I  always wanted to bond with my father, but all of my visits were about working for him. He would arrive at my mom's house and shake my hand to  see if I was a hard laborer and had "man hands." I was seven years old and started to take my mom's Emory board and sand my palms before he arrived so that he wouldn't say that I had baby hands. My visits with him usually included digging ditches, trying to dig a tunnel from the home, through sewage until I hit the pipeline fifty feet away. Talk about a shit job. He always assured me I was learning the ropes of life.  I now know this was his excuse not to pay me!

In ninth grade, I caught a 100-pound shark and it turned out to be delicious. My father's wheels started churning and he decided to buy  World War II landing crafts for pennies on the dollar, patched the  bullet holes, and made shark boats out of them. We towed six of them  from the Norfolk Virginia shipyard and brought them to a rundown beach  area outside Cape Maine, New Jersey where you needed a machete to cut a  path from road to shoreline. It looked like the invasion of Normandy.  Unfortunately, someone vandalized the boats and not a single shark  excursion was launched. I did get an education in how not to develop  infrastructure.

After  he moved to the Pocono Mountains, Dad bartered for, traded, and  purchased 75 gigantic mules to offer or paying customers to saddle up  for an adventure ride. As he said, "Recreation is the number one  industry in the world." I never researched to see if this claim was  true. On weekends I drove up from Philadelphia along with three of my  roommates and helped him build Pocono adventures on mules, taking  tourists on mule rides up and down ravines. I must admit, Al did grow  the business and it lasted for over 25 years, but he never went past  scraping by. It's that hand-to-mouth style of living that i always knew  wouldn't serve my dreams. A strong foundation is the key, and it's best  not to build on hay and manure. 
One  of my goals in business has always been NOT to follow in my father's  footsteps. However, I ended up inheriting that "entrepreneurial" spirit.  I've done multi-level marketing several times inviting friends to see  the plans for products such as liquid nutritionals, fuel additives, and  of course, Amway. I never did become a diamond direct distributor, but I  sure enjoyed the spray-on shoe polish. Always find the shiny side. 

Mid  December 2019 after my standup comedy performance at the  Colonial Theatre outside Philly, my old friend from third grade Kent  Griswold showed me a pilot he made called Bizz Show. The creative  producer mind that has served me well for a thirty five year career in  show business kicked in, and we re-imagined the show it is today, Wolf PAC. It  appealed to me on many levels, but one selfish bonus I get is to be  around brilliant business minds on the Wolf PAC team. Being part of this  is mutually beneficial too, since we can combine skill sets and put out  an amazing show that teaches, inspires, and entertains. The comedian  comes in handy, bringing a lightness to the set and the business itself.  Move forward, and have fun doing it. 

I  do poke at myself and encourage others to by self deprecating too. Now,  I have had several successful businesses and produced several TV and  film projects, and have a "celebrity net worth" high enough to have my  son's fraternity brothers think he's rich enough to have to pay for the  beers, but to kick it to another gear takes partners and  collaboration, which this solo artist never really had. So happy to have  the PAC by my side now. 

Now  I can put my investments into what the experts advise instead of  putting my money into a crazy idea with no defined plan. I have become a  bonafide "entrepreneur." And I don't need to dig a ditch or have man  hands to succeed!