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Raising Young Entrepreneurs
104 Plays5 years ago
On the latest episode of The Entrepreneur Speaks Podcast, I chat with Britta Ofori-Kuragu, a purposeful parenting coach on her journey in raising two enterprising children. She has a 7-year old son and 3-year old daughter who both have their enterprises centered on their unique interests.
Britta shares her motherhood journey and how she is supporting her children to build their little ventures namely ‘Plush Playsoap by Prince ‘and ‘My Beyoutiful Identity by Verity’
Visit the link below to sign up and download a free gift from Britta (A Simple Guide to Speaking Your Child’s Love Language)
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Transcript
Introduction and Guest Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
It is important for us to create room for creativity for our children and creativity and innovation are essential entrepreneurial skills to nurture in your child.
00:00:14
Speaker
Welcome friends to The Entrepreneur Speaks. I'm your host Kofi Animedou. Each week I host an amazing entrepreneur on their journey, successes and challenges. It is my hope that we will learn from their experiences as we all work towards living a life of passion and purpose.
00:00:36
Speaker
My guest today is Britta Ofuri-Kregu. She is a purposeful parenting coach whose mission is to support and empower other moms on their journey of self-awareness as well as developing their children's entrepreneurial capabilities. She has a seven-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter who both have their enterprises centered around their unique interests.
Britta's Personal Journey and Parenting Philosophy
00:01:02
Speaker
I engage her in this episode on her motherwoo journey and how she has supported her children to build their adventures, which are not only based on their unique interests and true essence, but also solve problems, fill a need, and help others. Please relax, listen, and enjoy our conversation. Welcome to this episode of The Entrepreneur Speaks, Britta.
00:01:28
Speaker
Oh, Kofi, thank you so much for having me. It's a real pleasure to be here. Thank you. So tell us, who is Brita Fariq Raghu and how is growing up like? Well, Kofi, you're going to take me way back, but I'll start off by saying that the Brita now, I think a lot of people describe us and I will actually describe myself as well as very warm.
00:01:55
Speaker
down to earth, deeply caring, resourceful. And I think I'm a bit of a humanitarian as well. And I would say I'm an extroverted introvert. That's a very big one. Please break it down for us. I'm an extroverted introvert. Basically, I am an introvert, and a lot of people find it hard to believe that, but I love to spend time on my own.
00:02:19
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and in my own thoughts. However, when I'm in a social setting, I did say I'm quite a warm person. So people warm up to me and I make others feel comfortable. So when I'm in a social setting, it's hard to believe that I'm an introvert. You might think I'm an extrovert. So that's where the term extroverted introvert comes in. So yeah, does that make sense? It sure does.
00:02:49
Speaker
Yes, so I'll tell you a bit about my childhood now. I was born in 1982 at Legon Hospital and I grew up in Accra, Central and Labadi until the age of about eight when we relocated to Hacho, where my mum still lives. I had my primary and junior secondary school education at Association International School near the airport in Accra.
00:03:15
Speaker
Growing up, I was a real daddy's girl. But when I turned six, due to a series of circumstances my young brain couldn't quite comprehend at the time, my father made the decision to leave my mom and I. So like I said, I was a real daddy's girl. So him leaving unexpectedly meant that he took a piece of my heart with him, which really hurt. Anyway, in years to come, my amazing mom and I faced quite a few struggles.
00:03:45
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But we stuck together and we were sustained by God's good grace. I was her only child. So not only was she my mom, she was also my sister and my friend. But I would say there were times when it felt like the pressure and the pain and stress she was feeling in relation to my father leaving and our struggles as well kind of spilled over onto me.
00:04:12
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When I turned 14 or 15 in the same year that I started secondary school, my father came back into my life. It was absolutely incredible. I subsequently loved Garner to join him and his new family in Denmark. This was quite a challenging time for me as well for personal reasons I cannot go into right now because this is- Sure, sure, sure. We appreciate that. Yeah, this is in the podcast for it, but it was, you know,
00:04:41
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It was a difficult period of my life. We subsequently moved to Australia, where I continued my senior high school education, finished that, then started university. And then we relocated to Ghana, and during that time I went to the University of Ghana for my bachelor's degree.
Meet the Kids: Prince and Verity
00:05:04
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I believe I moved to the UK in 2007,
00:05:09
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to work and then I pursued my master's degree as well. And that's where I met my husband. We settled down and we've lived here ever since. So that's just a brief insight into my early life up until adulthood. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. You're welcome. You're raising two enterprising children. Can you please tell us about them?
00:05:37
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All right, well, yes, we have two children called Prince and Verity. Prince is seven years old and Verity is three and a half years old. So Prince is a very kind and caring boy who loves listening to growth mindset podcast and he has a big appetite for life. He likes to laugh really loudly.
00:06:00
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He absolutely loves dinosaurs. Like we've got dinosaurs all over the house, on the carpet, in the sofa, in his bed. And trust me, if you think that stepping on Lego is painful, then you have not stepped on a Stegosaurus with the spikes on the back. So that's a bit about Prince and Verity. She, like I said, she's three and a half years old. She is very outgoing, very friendly.
00:06:30
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And she loves introducing herself to complete strangers and engaging them in conversations. She loves books and she loves to ask very thought-provoking questions. I kind of really admire the beautiful sibling bond that they have, because like I said, I grew up as an only child. So I love watching the dynamics between them and how they navigate their relationship. So that's just a little bit about them.
00:06:59
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Wonderful. Please tell us about the enterprises. Because as you are aware, we are looking at growing young entrepreneurs. That's right. Tell us about the enterprises. Okay. So Prince has a little business called plush play soap by Prince. Um, we, we make hand, we make hard hand washing hand soap. Um, so it's, um, instead of liquid hand soap, this is, uh,
00:07:28
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heart soap with a dinosaur and unicorn toys inside them. And so the whole purpose of it is to encourage children to wash their hands because as you know, children love toys. And when they see a dinosaur in the toy, they are more likely to want to wash their hands and keep a great hand hygiene.
00:07:54
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The idea came about because one day we decided to spend time together and Prince and I were trying to figure out something we could do to try and spend quality time together because, well, I'll backtrack a little bit, actually. That's fine. When Prince was three and a half years old, there were a few struggles he was having when he started nursery school.
00:08:22
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And when we had his first parent-teacher meeting, the feedback that we got made it seem like he had almost been written off, like he wasn't even being given a chance to prove himself. And I felt devastated, even though he was one of the younger children in the classroom, which meant that obviously, you know, it takes longer for some children to, you know, develop than others.
00:08:50
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The thing is he turned three and then in August and then in September, he had to start nursery school, whereas other children were turning four. So the age gap was quite huge. So Prince was having a few challenges.
Entrepreneurial Ventures and Conscious Parenting
00:09:05
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But the way in which he was portrayed during the meeting really upset me. And when we got home, I asked myself so many questions about what I could do to support him. Then this
00:09:20
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questioning myself about how I would be able, about how to meet his needs, send me on a path to try and figure out what motherhood means to me and what it will actually take to meet my son's needs and help him with the struggles that he was facing. So automatically I had to think about my childhood, how I grew up and put all the pieces of the puzzles together and see how the way I was raised
00:09:50
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was inadvertently having an impact on the way I was probably relating to Prince. And so that took me on a whole journey of self-awareness. And through that, I discovered the parenting approach called conscious parenting. Yeah, and conscious parenting is basically a moment by moment way of parenting in which you you you're mindful of
00:10:17
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your relationship with your child, how you speak to them, how you behave towards them and how you meet their needs. So through Conscious Parenting, I also discovered Love Languages, which is a concept developed by a man called Dr. Gary Chapman. And he talks about the fact that children have, just like adults,
00:10:39
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we all have unique ways in which we desire to be loved. And so, and he gave five categories of them. I think one is affirmations, the other, words of affirmations, I beg your pardon, the other is physical touch, the other is acts of service, the other is actually given gifts, and the other one I can't remember right now. But basically I discovered that
00:11:08
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Prince's love language was in spending quality time together. So I made efforts to try and support him with his challenges by waking up in the morning. He was an early riser. I'll go to his room. We'll cuddle up. We'll talk about his night. We'll talk about what he was looking forward to during the day. And gradually I realized how his self-esteem was developing. I realized how
00:11:37
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It was affecting every other aspect of his life in terms of school and his social life as well. So I realized that the connection that I was having with him was having a huge impact on his being, which was wonderful. So one afternoon, it was time for him to have a nap and we were laying there. He wasn't sleeping. And we started talking about what we could learn to do together. We said, you know,
00:12:04
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let's try and find a craft that we can do together and try and create something. It'll be so much fun. So I got out my phone and we went, got onto Google and we found out about soap making. We had options like jewelry making, making origami, and we settled on soap making and we decided, you know, we think that's a really good idea. And he said, yes, Mummy, can we put dinosaur toys inside them?
00:12:34
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Initially- His favorite toy. Absolutely. I was a bit gobsmacked by that, but I went along with it. We ordered the ingredients we needed to make the soap and all the other bits we needed. We ordered all of that and within a week that arrived. In February 2019, we got into the kitchen one Saturday and we created our first ever
00:13:04
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soap and with a dinosaur toy inside them. And when it came out of the mold, we were completely surprised. We couldn't believe we had created that. The next day was Sunday, so we took it to church. We took it to what we call Sunday school in Ghana in our church, in the Methodist church here, it's called Junior Church. So we took it to Junior Church and coincidentally, that particular day, the children were doing all sorts of hand painting.
00:13:33
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So after they finished the little creations, they needed to wash their hands. So we had the soap for the kids to wash their hands and everybody was talking about what a brilliant idea it was. And that is how plush play sort of became a thing. People started saying, you know, can we order this? This is brilliant. And then I had to take the time to explain to Prince subsequently that this actually means that he's having his own business. How does he feel about it? I'm going to support him.
00:14:03
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all the way through. But initially we gave samples out to some of his friends and they absolutely loved it. The feedback was brilliant. So that's how we did our market research. So initially it didn't start off. It wasn't intentional. Developing, for instance, entrepreneurial capabilities wasn't intentional.
00:14:22
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It just happened to be a byproduct of me deeply connecting with him. So going forward, we decided we, we ordered, um, you know, we, we created the packaging and everything else. And it became a real product where we, we, we started selling and he started getting customers as well. We realized we're filling an actual need and, and solving a problem. And the feedback was that it was helping.
00:14:48
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some parents who had kids with autism and sensory play with sensory play. And yeah, it was completely mind blowing. So I did realize that actually developing a child's entrepreneurial capabilities is something that you can do intentionally. You know, although initially hours happened on intentionally,
00:15:12
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I realized that there was a way we could actually help children to develop these capabilities. By the time our daughter Verity came, joined the family in 2017, I had kind of developed the blueprint. I realized, you know, when you deeply connect with your child and open the doors of creativity and let them be themselves and express themselves, those are all the things you need to be able to help them.
00:15:42
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to come up with ideas and develop entrepreneurial capabilities. When Verity came into our lives, when she turned two years old, she received her first ever doll, which she automatically called Baby Verity. She said it looked exactly like her, and it did.
00:16:03
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So she named it Baby Verity and we thought it was a brilliant idea. That same period of time coincided with me finding her in my jewellery box with earrings hanging in her hair. I found her in my jewellery box about two or three times and I realised, you know, I kind of wondered why she was putting my earrings, my dangling earrings in her hair and I realised that perhaps she might want some hair accessories.
00:16:33
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In spending quality time with her as well, by this time, you know, she was quite young, so it's, and I just wanted to mention that the younger a child is, it's a little harder to find out what their love language is, as I was saying to you earlier. But remind me at the end of this, Kofi, because I have a special gift for
00:16:54
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your listeners. I have a free guide. I have a free gift for them to try and identify their child's love language. So sorry to digress. So I quickly found out that Verity also loved quality time, spending quality time together. She loved the affection and paying attention to her and
00:17:24
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So I decided that, you know, since she has indicated that she wants stuff in her hair, she wants some accessories in her hair by using my earrings, we could spend time together creating hair accessories for her. So we got some King T and other, you know, Ankara and African fabrics. And I went on YouTube and learned how to make
00:17:50
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some hair accessories, and we'll sit together. We've got loads of photos of us sitting together to make these hair accessories. And people would go, you know, whenever we went out, people would say, wow, this is incredible. This is amazing. Where did you get that? And we'll say we made it ourselves. And lo and behold, people asked if they could order some, and that's how that came about. But regarding the doll,
00:18:17
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my best friend who's Caucasian and she does a brilliant job of teaching her children about diversity. She was telling me about how she went to a few local shops and couldn't find a black doll for her children. Verity happened to have a spare baby Verity doll because we got her two at the time and we decided we're going to give that as a gift to
00:18:43
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my friend's little girl who happened to be Verity's best friend. So that's what we did. And we realized that there was a gap in the market for that. You know, that black dolls weren't easy to come by. I remember growing up, I never got to play with a black doll. So, you know, when Verity got her doll, when she turned two and got it as her birthday present, I played with it a fair bit. And because, you know, the hair was gorgeous and
00:19:11
Speaker
beautiful, beautiful complexion and everything. So the baby Verity doll also became a product for Verity's little enterprise, which by the way, her enterprise is called My Beautiful Identity by Verity. So that kind of rhymes a little bit. My Beautiful Identity by Verity. Lovely.
00:19:37
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And the beautiful is not spelled with the usual B-E-A-U, it's spelled B-E-Y-O-U because we're trying to emphasize that you in the middle, that you are beautiful as you are. So it was a bit of a play on words. And it just so, it's evolved and we've served customers across the world.
00:20:01
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We've had customers from America, from Sweden and, you know, from here in the UK as well, Vertea has had a few customers and the feedback has been absolutely brilliant. So we got the labeling, the packaging, and we created a product and it was just simply incredible. And the amazing aspect of all of this is the fact that it's all centered on the children and they absolutely love it.
00:20:28
Speaker
and they are involved in the process of creating the product. So even Verity are three years old, she helps with the labeling. So sometimes we let her, when you go on Etsy page, when you go on Verity's Etsy page, which is Etsy, it's a platform where we sell the dolls. It says in the description that, please bear in mind that
00:20:55
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Verity is involved in the process of putting your product together. So if there's a label out of place and it's not perfect, it's because a three-year-old stuck the label on the
Balancing Responsibilities and Inspiration from Purposeful Parenting
00:21:07
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product. And our customers appreciate that. They love that. They love the authenticity. They love the openness. And they're very supportive of what we do. So that's a little bit about Prince and Verity's businesses.
00:21:25
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Wonderful. In helping them come out with these creative enterprises, what has been some of the challenges you've encountered? I must say that it's really been an amazing journey for us because I am also learning so much.
00:21:42
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The things I didn't know, so many things I didn't know, but we figure it out as we go. It's a lot more fun now because Prince is a little older, so he still comes up with ideas both for his enterprise and Verity's enterprise. But I think my biggest challenge has been the time factor in juggling everything. I still have a nine-to-five job and I work part-time two days a week. I'm trying to build
00:22:12
Speaker
my coaching business up from scratch as well. So that takes up a lot of time. And then there is Prince's little enterprise that we need to make sure we've ordered the ingredients we need and all the things that go into making sure that his business survives and thrives as well. And the same with Verity as well. So, and then throw in the commitment of day-to-day life, family life and all of that.
00:22:41
Speaker
So it is for me, it's the time factor and having to juggle everything. But in terms of actual enterprises, it's been wonderful because I'm learning and growing alongside the children. Sure. I believe that's the best way to go about it. Absolutely. Absolutely. So tell us, where do you draw your inspiration to do this? Well, that's a really good question. I talked about
00:23:10
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purposeful parenting paradigm and that for me is the blueprint if you want to develop your child's entrepreneurial capabilities. I did mention about conscious parenting as well which was the journey I went on in terms of introspection and trying to figure out what parenting meant to me. My inspiration is basically
00:23:34
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in my quest to raise them in a way for them to know that they can indeed have a joyful life and make a living based on what they love to do while making a difference to the lives of others. I do recognize that although they came through me, you know, as our children do, they do not belong to me. We're just, as parents, we're custodians of their little lives and they come onto this earth
00:24:04
Speaker
fulfill their own purpose. And our role is to help them to fulfill that purpose. Our role is to nurture them, nurture their unique gifts and their true essence. So when I look back at my childhood and how, you know, I explained about some of the challenges that I faced and all of that, I wouldn't want them to struggle unnecessarily.
00:24:29
Speaker
That doesn't mean that I will wrap them in cotton wool and shield them from the challenges that they will face. Challenges in life are inevitable. But through the purposeful parenting paradigm that I am proposing, I think
00:24:49
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you're able to equip them with everything they need to develop physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, financially as well. Sometimes I don't like to talk about money, but what a joy it is to know that no matter what your child's interest is, they can make a living creating things that they love and being paid to do so.
00:25:19
Speaker
Sometimes we have so many fears when it comes to the issue of money. But then sometimes we say money is the root of all evil, money is this, that and the other in a negative light. But without money, we're not able to help others like we're supposed to. So this approach to parenting not only serves the child, but it gives them the opportunity to help other people.
00:25:48
Speaker
In raising them in this manner as well through the purposeful parenting paradigm, I want them to know that they matter and that when God created them, He put everything they would ever need inside of them and they wouldn't need to seek external validation to know that they are worthy.
00:26:09
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It's my aim to equip them with the skills and tools that they need to thrive in our ever-changing world. Because our world is changing, believe it or not. Yeah, I know. Everybody will allude to this fact. Things are evolving at a rate which sometimes is a bit of a struggle to keep up. But raising them in this way and helping them work on their mindset and everything else enables them to cope.
00:26:39
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and thrive no matter what comes their way. So I believe this is an all-encompassing approach to parenting.
Lockdown Creativity and Community Contributions
00:26:48
Speaker
That's where I draw my inspiration.
00:26:51
Speaker
Thank you so much. You're very welcome. You're sharing this with us. Find ourselves in a new normal. We are confronted with the COVID-19 pandemic. Did the lockdown help in any way and net further skills and develop new products? Yes, actually it did. I did mention about Princess Sober. I don't think I mentioned about the shape of it. It's actually the shape of an egg. So if you picture an egg,
00:27:18
Speaker
And the soap is made such that it's transparent so you can see the dinosaurs through it. So it's shaped like, you know, there's a concept that the dinosaur egg, the egg hatches and then you unveil the dinosaur. That was the whole original concept. But within the UK, it quickly came to light that it was hard to post the
00:27:44
Speaker
the dinosaur egg soaps through the letter boxes in the doors because they went that wide. It became a bit of a challenge. With COVID, with all the physical, social distancing and everything, the postmen, they would far rather post things through the door than stand around and get somebody to come to the door.
00:28:08
Speaker
So Prince and I discussed what can we do and how can we shape this in a way that would go through the door easily when it's being posted, when the customer buys a product and we're posting this through the door. What can we do to change the shape and the size and everything? We settled on heart-shaped soaps instead. So the heart-shaped soap is a lot flatter.
00:28:37
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The toy inside it now became a tropical fish, which was also flat. So we created a new product during lockdown. And those were really easy. If we received an order, it was easy to just go out and in the locality and put it through our customers letterboxes, which was wonderful. And we didn't need to come into contact with anybody. So that was very creative and innovative. And regarding Verity's enterprise as well,
00:29:07
Speaker
Having extra time on our hands meant that we developed a new range of, we designed earrings actually. So she has a line of earrings now. Her little ears aren't big enough for them at the moment, maybe a couple more years and she'll be able to wear them herself. But the earrings range from a size small to medium and to large.
00:29:37
Speaker
And that as well has been received really well and we've sent all this off to as far as Australia. So that's been wonderful. Also, I don't know if I mentioned before, but it is important that in creating an enterprise, we think about
00:29:56
Speaker
the problem we're trying to solve and how we'll be able to help other people through the enterprise. And the amazing thing that happened was that even though the schools were closed and the children of key workers were still going to school. And so Prince at that time when hand sanitizers were really hard to come by, we created, I completely forgot about that, we created a range
00:30:22
Speaker
of hand sanitizer gels as well, which became one of the products. And we donated some to Prince's school. So the teachers could use that because there was a point where they were so scarce, you could simply couldn't find any hand sanitizer gels. And if you found them, the prices were incredibly fluctuated. So we managed to find a supplier with a reasonable price and we got a small quantity.
00:30:51
Speaker
We decanted them into small bottles and put beautiful labels on them and we created products out of those. We also donated some to the African Community Network and Leeds so we could go to households and people that really needed them.
Publications and Final Thoughts
00:31:08
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So those were some of the things that we created during lockdown. Thank you once again for sharing this with us. You're very welcome. You're also an author. Please tell us about your books.
00:31:20
Speaker
Okay. So in February, February of this year, I believe goodness is hard to keep up with the time. Sometimes an incredible opportunity came my way to be a part of a wonderful groundbreaking project called love letters to my girls. And it's an anthology by black women for black women and girls, which I co-authored and I wrote about conscious parenting.
00:31:50
Speaker
It was basically 100 women, 100 plus women coming together to each write letters, love letters to black women and girls to speak to the beauty, value, strength and vulnerability of black women. And the aim was to share empowering messages with black women and girls all across the world. So yes, I became a published author a few months ago. The book is still in the pre-order stage.
00:32:19
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but it will subsequently be available worldwide. I have also recently published my ebook called Raising Young Entrepreneurs The Purposeful Parenting Paradigm that basically highlights
00:32:37
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the journey that I have been through with Prince and Verity right from my childhood, up until everything I've done so far with them and where we're heading. I talk about conscious parenting, the purpose for parenting paradigm.
00:32:54
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you know, what it is that parents need to look out for and the kind of skills to nurture in their children, which is one thing I probably didn't mention earlier. It is important for us to create room for creativity for our children and creativity and innovation are essential entrepreneurial skills to nurture in your child. Because not only does it provide an initial idea
00:33:23
Speaker
for a product or a project or business. But throughout the course of a child's life, when it comes to problem solving and overcoming challenges, creativity does help. Children are, as we know, children are born with a curious mind and a desire for exploration and experimentation. So we need to try and nurture that curiosity. And in doing so, they will automatically learn to find
00:33:52
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solutions to everyday problems through being innovative. So that's really important. Yeah. We are just about wrapping up.
00:34:02
Speaker
Okay. Any last words for our listeners? Before you come in with that, you mentioned a freebie. Don't forget about the freebie. Oh, yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, remember I mentioned about love languages. The fact that identifying Prince's love language really did help with connecting with him and then
00:34:31
Speaker
It also helped to further develop other areas of his life. So that is really quite an important concept that I wanted our listeners to get to know about and try and discover with their children. So I have a freebie and it's on my website, www.purposefulparentingparadigm.com forward slash free gift.
00:34:59
Speaker
Kofi, I'm going to make the link available to you as well when we finish this. Thank you. Thank you. Because I think it's really important for your, it will be very useful for your listeners in terms of identifying their child's love language because it's upon a child's, it's upon love, the basic foundation for every other aspect of a child's development is based on
00:35:30
Speaker
on our love for them. And they need to feel love and secure, loved and secure. So that will go a great deal, a great way to help them. Thank you so much to Britta Ophori-Kwegu, a mother and a purposeful parenting coach. You're very welcome. Thank you for sharing your experience with us today.
00:35:53
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on the entrepreneur speaks. We really appreciate your time and also the freebie. I think it's very important. So thank you for that. You're very welcome, Kofi. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you.
00:36:10
Speaker
Thank you, friends, for listening. As always, kindly leave your key learnings and takeaways. I'll come your way next week with another exciting episode. I remain your host, Kofi Anni Medu. Let's continue to keep hope alive. Cheers.