I didn't know how often I had a shovel in my hands until I started looking at old pictures!
The ditch that went on forever
The Canal That Built Character
At age 10, Dad pointed at our irrigation canal and gave me a shovel. "Clean it out," he said. "All the way down." Looking back, I see what Dad saw—a soft kid who needed hardening. Not cruel hardening. Purposeful hardening. The kind that turns boys into men who get things done.
That canal taught me what no participation trophy ever could: Real satisfaction comes from real effort. Not from being told you're special. Not from having things made easy. But from moving actual dirt with actual blisters until an actual job is done.
Starting young! That's me and my brother to the left watching Dad on the tractor.
This is my dad's patented "walking Rod" Invention. This was early on when we were doing photo ops for it. It allows you to rod/screed the concrete without bending over. Although it wasn't successful commercially, I learned a lot and I apply those lessons to every idea I have now.
This is the actual old Dodge pickup bed with a hitch welded onto the front. Pure Arizona redneck engineering!
We were up at 4 every day in the summer, pouring concrete around mobile homes. This was a rare photo of my dad at work in shorts!
Choose Your Pain or Pain Chooses You
Chapter 6 reveals the brutal truth successful parents hide from their kids: Every capability you'll ever have traces back to some struggle you didn't want to face. Not all struggle creates strength. Some people dig the same emotional ditches for decades, learning nothing. They confuse suffering with growth, drama with development. The difference? Intention.
The Professional Development Program
You can't download these skills. Can't buy them. Can't inherit them. You earn them through the ancient currency of struggle. The skills you acquire are all that's truly yours—nobody can repo your abilities, foreclose on your experience, or crash your competence.
The Bottom Line:
Don't avoid struggle—choose better struggles. Bigger struggles. Struggles that build on what came before instead of starting from scratch. Because at the end of every chosen challenge is a capability that becomes yours forever.
"Growth comes from struggle, but when you're young and covered in sand, it just feels like struggle. The growth part? That sneaks up on you later."— The Canal Lesson
James 1:2-4 says it perfectly: 'Consider it pure joy when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete.' The struggle isn't the punishment—it's the point.