I’ve always considered myself a product of the American Dream—my family moved to Southern California from Iran in the seventies. I worked hard, put myself through law school, and founded a company with my husband. Together, we poured money and 80-hour weeks into the business, made some smart decisions, got lucky once or twice, and found success.
My experience taught me the importance of three things: hard work, determination, and education. I believed that we were well on our way to instilling those values in our four children, so you can imagine my surprise when our 13-year-old son recently informed us that he didn’t need school but could make millions with his Internet business.
Yes, I want my kids to carve their own paths. I’d be thrilled if they became entrepreneurs. But skipping school and assuming there’s a fast track to success? That’s not happening.
Then it hit me that our son has seen the fruits of our entrepreneurial success, but not the difficult road my husband and I had to take to arrive here. He was only four by the time we sold our first company. He never saw his mom drive a beat-up old car to a paralegal job to pay her way through law school, or that we ran our first business from our apartment living room. In short, my son never got to see the full picture of what it means to be an entrepreneur.
This distorted sense of entrepreneurship is compounded by all the media stories about young tech stars who take their company public or get acquired by
It’s hard for a parent to make any headway in challenging the flashy narrative of Silicon Valley’s $40 million fundraising rounds, high-profile acquisitions, and IPOs. And the last thing I want to do is to stifle the entrepreneurial dreams of any of my kids.
However, having been an entrepreneur now for the past two decades, I want my children to have a solid understanding of the full experience, its ups and its downs. Furthermore, I want them to appreciate the hard work, commitment, and challenges involved; entrepreneurship is not necessarily a fast track to fortune and fame.
With that in mind, I believe there are five essential building blocks to entrepreneurship: education, work ethic, perseverance, passion, and purpose. Here’s how we’re trying to develop these in our son (and other three children):
1. Education
A solid foundation of education and life experiences is essential to make informed decisions about what path(s) you want to take in life. The goal at my son’s age should be to experiment and get exposed to as much as he can—try new things at school, take a wide range of classes, learn how to learn, participate in sports, and stretch his creative/artistic side. If he can communicate clearly, know how to ask the right questions, and reason out an argument, he’ll have a solid foundation for whatever he decides to do.
2. Work ethic
I can champion the importance of hard work until I’m blue in the face, but there’s no point if my kids don’t see the connection between their hard work and results. I try to make the concept of hard work relevant to my son’s day-to-day life. If he wants to be a better football player, he needs more conditioning. If he wants to get better at basketball, he needs to take a hundred practice shots a day. Once he sees the direct connection between his efforts and the results, he’ll have the motivation he needs.
3. Perseverance
The problem with all these tales about the latest million-dollar app startup is that you start assuming that Silicon Valley and the
I want my son to understand that obstacles, even failure, are a part of life, and not necessarily something to run away from or be ashamed of. I’m trying to get better at admitting to others, including my family, when things aren’t going perfectly in our current business. I need our kids to understand that we didn’t make it overnight, and we’ve had a bunch of missteps and hardships along the way. The key is to learn from your mistakes and keep moving forward.
4. Purpose
It may sound clichéd, but with entrepreneurship the main goal shouldn’t be to make lots of money or create an empire. The true mission should be to add value to the world and make a significant change to people’s lives. If you believe this, you’ll always find the motivation to persevere when times get tough. My son loves developing apps, and we always work through some basic questions: Who will use this app? How will it help them or improve their day?
5. Passion
Out of all of my hopes for my son and his future, one of the biggest things I want is for him to discover his fire is and follow it. As Richard Branson said, “Life is not a dress rehearsal, and none of us should waste our time on doing things that don’t spark fires within us.” I don’t want my son to worry about how to please me, my husband, his teachers, or his friends. If he’s lucky enough to find and follow his own passion, he’ll be an unstoppable force.
Read all of Nellie Akalp's articles on AllBusiness.com.
Related Articles on AllBusiness:
28 Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make When Pitching to Investors
25 Frequently Asked Questions on Starting a Business
9 Key Ways to Prepare for an M&A Transaction
65 Questions Venture Capitalists Will Ask Startups
For local business information on 15 million businesses, visit InBusiness.com.
