Family Legacy Expert: Why Giving Your Kids An Allowance Will Destroy Their Future | Mindpump 2857

Key Takeaway

Start speaking identity into your kids tonight. Create a simple card listing 5-10 character traits you see in them, then speak it over them daily at bedtime. This isn't just encouragement—it's anchoring their identity before the world tells them who to be. One father did this with his 16-year-old daughter, and she now lights up every time, even asking when he forgets. Identity can't be earned or self-prescribed; it must be received. When you speak it consistently, you're not just building confidence—you're insulating them from wrong influences and giving them a framework for every decision they'll face.

Episode Overview

Scott Donald discusses preparing children for generational wealth, emphasizing that true wealth extends far beyond money to include values, relationships, mindsets, and identity. He introduces the concept of 'heritage over inheritance,' explaining that focusing on what you leave in your kids matters more than what you leave to them, and shares practical frameworks like speaking daily identity affirmations and creating family core values.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Family Legacy Expert: Why Giving Your Kids An Allowance Will Destroy Their Future | Mindpump 2857 from Mind Pump Show. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Scott, welcome back to the show. I'm back. I'm back. I'm back. So, we're going to talk about preparing your children for generational wealth. Uh, is now let's talk about wealth. Are you talking about money? You mean I'm set up for with lots of money? What do you mean exactly? Wealth is way deeper than money. Okay. Okay. Okay. The key is to not ruin your kids with wealth. See, here's here's the main thing I want to start off this with. Wealth is way more than money. Like, it's generational wealth.

It's generational values, generational relationships, generational mindsets, and financial competencies. Do you have to prepare your kids not just for your wealth, but for their own, how to create their own, their own, their own, how to multiply and steward yours, but how to create their own. And wealth is relationships. It's values being passed on. That's that's true wealth inside of a family. a family. a family. So wealth is way bigger than just money. Okay? But most people they the mistake is they think their job is to die with the highest net worth possible, right?

And they forget all the other critical pieces that actually stabilize future generations, the values, the relationships, the mindsets, the the the depth of connection, right? Instilling all the right things in their kids. They don't know how to do those things. And so they think that the answer is just to build as high as a net worth as possible so that future generations are okay. Well, what they don't realize is an entitled kid will destroy your wealth. They'll they'll just be destroyed. And an anxious kid, a victim mindset kid will be swallowed whole by your wealth.

You'll ruin them. See, this is why this is such a big deal. I love this conversation because I know lots of people that are rich that are actually and I know lots of poor people that are actually rich. So, a lot of people tie that to net worth all the time, but you can have lots of money and net worth, be absolutely poor in in life and miserable. and miserable. and miserable. Yep. Yep. Yep. And I know lots of people that don't have a lot, but are have incredibly rich lives.

And so, I think tying that all together is is so important if you're going to pass this down for generations. And I know, or at least I I won't speak for everybody else, but I'm pretty sure everybody in this room uh wants to be able to pass that down to our our next generation. So, is [clears throat] there when you think of that, is there a a foundation like that you build on uh like when you teach or coach families how to do that, what does that look like?

Yeah. Yeah. So, let's start with this question. If you could pass one thing down to your kids and grandkids out of these three, what would it be? Number one, all your money and stuff, your net worth. Number two, all of your knowledge. Or number three, all of your wisdom and experience. Oh, well, three. Easy. Easy. Easy. Easy, right? Easy, right? Easy, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, when you frame it that way, it's three. three. three. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But if you look at your bank account, [snorts] [snorts] [snorts] if you look at your calendar, if you look at your actual life, which one are you focusing on?

So few families, like when I talk about generational wealth and success, it's so much deeper than number one. Everybody, this is why the financial world has hijacked the the word legacy. I want it back. They think that legacy is diversifying and stewarding your net worth so that you die with as much as humanly possible to give to your kids and grandkids. That is literally just focusing on number one. No focus on two or three. And three is really the key here. So if you really want generational success, you need to focus on heritage more than you focus on inheritance.

And if you nail the game of heritage, then it doesn't matter what you leave them. See, it's not going to ruin them. It's it's they're going to be grateful for it, right? But it's not going to ruin them or destroy them or mean anything. You want to set them up well, but you have to set them up well with all the other things besides money first. I think it's obvious what focusing on her inheritance looks like. Give me example what focusing on heritage looks like. like.

like. Heritage is a last name that means something. something. something. So, this is raising kids to to know like what our family stands for. what our values are. And you can't just come up with some list of character traits. That's not how it works. Like think of like employees in a company. It's like how many employees worldwide actually can rattle off every single value and mission statement, everything. That's not how it works. Kids think in story. How good are you, for instance, at telling all of the stories of your heritage?

heritage? heritage? Do you tell the stories of your ancestors, of your parents, the grandparents, how you and mom met, your how you came to faith, the hardest days of your life, the milestone moments? Do your kids know those stories and can pass them on to their kids? What about making your kids the hero of the family values? See, kids carry on a heritage when they are part of hero stories of living out the values of the family. So they need to be grafted in to those stories that display the values.

That is how you start to build heritage. It's more it's more about what you leave in your kids than to them. That's how you get to number three. Because on our deathbed, we're not going to sit there checking our bank account. We're not going to wish we made a little more money. We're going to want to have one more meal with our family. We're going to go one more walk on down the street or down the beach with a spouse. We're going to want to spend a little bit more time with the people we love.

That's all that matters at the end of our lives. And on my deathbed, I want to have thought, okay, my kids blew by me in their faith and values, in the mindsets and skill sets, in their relationships. Their their marriage was stronger than mine and Amy's, right? Their relationship with their kids was stronger than my relationship with my kids. and and yes, they're more financially competent and they they're they're more skilled in their impact. I die on my deathbed happy as a clam when my kids blow my blow by me in those areas and the grandkids blow by them and the gr the great grandkids are starting to do it to the grandkids.

That's legacy. That's legacy. That's legacy. You you you helped coach me not that long ago. So, uh my wife and I got on a call with you uh how long was it about was it two maybe two months ago, a month and a half ago, something like that. and you gave us some great tips and some advice, but one thing you did that has been so valuable and I would love for you to speak to this was you encouraged me to speak identity into my kids uh every night.

[snorts] And so what this looks like and I'll pull up one that I I I give pull up I'll pull up one that I I I give my daughter. my daughter. my daughter. Um and I now I was like, "Okay, I'm going to do this uh but I'm I'm not sure how this is going to work. I think my 5-year-old would be cool with it, but let me try this on my 16-year-old. Let's see what happens there. And so I'll read what I what I have for her.

And so every night I go into her room and I do this with all my kids, okay? Including my niece. My niece lives with us and we do this with her as well. She's 18. So I go into my kids' room and I speak identity to them. And so my daughters, my 16-year-olds, looks like this. It says, "Uh, you are intelligent. You are disciplined. You are brave. You are capable. We are blessed by you. We delight in you. God has a plan for you. God made you on purpose and you will do great things." And so I wrote this and I speak this to her at night.

Now I was like, you know, okay, let me do this. Uh, I trust Scott. He's got some great advice. This sounds cool. But she's a teenager. See how she receives this. She loves this. When I go in and I say this to her, and I don't care what mood she's in, and she, again, she's a 16-year-old girl, so the moods are like the wind. They can change quite a bit. She lights up every single time I go in there. And to just to add to this, uh, and of course my little ones do, but I expected it for my little ones.

I do this for my niece. She's 18. And there were a couple nights that I missed. I forgot. We had family over or whatever. And then I went in and did it again. And both of them said the same thing. Like, you forgot the past couple nights to do this. And so, so explain to me why this is so powerful because I didn't understand at first, but now I see these again these teenage kids, which you don't expect. Teenagers don't light up for a lot of things.

Uh but but they totally do like what's happening when I'm saying these things uh to my daughter every night. Identity Identity is the most essential thing that we can give to our kids and our teens. The problem with identity is that it can't be earned. be earned. be earned. It can't be self-prescribed. It it's identity is received. God gives us an identity. We're made in his image. Uh identity can only be bestowed onto someone. Anytime you're trying to try to clamor for your own identity, it's hollow.

This is why it's so critical inside of the home to be speaking identity into our spouses and our kids all the time. So this is like God's view of them, how we see them, how much how loved they are, how valuable they're the traits you see in them, the the beautiful things about them that you love. You speak identity into them. This that is an anchor for the rest of their life. Like I I don't think you realize, man, like the long-term impact that that has on your daughter.

She's not going to be taken advantage of. advantage of. advantage of. You just insulated her from the wrong guys. guys. guys. Like man, I'm telling you, you that's worth all the gold, man. Hule, this is a meal replacement drink. It's high protein and plant-based. So, this is a great way to have a meal on the go. Better than uh snacks, better than heavily processed foods. It's high in protein, it tastes amazing, and it's really good for you. And again, the protein is high, but it is a meal replacement.

So, you got some carbs and some fats in there. Drink it instead of breakfast when you're on the go. Go check them out. Go to hule.com. That's hu.com/mindpump. Use the code mindpump for 15% off. We also have a sale on our workout programs. Buy any MAPS 15style workout program. Get any other MAPS 15 style workout program for free. Buy one get one free. It's happening right now. Go to maps15bogo.com. to maps15bogo.com. to maps15bogo.com. Here comes a show. And so, so where I go with this, where I think about this, and I'd love your input on this, is um, and I've heard this before, I've just never practiced it, but I can see it now in action, is rather than telling your spouse or your kid what they're doing wrong or whatever, when you speak an identity to them, they they become it.

They they live it, they live up to it, right? So, for my niece, for example, um uh one of hers is you are growthminded. Um and and I say that because first off, she is growthminded, but she's also very challenged by some things because she's very shy. very shy. very shy. So, she can be very shy. And I noticed as I've started saying to her she's growthminded, which I see in her is she stretches herself more because now this is becoming her ident. How does this contribute to heritage?

How does speaking these things uh contribute to heritage? Yeah. So heritage, right, this last name that means something. It is literally about giving your kids as many anchors as possible in your home. When you speak identity, you're speaking the values of your family into them. You're speaking who they are, who they were created to be, how powerful they're going to be in the world. This is this is heritage. Okay? And this is why it's so important for a kid to to be anchored inside of that family.

If they're anchored in the identity, if they're anchored in the values, if they're anchored and they they it's like they don't go into the world with a bunch of bricks in their backpack backpack backpack like [clears throat] that is she's going to be an unbelievable wife, unbelievable mom, unbelievable entrepreneur or employee. Wherever she goes, people for the rest of her life are going to be thankful she's around. She's going to be an insanely good friend because you are you're literally unpacking the dumb bricks out of her backpack and and you're mobilizing her.

are stabilizing her as an anchor to go into the storms of life. See, kids that don't have these identities or values or stories of the family heritage, they don't have those anchors when they go into the world. And so then the storms, they just sway them. They just like push them off course. So this that is the core of an anti-fragile family like speaking this identity, giving them these anchors, giving them these values. And kids learn through story. That's why we talk about the stories of your family.

Kids learn through story more than almost anything else and they they receive identity from you as you speak it over. it over. it over. Is there a way to uh we just got done with our our training our staff and you and people laughed when you brought up a chat GPT thing, right? Because it's like seems a little ironic, but what you gave was incredibly valuable. Do you see value in taking what Sal's done like with the identity thing, taking it a step further with the storytelling, reverse engineering that and using something like Chad, you'd be like, "What are five good stories or help me find five stories that relate to this type of identity?" Like, would you what would you do to reverse engineer like kind of like that's his those are his identities.

He's speaking to his daughter now. I also want to tie stories into that so kids have an easier time even remembering that. Is there a way that you would do that or would you want to make sure I did that with like real stories that I have gone through that that are in particular? I imagine that's ideal. ideal. ideal. So I I would put them in two categories, right? So speaking identity into your kids now, [snorts] it's it's not only solidifying them, but it's actually helping you.

It reminds you as you see them doing things in their life that show those characteristics of their identity, you celebrate it. You point it out. you. It gives you a lens to watch them like like unflower and become that person and then you just get to celebrate the heck out of it. So, one of our tips in families is catch your kids doing way more right than catching them doing the wrong, right? because now you're building identity and the the the right it's perfectly it's this is one of one of my favorite books that I tell everybody to read that's a leader or manager and I think obviously you're a leader in your home uh is one minute a manager and the whole premise of that book is to stop focusing on what they do wrong and spend one minute a day pointing out the things that they do right and if that you do that consistently uh the buy in very different different different is so powerful and I remember when I was a 25-year-old leader and I thought this is silly come on this can't and like s I just trusted the process put it in place and measured it and ironically the thing that told me oh my god this is working so much was because I missed a couple days and I had a a this was after 30 days of doing it or so a staff member comes into my office and just starts vomiting all the things he was doing wrong and apologizing to me and I'm like where is this coming from and I realized I had missed his cuz I set alarms of telling them what they did right all the time and he just starts telling me all the things and how he's going to fix it and solve it and apologizing.

I went oh my god I missed his one minute coming over and telling him what a good job this week was and look at he felt he all this guilt and all I was like this is why cuz he wasn't living up to what I was saying. I thought wow that was so powerful and it's the same thing with our with our with our our kids and our family is focusing on that. that. that. The greatest irony is we never take the best business principles and add them to our family.

our family. our family. Right. everybody like it's all a sudden when you get home it becomes this socialist communist community and you never apply the real business stuff like I'll give you an example name one husband I dare you name one husband who shows up better for their family with a criticizing wife never never in fact it deteriorates his existence a nagging wife is like a leaky roof better to live on in the desert than share a house like that proverbs proverbs proverbs you You know what my wife has learned?

Oh, babe. Is so sexy when you take out the trash? the trash? the trash? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, "Yeah, it is." Yeah. Like, Yeah. Like, Yeah. Like, "Any trash? You want me to take out take out some?" out some?" out some?" She speaks identity. She She speaks identity over me all the time. She This was at literally eight years in. Something flipped. Some Thank God for the woman who mentored her. That something flipped where she just started celebrating the good in me. Yeah. leaving the rest to God and and really speaking the identities in me.

And then what she found was that I would run through a brick wall for our family every time she did it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Instead of criticizing or complaining or neglecting or like, you know, the passive aggression, none of that worked with me. with me. with me. It's it's so powerful. You know, [clears throat] S shared it on the podcast right after he started doing it. And um and to your point about bringing in the business, uh I actually if I before I even heard what he was doing with identity, I was doing something different with Max.

So every night when I put him down to bed, I point out one thing that he did in the day that I want the behavior I want to reinforce like, hey, I just want to let you know that I saw the way when mom asked you to do that thing, you got right up and you did it. Like so I try and so it's less of the identity thing and more of the behaviors that I see him do every single day. Y day. Y day. Y I don't know if that's uh less or better or le or I should also do the identity thing or am I in inverse or kind of doing that by yeah I everybody should do the identity thing.

I mean the simple answer here everyone is like if you got kids I mean even a spouse you get a 3x5 card or on your phone and you are literally writing out here's the 10 things I see in you and speaking identity over them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you just repetition repetition doing it doing it doing it every single day. Do it to a spouse. Do it to your kids. watch them just take off. off. off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, what what you're kind of talking about is the heritage and the family anchors and values.

Okay. Okay. Okay. That so what we tell people is, hey, you know what's way better than you trying to come up with some list of character traits. traits. traits. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We call it the core word method. This is we found this way to make these things come alive in the home. But it starts with the stories of your life. You you know it don't be fake with it. Yeah. You know, you you want to actually look at the stories, the most transformational stories of your heritage and your parents and grandparents, where they came from, things they overcame, things they showed, things in your life, how you met, your milestone moments.

And as you start to realize those stories, you're going to pull out values from them that are your family values. They're so integral to how your families have been both sides forever. And those now become the core word which is like a family acronym that everybody can say like this and it's so powerful for them because it's part of your family's heritage. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's actually the best place that values come from. So I have a really Okay. So I'm trying to do this delicate dance with what you're saying right now cuz I firmly believe in what you're and and but my wife calls me out on this because I come from I don't have any of that.

that. that. Yeah. You got struggles. I got a lot of trauma. Yeah. That uh that I work through that it's turned into blessings because I did work through a lot of that stuff. And so I don't have the prettiest of stories and I've got a now and I I can't wait for the day that my son's at an age and I already started and my wife kind of called me out like hey don't you think he's a little young to cuz now now my son's repeating that my father killed himself you know and like so she so I got all these things where I got lots of lessons and I got a lot of things to teach through the things that I've learned learned learned but I hesitate sometimes because he's only 6 years old and a lot of that stuff could be heavy for a kid to hear that story and I don't want to So, I'm like I'm trying to have this delicate dance if I 100% believe what you're saying.

I can't. can't. can't. So, let me explain that. Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, there's no family in the world who came from everything perfect. Right. Of course. Okay. Every family has crazy in it. That's the first thing we say in our mentor family program. It's like, hey, every family's got chaos. Even the best in the world, they nail two of our four C's for the C4 framework for families. But, um, But, um, But, um, you can honor certain parts of where you come from, okay? without justifying the rest.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Because guess what? You still have the same last name. That's right. That's right. That's right. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, everybody's an example, even if it's a bad one. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. So, you can tell stories of redemption. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there's a there's a gift for you and how you're treating your kids and your spouse and your your company and your employees because of some of the things you went through. For sure. For sure. For sure. That's the beauty of redemption.

Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. Yeah. Mhm. But sometimes we throw the baby out with the bathwater. the bathwater. the bathwater. Okay. And this is a difficult thing to do in heritage because you want to train your kids to honor you even though you're going to make mistakes. mistakes. mistakes. And so there's a way that we can honor some of the good in your in your mom or your aunts and uncles or a grandparent or things that have happened in your past. past. past. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Without casting aside or justifying or overlooking the bad stuff.

Yeah. Okay. Cuz guess what? You still have the same last name. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you want to raise kids who are forgiving and loving to you even though you're going to make some mistakes along the way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, you're being the model now that they follow in two decades. Sure. Sure. Sure. Instead of Instead of Instead of you literally are going to cut off everything before you and you're going to backhand your entire heritage. heritage. heritage. Yeah. What happens when your kids get out in the real world and you guys have a disagreement?

a disagreement? a disagreement? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're like, "Well, he cut off his family forever. I think I'm going to cut him off for a while." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. My family's the problem. They get They go to some crazy progressive idiot mentor school and they train your kids the exact opposite of all the things you tried to raise them in. And all of a sudden, you're the enemy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're a victim of your oppression. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. I need to for me to be safe.

For me to be healthy, I need to cut them off. M. M. M. No, we don't want to train that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See, this is why heritage is so critical. They're the next step in the line. And they're the goal is for them to blow by you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you celebrate them doing it. No. No. No. See, my my boys are the only men in the world I want to blow by me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See? See? See? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This is why this is so powerful.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think hope that helps. No. No. It helps. It helps a lot. And I'm lucky that I have also an incredible partner to make sure like something like that doesn't happen, right? So, she's done a great job of maintaining my son's relationship with even my family even though we don't have a really good relationship cuz she doesn't want that. And so, I I have to give her the credit of is my natural reaction is what you just said. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, nobody wants to go to the grave with bitterness and resentment either.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like Like Like I have seen people heal. This is why forgiveness is one of the most powerful things a family can do. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Learn the art of repentance and forgiveness and reconciliation. Yeah. Yeah. That is one of the greatest glues in a family between generations. I know we're talking about generational wealth, but if you think that that's just money, you've missed the whole point. I think all of this is a great point and that's such a good thing. There's so many things that I know that we're doing really well with my son and that's an area that I know that I can personally improve personally improve personally improve because I don't want that.

I don't want him to accept at one point he'll be challenged y challenged y challenged y in his relationship and he'll be like, "Oh, his my dad's relationship. He doesn't have much of a relationship with his mom or his dad and so I'll he cut it off. I'll just cut it off." You know where this gets really bad with money? Later on in life, parents try to pay for their mistakes. their mistakes. their mistakes. So they bribe, coersse, and buy their kids love by paying for the things as they're like older teenagers and in their 20s and 30s.

They're just like, if I give them enough and I, you know, pay for all the mistakes, somehow that'll fix it. It never does. never does. never does. No. No. No. Right. So this is where this generational wealth nightmare goes ary. There was this interesting study that they where they took a bunch of families and uh these are all uh families of faith and they said okay what were the things that the families whose kids were most likely to continue to follow along with the faith. What did those families do was that they went to the church the mo the most is what they and what they found was it was the parents who said sorry the most and who forgave the most.

It was literally the the apology, reconciliation, redemption that they got from their parents that they celebrate and that's what got their children to stick around and continue to follow um in their values and in their and in their faith. their faith. their faith. That's exactly right. How how important is it to name the values because we were you were just now working with our staff and it was by the way so amazing. Uh I I if you got a company you got to look into what these people do.

It's phenomenal. uh but one thing that it was one exercise where we were going through and we were kind of thinking about the values uh that we got from our family and I have a very strong culture in my family had a very stable home not perfect but great in many in many ways and there's definitely values I could list for sure because our culture was so strong but we never named them right so we never said this is what these are what the Stephanos stand for and here's you know we didn't we didn't name them we just I just lived them and So I thought, well, what's the difference?

And I brought this up to you and you said, well, then it kind of evaporates with each generation because you don't name it. So explain that. Why it's so important to put a like a like a word to it. Yeah. So this core word method we have, um, I'll give you an example. My family is faith, family, fish. That's what the Donald stand for. Faith, family, fish. We love God. We back each other. And fish, which is our core word, which stands for fun and adventure, integrity, service, and heavenly work.

Okay. The reason why this is powerful is that all my kids, including my 2-year-old, they literally rattle this off at dinner or on the way home from school. Like, I don't even instigate it now. They know exactly what it means to operate in the world as a don. That's why this is so important. See, because if you don't have these things codified, then the the kids find out through discipline. They find out after the facts. Like what you want to do is like give them a proactive way to go into the world to operate with knowing what their last name means.

And so and we got those values by the way by going back generations and really pulling out like the key stories of transformation. Our family came across the Oregon Trail. We were like early pilgrims in the north. We go all the way back to the king of Scotland. But then the more we unpack this, we realize that faith, family, fish were like the through line for all the generations. And it's so easy to remember. The the alliteration of a word, like an acronym, is so powerful powerful powerful because then my kids literally 10 seconds after we announced it, they can remember them all.

And now when they're in class, we're on the team, they're losing the sports game, you know, they're interacting with their friends. They they know they have a road map of how we act and how we respond. And so now all my wife and I get to do is celebrate whenever we see it, it, it, right? It's like a rubric. Like we literally get to just celebrate the heck out of our kids every time they're doing something with integrity. They're doing the right thing even though they didn't know if anyone was watching.

They're taking initiative, right? They're serving other people. They're they're doing the right kind of work, right? They're they're finishing what they start. Please and thank yous. All that is part of our family values. And so I I would just say like you can't hit a target that's not there. Well, you can't help it getting watered down without doing that. So we had one person who said 10. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So Will and I knew right away it was him cuz he's you could just I would have guessed.

I would have guessed too because you could tell why because he has he has these attributes of a a kid who has been raised with high integrity, morals, values, code, honor like all like you could tell. And what I was saying to him was that, you know, you you inherited that, but if you as a kid or as a now a young man don't start thinking about how do you instill that in your generation, it'll naturally get watered down cuz even though you you may think you know all that cuz your parents, you have you have no idea really how much work and effort they put in to make sure that you had that.

You only spend a percentage of your time with them just like S, you only spend a small smaller percentage than you think of your dad. your dad was working doing all these things and so you adopted like okay I see but you actually don't even realize how much was done for you to actually see that and receive that. So if you don't put in the same amount of effort as they did or more or have some sort of a system in place, it's all systems to carry it on, then it's going to get watered down each generation.

You said like modeling was the most important thing of everything. But to actually define it, vocalize it, uh, you know, in terms of like even talking about their identity and their characteristics or just like how you perceive them. Otherwise, they're going to be out in the world looking for that. I was just going to say uh it's a myth. This is a huge lie from the world. I would love to hear your input on this. How often do we hear or believe that you go out in the world and you figure out who you are?

That's what you do as a kid. You got to go. That's the journey. You learn who you are. You got to try things out. You figure out your identity. If you don't speak this into your kids, somebody else will. Somebody else will. And for sure they don't love your kid as much as you do. So, let's talk about that lie about So, here's how I'll start that comment. Uh don't don't be surprised when you send your kids out into the world to get an identity from Caesar and they come back as Romans.

Yeah. I actually don't know what to add to that because that's it. Like you either you give them an anchor or the world's going to give an identity. And I do not want culture giving my kids an identity. Are you kidding me? kidding me? kidding me? Instant gratification like addiction like crazy. shopahholism, like pornography, all these other things. They're cycling them because the world wants to sell them things so that all they have to do to sell them a bunch of things is tell them they're not enough.

Tell them they're not worthy of love. Tell them that they're lacking that the world is coming to an end and any other schema and childhood wound that they can prod in them to get them to be hooked onto something else, whether it's a screen or a pill or a drug or a program. That's what the world's going to try to give our kids. And don't tell me that the world has good values right now because culture is ripping our kids away from wanting a family. How many Gen Z's are you talking to right now?

You guys hire a ton of them. They're amazingly gifted in a lot of ways. But they're like, "Family? What?" What?" What?" Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to get married. Half of those and in divorce. Who's going to jump out of a plane if half the parachutes don't open? Kids are a a drain. They're a net drain on society. They're an expense, not an investment. Overpopulation. I could with all of my trauma. I couldn't put a kid into the world like this. What a victim mentality.

Also a lie. It's also a lie. Come on. My grandparents grew up in super poor in Sicily during the Great Depression. My grandfather didn't have shoes. Kids are the greatest blessing, not a curse. curse. curse. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are you kidding me? Yeah. It's crazy. You know, it's blowing my mind so much right now as we're talking and this is it hit me out there when you were coaching our team, but now it's really just blowing my mind. This has to happen to a lot of people.

It can't just be me where I know how to train a team that works for me. I want my team chanting mind pump. I want them to know our purpose and our values and what we aim for. I want them to dress the same. I want them to move in the same direction. Then I go home and it's different. different. different. Yeah. Like it's different. I feel that. I'm like, "Wait a minute." By the way, if you play in a team, you're on a winning team, you got a chant.

You know what direction you're going. You know your team, your mascot. Oh my god. You know what your mascot is? You fight for your mascot. It's a stupid stuffed animal or whatever. Meanwhile, when you go home, this has to happen to a lot of parents, a lot of entrepreneurs where they're killers with developing their teams at work. They know how to lead a team, how to move it in a direction. Then they go home and it's kind of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the biggest um it's the biggest loss opportunity.

loss opportunity. loss opportunity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For high impact people, highly skilled, well-trained, well-developed, like crushing at work to go home and leave and give your last and your least to your family, which is your most important investment. important investment. important investment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Your family is your the most important business in your life is not the one you go to every morning. It's the one you come home to. So people literally like give it all at work and give nothing at home. I'm like this is your legacy.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. These kids, this spouse, like this family is it and you're giving them the last ounce and you're just like hoping they go to bed so you can like just finally relax on the couch and scroll like crazy. And we for some reason we like we go into the world, we learn all these amazing things that create success and good like profitable systems and great training and great personal development. go to these expensive events and we we all we talk about is business and money and business money and then we go home to the most important investment in our lives.

It's like communist China. We pay for everything. We give them whatever they want. We solve all their problems for them. We're just trying to get everybody fed and in bed and they see they they just don't nail the right strategies. And I see this all the time. It's like, do you know how many billionaires I'm on Zoom with every every month that are like, I'd give it all. I would literally give all the crap I've made to solve this nightmare I've got going on. Like, I I don't know the number anymore.

And it's always the same thing. Let's talk Let's talk careerism and workcoholism for a second. I was going to say it's probably a much higher percentage in your, you know, sent to millionaires and billionaires because you're an outlier. It's like a professional athlete. The amount of sacrifice, discipline, and focus on that one thing to be great at it, you tend to ignore everything else and that's what made you hyper good at that thing. So, if you're in the elite class of a billionaire, a centaillionaire, that percentage, or a professional athlete, you probably kind of suck at the other thing because you you sacrificed it.

Now, is it is it possible? Yes. This is why it's I'm not here saying like you have to give up everything to have a good family. Nope. We know we know that success stabilizes in a family that it doesn't matter like how well you're doing in your net worth and your financial world. You know how to make sure the kids aren't ruined by it. You know how you how to make sure that they can multiply and steward and they can create their own and they have healthier relationships and values than you did.

Yeah. Okay. So, it is possible. I've met superstars. Yeah. Okay. And we study them like they're like unicorns. We're like, "Okay, give me everything." Okay. I live I live with the I literally go live with these people for three days. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I deep dive their lives. And I am a very good detective because I've been at this game with 10 million families now. I want to know everything, okay? Because it's like a unicorn. But what happens most of the time is we get laser focused and myopic and myopic and myopic on one thing, right?

Like, oh no, it's my spouse's job to take care of the kids. They do the home, they do the kids. My job is to go hunt and kill and make the money. Okay? And so the workcoholism, the careerism, like that focus, they don't they don't realize the destruction it creates on the family when they're not balanced. Do you think there's a point at which you have to catch them where there's where in other words like so I'll share my story with you with like where my or my journey on this uh my because my wife was really concerned before we had a kid, you know, am I going to be that guy who just keeps moving the goalpost?

Yep. Yep. Yep. And and because I was buried into building and and going and I I promised her a long time. I said, "No." And I I'm a firm believer money is a tool. I want to get to a place that it creates freedom so I could be such a present father. Yeah. father. Yeah. father. Yeah. And I promise you that I won't just keep moving the goalpost. And so I had that vision in place that once we reached to kind of a financial place like yeah I still have goals in the business and yes I want to scale still but not at the sacrifice of the thing that why I did it for right for right for right and so uh I was an older dad.

Okay. So that that's probably why I that's I waited until I was older because I wanted to be able to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like you have to catch somebody at a certain place in their journey who wants both, right? Who says, "Yeah, I want to be uber successful financially and be able to have all this freedom and time for my kids." Uh but then also I want to make all all this money and be a present father. Uh do you find that you have to catch them at a certain point to to teach this?

I mean the best the best time for me to catch a family is before they have kids. Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, but it's never too late. I work with a lot of families with adult children, even grandchildren that, yeah, now we're digging out of some holes and we're unpacking some stuff, but it's never too late to heal, to reconcile, to get on the right track. It's never too late. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I got to say that to anyone listening because the number one question I get asked is, "Where were you 20 years ago?" Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. This happens all the time. It is never too late. too late. too late. But the earlier the better for this stuff. stuff. stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because like, let's remember what we talked about today about wealth. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, wealthy people don't chase money. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, they build profitable, scalable systems, this is what investing is, right? The job of those dollars is to go make more dollars. Okay? That's what passive income like. You're making money in your sleep. You build systems inside of companies that scale.

It's not just about creating like a self-managing company. It's about creating a self-multiplying company. Yeah. That's scaling and you get to have, you know, own it and grow it. Yeah. Okay. And that does allow you to be more present present present for the people in your family. Right. Okay, there are seasons where you're going more, but here's what I see a lot. People keep chasing y y y so like they're they're just professional arsonists, professional arsonists, professional arsonists, you know, I kill myself in this season and solve all these problems to give myself more time to go create more fires.

fires. fires. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To go solve Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, when they say the goalpost moves, what they're really saying is, I'm signing up again to go to war. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Afterwards. Right. Afterwards. Right. Afterwards. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And And you're chasing the wrong goals. Yeah. What I would say to families is like stop chasing money. Money is a tool. Like you said, money is a store of value that's created. The more value you can create sustainably and scalably, the more financial power you get.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that gives you more freedom. So that has actually allows you to be more present to to focus on the values to focus on the relationships to be more mentally available and physically present. See, being being with your family is not just being there physically some some of the day. It's it's being mentally available. How [clears throat] many times have we been at home at the end of the day and we're thinking about work? Of course, everyone's guilty of that. Your phone is buzzing that it's not away.

Your wife's thinking about all the crazy schedule and chores and you're neither of you are mentally there and your kids feel it. They sense it, of course. So, it's really about like I know people that they work hard in their work. Like they they have great companies, they have great things, but you know what? They're not saving their last and their least for the home. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They give themselves 15 minutes before they walk in that door and they're like, I'm about to recharge my gas tank cuz I got to be at least twothirds that tonight.

tonight. tonight. Oh, Oh, Oh, that's how you got to do it. You walk in with over half that gas tank to like light it up. The most one of the most profound things I ever heard Jordan Peterson say, Jordan Peterson said it on uh Joe Rogan's podcast when he talked about how much time and effort that uh someone puts into a a oneweek vacation that they they do once in their lifetime, right? This big trip to Rome or wherever. the am the amount of hours that they put into that for that one week of their life compared to uh the fif first 15 minutes that you see your wife or your kids when you walk in through the door which will be 10 a thousand times more time but so how much time do you put into thought like how do I show up for those first 15 minutes and just the stopping I've put this into practice and it's done wonders for my relationship my with both my wife and my kid is that you can't control what happens here and how crazy it But I can't control how when I walk through that door, how I am.

And so like parking in the in the driveway for 10 minutes and like, okay, I'm switching to dad and I go in the house, I kiss my wife real quick and my son, I go straight upstairs and I put my a different outfit on. And so I've created this routine of like I'm transitioning from CEO guy to now CEO of my family, dad, and even changing the clothes and that whole process. And it's life-changing. And if you don't, and if I don't do it, there's been times I'm guilty of not doing that.

It's real easy to allow all those things to happen and to carry it into the house. One thing you you we were talking about money earlier. Another thing you coached me on, and I I would love for you to get into this because again, this is another thing where like, all right, let's see how this turns out, is you encouraged me to come up with gigs for my kids, uh, especially my my teenage kids. and it was uh instead of giving them money for things uh would be to give them jobs and then to pay them for those jobs.

So it's like hey um you know why don't you go pull the weeds or make us dinner tonight. My daughter will do that sometimes or do this thing and then at the end we decide we're going to pay her you know this much or whatever. My fear initially was well if I do that are they going to do their normal chores? Are they going to want to do things for free? What I found was they're more they're they're way more likely to do the free stuff because of the gigs.

I thought they would just want to get paid for everything, right? But it's not the case. Explain that how that works because it's so opposite of what I thought it would do. Yeah. So, this comes back to the generational wealth. You got to train them to be prepared for it to create their own. And you can't spell um learn without earn. without earn. without earn. And so, it is so critical in the home. If if you if you're the family that never talks about money, then you're paying for everything for your kids and you're just setting them up for big big issues later.

You've got to be dealing with incentives in in the home and ways for the kids to earn. Um the poverty, we talked about this today. The poverty mindset tells kids we can't afford that or how dare you even want that. Do you have any idea how much that costs? Do you know how hard I worked to get you guys this thing and you guys just took it for granted? Money doesn't grow on trees. See, we've we've all grown up with hearing these things. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. Those are all poverty mindsets. Okay. Instead of saying we can't afford or, you know, no way we can't afford that is, hey, what what can you do to earn that? that? that? Like, I don't want to kill my kids drive, I don't want to if they want something and it's not going to hurt them. I want them to like find a way to learn how to get the things they want. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's where these gigs come in. So, we call it the home economy, right?

So, we have roles, responsibilities, and rewards. nail those three Rs in the home and your kids are going to start to learn all these superpowers for the rest of their life. Okay? And so you the roles in the home is like there's no money attached. This is just your role in the family. Okay? You should never pay your kids to make their bed, clean their room, dishes and trash, get their homework done on time. Like that's an expectation. That's a role in the family. Okay? It's part of having our last name.

last name. last name. Yeah. But then you have uh other responsibilities and rewards attached. So this is all the other stuff that they can do to earn the things that they want to get. I want my kids to like I want them to want the scooter. I want them to like want the game. I want them to like be excited about certain privileges and freedoms in the home and then find ways to earn them. So this is what most parents miss is they like they literally make their kids do three or four chores where what if your kids could do a hundred things around the house, right?

earn for it, learn financial competency, learn to get the things they want and the freedoms and the privileges for taking on responsibility, and then they're going to learn about a hundred more skills than you ever imagined, and they're going to go out into the world, and it's like shooting fish in a barrel. That's what the home economy is for. So, like, have you ever thought about having your kids plan a family trip, doing all the laundry at a young age, all the stuff with pets, backyard, front yard, like all this stuff kids can do, and they want to do it because they want more freedoms.

They want to earn more to get the things they want, and they want more responsibility. more responsibility. more responsibility. And here's a side effect of it all. They they're coming to me and asking me if they could do certain things. My daughter comes to me and say, "Hey, can I make dinner tomorrow night?" Like, uh, sure. sure. sure. Boom. Boom. Boom. Yeah. Can I make some money? Can I make some dinner? Hey, can I go wash the car? Hey, can I I'm like, "Okay, cool." And they're finding all these different things to do.

In fact, my daughter wanted wanted wanted this these really expensive pair of sweats. And so, normally what she would do in the past is she would just text me a picture of it. Hey, can I have these, please? Or whatever. Instead, she sent it, "Oh my god, they cost this much. What can I do to earn this?" And so my wife is like, "All right, for the next 60 days, uh, you're going to read to your little brother, uh, for 15 minutes every night. Um, and I have a set of books and we homeschool him." So So that's what she does every night.

She goes and reads to him and she she's knocking off her list. She's got the next 60 days to do because of these pair of expensive sweats that she bought and was totally on her initiative, which is remarkable. And again, I thought it would do the opposite. I thought it would be like they would only do things to get paid for, but it's not. It's actually strengthening this whole idea of responsibility initiative. responsibility initiative. responsibility initiative. Entitlement entitlement happens when kids get all the the rewards of life without any responsibilities.

That's the problem. problem. problem. Yeah. You t you also taught me to attach uh anything that they want, right? You could turn anything into something like that. Like, hey, can I have a treat? Uh well, how about if you go clean your the playroom for that? Yeah. So, this is this is the simple principle. If you give all the rewards without any responsibilities, they become entitled. Now, if you if you drill sergeant, tough love, give them all the responsibilities with no rewards. rewards. rewards. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Now they're resentful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But if you want rocket fuel, you got to marry the two. And so most families, they just give their kids all the rewards. They like all the freedoms, all the privileges, the tech, the toys they want. They're buying everything. They're letting them do whatever they want. Or they're like they're getting them into the sports they want or they're buying the things or they're, "Oh yeah, add it to your wish list." And then all a sudden grandma and grandpa give them 20 things all at once for a birthday or Christmas and they're like, "Dang it." You have to tie rewards to earning to responsibility.

This is how they learn to create value, right? Like the other day, I'll give you an example. The other day, my daughter, she's um she wanted to get the hover scooter, scooter, scooter, okay? She's 9 years old. Her brother got one. She's like, "I really want one of those." And she had she had 40 bucks. She needed $41 more to get it. So, she comes to me and she's like, "What can I do to earn the other 41 bucks?" First question I asked her was, "Is it 41?" She's like, "Oh, yeah, sorry, 55." Yeah.

Cuz she knows she's got a share and she's saving and investing the other 20% and then 70% of it. Oh, interesting. Oh, interesting. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, she already knows. So, I'm like, "Okay, cool. Uh, you're going to trim back the hedges by the the car. That's a big one. Uh, you got to help put your three brothers to bed three times this week. Okay. handle it all the whole evening routine which saved Amy and now I like four hours. Okay. She helped Amy with dinner twice.

She sorted the laundry twice and I said and uh we call them brain gigs which is teaching kids to create value with their brain. So she did two Tuttle twins and a Prageru. Prageru. Prageru. So they tell us what they learn from those because I want my kids to use their brain to create value not just hands and feet. Okay. So she knocked out all those and I said and one icing on the cake you got to create one. create a gig that we didn't see or something you see that needs to be done, which happened the next day.

We had some friends over and so she entertained all the young kids, the little the younger kids for two hours. So, the parents literally just hung out. It was awesome. Okay, she nailed And I said, "And by the way, it's an all or nothing. Like, you either do all of this or it's a no-go." That was it. It was like 30 seconds. She nailed them all. She got the scooter and she saved us a ton of work. She learned all these other skills. like she's learning to create value, which that's what financial competency is.

Like the the greatest thing you can do for generational wealth, specifically financially, financially, financially, teach your kids not to to go for money, teach them to create value. Money is a store of value. So the better they are at hunting for ways to create value, solve problems, think critically, find the wants and needs of other people, see what needs to be done and find a way to leave things better and then take initiative to do it before people ask. That is the greatest superpower for the rest of their life.

Then I don't care if you leave them five bucks or five million bucks, they're going to crush. What are some of the ways uh because there's there is a lot of uh generational trauma around money. uh around either maybe you couldn't afford things or maybe um it was always about it was it was just it wasn't just money wasn't just worth the value but it was the value so it's like how much money you can make and buy like how do you deal with that you yourself so you don't pass that on to your kids like what are things to look out for with that that that yeah I started talking about this a while back got me in some hot water we were talking about this earlier uh it's probably going to do it again right now so um money traumas, I think, are some of the worst traumas in the world because they're the only trauma you wake up and work for for the rest of your life.

life. life. What do you mean by that? What do you mean by work for? Well, everyone's raised with certain money [snorts] mindsets and certain poverty mindsets and certain issues, right? Parents fighting over bills. Um, if a family the number one issue of divorce inside of a home is a money issue. So, kids see that as a nightmare. They're terrified of it. There's tons of guilt and shame around money. Maybe their parents used money to bribe and coersse and buy their love. Maybe they had co-parenting and they literally went back and forth and mom and dad literally tried to have to bribe them with a better experience using money at their house.

See, these are all money traumas. Parents arguing over bills, telling them they can't afford anything. Like, how dare you want that? Money doesn't grow. All these things are are money mindsets the kids are raised around. Or the parents literally never said anything. So, the kids get off into the real world, have zero training, and they get hit with a Mac truck, and then they're resentful of how they were raised. These are all money mindset issues. Okay. And so, the greatest way to to heal from those is to first call them out.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, I think one of the biggest takeaways from the training with your team today was when we said, um, a problem well-defined problem well-defined problem well-defined Yeah. is half is half solved. So, good. So, because most people don't realize that they're walking around with this baggage. baggage. baggage. They don't realize it's affecting their job. It's their income, their earning potential, their their own children, their own relationship. Like, I see this all the time with newlyweds. One of them came from a home that was like frugal.

One of them came from a home of like gifts. Giving you things and stuff is like how I love you. And so, one's a hoarder, one's a spender, and then you put them together and two become one. And then all of a sudden you have this nightmare. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. And then you you you try to figure out why a couple years in you're always arguing over stuff. Well, these are this is the money traumas. So this is a big deal to heal from or else you're just going to pass them down to your kids.

Every one of these comes out without realizing it or you overcorrect the other side. Right? Like that's I I tell the story all the time that if I would have had a kid at 25, I would have passed my money trauma down in a different way thinking that I solved the money trauma, right? So I thought, oh, I saw all these things with money, therefore I went the opposite extreme other way. And one of those things was I was serving it, right? So I was at a place where I worked so hard to make a bunch of it that I know that that was still an insecurity of mine.

And so I would have been the 25-year-old dad who put his kid in Louis Vuitton shoes and done like like thinking that oh I'm giving him the life that I didn't have because I still hadn't worked through that. So like it's first you got to call it out become self-aware of it and then there's work to do to reframe it right and and change it. Otherwise you either pass it down because you're unaware of it or you pass down the other extreme end of it. You teeter totter.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You come from nothing. You give them everything. everything. everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So, I see this a lot of times, first generation success families, um they they're like, I'm going to I am I'm going to make sure my kids never have to go through what I went through. Right. Right. Right. Oh, when I have kids, I'm going to give them those I never had those things. I'm going to make sure they get those things. things. things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm going to give them every opportunity I never had.

And then all of a sudden, 15 years later, you have entitled, spoiled, anxious kids forgetting that all the all that stuff they didn't get is what created the the success they have. What made you you? Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I mean, it's like we teeter totter all the time. I also see this when people feel the guilt and shame of like kind of like a spoiled childhood where they got everything. everything. everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, then they teeter totter to tough love. love. love. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Ah. Ah. Ah. Because they hit a Mac truck at 18 to 30. They went through hell. Got to prepare my kid for life. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So now they're like freaking David Gogggins Navy Seal parents. Tough love. Told you so drill sergeant. Like I'mma train you up. Like no. That causes just as much of a problem. problem. problem. So we don't want to teeter totter. Like it's about systems. It's about running the playbooks in the home that build long-term generational success. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You said you said it's the only trauma that you work for. What do you mean by that? that? that? Yeah. Money. you wake up and work for it. it. it. There's no way get away from getting from it every day. Every other trauma, every other trauma you can run from, you can hide from. Talk think of all the other types of traumas that happen in people's lives. These other core wounds, the the abandonment abandonment abandonment you can you can avoid a lot. Everybody avoids.

They try to forget it. They try to put out their brain or they try to move through in love. They try to get get over it. With money, With money, With money, you just wake up and you got to work for it. You got to pay your bills. You got to think about it a lot. Yeah. M. Yeah. M. Yeah. M. So that's the trauma is literally and then if you don't heal from it, it's your master. your master. your master. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like you cuz you either work for money or it works for you.

Yep. Yep. Yep. And wealthy families learn how to have money work for them and it doesn't like ruin their identity. Would you say because society has gotten uh so much more prosperous just in comparison generally to previous generations that a lot of the issues now around money revolve around like um confusing wants with needs? Like I I want this, I want that, I'm going to get this, I want, you know, and so they end up [snorts] uh we we see consumerism has been an issue for a while, but now it seems and I'll tell you where I'm going.

I had this this debate with uh my cousins a while ago. Um and I remember they were so dead set on their position but by by the end they could see my point and it was this it started like this. My my grandparents passed away recently and we recently sold their house. Okay. And it was a a house in San Jose. It's very expos one of the most expensive cities in the world. world. world. Uh but my when my grandfather came here it was farmland so it wasn't Silicon Valley.

Um, and he bought the house before it was built and I think he bought it for like 20 something thousand dollar. It sold later for 1.8 million. This is a little tiny track home. Okay. 1.8 million. And my cousins were like, "Oh gosh, you know, when Nona was, you know, working, you know, he was a janitor and he was able to support a family of, you know, with four kids in a home and Nona didn't have to work. And nowadays, you can't do any of that." And I'm like, "Hold on a second." I said, "Let's let's have you live exactly the way they did." So, did they have internet?

No. How many cars do they have? One. Did they go on vacations? Never. Did they eat out? Never. What about clothes? Oh, my grandmother made their clothes half the time. And so, I went down the list. But they barely got hot water. I I'm going down the list and I'm like, uh, actually, um, you could you you guys are way better off. You just have this idea of like this is all the stuff I Well, I need internet. I need all these services. I need two cars.

I need a TV in every room. So maybe speak to that a little bit because it seems like the money trauma now is in the other direction where it's like I just need all the stuff when in reality it's like what? what? what? Yeah. Entitlement. Yeah. Entitlement. Yeah. Entitlement. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Entitlement is all the rewards of life without the responsibilities. And so we live in a society that's more prosperous overall healthier. More people out of dollar a day poverty, more opportunity than ever before. Yet we're the most anxious.

We're the most drugged. We're the most riddled in in anxiety and depression and suicidality. The most therapized the most therapized and most therapy is rumination rumination rumination where the biggest problem in the the therapy world is where people just unpack problems and that's the whole thing they do. The more you r the more you dwell on a problem the bigger it gets unless you have a solve for it or a strategy to work through it to transform from it. So, we're in this society where people have had it better than ever before that they feel like more of a victim than ever before.

And that is the that's the curse that's on society right now. Remember, uh I was thinking about this the other day. Remember when planes got Wi-Fi? Wi-Fi? Wi-Fi? So, no one had ever had it before. You're in a tin can in the sky. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. And then all of a sudden, everybody has access to the internet on their phones or laptops or laptops or laptops and it's like the coolest thing ever. And then 30 minutes in the flight, all of a sudden the Wi-Fi cuts out and pissed.

and pissed. and pissed. Everyone's pissed. Everyone's pissed. Everyone's pissed. It's like it's a modern miracle just happened. happened. happened. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're pissed 30 minutes later. That's that's like a microcosm of what's going on in our society. And so for me, I think we have to do the best we can in our families and with our employees, by the way. But in all these areas to help people learn like you have to get rid of entitlement, you have to get rid of victimhood. I have to get rid of like this anxious self-doubt.

All these things create this nightmare that we're seeing in our societies. Another thing you suggested to me, I have yet to do this just cuz I have to plan it out and I'm I'm waiting while my daughter's out of school. Um, and it's like a one thing, but I think there's things you could do every day that are impactful and there's big things that are impactful. One thing you suggested was to take my daughter on a mission trip to go to some other country to help people who need help to go sleep in uncomfortable place or whatever.

Uh how in the research you've done with successful families, is this common? Is it a common thing for families to go and serve and go in these areas that are, you know, to to see people who are far less fortunate? less fortunate? less fortunate? 100%. Um so there's there's several things. This is our whole program is we studied the most successful families financially and other like just your kids blow by you for four generations. So we have all of the strategies they do and we codified it.

Um a service mindset is one of the top principles that we saw. the the greatest way to um the anecdote or sorry not the antidote but um the the way to cast out all of the victimhood and entitlement is to give them a grateful mindset and a clear view of how like the rest of the world operates so they can have a heart of service. service. service. Does that make sense? So this is yeah missions is huge. Going and and doing it with your kids, not sending them off.

They like one of the biggest things these families did is they didn't outsource the parenting, right? They didn't outsource it and just send them off to all these other people. They did it with them. And so going on a mission trip with your kids, going to feed the homeless, going to to another country and building a home or working in an orphanage or seeing how the rest of the world is living, it immediately gives the kids this this worldview of like, "Oh, wow. I have it.

I have it right now so much better than so many people, and I want to help them. I want to have a life that helps other people. Okay? Because the greatest thing you can do with your kids is not give them handouts. Give them legs up. Give them leg a leg up in life. And so you want them to think that way about like how can we like create value for the people around us to serve and help them. That is the dream life. That is how a kid that's how you eradicate entitlement out of a kid's life.

Okay. Um, but if you insulate them and you pay for everything and you solve all their problems and you bubble wrap them, you're going to get an entitled kid. It's just going to happen. Yeah. They're spoiled. They're anxious. And then they then they hit the real world and become a victim because they're not ready for it. They're selfish. And when you're selfish, it's all about you, not God or others. It's all about you. And so then you have to have control, right? And that's where all the anger anger and anxiety and frustration comes from.

from. from. Instead of uh a selfless service mindset with strong capability and skill sets, that's how you create a world changer. A kid with strong skills and capability to create value, solve problems, right? Who has a selfless service mindset with compassion and generosity to help. That is a world changer kid. And if you don't do that, it's coddling. It's drill sergeant. It's like a caretaker kid where you get all the entitlement and the victimhood. In your experience, is there um I imagine you're going to say at any age good, but have you seen like that there's a there's a prime age for that this lesson?

So, when we first started with you, uh my son was just 5 years old turning six. And so, we're we're barely now getting to this place where I think I can start to teach the gigs things of that. But one of the things that's been so powerful is if he's he's he's young enough and he's at age enough where he asks to do a lot of things and we've practiced the instead of saying no, it's like first go help mom with laundry, help this. So we're already I think setting the foundation for assume the the money and understanding what money kind of is.

We're entering that. So when I think of something like a mission, uh I feel like he's too young to really get that message. Do you find there's a prime age for like two years old? So it starts with the quarter system. Okay. Okay, so here's the basis of money training in the home. Okay, we talked about the home economy. Teach them to earn, teach them to create value. Starts at 2 years old, 2 to 5, you do the quarter system. Get a roll of quarters quarters quarters and one of go on go on Amazon or whatever and buy the three jar.

So it's save, spend, share, you go buy that jar and it's one of the fastest ways to help correct them and you skip a lot of discipline cycles and you're teaching them you're reinforcing the right behavior behavior behavior and helping weed out the wrong behavior. And so what you do is every time uh a two-year-old is helpful, like they can't add, they can't count to 100, right? But every time they're helpful or they practice the first time follower rule, they do the thing the first time or they show a good character trait, they're help, they're kind, they're they're loving, whatever it would be, they get a quarter, quarter, quarter, okay?

okay? okay? And they get to go put the quarter in one of the jars, okay? And every time they put it in save, you double it. So you teach them saving and investing right there. And then they can put it in share or spend. And it doesn't matter where they put those quarters, but every time they get to 10 quarters, they get a special treat or a reward. Okay? Okay? Okay? It's beautiful. It teaches them the basics of financial commency. Any of the quarters in share when next time you're at church or you can help like they get to give those quarters away.

They love it. Okay. Okay. Okay. But when they're misbehaving, instead of going through a whole discipline cycle, it's like, "Oh buddy, you got to go get a quarter. You got to go give me a quarter. quarter. quarter. out of your spend jar, not the other ones. So, you teach them that like the spend is the the stuff that they can get with it. But, um, and the little dollar toys and things, it's so it's so good. So, I mean, that totally connects with me cuz I could see him being able to connect to that.

that. that. So, you start there with a share jar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like we talked about what's the number one and most important money skill in the home. You got earn, save, spend, share, invest. The number one by far in a legacy wealth family is share. Because giving together, teaching children to be generous gives them an abundance mindset. Okay? Not a scarcity mindset. It's not a lack mindset. It's abundance mindset. The pie can get bigger. bigger. bigger. I can create value. Tomorrow's going to be better than today.

There's more than enough to go around. I can share. See, and we love the word share because kids first think about sharing a toy before they think about like giving money to a kid in another country or something. So you talk about share and kids can't give what they don't earn. So yes, you need to teach them earning but sharing is like one of the most powerful skills because it helps you become a better investor, helps become a better like spender, helps you take care of the people around you.

More opportunities come to people who are more generous. Period. It's an abundant mindset. mindset. mindset. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So here's a great tip. like when they're young, sub 10, 12, the the mission trip stuff. I just took my se seven and nine-year-old to Zambia, right, last summer. So young, like let's go. go. go. Oh, you've been at seven? Okay. Um, and it was wild and it was unbelievable and their lives are never going to be the same. But here's a great idea. Uh, how about next um Christmas, give your kids a hundred bucks or 200 bucks and they have to give away a hundred of it within a week.

Teach them what it's like to give give away and how and have them get creative on how they want to give it away. Okay? Okay? Okay? Like I have this joke, you heard it today. Any anybody who says that money doesn't buy happiness just hasn't given enough of it away. So share like this idea of service and generosity is the most critical. Last thing I'll say on generational wealth, the family who gives together stays together. stays together. stays together. So everyone's worried about ruining their kids, ruining their grandkids, ruin them with wealth.

If you want to have glue between generations, give together. Give money together. Set up a daff. Set up a trust. Set up a foundation. Give together to to missions and ministries and things that you all care about. If you do that, you are binding your children together because they're giving together. They're on mission together. So, regardless of what you're going to pass down financially, set up a system where they're giving together. that that that locks families in for generations. It's unbelievable how you do that. do that.

do that. I you know I don't I don't know if this is really the right way to do it, but I have noticed some positives. And so what we what we do is we have these cond. So we have this these condensed versions of the gospel. This is really these free little mini Bibles and we put money in them and [snorts] we have them and every time we see a homeless person or if we do we tend to give them well our kids our little ones see this and so now we give it to them to hand to them and so now what's happened if we're out we don't have anything my son will see someone and go papa can we help him can we go help him oh turn around there was someone over there and so they're they're they're finding joy in doing this and pointing people out we go over we help them and then they talk about it afterwards so just a little bit of just to back up a a little what you're saying.

I've noticed perfect perfect perfect that the kids they it seems to foster something something something in them which is really interesting. It it really comes down to are they going to be me centered or are they going to be others and God- centered? centered? centered? That's really the greatest skill and gift you can give them as they're growing up. The more they're centered on others, the more that they're going to be successful in life. You can have anything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.

they want. they want. the market grows the more people serve the needs and wants of others. The the the families families are stronger, marriages are stronger be the more people are selfless, the more that they're taking care of the needs of others around them, the more they're like they have a lens to look at the world to help the people around them. Okay, that's love at the end of the day. That's compassion, right? Like I want my kids I don't want my kids to have pity on people or sympathy for people.

I want them to have compassion, which is it's [snorts] having sympathy enough to act on it. on it. on it. See, like faith, this is where people mistake what faith is. They just think, "Oh, if I believe in God, I have faith." No, no, no. Faith is believing in God enough to act on it. Right. Right. Right. That's why faith and actions are together. Like, I faith is actually sitting in a chair knowing it's going to hold me. hold me. hold me. Right. Right. Right. Right.

It's being sure of what you hope for, certain of what you don't see, enough to act on it. So, that's what compassion is. So compassion is not just sympathy and pity for the bad feel bad for them and then you're gone. Do something about it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like this is why you know I was talking to you guys about to and I we we work on anti-trafficking all the time. I can't talk too much about the secret stuff about it. But I'll tell you when I talk to families I'm like hey I just want you guys to think about this for a second.

Pity is feeling bad for something. Compassion is acting on it. Do you want to raise kids who just have pity or do you want to raise kids who take action when they see a problem, when they see an issue? I want to I want my I want a legacy where my my kids learn to take action when they see an issue. You know what sympathy and [clears throat] and pity look like sometimes is uh false action. action. action. Posting, you know, false anger or trying to get someone else to do something but not actually doing something yourself or virtue.

Everybody look how mad I am. So, meanwhile, uh people aren't getting help. Um and you mentioned faith. It's like it would be like talking to someone and they're like, "Oh, yeah. I really value fitness." Like, "Oh, cool. Like, when do you work out?" "Well, I actually don't work out." work out." work out." Okay. Well, you obviously don't value fitness, dude. fitness, dude. fitness, dude. They're 50 lbs overweight. Yeah. Yeah. and their cholesterol is through the roof. I'm all about fitness. Yeah. Yeah. No. No, you're not.

Yeah. The fruit the fruit smells bad. Is this your favorite thing to speak to? Because I know you also train entrepreneurs. You work with businesses. Is this your favorite thing to speak to? By far. I think that every business is just a group of families getting together on a common mission. So, you know, the irony of what we've been doing is I said goodbye to all the dozens of huge business stuff and all the other things. I just said, "Forget it. The most important thing in the world right now to me is to take back the family." So, family goes, so society goes.

So, we just went all in to learn like what does it take? How do we build the strongest families in the world? How do we create a system for it? Because I'm a systems thinker. It's how it's how I've done business forever. You create systems that scale sustainably. That's wealth. That's how you build it. That's how you have impact. And so what we've just found is the family is kind of like the central business of society. Fact. Fact. Fact. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. But we have we have sacrificed a lot of families and we have dep prioritized the family in in for career and success and achievement and power and influence and all the things that we want when family is the greatest blessing you could ever have.

a well uh organized beautiful legacy is the greatest blessing in life. And so I I want I want to focus all my efforts there. And then what we found was that oh by focusing on explaining this to teenagers and kids and families, we just came up with some of the most incredible business training in the world because we're focusing on the foundational business unit, the family. family. family. Right? So we got all these people who do do all these things in business and then have train wreck homes because they're going the opposite direction.

M the people I admire most in business have the most welloiled functioning homes with the deepest relationships and the most connection. Now you have the integrity integrity integrity a and respect to do this in work. This is what entrepreneurs need to realize is like hey you nail this stuff at home you're going to nail it at work and then everybody else is going to see the truth. truth. truth. They're going to see the fruit on the business front and on the home front. I have I want to be very careful who I listen to because I want them to be like holistically like in line.

Does that make sense? You mean you mean all the business uh influencers or influencers or influencers or all that crap? We call themc experts, right? Like they're they're myopically uh gifted. They they crush in one area and fail in every other area. And I'm not saying you can't learn some good stuff from them, but I'm saying if I want to model my life after someone, I want someone who has their priorities in order and they're nailing all these different areas. areas. areas. Because I don't want success in just one area, area, area, I want success in all the areas.

That's that's why this is such a big deal to us. Well, our team put together like what 15 hot seat questions here for you. They went through a lot of your content and stuff. Um, stuff. Um, stuff. Um, it's like rapid fire, you know, give, you know, give us a few words or or what you think about each one of these. And I I definitely think we should since we're talking about uh the family and and talking about generational wealth, I think kicking it off with one of the first ones right here is is is paying your kids for chores.

So, where do you stand on that? Because I think that's I think a common thing that people do is, oh, you take out the trash, you make your bed, you do these things, and you get this allowance every single weekly allowance. And so what are your thoughts on paying for chores and allowances? Allowances socialism. You're literally getting money for existing. Okay. Chores is a cuss word. That's why we that's why we changed this whole thing to gigs and earning. Okay. So here's the problem. If you just give your kids an allowance, okay, it's basically just giving them money to exist.

And you're like, "Well, at least they're learning about money." Well, hold on a second. like they learn need to learn to earn the money first or else they'll never learn a money skill with it. Okay. Well, then other people go, "Well, we give our kids chores and then they can earn an allowance." Okay. So, you're giving them a list of things to do and then they get one lump sum every week. 80% of the time they're still getting the lump sum every week. They're not tying it individually to anything, right?

And then you're still arguing over the chores. You're still reminding them 10 times to do everything. do everything. do everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Or they say the last biggest problem is and they're like, "Oh, no, no, my kids don't get an allowance. Don't worry. I make them do all the chores like they're told." So, slavery. So, slavery. So, slavery. I'm like, "Oh, yeah. Congratulations, drill sergeant. drill sergeant. drill sergeant. Um, you have compliant children." And be careful. Everybody's like, "I don't want defiant children. I want compliant children." compliant children." compliant children." Uh, [snorts] no.

You're thinking about it wrong. it wrong. it wrong. Uh, did you know that a defiant child is actually going to become the most loyal, most powerful kid that will never be taken advantage of later in their life? They'll know what they stand for. They'll they'll carry on your values more than any other kid. Defiance is a superpower. You just have to know how to manage it well. That's right. That's right. That's right. Okay. Um but I will say when they say, "I don't pay them anything.

I make them do the chores." I go, "Well, then okay, good. You're paying for everything for them for their entire childhood and teenage years." And now they're learning nothing about money. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why the home economy system works so well because you're all you are paying them. You're buying them stuff. You're paying for the roof over their head. They just don't realize the value. That's right. That's right. That's right. What do you think? This is a tough one. Uh but what do you think about like taking away something that you think is valuable uh for behavior issues?

For example, your kid loves football or loves baseball. They have a behavior issue. You take it away, but be like, "God, [clears throat] they need that. They need the sport. It's a good thing." Or they have piano lessons and they love it. Or they do this thing that and it's really good for them. And do you take it away for behavior issue or do you focus on something else? Like how do you juggle that? two the two biggest problems I see in the home are when parents don't enforce consequences.

It's a it's false. It's it's a false threat. threat. threat. Okay? It's too hard to do it. So, they just keep warning them and repeating themselves all the time, which is a nightmare. Okay? Or they just give them a bunch of rewards regardless. The average family gives their kids over a dozen different rewards. Freedoms, upgrades, experiences, privileges, money, stuff. They're just giving them all these different rewards that could be tied to responsibilities and earning it. You're missing gold here. Okay. So, I think that there has to be a consequence.

You know, the best form of discipline to me is just choice consequence. consequence. consequence. Set up the strategy and the system in the home where they know the consequences of decisions and choices that they make. Right? It's not about you being against them or anything. It's just it's the environment of this home. You make these choices. here's the consequences. And if the consequences aren't a big deal, they're not a consequence. consequence. consequence. So, if the incentive structures are not aligned and it's something that maybe you want them to do, but they really really want it and it's not really a consequence that they care about.

Like a kid who like goes to their room but loves being in their room. That was my sister. Yeah. That's not a consequence. My daughter loves to read. She has more AR points than any fourth grader at the school that has ever been there. She's a reading freak. She earns money to buy more books. I am like amazed by this. Okay. We have to use reading time and books as the consequence. She doesn't get to do that. They They They have to feel some pain. They have to feel it.

I remember being young. I I missed the first youth group when in sixth grade. Like the first youth group when I was like all my friends there, everyone's going. This is like church like learning about God. about God. about God. I missed it cuz I acted out. And I to this day remember like 30 years later that moment because it was like I desperately wanted that thing and I lost that opportunity because of the decision I made. So you got to force a consequence that's really going to mean something to your kids.

What's your hot take on spanking? I thought I already got cancelled earlier in this podcast. Spanking. Spanking is not abuse. There's your first answer. Spanking is not the only answer. Okay, we have this fights all the time. Arguments with families. How could you? How dare you? Oh, how? Spare the rod, lose the child. What's wrong with you? You're going to raise a nightmare. There's two sides of this coin. And I don't land on either. Okay. Um, but here's what I need to tell you about discipline.

It's a hard issue. All discipline is a hard issue. No matter how you're going to discipline them, it has to be a consequence that they don't want. Okay? And [snorts] I think people do spanking because it's an immediate consequence instead of, oh, you're losing your privilege for this for the next two months. Now the parents like I got to freaking I got to keep track of this for two months because of one outburst. Like that's the hard part. Just like get it over with. But you need immediate consequences somehow that mean something.

So figure that out that whatever you do, find immediate con consequences that mean something to your kid. There you go. But you never lose the heart. See, it's a heart issue. The worst thing I see is if parents will spank their kid and send him away. him away. him away. So if the kid acts out, they spank him right there in the moment out of frustration and they send him out of their presence. Now that's losing the heart. heart. heart. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. You never discipline in anger.

It's about choices and consequences. And at the end of whatever you do with the consequence, you recapture the relationship because you're going after their heart, not their compliance. So it's like, hey, they say they're sorry. They really mean it. Say, hey, God forgives us. I forgive you. I love you. Big hug. Hey, let's go make this right. High five. And you go make it right with a sibling, with mom, with dad, whatever it is. That is what you're after in a discipline cycle. You're trying to keep their heart.

I'll say that. The other thing I'll say is discipline. Most discipline in the home comes from a lack of training. Discipline is usually a reactive answer to just a lack of training. Like you get frustrated because you've told your kids a bunch of times. You've reminded them a million times. You didn't train them with the systems with enough choice consequence to like get the systems in the home. Most parents are exhausted because they haven't trained. they're just reacting through discipline and they just get frustrated and exhausted all the time.

So, double down on training and then you really cut the discipline in half. I find this this one is so interesting to me because we've talked about this on our podcast and I'm the one who's like pro spanking yet I've never spanked. So, I find that really it's that so and it's because I never felt like I' I've had to I've never had to I I I can make the case for where I could see like for example if my son was a type of kid who might pick up a toy and hit another kid over the head uh and I want to disrupt that in the moment in the time that I see it.

I could see the the the uh importance or the value of hey whacking him on the butt and then teaching him that's not okay behavior. But he's never been I've always been able to communicate to him and talk to him what's right, what's wrong, and stop him without doing that. So, I've never had to do it. Although I I feel like I would if I needed to. But I've made it this far and not had to. Two of my kids never eat it. One of them, he needed it.

And he woke up real quick and now he's like the most loyal, most first- time follower. We're We actually have the closest relationship, ironically. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So, like this is why we got to give each other a break here. There's plenty of other stuff we can argue about in families and homes and life in the world. Yeah. world. Yeah. world. Yeah. Like how about we try to figure out ways to help our kids become the healthiest, strongest kids possible and give each other a break.

I definitely think there's a difference too between of course is how you spank, but there's also is it out of anger and rage, rage, rage, right? right? right? Uh because you can also not spank your kid and you can yell at them out of anger and rage which is traumatizing. That's right. That's right. That's right. To children and and we know this. So or worse, you just let them live that way. way. way. Yeah. Or Jordan Peterson's quote. I love it. He said, "Don't don't let your kids do anything that makes you dislike them." them." them." Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Because then they're going to be a nightmare to everybody around you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, as a parent, you're going to make mistakes. Uh how do you feel about apologizing to your kids all the time? So, So, So, every time you mess up, learn to apologize, ask for forgiveness. You have to model these things 100%. 100%. 100%. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I I actually think probably the the worst issue like yes, there's like blatant abuse. There's terrible things that happen in people's childhoods.

But close behind that is when people never share anything with their kids. Everything's behind closed doors. Their kids never see any issues or struggles or conflict. They literally just act like everything's perfect in the home and nothing was ever wrong when a ton of stuff actually was. So then fast forward and then the parents split and then the kids immediately blame themselves. Okay? Okay. And that and then then they're carrying that baggage for the rest of their life. They're wired They're wired They're wired careful careful careful their children are wired to place the blame on themselves and they think something is wrong.

So if you're I've apologized to my kids just for being distant or in a bad mood. Uh because it's not like they don't know. And so afterwards like hey you know earlier I was just totally in a bad mood and I'm really sorry and I got a lot of stuff on my mind. You don't need to necessarily tell them all your your your struggles especially if they're little. They're not going to understand. But just let them know like, hey, here's something's going on. The thing you felt, it's real.

Yep. I actually was in a bad mood. I think it's one of the most powerful things that we can do. 100%. Yeah. I mean, we obviously we cover a lot of things and covered a lot of things with you. Um, personally, I think because it's inevitable as a parent, you're going to make a mistake or you're you're not going to handle a situation perfect. perfect. perfect. Y Y Y uh so that's inevitable. Uh but if you own it and then you apologize to your kid, I think the the connection that you get from is unbelievable.

I've watched it happen. it happen. it happen. Yeah. I mean, if there's a break and a repair, it usually gets stronger. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. Think of bones, like muscles, like tendons. How do you grow muscle? You break down the muscle so it grows back stronger. back stronger. back stronger. This is how family works. That's why we say like repentance and forgiveness and saying, "I'm sorry," is the glue between generations. generations. generations. Okay? When none of that is modeled, it just between your kids and then your grandkids, like then there's just so much harbored resentment.

There's so much bitterness. There's so much like victim mindset of these things. Like I see families and they're like, "Yeah, I haven't talked to my mom in five years because of this one random issue." I'm like, "It's not the one random issue. It was 25 years of you guys never modeling this." this." this." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then the one break, the one thing happens and you're an adult and you think it's all over. Are you kidding me? No. No. No. We need to model this early and often as much as we can in the home.

Yeah. Should you take your kids devices at night? at night? at night? You shouldn't give your kids devices anyway. anyway. anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Uh I mean talk let's talk about age here, but I mean I I'm in several groups with like Jonathan hate and Dr. Aean and all these Deloney and all these guys. We've kind of all come to the conclusion that's like that's like that's like uh that phone has actually more destructive potential than the car. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So my kids are not going to get a full-on smartphone till after they're driving.

driving. driving. I love that. I'm giving them a Apple Watch or a Fitbit that can geoarget them and they can text and call if they need something. And other than that, they don't need it. Go as long as you can. I had a friend one time recently. She said she had three sons. They, you know, she was right in the middle of this like anxious anxious generation kind of stuff. Her sons got phones earlier, all this. Um, she said, "Scott, the moment they got that smartphone, [snorts] I can pinpoint to the day for all three of them.

We said goodbye to their childhood." See, that's the pain of this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. um you don't know that it's so much destruction that's on there. And it's not just explicit images and seeing something terrible. It's the dopamine distortion and the addict the pre-addiction training that it gives you. you. you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the lack of attention and connection you're ever going to have with them ever again. again. again. You know what's crazy? Talk to any parent of teenagers who's taken their kids. By the way, requires a lot from a parent to do this because you deal with a you know, you know what storm, but you just deal with it uh and they get over it.

You've if you parents of teenagers who have ever taken their kids' phone away for like a week, they will all tell you the same thing. Oh my god, two days into it, man. They were great. Thank you, Dad. They changed. They were awesome. They were wonderful. They were they were receptive. They were present. Like they throw a fit for a day or two and then afterwards they're better kids. It's like, "Oh, what's this phone doing to my kid?" Yeah. It's like they wake up. They're alive again.

alive again. alive again. So, I'm going to take it a step further because this is what I plan to do. Uh obviously, mine's real young and we'll delay it as long as possible. I imagine when he gets to be a teenager, that's when the hardest conversation will. At that point, you'll be in high school and at that point, you'll understand what a book report looks like. And there's three books that I've read that he'll have to read. Yep. And give me a report on cuz then he'll understand why I regulate it the way I do.

Y do. Y do. Y and that's Irresistible, Unplugged, and Een. And all three of those books talk about how those things were engineered and what they do and the dangers of all them, all the statistics, all the stuff on it. Yep. And I feel like if he's mature enough to drive a car, mature enough to have have those things and he's mature enough to read those books and write his dad a report and when his and then when he's when I sit down with him and I hand him this thing and I say, "Hey, this is when you can use it.

This is how you use it. This is why you have like he'll understand because he did those things." those things." those things." I I look at technology. I mean, the quick answers like you were saying earlier is like I don't want tech any tech in their rooms at all. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For especially younger like pre-puberty or any of that. Don't no iPads in the rooms, none of that stuff. Like we just keep it all out of it. Even me, like I have to be restrictive on my phone is going away at dinner.

And it's away. I have to make myself It's away for the rest of the night as much as possible cuz I want to connect with my wife, too, right? Um but I I look at it like a weapon. It's training. You have to train them to be prepared for a weapon. The phone is just like a weapon. So yeah, we have in our we just finished the connection series a ton of kids coaching videos on technology and devices. devices. devices. Yeah. And like they've never even heard of like, "Hey, what you say online is there forever." there forever." there forever." Like you don't even know who's on the other end of the phone on the other account.

Like do you guys even know what catfishing is in grooming? Like they need to learn these things in their young teenagers before they ever get it. Yep. Yep. Yep. The worst case scenario is when they get it and you wait till the nightmare happens and then you teach them about it. it. it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, we need to be like ahead of the game on this. on this. on this. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so yeah, we've got to be educating. I I think that there should be standards before kids are allowed to have these smartphones.

There needs to be like a training rubric. training rubric. training rubric. I watched my my cousin do a really good job of this. She's got five kids and she's got teenagers now who grew up in this and they were smart enough to to be ahead of it and it's was such a cool conversation to have with a a 16-year-old 16 going on 17-year-old who has lots of restrictions around her phone and how she uses it, what she can have on it, what she can't have on it.

And I remember asking her like, "Do you wish you had all these other things?" She goes, "Yeah, yeah, of course, no. All my friends have this and that." And then I asked her, "Well, when you become a mother one day and you have kids, will you do the same thing?" And she says, "Absolutely." "Absolutely." "Absolutely." So, it's it's so cool to see that if you if you train that early, that even Yeah, they they understand the desires, the wants, and this and that, but then also understands why they did it then.

And it's how would you do it with your kids? Oh, I'm going to do the same thing. same thing. same thing. Did you see the massive study that just came out like last month? Which one? uh the age of giving kids a smartphone versus mental health. Oh, Oh, Oh, Aean just talked about this. We saw the report the day it came out. So, huge study, 100,000 kids, teenagers. They found that when the kids got a smartphone between the ages of um I think it's seven and 10, which is a young.

We're like, whoa, that's young. Well, think of lower lower and lower economic statuses. They're giving the kids smartphones earlier and earther because it's the easy button because they can cook or go to their job or something like so many of these kids are getting it. Um, if you get a phone under 10, a smartphone under 10, the mental health rate is 50%. As a teenager, mental health st like anxiety, depression, suicidality. With boys, it's anger, lashing out, 50%. And if you give a smartphone between 11 and 13, it's down to 25%, which is still stuck.

stuck. stuck. 25%. Yeah. 25%. Yeah. 25%. Yeah. That's 100fold what it was a couple decade, like a decade and a half ago. 100fold. So the smartphone is the most addicting substance for young people in the world. It's just something we give them as a gift at some point. Instead of drugs and other things that like you said, instead of training them like it's a gun, like a weapon, you got to train them. It's like it's a weapon. weapon. weapon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is so hard when a kid sees these things the first time.

Like the hit it gives them. gives them. gives them. Y Y Y like this is why pornography is so destructive. M destructive. M destructive. M like it is insanely destructive on young people's minds. people's minds. people's minds. You know, like when we were young, like let's just be honest, you didn't have it readily available at your fingertips all day every day. Like you had the pervert weird friend that you're like, "Oh, they're our creepy friend that had some like magazine from Maxim and everyone felt really risky and weird like going over and but everyone saw it at like a younger." You're like, "Whoa, that was crazy.

I got to run from that." I remember being like 10 years old the first time we saw like the first page of a pic that our friend Travis showed us. Call him out. Yeah, Travis. Well, here's what happened. Cuz he was in like a double wide across the street. The next day, he goes to juvie because he was we didn't know. I didn't know until much later why, but he was selling drugs, selling pot. pot. pot. And so he goes away to jail. And me and my buddy Matt thought that it was because of the the magazine.

So for the rest of our teenage years, we were scared to scare like I am never going to just look at this as long as I live. live. live. I was 12 years old on a construction site and then it I mean that's where you construction site. It was they put they had them in the porta potty just stuck up on the thing, you know, but but it's different now. If you and this is why kids will never That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. Most of our kids that that are doing this or addicted to this, parents have no clue.

no clue. no clue. It's deadly. It is deadly for them. And so, yeah, so, yeah, so, yeah, talking about when we were kids, here's I'm going to say a saying that we all probably heard growing up and I want to hear your thoughts on this. Uh, because I said so. Why do I got to do that? Because I said so. so. so. Yeah. Um, Yeah. Um, Yeah. Um, part of the values, back to that, is building an identity in our kids and a value system of trust where the kids will go, "Oh, yeah, my parents have my best interests at heart." Okay.

Uh a parent doesn't necessarily have to just explain themselves and give all the reasoning. I my job is not to convince my kids. my kids. my kids. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. They just need to know that I have their best interest at heart. Yeah. There's a submission there that has to happen. And I'm out for their good and I want my kids to be respectful. Like it there's a God gives the command like respect your your mother and father. father. father. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that means like I'm going to honor them and I'm going to follow and obey the things they tell me because look, good parents are out for the good of their kids.

And so for my kids, I actually, you know, we we practice the first- time follower rule. We don't repeat ourselves in the home. Like that actually you help, it's very helpful to build that into I don't say I don't tell my kids because I said so anymore because they don't talk back. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They know that like the first time follower rule is is a valuable thing in our home. our home. our home. Yeah. Because first time follower rule is the rule of which like hey in our home we really celebrate you falling the first time because when you're going to run into traffic if you like as a young kid a little kid Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You only get one you only get one shot at that. at that. at that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Stop. Stop. Stop. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like you need to have your kids follow the first time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And when it comes to repeating ourselves sometimes men can they can get bigger and louder really quickly and it like forces compliance with the children. Oh, I got to listen cuz dad's scary at times. Yeah. Yeah. Well, your wife can't do that. She She can't do that. So, you're take you're robbing her ability to have authority in the home.

That's the problem. And so, when we train families, we say, "Hey, you got to not repeat yourself." Just let the consequence be the teacher. And it's harder to do because it's way easier just to be like, "I told you this. Do it. I missed one more time. The last warning." last warning." last warning." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How many times do I have to tell you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Don't repeat yourself because the more you repeat yourself, the less weight your words have. Yeah. Oh, they're not going to get super pissed until the sixth time.

So, I'm good. I can ignore them. I like how you frame that because I I take it as a challenge when my son's asking me question asking me why to teach him cuz he's at an age right now where everything is why, you know, why are we going to the store? Why are we doing that? So, he's at that age. And so, educating him, I could see on explaining the why behind everything. But I feel like if it's a question you've already asked me and daddy's already told you that we you know we don't do this before bed or we don't do that then it's like you I don't have to I shouldn't have to re-re repeat why you already know why like type of deal.

They're not looking for reasoning right but he's at that five to six age where they're just they just so curious and interested and I want him to I also don't want to just dismiss him right and be like oh I because I told you so I'm your dad. It's like, "No, let me explain why why that happens this way." And then, but it's like after I've done that. that. that. Well, let me give you another really good tip that stops a lot of that. Um, we the the strongest families I've ever met, they take they they take every opportunity with their children to be a learning experience.

learning experience. learning experience. Okay. See, this is it's I call it the Socratic families versus like the dictator families. Um, the strongest families literally they're every single opportunity in the home is like another thing I'm going to ask you a question about or try to teach you or train into you something or hey, what do you think about this? Hey, how would you do this? Everything is a learning experience. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so many families, they miss that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're literally just like I'm tell because I told you so.

Do this, do that. And they're not ever using as a training. training. training. Teacher mom and dads are really good at this. If you have any friends who are My mom was a teacher, my, you know, best friend's a teacher. If you ever watched them with kids, they're so good at this. Everything is a lesson. That's right. Every play, every dinner, everything like they find ways to educate and teach. So good. You naturally invite your kids into it with you. with you. with you. Yeah. If you've never been around that, a hack is to put yourself, get a friend, get a someone close, watch how a teacher is with a kid, a young kid that's in that adolescent age, and watch what they do.

do. do. But you got to be a little bit careful because sometimes just teachers Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. are teaching. They're like telling you how to do everything instead of asking you how you would do it. Sure. Sure. Sure. See, you have to be a Socratic teacher. This is the difference. So, in our home, I want my kids to learn critical thinking. thinking. thinking. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can't just tell them everything and expect them to be good critical thinkers. I have to ask the question back.

back. back. Kind of like what we talked about of helping the team solve their own problems. problems. problems. Right. Right. Right. So, with the kids, I'm like, "Hey, how would you do this?" Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, these have to be uh we have to get this this done in the yard and fix this. How would you handle this situation? Hey, how would you do the dishes here? How would you handle this problem? So, I'm actually inviting them in as a learning experience. learning experience. learning experience.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. That's that's why teachers are good. Yeah. good. Yeah. good. Yeah. Most teachers are good at that. But some teachers are like, I'm telling you just everything. everything. everything. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's like what what I mean my kids so young, right? What shapes are these? And if we eat three of these grapes and leave two of these grapes, how many are left over? Like you just you can take all kinds of simple things like that and turn them into teaching experiences. teaching experiences.

teaching experiences. And here's the real simple strategy. It's like do more with your kids than for them at a young age and then you'll free yourself up because they'll learn how to do it on their own. That's teaching. That's good training. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good mentorship and coaching to your kids. Like teach one of my favorite rules is like treat your kids two years older than they are at all times and at all times they will rise to the occasion. occasion. occasion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Like a seven-year-old can do laundry. A six-year-old can help you cook. Like they can help put younger siblings to bed at a younger age. Like it's not to bed, but get them all ready for bed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's so many things that kids can help out in the home with if you just give them the responsibility. responsibility. responsibility. They love to, too. Like a 12-year-old should start driving something like um like a dirt bike off-road or like get ready for 16 when they're on the road driving with a license.

license. license. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Start them early. Like you know how cool it is for like a 12-year-old boy to be like, "Hey, you want to go ride the tractor?" tractor?" tractor?" Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, we're going dirt biking. Hey, we're like treat them older than they are and they'll rise to the occasion. Or I've heard it said, "Put a crown two inches above your kids' heads at all times and they'll grow into royalty." royalty." royalty." That's great. That's great. That's great. I like that. That's great.

That's great. That's great. Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, Scott, this is awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks, guys. It was great having you come talk to the team. team. team. Yep. Yep. Yep. Great having you on the show. Really appreciate what you do, my friend. Yep. Yep. Yep. You guys, too. Thanks for helping the world. world. world. You got it. All right. I know you like that episode. If you did, check this one out. Shredded, ripped, defined, singledigit body fat. Yes. Yes. Yes. You want to get there? Let's talk about it.

it. it. Difficult and is it worth it? That's a follow-up question. follow-up question. follow-up question. Yeah. First off, we got to say, okay, so single-digit body fat, obviously body fat percentages, uh that could be represented by one digit, like 3%, 5%, 6%, 9%. That's uh ripped for men. For women, women, women, add 10%. add 10%. add 10%. Yeah. Don't Yeah, exactly. Go you go up about