Almost everywhere you go, you can hear parents say: “I want to start teaching my kids about money while they’re young, so that maybe they’ll grow up and avoid making the same mistakes I did, maybe they’ll be both wealthy and grateful.” It makes sense that teaching kids about money is on almost every parent’s mind.

There are several money gurus for adults (Robert Kiyosaki – “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” David Ramsey – “Total Money Makeover”, David Bach – “Automatic Millionaire,” to name a few). Of course, most parents with young children who are learning from these gurus eventually get around to wanting to impart this new-found wisdom to their children while they’re still young.

Also, there’s the huge number of conscientious parents who are in debt and who are on a path of getting rid of their debt. And then, there’s the self-aware parents who have become introduced to, and may be continuing on the path of, replacing a poverty-focused mentality with an abundance mentality (e.g. The Secret, Law of Attraction, and various faith-based and secular abundance teachings).

Of course, America is very well-poised to finally leave the poverty mentality of The Great Depression, as the third or fourth generation is being born now. Finally, Americans are extricating themselves, bit by bit, piece by piece, of the deeply embedded beliefs and language of The Great Depression, which are negative and counter-productive to building financial wealth.

Maybe you read “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” and a light bulb went off about how you look at money, and now you are at a loss of how to teach your children about money. Maybe you don’t yet know how money works or what ROI means, and don’t have the time to go through a long learning curve, but want to capture the opportunity to teach your kids about money now while they’re young.

Here are 7 key points that you must know when teaching your kids about money:

1. Financial Wealth is created when your money makes money (rather than you making money).

2. ROI means Return On Investment. It is your Return On Investment – that is, the money that your invested money makes for you – that defines your wealth (rather than your earnings or your capital gains). For more teaching on this topic, read or listen to “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” and/or play “Cash Flow 101,” to learn about getting off of the Rat Race.

3. Thinking that you’ll get out of debt and become wealthy when you work harder, get a raise, make more money, have greater commissions, or make some landmark profits in your stock trading account, are just lies that the 20st Century American society has created. Wealthy parents know differently. Wealth is created by ROI, which comes from having your money make more money for you.

4. Giving is part of gaining. When you have Returns On Investments, it’s important to keep the flow of money circulating – by more investments, more spending and more donating (charitable giving).

5. Good children’s banks have 4 parts – Investing, Donating, Spending, Long-term Savings (to buy Christmas/holiday gifts, birthday gifts, Father’s/Mother’s Day gifts, etc.), and properly take care of money (rather than scrunching up bills and jamming them into a tiny slot). Why 4 parts and not 3? Try dividing up Grandma’s $20 bill birthday gift to little Jimmy by 3.

6. Allowance only works if you have a complete plan to teach wealth habits to your children. Allowance alone, without more, won’t do it. Allowance and chores are a dangerous combination. Gratitude in children doesn’t depend on whether kids have to do chores in order to get an allowance – it depends on a lot of important things, but not that.

7. Children actually ignore you when you start talking to them about money (a.k.a. trying to teach them). Children learn by doing. Children get strong wealth habits by doing the same thing over and over and over – in an interesting and creative way.

If your family’s plan for teaching your children about money is lacking in any of these 7 areas, fear not. There are lots of resources on the web and in bookstores to help you get your children on a good financial wealth path.

Find the one that works for you, with your style and where you’re at in life. Now you’re armed with these 7 essential points to evaluate which tools will be best for you to teach wealth habits to your children, even if you’re not (yet) wealthy.

Theresa A. Markham, Esq. is the author of The Kids’ Bank Book: How to Teach Wise Money Management to Your Children with Fun, Ease, Smiles and Laughter, and offers the Book and other info about raising wealthy kids at www.KidsBankBook.com. She donates 10% of The Kids’ Bank Book net profits to Champ House.

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Teaching kids about money: Do you know these 7 key facts?

Veteran sales professional, Rollis Fontenot III, has released his first book “Go Out and Sell Something – The Recession-Proof Guide to a Successful Sales Career.”

Available on Amazon and Createspace.com, the book comprehensively addresses a subject, according to Fontenot, that is of growing importance to sales professionals in every industry. The book also appeals to business owners and other professionals who are in charge of business development.

“With the economy continuing to falter, salespeople are having to adapt to a rapidly changing business environment that isn’t always clear or understandable,” Fontenot explains.

“When you consider the alarming rate of company layoffs, bankruptcies, bailouts, and restructurings, it’s understandable to feel uncertain and downright scared over what the future holds.

However, there are many salespeople who actually thrive in tough times. Their secret is developing the right thinking and mental attitude that successful salespeople possess.

The order of success in virtually any field of endeavor is BE-DO-HAVE. Our thinking or “BEing” helps us to take the right actions. Our “DOs” help us to receive, and our HAVEs are the results that we want. Our minds also need to be ready to receive the success that we want.”

According to Kari Schneider of Alliance Recruiting, “Rollis has a unique way of not only sharpening your selling skills, but also getting you mentally prepared to receive and retain the success you’ve been looking for.

His book is quick, simple to understand, and easy to implement. Rollis guides you through the slippery slopes of non-production in a recession. Basically, if you want more money – Go Out and Sell Something.”

Not just for salespeople, but for any business professional experiencing stress and anxiety over this current recession, the new book is geared to help those needing clear-cut solutions for taking proactive and positive steps to increase their sales, rejuvenate their careers, and improve their overall lives.

“Being in sales can be very rewarding,” states Fontenot. “In fact, one major advantage of a career in sales is that successful salespeople are the first to be hired and often the last to be let go. They are also among the highest earners in a company.”

While there are countless books about sales techniques and strategies, Fontenot has taken a refreshingly different approach to the subject. He has only included the most timely and relevant concepts and compiled them into an easy-to-use guide that includes recession-proof action plans that are designed to give straightforward actionable items that deliver immediate results.

“Fontenot shares his knowledge of selling in “Go Out and Sell Something along with the collective thoughts of some of the best authors in the industry such as Robert Kiyosaki, Dr. Stephen Covey, and Brian Tracy,” says Michael Waters, physician recruiter with Alliance Recruiting Resources.

“He provides an easy to read guide on how to sell from someone who has succeeded by studying the best authors, practicing their ideas, and developing his own along the way.”

“Go Out and Sell Something is an extremely useful book for the salesperson looking to not only survive but thrive in the current economy.

With unemployment at a near all time high, more people are getting commission-based sales,” says Ron Marks, author of “Managing for Sales Results” published by John Wiley and Sons.

“Fontenot’s book no only takes proven sales strategies and puts them in an easy to read format, he provides action plans at the end of each topic to help sales people implement the concepts presented. Don’t miss this book if you want to become a sales professional.”

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Go Out and Sell Something

Burning crude oil itself is of limited use.  To extract the maximum value from crude, it first needs to be refined into petroleum products such as gasoline, or petrol.

However, there are many other products that can be obtained when a barrel of crude oil is refined.  These include liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), naphtha, kerosene, gas oil and fuel oil.  

Other useful products which are not fuels can also be manufactured by refining crude oil, such as lubricants and asphalt (used in paving roads). A range of sub-items like perfumes and insecticides are also ultimately derived from crude oil.

Furthermore, several of the products listed above which are derived from crude oil, such as naphtha, gasoil, LPG and ethane, can themselves be used as inputs or feedstocks in the production of petrochemicals.

There are more than 4,000 different petrochemical products, but those which are considered as basic products include ethylene, propylene, butadiene, benzene, ammonia and methanol. The main groups of petrochemical end-products are plastics, synthetic fibres, synthetic rubbers, detergents and chemical fertilisers.

Considering the vast number of products that are derived from it, crude oil is a very versatile substance. Life as we know it today would be extremely difficult without crude oil and its by-products.

Is the economy really improving, therefore driving up consumption of oil? Tracking the share market will not give you the real answer. In fact, we know the global economy has yet to recover.

U.S. Dollar Drives Oil

Oil is priced in U.S. dollars. According to OPEC, the relationship between oil prices and the U.S. dollar is almost mechanical. When the U.S. dollar falls in value, oil prices have to go up in U.S. dollar terms to stay constant in euro terms. Oil producers receive their oil revenues in U.S. dollars and need to be compensated for the fluctuations of the dollar.

When oil price hit too high, consumers have to spend more for gasoline, petrol and etc despite that their income didn’t go up. That’s a high price to pay.

~Aaron Loh

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Why Oil Price is going up?

Because we live and work in a society where making mistakes isn’t well-tolerated, it can be difficult to see any value in making mistakes. After all, mistakes often cost us time and money, and in small business both of these resources are at a premium.

However, you might be surprised that some of the most prominent leaders in the world value mistakes-a lot. Take a look at what some of these leaders have to say about making mistakes.

Gordon Moore, co-founder, Intel
“One thing a leader does is to remove the stigma of mistakes. People who are afraid of making mistakes all the time just don’t try anything.”

Sam Walton, founder, Walmart
Sam Walton, famous for driving an old beat-up pickup truck to work even when his worth was in the billions, was fond of saying that if you keep expenses down you can afford to make a lot of mistakes!

Robert Kiyosaki, bestselling author, “Rich Dad Poor Dad”
In his book “Business School for People Who Like Helping People,” Kiyosaki recounts how he learned the process of selling: by making mistakes. In the context of sales, Kiyosaki calls it rejection. He and his sales mentor, Charlie Robinson, would make sales calls together. Robinson would say virtually nothing during the visit, but would simply watch Kiyosaki work. Then the two would return to the office and review every mistake Kiyosaki made that caused a rejection. During that time, Kiyosaki even volunteered at a charity organization, making cold calls, so he could increase his rejection rate and learn from them. The message? Make as many mistakes as you can because mistakes are how you learn.

Herb Kelleher, co-founder, Southwest Airlines
When one of Southwest Airline’s property managers made a mistake (he made an oral commitment of $400,000 to the City of Austin for the preliminary design of a new airport when Southwest had no intention of supporting the new airport), Herb Kelleher backed his manager with the money. Although the lesson was hugely expensive, Kelleher didn’t get upset. He just jokingly told the manager: “Now pal, this is a fairly expensive lesson. A $400,000 lesson-I hope you remember it!”

Does that give you a new perspective on the value of making mistakes in your small business, and learning from them?

Stephanie Valentine

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Leadership: On Making Mistakes