Helping Kids Feel Seen: Why "Somebody-ness" Changes Everything

In this episode of Parenting Shrink Wrapped, Dr. Melissa Wellner and Sam Straub sit down with Joe Vercellino, award-winning educator, musician, and founder of The Lionheart Experience, to explore one of the most important conversations we've had on the podcast: helping children develop a strong sense of "somebody-ness."

Joe shares the remarkable story of how a stranger's simple words of encouragement as an eighth grader helped shape the trajectory of his life and inspired the creation of The Lionheart Experience, a nationwide program that has impacted millions of students through music, storytelling, and visual art.

Together, they discuss why children today often struggle to feel seen despite living in a world that's more connected than ever, and how parents, educators, and mentors can intentionally create moments that remind kids they matter.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• What Joe means by "somebody-ness"
• Why helping kids feel seen is essential for healthy emotional development
• The connection between belonging and mental health
• How simple words of encouragement can leave a lifelong impact
• Why confidence grows from connection, not perfection
• Practical ways parents can build somebody-ness at home every day

About Joe
Joe Vercellino is an award-winning educator, speaker, and founder of The Lionheart Experience, a national program dedicated to helping young people build self-worth, belonging, and positive mental health. A former music teacher in Detroit, Joe combines original music, storytelling, and live art to inspire students and educators across the country, encouraging every child to discover their unique value and develop a strong sense of "Somebody-ness." 

Resources
Learn more about The Lionheart Experience, Joe Vercellino's school programs, music, books, and educator resources.

Get Joe’s free guide: Standout:  A Teacher’s Guide to the Ultimate Shine and Getting People Talking about You and Your Classroom (in a good way)

Follow The Lionheart Experience on Social Media: Instagram and YouTube

Contact: parentingshrinkwrapped@gmail.com

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This podcast is educational in nature and is not a substitute for professional medical or mental-health care. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I say for one of the first times in my life, I felt what uh Martin Luther King says is the hardest thing to cultivate inside of a young person. Said that in his book, Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community. He said the the hardest thing to cultivate inside of a young person is a rugged sense of somebodyess. And if you want to cultivate somebodyess, you take someone from feeling invisible to feeling seen.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Welcome to Parenting Shrinkwraft, where two mental health professionals will get real with you about the joys and the challenges of raising children and teens. I'm your co-host, Dr. Melissa Wellner, a double board certified psychiatrist and child and adolescent psychiatrist and mom of three.

SPEAKER_03 0:50

And I'm Samantha Straub, licensed clinical counselor, longtime educator, parenting coach, and mother of two. Together, we'll explore all things parenting, from handling monumental meltdowns to first-time drivers. We're all about giving you practical strategies that work. Parenting Shrinkwrapped is more than just advice. You'll sit in with us for compassionate conversations about the complexities and the absurdities of parenting. We're here to support you and your kiddos.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

So grab your cup of coffee, take a deep breath, buckle up, and join us for this journey called Parenthood. We'll laugh, learn, and commiserate about the joys and messiness of raising kids. And I was thinking back to when I was younger. I played piano for over 10 years as a kid. So music was a part of my life. I cannot sing a note, but I did play an instrument.

SPEAKER_03 2:09

Sam, did you play any instruments when you were young? I had a fateful experience with the guitar in fifth grade. And I and it was a real bummer. My teacher had a grant to buy acoustic guitars, and he maybe had a dozen in his classroom. And he was the coolest teacher. I loved this guy, Mr. Cooper. He recently passed away, and the Facebook, you know, pages from decades of kids who are now my age 50 were you know chiming in about how awesome he was, which included applying for a grant to get acoustic guitars to teach his kids how to play play music because he used to sing music and folk songs. So I was one of the lucky recipients of guitar lessons from Mr. Cooper during recess. So I took that guitar home and I was strumming on that thing and I loved it. And then we got to the first show what you what you know session. So I was getting ready to strum, like, I don't know, the Wabosh Cannonball or some other like folk song that he used to teach. And he was like, so sing along. And I was like, what? And he was like, you know, like sing as you strum. And I was, and I was like, are you kidding me? Like I totally felt like the wool was pulled out from under my from like the rug was pulled out from under me. It's like I signed up to strum the guitar, not to sing in front of these people. Oh no. And I quit. But if you ask me if there's something, yeah, I quit. Furthermore, that resulted in a major demotion for me uh theatrically. Uh I had like a lead in the first play from the fall, but the second play, because Mr. Cooper assumed I didn't want to sing, it was Goodman, you're a good man Charlie Brown, which is off musical. You don't want to know what my part was? The teacher. You want to know what the teacher says? Wah wah wah wah wah wah from behind the yeah. Because Mr. Cooper thought that like I was a fear of singing. I just didn't want to sing in front by myself. Like I wanted an ensemble part. Anyway, so no, I can't play a musical instrument. I wish I could play the guitar still. If you ask me if I would take lessons.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

So, Sam, I think guitar lessons are in your future. I I think you need to take this up again.

SPEAKER_03 4:17

Someday I I will. And maybe I'll sing this time because but that's not what I want what I want to do. I want to be able to strong.

SPEAKER_02 4:26

Well, speaking of music and music teachers, we have a former music teacher with us today. Um, Joe Versalino, who's an award-winning educator, speaker, and former music teacher who founded the Lionheart Experience, which is a national school program focused on self-worth, belonging, and youth mental health. So this is bringing together the music world and the mental health world, which makes me warm and fuzzy on the inside. Um, he's a Michigan native who began his career teaching music in Detroit, where he developed an innovative approach that blended original music, storytelling, and paint. Um, through the Lionheart experience, Joe has reached millions of students and educators across the United States with presentations that combine music, visual art, and personal reflection in an effort to cultivate a strong sense of somebodyess in young people. Um, so Joe, welcome to Parenting Shrink Rapt.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

It's such an honor to be here. I was listening to some of your episodes uh this week, and I was like, I don't know if I'm gonna be able to hang on this podcast because these guys are smart. These guys are smart. Like, people bring me in to like tell stories and inspire. I'm like, but they actually have like degrees, you know? These guys are so smart.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

I can't play the freaking guitar. I can't play the guitar.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

And I was I was just in the car with my kids. They were coming back from gymnastics, and I was listening to uh Sonia's episode from Cloud Nine, and I'm like, I don't know, I don't know if I'm gonna have anything to say. You know, she is she was just so sharp. I was like, that is it, yeah, that's pretty wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 6:10

She's so she was so articulate, and and and I thought the same thing. I was like, gosh, she's 19 and she's better spoken than I am, or will ever be.

SPEAKER_00 6:19

Yeah, I was I was chatting with uh my uncle at a meeting a couple days ago, and he uh he was texting his teenage daughter and he was talking into his phone. He's like, just you know, come here at one o'clock, period. Uh, we'll see you for lunch, period. And I and I'm like, do you know that your teenager may be taking that as a form of aggression?

SPEAKER_03 6:41

Thank you, Sonia.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Sonia, shout out, shout out, and you know I'm tracking along with your podcast too.

SPEAKER_03 6:48

So and and also that is how Joe and I connected, is because that on my Instagram account, there was a clip of Sonia saying that, like that parents could take your your end punctuation in your text as aggression. And Joe wrote something like funny but true, or like tragic and funny but true, something like that. And so then we he and I went up going back and forth. I kind of poked around on his his page and then um was like, Oh, I need to learn more about the lion heart experience. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. And and the the phenomenon of somebody-ness, which is another one that I I it's my favorite word. Really resonated with me.

SPEAKER_02 7:29

So, Joe, how did can you give us a little bit more of your background? I mean, I know I get I like introduced you, but like how did this come to be? Tell our listeners what the Lionheart experience kind of started as and where you've gotten to.

SPEAKER_00 7:46

Yeah, when I was teaching in Detroit, so I taught in inner city Detroit for almost a decade, and I taught music in my school. The reason that they they hired me actually is because they didn't have any instruments, and on my on my resume, which I'll I'll kind of backtrack to, I the very first thing on my resume was that I'm a street performer. Uh, because I had spent my all my high school and college years uh singing on street corners around the country. And so when I was when I was looking for a job teaching, I I wanted to tap into that experience as my primary uh formation in music and with people. And so this uh little school in Detroit was like, Do you want to give it a shot here? Because we don't we want to have a music program, but we don't have any uh instruments. And so I showed up at this school in Detroit. I also a formative part of my experience being the the only piece of uh white chocolate in the room. And uh, and so that was an awesome cultural experience for me. But I told my students, I said, We're gonna we're gonna write songs in here that change the world. We're gonna we're gonna write songs. And uh it's you know, in in your typical music classroom, you kind of uh perform a a set of repertoire that uh classic pieces or something that's already been written, uh people know. And I was like, if we're gonna approach this from a non-traditional sense here, uh I want to see what what musical ideas already exist here, and we're gonna pull them down and we're going to we're gonna turn them into real songs. Oh my gosh, my light just turned off. It's okay.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

We can see you just fine.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

You can? Okay, that's good. So I told my students, I'm like, we're gonna write, we're gonna write the next songs that that change the world in here. You know, we're not mimicking what we see on TikTok. We're not going to uh we're not just gonna regurgitate the things that we see on Instagram. We're going to we're gonna write the songs that people are gonna be listening to. And so we started producing these songs in my classroom, and we would do school assemblies. And I I noticed when I would see people come in for school assemblies, I was like, wow, um, this is bad, but a lot of the things that I'm good at in my life, I just noticed that other people were really bad at them and they were getting paid to do it. You know what I'm saying? Like, yes, people would come in and they would do these school assemblies, and I was like, oh man, like they um they like they know how to hype up a crowd, but they don't know how to control a crowd. They have a great point, but they can't get to it because they don't understand how kids learn. Uh, I mean, these and I would see assemblies like uh big names come through, like even like NFL assemblies. And I was and I was thinking to myself, I I really think I could I could do this, I could do this better. And so I started grabbing um some students that I was really close with, and I was like, we're using our music, and I'm gonna talk with the school about somebody-ness. I'm gonna talk with them about how you see yourself and how to maintain this uh this big picture, beautiful picture for your life that I have worth, I have value, I have a beautiful future. And we started doing these assemblies at our school, and mixing the the message with um with the music kind of started to take off, and other other schools started calling us. And so we started traveling around, and uh we we've seen four million students since then. That was about eight years ago, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

So who do who's still on the Lionheart team with you?

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Yeah, so a lot of my original students that you can you can see them in the documentary that's on YouTube. A lot of them have grown up and moved into different uh spaces in the world, they've taken jobs, have gone to college, uh things like that. And so right now uh there's one, his name is Tay, Tay Sosa, and I met him as a fifth grader in my music classroom. He's 24 now. And and so him and I kind of him, uh myself, and then our sound guy, we kind of get around the United States. And then depending on what life looks like for some of my other past students, they might hop in for a tour or they might be there for a performance or a special event. Uh, but they're also just kind of making their way in the world as well. But I feel super lucky to be able to be traveling around with Tay and have moved into so many different phases of life together.

SPEAKER_03 12:41

I listened to and watched some of your some of the videos in preparation for this um for this conversation, and your and Tay's musical style seems complementary. They're not the same. At least, at least the the what's featured in some of the things you've shown. Like he seems like rap, and not that you can't do that, but you seemed at least the ones I saw this morning as I was listening. Um like you you've got that vocal, that street performer, I can hear that. Um as you're you're complimenting, echoing, enhancing, you know, amplifying. Um, I just liked, I loved what I heard. Not not just the music, which was catchy, but also the messaging of the music.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Thank you. Yeah, when when Tay and I write, uh we we don't do a lot of writing together. We'll we'll write and then bring our verses together and have music produced, but Tay is definitely uh he leans really heavily into the hip-hop scene, which is which is really great. I mean, uh when when Tay steps onto the stage at the schools that we go to, the the students really feel like there's a celebrity there. You know, there are they're like, what? There's like like who is this, you know, and we travel with a huge sound system too. A lot of students say that the Lineheart experience is their their first concert ever. So we you know, we don't take that lightly, like we want it to be a really great experience. And so Tay and I bounce off of each other. He kind of opens up the performances. Um I come out and I kind of mix in the story uh with some of my music, and and my music leans more towards like the pop. Um it leans a little bit into the hip-hop world too, but they compliment each other. And then I paint on a canvas while I'm talking. So we've got all the we've got all the mediums mixed in there. I when I'm with elementary students, my goal is to help them, like my own kids, is to help them internalize the message. Your words can make people feel like a mess, or they can make them feel like a masterpiece. And so we talk use using the music and the messaging, we use this canvas and we'll paint on there and we'll kind of make a mess. I'll have kids come up and help me paint, and then we flip it over at the end, they get to see that we have painted something beautiful together. And with middle school and high school students, we help them internalize the message that uh my life is big. My my life is not just uh this relationship, it's not just this report card, it's not just this grade uh that I met in high school. My life is big and it's becoming something. And so by the end, we'll have flipped over the canvas and we tell young people like this is how life is. There's there's messy things and there's things that make you feel amazing on the inside, but they're all part of this really big picture for your life, which is why a lot of people bring us in under the mental health initiatives for uh self-harm prevention and alleviation.

SPEAKER_03 15:44

Yeah, so it's uh what a fantastic metaphor. Like literally, you make a mess on a piece of paint on a on a canvas, and that this you can see in some of the videos on YouTube too, and and then spin it and reel and say, no, there's there's uh there's a pattern to this mess, or this mess was was creating something all along that you didn't have the vision for, but here we go, right? Like now you can see it in a new in a new way.

SPEAKER_02 16:07

Um well we've all sat through boring assemblies. This doesn't sound like a boring school assembly.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

No, oh my gosh, right?

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Like this is so interactive. I can see kids really of all ages engaging and captivating, whereas I definitely remember some very boring school assemblies where, you know, in especially in high school, they're tuned out. Like, if you don't c capture a teenager's attention, they're not paying attention to somebody up on stage talking, but like somebody's up there like rapping, singing, and like splashing paint around that like you have a much better chance of getting their attention.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Yeah, we have we have all of the all the things that you can tap into for an assembly. It's not just someone coming to come to speak to you. It you know, we have like we have the story and we have the paint, we have the music, and it all flows so well together. And the students really get into it. A lot of them will come up and they'll mention that one of those avenues really connected with them. Like some students will talk about things that had happened in their life, and they're like, that painting, that is my life. I'd you know, I have had so many messy things happen to me, and it's given me hope that maybe I'm gonna see something beautiful for my life someday. Or there might have been some students that are really tapped into Tay's music. Sometimes we go to schools and the students are are they already know who he is, and they're like, I can't believe he's at my school. And so they know his lyrics, and he'll talk about his songs and where he's coming from. His big messaging in in his songs is pain and purpose. That uh a lot of the things in our life that that bring us bring us to pain also provide us with a lot of purpose with where we're uh where we're gonna invest ourselves. So, but the other the the greatest thing about our assembly is that we're not a one-off, you know, schools don't want to invest in something that just like stirs up the emotion in the school for the day. And uh we fit into an MTSS uh model, you know, it's a multi-tiered support system. So we have we have our school performances, but also layered in there, the schools that are reaping the benefits of their investment are also bringing us in for their professional development. They take uh they get our video course, they buy our workbooks and books, they have the kids on our app and listening to the podcast, and so there's a whole uh there's a whole uh grouping of things. Yeah, it's it's like a curriculum where you can you can access it and the messaging continues.

SPEAKER_03 19:40

That's fantastic. Now you've been you talked about the story, and and instead of saying a story, you're saying the story. So um what are you referencing when you say the story?

SPEAKER_00 19:52

The s can you say that one more time?

SPEAKER_03 19:54

Yes. When you you when you said during during the assembly, Te will come will open with with music, you'll get the paint out, and you'll intersperse music with the story. What is the story?

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Yeah, well, let me uh I'll I'll tell you a little bit of it.

SPEAKER_03 20:09

Without spoilers, yeah, do without the spoilers.

SPEAKER_00 20:12

Yeah, when I was a kid, I knew what I wanted to be right away, uh like second grade. I was I was in like inner city, Chicago with my parents. We're walking down the street. We were on our way somewhere, I don't know where we were going, but we were we were in a rush because I remember holding my mom's hand and she's like pulling me. And I it's it was the first time I ever saw a street musician in my life. And I remember pulling back on my mom, and I didn't I didn't care where we were going. All I wanted to do was watch this person who was uh banging on a bucket on a street corner, and it really captivated something deep inside of me. I right away had this appreciation for street musicians, people who would bang on buckets or play the saxophone or sing, or even the people like in New York where they like they do like acrobatics and jump over people, like just the idea of performing, and people have the option to walk past, they have the option to stick around and stay, they have the option to put money in your bucket. Um, they there's there's so many, there's so many of these like little micro uh things that are happening around you where people are deciding how to respond to you. And I was like, I was like, street musicians gotta be the most courageous people in the world. And I want to grow up and I wanna I wanna be one. And so I went back to school. I remember telling my music teacher I wanted to bang on a bucket, and she was like, she was like, that's uh that's weird, you know. I and I was like, I was like, Miss Bowen, Miss Bowen, it you know, I saw a guy bang on a bucket, people were putting money in the bucket, you know, like of course, as like a as like a an eight-year-old, you know, even if it's $20 and once, you're like, this dude has made it. I think what really captivated me though was I got to see an adult that looked alive. You know, I didn't really see I didn't really see adults around me that looked like they loved life, you know? And part of me as a as a kid, I think I was scared of that. I don't want to grow up and look like I just need to survive life. I want there to be something that that brings me alive. That even informs who I am today as a parent. Like, I think the greatest gift I can offer my kids is for them to see their dad alive, doing something he's passionate about, you know, not just surviving life, not just creating an income. Like, I my greatest gift to my kids is gonna be my dad was passionate about something, and I got to be part of it with him. And but anyway, back to elementary school. My my music teacher didn't teach me how to bang on a bucket, but she taught me how to sing. And when I got into middle school and realized that uh you can be good at things in middle school and people will make fun of you for being good at it, you know? Yes, like it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're a good singer.

SPEAKER_03 23:06

Nope. Vulnerability, like I will stab that, right?

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Yeah. Oh, look at I found some little people here.

SPEAKER_03 23:13

Welcome. Welcome to Parenting Shrink Wrapped. We've got some some.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

They can't hear you. But yeah, they might wave and say hello.

SPEAKER_03 23:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

So my um yeah, my music teacher taught me how to sing when I got to middle school, and I noticed that when my friends would try things that they're good at and people would make fun of them, that really stuck with me because I I was like, wait a minute. In middle school, you can be pretty and people will call you ugly. In middle school, you can be good at sports and people will call you trash. I was like, How am I gonna sing in front of these people?

unknown 23:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

I got to I got to the end of eighth grade and I remember getting off the bus and I had this stomach ache. And when I'm when I'm talking with like middle schoolers or high schoolers, I'm like, it's not a stomach ache that that goes away with medicine because it's not it's not caused by an illness. It's it's the stomach ache that you have when you're you're at a basketball game and you're like, man, I'm supposed to be out there. You know, but you're in the bleachers. It's it's a stomach ache that you get when you you like have a crush on somebody for all in middle school and they're they're with somebody else because you never you never went to go talk to them.

SPEAKER_03 24:30

When you quit guitar because you didn't want to sing.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:34

Like it that's I that's that's my stomach ache. Sam, we really need to get you some guitar lessons. Okay. I'm down.

SPEAKER_00 24:43

There could be a very therapeutic moment here, absolutely. And and you guys have the degrees to work it out. So so I'm uh I get off, I get off the bus, and I remember going up to my mom and saying, I need you to take me downtown. I went and grabbed a bucket out of the garage, and you know, like I need you to take me downtown and drop me off. Remember my my mom just being like, I think people are gonna call the police, you know, if I drop off my kid on the street corner and uh but she did it. She did it, she dropped me off, and I I stood there and for the first time in my life I I sang a song in front of a bucket. And uh I got to the end of the song, and I remember seeing some of my friends across the street at this ice cream spot, and some of my parents' friends at this other place, and just looking at me like, what's wrong with this kid? What in the child protective services is going on here? You know? And but this one lady walked up to me, and I I think this is really gonna uh set things off for our conversation. But she walked across the street, she reached in her pocket and pulled out 50 cents, and she dropped it in my bucket and she looked at me and she said, You're really good, you should keep going. And when I get to this spot, this story, in our uh assembly in schools, or even in our professional development that we do for teachers, I say, for one of the first times in my life, I felt what uh Martin Luther King says is the hardest thing to cultivate inside of a young person. Said that in his book, Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community. Said the the hardest thing to cultivate inside of a young person is a rugged sense of somebodyess. And and when I look back on that memory and I think about this lady who walked across the street and put me, just this little eighth grade dude, into the crosshairs of her her time and attention right there. And dropped 50 cents into my bucket. It took me from these are the the two things that I teach to young people, to educators, to coaches. Like if you want to cultivate somebody-ness, you you take someone from feeling invisible to feeling seen. And it's so it's so easy to do. Martin Luther King says it's the hardest thing to cultivate. It's oh hey it's so easy to do taking someone from feeling invisible to feeling seen. And then the second thing is uh letting someone know you have value. I see it. Yeah, I see it, I see the value. She drops 50 cents in my bucket, and it started allowing me to dream for my life. I was like, man, if I learn more songs, I could fill up this whole bucket. If I learn how to play guitar and sing, not just strum it, right? If I can sing with this guitar, I wonder, I wonder if I could uh get other places, you know, and get my license. And so that ended up taking me to uh to Chicago and to New York and high school and college, and I would sing and I would fill up a bucket with passion. And so that led me to to being a street performer and studying music in college, and then ultimately getting a job teaching music in inner city Detroit. Street performing was part of my classroom, took my students street performing.

SPEAKER_03 28:15

I I think that's um well, first of all, amazing and brave and brave for your mom, you know, like I'm just thinking about like your mom when if when eighth grade Joe says, Mom, I I this is a calling, I have to do this, and she didn't she didn't squelch it. She was she didn't say, Are you kidding me, buddy? Like, no way she empowered him. Yes, yeah, she dropped you off because she she knew. So kudos to your mom, and then um kudos to you for for taking that step. But like you said, that that woman who put you in the crosshairs of her attention and time, um, that is something that everyone has the power to do for everyone.

SPEAKER_00 28:56

Yeah, and when I when I talk with young people, I was just in North Dakota at a conference and I did a breakout session on somebodyess, and I asked the audience, which was all high school students, I was like, if somebody misses so easy to cultivate, why do we struggle with it so much? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 29:14

What were your answers?

SPEAKER_00 29:15

Well, I had to give some evidence to back that up. I can't just be like, you know, we struggle with somebodyess, right? Uh some of the some of the things that I use as support to say, I I think that we do struggle with somebodyess because we've got we've got one in ten young people that make an attempt on their life. This is like this is data through the C D C.

SPEAKER_03 29:38

We've got Yeah, and that was higher during COVID.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Yeah, we have we have three in five teen girls that that come to school, and no matter how many views they have on their latest TikTok or uh how many followers they have on Instagram, three and five teen girls still say they feel alone and they they feel they feel sad. We've got Harvard's graduate school did a study, and they they said that 58% of young people don't feel like there's a purpose for their life. This is we're the most free and we're the most medicated that we've ever been as a country. It's like this is the say what you want, do what you want, be who you want culture. Like we should we should feel like somebody, right? We should feel like somebody with all these freedoms. Uh, but at the same time, we we are not finding ourselves free. This is the most connected and the most lonely generation to ever exist. So so when I say we have a somebodyess problem, and I and I share those statistics, young people are like, yes, yes, I do we do have a somebodyess problem. But when I ask them, like, if it's so easy to cultivate somebodyess from taking someone from feeling invisible to feeling seen and letting them know they have value. I see something, you do this really well, and and it allows you to dream for your life because you feel somebodyess. Um when I say why, why is it so uh so hard to cultivate? They are usually responding back with that it also works, it also works just as heavily in the other direction that it's so easy to chip away at a person's sense of somebody. So that's it's usually that's usually what they're talking about. It's they're not like, oh man, it's so easy. Why aren't we doing it? They're they're like there are too many things that exist that are chipping away at our sense of somebody, and those are also equally uh easy to access, easy to do. You know, making making fun of people, criticizing them, judging them, uh even giving people dirty looks. Uh they're like there's there's so many things that exist in our culture that chip away at our sense of somebody that it's hard to maintain it.

SPEAKER_03 31:56

And if you're a kid or a human of any age who's had their somebodyess chipped away at, there there's a in order to build someone up, that's an act of there's an act of vulnerability in that. Offering someone a compliment, offering someone positive feedback. Um if you're operating from scarcity mindset, like if I say something nice to somebody else or I build someone else up, then that's like I'm giving away sort of props that I kind of want for myself, you know. Um so sometimes I think I think kids or just humans will withhold praise because they think that if I build someone else up, then there's gonna be less for me. And uh I definitely I mean I've heard that articulated in my therapy groups, in my classrooms, in my counseling office, um even in the work world of adults for that matter. Um in order to offer somebody-ness, in order to offer someone the privilege of being seen and valued and and promoted, you have to have something in yourself that says it's safe to give.

unknown 33:05

Right?

SPEAKER_03 33:05

And if you can shift away it don't, that that that's absent, or that could be absent.

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Yeah, and I I love to illustrate with people because just the word alone, like if I go into the school and we do uh I do a talk or we do uh a conference session or a breakout session, if I can have people just leave with the lens of somebodyess, I think that that's a win. Even with my own kids, I will ask them if they say something to their sibling that's that's mean and be like, what is that doing to your sister's uh sense of somebodyess? Is that make her does that make her feel like a somebody? And uh and it's and people are are eager to talk about it. I think that it's it's so accessible. I mean, Toy Story 5 just came out. I didn't get to go see it yet, but if it's anything like the previous four movies, the first four movies are all about somebody-ness, aren't they? They're all about somebody's because you every toy, no matter no matter how they dress it up with with humor and with new characters and new settings and and new uh conflict, the the root of every single one of those movies is am I still a somebody to you? Yes. Am I still somebody? Do I still have worth? Or did it like because you grew up, did it go away? You know, like am I still somebody? And so so when we look at like movies, uh Toy Story, uh Moana, like you know, someone who knows who they are, shares who they want to be with someone else, and they're like, no, I don't think I don't think that's what you're supposed to do. Like you have Moana, you have Toy Story, you have the the Lion King when uh uh oh my gosh, why am I forgetting the little Simba?

SPEAKER_03 34:48

Simba, Simba.

SPEAKER_00 34:50

You know, his uh his his dad gets trampled by the by the wildebees, yeah, and and his uncle Scar. You know, it's not Simba's fault, it's not Simba's fault at all, but um, you know, uh as parents, we watch this scene like this is like when we start tearing up, she's like, Dad, wake up, wake up. Yeah, and um and so Simba is like telling his dad to wake up and scar walks into the scene. The first thing he says is, What have you done? Second thing he says is what is your mom gonna think? The third thing, the third thing that he says is you should run away and never come back. So I think young people are so ready to be able to talk about somebodyess because it's already there. Like the all the relatable themes are there, and I love to see students thinking about what has shaped their sense of somebody. You know, who are the people that have helped you to see? That's why I paint during the assemblies. Who are the people that have helped you to see a beautiful picture of who you are? And also, what are the experiences that have made that difficult to see? What are the the experiences that have made things really messy and have kind of messed up your sense of somebodyess? They're they're ready and they're eager to be able to talk about these things and get to know themselves because the more you know yourself, the more you can love yourself. Or you could use it uh in the opposite way because we want to tell people to love who they are, right? But you can't love yourself any more than you know yourself. That's why our stories matter so much.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

I'm very moved at the moment.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

Yes, so am I, and I love the references to the movies because I think those are such commonplace movies that everybody has seen that they can all relate to, um, whether you're a kid or an adult. And I think it's important too that you know the somebodyess never really stops, doesn't matter how old you are, so you can always kind of do this for another person, whether it's whether you're an adult or a kid. Um, you know, adults should be doing this for other adults too.

SPEAKER_00 37:02

Yeah. When I'm when I'm in school, sometimes I like to be able to talk over kids' heads to say things to teachers and parents that just they get sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 37:11

Like Sesame Street's humor. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

And so, I mean, I'll be at an elementary school and I'll and I'll we're about to do one of our songs called When I Grow Up. And the lyrics say, When I grow up, I'm gonna be somebody. I'm gonna be strong and hold my head high. And the world's gonna know, they're gonna know my name because I exist for something, and the world won't be the same without me. And it's a song that I sing to my kids before I tuck them in at night. These are the lyrics that I want them to, I want to have them hidden in their hearts, hidden in their minds. And but I'll tell the audience, I'm like, when you're a kid, you want to grow up and be somebody. When you're an adult, you wonder if you become. I wonder, did I did I become somebody? You know? And so it's just this never-ending uh cycle. But when I was growing up, I didn't know a ton about my dad's emotional life. We just celebrated Father's Day. My dad is my dad is wonderful, and he's been such an amazing presence in my life. My dad is a is a pastor, he's always been really intentional. I uh but I never really knew what was happening in inside of his heart. Um and that's one of the gifts that I am able to offer my kids continuing and standing on his shoulders with the great things that he's offered me in life, is that my my kids know very well the emotional world of their of their father. And um I think that's a beautiful thing because I want my kids to to love who they are. Uh, but a lot of us, whether we're parents uh or teachers or counselors, sometimes a lot of us are trying to take people to emotional places we haven't been.

SPEAKER_03 38:53

Right.

SPEAKER_00 38:53

You know, like I mean, I mean, this is I had to pay a lot for this in therapy, but but I remember my my therapist being like, uh Joe, what do you want for your kids? And I'm like, I want them to love who they are. And he's talking about at the time, my my own kids and also my my students. Yeah, and I'm like, I want them to love who they are deeply. And I remember him emotionally putting his hands on my shoulders and saying, I don't think that you love yourself. How are you going to take other people there? And so yeah, we're always we're always able to do this work as adults. And I think it's it's such a wonderful thing to be able to go back and think about the situations and the people that have formed us and in a way that that creates a compassionate view of of who we are as we grow.

SPEAKER_03 39:52

I am so excited for this, like to have had this conversation and to have made this connection. And I really hope that the Lionheart experience comes to Maryland so that I can see. I want to go. I want to go. I really want to go to the show.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

You have to come out and see a show. You have to see.

SPEAKER_03 40:09

We might need to make a trip to Michigan. Yeah, yeah. Well, please, please, oh, please send us an invite. And listeners, if you are listening, wherever you are, if this sounds like a program that you know your school or community needs more of, Joe, how can people find you and find out more about the Lionheart Experience?

SPEAKER_00 40:27

We're really easy to find. You just uh type in the Lionheart Experience on Google and you'll you'll find us. Uh, you can follow me on Instagram at LionheartTeacher. Uh you can find all of our music on Apple Music and Spotify also by searching the Lionheart experience. And if you if you like the music, if you like the messaging, you should check us out. Uh we we always tell every school that we go to, every conference, that if we're not the most refreshing thing to come through your program, then you can have the investment back. But we've seen we've seen four million students so far, and we've changed a lot of lives. We've reinvigorated and refocused a lot of educators, and so we're looking forward to continuing.

SPEAKER_03 41:15

Congratulations. And Joe, thank you for doing this line of work. We we always end our podcast by saying to our listeners, thank you for raising the next generation of world changers. And um, and I and I will say that to our listeners, thank you for that. And Joe, thank you for inspiring the next generation of world changers.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Appreciate it. Thank you for having me on.

SPEAKER_03 41:38

It's been a pleasure. And thank you all for tuning in. We will see you in the next episode of Parenting Shrinkwrapped. Thanks for joining us on this wild ride called Parenthood here at Parenting Shrinkwrapped. We hope today's episode gave you some useful tools and maybe even a few laughs to help you navigate the twists and turns of raising teens and kids.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Remember, parenting is a journey, not a destination. And no matter where you are on the road, we're here to help you stay on course. Whether it's monumental meltdowns, teenage turmoil, or just the everyday chaos, you don't have to travel this path alone.

SPEAKER_03 42:24

So until next time, keep your seatbelt fastened, your sense of humor intact, and your eyes on the road. We'll be back soon with more compassionate conversations and practical strategies to support you and your family.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

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SPEAKER_03 42:48

If you have suggestions for topics you'd like to see us cover in the future, feel free to send us an email at parentingshrinkraft at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_02 42:57

Until we meet again, take care and enjoy the ride.