This might sound like a story about a garage.
It’s not.
It’s about work. The kind you can see. The kind you can’t fake. The kind that either holds, or doesn’t.
I was reminded of that recently while reflecting on Shop Class as Soulcraft and telling a story I’ve known most of my life, but didn’t fully understand until now.
The Work That Doesn’t Lie
In Shop Class as Soulcraft, which when asked to be a guest on Dinner and a Book locally, I said I have to do this book. In it, the author Matthew Crawford makes a simple but uncomfortable argument:
In a shop, there’s no hiding.
You don’t get to spin a narrative or polish a slide deck. You either fix the problem, or you don’t. The engine runs, or it doesn’t.
That kind of work forces clarity. It demands judgment. It builds confidence the hard way, through repetition, failure, and figuring it out.
And it creates something rare today: ownership.
Coates Tire
My grandfather didn’t start out owning Coates Tire.
He learned the trade. Day by day. Problem by problem. Tire by tire.
Eventually, he had the opportunity to buy the shop.
And here’s the part I didn’t know until recently:
He didn’t get a bank loan.
He use hard money (AKA loan shark)
The Risk
That detail changes the story.
It would be easy to frame that as reckless. But it wasn’t.
It was belief.
Not in an idea. Not in a pitch deck. Not in projected growth curves.
Belief in something real.
He knew the business. He knew the work. He knew what it meant to fix things, serve customers, and keep a shop running. He wasn’t guessing, he didn't ask ChatGPT, he was stepping into something he had already built with his own hands.
So he took the risk.
Because the alternative was waiting.
Waiting for someone else to decide he was ready.
Waiting for access to capital that might never come.
Waiting for permission.
He didn’t wait.
Then vs. Now
I don’t work in a garage.
Today, I work in capital, trying to help entrepreneurs access the financing they need to start, grow, and scale.
But the more I do this work, the more I realize:
The problem hasn’t changed.
Back then, my grandfather couldn’t get a loan from a bank.
Today, I sit across from business owners who are told the same thing in different words:
Come back later.
You’re not quite ready.
Once you land the contract, we can talk.
And just like then, the opportunity doesn’t wait.
The job is in front of them. The growth is right there. The potential is often obvious.
But without capital, none of it matters.
So they hustle. They piece it together. Sometimes they take risks they shouldn’t have to take, just to get a shot.
What We Lost
We didn’t stop needing builders.
We just stopped valuing them.
We built an economy that celebrates abstraction, ideas, strategy, theory, but often overlooks the people doing the actual work of building, fixing, and making things run.
And we built financial systems that reward certainty over capability.
But real work isn’t clean.
It’s trial and error. It’s judgment. It’s experience. It’s knowing what to do when something unexpected breaks, because it always does.
That’s what my grandfather had.
Not credentials. Not access. Not a perfect balance sheet.
He had skill. He had experience. And he had the willingness to take responsibility for something real.
What Still Matters
There’s something different about work where you can point to it and say:
I did that.
A running engine.
A repaired tire.
A business that opens its doors every morning because someone figured out how to keep it alive.
Coates Tire wasn’t just a business.
It was proof.
Proof that if you knew the work, and could find a way to access capital, you could build something that lasts.
The Work Today
That’s still the work.
At CDFI Friendly South Bend, we’re trying to close that gap, the one that’s always existed between people who are ready to build and the capital they need to do it.
Because the issue isn’t a lack of ideas.
It’s access.
It’s making sure the next person who knows how to fix the engine, run the shop, or build the business doesn’t have to go looking for a loan shark just to get started.
Closing
South Bend has always been a place of people who figure it out.
People who build.
People who fix.
People who don’t wait for permission.
My grandfather was one of them.
Coates Tire was never just a tire shop.
It was a bet on real work.
And it paid off. Thanks grandpa, and grandma, for teaching me the value of work, and about making sure everyone has opportunity.