Today I’m sharing a post from Afraa Zammam, one of the authors of the Successful Kid: A Diary for Smart Young Minds. I had a chance to check out the diary and just love it! I think it’s exactly what kids need to get thinking about their goals and futures. Rather than telling you in my words, I’ll let Afraa share the meaningful story behind The Successful Kid.

The Story Behind the Successful Kid

by Afraa

Have you ever told yourself … “Man, if I only learned this earlier in life!”

I wish I had learned to write down goals and keep a diary at a younger age. It would have saved me a fortune and upgraded my future rather sooner. I grew up in Syria. These days the country is in deep trouble. When I left it was peaceful but still a developing country full of problems. So I left for Germany to study and to graduate. I met my husband there and we started our first company together. Today, we have two kids. They grow up tri-lingually. So we wrote a book about how to write down goals and achieve them. We published via amazon and became international #1 bestsellers. It was an amazing experience. We started collecting endorsements and got messages from Robin Sharma, Shawn Achor and many other leaders in the self-help world. We want kids to find their own definition of success, create a meaningful life and build an awesome future.

In our book we teach kids to write down goals and dreams, to keep a journal and to learn about focus and happiness. The Successful Kid is more a tool than a book. It is a diary or a journal that inspires to keep track of ideas, good questions we asked or had to answer. It is about building a library and a collection of good thoughts. Write down your ideas of a great future every day and this wonderful future will come almost naturally. Well, it worked in my case and I am sure it will work for you, too. Every week you get to write a short summary of what happened in the last 7 days. The book also teaches you to create a budget for your dreams, wants and needs. It is really that simple. I believe that a keeping a diary is key to happiness and to a fulfilled life.

When civil war broke out in Syria, my home country, some years ago, I had no idea that I would one day host my mother, a friend, her son and a brother in our home in Germany. They all had to flee Syria and we are now living together in one beautiful house in the Black Forest. Running an eight-person, three-generation family is fun but it takes a lot of work.

We have to manage three languages, English, German and Arabic, there is a lot of paper work for the refugees among us and we have to cook a lot. So we turned living together into a game. We hold family meetings with agendas and to do lists. Even the toddler takes part somehow. The kids create their own budgets all the time. A lot of inspiration comes from Shark Tank. Unlike most other families we know, we love to talk about money, prices and finance in general. We think it is very empowering and inspirational because this way we can learn from each other and grow, everybody according to their own speed and need. What I learn from my kids goes right into the next book we are working on. It is a series of dialogues concerning money, growth and success. I love listening to our kids’ questions and suggestions. We put our family first and we are committed to celebrate our children.

Learn more about Afraa and her books on The Successful Kid website. Follow along on Facebook and Twitter to keep up with exciting news!