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StumbleUponWhen I was 14, I was hired for an after-school job selling subscriptions to my hometown paper, the Houston Post. I was sent to some of the city's worst neighborhoods to solicit door-to-door. Even though I was often scrambling around after dark in bad areas searching for garage apartments, I was grateful for the work.
It was a challenge because people didn't like a stranger knocking on their door, especially a kid trying to get them to buy something. One time, a man slammed his door in my face and screamed, "I don't want no damn paper." I forced myself to knock again and was able to tell him how great the paper was. I ended up selling him a subscription. I was soon among the top subscription sellers and, like other successful salesmen, was given responsibility for training newcomers.
Around this time I started playing the harmonica and guitar. Before long I was playing in a band at chili cook-offs and other events. When I turned 18, I focused my attention on becoming a professional musician. I never lost sight of this dream. I'm sure my perseverance came from what I learned knocking on strangers' doors.
That experience helped me in many ways. Early in my music career I was locked in a legal dispute with a former manager. He pressured me to back off, but I refused.
Having all those doors slammed in my face as a kid gave me the strength to stand up to this intimidating figure. Except this time there was one difference: I was the one saying no. And I won.
Country singer Clint Black has sold more than 16 million albums.
The Camp Counselor
What did I learn at Camp Sharparoon? I still remember a number of really stupid cheers that are taking up valuable space in my brain that could be occupied by things like when exactly is my wife's birthday. Winiko-Winako-Winik-Winak-Wino-Maroon-Maroon-Sharparoon!
I was 17 and my job was to try to keep eight fairly active ten-, 11- and 12-year-olds from killing one another or themselves. Among other activities, I would take them camping in the woods outside Dover Plains, N.Y. I learned that if you are going to be in the woods for a couple of days, take frosted flakes. You can eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner, you don't have to cook them and they don't weigh as much as your meats and vegetables. I'll never touch another frosted flake as long as I live.
The camp was for low-income youngsters from New York City. I was a suburban kid, and a wonderful thing about the job was that it exposed me to different people: kids from the inner city and college students from exotic places like Minnesota.
Being out in the woods with the kids was a little scary. I suddenly realized these are actually somebody's children and I'm responsible for them. Not one of them to my knowledge ever died on me, although occasionally there were bee stings.
I found myself being an authority figure because I had to. On a camping trip we stopped at a lake to pitch our tents. I was the only white person in the group. We were swimming when these white kids in a motorboat began yelling racial taunts and trying to splash us. The assistant counselor and I had no choice but to warn them, "If you come anywhere near these kids, we've written down the number of your boat and we're going to call the cops."
They yelled more stuff but finally left. That experience was the biggest test of responsibility I had ever faced.
When I returned to high school after that first summer, it seemed a lot less intimidating than before. Plus, I had earned $375, which after trips to the camp candy store was down to eight cents' clear profit.
Dave Barry is a syndicated humor columnist with the Miami Herald. His column also appears in about 600 other newspapers.
The Parking-Lot Sweeper
Both my parents came from towns in Mexico. I was born in El Paso, Texas, and when I was four, my family moved to a housing project in East Los Angeles.
Even though we struggled to make ends meet, my parents stressed to me and my four brothers and sisters how fortunate we were to live in a great country with limitless opportunities. They imbued in us the concepts of family, faith and patriotism.
I got my first real job when I was ten. My dad, Benjamin, injured his back working in a cardboard-box factory and was retrained as a hairstylist. He rented space in a little strip mall and gave his shop the fancy name of Mr. Ben's Coiffure.
The owner of the shopping center gave Dad a discount on his rent for cleaning the parking lot three nights a week, which meant getting up at 3 a.m. To pick up trash, Dad used a little machine that looked like a lawn mower. Mom and I emptied garbage cans and picked up litter by hand. It took two to three hours to clean the lot. I'd sleep in the car on the way home.
I did this for two years, but the lessons I learned have lasted a lifetime. I acquired discipline and a strong work ethic, and learned at an early age the importance of balancing life's competing interests-in my case, school, homework and a job. This really helped during my senior year of high school, when I worked 40 hours a week flipping burgers at a fast-food joint while taking a full load of college-prep courses.
The hard work paid off. I attended the U.S. Military Academy and went on to receive graduate degrees in law and business from Harvard. Later, I joined a big Los Angeles law firm and was elected to the California state assembly. In these jobs and in everything else I've done, I have never forgotten those nights in the parking lot. The experience taught me that there is dignity in all work and that if people are working to provide for themselves and their families, that is something we should honor.
Louis Caldera was the 17th Secretary of the Army.
The Waitress
In 1973, when I was 22, three friends and I piled into a Ford Econoline van in my hometown of Chicago and started out across America. We ended up in Berkeley, Calif., where I got a job cutting down eucalyptus trees with a chain saw for $3.50 an hour.
But my first real long-term job was at a local diner called the Buttercup Bakery. I worked there for seven years and learned so many lessons, especially from a fellow waitress.
Helen was in her 60s and had red hair and incredible self-respect, something I was sorely lacking. I looked up to Helen because she was doing what she loved -- serving people -- and nobody did it better. She made everyone smile and feel good, customers and co-workers alike.
I also learned how important it is to take pride in life's little accomplishments. When I helped out in the kitchen, nothing made me feel better than putting two eggs on the grill, flipping them over easy, and serving them just the way the customer wanted.
Being a waitress changed my life. One of my regular customers was Fred Hasbrook, an electronics salesman. He always ate a ham-and-Monterey-Jack omelet, and when I saw him walking toward the diner, I tried to have it on his table as soon as he sat down.
Thanks to the newfound confidence I picked up from Helen, I dreamed of having my own restaurant. But when I called my parents to ask for a loan, they said, "We just don't have the money."
The next day, Fred saw me and asked, "What's wrong, sunshine? You're not smiling today." I shared my dream with him and said, "Fred, I know I can do more if somebody would just have faith in me."
He walked over to some of the other diner regulars and the next day handed me checks totaling $50,000 -- along with a note that I have to this day. It reads, "The only collateral on this loan is my trust in your honesty as a person. Good people with a dream should have the opportunity to make that dream come true."
I took the checks to Merrill Lynch -- the first time I had ever entered a brokerage house -- where the money was invested for me. I continued working at the Buttercup, making plans for the restaurant I would open. My investments soured, though, and I lost the money.
I found myself thinking about what it would be like to be a stockbroker. After great deliberation I decided to apply for a job at Merrill Lynch. Even though I had no experience, I was hired and ended up becoming a pretty good broker. Eventually I paid back Fred and my customers the $50,000, plus 14-percent annual interest. Five years later, I was able to open my own firm.
I got a thank-you note from Fred, which will be imprinted on my heart forever. He had been sick and wrote that my check had helped cover his mounting medical bills. His letter read, "That loan may have been one of the best investments that I will ever make. Who else could have invested in a counter 'girl' with a million-dollar personality and watch that investment mature into a very successful career woman. How few 'investors' have that opportunity?"
Suze Orman is a bestselling financial author whose books include "The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom" and "The Courage to Be Rich."
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