Look to the past to understand the present and change the future.
I can remember first being recognized for my writing ability by Ms. Brown in 4th grade. It wasn't completely surprising – my mother was a stay at home mom who had been an English teacher and who loves to read. She taught me to read before first grade. And one of the best ways to develop an ability to write is to read.
As I remember it, the bullying started in 5th grade. It could have been jealousy of the attention and recognition for that gift. My father received a big promotion around that time, so my mother thinks it had to do with that. It could have just been the age – perhaps that's just when girls get mean or when they started to realize I didn't fit in. With a mother who was an English teacher from Ohio you are just not going to be allowed to completely develop the same accent as kids from rural Arkansas.
Maybe everyone was bullied. When I went back for my 20 year high school reunion, one of the guys I graduated with said, “Misty* bullied you a lot, too, didn't she?” I think that was the first time I was aware that I wasn't the only person in school who was bullied. I was pretty deep in my own misery, so there wasn't a lot of room to be sensitive to what other kids were going through.
During that time I went deeper into the writing. I was raised in a family of introverts, so there was a lot of quiet time for reading and writing. I went to summer enrichment programs and submitted poems and short stories to writing contests and national publications. I won state level awards and was published in real, grown up journals. And this was back in the day when to be published someone else had to think your writing was pretty good instead of just typing some sh!t into a computer.
Most of the connection I needed came through summer camps and those extra curricular getaways. I felt like an outsider at school. Girls who were in pictures from my birthday parties in years prior fell in line with their ringleader and shunned me. I spend hours in retching sobs in my room. My mother was so kind, but at that age I just desperately wanted to fit in with the other girls.
I can remember my mom asking Mrs. Burks, another teacher who really supported my writing, why the other kids were so mean. She said, “some kids just want to tear the wings off a butterfly.” This sounded nice, but to this day I don't quite know what it meant, and it didn't solve anything for me.
As I got older I started to realize that a talent and skill for creative writing would probably be tricky to use to make a living after college. I can't remember if I figured this out on my own or was nudged in the direction of going from more the creative writing to the journalism by well-meaning parents, but I chased this more practical use of the writing with enthusiasm. I got an (unpaid) gig at the local small town paper covering events at the high school, an opportunity that came about in part due to my gifts, my mother's editing, the editor and owner's admiration for my dad, and the paper's desire for original content on a limited budget. As I got well into high school, I started researching colleges with strong journalism programs.
Around that time (I'm guessing this must have been roughly sophomore year), I was part of a group that got to tour the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, the flagship state newspaper. I remember asking two of the reporters about journalism schools. Even then, in the 80s, before the internet was a thing, budgets were tight and the writers seemed tense and anxious about their career prospects. “Don't get a journalism degree,” they advised. “Get an English degree. It's more versatile.”
That advice set me down the path of looking at liberal arts schools with good English degrees. I had Macalester College on my list, and remember being charmed by the tunnels between buildings until my dad mentioned that they had tunnels because of the cold in winter. After that, the list got winnowed down to schools in the southeast.
I was seriously leaning toward Duke, and despite a disastrous interview (the interviewer was obsessed with why I hadn't taken Calculus, which threw me off. For reasons I still do not understand, when asked who my favorite author was, I said Flannery O'Connor. I hated Flannery O'Connor, but she was the only author I could think of when asked. Then I had to answer why I loved her stuff. Yikes.) I was wait listed. However, the campus at that time had had an outbreak of crime, and the whole time I stayed in the dorm overnight the safety talk made me feel seriously unsafe. After a magical visit to Sewanee, there was nothing any other school could do – I was in love. The fact that they offered me a scholarship said they loved me back and sealed the deal.
Sewanee had an epic English department, with an unapologetic focus on the literature written in English by dead white guys. I read tons of books and wrote a truly staggering quantity of 3-5 page essays. I did no creative writing (I don't even remember there being creative writing classes) and did not pursue any of the limited journalism opportunities like the school paper. Sewanee was not about making good stuff, it was about studying the great stuff, and I took the hint.
After not fitting in at school from the ages of 10-18 (teenage years are sort of like dog years – they are seven times longer than any other years), feeling in my element with my slice of Sewanee society was heaven. There probably were some rich kids who would have snubbed me had I given them the chance, but I was so intoxicated by finding my tribe I didn't even realize that I might not have been welcomed in every circle until decades after graduation.
Somehow by getting steered from creative writing to journalism and from journalism to reading the works of others and writing papers about them, the creative writing got lost. The need to live in fantasy worlds of my own making was replaced by finding a real-life fantasy world that gave me the connection and belonging I'd never had. And nothing will convince you that your writing ability is nothing special like reading the great works of dead white guys.
As college progressed, the more versatile English degree did not seem to map to any specific after college plan. I was done with school – I really wanted to go adult in the world. Along the way toward that English degree I'd taken some really good Political Science classes from really great professors, so I started down that path, interning in Washington, D.C. Plans toward DC and government were ended by the nasty environment during the Gingrich era. I remember a story of a staffer accidentally leaving some Democratic party strategy documents on the counter in a liquor store. The next person to pay happened to work for the other party, and used those documents to wreak havoc. I wanted nothing to do with a nasty business that seemed to thrive on dividing people instead of helping them find common ground. Plus the revelation that most of the staffers were subsidized by parents meant that path was a non-starter. My parents had been pretty clear that once college was done we were off the parental payroll and needed to support ourselves.
Four years of college meant more career interests explored and eliminated. When I graduated I traveled and had internships in Central America, but as Christmas of that year grew closer I started missing home and was running low on funds and so needed to come home and find a “real” job.
I was at a bit of a loss as to where to start, but my dad did business-stuff in an office and seemed able to support us all financially, so with other options eliminated it seemed business-stuff in an office was the next step. I got a list of alums doing business-stuff in offices in the Southeastern US and went to work reaching out, sending resumes and looking for “informational interviews”. This was before the internet, so as far as I knew this was how it was done.
After bugging the career services folks at Sewanee, sending out hundreds of letters to alums, and having a few “informational interviews” that led to little information and no jobs, an alum contacted the career services team looking for grads who could speak Spanish for the international services division of a credit card processor in Columbus, GA. Despite the fact that my Spanish was deemed mas o menos by the Spaniard who interviewed me (to be fair, I was super fluent when talking about my travels, but didn't have any business-stuff vocabulary) I was offered a job with one degree of separation from the clients at the credit card processor.
I can remember telling my parents I had no idea what the company did, but they said they'd train me and pay me so hey, sounds great! With that level of discernment, a career in IT was born.
That initial job was not a great fit (although I did get a husband out of it). I was unhappy and was sure it was just that these were small town folks I didn't fit in with, and that if I could move to Atlanta and make more money that would solve all my problems.
Atlanta it turned out had it's own problems (traffic and a manager who kept a bottle of liquor in his desk drawer and drank in front of us at work, and not in the classy way they do on TV and in movies), and I was yet again a square peg in a round hole. It was starting to look like work = misery. If I was going to be miserable, I figured I should do so for as much money as possible, and so I became a consultant.
That job taught me that money didn't equal happiness, although I wasn't ready to let go of the idea that money and happiness probably went together. I chafed at the lack of freedom in the corporate world. I really still don't know if I wasn't just a good fit, if I was doing ok and just was triggered too much and too often, or if I was constantly about to get fired. I know that I was miserable at all three jobs and always believed I was on the verge of getting fired, despite having never been written up. I had to get out. I wanted freedom and fairness and control over my own destiny.
When I was approached by a network marketing company it sounded perfect. I'd get to teach and train and motivate and mentor women who were starting their own businesses. YES. I'd get promoted based on when I met the criteria, not when someone else thought I was worthy. I'd get to control my own paycheck, and the implication was if you were awesome and willing to work you'd be making six figures in no time. Hook, line, and sinker.
I stayed with that company twice as long as any job I'd had despite never making a third of what I'd make at the corporate job I'd quit, which tells you how much it was hitting all my buttons. There was a ton of applause and recognition and approval from peers and authority figures. There was a ton of personal growth and learning. There was the fairness of meeting the criteria and getting promoted. The promise of big paychecks just around the corner kept me going on the financial side.
Eventually I lost faith, though. While everyone had the same opportunity I'd had, not everyone on my team was bringing the same internal “stuff” to the game. We were encouraged far more to sell at wholesale, loading new recruits and ourselves up with products, then we were to sell at retail. To be fair, I have no doubt our team had vastly more support than any other group within the company. On the other hand, we specifically told new recruits that the business was not about the product, and then immediately told them to buy thousands of dollars worth of product. While the business may not have been about the product, the fact of the matter was that none of us got paid unless those wholesale orders got placed.
I cried – not as much as in my hometown growing up, but it was another dark night of the soul. I'd found something I loved and then decided I had to leave. I wasn't going to make the money I'd promised myself, my husband, and my team I'd make. There were entire days where the major accomplishment of the day was getting out of bed and into a recliner while wearing a bathrobe. I'd found belonging again, but the cost was my integrity, and I just couldn't do it any more.
I also couldn't stand the idea of going back to corporate. I went further into entrepreneurship, starting a professional organizing business. I did ok financially, but within a year the idea of telling adults to clean up after themselves just wasn't doing it for me. Knowing what I know now about business, I probably should have kept going and outsourced the actual organizing work, but it honestly didn't occur to me. Plus, my husband and his buddies had a going concern in IT consulting, and needed someone who knew about sales and marketing and IT.
STS has been a fantastic learning experience. I don't know everything about business, and we've made plenty of mistakes, but we've kept it going for almost 15 years, in large part due to my husband's exceptional skills as an IT consultant. I certainly have made a ton of contributions, but as best supporting player. I wanted to really step out on my own and take a starring role.
Over the 15 years of running STS, I'd learned a ton about the entrepreneurial mindset, and I'd (mostly) cleaned up my money stuff with the mentoring of a Certified Financial Advisor(®). I was proud of our success and confident I knew more about money than most people, so I thought a business helping people learn about money and start side hustles would be a fun side gig for me.
Here's how starting a business works:
Step 1 – find something you know more about than the average person
Step 2 – dive into it and realized what you didn't know you didn't know
Step 3 – Freak out.
Those years of focusing on the IT business and shining my husband's star, immediately proceeded by a bumpy career path, had shaken my confidence in myself as a main character in my own life without me knowing it. Yet again the accidental entrepreneurial spiritual growth started kicking in.
Spiritual growth makes it sound a bit too magical. That's truly what it is in retrospect, but when you are going through it there's no magic. There's a lot of self-doubt and fear and wanting to quit, and again there is crying (so much crying).
I decided I needed to look like I had “it” together in order to be successful coaching, so I contacted a life coach who had become an intuitive health coach to heal my thyroid so I could lose weight (clearly it had nothing to do with what I was eating or the sedentary lifestyle). Instead, that interaction with the coach somehow led to me quitting drinking right before FinCon. Because I'd quit drinking right before FinCon, I made a new friend who was also fleeing the alcohol infused welcome mixer on the elevator, who invited me to a networking event for financial coaches where I met the team who run Financial Coach Academy (FCA).
At FinCon I signed up for a session in Sedona, AZ with a financial coach who had me openly weeping about some sort of childhood stuff that supposedly had something to do with making money (it did). I studied for and passed the AFCPE‘s AFC exam and attended the FFC two day live coaching training and symposium so I'd have some credentials in case anyone cared about that (still working on the hours part of this).
My friend from FinCon and I started having every other week accountability calls, where I set what I thought were totally realistic financial goals and missed them all. In love she told me, “I believe you know how to run a business. I just don't think you know how to run a coaching practice,” and told me I needed to take FCA.
Because I was in a Facebook group with the FCA folks and saw it recommended, I started listening to Brooke Castillo's Life Coach School podcast after realizing I'd set myself out as a Financial Coach without knowing what coaching is (not to worry, no one else knows for sure either). From her podcast I learned about the concept of buffering – of using other things, including food, to avoid really feeling your feelings. From that I've lost 15 pounds. So somehow the domino the health coach knocked over 6 months ago had in fact led to me losing weight.
I signed up for FCA and learned a ton, including that I don't want to do coaching the exact way they do (which is totally fine). At the same time I started a group coaching class with the lady who helps you to weep your way to wealth. And last Friday, I attended a marketing focus group/networking event where I think I finally dialed in on my ideal client.
So here I am a year into the business (based on the date I started and updated my LinkedIn profile). I finally got the business license (there was a bit of a mixup on that) and have my revised initial offer on this website. I feel like I am just now set up and ready to start.
It's been quite a journey. In some ways I've come full circle. It's finally ok to write creatively again (it's not exactly fiction, but I do have a creative memory so there may be those who say what I remember of the past is nearly fiction). I don't have to map the writing directly to money, but it is supporting my business. I'm not as good as Shakespeare, but there's some doubt as to whether that was all him anyway. And I feel like that voice inside who was told in Arkansas it was wrong and bad, and that I turned my back on in favor of acceptance and fitting in and trying to make a living, has my attention again. And that result may be the point of the whole journey.
So here I am a year into the business, and I feel like I'm actually ready to start. I can't tell you if this will finally be the happy ending – where I find an outlet for my voice, where I tap into my power, where by being vulnerable I build a tribe, or if this will be another dumb a$$ thing I've done for unclear reasons that will just make me feel worse about myself. I can say that it feels good and terrifying to keep trying to find that place in the world where I can be exceptional in my own right and where that can make a good professional living. Will there be a career for me where money and happiness can finally co-exist? The jury is still out, but even if this isn't what I dream it will be, at least I will be able to look back and say, damn, that girl just did NOT know when to give up, and that's a powerful and beautiful thing.
*I did not change her name to protect the innocent, because she wasn't innocent. Her family moved away a few years later, although the other girls kept things going for her. In the first draft of this I had her full name, but in thinking on it calling someone on the internet out for what they did at age 10 may in fact be starting a new cycle of bullying, so I took it out.
By interesting coincidence, we ended up on the same hall at Governor's School between junior and senior year. My mom asked if she should have me moved to another room. I said no, and went down to say hello to her to see what I was up against. I guess she'd gotten a taste of her own medicine after she moved, because her spirit had been broken and she was completely timid.
Now that I remember that part of the story, the fact that I went to see her instead of running from her means I'm kind of a bad a$$, aren't I? I may need to edit my version of my history in light of that now that I think about it. More spiritual growth, y'all.
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