Chapter 2

2. Kid Work

I knew I wanted to make money at an early age. When I was thirteen, a friend told me he worked at a Chinese restaurant. He was sure they would hire me, so I put in an application. The owner was adamant that I have a Social Security card before I started working there. I told him I would apply for a card, and that sealed the deal. I earned $3.35 per hour as a dishwasher and moved up to cutting vegetables in no time. This was better than my five dollars a week allowance at home.

About three weeks into the job, the owner asked to see my Social Security card. I told him I hadn't received it yet. Since I didn't have it on me, he had to let me go. We came to an agreement that I would quit for a while, and then return when I could show him the card.

I got a phone call from him a few days later. It was high school graduation night. All of his busboys were seniors, so none of them could work. He asked me if I could bus tables. I jumped at the opportunity. I bused tables and watched customers like a hawk, making sure I kept their water glasses full. I earned $14.35 in cash for three hours of work. That was exciting.

I worked as a busboy for a little while longer and then got a job at the nursing home where my stepmother worked. I earned $7.50 per hour. I helped out in the dining room, along with a couple of other people. Sometimes, we would help the chef. It was easy work in a laid-back environment. I enjoyed it. I worked there three nights per week for about a year.

Once I started getting a steady paycheck in my hand, I became obsessed with working and making money.

Controlling My Destiny

I didn't like school, but I liked learning, and I started reading everything I could about the American Dream. I read books, articles, anything that caught my eye. I gravitated toward stories that embodied the American Dream-building something from nothing.

I enjoyed reading entrepreneur biographies and how-to books. I wanted to learn all I could about successful people. Where did their ideas come from? What inspired them? How did they pitch their ideas to potential investors? How did they deal with adversity? What was their background? How did they do it? I wanted to develop their mindset.

The funny thing was, at that point I wasn't quite sure what my goal was. I just knew it involved making money and building a business. I didn't read entrepreneurial magazines because they were heavily focused on franchising. I didn't read finance books or magazines either. I wanted to learn the process of starting a business. I moved on to reading about creating business plans (which is a big part of why I loved DECA so much in high school). It was really important to me to start something from nothing and build it myself.

I don't know why I had such a strong interest in entrepreneurship and the American Dream. I was only thirteen. Most thirteen-year-olds were reading comic books, but I was learning how to become an entrepreneur. Why did I have the desire to achieve financial security and success?

I've thought about this a lot since then. I think it was because I wanted to provide for my family in the future. I didn't want them to worry about money. I wanted them to have more than I had.

I wanted to do something creative in my life. I wanted to build something, to create something, something no one else had ever done. That's what all these entrepreneurs did; they risked and failed and eventually succeeded, and that was very exciting to me.

Growing up, my dad provided very well, but things could have been better. For example, I had only one pair of jeans in seventh grade. If I wanted something, we didn't have money lying around. I had to work and save.

I remember saving for a pair of white Nike shoes with a red stripe on them. They were just like the ones that John Ritter wore on Three's Company. I thought they were the coolest shoes and I had to have them. I worked hard, saved my money, and made the purchase.

I was so proud when I wore them to school the next day. There was a problem, though. A bunch of guys asked me why I was wearing cheerleader shoes.

I had no idea what they were talking about. Apparently a rival school's cheerleading team wore the exact same shoes, same color, everything.

I never wore them again.

It was frustrating to have saved up all that money, only to throw the shoes in the back of my closet. It hurt. It wasn't even being made fun of-what hurt was that I had worked so hard to get cool new shoes, and now I had to go back to my ratty old sneakers.

If my kids wanted shoes, I wanted to be able to buy them as many shoes as they wanted.

I often saw my dad with bills spread out on our table, budgeting for various things and working hard to make sure it all worked. It seemed so sad to me. I overheard conversations between my dad and his friends. Some of them would talk about work like it was a prison sentence. They would say things like: "Well, I have fifteen more years on the job," or, "Only six more years until retirement."

I wondered why they continued with a job they didn't like. I don't think any of them hated it, but they didn't seem to enjoy it either. I didn't want to deal with those frustrations. I didn't see a life like that as very appealing to me. Nothing at all wrong with it, just not my cup of tea.

And they talked about retirement in terms of Social Security, and how that wasn't enough to live off of. I remember wondering why they hadn't saved more. I wrote off Social Security as a kid and remember thinking to myself that I'd never want to live like that.

My dad's friends looked forward to their hobbies, such as hunting and golfing. It seemed like they were working for the weekend. That was fine for them, but I was striving for more. I didn't want only two out of seven days of the week to bring me fulfillment. I didn't want my job to feel like work; I wanted to enjoy it-and I wanted to make plenty of money doing it.

I told my dad one day that I wanted to someday build a business and become financially secure. He said he could be a millionaire if he wanted to, but it wasn't his game. He knew what becoming a millionaire entailed, and he preferred not to do it. That's cool, I had respect for him for that. There is no doubt that he could have done it if he wanted since he is brilliant. But that lifestyle was not for him, and he knew it.

I told him it was my game, and I was going for it. I didn't want to settle for a third of my income at retirement. I wanted financial security.

Not every example that spurred me on to success was negative. My dad's friend, Don, owned an apple packing business. He had a nice home. His kitchen always smelled of good food. His family seemed almost perfect. His kids were very polite. They never acted like they were better than anyone else because they had money. They had a well-balanced life, with lots of spare time to do the things they enjoyed.

I looked up to Don and his family. What were they doing differently than other people?

The answer was clear: they had their own business.

They had a secure, steady income, and they weren't chained to a job they disliked. They didn't have to rely on anyone else.

I wanted to become more like that. I wanted to control my destiny.

Flambés at the Thunderbird

My friend, Glenn, worked at the Thunderbird, the only high-end restaurant in town at the time. I saw him doing well, and I decided I wanted to work there. It would be an opportunity for me to meet and observe wealthy, successful people. My dad was fine with me working there, as long as I kept my grades up.

I got a job there as a busboy. I made $25 to $30 each night, which was good money back then. I had to wear a puffy, brown, polyester shirt as part of the uniform, but it was worth it.

I excelled in my busboy duties, and the manager noticed. He told me he wanted to make me a captain, which meant I would actually be doing the flambés and making way more money. There was a problem: I was too young. Captains had to be eighteen years old. I was only sixteen at the time.

The manager came up with a plan. He told me to quit and reapply in two months. He instructed me to put a new, false birth date on the next application. He would rehire me as an eighteen-year-old.

So I got a job as a cashier at Payless (which was like a Rite Aid or Walgreens). I cut down boxes and did other mundane tasks. It was awful. I kept reminding myself it was only temporary. I quit exactly two months later and reapplied at the Thunderbird. I wrote down a random birthdate, and the manager handed my uniform back to me.

Since the manager had faith in my abilities, he treated me like every other captain. As a captain, I made flambés. I wondered what the customers would think if they knew a sixteen-year-old was pouring brandy and lighting fires to cook their food.

My time as captain was really impactful to me. It was the first time I really saw how wealthy people lived, talked, and acted. I watched how customers carried themselves. I listened to their conversations. I observed how they interacted with each other. I learned proper etiquette and the ins and outs of high-end dining. I learned how to correctly pronounce the names...