70 Years of Impact: Stories That Shape Junior Achievement?
From JA BizTown to Business Owner: The Lasting Impact of Junior Achievement
Connor Bedell, Windy City Performance Posture

JA started for me in elementary school, when I was going to McKinley Elementary in Davenport, Iowa. We started in kindergarten and then went up through fifth grade and junior high. JA, for me, was this time to be able to think about how to solve problems differently. JA was teaching you skills that was more of, how do we think outside of the box, of what this situation might need, or what are some problems or things that we may not have thought about, that we might encounter when talking about business or trying to come up with solutions, and it forced you to think in ways that you weren't necessarily taught to think through doing just your normal schoolwork. So that's what I really enjoyed about it when it first started.

As far as the annual report goes, I did not remember being in that until my mom [Honey] sent me the photo. She was like, hey, look, you were in this. I was like, I don't remember being in that. JA has been something that she's tapped into, I think, for different reasons, of trying to push leadership within youth as well as a lot of her friends are involved in entrepreneurship or other social engagements that JA really does a great job of promoting. So I think for her, it was just, how do we find a way to be able to push these kids to think differently and want to go do something that they may not have thought would have been possible for them.

“JA BizTown has been a frequent topic of conversation at the dinner table since the first day of school, and yesterday lied up to all the expectations. My son, Connor, told me at bedtime last night that it was one of the best days of his life and wondered if he could live there.” – Honey Bedell

One of the biggest things that I think you learned through JA, especially group projects in general, is just how to communicate with people, and especially people of different walks of life who are in the same areas that you are. You get to sit down and attack a common goal or problem and have to communicate with different types of people how you see the problem is different than everybody else that you're working with, but you're all working towards one common goal.

I think there's been a growing consensus of what kids need to be learning within school. And we always talk about how kids need to be taught practical life skills. Well, this is literally the practical life skill that every kid is clamoring to want to learn. How do I do my taxes? How do I balance a checkbook? How do I manage my money? Well, these are all skills that you are learning within JA. I think as we move into a different changing of jobs and how people go into the workforce, and what's required of them is this is something that is going to give you a lot of control over what the opportunities are for you. If you can learn how to build a business and learn to want to do something like this there's a lot of avenues that open for you.

I’m an entrepreneur, and I probably do something that 99.9% of the people have never heard. I do something called posture therapy, which is essentially like functional movement therapy, to try to realign the body. And I primarily work with baseball players. So growing up baseball was my big thing of what I like to do. And since getting injured I've wanted to be able to help other people avoid the situations that I got into. So I've learned about this different rehab method to help people, and that's what I've started to do. And I really love it.

The biggest thing I would say to the youth audience would be as you're going through and you're doing these different exercises or thought activities, is they might feel pointless while you're doing them, but they're going to teach you how to attack problems differently, and they're going to force you to think of different ways to do things, or different potential solutions that are out there; and getting frustrated with these types of exercises is something to expect, and it's something that you have to go through to be able to get to the other side of it to figure out how to attack those problems better. So JA is one of those things that it doesn't come inherently easy, because it's forcing you to do things that you’re not good at, and to get better at them, you actually have to do the thing. So go through these exercises, take them seriously, because they're going to force you to think differently and make you a much smarter person for it.

Learn more about Connor's story.

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