A recent Facebook post by myself,

“In Organizational Leadership class right now…I asked the question, ‘Why isn’t entrepreneurship taught to children in America?’ —– What do you think?”

What I got for answers amounted to a great discussion between a few different friends of mine.

The answer that I agreed with was,

“The system is designed to keep folks with a worker mentality to maintain a stabilized workforce for the wealthy. This creates the class system as we know it, only few can break through with knowledge taught outside of the normal education arena. It’s like an unwritten rule, it will never be taught in the public sector. What will make a difference is sharing the knowledge.”

For the most part, Americans are taught to get a good education, so they can get a good job with good benefits, and a good retirement plan. There is no encouragement to venture into entrepreneurship. We are taught to “play it safe.” For those of you who have read Robert Kiyosaki’s “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” you’ll know exactly what I am speaking of.

My final comment on the subject read as follows,

“If entrepreneurship was encouraged at an earlier age, I bet America would have many more millionaires, less unemployment, and more exports vs. imports (less trade deficit).”

Think about it…more people starting small businesses would be able to hire more people. Sure, not every business will succeed, but it’s in the numbers; out of X many businesses started, Y amount will succeed.

Typically, people pursue a business in the area that they are familiar with. A plumber will start a plumbing business, an accountant will start an accounting service, an IT person may start a computer business…so on and so forth. On the flip side, other people get into businesses that have proven to provide significant profit yields, i.e. franchises – you don’t have to be hands on to learn and operate a franchise.

So again, why isn’t entrepreneurship encouraged or taught in schools?

There may not be a definite answer, but it makes for good discussion.

What do you think?

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