David Duncan, the COO of Paddywax, is one of several entrepreneurs Portfolio.com is following as part of the series The Great Global Adventure. All of the entrepreneurs will be blogging about their experiences. This is the first in the series of blogs from entrepreneurs.

If I had a theme song, it would most certainly be “Once in a Lifetime” from the Talking Heads’ 1980 album, Remain in Light. The following words play over and over in my head on a daily basis:

You may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife.

You may ask yourself: Well, how did I get here?

By all normal standards, I live a charmed life. I am 36 years old, an involved father of two beautiful girls (ages 5 and 8), husband and business partner to the smartest and most beautiful woman I know (Gretchen Hollingsworth). I’m COO of Paddywax, LLC (a home fragrance company my wife and I started 14 years ago: About Paddywax—YouTube) and a volunteer member of the global leadership of EO, a 7000-plus-member-strong worldwide nonprofit that engages leading entrepreneurs to learn and grow. My family is great, my business is on the verge of another stage of explosive growth, and I interact with successful entrepreneurs and other thought leaders from all over the world on a daily basis, yet I am far from satisfied. My business can be bigger, my family stronger, and I have volumes to learn from my peers and mentors.

Throughout my relatively short life, I have been given nothing but opportunity. As a kid, I know I was one of the most frustrating children a parent could have. I seemingly squandered every chance I had in school, not due to my inabilities, but my lack of engagement. This “underachieving habit” continued until 1996 while I was attending my fourth college in five years. I still constantly wonder what I have done to deserve the opportunities that have been and continue to be presented to me. Obviously there is a series of events and choices that have led me here. To many, they might be surprising, to me it is has been fate.

The first of these events that changed my life that always comes to mind is the last day of the winter semester of my junior year at the University of Georgia (my second college at this point), where I was “pursuing” a degree in early-childhood education. I had just taken my final exam for Statistics 101, it was the second time I had taken the class, and I knew I had failed it again.

I waited until I was the last one to turn my test in so I could use my charm and plead my case with my teacher; I needed a passing grade on the exam to remain eligible for school. Fortunately for me, she saw right through me, looked me in the eye, and said, “Maybe failing out of school will be the best thing to ever happen to you.” For some odd reason, I immediately knew she was right, and did not even wait for confirmation of my failure before I started the process of moving back to Atlanta.

Over the next year and a half, I worked as a kindergarten teacher, as an in-home therapist for autistic children, a pizza cook, and finally a host in a bar/restaurant. It was the last of these jobs, as a host, where my life took another turn, but this time in the right direction. In the spring of 1996, while finishing college at Georgia State University and working in a job with the least amount of responsibility I could find, I met Gretchen Hollingsworth.

Fortunately she saw beyond the 23-year-old slacker living with his parents, and we quickly formed a bond that I have relied on ever since. Within a few months we were inseparable, and starting with all of $5 we built what was to become a leader in the candle and home fragrance industry out of the kitchen in a house we shared with Gretchen’s sister Heidi.