Wealth-Coaching

My lovely wife, Mary Lou and I have remained married for 27 years. Which means Mary Lou clearly has the patience of Job as she has continued to forgive me for 27 years. Hey move over Mother Teresa, I think Mary Lou has a shot at Sainthood as well!

I looked up the divorce rate for folks my age and it runs right at 40%. I feel both lucky and blessed to have beat the odds. Although like everyone elses we’ve had a couple of close calls.

In the book, Think and Grow Rich, Napolean Hill sites a supportive spouse as a highly important business success factor. I agree.

As I look back on my business career I remember it started when I took a job selling yellow pages and we moved to Illinios. Did I mention Mary Lou was 6 months pregnant at the time?

We were completely grateful for the job because at the time I was hustling carpet cleaning jobs and we were barely scraping by. I think on a great month we pulled in $800! My old college roommate, Eric offered me the job and to make sure I would like it he let me call on a few accounts locally to see what it was about.

Well, in three days I made $500 of the easiest dollars I had ever seen. So I’m weighing things out and thinking $800 dollars 30 days on one hand…. and on the other $500 in just 3 days… which is better? Both Mary Lou and I were sold! A few weeks later we packed all our worldly possession in our car (they all fit) and moved to Illinios.

For the next 18 months we lived in hotel rooms. (Rooms we traded for yellow page advertising.) And not very many of these hotels were all that nice.

When it came time for Mary Lou to give birth I put her on a train and shipped her off to her Mothers in Arkansas. I joined her just in time to sit in the mens waiting room for her grueling 18 hour labor as I had not completed any child birth classes.

Then a few weeks later she and our new little beauty, Whitney joined me back on the road and a life of raising a new born baby in hotel rooms.

During this time we started our own business, a yellow pages publishing company, and finally got in a position to actually rent a dingy one bedroom apartment.

And here’s the amazing part. Mary Lou was at my side the entire time and never complained once! I mean it not once. Even when we lived in one motel room where you could smell the Kentucky Fried chicken the people were eating in the room next to us.

I don’t know many women who would let themselves and their newborn baby be dragged across the country living out of a car and hotel rooms.

She helped me during the day with the business and we worked together on it late into the night. It was our passion and our life.

We did finally overcome and the rewards were great. We had great business and cash flow. We employeed over 80 people and our little publishing company won the honors of our industry and prospered. We eventually sold it for several million dollars.

I look back and yearn for those early years. Mary Lou and I built a bond that has cemented us together for the eternities and we have been able to weather some pretty tough challenges since. We ended up with 3 daughters and two sons. And are now enjoying the marvels of grandparenting. It’s true, grandchildren are Gods rewards for not killing your own!

Yes, Napoleon Hill was right… your spouse is a critical success factor, especially if you’re starting a business.

My best advise to those of you who may be thinking of starting a business or already have is this…

Always remember to put first things first and never forget the things that matters most, because no success can ever compensate for failure in the home.