How I Got My First Jobs In High School Pt 1/9

I've barely shared my story. I've been so busy interviewing people all further along and never walks than I am. A smart man learns from his mistakes, but a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. Whatever it is, that first job is going to be game-changing because it teaches you so much. Although I can't really remember for the counselor and training job, just having that job, just getting me started making money, got me going in the right direction.

The journey to wealth is a long walk and some may walk quicker than others, but what good is sprinting to the finish line if you pass out when you cross it? On Walk to Wealth, we enlighten and empower young adults to build wealthy, abundant lives. They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and your first step starts right now. This is Walk to Wealth with your host, John Mendes.

Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Walk to Wealth podcast. If you're tuning in on YouTube or any of the podcast directories, make sure to give us a follow, because I don't want you to have FOMO and miss out on any of the amazing guests that I'm bringing this year, any of the amazing solo episodes that I got coming on this year, and today's a special one because I haven't done a solo episode in a while. In this solo episode, it's going to be different than all the other ones that I've done so far, so I'm going to be sharing a lot more of my story. I started this podcast really to start documenting the journey that I've been on on my way to wealth. I wanted to document my Walk to Wealth instead of me becoming wealthy and saying, hey, I made it to the top, here's how I did it. I wanted to document while I'm on the way to the top and tell the people to come with me so we can go to the top together, and that's really why I wanted to start the podcast. My friend Marcus it was his idea to start the podcast, but then the vision for Walk to Wealth, that was all mine, and from there now we're almost man. We're over 100 episodes and I've barely shared my story. I've been so busy interviewing people and of course, these people are all amazing, successful people, people all further along than I am, and a smart man learns from his mistakes, but a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. So it's great to have people that I'm interviewing, great to have people that I'm learning from. I'm going to start dropping a whole lot of solo episodes and solos episode series, and so this series is going to be the start of how I made 20,000 in an hour. It still sounds crazy to say I can't believe it, man. I've only made 20 bands, 20 bands in an hour and a lot of time, a lot of time. People they come on and it's like here's my six step process for how I made 50k in a day, or 50k off of a webinar, and they share the process and then you try it and then you fail miserably because you've realized then that although they gave you the playbook, they didn't tell you all that stuff that led up to it. So in this first episode, I'm going to share with you my very first job, because every step of my journey helped me, help play into where I'm at now, and so this first episode is going to be about my first job, which let me take you back into time machine. This was back in high school, so the first job for me. I never thought about making money. I had boys that were all about selling sneakers. I had boys that were a very entrepreneurial long before I knew what entrepreneurship even was, and that's something that really ever interested me. I never was trying to make a quick buck, I was never trying to make money, but just playing video games. I did grade in school, I played sports, but that was about it. I never thought about starting a business or finding ways to sell something, or sell candy bars or have the paper out, sell sneakers, sell cakes, sells clothes, designer, whatever, whatever. And that's a lot of the stuff that people were doing at my age and for me, for whatever reason, I wasn't really interested, and it wasn't until around, if I'm not mistaken, when I was 15, turning 16, so, if I'm not mistaken, this is sophomore year, going into junior year. This is summertime. One of my counselors, emily, and my good friends now they had an opportunity to become a counselor in training and this was my first technical, like technical, official job. So at that point in time I was 15, and I grew up going to Boys and Girls Club. I went into the Boys and Girls Club very early on and then I ended up going to another Boys and Girls Club in the same city and from there I've been there pretty much since sixth grade and so now I'm about to be a junior in high school. So I've been in Boys and Girls Club for a while. I was very involved with the programs. I was there almost pretty much every day after school playing for the Boys and Girls Club basketball team for a little bit. I was super involved and that's where I spent the majority of my time after school. That job for me. It taught me really just how to have a job, because at that point in time I was almost adulting, I feel. At least it felt like I was adulting because I would have summer conditioning Monday through Friday and then from there that's almost six in the morning to like seven thirty-ish in the morning. Then I would have to get home, then I would have to shower, eat breakfast, change and then be at Boys and Girls Club by nine, work nine until the afternoon. I forget how long I used to actually work them, but then from there in the afternoon, some nights, I would have football camps to go to. So I felt like I was living a real adult life, working out in the morning and going to my job and then going out in the afternoon to train even more. I was busy during that time period. I learned how to manage my time better. I learned about discipline. I learned about how to move when you're tight on a schedule. I learned a lot. It's hard to my memory is kind of a blur from that period in my life, but for the most part it was a very good experience. I got my first paycheck. I figured out what it was like to have a job to come in, have to punch in, punch out. I got that experience and although there was not too many solid memories that I can really recall just having that job, it sparked something to me at that point in time Because up to that I never had a job before and it was the first one. It was the start. It was a short but it was the start and that for me was a really good opportunity. And I think I got paid like maybe $500 for the summer or somewhere around $500 for the summer. I forget how much exactly, I know it wasn't much, but, as I said, it was a good experience and at that point in time I was 15. So it's not like I was going to find a job anywhere else, like an actual job that pays me a paycheck anywhere else. Also around that time period, one of my boys used to caddy. He caddied for a while. I think in middle school he started caddying and he always tried to put people on. He always tried to tell people about caddying, how we should be caddying and stuff like that and how it was good money and he was making good money on the weekends and it's not much work. And for me, one year I believe it was my sophomore year I decided to go out and train to become a caddy. I think I went to go train twice and then from there I just started showing up in the mornings on the weekends and we always would come in, we would go, sit in the back room where the caddy sat, then we would wait to get called out and I would come in, out, come in, out, come in. And I would never get called out to go and I didn't have a car at that point in time. So I usually would ride with Rico and we would go there, rico would go out. It is a step that would go out, and then I would never get to go out at that point in time. So at that certain point in time I just like you know what, screw this Like I'm just not going to come back because there's no point in. It's about Walking wise, probably close to like an hour and a half, maybe longer, maybe shorter. It's a long walk. It's almost two exits away, and at that point in time I didn't have Uber or Lyft, so I would have to literally either walk or catch the bus, and so I normally would catch the bus, but even still it was a journey to get to there, especially when I couldn't get a ride back, or sometimes I would just wait in the car, and there's a lot of times, as I said, where I just didn't get called out. So I just stopped showing up after myself. More year, then, junior year, I was like you know what, let me go back. And I'm pretty sure Rico told me to go back. And the day that I went back there was a big tournament, and at that tournament there were more golfing pairs than there were caddies for them. So I got to go and four caddy for a group of four and from there I ended up making. It was a Friday, I did 18 holes. A Saturday I did 27 holes and then Sunday, another 18 holes and I ended up making close to $600 just to literally watch golf balls fly around. I didn't have to carry any bags, I didn't have to lift anything. For the most part. Maybe I had to carry a couple of putters, which is like some of the golf clubs, but aside from that, I virtually did nothing and the team I was caddying for so, even though they weren't winning, it was really a fun time, honestly, and so my biggest takeaways from them is that I learned what I felt like to make money for the first time. Because we're caddying, I was actually getting paid pretty decent money. The summer counseling and training job money-wise wasn't all that good, but with that first time caddying I made almost $600 in a weekend. So for me I was like as a high schooler at that time I never had a job, really an actual job, so I was like man, this is really good money. And from there I started caddying virtually every weekend and it helped me pay for a lot of my stuff in high school, unfortunately Didn't have the most money growing up. We had section eight. We had the food stamps. Money was always tight growing up. My grandparents didn't work and my sister's younger than me, so it's not like she's going to be out there making money and I didn't work so I wasn't really out there making money, so money was always tight. And having that caddying job helped me get through a lot of time, helped me eat at school, helped me buy snacks at JRO TC which was JRO TC, had a little snack store and helped me get by. I also realized how peaceful golf is. You know we're going on a Saturday, sunday morning, beautiful weather, and it's just nice and calm. There's no noise, no extra, just peaceful. It's just very, very calming. And also I love getting paid same day. That's another thing. I love getting my money. I was in and I was out. If you're someone that's kind of struggling to find a job when you're younger, caddying usually in the summertime most places I always look for caddies and if you can find a good golf club to caddy for man, it can help change your life. That helped me a ton. You can probably get four caddying If you caddy for a group of four, you can make anywhere from 120 to 160. At least that's what I was making 120 or 160 to watch people swing golf clubs around. I didn't have to carry anything, I would just watch the ball, make sure the ball didn't get lost and then from there, if you're carrying a bag, you could probably make anywhere from like 60 on the low end to 120, 140 per bag, depending on where and who you're caddying for and so your caddy. You can mostly do two bags. You can make anywhere from 120 to 240, depending. Usually you get a lot more money carrying bags than you do for caddying. So it all depends on really where you go. But for me I used to for caddy and that's pretty much all I did and I loved it because I didn't have to carry anything and I would have good vision, so I'd never lose a ball. So that's pretty much how I got my first two jobs. Those really carried me out throughout high school and then in the next part of the series I'm going to let you guys know how I got fired in college at two in the morning and started dancing because I enjoyed it, and that is all pretty much all for this episode. I want you guys to know that, whatever it is, that first job is going to be game changing because it teaches you so much. Although I can't really remember for the counselor and training job, just having that job, just getting me started making money, got me going in the right direction, and then caddying definitely helped me out a ton in high school. So getting that first job, whatever it is, it's mainly for the experience to get you to start getting a little bit of money and feeling what that's like, to help you start getting time management, to being somewhere on time, to being punctual. There's so many things you learn from that first job. So for anyone that needs to get a first job and struggling as younger, caddying, try that. I definitely recommend it. And actually in the next episode I'm going to tell you guys how I got fired from my first job. I'll see you then.

You've now finished taking the first step. Now let us help you take the next one. Subscribe to our newsletter at walktowealthcom. That's Walk the Number Two, Wealthcom, so we can keep you moving on your journey. We'll see you on the next episode of Walk to Wealth with John Mendes.