From the Mouths of 8th Graders

I have been blessed with the opportunity to bring my life coaching gig to the 8th grade students at Tyler and Alyssa's school.

I've been given four 40-minute classes -- one a week for four weeks. Truthfully, it's not much time, but I'm doing my best to impart some life skills on these kids.

The first week we talked about discovering their gifts (both God-given and learned). Last week we talked about the Law of Attraction (What you focus on, you receive). This week we talked about relationships -- mostly the dating kind (yes, they are dating in 8th grade).

I used the upcoming nuptials of Prince William and Catherine Middleton to start the conversation, and to capture their attention, I showed them the T-mobile spoof of the royal wedding.

Then, we got down to the serious business of talking about relationships and why they can be so difficult ... about how movies make it look like "happily ever after" is easy ... about what each of us can do to ensure we have healthy relationships ... and so much more in our 40 minutes. But what impressed me the most was the insight of these kids.

I asked them each to come up with one piece of advice for the royal couple. Seriously. Out of the mouths of 8th graders came these very basic, but sensible pieces of advice:

• Respect each other
• Allow each other space to be his/her own person and spend time with their friends
• Love each other
• Support each other
• Help each other
• Don't cheat
• Don't lie
• Be honest with each other
• Have fun
• Spend time together
• Find a hobby to do together
• Laugh together
• Communicate with each other
• Don't fight
• Appreciate each other

I thought these were all great reminders, and I was really impressed with these kids for having this knowledge so young. I also find it funny that I'm there to teach them, but somehow I always walk away feeling like I've learned something, too! Awesome!

Fun with Money

I'm having fun with money during the month of April and thought I'd share! I'm trying to "find" $1500 through income or purposeful savings.

Tyler and Alyssa on our spring
break vacation -- an activity I'd
like to do more of!

I was inspired by the law of attraction that says we attract what we focus on. So, theoretically, according to the law, if we focus on lack of money, we will receive the experience of having a lack of money. But if we focus on the abundance of money, we will experience an abundance of money.

Now the law of attraction is awesome -- positive thinking is definitely going to bring you better experiences in life, but I believe more is required than just the thinking alone. There must be an action plan. You can't expect to just sit there doing nothing except thinking positively and have money fall into your lap.

The action plan doesn't have to be difficult or incredibly time consuming -- just devote a little time each day to whatever you are trying to change in your life.

So, how am I doing on "finding" $1500 this month? Pretty darn good -- I'm already over $800! There have been a few miscellaneous checks that filtered in, some huge savings on items we would normally buy through coupons and Groupons, random bits of money just showing up, gifted money and more!

I'm also scouring our budget and refining it to make sure we're spending our money wisely and according to plan.

My intention with this exercise is to change my experience with money from a state of worrying about it to enjoying it and truly believing it is abundant. So far so good! What fun!