The successful entrepreneur has averaged four business failures in his lifetime. According to leadership expert John Maxwell, "Failure is the price you pay for success." The key is to fail well... meaning you learn from your mistakes.

It’s no different in fatherhood. Are you a successful failure? Or does your pride in not admitting your shortcomings build a wall between you and your children? The best thing you can do for your kids is say you’re sorry when you need to, and give them some freedom to fail as well. The idea is not to have a perfect family, but a learning family. And that can only start by admitting mistakes.






Warmly,

Mark Brandenburg

Mark Brandenburg MA, CPCC
mark@eqnow.org
www.markbrandenburg.com
www.eqnow.org

I have no doubt that every father wants the best for his children, so we have to ask ourselves what does the "best" actually mean and what is it going to take to get there.

My Business partner and I started our first Business three years ago, we were enthusiastic, ambitious and at that stage had the support of our wives. We had nice offices, great staff, great clients, flash cars and Business was going well, that was until the collapse of the Finance industry. With creditors trying to kick our door down the pressure came on big time. At that stage I had two children aged 1 & 3.

In short the Business fell over and I was broken, we sold our house to fend off creditors, my marriage was suffering and my wife just gave birth to our third child. In that same week we found out that my father in law was diagnosed with cancer and had 4 weeks to live.

In the first part of this series we decided that there are a lot of good reasons to include your child on your family health insurance plan. So, in this part we’re going to take a look at what kind of plan to get, what to avoid, and a couple of tips for saving money.

In short, when choosing a health insurance plan your main focus should be getting quality, 100% cover for the things that really count – surgery and hospital care.

Recently, the Pew Research Center asked 18 – 25 year olds what their most important goal was in life. 81% answered “to get rich.” Wonder where they get that value from?

It might not be a bad time to ask your kids what their most important goal in life is. Based on the answer, you can help “direct” them towards creating a life that’s meaningful. As the awful news in the world around us mounts, we can help by parenting kids to be loving, kind, and responsible citizens. And if we can, it might not be too late.

Warmly,

Mark Brandenburg

Mark Brandenburg MA, CPCC
mark@eqnow.org
www.markbrandenburg.com
www.eqnow.org
Phone (+1) 651-766-9976
"Helping Men Succeed"

In July of last year the Government’s retirement savings initiative KiwiSaver was launched. So far, the uptake has been higher than anticipated with over 200,000 accounts already opened. And in April of this year, it’s expected that there will be another surge of interest as employer contributions become compulsory. New Zealanders have warmed to the idea of “free money” – a $1,000 kick start, $1,040 per annum tax credits, and soon employer contributions.

So this raises the question – should we all be opening accounts for our kids? The reality is that there is no right or wrong answer. It’s just a matter of weighing up the pros and cons. Some of these include:

Pros:
* They are entitled to the $1,000 kick start

Fathers everywhere struggle to protect their children against poverty. The fortunate ones manage to provide a certain degree of comfort and material security. Both groups try to fulfill what they naturally perceive as a fundamental role-that of provider. It seems to me that this role has tended to be all too easily minimized. It is as though in the effort to recognize the father who is affectionate, who acts as teacher and companion, and who is committed and interactive, the role of breadwinner has been neglected, if not actually ignored and even scorned. And yet fathers themselves have not forgotten this role, as evidenced by their vulnerability and distress when they fail to fulfill it adequately.

Money and Children sometimes go hand in hand depending on your wealth, If you’re like most families having a child means that your family will drop in wages, and usually the father will continue working. Why would you teach children about money? When is best to teach children about money? Who is going to teach them?

This is something that is close to my heart, being that I wasn’t taught what to do with money but I grew up around money and from a family with money! My grandfather had money and taught us to stand on our own feet and to earn it for ourselves, so at the time I thought he was “tight” but it means that through my teens and adulthood I have also been very frugal with money. Therefore I want to make sure Pyper grows up with an appreciation of money. It’s like water it slips through your hands very fast, so make sure you don’t carry too much at once.

If you are interested in teaching your children to look after their money well you will like the following activity suitable for children 3 years and older (or whenever you can be sure they don't swallow stuff unexpectedly). If you haven't already got one, get your little champ a savings box (or make them one) - make sure you can get the coins out without having to break the box. Go to the bank and get $10 in various coins. Toss the coins on the floor or a table and get junior to put them in the savings box. Once they are all in, open the box and toss them out again, etc. This activity is great for practising counting and for introducing the concept of money (i.e. you can use "this coin" to buy a ball in the $1 shop). You can also use the coins to get your child to group them by colour or size etc.

Do you own any Baby Einstein DVDs or videos? If so and in case you haven't heard - hop on to the BE website and get a refund for your purchase price! The Walt Disney Co. (who owns the BE brand) announced last week that they would offer cash refunds for "Baby Einstein" videos/DVDs for toddlers in response to challenges about the legitimacy of claims that the products were educational. Apart from a cash refund you can also exchange DVDs for a "Baby Einstein" book or music CD, or receive 25 percent off another "Little Einstein" product. The offer expires March 4 so get in there right away!

We've just received a media release from Vince Shorb at the Financial Educators Council about a give away they have just launched on their site. It's a video for parents on raising financially savvy children which is free for the first 10'000 people downloading it from the MoneySmartParent website.

Here's what you do if you are interested:
Visit www.MoneySmartParent.com and enter Coupon code: 10KPROMO (No credit card required). You will then receive an email with your log in information so you can access the video and other tools. Watch the video, check out the tools and share what you learned with your kids - It will change their lives!

By Vince Shorb
Financial Educators Council