Viet Le: Nail giant in the US likes to "wear" gold on his body, in the past he used to clean the toilet and eat leftovers

Having experienced a difficult life, Mr. Viet Le now has a full and rich life as desired. In particular, his hobby of wearing gold all over his body is explained by him as a way to remember his miserable past and also as a motivation to continue working.

Mr. Viet Le (51 years old, lives in California, USA) is the owner of a famous nail salon in Allen City, California with more than 30 Vietnamese workers. Mr. Viet has a hobby of wearing gold all over his body.

Every time the company has a party or important holidays, he wears thick rings and bracelets engraved with images of buffaloes, dragons, and phoenixes. He explained: "The buffalo symbolizes hard work, strength, to remind you to work hard, while the dragon and phoenix represent success and nobility. This amount of gold is also heavy, but it is tied to money." processed because the workers are very picky.

Every time there's a party, I wear it for everyone to admire. Because this life is very short, I think if I have it, I should wear it to spare, to make it worth the poor days. Seeing gold makes me more motivated to work."

It can be said that Mr. Viet Le's current life is something many people wish for. But few people know that to get that, he went through difficult days in the past. During his years abroad, he had to do many different hard jobs. Even now when he recalls it, he still feels emotional.

He shared: "First I washed dishes. When the waiter brought dirty dishes to the sink area, I secretly picked up leftovers to eat. I worked very hard, but didn't earn much, I remember People still say to me: "If you don't go to college, you won't be able to do anything in the future. You'll probably just wash dishes for the rest of your life."

My mother saw that I was too busy washing dishes and that every night when I came home from work my clothes were soaked and smelly, she told me to find another job. So I asked the Vietnamese guy to let me go to the flea market to change my watch battery. From morning to afternoon, I only eat once: 1 hamburger, 1 banana, 1 bottle of water, then sit all day changing batteries over and over again, salary 20 USD/day."

After that, Mr. Viet asked to go to the hotel to... clean the toilet. For him, that was the darkest moment of his life because "every day he had to kneel in front of the toilet, there were sufferings that were hard to put into words. But then he thought that if he died, he would have to die in his hometown, no? died in a foreign land, so gritted my teeth and continued."

After 6 years working at the hotel, his language also improved significantly, and his salary increased to $3.45/hour. The manager saw that he was obedient and hard-working, so he transferred him to work as a waiter in the hallway, only having to clean and wash bed sheets. Gradually, he switched to becoming a restaurant chef, forklift driver,... to earn more income. But because he has no qualifications or any status, Mr. Viet is quite timid in social relationships.

He was introduced to a girl in Buon Me Thuot, a university student, with a well-off family. "Up to now, I still feel grateful to my parents-in-law for allowing the two of us to fall in love and then get married, because at that time I was still very poor. The two of them dated, living close to each other a little but loving far away a lot.

I'm in America, and if I want to talk to her, I have to wait late at night, go out to the street and stand in the night dew at a public phone booth to call back. But I don't have a lot of money to top up my card, so after just a few sentences, she sulked and said why do you keep hanging up... But we were able to get married."

Even when married, Viet and his wife had a period of living apart. It was not until his wife gave birth to their first child that he was able to bring mother and child to reunite. But out of love for their child and fear of his daughter-in-law's change of heart, his parents hid all of their daughter-in-law's papers and did not let her work. Every day he came home from work to see his wife crying, which almost broke their marriage. At that time, he could only encourage his wife to try to overcome it and try to work more to take care of the family.

When the baby was 6 months old, Mr. Viet's wife decided to move out on her own. She has a nephew in California who promised to help and teach her how to do nail art. The family split in two, his wife took the children away, and he regretted his stable job in Florida. He loved his parents so he didn't hesitate.

His wife called and said just one sentence that made him decide to drop everything to reunite: "You keep blaming me for all kinds of things, but you don't think I need a father. Now I'm learning to walk, taking 2-3 steps." I fell because I didn't have my father by my side." Those words seemed to cut into his heart, Mr. Viet decided to throw everything away and start over.

Coming to California, he applied for a job as a dishwasher, then had experience in cooking, so he worked as a chef for several restaurants in the market, then as a restaurant chef, with a quite high salary. After 5 years, he also opened his own restaurant. As for his wife, after several years of working as an employee, she was also promoted to the position of owner of the nail salon that her nephew transferred.

Mr. Viet's restaurant is doing well. When he bought it, the restaurant cost $15,000. He operated it for a while, and someone came to sell it for $60,000. Seeing a profit, he sold it.

He brought all that money back and pooled it with his wife to expand the nail salon. Up to now, he and his wife have maintained the nail salon for 11 years, from a small shop with 3-4 workers, then 8 workers, to now 30 workers working continuously.

He revealed that, due to his experience in many jobs and many positions, life has taught him how to run and manage business and understand customer psychology without needing to go to school or training.

Mr. Viet's strategy is almost the opposite of that of small nail salons in the neighborhood. For example, small shops only turn on the air conditioner when it's too hot; And his shop is open all day. Or small shop owners tend to defend workers and abandon customers. If customers complain about quality, they still force them to pay in full. Some people even chase after the car to demand money; As for his and his wife's shop, if the customer is not satisfied, they will not charge.

But he always explains and requires customers to make a clear appointment with the worker before they work, to avoid trouble next time... According to him, doing business in the US is not easy, especially in the service industry, there must be flexibility. and certain understanding of customers from different ethnicities and cultures.

Besides, he also believes that the brothers and sisters in the shop are his great benefactors. Because even if you have strong capital, if you don't have people working closely with you, it will be difficult to achieve success.

Currently, after nearly 30 years of working in the US, Mr. Viet Le and his family are financially stable and even have a bit of money. For him, family is the biggest motivation to overcome difficult moments in life, and is also the "treasure" that makes him work the most.