Want to know something I rarely share?
In late June 2015, I received some news that rocked my world. The place I had taught for nine years was downsizing its teaching staff, and though I’d had great student evaluations and annual teaching reviews and had taught longer than anyone else in my department and had taught the most diverse list of courses, I was cut as the communication studies department went from four full-time faculty members to two.
I was devastated. I was scared. I was confused. Why me? I was a single mom of three who hadn’t done any other career in almost two decades!! Teaching was my security blanket. My love. It was a huge part of my identity. Something I was proud of.
I had been a college professor for 18 years. I enjoyed teaching and helping students prepare for careers. I honestly didn’t think of a life without teaching. I couldn’t imagine a corporate job. Academia was all I knew.
Getting the news in late June is basically death for a college professor in terms of getting hired somewhere else for the new academic year that starts in August. Luckily, at the time I was three years into Xyngular and doing well. I earned about 3.5 times more than my teaching salary that year doing X part time while also raising my family and working full time.
I decided that since getting another teaching job until the next year was out of the question, I would just focus on Xyngular full time for a year while trying to find another teaching job that wouldn’t require relocating my family out of their school district.
Scared of the future, I just rolled up my sleeves and went to work. By the end of that year, I was making 13 TIMES what my annual teaching income was my 18th year of teaching … and it was only my fourth year with Xyngular and only one of those years I’d done it full time without another career. It was also more than the salary of the university president, which was a challenge a former student gave me when she heard about the administration’s decision to cut me. She said, “Go show them and out earn the president!” When she told me that I didn’t believe it’d be possible, especially in the first year not teaching!!
It was then I decided to RETIRE from teaching. I was 40 years old. It was MY CHOICE this time. The year before I was forced to stop teaching because it was someone else’s decision.
Now, a little over four years after I was forced to leave the only career I ever had known and one that I loved, I’m earning almost 18 TIMES what I used to make teaching. 18 times!!! Almost double the salary of my former university president!!! How crazy is that?!! And I don’t have someone else determining my value or my fate!! I don’t have to commute to work or leave my family while I go to a career away from home.
I am my own boss. I decide when to work. Where to work. How much I’m worth.
Those fears I had when I lost my teaching job so suddenly and without preparation are now gone. I feel BLESSED. Blessed that I still am able to support my family but am now able to provide a lifestyle and FUTURE that teaching could never have provided for us!! I have time freedom. Financial freedom. And I STILL get to make a difference by teaching and helping others … only this time I get to see their results much, much sooner!!!
A couple months ago, I visited my old teaching institution for the first time since I packed up my office scared of the future and not understanding why. When I was there this time, four years later and on my own terms, the fear was gone as confidence and security had long replaced those emotions I had when I got the news that rocked my world. I felt blessed by all that had happened.
Most people don’t know that I was forced to leave my teaching institution because of budget cuts. It’s something I was afraid and embarrassed to share. I had planned on going back to academia as soon as I could.
I might have been forced to leave, but after experiencing all the blessings Xyngular provided my family, I CHOSE to retire from that career. Now, I have a new security blanket. One that I control!! I won’t ever turn my fate over to someone else again.
I used to love walking on campus each day surrounded by the beauty of these old buildings that had so much history helping people prepare for their futures. Now, though, I love being at home, surrounded by my beautiful children, and helping people CREATE their futures even more!!!
Kara is the rank of a Gold Executive. .04% of Xyngular Distributors are paid as a Gold Executive. This testimonial does not include expenses incurred by the Distributor in building their business. Our company’s income disclosure: http://ltl.is/Z396T.
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