Attending my husband’s law school reunion brought back painful memories of my Harvard Business School reunion.
Reunions suck unless you are wildly successful.
It was 2016. It was my 15th reunion.
At every reunion, we have all these guys who work in private equity congratulating themselves for their high achievements.
But instead, I felt like I was failing in life.
I didn’t know what to do with my career.
I wasn’t in the arena.
I was outside the circle.
I call up my LA friend Eryn Brown to get advice.
She said her clients, who are wildly successful screenwriters, love what they do so much that they couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
How could I ever figure out what I love to do?
Sylvester Stallone was a struggling actor who couldn’t get a break.
With no money, he went to see the Muhammad Ali – Chuck Wepner fight. Afterwards, he went home and wrote the screenplay, Rocky.
“He is a man of the streets. People looked on him as the all-American tragedy, a man without much mentality and few social graces. But he has deep emotion and spirituality and good patriotism… I have always seen him as a 20th Century gladiator in a pair of sneakers.” From TotalRocky ROCKY (1976) His Whole Life Was a Million to One Shot
I hated the feeling that I was going nowhere…
Fighting for your life involves pain and adversity.
It is not a pleasant experience.
To get back in the ring, I needed to figure out how to develop a path and then train myself to become a different future-self.
"Success happens so slowly that it feels like failure."
- Gary Keller is the founder of Keller-Williams Realty and the author of The One Thing.
This quote from Gary once confused me until I realized how many mistakes and small and large bets I have made to get to where I am today.
People only see the happy ending. Rarely do they see the frustration, the grind, the loneliness of doing the work, experimenting, creating, failing and forgetting to celebrate the small wins.
To get out of this paralyzing feeling…. It's going to feel weird like you are not working on the right thing, but slowly and so slowly you start to see progress… a sense of direction. It's not like you wake up one day, and oh I’ve made it. You wake up and see all of the hard decisions, good and bad decisions and how they have compounded into something good.
Some of the lessons here are from Jason Feifer! Thank you!!
You got to fight for your right to be fulfilled.
I love what I do now today, seven years later.
I love working with my clients, offering financial advice, and investment management.
Photo is of me at the famous steps in front of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the next photo Dennis Kerbel, Rich Kent, David Schwartz, Lance Breiland, Dan Gusenoff and Eric Johnson (Mayor of Dallas) at #PennLaw reunion.
Tiffany Kent,
Tiffany@wealthengagement.com
Empowering women to take control of their future!
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