Nothing Is Wasted If You're Paying Attention

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Nothing is wasted if you're paying attention.

Back in 2007, I couldn't wait to start my career in public relations. I had big dreams of event planning, media spotlights, and sharing my ideas with the world.

Fresh out of Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, I moved an hour south to Indianapolis, certain I would land my dream job in the big city. For a young woman who had rarely left her hometown of Fort Wayne, it felt huge. I graduated as an honor scholar athlete with two internships under my belt, and I thought I was ripe for the picking.

They told me the path was reliable: get the degree, land the entry-level job, climb the ladder. The degree itself was a ticket to play, but getting in the door was just the beginning. That degree didn't teach me how to navigate office politics, recognize red flags, or build a career that actually fit my life. It was the entry fee, nothing more.

I graduated on the cusp of a recession. The economy collapsed just as my classmates and I were launching into adulthood. Hiring freezes swept through every industry. I came to learn that entry-level did not mean what I thought. Most jobs wanted upwards of five years of experience. My network was small enough to count on one hand. So I did what you do when you're young and scared and bills are piling up. I adjusted the plan.

Fate stepped in when Nordstrom called. I still remember what I wore to that interview: a red silk button-down with black dress pants and matching stilettos. I had chosen the outfit carefully, manifesting my future and channeling Anne Hathaway from The Devil Wears Prada. When the manager offered me the role in women's intimates and athletics, I was so proud just to be considered. I never expected to add certified bra fitter to my résumé.

At first, I told myself it was temporary, a placeholder. But the women in that department changed something in me. Some had been there twenty years. They knew customers by name, remembered birthdays, asked about kids and grandkids. Their job wasn't transactional. It was relational. They weren't just selling bras. They were creating trust, offering dignity, making women feel seen.

I stopped thinking of the work as wrong for me. I started thinking of it as training I hadn't known I needed. The skills I gained weren't the ones on my résumé. They were the ones I was building in a job I had never wanted.

Then the recession hit full force. Commission checks dropped from $2,000 every two weeks to $800. I lived off bagels and rice for months in my cozy downtown apartment that I shared with a high school friend. Eventually I had to leave. But that year taught me that every role matters, even the ones you never planned for. That dignity isn't determined by your title. It's determined by how you show up.

The job search that followed was brutal. I applied to anything I could that would pay. Navigating the workforce was still new to me, and I didn’t know how to be strategic about it yet. When an alternative news magazine called about an account representative position, I didn't hesitate. 

The office was very cool, creative types with strong opinions and stronger coffee, but the work was revenue-driven: numbers on a board, quotas, cold calls until someone hung up on you. The rejections piled up until they stopped feeling personal. It was another job. Another moment of thinking this couldn't be what I had worked for.

About six months in, I cold called a massive gym and ended up speaking with the manager, a former NFL player who had bought into the facility. We talked about ad placements, and somewhere in the conversation he asked if I would ever consider working for him as a sales director. After a couple of follow-on conversations, he offered to take me to dinner at a high-end steakhouse downtown. I went, thinking it was a professional opportunity. The meal itself was fine. But after that night, things changed.

He started asking to hang out outside of work, and one night I said yes. I'm still not sure why. Maybe desperation, maybe loneliness, maybe the hope that this connection could turn into something legitimate for my career. He came over, but I made sure a friend was there with me. Some part of me knew not to be alone with him, even if I couldn't articulate why. When he left, there was a $50 bill on my kitchen counter. I stared at it for a long time. It was survival money. I felt the pull toward relief on one side and shame on the other, knowing what leaving money implied, what he thought this was. Later that evening, he sent me a text message and invited me over for a massage in her apartment. That solidified the uncertainty I was feeling.

I called my parents to explain the situation. My dad showed up the next morning. He took me out to lunch and just listened. Per the guidance of a family friend and police officer, I texted the manager that I would not be taking the job and that my dad didn’t think it was a good move. His reply was fast and defensive. It confirmed what I already knew. He wasn’t interested in my potential as an employee. He was interested in other things. Within days, I was packing my apartment and moving home to Fort Wayne.

The floor dropped out. I felt like I had failed at everything: my career, my independence, my ability to navigate the world as an adult. It took me months, if not years, to accept that it wasn't my fault. It wasn't the way I dressed. It wasn't my kindness being mistaken for flirting. It was him. He saw a vulnerable young woman and aimed to take advantage. I once thought moving home was a failure. Now I see it as self-preservation. I'm grateful I had a place to run to. Many women don't.

After settling in at my parents' house, I landed a job as a server at a local Italian restaurant to pay bills while I figured out what was next. The service industry is hard work: taking orders, managing difficult customers, staying on your feet for hours. Moving home at twenty-three felt like admitting defeat. All my college friends were building careers in big cities, posting photos from happy hours and work events. I was back in my childhood bedroom, serving pasta to people I'd gone to high school with, hating everything about it.

I spent a lot of nights out with friends I’d met at the restaurant I worked at trying to find my answer in dark rooms with loud music. I was looking for something. Validation, distraction, proof that I was still young and free and not failing at everything. But you can't find direction at the bottom of a glass or in the attention of strangers who don't know your story. Some part of me knew the nights out were just noise covering up the work I needed to do. The real work of figuring out who I was and what I actually wanted, not just what I thought I was supposed to want.

After about six months, and more applying into what felt like an empty void, I was offered a position as a fundraising coordinator at a local nonprofit. A small but mighty team supporting children with muscular disabilities. A strong female-led organization, which was exactly what I needed. What I didn't expect was how much helping others navigate challenges far more difficult than my own would heal me. When you're helping others, you stop drowning in your own struggles. For the first time since graduation, I felt like I was moving toward something instead of just filling a gap.

I was building my foundation, even if I couldn't see the whole picture yet. Each role, each experience was contributing to a direction I didn't fully understand. The skills from Nordstrom, how to read people, how to build trust, carried me through every job after. The gut instinct I developed after the gym manager incident protected me in future situations and taught me to listen when something felt off. Waitressing taught me resilience, and taught me to never look down on someone serving my table. The fundraising work taught me how mission-driven organizations operate, what they need, where the gaps are, and where I am destined to serve. 

Most jobs are like that, in my experience. You take what you learned and leverage it for the next position. Nothing is wasted if you're paying attention.

The gym manager wasn't the last difficult encounter I would have in the workforce. There would be many more. Tears would be shed, caused by men and women both. But with each experience I learned, I grew, I became more resilient and more confident. And along the way, I found my people. The leaders doing good work, building a more equitable workforce, striving for positive change, dedicated to making opportunity more accessible and feasible for all of us.

I'm stronger today because of all of it. Not in spite of the recession, the cold calls, the $50 on my counter, the nights I spent looking for answers in the wrong places; because of them. Every one of those experiences sharpened my instincts and clarified what I would and wouldn't tolerate. They taught me what kind of workplaces I wanted to build and be part of, and what kind I would walk away from without apology.

Now I'm a mother of three daughters, and I think about the workforce they'll inherit. I think about the young woman I was at twenty-three, certain she had failed, with no framework for understanding that the system was never built to support her in the first place. I don't want them to learn what I learned the hard way. I want them to walk in already knowing their worth, already trusting the voice that says something is off.

That's why this work matters to me. Helping people connect the dots between everything they've done and where they're trying to go isn't just a service I offer. It's personal. I know what it feels like to do everything right and still end up in your childhood bedroom wondering where it all went wrong. I know what it takes to claw your way back. And I know that the strain so many of us feel, especially parents trying to build meaningful careers without losing their families in the process, isn't a personal failing. It's structural. It's a design problem. And design problems can be solved.

So I keep building. For my daughters, for the next generation, and for everyone still standing in the middle of the mess, certain they're the only one who hasn't figured it out yet. You're not failing. You're paying attention. And nothing you're living through right now is wasted.

Adopted from Erin Gregory’s memoire,  Living on Purpose.