I grew up thinking my family was rich. Not because we lived in a big house or took fancy vacations — we didn’t — but because I had everything a kid could ever want. A warm, secure home. Lunch money every single school day. Clothes that fit and made me feel confident. A mom who stayed home and raised us. And a car in the driveway that always seemed to start when we needed it.
To a child, all of that is wealth. And for many years, that was how I understood the world. That, somehow, I got lucky and was born into a good family in a small community in a great country.
What I didn’t realize, not until much later, was what it actually cost my father to give us that life. I didn’t see that working 80 hours a week, sometimes more, wasn’t normal. I assumed everyone’s dad left before sunrise and came home after dark. I thought seven-day workweeks were just what fathers did. I had no idea that those long days weren’t a sign of success… they were a sign of sacrifice.
That’s what it looks like when a man with a high school education wants something better for his family, and is willing to give everything he has to make it happen. As a kid, I believed we were doing well. As an adult, I came to realize that we were simply holding on like so many other families. I wasn’t lucky or special because of my lot in life; I was just a normal, average child with an opportunity to work hard and make something of myself. But I also realized that my father had been carrying a load far heavier than I ever understood or appreciated.
When he died in the 1987, I learned something that stunned me: for the last couple of years of life, he’d been paying the IRS eight dollars a month to catch up on back taxes on a debt large enough that he’d never be able to pay it. Eight dollars.
It was all he could afford.
A lifetime of hard work, and the cost of trying to build a better life, left him with almost nothing financially. And when he grew too old and weak to work, he lost all hope for the future. As for his four children, there was no inheritance. No nest egg. No assets or life insurance. But he left us something far more valuable: A work ethic. A sense of responsibility. The need to treat everyone well because that was the right thing to do. And he left us with the belief that showing up — every single day — matters.
Those lessons became our inheritance.
Being a small business owner wasn’t just encouraged — it was understood to be the path upward. The only path. So, I started climbing.
No one in my family had ever gone to college. My oldest sister was the first to earn a four-year degree. I wanted to do the same, but it didn’t come easily. I worked full time, went to school full time, and pressed forward anyway. Eleven years of education after high school. Eighty-hour workweeks. And more than $65,000 in student loans paid off over twenty years.
Not because I was trying to be exceptional, but because I was trying to build a solid life — using the tools my father handed down, augmented with a formal education.
But the truth is: this story isn’t really about me.
It’s about every entrepreneur, especially those in their 30s and 40s who are trying to build a business, a family, a future… sometimes even a fortune… and quietly wondering if all the struggle matters. Let me tell you something, from someone who’s 67 years old
and has spent a lifetime walking the same path:
It matters.
The point of this blog post is to remind you that you don’t need to start with wealth to build something meaningful. You don’t need the perfect background. You don’t need every advantage.
You need purpose. Integrity. The willingness to take care of the people your small business touches. Because the real wealth you’re building — the kind that lasts — isn’t measured only in dollars. It’s measured in the opportunities you create. In the stability you provide. In the lives you improve. In the future you make possible for the people who come after you.
At 67, I can tell you this with complete honesty and clarity: Helping others — through your work, your business, and your life — is the best use of your time and energy. It’s the part you will never regret.
So keep going. Work smart. Lead with purpose. Build something that matters. And understand that the real advantage is the one you’re creating right now through the way you treat people and the way you choose to show up in this world.
Thank you for reading.
Live a great life.
— David Sr.