's coming is even worse than what you've already got, How do you feel?

Not great.

This, my friends, is anxiety. Okay? That's 30 years of clinical experience in a nutshell. When we imagine that what's coming is even worse. I'm going to drop off my child at college today, and then I will be lonely, and I will be sad, and I will miss them terribly. Now this is all in your imagination.

Yeah, you don't know that's gonna happen.

No.

Do you have to imagine that it's going to be worse than it was? Because check it out, Shellee Howard, how do you feel when you imagine or predict or expect that what's coming is even better than what I've had before?

I love it.

That is hope.

Hope is a happy place.

And you know what? Hope— I gotta throw this part in because hope is the number one preventative factor for suicide.

Okay.

And we know that because the number one risk factor is hopelessness.

Okay.

If we can create hope on demand, that's going to save some lives. And I use that extreme because what else could it save? It could save how you feel. Yeah. And you're never wrong about how you feel. You, you're— your feelings are 100% consistent with the way your mind is doing these two processes that I just introduced to you today. Evaluation, where you judge what it is, and creation, where you anticipate what is to be. Your feelings will be 100% consistent with it. And that's what we cover in the mini book. That's why I wanted to make that available to everybody here.

Well, thank you. Thank you for your information, your knowledge, the gift of your book. So welcome for being on the podcast, and we wish you a wonderful year of helping so many people.

There's a lot to do. I love what you're doing, Shellee Howard, because it's creating hope for a lot of folks who didn't know that it was even possible. So thank you for your good work as well.

Thank you. Bye-bye.