Want to Raise an Entrepreneur? Give Your Kids These 3 Opportunities Early.

I am fiercely competitive and love to win. That spirit has stayed with me throughout my entrepreneurial journey. My mother is a scientist. My father is a football (soccer) coach. Neither are entrepreneurs, but both steered me toward activities that built the skills necessary for me to succeed as an entrepreneur.

Last week, one of my solopreneur students asked, “What are the intangible traits that are necessary to succeed when building a business?” I quickly rattled off a few of the common traits: creativity, grit, tenacity and passion. Other students added more traits to the chorus.

The conversation moved on, the class ended, but the topic lingered in my mind and morphed into an existential question. I wondered, “How did I develop these traits while so many don’t?” When I thought about it, the answer was obvious: thanks to my parents.

So, I asked them, “Why did you care so much that I was involved in extracurricular activities?” Their answer: “Because we wanted you to be successful in whatever you did.” Through that approach, they opened a door they didn’t even know I would want to walk through. Here’s how you can do the same for your kids.

Build their competitive spirit

Business can be brutal. It is often a winner-takes-all game. So, the spirit of competition must be strong in any budding entrepreneur. This is where my desire to enter the business playing field comes from.

In my childhood, my parents gave me many opportunities to reach for the podium. My father made sure that I participated in football from a young age and made me compete with kids older and bigger than me. I remember how much I wanted to win every game, to win every moment of the match and how much pride I had as a defender in making sure no opponent got a clean shot at the goal.

As I transitioned to rugby in high school, I gained a new appreciation for the tenacity and grit needed to win a match by putting your body on the line. But I also realized that team competition only gave me so much joy. What I really yearned for was to earn the podium spot through only my hard effort. This is where judo came into my life.

When I stepped out onto the tatami for a match, it was just me, myself and I. Success had everything to do with how ready and willing I was to create an opportunity for victory. A win or a loss comes in split seconds in judo, not in 90 minutes like in football.

All these sporting competitions showed me that results in life come from my effort, how well I work in a team and how to choose the right game for me. These are critical insights when building a business.

Give your children ample opportunity to test themselves so their competitive spirit grows.

Push them into the spotlight

A sports arena is a type of stage. All the competitors are giving a performance. But this isn’t the only form of performing. From a young age, my mother made sure I was comfortable performing for an audience.

In my first play in kindergarten, I was a bumblebee. I don’t have many memories from that play, but I can vividly picture the kindergarten theater. I was lucky to grow up in a Serbian town that had its own youth theater program, so the bumblebee was not my last role. I participated in various productions before I turned ten and emigrated to Canada.

I was also a member of our local music school. My parents chose a traditional Serbian instrument for me: the tamburica. Picture a rustic ukulele played by plucking the strings with a carved bull’s horn pick. I have many memories of performing for crowds. But none bigger than when I became the national tamburica champion in the under-ten category.

This championship victory gave me the opportunity to perform on a live, nationally broadcast weekend kids’ television show. I remember being so upset at myself for making a mistake in my performance. As I walked off the stage, my teacher knew why I was upset. But she reassured me before I even said a word, “Vuk, only you and I know you made that mistake.”

Every performance in my childhood gave me the confidence to stand in front of a crowd and represent myself and my business today. These activities all contributed to who I am as a businessperson.

Make sure your children have an opportunity to perform and encourage them into the spotlight.

Let them play their own way

As a kid in a war-torn region, I didn’t have an infinite supply of toys. Often, we would build our own from whatever was around. I made good use of my hands, building homemade slingshots and rubber band rifles from sticks and twigs.

As things stabilized in the early 2000s, international corporations started to enter the Serbian market. But none meant more to me than Lego. But not just any Lego, I was specifically intrigued by Bionicles.

If you do not remember them, they were alien robots that weren’t made from the typical Lego brick. They were constructed with a combination of gears, pinions, racks, ball-and-socket joints and other mechanical elements.

I would put them together and take them apart repeatedly until I didn’t need the instructions anymore. Then I would combine multiple sets and build custom creations from my own imagination. Some parents may have been upset that their kid was not playing with their toys “right,” but my parents saw that my play was nurturing my creativity.

It’s no surprise that I grew up to become a mechanical engineer with a passion for building. Systems-based processes and creativity in solution design are a critical element of entrepreneurship.

So let your children play in their own way! It will help shape their future success.