In Part One, Mikus Kins discusses how confident people are determined and fearless.  Mikus lays out how to teach children to embody confidence by speaking to the ideas of determination and fearlessness.

In Part Two, Mikus Kins describes how visionaries are organized and frugal.  Mikus lays out how to teach children to embody the mind of a visionary by speaking to the ideas of organization and frugality.

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What parent would not want to teach their child how to be the following things:

  • Confident
  • Determined
  • Fearless
  • A Visionary
  • Organized
  • Frugal

These are nice thoughts, but at the end of the day, what does it even look like to intentionally teach a child how to embody these characteristics? It can be easy to look at this list and get overwhelmed by the amount of work it would take to teach a child to harness each of these character traits.  So, in an effort to “Practice what we preach,” I am going to help you break these characteristics down into doable actions.

Let’s reorganize these traits first, shall we?

When I take a deeper look into each of these character traits, I think they can be broken down differently than how I laid them out above.  Instead of each of them being their own separate category, I think two of the traits can best be used as umbrella topics for the rest.  Refer to the following to understand what I mean:

  • Category 1 | Confident people are:
    • Determined and
    • Fearless.
  • Category 2 | A Visionary is…
    • Organized and
    • Frugal.

In order to teach your children how to embody these traits, we first need to break down each category on its own and analyze it.  Let’s start for the “confident” category.

  • Category 1 | Confident people are:
    • Determined and
    • Fearless.

People who are confident are determined and fearless.

Determined: People who are determined won’t be stopped.  With respect to the phrase, “Go big or go home,” they “go big” most of the time.  They are convinced to follow strategic courses of action that they conjure up and will always find a way to accomplish what they set out to do.

Teaching Your Child to Be Determined: Ask yourself, “Are they timid? Do they hold back in any areas? Do they shine in any areas?” Find out what makes them tick.  Ask them specific questions that get to the heart of things.  Do they have fears? Insecurities? Obstacles? Help them to logically work through them.  Do they shine without fear of certain subject areas? Point out how well they are doing and positively reinforce it.  Show them how they can apply the same determination to other areas of their lives.

People who are fearless are oftentimes educated.

Fearless: Someone who does not fear what is ahead vaguely knows what is to come.  They do their research.  They study things in depth and find ways to overcome them.  Being an overcomer is the name of the game for them.  Problem areas for most people are not a problem to them, because they have taken the time to find a way to deal with them.  They are solution finders.

Teaching Your Child to Be Fearless: Ask yourself, “What strengths do my children have? What are their problem areas?” Talk to your child about each of these and let them talk it out.  Let them be wordy and speak all over the place.  View their talk like a plate of noodles.  Then, help them to take each noodle and lay it out flat.  If they are young enough, you can even use a plate of jumbled noodles to help convey your message to them.  Lay it out flat on the counter for each topic you discuss and help them to organize it in their mind.  Then, let them sit in the discomfort of not knowing how to handle certain subject matter.  Then, ask them enough strategic questions–such as, “What do you think you should do about that?”–to get them to come up with a powerful solution.  This will teach them to own their fears, solve them themselves, and follow through on overcoming them, fearless.

Come back in two weeks for Part Two of “Instill These 2 Entrepreneurial Character Traits into Your Children!”