E-M8 Entrepreneurial Management for Eternal Mission

I have started my first business when I was 8. When I was 16, shortly upon moving to Wisconsin, I was able to get a job in OfficeMax as an Electronics Sales. Both of these facts have served tremendously to develop, mature and help me in defining my path in life. I had two advantages: 1) I grew up in a part of the world where young kids are not so sheltered from society that they turn in to 30 year old couch potatos. 2) I was in to computers, so even in spite of my accent, I could easily earn minimum wage.

The reality today is that many people go through the high school and often college without having been exposed to any work experiences, or those work experiences being limited to the fast food you-are-a-brainless-extension-of-the-machine experiences.  The laws prohibit 17 year olds to operate factory equipment and then we wander why so few people learn how to be machinists and why factory work is moving overseas.  The minimum wage laws virtually guaranty high unemployment rates among the young people.

What is worse, the young people with no work experience do not have an opportunity to develop skills that would make them more successful in life. They have no opportunity to explore the business world and make educated decisions of their career choices. The young people have no opportunity to develop their self esteem through pride of workmanship and opportunities to contribute. They have limited opportunity to develop relationships with people that are older than them and can serve as mentors and role models of what to do and not do later in life.

While it is unlikely that we can do anything to repeal laws that thus subatage our country, we can do something practical in our lives to combat these problems. We can invite young people to volunteer, we can develop means of non-monetary compensation to help them. We can help them do one thing they are not restricted from doing that can do the most to their learning potential, start their own business.

The same laws that protect few children from being hurt, prevent millions of childrens from growing up as successful citizens. Can a child get hurt operating some machines? Yes. Can some crazy person harm the child while they are going about their business? Yes. But there are ways to prevent both of these possibilities without keeping children at home, forbiding them to work and thus robbing them of some of the most valuable delovepmental opportunities.

It is time for us to wake up and actively design growth paths for our children, before the whole society is filled with people who never had a chance to develop work skills.

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