Fifty kids in my grade. That was the entire class at my elementary school at St. Joseph's from ages 3 to 13.
In fifth grade, one of the parents in our class happened to be Tim Draper. He brought a program he created called BizWorld into our classroom, and for one week, ten year olds ran mini businesses like it was the real thing.
We built a bridge out of toothpicks and glue and loaded it until it snapped. We dropped eggs off the roof and debated packaging design like our product launch depended on it. We split into teams, ran companies, argued about who did the most work, and took all of it far too seriously. None of that was actually the point.
The point was that for one week, starting a business stopped being something adults did and became something we did. Ten years old, and it suddenly was not abstract anymore.
I never really stopped after that. I sold mix tapes and DVDs in middle school, tried to start a marketing company targeting college kids, etc. A dozen other small hustles that made no real money. None of them mattered because of the profit. They mattered because they were reps.
By the time I was old enough step into a leadership role at Westlake Realty Group, I had already been practicing for almost two decades. Not studying entrepreneurship. Doing it, over and over, until it stopped feeling foreign.
I think about this constantly now that I'm the one in the room who decides what the next generation gets exposed to. My daughter is two. My team has kids. Someday there is a next generation at Westlake who needs their own version of a toothpick bridge.
You cannot want to become something you have never been shown up close. Exposure is not a small input. It is the whole game.
What is the thing you were exposed to young that quietly decided the direction of your life?
Exposure Is the Whole Game
