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TEACH YOUR CHILDREN
Doing It Differently for the Next Generation

One day, after a seminar in Houston, my son, Logan, who is 5 years old and works for the company as a model, was
watching diligently as we were packing up a Team-Made Millionaire event. Trying to help, Logan was right at the
leg of one of our team members. Finally, the team member decided there was a task he could give my son. He asked
Logan to count all the chairs in the room and report back with a final tally. Less than 30 seconds later, fingers
tugged at his shorts. Logan had returned. “Give up?” the team member asked.
“No,” Logan said. “I know the number.”
The team member cocked his eyebrow. “That’s impossible,” he said.
“Twelve hundred and forty-eight.”
“That’s a guess, right?” the team member said, but Logan shook his head. Before I could jump to the conclusion
that Jodi Foster was going to play me in some wacky movie about a kid genius, Logan pointed to the hotel staffer
stacking chairs.
“I asked him how many chairs were in the room, and he told me,” Logan said.
Level three listening, sequencing, and self-management. And he’s 5.

Starting Young
This type of leadership and teamwork thinking can be, and should be, taught young. Not only is my son an active
part of my business, but he knows what we do at my company, Live Out Loud, and with our Team-Made
Millionaires. He knows about my investment projects, goes on business trips with me, has a Wealth Account and
even a Roth IRA. And though I can more than afford to grant every wish his big heart desires, he does not receive
anything until he’s earned the money to pay for half of it, and then he must continue earning the rest or it’s put on
hold until he does. He’s never heard me say we can’t afford something and he knows that we lead our wealth by
keeping the money we make ahead of the money we spend. He also understands that we invest directly in assets,
(“Mom, are people going to pay us to live in these houses too?”) and have to create a Cash Machine to fuel those
assets (“Can I help sign books at the Team-Made Millionaire seminar this weekend?” On a side note, maybe it’s just
a mom talking, but that autograph will be worth something someday.)
Members of our Team-Made Millionaire community are currently teaching the ideas of the Wealth Cycle to
grade school, high school, and college students. The great discovery is that the students are not nearly as
uncomfortable or uneasy about the Wealth Cycle Process as some adults seem to be. Not only are they eager for this
type of information—in fact, three-quarters of high school students surveyed stated they’d like a finance or wealth
class in school, but they have a ready capacity to absorb it because they are not yet that deep into the Lifestyle
Cycles that holds back most of their parents.
We must do money differently for the next generation. It’s time to teach financial literacy to our children. Since
the education system doesn’t offer financial literacy programs, the responsibility of developing their financial
knowledge is on you. Wealth building and healthy, out-loud relationships to money can be ingrained as early as
infancy, and I encourage you as a parent, grandparent, aunt, uncle, guardian, or teacher to begin now to educate the
children in your life on wealth building. Just imagine how wonderful a gift that would have been if someone had
extended the wisdom of how to build wealth to you.

Giving to Get
Philanthropy starts early. As important as it is to teach a child the building blocks of the Wealth Cycle—to invest, to
stay out of debt, to make money with money and create a Cash Machine using one’s skills—it’s also important to
teach charity. It is part of my son’s annual Christmas routine to choose five of his toys and give them away to an
organization that can give them to children in need. I also encourage setting aside a percentage of a child’s earnings,
even if it’s from a lemonade stand, to go to worthwhile causes. Benevolent habits can and should be imbedded early.