"THIS IS WHERE YOU BELONG".

Here is where I break down a second. If you're lucky, this happens to you. I'm not a lucky person in the sense of ever winning a lottery or a prize in a drawing. Most days I can't win a coin toss. In the great recession of 1991, I couldn't buy a job with a $100 bribe. My father asked me if I wanted to come to work for him in the radio business. He happened to have an opening in the sales department. Now, in my formative years of 13-18 I was his custodial engineer, lawn maintenance man and all around gopher. Upon graduation from college, the one thing I knew for certain was I had absolute zero interest in the radio business. Being flat broke and the mailman bringing regular installments of collection notices I relented. I told him I would stay 6 months or till I found a job I was excited about. And I was firm in my resolve. What I never truly experienced in the maintenance side of radio was how much it helped members in the community. Radio helped find lost dogs. Radio helped raise money for children with life threatening diseases. Radio helped local businesses get customers so they could keep food on their and their employees table. As an Eagle Scout I was very familiar with service work. We were always doing projects helping others. Now against my firm resolve, I became drawn to the radio business. My father was a wonderful guide and instructor. He dropped me from a helicopter into the ocean and told me to swim. He called it "sales". I called it getting my teeth kicked in with steel toe boots. Tough lessons, but good ones. After about six months I started finding my footing. I was good at writing, but writing ads is an art and science. I was not great at it in the beginning but got better with time and work. After a year or so in the business, a client tells me she needs an ad that will work and she needs it fast. She had recently opened a new shoe store and she was struggling against a heavily entrenched competitor. She tells me if she didn't have some success pretty darn quick she would be closing the doors. I took that pressure personally. I wrote this crazy ad playing off a Three Stooges theme. It was funny, cute and stood out like a red pair of sneakers on a billy goat. When I presented the ad she loved it. She praised it endlessly. BUT I will never ever forget her final words: "You did a great job and I love it, but if it doesn't work... it doesn't matter". At that moment, you could feel the air sucked out of the room. These consequences are real! If my ad doesn't work she loses her store, her investment. Employees lose their income. People lose jobs and bills don't get paid. Right then I knew I better focus real hard on writing exceptional ads or I would be hurting more people than helping. The good Lord looked over us. The ad was a huge success, lots of new customers walked thru her doors and made purchases again and again. She went on to many prosperous years until someone made her an offer so sweet she took a permanant vacation. Whenever I saw her around town she would always thank me for the "ad that saved her business". It's funny. The day I wrote and produced that ad... I heard a voice in my head. That voice whispered "this is where you belong". My father is gone now, I hope I've made him proud. He helped me find my professional life purpose. Be a crusader for small businesses. Help them succeed and thrive. Today I write ads, negotiatie media and get people found online so that small businesses become and stay successful. They say if you love what you do you never work a day in your life. Turns out, I was wrong. I am the luckiest fella on the planet...