Never write a blog if you’re depressed

And yet, here I am.

I am a teacher. I have been a teacher for 52 years. I KNOW I’m not supposed to be comparing myself to others; I’m doing what I love…

And yet, here I am.

Most teachers that have been teaching as long as I have, are dead. At the very least, they’re retired and living on the state pension. I’m working with 5 students and bringing in about $600/month. That is a full $1200 less than someone that lasted long enough in the system to get a pension. I would never have qualified because I got fired from all 9 of the teaching jobs I had after teaching there 1 year. So apparently, I’m not a GOOD teacher.

So, here I am.

I am a financial analyst. I have the highest level certification in securities and am also certified in life insurance. I have been in the business for 22 years. Most people in the company that have been working for 22 years have over 100 representatives and thousands of clients. They are making between $75K and $206K. I have 0 representatives on my team and less than 20 clients, and I average about $4500/year. So apparently, I’m not a GOOD financial analyst.

And yet, here I am.

I have been told I am a natural at coaching, but I need to unlearn my teaching approach to coaching. I somehow made it to a group that will (as of August 5) be accredited by the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. This is rare air indeed. Everyone in this group already has a coaching business and I’m hearing SMART goals that include making $125K in the next quarter. They are told to write a short book, to come up with a mailing list with daily emails, and to have products and services such as webcasts, master classes, masterminds, websites, and speaking engagements. They are told to have various funnels that bring prospects into their business where they are converted into clients.

So, here I am.

I am studying my butt off. I am practicing skills. But I have no clients. “Go get clients!” They say. So I try to get a website going. They say, “Why do you need a website? You have no clients! Go get clients!” So I try getting my book written. They say, “Why are you writing a book? You have no one to sell it to! Go get clients!” So now I find myself in the same situation as I am in the financial business. No clients, no income. No income, no marketing. No marketing, no clients to provide income. And round and round it goes. How do I get clients? Knock on doors, put up flyers, send out brochures, put events in LinkedIn and Facebook… Why would I think that this would be successful when I have few friends on Facebook and fewer followers on LinkedIn?

And yet, here I am.

I thoroughly believed that if I was REALLY good at what I did, I would have students and clients and recognition as a person you could go to that would help you solve your problems. I see people who are barely qualified to teach what I’ve taught getting accolades as Teacher of the Year. I see people who don’t understand money like I do making the rounds as a retirement specialist and giving seminars on how to have a mediocre return on your money. I’ve seen coaches who basically tell their clients what to do and get paid thousands of dollars per session and there is no transformation in the participant, they just check off boxes.

I write books that no one will ever read. I write music no one will ever hear. I’m a club-coach coach who has never coached a club. I am a cook that can’t hold down a job in a restaurant. I have choreography to music that no one will ever dance to. I have an unfinished 3′ x 5′ cross stitch project that will remain on my “to do” pile along with an afghan that took me 5 years to finish and came apart where it was sewn and a sweater my husband needs mending. I used to speak 5 languages but now can only parse together 4-5 word phrases. I have a 120,000-word novel that will never get finished or published, and that short book I was told not to write will also remain unfinished and unpublished.

So, I shouldn’t be here.

I don’t fit.

• When I was taking ballet at the Omaha Academy of Ballet, I couldn’t stretch into the splits because I had an artificial and restrictive hip replacement. There were certain things I couldn’t do. So when we were doing combinations on the diagonal, I’d just stroll to the other side of the room. I wouldn’t even try.
• When I was in fast food, they had production levels based on the average production on that particular day of the week. But they didn’t account for slow and peak periods and as a result, they overproduced during the slow periods and wasted a lot of food and underproduced during the peak periods, and ran out and lost customers. I kept my mouth shut because my background in statistics had no value there. I didn’t even try to change this system that didn’t work.
• When I was teaching music in the schools, I was teaching kids to be creative and to integrate all the classes they were taking into the music they were making. I found this is not what the administration and the other teachers wanted. I quit trying to get teaching positions in the schools.

Do you know what’s worse than failing? Succeeding at something that doesn’t matter. There are so many things that I wanted to do and finish really well until I recognized they were worthless goals. I may have a gift for teaching, coaching, and music, but it makes no difference how good I am if people don’t want what I can offer. I’m to the point where I don’t even want to start anything new…just binge BritBox and complain to the world.

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