Lesley says I don’t do “moderation” very well. In fact, she said it again just a few minutes ago when I got up from the couch and grunted and groaned my way across the family room, suffering from the soreness yesterday’s workout wrought upon me. OK… the soreness I wrought upon myself from working out too long and too hard yesterday!

Fortunately, or unfortunately, she's right. I'm not very good at moderation. I haven't been good at it for a while. Knowing what I know now, I'm not sure I would ever want to be.

The fact of the matter is I don't know many people who are good at moderation, at least not many successful people. The successful people I know aren't all that great at taking it easy, holding back or giving less than everything they have to give. In fact, most of the successful people I know are downright driven. They couldn't coast, hold back or "mail it in" if they wanted to.

Despite Lesley's objections and misgivings about the way I am, I wish I had always been like this. There was a time when getting to moderation would have been a stretch. There was a time I lacked the determination, discipline and drive to get much beyond "good enough," a time when the goal was coasting coupled with just the right amount of getting by.

There is no telling how much I could have accomplished if I had been as focused then as I am now.

Lesley says I don't know how to take it easy, I don't know how to relax.

She's probably right about that, too. I don't know how to relax. I don't know how to take it easy. I think that comes from growing up disadvantaged.

I say disadvantaged rather than poor because I believe there is a difference. For most of us, growing up "poor" meant growing up without stuff: without the financial resources necessary to sustain yourself or your family. That means not having the material things necessary to transcend your current reality: things your friends and neighbors probably took for granted.

But, it could also mean lacking, as in the love and support of family or friends — perhaps, even, a poverty of spirit.

I would define disadvantaged as being forced to confront and overcome obstacles to the success many of your peers may not have experienced.

As far back as I can remember, our family was "financially challenged," a polite way of saying poor.

We didn't have money, but we were anything but poor. We laughed a lot, and with the help of family and friends, we got through just about everything. For not having any money, there was a richness that is rare in the most affluent of families today. But, having traveled that road, you know it's a road you would not care to travel again.

Lesley says I work too much, try too hard and worry too much — about the shop, the family, the industry, everything.

Guilty as charged.

I don't know how to do it any other way. I'm passionate about things that are meaningful to me. I am focused on learning from the past to ensure a better future — for me, for you, for just about everyone.

Lesley says that at this point in my life, at this point in my career, I should take it a little bit easier. Who am I to argue? The only problem is that I'm not sure I know how. I'm not sure I'm ready, either.

So, I think I'll just keep on doing what I'm doing the way I've always done it. As neurotic as I may be, being this way has served me, Lesley, the family, and maybe even the industry well.

I just won't tell her.

(I hope you won't tell her, either. If she knew how little I aspire to find the path to moderation, there is no telling what Lesley would say!)