This letter to the editor is in response to a great article in our Santa Barbara Newspress, entitled, “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.” The letter is for Santa Barbara county but anyone who wants to join along, I’m happy to do the same in your community as well!
Regarding the article “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” in the May 29 Santa Barbara Newspress, I want to pose that it’s really a matter of who NEEDS to be a millionaire. Our children’s financial success in life will depend on them learning not just basic financial skills such as budgeting and balancing a bank account but also learning how to save their money and invest it in assets that produce passive income so they can work because they want to and not because they have to. This is called Financial Freedom and my goal is to teach kids how to create it early in life, so they have more time to do a lot of good in the world if they choose.
I first want to give a huge ‘thank you’ to Angel Pacheco, the Newspress reporter who did such a great job of describing our Camp Millionaire program where we teach kids and teens the ‘value of a buck’.
And now I want to talk to anyone who has anything to do with kids, ‘Stop’. Stop with all the talk about how the economy is terrible and how we should all be terrified of losing our jobs. Permit me to explain…
We have to stop with the job thing. I mean stop indoctrinating our youth with the belief that they have to get good grades in school so they can go to college and get good grades, so they can get a secure job and be miserably tied to it till “retirement do they part.” It’s not the one and only option.
Lurking everywhere in our culture is the insidious idea that we have to get a job, we have to get through the work week (TGIF comes to mind), we have to make it to retirement and then, hopefully, we can afford to do what we want with the rest of our lives. Something’s terribly wrong with this picture and I’m personally committed to helping kids change the channel on this preconceived notion of “life as an adult!”
In my Camp Millionaire programs, I invite kids to start thinking differently. I want them to question what their educations are preparing them for and to choose to design their lives instead of living into the generally accepted, preordained destination of employee.
We need to shift the paradigm. Instead of, “Where do I get a job?” how about, “What job/business can I create where I can best use my natural talents and abilities?”
It is my belief that most school systems don’t question the idea of “what makes a happy, successful adult.” There are too many rules, regulations, tests and standards when there is no standard child. For the most part, based on our current paradigm, we’ve created good little employees who get in line, follow the crowd, and blame the world for their inability to live life to the fullest. We must shift education to create more leaders.
Money is a root, yes, but not the root of evil. It’s more often the root cause of human misery and stress. It is, however, necessary in today’s world.
So if money is so critical to life’s success and happiness, why don’t we teach it in the classroom? How about teaching kids to read using books about success, happiness, building businesses, buying and selling real estate, trading stocks, ethics, parenting, relationships, communications, sex, health, and the like?
How about teaching kids to write by having them write stories they can market and turn into cash flow? Why don’t we have them write business plans, stories of success, legislation they believe in and professional letters of every kind?
Why not teach kids math with something that’s totally relevant and of interest to them… money? We can teach them how to create budgets and cash flow statements, as well as practical accounting, financing and investing principles and we can do this all before they leave home.
I’ve spent the past three weeks teaching two classes of 56 students for Lola Paredes, the Career Connections teacher at Dos Pueblos High School. My program may well be one the most valuable lessons her students will ever receive in terms of their ultimate success as adults. And I don’t mean just monetary success. I mean in terms of creating happy, healthy families and being a contribution to the world. I’ve planted a seed that has every potential of growing into a financially responsible adult.
I want Santa Barbara to become the most financially literate county in the U.S. If you want to help me accomplish this goal, help me get it into every school, teach it to every employee in every company, and educate our city and county personnel.
I’m offering any Santa Barbara teacher, nonprofit, city or county employee the opportunity to attend our unique Train-the-Trainer workshop for only $100 (normally $1000). The program runs July 7-11. If we all do our part, we can turn this so-called economic “crisis” into an economic revolution, with Santa Barbara leading the way.
People who do great things don’t sit around wondering what can go wrong; they sit around imagining all of the things that can go right!
One of my favorite things to teach is the power of the mind to ‘choose’ what it thinks about. At first, the person learning this concept usually doesn’t want to admit it. They say things like…
“But I can’t help it!”
“I can’t stop thinking about…”
“My mind just wanders.”
“I just can’t keep myself from thinking about…”
Yet the fact is, we CAN control our thoughts; it’s just that before we can, we must become aware of them.
This means we have to take time to notice what you’re thinking…and when you DO notice your thoughts, what kind of thoughts are they?
To find out, simply ask yourself these questions:
Are my thoughts positive or negative in nature?
Are my thoughts optimistic or pessimistic in nature?
Am I thinking about the past, the present or the future?
Am I creating my life or pretending to be a victim in some way?
Yes, noticing your thoughts takes practice because, for some reason, human beings have such a hard time accepting the idea that WE are at the root cause of all things life-related. And yet, when we do, we are all powerful in creating the exact life we wish to live.
Once you get pretty good at being aware of your thoughts, you’ll start to notice that you have certain thought ‘patterns’ that replicate themselves day in and day out. It’s these thought patterns that must be changed in order to change our lives. After all, even if you don’t want to admit it, we ARE what we think about most of the time.
Have you ever noticed that there is one thought that comes into your mind over and over again that then leads to the same additional thoughts that then leads you to the exact same conclusion or idea every single time? We often refer to this as a ‘chain of thought’ because one thought leads to the next and so on.
A friend of mine once told me that every time he thinks about getting himself a scooter to ride around town on in order to save money on gas (he has a large truck for work), he ends up deciding he should get a Harley!
What are some of your thought patterns? Take time today, and every day, to follow your thoughts. Then make a decision about whether you want to continue following them or you want them to follow you.
Each day I get up and do what I do…help kids and adults learn how money works.
Each day when I hear people whining, I hear my Mom say, “If you’re going to whine, go outside.”
We all have the opportunity to take every situation and turn it into a positive experience. There are unlimited opportunities everywhere, if you’re willing to look, if you WANT to look and if you’re willing see.
This video explains why I do what I do and why I know that every person in America can thrive if they want to!
“Are We There Yet?” – most young children … about five minutes into a five hour trip
Have we hit bottom? Are we in an economic recovery … please?
These seem to be the questions of the day. My answer is, “No, Sorry – you will need to hold it for a while longer.”
RELIEF RALLY
I think we are in the midst of what I will call a “Relief Rally” from this “Great Reset.” News was so bad for the second half of 2008 that people were completely unnerved. Today, the news is still bad, but (for whatever reasons) the media is presenting it and people are taking it with a little more of the “glass-is-half-full” perspective.
This is probably a good and healthy thing in many ways – especially when you consider how down and morose everybody was behaving.
According to Robert Levine, in his book, The Power of Persuasion, human being are very gullible. However, the interesting part of this is that we don’t THINK we are!
In study after study after study, he found the same thing. Each person, to some degree, thinks everyone else is more gullible than he is.
Santa Barbara Jesuisita Fire
How do you feel about the likelihood of the following things happening to YOU?
Getting into an automobile accident that is your fault?
Getting into an automobile accident that is someone else’s fault?
Being in a tornado or hurricane?
Being hit by lightening?
Being in a place crash?
Being robbed?
Being raped?
Having your purse or wallet stolen?
Having your house broken into?
Having your car broken into?
Having your home burn down?
Your relative developing a terminal illness?
You developing a terminal illness?
Being fired from your job?
Your business failing?
Being ‘sold to’ by an ad in a newspaper, on tv or in a magazine?
Being influenced by marketing?
And on and on and on.
According to Levine, we all think it’s more likely that any of the above will happen to someone else long before it will happen to us! And if you think you are NOT one of the gullible ones, guess what? Levine says often times you’re even the MOST gullible.
So this was all very interesting, and a shock to my system when I read it. But I enjoy being shocked because it gives me new information and ways of thinking that allow me to contemplate the world in new and interesting ways.
So how does this relate back to the fire? Just that I wanted you to put yourself in the shoes of the many here locally who have already lost their homes or at the very least, have had to leave their homes behind to stay with others, just in case. What’s happening in your mind? Next step–what’s happening with your emotions as you consider the ‘idea’ that most of the things you value today could be taken from you in a flash of the firestorm?
Are you struggling with what to take with you? What to leave? Who to stay with? What you’d have to replace? What you’d lose? How inconvenient it would be? Would the insurance cover it? Oh, the thousands of questions that probably go through each of our minds. Enough to completely boggled, as they say.
So, what WOULD you take? And how could you protect, to the best of your ability, the ones you love and the stuff you’d have to leave behind? Well, here’s some tips for you, just in care:
Take photos of all of your belongings. I’ve read this for years and it was only yesterday with the fire breathing disaster into our city, that I actually did it. With photos of property, your insurance has actual proof of what you owned and what they need to replace. If you haven’t done this yet, stop what you’re doing (if you’re at home), take your digital camera or phone, and start snapping shots!
In addition to your photos, make a list. In other words, go room by room and make an inventory of all of your belongings as well (or use the photos to do this). You can even list the value or purchase price if you remember. Once this inventory list is complete, add to it every time you buy something new of value.
Back up all of your computers to an online storage system. I use one called Mozy. It’s easy and only $4.95 a month. I back every thing up on hard disks also but if you had to leave in a real hurry, you might not even be able to grab that laptop. Since my Intellectual Property is my most valuable business asset, I love that it is backed up online.
Get a SAFE or use a safety deposit box for valuable papers, extra cash, coins, social security card (it’s not in your wallet still is it?), guns, jewelry, etc. In a fire or other disaster, looting is common so protect those things you only need once in a while by making them hard to get to!
Have a PLAN. Where have you hear THAT before. Perhaps things work out one way or another because we have or don’t have a good action plan in place. Sit your family, or just yourself, down for an hour or so and make sure everyone’s on the same page in terms of what you’d grab, where you’d go, where to meet up, etc. You WILL be grateful you did this and do it yearly. Put it on your calendar for January 1st each year to review and revamp.
There’s all sorts of other precautionary measures to take in terms of having water, first aid kits, food, etc. but I just wanted to touch on the ‘valuables’ tips today. We read this stuff all the time, but it’s the people who act on the tips that are glad they did. Don’t end up in the ‘I wish I have done that.” camp when disaster strikes in your neck of the worlds. Be prepared.
To find out, simply ask yourself these questions: