Friday, July 17, 2009

Brass

Browsing the magazine-swap corner at my local library, I ran across a small treasure that I, a magazine junkie, had never heard of: Brass Magazine. Publishing for five years, it appears to be a financial/inspirational magazine for young people. Mantra: "young today * rich tomorrow."

If it were just about money in conventional numerical terms, an old English major like me would be bored. But I started freelancing full-time when I was 22 (that's 38years ago now), and I could have used this info and encouragement about running my one-person business. (My best help on this was my entrepreneur mom, but at that age I wasn't greatly inclined to seek too much help from a parent.)

In the Feb. 2007 issue I picked up, the point seemed to be helping people get started at "doing their thing" and doing good as well as well. And the cover story was about, of all things, a poet, Carlos Andres Gomez!

The column "I'm Young, Not Dumb" by CEO Bryan Sims showed some of the ironic difficulties the young entrepreneur faces. When he applied as a student for "independent" study credit for running his own business, he was asked to call the work an internship and have one of his "more experienced" employees to sign off as his supervisor.

The advice he gives: "...We all find ourselves in frustrating situations that seem unfair. Keep going. And along the way, make sure you don't make the same mistakes. Don't judge people by their appearance or age...And if someone tells you your dreams are impossible, go do something about it. Go prove them wrong."

I need to be reminded myself not to discriminate based on age; I very often make negative assumptions about people under twelve who are not my nephews.

Probably most of us can use some encouragement to keep on paddling toward our dreams. Might be some help also to people of any age who are still novices at the financial part of dream-realization.



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