Why So Many Teens Feel Hopeless — And How Adults Can Help

We unpack why so many teens feel like hope sits just out of reach and share a clear path to rebuild identity, belonging, and purpose. James McLamb explains a coaching model that equips everyday adults to guide young people toward meaning and measurable next steps.

• three core struggles: identity, relationships, purpose
• why self-image shapes choices and resilience
• social media pressures and practical guardrails
• simple habits that say “you matter”
• coaching vs rescuing and how to ask better questions
• inside the six-week Generation Youth Coaching program
• who can coach and how to get started
• resources, links, and where to find more support

Please share this episode with a parent, teacher, pastor, or coach who needs it. Visit jamesmclamb.com or generation-youth.com to learn more and get training. 

Save 70%! Order Stephanie's book Imagine More: Do What You Love, Discover Your Potential 

Learn more at StephanieNelson.com
Follow us on Instagram  @stephanie_nelson_cm
Follow us on Facebook at CouponMom

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:24

I would like to welcome James McLam to the Pivotal People Podcast. He is the founder of a program called Generation Youth, Generation Youth Coaching. He has a wealth of experience and a passion for empowering young people. And he's known as one of America's foremost experts on youth development. He was a teacher for eight years and he has his master's in youth development. He's an author, he's a youth speaker and trainer, and he has a unique talent for connecting with young people and inspiring them to be their best selves. And I have to tell you, when I read about him, I thought, wow, this is perfect timing because I don't know about you, but it seems like everywhere I turn, I'm reading really discouraging statistics about the young generation. And I'm talking about teenagers. I think James just defines it as like 15 to 26, perhaps, is that Gen Z. And how this generation, and I shouldn't say all, it's not all, but many people in this generation are really struggling today. They're struggling with self-image, they're struggling with social skills, they're struggling with hope and meaninglessness. So James is going to talk to us about that today, but different than other, you know, speakers, he has some really hopeful solutions. And that's why I was excited about having him here, because he not only has his own ability at connecting with youth, but he has some really encouraging strategies and advice for how the rest of us could support the younger generation. When I um booked him for the podcast, I wanted to learn more about him. So I found he has a book. It's called Tomorrow's Youth Reaching a Hope Deferred Generation. And that title really intrigued me. What does hope-deferred generation mean? So I read the whole book and I, I'll be honest, I just read it in a couple sittings, James. It was really fascinating. I think all of us have someone in our life who was either in that generation or our sister or brother or someone has a child in that generation. We can all think of someone who's impacted personally by this kind of hopelessness that James has observed. So thank you for being on here. I want to um talk about it and learn more about what you are seeing with this young generation. And then we'll talk about what you can help us do to help this generation.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Well, thank you so much for your invitation to join you today and this opportunity to speak to your audience to share with your audience. Hopefully there's something that I can shed some light on, maybe open up, uh give them a different perspective to look at youth. But if nothing else, I hope we'll have a I know that we're going to have a great conversation together.

Why Focus On Today’s Teens

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Yes, we are. So let's start out. You have a background in teaching. So you and those were were those high school students, middle school, what was the age group that you taught?

SPEAKER_00 3:24

I taught a uh high school, nine through twelve, two different schools over the course of my tenure in the classroom. And then when my oldest was born, uh my mother really convinced me to go back and and work in our family companies. My wife was also a teacher at the time, and we wanted her to be able to stay at home, and so that was an opportunity for us to do that. And when I did that, then my wife and I threw ourselves into our church's youth ministry more, even starting a young ladies, high school women's ministry team that she directed, and I just kind of worked behind the scenes. But I was able to do some speaking, work at camps, and do conferences as well, until it just came to a point in my life where I realized even though I like business, I'm doing a pretty good job on it, it's not what I was called to do. It's not what I was made to do. And so I backed out of it and went full blown into working again, helping people to provide them with the resources they need so that they can see these younger generations thrive.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Just to point out, you have a unique ability of connecting with young people and inspiring them. And I'm sure you've mentored a number of young people. But what I find most fascinating is that you've developed this coaching program to train other people how to reach the youth, because you, as one person, cannot possibly solve the issues of this generation. And I read your book, which is a few years old, so these numbers are probably dated. But by training other adult leaders, you've been able to reach 200,000 youth and help 200,000 individuals. And that that's why I was glad you could come on to speak here, because anyone listening to this podcast will get information at the end of the podcast about how you can get very accessible training to help youth, whether you are a parent or whether you're a youth minister or whether you're a Sunday school teacher, or perhaps you're just a person in the neighborhood who interacts with teenagers in the neighborhood. There is a way that all of us could really exponentially grow the support that this generation needs. Because let's start out, James, for people who aren't aware, can you tell us kind of the data, the statistics on where this generation is?

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Well, there's so many different statistics that are out there, and we cite some of them in the book, especially recent CDC reports that are coming out about their mental health capacity, you know, their mental health struggles and how they view anxiety and stuff. But I really would like to just kind of point back to a study that we did internally in our own organization. When we started, we wanted to provide content to young people to help them and really reach what are their core problems. We just didn't want to do surface stuff. We just didn't want to do something to tackle maybe social media or bullying because we felt like those were symptoms of some deeper issues. So we wanted to find out what the deeper issues were. So we interviewed around 2,500 young people across the United States, a lot of them one-on-one, some group, a few virtually, but all of them were connected in some way with memory. Our staff, I conducted most of the interviews myself. We asked them one question, just one. What is the biggest problem facing your generation? And then we just let them talk and we wrote down everything they said. And then when we got started getting the information, I think after we started getting, I think we got 250 interviews done, we started seeing patterns. And we sat down and we said, okay, what are the what are the buckets that these things fall in? And we found three significant areas that that each young person's answers fell in with very, very, very few outliners. I mean, there were some very specific answers that were specific to people's circumstances and situations that kind of fell outside of that. But most, I'd say 96% fell into these three areas. The first one, and you hit it off a while ago, you said it a while ago, is they struggle with their identity, they struggle with their self-image. They're asking the question, who am I? They they are struggling with that internally. I don't know who I am, I don't know who I'm supposed to be. They may have said it in the way of uh I feel like a failure, that's an identity problem. I feel like I don't measure up to other people, that's an identity problem. I can't meet the expectations of others, that's an identity problem. That's a self-image problem. All those things, but lack of belief. Almost 85% of the 2,500 that we interviewed said something that would fall into that line. Now they may have said other stuff as well, but they they this was part of what they said. I struggle with this, who I am. And I think you would agree, adults do that as well. I mean, it's it's not uh the second biggest issue that they struggle with uh is building positive relationships, making those social connections, as you said. Now, this could be in the form of uh parents, uh siblings, teachers, peers. They may have said stuff about I I succumb to peer pressure, I succumb to bullying, I succumb to, you know, I can't make friends, I can't make boyfriends or girlfriends. There were some of that in there. I my parents and I don't get along, I don't get along with these. Whatever it was, it was something to do with it. They didn't know how to connect. And the last one, you hit on it again as well, is they lack a purpose in life and the ability to set goals to reach those purpose. They don't know what's going on. So there's really three questions that they are trying to get answered. And the Fuller Institute out of California, a couple about three years after we did our study, they did their own study within church groups, and they said there are three questions, and those three questions are who am I, where do I belong, and why am I here for? It's the same stuff.

Self-Image vs Self-Esteem vs Confidence

SPEAKER_01 9:05

The same stuff. And what was eye-opening to me is in your book is really the foundation for all of that is the self-image. I mean, you said, you know, if you don't respect yourself, you can't respect anyone else. And you also, I thought it was interesting how you really defined a difference between self-image, self-esteem, and self-confidence. So I think it would really be helpful for us if you could define how you see those three, so that as we're discussing this, we're all coming at it from the same perspective.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Well, self-image really is how they they they believe in their self, their view of themselves, their that total program. It's the bigger bucket. These others words are used quite a bit, self-confidence, you know, how how they believe in themselves. Do they feel like they're a failure? You know, can they overcome? Do they have that resiliency? Self-esteem is kind of how they view themselves in comparison to others in some way. Those are all different terminologies that kind of fall under that bucket of self-image. And and I'll be honest, there are times that I'll drop each of the words to mean the other, but I wanted to make sure in the book that we kind of define them out so that people didn't think you know we're talking about one thing. But self-image, that really that core issue of who am I? What am I gonna be? Who do I see myself as? What are the attributes that that make up little James? You know, little James is a 14-year-old. What did he and literally I was a little as a 14-year-old, I was a late growth person. I mean, I do you have one of those books that your mama probably had that had they wrote in what your uh height and stuff were when you were growing into the baby book, yeah. Well, it's a school book, it was a school book for me. It was like every year she put down my school picture and write the stuff in there. And I was looking at that this past summer and I was like, I was really 411 going into high school. When did I grow? I mean I was 4'11, 100, nothing. I mean, that's so I didn't believe in myself. I I thought it was, you know, everything was uh I was a little fish in a bigger pond coming from a very, very, very small school that fed into a bigger school. So how I viewed myself uh was very important and how it was formed over that time. And all three of those things kind of intertwine too. Your friendships, your relationships are going to affect your your self-image, but your self-image is gonna affect who you pick as friends, unless you're intentional about those.

Social Media’s Pressure And Parenting Guardrails

SPEAKER_01 11:31

As you said, you know, we are I I don't know who said it, but we are an average of the five people we spend the most time with. So, you know, pick wisely, yes, and and be the type that people want to pick. You know, I don't know how old you are, James, but I think that when you and I are thinking about back when we were in school, yeah, in 14, ninth grade, that's just really hard. I mean, that's a big transition. But my gosh, we did not have the pressures that the kids today have. And I don't mean to be repeating what everyone always says, but truly the social media has to be so hard. It was hard enough when you were a young kid and you found out that there was a party that you weren't invited to over the weekend. But I imagine that we only learned about, you know, 10% of those parties. And today, kids, you know, three people could get together to have a donut and they'll take a selfie, making it look like a party and put it on Instagram. This is what this generation sees over and over and over and over again. Do you think this generation has it harder? Or do you think their you know self-image is lower than previous generations, or do you think this is consistent with where teenagers have always been?

SPEAKER_00 12:52

Let me answer it in two ways. Number one is that this it I'll answer the second part here when you said is it you know typical of previous generations? When COVID hit, my youngest daughter at the time, she was nine and I got up in the morning at the normal time because she couldn't go to school, schools were closed for a period of time. We started watching morning television and leave it to beaver was on. All right. So we started watching Leave It to Beaver, and I started looking at this, and I began to see that the sitcom writers from this show, for those who don't know, this was a family sitcom that aired from 1957 to 62, and it the most of the episodes were dealing with the struggles that these two little boys they started out in middle school and elementary and they ended up being high school and middle school, they were struggling with. And all of the episodes that were about this, unless it was some kind of weird outside episode, like when they bought an alligator by mistake, was dealing with how they felt about themselves, how they viewed themselves, self-image, how they got along with others, the relationships with their peers, their parents, even girls, relationships, and the same thing of what am I going to do in high school? How do I reach goals going forward? What am I going to do as a job? Where are I going to go to college? Purpose and goals. Those were the core issues that they were discussing 70 years ago. Wow. Yes. So, yes, that we've always been facing this. However, as you pointed out, it is different now. Youth today are just responding to this world that we created for them. Our generation created this amazing world that we thought, oh gosh, we can give them this technology and this apparatus and this, and it'll make life so much better. And we were still learning the implications of it and how to work with it when we threw it upon teenagers, when we threw it upon middle schoolers, having no clue how it was going to disrupt their function, how no clue it was going to mess up how they were developing cognitively, socially, in all those different ways. They didn't know what they were doing, and we didn't know how to teach them what to do because we'd never experienced it as well. So now we're seeing the results of that. We're seeing how young people are struggling with mental health issues and all these other things because they're thrown into a world that nobody knew the implications of.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Is this being dialed back at all? I mean, are the parents of the, you know, middle schoolers or the parents of the preteens, the 10 and 11-year-olds, are they putting in more boundaries? I mean, I can remember when Facebook came out and my son came to me and said, I'm going to set up a Facebook page. It was in eighth grade. I didn't know anything about Facebook. Sounded fine to me. And I mean, he's today he's 32, so he's well outside of this. I don't think they, his generation didn't get the brunt that this generation has, the the 15 to 26. They're right in the thick of TikTok didn't exist when he was young. Instagram didn't exist. But now that we do know what we know, do you think that parents are putting more guardrails in for their students or not?

From Statistics To Stories Of Support

SPEAKER_00 16:00

Partial is going to be the best answer we can give. There are some parents who are very proactive, they're reading what's going on, they're sensitive to what's happening with their child and those around them, and they're beginning to see this is not good. This is not good. I'm going to hold off on giving them a smartphone for as long as I can. I'm definitely going to hold off on letting them have access to social media as long as I can. My oldest is 25. My youngest is 15. My oldest got a smartphone a year or a year and a half earlier than my youngest did and got and got access to social media. Well, our oldest, our youngest doesn't have access to it at all yet. Because we didn't know. We didn't know 10 years ago what we know now. The problem is that too many are not aware of that or they turned a blind eye to it. My wife just did a maternity stint for a teacher at my daughter's school. First time she'd been in the classroom in 25 years, back in the classroom in 25 years. Music teacher, core teacher for high school, and also some in the elementary school. And it was remarkable to her to see how many of them had social media at age, I mean, in the fifth grade, some in the fourth grade. That's crazy. Okay. Yeah. So it's a hard, hard train to stop, I'll tell you. And that's one of the reasons why governments are stepping in. Australia just banned social media to 16 years old. Uh, France has banned it to 15 years old. So there's a big push in the United States from among certain groups to get our legislature, uh, Congress in particular, to intervene and say, we're gonna make a rule that we're gonna prohibit social media from allowing anyone younger than 16 to be on social media, allow uh any child under. We both know that there's gonna be ways around that, but at least having that out there is gonna give parents a pause and saying, well, what's the deal? What's the problem here?

SPEAKER_01 17:56

That's interesting. I hadn't heard that. Thank you for telling me that. Well, as I was reading your book, so many thoughts came through my head. You talk about, you know, you hit on these three areas. You know, first the major issue is self-image. Okay. Then we talked about relationships, and within relationships come social skills. And I have heard this other places that this generation has a harder time with social skills because so much of their interaction is online, such as texting. It used to be, you know, if you walked, if you went to youth groups, let's suppose you went to a group and there were people standing in a circle, you'd kind of have to break into the circle. You just stand in the circle and don't say anything until you catch on to what the conversation is, and then you find a way to interject, and then you're part of the conversation. But I've read over and over again that this generation doesn't have the confidence to do that. Not only do they not know how to do it, but they just would never do it. Oh, I would never break into a circle. I mean, how do you even do that? So those are the kinds of relationship skills we all need going forward as adults. And I'd love to talk about, you know, the training that you suggest to us because I I view you talk about the value of if each young, struggling young person had an adult come along beside them. You know, you had an example of a teacher who noticed a student had been knocked down because he didn't make a sports team, and the student's self-image just deteriorated and it affected his grades and his relationships. And the teacher saw that. And the teacher said, okay, I'm going to once a week, I'm going to sit down for half an hour with this boy and, you know, build him up and connect and develop a relationship. And over a period of time, the student kind of came back to life and went on to become active in other activities, not the sport he was cut from, and he did well. You talked about, I love this when you were talking about purpose. So if we've got three issues self-image, relationships, and a lack of purpose. And you the quote I wrote down was that meaningless, meaningless, meaninglessness, there you go, rather than stress is the primary issue facing today's youth. Feeling like they have no meaning is worse than stress. We're all hearing about stress and anxiety as the biggest issue, but you said that's a symptom, let's Go underneath the symptom, it's that I don't have meaning. And you say, you know, if we have an opportunity to connect with an individual, maybe there's a teenager who babysits for you. Maybe there's a friend's daughter or son who you have an opportunity to connect with. Informally, you said, make sure that you're taking the first few minutes or seconds of any interaction to remind them that their lives matter and the world is a better place with them here. And I thought, oh wow, how great is that? You're not just coming in to like give advice and let me teach you how to set goals. You're like, you know, I'm really here to help them see that they matter. That student that the teacher met with, just the fact that the teacher spent 30 minutes with him said everything to the student.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Yeah.

The Hope-Deferred Generation Explained

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Said I matter. So I kind of was reflecting back on my teenage experience and thinking, because you asked the question of the book, who are the adults in your youth who you can remember encouraging you outside of your parents? And you know what? It was this woman in our neighborhood. This woman in our neighborhood who was our mother's age started a little after school Bible study for five girls in our grade. And I'm 62 years old. We would go to her house every Wednesday afternoon. I don't know if we ever studied the Bible, I'll be honest. But we just talked about her life and she was just compassionate and she gave us advice. I still remember her advice. She's 89 years old, and we all went to visit her a couple of months ago. She had no idea the impact she had on us. She had no idea. The fact that she took her time meant something. And you know, she didn't do anything fancy. We sat around her table and we drank seven up. There were no snacks, there was no, there was nothing formal. It was so easy for her that she didn't even fully remember how long she had done it. But she had just to her, it was just, oh, these cute girls are stopping by and we're chatting. And her natural inclination was to be encouraging and supportive. She didn't have a big program. So having said all that, I would love for you to talk about what your program is. What if someone's listening to this thinking, okay, you know what? I want to be part of the generation that helps this generation have hope because there's no reason for them not to. They're all educated. You know, I mean, we're talking about plenty of kids who have advantages and yet they're experiencing this hopelessness. So tell us about what you do.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

What is the generation youth coaching? Well, years ago, well, uh in 2020, actually, we decided that we wanted to refocus from instead of just pouring into young people, specifically upper high schoolers and college students and training them. We wanted to provide some training for those who wanted to impact all generations of youth, anywhere from like a 12-year-old to someone in their late college years. And we thought initially we'd just do some kind of classes online, you know, workshops. But a friend of mine highly suggested that we develop a youth life coaching program, a youth life coaching certification. He says, You've been doing that for years. You got a great foundation of it. You understand the concepts of it. You, your team and your allies in this industry can help you build it. And so we started calling people to say what is needed, what's not needed, how you do this, all that kind of stuff. And I talked to a trauma coach, someone who helps people through, coaches them through trauma in Dallas, a good friend of mine. And she told me, she said, James, I believe that youth today are a hope-deferred generation. And I was like, Wow, Veronica, that was amazing. Where'd you get that from? And she says, Come on, James, you know it's it's from Proverbs 13, 12. A hope deferred makes the heart sick. And I was like, that's brilliant. And then that night, I just got to thinking about it and I couldn't sleep. And that never happens. But I got up and I was like, I got to figure out, you know, what is the root of deferred? What does it really mean? So I looked it up in every form of dictionary I could find, all the way back to the original Webster's dictionary from the early 1800s. And deferred just means it's it's postponed, it's delayed, it's just out of reach. So this hope that this generation is lacking is not lost, it's not stolen, it's not gone forever. It's just right outside of their reach. And so what we wanted to do with our program was create a coaching program that we could train adults who want to pour into youth to help them find that hope, to help them reach that hope, specifically into three areas that we wanted to train them through. That we wanted to train a coach, someone to come alongside them and take them from where they were currently, help them identify where they wanted to be in life, and then walk with them through that process. Now, you and I were probably very beneficial in that when we were coming through school, I'm 56, and when we came through school, our teachers had the bandwidth in their day to pour into us. Teachers now still want to pour into it, but there are so many pressures outside of the school, so many things they have to do. By hand, I gotta have this test done, you know, test prep for this kid by the end. I gotta reach these standards, I gotta do all this stuff. And so they don't have the bandwidth that they had 20, 30 years ago or even 15 years ago to pour into them. So we wanted to create something for those who wanted to take it a step farther to help coach you through this process and help walk them through this process. You know, the word coach originally is a form of transportation, and that's what we view ourselves. We're teaching people to help transport youth from where they are right now to where they want to be or where they can be in life. And that's what our youth life coaching uh certification is based on is helping them find that deferred hope. And then it was only like two months later that my stupid self went back and read the rest of the verse. I got so enamored with the first part, I didn't realize there was a second part. The second part says, but a dream fulfilled is the tree of life. And I thought, oh my gosh, if the first part is our mission, the second part is the promise that we're gonna do. We're gonna help them fulfill their dreams and get all that the tree of life can provide them.

Inside The Generation Youth Coaching Model

SPEAKER_01 26:25

And I, as I said, a few years ago, you had 200,000 youth had been touched by this coaching program. I don't know what the number is now, but that's pretty impressive. So let's say I wanted to do your coaching program. What do I experience? You said, is it online? Is it something I go to in person? Is it Zoom calls? Tell me more about it.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

The current format that we're doing, the first part of 2026, is going to be virtual. It'll be a once-a-week class for about an hour and a half to two hours, depending on how the instructor works the class that night. That'll go for six weeks. So six weeks, once a night, once a week in the evening, most of the time in the evening, uh, you'll have this class that that uh you can you can pour into in one of our team. It could be me, it could be some of our other qualified coaches that'll guide you through the process. Where we'll go through, you know, what is coaching? Why does it work for youth? You know, what are the benefits of it? What are the issues that they're facing? And how does coaching answer those issues? You know, what do you need as a coach mentally? You know, we got to have your mental training. What do you need skill-wise? You know, we got to have skill-wise. How do you make it work? How do you how do you organize a coaching program? We give them curriculum that can help get them started, but we also want to teach them to come back in maybe a year or two or three years if they're if they're really serious about this, to be able to make the curriculum more their own, you know, so it reflects them. You know, I tell people that, you know, if I come after, if you've been coaching for six months, after the first six months, and I and we do an assessment with you, I want to see that you're using our content. But if I come back in two years and you're using our content exactly as it's written, and there's nothing of you in there, I'm concerned about your growth because it needs to reflect who you are and what your circumstances is and stuff. And then how do you make it work with life and business and all those things? That's that's the aspect of it. So it's a six-week thing, a cohort, a small cohort, no more than 20. We've had them as big as 25, but that's that's a little bit too much. Uh, most of the time they're around 15 that they'll go through, they'll grow together, they'll learn together. And then we're available to help them in any way to help build that and connect with our network.

SPEAKER_01 28:38

And the people who are doing the coaching, can you give me examples of what their roles are and then how they're are they teachers, are they pastors, are they youth leaders? I mean, what how are they using this coaching program?

SPEAKER_00 28:50

The demographics who have come through is all over the place. The very first class, we had a young couple in their mid-20s that, you know, they barely, their brains barely finished forming, you know, they don't know what's going on. But they wanted to coach, and they wanted to coach high schoolers and early college students to help them find purpose because they saw too many of their peers at age 27 that were still clueless about what they were going to do in life. So they want to do that. I had a lady from Canada come through one of our virtual classes that's 86 years old, and she says, I want to do this now for my set for my next career. And I'm like, Your next career? Whoa, that's amazing. So we've had teachers, we've had stay-at-home moms who want to involve with it, we've had youth ministers, college leaders, just a variety of different people that are using it in whatever capacity they do. We had a dad of seven come through and he said, I am never going to coach anybody in my life outside of the seven kids in my family. But if I can coach them in the way that they need to be coached and help them thrive and give them the skills they need now going forward, then it's all been worth it.

Who Becomes A Youth Coach

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Well, I think it sounds wonderful. I've had uh professional coaching, and I can remember not really thinking I needed any professional coaching, but I thought I would try it because I really wanted to get to know the coach. He was a famous author, and I thought, well, I just want to get to know him. And he ended up suggesting that I start a podcast because it's so interesting, and I am so thankful because I'm talking to you, James. You know, I'm learning something that I never knew anything about. And hopefully people who really need to hear this are listening. And I want to just suggest some of the best podcasts I've ever heard were from friends who heard the podcast and then shared it with me, because there are so many podcasts out there I probably wouldn't have found it. But they thought of me because they thought this is something Stephanie needs. And I've been so grateful because they've been so helpful. And as people are listening to this, if someone comes to mind, if you have a friend who's struggling with a teenage child, or if you know someone who's a teacher or a pastor or a coach who you think might benefit from this, I would ask that you just put this thing on pause or when you're done and share it with them. Because we are all concerned about this generation. People talk about it all the time. And the program you have, James, is so practical and so helpful. And it was so encouraging to me because yes, you've outlined the problem, but you've provided a solution. From what I've read in your book and on your website, it is working for so many people. And here you are, one guy who is trying to get the word out. And you're providing this train the trainer kind of training. So hopefully we'll get it out. But there are millions of young people in this generation. And we all know they're struggling more than ever before. You know, we've had issues with so many things. I don't even want to go down that rabbit hole, but you know that it's not about talking about the problem, it's about being part of the solution. So I just thank you so much for being willing to do this and putting this out there. I want people to be able to find you. I think um I've been on your website. It's jamesmclam.com.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Is that that's one way they can get to me. The the orgeneration-youth.com is the major one. The James McClam stuff will take you to a page inside of the master uh website.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

So we will have the links on our show notes. But James, tell us if people want to get in touch with you, because James does more than just the training. You're also a speaker and you do quite a bit of speaking. So you might want to have him speak to your organization if you're able to do that. And you also have a podcast. I do. I do tell us about your podcast.

Spreading Solutions: Podcast, Links, And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 32:47

Our podcast arose when we were working with young people and training young people and working specifically with college students. And then 2020, yeah, all these young people were kind of like, What do we do? What do we do? So we started doing weekly calls with them just to encourage them. Then it evolved over time to a podcast because they asked for you know the more and more resources, and we just kind of evolved in podcasts. As we started doing the analytics and we started seeing who the audience was, we started seeing the audience was less the college students, and it was more parents and teachers and coaches, uh, and athletic coaches. And so now the podcast, uh The Generation Youth Show, is really focused on having these kind of conversations. What are the issues facing young people? How do we solve them? How do we walk alongside them? Or even having success stories. We recently had a young 16-year-old kid who started writing books when he was eight years old and starting his own businesses. And, you know, we want to celebrate those who are thriving and ask them, how can you help others? What what what did you learn? And in the course of that conversation, I kept thinking, I really want to should have had his mother on this podcast with him because I think she would be able to tell me more about what they did, you know. Because he kept saying, Well, I learned this from dad, I learned this from mom, and I'm like, I'd love to have mom and dad on the podcast uh going forward.

SPEAKER_01 34:07

That's an idea. So tell us the name of the podcast again.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

It's the Generation Youth uh podcast. Um you can find the link on our website, generation-youth.com, or it's it's on YouTube, it's on all major uh places.

Final Encouragement: Plant Small Seeds

SPEAKER_01 34:21

We'll link to it too. But uh anyway, any parting advice for those of us who are just becoming intrigued with the idea of how might we be able to help?

SPEAKER_00 34:30

I just encourage people to not be overwhelmed. If they see these issues, they see these problems, they hear the bad stuff on the news. You know, we we ask folks, you know, what's the first thing that comes to mind when they say adolescence, and we get and when we're in bigger groups of adults, and we get all these negative comments, so we know people have this bad opinion, and they're like, I just don't think I can help. I don't think I can do it. And it's just like you you mentioned uh the one of the book, it's just encouraging them, just take that small step, that small step of saying, hey, you know, you matter, you're important, you're a person of worth, as the late Mr. Ziggler used to, Zig Ziggler used to say, you are born to win. And helping them believe that maybe you're just a seed planter and you never get to see the harvest of it. You never get to water it, you never get to cultivate it. You're just planting that seed that day. That is so important. Uh, because someone else, God's gonna bring in their lives later on down the line to water it, cultivate it, and and then there'll be a harvest later.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

That's right. We don't know at this side of heaven exactly what your impact has, but I think you can trust that you're never going to go wrong with encouragement. It doesn't cost anything to give it away. And we know how valuable it is. Well, again, thank you so much. I so appreciate you taking the time.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Thank you so much for this opportunity.