MAY 2020
I COME TO FIGHT. I DON’T BARK. I BITE! WWW.THETEXASLAWDOG.COM 817.775.5364
Pulling Weeds
LESSONS FROM MY FIRST JOB I ’ve always been an entrepreneur at heart. I started my first business at age 15 (back in 1994). It helped that my parents gave me my first car a couple of months prior to my 15th birthday: a 1985 Chevrolet S-10 Blazer. Needless to say, I was super excited! We lived in rural Hopkins County outside of Sulphur Springs, which is about 80 miles east of Dallas. Back then, many of us got hardship licenses at 15, rather than waiting to turn 16 for a regular license. Of course, I grew up on a farm and had access to equipment. I knew how to run that equipment from a young age, which meant driving was easy. Growing up on the farm, I knew what I could do with lawnmowers, weed eaters, and a trailer. So, when I was 15, I came up with a plan. I gathered everything I needed together and started my own lawn service company. This was about the time that minimum wage was around $4 per hour. I could easily mow one yard in an hour (or less) and charge $25. This seemed more appealing than working for minimum wage doing some of the jobs my friends were, like working at a movie rental store, Sonic, a snow cone stand, convenience store, and so on. I wanted to work for myself and to be in charge. I had a vision and I wanted to see it through. My plan came together! Before I knew it, I had to hire help. From there, the business grew. One summer, I remember being hired by an anesthesiologist to do some flower bed work. I swear I picked weeds for a solid month. The thing I liked though was being my own boss. That made it worth it. You could say that just as I had a passion for entrepreneurship, I had a passion for being my own boss — working for myself and my customers. It’s what made sense to me.
And the lessons I learned mowing lawns all those years ago have stuck with me today. I learned what I needed to do in order to succeed as my own boss. I learned there is no such thing as slacking off and that you have to be there for every single person who hires you. These are the people who count on you. A lot of my work ethic came from that. Today, I’m glad to be in a place where I can help people fight for what they deserve against greedy insurance companies that only care about their bottom line. When you need someone to fight for you or a loved one who’s been injured in a car wreck, I’ll be there. In many ways, the insurance companies are like those weeds I used to pull. While we can’t get rid of them entirely, we sure can put them in their place.
-Matt Aulsbrook
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