Many parents aim to protect their children, but Esther suggests that true preparation involves early engagement. Discover how fostering entrepreneurial spirit in youth can equip your children with invaluable life skills.

At the table

Esther and her family share candid experiences of their children's early business ventures, revealing how these practical lessons build resilience, financial acumen, and a profound understanding of value in your own family.

What this conversation covers

• Cultivating an environment for young entrepreneurs
• The unexpected lessons from early business attempts
• How saying "no" encourages problem-solving
• The true value of earned money for children
• Fostering courage and initiative in youth

A line worth keeping

The goal is actually to develop skills and mindsets that will serve them for life.

Mentioned in this episode

• Naomi's lemonade stand
• Joseph's dog walking business
• The children's rock selling venture
• The Broker's Table community, for women building faith, family, and lasting wealth

The Broker's Table is hosted by Esther Jackson-Stowell. New conversations on faith, family, and the kind of wealth that outlives you.

My first business made like $40, but I learned more from that $40

than I did in a whole year at school That's not an exaggeration.

Business teaches problem-solving, customer service, budgeting, marketing, all in

real time with real stakes We don't push our kids to be entrepreneurs, but we

create the environment where they can try.

And what they've built has surprised even us

Welcome back to Legacy at the Table.

Today's episode is one of my favorites.

We're talking about kid entrepreneurs.

Kid-trepreneurs.

Mom says that's her favorite every time.

A guest blog.

Not theoretical, wouldn't it be nice if kids learned business?

Actual businesses our kids have started, run, and learned from.

The goal isn't to make money, although do you guys like making money?

Money.

Money.

The goal is actually to develop skills and mindsets that will serve them for life.

Some of their ventures have made a few hundred dollars.

Some have lost money.

All of them have taught something valuable.

Okay.

So Naomi.

Yeah.

Tell us about your business and what you do.

I did a lemonade stand, like in front of our neighborhood.

It's the classic kid's business, right?

What do you like about running a lemonade stand?

I like the taste of the lemonade when I taste it.

Like tasting the

product a little?

Yeah.

She likes dipping into her, her product.

So real.

Um, no.

I pour the lemonade into a cup.

That's what dipping means.

Down my finger.

Okay.

It's a saying, not literally, but it's okay.

What else do you like?

What else do you like?

The money.

The money.

Money, I get.

Okay, Mr. Krabs.

How dare you?

Joseph, you helped her with this lemonade stand, right?

Yeah.

What do you think she does well to earn that money?

She's cute, and people like when kids are cute.

Hmm.

That, that's a big s- help.

Someone came over and gave us six bucks.

Just gave it to you?

Yeah.

Because you were out there being cute?

They saw children Using their time wisely.

Because children are out there playing video games and laying around.

But what they saw- Well, I did tie it … were children out there using

their, their mind and time wisely.

When Joseph and Gabriel sold lemonade when they were younger in our old neighborhood-

… what I noticed was that people were willing to stop because they appreciated

r- the courage that it took, right?

It's not easy getting out there and selling stuff to adults

when you're a little kid.

And it's admirable to see kids putting themself out there, young

people putting themselves out there and trying something new.

So I think a lot of it, sometimes, on hotter days, lemonade sells pretty good.

But a lot of that, a lot of the goodwill you build up in your business

comes from the admiration that people have for somebody trying to put

something good out into the world.

Right.

That's why people often will support small businesses or family-owned businesses or

local businesses, because they like what that says about the people who run them.

And so to see you all practicing business skills, it's really impressive,

and it gets adults kind of excited.

Yes.

Because most adults see you all and realize the c- well,

he talked about the courage.

Because most adults do not have that.

Like, it's hard for people to talk to random strangers, and here you are just

hoping that someone will stop their car and patronize your s- your lemonade stand.

And it works.

Besides just being cute, like you act- you actually made money.

I bet you it'd work better if we tried Dad's method, running

out into the street with a sign.

Like, "Stop. You need to buy lemonade." Can we do that?

Please don't.

Why?

It's dangerous.

If Dad will do it.

They will not buy lemonade if Dad ran into the street and tells them to buy lemonade.

So let's talk about another business.

Let's talk about something you've done.

What have I done besides lemonade?

You've done car washes Rocks Yeah, you sold rocks- Ooh, let's, let's actually

talk about the rocks … at the corner.

Uh-huh When… How old… Tell us about the rock business

that you operated for a day.

How old was I?

I don't even remember.

Maybe, like, four.

Four or two.

Yeah, four.

You were about four years old.

I only remember that I wasn't wearing clothes.

Um- You had an underwear and a shirt.

Oh, we had a shirt?

But you were fine.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, 'cause I was f- like, four, you said?

Mm-hmm.

I don't even know if we made any money, but I think the, the

same, same principles were there.

We were out… We were out on the side of the road trying to sell something just

as kids, making good use of our time.

Did the, did you guys just grab random rocks?

I don't know if that was a good use of their time then, because

you had us very worried because we didn't know where you were.

You had mom panicked.

And, um, the p- there was… But what was beautiful was that there was a, the person

that lived at that corner stood out there and watched you as a, to protect you.

He thought what you were doing was odd, at the corner selling rocks, literally

rocks that you picked up on your way.

You put it in your tricycle-

with your brother in the back, and you were out there trying to get

people to pull over and, and buy it.

In underwear and a shirt.

But what was beautiful about that too, though, was the fact that

you guys knew that, "Hey, I want to provide a service for someone.

People need rocks." And you, and you thought, "Well, let

me go sell this to them.

Let me pack up all these rocks and go sell it to them." And that's

the, the onset of, like, that entrepreneurial business mindset.

Also recently, the boys started the dog walking business.

Tell us a little bit about that.

We had a neighbor, a se- a retired neighbor that was going out of

town for, like, a vacation, right?

And she had a dog, and she couldn't take the dog with her on the plane.

So she left the dog in my brother's care to walk him every

morning right before school.

I was too busy at the time, so I couldn't help, but I know that that

made my brother wake up earlier in the morning to do his responsibility, and

he made money, and he, uh, he cared for another being So I like that.

He actually made a ton of money- I'm jealous … considering, I… Me too.

Me too, absolutely.

He made a lot of money bec- but to that neighbor of ours, it was completely

worth it because her dog was in a space that was comfortable for her dog.

It made her have a peace of mind while she was gone.

So to you guys, you made a lot of money, but to her that was nothing

because of the q- the quality and care that she was getting for her dog.

What inspired you to start a business or to think about starting a business?

I think what inspired us most to start businesses was money.

It's really nice to have your own money wh- so when your parents tell you no,

you can still get it, and especially when you earn it, it makes you realize

how much more valuable money is, and it lets you buy more responsible items.

What I like about that is, you know, we, we probably could afford a lot of

the stuff you wanted, but we, by saying no to you, we weren't saying, "No, you

can't have the thing." We were saying, "No, we're not gonna buy the thing

for you." And so by it, I think that should give parents license to say no to

some things, to try to encourage their children to figure out- Problem solve

how to get that if it's really important- Right … to them.

Helps you prioritize, right?

'Cause then when you start having your own money and you wanna buy the

thing, you might think, "Oh, maybe I don't want the thing that bad

because I don't wanna spend that much money on it." What about you, Naomi?

One of the things that inspired me was, 'cause it was in the middle of winter,

but there was

no snow, and it was, like, really hot.

I wanted to do a lemonade stand I thought it was pretty cool

because of the irony in that.

And she actually made it, some, a few sales.

But j- I mean, net decrease, but like- Net decrease, but it

was fun and people enjoyed it.

But then one of the things that I also loved about that was that you

got to become her business manager.

So can you tell us a little bit about how that relationship came

about and what exactly you did as, um, her business manager?

Naomi came to me with the idea one day after school.

She said, "Can we do a lemonade stand?" And at first I said, "No," 'cause

it's like in the middle of winter.

But my mom told me I had to.

And see, Naomi also said that I'd get 50%, and I was like, "50%?

That's kind of a lot." And she's like, "Well, yeah, but it's just the two of

us." So I agreed, and I drove her to Walmart, got her the remaining stuff

that we needed that, uh, we did not have left over from my old lemonade stand.

We packed up the rest of the stuff that we had at the house, and we drove to

the church, which is directly outside of the gates of our neighborhood.

And w- it's really, it's a really busy road, so we were able to make a few sales.

And our slogan, or her slogan was, "It's never too cold for lemonade." I see.

I didn't even know- … any of this.

This was great.

All independent work.

Good job.

Yes.

Last summer, I decided that instead of saving Pokemon cards, just, like, keeping

them, letting them collect dust, it would be a better use of my, uh, resources to

sell them, the ones that were worth a lot.

So initially, I went to a GameStop or a s- store similar to GameStop,

and I tried to sell my cards there.

And I gave them a bunch that was probably worth at least around 400, the amount

of cards I had and how much they were worth, and they were offering me,

like, 20 to 30 bucks for all of them.

So I took them back and sold them on eBay.

Now, I'm not 100% sure where the money went- … but I made, like,

500% more money than I would've made if I gave it to the pawn shop.

And w- like, what a great lesson there.

We didn't have to teach him that.

Nope.

Any lessons there.

He had to figure out what his stuff was worth.

He had to do that negotiation with the pur- person at the

retail Had to research, negotiate.

Mom did help me.

I was gonna sell, like, half of them to them for, like, 14 bucks.

And Mom convinced you not to?

Yeah.

She, she said, "Don't do it 'cause it's not worth it." So

that's, that's the importance of having, like, business mentors.

Don't try to do everything on your own.

Even the most successful CEOs, they have mentors.

They have trusted advisors that they get advice from

before they make big decisions.

So- Mm-hmm … there's an early lesson for you.

And the first sell was one card for 30 bucks, which was way more than what

you were gonna get for all the cards.

And that was just the greatest lesson because you got to see just

because one person doesn't value what you have, doesn't mean that the

next person will not value it more.

So always do your research.

Always look for other sources before you make the final decision on whatever

businesses that you have going.

The recent lemonade stand that me and my sister put on we spent about in the

range of 20 to $30 on supplies from the store, and we made a total of $10.60.

Um- $10.60 … and four of those dollars were from our older sister and her friend.

So we each ended up getting $5, which was, like- 20, 25% the

amount we spent on the business.

What was the lesson you learned from that, Naomi?

Don't try to sell lemonade in winter.

Ma- so there, there's timing to there's market forces at play and seasonal

changes to some of the businesses.

Depression.

Depression?

Yeah.

All right, Naomi, I guarantee you if you do the le- The depression of 2026?

Yeah, I guarantee you if you do the lemonade stand again this summer,

you will make- Green … summer, if you do it in the summer, you'll

make, like, $100 the first day.

You, you still have some of that supply, right?

It wasn't a total waste.

Yeah.

You have supply.

We still have the container, the mix, the table.

We, like, have the- The sign … yeah, we have all the bare minimum stuff-

We have cups too … for the stand.

I remember when Joseph and Gabriel did it, and they named their business

JoGa Lemonade, Joseph and Gabriel, which I think is pretty cool, and

they had a, they had a cool sign.

But one thing that impressed me there is you were really thinking about marketing,

and this is when you were a lot younger, but, but Joseph thought we're, you know,

we're selling these for a dollar a cup.

I think we could probably sell them for more if they were in nicer cups.

And so he went and bought nice cups, and they looked more refreshing.

So- And you did, you did sell more.

I don't know if you raised the price.

You might have had, like, a tiered price system.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, the tiered price system does not work for the lemonade stand.

It didn't.

But- You're only gonna buy the smallest one.

But you sold more.

I think you moved more product because they were in nicer cups.

Mm-hmm.

It looked more refreshing.

People… It gave people more variety, which I think psychologically

made our stand more appealing.

Timing, do it in the summer.

I would also put g- make my sister the face of it, because she's cuter- I looked

at the face … and she will help sell more to different audiences of people.

Yeah, those are, like, the two main things that I would do.

Can you see why I'm so proud of these kids?

The first step isn't pushing.

It's creating an environment where entrepreneurship is

visible, valued, and possible.

So with your kids, talk about businesses you see, discuss how they work, point

out problems that could be solved.

Make business thinking part of normal conversation.

Well, the best kid businesses come from their interest, not yours.

If they love art, sell art.

If they love video games, help them create content and start a YouTube channel.

Don't impose your idea of what a good business is.

Let them explore.

Go ahead.

When they hit obstacles, resist the urge to solve it for them.

Ask questions instead.

Questions such as, "What do you think you should try? Who might be able to

help?" Guide them to their own solutions.

Celebrate the effort, not just the results.

The business that fails teaches as much as the one that succeeds.

Our kids know we're proud of them for starting, not just for succeeding.

Okay, are you ready for this?

Your homework this week: Have a business brainstorm conversation.

Identify one problem your child could solve for pay.

Offer to invest a small amount, but make sure you make it a loan

with a repayment expectation.

Your child doesn't need a perfect business plan.

They just need permission to try, support when it's hard, and space to learn.

The confidence that comes from creating something, from solving

a problem and getting paid, that's something school can't teach.

Next week, we're getting vulnerable Episode eight is about the mistakes

parents make with money education, including the mistakes we've made.

We're not perfect.

We've gotten things wrong.

Oh boy, have we gotten things wrong.

And we think being honest about that might be the most valuable thing we can share.

Until then, encourage entrepreneur in your house.

Legacy isn't accidental.

It's built on purpose.

The content shared on the Broker's Table Legacy at the Table podcast

is intended for educational and informational purposes only.

While we discuss principles, strategies, and real-life experiences

related to finance, family, and faith, watching or listening to this

content will not make you rich or guarantee immediate financial success.

True growth and lasting results require consistent effort, discipline, and wise

application of the knowledge gained.

The insights provided are meant to guide, inspire, and equip you to make better

decisions over time, not to serve as quick fixes or promises of instant wealth.

We encourage viewers to thoughtfully apply what they learn in ways that

align with their personal circumstances, values, and long-term goals.