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I just want to preface this by saying I don’t have a fb account, or twitter, but I come here everyday and appreciate all the help and support over the years and wrote this for this with the hn community in mind, given its meant to be motivational and not techie.

It’s coming up on a decade from the night my dad died. I was 16 at the time. I came home from playing tennis and my dads car was replaced by my one of my moms friends. It wasn’t very long after it happened. Initially I figured my dad was running late, not an unusual thing and I didn’t think about my moms friend being there very much. When I walked in my house, I was a little shocked to see my moms friend there with her husband. I usually only saw the husband at the synagogue and such, but my mom and his wife were best friends. I walked by the husband, who was standing there with a look of shock on his face. My mom on the phone, “My son just walked in I have to go.” She sat me down and told me, “someone came by the business tonight and shot dad in the head twice.” My mom didn’t know what to do, she stayed very strong, credit to her, scrabbled for a hot towel to lay on my forehead. I remember thinking that I have to remember these last sequence of events vividly because the rest of my life will never be the same. At this point it was around 7 at night and my older brother wouldn’t be home from a concert until 11, at which point of course he would know what happened. He dropped to the floor when he walked in the house and that moment still hurts me. The eldest sibling, my sister, turned 21 2 days before and came home around 820 to a house packed with cars outside and people inside. I am 100% positive she was thinking it was a surprise birthday party for her. I couldn’t listen when my mom had to tell her. Shes not all there mentally, my sister, so she doesn’t function like the rest of us. For sure she wont ever recover from this. Never. It’s still a mystery if any of us will.

I wanted to share a motivational story about shit. Quite literally poo. I grew up in an old factory town and my family owned a auto salvage business which my dad proudly ran for about 20 years. My dad had a super power than enabled him to work 7 days a week without a break on top of being severely ill with chrons disease. The guy had a hernia removed once (a year or so) and when the doctor came back to check on him he realized he removed a different hernia, not the one the surgery was intended for. My dad endured a lot of pain. He had a cyst centimeters from his tumor removed in 1999. Longest time he ever took off work. Still went back early though. Damn I miss my dad.

Every night when my dad would come home from work he would be filthy from working at the junkyard all day. Immediately he would strip down to his underwear and throw a bathrobe on and sit for dinner. All of his underwear, 100% of the time had shit on them. The chrons was vicious, and he was working too hard to let that stop him. I mean come on, this guy went to work every day despite being sick as shit and would come home beat to hell every single day. I had more than one person tell me my dad was a hard worker and one of the sheriffs at the trial commented that he had called my dad the hardest worker in the county. But thats the point; he had what it takes.

None of this was necessary, but we lived in a beautiful custom built home in a nice neighborhood. We weren’t rich by rich people standards, but when you grow up around poorer areas a little bit of money seems like a lot. And that little bit and some more my dad lost in the stock market before his life was taken from him. As well the business started to collapse immediately and even with my brother stepping in and my mom taking out loans the place just wasn’t meant to run without my dad. Somehow my mom sold it and paid her bills. But I am left asking myself was it all worth it? From 16 until 26 I felt like my dad sorta wasted his life torturing himself by working all the time and not enjoying what life has to offer. It seemed to me like time is now even more limited and I gotta make the most of things by enjoying myself. But recently my perspective has changed. I recognized that my dad loved the grind. Everyday he went out there to stuff his socks with money to bring it home. It was his duty and he persevered through more shit than anyone can imagine. Literally.

Those of you with dreams of starting a business ask yourself this question: “Do I want it enough to shit myself everyday?” If you can grind like that, I think you are on the right track.