Eventually, I made the move to America full time.

At first, I stayed with different family members, moving from one home to another like a guest who never fully unpacked.

Then my uncle took me in, and that’s when things began to shift.

He told me something I will never forget.

He said he was going to take me under his wing and save me from learning lessons the hard way.

He didn’t want me to be like so many immigrants who come to a new country, only to spend twenty years, sometimes more, figuring out things that could have been taught in the first few months.

His goal was to give me a shortcut, to hand me the knowledge most people earn through years of trial and error.

I remember how he would talk to me for hours, pouring everything he knew into me.

He wanted every word to stick.

One time, he went on for so long that I actually fell asleep, not because I didn’t care, but because my mind was working overtime trying to hold on to all the information.

That’s when the real culture shift began.

I went from the slow, easy rhythm of Jamaica — “Everything is alright, just relax yourself” — to the high-speed urgency of America, where everything felt like “Go, go, go, there’s no time to waste.”

To call it a culture shock doesn’t even scratch the surface.

And the rush of this new life didn’t help me figure things out any more than before.

If anything, it made things worse.

Now I was chained to a desk, a computer, and a phone for eight hours a day, my mind constantly racing but never arriving at clarity.

So after work, I searched for ways to quiet the noise in my head.

Sometimes that meant disappearing to go watch my favorite anime, DragonBall Z,

Other nights, I would sit at the piano and let my fingers wander across the keys until they told stories I couldn’t put into words.

Or sketch anime characters until the page seemed to move with life.

And when I needed to push my limits, I’d head to the gym, lifting weight and becoming stronger.

During the day, I worked as a telemarketer at an insurance company.

I handled every inbound call that came in, closed sales when I could, and on busy days I even jumped over to help with customer service.

Then at night, when most people were settling in at home, I was out in neighborhoods clearing garbage as a trash valet, just trying to make ends meet.

It was exhausting, but then something happened that lit a spark inside me.

One morning, during one of our daily meetings, our regional director stopped by the office.

He told us that in exactly two weeks we were going to be flooded with new leads because of a promotion they were running.

The way he said it was so matter-of-fact, as if he could see the future. I remember thinking, How could he possibly know that?

But almost like clockwork, two weeks passed and the phones lit up exactly as he predicted.

It was non-stop ringing.

I was stunned!

My mind was blown. It felt like I had just witnessed someone pull back the curtain on a hidden power that could shape the flow of business.

That was the day I realized there was a science behind attracting business.

And I wanted to know more.

I went home that evening and started searching online, trying to figure out how anyone could predict something like that.

I didn’t find the answer I was looking for, but as I dug deeper, I stumbled across these long, drawn-out, incredibly persuasive messages.

At the time, I didn’t even know what they were, but now I know they were sales pages.

Something about the way they were written pulled me in.

They didn’t just speak at you, they spoke into you, almost like they were inside your head, knowing exactly what to say to make you keep reading.

I found myself taking notes on how they were speaking, how they used the English language in ways I had never seen before — not in school, not in conversation.

It was like discovering a secret code for making words impossible to ignore.

I wanted to try it.

I wanted to speak like that.

But I had no idea where to begin.

And at my insurance job, there was no room for experimentation.

It was all “stick to the script” and nothing else.

So I tucked the idea away, not realizing just how much that spark would grow later.

No matter what job I took, there was always this fire in me to push further.

If I made a hundred calls one day, I wanted a hundred and fifty the next.

If I closed five sales in a week, I wanted ten the following week.

Even picking up garbage at night became a personal race against my own speed.

But with every extra call, every late shift, every sprint to beat the clock, I could feel the truth pressing down on me.

I wasn’t going to earn my way into the life I dreamed of by trading my hours for dollars.

The debt was growing.

The weight was getting heavier.

And deep down, I knew I needed something far bigger than just working harder.

Then one day, while wandering through YouTube, I stumbled across a video that would change everything.

It was about copywriting.

Persuasive writing that could sell products, ideas, and services with nothing but words.

I was hooked instantly.

I replayed the video again and again, not just hearing the words, but feeling them.

Right there, I made a decision.

This wasn’t going to be some hobby or passing interest.

This was going to be the hill I would die on. I was going to master this skill because I was in survival mode, and survival does not give you a plan B.

But then I hit a wall I didn’t even see coming.

It was one of those problems you don’t know exists until it’s staring you in the face.

I was on YouTube, watching a billionaire break down the state of the world and the financial mess it was in, when he suddenly said something that made me freeze.

He said, “Most people won’t get far in life because they don’t know how to talk.”

I remember thinking...

What ?!

I’ve been talking since I was 4 years old.

But then he broke it down.

He said filler words like “uhh” and “umm,” reversing sentences halfway through, and speaking without certainty in your tone… all of that costs you trust.

And trust is everything.

He said if you want to get better at speaking, you can either go into improv or join Toastmasters.

I thought about improv for two seconds and decided no, I didn’t want to be a comedian. Toastmasters it was.

Except at first, I laughed. Toastmasters?

Why would a bakery teach you how to speak?

I joined anyway, and it turned out to be a whole other world I didn’t even know existed.

They didn’t just teach me to talk… they taught me how to speak.

I learned how to project confidence, how to cut out those “uhhs” and “umms,” how to listen with intention, and how to respond with words that actually landed.

And because I’m naturally competitive, I didn’t just attend. I pushed myself to keep getting better.

I practiced, I refined, and I applied everything I was learning.

Before long, I found myself standing on stage in a Toastmasters competition… and I won first place.

On my birthday.

Winning that competition on my birthday felt incredible, but it wasn’t just about the trophy.

It was the realization that the people at Toastmasters had helped me unlock a skill that would change my life.

And the best part is that my persuasive copywriting skills were improving alongside my speaking skills every single week.

Together, they became the foundation for the communicator I am today.

Eventually, I wrapped up my time in marketing school and stepped into the real world, ready to land real clients.

I had my scripts, my plans, and my optimism… but I wasn’t prepared for the wall of rejection that was waiting for me.

I’d sit at the phone, making cold call after cold call, my voice was full of energy in the first hour, that energy dwindled down a little less in the second hour, and by the end of the day I was completely worn down.

Every “No” stung a little.

Every brush-off peeled away my confidence little by little.

Some people even thought I was a scammer.

Some hung the phone up in my ears and others just didn’t want to trust putting their business over to someone they didn’t know.

Slowly, I began to feel it, that creeping doubt.

That voice that said, “Maybe i’m just not cut out for this, maybe this wont work.”

Then it happened.

One of the people I reached out to said yes.

She owned a small, startup body sculpting business and was looking for someone to help her with a campaign on Instagram.

She trusted me with her project.

I remember feeling excited and nervous at the same time.

I didn’t want to fail her.

I didn’t want her to regret saying yes to me.

So I poured everything I had into that campaign.

Less than two weeks later, she had three new clients.

When she called me, she was so excited she could barely get her words out.

She said whatever I was doing was working because her phone was ringing non-stop and people were booking.

I was smiling on the outside, but inside my head, I was saying, “It worked?!”

It was a win-win.

She got new clients. I got the proof I needed to believe in myself again.

That was the moment my confidence started to grow back.

Not long after, I landed another client, a financial strategist.

She needed help with her marketing, and I stepped in with a few tweaks here and there.

In just a week or two, she closed multiple deals, picked up new referrals, and cleared over $10,000 in revenue… with recurring business still coming in.

When she told me the numbers, my jaw practically hit the floor.

I remember thinking, “WTF!”… is this sh*t for real?

I came home that day, dropped myself onto the couch, and just sat there in silence, letting it sink in.

I couldn’t believe it.

What I was doing was actually helping people.

Not just making them money, but helping them build something so that they could breathe easier.

From that day forward, I made myself a promise, I would never stop serving people.

I would keep looking for more problems I could solve for business owners.

Because now, I know that I wasn’t just running campaigns, I was actually making an impact.