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Browse every published article connected to Hugh DeBurgh, with exact attribution and full-archive search.
Articles
Browse every published article connected to Hugh DeBurgh, or search within this exact expert archive.
Financial Lessons from 007 It’s time for a lesson in family finances. I was watching one of the recent James Bond flicks with Daniel Craig as 007, Casino Royale (I think he makes a great Bond – you?). Anyway, something I saw stuck in my mind and for some reason it popped back to the front today.r
Life on the Canals of France Cruising the Canals of France by Barge
Live and Let Live “There will always be war, famine & poverty as long as anyone believes that he has the right to impose his will on another.” I wrote that on Twitter a few weeks back and it seemed to resonate with some people. That sentence is my conclusion of what people like you and I must commit to if we want there to be a future for our children and grandchildren. I believe that only when we understand that we must persuade others to our point of view, rather than impose our “wisdom” on the world through law or otherwise people will not truly respect one another.r
Embracing My Inner Warrior They say that you can do anything in Vegas. Well, apparently, you can. My older kids noticed a brochure on the tourist racks for a place called “The Gun Store.” Yeah, I know a gun store? “But dad, they have all of these uber old guns from World War II and stuff and they even let grownups fire some of them.”r
Inspire Your Family; families don’t really exist until they “connect.” Personally, I don’t define a family by who its members are or even by how those members might be related to each. I define a family by how it behaves and by the degree of connectedness and cohesion between its members. Even more I define a family by the degree of personal respect and compassion that its members express toward each other. I have a feeling that my definition leaves out a lot of “families.”
Pain Pain; it’s a subject that most of us would rather not hear about. Others less fortunate cannot get out of their minds. Of course pain comes in many forms. Physical pain is the most obvious form. I am not a physician so I will not address the physical or psychological issues associated with that affliction. Emotional pain is something altogether different and something that all of us at one time or another have been confronted with. Why do we experience emotional pain? What can we do to minimize this unwelcome guest in our lives?r
Today there isn’t much that leaves us in awe. We are educated in general scientific principles. Through modern media we are exposed to the wonders of space; of quantum physics and other incredible discoveries. As a species we no longer ascribe great geological events to the anger of the gods. It is easy therefore to think that physical travel for the purpose of discovery and learning is a quaint but expensive relic that is best left to the rich and the retired.
My two oldest kids have been invited to take part in a Model United Nations program at the UN in New York. My wife and I are excited about this but our kids weren’t so sure. Specifically my oldest was (and usually is) suspicious of anything that adults organize on his behalf. In fact the mere fact that something is being presented to him as “educational” makes him highly suspicious of its content and ultimately; poorly motivated to pursue it.
Peace Amid the Chaos I am going to tell you something strange; perhaps even unbelievable. I understand exactly what is going on in today’s world. I seem to have a gift. I can see the big picture where many others cannot. I understand what is causing so much of this chaos that surrounds us. I know why the stock market is so weird and why there is a financial crisis. I called it all ten years ago and my call has been right on.r
The Dunes of Mars Today the Warrior left the Earth that I know and entered a strange world of towering sand dunes and brown-orange volcanic rocks. In the distance low brown hills rise above a rubble filled surface. The sky above us is cloudless. The sun is quite hot and glares so bright that we cannot keep our eyes open when looking in its general direction. There is little sign of life. There are no trees, animals or human development. As far as the eye can see there is only this scene of desolation.r
Dare to Dream - And to DO “Follow your dreams – this requires courage, drive, and bold action.” It is easy to ignore your dreams; to regret them; to label them as unrealistic, childish artifacts; to deny that they really matter to you anymore. Adult life is filled with reasons that dreams are for children only yet we all hear the admonishments to “follow your dreams.”r
It's Time to Fall In Love ~ With YOU! I’ve saved the best for last. It doesn’t matter how hard you work or how much natural talent ekes out of your every crevice – you will not achieve satisfaction in life if you do not love yourself. Instead, you will sabotage your own success, knowingly or not. You will believe others’ doubts about your abilities. You will internalize criticism. You will judge yourself through the eyes of others instead of your own.r
Are You Determined To Be Happy? You already have everything that you need to live your dream life except perhaps a solid understanding of who you are and a bit of courage. And a desire to be happy; no; a determination to be happy. In fact, I think that it is determination that sets satisfied people apart from the rest. It is determination that overcomes old habits. And it is determination that stands up to the constant resistance we all face from the world – resistance to the change that we bring, simply by daring to be us.r
Why I Like Kids Better Than Grown-Ups I have a confession to make. For years, I really had little use for kids. I used to have a near magical ability to entertain kids and engage them in a way that other adults just didn’t get. I didn’t enjoy doing it. It was like an elaborate act and it was hard to keep up. I was fascinated by my ability to do this and I really didn’t want to disappoint the kids so I kept up the charade. Otherwise, I would avoid events where there would be kids who had no other kids to play with because I knew that I would be on “entertainment duty.”r
When I started writing about the Families Without Limits phenomenon, I really didn’t think much about the worldwide appeal of the concept. Like most North Americans, I was so wrapped up in my own world that I failed to consider the rest of humanity. What I have discovered, however, is just how widespread the desire really is for escaping the boring life and bringing your family along for the ride. In a recent count, my blog had followers from the following nations (and growing):r
It's Time to Live the Good Lifer Now it’s time to go to school; Creative Family Lifestyle Design School, to be exact.r
Teach 'Um! Today my wife and I took a little detour and met with some potential new business associates for a business that she runs. This was not my idea of a fun afte oon’s activity but sometimes you gotta do stuff; so I went along. It could be a big deal if it goes through. I hope she gets it. We are in the upper Midwest these days and the weather has been fantastic. Weather people forecast violent storms for tonight but all I see is a big ole moon in a cloudless sky – how’d they screw that one up?r
My good friend died this morning. We knew it was coming, of course. We arrived at his home only last night. I didn’t feel bad for him. I believe that he was finally released from a now-useless body and probably feels great. I’m glad that today he can be with us without a struggle. I’m not religious, but I’m a firm believe in life after death – or maybe I should say that I believe that life and consciousness transcend any physical presence. That belief helps me immeasurably.r
"Educating" Teensr My wife and I were talking today about our oldest child, who is almost eleven years old. He is a very bright, compassionate, and mature young man, and he has been a great help to us with chores and in dealing with the younger kids. But he is getting quite bored, maybe even burned out, at school. We’ve been wondering what to do about his education after the sixth grade. You see, his Montessori school only goes up to the sixth grade.r
Yesterday I was talking to my kids at dinner when one of them uttered those classic words, “I’m bored.” I told her that there were only two roads away from boredom, and only one of those was permanent. The second road would lead her right back to the boredom she hated, but the first road would give her a permanent tool that she could use whenever she wanted to get rid of boredom.
That's Got to Hurt! I recently had a Twitter friend ask me to post some uplifting quotes related to “taking kindness as weakness” and “being pushed too far.” Of course I did my best to find a few that might assuage her pain. At least I hope they helped a little. This reminded me of a common bumper sticker I see around my home. It is published by the local women’s shelter. “Love is not abuse,” it says. Abuse comes in many forms and generally it does not involve obvious physical battering. Verbal and psychological abuse, even when subtle, can hurt. These do not communicate love.r
Amy was an adventurous blond, blue-eyed tomboy living an ordinary suburban life when her parents announced that the family would be purchasing an RV motor home and traveling the United States for one year on a journey of discovery. She was a bit sad to leave her friends behind, and she wasn’t sure what she would do to keep herself busy for an entire year.r
What drives me to write my books and my blog is a consistent reactio I have when I see the eyes of people who think they are imprisoned by their lives. Mind you, these folks almost never say that they are imprisoned and I suspect that most of them would vehemently deny it if you asked them out of the blue. Yet, it is this sense of imprisonment and a corresponding disappointment with life that drives the emotions of “quiet desperation” that secretly dominate the hearts of the vast majority of people I run into.r
Hey Cousin! For those of you following the progress of the Road Warrior crew I am writing to you tonight from Stone Mountain, Georgia, outside of Atlanta. Today as I sat with my family in an Atlanta restaurant I couldn’t help but notice the guy who was sitting just across from us. You see, he looked a lot like me. It was the look of his eyes, and his eyebrows, I think. But then he was “black,” and I am “white.”r
Happiness is the direct result of a choice. An agreement, between you and you. If you aren’t happy now, it’s because you have not made this choice, this agreement with yourself. The question is, “Why not?” Many people simply do not understand this basic rule of life. Apparently, nobody told them about it. Their parents didn’t know it. Chances are their parents weren’t so happy themselves. And maybe those parents didn’t see themselves as success stories either? Friends were probably clueless too.r
This article is aimed at my masculine readers. If you are of the feminine race, please read this as well, and set me straight if you disagree. You certainly know this subject better tha I! Let me start out by stating that this post is a hopeless generalization. When I refer to relationships it must be also understood that there are as many unique relationship dynamics as there are relationships. That’s a lot of variety!r
My mom had a dream when she was young. She wanted to be a surgical nurse. Mom grew up as a middle child in a large family. Her family lived in the boonies and had little money. Her dad was a boat captain and was away all week. All of the children worked hard to take care of what little they had.r
New FREE Guide to Persuading Your Partner Published! You have made up your mind. You are going to take the plunge. Start your new life. Live it your way. Then reality socks you in the face. What about your partner? What will he or she think? What if they nix the idea right off? Or maybe they’ll just laugh – call it another of your hair-brained ideas – and refuse to take you seriously? What do you do now?r
Help Spread The Good News! I believe that people everywhere need to be woken up to the life that they could be living. Do you have friends and loved one’s who seem to be sleep-walking through life? Do the energy and the light seem to have faded from their eyes? Has their marriage lost its luster? Do these folks believe that the promise of their lives that was as clear to them as a child has turned out to be just another childhood fairy tale?r
What is Beauty? What is beauty? Is it a perfect profile or a perfect smile? Is it hope? Is it the energy of positive expectations? Is beauty simply the opposite of ugly? Is beauty the absence of ugly? Is ugly a lack of hope? Is it a surrendered soul; a bitter heart? Every day around me, I see beauty and I see ugly. Mostly, I see beauty in young people. I see ugly in the old. I see an empty look of a life that has been spent; like a salmon that has laid its eggs and is now waiting to die. Is that what we are? Are we slaves of instinct? Are we not better than a salmon?r
One of the greatest problems that families have in improving the quality of their lives together is the common reality that the parents themselves don’t always agree on what the family priorities should be. In fact many men find themselves confused and saddened by their family life; especially as it relates to their relationship to their wife.r
The problem with big families is that they don’t fit anywhere. I never thought about this problem until I experienced it, but everything in our society is designed for the family with 2.4 kids and a dog. If you happen to have four kids, a cat, a few kid friends, and a spouse, a lot of things get complicated. For example, when my first child was born, my wife and I sold our six-month-old BMW Z3 convertible and bought a Toyota Sienna minivan. My driving experience has gone downhill ever since.r
I have found that there are two approaches to achieving a goal. • You can focus on the process – that is, focus on the things you need to do to be a success • You can focus on the goal, and sort of let the process happen. The first method sounds more responsible; certainly you have to master methods and techniques that will allow you to get what you want? Experience has taught me that too many folks become obsessed with the process or even fall in love with it and, as a result, stay perpetually involved in that process; never quite reaching their stated goals.r
You Are Wrong! I was distracted today by a vigorous “debate” that I stumbled upon on Amazon.com. I never realized just how active the discussion groups at Amazon are and regarding much more than books! One such subject was the health care battle that is currently raging in Washington. Now I am not about to chime in on that quagmire. It was clear from what I saw that plenty of what was often a rather nasty “discussion” was underway.r
Let’s face it. The number one reason (or excuse) that most of us use to avoid even thinking about making a major change in our family’s lifestyle is fear about our financial situation. Especially in today’s unstable economic environment most folks are holding their breath and hoping that they can simply hold it all together. With that in mind this might seem like a bad time to be planning a major lifestyle change but the opposite is true. For one thing the process of reconsidering your lifestyle starts with taking inventory of the lifestyle that you are living now.r
As we travel across a continent we inevitably make new friends. Some are just fleeting. Others last a lifetime. At our current campground in southern Califo ia we have met and made a new friend who has had quite an impact on both the kids and the adults. Our new friend’s name is Kindle. Actually it’s Morgan and his owner’s name is Kindle. But the kids decided that Kindle was a better name for him.
One of the conce s that I had before I decided to take my life (and my family’s lives) in a completely new direction was what people around me might think. You know what I’m talking about. For some folks being different comes easy. For those of us who grew up among the cliques and jock/freak/nerd labels of public high school you can’t help but feel a bit of a cringe when you realize that what you are about to do is different.
Gotta Let You Go… Now What? Those words (or just the fear of hearing them) haunt just about every job holder in today’s “deadsville” economy. Losing a job is a real possibility these days even for long-time loyal employees. I cannot begin to alleviate your pain if this has happened to you recently. However I want to point out the silver lining in the otherwise dark clouds that are hanging over you right now. Answer this question for me: did you get up every morning for this job excited to go to work and dive right in? If not then why are you looking for another one of these dead ends?
My Life IS My Message My Life IS My Message. Sometimes new acquaintances ask me, “So Hugh, what is it you do?” It seems like a straight-forward question but for me answering never is. Consider the following possible answers: • “I help awaken people to the life they should be living.” • “I show people how to transform their lives and live their dreams.” • “I help people to re-order their priorities.” • “I talk about my unusual lifestyle so that others might be inspired to follow.”r
One of the mottoes that I like to live by goes something like this: “Leave the world a better place than you found it; your community a better home than when you arrived and others happier than when you met them.”r
Family Travel Is Education. Today I watched as scientific data confirmed that the planet Earth had been split into pieces and vaporized. You see my family and I spent this afte oon at Meteor Crater in Arizona; the best preserved crater of its kind on Earth. The Apollo astronauts trained here for the lunar landings and studies continue here to understand what happens when objects from space impact the Earth and other heavenly bodies.r
Sometimes life seems so complex and chaotic that we really have no idea where to start to wrest back control over it. It may be necessary for you to take a personal time out. This time out may be with family and/or friends; like a vacation. However I believe that you really need to spend some time completely alone before you will be able to perceive your world with clarity. When’s the last time that you took time for yourself? When’s the last time you were all alone for an hour, a day, a weekend, or a month?r
Before you can even begin to reorder your life, you must surrender. Most people cringe at the thought of surrender. We are fighters. We don’t just give up. I am not suggesting that you surrender to others. I am suggesting that you surrender to yourself.r
There seem to be two kinds of people in this world. There are those who, when they want something to occur, they roll up their sleeves and do their best to make it happen. Let’s call these folks entrepreneurs. And then there are those who, when they want the very same thing, wait for someone else to make it happen. This latter group is also quite likely to b*tch and moan if things don’t turn out exactly as they wanted. Let’s call these folks consumers.r
So What’s Wrong With Dead Bunnies? Ahhhhh! Splat! Ewwwww... My kids have been complaining about the Internet filters we put on our PCs to prevent them from accessing inappropriate content. It’s a parent’s right and duty: right? My oldest is quite the crusader and may just be a budding Civil Rights lawyer. Nevertheless, these things are necessary. In protest, they have changed the background on one of our laptops to an image of a cartoon with a circle and slash over it, the image that they see indicating that inappropriate content was being accessed;r
The words of the wind; can you hear it? Listen to the little sounds. They carry the most powerful messages. As I grow more mature and learn to ignore the background noise that is the majority of my life I hear things. I hear simple things; natural sounds like those of the wind and the rain or man-made sounds. It doesn’t seem to matter. I often find that when I take a moment to listen to these sounds, without attempting to assign a label to any of it, they communicate with me in some meaningful way.r
Are You A Family Leader? The purpose of The Way of the Passionate Warrior is to create inspired and passionate family leaders. Yes, this site is about families but truly it is about family leadership. Are you a family leader? Not much happens in life without some sort of initiative and initiative is leadership even if you are the only one being led.r
In today’s economic chaos how can any of us ever hope to earn enough to break out of our life rut and start living the good life? The good news is that you don’t need to. Instead, what you must do is refocus your life on living with meaning; rather than on making money while developing unique skills to generate all the buying power that you will need at those moments that you need it.r