Food for thought. After starting A&P Master Images eleven years ago. I have been asked to speak several times at events, class rooms, and more. They have asked me to speak about where I lived, meaning the House of the Good Shepherd from when I was 11 until I was 18 and what I did after I left. So, I go and speak when I can along with being interviewed several times a year for national magazines for our profession. I always bring up my past. The more I think about it. The more important it is to explain to everyone where someone has come from in life. As our company grows and you meet new people every day. People look at the things you buy. How you dress. They listen to what you talk about. Any one who has met me. They know 75% of the time I am going to talk about my company. Not because I am showing off, but because I love what I do and the team I do it with. How many people can wake up next to the one they love and go to work every day together? Not many. Over the past year I have listened to some people not be happy in life with what they have or that they deserve more or get upset when asking for a donation and I say sorry we cannot afford to this month. I want people to understand something. I was a kid once that never got the chance to truly be a kid after the age of 9. Dont feel sorry for me, but understand I am living my life to the fullest each and every day for my family, staff, and customers. At the age of 33 our company has been published nationally over 30 times, won 6 national awards, made the cover of 4 magazines, won a New York SBA award, has raised over 25k for the kids at HGS, and our company donates thousands back to the area every year. Our only guideline is you must be a customer. Nothing in life was handed to me. I was one of the first kids from Proctor High School to take the Bridge Program to MVCC when I was seventeen while finishing up my second year of Graphic Design at BOCES, and working at AMF Pin-O-rama and washing dishes at Cavallos. I did all of this while living in the boys group home which I was able to convince to let me buy a car so I could get around to places faster and on time instead of still taking the city bus. When starting A&P back in 2003 I was working no less than 80 plus hours a week at my full time job at Revere Copper and Brass and running the business out of a 15x15 room in our house. At first it started as a hobby. Once we realized it could be more than a hobby our daughter was diagnosed with a very rare disease at the age of three. So, at the age of 24 still a kid yet myself with a wife, a daughter, owning my home for 3 years already, working a full time job, and running a small business from home. I needed to make a truly hard choice. Stay working for someone else or take the leap to push my business so when she has to go to the hospital one to two weeks at a time when something happens. I could be there and still provide at the same time. Right after that happened I was injured at work with an unsafe crane hook tearing up my left shoulder which kept me out on comp for 8 months and set me back over 20k in debt because comp only paid out 400 a week and I was use to bringing home 800 to 1000 with all of my over time. After two more years of working insane amounts of hours. I quite my job with excellent benefits and pay that was 50 to 60k a year. A lot of people look at that and will say that is insane. Not really. It was all planned out. My wifes insurance at her job took over. I cashed in my two 401ks just before stocks tanked and paid down all of our personal bills, and had the business doing 125k a year in business from our home. That does not mean we made that much, lol. Our cost of living for everything was only 2200.00 a month due to doing everything we did. The whole moral of this story is nothing was handed to us. We busted our butts to take care of things every time we were kicked down in life at a young age. We work countless hours to get to where we are at in life. I want and tell everyone every day. If we can do it. ANY ONE CAN! I truly believe it. Now comes Monday morning. What are you going to go after in life??
Posted on: Sun, 09 Nov 2014 12:54:39 +0000