Imagine you work at Walmart and you make $300.00 a week. Now multiply that by 1,188. That is what the CEO of Walmart makes weekly compared to the "median salary of Walmart employees." The top executive of the well known Menards stores, makes around $700,000 a year. The CEO of the Texas Roadhouse chain made $1.8 million in 2017, which was down 8.5 million due to stocks...but he still made 1.8 million. The list goes on. Taco Bell, Subway, CVS, and Belle Tire among several other chains and franchises.

These guys are no longer buying their daughter dance lessons. They aren't donating to their little league football team in the town they grew up in just so they can get a small yard sign in front of the field. They haven't crunched numbers just to keep the electric on at the office because it's off season... these men and women are buying second or third jets; their last one got kind-of-old. They are sitting in 1 of their 5 vacation homes because they needed a few days off of work.

I'm not saying that these people didn't hustle and grind in order to get to where they are. They absolutely did. Some of them started at the very bottom and built their way up the food chain–– which is awesome!

But... next time you see a sign that says "Grand Opening" with an unfamiliar name, stop in and see what they have to offer. When you are shopping online at Amazon, try finding an alternative. An alternative as in a smaller store that is only shared on Facebook and other social media sites because they haven't been able to pay someone to build their website yet. It may be less convenient for you, but you will be contributing to an 8 year old getting basketball shoes. You have the power to help someone that has worked their fingers to the bone for the last 20 years, put their first child through college even though they didn't go themselves.

You can change the lives of people that just want to make a better life for themselves, and someday they might become someone who can buy a second jet, or a third yacht. In turn, they will remember what people did for them and they'll give back to the small businesses trying to do the same thing.

Today, buy from a small business and contribute to the people that fuel your communities.