Thirteen year old Robin
April 1, 2021
In this episode we talk about some childhood memories of a natural born entrepreneur.
Earlier today, someone asked me if I was a natural born entrepreneur, and I kind of chuckled in my well, like in my head. I didn't chuckle out loud, but I didn't let him know that I have this entire podcast where it's all about natural, natural born entrepreneurs, and it serves natural born entrepreneurs. But I told him, Yeah, I'm a natural born entrepreneur and I actually gave an example of what makes me a natural born entrepreneur.
So one of the stories that I normally share is one of my first experiences with entrepreneurship, and I feel like there might have been some stuff before, but this is like definitely a distinct memory. Remember when I used to live in Utah? I was around 56 years old, and we had this huge garden behind, like our buildings like Utah. First of all, is beautiful. Utah is up in the mountains, so if you can imagine like these mountains, I would wake up in the morning, look outside my window and see these majestic mountains. There is so huge, and I would I remember thinking to myself, It's just like, Wow, I'm the only person in the world that has this view right now and with some respect. And, you know, it's kind of true, like with the angle etcetera. But these it was just really majestic views anyway, So in the garden, me and my brother, we used to go play out there pretty often. And one of the things that we really like doing is we liked catching snakes and catching insects.
So this is like the type of stuff that you might see on, like Leave it to Beaver, one of those old timey episodes. But this is like stuff that we actually did. We went out, we would catch snakes and we would catch insects. And we do this with other kids in the neighborhood, etcetera. But one of the things that I was doing early on is I was catching these insects and I would put them in jars, and I would also put them in the strawberry baskets. So I don't know if you've ever seen the strawberry baskets that are in the grocery store. They're green like these little baskets through green, and they put strawberries in them. But I'll take these strawberries baskets and put them upside down. Put a insects, some kind of bug, like a butterfly or whatever in there. And, you know, now that I think about it was kind of mean to the bugs. Like, I don't think I would do something like that right now, but yeah, this is what I did when I was, like, 56 years old and I put bugs in jars and I would charge the other kids in the neighborhood to come check out my insect zoo. And then I also would sell slugs like, you know, this nails without the shells slugs for, like, a nickel. So that was one of my first experiences with entrepreneurship. And then here is a story that I actually haven't really shared with anyone. I've only maybe shared this with one person and maybe only two people in the world probably remember the story, and only a handful of people actually know that this happened when I was 13 years old.
I was living in Kuwait and Kuwait. This is after I've already been raised in the U. S. So I was living in Utah. We lived in Michigan and lived in several different cities in Michigan, um, and Utah, as well But then we moved to Kuwait. My father, he wanted to go. He got a job offer with the University of Kuwait to be a professor of civil engineering there. And he loves the academia world. So he, like, jumped on that opportunity. And he took that job and took all of us along with him. And we went to this private school in Kuwait. It was an American private school, and this is like where all the dignitaries and stuff their kids go. So it's like a really different environment if you think about the princesses and princes of the the Crown Prince of Kuwait, and they went to that school as well, and it was an all American English speaking school. But this is what the school was like in Kuwait. There are a few things that are not allowed like they would be in other countries.
So when Kuwait, it's a dry country, which means you cannot legally buy alcohol, and you can also, by any pornography, there's no pornography in Kuwait. In fact, they're so strict with pornography. I remember watching The Lion King, and there was this, like big uproar among some of the American students in Lion King because they censored the Kuwaiti officials censored one of the parts where I think Simba's mom is like licking Simba. It's a clean Simba, and they saw that as some kind of you know, it could be construed as some kind of sexual act. So they just took it out of the cartoon and they'll leave like curse words and all this violence. It could be as gory as you want, but anything that's suggesting sex at all, it gets cut out. So there's no pornography in Kuwait, and I recognize this as a 13 year old, and I guess 13 years old is like when you would actually recognize this opportunity anyway. But the thought of a 13 year old going through the stop process. It kind of tickles me right now. Um, but as a 13 year old, I recognized that Quake didn't have pornography access to pornography, and this was pre Internet. So it's not like you can just download pornography on the Internet. It wasn't several years until people started passing around these floppy disks full of pornography pictures, but the only way to get pornography was from magazines and videos and I going to an American school had access to very many friends that would go consistently back to the U. S. Or to the UK, and every time they went, they would pick up some pornography magazines for me and some videotapes for me and I would go out and I would sell these. And it was It was, Yeah, it just tickles me that there's this 13 year old going and selling pornography to adults. And here's the thing. I was selling it to adults. It wasn't even like other kids. It's the adults who had the money.
The magazine sold for way more. I think the magazines I was selling it for five K D, which is like $15 K 80 cents for Kuwaiti dinars and the videos because it's really easy to make copies of the videos. We just sold them sheep, and I'm pretty sure they got copied and sent around. But the the real prize was the magazines, because with magazines you don't need electricity. You don't need for people to leave because this is like when the TV is in the living room and people didn't have TVs in their bedrooms back then, But you got this big, clunky TV in the living room and the VCR, and you have to wait for your entire family believe if you want to watch pornography. So the magazines were really valuable, so those went for more money. But yeah, as a 13 year old, this was one of my other enterprising activities, and I think it's funny. What kind of entrepreneurial activities did you first start in? I want to hear your stories. Please email me at robin@robincopernicus.com, and I can't wait to see what you have to say. Boom, Bam! I'm out.
Continue your journey with me on my other channels:
So one of the stories that I normally share is one of my first experiences with entrepreneurship, and I feel like there might have been some stuff before, but this is like definitely a distinct memory. Remember when I used to live in Utah? I was around 56 years old, and we had this huge garden behind, like our buildings like Utah. First of all, is beautiful. Utah is up in the mountains, so if you can imagine like these mountains, I would wake up in the morning, look outside my window and see these majestic mountains. There is so huge, and I would I remember thinking to myself, It's just like, Wow, I'm the only person in the world that has this view right now and with some respect. And, you know, it's kind of true, like with the angle etcetera. But these it was just really majestic views anyway, So in the garden, me and my brother, we used to go play out there pretty often. And one of the things that we really like doing is we liked catching snakes and catching insects.
So this is like the type of stuff that you might see on, like Leave it to Beaver, one of those old timey episodes. But this is like stuff that we actually did. We went out, we would catch snakes and we would catch insects. And we do this with other kids in the neighborhood, etcetera. But one of the things that I was doing early on is I was catching these insects and I would put them in jars, and I would also put them in the strawberry baskets. So I don't know if you've ever seen the strawberry baskets that are in the grocery store. They're green like these little baskets through green, and they put strawberries in them. But I'll take these strawberries baskets and put them upside down. Put a insects, some kind of bug, like a butterfly or whatever in there. And, you know, now that I think about it was kind of mean to the bugs. Like, I don't think I would do something like that right now, but yeah, this is what I did when I was, like, 56 years old and I put bugs in jars and I would charge the other kids in the neighborhood to come check out my insect zoo. And then I also would sell slugs like, you know, this nails without the shells slugs for, like, a nickel. So that was one of my first experiences with entrepreneurship. And then here is a story that I actually haven't really shared with anyone. I've only maybe shared this with one person and maybe only two people in the world probably remember the story, and only a handful of people actually know that this happened when I was 13 years old.
I was living in Kuwait and Kuwait. This is after I've already been raised in the U. S. So I was living in Utah. We lived in Michigan and lived in several different cities in Michigan, um, and Utah, as well But then we moved to Kuwait. My father, he wanted to go. He got a job offer with the University of Kuwait to be a professor of civil engineering there. And he loves the academia world. So he, like, jumped on that opportunity. And he took that job and took all of us along with him. And we went to this private school in Kuwait. It was an American private school, and this is like where all the dignitaries and stuff their kids go. So it's like a really different environment if you think about the princesses and princes of the the Crown Prince of Kuwait, and they went to that school as well, and it was an all American English speaking school. But this is what the school was like in Kuwait. There are a few things that are not allowed like they would be in other countries.
So when Kuwait, it's a dry country, which means you cannot legally buy alcohol, and you can also, by any pornography, there's no pornography in Kuwait. In fact, they're so strict with pornography. I remember watching The Lion King, and there was this, like big uproar among some of the American students in Lion King because they censored the Kuwaiti officials censored one of the parts where I think Simba's mom is like licking Simba. It's a clean Simba, and they saw that as some kind of you know, it could be construed as some kind of sexual act. So they just took it out of the cartoon and they'll leave like curse words and all this violence. It could be as gory as you want, but anything that's suggesting sex at all, it gets cut out. So there's no pornography in Kuwait, and I recognize this as a 13 year old, and I guess 13 years old is like when you would actually recognize this opportunity anyway. But the thought of a 13 year old going through the stop process. It kind of tickles me right now. Um, but as a 13 year old, I recognized that Quake didn't have pornography access to pornography, and this was pre Internet. So it's not like you can just download pornography on the Internet. It wasn't several years until people started passing around these floppy disks full of pornography pictures, but the only way to get pornography was from magazines and videos and I going to an American school had access to very many friends that would go consistently back to the U. S. Or to the UK, and every time they went, they would pick up some pornography magazines for me and some videotapes for me and I would go out and I would sell these. And it was It was, Yeah, it just tickles me that there's this 13 year old going and selling pornography to adults. And here's the thing. I was selling it to adults. It wasn't even like other kids. It's the adults who had the money.
The magazine sold for way more. I think the magazines I was selling it for five K D, which is like $15 K 80 cents for Kuwaiti dinars and the videos because it's really easy to make copies of the videos. We just sold them sheep, and I'm pretty sure they got copied and sent around. But the the real prize was the magazines, because with magazines you don't need electricity. You don't need for people to leave because this is like when the TV is in the living room and people didn't have TVs in their bedrooms back then, But you got this big, clunky TV in the living room and the VCR, and you have to wait for your entire family believe if you want to watch pornography. So the magazines were really valuable, so those went for more money. But yeah, as a 13 year old, this was one of my other enterprising activities, and I think it's funny. What kind of entrepreneurial activities did you first start in? I want to hear your stories. Please email me at robin@robincopernicus.com, and I can't wait to see what you have to say. Boom, Bam! I'm out.
Continue your journey with me on my other channels:
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