Father of eight wants his children to work

[nitpicker]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/father-of-eight-wants-his-children-to-work/2014/11/07/ec0e9d86-65e5-11e4-836c-83bc4f26eb67_story.html

Father of eight wants his children to work
By Jonnelle Marte November 8 at 7:28 PM 

David T. Fagan has eight kids and his oldest daughter is a senior in high school — and he hasn’t saved a penny for his children’s college education. But Fagan isn’t stressed. In fact, he says he would prefer that his children didn’t go to college.

(snip)
Fagan is a marketing executive. His family lives in Orange County, Calif. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

So, what I’ve done with my own kids is my oldest was in first and second grade and I pulled her out of school because she just wasn’t doing very well and the teacher didn’t know what to do. So I brought her to the office with me. I gave her things to do.
Then she went back into school all the way back until the seventh grade and then in the seventh grade she was starting to do some business stuff that I was helping her with, and other parents were saying, “Hey, how does your daughter do this or how does this work? And how does she earn all this money?” So I pulled her back out of school. I do a lot of speaking and presenting so I started taking her to conventions with me, and I actually put her onstage. And I was like, “Hey you potential entrepreneurs out there, if I can teach a 12-year-old girl how to do this, you can do this. If I can teach a 12-year-old to start a business, you can start a business.”

How can children start making money when they’re young?

I’m big on teaching power plays. A power play to me is something you can do quickly that will make you money.

One thing my daughter, who just turned 13, will do to get money, she’ll go into an office complex and say, “I’m bringing in enchiladas tomorrow. Who wants some?” In an afternoon, she’ll sell 30 to 40.

She’ll do that in 24 hours and she’ll make herself a couple hundred bucks. She’s really good at sales. School is not going to teach her what I think she needs to learn to develop those talents so I want to help her do that.
(snip)

If one of your kids wants to go to college, who pays?

My kids all know that if they want to go to college they’ve got to pay for it. They also know I’m a dealmaker and negotiator and when the time comes they can pitch me. But the rules are I’m not paying for anybody’s college. I might pay for an individual class that they might sell me on. But I’m just not a believer.

You can ask anyone of my kids. “Is your dad going to pay for college? No.”

So what are you going to do? You’d better get a scholarship, you’d better get good grades. I think we’re putting the emphasis on the wrong thing. The emphasis is on “you’ve got to go to college.” The emphasis should be on, “You’ve got to become self-reliant.”
My second-oldest daughter Taylor, who is 15, is perfect for college. She is saving a little bit. She’s a 4.0 student. She’s won awards for being a student athlete. I believe that she is one of those people designed for school. She should go to college. She probably will become an attorney or something. But even then I’m going to say, “Okay, now you have a law degree, open up your own practice, but don’t go to work for someone else. Open up your own practice so you can be in control of your own destiny.”

[nitpicker]

1. Digs his grave with his junk

AND:

Besides appearing to have as little care for his offspring as a salmon (no slur intended to the salmon)

I don't know if he has on tap lawyers that are versed in labor law or kiddie tax law.

e.g 13 year olds selling enchiladas for 200 a day X 100 DAYS=$20000!

So where are the tax returns?

Or is it all brag hot air?

[NYC_SKP]

2. It's good to teach kids entrepreneurism. The old days of 25 year careers and a watch are gone.

Stanford teaches a course, or used to. Read the full article to see how the winner was thinking outside the box, and some of the other innovative enterprises!

http://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2011/08/25/the-art-of-teaching-entrepreneurship-and-innovation/

Stanford Technology Ventures Program’s Executive Director Tina Seelig shares rich insights in creative thinking and the entrepreneurial mindset. Her talk, based on her 2009 book, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20, cites numerous classroom successes of applied problem-solving and the lessons of failure.

“Tina, will you teach one week that gets folks understanding the general principles and the ideas of entrepreneurial thinking.” So I thought, what can I do? So what I did is I gave the students every team an envelope, and in that envelope was seed funding. How many of you know this story? OK, we’re going to get cut to the chase in the second and go on to the next stories, but this one is the first assignment I gave. They had an envelope and in that envelope was seed funding. They had four or five days to plan as long as they wanted, but as soon as they opened that envelope they had two hours to make as much money as possible. Now, for those people who don’t know this, the folks who don’t know the story, how much money do you think I gave them? Any guesses? Audience: 500 Tina Seelig: $500, anyone else? Yeah. Audience: $5 Tina Seelig: $5. I bet you know this story, OK. I know you know the story.

So OK, let’s cut to the chase here. I gave them $5 and two hours to make as much money as possible. So what would you do if you were given this challenge? What would you do? Think about it. Does anyone have any ideas, any thoughts? Audience: Organize a party. Tina Seelig: Organize a party. Invite everyone and are you going to basically charge people? Audience: Absolutely. Tina Seelig: Absolutely. You charge people to come to your party. Love that idea, great! I’d love to come. How much are you going to charge people? Audience: $10. Tina Seelig: $10, so how much is the party is going to cost? Audience: About $50. Tina Seelig: About $50 so you only need five people to break even. OK, good. Anyone else, another idea? What you might do with $5 in two hours? First of all, you guys get gold stars because usually when I ask that question the first thing anyone ever says is, “go to Las Vegas” or “buy a lottery ticket.” Really, they feel like, well I should take a really high risk for earning a big reward. Of course, we all know that the high likelihood is you’re going to walk away with nothing.

Well, let me tell you the clue. The teams that made the most money didn’t use the $5 at all. They realized that the $5 was actually a limitation. They realized that that framed the problem way too tightly, and if that they looked at the skills they had and the opportunities around them that was worth a lot more. So with that in mind, what do you think you would do? Any thoughts? OK, since you’re being shy I’m going to tell you. I’m going to give you a couple of examples. One team set up a stand in the middle of the student union here at Stanford in front of Tressidor. They put up a little sign that said, “We will measure your bicycle tire pressure for free, but if you need air in the tires, we will charge you a dollar.” Pretty cool? Well, first they thought they were taking advantage of their fellow classmates because people could go around the corner and easily get their bike tires pumped up for free. But you know what, they realized halfway through the two hours that people were incredibly appreciative. And so what they did is they stopped asking for a dollar, and half way through they asked for donations instead, and you know what happened? People paid them much more. And they walked away at the end of two hours with a couple hundred of dollars.

More at the link at top of this excerpt

[nitpicker]

3. The trouble is with all the college grads employers want master's degrees just to hire folks

And if you are just a college grad and you aren't the new Steve Jobs, you might as well accept your future as a Wallyworld worker trying to move up to manager.

(special fields exempted)

(and the trades also)

[yeoman6987]

4. So true. I am shocked at the job announcements at my job

I see jobs announced that require a Bachelors degree that should only require a GED (no not kidding). Pay is 9 dollars a hour. Thank God I have a Masters Degree because I never would have worked here without it. It is ridiculous the emphasis on going to college. I was laughing a bit reading the story, but the Dad has some good points.

[ret5hd]

5. How did the 13 yr old afford to buy/rent a commercial kitchen, ...

dishwashing/sanitizing equipment, get the proper food handling training/licenses?

Oh, are you saying it is OK to bypass regulations in the name of profits??? What a surprise!!!