Chapter 1.
Core Values, aka the Golden Rule

“It’s not hard to make decisions, once you know what your values are.”

—Roy E. Disney

Ethics are everything, but how do you teach them? Isn’t that what parents, grandparents, or guardians are for? Standards, practices, and behaviors in the workplace can be taught and insisted upon. Ethics, however, develop further back. I know a man who was raised by his grandmother and turned out great. Me? I never knew either of my grandfathers. I trace my ethics back to my parents, who were both raised by strong single mothers.

My mother’s father died of a heart attack when she was two years old, leaving her mother, Maggie, to work full time to support my mother, Kay, and her sister, Maryann. Maggie worked, of course, for a fraction of the salary her male counterparts earned. She outperformed them and won awards, but when she asked about the pay discrepancy, Maggie was told, “The men have families to support.” What did they think Kay and Maryann were? Household pets? Yep, those were the good old days. Though much has improved since then, gender income disparity still exists in our society. What Maggie lacked in income, she made up for in four strong, Irish-Catholic sisters. Mom always said she was raised by five mothers.

My father’s father also died when my father was young (more on him in Chapter 5), and his mother, Nellie, raised six children on a nurse’s salary during the Great Depression. She came from a long line of overcomers; Nellie’s mother almost starved to death when she came to America from Ireland because of the “No Irish Need Apply” signs and the unwelcome atmosphere of the times. That was after she nearly starved to death in Ireland during the potato famine. Before Nellie weathered the Great Depression, she lived quite the life. She was a suffragette and found other ways to embarrass the family. She cropped her hair short, wore spaghetti-strapped dresses that revealed her arms and shoulders, and rode the family cow as if it was a horse (the horror!)—all things frowned upon in her conservative community. Now let’s meet the parents, the products of these two colorful women.

My parents, Kay and Bill.

Kay (aka Mom)

The biggest influence in my childhood. She was a straight-up, no-nonsense, loving, Irish Catholic, stay-at-home mom of three girls.

Positive

No matter how crummy the day, Mom reminded me tomorrow would be a fresh start—make it count. She didn’t indulge self-pity but always offered hugs and encouragement.

In eighth grade, my friends dumped me because I wasn’t popular. Mom assured me that when I got to high school, I would make new, better friends. She was right; she usually was right about most thing