It was a cold December night in Wisconsin, I was waiting for my pizza to be ready, so I jumped on an impromptu zoom call with some Discover Praxis Alumni. I’d jump on these calls from time to time if I had some downtime to meet new alum because I had made a commitment to growing my network. This call happened to be one that would be a defining factor in the coming year of 2020, and ultimately one of the most defining years of my life (so far).
On this call, I met alumni who recognized that I sounded like a “sales guy” and proceeded to ask me if I wanted a job in New York City as a Headhunter. In an instant, I recalled my uncle telling me a few weeks prior, “When opportunity knocks, answer because it won’t wait around.” Thinking of this idiom, I instantly recognized this as opportunity knocking, and said with enthusiasm “I’ve never thought of it, but yeah, let’s talk”. So, we connected on LinkedIn and lined up a time to chat the next week.
This call was the first in a series of meetings and interviews that ended up leading me to take a job with a different firm in New York City. In March, I packed my shit and moved to NYC. This was the first time I had ever moved away from the area I grew up in, meaning I had no safety net, no backup plan, it was “fuck or walk”.
I was 20 when I moved to NYC, on March 2nd, 2020, and while I knew a lot for a…
