Though there is a world of information to be discovered between the pages of a book, I hold to the belief that the greatest education consists of hands-on learning. This conviction stems from my personal experience of managing a small business. In fact, if I had to trade my entire high school education for the hands-on work I did building a business,  I would make the switch in a heart beat.

I jumped into the dog raising industry in 2012 rather suddenly when my aunt needed help setting up a small business of her own. My first paid job, at $5/ hour, consisted of getting up at 6AM in the morning to care for 10 small and large breed dogs that were all adjusting to a new home. Because of my fondness for the canine species, I fell in love with the job.

Enter the tragic experience of my dad passing away unexpectedly when I was 13 years old. As the oldest child in a large family, I felt the weight of necessity. With the help of some friends to whom I will forever be grateful, I embarked on my own journey raising Golden Retrievers.

At the time, I was in such emotional pain that I could hardly focus on traditional school work.  (I still have 9th grade textbooks that I did not completely finish.) But I was pouring myself into tangible experience that taught me more than any book could have. Through hands- on experience and commitment to something outside my grief, my heart began to heal. But without realizing it, I was also gaining by default skills that many only realize when they become CEO of a company.

The greatest skill developed in me through my dog raising was consistency. No matter how I felt, no matter what day it was, the dogs needed food, water, grooming, and personal attention. And when there were 10-20 puppies that also needed constant attention, the stakes got higher. I spent an average of 4 hours a day with the dogs. Consistency is a skill that can only be learned by experience; I am forever grateful that I was introduced to a job that forced me to birth steadiness.

Secondly, I got a start in both sales and marketing without realizing it. (Learning to take high- quality photos of a squirming puppy that looked good on a website was an accomplishment in itself.) I also learned how to watch  patterns in customers, find common ground with potential leads, and craft my selling points for each puppy based on the customers’ individual needs. I bargained concerning price drops, and learned advertising techniques that targeted my choice audiences. No, I didn’t learn marketing lingo. But, more importantly, I built the foundation of experience that set me up to refine my marketing ability later on in life.

Finally, I gathered more management skills in my years of dog breeding than anything else could have taught me. Navigating meetings, creating payment plans, finalizing paperwork, keeping track of expenses, and keeping up with emails and phone calls gave me exposure to the reality of adult work. I always will be grateful for the administrative ability that day-to-day coordination of both expected and unexpected tasks built into me.

I cannot stress enough the importance of entrepreneurship from a young age.  Not only did I love my job, I built a strong base of three top skills that are in high demand in today’s professional world. “Teach a man to fish…”