Raising children entrepreneurs

[ijfamily]

The society is gradually tilting towards making entrepreneurship the bedrock for individual survival. Gone are the days when formal education was held in the highest esteem, and people with higher degrees and certificates were idolized. There's a shift in focus these days, and subtly so. The trendy qualification now is entrepreneurial competence and vocational skills acquisition. Where is this discourse taking us to? It's taking us to realize the fact that every child should be exposed to entrepreneurship training early enough. In addition to formal education, every child should be given the opportunity to acquire skills that can ultimately help them to become entrepreneurs. Acquisition of skills is one of the key entrepreneurial  competences every individual should possess in the contemporary society. Kids are not left out in this trend. Let's catch them young!

Shalom.

[bfd723]

Well, this might be a long one ‘cause I’ve thought about this topic a lot before and feel passionate about it, but hear me out if you will:

I totally get where you are coming from, Shalom, and absolutely concur with your vision. But bear in mind that as of yet it is nothing more than that - a vision. Have you thought about how it would actually be implemented?

In my opinion, you are making it sound unrealistically simple. You are talking like its implementation is already taking place and that it is just going to happen by inertia. No, my friend, I'm afraid that is wishful thinking.   

Training kids in entrepreneurship, and implementing it at social level… how would you go about that?

Do you have any idea how adverse family and friends are about their “loved one” pursuing entrepreneurship? ...That is the small scale of the problem, which is easier to analyze, so let’s take a look at that for a minute.  

You see, most of us entrepreneurs have come to realize how overvalued formal education is and how underestimated unconventional education methods are (like self-education or mentorship), but that is only because we have "been there, done that and bought the T-shirt"; we are either entrepreneurs ourselves or are close to some. Nevertheless, we are a very small minority in the big picture. 

Pretty much every successful entrepreneur I know of did not only have to not share their ambitions and projects while "in the trenches" (working their way to success), but they even had to hide the fact that they were working very hard and aiming real high. It sounds so absurd, but the explanation is very simple and logical: They had to take those measures in order to avoid ruthless skepticism and relentless criticism which would sabotage their ambitions.

If and when aspiring entrepreneurs do share and people (especially family) know what they were up to... it’s game over. It may sound a bit exaggerated, but no, make no mistake, people will do their very best to dissuade and discourage a young entrepreneur from their “crazy and silly” ambitions… and they will manage it because it is almost impossible to deal with that kind of pressure at a young age. It is hard enough to truly decide to be an entrepreneur, even harder without any moral support, and trying to do it with constant criticism from friends and family… well, it's just too much to cope with.

Entrepreneurship requires total belief, commitment, resolution, consistency, focus, perseverance, resilience, and relentlessness - especially at the beginning. And hearing constant skepticism and criticism from family and friends is like putting one hurdle after another to an athlete at the starting point of a race; they just won’t have the momentum to get over them.   

Sure, friends and family are not doing it because they are mean people. They actually believe they are caring and protecting their "loved one". How sweet, yeah, but they are also crushing the potential entrepreneur's dreams and stopping them from fulfilling their true potential.

People simply do not believe, they disapprove and even condemn anything unknown or unfamiliar that represents significant changes - it's just human nature.

Since the industrial revolution times, society has only known one way of "succeeding" in life, and that is to specialize in a particular skill (get a degree or some qualification), work your way up in a company or corporation as the years go by, pay your monthly bills with your monthly salary, and then eventually retire safely to finally relax and enjoy life. As pathetic or miserable as this formula may sound, at least to an entrepreneur, we cannot ignore the fact that it is so ingrained in the general population that it is probably even stamped in human DNA.

So, you cannot easily combat these centurial, deep-rooted, traditional life concepts with a couple of decades of new discoveries by a small minority. You can try... but just take a look at history and human nature. We tend to hold on to familiarity and safety at all costs, we resist even the smallest of changes and are terrified by big, life-altering ones. Revolutionary ideas tend to get attacked by the masses like a dangerous, wild beast that has entered a safe haven, they will beat it with sticks till it stops moving, swiftly, before it gets far and threatens to change anything. A primal, survival instinct of fear is activated in people when they are faced with big changes that they don't feel comfortable and safe with. 

We know that individuals find it difficult to change habits, and if we are talking about society, well, we can pretty much multiply that difficulty factor by the population figure. 

There is hope, though! Because when people actually see results, like, real money on the table and on a consistent basis, their fears magically subside; they scratch their heads, rub their chins, and finally nod in confused approval. But nothing else works. You can mention a hundred examples of successful entrepreneurs, show them articles, videos, etc., And it will not have the same effect - it just won't work, for some complicated psychological reason which I can't be bothered understanding. The point is that there is a way to break that fear and skepticism, and the bad news is that it can only be accomplished by showing first-hand evidence - after the entrepreneur has gone through the toughest part of their journey with no support.

There are great examples of young entrepreneurs out there who miraculously managed to pursue their dream despite all the criticism. And they all mention how hard their family and friends made it for them in terms of skepticism and even ridicule at the beginning:

Check out Iman Gadzhi on Youtube. Very sharp and responsible young guy - 21, I believe. He conscientiously decided to drop out of school in order to fully dedicate to online entrepreneurship. He knew very well what he was doing. His family was struggling financially and he foresaw that going to college would only make life harder for his single mother and that it would not solve their economic problems (at least not in some 10 years, so he was like, to hell with that). His judgment was lucid and his decision was bold and assertive. Through pure self-education and diligent hard work, in less than two years he started making more money than he ever would have been able to with a conventional education and corporate career. And most interestingly, just listen to him talk about business, marketing and what it takes to succeed; I’m sure he knows more than others out there with master’s degrees. So, logically, his friends and family pretty much regard him as a hero... now... but! When he dropped out of school and declared his entrepreneurial plans, everybody saw it as a total tragedy. He had to play deaf to all the criticism and dissuasion attempts in order to keep at it. His unusual maturity and decisiveness somehow got him through it all – most couldn’t cope with that.

Also definitely check out Mike Vestil (anywhere on the Web), another fascinating example. His traditional parents gave him two options when he finished high school: "You can either become a dentist or a doctor". The entrepreneurial voice in his head was louder and he went against his parent's will. They were deeply disappointed and depressed, to put it lightly. They saw it as betrayal from their son's behalf, and as a failure on their part for not bringing up a sensible child. ...Ah! But everything changed when Mike started paying for his little sister's college and traveling the world while consistently sending checks back home to his family. Now, after only 4 years, which is the time he would have spent getting a degree and getting his family into debt, he has made more money than his parents ever dreamed possible and they are so proud of him that his father has even become his real-estate business partner.   

Sadly, I have never heard of an exception to this rule; all families of young entrepreneurs react the same way when they hear about the plans or intentions of their children with regards to entrepreneurship. They are convinced their children are doomed by going astray from the traditional path. So, it stands to reason that parents would simply, downright disapprove and not allow their little (underage) kids to start taking an entrepreneurial path – considering they would have the legal right and power to prohibit it, unlike the examples mentioned above where they could not physically stop them due to their children’s age.

The microcosm-macrocosm theory states that what happens on the small scale also happens on the large scale. Perfect examples of this correlation are the physical laws that apply to an atom as well as to the solar system, and the social dynamics that we can observe in families as well as in society as a whole.

Therefore, after taking a look at individuals within families, it is not hard to predict how society would react to kids (in general) taking entrepreneurial studies at school.

You see, kids at school are already overloaded. Studies reveal that kids have too much work and too little play nowadays. So you can’t just add on more stuff to their school curriculum. In order to make space for proper entrepreneurial studies and training (which proposes a very different vision of life), you would have to ditch a lot of what is currently being taught at schools. We are talking about restructuring the whole schooling system… which would surely affect higher education as well. So, we are actually looking at a revolution in the entire education system and ideology.

You may think I’m making it a bigger deal than needs be, but I think that any other way of looking at it would be oversimplifying and unrealistic. We have to take into account that the traditional way of teaching and entrepreneurial training are conflictive or even contradictory in various aspects; they are practically two different philosophies of life. So, you can’t just add on entrepreneurship as an after-school activity or merge it with other classes. It would have to replace other subjects which are generally deemed useless or counter-productive in an entrepreneurial perspective.

Basically, we would have to choose between training kids to follow orders and fill spots in companies, or to think outside the box and find innovative ways to serve society by using their unique qualities – you can’t do both, that would really confuse kids.

And if we tried to implement the latter, I think parents and people, in general, would go nuts; I guarantee you they would resist and object, big time.

People particularly do not like changes from something they are used to, familiar and comfortable with, to something that (to them) is unknown, vague and implies an uncertain future for their kids – one that they cannot visualize and therefore doesn’t inspire them trust.

Most all parents want a predictable future for their kids - one that they feel comfortable and familiar with. They want it simple. They want to hear things like “Dad, I’m going to be a lawyer” or “Mom, I want to work at the bank”, and then envision them walking to a secure job every day in a suit and tie.

Parents freak-out when their kids say things like “I’m going to be an artist” or “I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet. I want to travel for a couple of years and discover myself”. They generally are not at peace if they can’t visualize their children’s future, and in order to visualize it they need it to be predictable and familiar to them.  

“We’re going to discontinue half of the current school syllabus of your kids and replace it with entrepreneurial studies, which will incentivize them to think for themselves and chose their own paths in life – which may or may not include higher education”… That is not what parents want to hear! 

So! ...as I started off saying, I’m all for this vision, but after spelling-out the complexity of the scenario here, I leave you with the core question: How on earth would you propose these changes could take place on a social or national scale? 

I think the question is probably more pertinent to politics. I am no politician and don't like politics, so all I know is that, as Shalom said in the post above, "every child should be exposed to entrepreneurship training", I totally agree... but I have no idea how this could be implemented on a mass scale (that is what is implied by “every child”).

All that said, the world is changing very rapidly and somewhat unpredictably now. So, who knows, perhaps a revolution in the whole education system is actually conceivable sooner than we tend to think at the moment. Lately, there have been so many advances in society which we did not think would happen so soon.

In my opinion, such a revolution in the education system is long overdue. The current one is based on the industrial revolution age and no longer prepares kids for this world adequately.

Oh! one last thing. If you are into this whole topic, you must look up Tai Lopez. He’s a multi-millionaire, college drop-out entrepreneur with a massive following online and offline. He knows a lot about a lot of things and is very interesting to listen to. This extremely knowledgeable and influential guy is all for a radical change in the current education system. He believes it’s all wrong right now, expresses it in a very eloquent and logical manner, and people are listening to him. Ironically, he was even invited to speak at Harvard University about his ideas.

Tai Lopez has declared many times that if he were to have kids he would take a very different approach with their education. I think that, what we can conclude from examples like Tai Lopez, is that, the only parents that would be excited about their kids taking entrepreneurial studies, would be those who are successful entrepreneurs themselves; as we analyzed above, only when people see results for themselves is when they change their minds about the matter.

Perhaps it just needs to spread, and it probably will. Maybe there is no need for a revolution or a politicized movement. Hopefully, the need for a change in how we educate our children will simply become just too obvious to keep ignoring… and the shift will occur naturally. That’s a nice picture to imagine. Let’s stick with that idea.

Thank you for reading through,

Brian.

[Johnbosco]

In the past, childhood was seen as an ignorant stage. Children were prevented from trying new things for fear of damage or accidents.

Today in our jet age, children have shown amazing characters and innovations. Innovations and discoveries our old minds could not do.

In today's children, we see talented artists, scientists, sportsmen, and big brains. If we can allow our children try new things, such as baseball competitions, art conventions, and some scientific research movements for kids, we will be amazed at what the world will become in few decades.