THE TOOLBOX

Napoleon Hill, who wrote the book Think and Grow Rich, said:

“What the mind of man can conceive and believe, the mind of man can achieve.”

Can it really be that what we are able to envision and believe can be achieved ? Yes! When Napoleon Hill studied America’s most successful men, the trait they all had in common was their unshakeable belief in their ability to succeed. The key is belief.

Why is that important ? In our book, Swim the Lake Before You Row the Boat: Awaken a Boy’s Success Mindset, Unleash His Confidence and Give Him the Foundation for a Great Life, we explain that the real secret of success is that we attract what we believe. Good or bad, when we type a belief into the Google search bar of our mind, it will bring us more of the same. This means we want to focus on a future we want to see and that we believe is possible.

The future we are able to envision for ourselves, or that a child is able to envision for himself, depends upon our belief in what is possible for us. That, in turn, depends upon what we believe about ourselves. It is that belief, the one a child holds about himself, that is the target of our proven Flying Eagle Formula.

Tools to Build a Success Mindset

When it comes to raising boys, the first tool we must start with is the vision we hold of the end result we want to see from our efforts. It is the first step in conceiving and believing what is possible – what can and will be achieved. What you believe about a child affects every interaction you have together. To help a child create a future of success, you must envision that success – regardless of what the present looks like to you now. This vision helps to create the framework that shapes and supports a child’s future

The Flying Eagle Formula is a unique toolbox tools designed to hold the tools you’ll need to help a child build a solid and strong framework. Its tools will bring you success as you raise the young people around you to their own life of success.

A Mental Pattern of Success

The program followed at Camp Flying Eagle was designed to use the Flying Eagle Formula to embed a mental pattern of success in young minds, knowing that patterns of belief created in childhood repeat themselves throughout our lives.

The experience of success, the memory of success, and the emotion of success, all change our way of thinking about ourselves. Having experienced it, our thoughts turn to its re-creation, to doing it again, to re-experiencing the thoughts and emotions that fill us when we succeed. Success becomes our identity. By helping a child experience success, it establishes the belief that he IS a successful person. We help him create his identity as a successful person with a mental thought pattern of success.

In Swim the Lake we show you easy and effective ways to create the experiences of success that build that identity and mental pattern of success. They are tools for your toolbox. We also explain why these specific experiences work. When applied as we suggest, they build the beliefs that will attract future success.

Powerful Tools

When you fill your toolbox with these tools and use them as we suggest, they will help you help a child build the beliefs that attract his future success. By using these tools to embed those beliefs now, you are literally creating the future now. They are powerful tools, indeed! And, as we explain in the book, while many of them look like suggestions you may have heard before, your reason for doing them as part of the Formula is different and focuses your efforts toward beliefs you are working to create.
You cannot simply hope that well-intentioned activities and actions will produce great future results. Unless you focus on the specific beliefs you want to create in a child, your efforts are like the spaghetti method – “throw it on a wall and hope something sticks.” The Flying Eagle Formula focuses on the ONE thing guaranteed to get the results you want and shows you how to use the following tools to embed the specific beliefs that create future success:
  • Forming a mental picture of the outcome you are trying to create,
  • Finding the “something” at which a child can succeed,
  • Finding ways to celebrate a child’s unique strengths and accomplishments,
  • Not criticizing less-than-perfect efforts,
  • Finding a way for a child to contribute as part of a team,
  • Building traditions, even from everyday activities,
  • Creating and keeping a schedule and routine
  • Giving a child advance notice of the schedule and time to transition
  • Allowing a child to have personal choice over personal matters
  • Holding rules to a minimum and only for the most important things
  • Taking time to really listen to a child’s ideas and opinions,
  • Exploring new places,
  • Building anticipation and fun into every week – even every day,
  • Making sure boys aren’t hungry if you want them to pay attention,
  • Showing genuine love and caring, and
  • Not being as hard on a child as you are on yourself,

5 Secrets That Make the Difference

Download a copy of easy tips to remember and use.

    Special Tools

    Have you ever seen a picture of a man moving a giant boulder by himself ? The trick is the board he is using as a lever. The leverage it produces, combined with his own efforts, gives him faster, easier results. A carrot peeler does the same thing for carrots; a paint brush does the same for applying paint. Each is a special tool that helps us get the results we want.

    In Swim the Lake, we show you different ways the Formula’s tools will help you get the results you want. We explain how the Formula was implemented at Camp Flying Eagle to show examples you can adapt. The Action Step exercises at the end of each chapter will help you think of different ways to use the Formula’s tools in your own family. The Flying Eagle Formula Workbook makes it easy to map out your own vision and formula for each child’s success. More important, we show you the exact beliefs you’ll want to instill and why, and the steps to take to instill those beliefs. And you’ll discover easy ways to keep your efforts on track. These special tools are all designed to give you faster and easier results.

    In addition, we’ve put together a list of resources that can also help you create faster results. Many of them we have tried or used ourselves, some have been recommended by friends or former campers and counselors, and still others are links to more information. As you might expect, we have a bias toward summer camps and have included information about a few Michigan camps we know and like. But any experience that allows a boy to be “on his own,” in a supportive and positive environment that helps build his success mindset with positive beliefs about his own abilities, is a good investment.

    Summer Camp Information


    American Camp Association     Search over 2,400 ACA Accredited camps.

    Michigan Summer Camps

    Mystic Lake YMCA Camp – High quality camping programs for children and teens. “Our programs focus on helping campers develop the skills that are necessary for them to have great success in life. We believe our programs help children gain confidence, make great friends, teach lifelong skills and further their maturity. All of our programs place a strong emphasis on skill building, teambuilding and personal growth. Whether your child registers for our traditional Mystic Experience program (ages 7-14) or opts for one of our many specialty camps, (such as Fishing, Horseback Riding, Teen Adventure, etc.), we believe you will find comfort in knowing they are safe and having fun!”

    Camp Tanuga – “Tanuga is deeply committed to the philosophy of a traditional camping experience. Values, as depicted by our respect for nature, the environment, and the development of accepting others for who they are, stand out in our mission. Our objective for each camper is to build self-confidence, develop a cohesive family feeling and create the assurance of belonging. The sense of accomplishment and confidence that develop each summer, carry over throughout the year into the camper’s classrooms, future relationships, and during periods of difficult transitions into adulthood.”

    Camp Lookout – “Our camp is small enough for everyone to know each other, yet large enough to offer diversified and interesting programs. Campers and staff plan daily activities together and share the responsibility for establishing many of the necessary policies and rules of the camp. This community of campers and staff share the necessary camp chores– assisting with meal preparation, washing dishes, cleaning cabins, and helping with simple construction projects. Campers choose their activities two times each day and most activities are offered to every camper regardless of age, gender or cabin group. We attempt to make choices as varied as possible.”

    Crystalaire Adventures – Today, the focus on non- competitive learning environments, the freedom to choose your daily journeys, and opportunities for participants to discover friends, themselves, and the world around them endures with adaptive programming strategies to meet the needs of kids in the 21st century. Crystalaire continues in the spirit of adventure based alternative education, as it has for almost a century. Through boating, backpacking, biking and more, we help campers foster a sense of belonging to the rest of the world and gain the skills necessary to change strangers into friends. Evolving since 1920, Crystalaire has worked with groups of young men and women of all experience levels. Our expeditions are built around community involvement: every trip participant is included in planning and preparation for the trip, deciding activities, leading discussions, and carrying out the daily work of out-of-door living. Wherever possible, this includes decision making about routes and directions, meals, and more.”

    Resources That Explore How Our Thoughts and Emotions Create Our Present and Future

    The Nature of Personal Reality –by Jane Roberts – A Seth Book. Get started at http://sethquotes.paradisenow.net/seth_excerpts_part_i.html

    As a Man Thinketh –a classic by James Allen
    Think and Grow Rich –the classic by Napoleon Hill.

    The Work – Sometimes as adults we are not as positive and helpful as we might be with the children around us. Often we react to things in our own past with beliefs that really don’t fit the situation. Here is an easy – and free – way to uncover and examine those beliefs. On the website www.TheWork.com look for the link to “Resources” or “Downloads.” Open or download the “Judge Your Neighbor” worksheet and the “One Belief at a Time” worksheet. Fill in the name of a child or adult who is really driving you nuts and follow the simple directions. You can also watch videos of others going through the exercise.

    The Bible – Regardless of which version one reads, the message of the Resurrection calls us to faith. The strong emphasis on family and caring for one another other is the foundation of our desire to give our children the tools and experiences that will enrich their lives and lead to success.

    A Course In Miracles – Christian in the terms used, but universal in its application, this treatise suggests that what we think creates the world we see. It includes 365 lessons to follow, one for each day of the year. We recommend the Circle of Atonement Complete Edition as it is the most complete and easy to understand.
    The Silva Method – A method of accessing inner awareness. “Enriching the planet by empowering the individual. A better you…A better world!”
    www.silvamethodct.com

    Resources That Help With Problem Behavior

    Calm the Chaos – Strong-willed, spirited, explosive, and highly sensitive are just a few of the most common labels for challenging kids. Whether your child has been diagnosed with a behavioral condition, labeled, or is just harder than other children you’ve met, you are in luck. Parenting expert, Dayna Abraham can help.
    Calm the Chaos is a clearly organized, methodical approach to parenting. Dayna has created a road map to help parents find peace and meet their kids where they are at when conventional parenting tools have failed. There are five steps to calming the chaos—Getting to Safety, Restoring Trust and Energy, Finding Calm in the Moment, Getting Ahead of the Moment, and Defining Family Success. Each step employs a framework that is easy to remember, even when emotions run high: you ground yourself, you connect with your kid, you work with them to understand the catalyst and the issue at the heart, and then together you get curious about finding an empowered solution.
    Backed by science and tested by hundreds of thousands of families, Calm the Chaos is a revolutionary road map complete with in-the-trenches stories, scripts, prompts, and worksheets that make it simple for parents to build a safe home and support healthy kids.
    Find this and more at: https://lemonlimeadventures.com/
    Child Mind Institute – When children struggle with their behavior, it can have a negative impact on everyone in the family. Parents know they need to respond, but they often aren’t sure what’s the best strategy, especially if a child is frequently acting out and nothing seems to work.

    This resource collection from the Child Mind Institute offers parents a comprehensive look at problem behavior. It covers many topics, including what may be triggering problem behavior, how to improve the parent-child relationship when it becomes strained, what to do if kids are struggling with behavior in school, and how to get professional help if you need it. The suite is also available in Spanish.

    The collection is divided into individual sections:
      • Behavior Basics
      • Toddlers and Young Children
      • Managing Big Emotions
      • Common Behavior Issues
      • Behavior and School
      • Strategies for Managing Behavior
      • Mental Health and Problem Behavior
      • Treatment for Problem Behavior

    Each of these sections is then broken down into stand-alone articles. For example, the section “Toddlers and Young Children” includes 5 articles:

    • How to Discipline Toddlers
    • Problem Behavior in Preschoolers
    • First Person: Reining in Casey’s Aggression
    • Talking to Toddlers
    • What NOT to Do When Your Child Is Having a Tantrum
    So you can readily see what a treasure trove this collection is about behavior problems and how to both understand and address them.
    Access the collection in English: https://childmind.org/topics/behavior-problems/
    Access the collection in Spanish: https://childmind.org/es/temas/problemas-de-comportamiento/
    (Thanks to the Center for Parent Information and Resources for this summary.)
    Decoding Learning Differences – Struggling to understand your child’s IEP and how to write goals that work? Education specialist Kimberlynn Lavelle shares insights and tips from her 20 years as a special education teacher and Education Consultant.
    Find her podcast on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com or at https://DecodingLearningDifferences.com
    Contact her for personal help at : https://kimberlynnlavelle.com

    10 Ways to Show Love and Appreciation

    1. Put notes in his lunch box or pocket.
    2. Give him a “special hour” where he picks an activity you will do with him.
    3. Put down your phone or turn away from the TV whenever he speaks to you.
    4. Take him with you to work and explain your job and what you do.
    5. Let him help you with a project.
    6. Be interested in his opinion. Ask “What do you think about that?”
    7. Read a bedtime story to him every night.
    8. Take him out to lunch or dinner every month so it becomes a tradition. Make it special by sitting down together to eat and talk.
    9. Ask “What’s the funniest thing that happened today?”
    10. Put his artwork up on the wall or refrigerator. Frame it if you can.