Today I meet a young man who has $100,000 labor contracts to put siding on Hilton hotels. He hires staff, lines up insurance, establishes employee housing for out-of-town projects, and runs a successful LLC. He’s the cheapest, fastest, and most efficient sider around here.

Oh– this young man cannot read.

So isn’t it funny how many “I can’ts” we throw at business ideas? How many dreams have you thrown away because of obstacles? Yeah, making the details work is tough. But is it tougher than being unable to read?

Often the most talented and skillful people–probably you–end up working for someone who seems dumber than a stick because of hesitations. We’re afraid. Working for someone else is safer and easier. A lot easier. How many of your skills are being utilized, even maximized? Probably not many. The selling points that attracted your employers probably aren’t even used that much.

My co-worker is a wiz with numbers. Her fingers can roll over a 10-key like it’s on fire, and her accounting skills are something to boot for. But the boss’s wife does all of the real number work. My co-worker’s knock-down number skills are used for nothing but phone number memorization. “Hey Jill, what’s so-and-so’s number?” “Jill, give me the address for so-and-so.”

Of course, my co-worker feels fine with little responsibility. But without something significant at work, do you ever feel like your mind is rotting? Like your brain is melting onto the monitor in front of you?

The way I see it, if you want to make a million bucks, you have to be willing to put a million bucks worth of work into your efforts. You can spend the rest of your life working beside my co-worker, taking no risks, saving penny by penny, and maybe hitting a million bucks when you’re, what. 80 years old?

Or you can charge ahead. Work like mad for a few years. Dig and dig at your endeavors. So you have a weakness. Find a way to work around it. The sider’s wife reads his contracts aloud and shows him where to sign documents. I guess the way he sees it is this:

Either he can work for someone else as a low-paid sider for the rest of life, unable to provide his wife and future family with much of anything. Or he can work like mad with his own company. He doesn’t need to read to put siding up.