My thoughts come from personal experience. I have three daughters. All are hard workers who know the value of a dollar. At an early age they mucked out horse stables for a neighbor in trade for riding lessons.

All three ran the trap line with me, one of them full time for over ten years. She had a say in purchasing inventory and it came out of her half of the fur check. She still owns half of everything we had when she quit.

All three worked for my construction company at different times so they are all familiar with hard labor and low pay!

The oldest decided she wanted an expensive college degree. She loves to travel and wanted to work for the Dept. of State's Foreign Service Office. We had many discussions about it, some heated. She finally convinced me it was a good thing and I agreed to co-sign loans for her. Four years and about $250,000.00 later she had her degree. But she was back home working as a waitress at a local diner because she couldn't get her foot in the door. I remember thinking I'd made a horrible decision in backing her plans.

After only a few months she was hired by a private contractor to the Dept. of State. She spent several years working her way up the ladder, working for different alphabet departments (DOD, DOJ, etc.) and was finally directly hired by the Dept of State. She took the training and became a foreign service officer.

She now travels the world on the government's dime, makes a six-figure salary and is loving life. Her loans are all but paid off. I'm glad she convinced me.

Another daughter took a different route. We also had many discussions about her future career. A degree in biology was often discussed. Ultimately, after working for me for six or seven years she took a job in management at Reeb Millwork, one of my suppliers and one of the largest distributors of custom millwork on the east coast. She makes a good salary, has great perks and loves her job.

So it's really about willingness to work hard, common-sense and ambition. If you have those, you really can't go wrong.

Dad brag over.