Your child could be a millionaire one day right?

Definitely!

There are some of us who take it as a responsibility to teach the young ones the rubrics of building sustainable, viable, and long term businesses.

For some of us in Africa and Asia, these have been the vehicles for the empowerment of families and the expansion of opportunities for the whole clan.

So yes your child could be a millionaire one day, and it's not a bad idea to start talking to them about money, business, focus, drive and ambition.

It's because of thoughts like this that from time to time we see advertised programs like "teach your child to be rich" and "build your child's brand".

These are not problematic in themselves, but they skew the conversation towards the “artefacts” of wealth and not the “fundamentals”.

Teaching your child the creation and flow of “value” which is what drives commercial exchange should be the focus.

Getting rich is what happens when we learn how to create and transfer value. Other things are involved as well! But this is not a bad way to start the conversation.

Instilling a desire to be rich and teaching the tactics (saving, investing, arbitrage, etc.) without breaking down “value exchange” might come up short.

While it is a good thing to make our children aware of their brands, trying to craft one without tying it to some fundamentals around a business, hobby, career interest, or some form of competencies is a recipe for disaster. This is more so in an age where it's possible to become famous just for being famous.

Instead of getting your child to "focus on her brand", why not taker her to work, let her observe some client meetings and negotiations, let her see how mummy and daddy run the business on a day to day... somewhere in the midst of all this, a brand will evolve organically.

The desire to be rich is good and a keen focus on a brand will be a killer combo for our kids, but let's remember to teach the mechanics of how things begin.

We acquire some capital because we find ways to create or sell something valuable for more that then cost of producing it.

After a while we learn to scale our efforts and increase our surplus.

We take that surplus and invest in other ventures to grow our yield... and it's in the midst of these dynamics that the desire to be rich and the focus on a brand come to fruition.

Let's teach our kids to not only think the part and look the part, but to DO the part as well.

And let's remember to keep these conversations fun!

These can be really "heady" things for a child sometimes.