Phil the Logger: A working man, a boy, and lessons in life and leadership

By Brandon J Wright

According to statistics, children who grow up without a father figure are more likely to abuse drugs, take part in criminal behavior, live in poverty, and struggle with emotional issues.

When Brandon J. Wright was fifteen. his father died. Angry and alone. he could have easily become another cautionary tale. Instead he h

• Language: English
• Publisher: Huddleshare
• Release date: Feb 28, 2017
• ISBN: 9780996265539

Brandon J Wright

Brandon J. Wright has applied the principles found in this book to become a successful business owner, husband, and father. Among his many accomplishments, he is the recipient of the Governor's Brightest Star Award, the IBR Accomplished Under 40, and the 2010 Meridian Business Person of the Year and in 2015 his business a finalist for Business of the Year of the Metro Chamber of Commerce in Boise. As part of his restoration business. Brandon does hard labor right alongside his fifteen employees - all of whom he considers living examples of leadership. And he continues to pay it forward by working to guide business owners to their own success. His first book. ReDesign: Simple Strategies to ReDesign your Business with Freedom, Fun and Profit is available on Amazon or brandonjwright.com. He and his family live on acreage in Middleton, Idaho.

Book preview

THE INTRODUCTION

Phil grew up in Northern Maine with seven brothers and eleven sisters. A true logging family, they survived off the hard work of harvesting the land to provide for their family. They had one trade and they did it very well.

Logging can be very lucrative, but you must also be willing to work hard and be safe; it’s a work ethic Phil learned from a very young age. Everyone had to pull their own weight. That’s why Phil dropped out of school after the eighth grade; he had to help feed his family.

Once an adult, he landed in Berkshire, Vermont, where he fell in love with a girl named Sally. They married and had two amazing daughters, Angie and Darlene.

Phil and his family came into my life around sixth grade. That’s when my dad got a new job as a high school principal—a job that required our family to move from Maine to Vermont.

Moving to a new town of 1,500 people with your Dad as the principal isn’t easy. It doesn’t matter how great a man your dad is; if he’s the principal, that’s reason enough to make you a target. As a matter of fact, I got into my first fight with a kid who didn’t like me just because of my dad’s job.

But having a dad who’s the principal isn’t all bad. After all, that’s how my dad and Phil became friends—Phil’s daughter Angie became one of my dad’s students. At the same time, my mom was the school nurse at Berkshire Elementary where Sally was secretary.

They hit it off and soon our families were going on trips together.

Just when I thought my life at Richford High School might get easier, my dad passed out one day. As the ambulance arrived to pick him up, I stood there shocked. He was thirty-seven; he was in great shape.

Or so it appeared on the outside.

On the inside he had developed a cancerous tumor on his brain. While an operation removed most of it, he still required chemotherapy and radiation. By thirty-nine, his body had deteriorated due to treatments. He lost his hair, the ability to close his mouth; he couldn’t walk or even speak. The strong man who was my father was whittled down to skin and bones.

My mom never left his side. One night she fell asleep next to him. She wasn’t asleep for long, maybe an hour, but that’s all the time the Lord needed to take him. When she woke me up the next morning she didn’t need to say anything; I just knew: my father was gone.

I was fifteen years old.

One of my dad’s friends picked me up and took me fishing. We sat on the bank fishing for hours in silence. That was the first spiritual experience I remember: sitting on the bank, thinking how God put my mom to sleep so my dad could join him. This amazed me—the power of how God could work. At the same time I questioned God on why he would take my Dad from me.

. . . .

My dad had two funerals, one in Vermont and another in New Hampshire.

At his funeral in Vermont there were a lot of people he worked with, kids he impacted, adults who respected him because of the change he brought to our community.

At his funeral in New Hampshire, I remember standing before a line of people. The line was so long, with so many paying their condolences. ‘We are sorry for your loss,’ they’d say.

But here’s what else I remember from that emotional day: person after person telling me story after story of the impact my Dad had upon their lives. One individual had spent one day with my dad, twenty years before. That one day changed his life. It blew me away that a man would pay his respect to someone who had registered such an impact from the one day they had spent together. This opened my eyes to the powerful influence we can have upon someone’s life.

. . . .

Since I was my dad’s boy, I felt like I had nobody when he died, which led to a lot of anger. So I moved out of the house to go live with Phil and his family. I became the son Phil never had. His daughters became like sisters to me.

My life with Phil taught me the principles of what it is to be a man.

It began with family. Family came first. At dinnertime, everyone sat at the table. Sally made amazing meals. It was around that table that I learned nothing replaces dinner together and the power of good food.

Phil believed it’s a man’s responsibility to take care of his family. The man is the leader of his home, the provider. So he made sure his family could afford everything they