Very interesting article about entrepreneuship, taken from the website The Wall Street Journal On-Line

Successful entrepreneurs believe they can make a lot of money, even when they don't. But can
that confidence be taught?
By GEORGE ANDERS
March 12, 2007

Long ago, I thumbed through T. Boone Pickens's autobiography, "Boone." It's an erratic book. But one trenchant passage sticks in my memory. In it, Mr. Pickens talks about how people with inherited money invest fearfully, afraid that a few missteps could doom them to a lifetime of financial ruin.

Not Mr. Pickens. At that point in the book, he had already written about how he had stormed through dozens of high-stakes energy deals, frequently risking everything en route to a bigger fortune. Winning was nice, he wrote. But even if he had stumbled horribly, it wouldn't have been the end. "I would get a stake and get started again," he wrote. "You can't make money consistently if you're uptight."

I love that self-confidence. It is deep, unshakeable and frequently self-fulfilling. Yes, it can turn into hubris if people aren't careful. But as I've learned over the years, a fundamental belief in one's ability to earn hefty amounts -- even if it means starting over again a couple times -- is at the heart of almost every great entrepreneur's success story.

It is way too late to turn me into the next Boone Pickens. Besides, the frenzied life of a deal guy has a dark side that probably isn't worth it for me. (Notice how famous takeover artists always get interrupted on vacation?) But as a parent, I'd like to see our children pick up some of that financial self-confidence. Whether they end up trading bond futures in New York or selling knickknacks in Hawaii, I'd like to see them approach each new job with boldness and optimism.

But can those sorts of virtues be taught?

Born to Business

Sometimes I suspect that the best-known business legends are simply born with an entrepreneurial gene. They charge out of their playpens knowing how to conjure up business plans, much as young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart knew how to write sonatas. There's nothing for us old-timers to do except get out of the way and marvel.

We had one of those prodigies in our high school. Andy was clever, funny -- and constantly in trouble with the principal. His grades were mediocre, but he made a lot of money (and provided jobs for the rest of us) by running a snack bar on site that sold hundreds of candy bars a week.

Within a decade of graduation, Andy was making more than $1 million a year as a commodity trader in Chicago. Ever since, he has been a major player in the capital markets, creating firms and darting into new trading areas. Meanwhile, classmates with much better grades have opted for the safe obscurity of a windowed office inside a major law firm.

But I can think of other cases where friendly intercession at an early stage made a world of difference. My four cousins are a scrappy, competitive bunch, and there was a time when it looked like the second youngest was having trouble keeping up. His mother knew that schoolwork was hard for him, so she went out of her way to celebrate his successes in sports and community events.

Years later, she quipped: "I wanted to build up John's self-confidence. Maybe I did too good a job." He has turned into the highflier of the family, becoming CEO of an Internet start-up and then a senior officer of one of the world's largest companies.

Birth of a Salesman

On a more formal basis, many of us have been urging children for decades to sell Girl Scout cookies, magazine subscriptions and the like. It's hokey, but it's wonderful, too. Parents quietly line up the best sales prospects ahead of time and then send youngsters to call on those friends and neighbors in search of orders. Kids who are energetic and personable come out of the experience believing they are really good at sales.

It won't always be that easy in the adult world. But the best salespeople generally do believe that the next call will go well. The sooner that faith forms, the easier it is to keep knocking on doors. I got to know some leading investment bankers years ago and, silly as it sounds, they could still remember their childhood triumphs selling magazines.

It's way too early for my wife and me to know whether our children, ages 7 and 10, have that sort of entrepreneurial spirit. Our parenting these days concentrates mostly on helping them master spelling words, hit a baseball or play the piano. In those areas, we're a lot more confident that we genuinely do have something to offer.

Last summer, though, we accidentally created a version of an entrepreneurial boot camp that rivaled anything Boone Pickens could offer. It happened on an especially hot day, when our boys decided it would be fun to sell lemonade.

I started out with a small-minded plan that involved charging them $1 for each can of concentrate. The boys were then supposed to keep track of how much revenue each pitcher delivered. Call it presumptuous, but I thought this would teach them about gross margin and cost of goods sold.

So the boys and a friend pitched their stand on a busy street corner, directly across from an expensive new home that was being shown as an open house. The neighborhood was swarming with adults who would drive up, walk through the house and then prepare to leave.

In the intense heat, everyone was sweating. Our boys were selling lemonade as fast as they could pour it. Pitcher after pitcher disappeared. The cash box rapidly filled up with quarters and dollar bills. Then the best moment came at the end of the open house, when the developer stepped out to say hi to the kids. He tipped them each $2 and implored them to come back next week.

It made perfect sense. In a glutted market, the developer didn't want to be just another guy hawking 2,900 square feet of hardwood floors, Viking ranges and Sub-Zero refrigerators. He wanted to be selling ambience and old-fashioned neighborhood charm. He urgently needed to add that into his story for the house to have any chance of selling at full list price. Three neighborhood boys selling lemonade fit into the picture perfectly.

Our kids gleefully accepted. And I stood there slack-jawed. I had been so eager to pester them about budgeting that I nearly missed the real joy of the experience. For the first time in their lives, our kids had done something largely on their own, that wasn't totally scripted by their parents, and had raked in a nice pile of money in the process.

This winter, I asked my younger son if he still remembered the lemonade-stand experience. I'd been telling the story to colleagues as a lesson about winning in the service economy. Peddle nothing more than a simple task, and you're at the bottom of the status and income pyramids. Transform what you do into a sweeping solution to your customer's problem -- and suddenly you're raking in big dollars from grateful clients.

My son cut me off before I could annoy him with any of that blather. "Yes, Dad," he said with a smile. "I remember it. We made a lot of money that day."