Everything Will be All Right

Douglas Wallace knows what it is to be poor.

Not just poor, but devastatingly, hopelessly, mind numbingly poor. Not knowing where the next meal would come from, never knowing if the place you slept last night would be the place you sleep tonight, and doing whatever it took - whatever it took - to survive. Generation after generation of the Wallace family existed in an endless cycle of poverty, cruelty and violence.

The short version of his story is that he got out and became a millionaire. The longer version, told in his book, Everything Will Be All Right - an October 2009 release from Greenleaf Book Group Press (www.dougwallace.net) - tells a tale of "living on the razor's edge of survival." In his memoir he imparts the wisdom he gained from his experiences in the "depths of generational poverty" and tells how he broke the chains that bound him to this way of life.

Wallace's turning point came in the third grade, when he was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up. His answer of "Lawyer" began a ripple of laughter and whispering throughout his class. A friend explained to him that he could not afford college, and that was the first time he ever considered that there might be limitations on ambitions. He went to talk to his principal who encouraged him to "establish realistic goals" and consider farming.

"Like acid on copper, the whole episode is etched in memory," he said. "I knew then that if I were to have a life, if I were to look beyond my circumstances, I would have to make it happen on my own."

Wallace's awakening, and source of strength, came through a spiritual experience in which he first encountered the phrase that would dominate his emergence from poverty.

"One night in the woods, I saw an immensely bright and comforting light, and I heard the words, ‘Everything will be all right,'" Wallace said. "I couldn't see anyone there, but I heard the words plain as day, and I knew they were meant for me. Those words comforted me and showed me the way when I was feeling lost."

Growing up in the ghettos of Nashville was no easy task, either, with violence not just part of the culture, but rather, a way of life. Eventually, the threats of violence at his high school forced him to drop out and join the Job Corps, which offered young people education, job training, career counseling and the opportunity to earn a GED.

Wallace graduated from the Corps at an accelerated pace and entered the University of Wisconsin with a complete financial aid package. After making the mistake of dropping a class he did not enjoy, Wallace was no longer considered a full time student. The military spared no time in drafting him. He spent his 21st birthday in Korea working as a company clerk.

Upon his return to the States, Wallace found full time work and enrolled in college at night. He supported his family to the best of his ability, even taking his younger brother under his wing and into his home. He encouraged his brother to go to college and was very proud when he seemed to be doing well.

Wallace applied to and was accepted to Woodrow Wilson College of Law in the fall of 1973, and began a journey that ended with him selling his legal firm to Synovus, making him a multi-millionaire. It was a journey almost arrested before it began by the callous words of his school principal. But Wallace would not be crushed and he would not be turned from his path by cruel words.

"His words would have crushed most boys' dreams forever," he wrote in his memoir Everything Will be All Right. "But I was lucky. They didn't come near to where my soul resides."

Wallace grew up in abject poverty, and after fulfilling his military service, he came home and went to college, graduating law school from Woodrow Wilson School of Law. He practiced law from 1976 through 1999, as a principle of Wallace & deMayo, P.C. based in Atlanta, Georgia. In November 1999 he merged his law firm with Synovus Corporation, a large regional bank listed on NYSE. He retired at the age of 50 and moved west to a ranch in San Diego.