What if one conversation could change your entire life?

In 1979, Jeff Burgess was a 22-year-old college dropout drifting through life in a haze of beer, weed, and dead-end jobs. He was the "town clown" with an undeniable work ethic but no clear direction. Then, on a lazy Sunday afternoon, his father called him home for a talk that would shake him to his core: "You have a gift, and I cannot allow you to waste it anymore. It’s time to get your shit together."

From that moment, everything changed. Armed with a relentless drive, a knack for problem-solving, and a newfound determination to make something of himself, Jeff set out to prove his father right. Within two years, he skyrocketed from warehouse worker to Vice President of Sales at a booming tech company. By the time he retired, he had built a global business supplying surveillance video recording appliances to both the most iconic and the secure sites in the world.

It Worked for Me is the inspiring, no-nonsense story of how an underachiever transformed into an industry leader—one who thrived not by playing it safe, but by embracing risk, trusting his gut, and always finding a way forward.

It was a typical September Sunday. Gary and I were lying around, recovering from hangovers, and planning our next downtown Chicago adventure. Around four o’clock, the phone rang. It was my dad.

“Hey, Jeff, are you busy?’’

“Well, a little. Hanging out.’’

“I really need to speak with you. Can you come over?”

I was at that age when I did not really have anything against my parents. I would see them for birthdays and holidays, and whenever I wanted to conduct a secret withdrawal from the packed meat freezer they kept in their basement, but I did not see the need to spend any extra time with them. “Is it important?”

His answer was firm. “It is important enough that I’m asking you to come over – now.’’

What did he want to talk about? Abruptly, it dawned on me that maybe he was going to tell me he was dying. My mind always moved at a mile a minute, but suddenly it came to a screeching halt.

Why else would he need to talk to me? My dad was an ordinary man – 52 years old, husband, father of four, owner and CEO of an envelope company, recovering alcoholic, and my hero. He really was my rock, and he more than made up for my distracted mother. How would I survive without him? We always shared this unspoken bond of my inheriting his OCD gene. While he never appreciated my roles as town clown and high school fuck-up, he admired my underlying work ethic. When I put my mind to something, I took it to completion, whether it was shoveling neighbor’s sidewalks in those Chicago winters or mowing their lawns in the summer. Even as an 8-year-old.

If I had suddenly kicked the bucket at age 20, that would have been the story of my life – a human oxymoron who had a great work ethic yet couldn’t hold down a job.

He hugged me when I came through the door and told my mom to let us be. We went upstairs to my parents’ bedroom, which was decorated with a complete Brady Bunch-era motif: matching avocado and orange bedspread and curtains, beige shag carpeting, large imitation Picasso paintings on the walls. We sat together on the bench seat at the bottom of the bed, connected at the hip. He started to put his arm around my shoulder, and I began to cry. “Dad, please do not die on me!” I said, sobbing.

Startled, he jumped to his feet, then put his hands on my shoulders. “Listen to me! That is not what this is about. I am not dying! But now that you mention it, you are killing me.” I started to say something, but he went on. “Seriously, I need you to listen to me.”

He started speaking to me in an authoritative tone unlike anything I had heard from him before. This was decades before James Earl Jones, yet it is his voice I remember coming from my dad’s mouth. It was clear I had either upset or disappointed him. I quickly learned that it was both. “You are wasting your life,” he said. “You have always had an outstanding work ethic, along with an incredible quick wit. If you were ever able to use that wit to think on your feet instead of just being a smartass, you could bring great value to some company one day.” He looked at me directly in the eye. “I did not send you to college to be a fuck-up. You have a gift, and I cannot allow you to waste it. You need to get your collective shit together.’’

I was stunned, and very upset. Not so much about what he said, but because I knew it was dead-on. view abbreviated excerpt only...

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