When I was with The Keyes Company, The Broker and President Mike Pappas asked me one evening who I talked with on a regular basis, notice he did not ask if I talked with anyone, he asked who. Before I answer this question let me attempt to explain the importance of these people in ones life.
From Childhood I had a love of horses which grew into wanting to train race horses. This became a passion of mine for many years. My first job 1976 was on a farm owned by the well known breeder, Louis Wolfson who raced under the name of Harbor View Farm which was located in Ocala Florida, winning the Triple Crown in 1978 with the horse Affirmed.
The farm trainer Melvin James became my first encourager and mentor, he was almost double my age when I was 19, and had that old fashioned wisdom that’s hard to find. I had no family in Ocala except my wife; yes I was married at 19 and did not have the role models that I had become accustomed to.
Melvin and I use to talk for hours, we’d have lunch almost daily together, and I would follow him around and ask questions. The 3 pieces of information Melvin passed on to me and has served me well all my life.
1 Make yourself indispensable to your bosses and learn everything you can about what and how they run their business and they’ll keep moving you up the ladder and won’t be able to get rid of you because you will know almost more about their business than they do.
2 There was an occasion that I was facing a tough and troubling decision that I needed to make. Discussing it with Melvin he simply said you can’t sit on the fence jump and if you jump on the wrong side you’ll figure it out and you’ll be able to jump back over the fence and now you will be on the right side. As a 19 year old that was like rocket science to me at the time, I took his advice.
3 I was out riding around with Melvin in his old green Chevy pickup one lunch hour and I asked him to teach me how to train race horses, he replied I can’t which really surprised me, Melvin continued on, he said, you need to make your own recipe, take what you can learn from me and quit, get with another trainer, get his recipe, and after you have done this several times you will have your own recipe. Find out what works for you.
Stay Tuned for Part 2
From Childhood I had a love of horses which grew into wanting to train race horses. This became a passion of mine for many years. My first job 1976 was on a farm owned by the well known breeder, Louis Wolfson who raced under the name of Harbor View Farm which was located in Ocala Florida, winning the Triple Crown in 1978 with the horse Affirmed.
The farm trainer Melvin James became my first encourager and mentor, he was almost double my age when I was 19, and had that old fashioned wisdom that’s hard to find. I had no family in Ocala except my wife; yes I was married at 19 and did not have the role models that I had become accustomed to.
Melvin and I use to talk for hours, we’d have lunch almost daily together, and I would follow him around and ask questions. The 3 pieces of information Melvin passed on to me and has served me well all my life.
1 Make yourself indispensable to your bosses and learn everything you can about what and how they run their business and they’ll keep moving you up the ladder and won’t be able to get rid of you because you will know almost more about their business than they do.
2 There was an occasion that I was facing a tough and troubling decision that I needed to make. Discussing it with Melvin he simply said you can’t sit on the fence jump and if you jump on the wrong side you’ll figure it out and you’ll be able to jump back over the fence and now you will be on the right side. As a 19 year old that was like rocket science to me at the time, I took his advice.
3 I was out riding around with Melvin in his old green Chevy pickup one lunch hour and I asked him to teach me how to train race horses, he replied I can’t which really surprised me, Melvin continued on, he said, you need to make your own recipe, take what you can learn from me and quit, get with another trainer, get his recipe, and after you have done this several times you will have your own recipe. Find out what works for you.
Stay Tuned for Part 2
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