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Inspiring kids to be entrepreneurial.

Jay Bennett- The Steps to Success!

July 8th, 2012

On our journey, we are finding many opportunities coming our way. Some of these opportunities involve speakers who have achieved enormous success in their chosen fields of endeavour. What makes them so inspiring though, is that whatever message they give, whatever company they work for, the principles of success are the same. One such speaker is an inspiring Californian man named Jay Bennett. He has been extremely successful in his chosen endeavour of Network Marketing.

Jay Bennett

Jay is a very fit and healthy man whose appearances can fool you into thinking he is many years younger than what he actually is. He is a walking billboard for the health and well-being industry. Jay speaks with humour and confidence and has a very good message for people who are aspiring for success.

Jay Bennett spoke for two hours and had us all captivated by his insights and passion for helping others achieve health and success. His talk was titled the “Steps to Success”. I thought that his message was very powerful and wanted to share it with our readers.

Dream

If you haven’t really thought about what your dream is then Jay suggests that is where you should start. Identify your real dreams and what you want in your life. Where do you want to be in ninety days? One year? Three years from now? Set goals.

“You have to have a dream to make a dream come true!”

Foundation for Success- ABC’s

Attitude
•   Having a Great Attitude always equals Great Results.
•   Focus on the solution, not the problem.
•   Associate only with positive people.
•   Attitude does determine success in every area of your life.

Belief
•   Believe in the industry, the company, the products, and financial opportunity.
•   Most important- believe in yourself.
•   Believe that you are more than capable and deserve success.
•   Your level of belief determines your level of success.
•   Listen to motivational audios and read motivational books and go to events.

Commitment
•   Success is one step at a time.
•   Following through on your dreams.
•   Success is a journey not a destination- commit to the journey.
•   Success is a matter of hanging on when others have let go.

Jay Bennett and Family

Jay Bennett made a big deal about mixing with the right people and keeping yourself focused and motivated. The best way to do that is to regularly attend talks and seminars such as this one.

I found a video of Jay talking about this very topic. Click Here to see him share his wisdom!

To receive a free ebook on developing success, you can visit his website here.

Hopefully you too picked up on some of his energy!

We’ve asked Kaitlin, Jai and Flynn to share about their Green SuperCamp experience in Bali. Don’t miss all the pictures, videos and excitement!

Flynn’s Honey Turns to Gold!

July 5th, 2012

When we last visited Flynn and his Honey Enterprise, he had just acquired 90kgs of quality raw honey from his Grandad’s bee hives in Geraldton. Flynn had also placed a bulk order for plastic honey pots. He was now ready to fill them up and make his first sale!

Warming the honey.

Honey pots ready to fill.

His honey was held in buckets that weighed over 10kgs. To get the honey from the buckets into the 400gm honey pots was not going to be that easy. Firstly the honey was very thick, making it tedious to decanter into the pots, and secondly it required strength to hold the honey bucket for pouring.

The production line.

Quick! Gimme another pot!

Flynn called on his mates to help. He poured the buckets into a large pot and heated it to 50 degree Celsius. This temperature wasn’t high enough to destroy the enzymes that make raw honey so beneficial, but it was high enough to make the honey fluid.

Mmmm... smells good!

Giving each pot a rinse in fresh water.

The kitchen table was wiped down and set up for the honey pot production line. The team were excited about finally seeing the product in the pots. I helped pour, whilst Flynn and his gang filled and capped jars. The jars were washed on the outside to ensure there was no stickiness and then labelled with Flynn’s “Howitt’s Honey” labels.

First batch stacked and ready to label.

The labels!

Flynn’s product looked clean, pure and professional. He understood that to get a market edge and to be able to sell his honey for a premium, his first class product needed to be well packaged and hygienic.

Flynn carefully drew up a poster pointing out the benefits of his product. This he attached to the boxes containing the honey pots. He had researched what honey sells for in the shops and online. He worked out what he could sell his honey for and still make a decent return. To provided an incentive to customers, he offered a special price if they bought more than one pot at a time. Marketing his honey required little effort. In fact visitors to our home took an interest in his honey and his honey began to sell. He gained permission from his school Principal and left a box in their staffroom. He organized with a teacher friend of ours from another school, to place a box in their staffroom, and he approached the local General Store where he was allowed to sell his pots of honey for a small commission.

Developing the brand "Howitt's Honey".

Flynn's first sale!!

His honey was selling well and it wasn’t long before he needed to re-stock all his boxes. As word got out about his product, people even began placing small orders via the telephone.

Flynn’s “Howitt’s Honey” business went very well except for one problem which I’ll explain here…

Raw honey has many health benefits that you would be hard pressed to find with processed honey. However, a downside with raw honey is that, over time, it will candy (begin to solidify). This occurs especially when the room temperature drops, like during winter. Flynn’s honey that had been waiting to be sold began to candy in the honey pots. People don’t generally want to buy honey that has hardened (hence why commercial honey producers process their honey using heat, as this stops it from candying).

Luckily this problem only happened to the last remaining pots that had been awaiting sale. He brought these home, opened them up and scraped the honey into a pot and heated it back to 50 degrees. This again, liquidized the honey and he returned it to the pots. We bought those last pots for our family. The lesson learned was that Flynn needs to sell his raw honey product before it shows signs of candying and he needed to inform his customers as to what to do if their honey does so.

Profits from Flynn's Honey Enterprise

Flynn’s net profit from his honey enterprise was outstanding!! He achieved his goal that he set before he embarked, plus much more. He learned many lessons along the way and recognized that it was a lot of work, but satisfying work! Flynn has become an expert in the honey business and has gained enormous skills and understandings of how to run an enterprise.

Flynn may now be ready to take his honey enterprise to another level. We hope to guide Flynn to move from being a small business owner to being an entrepreneur! How we do that will be shared in another Enterprise for Kids blog!

For those of you interested in having your own honey enterprise, or you would like your own bee hive for a regular supply of raw honey for your family and friends; then you could seek out an expert (such as Flynn or his Grandad) to get you started, or do a course. Or you could simply download an ebook written by a professional to your kindle. Here is one I found that looks like it covers everything anyone would need to know.

Our next post will definitely energize you! We met an inspirational man who presented “tips to being highly successful” that are well worth thinking about!

We would love to hear from you all, so please leave a comment!

New from Old… Project 2!

July 2nd, 2012

Amber’s Rabbit Hutch project was hugely successful with her making an easy sale with excellent profit! She now was looking for a new Enterprise for Kids project to keep her enterprise momentum moving forward. So she planned to visit the Geraldton Recycling Centre with her Gran to see if she could find another opportunity.

Amber finds an interesting item.

Amber negotiates with the Recycling Man

Amber's pine timber display shelves.

She was under instructions to only bring home something small, as we were to return to Burekup and we had a lot to fit into the car.

What Amber found was a small pine display cupboard. She thought that it would make a good doll house. As an alternative she could simply tidy it up and re sell it.

Click this link to see Amber tell about her plan for her new project!

She negotiated with the Recycling Centre man (batted her big blue eyes!) and bought the shelves for a couple of dollars. She sanded it back, gave it a coat of varnish and advertised it.

Sold for $15!!

... after a lick of varnish!

Once again Amber was happy with her profit. She added her cash to her money jar in readiness for her next Enterprise for Kids opportunity.

We’ve watched Amber’s confidence skyrocket from running her little business. She is developing skills to negotiate and with marketing. She is also learning to spot an opportunity. All important skills to becoming an entrepreneur!

We do hold the crystal ball and we know what Amber gets up to next! You will be amazed by the opportunities she finds.

Stay tuned for our next entrepreneurial blog. We will find out whether Flynn has been able to sell his honey!

A Fishy Enterprise!

June 30th, 2012

As a kid I loved keeping pets. In fact many people referred to our suburban home as being the local zoo. Kids from all over the neighborhood would come by to see the goings-on in our back yard.

I had a huge fish pond which, during the summer, would be teaming with little colourful fish. The fish first started out in my aquarium and as they multiplied they ended up in the pond. By the end of the summer there would be so many

Breeding poultry to sell is easy. Remember to only use quality birds.

that if I didn’t find homes for them they would over populate the pond and wipe themselves out. So I would catch them by the hundred, put them into big buckets and take them off to the local aquarium shops. The shop owners were happy to get my fish and paid me 50 cents each. Thirty five years ago this amounted to a lot of money.

One time though, I remember delivering a bucket full of sword tails, which are renowned for jumping. The

Swordtails love to jump! They are a low maintenance fish that can be bred in ponds.

aquarium shop owner left the bucket on the ground without a lid whilst he went about his shop business. He returned later in the day to find nearly all the fish on the ground!

I’d also divide up the water lilies and pull out huge amounts of water plants that were thriving in the summer heat in the pond and sell them at the same aquarium shops. All up my hobby pet breeding enterprise well and truly paid for itself!

Our aquarium.

Today I still keep aquarium fish and breed them in ponds during the summer. Some of my children have taken an interest in them and keep fish as well.

A close friend of the family, Brayden, stopped by our place and showed an interest in my fish. I told him what I was doing and the story of how I would sell them to the aquarium shops.

Fifteen year old Brayden also kept

Guppies are also easy to breed and sell.

fish. He had an aquarium full of guppies. As a result of our conversation he took all his guppies down to the local pet shop and sold them for $2.50 each. He was so pleased with his fish sale that he began playing with figures as to whether or not it would be worth trying to farm aquarium fish as an enterprise. His figures stacked up and he told me that he had acquired several large fish tanks. He had done his research on fish and worked out which were easy to breed and which were sort after by the aquarium shops.

His aquaculture enterprise is just beginning and has the potential to do very well. I’ll keep you posted with how he goes.

Baby rats sell for $5 each and a mother rat will have babies every five weeks.

Here are some helpful tips if you are considering breeding animals or plants to sell. Choose quality stock to breed from, from the start. Look for animals or plants that have a higher price tag. It is just as easy to breed a $2 guppy as it is to breed an exotic $30 guppy. So why not choose the latter.

Also don’t be afraid to cull inferior fish based on colour, shape and size. Keep your very best stock for breeding as these will produce the best offspring. Feed them well and only sell young quality animals. It is important to develop a good reputation with the pet shops. Maintain pure strains. These will always look the best and demand the best price.

Breed white peacocks. They are much more valuable than standard peacocks!

Make sure you do your research before breeding pets. Some animals can prove to be very difficult to keep and breed and may require expensive equipment and services to keep them in top breeding condition. Ask the pet shops what animals they are regularly looking for. Become the expert on the pet you’re planning to breed.

Lastly, consider selling your pets on Facebook, ebay, or one of the internet buy and sell sites. These are free to advertise on and have huge followings of prospective customers.

Brayden has an interest in a "Fishy Enterprise"

Maybe you too can develop a pet enterprise, or at least have your pets pay for themselves! Here are a few ebooks that could help you to develop your expertise with a pet breeding enterprise… Aquarium Fish, Guinea Pigs, Pet Rats, and Chickens.

Our next blog will take us back to the Enterprises our children have been running. Find out how they are going and the lessons they are learning along the way…

Money… We All want it, but at what Cost?

June 25th, 2012

In the last blog we spoke about “who it is that teaches our kids about money”. We’d like to delve a little deeper with this topic in this blog. Our intention is to build an understanding of why most of us have settled into the role of being a “worker” rather than following the “entrepreneurial” path. You will also learn a little more about what we are endeavoring to achieve as a family.

Our kids, like all kids, want to have their own money so that they can have a little independence and buy the things that they want. In our family our children sometimes receive money when it is their birthday and they also get a little pocket money.

Kaitlin, our eldest, has a part time job working at a local Brewery serving lunches and doing the kitchen work. She works hard and it pays pretty well. However, to take on a job, she loses some of her weekends and time to do her school work and have a social life. She also commits time to regular baby sitting work for some of the families in the area.

At present the money mindset of my children is much the same as ours, which is likely to be the same as most other people, and that is to earn money, spend and borrow money!

Generally most of us either have a job where we give time for a salary or we have a business where we give our time for a monetary return. Whatever the case, we are tied down and limited with what money we earn and we sacrifice our time for it. Sound familiar?

The funny thing is, that right from an early age we are conditioned to accept this to be the norm and often our minds are generally closed off to entrepreneurial ideas and opportunities. Our schools train us and prepare us for the workforce. Our parents will do the same by pointing us towards a vocation.

Adding to this, media advertising, TV, politicians, universities and our peers all guide us towards getting a job. It is all around us, well intentioned people and institutions all keeping us on the “straight and narrow” pathway of getting a job (earn!), then spending our money on things (spend!) and then borrowing money to spend on more things (borrow!).

Finance companies advertising loans

Look at the people around you and you will see this pattern repeated everywhere. People with expensive things like houses, TVs, holidays, cars, boats and caravans. Most are servicing mortgages to pay for it all. The more things they acquire during their lives the harder and longer they have to work to pay for the things. Most people can see no way out of their situation and accept that this is what is supposed to happen. The average Australian spends about $1.15 out of every dollar they earn!

The Rat Race!

In fact most of us have been conditioned to accept this money mindset which locks us into the“Rat Race!”

Now you may challenge us by saying, what’s wrong with our kids entering the workforce, what’s wrong with spending what they earn and borrowing some more! Honestly, there is nothing wrong or right about it at all. It is just what it is.

For us though, we’re looking for a new direction where we have the time to follow our passions and to be able to give freely to our family, community and world without worrying how to pay for it. Our goal is to break out of the “worker” mindset.

We seek to know how the relatively few, “financially and time free” people managed to rise above the Rat Race. We want to know what they do that is different. How do they think and what is their conditioning around money mindset!

What’s more, we wish for our kids to grow up with the mindset of an entrepreneur! It is important to us that they get a “financial education”.

A Financial Education won't come from the teacher.

From what we’ve discovered so far, is that kids need to start very early to develop their entrepreneur mindset and the skills needed to manage money and build enterprise. They need role models who can foster a different thinking and parents who encourage and look for opportunities that foster enterprise. Open discussions about money and business will help to develop a financial education for kids.

We desire for our seven children to grow up having choices. We want their pathways to be wide with opportunity! We encourage them to follow their passion and not be conditioned into the “earn, spend and borrow” mindset. We hope that they will think differently, have belief in themselves and develop the habits of people who have achieved personal and financial freedom.

We know we have a challenge ahead of us, as our kids have already been conditioned from an early age. Using Kaitlin as an example; she earns money, spends freely and already has a debt. She is studying hard to go to university with all her friends and then ultimately to get a good paying job. Once again I’ll point out that there is no right or wrong about this, only that we would like her to see that there are other ways.

It is always going to be a challenge whilst we have that same conditioning and mindset. Although striving to change our thinking, we recognise that it will take time and persistence to learn new habits and shift old belief systems. However, we are very confident that this year, is the year that we will have a break through. We have enlisted the help of a Money Mindset personal mentor, who is helping us develop a new thinking. He is there to help us transform in our thinking through our actions…. and as we do so, so will our children.

With our up coming blogs we will share his education with you.

Who Teaches Your Kids About Money?

June 20th, 2012

If you don’t teach your kids about money, then there are plenty of people out there who will! And not all of them will teach your children what they really need to know.

Kids are conditioned by media and celebrities.

Our kids are educated financially from many sources whether we like it or not. Everywhere they go and everything they look at is conditioning our kids around money.

Teenage kids, for example, are very influenced by their peers, TV and social media. They are pressured to want to have all the latest and greatest of everything! AND…they have to have it now! If you have a teenager in your house (or even a preteen!), you will understand this very well. They will tell you that they are the “only” ones in the “whole world” who doesn’t have one! And if you try to compromise with a cheaper version from Target,… well, forget it! Brand name or nothing!

Many parents fall into the trap of giving into their kids’ persistent demands. We have…..more times than we should have!… and the older a kid gets, the better they are at arguing their point. Some parents may lend their child the money with the view of having them pay it back when they can afford it, or some simply pay for the item fully and don’t expect their child to pay anything back.

But what is this teaching children?

Our son Flynn was preparing to go on a camp with his school. He claimed that ALL the kids would have iPods and that he wanted to buy one to take on camp.

He counted up his money and found that he was short about $100. He was very persistent in his request and we decided to sit down and have a conversation with him around the value of money.

Our dilemma was this – If we were to say an outright “NO, we can’t afford it” then we would be conditioning him with a mindset around “lack of money.”

If we said “YES”, then we would be conditioning him with the mindset to “borrow, then spend!”….and probably not appreciate it too much.

So……………we came up with a solution we had been taught in our mentoring course.

We said “YES”. He could buy an Ipod……however, we weren’t able to pay for it. We brainstormed ideas with Flynn on how he could raise $100. Time was of the essence as he was going on camp in three days.

We came up with ideas such as increasing the marketing of his honey that he was selling through his Honey Enterprise; sell some of his unwanted things such as his surf board; or do a deal with his sister and buy the items she had lined up to sell as part of her “New from Old” enterprise and then resell them with mark up.

The discussion gave him motivation, and we took the punt that if he was really keen for the iPod, then he would make it happen.

The point of all this is that we didn’t automatically say “No, we can’t afford it”…… and we didn’t say “Yes, and we will pay for it”. Rather, we put the onus on Flynn to work out a way to achieve his goal without getting himself into debt. We used this opportunity to teach Flynn about money.

Our Money Mindset Mentor, Paul Counsel, says that in our society, kids are conditioned to “earn, spend and borrow” from a very early age. This conditioning carries through to adulthood and ties people to a job. They need this job to pay for the interest payments on their “things”.

Sporting heros are used to condition people.

It is hard for our kids to avoid this type of conditioning. Their sporting idols appear on TV advertisements telling them what a great investment they are making if they buy x,y or z……and finish with a trusting wink!

Celebrities promote all sorts of things from insurance and jewellery to holidays. Retailers offer low cost, easy monthly payments for expensive items that people really can’t afford. There goes the “earn, spend and borrow” cycle again. Even airlines offer credit these days!

The education faculties don’t teach your kids about money either. In fact they will also put young people into tremendous debt by financing their higher education courses. Young people who spent five years working hard for a qualification, come out at the end with a massive debt!

Locked into debt before you can even begin!

Here is a hard fact… this year the total amount of student loan debt in the US hit the $1 trillion mark. Back in 2010, the amount of U.S. student loan debt surpassed the total amount of credit card debt, and it continues to grow. The trend in Australia is following that of the US.

We can look at life as being a game full of experiences! We are here on earth to play the game. Yet from an early age the odds are stacked against us to achieve personal and financial freedom when we are “conditioned” to earn, spend and borrow for unproductive things.

Can this change? Absolutely.

And who is the best person to teach this change to your children?

Well, if you have already achieved financial and personal freedom, then the best teacher is YOU!

And if you haven’t, then find someone who has achieved the type of financial or personal success you would like for your kids. You may even learn something in the process. 🙂

Portrait Artist in the Making!

June 17th, 2012

Kait with that winning smile!

Before we revisit Kaitlin and her Portrait Artist Enterprise, we wanted to share about the idea of manifesting what you desire into reality. We believe having a little understanding about this will make all the difference to achieving goals, dreams and enterprise for kids.

If you have ever watched the movie “The Secret”, which is all about understanding the Laws of Attraction, then you would have some understanding of Quantum Physics. The Secret explains how to manifest things that you desire into reality. It explains that you must firstly see and believe whatever it is that you want, then you evoke it (or emote it) into existence. If all goes well, the thing you desire will at some stage certainly materialise.

Kaitlin procrastinating!

The more we have been learning about Quantum Physics through the studies that we are doing at the moment with our Mentor, Paul Counsel, the more we have come to understand and believe that what the Secret portrays is all real and true, however, the movie doesn’t go into a lot of depth with one very important point (actually there’s another point as well, but that can wait for a later blog!).

For all of the above to actually happen a person needs to make what they want to manifest, their “highest value”. That means they need to put it ahead of all other things, making it their focus. With determination, will and focus, then and only then, will you be able to manifest what you want.

Now that sounds pretty easy, but I will be frank, it is easier said than done! If you are anything like us, you will have very busy, complicated lives and are over-run with distractions. Work, family, social life, worries etc. Your highest value, quite likely is one of these other things and as a result you would be having troubles pin pointing your focus on what you really desire.

Kaitlin’s enterprise plan that she shared in her home video is a very good one, but one that requires time management, focus and diligence. Once the article about her enterprise was posted on “Enterprise for Kids,” Kaitlin received two customers requesting her to do portrait drawings of their families. Kaitlin was delighted that people had actually appreciated her talents and were willing to pay for her service. This was a real opportunity for Kaitlin to follow a passion of hers and she was motivated to get started.

Kaitlin Sliding into Action.

She had bought half a dozen quality timber and glass frames from a garage sale, which would beautifully show the portraits… if her customers wanted them framed that is! She also had the $100 loan from me to buy the art materials required for her to run her enterprise.

So what has happened so far?……….

Distractions, distractions and more distractions!

Distractions!

Kaitlin, being a popular teenager has many demands put upon her and she certainly doesn’t have her focus set on attending to portrait drawings…..yet! It has not become her highest value to develop an enterprise, despite the fact that she really does want to have her own enterprise doing something that she has passion for.

Kaitlin on the Bali Green Supercamp

The list of distractions could amost fill a blog on their own! Kaitlin has been on the Country Week Camp, had sleepovers, caught up with friends, and is currently on the Bali Supercamp. She has had work commitments, baby sitting, sporting commitments, school, boyfriends, homework, modelling classes and family commitments that have all stolen her focus away.

To do portrait drawings, it requires a lot of concentration, patience and most importantly, a “distraction free” amount of time where she can get her head around it. Kaitlin understands that she needs to establish a time management plan where she can devote her focus to what she wants to achieve. Admittedly, Kaitlin doesn’t need to complete the drawings straight away. She has a few months…….but you could see how easily those “few months” could whittle away to nothing without a plan of attack, then taking action to bring that plan to fruition.

That being said, we all must do the same with our dreams and desires in life. Without making what we want, our highest value, with a written plan and then finally focusing all our energy upon it, then it is unlikely that those dreams will come about very easily.

We will keep you in the loop with Kaitlin in coming Enterprise for Kids blog articles. For my next post or two we will have a break from following our kids’ journeys and discuss understandings about developing a mindset for success. We’ll be looking at how we (and 98% of people) are conditioned to think in a certain way about money and how this conditioning may prevent us and our children from achieving success (and we are not just talking about the financial kind either :)………… Until then……………….

Being An App Developer is No Easy Feat!

June 13th, 2012

Jai was super motivated and was like a bull at a gate with his new enterprising idea, which was to design, make and sell an app. For those of you who are not Geeks and are unfamiliar with the terminology, an App basically means Application Software for a devise such as an iPhone, Ipad or computer.

Jai contemplating a good idea.

He bought an Apple App developers license under his Mum’s name and downloaded all the software onto his school’s apple computer (a computer that he gets to loan on a permanent basis until he leaves his school… lucky boy!). He then poured through the various emails and instructions and did whatever was required to get himself underway.

There are ups... and downs!

The process proved to be very challenging and it wasn’t long before Jai was faced with a huge roadblock! He was stumped! The information and requirements were very complicated and technical and Jai really needed professional help to get him through it. I could see his spirits dropping fast, so we sat down for a chat about roadblocks.

To know about apps, you have to play the games!!

When you are “building up” an enterprise idea, it is important not to get bogged down by all the “What ifs”. If we all did that we wouldn’t get past first base. Whatever enterprise you choose to do will have its roadblocks and you will need to troubleshoot a way to get around them. Firstly it is important to come up with an idea and build it up, and then the next step is to work out a general plan for developing the idea into an enterprise. This would mean identifying each of the development stages. From there you think about all the detail and consider the roadblocks for Stage One.

So Jai and I considered his Stage One Plan. The plan was to become registered as an App developer, download the software, then become familiar with the software. Jai’s roadblocks were:

•   The software was not loading correctly onto his computer
•   The software was difficult to understand
•   He didn’t know how to get started with using it

So we planned a simple strategy to deal with these roadblocks.

We were to be in Geraldton for a holiday in a few days. Jai strategy was to pay a visit to our successful App developer friend and ask him to help him get started.

It's exciting to climb to new heights...

That he did, and when I saw Jai next I could see the spring back in his step. He now had new understanding and some direction, plus he had opened a line of communication with an expert, who could possibly become a mentor down the track. Having a mentor is one of the proven best ways to a successful business.

What Jai learnt was that for the software to work properly he needed to download another program onto his Apple computer. So when he arrived back to Burekup, he downloaded the program, which seemed to sort the software issues and it was looking like he was now finally ready to get going with it all.

He headed off to school that Monday, only to arrive home later that day without his computer and looking very frustrated!

Apparently when he went about his online school work, he found that all the school programs that he used were no longer compatible to his computer. He paid a visit to the school’s computer tech, who identified what had caused the problem… Jai downloading this new program! He wasn’t very happy with Jai. He said that the computer would need to be wiped clean and completely reconfigured, then reloaded up with all the school’s programs again. To top it off, he was told that it may take him a few days to get it sorted.

Not good news at all! More roadblocks!

What will Jai's next move be?

What will Jai do next with his enterprising idea? We will revisit his journey as an App Developer in a later blog. It will make interesting reading with some hard lessons learnt!

Next up we will touch base with Kaitlin and see how she is progressing with her enterprising idea.

The Dog Whisperer!

June 9th, 2012

Our kids are becoming Enterprising Children!

In this post we revisit Kit and his enterprising Dog Walking business. He was now ready implement his carefully thought out plan.

It was the school holidays and we were all staying with Kit’s Gran and Grandad in Geraldton.

His first client was a family friend, Pam, who owned a small scruffy dog called Elly. Pam had been prepped with a phone call that Kit would be arriving with his Grandad to ask if she would be interested in hiring his services. She was delighted to support Kit with his new enterprise and awaited their arrival.

Kit with Pam's dog, Elly.

Kit preparing for his walk with Elly.

Kit explained to Pam what his business entailed and the benefits that she and her dog would get if she hired his services. Pam agreed that his service looked to be very good and then she asked what his rate was. Kit said five dollars. Pam negotiated with him and they agreed on four dollars for the half hour walk.

A beautiful afternoon for a walk.

All dogs need a pit stop

Kit was pleased, but not sure how he was going to handle Pam’s little energetic dog. Grandad was an excellent coach and helped him with attaching the lead, offering the dog a treat and instructed on giving commands to the dog.

The walk went very well with no dramas and Kit arrived back at his Gran and Grandad’s house after returning Pam’s dog very keen to tell his family all about his business.

Ending the walk.

Kit being paid for a job well done.

Kit continued his dog walking enterprise for the next two days whilst we were on holidays in Geraldton. He managed to make twelve dollars! Kit is now on his way to attaining his goal.

We, as parents, felt that more important than attaining his goal was the fact that Kit got “started” on his idea. What holds many people back from achieving their dreams is the inability to actually start! And of course, there will always be a myriad of reasons why not to – the time isn’t right, there isn’t enough money, there isn’t enough time, my family won’t approve, not ALL conditions are right yet…..the list goes on. These are the BUTS that stop people attaining their goals all the time, so it was refreshing to see one so young as Kit just “do it!”

Our enterprising children are now all busy with their individual kid’s enterprises. It will be time to check in with Jai and see whether his enterprise plan eventuated.

Until then……….

Green SuperCamp

June 6th, 2012

It’s amazing how life works sometimes. As you know, we have been sharing our kids’ experiences and jouney as they follow their enterprise ideas through to fruition. Certainly, as our learning and that of our children has accelerated over the past 6 months, other opportunities have landed in our laps.

One such opportunity came in the form of a friend and a simple email. She attended one of the workshops we have been doing with our mentor, Paul Counsel. She sent us an email with a link to something (in her words) pretty special.

Being school teachers and always being open to hearing about things that inspire children to think outside the square and follow enterprising ideas, the link our friend sent us truly was “special”.

Below is a snapshot of a concept that really had us super excited and super motivated.

The Green school

Amazing bamboo structure

The Green SuperCamp is indeed a very unique and inspiring concept.

The school, located in the tropical paradise island of Bali, runs very forward thinking, engaging leadership camps that have attained massive results in the transformation of kids over a very short time. The SuperCamp uses a state of the art Quantum Learning System that delivers the very best in life and learning skills. We’ve seen no other camp or school use such forward thinking technologies that tap into a child’s mind and rapidly advance their abilities to read, and process and memorize information.

Trust activities and...

....working in groups

The staff ratio to kids is 1:4 and they are all highly trained. In fact they go through 300 hours of extensive training in Quantum Learning methodologies and 290 specialized learning techniques that lead to outstanding results that they seem to get consistently get for the kids who attend their camps.

Lots of learning...

...loved by all

Listening to some of the videos posted on their website, we viewed teenagers who have gone from reading 200 words per minute to 1000 words per minute in just seven days. We have both worked in many schools and seen no one that can claim anything like that! Kids from all over the world attend the SuperCamps. They are particularly popular for American kids who travel to Bali during their summer vacation.

A bird's eye view

Looking up into the ceiling

The SuperCamps are held at the world renowned Green School campus. The founders of the school, John and Cynthia Hardy, built the new Green School almost entirely of bamboo. They wanted to set up a school that is at the cutting edge of environmental education, and also takes on a holistic view for the future of the Earth. Their school was never to be built in a city, but in the very heart of nature itself.

Solar panels in a natural environment

Hut accommodation for the camp

It is designed to have the smallest carbon footprint by having compost toilets, to open walless rooms with natural lighting. The kids interact with animals that produce the methane gas for power. The flowing river that passes though the grounds also powers the school. To top it all off, the kids grow their own food to eat!

Green School’s mission is to “empower global citizens and green innovators who are inspired to take responsibility for the sustainability of the world”.

“The school has attained international attention for its revolutionary approach to education, with its focus on transformational education in a spectacular setting. It has built a reputation for its focus on nurturing our young leaders of tomorrow on sustainable living with a deep respect for our planet and each other.” (Quoted by CNN TV.)

The school bases much of its philosophy on the Steiner System. The early Austrian educator, Rudolf Steiner, believed in the philosophy of balancing education with social learning.

Social interactions....

...and just hanging about!

As we viewed the short movies of teens who share their experiences after attending a Green SuperCamp, we were astounded by their personal insights. They all go through a journey of self discovery where they get to build strong relationships with future leaders from all over the world. Many claim that Green SuperCamp is a life changing experience!

Leaping for joy!

Kite building skills

They learn to live in the moment and be fully self expressed. They develop a responsibility for themselves and each other and they do things way outside their comfort zone. Activities such as rope climbing, Balinese dancing, mud wrestling, flying fox, and physically breaking wood, all contribute to building self confidence and leadership. Many kids manage to have massive break throughs in overcoming obstacles in their lives and their parents are astounded by their transformation.

Fun in the mud!

Fun as a group

We are completely amazed that Green SuperCamp manages to have such a huge positive impact on kids in only a matter of days. If all schools could learn from this innovative school, then we would have a generation of kids who are very equipped to provide the leadership required for our future world. They have a camp designed especially for developing entrepreneurial teenagers. Now that is a first!. When has a school ever tried to foster in kids an Entrepreneurial mindset?

We have been so inspired by Green SuperCamp that our three oldest kids are attending the camp this year.

We will let you know in future blogs, how they go….although we think we already know the answer to that one! 🙂