What an 11-Year-Old’s Trash Bin Business Reveals about Courage and Service
Guest Commentary
Audio By Carbonatix
By Mike Leake, Crosswalk.com
Key Points
- Ashton Meyer started a trash-bin-cleaning business by knocking on neighbors’ doors and offering to do a job most people would rather avoid.
- His story shows that courage often begins with small, awkward steps of faithfulness.
- Rejection can become part of courage training when we learn to get back up and keep going.
- Scripture shows that small acts of courage can prepare people for larger responsibilities.
- True courage often looks like humble service, carrying burdens, and using what we have to help others flourish.
Walk into the bedroom of many 11-year-old boys, and you’ll find a room filled with superheroes. Posters lining the walls, capes hanging from hooks, action figures frozen in battle poses, video-game controllers on the floor. They are training to be epic.
Who doesn’t want to be a superhero? To be the one charging into danger, rescuing innocent people, standing alone against impossible odds, and always getting the girl. Many boys dream about those moments when everyone else is afraid, but they somehow rise to the occasion.
Where does that kind of courage come from? Does it come from playing out those fantasies in video games, or watching movies, or having superhero bedsheets? Is our only hope of this kind of courage being bitten by a radioactive spider, struck by lightning, or injected with Super-Soldier serum?
How do you actually train to be courageous when others are afraid?
For 11-year-old Ashton Meyer, it looked like walking up to a neighbor’s door and asking whether he could clean their trash bin.
What Happened With Ashton Meyer’s Trash Bin Business?
Young Ashton wanted to figure out how to make a little money over the summer. So he and his dad, Jonathan, began brainstorming ideas. They started with a need—the older neighbors needing help moving their garbage bins to the curb. But Ashton took the suggestion a step further. He’d offer neighbors a full bin-cleaning service, charging $10 per bin.
The hardest part, though, wouldn’t be cleaning the muck. It’d be facing rejection. Ashton actually cried the first time someone told him no to him. But he kept knocking on doors, eventually building a base of roughly 30 to 40 customers. His mom suggested that he video his door-to-door interactions and post on social media. His efforts took off on social media, and now his business, YourBinCleaning, has over 100,000 followers. And donations from supporters have allowed him to clean bins free of charge for seniors and people with disabilities.
All of that may not sound too heroic at first, but it’s real. His offer of doing dirty work, hearing a no, and then finding the nerve to knock on another door is actually the forge where real courage is formed. Ordinary work is how real “superheroes” are formed. And that’s true for adults as much as for eleven-year-olds.
How Does Real Courage Begin in Small Things?
When we think about courage, we think of men like William Wallace with painted faces, giving riveting speeches, and encouraging a whole army to go into battle. But Scripture often shows us little glimpses of courage that have a huge impact on history. It can look like telling the truth, making a request, offering help, or even walking up to a neighbor’s door.
In 2 Kings 5, we read of Naaman, a powerful military commander. But he has leprosy. We’re supposed to see him as helpless and all those around him unable to cure him. All of his power is for naught in the face of this disease. But then an unnamed Israelite girl who had been taken captive and forced to serve Naaman’s household spoke up. She told her mistress about a prophet in Israel who could help.
Her contribution to the story of the Bible is only one sentence. Yet without that sentence, Naaman never would have begun his journey of healing.
It’s little things like this that actually form us as people. Small acts of courage tend to multiply. That was what we saw with Ashton’s first act of courage. He did not fight a villain or rescue someone from danger. He made an offer and risked hearing no.
How Does Small Courage Prepare Us for Bigger Faithfulness?
It’s one of those questions that delivers an unexpected answer. If someone offered you a million dollars today or a single penny doubled every day for a month, which would you take? The million today feels like the correct answer. And for a while, it doesn’t seem like you’ve made a good choice. After all, a week into the thing, you’re only at sixty-four cents. But the growth keeps building. By the thirtieth day, that penny has become more than 5 million dollars. The total accumulation would be $10.7 million.
In the same way, imagine a group of trained military men vs a little runt of a shepherd boy. If you had to pick one to fight a giant, that little shepherd boy is like picking the penny. But what you aren’t seeing is that this shepherd boy has been fighting off predators in lonely fields. Each of these little acts of courage has built up not only his own resolve but, more importantly, his trust in God.
When he comes face-to-face with a giant, it’s not his first battle. He’s exercised that courage muscle time and time again. That’s why he stands so boldly.
We often want day-thirty courage without day-one faithfulness. We imagine that when the great test arrives, we’ll suddenly become bold, decisive, and unafraid. But courage doesn’t come from nowhere. It accumulates through smaller moments: telling the truth when a lie would protect us, admitting a mistake before someone discovers it, or trying again after rejection.
Jesus described this pattern in terms of stewardship: “You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much” (Matthew 25:21). Larger responsibilities are often preceded by smaller opportunities to prove faithful. Be faithful in your bin-cleaning business, do the hard work of knocking on doors, and you might find yourself stewarding a growing social media platform. Do that well, and who knows what might lie ahead. But it all starts with that first knock on the door and the awkward question. And it comes after getting knocked down a few times and getting back up. The little assignments in your life aren’t a distraction from the greater one; they are preparation for it. Becoming a superhero doesn’t come from imagining something epic and waiting for that opportunity; it comes from being faithful with the simple everyday tasks you’ve been given.
Granted, it’s a small sample size, but consider how an 11-year-old now deals with rejection. If a neighbor rejects his business proposal, he’s no longer crushed. He’s heard “no” before. And he bounced back, receiving a few “yes” answers. I’d venture to say that when he’s older, this bin-cleaning business will prepare him for far more courageous activities.
Why Does Christian Courage Often Look Like Service?
The one who wants to be great among you must be…
If you’re familiar with your Bible, you likely know how to finish that sentence. But if we’re honest, we tend to finish that sentence differently.
…the strongest
…the one in charge
…wealthy
…most admired
…the one who wins
…the most gifted.
But Jesus says that whoever wants to be great must be a servant. That’s not the word you’d expect. Jesus modeled this too. Look at what he was doing the night before the most courageous act in history. He was washing the feet of His disciples.
That’s not to mention that the whole purpose of Him courageously enduring the cross was for the sake of other people. This too was an act of service. And that is really the heart of courage. It’s ultimately not self-serving. Courage can be the willingness to lower ourselves for someone else’s good. It takes courage to accept work that earns little applause, to notice needs others ignore, and to serve without worrying whether the task makes us look important.
That’s another part of what makes Ashton’s story so compelling. It’s not just a story about overcoming rejection. It’s also about a young man choosing work that most people would prefer not to touch. And as his business grew, he looked for ways to serve others. That’s pretty amazing.
Most of us will never be asked to save a city. But we will be asked to carry someone’s burden, take responsibility for an unpleasant task, defend those who are overlooked, or use what we’ve gained to help others flourish. That’s what courage is all about.
And Ashton Meyer gives us a picture of what it looks like to build courage.
Frequently Asked Questions about Courage, Work, and Serving Others
- What does Ashton Meyer’s story teach about courage?
His story shows that courage often begins with small steps, such as asking, serving, risking rejection, and trying again after hearing no. - How does ordinary work build courage?
Ordinary work builds courage by training us to be faithful, responsible, humble, and willing to do what needs to be done even when it is uncomfortable. - What does the Bible say about being faithful in small things?
Jesus teaches that faithfulness in small responsibilities prepares us for greater ones and reveals the kind of stewards we are becoming. - Why does Christian courage often look like service?
Christian courage follows the example of Jesus, who showed greatness through humility, sacrifice, foot-washing, and giving Himself for others. - How can rejection help form courage?
Rejection can teach endurance when we refuse to let one no define us and instead keep taking faithful steps forward.
For Further Reading
- Why Should We Work with All Our Hearts?
- Faithful with Small
- The Bible Story of David and Goliath
- 25 Bible Verses about Serving Others and Loving Our Neighbor
- 2 Kings 5:2-3 - The Young Girl Who Spoke Up
Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Motortion
