Dough!

My MUCH older brother Nigel was always the good boy in the family. Even though he was almost 10 years older, everything I did (or didn't do in my case) was compared to how he did it at my age. Those 10 years was plenty of time for his wonderful accomplishments to be blurred by time and "remembered" as something more than they really were. I didn't do as well as Nigel at school, and I even got kicked out of a private school where our family name was well known. Apparently I wasn't aware of the code of conduct regarding smoking certain "products" on school properly.

Anyways, my goody-two-shoes brother followed in father's footsteps and entered law. When he joined the same firm as daddy, I was dropping out of my second university and firmly finding the hard way in life. I had a job at a bakery. It's not as dull as it sounds. A friend of mine was starting a small bakery with a storefront shop and needed a partner with skill, intelligence, good communication skills... and some money! At least I had that. I was further compelled to help my good friend when I met his two cousins who would also be working there. They were lovely girls.

Nana, who was like the family Monarch (because she ultimately had the wealth), would tease me that while my brother brought home the bacon, I brought home the bread. I know deep down that she did love me. I just wish she knew it too! My partner friend and I didn't pay ourselves much but after a year we opened a second small shop on the other side of the city and opened a full bakery to service both locations. Shortly after that we got a great contract with a small chain of coffee shops that also sold bakery/pastry items. We were the sole provider, and as that small chain grew at an astonishing rate, so did our income. We sold the entire bakery (but kept the 4 shops it grew into) to the now much larger chain. We each walked away from that deal with plenty of dough for our 3 years of work. My friend eventually bought me out and is still doing well in the successful business.

Nigel had been making a pretty solid 6 figure income those three years but after the flour dust settled, I came out ahead. I also had a lot more fun doing it. Nigel and I didn't talk much, at least I didn't talk. Nigel wouldn't stop talking. He felt I was an embarrassment to the family and would never produce anything good in life. He on the other hand was successful, married to a beautiful wife, had 2.3 kids, a dog and a blue house with a white picket fence. What a dink! Years later, when he helped me with some legal issues, he learned that I wasn't the total screw-up he thought I was. I think he was impressed when he learned how much I had actually made in various adventures. He's still a dink though.

I think the thing I learned the most from that time in my life is that it isn't necessarily how hard you work or how educated you are, granted these usually help. It's how smartly you work! Sometimes the laziest person is the most efficient!