As of right now, I'm a failure.
I lived a spoiled childhood. My parents spent money on me that they didn't have. I was taught to dream, to believe that anything was possible. My teachers would send home glowing letters to family about how I was "going to change the world".
I got accepted into pretty great colleges, but because of immigration and financial reasons, I couldn't afford to go to any, so I went to community college (which was unexpectedly awesome) and then to a lousy four year school (which was expectedly terrible). I graduated with a degree in Finance.
I found no jobs in Finance. Spoiled and entitled, I rushed into a career in retail management and failed horribly at the first three jobs I worked. I would hop between jobs when I saw how bad I was at them, even though my hiring managers had sky-high expectations for me. I blamed the companies' archaic policies and never myself.
My life changed when I applied to work as a financial analyst for a small, family-owned wealth management company. I was still a spoiled and entitled piece of crap. This was an extremely selective role. I needed to take 4 hours of intelligence testing and give a 10-minute presentation so they could see how I would conduct myself in front of clients.
I glided through the interview and was offered an awesome salary - mind you, I had no financial experience at all. We had a testing debrief after the offer meeting. My bosses were glowing.
"Your IQ is the highest we've seen here since, well, ourselves, and you only fell short by a few points." They were in the 150s, and I was a 145. My ego skyrocketed. On some scales, I was a genius. (A low level genius - I think the original MENSA scale puts it at 160.)
I was a shoo-in. Smart, smart, smart!
Six months later, I was at a point where one of my bosses would yell at me so routinely throughout the day that I would tear up on the drives home. I couldn't stop myself from making small errors on reports that high-level clients (worth millions - these people knew detail) would see. I was failing, and on the chopping block. I quit, and took a job selling life insurance, convinced that my boss was just a jerk that could never be satisfied. (He was, but the problem was me.)
I got off to a hot start with life insurance and made some okay money in the first month. As usual, everyone was impressed with me the moment I walked through the door. Two months later, I was fizzing out. I wasn't making any money, my girlfriend was paying all of our bills, and I was using credit cards recklessly. I was on the verge of losing absolutely everything.
Some genius. I was a career failure at 25 already. Five different jobs since May 2013 and I sucked at every single one of them to the point where I knew I had to leave before I got fired.
I finally realized I was the problem. My entitled attitude, arrogant way of thinking and speaking, and total lack of self-awareness buried me. I denied all of it until I was such a loser I could hardly look in the mirror. I was depressed, emasculated, and angry at no one but me.
Then I started from the ground up. For three months, I did a temporary accounts receivable job for a labor union. It paid terribly, but I knew I needed to start small and to control others' expectations of me. When that assignment ended, I was hired as an accounts payable clerk for a new company. I've been there for three months now, and I'm working to master the little things that make people successful.
My friend - we'll call him F - is the total opposite. He's brilliant, but I'm pretty sure his IQ is average. He went to college, worked hard from the bottom of his career, and at 25 is a financial manager working directly under a CFO for a pharmaceutical company making $120,000 a year. His humility, relentless work ethic, and loyalty have brought him this far.
He texted and asked me, "Hey man, remember when you took that IQ test a few years ago? What did you get? I'm thinking of taking one."
I told him, "Why? Look at your life. You built yourself from the ground up. You paid off thousands of dollars in student loans in less than two years, you're in top physical condition, and you're at a career level that most people can only dream of before you're even 30. You don't need an IQ test. Your results prove how smart you are."
I then told him my story - we hadn't talked regularly in years, and I kept it a secret from as many people as I could. It was so cathartic that I cried when I got home.
For all of you who aren't privileged, or have disadvantages, take it from me and from modern psychology: Grit, not ability, is the ultimate determining factor in how far you go. It's about being self-aware, humble, and fighting through the tough times.
I'm 26 and the next few years of my life are going to be me just cleaning up the mess I've made since I left college, but I'm so thankful I learned the hard way so fast.
Submitted April 22, 2017 at 07:12PM by DM112090 http://ift.tt/2oTI2D3
No comments:
Post a Comment