By forthrightmind · Oct 26, 2026
Where I came from
I was born in the Philippines and grew up in a poor family. Both of my parents were a tailor and a dressmaker. The soundtrack of my childhood was the hum of their sewing machines, and every time a motor started, the light in our home would flicker.
My father's cutting table, where he measured and cut fabric all day, became my bed at night. That was the life I had.
Looking back, it feels fitting that the boy who watched the lights flicker with every stitch grew up to be an electrician, and later an engineer who keeps the power and controls of entire plants running steady.
Back then, the life I live today was only a picture in my head: a skilled trade, a respected profession, a home of my own, and a family with more security than I had growing up. I didn't dream of owning a company. I dreamed of becoming someone who could build things, fix things, and be trusted with work that matters.
The long climb
I started as a blue-collar technician. Long shifts, early mornings, tools in hand, learning the job one wire and one mistake at a time.
No one handed me a shortcut. I earned my Red Seal as an Electrician, then a second Red Seal as an Instrumentation and Control Technician. Year after year, I kept studying, kept showing up, and kept climbing, until I became a licensed Professional Engineer. Twenty-four years later, the kid who grew up with very little now designs and maintains the control systems that keep industrial plants running safely.
Every certificate on my wall is a rung on a ladder I built myself. It may not sound big to some people. For that kid, it is more than big enough.
Two paths under one roof
My wife and I are both part of an organization that promotes an entrepreneurial mindset and helps families navigate financial security and wealth-building tools. I believe in that mission.
My wife chose to become a full-time entrepreneur as a financial professional, and I am proud of her courage. I chose to remain an employee, because I love what I do and my profession is the life I imagined growing up. We support each other's paths. Neither of us needs the other to be wrong for our own choice to be right.
The message that doesn't sit right
That is why something has been weighing on me: a message, sometimes spoken from the stage, that makes employees feel small. That a job is a trap. That working for someone else means you have settled.
Promoting entrepreneurship is good. Doing it at the expense of the people who work in the corporate world is not. Inspiration that depends on looking down on others isn't inspiration. It's comparison.
For a while, I felt caught in a crossfire. But I've come to see that I'm not caught in a contradiction at all. Believing in entrepreneurship and financial literacy doesn't require looking down on employees. Helping families build security is about giving people choices, and staying employed is one of those choices.
When leaders shrink employees to make their own path look bigger, they undercut the very mission they claim to serve. Most of the families we want to help are employees: the driver, the care aide, the teacher.
Every role carries a purpose
A driver who makes sure people arrive safely at their destination has a purpose.
A healthcare aide who genuinely cares for seniors when their own families no longer can is serving a great cause.
A teacher who spends the day guiding and protecting our children, so parents can work and their kids can prepare for the future, is doing work that matters.
A tailor and a dressmaker who stitch every seam with care, so a family can walk into a wedding or a graduation feeling proud, are doing honest work that matters. I know, because that work raised me.
An electrician who double-checks a lockout so a co-worker goes home safely to their family has made a difference that no one will ever see.
Employee or not, there is real purpose in doing what is right when no one is watching. Choosing to honour your duty of care every day, when you could cut corners and still get paid, is a calling in itself.
Wealth is built by principles, not titles
As someone who teaches financial literacy, I know this for certain: financial independence was never reserved for business owners. Spending wisely, saving consistently, investing early, and letting time do the heavy lifting work on a paycheque just as well as they work in a business.
A steady income is not a cage. Used with discipline, it is one of the most powerful wealth-building tools a family can have. The question is never "Are you an employee or an entrepreneur?" The question is "What are you doing with what you earn?"
My own life is proof. I came out of poverty and built a good life through skill, licences, and decades of showing up. That isn't "playing small." It's a disciplined, compounding strategy, the same principle we teach about money. In fact, many entrepreneurs succeed because they had a stable income first. Employee or owner, the vehicle matters less than how you drive it.
To the kid who grew up like I did
If you come from very little and someone tells you that a job will never be enough, don't believe them. A trade, a licence, a profession earned through years of hard work can lift an entire family out of poverty. It lifted mine.
Your dream does not need anyone's approval to be valid. If it is big to you, it is big.
Choosing to stay positive
So I choose to stay positive, even when leaders who are meant to inspire make others feel small to validate their own choices. I am genuinely happy for people who have succeeded doing what they love, especially when it is a path I chose not to take.
I don't need to win that argument. I only need to keep living a life that answers it.
Being genuinely happy for people who chose a different road, without needing them to be wrong, is something I choose every day. And when the "employees are trapped" message comes up, I can be a quiet counterweight in the room. I can share my story as proof that these principles work on a salary too. Someone in that audience who feels small will hear it, and it may matter more to them than anything said from the stage.
Neither path is smaller
In our own home, two different paths sit side by side, and neither is smaller than the other.
Your path doesn't have to be smaller for mine to be meaningful. And mine doesn't have to be smaller for yours to be.
If you are an employee who has ever been made to feel like you're "playing small," I hope this reminds you that a life built with skill, integrity, and care is never small. Share this with someone who needs to hear it, and tell me in the comments: what does your work mean to you?
— forthrightmind