"I wanted to be the biggest, richest guy around"

After Rob Koci posted his story about getting sued for $250,000 for framing a house 2-inches over the local 30-foot-height restriction, we asked you to share your own “lesson learned” stories.

Here’s one from Oh Deer:

“When I first started on my own I wanted to be the biggest, richest guy around. I would take on everything and anything. got hooked up with an interior decorator and they gave me lots of work along with other contracts I had. Decided to take a family vacation and left one guy in charge of all the work. Explained everything and had guys lined up to do the work. got back from holidays to find out he sent everyone home and did not get even half the work done I needed done. I asked him about it and he thought it was not all that important. Was so far behind schedule at that point in time with all my jobs the decorator kicked me off the job and never paid even for the work I did do. That year cost me about $40,000 but saved me from being sued. That was stressful but learned a lot about work, business and people.”