#219 – Discovering Your Awesome Stuff™ with David Delisle on The Golden Quest

Welcome back to the mighty boss parent podcast. I am your host Anna Sergunina. And today we're joined by a remarkable guest, David DeLisle, an Amazon Best selling author, entrepreneur, investor, speaker, and a devoted dead. David is the creative force behind the golden quest, a number one ranked graphic novel that empowers kids about money. In this episode, we'll explore the essence of discovering your awesome stuff, and why it holds the key to fulfilling life for your own kids. Dennett introduces a transformative question, why do you want money that will reshape kids financial decisions in the future, we also challenge conventional wisdom of saving as the ultimate financial practice. So tune in for an eye opening perspective and actionable insights. Stay tuned for ways to connect with David, his ideas, and how you can access his valuable insights. Whether you're a parent molding young minds, or on your own journey to financial freedom. This episode is a gateway to the golden quest for richer life. Let's dive right in. Hey, money, bosses, welcome back to another episode of the money boss Podcast. I'm excited for today's conversation. Because yet again, we are talking about how can we make our kids better when it comes to money. Of course, as parents, we have a lot of responsibility. But I get to talk about money, because that's what I do day to day, and also bring exciting guests to the show. So David, welcome to the money boss podcast.

He and I'm so excited to be here. And yeah, this is gonna be fun.

It is right, because they're in who does a wonderful journey. Lots to be learned. And, you know, I get to work with parents on their personal finances. And so I've seen over the years is their financial planner, you know, they have kids, they grow, they go on to do their own life, where the question comes up, you know, from time to time is how do we start, right? Because a lot of us and I'm really curious, this is where we go in today is to learn about your journey, because there's a reason why you want to talk about this topic. But I found it in practically, you know, my own experience is that you make enough mistakes right in your life. And then you find yourself at one point like, Okay, I want to do better. So, tell us a little bit about why this topic and you know, kids and finance is of interest to you. And how did you get started?

Yes, it's funny, because I was just thinking a few days ago, my son, I'm not sure what he was, he's at age, he's four and a half. And so he's an age where like, he shot he's just talking a lot like all kinds of things. And so he he was telling me something after school and then one of the phrases comes out of his mouth is like, I want to be rich. And I you know, I paused for a second. I was like, What do you mean by that? Like, you know, he probably heard something somewhere, right? So it's like, do you I was like, Okay, do you even know what that means? Like tell me what does that mean to you? And so he says I wouldn't have a lot of money. I'm like, Okay, why? And so I mean the thing these As for four and a half as I can buy more toys, I'm like, Well, how many toys do you need? So it was like a very interesting conversation, right? That came from something. So the point here I'm trying to make is that kids are hearing stuff everywhere, right? And this idea right in I don't know if it's an idea that's sunken in his head yet, right? That money gives you these opportunities, right to do whatever it is that you want to do. So when you four and a half, you want to buy all the toys, they want to buy the toy store. But as you go to live your life, right, as an adult, you're right, you need to have like the skills, right, you need to internalize need to be better with us. So how it's a struggle, right? For us as adults, it's a struggle to have this mindset, right, or these skills or habits. So how do you your boys are a little bit older than my son? So how do you start this conversation with them? So

I mean, some of the stuff is just talking, like just showing them choice. So going back to your son, like that's what I that's the part that has me sort of most passionate about this, because I noticed that trend is just not with kids. It's with, you know, teens, adults, like we all feel that way. There's this desire for more money. And so in the same way, most people talking about money and finance, they're talking about how to have more, because that's really the goal that everyone has. But what I found is if if we don't understand why we want more in the first place, or like you're mentioning, asking your son like, why do you want more, we just end up just chasing more. And it doesn't matter how much we achieve, that your son might think if I only had a million dollars, I could buy the toy store. And that's all I need. But then we meet millionaires and they're like, if I only had 5 million, then I could buy this car or this house. And then we meet people that have 5 million like, but now I want the boat or a nicer house or bigger vacations, and there really is no end. As we think of like this endless consumerism. It's because all we have ever learned is a desire to have more and pausing first and figuring out the why is really important. And that's your asking before the show what the awesome stuff is. And that's what I refer to as the awesome stuff like, what is your why, what is the stuff that's really important to you? And anyone will be like, well, all of it, and your son would probably say the same. But when they pause, reflect on like, well, what's your favorite thing? What do you love most in your room? What about these things that you're not playing with anymore? Or that are in the closet under all your clothes? Or under your bed? Or you never do anything with? Like, what about these things? And you can tell if you like pick your favorite thing? What do you love the most? And even the five year old can usually hit on it. Mm hmm. And this is sort of where those conversations start. So then they start reflecting on Well, what do they love what is important to them? And that's the sort of the mindset piece that you can start at an early age because it doesn't have to be a complicated conversation. It can just be what do you love the most? And then when they get things and let them make good decisions or bad decisions, then like, what about this thing that you loved? And what about this thing, and, and they start noticing what's important, because really what you realize is everything is a choice. And if you just choose more, you don't really get the things that are really important to you.

I love the why because and I again, I'm more in the category of working with parents, right? And so like anyone sits down to do a financial plan is it has to think about like, what are this that they want? And why like, how is it? How is it gonna connect like saving certain amount of money working for, you know, for certain amount of years, like you mentioned, you semi retired by 40. Right? So like, there are certain things right, they have to have on on this plan, or we call it a money roadmap. But why Right? Like, if you can't really answer that for yourself, it wouldn't really work because you're not going to, or maybe you have a different thought on this. But in my opinion, if you don't really understand the deeper meaning, you're not going to put in the hard work to do it. Right. If that was your goal. It's not as connected internally, right? So most likely, you wouldn't be focused on something else. So having that reasoning really makes sense. Now, as you start to have these conversations with kids, right? Because kids learn by observing, right? They watch what their parents do. They watch what their friends at school, do they watch what's happening on YouTube, right? And they learn all that kind of stuff there. I'm sure that's where my son is picking up a lot of a lot of things that he is mentioning. So like how, you know, how do you balance these things? Like one of the things that I've learned from a few of my other guests who are focused on teaching kids financial literacy is like Okay, let's start these basic habits such as understanding you know where your money's going, right. Like for example, the three jars like concept, save, spend and give. So like, how do you bring this? The soft I call the softer side like the why into this equation? Yeah,

so I mean, I like the three jars as well. And I've used that with my boys. In practice, all these things start getting a little tricky though. And you find like, it's a parent's consistency gets tricky as well. So you try things and you do things. But we're busy. And it's, it's so complicated. So I keep looking at ways to integrate it, where it's just, it's simpler. And it's not like a lecture or a big deal. So like something as simple as the whys with the young kids, especially when they don't understand dollars, or math or money, putting things in terms of something they do understand. So my guys were really young. They love Lego. And they always love candy. Like kids love candies, they also like chocolate bars. So I could put things in terms of cost in terms of like, Lego and chocolate bars. So when they wanted something like I want this, you know, teddy bear or this ice cream, or to go on this ride at the fair, I could be like, Okay, well, that costs, you know, one Lego set or three chocolate bars. And already now, in their minds, now they have to they have two choices, then they can start seeing what what it is what the cost is of what they're looking at, and then start making decisions, because then they can start seeing like, Well, would you rather, you know, get this hamburger at McDonalds? Or we'd rather have this teddy bear? Or would you rather, you know, get this new bike? Or would you rather, you know, go to the go swimming or go to, you know, some waterslides or whatever it is. And, and I think that's useful for parents as well just to be an adults to just be aware of what our choices are. Because we might say we want something. But once we recognize the cost of that thing, in terms of what we might have to give up, it changes. So you'll hear people say, you know, I want to spend more time with their kids. But then they'll spend money and have to work longer hours and not spend time with their kids because of something else that they're buying. So it's just being aware of what what are those trade offs? And, and that's what's neat with kids. So then they can see like, is that ice cream? Really what you want? Or is this teddy bear really what you want, like, once they can start seeing the choices they can make, because they don't know what $10 or $100 means. But they do know what the things around their room or what they do mean. And they can start making some of those decisions of knowing what's what they value. And that's where you get close to the wise just just comparison. That's Tony, you understand the value of money. And it doesn't have to be a tricky conversation. It's like this is in terms of what they understand this is how much this costs. I

love this. Because I mean, I'm not gonna lie, but it is it is a struggle, right? At least for me right now. It's like, okay, it's a trip to a toy store once a week. Right? And so he's happy on that front, but because I've been thinking lately, like, how do I teach him that there's experiences right, that go into the park, right? Or like things that we can do as a family that does not involve money, right? And so how, like, how do you teach young kids to value that versus the thing, like you said, the Lego or the candy bar or whatever else that they love? So because later on as adults, we get the same trouble. Right? We overspend on credit cards, or we don't save enough for our own retirements and, and whole bunch of other problems, where, you know, if we really look underneath all of it, it could have been, it could have been other things that we done right with our life and had more experiences versus like more stuff. So like, I don't know, if you've had, you probably have to run into this with your kids. Like, how do you kind of we, we in this experience, idea versus stuff idea.

So one of the first lessons in the book is around this awesome stuff. And in the book a little like, basically, young boy goes on a quest and learns these life lessons from different mentors. And his first the first mentor talks about this awesome stuff. So like, we just had the conversation briefly. And the young boy basically asked the same questions like what, like, everything I buy is awesome. What do you mean, only buy the awesome stuff or focus on the things that are important? Like, all my stuff is, just as we naturally would think the same? But then the lesson basically falls it's like, okay, well, let's like, let's walk through your room. Like, let's think of everything in there. Start looking at all your stuff like, what do you love the most? What's most important to you? What makes you the happiest? What is consistently made you the happiest or that never gets forgotten or is your favorite thing, and then that starts becoming your bar of what you love. So then when you're looking at new things, you can compare it against that. And then the lesson sort of continues and talks about and it doesn't have to be things that could be experiences. Maybe it's a walk in the park, maybe it's going out for ice cream with your friends. There's a lot of things that you may love. Then once you start recognizing what those things are, it really doesn't matter. What it is, is the fact of just reflecting. And that's the beauty of it is, kids don't even have to be that great at this, the fact that you're teaching them to reflect on what's important to them. That's a lesson that'll stick with them all the way through adulthood. And it's gonna change what's important to them is going to change how quickly and easily they reflect what how they feel in their body, and recognize what makes them really excited. Like that's gonna change. But just the fact that we're starting to teach them to pause. That's, that's huge. So the same thing with like, the little, you know, five year old that a twist or having a temper tantrum, they want a specific thing. Instead of saying no, which is teaching them lack, we're trying to be alive, we're saving for this, again, teaching them black or doing without or all these other emotions around it. If we just turn it back on them on like, is this your awesome stuff? Is this what you really love? And having them have to pause and reflect on? Like, that's a good question, is this what I really love, and you'll watch, like, even a five year olds will do that. And put down the things they don't love. Because they, they know what they want, just because they see it, and they want to buy it, and they want you to buy it for them. And what they actually truly love, and we know his parents like, what their favorite toy is, or what they take on every trip or what they you know, what's really special to them. And it doesn't have to be much more difficult than that. And that's the thing is, all of this stuff around money actually doesn't have to be complicated. It can be really easy. We just need to be a little bit more aware of what we're, what we're teaching and why.

Yeah. So how, like, I know, we're talking about kids, but I'm sure these steps are something that parents can take or follow themselves as well, right? Because we want to be the examples in front of our kids. Mm

hmm. Well, and that's what's really fun is if you start doing this, another thing I really want to do is take out, like so much shame and judgment and emotion out of money. So kids can pick something and as parents, we might cream for, like all like, that's such a stupid thing to spend money on. But if it's their thing, and we just let it be their thing, that's fine. And as parents, we can tell them like, Oh, this is your awesome stuff. This is like daddy's awesome stuff. This is as a family what we value. And so all these things, again, don't become like we can't afford it. It's no like this is what's more important to us. This is where we focus our time or our money, or where we put our resources because this is what is important to us as a family. And they can start to see that and model that. And we can start and if we start showing them as well, like, I thought this was a thing. But notice that I went and bought this and I, I don't wear this piece of piece of clothing, or we never use this thing that we bought or we don't enjoy it. Like, that wasn't our awesome stuff. And I thought maybe it was like we could tell them the bad things or what's going through our mind or what we love and letting them see it. So with adults as well, a lot of times, I'll hear what their, what they love what they think they love is, and I'm not actually like I don't, I'm not judging what your thing is. But a lot of times you can just tell by the person's body language, how much they actually love it. And when someone rips up, gets really passionate about something and they lean forward and their eyes light up and their voice changes. And you could see that excitement through their whole body. That's a different than saying, Oh, I really want to buy X with no emotion. And once we get better at recognizing, like what truly gets us excited and lit up and makes us passionate, we can mimic that for our children. And they can see how excited things make us. And if it's like, well, we're all going out for a nice family dinner. But it's you know, everyone's bickering and fighting, it's just lands flat. That's not going to be we're not showing them that we actually really love spending money on that thing. We're just going through the motions. But if we're there and it's excitement and one's happy, it is just like this amazing evening, they can see that so we can we can mimic it just through really our body language. Like we know when we're doing something we love when we when we are doing something we don't. And kids can pick up on that as well.

Or they can very much so your kids are teenager. So it's like Have you started teaching them? The whole investing, right? Like because there's certain there's certain levels right to what you can teach them because there's so much they can understand and process. So I suppose teenagers are ready to start a conversation around investing. So have you been using them? For

I know, I'll link in our show notes here the two episodes that I've done, like really at the beginning of this podcast for parents to kind of tune in about the three jars that you're talking about. Just so that kids can can start to, to get into a habit of that, like what's the, you know, how can we how much do we save? How much do we spend and and also start to develop their generosity as well. And then I mentioned this to you before we hit record, but they're one of my most popular episodes on this podcast is about helping parents figure out how do they open a savings account or like an investment account for kids, just to get started, because this is like, you know, we all get like gifts or money for Christmas or grandparents give money. And here's, you know, here's a few 100 bucks. And so that will help you kind of decide what you want to do. And so yeah, I agree, I'm with you on the fact that you don't need to overthink, what is the hot stock you need to pick today. Right? Because it's one today and next one tomorrow. And if you can, if you can get the aggregate of what the markets give you real estate market stock market bond market, and give yourself time right, then the magic happens with all of this now, I wanted to ask question, because you mentioned real estate. And that's as you know, as an investment vehicle seems like was something that you got interested in early in your life now that, you know, there's probably been education or books that you've read. So share with us is this kind of ceding from the Rich Dad, Poor Dad sort of mentality? And if that is how, you know, how has that shaped your thoughts around, you know, real estate as an investment.

like you just like anything real estate, you know, stocks or bonds or any other investments, everything takes time and inexperience and to like, I mean, you know, my family has a history of real estate, my husband does that for a living, right. So he's very heavily involved in real estate. So I always wonder like, Okay, well, Liam, do this kind of stuff when he grows up. All right, like, it's, it's time will, will show but, but I think like understanding if if that's something that is of interest understanding, like these principles, I think, is really crucial to lay a foundation. So like, I'm sure you probably talking to your voice about, you know, here's the types of investments that are there, you know, the pros and cons and letting them kind of, you know, open up their minds and see what sparks an interest, maybe they're not gonna want to do that at all right, and something else is going to be the forefront for them. Once they're more, you know, into it or old enough to make their own decisions. So

when I will say just sort of on that, and a little bit related, but not is just talking to your kids about just adult things in general, I think you can start to do so like, for myself, when I'm doing a real estate investment, we're going to make a decision, especially with my older son now, like I explain the why, like I explained why I'm making those decisions, and what I'm looking for what jumps out at me. So and that's because I'm doing these real estate things you mentioned to like your husband is doing the same. So you could talk to his son like, Oh, why do you think this house is better? Like, but it doesn't have to be real estate? I mean, it can be any expertise? Like, why did you pick the job you're in? Or what about it? Do you love? Or could you have found a job that made more money or less? And why like, all of these things about why as an adult you're making the financial decisions you're making? That trickles down? Like you said, like kids are watching us? Why did we choose this house and not another house? Why do we have this car and not another car. And if they understand your why it doesn't mean that's the right answer. But they can start seeing what's going through your mind and how you make decisions. And and that can help them whereas if we, especially around money, we tend to be really secretive. And the more secretive we are there's there's just no way our kids can learn if we're secretive about everything, and just don't worry about that you don't have to know how much this cost, you don't have to worry about how much we spent here. And again, this is obviously it's going to change with age, but we can start letting even our young kids know like, we the reason we're going on this trip and this trip is XYZ like we can start having those conversations.

Yeah, I love that, that you pointing this out this transparency is really, really crucial. And to again, from my practical experience as a financial planner, I've seen many cases where like, you know, when parents pass away, this is when the kids are adults now. And they're having hard times helping their parents with the finances. Right? So it's like, it's sort of like the coin is flipped, right? Because we are going to be there some time in our lifetime. And so but again, money is such a taboo topic, it's it makes a lot of people are uncomfortable to talk about and deal with. And so there's this dynamic, you know, maybe a little bit about authority parents kids and then yeah, so this it's definitely something we do navigate as we're you know, as we raise our own kids and then as the kids become adults and then we age so definitely things to explore. Now, I want you to share a little bit about your book. You talked a little bit about the just the first chapter I think What's the name of the book? How can somebody get it? And like, what, what is that good age group for this book it or if there's one? Yeah,

so I mean, I love talking about this stuff, talking with parents. So I mean, you can always reach out to me directly. I'll even give my email address its author at the Golden quest.com. And you can reach out to me directly, or find me through the website, the awesome stuff.com and contact me through there. I'm also on Instagram and Tik Tok at the awesome stuff. So any, any way that they want to sort of reach out? And I mean, one of my favorite things is hearing from kids. And, you know, I get I get these little emails from kids about, you know, reading certain chapters of the book and what jumped out to them or what they loved, and especially around the giving stuff. I mean, that giving chapters are a really fun one. And having kids reach out to me about that I I always love so. Yeah, I agree.

Yeah, I appreciate I appreciate your sharing that the kids actually share with you like their experiences. That's probably the most rewarding piece. I can see that. Yes, mom and dad probably emailed you, but that's okay.

I know. And a little kids like, oh, I read this and like, read this thing. And then you know, the whole chapter is on giving. And you'll have more and they tell this one little boy talked about like finding two pennies right after he, you know, helped a local charity and how he couldn't believe it. And like he's already richer, like, immediately after giving and it's just, I love that kind of stuff. That

is totally awesome. You are on a great mission. That's I applaud you for doing that stuff. Because I think for us to fix the world. I don't know if we're doing at times, right? But if we want to raise the next generation that is better than ours. That's where you start. So it's it's awesome work. Thanks so much for tuning in today and very much appreciated your thoughts?

Yeah, thanks so much. And ya know, I love this stuff. And, and that's exactly my goal. If I can, we can get to the kids then we can, you know, change a generation, the way they think about all of these things and, and just make money, something that's not taboo and full of emotion and just something as simple and that would make things so much better.

I love it again thanks so much for coming on the show today

great well thank you Anna so