How To Raise Your Kids To Lead Extraordinary Lives | Jon Butcher — Transcript

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1. 0:05[-Vishen] I'm sitting here with Jon Butcher.
2. 0:07One of the most extraordinary men on the
3. 0:09planet. Jon lives a life that most of us
4. 0:11only dream about and he's also the
5. 0:13accidental creator of one of the
6. 0:15foremost personal growth programs
7. 0:17in the world: Lifebook
8. 0:18which is a process that helps
9. 0:21you create a vision for your life that
10. 0:24is so spectacular that it allows you to
11. 0:28consciously create how your life is
12. 0:31going to unfold. I'm with Jon
13. 0:33because we're gonna be talking about not
14. 0:35Jon's life but Jon's philosophy on
15. 0:38parenting. Because Jon's got some really
16. 0:40controversial but powerful ideas on the
17. 0:43nature of parenting and how to raise
18. 0:46kids who can live truly exceptional
19. 0:49lives. Before we begin, take a look at
20. 0:52this man and make a note that he is a
21. 0:56grandfather. He doesn't look
22. 0:59anything like the typical grandfather
23. 1:01but Jon's got four kids, two grandkids and
24. 1:04a third grandkid on the way. Jon, your
25. 1:07views and parenting are radical.
26. 1:09For example, Jon just pulled all
27. 1:13his kids and grandkids out of the public
28. 1:15schooling system. I want to ask you what
29. 1:18do you think are some of the greatest,
30. 1:20greatest BS ideas about parenting and
31. 1:25raising kids that society buys into
32. 1:28today?
33. 1:29[-Jon] Well, you know, I'm not here to the
34. 1:32disparage anybody else's way of doing
35. 1:34things. So I can speak for myself
36. 1:37Missy and I over the years have had a
37. 1:41lot of issues with school
38. 1:44in general. If you take a look at the public
39. 1:47school model it's really an industrial
40. 1:49age model that teaches factory workers
41. 1:51how to be factory workers. And you
42. 1:53go to school at 7:30. You get out
43. 1:56at 5pm after your after-school
44. 1:58activities. You'll have your number two
45. 2:00pencils. You sit in the class. I mean,
46. 2:02it's just literally training you
47. 2:04how to be a worker which is one of the
48. 2:06one of the issues that we've always had
49. 2:08being entrepreneurs.That's not how we
50. 2:10wanted to teach our kids to be.
51. 2:14But really the straw that broke the camel's
52. 2:16back after years of being sort of
53. 2:17dissatisfied with the way pretty much
54. 2:20any school system operates is when Missy
55. 2:23pointed out the fact to me one night
56. 2:25that no matter what school you go to
57. 2:29what that school is going to teach you
58. 2:31is that your passions, your desires, your
59. 2:36interests, your family life, all the
60. 2:39values that we esteem the most need to
61. 2:44be figured out how to fit in
62. 2:46around the major part of your day which
63. 2:48is going to be spent learning all this
64. 2:50stuff that you may never use cumulus
65. 2:54clouds, igneous rocks..How much
66. 2:57of your education have you used, Vishen?
67. 2:59In your life what you do right now and it's
68. 3:01the same story for every successful
69. 3:03person I've ever talked to. They use
70. 3:05almost none of what they
71. 3:07learned in school. So here you've got
72. 3:10this block of time that takes up
73. 3:13two-thirds of your waking hours and
74. 3:16that's your duty.
75. 3:17That's your responsibility. It also
76. 3:19happens to be mostly complete BS. And then
77. 3:22you've got to figure out how to be a
78. 3:23fulfilled human being and have great
79. 3:25interpersonal relationships and pursue
80. 3:27your interests and passions around that.
81. 3:30That all becomes secondary and that's
82. 3:32when we realized. The priorities are
83. 3:35flipped.
84. 3:36- You're absolutely right. Folks, if you
85. 3:38think about the knowledge that is going
86. 3:41to be most valuable to you today.
87. 3:43Imagine, for example, that you had eight
88. 3:45hours today to learn anything.
89. 3:47What do you think is going to help you
90. 3:49more? Igneous rocks, the classification of
91. 3:52clouds, some advanced math model? Or would
92. 3:56it be learning how to follow your
93. 3:58passion?
94. 3:59How to be healthy and fit at 50? How to
95. 4:02bring joy and happiness into your
96. 4:04relationships? How to speed-learn? How to
97. 4:08live a life of mission and purpose?
98. 4:11I think most people are going to see the
99. 4:12latter. But the question is: "Why don't we
100. 4:15start teaching those in schools
101. 4:16in the first place?" - Right, I'm
102. 4:18not sure that we're capable of teaching
103. 4:21those things. We have
104. 4:23delegated the job of educating our kids
105. 4:25to the government.
106. 4:27How does that make sense? For ages and
107. 4:31ages of human history parents taught
108. 4:34children but we have decided that
109. 4:36we don't have time for that or the that
110. 4:38is not important enough for us to spend
111. 4:40our time on. And I think we need to
112. 4:43question that. - In the nineteen twenties
113. 4:45I remember reading a quote by President
114. 4:47Calvin Coolidge in the nineteen-twenties
115. 4:49where he said "The purpose of education
116. 4:51is to create cogs in the wheels of
117. 4:54industry". So schooling evolved from a
118. 4:57model designed to create efficient
119. 4:59factory workers for the titans of the
120. 5:02nineteen twenties. But today we want our
121. 5:06kids to be more. No parent goes "Oh, I
122. 5:08want my kids to be an efficient factory
123. 5:09worker." - Today that is a recipe for
124. 5:11disaster. So what we teach is..
125. 5:14First of all, we teach the Lifebook 12
126. 5:16category model. We look at the most
127. 5:18important areas of your life at Lifebook
128. 5:20and that's one of the things that we
129. 5:21teach our kids: health and fitness, your
130. 5:23intellectual life, your emotional life, your
131. 5:25character, finances. Something you
132. 5:29never learned about in school. How to
133. 5:31have a career? Every one of our kids have
134. 5:32started companies. Our 12 year old this
135. 5:35year started his first company.
136. 5:36The second thing that we really depend
137. 5:39on to educate our kids powerfully is
138. 5:43travel. International travel. As you
139. 5:45know we spend months and months a year
140. 5:47out of the country and that has just
141. 5:49been an incredibly rich source of
142. 5:52education for our kids. But Vishen, here's
143. 5:55the new one. And this is the
144. 5:56radical one. When Missy and I sat down a
145. 6:00couple of years ago
146. 6:01to really try to figure out what we
147. 6:04should be teaching our kids in the first
148. 6:06place, we realized that we don't even
149. 6:10know. We don't even know what they need
150. 6:12to be learning to prepare them for
151. 6:14what's happening. I remember the
152. 6:16Genius Network event that you and I were
153. 6:17just at. Peter Diamandis was up there.
154. 6:20And he said "Nobody outside of Silicon Valley
155. 6:24knows how fast things are going to
156. 6:27change in
157. 6:28this world". And we're not talking about
158. 6:2910 to 12 years from now. We're talking
159. 6:31about two to three years from now.
160. 6:32Remember that?
161. 6:34So what we realized is our kids probably
162. 6:38know better what they need to be
163. 6:40learning right now than we do.
164. 6:42they're more dialed into the internet
165. 6:44There are more dialed into what's
166. 6:45happening in the world that's wired right
167. 6:48now than we are.
168. 6:49So we just got done with a month in
169. 6:51Europe. Took our kids to Europe for a
170. 6:54month and we were in Croatia on the
171. 6:56Dalmatian coast. And we wanted our kids
172. 6:59to learn about the history of Croatia.
173. 7:01But we're stressing out a little bit
174. 7:03That's going to
175. 7:04be really hard. We gotta pull together..
176. 7:05And then we realized. No, we don't have to
177. 7:08do that. We're not going to teach our
178. 7:09kids about Croatia. They're going to
179. 7:11teach us about Croatia. So here was the
180. 7:14assignment. Justin, our twelve-year-old,
181. 7:16get online starting today, learn about
182. 7:20the history of the Dalmatian coast from
183. 7:21300 BC to the fall of the Roman Empire
184. 7:23about 400 AD. We want you to put together
185. 7:27a report after you've researched and
186. 7:29absorb the the key points in history and
187. 7:32then Friday night at dinner you're going
188. 7:34to present that to all the
189. 7:36adults at the dinner table. You're going
190. 7:38to present your report.
191. 7:39So what did that do? It taught him
192. 7:42research. Highly critical in the 21st
193. 7:45century. The ability to be able to go
194. 7:47online and learn the information you
195. 7:49need, absorb that information, organize
196. 7:52that information into a presentation and
197. 7:54then give that presentation to a
198. 7:56group of adults. It didn't take any energy
199. 7:58from us. And this kid is telling us
200. 8:01about the history of the Dalmatian coast.
201. 8:03We learned a lot,
202. 8:05he nailed his assignment. That's
203. 8:08was a breakthrough for us. So
204. 8:09that's kind of where we're going with
205. 8:11this whole thing. - You know what's
206. 8:12what's really funny when I hear that
207. 8:13story. I remember a story in my life. I
208. 8:17remember spending maybe 12 years in
209. 8:19schools learning history and I can't
210. 8:21remember much about what I learned in
211. 8:23those history books but I can even
212. 8:25tell you today the biography of Napoleon.
213. 8:28And the reason for that is because when
214. 8:29I was 12 years old my parents took me on
215. 8:31a trip to France. And I remember
216. 8:34being on a tour bus with my dad
217. 8:36and he asked me to tell him about
218. 8:38Napoleon. So I pulled up a little pocket
219. 8:41encyclopedia that I was traveling with,
220. 8:43read about Napoleon and I was assigned
221. 8:46to teach my dad about Nepoleon. And now
222. 8:49to this day 30 years later I still
223. 8:51remember the biography of Napoleon but I
224. 8:54don't remember anything I learned in
225. 8:55school.
226. 8:56- Here's what we call that. Can
227. 8:57I tell you what we call that. We call that
228. 8:58three-dimensional learning. Our daughter
229. 9:00Jade is dyslexic. We found that out when
230. 9:02she was in second grade so we literally
231. 9:04yanked her out of school and took off to
232. 9:06Southeast Asia for five months. And
233. 9:08during that time she came alive and
234. 9:11she'd started to get shut down in
235. 9:14the school system because the kid knows
236. 9:16whether they're stupid or smart.
237. 9:17They feel that. And of course
238. 9:21dyslexic they're always above average
239. 9:23IQs but they feel stupid because they
240. 9:25don't learn the same way the other kids
241. 9:27learn. So we took her to Southeast Asia
242. 9:29for five months. She came alive because
243. 9:32she was doing three-dimensional learning.
244. 9:34It wasn't just a book in front of her
245. 9:36face. She was traveling. She was
246. 9:38seeing the temples. She was connecting the
247. 9:40dots. That is the most powerful way to
248. 9:43learn for most kids I think. For some
249. 9:45kids they do really really well with
250. 9:47straight-up academics but I didn't
251. 9:49Vishen. School was like prison for me.
252. 9:51I don't know about you.
253. 9:53It was prison for me too. Well, there you there you
254. 9:55go. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs
255. 9:56are in that same sort of deal.
256. 10:00- So if there's one or two
257. 10:03really powerful tips that you could give
258. 10:04parents out there on how they could
259. 10:06teach kids, help your kids learn the
260. 10:09skills to truly build an extraordinary
261. 10:11life. What would you tell these parents?
262. 10:13- Well, here's the most important thing
263. 10:15that I would tell parents is that you
264. 10:17are responsible for your kids' education
265. 10:19not the friggin' government.
266. 10:20That's the most important thing to
267. 10:22understand. School system is good for
268. 10:25teaching the basics and the basics are
269. 10:28hard. It's hard to teach a kid math. It's
270. 10:30hard to teach a second, third, fourth
271. 10:31grader math. It's hard to teach English
272. 10:34or whatever your language is. It's hard to
273. 10:36teach some of these things. That's why we
274. 10:38send them to school so that we don't
275. 10:39have to bother. School doesn't teach
276. 10:41anything about character. If they teach
277. 10:44anything about character is not what you
278. 10:45want your kids to learn. They teach how
279. 10:47to be sheep. How to fall in line. How to
280. 10:49follow the rules. How to not disrupt the
281. 10:50class. All the the skills that you need
282. 10:53to be unsuccessful when you get out in
283. 10:56real life.
284. 10:57School doesn't teach anything about
285. 10:58money. What it is, where it comes from.
286. 11:01How to make it and how to have a
287. 11:03successful life. School doesn't teach
288. 11:05anything about interpersonal
289. 11:06relationships. School doesn't teach
290. 11:08anything about the most important
291. 11:10subjects in life. It teaches math, teaches
292. 11:13English, teachers reading, teaches writing.
293. 11:16Very important. I'm not taking anything
294. 11:18away from that but you need to know as a
295. 11:20parent that it is your job to educate
296. 11:22your kids and the school cannot,
297. 11:24literally cannot do it for you. But I'll
298. 11:27give you a hack if you'd like to hear it.
299. 11:28Serious serious hack. This is the number
300. 11:31one thing for parenting. It's the example
301. 11:34that you set. So you can set aside all the
302. 11:38things you need to teach your kid
303. 11:40and how difficult it is to
304. 11:42come up with an
305. 11:44organized curriculum to get that
306. 11:45information into their head. And if you
307. 11:48just focus on living an extraordinary
308. 11:50life yourself. If you just focus on
309. 11:53dialing in your love relationship,
310. 11:55dialing in a career that's a successful
311. 11:58fulfilling career,
312. 11:59dialing in your financial life, dialing
313. 12:01in your health and fitness. Just
314. 12:03literally, if you focus on living an
315. 12:05extraordinary life yourself and that's
316. 12:08what they're around. Because you are
317. 12:10their world. You are their example of
318. 12:12what a human being is. So if you can just
319. 12:15do that
320. 12:16that's more than half the battle. - That's
321. 12:18a beautiful idea, Jon. Thank you for
322. 12:20listening, guys. I hope this gives you
323. 12:22some idea on how you can re-think our
324. 12:24role as parents to help our kids truly
325. 12:28shine.
326. 12:29And help you see some of the flaws in our
327. 12:32modern education system that we need to
328. 12:34align ourselves with towards fixing.
329. 12:35Thank you, thank you Jon. - Thank you.