Heart and Hustle: What it takes to make it to the top. Patricia Bright
orders to houses. Yes, I knocked door to door offering a catalogue listing all the fancy utensils you didn’t know you needed! I’d do this during the school holidays, accompanied by a few other kids from the local area. I don’t know how legal it all was, but we were doing it anyway! The adult accompanying us was a neighbour, a well-respected man in the area who everyone liked, with that ‘Del Boy’ East London charm. Mum was happy to see that we were going out and earning some coin. And so we’d be dropped off from street to street, handing out catalogues one week, delivering orders and collecting payments the next. We earned a pittance in commission from every order that customers made. Despite that, if I worked all summer I could easily make £200 by the end of it, and as a kid that honestly felt like a lot of good, hard-earned money. I was proud.
In fact, I put those summers of work experience on my CV, which helped me to get my first ‘real’ job, in retail. I had just turned sixteen and was at sixth form when a shopping mall opened up nearby in Croydon. It was new and shiny with a super posh department store called House of Fraser. I remember writing up my CV, listing out my skills and of course jazzing up my work experience. All that knocking on doors had to count for something! It had helped me to develop my ‘customer service’ skills, I wrote. Packing up orders honed my ‘organisational skills’, while taking door-to-door cash payments was my ‘financial management’ experience. And just like that, I had myself a job. I’d leave school on a Thursday in my work uniform – occasion wear by Coast, the store I worked at in House of Fraser – so I’d be on the bus in my shiny satin skirt. It really was a look! My working hours were 6 p.m. till 10 p.m. every Thursday, all day Saturday, and occasionally a Sunday.
For the next four years, including part of my time at university, that was my routine. In all honesty, sometimes I hated it. Late-night Thursdays could drag, while in retail the customers are always right (even when they’re not! That’s just how it goes). Being on fitting-room duty wasn’t exactly stimulating, and I often found myself clock-watching. But despite not enjoying it much, it was my hustle at the time, and the company looked after me when I went to university in Manchester. There, I was transferred to Selfridges and when I needed to move again, they transferred me into their new sister store, Oasis. In all, I worked within that company for almost four years. It paid for a whole lot, and kept me busy and potentially out of trouble.
While I was at university in Manchester, I also went back to my secondary-school side hustle. Rather than the playground, my halls of residence and student accommodation were now my shop floor. By that point, I’d taught myself how to do weaves, extensions and even chemical relaxers. I wasn’t a trained salon professional (and I would never advise doing this; people should go to salons to have chemical treatments), but at-home relaxer kits were available and, growing up, I’d never gone to a professional salon to have my treatments. At university there were plenty of students who wanted their hair done, and I took full advantage of this. I had a set rate, the proper kit, and soon a new list of regular clients, some of who would even travel from other cities to see me. For every relaxer, weave or braids I did, I was earning £30, £40, £50 a time, matching what I could make at my part-time job in retail. Growing up, I’d had no idea that not having the money to go to the salon would turn out to be an advantage, forcing me to learn skills that would later help me earn money.
My first business failure
Mind you, my ventures didn’t always work out, because that’s the reality of life and business. Another side hustle I set up was a beauty community. I wanted to bring girls together who loved makeup but couldn’t afford the typical retail prices. I’d found a distributor online that sold MAC makeup and other well-known brands, and I honestly couldn’t believe the prices. While store prices were anywhere between £12 and £15 per eye shadow or lipstick, this guy had these same products on sale for £3. By anyone’s calculation it was a bargain. Even if I sold them for £9 each, I was going to make a profit, right?
So I spent my money on stock, investing a few hundred pounds, which was a lot for me at the time. I printed out flyers and organised a space at the student union for my event. Then, my stock came in. It looked great from afar, but on closer inspection all was not as it seemed. For a start, the spelling on the packaging was wrong: ‘MAC’ was spelt ‘NAC’. That wasn’t all. The labels on the backs of the items didn’t look like the labels on the products you could buy in store, and the colours were all off. I realised I had been ripped off. The products were trash and very, very fake. I learned that day, if something seems too good to be true, it probably is. I’d got burned, but I was also growing. Slowly but surely I was developing my skills as a ‘multi-hustler’ – someone with multiple sources of income.
Real-world expectations
I’d already been working, in one way or another, for years when I finished university. But that didn’t mean I was relaxed about the future. I want to take a moment to talk about my university experience – what I was doing when I wasn’t busy with all my jobs and side hustles! So let’s rewind for a second.
When I was at school, it had always been expected that I’d go to university, and, grades-wise, I did OK. In sixth form I studied biology, chemistry, psychology, business studies – all academic subjects, but when it came to applying any of these to real life, I didn’t want to. I wanted to study fashion! After all, it was my passion, right? I found a fashion and marketing university course, which got me super-excited. Initially my parents were a bit unsure about it: ‘Fashion? You don’t want to be a doctor or a lawyer?’ But I wasn’t deterred. It was full steam ahead (well, for a season at least!).
But early on in that course, I realised it wasn’t for me. I was hating it! My passion was fashion, but not in that context. I didn’t connect with the people on my course and, more importantly, I didn’t warm to the subject matter in the university setting. My expectations simply didn’t match reality. In one class, a group of us designed a single shirt with four seams. I thought, What the hell is this? I didn’t want to make clothes or cut out patterns. At the same time, I found out the graduate salary in the fashion industry at the time was around £10,000 to £12,000 a year – for a starter role at a huge sports brand, for example. I thought, Hold on, can that really be the salary after all these years, not to mention the cost, of university? Hell, no! I had a reality check: it was hard to understand how the salary could be that low, considering the effort and commitment I was going to put in. I remember thinking, This is not enough, especially for what I want to achieve for my future. I couldn’t risk continuing as a fashion student when I wasn’t sure if it would support me or my future family. I needed more security.
Some people are fortunate enough to have parents fund them when they’re getting started. I didn’t have that option. I wasn’t resentful, but I knew that I was going to regret it if I didn’t make a more financially stable choice for my future. In hindsight, my past-life experiences likely contributed to my craving for security. As it happened, one part of the fashion course I did enjoy and found fairly easy was the accounting module. The cogs were turning … I said to myself, You know what? I’m going to do accounting and finance.
The way I see it, life goes in seasons. I figured that if I stuck with the fashion course, it wasn’t going to set me up in the way that I wanted. So I switched, believing that afterwards I’d be able to get a better job, earn more money, and that would provide me with more freedom and opportunities. I wasn’t necessarily going to be an accountant all my life – and, I was right, that’s not what happened – but I wanted to give myself options. I didn’t necessarily love my new course, but I realised my mind really connected with the subject matter. I liked the spreadsheets and crunching numbers – I’m analytical. Changing my path was right for me.
I learned an important lesson through that. When you’re starting off, it’s important to find that sweet spot between your passion, your ability and what’s practical. You don’t have to start off in your dream job or career – most of us have got to pay the bills somehow, right? In the US, young workers now switch jobs on average four times in their first ten years after graduation.1 My approach is to think big, and take small steps.
LIFE LESSON: When it comes to life, it’s never a straight line – it’s more like a zigzag! Think of every experience, good and bad, as a stepping