As you can see, I’m still in Olympic mode with the title of this post, “Pass the torch, please!”.  But no, it’s not the Olympics I’m talking about.  My post this week has to do with passing on all the information we have learned in the various seminars we have attended and the books we have read , to our children.

This is something I have been thinking about a lot lately. We have learned so much over the past few years about life, passion, purpose and wealth… how do we impart all this on our children?

If there is one thing I know, it’s children learn by example.   That seems easy enough, but how do we incorporate these learnings in every day life so our children (who are quite young, aged 7, 5 and 4) can learn these important lessons.  Sometimes I think this is hard, because well, we just learned many of these lessons ourselves!

I guess the main thing is to start with what you know, and depending on their age, to bring it ‘down to their level’.  That is, because our children are so young, we may not go into a high level of information.  For example, with finance, you may not want to go into the finer details of making a covered call… and on the personal development level, they may not know their purpose in life just yet!  However, you can start with baby-steps and give them the basic learning reflected in situations in every day life.

For example, today the kids were fighting quite a bit; constantly at each other with the cry, “Well he started it!” and so on.  So later tonight Is spoke with them about the fighting and their attitude of someone else ‘always has it better’.  I talked to them about ‘what goes around comes around’ and the way they treat others, and basically the world, is the way others and the world will treat them.  That is, if one of them is never willing to share, they can’t expect that their brothers/sister will want to share in return.

Chris and I also believe in the power of gratitude, and to make sure the children know this, we have incorporated the ‘gratitude rock’ at dinner time.   That is, the kids selected a rock from the garden and then painted it.  We then use the rock as a sort of  ‘talking stick’ at the dinner table, where the person who is holding it gets to say what they are grateful for that day.  We are trying to focus the kids on being grateful for what they have, rather than always looking for more things (usually material things like toys and games) to make them ‘happy’.  We also use this as a time to share what we like/love about each other (”I like the way Jack kicks the ball with me in the back yard”) and so on.l

So if you can incorporate any of the lessons you love in your daily life, your children are sure to follow.  It will then become a habit for them, rather than something they have to attend a personal development course for later in life! 

Unit next time, here’s to your succes!

Ann Eldridge

As some of you may know, I work with American students studying abroad in Australia at the University of Queensland (UQ). After one of our personal development sessions on ‘finding your passion’, I decided to take what I am good at and put it to good use - helping students to study abroad in Australia!

For 16 years I have been working in Study Abroad in Australia. For the last 7 years, I have been working for two American universities, who send a cohort of students to UQ each semester, which involves providing the students with an on-site Orientation and then looking after them during their program/semester at the university.

During the years I have been doing this, I’ve been approached by several other American universities asking me to assist them with their programs in Australia. I’ve always thought I couldn’t help them, because well, I was busy with the other two programs and the ‘how’ to help them just didn’t come to me. I think I also had a bit of self-doubt, like, “How can I make this happen? This is something successful people develop”.

After one of our courses, however, (and reading a good book “Go Put your Strengths to Work” by Marcus Buckingham, who is featured on our website at ) I decided, “What the heck — I’ll do what I know best, and write a guide to assist students with the complete process of studying abroad in Australia”.

This is where goal setting has come into play for me. Sure I knew the importance of goal setting — especially after many personal development sessions covering this very topic — but I never really put it into practice. So my first goal, which I must say was quite a lofty one was to just follow through and write up a guide to studying abroad in Australia. And then, try selling it to American students and/or American universities. No matter what self-doubt I had and regardless of any negative self-talk in my head, I promised myself I would bloody-well finish the guide and see what the response was from American universities.

Obviously, that was a pretty big goal; some books would classify it as a ‘dream goal’. But for me, the first step was more about not dismissing the idea as ‘dumb’, and following through with it.

However, to get myself to that dream goal, I had to ‘chunk it down’ and come up with other smaller goals, to accomplish that big ‘dream’ goal. And this is where the goal-setting has really come in handy. I started off setting smaller, more specific goals (which is key - you must be as specific as possible). For example, setting specific dates/times I wanted to have certain chapters finished or to have research completed for particular chapters, etc.

I would review these goals each day not only to keep myself on track and on target, but to stay motivated and ‘pumped up’ to achieving my goals. I think it is so true; the more you review your goals, the more you become focused and motivated to achieve those goals!

I’m happy to say I have completed the guide and it is in its final stages of being printed. I’m also in the process of designing a website and should be launching the website, and my guide, sometime in October! I’ll keep you posted… so watch this space!

Until next time, this is Ann Eldridge from the Family Success Club.

When you are married and/or have children, it is easy to get wrapped up in your own little microcosm of life. I think this is especially so if you have young children, who may require more supervision (eg they can’t just go off to the park to play by themselves).

The other day I was thinking how fun it was when I was in high school or university, where I had a lot of time to spend with friends, just … enjoying life, really! But after getting married and then having children, it seemed as though my life revolved around my little family.

This year, I have made more of a conscious effort to make more time with friends, like I did ‘in the old days’, before marriage and kids! That is, instead of getting together with friends so our children can play together in a park, etc I try to make time to meet friends one-on-one or as a group of ‘just the girls’. We may meet for a quick coffee and a catch-up, or go out to dinner together. It may even involve getting a social tennis team together, so we can spend a regular evening getting out, playing tennis together. This time together tightens our bonds as friends, not only as ‘mothers’ and ‘wives’ but as actual…. friends! It’s amazing how this time together, whether it’s just an hour or a weekend together, can bring you back to ’self’ and who you really are, separate to a ‘wife’ or ‘mother’.

The same is true for the men; many men can get so involved and bogged down with work, they only meet their male friends on the occasional weekend when their families get together for a BBQ. Men also need their ‘men-only’ bonding time, to meet as friends, watch whatever game is on that evening and talk about whatever it is that you men talk about! For example, Chris makes regular time to catch up with friends in the city, either for lunch during the work-week or after work for a relaxed dinner and drinks. He’s also organised a ‘drinks night’ for some of the dad’s in our children’s classes where they meet once a month to catch up over drinks. And I’m pretty sure they aren’t talking about the latest school project their child brought home! It’s important for men to have their mates, as we say here in Australia.

So make sure you make time for your friends… go on and phone a friend now!

Until next time, this is Ann Eldridge from Family Success Club!