The Power of Someone Who Believes

Why the greatest investment we can make isn't in ideas — it's in children.

When I was a boy, my mother had a habit that shaped my life in ways I would only understand years later.

Whenever I came home burning with something I'd learned, she rarely settled for "That's wonderful." She would lean in, eyes bright with real curiosity, and answer with a question of her own.

"What do you think?"

Sometimes it was about a book. Sometimes history, science, or why the sky caught fire at sunset. Sometimes I had no answer at all. That never seemed to trouble her. She wasn't testing me. She wasn't fishing for the right answer. She was inviting me to think.

She always backed that invitation with sacrifice. She spared no expense on tutors and after-school classes, firmly believing that I needed to understand even more than memorize. Free afternoons went to Boston's museums and the New England Aquarium — wherever the city kept its wonders on display. Those hours did more than fill my mind with the beauty of knowledge and reaching for it. They taught me that ideas are how people find one another. To this day, my deepest connections begin in the exchange of what we are learning.

Looking back, I see that what she gave me wasn't knowledge alone. It was something rarer: the conviction that my thoughts mattered, that my questions were worth asking, and that curiosity was a fire to be fed and never put out. She never denied me anything that would make me more curious, more awake to the privilege we hold as thinking creatures: to learn and grow through courageous discovery.

It took me decades to understand what a gift that was.

For much of my working life, I lived in the startup world. I met founders building extraordinary companies, scientists wrestling hard problems to the ground, engineers making the impossible look ordinary, and investors hunting the next great idea. It was a world of ambition and open horizons, a frontier, in its way.

From the outside, you might assume these people got there on raw talent alone.

The longer I spent among them, the less I believed it.

Because again and again, I noticed the same pattern.

Behind the confident founder stood a teacher who had urged them to keep asking questions. Behind the brilliant scientist, a parent who never swatted a child's curiosity aside as a distraction. Behind the gifted communicator, someone who had listened, patiently and seriously, to their first halting attempts at finding a voice.

Long before the world saw their success, someone had quietly believed in them.

That truth has never let go of me.

Children rarely wake up one morning brimming with confidence. Confidence is borrowed before it is owned. They borrow it from parents who steady them after a hard day. From teachers who spot the ember of potential before it shows any flame. From mentors who challenge them because they see who a child might become, not merely who they are today.

In time, the borrowed fire becomes their own hearth.

That is one of the reasons I feel so honored to have joined PopSmart Academy.

As I've come to know the team, I've realized that what happens here reaches well beyond preparing students for competitions, sharpening their writing, mastering mathematics, or building the nerve to speak in public. Those outcomes matter. But they are not the whole story.

At its heart, PopSmart is a place where children are encouraged to stay curious. Where questions are welcomed rather than managed. Where effort is seen and named. Where small classes mean no student disappears into the back row, and where educators take seriously the privilege of helping young people discover what they are capable of becoming.

An environment like that can change the course of a life. I know, because one changed mine.

It is also why PopSmart and entrepreneurship, especially our upcoming entrepreneurship cohort, make all the sense in the world to me. An entrepreneur is someone forever figuring things out: pivoting, adapting, meeting new knowledge on its own terms and building something from it. Some call that disruption. I call it breakthrough transformation. It is childhood curiosity, grown up and put to work.

My name is Steve Vilkas, and I recently joined PopSmart Academy as its Chief Operating Officer. In the months ahead, I hope to share occasional reflections like this one, on learning, curiosity, entrepreneurship, communication, and the long, remarkable work of helping young people grow into thoughtful, confident adults.

As I write these words, I find myself thinking once more about my mother.

Many of the lessons she taught me have faded with the years. But I have never forgotten how she made me feel. Before I had accomplished anything, before I held a single credential, she believed I was capable of becoming someone who could make a real contribution to the world.

She has since passed away. What she kindled did not. Her belief became part of the flame that, for me, will always burn brightly — a small fire, lit early, warming every trail I have walked since.

Every child deserves someone who believes in them like that.

For me, there is no greater privilege than being one of those people.

Ready to empower your child’s critical thinking? Explore our different programs and discover how PopSmart Academy can help your child reach their full potential. Book a FREE trial class here.