Boy, so many good thoughts to digest. I knew I would get some good stuff from everyone. Levi is 20 at this time. My worry was the student loans starting to come in if he quits. He does have some money coming in with his affiliates right now but not enough to live on. His beef is that if he had the time to focus he would making more. The business he started and wants to get going is in media. Photography and video. He enjoys doing interviews and wants to make documentaries. Along with that is web site design and hosting. He has made some really good business contacts at college which was one of his goals and he has really learned lots about life. If the college would have lived up to what he thought or was even located somewhere else, everything would have been fine. On top of all that, he wants to be a professional mt. bike rider, though that could be falling by the wayside. Gary, you said "Success in anything is built one rung at a time. Natural talent, of course, will enable the rungs to be ascended more quickly." Levi knows quite a bit about proceeding one rung at a time. If he didn't I don't know how he would have survived mt. bike races. You had better not try it until you've got some skill under your belt. Martha

Hi Martha, I was just about to go out when I noticed your reply. Hmm. Levi is at a very impressionable age - 20 - just trying to make his mark somewhere. You said: ====================== "Gary, you said "Success in anything is built one rung at a time. Natural talent, of course, will enable the rungs to be ascended more quickly." Levi knows quite a bit about proceeding one rung at a time. If he didn't I don't know how he would have survived mt. bike races. You had better not try it until you've got some skill under your belt. ======================= Then, he is in an enviable position. All he needs to do is to be able to take the lessons learned in his bike racing and "transfer" that understanding into his new venture(s). Bike racing is pretty dangerous - quite an adrenaline rush. It may be his outlet for such a (young man's) thing that will allow him to follow the more sedentary pursuits of web designing and media. You also say: ========================= "My worry was the student loans starting to come in if he quits. He does have some money coming in with his affiliates right now but not enough to live on. His beef is that if he had the time to focus he would making more." ========================== More time, huh? Tell him to wake up one hour earlier every morning. Most 20 year olds sleep in far too much - especially on the weekends. Seven extra hours per week is the equivalent of ONE FULL DAY per week. Put that idea to him. If he is serious he will do it. Now I must go... and you must tend your garden. Martha's Garden. Now where have I heard that? LOL. Gary Simpson

Hi Martha, When I read your post I naturally thought of my own kids. I have 2 in college and the third is in grade 11 and is constantly challenging us about being successful. What I have learned is that all to often people feel that someone needs advice but all that is needed is some direction. Everyone, regardless of age benefits from good direction. So, do you know if your son needs advice or is looking for directions? Entrepeneur A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture. The above definition is from dictionary.com and as you can see it includes the word business. I think it is a misleading and limited definition. A better definition is, a person that is willing to take a risk for the benefit of a need or a want. So, do you know if your son is or desires to be an entrepeneur? What are his needs and wants? Some of the worst advise available comes from books that have been written for the purpose of making money for the author. To me, Rich Dad Poor Dad is an example of this and that is my opinion. For some reason, as I was typing this message I just thought of the movie documentary, What the bleep do we know? Think about watching it with your family. It's important for everyone to understand the risk of becoming addicted to your emotions. Thank you for sharing Martha. You have triggered some thoughts in my own mind that I will be sharing with my sons. Mention to your son that success is not measured by how far you go but by how many obstacles you overcome. Jack

Hi Martha, I guess I will toss in my two cents worth here. If he has a desire to make documentaries that is a very lofty goal. The finances to make any sort of a movie are astronomical. I recall when I used to make commercials with a friend that is still in that industry. We shot a 15 second promotional video for John Labatts Classic, this is a huge brand of beer in Canada. We took about 6 weeks to shoot the spot, including all the editing time etc. The total bill for the 15 second production was in the $100,000 range. That was not the profit that was our costs. There were no visual actors in the spot or the cost might have easily tripled that, we displayed a single bottle of beer for 15 seconds, added some special effects and an audio dub. Equipment costs alone are astronomical, a good quality camera runs about $22,000 and the lens is another $20,000 plus. All of the equipment for a major shoot is usually rented, but the price is still up there. I am not suggesting he should not get into this line of work but he will require some major funding. I am sure you have heard of Michael Moore and his 911 documentary. He was not able to acquire funding in the US for this so a consortium in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, funded the project for him. It takes months to years somtimes to get the funds for any project in this venue. So far as website design goes, I always have one suggestion in this regard. Look at Linda's portfolio and work and remember that she is the compition he will have to face. In website design there are many finacial hurdles to jump over with the largest being people not really wanting to pay what the designer feels their work is worth. I know that one first hand. You always feel that you are giving your work away and it makes it very hard to earn a really good living starting out. Imagine that the total cost for a website is $1,500. You also have about 250 e-mails from each client that you have to answer or they feel you are ignoring them. They hire you to do the layout and design but a lot of the time they want to tell you how to do the job. It is very seldom, even at Linda's or my level of expertise, that a client actually lets you do what should be done and accepts your word blindly. You do get some that give the designer 100% control but those clients are truly very rare. At $1,500, you, as the designer, want to complete this in about a week, but it can actually take up to 6 weeks or more. Client delays etc. contribute to this. In reality you need to have at least 6 clients on the go at any one time or you will go broke very quickly. Again I am not suggesting he avoid this avenue but he needs to do his due diligence before taking on the task of hanging a webmaster shingle. I would be willing to wager that if he was schooled in website design in school, he has a lot to unlearn. I do realize that in the long run he will make whatever decision suits his needs or desires, I am only suggesting he do all of the ground work first before he takes a major step forward.

Martha, Boy does this story sound familiar to me. I was an above average student in high school, so of course, the natural progression, as far as my parents were concerned was for me to attend college. I must tell you, I was in no way looking for to more schooling, but I went anyway. Didn't want to disappoint the folks. I matriculated at a community college and after 2 weeks ceased attending classes. It was if they were there because they're parents were going to force them to get jobs if they weren't. The following semester I matriculated at the local university. Better scholastic atmosphere, but a lot of the students lived on campus and were mostly looking forward to evening and weekend parties. I lasted one sememster. I got a job at a car dealership. I was 19. I was hired to data entry and my parents weren't all that pleased. To make a long story short. After 6 months, I took over the office. I'm 33 and still there today. I went back to school for business management....at NIGHT, and earned my degree. I have to tell you, my parents couldn't be prouder. I've been running that place since I'm 19 years old and I must say, I do a damn good job of it. Night school was much more appealing since most of the students were there because they wanted to learn, and it also didn't interfere with me working and earning during the day. Hope my little "tale" helps.