Family retreats with a purpose are a hit.
Why?
In this episode, I'm going to address the question "What is the best way to have memorable
family vacations?"
I ought to know.
I love to take vacations with our 6 children, their spouses and our 17 grandkids.
But it's having family vacations with a purpose.
How do you do that?
So, my name is Doug Andrew.
My wife, Sherry and I have been married for north of 46 years.
And we have 6 children and now 17 grandchildren.
Maybe one or 2 more might come on the way.
But one of our favorite traditions for years is having family vacations or family retreats
with a specific purpose.
Now, we have done this for at least 20 years.
And it's an absolute hit.
When I explain this to you, I understand you may resist.
Or you may think, "Golly, my family would never go along with this.
We don't want to go on a family vacation to learn."
No, it's not about that I assure you.
If you hold a family vacation or retreat annually or maybe bi-annually with a specific purpose,
you may get resistance at first.
But later on, they will absolutely love it.
They will insists on continuing the tradition.
And I'm going to tell you why.
So, when we talk about a family vacation or retreat with a purpose, exactly what are we
talking about?
What we do is we usually have a theme when we have a family vacation.
We've done this numerous times.
We maybe teaching how to be responsible and accountable in one family vacation.
We may be talking about I-remember-when memories which has become a tradition where we actually
gather memories, I-remember-whens is what we call them.
And we assign to each of our children and now grandchildren 3 memories that they're
going to share and they have to type them up now that they're old enough.
It has to be 750 words or less.
This is just a short memory of something that happened in their childhood.
This could be embarrassing moment.
It could be an award or accolade.
It could be a close call when they nearly ended up 6-feet under.
It could be all kinds of things.
And when we have them come, they all shared those around the dinner table.
We used to do it all on Monday night when we would go Maui.
We use to go to Maui every year for a family retreat with a purpose.
Now, when people would hear that, they would say, "Wow, can I be a member of your family?
I would like a free trip to Maui every other year."
Did I say it was free?
No.
Our children, when we gather them together back in the year I think it was 1998.
I said, "Listen, we are going to look at putting an investment into some time shares every
other year, the odd years if you want to go and have a family retreat with the purpose.
We're going to do charitable experiences.
We're going to do service projects.
We're going to learn.
Sure we're going to scuba dive, bike, hike, golf and fish.
But this is not just about recreating.
This is about learning and giving service, giving back to humanity.
We're going to clean up some beaches.
We're going to get back to society.
We're going to learn how to protect the environment and on and on and on and on.
So, when our children bought in and I said, "Now, this isn't free.
You will pay for your share of the lodging."
And I'm going to show you how.
You're going to pay for your Airfare.
You're going to pay for your food.
This isn't just a free trip.
Now, long story short and you could read my book that I am willing to gift you at the
end of this video to learn how we did this.
But we're able to buy those timeshares and I taught my children how to do this for pennies
on the dollar.
These are timeshares at a 5-star resort that we're selling retail for 20 to 30 thousand
dollars.
I bought those timeshares 1 for $1.
The most I paid was 5,000 for a 30,000-dollar timeshare.
And I taught my kids.
I said, "You know, you don't go up here and pay retail.
You go down here in the basement."
And the basement of that resort is where they had administrative offices.
I walked in and said, "Listen, do you have a list of people who bought this timeshares
and now they've had death in a family or whatever or set back and they just want out?"
They're behind on their property taxes and their maintenance fees.
And you're going to have to foreclose on them.
And it's going to ruin their credit.
And we would be a Godsend and just come in and takeover.
Bring their property taxes current or whatever.
She handed a list of over a 30 people.
They would deem this a blessing if you call them and bought their timeshare for pennies
on the dollar.
It took us less than 24 hours to buy 4 timeshares.
One, we bought for a dollar.
The most we paid was 5,000 for the same week.
Because we like fix weeks.
But we bought timeshares for pennies on the dollar.
Now, many times, we rented during the even years.
And we bring in enough rental income to not only pay for the maintenance.
But for the maintenance for the year we use it.
Our lodging is free.
Many times.
Last time, I had an extra bedroom and we put it on Airbnb in less than 1 hour, we rented
it out for enough to pay the entire maintenance for the entire condo for the week that we
were there.
See your lodging can be free.
We've taught our kids for years how to use credit cards responsibly.
When they were just little, they would earn their school close by performing acts of service
--mowing lawns or whatever.
And so, they have their own little business entities.
And they would use credit cards.
And they would pay them off monthly.
They wouldn't pay interest.
But they would do that and they would get the points.
And now that their older, they have enough points using credit cards that their airfare
is free every 2 years.
Their airfare is covered.
But I also had them use credit cards because I know the internal revenue code.
If all your children have their own business entity and is legitimate, it's registered,
you can bring them together in a retreat with a purpose teaching them entrepreneurial skills
--how to operate business and so forth.
You need to devote 90 mins a day, average.
Or at least 3 hours every 2 days in a business meeting.
You must have minutes.
You must have those notes and you must keep the agenda.
And you have to keep those records.
And if you do, you can tax-deduct the lodging, the airfare and the proportion, the percentage
of any meals or whatever.
We've been taxed deducting our family vacations and all of our kids have been doing it since
they were teenagers when they have their own business entities.
Our family vacations cost pennies on the dollar because we pay for them with otherwise payable
tax by creating an environment where we have all our business entities and we meet for
90 minutes a day average.
Because that's what the IRS requires.
That's what most businesses do on conventions.
You must meet at least an hour and a half a day.
We meet for 45 minutes in the morning.
45 minutes in the evening.
We have agendas, we have minutes.
And we teach responsibility and accountability.
How to be entrepreneurial, how to enjoy the 4 freedoms, how to run a business and so forth.
How to do marketing and advertising.
It'e legitimate.
When we do that, you can tax deduct the expenses I've been talking about.
Now, if you can't tax-deduct it, that's okay.
It's still while worth it.
But see, this is where we taught our children how to be an author.
You don't have to be a writer to be an author.
How to be responsible and accountable.
We have family retreats with a purpose.
The last time, our theme was moments that matter.
Because I taught my kids that everyday, there are moments that matter.
Some days, dozen or 2.
But some days, there's 100-200.
Most people tune out these moments that matter.
That wisdom knocks or calls, we give it a busy signal.
Their child, now they're raising their own children.
"Mom, dad, can I..."
"No, haven't I told you not to bother daddy when he's on computer?"
See, pretty soon, they won't come to you anymore and they'll go to their friends because they
think you don't care or that they're not important.
And so, I was teaching in the family retreat with a purpose how to recognize a moment that
matters and then lean in to what's possible and respond and realize, "Hey, this moment
matters.
And then be able to react better instead of just brushing them off.
And so, we actually had a little theme.
I design the song right on the spot to the tune of row, row, row your boat.
And I just said, "Okay, let's sing this song..."
You know, ♫mo-mo-moments, moments that matter ♪ Merrily, merrily, merrily life has moments
that matter ♫. Now, how silly is that?
My grandkids were singing that song making sand castles on the beach.
They love that song to this day.
They will never forget the message that everyday there are moments that matter.
And that when wisdom calls, you don't give it a busy signal.
So, the point is, you want to have theme.
You want to have fun.
We scuba dive by kite, golf and fish.
You weave in some of this discussions and they will remember them forever.
You have dinner and you capture I-remember-when memories.
We have 29 people in our family.
30 shortly.
30.
You collect 3 memories from 30 family members, that's 90.
You add those to your book.
Our book of family memories is this thick because every time we have a family vacation
with a purpose, we collect 90 new entries to our family record.
What else do we do?
So, the key take-aways, I would recommend you consider planning a family retreat with
a purpose.
Sometimes you have to do that 2 years in advance.
Our family knows 2 years out that we can, February.
The last week of February, we will be in Maui.
And so, you schedule off work.
You earn you airfare.
If you don't have money then we can give you a scholarship and you can pay it back.
You can work it off.
There's all kinds of ways because we don't want any empty chairs when we get there.
Because we don't want any empty chairs when they hopefully all get up there.
We want everybody to be involved.
So, you plan it.
You put a date, you have a theme and then you gather when you're on a family retreat
90 minutes a day if you want to tax deduct it and talk about the business topics if you
have business ownership in there.
Otherwise, you don't need to tax-deduct it.
We just like to do that because I like to teach my kids and grandkids how to be entrepreneurial.
You want to gamify.
You want to have fun.
You want to be in motion.
You want to learn, you want them to teach one another.
You want to have I-remember-when memory moments.
The most critical thing we do is we empower our children and I often teach them the parable
of the talents in the bible.
And I tell my kids, "Hey, you can withdraw $2, $20, $200 or $2,000 out of the family
bank but we're much as given much is required."
I say, "Come up with an idea that you want to maybe try a business endeavor."
And so, a lot of times businesses get developed because people lack the capital.
So I say, "You know what?
You can withdraw money and put it in to your business idea.
I want you to try to 10 times the money in less than a year.
And if you do give 100% of it away to your favorite charity.
And then maybe we'll start the business."
This has been over the top.
You can read in my book Entitlement Abolition how we have done this.
How my daughter, my 5th child Mindy and her newly wed husband at the time Brian withdrew
$400 and bought scraps of stained glass and solder and made 144 stained glass stars.
Each one takes about an hour.
They spend 150 hours making these stain glass stars.
Robert Redford sells these in a Sundance catalog for $69.95.
They made 144 of them representing 144 children at a hospital, a children's hospital where
they never turn away a child for lack of funds because of donations.
They made 144 stars because that year, out of 10,000 kids treated, 144 didn't make it.
They passed away.
We took those stained glass stars and decorated upside down Christmas tree.
And it went to the festival of Christmas trees in an auction.
That Christmas tree sold for $4,000.
Here's 2 college-aged kids who withdrew $400 out of the family bank turned it into 4000-dollar
contribution.
They 10 times'd it.
We went to the olive garden after.
Had soup and salad and I said, "Now, let's watch what happens."
I never know what's going to happen.
But I just know somethings good is going to happen.
That year, Mindy sold enough stain glass stars on her website to totally make more money
than she did being an aesthetician at a spa.
But my son and law, Brian, when his university found out what he did for that primary children's
medical center, they awarded him the most prestigious scholarship at the university,
tuition fees and everything.
He went on to go to the dental school of his choice and then to the residency of his choice.
And he graduated with honors with half the student loan debt based on lessons we taught
on that family vacation with a purpose.
This is what it's all about.
And so, we're much as given, much as required.
And we have many times then developed that into a business enterprise.
So, these are some of the ideas.
They're contained in this book.
This book retails for 20 bucks.
Entitlement abolition.
How to abolish entitlement mindset where a lot of times family members grow up with,
"Hey, will you pay for it?
Can I have?"
And so, I've taught a lot of people how to abolish that entitlement mindset by bringing
the family together.
You do that with retreats with a purpose.
So, this book has 4 chapters that talk about the trap we get into this entitlement trap.
The last 8 chapters talk about how to break free from that trap.
And one of my favorite ways to do it is in chapter 7.
It's family retreats with a purpose.
So, if you want to see sample agendas, if you want to learn how to do this, I would
love to gift you a copy of this book.
It's yours for free.
I'll pay for the book.
You simply go to Entitlementabolitionbook.com.
Entitlement, abolition, book, ".com".
You pay $5.95 shipping and handling.
I'll send out a copy of this book for free.
And you can begin to learn how you can have family vacations with the purpose.
You make it resistance at first.
Your kids may say, "I don't want go on vacation to learn.
I just want to sit under a palm tree and get a suntan."
But you do what I talk about in this book and they will be begging for the next family
vacation with a purpose.