The Academy
Fifty lessons for raising builders.
Every lesson is a short video for you, the parent, with the language and the exercises to use with your children the same week. Filter by the ages in your house and work through what applies.
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Showing 50 of 50 lessons
Money & How It Works
10 lessonsFoundational financial literacy. What money is, where it comes from, and how it works as a tool for creating value.
What Is Money?
Money is stored energy: a tool humans created to trade value across time and distance.
Earning vs. Receiving
Money earned through contribution means something different than money handed over, and children who learn that distinction early carry it for life.
Saving, Spending & Giving
The three-jar framework builds the habit of intentional allocation before the habit of consumption takes hold.
How Prices Work
Prices are signals, and teaching children why things cost what they cost connects money to real value.
Compound Interest & the Time Value of Money
Money invested early grows exponentially, and understanding why is one of the most powerful financial advantages a young person can have.
Debt: Tool or Trap?
Debt can build wealth or destroy it. The difference lies in whether it’s creating something or consuming it.
Inflation & Purchasing Power
A dollar today buys more than a dollar tomorrow, and families who understand this make smarter decisions about saving, spending, and investing.
Opportunity Cost
Every choice is also a no, and teaching children to see what they’re giving up sharpens judgment across every area of life.
Reading Financial Statements
Income statements, balance sheets, and cash flow statements are the language of business, and fluency in them changes how you see every financial decision.
Insurance, Protection & Managing Downside Risk
Smart risk-takers protect against catastrophic loss so that one bad event can’t erase everything they’ve built.
Entrepreneurship & Value Creation
10 lessonsThe builder mindset. Helping children see problems as opportunities and build the habit of creating value for other people.
What Is a Business?
A business is an organized way to solve a problem for someone else, and children who understand that become creators, not just consumers.
Finding Problems Worth Solving
The habit of noticing unmet needs and asking what could be done about them is the starting point of every business ever built.
Your First Venture
Launching something small and real teaches more than any classroom: this is practical guidance for a child’s first business or project.
Customers, Feedback & Iteration
The market always tells you the truth, and learning to listen to customers and adjust is the core skill of every successful builder.
Risk, Failure & Resilience
Failure is data, not defeat, and children who build an evidence portfolio of attempts develop the resilience that carries them through real setbacks.
Selling & Persuasion
Ethical persuasion is the ability to communicate value clearly, a skill that serves children in business, relationships, and life.
Building a Team
At some point every builder hits the ceiling of what they can do alone, and learning to collaborate, delegate, and lead others is what scales impact.
Scaling Impact
Moving from a small project to a larger venture requires systems, leverage, and the ability to build something that works without you.
The Economics of Time
How you spend your time is the most consequential financial decision you make, and most people never treat it that way.
Incentives & How They Shape Behavior
Understanding why people do what they do is the foundation of good business decisions, good hiring, and good strategy.
Investing & Wealth Stewardship
10 lessonsFinancial judgment. Beyond literacy, into growing, allocating and stewarding capital responsibly.
What Is Investing?
Investing is putting money to work: shifting from consuming capital to owning assets that generate more.
Stocks, Bonds & Real Assets
Different asset classes behave differently, and understanding how each works is the foundation of building a portfolio that holds up over time.
Investing in Yourself
Human capital—skills, knowledge, and capability—is the highest-return investment most young people will ever make.
The Family Balance Sheet
Knowing the family’s full financial picture—assets, liabilities, and net worth—is the starting point for responsible stewardship.
Philanthropy & Purposeful Giving
Giving is an extension of value creation, and families who approach it with intention build a culture of generosity that carries across generations.
Trusts, Structures & Why They Exist
Trusts and legal structures aren’t just for the ultra-wealthy: they’re tools for protecting and directing capital across generations.
Stewardship vs. Ownership
The shift from "this is mine" to "I am responsible for directing this well" is what separates families that preserve wealth from those that build on it.
Real Estate as a Wealth-Building Tool
Property functions as an asset class through cash flow, appreciation, and leverage, and it plays a role in most durable family portfolios.
Building an Investment Thesis
Developing a personal framework for evaluating where to put capital, based on values, risk tolerance, time horizon, and evidence, is what separates deliberate investors from reactive ones.
Asset Protection & Entity Structure
How families use LLCs, holding companies, and other structures to protect what they’ve built and separate risk from personal wealth.
Mindset & Character
10 lessonsThe inner engine. The psychological and moral foundations that make everything else possible.
Contribution & Usefulness
Being useful to others builds identity and self-worth in a way that praise and provision never can.
Agency & Ownership
Children who believe they can act on the world, not just react to it, make fundamentally different decisions than those who don’t.
Delayed Gratification
The ability to wait, to trade something good now for something better later, is one of the most predictive traits of long-term success.
Comfort, Struggle & Growth
Productive discomfort builds capability, and children who are protected from all struggle are being protected from growth.
Gratitude & Perspective
Entitlement shrinks when children understand what it actually took to build what the family has, and gratitude is the antidote.
Identity & Purpose
Children discover who they are through action and contribution, not reflection alone, and this is how parents help that process take shape.
Work Ethic & Personal Standards
A personal standard of excellence, held consistently, compounds the same way money does, and it starts earlier than most parents think.
Independence & Decision-Making
Age-appropriate autonomy—real choices with real consequences—is how children build judgment before the stakes get high.
Reputation & Trust as Capital
A name takes years to build and moments to destroy, and children who understand this protect it accordingly.
Networking & Relationship Building
The habit of initiating relationships, adding value first, and maintaining a network over time is a skill that can be taught.
Family Culture & Systems
10 lessonsThe operating system. The rhythms, rituals and structures that carry values across generations.
Your Family’s Story
The stories families tell about where they came from shape what the next generation believes is possible for them.
Mission, Vision & Values
Families that define what they stand for and where they’re headed give their children something to orient toward, not just something to inherit.
Family Meetings & Rhythms
Weekly, monthly, and annual operating rhythms turn family values from intentions into lived practice.
Shared Language
A common vocabulary within the family gives children the concepts to think with and the words to talk about hard things.
Navigating Institutions
Schools, advisors, and systems are tools, and families who use them without becoming dependent on them stay in the driver’s seat.
Talking About Money as a Family
Age-appropriate financial transparency brings children into the conversation early enough to matter, without burdening them before they’re ready.
Perpetual Gen 1
Every generation should build something rather than just preserve what came before, and that expectation starts with how parents talk about wealth and work.
Rites of Passage & Milestone Design
Intentional ceremonies and transitions mark growth, responsibility, and belonging, giving children a clear sense of where they stand and what comes next.
Conflict as a Feature, Not a Failure
Healthy disagreement is how families stress-test decisions, sharpen thinking, and build trust, when handled with the right tools and expectations.
Building Your Family’s Advisory Ecosystem
Identifying, recruiting, and maintaining the right advisors—legal, financial, relational—means your family isn’t navigating complexity alone.
