Before Your Child Chooses a Career…Be Sure He Know This One Thing

Crew members of HMS Royalist — It is good idea for your child to see the day-to-day lifestyle of his career of interest. You may discover early-on it is not a good fit. Photo credit: Powerhouse Museum Collection)

Guest Post by Levi Heiple:

Give your child the opportunity to learn about the lifestyle of his career of interest.

When I went to college, I thought I wanted to be a music composer. Had I known what the lifestyle of a successful composer was really like, I probably wouldn’t have done it.

Few classical composers get to actually write what they want–at least not for pay. You are always on a deadline. You have to make revisions on a moment’s notice. Sometimes you have to produce a score within a day! No one is looking for the next Beethoven symphony.

The days of patronized composers are gone. No one will pay you to write your next masterpiece. You’re paid based on how quickly and efficiently you can deliver quality work that others have already created.

A few people would enjoy this type of intense work life. I would not. I had too many other things I was interested in. I would not have the focus to attain any level of success as a professional composer.

Just because your child enjoys doing something, it does not necessarily mean that he would enjoy it as a profession. Just because he’s good at something doesn’t mean he can be successful at it. He has to find out what the real-life work is like.

Investing in a brief apprenticeship opportunity for your child will be money well-spent–even if afterwards he realizes he doesn’t want anything to do with the profession.

About Levi Heiple

Levi Heiple is a writer/entrepreneur who specializes in electronic training and support systems. He connected with Jonathan Harris after being asked tutor his son, Caleb. You can sign up for Levi’s free weekly tip on “reading for innovation” at BookBlitzMethod.com. You can find his professional website at LeviHeiple.com. You can find his web design service at WebPromoPackage.com.

College Is Not Job Training

Levi Heiple

random pic from instrument training flights. i... — Find out first if your child’s talent can benefit from a college certificate. It may be that to be an overwhelming success in his field of talent, your child needs to travel swiftly down a very different path.(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Guest Post by Levi Heiple:

College is not job training, it’s a certification program.

I went to college with the faulty assumption that many others my age have. Namely, that the path to success was to go to college, pick a major, get a degree, and then a job offer would soon follow.

College is not a direct path to a job.

You have to create your path to a job. The degree shows potential employers that you made a good investment with your time.

Undoubtedly, having a college degree is better than not having one. But the question is, “at what cost?” For some people, college is not a good investment.

Help your kids answer this question: “where will my income be coming from, and will those people care whether or not I have a college degree?”

If you are not sure, look at successful people in your child’s field of interest. Visit their websites. See if they put an emphasis on their educational background. If they don’t, then their credibility obviously doesn’t rest on their educational background.

If successful people in the field are emphasizing their degrees, what were their majors? Is it a bachelor degree? Master? PhD?

By asking these questions before sending your children to college, you can save a lot of grief and wasted time and money.

About Levi Heiple

Does Mother Always Know Best?

Levi Heiple

Guest Post by Levi Heiple:

Your friends and family do not always know what’s best for you.

Before I went to college, all my family thought that I should be a music teacher. I was on the church worship team. I enjoyed music. I had a good knack for it (at least relative to my friends and family’s abilities).

However, after going through an intense music program for a couple of years, I realized that these “gifts” were not so extraordinary. I was consistently the “slow” one in my percussion studio. I never made any auditioned ensembles.

I spent more time practicing than most of the others, but I still just didn’t have the “chops” to keep up.

I should of realized that having a good knack for playing along with a band or picking up on some guitar strumming patterns is really not enough to warrant a lifelong pursuit of that skill.

There are millions of people who have a “good knack” for a lot of different things. That’s not the same as being prepared for success.

In retrospect, I should of realized that my greatest ability was in optimizing systems and breaking down complex information. Oddly, nobody noticed this ability. Nor was I told that I could make a living with these skills.

Nobody I knew personally was an entrepreneur or had any knowledge about the technical communication field.

Family and friends have a limited perspective of the world, namely the world that is their work and their leisure.

The real insight that family and friends can bring is what someone is not good at. I failed biology class in high school. If I told my parents I wanted to be a biologist, they would have laughed at me.

There are many paths to success. There are universal ways to fail. Steer your child clear of failure, but don’t let your limited perspective of the world dictate the supposed path of success. The world is too complex and changes far too rapidly for anyone to know the right path for someone else’s success.

About Levi Heiple

Updated: May 2014

1 + 1 = 3: How to Compound Your Child’s Talents for Maximum Benefit

Levi Heiple

flying a paraglider tandem with the Synergy pa... — In a talent-led life, your child will combine his skills for maximum leverage.(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Guest Post by Levi Heiple:

Most people do not just have one talent.

For the person who has only one talent, life is simple; it’s obvious what he should do.

Most people, however, have to prioritize. Which talent can your child make a living with? Or better yet, how can your child combine their talents to make a living?

You don’t want your child to have an uphill battle his whole life. Help him find the ones that will be the most lucrative, and ones that comes most easily. This does not mean he won’t have to work hard at it, but it does mean that as he works hard at it, his success will grow exponentially.

You will not know which talent is the most lucrative until you help your child make a complete inventory of his abilities.

The ideal career would be one where all or most of his talents can reinforce each other. This is a concept known as “synergy”–the whole will be greater than the sum of its parts.

Here’s an example inventory I did for myself. These were either skills or areas of interest that made a lot of intuitive sense to me and that I greatly enjoyed studying.

Instructional design
Technical writing
E-learning
Practical applications of information technology
Copywriting
Marketing
Business start-ups

I realized that I could get the more leverage out of each of these skills by combining them. It would make more sense for me to start a lot of “mini-businesses” based around my specialized technical knowledge and skills rather than to pursue a traditional career path in just one skill. I could use my technical writing skills to document the work processes and outsource the work.

I knew that probably half-of my business ideas would fail, but I didn’t mind because I love starting new businesses and improving my marketing skills. I just need two or three of them to work to make a living and I can keep building on the successes.

The point is that you have to take an inventory of all your child’s talents and figure out how you can combine them in a lucrative way. Some talents might not earn them a living. I still enjoy playing music, but I do it as a leisurely evening activity to unwind. I have no desire to try to make a living at it.

About Levi Heiple

The Real Value of Money

Levi Heiple

French diligence in the Pyrenees mountains, 1898 — Money can be used as tool to help fulfill your calling (Photo credit: Marcel Douwe Dekker)

Guest Post by Levi Heiple.

Money is a means of fulfilling your calling.

I grew up with a skewed view of money. My parents had a lot of consumer debt. I grew up in a Christian culture that implicitly (and sometimes even explicitly) viewed money as inherently evil–necessary to pay the bills, but evil nonetheless. This is not what my parents taught me, but it is what I picked up from the culture around me.

Little did I know, that the Bible actually teaches that wealth is a desirable tool of dominion. It buys you time to work on your calling. It allows you to build infrastructures to advance God’s kingdom.

I wish I had had this view of money before I went to college.

If I could go back to the summer after my high school graduation, this is what I would do differently:

First, I would identify the five most important things I wanted to achieve in my life. These have nothing to do with money. It has to do with the legacy I wanted to leave behind and what I wanted to pass on to the next generation. This is my calling.

Next, I would spend the rest of the summer thinking about what kind of jobs would give me the most amount of capital for my calling in the least amount of time. It could be money to fund the projects. It could be a network of relationships. It could be skills and knowledge I need to fulfill my calling.

Finally, I would ask myself if getting a college degree would accelerate or hinder my progress towards that goal. In other words, I would take the time cost (anywhere from 4-12 years) and the money cost ($50,000+?) and I would ask myself, “if I took the same amount of time and money, could I make a better long-term investment?”

Perhaps going to college would be the best investment for your child. It would be the best place for him to get the network, knowledge, and skills he needs for his lifelong pursuit. Or maybe it will give him more credibility in his field than he would have otherwise obtained by doing other activities.

On the other hand, you could discover that there is a better way to invest those first several years of adulthood.

About Levi Heiple

5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Going to College

Levi Heiple

Guest Post by Levi Heiple

I am finishing up my last few credits of a bachelor’s degree. It’s a bachelor’s of science in music theory. I will leave with $20,000 in student debt. The degree will not help me much in my professional pursuits. Don’t let your child make the same mistakes I did.

If I could go back in time and tell myself five things before going to college, here is what I would say:

#1: College is not job training, it’s a certification program.

A college degree will not get you a job. You have to create your own job opportunities. A degree is simply a certification that shows that you made a good investment with the first several years of your adult life and are therefore more likely to have a good work ethic.

#2: Your friends and family do not always know what’s best for you.

Your friends and family only know about the vocations that they have first-hand experience with–the jobs that are on the surface. There are thousands of jobs that they don’t even know about. Browse through the Occupation Outlook Handbook. Talk to professionals in an industry that interests you. See what kind of work is being done.

#3: Money is a means of fulfilling your calling.

Get a solid grasp of the purpose of money. Don’t think that it won’t be important. Money is not evil, it’s a tool that allows you to do what you think is most important in life. Don’t get a dead-end degree. You’ll regret it soon enough.

#4: Take a complete inventory of your abilities.

You likely have more than one talent. Which ones can be the most lucrative for you? How can you combine them to gain a competitive advantage?

#5: Learn about the lifestyle of your career of interest.

Just because you enjoy doing something, doesn’t mean that you’ll enjoy it as a vocation. Meet real-life professionals in the field. See if you can tag along for a day. Find out what the “real-world” is like. It might not be what you want.

Conclusion

Count the costs before you send your child to college. If you do not know exactly what the degree will help your child achieve, it might be best to reconsider. There might be better investments.

About Levi Heiple

How to Quickly Find the Top Books in Your Field

Levi Heiple

English: Photograph of author Roy F. Chandler ... — Does your child have his prioritized list of specialty books picked out? Use the Book Blitz Method (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In this article I will show you how you can quickly build a reading list based on trusted sources and instantly find out which books are the most influential in your field.

So you had a few books recommended to you by someone you trust. You read them. You greatly enjoyed them and learned a lot. You want to learn more about that particular niche. But how do you go about finding the top books?

Read on to learn a quick and easy way to remember all the books you want to read, find related books, and prioritize your reading based on which books are most prominent in your defined niche.

Step 1 – Get a Recommendation from a Trusted Source

Starting with a trusted source is the key to making this system work. You have to know where to start so that you’re not just reading “best-sellers.”

Read all the books suggested by your trusted source.

Step 2 – Find Related Books

Go to Amazon.com and find one of the books you just read. Click on the book’s page.

Look for the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” section. This will serve as a list of follow up books.

Step 3 – Add the Books to Your Reading List

Log on to GoodReads.com. If you don’t already have an account, create one.

Search for one of the related books from the above step. To save time, just type in the author’s last name and a keyword from the title. Press Enter.

Click on the “Want to Read” button next to the title.

Repeat this process for every title from the Amazon.com page.

Step 4 – Find the Most Prominent Books

Your reading list will grow large very quickly when you follow the trail of related books. One way to prioritize is to find the books on your list that are most widely read. This will often indicate which books are most authoritative in the field.

Click on “My Books.”

Then click “to-read” from the side panel.

Click on “shelf settings.” Check “num ratings.” Sort by descending. Click “save current settings.”

Click on the “num ratings” column to sort by that field.

Your books are now prioritized by prominence.

Step 5 – Pick Your Books

Scroll through your sorted book list and pick out the ones that meet your criteria. For example, you could pick out all the books related to theology.

You can use the rankings to help prioritize your reading schedule. Since the list sorts automatically, you can add as many books as you want and still know which ones are the most widely read.

Conclusion

You can apply this method to any niche. Have your child ask for some book recommendations from an expert in his talent area. He can obtain this information from a online forum, a personal contact, or even by directly writing to an established expert. Most experts are more than willing to help a young novice get on the right educational track. Once your child has those first few books, he can begin a lifelong pursuit of learning and development through reading.

About Levi Heiple

Three Types of People: The Entrepreneur

Levi Heiple

English: The Swedish entrepreneur, scientist a... — Is your child’s trait, the entrepreneur’s trait? (The Swedish entrepreneur Jan Gyllenbok – Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Is your child’s dominant trait the Entrepreneur’s trait? Adjust your child’s talent growth to his strength.

Guest Post by Levi Heiple (continued from Three Types of People-Which One is Your Child?):

Is your child’s dominant trait, the entrepreneur’s trait?

The entrepreneur lives for the future. The entrepreneur (whether he admits it or not) sees most people as problems that get in the way of a better future. He will be continually baffled why 96% of the population will drag their feet and accept the status quo when there is an overabundance of opportunity.

The entrepreneur is the rarest type. This may be partly due to the reality that most entrepreneurial types will be educated at an early age to repress the entrepreneurial impulse. People don’t like entrepreneurs (or at least successful ones). Entrepreneurs are vilified in literature. People don’t mind the struggling entrepreneur, but the successful one is a cause for envy.

In spite of the bad rap that (successful) entrepreneurs receive, they do perform a critical function in society. Namely, they create jobs for everyone else. If you have an entrepreneurial child, you will want to raise him accordingly. Here are some key signs to look for to see if your child might be an entrepreneur type.

He can never seem to focus.
He is always coming up with some new schemes.
He tries to take shortcuts in his work–especially school work.
He doesn’t like to follow directions or he tries to re-engineer the whole process when given an assignment.
He tends to ask a lot of irritating questions and/or challenge authority.
He doesn’t like to work on group projects.
He is highly motivated to learn on his own whatever he happens to be interested in.

The above qualities are obviously not qualities that are typically valued in school. However, they are in fact the very qualities that make an entrepreneur successful if they are disciplined in the right way. Lack of focus becomes “big picture thinking.” Scheming becomes “business planning.” Taking shortcuts becomes “outsourcing.” Challenging authority becomes “innovative thinking.” Not working working on a team becomes “creating jobs for other people.”

About Levi Heiple

Learn More

For more tips on teaching young entrepreneurs:

Book Blitz Method Tip of the Week

For more information on the types, click on Jonathan’s affiliate book link:

Three Types of People: The Manager

Levi Heiple

Captain Stephen Coad — Are you adapting your child’s talent development so it is compatible with his manager’s bent? (Photo credit: Helen Vercoe)

Guest Post by Levi Heiple (continued from Three Types of People-Which One is Your Child?):

Is your child’s dominant trait, the manager’s trait?

Managers are past-oriented. They see people as problems that make big messes that need to be cleaned up.

Managers are typically very good students. The reason for this is not necessarily because they are interested in the material, but because they derive a great satisfaction out of being responsible and doing things correctly.

Managers are needed everywhere. They keep things in order. Like successful entrepreneurs, good managers are also envied. No one likes the star student. Nevertheless, when a position of great responsibility needs to be filled, it is the exceptional student–not the mediocre student–that gets the job (or at least should get the job).

Here are some signs to look for to determine if your child is a manager type.

He almost always does exceptionally well in his school work
He needs very little “parental incentive” to complete his assignments
He is very well-organized (e.g. tidy desk, clean room, well-labeled papers)
He is very concerned about whatever grading system is being used, and how he can get the best grade.

Managers thrive on responsibility more than mastering any particular skill. The best thing a teacher can do for a manager-type student is to give him real-world responsibility. School provides a simulation of responsibility, but real-world responsibility will give him much more satisfaction and help him get a head start on his career. For example, instead of just giving him math problems, try giving letting him manage an aspect of the household’s budget.

About Levi Heiple

Learn More

For more tips on teaching young entrepreneurs:

Book Blitz Method Tip of the Week

For more information on the types, click on Jonathan’s affiliate book link:

Three Types of People: The Technician

Levi Heiple

Industrial Designers Society of America Annual... — Is your child’s dominant trait, the technician’s trait? (Photo credit: Kris Krug)

Guest Post by Levi Heiple (continued from Three Types of People-Which One is Your Child?):

Is your child’s dominant trait, the technician’s trait?

The technician lives in the present. He sees people as fretters and fussers that never actually get anything done. The technician loves his work (assuming he has found his talent) and likes to keep his life simple (so he can focus on his work).

The vast majority of people are technicians. They will likely be average students, perhaps excelling at one or two subjects. Some may even be poor students because they are only interested in working on what they are good at. A technician’s success and happiness in life will depend largely upon finding his talent (usually one, perhaps two or three), and developing that talent to the point of mastery.

Because there are so many areas that one can have a talent and achieve mastery in, it is difficult to describe the technician in general terms. The simplest way to determine if your child is a technician is to first determine that he is NOT either an entrepreneur or a manager. Then figure out what he enjoys doing the most. Give him the resources he needs to master that skill. Show him how what he is learning in his general education will help him to become better at his particular craft. Then show him how to live a simple life.

About Levi Heiple

Learn More

For more of Levi’s tips on teaching young entrepreneurs:

Book Blitz Method Tip of the Week

For more information on the types, click on Jonathan’s affiliate book link:

Three Types of People–Which One Is Your Child?

Levi Heiple

Start-up office's hall — In his adult life, your child will likely be acting mainly as just ONE of the three types of people that Gerber explains are needed to make work life function. (Photo credit: Aleksandar Ratkovic and Altiona.com)

Guest Post by Levi Heiple:

In 1986, Michael E. Gerber wrote a groundbreaking business book called The E-Myth. This was later revised and published as the more famous E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to do About It. The book is regarded for its insights on how to plan, manage, and grow a small start-up business and turn it into a franchise business. “Work on your business, not in your business” was the key motto.

However, one insight that is just as powerful, yet often overlooked, is Gerber’s insight into human personality.

Gerber writes that inside each of us is really three different persons:

The entrepreneur – dreams and plans for the future and sees opportunities
The manager – craves order and pragmatically solves problems
The technician – enjoys work in the present and loves to get things done

The idea of three persons in one should sound familiar to anyone acquainted with biblical theology. The Scripture teaches that God is trinitarian: the Father who plans and wills all things (the entrepreneur), Christ whom was given all things and brings all things under subjection according to the Father’s will (the manager), and the Holy Spirit who carries out the will of God in the present (the technician). Since humans are made in the image of God, it should make perfect sense to biblical thinkers that we find a trinitarian aspect within our own personhood.

Though we each have a three-in-one aspect to our personalities, we will find that people tend to have a dominant “person” that directs their behavior. Identifying which aspect is dominant in your child can be a critical component in structuring his education process.

About Levi Heiple

Learn More

For more of Levi’s tips on teaching young entrepreneurs:

Book Blitz Method Tip of the Week