Last night a friend of mine gave me an amazing complement. She said “You have already done so much for the [reptile] community at your age” and she went on to say “I wish I had such direction in my life at your age.” Now, I thought at 19 I would stop getting these complements but I really do enjoy them. She was referring to my most recent project, www.ReptileNetwork.net. I have never felt that my websites I have created, be it reptile related or not, have really given much back. I am an entrepreneur and I am not sure if my goals have been set right. I always look for ideas that will be popular and possibly profitable. This opens a new door for me though, what if giving back makes things better for people in general? I feel like this would be better for myself, and the visitor. It could quite possibly end up being more successful than I had originally hoped for as well. In writting this I feel like it would be a good idea to open up to other people’s ideas, asking what they would like to see added to their community. I originally started with the phrase “It’s your community, make it what you want.” I feel like going back to the roots of things, and keeping this as my most important idea.

One of my biggest problems as an online entrepreneur is that I am always brimming with ideas, but it is rare that I follow through with them all, or even a few. I honestly need to start an idea notebook because I feel like a lot of them could be very profitable.

About a week ago my brother, dad, and I were on our way to Ikea. My brother, Chandler, had a thought process that closely resembles one that I commonly have and it left me in deep thought. His idea was to start a company that folds cranes (the bird) out of napkins and sell them. This seemed utterly ridiculous to me, but my dad helped him try to develop it further. My brother was so very convinced that it was his future, and would be his career when he was old enough to own his own company. My dad said, if you find the right market it may be successful.

Most of my friends know, I often have ideas that I am passionate about. I feel like these ideas are gold mines, and absolutely must be followed through. Let me give you a few examples. Second semester of my senior year I had it set in my mind that I needed an office. From this office I would go out and find clients for web design, and probably only break even. For some reason I felt like I really needed to do this. Thankfully, I never did. I do still think it would be a fun and positive experience but I know it would have probably put me in the negative or only broken even. Another one I have had in the past few months is to open a laser tag location with my dad. These ideas, thinking back over the ones I have had, need to be followed through. If I could only have a 1 to 5 follow through rate I think I could be successful.

Tonight I talked with a few friends about death. If I could live to be 80 years old, I could have 61 years more of life. Roughly 3 times the amount of time I have lived this far. I think I can accomplish what I want by then, travel where I want as well. Money is the issue. The goal for myself is to never be strapped down to a corporate job that controls my life more than I do. I hope to be a successful business owner that will be able to do as I wish with my life without worries. Long shot, but how amazing would that be.

By the way, I love Bret Dennen.