The unglamorous first jobs of Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and 18 other highly successful people

AP Photo/Donna Light

It can be easy to see the world's most powerful and influential people as occupying a sphere far removed from the rest us. 

But many of the most successful people were born without silver spoons in their mouths and started off working odd jobs to earn money.

These 20 highly successful people prove that the path to success doesn't have to be linear.

Dylan Love contributed reporting.

Hillary Clinton supervised park activities.

Ralph Freso/Getty Images

Clinton writes in her autobiography "Hard Choices" that she got her first paying job, other than babysitting, at 13 supervising a small park a few miles from her home in the Chicago suburb of Park Ridge, Illinois.

Clinton says she had to lug a wagon full of balls, bats, and jump ropes back and forth three days a week that summer.

"My parents believed in self-reliance and hard work, and they made sure we kids learned the value of a dollar and appreciated the dignity of a job well done," she writes

Donald Trump collected bottles.

REUTERS/Jim Young

Trump, the billionaire real-estate mogul and Republican presidential hopeful, grew up wealthy, but his father wanted him to learn the value of money early on.

As a kid, his dad would take him to construction sites and have him and his brother pick up empty soda bottles to redeem for cash, Trump tells Forbes. He says that he didn't make much, but it taught him to work for his money.

Bernie Sanders worked as a carpenter and documentary filmmaker.

REUTERS/David Ryder

After receiving a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science in 1964 from the University of Chicago, where he was an active member of the local civil rights movement, Sanders held a number of odd jobs including carpenter and documentary filmmaker before being elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont, in 1981, at the age of 39.

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