a story of passion, drive, and resilience...
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Born and raised in the rural Midwest, in a modest middle-class family with the encouragement that all I had to do was get a college education and my life would be set with a job where I was respected, making good money, and living a good life. We didn’t have a lot, but we had everything we needed. Â
My parents had to work hard at their jobs and put up with a lot of crap, so we all honestly thought that choosing a career and getting a degree would make life better for us. My sister and I were taught that we could do or be anything we wanted to be with a college education and hard work. In fact, not going to college was not an option. So I charged down that path with big ambitions, a plan, and bundle of young energy.
With my natural talent for organization and focus, I was able to achieve a lot.Â
- Started volunteering at the local hospital at age 14
- Started taking college level accounting classes on a scholarship at age 16
- Climbed the corporate ladder and doubled my salary in just (5) years
- Earned a Bachelors, Masters, and PhD by age 38 all while working full-time.
By all conventional standards, I should've been on top of the world working my dream job and living the good life.
well that didn't go as planned...Â
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The harsh reality was that not only did no one seem to care, there were an alarming number of people who would seemingly take great pride in trying to minimize everything that I had worked for.Â
When I graduated with my Masters degree, my boss refused to put it on my annual evaluation because it was "personal". And when I graduated with my PhD, I immediately became overqualified for the corporate job that I had done for nearly 20 years, yet underqualified for the academic professor job that I sought after because I took the non-traditional route of online education. Snooty institutions didn’t recognize me as a viable candidate.Â
I graduated in 2008 during one of the worst economic recessions of our time. I was laid off from my corporate job in July of that year, and the results of my neglecting friends and family became glaring. I suddently found myself alone, in a dark, empty house, with nowhere to go and no one to talk to. The people that I had befriended over the years were all still working their jobs. And since I had accomplished something that so few people have, no one could relate to my feelings of disappointment, bitterness, and emptiness.Â
