Look, Look, Look, and Latch On…

My Hero

My express goal of this whole Jiu Jitsu Blog is to inspire and motive anybody and everybody to just get out there and “Live Their Dream” I am using this internet medium as a vehicle to reach out and touch your life, in a Totally Awesome and Exciting way:)

The picture you see before you today is my Hero, Bill Griffin. He is my Grandpa. He is the only earthly Father figure I have ever had in my life that has been around longer then a couple years and he is a serious Entrepreneurial Pimp! Today I am going to tell you a little about him and how he has influenced my life and helped me be the crazy start a business out of nothing kinda guy I am:)

Bill Griffin came from extremely humble beginnings. He literally had to shoot his food on the Oklahoma grassland just to eat as a youngster. He ended up receiving a full ride scholarship to the Naval Academy and was in line to be a commissioned US Navy officer when he decided it was not for him. He “got feed up with people telling him what to do.” Back then you could opt out of the school and officer program. I still remember hearing those stories and being amazing that someone could walk away from a totally free college tuition and a guaranteed military career, as an officer at that! He went back to civilian life only to work 50 plus hours a week selling shoes in Shawnee, Oklahoma AND going full time to college (paying for it all on his own). After years of grueling work and study he ended up getting an engineering degree from Oklahoma University and is to this day a proud fan of OU football:)

For time and space reasons I will fast forward to Bill & LaDawn (my Awesome Grandma and another Hero of mine:) living in Shawnee with my Grandfather working his tail off building everything his little company could get a contract for. Back then there was no money in building things, at least nothing like there is today! I remember hearing about how hard my Grandpa worked during the day (12 plus hours a day), only to come home and work on building specs and plans on the kitchen table. Then he would wake up and do it all over again. Regardless of how hard things were and how much money wasn’t coming in, there was always that quiet spark in him that would never quit….that Entrepreneurial Spirit was always dreaming of and searching for that one opportunity that would set him and his family financially free…and at the ripe old age of 39 it happened…

When asked what is the one thing that he would tell an aspiring Entrepreneur to help them realize their business dreams, his simple yet elegant response was; “Look, Look, Look and Latch On…when you see something that will work, you gotta go for it” Bill Griffin is the proud builder and owner of the very first Sonic in the world. Sonic now has more then 4,000 locations in the US and is going to do nothing but get bigger and better, all because Bill Griffin kept searching looking for that one opportunity to realize his personal and family dream of financial freedom and success!

There were many many years of personal and family sacrifice that Bill & LaDawn endured to make Sonic a reality, and they weren’t the only ones that were part of the first Sonic, they had several partners. But regardless of the personal and financial setbacks they encountered, and believe me there were many! along the way, they kept listening to that quiet spark inside that said “Never Quit” and they realized their goal and I thank them both, especially my Grandpa for working all those years so I can wake up everyday and say to myself “I can do it!” because my Grandpa did it first:)