About a man and his success. Comes from one of the smartest, most intelligent person I have ever met. A man with very little school to no education but one of the most educated I have ever learned from. A young man who came to the United States as young teenager from Puerto Rico. A young man who left Puerto Rico in search for something new. Not a word of English and trying to learn his way in life. All the while he finds his amazing wife. Job to job, he was left with a failing upholstering business and turned it around. An upholstering business that became the place where people would become his apprentice to open up their own. He worked 6 sometimes 7 days a week, working 10-12 hour days living on coffee and food on the go. He would also buy old beat up sports cars, make them new again and sell them. My favorites were the Firebirds and the Trans Ams. Made lots of friends on just being a man of his word and an all around stand up guy.
Contradicting but he also seemed to be a person of no emotions and heartless. Never said or acted out any love or at least I thought. He had a stare that would pierce your soul and frighten the devil himself out of you. It always seemed as if everything he did was just of out obligation. Hating life and the cards that were dealt to him. Regretting every decision, he made in life. Very strong on his opinion, mostly kept but lived everyday by them, and the respect he had earned. Literally challenged himself all the days of his life.
Just because he provided a house for his family just outside the projects, didn’t mean his family lived outside the projects. Protective he definitely was. In so many ways, it was confusing. In a manner where he would teach to defend yourself to survive the streets rather than keep his family off the streets.
No matter what anyone did though, he never missed an opportunity to be supportive and be there. As harsh or as hard as it was for him to hit anyone with the ugly truth his methods of teaching were, maybe to me, very unorthodox.
Now that man that once was is now a man I look back at and now realize he is the man I look up to. He had his way of teaching everyone to be hard in their own ways. To identify their biases, prejudices and privileges. Be teachers and don’t take for granted what they have learned from school or in life. I never knew why this man had the habit of doing what he did. A habit of trying to be excellent. Not acting but creating the habit of trying to be excellent at everything that came to him.
Now, he is no a millionaire. He is though, both extremely rich and successful. It’s not money or the job that makes him rich and successful. He’s still a hard working middle class man. But, all his children, considering where they grew up, succeeded in life. Creating families of their own. All of them now understanding why he was the way he was and now why he carries himself the way he does. Gratified with how his idea of what his future would be and became. It’s not the money or a title. It’s that from nothing he has everything he has ever wanted, everything he never had and that’s a FAMILY. A large, strong successful growing family. This man had an idea. An idea he worked so hard to make real.
“To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him”. Buddha
A quote he doesn’t know but embodies from head to toe. Now he can sit back, look through the windows of his families and be filled with completeness. This man is a mentor, friend and most importantly, this man is our dad. If we can be a fraction of the person he is, we will succeed too. This man is a success.