Jim's Message to Parents

The sobering truth, however, is that the same opportunities are not there for your most precious asset; your child, especially your teenager. Teens have startlingly few resources geared just for them. What time does your teen attend a class called “goal setting” or a class called” leadership” or a seminar on developing a great attitude? That’s why I created 10 Steps to Success.

Since 1985, I have been conducting broad-based research in this area with a goal of creating programs for youths and teens that help them identify and set goals, and to develop an attitude for success and the courage to see those goals to reality.

Along the way, I noticed that many parents who are highly motivated and talented individuals themselves often give up in frustration after trying to inspire their own children to achieve. Teens can often become unreceptive to parental guidance and seem “lost” at home, school and the athletic arena. Parents then despair about why their children don’t seem to care about achievement, or making an effort. Parents worry their children have self esteem issues and seem to lack direction.

From my experience, the biggest issue is the source of inspiration. Though it often comes from the people who love them most, advice from parents pales in importance when compared to the influence of a third party from outside the home, usually a peer or coach, an entertainer or professional athlete. A peer often doesn’t have the maturity of experience to give good advice. And after seeing the poor choices some athletes and entertainers have made in recent years, that’s a very scary thought for most parents.

The goal for most parents is to make sure that if they are momentarily not the dominant advisor to their children, then they are comfortable with the authority figures their children are looking to for advice.

That’s where the 10 Steps to Success program comes in. Over twenty years ago, I played my last game as a professional NBA basketball player. Since then, I have dedicated my life to helping children understand the power of attitude, courage and goal setting. Through hundreds of hours of study and research, including tapping the finest minds in psychology, neurology and physiology, I have learned a great deal about helping children and teens improve their lives. And whether I like it or not, the fact I was able to make it as a professional athlete on the basis of sheer determination gives me a natural advantage in terms of instant credibility with children. I achieved what many of them want at that age. The funny part is that becoming a professional athlete is easy compared to becoming a successful human being. That’s what I want to teach your children.

One key challenge at this age is not what children and teens are told, but how they are told.

Teens are told to study harder, try harder, practice harder, make better choices, get better grades, use your head, be more outgoing, etc. Each of these descriptions is meaningless to someone who has no frame of reference or context. Concrete is “hard.” The wooden basketball floor is “hard.” The messages our youth are receiving are meaningless if they are not taught and given examples of how to do these things.

Add to this the complication that your children constantly compare themselves to you, and they often find themselves wanting. To young people, parents seem “to have all the answers” and to be very capable. Everything young people aren’t. To your inexperienced and possible insecure child, you can be a very tough act to follow.

Through the 10 Steps to Success program, your child can develop the attitude, leadership, courage, and goal-setting skills to become even more successful. How do I know? Over the past two decades, I have mentored countless young people about these attributes in the context of trying to improve their results. I have witnessed and documented incredible growth in these young people on a personal, academic, athletic and social basis. I know they are listening, and more importantly, they are applying what they learn.

Don’t you wish something came into your life to explain the skills of success when you were a teenager? How much better could you have been if you had that little edge? The development of your child is the greatest gift you can provide, and the greatest legacy you can leave the world. Why not take advantage of this opportunity to put these time-tested concepts to work.

Jim Brogan & the Team