Sean Donohue joins us to discuss the importance of building a healthy parent-child relationship through trust, mentoring and emotional connection. Sean shares his perspective on parenting styles and encourages parents to slow down and find a healthy balance between being an authoritative parent while also being flexible and emotionally connected. Throughout the podcast, Sean discusses the impacts of parenting and personal growth. Whether you’re a parent struggling to connect with your children or looking to strengthen your bond, this week's podcast is full of valuable insights from a family coach’s view. 



https://youtu.be/npnjB22Q_zk
Brett Gilliland: Welcome to the Circuit of Success. I'm your host, Brett Gilliland. Today I've got my buddy Sean Donohue with me. Sean, what's up man? How are you? 
Sean Donohue: Hey, Brett. What's up? Hey, really happy to be here.
Brett Gilliland: It's good to be with you. You, uh, you coming to us from California out there and, uh, what's, what's your hats say? Appeal to heaven with a tree there. I like that. You, you always got the coolest hats. 
Sean Donohue: You know, thank you. You know, I, uh, actually find patches online and then I put 'em on, ran random hats cuz I want to have like unique hat. This hat An appeal to heaven. Uh, it's got a little tree on it. This was, uh, one of the first United States flags.
In fact, George Washington and the homies, they needed a flag to put on their ships because they didn't have a country. So they came up with this flag and appeal to heaven so that they could distinguish between our, our ships and the freaking, uh, Great Britain, uh, communists that were coming down trying to steal our, uh, all our stuff.
Brett Gilliland: That's awesome, man. I have no idea. 
Sean Donohue: Cool. It's cool. Cool story, huh? 
Brett Gilliland: Yeah, its very cool story. 
Sean Donohue: [inaudible] I'm surprised I don't see this patch or this flag more often because, I mean, it's just like America. You know what I mean? 
Brett Gilliland: Yeah. Screams America, even though I didn't know it screamed America. I love it. 
Sean Donohue: It really does.
Brett Gilliland: Right. Well, Sean Donohue is the family coach man. You are, uh, big on, uh, social media and have made a, a wave, I guess on TikTok. I'm new to this TikTok thing. My, my kids told me I had to get on TikTok, but you've got like, what, 500,000 million, whatever it is. Followers and, uh, some good stuff. And again, you are the family coach.
Uh, you and I have spent a great deal of time together in the year of 2023. Uh, I'm always very transparent and vulnerable in these podcasts, and so, uh, Sean is the guy that helps me, uh, with my crazy life, right? With, you know, running a business, having four kids, a marriage, all the things that we do to try to, you know, just live life man and be the best we can be. I have, uh, personally hired Sean and working with him in 2023 and it's been phenomenal. And, uh, so I had to have him on the podcast. And so here we are today. But with all that being said, Sean, if you can, I always have people that give us a little lay of the land and what's made you the man you are today, because you don't just wake up and help hundreds of thousands of people, uh, have better families. So what is it that has made you the man you are today?
Sean Donohue: Oh my goodness. Well, I'm a little flattered by the invitation because, uh, I've, um, I love being on People Podcast, Brett, but I consider you a friend and a client, so I've never been on a friend's podcast before, so this is like really cool because I feel like I know you, I trust you.
I feel like, uh, you know, you have helped me to be a better man just by our times together and sharing life together. And so that's, uh, so thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Brett Gilliland: Thank you. 
Sean Donohue: Yeah, I think that, to answer your question, um, the first, the first thing I think of actually when you ask me about who I am as a 44 year old man, married for 18 years, uh, three daughters is other men.
Other men. Uh, I do love my, my own dad and I do. I did have a good experience with my stepdad growing up, but it was, uh, I didn't, no, not my primary mentors. I had to reach out to other men when I was in my teens in twenties and thirties because I was just a hot mess of a man. And I don't really blame myself because, you know, you don't know what you don't know.
And so I had, uh, some challenges in my childhood and my young adult life, and I just craved to be a healthy man. I craved to be a good dad and a healthy businessman, and I knew I didn't have it. I knew I didn't. I knew I had to get it. And so I got it from books and then I got it from going up to other men, just surrounding myself with other healthy men who were smarter than me and knew a lot more about life. So that's the first thing I think of, man. 
Brett Gilliland: Yeah, that's awesome. And, and again, you've been doing this family stuff for 20 years, right? Because social media is new and, and you've kind of gotten this crazy following, but yet this is what you've really dedicated your life to, uh, uh, as being in that world, right?
Sean Donohue: Yeah, man. The first, uh, I was just telling my, my, one of my daughters about this. First thing I ever got passionate about was actually standup comedy and comedy writing. I did that even before I was 21. I even performed in the comedy store, which is only 21 and up when I was 20 years old. And then I started volunteering with kids in afterschool program and youth groups and Christian type stuff, and I, it just was this calling.
It was like, I'm not supposed to be in entertainment. I'm supposed to be spending my life around kids and around, uh, families. And so yeah, I was, now I'm an old man and I'm not as cool as I used to be, so I don't connect with the kids as well as I used to. So I spend most of my time now just, uh, being with like-minded parents who are in the thick of it.
Yeah. And so, yeah, the social media thing has been really fun. It's, it's a grind. It's a whole different gamut. It comes with lots of pros and cons. But yeah, it has been helpful to help me just help people and, and spread the l, spread the love and to put tools in people's toolboxes, Brett. 
Brett Gilliland: Yeah. Yeah. I'm a, I'm a big believer in coaching. You know, I, I'm a, I love sports and, you know, you think about whether it's the best golfers in the world and, and you know, you look at, even yesterday the masters got done and you know, I'm watching John Rom after his round. You know, he is, Loving on his wife, his kids, but you, you see the people, right, that are there for him.
And, and I said, okay, that guy knows a mental mindset coach on tour. That guy's a nutritionist, that guy's a strength guy. I mean, they, they've, they're surrounded with people, right? That, that are helping them get to the level they want to. And I think that you and I both believe this obviously's what you do for a living.
It's what I do for a living. Helping people with their money, uh, and their goals and their dreams and aspirations. But how important is coaching and spending time with others and learning from them? 
Sean Donohue: Well, he actually saw that social media post you made, and I totally agree. I mean, you look at these athletes, these professional athletes, they're just surrounded by other people.
They are not in it alone. And what's so cool about what's happening between me and you and everyone listening to this podcast right now, Brett, is that you know, men, we've always had a growth mindset towards different things. You know, like this is not a new term. Uh, now it's the term's like 15 years old, but this is not a new psychological concept of men.
We are, we are builders, you know, we are creators, we are artists, we are providers. And, and so, you know, I wasn't, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't there back in the 1700s when my relatives in Ireland were grinding, you know, planting potatoes and trying to keep their, you know, families alive. But I have a, I, I have a feeling the old Donohue's of the past, they were men of great strength, and they were fighters and they would protect their family, but they were always growing to try to improve their land, improve themselves. But now what's happening is that we have a generation of men, just like everyday, men like you and I, who have a growth mindset towards parenting, towards family life.
It's like, I don't, I can't speak for our dads. They're not here right now, Brett. I don't think our dads are going to like a parenting conferences, you know, back when we were growing up in the, uh, seventies, eighties, or nineties, or whenever y'all grew up. 
Brett Gilliland: Right. 
Sean Donohue: You know what I mean? 
Brett Gilliland: Totally. Yeah. You're totally, absolutely right.
Sean Donohue: Yeah. So, so I, I mean, I wasn't like, You know, I, the reason I got here is because I had to learn mostly from women about the art of parenting and family dynamics. And so yeah. Now we're here because, you know, we might say family is the most important thing. We might have our last name tattooed on our back, or we say we love our kids more than anything.
But what's so cool is that now we have, like we are. As men, we are very different, uh, than our, than the generations before us because we're really into this thing called parenting. It's like, yeah, we want our kids to obey and cooperate and respect and become successful. We also, you know, we want to be close.
Brett Gilliland: Yeah.
Sean Donohue: We want to be connected. We want to mentor them. Right. That is like, You know, I love the word coaching, but really the word coaching is, is very similar, just the word mentoring, right? 
Brett Gilliland: Yeah. 
Sean Donohue: So we wanna mentor, and that's what our kids today need more than ever. They need our connection,

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