n just make a few for the sake of "arts and crafts," developing my fingers and hands, I made hundreds and hundreds. I got real good at making real good potholders, you could say. Whenever I met someone I tried to sell them potholders at 25 cents each. As I earned more and more money, I started an account at the savBill's Life and his Lessons Learned, Part II

There are a few people, very exceptional people, who are so singularly special that the complimentary joke is made; after they were born, the mold to make them got broken. In other words, there's no chance for posterity to make any more of the likes of Michelangelo, George Washington Carver, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, etc. In my case, they threw out the "mold," but I fooled 'em and grew back!

Seriously speaking, the first lesson I learned while very young is that in order to sell successfully you must be relentless. You have to be downright incredible to be able to keep your integrity and successfully sell something like, "ice in the wintertime to Eskimos." However, As John Paul Ghetty, the oil-marketing billionaire, observed, if you have a high quality product you know people both need and want, repeatedly, it will almost sell itself." Like the nursery stock we grow at Highland Hill Farm.

I have learned these lessons. There are basic concepts that are important to understand. Starting when I was very young, I've always had "business." My first business was making and selling potholders when I was 5-years old. My parents had bought me a small potholder-making contraption. Rather than just make a few for the sake of "arts and crafts," developing my fingers and hands, I made hundreds and hundreds. I got real good at making real good potholders, you could say. Whenever I met someone I tried to sell them potholders at 25 cents each. As I earned more and more money, I started an account at the savi

, George Washington Carver, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, etc. In my case, they threw out the "mold," but I fooled 'em and grew back!

Seriously speaking, the first lesson I learned while very young is that in order to sell successfully you must be relentless. You have to be downright incredible to be able to keep your integrity and successfully sell something like, "ice in the wintertime to Eskimos." However, As John Paul Ghetty, the oil-marketing billionaire, observed, if you have a high quality product you know people both need and want, repeatedly, it will almost sell itself." Like the nursery stock we grow at Highland Hill Farm.

I have learned these lessons. There are basic concepts that are important to understand. Starting when I was very young, I've always had "business." My first business was making and selling potholders when I was 5-years old. My parents had bought me a small potholder-making contraption. Rather than just make a few for the sake of "arts and crafts," developing my fingers and hands, I made hundreds and hundreds. I got real good at making real good potholders, you could say. Whenever I met someone I tried to sell them potholders at 25 cents each. As I earned more and more money, I started an account at the sav

p your integrity and successfully sell something like, "ice in the wintertime to Eskimos." However, As John Paul Ghetty, the oil-marketing billionaire, observed, if you have a high quality product you know people both need and want, repeatedly, it will almost sell itself." Like the nursery stock we grow at Highland Hill Farm.

I have learned these lessons. There are basic concepts that are important to understand. Starting when I was very young, I've always had "business." My first business was making and selling potholders when I was 5-years old. My parents had bought me a small potholder-making contraption. Rather than just make a few for the sake of "arts and crafts," developing my fingers and hands, I made hundreds and hundreds. I got real good at making real good potholders, you could say. Whenever I met someone I tried to sell them potholders at 25 cents each. As I earned more and more money, I started an account at the sav

Hill Farm.

I have learned these lessons. There are basic concepts that are important to understand. Starting when I was very young, I've always had "business." My first business was making and selling potholders when I was 5-years old. My parents had bought me a small potholder-making contraption. Rather than just make a few for the sake of "arts and crafts," developing my fingers and hands, I made hundreds and hundreds. I got real good at making real good potholders, you could say. Whenever I met someone I tried to sell them potholders at 25 cents each. As I earned more and more money, I started an account at the sav

n just make a few for the sake of "arts and crafts," developing my fingers and hands, I made hundreds and hundreds. I got real good at making real good potholders, you could say. Whenever I met someone I tried to sell them potholders at 25 cents each. As I earned more and more money, I started an account at the savings bank in Lambertville, always carrying with me lots of differently colored potholders when I walked into town to make my deposits. On the sidewalk and inside the bank, grownups would inevitably say, "What a cute little boy," and then, "Why are you carrying all those pretty potholders?" They sold themselves. The potholder sold themselves. The customers "sold" themselves.

I sold enough potholders for me to buy 2 shares of General Electric stock and 2 shares of the Atlas Corporation, upon the advice of my great-uncle Bill. (See My Uncle Bill's Story, Part I of my life and my lessons learned). I got these shares of stock when I was 7-years old. My small beginning business venture then expanded to include looking for Helgermites, or Hellgrammites, they're like Redworms, which I'd sell out along the road (leading to the Delaware River, of course). I picked wild blackberries and sold them along the road too. I bought fishing lures and took them to sell along the Delaware River's east bank, our side of the river. There were "hot spots" where Shad fishermen would gather during the intense "fish runs." It seemed like a good idea to bring along some blackberries too. The fisherman needed a snack. I did too.

I parlayed my growing savings and