A lot of people measure success in a dollar form, an economic form. I would say that we [Amish] don't. We'd like to think we have peace and harmony in the family, the church, the community. We ourselves have a wonderful family, wife and six children, three boys and three girls. Everyone is healthy and going.

I love what I do. I absolutely love it. I'm on vacation everyday of my life. That's scary to a point. I mean it's a sacrifice to the family to a degree. Today if you look at the overall drive in America, family is a big thing. It's a good thing. It should be. But I think that with a small business the family does a certain amount of sacrificing. My children are very involved in the business at a very early age. My oldest son is 11 and he's out here at least some part of everyday, even during the school year dumping waste cans, sweeping, doing whatever. My wife is not involved in the business, but she wants to be more involved once our children are able to do more themselves.

I think if you let the dice fall where they may and not challenge it, that has a lot to do with success. Regardless, I would never ask my children to do what I'm doing if that's not what they want to do. I think in order to be successful you have to like it or love it or be really enthusiastic about it. I would want to think that if none of my six children where interested in the business that would be fine. I would want them to have their success in whatever it may be. I think your path finds itself.

Personally I think there's a lot of money spent for the English people to go to school and they truly haven't found their profession and yet there may be an obligation, maybe to the parents, to do that. And they may not find their niche in life until 30 or 40 years old, or they may never find it. You have to love to go to work to make it successful.

Our [Amish] main struggles with success is the struggle with Moderny. For example we need to use a neighbor's phone and in exchange we pay him to use it and obviously we don't have any computer systems. So there's always the challenge to stay competitive and versed. I don't know if being technically illiterate will be a factor in conversing and business and success, but it may be. So that's what we struggle with. Personally, I have not seem a real growth by the businesses around me that use computers compared to ours.