Originally published at National Catholic Register
Like a lot of boys, Sean McLaughlin started a lawn-mowing business when he was a teenager. Unlike a lot of boys, he acquired for his business a pickup truck, heavy-duty landscaping equipment, and more than 100 accounts, and he ended up employing all of his younger brothers.
He was just getting started. Nowadays, at 56, he runs three companies, having earlier sold a financial software start-up for tens of millions of dollars.
McLaughlin could have eased into a cushy retirement. But that’s not how he rolls.
“I’m like a husky, and I have to go run around,” McLaughlin said of his need to start and develop businesses.
“It’s that kind of impulse,” he told the Register. “I don’t know where it came from. I don’t know why I have it.”
But why is he so good at what he does?
McLaughlin hesitates before he answers, not certain how to explain it, except that creating a business comes naturally to him and he likes it. “I love problem solving. I think it’s fun. At the bottom of it all, it’s like a puzzle. It’s like a sport to me,” McLaughlin said.
Chris Devine, the president and chief executive officer of one
