The Magnolia Story

by Chip Gaines

I hadn’t dated all that much, and I’d never had a serious relationship—nothing that lasted longer than a month or two. I’d always been an introvert and still am (believe it or not). I was also very picky, and I just wasn’t the type of girl who struck up conversations with guys I didn’t know. I was honestly comfortable being single; I didn’t think that much of it.

was surrounded by all these rich kids from rich families, and for whatever reason I was never drawn to that. I was much more comfortable hanging out with the guys who dug ditches.

Sometimes the thing we’re dreaming of doesn’t work out.

I may have been the quiet girl, but I was always the one who watched how things worked and took everything in.

Sometimes when something is meant to be, it’s meant to be.

But the thing was, my friends all had these stressed-out lives, and they came to our place and it felt like we were just living this laid-back, beautiful, no-stress life. We made being poor look fun.

we try to stay focused on each other and spend quality time doing things we loved together, especially when we were at home. That seemed like a no-brainer to us, but they explained that being in the same house and actually interacting with each other are two different things.

having a tight budget doesn’t have to mean watering down the design. If anything, it forced me to get more creative, and there was so much joy in that for me.

I wonder sometimes if we know ourselves a lot better than we think we do when we’re children. We get into our teen years and college years, and so many of us let others redefine who we are, or we get lost along the way and have no idea what we really want to do with our lives. But once we finally figure it out, it often seems easy to look back into our childhoods and find a few clues that say, “Hey, maybe you were headed in that direction all along.”

I’m the type of person who can wrestle with something for a long time, but when I finally make up my mind, I’m all-in.

For some reason, even as a kid, I didn’t qualify people like most folks do. I treated everybody the same. From a young age I understood the true meaning of the golden rule. I literally treated others as I wanted to be treated.

Whenever I’ve been down financially, I’ve just picked myself up and worked a little harder. And whether it’s a little luck or God or a combination, everything seems to find a way of working itself out eventually.

A lot of modern houses in the suburbs are big and beautiful, and I don’t want to run anyone down, but when you look closely, it’s almost like a beautiful woman with a little too much makeup on.

If I’m going to sit around and say I am “just surviving” every day, well, guess what? When a big wave comes along suddenly, I won’t be surviving—I’ll be drowning!

If your mind-set is always, “I’m just surviving,” it seems to me that would wind up being your mind-set for the rest of your life. You’d just get stuck in it. So I finally flipped the switch in my mind. I said, “I have to choose to thrive, even in the pain. Even when it’s tough.”

Life changes quickly. Overnight, your whole world can change.

It was all trial and error and figuring things out. And sometimes you’ve got to try something outside of your comfort zone to figure out what it is that you truly love.