A 12-Year-Old Entrepreneur Taught Me This Important Lesson
(And you can learn from him too)
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Grey.
That was the colour of the cloudy sky on this wintery spring day.
As I was walking in the park so my baby girl could enjoy the fresh air and see the outside world, I noticed a young boy standing at the intersection of the two main paths.
Intrigued, I had a closer look as I was passing by. He seemed to be there to sell something. But I wasn’t sure and couldn’t guess what it was about.
I continued to walk passed him but my curiosity was stronger. I had to know and after a few minutes, I turned back and walked toward the boy.
He was around 12 years old, dancing on his feet to fight the cold weather (Scotland is not exactly warm at this time of the year!).
At his side was a plastic chair on which was taped a sheet of paper, the kind you used at school with the lines to force you to write with consistent letter size (I was quite bad at this).
On the chair was a Cadbury sweets box filled with what looked like cakes. Indeed, the boy came to me to propose his homemade cakes.
Now that I was closer, I had a look at the box. They were of the dense chocolatey type. Sort of brownies with nuts and all. Yummy!
But I wasn’t interested in getting high on sugar right now. I was curious to know why he was there.
Thus I asked him why he was selling cakes.
He answered: “I want to be an entrepreneur”.
I was happily surprised, expecting something like: “I want to buy a new bike”.
To support him, I gave him £5.
(Fun fact, I gave him a banknote I wanted to save as a souvenir since Queen Elizabeth II was on it. Not that I was a fan, but it’s a piece of history whatever we may feel about her)
I thought that it was a well-deserved reward for standing up in the cold breeze and light icy drizzle, trying to sell cakes he made himself to start his entrepreneurial journey.
Seeing I was about to give him something, he showed some excitement to make his first sale. He was also surprised to get…
