Poverty and Business

I grew up in poverty. My dad was an assistant pastor of a small church in a poor area making marginal income and my mom stayed at home to raise four boys. My grandparents are wealthy and showed me flashes of a much better life, and fortunately scooped me out of a bad situation when my parents lives fell apart when I was 14.

How has this background affected my mindset in business?

I live in fear of falling back into poverty, so I tend to be very aggressive when I feel something threatens my business. This can be positive as it motivates epic amounts of work hours, or negative when I am too harsh to my employees.

I am less willing to trust to spend money; I generally don’t pay contractors and only use full time committed people who’s work I can monitor.

I will always try to find a better or less expensive way of getting something done. I have spent the last year building custom programs for recruiting, training, and management feedback.

Even though I am financially independent now, I can never get rid of the haunting fear that it could all disappear at any time.

I am incredibly controlling in everything I do as I don’t want things to fall apart.

Published by

Joel Gross

Joel Gross is the CEO of Coalition Technologies.