“You’ll never amount to anything…” These were the words of my seventh grade guidance counselor, looking across the desk at me. I was a four -eyed 13 year old, with greasy hair in an ACDC t-shirt. In the moment, I kinda agreed with her. With an entrepreneurial father who owned several 7-11 convenience stores, life after school just wasn’t on my radar. But how could I explain the feeling in my gut when she basically kept something like college and a career out of my reach? There was a big part of me that said, I’ll show you!

I may have lacked confidence in the classroom, always finding an excuse to look down and clean my glasses when the teacher called on a volunteer. But outside of school, I knew what a work ethic looked like. My father built a convenience store empire with a will so strong that he insisted on stopping at his stores before he went to the hospital where he would be admitted into ICU and die three ½ weeks later. Work was the center of his world and he showed me how to build, manage and maintain employees and on a daily basis. There was no time in my family to goof around. I knew I was lucky and did what I could to please everyone and make my hard working parents happy. As I got into my twenties, I remember getting laid off from a Fortune 500 company. My biggest worry was I was going to prove that 7th grade councilor right and not be anything and not to mention disappoint my parents. I remember crying into the phone telling them what happened and saying that. Of course they comforted me and reminded me of the confidence they knew I had buried deep down inside of me.

This momentary pause in my career started me on a journey to find answers. I found them by reviewing my strengths. Once I did that, I was the happiest in my life!
Instead of regret for that layoff, I thank it for leading me to where I am now – helping women become their own corporate warriors. Sometimes we need our armor to help get us survive the fight, protect others, and just look damn good doing it.

you can’t allow something someone said to you, no matter how far in your past, shake your confidence. I have let others take control and it wasn’t until I took control of my destiny and started breaking the code and playing the game on my turns did I take it to the next level. The only one who can control my destiny is me. Every hard knock of life, there to either let us crush us or get over and use as building block to become a strong and powerful warrior.