Goodwill Ofunne

Parents and mentors must lay a foundation of strong conviction, discipline and diligence, character and respect for others, generosity and quality culture, networking and friendliness and patience and endurance at home, for a child to build the substructure for life in entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur must constantly assess and learn to adapt to new environments using these homegrown skills to ensure lasting success in life. It is the goal of this blog to review and create an understanding of the essential skills as they relate to one another.

Conviction 

This attribute that can be inherited from parents or mentors applies especially to an opinion strongly held by an individual or a family. A conviction is a belief an individual is ready to die for, as opposed to a held belief that is something one accepts as true but it is arguable. Conviction is a principle developed through meditation, knowledge of the truth, understanding and wisdom. Individuals or families who have well-thought-out principles and values have healthier relationships. They are more resistant to external social pressure and more easily resist bad habits such as drug or alcohol abuse. When parents teach children the principle of telling the truth at all times, it makes the children feel good about themselves through a positive perspective. They develop high self-worth, feel assured, and will defend their beliefs and hold up against bullying and ridicule. Martin Luther King Jr. was a man who stood by strong convictions and regardless of how he was being treated, he stood with dignity, grace, and love. 

Children who are taught to have a strong conviction or inherit this important core value, live to have certainty and certitude such that they grow up in a state of being free from doubt. 

Character and Respect

Character is the personality and moral or ethical qualities of a person who has traits like integrity, honesty, courage, loyalty, fortitude, and other essential attributes that promote good behaviour. These character traits define who the child is and highly influence the choices they make in their lives. When the child shows unpleasant characters they are unpleasant, unreliable and dishonest. So, it is beneficial to teach children good moral character because it will help them learn honesty and reliability, achieve peace of mind, sleep well at night, strengthen trust with friends and peers, and build a solid reputation with other people. An excellent character in children assists them to reduce anxiety, build self-confidence, and leadership qualities, and live a purpose-driven life.

Similarly, respect means accepting somebody for who they are, even when they differ from them or do not agree with them. Respect in relationships builds feelings of trust, safety, and well-being among people. Children must learn that respect does not have to come to anyone naturally, it has to be earned through consistent learning. Respect for and between persons exists in three distinctive aspects human recognition respect, status recognition respect and appraisal respect. These same aspects or dimensions of respect are at play in the development of self-respect in children. Therefore, to be a talented student of entrepreneurship, children must learn respect for life, people and things so that friendliness, trust and a good network which are essential virtues for success will flourish as they grow to adulthood.

Quality

Successful people learn to do the right thing at all times, no matter how difficult it may seem. Doing the right thing at all times with little thought is a Quality culture. The learning of quality culture involves learning to gain knowledge of how things work, meditating on the truth of the knowledge leads to the understanding of how to achieve the goals required by the truth of the knowledge. Then learning to use knowledge and the understanding of the process required by the truth of knowledge to serve others or find solutions to known societal problems is wisdom. Wisdom is the foundation of creativity and quality delivery. 

This process implies that parents and mentors study their wards and understand how they learn, and help them become interested in acquiring a knowledge of life skills and principles so that they learn to follow life processes with patience and endurance to achieve a goal and solve life problems. In raising children who wish to become entrepreneurs, seeking knowledge, understanding and wisdom for life is the principal attribute for success.

Parents and Mentors must discipline children not to seek shortcuts to problem-solving, but learn to stick to life processes and have the confidence to change them if necessary. Children must understand that all paths of life have a sustainable process offered by wisdom, knowledge and understanding, but it will take discipline to follow such processes while waiting for the results of the transformation of the inputs into results. Quality culture demands patience and endurance and this is a mandatory lesson in entrepreneurship education.

Patience and Endurance

Patience stems from learning endurance and it is the quality of being able to wait for an answer or result, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or process of life. It is also the ability or willingness to suppress restlessness or annoyance when confronted with delay. This is a difficult trait to develop in children, but with patient persuasion, parents and mentors can teach their children the importance of waiting for results and outputs. Children must learn that delay is not denial and waiting is not weakness or lack of control. 

Endurance is the ability to withstand hardship or adversity, especially the ability to sustain a prolonged stressful effort or activity. This skill is essential in the management of failures and adversity in life. Sports and academics are the best teachers of this skill, and parents are encouraged to put their children into sports that they like early enough to make an impact.

With patience and resilience, children will remain focused on their goals despite any unexpected adversity. By learning patience and endurance they will understand that their goal is still possible and worth continuing toward, and do not get bogged down by the clouded judgment that frustration can bring in life. In short, patience helps them stay focused and effective for the long haul.

Patience puts the children in direct control of themselves, and there is no more powerful aid to success than self-possession. When children learn to be patient, they give themselves time to choose how to respond to an event, rather than get emotionally hijacked by their emotions. It allows them to stay gathered no matter what is happening and appreciate delayed gratification. Entrepreneurship education demands sound knowledge and understanding of the use of patience and understanding.

Discipline and Diligence

Today there are several options and theories of parenting, but none of the virtues is more controversial than the application of discipline. Some people believe in the discipline of children, while others believe in negotiation and discussion. The author believes that parents and mentors should not spare discipline because children are like new computers and will only do what the software demands. So when parents teach children to behave and work in a controlled way which involves obeying particular rules, guidelines or standards the children learn to be true to their word. When they decide to do something, it is set in stone, and they do not even need an accountability partner to keep them on track.

Someone who is self-disciplined can control themselves and make themselves work hard or behave particularly with no one else to tell them what to do. Most religions teach their members to be truthful and self-disciplined. 

Similarly, the diligent person is constant in their effort to accomplish something and is attentive and persistent in doing anything. Diligence may rather be regarded as a combination of both hard work and patience because being persistent requires patience. It is also one of the most important attributes of a good person. Diligence is applied strengths, or “strengths in action.” 

Working in one’s area of strength provides a natural motivation to care about one’s work and the perseverance to carry it through to completion. Not only does it cause the children to achieve their goals, but it also makes a favourable impression on others who work with them. 

In developing a sense of discipline, children must be taught not to procrastinate or to delay doing something until a later time because they do not want to do it.

Procrastination and laziness are two different concepts: procrastination involves delaying unnecessarily, whereas laziness involves being voluntarily unwilling to exert necessary effort. Neither attribute is good for entrepreneurship and life goals.

Networking and Friendliness

The concept of community and the interdependence of the ecosystem is a principal attribute a child must learn if they will prosper in life. The fact that no man is an Island is an important concept for entrepreneurial development. Teaching children networking is about interacting and engaging with people for mutual benefit. When children with networks face challenges in life, their peers and network may provide them with advice and share their knowledge and skills to help them overcome their challenges. 

Networking gives access to new opportunities, insights, new techniques, information, strategies, and proficiency. The purpose of networking is to make new friends, acquaintances, and useful partners. 

By being friendly with others, children learn to initiate mutual respect. Being friendly towards others will help them feel better about themselves, and will understand how to spread love and others happy. Simple kindness and friendliness are both a skill and a value. It involves parts of other values, such as empathy of sensitivity and the boldness of courage, but it is a very separate and different value from these. 

Empathy, Loyalty, Trust, Honesty and Respect are the five virtues parents and mentors should all strive to embody in the life skill that their children must learn early in life to be successful. While these qualities are arguably the most important to cultivate to understand how to maintain healthy and uplifting friendships, establishing a trusted network through friendship is wisdom.

Generosity

The act of giving to others is central to the human condition and has particular relevance for influencing others because the people that we provide help stand ready to help us in return. A generous person does not give indiscriminately but seeks to give in a way that is good and fine. This requires giving to the right people, in the right amounts, at the right time, with pleasure, and without looking out for oneself. Generosity is “being careful with what we have so that we can share.” Generosity does not only mean giving other people money and things, but giving time, attention, hard work, patience, kind words, and talents to help and encourage others.

This means when children are taught generosity early, they are more likely to give back to their community when they succeed as entrepreneurs. Generous individuals are personally more fulfilled, happier and more peaceful with themselves, than stingy persons. Entrepreneurship is about meeting needs and giving to the community meets collective needs and prospers the community. Learning the skill of generosity is mandatory for any child that wants to become an entrepreneur because it is more honourable to give than to receive.