Bravery is being scared but doing it anyways

Recently, I went out on that limb that I am low-key terrified of. That limb is called “ We are officially open for business.” If I said that I was not scared, I would be lying. I am sick with nerves that I’m about to hang myself off of this skinny limb. That is unless that skinny little limb doesn't snap under the weight of my own expectations and hopes, and I plummet to the bottom of an abyss first. Gods help me, what have I done?

10 years of my life spent getting here

See, Tillson Financial Services has been my carefully nurtured seed for a while. For the last year, it has only been a Facebook page, and a social media presence that is dedicated to my personal vision. I’ve fried a few brain cells in school to learn how to become a self-made financial consultant. I’ve also self-taught myself a lot of mind-numbing skills to get to the point where I was yesterday. I don’t yet have my degree or licensures of any sort. I’m working on them as we speak. I’ve had a ridiculous amount of ups, downs, failures, and successes. I’m starting out super small and working my way up. Some of my business offerings do not actually require a degree or a license and that is where I’m starting. Just little old me, taking on the big bad world of finance all by my lonesome. Opening this business officially was a huge thing for me. Opening myself up to this monstrous endeavor, took some stones, and I’m silently begging the universe and all gods, goddesses, and deities, that I don’t fall on my face in offal.

What set me on this path

Ten years ago, I was a divorced, broke, single mom. I had less than $2.00 in the bank, but I had skills and was working on more. I saw an ad on LinkedIn for a “Financial Solutions Advisor Trainee in the Advisor Development Program” from a well-known bank branch, whose name I will not mention here. I read carefully through this, noticed that I did in fact have the qualifications they were asking for, and submitted an application. To my shock, I get a phone call for an interview. In my giddy excitement, I dug through my nicest business casual clothes for two hours or longer, went through my makeup carefully, and did a very neutral manicure, the works. I wanted in this program so badly that it gave me chills. This was the thing that I’d been hunting down, for months. I so very much needed to be under someone's wing to get myself up that ladder.

I get there on time. I’m dressed in my very best clothes, gently holding onto my carefully formatted resume, which had every single qualification. I’m greeted by what seemed to be a very well-to-do gentleman. We sit, chat the chat, while he is looking scrutinizingly at my resume and fiddling with paperwork at his desk. He asks the relevant questions, and I answer them positively, yet neutrally, because I knew that if I appeared or presented myself to be overconfident, cocky, arrogant, or full of myself, this is a no-no. I am not one of those swaggering, loud, brash people. That sort of thing quite turns me off, to be honest. I’m fearless and bold in my own way, quietly, without flashiness or overly bright glamour. I’m not a peacock in a pen of turkeys.

He then proceeds to tell me, in so many professional terms, that despite my experiences and qualifications, they do not need someone like me. They do not have a need for a woman that wants to someday own her own financial services business, oh no, that is entirely too difficult and unachievable by one’s lonesome, as there is scant support for such an endeavor, especially for a woman, in a male-dominated field. That my ambitions and goals do not align with their company objectives. They do not need college students either, but amazingly, they do not even require an associate's degree to even get into their program. I was thinking “So, why exactly are you hiring?” but I dared to not ask that, I’m pretty sure I was looking at the exact reason why this company was looking for another financial advisor trainee. That reason was sitting across from me with his fake smile that made my hand itch.

I ask how long he had been there and what had it taken for him to get where he was. This man had been at his job for 8 years at this time, had gotten all of his experience and licensures and etc. through the same program that I had just applied to, and had gotten his start there as an undergrad unpaid intern?! I actually had more experience and better qualifications than him when he first started, and he sat there and told me that I was not a good fit to be there. I managed by some miracle to sit there and not stare at him like a goldfish out of the water, but only just barely. He had been there long enough to be “dangerous” as he called himself. Yeah, dangerous to the entire firm’s continuing success, with his gargantuan swelled head that could barely fit through a doorway. Quite the wonder he could stand straight really. Overcompensating for something, somewhere aren't we? How people like that manage to keep their jobs and stay in power is totally beyond me, but I digress…

Light the fire

Honey, you wouldn't know what dangerous as if you were looking at it, and he was looking at it in his office that day. Hold my tea please, while I tell you what “dangerous” is. Dangerous is when you don’t have a lot to lose, and you're brave enough to start something from nothing. Dangerous is when you’re broke and you have nothing, and you're willing to all but rob a bank to get it. Dangerous is when you have a young child at home that you’re barely keeping fed and a roof on its head. Don’t poke the dragon mother the wrong way, she will light you up like a fourth of July show.

The most dangerous thing you can do is tell someone like me, why I was incapable of doing exactly the same as him. Why and how I’d never achieved his level or better. Do you want to royally and utterly piss me off the wrong way? Tell me I cannot do something. Brutally insult my character, intelligence, and feminity. Kick down my sense of self-worth. Go ahead, tell me, that as a woman, I am inferior to you.

You can not need me, or not hire me for whatever reason, but do not ever impinge on me like that. Especially if you started lower on the ladder than me, for pride goes before a fall. I have wondered if they ever found their desired match for a new trainee, and whether Mr. Overly Swelled Head was replaced or not. I wonder if they found some poor meek soul to groom like a good little puppet or not. As that would have been what happened to me, had I been hired. I see that now, years down the road. Hindsight is not often 20/20 until much later.

That was the most infuriating and degrading interview of my whole life. I’ve had bad interviews, but one that day has stuck with me all these years, while I’ve built myself to the point where I am now. I did not let an ounce of this show to him, I took the smack in the face gracefully, and went home. These people will never, ever know, that I walked three miles there and back from my apartment to this interview. That I could not get a ride, or afford a taxi that day. They will not ever know how hard of a time I was having trying to keep pennies to a dollar in the bank. That I bought my lunch that day with EBT. That I got sick off my lunch, and ugly snot cried to my school counselor for an hour straight and utterly lost my nerve.

Live Dangerously or Die Gloriously

He had no idea, that I live more dangerously close to the edge than he could ever imagine. That I’ve finally gathered the stones to launch this dream of mine to the stratosphere. I live dangerously, every single day. Because playing it safe gets you nothing. Standing down and being a meek little pet gets you nowhere, living your life on another’s chain makes you a puppet. That my friend will never be me. Without further ado...Welcome to Tillson Financial, how may I help you today sir?