In this episode, April Shprintz shares how she began her mindset journey at just six years old after being told she was poor during a school project. She decided to start a business selling “magic blue rocks” to fix her situation and recruited her sister’s help. Although successful, the business was shut down by her teacher, causing fear of her mother’s reaction. This experience taught April the power of mindset and led her to start mastering her own.
—
Listen to the podcast here
April’s Mindset Origin Story
Thank you for tuning in. I’ve been talking about studying and working on mindset for years and years. It wasn’t until I wrote my book Magic Blue Rocks that I realized that I started my mindset journey as a little kid. I thought I’d share that story with you because, for a lot of us, something pretty big in our history started our mindset journey, something that happened, something that we were looking to work through, or something that we learned.
For me, I was six years old and in the first grade doing a project with one of my classmates during recess. He happened to deliver the most shocking news I’d ever heard to date, which was the news that I was poor. I remember when Brad told me that I was poor based on a question that I answered for him about why I couldn’t buy new school clothes. My pants were too short, and it was spring. We wouldn’t buy new clothes again until school started, which I didn’t think meant anything at all.
Magic Blue Rocks: The Secret to Doing Anything – https://www.amazon.com/Magic-Blue-Rocks-Secret-Anything/dp/1736265806/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Brad, being this smart kid who thought differently and was very logical, realized that meant we couldn’t afford them. The moment that he said those words, “You’re poor.” I was awash with shame. I can still remember feeling the heat rise in my stomach and the back of my neck into my cheeks, and being incredibly upset and thinking, “That’s such a horrible thing to be. I don’t want to be that.” I was arguing with him and saying, “No, I’m not poor.”
Having him take me through this list of questions, which was remarkably intelligent for a kid his age, asking about my parents, and what they did for a living, and then finally asking the question, “Do you get free lunch?” At that moment, I remember thinking about all the things that I hadn’t been thinking about. The fact that sometimes the power would be off in my home for a couple of days while my mom worked to get it back on. The fact that I did live with my mom. I didn’t have two parents. We had people from church who brought us food. All of these things that I had ignored as a kid came crashing back.
I shared with him that I am poor. I was incredibly sad and scared, and wondering what his reaction would be. What was so remarkable is Brad was super kind. He was like, “Yeah, that makes sense.” He went right back to the project. To him, we had solved a puzzle and it was not a big deal. To me, my life felt like it would never be the same. I had to solve this thing. I had to fix it. I thought if my mom could do it, she would’ve done it already so it was up to me.
I tried to think of all the people I knew who were successful or who had money, and they were all on TV. The people that I knew that were successful and had money had businesses. I decided that I needed to start a business. I went home and I was looking through the house and trying to figure out what I could sell because that was the business I could have. I couldn’t find anything in the house that I was willing to part with that was nice enough to sell.
I finally landed on the idea of taking these blue markers that I found in the house and coloring rocks from my driveway blue. I thought that if I colored them blue, I could make them magic. As a six-year-old, I could do anything I believed I could do. I believed at that point in time that I could put that belief or put that magic into those rocks so that anyone who had one could do whatever they thought they could do.
As a six-year-old, I could do anything I believed I could do.
I put all those rocks in a bag after I colored them. I recruited help from my sister and took them to school the next day, and sold them at school. I write about this in detail in my book Magic Blue Rocks. I will tell you that it was my first time selling. It was my first business, but it went well. I sold a rock to almost every kid in my class. The only bad part is that many of them used their lunch money. I priced them at a quarter and they weren’t able to pay for lunch.
As a result of that, I was found out by my teacher. She shut down my Magic Blue Rock business, which wasn’t that big of a deal. What was a big deal was that she also decided she was going to call my mother. I was terrified to have my mother come to school because her job was very important in my view, and she couldn’t get a call unless it was an emergency. I was scared about how she was going to react and whether or not I was going to be in big trouble.
She came to school and she sat down and talked to me. This is the mindset part. This is where things began to change for me. She had to go through and explain to me that we were poor. I cannot imagine this. My mom would’ve been about 31 years old explaining to her 6-year-old that you’re poor. How heartbreaking that must be. As she started to tell me that we were poor, but that was what you had. It wasn’t who you were. She started to cry.
What you have isn’t who you are.
My mom was the toughest person I had ever met in my entire life. The fact that talking about being poor made her cry was so shocking to me, and it made such an impression. She talked about how I was different and that I could have a different life. That didn’t have to be what happened to me. I could do whatever I wanted to. She was proud.
At that moment, I noticed the difference. When she talked about the thing that she didn’t like or that she didn’t want to be true, it made her cry. When she talked about the thing that made her feel good, her eyes shone with pride. Her posture was different, and she looked powerful and capable. I noticed the difference in her. I made the promise to myself at that moment at six years old that I was never going to focus on the things that made me feel bad and cry. I was going to focus on the things that made you feel good and proud.
Don’t focus on the things that make you feel bad and cry. Instead, focus on those that make you feel good and proud. Share on XI didn’t understand it at that moment, but that was the first time I made a choice to have a winning mindset, and it set me on a path to create an incredible life. I bet if you think back, there’s a moment like that for you. What I would love is to hear about that moment. I’d love for you to reach out to me. If you go to my website WinningMindsetMasteryPodcast.com, all the way at the bottom is Ask April. It’s a section where you and I can have a private conversation. You can send me a message and I will answer it personally and privately in my own voice.
I would love to hear your story about how your mindset journey started, and where you are in it today, and tell me how it’s going for you. I love hearing about your journey and all of the things that happened for you. If you want to hear the rest of the stories, you can get my book on Audible, eBook, or any of the formats if you’re interested in learning about how you too can do anything. Here’s to your success.