I started my current Bookkeeping and Tax firm in 2025, business number…….. I think 5? Well it’s something like that. But it’s the first one that has ever felt like my place, where when I talk with someone I don’t feel like I’m having to lie,
To pretend to be something I’m not.
To feel like I’m leaving them worse off by taking their money.
I actually get to support people in building their dreams to support the ones that they love.
But it’s in this moment where I’m blessed to, even though I have challenges ahead of me and the potential of still needing to get a regular job again that I get to cherish the 47 different people, 32 of them strangers this year and wonder…..
How Did I Get Here?
ChildHood
I grew up very blessed compared to so many in the United States of America, Not to mention compared to the rest of the world through 1994 onward and early the 2000s.
My mom was a school teacher, and my dad worked at the local prison. He even got promoted during these years and unfortunately, had to work in many other different jails across the state of New York as his common.
I got lucky, financially, when my parents did have struggles in the early years when I was little I didn’t remember them, and my mom was good enough with budgeting to where they were able to make it through those hard times initially to when they both had those stable jobs.
I have many great memories with family, my sister, and many vacations and Cub Scouts. To be honest while my dad was never easy on us and at times could have some temper for the most part I got to have the initial foundation of what a good family is like in these years.
The Turning Point
Then something changed.
I’d say it started around 10 years old inside our home. The beginning of what would shape how I am today for the good in the bad.
My mom began to drink substantially more, and my dad continued to get more angry with it instead of handling in a different way.
I can still recall the many wasted vacations. The endless nights through all of those early years until I was an adult when most nights I could barely go to sleep before three in the morning because of the fighting. It honestly would take until even halfway through The marriage with my wife before I would admit that I needed to work on these times.
But I will tell you this, for whoever is reading this who also lived up in a major alcoholic home. All this did create a lot of problems for me later in life that I still have yet to probably fully deal with, it also gave me the Drive that I currently have and the fact that I rarely ever pick up a drink of alcohol.
This caused me even at the age of 12 to begin working as a dishwasher my local golf club eventually moving up to the greens crew. He created a drive inside of me that I didn’t fully understand as a teenager. A drive that teenage boy would still play football and still work Friday nights working at the kitchen.
These times would actually create the spark that I pray even to this day is what allows my boys and their kids to break the curse and never continue it.
Early entrepreneurship
I still remember some of the earliest attempts I had and making extra cash in a way they were like many businesses. I remember me and my friends even at 17 Would gather up or purchase whatever we could during the week we will decide who’s driving load of our cars grabs McDonald’s back when the burritos used to cost $.50 and head to the local flea market.
Made some decent side change going to this event got to experience my first time having to haggle with scalpers coming to the place thinking they could take advantage of teenage boys. Some of our friends came along for the journey to just hang out which when you think about it was pretty crazy because we would leave at like 4 AM To arrive and set up.
But this early hustle is what began to give me the confidence to realize that my Rough home life of fighting, throwing pushing and constant chaos from alcohol would be coming to an end and I have a choice to write my story. But the ability to take nothing and to get paid without having to go to a regular job really did sit with me and create a spark that has not left to this day.
Marine Corps
That spark, like I told you did not end. Well, all my friends, a few of which had already gone into the military left I was left looking at my life.
My parents finally were getting a divorce because apparently they waited until I was getting out of the house instead of doing it earlier, but who’s the judge right?
Hi Mom, who had already had I think two DUIs by this point, hey, my dad who wanted me to go to college push me to the prank where I knew it was time for a change. Funny enough I had a great recruiter.
So in May 2013, I joined the United States Marine Corps to later become an avionics technician on the F18. Those five years will become some of the best and hardest of my life up to that point. But it would shake me into the man I am today and also allow me to meet my beautiful wife in the process.
Getting out of the military was still another challenge, which I will leave for another day to explain. Since then, I have had a few businesses that I have attempted and all I can say is even though they may not have been terrible they clearly did not take me with me and my family are supposed to go.
But I can say this for those of you who read this who are also trying to get something off the ground that sticks. Because of my last business as a real estate agent, we have been left with very little money.
But I have learned enough to know that when I opened up for my first tax season and generated 10k profit in 2.5 months? Yea I can say I have found what I am good at.
I Will leave you with this, no matter the past that we all have that tries to hold us down. You cannot let it get the best of you, keeping getting up every day, no matter how hard and strive to bring your experience into the world to make it a better place one day at a time.