Both my mom and dad both cared deeply for my brother and I and they worked hard to make sure that we became happy, healthy, productive members of society. They taught me a great deal, but one lesson that made a deep impression on me, which don't think was taught intentionally, was the value of money.

When I say the value of money, I'm referring to what a person is willing to sacrifice in order to get money. This value is determined by comparing what you have to give up to what you get in return. Exchanging time for money is the basic transaction that fuels our society and economy. Depending on a broad spectrum of factors, the exchange rate can vary wildly.

​My parents were great. I think they did a good job raising me and my brother. We had a pretty adventurous ​childhood having spent time in Papua New Guinea, Australia, Montana, the Pacific North West, and the northern tip of Alaska.

From the time I was in Kindergarten to 2nd grade, my dad worked a job that required him to leave the house before I was awake and to return home as I was getting ready for bed. The pay wasn't great and the working conditions weren't great either. Mom and Dad decided that the exchange rate wasn't sustainable and that things had to change.

My parents had landed jobs in Alaska as teachers when I was starting 3rd grade. Given the remoteness of northern Alaska and the relatively harsh living conditions, the pay for a teaching job there was very good. Especially when compared to the salary of a teacher in the Pacific Northwest. Additionally, the isolation would force us be close to each other.

For the next 11 years, we spent the school year in Alaska and spent the summers in Washington or Montana. The pay was great and we were able to be close to each other. What I didn't realize at the time was that though we had accomplished our original goals, achieving them was coming at a cost that I wasn't aware of.

The living and working conditions that my parents were dealing with were harsh and hostile. The constant grinding that they endured in that environment took a heavy toll on them that, at the time, I only recognized as them being mean parents. In the years since, though, I see it very differently.

The money they were making was so good that they felt it was the best course of action to stay in this bad situation and tough it out for another year. Then another. And another. Four years turned into eight and then ten. Each year eroded a little bit of the spark of who they were.

I graduated from high school and moved away to go to college. With some time and distance between us, I was able to develop a new perspective on the situation. I saw more clearly the impact that had been made on Mom and Dad and how worn down they had become.

With this new understanding, I thought back to the times when I had wished that Dad had been in a better mood or that Mom hadn't been so tired. I remember wanting to spend time with them or talk to them about something or show them something that I had figured out in a video game.

I'm thankful for their sacrifice and recognize that they were doing it for my brother and I. However, when I think about the sacrifices they made and compare it to what they got in return, I don't think it was a good exchange rate. Certainly, it could have been worse, but trading health and happiness for money is a bad deal.

Sure, there are situations where this assessment doesn't work. I'm sure that we can come up with "what-if" scenarios in which making the sacrifice is worth it. But in my case, there were other options available that would have provided our family with the financial resources we needed without the need for the sacrifice of my parents health and happiness.

Your kids need you much more than they need the money you can provide.

To pass this week's challenge you have to set the example for your son.

Each of our son's have some behavior or habit that we want them to break. Maybe it's leaving socks lying around or watching too much TV or not doing the dishes. I've not had much success changing those behaviors by correction and instruction, but I have seen positive change when I set the example.

When I clean up after myself, my sons do better at it too. When I turn off the TV and read a book, so do they. Pick one behavior that you want to see change in your son and figure out a way you can demonstrate that to him in your own life.

People make bad choices all the time. Some times, people make the same bad choice again and again. Some of the same bad choices are made by a lot of people.

There isn't "one weird trick" to stop making bad choices or to avoid them altogether. You can't life hack your way out of having to make a decision about how you're going to behave.

You can, however, train and prepare yourself to make the right choices at the right times.

Think back to some of the worst decisions you've ever made. I know it sucks, but in order to do better, we have to evaluate our failures. Those bad choices you made, could you have anticipated that you would find yourself in the situation where you had to make that choice? Did the stars align in such a way as to have made it impossible to have predicted that your choices and actions would land you in a spot where you had to choose between the wrong thing and the right thing?

When we find ourselves unprepared and in a position where we have to make a choice about what to do or how to handle a situation, we're often reactive and short-sighted. These perspectives doesn't usually align with our long-term goals and plans for our lives and we end up choosing the short-term pleasure over the long-term joy.

So what can you do about it? How can you train yourself to make better choices?

There are a lot of tools you can use to do better and make better choices, but the one I want to focus on in this article is pre-decision making.

Just one more...

Try to imagine yourself in a situation where you have to make a choice. For example, imagine it's 11:30pm and you've got work tomorrow, but your buddies want to get one more round. It's easy to go with the flow and take one more drink, but you don't want to be the guy that's hung-over at work the next day.

If you walk into this situation without already having made a decision about what you're going to do, you'll probably end up taking that extra drink and maybe another. Maybe just one more for the road.

If, instead, you've already decided that you're going to punch out at 11:30, then you've got that much more strength to resist the teases from your friends when you tell them that you've got to go so you can get up early for work.

Working late...

Or what about when you have to work late with your attractive co-worker? That's not an unreasonable or uncommon situation. People work late all the time.

That's right. People do have to work late all the time. Choose now whether you're going to flirt or flirt back with that cutie so that when you end up in that situation, you'll make the right choice. Better yet, take steps to make sure you don't end up in the position where you have to make this choice at all!

Those kids!

If your kids are like mine, there's those things that I have to continuously remind them to do or to not do. It's infuriating. It happens ALL THE TIME and it pisses me off!

Yup, all the time. It happens so often that it's predictable. That means that I can decide now how I'm going to respond to it so when it happens again I can act the way I want to instead of the way I feel. Deciding now means that when I trip on their shoes in the doorway I'm not trying to figure out what to do about it while I'm angry and hurting.

To pass this week's challenge, you have to spend 10 minutes in focused thought.

Some people might call this meditation, but I like to think of it as focused thought. The word "meditation" comes with a lot of baggage, much of which I don't want to deal with, but there is a significant benefit to spending time in focused thought.

Sit somewhere comfortable and quiet where you won't be distracted for 10 minutes. Set a timer and then forget about it. Then close your eyes and just think about something. Anything will do. You could think about:

• Noises you hear, imagine a story about what causes those noises.
  
• The meal you'll eat later and all the work that went in to preparing that meal.
  
• How your lungs rip oxygen out of the air and send it through your body in your blood.

Don't worry if you find your mind drifting from the topic that you're focusing on. Just refocus your mind back to the original thought and keep going. After a while, you'll start to wonder if you goofed up when you set the timer. Resist the urge to check it and trust that you did it right the first time.