Entrepreneur Spirit

When I was 8-years-old, I started my own business. I remember getting a children's cook book that summer. I remember how exciting it was for me to look through the pages with the A-Z recipes. I especially remember all of the cookie recipes and how I loved baking. Before long I had turned into a door-to-door salesman. I would bake dozens of cookies and literally load them into my little red wagon and haul them up and down the street selling door-to-door to our neighbors.

I don't know if they bought from me because I was a good baker or if they were just so impressed that an 8-year-old could have such drive. By the end of the summer, I had enlisted my sister (then 5) to help. My mother helped me organize and she also taught me about expenses and how all of the profit was not mine because I had to buy ingredients. I don't remember how much money I made that summer, but I am sure that to an 8-year-old I must have made a fortune. More than that, I had my first taste of business. My first taste of having an idea and pursuing it. My first taste of what it was like to work hard. It was probably one of the best lessons I learned growing up.