That day, for no particular reason, I decided to go for a little run.

Today is part 10 of a 30 day commitment. To read about how I am blogging to change my life please read here first.

If your a runner, you probably know where the title of this post comes from. The most over quoted movie involving running, Forest Gump.

Most of you know that I run Ultra-marathons. An ultra is considered any distance over 26.2 (standard marathon). I get called Forest Gump all the time. Most people consider running a marathon one of the hardest physical challenges in the world. They talk about "the wall". It is the area of the marathon, usually explained as about mile 20, where the body's muscles run out of glycogen and become depleted of usable energy.

I'm here to tell you that it doesn't exist. Its bull. It becomes reality for people who believe it because they are so afraid of it. They wait for it and look for any sign of it happening and give in to it. It is the power of suggestion at work in a big way. Once you realize that you shouldn't take what everybody says to you as gospel, you start living your life based on your experiences, not what you expect to happen based on what you've been told.

Here's another secret. Anybody who can walk can run 100 miles. Almost every time I tell somebody that I ran 100 miles in less than a day they say that they could never do that. The reality is that they have never considered what it might take to accomplish it. It needs to be broken down into bites and it takes time to prepare for it. I think it would be more appropriate if people said "TODAY, I couldn't do that". All it takes is patience, vision and dedication. It is the same formula for getting anything you want in this world.

I started running in the most innocent fashion. I have been extremely active my entire life. I lived on my BMX, mountain bike and snowboard from the time I was 11 until I was in my late 20's. As the business was taking off I noticed that I was spending a lot of time in front of the computer. I also noticed that I was gaining some weight and didn't like how I felt. All of the sports I was into seemed to require specialized equipment and travel, and I just didn't have a lot of time.

Amy suggested that I go for a run. We lived in a cul-de-sac that was one mile around and it would be easy to go out the door and get some exercise. I really thought that running was stupid. I like to go off jumps and go fast. Why would I want to run? I bought a pair of running shoes and ran twice around the neighborhood. It was 2 miles. I felt like the worlds biggest dork. Nobody likes to be seen running when they are brand new at it. It didn't seem that hard, but it sure was uncomfortable. I ended up not being able to walk for days. I have never hurt so badly.

Hurting meant that it must be working so I started running a couple times a week, gradually increasing my loops around the neighborhood. I remember telling Amy that running was stupid and she replied that I would be racing soon. I laughed and told her that she was out of her mind. Its pretty funny to think about now.

Well, my OCD behavior took over and I started running further and further. I remember that the first big goal I set for myself was to run 10 miles. I remember the day that I did it like it was yesterday. I started training for my first race, the Big Lake 1/2 Marathon. In training I did a 17 mile long run and knew I was ready. The race was the first time that I had ever run with anybody else. I had always run alone because I was still paranoid that I looked like a dork or did it wrong. I finished in 1:47 and naturally decided to try a marathon. I did my first marathon in September of that year and began to see if there were longer races. I found a 50k (31.5 miles) race in December. I ran it in 4:56. The next year after a few 50k's I ran my first 50 miler, the VT50. I finished it in a little under 10 hours. Then I started training for the big one, the Vermont 100. My first blog post is a recap of the race. It took me 23 hours and 47 minutes. This year I was back and finished in 20 hours and 29 minutes for 18th place. Who knows what I'll try next.

Back to the point. I learned that there is no wall at 20 miles. Actually, I usually hit somewhat of a wall at 16 miles, but I have learned that it goes away at 20. Then I feel bad again at 30-35 miles, and then things get better again. In a 100 mile race there are many times where you hit a wall. Its mostly mental. I know that now. Its the point where things get hard. If you know that things will get hard you learn how to manage them. You expect it. You prepare for it. You also learn that after things get hard they get easier again. I think that is exactly like life. Things get hard. When they are hard don't lose site of the fact that things get easy again. They always have, haven't they? Why would this time be any different? Learning to wait things out and have the faith that things always get good again is something that running long distances has taught me. It take a lot of focus away from the tough times when you know that good times are coming.

Running has also taught me that listening to others sometimes creates walls in your mind that don't have to be there. Have faith in the fact that you can create whatever you believe in. Walls are there to be broken through and there are great things on the other side of them.

The Amy Factor

Today is part 9 of a 30 day commitment. To read about how I am blogging to change my life please read here first.

Those of you who have been reading this for the last 9 days know that I started this commitment to blog every day in order to get in the habit of writing. I want to write a book that will help people define what they want out of life and give them the confidence to know that they can get anything they want.

I talk a lot about being selfish and allowing yourself to pursue your dream, and sometimes it comes at a cost to the relationships around you. I truly believe that every one of us has the ability to get what they want. When trying to define the "hows" I keep struggling with one factor. It's the Amy factor.

I have been blessed with something that not everybody in this world is going to get. I found my soul mate. OK, if your not the romantic type you can call me corny. I really don't care. I mentioned earlier that I knew that I was going to marry Amy from the first time I kissed her. Amy and I were both overwhelmed with a feeling that we had known each other and found each other again when we kissed. I swear to God I went somewhere else during that kiss. I have never experienced anything like it.

Amy is the calm to my storm. It seems like all my character flaws are her exact strengths. She is the voice of reason when I am irrational. She knows exactly what to say when I am at a loss for words. She knows me better than me. I have told her over and over that I never would have been able to do what I have done with out her. Of course she tells me that I would have, but its not true.

So how am I supposed to come up with a system to benefit others if finding your soul mate is an important part of getting what you want? This continues to throw a wrench in my thought process. I really don't know if I would have the same positive outlook on life without Amy.

You may never find your soul mate, but perhaps its time to start paying attention to the people you are surrounded with. Are they supportive? Do they tell you to "go for it!" Do they ask you how they can help? If not, they could be having a stronger negative influence on your life than you realize. It think that it is human nature to pick up the traits of the people we are most exposed to. Surrounding yourself with people who have the same goals and beliefs makes it much easier to achieve your goals. Life is just like business (and vice-versa). You can accomplish a lot on your own with hard work, but you can accomplish a LOT more with a good team. Amy and I are an incredible team.

Every time I asked Amy about making a big change, like moving or starting the business, she has been right there with me. She has shown me unwavering support and trusted me fully. Right now she's our bookkeeper and it is definitely not her life goal. She has done whatever it took to make our company a success. She has learned so much and gained so much confidence. She has done an amazing job raising the kids, and she is always the glue of this family. She has helped me become a far better father than I would be on my own. She is my best friend and one of my biggest goals is to support her in her quest to find her life mission. I want her to be more selfish and me to be less selfish.

I want her to be as happy as she has made me.

What do you really want out of life?

e·piph·a·ny (ĭ-pĭf'ə-nē)
n. pl. e·piph·a·nies

Epiphany

A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.

Today is part 8 of a 30 day commitment. To read about how I am blogging to change my life please read here first.

Once I made the commitment to start my own business I never looked back. I started placing more ads in local newspapers and the phone really started ringing. I was selling bikes on eBay and turning them around fast enough that I was actually making money from the first month. There is no incentive as strong as fear. Fear of losing a house and not providing for the family is a pretty good one too.

I was also fortunate to have a best friend who is a great mechanic. Its hard to put into words how much Jeremy helped me. Not only by coming over after his regular work day and working on bikes, but by the incredible support he gave us. He was watching me build this business and was as fascinated by the process as I was. I paid him by splitting profits on the bikes he worked on and with a steady supply of good quality beer like Pabst Blue Ribbon.

I worked hard all day. I took the phone calls, negotiated the price, drove to pick up the bike, brought it back home, worked on it, cleaned it, test drove it, and then took the pictures and marketed it on eBay. I was on the computer much of the night answering emails and uploading pictures.

I also played hard. I love motorcycles. All motorcycles. One of the things that I discovered was that there were a ton of cool mopeds and scooters in peoples basements. Jeremy and I would go out late night until well after midnight and rip it up like a couple of idiots. We would set up tracks in parking lots and race each other. It was funny how I was working harder than I ever had in my life, but I was also really enjoying the freedom that owning my own business gave me. It was and still is a ton of pressure, but it is MY pressure. Its good pressure.

It was also profitable from the beginning. I started to get a much different view of money. I could literally make as much as I wanted. All I had to do was figure out how to scale up the operation. I had been fortunate enough to read Michael Gerbers "The E-Myth Revisited". If you are thinking of starting a business (or if you already have one) I consider it mandatory reading. There are a couple important lessons in the book that really helped me shape the direction of the business. The first was that it made me think about my individual jobs in the business. In order to scale the business I would have to figure out how to break all the roles I had down into individual job descriptions. I actually had about 7 different job descriptions written up before I hired my first employee.

The other was the concept of working ON your business as well as working IN your business. During the day I was working in my business by doing all the jobs I had to do. At night I was working on my business by writing job descriptions, doing research on websites and technologies to help, etc.. These are two completely different mindsets and your business will grow much faster if you actually schedule time to work on your business. This goes hand in hand with my earlier goal from the Rich Dad Poor Dad book of owning a business, not being self employed. At this point I was self employed, but I was planting all the groundwork to grow a business.

I was getting enough calls that I had to figure out where to get more money. I didn't have nearly enough money to buy all that I could and I didn't have a formal business plan to bring to a bank for a loan. During this time the housing market was going through the roof and I realized that what I owed on my home was way less than it was worth. I opened a home equity line of credit. Most people think of their home as an asset, but it really is a liability. If something costs you money every month and doesn't yield a higher return, it is a liability. It costs you. I was using my home as an asset. There are a lot of people who wouldn't be comfortable with this kind of risk but I never thought about it. It felt right and I was learning to trust my instincts, regardless of what the many negative people around you will say. I was starting to get a clearer idea of what kind of potential this business had and I was really excited.

I might have been excited and optimistic about the future, but we were still eating ramen prides and had cut back on all the extras in our life. We almost never went out to eat, one of our favorite things to do with the family. I had been looking at Michael Gerbers "e-Myth Mastery" program. It was a comprehensive multi-week program with a booklet, coach and weekly conference call meetings. This book made such an impression on how I was doing things and it was paying off. I wanted to take the next step and continue down the same path. But it was $500!! Five hundred dollars was a huge amount of money to me at this point, especially when I had cut back drastically. This was money that wouldn't directly generate more money. If I spent $500 on a bike I could be sure to make a couple hundred in profit. This was pure expense. Or so I thought. It might be the best $500 I've ever spent in my life. Obviously I did it. I received a huge binder with individual sections for each week of the program. It looked like a lot of work.

The first week was called "finding your primary objective" or something like that. I went through the worksheets and was struggling. I was so wrapped up in making the best business in the world I couldn't separate what I wanted for the business vs. what I wanted out of life. I kept coming up with things like, "To provide the best service, blah blah blah". I wrote it a bunch of times and came up with something that I thought would work. It felt right. I read it at the conference call feeling all brilliant and was trashed by the coach who said that I didn't get the exercise. What did I want? Not what did I want to do. He told me to separate my roles in life from what I wanted at my core. I could not figure out how to separate them. For me life consisted of my roles. What I wanted for my roles WAS what I wanted for my life.

I remember that the worksheet had two sides. One for what you want and one for what you didn't want. I had a really easy time filling out the section for what I didn't want. I had things like "don't want to be around bullshit artists". It was obvious that what had happened to me at Dads was still fresh on my mind. Then it hit me. I realized that all the things on the list of things I don't want related to being truth full and having integrity. What I call "being able to sleep at night".

It was so simple and pure. It felt like I had distilled everything I was about down to a tiny kernel. I wrote, "What I want out of my life is to always have the courage to tell the truth". It was for me a true epiphany. I can't explain it to anybody because it was how it felt that was so overwhelming.

I actually never went any further with the Mastery program. I had been lit on fire. For the first time in my life I could apply an ethic to every thing that I do. It is what turned National Powersports into what it is today. Let me explain.
Although it was my personal primary goal, I had the power to create a business in that image. This means that all the procedures and processes that we do had to follow it. It is the reason that my inspections on the motorcycles became so comprehensive. It is the reason that I have surrounded myself with like-minded employees. It is the reason that we don't lie to our customers. My employees know that if they don't tell the truth they won't work here anymore.

It is the reason that I love what I do. I have formed a business based on what I want out of life. I have formed a life based on a principle that makes me happy. If I had built National Powersports on a mission to "make as much money as possible" I wouldn' have made it. I really believed then as I do now that if you do the right thing money will follow. It has no choice, it has to.

The first line in our service statement that we give to every new employee is "Tell the truth". We talk about it in our morning meetings. It guides our procedures and makes our employees feel like they are part of something much bigger than just selling motorcycles.

I've largely kept it out of our marketing because it sounds self-serving. There are tons of places who advertise that they are truthful and don't back it up. I figure that I don't have to talk about it in my advertising. Our actions are what fulfills that promise.

It still gives me chills to remember that moment that I figured it out. The reason that I'm doing this is on the hope that I might help somebody else have that same moment. When I think about having a life with purpose, that is what I think about.

The seed grows

Today is part 7 of a 30 day commitment. To read about how I am blogging to change my life please read here first.

As I mentioned yesterday I had become more and more consumed with the idea of owning my own business. Being hired away from the company business had given me the confidence to believe in my instincts. The only problem was that I had no idea what I wanted to start. Everywhere I looked I saw opportunities. Every day I was consumed with new ideas and concepts. But I could not for the life of me figure out how to start doing something. I kept seeing all the obstacles in the way of actually doing something, so I did nothing. Although I was enjoying my job at Point 5, I was really beginning to feel tortured. It had turned into an itch that I couldn't figure out how to scratch.

I had read "Rich Dad Poor Dad". In the book he describes the differences between being in the "S" quadrant (for self-employed) vs. the B or "Business" quadrant. I knew that I didn't want to simply create a job for myself (S quadrant). The goal for me was to build a business that became an investment. I wanted to own a business that could eventually run and thrive without me being there. This is a lot harder that just striking out on your own to do the technical work that you are familiar with. For example, a mechanic works at a garage and gets paid $15 per hour. He sees that the shop charges customers $75/hour and decides to open his own garage. If he opens a shop out of his house, or small garage, with no employees then he is in the "S" quadrant, or self employed. If he gets sick, no money comes in. If he opens a garage and develops it into a multi-store operation with employees and systems he is in the B quadrant.

This was one of the things that I couldn't figure out. The old saying is that it takes money to make money. I believed it. I don't anymore, but I'll get to that in a minute. I wanted to be a business owner not self-employed, so I did nothing.

In the fall of 2001 I realized that Point 5 was in trouble. In the Internet start up world money doesn't work like in the real world. We would do private placement memorandums, where we would try to find a number of small investors to give us money on the promise of a big return on their investment. This is how the company got its income. Your expenses are called your "burn rate". We were burning alright, but we weren't selling enough subscriptions. I had never agreed with the owners projections on the potential amount of sales for the product and now were about to run out of cash.

Amy and I had been putting $500 a month into our mutual funds for the last year. We had been told by everybody we know that this was the smart thing to do for the long haul. It would grow to millions over the next 30 years because the average rate of return should work out to about 10%. But it didn't work out that way. The internet bubble had burst and the market was way down. When the attacks of September 11th happened the market really crashed. We were smart enough to put a couple thousand in to funds at the lowered rate the day the market opened which ended up making up for the loses, but it just didn't make any sense to me. This was supposed to be the safe thing to do with your money, but it sure didn't feel safe to me.

For some reason, I have never felt safe when it comes to money. I don't know why. Maybe somebody will over analyze me some day and figure it out. I consider it a blessing and a curse. It keeps me awake at night, but it also keeps me motivated. I think it was November of 2001 when I told Amy not to put the $500 into the mutual funds. I was going to use it to buy an old motorcycle. I told here that I'd fix it up and sell it for a small profit on eBay.

I put an ad in the local newspaper saying that I buy old motorcycles. Soon the phone started ringing. I bought a couple bikes, cleaned them up and sold them quickly. This was just supposed to be something to take place of the mutual funds, but the return on my investment was so much better I was encouraged.

Since I saw the writing on the wall with Point 5 I was trying to figure out what I was going to do. I was on Monster.com every day scouring the adds for positions similar to mine. I was trying to figure out how the hell I was going to pay my mortgage and bills if I lost my job. Of course my expenses had grown as my salary had grown and I didn't know how I was going to cut back. Amy and I had always had a iron clad rule that when we had children she was going to stay at home with them so she didn't have a job.

Around Thanksgiving Don told me that Point 5 was done. He was really good to me and actually paid our families health insurance for the next few months as a severance package. I believe that he actually paid for it out of his own pocket. As I said before he was a stand up guy. The calls for the bikes was increasing and my little side experiment was showing promise but until this point I didn't see how selling a couple thousand dollars worth of bikes a month was going to pay the bills. It was at this point that I took myself out of my comfort zone. I told Amy that I wasn't going to look for a job. I was going to turn this little side project into my own business.

We were scared shitless. We had $10,000 in savings which was only 2 months worth of bills. A lot of people think that National Powersports was funded by family money. I have none and never did. It was started with the $500 that I was supposed to put into mutual funds. When I quit the auto parts store my Dad gave me my Dodge Dakota. That was my severance package for 7 years worth of work. Believe me, there is nothing in any will for me and I wouldn't want it anyways. On January 2nd, 2002 I formed "The Collectable Trader, LLC" which is now doing business as National Powersports Distributors.

Tomorrow I'll talk about the moment I figured out what I REALLY want out of my life.

Things start getting better.

Tonight is part 6 of a 30 day committment. To read about how I am blogging to change my life please read here first.

It was amazing how quickly I started to feel better. DST was located in California so I worked from my house in St. Johnsbury. I remember riding my bicycle for the first time in a long time and riding a wheelie for a couple miles and smiling. It seemed that I had not done a lot of smiling and it felt good to feel good again!

The stress didn't completely stop when I quit the auto parts store. I still lived in the same town and I started to hear that Dad was telling people that he had fired me. I decided that in order to truly be free from the situation I needed to move. We put our house on the market. I couldn't wait to get out of that town and away from my Dad. My general mood was changing and I was starting to see that I was more in control than I had thought.

Dst had sent me to an industry meeting and I ended up seeing the founders of Point 5 Technologies. They were guys my age who were in the middle of building a technology company. The founder, Don Avelino, had been through a similar path as me. His Dad had a chain of Tire stores and he left to develop this company. He and his right hand man, Doug Portner, had visited me at the auto parts store when their first version of the "iphone" had come out to see if I would be interested. We had instantly hit it off. They were innovative and trying to solve supply chain issues, but were doing it from the other point of view from my experience. They had owned service centers, and I understood the supplier point of view. When we talked the ideas seemed to flow like water and they struck me as stand up people. This was a trait that I was looking for when deciding who I want to be associated with.

At the meeting they found out that I had left Dads company and started asking me about my position at DST. I had only been with DST for a couple months, maybe 6 at the most. Again, we hit it right off and they told me that they would be interested in hiring me. I couldn't believe it. In a short while I had gone from having no self confidence to being full of optimism surrounded by opportunities.

When they told me how much they were prepared to pay me I was stunned. I gave DST my 2 week notice and began working for Point 5 Technologies. This was an entire new world for me. I traveled almost non-stop. I was on planes from Monday until Friday or Saturday morning then I would start all over again. It was super fun work, even though it was lonely being away from Amy, Max and my new daughter, Isabel. But...I was happy. As the Director of Business Development I would explain how our software would bridge the gap between the service center and the supplier to buying groups that represented huge dollar amounts. Since I had knew so many people in the industry it was easy explaining how I had done a similar program with my customers and how it improved sales.

I was also the project manager for the actual software. I worked hand in hand with the developers and Don to keep the software moving forward and bringing improvements to market. I loved this job. Again, I seem to have discovered that I had a connection with using technology to solve problems and it made my mind dance.

When things had turned sour at the auto parts store I started to think that I should start my own business. I didn't know what I should do, but I thought that it might be time to be the guy in charge. This was the tiny seed that later developed into a full blown passion. While I was working for DST and Point 5 it sat dormant, but it didn't go away.

Tomorrow I'll talk about the beginnings of National Powersports.

Saved from my misery.

If you haven't read it already, please read last nights post before this one. It will make much more sense that way.

As I explained yesterday, I was in a pit of despair. I was taking St. Johns Wart pills because I read that they helped with depression. I was reading books like Jon Kabat-Zinn's Full Catastrophe Living which helps people in chronic pain by learning how to meditate. I was searching for a way to figure out how to live with this incredible stress that I was under.

At the same time I was working harder and harder. I had taken over purchasing, which for an auto parts store with 65,000 sku's was one of the most important jobs in the company. I had discovered a love for computers and was doing some pretty innovating things with the inventory management. I was taking POLK vehicle registration data and cross referencing it with our in stock inventory using three different programs.

As frustrated as I was working with my Dad, I loved this work. It was so innovative, progressive and exciting. When I was coming up with new ways to solve these old problems I felt electric. For maybe the first time in my life I didn't feel stupid. I had always been a C student at best, but in this capacity it didn't matter. Our computer system wouldn't do what I wanted to do so I started to explore other systems.

One of the systems that I had looked at was DST inc. based in California. I talked to the owner, Ray Stover, a little bit over the phone and explained what I had been doing and what I wanted to accomplish. Much to my surprise he jumped on a plane and flew to Vermont to see me. I showed him around our operation and then dove into some reports I had generated. I explained how I was actually predicting inventory needs as opposed to just generating order points based on past sales. I also took into account failure rates and some other factors. Doing these report was extremely complicated and Ray was clearly impressed.

Ray invited me out to lunch and as we were sitting together he looked at me, paused a little bit, then said "I'm going to get in trouble for this, but I have a proposal for you". He said that he would give me the entire system for free, but there was one catch. In two years when I "turned the industry on its ear" I had to come work for him. I tried to remain calm and composed. The system cost was $150,000, and he was dead serious. For the first time since I had been doing this I met somebody who believed in what I was doing. Not only that, he was going to make a serious investment to back it up. My Dad never showed me the appreciation that this man who I had known for 2 hours had.

I didn't know what to say. I tried to play it off and told him, "Ray, this is my family business, I'm going to own it someday. You couldn't afford to pay me what this will be worth to me" and I thanked him for his incredible offer and show of confidence.

This was a turning point for me. All of a sudden it was clear to me that my instincts had been correct. I realized that I wasn't trapped and that there were people in this world that would see that I had value. Much more value that my own family (Dad) understood. I started to change my thoughts and gain some confidence.

This didn't do much to help my relationship with Dad. By this point it was a daily bloodbath. I had lost all respect for him and him for me. We had regular shouting matches that we didn't even bother hiding from the employees. I had decided to fight back. It was terrible. My behavior was as juvenile as his. Its embarrassing even to this day to think about how often I lost my cool. It was as if I had reached a saturation point. The tiniest thing would set me off. I walked out often just so I could regain my composure.

One night during this time Amy and I had gone out to eat. We walked into this small restaurant and Dad and my stepmother Barbara were there. Dad saw us and reluctantly invited us to join them for dinner. It was really awkward. After a few drinks I decided to really make things uncomfortable and said "Dad, don't you think its time we come up with a plan to turn over the business? Its not working this way, maybe we can come up with a way that you can leave the day to day operations and I can just run it." Before my Dad could say a thing Barbara said, "Nate, I don't know what your thinking, its not like Alfred ever said you would own the place".

Holy shit. I knew that my Dad was a BS artist, but I never thought that it was at this level. The entire time he had been telling me that I would own the place and he was telling my stepmother that I'd never own it. I looked at Dad and I'll never forget the look on his face. He looked like a little kid that had been caught stealing cookies. He was looking down at his feet. I said, "so Dad, do you want to tell her what you've been telling me from day one, or should I?

I knew at that moment that I had been duped. I saw my Dad lie to everybody but I thought that I was different. I thought that I could trust him. I was wrong. The next day I called up Ray at DST and asked him if he was serious about me working for him and he said he was. He didn't hesitate for a second. I asked him if he would be interested in me coming to work for him immediately and he again didn't hesitate.

I went to work for DST for almost $100k a year. That's right, $100k a year and Ray was apologetic for not being able to give me more. I started to realize that I needed to trust my instincts and that I had more control over my life than I thought. I had more value than I knew. I took a chance and quit and it was the most liberating thing I have ever done in my life. I had broken the cycle. I realized that it wasn't hopeless.

Here's what I learned, and this has been a big one for me ever since. Enthusiasm and confidence in what you believe in will pay off. If you believe in yourself so will others. Ray also taught me that helping people believe in themselves can change their lives. This was in 1999 and I still email Ray once a year to thank him for changing my life. He is still amused that I am so grateful.

Tomorrow I'll continue the story with what happens next, and it is even more amazing.

How did I get here?

Yesterday I said that I was going to share an uncomfortable thought about getting clarity about what you want. I'm going to postpone that thought for a later date.

I was talking to Amy (my wife) today about this process. I asked her how she liked the posts so far. She said that they were great, but they missed any personal connection to me. She has been through a lot with me over the last 18 years and has gone through the serious lows that led to the great things that we have done. She's right of course, so tonight I am going to start to give a little background on how I got to this point.

In 1993 I married Amy Melissa Tisdale. I knew that I would marry her from the first time I kissed her. We moved in together less than 2 months after we met, much to the concern of my friends and family. When we were married I was working in a motorcycle shop as a salesperson. Before that I had spent my summers working in a bicycle shop and winters in a ski/snowboard shops. I started to think about a career path that would provide better so I decided to give my Dad a call. My Grandfather started Sanel Auto Parts in the 1930's. My family grew the business to a 50 store operation over the next generation. My Dad split off from the company in 1984 with 9 stores of his own in northern NH and VT. He had a nice business and even though I wasn't really interested in auto parts (I did love cars though) I thought it would be stupid of me not to pursue it.

After a number of phone calls convincing Dad that I was serious, I moved to St. Johnsbury VT. He had told me that he was starting to think of retiring and it would make sense for him to turn the business over to me since none of my brothers were interested in it. My Dad and I had always had a special bond. He favored me over my brothers and wasn't shy about showing it. It put a wedge between us and added a lot of stress to my early life. My parents were divorced when I was 5 so he really wasn't around much. When he did take us for a visit he spoiled us with anything we wanted. He always had piles of money and was very generous with it.

I started at the warehouse as a counterman. I learned fast. I was dedicated to learning everything about the business that I could. I treated it like it was mine from day one. Everything I saw I questioned why we did it and thought of ways to improve. Over the next few years I moved to various positions and eventually became the Vice-President. I oversaw everything including purchasing, store operations, financials and the 93 employees. It was way to much for one person to handle, but all the while I was thinking about how I would own it one day. In my mind I was just doing what I needed to do. My son Max was born in 1996. I didn't see him that much as a baby. I left for the office at 5:30am and usually didn't get home until 6:30 or 7pm.

I sat in the same office as my Dad. It was hell. My dad is the fastest talker in the world. He is also one of the rudest, inconsiderate people I have ever met in my life. I was constantly embarrassed by his inappropriate language and his incompetence. I would have a rep from a company in the office trying to solve inventory problems and he would be telling dirty jokes. I was struggling to grow the company while he called everybody an asshole and watched porn at his desk behind me. It was the most toxic environment I have ever been in. He would leave the office around noon and by 3 or 4 the phone calls would start. He would call every 5 minutes to ask about something. And he would be drunk. I mean stinking shitfaced drunk. So drunk it was hard to understand him. He would call and yell at me. He ran me around like a puppet. He would call up and fire people then not remember it the next morning. I would do my best to try to keep him from everybody, but there was no way to do that. The stress it created was unlike anything I've ever experience still to this day.

During this period I found out that he had been trying to sell the company without me knowing it. When I called him out on it he told me that I would be well taken care of. Then I was the one who had to present the figures and talk to the companies who might buy us out because my Dad couldn't talk business with them.

I started to become physically sick. I constantly had stomach problems. I would get chest pains. I was in a pit of despair. If it wasn't for Amy I don't know what I would have done. Every night she would help to try to calm me down while I got so worked up I couldn't sleep. I would drink too, because I thought it would relax me.

I honestly didn't think that there was any way out. I was making 55k a year, which after working in a bicycle shop was a fortune. There was no way that I could leave and go back to making 25k a year at a bicycle shop. I had a wife and a child to take care of and bills to match my salary. I only went to college for one year. I didn't think that my experience running the parts store would be very valuable without some kind of degree. I had no self confidence. I was broken. I began to understand why people would commit suicide. I would never do that, but I understood the despair that could push somebody into thinking that there were no options left.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about the man who rescued me and put me on this path without even knowing it.