The satisfaction of pulling a client back from the edge with the right pitch, the right tone, the right story.
I loved every part of it.
Some boys grow up wanting to be ballplayers or firefighters.
I grew up wanting to be like my Uncle Todd.
Todd was my mom’s older brother, all confidence and handshakes, the kind of man who could sell ice in a blizzard and somehow make you grateful for buying it.
He wore polished shoes, drove nice cars, and always smelled like aftershave and leather seats.
When I was ten, he took me with him one Saturday to a local fair where he was helping a small business owner promote a new booth.
He let me hand out flyers.
He taught me how to smile first and talk second.
He told me, “People don’t buy what you’re selling until they believe you see them.”
That sentence stayed with me for years.
By high school, I was designing posters for fundraisers, writing slogans for student events, and helping friends sell raffle tickets.
By college, I was studying business and communications while waiting tables at night.
After graduation, I started at the bottom.
Cold calls.
Lead lists.
Follow ups.
Tiny accounts nobody else wanted.
Rejection after rejection.
But I still believed one good opportunity could change a life.
Maybe not overnight.
But eventually.
That belief carried me through five difficult years at two different agencies, both smaller than they pretended to be, both constantly promising that the next quarter would finally bring the breakthrough.
Money never arrived as easily as I’d imagined when I was a kid staring at Uncle Todd’s shiny watch.
But I never stopped believing my turn would come.
And I worked like a man determined to earn it.
Emily used to joke that I had two speeds.
All in, and asleep.
She wasn’t wrong.
I was the first one at the office most mornings.
The last one to leave most evenings.
If they asked me to make one hundred calls, I made one hundred and twenty.
If a client needed revisions at nine at night, I handled them.
If a coworker dropped the ball, I picked it up.
Not because I was trying to be a hero.
Because that was who I had always been.
The problem was, somewhere along the way, I had started believing that being dependable meant never saying no.
I thought being reliable meant putting work first.
I thought responsibility meant making sure nobody at the office had a reason to question me.
Then a woman collapsed in my arms on the side of a highway.
And suddenly every belief I’d built my career around was being tested.
—
The next morning, I woke before my alarm.
For a few seconds, I forgot.
Then everything came back.
The job.
Nick.
