Empowering the Next Generation: Entrepreneurial Lessons for Teens

Dustin: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the seven figure leap today. I'm going to dive into a topic that's not only near and dear to my heart, but I feel like it provides a lens that may provide you a fresh perspective on your own business and how to grow as an entrepreneur. And so the topic I really want to unpack is this idea of exposure to entrepreneurial opportunity, right?
So that's kind of a mouthful. I want to specifically start, though, in talking about Entrepreneurship and kids. And so I want to talk about my own background and journey to entrepreneurship, uh, coming through my childhood and into adulthood. And when I basically realized that like entrepreneurship was a thing, uh, and there was an option for me specifically.
And I want to talk about like how that's transferred to our own kids and then extend that, you know, even into how we serve adults and, and serve people who Aren't quite sure about their entrepreneurial journey, or they're looking to up level on their entrepreneurial journey. So I hope that the picture [00:01:00] that gets painted here is a real through line.
And I hope it's something that resonates with you, especially if you have a family, especially if you have kids that you would love to encourage. To at least consider entrepreneurship as an option in their life and career. So I now believe very, very firmly that entrepreneurship is one of the most powerful tools that we have to change the world and make the world a better place to add value, to address social concerns and to address, you know, lots of the problems that we face in our modern age.
I really feel like entrepreneurship. In its purest form is the key to innovation and the key to. Providing positive impact in the world. So, um, and yes, you should make money doing that, right? Like that's, uh, that's the incentive for it. Um, that's one of the incentives for it, but as I hope you, you hear in my own story and how we've woven entrepreneurship into how we raise our own children.
There's much more to the [00:02:00] story than just money. So going way back to me as a, as a child, uh, I think it's fair to say that I had Basically no exposure to entrepreneurship in any real form or fashion. So I didn't have business owners in my family. I, at least in my awareness, I didn't really have them among my friends and their parents.
So I just didn't have a model, uh, for business, business ownership. And in fact, I really don't believe I had heard the word entrepreneur until like college. So I kind of went through this whole time growing up where it wasn't, not only it wasn't an option, like it wasn't even a, uh, A reality, like I didn't even know what it meant.
You know, this is way before shark tank and, uh, you know, entrepreneur magazine and some of the things that maybe, uh, people now take for granted. But for me growing up, when I look back, no, I did not have any model for it. I certainly didn't think it was a career option, but. I did have that bug, right? And you always hear about, Oh, the classic kid with the [00:03:00] lemonade stand.
I didn't have that. I was actually not really in a position to do such things. I lived out in the middle of nowhere, pretty isolated childhood, obviously went in town for school and did spend some time in town with my grandmother and my grandfather on the weekends. So a lot of Sundays I would hang out with them again.
Very, very blue collar. Like, They lived in a trailer. We lived in a trailer, um, lived in a condemned home at one point in the early part of my teenage years. So certainly not coming from money. There's still models of entrepreneurship that I can reflect on. And so one of the big ones for me was. My grandma would take me out on Sundays and I typically go fishing with my grandpa in the morning and we would like have fish for dinner or lunch.
And then she would take me out in the afternoon and we would literally drive around on gravel roads and look for empty beer cans, you know, and soda cans, mostly beer. And so we would find on these country roads, people just tossing this stuff out the window and we would take. You know, trash bags and just [00:04:00] pick up cans and we would save these cans.
And obviously I would drink my fair share of Pepsi and my grandpa would drink his stag beer and we would stockpile of these cans and, you know, once a month or something, we would go in to the recycling center and we'd redeem these for money. So is that entrepreneurship? Yeah, I think so. I mean, we were reusing, uh, basically trash someone, Had tossed on the side of the road and turning it into money.
And so my grandma was very generous in that she paid for the gas. Uh, she obviously devoted a lot of time to this and let me keep all the money. And so that was one way that I was able to earn money as a kid. As I got a little older, I started getting into baseball cards and. Thinking I was going to make money.
I probably did never make much money. Uh, one of the things I did do was take like the common cards or the, basically the almost worthless cards out of a, out of a deck and I would package those up and sell them in like Ziploc bags at yard sales. Right. And so I kind of had this model of, Hey, you know, grandma's [00:05:00] 50 cards for 2.
Great. And there were cards that had no, uh, worth to me, but to her grandkids who didn't know any better, they were great. Right. And so it was. Giving value to someone, uh, out of something that really had no value to me. And so those are kind of the early days of entrepreneurship for me. Uh, fast forward into, you know, my, my high school and into college, I ended up getting a scholarship to go to engineering school, thought this is the highest and best use of my time.
Again, no concept of ever having any sort of business, but as I got into my career. For one thing, I did start to buy in and become a partner in the initial firm. And then when I left that firm and got into another firm, I was also a partner. So it was a tinge of entrepreneurship, but for me, I was way more, um, about things I was doing outside of my nine to five.
So one of the early businesses was flipping golf clubs. So I got really good. Um, well, I should, I should back up. I had no intention of making money and flipping golf [00:06:00] clubs. Um, my wife that was pregnant with, I believe it was our first child, uh, Braden, our oldest. And what I was doing was testing out a new driver.
I'm like, I'd love to have some better golf clubs. So I'm buying stuff off of eBay. Going to the range, realizing that it didn't make me any better and then reselling them. And what I found is like, I was pretty good at taking photos and writing copy about the golf clubs. You know, in some cases they were dirty when I clean them up.
And so I was able to resell them for a little bit more than I bought them for. Right. And I was like, Oh, this is kind of cool. And so I basically was just testing out new clubs for free as the model. When I realized there's this whole thing of like arbitrage. So I started to go to like. Uh, my own stash.
I'd go to friends. I went to yard sales and stuff like that. Started buying other name being brain clubs, cleaning them up and then selling them on eBay. I became an eBay power seller and eventually started like putting ads on Craigslist, which now would probably get me murdered. But at the time I would just like show up in people's houses.
They would sell me their old [00:07:00] clubs. I would do some negotiating via email in advance and. Pay cash, get these clubs, clean them up, take photos. My kid and my, uh, this is my second child because my youngest kid started sort of
helping me with this as a, as a toddler. And, and we had a lot of, had a lot of fun, um, organizing clubs and cleaning up clubs and stuff like that.
And I started, you know, then shipping them online. Then I started to realize there's definitely a market here. So I got into the side hustle world and I think that's where I really started to feel like an entrepreneur. I was making upwards of a thousand a month. And so my journey goes on from there and I don't, I'm not going to dwell on that.
There's other days to talk about that. But again, I didn't even probably at that time realized that entrepreneurship was like what I was doing. Uh, it was later that I started to understand and respect People who just like their whole job was, uh, owning their own business, right? Like that was a thing. It took me a long time.
In other words, I was a slow learner, a slow adapter. It didn't have a great model for how to do [00:08:00] this stuff. So when I think back though, to my own children, I mean, I just mentioned like kids in diapers are seeing dad has this side hustle and like Lou, this cool thing. And. I had my own projects and I think one of the best things I've done as a dad is engage them in that at a young age.
So showing them that like, Hey, even though I have a nine to five, I also have these side hustles. And of course, eventually I left my nine to five as they were a little bit older and became a full time entrepreneur. But that wasn't until 2017, 2018. So my youngest at that time was like seven. So seven to 12 year old kids was when I finally made that leap.
But for Many years before that I was doing entrepreneurial things and always letting them know about it, right? I think that was that was the thing I was doing is it's not hiding it. It's very transparent showing them Here's what I bought it for. Here's what we're selling it for and here's why like here's the difference.
Here's the value we're adding Whether it's cleaning it up or assembling a set or how we're taking photos or how we're [00:09:00] writing descriptions and started to open them up to like, it doesn't have to be dollars for hours. There's nothing wrong with dollars for hours. And I did that most of my life. And my kids did that as well.
Um, into their teenage years, but they all have always had a business. And I think that that is something I'm very proud of. And there's something I'm very passionate about. Yeah. Not only for my own kids, but for exposing other kids, especially like high schoolers, that this is an option, right? And this is, and it's not an either, or you're not like go get a college degree or start your own business.
Everything kind of is a blend and everything sort of evolves, but I want people to be open minded to the fact that they can learn. Own a business and they can have outsized impact in the world and get an outsized income as a result. So when I think back through my own children, they did a lot of those similar things as kids, you know, we do live in a neighborhood.
So there was the lemonade stands and some of the more traditional like kid businesses. But I think one turning point [00:10:00] 13. He, and he's the oldest, so he was 13, uh, someone in our neighborhood had an amazing charity called got your six and it actually, um, supported military veterans with support dogs, right?
So great charity, great organization. I don't know if they're just local, if this is a local chapter of a larger organization, but he was really into what they were doing. He wore their shirts and he had their bracelets and, um, he's, he just thought it was cool. You know, fast forward six years, he's actually in the army.
So it kind of makes sense now that he was drawn to this military cause. But at the time he was just like, man, I want to help these guys. Uh, how can I make money? Like I want to donate to them, but you know, I'm 13, I don't have any money. And so we came up with an idea. And I said, you know what? Like
fourth of July is coming up.
There's a couple of different big fireworks shows in our area. Why don't we think of something you could go sell as part of the show? And so, uh, they, they love like low bracelets. So we went [00:11:00] online, found like huge bulk boxes of glow bracelets and glow necklaces. And they. I don't know. I have no idea. I don't remember what they cost, but let's say they cost 10 cents.
They're very cheap when you buy them in bulk. They're very cheap. These are the ones that you like break them and then they start glowing so they can sit for a long time inert until you activate them. So my buddy or my son and his buddy, our neighbor, uh, you know, we were kind of, you know, Supervising at a distance.
So it's not like they were out alone in these crowds, but there we go for a couple of different weekends before the fireworks shows and everyone's camped out and walking around in these, uh, these big parks and they just walked around. I had all these globe bracelets on their neck and their wrist and they have a sign, you know, and they're like, Hey, support got your six.
Uh, we are selling these, I think it was like a dollar for a wrist or $2 for a neck, a big necklace. And so everyone, I, everyone bought 'em. It was just like everyone they asked, 'cause they're cute kids. It's a great cause. Um, their kids running [00:12:00] around always wanted, all wanted a glow bracelet before it got dark.
And it was just like super easy. And, you know, they never got a permit, they never did anything official. But also, I don't think people were looking to, to crack down on the, the bracelet selling business. So what was really cool is they made a lot of money. I can't remember. It was, it was definitely multiple hundreds.
I want to say it was like six, 700 they made and several hours of walking around two different fairs on two different weekends. And so they went to donate this and the woman in our neighborhood said, you know what, like you guys have, Earn this for one, you have cost of goods while you bought the bracelets, you devoted a lot of time.
Um, and so she's insisted they split the profits. So she took the donation with about half the money and then they got to keep half the money, even though that wasn't their intent. And so. I think it was like 600 bucks, uh, that then they split. And then, you know, my, my son and his friend split it. So, you know, 150 bucks, uh, and basically a weekend for 13 year old was pretty awesome.
I'm sure he went and bought [00:13:00] video games with it and his own baseball cards. Uh, But that was, I, that's one of the first early memories I have of my son thinking outside the box and being like, it's not dollars for hours. Uh, there's a lot of other little adventures along the way. And again, they've helped me with lots of cool little side businesses and fun ideas.
But I think the other big inflection point. Which is probably true of many of us, uh, was COVID. So, you know, I think my kids were thinking, you know, my son would have been about 15 when COVID hit. So he's thinking, Oh, I'm going to get a license soon. I'm going to go get a traditional job. And he ultimately did do that.
But for this period, of course, they couldn't leave. They were doing a homeschool stuff, uh, zoom school, and I was stuck at home. My wife was stuck at home and they were stir crazy. And so all they wanted to do was be able to like. Recreation. And so they wanted to buy stuff on Amazon. They want to buy video games or coloring books.
And we of course bought some things, but they just wanted to make more money. And so what [00:14:00] was cool was they started researching ideas. Ironically, the, the, the first idea they got was from a show called the side hustle show. I said, Hey, I love this show. Go listen to this show. They like every episode is a new business idea.
Maybe there's something you guys can do and it has to be local, right? Cause I'm not driving you around and you can't go in stores cause everything's shut down. And so they found this idea of a dog pooper scooper business where you go around the neighborhood, you pick up people's, you know, dog poop and you make money.
And ironically, them looking at that business idea on that website, like spurred something to me. And I thought, you know what, like. I have a really cool business idea that I'm working on with fire creek snacks at the time. And I actually pitched the same show. And that was the very first podcast I ever appeared on in 2020, which if you know, my, my story with this brand seven figure leap, that's actually where it all started was that very first podcast guesting appearance for that other brand that led [00:15:00] to all of the crazy stories and success that we have now.
So I guess I should give my kids some credit because as they were looking for their idea. It sparked something in me to go beyond that show back to the kids. They found that idea. They started mapping it out. They realized they don't want to actually do dog poop. And in a 150 home subdivision, there's only so many dogs here.
And there's only so many, you know, pet parents who actually are going to pay someone to come do this, right? Because it's just, it's, it wasn't just, it wasn't a great idea, but they got to think about it, put some numbers down what they did come up with, though, which ended up being a genius idea is what's another like dirty job we can do.
And what they ultimately ended up doing is my oldest. And my youngest, not the middle daughter, she did not want the dirty stuff, but the oldest and the youngest were like, Hey, let's go clean trash cans. Uh, and so every other week
in our neighborhood, we have a toucan week. So we have a trash and recycling and they got in this rhythm that summer where they would go put flyers on doors.
I ended up posting something in [00:16:00] our family, uh, our family neighborhood is called Call the family group, but our neighborhood group on Facebook, I posted, Hey, our kids are out doing this if you're interested and I got a huge response. Uh, and they made a lot of money that first summer, literally cleaning trash cans.
And again, I went around with them and supervise them. I didn't actually do the work, but made sure the hoses were hooked up and. They didn't go in any fences with dogs and, you know, obviously make sure they were safe. But yeah, the two of them worked actually not that much. They worked a several days that summer, uh, for numerous hours each day and they made upwards of 800.
And so I think that really opened their eyes. They're like, We can make a lot of money, uh, really fast. Their effective hourly rate was well over a hundred dollars. And these are teenagers, young, not even teenagers. One was a teenager, one was pre team. And so that was their first, I would say, real business.
They called it clean cans. Uh, they started taking pictures of the before and after. They started gathering testimonials. They had a two [00:17:00] page, like a front and back flyer that they created, um, on Canva. And like, they really had a legitimate business going. And. Actually, that story continues on because as my son got older, he got a quote, unquote, real job at, you know, uh, Home Depot and the parks department and different places and was just, you know, add other things he wanted to do it to summertime.
So he was like, I'm not doing the trash can cleaning business anymore. So my youngest daughter basically. Picked up the business. Uh, she's refreshed the whole thing. She's got her own, her own look to the brand and the flyers. And she's still to this day, as I record this, it's the summer of 2024, four years later, she still does this.
She'll do two, three days during the summer. She'll make hundreds of dollars. And we've got a whole YouTube video. Actually, if you hit me up, if you want to see that, or if you look up my name and trash cans, I'm sure it'll come up on YouTube, right? Just documented the math, the, you know, what, what do they do?
What's the cleaning supplies that they buy? Um, what are they charging? What's the flyer look like? [00:18:00] And now she's expanded the business. So you can get one can for 15 or two for 25. She does egress windows. So in our neighborhood, that's a big thing. People have basements and they've got these pits. For egress to get out of the basement and they get filthy and they get dead frogs and cobwebs and, and she'll probably just crawls down there with some rubber gloves and she's got a strong stomach and she, and she does like odd jobs, she'll pick weeds for people's gardens and she's, she's kind of become known in the neighborhood as the, the go to girl for these dirty jobs and, uh, she does a really good job and it makes a lot of money, uh, with.
Not that much time. So that's one of the kids businesses that has kind of been multi generational away from it, from one to the other. Um, and then our middle daughter has her own talents. She's actually a very good artist. She's taught herself calligraphy. Uh, and so she, for. Mostly in the winter time, uh, it's mostly been a seasonal business.
She created a little business called hello, hand lettering. And so the very first year [00:19:00] she made hundreds of dollars taking orders to make custom Christmas ornaments for like put family's names on them. Uh, and the other big revenue driver has been a handmade gift tags. So imagine getting a gift and it's got this beautiful calligraphy.
You know, to and from maybe a special note, uh, a little drawing of a snowman or Santa Claus or whatever. She's very artistically gifted. And so she made custom. Tags for families and they would order X tags with whatever design, uh, and had a little product tie service there and has continued to do that each season.
And so I hope that just gives you like an insight. Like I'm so proud that, you know, they made money that, you know, that's great. They've served people. They've met a lot of people, but in that they've developed communication skills, self confidence, creativity, design skills. They're using Canva. They're, they're You know, again, with safe supervision, uh, they're going around knocking on doors, talking to neighbors, it's sales skills, right?
Like marketing skills, [00:20:00] these are things that are going to serve them for a very long time. And in the process, you know, they made a really, really good hourly wage, uh, in And created outsized results from their efforts. And
I'm just so proud of that, because again, it's not something I had exposure to, and I can't wait as they go out into the world to see how that's going to serve them.
You know, our son's entering the military and then he'll come back as a guardsman. So he'll have a normal career and he thinks he wants to go into the trades. You know what? That sounds perfect, because guess who's not afraid to get his hands dirty. And I could very well see him getting into plumbing, HVAC, electrical, learning those crafts, and then eventually having a business in that, in that specter, right?
I think our two daughters are probably going to eventually go to college, but both very entrepreneurial. And so the last thing I want to talk about here is a specific opportunity. My, my middle daughter is now has, she's heading into her senior year of high school. And she went through a pretty competitive process for a [00:21:00] program called CEO, and it stands for creating entrepreneurial opportunity.
It started here in Illinois. It's expanded greatly. It's certainly not nationwide, but it's, it's throughout the Midwest, and there's probably versions of this in, in, in your area. But the idea is outside of school. So she will go an hour before school every day of the, of the week, work week. Wear business clothes and it's basically an exposure to entrepreneurship.
And so they go around to a lot of local businesses. They get to meet the owners, hear their story. They'll have guest experts come in and teach them things about pricing and pitching and branding, you know, like all these different marketing
ideas. And so for the first semester of high school, their senior year, they're creating their own business idea.
So they're coming up with their own idea. They're doing events to generate seed capital. You know, you can, you can kind of get the gist, like this is starting from scratch. They, they, they create their own self funding and then in the second half they go sell. So [00:22:00] they go sell the idea. They have a trade show where people come and they get to pitch their idea.
They have a, actually a pitch event where they can take on local investors. And so they're literally creating their own business. And I'm just like, So excited. I think I'm as excited or more than than her. Like, this is so cool. Um, so I'm actually, uh, investing in that and supporting that and speaking with that group.
And that's something I hope to do. Well, past my kids being in high school, whether it's this group or other groups like. That's part of my charitable calling is like, I just really believe deeply in the impact of entrepreneurship. And so I've seen the impact of my own kids. I've seen it in some of our neighbor kids who have had their own adventures around my kids or on their own.
And of course, Sitting in the seat. I sit in now and talking to so many entrepreneurs about their own journey about their own backgrounds and then hearing about this next generation coming up through them. I just feel deeply. It is what we need as a country in a world [00:23:00] like the more entrepreneurs we have who are on fire, living in their calling, living in their purpose and are empowered to do so because they have the knowledge and the skills and the mentorship to do it like it.
That's my jam. So I hope it's your jam too. Uh, if not, especially if you're a parent and you have kids, I hope, um, if you're an entrepreneur that you're, you know, you don't need to overshare with kids, but I think. Sharing with kids is really important and talking about the realities of what you do and encouraging them to start little, little businesses of their own and supporting them in that, but letting them fail as well.
When something doesn't go well. I think those are all really important lessons. And so I'm very grateful to be here at a time where my kids are. You know, all teenagers at this point and all entering this kind of next phase of, of their, their life and starting to think about their career, but all three of them have had
entrepreneurship, uh, both modeled by me and my wife, but also in their own lives as they've grown up as teenagers.
And I'm [00:24:00] very grateful for that. And I'm very grateful for this program that, uh, the middle daughter's in. You know, God willing, maybe the youngest starter will, will get in and be part of that as well in a few years. And, uh, yeah, really excited to be in there, mentor, help out financially, help out, uh, with, with the resources I have to empower this next generation of entrepreneurs.
So I hope you find this, this episode encouraging. I hope it gives you some ideas for how you can help your own kids, maybe mentor some other people, whether they're teenagers or young entrepreneurs, or maybe someone who's in a career. Uh, nine to five, who has that entrepreneurial bug, that entrepreneurial itch, and they just need someone to help them make that transition, or at least test new ideas and side hustles like, So many of our listeners have really successful businesses.
Many of you also have side hustles or you've had them in the past. Many of you have Children. And so I hope the big takeaway here is how can you go today, take this little note of [00:25:00] inspiration and go make a difference, right? Like, can you invite your kids into a zoom meeting? Can you show them a project you're working on?
Can you Maybe you don't have kids. Maybe there's a nephew or a niece or a neighbor. Maybe there's something you can do at your own local high school or middle school where you can come in and just talk about your experience and talk about alternatives to college and traditional careers for those who, uh, that's not, you know, the best path for.
So anyway, I hope, uh, I hope you take some inspiration here. Take some action. I love what I get to do every day, and it's only been through a very, very zigzaggy road that I've arrived at this point, and I would love to give more people a more direct line and to be able to live in their purpose and serve as an entrepreneur.
If you're listening, you're like, I'm serving as an entrepreneur, or I'm really do want to make that leap and you want help like that's really part of what we do, right? We help people get really clear on their message, on their purpose, on their offer. On their sales [00:26:00] approach. And of course we have podcast guesting as the evangelization tool to get your, your message out there and help you grow your business.
So if you're looking to grow your business, if you're looking for some help in getting started and getting on the right track, we would love to serve you. You can just go to seven figure leap. com book a call there, and we can. Point you in the right direction as far as resources go. Our primary thing is our podcast profits accelerator.
That's where established entrepreneurs, typically six figures, multiple six figures, looking to add that next six figures of revenue by telling their story on the right platforms with the right call to action. Uh, and so my call to action, you go to seven figure leap. com if you want our help. And if not, go make a difference in the world in your own neighborhood or in your own family.