I kicked away from the desk, resisted an urge to punch the wall, and rubbed my knuckles into the side of my forehead.
My brain buzzed from the pressure, felt like it would explode. Like no way out.
In that stuffy back office, it seemed like the walls crept inward, squeezing, stifling. I tugged at my scratchy uniform, sweaty, but I wasn’t sweating because of it. I was sweating because my wheels were spinning.
I didn’t know what to do.
In 2017, I had lost my dream career (teaching taekwondo) and found myself down bad working as a security officer for $12/hour. I had no other professional skills and my degree was unfinished.
I was broke as a joke, but it gets worse. My family was in financial crisis, careening straight toward homelessness and worse.
I needed money desperately, and I needed it fast as humanly possible.
Snatching my radio and security gear, I jumped up and went on a foot patrol. Walking always clears my mind and my route led my outside, where I could cool off a bit and get some fresh air.
Sure enough, it did the trick. By time I got back and sat down to watch the CCTV cameras, I had decided to learn a new skill and change into a more lucrative career, no matter what it took.
After a bit of soul-searching and Google research, I set my sights on digital marketing, specifically Search Engine Optimization (SEO), as a realistic career change. The barrier to entry seemed low enough, I found it interesting, and it had some overlap with a skillset I already possessed (writing).
For the next several months, I devoured every article, YouTube video, and podcast I could find on SEO. I had a $0 budget, so I had to rely entirely on 100% free resources—thankfully including awesome zero-cost certificates from HubSpot Academy and Google’s learning platform.
I had no money, but I did have a secret weapon: I’d been studying educational psychology and learning theory both in school and independently.
Traditionally—normally—the learning process for a new career takes many, many years of education and preparation.
A relevant college degree
Internships
Stretched internal experience
Months- and years-long credentialing
Artificial, ineffective learning strategies like obscene amounts of rote repetition
This process demanded time and monetary resources I didn’t have.
I put these principles in action speed learning SEO and the basics of digital marketing. I started using free but important tools, exploiting free trials for paid tools, signing up to monthly courses, raiding the lessons and quitting before the next billing period…
…and then I started a site of my own and ranked that #1 for “taekwondo basics.”
Then a friend of mine started a self-defense instruction business. I volunteered my new skills and ranked that website #1 on Google for “self defense instructor.”
Armed with this hacked-together experience, I started seeking a job with a real company. 100+ resume submissions later, tortuous months of waiting, I got a call, an interview, another interview…
Ghosted.
Weeks passed.
A third interview…
and finally a job offer: SEO Account Coordinator.
It was the bottom of the food chain, but I could work with that. It earned me a $10,000/year salary raise.
And my foot was in the door now.
I kept repeating my initial skill learning process
If you look at the timeline and ignore the layoff scare, I rapidly gained a promotion and another $10k salary bump. Things seemed good now…
And then suddenly all my clients were disappearing to our other office, half way across the country.
Lay off was imminent (AGAIN). My boss wouldn’t say it exactly, but she was leaving hints, and becoming increasingly scarce…
I saw the writing on the wall.
Then I got a call from a recruiter, and beat out 60+ applicants to win an SEO analyst position with a massive fortune 50 company and an additional $30,000 yearly salary boost.
Against an endless torrent of chaos and bad luck, I applied the science of skill learning to hack the system and get ahead.
You can, too. Subscribe to Skillwave and I’ll teach you how.
