Schools don’t teach kids how to become entrepreneurs, it is up to the parents. Here we challenge what schools “don’t teach” and look at the lessons required to teach kids how to become entrepreneurs.
During my “career-path” conversation with my son Jai, he was able to visualize himself, his surroundings and companions in his adult future. A kid’s mindset for success! The final step was to solidify the pathway that would take him to his version of a successful life: A Plan, Natalie Cook’s fifth P.
Natalie Cook stood on a chair for this photo!
A Plan, Natalie Cook’s Fifth P
It’s always a good idea to sit down and plot out short term and long term goals, especially for entrepreneurial kids who are cultivating a kid’smindset for success.
On an adult level, well-made plans should be a natural component of what you perceive is your life’s purpose, your “Why” in life. (Even kids that are entrepreneurial won’t have solidified their life purpose to this extent, however.)
Write on small piece of paper an intention, but don’t use the future tense. For instance, you might write “I have attracted a healthy, motivated business person to my business this month,” instead of, “I will attract…” A child might write, “I have kicked two goals at this Saturday’s soccer match.”
Place the written intention under your pillow, in your wallet, or wherever you will view it regularly. The idea is to set a specific and realistic goal. The laws of the universe will then go into effect to bring your goal to fruition… that is, if you see it, believe it, and feel it.
People who practice this mindset for success technique go on to set bigger and grander intentions, over time.
Having a Defined Goal
My friend, Michael Clouse, says that not having a clearly defined plan is like an archer who aims at a target with a blindfold on. There’s no chance of hitting the bulls eye if you are unable to see it!
Vision Board Builds a Kid’s Mindset for Success
Another technique is visualizing goals using a vision board. Select the experiences and things that you would like to have in your life and make a poster board of these, using images and graphics. Place the vision board in a place that you will view daily. Visualize the items on the vision board and do so as if they were real and already present in your life.
Facing your fears! Walking on broken glass!
Positive Affirmations Leads to a Success Mindset in Kids
Speaking positive affirmations aloud two or three times a day is another way of setting your intention and belief. Again, these should be in the present tense.
Natalie Cook likes to declare her intentions and plans before a public audience, making herself accountable to a lot of people for achieving her aims.
So be bold! Change your way of thinking. Get rid of the negatives. Affirm the positives. Make sure that your plans are well-aligned with your life vision. Set grand goals, and follow your plan! This is a kid’s Mindset For Success!
Coming up in our Mindset for Success Series
Next up is the “P” I’ve added to Natalie’s other five. After reading this, can you guess what that might be? Leave your guess in the comments or on Facebook.
The winner will be announced in the next post (we have a small prize for them!!) Every success!
PS We are super excited! We’re heading overseas for an adventure of a lifetime! We will be meeting with and learning from some of the most successful people in the world and catching up with family (another blog post in the making!).
Our final Success P article in the series will have to wait until we get back. That may be three weeks time. Here is a sneak peek at where we are going and what we will be doing…
A baby learns to walk by falling over many times. An entrepreneur learns to succeed after stumbling along the way. Teaching yourself, and your kids, to be successful in business requires Natalie’s fourth P: Perseverance (perseverance on their part, and yours!)
For example, Cathy and I have learned that in the business of referring people to an opportunity, many people will just not be interested. With enterprising teens watching, how do parents set an example to persevere in the face when people say “No”? Well, the mindset for success is to celebrate the “No.” After so many of them, a “Yes” will inevitably follow. One of my mentors, David Wood, says to do the Happy Dance whenever you get a “No,” because the rejection only moved you one step further towards the “Yes.”
Your kids, whether entrepreneurial or not, are going to like to see that Happy Dance, making it a practical way to help seal the behavioural pattern of success in their mindsets. Being able to overcome rejection in business, rejection from friends and rejection from family is paramount for kids to be successful.
Our vocabulary also plays a huge part in our ability to persevere. In our family “Can’t” is a swear-word and not allowed to be used at any time; “Can” is encouraged. Many people, including kids, are quick to give up when the going gets tough, saying, “I can’t” rather than “I can.” The little kids in my family actually believe “Can’t” is a swear word, right up there with the other big four letter words!
Another phrase to abandon is, “It’s too hard.” Natalie showed us a little trick she used to change her perception of what is hard. She bought a toy button that calls out, “That was easy!” when you press it. Natalie would strap this toy button to her volleyball net pole. Whenever she did something very well that was also very difficult, she would run up to press the button: “That was easy!” Try it for yourself… press the button below!
Being the best in the world at your sport certainly has its challenges, and my kids would love to try out one of those buttons. You can get them from Amazon.com. But whether or not, the point is not to say “That was hard!”
These tactics to increase the level of perseverance in kids and keeping them on a successful track comes easier when you have a Plan. This is the fifth P we’ll talk about next week.
Make sure you have a look at the short video (click the image above) we made of Natalie Cook giving a special message to our kids. Can you spot the BLOOPER?
Now here’s someone entrepreneurial kids would love to meet: Natalie Cook. Natalie Cook is a five-times Olympian and winner of the Gold Medal during the Sydney 2000 Olympics games in beach volleyball. Currently, Natalie Cook is a successful businesswoman and owner of the sports franchise, Sandstorm.
She recently gave an awesome talk in Perth, saying the similarities between professional athletes and successful business owners were many, as both have a self-motivating desire to win. Natalie’s message was captivating, humourous, and very useful in cultivating the mindset for success in entrepreneurialkids, as well as in their adult counterparts.
The Five Ps
Natalie’s talk was built around her Five Ps: principles for your kids and in the boardroom, alike.
I will share these with you in a series, over the coming weeks, the last part of which will contain a surprise: a P I’ll be adding, myself. After reviewing Natalie’s, let’s see if who can guess what my P will be.
Here goes:
Part 1: Purpose
A person who truly reaches for success has a mindset that carries with it a very strong “Why,” or purpose. Your “Why” must be stronger than your “Why not?” If not, you likely don’t have enough purpose to muster up the will to make your goals happen when you are faced with barriers.
Your “Why” has to be specific and something close to the heart. It needn’t be complicated. A friend of mine is driven to success because she desperately wants her Mum to be happy and not have to work anymore. Another wants to buy a villa in Tuscany so that it solidifies her Italian family roots with a sense of belonging. These “Whys” are far from saying “Why not?” They are set purposes, not poor explanations.
Your “Why” will often come from one of two emotions… pain or pleasure. Usually it will be pain as it is the stronger of the two. For example, consider all those rags to riches stories of many of our success mentors (JK Rowling, Colonel Sanders, Sylvester Stallone, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, Susan Boyle, Richard Branson). Their experiences with the emotion of “pain” lead them to having a strong “Why” and their “Why” ultimately brought them success.
Amy, Cathy, Natalie, Tracey, Kym and Trevor.
I recently carried out a “Why” exercise with my son, Jai. We’d just returned from a career path meeting for his upcoming senior class. Every pathway the school offered ended in landing a j-o-b (just-over-broke). Their end result was the same, whether the route was through university, technical school, or a straight shot into the average 40-year career hold. There was nothing for an enterprising teen to grab hold of. Worse, because the students were just about ending high school, the pressure was on to make a choice… a limited choice, one based on hastily presented ideas.
The result was confusion and “Why not?” to this and that idea. Jai seemed to be torn between going to Uni with his mates, for it sounded like fun, or leaving school with his cousin and going to make money in the mines. This inconsistency told me that Jai’s “Whys” on both of these career paths were just too vague.
So, we got to work. We discussed why these two ideas sounded interesting to him. We canvassed what it was about “Why not?” that wouldn’t likely carry him through the hardships of either choice.
Then I asked him to ponder a few questions:
How do you want to contribute to this world?
How do you want to grow as a person?
How do you want to be remembered when you pass?
It was a lot for him to think about. We’ll discuss what steps we took next in Part 2: People and Passion.
Always looking for feedback on our entrepreneurial kids articles so be sure to leave a comment. What is your “Why”?
If you are not already a subscriber, then I invite you to fill out the form on the side bar of this blog, that way you won’t miss Part 2 next week.
After my son Jai and I discussed the first of Natalie Cook’s Five P’s, Purpose , in choosing a career path (in Part 1 of this series), I asked him to make a timeline of his life. He was to focus on his surroundings, and more importantly, on the people who would be with him.
People
You see, Natalie’s second P is People. Attracting the right people in life is key to building a successful kid entrepreneur. But whether Jai chose to be an enterprising teen or not, it was his mindset for success in whatever path he chose that was most important to me.
So, I asked him where he would like to be sitting five years from now and with whom? Ten years from now? Forty? I had him picture what was around him, his associates, and what made these kids so valuable to him right now that their presence remained visible decades into the future.
Natalie Cook discussed the value of surrounding herself with the right people, while training to be an Olympic Gold medalist. Around her were coaches, mindset mentors, professionals, and peers whose encouragement always lifted her up, instead of bearing criticism that tears a person down.
Jai contemplating the people he would like to surround himself with. People with Passion that will assist him with his enterprising teen journey.
At the same time, it is important, especially for enterprising teens, to hang out with the sort of people they want to emulate. Qantum physics and studies in neuroscience have discovered that there are mirror neurons in the brain that mirror or copy the brains around them. That is, a person becomes like his/her closest friends. This is besides peer pressure! They should be encouraged to make conscious choices of mates who will add to their mindset for success.
As adults, what I love about the new business that Cathy and I have become involved in, Isagenix, is that it is all about people. Natalie Cook understands this, too, as she is a partner in the same company. In fact, it really doesn’t matter what is your business or your kids’ enterprise for one reason: When being helpful to other people, your success increases. This is because helping people gives enterprising teens and adults an energy that attracts the right people into your lives, and who, in turn, help you.
Passion
People are also attracted to those who have a passion for what they do. Passion is Natalie’s third P. Natalie said in a Sparkmag interview that passion is
“required when times are tough. If you are not passionate about what you do and you don’t love the process and the product… it makes is much easier not to feel as emotionally involved, or eventually shut up shop and walk away.”
Now, Jai rightfully wanted something he could stick with for the long term. Having him visualize himself, his surroundings, and companions way into the future really took him to a place that I could see was his passion, something apart from what others were expecting of him, a desire that would not fade with time. His spirit guided him, instead of the social conditioning of his school, friends, and family.
Want to know more? The next P is inseparable from Passion, and that’s Perseverance. See you next week (Check out the very funny video of Natalie Cook giving our kids a message!)
If you could enlist three people in the world to personally be your friend and mentor you, who would they be? Mine would be Richard Branson, Robert Kiyosaki and Michael Clouse. Make sure you leave us a comment…
This story will impress your kids… it certainly impressed ours!
…and there is a little lesson in it for them.
It will demonstrate that it is not necessarily what you learn at school that brings you success, but perhaps having a little attitude is the magic ingredient!
Mike Handcock
Last week my friend Gary and I attended an unusual business event in Freo call Entrepreneur X Factor. We really didn’t know what to expect. On arriving it was immediately apparent that there was tremendous energy in the room. People were super friendly and engaging. Successful entrepreneurs, Mike Handcock and Dave Rogers ran the show along with multi millionaire guest speakers.
Why was the event so unusual?
Dave Rogers
There were two parts to it. The first sessions were all about Quantum Business (which is definitely not your normal run of the mill business focus) and the after lunch session was an exciting competition with participants getting up in front and publicly spruiking their business idea or concept. The audience judged the event. Budding entrepreneurs, seeking big business to support them, were scored on their one minute presentations. The competition was similar to the TV show “The Lion’s Den”. Investors were in the room looking to partner with the winner and help them grow their idea. It was all very exciting and a little tense during the competition. The winner was a guy called Dr Joe.
Dr Joe
I’d love to share more about the excitement of the Entrepreneur X Factor competition and I’d love to share with you the insights about Quantum Business, but my purpose of this blog post is to share a story that will impress your kids!
So here goes…
There was this tattooed guy in the room dressed in a checked shirt and jeans. He had a goaty and shaven head, wore a black choker necklace and earrings.
He was a self proclaimed bogan who loved hotted up cars.
This odd looking character was introduced as Justin Herald. I had heard of the name before, but wasn’t able to pin point where I had heard it.
Justin was one of the guest speakers and he came to the front to share his experience and hopefully offer some valued advice to us all. Justin told us his story of how he built a multimillion dollar business from literally nothing!
There were no airs or graces about Justin. He was an everyday bloke who really didn’t care what people thought of him. He spoke his mind, he definitely had charisma and he had real attitude!
Justin Herald with his toys!
His Dad was a church minister and Justin grew up within a church community. It was in a church that his first business evolved.
During one particular church service he was spoken to by an elderly lady who pointed out to Justin that he had an attitude problem and that he should mind his manners.
Justin Herald didnt take well to people “ticking him off” especially about his attitude and especially when he was 25 years old! This telling off ignited an idea!
Justin Herald
Justin had only $1.25 in the bank and he needed some cash to put his idea into action. So he asked his brother for $50. He then bought some cheap shirts, took them down the printer shop and had them print “Attitude” slogans on them.
He enlisted the support of his brother and mates. Each of them put on one of the freshly printed shirts and they all attended the Sunday service at the church making, sure that they all stood in full view of the opinionated lady.
She was not happy when she saw the blatant prank Justin had pulled. The shirts had served their purpose very well and Justin was delighted!
After the service a number of people took an interest in the lads’ “Attitude” shirts. In fact some people inquired about buying a shirt from Justin. This was unexpected, but Justin thought it would be worth a few dollars, so he used the money he had from selling the first six shirts to his mates and organised for a bunch more to be printed with “Attitude” slogans.
Word got out and his little business began to emerge.
He decided to try selling his shirts at the Sydney Markets. He’d never done this before and had no idea how it would go. So he asked one of his mates if he’d lend a hand. His mate said “No”. So Justin asked if he’d lend a hand for one hundred bucks, and his mate said “I’d love to help!”
They arrived at the markets and were allocated a table. So he tipped his box of shirts onto the table all jumbled up. The shirts were a novelty and people were interested.
To his complete surprise he sold out in the first two hours.
Justin and I.
His excitement and business grew from there. He printed more and more shirts and was selling $10 000 worth of shirts every weekend at the markets. Next he tried retail stores. The owners moved him on because they had never heard of “Attitude” branded shirts. They also said that their customers were not asking for “Attitude” shirts.
Justin had an idea. He asked his mates to call all the retail stores in the area to ask if they had “Attitude” shirts in stock. He gave it a few weeks and then paid a visit to these same stores with a sample of his shirts. They were so pleased to see Justin and couldn’t wait to get his shirts up on display saying
“You wouldn’t believe the number of calls we’ve had with people inquiring about Attitude shirts”.
“Oh really?!”
Todd Hutchison, known as the Corporate Mechanic.
Justin Herald’s business continued to grow with the introduction of other lines of clothing. He received an invite to be interviewed on The Morning Show. So he rocked up and told his story. He claims that literally within thirty minutes after the interview the phone rang hot with retail stores placing orders for his shirts. Justin said that he never needed to advertise his product as he was regularly being interviewed by TV, business magazines and the newspaper. He always made for a great story as he didn’t look like the regular businessman. Justin has a real sense of humour and loves to rib the people around him. He admits that he has lots of attitude himself, and believes that is why his brand works. Justin is very easy to talk to and he also says that the secret to a successful business is connecting with people.
The Deal.
This chapter in Justin Herald’s story draws to an end when a very large company approached him to do a deal. He was called to a board meeting. Justin rocks up as he does in his jeans and checked shirt to confront the line of suited lawyers and business leaders in this company. Firstly the formalities, then eventually they passed over the official offer for him to look at.
Justin read the dollar number on the page in disbelief. He asked the lawyers if the comma was actually a comma or was it a dot. They said it was a comma. He then said, “Do I get a TV with that?”
They looked at one another and said “Of course!”
So he took the deal which was worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He also took the TV from their wall. They wanted to get him a new one, but he said simply that then he would have to try and rip the box and packaging apart to get it into his recycling bin, and that he didn’t want to muck around with doing that.
So from having only $1.25 in his bank at the age of 25, Justin Herald grew his business in a relatively short time to be sold for hundreds of millions of dollars!
Today Justin Herald has his fingers in different pies. He has just launched “Intimidate Industries” which is his new Sunglass brand which already is a highly sought after brand before it even hits the stores. He also owns numerous other highly successful businesses.
Justin left us with four excellent “Ahahs!”…
• You need a “switch” to give you the purpose, focus and drive required to start a business. His was the opinionated lady at church. Justin is very grateful for her.
• He quotes his favourite word “Next!” Justin explains that you will be faced with a multitude of barriers, setbacks and naysayers as you try to move ahead with your business. He just says “next” and moves on. Many people would fall back to their comfort zone and give up, but not Justin.
• Networking. He says it is the way you relate to your customers. Word of mouth brings you greater business.
• Lastly for his biggest tip…. “Give it a Crack!”
After the presentation Gary and I had the privilege of chatting to Justin Herald one on one. We found him to be a genuine nice bloke. He told us that his mates today are the same bunch of blokes he hung out with when he was twenty. He never made the grades at school and his “attitude” had him in a lot of trouble during those years. However, it was his attitude that has made him what he is today.
Let’s hope that Justin Herald’s success story inspires your kids like it did mine. Your kids don’t have to have all the “credential” that school expects for them to be successful…
Justin Herald has fast become one of the rising stars in the fields of business and personal development. At the age of 25 with only $50 to his name, Justin Herald set about changing the course of his life. Justin created Attitude Inc, a clothing brand that became an international licensing success that turned over in excess of $20 million per year.
Justin’s success was so well noted that he was named the “INTERNATIONAL ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR” for 2005.
He recently was also awarded the Future Leaders Award, which recognises him as being one of the 50 most influential leaders of the next generation in Australia.
He has had his own column in numerous magazines and in papers nationally in Australia and overseas. His articles have a weekly readership of over 5.5 Million people. He also is the author of 8 international best selling books.
Justin Herald is regarded as one of Australia’s most sought after speakers with engagements book all over the country and overseas speaking in front of 150,000 people each year.
Please share your thoughts in our comment box below.
Have you ever had that deep inner desire to want to change the world, or to be a person of significance who has made a real difference to others; yet frustrated, at times, that all your time and energy is channeled into your nine to five job… the job that you need in order to earn the dollars to simply exist and meet the costs of living and raising a family?
Have you wondered what you could do if you had the resources of time, knowledge and money to be that difference?
Children grow up full of potential and excited about their new life and what they wish to accomplish with it. Ideally, we as their parents, want to be their inspiration and show by example that they too can achieve whatever they put their minds to.
Do you ever wonder what worldly achievements and contributions your children will end up doing/being?
Cath and I have huge dreams! We are aiming for the stars! We aspire to achieve, experience and contribute in a grand way. We plan to lead our own children to ‘Think Big’, to experience, and to make a significant difference to the lives of others whilst here on Earth.
This is our “Why” and it is why we began the journey seeking an understanding and the mindset shifts required to achieve Financial Freedom.
This past year has been, by far, the biggest year for us in terms of shift in a mindset around success. Last year, in March, we embarked on a year long Money Mastery Mentoring Program, lead by Dr Paul Counsel.
Paul certainly opened our eyes to possibility, has given us the tools to make the inner shifts required to achieve financial freedom; and he has opened our subconscious minds, making the adjustments necessary, that have now put us on the path to achieving our goals.
Our year has literally been like a roller-coaster ride. Many ups and downs and bumps along the way… and it has absolutely been full on with the logistics of sorting kids and maintaining momentum whilst running very busy lives. Without our beautiful friends and family supporting us throughout the year, I’m certain we would not have made it this far.
The Money Mastery program is largely about achieving Financial Freedom; however, it has also been a self discovery mentoring program where we’ve revealed so much about our selves; our deep rooted values; our subconscious thinking and conditioning; and our future realities.
Sadly tomorrow we head up to Perth for our final weekend with Paul and our Money Mastery group of friends from 2012. We haven’t decided if we’ll continue as a new program starts in March 2013. There are many things to weigh up, but one thing for sure is our future is opening up wide before us.
Below is a link that will take visitors to our Full Review of our Money Mastery Mentoring Program. We have reviewed our year with Paul Counsel, shared in depth why we chose to take on such a mentoring program and some of the massive distinctions that have changed our lives forever!
We invite you to read about our journey and experiences (and pass it on to interested friends).
We’re hopeful when you read it, that you gain inspiration and perhaps some real insight into your own lives. We have reflected on some of the reasons why things happen the way they do… and why they don’t!
So go make yourself a cuppa, sit down in a comfy chair and take the time to have a read of our Money Mastery Mentoring Program Review… Oh! …and leave us a comment please!
People who practice this mindset for success technique go on to set bigger and grander intentions, over time.
