millionaireME Minute: 🍪 I’d Buy a Million Cookies From This Girl 🍪
Good evening. It’s Thursday, July 31st, 2025. Meet Fiona-something-or-other-with-a-beautiful-but-impossible-to-spell-Italian-last-name. She’s 12. She’s starting a business. And today, she showed up at our front door completely alone to sell homemade chocolate chip cookies. No parent. No sibling. No friend lurking at the curb. Just a dozen ounces of courage wrapped in a Ziploc bag and a brave smile. She was nervous. You could see it. And how could she not be? Most adults wouldn’t dare cold-call a stranger’s house. But there she was, doing it anyway. Now, being a girl dad—with two entrepreneurial daughters who launched their own cupcake business years ago—I wasn’t just buying cookies. I was watching history repeat in the most beautiful way. 😊 So, of course I bought the cookies! As a tip of sorts, I also offered Fiona three suggestions, which she gladly accepted: 1. Don’t be nervous. You have every reason to be proud. You’re doing something 99.9% of your peers wouldn’t dare to. You’re already winning. 2. Don’t let anyone talk you down on price. $5 for five hand-delivered, homemade cookies is a steal. If someone tries to haggle, they’re not your customer. Smile and move on. You’ll find your people. 3. (The one I thought of after she left): Give buyers a way to buy again. A card. A QR code. A sticky note with a name and number. Return customers are how businesses are built. And guess what? She was already smart enough to accept Venmo. (No cash? No problem. We Venmo’d her mom.) As we closed the door, we both said the same thing: “We’re so proud of her—and our girls at that age too.” Here’s the truth, friends: If you want to raise capable, confident, successful kids, encourage them to start something. Anything. A business. A service. A hustle. It teaches initiative, courage, pricing, rejection, confidence, and follow-through—all in one cookie bag. And if someone like Fiona knocks on your door? Buy the cookies. 🍪 And if you’re part of the millionaireME community—tell them: “You’re doing amazing. Keep going.”