He left a budding TV-hosting career in the Philippines. A decade later, this Filipino immigrant now runs a seven-figure digital marketing consultancy in New York.
McBilly Sy was starting to make a name for himself as a TV host in Cebu City, Philippines, when he left all of that behind to start a new life in the United States in 2010.
“Initially, I just wanted to reconnect with my dad,” said McBilly, who grabbed the opportunity to migrate after being petitioned by his father, whom he had not seen for ten years after his parents separated.
Starting out in a foreign country where he didn’t know anyone was hard. He had not been able to say goodbye to friends in the Philippines because he had no plans of staying. He had no money, and while he had an IT degree, he didn’t have any work experience, so he bounced around from one job to another.
His first job was as a cashier at Lowe’s.
“I was proud of that. I was trying to figure things out, doing what was in front of me,” McBilly shared in an interview with the digital talk show Kabayan Connect, which highlights issues and stories related to the overseas Filipino experience. The show is produced by OFW Ako! with support from Pinoy Luminaries and Wingspan Consulting Pte Ltd.
While at Lowe’s, he came across a customer, also a Filipino immigrant from Cebu, who worked in human resources and encouraged him to try out for a job in digital pathology. This led him to his next opportunity.
He spent six years in the medical technology field until he had an epiphany. “One wintertime, I was driving late at night from one job to another, and I was feeling sleepy and almost hit the car in front of me. That was when I realized, What the hell am I doing with my life? I’m not happy anymore. I’m going to pursue what I really want.”
Looking back, McBilly says his biggest regret is “waiting six years spending time in a field when I felt I should have pursued something I really wanted.”
McBilly transitioned into a career in digital marketing, which later led him to building his own agency, Good Vibe Squad Marketing, which helps loan officers and branch managers double their loan volume through a lead-generation tool.
In the Kabayan Connect interview, McBilly shared firsthand lessons from a decade of bouncing from one opportunity to another, until he found his niche:
- Invest in yourself. “There’s one thing that nobody can take away from you, and that is your knowledge, your personality, and your skills. So you’d want to invest in yourself first.” This means putting in the time to develop yourself and grow your mind by reading, listening to podcasts, and training. One of the books that hugely influenced McBilly was Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He is also a big fan of business strategist and life coach Tony Robbins and has internalized many of Robbins’s advice such as “Success in business is 80 percent psychology and just 20 percent mechanics.”
- Find a mentor. Find someone who has achieved what you want and study this person’s path through reverse engineering, or going backward, to understand what you need to do to reach your goals.
- Surround yourself with people who have higher standards than you. The journey toward reaching your goal is a “marathon, not a sprint,” so you need an accountability partner or a mastermind—who, McBilly says, is someone in the industry who produces more or has higher standards than you.
Listen to McBilly Sy’s inspiring story in this Kabayan Connect interview
Watch other episodes of Kabayan Connect on the OFW Ako Facebook page.