“It is better to own the race course than the race horse.”

I’m always on the lookout for entrepreneurial education resources for parents and kids.

This book, The Parents’ Guide to Raising CEO Kids and website http://raisingceokids.com are superb resources for parents.

“Drawing from more than 200 interviews and Dr. Jerry and Sarah L. Cook’s expertise in parenting and entrepreneurship, The Parents’ Guide to Raising CEO Kids provides comprehensive assistance for helping your child succeed in business and life, as well as inspiration for those who wish to attain business success at any age. This integrative handbook assists parents in helping their child turn the dream of business ownership into a tangible reality.” (Excerpt from back cover)

Know what I love about this book?

• 70 pages of real youth entrepreneurs including their websites
• Wonderful ‘Questions for Reflection’ at the end of each chapter
• Lots of testimonials/personal inspirational quotes throughout the book from young CEOs.
• Chapter 9 Society’s Role

As a society we all benefit from youth who have purpose. Over the last 15 years, we’ve seen this time and again with Osiris Organization’s youth. Helping youth discover their purpose, incorporating it into their life, utilizing that purpose to create products and services, changes everything and everyone connected to your life!

Clearly, Dr. Jerry and Sarah Cook share the foundation of Osiris Organization’s mission. I recommend this book for anyone who has a commitment to supporting the next generation of youth.

“Academic qualifications are important and so is financial education. They’re both important and schools are forgetting one of them.”  ~  Robert Kiyosaki

I’m pleased to see so many articles today in the mainstream press about the need for the millennial generation (18-29) to learn financial literacy.

While we’ve previously blogged about this subject on Osiris Organization’s site, it cannot be repeated enough. We’ve always put a lot of energy into the notion of youth education—academic and financial. It’s simply and crucially important in the 21^st century world we live in.

In this morning’s USA Today, in an article entitled, “The Cost of Financial Literacy,” one paragraph stood out for me:

Susan Beacham, CEO of financial literacy firm Money Savvy Generation says, “The parental instinct to provide for you children can actually be detrimental to preparing them to be financially independent. It’s an ‘unintended consequence’ that leaves adult children unprepared to handle their own finances. You feel like a good parent if you’re taking care of your child,” she says. “(But) the reason kids on college campuses don’t know anything about money is because they have no skin in the game because their parents are still paying. Their child is going to pay a much higher price for the lack of experience and knowledge they have on graduation day.”

I agree with her. But I don’t see our public schools rising to address this challenge anytime soon. I’m pleased to see more and more organizations like Money Savvy Generation springing up to address this important issue.

Click on the link to read this article in its entirety:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/basics/story/2012-04-23/millenials-financial-knowledge/54494856/

Building Communities of Passion. That’s the title of chapter 4.3 in the new book by business thinker and strategist, Gary Hamel. The book is called, “What Matters Now.”

I highly recommend this book for those who also question “the fundamental assumptions we have about management, the meaning of work, and organizational life…”  I too feel our businesses, our institutions, need to once again inspire the human spirit. To do that requires retooling business (life) ethics.

Chapter 4.3 is the inspiring story of how one large non-profit institution, entrenched in it’s management model for many, many years, was able to change direction, and motivate the members of the organization to lead instead of merely “serve.”

This is what we have found to be true in our work at Osiris. We never bought into the formula of mentoring kids to be a passive audience—that adults create programs and kids get “plugged into” that formula. When youth are motivated to create solutions for themselves and others, they may struggle at first. They are not used to thinking any solutions reside within themselves. With time, practice, and encouragement, they do.

Chapter 5.5, Aiming Higher is also an enjoyable, thoughtful final chapter.  Hamel wonders out loud, “what is my quest?”

He answered that question when he participated in a fascinating collaborative effort with 36 other management experts in 2008.

“Bureaucracy and control have had their day. It’s a time for a new ideology based on freedom and self-determination.” (What Matters Now.)

I couldn’t agree more…

Please visit link to read reviews.

http://www.amazon.com/What-Matters-Now-Competition-Unstoppable/product-reviews/1118120825/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

“Nonprofits & Accountability.”This article appeared in the Sunday, March 4, 2012 Minneapolis Star Tribune business section. It featured Steve Rothschild, founder and chair, Twin Cities Rise, author of the new book, “The Non non-profit: For-profit thinking for nonprofit success.”

Click on this link to read this article by business writer Neal St. Anthony in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

http://www.startribune.com/business/141186083.html

“Management is doing things right. Leadership is doing the right things”.   – Peter Drucker

Thinking today about leadership in business. Business is business, whether it’s for-profit or not-for-profit.  Of course it’s critical to respectfully manage all assets and liabilities to achieve best outcomes.

At Osiris Organization, our assets are our youth in our communities. They really don’t care about mission statements, strategic planning, and boards of directors. They are less concerned with any particular business strategy. Our youth depend on our leadership character, communication — daily examples of integrity, persistence,– the cornerstones of successful living. This is what our youth view as Osiris Organization’s bottom line.

Yes, I think General Schwarzkopf got it right!

It’s fun to make New Year’s resolutions! But at Osiris Organization, we are not just making resolutions…

In any discussions regarding Osiris Organization’s present and future, we try to keep our mission front and center.

We’ve added staff to enhance our existing programming. Our vision of new programming, the seeds we’ve planted in the hearts and minds of our staff, supporters, board members, are coming to fruition.

We have networked and connected with people who are stepping up to support our vision.

Our wish is that our youth, staff, founders never forget…”Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.”   John Cotton Dana

Studies have shown that there is some sort of “Status Quo Bias” that is scientifically linked to our apprehension of making difficult decisions. That being said, I’m pretty sure that the part of the brain that makes decisions learns how to make those decisions based on the environment in which we are being raised in. It’s easy to make the default and safe decision, but if you can easily make the status quo, why not attempt to reach past it?

The most important thing to take away from the status quo is the statistics associated with them. Too often people read those statistics and they may think to themselves, “hmmm… I’m exactly where I need to be..” or maybe “wow…I can’t believe that’s the average!”, I hope we all aspire to say the latter. When you really think about it, it’s absurd to let the direction of our lives be controlled by numbers and charts, is that really what it’s come down to? All of sudden we have the statisticians, analysts, and economists of the world becoming psychics with crystal balls. It’s important to understand where those numbers come from and what purpose they serve, it simply conveys the current state of things, not predict it. People might argue that a scientific prediction based on current analysis has it’s place, but I feel that it has no place in dictating the lives and futures of us. Let’s not live up to the status quo, but look at it as a base for which we need to improve ourselves upon, let’s acknowledge it for what it is and not be fearful of it.

Now imagine if unemployment insurance meant something else altogether, imagine if instead of asking the government for money, you could capitalize on your hobbies and passions. It’s the kind of insurance where the strength of the policy is only limited by your mind and heart. You finally get to open up that cafe, run your own tech support company, start designing websites, help people get out of debt, whatever your passion is, there is always a way to turn that into a living. Some people even believe [that during] a recession proves to be the one of most opportunistic times for entrepreneurs to start a business.

A forewarning must be noted however, it’s extremely important to remember that running a business is not for the faint of heart. Years of training in a traditional school setting might’ve set you up to compete in the “job market”; it might be scary to find yourself actually competing in the real market. Look on the bright side though, the real market yields more profitable results than you can ever expect to achieve going the traditional route. If you are one of one of those unemployed… what are you waiting for?, find something that you’re good at and figure out how to turn it into a business, see how far you get, you might just surprise yourself. If you are not unemployed, why not start something on the side, make it a hobby, have fun with it. If you make money from it, realize that it’s a byproduct of you sharing something you love with other people. It’s about time we build an unemployment insurance policy that we put into every month instead of us paying into every month.