Brian Johnson outlines seven qualities of entrepreneurial spirit that help kids develop purpose: goals and plans, optimism, persistence, risk-taking, resilience, measurable results, and resourcefulness. Parents foster these by supporting realistic plans, tolerating risk, and helping children stick with meaningful goals long-term.
Chapters
You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another micro class. This one's on entrepreneurial spirit. It's inspired by the Path to Purpose by William Damon. In this book, William talks about how to cultivate purpose in our children. And. And he features 12 talks about the qualities of 12 kids who have demonstrated a life of purpose. And he said that one of the qualities they all had in common was an entrepreneurial spirit. Not all of them were straight A students. They all did okay in school. Right. But that wasn't the major differentiator among them. It was the fact that they had an entrepreneurial spirit. Not necessarily for business stuff, although many of them pursued business stuff. But they used this entrepreneurial spirit to attack whatever civic or social challenge they wanted to go after. Right. That their purpose was dedicated to helping to resolve. And he identified six, actually seven qualities that make up this entrepreneurial spirit. Let's take a quick look at them. The first thing is they have goals and plans. If you're an entrepreneur, you have a goal and you have a plan on how you're going to achieve that goal. That's the essence of the entrepreneurial spirit, right? It starts with that. Then you have an optimistic spirit, a can do attitude. He says, we got to believe that we can achieve this goal, right? That's a really important quality to have in life. I should say that he said, if you had to bet on one quality for long term success, this is a good one. Entrepreneurial spirit, goals and plan, optimism. And then they have persistence in the face of obstacles. Things aren't going to go well. Oh, oh man, that didn't work. Let me go through that wall. Oh, let me go through that wall. Persistence, key aspect of the entrepreneurial spirit. And then a willingness to take risks and to stretch themselves. He makes the point again and again and again that we as parents need to help our kids create realistic plans to attain these goals. But we also need to be willing to risk and not only tolerate it, but have an appetite for it. To stretch ourselves beyond what may seem reasonable or even possible within the framework and of a realistic plan and attitude. Right? Then we have resilience. So persistence is going after it again and again and again to break through. And then resilience is dealing with when it doesn't work. Oh, sad face. That didn't work. I'm gonna have to try plan B. No big deal. I'm gonna go for it. Resilience, incredibly important part of the entrepreneurial spirit. And then we have measurable results. Right? This isn't just a wishy washy oh yeah, I'd like to make a difference in the world. It's I'm going to do this by this period of time. Specificity is so important in goals, which we talk about all the time. And then the final aspect of entrepreneurial spirit is resourcefulness. Resourcefulness, right. That's what makes entrepreneurialism so fun is you got to take limited resources and figure out how to achieve your outcome in a creative, innovative, resourceful way. Those seven qualities are worth thinking about in cultivating with our kids if we want them to be able to sustain commitment to a goal bigger than themselves over the long run. Entrepreneurial Spirit Next class, little micro class. We're going to talk about one of the specific ways we can cultivate this in. You can do it more on that in a moment. For now, how are you doing with this in your own life and how can you embody it and share it a little bit more with your children starting today? Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that micro class. If so, I think you'll enjoy everything else we offer at BrianJohnson me. Two basic things one our free newsletter. It's called the Optimizer. Over 50,000 people start their day with it and they tell us it's pretty awesome. And 2 our optimal living Membership program. This is where I put all my best stuff. 10 bucks a month for a ton of wisdom. Two primary things in there philosopher's notes plus optimal living 101 classes. When you sign up, you'll get instant access to 250 philosopher's notes, which are basically six page PDFs and 20 minute MP3s where I capture my favorite big ideas from great books. The PNTV episodes are kind of a mini version of all that goodness. You'll also get instant access to all my Optimal Living classes. This is where I take all the ideas we cover in the Philosopher's Notes and boil it down to the most practical stuff you can apply today. Classes include Confidence 101, Getting Stuff Done 101, Relationships 101, Habits 101, etc. You'll also get access to what we call micro classes that I think you'll love. We aim to astonish and we're blessed to have thousands of members telling us we're helping them change their lives and that this is the best 10 bucks they invest in themselves every month. Go to BrianJohnson ME membership to learn more. Thanks for your support and have an awesome day.
