Real Education
March 15, 2008
People ask me all the time how I encourage my children to think like entrepreneurs.
I always tell them: we focus on real life.
Yes, we do math and spelling and we read history and science and all that. But we do more than that.
We are students of real life, real business, real stuff.
My oldest son Drew just finished building his and Carol’s new house a few weeks ago and is on to the next project now.
To set the foundation, he bought a backhoe on eBay for $5,000. He used it for two or three months, fixed my drive-way with it, built his sister a pond in her front yard, then sold it on eBay… for $6,000.
Do the math. He used the backhoe for 3 months and made $1000 profit when he sold it.
He learned to think like that from his real estate education.
Then he discovered that his little brother is a very good backhoe operator.
So this past week, he bought another backhoe. A bigger backhoe.
And this summer, those two will tear up all kinds of dirt together in North Alabama.
And they’ll get paid to do it.
Hey, when you’re young, it feels great to try new things.
When they are ready to move on to the next thing, they’ll sell the backhoe… for a profit.
Then they will move on to the next project on their life long To Do list.
I personally believe that the early adult years are for exploring career options. The more you experience, the more you discover what you DON’T want to do.
Once you’ve identified that list, you can move on until you find what you DO love.
And hopefully, you won’t get stuck along the way in some good paying job that you come to hate because it pays the bills but isn’t fulfilling and robs you of your well-deserved joy.
I hate to see people unhappy in their work.
Life is too short to work in misery. Each of us is called to do something of purpose in life and once we discover it, the work brings joy to the soul.
So many books, so little time…
Rhea!
who thinks every boy should have the experience of driving – or owning - a backhoe
Last 5 posts by Rhea Perry
- Help for Kinesthetic Learners - July 14th, 2008
- Want to REALLY become independent? - July 4th, 2008
- My Dedication to Helping Fathers - June 13th, 2008
- When Your Kids Ask You to Go, Go! - June 7th, 2008
- Creating Homes That Minister - May 24th, 2008
My kids are young, but I would like to instill some of that type of spirit in them. So far, my youngest wants to be a dentist but hates doing school work of any kind, and my oldest thinks he wants to be a chef. Neither of them are very interested in school work (we homeschool).
How do you instill that spirit in them when they seem so easily distracted? They’re 10 and 7.