11 years old, I never looked back

I don’t know exactly where my grandma Jean (that’s my mom’s mom) heard about it, but I faintly remember her telling me that she had heard Daryl Bernstein on a radio interview. He was only a teenager, but he had written a book, Better Than a Lemonade Stand! Small Business Ideas for Kids. She bought the book for me, I read it, and that was that. Before I even knew what the word “entrepreneur” meant, my fate was sealed.

While there were several ideas from the book that I put into practice around my neighborhood, the first customer to hire me was Mrs. Koines, who lived just a couple streets away from my childhood home. Every morning, I’d go pick up the newspaper that had been thrown on her driveway and hand deliver it to her front doormat. I also took out her trash bins twice a week and returned them the next day, after the city had emptied them. It was a pretty good gig.

Of course, there were plenty of other business ideas from Bernstein’s book I tried out later, too. I babysat. I housesat. I pet sat. I watered plants. I mowed lawns. I cleaned houses. There were few things I wouldn’t do to earn an honest buck.

And the rest, as they say, is history.