I have come to the point in my life that I want to give back at 10x the rate that I have been for the last twenty years with Lifestyles Unlimited. So I am going to start two new programs to accelerate this process.
Kids Success Leadership Training Program
First have you ever wondered how unlucky some kids are to be raised by parents that have no clue on how to be successful? I see it every day, good kids with bad or no leadership in their lives. For this reason I want to start a kids success training program.
I am looking for a few successful parents that would like to help in this project. To act as a board of consultants so to speak. I would also like to have as many parents volunteers as we can get to help put on the event because I don’t think some kids should be left unsupervised.
I don’t want to exclude the very kids that need the program the most so we just need to have loving adults running the programs that we provide for them.
We need your help to grow up right. Please help with the kids program.
I think that the curriculum should include all aspects of success. The kids need to learn how to move from dependency to independency to finally interdependency.
They need to learn among other skills, communication, team work, controlling finances, health and fitness and its benefits in life, social skills, value of lifetime education, how to deal with politics successfully, positive mental attitude and creating a positive personal self worth.
I have lots of ideas on how to teach these skills but this is too important for me to be the only contributor.
Local Leadership Program
Next I want to start up the local leadership program so that others can carry the message to the masses. Steve Davis, myself, and our staff have worked tirelessly for 20 years on this and have only managed to reach 11,000 people over the last twenty years.
Because our program is based on real people helping real people it is very hard to scale up. I want to change that by opening up the calling of mentor, motivator, organizer, to as many people as are willing to carry the torch.
I am going to talk Steve Davis who convinced me to dedicate my life to this goal: to help teach and lead others to start local groups of their own. We will provide the training and in the beginning the super star investor/mentors to teach and use as examples. But the goal is to create local super stars to lead and mentor locally.
Because I have gone through this in three cities already I know that it is no simple proposition, but it’s worth it.
So let’s get going.
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
This is an atrilce that makes you think “never thought of that!”
I’m a recent Austin PIG. I mentor several young boys on the East side of Austin and have been struggling with a long term strategy on how to mentor these boys out of the existing poverty they live in. These boys are primarily black and Hispanic and have really poor role models. It is clear that in the next several years community involvement, mentor-ship, and discipleship are the only answers to the social and financial crisis that have consumed this country. Thanks for championing the solution to our problems with Steve Davis. I look forward to hearing more about your program and how it can change these kids life. Keep me in the loop!
Hey Del,
I would definitely be interested in helping to mentor kids in this program. I’ll take any of this that you would consider giving me. I speak in public, control my finances (probably to the extreme), have been successful in business (huge believer in leading by example!), have retired on my real estate income at 58 and have had 4 kids of my own so I realize that what “gets through” to one kid doesn’t necessarily get through to another. You have to find their “trigger” to get the most out of them.
We only have one 17 year old left at home but we mentor his friends every chance we get and our house is the hang out for all of his friends. We’re not bashful about telling them what they’re doing wrong but we do have a way of getting our point across since both of us have extensive management experience. Some of these kids have completely dysfunctional families so I think they gravitate towards my wife and me because we are the stability in the middle of all of their craziness. I’m amazed at some of the financial decisions some of these kids parents make and some of the parents are/should be fairly well off and aren’t in our opinion. These kids won’t have a chance if they mimick their parents behaviors.
Let me know what I can do
Ross McEathron
Hey Del…I am interested in hearing more about this and what your needs are. My hubby and I are PIG members, we have 3 little ones, 5, 4 and 15 months…..I am the one who was in labor while finalizing a deal. We have 2 single family properties, looking to get more and more…..let me know how I can help. Our 5 year old always says to us….Mommy, we need to buy another house so we can go on vacation….HA, he learns even at 5 yeras old!
I would love to know about the local leadership program, especially if it means helping others. I’m green at real estate investing (for now) but it’s my hears desire to learn, succeed and teach others the same thing. Please add me to that list. Its time to change the middle-class mentality that finances are not to be discussed and it’s time to change the middle-class rat race because they just didn’t know any better.
Thanks!
This is pretty fascinating. I am troubled by the fear and the amount of fear that adults have of public speaking. We see the best jobs and the best deals go to people who communicate and network better than the “smarter” people. Your program mentions communcation. I think this is a bulls eye on a kids developement program. One that our current system is obviously failing to do for the masses. To teach kids to speak in public with confidence and network with eachother succesfully will allow them to achieve and help more people over the course of their lives.
I agree totally. I took Dale Carnegie speeking class when I was young. We had grow CEOs crying when we made them stand up and speak.
Hello Del – I believe that a college education today is too expensive especially when it entails taking out >$50-$100k in debt. I know that earned income for college graduates is higher than for non-college grads. What would you recommend for a 17 or 18 year contemplating whether to go to school or not in today’s world? Thanks!
I just say a report a few days ago that stated for the first time every a college education does not provide a higher life income any more. This is a stunning report. As for what to do at college time I think they should work and go to school until they grow up and know what they want to do with their lives. Most kids these days are so immature and naive they couldn’t make it in the real world. My daughter thought she knew what she wanted so she did not go to college but when she got into the work force she lost her way. Spending every day with losers reprogramed her.
One thing I’m doing now that seems to have some effect is letting my daughter invest her savings in my deals. And she gets the same percentage of cash flow I do every month.
By contrast, she also gets money for doing chores. Often comes the day when she wants something, has blown her wad, and I mention her goose-egg money (accumulated cashflow). But she never spends it…. she always says no, I want to save it to invest back in Dad’s next deal. That’s good, but she hasn’t let herself *enjoy* any of it. At least she’s learning to “live within her means” and understands the difference between saving (what her mother teaches at her house) and investing (what dad teaches at his house).
Enjoying part of the cashflow (however small) should be a requirement
This is something that I would be interested in. I will volunteer whatever I can find time for. I have been trying to teach my ten year old daughter since I joined in Jan 2008 using casflow 101 or whatever. That was a mediocre failure – she got as much as she could – but there’s no real appreciation of the *pain* of the rat race; therefore the motive we have as adults is missing…… Need to think of a way to impress upon them the hardships (how to do THAT and still make the game fun is not easy) so they’ll appreciate the reward. A game usually pits player against player and that’s some motivation, but it should be player against rat race.
As for my experience, I have 5 rental houses now and I’ve done 9 deals (five for my parents) since joining LUI in Jan ’08. I’m not an expert yet, but I could contribute.
Ron this is exactly my thoughts. The kids need a new way of learning the rules of life and it has to be interactive. We will have to set up different levels for different ages also to be able to keep them interested. One level could lead to the next as they grow old enough to appreciate them. We end with High School level kids with high end skills that will help them thrive as adults. Anyone older than that should be in my adult training.