In the summer of 1966, I came home from a life-changing trip to South America—wide-eyed, broke, and looking for work. I had just earned my commercial driver’s license and dreamed of driving a truck. But reality had other plans.
Holiday Rock and Stone Manufacturing on the north side of San Antonio didn’t need drivers. They needed laborers. Brick lifters. Line workers. Men willing to sweat under a tin roof in 110-degree heat for twelve hours a day.
I was sixteen. I said yes.
That first day on the line was a punch in the gut. I was the only white kid in a crew of thirty. Most were older African-American men who had spent their lives in labor. A few had done time in prison. None of them knew me, and none of them cared about my dreams.
They watched to see if I would fold. I didn’t.
I kept my mouth shut and my feet moving. I didn’t lean. I didn’t complain. I did the job—stone by stone, brick by brick—until my boots sloshed with sweat.
They called our supervisor “Doc.” Everyone was “Doc” to him. He barked orders, told wild stories, and firmly believed the Earth was flat. He was wrong about geography, but dead right about one thing:
“Doc,” he’d say, looking me square in the eye, “if I don’t pay you for anything else, I pay you to stand on your own two feet.”
And I did.
Midway through the summer, they offered me a new challenge—“The Mule.” The toughest machine in the building. The hardest job on site. Fifty cents an hour more.
I said yes again.
At the end of that summer, the same men who once doubted me invited me to a community BBQ. One hundred Black families. One white kid. No fences. No tension. Just shared respect, earned through shared sweat.
That job didn’t make me rich in money. But it made me wealthy in something much more valuable—leadership principles that would shape my entire life:
- Trust is built shoulder-to-shoulder.
- Respect is earned when nobody’s watching.
- Integrity means showing up every single day.
- Purpose means saying yes—even when it’s hard.
Today, I call those lessons the T.R.I.P™ Leadership Principles. They aren’t theories. They’re truths I’ve lived.
Want to see how you measure up on the T.R.I.P™ scale?
👉 Take the TRIP™ Quiz now — it’s free, fast, and eye-opening: trip.henrychidgey.com
Because leadership isn’t about your title—it’s about your choices.