Book Review: Spark An Entrepreneurial Fire

“The difference between try and triumph is a little umph.” ~ Anonymous

I didn’t have a lot of disposable cash as a teenager growing up simply because my parents both had lower middle class jobs and five kids to support. To further confound the problem, my parents forbid me from having a paper route because they didn’t want to end up having to deliver the papers themselves which is understandable.

Teens Are Having
Trouble Finding
Minimum Wage Jobs

As such, I mostly relied on seasonal “opportunities” of snow shoveling sidewalks and driveways in the winter and the occasional lawn mowing gig within our neighborhood for coin. Most of the energy and effort of my siblings and me was diverted toward the general cleaning and upkeep of our own home, which was fine and necessary – it just didn’t pay because my parents also didn’t believe we should get an allowance for doing what we ought to be doing.

So I was generally unemployed until I was 16 and had my driving permit. The ability to drive enabled me to work three evenings a week at a restaurant 15 miles from my home. After that, I’ve had a job ever since. I was lucky to have access to my parent’s vehicle otherwise it would have been very challenging to find a job in the rural community where I lived.

Back then, I would have welcomed Carol Topp’s book Starting a Micro Business. Topp takes the time to explain the micro-business concept – basically a no-cost, one-person operation using the owner’s knowledge and “sweat equity” – and she applies that concept to a teenager. She provides a great deal of insight, tactics and planning tools to ensure the maximum chance of success for the student entrepreneur.

This book personally resonated with me because it also speaks to a higher aspirational goal of a partnership between parents and their kids. The parents allow the kids to “try” while the teens are inspired to add the “umph” – referencing the quote at the top of this post. The fact that this type of partnership was lacking in my own life is one of the reason why I can relate to the need for this book.

Because that type of collaborative approach is an invaluable lesson to teach any teenager since they’re going to apply it in virtually any profession or project they pursue in life.

Aside from that, the U.S. Labor Department consistently reports that 8-out-of-10 jobs are created by entrepreneurs and small business owners. Given the state of the economy, there’s nothing wrong with partnering with our kids and empowering them with that “know how” as early as possible. Topp’s book is tops in that regard!





You can check out some of my other writings at HubPages by clicking the link below: Spark An Entrepreneurial Fire in Your Teen