I’ve always been wired a certain way, from back before I can remember. I’m very high energy, very high strung, and very committed to the things I care about.

My Mom told me a story once about when I was 4. I was jumping on a hotel bed trying to make it to the other bed across the nightstand. I missed the bed, and my cheek hit the corner of the stand leaving an instant knot the size of a golf ball. She said I cried for an hour. As my Mom and Dad were deciding whether to take me to the hospital, I got back up, still crying, and began jumping on the bed again.

My Dad yelled “Michael, that’s how this started.”

With angry little tears streaming down my giant bruised face, I yelled back, “But I didn’t get it yet!”

I jumped again, landed on the other bed, and instantly stopped crying. My Mom said right then and there she knew I would be successful in life.

Now, flash forward 25 years later after I’d grown a company 20 times over. The owner came to me and said I was making too much commission and he would have to eliminate it from my contract. He then handed me a piece of paper where he’d scratched out how I could get by on salary alone.

In a moment of pure rage, I stood up and protested. “You touch my contract,” I said, “and I walk out tomorrow and start my own company.” I slammed the door, left the office, and stood outside thinking, “Oh, my God, what did I just say?” I never thought about being an entrepreneur, never wanted to own a company, and had zero idea how to even begin. But, somehow, within two weeks, Appraisal Nation LLC was formed.

Struggling with your first startup is challenging. Doing it when the housing market collapses a month in was excruciating. We started with two clients, but getting new ones in that kind of market proved nearly impossible. I would look up every mortgage company I could find, drive directly to their offices, ask who their owners were, and try to see them. When they said no, I would call them the next week to remind them how we wanted to be a partner for them. When I ran out of lenders in Raleigh, I moved on to Charlotte, a six-hour round trip weekly drive.

This routine continued for over two years, and although the business began to slowly develop profit, I did not. In the first three years of Appraisal Nation’s existence, I took two paychecks. Two. On weekends, I worked street corners and flea markets selling sports apparel. I worked 12- to 15-hour days, seven days a week for years. We cut coupons, budgeted groceries for three boys, and even put our home up for sale. Never once, not once, did I think Appraisal Nation wouldn’t be successful. I wouldn’t let it fail.  I refused to fail even if it meant some suffering.

Today, Appraisal Nation is the fifth largest appraisal management company in the country and the largest in private lending. We provide valuation solutions to more than 65% of all institutional investors. We provide employment to well over 100 families. Communities are stronger because of us.

None of this happened by accident. No startup angel investor threw money at us on a whim. This company was built through years of tireless hard work and dedication to a belief that our model was correct and our principles were strong. Pure stubbornness and the fact that I refused to quit, even when partners suggested we should, also played a part.

I don’t know what makes your business successful—maybe drive, passion, a relentlessness to never fail, or maybe even a little stubbornness. But I do know success is not about money or how many employees you have or how many properties you have. Success is about fulfilling purpose. For me—with my family, my beliefs, and Appraisal Nation—I feel I have fulfillment in those areas, and in many ways I feel successful.

But in other ways, I still feel like that 4-year-old boy, tears streaming down his face, still trying to jump across to the other side. And that is what drives me.