One Question Friday: How Will You Teach Your Kids To Be Entrepreneurial?

yeah i feel like i could rule where i know i could be what i want to from at all in it like a days all on a roll less travel never looking back this is one question friday i'm sean and it's just me today doing these episodes these one question fridays i kinda like these it's fun it's fun to hear the listeners and hear their questions and then i really put thought into this so this one i heard it before i did it so i could think it through usually i do these off the cuff but hey little prep never heard anybody so let's listen to this question together and then i'll give you my answer my name is sophia sean last friday you talked about the value of earning that first dollar by selling the vans i know that your kids are still pretty young but i wanted to know how are you gonna teach them to be entrepreneur entrepreneurial oil and when are you going to start okay great thanks sofia for the question i if you didn't hear this before i shared the story about how i had been working on a business a startup i was twenty one years old i was with my best friends and we were working on a business for about a year and somewhere in like the nine month mark we realized we're just sitting around one monday day and we're were like man it just feels like we're just going through the motions and not that we were being lazy but like literally we were almost like acting out doing a startup it's like we do this plan and then we talked to this adviser then we raise money from this investor it's like we're doing everything except for the business part which is take a product we sell it to a customer and then the customer happy and we're like man we've been go for almost a year now and we haven't even made a dollar like how can we call ourselves we were winning all these awards entrepreneur young entrepreneur the year rising entrepreneurs is most promising startup and i was like man it's be we haven't actually even done anything and so we took a forty eight hour challenge for one weekend we were gonna try to make our first dollar we were trying to make we we set a goal of trying to make a thousand dollars in a weekend and we ended up doing something very simple we created these like risk bands like if you remember the old lives strong bands but thicker fatter we called it the fat band is the fat band dot com and we were customizing them so we found a drop shipper that would let us write somebody's name or their f attorney's name or their school's name whatever on these wristband and we could basically sell you a customized pack of a hundred wrist wristband or whatever and it would cost us whatever thirty cents to make these things and that we could sell each one for a dollar twenty or something like that and it worked we made like i don't know fourteen hundred dollars in that weekend and it i felt so good and i feel like i learned more about business and that one weekend that i had the full nine months because i had to come up with a product i couldn't overthink the brand name all that good stuff you know had to get our first sale how to figure out how to sell how to figure out how to create a website with take payments online all this good stuff so now this question is about kids now i i guess i'll point out i really wasn't i don't know i was kind of a kid i was twenty one years old but my parents didn't do anything in that moment to help me have that aha moment to get that first taste of entrepreneurship the light bulb for me came on later than i think you usually hear we often hear these stories out oh you know mark cuban or elon musk and when they were eleven years old they were you know they were created a cd rom company and they were selling it you know in the neighborhood or they that let lemonade stand honestly i didn't have any entrepreneurial ambitions you would have never guessed when i was a kid that i would be an entrepreneur having said that i do think there are things that i will try to do with my kids i got two little kids are two and one years old now to help them be more entrepreneur entrepreneurial and here's what they are so i'll break it down into a couple categories here are the foundational do's and don'ts for me when i think about how to teach my kids the first is there's no rush i will not push them into being an entrepreneur or doing a you know like telling them that this is the path there's no rush and there's no answers it's on them to figure it out and they'll they'll get it in time but along the way i can give them some skills experiences in a mindset that i think will help them so here's how here's what i plan to do let me first break it into a couple categories mindset how do i want them to think about things what are the aha moments where they realize something about the world that i want to help them get to that realization faster so the first thing is that i wanna show them that the world as they see it has not always been this way meaning that things change so everything you see that you accept as normal whether it's this computer that i'm it's on my desk well there used to be not even a compute you know you used not have laptops there was one computer in a computer room and before that there was a computer not even in a home and before that there wasn't even a computer right so like things change over time and it's very easy when you look around the world to just sort of accept the things are the way they are and that's it when you don't realize that actually things are changing all the time and most importantly it is people who changed them so steve jobs has this great quote which is like the most important thing you have to realize is i'm gonna butcher but it was like most important you realized is that everything you see around you was made up by somebody just like you you know the there is no there are no adults to this game of life who who who create all the rules you know everybody's making up the game as they go and so i the first thing i wanna do is i wanna show them that i wanna it's still is understanding that things change over time so when they see something as it is i'm wanna show them what it used to look like i'm gonna show them what it looks like in other countries where it doesn't look same as it is here so they can see that the world is a lot more bend it's flexible it's malleable the world can be bent and it's bent by people who decide that it's gonna be another way okay so that's the first most important thing right because that's what a entrepreneurs is gonna do right entrepreneurs trying to change the way this change the status quo in some way and if you don't realize that the status quo is simply made up by other people just like you no more talented no smarter than do then that means that you can do it too the second thing on so that's the mindset aspirations you are who you admire i always have believe this you are you become who you admire so i wanna show them i wanna i want to admire people that i hope that they admire i wanna tell them stories of people who have who have just simply wanted something and made it happen whether it's an athlete michael phelps wanted this and he made it happen an entrepreneur who wanted this made it happen an inventor who wanted to solve this problem and they made it happen and that i wanna tell them those stories consistently so that they understand this link that basically the name of the game is figuring out what you want and then knowing that you can make it happen and i'm gonna praise that so for example even now with my daughter she's really good at puzzles she loves puzzles but you know there's these little parent tips it's almost corny but honestly i i i do believe i think it works that i praise her not for being great and it puzzles i praise her for i'm like you figured it out oh wow you you didn't know how to do it but you just kept trying and then you figured it out you're great at figuring things out right like i am i praise her for being able to figure things out i praise her for trying things that she was afraid of i pray i praise her for for basically like going out of her comfort zone and saying you did it anyways right you always do that you're always so brave right you're always figuring things out i am trying to instill in her that she could figure anything out that she can do things even when she's afraid of doing them even if she's never done them before i never praised for being so smart or so good at x because i think that's a trap so those are little things on the on the on the praise and aspirations next let's talk about skills so if we wanna be an entrepreneur entrepreneur is not really a thing it's just a collection of skills that you that you put together and you apply with some force so what are those skills being able to build being able to sell and being able to invest and so i am going to invest in each of those skills at a young age and you could do them in a bunch of different ways so being able to build you know it could be as simple as my wife she always talks about how she was a kid her dad used to take her on saturdays to home depot to do a building class a free workshop building class that she does on on weekends and that's why my wife is so so sufficient like if something's broken in the house my wife fix if we get furniture my wife assembled it because she's really great at that and she loves doing it and i'm terrible at it i'm terrible because i got any practice at it and i never got i never found fun in it so i never never did it right doing something like that teaches you how to build even literally how to build furniture but it makes it fun to build things from scratch and so that's what i'm gonna do i'm gonna teach them to build i'm gonna teach them to build toys computers furniture build anything build a a a a little you know stage and then we'll use it for puppet shows whatever it doesn't matter we're gonna try to build things together and then the next one is selling so teach you how to sell so how so we i will literally give them some experiences like door to door sales i know you guys ever done these like what do you call it it's like a like a fundraiser thing where you go to door to door do you sell like wrapping paper and ice cream and stuff like that to your neighbors i think those are incredible experiences i've talked about this in the past if kale is a super food door or sales is like a super food for being an entrepreneur because you're going to get reputation at hard work facing rejection persuasion building rapport yeah all these things that you get from door so i'm gonna heavily emphasize door sales and and and so this idea of being able to sell is important same thing with investing i'm gonna give them money early on and we're gonna invest it together and whether they win whether they do well or they lose money they'll live with those consequences and and when they want something that's gonna come out of that pot and so so that's the the core idea get them understanding early on about investing in a stock market with a very small amount of money a couple of thousand dollars maybe two thousand dollars and let them know that hey when you want that new xbox it's gonna come from the earnings you've been building up in this thing and and so i want them to learn about investing in that way so there's other some there's other direct skills that i have seen as i invest in founders that i'm like the most impressive founders i mean i really like inter them to find out what is it that they know or they did that made them the way that they are and i've seen two consistent experiences come up that highly correlated from what i can tell maybe because maybe correlated i don't know with being a great entrepreneur they're they're not ones that i would have expected the first one is debate i can't tell you how many people who i find to be really impressive that have a background and debate i think debate teaches you how to obviously how to speak it also teaches you how to form a logical argument so using logic it teaches you how to see both sides of an argument because in debate you don't just get to say the thing you believe you have to be ready to argue for or against a specific topic so you gotta be able to quickly understand what the argument would be in both perspectives which guess what is an amazing skill to have and as a person so debate is something i will try to get my kids into because i've seen it translate but of course if they don't love it you know they'll find their own way the next one is gaming something that parents often view as a waste of time is something that i've seen very very correlated to success so gaming teaches you how to play i don't play on a team how to communicate quickly and under pressure how to come up with a strategy to win how to enjoy winning and bounce back from losing right these are all really important thanks to hand that coordination there's a whole bunch of stuff math there's there's things that go into gaming that i think are really important and it's really fun and so i think gaming is something i will encourage and and can participate with with my kids so those are some of the skills section now last one experiences so here are the some of these experiences i talked about door door selling let the the proverbial lemonade stand so running a lemonade stand understanding the profit loss buying the ingredients the next day so a lemonade sand that specifically runs for multiple days i will have them join my meetings i'll tell you two quick stories one is my brother the it was very successful business guy extremely successful and he always brings his son two his meetings his his negotiations car auctions whatever he puts his son in a bunch of situations that involve business deal making money he's in the real estate game and i asked him was like you know does he like it why does he do it hey he goes he goes well he kinda likes it but you know at first used bit bit quiet about it you know he probably he probably rather be on his ipad but i told him i said this is really important and i said when he tells him he goes to these things he goes that he goes what clicked for him and he's like he's only eight nine years old whatever goes what clicked for him was we got into a negotiation and we bought this business and he's like you know dad like was this a good he's like yeah this is a great he goes and why did they why do they sell he goes because my job is to make money off people like you sons who inherit things from their parents don't know what it's worth don't know how to do it don't know how to negotiate money people like me take advantage of people like you and that's why you're not gonna end up like that there's a bit of a hardcore way of saying it but he you know he's right in many ways that like if you don't teach your kids skill skills about business they'll be putting positions where they're illiterate financially illiterate they're incapable of negotiating well incapable of analyzing the property you to find out what it's really worth and and so he kind of teaches him and he asked him all the he's said hey what do we do when we go to these things he goes you know we we win businesses off of people like me right or or like you know kids who don't learn like i'm learning and so so i think you know getting your kid to the table i think is it more important the people realize even if the kid is very quiet in that moment there is something happening my dad put me in a position like this that i'll never forget it was i was in college and my dad started to see that i was getting into the idea of so he said hey i got this comedian in san diego come with me this guy's a great entrepreneur so i get on the flight a fly there and my dad's flight gets either delayed or canceled or i don't know maybe he did this intentionally i have no idea but either way now i was in san diego and my dad's not there and i'm like well shit what do you want me to do he's like yeah gotta go to the meeting and i was like i don't even know about your business i don't know anything he goes just go to the meeting it would look really bad if we don't even show up so i go to the guy's office and my dad had talked to the guy and said hey look my son's coming me he doesn't know anything but you know he doesn't know the first thing about the first thing but just if you do me a favor you know talk to him and so i go into this meeting the guy's twenty minutes late i'm sitting in the room he barges in and this guy is a ball of energy he is like he comes in with so much energy so much swag and i never seen that in a business meeting before and he starts telling me he go he goes he goes you know sean your what's your name sean i was yeah sean he goes sean let me tell you one thing you wanna write this you get a pen i was like yeah you got a pen write this down great customer service if you have great customer service you can own the whole goddamn world and i was like like okay i didn't see him very profound but let me write this down and he's like i just got off the phone late because i got off the phone with this tv company we have we bought a tv and it's cracked and they were the service was awful terrible you know what am i ever gonna buy from these guys again no customer service and because if you have great customer service you could own the world did you write that down i was like yeah wrote it down and basically this guy was just this fireball of energy he taught me about what you know his background his story how he he was how he was he wrote you know he sold movies he wrote a he was a hollywood script rider then he built up skyscraper in san diego because he thought real estate was the game to play playing then when the internet started coming out he built like an early version of red box like a movie dvd rental thing in malls and then he got into then he you know he started at investing that you he's just each time he's just k he's like failing up he's like not really making it happen but he fails up and then he met this guy in an elevator invest his company it turned out to be like the biggest textbook startup up in the in the the world and then you know he married the woman who did one eight hundred flowers and he he he has one thing after afternoon he just shared like ten stories companies he built investments he made people he met blah blah and i'm kind of captivated by this guy and he's like you're hungry let's go get lunch we just left the office on abruptly and i was like whoa okay and he's walked into this restaurant and the restaurant was like oh neil yeah we got your table ready and he had his own table at this restaurant in san diego and san diego weather perfect and i'm basically just like wow this guy's got live in the life and his table every table in there had table cloth except for his table had paper because he needed a pen to be able to do deals he would write stuff down on the table cloth itself on the on the paper to teach me about what was you know stuff that was going on and he didn't even order it they brought out bunch of appetizers and they they knew and he had his own tab he didn't even have to pay he just left and i was like i wanna be this guy and he at the end he gave me his book and he signed it and i read his book on the way home on the airplane and i was like this guy is amazing and literally that experience was so formative because i just saw somebody again you are who you admire i saw somebody who's just seemed like they're were having so much fun i felt like this guy was in the mall and he got locked into the toy store and he was just playing with all the toys of life and i was like jeez this this is how i wanna be i wanna have and you could hear me now i wanna have this kinda of energy i wanna have this kinda of charisma this storytelling this enthusiasm i'm this variety of business experiences this lifestyle where i just flow through the day i'm not locked into one schedule or any patterns that i'm used to you know asking for a table and then sitting quietly and then waiting for the ability at the this guy i just had his own rules to life and i really admired that so i want my kids to meet people like that so they can admire them but also put them in those get them those experiences help let them shadow join meetings things like that so that they can they can see you know people that are really interesting and they might have that itch start to develop like oh i wanna live like this guy lives this versus the cubicle life versus the doctor life versus whatever else okay last thing a few other things that i think are are good experience on what they have definitely traveling international so i was lucky at grew up in indonesia and china a bunch of places and so therefore i got to see third world countries i got to see that other people live differently this builds an immense amount of gratitude for what you have things you take for granted you know clean streets and lights and you know running water and things like that warm hot water every time you turn on the shower so you'd start to not just take those off for granted you you you develop some some gratitude there the second thing is you realize that the world is a lot bigger than just your little bubble my wife you know group in california lives in california we still live you fifteen minutes away from the place you grew and she loves it here she's very safe here but in reality that exposure change you know to moving having to make new friends to going into a new country not knowing the language that exposure is really important and you know she went to india and things like that that's how she developed it but i wanna really have make sure my kids have a not so comfortable experience going to a variety of different places you know europe and and and southeast asia and things like that so that they can experience it that that's one thing i can do as a parent that's like in my control the other things i think would be fun is i wanna help them another thing i've seen correlated with success in as entrepreneurs is learning how to just simply flip things so you know buy something sell it on ebay for a little bit more right buy a sneaker and then sell it to a sneaker head right so just flipping things as an experience i want them to have and and and then the last thing vegas is is little exercises so there's this thing called the marshmallow test that people do with with employees kids students it's it's a pretty famous test and what they do is they give you a bunch of they they put you in teams and then they give you a bunch of random tools like sticks rope or like a string sorry and one marshmallow and the game is you need to build a structure using only these tools and whoever can get it from the table height to the ceiling like the closest to the ceiling whoever gets their marginal of the highest wins and so you do this exercise you'd play the game there's a big moral of the story and the moral of the story is what what happens is that everybody's you know here's what adults do especially high you know high cheaper type types like consultants and stuff like that yeah first quickly you know divide and conquer you one person's is the leader they'd say hey you're gonna focus on this you're gonna focus on this you're gonna focus on this and then they first is make a plan let's not just jump in still eat you know i'll be stupid about this we only have some many materials let's make a plan so they make this plan to drawing out a structure one guy is like i know the the physics of this we needed it to be this this angle blah blah and and they finally start to build it in and the try oh let's build the foundation really good first blah blah and finally at the end oh two two minutes left oh oh god they shove the marshmallow on at the end and the whole thing collapses and then so who always because the marshmallow has a lot more weight to it then you anticipate marshmallow seems like the small thing but relative to these sticks and string the marshmallow is extremely heavy to collapses and the structure almost every single time and so somebody who literally just took like two two sticks and shove the marshmallow on they'll win and and kids take the opposite approach kids immediately stick the marshmallow on they don't wait till the end they stick the marshmallow on if they don't eat the marshmallow they put it on first and then they start to learn oh wow it falls over once and they're like oh that's not gonna work have to make sure this thing can hold the marshmallow weight and they build the whole structure around that key risk or that key assumption and this is like very akin to how bad entrepreneurs and good entrepreneurs go a bad entrepreneurs wastes a lot of time planning and avoids shipping the product to the customer avoids the the the harsh reality of rejection till the very end and that's when they put the marshmallow on and then when it does it collapses in they're devastated because they put so much work in whereas has a great entrepreneur will typically say well let's not spend too much time planning on paper let's just prototype here so let's just try something quickly early on let's try giving it you know put the marshmallow on let's ship it and if it falls over no problem that's just you know attempt one we put very little into it we learned something let's make attempt two better in attempt three and they'll get four or five attempts in that same twenty thirty minute period that the other group got one attempt so i'm gonna try to teach them these sort of like almost like moral of the story type of exercises that will show them the value in rapid prototyping and facing rejection early on in learning you know testing your key risks and your key assumptions or finding what is the key risk and key assumptions and not being afraid to fail so those are some of the things that i'm gonna do to recap the mindset that things change and that the world is not just the way it is because that's the perfect way it's like no it's been constantly evolving constantly changing and it will change again and the people who change it are just people like you people who see things see the status quo and decide it can be better the next is i'll tell them stories of people who have done that and i'll praise them specifically for figuring things out or bouncing back from failure rather than just being smart or being good at being good at x then i would teach them the skills of building selling and investing specifically giving them a chances to become good at debate gaming things like that and then i'm gonna have you know experience it the lemonade stand selling door to door traveling to third growth countries you know joining meetings or sitting in on meetings flipping something on ebay and like the marshmallow test and i'm gonna do all those things and i'm not even gonna mention the word entrepreneurship i'm not gonna mention that they should do something because it's their choice about what they wanna do my job is to you know create an environment where they get exposed to it where they get to dabble it where they get to build core foundational skills that they can choose to use later if it's if it's what's for them so hopefully that helps sophia thank you for the question and i'm glad i got to sit down and think about this because i do have kids and just sitting down to answer your question for fifteen minutes writing down my notes you know that helps me be a better dad so thank you and i hope you guys enjoyed one question friday if you'd like these you can go submit your own questions it's like m f m pod dot com and there's a little microphone button where you can submit your question too alright take care i feel like i could rule word i know i could be what i want to from at all in it like a days off on a roll less travel never looking back