In her new book, Margot McCall Bisnow, author and mother of two entrepreneurs, reveals what she learned from interviewing 70 currently successful entrepreneurs and their parents. She found that the unique ways these parents raised their children contributed greatly to their entrepreneurial success.
McCall Bisnow distills 10 common parenting “rules” for raising entrepreneurs and, through profiles of 70 entrepreneurs she interviewed, shows how the rules apply to their lives. Readers learn about the empowering childhoods of many of today's influential entrepreneurs, such as how people like Scooter Braun, one of the top talent managers and media empires in the United States, were raised, or how 23andMe founder Anne Wojcicki's mother had unwavering faith in her to figure things out, even if she failed a few times at first.
The authors list many traits that entrepreneurial kids exhibit: questioning why things are done a certain way and coming up with new ways to do them, immersing themselves in their own projects and putting off homework and other projects, etc. They also emphasize that while you won't know for sure if your child will become an entrepreneur until they're older, it's important to keep the door open.
“You can't turn your kids into entrepreneurs; you can only nurture those tendencies,” writes McCall Bisnow. At the very least, following this parenting philosophy will ensure you raise joyful, capable young people.
Rules like instilling self-confidence, embracing adversity, and letting your kids take the lead may seem obvious to any caring parent, but McCall Bisnow points out that even though parents want to support their children, they often fear that they will fail. As a result, parents often undermine their children's motivation by trying to steer them in the direction they believe will lead to success, which leaves young people feeling depressed and frustrated. “Forcing your child to follow a path chosen by their parents is a sure way to stifle a child's sense of fulfillment,” she writes.
McCall Bisnow argues that encouraging curiosity, nurturing a child's talents, and believing in a child's abilities are fundamental conditions for raising an entrepreneur. And while many of the parents of the entrepreneurs featured intuitively understood the best way to encourage their children's interests, some parents interviewed said that it wasn't easy to support them without question at first. However, once they realized how important it was for their children to pursue their chosen passions and dreams, these parents were convinced.
For example, Thomas Vu, lead producer on the video game franchise League of Legends, had parents who fled Vietnam as war refugees. They had high expectations for their children when they arrived in the United States. Although Vu's parents didn't understand their son's passion for video games, they forgave him and scraped together a new game (The Legend of Zelda) for him. He shares how this game led to his extraordinary career creating video games.
Essentially, McCall Bisnow offers parents a roadmap for raising confident, compassionate, and capable kids. She writes, “For most kids to believe in themselves, they first need someone to believe in them. It's probably no coincidence that all of the successful entrepreneurs I've spoken to are incredibly confident. They all had mothers or family members who believed in them and told them they could do anything they put their mind to.”
For more information, visit raisinganentrepreneur.com.
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