Raising Our Kids To Aspire To Be Entrepreneurs

An Entrepreneur is someone who "organizes, operates and assumes the risk for a business venture."

In a recent Teds video, Cameron Herold says we need to be raising more of our kids to aspire to be entrepreneurs, leaders who create jobs, versus getting good "safe" jobs. Even with MBA students we groom them to get corporate jobs. Key tips:

• Teach your children not to waste money.

• Teach your children to save a large percentage of the money they make from an early age.

• Ask your kids to look around the house and yard and come back with a proposal of what needs to get done and how much they would charge for it. Negotiate with them on the final fee.

• Make one night a week story telling vs. story reading at bedtime. Give them 5 items and ask them to make a story about it. This teaches them to think on their feet, develops creativity and polish and confidence with speaking.

• Foster in them the following: attainment, persistence, tenacity, sales, handling failure, boot strapping, speaking, leadership.

I believe that developing a comfort level with taking and managing risks, and working into the unknown are skills and character traits that will only increase in demand in the 21st century.  Why not identify kid's entrepreneur potential in school versus just slotting them on the talented math, English or science tracks?

These times are screaming for applied creativity in business ventures. What if your entrepreneurial spirit and appetite for taking risks were fostered in school?

These can best be addressed, as Herold says, by remembering when you were a kid and all things were possible. It's time to dream and play. And never give up.