Money Camp Rantings

by Elisabeth Donati | Nov 4, 2007 | Financial Literacy, Financial Literacy Principles, Latest News, Uncategorized

So here I am, sequestered in a beautiful condo on a stunning beach in a little sleepy town called Cayucos, just south of Hearst Castle, if you know where that is. I’m here because of Laura. A sweet lady who attended one of my programs who offered me this space to finish my first book and, well, finish a couple of other projects I’ve needed alone time to do. I am indebted to her generosity and appreciate this space more than I can tell her!

I’ve gotten my Ultimate Allowance Book ready for the editor, finished 2008’s DayBook Planner, which I call the P3 system (for prior, proper, planning) and started to work on my next book, The Many Moods of Money. While I’ve been here though I’ve had access to this thing most people call a TV. I don’t have cable in my home. I chose to disconnect several years ago because for some reason I just can’t seem to let the seemingly inane stories and images not get the best of me. I also don’t want to turn into my mother who constantly talks back to her TV and radio. I know she knows they can’t hear her and that it doesn’t do any good or make any difference. Somehow though it makes her feel better; at least that’s how it seems. Personally, I don’t want the negativity in my life and I don’t feel it’s necessary for me to feel bad about a whole lot of things I can’t do anything about.

World Peace? Ya, I think it would be great, just like a lot of us profess to want. Is this possible though? Does it really matter what I think.

I want to go back to the TV thing. I’ve watched a few of the shows that if I had TV I would watch on a regular basis. Shows like Sunday Morning which reveal the pleasantness of life, albeit sometimes with a little edginess to just make you think a bit while you’re smiling and feeling good and chuckling at their little attempts at humor. Shows like House where the ‘mean’ doctor really does ‘mean’ well, even though he holds fast to his commitment of noncompliance and delightful attitude of stick it up your politically correct standards and protocols.

There’s a couple of major things that make me cringe about TV these day. First, I couldn’t believe the proliferation of drug ads. What are we doing? The strangest part was the juxtaposition of a CBS informercial with Hugh Downs on a ‘treasury’ book on natural health cures and things we don’t know about, with the constant serving of drug commercials during the Sunday Morning Show, sharing with us how all these drugs will make your lives more enjoyable (that is IF you don’t experience any of those annoying little side effects). It made me ill, but there was no drug available for this illness, except just turning the channel or, my favorite, using the MUTE button. I’m almost embarrassed to say I ordered the book, even though I had to practically yell at the poor sales guy for doing his job. I told him if he didn’t stop trying to sell me something else I would simply hang and he’d lose the order. I think they refer to this as upselling, but I’d rather refer to it as ‘upsetting’. I make no apologies, however, because health and fitness are one of my favorite topics and I do believe there’s things ‘they’ don’t want us to know. I’m looking forward to getting the book!

The second thing that irks me is how men in sitcoms are now portrayed as dumb, mumbling, incapable, ignorant animals and women are pushy, know it all, I can do it just as well as you can princesses. Did we do this for ratings? Did we do this because someone thinks it’s funny? Who started this trend? I remember when Friends first came on the scene. I really enjoyed it. What I didn’t appreciate, however, was the shift that Ross took; from smart, college graduate to blundering idiot. Who thought this was funny? There is nothing charming about the dumbing down of America and I find nothing charming or redeeming about the idiotizing of men. I find it repulsive at best and it reminds me why I shut the TV off in the first place. I love men. I love what they do for us. I love that they want to provide and take care of and I love that they are single focused to ‘get the job done’ even though we (the girls) may not exactly like how they are doing the job. My feeling is that if someone offers to do something for you, you might not want to be so picky about how it’s done.

Now, don’t get me wrong. If I could order the History Channel, A&E, the Comedy Channel and maybe Animal Planet, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But the way the system is set up now, I have to buy items in every isle of the grocery store when I only want some milk, a couple of bananas, a dead chicken and nice hearty loaf of whole wheat bread.

OK, so what can this possibly have to do with Money Camp, our new program Wealth Rules, my new book, The Ultimate Allowance or financial literacy for kids, teens, girls, boys, adults, employees or dogs (OK, maybe not dogs but there was a great article on Border Collies on Sunday Morning). I think it has to do with responsibility. Giving kids the tools they need to make educated choices instead of feeding them into a system where the only way they can think is the way they’ve been conditioned to think.

Adults for the most part, think they have to work for decades in order to accumulate enough money to retire on. But what if by that time you’re not healthy enough to do the things you always dreamed of doing? Worse yet, what if you never learn how to accumulate money in the first place? This is where the disservice lies.

What is, instead of accumulating money for decades, we could teach you, and your kids, to create financial freedom sooner so you could work because you want to, not because you have to? What if we could teach you how to start a little business, write a little book, invest in assets that could produce passive income (cash flow to live on) now? What if you could learn to become free now and get rich after that if you want? What if you really don’t need to accumulate that $1.8 million dollars at 6% invested conversatively? Maybe the old approach is so overwhelming that most folks just give up because it just doesn’t seem possible. But…what if you live on $3000 a month (I can!) and can spend the next 2 months (it can be done) or two years developing passive income of $3000 a month? Would you be free? YES! And this is the new philosophy that’s being taught and that we’ve embraces in all our financial education programs. Kids get so turned on by this idea they can hardly stand it and parents are helping them turn it into a reality.

I am pretty involved with the financial self-help industry (aka the seminar business) and I love it. It’s the quickest, easiest, cheapest way to get critical life-changing information to the public. It’s also a great business…there’s tons of money it and for good reason. Some people think that doing good and making money are mutually exclusive. I beg to differ. The most effective businesses are the ones that someone affect people’s lives in a positive way. Someone has to teach the stuff not taught in schools or at home. Someone has to teach us how and why to save and invest and why not to spend all our money on Piddlycrap! Someone has to teach us how men and women are different and how, with just a little of this knowledge, our relationships go from adversarial to partnership. And wouldn’t it be nice if someone raised adults who didn’t have to recover from their childhoods! After all, please remember that, as parents, we’re NOT raising kids. We’re raising adults!

So, how was YOUR parenting class? Oh, you didn’t take one? Me, either. I find it utterly amazing that the most important thing we do in life doesn’t require at least some form of education. Maybe it’s because there’s so many different opinions that no one can get any clarity on what exactly we’re supposed to be doing as parents. If you’d like my take on the subject, read on. And if I push a few buttons, good. Pushed buttons get us thinking.

1. Our number one duty as parents is to protect our children until they can do so themselves.
2. We must teach them how to protect themselves without making them afraid of others or the world.
3. We must prepare them to be in relationships with others (which is difficult since most adults can’t do this yet).
4. We must prepare them not only to handle money wisely, but invest it for their future and so that they have extra money to help others less fortunate.
5. We must teach them how to take care of their bodies (setting a good example would be a nice approach).
6. We must teach them that THEY are in charge of creating their lives. There are no victims, only excuses for not participating fully in life.
7. We must instill in them a sense of stewardship; for the earth, for others, for animals.
8. We must teach them to question everything; that everything is negotiable and that status quo is just something created by others who don’t want to deal with change.
9. We must teach them honesty at all costs, integrity above all and authenticity at all times, balanced with a sense of responsibility and sensitivity to others.
10. We need to teach them to love and accept themselves by loving and accepting ourselves.
11. We must stop being little and playing small so that we feel OK and that others feel OK around us. Playing small serves no one, least of all our children.
12. We must stop pitting one child against another child. Stop testing them and start accepting them exactly as they are…beautiful little creatures to mold and enjoy and watch with pure delight and joy.
13. We must trust that many times they know what’s best for themselves and learn not to answer all their questions but empower them with the ability to look inside and answer their own questions.
14. We must stop trying to live our lives through theirs and accept that they will want things that may not make sense to us. Who cares! Let them grow and learn just as we have.
15. We must stop instilling our limiting beliefs onto them and let them help us out of this mess we’ve gotten us into.
16. We must all learn that nothing has meaning except the meaning we give it and that every emotion we have (aside from a few hormonal outbursts if you’re a female but even those are controllable) is brought about by out thoughts that are brought about by our underlying, mostly undetectable, belief systems about everything in life.
17. We must let them know they are perfectly perfect exactly as they are. They don’t need to do a certain thing, be a certain way, say a certain word, wear a certain piece of clothing, marry a certain type of person, drive a certain type of car, own the latest toys, wear the latest shoes, etc. to be lovable, worthy and good enough. They are lovable, worthy and good enough just because they are alive!
18. And finally, we must learn not to take any of this too seriously, find the humor in everything and enjoy every second we have.

Again, what does this have to do with my financial literacy programs? Everything! This is what I teach my Money Camp Coaches. This is what we do our best to share with every person (regardless of age) who attends our programs. You come to a Money Camp or our new Wealth Rules! event thinking you’re going to learn about money, but you learn about so much more; you learn about life. Join us, won’t you?