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Archive for the ‘TED Talks’ Category

TED Talk With Cameron Herold: Let’s raise kids to be entrepreneurs

June 22nd, 2010 |

I was so impressed with this TED Talk I just had to post it to my blog. I so relate to Mr. Herold. Unlike Mr. Herold I was told as a child that I had to get a JOB. My mom was convinced that if I got a job as an electrical engineer, all things would be peaches and cream. So I went to a not so good engineering college in New York and ended up dropping out after 3 years. I was so close to my degree yet so unhappy and miserable.

I then spent a summer parking cars in the Hamptons and taking a marketing class at that same engineering school that I paid for with the money I earned in tips as a valet. I got an education in one summer that I should have had all my life growing up. I made more money in tips as a valet parking cars in the Hamptons then I had earned as a Hauppauge Electronics intern for the whole year. Unfortunately I then went back home to mom and dad and was told yet again go and get a J-O-B.

My dad, God rest his soul was the entrepreneur of our family. He was always trying so hard to do his own thing. He had a thriving DJ business back in the late 1970′s. His stage name was Disco Brad. Believe it or not my dad built speakers and album carrying cases for some of the original rappers and DJ’s of the South Bronx. DJ Theodore and Grandmaster Flash got most of their custom speaker equipment from my dad.

Alas, even though he was doing well my mom still wanted him to get a real JOB. So to make peace in the family he did and got a job with the New York transit authority. I was just a kid but I still saw how down and dejected he was coming home from work.

This TED Talk from Cameron Herold is very inspiring. He talks about how we should look out for the entrepreneurial side of our kids rather then tell them to conform to getting a JOB. So, I urge you not to suppress or belittle your child’s entrepreneurial spirit. Instead embrace it for he or she could be the next billionaire like Ted Turner, Steve Jobs and Reginald Lewis. They may even become an entrepreneurial DJ like Disco Brad. So remember, our kids could change the world as entrepreneurs.