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PROTECTING YOUR FIRM’S INVESTORS, NO MATTER WHAT THE COST
One incident that I will never forget happened late on a Sunday night as we were closing the store up for the night. In a typical fashion, I would see my grandfather counting the money that was in the register. This time, however, I saw him count the money a few times, shake his head and go into his wallet and take ten dollars of his own money out and put it in the register. Knowing how tight finances were for him I asked, “Why are you putting money into the register?” He looked at me and said, “Whoever was running the register must not have collected the right amount on one of the meal tickets and that his investors who had placed faith in him to run the business effectively and profitably shouldn’t be punished for this loss.” This principle and his words of wisdom are something that I have never forgotten to this day.
TAKING CARE OF LOVED ONES
As he grew older and I began my ambitious career in
the commercial real estate industry; shortly after
starting, I received a call from him. He told me he had
some bad news he had to share with me. He had been
diagnosed with cancer and the outlook wasn’t looking
good. According to the doctor, his time was very
and would probably be only a matter of months. After
the call, I remember sitting in my seat at the office just
frozen and not sure what I could do to help the man
that had such an impact on my life and was my idol.
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