The Entrepreneurial Spirit Starts Young

I was in the car with my youngest son today and as we were coming home from picking up some food he told me, "Every time you take a breath of air, you owe me a quarter." I asked him why I would owe him any money and he told me that he invented oxygen. When I told him that he didn't invent oxygen he said to me, "Well, I have to find a way to earn money and this is how I am doing it, so pay up." I could not help but give out a good hearty laugh. Every time I took a breath he would tally up the amount of quarters I owed him.

It made me think about when I was younger and what I would do to earn money. In the summers I would set up a snow cone stand. I had a table I would set up at the bottom of the driveway with a big sign attached to it announcing "Snow Cones For Sale" and the price. I had my Snoopy Snow Cone Machine, cups, and little spoons set up along with my cash box. When I would see people I would call out, "Come and get your snow cone." The lady across the street was having some work done on her house one summer and the workers were my biggest customers.

I also was the neighborhood pooper scooper. I always charged extra for bigger dogs that had bigger bathroom issues. It was a dirty job, but someone had to do it and I needed money to buy goodies. In addition I was the neighborhood bakery. My mom has passed along her favorite recipe for Pumpkin Cookies with brown sugar icing to me. We would, as a family, bake them during the fall months and then I would place the packages of cookies in our wagon, different amounts of cookies for different prices, and go up and down the blocks in my neighborhood selling the cookies. My other job I had was a paper route. A lot of work for a little bit of money, but it was still cold, hard cash.

In junior high I was looking for extra money so I could buy food at the snack shack. I would go to the local liquor store before school and take my change and buy those little packages of cinnamon sticks for $ .10 each. I would then take them to school and sell them for a quarter each. I made a profit to get my egg sandwich or candy bar and have enough left over to go buy more cinnamon sticks the next day.

My own kids have picked up the entrepreneurial spirit themselves from watching me run my own business. My oldest son set up his own mobile auto detailing business in my mother's neighborhood a couple of summers ago. When they first started selling the Mr. Clean car washing kit, he saved his chore money in order to purchase it, with a coupon of course. He started with my mom's car and then my two sisters' cars. He added a neighbor's car here and there and earned clothing money that summer.

All of my kids help me out on their spring and summer breaks. They perform the pet sits and dog walking and my daughter goes shopping with me. I didn't have money when I was younger so I had to be creative about earning it. Although I have the ability to hand money over to my kids when they need it, I want them to learn about earning money in order to get the things they want, not the things they need. I always tell them, "Your boss isn't going to just hand you a check because you need the money. You have to work for that money." They will do extra chores outside of their regular ones, help me with my business, or go around the neighborhood to find work or ways to earn extra money, including hunting down rats for the neighbor.

Regardless of what my children grow up to be in their adult professions, at least they have the entrepreneurial spirit and know what it is like to work hard for themselves for each dollar they earn. For those of you who have started your own business, regardless of what it is, I am sure your entrepreneurial spirit started young.