How Youth Entrepreneurship Builds Mental Hardiness that Help Teens Overcome Life Challenges

Guest Post by Ronn Bronzetti

I am a keenly aware of the benefits of youth entrepreneurship. The CEO of the company I work for, Nate Drouin, founded the business when he was just 19 years old. Nate built our company around the premise that donating money and raising money should be much easier to do, and the result was fundraise.com.

In today’s competitive workplace, employers are looking for young talent that has both practical job skills and mental hardiness. Enter entrepreneurship education.

Junior Achievement conducted a study around American teenagers and their desired future occupations and discovered almost 70% said that they wanted to become entrepreneurs and despite of this overwhelming interest, young people rarely received any information and about pursuing their entrepreneurial dreams as a career option.

Ronn speaks at MA Roundtable

When students learn about entrepreneurship, they become more engaged in their education through real-world learning experiences. They are introduced to risk-taking, the management of those risks, and how to learn from the outcomes associated with those risks. According to Logic Models and Outcomes for Youth Entrepreneurship Programs (2001), a report by the D.C. Children and Youth Investment Corporation) entrepreneurship education also helps students to enhance their academic performance and build real-world skills. 

For example, youth entrepreneurs:

·         gain lifelong lessons in financial literacy;

·         cultivate innovation;

·         persuade others with well-crafted verbal skills;

·         improve their organizational skills; and

·         test time management skills.

At the same time, emotional resilience is also fortified as budding entrepreneurs

·         foster grit and learn to endure challenging times, uncertainty;

·         increase problem-solving and decision-making abilities;

·         build interpersonal skills and teamwork between students;

·         enhance self-esteem through a sense of self-determination.

In short, the studies indicate the more confident students become, the better equipped they become to work and interact with others.

And the deep learning developed through entrepreneurship education endures. According to the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship, youth that participated in

entrepreneurship programs demonstrated:

·         a higher interest in attending college than their peers (by 32 percent);

·         as well as higher occupational aspiration level than their peers (by 44 percent).

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About the Author: Ronn Bronzetti is the Director of Partnerships for fundraise.com. fundraise.com is a crowdfunding platform created to help organizations & individuals raise money and generate awareness for their favorite causes. He is also a member of the National Corporate Advisory Council of the Carson J Spencer Foundation