My usual Tuesday article covers what teens can do to be their own bosses. Today is no different, but it is targeted more at older business owners and people wanting to get into business. The reason I posted it on Tuesday is so the teens can get into a good habit that will greatly affect them.

I’ve met a bunch of small business owners in recent weeks. I’ve also met some of my readers who want to start a business. I’ve taken a little hiatus from heavy duty work right now (I lost a business due to my not following up on the responsibilities of others), so I have a good amount of time to get out and help others practice what I preach.

The number one impediment I had from both business owners and future business owners is an easy one to fix — halitosis, A.K.A. bad breath.

If you’re young, you can fix this right now. 4 simple words: Floss, Rinse, Brush, Dentist. Seriously. Good mouth health is something that 50% of business owners don’t seem to have, and it seriously hard for me to do business with someone I need to talk to if they stink.

Do you floss twice a day? Seriously? Every day? You should. Start now. Don’t use fancy mint flavored waxed floss. I use the cheapest unflavored unwaxed floss. Why? If there is something stinking up my teeth, I need to know. Coating and covering that terrible taste is bad news. I eat a lot of steak and veggies and bacon — I floss twice a day. It’s gross, I know, but it keeps my breath in order.

Do you rinse after flossing? I love the Tom’s of Maine alcohol-free mouthwash. Alcohol-based mouth washes tend to dry out your mouth, increasing your chance to have bad breath. The Tom’s of Maine stuff is a little pricy but well worth it. It has aloe and some other natural additives so it tastes fine and leaves your mouth clean. Mouthwash is NOT to give your breath a minting scent, it is used to rinse out the junk that comes from flossing. Trust me, its gross.

Brushing is simple — do it. Twice a day. If I have a meeting, I brush after lunch and half hour before my meeting. Brush the heck out of your tongue. Brush your tongue every day until you overcome that gag reflex, and you’ll be amazed at the junk that grows there.

Seriously, friends, I don’t mean to be gross. I am giving you a huge word of advice — 50% of you have bad breath. Your friends, family and loved ones won’t tell you. They’re embarassed. Go floss, go rinse, go brush. Once a year (or twice) go to the dentist.

If you followed my advice on using others to gauge your appearance and manicure, you’ll be able to get good advice on your breath. Don’t be afraid of the answer — you need to create the best impression you can for your future customers (or current ones). Start with your mouth, in the beginning your words have more value than anything else you have.

My last post was about building confidence — the main trait that is common in successful entrepreneurs. Confidence gives you a drive that can separate you from the rest of the pack, especially those who don’t realize that they’re followers. The difference between a leader and a follower always comes down to confidence.

I really believe that confidence can be built directly out of faking it. Believing you are confident actually will help you create successes where you’d usually fail, and these successes actually make you confident. Yet confidence is much more than the internal feeling of belief in yourself — confidence is also something that is visible.

If you’re not a confident person, and you’re considering faking it to try to build it, I’ll let you in on some “secrets” that can help you build that real confidence in the long run. One of the most consistent traits of a confident person is eye contact — it is also one of the hardest things for most people to do. We’re all shy on occasion, and concerned about how we appear to others. They say that the eyes lead into the soul.

I think it is all bunk. Once you realize that the person you are dealing with at the moment is just another person with the same fears, concerns and shortcomings as you have (or had), you’ll be able to overcome the fear of making good eye contact. I find that approaching the eye contact situation with short steps is the best way to overcome any fear.

When I was younger I was unable to make good eye contact — even with my own family and friends. Eye contact can be a make it or break it trait in dating, and it is definitely a deal maker in business. How do you overcome the inability to consistently react to eye contact? Small steps, as I said.

The first thing to do is find out who you are not afraid of looking at and being looked back by. For me, it was the old ladies working at the supermarket. Get yourself in line. Buy some gum. Make that eye contact. What do you have to lose? Over time, you’ll find that making eye contact with the “retiree” working the part time job is an easy thing to do! Where you might have been unable to before, just a few swings through the checkout aisle and you’ll be the master — of making eye contact with a person who could be your grand parent.

If you’re one of those insecure types who could never make eye contact with anyone your age (especially a member of the opposite sex), this is a must-do situation. You will be pleasantly surprised at how quickly a common store employee can help you overcome your fear without them even knowing what you’re doing. My success rate with insecure unconfident friends is 100% by starting with the over-the-hill retail target.

As you progress, start lowering the age. If you’re unable to or hit a snag, try keeping eye contact with someone younger than retired, but maybe severely over weight or very unattractive (male or female). You need to get it into your head that everyone is the same. It is much harder to practice on a supermodel, though, than on an average person.

Confidence is really the key to being a successful businessman or even a success at any relationship. Faking it until you own it is important, and the best way to start is to overcome your shyness step by step. Once you are the expert at making and holding eye contact with anyone (even that supermodel), you’ll be surprised at how quickly previous failures start to bend back towards you as successes by will alone.

This site is now part of the Global Unanimocracy Network.

I’m going to start digging deeper in the upcoming weeks to what makes a successful businessman. I say businessman because I am a man who is in business. I’m sure it will be appropriate for the ladies, but I’m the least politically correct person you’ll ever meet. I only know life from my perspective.

The biggest reason I have been successful has not been education (I was in the bottom 10% of my high school class and dropped out of college). It has not been due to brilliance (I’m intelligent but by no means smart). It has not been due to nepotism or a studious attitude or responsibility or wealth or luck or even drive. I firmly believe that I have been successful because I was confident.

Confidence will be my regular Thursday topic — it is that complex that I could write about it for 2 years and still not cover the topic properly.

Confidence comes from acting confident — living a lie that turns into the truth. Acting confident eventually molds your brain into actually being confident.

While I’ll get into the best ways to get confident soon enough, I’ve found that the biggest deterrent to acting confident is usually physical. We feel too ugly, or too short, or too fat, or too young, or too old, or we talk to nasally or we’re too shy or we’re too scared of people. All of these issues can be overcome merely by thought process, but it is a hard process to think through.

I like to deal with the physical problems we can deal with. Many of you are young, but a good portion of you are my age — late 20s to late 30s. We’re starting to see our bodies change — wrinkles, a little pudge at the belly, maybe a second chin is starting to show itself. Yet the biggest physical problem I hear about when it comes to unconfident friends is one that comes with age and is an easy thing to fix — grey hairs.

Yes, gentlemen (and ladies), those grey hairs you refuse to notice are a huge deterrent to you feeling confident. I’ve interviewed the opposite sex about it, and grey hair is actually attractive to many women. But we men try to ignore them, and as they start to spring up in great quantity, it puts a damper on us. We feel like age has robbed us of the opportunity to go off on our own. It is also something that can be solved in 10 minutes for under $15.

This isn’t a metrosexual pansy answer to a problem, this is the real deal. I had grey hairs at 15 and I never went about fixing them. I was confident by 18 and ultraconfident by 21, so I love my greys. They’re really coming out lately and I find they give me a air of intellect to those around me. But you may not feel that way. If you found a grey hair, admit that you’re down about it. Then go out this weekend and fix it.

Many salons, including the ultra-budget Hair Cuttery, now offer quick and inexpensive hair color treatments for guys (and gals) without covering all your hair with color. The treatments are meant to cover grey with a LITTLE additional color, but not so much that you change your entire head. Most people will never notice this color job, as your greys just take on a darker tint — still visible to some, but completely covered to you.

I’ve recommended this color job to every guy I know with grey hair who has mentioned they’ve noticed it (and to some who haven’t noticed it). The short term reaction is a huge build up of confidence.

Hit a Hair Cuttery. Tell the salon you want to cover your grey. Don’t worry, most successful guys you know are doing it. You’ll pay US$10-$15 for the job, it takes 10 minutes, and you’ll be amazed at the results. You might have to do 2-3 more treatments over the coming months as we attack the other issues making you feel less than 100% confident, but it is a great way to start on the path to being a confident, successful businessman.

Go do it. You’ll thank me on Monday.

For hundreds of years, manual labor was often performed by slaves, indentured servants or lower class low-paid workers. Even in the last 20 years we saw much manual labor performed by foreigners or migrant workers — sometimes paid under the table in cash to keep prices low.

With the explosion of income in the US, many people who normally would take care of their own minor manual labor needs found that they had enough money (and felt too important) to take care of it themselves, and they started to hire out more. The 80s was the boom of lawn care services which developed into gardening technicians. The 90s was the boom of home remodeling and rebuilding — expensive kitchens and bathrooms and basement refinishing. The 00s bring the boom of home theaters and party rooms and bigger decks outdoors.

With the booms came a limited supply of manual labor experts. When the supply of a particular service is low, the price is naturally higher.

If you are not handy with your hands or even if you’ve never worked in a manual labor job, you might find a huge benefit to learning the trade. My neighbor is a foreigner who started mowing laws when he was 16. Now he’s twice that age and nearly a millionaire — he builds decks, refinishes basements, and still runs his own lawn care business, but now handles mansions and corporate developments.

If you’re young, there are many manual labor companies that are looking for subcontractors. You basically get to be your own boss, and you subcontract your time out to other companies who need you as the emergency fill-in laborer. It is hard work, but the money can be amazing. I’ve heard of local fill-in guys making over US$45 an hour after learning the trade over a few years.

In the long run, as you develop a positive rapport with companies that hire you, you will find the opportunity to take on subcontractors of your own and really grow your business. Every person I know that gave the business a good amount of time has been much more successful than the suit-and-tie crowd. As the suit-and-tie crowd has more money, they have less desire to do their own basic manual labor and will contract out for everything. I’ve seen closet designers charging US$120 an hour, and I’ve seen companies that come and clean your tile grout for nearly US$70 an hour.

Manual labor isn’t for everyone, but it is a great source of income if you’re willing to learn. There are many opportunities to start at the bottom as your own boss and work your way up by proving your responsibility and accountability to the contractor hiring you.

The best part of manual labor is that it isn’t a job you’d necessarily think you’d like — it won’t ruin any loves or hobbies you have. Yet after completing a hard day’s work and seeing the finished product (and happy customer) you can build a self-confidence that is unmatched in any other business.

If you’re unemployed and can’t find work, consider trying manual labor just to learn the trade to be able to DIY in the future. You might be surprised at what you find.

For those finding themselves a bit irresponsible, forgetful and not the person voted most likely to follow through (that was me for 25 years!), I started a separate site called Responsibility and Accountability that will help me stay focused on things that are easy to put off but also easy to do if reminded to do them. Check it out if you fall into the irresponsible category.

I’ve had a few people ask me to get more information on silk screening T-shirts, and I’ve been e-mailing a few of you with tips that I probably should have just posted here.

My favorite “demonstration” photos are at a website that sells great silk screen equipment. They’re quite a bit more expensive than the basic cheapie home screen studio, but worth it if you really want to get into it. Check their how-to photos out!

The absolute hardest part of running your own silk screen studio is making the actual image on the screen — it requires chemicals, a dark room (I used my closet), a hella bright light (photo flood) and time. It also takes trial and error. My first 10 screens came out terrible! My next 10 screens were better but not the best quality.

This tells me that there is a huge market for you guys to tap — I have seen almost NO websites dedicated not to making T-shirts but to making the silk screens! If anyone is interested in started a business making silk screens for others to make T-shirts with, I might be interested in helping out with the development capital.

This is a job best suited for the youth — it is time consuming and can be frustrating if you are not patient while you learn the ins and outs of the situation. The basic steps in screen making are:

1. Prepare the artwork. You can print it from a computer, hand draw it, or even photocopy it. The artwork MUST be vector or line based — this means no photographs or gradients or any of the above. You CAN do photographs but you have to take additional difficult steps that are NOT for the beginner.

2. Photocopy the artwork with high contrast (darks get darker, lights get whiter) to a piece of vellum or transparency using a photocopier or laser printer. Inkjets don’t work — you need a DARK DARK DARK image on the vellum/transparency.

3. Lay the screen down and degrease it using a spray degreaser. Wipe it off!

4. Go to a very low-light room and pour the chemical called the emulsion into the screen. You want it thin, not thick, and you’ll want to put it on both sides. Emulsion is light sensitive and can get ruined if you have too much light!

5. The emulsion needs to dry in a dark room. I use fans to help speed the drying process, about 60-90 minutes.

6. You will now place your vellum/transparency artwork on the screen, and then lay down a clean piece of glass over it. If the artwork is not touching the emulsion properly, it will look like junk.

7. You will use your photo flood light (called the exposing light) about a foot above the screen. You want dark non-reflective fabric (felt usually) under the screen to absorb the stray light.

8. Burn the screen for 10 minutes. You might find longer or shorter times are needed depending on your emulsion.

9. Turn off the exposing lamp — it is VERY VERY VERY hot.

10. Take out the emulsified screen and remove the glass and the artwork. You can now wash out the unburned emulsion off the screen (this part goes away and just leaves the bare screen in the shape of the artwork).

You can now use your screen or ship it to your customer.

If you are good at making screens, I know dozens of people in my area alone (not to mention people on this website) who would pay $30 for the work. If you’re really good, you can do this job in 10-15 minutes. If you’re bad, you’ll spin your wheels and wish you could pay someone $30 for a screen.

A well made screen that is handled properly can be reused thousands and thousands of times. Once you are done with the screen you can store it or you can remove the emulsion and make a new screen!

There are many websites dedicated to selling silk screen kits — I’d check out various ones and see which ones meet your budget. If you have questions about a particular website, drop me an e-mail or a comment and I’ll be happy to follow up.

100% of my businesses that failed (except for one) did so due to cash flow problems. Cash flow will be an article I cover at a later date, but the biggest failure in cash flow is due to debt management. Nearly 100% of HUGE businesses I’ve seen fail in recent years has also been due to excessive debt to cash ratios. It is so bad that I made a promise last year to never use debt to expand my businesses ever again.

Almost everyone who is promoting entrepreneurship is pushing ways to get extended lines of credit. The old adage is “you can’t make money unless you have money.” I strongly disagree with this cliche, my belief is that you can’t build wealth unless you have wealth. What is the difference between money and wealth? Money has many sources, and sometimes having money means not having wealth.

Wealth, to me, is how much money you have above and beyond all your debt and short term expenses. This money can be in the form of equity in your home and car, jewelry, stocks, 401Ks and cash. The more liquid that money is (easy to convert to dollars), the more stable your wealth is.

I’ve previously told you to get rid of as much debt as possible before starting your own business. The key reason for this is to maximize your wealth to give you a stability that having perfect credit can never offer. I have seen dozens of business owners go from having millions in income to being bankrupt within 2 years. I have never seen a wealthy person put good money into a bad business.

There are many offers for business credit cards and business loans. All of these business credit lines that you’ll see available will also ask for a personal guarantee. Check it out — find a few offers for business loans and check the fine print. Banks don’t have faith in business anymore, but they’ll be happy to take your house if you don’t pay them.

Business credit that is only tied to your business’ assets is the only way I recommend taking a line of credit, and only if you have guaranteed work to buy the assets you purchase in a short period of time. Getting business credit without a personal guarantee can take years (about 4 years in my experience). Getting a business credit card in your own name takes 3 minutes online, and can ruin your business just as quickly.

There are some that recommend borrowing from friends and family, but I am not a fan of this either. I’ve found that the best way to build solid wealth and a solid business is to start very small — know what the bottom looks like and you’ll be a more cautious businessman when things start growing. Jumping feet first with fists of cash is not going to teach you how to maintain a stable cash flow. Primarily experience (and hopefully my near future article) will give you that knowledge.

When it comes to business credit, just say no if they ask for personal guarantees. There are thousands of businesses you can start with very little capital. If you don’t have access to a lot of cash laying around, consider another business or consider working 3 jobs for a year to build it. If you have a pile of debt, your primary goal is to pay it off as much as possible in the next 12 months. If you’re relatively debt free and you have saved a little, you’re almost there.

Credit is a killer — and as we’ll soon learn in this country, those who don’t use and abuse credit will likely be the ones who come out on top when we hit the regular recessions as we have a few times in the past 20 years. Be prepared now, though. As the economy slows and businesses fail, opportunities will appear everywhere for those of you who worked hard to be debt free and prepared themselves to take advantage of the mistakes of others.

Here’s a short one today as I’m taking the afternoon off to take care of year end taxes.

I see it every day, on telephone poles, posted as bills on old buildings, and I ever get advertisements on my car when I go to get groceries. I’m sure you’ve seen it as well — Make money stuffing envelopes! $25-$50 per hour! Call this number!

It is very tempting to call and hear about how you can make $1000 a week with almost no work, just by stuffing envelopes. When you call, you get a prerecorded message telling you to send $50 cash to some address and you’ll receive an easy-to-follow guide to making your own business, stuffing envelopes, and you can earn up to $25-$50 or more without selling anything to anyone.

I’ve had employees and friends as about these programs, I even see advertisements on the web regarding making money stuffing envelopes. I’ll let you in on the system, and you don’t even have to pay me (unless you want to!).

Here’s the way you make money stuffing envelopes:

1. Get a voice mail box and a PO box. Leave your message on the voice mail box to have people send you $50 for your easy to use guide to stuffing envelopes and earning money.

2. Go to Kinko’s or your local copy shop and make colorful flyers that say “Make up to $25-$50 per hour stuffing envelopes! Work at home! Call ”

3. Copy about 1000 of these flyers.

4. Stick up these flyers all over your town and other towns.

5. When people call and send you money, print these 5 instructions on a sheet of paper, stuff it in an envelope, and mail it back to them.

That’s the secret. You’re stuffing envelopes with the same instructions you’d receive in the mail. $50 wasted. More advertisements all over town offering people the 5 line instructions.

Don’t be a sucker. A real business takes time to become steady income. No business is self-regenerating for long. If anyone tells you there is an easy way, they’re probably lying or at least clouding up the truth.

What do I have to sell? Nothing, really. I’ve made all the mistakes I’ll post about — maybe if I warn you about them, you’ll either not make the same mistakes, or remember who told you first!

Have a great weekend, drop e-mails or comments with questions, compliments and concerns. Don’t forget to act the part of a boss this weekend, and if you have time, give some thought to how you want to be making money soon!

Here’s a project — look around the web today for every MLM (multi-level marketing) program, every network marketing blog or company or trickle-up program. I have $10 for the person who finds me the one with the biggest claims to success (I’ll give you until February to find it). I have a “wall of success” with printouts of the craziest claims to guaranteed money.

After you find the wildest claims, read the fine print. Print the fine print and highlight the words you don’t understand or that are contradictory to the claims on the front page — you might end up highlighting the entire fine print!

I’ve seen almost everyone I know try MLMs. Some of them make very good products (I really like Cutco knives!). Most are real time and money losers, though. When my retail stores were still in business, there wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t have a network marketing “expert” come into my store and try to con my employees into joining some program. I heard about guys selling over $500,000 their first year!

My own family has bought into various MLM programs over the years (against my recommendations) — phone cards, long distance programs, knives, real estate ventures and even vacuum cleaners and air purifiers. None of them came out ahead of the deal, especially factoring in the time and ruined relationships that came with them.

I know I’ll get yelled at today by a very small minority who has made money in MLMs. I’ll tell you a few secrets that I’ve learned, though.

1. If someone tells you a big number and says that’s what they’ve sold in a small period of time, ask them how much they actually took home in actual money. One guy at my old store told my employee he sold over $50,000 in a month alone in his network marketing MLM! When I asked him how much he made, he wouldn’t tell me. A little research showed me he made 1% — $500. He sold $50,000 worth of goods for someone else, and made $500. Not bad income, right?

2. If someone tells you how much they took home, ask them how many hours they worked in the multilevel marketing program. Our dear friend from the previous paragraph made $500 in a month — but he put in over 40 hours a week to get there. 160 hours a month is about $3.13 per hour — not including taxes and expenses.

3. If someone tells you how much they worked on the MLM, ask them how much their expenses were. One of my regular readers here has been e-mailing me since the beginning, telling me about his affiliate marketing program he runs on the Internet. He made about $5000 on his website, take home, last month. When I investigated more, I found out that he spent almost $4000 paying other websites to forward him readers. So he actually made $1000 profit — but he could very well have lost $1000 if his readers didn’t convert to new members of the affiliate program.

4. Once you have the actual figures, as them how much of that business is repeat, and how much is new. I’ve seen figures as low a 1% for repeat customers — this is not what makes a business successful. In fact, my belief is that you need to have a 30%+ return customer rate for the rest of your business life — this is how you make more and more money in the long run.

Make 10 customers happy, and ask them for names of others who would like your product. Ask if people are happy, and ask them to tell others. As you build a good product and service that offers people real value, they’ll come back. As you bring on more than you can handle, you grow your business from a 1-man shop to a many-man shop. Return customers love watching businesses grow over time, and this gives them more reason to send you even more business as time goes on and you continue to make them happy.

MLMs, network marketing, all these programs can be helpful in teaching you to have a positive attitude or how to deal with people face to face, but they’re really not very successful, in my opinion. Some of the websites have such huge offers of success that it is very easy to sign up — some are very cheap to order and have a money back guarantee. Remember though, that even if you can get your money back, you can’t get your time back. Don’t take a risk until you’ve read the fine print and hit me up with an e-mail. I’ll find you people who have tried the scheme you found, and failed.

Go out and find me the biggest claim so I can add it to my wall! I especially love the sites with video content and real time graphs that let you enter your own numbers. If I have the time, I’ll make a parody infomercial to throw up on this website for your viewing pleasure.

Get out there today and talk to real business owners. Talk to your friends and family about how they feel about you owning your own business. Get out there and smile and see how you can spread happiness. Don’t go out there and pay someone else to be your boss — as is the case in most network marketing programs. I want you running your own business, not someone else’s!

It is said so often on so many websites — dating websites, lifestyle makeover websites and even relationship advice sites — have a positive attitude. It is very important for those sites to make sure their readers are positive about life, but it is nowhere more important than in business.

I strongly believe that one of my best features to offer a customer is my positive attitude, even in the worst of situations. I’ve had my company “fired” on occasion (usually because we charge more than the next guy), but we’ve been asked back within months. When I’ve asked why, it is almost always one of two things: we performed better work, or the other guy was so dreary.

There are thousands of websites that offer advice for having a positive attitude — even the ones that charge for the advice usually have some good free information. Go find those sites and browse around. Even before those differing opinions, though, I’ve always had some good tricks to turning the biggest grouch into the guy with the always-on smile, the guy with the brightest most positive attitude.

First, you need to try to see what is making you appear negative. I set aside at least one day a month to get out of my own skin and look at other people: people watching in public. Go hit the local Target or the local mall and glance at people’s faces. You know what you’ll see? Frowns, everywhere! These people are out socializing, spending money, buying cool things, and they’re sad (or worse). Try it today, have a look at the general public. If you’re not too shy, try a little test while you’re out: wear a smile, even a goofey one. Make sure you make eye contact with people frowning (especially if they’re lost in thought). I’ll guarantee that 50% of them will smile the minute they see you smiling. Smiles can be contagious like a yawn.

Second, you need to try to catch yourself when you’re in public and showing a frown. Even if you don’t feel happy, forcing a fake smile can make you happy. If you have a significant other or a friend you hang out with often, tell them to point out when you’re frowning. It took me almost 6 months of constantly being pointed out (by friends, family and the significant other) for me to change from the constant frown to the constant smile. It was the most significant change I made in my life — I went from being the “scary scowl guy” to “wow he’s always so friendly!” My income jumped and my customer retention jumped after I made the change.

Third, you need to watch how you talk. I’m a very critical individual, but I learned something important from criticism: don’t offer it unless someone asks you to. If you have criticisms that aren’t being asked for, don’t offer them — use that information to make your product or service better. On the other hand, if someone asks for your advice or criticism and you have one, definitely offer it. Being honest is good, being critical without request is bad. I’ve silently criticized many of my competitors by making changes when I’ve had the same shortcomings in my businesses. There is nothing wrong with smiling at their shortcoming while you make yourself worth more.

The positive attitude is the most important change you can make to yourself. There are days that I don’t shave, dress in jeans and a T-shirt and leave my hair in a mess — but my smile will carry on through the day and leave those around me happier. When it comes to dealing with customers, the smile can be more powerful than offering a completely perfect product. When I’ve messed up with a customer (even in a bad way), I’ll always try to fix it — but my smile is what gave me the chance to fix it instead of looking back at a lost customer.

Get out today and look at everyone around you. You’ll be shocked at the feeling you get when you see depression and anger — you want to get away. Yet the rare person you see with the positive attitude, smiling and almost obnoxious? They’re the one that you will want to do business with, that you’ll want to keep in your life.

Every Tuesday is my Tuesday4Teens focused articles: entrepreneurship for pre-teens, teens and young adults. Last week’s article was the first one and can be read here. The topic of the article was making your own t-shirts for sale, and I’ll be writing about it regularly on future Tuesdays.

Today I just wanted to cover some basic thoughts about why teens should try entrepreneurship — self employment. The skills you work on in your teens will guarantee you a much better chance at succeeding when running your own business is your sole income and support mechanism.

Many of my readers are in their 20s, slaving for “the man” and wishing they could be anywhere but where they are. They’re in debt, they’re overloaded with paperwork and labor work, they’re not certain what their future will be in 10 years, and even worse, they don’t have the opportunity to start their own business without a huge change in their lifestyle combined with a big committment and risk. The common response that the average reader gives me when I ask them when they’ll strike out into their own business is “next year” but next year never comes. If only they knew to try their first risk when they were young!

I entered my first business at around the age of 13. I succeeded. Throughout my teens I had failures and successes — which was needed to see that risks can bring rewards and ruptures. Whatever the end result, though, as a young person you’re in a very unique situation: you probably get a few bucks from the P’s, you have no real expenses to cover basic living needs, and you have a lot of time. If you take all your savings and lose them, you won’t lose your house, your car or your job.

There are many things you’ll gain other than being able to face risk without a great deal of fear (some fear is acceptable and even needed of course). You’ll learn that being your own boss is not always sunshine and kittens — you’ll have stormy days with rabid mutts, but you’ll get through them. You’ll be busy on some days, and terribly slow on others. When you’re young, you can get through these without fear of losing everything. You’ll learn to set aside a good portion of your profits for the times when you’re bringing in zero income.

Teens who explore entrepreneurship also learn to deal with adults with respect, to treat everyone as a possible customer and to learn how to deal with unhappy customers. The relationship skills you’ll gain will help you in every relationship in the future — love, friendships, family dealings and business contacts. Over time, even the most shy teen can become adept at public speaking. Even with my intense shyness, I still come off as one of the most confident person people know! I attribute this to being my own boss young, I sure didn’t learn it in school.

Young business owners also can face their first failures. This is not something to constantly be afraid of, but it is a reality in many businesses. My first failure was like looking at a videotape of my recent life: I learned that the only reason for failure is not being prepared properly, making some irresponsible decisions, and putting faith in people (customers, suppliers and partners) that wasn’t warranted. Every business of mine that failed can be directly tied to mistakes I had made in the past — bar none. When you first failure doesn’t require bankruptcy, you’ll be able to take bigger risks and see the opportunities for bigger rewards.

If you’re a kid and you’re thinking about running a business, make sure you talk to your parents first. Don’t ask them to be a part of your business, just ask them for advice. Make sure you set aside time for your education and family responsibilities, and stay on top of those first and foremost. If your parents are not open to you running your own business, talk with them and find what it will take for them to have faith in you trying something. Follow through with promises, increase your responsibility as a part of the family, and try your hardest to clean the clutter out of your life.

I make recommendations to adults to get rid of debt, downsize their house and their cars, and to clean up relationships before becoming their own boss. For teens, you still have clutter in your life to clean! Your room better be spotless. Sell all your junk on eBay (ALL your junk!). If you have a bad relationship with a peer, fix it. If your grades are low, get them to at least the average level. If you’re the class clown, quit it. If you’re sad, depressed or a bit off, talk to your school counselor (I did and I built a great relationship there).

You’re young — take a risk. You have time — put it to good use. You’re interested in new things — learn a trade that you don’t consider “fun.” The best thing you can do as a teen is to learn the definition of wealth — it isn’t being rich, it is being safe, comfortable and focused on the present and the future.