I Thought Life Was Over After College. I Was Wrong.
From $7/hour to corporate marketing - what I learned about growth, ownership, and reclaiming your future.
Over the last year, I’ve found myself occasionally scrolling Reddit. Not for entertainment - but for inspiration. I was drawn to communities focused on mindset, psychology, and philosophy. Spaces where people explore ideas, question beliefs, and try to make sense of the world.
That’s how I stumbled into a community centered around depression.
People were raw. Honest. Sharing what they were going through in real time. Some of it came through humor - memes that joked about hopelessness. But other posts weren’t jokes. They were serious reflections. People saying, in one way or another: "I don’t see the point in anything anymore."
And it hit me hard.
Because I’ve felt that way too.
There were days, not that long ago, when life felt like an endless loop: Wake up. Go to work. Come home. Sleep. Repeat.
A few quiet hours on the weekend that never felt like enough. And then back into the cycle.
That feeling - that this is all there is - can be soul-crushing.
I remember being fresh out of college, unsure of how the world really worked.
I’d go to the gas station and see people in their 60s working the register. I’d meet older coworkers who had been in the same role for decades, barely scraping by.
It scared me.
I thought: Is this it?
Work the same job for 40 years? Hope the 401(k) lasts? Watch the years go by?
That path used to make sense to people. Maybe it still does for some. But for me, it felt like slow death.
Everything changed when I started looking around.
Social media. YouTube. Podcasts. They opened my eyes to something I hadn’t seen before: People building different lives.
Entrepreneurs, marketers, creators - people who had no fancy degrees or trust funds - but had decided to take ownership of their lives. People who chose to learn new skills, build something of value, and do it their own way.
That was the spark.
One day I bought an audiobook: One Million Followers by Brendan Kane.
At the time, I was working full-time as an irrigation technician. Digging trenches. Installing sprinkler systems. Coming home exhausted.
But I listened to that book five times while I was working. Took notes. Memorized frameworks.
Then I applied them.
Grew a Facebook page to 10,000 followers in a week.
Grew an Instagram account to 10,000 in three months.
Built a TikTok following of over 70,000 in under 4 months.
Not with inauthentic hacks. But with consistent, intentional effort.
Eventually, I turned that knowledge into a service. I started taking on clients, helping them grow their platforms too.
At one point, I had 13 clients and had left my job to go full-time.
I was making more than I’d ever made - and I did it without a marketing degree or formal education in business.
All I had was proof. Experience. And the willingness to learn.
That led to something even bigger.
A recruiter reached out and offered me a role as a corporate Social Media Coordinator.
On paper, I had no qualifications or the bachelors degree that matched the role, but I had experience and proof that I knew what I was doing.
I went from making $7/hr as a groundskeeper to a full-time marketing role in under three years.
That’s what ownership looks like.
Since then, I’ve continued learning. Continued studying. Continued stacking skills.
I’ve earned marketing certifications. Joined memberships. Learned from clients who became mentors.
One of them - a former drug addict who now runs a million-dollar business - showed me firsthand that your past doesn’t define your ceiling.
We are not stuck. Not limited. Not locked into the roles we started in.
If you’re feeling lost - if you’ve been in a cycle of depression or numbness - I need you to hear this: You are not out of options.
You can:
Learn a new skill
Switch industries
Increase your income
Change your circle
Reclaim your time
You don’t need to go back to school. You don’t need to wait for permission. You need a little intention and a lot of consistency.
Start with YouTube.
Explore creators on Substack.
Take a course on LinkedIn Learning.
Pick something that interests you - and chase it down like your life depends on it. Because in many ways, it does.
Money is just a tool. But it buys you time. Options. And the ability to build something that matters.
It’s not about chasing money for the sake of it. It’s about using it to design a better life.
Most of the time, money moves when you learn how to solve real problems. That’s all business is: solving problems in exchange for money. The bigger the problem, the bigger the reward.
Understand that - and everything shifts.
You are not stuck in the job you have.
You are not too late to start.
You are not behind.
There is more for you. But no one is coming to hand it to you.
You have to take ownership of your life. You have to do the work. You have to believe - even when you don’t feel it yet - that you can build a better life.
Because you can. And you must.