April 7, 2025

How to Raise Entrepreneurial Kids: 5 Lessons for Future Leaders and Good Humans

How to Raise Entrepreneurial Kids: 5 Lessons for Future Leaders and Good Humans

What if we raised our kids to be leaders, not followers? In this heartfelt and empowering episode of We Are the Hansons, we explore 5 ways to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit in your children—while also raising them to be kind, courageous, and resilient human beings.
We’ll talk about:

  • Cultivating confidence and curiosity
  • Encouraging problem-solving and leadership
  • Teaching real-world money and value skills
  • Modeling entrepreneurial behavior at home
  • Supporting their dreams (even the crazy ones)
This episode is all about helping your kids dream big, think independently, and become the kind of people who make things happen in the world. 💛 This one’s for every parent who wants to raise creators, thinkers, and leaders with heart.

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Welcome to the Jeremy Hanson Podcast. And this is a

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first for me. Also, we are the Handsoon's podcast, that's

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my wife's and mine and the Thirteen Kids and Everybody's podcast.

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But today we're talking about something that affects both listener bases.

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We're talking about entrepreneurism. We're talking about kids. We're talking

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about five ways that you can foster that you can

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nurture that entrepreneurial spirit in your children. I think that

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it's important, I really do. You Know. As I was

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growing up, I got to be around my parents. Both

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of my parents were entrepreneurs. My dad was a tradesman

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and my mother was a college educated woman, so I

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got to see it from both sides. But both of

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them became entrepreneurs. Both of them were successful, and I

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learned a lot from them and the people that they

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talked to. So I want my kids to have that

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entrepreneurial spirit, and boy do they ever. I've got a

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couple of little daughters that I have caught doing things

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like they would take oranges out of the refrigerators, sit

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in front of the house, and they would sell them

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to our postman. Now I'm not kidding. If there was

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an opportunity, they were taking it. And that is the

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entrepreneurial spirit that is seeing mom and dad do things,

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that's trying to do it yourself. So my thing is

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is how then, how do we nurture that? How do

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we foster that? Obviously there has to be boundaries because

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you know, we got to keep our kids safe, and

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you know, you want your kids to be kids. You

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want them to go down their life path because it's

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their life, it's not ours. You know, we might not

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agree with everything they do, but we try to nurture

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them to be the best people that they can be.

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And secondly, we want to give them the tools that

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they need to become successful later on in life. So

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I came up with this thing, you know, these five

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things that we can do as parents to nurture their

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entrepreneurial spirit. And I think every parent out there they

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want their kids to do better than them. So you

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want to start them young. Like all these lessons, you

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should really watch what you talk about, and you should

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really watch how you act because just you acting like

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an entrepreneur, they're going to pick up from that. You know,

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what I've noticed about kids is they are much more

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learning that sounds terrible. They learn much more more from

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watching the way you are than the word you say.

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So I really think that you need to bring kids

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on as much as you can, if you know what

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I'm saying, Like one, encourage problem solving. Okay, and some

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people will disagree with me on this, not about that

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side of it. But not just rule following, Okay. I

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want them to be independent. I want them to be

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a free spirit. I want them to be independent thinkers.

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I want to encourage them go fix a problem, fix it,

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not just rule following. I think to be a good entrepreneur,

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sometimes you need to break the rules. If you know

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what I'm saying, you got to teach your kid, you know,

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let them learn to think critically, you know, teach your

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kids to explore solutions on their own. Okay. And here's

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the thing, you have to let your kids fail. Sometimes

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they're going to figure it out. That's one of the

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hardest things in the world as a parent is to

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let your kid fail. But you know, with them failing,

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you're actually preparing them, you know, for later on in life.

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You Know, the truth is, if you want your kid

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to be a good entrepreneur, make them what an entrepreneur

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is and an entrepreneur is a professional problem solver, and

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that's just it is what it is. You know, ask

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them a lot of questions like hmm, how would you

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fix this, and be in tune with them, like literally

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ask them and want the answer. Don't just say it,

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but actually want the answer, or what's another way do

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you want to try it? Some of the best times

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that I've had with my kids have been working on

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things or doing stuff like that. It turns out that

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it's a chore when we start, and it ends up

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being some really really good quality time, you know, after

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supporting curiosity, and I guess with that creativity. What I

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have noticed with entrepreneurs is that big ideas are hugely

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small ideas that come from the weirdest places, and they

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get big. Give your kids some space, okay, let them

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do the things that kids do. Let them tinker around,

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let them build something, let them draw something, let them

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code something, let them sell something, let them experiment with themselves,

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because they come up with these great, great ideas. Like

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I said, my daughter's literally sitting there selling oranges. So

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my older daughter came out, she was twelve at the time,

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and she saw them doing it, and they had like

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four dollars, but they were selling those little mini oranges

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and she's like, Dad, can I do something like this?

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So my daughter asked if I went and got her watermelons,

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if we could split the profit, and I told her yes.

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I ended up giving her all the profit, but I

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went and paid for the watermelons. And she sat there

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twelve years old and sold watermelons and made a bunch

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of money. And it turned out that it really helped

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her talk to people. It really gave her some confidence

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and she learned about saving. Okay, once she had the money.

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She's still got some of that money in her bank now.

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So if your kid wants to do a side hustle, lemonade, stand,

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you know, build something, craft something, do some YouTube ideas,

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do anything that sparks their creativity and ownership, folks, that's

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how you build a strong entrepreneurial spirit, and that's how

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you foster their ideas. Now, they might not have some

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real good ideas. They might want to try something, and

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it's your job as a parent to try to guide that, okay,

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but don't be afraid of failure with them and talk

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about it the whole way and make it a fun adventure.

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You want this entrepreneurial spirit to flourish. Okay. You want

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them to understand the ups and the downs and doing things.

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But at this point you want to give them a

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good attitude about doing this stuff. Okay. Just remember, if

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it's safe, okay, let them try it. Make sure that

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you say yes to weird ideas more often than no. Okay,

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if it's not safe, obviously, don't let them do it.

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But give them the space to grow. Okay. The truth is,

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if you start with this with your child when they're young,

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they're probably going to be a better entrepreneur than you

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are when you get older, or at least we can hope. Right.

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One thing that my parents and my grandparents did for

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me that I do feel bad. I feel like this

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is a big disadvantage to some people is they don't

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get taught financial literacy. I'll see, when they're young. They

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don't get taught how to handle money. They don't get

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taught to save money. I remember my nephew, he wanted

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this deer hunting rifle and it was expensive. Then he

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went to his dad and he said, hey, I want this,

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and his dad said, well, you better get a job.

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Then so my nephew goes out and he gets a

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push mower, and he goes around and he mos and

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he mos and he mo's and this was not a cheap,

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cheap hunting rifle. This was an expensive one. And he

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mode and I think it was like four hundred and

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eighty some dollars, which I guess now this is ten

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years ago, but I guess now it's not that much.

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But it was four hundred and eighty bucks. And he

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did it, and he went to his dad and he said, Dad,

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I got enough money. I got it enough money. And

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he's like, all right, we'll head down there after a

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little bit. They jump in the truck, they go down there.

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They got exactly the one he wants, and he goes

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to put his money down and his dad looked at

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him and he says, put it in your pocket. And

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he put it in his pocket, and he said, now

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you know what it's like to work for something. And

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his dad bought it for him. And I always saw

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that was one of the best gestures in one of

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the best ways to teach your kid about working for

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something it has value now and teaching financial literacy like that.

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I see it work today because my nephew is one

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of the hardest workers I know. He's one of the

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best savers I know. He's one of the people that

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take care of the things that he's got because he

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worked really hard for it. And I think that's all

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in the name of teaching him some financial literacy, just

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the basics, you know, try to use everything that you

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go through your life moments, okay, with your kids, budgeting, saving,

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you know, maybe investing, and value. Okay. I think one

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of the biggest things that gets forgotten about is value,

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not just the value of stuff, but the value of

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hard work, the value of paying attention to people, the

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value of being a decent human being. All of those

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things are important to learn, and it's important to learn

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if you're going to be an entrepreneur, especially with your kids.

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Give them chances to earn money and help them guide

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them with their decisions on how they're going to use

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the money. Okay. I've opened up just the simple business

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bank accounts for my kids, just at my local bank.

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Some people, you know, they go use tools like green

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light or go Henry, you can actually go practice stuff there.

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I think that it's important. I think you need to

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teach kids how to balance a checkbook. I think you

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need to teach kids how to look at investments and

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investment rates, all of these things that we kind of

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take for granted today, but I don't see school teaching

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them that stuff. So teach financial literacy early. Your kids

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can never be a boss of anything unless they know

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how money works. Okay, now this is important. You need

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to normalize the acceptance of failure, but the resilience to

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fix failure. The truth is, your average entrepreneur is going

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to lose about fifty times before they win, So if

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failure becomes devastating to them, they will never be able

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to be an entrepreneur. So you've got to celebrate effort.

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You've got to celebrate critical thinking, celebrate resilience, celebrate the

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bounce back moments. Okay, you can't just celebrate success. Okay,

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it's the pathway there. It's the road there that you

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want to celebrate and show them that it's important to

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celebrate the little things. And the older you get in life,

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the more you're going to understand that. And I think

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if you can start them early learning that you're doing

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them a big favor. Make sure that they feel like

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they belong, make sure that they feel like, you know,

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they're not stupid. Say yeah, you know what I did this,

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I did that. Make them part of you and how

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you had to learn with some of your failures, some

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of your setbacks, and then how you overcame it. Tell

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them the stories, let them compute that in their head.

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Let them know that they are, you know, part of

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you and part of the things that you went through.

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Don't ever try to be oh, yeah, I've been perfect

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and I built this perfect thing, because you know that

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it's not true and that can be devastating for children.

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Let them see this is important to let them rejection okay.

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And I think it's so important when you teach your

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kids about selling, because entrepreneurism, at the end of the day,

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you're fixing a problem, but you're in sales and you

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might be selling yourself a service, a product, who knows

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what it is. But if you teach your kids that

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rejection is just a step on the road to success,

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that it's not a stopping point. It's just okay, on

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to the next you're going to do them big, big,

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big favors later on in life, not just with entrepreneurism,

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but you're going to do that with their just daily life, okay.

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And then finally, just remember this. Kids become what they see, Okay.

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Kids do not become what they're told. Kids become what

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they see. So let them hear you talk about the risks.

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Let them hear you talking about building value. Let them

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hear you talk about solving problems and creating goals. Make

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sure that you include them in conversations about businesses or

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jobs or challenges, how you treat people the right thing

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to do. You can even tell them about how hard

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it is to do some of the right things that

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you do and why. Show them that they don't need

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anybody else to create their success path, their happiness path,

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and that they are in control of their own future.

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And let them dream and let them build big. And

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remember that you are the model for your kids entrepreneurial

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thinking and the way they're going to treat people. They

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become what they see us do. So you better make

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sure that you're doing the right thing. All right, folks,

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Thank you to we are the Hansens, all you out

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there that listen to that, and thank you for the

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Jeremy Hanson podcast followers. I just thought this one was

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a good thing. I practice this, I do this I

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think that it's important, and you know what, We love

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you guys. Thank you for listening. Go check out Jeremy

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Hanson dot bro. We got some awesome things coming up,

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and we are wherever great podcasts are. Thank you for listening.

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Bye bye