The overarching objective every responsible parent has for their child is for them to be successful and financially independent when they get older. A popular prayer in Yoruba land ask for our children to be more successful than we are and there must be similar versions of this prayer from other parts of the country. Despite our best intentions though, the reality is that children don’t come with an instruction manual or one of those foldout quick installation guides like the one that came with your laptop. Even when a parent discovers and adopts an approach that works for one child, it might be totally unworkable for a sibling.

So what many of us parents do, is to default to the methods that we were subjected to by our own parents. We make sure our kids get up early, get to school on time and do their homework when they get back home. We ask them, "How was school?" and are satisfied when we hear an offhand "Fine." in response. We review their report cards, praise or admonish as appropriate and we trust in the belief that once they are spewed out the rear end of our education system along with their classmates, they will find a decent job. In many cases, that is the extent of our participation in their financial security - provide a good education.

Every parent wants their kid to be the next Mark Zuckerberg but some of us push them in literally the opposite direction by equipping them with the tools that make them more likely to end us as Zuckerberg's employee than as the billionaire himself. We forget or probably don't know that Mark dropped out of college to start his business. So too did the richest man in the world right now, Bill Gates, so the best education does not necessarily guarantee that your little one is an Aliko Dangote in the making. You know what, let me pause and reel out names of some successful people who didn't complete their education.

Richard Branson dropped out of school age 15 after being frustrated with his learning disability, Steve Jobs also dropped out of college without the faintest idea of what he was going to do with his life. Albert Einstein of all people didn’t make it in school past age 15. The world's first billionaire, John D. Rockefeller Sr. was also a drop out. Ray Kroc who created the world's largest fast food chain, McDonald's is also on this list and in case you think it's only old men who fit this mould, Elizabeth Holmes, who is considered to be the world's youngest female billionaire at age 32, is also a drop out.

Closer to home, what about Africa's richest man, Aliko Dangote? Dangote was born into a wealthy home, third generation money in fact so he had a very good start. According to his profile, he has a degree in Business Studies and Administration from the School of Economics & Business, Al Azhar University in Egypt but read what he said in an interview a few years ago: "All my business acumen and instincts I inherited from my maternal grandfather. As his first grandson, he poured his business wizardry into me. I would not have been where I am today without him; a very great man, loving and caring." Dangote may have gone through the school system but he owes a lot to the informal education and exposure he received from his grandfather.

George W. Bush, who isn't remembered as the most eloquent or brightest U.S presidents once said to a class of graduating students, "To those of you who are graduating this afternoon with high honours, awards and distinctions, I say, well done. And as I like to tell the C students, you too can be president."

That quote sums up one half of what I intend to communicate in this post. I am by no means saying that education is bad or that children shouldn’t be encouraged to get the highest grades they are capable of; but if you truly want your children to sour as high as their potential, there are skills they need that they simply won't learn in a conventional classroom. Any measure of financial success usually comes from having the right mix of a strong character, a clear vision, determination, some talent and the right connections to the right people.

If you want the laundry list, I’ll add street smart, a sense of humour, ingenuity, resourcefulness, Omolúabí (google it) and the gift of the gab. If you agree, even in part, that these are some of the traits of the billionaires we have in the today's world and time past, then ask yourself; "Where is my child learning any of these?" Another question I want to pose to you is, "Are people born with these traits or can they be cultivated?”.

Ultimately, the responsibility for creating the bedrock of your child's financial future rests with you. Don’t say his father should do it or it's her mother's job, just do it. You cannot abdicate the responsibility to the education system either because with every passing year, the schools are axing or reducing time allocated to the very activities that stand any chance of instilling these character traits in children (sports, music, drama, art etc.). Well, since it's your responsibility, where do you start? Here are four things you can start doing today to raise a billionaire!

Become Conscious of Your Own Attitude Towards Money
Your attitude towards money is shaped in part by what you observed from your parents. If you have a good savings culture, it's likely because you observed your mum save money in a jar regularly or perhaps watched her surreptitiously roll some Naira notes into different wrappers she tied across her waist and wondered to yourself how she manages to ever find them again. If you are known to be a big spender, maybe you observed your father spend impulsively on more than one occasion particularly while having drinks with friends or it could be that the same observation had the opposite effect on you because after he came home, he would have only excuses left to offer your mother.

Some families pass down unhealthy money habits from generation to generation like cherished heirlooms without even realising it. Bad money habits have kept some families at the same level of financial security (or insecurity) for centuries and will unfortunately continue to do so if someone doesn’t break the mould. Formal education, technology and urban migration may have managed to create some outliers in recent times, in fact, you may be an outlier yourself, standing apart from your siblings, cousins and other relatives but some of your unconscious words and actions can still influence your children negatively.

A lady by the name of Katharine Whitehorn once wrote, "The easiest way for your children to learn about money is for you not to have any". Powerful words and I've seen those words manifest themselves in different ways in lives of some friends and acquaintances. A particular ex-colleague of mine is a "natural born hustler" who has been a gifted and ambitious sweet talker all the years I've known him. It's not hard to tell that his work ethic and attitude to money are based on a deep rooted orientation; he grew up in a family that wasn’t very well off and being the oldest of 5 kids, he has been supporting his family practically all his life, right from when he was hawking oranges after school to now that he has his hands in so many business interests from haulage to a water bottling plant.

Today, he is doing quite well financially but I worry he may be passing bad money habits to his children, which are, he takes his money too seriously, he doesn’t give freely, when he gives, it's a loan and when it's a loan you can bet that it's with interest. I've heard him on the phone talking to contractors, suppliers or even staff (who can all be generally hard to deal with in Nigeria) and his words and mannerisms can get quite heated and animated when the discussion concerns money he is owed. It's worrying for me because he doesn’t seem to be aware of this behaviour and the "anger" from the conversation stays with him for a while. I can't imagine that he would tone down that attitude when he gets home (he's not that kind of person) so he is likely exposing his children to the same behaviour and attitude.

Who knows how this will play out for his kids? It's possible it may affect each of them differently depending on their personality, age or their gender but the bottom line is that you need to be more conscious about your attitude, your spouse's and that of others who may be influencing your children.

Nurture Their Talents
A senior friend of mine complained recently that his 12 year old son is turning into a "Youtuber". He is constantly recording something or the other on his phone, filming his siblings and uploading videos of them online. I've seen some videos he has uploaded and I have to put a stop to it". What I did when I heard this was to pull out my phone and opened this webpage on BellaNaija.com. Quick summary before you open the link; basically, a 22 year old Nigerian born British rapper made $4.5 million (that’s over N2 billion in today's money) from YouTube between 2014 and 2015. My senior friend read the story and smiled. "Maybe I can encourage him a bit more", he finally said.

My dear friend, the world we live in is changing in ways that we won't understand until the change happens to us. The traditional workplace is changing and not even the doctors', engineers' or bankers' jobs are safe. So many jobs will be obsolete in 20 years from now and we are training our kids to do jobs that won't exist when they finish their education.

As the decades roll by, more and more millionaires are emerging and they are getting younger. How many millionaires have emerged from the traditional workplace within the same age brackets since 2000? Exactly, very few. You can leave your comments below if you want to argue this out.

Irrespective of age or technology or any other variable, one thing that remains true over the last three centuries at least is that those who excel in life are those who enjoy what they do. In other words, they would do their "jobs" even if they were not getting paid.

Passion is one distinguishing factor between the rich and the poor but unfortunately, you cannot purchase passion for a child. You need to identify it and nurture it because that may be the source of the financial independence and fulfilment you seek for him or her.

My eight year old nephew is crazy about football. He supports Liverpool FC like his dad (poor boy) and he plays every Saturday morning at least. He's turning into quite a decent goalkeeper and his parents are his biggest supporters.

If he carries on like this, a time will come when his parents may have to decide whether the path he will take will lead him towards professional football or something more traditional. They have some time to take that decision and the reality is that he may not even want to be a professional footballer when he gets older but if say he becomes a materials engineer for example, the spark of invention to create a revolutionary footwear or some knee guard that all footballers will wear one day can only come from years spent on a football pitch, nurturing his talent.


Teach Them About Value Not Just Money
One thing that sets the rich apart from the poor is their perception of value. I heard a story (though I've not been able to confirm it independently) of a young thirty something year old man who inherited a multi-story office complex on Victoria Island from his father and subsequently sold his stake in the building to raise capital to buy a government owned downstream oil company. A massive gamble to take after inheriting such prime real estate. The money he would have earned as rent from that property is probably more than many people can earn in a lifetime. He could have chosen not to work anymore and lived comfortably on the rental income for the rest of his life but today, he controls one of the most influential oil companies in Nigeria.

Many parents don't give much consideration to consciously teaching their children about money. Those who do, dutifully stress the importance of saving and try to encourage good money habits. That is what some of us learnt from a young age. We obediently saved in weeks one, two and three or months one, two and three but we all eventually made a fundamental mistake (at last the first time). Once we accumulated enough money to buy that toy or that game or that dress, we neatly arranged all the notes and coins and handed them over to the seller. We would have a shiny new thing in our hands but our savings went back to zero.

Granted, if my parents told the 19 year old me not to hand over my saved £100 or so to one retailer on Kilburn High Road, I would only have obeyed grudgingly (I wanted a leather jacket really badly)and I would still have bought it eventually anyway because I felt I deserved it.

What we need to do more of, is educate our children about concepts such as negotiation, opportunity cost, delayed gratification, earning assets versus non-earning assets and compound interest (in a language that they will understand obviously). If I knew about the opportunity cost of buying that jacket and instead used the money to buy a Cash ISA (a tax-free Individual Savings Account), today, I would have almost £3,000 in savings. I could buy all the jackets I ever wanted. Going back to Dangote’s quote above, these must have been the concepts his grandfather was sharing.

Teaching a ten year old to practice delayed gratification by saying for example, “If I buy you ice cream today, you can't have pizza for dinner tomorrow but if you wait till tomorrow, you can have both” can be very powerful. If the child actually waits and is rewarded with both ice cream and pizza, positive neural pathways are formed in the brain that he or she will default to later in life when faced with similar decisions.



Encourage Giving
The act of giving and general acts of kindness are enshrined in most religions. According to the Bible and the Quran, not only does the person receiving benefit but the giver himself/herself will be blessed richly and receive back in multiples. I have personal experience of this principle myself, so I give as much and as often as I can; not just money but also time (which I consider more valuable). It's good to let your children understand this principle of giving and receiving back in multiples as early as possible and when they buy into it, they will amaze you with how far they will take it. It's a practice that will stay with them all their lives. Besides the religious benefits of giving, research has shown (and you may also have experienced it) that giving selflessly is pleasurable and might even have some health benefits.

For children, helping someone less privileged can have a tremendous effect on them. Especially when they are young, they are extremely kind and eager to please those that they love. Starting a culture of giving from an early age can make your child more sympathetic to the plight of those who don’t have for instance the new toys or new clothes that he/she gets without much effort. This culture of giving can also make your child introspective and thoughtful which in turn could help develop critical reasoning skills or unlock a passion to solve a problem or fill a need experienced by someone in his/her life.

The pleasurable feeling derived from giving can boost your child's self-confidence which ensures a more-rounded development and finally, your child's attitude to money will not be clouded by a "poverty mentality" which has kept many Nigerians from having any vision larger than their next meal or their next pay check.

In all, imbibing a culture of giving from a young age, can set your child above his/her peers psychologically and emotionally. This one trait can give him/her a completely different perspective to issues of life and interpersonal skills with the hallmarks of a future leader. It's individuals like that who grow up to have unshakable purpose and a crystal clear vision.

Enough Talk, Act Now.
I don't recall an occasion while growing up, when either of my parents sat me down and said, "Sit down. Let me teach you about money". I do recall however watching and listening to them on the dining table talking about issues or just about their day. I developed my values, work ethic and attitude to money while having Saturday dinner and Sunday lunch with my parents. Spend time with your kids, or rather let your kids spend time with you. They will discern over time what your values and priorities are and also what your attitude to money is.

Allow them to explore their talents and interests. It's what they enjoy doing that they will do most and ultimately become masterful at. Tony Hawk (48 years old) has been a skateboarder all his life and is arguably the greatest to have ever step on a board. He may not wear a tie and jacket to work every day but I reckon his parents are happy with his $120 million net worth (yes, from skateboarding). His parents didn’t encourage his skateboarding per say, it was more like they gave up trying to stop him and he made a fortune from it.

There are many charitable organisations in Nigeria you and your children can support. If you can't pick one, you can visit www.234give.com and support any of the listed charities that you fancy. You can even make the children choose and have them tell you why they want to. What I do on some Sundays after church, on my way home is, I just drive up to someone who looks like they are having a hard time and hand them some money. Not a huge amount, but enough to put a smile on their face and make their day.

Actively grooming your children to have the mind set and qualities of a future leader and billionaire takes an investment in time, money energy and some weekends sure but remember, if you're not teaching them, someone else is. I hope for your sake, it's not people like the Kardashians.

nice one
thanks a lot

jusjuded nice writeup. almost stopped reading as it was getting long but your manner of writing just kept me stuck. @topic it is true and good to consciously train our kids in financial management and delayed gratification. we shouldn't kill passions