No Job Was Wasted: What My $7-an-Hour Jobs Taught Me About Money and Worth

People see where I am now: by 28, a multi-six-figure earner with a lead role in big tech and an MBA. What they don't see is the bagel shop at 6 a.m., the slammed doors, or the overnight shifts teaching English before my day job.

I used to think those jobs were the "before." Now I know they were the training. No job was wasted.

I call what each one gave me a soul receipt. Every job pays you three things, whether you notice or not:

• The skill: what it trained you to do.
• The mirror: what it reflected back about how you saw yourself at the time.
• The soul lesson: why your soul put you there.

Here are a few of mine.

Megan's Goodies, age 13

My first business. I baked out of my family's kitchen with one oven, after sports practice and band: brownies, chocolate-covered pretzels and strawberries, pizza cupcakes. I posted tomorrow's menu on Facebook, people messaged to reserve, and I delivered in the school halls.

The skill: sales, pricing, delivering on a promise. The soul lesson: I could create money myself, and keep it, before I'd ever heard the word manifestation. Entrepreneurship showed up early for a reason.

Door to door, age 16

I knocked on doors in neighborhoods I'd never seen, asking strangers to support a cause, paid on commission. My first check ever was $555 for one week. I gave $55 of it to a family member in need, and I was so happy mailing that check.

The skill: talking to every kind of person, and hearing "no" over and over and knocking anyway. I call it rejection therapy. The soul lesson: this job put me on my soul path. I realized I love people, conversations and stories.

The bagel shop, $7 an hour

The day after my high school graduation, I started the opening shift at a bagel shop. 6 a.m. Cash, fast. The owner looked down on the people who worked for him, and one morning he made me feel smaller than I'd ever felt.

The skill: discipline, speed, and showing up when it's hard. The mirror: this is where I learned what I now teach as the Law of Reflections. That summer I saw myself as small and unlucky, and my life kept reflecting it back. He wasn't the cause. He was the mirror.

Starbucks, 5 a.m. before class

Opening shifts before college classes, smelling like coffee. I won a competition for the fastest drinks in New York.

The skill: efficiency, resilience, connecting with people quickly. The mirror: I was proving my worth through output. Fastest, most disciplined, nobody could out-work me. It took me years to learn that being the hardest worker in the room is not the same thing as being valued in it.

Overnight English teacher

After college, I was a data analyst by day and taught English online overnight, to pay off debt. I set up a real classroom behind me, ran on espresso, and was fully booked.

The skill: explaining anything simply. If you can teach a five-year-old who speaks a different language, you can teach anyone. The soul lesson: I'm a teacher now because of those nights.

Pull your own soul receipts

You don't have to have worked in a bagel shop for this to apply to you. Server, cashier, caregiver, assistant, intern, the job you'd rather not put on LinkedIn: it all counts.

Try this with one job from your past:

1. What skill did it pay you? Be specific. Not "customer service." What could you do after that you couldn't do before?
2. What did it mirror? How did you see yourself then, and how did that job reflect it back?
3. What was the soul lesson? If everything was working out perfectly, why would your soul have put you there?

Look back at everything you've been through and see the perfection in it. Every customer interaction, every bad manager, every early alarm trained you for something you're doing now.

Watch Soul Receipts

I walk through every job I've had, with the skill, the mirror and the soul lesson for each, plus the energy tools I wish I'd had along the way, in my recorded masterclass.

Soul Receipts: No Job Was Wasted · $88 →

Not ready yet? Start with the free Brag Book and begin collecting your receipts from the job you're in right now. ♡

— Megan