Page 97 - The Way to the Top

Earl G. GRAVES, Sr.

Chairman and CEO of Earl G. Graves Limited and Publisher of Black
Enterprise Magazine

Advice doesn’t always come to you verbally. After a lifetime in business, I
still learn less from what people say than from what they do. By that

yardstick—or any other you could name—the best business advice I ever
received came from my father.

His name was Earl Godwyn Graves, a child of immigrants from
Barbados who was orphaned in America at age fourteen. He was a hard
man in many ways, a strict father who believed in discipline. Growing up

with him wasn’t exactly fun, but he taught me from a young age how to
make money—and how to keep it.

At fourteen, I landed my first salary job as a Western Union messenger.
I made sixty-five cents an hour. Dad would take a cut for the household,

put some away for my savings, and then give the rest of it to me. Without
“telling” me, he showed me that earning money was not the same as
having it. If I was going to have money, I was going to need the discipline
to save, the sense to invest, and the willpower to put my personal and

material needs last.

But I honed the courage, tenacity, and confidence it takes to develop a
business after following some advice from the Army. When I was
discharged from the Army as a first lieutenant—having attended airborne

and ranger schools—a senior officer suggested that I do three things that
would favorably impact my civilian life. He said that I should join the
National Guard, continue my involvement with the Boy Scouts of
America, and get involved in politics. I followed those directives. As an
infantry officer, I commanded a company in my local National Guard. The