Ad Age is marking Black History Month 2024 with our fourth-annual Honoring Creative Excellence package. (Read the introduction here.) Today, SoFi Copywriter Kai Fields shares his thoughts on arriving at “a career that I thought was actively evading me.” 

I was never supposed to get into advertising, and that’s not by any fault of my own. Twelve years of public school, a semester of college and eight years of hustling between jobs never unveiled to me the viable career path of copywriting that could pay me well above a living wage, make my mother proud and allow me to be as creative as my heart desired.

Left to my own devices, I would have made a career of wandering down the road less traveled, searching for a way to make a buck off of my ideas. Growing up, I had dreams of creating culture, but in the back of my mind, I felt that the roadmap to that future was not something I would be able to easily access, despite my determination and talent.

Over the years, I found the occasional unpaid opportunity. I wrote for random lifestyle blogs and online music newsletters, eventually working my way to an internship at The Source, writing the “Today in Hip Hop History” column. I jumped at any chance to step in the creative professional direction, splitting my time (and my wallet) trying to keep my dream from drowning and get my foot in a door that I had never seen for myself. But I was treading water. And when my head began to barely break the surface for air, I was ready to let my aspiration of being a real-life writer succumb to the waves.

But suddenly, the tides changed.

An opportunity to change my circumstances was floated my way by a friend who simply did not have time to fill out the application. “Why don’t you quit your job and start working toward something you want to do full-time?” was the piece of advice that transformed into a beam of light leading me back to shore. Waiting for me on dry land was an internship that would change everything for me.

Following that advice, I applied for the BLAC advertising internship program without any expectations. I barely went to college and believed that, at 28, I had aged out of any large-scale investments in my future meant for new graduates—but that was the imposter syndrome thinking for me.

During the initial week, I was introduced to the first mentors I ever met who genuinely wanted to hand over the keys to their industry. From my placement at Haymaker to the conversations shared in panel discussions with executives and industry leaders, I could tell there was not only a space for me at this table, but there were people who had already eaten who had set my place.

Working this internship put the battery in my back to chase after a career that I thought was actively evading me. It challenged me to believe that the skills I picked up blindly following my passions were transferable and applicable in an industry that had been actively gatekept from “outsiders” like me for centuries.

I am a Black man who comes from a single-parent home without a college degree or family members of influence to put me in a position to win. As far as I was concerned, the corporate table was across the room from where I sat, until I took a chance on myself and found people willing to reach back for me with the resources I needed to climb ahead. Their wisdom and willingness to share paid for my seat at a table where I now dine comfortably.

When my time comes to pass the plate, I will surely do the same.