HOW OFTEN DO WE, AS ADULTS, LOSE OUR PASSION OR LOSE SIGHT OF THE THINGS THAT WE WERE ONCE PASSIONATE ABOUT?

How can you preserve that passion in your children? One of our key jobs as parents is to preserve that passion and not let the world take it.

Today, I’m gonna tell you a story that highlights this about one of my team members and one of her kids and, hopefully you take this and do it with your own children.

Let’s raise them up right!

IN THIS EPISODE, WE COVER:

[2:12] We All Make Mistakes, Let’s Learn From Them Together

You’re going to hear a lot about my kids and my team’s kids on this show. Because, as we’re working hard on a curriculum and new products that are coming out really soon to support entrepreneurial parents with their kids and raising leaders, we can’t help but reflect on our own families, share real life examples and talk about the times we’ve made mistakes or wish we did it differently.

Today, I want to tell you a story about Caitlyn and her daughter Lily. 

[3:15] Lily

When Caitlyn’s oldest daughter Lily was younger, she wanted to create art for the homeless. What a beautiful, beautiful story! They had recently visited Chicago and it was Lily’s first time seeing someone who was homeless and her heart just ached for them. She’s so empathetic and she wanted to use her own personal gifts to help someone in need.

The first time Lily brought this to her mom who has an entrepreneurial brain, she jokingly said: “Well, we’re going to have to figure out how we want to work on monetizing that.” This  made an impact on Lily. It sent a message that her art was only valuable if it made money, not necessarily if it just brought someone joy. So, Caitlyn had some recon work to do after that, to protect this passion and creativity in her daughter going forward. She didn’t want to limit Lily by forcing her own ideas onto Lily’s future.

[4:42] Our Kids Don’t Need a Job 

Our kids need downtime, playtime, boredom, self exploration, all these different things to figure out what their passions are, but what our kids don’t need right now is a job. Let’s not take those passions and turn them into jobs for them. Let’s just give them that freedom and that space to pursue an interest for the sake of it being interesting to them. 

When I was growing up, we were a basketball household. My dad’s passion for basketball was definitely gifted to us kids and I actually really, really loved basketball. I loved watching it, I loved playing it and I started to really develop my skills in it. But it wasn’t until the pressure came from the higher level teams that I was on, and from my dad’s excitement about me pursuing this passion, that I started to lose that passion. When external factors came in and other people started  to control my passion, I lost it.

As well-intentioned parents, we can push a little too hard and far too often and this can be at the detriment of our child’s newfound love of something. We want them to excel and set them up to be competitive in this world. But in the process, we lose sight of freeing them up just to be kids. 

[8:00] Cultivating The Dream

So, instead of unintentionally being the first ones to give feedback on their dreams and critique their creativity, let’s give them an innocent childhood free to explore what they love doing without having to consider failure or success.  Let’s let them create or learn simply because they are inspired to do it. That is what cultivates the dream. That’s what develops a passion. Imagine the gift we’d be giving them.

But also, imagine the gift we’d be giving ourselves if we allowed ourselves to do that. We’re so bombarded by feedback constantly, and strategies that we have to follow to get to this level of success. Imagine if we broke free of that and gave ourselves the gift of that space. Space to explore and bring that joy back to ourselves. 

[8:59] The Spark 

The first step here is to start to notice those sparks in them, the little clues that they leave for us of the person they are called to be, not the one that we’re trying to create. And I have a very specific process that I’ve shared here before. 

So, if you haven’t done it yet, you’re missing out because this is a gift you can use for your children to give them the space to develop that spark, not you’re doing it for them. It’s super powerful and it’s a really specific process that aims at noticing and preserving passion in our kids without stealing the joy in the process, so that you can nurture them and you can equip them on their own unique path to their purpose while giving them the autonomy to figure it out for themselves. Go on over to luminaryleadershipco.com/spark to download our free guide and workbook.

If today’s episode spoke to you, don’t forget to hit subscribe/follow on your favorite podcast player and rate and review the show. Come connect with me on Instagram at @elizhartke. And if there’s a topic, a question or a guest you want to hear on the show or an idea you have for us, just reach out and share that. We do this for you so the more you tell us the more we can serve.

RESOURCES FROM THIS EPISODE:

• Get your Raising Luminaries Spark Workbook here
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