There’s a lot to be said about teaching entrepreneurship. The first is that a lot of people will tell you it can’t be taught. While, as an entrepreneur myself, I do agree that you learn most from the experience of building your business, I’m still surprised to reflect on how my parents managed to actually “teach” me to be an entrepreneur.

The first thing you need to understand about my parents is that while they would never describe themselves as entrepreneurs, the ways they did things taught me more than even they knew about how to start a business. But, before we get into HOW to do it, we need to understand WHY you would teach your kids entrepreneurship:

1. In a Gig Economy, Everyone is an Entrepreneur

…or at least a freelancer. As I pointed out in my article about the Gig economy, that presidential candidate Hilary Clinton said would have a profound impact on the US economy, this new concept of doing business will definitely impact your kids. So you should make sure that your kids are ready for the next wave of businesses they might work for – or might even start themselves in Silicon Valley.

Numerous examples point out, that in a gig or shared economy, each individual person has to learn how to sell their offering better than the other guy (or gal). To pitch, to present, to think of new ways of doing business. That is, in essence, every (good) entrepreneur’s mindset. A great example is Gavin Escolar, a “Uberpreneur”. While Gavin can be your next Uber driver, he actually uses his car as a “mobile showroom” when passengers ask him about what he does. In the beginning, Gavin was actually surprised how many people showed interest, but today he has a whole entrepreneurial strategy built around his mobile jewelry business. Gavin told Forbes:

It’s a salesman’s dream. I have 10 minutes to make an impression. Would that happen if I went door-to-door? Or if I bought tiny online ads? My way, I get quality time with quality leads. Best of all, I’m being paid as I do it. It’s like Uber is providing a base salary before I make any jewelry sales!

Teaching your kids how to think in a way of an entrepreneur, like Gavin does, will give them a skill set that will help them excel at their job.

• Related: 4 Facts Parents Need to Know About HIlary Clinton’s Gig Economy

2. Do you want to be an Intrapreneur?

You might not have heard the term that Pinchot defined in 1984. as a “dreamer who does”, but you might have been living it. While entrepreneurs create new businesses, intrapreneurs turn ideas into products inside established businesses, creating new value for the organisation. These are people who have in the past been confused as troublemakers for trying to change established ways of doing things, but have recently been seen as a force that can help corporations reinvent themselves.

This is the reason Google and Microsoft want the founders of the hundreds of companies they acquire to stay within an organisation for at least a year – and pay hansomly for it. Thus, entrepreneurs become intrapreneurs that help even companies that we see as the most innovative in the world, create more value.
My mom has been an intrapreneur in one of the largest media companies in the country and the way she did business taught me how to do business – on my own. So when your kids decide to work for a fast growing company with offices around the world, the entrepreneurial skills you taught them will help them not only move up, but also create new things that both they – and especially you – will be proud of!

3. It Will Teach Them Never to Give Up and Be Accountable

As Bonnstetter’s research into the skills that make an entrepreneur showed, one of the critical skills to master is personal accountability. If you teach your kids to be entrepreneurs in their own right, they’ll develop something a lot of people (even in higher positions) lack – and that’s a feeling that they are actually responsible for their actions. That everything they do has an impact of someone or something else.

Do you remember that person in your life that always blames someone else for their failures? Your kids? They are not going to be anything like that. Entrepreneurship is going to teach them that they have to understand that when they sign on to do some extra homework, they better do it, and not blame a third party!

Again, as in previous cases, this will make your child access in multiple areas of life, not just building a business. Imagine them being a boss that actually doesn’t use their employees as escape goats. Isn’t that someone even you would like to work for?

4. They’ll Want to Love Their Job – and Be Good at It

The great thing about lemonade stands is that kids love lemonade… and the sun… and selling something in order to get extra money for ice cream to go with that lemonade. Entrepreneurship, while hard, does make you focus on doing things that you love in order to ‘survive’ doing them. An entrepreneur will do a lot of things they might not like if it’s essential to doing the one thing they really love.

Young entrepreneurs might not suceed in turning their first venture into a multi-million dollar company, but it will teach them about creating a business that can not only survive but also grow. When they learn to love it (and they will because it’s their creation), your kids will always seek out jobs or business ventures that they actually want to be part of. They won’t settle for something that’s easy to do – they’ll want something enjoyable!

And when they find something they like to do? They’ll have no reason to be bad at it. In an entrepreneurial mindset, they’ll not only want to tick off their todos, they’ll want to make the project successful!

…or they just might become an entrepreneur and build the next Facebook, the next Google. They might fly us to Mars and show us world’s we never thought possible.

Now that you understand why you need to teach you kids entrepreneurship, we can move on to how to do it. You might be thinking that you’re not an entrepreneur so it’s not possible – but you’re wrong! My parents never wanted to have employees, but taught me more about HR than I would learn in years of training. They weren’t HR professionals, mind you. Keep an open mind so that in the next article, we can go about giving you some actionable tips on HOW to teach your kids entrepreneurship…