Raise kids to become #entrepreneurs! A single good idea is enough to #change the #world.

I want to start my story by looking at how we teach our children about what to do in life at their early age. How many of you have kids or have friends with kids, or have kids in your family? How many of you believe that what they are being thought today is what they will need in the future - say 10-20 years?

I liked ever since I was a small child this entrepreneurial thing and I believe that we are missing an opportunity to teach more kids on how to become successful entrepreneurs. Kids have passions and dreams but then we go on and tell them that they should study harder and get a job. Like this is the only way they can do something in their life! 

We teach them way too often on what not do to: don't do this, don't do that, don't, don't. But we don't teach them what else they can do! The school system is built to make engineers, doctors, lawyers...it teaches them how to get a job, fit into a system. But if all they have to do is get a job in a company, who is going to start those companies? 

I believe that every problem that we are facing today can be solved by a successful entrepreneur. There is an old Chinese proverb saying: 'Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man How To Fish, and You Will Feed Him for a Lifetime'! Not only us as parents, but also the entrepreneurs and even the society through the school systems have the obligation to teach our kids how to "fish" and not just give them food, right? Think about this...

I started very young to help my grandparents especially in the summer time, working the field and making money. I knew that if I work for 2-3 months during the summer I can make enough money to help me during the school period so I can buy myself anything I need. 

I learnt at a very early age, that if I lend money with a small interest I can make more money without an effort. So what I was doing, was saving money and give them to my mother's friends with a small interest rate. I was a kid so is not like they can say no, right? But I figure this out at 6-7 years old...

I learnt how to negotiate with adults: with my grandfather to get more money if I can gather more plums in a shorter time, but also to get couple of hours as a break during lunch time and go to the small village pool; selling flowers that I was stealing from the garden in front of my place...until the teacher who was living across the street saw this and told my mother so I got punished and had to give up on this new activity... I learnt that lesson too...

Let's teach our kids not only how to make money but how not to waste them. 20% of anything they earn should go directly into a saving account, and spend a fraction of the remaining on toys. I am teaching my daughter every week on how to negotiate and how to save her money. We look around the house on what can be done, and after we start negotiating: help me to recycle and get X amount of euros; help me wash the car and she gets Y amount of euros. 20% of the money goes directly into her saving account so that she can use it later for her school studies.

I believe we need to teach our kids a different set of skills, the skills for tomorrow's world, not only for today: problem solving, never giving up, finding solutions, learning from mistakes, asking questions, public speaking, creativity, negotiation and many others. There is no standard or magic recipe on how to raise kids as entrepreneurs. Each of us should adopt and adapt this entrepreneurial mindset to his own family. Jack Ma recently said that "Everything we teach should be different from machines. If we do not change the way we teach, 30 years from now we will be in trouble".

Let's raise our #kids to become #entrepreneurs and each of you can do that: by teaching your kids how to become entrepreneurs, by influencing schools' system to change the curriculum and way of teaching, or by creating other supplementary programs where kids can learn new skills that will be much needed in the future.

Don't forget: A SINGLE GOOD IDEA IS ENOUGH TO CHANGE THE WORLD!