Entrepreneurial Kids - Developing Mental Toughness

Entrepreneurship is mentally and emotionally hard. It takes a great deal of self-reliance and deep internal endurance to continue when you want to quit. Being an entrepreneur is hard because it’s on you. Success is on you. Results are on you. Making the call, doing the things you don't like to do...all on you. Making it requires willingness to be uncomfortable yet still push forward. To know that you might be uncomfortable, you might be in pain, you might be embarrassed, and you’ll certainly be challenged, but you’ll still persevere. Any marathon runner will tell you that strong legs help, but what defines a marathoner is the ability to continue running when your body says stop. Your body will rebel and start screaming at you to stop--right now--but your mind tells your legs to keep going. One more step. And another. And another.

I was recently at the Grand Canyon with my family and naturally wanted to hike to Phantom Ranch at the bottom and then back up. But as I talked to the rangers about doing it in one day, they said, “No way. That’s a hike for really experienced hikers.” I mentioned that my 9-year-old son wanted to go with me and they said “absolutely not,” so, being a responsible parent and respecter of limitations that authority figures lay on me, I went right on planning our hike. We left our RV at 5:45 AM and caught a bus to the trailhead. At the rim of the canyon, when we started, the temperature was in the high teens, and at the bottom it was in the 70s, which makes clothing an interesting challenge, especially when you want to bring extra warm clothes for just in case situations. I wasn’t sure if there would be food or water available on the way so I brought enough of both for the entire day of hiking plus extra for safety.

An interesting thing about hiking the Grand Canyon is that you start out going downhill but you end the day climbing uphill. So as we started out Christian was loving it. He wanted to climb ever rock face and explore every little side pocket and trail as any boy naturally would.

So we started a conversation that spanned the entire day, about what it was going to take for him to make it all the way back up to the top. I talked to him about running marathons, how when you are at the starting line and feeling great, but you know that in a little while you will be in pain and beyond tired. At that point it’s up to you to draw down that mental toughness to keep going, taking that next step and the one after that. I talked to him about being prepared for that time so that when it comes he would be ready mentally.

Seriously biased dad here but he was amazing. He handled it like a champ. He was ahead of me for the 9 miles down, but the downhill section isn’t the time that tries men's souls. After Lunch at Phantom Ranch we started the trek up and after a long time came to the final 3 miles of steep switchback trails. This is where your feet feel like you have 10 lbs weights on them. He knew this was coming and knew it would be hard. But he never complained. Not once. We made it to the top with daylight to spare. He was one tired but happy boy. So was I.

Now you can read this and say, Yay Christian good for you! And yes he did great, but what’s interesting is what has happened since that time. It’s been over a year now, and he and I have jogged the stairs up and down the dunes, jogged through the sands, swam roughly ⅓ of a mile in the waves of Lake Michigan, and gone through some gruelling soccer practices. Never once has he said he couldn’t do it, or that he was too tired to go on. Once or twice he brought up the fact that this was tough, but not as tough as the Grand Canyon hike.

That hike did something inside of him. Something deep in him now knows that when the going gets tough he can keep going. He has a mental anchor. He knows he did something hard once and made it through. I think that, in a small but important way, that day hiking the Grand Canyon will stick with him forever.

This past Summer he expressed an interest in making some money. After we talked about what he could do, we made a plan, and I printed some business cards for him. Then came the hard part. We went door to door in our neighborhood and he knocked on every door and told them about his business, leaving each of them with a business card magnet for them to put on their fridge.

In case you’re not aware, going door to door selling your services is HARD.

He’s 9 years old so he still has a little bit of that cuteness factor going for him, but anyway you cut it, it’s hard to muster the courage to walk up to a stranger’s door, knock, and then tell them about your business. Don’t believe me, try it sometime.

I knew it would be hard and that he might not be able to make it on his own (just as he might not be able to make the Grand Canyon hike alone), so I went with him, talked him through it, and encouraged him along the way. I Played up the positive responses and downplayed the negative ones. I never went up to the door, but stayed on the sidewalk like a trick or treating dad, because he had to be the one to knock and give his talk. He didn’t want to do his first house, but that went well so he was ready to try some more. After about 20 he said he was kind of done for the night, so we walked home. We’ve gone out a few other nights and each time it’s easier because he did something hard the first time and lived to tell the tale.

Let your kids do hard things. Let them be uncomfortable. Don’t make it too easy on them. Their future selves need to know that they can do hard things and get through them, that being uncomfortable and in pain doesn’t mean to stop but to keep moving forward, one step. Then another. And another.