Parenting Archive

Note: This is part V of a five part series. Access the first installment HERE, part II HERE, part III HERE, and part IV HERE. What do Warren Buffet, Martin Luther King, John Wayne, Walt Disney, Harry Truman, Wayne Gretzky and Tony Hsieh all have in common? In addition to all of them reaching the pinnacle of their chosen professions, they also all started their careers performing the same job. All of these extremely successful individuals were paperboys.*

Note: This is part IV of a five part series. Access the first installment HERE, part II HERE, part III HERE, and part V HERE. “[Poker] exemplifies the worst aspects of capitalism that have made our country so great.”  Walter Matthau, American Actor I have discussed in this series a number of books and games parents can share with their children which will cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset. As your child matures, games which involve; luck, strategy, probabilities and financial wagering reinforce a child’s ability to take calculated risks. Poker is one such game.

Note: This is part III of a five part series. Access the first installment HERE, part II HERE, part IV HERE and part V HERE.   Along with Dr. Seuss’ Green Eggs and Ham and Marcia Brown’s Stone Soup, the seemingly innocuous board game Monopoly has played a pivotal role in the edification of several generations of entrepreneurs. When you play Monopoly with your children, you can subtly underscore an entrepreneurial mindset in their gameplay which will ultimately help them develop valuable startup skills, as described below.

Note: This is part I of a five part series. Access the second installment HERE, part III HERE, part IV HERE and part V HERE. I recently answered the question “What are good ways to raise your children to be entrepreneurs?” on Quora. My response was brief and straightforward, which is common of popular Quora answers (as discussed in How To Write An Effective Quora Answer). Although my answer was off-the-cuff, the question caused me to consider the issue of raising entrepreneurial children in greater depth, which led me to write this series. I am not a parenting expert and I do not profess to have all the answers. I believe that you cannot teach someone to be an entrepreneur, but that you can teach entrepreneurs. Thus, my goal is to highlight a few books, games and other activities parents can share with their children. If your offspring are entrepreneurially inclined, these activities might nudge them in the direction of a lifetime of startups. If your child is not an entrepreneurial Bank Robber, no worries; the world needs ATM Operators too.