09/07/2025
Here’s ten things my dad taught me about business!
1. Be proactive. My dad said those two words to me so many times it’s like a part of who I am. Opportunity does not seek you out. Problems do not solve themselves. Efficiency does not just happen. The people who wait for those things to fall in place live in decline.
2. Plan ahead. Plenty of my dad’s friends wasted the same amount of time and money that he invested in his early days of business. Any one of them could have made steps forward. He taught me that a future oriented person isn’t luckier than a presently distracted one; a future oriented person simply chooses his steps in a wiser manner because he has goals that he’s moving toward on purpose.
3. Stop making excuses. My dad would hand me some advice after I failed at something and I’d say “I know” and he’d say “if you knew, you would have done better.” If we give ourselves reasons to fail we will take them every time.
4. Entrepreneurs work harder than employees. When my dad first went into business for himself he worked days at his business and nights at a chicken processing plant. While he was signing paychecks for employees, his own money was cycling back into his business leaving his bank account empty and his labor hours twice what everyone else’s were. This is the side of self employment that weeds out all the people looking for easy money.
5. Treat people the way you want to be treated. Mercy has always been a life philosophy for my dad. He was honest with his customers, accommodating to their needs, and he took ownership of his mistakes. On dozens and dozens of occasions I watched him “make things right” with customers that he truly owed nothing to. They’d be loyal to him for life, though, because they knew they could trust him. Old customers who didn’t even need anything would stop by just to chat.
6. Big money is made out of little money. Even after dad became successful I’d see him re-using stuff most people would throw away and pinching pennies at every turn. I’d say “dad, it’s just five bucks,” and he’d say, “what do you think hundred dollar bills are made out of?”
7. Be generous. I can’t express the importance of this one enough. A truly future oriented person will see the purpose in investing in eternal things. The blessings experienced by those who give are not mystical, these blessings make sense logically because future oriented people value purpose in every area of life, and it’s as good for them as it is for the people they are helping! Read that as many times as it takes to nail it down!
8. Never stop being yourself. The first half of my childhood my dad was broke; the second half of my childhood saw his business grow exponentially. He never, ever, ever stopped being who he was. “If you let success make you think you’re better than everybody, you will lose some of the best friends that you already have just to gain a bunch of fake friends that you don’t need.”
9. Money is a tool. Luxury is an insatiable debt that we impose on ourselves which is why luxury was never his goal. He grew up in poverty. Dad’s goal was simple; he never wanted his wife to feel what his momma felt, and he never wanted his kids to feel what he felt. The rises and falls outside of that never shook him up too much.
10. Don’t make your children have to start from scratch. This is a controversial one because of everyone’s opinions on entitlement and handouts and privilege and all of that but none of that mattered to Dad. Legacy was always on his mind. When he got married, he and Mom lived in a shack with no plumbing and took showers in the back yard with a hose draped over a tree limb. He very nearly got trapped inside the game of debt and time clocks and rat races. He always figured if he could set his own children up to not have to start in that sort of place that they would be much better off. All of his grandkids live lives today that are a stark contrast to the one he had and it’s not an accident. He believed in his kids though his own father called him stupid. He invested in his kids though his own father never gave him a thing. He built some walls and laid some foundations and fought some wars that my children don’t even know anything about today. And that’s ok. It’s a victory no matter what society calls it.
Here’s to all you entrepreneurs out there trying to make something happen!
