Story Tuesday: Before the Beginning
Many people may know many parts of our "how it began" story. Most of those parts have been the superficial parts that highlight our achievements; but what most people have not been privileged to know, are the parts of heartache, sleep deprivation, and self doubt. I've been inspired to share our downs, failures and adversities we had to withstand to become what is now know as A&S Covers. Each week I will share a part of our journey to inspire budding dreams and/or motivate you to work harder to towards a dream you have already been working towards.
Part 1: Before the Beginning
I was never very proud to acknowledge the fact that Armando and I (Sharissa) can be considered third generation entrepreneurs. Our parents were entrepreneurs; my mom use to tell us stories of the stuff my dad use to sell in order for him to have money to get married. And his parents were also entrepreneurs, they had a grocery store, and at one point a pawn shop and apart from that my pops (our paternal grandfather) use to buy and sell cars.
Our parents eventually went back into the rat race (read part 2 of this series to know what that means) and our grandparents stayed in the retail business up until a few years ago. As luck, destiny, and/or fate would have it, we grew up very close to our paternal grandparents. We were raised inside grocery shops, so we, especial myself being older, saw first hand the pros and cons of owning a business.
Some advantages were not being denied snacks for snack time. My childhood indulgence was polvorone aka haad time biscuits with dutch cheese. I can clearly remember sitting on cans of groceries and being forced to recite my timestable until I could say them correctly. And once grandma was tired of math we would head upstairs and I would be forced to read while she listened and eventually would fall asleep while I had to keep on reading the newspapers. Being the oldest grandchild, much more was expected of me, so while my cousins and brother would run off to play I would be stuck reading or helping around the house with grandma. Needless to say, today I am eternally grateful to her for the amount of time she invested in me. I owe her for my ability to read, write, interest in politics, obsession with numbers, and my loud voice. Although she's not around anymore, I still believe she is my motivation to succeed.
Seeing the hardship owning your own business brings, such as long hours, little to no vacation time, trying to remain relevant to ensure you were able to pay your bills, I knew that that was not the life for me. Armando and I both had little to no interest in owning our own business. Yet, again as fate would have it, we still studied business in high school. He moved on after high school with the intentions of studying Civil Engineering and I had intentions of studying Anthology with hope of specializing in Linguistics. We tried going to school, but you see, school was just not exactly what we needed. I'm not saying I wouldn't endorse getting a higher education, but it wasn't for us.
School wasn't fulfilling our scene of purpose and like every growing adult, we needed more. We both dropped out of school, but not before Armando got his hands on a book. Yes. The beginning of A&S Covers started with a book. That book (The Secret) lead Armando to several more books by Robert Kiyosaki (Rich Dad Poor Dad, Cash Flow Quadrants, Why A students work for C Students and more) that we read or listened to that formed a new mindset. That new mindset was what paved the road for us today.
Next week I'll go in depth of how the book, Rich Dad Poor Dad, changed the way we think. Don't forget to pre-order your popups. Inbox us on any of our social media platforms or whatsapp us at 628-4758.