Dad was always full of advice, but one of the biggest lessons he taught me one summer was about having a strong work ethic . When my brother and I were growing up, we mowed  yards during the summer to earn pocket change. Dad was our salesman. He told our neighbors about our service and offered a price they could not refuse. My brother and I got $ 10 per yard. I later found out that our friends were charging $ 20 or more for the same amount of work. Every time we headed out to mow lawns , Dad was there to watch. I used to wonder why he came with us. He stood supervising  our work in the heat when he could have been inside relaxing with air conditioning and an icy drink. One day we were cutting our next-door neighbor's yard, he always waited until the grass was knee-high to call us over. To make matters worse, we had an old lawn mower. This particular afternoon, I was finishing up and was tired and sweaty. I was just about to cut off the lawn mower when I saw Dad pointing to one piece of grass. He yelled, "You missed a piece." I frowned, hoping he would let it slide and let me go home. He kept pointing. So, tired and disappointed, I went back to cut that piece of grass. I said to myself, "That one piece isn't hurting anyone. Why won't he just let it go?" But when I reached adulthood, I understood his message ---When you're running a business, the work you do says a great deal about you. If you want to be seen as an entrepreneur  with honesty, you must deliver a quality product. That single blade of grass meant the job was not done. Other neighbors took notice of the good work we did and we soon got more business. We started out with one client, but by the end of the summer we had five. Why did more and more people ask the brothers to mow their yards?
They mowed it faster. They mowed it carefully. They had a quality mower. They charged the same as others.