The burning desire in every parent’s heart is to have children who turn out “good.” Measurements of what is “good” may differ from family to family, and that’s OK. For the purpose of this article, “good” would mean that kids are kind, driven, tough, influential, intelligent, creative, and so on. The world is changing, and so are career paths and thoughts on higher education. So many of us may want to raise successful entrepreneurs, yet, the lingering question is: “How do I do this?” How exactly do we instill these characteristics in the people we are raising?
Here are three concepts to consider if instilling an entrepreneurial mindset in your children is something you dream of for your children, from an entrepreneur and hopeful future father.
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It’s Not too Early to Start Raising an Entrepreneur
The biggest cornerstone in raising an entrepreneur is to start early. A child is never too young to have goals and a path set before them. It is crucial for us to set goals for them early. When we say goals, we aren’t speaking of ones like how many friends they can make, or soccer goals they can score.
We are talking about bigger goals. Goals like learning the value of money or figuring out the difference between a want and a need. The sooner we give our kids goals like these, the quicker they will become engraved in them and have a better chance of becoming permanent. We must show our children that money really doesn’t grow on trees and that they must work to earn it. This can be done by showing them how long you must work for the money you make and what you can get with that, such as your house or car.
A strong work ethic is essential to be an entrepreneur, and teaching our kids the value of money and work at a young age will give them this.
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Teach Them About Entrepreneurship in Failure
A second cornerstone in raising an entrepreneur is to teach them how to overcome the inevitable low points that come with creating your own business in our society. The best way to do this is by allowing our kids to struggle. We must let our children solve their own issue. We do our children no favors when we simply do everything for them. The biggest way to build entrepreneurship is by letting one see what they are made of.
If they start to fail early in life, then they may learn how to do better next time a little earlier. If they succeed, then they have done it on their own and will be encouraged by that success. Success cannot be taken when it is earned, but what if we never give our kids the chance to earn it?
An entrepreneur must know how to both fail and succeed. Often, they know the feeling of failure or low points more than the feeling of success. However, if we can teach our kids to get back on the horse early then they will be more likely to take the risks needed to become an entrepreneur since they know they can overcome their low points. When we let our children sort out their issues, we allow them to be strong. We do this by encouraging them even when they fail to keep trying.
It teaches them to take adversity and low points head-on rather than cowering at struggle. This is a trait that will then be instinctual to them as they pursue a lifetime of entrepreneurship.
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Encouraging Entrepreneurship through Fostering Creativity
To encourage entrepreneurship, there must be a catalyst for creativity in our children. None of the CEOs or heads of Fortune 500 companies got to where they are at by being uncreative. To be an entrepreneur means to think beyond what others already have.
If we want our children to do this one day, we must foster their creativity and give it a place to grow. What many do not realize is that creativity can in fact die. If it is not developed early in life, it will never reach its potential capacity. Thus, when raising our kids, we need to make sure we are giving them space to enhance their creative ability. How do we do this? One way is encouraging them to think deeper and develop ideas that they already have. Allow them to brainstorm and try out their ideas for the world without interfering. Above all else, we must set creativity as the standard. Make divergent thoughts par and encourage them to settle for nothing less.
If parenting was a formula that you could plug actions into and get a certain type of person out of, it might be a lot easier than it is. Each child has a predisposed set of attributes that makes them who they are to their core. Some children may be naturally more of one thing than another, and it is important to remember this throughout their lifetime. Yet, we can encourage entrepreneurship, prepare our kids for the low points, and start teaching them early no matter what.
About the Author
Sean Pour can speak volumes on how adversity and failure can breed entrepreneurship. At the age of just 14 years old, Pour had to watch his parents’ business begin to drown in economic hardship. From this, he started his own company, SellMax in San Diego, that helped keep him and his family afloat. His company soon took off, and now has allowed him to become an advocate for entrepreneurship. You can learn more about Sean here.
