Never forget where you came from.

All of your pain. All of your struggle. And all of your joy.

They are what builds who we are; what created your unique blueprint.

For me, with our kids, we don’t want them to struggle. We try to shield them from the pain or challenges that we experienced.

Is that helping or hurting? I think it may be both.

I certainly would not want to have my kids experience what I did.

But at the same time, the world is changing. We don’t know what kinds of jobs or opportunities they will have when they are ready to enter the workforce.

So, it’s our role to best prepare them AND to make sure we have a contingency plan for them should things not go as we hope.

This is also true with our business lives. Things are so different then when I started in 1995.

So, what does that mean?

Stay the course. Be strategic. Be forward looking.

Remember that the way things look now is NOT how they will look in the future – and they certainly won’t look the way they looked when we were young(er).

For that reason, you can’t go wrong if you just never forget where you came from – and where you want to go.

-J.D.