This is a sponsored post by A Billion Entrepreneurs and Business 2 Bloggers. All opinions are my own.
I am a stay at home mom. I have been for almost four years. It hasn’t always been an easy road, but it’s a worthy sacrifice. My kids are great kids. But, I often wonder what I’ll do when I “grow up,” or really, when my kids have. What will I do with my time? What career will I choose? Will I go back to my degree in art, creating and selling, or teaching it instead? Or will I pursue a second degree in something else? Will I start my own business? My own company? Honestly, I don’t know, but I’ve thought about all of those things. And, I often think about taking some college courses, and sooner rather than later. Because, while I love being a stay at home mother, it’s not all I do. I’m not just a mother. I do believe and do see myself as an entrepreneur, especially when I use A Billion Entrepreneurs definition of entrepreneurship – “Taking responsibility for outcomes” – which ultimately means taking responsibility of one’s life and current situation. This means a great stay at home mother is an entrepreneur in her own home, which is exactly the point of A Billion Entrepreneur’s mission – They want an entrepreneur in every home.
Photo credit: Victor1558 / Foter / CC BY
Taking Responsibility for Outcomes
Responsibility is a big word (fourteen letters to be exact). It implies honesty and integrity, both of which seem hard-pressed to come by in today’s society. People don’t want to be vulnerable by telling the truth, confessing to their short-comings, their sins, their mistakes. And standing up for what is right, despite it not being popular, is often laughed at instead of applauded. And taking responsibility? Isn’t that’s someone else’s job?
So, it can seem a tad daunting to think of being an entrepreneur, because you need to own up to your life and your goals. But, I love that. I do believe our society and our families need more responsibility, more honesty, more integrity, and more truth and humility. I am not perfect. I screw up a lot. I can be very proud, stubborn, unsympathetic, impatient, and mean. But, thankfully, I am also very self-reflective. I analyze my own weaknesses. I regularly take checks of how things are working or not working in every aspect of my life. While I am not great at always addressing these faults, I like to think that I am always taking baby steps toward perfection through the help of my Savior Jesus Christ.
Today’s world is about ideas that inspire
The forecast for jobs in today’s world is different than it used to be. Today’s world is about ideas that inspire. With some ingenuity and hard work, anyone can make money. I believe that the future of meaningful employment and/or self-employment is all about individuals. Individuals are becoming more well-known in various niches. It’s why the number of blogs increases daily. People are now branding themselves instead of a product. Intellectual property is the future. If you can come up with ideas, chances are you can make money doing it, and be successful.
My current entrepreneurial endeavor
Obviously, I’m a blogger. I have within the last six months seriously, and aggressively, pursued my passion of writing and sharing my advice, and promoting myself her on What’s up Fagans?. I have felt inspired and motivated by my Heavenly Father to do this, and I feel him blessing me on my journey of making a regular part-time income from this blog. I wouldn’t have considered it (as I didn’t for years of having this blog) if I didn’t feel like it was a good decision for me and my family at this time. But, it has felt right and I am so thankful for it. Blogging has been an amazing experience of learning: I have learned a crazy amount about websites, hosting, writing, promoting, advertising, writing, photography, networking, sponsors, affiliates, and social media (just to name a few). And, I still have much more to learn and do! I love that about blogging and working. And I am thankful that I am seeing my hard work starting to pay off monetarily so far this year. I agree with A Billion Entrepreneurs – The Movie film maker Jimmy Newson that it is “invigorating it is to be an entrepreneur.”
I want to raise entrepreneurial children
I plan on homeschooling my children. With much unknown about how the job market and the world will look like in 15-20 years from now, when my children will be adults, I definitely want to instill within my children an entrepreneurial spirit. I want them to take responsibility for outcomes.
My husband and I are college-educated individuals. In fact, my husband will most likely be starting work on a doctorate degree this fall. We value education. We both believe in life-long learning and growth. However, we both know that college, especially straight out of high school, is not the course for everyone. While it may be that our children will be unemployable even for entry level positions without a bachelor’s degree, due to the gross inflation of college degrees, we want to encourage our children to pursue their passions, whatever and wherever they may lie. And they may lie outside the need of higher education.
So, if our children show ingenuity and want to try to start their own business endeavors, we will support and encourage that. We will also support and encourage them to earn degrees and serve missions for our church. All of these things are worthwhile, responsible pursuits.
I love the idea of fostering the spirit of ingenuity in each home. I urge you to check out A Billion Entrepreneur’s new movie trailer, and see how they value having an entrepreneur in every home. A Billion Entrepreneurs – The Movie is an inspiring, feature-length documentary film that follows real-life entrepreneurs, as they leave a trail of impact, inspiration, mentorship, and responsibility in their business and personal lives which has an effect on countless people.
Are you an entrepreneur? Do you want your children to be one?
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Clare says
Hi Katelyn – I’m a blogger like you so I think that makes me an entrepreneur, I would love for my children to have an entrepreneurial spirit and this is one of the things I would like to ‘teach’ them while they’re young.
Hezzi-D says
We really like documentaries so I’ll have to check this out!
Helen Neale says
This is a really thought provoking post – I really want my kids to develop some of these traits, being entrepreneurial is really important – hopefully my kids will follow my lead with this as they see me develop my own ideas and follow through on this. Thanks for linking up to the Parenting Pin it Party this week.
Louida says
Yes I’m a entrepreneur and love being able to be my own boss! I make my income blogging. I’m going to pass down what I’ve learned throughout the years to my daughters so they too can be entrepreneurs!