I used to measure my life by what I could park in the driveway.
Now I measure it by the rope I leave behind.
I’m not all the way out of the hole yet. But I can see the light.
I know who dug it. I know who has to climb out of it.
And every foot I gain, I tie off a knot for the one coming up behind me.
Invictus I am the master of my fate,
The top · Kenneth Young
↑ If you’re still down there, this is the rope.
Grab hold.
Chapter 16 · Your turn
↑ The holes we dig with our own thoughts, and how to climb out of them Craftsmanship and the trades, and restoring what was damaged Building more than one business as a self-taught, non-traditional founder Raising producers instead of consumers, and financial literacy for kids Fatherhood, loss, legacy, and building with and for family Telling hard history in plain language Now I tell it out loud, every chance I get.
That’s the rope.
Chapter 15 · Passing it forward
↑ In the press
In his own words. I started telling the story. And people started writing back.
Turns out a whole lot of us are standing in holes we dug ourselves.
Invictus It matters not how strait the gate,
Chapter 14 · Being heard
↑ Chapter 13 · The history
THOU: The History of Us. Historical book series
You can’t climb out of a hole if you don’t know how deep it goes. That’s true for a man, and it’s true for a people.
A daily reader written in plain, campfire storytelling. Hard history told for people who never thought they liked history.
Daily reader format Plain, around-the-fire language Volume 1 · 282 pages Ask about THOU → Everything we build stands on what came before us. That’s why I wrote it down.
↑ Chapter 12 · Helping kids
HustleBoard. Family financial literacy · Ages 8–17
I finally built what I always meant WORKiTS to be. This time for kids, and for the parents trying to understand them. A lot of my walls went up when I was young, before I knew I was building anything. I want kids to learn to produce before they ever learn to dig. Every time HustleBoard helps a child, it reaches back and helps the boy I was.
For families with kids 8–17 Stop giving.Start paying. HustleBoard turns chores into paid missions your kids claim, finish, and split three ways, with a 16-week money course built in.
Explore HustleBoard Missions Earnings Vault Investing Streaks // What is HustleBoard A family money system An AI-powered family financial literacy platform that pairs a 16-week course with a money-board app, teaching kids to earn and produce instead of consume.
16-week financial literacy course Family money-board app ESA approved and fundable That’s when I understood what the hole was for. Somebody who’s been down there has to show the way out.
↑ Chapter 11 · We started to produce
Grain and Vision. Construction & restoration · Dallas
The same hands that dug the hole picked the tools back up. What my brother and I built together, I now build with our sons. This time, we build up.
// Concept → Reality We take your concept and bring it to life, from the first line on the blueprint to the last grain of wood.
01 Concept02 Visualize03 Build04 Reality// Blueprint & reality Built on legacy. A legacy business Kenneth is building with his son and nephew. Grain and Vision is known for craftsmanship and for restoring damaged homes and spaces.
Explore Grain and Vision Construction and restoration Built as a family legacy business I took my son and my brother’s son, and we started to produce.
Invictus And yet the menace of the years
↑ Chapter 10 · The turn
I wasn’t alone. When the cars went, a lot of friends went with them.
But a few friends stayed.
One of them was as close to a brother as a man can get.
They stayed through the worst of it, and they kept fighting through the wall I had built that said:
Nobody stays.
They kept showing up until I finally saw that thought for what it was. A false positive.
If one of those thoughts was a lie, maybe all of them were.
That’s when the walls started coming down.
I stopped measuring my life by what I owned.
I started measuring it by what I could build, and who I could build it with.
I thought I had lost everyone. That was just one more wall talking.
Invictus Beyond this place of wrath and tears
↑ Chapter 09 · The truth
I dug this hole. It was down there, lower than I had ever been, that I finally got still enough to look at the walls.
And I knew them. Every one.
I had built them myself.
Not with a shovel. With thoughts.
You’re nothing without the cars.
Nobody stays.
People will use you.
Don’t need anybody.
Keep moving. Don’t let anybody see you’re scared.
I laid those thoughts down one at a time, year after year, the way you lay block. Straight. Solid. Built to last.
I believe I built them to protect myself.
And a wall that keeps the hurt out does its job.
But it keeps the life out too.
The life I could have lived was standing on the other side of every one of those walls, waiting on me.
Thirty-eight years a builder, and the best thing I ever built was the hole I was standing in.
My mother’s poem was right the whole time. I was the master of my fate.
And if my own thoughts dug this hole, my own thoughts could build the way out.
With nothing left to lose, I finally asked the question I’d been running from my whole life.
Who dug this hole?
↑ Chapter 08 · The deeper bottom
Then I lost them both. My son died.
Two months later, my brother was gone too.
Losing a child is a different kind of pain. It comes with guilt, and remorse, and deep, dark thoughts.
My brother and I had worked side by side for over 30 years. We talked every morning.
Suddenly I was one child less, and out of brothers.
Every foot I had climbed was gone in an instant.
The man who asked me what was in my hand was gone.
And I believed, all the way down, that I was alone.
And just when I thought I was done with rock bottom, I found out it had a basement.
Invictus Under the bludgeonings of chance
↑ Chapter 07 · The climb
I taught myself. WORKiTS was my way to help people, and I couldn’t let it go.
I taught myself to build websites. Certification classes. More YouTube videos than I can count.
When AI came out to the public, I grabbed hold of it.
For the first time, I could keep going on my mission without the expense that buried me before.
Slowly, I started climbing.
I could see the top again.
I thought I was almost out.
But WORKiTS never really left my mind.
↑ Chapter 06 · My brother
A reason to keep fighting. My brother and I worked construction together for years.
Then came three heart attacks, and a cancer diagnosis.
Going back to his office wasn’t really about construction.
It was about giving him a reason to keep fighting.
He loved the work. I knew if I was doing it, he would want back in.
I took jobs here and there, mostly at the property he managed.
And it was working. Little by little, he started talking about getting back in.
I thought I was pulling him up.
I didn’t notice he was pulling me up too.
I went back to building, and back to my brother’s office.
↑ Chapter 05 · My mother
My mother’s shield. My mother raised six children on her own.
She was a warrior. She had to be.
She didn’t give me a lot of hugs and kisses.
She gave me a shield and a sword.
Her shield. Her sword.
When I was young, she recited a poem to me. Invictus , by William Ernest Henley.
I memorized it that same day.
Invictus is a warrior’s creed. It was hers, and she handed it to me.
It has held me together my whole life.
Every time I wanted to give up, I recited it.
When I lay in a hospital bed with 152 cuts on my arm, I recited it.
When my son died, I recited it.
The last two lines I have said more times than I can count.
I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul.
I carried them like a shield.
It would be years before I understood they were also a mirror.
My mother beat breast cancer. Twice.
She never put the sword down.
My mother is a warrior.
But it was my mother who armed me for all of it.
↑ 38 years building Self-taught entrepreneur Grain and Vision HustleBoard THOU: The History of Us Founder and Father Chapter 04 · Who I am
The great equalizer is your ability to produce. The idea my grandfather lived by
My grandfather was a self-taught entrepreneur with a third-grade education.
He built a business and put a lot of local men to work.
His favorite word was produce .
He believed the great equalizer wasn’t money, or schooling, or who you knew. It was your ability to produce.
I learned to build the same way he did. By doing.
Thirty-eight years in construction and business, and every lesson came in through my hands.
The cars came and went. That lesson never did.
Founder and Father.
My grandfather taught me that long before I understood it.
↑ Chapter 03 · My hands
What’s in your hand? My brother used to ask me the question God asked Moses.
I looked down.
The only thing in my hand was my hand.
But a hand is a builder’s whole toolbox.
Long before the cars, long before WORKiTS, I could always do one thing.
I could produce. I could build.
What I didn’t know yet was that a hand can dig just as well as it can build.
With nothing left, I remembered a question my brother used to ask me.
Invictus In the fell clutch of circumstance
↑ Chapter 02 · WORKiTS
I bet it all. I left another company to build WORKiTS.
A company made to help people, which is all I have ever really wanted to do.
I paid good money to have it built right, with almost no income coming in.
I hustled. Insurance. CBD. Mortgage loans. MLMs. Anything to keep the lights on.
And right when I thought it was all going to work, I found out the team I hired wasn’t honest.
They had built the site to harvest people’s information.
If I had launched it, I would have been sued every which way but Sunday.
There I sat. A site I couldn’t use. An office full of equipment. Debt rising faster than any money coming in.
It cost me my reputation, my friends and my confidence.
I told myself somebody did this to me.
And for a long time, I believed it.
The man who once had every car he wanted was walking home from work.
Then I bet everything on something bigger.
Invictus I thank whatever gods may be
↑ Chapter 01 · The good years
I had it all. There was a time I had every car and every toy I wanted.
Life was good. I believed it would stay that way.
If you had asked me then, I would have told you success was something you could park in the driveway.
What I didn’t know was that every one of those cars was holding something up.
My name. My worth. My whole idea of who I was.
Take the cars away, and all of it comes down with them.
To understand the bottom, you have to know how high I thought I was.
Invictus Out of the night that covers me,
↑ ↑ Scroll upYou are here · Rock bottom · Read from the bottom up
I have lived in this hole most of my life. And I spent every year of it trying to climb out.
I blamed the people who pushed me. I blamed bad luck. I blamed the world.
It took me most of my life to find out who really dug it.
If you’re down here too, this isn’t only my story. It’s yours. And there’s a rope at the top.
Here is the only question that matters. Do I quit, or do I climb?
Quit Climb ↑
