My first experince with the Entrepreneurship challenge

To continue my humble beginnings story about my decision to become an entrepreneur, i would like to first say that it was not an entirely conscience choice and i am still learning new things about my choice. What i would like to emphasize is, that even though it was not a conscience choice, it in fact was MY choice to do so and i will never regret my choice for doing so. As a matter of fact, if i had a choice to do it all over again, i would choose to do it exactly the same again:)......and now to continue.....

There was a dead silence for about 5-10 mins as my father had no clue to what the answer could be. Inside my own head I kept running in circles about how it would be a bad idea if I did take advantage of this opportunity. Every thought that came to mind about why I should not do this was instantly blocked and rejected by the fact that I was perfect for the position and there was an endless possibility to what can become of this experience. Nonetheless, I was hesitant about speaking up. After my father kept bringing up random names and again and again my mother kept shooting them down with reasons why those people would not work as good help.

Finally, I opened my mouth and again said, “I’ll do it, I would be the perfect help with this.” I figured since my mother has been rejecting every single person as help, I assumed that she wouldn’t reject her own family. All of a sudden my mother paused and gave me a look that said, “I’m going to give you one chance and one chance only before I say NO.” As I prepared my grand speech I couldn’t help but feel this rush of “nothing to lose” mentality and I went straight for it. I explained how I would be perfect because of the need for cheap and manageable labor who knew what to do and what to say while on the job.

My mother’s first response was a shocking one. I only expected her to immediately say nope, you lost your chance and go back to watching tv, but what she asked was completely shocking to me. She asked, “And what about finishing school?” With this question I then knew that my chance was still open and this was either a “make it” or “break it” moment for my opportunity. I needed a moment to think about my response because I already knew how important finishing school was for my mother or any parent at that. I myself was wondering how I could finish school if I was going to be taking on the business full time.

As I began to speak every thought began to make more and more sense. I told my mother that i wasn’t doing very well in my academics and didn’t like going to school anyways. I also reminded her that a friend of mine, whom she knew very well, had dropped out of school before me and ended up getting his GED (General Education Diploma) through home studies and completed it even before his class was scheduled to graduate. The fact was that I was doing very well in school actually and I loved the materials and learning experiences that I was having. The only thing that I could think about was helping out my family in these difficult times.

After about an hour of explaining and answering questions I realized that my father was nowhere to be found in the conversation. As a matter of fact my father turned himself as an on looker as this intense debate was going on with my mother and I. At the end of it all I made a very clear promise to my mother to help my father only up until the point of getting the business back on track and finishing my education before my graduating class if not around the same time. My mother then looked over to my father and asked him what he thought. My father just looked over and said that if it was fine with my mother, then it was okay with him since he really needed the help anyways.

The following Monday, my mother walked into school with me and we went straight to the main office to request a drop out transfer. I had convinced my mother that this would be the best option in order to salvage my GPA and grades that I have received thus far. I could have simply stopped going to school, but if I did, I would begin to accumulate missed days and failures in my courses for non attendance. Still, with keeping my promise to my mother in mind, my parents and I decided that this would be the best course of action so that getting back into school would not be so difficult.

The transition for myself was not very hard since I have done so during the summer days when I would help my brother out with the business. This time it was for myself and this time I would be the one calling the shots and charging the prices. Things could not have been looking better for me and a new chapter in my life. This is what entrepreneurship was all about and I was headed into it head first without even knowing what to expect from managing and maintaining a real life business. Although my experience in detail is for another forum, I have to say that I learned firsthand about the ups and downs about business which surprisingly did not turn me off or discourage me about pushing forward toward my life goals which , I feel, has made me who I am today and gotten me what I have for my family and for myself.