Parenting: (verb) the act of being a father or mother to someone. It is the process of raising someone, typically a child but can last until adulthood, and supporting their needs whatever they might be.
Venture: (verb) the act of doing something that is inherently risky and/or unpleasant.
Parventuring: (verb) the act of raising and supporting your children to be able to do something that is inherently risky and/or unpleasant.
Parventuring sounds much worse than it really is. To clarify, the inherent riskiness of it is not in dangerous or potentially fatal tasks. Rather it is the risks that are often associated with entrepreneurship. The risks of trying to identify, develop, and bring to market the products and services that would benefit an individual or a society. They are the same risks necessary to achieve greatness of any kind. One of the essential risks that must be properly understood and accounted for is failure.
Failure is one of the most misunderstood phenomenons. To all people it could be detrimental. A majority of people believe it should be avoided at all costs. Yet to some people, it is often welcomed in manageable amounts. Yes, there are people who actually welcome failure and this is not because they like to be miserable. This is simply because they know not only how to handle failure, but how to use it to their advantage. Their mantra is “Failure is only feedback, not a final destination!”
This is such an important distinction and one that can be very tricky for parents to navigate when raising their kids. Most parents want their children to be successful and it is only rational to believe that by avoiding failure, they will succeed. This is where parents, quite ironically, fail.
In an attempt to clear a path so that their children will be successful, parents often steer them clear of any potential setbacks. This includes failure. Thus, their children never truly experience failure. This is a critical mistake. For the most part, the failure experienced at a young age is mostly and relatively small, though it still provides adequate and necessary lessons. The children is “harmed” without them ever realizing it and they are now less prone to be “harmed” again. It doesn’t help that the path many children are put on from an early age has an unhealthy view of failure as well. Many children are told to not having failing grades in school. This might help motivate them to earn good grades, but the messaging is heard early and often: “Don’t Fail!” And while we should urge children to learn, removing the ability to learn from failure and mistakes is actually detrimental to their long term success.
It’s like every time we make ourselves vulnerable to the risk of failure, we’re thrown into a blazing furnace. We get burned and the heat makes us uncomfortable. Then, the experience of failure takes our now molten selves and throws us into chilled water, hardening us to a degree greater than what we used to be.
So part of parventuring is teaching your children about failure. It needs to defined, or redefined to them in a way that is much friendlier. It should not be something they fear, but something they know they can move forward from. One of the best approaches can be to look at “failure” as simply feedback regardless of whether it is good or bad. It is merely additional information to digest and include in the decision making and action process. One of the first questions we should ask ourselves is, “What can we learn from this?” It puts you directly into the mindset of problem solving. I like it better than asking, “Why did I fail?” That line of questioning might lead you to an answer, but it could also lead you down the path of self doubt. We want to keep the feedback loop open rather than possibly shutting it down before we start seeing signs of progress/success.
This continuous feedback loop looks like this:
Everything starts with Action. You need to act towards your goal or objective if you ever want to achieve anything, be it personal or business related. That action will have a Result. The result can be what you intended it to be, but most likely it did not meet 100% of your expectations. The result, either the exact match or the variances to what you expected, comes back to you as Feedback. It is up to you to take that feedback, learn from it and Decide how to take action going forward. This loop continues indefinitely.
In the diagram, the spot where the loop overlaps itself (moving from feedback to decision to action) would be considered the pivot point. This is where the recent feedback is combined with all previous feedback and knowledge to help decide on the next course of action. It is at this point where you need to determine if you should stay the course, or reroute the course you’re on to get to your objective.
To parventure is to pass on the necessary traits, strategies, and habits to your children that will help them remain on the best course of action towards any of their goals or aspirations. One of the first traits that should be established is to have your children understand that failure is not a stop sign, but a stepping stone to whatever you desire. You should not fear, hide from, or run away from failure. Rather you should treat failure with respect and as a necessary step in the process of success.
System Tinker 