I Brainwashed My Kids, And It Is Awesome.

Summary

In this episode of the Earn Your Title podcast, Danny Dumas shares insights on the importance of encouraging children and instilling core values through repetition, which he calls 'brainwashing.' He emphasizes the need for parents to consistently communicate positive messages about success, financial literacy, and self-awareness. Dumas also discusses overcoming negative self-talk and the importance of self-improvement, encouraging listeners to reprogram their minds and foster a positive environment for their children.

Takeaways

• Encouragement is crucial for children's growth.
• Repetition of values helps instill them in children.
• Parents should model the behaviors they want to teach.
• Awareness of surroundings is important for safety.
• Negative self-talk can be overcome with positive reinforcement.
• It's okay to teach values even if you're not perfect.
• Consistent exposure to positive messages is key.
• Parents should not give up on instilling values.
• Self-improvement is a continuous journey.
• Brainwashing can be positive when done with good intentions.

Chapters

00:00 The Power of Encouragement
02:57 Brainwashing for Success
06:00 Building Awareness and Values
08:52 Overcoming Negative Thoughts
11:52 Reprogramming Your Mind

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Transcript

0:02

you Check one, two. Hey guys, my name is Danny do it so this is the earn your title podcast today I have some encouragement for you. All right, if you're this is maybe for the younger dads new dads Some of the older dads are you gonna be like, yeah, that's right. You're right I'm gonna give you some encouragement the other day I Was at home and I was doing something in the kitchen and my son who's 16 was talking to my wife And he was talking about a friend who was not wanting to try something or there's something he didn't want to do. And Levi started saying, he's like, he's like, mom, he just doesn't want to be uncomfortable. You know, he's afraid, he's afraid to fail and you just can't be afraid to fail. Cause I mean, what's, what's there to lose? You just fail. mean, and he's like, some of the coolest things I've done are being uncomfortable. And his friend just didn't want to step out and didn't want to change. And you know, I'm just whatever I was doing, doing the dishes, and the smile on my face was just immense. Because for Levi and the rest of my kids, their entire life, so for Levi it's been since he could talk, so let's call it two or three, I've been brainwashing them. I have been giving them these messages that I wanted to sink inside their head so they believe that that is just the truth. And I'm gonna share those with you, I'm gonna share the areas in. in my life and their life that I think you should be brainwashing your kids. And I use that word specifically because I want you to realize in order to brainwash somebody, the message has to be repeated over and over and over again. So why was I so excited that Levi said this? Well, for a really long time, as we go to to school, I would ask my kids, you know, what are the things you need to do to be great? And I've shared this with you before, but I'll share it again, because I think it's important. I'm trying to brainwash you. And I would say, you know, I started off with things like, you know, you need to be comfortable being uncomfortable. And so I would ask, hey, how do you, how do you do great things? And start off, you know, be comfortable being uncomfortable. And then I would tell them, you need to be, not to be afraid to fail. Go for it, right? This is the time of your life. Don't be afraid to fail. I would tell them to be a giver. I'll tell them to put God first. You know, I go down this list of things that I want them to internalize. And I would tell them over and over and over again. And as parents, that repeating process can be challenging. And we do this with like, please and thank you. The other day my daughter said, dad, can you make me a whatever sandwich? I said, dad, can you please make me a sandwich? And she looked at me and she's, you know, seven. Dad, can you please make me a sandwich? And I said, Lucy, doesn't that sound better? And she goes, yeah. You know how many times I've had to tell her that and she's still not quite there? She will sometimes and she's improving. But you have to keep putting that in their head. And sometimes we wanna just tell people one time, even if it's not our kids at work, hey, do this. The next day they don't do it. Hey, do it again. Why don't you do this? If there's something important, keep doing it, right? Over and over and over again. So one of the things I think you should do is speak your values into your kids. So I have two things. How do you do great things? And that is don't be afraid to fail. Be comfortable, uncomfortable. Be a giver and put God first. Those are the four things. I have another one, finances. How do you become a wealthy person? You don't go into debt. You tell your money what to do. You give, it took me a sec, I had to think about what we did. You give 10 % and you save 20%. You save 20 % of your income the rest of your life, you're doing great. You will have no problems, life will be good, you don't have major consumer debt. And I'm just telling them over and over and over again. So when they get to college, they want a free t-shirt? Just sign up for this credit card. They won't even know. that my voice is in their head, it will sound like their voice, right? It'll be changed and I'll be going, I wanna be wealthy and so I'm gonna stay out of debt. And like when my son was telling my wife that, he didn't say, yeah, when my friend said this, I told him, you know mean? Just don't be afraid to fail, because that's what my dad always says. He didn't say that. He said, told his friend, hey man, don't be afraid to fail. That was his words that I stuck in his head over and over and over over and over again. And that's what I want for you guys to do. Find out those core values. So, you know, how to be a great person. Figure out what that is for you. And for everybody, maybe it's different. Borrow my for, for wealth and finances. Maybe it's, you know, buy assets, don't buy liabilities. Maybe it's, you know, go down this, whatever you think it could be. One of the things that I do is situational awareness. We'll be walking into the one, like every now, we have in Michigan, you can't open carry. meaning you can have a gun on your hip and it's not concealed. That's legal in many of the states it is. It's weird, in Michigan to conceal it, to put my jacket over my gun, I have to have a permit to conceal it. But if I want to wear it open like a cowboy, you don't need a permit. I will, if I see someone open carrying in a restaurant, I'll ask my kids, hey, look around, do you see anything that's weird? Just look around, I want you to tell me that you notice anything that's out of place. And initially when I do this, would like, I don't see anything. I'm like, look at that guy over there has a gun. And then what I don't want them to be afraid of, afraid of that, you know, like freak out. But I want them to be aware. When we go to the movie theater, we walk in, I'll sit next to him and like, Hey, if we had to go right now, what's the fastest way to get out? that, that door over there, the far one, right? Not the one we came in, right? Cause everyone's going that way. That one's closest. I make them aware of the surroundings. I get them to, know, like, did you see this or that? Like, you go to the mall and some, but something, maybe it wasn't even like a dangerous thing. like, hey, did you see that lady in the purple dress that had the big polka dots, she looked like Barney? I want them to be paying attention to the world and I have to do that over and over and over again. You know, some family values, like my youngest once still bring her iPad to the kitchen table every single time. And every single time, no, we don't do that. Family sits together and we talk. Now, why do I say that? Because it's important to me and I want it to be important to them. And I totally understand feeling tired. And sometimes it would be just way easier to, you know what, here's all your food, go sit, eat wherever you want. But the values and the things that are important in your life, I'm encouraging you not to give up on that and to put the work in. Because that's how you help mold a young person. That's how you take your kids from being this little lump of human flesh and turn them into good, kind, caring, moral, sober human beings by repeating. messages over and over and over again. Now maybe you came from a world where the messages were really negative and they brainwashed you. I understand that there's some people whose parents told them they're not good enough. Who, you you came home with a B and you got berated because we get A's in this house. And you realize that you had worked as hard as possible and you realize that you'll never be good enough. That's not true. One of the dangers of brainwashing is that it is deep down inside. So if you have any of these negative thoughts, if you have the, I'm not good enough, I'll never be good enough. I'm too fat, I'm too skinny, I'm not athletic enough, I'll never be like my dad, realize that you can override those. It's really hard. And this might be a therapy thing, right? This might be, you know, get to a professional and let's unpack that and then put that, those, negative ideas, those negative thoughts into the place they need to go to, which is, this is false, but you can change too. Brainwash yourself. You can brainwash yourself. Listen to good podcasts. There's a, heard a great one called the Understable Podcast. The host is interesting. He's got a nice bald head and he releases an episode every Tuesday. You're doing that, right? That's why I'm trying to encourage you, right? I want to un-brainwash you and I want my voice to get stuck in your head saying, you can do it. You are good enough. Now, maybe, when it comes to like a health thing, maybe you are messing up. You're not sleeping enough, you're not eating the right enough protein, you're eating too many carbs, you're drinking too much alcohol, you're smoking too much, whatever it is, maybe you are doing that, but you don't have to. You can do other things. And this is also where I think sometimes we know the right things and we're afraid to share that with our kids because we're not currently doing it. Like I don't ever want my kids to be into consumer debt and I have consumer debt that I'm working on getting out But it doesn't mean I can't tell my kids, don't borrow money. Don't put things on a credit card. Don't buy clothes with a credit card. Don't do these things. Listen to me because I've done these. I've made these mistakes and I'm trying to teach you, right? It's okay to not be where you want health-wise and still tell your kids, hey, we should have protein at every meal. We should be drinking water instead of soda. It's okay to tell them that, right? Because you are working your way. Now, I think we have an obligation that if we're going to be telling our kids, okay, I want you to be comfortable being uncomfortable, to do that, go be uncomfortable. Go do hard things. Go sign up for a marathon. Go sign up for a Go-Rug. Go do that. But you don't actually have to be doing it right now. You just have to be trying to get there eventually and brainwash yourself. You know, there's tons of books. You know, one of the benefits of going to church and I know not everybody listens to this is religious, is that you go on a Sunday and for an hour, someone tells you that the way to be a successful Christian is to love God and love your neighbor over and over and over again, to be a giver, to be honest, to name the thing that's good. In Christianity, if followed, is a good thing. If you're living a life like Christ, You are living a good life as a citizen of this world. But you gotta get that in your head over and over and over again. Because some days you don't feel like a good person. Some days I don't wanna be a kind, compassionate person that's giving and caring. I wanna be selfish and rude and I wanna do that. But because I expose myself consistently to the good work, to the good message, to good things, to good podcasts, to good books, I am brainwashing myself, which is probably the first thing you do before you brainwash your kids, get that in you and you can live a good, successful life. So I just wanna encourage you that the time and effort you put into your kids to tell them the things that you know they need to hear, it is getting in there even if it doesn't seem like it. Man, when my son said those things and it was like word for word what I had told him 100 times, but it was his words. It was his conscious. It was his thinking. And I don't know if he knows that I did that. I'm not gonna tell him, because now it's his, right? But it was over and over. When your kid says please and thank you for the first time, you'll know what I'm talking about. So young dads, it's worth it. Old dads, is it worth it? Talk to the young dads, mentor those guys, let them know, hey, this is the things I said, this is what I taught my kids. And if you are currently struggling with that subconscious thought that you are not good enough. that you're a failure, that you'll never be the person your dad was or your mom was. Just realize we didn't all have great parents and they didn't all have a great message, but you can change that. It's gonna take some work, right? It's gonna take being comfortable, being uncomfortable, right? Listen to me. But you can change the inner thought in your head, because that voice is really powerful. It's the voice you listen to. So you have to change what is going in. Stop watching the news. Listen to good, uplifting things. Read books about people doing amazing things. read books about people that you wanna be like. Get out there and put that information into your head and life will be better. If you need help doing that, I wanna help. I wanna just, maybe you don't actually need any advice, you just wanna talk to someone that's gonna say, listen dude, you're the kind of guy that reaches out to somebody and says I need help and I'm gonna be that guy, you can do it. I'm just gonna encourage you. If you're currently battling obesity, you can beat it. If you're currently battling drug addiction, you can beat it. If you and your wife haven't cordially in a month, you can win her back. She can love you again. You can love her again. You can have a good relationship. Let me help. My email is danny at dannydumas.com. Reach out, send me an email, say, hey, I just want to talk. Let's figure out where we can go from here. I want to do that. I want to reprogram your brain. This is my mission. This is why I'm doing this. Yeah, reach out to me. I would love to talk to you. You can do it. Don't be afraid to brainwash your kid. Just make sure you're telling them the good stuff. Not the bad stuff, because it works both ways. You tell your kid they can't do it, they're going to believe you. And you want your kid to do it. encourage them. You just you can do it. I don't know what else to say. Hopefully this was good. I know a little different than what I normally do. I didn't have a whole lot of great advice. But yeah, my name is Dan Dumas, and this is the New Title Podcast. And I will talk to you later. Bye.