When I think of the word successful, the first person who comes to mind is my stepdad.

When I first met him, he was a priest at our church. A few years later, after both he and my mom went through divorces, they got married. He wasn’t a full-time clergyman by then — he was what they called a worker priest, someone who held a regular job while serving a church on the side. His “regular job” was anything but ordinary. He was the senior vice president at Snelling and Snelling, which at that time was the world’s largest employment agency. Before long, he became executive vice president — number two in the company.

He had this uncanny knack for taking whatever he touched and making it better. Businesses, homes, churches — everything seemed to flourish under his influence. During the 1970s, when the economy was in shambles and interest rates were sky-high, he pulled his money out of the stock market and put it into certificates of deposit. While most people were struggling, he managed to turn that moment into an opportunity. He had a way of spinning straw into gold.

By the time he passed — close to three years ago — he had built up a sizable estate, far more than any of us realized. We haven’t really seen the benefit of that yet, but we know we will, and it’s something that will likely bless our children and maybe even our grandchildren.

For all his failings — and he definitely had some of those — he left things better than he found them. That’s what success looks like to me. And if I’m honest, I wish I had a little more of that gift myself.

Copyright © 2025 Doug DeBolt.