As a kid, Jack Cowin shoveled snow, delivered newspapers and sold Christmas cards for cash. By the time he reached his 20s, it was burgers instead of cards. Fast forward to today: The 82-year-old is a billionaire, thanks to his fast food empire.

Cowin is the founder and chairman of Competitive Foods Australia, the company that operates Burger King as “Hungry Jack’s” in Australia. He is also the largest shareholder of Domino’s Pizza in Australia, and backs a plant-based meat substitute company called v2food.

Before founding Hungry Jack’s, Cowin was responsible for bringing Kentucky Fried Chicken to Australia in 1969. Then in 2013, he sold off his KFC franchise of 55 stores in a deal worth about $71 million, according to a representative at Competitive Foods Australia.

Today, his business is worth over $3 billion and brings in over $300 million a year, Cowin told CNBC Make It.

Growing up in Canada, Cowin realized early on that he wanted freedom in life. His father was an employee at the Ford Motor Company and was required to travel frequently for work.

“He had a phone call one day, you’re going to Brazil, or you’re going to Mexico, or things like this … When you work for a big corporation, the corporation decides where you’re going to be, [and] what you’re going to do,” Cowin said.

“And as a kid, I wanted to have the freedom to do what I wanted to do. I think I saw that relatively early, because [I saw that] dad’s on the treadmill of here, there and everywhere,” he said. He didn’t want to be at the “whims and beckon call of a corporation.”

So as a child, Cowin spent his time outside of school mowing lawns and delivering newspapers. “I never had to ask for money as a kid,” he said. “I was a sales guy from very early, like 8 or 10 years old.”

By the time college rolled around, Cowin was going from farm to farm selling “trees, shrubs and nursing stock,” he said. He was so successful at it that he was making $8,000 a year while his university professors were making only $5,000 a year, he said.

He graduated with a bachelor’s degree from the University of Western Ontario in 1964, and went on to get a job selling life insurance he said he was very good at.

“I had a reputation of being someone that could sell,” he said.

By the late 1960s, Cowin had begun to settle down in Canada with his wife and his first child when he one day received a phone call from a couple of high school friends.

His friends had landed a job with the American Kentucky Fried Chicken company and were sent to Australia to do some market research about whether they should expand into the country.

“Since my father had been there [for work], and I was the only guy … that knew where Australia was on a map … they phoned me up and said: ‘You should be down here. You should come and see this.’ So without a moment’s notice, I’m on a plane and I fly to Australia,” Cowin said.

Cowin landed in Australia in February 1969, and spent three weeks there helping his friends conduct research — ultimately finding that there was indeed a market for fast food in Australia.

“At that stage of the game, the restaurant business in Australia was fish and chip shops, Chinese restaurants and fancy white tablecloth restaurants,” he said. Meanwhile, McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC and other fast food restaurants were all rising in popularity in North America.

“So at the end of the three weeks, I pay $1,000 as a deposit on a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise [and] if the American company is going to open a store, then I was going to have a 10 store franchise,” he said.

Six months later, he received a phone call saying that the American KFC company agreed to expand into Australia and Cowin had the opportunity to own his first franchise location. But he didn’t have the funds, so he started raising money.

Imagine this “kid comes into your office and says he wants to borrow $10,000, which is probably about $100,000 today or more … he’s got no experience in the business, no interest on your money … how long before you throw him out of your office for wasting your time?”

“The biggest break I’ve had in my life was … I got on my bike and I got 30 Canadians to lend me $10,000 each, so got $300,000,” he said. “Otherwise I’d still be shoveling snow in Canada. I hadn’t had the finances back then.”

By December 1969, Cowin moved his family to Perth, Australia, where he opened his first KFC franchise. “It was like drilling oil and hitting oil on your first wildcat well, because it was a booming success,” he said.

“Then, you open two more, you get into the hamburger business, you get into the pizza business, you get into the food manufacturing business, and today, that business is a $3 billion business and makes $300 million a year.”

Today, Cowin owns 98% of his company while the other 2% is held by some of his original investors and shareholders, he said. “That original $10,000 is $40 million at book value [today]. So everybody’s got their money back, and those that stayed in have done increasingly well,” he said.

When asked what his secret to sales is, he said, “I think the secret is, whatever you do, do it well … The people that lent me the money really backed me as the investment. I was the investment.”

″And an expression [I have is] when you can’t tell the difference between work and play, you’re in the right place … I’ve never really worked a day in my life because I’ve enjoyed it.”

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Forget a Kitchen-Aid mixer. Snoop Dogg surprised his daughter, Cori Broadus, with a $1 million gift ahead of her upcoming wedding, the rapper said during a recent appearance on “The Jennifer Hudson Show.”

Snoop Dogg explained how he would take advantage of the gift if the roles were reversed. “If it was me, my wedding would have been $100 [thousand], and $900 [thousand] would have went in my pocket,” he said.

Although a seven-figure wedding gift isn’t in the cards for most of us, Snoop Dogg’s suggestion for handling a financial windfall — spending 10% on fun and saving 90% for the future — checks out, financial experts say. 

“Snoop Dogg’s comment highlights the importance of prioritizing long-term financial stability over immediate gratification, which is solid advice,” says Maria Castillo Dominguez, a certified financial planner and founder of Valoria Wealth Management. 

That goes for anyone who comes into any unexpected sum of money, she says, no matter the size of the windfall. 

If you receive money unexpectedly, it can be tempting to envision yourself spending on a whole new lifestyle. In reality, you’d be better off putting money toward your long established goals, experts say.

So before you do anything with your money, experts advise that you first give yourself a moment.

“Take a pause before making any decisions,” says Catherine Valega, a CFP and founder of Green Bee Advisory. “Don’t do anything rash,” such as buying your “long-lost cousin a new car when they come out of the woodwork to ask for it,” if word gets around that you’ve come into extra cash.

Once you’ve composed yourself, Dominguez suggests asking yourself a simple question: What have I been wanting to do if I had more money? For many, it’s buying a home, paying off your mortgage, starting an emergency fund or getting out of credit card debt. 

By carefully thinking through your next steps, you can make the most of your extra money.

“Setting clear goals and even consulting a financial planner can help ensure the windfall works for you over the long term,” says Dominguez. With the right guidance, a windfall can be an opportunity to generate even more money for yourself and build happiness that lasts. 

A financial planner can take your specific situation and design an individualized plan for your extra cash. 

“Everybody should work with a financial planner,” says Valega. “We know how to prioritize your extra funds.”

Whether it’s in the form of a tax refund, a holiday bonus or an unexpected lottery jackpot, a windfall can provide a huge boost to our bottom line when we least expect it. And the ability to use that money to make a better life for yourself is cause for celebration, says Dominguez.

After you’ve identified your goals, using a portion of your extra money to treat yourself is within reason. Having a plan for your money can help make sure you keep your celebratory spending reasonable, she says. After all, treating yourself shouldn’t infringe on the success of your long-term plans. 

“It’s important to strike a balance,” Dominguez says. “Celebrating life’s milestones is valuable, but aligning spending with overall financial goals ensures sustainability.”

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Meredith Tabbone lives in Chicago, but for the last five years, she’s spent countless hours and nearly half a million dollars to build her dream home in Italy.

It all started in early 2019 when Tabbone learned about a town in Italy, Sambuca di Sicilia, that was auctioning off abandoned properties starting at 1 euro, or roughly $1.05.

At the same time, Tabbone, who works as a financial advisor, was deep into researching her family history. She had just traced her great-grandfather back to the same Sicilian town before he started a new life in America.

The coincidence was “too good to be true,” and she took it as a sign to place a bid.

A few months later, Tabbone became the owner of the 1-euro home. She also bought the building next door and got to work managing a local crew on the massive renovation.

Today, Tabbone, 45, uses her Sicily property as a vacation getaway, and she says it feels like a primary residence. The home includes two primary bedrooms, two guest bedrooms, a kitchen with modern finishes, a large dining room with a gallery wall of photography, a library, a living room, a dry-heat sauna and two terraces, including one with a pizza oven and outdoor dining area.

In all, she spent roughly $475,000 on her Italian dream home.

While bids for the Sicilian properties started at 1 euro, Tabbone placed a bid of 5,555 euros for her building. With taxes and fees, she spent 5,900 euros (roughly $6,200) to take ownership of the property.

She visited her new home for the first time in June 2019. The condition of the property was “dire at best,” Tabbone tells CNBC Make It: no electricity, no running water, asbestos in the roof and “probably two feet of pigeon poop on the floor.”

After seeing the space, she also bought the vacant home next door through a private sale with the owner for 22,000 euros (just over $23,000). 

Combining the two properties meant a bigger renovation budget: Tabbone initially planned to spend 40,000 euros to renovate 620 square feet, but that grew to 140,000 euros to cover 2,700 square feet.

By the end of her renovation in October 2023, she spent roughly 425,000 euros, or $446,000. Because the project was delayed by the pandemic and spread out over several years, she was able to pay for it all over time without taking out loans.

Tabbone’s goal with her Sicilian property was to build a vacation home where she could also host visiting friends and family.

To start, Tabbone’s renovation team made structural changes like breaking down several walls to open up common areas, leveling the floors across the two buildings, adding steel beams to protect against earthquakes, and adding two terraces.

It was Tabbone’s first renovation project ever. She was inspired by her father, who was an architect and died when she was 15. She now calls the home Casa dell’Architetto in his honor.

Tabbone says her vision was to design a space that is “simple, but significant,” in a nod to “Mad Men’” character Don Draper.

The finished project is “a thousand times better” than her original vision, she says. “It’s modern, but it’s still cozy. And it really showcases all of the best features that were already in the home,” like original archways, a trough in the kitchen and a unique staircase.

Now that her home is complete, Tabbone plans to spend four months out of the year in Sicily. She also uses it as a gathering space to host dinner parties with friends she’s made in Sambuca.

“It’s an amazing community” of expats and locals, she says.

Tabbone says her Sambuca property is more than a vacation spot. “What this home really means for me is a bridge between my past and my future,” she says. “It was a chance to really reconnect with my father’s lineage. But it also speaks to my future because it’s something that I’ve created for myself … where I can think more about enjoying my life and having a better work-life balance.”

Tabbone doesn’t plan to sell the house and has already promised it to a cousin if she passes away first. “After that, it’s going to be donated to the village,” Tabbone says.

Though Tabbone splurged on her home away from home, she says what she’s gained from the experience is invaluable.

“There’s a real sense of community here, so I definitely think people are very happy here,” she says. Plus, “I’ve started to think differently about how I’m building my business, and maybe not having the focus of my life be about work, [but] about just personal fulfillment in general,” she says.

Overall, she adds, she feels it’s “important to preserve old buildings like this” that can’t be recreated with modern materials or building sensibilities. “The attention to detail, the quality of the items, the ability for these buildings to last for centuries. It’s just not done anymore,” she says.

Conversions from EUR to USD were done using the OANDA conversion rate of 1 EUR to 1.05 USD on Oct 18, 2023. All amounts are rounded to the nearest dollar.

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If there’s one thing Terry Petzold knows about how to stand out in the job market and get hired, it’s that in-demand technical skills can come and go.

Petzold has 25 years of experience in recruiting and is currently a managing partner at Fox Search Group, an executive recruitment firm for tech leaders.

Take the rapid advancements in artificial intelligence, for example. “Just two-and-a-half years ago, everyone was saying, ‘We need to hire coders,'” Petzold tells CNBC Make It.

“I was even talking to my own children about, ‘Oh, maybe we need to go the crowd coding route,'” he jokes. “Not six months later, ChatGPT comes out, and now coding is not the future.”

To be sure, having up-to-date digital skills is important for workers across industries and career levels, Petzold says. “If you’re in marketing, or if you’re in a warehouse, you need to understand technology.”

But because companies can train workers on learning developing tech to serve their business, Petzold says leaders are most interested in hiring people with a different set of skills.

“I’ll tell you where the future is,” he says. “It’s not even necessarily in technology space. It’s in soft skills. It’s in emotional intelligence — that is what we’re noticing is the future for talent.”

Emotional intelligence, or EQ, is the ability to manage your own feelings and the feelings of those around you, which can make you better at building relationships and leading in the workplace.

For Petzold, job candidates with great technical skills really succeed when they can demonstrate high EQ.

It’s good to be specialized in an area of expertise, like data, security, infrastructure or enterprise solutions, for instance, “but it’s really those with strong EQ and those soft skills and business skills — those are the future IT leaders,” he says.

By hiring professionals with high EQ, Petzold says companies are really looking for people who can do crucial things like:

• Handle and deliver constructive feedback
• Manage conflict
• Have critical conversations with urgency
• Work cross-functionally by persuading peers and other leaders
• Effectively present ideas to leaders above them

“The general EQ skills we’re noticing really have to do with communication [with] others and the ability to push through challenges and come out unscathed,” Petzold says.

He adds that some companies are getting better at helping leaders develop stronger EQ skills, especially around managing effectively and navigating challenges or conflict.

Good employers can further develop their workers by offering mentorship programs and facilitating networking, Petzold adds, so people can see what good models of leadership and high EQ look like.

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Ash Xu once thought she’d grow up to be a software engineer just like her dad. Instead, the 22-year-old is fresh off directing her first TV commercial.

Xu, who grew up in the Bay Area and now lives in New York City, got interested in film during middle school thanks to a steady diet of YouTube and Buzzfeed videos, but she always thought of it as a hobby.

After she took an advanced placement computer science class in high school and hated it, she redirected her energy into making short films with friends.

Xu started posting her own videos online in 2020 during her summer between graduating from high school and starting college at Northwestern for film, just as the pandemic led her and many to shelter in place. Later that year, she landed her first paid gig to film a commercial for an online brand. It paid $400.

That’s when she realized she could make money “doing something that I absolutely love,” she tells CNBC Make It. She also started to realize “my dreams of becoming a commercial director aren’t as far away as I thought.”

In the years since, her stylized videos that she posts to TikTok, Instagram and YouTube have gone viral several times over and eventually got the attention of Taco Bell.

In September, the fast food chain sent her an email. They wanted to pay her to write a concept for a commercial, and if they liked it enough, they’d pay her to film it, too. Xu looped in her management team, whom she’s worked with since March 2021. Her team negotiated her rates for the project, and Xu got to work.

Xu declined to share how much she was paid for the commercial but notes that it was one of the highest-paying gigs she’s taken on so far.

Being selected for the project and filming the commercial “gave me a lot of lot of confidence in my abilities,” Xu says. It was her first time directing a larger team of six people, including a food stylist and marketing managers, for a brand, rather than a group of friends making a personal project. The commercial debuted in November.

The experience has taught her that you don’t have to be “perfect” to be qualified for a job.

“When I was in film school, I thought you had to be a genius or a prodigy just to land your first directing gig,” Xu says. “In my mind, the barrier to entry to creating anything was just really high, and you had to be perfect, otherwise, you wouldn’t be chosen.”

Her TV commercial directing debut taught her “I don’t have to be the most knowledgeable or perfect person in the room,” she says. “As long as I trust my own creative process and can convey it to the people around me, I’m worthy of the projects that I’ve been working on.”

Success is a mixture of your experience, creative vision and how you market yourself, she adds, but ultimately, “everyone has something to offer.”

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