In This Episode: Having Uncommon Sense often means going against what “everyone” says is the right way to do something. Being a contrarian can absolutely be the correct way to succeed, as Dan Price demonstrates. He even had to fight off his own brother to take his company to the next level: it’s quite a story.

063: The Contrarian
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* To help support Uncommon Sense, see the Patron’s Page, or the form in the sidebar.
* My sources for this episode include the New York Times (as well as here and here), BBC, and Business Insider.
* The full text of the study about pay and happiness is available here.
* A photo of Dan Price is in the transcript below.

Transcript
Welcome to Uncommon Sense, I’m Randy Cassingham.
Growing up in rural Idaho 20 miles from the closest town, Dan Price’s life was shaped from the start by his parents: glory to God was “a family mission,” he said. Each morning the Price children — Dan was one of six kids, with only one sister — would get up early, because they had plenty to do. That started with reciting a proverb, a psalm, a Gospel chapter, and excerpts from both the Old and New Testaments; he was taught that the Bible was the literal truth. Then it was chores around the house. He didn’t go to a public school, but rather was home-schooled until junior high.
The Price’s home was run like a family business, Dan says: everyone had jobs and responsibilities, and there was no forgetting: it was all written down. “All my siblings hated it,” Dan remembers, “but I thought it was cool.” Values based on hard work and faith are “in my DNA,” he said. “It’s just something that’s part of me.”
He remembers as a boy that he listened to Rush Limbaugh’s radio show — as much as three hours a day — and had a recording of a speech by Russell Conwell that he listened to again and again. Conwell was a turn-of-the-20th-century Baptist minister most famous for two things: he was the founder of Temple University in Philadelphia, and well known for a speech he delivered more than 6,000 times called “Acres of Diamonds”. Here’s a sample:
“I say that you ought to get rich, and it is your duty to get rich,” he lectured. “To sympathize with a man whom God has punished for his sins,” he said of the poor, “is to do wrong.