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He accepted the challenge
of being his own boss in order to get up under the thumb of
those who would boss him, those whose opinions he rarely
shared. At the time, as he was following all those orders he
disdained, he was also well compensated for minding his
manners.
“In retrospect, I would
have sold everything while I was in good shape rather than
getting lean out of necessity,” he says.
He opened his office in
the inner city, perhaps the first State Farm agent to do so.
These days, he’s located on Secor, downsizing over the years
due to the bad economy. As a result, however, his current
challenges are virtually non-existent. He’s at just the
right size to operate and keep helping “people manage the
risk of everyday life.”
He realizes that he went
into business – both the insurance agency and, later, the
food business – “underfunded and uninformed.” The advice he
did receive from people with experience in those fields, he
ignored in favor of heeding what he wanted to hear.
“When you ask someone for
advice and you value their judgment, do what they say,” he
suggests.
He has recovered nicely,
however, due to his perseverance.
“No matter what you decide
to do, see it till the end, don't give up, whatever you do.
See everything in life that you hold dear until you are
through! People start all kind of battles and quit before
they end. The greatest challenge on life is to fall, and
then begin, dusty, dirty and beaten, and try until the end!”
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