It has been a few months since my last post. I am sorry for the inconsistency but I have taken on many new responsibilities since my last post. In February, my company lost our long-term Vice President of Operations. It took us all by surprise because I think all of us thought he was going to outlive us all. God had other plans and took him home, leaving a great void in our company.
In April of this year I was asked to take on the position my boss's death created. I had long ago resigned myself that I was as far up the corporate ladder as I could get with this company. The only people above me were my boss and the owners. Since no one expected my boss to retire, I had sold myself a bill of goods where I could not go any higher.(In truth, had he not passed away, that probably would have been the case.)
God has a way of turning our thoughts into mush just when we get comfortable with them. I was happy to be where I was in life. I had a good job, a great family including a beautiful wife, two sons and two daughters and three granddaughters, and I was happy.
Sometimes when we get happy, we get complacent. I had begun to get comfortable in my job and life and the turmoil of February this year had a great effect on all of us. In my new job, I am responsible for the operations end of our 42 unit franchise. I have two Regional Directors and a Training director immediately reporting to me and four District Managers reporting to them. There is a saying that with great wealth comes great responsibility. The same is to be said for Position. With greater Position comes great responsibility. Responsibility that I embrace and take great pride in.
I, who has just a High School Diploma along with some scattered College credits, have the responsibility over the operations of my entire company. Growing up, I had no idea I could achieve this kind of position or responsibility. Conventional wisdom says I should not be where I am because I am not educated enough. History says I should not be where I am because business is just not done this way. I was chosen to do the job because I have believed in myself over the last 21 years and took on responsibilities that convention says I did not deserve and didn't have the education to obtain. Because I believed in myself, I have excelled in my previous positions within my company. Each successive promotion took me to new places I had never been until I arrived where I am now.
My point is this: While society and convention say I was never deserving or qualified to do the jobs I have had, facts and results say otherwise. Many people who have become successful entrepreneurs have had the tenacity to do what they were not qualified to do; to try what they had not been trained to do; to dare to believe that they deserved a chance despite all the naysayers told them. They never asked for approval to try, they just did it!
When I was growing up, I spent most of my youth in what we called "the projects". Yes, public housing for the underpriveleged. I lived a stigma that effected my self-esteem for many years. I got invited to spend the night with friends and then suddenly uninvited because of where I lived. In those days, poor people lived in the projects just as they do today. The difference is that many got out of the projects and went on to buy houses of their own, send their children to college, and become productive members of society.
Today, that is becoming harder to do because we have allowed Government to tell us we will never do any better because we had bad circumstances in our lives and we should just shut up and suck on the Government supplied teat and not try to succeed on our own because we will fail without Government help. This is the beginning of Socialism and we are conveniently becoming a Socialist country. When Government rewards the people for doing nothing by taking from those who have done something or; when Government takes away from those who try to better themselves, making it better to do nothing, we are conditioning them to depend on Government to get by. A government that can give you anything you need can also take away anything you have.
Government gave me nothing of what I have worked to achieve, and what I have achieved has been by the grace of God and the sweat of my brow. I came from the bottom of the economic scale and I have moved to the higher end of the Middle Class. Government and convention saying I do not deserve what I have earned and that people who suck on the Government teat should get a share of what I have earned because they can do no better.
This country was not founded on Government subsidies, rather we revolted from Big Government and chose to live our own way without Government interference. This is the country where Sam Walton came up from a poor man to be the richest man in America before he died. He created the icon that is Wal Mart. I came from being a poor boy in the projects to be the Vice President of Operations for my company--without a college education and without Government subsidy. Sam Walton was a Billionaire. I do not aspire to be but if I did, I know I could. We do not have a lot in common except that we both believed in the Impossible. We believed we could even when society said we couldn't. No one can take away our achievements because we worked hard to attain them. If you believe in your self, you can obtain that which we are told is impossible. TODAY I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE IN THE IMPOSSIBLE.
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