Youth Enterprise…. Kaitlin and Jai

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So far we have seen Flynn building a great Honey enterprise and actually achieve his goal. Kit had a go at “dog walking”, but quickly cottoned onto the fact that Chayse was making more money than him selling lollies or candy at the local Soccer fields, so has been pursuing that with his brother. They have made quite a team, and we will revisit them in an upcoming blog post. Amber has actually reached her goal with her “New from Old” endeavours and we will celebrate her achievement in another post also.

So that leaves our creative Artist, Kaitlin, and our budding App Developer Jai.

It has been interesting to note on the kids’ journeys, that it is actually easier to introduce a different mindset around money to children who are younger than it is to teenagers or older children. Why would teaching youth enterprise be so challenging? Well, the answer is simple really. In our case, Kaitlin and Jai have been a lot more conditioned around money than the younger siblings. They have been around longer with us as their major source of education. Our thoughts/objections/subconscious beliefs have been ingrained into these two and it is now quite a process to change those beliefs.

Kaitlin and Jai

Luckily for us, Kaitlin and Jai are both quick learners and understand the concepts we have been trying to teach. The main obstacle has been providing the “time” to put this newfound knowledge into action. Being teenagers, their lives are full of homework/study, sporting commitments, social life and social media. All of these are things we want to encourage in our children, so our challenge has been finding the time to also include a Financial Education.

But in the end, as with everything, “life” has been the best teacher of all.

Jai hasn’t had an urgency to pursue his App Developing as there was no time line on when his goal needed to be reached. But since then, his goal has changed. Jai has been accepted into the Country Week Soccer team and will be competing in Perth during the holidays. He has to pay for a good portion of this trip. He suddenly has a renewed vision and goal to aim for, and he has spent countless hours researching a variety of ways to make the money in a short amount of time, kicking his youth enterprise into action!

Jai's focus or goal has changed.....
Jai loves being active and he now has a new goal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He has come up with different ways to make the money, some of them he wasn’t interested in before. The sorts of opportunities Jai has been looking at are mowing lawns in our neighborhood, finding items to sell and hiring out exercise equipment. Together, he and Trevor worked out he needed to find $10 a day to be able to afford his portion. He has been negotiating with us over particular jobs that need doing around the house (above and beyond household chores) and been getting on and doing them. He has gone through many of his good quality items that were a “must have” when he bought them, then realised that perhaps he didn’t need them as much as he first thought. These, he has posted on Facebook to sell.

So, whilst Jai’s App developing has taken a backseat, it hasn’t been forgotten, it is just something he has recognised as a longer term project and pursuing it now wouldn’t give him the instant money needed to go on this trip. We are proud of his efforts and are sure he will reach his goal in time.

Jai reflected on his Entrepreneurial Journey a few weeks back. Click here to view!

Kaitlin doing what she loves!

Kaitlin, our artist in residence, is finally learning to manage her energy around study, social life, sport and her youth enterprise ventures. She has put a time line in place and is having more requests for art, so has to now take the time to start each piece so it can be finished in time for Christmas (for some) and earlier for others. Having a boyfriend has actually increased her self effacy as she needs to complete certain things before socialising.

Kaitlin and Lachlan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luckily, lachlan encourages Kaitlin to do that, because he actually wants to have a social life too!

Kaitlin and her friend Georgia are also realising the power of leveraging their time. They have come up with some great ideas around Enterprise and have put steps in place to pursue these ideas. They are longer term goals, but in the end will reap more rewards than working a job. However, they still see the need to pursue their “job” in the meantime, to give them the money to put towards their enterprise when it is up and running. We will keep you posted with their endeavours.

Kaitlin & Georgia

So the journey towards Financial freedom is always a rocky one,  but one worth following regardless of what else is going on in your life. Our kids are teaching us so much along the way, and whilst all of their efforts aren’t successful, they are learning from that and moving forward……..and we couldn’t be prouder.


A Financial Education for Kids… Asset or Liability?

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Robert Kiyosaki, famously known for his book “Rich Dad Poor Dad” points out that kids need to be given a financial education and that they are unlikely to get a financial education from school!

Kiyosaki emphasises that by teaching kids to understand balance sheets, you are giving them the basis of a financial education. Balance sheets have two columns, Assets and Liabilities. Kids need to know the difference between Assets and Liabilities.

Kiyosaki’s simple definition of an asset is something that puts cash into your pocket and a liability is something that takes cash out of your pocket! Examples of assets are stocks, investment property, bonds, gold, businesses and valuable antiques. Examples of liabilities are cars, boats, houses, clothes, holidays, TVs and if you are a kid, toys.

Rich people start out by taking the money they earn from salary to buy assets. These assets put cash into their pockets. They take some of that cash to then buy liabilities. They also use some of the cash to buy more assets. Eventually their assets provide enough cash flow that they no longer need a “job”.

On the other hand, the poor and middle-class earn a salary, which they spend on liabilities with little or nothing left over to buy assets. As they go through life they buy more and more liabilities and have to work harder to earn more money to pay for them. Many will borrow money to buy more things.

When kids understand a balance sheet, they can then be encouraged to develop the habit of putting some of the money they get into buying assets before spending it all on liabilities. This habit will be the basis to them creating wealth as they grow up.

I had a good conversation with Flynn a while back. He has made a large sum of money from his Honey Enterprise and has already spent some of it on his goal, which was to buy an iPod.

Flynn has some mates who are mad keen on riding motorbikes and Flynn now has his sights set on buying one.

I explained that he could buy one, but first he must understand that a motorbike is a liability and will take money from his pocket (devalue, repairs, fuel, safety equipment etc). I then explained what Robert Kiyosaki teaches about balance sheets. Flynn took what I explained on board and as a result of our chat he now keeps three jars of money. One for gifting, one for his liability (the motorbike) and one for buying assets!

So what assets can a kid buy?

Chart showing Silver's value over the past 5 years

Well cash could be considered an asset (however, over time currencies generally devalue, so maybe it isn’t a true asset unless it is gaining a good interest from the bank!). Kids can buy collectables or small amounts of gold and silver. With their parents help they could also buy shares in companies, or put their cash into building their enterprise… as in Flynn’s case, more wholesale honey or even a bee hive of his own!

Flynn decided that he wants to buy silver. Currently its market value is about $30 an ounce and can be bought from the Perth Mint. Five years ago silver was only $9 an ounce. That’s a pretty good gain considering that the GFC was during this time! In fact, at one stage silver reached as high as $47 early last year!

Flynn is getting a Financial Education.

This conversation about silver is very relevant to my next guest I am about to introduce to you. Andrew Smith is an expert in Silver and Gold. He is a qualified mining engineer, who is involved with a company (www.orica-miningchemicals.com) selling chemicals to gold mines. He has been involved with Gold and Silver mining for many years and has an in depth knowledge of the fundamentals of gold and silver and investing in these precious metals. If you are interested in capitalizing on the precious metals’ opportunities and seeing Andrew present live in Bunbury, WA, click this link.


Young Bucks: How to Raise a Future Millionaire

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Cameron Herold

I was looking for conversations on Twitter about raising Enterprising Kids, when I came across a very inspirational guy called Cameron Herold. He is a very successful entrepreneur with an excellent message to parents wanting to raise kids to be entrepreneurs. He shares his own life story and makes reference to the book “Young Bucks: How to Raise a Future Millionaire” by Troy Dunn.

Cameron, now in his late forties, was once one of those kids who simply didn’t fit into the regular schooling mould. In fact, these days his hyper-activity would have had him labelled with the disorders of ADHD and Bipolar. Cameron admits that he had, and still has, these “illnesses”, and were he born into this modern world, would have been dosed up on Ritalin and given referrals to the school Psych in order to mould and conform him to expected “societal” standards at school. Cameron explains that it was these afflictions that made him what he is today… a very successful entrepreneur! He says our schools are full of potential entrepreneurs who are suppressed by behaviour programs and Ritalin.

“Bipolar is the CEO disease!”

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs, Ted Turner and all three founders of Netscape have two things in common. They are/were successful CEOs AND they all have/had Bipolar.

Cameron says ‘Don’t medicate kids with Attention Deficit Disorders. Imagine if Steve Jobs was given Ritalin, the world wouldn’t have been blessed with the amazing advancements in the technologies of Apple!”

Cameron Herald was brought up by his parents to be an entrepreneur. He points out that schools rarely teach kids how to think like and develop the skills to be entrepreneurs. Schools condition kids to fit into jobs, not build businesses. Cameron wasn’t comfortable with school and ended up dropping out.

Being an entrepreneur is not an inherited trait, but a learned behaviour!

In America, fewer than 18% of households are headed by a self employed business owner, however, self employed business owners are four times more likely to be millionaires than those who work for others! On average entrepreneurs make at least 25% more in income than the general population. (T.Stanley Phd & W.Danko Phd in “The Millionaire Next Door”)

Entrepreneurs learn to become entrepreneurs through necessity, such as immigrants and refugees, or they learn through observation, such as Robert Kiyosaki. Very few entrepreneurs learn about these skills at school. So, if you want your kids to learn about entrepreneurship, someone in their family must teach it!

It is interesting to note that 62% of Entrepreneurs say they do not have a family member who is an entrepreneur ((North Eastern University School of Technology Entrepreneurship Oct 2006), so rely on other mentors to teach them the necessary skills.

So how do you teach kids to be successful entrepreneurs?

Cameron Herold

Cameron Herald offers many excellent suggestions. He presents an outstanding talk, that goes for about 15 minutes. If you are following our blog, then you are likely to be a parent looking to give your children opportunities and choices in life which would include providing them with the know-how to develop enterprise skills. Cameron Herald’s talk is a must see! So go make a coffee, then click this link and soak up his energy and words!

In his talk, Cameron makes reference to a book that he says has practical and age specific advice on how to access your child’s strengths and weaknesses so that you can pre-think ideas to suggest to your children on what kinds of money making opportunities they can do.

The book is called “Young Bucks How to Raise a Future Millionaire” authored by Troy Dunn.

Young Bucks: How To Raise a Future Millionaire

Troy Dunn is also a self made millionaire and successful entrepreneur. He also happens to be a father to seven kids (just like us!), so I guess he is qualified to offer guidance!

In his book he explains that the first pre-requisite is to give your child the “Gift of Want”. They must have a real reason to pursue being an entrepreneur. They must want something badly enough as this is what will give them the motivation to get started and to keep going when the going gets tough!

Dunn leads parents through a series of steps to assist their child in deciding, researching and setting up a money making business. He teaches key concepts like marketing, pricing, negotiating etc and he gives plenty of terrific “enterprise for kids” ideas.

Amazon sell “Young Bucks: How to Raise a Future Millionaire” for $19.95 as a hard copy.

Cameron Herold states that one can change the world as an entrepreneur! All that is needed is a single, brilliant idea.

This takes me to my next point – to be an entrepreneur, we need to change the way we think. True entrepreneurs see obstacles and turbulence in life as  opportunities and in the midst of crises often create their own opportunities to solve the problem!

Cameron explains that teaching our kids skills such as leadership, tenacity, sales and attainment, help them to succeed. He says that we need to help them find the entrepreneur within themselves, and we need to make it cool! Kids who struggle at school need opportunity. His view is that we should be raising kids to be entrepreneurs, rather than lawyers! Don’t get me wrong, being a lawyer is an admirable profession, but for those children who have no desire or ability in attaining the results to be a lawyer, then entrepreneurship is even more important.

Cameron thinks parents should groom young entrepreneurs to hate the thought of getting a job! Don’t give kids pocket money as it conditions them to have/expect regular pay cheque. Rather, teach your kids to find things that need to be done around the house, then have them negotiate a fee for doing it. This teaches them to look for opportunities and to negotiate.

Teach kids habits to save. Have them use money boxes with three compartments. One for gifting, one for buying toys and one for buying assets such as money in the bank, gold or stocks.

Take opportunities to teach from real life examples in the real world. For example point out when someone is providing good customer service in a restaurant, or presents well as a salesman. Encourage your kids to sell their unwanted toys, to build inventions and to tell stories to the public.

Cameron Herold has allowed me, as a school teacher, to see kids in schools differently. I can see that there are some children who love the system and are more than happy to get a job and work for a salary, but there are an increasing number of children who don’t fit into the system, and perhaps unknowingly, are destined to be budding entrepreneurs. All they need is someone to release the “entrepreneur self” from within and then provide the opportunities for them to develop!

We need more people like Cameron Herold and Troy Dunn (Young Bucks: How to Raise a Future Millionaire) in our world. If you missed Cameron’s talk, here is the link again!

In our next post I have an invitation for those of you who live in Bunbury Western Australia!

Children Earning Pocket Money… the Candy Man!

Enterprise For KidsTeam A Financial Education for Kids, Becoming an Entrepreneur, Enterprising Howitt Family, Enterprising Kids , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

We thought it was time that we revisited our little Candy Man Chayse! When we last followed his enterprising adventure he had bought his lollies and bagged them up ready to sell.

If you missed that article, then click here.

Now he has to find a market for his product and learn to be a salesman. Before we share Chayse’s exciting adventure we thought that it would be interesting to consider the benefits of children earning pocket money through enterprise as opposed to children receiving a weekly allowance.

Children earning pocket money through enterprise will develop the mindset and skills of an entrepreneur! Giving children a weekly allowance conditions them to be “workers”. Robert Kiyosaki describes a worker as someone prepared to give their time for money, whilst an entrepreneur builds systems and businesses that produce a cash flow. Workers are more often than not time poor and cash poor, whilst entrepreneurs are generally time rich and cash rich.

Why is it then that the vast majority of us leave school and become workers?

A child receiving a weekly pocket money allowance is equivalent to a worker receiving a weekly salary. Relying upon a weekly allowance won’t encourage children to look for opportunities for enterprise. Their pocket money may or may not be aligned with doing household chores, just as a worker receives payment for doing work. Many kids leave school and slot into jobs for the rest of their lives because they have not been able to explore the entrepreneur within themselves!

Chayse with his box of candy!

Children earning pocket money through enterprise develop a whole different mindset. Parents of these children will encourage their children to look around to find opportunities. These kids learn to identify problems that they can solve and they’ll learn the art of negotiation. Enterprising children understand assets, liabilities, cash flow and profit. They will understand markets and customer service and they will develop the confidence to promote themselves.

Children earning pocket money though enterprise are more likely to value their profits and spend their money wisely. Weekly allowances are easily received and easily spent (knowing that more money will follow). This conditions kids to be reliant on a salary.

Enterprising children become self motivated to make money, and as they celebrate their successes, they quickly come to understand that they can in fact make a lot more money than their friends receiving weekly allowances.

According to entrepreneur, Cameron Herold (ted.com), parents wanting to raise entrepreneurial children won’t give pocket money to their kids. They will encourage their kids to go around their home or community and identify opportunities. These kids then make a plan and negotiate with either their parents or people in the community to provide the service or product for payment.

Getting prepared with his helpers.
Selling to customers.

Kids may not be motivated to do this at first, especially if they have been used to receiving a weekly allowance. The trick here is to make sure they have a big “Why!” They need to want something badly enough. This then becomes their goal and reason.

So back let’s get back to Chayse’s enterprising story! Was he able to earn his pocket money through his Lolly Bag business?

He had his first opportunity to sell his lolly bags at his big brothers’ soccer games. During the game the spectators (his potential customers) mill around on the sidelines. So we primed him on what to say to customers. We also enlisted the help of his brothers, Amber and friends. It was all great fun and soon enough the customers came rolling in!

Now who could knock back buying lollies from a cute smiling four year old!

His lolly bags sold like hot cakes for two dollars each. Chayse couldn’t hold up the box because it was too heavy, so he managed the money jar, whilst his helpers held the box. He had to take his customers money and give change.

As word spread that there were lollies for sale, kids came racing in from all directions to buy Chayse’s product. The box became lighter and the money jar heavier…  but despite the weight, he wasn’t going to relinquish it!

Chayse looked after his helpers by giving them each a lolly bag. Hopefully they will be willing helpers the next time he sells something.

Chayse also paid back the money his Dad lent him as capital to buy the lollies and plastic bags from the supermarket.

All up he was delighted with his fifty dollars net profit! He is now well on his way to reaching his goal to buy toy Nerf Guns. In fact his business was so successful, that Kit has recently decided to partner with him for his next endeavour! And under their mother’s guidance, they will research and decide on a charity that could benefit from some of their profits. So, stay tuned for that one!

Chayse is one of those children earning pocket money through enterprise. It would have taken him five weeks, with a weekly allowance of $5 a week to save the equivalent to what he profited at the soccer grounds during a soccer game.

In our next Enterprise For Kids blog we’ll introduce you to a self made millionaire who has some excellent tips for parents wanting to raise entrepreneurial kids. Don’t miss this article!

Dale Beaumont – The Next Generation

Cathy and Trevor Becoming an Entrepreneur, Developing a Money Mindset, Enterprising Kids, Inspirational Entrepreneurs! , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

Part of what we love about this blog is that we get to share the amazing success of young entrepreneurs with not only our readers, but our kids. As we’ve been learning on Paul Counsel’s course, and what Dale Beaumont has reiterated, is that who you “hang with” is who you become like. Now that can be a scary thought or it can be an inspiring thought, depending on your peers and the people you spend the most time with.

Luckily we have wonderful family and friends, but for us, it’s also important to include peers who have achieved success in the areas we are lacking. Some of our family and friends fulfil those needs, but a sure way of increasing self effacy in these areas for us and our kids is to mix with other successful entrepreneurs.

Dale Beaumont is one such inspiring young entrepreneur. He doesn’t see himself as that young anymore, but his success started at the tender age of 19. Prior to developing his entrepreneurial skills, Dale was an accomplished gymnast and probably what you would call an overachiever. When Dale was 19 he co-authored a book called “The World at Your Feet” which was the basis of his successful program “Tomorrow’s Youth”. Here, he taught young kids essential life skills.

Dale started his journey when he was only 19.
Dale Beaumont wrote Secrets Exposed Series.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In 12 short years he has published 15 books in the “Secrets Exposed” series, built amazing relationships with other young successful entrepreneurs, business owners and “thought” leaders and has recently developed the Business Blueprint model which has amazing systems to keep you ahead of your competition in business and free your valuable time where you can concentrate on things other than work 24/7.

Dale with one of his children
Inside the Sistine Chapel

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dale is married and has two gorgeous boys, so his focus is actually on travelling with his young family to all corners of the world. He is only able to do this because he is financially free and has set amazing systems in place within his business so everything ticks along with or without him! So you could imagine how appealing that is to Trev and I!

I won’t talk about the whole workshop that myself and my good friend Sally went to in Perth, but I thought I would share some highlights with you that really stuck with me as he spoke.

Presenting at Business Blueprint

“Empty bank accounts don’t feed the people.”

“The poor can’t help the poor.”

Just these two sayings alone say it all. Some people in this world want money for money’s sake – so they can have nice things and show off to others how well they are doing. Others want money so they can have nice things, enjoy wonderful experiences, but also do good things in this world and make a difference to the lives of others. We fall into that category.

Dale supports “Hands Across the Water” project in Thailand and it was inspiring to see him obviously making a difference to the lives of many boys and girls there. He even takes other entrepreneurs there with him, so they can have more purpose in their lives and help use their money in useful ways.

New Rules of Business Seminar

The internet has changed business forever and if you don’t embrace that change, your business will get left behind. A classic example of this was the Borders Bookstore. They were a wonderful “physical” resource, but chose not to keep up with how fast the internet was growing and actually sold their software of selling books online to their competitor, who did see the potential of the internet. That competitor was Amazon……..and I think most of you will agree that it has gone from strength to strength, whilst Borders, sadly, had to close their doors.

What I loved about Dale’s seminar is that you don’t have to do it all yourself, in fact, you would be crazy to. There are ways of making your business and your life easier and Dale spells these out with the amazing systems he has in place.

Dale shared with us something he learnt when he was just starting out in  business.

The Coffin or the Hourglass.

The Coffin or the Hourglass

Basically many people starting in business spend more time on taking action than they do strategising or planning where they want their business to end up. Now taking action is important, but you don’t want your business to be like a coffin, where little time is spent strategizing, heaps of time is spent taking action (but sometimes not very fruitful) and the results then speak for themselves.

The hourglass on the other hand, is all about putting the time in with the planning, strategising, and “thinking” stage. With well thought out plans in place, the action you take is more focused and the results are more fruitful.

So what would you prefer? A business with the “coffin” model or one with the “hourglass” model?

I think what has made Dale so successful in such a short amount of time is his ability to let go of the things that could be done by someone else (outsourcing), and focus on the things he needs to do to be effective within his business. Dale uses particular software to help systemize his business, so his time is leveraged and far more productive.

Office Autopilot

Office Auto Pilot... an excellent automated system

One such program is called “Office Autopilot” and has an amazing array of uses and ways of streamlining the processes that you must go through to keep your businesses ticking along nicely. I’m sure there are others programs or software, but having just purchased this particular one myself and seeing first hand how Dale uses the software to enhance productivity within his business, I am more than happy to list a few of it’s features below.

“Office Autopilot” Software allows you to split test, track and automate emails through their Email Marketing function. Order forms, memberships, subscriptions, refunds and automated card handling are all made easy with it’s Web Payment Processing system.

The Contact Database is all in one place for the history, purchases, referrals, files and notes etc. The Software covers Market Automation, Affiliate tracking, and Direct Mail Postcards (where you can personalise your business).

I love the If-Then Rule System where you can easily write extremely flexible and powerful rules to automate what happens next in your business. So basically, the system will have your rules “if this happens, send this email, if that happens, sent that email. This is such a time saving feature of the Office Autopilot.

The Software has a WordPress Integration system where you can set up a Word Press site in seconds. You can build a totally integrated membership site in minutes and add smart forms or order forms with a click of the button.

The program builds leads with drag’n’drop landing page creator and can split test pages for marketing purposes. Event Management from events, webinars to teleseminars make follow up easy and with Task Management processes and great Customer Service and Training, what more could you need.

As mentioned earlier, there are many programs out there, but this one is a good email marketing system combined with a good CRM system. Many are just one or the other.

So, how does all of this relate to Entrepreneurial Kids, you may ask.  Well, for any business that our kids choose to start, using the internet will be a given, especially when they are young adults. If we want our kids to be competitive in today’s markets, we need to show them the way by taking the time ourselves to invest in “cutting edge” programs. They in turn, will follow our lead and already have the mindset that says “Get savvy! Learn…learn…learn!”

Bed time reading!

Generation Y (anyone born after 1980) are already building and creating things that will improve efficiency in their lives. Why spend time on something that takes 6 hours if you can streamline it and do it in one hour! That’s what our children are going forth into when they build their businesses.

And we agree totally. Life is not meant to be all about work. We want to work to live, not live to work……and we want our kids to get this concept too.

But in the meantime, if you are looking for an inspiring mentor and stimulating bedtime reading why not get stuck into one of Dale Beaumont’s books. Each of his books are either authored or co-authored by Dale and cost less than $10 from Amazon. His Secrets Exposed Series of books are the perfect gift for someone to kick start their entrepreneurial journey.

Young Achievers
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What “The Secret” left out!

Enterprise For KidsTeam Becoming an Entrepreneur, Developing a Money Mindset , , , , , , , , , , 8 Comments

My Dreams

As a kid I always wanted to be a farmer.

When growing up I had a framed picture of a farm on my bedroom wall and I would look and think about it everyday for years. It featured a big wooden barn sitting on a grassy hill with duck ponds, sheep, a dog, tractor and kids running around.

Our Farm in summer.

The funny thing was that twenty years later Cathy and I found and bought a little farm and it was just about identical to the picture from my bedroom wall. The little farm house sat on a green grassy hill (which is rare in Western Australia with its semi arid countryside), it had a big wooden barn, sheep, ducks, a dog and a tractor. To top it off we raised most of our kids there during their early years. I had no idea until later that the very farm we owned was what I used to dream and think about as a kid.

When the movie, “The Secret” came out, I was fascinated by the featured stories of people visualizing in their minds what they wanted and then over time, having those same things arrive for them in their physical world. I guess that is exactly what happened to me… though it did take twenty years!

Kit camping on the Cocos Islands... a dream come true!
Our Cocos experience!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This unique “law of the universe” came to play many times in our lives over the years. Our experience living on the Cocos Islands was a visual thought ten years before it became a reality, and traveling Canada and the US in our motor home with the family was another example of a visualization becoming a reality.

Vision Boards

Making a Vision Board is one way to build a visual picture of what you want. Cath and I have created Dream Boards and stowed them away, only to pull them out again some years later to see that several of the dream pictures can be ticked off as having been achieved… kite surfing, large aquarium, more kids, fishing boat… to note a few more examples.

Kite Surfing
My Vision Board from 2005. All these images, bar one, have become a reality.

We believe that Vision Boards help with visualizing what you want and because of that, we encourage our kids to make and display dream boards too. They think it’s all great fun!

The Problem with The Secret!

See, believe and you will conceive is the universal law that The Secret portrayed. It is amazing how your subconscious mind has so much power as to bring about reality from thoughts. The funny thing is that when I read forums with discussions about the laws of the universe I see many people being very frustrated about not being able to bring about in their physical world all the things they are visualizing and believing. They meditate, focus, make vision boards and think about what things they want in their lives, but despite all their efforts they are unable to conceive it to reality.

The Solution…

Our Money Mastery mentor says that there was an important ingredient that “The Secret” left out. He explained that whilst you need to visualize what you want, then emote it into existence, if you don’t have a persistent focus (or clear intention), then it is unlikely that what you want will easily come about in your reality.

He said, “The problem is that people have their focus elsewhere”. Like in our situation… we’re busy all week at work and when we’re home our whole attention is taken up with sorting the kids, doing the household chores and keeping up with our social life.

Our focus is drawn away from the things that we want to achieve, even though we may visualize them.

Often when people hit a rock bottom point in life, it is only then that their minds pinpoint their focus. This may be a near death experience, serious illness, break up with a partner or suddenly becoming financially bankrupt. It is only then that your conscious and subconscious minds align with an inner drive for change.

Our Subconscious Limits

The other thing that Paul (our Money Mindset mentor) explains is the “Belt” concept.

Our subconscious mind has an upper and lower limit to every aspect of our lives, including wealth, happiness, relationships, health etc. This is what we call our Comfort Zone.

Using money as an example, let’s say my subconscious is only comfortable earning $100,000 a year. That is my upper limit and if I ever exceed that by 10%, I will do something to self sabotage and bring that amount of money back to what I am comfortable receiving. Self sabotage may include spending it, losing it on the stock market, giving it away, gambling it away and so on.

So even though consciously I think I would like a million dollars, that will never happen until I have changed the upper limit of my subconscious around money. Subconscious mind is far more powerful than my conscious mind and that is why mentors such as Paul are so valuable because he helps us develop strategies to push our upper limit higher to allow more of what we want into our lives.

The same principle holds true for all areas of our lives. We may have a limit on how much happiness we are allowed to feel, so if a relationship is going along brilliantly, but we don’t think we deserve that much happiness (on a subconscious level), then we will do something to sabotage that happiness – more often than not, it involves picking a fight, creating a drama in our lives or doing something to hurt the other partner.
The same can be applied to health, relationships, weight loss, finances, anything really

The trick to mastering this law of the universe is to gradually work up to the bigger dreams by visualizing and intending for smaller dreams that will lead to the ultimate one. In other words, take smaller steps, then celebrate them once they are reality. The idea is that over time your subconscious mind will raise its upper limit to meet that of your conscious mind. When the two are aligned the physical reality will, in time, materialize.

Vision Boards for Kids

Ambers Vision Board

It took up to twenty years for dreams of mine to come about, so don’t allow a moment more to pass you or your kids by. Encourage your kids to make vision boards, teach them how to visualize and emote what they want. Establish a plan and then, most importantly, help them make it their absolute focus! If you need some help, then have a look at this book written by John Assaraf.  He is an expert on the topic as he himself was a major feature in the DVD “The Secret”.