Text Size 
Little Business Now, Big Business Later
You may now agree that Mr. Mercado should let Paul paint my sons' bedroom. But you may still find it hard to believe that there is a real connection between work done by young people-like mowing lawns, washing cars, or in Paul's case, painting a mural-and the "real," grown-up world of successful entrepreneurship and millionaire status. It's all very good to earn a little pocket money, you think, but for most kids these odd jobs are hardly a recipe for a life's work.
But these jobs are actually the best recipe for life's work. When a child, no matter how young, is creating jobs for himself, he is doing much more than making some extra money to buy an iPod-he's developing self-reliance and confidence in his own ability, and he's discovering that the world really is filled with opportunity.
He is also learning practical business skills. If your son has a car-washing business, he must market his product-should he slip flyers under neighbors' doors, approach people personally, look for the dirtiest cars on the block? He must price his product-what is the charge for a regular car wash? how much can he charge if he does more detail work, like washing tires? He must become adept at customer relations-how can he get referrals? what should he do if someone complains about the job he did?
In fact, what he is doing in your driveway is what most adults do every day at their offices, and he's learning all this when he's fourteen years old. Further, instead of being a cog in someone else's machine, he's in charge of the whole show. He can arrange his work schedule around his baseball games. He can expand his business to another neighborhood. He can hire his siblings and friends to work for him. He can politely refuse to wash Mr. Winter's car because the man doesn't pay on time. He can earn as much money as he's willing to work for. What's not to love about this extraordinary learning-and-earning process?
Let's be honest. Wouldn't you like to have a job like that?
So let us begin to think of your children in new ways. What talents do they have that make them unique? If you encourage them, what kinds of businesses could they start, using their innate talents?
Maybe your son likes to fiddle with the computer or your daughter has a tendency to burst into song like a Broadway star at a moment's notice. You might not have paid attention to these traits-you may even rue them if, for instance, your son, without telling you, moved your e-mail account from America Online to Yahoo because he thinks it is better-but these individualized gifts could be the seeds of a business opportunity for your children. Your son's interest in the computer indicates curiosity and technological ability that, if harnessed to some business expertise, could earn him money right now!
When you take the time to really observe your children and teach them to celebrate and develop their enthusiasms, you are giving them the gift of believing in themselves and making it pay!
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes