Women Like Me Stories & Business

Raising CEOs Before Recess

• Julie Fairhurst • Episode 164

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What if a child’s “cute little booth” is actually the most powerful classroom they’ll ever enter? Julie sits down with Leah Ellis, founder of the Society of Child Entrepreneurs, to unpack how real-world selling, smart storytelling, and low-risk practice can turn kids into confident builders who know how to pitch, price, pivot, and persevere.

Leah shares how painful labels in her own childhood led her to therapy, reparenting, and a mission to change the words kids hear about themselves. That clarity drives a unique program where children ages six to seventeen learn entrepreneurship, leadership, and financial literacy through a blend of narrative-based lessons and hands-on fairs. The results are surprising and delightful: a teen jeweler with serious design chops, a 3D-printing creator, a pin maker who sold out at a zoo gift shop, and a 13-year-old book lover curating genre bundles with custom top-10 bookmarks. 

We also dig into the bigger system. Only a few U.S. states protect kid-run ventures with lemonade stand laws, and Kansas isn’t one of them, yet. Leah walks us through the bill she drafted to expand freedom and safeguard earnings so families can say yes to more than two sales events a year. Along the way, we talk about parents as partners, not sole instructors, and how this education complements school by teaching application, communication, and resilience.

If you care about youth empowerment, small business skills, and practical financial literacy, this conversation will shift how you see a child’s idea. Subscribe, share with a parent or teacher, and leave a review to help more families discover hands-on entrepreneurship that starts today.

Check out https://societyofchildentrepreneurs.org/


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Who Is Julie Fairhurst?

Speaker • Author • Business Strategist • Founder of Women Like Me

Julie Fairhurst is a force of nature disguised as a woman with a pen and a business brain built for impact. As the founder of the Women Like Me Book Program, she has opened the door for women around the world to share their truth, heal their past, and rise into their power. Since 2019, she has published more than 30 books and over 350 true-life stories — without charging a single writer a dime! Why? Because women’s stories deserve daylight, not gatekeeping.

With 34 years in sales, marketing, and successful business leadership, Julie knows how to turn storytelling into influence and influence into income.

Her mission is clear and unapologetic: break generational trauma one story at a time and help women elevate both emotionally and financially. She doesn’t just publish books, she builds brands, confidence, and possibility, giving women the tools to rewrite their futures, grow their businesses, and lift their families with them.


Julie's Website




SPEAKER_00:

Well, hi everyone, and welcome to another episode of Women Like Me Stories in Business. I'm your host, Julie Fairhurst, and today you wait till you guys hear about what this lady is up to. It is fabulous. I'm I'm I've never heard anybody doing this before. And if you've got kids or nieces and nephews, you totally want to watch this because you're going to be blown away by what this lady's up to. So Leah Ellis is the founder of the Society of Child Entrepreneurs. She's a builder of confidence, a champion of possibility, and a woman learning her own worth while teaching the next generation to claim theirs. So thank you, Leah, for being here. I appreciate it so much. I'm so excited to have you here and to be sharing about what it is that you're doing in the world.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much for having me. I love any opportunity I get to brag about the precocious and amazing kids that I work with.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, perfect. So let's just talk a little bit about you. So if we take away the titles, the founder, the educator, the leader, who are you at your core?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh well, I think the best thing to say is I at my very center of my core, I am a mom who really believes that we should do better for our kids.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, I love that. Yeah, yeah, love that. Nice, yeah, love it. Okay, well, that was easy. Okay. We may zip through my questions here pretty fast. So was there a moment in your life where you felt that you had to grow up um fast?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah, I didn't have um a rose-colored childhood. Um, I my mom married my stepdad when I was seven months old, but he didn't want to be a dad. So I just kind of dealt with a dad who really would have preferred I not be there. And we didn't, I didn't know my biological dad at that point. So he was the only dad I had. Um, so there was a lot of, you know, dad issues and childhood trauma and all those things that kind of form who we become. Um, but one of the biggest moments, um, and I talk about this in another talk that I'm gonna do. Um, when I was 16 or 17, I don't know, I was still in high school. I was like old enough to have some opinions, but not old enough to act on them according to common societal rules. Yes. Um, and I told him, like, you just wait. Someday I'm going to be somebody important. And instantly, with all the venom he could muster, he retorted, doing somebody important is not the same as being somebody important.

SPEAKER_00:

My goodness.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh yeah, that was when I realized I truly the only thing I was good for was laying on my back.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. Not good. Not that is that's the worst thing. Yeah, that's that's not good. Not good at all. That's terrible. And so I'm not that anymore. No, no, of course, of course.

SPEAKER_01:

But I mean, I found a way past it, but yes, it was one of those moments.

SPEAKER_00:

And especially at at such a young age, right? Because you're so um we we take it to heart sometimes. We believe those things that are not true.

SPEAKER_01:

You're so unsure of who you are that you listen to other people telling you who they've assigned you to be. And it can take a lot of work to kind of drop that weight.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. So so tell me how you how you got over that. What what did you do? Because um we were chatting before our our uh our uh we started uh recording here, and um and uh you're a pretty together lady. So tell me, so tell me, you know, how uh just for anybody that might be experiencing something similar, how how did you overcome that, those um, those uh negative things being said to you?

SPEAKER_01:

I run therapy. The not enough can be said for go talk to somebody on the outside, talk to your therapist because they will help you kind of weed out the truth and the lies and what you've told yourself. Um, secondly, I have learned so much about myself, who I want to be, who I can be, um, through raising my daughters and my son and learning like I would never say things like that to them, but those things aren't true about me either. Like they shouldn't be said to them, they shouldn't have been said to me either. Um, and kind of um, what do they call it, like reparenting myself and saying, like, this is not this is not what we're gonna say in our brain anymore.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's it can take a lot for um uh to get over for sure. When I was 13, a social worker told me there was no hope for me. That's a nice thing to say to a kid, right?

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Thank you. I really needed to hear that today.

SPEAKER_00:

And I kind of went off the rail for a little while, using that as my excuse, and then got myself back on track. But but uh we as adults really need to be careful uh what we say to to anybody, but especially those young kids who and young teenagers who are you know struggling enough as it is without us nailing them with some a bunch of uh negativity in their brains.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Yeah, and I have a friend who um works in psychology, and I can't remember the exact percentage, but it's near or at 90% of your subconscious beliefs are formed by the time you're seven. Yeah, and so all of those little things we think don't matter that we say to our kids, but also the things we say in front of our kids. Yes, when you're saying them to other people or you're even saying them about yourself, but your kids are watching and listening. Yeah, stuff all becomes their internal voice. So it's so important that we take care of the words we're using all the time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah, perfect. Well, that was a fantastic way to start this conversation. Now let's dive into something a little bit um a little bit lighter, and that is the Society of Child Entrepreneurs. So go ahead and give it to us. What is what is child child entrepreneurs?

SPEAKER_01:

All right, so this is my baby. This is all the things that I'm working on. This is an opportunity for me to teach entrepreneurship, leadership, financial literacy to kids. I'm not just teaching them how to run a business, but truthfully, the entrepreneurial spirit of problem solving, of pivoting, of confidence, of public speaking, all of those things that entrepreneurs have to do, that's what the kids are learning. While they're also running their own businesses and making money. That's just crazy.

SPEAKER_00:

And so, what age bracket are you working with?

SPEAKER_01:

We are we have a very wide age bracket. So we officially serve kids six through 17, but most of our students, with a handful of exceptions, are between eight and 14. That's kind of the sweet spot where they really want to make their own money, but they're not allowed to go get a job yet.

SPEAKER_00:

Right, right. And so, so how would a child entrepreneur, how would you teach a child entrepreneur differently than an adult?

SPEAKER_01:

Um, well, honestly, I think both adults and kids need a lot more hands-on education than we're giving them. Um, but when I teach kids, we do everything has a story. Um, just like Aesop's Fables, everything has a story that ties into business, and then everything has a hands-on practice with that story. Um, and those two things of being able to tell a story so we get into that abstract thinking in their brain, and then give them the hands-on experience so they can, in a sense, touch the story and apply it to their own business, then gives them that kind of one-to-punch of integrating it into their brains.

SPEAKER_00:

So, how are how are um so how are parents finding you or are the kids finding you? Who's how do they connect with you to find and and end up in your program?

SPEAKER_01:

I do a ton of Facebook advertising. Um, I most of the time to the parents. Um, I like have my target audience of like parents with kids between eight and 15 who live within 25 miles of here and like all you know that, like really nailing it down to get to them so they get those really distinct um kind of pop-ups. Yeah. Um, and then we do four children's business fairs a year, two community outreach events a year, and two fundraisers a year. So getting people to come to those events and then they see what the kids are doing, that's what drives a lot of people to join our membership, is kind of the the FOMO of, hey, wait a second, my neighbor is selling stuff right now and I'm not. And so then they end up signing up for the next one.

SPEAKER_00:

Ah, so can you tell us a little bit about some of your students' uh current past that and what they're up to? What are they, what are they, what kind of a businesses are they doing, these kids?

SPEAKER_01:

I think this is my favorite question because everybody thinks, oh, it's a kid run business. Obviously, they're selling lemonade or they're selling bracelets. Yes. I think that's kind of like what we assume when kids are doing it is either they're selling handmade jewelry that's stuff you really don't want to wear in public, but you want to tell them good job for making, or lemonade that probably has too much sugar. Um, but I actually I only have one lemonade maker, and the jewelry maker that I have is actually a young man who owns a business called Drip King, and his jewelry is phenomenal. I think that might be a picture in our last Facebook event of his booth, and you just will not even believe the beads that he finds to make the most gorgeous jewelry. Um, but I also have a kid who runs a 3D printing company. I have two kids who do crocheted stuffed animals. One of them even sells them on Etsy. Um I have one girl who makes her own pins, and she's makes such cute pins. Um here we go. She makes such cute pins. She was actually welcomed into a local uh zoo to consign her materials there and sell in their gift. Oh my goodness, that is so cute. I know there. This one says she is fearless, strong, brave, and full of life. Wow. Um, yeah, and then I have another kid. He is 13. He is a really avid reader, and he was really mad that none of his friends read. He was like, I want somebody to talk books with and nobody reads. Yeah. So he created a top 10 list where you come to him and you say, I really liked book this book. And he says, Okay, that book is in this genre. Here's the top 10 books I recommend in that genre for you to read. And he prints his top 10 list on the back of a bookmark so that you have the top 10 list on your bookmark, and then he goes to the secondhand bookstore and he buys discounted books, and then he puts those books in bundles. So you can come to his table, you can buy a bundle of books that's pre-selected books that go together with a book recommendation list all in one place.

SPEAKER_00:

That is just outstanding. Wow, these kids are amazing. Do they come to you with their ideas or do you help craft their ideas for them or with them?

SPEAKER_01:

Both. So some kids already have businesses, uh, like Brooklyn, who makes the pins. She was already making pins, and she came to the society so that we can continue her entrepreneurial education so she can learn things like writing a mission statement, writing a business plan, how to talk to customers. Other kids, like Troy, who does the books, they come to me with the idea of like, these are things I like and I want to make money. Can we turn this into a business somehow? And so those kids all get 45 minutes with me and their parent in my office. And we sit down and we look at um, you know, does how you decide on a business? What am I good at? What do I enjoy doing? What will people pay for? And then we kind of find where those three things meet in the middle and branch out on how do we turn that into a business.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. That I just I'm I'm blown away that you're doing this. I think it's I think it's spectacular. I really do. I mean, you know, school is important, but but this is very important, very important.

SPEAKER_01:

I think kind of what I tell me, I tell people and what I tell myself is like school is the academics of knowing how filling your brain with information. Entrepreneurship education is understanding the social and emotional aspects of it and how to apply the things that your brain learned.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Because like they go to school and they learn math. Right. And then they come to me and I teach them business budgeting. It's way more fun than regular math because we add dollar signs. Yes, of course. And they see the possibilities. Exactly. I'm yeah, I mean, they they're they need to be in tandem, whereas I think that's where the school kind of gets stuck in. We really need this rigorous education of strong learner advocacy and all these curricular things, which are all super important, but not if we forget the extracurriculars or we focus so heavily on sports that we don't allow for creative or more um long-term extracurricular activities. Yeah. Kids aren't gonna grow out of businesses, they might change their business. Like um, before we recorded, we talked about my daughter changing her business. Yes, they might change their business, but the chances of them deciding they're just never going to business again is pretty slim.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Wow. And so have you had any kids outgrow the program yet? No. A I guess age out is the is the word I'm looking for.

SPEAKER_01:

I haven't had any kids that age out. I have one girl who's 16. She's starting to get to the point where she's uh she's got a part-time job and just now she's learning how to balance business, part-time job, and school, which is a whole new like, what is this look like in life? Which again, once we reach adulthood, we have to balance home, kids, work, family. These are all skills that she's going to need for her whole life. For sure. The pressure is a lot less at 16 if you get it wrong than if you get it wrong at 35.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. Of course, absolutely. And and so really you're teaching them things that that we adults learn as we go.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. And they get to do it in a with less risk, which I think is the best part about teaching entrepreneurship to kids. Yes. Um, as a grown-up entrepreneur, I've started several businesses. The thing about starting a business when you're an adult is if things go south, you still have to pay the mortgage. That's right. And what do you do? And so there's a lot of pressure, there's a lot of fear of risk, and there's a lot of chances you don't take if you're an adult in business because the risk is too great. Right. If you start a business when you're seven, the risk is I might have to wait two weeks to buy ice cream instead of buying ice cream this week. Um, since the risk is so low, their opportunity to take chances, learn to reiterate, fail forward is much greater.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. And yeah, they don't have that burden on their shoulders that the rest of us do. So they're all it's almost like they're free in a sense, right? To just jump in there and do whatever it is that their heart desires. I just I'm just um yeah, I'm just amazed about this. So, so are other people doing this out there?

SPEAKER_01:

Is this something that there are uh here in the United States, at least I know for certain, um three or four other organizations that teach child entrepreneurship in one way or another. Oh, yes. Okay, but I will say that the thing that sets my program apart is there are organizations that do children's business fairs, they do pop-up shops, they let the kids get together and sell stuff, but they don't really have a solid educational component to go with those learning experiences. Right. Or there are programs with really fantastic curricula where you can sit down with a book and you can read a bunch of stories and answer a bunch of questions, but they don't really have a much hands-on experience for the kids to practice what they're learning. Yes, yes, and with the society, what I've done is take both of those components of both the stories and the workbooks and the actual experience of selling things and put them under one roof so kids actually get the full whole child experience of learning entrepreneurship.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and and they're gonna take all those skills with them as they grow, which are so important, just absolutely wow. I'm uh yeah, I just um I wish I lived near you. I've got kids who need a kick in the bum and get them going.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, give me give me five years. My plan was to be nationwide in five years, but I guess we could push to international in five years and you want to open a satellite location.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. So that is your plan, though.

SPEAKER_01:

I do, I want to be nationwide within five to ten years. I have a full 36-week curriculum for schools. I would like to have that in private schools and homeschoolers' hands within the next two years and in public schools within five years.

SPEAKER_00:

It should be in schools.

SPEAKER_01:

Right now, here in Kansas, which this is very niche specific because it's a law that only applies to students in Kansas.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

But uh in the United States, there are only five states that currently have what we call lemonade stand laws. And lemonade stand laws are laws that remove restrictions for children who want to run a lemonade stand or mow lawns or things like that. Yes, that they don't have to follow the same business laws that an adult starting a small business has to have. Kansas does not have one. So here in the state of Kansas, if a child wants to have a small business selling jewelry or pins or anything like that, they're limited to two sales events per year. If they try and sell more than two times per year, they have to register with the Secretary of State as with an LLC. And they actually have to form a legal business at seven, eight years old because there's no exception for minors here. So I drafted a proposed bill for our state legislature that creates some freedom for kids where they can do up to six events per year, earn up to$6,000 without registering with the state. Um, but it also provides some protections that some of the other states don't have where parents can't take more than 25% of their money. 15% of it has to be locked up for when they reach adulthood. Um, and I got a phone call earlier this week that we actually have two sponsors in our state legislator working to get that passed by early next year.

SPEAKER_00:

Good for you. You are an action taker. I don't go slow. It drives my husband insane. Well, good for you. And yeah, so they can't even have a lemonade stand in your the police will shut them down.

SPEAKER_01:

So that's the kind of the problem we're having is they can do it two times per year. Oh, two times per year. Okay. There's no way to prove when they've done it, which means if a police officer would want to come and shut them down at any point, they absolutely could. We're lucky that most police officers aren't really going to shut down a kid lemonade stand. Yeah. But they might shut down a jewelry stand owned by a 16-year-old. And they might shut down um like my pin maker. They might say, no, you're outside of the bounds of what you can do without registering an LLC. So making the this protection covers it so that the kids who are doing things other than lemonade stands still have some protection.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Wow. Wow. You know, it makes me think about I'm in Vancouver, Canada. And I mean, I've saw kids having lemonade stands in the summer, but I never ever thought that what if they wanted to start a business at a young age.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

unknown:

Huh.

SPEAKER_01:

Everybody, I think this is what kind of gets under my skin is everybody sees lemonade stands as like a fun game. And they're like, it's so cute. These kids are selling lemonade. And as somebody who is in education and child development and entrepreneurship, I'm like, this is such a massive teaching tool that you guys are just like wiping away with a giggle as a game. Yeah. And when adults don't take it seriously, then the kids just they don't understand the impact of what they could be learning. Yes. So that's kind of what I want the society to do is kind of enlighten parents to the opportunities and the creativity that their kids have. If we as adults ask more questions and say yes more often.

SPEAKER_00:

And I think that it you must have some really great parents, very open parents, to be, you know, okay, that you're interested in doing this. Let's let's head down and let's let's go to the society and uh and get you signed up and get you going. I mean, really though, they must be quite open-minded.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I actually I we have 18 dues paying members right now, and the parents of those 18 kids are phenomenal. Um, several of them are entrepreneurs themselves, and so they love being able to talk business with their kids without having to teach business to their kids. Yeah. Uh, because if you've ever had to teach your own child anything, it's much harder than having a stranger teach your child something.

SPEAKER_00:

For sure.

SPEAKER_01:

So when their kid comes to me and I teach them an entrepreneurial concept, and then they go home and they talk business with their kids and they feel like my kid knows stuff. Um, it's a great bonding experience for the parents and the kids. Um, they're creative parents who really are encouraging their kids. Um, my pen maker, Brooklyn, her dad has never missed an event. He has her everywhere that she needs to be, um, including the they were at an event, and one of the ladies who runs the gift shop for our local zoo was like, I want to talk to you. He had inventory in that store. He was ready to take care of her, anything they needed. And she actually, we just got notice in October that she sold out. All of the pins that she had consigned to the zoo sold out.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. Well, I would buy one for sure. I mean, they're cute as a button.

SPEAKER_01:

I have three. You have three? I have three. I keep two in my purse and one in my desk. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

Each of each of my daughters has bought at least one.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. That's just so amazing. And so you're not only just helping them with their creativity, but you're helping them with their business school skills. And they're gonna carry that right through their life. Right. Yeah. I I know for myself, I was uh, I am an entrepreneur. I have a book program, of course, but before that, I was in sales and marketing for 34 years, and nobody told me how to do it. Nobody told me, you know, I didn't even get the concept that you don't get a paycheck unless you sell something. Like I didn't get you, you know, like I kind of knew it, but I wasn't really thinking about it. And just the and and the the learning curve as an adult that it took me 18 months and I finally figured it out and and had a very long career. But but uh, but nobody taught.

SPEAKER_01:

There was none of that. I I love sales. Uh so I actually I moved out of my parents' house on a 100% commission job when I was 19. I I love sales. So that's one of the other things I love talking to the kids about. Like in January, we're doing a whole workshop on building rapport. And like, what does it mean to connect? And we're specifically doing building rapport at a booth because we do essentially our children's business fair is just a farmer's market for kids. Yeah. So people are wandering around and you're in your booth, and you only have, you know, 15 seconds when somebody's walking by to get them to stop.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, so we're doing a whole workshop on building rapport in a booth at a fair to get people to want to know more about your business so that they will buy from you.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh my goodness, I know a whole bunch of ladies that need you.

SPEAKER_01:

A whole bunch of ladies that could use it. It's hard because I mean, even me, I've done farmers markets where uh the tendency is to sit behind your table and be very timid. Yeah. Because every time you say hi to somebody and they don't say back, hi back, it becomes a rejection. And it's really easy to internalize those.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

So part of what I get to do is teach the kids how not to internalize that. Yes. Um, when I was uh one of my sales jobs when I was younger, we did coloring sheets. And so every time somebody told you no, you colored in a box. And when you got to 100 no's, you got a prize. Because 50% of sales, actually, that's a lie. 80% of sales is being told no, 20% of sales is actually selling something. Yes, yes. So being able to let those no's just slide off your back so that you can focus on I need no's before I can get to yeses. Everybody can't be the right customer for me.

SPEAKER_00:

And what a great way to get rid of that negativity, color it out.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. You just get like literally, you can Google like 100 doodle coloring sheet and just print one out. And then every time color a cupcake every time you get to no, and then when you get to a hundred no's, go buy yourself a cupcake.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Then you almost get mad when people say yes because you're like, oh, I was really looking forward to that cupcake.

SPEAKER_00:

I gotta get some more no's so I can get the cupcake.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh I'm so glad I can pay my rent, but what about my cupcake?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. I I am um I am I am impressed. I love, I love what you're doing. I think it's it is just so needed. And um, and I think with this techie world we're in, I'm even seeing it myself a lot more entrepreneurs, a lot more. I mean, there's always been, you know, the tub of wear sales and you know, those kinds of things, right? But I'm seeing it branch out like hugely. And it's not all multi-level marketing, it's a lot of other stuff uh that people are, you know, um, yeah, going into entrepreneurship.

SPEAKER_01:

And I own a wedding company.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. It's it's just it's just um, yeah, it it's everywhere. And so I think these kids are getting a uh they're getting an extra little lift up before they hit that road where they're on their own, so to say.

SPEAKER_01:

And I like to tell people, um, one of the things that we when we judge health, like obviously there's physical health, there's mental health, emotional health, physic, like all these other healths, but one of the things that can judge long-term health is upward mobility and the ability to move from a lower class to middle class to an upper middle class. Um, me teaching these kids entrepreneurship enables them to have the opportunity when they reach adulthood to have a fallback plan or a side hustle. Like, yes, they have their career, but something goes crazy with their career, throws a wrench into their life. They aren't going to fall on the economic line back down. They're going to know how to pivot and start a business, recover, and maybe move up that social ladder. Um, and the upward mobility comes from the creativity and the confidence that entrepreneurship teaches them.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Wow. And and, you know, if they get in a job that pays good, but and so they need it because they have family and all of those other adult things we have to take care of, they can still you've you're teaching them how to keep their passion going.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. Exactly. You can still do this little thing one day a week or you know, a couple hours a week to give yourself that that permission to feel joy in your life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. Well, Leah, I am just um, yeah, I I I love it. I wish I seriously wish you were closer because I've got grandkids that could that could uh you know, you know, I'm thinking now about my granddaughter. You know, what could she do? What could she do? Yeah, it's um it's it's great. I just I I'm I'm uh you know, I'm very excited about what you're doing. And I can't wait to watch you uh as life goes on. And um, you know, one day you'll be a franchise.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's right now we're a nonprofit, and so the goal is to be able to just open satellite locations in more places. One, because that expands our donor base because we're a nonprofit and we need donors. Um, and two, because it gives me the opportunity to impact more kids. I mean, every time I get the opportunity to sit down and tell a kid your creativity matters, your problem-solving skills matter. Um, I'm changing the trajectory of some of their lives.

SPEAKER_00:

Yes, yes, absolutely you are. Yeah. Well, okay, everybody. Yeah, it is. If you, if anybody, if you want to reach out to Leah, all of her information is going to be in the show notes. And so we'll have links to her website and to her social media. So don't hesitate to reach out if you have questions. Um uh, even if you're in Canada, don't hesitate. She she's around, just a little bit of a different time zone, but she she's there to help. So, Leah, is there anything? Anything at all that you would like to share with our audience before we before we go?

SPEAKER_01:

I have this one thing, and it's gonna it's gonna sound juxtaposed to everything else I've said, but I really truly hate the phrase, our children are the future. And so my challenge to people is to stop using our children are the future as a scapegoat to not let kids do things now. Um it's really easy to say our children are the future, but they're too young to have an impact today. So I want to challenge you when your kids have ideas, ask them how they want to do it now. And if you see something, ask your kid how you would change that now, rather than waiting until they're adults. Because they already have ideas. Just listen to them for a minute.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, great advice. Great advice. Well, thank you so much for that. Well, I'm gonna take a deep breath and uh and let myself absorb this conversation that we've had. It was it's very good. And thank you so much being for being willing to come on the podcast and and uh and do this and share your wisdom. Uh, you have a lot, and you're teaching young people um how to be entrepreneurs. Uh uh is such a so important, such a valuable thing. So thank you so much, Leah. Everybody, thank you for being here. And uh, we will see you again uh on the next episode of Women Like Me. Take care.