I Took a Job for $5 an Hour

1989.

Single mom.
New grad. Two job offers on the table.

One paid real money.

The other was a part-time position at a small school few people had heard of...yet.

During the interview, I mentioned that I had a young son.

The hiring manager didn't flinch. Didn't shift in his chair. Didn't suddenly begin asking questions about how I would manage everything.

He just kept talking.

I noticed.

And I chose the job at the school.

It paid $5 an hour.

My dad would quietly slip me a $100 bill every week that first year. He never made a fuss about it. He just knew I needed a little help keeping the bills paid while I figured things out.

That tiny school was Full Sail University.

I stayed for 36 years.

I grew from that $5-an-hour part-time employee into an executive. I had opportunities to lead, build teams, develop people, create programs, solve problems, and help build something that mattered.

Looking back, I couldn't possibly have known where that first decision would lead.

I didn't choose the better job on paper. I chose the right room.

And then I had to do it again.

In October 2025, I started over.

New business.

Zero clients.

And an entirely new vocabulary.

CTA. Online payments. Marketing funnels. ICPs. Platforms I'd never used. Technology I didn't understand.

There were days I started working at 5 a.m. and was still figuring things out at 10 p.m.

Some days felt surprisingly similar to 1989.

I was a beginner again.

The difference was that this time I had decades of experience teaching me something my younger self couldn't have known:

I didn't need to have the whole path figured out.

I needed to keep putting myself in rooms with the right people.

People who challenged my thinking.

People who knew things I didn't.

People who saw possibilities.

People who were generous with what they knew.

People who didn't flinch when I said what I wanted to build.

The train is moving now.

Recently, I had two conversations about opportunities I could only have dreamed about a year earlier.

And afterward, I found myself thinking about that young single mom in 1989.

She didn't have a five-year plan that led to becoming a vice president.

She made one decision.

She chose the room.

And then she grew inside it.

I'm beginning to believe that's how many of our most meaningful chapters unfold.

We want certainty before we move.

We want to know:

Where will this lead?

Is this the right decision?

What if I make a mistake?

What's the plan?

But sometimes we can't know the path yet.

Sometimes the better question is:

Who will I become if I step into this room?

Thirty-seven years ago, I couldn't have imagined where a $5-an-hour job would take me.

And when I started my business, I couldn't see exactly where that would take me either.

I still can't.

But I've learned to recognize the rooms where growth is possible.

And I've learned to recognize the people who don't flinch.

You don't always have to know the path.

You have to know how to pick the people.