One of my great joys as a kid (and later as an adult) was to take long walks with my grandfather and listen to him tell stories of his youth. Grandpa was born in 1904….an era of wooden sidewalks, sarsaparilla, and that loud new thing spewing black smoke….the automobile. Grandpa was Jewish in a town known for its anti-Semitism, and things were never easy for him. Still, he refused to let his heritage or his 8th-grade education be an excuse for failure. He excelled in everything he did, eventually rising from a stockroom boy to becoming a VP with Willy’s Corporation….the guys who made all the Jeeps in WWII!

I loved my grandpa deeply, and I learned many lessons from those walks. One of the most memorable was what we, in our family, call the “Jewish Work Ethic.” My mom picked it up and passed it along to us, and it goes something like this: “If someone asks you to do something….anything….say ‘yes’, then go learn!”

Grandpa was an opportunist, in all the right ways. Times were tough when he was growing up, and that kind of “can-do” attitude took him a long way. When I find myself whining, I occasionally remember that lesson and challenge myself to look at the problem the way he would have. When I do, I’m rarely disappointed with the result!