“The Innovative Kids of America Project”

Over Memorial Day weekend, I had the distinct pleasure of launching my newest concept to teach America’s kids how to become young entrepreneurs. “The Innovative Kids of America Project” was an absolute hit with fair attendees at The Sacramento County Fair. The idea is based on my series of kids’ books, “How to Become an Entrepreneurial Kid" that I wrote to share my own kids' success learning the lessons of starting a business with their very first yard sale cookie stand. The transformation of my kids after their first entrepreneurial endeavor was enough to inspire a nation, and that is just what I plan on doing!

"The Innovative Kids of America Project" provides an opportunity for kids all over the country to have an outlet for their creative ideas by teaching parents and kids how to achieve the American Dream of having their own business. Last weekend, ten kids between the ages of 3 through 18 each had their very own booth at the Sacramento County Fair. They had a few weeks before the fair to come up with what they wanted to create and/or resell. Every child made money, some more than others, but this experience was unbelievably successful for all who participated. The interaction with customers and each other was beautiful. What a great opportunity to use their academic skills, master communication with customers, and even learn about success and failure. (It was most interesting to watch the kids reinvent themselves when their product was not selling.) I had grandparents come up to me crying, “I wish I had this opportunity when I was a child; my life would have turned out differently!"

The American school system does not teach economics, and even worse, it preaches that kids have to prepare to become employees, not an employer’s! If you know anything about economics, you know that 80% of this country's economy is based on small business; they are the job creators in this country, and the lack of focus on this fact is frightening. We do not inspire kids to think like job creators anymore, we expect them to just get good grades and go to college, and then what? Get a job and work for a small business? 50% of college graduates can’t find a job! If America does not start cultivating entrepreneurs, its brilliant innovators will become extinct.

The government's anti-small business environment is deterring many Americans from becoming excited about starting a business. There will always be certain entrepreneurs who will succeed in going against the flow of this socialist-style movement, and who will remain solid and successful, but because very few Americans are offered the opportunity to realize the possibilities of being their own boss, we have so many people voting for big government. They really don’t understand that no one is always going to take care of them, and that freedom is about self-reliance not dependence.

Children are America’s great hope! Kids are natural entrepreneurs, and it only takes one entrepreneurial experience to awaken that spirit that dwells in so many of us. This opportunity to present “The Innovative Kids of America Project” to Sacramento Fair attendees proved to be the launching ground of a national movement. I plan on working with fairs all over the country to inspire kids to start their own businesses. "The Innovative Kids of America Project" changed those ten kids' lives forever, and the sky is the limit for success. This was America’s entrepreneurial spirit in action, and the parents were thrilled! Help me work some Great American Magic, and let’s create a pro-small business movement and take back our country one small business at a time!

Dianne Linderman can now be heard on Talk Radio Network on her 2 hour live syndicated national radio show. “Everything That Matters” Visit her online shopping cart.

The Two Heads of Education

My life began the moment I broke out of my cell of doubt created by the public school system! Every summer vacation I felt like my sentence had ended, and the only sad thought was that it would begin again, in just a few short months, when school started again. Most kids feel the same way; they hate school but they go because they are trained to believe it is the Great American Expectation. Remember, we are told time after time that if we do well in school then we will be successful. So we strive to please our parents, our teachers, the system, and ourselves. This is the secret, cruel pressure that molds our spirits.

The simple question that has followed me around like a pesky fly all of my life has been, "Why did I hate school so much?" I wanted to like school, but the moment I entered kindergarten I felt like I was not allowed to be my free little self anymore. I can remember it like it was yesterday—the classroom looked fun, but only five years earlier I had been delivered into the hands of my parents, and now I was being delivered into the hands of complete strangers and expected to perform! Even when I was five years old, l knew there was something wrong with this picture, but a giant cloud of expectation had become ever present in my life. It was inescapable, and it seemed to follow not only me but my brothers and my parents.

As matter of fact, it followed everyone I knew. As a child, it felt so wrong that many of us lived under this cloud of expectation. It seemed to be the very thing that kept me from doing what I really wanted to do, especially as a child. This cloud of expectation never allowed me to see through it, to the outside of the cloud. It was ever present and kept up a fog, and that fog seemed to have a head on it with an authoritative quality. This authority had so many of us wanting so badly to please it, and because we needed its approval and acceptance, just one negative mark on our report cards could make us feel like we had failed completely. And so we then tried even harder to please this authority.

The one secret this authority has is it that it will never allow anyone to ever know that you can never make this cloud of expectation happy, and that once you buy into its power, it holds you hostage forever! Without the approval of this authority, you will always feel like a loser! Its power and hold over us makes us view people on the other side of the fog as outcasts and losers, and even entices us to feel above these so-called radical types and to look down our noses at them. If you are accepted by this powerful system, then you are part of the club of expectors. You are then paid for by entitlements. Once you find the excitement of being entitled, you are set forever, and you now have the club of expectors behind you who will protect their own at any cost.

As I grew older, I became sick of this cloud of expectation following me, so I broke out to the other side of the fog, and, guess what? You can breathe better, see better, and you can feel the excitement of ideas and dreams becoming part of you—sometimes for the very first time in your life. But still, that cloud of expectation wants us back; it does not like losing anyone, so it turns on the doubt switch that is planted in you, and you can’t really be free until you discover the key. That key is the other head of education! It is the freedom of discovery, the love of teaching yourself, and the understanding that everything you ever wanted to learn or know is within yourself. You can excel beyond the expectors' understanding and knowledge, and they no longer know how to control you because you have become an individual! You confuse the expectors, because they don’t understand what true freedom really is, so they label you a rebel, and they try to keep you from succeeding.

The other head of education is not a cloud of expectation, but a blue sky of freedom. It needs no degrees to prove its brilliance. Once you learn to believe in yourself and your own ability to learn what you love in your own time, motivated by the love of your interests, then anything and everything becomes possible. It is also possible for your children. We all must learn to believe in our children and not in the cloud of expectation that is put on them. When your child does not want to go to school, think about it—maybe they are smarter than you. Don’t allow the cloud of expectation to cloud your intuition; we are all conditioned to believe in it and not in the other head of intuitive education. Who says a child cannot teach himself? I beg to differ. Children are brilliant little beings, and they only need the trust of a parent to free them to become pure brilliance. Children have common sense and they will know when they need teaching; they also know when they don’t need to learn something they are not interested in.

The moment you stop believing in your children and start believing in the system of expectation, and that authority, you hand your beautiful, innocent children over to that system and they are no longer under your authority. Just look at our teenage population. Where are the individuals? Most kids find a peer that they can feel accepted by, because remember, you just handed them over to strangers, and they know it! These kids now feel completely abandoned and look for someone they can identify with. Most kids at school are in the same boat, but there is always going to be that one person your child will confide in and, “bam," there is almost no hope of retrieving them. They no longer trust you and become part of an even more dangerous system.

My life began the day I quit public school and started my own business at sixteen years old! My journey has taken me from a jewelry business, to becoming an award-winning author, publisher, restaurateur, writer, nationally-syndicated radio talk show host, successful entrepreneur, chef, mother, teacher, speaker, and mentor to thousands of troubled kids. And all it took to help these kids was to hold their hands through the fog to the other side where they felt the fresh air of freedom on their faces, and the rest was within each one of them. Why is it so hard to believe that real education does not need degrees or fanfare? It only requires the love of learning and the love of discovery.

Dianne Linderman can now be heard on Talk Radio Network on her 2 hour live syndicated national radio show “Everything That Matters.” Visit Dianne's online shopping cart.