Growing up in our family business, I witnessed hundreds of dinner parties. My mother hosted them at least three times a week.

She would put in a full day at the office or in her showroom in the sky, often barely touching or nibbling on her lunch. Then come home and somehow create a meal that looked as though she had spent the entire day preparing it.

Most of these dinners were for business guests.

Vendors and factory owners would visit from Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Taiwan, Mexico, and the Philippines, and European countries. When it wasn’t suppliers, it might be International distributors, company employees, lawyers, accountants, friends, relatives, or overseas visitors.

The larger gatherings weren’t confined to a dining room table. People filled every corner of the house, inside and out, balancing plates wherever they could find a seat. Yet no matter how crowded things became, guests always left with the same feeling: they had been welcomed.

If my sisters and I were fortunate enough to sit at the table with guests, we understood the rules. We were expected to be polite, listen carefully, and remember the old saying:

“Children should be seen and not heard.”

My mother’s gift wasn’t simply cooking. She understood how to make people feel important. Long before “customer experience” became a business buzzword, she was creating memories that people carried with them for years. Never forgetting that one night when she hosted an event. I would often hear Remember when…

One dinner, however, stood apart from all the others.

My father decided to invite the founder of his company’s biggest competitor.

The two men had never met personally, but they certainly knew of each other. For years, the competing company had been producing products that closely resembled my father’s designs.

Rather than hire more lawyers, my father picked up the phone.

He called the founder directly and invited him to dinner.

To remove every possible excuse, Dad offered to fly him down. At the time, my parents owned a Beechcraft King Air twin-engine aircraft.

Our pilot, Dave, would fly him into Torrance Airport, Mom and Dad would host him for dinner, and Dave would fly him home afterward.

The invitation was accepted.

I imagine curiosity played a role.

What could be so important that a competitor would fly you hundreds of miles for dinner?

As always, my mother prepared an exceptional meal. The children were not invited.

This was serious business.

Years later, Dad explained to me what happened.

After dessert, Dad asked everyone except his special guest to retire to the living room for after-dinner drinks.

Dad sat across from his guest and addressed the issue directly.

He explained that copying products would eventually lead to expensive litigation, damaged reputations, and financial losses for both companies.

Then he made a proposal.

Stop now.

No lawsuits.

No grudges.

No retaliation.

And in return, Dad promised that his company would never attempt to copy their designs either.

The conversation could have ended badly.

Instead, it ended with mutual respect.

A few days later, the competitor called my father. Not only would he stop copying the products, but he brought the matter before his board of directors and established a company policy prohibiting it in the future. It was written into his bylaws.

Remarkably, both companies honored that agreement for the rest of their existence.

Dinner and a handshake accomplished what years of legal fighting might never have achieved.

My mother, on the other hand, had an entirely different way of resolving conflict.

Years later, when my parents became embroiled in a lawsuit that seemed destined to drag on forever, she proved it.

Meetings were held; lawyers argued; ills accumulated.

Nothing was getting resolved.

During one particularly frustrating meeting, my mother asked everyone except the opposing party to leave.

Now it was just the two of them alone in the room.

Mom reached into her purse and pulled out a coin.

Looking into the man’s eyes, she said:

“Let’s finish this right here, right now.”

The man looked puzzled.

“How?”

“It’s simple,” she replied. “This dispute is worth $400,000 to our company. We’ll flip a coin. If it lands on your choice, I walk away with nothing. If it doesn’t, you write us a check for the full amount today.”

He went silent.

Then, to her surprise, he agreed.

The coin was flipped.

Mom walked out of the room and instructed the lawyers to prepare the final settlement agreement.

One of them chased after her.

“What happened in there?”

She smiled and said, “The matter is settled.”

“But how?” he asked.

Mom explained the man had agreed to a wager.

She would either walk away empty-handed or receive the $400,000 in full.

Then she reached into her bag, pulled out the check, handed it to her lawyer, and walked away.

The lawyer was stunned.

Why would anyone do that? he thought.

Mom understood something the lawyers didn’t.

The lawsuit was costing everyone far more than money.

Sometimes the greatest victory isn’t about winning.

Sometimes it’s ending the fight.

Reflection:

ifOnlyi... had understood sooner that some of life's toughest disputes are settled not by force, but by courage and creativity. My father chose a dinner table over a courtroom. My mother chose a coin toss over endless arguments. Both taught me that the strongest people are often the ones willing to find another way forward when everyone else is preparing for a fight.

I’d love to hear from you.

Have you ever witnessed someone solve a difficult problem in a way that completely surprised you?

Was it through kindness, courage, humor—or something totally unexpected?

Share your story in the comments. Some of the best lessons in life come from moments we never forget.

Leave a comment

If this story reminded you that relationships often matter more than winning, I’d be honored if you’d share it with someone who believes there is always a better way to solve a problem.

You never know whose perspective it might change.

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

During one of the most challenging periods of my 3D card business, I suddenly faced a problem I never saw coming.

For months, I had been aggressively building our brand through magazine and newspaper advertising. Back covers, center spreads, full-page ads—I was everywhere. I almost made myself believe that if it was not in those spots, I would not advertise with their magazine. The strategy was working. Orders were growing, our name was becoming recognized, and I was finally gaining momentum in a highly competitive industry.

Then the publications began delivering the same message.

They no longer wanted to work directly with me.

Because my company was still relatively new, they claimed the advertising commitments had grown too large and that future placements would need to be handled through an established advertising agency with deeper financial resources and larger credit lines.

I was stunned.

After everything I had built, everything I had invested, and all the momentum we had created, I suddenly found myself wondering if the entire machine was about to grind to a halt.

Panic set in.

What was I supposed to do now?

One advantage I had was receiving 15-20% discounts on many, if not all, of my advertising placements. Every dollar mattered. Working alongside me was an incredibly talented man named Jim, a small shareholder in the company and someone I deeply respected.

Jim held a full-time position with one of the nation’s leading advertising firms, so his time was limited. Yet whenever I needed him, he always came through.

Looking back, I probably pushed him harder than I should have.

I wanted every advertisement to be different. Every week, every month, every publication had to tell a slightly different story. I believed consistency didn’t mean repetition—it meant finding fresh ways to reinforce the same message.

Jim never let me down.

Together, we created campaigns that stood out from the crowd. The advertisements attracted attention throughout the industry and certainly caught the eyes of our competitors. That was never my objective. My goal was simple: build our brand as quickly and effectively as possible.

And it was working.

Now I had a new challenge.

If the publishers insisted on working through an advertising agency, then I needed to find one.

I researched some of the largest and most respected agencies in the country and began scheduling appointments. This was too important to handle over the phone. I wanted face-to-face meetings.

And my search eventually led me through the doors of some of the biggest agencies in America...

• Chiat/Day

• Saatchi & Saatchi

• Foote, Cone & Belding

• Goodby, Silverstein & Partners

• Ogilvy & Mather

• Young & Rubicam

• J. Walter Thompson

• BBDO

• DDB Needham

• Leo Burnett

Soon, my calendar was filled.

One after another, I sat down with some of the biggest names in advertising.

I carried with me a complete package: printed advertisements, future campaign concepts, production artwork, placement schedules, and copies of advertising commitments already secured with magazines and newspapers across the country.

Most meetings involved four to eight people gathered around conference tables. Senior executives attended. Creative directors attended. Marketing teams attended.

After listening to my presentation, many of them asked the same question.

“How did you do all of this?”

I had no degree in advertising.

No formal training in marketing.

No agency background.

Yet somehow I had built a national advertising program with the help of one talented artist and a lot of determination.

Then the next question would come.

“If you’ve already created the campaigns, negotiated the placements, secured the contracts, and built the relationships, why exactly do you need us?”

The answer was frustratingly simple.

I didn’t.

At least not from a creative standpoint.

The publishers required an agency intermediary because my young company didn’t have the financial history or credit capacity they wanted.

That was it.
They wanted power more than my books offered. Two people creating a National vision is unheard of in this industry. Why?

The agencies respected what I had accomplished. Several genuinely wanted to help. The problem was that they were structured to handle entire accounts.

They wanted to create the concepts.

Design the artwork.

Develop the branding.

Control the media buying.

Manage the marketing strategy.

In short, they wanted to do everything I had already done.

Meeting after meeting ended the same way.

Everyone was professional.

Everyone was complimentary.

Everyone was interested.

Yet no one could find a practical way to fit into a process that was already functioning.

And so I walked away empty-handed.

Weeks passed.

Countless & aggressive hours were invested by everyone involved trying to find common ground. Despite the outcome, it was an incredible experience. I was sitting across the table from some of the brightest minds in the advertising industry, and for that opportunity alone I was grateful.

Then something unexpected happened.

During one of the presentations, a senior executive leaned back in his chair after listening to my story.

Instead of discussing advertising, he began discussing me.

Drawing on his experience in the gift and toy industry, he told me he believed my skills would be valuable elsewhere.

Then he made me an offer.

Not an advertising contract.

A job.

A very lucrative job.

He wanted me to join the company as a Senior Creative Executive responsible for a major account.

For a moment, I was speechless.

Then he told me the name of the account.

My stomach turned……………………………………………

The company was my father’s biggest competitor.

For years, they had copied so many of Dad’s designs. They routinely mandated that their sales force purchase new products from my parents’ company and send them directly to their design teams.

Lawsuits followed.

Time after time, my father’s company prevailed in court.

Yet the copying continued.

In one particularly memorable case, my father pursued them aggressively enough to have their warehouses locked until outstanding judgments were paid.

The money arrived quickly.

The lesson, unfortunately, did not.

They simply returned to their old habits.

Now I find myself sitting in a boardroom, being offered a remarkable opportunity by people I respect.

The compensation package was extraordinary:

Two hundred thousand dollars a year, plus bonuses. Enough to completely change my circumstances,

In the early 1990s, that was serious money, and truthfully, I needed it.

The legal battles surrounding my own business had placed enormous pressure on me. Financially, emotionally, and professionally, and soon I would learn that my health as well as life would have become much easier if I had accepted.

But there was one problem.

I couldn’t imagine facing my father afterward.

I couldn’t look him in the eye and tell him I had accepted a position helping the company that had spent years causing him grief.

As attractive as the offer was, something inside me wouldn’t allow it.

As I prepared to leave, they encouraged me to think it over.

And believe me, I did.

Had my legal battles ended earlier, perhaps my circumstances would have been different, but they were still ongoing full blast.

Perhaps the decision would have been easier.

Or perhaps not.

Deep down, I already knew the answer.

I loved and respected my Dad too much to do that to him.

Maybe I had too big a heart.

Maybe I was foolish.

Maybe I walked away from an opportunity many people would have embraced without hesitation.

But some decisions aren’t made with your head. But maybe,

They’re made with your heart.

Years earlier, I had turned down another incredible opportunity from Mattel’s CEO, Jill Barad.

This felt remarkably similar.

Money can solve many problems.

But it cannot buy peace of mind.

And it certainly cannot replace loyalty to the people who helped shape your life.

Reflection:

Sometimes life tests us in ways we never expect.

The decision wasn’t about money. It wasn’t about career advancement. It wasn’t even about business.

It was about looking in the mirror the next morning and being able to live with the person staring back.

The salary would have changed my bank account. The bonuses would have changed my lifestyle.

But accepting that offer would have changed something far more important—how I felt about myself and how I faced my father.

Looking back, I never regretted walking away.

Some victories are measured in dollars.

Others are measured in loyalty.

I know which one mattered most to me.

Could you put a price on loyalty, or are some things simply not for sale?

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Some opportunities make you rich. Others make you choose who you want to be.

If this story touched your heart, I’d be grateful if you shared it with someone facing a similar dilemma.

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

It all started because of my dear friend, Gentleman Jeffrey, whom I first met when he worked as a bouncer at one of the clubs where I used to dance and socialize.

Gentleman Jeffrey, as I named him, because he was charismatic and gently persuasive. One of those people who could sell snow to Eskimos. He was also a dead ringer for Tom Selleck, best known for his role in the hit television series Magnum, P.I., set in Hawaii during the 1980s.

Gentleman Jeffrey was addicted to bass fishing. In fact, addiction may not be a strong enough word. He lived and breathed fishing. His house was filled with Bass Pro catalogs and fishing magazines. He even made and filed his own golden fish hooks. There was not a day that went by without him talking about bass fishing.

While I was living in Texas, Jeffrey repeatedly encouraged me to pursue Bass Pro Shops as a customer for our products. He practically begged me to land the account, dreaming that one day he would visit their famous flagship store in Springfield, Missouri.

Well, I did him proud.

Bass Pro Shops became one of my favorite accounts, and oddly enough, it all began with a fish named Ethel.

Ethel was a legendary largemouth bass that weighed an incredible seventeen pounds. She measured twenty-seven and a half inches long, twenty-four and a half inches around, and spent the remainder of her life in a 125,000-gallon aquarium inside Bass Pro’s flagship store. Visitors traveled from all over the country just to catch a glimpse of her.

The fishermen who visited the store loved our products, and together we enjoyed tremendous success.

We created hundreds of thousands of Ethel-themed products. There were small Ethels, medium Ethels, large Ethels, and even Ethel slippers. The slippers sold out almost immediately. Employees bought them by the dozens and absolutely loved them.

At the time, Bass Pro had only one store, but it was unlike anything I had ever seen.

If Disneyland is heaven for children, Bass Pro is heaven for hunters and fishermen.

One year I traveled to Springfield for a four-day trade show where I exhibited all of the Ethel designs and all of our outdoor-related designs.

My booth happened to be next to President Jimmy Carter’s. He was there signing books while I spent most of my time talking to him about everything except his book.

We discussed life in the White House, his travels around the world, and his remarkable work with Habitat for Humanity, which would later become significant in my own life, though I had no idea at the time.

The founder of Bass Pro Shops, Johnny Morris, had a vision unlike anyone else. He started the business at just twenty-four years old. Today, Bass Pro Shops has grown to more than ninety-five retail locations, many ranging in size from 100,000 to over 250,000 square feet.

One evening during the event, Johnny Morris approached me.

“Ollie, if you enjoy marlin fishing as much as you’ve told me, I have an offer you can’t refuse.”

He explained that he was organizing a trip nearly a thousand miles off the coast of India to fish for giant black marlin. We would live aboard a barge and fish some of the most productive waters in the world.

Then he added the hook.

“If you don’t catch a marlin over 1,000 pounds, I’ll refund your $10,000.”

The largest marlin I had ever caught weighed 167 pounds and took more than four hours to bring in safely. I could not even imagine battling a fish weighing over a thousand pounds. In fact, it was in Kona, Hawaii, with Gentleman Jeffrey; how odd is that? I still laugh at the memory of him begging to hold the rod and do the reeling. Nope, not a chance! I soloed it.

If I caught just one, would it take three days? A week, to bring in? Would I miss my flight home before the fight was over?

The trip would cost me $10,000, which was more than I could afford at the time, so I had to pass on his invitation.

Looking back, I often wonder what adventures and relationships might have come from accepting that special invitation.

It would not be the last opportunity I would unknowingly walk past.

Donna, the buyer for Bass Pro, and I developed a wonderful working relationship. We enjoyed doing business together and shared a mutual respect.

One day Donna called to tell me she would be flying into Los Angeles for a trade show and asked if we could meet at our corporate offices afterward to discuss future business.

“Absolutely,” was my response.

My father said he would love to meet her, and the flight from Dallas to Los Angeles was easy enough.

I suggested she stay at the Marriott near our offices in Torrance so she could conveniently reach both our headquarters and her trade show.

Late Saturday evening, Donna and I sat in the hotel lounge talking business, life, and everything in between. At one point, I excused myself and headed toward the men’s room.

As I walked down the corridor, I noticed an incredible amount of laughter coming from the ballroom. The room sounded alive. People were laughing, celebrating, and having the time of their lives.

On my way back, I slowed down and listened again.

I remember thinking, “Now that’s a party I wish I were attending.”

When I returned to the table, I even mentioned it to Donna.

“We should sneak in and join them,” I suggested.

“No, Ollie,” she laughed. “That wouldn’t be right.”

I pleaded my case, but she wasn’t having any of it.

Looking back, perhaps she saved me from making a fool of myself.

A few days later, after returning to my office at the World Trade Center, I received a call from my best friend, John.

“Ollie, why didn’t you come out?”

“Come out where?” I asked.

“To the reunion.”

“What reunion?”

“Our ten-year high school reunion. Half the graduating class was there.”

Nobody had told me.

I explained that I had been in Los Angeles all weekend meeting with a buyer from Bass Pro Shops and could not possibly have attended.

“Where was the reunion anyway?” I asked.

“The Marriott Hotel in Torrance.”

I stopped cold.

“The Marriott in Torrance?”

“Yes.”

“The reunion was Saturday night?”

“Of course.”

I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

“John, I was sitting in the hotel bar Saturday night with Donna from Bass Pro Shops.

I even walked by a ballroom packed with people having a great time.”

There was a long pause.

Then John laughed.

“Ollie, that wasn’t just a party.”

“What do you mean?”

“The reunion was in the ballroom.”

I sat there stunned.

Not once.

Twice.

I had walked right past my own high school reunion.

All evening I had listened to the laughter behind those doors. I had even told Donna how much I wanted to go inside and join the fun.

If only I had known.

Ironically, the entire chain of events had begun years earlier with Gentleman Jeffrey and his passion for fishing. Without Jeffrey, there would have been no Bass Pro account. Without Bass Pro, there would have been no meeting with Donna. Without Donna, I would never have been sitting in that hotel lounge on that particular Saturday night.

Life has a funny way of connecting the dots long after the moment has passed.

Reflection:

Relationships are often life’s greatest assets. We spend years building them and sometimes lose touch without realizing their value.

Looking back, I wish I had stayed connected with more of the people who helped shape my journey. Yet perhaps that missed reunion still carries a lesson today. It is never too late to reach out, reconnect, and appreciate those who were once part of our story.

Sometimes life places an opportunity only a few feet away, and we still fail to recognize it.

That night, my high school reunion was on the other side of a ballroom door, and I walked right past it twice.

And sometimes the relationships that shape our lives begin years earlier with a friend, a conversation, or a chance meeting that seemed insignificant at the time.

Gentleman Jeffrey opened one door for me.

My reunion was waiting behind another.

“Thank you for waiting patiently while life pulled us in other directions. It feels good to be opening the doors again.” With love and gratitude, Ollie

Have you ever discovered that something important in your life was only a few steps away and you never knew it at the time?

Leave a comment

If this story made you think of an old friend, a missed opportunity, or a door you wish you had opened, perhaps this is the perfect time to reconnect.

And if the story touched you, I’d be grateful if you shared it with someone else who may need the reminder.

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

I was reminded of an event in my life that I feel duty-bound to share partly as a public service, and partly as evidence for why quitting drinking was one of the best decisions I ever made.

This story is tragic. This story is ridiculous. This story is… unfortunately… true.

How did I get here?

It was 1982. Disco was alive, well, and refusing to die quietly.

I had a good friend named Ken. We went to the same high school and somehow ended up at the same university. It wasn’t through careful planning, but because Ken got himself politely removed from the football team at the University of Colorado. He was a backup quarterback, “backup” meaning talented, but with a strong commitment to poor decisions.

His father decided a change of scenery might help, so off he went to Cal Lutheran College, where I just happened to be. That was the beginning of a very dangerous friendship.

We clicked immediately. We were both dating cheerleaders, so naturally, we believed we were winning at life.

Summer hit, and like all young men with questionable judgment, we decided to head to Palm Springs, where my mother had a place at the Monterey Country Club.

Let me explain something important.

This place was not small.

It had 1,200+ homes, 27 holes of golf, 37 pools, and approximately zero chance of finding your way home naked. (That last part becomes relevant.)

It was blistering hot, 110 degrees and climbing, the kind of heat where stepping outside feels like opening an oven to check if you are done. So naturally… we decided to go clubbing.

We got ready, had a few drinks (this will be important later), and headed out.

The night was fantastic. Dancing, laughing, and bad decisions forming in real time.

We met two Swedish girls. They were stunning, fun, and clearly unaware of the disaster they were about to be part of. We invited them back to Mom’s house.

They said yes.

This is where everything began to unravel.

More drinks. More laughs.

And then… the five most dangerous words ever spoken after midnight:

“Let’s go in the jacuzzi.”

Now, a quick life lesson: alcohol + extreme heat + jacuzzi = a direct path to poor decisions and memory loss.

Sometime after 2 a.m., we set off in search of a pool. The nearest one was occupied. No problem, as there were 36 others.

And then… nothing.

The next thing I remember is waking up blinded by sunlight, my body burning. I was completely confused and immediately aware that something was very wrong.

I wasn’t in bed. I wasn’t inside. I wasn’t okay.

I was lying flat on my back… completely naked… in the middle of one of the golf greens, with a tiny golfer’s towel placed delicately over my dignity.

Now, when I say “tiny towel,” I want you to understand something. This was not a bath towel. This was not even a hand towel. This was a golf-ball towel designed to clean dirt off golf balls.

And apparently… now me.

Panic hit immediately.

Where was I? How did I get here? Why was I naked? Who tucked me in like this?!

And then I heard it.

Voices. Lots of them.

Golfers. Everywhere.

It was early morning, which meant dozens of well-rested, coffee-fueled, fully dressed adults were enjoying their morning round of golf… while watching a confused, sunburnt man trying to understand why he had woken up naked on Hole God-Knows-What.

I had two choices: stay and accept my fate… or run.

I chose to run.

What followed can only be described as The Naked Open Championship.

I sprinted from bush to bush, timing my movements like a soldier behind enemy lines, except the enemy was retirees in polo shirts, golf clubs their weapons.

Every time I thought I was clear… someone would laugh. Not a polite chuckle, full, uncontrollable, “this-is-the funniest-thing-I ’ve-ever-seen” laughter.

I wasn’t just lost. I was 375 acres lost.

My feet were burning. The asphalt felt like lava, so I stayed on the grass… which, unfortunately, is also where golfers tend to be.

People sat on their patios sipping coffee, watching me, a grown man running naked, clutching a golf towel like it was national security.

At some point, I made myself a promise:

“Ollie… if you survive this… You are not going out tonight.”

Finally… I saw it.

My car.

Hope.

I sprinted to the house, and there was Ken. Sitting calmly, drinking coffee.

“Where have you been?” he asked. “It’s 9:30 in the morning.”

“KEN… WHY DID YOU NOT COME LOOK FOR ME?!”

At this point, he was laughing so hard he couldn’t breathe, just point.

“Ollie…” he finally managed, “where are your clothes?”

“Very funny,” I snapped. “I bet you took them!”

“No,” he said. “You left with the Swede.”

Silence.

Then he looked down at the towel… and delivered the final blow:

“Ollie… that’s a golf ball towel.”

And just like that… the entire story made sense.

The Swedish girls? Gone. Vanished. Possibly back in Stockholm by now.

And me? Left behind. On a golf course. Naked. Gift-wrapped in a towel meant for cleaning golf balls.

To this day, I still wonder how long I was out there. Tee times start as early as 6:30 a.m. in the summer… which means quite a few people probably chose not to wake me.

Because it was simply too good to interrupt.

And that… is one of the many reasons I knew it was time to stop drinking again.

Reflection:

ifOnlyi… had understood that some of life’s funniest stories are usually born right on the edge of our worst decisions.

In the moment, it all feels harmless, just another drink, another laugh, another “why not?”
But sometimes, those small choices quietly hand control over to chaos… and we wake up in places we never intended to be physically, mentally, or both.

That morning on the golf course, with nothing but a towel and a pounding headache, I wasn’t just lost in 375 acres… I was lost in a pattern I hadn’t yet questioned.

Funny? Absolutely.
Harmless? Not always.

Because while we laugh at where we end up… we rarely stop to ask how many times we’ve been heading there all along.

And for me, that question eventually mattered more than the story.

Let me ask you —

What’s the funniest (or most questionable) situation you’ve ever woken up to and thought, “How on earth did I get here?”

No judgment… just stories.

Leave a comment

If this gave you a laugh, share it with someone who’s ever said, “That’s a great idea,” right before everything went wrong.

We all know at least one…

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

There are moments in business that don’t just surprise you…
They stop you dead and make you question everything you thought you understood.

This was one of mine.

It cost me one of my biggest accounts — a company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, with over 200 stores.
An account my family had built over the years… and one I had grown even further.

The account was Coach House Gifts. And I lost it over a conversation at a barbecue.

It was a hot summer day in Dallas.
Nothing special — just one of those casual apartment complex BBQs where you show your face, say hello, and maybe meet someone interesting.

That’s where I met Frank.

Within minutes, I could see it — the energy, the drive, the kind of person who builds things.

We got talking about work, and then he said it. “I’m a District Manager for Coach House Gifts.”

I smiled. Big time, smile.

“Oh, we do a lot of business with you,” I said. He instantly knew who we were. Even better.

But then his tone shifted. He wasn’t happy working there.

I didn’t pitch. I didn’t push. I just listened. Before we left, I said,
“Come by my showroom at the World Trade Center sometime. I’ll show you what I’m building.”

“Sure, Ollie,” he said. Two weeks later, the front security desk called me.

“He’s here.”
“Who is here?” I asked.
”Frank and he said you wanted him to come by.”
“Oh, yes - give him a pass to let him in, please.”

I remember being slightly surprised… and slightly impressed.

I met him at the door, handed him a beer (good host, Ollie), and walked him through everything.

The vision.
The growth.
The future.

At the time, I was expanding fast. Three companies. A growing promotional arm. A major deal with Stop N Go — 1,000 stores.

But I had a problem.

Too many people. Not enough leadership.

One sales manager is trying to handle 60 sales reps and nearly 100 vendors.
It wasn’t working.

I needed someone strong.

Someone like Frank.

We made the decision. He’d hand in his notice. Join me.
Help build something bigger.

Agreements prepared and signed. Desk ready.

Everything felt… right.

Then came the phone call.

I was driving when my office manager called and said, “Coach House Gifts called. They want to speak to you.”

I didn’t think much of it. “Have them call me back later.”

A few hours later, I took the call, a Vice President calling.

“Hello, good to hear from you—” “Ollie,” he cut in, “this is not a friendly call.”

That stopped me.

“Who do you think you are… taking one of my key people?”

Silence.

I genuinely didn’t understand what I was hearing. “Excuse me?”

“You do NOT take someone’s employee without calling their company first!”

I remember gripping the phone tighter. “Are you saying,” I replied,
“That headhunters call companies first… before they even speak to the employee?” That didn’t help.

What came next wasn’t a conversation. It was a barrage, a full-blown verbal lashing. And then the line that landed like a hammer:

“You will never do business with us again.”

And that was it. Gone!

A major account, 200 doors — wiped out in a single phone call. Because I hired someone who wasn’t happy where he was.

Here’s the part that still makes me think. Frank joined us… and he was outstanding. One of the best decisions I ever made for my business.

And Coach House Gifts? They eventually went out of business.

Reflection:

What I learned from this wasn’t about hiring.

It was about something far less visible —
the invisible lines people believe you shouldn’t cross.

In business, not everyone plays by the same rules.
Some believe loyalty belongs to the company.
Others believe it belongs to the individual.

I made a decision based on what I thought was fair and normal.

He made a decision based on what he believed was right.

And somewhere in between…a relationship disappeared.

One conversation got me a great employee…and cost me a 200-store account.
And even now… I’m not entirely sure who was right.

Let me ask you —

Would you have handled this differently?

Would you have called his employer… or made the hire quietly?

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

The Payback

Christine and I were struggling under the crushing cost of the legal war we were fighting. It was again time for us to move again, cutting costs to survive this legal fight.

Courier fees.
Court filings.
Paper.
Ink.
Service calls.
Rental fees for the copiers.

Every day, money was going out.

None was coming in. Eventually, we had no choice.

We had to move. Miguel offered to help, and I paid him and his helper well.

First, we shut down the corporate offices and warehouse. Then we packed up our home.

My favorite escapes in life have always been movies and music.

Back then, I collected Laser Discs — the big silver discs that existed before DVDs. The picture and sound quality were incredible, almost like having a theater at home.

I owned about four hundred films.

But what I truly loved was music.

Records. Vinyl. Same size as a Laser Disk.

No 8-tracks.
No cassette tapes.
No reel-to-reel.

Records were my thing.

True to the ears.

My music collection began at 13, a gift given after my confirmation
( Elton John’s, Yellow Brick Road double album), had grown to more than 1,000 albums, each one carefully protected in special sleeves, inside & out, designed to preserve them for decades.

When we packed them, I boxed them carefully and sealed each box with tape.

I remember Miguel and his friend, who were helping with this move, carrying those boxes out the back door toward the moving truck.

At least that’s what I thought.

After we arrived at the new apartment and finished unloading, I realized something.

Where were my records?

Day one passed.

Day two. Then it hit me. The boxes were gone.

These were the same albums my little sister had protected years earlier—stopping my mom from selling them while I was living in Australia. She fought for them. She won.

She loved that collection as much as I did.

It kept growing.
My hobby.
My passion.

I confronted Miguel.

His response?

Complete denial.

How could I prove anything?

There were no cameras back then. No security footage.

Nothing.

The records were simply… gone.

A thousand albums.
A lifetime collection.

Vanished.

That was my thank-you for helping find his kidnapped baby.

Records can be replaced.
A baby cannot.

As I shared in my post, The Phone Call That Launched an Eight-Day Search, we went all in—doing everything we could to rescue his child and bring her home.

We succeeded.

So how could this happen?

Even if it was his friend…
Why didn’t he protect what was ours?

A lifetime of joy—gone in sixty seconds.

A relationship I believed was built on trust and care… was never real.

It was a pattern I would only learn to break much later in life.

Reflection:

In the end, it was never about the records. It was about what their disappearance revealed.

Not everyone who stands beside you is standing with you.

And sometimes, the hardest lessons aren’t about what you lose… but about who you lose it to.

Have you ever helped someone… and paid a price you never expected?

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

The box sat on the floor of my office for weeks.

Inside were a handful of cardboard caps, a few metal slammers, and several handwritten letters from a young man in Maui who believed I could change his life and mine forever.

It had all started months earlier with a phone call from Maui, Hawaii.

On the other end of the line was a young man who had been following what I had done with trading cards.

He told me about a simple game kids were playing with milk caps from juice bottles — they called them Pogs.

At first, it sounded almost too simple. Cardboard circles and metal slammers.

But he kept calling. Not once or twice —it was very frequent—for months.

He believed in it, and he believed I was the person who could take it nationwide. Eventually, he even started sending me packages. Inside were samples — the actual caps they were using from the bottles in Hawaii.

The calls from Maui didn’t stop after the first conversation.

The young man truly believed in what they had started there with those little bottle caps. He kept telling me that if anyone could take it nationwide, it was me.

Over the next few months, the mail started arriving.

Sometimes it was a padded envelope. Other times, a small box. Inside were samples — some of the original milk caps they had been using, along with early printed versions of the game they were trying to build.

What I remember most were the letters. They weren’t typed. The young man handwrote every one of them.

Page after page explaining the idea, the excitement they were seeing in Hawaii, and why he believed I was the person who could make it happen across the country.

One of those boxes eventually ended up sitting on the floor of my office. I opened it and looked through the contents — the caps, the slammers, the handwritten notes.

Then I closed the lid.

At that time, my life was being pulled apart on too many fronts. The lawsuits were consuming everything, and soon after came the diagnosis of cancer. My days were spent fighting battles to stay standing.

The box stayed there on the floor for a long time — open, waiting for me to say yes.

The young man never gave up. He kept telling me, “You’re the guy who can make this happen.”

I remember holding them in my hand, turning them over, thinking about what they could become.

Looking back now, I realize he may have been right.

But at that time, legal battles consumed my life. My head was somewhere else entirely — buried in legal papers and stress. I wasn’t thinking clearly, and I certainly wasn’t thinking about the future.

Eventually, I told him no.

Within a few short years, the simple game he had been describing exploded across America. Hundreds of companies began producing Pogs and slammers, and the tiny cardboard discs quickly turned into a massive playground economy.

Industry estimates later showed just how big the craze became in the United States alone:

1993 – roughly $50–100 million in sales
1994 – around $300–400 million
1995 – the peak year, exceeding $500 million
1996 – about $200 million before the craze began to fade
1997 and beyond – the market collapsed almost as quickly as it had risen

Within a few years, Pogs exploded across America, generating hundreds of millions in sales and billions of pieces worldwide.

Sometimes I think about that young man in Maui who kept calling and sending those little bottle caps.

And I wonder if he ever knew how close we came to doing it together.

Sometimes I still think about that young man in Maui who kept calling and sending those little bottle caps.

I can still picture the envelopes, the boxes, and the handwritten pages filled edge to edge with his excitement. He believed in something simple that most people would have dismissed.

More than that, he believed in me.

And for a brief moment in time, our paths almost crossed in a way that might have changed both of our lives.

But life doesn’t always move according to opportunity. Sometimes it moves according to survival.

At that time, I was fighting battles on too many fronts — lawsuits that seemed endless and the terrifying reality of a cancer diagnosis. My energy wasn’t spent dreaming about the future. I spent it trying to get through each day.

So the box sat there on the floor of my office.

Opened. Waiting.

Waiting for an answer I never gave.

Within a few short years, the little milk caps from Hawaii would sweep across America, filling schoolyards and playgrounds everywhere.

But when I look back now, what stays with me isn’t the money or the size of the craze.

It’s the effort that the young man made.
The belief he had.
And the quiet image of that box on the floor.

REFLECTION:
Sometimes life doesn’t ask whether you’re ready for an opportunity. It simply places it in front of you and waits.
Looking back now, I sometimes think it may have been God quietly placing another opportunity in front of me, one I couldn’t see at the time.
And perhaps that is one of life’s quiet truths.

Not every gift arrives when we are ready to receive it.

Every chapter I write is part of my journey — the victories, the hardships, and the lessons life was quietly teaching me along the way.

If you’d like to support my writing and help me continue telling the rest of this story, you can buy me a coffee. Your kindness helps keep these memories alive.

Buy Ollie A Coffee

That box sat on my floor waiting for an answer I never gave.

Have you ever had something in your life that waited quietly… while everything else demanded your attention?

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

My supervisor was someone I had grown fond of.

Miguel was the kind of man who went beyond the call of duty. He helped me personally when things were difficult, and he took enormous pride in his work. Every product leaving our assembly line had to be perfect.

I respected that.

My upbringing taught me that taking pride in your work mattered more than almost anything else. Miguel lived by that same principle every day.

Then one Saturday afternoon, the phone rang.

It was Miguel.

He was calling from a pay phone and crying.

“Miguel, what’s wrong?” I asked. “We’re here for you. What happened?”

He struggled to get the words out.

“Ollie… my wife was shopping at Sears. The baby was in the buggy. She turned to look at something on a rack… and when she turned back…”

He paused, trying to breathe.

“The baby was gone.”

“Gone?” I said instinctively. “It can’t walk. It’s only a few weeks old.”

“No… gone,” he said. “Stolen.”

His wife had run all over the department store searching. The baby was nowhere. She called him in panic, and now he was calling me.

“First thing,” I told him, “get the store’s security team immediately. Then call the police from the store phone. Christine and I are coming down right now.”

“Which department are you in?”

Christine and I arrived about fifteen minutes later. We probably pushed the speed limits getting there, but time mattered.

This was when Christine stepped in. She shifted instantly into lawyer mode.

She knew exactly what questions to ask, who needed to be contacted, and how everything had to be documented. Every minute mattered.

Even though she was already fighting our company’s massive legal battle against four corporate Goliaths, she put everything aside.

A baby had been kidnapped. That took priority over everything.

We gathered photos immediately and began printing flyers as fast as possible.

I contacted Ruder Finn, the public relations firm working with us on our legal case. Within minutes, they shifted their focus to this emergency.

And they did what they did best.

They got the word out.

News stations across the state began calling Christine. Interviews started immediately. Newspapers followed.

But Christine didn’t stop there.

She contacted the television show America’s Most Wanted in Washington, D.C., and began coordinating to get the baby’s photograph and story broadcast nationally.

It aired.

Miguel’s family and friends spread out across Southern California with stacks of flyers.

Christine worked the phones nonstop.

She arranged for the baby’s photo and details to appear through the
AMBER Alert network and on the giant electronic freeway signs across Southern California.

Everyone was working. Everyone was searching.

But Christine carried a single determination that pushed everything forward.

Find the baby.

Now.

Eight days passed. Eight long nights of searching and hoping.

Then the phone rang again

The baby had been found.

She was in Phoenix, Arizona, inside a parked car.

The kidnapper had driven roughly 380 miles across the desert before being caught.

The story that followed was heartbreaking.

The woman who took the baby had lost her own child during delivery. Her grief had twisted into desperation, and she had stolen another woman’s newborn from a Sears department store.

But the most important thing was this:

The baby was alive.

Safe. And going home.

All of us were grateful. Relieved beyond words. Even though it wasn’t our child, it felt personal by the end of those eight days.

No parent should ever experience that terror.

Reflection:

Looking back now, what I remember most is not the fear, but the determination.

People from every direction came together — family, friends, reporters, law enforcement, and strangers who simply cared enough to help. Flyers were passed hand to hand. Phone calls never stopped. Hope refused to disappear.

Eight days later, that tiny baby girl was found safe hundreds of miles away.

In a world that often feels chaotic, that moment reminded me that when people work together with a shared purpose, extraordinary things can happen.

A frightened newborn was brought home because people refused to give up.

Stories like this remind me how powerful collective effort can be. Have you ever witnessed a community come together in a moment of crisis? I would love to hear your experience.

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

Sometimes life delivers its hardest news at the exact moment fate begins quietly turning in your favor.

Within a few short weeks, I heard the words no one ever wants to hear — you have cancer. Yet during that same stretch of time, I would continue to fight legal battles, shake the hand of a pope, walk the ancient halls of Notre Dame, meet strangers who would become friends, and watch a single roulette number —
29 — turn one desperate bet into something unforgettable.

Looking back now, it almost felt as if the universe was reminding me of something important:

Even when life appears to be closing in, the wheel can still turn.

When we built the company, I followed the advice my mother had given me many years earlier:

“Always take care of your people, and they will take care of you.”

Part of that meant buying the best insurance protection we could afford. ALL retailers insisted we must have a binder to protect them before receiving any purchase orders. We purchased product liability coverage. We purchased health, legal, and intellectual property protection. We believed we had built a safety net strong enough to protect the company and employees if trouble ever arrived.

We were more concerned about copycats than ever getting sued.

When the lawsuits hit, the insurance company suddenly refused to honor the policy and pay for our defence.

The war with the card companies and Major League Baseball continued. But many people never knew that there were other trading card companies that chose not to join the lawsuits against us. They looked at the law, studied the situation, and realized something the others ignored.

The claims had no real merit.

To them, it was obvious: the lawsuits were not about justice. They were about crushing a small company that had dared to stand its ground.

The four companies that had filed suit were now facing the consequences of something they had never expected.

We fought back.

Christine and I had filed counterclaims against all of them, and the legal pressure was starting to push back in our favor.

But another battle was quietly forming.

This time, it was against our own insurance company. The one that refused to honor the policy and pay for our defense.

So we sued them

A law firm agreed to represent us on a contingency basis. They appeared confident and eager for the fight.

Then the day of the trial arrived.

The jury was selected. Christine and I were prepared.

I was the first witness to take the stand.

Five minutes later, the defense produced a document claiming the case should be dismissed.

Because our attorneys had failed to file several required documents, the judge had little choice

And just like that, it was.

Thrown out.

I am not a legal scholar and know almost nothing about the law, but something had clearly gone terribly wrong. Even Christine and our attorneys were stunned.

I was furious.

Christine did what Christine always does when something doesn’t make sense.

She started digging.

What she discovered left us speechless.

The weekend before the trial, while preparing us to take the stand, the attorneys representing us had spent the afternoon drinking in their offices.

Beer after beer. Twenty-four. Maybe thirty between them.

Critical documents that needed to be filed were overlooked and never filed.

By Monday morning, they were completely unprepared to argue a case that could determine whether our insurance coverage would save the company.

Christine didn’t waste time being angry.

She went back to work.

She found a new law firm—one with hundreds of attorneys—and they immediately saw the magnitude of what had happened. They agreed to take the case against both the insurance company and the negligent law firm.

This time, the outcome was different.

We won.

A portion of the recovered funds was later paid to the trading card companies as part of a negotiated resolution. The insurance company and the negligent law firm were held accountable.

After years of relentless work, Christine finally received compensation for the extraordinary effort she had poured into defending the company.

But while these battles were being fought, something else had entered my life.

Cancer.

After hearing the diagnosis from multiple oncologists, I felt mentally exhausted. The doctors had advice and treatment plans, but I wasn’t ready to hear them.

Hope was not something I could see clearly at that moment.

Christine and I needed something different.

We needed to step away.

So we packed our bags and booked a trip to Rome and Paris.

Paris in April.

Great food. Beautiful places. A chance to breathe.

Our first stop was Rome.

Christine had an aunt who held a high position within the Catholic Church. She was responsible for organizing a special event at the Sala Regia — the Royal Hall — in the Vatican.

The service was led by Pope John Paul II.

That afternoon, he delivered the service in ten languages.

Polish.
Italian.
French.
German.
English.
Spanish.
Portuguese.
Latin.
Ancient Greek.
Ukrainian.

Listening to him move between languages was nothing short of extraordinary.

The Pope had requested that two people from every Catholic nation be invited to attend. Christine received the invitation from her aunt, along with permission to bring a guest.

That guest was me.

It was an incredible honor I will never forget.

After the service, I quietly moved toward the front, hoping for just one moment. When he approached, I lowered my head respectfully and reached forward.

Our hands met briefly.

A simple handshake.

For a moment, I wondered if perhaps my luck might change.

From Rome we traveled to Paris.

Our hotel was a small boutique place on the Left Bank. We spent hours exploring Notre Dame Cathedral, both inside and out.

The beauty of the interior was breathtaking, but the outside fascinated me just as much. Every stone seemed to carry a story. I absorbed everything I could.

I remember thinking what an incredible place it would be for a wedding.

But marriage wasn’t something I believed was in my future.

I was sick.

Still, the thought crossed my mind, what if this were the place? Incredible. But it was my illness that was making me think abnormally.

While staying at the hotel, we met a wonderful woman and her daughter, Astrid — the same name as my mother. We spoke for nearly an hour in the lobby and quickly became friends.

Before we parted, she made an unexpected offer.

“You must come visit us in Monaco.”

We didn’t hesitate.

We boarded the TGV train from Paris, one of the smoothest and fastest rides I had ever experienced.

For me, Monaco had always been a dream destination.

Now that dream was about to become reality.

Astrid met us there and helped us navigate the city since my French was nearly nonexistent.

I also decided to fly my little sister in from Scotland. I missed her terribly, and it felt close enough for her to join us.

We stayed at the Hermitage Hotel. My sister slept on the hotel room floor, and the three of us spent several wonderful days together.

Astrid took us out one evening to a club with great music and dancing. At one point, she ordered a bottle of Cristal Champagne — the first time I had ever seen one. Dancing was a way for me to shake off all my worries; I just could not stop.

Later, we all went to the famous casino.

You had to hand over your passport to enter.

Inside, I asked Astrid if she had ever played roulette.

“No,” she said. “My husband used to.”

“What was his favorite number?” I asked.

She smiled.

“Twenty-nine.”

We began playing, and Astrid asked not to play his number 29 while she was there, something I didn’t understand, but accepted gracefully.

For thirty minutes, my luck was terrible.

Astrid eventually left for the evening, leaving us alone at the table. My money was nearly gone, and I was staring at my final chip — a black one worth one hundred dollars.

I had never placed a full hundred dollars on a single number before. Normally, I spread smaller bets across the table.

But this time I pushed the chip onto one lonely number.

The wheel spun.

And it hit.

Just like that, I had $3,500 in front of me.

Christine returned from a conversation she had been having — interestingly enough, with tennis legend Björn Borg — and looked at the stack of chips.

“Whose are those?” she asked.

“Mine.”

She opened her purse and swept them inside.

Then she went to the cashier and paid off the credit line I had used earlier.

When she returned, the table was stacked with chips again.

“Are these yours, too?”

“Yes.”

Back into the purse they went.

By the time the night ended and we returned to our room, Christine began counting the money.

I had started with a single $100 chip while sitting $2,900 in debt, plus the other cash I had brought in for the night.

By the end of the night, after everything was paid off, we had over $60,000.

All because of one number.

Twenty-nine.

That number changed my life — at least for a while.

We finished the trip by attending the Monte Carlo Masters tennis final, which was incredible to witness.

After Monaco, we flew back to Scotland with my sister. She sat in the back of the plane, beside someone who would soon help create another unforgettable memory.

For a few brief days, we had escaped the worries waiting for us back home.

I even made plans to return two weeks later to meet Astrid again.

What happened next would become something I could never forget.

Reflection:

Looking back now, I realize something I could not see clearly at the time.

Life has a strange way of balancing its scales.

In one moment, I was hearing the word cancer, wondering if my future was quietly slipping away.

In another moment, I was shaking the hand of Pope John Paul II, standing in one of the world's most sacred halls.

Days later, I was watching a roulette wheel spin in Monaco, placing my last chip on a number that meant something to someone we had only just met.

Twenty-nine.

Was it luck?
Was it fate?
Was it simply a coincidence?

I still don’t know.

But I do know this: in the middle of one of the hardest chapters of my life, the world still found a way to remind me that possibility had not disappeared.

Sometimes hope shows up in the most unexpected places.

Sometimes it even arrives on a spinning wheel.

And on one unforgettable night in Monaco…

The ball landed on 29.

Was it luck, fate, or coincidence?

I read every comment.

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

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Continued from Issue #148, 149 & 150

The Cost of War
What Success — and Survival — Really Demands

When people read about legal battles, they usually imagine courtrooms.

Judges.
Lawyers.
Arguments across polished wooden tables.

What they rarely imagine is the quiet war that takes place everywhere else.

The war that happens at midnight.

The war that happens in your home.

The war that happens inside your body.

For over two and a half years, our lives had been consumed by litigation. The copier machines never stopped running. Paper stacked higher than furniture in our office and home. FedEx deadlines became part of our daily routine. Midnight runs to shipping offices were normal. Couriers appeared at our front door like clockwork, from the many law firms and me carrying another box of documents that needed to be filed somewhere in America.

Christine lived inside the law during those years.

Seven days a week.
Over eight hundred days.

She studied every filing. Every motion. Every legal maneuver. The opposing firms had armies of attorneys, paralegals, researchers, and assistants working the case.

We had Christine doing everything, while the other four full-time firms had massive teams to assist with their every whim.

And me. (I don’t research, I didn’t type, I didn’t look up laws; I was a pure and grateful elf.)

At first, I believed the lawsuits were the greatest threat our company faced. Four massive corporations coming after a small company like ours felt overwhelming. Their strategy was obvious: bury us in paperwork, legal costs, and pressure until we collapsed.

But something unexpected happened along the way.

The deeper the fight went, the more support appeared from places we never imagined.

Letters from parents. Letters from kids. Fans are sending encouragement.

Strangers writing to tell us they believed in what we were doing. Richard Branson believed I would not need his investment. Richard’s letter lay on my desk—a daily reminder of what could have been.

People within the legal field also wrote their support, knowing exactly why this was happening.

Our company started as a business idea. Somewhere along the road, it became something else.

People had invested emotionally in our success.

That kind of support can carry you farther than money ever will.

But war — even when you’re winning — still has a price.

Most people watching from the outside only saw headlines.

They saw the lawsuits. They saw the counterclaims.

They saw the national press labeling it a David-versus-Goliath story.

What they didn’t see were the tolls that accumulate quietly behind the scenes.

Stress has a strange way of working its way into every part of life. You tell yourself you can handle it. You convince yourself you’re strong enough. You push forward because the next filing is due, the next hearing is coming, and the next problem must be solved.

You keep moving. Entrepreneurs are very good at that.

You ignore the warning signs.
You ignore exhaustion.
You ignore the weight building inside you.

Until one day your body decides it has had enough.

But before that moment arrived, the pressure was still building.

The legal war was spreading in directions we never expected.

At one point, I completely lost my temper. One of the opposing lawyers had just lied in court to manipulate the judge into ruling his way. I had been listening to this nonsense for months. When the hearing ended, and he walked out of the courtroom, I snapped.

I grabbed him and slammed him against the wall.

Three other lawyers rushed in and pulled me off him before things got worse.

It wasn’t my proudest moment, but after years of watching the legal system twist into something it was never meant to be, my patience had finally run out.

Christine had her own battles inside that same courtroom.

At one point, the judge called her into chambers. What should have been a short discussion turned into something else entirely. She argued fiercely over a ruling that made absolutely no sense legally. The judge threatened to throw her in jail for contempt.

Christine didn’t back down.

She stood her ground.

The truth was, the rulings were beginning to drift further and further away from what the New York judge had already recognized — that there was no real infringement. We began to believe something was very wrong with the situation in California. Whether it was bias, pressure, or something worse, the decisions coming out of that courtroom felt completely disconnected from the law.

The four companies eventually came back to the table, willing to settle.

Later, we heard their combined legal fees had climbed past $17 million.

Which makes you wonder…

Who really won in the end?

My pockets were somewhat content. But not really.

Because part of the settlement required something that felt almost surreal after everything we had been through.

We had to destroy all remaining inventory.

Every box. Every product.

Burned.

Years of work going up in smoke.

And yet, strangely, that still wasn’t the hardest moment of my life.

Looking back now, I realize something important about that period.

The lawsuits weren’t the only battle happening.

Not even close.

While we were fighting some of the most powerful organizations in professional sports licensing, another fight was quietly beginning — one that no legal strategy could solve.

And this time, the advice my mother had given me years earlier would become more important than I ever imagined.

She had once told me:

“Always take care of your employees. And make sure you buy the best health insurance money can buy.”

I had followed that advice when we built the company.

Thank God I did.

Because one day I sat in a doctor’s office and heard four words I never expected to hear at the age of thirty-four.

“Ollie… you have cancer.”

Multiple oncologists reviewed the tests. They all came to the same conclusion.

Non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

I picked up the phone and called my mother.

When I told her, she went silent for a moment.

Then she said quietly, “Ollie… together we will get through this.”

The truth was, I wasn’t sure I cared whether I did or not.

Over the previous years, I had poured everything I had onto the battlefield — the lawsuits, the company, the fight to survive against forces far larger than us.

In that moment, I felt completely empty.

As if the war had taken everything I had to give.

The lawsuits tried to take my company
Cancer tried to take something far more valuable.

To Be Continued…

Reflection

Looking back now, I understand something I couldn’t see in the middle of the fight.

For years, I believed the lawsuits were the greatest challenge of my life. Four powerful companies, armies of lawyers, endless filings, and a system that sometimes felt stacked against us. Every day felt like another battle that Christine and I had to fight.

And we fought. Christine fought with the law. I fought with stubborn determination. Together, we refused to fold.

In the end, the companies that tried to bury us spent millions doing it. We proved our case, forced them to settle, and even made a new law in the process.

At the time, it felt like the biggest victory imaginable. But life has a way of putting victories into perspective.

Cancer doesn’t care about contracts, courtrooms, or who won the last argument.

It simply shows up and asks a different question.

Not whether you can win.

But whether you can endure.

What I learned during that period is something I wish every entrepreneur understood earlier.

Success attracts attention.

Sometimes admiration.

Sometimes opportunity.

And sometimes, powerful people who would rather see you disappear. But even those battles are not the ones that truly define you.

The battles that matter most are the ones that test your spirit, your relationships, and your will to keep moving forward when the path suddenly becomes uncertain.

Looking back now, I realize something else.

The lawsuits were never really the story.

The real story was the people who stood beside me while we fought them.

Christine.

My family.

And the thousands of strangers who sent letters reminding us that we weren’t alone.

Because in the end, victories in business come and go.

But the people who stand beside you during the hardest moments of your life…

Those are the victories that last forever.

I’m curious… Have you ever faced a moment when life suddenly changed direction for you? It might have been an illness, loss of a loved one, a business challenge, or a personal struggle that tested everything you thought you knew about yourself.

If you feel comfortable sharing, I’d truly value hearing your story.

I read every comment.

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

Continued from Issues 148 & 149 — a must-read to understand what led to this moment.

It began with a knock.

I was still waiting to hear back from Reggie Jackson and Upper Deck Company. I wanted to work with them legitimately — manufacture collector cards in bulk instead of chasing overpriced, inconsistent inventory in the aftermarket.

Instead, I got this.

Our receptionist called upstairs.
“Ollie, someone’s here asking for you.”

Maybe a fan? Maybe Reggie?

The man handed me an envelope.

“You have been served.”

He turned and walked out.

I stepped into Christine’s office. She was our in-house counsel — an intellectual property attorney — but lawsuits? We never expected this.

She opened the envelope. Silence. Before she could finish reading, another knock at the door.

“Are you Ollie?” “Yes.”

“You have been served.”

Second envelope. Christine looked up.
“This one’s from Upper Deck. Filed in California.”

Oh, finally, they got in contact with me.
Thanks, Reggie. Not so.

The Same Day. The Same Plan.

The lawsuits alleged copyright infringement and everything else they could throw in to bury us.

Then came the third knock.
Then the fourth.

By the end of that morning:

• Two lawsuits were filed in New York

• Two lawsuits were filed in California

• All filed the same day

Christine looked at me. “Ollie, this was co-conspired.”

Four companies. Two states. One strategy.

Not to win. To crush. It was a planned conspiracy

Toys “R” Us Picks a Side

The phone rang.

“Ollie, Toys R Us is on the line.”

It was their head of legal calling. She said, “Ollie, I’ve just received a letter from Major League Baseball legal demanding we pull all your products from the shelves. Except that there are none - we sold out in days, so the shelves were already empty in all 600 stores. Ha Ha!”

Christine and I sent the Toys R Us legal team copies of the complaints against our company and me.

After reviewing them, Toys “R” Us told Major League Baseball:

“If you attempt to strong-arm us, we will remove every MLB product from every store nationwide.”

MLB did not expect that.

Toys “R” Us stood with us, studied the law, and knew we were, in fact, doing everything right by the law.

They saw it clearly. This wasn’t infringement. This was a conspired event.

It was intimidation.

The Big Guns

Christine called her former firm:

Jones Day.

Founded in 1893.
Forty offices worldwide.
Two thousand four hundred attorneys.

After reviewing everything, they said:

“This is 100% winnable. We’ll take it on contingency.”

Contingency. Meaning we pay nothing unless we win.

Imagine that validation. Then came the conflict check.

One conflict: Starter.

A line of sports clothing licensed by the NFL and MLB. They refused consent. They were afraid of upsetting their licensors.

Jones Day had to withdraw. And just like that, the cavalry vanished.

Every other major firm wanted a million-dollar retainer.

So We Went to War

If they were going to try us in court, we would try the case in the court of public opinion.

We hired Ruder Finn, founded in 1948. They did what they do best: told the truth.

The opposition filed motions to silence us. Free speech prevailed.

We filed a $950 million counterclaim against all three Trading Card companies and Major League Baseball.

Now they had to defend.

A Letter From Richard Branson

Then I received a handwritten letter from Richard Branson.

On his personal stationery.

“I don’t think you’ll need my money now, Ollie, and I wish you every success.”

He was referring to our counterclaim. We never heard back from Wayne Huizenga.

But the message was clear. The tables had turned.

The Mailbags

When the news broke nationally, the mail started arriving in sacks, multiple sacks at a time.

The postal carrier emptied his truck and said:

“Are we at Santa’s house?”

Letters from parents.
Letters from kids.
Crayon notes.
Letters from companies using MLB products, repackagers, and the like.

Giving support and encouragement.

We weren’t just fighting for a company anymore. We were fighting for belief.

The Venue Battle

Christine wanted all cases moved to New York, where we had already secured a major, favorable ruling.

The decision went to Texas.

The opposing firms fought aggressively to move everything to California.

They won.

We later understood why.

The California judge had failed the bar nine times.

We were starting over.

800 Days

Christine worked seven days a week for over 800 days.

Two very high-end copier machines running constantly — one at the office, one at home.

Paper stacked to the ceiling. Midnight FedEx runs. Couriers at our front door.

My deposition lasted twelve days. Thirteen thousand pages.

Eleven lawyers against me.

One lawyer beside me.

Christine.

Over 90 named attorneys.
75 paralegals.
40-plus secretaries.
Two librarians.

Against her. And she never blinked.

The Truth

What happened next will shock you.

But this chapter isn’t about the outcome.

It’s about the moment you realize success makes you a target.

It’s about what corporations do when a small company threatens their control.

It’s about how far they will go.

And what happens when someone refuses to fold?

We had Christine.

Perhaps that is why I was meant to hold on a little longer — to stand beside her and witness the championship performance of her life.

Reflection

When our company began to grow, I believed the biggest challenge would be keeping up with demand.

I was wrong.

Sometimes success invites attention you never expected — not from competitors trying to outperform you, but from powerful organizations trying to stop you entirely.

Four lawsuits. Two states. Filed on the same day.

At the time, it felt overwhelming. But looking back now, I realize something important: pressure reveals the people who truly stand beside you.

For me, that person was Christine.

When the legal storm arrived, she didn’t panic. She didn’t hesitate. She simply went to work.

And that made all the difference.
To be continued…

Have you ever faced a moment when someone tried to intimidate you or push you aside because you were moving forward or succeeding?
I’d love to hear how you handled it.

I read every reply.

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

Continued from Issue #148 (a must-read to fully understand this moment).

I created a “Kids Club” and, after watching a film where John Goodman played Babe Ruth, I designed a vintage-style canvas baseball bag inspired by that era.

I wanted this to be an extra-special gift for our club members—something they would receive once they reached a certain level by purchasing products and providing proof of purchase.

The bag looked like something you’d pay $250 for, with a bold, full-color logo on both sides and metal peg legs. It was a beautiful piece of work.

To secure the price I needed, I had to order 5,000 units. It was one of the biggest financial commitments I had made to date—but I didn’t hesitate.

I was confident that our club members would be clamouring to own a replica of the bag Babe Ruth and others used in their era, just because they were collectors of our baseball cards.

As a long-time collector myself, this felt incredibly special.

Growth at this pace meant I needed cash flow, so I turned to a small father-and-son factoring business in Los Angeles. They operated with one secretary and an intense attention to detail—every penny accounted for.

It wasn’t cheap, but it gave me the momentum I needed.

The process was simple: I shipped the order and issued an invoice. They would advance me about 75% upfront, and once the retailer paid, I would receive the balance, minus their sizable fees.

I made sure it wasn’t a long-term agreement so I could secure the big-money investment I needed.

So what did I have to do? Another business plan!

I hired a librarian.

In truth, she was much more than that. She had an extraordinary ability to research and present information in a way that gave the entire project weight and credibility.

She compiled a book filled with hundreds of letters from our customers—fans who loved the new collectors’ baseball product.

It wasn’t just feedback. It was proof.

Proof that this was no longer a dream and part of the business plan.

Included in the business plan were letters of intent from companies such as Toys “R” Us, committing to $6 million in purchases.

On top of that, there were an additional $14 million in promised orders

This wasn’t hope anymore.

This was real.

I had also introduced a six-pack of acrylic-encased cards.

The packaging resembled a baseball dugout—black box, gold-foil accents, and holes punched into the top for easy carrying.

Six players per pack. Three on the front, three on the back.

It was one of the best designs we had ever created.

Brilliant—and everything was rolling out better than I had dreamed.

It was going to be an overwhelming time for everyone in the company to fill the massive number of orders in a timely manner.

Manufacturing the packaging was not an issue, nor was the acrylic casing, or the plastic frame around the cards, or even the master cartons. All this was simple.

Production lines would continue with three shifts a day, seven days a week. The shrink-wrapping machine does its part on the conveyor belts.

We were ready.

Deliveries were handled by outside companies.

So, where was the issue?

Then came the problem.

Each 3-D pack required three identical trading cards.

We needed three times as many cards as we had orders for.

And suddenly, everything came down to one question:

Where was Reggie Jackson?

I met with Virgin Games personnel in Newport Beach to discuss the business opportunity. They came back right away and said, “Get us a business plan right away.”

I told them it would be ready in a few weeks.

The other big potential investor was Wayne Huizenga, the owner of many things, but known best as the owner of the Miami Dolphins football team & founder of Waste Management Company ( the people who pick up our trash)

I had a real business—100% sell-through, major retail partners, and multi-million-dollar orders already in the pipeline.

Then came the call from Virgin.

“Ollie, we have a private plane waiting to leave for London—with your business plan on board. We need it now.”

I asked, “Is Richard Branson on the plane?”

“No… just your plan.”

That stopped me.

Do investors really do things like that?

I was still waiting for Reggie Jackson to confirm a meeting with me so we could meet with Upper Deck Company, the biggest sports trading card company.

Life was bright.
Brighter than it had been in a long time.

Everything I had worked for was finally real.

The product.
The team.
The orders.
The future.

For the first time, I allowed myself to believe I had made it.

But life has a way of testing you when you least expect it.

What came next didn’t arrive slowly.
It arrived all at once… with a knock on the door.

And it would change everything.

To be continued…

Reflection

There are moments in life when everything aligns—when the vision, the work, and the opportunity all come together at once.

In those moments, it’s easy to believe you’ve finally arrived.

But growth at that level often carries unseen pressure.

What looks like success on the outside can be balancing on something far more fragile underneath.

And sometimes, the greatest tests don’t come when you’re struggling…
They come when everything seems to be working.

Every chapter I write is part of my journey — the victories, the hardships, and the lessons life was quietly teaching me along the way

If you’d like to support my writing and help me continue telling the rest of this story, you can buy me a coffee. Your kindness helps keep these memories alive.

Buy Ollie A Coffee

Have you ever felt, even briefly, that everything in your life was finally coming together?

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

After creating the “Watch Out For Kids” charity, the events went better than I could have imagined. What I didn’t realize then was that they were quietly preparing me for something else—something that would change the course of my life.

After a small but meaningful win—the one I shared in issue #143—we finally made a move.

We rented a small, old beach-style home across the street from the ocean.
Water. Waves. Sun. Sand. Long walks. Sunsets. Tanning lotion. Sunglasses. People-watching.
How could life be any better? Was I ever this happy before?

Moving, as always, was a pain in the you-know-what—something I’d end up doing more times than most people pick apples off a tree. Writing business plans came in a close second.

The house had two bedrooms: one became my office, the other our bedroom. Perfect. There was even an outdoor jacuzzi tub and shower. It wasn’t expensive, for this beach area, about $1,500 a month. Today, that same house would rent for five or six grand. Nuts.

While I was trying to collect money from a long-awaited licensing deal—and stressing more than I’d like to admit—I was invited to an NFL Rams training camp in Irvine, California. My girlfriend Christina’s nephew was one of the ball boys.

Off we went.

Being there brought back memories of my time at California Lutheran College in Thousand Oaks, where the Dallas Cowboys used the campus for their off-season training. In my mind, that alone had given the school instant credibility in its early days.

As I walked around chatting with people—something I’ve always loved—I noticed a young man in his early twenties approaching players, asking them to sign something. Curiosity got the better of me.

At first glance, it looked like a football card. But when I got closer, I saw it was something else entirely.

He explained that it was a handmade, three-dimensional card. He used three identical trading cards, cutting the images from two cards and layering them onto a full, uncut card. Small wooden spacers lifted the cutouts, making the player appear as if he were literally running off the card.

I saw it instantly.

This was something I could build into a real success.

But only if it was done right.
Honestly.
And with full respect for someone else’s creation.

That part didn’t scare me. I knew I had to meet with him and see where this could take us—together.

After several meetings, we signed an agreement. He was heading to university, and I took on the responsibility of building something meaningful from his idea.

For the first time in a long while, I felt like I was holding my future in my hands.

Excitement quickly turned into work. A lot of it.

How was I going to make this product in America?

I needed a company that could die-cut images out of trading cards. Every design required a custom die—expensive, but necessary. I had a small bank account balance from the sale of my dad’s inventory. It felt like a blessing.

Then I discovered the real scale of the trading card business. It was far bigger than I’d ever imagined.

There was a massive secondary market—companies that bought hundreds of thousands of boxes of cards, opened them, pulled the valuable ones, and stacked the rest by design and manufacturer.

Finding enough of the same card from the same manufacturer in quantities large enough for mass production was one of our biggest challenges.

Next, we crafted a small plastic frame to mount the uncut card.

Then came high-volume plastic cases to protect the finished piece—ironically, the easiest part. I replaced the wooden spacers with foam cutouts and double-sided tape.

Now it finally looked like a finished piece of art.

Still, I wasn’t satisfied.

I needed retail packaging—something special. And somehow, I found the perfect firm through someone I met during my stay at Betty Ford’s rehab center in the desert.

Life has a strange way of connecting dots when you step back and look.

I imagined packaging that would awe buyers—clear enough to see the front and back, and large enough to discourage theft.

As a kid, I’d stolen baseball cards once or twice. Why? I still don’t know. Peer pressure, maybe. I had the money to pay for them. It was stupid—and now I was designing packaging to prevent the very thing I once did.

The final result was better than I’d hoped: a high-gloss black box with gold foil on the front and back, each stamped with a limited-edition number—### of 50,000.

Everything was in place.

Now I needed a sales team.

State by state, I interviewed hundreds of candidates, narrowing the field to twenty companies nationwide. I felt ready.

Next stop: the big trade show at the Jacob Javits Center in New York. Massive crowds. Fully booked.

So I convinced a friend to rent me a tiny three-by-three-foot space inside his booth.

Cost: $500. The best money I ever spent.

I was tucked away in a corner—but that corner paid off. I was later told that if I’d been an official exhibitor, I would’ve been eligible for Best Product of the Year.

When I got back, everything accelerated.

I needed an office. A warehouse. Production space. Machines. Conveyors. Shrink-wrappers. Tape machines.

Then the staff. Lots of them.

Production ran three shifts, twenty-four hours a day. Over 160 people would eventually work on these products, paying above minimum wage.

To help manage it all, I hired my friend Jimmy, who owned a wildly popular diner in Newport Beach. He knew how to run efficient lines, maintain high quality, and turn tables quickly. Sitting at lunch with Jimmy, he told me he knew Reggie Jackson and also wanted to become a small investor.

I nearly dropped my fork.

Reggie Jackson #44 was my hero. The reason I loved baseball. The reason I never missed an A’s game on Saturdays. He also sat on the board of Upper Deck, a baseball card company.

Jimmy offered to set up a meeting.

Orders started rolling in.

Toys “R” Us.
Price Club.
BJ’s Wholesale.

Toys “R” Us sold out in three days—even with products locked behind glass and limited to one per customer. I was told we outsold Barbie’s biggest hit. They wanted a permanent placement.

I went to town, placing print ads and full-page color ads in so many publications it’s way too long to list. I had a new one designed for every ad in every publication; it drove my art designer absolutely nuts.

Rich kept saying to use the same ones over and over. No, I said, we must show originality just like the cards. If I were to pay a big-time advertising company for this level of work, I would never have been able to do such a creative number of designs. Millions in time, fees, and expenses. We did it all ourselves.

To save money, I set up our own advertising company, which cut costs by at least 15% across hundreds of ads.

One of the ads I placed weekly was a double-center-spread ad in a large newspaper called USA TODAY BASEBALL WEEKLY, owned by Gannett Media. They also owned USA TODAY, the first newspaper to use color.

I had requested a newspaper stand to be put out in front of my home. I thought that would be so cool, although it scared me too. If you read my earlier issues, you’ll remember that, at 14 years old, some older boys had me break into newsstands and sell the papers in restaurants. That was a one-time event, and I was terrified. Those boys were not my friends. Now it came full circle for me: I had my own newsstand.

Toys R Us could not keep the goods in stock; they put them behind glass and allowed only one per customer, but they still sold out in three days. I was told that I outsold Barbie Doll’s biggest hit. They wanted more and wanted me back in their head office for what they called a planogram. A permanent place for my product.

B.J Wholesale sold out in two days!
Price Club sold out every piece. These were sold not individually but in a case of 36 units, so the price tag was much higher and still poof all gone.

If only I had known that the higher I climbed, the less prepared I was.

To be continued…

Every chapter I write is part of my journey — the victories, the hardships, and the lessons life was quietly teaching me along the way

If you’d like to support my writing and help me continue telling the rest of this story, you can buy me a coffee. Your kindness helps keep these memories alive.

Buy Ollie A Coffee

Have you ever had a moment when you realized happiness wasn’t something you earned—but something you felt, unexpectedly, in the middle of building a new life?

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

I thought I was just giving toys away. I didn’t realize I was helping create something much bigger.

After the success of my first “Watch Out For Kids” event, I still had thousands upon thousands of toys sitting in storage.

So I thought bigger.

What better way to share more of the toys than to organize an even larger event? Something joyful. Something unforgettable.

On a recent trip to Las Vegas with Christine, I met a wonderful young man named Robert. We became fast friends. His brother had been killed by a drunk driver traveling at high speed on the wrong side of the freeway — a tragedy that had left a permanent sadness in his eyes.

I asked Robert if he would help me bring joy to more children. I shared that I had started a Charity and had already given to five other charities, but wanted to give much more to kids.

He didn’t hesitate.

Together, we organized a three-day event at a major car dealership located right off the interstate. The location was perfect. Now we needed to create something magical.

The dealership offered to fill the sky with balloons and serve hot dogs and soft drinks to everyone who came.

Just outside the main showroom, we set up a special booth to display all the toys we were donating.

We ran radio advertisements inviting families to donate toys to Toys for Tots. For every toy donated, each person could choose two additional toys from our booth and drop them into a super big, custom-size dump holding the Toys for Tots logo.

All donated toys would be picked up by the United States Marine Corps Reserve and delivered to the Toys for Tots program headquarters, where they would be distributed to children in need.

The Marines also agreed to come for three days, dressed in their uniforms, to take pictures and engage with the children.

In 1947, Marine Corps Reserve Major Bill Hendricks rounded up the Marines in his unit to find a way to donate dolls to children in need. They collected and distributed 5,000 toys that year.

Seeing the impact it created, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen Clifton B. Cates, directed all Reserve units to implement a Toys for Tots campaign in 1948, making the Program national.

As a favor to his friend Bill, Walt Disney created the first Toys for Tots poster that was adopted as the official logo.

More than seventy-five years later, Toys for Tots now distributes an average of 18 million toys, books, and other gifts to over 7 million less fortunate children across the Nation.

This was going to be something special.

Robert reached out to a Hollywood management company. We wanted someone to play The Little Mermaid — a character children adored. Ariel was still so hot at that time, she was perfect for the girls. We also arranged for all three of the Ninja Turtles to appear, great for the little boys.

Music was essential, so we invited a popular radio personality to bring their mobile van and fill the air with sound, laughter, and energy. It was pumped live on the airwaves for the three-day event.

And then something remarkable happened.

The Little Mermaid who arrived was a young actress named Charlize Theron.

She was at the very beginning of her career. She told me she had just completed her first film and was grateful for the opportunity to work. She was kind, humble, and fully present. When she wasn’t in costume, she spoke openly about her dreams.

Neither of us could have known what her future held.

But in that moment, she wasn’t a future star.

She was simply someone helping bring magic to children.

People came.

They donated.

They stayed.

Children laughed and danced. Music filled the air. Parents smiled.

The dealership sold cars. Toys filled the collection boxes.

And children left holding something many of them rarely experienced.

Joy.

Not just for them.

For me too.

What had started as a simple idea had become something alive. Something that no longer felt like mine alone.

It belonged to everyone who showed up.

Reflection

Looking back now, I can see that something inside me had begun to change.
Until then, giving had been something I chose to do. An action. A decision.
But somewhere between the laughter, the music, and the smiles on those children’s faces, it stopped feeling like a choice.

It started to feel like a responsibility
Not placed on me by anyone else, but placed quietly inside my own heart.
I wasn’t chasing recognition. I wasn’t trying to build anything.
I was simply following a feeling.
And without realizing it, that feeling was beginning to shape my life.

Every chapter I write is part of my journey — the victories, the hardships, and the lessons life was quietly teaching me along the way.

If you’d like to support my writing and help me continue telling the rest of this story, you can buy me a coffee. Your kindness helps keep these memories alive.

Buy Ollie A Coffee

If this story stirred something in you, I would love to hear your thoughts. Your reflections, your memories, or your own moments of giving may help someone else more than you realize.

Leave a comment

If you believe in watching out for kids, please share this chapter so its message can reach a little further.

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

There are moments in life when you realize children are walking through storms they never created.

They don’t ask for hardship. They don’t choose instability. They simply trust the adults around them to notice… and to care.

But not every child is seen.

Some learn too early to be brave. Some learn too early to be quiet. And some learn too early that the world does not always watch out for kids.

That is why this matters.

Because sometimes, one person choosing to notice can change everything.

Still paying for lots of toy storage, I began thinking about the holidays and the children who would wake up hoping, wishing — and sometimes in vain.

I was having success in my life. Now I needed to pay it forward.

That’s when I created a charity, “Watch Out For Kids.” This was something separate from my business. Something personal. Something from the heart.

I decided to hire a group of people who wanted to earn some extra money for the holidays. It was, after all, the season to be jolly. I set out and bought one thousand rolls of Christmas wrapping paper, along with ribbon, tape, and stacks of gift cards for handwritten notes.

I selected a vast array of toys from the warehouse where I had been storing them for a few years — designs suitable for both boys and girls. Each one was wrapped perfectly, in colors unmistakably chosen for a child. I wanted every gift to feel special.

Some toys were placed in smaller boxes first, then carefully set into larger boxes filled with popcorn for protection and wonder. Each was wrapped again, finished with ribbon, and a handwritten gift card.

Every box was the same size.

No child would feel less seen. No child would feel different. Every child would feel equal.

We stacked the boxes across long tables, each bearing a special message. Days passed as we wrapped. It was far bigger than I had imagined.

Far too big to donate to just one children’s charity. So I contacted five.

Each had its own mission. Mine was simple.

Giving.

When the vans arrived to collect the gifts, one moment etched itself into my soul forever.

The manager of a battered women’s center arrived with a mother and her young daughter.

The child’s mother was very ill. You could see it immediately. Her eyes were yellow — deeply yellow — and her body carried the exhaustion of someone fighting a quiet war inside herself.

The manager explained she was waiting for a kidney transplant. The wait had been long. Time was no longer something she had in abundance.

They asked if we could take a picture together. I invited Christine, my in-house counsel and my girlfriend at the time, to join us. Photos were taken. Hugs were exchanged.

Promises were made.

I promised prayers.

But it was her daughter’s hug that broke something open inside me.

She held on longer than anyone else.

She didn’t want to let go.

She kept saying how much the gifts meant—not just to her, but to all the children in the shelter.

It was heart-wrenching.

I didn’t want to say goodbye. Goodbyes make things feel final. And nothing about this felt finished.

So instead, I said, “I look forward to seeing you soon.”

Because sometimes hope needs words to stand on.

Then came Christmas morning.

As was my tradition, I sat quietly reading the newspaper.

And there she was.

The woman from the shelter.

Her photograph filled the page.

She had received a kidney transplant on Christmas Eve.

Her gift of life.

I stared at the image, hardly believing what I was seeing. I showed Christine.

“Yes, Ollie,” she said softly. “That’s her.”

Her prayers had been answered. Her daughter would not lose her mother.

And in that moment, Christmas was no longer just a day. It was proof that hope can arrive when time feels like it’s running out.

I sat there quietly, the newspaper resting in my hands, feeling something deeper than pride.

Gratitude.

Not for the success. Not for the toys. But for being placed, somehow, in the path of something that mattered.

Life was expanding in ways I had never imagined. The giving was growing. And the future felt wide open.

On that Christmas morning, none of that existed yet.

There was only a little girl who still had her mother.

And that was enough.

Her prayers had been answered.

And in that moment, Christmas was no longer just a day.

It was a miracle.

Not because of what I had given.

But because sometimes, when you choose to watch out for kids…

Life watches out for them, too.

Reflection:

That Christmas taught me something I’ve never forgotten.

Giving isn’t about the things we hand over. It’s about the moments we help create — moments when a child feels seen, when hope feels possible again, and when a parent can breathe, even if only for a little while.

I thought I was clearing out a warehouse.

In truth, those children were filling something in me that had nothing to do with business, success, or achievement.

They reminded me that the most meaningful things we ever build… are not things at all.

Every chapter I write is part of my journey — the victories, the hardships, and the lessons life was quietly teaching me along the way.

If you’d like to support my writing and help me continue telling the rest of this story, you can buy me a coffee. Your kindness helps keep these memories alive.

Buy Ollie A Coffee

If this story stirred something in you, I would love to hear your thoughts. Your reflections, your memories, or your own moments of giving may help someone else more than you realize.

Leave a comment

And if you believe in watching out for kids, please share this chapter so its message can reach a little further.

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

With the Winter Olympics happening again, memories have been stirring—ones I haven’t visited in a long time.
And suddenly, I’m back in 1984.

The opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympic Games took place on the afternoon of Saturday, July 28, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Los Angeles was alive with anticipation, color, and pride—and so was I.

California was the home state of the sitting U.S. President, Ronald Reagan, who officially opened the Games. The thought that I might actually witness the President open the Olympics felt monumental at the time—history unfolding right in front of me.

But what made these Olympics truly unforgettable for me had nothing to do with politics or pageantry.

It was my dad.

He had been asked to design the three-dimensional version of the official Olympic mascot—the eagle they would come to call “Sam,” the Olympic Eagle.

And he did just that.

I still remember the electricity in the office when the final design was completed. The pride. The excitement. The certainty that they had nailed it. We had created Sam—the symbol that would be carried, hugged, displayed, and remembered by millions.

And that’s exactly what happened.

The 1984 Los Angeles Olympics became the most successful Games to date. Ticket sales shattered records. Merchandise sold out everywhere. Sam was everywhere. People carried him through the venues, down the streets, and onto airplanes heading home.

Those who didn’t have one searched for one.
Those who found one bought more—souvenirs for family, for friends, for memories waiting to be shared back home, whether in America or abroad.

Even those who couldn’t attend the Games but watched from their living rooms felt connected. They wanted Sam, too. Of course, by then, retailers were sold out.

Sam had become the memory.

And it was right in the middle of all this—right at this peak—that my life took a sharp turn.

My mother gave me just a few hours to decide whether to pack up and move to Dallas, Texas. The regional sales territory there had fallen to the bottom of the charts. She needed someone immediately. No delays. No overlap. No excuses.

That someone was me.

When I mentioned that I already had tickets to attend the opening ceremony—tickets we were all planning to use—there was no discussion.

“Sorry, Ollie. We need your decision now.”

And we know what decision I made.

I would never see the President open the Olympic Games.
I would never sit in that stadium.
I would never hold those memories.

But what I did hold onto was something far heavier.

After my dad designed and submitted the final approved version of Sam the Olympic Eagle, he waited.

And waited.

Then came the truth.

The Olympic Committee had taken his work and handed it to another company to produce.

No call.
No acknowledgment.
No credit.

I kept one of his original prototypes for thirty-five years.

And when I finally let it go, it felt like releasing more than an object. It was letting go of pride, disappointment, and a quiet injustice that had never really been resolved.

That—more than the ceremonies, the crowds, or the President—is what the 1984 Summer Olympics left me with.

That is my memory of the Games.

Reflection

Looking back, the 1984 Summer Olympics taught me something I didn’t understand at the time:
Success doesn’t always reward the right people, and sacrifice doesn’t always come with applause.

I missed the spectacle, the President, and the moment the world remembers.
But what stayed with me was quieter—and far more lasting.

I learned how easily creativity can be taken, how loyalty can cost you, and how pride can live on even when recognition does not.
My father’s work may have been claimed by others, but the truth never left our family.

And maybe that, too, is an Olympic lesson—
Some victories are never televised, but they endure all the same

Your support truly means more than you know. Ollie

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Have you ever missed a historic moment—or made a sacrifice—only to realize later that it shaped you more than the moment itself ever could?

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Ollie - if Only i

A true-life memoir of privilege, secrets, ambition, danger, self-discovery, self-destruction, and a lifelong journey to find my own voice.

By Ollie - ifOnlyi...

It was 1987.

I was living in Dallas, Texas, flying American Airlines almost exclusively. Dallas was their main hub, and I’d been loyal for three years—loyal enough to carry a paid card that granted lounge access, pre-boarding, upgrades, and even a special phone number to book travel.

Back then, that privilege cost a whopping $100 a year.

American Airlines made an offer that sounded almost mythical:

Pay $250,000 once, and you could fly First Class anywhere in the world—for life.
Add another $150,000, and you could bring a companion with you every time.

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I received a call from Dad asking for my help—one last time.
He was ready to sell his entire inventory, the final chapter in a lifetime built on endless work, risk, and creative fire. This wasn’t just stock in a warehouse. It was his life, measured in pieces, patterns, and ideas.

Over the years, he had designed and launched well over 5,000 different designs. Another 10,000 sat unfinished or unsatisfying to him—ideas that never quite landed, but still mattered enough to keep. Together, they formed a collection that told the full story of his career.

“Not a problem,” I said without hesitation. “I’ll get on it straight away.”

Helping my father had always come naturally. It was instinct before logic.

That meant starting at the warehouse—taking a full inventory of everything he’d built. I called on David, my girlfriend’s brother, and together we spent nearly a month inside that space. Day after day, item after item. Logging. Counting. Documenting. Touching the physical proof of decades of work. I believed that if we did it properly—cleanly—it would make the sale simple.

Or so I thought.

Once the inventory was complete, we began visiting our largest customers one by one. The goal was clear: a buyer-take-all deal. Clean. Final. Respectful of what the collection represented.

We waited for calls.

I followed up, talking things through, hoping to spark interest. What I learned quickly was that the scale itself was the challenge. It was simply too big to absorb—even with pricing dropped below standard wholesale.

That should have pushed me to think differently. I was usually good at that. But this time, I was stuck inside the frame.

That’s when Dad made me an offer.

“Ollie,” he said, “I’ll split the invoice with you. Whatever it sells for—half is yours.”

I remember pausing.
Was this generosity? Or reconciliation? Or maybe his quiet way of making up for something we’d never fully discussed?

Over the years, I had closed some of the company’s biggest deals. And almost every time, my commission—normally 10–15%—was cut down to 3–5%. The reason was always the same: special pricing, custom orders, tighter margins.

But tighter for whom?

Our CFO had always been right. There were no favors. No nepotism. Business was business. I had carried that resentment quietly, speaking about it softly, never as loudly as my heart wanted to. Pain that isn’t released doesn’t disappear—it just finds other exits.

Maybe this was another lesson.
Or maybe a reminder that lessons never really stop coming.

Eventually, we brought a buyer in to inspect everything—every piece, every carton. They needed to know nothing was damaged or soiled. Everything was new. Clean. Fresh

.In the end, we sold the entire contents of the warehouse—everything except prototypes, samples, loose inventory, and non-manufactured designs. Those, Dad told me, were mine to do with as I wished.

And then he said something I had waited years to hear:

“It’s all yours now, Ollie. Start again if you want. Take the catalogues. Do whatever you choose.”

Those words landed heavier than I expected.

The remaining samples and loose product filled a 40-foot container. The buyer only wanted sealed cartons, so the rest became my responsibility.

What I didn’t know then was that the 40-foot container I kept—the samples, the loose product, the pieces I couldn’t let go of—would follow me for more than twenty-five years.

I paid for storage.
Then paid again to move it.
And again, moving it to another country.
And again.
And again.

Across decades, locations, and seasons of life.

It was costly. When I finally added it up, the cost came in just under two hundred thousand dollars—far more than I had ever received in profit from the original sale. On paper, it made no sense at all.

But it wasn’t about paper.

It was about not being able to throw away pieces of my father’s life. About holding on to proof. About respect. About love mixed with responsibility in a way that’s hard to explain to anyone who hasn’t lived it.

In the end, the main inventory found its home with Pic ’n Save—an off-price retailer and longtime customer of my Dad’s business. They had over ninety stores and a history stretching back to 1950. At one point, they were the second-largest closeout retailer in America.

There was something fitting about that.

A company built on giving goods a second chance became the final chapter for my father’s work.

And maybe—just maybe—enough understanding to see my father not only as the man who took, or the man who built, but as the man who did the best he could with what he knew at the time.

That’s when I found myself at swap meets.

To sell there, you needed patience before you needed product. You had to call Monday mornings between 6 and 10 a.m. to secure a booth—hours of dialing, hanging up, redialing. Over and over. If you got through, you still needed permits, licenses, and weekly fees just to sell on Saturday and Sunday.

Then came the weekends.

Wake up at 3:30 a.m.
Load the car in the dark.
Drive out and stand in line just to be allowed in.

Eight lines. Eight numbers drawn. Early arrival meant nothing. Line eight could go first. Line one could go last. It was chaos—but fair chaos. If your name was on the list, you had a spot. That was all that mattered

Every weekend, a different location, unless you paid for a permanent space.

Standing all day in the heat, under a tarp I’d bought just to protect the product—and myself. By halfway through the day, your feet weren’t just tired. They were barking. Deals became easier to say yes to, not because they were great, but because movement mattered more than margins.

This went on for about two months.

I couldn’t keep up with the hours. The early mornings, the physical toll—but more than that, the fight just to get a booth every week. Other sellers had families dialing in from multiple phones. I was alone, dialing until my fingers ached.

Still, I saw it clearly: for the right people, with the right product, this was a real business. Many of them were professionals—flea markets on weekends, others during the week. They made a solid living. They knew the grind.

When the main invoice from Pic N Save was finally paid—after far more effort than it should have taken—I paid David. More than I wanted to, but exactly what was fair. Honesty mattered more than comfort.

What was left was enough.

Enough to breathe.
Enough to choose.
Enough to take my next steps—on my terms.

Reflection:
This chapter wasn’t about inventory or profit. It was about a father and a son, each doing the best they could with what they knew at the time. I carried his work for decades before I understood that what I was really carrying was love—unfinished, complicated, and deeply human.

Your support truly means more than you know. Ollie

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Is there something from your past you carried longer than you needed to—and what finally helped you let it go?

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