Margot Machol Bisnow: Raising Children Who Are Brave Enough to Be Themselves
Raising an Entrepreneur: Margot Machol Bisnow on the One Thing Successful Kids Have in Common
What do 99 successful entrepreneurs, activists and artists have in common? Margot Machol Bisnow set out to find the answer, and it surprised her. Every one of them had someone who believed in them.
On this episode of Conversations with Carroll, Carroll Patrizi welcomes Margot, author of Raising an Entrepreneur. The book shares 99 stories of how successful founders were raised, and the lessons parents can take from them.
How the Book Began
In 2008, Margot’s older son, Elliott, founded Summit, a community and series of gatherings for young entrepreneurs. Margot began attending the events in 2010. She had never met people like these before: willing to take on enormous risk and work with single-minded focus toward a goal.
So she started asking them how they turned out that way. Nearly all of them said the same thing. Someone believed in them and told them they could do anything they put their mind to. Most often it was a mom. Sometimes it was a grandmother, a stepdad, a neighbor or a teacher. That person cheered them on through setbacks and trusted that they’d succeed in the end.
Margot kept talking about it, and the young entrepreneurs kept telling her to write a book. She resisted, then finally said yes. Her sons wrote the foreword, noting that everyone needs someone to believe in them, and sometimes that someone is your kids.
99 Different Backgrounds, One Common Thread
Margot set out to interview as wide a group as she could find:
Half men and half women
Every race, religion and socioeconomic background
Immigrants, children of immigrants, and families who have been in the U.S. for generations
Small towns and big cities
Only children, big families, blended families and single-parent homes
Founders of for-profits and nonprofits, artists and activists
Despite all those differences, they were raised the same way. Margot was stunned, and that discovery became her passion. So many kids are unhappy, she says, and their parents don’t mean to get it wrong.
Not all of them went to college, and the ones who didn’t weren’t necessarily from lower-income families. Many dropped out once they had an idea worth pursuing, including Elliott.
Rule: Let Your Child Learn to Win and Lose
Margot went in with no set theory, and the rules in her book came straight from the interviews. One of the most important is letting children experience both winning and losing.
She sees two equally harmful ways parents respond when kids fail:
Shaming them. Telling a child they ruined it and let the whole team down.
Excusing them. Telling a child it wasn’t their fault, the other person cheated, and it should have worked out.
The parents of successful entrepreneurs took a third path. When a child spilled the milk, they asked the child to clean it up, without scolding. Then they asked questions: What do you think went wrong? What would you do differently next time? Maybe carry fewer glasses at once.
Almost nothing a founder starts ends up looking the way it began. Ideas change again and again. If you’re afraid to fail, Margot says, you’ll be afraid to take risks, and fear of risk shuts down creativity.
She saw this firsthand. She wrote a second edition of the book partly because, five years after her first interviews, nearly everyone had pivoted. Even when the company was the same, some part of it had changed. Carroll could relate: a construction business she was part of grew into home services.
Entrepreneurial Attitudes Help Every Child
Not every child will become an entrepreneur. Near the end of the book, Margot describes the attitudes that help every child thrive anyway:
Believing in themselves
Pursuing their true passions
Finding new ways to solve old problems
Spotting opportunity where others see the status quo
Taking on challenges before they have the “right” credentials
Working toward a goal with determination
Taking smart risks on projects worth trying
Finding reward in building something wonderful, whatever it earns
Treating failure as feedback and setbacks as lessons
Dreaming big
Pay Attention to What Brings Your Child Joy
Margot believes every child is born with a gift, and a parent’s job is to help them discover it. When parents tell her they don’t know their child’s passion, her answer is simple: pay attention.
Watch what gives your child joy. Let them do more of it, and tell them how proud you are of their progress, whether it’s singing, dancing, cooking, writing, acting or sports. Resist the urge to call it a waste of time.
Margot’s own sons had intense passions outside school. Elliott played tennis five hours a day, seven days a week. Her younger son, Austin, wrote 300 songs before he graduated from high school.
Elliott, now on his third major venture, was later honored by the tennis center where he trained. He said that everything he is today came from tennis: the grit, hard work, determination and resilience.
For 30 to 40 percent of the people in Margot’s book, the early passion was sports, and only one went pro. What matters is finding something you love, working hard at it, getting good at it, and learning that effort leads to success.
Carroll shared a story about her nephew, who wanted to play music, not study it. His dad pulled up to the filling station where he worked and watched him pick up his guitar between customers. His parents understood, and he became a successful musician.
Rule: Don’t Worry About Straight A’s
Carroll loves this rule. Margot applauds students who love science or math and work hard at it. Still, many straight-A students have learned to give teachers what they want. Entrepreneurs tend to challenge the system and want to do things differently.
Austin’s history and science grades weren’t his strongest. He did take AP music theory, though, and when he auditioned at a big state university, he sat in on its most advanced music theory class. At one point, the professor asked whether anyone besides the visiting student knew any of the answers.
Where real confidence comes from
Kids build confidence by choosing something they love, working hard, fixing what isn’t working, and seeing themselves improve. Their parents back them up: we’re here for you, we know you’ll get there, there will be bumps along the way, and we’re proud of you.
Get Curious About Your Child
When Carroll asked what to do about a child who dislikes school, Margot suggested curiosity. Do they dislike every class, or do they love theater and dislike math? Ask what they enjoy and why. If art makes them happiest, maybe find them an art teacher outside school.
She shared the story of songwriter and producer Benny Blanco. His teachers found him disruptive; his kindergarten teacher called his mom nearly every week. His mom noticed his love of music and found him a teacher outside school, who called him the most talented student he’d ever had. That meant more to Benny than anything. In high school, his mom let him take the bus to New York on weekends to work with producers. Today he’s one of the most successful hitmakers in music.
His mom paid attention and realized her son had a gift.
Just Try
Many of the people in Margot’s book started their ventures in college, while working other jobs, or after spending a few years learning how companies operate. There’s no single right path.
Margot’s advice: if you have an idea, try it. Ask yourself, “What’s the worst that can happen?” The best time to start was yesterday, and the second-best time is today. If you wait for the perfect moment, it will never come.
Carroll’s dad used to say something similar about having babies: if you wait for the perfect time, plan on never having them.
Key takeaways
The most successful people had someone who believed in them.
Let kids win and lose, and help them learn from both.
Respond to failure with questions instead of shame or excuses.
Pay attention to what brings your child joy, and support it.
Grades matter less than passion, grit and resilience.
Expect to pivot, and start before the time feels perfect.
Frequently asked questions
How do you raise an entrepreneurial child?
Believe in them out loud, notice and support what they love, let them experience failure, and ask questions that help them learn from it.
What do successful entrepreneurs have in common?
In Margot’s interviews with 99 founders, artists and activists from every background, the common thread was someone who believed in them, usually a parent.
Do entrepreneurs need straight A’s or a college degree?
Many of the people in Margot’s book did not finish college, and many were not straight-A students. Passion, hard work and resilience mattered more.
What is Raising an Entrepreneur about?
Margot Machol Bisnow’s book shares 99 short stories, each three or four pages with childhood and current photos, showing how successful entrepreneurs were raised. It’s available in hardcover, on Kindle, and as an audiobook narrated by Margot.
