FQ: An important 21st century skill
FQ mentoring has to start with an evaluation of your own relationship with money.
Last Tuesday, my son Martin and I spoke at the Investors’ Forum of Sun Life Asset Management Company Inc. held at the Isla Ballroom of EDSA Shangri-la Hotel. We talked about passing on the knowledge of wealth building to our children.
Mentoring
Back in the olden days, parents really mentored their children. When the father was a farmer, chances are his children, who were his apprentices, would also become farmers in their adult lives. And the tradition went on as the children would teach their own children the tricks of the trade, passing the expertise from generation to generation.
Today, we are told not to expect our children to follow our footsteps. We are already bombarded with enough warnings about the perils of interfering in their search of their own destiny/profession. We just hope and pray that they find good mentors in their chosen fields along the way.
But there are some things wherein we should continue to mentor our children. When it comes to life values, we should still be their number one teacher. Among these values is that of money. Because money is such a complicated and often misunderstood aspect of life, we should make sure that they get their lessons from us. And we have to make sure that we are teaching them the right ones.
FQ mentoring has to start with an evaluation of your own relationship with money. You have to know the real role of money in your life. Know and practice together with your spouse that money is there to be managed and not the other way around. Once you two are settled, you can go on with the following:
1. Start your kids early on by opening their bank accounts as soon as they’re born, investing their money in long-term and safe instruments because chances are, they won’t use that money as long as they are your dependents.
2. Once they start receiving cash in the form of allowance, etc., make them follow the first basic law of money which is to pay yourself first! no matter what. This will be a valuable habit to take with them for life.
3. Brace yourself and avoid over-interfering with your children’s choice of career so they can follow the second law of money – Get into a business that you understand and seek advice only from competent people. Parents have the propensity to get in the way when their children want to take up “exotic-sounding” courses in college, “Anak, baka wala kang makuhang trabaho sa kursong ‘yan, baka gutom ang abutin mo.” Please take note that times are changing and that good work opportunities are not limited to the courses you’re familiar with (Commerce of the circa 60s - 70s, Business Management of circa 80s onwards, of course the popular courses such as Law, Medicine, Nursing, Engineering, Architecture, etc.). A lot of parents are concerned when their children are inclined to pursue arts because of the perceived lack of stable income that goes with the field. What might be a worthwhile read for you and your artistic children is the new book of Jeff Goins titled “Real Artists Don’t Starve.”
4. In order to maximize the power of compounding, teach your children the third law of money which is essentially delaying gratification: Make your gold work for you. Make an army of golden slaves before you buy luxury. I hear a lot of complaints from parents about their children when it comes to luxury spending. Remember, as long as they are in your home, you are the ruler so whatever happens repeatedly is something that you allow to happen. To simplify the rule of buying luxury, I say, “Buy luxury only if you can afford to buy 10 pieces of it!” It’s luxury anyway.
5. Then make sure that all the above laws are easily implemented by virtue of a good design in your family set-up. Do your children have an automatic saving and investing mechanism at work? Are they receiving very big amounts of allowance that it would be hard for them to look for a starting job that could match it? Are you always giving in to their whims to buy this and that item so that they would look cool to their friends? On family trips, do they fly business or first class with you? Have you cut the financial umbilical cord of your children who already graduated from college? Or are you still giving them allowance together with the allowance you give to your grandchildren? If so, please stop!
We only have about two decades to do this FQ mentoring to our children, let’s make the most of it. FQ is an important 21st century life skill. We don’t know what future awaits them but we do know that if we instilled high FQ in them, we already armed them with Economic Self-Defense. In fact, it is even more valuable than leaving them a huge inheritance.
Let’s have a quick exercise here for parents:
Both would be great but option b is a lot more important. Your children can survive with just option b. In fact, leaving them just option a without option b could be dangerous! 
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ANNOUNCEMENTS
1. Our FQ-wentuhan will be a special episode as it will be a peek into the Investors’ Forum held yesterday. Tune in to FQ Mom Facebook page at noon tomorrow, Thursday, July 19, 2017.
2. The Company of Ateneo Dancers (CADs) will compete at the World of Dance in Los Angeles, USA on July 22, 2017. It will be held at the Pasadena Convention Center. World of Dance is the largest international urban dance competition with focus on the art of street dancing and new age choreography. My youngest son Anton is part of the team. Let’s all wish them luck. May they perform for His greater glory and make the Philippines proud.
3. Want to know your FQ Score? Take it today. Click link to take the test. http://tinyurl.com/FQTest
Rose Fres Fausto is a speaker and author of bestselling books “Raising Pinoy Boys” and “The Retelling of The Richest Man in Babylon” (English and Filipino versions). Click this link to read samples – Books of FQ Mom Rose Fres Fausto. She is a behavioral economist, a certified gallup strengths coach and the grand prize winner of the first Sinag Financial Literacy Digital Journalism Awards. Follow her on Facebook and You Tube as FQ Mom, and Twitter & Instagram as theFQMom.
ATTRIBUTIONS: Images from Company of Ateneo Dancers, Capital & Main, Pinterest, www.innovativewealth.com and World of Dance Network put together to help deliver the message.
