Ivan took three big breaths to blow out all twenty-nine candles spread out on an extralong cake. It was decorated with his name, the IDPromotions.com logo, and their familiar website survey questions: “Who are you? What do you do? Let us know.”

At the end of his big night, one of the gray-haired business guests, on his way out with his wife, shook his head at Ivan. He mumbled, “Twenty-nine years old. You got a long road of success ahead of you, son. You keep at it.”

He added, “It took me to nearly thirty-nine years just to figure out what was going on. By that time I had made a hundred and three mistakes.”

Ivan told him, “But the key is that you still found your way. I could have been doing this years ago myself. But I wasn’t supposed to be. I was supposed to be doing it now.”

The older businessman nodded. He said, “That’s a very mature way of looking at it.”

“It’s the truth,” Ivan told him. He smiled and added, “I needed to meet Lucina first.”

WHEN IVAN AND LUCINA made it back out to the limo after one o’clock in the morning, his valet friend was still gathering cars for the many guests who were returning home.

“All right, Ivan. Good luck with everything,” the guests continued telling him.

“Thanks again for coming out,” Ivan told them back.

His valet friend made an extra effort to make sure that he walked over to shake Ivan’s hand before he climbed into the limo behind Lucina.

He said, “You’ve been a big inspiration to me tonight, Mr. David. I’ll always remember this for when I start to make my own plans happen.”

Ivan said, “Do what you gotta do, man. Just don’t rush it. You let it all come to you the way it’s supposed to.”

“I’ll make sure I will.”

When Ivan climbed into the car with his exhausted partner, Lucina smiled at him meekly.

“So, what are you planning to do now with the thousand business cards we collected tonight?” she asked him.

Ivan said, “I’m gonna make a thousand business calls and see if I can pull together two thousand dollars from each business. That would be, what, two million?”

Lucina winced and answered, “I think, yes.”

Ivan said, “Well, that’s my new short-term goal. I wanna be a millionaire before this year is out.”

Lucina said, “Well, if you make two million, that means that I’m a millionaire, too.”

“Yeah, if you get involved in real estate with me,” Ivan pressed her. “But it’s not gonna happen through parties alone. Your guys Randy and Ralph have a big head start on us in that department.”

“Yes, what did they say to you?”