Sometimes life puts people on unforeseen paths.
Just ask Patty Rodriguez, a Southern California native who once worked her dream job until a drastic event changed everything.
It all started for Rodriguez when she was in high school. One day she heard on KIIS-FM, a popular radio station in L.A., that the station would be giving out free tickets to her favorite boy band, NSYNC, which is still her favorite to this day.
Feeling out of the loop? We'll catch you up on the Chicago news you need to know. Sign up for the weekly Chicago Catch-Up newsletter here.
There was no way Rodriguez could miss out on the opportunity, so she convinced her mother, who was single after a divorce and had only one car, through a lie to borrow the car in order to drive to Burbank -- about a 20-mile drive that can take an hour in L.A. -- to win the tickets. The lie Rodriguez told her mother was that the then-senior had an early morning class that would make it dangerous to be on the bus at dawn
Her mother agreed, so Rodriguez took three of her friends along for the trip. They played a game live on air and won, but the tickets were just the first part. Rodriguez, who has always been fond of storytelling through entertainment and music, shot her shot at one of the producers.
"Somehow, I blurted out, 'Are you guys hiring?'" Rodriguez said. "And he looked at me, he said, 'No, we're not. How old are you?' And I'm 16. He's like, 'Well, you have to be 18 to be an intern. But did you give me your phone number? I can call you if there's any openings.' And I'm like, 'Absolutely.' So, I gave him my number and I never thought I would hear back from him."
But, not long after, Rodriguez got a call back and was asked if she'd be open to helping out at the station a few days a week. She said yes, which led her to working there for about three years when, one morning, Ryan Seacrest was there after being hired to lead the station's morning show.
That was supposed to be a good thing, but not quite for Rodriguez. She was working as an unpaid intern the entire time. She had fallen through the payroll cracks and was afraid to bring it up fearing people would discover she didn't belong at the station.
"I don't think anyone knew, none of the executives knew this," Rodriguez said. "You know, I think they just thought that I was there ... I'm sure they assumed, like, her paperwork's taken care of."
But Rodriguez was at the right place at the right time when she overheard a conversation between her boss and someone from the promotions department saying they're looking for a full-time assistant producer who could speak Spanish.
Rodriguez eventually landed the dream job to work as a producer on Ryan Seacrest's show. However, one day would change everything.
One day after returning from the station, Rodriguez noticed several police cars and fire engines on her street with smoke stemming from a home.
"I'm like, wait a minute, that's my house," Rodriguez said. "And I remember just kind of like leaving my car in the middle of the road and running toward my house, just so scared. And the officer stops me and he says, 'There's been a fire and I'm sorry.' And I just fell to the floor and I call my mom and say, you know, we just lost a house to a fire."
That moment altered Rodriguez's path. The house represented Patty's wealth and what she planned to leave to her son.
That day I think I was overdrafted on my bank account. I was like, I'm going to do whatever I have to do to give you the best future you could have. And I realized that if I'm gone, [the house was] all I have for my child.
Patty Rodriguez
She dropped her dream job to start the business she always wanted: a book company called Lil' Libros.
Having a three-year-old son, Rodriguez often contemplated how she'd raise him after taking a while herself to get comfortable in her own skin. She thought about the first form of media children consume, with books coming to mind. But the market lacked quality bilingual Spanish-English books for kids.
"I'm looking at books in the market that are available, and I don't see any that are representative or of our community," Rodriguez said. "There are books that are in Spanish, like 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie,' 'Where the Wild Things Are.' Beautiful books, but those books don't represent us.
"They were not written for us. So, I started thinking about creating books that celebrated our traditions and culture in both languages because I was like, I want to make sure I raised my child bilingual, or at least try really hard to do so."
So, Rodriguez and her friend, Ariana Stein, started creating books in August of 2014. That December is when they received the printed versions. Fast forward to the end of 2023, Lil' Libros sold $2.7 million in books in the year.
Rodriguez likely didn't expect her life to unfold the way it did, but sometimes it's all about the journey, no matter how unforeseen things get.
Rodriguez was interviewed for Bísness School, a series that tells the inspiring stories of Latino founders. Subscribe to Bísness School wherever you get your podcasts to get future episodes automatically. Remember, Business school is expensive. Bísness School is free.
