Pension, a great salary, security . . . why would I leave all that? How could I do something so irresponsible for my family?

THE PLAN

For one thing, it wasn't just a whim, it was part of a plan. Somewhere around 1996, I created a spreadsheet that had all my outstanding debt on it; cars, house, credit cards, the works. I arranged them in order, left to right, by first payoff date. Oddly enough, this was before I'd heard about Dave Ramsey. And then I proceeded to (as Dave is so fond of saying) attack it with a vengeance.

By January of 2003, we were 100% debt free and had nearly a years worth of "emergency fund" in the bank.

BUT WHY?

My entire business career had been customer focused. Sometimes more so than others, but over the years I came to appreciate the fact that there would be no paycheck without customers. That customers would stay with you if you treated them well. That they'd actually spend more with you if you took care of them. This is the little known secret of how a business grows. I saw it happen.

For some reason though, this concept seems to be lost in corporate America today. Oh, they all "say" the right stuff - customer focused, value driven . . . but where the rubber meets the road - at the customer - the talk breaks down. Internal policies and procedures grow to the point where their own care and feeding monopolize the majority of everyone's time and effort. Life becomes a psychotic merry-go-round of emails, meetings and voice-mail. There, literally, is no time left in the day for the customer.

For me, that was wrong and I simply chose not to play anymore.