Passing on the Mindset of Success to Your Children: From ActionCOACH Visionary Brad Sugars

0:00If you look at all of the wealth in the world, the data tells us very clearly that more than 70 % of millionaires are people who are self-made. and 68 % of self-made millionaires own their own business. Ownership is the key to financial success. You must own something. Hi, I'm Kobi Sugars, and today I got to interview my dad. We talked about how to pass on a success mindset to your children, from financials to avoiding pitfalls, curiosity, and overall foundations of a success mindset. You've gotta become financially literate. If you're not financially literate, you end up working for someone who is.

0:36That's the reality. If you give it a shot, you never know what you'll achieve. And here's Brad Sugars. Hi, Dad. Howdy. How are you? I'm good. I'm nervous. Oh, that's good. What are you going to ask me about? I'm going to ask you about passing a success mindset onto your children, because you did that, and everyone else should, too. All right. Okay. Go for it. What's the first question? Okay, it's really general, but what does a success mindset mean to you, and why is it important for kids to learn it early? I think a success mindset is mostly that confidence in yourself that you can achieve things, confidence to go after it, confidence to try things, test something new, just do stuff.

1:21Confidence to travel, confidence to meet people. It's really confidence to just, you know, there's that saying of if you knew you would succeed, what would you try? and I think it's easy to have a mindset of you know not growth I think the second part to it so confidence would be the first part the second part is that you can get better at things like just because I got a bad grade that doesn't mean that I am a bad grade it means that's what I got I can get better. So yeah, success mindset, confidence to just try things, do things, give it a shot because you can't, you know, you don't know how much you can do until you try.

2:10And you don't know how much others can do until you try. And that's why I think, you know, and you know this from firsthand experience that I will just push you to do something, try something, taste something, give something a shot. Yeah, this feels like I'm just at the dinner table right now. But that's the reality. If you give it a shot, you never know what you'll achieve. And how early should you start teaching your kids? Because I know from stories, obviously, I don't remember. I was a baby. But you wouldn't even let people say double negatives around me. And I have a photo of me as a baby where I'm wearing a future billionaire shirt or something like that.

2:50So like, I feel like it's just always been there. But I'm not, I don't remember when you started specifically. I don't think there is a starting point. You are passing on the mindset that you have. And if you are a positive person, you will want to teach your kids positive thinking. You will want to teach, but not just your kids, everyone around you. I think everyone else's kids, everybody that is around you, it rubs off. and, you know, it bounces back. But also, you know, you watch your kids say something and you go, damn, did I teach them that? Or did, you know. But you guys, you also had to listen to Jim Rohn and everybody in the car every day when we got in the car.

3:36So audio books are bound. Yeah, I definitely get the audio books from you. Mainly because I have your Audible account. I feel like I always find myself preaching the things that you say to other people and I don't realize that I'm doing it until I like take a step back and I was like oh dang I just said like yeah something they say on stage all the time it's like that uh I I woke up and I opened my mouth and my dad came out yeah it's like kind of terrifying because I'll even like the small things where instead of saying don't turn red on the like lights at the um when you're driving now I'm just like stay green stay green stay green And like I every time I do that, I think of like the first time you told me how to do that.

4:19And I was like, well, unfortunately, the English language is a double negative language. Yeah. Don't worry. No problem. Not bad. And, you know, it's just designed to not bad. So normally it's bad and today's not bad. So my thought process is that instead of moving away from the negative, move towards the positive. Focus on what you want, not what you don't want. the human brain's pretty magnetic in that way yeah and so I see like all of the things that you do and so like how does the mindset and habits of a parent like affect their kids just because I mean kids are sponges so like just watching how you do things and how you say things how important is it to like do outreach look I my personal feeling is there's three phases of kids and parents phase one is where the kids want to impress their parents want to be like their parents want to you know everything their parents think is what they think phase two is the what the friends think um type type part of the world the friends and society and you know impress your friends and and that sort of thing and then phase three and this i think is the parents job is to get you through phase two pretty dang quick so that you get to phase three which is where what do you think about life where do you want to be positioned what's your thought processes and it's i think a parent has to choose the environments they put their kid in to allow because those environments will shape that thinking pretty quick and so choice of friendship groups choice of schools like i've even had friends who they've had to move their kids from one school to another because the friendship group that they got in was just a negative negative negative in that kid's life and they could see them spiraling down whereas you know making sure you're in a positive friendship group a positive schooling environment um yeah I think that's really important yeah I think looking back at it I was always frustrated in part or like step two or whatever you called it but now that I'm in step three I'm grateful for how you handled step two um because i feel like you taught me a lot of how to focus on myself within that and how to step outside of what um outside pressures are happening and move into like focusing on success well that's why you know i find parenting is a lot of questioning i'm not sure if you even remember this as a kid the old good choice bad choice i don't know i remember that but like instead of saying you made a bad choice it's like well hang on what do you think just happened there did you make a good choice or a bad choice and then even with your friends well why does that matter to you what is it that you're concerned with you know using questions to make you think rather than trying to um tell you what you should think it's been using questions a lot of the time even you know when you and i disagree on economic things or political things it still questions a lot of the time yeah I feel like we've definitely entered a good phase of communication lately um and I feel like that's just because I've learned to like really show gratitude for everything that's um happened throughout our parenting relationship uh well as I told you you were my practice child you were number one so you had to teach me how to be a good parent yes and I take that role very seriously but how does um like what role does gratitude play in fostering this success mindset because i'm i'm learning that now as i go but i'm pretty sure you've seen the process of it well the way the world works is what you're grateful for you get more of if if you don't show gratitude for something you will not be rewarded with more of that the universe doesn't work in that way it's like um you know money is is is a simple one if you don't show gratitude for money and by showing gratitude I mean treating it with respect investing it tithing doing the right things with money treating money with respect because yeah people say I'll start investing when I make a lot more money no no that's not the way money works when you show it respect and start investing if you're making 10 bucks a week and you invest two dollars or you know five dollars or whatever the amount is then you're showing money respect and you're showing the universe you can be trusted to do good things with money.

8:58Gratitude works like that. If you're grateful for things, you get more of it. And where you show gratitude, not just think gratitude, where you share that you're grateful and you say that you're grateful for things. And I think that you go back to even the simple thing we do at the dinner table of low high every day. It's just a way of sharing your world and sharing your day. but also when you talk about what your high was, you're also sharing a gratefulness in your life that you had a high. Yeah, I see that. I feel like right now will be my high probably tonight. I'll sit down. Because I feel like having the ability to show gratitude also requires a level of humility.

9:43So what is a way that you can balance teaching ambition with humility? Oh, I think service mindset comes to it. You know how you had to do all the charity work as a kid growing up? You didn't have to, but it was part of what the family does, is doing that. I think that's a part of it. Even the choice of schools was a part of that. You're already a rich, spoiled white kid. You didn't need to go to school with just other rich, spoiled white kids. I'd rather put you into a school that taught you a different set of values or shared with you a different set of values so you can learn from that. But I think that, look, what you have to do is balance confidence with ego.

10:32You need ego to be successful. You just do. You have to believe in yourself to that point. You can't be successful without a level of belief in yourself. But you also need belief in others to be successful. And so the cocky person doesn't believe in others. They only believe in themselves. therefore they don't build team, they don't build people around them sort of thing. And so it's really that balancing act of confidence and ego somewhere in there. I think part of maybe it's the Australian side of the family that, yeah, yeah, you're getting a little bit too cocky there, we have to back down, come on.

11:11There's a bit of that and I think you know that every time we go back to Australia that if you've got too much ego, they very quickly let you know. Yeah, I feel like the way you spoke about money and the way you spoke about success automatically made me more humble about it because you wouldn't even let anybody brag around you. You wouldn't let anybody put anyone else down just because of what they had. And so I think I took that in stride and just continue to act that way, which I was very grateful for. Yeah, you don't choose your associates, your friends, based on their financial situation. You choose based on their values and the way they treat you.

11:58You know, like it's not about – friendship's not about how much time you spend with people. It's about how good a time you have with the people you spend time with. And if you have a great time with them, they become your friend. If you don't have a great time with them, it's rare that they stay in your friendship group that long. Yeah. A bit of a switch on topic. What are the biggest mistakes a parent can make when trying to instill a success mindset? And then is there anything you would have personally done differently? I don't know. Oh, I mean, there's a bunch of things I could say. You know, I would have handled that scenario differently or I wouldn't have.

12:39But I think the first thing you've got to learn as a parent is the ability to just apologize when you make a mistake because you will make mistakes. I think that's the thing. I know, but you know, growing up, I hated enforcing things on you guys. I'm like, can you not do that? I hate having to yell at you kids. Like the number of times I would say that to you guys, like, please don't do that. I don't want to be that parent. You still say that. Yeah, I know. Well, you're still two things that make me need to say that, I guess is probably the way. But, you know, when you're looking at a success mindset, I think there's a difference between beating it into your kids of, you know, that high pressure, you must get this, you must do that sort of thing.

13:25And look, you know, I've said it to you, I've said it to your sister many times. I'm now saying it to the younger kids is that I know if you put in the work, you'll get the results. you not getting an A is not about you not knowing it it's about you didn't do enough work I don't want to praise the A I want to praise the work that you did to get the A like if you win when you played soccer and I was your coach it wasn't about wow you guys won the game you're great it was all that practice paid off well done keep practicing that hard and we'll keep doing that it's like praising the work and praising the inputs oh all of that study's paid off well done on doing all that extra study you know praise what got the result not the actual result i think we there's too much in parenting today of oh aren't you amazing you know and and yeah great build the kid up i 100 believe in that but there's a balancing act of just building them up and actually being also real you know like yeah you had a bad game today you didn't practice hard enough you didn't do the work you yeah you guys lost you didn't work they outworked you they outplayed you and you know it's like what were my two rules for you guys as kids around team stuff you must play a team sport and you must get a job when you turn 15 team sport i want a coach to yell at you i want your teammates to feel disappointed in you when you let them down i want you to feel that that you're on a team and you they hold you to that performance standard and i want you to have a shitty boss i want you to have a boss that has no idea what they're doing i want you to have some good bosses i want you to have different people to learn from um you know a kid that's not coachable is not employable and kid that's not employable can't run their own business so you know that's ultimately i want all of you to be in charge of your own destiny.

15:27And most of the time that means being in business for yourself. I mean, if you look at all of the wealth in the world, the data tells us very clearly that the more than 70 % of millionaires are people who are self-made and 68 % of self-made millionaires own their own business. Ownership is the key to financial success. You must own something, but you've also got to work for other people to learn what to do and what not to do. Go get a job in sales so you learn how to sell. Get paid to learn rather than paying for it yourself sort of thing. Get paid to do the things that you want to learn. Don't just learn it off your own accord.

16:09I feel like whenever we do low highs, you are very good at discussing your own successes and failures, whether it's throughout the day or something that you've been working on for a long time. Do you think it's important for parents to discuss their own successes and failures? I think it's important for a family to discuss pretty much anything and everything. Discuss finances, you know, but not outside the house. Discuss politics, discuss, you know, relationships, discuss those things. And I think, you know, you know, Mama and I are pretty happy to debate things in front of you guys if we disagree.

16:46I don't think that agreement is a necessary part of that. But, you know, when it's hard, you've got to tell people, no, I got to work an extra hard right now. Things are not as easy as they were. Like when COVID hit, it was like, no, no, I don't have time for that. I got to do this. I had nine companies to pivot and change. We didn't want to sack anybody. We didn't want to lose any employees. We wanted to get through it with 100 % employment. And we did that all by one company that we invested in that had to shut because it was in a casino. know but you know i think parents um that that discuss things behind closed doors don't give their kids a chance to learn from them um how you make a hard decision how you make good decisions you know but also what led to the successes what led to the failures um i think it's important to have those discussions and i think it's important for your kids to also realize that you're human at some point.

17:48And probably the sooner they learn that, probably the better. Yeah, I feel like whenever we're at conference, people are always like, what's it like to have Brad Chuggers as your dad? I don't think it's pretty normal, honestly. You just get a speech at dinner. You don't get a speech every dinner of last night. Every other dinner, Sonny. Rhea, how would you say the best way is to teach children to embrace failure with their success. Yeah, this is a tough one. Like, actually, I was just having a chat with your brother about this because, you know, he plays hockey and he's the goalie. And as the goalie, the win or the loss, you either get credit for it or blame for it, no matter what sort of thing.

18:32But, you know, he's been a goalie now two years or three years. And he even said to me this morning, he said, yeah, Dad, when I was brand new, I was no good at it. I got scored a lot and it really upset me. But now I know what I'm doing better. And I don't get upset when someone gets a goal. I just refocus and go again sort of thing. I used a lot of misdirection with you guys. And I still do to this day. When something goes wrong, I just redirect your focus onto what the positive is. And it's like we use it in management in business. When someone does something wrong, you don't ask them, what did you do wrong?

19:09Or why did you do it wrong? You ask, okay, what do we got to do to make this work? What do we got to do to get this to where it needs to be? And so, you know, when something did go wrong, it would be a simple question. Well, yeah, I understand that. Well, what did you learn from it? Or what's something that you could do next time? Or what are the parts that actually went right in this thing? Or what did you get good out of that sort of thing? And always, and again, using a lot of questioning, but moving your focus to something different rather than that. but failure or mistakes is a part of success.

19:43It just is. And the sooner someone embraces... See, it's trying to also just redefine the word failure into a mistake. Because in marketing, we call that test and measure. You don't expect a marketing campaign to work first time. You expect 80 % of the headlines you create to not work. So you're measuring and testing. you're testing another headline you're testing and that's like even with you guys it's like oh that way didn't work okay what are we gonna try next yeah you know just redirect misdirect and i feel like i never noticed that but now that you said that i feel like all of these crazy secrets out of the bag i'm gonna notice it now i reach out you do it um how would you say is the best way to encourage kids to like set goals so getting past their failures um setting goals um that are actionable, measurable, all of the keywords.

20:41Yeah. You guys were tough with this one. It's very hard to get your own kids to listen to you around the goal setting sort of thing. I'm lucky that the school you went to actually taught. I think that was pretty much a good thing that, you know, with school you got to learn more about goal setting. But I think just being an example of it, just, you know, kids and you guys, you learn a lot by osmosis. having my goals up on the wall, having my dream charts up on the wall, having pictures of what I want to have happen. And I think just seeing that, um, I know I've played the Jim Rohn goal setting part in the car more times than pretty much any other one, but, um, there's all of that sort of stuff.

21:24It's, it's, you know, you can, I think the, the, the statement of that hard times create hard people, hard people create success success creates weak people and so on it's i've never tried to make it easy for you guys in in certain areas you know i've wanted to show you the world so you've all traveled everywhere i wanted you to taste caviar sit in first class try champagne do all of the things be in all of the best places in the world stay in great hotels but as you know at 21 you're on your own from there it's like you've tasted it you've done it i'll still you can still come on the annual family vacay but um you're on your own you know it's up to you to make your world work i'm not going to make it easy for you the world you need to see how tough the world is and make it on your own and you know you're moving to australia so you're definitely going to be on your well you're going to work for some of our friends but you know you got that job on your own and I gave you the reference, but you got it.

22:31You'll have family around you, but it's still you making your way in the world. And I think unless you have to, it's like the old butterfly, you got to get out of the cocoon. It's got to be hard at some point in order for you to want it to be easy. If it's always easy, you don't want it to be easy, so you don't work hard enough to get it to be easy. Yeah, one of my favorite quotes is actually literally about a butterfly. It's nature or struggle is nature's way to strengthening. And I mean, is that for my favorite TV show? Yes. But still, it's a good one. Is that lost? But I feel like with like when I turned 21, it was very daunting to know that I was for the most part financially independent.

23:15and I think your mindset about teaching me and Kenzie like and the young ones as well financial literacy and just I don't think I can tell you how many times I heard the word invest as a child I didn't even know what you were talking about I fully just thought it was like oh just put in the bank whatever but the constant communication about the importance of financial literacy, I feel like that brought me into a comfortable position like now that I'm only 23, but I'm not stressed at all. And I feel like that was mainly because of your ability to communicate effectively about financial literacy.

23:55So what would be some tips that you have about that kind of communication? Well, it's not just communication, it's also strategy. You know, the strategy of actually having, and for you guys, it was your nannies, you know, they would take you to the bank and you had to invest half of your pocket money every week, like physical money on actually investors, Kenzie called it, invest. but then at 18 getting whatever you've made through your job doubled was a you guys learnt to save though you learnt to save and you learnt to put money away and not just spend every dime that you had sort of thing and yeah so learning investment strategies all of those sorts of things is really important I think it just comes back to discussing investing often and regularly and, you know, just even the simple comments of, no, like I remember some of your friends saying, you know, when they'd come to our house, they'd go, wow, you must make a lot of money.

24:58And I would just say, no, I invest a lot of money, you know. And those simple words being around all the time make a difference. Yeah, I think starting so young on that made me very just curious about like the whole process. and I think curiosity was a key word on how I would describe just the way you spoke to me. I think it made me curious. You talked about curiosity. I feel like that's just a big theme of art. When you read that book, The Mindset of Money, was that a year ago, six months ago? A year ago. Yeah, and so the fact that you guys are reading that material is important. You've got to become financially literate.

25:44If you're not financially literate, you end up working for someone who is. Well, hey there, and thanks for listening. I've noticed that 78 % of you are brand new, which means you haven't hit the subscribe button yet. By subscribing, you help us bring on even better guests, better quality content, and serve you better with even more podcasts. So please hit that subscribe button. It only takes a second. It makes a huge difference. If you support us, we're going to support your success and help you achieve big success together. What would you say the role of emotional intelligence is in achieving success?

26:20I think it's a little overrated. You know, people were saying, oh, emotional intelligence is more important than actual intelligence. All the best surveys in the world show that actual intelligence for the CEOs in business, let me put it in business. Do you need emotional intelligence? 100 % you need emotional intelligence. Being able to read the room, kind of important in any scenario, especially like you've got, you have a distinct advantage. You have four siblings, right? And you also have a house that's always got guests or always entertaining. We always have people over. We always have parties and functions and dinners and stuff like that.

27:03So you're around a lot of people. Also, you traveled a lot. So you got to experience what life is like in Vietnam, in Italy, and, you know, you get to experience all of that sort of stuff. And I think just being around a lot of people breeds emotional intelligence. I remember as, like, I think I was, like, six or something, you would tell me and Kenzie's, like, okay, go mangle. And I was like, what, with the adults? And you're like, yeah. And so I feel like I've been having emotionally intelligent conversations. I don't know if you remember this, though, and we just did it with the twins in Croatia, where I made you go and take photographs of people at my conferences, go and do selfies with everybody so that you would go and just talk with people.

27:47And, you know, those sorts of things. But emotional intelligence is, you can read all the books and stuff, but it really just comes from learning about yourself, meeting other people, putting yourself in scenarios that are not usual type thing. but being around humans breeds emotional intelligence but you also had a distinct advantage in that you know you had nannies around all the time there was always adults in your vicinity that would talk with you and you know we were pretty heavy on the no baby talk sort of stuff with with you know the nannies they would just treat you like young adults and so um um you know so you you're a little i wouldn't say it spoiled you but it gave you a methodology of communication that was different to a lot of people i i feel that a lot of kids get way too sheltered you know and it's like even you know some of the kids friends now they're 11 and some of their friends have never had a sleepover i mean for goodness sake teach your kids how to go and be independent teach them to be okay with like that but you know if and i see it with some of my friends that have one kid they're like well this is our family you don't have a family you have a couple with a like a third wheel you know you go home for family dinner at our house there's always 10 people around the table sort of thing booking dinner for our family has got to be booked a day in advance because no restaurants can fit us all but that i think is a big thing about how you become emotionally intelligent you should be around a lot of people all the time like as my last question i just want to know what the best way is to help children define their own version of success because i feel everyone wants something different out of life um but i feel like success is always a part of that vision i mean ultimately what you see as successful is different to success success is about being confident and fulfilled in your own self being being okay with who you are liking who you are believing in yourself success is about you building a great version of you successful is about the things and the and that sort of stuff and after interviewing more than a hundred people who are very successful materially and and and economically and career wise out there in the world there's one thing i noticed that they start out in life looking at material version of success but most of them after the age of 30 40 or 50 their version of success is doing what they want when they want with who they want so it's about the freedom to be yourself and be with the people you want and do the things you want when you want it's it's the freedom to give back the freedom to add value to the world and hopefully one of the great things you guys have all gotten is the freedom to add value to the world because you've been set up educationally and economically very well.

30:51Yeah, I think you've raised and are still raising five very different kids. And so I think all of us are going to have a very different version of success, but we're all going to look back to you and remember the way you spoke to us and the way you set us up for life when it comes to this yeah i mean i've done a pretty dang good job of keeping you guys grounded and keeping you uh somewhat focused on success and focused on where you want to be because oh you live let's be blunt you guys lived a fairly privileged life and keeping you grounded was one of the big things that that had to happen so and I don't think it was until somewhere around 9 or 10 when you guys actually realized you had a privileged life I think a lot of it happened when you started going to your friends houses for sleepovers and stuff and just recognizing the distinction but I think most of it happened when your friends came to our house and they went wow you look like Colton just the other day taking a few of his friends out for his birthday and getting the Lamborghini and they're like dude we're in a Lamborghini and Colton's just like oh this is just dad's car you know so but yeah I love this this is great I'm glad you got to ask me these questions I know it was so fun telling you that my flight was in a few days and you said okay cool time for the podcast it's like oh okay good this will be fun but yeah I'm glad I did it you've been listening to the Big Success Podcast with the number one business coach in the world Brad Sugars To learn more about how to achieve business and personal success, as well as how to level up or listen to past episodes, visit www.bradsugars.com.