I was a very odd child. Wanted to be a businessman from a young age. When I was 7, I went to Italy with my parents. I begged pleaded and negotiated away multiple future birthday and Christmas gifts to convince them to buy me a briefcase in the leather market in Florence for the equivalent of $100 USD

I’m sure they mainly didn’t want to do it because they knew it wasn’t practical. Sure enough, I carried it to school a half dozen times and got bored of it. I was smart enough to hang on to it and began carrying it sporadically throughout my early career. Almost 25 years later (and a handful of trips to the cobbler to be repaired for various things) I never go more than a month without grown adult men coming up to me, admiring it, and asking where I got it.

I brought it with me on a business trip that coincided with a stopover at my parent’s house earlier this year. It took me the better part of an evening to get them to believe me that it was the same bag they bought me and I still had it all these years later.

They may have won the battle of “that’s not practical for a 7 year old” initially, but I definitely won the war.