The hustle started early
Business isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s understanding that it’s a storm, that you must learn how to tame in order to obtain peace and a healthy balance between work, and home life.
I knew I wanted to own one before I even understood what that meant.
At six or seven years old, I was already hustling. My dad co-founded a semi-pro soccer team, and at games they handed out promotional cards — discount offers for local places. Hungry Howie’s. Buy-one-get-one deals. That sort of thing.
We had stacks of them at home. So I did what any young “entrepreneur” would do.
I sold them for $1 each. I made about $15 before I got caught.
Turns out they were free. And very clearly marked: Not for resale.
Lesson one came early.
Learning the craft
By ten, I was obsessed with design.
Back then, tutorials weren’t videos. They were static screenshots on a webpage with step-by-step captions underneath. You learned by staring at pixels and reverse-engineering what you saw.
By twelve, I was building websites in Netscape’s HTML editor. Then Microsoft FrontPage. Then Dreamweaver.
At fourteen, I tried building a site for my best friend’s dad’s recording studio. It never launched. It didn’t matter.
I wasn’t chasing results yet.
I was chasing mastery.
Six failures
At twenty-two, I started building businesses for real, or at least I thought I was.
- Phone, Laptop, Electronics repair.
- Buying liquidation pallets.
- Flipping furniture.
- A clothing brand.
- Then another.
- Then a tech/web agency called Chacha Solutions.
They all failed.
Every one of them.
Six businesses. Six lessons. Six reminders that desire alone doesn’t equal durability.
Each attempt felt like I was getting closer — yet somehow still outside the door of something real.
I wanted to build something that would last.
The one that worked
At thirty-two, I started Rodesi Co — what would later become ParkWeb.
It was the intersection of everything I cared about: my passion for design and my desire to build something meaningful for my family.
Year one felt like validation.
It worked.
Year two exploded.
We quadrupled.
And that’s when the storm rolled in.
Success has a weight
Growth sounds glamorous — until you’re inside it.
Year three brought pressure. More work than I could handle. More responsibility than I had margin for. Financially, life improved. I bought a home. Paid off debt. Fixed my credit.
But money didn’t quiet the noise. Stress has a way of drowning out everything else.
By year four, the business had doubled again. I was building 40–80 page websites in three to four days. I don’t know how. I only know I was running on fumes.
I considered selling.
Downsizing.
Walking away.
Was this what I had dreamed about at ten years old? Ownership without peace?
The breaking point
The hardest part wasn’t the workload.
It was the responsibility. When business outpaces capacity, everything is on the line:
- Your integrity.
- Your quality.
- Your reputation.
There was no time to think. Work kept coming. And in the middle of that storm, I realized something:
I couldn’t sustain this alone.
The prayer
I prayed. Not once. Repeatedly. I asked God to send someone. Someone sharp. Someone capable. Someone who could carry weight with me.
Hiring felt like risk. Like stepping into deeper water without knowing if I could swim.
But I stepped anyway. And here’s what surprised me:
- Peace didn’t come after I hired. Peace came when I let go.
- When I trusted that the outcome wasn’t fully in my hands.
The person I hired became one of the best decisions I’ve ever made — someone I respect deeply. But the calm didn’t come from the hire itself.
It came from surrender.
Building without fear
To this day, we don’t spend money on advertising or paid lead generation. We built something trustworthy instead. Something dependable. Something that solves real problems well.
From day one, I’ve trusted the Lord to bring the business. And I attribute the success of my seventh business — ParkWeb — to Him alone.
Peace in the storm
The storm didn’t disappear.
Deadlines still exist. Growth still stretches. Responsibility still weighs something. But peace is different than ease. Peace is steady.
Matthew 6:33 says:
“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
If you’re in a storm right now — overwhelmed, stretched thin, wondering if it’s worth it — don’t just look for relief.
Seek alignment.
If this resonated with you, I highly recommend reading The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer.
It confronts a hard truth: hurry is not just a schedule issue — it’s a spiritual and emotional one. The constant pressure to produce, respond, and perform quietly erodes our peace long before we recognize it.
This book helped me see that exhaustion isn’t a badge of honor. It’s often a warning sign.
If you’re building, leading, or carrying more than you should, this is a necessary reset.