Inspire and Admire

This past weekend I met with one of my aunts at her office. This aunt is my father's eldest sister. Aunt M.

Aunt M. is probably nearing 70 and is retired from the job that gives her a pension. I believe she went to work at about 18 and retired at 48. I know she was fairly young when she retired. While she worked that job she also worked for a realtor.

She told me the story last weekend. The owner of the real estate firm used to pay the staff and the office rent late. One day while she working in the realtors office, the owner of the building came in and told the owner to just buy the building. He gave the realtor time but she couldn't come up with the money. My aunt said there were about 20 white folks working in that office and none had the money to purchase the building.

She was young and asked the man what about her. She said he seemed surprised. She told him she had a deal, she owned a vacant lot in a nice part of town and would trade him that lot for the property. The deal was done.

She said she cried everyday after that trying to figure out what she'd gotten herself into. Back then the going rents were only about $100 and she had taxes and upkeep to maintain on the property. The building sits on a corner space and has a parking lot, it is dircely across the street from the court house and some county buildings. She eventually opened a real estate firm in that space and said a lot of her business came from the foot traffic of the county workers going from their offices to the restaurant near her.

When she bought it, it was priced in the $100k's, now its in the millions. She rents out the other spaces and operates her businesses from a large suite inside the building. I told her I wanted office space- but I wanted to own the building. She said that is the only way to go.

Aunt M has a lot of other businesses and at least 13 real estate properties that she rents out. She's owned them all since the 80's and all are paid off. She is a tycoon and a business woman. She doesn't play. If a family members tries to borrow money from her she produces a contract that sets out the interest rate and she may make you give her a lien on your property as collateral. People who make money also know how to keep it- so I'm not mad at her.

After our meeting Aunt M. dropped me off at bigmom's house (bigmom is gone but her house is still the meeting place for the family, there is still love there) and she was looking at my sister's car.

Aunt M mentioned that she admired us because we all had advanced degrees and how that opened doors and how she wished she'd been able to do that. She said we were all smart. I looked at her in major surprise, she's the smart one with the business acumen. Her success didn't need a degree.

I told her how many of us cousins looked up to her as a model for what we can do. We always say "I wanna be like Aunt M. Aunt M is about the business." I told her how much we all admire her and look up to her as an example. She seemed very surprised.

Could she really not know how impressed her neices, nephews and cousins are with her?

It's amazing how you can look at someone and think what they have accomplished and are accomplishing is spectacular and they might be looking at the things you do- which seem like nothing to you- and think you are amazing?

So beyond the business story one lesson is to tell people when they inspire you and when you admire them because they may not know how their existence encourages your life.