Thirst for Knowledge

Recently my son Forrest started listening to Audible books on business, finance, and overall self-improvement. Forrest owns a lawn care company and he had been following some other guys in the business on YouTube when one of them mentioned that if you are going to be sitting on a mower all day, you could also be learning at the same time. This sparked something in him. Within the first week, he had gone through three books including classics like "How to Win Friends and Influence People" and "Rich Dad Poor Dad". Not only did he enjoy the books, but he also became even more passionate about his business. He loved being able to correlate lessons from the books to things in his daily life. One of the examples he mentioned to me was that you had to always remember that every customer knows a hundred people. You grow your business by taking care of every customer, and they will refer you to their friends. For me, this was really exciting to watch. Forrest has always been an extremely hard worker, probably the hardest I have ever known, but he has never been excited about anything academic. He struggled through school, and there were times I actually thought he might not graduate. He did though and went on to take some classes in college. He had worked at a hardware store since his senior year in high school, and he had always done side work like mowing lawns, hauling, and odd jobs for people. Over the years his side work started becoming his main work. Last year he turned his business into a real business, and we combined our operations, so I could help him with accounting and other backend tasks.  As his business has grown, he has taken over most of the tasks for running his side of the operations. It is funny to see the differences in our generations. I still sit at a computer for hours doing accounting and invoicing where he has the accounting app on his phone and he does his billing between each job. He won't use a computer, but he will use his phone for everything. He has spreadsheets using the google docs app, and he does all his email communication on his phone. I can't imagine typing everything on a little phone keyboard, and he can't imagine sitting at a desk all day. In the end, we both get the tasks done using our preferred methods. Being able to use cloud services has really allowed our two generations to work together.  I have started listening to the same books my son is reading, and I have given him some suggestions from my library. I love learning anything, and talking to someone who is passionate about what they are learning is so fulfilling. The fire I see in his eyes as he talks about his customers and why he enjoys his business is really exciting. I can only imagine what a teacher goes through when they have a student who is totally engaged in their subject, I would imagine it is similar to how I feel now talking to Forrest. I always thought if I could just find that one thing that sparked his interest, he would really shine. When he was in school, I couldn't get him to read a book or even listen to one on tape, now he is going through more books in a week than I do in a couple of months.  Having been a single custodial parent of Forrest since he was two years old, we have had a really unique relationship. We have been best friends, and we have been business partners since we bought a restaurant when he was ten years old. We have worked together and played together. We have always had long conversations on a multitude of subjects, and in most of those conversations I have played the role of professor helping him understand a certain viewpoint. Now I am seeing our conversations evolve to where we are comparing views and I am learning from him as well. I am truly excited to see where our businesses go and how we evolve our partnership into other ventures.  ReplyForward