My 9-year-old baby brought me this yesterday morning in bed.
“Happy Easter Mama! This is you first thing in the morning.” She held out an orange plastic Easter egg, with glue eyes and a crooked smile, with pink tentacles.
There are no words…. and what are those pink scraggly things hanging off the bottom of my replicated egg face, I could only assume were…OMG…
“What are those?”
“No, mommy that’s your hula skirt.”
Thank God!
I breathed a sigh of relief. I’ve spent a fortune on chin hair removal only to have them come back and haunt me by my 9-year-old daughter.
Kids are smarter than they look! Even though I may have evaded my dark chin hairs from a 9-year-old artist (for now), there are some things that won’t elude her.
Like how I talk about money around her.
And then it got me thinking.
What do I really want my kids to know about money? I mean besides being responsible with it, and all the same old stuff we try to teach our kids about money (like give, save, spend wisely), or at least pretend to while we are busy bribing them to shut up so we can watch the latest episode of Scandal on Netflix. (Ya, like you’ve never done that….)
So here are a few things I really want to teach them about money and other stuff in life…. (I guess I should send this list to WINNERS so they can print it on canvas so I can hang it above my toilet to be reminded of it everytime I take a….)
1. Build your dreams first.
Make them first. Make them first priority. Don’t put anything above them. Not religion, not your parents, not thoughts on what society tells you to do. God gave your heart a desire and when you follow that and put it first, everything else will fall into place. When you don’t follow that plan, that desire, you end up in a bad place. Bad jobs, bad relationships, bad choices, BAD. And only bad by your definition, not by others. I mean on the surface you made your family happy, you married the right person, got the right education, got the right job, by societies standards – you are a success. But every day, your soul is yearning for more. And in a good way, you are here for a purpose – make sure to live that purpose, and live it to it’s full. You have a message to share with the world. Build your dreams first, or you will be helping someone else build theirs. Look for the win-win-win-win. It’s always there, even if it’s not showing its face yet.
2. You don’t have to work hard for money, but you do need to create loads of value. Money comes easy.
I’ve been under this presumption most of my life. That money is hard to get, you have to bust your ass 9-5 to get it. You don’t. You just have to create value and the money will follow. Create. Solve other people’s problems. Come up with ideas – lots of them and put it out in the world. The more value you create, the more that will follow. We all are allotted the same 24 hours in a day – so we all have the same opportunity to do what Richard Branson has done.
Years ago, I was listening to “The Strangest Secret” by Earl Nightingale and learned what Earl had to say about money, “Our rewards in life will always be in exact proportion to our service.” He was right. I’ve tried to disprove him in my mind a thousand times. I always look for the value. Doesn’t matter what it is in, whether a YouTube star, oil tycoon or drug lord (yes, Netflix again!) But it really doesn’t matter what you do to make money (I mean it’s your choice, and yes, I’m not talking consequences for your actions at the moment, I’m strictly talking value exchange.) If you create value, you have to be compensated for it in some way or another. It’s an irrefutable law. And like the law of gravity, this law can’t be broken. It always wins, and sometimes you need to learn this for yourself. So, create value and money will follow, if that’s what you want. Which leads me to….
3. Anything you believe you can do, you will do.
Sure, you do need tenacity. But tenacity, and persistence, consistency, and all the other characteristics, like clarity, confidence, and courage, will all flow once your belief is unwavering. You must be unwavering. It must be set in stone in your mind. If there is room for doubt, it will crack you – and just like a small leak which will sink a big ship, it will also sink you (or at least take you longer to reach your goals!). There can be no other conflicting beliefs. They must all align. (Man who chases 2 rabbits catches neither! – Chinese Proverb)
I know the reason I’m not where I want to be – way too much self-doubt! This conflicts with everything I’m trying to build. So, unless I get over that, get over myself, and tell all the people in my head (and in my real world!) to pretty much shut up and not allow negativity to crack my ship, then I will never do anything I believe I can do. Once my belief is a part of me, once I’ve accepted it as truth, and when nothing in this world can shake my belief – it shall be done.
Those are 3 things that I really want my kids to know! What are yours?
What is your message? What do you want to leave behind for your kids or the next generation? What were you put here for? If you are serious about your legacy and want to make sure your message gets out to the world instead of getting lost in transition or unclear intentions, you need to set an appointment with me. And let’s make sure you get this message out there.
