Secrets of Successful Young Entrepreneurs | Take the Lead in 14 Minutes

Hello, Believe Nation! Today I'm going to talk about 7 ways to get started as a high school entrepreneur. 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. So I recently got asked a question from a high school entrepreneur named Derek who was seeking some advice, and I thought I would make this video for him and for all of you other high school entrepreneurs out there trying to make it big with your business. So Derek wrote in to say, "Hi, my name is Derek. I'm 15 years old and I'm a freshman in high school. I really want to start my own business, but I really don't know where to start. I have a few ideas in mind. Do you think you could give me some advice?" So Derek, I'm going to give you 7 suggestions that hopefully can help you and you can apply to your life and business right now. Number 1 is get started. You need to apply every day to do something in your business, 30 to 60 minutes at least every single day. And this is for anybody, anybody who who has a life outside of their business, whether you have a job, whether you're in high school, whether you're in university, whether you're doing something else. You have this dream that you want to go out and do, but you have a lot of other responsibilities. And often what you'll find is those things take away from your time to actually run your business. And so you need to make sure that you're taking action every single day, that you're building momentum for your business, for your idea. Even if you don't know what the next best step is, 'cause there is no perfect steps in building a business. There's a lot of stuff that you have to do and test and try and build momentum for. But making sure that you're putting the time in, because I think too many people spend too much time up here, too much time thinking and making the perfect plan, and not enough time actually doing. You gotta get out and actually do, and make time for it consistently, 30 to 60 minutes every single day on your business to start building momentum. Number 2 is schedule it in. So it's great to have an intention to work 30 to 60 minutes, it's great to have an intention to go and work out every day, it's great to have an intention to study hard at school right? We have all these goals. You need to schedule it in. That's when you start actually making a commitment to it, where you take your calendar and you say, from this time to this time, I'm gonna be working on my business every single day. Doesn't have to be the same time every day, but every day you block off that 30 to 60 minute chunk in your calendar to make sure that it gets done. There's a time management idea around big rocks first, where if you have this jar and you put sand in, and then little rocks, and then big rocks, the big rocks don't fit in because all this other crap is taking up the spot. But if you put the big rocks in first, and then the little rocks, and then the sand, it all fits because the little rocks and the sand find their way into the jar in the spaces around the big rocks. And so when you're creating your calendar, when you're creating a schedule for yourself, you have to think about what are the big rocks? What are the things that really are important? Studying is going to be important, your business is going to be important, you know, family life or whatever else you're doing is going to be important. Whatever those big rocks are, put them into your schedule first, and then all the other little things will find their way into your calendar around those big rocks. And so you need to make sure that you're putting that in, that you're making a commitment, that you're not just thinking up here that you're going to spend time, but you're actually writing it down and you start taking action on those 30 to 60 minutes every single day on your business. Schedule it in. Number 3 is use your classes. One of the best things that I did, not so much in high school but more in university, I didn't have my business really until university. I had a bunch of failed businesses and little businesses like baseball card trading and some computer ideas when I was in high school, but my first real business that had any success was in university. I would always try to turn my school projects into projects that could help my business. So if we had a marketing class, Then I would look at, okay, let's not make a marketing plan for some fake company, let's make a marketing plan for my actual business. I created my own self-study course with a professor at university where there was no exams and where he would grade me based off of what I did in my business. That was a great opportunity and one less course that I had to study for. When I was doing research, some of our customers would actually be university professors And so I would go and talk to them and get free market research for my business. They would never talk to me if it was just a company, but because it's for a school project, it's much easier to get in the door. And so instead of thinking, "I gotta do school and I gotta do my business," I would try to find ways to merge those together, to use the learnings and the class materials and the projects that you're working on at school as a part of your business. Now, that may not always be possible, you know, if you're, if you're studying calculus at school, there may not be an application to your business there. But as much as possible, whenever you have projects that you can work on, try to make it valuable for your business as well. Number 4 is involve your classmates. One of the best parts about school for me, I think about my university experience as well as my high school experience, I don't know that I learned that much with the content that helped me with where I am right now, and that's kind of sad to say. I don't look back on my high school career and think, Yeah, that class really taught me a lot. You know, reading that Shakespeare, learning that algebra or whatever it was, that education really, really helped me. I think the best that I got from it were the people, my classmates in both high school and university that I've been able to go on and form friendships with as well as do some business stuff with. One of the first people that I hired for my company was one of my friends from high school. And so involving your classmates, understanding what they're up to, seeing if they want to partner with you, seeing if they have skills that can help you. You know, if you're great at producing something but you need a graphic designer, you need a coder, or you need a photographer, chances are there's somebody in your school who would like some experience and could help out on the project. And so while you're around all these people, again, instead of thinking, I got school and then I have business, trying to find ways to merge them, being involved in the clubs and involving your classmates and getting to know some of the people on your school campus to see how they may be able to help you get to where you want to go with your company. Is a good use of your time while you're still at school. Number 5 is seek mentors. One of the biggest lessons you can learn as an entrepreneur, especially a young entrepreneur, is to seek mentors, get guidance, ask people for their help. So you're reaching out to me, you're asking for help, it's great. Hopefully this video is helping you with what you're trying to do, Derek. But I would also look within your school who you might be able to get some help from. Are the teachers of any help to you? Depending on what kind of business you want to do, I don't know if any of the teachers are already entrepreneurs or had past experience experience in the industry that you're trying to get into, but those could be great sources of, of, uh, of help for you. Are there parents of current students that might be able to mentor you or guide you? Are there donors to the school? You look at the fundraisers that the school puts on. Who's donating the money to those fundraising events? Can you connect with those people as potential mentors for you? I would look at something as simple as joining the school newspaper and then going out and trying to do interviews with people. If it's just, hey, talk to me, I'm Derek, I'm 15 years old and I want some advice, you'd be maybe surprised at how many people would actually say yes to that because people love helping young people out. But I think as well as if you can say, hey, it's for my school newspaper, I look up to you, I'd love to get your answers to this and hopefully you can inspire hundreds of students that are at my school, then it's an extra reason to say yes to and it gives you an easy way in to go meet with CEOs of big companies or successful entrepreneurs in your area to do an interview with them for your newspaper. So again, I'm looking at how do I, you know, if you're in school and maybe you're loving school or maybe you're hating school, but you're here, this is what you're doing for the next couple years. How do I use that to the best of my capability? How do I leverage the resources that I have to help me get to where I want to go? Looking at teachers, looking at the parents of the other students, looking at the donors for your school, and looking at how you can use resources like the school newspaper to go out and do interviews with people who are potential mentors for you. I would leverage as much as you can now while you still have that capability in high school. Number 6 is surround yourself with greatness. This is a consistent theme for me. I think we tend to get trapped in the environment that we're in. I didn't think I was going to be an entrepreneur. My parents weren't entrepreneurs. It wasn't until I got to university that it really sunk in that I could be an entrepreneur. If you know that you really want to do this and you're looking around you and you're frustrated and struggling because nobody else around you wants to be an entrepreneur, or they're not thinking on the same scale as you are, or your teachers are holding you back, or whatever it is, if you're not in a great environment for entrepreneurship, then don't complain and don't be frustrated about it. Go out and create a solution. Watch videos consistently. Maybe the videos on my channel are helping you. Watch those more regularly. Read books and autobiographies and articles of the people that you look up to. I would look both to people that are in your industry that have made it. So if you're in technology, right, you want to go learn from Steve Jobs, read his stuff. If you're in retail, you can learn from Howard Schultz from Starbucks. Look at the people who've done it in your industry, as well as people that you look up to that are not in your industry. Maybe you love Richard Branson, or you love Oprah Winfrey, or you love Martha Stewart, or whoever it is. You just love that person, there's a lot that you can learn from their success. And yes, where they're at now, but especially in the early days, that's what really helped me. You know, Bill Gates saved my first company. I've never met him, but understanding how he went from zero to one, making his first million, what he did at Microsoft to make that happen really was educational for me and helped my business go from almost failing to becoming a success. And so I would try to surround myself as much as possible with these big thinkers in your industry and that you look up to so that some of their knowledge and mindset kind of sinks into you to help you become that best version of yourself. I look at your physical space, right? Like these people are behind me for a reason. I walk in here every day and I get inspired looking at these faces. You know, some of them may not mean a lot to you, but they all mean a lot to me. Having an environment and a routine and a schedule for greatness is important because otherwise you're going to get stuck stuck in a rut. You're going to get stuck in a zone where maybe your parents are pushing to be better at school, or maybe your teachers are pushing to get a little bit better. But who's pushing to be a better entrepreneur? Chances are it's nobody close to you who's really saying, you know what, you did a— you've done a good job so far, Derek, but you should be up here, man. Like, Derek, you're playing small. What are you doing, bro? You should be— you should be killing it. You should be doing all these things. Chances are you don't have that person in your life, and most people don't have that person in their life. And so you need to go and create that environment for yourself with the movies, with the videos, with the books, with the posters, with the pictures, with the mentors, with the interviews. All of that, create it for yourself instead of complaining that you don't have it in your life. And number 7 is believe. I'm Mr. Believe, so it's fitting that it comes from me. You didn't say this in your message to me, but what a lot of young entrepreneurs will say is, I'm too young, I feel like I don't know enough, I feel like I don't have the respect, you know, I'm too young to be a success. And understand that now more than ever is easy for young entrepreneurs to get respect, to add value. You have a knowledge set and a skill set that a lot of older people don't have. I was afraid when I was first getting started in dealing with big companies, how am I going to be able to help Microsoft? Like, these guys are a multi-billion dollar company, one of the biggest companies in the world. Why are they interested in hiring me? What value can I bring? And it wasn't until I went in and talked to them and realized, oh yeah, I can, I can help these guys out a lot. That belief makes a big difference because as long as you believe that you're too young, you are. You won't get respect. As long as you feel you don't deserve the respect, you'll never get the respect. And so it's understanding that you have skills and knowledge that other people don't have, and you need to hone those skills and that knowledge as much as possible. Become an expert at your industry, become one of the best in the world at what you do. And then the people that you're selling to, they're paying you for the expertise. You know, people don't really care, especially now, so much about how old you are. If anything, depending on your industry, it could be, it could be a plus. If you're walking in to meet somebody who's a 75-year-old mentor, you think, well, this person has a lot of experience and life experience and business experience, you're going to listen to them and trust you. If somebody's applying to be a programmer or a social media consultant for you and they're 75 years old, Now you're thinking, hmm, I don't know if that's the right fit for me. But if you're 15 years old and walking in and say, I want to help you with your website or your social media or your YouTube channel or whatever it is you're trying to do, there's almost a bias towards young people. It's expected young people are better at it. So it's never been easier as a young entrepreneur to get started. You have it way easier than I did. When I was 19, I was selling biotech software. And I was worried that I was selling to people 3 times my age. And this was still— this was how many years ago? I'm 30— what year is it? I'm 36. This is 17 years ago. Wow, feels like that's a— I'm getting old, guys. I'm getting old. I was worried that people 3 times my age who had all these degrees, they wouldn't want to talk to me. They wouldn't want to buy from me. They wouldn't want to listen to me. And really, at the end of the day, all they cared about was that I could help them. Could my software help them in their business, in their practice, in their research? If it could, they're they're happy to talk to me. If it couldn't, then they don't want to waste their time, and I get it. And so at the end of the day, all that matters is are you providing value to them? And if you can help them out, then you'll get more money, you'll have a bigger impact, you'll have their confidence, and you'll be able to build something pretty special. Make sure that you believe in yourself and your skills and your capabilities. It doesn't matter how young you are. All that matters is that you can help. So those are my 7 ways to get started as a high school entrepreneur. I'm curious to figure out what did you guys think of this video? What was your favorite rule and why? Am I missing some? Is there an 8, 9, 10 that you guys want to add to the list? Share your thoughts, leave it in the comments below. I'm going to join in the discussion. Thank you guys again for watching. I believe in you. I hope you continue to believe in yourself and whatever your one word is. Much love. I'll see you soon.