In 1991, Nadeem Bajwa immigrated to the United States from Pakistan. While attending college in Indiana, he worked a few jobs, including delivering pizza for restaurant chain Papa John’s, where he made $4.25 an hour.

Today, the 58-year-old has a fast food empire. Bajwa is now a major franchisee of Papa Johns in North America, with more than 270 locations across the country.

He is also the CEO of Bajco Group, which he co-founded with his two brothers, and holds a diverse portfolio of companies spanning construction, technology, accounting, his Papa Johns portfolio and more.

Bajwa’s path to success wasn’t an easy one. In his early twenties, he was the first in his family to move to the United States, where he encountered many challenges upon arrival.

“Coming to the U.S., actually, that was my first flight [ever.] I’d never flown before,” Bajwa said. “Just getting into the plane, it was a full flight coming here by myself, [there was] a lot of anxiety … but I was determined to make it.”

He said he experienced some culture shock and struggled with communication because he wasn’t fluent in English at the time. “Sometimes, when you are away from family, and you’re alone … it was very, very difficult,” Bajwa said.

To help fund his university expenses, Bajwa picked up some side gigs.

“My first summer, I did three jobs … washing dishes [during] breakfast time, and then delivering pizzas in the afternoon, and late night, working at Taco Bell,” Bajwa told CNBC Make It.

“I was living in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and … I just started delivering for Papa John’s when they came in town and from there, just started loving it, and tips were good, so that helped,” he said.

Bajwa quickly moved up the ranks at Papa John’s. By the time he graduated from university in 1996, he had already transitioned from being a delivery driver to area manager. After graduating, Bajwa applied to a few corporate roles because that’s what he always expected to do after his studies.

“I applied for some jobs, and on back of my mind, I was sort of hoping that I don’t get a corporate job, but I wanted to try it because that was one of the … check marks I had to check,” he said. “I just did not want to have that regret that I never applied, because all of life, I thought I would go corporate sector.”

“But when I went to find a [corporate] job, I couldn’t get [a] job that would pay me … more than what I was already making [at Papa John’s],” Bajwa said. For that reason, he decided to stay in the pizza business, and ended up running multiple pizza stores before becoming a franchisee himself.

In July 2002, with the help of family support and bank loans, Bajwa opened his first Papa John’s store in East Liverpool, Ohio.

“I bought used equipment for very low price, and at that time, I built the store for half [of] what I would have [paid], because I did a lot of [the labor] myself,” he added. “My whole thought was to open with as little money as possible, and spend the money towards marketing.”

The cost for the buildout of his first store was about $150,000, he said.

Bajwa learned a few lessons early on, thanks to some key mistakes.

Before opening his first restaurant location, Bajwa focused heavily on getting the word out about the store’s grand opening.

“I did too much marketing, and the first day [that the store opened], half of the crew walked out because it was chaos,” said Bajwa. “Too many people showed up because I advertised too much, and I focused more on advertising than training people to make pizzas … Then I learned how important it is to be ready before [opening].”

Then, within six months of this first location opening, Bajwa saw that the store’s revenue was ahead of forecasts, so he quickly went on to open a few more locations.

“After two stores, I thought, no problem. We opened three more immediately after that, and guess what, I did not have [the best people] around me, and [then we] started struggling,” he said. So, he and his team had to take a step back and give it some time before trying to expand again.

“There was a time that we grew too fast and hit the pump. [In] 2008, [during the] economic meltdown … those were tough times,” he added. Ultimately, Bajwa said, he’s grateful for these early failures because they taught him all that he knows today.

Throughout his journey, Bajwa said, he learned the importance of self-reflection. “You have to be humble, because the day you start thinking you got it all, I believe your downfall will start.”

In 2024, Bajco Group signed an agreement with Papa Johns International to develop 50 new restaurants by 2028. Bajwa said his goal is to get to 500 restaurant locations. With the growth of his Papa Johns portfolio over the years, Bajwa has also built adjacent businesses.

“We’ve developed a call center, construction arm, offshore accounting setup, and technology arm to bring [efficiencies] to our Papa Johns portfolio, which now have become separate businesses & serve multiple clients within and outside the Papa Johns brand,” he said.

“I never dreamt of this growth. [I just focused on] doing my best … and learning from my mistakes … and the rest just came,” Bajwa said. “So everything started with delivery pizza. Can you believe that?”

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Chabely Rodriguez takes money seriously. She strategically chose an affordable college and lucrative career path that has set her up to live comfortably at 30 years old. 

Rodriguez is a certified anesthesiologist assistant, and in 2024, she switched from a salaried role to working as a traveling CAA in contract positions. As a result, she brings in over $300,000 a year. She has a master’s degree in anesthesiology, which allowed her to then get her CAA credentials — without needing to attend medical school.

She still cleared $200,000 a year in her previous position, often picking up overtime hours and 24-hour shifts on top of her full-time schedule — the product of a “scarcity mindset” she says she carried with her since childhood. 

“I always want to prepare for [the worst],” she told CNBC Make It in 2023. “I’ve worked a lot of overtime hours just to make sure that I always have something extra.”

Now, she sticks mostly to 40-hour workweeks with extra shifts here and there when her staff needs coverage. She could be making closer to $500,000 a year if she worked similar overtime hours to what she previously took on, but she doesn’t feel pressured to, she says.

“I want to make more money, but I don’t want to burn myself out along the way,” Rodriguez says. “So now I’ve hit above the $300,000 mark, I feel good about that.”

As her income has grown, Rodriguez’s aspirations have evolved. She started her career while living in Florida and thought she would one day buy a house there. But she moved to Georgia in 2023 and switched to a six-month contract position there in 2024.

Realizing she wanted to spend more time traveling and that she could make more money as a contractor, her priorities shifted away from homeownership.

“I’m still not to the point of wanting to settle anywhere,” she says. “I still want to continue to explore and switch things around and potentially be outside of the country for two months or something out of the year.”

When her contract finished in Georgia, Rodriguez moved to New Mexico, where she lives now. She invests aggressively, aiming to put 40% of her pre-tax income into her brokerage and retirement accounts. Her total investments hit $500,000 in January 2025.

She’s been able to invest consistently in part because she paid off her student loans — nearly $124,000 — quickly in 2023.

“Because I was aggressive with paying off my loans, I could then shift towards investing,” Rodriguez says. “I would say, I exceeded my expectations along the way. So that’s been nice, and I feel like that’s made me just a happier, calmer person — more secure, more confident.”

Her main goals now are to avoid burnout from work, save for the future and enjoy her life in the present.

She previously set a goal of investing $2 million and retiring early, but she’s become less tied to a number and more focused on sustainable growth so she has the option to slow down by the time she’s 50 — if she wants to.

Rodriguez’s money mindset has also begun to shift away from the scarcity she previously felt. She still aims to live within her means, sharing rent with her partner and driving a standard Toyota Corolla. But she’s willing to splurge on travel, balancing bigger international trips with backpacking and camping.

Rodriguez is now willing to acknowledge her own accomplishments and no longer pressures herself to pick up every extra shift. “That’s something that I feel like I couldn’t have done until I got to this point,” she says.

“I feel so much more comfortable, and I can remove myself from situations if I’m uncomfortable,” she adds. “I can treat my partner to something, or treat myself to something … I am now saying, ‘Hey, I make enough. I don’t need to push it past my limit to pay for this.’ Now, I can just breathe.”

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Students who major in liberal arts, performing arts and theology earn the lowest salaries within five years of graduating from college, a recent New York Federal Reserve analysis reveals.

All three majors made a median annual income of $38,000, the lowest out of the 75 majors in the study. Other low-paying majors include leisure and hospitality, history, fine arts and psychology, all of which made $40,000 or less per year.

For context, that’s slightly less than the U.S. personal income median of $40,480 as of 2022, per the latest data available from the U.S. Census.

Here’s a look at what the lowest-paying majors earn early in their careers.

With liberal arts degrees, graduates tend to get paid less overall, for various reasons. For one, their skills may not be directly related to generating revenue, even if their vocation is a benefit to society.

Or, it can be a case of too few well-paying jobs compared with the number of graduates each year, as is the case for fine arts degrees. As such, the lack of demand can drive down wages.

Education majors tend to be paid less, as well. While teachers have good job security, summers off and pensions, they’re usually paid by state governments, which have lagged in keeping wages commensurate with inflation. In recent years, the “teacher pay penalty” has gotten worse, according to the Economic Policy Institute.

Unfortunately for teachers, they don’t fare much better later in their careers. When looking at “mid-career” graduates — those ages 35 to 45 — education majors are the worst paid among all majors.

Here’s a look at the mid-career rankings.

Early childhood education majors in the middle of their careers earn the least out of all majors. With a median annual income of $48,000, they only make $8,000 more than they do right after graduation.

In contrast, the highest-paid majors for both early and mid-career earners tend to be in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, otherwise known as STEM fields. 

Engineers earn the highest median income right after college, with computer engineers ranked first at $80,000 per year. Their pay grows to $133,000 by the time they’ve reached the ages of 35 to 45, the highest of all majors.

It’s worth mentioning that mid-career graduates all make more than the U.S. personal income median of $40,480. The median pay for all mid-career majors is $75,500, according to the New York Fed.

Data for this annual study was compiled from U.S. Census data from 2022, the most recent available. The study excludes majors currently enrolled in school and is limited to a working-age population of those ages 25 to 65 who work full-time, with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

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I once had an MBA student who checked every box. He was whip smart, well-spoken, genuine, and clearly hard-working. He attended a respected college and spent two years at a top consulting firm. He was a typical top pick for the companies he was courting.

And yet, he kept getting rejected after job interviews. Something wasn’t adding up.

Finally, after asking him to do a mock interview with me, I quickly spotted the problem.

When I asked the classic “What are your long-term career goals?” he smiled and told me he wanted to start his own business one day.

Perhaps you can still hear me screaming, “No!”

As a CEO, here’s my advice to job seekers: Announcing your desire to someday leave the company that is trying to hire you is one of the three sudden death interview answers.

Let’s talk about what to avoid, and what to do instead.

To a recruiter, this answer sounds like you’re planning your exit before you even walk through the door.

Why? Because every company understands that once you arrive as a new hire, the deal they’ve made is not fair. They will be paying your salary. But for several years, while they invest in your training, you will barely be worth it.

In fact, at most companies, executives agree new hires start making financial sense after about three years. If you signal that your plan is to leave and launch your own thing, most companies won’t want to take that bet.

My student thought it made him sound ambitious. And it does. But here’s how to frame it better: “My career goal is to rise to a leadership position, manifesting my ambition and initiative — right here at your company.”

Yes, we all want balance. But if you say this is your top priority, you’ll instantly disqualify yourself, at least in the eyes of many hiring managers.

Companies want to know that you’re motivated, that you want to win, and that your goals align with theirs. Productivity and passion matter.

Our research at Becoming You Labs shows 65% of Gen Z identify self-care as a top value. That’s not wrong. It’s real. But in interviews, you need to balance it with what the company values, too.

Here’s a stronger approach: “I care about well-being, but I’m most driven by growth, excellence, and being part of a high-performing team.”

This shows that you’re human, but also hungry.

(Most companies have a set of well-honed questions to get at your values; others ask you outright. I recommend taking The Values Bridge test to explore your values before the moment of truth.)

On the surface, it sounds benign. But seasoned executives know that in many layoffs, companies pluck out the top performers and reassign them elsewhere in the organization. And they are wondering why that didn’t happen to you.

DON’T MISS: How to Build a Standout Personal Brand: Online, In Person, and At Work

So you need to explain your situation in more nuanced detail, signaling that you know what they’re thinking. For instance, you might explain that your company was getting out of a certain business line entirely, and thus your skills no longer applied elsewhere in the newfangled enterprise.

If you want to be very authentic, which is always a plus, you might even say something like: “The layoffs taught me a lesson I’ll never forget, that you have to constantly be expanding your expertise with training, because business changes constantly.”

The job market today is challenging, and people are having to work hard just to land interviews. That’s why once you’re in the door, every answer has to hit right. And when in doubt, ask yourself: Does this answer show I want to be here, grow here, and win here? If not, rethink it.

My student learned that the hard way. But now, he’s back in the game, and hopefully his next play is a score.

Suzy Welch is an award-winning NYU Stern School of Business professor, acclaimed researcher, popular podcaster and three-time NYT best-selling author, most recently with ”Becoming You: A Proven Method for Crafting Your Authentic Life and Career.” A graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Business School, Dr. Welch is a frequent guest of the Today Show and an op-ed contributor to the Wall Street Journal. She serves on the boards of public and private companies, and is the Director of the NYU | Stern Initiative on Purpose and Flourishing.

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Studies show that on average, women have a higher chance of living longer than men. Orthopedic sport surgeon Dr. Vonda Wright wants to ensure that when women enter old age it is an enjoyable experience, not one full of pain.

“I am acutely aware that even though we’re living longer, we’re suffering longer, and that most of the conversation around longevity in this country so far has been directed at men, or using the science of men,” says Wright.

For 20 years, Wright was an academic surgeon at the University of Pittsburgh researching musculoskeletal aging and longevity with the goal of “dispelling the common notion that aging was an inevitable decline.” With her fellow researchers, she studied active members of aging populations, including seniors who competed in the National Senior Games, a biannual event for athletes over the age of 50.

“The mantra that I laid down in the early 2000s when I [wondered], ‘What is going to be the guiding light of my career?’ is ‘I’m going to change the way we age in this country,’” Wright says.

Today, she is a practicing clinician and founder of Precision Longevity. She shares tips with her patients for a longer and healthier life in hopes of “building communities of people who believe that they can have the agency to change their future.” She recently published a book titled, “Unbreakable,” which is a guide to healthy aging for women.

Much of what Wright, 58, recommends to her patients, she practices in her own life. Here are her daily habits for health and wellness.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

CNBC Make It: What are some practices that you’re doing to keep your body healthy physically?

Interestingly, in my book, “Unbreakable,” the heavy lifting plan is actually the one I was working on as the book was being written.

I walk at least 45 minutes a day, three to four times a week. When I have a clinic day, I know that it’s 30 steps down the hallway in my office, and I just don’t sit down all day. So I work mobility into my lifestyle, and then twice a week, I sprint. Sometimes it’s on a treadmill or a bike or a stepper.

That sprinting, in addition to lifting heavy, which I do at least twice a week, those are the things that recompose your body and make us lean. Because I’m not trying to teach anybody or myself to be skinny. It does not interest me. But lean is healthy.

And then I jump intentionally a lot. I just got two new jump ropes. One is two and a half pounds. On social media, I reintroduced the game of hopscotch to my followers, because it’s not just jumping up and down that matters. It’s the multi-directional jumping that builds better bones.

What are you doing specifically for your brain?

I am religious about my sleep, meaning I am in bed by 9:30pm. I am up by 5:00am. You can count on it, weekend, weekday, because I can tell the difference in my brain.

I like to challenge my brain to learn new things all the time, so I’m constantly learning. I’m reading all kinds of stuff all the time. Learning is pleasurable for me.

But the number one thing I’ve done for my brain since I turned midlife and menopausal is I have chosen to replace my estrogen. Estrogen is covered in estrogen receptors. The work of Lisa Mosconi and the work of Roberta Brinton, show that without estrogen, a brain starves. And I felt that at 47 when I was hit in the wall by perimenopause.

I felt like I was going to die, and one of the things was the loss of the sharpness in my brain. So I chose for many reasons, but brain health being one of them, to replace my estrogen, and I think that makes as big a difference as anything I’ve said to you so far.

Something I see in a lot of longevity studies is the importance of staying connected and staying social. What’s your social fitness like?

I encourage myself, and when I talk about this to patients, to choose five people. Have a very close knit group. So, I have five people. It’s five women within the menopause-y space. A urologist and three OBs, and we talk every day on our chat groups. So that’s number one, connecting. I have found that easier to do in midlife than I did when I was younger.

Number two, I am the mother of a blended family of six children, three grandchildren, three very old grandparents and two very old dogs. So we also communicate every day, even if it’s just a little bit.

And then number three, I really do still answer people on my Instagram. I mean, I know they’re strangers, but it is a way to keep connected. But it’s the five people that you surround yourself with most that are most important to your longevity and health.

On nutrition, what are the foods that you’re aiming to get into your diet each week?

Every single day, I focus on clean, whole-food nutrition with one gram of protein per pound. So I focus on getting 130 grams of protein a day so that I can build the muscle that I need to do all the other things I mentioned, and that’s not that hard.

I eat a lot of green leafy vegetables. I eat a lot of kale, even at breakfast. I have a salad for breakfast. Sometimes it’s spinach and kale. I have basically the same things every day. I get protein in the form of dairy and egg, and I do eat animal meat. Every ounce is six grams of protein, so I eat a lot of that every day.

And I don’t eat sugar. Yesterday, I had three bites of ice cream because I was out with my 17-year-old. But on a day-to-day basis, I don’t eat sugar. And here’s why, I can physically feel the difference in my body. I can feel inflamed. I can feel the dullness in my brain when I’m eating sugar. So I focus on anti-inflammatory nutrition, which is good for my body and my brain.

I don’t eat simple carbs, with the exception of sourdough. I make sourdough every two weeks and then we freeze the loaves, which decreases their glycemic index. It’s wholesome and made out of fermented bacteria. So those are the really simple ways that from a nutritional standpoint, I stay healthy.

One question that I always ask every longevity expert is, what are you currently reading?

I constantly refer to “Estrogen Matters” by Avrum Bluming and Carol Tavris. I am reading little parts of “The Menopause Moment,” which is coming out by Kelly Casperson. Of course, I’m reading my own book.

I don’t read fiction, but I picked up a fiction book because I met this fascinating author at a book author event. It’s the Red Rising series, which is a futuristic series of science fiction. I’m really surprised at myself because I don’t usually read that. But you know what it let me do for a short amount of time? Escape the real world of taking care of people.

Here’s a brief summary of Wright’s practices for a long and healthy life:

• For her physical health: Counting her steps, sprinting, lifting heavy weights multiple times a week and finding ways to jump more through hopscotch and jump rope.
• For her brain health: Prioritizing sleep, stabilizing her estrogen levels and fueling her appetite for learning.
• For social fitness: Catching up with her friend group of like-minded health professionals, connecting with her family and chatting with her Instagram followers.
• For her diet: Eating a high-protein, anti-inflammatory diet rich in green leafy vegetables, dairy and meat.
• For her media diet: Reading the latest women’s health books about menopause, and starting a new sci-fi series.

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