6 Spiritual Awareness tools to offer our children

When you are a Spiritually Aware Mom , you want to be able to pass on some tidbits of wisdom to your children you’ve learnt along the way. However, unlike organized religion, sometimes it’s a little less structured in the filtering down system and quite honestly, deciphering and figure out the best way of phrasing something can get overwhelming. 

Its sometimes best to pass on a few tools of simple awareness, which then our children  can draw their own conclusions, observe, choose, explore and ask their own questions and the answers can then flow in the right time and space. This allows Spiritual dialogue to come out of a state of our own connection , and our children’s, which is key.

So, I’ve put down a list of the top 5 tools for spiritual awareness. Because let’s face it, sometimes a list is just a nice thing to have.

              Emotional Awareness-when we are aware of how we feel , and honestly can express it, we can use it as our guidance system. As positive spiritual beings, feeling positive emotion is an indicator of feeling as Who We Really Are, feeling like ourselves, negative emotion is simply a sign that we are thinking about things from a perspective different than our true selves.

When our children can sense how they are feeling, they can shift to feel better, to connect, and to have an awareness of what action or inaction to take.

How do you pass on emotional awareness- simple. Simply talk about emotions in your everyday living. Express how you are feeling, ask how your children are feeling, talk about how TV  shows make you feel, or stories. Talk about choosing a story that feels good, talk about not watching something because it makes you feel bad.

A craft that’s a great introduction is to simply get a child to color emotions. Ask them to show you mad, sad, stressed, happy, blissful, excited. What colors, what lines? Even in squiggles a picture can relay feeling and this can be started as young as 2 or 3.

                  Appreciation- When our children feel bad, and know they feel bad, they sometimes want to feel better but don’t know how. Appreciation is a great bridge to feeling good from a bad space. Simply focusing on the emotion of appreciating shifts us emotionally and creates the space we can focus on new thoughts. I like to create lists of appreciation regularly with my kids. From going through the ABCs and finding something to appreciate for each letter when they can’t go to sleep, to focusing on finding 5 things that they appreciate when they are upset or in a tantrum, appreciating makes us feel good. It just does. Our kids feel it strongly and they LOVE to appreciate any little thing. Soon, they’ll be using it all the time.

Note that I used the word Appreciation rather than gratitude. Gratitude, no matter how wonderful to express, doesn’t carry the same feeling space as truly Appreciating. Simply say the two words for a moment, you’ll feel the difference.

               The law of Attraction- we get more of what we send out. Its law. Our children can actually understand this concept really easily. You can explain it in a number of ways. First, we are like magnets, attracting back to us the same as what we send out. If we are stressed we are holding up a stress magnet, we are asking the universe for more of the feeling we are emitting. If we appreciate (there it is again), we are holding up the appreciation magnet and asking for more of that feeling. Each feeling is an energy and radiates from us. We get more of the same every time.

Our children can see this in evidence daily. When they start off a day badly and it never really shifts, when they keep getting hurt, are complaining, and whining, things happen to make them complain more or get hurt more. When good things happen, they build and the day gets better and better. When a child is feeling sorry for themselves, you can pull out the Magnet card and ask them if that’s what they want to hold up. Is this the feeling they want more of? This, in turn creates more awareness of how they feel and what they are attraction.

Another way to explain it is as an echo, echoing back to us. No matter what, we get what we send out. But it’s based on What we ARE, what we are radiating deeply.

              Self appreciation- We are all unique, special individuals and its important our children appreciate who they are. This goes beyond what they look like, although they should always be told they are beautiful/handsome and that they shine. I used to tell my children that before they came the world just wasn’t quite right, that something was missing and then they decided to come and the world became perfect. We want our children to feel like being themselves is the most important job for them in the world. That we don’t want them to blend in or sacrifice Who They Really Are for anything or anyone. How we see them sets this up within their foundational perspectives of themselves. If we focus on their successes, their joys and their experiments, rather than their mistakes, shortfalls and weaknesses, then they will believe that they are capable of great things rather than being shadowed by self doubt and insecurities.

We express ourselves through our opinions and preferences, therefore asking our children what they like and what they think creates a space where they don’t need to agree with us and share the same opinion. When their own opinion is validated they are reminded that it is important to be true to themselves.

One way I love to strengthen this perspective is to simply ask two questions daily. “When didn’t you feel like yourself today?” and “When did you feel like yourself today?” When this is asked after school or after a busy day, a child is given time to reflect on how they felt and how they want to feel, as well as ponder on what it feels like to be Truly themselves.  Now my children are older they know that, whenever they are trying to make a decision, I’ll always ask them what feels most like themselves.

               Silence- Offering our children the grounding space of silence creates a safe place for them to sense who they are. We live in a loud world and we might as well bring that to our children’s attention. Computers, Television, even normal conversation has a fast paced loud energy that children are sensitive to. They react in one of two ways, shutting down completely or spinning out of control. When we bring their awareness to silence, they see the contrast, and in that contrast it becomes a tool for happier living. This can be done at bedtime, with deep breathing, showing them how to breathe all the way to their navel. It can be done in playing games of how quiet can they be or how slow can we talk and awareness can also be drawn to silence in contrasting experiences, such as watching a fast, loud program and then saying you want to watch a slower show after in order to feel the difference, or saying that you’ve had a fast day and you need some quiet, or incorporating the phrase “Having a loud head” in every day conversation and showing how you deal with it.
Meditation is the obvious choice for finding silence, but this can come in a lot of forms. Sitting outside in nature, going for a walk, a five count breathing session, or writing subconscious pages, even coloring can be a statement of silence, which you can share with your child or at least offer them as an example of how silence creates the space for yourself to thrive.

      Magic.- We need to believe in magic, all of us. We need to trust in unseen forces and the “impossible.” I don’t mean play Santa Claus and be the Easter bunny, I mean go for walks and notice the incredible miracles that happen daily around us. From flowers blooming, to snow falling, teach your children that this is magic. Real Magic. Seeds lie dormant waiting for spring, our hearts pump blood without thought, babies are born, life is full of infinite possibilities. When we offer seeing life as magical we are reminded that we don’t have to fit into any category and life is unlimited. Our children know this when they first arrive and it is so tempting to teach it out of them, but when we allow this view to flourish, they embrace life with intention and openness. One way to encourage their belief in magic is to not always have the answers. When they ask a question about how the world works, ask for their opinion first, how do they thing the world was made? Then give your opinion, but remind them that life is magical. For it is.

There is a wonderful sense of wellbeing when we remember that other forces, good forces, are at work keeping balance.

No matter what, when our children know that they live in a home based in love and not fear, then they will have a spiritual foundation which allows them to flourish. As Spirit, we are all here to remember how to trust in wellbeing and flow with life and love, and the better we trust in that ourselves, the better example we are for our children.

These tools are also the foundation for Christina's course, Spiritual Kids; building foundations for a spiritually aware family. The course uses crafts, activities, exercises, stories as well as video and Mp3 to provide you with a spiritual toolbox, in order to create a proactive, interactive spiritual experience with our children, helping them build strong self esteem and sense of Who They Are within a confusing world.

The Unbeaten Path

Our children are seen and VERY heard. In fact, they are loud. And no matter how much we might want to pull our hair out, spanking or any physical punishment is by no means an option.

We’re a different breed of parents. We’ve morphed from the “Obey your mother and father” doctrine and found a new unbeaten path. We might find it a little muddy sometimes, but we don’t look back. We grew up in homes where democracy was laughed at. It was a dictatorship, with a parent as the leader. We didn’t question, we didn’t express our opinions, rather we saved it for a time when we were “rebellious teens,” our parents found they couldn’t control us and we finally found our voice.

We had our babies and we looked at them with humility. We saw them as precious beings, new here, but old in spirit, we saw them as knowledgeable, as wise, and we saw an opportunity for us to learn from them how to love and live simply. We wanted to see the world with their wonder.

 We don’t want to crush them. We don’t ask them to conform to what others think is the right way. We don’t ask them what they want to do when they grow up, as we’ve decided they can be and do everything and anything. Our boys can wear dresses and paint their rooms pink, our girls can too... or they can shave their heads, skateboard, and paint their rooms blue. We’ve gotten rid of stereotypes, and have-tos.  We want to enjoy our time with our kids as it seems to go so quickly.

Yet, yes there are days that the noise and commotion can have us more dazed than a stun gun. We love the idea of a team, a family unit, working together for a common good, but our children often don’t understand the philosophy. When being born into an unrestricted environment, where rules are limited and fun encouraged, its understandable why chaos can sometimes be the result and yet we plod on, sure that it can’t be that far left to have just a happy go lucky family who gets along.

They aren’t always the serene angels that we held in our arms that first day. They decide they like to play rough and can karate chop as if they are reincarnations of Bruce Lee, even though we’ve never exposed them to it. They talk back to us, and make us feel silly, knowing just how to expose our insecurities and yet they don’t mean it, just speaking their mind. You know, like we weren’t suppose to. We see it as rebellion or bad behavior, but remind ourselves to wait for it to pass. Things pass through stages... right. It’s not about control we spit through our clenched teeth.

We lose it sometimes. We feel guilty when we raise our voice, yet wonder if the power struggle still exists, as our children can shout without remorse. We encourage communication, we talk about feelings. We remember watching Mr. Rogers and tip our hats off to him for making it look so easy.

But we know who they are. They aren’t little devils as our parents might think, they are explorers and adventurers. They bring us wild weed bouquets and tell us it will all be alright when they see us stressed. They give chubby arm hugs and tell us we’re the best in the world. They aren’t filled with anger. They aren’t brats. They are living in a playful moment, which sometimes goes wrong. It is a life of learning.

But then our children grow. They grow and as they grow they get interested in new things. Suddenly it’s not about running around wildly, tracking mud through the house and catching ladybugs as pets. We find ourselves with a moment, when remarkably everyone is in their own beds, reading to themselves or playing quietly, dreaming their own dreams. We find ourselves peeking into their rooms to see them happy and content, or spying on them while they are with friends seeing them take part in the world with a sense of self confidence and clarity like we never had.

And then it happens. They friend us on Facebook, they come in to chat about whatever is on their mind. We are their confidant, their friend and their sound box. We listen and suggest, antidote our own mistakes and support them through theirs. We see them as a friend. We request help for a happy home, which they agree to, because they know the concept of a team effort for a common goal.

It’s an unbeaten path, without a map or guide book. It has no guide for one main reason. We knew it the first time we looked into their eyes. We are each our own individual selves and our children are their own selves too. We, like any relationship, are people who are on the journey of life together. Therefore, our journey, together, is the unmarked territory, that we get to discover, together.

Review- Exploring Nature with Children (a homeschooling curriculum)

Lynn Seddon’s Exploring Nature with children is more than a book nature study- rather it is a full year’s worth of nature curriculum from September to August, with a plethora of crafts, projects and poetry, interwoven with scientific facts and nature journaling as well as the weekly nature walk. It’s all so well planned out, focused and... incredible. The things that homeschooling moms dreams are made of.

Broken down in weeks, it covers everything from Harvest Moon to Summer Pond Studies as well as the Solistices, the Equinoxes and Christmas and Candlemas.

This is a beautiful course of study and suitable for any age (I personally can’t wait to sink my teeth into it.) With weekly themed poetry and art woven in seamlessly to the focus of the week along with age appropriate crafts and a selection of projects to chose from, the course is well thought out and easy to offer to your children.

Seddon suggests picking a special spot to visit each week to observe changes through the year and record them in a nature journal. She also suggests having a nature table back home to bring small findings and treasures. I had used a nature table with our daughters when they were younger and I am really looking forward to offering the experience to our son. We used to decorate and brainstorm around topics, creating pieces of art inspired by the nature table itself. I think with the addition of the classical poem and suggested work of art within the curriculum, the nature table could be an endless form of entertainment and education.

The Curriculum is written with the Charlotte Mason philosophy of homeschooling, which I have to claim a little bit of ignorance on, but I know it is classically minded with a focus on literature and art. This is sewn seamlessly through the curriculum and from what I can see the study of it will open many doors for children over years to come.

Homeschooling or not I feel it would provide a lovely and educated family experience. I am intending this to be a weekend form of study for us. I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

Now, just as a warning the curriculum is in a PDF format as a book, so marking it and keeping your place takes some planning. (but everything else is planned out for the user, so that’s really nothing compared to other curriculum... she even has a list of supplies before each term. )But there’s always printing it out and putting it in a binder. I think I’ll probably just keep notes of my own on page numbers etc , you really can’t go wrong for a fantastic year long curriculum.

One note, Lynn is from the UK which has a slightly different climate than our Nova Scotia. I somehow doubt studying earthworms anytime before May and with our current climate change I don’t even know if winter will be fully here in December, but one never knows. It might take some shuffling projects about, but that’s alright. It all provides more learning curves and lessons in natural adaptation!

Grab the book here 

And I’d love to hear your experiences after you’ve tried it. I’ll be sharing mine!

Opportunities in Disappointments

Her eyes filled with tears when she found out she didn’t get the role she wanted in the local theatre production and my first reaction was to go ask the director why she hadn’t and demand to give her what she wanted. I bite my tongue while she cried in my arms.

The extremes of parenting:  a few generations ago kids were told to toughen up, the world wasn’t run for them and they shouldn’t expect special treatment, now we run around them, trying to make everything perfect for them, telling them they can achieve anything, attract anything, do anything. We tell them the sky’s the limit and then run around killing ourselves trying to prove it and make it happen.

Extremes of anything aren’t healthy and its time we stopped kidding ourselves. We aren’t in charge of our children’s lives and maybe it’s time we had more faith in their capabilities.

It’s never a question of toughening up, but it’s time we remind ourselves that we are fueling the instant gratification fire of the 21^st century within our children. They are used to Ask and receive at the lightening speed of putting food in the microwave, seeing new movies online and having questions answered at their finger tips. They have a fast flow of in and out, interested to bored, want to can’t be bothered. On the other hand, we are the generation of parents who know it’s not healthy to let them cry it out when they were babies (it’s now scientifically backed up), but we carry that though into their teens. We don’t like to see them upset, we don’t want them to cry, and it hurts us to see them disappointed. So we’ll do anything in our power to make sure.... what? To make sure they are never unhappy?

But we are also the generation that knows we are instilling beliefs and values into our children by how we live. We can’t offer them the Suck it up, life’s hard line, it goes against a deeper truth we are aware of. Life is full of infinite possibilities, it is possible to live our dreams and dance like no one is watching. It’s our generational mantra. It’s also something carved out for ourselves...by ourselves. We can’t do it with our Mommy holding our hand, taking anyone down who gets in our way.

What we often forget is that the more we try to make everything fall into place for each of our children’s smallest wishes and desires, the more we try to push ahead for them, the more we create a message that says “you can’t do this without me.” The more we stop the tears of disappointment with promises to always make it alright, solidifies the idea that what the want is the only way it can go, without any openness to what could come as pleasant surprises.

We don’t have to be the principal of the school of hardknocks. We don’t have to administer the disappointment, but we don’t have to prevent it either. We can build up our children’s sense of self value and their life time tools by reminding them that, yes, things might not be going their way, they might not be getting what they want, but what they are getting might turn out better than they could ever imagine.

                My daughter took the role. She had rehearsals with people other than her friends and she seized her offered moment as a gift, rather than an insult. She rose to an opportunity, while I know I would have turned it down flat at her age. I would have been determined to have what I wanted and nothing but. Her opening night was last night and she came out of the theatre laughing and happy. She’s met new friends, had an amazing first performance and decided the role she thought she had wanted wouldn’t have really worked for her. She’s friends with the director and is looking forward to many more performances. Better yet, she’s grown in her perception of herself and how to be herself at the same time as letting life offer her chances rather than seeing them as disappointments.

Yes, there are truly times when our children become the teachers and we get to sit back and watch in awe. Our children, like ourselves,  know that life is for embracing not judging and disappointment is when we are telling the universe that it has no idea what it’s doing. But deep down we know, we may not like it, but we know: The Universe Always knows what its doing.

The Art of Boredom

My boy isn’t impressed when I express pride every time he announces “I’m bored.” At five years old he’s reached a new plateau and its one that has him slightly confused. When he was a baby signs of restlessness were greeted with me singing with him, bouncing on my knee or introducing new sights or sounds. Toddlerhood had his own explorations, but sometimes I would come in to set up a new sensory table, a new activity. As he grew a little more, he looked to his sisters for amusement, getting involved in their games, getting them to play with him, trying to be twelve rather than four. He has played and played and played, frustratingly never learning or moving forward, but having quality time with his sisters. But now at five and a half, he’s wiser. He’s played great games with all of us and he wants to do more, but he’s developed preference on what he likes to play and simply joining in to other people’s stories, just isn’t cutting it. His old games and toys, don’t seem to offer amusement and so often we just won’t do what he wants us to do. So, the wail of “I’m bored” follows.

And his mother says, “I’m so glad”, and I am.

Our children aren’t bored enough now days. We as parents seem to feel it’s our job to amuse, to set up and distract. Sure, I play. I can often be found on a bed driving some imaginary bus and saving some stuffed toys from some horrible fate, but then I stop for a bit, or sit on the “bus” and read, while he rides, drives and saves. I’ll offer options, but he’s five now and my instincts have told me, it’s time to enable, but not to amuse.

Remember car trips?  Remember staring out the window for sometimes days, watching the world wiz by and imagining everything under the sun, even just swearing you’d never take your children on road trips?

Remember going shopping with our mothers, or waiting for them to get their hair done? Remember playing with our fingers, as they were the only amusement, literally, on hand?

Now, we seem to do everything in our power to make sure our children aren’t bored. We offer them toys or iphones, we offer them treats to distract them or simply get other people to take care of them while we shop, so it goes smoother and they don’t get bored, because that would be a disaster. But who is it a disaster for? Is it really that bad for them that they are bored, or is it the inconvenience for us that make us avoid it so frantically?

Boredom offers opportunity. It is our spirit’s way of saying I have room here. I have space where I can do something different. I want to try something new. I’m ready for the next adventure. Boredom says let’s try something crazy. Boredom is the imagination’s invitation to come out and play. That’s why our parents did well to offer us that tub of clay or simple blocks to compete with boredom; they are tools for the imagination, rather than amusement or distraction for it.

Our children are children at an important time. Some say that when 85% of them retire from their careers, those jobs haven’t even been invented yet. Their imaginations have to be razor sharp, yet we live in a world that can actually blunt it. Boredom invites them to find solutions to problems, even if it’s just jumping on their bed chanting I’m bored! Boredom asks them to ask themselves what they think, what they want to do, whereas computers, iphones and most toys of today tell them what to do and not to think about it.

Well my son hates being told what to do, and although he’s been allowed to experiment with a few computer games, he’s come to the conclusion that they don’t leave much room for him to make the rules. His sisters don’t like him to make the rules either. But his imagination does. His stuffed toys do.

He still might not be too impressed with my “Yay for boredom” attitude and he’s a little confused when I say, “Hey squint you eyes and watch the light dance”. But he’s getting there.

And I still will join in a game every once and awhile, as long as his amusement isn’t depending on me to play. I’ll join in for my own amusement knowing he is strong and smart enough to create his own.

Interview with Mark Victor Hansen

As I mentioned in my post regarding my review for Mark Victor Hansen's book Richest Kids in America, I also had the opportunity to have an interview with Mark and hear his thoughts on business, children and universal laws. Here's the interview. Enjoy. I know I did!

The theme of this blog is spiritually aware of parenting, which uses universal, spiritual themes such as positive thought and the law of attraction in parenting scenarios. How do you feel these themes effect entrepreneurship?
Hansen: I think the law of attraction is amazing. I’m a great student of it. I listen to audios in the car every week, from Abraham and Esther, who is a friend of mine. So, I am tuned in to all this stuff. The only issue I see happening sometimes is that some people think that it is all mind, and you don’t have to do and I think you’ve got to add a magical elixir of taking action, bring results. You have to be it before you can do it. But you’ve got to do it so you can have it. That’s the principle.

As the co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, what inspired you to make this your GoRichKids.com?
Hansen: America is in the most desperate times, thanks to the crash of our economy, starting in 2008. Our government, may not be bringing in the results we all need right now. Case in point, the Federal Reserve is printing money, carelessly, as far as I’m concerned – giving it without stipends.

I decided that we as individuals can be the solution and we all have to do our part. So, I decided that I would take a visionary leadership role and be a thought leader on this and create a monumental momentum. The future and the present belongs to our young people and if we can get a million kids creating a million dollars, that’s a trillion dollars. That causes our GDP – our Gross Domestic Product to go up eight percent.

I want to be the inspirational gadfly to inspire everyone to their highest best creation, innovation and invention. And the most important people right now who can really take the lead in changing our nation, changing our world are young people.

From spiritual moving stories to kid entrepreneurs, is there a connection, or was there sort of a logical progression?
Hansen: I’ve been a little entrepreneur since I was nine years old, so I’ve always, always, always loved the success stories – Horatio Alger started writing “rags to riches” stories and ended up building a whole enterprise doing so. Andrew Carnegie who made a fortune with steel, with almost no education, started the library system, as we know it. And I think the number is 2,586 libraries he gave to America. People like those two gentleman inspired me to achieve greatness and I want to do the same for the next generation.


When anyone takes on a business idea, I feel it is vital that it comes from everything that they are; that they really believe in, and all of themselves. How do you suggest people find that hidden passion within themselves and how do you suggest that they find the confidence and courage to go forth with the idea?
Hansen: Those two questions have the same answer, whatever your dream is, has to become a magnificent obsession, so much so that it’s the last thing you think about before you go to sleep at night and the first thing you think about in the morning. And then what you’ve got to put together is a T.E.A.M. I’ve re-acronymed this to mean Together Everyone Accomplishes Miracles. And each of us is here to create and deliver miracles.

And that’s what I think I’m doing with GoRichKids.com. We have hundreds of daily users right now, and that number is going to grow into a million. They, and their parents are all saying,“I never thought of this” or “I never believed that before and now I do”. And they start seeing models, that they say, “Holy smokes, I can turn this part of my life around” or “I can do this!”

How would you describe the difference between an idea and a great business idea for a child? How do you suggest they know which ideas to go for?

Hansen: First of all, you’ve got to write down too many ideas and then there’s gonna be one idea that just looms out and you say, “That’s it.” That is a game changer. Now game changers are like iTunes – Steve Jobs himself was a game changer.

Pixar was an animation game changer, Jobs ended up owning ten percent of Disney. Apple computers was a game changer because he made it aesthetic and user-friendly. He decided he wanted to be in the game changing business. I’m gonna say, if a kid writes down a hundred ideas, there’s gonna be one that’s a game changer and if he or she pulls it off,. it’s gonna be really worthy.

GoRichKids.com is intended to be a game changer.

If a child has a great idea for a business, how would you suggest parents encourage it?
Hansen: Help the child think it through, write it out, create a business plan and partner with the people that could deliver the goods, and take it from dream by putting a foundation under it and then build it into its own reality.

I mean, the littlest kid was sitting out at the Swap Meet here in Riverside with his mother, who was selling nothing, and he comes up with pencil bugs. And the little guy created pencil bugs; ends up selling pencil bugs and $3.6 million dollars in his first year.

And his mother dropped what she was doing and started helping him, full-time, and together, they kept creating greater dreams. This kid is going to be phenomenally rich. He said he wants to be financially free by the time he's 16. He’s only 12 years old and I believe he's well on his way to achieving that goal.

It's just so exciting to watch these kids really get on fire about an idea they've created and then let the idea flourish.

Would you talk a little bit about the role of imagination in business?
Hansen: I’m looking at a picture of my hero, Walt Disney, in my office, who used imagination when he got fired and had his business stolen from him. He watched a little rat run across the floor and he said, “I could draw up that rat. I’ll call him a mouse and I’m going to call him Mickey,” and because he had no resources, he just started doing all the cartoons himself – he was a cartoonist animator.

He said, “I don’t have any money to hire a V.O. (a voice over), so I’ll be Minnie and I’ll also be Mickey.”

So, when I think about imagination, two things come to mind: imagination creates your reality. And imagination is God in human form, as far as I’m concerned. God imagined this whole world, this whole universe, and then you and I, are made in the image and likeness of God, so we can imagine it a slightly less level.

And then the smartest man in the last century, by most people, is Albert Einstein. And doctor Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than facts.”

So, you can go out and use your imagination in a creative way. I mean, we used our imagination to create Chicken Soup for the Soul– stories which people said, “Oh, poo-poo, we don’t want Chicken Soup stories”. We ignored all of that and created an empire that did nearly a billion dollars. So, it’s amazing what you can do with your imagination. I'm living proof that with imagination, anything is possible.

I read a statistic a few days ago that said that sixty percent of jobs are children’s generational hold, haven’t even been invented yet. How do you feel this affects children entrepreneurs and how could we prepare children for that new future?
Hansen: First of all, I’m convinced I’m going to be in businesses that I don’t even know yet because I plan on living to be 127 years old, so I’m less than half-way through my life.

What is so exquisitely exciting is that 25 years ago, if somebody said you that we would being using the Internet, you’d say, “Excuse me? What are you talking about?”

The more kids of today know the past, the farther they can go into the future. Steve Jobs watched the Star Trek that helped generate ideas and with that magical ingredient, imagination, he created what would become the iPhone and the iPad and other devices and platforms.

You simply must watch the future because that’s where these kids are going to spend the rest of their lives. The best jobs haven’t been created yet; they haven’t been titled yet; they don’t have names yet – and no one is thinking about them or are they? Perhaps your kids are the future Steve Jobs' of the world.

Can you tell us about GoRichKids.com that you created and who it’s aimed for. Is it only for kids?
Hansen: It started out being only for kids 17 to 20-something years old and what has happened is that their parents have become just as passionate about the online course as they have. GoRichKids.com comprehensively covers business models that can fit almost any body in any condition and we’ll only keep adding more as time goes on.

We want GoRichKids.com to teach models that will guide people in knowing what true north is, realizing their full potential as a profitable success.

What is the most inspiring story you’ve heard from the GoRichKids.com experience?
Hansen: We have so many but one that comes to mind is a kid who says I’m his mentor, named Cameron Johnson. He says that he has read all my business books, like One Minute Millionaire. He’s now only 22-years-old and running the biggest Ford Dealership in America. But he started out back when beanie-babies were at their height and ended up making, somewhere north of $10 million. He went on to buy and create ten other businesses.

He teaches kids on GoRichKids.com about the value of stocks and what it really takes to become a young entrepreneur. Anything is possible if you just believe, if you're willing to do the work and if you find the right mentor.

We hope with this course, it will give kids no matter what your background, or where you are in the world, access to online mentors you normally may not have privy to. We can can eradicate “have not-ness” and cause fundamental abundance and create a shift to “have-ness” in the world so that every kid who dreams of the possibilites can become a true entrepreneur.