by Elisabeth Donati | Feb 17, 2011 | Financial Literacy, Latest News, Uncategorized
Financial Literacy – The Old Paradigm
Many years ago, most parents felt that the only way their adult children would succeed in life was to go to college, get good grades, graduate and get a good steady, secure job.
This approach doesn’t work very well, however, for a kid who wants to be his own boss or absolutely doesn’t want to go to college. Often times the kids who don’t go to college are the ones who start businesses because 1) they didn’t like having a boss, and 2) they thought they could do a better job than the person they were working for.
Though most parents desperately want their kids to go to college, this may not be the best plan of action any longer. If we bear in mind that college is just A way and not THE way for kids to grow into financially savvy adults, perhaps fewer kids would leave high school feeling like failures.
College dropouts often shoulder huge amounts of student loan debt and credit card debt. Even those who finish and graduate from college often leave college with huge amount of debt, as well as unreasonable expectations with regard to the salaries their hard-earned degrees will fetch them.
Adult children are moving home with mom and dad at an unprecedented rate, finding low paying jobs; doing anything to make ends meet. Many aren’t working at all, which leaves mom and dad at a loss for what to do to help their adult children get on their feet so they’ll finally move out and stay out!
This situation would be significantly different if our youth received the right type of financial education before they left home in the first place. The problem is that the current financial literacy model doesn’t necessarily fit the future paradigm of today’s kids. What financial literacy means and what financial education entails needs to shift in order to recession proof our kids for an unknown economic future.
In the past, financial literacy meant teaching kids how to balance a checkbook, create a budget and learn to save.
Now, financial literacy needs to include how to invest in assets that produce passive income, learning that financial freedom means having more money coming in than going out, exploring the wonderful world of entrepreneurship and more. And without a doubt, it needs to include making money on the internet!
It used to be an unspoken expectation that the book-smart kids went to college and the street-smart kids went off to figure out how to make it in the world. Turns out those street-smart kids may be the adults who are now employing a lot of those book-smart kids.
What if we taught kids wealth literacy instead? What if we taught them all the skills they need to be self-sufficient–not just financially, but in all areas of life? And, what if we did this in school to ensure that when children become adults they have the skills necessary to live on their own, happily and prosperously?
Financial literacy – The Need For A Facelift
The face of financial education for kids needs to begin by acknowledging the simple fact that there are more students who don’t graduate from college than do graduate from college.
Financial literacy needs to expand past the typical save, save, save principles that are so regularly accepted in the field. Financial literacy must begin to morph into true wealth literacy and here’s why: More wealthy people in the world have done more good for the earth and the people living on it than any government agency or body has ever done.
If we begin to prepare our kids to create true wealth in their lives early on, we will have fewer problems with poor economies, unemployment and other social problems that stem primarily from money issues.
As a parent, you have the responsibility of preparing your children to be responsible, self-reliant adults. In the current educational culture, take an active role in preparing them to be financially responsible adults. You can accomplish this by making sure you are doing the right things, yourself (setting the best example), and giving them sufficient practice with the tools they need to create their futures (i.e., money).
At the same time, you can become active in your school’s governing body, continually asking the administration to teach more life skills education. Gather support from other like-minded parents to attend meetings to demand wealth literacy in your children’s education. It’s going to take some time, but your child’s future, and the state of our future economy is worth the effort.
To subscribe to this blog, just click here. Once or twice a week, you’ll receive my musings about financial education for kids and teens (and us big kids, too)! Please know that sometimes my ideas will invite you to think differently about money:-).
by Elisabeth Donati | Feb 14, 2011 | Financial Literacy, Uncategorized
Every day we are learning that individual debt is growing at an astronomical rate and people spend far more than they earn. Foreclosures, bankruptcies and consumer delinquency have reached an all time high. A major part of the problem has stemmed from the fact that the majority us were not provided with a financial education program either at home or in our schools. A financial education program and money management strategies should have been a compulsory part of our school curriculum.
In their book “Why We Want You To Be Rich” Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki stated that “the lack of financial education in America has caused the United States to have quickly gone from the richest country in the world to the biggest debtor nation in history”. Their concern is that “the rich are getting richer but America is getting poorer”. They expressed that there will be not be a Middle Class in America but a two-class society. People in America will either be rich or poor. This statement truly reflects the current financial reality of our society.
While many of us have graduated from schools and colleges and earning large sums of money, the majority are still uneducated about how money works. We were not taught how to manage and invest money which is an important life skill. A financial education program will teach you how to have money work for you instead of you working for money. It will educate you on matters such as balancing your check books, ways to save money, how to manage your credit, how to invest your money, what to do with your paycheck, how to pay off your debts, how to plan for your retirement, and how to achieve financial independence.
Lack of a proper financial education has made the majority of us become the prey to advertisers and credit card and other money lending institutions. These institutions are the ones becoming wealthy with our hard earned money. With a sound financial education we would be well equipped with the knowledge to exercise financial control and overcome the manipulations of the advertisers and unscrupulous credit companies who want us to spend above our financial means.
Many people dream of achieving financial independence and feel that it is unattainable. They think in terms of winning the lottery to achieve that goal. They do not envision that their dream to achieve financial independence can be molded in their own hands and that they are the masters of their financial destiny. What they fail to realize is that by using credit cards and being slaves of advertisers they are actually giving away their wealth. By getting into a financial education program and learning money management strategies and skills on how to manage your money you will have the cash flow to rapidly build your wealth. It will also provide a firm foundation to build a prosperous future.
When you implement the tools and knowledge you gain from a financial education program, you will be able to make sound financial decisions and overcome financial challenges and obstacles. You will also learn personal development, self restraint, discipline and financial control. You will learn how to create cash flow with your current income and how to accelerate payment and eliminate debt. Once you start debt elimination you will have the cash flow to build your wealth. A Financial Education program will teach you investment strategies for building your wealth which will in turn lead you on the right path to achieving true financial independence.
Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/wealth-building-articles/how-a-financial-education-program-can-help-you-achieve-financial-independence-1132088.html
About the Author
Indra Arman, a former Attorney at Law, now Business Coach and Mentor resides in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Indra assists serious entrepreneurs in building a profitable online business with multiple income streams. Indra and her team have assisted hundreds of people from doctors and lawyers to high school drop outs and single parents in generating profits that exceed $250k or more in their 1st year. For more information and to contact Indra visit http://www.indraarman.com
http://www.whoisindraarman.com
by Elisabeth Donati | Feb 12, 2011 | Latest News, Uncategorized
Written by a third grader, on what his grandparents do.
After Christmas , a teacher asked her young pupils how they spent their holiday away from school. One child wrote the following:
We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live in a big brick house, but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Arizona . Now they live in a tin box and have rocks painted green to look like grass. They ride around on their bicycles, and wear name tags, because they don’t know who they are anymore. They go to a building called a wreck center, but they must have got it fixed because it is all okay now, they do exercises there, but they don’t do them very well. There is a swimming pool too, but they all jump up and down in it with hats on. At their gate, there is a doll house with a little old man sitting in it. He watches all day so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out, and go cruising in their golf carts. Nobody there cooks, they just eat out. And, they eat the same thing every night – early birds. Some of the people can’t get out past the man in the doll house. The ones who do get out, bring food back to the wrecked center for pot luck. My Grandma says that Grandpa worked all his life to earn his retardment and, says I should work hard so I can be retarded someday too. When I earn my retardment, I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will let people out, so they can visit their grandchildren.
PRICELESS
by Elisabeth Donati | Feb 10, 2011 | Financial Literacy, Latest News, Uncategorized, WEALTHwork™, What you can do
Arbitrary Financial Rules of Life: The Cause of Most Suffering
Human beings have a tendency to create arbitrary rules, judgments, classifications, meanings and hence, emotions about the ‘stuff’ of our lives. I’ve heard it said more than once that we’re Meaning Making Machines. And it’s those meanings that we contrive that get us into trouble every day, in more ways than one.
Take the arbitrary rule that families ‘should’ spend holidays together. Who said? And what policeman is going to come arrest you if you decide to go to Cancun some December instead?
Take the arbitrary judgment that rich people are greedy. Who said? And if this is so, why do so many philanthropists exist?
Take the arbitrary classification that if you live in a big house you are rich and if you rent a room in someone’s home and write all day, you are poor. Who said? What if the person living in the room simply wants simple and quiet and the people living in the big house owe more on the house than they have equity in it?
Take the arbitrary meaning that if you’re not totally passionate and happy with what you do for a living, you can’t possibly become rich. Who said? It was only a couple of decades ago (at the most) that human beings decided that we need to “love what we do and the money will follow.” (We talked about this just last week.)
The ideas of wealthy and not wealthy and what it means to be those things is so arbitrary. We all know happy poor people and sad rich people and everything in between.
The following story is a perfect illustration of this idea and I just wanted to share it with you. Enjoy…
STORY FOR YOU…
One day, the father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the express purpose of showing him how poor people live.
They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family.
On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, ‘How was the trip?’
‘It was great, Dad.’
‘Did you see how poor people live?’ the father asked.
‘Oh yeah,’ said the son.
‘So, tell me, what did you learn from the trip?’ asked the father.
The son answered:
‘I saw that we have one dog and they had four.
We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.
We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.
Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.
We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.
We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.
We buy our food, but they grow theirs.
We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them.’
The boy’s father was speechless.
Then his son added, ‘Thanks Dad for showing me how poor we are.’
End of story…
So you see, as we’ve heard over and over again, life is relative and it’s often only with contrast that you get to see your life compared to someone else’s and see an alternative that you probably didn’t know existed for you.
When people say they ‘can’t’ move or are ‘stuck’, it’s often due to one of three things (or all of those things together):
1) They don’t know there are other options.
2) They are so fearful of change that they won’t choose another option even if they know it exists.
3) They really don’t want the other option badly enough (or goodly enough:-).
Your Wealth Work for today (like homework but better):
1) Look around your world and notice how you classify people, places, things, situations, etc. financially.
2) Ask yourself if those classifications are actually true (most of the time you will find they aren’t).
Financial Stress
3) Notice if those classifications cause you emotional distress in any way, be it comparing you to that other person, place or thing or feeling badly about yourself or negative emotions about another person. Could be practically anything.
4) Know that the information you are discovering in the first three pieces of this process are leading to your financial challenges in ways that you don’t have a clue.
5) If you haven’t done so, please invest in the book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, by T. Harv Eker. It’s the best book about there on financial beliefs and it changes people’s lives for the better when they consume it. Notice I didn’t say read it. I said invest in it and consume it.
I reread this book yearly and continue to learn more and more things about myself in terms of money, wealth, investing and a lot more. The deeper you go with yourself, the deeper you’ll be able to go the next time you take in the material.
Just something to think about!
p.s. If you really want to go deep, sign up for Eker’s Millionaire Mind Intensive Seminar. It’s usually free but in this case, you don’t get what you pay for. You get life-change in a big way and I highly recommend the program. I’ve been through almost all of his seminars and loved them. Learned a ton and am where I am partly because of his programs. Check them out…
by Elisabeth Donati | Feb 6, 2011 | Financial Literacy, Financial Literacy Principles, Media Attention, Uncategorized
I recently did a written interview for a new financial education website. The following is a copy of that interview. I thought perhaps people who didn’t know how Camp Millionaire got started might enjoy it.
1. When did you start the Creative Wealth website and why?
Our financial literacy website was started in 2001 as a way to publicize our first Money Camp for Kids summer camp. Since people were starting to look for things on the web, we knew it was important to have a presence there.
Over the years, the site has changed a few times (going to change again soon) but it continues to be the main source of customers and program referrals.
2. How did you come up with the idea of organizing camps?
I came up with the idea of building a profoundly effective financial education camp in 2000. I had been in the process of teaching myself about money and investing after I realized that the only reason I didn’t know about it was because no one ever taught me about it.
During that process, I noticed that people everywhere needed to learn what I was learning. I started thinking about how much I learned on the farms I grew up on and how much I knew about taking care of myself.
What I noticed was that without the skills to handle money and make it grow, I couldn’t care for myself when I was older. I would always have to work for money or be dependent on someone else. I didn’t like that idea at all.
Everywhere I went I noticed that people were talking about money in one way or another. How the price of everything was going up, how much in debt they were, the cost of gas, the cost of food, how much they saved…I heard people talk about money literally everywhere. On the street, in the store, at dinner parties, in the restroom!
The turning point happened when one day, I read a letter to the editor from a retired business attorney named Walt who was chastising people in Santa Barbara who were whining about how expensive real estate was. He basically said, “If you’d been doing with your money what you should have been doing with your money since you started making money, you’d have money to invest in a house…even in Santa Barbara.”
But it was his next paragraph that hooked me. He asked, “So…when, as a nation, are we going to start teaching our kids about money?”
Well, it hit me like a lightning bolt. I stood up at work a few hours later (I’d been thinking about this for a few hours) and said aloud, “Why doesn’t someone just create a money camp for kids so they can learn what we didn’t when we were young?”
I said it just to say it but you know what happens when you ask questions like that. YOU end up doing it. And that’s how it happened.
3. Why is financial literacy for kids so important to you?
Because I think to not teach kids about money and investing is child abuse. If our number one responsibility as parents is to make sure our children grow into adults who can be 100% responsible for themselves and their future families, then we MUST teach them how money works. If we don’t, we have failed as parents…period!
A mother lion makes sure her cubs can hunt before sending them out on their own. As a nation, we are filling our children’s heads full of useless information they will more than likely never use as adults and we call that giving them an education.
An education would be empowering them to create happy, successful, healthy lives…full of satisfying relationships and wonderful life experiences.
It takes learning about money, about health, about communication, about the difference between girls and boys (women and men), how to dress, common sense, common courtesy and a whole lot more to make it in this world.
My Camp Millionaire workshops (the name was changed in 2006) and The Money Game teach kids more than money. They learn to shake hands. They learn supportive financial belief systems.
They study the habits of successful, wealthy people. And no, teaching children about money doesn’t make them greedy or care about money above all else. It teaches them to respect the power of money to make their dreams come true and help others make their dreams come true as well. Our campers learn that making money doing good is the best thing you can ever hope to accomplish.
4. What challenges have you faced with your business and how did you overcome them?
The biggest challenge is that most kids would rather go to soccer camp or zoo camp or baseball camp than go to a money camp. Why? Because they don’t know how much fun it is and the don’t realize how vitally important the information will be to them when they older.
They also see how stressed out their parents and other adults are about money and they might already think it’s not a fun subject.
But the biggest challenge is empowering parents to be parents…to do the right thing for their kids. To make sure they know what they need to know to grow up and be responsible adults.
I overcome that challenge by empowering the parents I talk to do the right thing. I paint pictures of kids who end up moving home in their 20s or worse. I ask them questions about what they really want for their kids.
The other challenge is that the school systems are bogged down in the ‘no child left behind’ act and the only thing that has done is to leave every child behind.
Teachers can’t teach anymore. They teach to the tests and the tests mean absolutely nothing.
I tell the teens in my programs that college is A way, not THE way to having a successful life. They get it! Most kids already question how relevant the information they are learning in school is to their future. When you provide relevant information they see they need and can use, they never stop asking question. They are starving for information they see is relevant and important to their lives.
In truth, I’m still overcoming both of these hurdles but every year it gets a little bit easier because more schools are actually looking for good financial education programs and teachers are willing to do whatever it takes to bring this information to their students.
Parents also are looking for ways to teach their kids about money. With so many adults struggling financially these days, the pain is motivating parents to make sure their kids don’t end up in the same place or have to learn the hard way like they have.
Now the only challenge is that people want FREE and you always get what you pay for. That’s all I’ll say about that.
5. What successes have you faced and how did they help you to improve?
My first success was my first Money Camp for Kids in 2002 with 39 kids! I have no idea what we did with 39 kids but they learned a great deal and we learned even more than the kids about what it was going to take to build the best financial education program on the planet.
That first camp led to my discovering and becoming an expert in what is called accelerated learning. These teaching techniques propelled The Money Game and Camp Millionaire to the top in terms of fun and effectiveness.
Another success was my first Teacher Training in 2004 with 25 attendees. I had never done anything like that before and when we were finished after 3 days, they stood up and gave me a standing ovation. That was an amazing feeling and I knew I was onto something huge.
That training eventually turned in our 5-day financial education Train-the-Trainer that blows people away in terms of how to teach what we teach, how The Money Game works and oh, yah, there’s a ton of personal growth that happens in that program. People leave my train-the-trainer as different people, better people…people much more aware of their actions with money and motivated to change what they’re doing (if they need to) and take the information to as many children as possible.
The successes that I love the most, however, come as emails from parents who tell me about the conversations they’re still having with their kids. A favorite is when we get cards from teachers who tell us they love teaching even more; that their students love coming to THEIR classes because they now use the accelerated teaching techniques to teach everything.
Sometimes we get telephone calls from someone who took a camp from us just to say thank you.
But the best is when we run into someone on the street who waves us down to say that we changed their life. There is nothing better than that!
6. What are some powerful tools/resources you suggest for kids/parents who want to learn more about money rules?
The most important thing is to make an effort to teach your kids everything you possibly can about money and investing. But you can’t do it by lecturing. Do it by giving kids the opportunity to learn for themselves.
In my Ultimate Allowance book I give parents the three keys to raising money savvy adults:
Set the best example possible. In other words, if you’re in debt, get out. Use a budget, pay cash, only buy what you can afford, save some money and invest some of what you save. Let your children SEE you and HEAR you and WATCH you be responsible with YOUR money.
Talk to your children about everything money related. Parents often want to spare their kids worrying about money. But they’ll worry about money if you DO spare them this conversation. Talk to your kids about bills, your mortgage, insurance. Let them help you with the family budget (you have one, right?), take them to see the family accountant, let them write checks, etc. Let them know what being financially responsible looks like.
Give them the opportunity to learn by experience. This means they nust be put in charge, as early as possible (age 6 is good), of handling money and buying what they need. Each year you add a few more things they’re responsible for. Basically, you run the money you would normally spend ON them THROUGH them instead. Let them learn by making mistakes, having success with money, etc. The system I each includes helping them learn to invest and donate some of their money as well.
BONUS #1: Teach your children to start their own businesses so you empower them to be the CEO of their own lives. Let’s create independent adults who can think for themselves and take care of themselves, instead of adults who are always dependent on jobs and others for everything they need.
BONUS #2: For parents with have older teens, I always suggest they PAY them to read books about money and investing. Give them $25 per book and require a book report on each chapter and a conversation with the teen about how they can use the information they read in the book. This is one of the best investments parents can make in their children’s future!
Elisabeth Donati Bio:
Elisabeth Donati is the owner of Creative Wealth Intl., LLL, creator of Camp Millionaire and The Money Game. She is author of The Ultimate Allowance and writes a weekly blog called Financial Wisdom with a TWI$T.
Elisabeth is an expert in teaching the basic financial principles people need in a way that is engaging, empowering and fun. For information, visit www.innerwealthpublishing.com or call 805-957-1024.
by Elisabeth Donati | Feb 3, 2011 | Financial Literacy, Latest News, Uncategorized, What you can do
Most of us have been asked, at some point in our lives, “What do you want to do, or who do you want to be, when you grow up?” Innocent enough question, right? Surprising as it might be, this one question can put pressure on a child that will plague him the rest of his life. How can we really know anymore?
The following is a funny little history lesson I wrote this morning for your amusement (Jan enjoyed it!). The times and events are lacking accuracy but, if this doesn’t put a smile on your face, a chuckle in your spirit and a question or two in your mind, I’ll go back to snorkeling on Virgin Gorda where I was yesterday. It was heaven.
Pre-Moneyist Erectus Era
A long, long time ago, most of the activities we spent our time on were connected to survival. We needed food, shelter, protection, herbs for medicine, and I suppose we needed a little human connection and some down time even way back then.
We spent our time hunting, gathering, picking berries, cooking, defending our mates, making sure the little ones weren’t eaten by the ever present saber-tooth tiger and oh, if we had enough energy as the sun went down, perhaps we’d paint a picture of our lives with a colored rock on a rock of another color.
We’d also sit around (on the dirt, in a cave, and eventually a fire) and tell stories to the youngsters…passing down the hows and whats of survival in the tundra or desert or wherever…maybe even sharing a joke or two.
Every thing we did had a purpose because, if we didn’t do those things, we were dead. And what good was that in the whole survival of the fittest scheme of things?
Life wasn’t hard because that’s all we knew. There were no computers to calculate the sunset or give us the tide chart for the next 12 months or figure out our estimated cost of goods for the next 10 years. We simply had stuff to do!
And as I said, that stuff often made the difference between whether we survived or not. To heck with whether we survived in the biggest cave or had the prettiest pot. We were just happy to have a cave and a pot to…call our own.
Do I have to go to work today?
We didn’t have time to ask the absurd questions, “Am I really enjoying what I’m doing?” or “Is this line of work bringing me satisfaction and joy?” Forget joy…we were just trying to stay alive.
Financial Erectus Era
During the next hundreds of thousands of years, before there was this thing called Money, we traded, or bartered, for what we needed. If I had a skill that you didn’t have, and you grew oranges, then I could do that thing for you and you could ‘pay me’ in oranges. Life was good. (I like oranges.)
But what if there were something I needed done that no one around was able to do? Or what if I needed something done but I didn’t have any more oranges to trade for having it done? What then?
Well…someone with half a brain might have seen the ‘opportunity’, quickly learned how to do that thing or make that thing, and the gap was covered. This opportunistic person probably didn’t question whether he liked the activity or it gave him purpose. Again, he was probably doing it to survive, feed his family of 13 kids, keep the roof from blowing off the house and keep the cow fed so it would produce enough milk to feed all those kids.
He was grateful to have found a place for himself in the Supply and Demand Cog and again, life was good. It might have been hard, but in the scheme of things, it was good nevertheless.
About this time, people started noticing that other people wanted items or services that weren’t necessarily necessary for life. They just wanted them. They were extras…luxuries in a lot of ways.
Homo-Entrepreneureth Erectus
This is when a new breed of human beings really started to take note. They started noticing that, “If I build it, they will buy it!”
And they did.
This is where things probably started to get sticky. This is where we started placing ‘value’ on stuff, be it a thing or someone’s time and energy. This is where we had to find a substance to trade for this extra stuff that we wanted, and this substance ended up being called Money.
And this is where I suspect we started valuing one person’s skills more than another and, hence, putting them in classifications with respect to what they ‘did’ in the world.
It’s probably when we started meeting people and asking the benign, but underhandedly curious, question…
“So…what to YOU do?”
Secretly, we’re trying to figure out where we should place them on the continuum between NOT successful or rich (or having no possible potential to be rich) on one side and MADE IT status or extremely rich (or having tons of potential to be rich in the future) on the other side.
It’s as if that person IS what they DO. But we’re not what we DO. We’re WHO we are BEING.
Somewhere during this time, enough human societies started to have this thing called Leisure Time and I think that’s where the trouble really started.
People started to question what they were DOING, instead of who they were BEING. They had enough time to contemplate their chosen survival activity.
They started to notice that there were actually human beings who were DOING better things…things that brought those people happiness and joy and a sense of purpose beyond survival.
They started to say, “I want what THEY have!” (Ah, maybe the neighbor’s last name was Jones!)
Questioneth Preemptacus Era
Fast forward to, oh, let’s say the last 100 years or so. From everything we read or hear, it appears that a large percentage of human beings live their lives miserably, BEING what they’re DOING for a living (i.e., surviving) yet despising every moment.
We could (and often do) say they are wasting the time of their lives DOING something they hate (still not questioning much, if at all, who they are BEING)…all because now we’ve introduced this BIG CHOICE into human consciousness between enjoying what we do to survive or, heaven forbid, having to find some altruistic purpose in what we DO. (More on that at another time.)
Existentialist Comtemplatith Adnausiumeth Era
By now, you’re probably asking, What the heck is she talking about here and where is she going with it? Let me tell you…
I have a son who I adore, just like you adore your sons and daughters. He’s 26, working full time in what he studied in college and, like many of our adult children (and their parents), he is struggling with that particular career path he chose.
He’s bored and hates doing what he’s doing for a living and I’m doing my best to coach him to find a way to provide for his survival while finding some joy or happiness or purpose in his work.
This got me to thinking the thoughts I’ve had over and over before about how we didn’t used to (or so it seemed) have this HUGE need to make sure we had joy and happiness and purpose in our work. Or have we always had it?
Have men and women always secretly despised what they had to do for survival? Have people cursed their bosses (and owners and kings and queens) under their breath, secretly wishing they could go out into the world and live lives filled with purpose, connection and joy?
I think so.
But how do I help my son see that, as a society, we’ve made this whole thing up? He told me last night that he’s torn between watching his father with his Hewlett-Packard golden handcuff job and seeing me, his mother, spend her life doing things she adores, that fill her life with passion and purpose…and having a lot more fun that his father seems to have. But I do know that’s subjective.
What I know is that kids these days are torn. Torn between doing a job just for survival and doing something that brings them a whole lot more.
You may be reading this and thinking to yourself, “Yup, I totally get it. I don’t like what I do but I have to do it to survive.”
NO YOU DON’T! You can do anything you want. And that’s what I’m attempting to show my son.
I believe it’s BELIEFS about what our lives should look like as adults that drive us to this…and those beliefs are often fear-based. I believe we instill those beliefs in our children at a very young age by what we say in front of them, what we tell them and by what we do with our own lives.
I believe that if our children saw US living our dreams, we’d empower them to live theirs.
Only problem is that most of us have no idea how to live our dreams. We have no idea that we’re living in a self-created Fahrenheit 451 of our own (thanks Ray). And until we realize, as adults, that we really don’t have to do the things we hate (unless we choose to do them to survive which is perfectly OK), we can craft our lives the way we want.
If you’re in one of those spaces where you’re not happy, I can hear you saying, “Ya, right. She doesn’t have a clue that MY life is different.”
But for those of us who live in parts of the world where we have choice, we do have opportunities that we don’t see, opportunities we don’t take, opportunities that get placed at our feet every day that we walk around because, well, the idea of actually DOING those things scare us to death.
You see, sometimes it’s easier to be miserable…to not have what we say we want. It can be a lot of work to craft the life you really want.
The only question you need to ask yourself is, “Is it worth the effort, MY effort?”
For me, the answer is always YES. For my son, I’ll continue coaching him as long as he allows me the privilege. It’s an honor to have him look to me for help and I never take that honor lightly.
So please, look at the example you’re setting for the youngsters around you. Pay attention to your children’s moods and angst when it comes to their job/career choices. Be vulnerable and share your own fears, concerns, dreams and desires.
Maybe if we’re all up-front about the elephant in the room, we can befriend him, put a pink polka-dot dress on him and dance our lives away with him.
Enjoy…
Btw, I’m going back to the heavenly snorkeling place anyway!
