Lessons My Kids Taught Me

Good morning on this bright, steamy day in lovely Tulsa,
OK. I hope my email finds you and yours well. Life's been
keeping me and my family busy. My son just turned 10 last
Saturday and is on his way to becoming a tween. My, how the
years pass. I'm beginning to understand the sentiments of
the song "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof: "Is
this the little boy I carried? When did he grow to be so
tall?" Sniff-sniff.

My daughter's been busy trying to raise additional funds
for her trip to Washington, D.C. in August. New subscribers
may not know, but 12 year old Alex was nominated by her
school to attend the Junior National Young Leaders
Conference -- a pretty big deal where she earns school
credit for attending this week-long seminar and listens to
luminaries speak about the importance of leadership
principles.

Alex just launched her second business. It's called Awesome
Button Chokers and you can visit her new site here:

http://www.claypals.net/awesomebuttonchokers.html

I give her a lot of credit. She's quite artistic and has an
eye for what sells. She created this new line of fun jewelry
towards the end of the school year, and her friends bought
up everything she made.

I'm trying to talk her into starting a third business. The
other day she walked into my office and showed me a dragon
she made out of wire and beads. It was amazing. So watch
out, another business is incubating.

My son is getting jealous of his older sister's ability to
sell anything she makes, so he is wanting to create a
business of his own. Last night he said he was creating a
recipe book and was anxious for me to try out his first creation.
I watched him carefully make chocolate milk and then add a
teaspoon of sugar. He proudly walked over to me and asked
me to taste it. I smiled and sipped the sweet chocolate
milk. He smiled back.

I'm not sure his recipe book is going to sell. When you
base your success on the success of a pre-existing product
(chocolate milk) by only adding a little value (sugar),
it's hard to build a successful business. How many of you
are doing the same thing?

Now my son does have a definitive talent for numbers and
shapes. He taught himself multiplication and division in
2nd grade and was doing 4th grade level math by the time
2nd grade ended. In fact, he placed 3rd in the country for
his grade level in Kumon math that year.

Chris will spend hours playing with Legos. I spent $49.00
on a new Star Wars Lego kit for his birthday last week. He
put together 500 pieces in less than an hour. Then he took
it apart and rebuilt a dozen different vehicles, devices
and weapons. He was much happier creating his own designs.
Is that you?

So I told Chris to port his Lego designs to the Net and
sell them for 50 cents each in downloadable format. I'm
waiting for him to show me the first one, and then I will
build up a site for him. Who knows? Maybe he can earn his
college tuition this way.

So enough about my kids.

How is your business coming along? Is there anything I can
do for you? Are you feeling the economic down turn? What
are you doing to combat lower revenue?

Talk to me. I am available.

Until next time,

Steven