Turning Adversity into Impact - SE3EP7- Shaun Banks
Meet Shaun Banks, a global youth development specialist, published author, and an incredible force of inspiration for kids around the world.
Overcoming personal hardships like domestic violence and homelessness, Shaun has transformed adversity into a life mission.
He founded the "I AM Defense Institute" to teach self-defence and personal development to women and children, launched Camp Warrior King to provide marginalised kids with enriching summer experiences, and established the "You Can Have It All" initiative that includes Youth Conferences, a magazine, and even an orphanage in Uganda.
Shaun is also the creative mind behind "The Success Stacks," a game designed to uplift kids by reinforcing their self-belief, and Team HoTT SAWCE, a cartoon series aimed at combating negativity.
In Shaun's own words, "When the dream is big enough, the facts don't count." Stay tuned to hear how he's making dreams a reality for youth across the globe and how you can be part of this transformative journey.
This episode is filled with practical information and insights to help parents raise kids in the digital age.
https://www.gosfb.com/https://www.iamdefense.com/ https://www.campwarriorking.com/
This Episode is brought to you by Skill Samurai – Coding & STEM Academy www.skillsamurai.com.au
AI Generated Transcription
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome to the Parenting in the Digital Age podcast. Many parents are concerned that their child might be falling behind. Others are just looking for ways to help their children thrive, not just in the classroom, but socially and well into their future careers. Each episode we explore the challenges facing parents in the modern world, from behavior, education, and nutrition to device and gaming addiction. We interview a range of leaders in the area of childhood development to help you successfully navigate parenting in the digital age. Here is your host, Jamie Buttigieg.
Jamie (00:01.835)
Sean, you're a busy man. Welcome to the show. In your own words, please tell us what you do and what you are passionate about.
SF. Banks (00:10.158)
Well, Jamie, thank you for having me on the show. I'm really excited to be on. And my background is youth personal development. So I've been working with kids for over 20 years on that field and teaching parents and helping parents develop their youth. We've been doing youth camps. We have a youth magazine. Anything that's centered around developing kids is my passion and my background.
Jamie (00:35.495)
Now, would you mind sharing a bit about your own personal journey? You know, when I read your bio in preparation for the show, it talked about some adversity in your younger years. Would you mind sharing with our listeners what brought you to this point today?
SF. Banks (00:50.29)
Absolutely. So, well, what got me here initially was, I grew up in inner city, Seattle, with, you know, gang violence going, you know, the early 90s, late 80s, there's lots of gang violence and stuff. And, and so just kind of experiencing a lot of friends getting trouble, you know, just, you know, gang shootouts and all that stuff. I mean, I remember what the inner city was like before crack came into the inner city, what it was like once crack hit the inner city, just that change. And so
Seeing that and then having, you know, dealing with domestic violence with, you know, my relatives, I had a couple aunts that were in domestic violence situations, one that was brutally beaten to the point to where, you know, part of her brain was removed. And then another aunt who's my aunt and cousin, you know, whose lives were taken in a domestic violence situation. And so, you know, seeing that, I always want to do something in their honor. And it took.
You know, about 10, 15 years from the time my aunt and cousin were murdered, until I had an opportunity to start doing something that, you know, really impacted them, because I had almost, it was a desire I had, and I kind of walked away from it and left it there. And an opportunity came to, you know, start teaching women and children how to defend themselves. And from there, everything else started to blossom.
Jamie (02:08.091)
Yeah, and that's a good segue. The IM Defense Institute. Tell us tell our listeners a bit about the IM Defense Institute and perhaps how it serves as a bit of a platform for personal development.
SF. Banks (02:18.806)
Absolutely. So I Am Defense is a self-defense program designed to teach women and children how to defend themselves. So, you know, when I started it, the hope was that women and children could take what they learn and be able to prevent, you know, themselves from, you know, being assaulted or even possibly being murdered. That was what happened to my aunt and cousin. So that was the motivation behind it. From there, when I started teaching kids,
First of all, I didn't have a passion for kids. I couldn't stand kids. Didn't want to work with kids at all. I didn't want to deal with any booger fingers, man, nothing like that. But I started seeing a big need for it. And as I started teaching these kids martial arts, they're learning discipline, they're learning respect, you know, and building self-confidence. And what I learned was that there's a lot of things that they were lacking that I thought they were getting at home. So they were lacking all these things. Well, how could we give them more than just, you know, how to kick and punch?
how to do a take down, how can we start giving them work ethic? How do we teach them how to have self-discipline and conflict resolution and have dreams and goals and that's where the personal development aspects start to build from.
Jamie (03:29.671)
Yeah, that's incredible. How do you approach teaching things like self-confidence or self-efficacy to youth, particularly those who are facing socioeconomic challenges?
SF. Banks (03:40.95)
Right. So the thing is, is that, you know, with self-confidence and self-efficacy, it impacts children, regardless of their socioeconomic status. And so what we've learned is that a child who is in a poverty situation or child is in a wealthy situation have to go through the same steps to build confidence. One of the biggest keys to building, building confidence is getting a child to take action towards the thing they're afraid of. So let's say, for example, a child is afraid to swim.
You know, old school method may be to pick the kid up and throw him in the water, right? It's like sink or swim, right? Well, now it's like you learn to take a different approach. All right, cool. You see the water, you're afraid of the water. All right, let's just get closer to the water. All right, you're closer to the water. That's taking an action step. It's not as bad. All right, let's get to the, to the side of the pool. All right, now we're at the side of the pool. Okay, now let's put our feet in the water. All right, you realize it's cool. The water hasn't taken you over. I was getting the shallow end out. Can you stand up in it? Right. And it's just those gradual steps. And that.
can be a metaphor for any other area in life, right? Whether it's learning how to read, how to ride a bike, how to start a business, right? It transcends to different areas. It's gonna take those action steps, action builds confidence.
Jamie (04:51.855)
Yeah, yeah. And aside from IAM Defence Institute, you've started Camp Warrior King and you're impacting the lives of hundreds of young people in your community. So tell our listeners a little bit about Camp Warrior King and how it started and what it's all about.
SF. Banks (05:08.81)
Yeah, man. So Camp Warrior King is, has been described as a camp on steroids by a lot of the kids that come. We just celebrated our 10th year this past summer. And Camp Warrior King is all about exposing children to activities they normally wouldn't experience during the school year. So we're talking about horseback riding. We take them fishing, teach them how to hunt, teach them how to shoot. Right. We teach them how to go spelunking. I mean, roller skating, arts and crafts, boxing, karate.
dance. I mean, we even did, uh, we do plays, we do talent shows, modeling, acting, I mean, anything that these kids could think of that they want to try or things they may not have ever thought of. We do a Camp Warrior King, uh, so 10 week camp and we just, we have a blast. I mean, staff has a good time. The kids do. We have a lot of parent involvement. We really encourage parents to get involved in our camp so they can see what we're doing and then they can, you know, try to model those things throughout the school year. And so
Camp work is a hoot, man. We have a great time.
Jamie (06:10.375)
Yeah, yeah. So I guess in your work, you would focus a bit on resilience. So I know many of my listeners face this challenge and wanna help their kids build resilience. So what advice would you give to parents to help their kids build that skill?
SF. Banks (06:29.742)
One of the biggest things I would say as far as building resilience and as a parent that is going to help their child build it is one is to start with the from position of empathy Right just to understand where the kid is and at their level, right? So all right, you know resilience is really just you know being able to get back up from after you've been knocked down, right? So, okay, you got knocked down. I understand what happened, right? Somebody talked about you that hurt your feelings. I understand Yeah, that really sucks. Yeah, people can be really mean but you know
Depending on the child, it's always depending on how the child is, how the child is wired. Because what you may say to one kid, you may not say to another. For example, hey, I know you got knocked down, oh, that really sucked. Well, you know what? Hey, let's get up, let's show them how great you are. Let's show them that you can do it. Let's show them that you aren't a coward that they called you or do whatever. That may work with one child. With another child, it may be completely different. They may not want to take that approach. It may be, hey, man, you got knocked down, I understand. All right, now what are you going to do about it?
What would make you happy? How would you feel happy about getting back up? Well, I really would like to get up because it would really make me feel good to do this for my grandma or for my auntie or what motivation is it to make the child want to press forward? And that's all about finding a child's hot button. What is it that motivates a kid and is different for every child? That's one of the things that parents have to understand is that when we're listening to things from people, what works for one child may not work for another.
And it's about actually digging and finding and researching and trial and error to find what works for your kid. Cause there is something that'll work. You just have to find it. But those are the kinds of things as being empathetic and then taking the time and the steps to get them out of the hole, so to speak.
Jamie (08:15.283)
Yeah, yeah, great advice, Sean. I often say there's no manual or rulebook when it comes to parenting. And sometimes as a parent, I'm a parent of father of four. But how can parents actively participate in their kids personal development journey? You know, are there any daily practices or activities that you might recommend to those parents looking to take a more active role in their kids personal development journey, but perhaps unsure where to start?
SF. Banks (08:42.942)
Absolutely. So, you know, I often say that love is spelled T-I-M-E. That's how you spell love. It's the quality time that makes a difference to a child. It doesn't matter if you have a million dollars in the bank to spend on this kid. What they want more than your money is your time. And that's difficult for parents because our time is limited, where we have to work one job, two jobs, we got to take care of all these different things. And so now I got to have time.
to play that video game with my kid. I gotta have time to ride a bike with them. I gotta have time to do these things. The reason why time is important is because when you spend time with your child, you, things will happen organically. The conversations will come organically. The opportunities to develop them will come organically. For example, you're riding your bike with your kid because they said they wanted to go bike riding. And your child falls off their bike.
And right there is an opportunity to build their character, to develop them. Right. They get off the bike and, you know, you know, and they might start crying because it hurt, right? Well, it's okay. It hurt. Okay. Hey, let's get up. All right. Now let's try it again. Let's get right back on the bike and try it again. You can do it. Let me see it. All right. Let daddy see you ride that bike again. Well, if you're not there when they fall off that bike like that, they may end up getting their own head and say, God, dog, I can't do this. I just can't ride this bike. But if you're there.
because you're taking the time to be present, then maybe just maybe what you say can encourage them because a child's voice in their head starts off being the parent's voice. So in the beginning, they don't know what to think. They know what you're saying. And so positive words, positive reinforcement, where our job is to give our children positive life experiences so that when you're gone, the voice that's in their head, that voice that you created becomes their voice. You can do it.
Hey, it's okay. Get back up. Keep going. Those things make a difference.
Jamie (10:43.571)
That's an incredible insight, but you know, how can parents perhaps from maybe marginalised or disadvantaged backgrounds come at it from that view when perhaps they don't have that belief? What's your advice there?
SF. Banks (10:55.31)
Mm-hmm. So the, you know, one of the things that they have to do when they don't have that belief is to develop themselves. And so, you know, it's hard to, you know, it's hard to take a dirty, like for example, it's hard to clean a floor with a dirty mop, right? If the mop is sour, if the mop is dirty, it's just gonna spread the dirt all over the floor. So the first thing you gotta do is you gotta clean the mop head.
So as parents, garbage in, garbage out, we have to develop ourselves. So we have to read personal development books. We have to cut off the things that are impacting our lives negatively that in turn affect our children. And that's harder for people that are, tend to be marginalized because it takes more time, right? Your time is already limited, especially if you're a single parent, your time is limited. You don't have a lot of time to do personal development, which is why technology is a plus now.
Because, you know, years ago, you didn't have time maybe to read a book, you had to stop. Well, now you can listen to a book in your car while you're driving, you can listen to it on the train. So it's taking advantage of where you can multitask, so to speak, and get the personal development, so that then what you learn to change in your own life, you can change in your child's. Because even though our children are different from us, they're still wired with the same kind of DNA. So I know that, okay, I have two boys.
One of my boys really, one loves eggs, one doesn't. Right, well I like eggs. Right, one likes meat, one doesn't. Well I like eggs and meat. Right, so it's like I know how to deal with each one. So developing myself, part of what I do to develop my children is to make sure that I can learn how to overcome the issues I have in my own life so that I can be able to teach it to them.
Jamie (12:44.872)
That's quite insightful. And I encourage anyone listening to this to rewind and go back and listen to that because, our children's values, our children's words, their beliefs are shaped by us. We're one of the biggest influences on their lives. And I love that dirty mop analogy. It's very powerful.
Let's talk about anxiety and depression for a minute, because when looking at the statistics, we're still seeing that rates of anxiety are increasing, depression is increasing, suicide is increasing. And firstly, in your opinion, what do you put this down to?
SF. Banks (13:23.306)
Oh man, I think that it's not one thing. I think that it's a, I think it's a gumbo of things, right? I don't think it's just one. So some of the issues that we're seeing is exposure, overexposure, especially as it pertains to children. Children, you know, the amount of information and the amount of content that children are seeing now is exponentially more than what
children would see, you know, 20 years ago. For example, when we were kids, you know, you may have, you might find a dirty magazine or something like that. Your older brother had it, your older cousin or an uncle or somebody, then you might sneak that magazine and look at it, right? Well, now there's no censorship. A kid, a 12 year old has a phone and they can see more things, you know, that are inappropriate for a child to see.
that we could ever see, that's one. The exposure to the content that's on media, right? Whether it's television, social media, anything, there's no censorship. The way that children now are comparing themselves to others, you know, I used to, as a kid, I never knew that you had a pool in your background if we went to school together. You know, I didn't know that your family may have been super wealthy, or I may have heard about a vacation, but I didn't see the vacation and see your family having a good time.
And I'm going back to the projects. Well, now I see all of that and not just you, but I see hundreds of kids do it. And then I'm like, well, man, how come I don't have that? Right. And just, so I think that that's another thing. I think that, um, it's so those two, I think there's also an issue of, uh, you know, the level of education in school, the types of things that are being taught in school now compared to before, I think that our values are being mixed up. And what I mean by values being mixed up is that.
You know, we're not allowing children to just be children, right, where they can have a sense of innocence to go and just play and just be kids, right? So now a child is being impacted by adult conversations that they don't even understand. So I think it's a gumball of things that's going on right now. We have a lot of work to do.
Jamie (15:40.875)
Yeah, we do. And as parents, it's our duty and responsibility to really lead the way and shine a light for our kids to follow, because it's no easy road for kids or parents, let me tell you. You are currently the publisher of the fastest growing kids youth development magazine, right? And that's that's quite a unique thing to want to champion or start up.
SF. Banks (16:02.558)
Yeah. Yes.
Jamie (16:07.979)
Tell us a bit about how that came about and what is it?
SF. Banks (16:13.306)
So the magazine is called You Can Have It All. And it's a motivational magazine designed to inspire kids to go after their dreams in spite of the circumstances. And the magazine itself is, it's a fun read because it involves all different aspects of what kids are interested in. So fashion, entertainment, sports, art, comics, you know, food, gardening, nature, right? They have.
the environment, their opinion, I mean, technology, all kinds of stuff. And what inspired me to do it was I was looking at Camp Warrior King and how much fun kids were having. And the thought was, okay, how do we share this with other children around the world? Okay, well, of course we don't wanna put up a whole bunch of Camp Warrior Kings, but how do we get other children around the world to be motivated and to be impacted like we're seeing the children in our camp be impacted?
So we looked around and said, okay, what about a magazine? How do we create content that kids can enjoy? And we looked around and said, okay, well, there's not a lot of stuff out here that's clean for children, that's safe for children, that they could be able to look at and then be motivated by other kids that are writing or seeing other kids that are riding skateboards or playing instruments. And so we wanted to give children something that they can see to say, hey, I could do that too. Like if they did it, I can do it, you know,
You know, we have posters on our wall with quotes and, you know, our favorite athlete or whatever. And so we wanted to give that to kids because that's important with all the content again, if they're getting from a negative side or just a non-censored side, we want to give them something clean and censored that they could enjoy.
Jamie (17:57.291)
It's a great way to expand your reach and amplify your impact. Let me ask a question, Sean. Is it just an online only magazine or can I get this and subscribe to it and have it posted to my kid every week or month? Like, how do I get it?
SF. Banks (18:02.7)
Yes.
SF. Banks (18:10.914)
So you have a digital option. We actually have an app that'll be dropping next week. Right now it's on the website where someone could subscribe to the magazine. And you have it in your phone digitally. We also have physical options because you have like for schools and things like that, they wanna have it in a media library, their media center or their library. We have doctors, officers, or pediatricians that wanna have it available for the kids to be able to open up and just have.
they'll be able to look at the magazine. So, there's multiple options for people to be able to enjoy the magazine. There's also a parenting section. We have parent resource section that, we have different people that write on strategies and ways to develop your kid, which is excellent because they're writers from all over the globe. So we have people from Australia, Malaysia, the UK, from Uganda, from Canada, and they're just writing about the things that they've learned and how to be able to
developed their kit for Taiwan. So, and it's really good, it's helpful because it's different approaches that you may or may not have been familiar with, but a lot of them are helpful.
Jamie (19:20.971)
Yeah, that's great. I think it'd be cool to get a...
a physical magazine in the post for my child and then have them because it would stand out. My child gets nothing in the post. I get bills. That's what I get. And they get nothing in the post. So, you know, I think we're all overwhelmed digitally and hundreds of emails and our kids are getting hundreds of Snapchat messages that digitally I think some things can get lost and having having an old school hard copy. It also encourages, encourages literacy, you know, encourages kids reading. It's such a powerful thing you're doing. I encourage you to stick with it. And
SF. Banks (19:28.94)
Absolutely.
Yeah.
SF. Banks (19:42.199)
Yes.
It does.
SF. Banks (19:50.189)
It is.
Jamie (19:55.597)
and go hard as I'm sure you will. Sean, I wanna talk quickly about Team Hot Sauce. Now this isn't just a regular cartoon. You've created this cartoon, these characters. It's also aimed at youth personal development. How did you come up with this concept? Why did you come up with this concept? Talk to us about Team Hot Sauce cartoon.
SF. Banks (20:14.242)
Hey, Team Hot Sauce are personal development characters. We created them to build children's self-efficacy. So we have the success stacks in those things. And we wanted children to see characters that they could be encouraged by, that were cool, and just kind of out of this world, but set a positive example and had a positive ending to it. And so Team Hot Sauce is actually, I was inspired by my uncle.
As a kid I had an uncle, I called him Uncle Hot Sauce. And I called him that because he put hot sauce on everything. You know, he just, anything. He says he didn't put it on salad, but I swear I saw him put it on salad before. But he was just a great example in my life. Just a great man. And so that's where Team Hot Sauce came from. And so from there you have broccoli, you have, you know, karate and catch and.
Oh, and coach stinker is another uncle of mine. As a kid, I have an uncle named uncle stinker. And so that's another character. He was another great man in my life. And so that was kind of the origins of it. And they go around the galaxy, um, defending against what are called the negatoids and the negatoids are these alien insects that eat vegetables, right? Cause that's what insects do. And so, and they're just going around defending against these negatoids, which are negative thoughts, negative ideas, negative concepts, and showing kids how to defend against it.
And that's the concept is getting these kids to see that they can actually fight against some of the things that they think are holding them captive.
Jamie (21:49.259)
And I've seen you use Team Hotsource in your camps as well. So each week you align your camp themes with an episode, which I think is really cool. Can anyone else get access to these cartoons and watch them? Are they available anywhere? Like tell us about.
SF. Banks (22:04.074)
Yeah, so with Team Hot Sauce, we have comics. So the comic is actually in the magazine. You can have it all. And then it's also, it'll also be on the app where kids can read the comics. Now we're working on cartoons for them for kids to be able to actually see that. That'll take us a little bit more time. But for now we have the comics, we have t-shirts, we have hats, we have shoelaces, there's stickers, all kinds of stuff. So that kids can be able to be inspired. There's posters that's available for children to be able to continue to be inspired by the characters.
Jamie (22:34.379)
That's incredible. Now, one of the things that I believe in strongly as you do is community contribution. And I teach my kids to do that in different ways, whether that's giving of service and time, whether that's giving financially. But how can parents encourage their children to become more community oriented or more empathetic in today's fast paced cluttered digital world?
SF. Banks (22:35.966)
Yeah.
SF. Banks (23:00.25)
One of the ways that they can do it is to get them involved in community service. Um, community service is critical to building a well rounded child because, you know, every person wants their child to be successful and success is relative. So successful is, you know, being really, really what success is for parents. We want our children to be happy and to be positive contributors to society. Uh, and part of that is giving, right? Giving.
does well for the person you're giving to. It also does a lot for you to be able to give to someone, makes you feel good to be able to do it. So things that they can do, you know, if there's, you know, a soup kitchen or, you know, there's a lot of, especially right now in the U.S. I know for sure there's a lot of, you know, organizations that give food and boxes and things like that to take your child and do it and let them see that. Or it could be something really powerful like writing an encouraging letter.
taking it to CHOA, CHOA is Children's Hospital of Atlanta, but just a Children's Hospital or Shriners Hospital or St. Jude's, a letter or doing things like that, anything, or just cutting your neighbor's grass, getting them involved about the importance of community service and why it's important to give, because what I've learned is if you give love, you get love back, you give joy, you get joy back.
You know, if you spread hate, hate comes back to you. So it's just about what you want your child to do. But that's a great way to do it.
Jamie (24:32.267)
Yeah, and incredibly important and often overlooked. You know, I deal with many parents every week in our own learning centers and they're so focused and on academic achievement and enrichment activities and schooling and often this.
SF. Banks (24:37.948)
Mm-hmm.
Jamie (24:50.539)
you know, service or contribution to society is overlooked. And I couldn't encourage parents more to get involved in whatever it is that you have in your community. And I'll just love that idea of just mowing your neighbor's lawn, you've got an elderly neighbor that maybe can't get to it or can't afford it, then just, that's a great way to contribute. So there are opportunities all around us if we teach our kids to look with open eyes.
Sean, how do you maintain your own wellbeing and mental resilience because you're juggling so much, like so many impactful projects? How do you maintain your own mental health?
SF. Banks (25:25.43)
Oh man, so I will, I work out a lot. I walk my dog regularly, sometimes he walks me. I spend a lot of time with my family. I like to fish. I go hunting. I read, I do Legos with my kids. I try to do a lot. I try to see the world through their eyes a lot because it allows me to be a kid again. So, you know, one of the things I get fussed at with my kids about is, you know, dad, hey, you know, come.
I need to play one of my video games more, right? Dad, go play a video game. Dad, go, you know, let's go bike riding. So I try to enjoy my life at their level because it's just like being a kid again. And I give to my work. So fortunately I'm able to really do that a lot. So like with camp, you know, if we go, you know, hiking, I'm going with them. I go hiking with them. If we're going to a water park, I'm going down the slides first, man. Like I...
You know, I try to really lead by example when it comes to that. So, but those are the things that I do. I meditate a lot. I pray a lot. I avoid stupid people. And I, that's hard to do sometimes because they're everywhere, man. You know, it's like catching a cold. You got to be careful. But I, and I try to really protect.
Jamie (26:36.523)
That's often, that's hard sometimes.
SF. Banks (26:51.006)
what I protect my gates and what I mean by that is what I see, what I hear, right? And what I say. I try to do that a lot. So I don't like to see things that conflict with my positive mindset. Not that I don't expose myself to what's going on in the world, but I just try to stay away from negativity as much as possible. I try to listen to things that are negative.
And I try not to say things that contradict just a positive mindset and outlook in life. I feel like it's really a lot of things are about perspective. And so I try to keep a positive perspective, whether it's good or bad, it's all about how you look at it, keep it positive. Yeah.
Jamie (27:36.587)
Tremendous advice and lots of tips in there for parents, looking to fill their cup and look after their mental health. But what I loved about that is just protecting your mental real estate, protecting that mindset is everything and that's hugely underestimated in society and it's one of the best skills we can teach our kids, how to view the world through the right lens.
SF. Banks (27:58.112)
Yes.
Jamie (28:01.707)
As we come up to the end of our podcast, is there something that I should have asked but haven't or is there something that you're working on that you want to share with us?
Jamie (28:20.875)
Looks like we've lost Shaun.
Jamie (28:30.379)
Have you got me now?
Jamie (28:37.739)
I've lost audio, sure, maybe it's your headphones, if you can hear me, I can't hear you.
Jamie (28:55.531)
I can see you, but I can't hear you. And we can edit this so there's no stress here.
Jamie (29:05.579)
If you want to, you could maybe leave and then come back in. That might work.
Jamie (29:29.771)
Got you. Got you back.
Jamie (29:41.003)
You all right? No stress. We're going to edit this bit out.
Jamie (29:50.123)
Got you, lad and clea.
Jamie (30:06.731)
Got you, loud and clear.
Yep. Can you hear me? Ah.
I'm here. Test one, two, one, two, test. One, two tests. You still got me. You don't have me.
Jamie (30:31.435)
test a lost picture.
Jamie (30:38.795)
Yeah, I can hear you. Can you hear you can't hear me? Ah, okay.
Jamie (30:48.843)
Let me say chat everyone.
Jamie (30:54.635)
and come back in.
Jamie (31:01.707)
Test one, two.
Jamie (31:23.819)
Okay, got you.
Yeah, I can see you, I can hear you. Can you hear me?
No.
Can't hear me. Hear. Hear me.
Jamie (31:53.419)
Uh...
Jamie (32:05.035)
It's...
Jamie (32:09.035)
Sick, yes. Okay, so I'm gonna stop there.
Jamie (00:02.022)
Now, Sean, is there something that I should have asked or is there something that you're working on that you want to share with our listeners?
SF. Banks (00:09.698)
So one of the things that we're working on now, like I mentioned a little earlier, is the app for You Can Have It All Kids Magazine. We're really excited about that because it allows for kids to have positive content in their phones or on their tablet. I know that we're at a time where, I mean, a lot of us want our kids off tablets and off phones. I know I do as much as possible. But one of the things that we realized is that as much as we want that, it's here.
Um, and so how do we make sure that we have some positivity with it? So it's, you know, check out the app. Um, you can have it all check it out. It's positive content. We have, you know, affirmations of the day, words of the day, you know, the comic, everything is there to really check that out. And another thing is, is that, you know, a percentage of the proceeds from everything that we do goes towards the, you can have it all orphanage in Uganda, East Africa, uh, and that's something that's really, really dear to my heart.
because I didn't know how fortunate we really were. I mean, when I, it wasn't until I traveled and saw homeless children that I realized that I was never really, we may not have had food to eat. And we were, for me personally, and I was definitely in marginalized situations in my life, but nothing compared to what I've seen, right, with children not having food, not having shoes, living on the street. You don't see that.
You know, in the US for sure, you don't see that like you see in other parts of the world. And so what, when people are reading the magazine, we're helping out other people around the world, we're helping children be able to go to school, be able to get education, be able to have protection and have a place to have some shelter. So those are the two things that I would say that we didn't get a chance to talk about in depth.
Jamie (02:00.178)
Thank you for sharing. It's a impactful thing that you're doing and please keep doing it. Sean, one question we love to round off the podcast a little bit more light heart and a lighter note is if we had a time machine and young Sean could go back to his 10 or 12 year old self, what's one piece of advice that you would give to young Sean?
SF. Banks (02:21.958)
Oh man, that's pretty good. Uh, what would I say to young Sean? I, uh, I would say, uh, huh. Oh, that's a good one. I would say to, huh, I like that. You got, you got me on that one. I mean, I'm pretty good at answering this. Uh, I would, for young Sean, I would say, well, you know what I would say? Definitely. I would say to young Sean. Uh.
Jamie (02:42.398)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.
SF. Banks (02:50.758)
have more fun. I spent a lot of my younger years because I was, you know, I grew up in a single-parent household, watched my mom work and struggle, that I spent a lot of time wanting to work to get out of that situation. And, you know, I would have said, you know, hey, it's okay to spend a little bit more time playing basketball with your friends or, you know, just, you know,
you know, smelling the roses a little bit more. I mean, maybe at 10 or 12, maybe not as much. At 10 to 12, I mean, I don't know, I'd probably say, man, you should have finished learning to play the saxophone or something. You know, but definitely, you know, I would, probably something around there, you know, just man, just enjoy being a kid. You know, enjoy being a kid is what I would have said, yeah.
Jamie (03:45.318)
Good, good advice and I'm glad we stumped you on one question. It's been an insightful chat. Thank you so much. There's lots of information in here. There's lots of practical stuff that I know parents will benefit from. I know I got out of today's show. Continue your impact. You're doing a tremendous job out there for the youth of the world. And I hope we cross paths again soon. Thank you, Sean Banks.
SF. Banks (03:49.674)
Yeah!
SF. Banks (04:06.398)
Hey Jamie, thank you and I look forward to crossing paths with you again brother. Thank you.
Jamie (04:10.618)
Likewise, cheers.
SF. Banks (04:12.27)
Cheers.
If you enjoyed the show, please connect with Jamie on LinkedIn or Instagram. You'll find links in the podcast description. Parenting in the Digital Age is sponsored by Skill Samurai Coding and STEM Academy for Kids. Skill Samurai offers afterschool coding classes and holiday programs to help kids thrive academically and socially while preparing them for the careers of the future. Visit www.skillsamurai.com.au.
This episode is sponsored by Skill Samurai - Coding & STEM Academy www.skillsamurai.com.au
