I received this email from Ted, a business owner who read my post yesterday:
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Hey George,
Your message today really hit home.
I’m retired now, having built and sold a series of successful companies — by learning to do what my father did not.
You see, I grew up watching my father build a business from scratch.
He was up before sunrise. Home late. Phone always ringing.
Vacations? Rare.
Dinners? Even rarer.
He built something from nothing — and I respected the hell out of that.
But I also hated what it did to him.
I watched the stress eat at him.
The missed birthdays.
The silence between him and my mom.
And the way he wore it in his face, his back, his spirit.
His damn cholesterol… and the doctor’s warnings that eventually came true.
One day he said:
“Son, I built this for you. One day it’s all yours.”
And my heart sank.
Because I didn’t want the business.
I just wanted my dad.
Here’s the kicker — it wasn’t a bad business.
It was profitable.
But it wasn’t valuable.
Not to me.
Not to anyone outside of him.
He ran everything.
No team. No systems. No handover plan.
Even the dot matrix printer needed him.
It wasn’t a business.
It was a job with no escape.
And when he offered it to me, it felt like a life sentence.
So I walked away. And the business died with him.
When I started my own company, I built it differently.
Intentionally.
So I could be present for my kids the way he couldn’t be for me.
I loved him. But I never really got to know him.
That’s the truth more founders need to hear:
Your kids may not want your business.
Not because they’re lazy.
But because they’ve seen what it costs — and they don’t want to pay the same price.
— Ted
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Want to change that?
Build a business they’d be proud to take over.
One that works without you.
One that’s valuable — even if they say no.
Because when it’s valuable, you have options:
Sell it. Scale it. Pass it on with pride.
Just don’t wait until they’re grown and gone to realise you built something no one wants.
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P.S. I’m not the “systems guy,” “process guy,” or “finance guy.”
I’m the “build a valuable business” guy—so you can regain the freedom to start living your best life now and exit on your own terms later.
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