John Corcoran 12:29
What do you say to parents that already have a strained relationship or not as strong a relationship with one of their children? Is there maybe some friction or something like that? Is there any extra advice you have for creating that connectedness beyond the actual doing of it?
Jim Sheils 12:50
I think there are a couple of things that you need to look at. First of all, the solution doesn’t have to be as complicated, we made the problem. Sometimes we got to start small. And I say, Well, what’s it gonna hurt to spend a half day with them? Maybe it’s going to be closed off, maybe it’s not going to be this huge conversation, but it’s the starting point. Also, what I’ve learned is did we set the pace. And I hate to say that, but busy entrepreneurs, having to self-reflect on my own mishaps where we always available, you know, where are we tied up in work, and it’s for a nobility where we say, you know, I’m providing for the family. And that is that’s very noble, it’s very important. But sometimes our family needs just us. So I say why is the relationship string in the relationship is strange? I’m when I’ve had these conversations working with different families. Oh, well, you know, for about five years, I was really focused on the business, it was a hard time, five years for a child, you know, long five years is for a 10-year-old, but that’s half their life. You know, that’s a lot of time, or, Hey, I went through a really bad divorce, and they kind of got caught in the middle. So there are these things that happen. And what I would say is don’t beat yourself up and take ownership and maybe start with an apology. Again, what I always said for a lot of these relationships, is what’s usually been missing one of the key components is sincere apology is genuine compliments. Sometimes we’re very, very shy to give either one, and that is a huge way to start to lower the Guard member it might not come down together, but it starts to come down.
John Corcoran 14:24
What advice do you have for you know, helping kids in their own managing their own in relationships, as especially as they go into adolescence? Is this the right venue for it? Is that it? Was that something that is beyond the family board meeting?
Jim Sheils 14:47
structure? Now, I’ll tell you over the last 10 years after you know, releasing the strategy in the book and sharing this now have 1000s and 1000s of people using it. What I’ve heard To over and over John is, I can’t believe what my son or daughter brought up to me today. Believe what they shared with me because we all want to be that person that our, adolescent comes through instead of their friends or the internet, right? Like holy cow, I want to not the best, most qualified places to go, and we want to be in that qualified position. And but sometimes we got to set the stage, you know, are you going to talk about some of those tough issues in front of your little sister, you know, we’re in a crowd, you’re kind of half doing a worktext, you have to set the stage for connection. And what I’ve learned is when you start to do these, you go all in, you set the tone by turning off your own phone first, because we’re usually worse than our kids. We don’t want to admit it. That’s when there might be a chance to open up. And what I’ve said for young people out there, sometimes your parents might surprise you. Sometimes your parents might surprise you. And I encourage parents out there surprising. Actually, listen, don’t judge don’t plan the next 50 lectures, listen, like they want to I have interviewed and done different surveys, and the biggest thing that kids say, John, is they don’t feel heard. So if we can just listen, that’s the starting point. And for the kids, younger adolescents out there, I tell you, it takes a lot of courage to bring up a hard subject, but is very cathartic, you know, that clears you out if you can do that, and there’s a better chance. And I think that’s one of the big issues we’re seeing today. People are staying locked within themselves, trying to get the answer alone online, instead of actually talking to someone they care about. Yeah.
John Corcoran 16:51
You for many years, up until the pandemic, you were doing workshops and retreats and things like that. And I understand that you’re talking about starting them up again, doing the retreats again. What advice would you have for families in the interim, that that are doing vacations or want to do a retreat or want to spend some time together for an extended period of time beyond the board meeting structure, but, you know, doing maybe a self-administered type of retreat or a family vacation to connect, again, at a deeper level as a family?
Jim Sheils 17:26
Yeah, one of the starting points that I would say, John, and this sounds, semi-woo-woo. But I think it’s as important as a blueprint, if you’re building a house, you know, you don’t want to just say, oh, let’s put a little cement here and a little wood here. And maybe the roof will kinda, you want to have blueprints, you want to have something clear. And one of the things we did years ago, is one of our vacations, and we wrote out our values. You know, what do we value and not? What to me and Jamie, my wife value, what do we all value? Because one of the issues out there for all of our entrepreneur buddies, we can be a little pushy. They don’t mean to be we’re problem solvers. Right? We’re a personality, we’re quickstarts. So don’t you put all the values down, we decide together? And I’ll tell you what, I still have it. In my office, a simple little surfboard, we drew and we wrote the values right on there, because we represented, you know, something we like to do going to the beach. And those values John had become my spaghetti strainer. You know, I mean, everyone knows this Getty strainer and pasta goes in all the bad stuff goes out the good stuff stays in. Right? So er, this simple values list of something, what do we really care about? And what what this has done for us years later, is helped answer that question. Well, what should we do? Well, one of the things we’re about is, is, is adventure. So I set up my business where I’m able to take adventures with my family, I don’t want to do it. We made the decision to move to Costa Rica part-time because we loved adventure as a family. We’re also into health and vitality. We’re also about sobriety. That’s something we put on there. We had an addiction and our family said, Yeah, we don’t that’s not what we want to do. We want to strive for sobriety, service, and contribution. We’ve done service work in five different countries because we love what it does for us and for the people we’re working with. So by writing out these values, and again, I think there are only like 10 or 11 values on this board. We’re able to better pick where we want to go. But just start off. Ask the family where would you guys like to go for an adventure. Where would you like to go for a vacation? Don’t just decide on your own. Get some input? Yeah.
John Corcoran 19:44
You can punt on this question. If you feel like you don’t want to answer it, I want to ask you about entrepreneurship and teaching kids values and teaching them to have you know that have the same drive I have that, that we prize in ourselves. And this relates to like how you treat money, treat your kids around money and teach your kids about money. You know, I saw a training by Richard and Linda Ayers, who you may know, he spoke, they spoke at an EO conference that I was at recently. And they talked about, you know, why an allowance is the wrong thing for kids. And they called it the family economy, which was this kind of very controlled structure where you give the kids a series of tasks, and they can earn points for that and earn money for that. And I started working out with my kids and, just like you said, like, the rhythm of it is really, one of the great values to it. So what do you say to parents about teaching them the value of money, teaching them to work hard, especially if they’re, you know, growing up, and in a society where they don’t touch it? As much as you know, kids are not doing paper routes as much as they were maybe 20, 30, or 40 years ago.
Jim Sheils 21:01
Yeah, it’s a very, very powerful question I would never pass on because it’s come up in my own life, so many times, and so many others. In fact, 10 years ago, I did a large interview process with a couple of 100 entrepreneurs. And one of the questions was John, what is your biggest concern with your children? And the answer came back so identical, like 99% of the time, it was eerie. But it said this, I want my children who appreciate what they have. Most of these people were first-generation entrepreneurs that had come from nothing and built something. And like you said, how do we re-instill that in them? It’s, we had to start from nothing. And now have something but they’re starting with something. So how do we create that same drive that same? Passion, that same commitment, here are a couple of things. And I learned this through our retreats through lots of just open forum questioning and talking. And now I’m in testing in my own family, it seems to have worked pretty well. First off, they’re probably going to have to do it a little differently than us. And one of the most exciting things for me, and again, I have three lessons, I want to teach my children personal development, financial intelligence, and relationship skills. I built a whole education matrix around those three things, I think those are the three things you can get at EO, great mastermind groups that you and I have been in as adults, but the kids don’t get it at school. It’s not even an enhancement curriculum level on the core curriculum, I think after sixth grade that should be core. So this is financial intelligence is one of them. I will not hide money from my children. So first off, if you want them to better respect it, you want them to better understand it, but you keep them in a side room and won’t talk about it, you’re not allowed to know that I think that’s not a good decision. So what my wife and I decided years ago is we’re going to be very open about our money. But I lay down some things. So at 16, you know, my two older boys, we’ve had the money talk, you know, we all talk about the sex talk, that’s a great thing to have, we have the money talk. And I explained to them, Hey, we’re going to talk about my money. It’s not for loose lips, with your friends or other people. But I want you to understand how it works. I want to understand that it’s tied to certain values. And although I’m going to try to help you and get you into opportunities that I didn’t necessarily have based around things that I think you know, you can really do well up, I’m not going to do the push-ups for you, and nothing’s guaranteed. So for example, if they take the route of addiction, I’ve told them, I said, I will always love you, I’ll be there, but you will receive nothing. I don’t fund addiction. We’ve seen how that doesn’t work in our family. I’ve seen no enabling works. I’m sorry. I just I won’t do that. So I’m very open with them about money. And I’ve also told him, he said, well Dad, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? They started to come up to me in their early preteens, what do you want me to do? I said, don’t worry about what I want. What do you want? That’s where the creativity is, what are your talents? Do you know? What do you naturally good at? What do you enjoy? What does the world need? I want you to start to think about those things. Don’t worry about what I want, it’s what you want. And I’ll support it. I’m not going to do the push-ups but I’ll support it. And so far that’s worked for a lot of the people that have gone through our retreats when I’ve said Let them have some space to figure that out. And I’ve been able to see that drive my own son both my sons now have started their own business one fishing charter one one who clears off roof gutters, but they both did it on their own. They’re both chain drives. They know I’ll be there to support them but I’m not handling anything so I think it’s a fine line. So I hope that kind of helps answer
John Corcoran 24:46
Yeah, ya know for sure. It’s a tough one because like, it sounds like what you’re suggesting is around later teen years or mid-teen years is where it’s appropriate to start talking about it because I can think of my eight-year, now eight-year-old, probably from age six. He’s asking like that, how much money do you make? Or how much money do you have in the bank? Or how much money is in your wallet? And it’s kind of like, I don’t know that I want to answer that. And I haven’t quite figured out what the answer is to give them because it’s not gonna appreciate it either way, no matter what you say.
Jim Sheils 25:14
Yeah, well, I think I think in the start, I started playing financial games with the boys right when I adopted them, and they have got them at seven and five. So I do believe there are a few financial education games that are good.
John Corcoran 25:25
Yeah. Like what like what sorts of games like board games or?
Jim Sheils 25:29
Yeah, the Kiyosaki CASHFLOW for kids is a great game. Yeah, it’s a very simple thing. I mean, through four years of college John, no one ever told me the three ways main ways to make money were owning businesses owning real estate, owning stocks, and bonds. Those are still like the three major pillars of wealth I didn’t know that so at least that’s teaching them now that they are kind of being guided towards that’s a that’s a potential.
John Corcoran 25:53
Fun fact. I haven’t bought that game yet. I’ve asked a bunch of others about what games they recommend a bunch of people have recommended I’m pretty sure that it’s only like It’s like overused on eBay. It’s over $100 I think those games I think that they stopped producing them so they’re actually kind of hard to find unless they start
Jim Sheils 26:11
Well, for me, and again, Rich Dad Poor Dad was a huge book for me, along with you know, the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Think and Grow Rich, but that one was big. And I remember when I first moved to California from Jersey, came home broke as a joke. You know, my first year out there, my parents said, What do you want for Christmas? You know, I said, I want this board game CASHFLOW. It was 250 bucks or something like you want a board game. I was 23 I said yeah. And I started playing that with three friends every Thursday night. And within that year, John, I started my real estate investment company in Bakersfield, California. So that’s how it was for me. So for money, that was a great game, for personal development relationships. There’s a board game for little kids called The 7 Habits of Happy Kids. That was done by the covey group. That’s a really good one as well. So games are a great way. And then experiences they come out to the properties with me, you know, we were a partner in an RV Resort, they go out to the RV Resort and see the things I’m working on. They go into our rental properties when we’re, you know, we have some vacation rentals where we’re changing furniture. So they’re getting a piece of the questions. You know, sometimes when I’m on a podcast, I’ll have a little one you know, they know when I’m on they can’t come in, but they’ll peek in to see and you know, so there’s involvement if that makes sense.
John Corcoran 27:28
You know, Mike Michalowicz’s a great author. I’ve interviewed him a couple of times in this podcast, he wrote a book for kids. I think it’s called My Money Bunnies or something like that, which is a great book also. And then my buddies, Zvi Band, also did a book that’s called Try Try Again Dalia that’s about this girl starting a little lemonade stand. Those are two of my favorites that I love. Because then yeah, great, great kids’ books for young kids. You know, my youngest just turned four. So so they’re great. I know, we’re running short on time here. Jim, this has been great. Any other final tips for parents listening to this parent entrepreneurs raising great kids,
Jim Sheils 28:04
There’s one thing that I did want to say, John, so it’s not only being open about the money and saying it’s not necessarily guaranteed to you, it’s tied around values. And we’ll try to help let them discover their own passions and interest and do it on their own. I cannot stand when entrepreneurs build a business for their kids and hand it to them, or, and run it and act like they’re running it, you’re not doing them any favors, don’t force them into the family business. And one of the things that I’ve seen, and this was a big theme of our retreats, because there were three days in the last day was kind of the surprise day that ties it together and to get that deeper meaning that drives. If they’re not having to drive because they’re hungry, like you and I work the same way. Well, then there has to be something bigger than themselves. Right? So active service and contributions have been one of the most powerful ways to have our children respect our money and see that it’s, it’s about more than us. It’s not just about something on your wrist or something that you park in the driveway. There’s more to it. So the active service work I’ve done with us and other entrepreneur families building houses in Mexico doing work in Guatemala, orphanages, taking paraplegic, surfing, which we did in a bunch of our retreats, you start to see that that wow, I do appreciate what I have. I didn’t before. And man it feels good to be able to be a part of this act of service and contribution. So you’re teaching them not only to write a check but to be there in the trenches getting the check into motion. That’s been one of the most powerful ways I’ve seen people break that entrepreneurial curse of that second generation.
John Corcoran 29:34
Yeah. This has been great. Jim. I want to wrap things up with the question that I always ask which is I’m a big fan of expressing gratitude, especially to those who helped you along the way so what peers and contemporaries however you wanted to find that would you want to just shout out and thank them for helping you along the way.
Jim Sheils 29:54
No, I would like to thank anyone because there’s such a collective John anymore. on who’s been in a mastermind group with me, and mastermind groups have just been so powerful that you’re able to sit on that hot seat and explain difficult parts of your personal life or your business life. And they’ve been able to not only challenge you but help present solutions to me that have definitely been able to get me in the position and be on this podcast today. So all of my fellow masterminds errs that have been in masterminds with me, I just bow deep to each of them.
John Corcoran 30:26
Jim, this has been great. Where can people go to learn more about you grab the book, and check out the work that you do.
Jim Sheils 30:31
Yeah, the book family board meetings on Amazon. You can find it there. If you want to learn more about our family programs, just go to 18summers.com.
John Corcoran 30:36
Excellent, Jim. Thanks so much.
Jim Sheils 30:40
Thanks, John.
Chad Franzen 30:45
Thanks for listening to the Smart Business Revolution Podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.