The successful entrepreneur has averaged four business failures in his lifetime. According to leadership expert John Maxwell, "Failure is the price you pay for success." The key is to fail well... meaning you learn from your mistakes.

It’s no different in fatherhood. Are you a successful failure? Or does your pride in not admitting your shortcomings build a wall between you and your children? The best thing you can do for your kids is say you’re sorry when you need to, and give them some freedom to fail as well. The idea is not to have a perfect family, but a learning family. And that can only start by admitting mistakes.






Warmly,

Mark Brandenburg

Mark Brandenburg MA, CPCC
mark@eqnow.org
www.markbrandenburg.com
www.eqnow.org ... read more >>

If you're the parent of a teenager, helping them get their first job is one of the first steps toward maturity and personal responsibility. Here are seven ways you can ensure that their job hunt is a rewarding one.

1. First, work with your teen to come up with a list of personal strengths and things they enjoy doing. If they enjoy working with children and animals or love the outdoors, make a note of those items. Any seemingly small and insignificant item can lead to ideas for potential jobs.

2. Take your child's schedule and commitments into consideration. How will your teen get to and from their workplace? What other school activities are they involved with?
Will they have enough time to study, work AND socialize? (Yes parents', socializing is a natural and necessary part of being a teen - you know what they say about all work and no play!) ... read more >>

“Do you want your kids to come over for awhile and play, so you can get some work done?”

“Sure,” I said to my sister-in-law, without a moment’s hesitation.

And as soon as I said it, the battle began again: Work vs. kids vs. guilt. Here was an opportunity to spend some extra time with my kids, and I was turning it down to spend time at work. Work that eventually needed to be done, but could have been done later.

The guilt that grips us in these moments is uncomfortable, and it challenges the image we have of ourselves as a good parent. Choosing to be away from our kids is evidence of an unpleasant fact for all parents: Sometimes we just don’t like being with our kids. ... read more >>

At the time of writing this the oil price is approx $144USD/Barrel – fantastic I hear you say, and really its risen over 50% in 1 year, great if you trade commodities such as oil/energy, but if you are like the rest of us its becoming a little bit tougher on everything as food and crude oil rise, it unfortunately gets passed onto the consumer therefore leaving us with less disposable income as you are all too well aware.

If we go back in time to a life a lot less hectic, one without cell phones, TV’s and cars even, then we will remember why cars were invented in the first place. As reliable as they are horses formed the most efficient form of transportation, and they were only replaced because horses created too much excreta on the roads.

So we have thought of ways that we can really chop down on using the car, and there are lots of different ways,

1. Use another form of transport – bus, train etc ... read more >>

One of the reasons we use cloth diapers is to save money. I've been curious to know how much we've saved in Alleke's first two years, so I crunched the numbers.

Cloth Diaper Costs
Indian Cotton Prefolds (infant size) - $2.25 x 20 = $45
Chinese Cotton Prefolds (premium size) - $2.75 x 20 = $55
Proraps Classic (small) - $8.95 x 4 = $35.80
Proraps Classic (medium) - $8.95 x 4 = $35.80
Bummis Super Whisper Wrap - $12.25 x 4 = $49
Bum Genius 2.0 - $17.95 x 4 = $71.80
Fuzzi Bunz - $19.95
Kissaluvs Fitted - $11.50
Thirsties Hemp Insert - $5.00
Snappi Diaper Fastener - $2.99
Kushies Diaper Liners - $8.99 x 2 = $17.98
Bummis Tote Bag - $6.99
Water - $12.50

Total $369.31

Disposable Diaper Costs
7 disposable diapers x 364 days = 2,548 diapers x $.045 each = $1146.60 a year.

Total: $2293,20 ... read more >>

I have no doubt that every father wants the best for his children, so we have to ask ourselves what does the "best" actually mean and what is it going to take to get there.

My Business partner and I started our first Business three years ago, we were enthusiastic, ambitious and at that stage had the support of our wives. We had nice offices, great staff, great clients, flash cars and Business was going well, that was until the collapse of the Finance industry. With creditors trying to kick our door down the pressure came on big time. At that stage I had two children aged 1 & 3.

In short the Business fell over and I was broken, we sold our house to fend off creditors, my marriage was suffering and my wife just gave birth to our third child. In that same week we found out that my father in law was diagnosed with cancer and had 4 weeks to live. ... read more >>

Expectant fathers have a lot of decisions to make when getting ready for the arrival of their first or new child. Many people create checklists to try and help them prepare, but it is impossible to make ready for every situation or need. There are many decisions during the pregnancy that dads really care about expressing an opinion but some are avoided at all costs.

Here are Five Decisions Expectant Fathers Tend to Avoid:

1. Choice of doctor or hospital - we're not the ones who need to feel comfortable being poked, probed and examined, so why should our opinion matter?

2. Room decor or bedding set - dads want kids to have cool rooms, but the only things we really care about when it comes to decor are how much it costs and the amount of work it will be for us to paint and set-up all of the furniture.

3. Formula or breastfed baby - as long as we can be involved in feeding the baby in some way, we don't really care where the milk comes from.

4. Natural or 'pain relieved' delivery - some dads may quietly think they have a strong position on this leading up to the big day; however, that quickly changes when they get in the delivery room with a screaming mom. In most cases, dads understand that they aren't the ones pushing the baby out, so they really don't have a say about epidurals or pain medications anyway. ... read more >>

In the first part of this series we decided that there are a lot of good reasons to include your child on your family health insurance plan. So, in this part we’re going to take a look at what kind of plan to get, what to avoid, and a couple of tips for saving money.

In short, when choosing a health insurance plan your main focus should be getting quality, 100% cover for the things that really count – surgery and hospital care. ... read more >>

Recently, the Pew Research Center asked 18 – 25 year olds what their most important goal was in life. 81% answered “to get rich.” Wonder where they get that value from?

It might not be a bad time to ask your kids what their most important goal in life is. Based on the answer, you can help “direct” them towards creating a life that’s meaningful. As the awful news in the world around us mounts, we can help by parenting kids to be loving, kind, and responsible citizens. And if we can, it might not be too late.

Warmly,

Mark Brandenburg

Mark Brandenburg MA, CPCC
mark@eqnow.org
www.markbrandenburg.com
www.eqnow.org
Phone (+1) 651-766-9976
"Helping Men Succeed" ... read more >>

In July of last year the Government’s retirement savings initiative KiwiSaver was launched. So far, the uptake has been higher than anticipated with over 200,000 accounts already opened. And in April of this year, it’s expected that there will be another surge of interest as employer contributions become compulsory. New Zealanders have warmed to the idea of “free money” – a $1,000 kick start, $1,040 per annum tax credits, and soon employer contributions.

So this raises the question – should we all be opening accounts for our kids? The reality is that there is no right or wrong answer. It’s just a matter of weighing up the pros and cons. Some of these include:

Pros:
* They are entitled to the $1,000 kick start ... read more >>