One of my key objectives as a Best Practice Parenting Advocate is to challenge parents to coach their kids to make deliberate purpose driven INCOME EARNING skills acquisition a way of life.
Virtually no any area of endeavor or vocation should be exempted. As long as there is interest on the part of the learner, and the activity itself is value adding, ESPECIALLY in terms of income earning potential, as well as personal development benefits, you should encourage them to go for it.
It’s a slow – and necessarily messy process (especially when one is dealing with teenagers), but worth it in the long run, as it MATURES them in line with real world requirements quite effectively.
The best practice parenting articles I share on this blog provide ample evidence of the fact that I practice what I preach.
This is why our home is always in a constant state of perpetual activity!
So many of my best practice parenting articles shared on this blog offer insights into the MANY exciting real life skills development projects we have successfully converted into semi-formal (and soon to be formalized) money making (and/or money saving) micro business enterprises.
Examples include our range of no-oven charcoal stove baked cakes, cookies, chin-chin, bread, African-Style-Pizza and Pineapple-Peel (Yes, the PEELS)-based drinks. See links at the bottom of this post, to detailed articles I’ve written about some of them – photos inclusive.
The ability to make the above foods and drinks now enable the kids make their own birthday cakes and other refreshments.
So, instead of having to go buying them, they simply purchase the flour and other items needed and then settle down to bake ALL they need.
What’s more, when friends and relatives are celebrating we now simply decide what to make and give to them as gifts, instead of thinking of what to buy and where to get it.
Now that we’ve added footwear making to the mix, the kids have yet another option in terms of what they can give as gifts – EACH of them being what they can produce in a custom manner that does NOT exist in the marketplace, making it unique and therefore more likely to be appreciated by the recipient!
This article is meant to serve as a wake-up call to as many readers as possible
I feel compelled to use the insights I’ve so far gained, from the years of progressively implementing my best practice parenting vision for my OWN kids, based on a careful reflection on my personal experiences in life, to offer guidance to other parents – and indeed adults in society.
Not too long ago, I wrote a heartfelt piece in which I passionately appealed to parents and adults in society involved in education, to UNDERSTAND that schooling is MEANT to be a means to an end, and NOT an end in itself.
So many people in so many societies do NOT understand this truth and as a result, they continue to go about their “schooling” wrongly.
They do it in a way that denies them exposure to the RIGHT kind of education needed for them to survive, and indeed FLOURISH, in society as competent income earning responsible adults.
The recession we’re currently experiencing in Nigeria, as well as globally have thrown up this inadequacy in our schooling through our reactions towards it.
Those who lost jobs keep going out looking or new jobs – even accepting lesser pay, just to earn income. Those who lack jobs keep walking the streets, certificates in hand looking for jobs – sometimes even accepting to be grossly underemployed, taking on menial jobs, just to earn a living.
The irony is that while all the above happens, most of these schooled people fail to notice the elderly women on Lagos Island’s Balogun, and Akpongbon areas who for decades have operated high volume commercial trading businesses, dealing in fast moving consumer goods, DESPITE lacking formal education.
I used to smile, back in 2004, while still trying to find clear direction as a startup entrepreneur, at the paradox of the situation in which well dressed lady bankers would arrive in chauffeured official cars, to pressure the “Mamas” about the need to put their money in the bank.
Lacking formal schooling, and knowledge of conventional banking benefits, the latter routinely kept their money at home or in other non-bank storage locations.
This, despite the fact that the amounts they handled that way ran into the millions. The bankers knew this and saw massive opportunity to be had in making the “Mamas” their clients.
As I said, whenever I saw the suited banker scurrying after the “Mamas”, I always smiled in silent amusement…
My amusement came from the obvious irony of the fact that the bankers NEEDED the money of illiterate big time traders who learnt to make money without attending school.
Yet in real life, in an economy that works, it is bankers who should ideally put their knowledge of money making at the disposal of business owners, with financial support where needed, so the latter can make money or make it more profitably!
This brings me back to my point about the schooling we get.
We often complete formal schooling without having real life competence in money making endeavors of any sort.
Instead most times we just emerge with lots of theoretical knowledge and the pieces of paper that confirm we passed those time limited exams.
Unfortunately, life does not give exams that we can sit down and pass the same way, using just what we read.
Instead, life demands that we demonstrate proficiency in something that adds tangible, measurable value and impact to others.
Anyone unable to find a way to function in that manner after completing his/her schooling and entering society is likely to struggle, to make him/herself get taken seriously. Especially as it relates to commanding income payment, from others.
This is the reason why unschooled people with exceptional abilities to do things others are willing to pay for, tend to end up rich, while schooled people lacking similar competence struggle in the same field.
Compare MANY graduates of music, who ventured into music making as a career, with Tu Face Idibia who never even studied the subject, yet is renowned for his music making prowess across Africa, and you’ll see what I mean.
It goes without saying that you can come up with so many more examples within and outside your own society.
This is why I argue that learning to DO THINGS that matter, especially in a way that makes others willing to pay you, is crucial to success in life.
Now, since most schooling available in our societies tend not to focus on giving learners exposure to develop the ability to do that, I believe EACH person must go get it for him/herself.
That’s what I am doing for my kids through my Personal Achievement Coaching for Kids (PACK) ™ program that I formally launched on a pilot scale with them in 2014.
One of its key objectives is to make the participants imbibe the mental attitude of constantly seeking to “Make their own stuff”.
Like I said earlier, it has to become a way of life. Like it is for me, the outcome will be the ability to function regardless of your seeming situation in life.
Even when you have no money, you will be so good at doing things that matter, and LEARNING new ones as needed, in a manner that equips you to get what you need at any point in time.
Anyone who functions that way will be effectively unstoppable.
I am able to conceive this model because it is based on my personal experiences having to succeed in spite of myriad potentially crippling limitations I’ve overcome during my startup years, to get where I am today.
My story, as told in many articles shared online over the past 10 years provides ample evidence that the claim inferred in my business motto is truly accurate i.e. “Acquire Self-Development Skills. Create The Future You Want™!”
That’s been the secret of my “unstoppability” since I started my journey to authentic long term success.
And it’s the secret I’m sharing with my kids in a very practical way.
As usual, I offer some examples of proof that I practice what I preach – this time, from the “Home based Custom Footwear Making” projects we’ve been making real progress with.
Below: A pair of leather slippers I purchased from a Cotonou based footwear maker in May 2016
Below: About 7 months later, they were worn out, and I’d discarded them. But when our new project on shoe-making began, I realized I could use the slippers to practice. This is the new slipper alongside the cover I removed from the old slipper.
Below: The new pair of slippers that I made using the soles from the old slippers
Below: First attempt by my 17 year old at making a pair of rubber slippers
The Motivation:
Unreliable, yet costly footwear often on offer from local vendors. The alternative tended to be purchase of imported used shoes. I did not like that. So I formed a habit of doing shoes and clothes shopping for my kids whenever I returned home from Cotonou.
However, over time my bulky bags drew attention of custom officers at the border, who insinuated I was trading in shoes/clothes I brought. Then they informed me of duties imposed on certain items (e.g. shoes), which I should have paid.
That discovery got me thinking.
I had seen some shoe maker shops in Lagos, with show glasses displaying handmade shoes. I thought to myself: “What stops us from making (at least some) of our own stuff that we need daily e.g. footwear like shoes, slippers etc”
Summary: The Key to Lasting Progress and Authentic Success In Life Is A Problem Solving Mentality!
Every time I’ve implemented a new addition to what I can do, it’s been the direct result of a PROBLEM I wanted to solve.
Indeed, life itself, including money making, is all about finding solutions to problems. The problem could be yours or that of another person. Providing the solutions can either save you money or make you money.
And that is in addition to helping you make more productive use of your time and effort.
So, I began discussing the idea with my kids.
I have 3 teenage boys and they tend to set the mood for how well any idea will sell in the home, to their siblings. Since I understood how to “sell ideas”, and I knew EACH child’s personality and interests quite well (do you know your kids that well?), I had little difficulty getting 2 of the boys’ interested.
Within a month, we’d begun downloading and watching all sorts of home study videos on shoe-making from experts around the world.
Then each time we went out, we looked around for shoe-making shops and supplies stores.
Long story short, today, we’re in our 3rd month of trying our hands at shoe-making, and the results continue to get better.
The kids now make and wear their own rubber and leather slippers, as do I. We also salvage parts from old damaged footwear (shoes. slippers) lying around the house, to make new ones we then wear. See photos below for examples.
Today, not only do the kids (especially the 3 boys) now make some of their own footwear, they also know how to use various tools to FIX bad ones (for themselves and others).
The finishing of the items we make in this area still needs improvement, understandably, but we’ve improved to the point that some are good enough for casual outings already.
If you still don’t get it, this means we no longer spend money buying some kinds of footwear, neither do we pay to have our footwear mended by cobbler’s except in rare instances. It goes without saying that THAT is a smart way to live through a period of economic recession, like that happening now!
Now, it is only a matter of time before we settle on a range we can offer to others as gifts and for sale as well. Yep – that is where we are headed with this.
This kind of exposure is a crucial complement required for ANY formal schooling a person goes through, if she is to arrive adulthood and society with real world relevant competence.
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