The greatest investment to make at this present age is the investment of knowledge into the upcoming generation. Although kids might just take up some part of the world’s current population, they are still 100% of its future. One great way to harness their potential in the future is to educate them now on the importance of entrepreneurship.
The educational system is crafted in a way that kids are put through a series of tests to qualify them to make ends meet from helping other people achieve their own visions. The easiest way to be a world changer tomorrow is to start taking the right steps today.
Here in South Africa, we see that there is a fast growth in infrastructural development and this can be attributed to the niche ideas that were birthed years back by young aspiring entrepreneurs. Your kid can also join the ranks of great entrepreneurs in this nation with the likes of Richard Maponya, Pam Golding, Anton Rupet and Harry Oppenheimer to mention a few.
Parents, Your Role in Ensuring Your Kids Become One of the Greatest
Although your kids would end up getting the fame and glory, parents still have a pivotal role in ensuring that this happens.
1. A Change in Your Personal Life
Let us first establish the fact that kids are faster visual learners, so they tend to unconsciously take after whatever they see people that they look up to keep doing. With this, you can culture some of your kid’s characters even without talking to them which would eventually help them in the fast moving pace of this nation.
Things You Can Teach Them from Your Personal Life
a) Time Management
Kids are very observant and always have the tendency to believe that they are licensed to do whatever it is that their parents are doing. If you keep coming home late and while away time on a couch with the remote on your hand, be rest assured that you are culturing your kid’s future to that same fate.
b) Reading Habits
Majority of your free time should be filled with you doing something productive. Take up a book and read or even something as minor as reading a newspaper can condition your kid to have that same interest.
c) Accountability
Keep records of important things in your life, make it a priority to see to it that everything that needs to be done is done well and on time. As a parent, there are certain things that need to be put in place in the family and in the home, once all these are taken care of and your kid continually sees theses, he/she is compelled to grow up with that same standard of living applied in all areas of their lives.
2. Support Their Littlest Efforts
What might seem little today as efforts from your kids can turn out to be a global world changer tomorrow. There is always usually something productive your child loves indulging in, they might seem insignificant at the start like a poor stroke from a paintbrush on a converse, or playing off notes on their musical instruments; these, however, turn out to be great avenues of entrepreneurship once they are groomed the right way. Keep encouraging them, buying them books on that particular thing they love doing, get them instructors, support and nurture their abilities.
3. Exposure
This however seems to be difficult to contain especially in this present generation and how everything has found its way to technology and the internet. Although you might not know what your child is being exposed to in your absence, you are also expected to input your own exposure by opening them up to materials that can help and aid them. Videos, books, ideas, discuss with them, make conscious efforts to expand their mental horizons.
4. Get Them What They Need Not What They Want
As parents, we are driven by the ever-present need to provide for our kids in order to make them as happy and comfortable as possible. However, the more we keep getting our kids what they want, they tend to neglect the part of them that pushes them to get it by themselves since mum and dad are always there to get it.
Their wants propel them to come up with ideas on how to get them. Teach them to try work to get what they want and not just ask for it. Once they have what they need, they then have more than enough to cough up what they want.
Kids, Get Ready To Run With It
Like we aforementioned, the fame and the glory all goes to the kids, hence there is a certain amount of responsibility that rests on the shoulders of your kids.
1. A Conscious Concerted Effort
Have it in mind that no matter how hard you as parents try to make the best out of your kids, they have a conscious and deliberate role to play in order to ensure that they achieve greatness at the end. They have to want to become great. In South Africa and likewise, every other part of the world greatness is not by luck, it is a conscious and intentional journey. Once this is the bedrock of your kid’s mentality then they are surely on the right path to succeeding.
2. Make Realistic Short Term Goals
Preparing yourself for the future must mean that you are ready to take on tasks and perform greatly. This, however, can start from an early stage whereas children you would endeavor to achieve something within a given period of time.
Push yourself to see to it that within the next three weeks you would be done with five to seven books that have to do with success and entrepreneurship.
3. Train your Thinking
Majority of success stories first starts in the mind. Whilst others just see trees, you see chairs and furniture, whilst others see an abandoned home, you see an indoor sports center. Your thinking goes a long way in establishing you as an entrepreneur.
Remember, ideas rule the world. Every standing entrepreneur is as a result of thinking. Train your mind to see possibilities where others see impossibilities,
Three C’s to Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur
Before anyone can think of being an entrepreneur, they must have first brainstormed on what it is that they want to bring out to the world. We have thrown this in as a bonus for all of you aspiring entrepreneurs.
Having an idea doesn’t just cut it. There are also a few things which you have to put into consideration in order to have a successful business.
1. Cash Capital
This one is well known because we know that before any business can go off its feet, money must be pumped into it. You put in money to get more money from it. At the start, it might seem hard and much given the fact that starting cash capitals tend to be on the high side. However, once the idea is good, be rest assured that you would get back that money and more within a given period of time.
2 Character Capital
This is one form of capital that has been neglected by a handful who unfortunately have paid dearly for it. Character Capital is as important as cash capital because it is what still keeps you in business. This has to do with your level of integrity and accountability with your customers.
The more you satisfy their need and see to it that they come first, the more your business will thrive and grow. Many have lost partners and clients because of their lack in this particular area.
3. Contact Capital
Another very important form of capital is the contact capital which basically has to do with the people you know. There is a common saying that goes “where you would be in the next few years will is usually a result of the books you read and the people you meet”.
This however is very true as it is your relationship with the people you knew before that helps you climb up the ranks. From here, you can get if not all of your cash capital, but the majority of it. Your relationship might not just help you get cash to start but they would link you up with possible partners, advertise your business and give you a wider client base. Especially with the aid of technology, advertising your business has never been easier.
Conclusion
South Africa is a big nation with many entrepreneurs rising yearly, it is not too late for your kid to join the train. Have it in mind that although this article is focused on grooming kids to be entrepreneurs tomorrow, they do not have to wait until they grow up before they start up their first business ideas.
Let them start now. Get a lemonade stand outside your home, sell pencils and other writing materials to their fellow. Support them, buy some lemonade and some pencils, even if you don’t need them, that little display pushes them to do more for their business to be successful.
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