I grew up the oldest of three kids. My brother was born with Cystic Fibrosis and spent most of his life in and out of the hospital, for weeks to months at a time. During those times I spent my days either in school, in the hospital, or at work with my Dad.

As I got older I spent most of my summers working for my Dad cutting lawns. I learned what it meant to run business by watching my Dad and I learned how to landscape by working along the side his employees. As those employees moved on I would bring in friends of mine to work with me during the summer months.

I was always told that you should never hire your friends because “it always ends bad”. I believe that hiring friends early in my career ultimately made me a better leader. Since these were friends of mine and I didn’t want to ruin my friendship outside of work, I learned how to carefully correct people or address common work problems like showing up late, infighting, poor work quality etc. without upsetting anyone. As I looked back this turned out to be an invaluable lesson that shaped they way I communicate with staff to this day.

After high school I joined the United States Marine Corps. At the time my Brother’s hospital stays had become more frequent and intense, so I joined as a reservist so I could still be around. This turned out to be a wise decision as my brother’s battles intensified. The Marine Corps is where a lot of my disciplines began to take shape. From being prepared, respecting authority, to leading by example, most all of it stems from my time in the Marines.

After my training in the Marines I went to work for my Dad full time. Little by little I became the second in command. The guys reported to me, I had clients that only knew me, I did the scheduling, I did the invoicing and so on. At this point I began to develop my own thoughts and ideas on how the Family business needed to be ran towards the future but what I didn’t have was financial control and final say. That’s when the battles for competing visions began to take place. After many heated arguments, sleepless nights and long stretches of not speaking to one another I decided it would be best if I moved on. I thought if I left, he could continue running the business his way and I could preserve our relationship. It was at that time he agreed to hand over full control of the company. I can proudly say we continue to work together to this day.

Years later I had the opportunity to purchase another business. This was a multi generational family business that had no heirs or key employees to take over. I purchased the business and employed the previous owners for three years. During that time I made new hires, I repositioned key staff and began to make adjustments on how the business operated day to day.

Today, both my business and the multi generational family business that I purchased operate as one company. I have key staff that has been with me for 10-15 years that run the day to day. My COO who oversees the entire company has been with me for 20 plus years and is also one of my closest friends.

Over the years I’ve had the privilege of talking to many next generation leaders of family businesses. Almost all of them share the same struggle at some point in their career. Now, as part of my own succession plan, I have set out to help next gen leaders avoid common mistakes, succeed in putting their vision to work and live a fulfilling life.