One can scroll up and read by Catholic bio if I explain something here that appears out of the thin air.
My family history dates way back, we have always been entrepreneurs, makers of work for others. In South America, it is not easy to find work, so one has to invent it to put food on the table. My grandfather was one of 8 children and about 1905 when he was about 16, some epidemic swept through our country I guess, and both his parents and 4 of his siblings died within the same year. My grandfather was left as the oldest survivor to raise his 3 younger siblings when he was 16. When he died at almost 101 years of age his 3 siblings were still alive, they were all like 95 to 98 and in good health. They must have been bullet proof. Pretty amazing. My grandfather was their father till he married them all off. In 1930 my grandfather was out of work because of the depression, and by God's grace, he found a job as a bookkeeper at a giant sugar mill company. He went to school at night and got his accounting degree. By the late 1940's my grandfather was the CEO of the company, with 5000 employees under his care. He was the highest paid executive in our country, at that time making $125,000 dollars. Adjusted for inflation that would be today from $2.5 to over $6 million dollars. My father did the same with his own company and had 2000 employees. In 1960, EVERYTHING, every penny was taken by the communists, and we came to USA with nothing, to start all over again. My grandfather was 70 and my dad was 40. They went straight to work and by 1970 we were living a comfortable life again, with a waterfront home on the bay and leisure time to think. I learned everything I know about success in everything from them.
What was the secret of their success despite losing everything so many times (my grandfather's family lost everything ones, before they made it back, then they died)? The secret was that they emulated the successful and learned from them. They sought out people who were successful and they never stopped at it, improving themselves every day of their lives. You learn something every day. One must always seek perfection and keep growing in their knowledge base for they could lose it all one day and have to do it all over again. Grow in knowledge in every aspect of life, money, health, and most of all the faith. Unfortunately, they did not give the faith much importance, as practically all Catholics do not give the faith much more than baptizing, marrying, and burying in the in Church.
For the faith, I had to do it myself and I did it the same way as I was taught for business and health, by emulating those that were a success at it. I could write many stories of the people I emulated because they were many, but I will just mention two. The first was a lady in his late 80's. She was a lady, an Italian American Southern Bell (odd combination, no?) with the accent of a Southern pre-cινιℓ ωαr aristocrat plantation owner. She was a middle class lady, her husband worked as a mechanic in an airline, but he had died before I first met her. She was always talking about the great life sha had as a child growing up with her other 13 siblings. I always liked to talk to older people to learn from them and I was very adept at getting them to talk for hours. It is easy to do when you are genuinely fascinated with everything they say. We'll from this lady, I learned what marriage was for. You see, my concept of marriage was that of my parents, that it is for life, and the idea of being with all the girls I was with for life didn't even enter my mind. The thought of marrying never entered my mind. Amazing as it seems, I learned what marriage was for, it was to raise a big happy Catholic family. Three years later my wife walked into the SSPX chapel I was attending and she had the same mind as I to have 12 children. We married when she was 25 and I was forty seven. One might ask how it was possible that a man 47 could convince a beautiful girl 25 to marry him, well the answer is that the man was young at heart, not set in his way, ready to learn something everyday, loved children, and by the grace of God and good genes and physical exercise didn't look or act 47.
The other lady that influenced me, was a mother of 12. Everybody said she was too strict, but I saw different. Her husband was the happy humorous lover of life, walking sunshine, while she was the teacher of the faith. I saw in her right away someone to emulate, and my wife and I became very close with that family. That so-called "too strict" lady's 12 children are all now either priests (the men) or have beautfiful trad wives with many, and the girls all married successful professional men. All with many children and more on the way. That "too strict" lady is the good ground upon which the seed fell and multiplied one hundred fold. There was one grand example to follow and we were there as it unfolded learning how it is done.
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