Starting Right

Developing the Next Generation of Rainmakers Starting Right When I was young, I lived in a Chicago suburb. My family typically visited my grandparents in Virginia a couple of times a year and as I grew older I visited on my own. I remember during a summer break from high school taking the train from Chicago to Richmond, changing trains in Cincinnati. It was a long, long trip.   When I was staying with my grandparents I was typically bored. I didn’t really know anyone other than my cousin and his friends and there were no parks with baseball fields like there were at home. My grandfather had an entire wall with shelves filled with old books. The majority of the books were either historical or self-help books. My grandfather had lost everything in the depression and I think he read the self-help books in the hopes of making a comeback.   I remember reading books by Dale Carnegie including, How to Win Friends and Influence People and I especially remember reading books by Napoleon Hill, including Think and Grow Rich. Hill was born in poverty in the coal fields of Wise County, Virginia. He started as a news reporter and later went to law school. As a reporter, Hill was given the assignment to write stories about successful people. Andrew Carnegie was one of the people Hill interviewed. According to the legend, Carnegie believed there was a formula for success and he commissioned Hill to interview successful people and write a book about what they shared in common. The project took over 20 years. In the midst of the depression, Think and Grow Rich was published.   I think my career has been influenced by my early reading of Napoleon Hill’s book more than anything I have read since. I was convinced that there is a formula for success and I was determined to follow it. In the very first chapter, Napoleon Hill told readers they needed to have a clear major definite purpose. He said: There is one quality which one must possess to win, and that is definiteness of purpose, the knowledge of what one wants, and a burning desire to possess it? I was inspired by his statement: When your desires are strong enough you will appear to possess superhuman powers to achieve.   So, the starting point for your life and career success is knowing definitely what you want at this point in your life and having a burning desire to achieve it. I am living proof that it works and that what you want will change over time.     I practiced law for 37 years developing a national construction law practice representing some of the top highway and transportation construction contractors in the US.