If I Could Invent Anything In The World…

10 Year-Old Inventor Shares Secret For Success

(CBS)  Don't laugh: Some of the ideas that come from the youngest inventors are worth a second look.

Ten-year-old Kelly Reinhart was able to turn her very first idea into real money. But that's what sometimes happens when adults pay attention to people who haven't learned how to fail, reports CBS News Correspondent Tracy Smith in this week's Study Hall report.

Now, Kelly is a teaching other youngsters how to make their ideas pay off.

“Every day you're going to write five more, OK?” says Kelly to her class. The 10-year-old inventor is a patent holder and a successful business owner and she's not even in sixth grade yet.

Her career began on a rainy day four years ago.

“We asked the kids to all sit down at the table, really to get them out of our hair, and draw an invention,” says her father, Bob Reinhart.

“And they really didn’t think we were actually going to come up with anything good,” says Kelly.

They were wrong. Kelly came up with a drawing of a thigh pack, similar to a Western gun holster, that could be used for carrying video games and other "kid" valuables.

Now a lot of people might have just hung the picture on the refrigerator and left it at that. Not the Reinharts. Where other people see just a doodle, Reinhart saw dollar signs.

And so, after a few modifications, the drawing became The T-Bag and Kelly's invention was a hit.

How much has Kelly made?

“I'm not actually sure,” she says. “I don't even think my dad knows. It's a lot, though.”

“Well I'm going to put it this way: the family hasn't made any money per se, the money went back into other companies,” explains her father.

But if the money had not gone back into other companies, “Uh, we would have made millions. I'm just going to leave it at millions” he says.

Now, dad has a new job; he's working for Kelly.

“I have been working for her for three years,” he says.

And when Kelly's not in school or minding her business, she shares her secrets with other kids who have ideas of their own.

"If I could invent anything in the world it would be a remote control holder so you could find your remote and beep it when it's lost," says one of her students.

As for Kelly's future, she says she doesn't want to be a professional inventor when she grows up; she has her sights set on a seat in congress.