I do!

Do you see yourself as a leader?

From a young age, I learned to make money. Whether it was pushing my lawn mower around, raking leaves in the fall, pulling weeds for little old ladies, or even helping people move. I was always trying to make money. I lived with my mother, single mother, and she didn’t make a lot. So if we wanted anything other than the food on the table three times a day, for instance, a candy bar, a pack of gum, or maybe a gas station soda… Well, we had to come up with the money ourselves most the time. Whether it was birthday money, money we got from Christmas, or money we made working for the Neighbors.

I quickly learned and understood that the harder I worked and the more I paid attention, the quicker I could get done and on to the next, the more I made, and the more people kept wanting me to come back. The urge for money gave me a really good work ethic. I always paid close attention to all the older people within my life. I started my first real job at 14 years old doing concrete and masonry work. That boss, was the first boss to teach me how I didn’t want to be treated, and he definitely wasn’t going to be the last.

At about 15 years old, I quit working for that guy and I went to work for a Paving Company. Now this was some hard work! I’m talking about just back breaking, endless, hot, hard work! And again another boss that was an asshole. I always paid attention though with both jobs. I started to learn that the customers always right and if you can’t do it right don’t say you can do it at all. Paving didn’t last too long, 6 or 8 months, I couldn’t handle it. I’m almost 16 years old now and still hungry for money, was kicked out of my mom’s house a few months prior and living with one of my older sisters. Her husband hung drywall for a living, and put me to work. I got myself into trouble for having a mouth and apparently I broke a window. So I was fired.

Well, my brother-in-law’s best friend instantly put me to work for their drywall company. This is where I really started to grow! The boss really took me under his wing, I was almost like the teenage son he always wanted while he waited for his son to grow up more haha. So he taught me at all all the tips and tricks. How important it was to take the extra step even if it takes a little bit longer. He taught me that if your work looks good you get more work. He taught me that you can charge a little bit less and still do a great job. Taught me you don’t need a big crew to move mountains and gave me lots of responsibility and even at 16 years old going on to 17, made me Foreman and let me run job sites from time to time. However, he was still another boss that was an asshole.

I started to see a trend, the one thing the customer and all of my bosses had in common, most of the anyways, my bosses work for the customer, and I worked for my bosses, well, the customer often treated my bosses like crap, and my bosses often treated their employees like crap. The one with the money got to make the moves.

At about 17 years old, the economy Tanked and nobody was building houses anymore. So no more drywall. No more construction at all! Still living on my own I needed a job. So I went to work for McDonald’s making considerably less than me was used to making in the construction industry. How do you make more money at McDonald’s? Management! So I was always trying to impress the managers that I worked under and always trying to move up. I learned to watch my mouth, I learned excellent customer service. But again my bosses we’re usually assholes. I had it set in my mind, when I was the boss, everybody was going to get treated Fair! I was determined to become the boss one day at anything I did.

I’m 18 now and I’m in a relationship with a woman that already has a one and a half year old child. Now the urge to make money is even more crucial. I was burned out at McDonald’s though. Always promised the next great thing and it was never delivered. Just work a little harder, just do this a little bit more, two months turned into 4 months turned into six months. I’m over it I need to make more money. Move to Tennessee, my girlfriend’s father promised us the world. Got there and had nothing it was all a bunch of Lies. For a year I walked mile upon mile the 2-year-old little boy on my shoulders while my girlfriend, ex-wife years later, worked as a waiter for like $2.50 an hour plus tips. Filling out job application after job application. Nobody would hire me! I mean nobody!

At this point, she was pregnant with our daughter and I seem like a deadbeat good for nothing boyfriend that can’t get a job and lives off his girlfriend. Her family members were telling her to break up with me, her and I were fighting, I was so scared we were going to break up. I kept telling her that if we move back to Idaho I could figure it out and I finally convinced her to do so almost exactly one year after we moved to Tennessee.

Now back in Idaho, I went back to work for McDonald’s. Constantly looking for the next best thing. That’s what I met a guy that had a huge, 75,000 ft storage unit and he bought and sold just about everything and was always scrapping all the metal in the world he could find. He taught me how to make money out of basically nothing. He paid me to help him do it! This boss, always treated me right, he was always very fair, he was understanding, he cared! I actually enjoyed my job for once. However, with a stepson and my daughter on the way… I was always looking for the next best thing. I had goals, things I knew I wanted in life, and I knew I was moving up in the world. I don’t know when but one day I’m moving up.

Well, that caused me to do something I’m still not very proud of but I had to do. My current boss was subcontracting work from one of his friends. One day he asked me to go help his friend on a job site and I did. After work that day his friend took me out to the bar and we had some beers and talked for hours. He was so impressed with what I knew, how hard I worked, and how eager I was to learn! That’s all it took, I started working for him. This would be the job that really changed to things for my ex-wife and I. Sort of my first Holy Grail, the job that made me the man of the house and the main income provider. The job that got us into our own place and bought us our own first cars and smartphones at the time. I was doing foreclosed property clean ups for Fannie Mae, Bank of America, and a few other small real estate agencies.

It’s funny how that worked out, in a few short years I went from basically building houses, to no job at all because they stopped building them, to doing foreclosed property cleanups on a lot of the houses that were built at the same time I was in construction. All because the economy Tanked and nobody could afford their properties anymore. Well, as evil as it sounds, I was now making more money than I ever had in my life! It was a huge blessing!

I was now about 3 years into doing foreclosed property cleanups. I kind of felt like a king, all the responsibility I wanted, the boss was always going out of town and on trips while I ran the company back in Boise. I was always in charge while he was gone. He really really taught me just how important the customer really is. However I soon learned that I wasn’t really making very good money at all. I mean yeah I was making a little over $6,000 a month, but, I was only making $10 an hour.

I was working so much, sometimes over 150 hours a week. I never had time to see my family. My ex-wife would stay up late once in awhile and greet me coming in, but, my kids were always asleep when I got home and asleep when I left for work a few hours later. My boss wouldn’t let me go to family Christmas parties, birthday parties, barbecues. And guess what, yes, indeed he was an asshole. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired! Things finally started to slow down, at times too slow. But I could still afford life. This is when I started to see my self worth and I started to realize just how valuable I was and important I was to the company. I’m now about 3 and 1/2 4 years in working for this company now and I want more. When I started $10 an hour I didn’t know anything but now I knew everything and I was running the show a lot of the time. I want my own crew, my own jobs, and better pay. I also want you to give me time off when I ask and stop being rude to me. Well it just never seemed to happen one day he has pulled my final straw!

He was an asshole for the last time! He would have been the first boss I ever hit, and he was twice my size, but I almost reached back and swung as hard as I could. It was my daughter’s birthday party, I was barbecuing, I had been planning it for weeks and telling him all about it. The day has come, and it’s time for me to leave, well, suddenly he wants me to do all these things before I can go and it’s going to make me late. I’m still only making $10 an hour and he’s expecting the world of me! All while being an asshole! Nope! At this point, screw you! Either you pay me more or I’m done and I ripped my shirt off tore it in half. He said no, he said if you leave don’t come back Monday. I said don’t worry I won’t!

It’s Friday afternoon, I’m finally on my way to my daughter’s birthday party, I’m extremely pissed off, but I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted at the same time. By the time I got to the party, I was no longer upset and I was convinced, I’m moving up! I’ve got goals, there’s things I want to do in life, and I can find a better job. I don’t need him. Another asshole boss! I took his advice and I didn’t show up on Monday instead I was peeing in a cup for a drug screening to go to work for a new company. I was about to have an apprentice position at a semi mechanics shop. I knew a lot about cars and I loved working on them. This was the next best thing and I could get paid doing it. A lot more too!

About a week later, I’m high on life, and everything negative has been forgotten. I’m loving my job and I get paid to do it! Now I have the weekends off, I only have to work 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., I’m making just as much money, they don’t care if I take time off as long as I put it in 2 weeks before, and most importantly I have time for my family. I actually get to start enjoying being a father. At this point I felt like there was no better job in the world. I was getting to learn how to drive semis, which is a lot of fun by the way, I was learning how to work on them, and everybody that works with me were all extremely impressed with me and what I knew and how quickly I learned. Finally! Nobody was an asshole.

I’ve been working for this company for approximately 4 months now. I realize I’m allowed to request time off. So I request some time off the go camping in March of 2013. Had a great time, went back to work everything was normal. A couple months later, I’ve been with the new company a little over 6 months. Still just absolutely loving life. I’m not working for an asshole, everything is going great, I’m getting used to spending time with the family again, and A family reunion is coming up that I can actually go. So I request the time off.

I would leave work on the 27th of June 2013 and I wasn’t supposed to return until the 1st of July 2013… well, little did I know that wasn’t going to happen. I woke up on the 28th of June 2013, extremely excited to go camping and enjoy this family reunion. Got everything packed and it seemed like the day went by so slowly. That was the evening I got in my SUV with my ex-wife and her three kids and headed out. About an hour and a half later had a blowout and rolled between 5 and 8 times! Nobody else was injured however I broke my neck. I have been a quadriplegic ever since.

It was really really hard the first couple years extremely miserable and depressing! However I would learn to look at it as a blessing. Now I have all the time in the world for the people I love! This is when I would become My Own Boss! I would be in charge of all of my caregivers and how I wanted things done. I would have to learn how to teach people to do things the way I wanted and how I wanted them done. This is where I really learned how to control myself and be an excellent leader! I rarely get upset, I can literally spend an hour and a half trying to explain to somebody how to do something 19 different ways and I still don’t get upset. Eventually we figure it out and it gets done and now they’ve learned how I like it and I get to pass on the knowledge. I’m constantly teaching people how to work on cars, put up my Christmas lights, build Ikea sets, and cook recipes I love. All while never getting upset. I have five people working with/for me and I can honestly say, each and every one of them will tell you I am a good person, I care about their wants and needs, I’m not an asshole, and I know for a fact younger than me and older than me four out of the five of them look up to me. Even though I’m in a wheelchair and I can’t use my hands and I can no longer walk. I am a leader, and I have followers. I get to be responsible for a small group of people that depend on me. A small group of people that really appreciate me! Most of all, if I need something they are right here and they know that I’m not just going to call for nonsense or to waste their time.

It’s taken a long time, and I’ve had to go through and overcome so so many things! Horrible horrible things. I haven’t always been perfect and I’ve Had My Moments, But I did! I overcame them and I am finally at a point in my life where I am proud! I am proud of the father I Have Become and so are my parents and the elders in my life. I am proud of the boss in leader I Have Become, and it feels good to hear my employees tell me things like, you’re the best ever, you are very smart, there’s another tid bit of knowledge that I didn’t know you had in your brain, I could work for you forever, it’s not even like I’m at work, time goes by so fast when I’m here, you’ve taught me so much…

So if you want to be a good leader, don’t be an asshole, show your employees you care, treat your customers right, don’t give any effort if you’re not going to give all your effort, don’t do it if you can’t do it right, and don’t be afraid to share your knowledge especially if it means you can literally create the perfect employee. All you got to do is start with somebody that doesn’t know anything about what you want them to do and take the time and put in the effort to teach them how to do it, exactly how you would do it, when you would do it, why you want them to do it, and why it’s important to do it exactly that way. Without getting heated, without giving up, all while being very descriptive. Always show them you care, let them know when they’re doing a good job, remember that everybody has bad days, and most importantly, you are not better than your employees so don’t act like you are!

I hope you enjoy this read! Don’t forget to stop and think about the great things in life that you’ve been able to do and remember to be thankful for being able to do them. Be thankful for the good times and the bad times because they’re all an opportunity to learn! And don’t forget… If donkeydidit…You can too!