Raising Entrepreneurs

A while ago I wrote about the issue of whether or not to keep kids in the loop about the family finances.

I have recently started writing articles on HubPages (just go to www.HubPages.com and search “kids money” and you’ll find them), and I had some interesting feedback on one of the pages this week.

Lissie wrote on my Hub titled “How Much Should Kids Know About The Family Finances?” that she was amazed we even asked the question.

Wow I had no idea parents hide finances from their kids how silly is that.  I grew up in a single parent family and my mother worked under the table, paid in cash, to make ends meet.  The cash was kept in an old honey pot at the back of the fridge - I distinctly remember at about 12 or so knowing to check the amount of money in the stash before I asked for something - mum never said we were poor  and we never went hungry or without essential clothes and shoes.  We just knew instinctively that we couldn’t afford to go on expensive school outings or get expensive clothes etc!  Neither of us kids ever stole anything from the stash either - we knew that she worked hard for it.  I think it was great, but unintentional, lesson of the value of money and work!

I think Lissie says it all, really - kids know, even if you don’t explicitly tell them. How much more understanding could they have if you involved them in your thinking about the issues, and in developing solutions?

Thanks for the feedback, Lissie, and congratulations to your mother for making it through some very tough years!

Kids below the age of puberty have much freer access to their subconscious minds than adults have, which has its pluses and its minuses.

If you teach them how to use the power of their subconscious minds from an early age, kids can be incredibly powerful in rewriting their inner programs “on the fly”.

What’s more, since they haven’t yet learned to defend their ego “this is just the way I am”, if you can provide some positive experiences, you have a good shot at creating an adult who is not afraid of change and personal growth!

Opportunities arise on a regular basis. One particularly dramatic one arose for us when we were on a family holiday for two weeks with unlimited day passes to three theme parks. One of our twins (aged eight) developed a habit by the third or fourth day of getting increasingly nervous while queuing for a ride, and then eventually bailing out as she reached the head of the line. In one case, the attendant even offered her $2.50 if she got on the ride, but she wouldn’t do it.

I sat her down and explained how phobias develop. I told her that her body was like a little two-year-old, and all it wanted was to stop the fear. It didn’t know the fear would stop when she went through the ride and came out the other end, because it only learns by doing - it’s too “young” to think. Each time she stopped and backed away from the ride, the fear would subside, and that pattern would grow stronger.

I told her that Big Girl Rachael needed to teach Little Girl Rachael that going through was a better way to end the fear. All that Big Girl Rachael needed to do was to take charge of the body, and put one foot in front of the other until she was actually sitting on a ride. Once the seat belt was done up, the ride would do the rest.

She sat for a long time on a barrel at the head of a queue, and eventually she stood up and stepped onto the ride.

Afterward, she told me “It’s like there’s a wise old woman inside me, and I just put her in charge.”

It took a few more run-throughs before the grip of fear was completely broken, but by the end of the next day she was running around to get back on the ride as soon as possible.

As you can imagine, an experience like this one lays down a great foundation for facing fearful situations in the future. By harnessing the power of subconscious imagery, she managed to get her subconscious working with her conscious (instead of against it) to achieve a positive outcome. In the future, whether it is a driving test, a job interview, or a difficult conversation with a partner, she will be able to create a similar visualisation of her inner “wise old woman” and put her in charge.

If you are not familiar with subconscious processes and how to work with them, I would encourage you to learn. Whether it’s NLP, self-hypnosis, guided meditation, visualisation, or “inner child” work, anything which gives you an insight into the subconscious will pay huge dividends, personally and professionally, and be a lasting treasure you can pass on to your children.

There is a common misconception that only certain personalities are suited to business. In fact, people of all types have become successful entrepreneurs - the trick is to know your strengths (and weaknesses), and choose the right kind of business.

As a parent, it’s good to be alert for your young entrepreneurs’ qualities, and steer him or her towards businesses which suit their personalities.

A great way to think about different types of personalities in business is provided by Roger Hamilton in his book Your Life, Your Legacy. Hamilton distinguishes eight different types of entrepreneurs, and provides biographies of over 30 famous entrepreneurs, divided into the eight types for easy comparison.

Creators move a million miles an hour, spinning ideas like a Catherine wheel. They are great at coming up with really cool idea, but tend to be weak on following through to completion. With the right team to handle the boring detail of making their vision a reality, Creators can do just about anything. For example, Richard Branson and his space tourism business.

Stars shine in the light of public attention. They love to talk about great ideas, but can quickly lose their shine if they are required to slog through masses of routine activity. Given a great product, a Star can quickly whip up a frenzy of excitement in the marketplace - think of Oprah, and the value of getting an endorsement from her.

Supporters are the leaders of teams. They care deeply about other people, and will always check in to see how everyone is feeling before committing to a course of action. Without direction, their lives can become an endless round of pleasant chats with nothing to show for it, so they need to team up with a Creator or a Mechanic to give them a direction in which to lead the team. Jack Welch of GE is a classic Supporter profile - his ability to get the best out of people is legendary.

Deal Makers put people together to create new opportunities. They are always connecting, talking, listening, remembering endless details of who is up to what, and their catch-cry is “ah, I know someone who might be able to help you with that …” Deal Makers lose out when they forget to create value out of all their wining and dining, or forget to make sure they get a piece of the action. Donald Trump is a Deal Maker.

Traders have an unerring radar for bargains. They can pick a value buy on the stock market, at a flea market, or in commercial real estate. Stuck in roles where they can’t see both sides of a deal, the buy and the sell, they can go their whole lives without ever realising their true gift, but when they have the full picture, they are masters at realising value. George Soros is a master Trader.

Accumulators make their money from buying well and holding assets for the long term. If Accumulators fail, it is because they wait too long to take action, or keep their knowledge to themselves instead of building a team around them. The most famous Accumulator of recent times is Warren Buffet.

Lords love the detail, unlike the flashy Creators and Stars, and may even be accused of being “stingy”. Lords excel st squeezing every last percentage point of performance out of an asset. They don’t even need to own the assets to collect cash flow from them - they are happy merely to control the revenues. They love control and hate risk, and their tendency to micro-manage makes them poor leaders of organisations. Given the right team to compensate for those weaknesses, Lords can make money consistently in any niche, regardless of the conditions around them, capitalising on difficult times to acquire their competitors and eventually dominate entire markets. Rockefeller, Carnegie, and J. Paul Getty were all Lords.

Mechanics tinker with businesses the way that some folks tinker with car engines. They can always see a way to improve a system! Many Mechanics find it hard to get going, because they can’t decide what business to start. A Mechanic needs a Creator to start something, and a Deal Maker to get the money rolling, before they can truly shine in their role as the person who takes the one small outlet and builds a system which will spread that little business all over the globe. Sam Walton, Ray Kroc (founder of McDonalds), and Henry Ford were all Mechanics.

Study your young entrepreneur carefully, and you will start to get clues about their individual Wealth Profile. Do they have a new passion every week? Are they always preening in front of the mirror? Can they talk to just about anyone? Are they always coming up with suggestions for people to contact? Do they love a bargain? Do they save money naturally? Do they like to take things slowly and minimise risk? Or do they always complain that they way things are done is “stupid”, and want to change the system?

Work with your child’s natural strengths, and you will not only help them create a business today, you will also give them vital clues as to their most enjoyable and easiest lifetime path to wealth.

This page brought to you by:

Do  you want to ensure your little entrepreneur has a good future?   If you’re looking to sign up for savings accounts out there, so consider before you decide. The APR of various credit card programs can be different, so then you should start with collecting information. There are many types of student credit cards - read through the terms carefully.

I have had a couple of emails lately from parents, containing attitudes which I found a little worrying.

We support the teaching of business skills to kids, and we encourage parents to help their kids put those skills into practice by starting a business of their own. We support and encourage these activities because financial understanding is a vital life skill, and the standard education curriculum in most places doesn’t really cover money and business terribly well.

We are not providing support and encouragement for parents to use their kids as a get-rich-quick scheme, or because we expect all kids in the Cash-Smart Kids program to be making thousands per month within a year or two.

When I get questions from parents like “How soon will my son be making $2,000 per month if we follow your system?” and “How can I skip over all this theory and get my kids into a business making real money?” I get a sense that perhaps some parents have lost perspective.

Focus on teaching your child the skills, not on how fast the money will come in.

If your child only ever makes $20 per month from their business efforts, they will still be head-and-shoulders above the average kid their age in self-confidence, financial savvy, and employability.

Sure, kids like Ashley Qualls make a lot of money in business.

Business is like any other pursuit. Daniel Radcliffe makes a lot of money as a child actor, but there are hundreds of thousands of child actors who only make pocket money, and millions for whom acting is just a hobby.

The kids who don’t make much money from their acting still get all the life skills and benefits of the experience - the self-confidence, public speaking ability, the contacts, maturity, and “the show must go on” attitude.

Similarly, the kids who don’t make much money from a business in their teens or tweens still get all the life skills and benefits of the experience.

As far as I am concerned, those life skills and other benefits are the meat and potatoes - the profits are just gravy.

If you take your child into the business world and are constantly sniffing around for quick money, you will shoot yourself in the foot. Your child won’t have fun if they feel pressure from you to “perform”, and you will constantly have the impulse to shoulder them aside and do things that you can do “better”. You’ll likely have trouble mustering the patience to work through the lessons and explain the concepts to your child, so their learning will be less successful.

If you want money for the family, start a business yourself. Don’t pollute your child’s fun learning experience with anxious adult expectations.

Think about it this way - if you get this right, your child will be well-placed to pay for a very expensive retirement home for you. If you neglect your long-term investment in building your child’s skills and knowledge in favor of a “quick hit” of cash in the near future, you are probably killing the goose that lays the golden eggs.

A big week for us this week, with the launch of “The Law Of Attraction In Action“, a compilation of writings by successful women.

I would be far more effusive about the powerful and valuable insights in this book if I wasn’t one of the authors! My ingrained British modesty gets in the way sometimes - can’t sound like I’m “blowing my own trumpet”, you know …

But if we pretended I wasn’t one of the authors for a moment, I really loved reading through my advance copy of the book. So many amazing women with so much to offer. I’ll post a few thoughts over the next week or so about specific articles.

The one which really caught my attention yesterday was Stephanie Mulac’s “How To Teach The Law Of Attraction To Your Children”. Reading her story brought back echoes of some of our own experiences with our kids. Her stories about having her negative speech habits corrected by her kids really had me chuckling. Ours did the same for us!

Kids really are streets ahead of adults sometimes, and Stephanie’s chapter is a fantastic read - very inspiring. It reminded me of a few practices we have let slip in the past few years, and gave me new resolve to get those habits back in place. In the past, every time we have had a family goals board on the wall, we have accomplished the goal. It’s just crazy not to have one going at all times, but there you go, we had fallen out of the habit.

A heartfelt “thank you” for that gentle jolt, Stephanie!

You will be able to find the book on sale about the internet for US$47 within the next few days, but readers of my blog have a special complimentary electronic copy available - just go to the Resources page on this site and you can download your complimentary copy of The Law Of Attraction In Action.

Every chapter has at least three action steps at the end, and I urge you to choose just one chapter and actually take the steps. It doesn’t matter which chapter you choose, the result will enrich your 2008.

So grab a coffee, download the book, and enjoy. Let me know what you think!