From the Streets to Success - Rising Above: Mike’s Unconventional Path and Parenting Wisdom

All right, welcome back. No problem, parents. In today's episode, I am super thrilled. I'm so excited to have Mike Stevenson here. He's an award-winning entrepreneur with a remarkable journey from homelessness to success.

Our conversation today includes the power of language and parenting, the cultural impact of motivation, and the role of creativity in education. Mike is going to share personal anecdotes, offering profound insights into resilience, communication, and the transformative journey from hardship to triumph. Mike's story is a true testament to the extraordinary possibilities that emerge from challenging beginnings. And we're going to close our conversation with Mike sharing five key lessons learned from parental rejection and homelessness.

These same five keys can be found in his book. Let's reimagine the world together. Soft power is the new hard edge. You're going to learn valuable parenting insights.

Listen in to his story, which, again, is absolutely amazing. And I hope that this episode is really a beacon of hope, emphasizing that even in the face of adversity, we can rise above. Welcome to the No Problem Parenting Podcast. From toddler tantrums to teenage eye rolls, this podcast is your go-to for updated and old school tips and tools that are going to help you become the confident leader your kids crave you to be. Do you ever wish there was a specific manual that came with each one of your kids? I mean, what works for one often doesn't work for the other, right? And let's face it, we don't know what we don't know. And even if there was a manual it probably wouldn't be able to keep up with all the changes in our world.

Well, this podcast is the next best thing. I'm your host, Jackie Finnaman, a 30-year counselor turned parenting coach, and I've got a lot to share, including hundreds of resources that you have access to right from your home and strategies that are going to boost your confidence and energize you. So whether you're knee-deep in diapers or navigating the tween years or you're launching your child into adulthood, subscribe and share this podcast with your friends teachers and daycare providers we're going to turn your parenting problems into no problem one episode at a time and today's podcast sponsor is dr jj kelly at drjjkelly.com and her get real program an emotional skills training program based on dialectical behavioral therapy if you have a teen or young adult experience and ongoing conflicts in relationships, intense and rapid mood changes,

the inability to relax, trouble recognizing choice, holding in your anger and then blowing up at others or numbing out in response to fear, Dr. JJ Kelly's Get Real program is going to help. So go to drjjkelly.com for more information. And thanks again, Dr. JJ for being a sponsor of the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Mike, I am so excited to have this opportunity to meet you.

I have been following you, learning from your story, and I'm just very grateful that you're here. Welcome to the show. Thank you. And I'm delighted to be here. And similarly, I've been watching your progress as well. So we've been stopping each other, unbeknownst to either of us, which is really exciting. Yeah. Yes. Yes. And so we finally get this opportunity to meet.

And I think one of the biggest reasons I was excited to have you on the show is you talk about the power of words and language and how important that is for us as parents and how we're speaking to our children. So I would like to start off a little bit with the power of those words, as you experienced in your young childhood. We'd moved about a bit, as you probably gathered from the book, early. And I've got no real kind of knowledge of this.

But when I was born, a telegram was sent to my mother's father in Egypt. And she loved her father. And he died with it on his chest. Telegram announcing my birth.

and I can't imagine what my mother went through in the very early days of my life so I imagine there was trauma great trauma and that might have affected me from very early age but I found moving about you know not being able to settle anywhere and you having to make new friends I found that really difficult schools I went to kindergarten in Pakistan in Lahore then I was in a primary school in Edinburgh and everything's grey and austere and and and cold so that without explanation or guidance you're just taken from one environment to another and they're so challenging and and then moved again to a school in a town near Edinburgh at the age of 10 and I had a very bullying teacher who who was six foot seven imagine you know I was small and he was a teacher who was six foot seven who used to hate me I don't know why um bang my head against the blackboard and all kinds of things went wrong then I was moved to another school which I actually liked then I went into secondary school and schooling was just wrong for me I was ill-fitting for the classroom from day one um maybe I'd have been uh diagnosed having ADHD I don't know it didn't exist as a condition then but I was distracted I couldn't concentrate I learned nothing but outside school I was beginning to develop my personality I was singing in a band and you know my confidence soared on stage so um then when I went to the classroom it was just the

same monotonous system drone voices and it didn't suit me you've got to feel that you're significant that you're wanted that you're liked that you are in a community that's protective that's ambitious for you um that wants you to feel safe and wants to rejoice in you but none of that was there so I you know I was I was asked to leave school well I was told to leave school and you know my parents were splitting up that was horrible and so life spiraled and I went down to London and that's when I ended up sleeping out for my listeners who haven't read your book yet which I'm going to highly recommend everybody go out and get get your book let's reimagine the world together they don't know yet that you ended up on the streets as a young boy I was 16 because at that stage when two parents are warring then the child gets left out children are very sensitive to the tensions between parents I mean I noticed that they weren't sleeping in the same room uh for years before that so I noticed that maybe I knew that parents generally slept together I had enough knowledge of that but it all went wrong and it had a horrible effect on me because the only thing that gave me comfort in my life up till then was being at home being part of a family and all of a sudden even that was disappearing so I went down to London and that's when things started to go wrong because she got a job but I got the sack from the job

so I found myself sleeping out that's how it started. And this unfortunately happens to thousands and thousands of children every day that end up leaving home. They can't take it anymore. And they go out and they're going to be independent and they get a job and then that doesn't work. And then they find themselves on the streets. I had lots of things said to me, you know, you will never amount to anything, which I took with a pinch of salt, but of course it wounded me. So you kind of carry this belief that you are not worthy of a place in the world so I was quite happy with my lowly position on the streets of London does that make sense yeah I felt quite comfortable there because no one had any expectations of me I had control of my own destiny in a limited way let me tell you but I had this experience when a charity picked me up one night and took me into this hostel and the first thing that happened to me it was all very warm and embracing because I was taking a van and they were very helpful it was a lovely woman speaking to me when I got to this place um it was kind of Disney-esque building you know with turrets and I was shown into this tiled room and told to take my clothes off then I was hosed because this is meant to be delousing I didn't have lice but the assumption was you've been sleeping out therefore you haven't washed yourself you've got lice I didn't so I felt that small and that's from someone that was

trying to help me an organization was trying to help me so I learned that then that even Even helpful people can get it massively wrong. You're entering in a system where everyone's got a job and people are doing their job. You know, here's the form you've got to fill in. Have you asked me if I can fill a form in?

If I feel comfortable with the form? Have you asked me my name? You know, simple things. And all I wanted was for someone to say, you know, what's your name?

Where have you come from? even what are your dreams the first person asked me what my dreams were was a policeman when I was in a cell you know for stealing and uh and he kind of changed my mindset that I had permission to have dreams and when I mentioned my kind of well I want to do this I want to do it says no they're not dreams they're just next steps focus on where you want be and I talked about being musician and one day going to business I actually achieved both but the policeman was my kickstart so here was a charity which was meant to be helping me and a policeman who was meant to be giving a stern talking to as I was leaving the cell in the morning and it was he that asked me what my dreams were so it's all the wrong way around so um Sleeping out was in a way the making of me because it made me realise, A, that I could survive, B, that I could communicate because you have to communicate.

Sometimes you have to ask people for help and you have to be part of a community because you're there supporting each other. I learned a lot about communication. And I think I learned about leadership as well, because there were some times when I was the assigned leader. This was my strength.

I was the guy that could talk the hind legs of a donkey. and other people were the ones that could fight off any predators you know so we all had our leadership role and you looked out for each other and you were kind to each other and you formed a community did learn a lot you know sleep out is an awakening it's uh you do suffer violence I got thrown down the stairs at a station and I ended up in hospital and the nurses they were kind and they were supportive and one of them gave me a hug it was the first hug I'd had for years it reminded me of my mother and so there were moments when I felt that the world was against me and there were moments when I had this epiphany that the world was ahead of me and that was my path to tread and I had skills I could play the guitar I could sing I could talk I had a cheekiness about me that could turn tense situations into softer situations and reduce people to laughter so I had a sense of humor I didn't know that until I was sleeping out and because they became very real world skills it was very apparent to me that I had something but How could I use that?

That was to come later. It was the making of me. But I was lucky because I escaped from the streets. You need to feel valued.

You need to feel significant. You need to feel you're needed, you're wanted. So I made my mind up that I wanted to lift people. And that's what I've tried to do.

I've sometimes failed quite badly. But I do know that we do have a choice. and yet you look around and so many times people are putting people down aren't they i pride myself i'll be able to talk to a large audience and create a sense of unity and warmth yeah that's your that's your god-given gift for sure yeah that's a skill uh but it would not have come if i hadn't had very negative early experiences and i don't what i'm saying here is that parenting is really important but if it goes wrong it's not the end of the world it can be recovered but it takes a series of accidents and encounters and a strong will to do that and the policeman was the one that said you know tell me what your dreams are you would not let me leave the police station until I told him what my dreams were that was that was one of the catalysts that you've had many and and again reading the book it's you've had nine lives you have so many experiences and examples at some point while living on the street you got a job as a construction worker and I love that story about how you you were given a role you were given a very important job it was the foreman in a building site now I've been working the building treat construction and it was usually you know do this do that uh finish it by this time you know just listen to my orders and then I was assigned to this building site and it was a wholly different experience it was a big foreman with a

soft hat and a broken nose and he he put his arms around me and he said welcome Michael and he showed me the the the elevation of this building and he said this is the palace you're building and it changed my life that moment changed my life because I certainly felt part of this bigger picture that I was a key part of this collective effort to build a palace that would rise into the London skyline and I would forever be associated with it.

That was extraordinary. And then a few weeks later, because I was just a labourer at that stage, I wasn't a skilled person, but he made sure I learnt skills right across the construction site. and every day he would clap me in the back and he'd say well done or ah I can show you how to do that a bit faster you'll never say better faster or save some energy on your back you know save some strain on your back all these things and then one day he came to me he gave me these keys and he said Michael will you do me a favor remember I was young and I said well of course and he said will you open up the site in the morning and I said me me open up the site and he said yes I trust you and when someone says they trust you it is like being lifted about 30 foot in the air because no one had ever said that to me before and you realize that when someone trusts you you take that trust like a diamond or like a golden nugget it's there you've been trusted it's a huge moment and some people go through their whole life without ever being told that they're trusted and it's such a fundamental skill of communication you know well done I can show you how to do this a bit faster um never you've made a mistake I can show you to do this in a way that's different.

Never have stopped doing that. You'd been caught stealing. You were in fights. You had hard experiences.

And then you get on this job site and you're working there for a while and not feeling necessarily super skilled yet at it. And then this guy says, hey, here's the keys. I trust you. Yeah.

How did you really feel at that? I thought, what if I lose the keys? What if I sleep in tomorrow morning? So there was a huge responsibility and I would never have let him down so I barely slept I mean I just I was so eager to make sure that I did it and I did it right but it was a it was a breakthrough moment to be trusted with a responsibility at a young age um and it was a big responsibility there were lots of valuable materials there you know I could have run off I could have you know said to guys look you want to get access to a building site with copper and lead and all all this stuff and they would have said yeah of course mate right i don't do that i would never have let him down and that's what great leaders do they they create a sense in you that you are an architect of something bigger you're a key part that you're not a bit part you're a key part and that there is a larger vision and that larger vision you're very much part of it you're contributing to it and there's no one lesser than anyone else because he said if you don't mix the cement the bricklayer won't be able to lay the bricks it was this sense that everyone is essential to everyone else and that if you take out one piece of this then you lose something from this larger operation and if people feel that they're an integral part and that if they're not there they're going to be missed then you feel something entirely different it's different kind of energy one of the things that i'm curious about

is with your upbringing and the way things went you could have easily kind of just given up or blamed others or made excuses or just caved and given in and i do find i say this to parents all the time, children are very resilient. And so you say in the book that you don't describe yourself as having been a victim of circumstance or of anything else for that matter, because you don't regard yourself as such. You remain convinced that you've always been responsible for your own destiny, albeit not always in control of it. And while your past is checkered with perhaps more lows than highs, you have no one other than yourself to blame for those low points. And this is just so key accepting responsibility became imperative for you when you recognize that only by doing so could you move forward yes exactly um you know i could blame my parents i could blame teachers when you take responsibility and don't blame others then you can begin to build on that. It's very hard to build on being a victim. Count yourself as a victim. You'll,

in a sense, always be a victim. A victim is a mindset. And listen, I've met so many people that go through their life a victim. And, you know, the sense that they are not architects of their own actions and they are you talk about our parents want to protect us and for us to learn how to protect ourselves but i think sometimes we end up as parents putting too much protection around our kids where we're not encouraging them to to know their worth and their value and their gifts i mean look that the one thing I can attest to as a child and as a teenager is I had freedom freedom to rule and you know when my parents were getting more into their their separation we did anything we want I do feel sorry for kids now I mean I read a startling statistic that long-term prisoners have spend more time outside than the average child does today that's really sad so the thing I've learned is that children need to feel a sense of freedom that they can make choices that every moment of their day is not determined by someone else because your learning comes from exploring new territory and you know maybe getting maybe falling when you're trying to climb a tree there a head teacher in London who because all this safety stuff has got really neurotic but this head teacher came in she said right for your homework this weekend I want you all to climb a tree and get someone to take a photograph of you doing it wow that was brilliant and she did really

well she turned that school around because that was her attitude children need to feel that they're They're achieving things. Yes. I think they need to be asked things. They need to be, what would you do if you were in my position?

Yeah? The one thing I learnt with primary school children is don't break promises. Promise a child something. If you say, we're going to the zoo at the weekend, and you wake up with a hangover, I'm not feeling very well today, can we do it some other time?

well a child has been looking forward to that moment all week so suddenly to have this promise broken unless the child can see a very good reason for it then they would say I understand daddy or I understand money yeah but don't break promises because that will be remembered don't say anything in anger that will never be forgotten I remember my father was trying to teach me to play chess with my brother my younger brother my younger brother was good at chess he loved it I probably had ADHD and I couldn't handle it and I kept giving him my my queen it was just I was hopeless I could not compute the chess moves at all in my head so when I did it for the third time my father went mad and he threw the chessboard in the air and he said you're bloody useless Michael and I'll never forget that moment children never forget being called useless children will never forget being called stupid and particularly when there's a kind of dramatic incident around it the other thing I remember is getting a beating for something that I didn't do now you learn about justice you should learn about justice and if you get the beating for someone else's actions then you get this early sense of the world is not treating me justly I've had a beating for something that someone else did I've had a promise broken I've had a chessboard thrown in the air in a peak of anger because I wasn't very good at it I don't have to be good at it

that was my dad's agenda you know it wasn't mine that is so important i think a lot of parents were putting our kids in sports and extracurriculars and then we're living kind of vicariously through our kids right and they sometimes don't even want to do it or maybe they do maybe they have an interest but it seems like they can never be good enough i want to talk about these five key things that are towards the end of your book that you have learned parents Let's keep these five things in mind as we're raising our kids.

Number one is say precisely what I mean. Absolutely. No ambiguity. So don't speak with forked tongue.

If you say something, don't leave any doubt about what you're saying, because if a child believes they can't answer back or can't ask questions, they will take a wrong message and they might get into trouble for it. Now, you've got to be really clear about what you're saying here. and children don't deal very well with dubiety you know when something is asked of them you've got to speak very clearly you say do you understand what i'm saying so what do you do so you get them to repeat it yeah good boy good girl that's brilliant and it's getting an agreement uh and you know we've had this at work and people have had an upbringing where that was in doubt you don't want to get an instruction at work and they don't understand it and they don't ask yeah that's because they didn't ask their parents because the parent wouldn't have said um so you sound stupid you sound as if you're slow on the uptake no you're not you just didn't understand can you please i'm sorry to ask can you explain that again i didn't quite get it most leaders will say i'm so glad you asked right and i sometimes do you know i talk fast blah blah blah blah, blah. And it's so glad that you asked me because you did the right thing.

Yes, yes. And just clarify, you know, parents will say clean your room. Well, do they know what a clean room looks like or what a clean room to you looks like? So let's be real specific what that means. The second one you say is ask how as well as why. Yeah, I think it's really important that we do why things you know we're going to do this because it's important it's going to advance you blah blah blah blah it's going to make you a better person um you're going to love it it's going to take you you know another couple of notches up the ladder blah blah blah but also don't leave any doubts if they say how am i going to do that then in a sense you failed you know You might say you can either work out how to do it, but I will tell you how I would do it.

Does that make sense? Oh, that's really good. I love that. You can either work out how to do it or I can tell you how I would do it.

Yes. So it's not you must do it my way. You've got a free will. That's so great.

Okay. The next one is demonstrate faith in other people's efforts and abilities. oh look this is uh absolutely this is the i trust you thing if you put pressure on someone you know get this back to me by three o'clock i would have done well gee you're putting pressure on you know because you realize that there are two ways to do it well and badly um it's really important to say i trust you and if you make a mistake i'll still trust you you'll just have learned something and also a young person came up to she was in tears and she said i've i've had to spend two and a half thousand pounds to get something reprinted i said did anyone die in the process she said no but i feel terrible i says well don't worry about it and thanks for telling me yeah you can see that the relief in her body uh just she realized she could make mistakes If we are demanding respect and demanding things to be done right the first time and we're not allowing our kids to make mistakes and then make right those mistakes, kids will learn real quick that they better not own up to their mistakes because they won't be forgiven and they won't be accepted.

Exactly. the next one is be concise and don't generalize and again this this kind of goes with the first one but it's like you know it can be super unfair to make a request of a kid that they they don't really understand what the request is or the purpose of it oh absolutely and this happens a lot you don't go down to the shop and get a you say what what is uh i remember going to buy my mum a box of chocolates and I came back with a box of Tampax oh I mean you know I just I was looking around at these boxes they seemed to be quite close together and I got around for that but I just didn't I had little bars of chocolates never boxes of chocolates so it went all wrong and I got around for it but you know be be explicit say you know um try and give as much detail as you possibly can and be you know concise and precise and say do you understand that or are you happy with that or do you want me to just you know give you a bit more information yeah yeah just clarifying clarifying questions that's super good and then the last one you have on here is to be aware when saying nothing is better.

Yes. And I do think silence is better than saying, you damn fool. Or sometimes words do damage when silence does favours. And when I speak in front of an audience, I will often pause quite a few seconds.

And you know the audience likes that because it gives them time to absorb. So we don't need to be talking all the time. Sometimes, you know, nothing really is better. It's better not to be told something that's going to upset you when no words at all would create a neutrality. But often we just go that little bit further.

see and another thing we add on things and just stop stop do we have to keep talking no um you know i i think a cuddle is better than the words i love you because it's a demonstration and when they come with the words i love you they mean something but kind of i love you you know it's a sort of afterthought it's probably better not to make it sound as if it's it's a kind of call to action that you have to deliver every night do you know what i mean right i do better to go up and knock on the door and say forgot to tell you that i love you yeah and i love that a little hug and i teach this in the pause when you've got a kiddo that's coming at you and they're angry and they're upset or they're being disrespectful i say put your hand on your heart and your hand on your stomach forces you to breathe pushes yourself back a bit and it gives It's just six seconds, really.

You don't even time it. It's just naturally. And you just pause and you observe and just take in what is the child saying? Because it's most likely not anything about you.

So it doesn't require a defensive response. And sometimes saying nothing is better. Sometimes words that we say actually have an opposite effect. I hear this all the time.

You're in a safe space. it makes them think what why should i be safe you know is there a threat you know it's like uh if you say to someone watch yourself when you're walking down those stairs they're more likely to trip sometimes you'll draw attention to something but doesn't need to draw attention to if you've got a nice room and you say welcome come in have a seat would you like a cup of tea that's far more then this is a safe space as if it sounds like a horror movie you know what i mean yeah right all of a sudden our amygdala is going wait what why do you have to tell me it's safe there must be something that nothing's going to happen to you here so good if you could sum up all of this uh what is a message to to help parents empower parents to become that confident leader our kids crave us to be well i think the first thing is consistency don't say wait till your father gets home tonight we were brought up in a generation where men were meant to be feared and these poor fathers would come back and they'd be told that someone had done something wrong and they said well what do you want me to do about it I've told him that you're going to deal with it never leave anything hanging and be consistent the people that I remember most that made me happy when I was a child go for the strengths not the weaknesses have a sense of humor and give your child's humorous descriptions, but never humiliate them. Because a child humiliated is a child

damaged. It's as simple as that. And they will carry that. And I love that you're pointing that out, you know, use humor, but not at the expense of your child or your spouse, but also to not take ourselves so seriously. I mean, I think humor relieves the pressure. My dad said, Jackie, without a sense of humour.

Tough is hard to live. It is. It is. And Scotland's got a really good sense of humour.

The city Glasgow, which has got a particularly good sense of humour. And it's a city with traditionally been impoverished and then it's had periods of industry and the industry's taken away. That is where the humour lies. It lies in people who live with hardship.

They're the funniest people in their storytellers because they tell stories about people that you just don't believe exist, but they do in those communities. And humor is a great lifter. Laughter is great, but not at the expense of your child, not at the expense of your wife, not at the expense of your husband. Do you know what I mean?

It's got to be, humor has got to be self-deprecating. It's okay. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Well, Mike, I have enjoyed this conversation so much And I encourage people to go out and get the book. Let's reimagine the world together. Soft Power is the New Hard Edge. Love the book.

I'm constantly watching your clips on YouTube and different speaking engagements. If someone were looking to hire you as a speaker, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you? Email me at mike at thinktastic.co.uk.

and to learn more about you they can go to mike stevenson.net or they can connect with you on linkedin i'm going to have links in the show notes of this episode i really appreciate you being with me today thanks so much mike absolute pleasure thank you so much for inviting me i'm flattered all right that's it for today's episode of the no problem parenting podcast hey thanks guys for tuning in if you found value in today's episode click the subscribe button and share it with other parents who might need a little boost. Stay connected on our socials by following at No Problem Parents for more parenting tips and get your free download of the 60 ways to respond to your kids without losing your cool. Go to noproblemparents.com. Until next time,

remember your confidence comes from embracing both successes and setbacks. So take a deep breath, embrace the chaos, and remember, you got this. Thank you.