For the Ladies ...

Dear Friend,

It’s time for a lesson in family finances .

I was watching one of the recent James Bond flicks with Daniel Craig as 007, Casino Royale (I think he makes a great Bond – you?)

Anyway, something I saw stuck in my mind, and for some reason it popped back to the front today.

There was a scene where some petty dictator was handing his blood money over to a shady financier.  This financier specialized in investing the funds of international terrorists, dictators – you know, nice folks. 🙂

Anyway, the dictator said, “I want no risk in the portfolio. No risk, understand?”  Of course, the dirty banker agreed.

In that moment it seemed strange to me how a tough-looking guy surrounded by other tough-looking guys lugging machine guns was afraid of a little financial risk.  The same risk that us regular folks live with every day.

Anyway, as this came into my mind, I thought about how today, the idea of “no risk” in your family finances has been turned upside down.

It used to be that you could just put your money into government bonds and that was that.  But with the US and European governments’ financial conditions in serious question, things are no longer that simple. “No risk” investments are hard to come by these days.

How do you protect your family finances from being pulled down into the financial quagmire that is swirling around all of us?

How can any but the most financially secure among us focus on our family’s happiness when so much darkness and confusion seems to be in our financial future?  And are even those who currently believe that their family finances are secure, really secure?

Sobering stuff.

I also thought more about the “financial plan” that this fictional dictator seemed to be following.

And I began to admire it.

In today’s world, it seems like you have to be an expert at everything to achieve anything.  And everything is becoming more complex by the minute.  For example, how can you choose sound financial investments for your family finances when there are nearly infinite factors that affect the soundness of those investments?

I suggest that you cannot, so you shouldn’t even try.  Trying to be an expert at everything will make you successful at nothing.

That fictional dictator was apparently very good at one thing – being a crook.  He clearly made a lot of money doing what he was good at.  And he was wise enough to know that he couldn’t even begin to be an expert at other things that he wasn’t prepared to focus all of his energies on.  Like investing.

Now he could have dealt with his financial knowledge deficiencies by turning his investments over to a “skilled” investment manager.  However, I don’t think such persons really exist anymore.  There is simply too much uncertainty in the world today.  And it’s a huge gamble to take with such hard-earned wealth.

Instead, he tried to take all risk out of his investments.  He focused all of his risk (or at least the vast majority) on things that he is really good at, like being a crook.  And, unless he had discipline of steel, he wouldn’t want to focus that much intensity on something that he didn’t love, too.  So, presumably, he loved robbing his poor little countrymen.

So, where is all of this going?

These are my rules for personal success with your family finances in a world turned upside-down.

I learned everything I needed to know from a James Bond flick.

Rule #1 – Find a way, any way, to make the vast majority of your money from doing something that you truly love.

Otherwise, you’ll never have the stamina to achieve Rule #2.

Rule #2 – Obsessively devour every possible bit of skill within your chosen method of making money.

You will know you have succeeded in this task when you understand implicitly how to be financially successful in your field.  You are so good at it your could open your own school.

This sounds hard, and it is.  However, when you spend most of your work time focused on mastering just this knowledge, and on little else, it will be easier to achieve than you imagine.

Rule #3 – Minimize the financial risk you take in every other area of your life.

I’m not talking about not spending money.  Just be sure to remember that you are truly clueless about investing (just like everyone else these days) and you cannot be trusted gambling with your future security.

Rule #4 – Take all unnecessarily complexity out of your life.  And simplify your passions by getting really good at them.

Today’s world is defined by complexity.  More complexity, in my opinion, than the human psyche is prepared to handle well.  You need to reduce stress in the rest of your life so that your work-related energies can focus on your chosen field of financial focus.  Know when to push yourself and when to let go.  And build in plenty of time in your day to completely ignore the task of making money.

When it comes to financial management, you can no longer hope to understand the markets.  So, unless that is your passion, don’t even try. As long as you pile all of your financial risk taking in areas in which you are highly skilled, you will maximize your likelihood of success and you will minimize your risk and the time it will take to realize family financial success.

Who needs Wharton Business School?  You just earned a Family Finances 007 MBA.

Talk to you soon,

Hugh

A Moment of Discovery

Dear Friend,

What does it take to live the life of your dreams?  What sets the “superstar set” apart from the rest of us?

I was doing some reading, recently, in an attempt to better understand the answers to these timeless questions.

Some really sharp authors were discussing the unique personality characteristics that seem to be common among those serial success stories.  And what stands in the way of others.

One author wrote that what sets the super-successful apart from everyone else is a powerful sense of curiosity.

Another author wrote about how fear cripples people before they even start to pursue their dreams.

Yet a third author wrote that people fail to learn life’s most important lessons, or to even enjoy life’s most precious moments, because they do not have an open mind.

I sat for a while thinking about what these authors had written.  I had heard it all before, of course.  I had even written about it myself.  But the combination of the three triggered some very old memories.  Memories that I never imagined that I would access again.

I remembered something that I had learned in Sunday School.

You see, when I was a kid our family wasn’t overly religious, but my parents would occasionally drag me to church.  Especially when we were visiting my grandparents.

The little kid’s Sunday School class at my grandparent’s small country church was run by one of the local parents who seemed to have no idea what he was doing.  Even I, a little kid, could see that.  We spent most of class coloring sheets of paper with Bible scenes on it.

Perhaps you had a similar experience when you were a child?

Anyway, I don’t remember much from those classes, but one thing that guy talked about did stick in my head for some reason.

It was that business about people becoming a little kid in order to go to heaven.  It came from that Bible verse where Jesus of Nazareth is quoted as saying, “Except ye … become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

In those days I thought that this quote was weird.  “Old people go to heaven, not kids,” I thought.  Then when I got older and more rebellious, I started to find Jesus’ statement offensive.

As a teen and young adult I saw this phrase as a command not to doubt the church, but to just swallow whatever they shoveled at us without question, just like a little kid might do in order to please his parents.  We were supposed to do this to “please God.”  “How did they know what God wanted?” I thought.  To me, these people were simply asking all of us to submit to their rule.

You can imagine how all of this came across to a newly-liberated teenager.  It was just this sort of attempt to control my burgeoning mind that helped to destroy my youthful confidence in organized religion.

Yesterday, however, the memory of this Biblical phrase again popped into my mind.  But this time, it took on a completely new meaning to me.

What could Jesus have possibly meant when he spoke those words?

Was it just a call for everybody to be naive and ignorant?  To surrender our freedom to others who knew better?  That doesn’t sound like Jesus the rebel to me.

Then I realized the correlation.  It was an Ah Ha! moment.  What these authors were writing about was the same thing that Jesus spoke of over two thousand years ago.

It turns out that to find true success and freedom, you need to approach your life as a little kid might.

How can this be?

First, approach your life with unbridled curiosity, or you’ll never get far.

It is curiosity that pulls you into the unknown when others hold back.  It is curiosity that separates the super successful from the also-rans. Kids are curious about everything.  But as we get older, we start to pull back, and ignore much of what we see.

Second, you must approach life in spite of your fear.

Fear rules most of us adults.  Kids have every reason to be afraid, too.  They don’t really know anything.  But they plow on, in the face of that unknown and with a sparkle in their eye, as they discover what the rest of us take for granted.

Third, kids are completely open and non-judgmental.  So should you be.

Kids expect diversity.  Practically everyday they discover something they have never seen or known before.  So they come to expect such discovery as the norm.

Contrast this childish openness with us older folks, who have already created our own mental model of the way the world is, or at least as we think it should be.  New information just confuses things for us adults, so we often reject it before it is even considered.

Every day we adults see the same things that our children see, but we don’t notice them.  And that’s the difference between us.

Kids are still discovering life.  Adults think that the discovery is over.

I think that Jesus of Nazareth was trying to say that unless we all approach our lives with wide-eyed curiosity, move past our instinctive fear and accept what we find without prejudice, we can never really live. His statement was never about surrendering to the rule of other people.

Jesus was talking about surrendering to what is.  Discovering it.  Celebrating it.  And reveling in it.

I believe that this attitude toward life is the key to success in all of your endeavors, and in life as well. 

This approach to life is the key, not to unquestioning slavery, but to unchained freedom.

Thank you, Jesus.

All the best,

Hugh

They Just Need You

Dear Friend,

We parents think that raising kids is so hard.

But what most of us don’t realize is that we don’t really raise kids.  Kids grow all by themselves. As parents, we protect and mentor kids.  That is all.

This common confusion is one of the reasons that parents work so hard at parenting, but aren’t always satisfied that they did the best job they could do.

Kids understand more than you think.  Though perhaps not consciously.

Children can teach us most of what we need to know in order to be terrific parents, if we would just let them.

Consider the following four facts that every kid wishes his parents understood.  Master these four facts, and you can graduate to uber-parent in the eyes of your children.

Fact #1 “You are our heros.” No matter what we say, or how old we are, our parents are our heros (or perhaps, anti-heros).  We as parents have the most profound influence on our children.  Others will affect them.  But nobody has the impact, good or bad, like you do on your own kids.

Fact #2 “We don’t need a SuperMom or SuperDad.” Your kids don’t need your attention every minute.  They don’t need toys and goodies (though they’d never admit it).  They don’t need a wealthy lifestyle.  What they need from you is just a few moments of your undivided attention each day.

They also need the opportunity to observe you first hand as you live out your own, authentic life.  A life worth of copying.  Or a lesson in what not to do. Either way, if you want to be a great parent, be the best possible human being that you can be.  And be as transparent with your life as you dare be with your kids.

Fact #3 “We need experiences with you much more than we need things from you.”

When you choose how to spend your spare change, choose experiences over buying things.  Skip the Nintendo and fly across the country.  Better yet, skip the big screen TV and fly to an exotic country.  Immerse your kids in life’s possibilities rather than life’s diversions.

Kids love toys.  But toys break.  Or lose their appeal. But real, life-changing experiences never leave your kids.  At first they may resist new journeys, or maybe they won’t.  Either way, let them play a major role in how you spend your journeys, and they will never stop thanking you for them.

You only have a few years with your children.  And those home entertainment centers just get better and cheaper later on.  Buy yourself one as a celebration present when the last kiddo flies the coop.

Fact #4 “We learn more from watching you than we learn from a thousand school books and lectures.”

School is not a building.  Life is our school.  And the business of a kid’s life is growing up.  They can’t learn that in a classroom.  And you don’t really want them learning important lessons from strangers who may not have their best interests at heart.

The process of growing up is largely a mimicking process.  Monkey see, monkey do.  It doesn’t matter one whit what you say to your kids.  The part of their mind most imprinted upon by you as a parent cannot comprehend spoken words.  It watches.  It admires.  And it copies.  If you say one thing but do another, so will they.

This doesn’t mean you have to be perfect.  There is no such thing.  It is better to make mistakes in front of your children, admit them, and move on, than it is to hide the real you from your kids because you don’t want them to know of your faults.  Life isn’t about being perfect.  It’s about how you deal with your own imperfection.  Let them watch.  And learn.

Kids can tell when you are being inauthentic.  They have a sixth sense about such things.  If you are open, they will admire you more for that openness.  If you are closed with your thoughts, they will come to think that you don’t really trust them.

When you sum all of this up, a big part of parenting is to trust your kids.

Respect them.  And listen to them.

Ultimately, you need them to trust you.  But you will have to earn that trust.

By listening and watching your children carefully, you will learn more about being a great parent than from a million parenting books.

All the best,

Hugh

It's Your Turn Now

Dear Friend,

You deserve family happiness.

You have put up with enough.  You’ve paid your dues.  You’ve surrendered your soul to do the “right thing” all of your life.

And you’re still waiting for payday.

Well, today’s the day you’re gonna cash in on all of that work.

It’s time for you to get a piece of the action.  It’s time for you to discover the good life.

It’s your turn to be happy.  And not a day too soon.

There is no reason anymore to put off family happiness.  And you have it within your power today to put a smile on your face and keep it there.

I’m not talking about a magic potion that makes everything better.  Instead, I’m suggesting something else.

Everything already is better.  You just don’t realize it yet.

We’ve all been living our family lives the wrong way.

We still think we have to sacrifice our personal happiness to achieve family happiness .  But, of course, you can see for yourself that this is ridiculous logic.

The 21st Century is ushering in a new Golden Age.

This new Age will pale all that has come before it.  And you and I are blessed to be here when it happens.

The chaos you see before you today is nothing less than the final collapse of the Industrial Age in the West.

Most of the remnants of that Age withered thirty or more years ago. Other, more stubborn Industrial Age institutions, such as  bureaucratic governments, used their power to hold on a bit longer.  But their end is inevitable, too.

And so is the death of the old way of doing things.  This “old way” is no longer necessary.  And neither are our 20th Century methods of thinking.  Our old (and now bad) habits.

It’s time for you to introduce yourself to a new world.  And to take your place among its citizens.

First and foremost, we are entering a world with far less pain.

Yes, I know.  You still see pain all around you.  And more of it everyday.  How can that be good?

What you see is the pain of identifying ourselves with a dying world.  So we empathicly feel that pain.  We experience the pain of being involved with dying institutions.  Our money is losing value.  Our old markets are deteriorating.

But look more widely.  People around the world who before had little hope now have great hope.  Human population is rising dramatically.  Some would say that population increase is a bad thing. But in nature, a dramatic, long-term rise in population is usually a key sign of species success.

We in the West can now turn our primary focus away from mere survival and towards living a better, more fulfilling life.

We have been so busy.  We busy bees have worked hard to survive.  At least our parents did.

Then, when survival seemed assured, they kept on working, but knew not why.  Then we came along.  And we did what they did.  We began our lives living as they did.

But we needed new reasons to keep working.  So we worked to own more things.  But we had no place to put them.  We worked to accumulate more money.  But we had no idea how to hold onto it.  We worked to keep up with the Joneses.  But we never really liked the Joneses, anyway.

Then we realized that this new life wasn’t so great.  We no longer had a satisfying reason to work.  But we didn’t know what else to do with ourselves.

Our life’s training, our culture, insisted that we keep working, harder than ever.  But what we really wanted to do was kick back and relax.  And we did kick back.  A lot. But we never really relaxed.  How could we?  Our bodies may have been still but our minds were continually racing.

If you counted our hours, we had more leisure time available than ever.  And at work, few of us were driven like slaves.  We would never have made it in our grandfathers’ world.  It just felt like we were driven like slaves.  We stressed like slaves.  It was all in our head.

It is now time to put this foolishness behind us.

We are ready as a society to start focusing on our own happiness.

Each of us is ready to begin living a life of happiness.  We are exhausted by our old ways of living.  And by the “promises” of riches that never panned out.  We are tired of living a life on a treadmill.  Of never seeming to get ahead.  Of achieving only to realize that we really didn’t want what we achieved.  Or that our achievement didn’t bring with it the satisfaction that we expected.

Our children need us, and we need them.

In our driven ways we have sent generations to be babysat by the State all day while we slaved away to make money to pay for things we never needed.  And now we feel distant from our kids, and they from us.

Our partners need us, and we need them.

Yet we have forgotten what we saw in them.  We have expected them to give us happiness, as if it were a gift on a plate.  And when they failed in doing this, we threw them away and got another, only to experience the same thing all over.  We wonder where those dreams of romance went.  Was it all a fantasy?

Being a family can be tough.  But it can also be a pleasure.  Today, most people experience the tough parts but never see the good.  It’s time for that to end.  It’s time for true family happiness.

Humanity has many challenges to face in the 21st Century.

First and foremost, we need to do nothing less than relearn how to live.

Our culture in the West must rediscover how to be happy.  This is not something done by societies or institutions.  It is something that must be done by each of us as individuals.  And then be shared among our families and friends.  It is something that spreads through communities, and finally finds its way to the status of a cultural norm.

We are beginning this process, you and I, right now.  We are doing nothing less than changing our entire world.  We should be proud.  I am.  And you should be, too.

We must avoid overwhelming our planet.

Even too much of a good thing can stress our world.  But this the good kind of crisis – a crisis created by success.  And the same will, drive and knowledge that brought our species to this height will allow us to find equilibrium with our environment.   It’s in our interest to do so, because this is our home.

“But things don’t look so great from here …”

Some would point to worldwide successes, and contrast that with relative declines in the more developed areas on Earth.  Some of these developed areas are even shrinking.  How can that be good?

The West is experiencing a kind of leveling.

For so long, the benefits of our species new success were concentrated in a few areas, mostly in the “West.”  Today those benefits are spilling over throughout the world.  The energy is just evening itself out, so it seems that the West is in decline.

Also, what we used to call benefits in the West, like jobs and industry, may not be what this region really needs now.  These assets are leaving us.  But our true wealth remains.

Truth be told, we in the West have it in our power to support our basic needs of food, clothing and shelter without the hard labor required of our ancestors.  We just have to discover for ourselves how to do that.

Our Western culture still has the training that goes with life in an industrial world.  We celebrate the work ethic that brought us to where we are today.  But perhaps that ethic is better suited to those developing countries that are just now embracing traditional industrial growth.

In our Western, post-industrial world, we need to discover that our wealth is no longer in labor and industry, but in wisdom and creativity.

And the new and wondrous technologies that we have created in the past will allow us to generate all the wealth and personal security that our families will ever need.

For the first time, we will be free to focus our energies on higher level needs, such as happiness, and spiritual awareness.  Such as love and family closeness.

That’s what I’m doing.  That’s what Creative Family Lifestyle Design is all about.  Family happiness .

It is this new age that is dawning before us that makes all of this possible.  So don’t mourn the end of the world.  Celebrate the birth of a new Eden.

I know that it is hard to accept what I am saying here whilst you are in the midst of the world as it seems today.  A world in severe financial stress.  A world in crisis.

We are simply watching the writhing death of an old way of life.

We need to stand back, out-of-the-way of this writhing, if we can.  But that is all.

A shiny new world is there too.  It’s just harder to notice.  There is no hope of saving the old ways.  And who wants to?  Let them go.

Embrace this new world before us.  Begin your new life today.

Today is your first day in paradise!  Glad you could make it! I’ll save you a seat.

All the best,

Hugh

They Lied

Dear Friend,

My family lied to me.

My friends.  Many others. All lies

People I was certain I could trust.  Outright lied.

People who I relied on to guide me as a child.  To teach me how to grow up and live a great life.

They all lied.

And when I finally realized it, the shock was overwhelming.

I was betrayed.

Thoughts ran through my mind.  This isn’t possible.  No way.

Then, when the truth became obvious, a numb sense of anger set in.

Revenge?  What good would that do.  Many of these people were dead.  Others long gone.

And to tell you the truth, I don’t really think any of them knew what they were doing.

They had just passed on what they had learned.  All the promises of a happy, exciting life.  All the dreams of being an Astronaut or President.  All the images of beautiful people and wonderful things.  A glamorous life.  Like on TV.

Where is it?  Why didn’t that happen to me?  And what now?

Is this all there is?

Instead it seems that my graduation presents from the school of life were disappointment, sorrow, anger, and ultimately, resignation to a sort of living death.

Practically everything that you and I learned while growing up was wrong.  Some of it dangerously wrong.

The verbal lessons about how to live, and how to treat people, some of those were OK.  Like the Golden Rule.

But those weren’t the true lessons we received.  Nobody seemed to believe in them.  The stuff that stuck with us was the stuff that we saw. The lives we watched unfolding in front of our youthful eyes.

We saw Machiavelli.  Not Jesus of Nazareth or Buddha.

These were the lives that we were bound to repeat.  And if we dared veer from those well-worn paths, we would hear about it.

You see, the way that “everyone” lives is the culture of a place.  And culture defines people.  And family.  Whether the rules of a culture are functional or not, to reject the way of a place is seen by many as a rejection of its heart – its family traditions.  It is like spitting on the ancestors.

So daring to create your own family way of life, to take your own road less traveled, is a daunting task.  It is more than a family journey.  It is a very public statement that your family refuses to be a part of the old culture.

You have discovered that many of the promises of the old family culture were lies.  Or at least they are now.

Perhaps once these old ways made sense.  But to follow them now would be to deny who you really are.  And you are daring to put your family happiness ahead of the cultural tradition of your community.

One of two things can result from this.

1.)  You make such a big impact on others in your community, through your magnetic personality and charisma, that the culture itself changes to fit more with your new ways.  The group now sees you as a leader, your family as a model of the ideal; or

2.)  Your family is rejected (sometimes violently) from the cultural community.  If you are unlucky you are made an example of.  How dare you disrespect “your” community.

It is important to realize that you are a part of many communities, whether you know it or not.  Your family, nuclear and extended.  Your neighborhood.  Your ethnic background.  All of these may make claims on you as a “member” of their communities.

Whenever you decide to embark on your own creative family lifestyle adventure, you are potentially signaling your willingness to break some of the rules of those communities.

Be ready for this.

Remember, many of those other community “members” who today reject you loudly are themselves unhappy with the way things are.  You may be surprised how many of them seek you out privately after the noise settles down for your guidance into how they, too, can embark their family on a creative family lifestyle adventure.  But this will only happen if you stand your ground.  If you dare to be you, no matter what.

It can be hard to accept disappointment with the past.  But it is one of the first steps to creating a new and glorious future for your family.

It can be hard to be the real you, no matter what.  But it is the only way to discover your life’s true purpose.

I hope you will steel yourself to this process and move forward with me.  In fact, I can’t wait!

All the best,

Hugh

The Road Warrior

Dear Friend,

That right!

The DeBurgh family’s rolling home, which we affectionately call the Road Warrior, veteran of our 14,500 mile wanderings across North America, is back from RV rehab and better than ever!

In fact, she is so clean and shiny, inside and out, that she looks better than the first day we saw her!

My good friend John, to whom I entrust the lives of our DeBurgh band when it comes to keeping the Warrior in tip-top shape, tells me that she needed some engine filter TLC, and she got it.  Every filter he could find is new, fluids are clean, changed or topped off, and all is ready to take on the next leg of our journey to the northeast United States and eastern Canada.

We did get some sad news yesterday evening, however.  It seems that our good friends at Fun Time RV in Cleburne, Texas, came to work this week only to discover the doors barred.  Their bankers, GE Capital, reportedly called their loans, and now they are shut – apparently for good.  They were the largest trailer dealer in the United States, with over 100 employees.

This is a huge hit for the community there in Cleburne (pronounced “Clee-burn”), as well as for their customers, fans, and of course those employees.  Even their competitors were concerned to hear the news.  I guess that the financial people aren’t betting on the economy improving, and would rather take their chances on a fire sale of Fun Time’s inventory to satisfy their loans.

We lucked out, as we got the Warrior out of there before any of this happened.

Cleburne, Texas, had come to feel like a second home for us.  We wish the best to all of our friends at Fun Time!  The DeBurgh gang is thinking of you! 🙂

All the best,

Hugh

The Big Banana

Dear Friend,

Life is good when you have a big banana.

I didn’t expect to acquire a big banana.  I never had one before.  Except the kind you eat.

So what’s the deal with the bananas already?

Well, back in Texas we discovered (to our horror) that the laws of thoughtless engineering prevented us from towing our old Ford F-150 pickup truck behind the Warrior as a tow vehicle (or “dinghy” as RVers call these auxiliary vehicles, a term borrowed from the yachting world).  At least we couldn’t tow it without a flatbed trailer.  And there’s no way that I was going to drag a trailer around North America.  Where would I put it when I’m not using it?

This meant that my wife had to drive the Ford truck from Texas back to Virginia while I drove the Warrior.  Not fun.

But why worry?  Our other vehicle was a Jeep Commander.  And everybody knows that Jeeps are famous as great dinghies for motorhomes.  Right?

Well, sort of.

It seems that there is one kind of Jeep Commander that you just can’t tow with all four wheels on the pavement, like we need to.  And guess what.  That’s the kind that we owned.

Well, there’s always the “Spaceship”, the name that our old Argentinian nanny gave to the conversion van that we bought a few years back.  Oops, that won’t work either.  And who wants to drag a battleship behind your motorhome, anyway.

The reality of the situation was obvious. Not one of our current automobiles could be towed behind the Warrior without expensive modification, or a lot of hassle.  If we wanted a dinghy (and we really did) we would have to buy one. Uggg.

So my wife and I waded into the used car market.

We didn’t need anything special, of course.  Just something that we could take to the market or to visit the sights near the campgrounds we visited.  And something designed from the get-go to be pulled behind a motorhome.

There were a bunch of options, actually.  But not many of them would carry around a family of six.  At least not comfortably.

And there was another fact.  You see, ever since I sold my classic 1982 Jeep CJ-7 a few years back, I had been hankering for a new Jeep.  You know, driving with the wind blowing through my thinning hairline … ahhh.  Now that’s living.

So we went out looking for one of those 4-door Jeep models.

What’s that you say?  Those Jeeps only fit five persons max?  And that with a lot of cramping in the back seat?

No worries, mate!  You see, there’s this little company that I found out in California.  They call themselves “Little Passenger Seats.”  These guys specialize in building small, kid-sized automobile seats to act as a third row in your SUV.  Their website says that they give growing families with smaller SUVs the seating capacity of a minivan, and they say that their seats meet Federal Motor Vehicle safety standards!

So, confident that we could squeeze our midgets into dad’s mid-life-crisis-mobile, we visited a local dealer or two who had Jeeps on their lot.

And then we tripped over the Big Yellow Banana.

You couldn’t miss it, of course.  I think everyone within a three-county radius had noticed it on the hill as they rolled by that dealership on the main highway.

I guess they were wondering what fool was going to take away that landmark some day.

But the price the dealer was asking for the Big Banana was pretty good!  At least as bananas go.  And my wife actually liked the way it drove!  And they offered a nice trade-in on our Jeep Commander!  (Maybe they just wanted to get rid of it?)

Well, anyway, you know the rest.

Now we just need to sell our conversion van to help pay for the difference in value between the Jeep and the Big Banana.  Plus the two new custom seats from our new friends in California.  Plus a fancy towing rig with all the wires and pipes and what-not that have to be grafted onto the Warrior so that we can tow our new baby banana.

My only real concern now?  Will customs seize the Banana at the border, like they seem to do with all of our other fruit?

Talk to you soon,

Hugh

Dear Friend,

Great parenting doesn’t require sacrifice, it requires you to have fun.

This is a reprint of a post that I wrote this time last year.  As I was reading back I realized that we could all use a parenting pep talk once in a while, so here it is again.

Enjoy!

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Live Life

Dear Friend,

Most parents start off their parenting life in sacrificial mode.

Parenting is a duty that you owe to your children. And duty requires sacrifice, right?

Let’s face it. If you are used to hanging out with your friends every Friday night, and now you have a new, hungry bundle of joy, things are going to change. And that change feels a whole lot like sacrifice.

Fun time is over. That birthing was expensive! Even with insurance. Maybe there were complications that really ran the bill up. Then there’s baby food, diapers, and all that paraphernalia and stuff that, apparently, babies just gotta have.

And, of course, you need a minivan to haul it all around.

If you are the primary income producer of the family (or if you’re a single parent) then you know that you have to get to work to pay those bills. And a great deal of your discretionary time and money just vaporized.

If you are the primary caregiver, your considerable and highly educated skills will now be focused on how to most efficiently change a very smelly diaper without gettin’ any on ya.

This is all true. So what’s this about having fun? Is it just a bunch of nice sounding bullcrap?

What you are experiencing as a new parent is the need to adjust your time to deal with the new realities of parenting. And yes, babies do need special attention and equipment that can put a stop to what had been a perfectly comfortable lifestyle.

What the quote at the start of this post is talking about is how to be a great parent. And the false idea that you must sacrifice the pursuit of your own happiness in order to be that great parent.

All these years you thought that you would grow up and pursue your dreams, didn’t you? Now you believe that your new role as a parent means that you must sacrifice those lifelong dreams to that role. That duty.

In fact, the opposite is true.

To be a great parent you must begin, if you have not already, the serious pursuit of your true life’s purpose.

We are raised in our culture to implicitly believe that work is not fun. And that if work is fun, then you are not really working. My mom used to say that medicine doesn’t work unless it hurts. Of course we know now that her statement was a bunch of malarkey (I told her then but she never listened). 🙂

Well, the idea that work is not fun is totally out of date as well. In fact, if you are not having fun at work, you are probably not producing your best results.

Remember that sentence.

The same cultural misconception is often applied to parenting. And we do this without thinking.

Being a great parent is work, right? At least that’s what our parents said (or strongly implied). And they were right of course. And being human, and therefore prone to laziness, we prefer to avoid work. We think that happiness requires a lack of work. Well, all that may well be true if you are working for someone else. And throughout history, the vast majority of people did just that.

This time you won’t be working for someone else. Not your boss. Or your partner. Or your kids. At least not directly. No, this time you are going to work for you. And the “project” that you will be working on is the Project of You.

This is not self indulgence, or a justification for lazy parenting. This is a necessary and often lacking component to being the best parent that you can possibly be. You see, if you are not having fun while parenting, you are probably not producing your best results as a parent.

Chances are, hanging out with your friends on Friday night had little to do with the pursuit of your life’s true purpose. It’s just what you did to casually fill up your ample free time. It’s the kind of thing that you’d been doing since you were a kid. And now that time is filled with other things.

Having children creates new responsibilities that never existed before. What it also does is force you to get serious about living your life. Being a parent is not the time to stop focusing on your personal happiness. It’s the exact opposite. It’s the time to start focusing on you.

Most people drift through life until this moment.

I mean, there may have been times, like a Bar or CPA exam, or some athletic challenge, or boot camp, when circumstances forced you to stop goofing off and really dig down deep inside to find the root of your personal drive and energy. But once that challenge was over, you slid back into your comfortable clothes and chilled. Old habits take over.

Am I saying that having kids is like boot camp? It can feel that way at times, but no. It’s not even close. Unless you have a particularly difficult child or one with very special needs, its gets much easier over time. And your confidence in your parenting abilities improves as well. You learn to parent and chill at the same time.

What I am saying is that being a parent forces you to start living your true life’s purpose. It forces you to grow up. And to get serious about being happy. And that’s a good thing, because being a perpetual teenager at age 35 gets old, especially for your partner.

True happiness comes from knowing yourself, and then living out your life’s true purpose. Achieving these goals will require that you hunker down and focus a bit. But not on your new kid.

You’ll have to get serious about this eventually.

Guys, do you want to find yourself at mid-life with a new Porsche, a new trophy second (or third) wife, and a big empty pit where your heart ought to be? (Well, maybe the first two ;-)) Ladies, do you want to find yourself at mid-life alone, unkempt, and unloved (mostly by you)?

These situations happen all too often. Why? Well, one reason is that these people bought into the lie that they had to sacrifice as parents in order to do their duty to their children. What they have really done is sold themselves into slavery to their kids, who often grow up spoiled, overly dependent on mom and dad, and unhappy. And mom and dad are burned out and worn out. And unhappy too.

Generally speaking, today’s parents aren’t lazy. They’re misdirected.

The sooner that you get started on the most important project of your life, the Project of You, the sooner you are going to love your life. And love yourself. And be the best possible parent that you can be. If you thought childhood was fun, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet. If you fear that your best years are behind you, you are quite mistaken.

Being a fulfilled adult is much more fun than being a pampered kid without true direction in life.

To be a great parent requires that you focus on, and not sacrifice, your life’s true purpose. It also means that you don’t have to pretend that your life’s purpose just changed to being a full-time servant to your kids instead of whatever else you thought it was before.

Being a great parent means modeling behavior that your kids can emulate – either now, or when they are older. Children are a lot like chimps. They copy what they see. And hear. It’s a big part of how they learn. If you beat your spouse, there’s a very good chance that your kids will grow up and do the same.

If you live the life of your dreams, your kids will grow up and do that as well.

Be a model and a mentor to your kids, not a boss and an instructor.

Your kids are not an engineering project. You can’t plan, and then build them. They are living things. They know how to grow. What they need, as all living things do, is a safe, healthy environment, and a great example.

Be your child’s example of how to live a great life. And be a mirror for them to know how well they are living theirs.

So, if you define great parenting as raising healthy children who grow up as happy, well adjusted adults, then you need to act like a happy, well adjusted adult. And the easiest way to do that is to be one.

The day you first become a parent is, for many people, your first day of living a better, more fun-filled life. So forget the sacrifice myth. You’ve got a fantastic life to live. And children to share it with.

Give living the life of your dreams a try. I think that you’ll like it. And it’s your duty as a parent to live it to the fullest!

Talk to you again soon.

Hugh

You Don't Have to Be Rich

Dear Friend,

The number one response that I get from the general public about my family’s lifestyle is, “How do you do that financially?”

Finances are always the big question.

Many people assume that they can’t do this unless they are rich, or that this lifestyle is just too difficult to pursue when you have kids.

My family proves everyday that these assumptions are NOT true.

First, we had a small business that we pared back and redesigned so that we could manage it from the road.

Second, we discovered all the stuff that we really didn’t need to buy.

Third, I am working on future income sources that aren’t tied to any particular place.

Fourth, we went out on a limb (in a bad economy, no less) and borrowed money to buy our RV, which was being sold at half price. We just decided that it was now or never, and we said, “Now!”

Fifth, we unschool our kids, so we aren’t tied to any physical school, and they can really take advantage of the experiences of our travels.

That’s pretty much it.

If you want your family to live this kind of life, then it has to be a central priority of your life. You have to take charge and become your family’s leader.

You must re-configure your lifestyle to fit the way you want to live. That takes a bit of time, but not as long as you might imagine. And, because you are doing it for you and your family, it is a labor of love.

For us, that is Creative Family Lifestyle Design.  For your family, it will probably be a little different.  But then, that is what the term “creative” refers to.  You have to get creative and design your own, unique family lifestyle.  A lifestyle designed to fit your family like a glove. (but not O.J.’s glove ;-))

And don’t think for a moment that you will have to lower your lifestyle standards.

You’re not going to live in a dump or eat dog food.  If you design your new lifestyle well, you may actually improve the quality of your everyday life.  You can eat better, more nutritious food.  And if you choose to travel or take up shop in a new country, you may find yourself being waited on, hand-and-foot, by appreciative servants.

Now, that’s got to beat working all day just so you can come home and clean your house.

You do not have to be rich to enjoy a lifestyle like mine.  Just creative.  And determined.

Are you ready?

All the best,

Hugh