One rule to live by to be a better person

My eighteen-year-old son is very entrepreneurial. He works multiple jobs, from coaching tennis to running an Amazon store that he set up from scratch. He also recently got involved in selling life insurance. Weeks of training, about which I knew only vaguely, when he was unavailable on the phone during evening hours, and now he proudly sends me screenshots of his commissions, which are meaningful by any measure.

He’s very focused on making money, achieving freedom (already), and indulging in a few luxuries, which he doesn’t hide — he wants a flashy car, for example. To each his own. He works hard. He seems to know his path. I’m proud. He does online schooling and manages that well too — I only see good grades and rarely have to worry about his studies.

“Work hard” is not a cliché. Behind the smiles and joy of making money, there’s grit; even I underestimated that. My large family and four kids spend time in different places, and today was the first time in a couple of months that I was with my son. He came back in the morning from his tennis job and started his life insurance thing — call after call after call. Rejection after rejection. I was in a different room but could hear several people, both men and women, swearing at him. It wasn’t just a simple no (“I don’t need anything right now”). They were cursing and insulting him. Patiently, he moved on from one to another, eventually closing a sale.

In a way, I understand why the people he called were annoyed. I hate cold calls. I’ve…