There are many important things you’ll want to teach your children. You’ll need to help them learn physical things, like how to walk or throw a ball. You’ll help them learn academic subjects like math and history. You’ll teach them about moral values, however you define them.
It’s also important to teach them entrepreneurial values – and this is something that often gets neglected, especially by parents with minimal entrepreneurial experience. So what exactly are entrepreneurial values and how can they help your children succeed in life?
What Are Entrepreneurial Values?
Entrepreneurial values are qualities, philosophies, and concepts that are absorbed and embodied by entrepreneurs. For example:
- Calculated risk-taking. Entrepreneurship means taking a risk – and understanding the possible advantages and consequences of those risks.
- Willingness to fail. Great entrepreneurs move forward, even if they’re unsure of the future. They’re willing to fail, knowing that failure isn’t going to stop them.
- Persistence in achieving goals. The entrepreneurial mindset is also about persistence. You don’t stop trying to achieve a goal just because you meet an obstacle; you figure out a way around it.
- Confidence and leadership. Many business owners serve a leadership role within a team. They emanate confidence and inspire the people around them to do their best.
- Creative problem-solving. Most businesses are created to solve a problem, and entrepreneurs must creatively solve new problems that arise daily.
Why Teach Entrepreneurial Values?
There are many reasons to teach entrepreneurial values to your kids. For starters, it could help them become an entrepreneur someday. When you embody these values, you’re much more likely to start a business of your own. That could mean creating a brand-new concept for a business and launching a startup for the ground up. It could mean buying and managing a delivery route or a franchise. It could also mean taking over an existing business.
Running a business isn’t a guarantee of success, but it’s a brighter career path than many – especially if you’re willing to fail and try again with another business in the future.
On top of that, entrepreneurial values tend to lead people to success in other areas of life. In a mainstream career, your kids will be more confident and rise to leadership positions. They’ll accomplish work more successfully than their peers and will be more persistent in achieving their goals.
In a personal context, entrepreneurial values can help a person find more creative solutions to problems they face in daily life. They can also help you create a life that’s more satisfying, since you’ll be more diligent and focused on achieving your goals – whatever they happen to be.
How to Teach Entrepreneurial Values
So how are you supposed to teach these values? You can’t drill them into your kids the way you can with multiplication tables or historical facts. Instead, you’ll have to get more creative:
- Let your kids make more choices. Decisions are powerful. Letting your kids make decisions of their own will force them to think critically about their surroundings and make them feel in control of their own lives. It can also lead to better self-esteem and more confidence. These don’t have to be especially consequential; for example, you can ask your child to pick out their own clothes or choose whether to brush teeth or take a bath first at the end of the night.
- Try the lemonade stand approach. The lemonade stand is a classic example of teaching entrepreneurship, but it can work with almost any miniaturized business model. The basic idea is to let your child run a tiny business on their own (or mostly on their own). Teach them about supply and demand, creative marketing, and profitability – or at least gentle introductions to these topics.
- Make sure your kids know it’s okay to fail. Spend time ensuring your children know it’s okay to fail. Don’t berate them for mistakes, and instead praise them for taking a chance on something they didn’t understand. Failure isn’t the end; it’s just a step on the journey.
- Lead your kids in calculated risk-taking. Help your children figure out which risks are “worth it.” Walk them through their decisions, explaining the potential benefits and consequences. It will essentially teach them how to think about taking risks.
- Expose your kids to a variety of situations and people. Diversity of experience can make your kids even stronger entrepreneurs, so expose your kids to a wide variety of different situations and people.
With an entrepreneurial mindset, your children will be able to accomplish more in life. They’ll be more confident, more adaptable, and more satisfied in their daily lives. It takes time and patience to instill these values, but it’s worth it in the long run.
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This content is sponsored by Larry Alton.
Photo credit: Shutterstock