Twenty-five years ago, one of my first jobs after moving to Chicago was making popcorn at Union Station.
I remember the setup. Early mornings to prep the machines. The rush hour window, maybe two hours where everything moved at full speed, commuters with 30 seconds before their train left, no patience for anything slow. Then cleanup and restocking before it happened again the next day. Repeat.
The owner ran the place with fear. Every mistake became a scene. The culture was tense, the kind of tense where you watch your coworkers’ faces before you say anything. If you have seen The Devil Wears Prada, you know the general energy. In a popcorn stand at a train station.
But I do not regret a minute of it.
I learned things there I still use. How to stay composed when everything is moving fast and the customer in front of you has no margin for error. How to read people quickly. How to keep a good attitude in a bad environment. Not because the environment deserved it, but because my attitude was the only thing I could control.
On weekends, I worked at an I.T. store. That was deliberate. I had spent eight years building technical knowledge back in Buenos Aires. My mother, my brother, and I had started a computer business there when I was thirteen. Moving to a new country does not erase experience, but it can stall it if you let it. I did not want to let it. So I kept the I.T. work going on weekends while the popcorn paid the weekday bills.
That combination, staying sharp in the field you want while doing whatever it takes in the meantime, is something I think about when I talk to other immigrant business owners. Nobody hands you the path. You build it out of whatever is available.
Today I took the train home and made a stop. I bought the cheese and caramel mix I used to make for other people. Stood there for a moment. It was a small thing, but it carried a lot.
Twenty-five years is a long time. I went from that popcorn cart to co-owning CIO Landing, a managed I.T. services company in the Chicago area that works with small and mid-size businesses. I run the business day to day. I am a member of EO Chicago. And I am more curious now than I was when I landed here.
The version of me making popcorn at Union Station was doing the same thing I am doing now. Not waiting for the right conditions. Showing up, learning, and staying ready for the next step.
One motto I come back to is #KeepLearning. Not as a slogan. As a description of what I actually do. The pace of change right now is real. New tools every week. AI moving faster than most people can track. The FOMO can eat you if you let it. I have felt it.
But I treat it like a marathon. What I pick up today does not pay off today. It compounds. The eight years in Buenos Aires paid off when I walked into that I.T. store on weekends. Those weekend shifts paid off when I had the knowledge to grow into something bigger. Every deliberate thing I am learning right now is paying into something I will not fully see for years.
Twenty-five years from now, I will look back at today the same way I looked back at that popcorn stand this afternoon. With the same nostalgia. And knowing I enjoyed the moment while I was in it.
That is the goal. Not just to arrive somewhere. To be present for the distance it takes to get there.