#174 In-Demand Entrepreneurial Skills Every Teen Needs with Stephen Carter Transcript

THIS IS AN AUTOMATED TRANSCRIPT… PLEASE FORGIVE THE TYPOS & GRAMMAR! xo-Lisa.

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  00:57

Are you wondering if your teen has what it takes to thrive in today’s rapidly changing economy, the entrepreneurial mindset might be the missing piece in their education, and it’s not just for kids who want to start a business someday. In schools across the country, students are running real campus businesses, solving authentic problems and developing crucial skills that colleges and employers desperately seek but how can your teen access these opportunities if their school doesn’t offer entrepreneurship programs? Today, I’m joined by Steven Carter, an education innovator who has helped implement student run business programs in over 20 schools nationwide. Steven will share how entrepreneurship education develops, the four pillars of success, a growth mindset, grit, redefining failure and seeking opportunities, skills that every student, regardless of their career path, should have. If you’re concerned about your students, career readiness, this conversation will show you how entrepreneurial thinking creates confident, adaptable graduates who stand out in school and beyond, Steven also shares practical ways you can foster these vital skills at home, even if your teen school lacks entrepreneurship programs. I’m Lisa Marker Robbins, and I want to welcome you to College and Career Clarity a flourish coaching production. Let’s dive right in to a great conversation. You and Steven, welcome to

 

Stephen Carter  02:26

the show. Oh, thank you so much. I’m glad to be here. Well, I’ve

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  02:31

been super excited about this topic, because as an entrepreneur, I have started four companies in my in my lifetime, entrepreneurship is near and dear to my heart. I think a lot of people misunderstand what it means. I think people put a lot of limitations around what it could mean for them. But when we connected, when you kind of came into my LinkedIn feed, in my world, I was like, Okay, this guy, this is unique. He believes that entrepreneurship matters for all students,

 

Stephen Carter  03:05

all students, all students, like, yeah, that’s that. That’s the thing is, you know, you you said it yourself. It’s misunderstood, or it’s siloed, or it’s kind of put to the side, like, Oh, you’re interested in starting a business. Maybe go through this entrepreneurship thing. Now look like over 50% of high school kids want to start a business. So that’s that’s just there, and that number is growing. My argument is this matters to all students. Frankly, this matters to all teachers, all parents. Like everybody I’m I operate under the belief that we should all have an entrepreneurial spirit, what, what I often call the entrepreneurial mindset. So, yeah, like, out of the gate, it’s everybody.

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  03:47

I love that, and I get it, but then I start here’s, as you’re saying, that I’ve got, like, the objections that people start coming up with, right? And so let’s start with like, what is, what does it mean to have an entrepreneurial mindset? Because I hope that when you share with us what you believe that is, maybe people can start to see a little bit of themselves, or go like, Oh, even if I’m not going to own my own business someday, or go out into the wild and do my own thing. Because that feels very to some people, that feels very pressure, feel. I mean, even people that like you and me, that do it, it feel, it can feel pressure filled at some point, right? But why? The the entrepreneurial mindset might be beneficial, even if you’re like, I think it’d be fantastic to be in corporate America. I don’t, I don’t want to do my own gig. So what is it?

 

Stephen Carter  04:40

It’s such a great question, Lisa, because yeah, that you named the objection, which, if you’re in an educational setting, and especially in the private school world, where I’ve been, but in public schools all over the place, there’s this conception that, okay, if you’re gonna study entrepreneurship, you’re gonna go start a business, you’re gonna do this thing out of your parents garage, and it might. Exceed chances are it won’t. The argument early on, this was 12 years that I’ve been teaching this and building programs around entrepreneurship. We’re not just churning out entrepreneurs. We are helping students think like entrepreneurs. So this was about compiling and condensing and then really synthesizing. What does it mean to think like an entrepreneur? So I would challenge all of our listeners to Google entrepreneurial mindset. You’re going to find like, 87 attributes. You know, innovation, outside the box, thinking, creative, curious, all that’s great. But when you’re creating a program that has competencies where you are, you’re teaching skills you can’t have 87 targets you’re aiming at. So over the course of years and years of working with students, I really came to understand that there’s four there’s four primary pillars, attributes that make up the entrepreneur mindset. And I want you to visualize it as a launch pad. There’s four layers to this launch pad. The first is growth mindset, a healthy, directed sense of where we’re growing, and that’s based on the research of Carol Dweck and these ideas around we can improve in any area with time, dedication and effort, and with a growth mindset, we’re ready to develop grit. So think Angela Duckworth, and I would just say to any listeners, especially parents out there, read Duckworth book grit. It is so powerful in education and shaping how we can help our students and our own kids become grittier. And it’s based in goal setting, by the way. Yeah, so, so we’ve got growth mindset, we’ve got grit, and now we’re ready to redefine failure. Lisa, this is, this is the game changer. Okay, I work with schools all over the nation. By and large, when students reflect, they say the biggest takeaway for them is learning to not fear failure. Because, see, we bake it into our society. We might say like, Oh, don’t be afraid, but we teach them to fear failure. We have systems in place that encourage them to not take risks for fear of failure, we shatter that like that’s what it means to think like an entrepreneur. I’m not afraid of failure, and then, because of that, I’m gonna go seek opportunity. And the definition here is, most people refer to opportunities as problems, but if you think like an entrepreneur, you see that problem and you say, Hey, here’s something we can do about it. Now, I would challenge any business owner, anyone in any field, if someone came to you and they had a growth mindset and they were gritty and they weren’t afraid to fail and to try and they were ready to seek opportunity, would they succeed in your industry? And if anyone says anything other than a resounding yes, I don’t believe you, I think we’re setting kids up for success in every walk of life when we help them have an entrepreneurial mindset,

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  07:47

you know, and I have some. So I have my career development, career advising course, and we are also working with schools as well as families. But I also do executive coaching. And my executive coaching, I keep a very small cohort by referral only, of small business owners, entrepreneurs, and here’s what I want kids to know, adult fear, failure too. Yes, this is not unique to the age group that you and I have a lot of passion around supporting this is normal. It’s what it is to be human. And I will argue, because I’m all about goal setting and going after those goals, that if you’re not a little afraid, you really don’t have a good goal, right? So goal setting there’s delusional. That would be like me saying I’m going to become a neurosurgeon, completely delusional based upon my aptitudes in my stage of life. And there’s like, really safe. It’s there’s too safe. And if you’re too safe, you’re going to get bored, right? So that healthy place, there should be some tension in it, not delusional, but some tension, some fear, but you still like learning to push through it, which I think you’re saying is the grit you’re naming all these books I have on my bookshelf right over there. I love all those books

 

Stephen Carter  09:09

well. And that’s the thing about how Angela Duckworth defines it. She says, yeah, you’ve got this long term goal, which, by the way, we learned the hard way, long term is subjective. You know, we’ve got students where long term is two weeks, it’s two hours, but you’ve got this long term goal, but there has to be passion and perseverance So, and I’m sure I’m speaking your language here, right? Because we have to understand like passion fades, passion comes and goes, but perseverance toward the goal that we set and the system that we have in place to achieve it, through our habits, through the different things that we’re tracking. That’s what matters. So we’re taking these kids who may have had a fixed mindset, like, I’m either gritty or I’m not. And most business owners I talk to have a fixed mindset about grit. The first thing they say is, I want people who are gritty. The second thing they say is, no one in this generation is gritty. And I’m like, listen like we’re we’re building programs to create gritty kids, and we’re doing it through goal setting, and we’re doing it through vision and mission and values. And I’m telling you, it is so exciting to see these kids come alive.

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  10:14

I love it. You just mentioned the passion piece, and I hate the follow your passion because it, first of all, I think it sets up these very unrealistic expectations that there’s this thing out there that will make me so excited, 24/7, all the time, and that’s not even possible. It’s completely unrealistic. But I’ve also seen as students dig in and they do the work. So part of what we do is we’re really facilitating. Once we have built self awareness and we research some aligned careers, the next step for us is giving them some real world experiences. And what I see is, as they gain experience and they gain some skills, passion grows with proficiency. That’s good. That’s one of my favorite sayings. Like, you’re telling yourself a false story. If you’re like, the passion should already be there. It should all, you know, it should always be there and already be there. Passion,

 

Stephen Carter  11:14

that’s so good because, you know, look at, look at any career, and, you know, it’s the, it’s that proficiency, like you said that over time, has developed through honing your skills and through improving the word that I love, that Duckworth uses a lot is Kaizen, that Japanese word for continuous improvement. Like we want our students to come in and say, here’s where I am, here’s where I want to be. I’m going to create a system and a path to get from here to there, which is also my favorite definition of leadership, taking people from here to there, and we’re helping our students step into leadership. They’re leading themselves. They’re leading others. I mean, think about entrepreneurship like, you know, there’s this myth of the lone wolf entrepreneur. Well, every entrepreneur I’ve talked to has had a community, has had support, has had people to rely on, if nothing else, you have customers, right? Like you’re solving problems for people. So, you know, when people say, Well, what do you mean? Entrepreneurships for everyone? I’m like, Well, everyone should be a problem solver. In fact, everyone should be a proactive problem solver. And that’s what we’re helping students step into with the entrepreneurial mindset.

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  12:16

Well, here’s the other thing too. If, if somebody’s listening, they’re like, oh, you know, they’re poo pooing the idea of entrepreneurship or doing something on their own. I’m gonna speak from, you know, I just sold last year a company that I had had for 25 years, and it served families of high school students, and they’re off doing great things still. And those kiddos. You know, there’s lots of kiddos there that they’re, they’re going to go on and and not even touch entrepreneurship or whatever. But as a business owner, I want to hire the people with the those attributes like I can think of, because I had a, I had a big enough team over there, and I hire contractors to your point, I’m not a lone wolf over here. I have people on my team. They’re not employees, but there are still people on my team that are supporting the work that I’m doing when I’m coaching a business owner, part of what I’m helping them with is hiring the right people so the needs of the business are met. So they are the owner is doing the best and highest use of their time. But the all those entrepreneurial attributes that you just mentioned, I want to hire employees and contractors to work with me that have those attributes. So those attributes are going to serve anyone you know that kind of goes into the employers wanting more soft skills than hard skills oftentimes, right? Oh,

 

Stephen Carter  13:43

100% in fact, I’ll dig into that a little bit because now in especially in these educational circles, these soft skills have become so valuable that people are referring to them as durable skills. Yeah. In fact, Simon Sinek now even has called them human skills. Like this is what differentiates us from AI and these emerging technologies, and it’s a huge value add. Like you said yourself, these people are in high demand. The term entrepreneurship is used a lot like, Hey, how can you be in an organization and think like an entrepreneur? Well, every business owner will want to hire you because you’re going to bring innovation. You’re going to think differently. You’re not going to be afraid to push the envelope, and it’s going to take the company in new directions. I would say to medical students, you know, you’re going to be a doctor, you’re going to be a dentist. You should think like an entrepreneur. How many doctors open a medical practice and have no idea? You know, they only know their field. They don’t know how to run a business. That kind of skill is transferable in every area. So

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  14:42

you started, and I know you’re working with a bunch of schools now, but at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy in Cincinnati, you started their entrepreneurship program, and have had great success with it. And I want to hear. Hear about the what schools can do, but I have a question on the students that you’re seeing coming out of your entrepreneurship program at CHCA, like, what percentage of them do you think will use their entrepreneurial skills to be an entrepreneur, and what percentage might go on to be part of an organization and not actually be the business owner themselves.

 

Stephen Carter  15:25

So we started this program 12 years ago. Now I was at Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy as an English teacher and stepped into this role and launched the program. So I say that because the students who were in this program 12 years ago, they’re now 2829 30 years old. So this has been established enough to look at our students and say, Where are they now? What are they doing? And I recently had a chance to interview a group of these students who are on the cusp of 30, which makes me feel old as a teacher, right? They’ve got kids and and all that so. And I was asking them, you know, that was one of my questions, was, how many of you how many of you are starting a business? And here’s what I was what I was blown away by. What they were saying were the things that they took away that have been broadly applicable everywhere. And now they weren’t spouting out things like growth mindset and grit, but the words they were saying, one of them said, I’m so confident. Every job I’ve had, I’ve been made manager quicker than anybody else. One young lady said, I think what differentiated it is it was actually real. It was real so much of what we do in school is hypothetical or doesn’t actually connect the dots. But this actually had that significance that we could apply right away. It’s like the teaching of compound interest, which I won’t go down into the weeds with that, but stuff that kids can apply today, tomorrow, the next day. So you know, you might get 20% 30% you might have 50% of these students starting a business, but 100% of them are more prepared for whatever comes their way. Do

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  17:03

you so let’s talk about bringing this entrepreneurial having an entrepreneurship program at a school a little bit is there? Do you get objections from schools because they’re like, Oh, we don’t have enough kids that want to be an entrepreneur. Or how do you talk about this and with schools and families?

 

Stephen Carter  17:26

Honestly, it’s the schools that reach out to me, and so, you know, we’ve got this great program here in Cincinnati, and I go and speak at conferences and explain, but lately, schools are reaching out to me, and they’re saying, Steven, the parents are asking for this, and we don’t know what to do. And it’s interesting, because, you know, I mean, education is shifting now more than it ever has before, and at a faster speed. It’s just crazy. It’s crazy right now, the way it’s growing and shifting and changing and all things are merging. But what’s what’s fascinating is schools are recognizing the need number one for multiple pathways. I mean, let’s just call it out there. Like not every kid is going to go to a four year college anymore. Like they want pathways, even private schools, all these schools want to create pathways, but they’re not completely sure how to do it. And we could get, you know, we could go deep into how we got rid of shop class, and we got rid of Home Ec, and we transferred it all to this knowledge based worker, and now we need skill based workers. That’s your area. You understand that better than I do. But the point is, schools are saying we need something real, something tangible, and we’re going to use the word entrepreneurship, because it’s the buzz word right now, and everybody’s using it. And that’s when I come in and I say, Well, look, you can’t just teach a class on entrepreneurship. Can’t just have a one off experience. I liken it to this, Lisa, you’re not going to have an amazing swim program at your school and not have a pool for the kids to swim in, right? You can’t have an entrepreneurship program and not have a space where these kids get to step into it and do it. So how do that?

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  19:02

Like, what was your quote lab? I guess at CHCA, that’s a great

 

Stephen Carter  19:07

way to put it. Is a lab, and this was the big aha. And this, I think, is one of the differentiators of this, the collaborative nature of the lab. So we created an opportunity where students could come together in small groups, groups of 678, students, and create a business together. Now that was a game changer, because not only are they collaborating, they’re communicating with each other, they’re creating systems with each other. They’re learning that other people exist. In other words, they’re becoming ideal team players to then go out into these spaces and collaborate with others. So we started creating these businesses. We did it backwards. We created the businesses, and then we backtrack to say, what do we want them learning as they do this unique value proposition, sales and revenue and all these different components, but the businesses came first, so a student can come in and they can. Work at an existing business. I help schools start coffee bars. I help them start teaching kitchens, spirit stores, smoothie stands. I should say it’s normally a food related business, because, let’s face it, kids like to eat. They like to eat. I mean, it’s and they get it. It makes sense to them. But even in the technology space, in the STEM space, the point is, how are you creating value through a product or a service that you’re selling to a real customer in real time? Because we can talk all day long in the classroom about that, but until you hand a product to a customer and that customer pays for that product, you have no conception of value exchange that makes it real. So that’s why I tell schools like, we’ll start a program, but you better know there’s going to be a business on your campus, yeah, and there will be some messiness, and there will be some expense and some other components, but the learning is incredible. It’s

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  20:52

so a nearby High School to both you and me, and it’s so funny, because our listeners don’t know like, we didn’t know each other before today, but a nearby high school here Mason, you know they’ve got the comet bank. They they are a school that has a savings and loan within the school. And I have seen and I done a lot of work, very closely with Cindy Donnelly, who is the teacher in charge of the bank. She’s amazing, and she has a college she has a class called College 101, that I come in and teach eight times a year with her, but she’s retiring this year, so, but that bank that she’s in charge of, what I’ve seen with her students, that I’ve gotten to know that or that I’ve worked with, is even if they’re not going to go on to go on to become entrepreneurs, I see them getting into college, colleges that if I just looked at their stats, I don’t know that it screams that they should get into academically, some of the schools I see them getting into, but the outcomes of their extracurriculars, how their self awareness that then is reflected in their essays, their recommendation letters they get for teachers. It is speaking to the growth that comes out of this experience of working at this bank. And it’s a legit bank. Students are putting money in it, and they are getting interest and they it’s a legit bank, so same type of thing, like getting hands on same

 

Stephen Carter  22:23

same thing, and and Mason’s doing a lot of incredible things with their xLP program and others. And that’s, that’s a prime example of it. And Lisa, you know this, and I’m sure your listeners have heard you say this, like kids don’t. They don’t work in high school like they used to. They don’t go get jobs like they used to. I mean, when I was in school, like, I had two jobs. I was working at McDonald’s in Hollywood Video. They don’t even know what Hollywood Video is now, but like, you were working in high school now, these kids are going to sports practice for three hours and extracurricular and they’re doing homework. Some of them don’t get a real job till age 22 at the bare minimum. I love the entrepreneurship program because it gives them work experience in high school, like they’re going to work that business, but not only that, they’re going to manage it, they’re going to operationalize it, they’re going to work with a team, and they’re going to lead it. I mean, just amazing. So

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  23:12

you said that at when you guys started this at CHCA 12 years ago, you started with the businesses, and then kind of develop the program. Now, if you were going into a school from scratch, would you say, like, do it that way, or actually start your program, and then out of that, we’ll grow your businesses? I’ve

 

Stephen Carter  23:32

learned a lot. Here’s what I tell people, we’re 12 years in. I can start you at year six, because we learned a lot of what not to do. See, there’s your failure stuff, right? That’s it. That’s the thing. Like we we in real time we failed, and the kids saw it, and they learned from it. It was a huge experience, but, but I come in with a three year maturity model, but in year one, first 12 months, first school year, we’re launching a class. That class is going to start a business on the campus, and they’re going to operationalize and grow that business. So I train the teacher, I provide the curriculum. It’s a well oiled machine. Now it different. It’s different per school, like what they want to do, how they want to do it, or what the rollout is going to look like, but end of day, you prove the concept, because the business is launched, and then the parents get excited, donors come on board, community support builds, and then the program can grow year two. Year three, it can have a certificate track connected to it. It has all kinds of potential to really build into something amazing for the school.

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  24:30

You know, there’s a group of students I recently did a focus group with who have gone through our launch Career Clarity program at a private high school that we partner with, which a donor pays for that and supports because, again, another example of, you know, people getting behind an initiative in this in this space that you and I are both supporting, and I asked the students, whose responsibility do you think it is to support you in. Foster you in career development. And the student said, it’s the school. I don’t think my parents are capable. I expect that the school is going to do it. And then I put on social a survey, asking parents, who’s responsible? Is it the school? Is it in your home? Is it parents, or is it the student themselves? And 90% of the respondents, these are parents, said it is a school’s responsibility. Wow. And I yeah, I was just talking to a principal up in New York State last week, and he said, and I would never name who it is, or uh, or their school, because he said, we have rhetoric that we do it and we aren’t doing it because we don’t know how to do it and we’re too busy. So this idea of it sounds like the vast majority of people are saying, this is a school’s responsibility, and the school saying, I’m hearing, you’re hearing, well, we’re not really that equipped. We think it’s important. We don’t know, is it time? Is it money? Is it know how you know it’s a combination of those. So it’s an interesting quandary, and I know we have listeners that are going to be like these programs sound great, and I want my kid to develop, you know, a growth mindset and grit and view failure as lessons, not failure. And so do you have tips for families to foster this at home, if they’re like we are not in one of those districts that Lisa’s program and Steven’s program are in in our school isn’t doing a great job of this, and I applaud the schools that are doing a great job, but I and sometimes I get nasty response emails when I say things like, schools are not doing a good job of this. Most of them aren’t about a third of them, I think that I’ve engaged with, if I just had to throw a number out there, I said, you know, it feels like a third are really serious about it and doing a great job. Two thirds are not. How do you advise a family to foster this on their own. Is there anything they can do?

 

Stephen Carter  27:22

Oh, there’s a lot. There’s absolutely a lot. And the thing I love about your question, Lisa, it speaks to ownership, ownership of whose responsibility it is. Honestly, one of the things we try and work on these programs with these students is you have to own your outcomes, right? You have to own what that looks like. So when I talk about fostering this at home. In fact, when I work with schools, one of the first things we do is we talk about the parent community, and I provide a parent guide. I’ll even offer to have a parent workshop, because I want to first of all explain here’s why we’re doing this. And by the way, after that, every parent gets excited, yeah, but then in that it’s let’s talk about your home environment. Is it conducive to the growth of an entrepreneurial mindset. Listen. There are amazing movies out there you could be watching for family movie night. There are great audio books you can listen to as a family. There’s books you can read as a family, and discussion questions around that. But I’ll tell you the single most important thing, most valuable thing is, what if you as a family, develop a family mission, a family vision, solidify family core values, just like any business would you’re gonna say, here’s where we’re going, here’s why we exist, here’s what we stand for. And that creates a filter for decision making, which can equip your students to have a mindset of resilience in a world that is volatile and uncertain and complex, it would make a world of difference for your students. I love

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  28:49

that. Well, Steven, this has been great. I and I can tell you that this will not be our last episode together, because I feel like I could keep you on for about two more hours, and all of our listeners would drop off, but we would have a lot of fun. So if someone wants to stay, get connected with you and just follow along with all the great things that you are doing, or maybe connect about how you get into their school district. How do they get in touch?

 

Stephen Carter  29:17

Thank you for asking. I’ve got a website. It’s seed tree group, and that’s seed S, E, E, D, tree group.com and that’s where I work directly with schools. You can find my email on there. We can set up a call, and I’m most active on LinkedIn under Stephen Carter,

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  29:33

great. Well, Steven, thank you so much. It’s been spectacular.

 

29:38

Oh, thanks for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation.

 

Lisa Marker Robbins  29:46

I hope our conversation with Steven today has given you some fresh insights into how entrepreneurial education can benefit your teen, whether they are destined to be a business owner or not. Remember these skills, growth, mindset, grit. Redefining failure and seeking opportunities are not just nice to have, they’re becoming essential for career readiness in today’s rapidly changing world. If you’re wondering whether now is the optimal time for your team to work on developing these crucial skills, take our free quiz at flourish coaching co.com forward slash quiz. We’ll also put it in the show notes. Thank you for joining us today on College and Career Clarity. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with a friend, and maybe somebody at your student school will also benefit from it. Until next time, I’m Lisa Marker Robbins helping your teen find their path to a fulfilling future. You