My Mind Has Always Been Attracted to the Hustle Since a Young Age and My Family Supported It.
Now, I am not going to say my family was perfect. They are far from it but they have been reluctantly supportive in all the decisions I have made over the years. They also gave me the best tools they had at their disposal to allow me to succeed.
The rest was up to me.
How the Entrepreneurial Fire was Lit.
One day back in the early eighties when I was in the 4th grade my best friend and I stopped by the local mini market and bought some Now & Laters for ourselves. At the time Now & Laters were $.10 a pack and each pack contained six candies. So I would buy a few extra packs to sell. I would sell my candy for $.05 each piece. Each pack that I sold was now worth $.30. We did this for the next few years until we graduated 6th grade.
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During the same time I also excelled when the school raised money by selling chocolate bars. I would literally walk from door to door for hours to sell as many chocolate bars as I could. I never won the competition but I really enjoyed the thrill of the chase. We always sold Niagara Chocolates when I was in the Rochester, NY public school system.
My brother and I also knew how profitable shoveling snow was. Growing up in Western NY meant that we had our fair share every winter. We had a few good customers that we knew we could go to. The main driving force behind getting money was so that we could buy a new Nintendo game. It was not easy work but the money was there for the taking. We could normally do two driveways with only shovels in a few hours. Our snow could get very deep so it was serious work.
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I was also a paper boy for a few years with the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. This job forced me to get up at 5:30 am every day to go handle business. On the cold, snowy or rainy mornings it was pure hell. Luckily my route was the apartment complex that was spread out on a few acres across the street from my home. I was able to complete my route in about 40 minutes. The worst part then and the worst part about doing business today is collecting the money. I really despised going door to door to collect the newspaper bill. Paperboys today really have it made!
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When I turned 16 I worked at Magnera's Service Center in Rochester, NY. The great part about the job is that since it was full service I was able to work for tips on top of my minimum wage. I would offer to check the oil, clean the windows and check the air in peoples tires. Every day after school and on Saturday's I would walk a mile to the gas station. It was a decent job and the people that owned it were first class. I loved watching the family interact with their corporate accounts. One more lesson in my entrepreneurial schooling.
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During my junior year of high school I enrolled in Junior Achievement. It was offered in the evenings for students who wanted to be mentored in business. Even though my mentors were employees at companies like Xerox and Kodak I still learned a ton from them about marketing, branding, accounting and selling. All are super important for an entrepreneur to comprehend. If you have Junior Achievement offered in your area I recommend you sign up your budding entrepreneur.
Why Do Entrepreneurs Need to be Nurtured.
I beg you to recognize the traits of an entrepreneur and nurture it because if you don't your child will grow up and live a frustrated life. My first 20 years of adulthood were horribly unproductive for me and I walked around with a chip on my shoulder. I felt like no one understood me. I was walking through life on a path that very few understood. Whenever I worked a job all I could think about was doing business.
It was not until I left my comfort zone and moved to Panama that I felt free to do what I wanted. Now six years after becoming a full time entrepreneur life is amazing and I never want to go back to a life working a job and having a boss. Some people are born entrepreneurs. No matter what you try to do to keep them in a box they will fight and claw to escape that box. Why not teach them from a young age that they are free to explore and provide them the tools to succeed.
Thanks to the internet parents have no excuse. Find a group to mentor your child. Connect them with other entrepreneurs. Trust me life will be better for them. I wish you the best of luck and don't worry if they fail 20X. The 21st time could set them up for life. It did for me.
