True Wealth

TWS 72 | Generational Wealth

A Daily Legacy: Creating And Passing On Generational Wealth To Your Descendants

December 17, 2020 Patrick Donohoe Podcast 00:30:26 Comments Off on A Daily Legacy: Creating And Passing On Generational Wealth To Your Descendants

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TWS 72 | Generational Wealth

What is the greatest obstacle that is preventing you from living a life at the next level? For many people, it’s creating and passing on generational wealth. There are many ways to be financially free, but how do you enable your children and their children after them to have the same freedom? What does wealth mean for you in the first place anyway? Patrick Donohoe unpacks this for us in this special episode of The Wealth Standard.

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A Daily Legacy: Creating And Passing On Generational Wealth To Your Descendants

I hope you are in a festive mood despite the shutdown circumstances. I hope you have an amazing holiday and enjoy yourselves and enjoy the season. Welcome to this episode. I’m going to be speaking about generational wealth. Many of I sent out a survey in order to get feedback, insights and ideas about how to create a digital course that would be meaningful to you. I have completed that. If you go to Go.TheWealthStandard.com/freedom, you can purchase that. It is version one, I’m going to be doing some live Q and A sessions and getting direct feedback about some of the things I came up with in order to refine and improve, iterate and so forth. It’s exciting.

In the responses that I got, there are some common themes. That’s what I have been addressing in the episodes. I’m going to be doing that. The question I’m mostly getting into, which was in the survey, is what’s standing in the way? What’s the greatest obstacle that is preventing you from living a life at the next level? It’s obviously very broad but it’s been cool to read through the responses. This is one that I felt was important to address given the season but also given some things that I know that are on my client’s mind, my mind specifically. I hope they’re on your mind as well, especially if you have children even if you don’t, it doesn’t matter. It could be grandchildren, it could be nieces and nephews. It could be people in general, frankly. Let’s unpack the idea of generational wealth. Thanks for joining me.

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The specific response was as follows. This is to what is the biggest obstacle that is standing in the way. It’s creating and passing on generational wealth. I’m looking to be financially free, but once I have achieved that, how do I enable my kids to have similar responsibility and freedom for their children? I’m assuming for them and for their children. There are a couple of parts here. Creating and passing on generational wealth, I’m looking to be financially free, but once I have achieved that, how do I enable my kids to have similar responsibility and freedom for themselves and their children? As I thought through this there are a few things that come to mind.

Be, do, have. Click To Tweet

Daily Journey

The first is, again, parts to this obstacle. It’s creating then passing it on. It’s the idea of financial freedom. It’s enabling kids to have similar responsibilities and freedom. Let’s address the first one, creating then passing it on. We should first talk about wealth in general. What I’ve come to understand as wealth isn’t merely financial wealth, even though that’s a part of it. There’s a cool book that I’m listening to. I have five days left on my 75 Hard challenge, which is an intense challenge. I listen to lots of audiobooks. I’ve been listening to Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey. It’s a fascinating book. I definitely recommended it. One of the things he said is, I’m paraphrasing, “Happiness is not contingent on certain things.”

He identified people that he had met in Central America and South America in the Middle Eastern regions. They essentially live like paupers but they’re the happiest, friendly and abundant people he’s ever met. Sometimes actual financial wealth makes it more difficult to understand the true nature of wealth because there are a lot of things that can mask it. When you don’t have as many distractions, it tends to be a little bit easier. Financial wealth allows more distraction that prevents the true essence of wealth. I would say wealth, again, I’ve defined in the past as being able to extract happiness, joy and fulfillment out of any moment, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Financial wealth, in the end, will only magnify who a person already is.

TWS 72 | Generational Wealth

Generational Wealth: There isn’t an end to passing generational wealth. It’s a journey and the journey is every day.

 

Creating the generational wealth and then passing it on first has to do with us, the individuals that do have this desire. I include myself in that. It’s understanding that there isn’t an end to passing generational wealth. I believe it’s a journey and the journey is every day. Our legacy is literally a daily achievement that we make because we don’t know how many days we have. We do know that they are numbered. It matters when and how. We look at life from that perspective. If we took a life, I would say, as more fragile, which in 2020 is a great opportunity to do that, regardless of how you feel about COVID-19, there’s been a scare. There’s been a health scare and it’s allowed us to evaluate our lives.

As we’ve been able to adjust, adapt and find happiness, joy and fulfillment within what has happened and how it’s disrupted our lives, that is a true test of wealth, regardless of how much money you have. I’m going, to be honest, and frank with you as I always am. In 2020, I had a great year financially so far. However, it was a very challenging year. I had nobody in my office. I came here by myself day in and day out with 1 or 2 people in here but little interaction where I’m used to interacting with lots of people physically. I didn’t know how dependent on that I was. I also have two teenage girls who’ve been prevented from visiting with their friends and going out and doing fun things.

We haven’t traveled anywhere. I haven’t seen my parents in over a year. It’s been a trying time and it’s been a great test. It’s been a great challenge because it’s allowed me to find the joy and figure out ways to be appreciative, to be grateful because when everything’s going great, it’s easy to be happy. The true test is when things don’t go the way in which you anticipate. This is a whole idea behind have, do, be versus be, do, have. One of the things I picked up in this response to the survey question was the idea of once. “Once I do this, once I do that,” and I try to eliminate that from my vocabulary. I believe we’re all habitually conditioned to think that once we have this car, job, title, girl, boy, spouse, children, that we’re going to be happy. It’s like when we achieve this, then we will be this.

I believe it’s the other way around. At least, I believe that we can experience the other way around. When we experience that, what we want in the end will come quicker. That is the be first, then do and then have. That idea of being, which is experiencing, embodying the idea of extracting joy, fulfillment, and happiness out of any given moment or experience, life is happening to me versus life is happening for me. A lot of this, I picked up from my exposure and experience with the Tony Robbins organization, where it’s our perspective of life that determines our happiness and that is a daily occurrence. Developing generational wealth starts with how you show up for your family, for your kids, for your loved ones.

Daily Legacy

That right there isn’t a one-time event. It’s a consistent event because when you’re speaking about children, the first 10, 15 years of their life is where a lot of their perspective of who they are, what life is about, what school is about, what money is about, what friends are about. Who they are, how they understand themselves, what they believe in themselves. That’s developed in the first 10 to 15 years of life. It’s not like someday you pass on a bunch of money and suddenly your kids are going to figure their life out. I believe that a lot of what we’re doing to influence our children is often looked over and it’s not seen as making that much of a difference. I have something that I love to say to myself as like an empowering statement which is what my legacy is today.

It’s challenging because children are getting used to life. They are pushing on you. They are pushing on one another, they are testing boundaries and they’re always going to do that. I look at sometimes how we, as parents and adults, show up to children’s lives. It allows us to influence in one way or another. I believe that that is the greatest set of gifts that you can bring to a child. It’s being able to influence their experience of life so that they can discover who they are. They can discover what life is about. They can understand virtues and principles and how to live by them because, in essence, they’re laws. Those are some of the greatest lessons because here’s the thing. Technology is following Maslow’s hierarchy of needs where technology is making the physiological needs of life almost zero cost eventually. Whether it’s transportation, energy, food, housing, communication, entertainment, the costs there are being driven down significantly.

When we cross this barrier, to a large extent, of having to work in order to live where we have to work. We have to earn money. We have to do those things that are becoming less and less of a truth. I believe that in the very near future, technology is pushing towards this working less and less but being able to live a decent lifestyle. Up until 2020, poverty rates around the world were coming down at a staggering rate because of the spread of technology, the spread of efficiencies that are being developed.

I believe our children and grandchildren will live a very different lifestyle from physiological and safety needs, which is the next step in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, then we have. A lot of what makes us afraid of those that are currently in the X generation, the Baby Boomer generation, is that we still have on our mind this idea that if we don’t have a job, if we don’t earn money, then we’re not going to be able to survive. If we can’t pay our bills, we’re going to be homeless and we’re going to be on the streets. We go to these worst-case scenarios, those fears are going to be non-existent because of technology. That’s an opinion.

I have some evidence to back that up but hopefully, you know where I’m going with this, which is from a financial standpoint, is going to be different for our generation than it has been in the past, especially with regards to our kids and their generation. Wealth is very qualitative. It’s not quantitative as far as measuring in terms of money or cash flow or income. It is qualitative based on the quality of our experience in life, not yesterday, not tomorrow, not a month or a year or twenty years from now but now.

The first two hierarchies of wealth are the first two levels in the hierarchy of needs. The two levels above physiological and safety needs in the hierarchy of needs, these two levels. Technology, I believe, is rapidly solving. Now you get to relationships. Right now this is being expressed. Social media is incredible as far as how we develop relationships. You may not define them as relationships, connections, friends, whatever you want to call them. It’s this need of seeking community. This need for seeking relationships. This need of seeking partners, intimate partners, wanting that desire that happens to want to have children. These innate needs that Maslow talks about, are now being met with technology. You get into self-esteem. These are very important. This is where we, as influencers of our children, of other people, can focus attention on what a healthy relationship is. It is not necessarily by us directly teaching, but I would say indirectly showing through our actions, as well as self-esteem.

Oftentimes, I look at how completely different my kids are from one another. A big part of me has always wanted and tried to show them through the example of how to appreciate their uniqueness, how to understand that they are different than one another. I believe sometimes they want to be like one another in order to get love from their parents. Celebrating the uniqueness and difference of our children is a powerful way in which we create in themselves the seeds to enjoy life at a high level, not one time but consistently over time. I’ll end with maybe a few points around doing this and doing it strategically.

Daily Challenge

The reason I’m getting into this is I believe wealth is going to amplify who your kids, who your grandkids already are when they get money. It’s going to amplify whatever results they’re already getting. You hand them a bunch of money, it’s not going to improve their life from a qualitative standpoint. Long-term, there may be a house, a car, some cool things that they can do to entertain themselves. I do believe that that is also something that is drastically coming down at price. More people are going to be able to experience it. It goes to this idea of being, does, have versus have, do, be. If kids believe that they have to have a job in order to feel successful, if they believe that they have to get straight A’s in subjects that they may not be that great at, they have to do that in order to be successful and feel good about themselves.

TWS 72 | Generational Wealth

Generational Wealth: The bottom line with passing on generational wealth is you have to define what wealth is for you first. You also have to realize that what you are doing on a daily basis is your legacy.

 

I believe that instilling in children this idea that everybody is different and also demonstrating that through how we treat them and then carrying out, I would say, experiences that allow them to have challenges associated with who they are in order to develop self-esteem relative to what they’re capable of by overcoming challenges. It could be as simple as in the summer of 2020, we had some travel plans to visit my parents back East and some other things. All of those were disrupted. We were restricted to where we could drive, so we did a trip up to Northern Montana and it was cold during the summer. We hiked in the snow. We hiked in rain. We hiked some challenging things. For my six-year-old, it was definitely a challenge. He was on my shoulders half the time.

These challenges we may not believe or they may not seem like they are that impactful but they truly are where kids face challenges and they overcome them. They face difficult things and they overcome them. I wouldn’t say this is more physical than anything else but it’s also the lesson around it that you can demonstrate whether it’s directly or how you face your own challenges. Do you show up and battle and push through or do you tuck tail and run? Do you analyze it, celebrate it, realize how beneficial it is to your circumstances because it’s an opportunity to grow, or do we complain? Do we blame somebody else? Do we blame circumstances, COVID, the president, a boss, or the economy? Those are the things that our kids pick up on and it’s developed into how they view the world.

We have a place an hour up in the mountains and it’s right on this river. The river is cold all year round. One of the things that I do is jump in the river. I jumped in it and it was freezing. It was incredibly cold. My kids did it a lot up until it got a little too cold but it was this idea of facing something that you are afraid of, facing something that it’s like, “That’s going to be painful,” but you do it anyway and experience it. It’s not life-threatening. At the same time, it’s that experience that wires us to understand fear at a different level. Understand the anxiety of looking over at that water. I know that that is cold but you push through that and do it anyway.

I’ve always said that one of the decisions I made many years ago that made a drastic difference in my life, especially in my business life but also personal life, you can carry it into all aspects of life, was picking up CrossFit, which is a workout philosophy routine. I still do it almost every day. It’s not necessarily for the workout but it’s because you face physical failure daily and you figure out a way to push through what your brain is telling you one another, shouldn’t be doing. “This is too much. You can’t do it. Stop,” but there’s all the environment of CrossFit allows you to face that over and over again. That builds in a lot of physical mastery, as far as how we show up to the other challenges in our life. The other things where it’s like, “That’s impossible, I’m going to run. I’m not going to do that. That’s somebody else’s fault,” it allows you the fortitude. It allows you the strength to push through and overcome whatever that challenge is.

I’ve gone all over the place with this. The bottom line with passing on generational wealth is you have to define what wealth is for you first. You also have to realize that what you are doing on a daily basis is your legacy. If you currently have kids, you are influencing them. It’s stepping back and it’s analyzing, what am I doing now? What lessons am I teaching my kids indirectly? You want to do some direct stuff obviously but indirectly through my behavior, through my response, how I behave. By no means am I perfect at this. This is a very sobering episode for me because there are many things that I could do better for my kids. I try my best and I continue to try. I realize that I fail. Even when I’m doing something and I know that I’m failing, sometimes I keep doing it. It’s being able to step back when you’re in a neutral mindset and analyze the situation and go to your kids and talk to them about your shortcomings.

Talk to them about what you’re trying to do. Talk to them about their uniqueness, you wanted them to live a meaningful, beneficial life. Having those direct conversations, especially after you fail. I think that’s the worst thing when parents try to hide their faults. I’ve hidden mine in the past and it does not jive with my principles. I’ve had to go back and be penitent to my kids on more than one occasion. In the end, this demonstrates that making mistakes is okay as long as you learn and grow from them.

The last thing I would say is there are ways in which you can structure your finances so that your children benefit from that when you pass on. This is not what I usually start with. What I explained and went through was what I believe the true generational wealth is, which is basically the strategic design of having your kids experience the principles and virtues of life and come to understand their uniqueness. How they, based on the current circumstances that they experience as well as future ones, how to extract the lesson, how to extract the joy and the beauty. How to understand that life is happening for you as opposed to, to you, which is the case with most people, unfortunately, and your kids see that. My kids see that.

Your legacy is today. Creating generational wealth is an everyday responsibility. Click To Tweet

If we want to turn the tide, that is the greatest way to pass on generational wealth. Not from a financial standpoint. There are estate planning techniques. There are ways in which you can position your assets so that you don’t have a check written to your kids upon your passing, whether that’s later in life or prematurely. There are ways in which you can structure that so that it’s not a blank check so that it goes for specific purposes.

I would caution you here to find someone who is very astute at this in the digital course that I created, I have a financial directory in there. My personal attorney is in there. His firm does a wonderful job at helping to structure an estate plan strategy so that you can pass on your values, your virtues, what you want to pass onto your kids but you do it in a responsible and intelligent way. Andrew is great at this. Thank you for reading. I hope you have an amazing and eventful holiday season. Even though they’re not going to be the typical events, you can still create some cool things. I know you have some creativity inside of you to create those lasting memories for you and your family. Best wishes and we’ll see you in the next episode. Take care.

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True Wealth: How To Navigate Toward What You Really Want In Life

October 22, 2020 Patrick Donohoe Podcast 00:15:28 Comments Off on True Wealth: How To Navigate Toward What You Really Want In Life

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TWS 65 | True Wealth

 

Wealth is found in experience and relative to the degree of our presence in that experience. The question is, how are you showing up in your daily experiences? On today’s podcast, Patrick Donohoe talks about what true wealth is and how you can navigate toward what you really want in life. Touching on the different aspects or archetypes of your personality, he explains how identifying and understanding the different aspects can help you show up in that archetype so you can enjoy, achieve, and succeed in life.

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True Wealth: How To Navigate Toward What You Really Want In Life

Thank you for tuning into this episode. It’s going to be a short one but I appreciate the response to the last episode and your willingness to answer some questions for me. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I had requested that you, the audience, would help me to design an online course specific to this audience. A lot of it is relevant to what we’ve discussed this 2020. Some of the topics and themes relating to what true wealth is. Of course, trying to figure out how to navigate toward what you want in life.

I’m up at our place in the mountains. We are on fall break for the kids and my brother and his family came out as well. We’re spending some time up here. It’s somewhat cold but nonetheless peaceful. I had an experience on the way up and that’s what I wanted to talk about for this episode. On the way up, we came up around 9:00, 10:00 at night and it’s about an hour drive outside of Salt Lake. There was a canyon that is somewhat busy during the day and this time of night, it was complete black. There weren’t any cars on the road as we were coming up which was very rare. Lots of animals are crossing the street, etc. At the end of the road, it’s about a 5, 6-mile road, there’s a T.

In one direction you go North into Wyoming, the other direction you go East. It goes on the other side of Park City and there were a bunch of sirens there. You can go 50, 60 miles an hour on this road. At the T, what had happened is the car that was crashed through this big wall didn’t see the stop sign and kept on going as if the road continued straight. I’m not sure what the outcome was, but given all of the ambulances, it was not pretty. The reason why I’m bringing that up is because sometimes, we’re wired to believe and live as if we had 50 years ahead of us or 100 years ahead of us.

We're wired to believe and live as if we have a hundred years ahead of us. Click To Tweet

We’re going to die at 95 but we don’t know what happens. Every day is different. Every day is dynamic. Our wiring and our patterns are similar. At the same time, our experiences can be completely different. Our environment is completely different but our patterns are the same. The topic I wanted to talk about was what wealth is in relation to experiences. I believe that wealth is found in experience and relative to the degree of our presence in that experience. My question to you is how are you showing up in your daily experiences? Are you showing up based on what your pattern has dictated? Human nature answers questions because of how prone we are to patterns and habitual behavior. We address the same questions and same situations in a similar way and I’m no exception.

That’s the example I’m going to give. In the past, whether it was a vacation, a trip, dinner with my wife, or being out with the kids, I had so much going on. I had emails I had to answer, text messages showing up, online messages, project in which I played a role, record this, try this, or do this. I had so much weighing on me and what it did is, it bled into all areas of my life. I found myself in some amazing places, whether vacation or trips and I didn’t enjoy them at all. It became frustrating because I was in these incredible places, I was able to be with the people that I love, and I wasn’t able to enjoy myself.

There was a teaching that I was exposed to Tony Robbins and some of the events I went through with him, and it took a few go-rounds for it to connect. I shared a little bit of that experience at the Platinum Group Finance Events. It was a February 2020 episode in which I talked about it but there was something I connected. It’s made a massive difference and I’ve been able to enjoy myself much more. There are still times in which my old patterns creep in. At the same time, I’m now present to that. I’m able to adapt and adjust so that I can take advantage of the experience and enjoy myself because, in the end, time is short. I look at my daughters and they’re grown, women.

TWS 65 | True Wealth

True Wealth: Wealth is found in experience and relative to the degree of our presence in that experience.

 

They’re in their teenage years, they have a couple of years left at home, and it pains me sometimes. The time has gone by so fast. Don’t get me wrong, there have been incredible experiences I’ve had with them. At the same time, I realized that my inability to adapt situationally has impacted the degree of happiness and fulfillment I have in those experiences. My point behind all of this is because money does not give you better experiences. Money does not give you this complete different mindset shift because you’re able to drive a certain car, go on vacation, or live in a neighborhood, etc.

It amplifies who you already are. That’s my point behind this idea of mindset first, your state first, your understanding of the miracle we have of living in 2020 with all of the technology, the communication capability, the medicine that we have, the understanding of ourselves based on biofeedback, or other means. Our ability to communicate with loved ones, we are able to live on, there’s much to be grateful for but society continues to find itself in dire straits as if the world was going to end.

My point is there are ways in which we can show up and capitalize on the experience of life. I believe that if you’re able to do that before you have a lot of money coming in and make it easier because the situations, problems, and challenges amplify because of financial wealth. This is the teaching that impacted me. Carl Jung is a psychologist, I’m not a psychologist by any means and I am fascinated by human behavior. What makes us tick? Why we do certain things? Why do we continue to do certain things? Why we do things that we know are wrong but still, we continue to do them?

Money does not just give you better experiences. It amplifies who you already are. Click To Tweet

We’re all subject to this to some degree but Carl Jung talked about these aspects or factions of our personality called archetypes. There are some primary archetypes that are out there. What I started to do is connect to the different aspects of my personality and be able to understand what aspect of personality is best suited for certain experiences that I had. Let me give you some examples. First off, let me explain the different archetypes. Carl Jung has many different ones, but there are some common ones, whether it’s in mythology or history. You have the king archetype, magician archetype, lover archetype, and warrior archetype. I’ve thought about this before. Most people show up as one of the three, I would say tier two archetypes, which is the magician, the lover, and the warrior.

I call these situational archetypes. King archetype is rare. I look at how I’ve shown up in the past and it’s either the warrior or the lover. What I started to realize is that tapping into my king, my sovereign archetype for women to be the queen archetype, it’s being able to understand that archetype is the leader. You can picture a good king and there are many different examples of it. They’re able to understand and lead the other three archetypes situationally so that when the magician needs to show up to have fun or to be creative, the magician shows up. If the warrior needs to show up because something has to be overcome, a fear or a challenge has to be broken through. The warrior is able to show up.

The lover is able to show up in times where compassion and empathy are needed. I look at the organization of these archetypes especially as I look at the different experiences and situations. I find myself in every day and then knowing my magician is the best to show up in this to have fun, to enjoy a night out, to enjoy a game, a board game, to be able to solve some problems, be creative, and be agile. The lover, when it comes to my family, neighbor, or someone that’s gone through a hard time. When I need to overcome something, conquer and push through, and fight through somebody or something, the warrior shows up. These archetypes have enabled me to understand myself better but also to be able to enjoy the everyday experiences that I have.

TWS 65 | True Wealth

True Wealth: There’s a power to being fully engaged and to play full out.

 

It’s going to be a short show but I’m going to end with a challenge. I want you number one, as it relates to the first story I explained, this car crash coming through the Canyon as I was coming up into the mountains is, to take 30 minutes in something that you have going on and be able to be as close to 100% present as possible. Present meaning you are completely engaged. There’s a power to being fully engaged and to play full out. The second challenge I have for you is to start to look inside yourself, inside your personality, and identify the magician in you, the fun, the happy-go-lucky, the creative and the agile part of your personality. Identify the lover side of your personality where you’re compassionate, loving, empathetic, and then identify the warrior inside of you.

The one who shows up, who is able to break through a wall if that’s what’s needed, but here’s the most important one, to start to identify the archetypical king, the sovereign, or the queen inside of you. The one, who rules cares about what’s right, who is noble. Not the dark or shadow side of that archetype or personality but the actual light side, the sovereign side. Identify these archetypes. Sometimes, people name them or associate them with characters in history that they have an affinity toward. Once you are able to identify those aspects or factions of your personality, it’s then identifying some situations in which you can show up in that archetypal side of your personality, enjoy, achieve, and succeed.

This is what’s worked for me and it’s a part of the course that I want to create. It’s going into a lot more detail when it comes to understanding your archetypes, being able to situationally apply them, enjoy, and thrive in certain experiences as opposed to winging it and figuring things out. I want to be light. I appreciate your attention. I hope you gained something from this challenge. We’d love to hear from you. Email me at Hello@TheWeathStandard.com. Let me know about your experiences. That’s it for now. Talk to you next week.

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TWS 53 | True Leadership

Three Things I Taught My Kids About True Leadership

July 23, 2020 Patrick Donohoe Podcast 00:56:50 Comments Off on Three Things I Taught My Kids About True Leadership

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TWS 53 | True Leadership

 

True wealth is tied at the hips with true leadership. Leadership is the single differentiator that separates the highly successful from the rest of the crowd. We may have heard and read many things about leadership, but what constitutes true leadership? In this episode, Patrick Donohoe gives us the three things he taught his kids that will have an impact, not only on individual success but also on the welfare and advancement of society and the economy. Whether in politics or business, there is a universal need for true leadership. What can we change in the way we teach the next generation for it to truly become a leader’s pool? These three lessons seem like a no-brainer, but if they were, we would have been applying them to a much greater extent today. Listen in and learn more about true leadership that drives the creation of true wealth.

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Three Things I Taught My Kids About True Leadership

Thank you for tuning in to this episode. It’s going to be a short one, but it’s going to be packed. The title is Three Things I Taught My Kids, that I believe would change society, personal wealth, and happiness for the better, but significantly alter the economy. It’s going to be awesome. I’m excited to share it. Before I get into that, we’ve had some cool guests on a couple of episodes. Andy Tanner, a good buddy of mine has been on a few times before. My buddy, Jason Hartman. Jason’s another incredible guy. I feel fortunate with some of the relationships I have. Check him out as well as he has the Creating Wealth Show, JasonHartman.com, and a lot of other resources on there. One last thing before I get into what I prepared.

There’s a group that’s local here that I wanted you to know about. They’re called Operation Underground Railroad. I’ve supported and donated to them for a couple of years. I believe that there is an increase in what they’re trying to fight because of the shutdown in the quarantine. It’s the sex slave business. This may be shocking to some of you, but this is happening. This is something that’s real and it’s horrific. Part of me wished I had never known about it but I’m glad I do. I’m glad that there are guys like Tim Ballard, who leads Operation Underground Railroad, who is former Special Forces and Intelligence Operative for the United States government. He stepped away from that position and career to pursue this mission. It’s desperately needed, especially now because kids are home and they’re vulnerable. Technology is being used to exploit people that don’t have a voice. If there’s anything you can do financially is great, but I would say your awareness and support of it and spreading the word will make a difference.

There’s a documentary that talks about their mission. There’s a full-length film with Jim Caviezel, who played Count of Monte Cristo, as well as Christ in The Passion. It’s going to be great. It’s coming out soon. Be aware of it and let’s step up. There are many kids around the world that don’t have a voice. It’s incredibly terrible what’s going on with this industry. I’m not going to say more about it, but please get involved and make a difference.

The main variable that distinguishes the highly successful from the employee and the self-employed specialist is leadership. Click To Tweet

The Formal Education Trap

Let me get to what I taught my kids. The first thing I taught them was formal education is a trap. That got me in a little bit of trouble. It’s not the first time I’ve talked to them about it, but it got me into trouble because my eldest daughter is fifteen. She used it against me because she didn’t necessarily do well in one subject in school. She’s like, “You don’t care about that anyway. You say formal education is a trap or school doesn’t mean anything.” I will talk about that but there are some things and some context that needs to be created for you to fully understand that.

The reason I believe formal education is a trap, number one, it’s because the majority of our society believes the same thing. There are outliers and there are more outliers in large part coming from this disruption caused by COVID-19. The majority of us are wired to look at the world, business, our job, career and relationship based on how influential our education system has been in our life. In the educational system, we’re taught the individual is the most important. There are arguments that are about individual rights and so forth. I won’t get into that but when it comes to achievement, success, job employment, individual effort is one of the most limiting things in the world.

I’ll get to that but the idea of the individual being the most important individual achievement and effort, it’s so limiting, one dimensional, single-dimensional. You always have this rat trap, this rat race that you never get out of until you become something different from a mindset standpoint. I would say that the best book I’ve read that teaches the different mentalities of people is the CASHFLOW Quadrant by Robert Kiyosaki. He explains that there are essentially four ways to make money. There are four types of people out there when it comes to commerce. First is the employee. Second is the self-employed specialist. The third is the business owner and the fourth is the investor who invests in businesses. The education system and how I believe how it’s differentiated the employee and the self-employed specialist, it’s a trap because financially you never get ahead. You equate your success and money to individual effort.

TWS 53 | True Leadership

True Leadership: The idea that individual achievement is the most important is so limiting and one-dimensional.

 

What I explained to my kids was the main factor, variable that distinguishes the business owner investor, the highly successful to the employee and self-employed specialist, meaning a lawyer, a doctor, someone that has more education, is leadership. That is the main variable I believe. Good leadership, I’m not talking about manager’s management. I’m talking about true leadership. Leadership is it’s in contrast, in complete conflict to the individual. Leadership, a true leader, which I believe big business owners those that are able to take a team and carry a team to more and more achievement, that’s the multidimensional impact. You’re able to have a division of labor, specialization. It’s profound. That’s the second piece is this idea of leadership.

The Differentiator Of Success

The second thing I taught them is that leadership, the differentiator of success. The leader does not look after himself. He understands that by looking out for others whether it’s employees, customers, or clients, the better it is for himself. Instead of looking out for yourself, because that’s what most important, that’s how we’re wired and that being the best thing is looking at others. Serving them whether it’s clients or employees. How I got this to sink in with them is I went through what the average employee, an average specialist, and business owner that’s been in business for over ten years makes. For an employee standpoint, this was sobering for them because I talked about the average college graduate and what salary they make. We went line-by-line what’s taken out of a paycheck before they even get money in the bank account.

We went through federal, state taxes and what that means. We went through FICA and most people don’t even know what FICA stands for. We went through how there are two sides of FICA. You have 7.5%, 7.6% that is paid by the employee, but then you have 7.5%, 7.6% is paid by the employer, which could have been an increase in salary and pay. There’s almost 16% there. That’s what hits the bank account. You have health insurance, retirement contributions, housing, and transportation. You go all the list of the necessary expenses to live in modern society. The amount of money that went home was little. They were incredibly surprised by that because a lot of it adds up.

Leaders don't look after themselves. They understand that what's best for others is what's best for themselves. Click To Tweet

We went through the specialist. We use an example of what the average doctor gets paid and also the average attorney. We line out of the same thing and the amount of money they walked home with after their increase of housing, transportation, entertainment and food expenses. It was similar and they couldn’t believe it. They looked at how many years it took to go to medical school, to go to law school, how much more effort there, individual effort. We got into the business owner and the idea of a business owner understanding specialization, but also understanding how to lead. True leadership, there are several variables. There are amount of reference some books and material that have inspired me to be a better leader because I failed over and over again, and continue to fail in certain elements.

I connect anything that I’ve done that’s of significance to the understanding and implementation of that understanding when it comes to leadership. The idea is leaders don’t look after themselves. Leaders understand that what’s best for themselves is what’s best for others. That right there creates a connection where people are willing to work as a team to accomplish a certain end. This is multidimensional success and output. The individual only has so much time and energy during the day. It’s typically used with themselves in mind, but when you start to identify that to accomplish something amazing, big, a huge project and achievement, doing it individually is not possible. There are only many hours, time and energy during the day. The example I gave my kids is based on a documentary that we saw.

For those of you who have kids, you’ve probably seen Frozen and Frozen 2. Frozen 2 made $1.5 billion, believe it or not. I can’t remember how much Frozen made. Disney is an incredible company and we won’t get into that but there’s a documentary about the making of Frozen 2. It’s a four-year project, 400 employees associated with this specific project, but it essentially films them onsite. It’s profound how leadership principles are extracted from those examples where you have many different specialists, whether it’s graphic design, environment, and storytelling. Four hundred people accomplishing something significant with individualistically creative people, there’s a necessity for not only leadership but also structure systems and good business. It’s amazing.

TWS 53 | True Leadership

True Leadership: Anybody can be a leader, and leadership is highly lacking in our society now.

 

The Failure Myth

This goes into my third piece, which is a failure. Failure is a myth. I’ll summarize, the first thing is formal education is a trap. Second thing, the number one differentiator of success between ENS and BNI is leadership. The third thing is failure is a myth, and it’s only important if you want to be mediocre. In this Frozen 2 documentary, it was incredible. First off, criticism feedback is one of the quintessential components of a successful film. Other teams are working on other films, other projects that come in and scrutinize and give feedback on, “I don’t understand this. I don’t get this. Why are you doing that?” The idea of getting feedback about what in normal terms in society is, you did wrong or you failed that. For them, it was essential to improvement. It was essential to have the final product and the success that they wanted.

That was the vision. That was their mission from the beginning with this film. You look at the ability to rally a team to get feedback and in the end, a lot of the artists who spent months sometimes over a year on a certain piece of the film, song or element, and it was cut. Although it made an impact, they understood that as long as the film was successful and impacted people, they didn’t care. It hit me. A strong and impactful team, that’s what they believe. Their individual effort is important. It’s part of it. Their skillset is part of it. At the same time, it does not stand in front of the primary reason for being in a company, in a team with a mission and a vision. That’s what I’ll end with. The function of leadership isn’t reserved for a business owner. Anybody can be a leader and I believe leadership is highly lacking in our society now. It’s lacking in business and politics.

True leadership, there are some principles there that will not only change your life. It will change society and economy. I would say for those who are reading The Wealth Standard, our mission is about financial freedom, but true wealth is about living a fulfilling life. That requires, in my opinion, a relationship and benefiting the lives of others. There’s a symbiotic relationship. I would say it’s tied at the hip where true wealth requires the fundamentals of leadership. Whether you’re an employee or self-employed, you can incorporate leadership principles with clients, customers, strangers on the street, neighbors in your backyard. These are their fundamental things where we can build relationships by looking out for others within the construct of a team, a business. When you’re able to articulate a mission, create a vision that shows your team where you’re going and inspire them, there’s the magic behind that.

When people felt they’re cared for when they feel they’re taken care of and you have their best interests in mind and have their back, it’s magic what happens. I look at examples everywhere and I’m inspired by it. How I’ve learned about some of the principles of leadership are by books, podcasts, documentaries, but I’ll list a few things that I would encourage you to look into because leadership, it’s essential. These are principles. These are pieces of information that are not taught in formal education but are essential for success. The first one is Simon Sinek. I talked about Simon Sinek before. He has a new book called The Infinite Game, which is amazing. He also wrote a book called Leaders Eat Last, Find Your Why and his initial book, Start With Why.

Jocko Willink, I started listening to him. He’s a former Navy SEAL Commander. He has a big neck, bald, deep voice, intimidating. He’s written a lot of books on leadership. He has a company that does leadership training and coaching. He wrote Extreme Ownership and The Dichotomy of Leadership. He also wrote kids’ books. I believe that they were because of the Wimpy Kid book series. He wrote Way of the Warrior Kid book series. I’ve read them with my son, Jack. The Wimpy Kid books and movies are banned from our house. That’s also awesome. Jim Collins’ Good to Great. He’s a classic. Deepak Chopra, I love Deepak. He’s such a deep thinker, but he has a book that he wrote over a decade ago called The Soul of Leadership, which is good.

Right now is the perfect environment to redefine the focus for your life and professional career. A good friend of mine, Mike Dillard, started a whole group to teach those that are driven, trying to reinvent their business, career and profession. He created a group called Revvenue. It’s time to take action, focus, reevaluate and find the opportunities. They’re everywhere. I hope that you find something that inspires you and you use that to make a difference in somebody else’s life. There may not be commerce and transaction, but believe me, that’s how the world goes round. The more you do it, the more it’s going to come back.

Thank you so much for the support. If you like this, go check us out on iTunes and give us a good rating. That always helps. Operation Underground Railroad is something I haven’t talked about before on the show but specifically with Wayfair, and a lot of other things that are happening because of the shutdown, there are many defenseless kids out there. They’re being exploited and taken advantage of. If there’s anything you can do, Operation Underground Railroad, they’re all over Facebook, Instagram. Also, Tim Ballard is the leader of that nonprofit. Follow him as well. You’re amazing. Go out and create some value. Bye.

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About Patrick Donohoe

TWS 53 | True LeadershipPresident and CEO, dedicated to challenging Wall Street with Personal Financial strategies and systems that work.

Recognized for creating virtual, online environments where individuals, families, business owners, and investors can learn about financial strategies and techniques not taught on Wall Street.

 

 

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About the host

Patrick Donohoe

Patrick Donohoe

CEO Paradigm Life

Patrick is the President and CEO and started Paradigm Life in 2007 after learning from his mentor Kim Butler about financial strategies outside of Wall Street.

With a background in economics and marketing, Patrick immediately realized the opportunity to teach investors, business owners, professionals and families on a large scale using modern digital media and communication technology. Since 2007 Paradigm Life has worked with thousands of individuals in all 50 states.