Some goals stay with you.
They may get delayed. They may get buried under responsibility, loss, or survival. But they never fully leave. For me, earning an MBA was one of those goals.
My journey toward an MBA began in 2000 at Hawaii Pacific University. I was an on-campus graduate student, excited about what was ahead. Like most students starting a new chapter, I had plans. I had ambition. I believed education would help shape the future I wanted to build.
At the time, I had no idea how much life would interrupt that path.
In 2005, I had to move back to Florida to care for my parents. My father’s alcoholism had placed enormous stress on my mother, and that stress led to her suffering a massive stroke. Everything changed. Graduate school was no longer the focus. Family was.
What followed was one of the hardest seasons of my life.
I stepped into the role of caregiver when it was needed most. Later, I also became my father’s caregiver during the last two years of his life. Those years were not part of the plan I had for myself, but they shaped me in ways no classroom ever could.
Caregiving teaches you things that are hard to explain unless you have lived it. It teaches patience when your heart is tired. It teaches strength when you do not feel strong. It teaches sacrifice, responsibility, and how to keep going when life gives you no easy options.
During that season, my education was put on hold. But my growth was not.
I learned how to carry pressure. I learned how to stay steady in chaos. I learned that leadership is not always visible. Sometimes leadership looks like showing up quietly, every day, for the people who need you most.
When that chapter ended, another began.
Over the next 15 years, I built GMM Creative as founder and CEO. What started as an idea grew into a seven-figure marketing agency. That journey became its own kind of graduate school. Entrepreneurship has a way of teaching lessons in real time. There is no pause button. There is no safe distance from the outcome. You learn by doing, by leading, by solving problems, by making mistakes, and by staying in the fight.
Building GMM Creative taught me strategy, sales, leadership, client service, and resilience. It taught me how to create value and how to lead through uncertainty. It also gave me the chance to help businesses grow, which made the work meaningful.
For years, that company was the result of everything I had worked for.
Then it came to a sudden stop.
A botched acquisition brought the business to a painful halt. The fallout was severe enough that I had to shut the agency down. Anyone who has ever built something from nothing understands what that kind of loss feels like. It is not just financial. It is personal. A business carries your time, your energy, your identity, and your belief in what is possible.
Losing it hurt.
But sometimes life clears the ground before the next chapter can begin.
In the middle of that disruption, I made a decision that had been waiting for years. I went back to school to pursue my MBA at Southern New Hampshire University.
That decision meant more to me than simply returning to school. It was unfinished business. It was a promise to myself. It was a chance to complete something I had started years earlier, before life asked me to become something else for a while.
One of the things I loved most about the MBA program was the project-based coursework. It matched how I learn best. I have always believed education is strongest when it connects directly to real work and real decisions. I also appreciated taking one course at a time. That format allowed me to focus deeply, absorb more, and give each class my full attention.
This time around, I was not just a student with ambition. I was a student with life experience. I brought family hardship, caregiving, entrepreneurship, success, and failure into the classroom with me. I was older, wiser, and more focused. I knew exactly why I was there.
That focus paid off.
I completed the MBA program with a 4.0 GPA.
That accomplishment meant a lot to me, not just because of the grade point average, but because of what it represented. It was proof that delayed does not mean denied. It was proof that a dream can survive interruption. It was proof that even after years of detours, loss, and rebuilding, you can still finish strong.
Earning my MBA was not the end of the story. It became the bridge to something new.
Now I am working toward my second Master of Science, this time in Digital Marketing. In many ways, this next degree brings together everything I have done so far. It combines academic research with years of hands-on experience in marketing. It allows me to keep learning in a field that is always changing. And it gives me the chance to study questions that have real value for real businesses.
Beginning with my first course, I started working on a research study titled:
From Likes to Leads: Comparing Instagram vs Facebook Organic Content That Drives Message Leads for Plumbing Businesses (Reels vs Static Posts)
The research question behind the study is one I believe matters deeply:
For plumbing businesses using organic Instagram and Facebook, which post types and calls to action generate the highest rate of message-based leads, and does performance differ by platform, Instagram vs Facebook, and format, Reels vs static posts, when controlling for reach?
This matters because too many businesses get stuck chasing vanity metrics. Likes, views, and reach can feel good, but they do not always translate into real business results. I want to help answer a more useful question: what kind of organic content actually leads to customer conversations?
For plumbing businesses and other home service companies, message-based leads can be a meaningful signal of buyer intent. If social media is going to be worth the effort, it should do more than get attention. It should help drive action.
That is the purpose behind this work.
I also plan to publish the results of this study as a book on Amazon. That matters to me because it extends the work beyond the classroom. I want the research to be useful, practical, and accessible. I want it to help business owners and marketers make better decisions.
When I look back on my journey toward an MBA, I do not see a straight line. I see a path shaped by duty, heartbreak, hard work, business growth, painful loss, and renewal. I see years where survival came before ambition. I see seasons that tested me. I see chapters that taught me more than I wanted to learn, but exactly what I needed to understand.
Most of all, I see proof that it is never too late to return to a goal that still matters.
My journey toward an MBA started in 2000, but the real story is bigger than that degree. It is a story about resilience. It is a story about starting over. It is a story about choosing growth after loss. And it is a story that is still being written.
I am proud of how far I have come.
But I am even more excited about what comes next.
Nick, Founder & CEO of Wiener Squad Media
Nick is the visionary founder and CEO of Wiener Squad Media, based in Orlando, FL, where he passionately supports Republican, Libertarian, and other conservative entrepreneurs in building and growing their businesses through effective website design and digital marketing strategies. With a strong background in marketing, Nick previously ran a successful marketing agency for 15 years that achieved seven-figure revenue before an unfortunate acquisition led to its closure. This experience fueled his resolve to create Wiener Squad Media, driven by a mission to provide outstanding digital marketing services tailored specifically for conservative-owned small businesses.
Holding a Master of Science in Marketing from Hawaii Pacific University (2003), Nick is currently furthering his education with an MBA to enhance his problem-solving skills and ensure that past challenges don’t repeat themselves. He firmly believes in the marathon approach to business growth, prioritizing sustainable practices over quick fixes like investor capital. Committed to employee welfare, Nick maintains a starting wage of $25 per hour for his staff and caps his own salary at $80,000 plus bonuses.
At Wiener Squad Media, our values are based on the Five Pillars of Giving – protecting the First and Second Amendments, Sanctity of Life, supporting our military, veteran, and first responder heroes, and making sure no shelter dog is left behind by finding each one a forever home. At Wiener Squad Media, we are not just about success but also about making a positive impact on society while achieving it.
Outside of work, Nick is an avid political activist who engages in discussions supporting conservative values. He volunteers at local animal shelters, participates in pet adoption events to help find all unwanted dogs a forever home. Committed to nurturing the next generation of entrepreneurs, Nick dedicates time to coaching and mentoring other aspiring conservative business owners, sharing his wealth of knowledge and experience in the industry.
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