Almost everyone dreams of having their own small business. My cousin John is living the American dream- making money from a chain of Chicago restaurants and being an established business owner. But he always say that getting there was very hard.

It’s been a family tradition for us to get into small business ownerships. My dad used to run a construction company and my uncle used to have a furniture shop, but with the tough times, no one had available work for me.

Not until John called and gave me a job in his first ever restaurant.

That time, John told me that he got the money to put up the restaurant with him convincing credible investors. Later on, I found out that he just got a small business license for himself. Our first month was just about cleaning until the place he took for rent was immaculate and all revved up to start business.

Nothing happened with our first week. With the power going out for almost six hours, our first day became a total disaster.

All we did the whole summer was to help the business survive.

Persistence is the only secret that John had. He worked all day and night, without giving up. I saw it as tiny breaks coming his way that he collected to become one huge success.

He was even boasted in our local newspaper’s entertainment section and he even got to sponsor a league team for kids.

Soon enough, he was on his way to putting up his second restaurant, and then the third one. John’s career was made up of hard work and that made everything sweeter.

Article by Van T and read more about him here.