Interview with Lesley Nicole
In this episode we will uncover 3 keys:
- The significance of self-improvement and personal growth when it comes to effectively guiding or parenting children.
- Fostering and maintaining joy-filled connections with children.
- Techniques for effectively guiding children.
A Podcast Transcription
Episode 11: Lesley Nicole – child advocate, ‘Mama Bear’ and President/CEO of “Just One _ Can.org”
Intro
Odiva Vasell: (00:00)
Fempreneurs, get ready to have some fun. Today, we are here with Lesley Nicole of “Just One _ Can.org.” Just One _fill in the blank)__ Can is a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing more joy into the world. We have a special guest today, and she has a very special mission. It’s called “Just One _ Can.org,” and I’m gonna let her tell you what that is all about. So, listen carefully because people around the world, kids especially, are going to be able to listen to this and find out that there is someone special who is providing the help that they need. So, welcome, Lesley Nicole.
The significance of self-improvement and personal growth when it comes to effectively guiding or parenting children.
Lesley Nicole: (00:59)
Thank you, thank you, thank you, lovely Odiva. It is so thrilling to be here with you today. I truly appreciate the opportunity to share about what we’re doing and the mission that we’re on and to bring some more awareness to a really incredible, increasing benefit, and also potential crisis that we have going on. So, at “Just One _ Can,” we help parents and actually any adult who guides children by teaching effective communication and conflict resolution skills. So, that parents and adults who guide them create a safe space so that kids feel that they can come to them with anything that may be going on inside them. And by doing that, we show them how to create a safe space and how to have skill sets and how to use the language and the modeling and the structures so that the kids do feel like they are actually seen, heard, and what they say matters because to me, every person that I meet, that’s just the purpose of my life, is to wake up with a smile and greet everyone I meet with compassion, kindness, thoughtfulness, and caring. Even your smile can make the difference. And I feel that when we engage with people like that, even if they’re total strangers or a kid in the grocery store standing in line with their mom, right? To sit there and connect with them so that they know that they were seen. And if they ask you something, that they were heard. And when you engage them back with a smile and go, “Oh my gosh, yes, look at that little teddy bear,” then they’re all like, “And what I said mattered,” because this adult spoke to me. And when you see that light up on someone, you know, on a child’s face, it’s priceless. It’s absolutely priceless.
Odiva Vasell: (03:07)
I just want to take a breath into that because everyone wants to be seen and heard and know that they matter.
Lesley Nicole: (03:20)
Absolutely.
Odiva Vasell: (03:21)
And this is like part of my mission as a visibility coach, to get people over the hurdles that they have with visibility and really understand that what they have to say matters, matters so much. I realize that a lot of the struggle that they have comes from childhood, not being heard, not being seen even years before, you know, other generations told children, “You are not to be seen and heard,” and that’s stuck with a lot of us into our adulthood. So, this is a beautiful mission that you have.
Lesley Nicole: (04:03)
Thank you, thank you, and I applaud you as well to bring that opportunity to visibility to other organizations like ours and all the other organizations and people and businesses and service providers to give them an opportunity to be seen and to be heard and get that reciprocity going. So, yeah, and you know the thing about it is, you’re exactly right. It does start in childhood, and not to get too scientific about it, but from birth to seven, we’re in a Theta brain state, where that means that we are just in the flow and we’re just turning into a sponge and we’re just absorbing. So, the way that I explain it to kids or participants is that I’m like, you know when you see the kid on the 25-cent horse in front of the grocery store, and he’s just going to town like this, right? Yeah, you know, come on, guys, he’s talking onto them because of Theta. They are conscious but they’re also unconscious, and they actually believe that they’re on a horse. Like to them, their imagination that they’re actually on a horse, they’re going through the fields and all this stuff is going by them and things like that. So, that helps, and then after that, any survival mechanisms that they did to manage that, then they carry them throughout the rest of their life. So you’re right. So those things that happen and then after Theta, there are other coping mechanisms that we do, and so just one can…everyone says, “Well, what age do you start?” And I’m like, “Birth.” And when do you stop? And I’m like, “Never.” Because, like you said, you made a very big point, all of us want to be seen, heard, and feel like what we say matters, and that we matter just to be existing, that we matter whatever our station in life, whatever our purpose in life, whatever we’re doing, we want to feel that. And there’s an actual way to do that, and there’s a way to foster it and to create it if you haven’t, and to avoid the pitfalls of damaging it. And then the good hope is that even if there have been some mental…I call it mental fitness, right? Because you go to the gym and you work out, and you don’t expect to lift 250 pounds after day one when you can only lift ten, okay, so the heavy lifting comes later. So if there have been some challenges or any parents or adults who guide children like foster parents, organizations that are at-risk kids, after-school programs, things like that, I also go in and train those organizations so that when they are with that time with that child, they’re able to foster, and then I also work with the parents of the kids that are bringing it to those organizations so that everyone’s on the same page, and the child’s getting the same messaging.
Odiva Vasell: (07:08)
Oh, that’s beautiful. That is beautiful. Wow, can we just clone you and put one of you in every city so that everybody gets heard, and the needs are being met? This is so fantastic, and I want to say to the ladies listening, or whoever’s listening, as an entrepreneur, the key to your success is part of being open and being childlike and believing and seeing that the dreams that you are working toward and the things that you hope to achieve are possible. It’s so amazing, and I can totally relate because it’s happened to me as well. We start out as kids, and like you said, the kid on that horse, he really believes he’s on a real live horse going through the meadow or going through the Wild Wild West. And then parents come along and say, “You’re making too much noise, you’re disturbing the neighbors, you’re…you know, there’s all this society as a whole says ‘don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t,’ and next thing you know, you’re an adult, and you don’t have that imagination, you don’t have that visualization capacity because it’s all been shut down, and you need to reopen it. So, I hope parents listening to this say, “Don’t shut them down.” How do you feel about that?
Lesley Nicole: (08:40)
Oh, absolutely. And, here’s, you know, I have lots of gems, of course, for having done this for over 25 years. One of the key takeaways that someone can take from our time together is to say, and this is not just for your children, but especially because they hear ‘no’ like 240 times more than they ever hear the word ‘yes.’
Odiva Vasell: (09:04)
Guilty.
Lesley Nicole: (09:05)
Or permission, so to change the language, here’s your tip, here’s your little gem: tell them what you do want them to do, rather than what you don’t want them to do. So, I’ll give you an example. You’re walking down the sidewalk, there’s a puddle, they have their new Sunday shoes on or something, and instead of saying, “Don’t jump in the puddle,” “Don’t step in the puddle,” what do most children do when you say that? Jump! The younger they are, the more they do it because they don’t hear ‘don’t,’ and most parents don’t understand that, and adults don’t understand that they actually don’t really hear the word ‘don’t.’ They don’t process it as “don’t do that.” But it also causes them, then there’s a negative reaction because they did it, and then so it’s to say, “Hey, look, there’s a puddle up ahead. Let’s walk around it.” Tell them what you do want them to do. So, then that way, you don’t have to say no to them, you don’t have to get angry at them, you don’t have to sit there and go, “Why did you do that? I told you not to do that.” Right? So, that’s just all, yeah, it’s really, really important. Yeah, so it’s a huge gem, and you can use it everywhere, and it also, a little tip, it works with adults. It works with everybody, humans.
Odiva Vasell: (10:17)
Yeah, that’s what just hit me because as our parents get older, they kind of revert to that childhood stage, and those of you that are caregivers can relate to what I’m talking about. And then you’re still trying to say “don’t, don’t,” and why aren’t they listening? Okay, that is phenomenal, so.
Lesley Nicole: (10:45)
You turn it around and just keep building, and then now, doing it that way, you will see a child’s demeanor that they’ll go from like this or they’re timid and scared and they’re not sure to going, they stand up, their face is brighter, their eyes are lighter. It’s really incredible to watch a transformation like that. It’s just…it’s rediscovering because, like you said, it’s all in us. I mean, I’m the biggest kid on the planet. I am still in my childlike wonder. You can see me being goofy anytime, trust me.
Odiva Vasell: (11:17)
So this is how we empower our kid.
Lesley Nicole: (11:21)
Yeah.
Odiva Vasell: (11:22)
Oh, that is so great. Wow.
Lesley Nicole: (11:25)
Because they’re exploring, right? So when they go into that refrigerator and they pull out the eggs and they dump them on the floor, and they get that box of cereal and they pour the whole thing out, they’re just exploring. And what’s more important, the box of cereal, the spilled milk, or your child’s confidence and self-esteem and self-worth and self-love.
Odiva Vasell: (11:52)
Hey, so Leslie, this is a beautiful mission that you are working on, helping parents to empower their own children. Tell us, how did you get started on this journey?
Fostering and maintaining joy-filled connections with children.
Lesley Nicole: (12:13)
Well, that’s a great question, and I really appreciate the opportunity to share this story. I’m also known as Mama Bear, and I’ll get to that in a second. But when I realized that my purpose in life was to be joyful and to bring even more joy into the world, it touched something. Like, I get goosebumps every time I think about it or I talk about it because it’s so me. It’s so my truth. Right? And so, because of that, the way I found that out was that I was adopted at birth by amazing, beautiful, loving parents who… I mean, they were very caring and inclusive, and they had the very best of intentions. And yet, even with all that love, I still had this primary question of, “What is wrong with me?” Like, I just didn’t feel like I ever did anything right enough, good enough. And so, then when I had children, I was… I vowed to do it differently, you know? Because, well, first, I set out to figure out that riddle, and I solved that riddle. And so, then when I had my children of my own, I decided that I wanted to teach them the same character, values, and morals, but I wanted to go about it a different way, without punishment, lecture, threatening, right? I wanted it to be with respect and mutual respect. That’s one of the things that I didn’t see in the world, is that parents are one thing and children are like sub-class citizens. It’s like, “I’m this and you’re that.” It’s like, it’s a human being. It’s a small human being and needing much guidance, right? So, I went on this journey, and it was frustrating at times. It was scary at times, but I was absolutely relentless, you know, in my pursuit because I just knew that, again, what I said earlier is that there was nothing more important than for every person that’s ever in my countenance, and especially my children, was that they were going to be seen, heard, and truly know that they were loved unconditionally. And so, my Mama Bear characteristic is like unstoppable and committed to these outcomes. So, I have raised five children and I have fostered 16 so far. And…
Odiva Vasell: (15:00)
Fostered kids, yes, and five beautiful children.
Lesley Nicole: (15:05)
Yeah, yeah. And the oldest is 34 and about to be 35, so I’ve been at this a little while. And I just was determined to do that, and so then I’ve been doing this parenting educator coaching training and stuff since the early ’90s. And the thing was, I did all this from home, homeschooling my children while working full-time and supporting the family because I was doing this on my own. And so when COVID hit, I was all like, “Oh, I did this a long time ago, before you were even supposed to be working remotely and virtually and things like that. So, I have lots of insights on how to build your empire and honor your children and respect your position while maintaining peace and harmony and joy in your home.”
Odiva Vasell: (16:09)
Oh, I still am going for the idea of just cloning you. Well, this is your work. Your work is to kind of clone yourself in the sense that you give parents the tools and the understanding and the awareness to do this with their own kids. As an English teacher, I have worked in the school system. I worked as an elementary teacher one time. It was in Korea, so it was different, a different culture, different ways of working with kids, and I saw how the kids, all they needed was a little bit of confidence and sometimes just giving them tasks to do and saying, “You do this creatively on your own,” they just light up, as you see. They thrive in that, and they’re so much more capable than many of us give them credit for.
Lesley Nicole: (17:09)
Yeah, absolutely. It’s little things and small things. To just share another pivotal point of when the work that I’m doing now came into being is that I was trying to do… I mean, I went to every parent workshop, book, program, court that you could ever imagine. Every flyer I grabbed, I went, I read, I’m pat scoured the books and libraries, and they just didn’t have all the components. So, what I ended up doing was creating my own. But what facilitated me being that committed to figuring it out was because I would… I would want to be different, but then I would find myself parenting like my parent. And I just was like, you know, I would still revert until one time where my oldest son, he did something, I don’t even remember now, obviously something very minor, and I did what my mom did. She was a yeller, and I couldn’t stand being a yeller, but I’d still find myself at times yelling. And I saw the look on my son’s face that his soul, his spirit, had been crushed. Like the look on his face, I recognized that look from when I was a kid, right there, side of the car in the front lawn. I dropped to my knees. I mean, I’m starting to well up again now and grabbed him into my arms. I was just like, “Baby, Mama’s sorry, and I promise you, and I vow to you that I will do better, and I’m not ever going to do that again,” and I have never raised my voice again, ever.
Odiva Vasell: (19:00)
That is courageous, and there’s no judgment here, you know. Being a parent does not exist. Yeah, it does not exist, no. But being able to recognize that when we’re kind of cruising on autopilot when the emotions are there, and we’re just, like you say, revert to what our parents did, wow.
Lesley Nicole: (19:28)
There’s a golden gem. Here’s a golden gem with that: kids are repetitive. So, this is where the gift and opportunity lies so that if you do mess up and then saying, “Oh, I’m going to handle this really well,” and then you don’t, guess what? They’re going to… they’re going to mess up again, and you are as the parent or the adult that’s guiding this child, have an opportunity to do it better again because they’re going to keep doing it until you get it right and they get it right.
Odiva Vasell: (19:58)
Hmm.
Lesley Nicole: (19:59)
So you can give yourself a break and go, “I got another chance at this.”
Odiva Vasell: (20:03)
Give yourself a break. Okay.
Lesley Nicole: (20:05)
Yeah, absolutely.
Odiva Vasell: (20:06)
That’s fantastic. And tell me, well, you can keep going, keep going, but tell me a bit about your entrepreneurship journey. Like, how did you develop this organization and programs for kids? How did this all come about?
Techniques for effectively guiding children.
Lesley Nicole: (20:30)
Um, well, that’s an awesome opportunity to share a little bit about that. I grew up in an entrepreneurial house as well as a traditional career retire from the company after 25 years of service environment. My mom was the entrepreneur, my dad was the one who had the corporate job and retired after 33 years. Um, and my mom started the entrepreneurial when I was six years old, and it was flipping real estate, buying distressed properties and rehabbing them and then selling them or keeping them as rental properties. And she kept me at her side the entire time. Like, I went with her everywhere. I went with her to look at properties. I went with her. She would take me out of school to have me sit in on the closing table at the bank, negotiations, going to the bank runs, going to deposits, paying utilities, the whole bit, the whole time, all the way up. She had me. I mean, I remember sitting on the floor, and she paid me, right? I had a little ledger, you know, and she would pay me, and I would help put in the entries and things like that. So, I learned so much, and I didn’t know I was learning. Like, it wasn’t like she was sitting here, “We’re going to learn about this.” She just exposed me to it. And so when I went off to college and got my first corporate job, I was in there, and, you know, entry level, of course, right? And then I could see all these things that were inefficient and that could be improved, but I had no rank, I had no authority or whatever to do it, and it was very frustrating because I was like, “I want to help and I want to make it better and easier and more enjoyable, you know, place to work and more profitable.” And so I wasn’t able to do that. So then that’s when I started the launch of starting my own business. And then, through the course of working with other parents and dealing with other organizations and working with the PTA and saying, “What is this that you’re doing, and how is it you’re doing it?” And they’re like, “Can you show us? Can you teach us some of these things?” And so I was like, “Yeah, sure, I’m happy to teach you guys, no problem.” Like, “Okay.” And so, you know, Thursday nights in my living room, you know, “Well, what do I do if they do this?” And I’m like, “Well, you could do this, and this is how you can just add up a better structure so that you even avoid that, right?” And that’s the best thing is this prevention, right? Is to have the tools and the knowledge and the skill set that you can go to that toolbox, which I call a treasure chest, and you go to that treasure chest, and that there’s treasures in here. And what type of treasure, you know, am I looking for today? And you can use it with your children as well within your place of work, business, home, whatever. You can have, “Oh, I think we need, you know, someone’s upset or angry. Ooh, what kind of treasure box item do we need to go find? You seem really upset. You seem very angry. Acknowledge them. Acknowledge what you see. Acknowledge that they’re upset, they’re sad, they’re distressed, they’re angry. Acknowledge it. Don’t engage it. Don’t fight fire with fire, right? You want to mirror and model. So when the kid comes at you, just another tidbit, kid comes at you, and he’s all like, ‘I am not going to my room, and there’s no way you’re going to make me go to my room,’ and they’re screaming at you. Sweetheart, you are really upset, and Mommy sees that, and I acknowledge that you’re really upset, and I will be happy to talk about that upset when your voice can sound like mine if you’re ready, willing, and able, but you have conditions. Those are boundaries, and while you’re modeling the boundaries, they’re learning about boundaries.
Odiva Vasell: (24:43)
I love that, and I love the fact that you talked about separating the acknowledging from the engaging in the same, yeah.
Lesley Nicole: (24:53)
Yeah.
Odiva Vasell: (24:55)
Reactively, do we just engage?
Lesley Nicole: (24:58)
It’s called reacting versus responding. Responding is that you are being responsible. That’s what respond is, to be responding responsible for your behavior. Reaction is you’re just knee-jerk. It’s just off the cuff without any poor thought or consideration of what is the best next step course of action.
Odiva Vasell: (25:25)
And you got a lot of training with five kids. Tell me, tell me their ages, so something about these beautiful kids.
Lesley Nicole: (25:33)
Oh my gosh. Well, they’re all about to shift because they’re all within months of each other. So it’s currently 34, 26, 25. Oh no, sorry, I did it right. 34, 33, 26, 25, 23, and then all the fosters are all different ages. The youngest is now 19, and the oldest is 27. So, and they live in the United States, they live in Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Spain, and Martinique. I said, some of you guys need to go to Australia so I can visit you there. I haven’t been there since I was like six years old, five years old.
Odiva Vasell: (26:44)
Oh, that is beautiful. This is amazing.
Lesley Nicole: (26:47)
And they’re all different, they’re all completely different individuals, and the way that you interact with them is so dynamic, how it is not cookie-cutter principles or approaches. What’s where it gets created.
Odiva Vasell: (27:05)
Okay, so this is really like you said, the approach you’re we’re training the parent because the kids are going to have all these different personalities and styles of communication and way of behaving. Does not matter even if they’re, you know, the same parents. I see that difference in my family, like same parents but totally different ways of acting and reacting in different situations. So now you have these beautiful kids all over the world, and you have this organization that helps parents, and what project are you working on currently for your organization?
Lesley Nicole: (27:50)
Well, right now, I’m working to start with an organization that works with kids in distress, so they’re at-risk kids, and one of the programs that they have on their campus is an after-school program. So these are kids that are also they’re up, because I’m also trauma trained with the ACEs and things like that for trauma and all the different types of trauma as well because there’s lots of different types of trauma and how you deal with the different types. And so they have multiple traumas already, so then when they’re going to care after care with other care because their parents are at work or they’ve been separated in some of the cases, in this particular organization, they’ve been separated from their parents, and so they’re in foster care, right? So I’m working with them to understand about how the trauma affects your approach to them, which can exacerbate which actions can exacerbate their traumas and shut them down either even more. Well, they’re going to do two things. It’s going to be on a spectrum, but they’re going to do two things. They’re either going to become more defiant, or they’re going to shut down and they’re going to hide and get small, or they’re going to come out with their fists fighting. Like I said, in one way, it could be just yelling, screaming, acting out, whatever. And so I’m working on that. And then I also have a group training where it’s not a video; it’s me. You actually have me for a 12-week course that goes into all the components, not just the children’s needs but also the adults that are guiding them, their needs. And I think the biggest takeaway, too, to kind of circle back to where you had said that kids are going to come up with all their antics and parents are going to have these tools, the one really cool thing is that when the parents change without teaching the child to change, they change because of the modeling. Because you’re now showing up differently, they start to show up differently. Instead of having to teach them to show up differently, they just will. And how you can know that this is an actual truth is you can see every one of us knows that certain children act a certain way with Mom, a certain way with Dad, or they act a different way when Grandma’s around, or they act a different way in front of their teacher, right, Aunt Susie, whatever, right? They’re either really happy, and they turn their little kid-like, or they go, “I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go,” right? So that’s your proof that it’s a matter of how you’re engaging them that they’re going to engage you differently without even being taught how to do that.
Odiva Vasell: (30:53)
Let’s take a breath into that.
Lesley Nicole: (30:56)
Yeah.
Odiva Vasell: (31:11)
Yeah, so um, yeah, I just want to take a breath into that because that nugget of wisdom is important in every relationship that we enter into when we change ourselves, and what you’ve talked about is not parenting but the people, the adults that guide the children, finding the joy, finding the joy, and guiding children.
Lesley Nicole: (31:41)
Yep, yep.
Odiva Vasell: (31:43)
That if it’s not this but it’s right this.
Lesley Nicole: (31:47)
Yes, it’s like a dance. It’s like a dance. The point of dancing is not to end up at a certain spot on the floor; it’s to enjoy all the steps that took you to the end.
Odiva Vasell: (32:04)
I want to thank you so much, Lesley Nicole, for joining us, and we are here to support you in the work that you do. And I will be putting the links to websites and everywhere that we can contact you. Give us the name of the group one more time so that we know exactly where to find you.
Lesley Nicole: (32:26)
Absolutely. It’s Just One_Can.org, and just a little thing, it’s just one basically a blank because it’s just one smile, just one hug, just one class, just one phone call. We all know the power of just one of those things and how it can truly make a difference. So that’s how Just One Can was born. Thank you so much, Odiva, for the opportunity to share your light with me and allow me to share my light with you and what we’re doing here and the opportunity to really bring awareness so that we can create a lot of wonderful, dynamic, beautiful change to bring more joy into the world.
Odiva Vasell: (33:12)
It was my pleasure. Thank you, Lesley.
[Music]
Conclusion
To conclude, we’ve delved into a discussion that unveils the secrets to becoming not just better parents but better guides for children. We’ve learned that the magic lies in our own personal growth, finding joy in the dance of guidance, and discovering that it’s not about the destination but the delightful steps along the way. Armed with practical tools and insights, this post empowers caregivers and parents to create deeper, more harmonious connections with children. So, remember, whether you’re a parent, a grandparent, or a mentor, the journey to meaningful child guidance begins with your own personal growth, and it’s a journey well worth taking.