A lot of future entrepreneurs need time to discover their paths. Many experience periods when it’s unclear where they’re going. In this situation, some parents may see their kids as getting lost. But the parents of kids who grow up to become entrepreneurs are more likely to see their kids as exploring.
Here’s the tough part for a lot of parents: if you want to incubate an entrepreneur, you need to lead by following, regardless of where your child wants to go. It’s one of the hardest things for most parents to do: knowing what your kids’ strengths are; understanding what path would be good for them; and judging when—and how—to support that path. Many of the moms I talked with did this naturally. All of them did it eventually.
Kenneth Ginsburg, coauthor of Building Resilience in Children and Teens, offers this advice:
Getting out of the way is a tough challenge. We want to help, fix, and guide kids. But we have to remind ourselves that when we just let them figure things out for themselves, we communicate this powerful message: “I think you are competent and wise.” (2014, 37)
In other words, see what they want, what their passion is, what they are good at, what makes them happy. Allow their gift to reveal itself. Then support it. Tell them how proud you are of them for succeeding in their chosen path. And then tell them again and again, until you’re sure they believe it.
Doing that may not be easy. But there are ways to help your children as they discover their gift. It doesn’t necessarily mean they will become entrepreneurs. But they will almost certainly be happier, and that’s a good thing, regardless of their career path.
In her 2015 book, Clay Water Brick, Kiva cofounder Jessica Jackley echoes this insight when she says that even if you don’t become an entrepreneur, you “can choose to think in a more hopeful, optimistic, entrepreneurial way, and…this mindset paired with consistent entrepreneurial action is vital to building a better life” (xxv). Such an approach to life is “…not just for those who want to start an organization of their own from scratch… . It is for anyone who wants to be inspired to make progress toward their dreams despite the challenges standing in their way…anyone who wants to spend each day tapped into the kind of energy, creativity, and passion that the best entrepreneurs in the world embody…anyone who wants to live and work in a more opportunity-finding, solution-building way.”
If your kids seem to have an aptitude for something, let them take lessons or classes or join a club. If your child wants to fix things, or build things, or sew things, or sell things, or play on their computer, or play chess, or write for the school paper, or sing, or dance, or act, let them. Don’t choose for them. Don’t push them into your passions. Watch them. See what they’re good at, what they love, and then support it. And if they want to switch and try something else, let them. And if they happen to learn differently from other kids, that’s okay too.
If they want to stand in the back of the class, or take time off from their regular classes, or get their homework done in school so they can spend more time playing sports or acting or singing after school, let them. If they want to go to a different school that lets them pursue their passion more intensely, or study in a different environment, even overseas, let them.
Many of the parents I know resist the idea of following their children’s lead because they think it means encouraging their kids in pursuits that aren’t serious. Especially if their children are already showing signs of not being hard workers at school, parents may tend to focus on what society thinks are good qualities, rather than on what motivates their kids. They ask, “Why doesn’t he have more discipline?” when the better question is often, “How can I help him find something that inspires him to work hard?”
All of the entrepreneurs told me that because they loved what they were doing, and were encouraged to pursue it, they developed a strong work ethic. Many followed their passion directly into a career; others became passionate about something different. But they all learned to work hard, which has made them successful today.
When I talked with Dot2Dot.com founder Michael Skolnik, he spoke for a lot of entrepreneurs as he talked about his work ethic:
I became a film director for twelve years. I was lucky to win several awards. I don’t know how talented I am, or how smart I am, or how good a film director I am, but I have an unbeatable work ethic. I will work longer. I will get there earlier. I will stay later. I will out-hustle you. My grandfather always quoted Confucius: “If you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life.” That really stuck with me.
Shareablee founder Tania Yuki was equally emphatic about the importance of doing what she loves:
I can’t imagine hating my job. I think all entrepreneurs feel like I do. If I didn’t love my company more than anything, I wouldn’t do it. I’d do something else. I talk to younger people all the time who ask me what they should do to get to where they want to go. I tell them, “It has to be organic. You have to do what will be fun, what will stretch you and excite you. You can’t know going in what the end result will be.”
More than most people, entrepreneurs need space and freedom to find their own way—and, paradoxically, that makes emotional support from their parents even more important. When they’re not getting the immediate rewards and positive feedback that conventional jobs bring, their parents’ belief in them becomes more valuable.
Many of the moms I talked with described a balance between providing support and encouraging independence. Even the parents who were closely involved with their children’s activities weren’t afraid to let their kids go when the time came.
Brooks Bell, who founded Brooks Bell Interactive, a leading U.S. data testing firm, was raised in Anchorage, Alaska, with a sister and a brother, both younger. Her parents got divorced, Brooks told me, and her mom, Rebecca Poling, had a constant message for her: “Your self-worth is what you achieve. You’ve been born into privilege. You have to give back. Do something great.” Her mom’s words created a “burden of high expectations,” Brooks said, but her mom also gave her the gift of independence:
My mom did something right with us. We were each always very different, but she encouraged all of us, and today we’re all successful in wildly different ways.
My two younger siblings wanted more structured lives: my sister’s getting a Dartmouth MBA and working for a start-up; my brother’s a lawyer. My mom was busy running her orthodontist practice. So she empowered us to run our own lives, which helped us all. She told me, “You are responsible for yourself. You own your life, your experiences, your decisions.”
In high school, I thought I wanted to be a graphic designer. My mom let me pursue that. I got a job after class in an advertising agency. It was a terrible experience. I hated having a boss. I wanted to have freedom and be in control of my existence.
It was one of four internships I had in high school. I also worked at a local news graphic arts department, a video company, and another ad agency. An advisor at school helped me. I found the companies, and she helped me structure the internships. She was a great mentor. My mom let me make my choices.
In high school, I was also in a church group through my dad’s church, which my mom didn’t approve of. I wanted to go with the church to a retreat in Seattle and asked her to pay for it. Even though she didn’t like the idea, she let me go. She thought I’d learn from it. I did. I eventually grew out of it.
My mom respected me as an adult at an earlier stage than my friends’ parents. She thought that I should put myself in as many learning situations as I could, and that I would find my own path.
Her mom did some of the hardest things for a parent to do: She let her daughter make decisions, own them, realize her mistakes, and learn from them. And she let her daughter go far away to college, to the school she had chosen, Duke, in North Carolina:
In college, I thought I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I had no idea what I wanted to do. After my freshman year, I wanted to stay in Durham for the summer. I saw a sign that said DON’T GET A SUMMER JOB—START A SUMMER BUSINESS. So I told my mom that’s what I was going to do.
My mom was disappointed that I wouldn’t be coming home for the summer. But she had always told me to make my own decisions, so I knew she had to let me stay. She knew if I came home, I’d be miserable. And her whole thing was “This is your life.” She didn’t want to force me to do something I didn’t want to do. I was beginning my independent life, and she wanted me to be responsible. She felt I had to figure it out.
That sign fit right into where my mind was. I started a Tuition Painters franchise. I drove a paintmobile. It was a disaster. I lost money on every single job I did. I finished $2,000 in debt from the project and waited on tables to pay it off. I thought, I hope being an entrepreneur isn’t always like this!
But my mom was pleased. She could see I was learning a lot—about myself, about business, and about the world.
In her junior year at Duke, Brooks turned her final project for her graphic design class—a website—into a Christmas present for her mom:
It turned out to be the seed of my company. She loved it—she was so impressed, it blew her away. She said, “You should incorporate. You should do this for a living. There’s no downside—it will be a great learning experience, and you’re amazing at it.” So I incorporated NovelProjects, a website development firm, with my boyfriend. The business became a success. Within a year we had $300,000 in revenue. So we brought on two more developers—it was just me and three guys. Eventually we sold it. I had already started my second company. And I married my boyfriend.
Brooks explained how her mom’s supportive approach, especially when it came to learning from mistakes, has influenced her professionally:
I always act with a lot of integrity. If people know you truly want the right things for them, then even if you make a mistake, they know your heart is in the right place, and you’ll always get more opportunities.
Growing up, I established a habit of saying yes to stuff. Opportunities would come to me—I think I gave out positive energy—and then I’d have a little success, like designing that website for my mom. And that would lead to a little more confidence to work my way up. An opportunity would come, and I would try it, and in that way I worked my way up the confidence ladder.
I always had confidence that I’d make the right decision—if not this time, the next time. I learned that it’s never over. I learned to trust that I’d always have another opportunity. It gave me the resilience I needed. Every time I fell down, I’d tell myself, You’ll have another chance. It got me through. It still gets me through. It puts things in perspective. I learn something from every opportunity.
webMethods cofounder Caren Merrick’s parents also saw their daughter move far away—to Australia—with her husband, Phillip. They’d been married only a year, and wanted to be near Phillip’s dying mother. By then, Caren had already learned the value of finding her own way. When she was growing up, her passions kept evolving, and her family supported whatever she did:
My passion when I was young was drawing cartoons. Every week my elementary school had a contest for Junior Art Champion. I earned money entering art contests. I entered a lot and I won a lot, two dollars each time I won. I loved it.
Later, I put myself through college by working at the UCLA Placement Center. I had wanted to make the world a better place, but looking at the available jobs and opportunities led to my interest in marketing.
On my first date with Phillip, I told him, “I’m going to start a company.” My grandfather, brother, and sister all have small businesses, and I saw how hard they worked. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that. But then I realized that it was the only way I could do what I loved, and that I’d rather work hard at something I loved than not work very hard at something I wasn’t passionate about.
The first company I started—in 1994, Creative Marketing Alliance—was at the beginning of the Internet. I hired a group of contractors to create online marketing for these new companies. AOL was my second customer.
Some might consider that good luck or good timing, but it was possible only because Caren’s parents had encouraged her to try new things and work hard at them. If she’d learned instead to play it safe, the moment could have passed her by. Her sense of exploration fueled her career as an entrepreneur.
“It’s important to be open to opportunities,” Caren told me, “and not have a fixed idea of where things will lead.” It was just that attitude that “opened all kinds of doors,” she said, when she and Phillip moved to Australia:
I got a marketing job. And Phillip got an engineering job with Open Software Associates. The Internet exploded while we were there. It was 1996, and we started thinking how to make the Internet a platform for integration. Phillip’s company didn’t want to do it, so we moved back to the U.S. and started webMethods.
In 2007, they sold WebMethods to Software AG for half a billion dollars and now do angel investing through Bibury Partners, their next company. Caren also developed the Pocket Mentor mobile app; Phillip is CEO of Message Systems. They both sit on several corporate boards and are very involved in philanthropic giving.
Amanda Judge is the founder and CEO of the Faire Collection, which employs 225 local artisans in South America to make jewelry that she sells at stores like Anthropologie. It’s a multimillion-dollar company that’s making a difference in the world. The company’s motto, “Wear the change you want to see,” illustrates Amanda’s commitment to honoring fair-trade principles and providing economic uplift in developing countries.
Amanda told me that when she was growing up, her parents saw her passion and supported her:
My uncle ran a hardware store, my mom worked from home, and my dad started a business, so I grew up in an environment where people worked for themselves. We were a blue-collar family, and the motto was definitely “Do it yourself.”
I’ve heard my mom, Carol Pollen, say hundreds of times that my first sentence was “I did it.” My mom always said that reflected my personality. I loved doing things myself, and I loved that my mom was proud of me for doing things myself.
When I was a child, I asked my parents if I could have an allowance, and they said no. So I said I was going to shovel my neighbor’s driveway. They said that was fine. I always earned my own money.
When I was twelve, I wanted to take a class to get a certificate to babysit. My mom said, “If you can organize it, you can do it.” So I took the class and got the certificate and started babysitting.
There was never any extra money to go around. If I wanted an ice cream cone, I needed to find the money to buy it. My mom always supported us as we figured out ways to make money. Later, I had to figure out how to get money to go on vacation, and then I had to figure out how to get money to go to college.
I have one brother, who’s one and a half years younger and in a PhD program. He’s very school smart, whereas I’m common sense and practical smart. Our mom was very loving and gave us both a lot of confidence. I think confidence is the only trait my brother and I have in common. She also allowed me to have these crazy ideas, but she always wanted me to figure out what I wanted to do and how I was going to do it.
We also had a very egalitarian household—we could definitely express our minds. Our parents always talked to us as though we were adults and treated our ideas with respect.
Amanda went to public schools. She told me she had little idea of what career prospects might be open to her:
I read The Economist—I was interested in what was going on in different places—but it never occurred to me that I could actually do something in the world.
I majored in finance in college because I knew that way I could make money. Then I worked for an accountant for two and a half years.
I woke up one day and realized I was either too young or too old to be doing this for the rest of my life. So I went abroad and found a family that wanted to learn English, and I lived in a little farming village in northern Italy. It helped me break out of my shell. For the first time, I realized I didn’t have to have a traditional, routine career.
So I started volunteering. I knew I had to do something bigger than me. I learned Spanish and enrolled in grad school at Tufts, in poverty-reduction strategies. Then I went to Ecuador and came home with a bunch of jewelry I wanted to sell.
I started the Andean Collection while finishing grad school. I worked eighteen hours a day and moved to New York. We expanded into three new countries and changed the name to the Faire Collection. Now I have fifteen full-time employees. My mom was right—I did it!
Amanda is doing something that’s completely different from what anyone else in her family has done. But her parents let her explore, and she knew she had their support as she figured out what she wanted to do with her life. Now she’s not only doing something she loves, she’s making a difference in the world.
Following kids’ lead is easy when they’re taking the world by storm or making decisions that parents agree with. The true test for parents is whether they can remain supportive even when their children seem lost or haven’t yet figured out how to make a career out of doing what they love, or when they take a turn that makes their parents nervous. Following children’s lead doesn’t mean loving—or pretending to love—every choice they make. It means supporting and encouraging them even when parents wish they were doing something else.
Chefs are some of the country’s most recognizable new entrepreneurs. Jesse Barber is the chef-owner of Dudley Market, a farm-to-table restaurant in the Venice neighborhood of Los Angeles that has been getting a huge amount of buzz since it opened. He was previously chef at Barnyard, a few blocks away, which got rave reviews from the LA Times and food blogs. His wife, Celia, is the general manager.
Jesse grew up in Eugene, Oregon; his younger brother works at Intelligentsia Coffee, and his younger sister is a recent college grad. His parents, Larry and Christine, are both psychiatrists; his dad is also a pastor.
He told me that his path to becoming a successful restaurateur was not straight, easy, or obvious, but his parents supported whatever he chose:
I barely graduated from high school. I think I took chemistry three times and still barely passed, although I probably only went to a total of three classes.
My parents were always supportive. I played baseball in middle school. I was on a really good team, and I was never that into it. But my mom was at every game, videotaping me, rooting, and hollering. No matter what I did or how good or bad I was, she was always there.
Later, I did cross-country and basketball. I really cared about those, so I worked harder and was pretty good. My dad helped coach the basketball team when I was in high school because I wanted to play, and he wanted to spend extra time with me. He’s really good, and we still play. He can still dunk on me.
I went to community college to study psychology. I hated college. I dropped out. I just walked out one day. I had a friend who was going to culinary school. I thought, Wow! You can do this instead of college! So one day I just enrolled in culinary school.
My parents weren’t thrilled, but they wanted me to have some direction in my life. So they said, “It’s good you found something you like.”
I’ve often made impulsive decisions. If I decided I wanted to do something, I’d just do it. Sometimes it works out, and sometimes it doesn’t. I think that when I was growing up, my parents were always slightly appalled by me. I never did what I was supposed to do. But they had pushed us to think for ourselves. I think it sort of backfired on them.
I loved culinary school. I was on the honor roll, and I spoke at graduation. My parents were happy that I was finally doing something I liked. Whatever I wanted to do, they were always 100 percent supportive, even when it wasn’t their choice.
But Jesse told me that his parents always combined support with honesty:
I never have to wonder what they’re thinking. They’ll let me know, whether I want to hear it or not. I know what they thought of Barnyard, because in the first eight months after I opened the restaurant with my menu, they flew in five times to eat there, to let me know how proud they are.
I don’t know what I would do without them. They’ve always been there for me.
Nicole Patrice De Member is a serial entrepreneur who cofounded High Orbit, a data platform. Previously, she played a key role in hip-hop and electronic dance music by founding the influential Effigy Studios, which she sold to Eminem; Raves.com, an interactive site for the music community; and Groovetickets.com, one of the first online ticketing companies. She’s since changed fields, and ran special projects at Founder’s Fund, a San Francisco–based venture capital fund, before starting her new company.
Nicole grew up in Michigan and Arizona. Her dad, a mechanic, works for the U.S. Department of Labor’s safety administration, and her mom is an engineer at Honeywell. Nicole has a younger brother, David, who’s also an entrepreneur; an older stepsister who’s a nurse; a stepbrother who’s a stylist; and two younger half-brothers who are still in school.
As with Jesse, school wasn’t Nicole’s passion, but—again, like Jesse—her parents always supported her choices:
I was kicked out of college twice and lost interest. My mom was very supportive that I didn’t get a degree. In fact, she supported everything I ever came up with. No matter how wild the idea, instead of shutting it down, she’d help us explore how to make it happen.
In sixth grade, I made candy by boiling sugar in water and dye. Then I’d put it in a cupcake holder, let it harden, and put it in a baggie. It looked like a hockey puck. I sold them for one dollar. Mom was really encouraging and helped me get the supplies.
In shop class in junior high, I made wooden items like napkin rings and cassette tape holders, and Mom let me sell them at her office. I made several hundred dollars. The school had wanted us to have a mini-business, but I’m the only one who actually created one. I took so many orders, I had some of my classmates working for me!
I felt so lucky having a brother so close to me. We’d always help each other. I feel so bad for entrepreneurs going through it alone.
And Mom was always really encouraging of everything David and I did. Having that kind of support and understanding from my mom and my brother meant everything to me. Not to have your family support you—I can’t even imagine.
Nicole told me that her mom encouraged her to explore, keep on looking until she found what she was meant to do, and then look some more:
Some things worked, some things didn’t, but Mom was always willing to let me throw ideas at the walls, and when it didn’t work out, we’d just switch walls. It’s like whiteboarding—you just try a different approach. I learned to keep playing through. Mom taught me never to dwell on a past problem, just to move on.
As we’ve seen, some kids have a passion from a young age. Others try different things until something clicks. As the phrase “lead by following” implies, some parents get out of the way and let their kids do what makes them happy, but others aren’t passively stepping aside and waiting for their children to do amazing things. Many of the parents I talked with did a lot to help their kids identify what it was they loved to do.
As you’ll recall about FEED Projects cofounder Ellen Gustafson, she was teased when she was young (rule 6), but she still developed the self-confidence to give an acting career a serious try. This led to her confidence to do public speaking about the causes she’s involved in. Her mom, Maura, told me:
Ellen was always a voracious reader. That was her passion outside of school. We thought she’d gone to bed, and we’d find her with a flashlight under the blankets, reading.
And she was always a performer. From the time she was little, she’d be putting on costumes, singing, dancing. She also played sports, but that wasn’t her strong suit.
In high school, she had to choose between basketball and being in the school play—her school wouldn’t let her do both. Lots of kids were getting kudos playing sports. We didn’t think that was her future, but she had to decide.
It can be extremely tempting to make choices for your kids. After all, you’re the adult, you know your children better than anyone else does, and you don’t want them to suffer. But Ellen’s mother resisted that temptation:
We encouraged her to be independent, and to think for herself. I’d tell her, “Trust, but verify. Check it out. Be sure it’s true. Don’t drink the Kool-Aid. Just because everyone else is doing it, that doesn’t mean you have to.”
Your most important job as a parent is to help your children figure out what their true strengths are. As a parent, you can see what their strengths are, but you have to let them figure it out. I think the best way to do that is by asking them questions. You want them to grow up to be cautious, but not fearful. You want them to have confidence in themselves.
So I said, “You have to make the choice. Which do you see yourself doing in your life—playing basketball or acting? You choose which would be more helpful to you in the future.”
She chose acting. She even went to L.A. to try to make it.
She ended up deciding not to pursue acting. I think that, ultimately, she found it boring, and she didn’t really like just reading someone else’s words. I think she knew she wanted to make a difference in the world.
But I think acting helped her find her comfort level in front of a crowd. She does a lot of public speaking now, and she’s a natural on the stage—really connects with her audience.
Part of following kids’ lead is paying attention to where they’re going. If you’re not engaged with what your children are doing—what they’re good at, what makes them come alive—then you’ll have a hard time supporting those activities. Here’s how Maura explains it:
If you don’t help your kids figure out their strengths, you’re abdicating your role as a parent. I taught social studies in high school. Parents would come in and say, “I don’t know what their strengths are,” and I’d think, My God, you don’t know their skills by this point in their lives? I think it’s one of the most important things a parent can do—help your kids figure out their strengths.
We’ve talked about the Braun brothers and their inspiring mom, Susan (rule 2). For her, the “lead by following” principle goes beyond letting kids do what they enjoy. She told me that it’s also about letting them be who they are:
None of us knew what we were doing, but we just followed them. The smartest thing we did was not squash a passion. All kids have a passion, but parents often negate it. I was charmed by my kids and didn’t feel a need to protect them. I realized early on that my kids had very large personalities, and I always tried hard to understand my kids and appreciate them as individuals.
Unlike some parents, who are invested in successful outcomes that will reflect well on them, Susan believed differently. This is the Kahlil Gibran poem she keeps in her kitchen:
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts…
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
Susan told me that for her this poem means that her kids aren’t a reflection of her. They’re who they need to be. It was her job, she said, to be a stable force in their lives and not to try to live their lives for them. She wanted them to know their strengths and understand their inner essence and project it out.
We met Method cofounder Eric Ryan in the chapter on winning and losing (rule 2). His mom, Pam, always let him figure out what he wanted to do, always supported him, and always enjoyed that process:
We have a saying that we made one mistake with Eric—we should have let him drive home from the hospital because he has been such a positive, forceful energy in our lives, and in his brothers’ lives. He’s introduced us to things we never thought we’d be doing, things we’ve had so much fun doing.
Then Pam said words that were echoed by so many other moms I talked to—a key to raising a successful entrepreneur:
My husband Tom and I had a list of things we wanted them to know how to do—ski, ice skate—but then they chose what they were interested in. We always believed in our kids. We always told them, “There is nothing you can’t do.” So we helped our children pursue their interests.
Like many other moms I interviewed, Pam had fun raising her kids. Maybe because kids doing what they love tend to be happy kids. She told me:
We had fun doing it. We didn’t think what we were doing was special, because we thoroughly enjoyed it. We also loved their friends. We always had kids spend a lot of time at our home who were involved in sailing. One year, we had four kids come for the summer. I was fortunate to be a stay-at-home mom. I would say I was home patrolling the troops. I loved that I could be there for them, and for their friends. But I wasn’t afraid to be a tough mom, too. I had rules.
Eric always worked different jobs. Even when he went off to college and was on the sailing team, he had a job hauling I-14s, a sailboat he raced, around the East Coast. At school, when he loved a subject, and had a passion for it, the sky was the limit. But when he wasn’t interested, it was tough—it was like pulling teeth. He always had a tremendous amount of confidence, but was never arrogant or entitled.
According to Pam, Eric got practice persuading his future customers by having to convince his parents when he wanted something:
So often, the oldest one has to be the pioneer. Eric paved the way for his brothers. There were times when he’d really have to persuade us to let him do some of the things he wanted to do. I remember once he wrote a proposal to convince us to buy him a little sailboat. He was so persistent and determined to keep going until he had proved his point. He wouldn’t stop until he’d convinced us that his idea was a good one.
When he’d present an idea to us, we made him work hard to convince us, though we always let him do it in the end. We told him recently, “Sometimes we think we owe you an apology.” He said, “No, it was good you were so tough. The first time I had to present at a meeting, it really helped me that I’d had to present to you and Dad all those times. I just pretended I was presenting to you.”
Pam enthusiastically supported everything Eric did, from sailing to selling soaps.
The first time I saw one of his soaps in a store, I was so excited! Then I saw that one bottle was broken, so I bought it.
Eric said, “Mom, why’d you buy a broken one?”
I answered, “Honey, I didn’t want someone else to buy it and think you sold broken products.”
He laughed and told me, “Mom, they’d have replaced it!”
Eric continues to amaze us. He has led us on an incredible journey. I wouldn’t have missed this ride for all the tea in China. And I look forward to all the adventures to come.
It’s not always easy to trust in outcomes we can’t yet see—especially when it comes to our children, whom we cherish so much. Eric, like most of the entrepreneurs in this book, chose a career his parents might not have picked out for him. Pam, like all the other moms, talked to her kids about—and demonstrated—the importance of playing to their strengths, pursuing their dreams, and following their heart. And every budding entrepreneur, like Eric, had their family’s support the entire time, through every twist and turn and bump in the road.
Pam ended our chat with words that summarize the current that runs through every one of the ten rules I discovered while writing this book. She told me: “My favorite saying is ‘Always believe in your child. Trust them. Be there for them.’”