AOA 055: Grow Kids’ Wealth with Non-Monetary Deposits – Featuring James Robert Lay

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“So there’s the monetary part of allowance, but then there’s also the depositing of these life skills, these values, that have exponential reach over the course of their [kids’] lives to help other people.”

— James Robert Lay

How can you help your kids’ wealth grow not only monetarily but also practically?

James Robert Lay offers a framework through his concept of “non-monetary deposits.” James Robert is one of the world’s leading digital marketing authors, speakers and advisors for financial brands. Based in Houston, James Robert is the author of Banking on Digital Growth: The Strategic Marketing Manifesto to Transform Financial Brands.

He is also the founder and CEO of the Digital Growth Institute, where he has guided more than 520 financial brands on a mission to simplify digital marketing and sales strategies that empower banks and credit unions to generate 10x more loans and deposits.

James Robert has been named one of The Financial Brand‘s “Top Global Financial Services Influencers to Follow,” a CUNA “Credit Union Rock Star” and a CU Times “Under 40 Trailblazer.” His insights have been featured in outlets including US News and World Report, Quartz, The Financial Brand, American Banker, CU Times and CU Journal, among many others.

Links (From the Show)

Show Notes (Find what’s most interesting to you!)

  • James Robert helps financial brands “level up” at the Digital Growth Institute. [2:26]
  • How the words “we can’t afford this” shaped James Robert’s money approach with his kids [3:32]
  • James Robert does not believe in allowance. Instead, he focuses on entrepreneurship. [7:02]
  • An alternate framing for the advice of encouraging our kids to “follow their passions” [11:03]
  • The usefulness of “the waiting period” when our kids want a bigger-ticket item [12:46]
  • The beta fish chronicles: how James Robert’s son learned some valuable money lessons [13:44]
  • Discovering “passion points” in childhood [15:36]
  • Beware the E-Myth that pursuing passion is the entrepreneur’s secret sauce. [16:54]
  • Why James Robert may not send his kids to college [17:27]
  • Will there be a manufacturing boom, and is this possibly something we should be thinking about in terms of our kids’ careers? [19:17]
  • James Robert and I discuss Alan Watts’ thoughts on not being present as a child. [21:37]
  • James Robert’s contrarian viewpoint is actually pro-education. [22:31]
  • James Robert has found tremendous value in paying his daughter to read key business books. [24:07]
  • Coaching your kids to use social platforms (specifically YouTube) to develop an income stream [28:00]
  • James Robert and I dive into AI. (This topic is, of course, a bit of a diversion. However, it’s sure to impact our kids, so we went with it.) [30:33]
  • A new take on deposits [33:04]
  • Goal setting and visualization with your kids [36:05]
  • James Robert defines the term “money-empowered” [40:23]
  • Time as an investment [40:51]
  • The importance of future thinking [41:13]
  • “It all starts by making your bed.” [42:20]
  • James Robert’s money-smart book recommendation [43:14]
  • Of Google and Lay’s potato chips [44:09]
  • The G-R-O acronym [44:27]

Click here for the full transcript.

If you liked this episode …

Interested in raising kids with a sense of entrepreneurial hustle? Then check out Kirk Drake‘s appearance on the podcast! Kirk, a lifelong entrepreneur, offers advice on encouraging entrepreneurship in your kids and bringing your entrepreneurial eye to their endeavors. He even discusses how to handle the pitfalls of early entrepreneurial success. Start listening at 14:46 for these great tips.

Intrigued by James Robert’s thoughts on sending kids to college? In his episode of The Art of Allowance Podcast, Troutwood CEO Gene Natali explains that families must consider the opportunity cost of college since the continued price increases don’t match the ROI and an alma mater is no longer the most important piece of information on a resume. Tune in at 18:26 for his thoughts, or stream this video short.

Want to learn more about goal setting and visualization? In this video short, podcast guest and money expert Ellen Rogin discusses how to set up a practical prosperity picture (vision board) with your kids and shares visualization techniques and suggestions for success. Alternatively, you can listen in at 25:03 for all the details.

Please Subscribe

If you like this podcast, then please give us a review and subscribe to the show. The Art of Allowance Podcast is available on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Radio Public and now Amazon Music. Subscribing is free, and it will help me produce more enriching content for you to enjoy. Thanks!

You might also want to check out The Art of Allowance Project, our reimagined program to get your children excited about money smarts at any age. Until next time, I wish you and your family well as you journey forth.

Thanks for listening.

John

Full Transcript

This transcript is from The Art of Allowance Podcast, Episode 55, featuring host John Lanza and guest James Robert Lay.

00:00:00,300 [John Lanza]
Hello, I’m your host, John Lanza, and welcome to episode 55 of the Art of Allowance podcast. Before we begin, I wanted to let you know that there are a few minor audio glitches in the episode. Technology is what allows us to bring you this program, but sometimes technology also gets the best of us. The substance of the show, of course, is still, I believe, top-notch. There’s my disclaimer. On with the show.

00:00:30,000 [James Robert Lay]
I think as parents,

00:00:33,300 [James Robert Lay]
it’s not only a monetary deposit that we can make into- to their, to their account. We can make deposits, like I’ve been talking about, of empowerment, of life skills, of, um, thinking about things, thinking about things differently. That’s an exponential deposit. Like, I could give you $5 to read the book, but I think what’s gonna take them even that much further, that $5 to read that business book, what does that create over their life?

00:01:06,800 [James Robert Lay]
[upbeat music]

00:01:09,200 [John Lanza]
In this episode, I speak with James Robert Lay. James Robert is one of the world’s leading digital marketing authors, speakers, and advisors for financial brands. James Robert is also the founder and CEO of the Digital Growth Institute, where he has guided more than 520 financial brands on a mission to simplify digital marketing and sales strategies to empower banks and credit unions. James Robert has been named one of the Financial Brands’ Top Global Financial Services Influencers to Follow, a CUNA Credit Union Rockstar, and a Credit Union Times Under 40 Trailblazer. His insights have been featured in outlets including the US News and World Report, Quartz, the Financial Brand, American Banker, CU Times, and the CU Journal, among many others. James Robert is also a friend, and I hope you enjoy my conversation with James Robert Lay. [upbeat music] Today, I am talking with James Robert Lay. Welcome, James Robert.

00:02:20,300 [James Robert Lay]
John, thank you so much for having me on today. It’s- looking forward to this.

00:02:24,300 [John Lanza]
Well, it’s nice talking to a friend, and, uh, to begin, just tell us a little bit about yourself and what you’ve been focused on recently.

00:02:32,240 [James Robert Lay]
So I’m the founder and the CEO at the Digital Growth Institute in Houston, and we are on a mission to level up, uh, the digital growth potential for financial brands. And I- I think even more deeply, um, it’s, it’s doing so through education and coaching, really empowering financial brands to give them the knowledge to guide people beyond financial stress towards an even bigger, better, brighter future.

00:02:56,260 [John Lanza]
Well, you’re doing amazing work, and I, I’ve really been looking forward to this for quite a while because not only are you a thought leader, a really recognized thought leader in the banking industry, um, also an expert in digital banking and marketing, but, and we’ll get into this, you are the father of four. So I know you’re gonna have some very unique insights because you work so closely with these money-centric businesses, like banks and credit unions, and I know in your work that you are always looking for connections across your different domains, including, of course, your domain as father of the Lay family.

00:03:32,860 [James Robert Lay]
Yes.

00:03:33,370 [John Lanza]
So let’s begin at the beginning. [chuckles] I want you to tell us how you first started the Money Smart conversation and lessons in your household with your kids, but don’t shy away from getting into the weeds here, because it’s really those details that I think are most useful to our listeners. Because I think here, the idea of this really podcast, writ large, is to give people takeaways they can try with their own family.

00:03:58,300 [James Robert Lay]
I’d say it starts with me, um, and gaining a sense of self-awareness as to, what is my relationship

00:04:09,520 [James Robert Lay]
with money? Um,

00:04:12,400 [James Robert Lay]
I grew up in

00:04:14,720 [James Robert Lay]
call it the average middle-class family. Uh, you know, Mom was a teacher, Dad, you know, corporate America for 30 years. And

00:04:26,600 [James Robert Lay]
one thing always stuck with me, though, growing up:

00:04:31,320 [James Robert Lay]
“We can’t afford it. We can’t afford it.” I heard that over and over and over again. “Mom, Dad, can I get a Nintendo?” Like, this is like 1989, 1990. “Can I get a Nintendo?” “No, we can’t afford it.” “Can I get a pair of Air Jordans?” “No, can’t afford it.” And I don’t know if we could or could not. That’s not the point of this. The point is that those words really shaped my

00:05:05,120 [James Robert Lay]
reality

00:05:06,960 [James Robert Lay]
with money,

00:05:09,360 [James Robert Lay]
and I would say it almost

00:05:11,720 [James Robert Lay]
distorted me to a de- a degree because it forced me to go to the complete opposite end of the spectrum as an entrepreneur. Like, I was never gonna have my kids- never gonna tell my kids that we can’t afford it. Well, that’s before you have kids. [chuckles] And then kids enter into the picture, and then you’re like, “I have a responsibility

00:05:38,320 [James Robert Lay]
to guide them and really empower them to establish a positive relationship with money.”

00:05:48,000 [James Robert Lay]
And that’s what my wife and I have been really focused on is to, if anything,

00:05:55,000 [James Robert Lay]
let’s just talk about it. Let’s have some conversations about it. Um, and that’s everything from-… you know, what it costs to put food on the table, and four kids with the environment that we’re in right now, it’s getting a little bit more expensive to, you know, what it costs to go eat out, compare and contrast the two, to what it costs to, you know, utilities. Like, literally, it’s, it’s kind of a bit of a, an open book to a degree.

00:06:24,864 [James Robert Lay]
‘Cause it’s like, you know what? If we go out to eat,

00:06:28,784 [James Robert Lay]
and let’s say it’s $100 for the family, because my wife is very conscious of the food that she provides all of us, she makes for us and where we go eat, I tell my kids, like, “Look, if you were working at a job, making $10 an hour, it would take you 10 hours to provide this meal.” Wow! So it’s about context and I think perspective, and no judgment, um, is the most important thing I would say. It’s just really facilitating a dialogue, a discussion, and a discourse in a safe space that we’re all learning together with this thing.

00:07:07,924 [John Lanza]
Do you have anything you do kind of systems-wise… Like, for example, you know, we have- we’ve talked about a specific kind of allowance. Do you not do an allowance? Uh, are you focused more on the entrepreneurial side? What do you do kind of systems-wise in your house to help, you know, to, to help, uh, uh, boots on the ground? You know, you’ve got the conversation, the open con- open conversation, which is great, but what are you doing systems-wise to help your kids kind of learn with, you know, physical money experience about how to use money?

00:07:40,524 [James Robert Lay]
No allowance whatsoever, 100% entrepreneurial, and a lo- I think a lot of that w- is, once again, as an entrepreneur myself, that drives that entrepreneurial thinking, or at least I’m trying to establish and facilitate the entrepreneurial thinking for them. So very practically speaking, um, my kids, they come to me, “Dad, I would like to buy X, Y, or Z off of Amazon.” “Great.” First question I ask, “Have you thought about it?” “Yeah, I thought about it just now.” “No, I mean, like, give yourself a week. Come back to me, and if you still want whatever it is, let’s have a conversation about it.” And to be honest with you, I’d say more times than not, they’ve gone away, and they’ve never come back and talked about it.

00:08:33,443 [John Lanza]
Sure.

00:08:33,933 [James Robert Lay]
“Okay, great.” So they’ve come back, and they wanna actually buy whatever this thing is.

00:08:40,463 [James Robert Lay]
“How much is that gonna cost?” So we have that conversation. “Well, do you have that, you know, saved up now?” “Yes, I do.” “What happens if you buy this, then what is… what are your reserves? How much are you gonna have left over?” Then we have that.

00:08:58,964 [James Robert Lay]
And then if they don’t have it, then it’s like: “How are you going to go and create the revenue

00:09:05,924 [James Robert Lay]
to buy this thing that you want?” Um,

00:09:11,604 [James Robert Lay]
that’s one conversation. We’ve had other conversations around, and it’s interesting from an entrepreneurial perspective, I’m like: “Okay, you’ve gotten all this money that you’ve worked for, that you…” Not allowance, but they’re looking for opportunities to generate income. I mean, even to the point to where they’ll ask me if they can make me a bracelet, and I’ve stopped doing that, but that was a good start. I’m like, “Now go sell those bracelets to your friends at school and take that to the next level.” Um,

00:09:46,504 [James Robert Lay]
but they saved up some money, and they bought a snow cone machine. Um, and I’m like: “Okay, that snow cone machine off of Amazon was $50. You bought the syrup, so that was, like, another $10. If you sell snow cones for X number, here’s what your payback period is, and then you become profitable.” So the thing is, is they’ve never gone and done the snow cone machine. Um, so I’m like, “That’s just capital that’s just sitting right there. Whenever you’re ready, you can go out and do that.” So I, I, I say it’s really helping them to identify opportunities, and now it’s like, okay, you have the ability to, you know, use YouTube and all of these other channels that weren’t available for me when first getting started. And I wanna be very clear, I’m not encouraging my kids to go out to this whole influencer lifestyle. [chuckles] Um, it’s just about being able to share and communicate knowledge, passion. So it’s really just facilitating the mind into, where can I find opportunities in life at a macro level to create value for others? Because it’s through that value creation, that is how I create revenue, that is how I create income for myself and for my family.

00:11:03,024 [John Lanza]
That is great. Uh, that’s very helpful, and it’s a, it’s a unique perspective. I have to ask you this: What do you think of the, uh, the advice that you should follow your passion? How do you think about that with your kids?

00:11:19,464 [James Robert Lay]
I think you should follow your passion up to a point, ’cause can your passion be profitable? There… And I learned this from David Baker, who has advised me over the years. Um, I would say my thinking has changed, um, over time with this, but there are a lot of passionate people, um, who are struggling financially, and I think it’s the idea is to try to find the intersection of passion and profit. Um, you, you have to have both to be able to be sustainable. And not everyone wants to, you know, go out in life and be a, a gazillionaire or a billionaire, but it’s like, can you, can you

00:11:59,964 [James Robert Lay]
find a life? Can you create a life? And I think that’s the thing. We all… You know, there’s this argument that we’re moving into a creator economy-… it could be possible, theoretically, that people could find and create careers,

00:12:19,192 [James Robert Lay]
businesses that are more in their passion spot now than ever before. But I think you have to be very mindful of passion and profit. Uh, ’cause passion alone, yeah, it’s great, but if you’re struggling financially, then maybe we need to have a conversation and optimize what that could be. The passion could be the side hustle, while you’ve got this other thing going on over here that, you know, it’s, it’s the primary revenue generator.

00:12:47,151 [John Lanza]
Yeah. I do wanna jump back. That’s, that’s very useful advice, and I wanted to jump back, ’cause I, I like your idea of the… We, we call it the waiting period, but that idea of letting them kind of sit with that i- with that concept, because we’ve found the same thing with our kids, and I wanna talk to other parents about this same issue. You give them a week, and most likely, whatever it is that they wanted is something that they’re not gonna care about-

00:13:11,332 [James Robert Lay]
Mm

00:13:11,342 [John Lanza]
… within a week or two weeks.

00:13:13,492 [James Robert Lay]
Mm-hmm.

00:13:13,512 [John Lanza]
So I think that’s a really powerful tactic to use with your kids on anything. The way we do it, is ’cause we do actually give them an allowance, is it’ll be something where if they have money in their… You know, they have to save for goals, but if they’re find something that is, say, over $50, and it is something they do- they have the money in their spend jar for-

00:13:35,531 [James Robert Lay]
Yep

00:13:35,602 [John Lanza]
… or their spend smart jar, um, they have to wait on it. That’s just a rule that we have. And now they’re getting older, they have lot, lot more kind of autonomy over everything. I mean, we’ve always given them some autonomy, but now they have a lot more. Um, what do you think about that?

00:13:49,132 [James Robert Lay]
I would say one of the, the best purchases that my oldest son, he’s 12, has made to date, has been his pet betta fish. Um, because not only was it, you know, something that he worked for, that he saved up for, it was something that he thought about. Um, and I’m like, “To get this fish,

00:14:11,972 [James Robert Lay]
you’re gonna be the one who cleans the bowl. You’re gonna be the one who has to feed the fish.” And to watch his level of responsibility

00:14:21,512 [James Robert Lay]
increase and multiply through this, um,

00:14:26,512 [James Robert Lay]
relationship with the pet betta fish, [chuckles] uh, has been beautiful. And now he’s like, “Well,” you know, “I wanna upgrade his tank.” You know, “I wanna do all of these other th- ” I’m like: “Slow down, cowboy,” because-

00:14:39,801 [John Lanza]
[laughing]

00:14:40,801 [James Robert Lay]
… he’s just quite fine in his little one-gallon fish bowl, swimming around, and, you know, you wanna- gonna… You’re gonna go drop another 50 bucks to give him a three-gallon tank with these LED lights? And it just, it’s very… It’s almost like, you know, if you think about as adults, you know, we reach a certain level of life and, you know, we have our basic needs that are being met, and then we go out, and we wanna upgrade that level of life, and then wanna upgrade-

00:15:09,061 [John Lanza]
Yep

00:15:09,222 [James Robert Lay]
… that level of life. And so it’s even this is helping to facilitate that conversation of, you know, is it really worth it, or is this something that maybe we can hold off on and wait and see?

00:15:23,551 [John Lanza]
Yeah, and so your son is moving the goalposts for his fish. [laughing]

00:15:27,891 [James Robert Lay]
He… Yes!

00:15:29,372 [John Lanza]
[laughing]

00:15:29,811 [James Robert Lay]
Yes, and he, he is actively wanting to figure out a way to make it happen, because this is the same one who has just such a love for animals.

00:15:40,051 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:15:40,132 [James Robert Lay]
And I… You know, back to the whole passion thing, you know, I think now as, as a child, there’s no better time to kind of, like, figure out and poke into different passion points.

00:15:54,852 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:15:55,012 [James Robert Lay]
Because that’s gonna help. Like, my passion growing up was playing basketball, you know? But I- [scoffs] there’s no way I was gonna go play in the NBA. It wasn’t reality.

00:16:04,502 [John Lanza]
Yep.

00:16:04,512 [James Robert Lay]
But it’s the same drive I have today that I applied back then. I think those are the core behaviors and traits that we can instill in our kids, like drive and motivation, and just doing the right thing and being good human beings. Those are lessons that they can take for a lifetime, that will then ultimately create value, which then have, has a positive impact back to their bottom line going forward into the future.

00:16:31,151 [John Lanza]
Yeah, and, you know, passion is always something that’s worth, uh, helping your kids pursue if they’re interested in something. The danger becomes, uh, uh, like your framing of it, when you’re pursuing it, and it’s not something that can really… is really sustainable monetarily.

00:16:47,992 [James Robert Lay]
Yep.

00:16:48,172 [John Lanza]
Um, and the other thing is, you know, you may lose your passion for something if you decide to try to go that, go that route.

00:16:55,632 [James Robert Lay]
And monetize it. Yep.

00:16:57,012 [John Lanza]
Yeah. I mean, I’m sure you’ve read The E-Myth by Michael Gerber.

00:17:00,362 [James Robert Lay]
Yes.

00:17:00,372 [John Lanza]
And he talks about hi- One of the simple examples he gets is, just because you’re very good at baking apple pies, doesn’t mean that you’re gonna be very good at running an apple pie s- business, right?

00:17:10,662 [James Robert Lay]
Because by the time that you run the business, you hate baking the apple pies-

00:17:13,821 [John Lanza]
[chuckles]

00:17:13,821 [James Robert Lay]
… that you started the business out to begin with in the first place.

00:17:16,462 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:17:16,472 [James Robert Lay]
You know, the, the idea of, of, of money, too, I think when it comes to our kids, because you mentioned four, they’re 12, eight… They’re 12, 10, eight, and six now, is college. Um,

00:17:31,232 [James Robert Lay]
people ask me, “Oh, they’re our- wh- where are your kids gonna go to college?” [chuckles] And I’m, I’m a contrarian-

00:17:37,562 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:17:37,562 [James Robert Lay]
… by nature, I think, so I’m like: “I don’t know if they’re gonna go to college.” And they look at me like I’m absolutely crazy, and I said, “It’s about value.” Um, I said, “I’m already talking to my kids about, you know, possible certifications.” Um, you know, you can go get a Google certification in UX, um, at the age of 16, and then go out and start creating value at the age of 17, or even the age of 18.

00:18:04,212 [John Lanza]
Mm.

00:18:04,331 [James Robert Lay]
So there’s this whole idea of formal education versus education in other means or mediums, uh, I think is, is something that, that we can look at. Even my wife, I’ve-… lot of conversations about college early on when the kids were young. Well, we’re gonna pay for our college because her parents paid for her college, and

00:18:30,212 [James Robert Lay]
I paid for my own college between grants and scholarships and student loans. I started my business at the age of 19, 20. That put me through school, and I, I feel that that really helped me to respect the education that I was getting at the time.

00:18:50,452 [James Robert Lay]
On the flip side, with her, we went to the same university, and we’ve known each other since, honestly, like, the f- first year, freshman year of- first day of school, freshman year of high school, although we were not high school sweethearts. I told her at the age of 18 I was gonna marry her, and she said, “You’re crazy.”

00:19:05,592 [John Lanza]
[laughing]

00:19:05,612 [James Robert Lay]
Six and a half years later, we got married, and, um… But her thoughts are now, “No, our kids are going to be responsible for their schooling if that is the path they wish to choose.” I also think about the future of the United States at a macro level. Um, if I look out to, like, the 2050 time period, and from everything that I’m reading and seeing and thinking about, we have the potential for a, a manufacturing boom, and, you know, we could possibly see the trades go super hot again. ‘Cause right now, it’s like no one wants to work in, like, the blue-collar world. My wife’s father is an entrepreneur who is in that blue-collar space, and I’m like, it’s- when everyone else is zigging, you go zag, and you go find the opportunities elsewhere. So perhaps trade school would be a path for my kids that I would 100% support them in, and I think that’s the thing. If, if that is what is helping to fund their passion, then it’s like a win-win-win. Everyone is, is winning. So it’s, it’s just looking at the world from a different lens

00:20:20,831 [James Robert Lay]
with my oldest son being in sixth grade. College is getting pushed on them to the point to where they have teams of students and teachers, and they’re named, like, Team U of H, Team UT-

00:20:37,172 [John Lanza]
[chuckles]

00:20:37,192 [James Robert Lay]
… Team A&M. I’m here in Texas. And I’m like, it’s, uh… I don’t know. It makes me just question. It’s like,

00:20:44,392 [James Robert Lay]
who’s, who’s benefiting from this type of, I’ll say, indoctrination at, uh-

00:20:50,272 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:20:50,331 [James Robert Lay]
… the age of fifth and sixth grade? Like, facilitate possible paths forward.

00:20:58,292 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:20:58,321 [James Robert Lay]
You know, I think, I think two, three paths. It’s like the old Robert Frost poem, “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood. I took the one less traveled, and that’s made all the difference.”

00:21:06,642 [John Lanza]
Yeah.

00:21:06,672 [James Robert Lay]
I think if we could just facilitate the thinking, and if you go this way, this is what your life could look like. If you go this way, this is what your life could look like.

00:21:15,672 [John Lanza]
Yeah. I think you’re… I think

00:21:19,532 [John Lanza]
more people need to question college. This isn’t to say that they, the kids shouldn’t go to college, but at the price that you’re paying for college, you have to be thinking about the value. So I think it is… I, I, I think it’s essential that you do consider it because the price is so high that, uh, you really have to make sure that it’s, uh, there’s a proven value. The other thing when you’re talking about these teams and everything, it starts- reminds me of something. I can’t remember who said this, but this, you know, youth is not about… I think it was Alan Watts was talking about this idea that we’re-

00:21:54,612 [James Robert Lay]
Mm

00:21:54,952 [John Lanza]
… you know, we’re, we’re, we’re we go to kindergarten to get into elementary school, to get into… And this is even more true now than it was when he said it-

00:22:02,972 [James Robert Lay]
Yeah

00:22:03,101 [John Lanza]
… to get into a high school, then to get into a college. It’s like youth is about being a you, being a kid, right?

00:22:10,092 [James Robert Lay]
Yes.

00:22:10,351 [John Lanza]
It’s not about-

00:22:11,532 [James Robert Lay]
Yes

00:22:11,541 [John Lanza]
… like, the whole existence is not, or their existence shouldn’t be about getting into college, and I’ve been as guilty as anybody in kind of promoting that with my kids, uh, because it’s part of what the schools promote. But the more you think about it, you realize, you know, youth is about being a kid. It’s not, it’s not about the end goal, and certainly, the end goal is part of it-

00:22:32,592 [James Robert Lay]
Right

00:22:32,601 [John Lanza]
… but the journey really matters.

00:22:34,652 [James Robert Lay]
Well, you bring up Alan Watts, and it’s the idea, you know, I, I think in, in school, it’s all about, like, doing and the accolades and the, you know, this, that, and the other, and we’re not human doers. We’re human beings, and I think the more that… If we can remember, like, we… It’s all about the experience, and, and, and we’re gaining and what we’re learning from this. And in, in no way, you know, someone might be listening, think, like, “This guy’s, like, anti-education.” I… You know, once again, my mom’s a teacher. I would say I’m an educator with, with the work that I’m doing. I’m, I’m advocating lifelong education, and the way that we can educate ourselves has now transformed because of things like the Internet. Um, even, you know, my wife was saying the other day, um, you know, encyclopedia. Uh, we have an encyclopedia set, uh, Britannica, actually. It was a gift from my parents to my kids, and it’s been up on a high bookshelf, and we’re like, “You know, we’re gonna pull that down,” because they’re asking some really good questions now. And instead of me just, you know,

00:23:37,672 [James Robert Lay]
giving them the answer, it’s gonna… The answer is going to be, “Go look it up and report back to me,” because I think, you know, with my worldview, I’m in a very unique place. I was born in 1981. The Internet hit mass consciousness in 1994. I was 13, 14 years old. The fact that I could look at an encyclopedia and be able to connect all of these different dots and look for patterns allowed me to progress much quicker when I got a Google search bar and start to connect all of these dots. Um,

00:24:11,092 [James Robert Lay]
so reading and education, you come back to the idea of how, how do my kids earn dollars? Um, I have, over time, they come to me like-… and they’re like: “How can I earn some, some, some dollars? How can I, how can I earn some money?” Like, “Go read a book. Go read a business book.” And so I have different businesses- business books, um, that they have read, and it’s not just read the book. And depending upon the length of the book and, you know, how challenging it is… And they started doing this, you know, I would say my, my, my daughter, my, my oldest daughter, who’s now 10, she’s very entrepreneurial. Maybe at the age of eight, she started reading, reading some of these books. Um, and they were written by Dan Sullivan over at Strategic Coach, who we were talking about before.

00:24:59,487 [John Lanza]
Mm-hmm.

00:25:00,447 [James Robert Lay]
Short reads, easy reads,

00:25:03,548 [James Robert Lay]
but it’s the concepts. And I’m like: “Read the book,

00:25:07,928 [James Robert Lay]
do a report for me,

00:25:10,668 [James Robert Lay]
and then present to me, and you can earn $5.” And so while it might take her a couple of hours, the value she’s getting and how that is shaping her worldview at the age of eight, nine, ten, my goodness, you know, uh, I wish I had that when I was her age.

00:25:31,668 [John Lanza]
Yeah, I, I love that idea of, uh, you know, adding to their coffers through learning. Makes, makes a lot of sense because that value is going to kind of pay dividends for, for both for her and for you. Um, you were going to say something, James Robert?

00:25:49,348 [James Robert Lay]
It’s, it’s not, it’s not just… It’s, it’s the learning. It’s then being able to distil down what she has read. See, my oldest son won’t do this. Like, he just will not do this, and I, I… That’s fine. That’s not for him. But for her, it’s reading, then it’s the writing and the distilla- distillation of the ideas, and, and I think most importantly, it’s her being able to articulate and then communicate what it is that she has learned, written about, and, and how, and synthesise that and how that is through her worldview. I’ve never really thought about it until just this point, but she was elected, uh, president of her s- of her class, and I’m curious to know if all of that practice that she had leading up to this

00:26:41,908 [James Robert Lay]
influenced her, because she had to give a speech and create a unique point of view as part of her, you know, campaign platform for class president in fifth grade, and, like, it’s only fifth grade, but, uh, once again, these are like life skills that they’ll take on for decades to come.

00:26:59,828 [John Lanza]
Yeah, and just having a comfort with them. I mean, it’s no different than having a comfort… You know, starting that conversation to have a comfort with money. You know, whether you do it through entrepreneurship, whether you do it through allowance, it’s really developing, uh, a comfort using the tools, right?

00:27:14,138 [James Robert Lay]
Mm-hmm.

00:27:14,168 [John Lanza]
Developing the skills. So now she has, as a tool in her toolbox, the ability to speak publicly, the ability to sort through her thoughts by writing.

00:27:24,098 [James Robert Lay]
Yes.

00:27:24,128 [John Lanza]
I mean, that’s, you know, both of us have, uh, you know, written books, and we know the value. Uh, the best part about writing the book is really that it just forces you to, to make sure that your thinking is fairly clear.

00:27:39,247 [James Robert Lay]
Yes.

00:27:39,487 [John Lanza]
And, uh, [chuckles] and that’s a wonderful experience, and it’s great that your ten-year-old is figuring that out at that age, because I was clueless at the age of ten [chuckles] about the power of writing. And again, that-

00:27:52,527 [James Robert Lay]
I would agree.

00:27:53,128 [John Lanza]
I… Yeah, I think a lot of that also comes with the fact that we are living in a time where it’s fairly easy to find that information on YouTube that’s, you know… Pe- people will talk about social media, and myself included, about, you know, the, the, the net negative that is there, and, and I, I think there’s, there, there certainly are, uh, negatives. But the, the fact that you can go on on YouTube and basically educate yourself about virtually anything, at least on a, uh, on a basic level, is astoundingly powerful. And, um, and one of those things happens to be writing. I mean, in this case, she’s got you as a, as a mentor as well, and that’s, that’s doubly powerful.

00:28:33,047 [James Robert Lay]
I, I think you’re onto something there because that’s something that I have considered. As my kids get a little bit older, I might coach them into communication via

00:28:45,788 [James Robert Lay]
YouTube. Um, do I even say TikTok? Do I want them on TikTok?

00:28:50,648 [John Lanza]
[laughing]

00:28:51,068 [James Robert Lay]
Like, I, I think that’s the other thing. Like, so my kids, you know, they did not have an iPad before COVID. Um, they do not have, like, an Xbox. They have, like, a, my old-school Nintendo that I finally bought. Um, it was actually a Sega Genesis that I bought because I cut yards, and I bought it from Tommy Lucas, who lived down the street, for $100 back in, like, the early ’90s, and I got all the games with it. Like, they were playing that as kids. But I want to coach them into, okay,

00:29:27,527 [James Robert Lay]
communication, you know, um, all of these life skills, because then it’s like, if they create a, a mini presence for themselves, regardless of where it takes them, into their 20s or into their 30s, but let’s say they’re 14, 15, and then now they read a book, and now they write something up, and now they flip that over into a download. Like, you know, for example, I’m going to find a book, um, on my desk. Uh, Rehumanize Your Business, um, is just one that I found or, or The Coaching Habit. Um,

00:30:01,568 [James Robert Lay]
if they are able to articulate a point of view and teach something, you know, to someone else, and then YouTube begins to monetise that, well, that’s just another income stream. I think the Internet, as is to the printing press, you know, five, six hundred years ago, it’s just at an exponential pace, and our minds are the limits into what good we can utilise these tools for. Like you said, there’s a lot of negative-… but I’m like, “Let’s keep focusing on the positive and the value creation here.”

00:30:34,572 [John Lanza]
Yeah, I th- I think the, the negatives are that we’ve been running this kind of social experiment with social media without really understanding the, the, the-

00:30:45,142 [James Robert Lay]
100%.

00:30:45,152 [John Lanza]
Yeah, the sociological aspects of it. But the major posi- positives are… So, for example, and we, we don’t wanna get, you know, too far into the weeds on this, but something like people, h- and there are, there are concerns about AI, right?

00:30:59,432 [James Robert Lay]
Mm.

00:30:59,972 [John Lanza]
And, and AI getting out of control, you know, the movie version of AI. But on the other hand, when you think about the opportunity for our kids, and I, I try to kind of steer them into looking at the power of AI. You know, I’ll have them just go on and try DALL-E and create their own pictures, just to see what generative media can look like because it’s going to be a part of their lives. There are going to be negatives and positives, just like nuclear energy. Uh, you know, when we… That, there’s gonna be the positive side, energy generation, the negative side-

00:31:34,432 [James Robert Lay]
Yep

00:31:34,442 [John Lanza]
… um, you know, atomic bombs. But the thing with AI is that if you look at it as the, the potential to kind of 10X our knowledge, you know, if you think of… I, I think of as, uh, in a, the most simplistic way, just having an AI assistant or an AI buddy that he- helps you think through things that you just couldn’t think through on your own because you’re a human, so you’re just human plus, right? And there’s, uh-

00:32:00,682 [James Robert Lay]
That-

00:32:00,852 [John Lanza]
More than anything, it’s about, it’s about exposing our kids to these things so that they can kind of then sort out how they’ll be useful to them.

00:32:10,132 [James Robert Lay]
So I’ve never really considered this before, and this is why I, I just enjoy conversations like this. I think what we’re doing, and I’m in, I’m in agreement, like, AI is a, a human upgrade. Um, it gives us capability, just like a Google search gave us capability. You know, we’re all augmented at this point, walking around with mobile devices in our pockets.

00:32:31,472 [John Lanza]
[chuckles]

00:32:32,722 [James Robert Lay]
Um, but if we look at these as tools, like, for example, if, if we were having this conversation and it was,

00:32:39,452 [James Robert Lay]
say, 1822,

00:32:43,312 [James Robert Lay]
we would be teaching our kids how to use a plow or how to use a hammer. These are just modern tools that back then were capability upgrades for people of that time. These are now capability upgrades for, you know, people of our time and our kids because it is the world that they’re growing up with. And so when you think about the idea of, of the art of allowance and making deposits, I think as parents,

00:33:13,532 [James Robert Lay]
it’s not only a monetary deposit that we can make into to their, to their account. We can make deposits, like I’ve been talking about, of empowerment, of life skills, of, um, thinking about things, thinking about things differently. That’s an exponential deposit. Like, I could give you $5 to read the book, but I think what’s gonna take them even that much further, that $5 to read that business book, what does that create over their life? It’s-

00:33:42,752 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:33:42,872 [James Robert Lay]
… you can’t, you can’t qu- it’s gonna be very hard to quantify that, but I think if you look back to the time that, you know, they’re, you know, 220 years old, um, if, if life extension gets us that far, um, it’s gonna give them a huge… Um, and I don’t like to use the word advantage, um, because I think then you’re looking at things in a very competitive mindset. I want my kids to be able to take what they know and then apply that and help other people along the way, and I think there’s that part of allowance that goes into this, too. So there’s the, the, the monetary part of allowance, but then there’s also the depositing of these life skills, these values, that have exponential reach over the course of their lives to help other people.

00:34:28,891 [John Lanza]
Yeah, I like that. I… And I like the idea that you don’t wanna necessarily talk about advantage ’cause that is, there is a kind of zero-sum feel-

00:34:36,292 [James Robert Lay]
Yeah

00:34:36,302 [John Lanza]
… that comes out of that. And I know you are the kind of person that is probably familiar with the idea of the infinite game, ’cause you play that infinite game, right? We’re, we’re all on this journey-

00:34:47,272 [James Robert Lay]
Mm

00:34:47,282 [John Lanza]
… and we just wanna help our kids, you know, help themselves, help others, and the, that’s… You know, I, I tend to be more techno-utopian, uh, even though I do see the potential downsides of it. It’s just- I think it’s just been, uh, drummed into me from, uh, h- from a young age, having just discovered computers at a young age and, and, uh, and, and just loving to… j- just seeing what kind of power they have. But getting at the kids, when you think about the, the essential nature now of video-

00:35:24,072 [James Robert Lay]
Mm

00:35:24,082 [John Lanza]
… it means that it’s m- even more important that we address this issue. I, I don’t know what the number is, you know, it’s c- uh, and whether it’s real or not, but, you know, 97% of people don’t like to do public speaking. You know, that’s something, that’s, that’s something that almost everybody’s got to get past, right?

00:35:41,152 [James Robert Lay]
Yep.

00:35:41,162 [John Lanza]
And so you’re making these deposits in the public speaking side. The writing, I think, is more important than ever, the ability to write, to write, to communicate asynchronously, especially now that we’re moving into a world… Our kids are moving into a world where they’re gonna be doing remote work.

00:35:58,632 [James Robert Lay]
Mm.

00:35:58,652 [John Lanza]
The writing and asynchronous co- communication is, writing is essential to that, right? So you are making those deposits. I love that framing of the non-monetary, just, uh, their… You’re, you’re, you’re generating, um… you’re kind of just building up their assets through these deposits that you’re making into their accounts that aren’t necessarily monetary accounts. I think that’s, uh… I like this. I think this is something to chew on, I have to think a little bit more about it.

00:36:29,332 [James Robert Lay]
I think another practical example for the dear listener here is goal setting. Um-… goes very closely with this. And literally, I have my kids write down, like, what their goals are, but not from, like, this lofty pie-in-the-sky. Very specific. Like, my son is in orchestra. He plays the cello, and he wanted to be first chair, but he was struggling. And I said, “Listen, I want you to sit down, and I want you to leap ahead in your mind, and it’s 12 months from today, and I want you to look back. What needs to happen between now and until then for you to feel good about the progress that you’re making on your cello-playing journey? And write all of that down, like you’re living in the future state and bringing that back to the present moment.” And so there’s that act of writing once again. I think back to your point about AI, it’s co-creation, it’s collaboration. The more that we can teach our kids to co-create and collaborate, not just with other human beings, but with technology as well… What does this come down to? It’s their ability to just think, critically think, solve problems. Um, and, and when you put people at the center of your, your thinking and of your doing, and you put the common-people problems that cause common people pain at the center of your thinking and doing,

00:37:47,576 [James Robert Lay]
that- those are those non-monetary deposits that they’re, they’re gonna take with them for a life. I, I can’t wait

00:37:55,816 [James Robert Lay]
for one of my kids to read Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. Then we’re gonna have… Um, and, and, you know, I’ve been reading a lot of that over the past, you know, five years myself, but I think it’s interesting that, that the writings, you know, were written in, like, the 1920s, the 1930s, very similar time periods to where we’re at 100 years. Uh, William Wattles, um, the Science of Getting Rich, and, you know, how thought plays into all of this. Um, it’s just, to me, it’s a very exciting time to be alive. It’s a very exciting time to be a parent-

00:38:26,536 [John Lanza]
Yeah

00:38:26,586 [James Robert Lay]
… um, and to, to do what we can to help, you know, help guide our kids along what you and I have been talking about, this, this journey of life that we’re all learning through. Sometimes you’re the teacher, sometimes you’re the student, but we’re all here to learn together.

00:38:39,636 [John Lanza]
Yeah. You know, that, those two books have certainly stood the test of time. A new book that… Have you read Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel?

00:38:48,236 [James Robert Lay]
I have not. It’s actually on my bookshelf, though.

00:38:50,336 [John Lanza]
Okay, yeah. That, that was our kind of go-to gift for… Because our kids are 17 and 19, so we had a lot of kind of college graduates. And I’m sure when they opened the book, you know, these college gra- or not college graduates, high school graduates going to college, they probably looked at it and went, “Ugh, book.” But it’s a, it’s a short book, and Housel says in the book, “It’s short. You’re welcome.”

00:39:10,756 [James Robert Lay]
Yeah.

00:39:11,116 [John Lanza]
It is one of… It’s- it is a such, I think, an essential read for kids. Um, and I’ll, I’ll- we’ll put that in the show notes. But, uh, but the idea here, again, that, that, that these kids have… I, I agree. I think it’s a, it’s a wonderful time. I think it’s also difficult for kids because there’s this paradox of choice that’s coming in here. You know-

00:39:34,636 [James Robert Lay]
Mm

00:39:34,646 [John Lanza]
… we look at it as parents, and we think, “Gosh, you have so many opportunities.” They look at it, and it can be very overwhelming because they, you know, you have to kind of find your filters. You know, I found that with my younger daughter, happens to be, want to go into an architecture program. That helped filter it, whereas my older daughter wasn’t sure, which is perfectly fine, but it made it much more difficult in the application process because it opens up… It’s a- it’s actually too many choices, I think. Um, so that’s, that’s, that’s another, uh, thing that our kids have to deal with, but, you know, it’s, it’s really a wonderful problem to have. Now, I know we are at the time end here. Do you have an extra kind of five to 10 minutes so we can ask-

00:40:16,386 [James Robert Lay]
Of course.

00:40:17,056 [John Lanza]
Okay.

00:40:17,466 [James Robert Lay]
Of, of course.

00:40:17,886 [John Lanza]
Okay.

00:40:18,076 [James Robert Lay]
Just j- just for you. Just for you, man.

00:40:20,256 [John Lanza]
[chuckles] Okay. I just, I just want to be sure, ’cause I have to get my Fast and Fun Round questions in, and I think we’ll just jump to those now. Uh, because I have a whole bunch of other questions I would like to ask, maybe we’ll just do this again at another time. But let’s go to our Fast and Fun Round questions, unless there’s anything else you wanted to kind of piggyback on from the r- previous conversation.

00:40:43,776 [James Robert Lay]
No, let’s go ahead and hop into it, and always hap- happy to come back and, and have a chat with you.

00:40:49,176 [John Lanza]
Okay, fantastic. Here we go, James Robert. First question:

00:40:55,096 [John Lanza]
What does the term money empowered mean to you?

00:40:59,236 [James Robert Lay]
Money empowered means that we have not just only the knowledge, but we have the courage to make the hard choices, um, that we need to make. Sometimes it’s a sacrifice in the short term to reach a much longer term goal.

00:41:16,516 [John Lanza]
Thank you. What is the best investment of time or money you’ve ever spent on your kids to date?

00:41:25,196 [James Robert Lay]
Sitting down and having deep conversations about the meaning of life.

00:41:29,576 [John Lanza]
I love that. You’re the second person in a row that, uh, that went to time on that one, which, uh, is so meaningful, uh, with our kids, spending that time with them.

00:41:39,496 [James Robert Lay]
Yeah.

00:41:40,436 [John Lanza]
What advice to your kids, uh, do you most hope that they will heed? And this can be monetary, but it can really just be life advice.

00:41:52,256 [John Lanza]
Think beyond

00:41:54,576 [James Robert Lay]
the present moment.

00:41:57,996 [James Robert Lay]
The future

00:42:00,236 [James Robert Lay]
always, from your perspective, has to be bigger than where you’ve been or where you are, and a lot of times that bigger future comes not from thinking about yourself, but from thinking about how you can help other people around you.

00:42:16,076 [John Lanza]
Yeah. Uh, you know, it’s interesting, ’cause one of the things that we talk a lot about, even with our kids, is the being kind to your future self-

00:42:25,756 [James Robert Lay]
Mm

00:42:25,766 [John Lanza]
… which is very difficult. It’s a difficult concept even for adults. Uh, but you know, they’re, they’re basically adults now, 17 and 19. My, my dau- I was very proud because my- one of my daughter’s college essays was about treating her future self well…. and, uh, so it’s nice to see that that message was coming through on some level. Okay, so if you could transmit a message that everyone would see, skywritten, on a billboard, wherever, what would that message say?

00:42:57,051 [James Robert Lay]
I would say it’s probably how I end every single one of my podcasts. Um, be well, do good, and make your bed. Um, and a lot of this comes from a place of when you are well yourself, um, emotionally, physically, spiritually, financially, you can go and do good for other people, but it, it all starts by making your bed. And what I mean by that, it’s the little things that matter most. Um, sometimes they can seem insignificant, but when you create these small micro habits, over time they do go out and they pay dividends.

00:43:42,712 [John Lanza]
Yeah, it’s like, uh, it’s the, it’s the book, uh, Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff, and it’s all small stuff. I think that’s the, [laughs] uh-

00:43:49,292 [James Robert Lay]
That’s exactly right.

00:43:51,971 [John Lanza]
Okay, now, um, other than, uh, Napoleon Hill, uh, or William Wattles, what is the one parenting or money smarts book, frankly it could be podcast, really any media, that you go back to or that you gift the most often? And feel free to elaborate if it’s more than one thing.

00:44:09,732 [James Robert Lay]
Well, obviously, there’s The Art of Allowance, um, for sure. But I would say there’s another one that sits on my desk. It’s, uh, it’s by Chad Willardson. Um, he wrote a book called Smart, Not Spoiled: The Seven Money Skills Kids Must Master Before Leaving the Nest. To see what he’s been able to do, we, we share a lot of the same perspectives around empowering people, more importantly, empowering our kids, uh, to, to, to do the right thing, um, when it comes to making decisions, not just in money, but just in life in general.

00:44:43,551 [John Lanza]
I’m gonna have to, uh, pick up that book. Uh, we’ll put that… All this, uh, information will be in the show notes, of course. So thank you, James Robert. Uh, in closing, how can people find you on social media and/or the web?

00:44:56,352 [James Robert Lay]
Uh, just Google me, James Robert Lay, L-A-Y, just like the potato chips. Distantly related, related, but not close enough to get any free chips at Christmas. [laughs]

00:45:08,741 [John Lanza]
[laughs] And finally, what’s one action that you would like, uh, anyone in our audience to take that would be helpful to you?

00:45:17,591 [James Robert Lay]
If you have kids, go, sit down with them, ask them how they want to grow. Ask them what their goals are, and, and use that question about leaping ahead, you know, a year, three, five, 10. And I think the, the shorter the horizon line, the easier it is for a child to perceive that future. ‘Cause when you’re 12, thinking about 20, that’s a long time, but when you’re 12, thinking about 13, much easier to understand. Ask them what their goals are. Get them to write those goals down from a future state like they’ve already lived them. That’s number one. Number two, GROW as an acronym. Roadblocks. Facilitate a conversation about what potential roadblocks stand in the way from them achieving those goals for growth. And then finally, opportunities, the O. What are the opportunities that they can take? What are the actions that they can take to overcome those roadblocks, to not achieve those goals, but to just simply move forward to make progress towards those goals? Celebrate that progress along the way.

00:46:21,212 [John Lanza]
James Robert, I’m not surprised you’re leaving with- uh, leaving us with some inspiring words, and I just wanna thank you for having this conversation with me today.

00:46:29,672 [James Robert Lay]
John, thank you for sharing the time with me. It’s been an absolute honor and pleasure.

00:46:34,031 [John Lanza]
You’re welcome. [upbeat music]

00:46:41,612 [John Lanza]
Now you can see why I was so excited about that conversation, because James Robert always bringing, brings in unique insights. And although James Robert may not use an allowance, I do think an allowance, you won’t be surprised to hear, is a very effective tool because it helps open up money conversations even before kids begin wanting to earn money for goals. Still, I like the idea of introducing jobs at some point because kids do need to realize that they will typically have to work in order to make money. I also like that his approach gives his family the chance to talk about opportunity cost in a very direct way, in a meaningful way. You know, that money you just earned is what you’re now gonna use to buy the item that you want. That’s the reason you just did that job. But maybe now, after having done that job, you realize the opportunity cost of giving up that money for this item may not be worth it. Learning through experience can be really valuable. I’m really glad that James Robert brought up the value of college. He’s part of a growing group of thinkers who are not only questioning the value of college, but thinking more broadly about how education can be more effective for our kids in a way that will prepare them for the modern world. There are interesting problem-solving programs for grade and high schoolers, like Synthesis and the Agora School in the Netherlands, and I encourage you to check them out if you’re interested. But back to college, uh, I like Ron Lieber’s perspective on this. Ron Lieber was on the podcast, and, you know, he said, “We need to remember that we are the customers. We are the customers, and our kids should be getting an exceptional experience, considering the absolutely massive investment that we are making.” And I think I’d like to end with a quote from the philosopher Alan Watts that I referenced and kind of mangled. Quote, “Let’s take education. What a hoax! You get a little child, you see, and you suck it into a trap, and you send it to nursery school, and in nursery school you tell the child, ‘You are going to get ready and go on to kindergarten.’ And then, wowee, first grade is coming up, and second grade, and third grade.”… and you’re gradually climbing the ladder towards, towards, going on towards progress. And then, when it gets to the end of grade school, you say, ‘High school! Now you’re really getting going.'” End quote. Now, admittedly, Watts is a little heavy-handed in this quote, but I wanted to read the quote because we should be very wary of making childhood all about becoming. It should also be about being: being a child, having a childhood. Put in another way, kind of in line with what I talk about here in the podcast or if you read my newsletter, we want our kids to enjoy the journey, and our journey for this week now comes to a close. [upbeat music] I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Art of Allowance podcast. Please subscribe to our show and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. This will allow me to have more conversations with money experts and parents, and sometimes both, to get more ideas that can help us all raise more money-smart and money-empowered kids. You can find out all about our movement at themoneymammals.com. The Money Mammals, our program to get your kids excited about money smarts when they’re young, is now a part of our new program for families, the Art of Allowance Project. It also includes Adolescents for Tweens and Teens. You can find out all about this new program on our site, themoneymammals.com. Of course, please consult with a financial or investment professional before engaging in any decisions that might affect your financial well-being. And until next time, I wish you and your family well on your own money smart journey. Thanks for listening!

00:50:58,975 [John Lanza]
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