The following is an excellent story I (stole) from 48 Days to the Work You Love, which I have been meaning to review for ages. It’s an amazing resource/ministry that encourages and helps those that want to change their work situations. So many people are miserable at their jobs, but are either too afraid to make a change, or don’t know where to start. Dan Miller at 48 Days addresses both and offers some of the best helps on the market to do so.

We discovered 48 Days in their early years as a result of a Dave Ramsey consult. Shortly after our personal disaster (which God worked out for good), we were encouraged by the Ramsey Group to take a look at what Dan Miller offered and well… as they say, ‘The rest is history!’ I fell in love with what they were doing and wanted to do something similar, to help others like ourselves that wanted to work at home. The seed for our Homeschool-Entrepreneur.com vision was born, but did not take form for many years later.

I have read almost every newsletter Dan Miller has sent out for the last 6+ years. It’s always been brief (who has time for a long newsletter?), encouraging, uplifting, and I have printed out and saved several for the impact it had. I promise, you’ll love it. Sign up for the newsletter at 48days.com. I also highly recommend his Personality Profile for your graduating junior or senior.

Here’s a story that came from this week’s newsletter, for all the millions of people that have suffered disaster-because…’what the enemy intended for evil, the Lord works out for His good‘:

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Once there was an old man who lived in a tiny village. Although poor, he was envied by all, because he owned a beautiful white horse. People offered fabulous prices for the horse, but the old man always refused. “This horse is a friend, not a possession,” he would respond.

One morning the horse was not in the stable. All the villagers said, “You old fool. We told you someone would steal that beautiful horse. You could at least have gotten the money. Now the horse is gone, and you’ve been cursed with misfortune.”

The old man responded, “Perhaps. All I know is that my horse is gone; the rest I do not know. Whether it be a curse or a blessing, I can’t say.”

After fifteen days the horse returned. He hadn’t been stolen; he had run away into the forest. Not only had he returned, he had brought a dozen wild horses back with him. Once again the village people gathered around the old man and said, “You were right – what we thought was a curse was a blessing. Please forgive us.” The old man responded, “Perhaps. Once again you’ve gone too far. How do you know if this is a blessing or a curse? Unless you can see the whole story, how can you judge?” But the people could only see the obvious. The old man now had twelve additional horses that could be broken and sold for a great deal of money.

The old man had a son, an only son. He began to break the wild horses. Unfortunately, after just a few days, he fell from a horse and broke both his legs. Once again the villagers gathered around the old man and said, “You were right. The wild horses were not a blessing; they were a curse. Your only son has broken his legs and now in your old age you have no one to help you. You are poorer than ever.” But the old man said, “Perhaps. Don’t go so far. Say only that my son broke his legs. We have only a fragment of the whole story.”

It so happened that a few weeks later the country went to war with a neighboring country. All the young men of the village were required to join the army. Only the son of the old man was excluded, because he had two broken legs. Once again the people gathered around, crying because there was little chance their sons would return. “You were right, old man. Your son’s accident was a blessing. Our sons are gone forever.”

The old man spoke again. “You people are always quick to jump to conclusions. Only God knows the final story.”

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And so it is with our lives. What we see as a blessing or a curse may simply be part of God’s preparation for what lies ahead. Be careful in seeing “disaster” in any change. Just recognize it as change – which opens the door for good as well as bad – for gain as well as possible loss. (comment is from Dan Miller)

Be blessed. Bob & Debbie, Homeschool-Entrepreneur.com

Twitter has proved itself to be a fantastic place to meet people and find some really great friends, info, websites, and well….STUFF! I can’t believe I actually thought it was stup…..uh, trivial when I first started! (Thank you, Jeremy Palmer for getting me started!) In the last few weeks, I have had so many great people “add” me that I would probably never have discovered otherwise. One of those people is Terri Z (short for Zwierzynski) of Solo-e.com, a resource and training clearing house for entrepreneurs. The sheer amount of well organized information available for the entrepreneur at Solo-e.com is staggering, and a gold mine for any small business person! It’s a MUST bookmark.

One of my finds at Solo-e was a powerhouse PR source that you will be sure to find some publicity from, It’s called “Haro” (Help A Reporter Out)  and is powered by the powerhouse of PR himself, Peter Shankman. It’s a free service (I’m sure it’s serving him well with large amounts of traffic!) he offers both to help entrepreneurs find some free publicity and news reporters find the stories they need. Sign up on his email list and he will email you several times a day listing all the requests he receives from the press for storylines. How great is that?

Sign up for Haro here: http://helpareporter.com/

Check out Solo-e.com

Add Terri Z on twitter! http://twitter.com/terrizsoloceo

Add Homeschool-Entrepreneur (that’s us…) on twitter:  http://twitter.com/homeschoolbiz

The internet has opened the playing field to teens like never before, so anything is possible! Not easy, but definitely possible. Thought you’d like this:

The way we look at education has to change. After watching this video, along with ‘Shift Happens‘ and a few others like ‘A Vision of Students Today‘ and ‘Information R/evolution‘ recently, I’ve been thinking alot about our educational system. Being a 20 year homeschool veteran, but being a public school and state university student growing up, I come away wondering where it’s all going….or more importantly, where it should be going.

It’s amazing that we have more information at our fingertips than ever before, yet very little of that ability is being applied to maximizing that 180 days of required school time each year. I don’t want to dispute or promote any of the immensely diverse homeschool or public school teaching philosophies, but I think we all need to crawl out of our academic slurries and take a look around. The world is changing at an exponential rate. Time is not on our side. As soon as something is taught, it’s outdated, so what do we do?

Computers, the internet, cell phones, game systems, MP3 players, media of various kinds….this is where our kids connect with the world, why aren’t we using these systems to connect our kids to what they need to know to become responsible and productive adults? In a perfect world, there would be two internets, one for education, the other commercial. Since that isn’t the case, are there classes teaching kids how to search the internet safely and productively? They figure it out, sure, but at what cost? After they’ve found more garbage than good? Why aren’t computers being used to individualize each students learning pace?

Enough of my ranting, what is the answer? Homeschooling offers parents the freedom to create an ideal education for their child, but are often ill-equipped to do so. I get overwhelmed at times wondering if I can even begin to keep up with the advancing technology…can they? Kids seem to have a second nature with all this tech stuff, our challenge as parents is to channel that nature into advantageous activities.

One of the main reasons we developed our Home Business Course is because it’s just one example of a real life project that incorporates many areas of learning. Motivating learning by doing something that has purpose works for adults and kids alike! You don’t have to take the course to start a business with your child, and it doesn’t even have to be make money. You could start a non-profit, teaching all the aspects of fundraising and everything it takes just to help a group of people.

Starting a business as a school project also begins to develop an ‘Entrepreneurial Mindset’ – and your children may begin to see how all those tech gadgets can be used for building their business, and may even discover new ways of using them, or improving them.. the possibilities are endless. Maybe the mindless ways TV, cellphones, MP3 players and the like are being used can be transformed into tools to build their minds enough to possibly keep up with the pace knowledge is moving……..

photo credit: mattbatt0

OK, I know hot dogs are really bad for you, so maybe you couldn’t bring yourself to sell them. What about buying some healthy, all natural dogs? Organic, even? If there is even such a product. I do know there are natural brats we bought through a coop once several years ago that my kids and husband LOVED…..so I’m sure you could find a good substitute. Now THAT’s a unique selling position.

I came across this website with a wealth of resources on the hot dog cart market, as well as an E-book, that would definitely jumpstart your new business for a small investment (relatively)! Then, as a homeschooler, think of all the events …..

The most interesting part of the story was the man who was selling the hot dogs forgot his ‘for sale’ sign was still on the cart, and got more business from people wanting to buy his cart! So be sure to be set up with a wholesaler so you could sell carts, too!

Have fun!