You know that old saying: life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans? That’s what happened to me this past week when I should have been getting Day 7 of my 7 part series posted here. I can blame it on “stuff” getting in the way – like my planning my teleclass, or my daughter’s baby shower, or problems with my computer. Or I can just fess up to it being more about poor planning on my part.  I goofed. I thought I had more time to get ‘er all done, but I didn’t, and so it’s day 7 plus 5. Mea culpa…

For the next 7 days I’ll be sharing one story a day about a woman who reached her turning point. I don’t believe there is a single “way” to transformation. There is only our own unique way, and only we can do the work necessary to achieve our own sacred success.

We all have them: Those defining moments when the forces of head and heart come together with crystal clarity and we know that what we’ve been doing, or haven’t been doing, is no longer enough. For some of us it’s like standing at the edge of a precipice looking out at the vast open space beyond; for others it’s like standing at a fork in the road, looking left then right, but not moving because we can’t decide which road to take. Still others of us feel that nagging vibration in the pit of our soul that refuses to be silenced.

These moments are defining ones because it’s then that we realize we must make a decision: to jump; to turn in one direction or the other; to listen to the voice reverberating from some still small place within us. It’s then that we reach our turning point. That moment when we acknowledge the need to do something differently; to let go of something that’s holding us back and away; to step into the extraordinary life we glimpse on the other side.

Mindy’s Story

When I think about my childhood, I understand now how much I was deeply shaped by my culture and upbringing. I grew up in the suburbs, with a mom who was a traditional wife and mother, and a dad who was a high-powered trial attorney. We didn’t want for anything, but despite that very privileged lifestyle, I learned early on that I needed to be successful monetarily – or at least, marry into money. Either you married success or you did it yourself, and that’s what made you a worthwhile person.

Looking back, I can see that this was a tremendous ingrained fear – this deep-seated need to have money in order to have security. It was always lurking in the back of my mind: Do I have enough? Can I make enough? And yet the thought of being responsible for it paralyzed me.

I remember my dad shaking his head and saying, “Mindy, you better marry well” when I came home with a C on one too many math tests. My interest and talents were more artistic than practical, so I went the route of marrying into money rather than making my own. That sounds so cold-blooded and calculating, and it was neither. I didn’t set out to find a wealthy man. I wanted to find the right man; the one I could love and raise a family with, but on an unconscious level I was being drawn to men of means because of the conditioned messages that kept playing in my head.

Fast forward to my 25^th birthday – I was the mother of an 18 month old daughter, and 7 weeks pregnant with our second child. My husband was an associate with a law firm in Atlanta – the same firm his father was a partner in, and his father before him. I had married into tradition; stability; and a white-bread mentality that, while comforting when I was younger, became constricting and repressive as I got older.

I didn’t know much about my husband’s job other than he worked incredibly long hours, traveled a great deal and was paid handsomely. He took care of the bills, the taxes, the investments and I took care of the children and the house. We lived my parents’ marriage. I didn’t push the issue because the thought of balancing a checkbook or sorting through mounds of financial paperwork literally caused me to break out into a sweat. I would hear my father’s voice, dripping with disdain “Marry well.” The shame would burn my cheeks.

Fast forward to my 38^th birthday – I was the mother of two teenagers, and the wife of a criminal. After 13 years of security and stability, my life was in shambles. The unraveling began nine months earlier when my husband was charged with tax evasion and a host of other white-collar crimes. In the months preceding his arrest he managed to clean out our bank accounts and hide whatever he could in offshore accounts.

My birthday present that year was a $350,000 tax bill and no means of paying it. Thus began the death of the old Mindy, and the emergence of the new Mindy, who was no longer going to let anyone other than herself provide for her. As painful as that nine months was, it was in truth, and not at all coincidentally, like giving birth. I was giving birth to my life – fully and completely, with all its terror and triumphs at the age of 38.

The very thing I feared was the very thing I became. And once I got over the fear and stopped listening to those messages from childhood, I learned that I really enjoyed working with numbers. I had a knack for it. I was good at it. My experience was the catalyst to my becoming a financial advisor (how ironic is that); my passion is to help women take off the same blinders I had worn and take responsibility for their financial future. On a low day I can still sometimes hear my dad’s sarcastic chuckle, see the sideways shake of his head, and for a moment I’m that powerless little girl again. But only for a moment.

I’d love to know what those of you reading this blog post feel about you own turning point. Have you reached it? What was it like for you? Are you beginning to feel that rumble, that nagging restlessness that’s telling you a change is coming? Please share your thoughts and comments here as we explore then next 7 days of turning points.

Tagged as: Aging, authenticity, Business, Career, Finances, Identity, Life, Professional Women, Transitions, Turning Point, Women Executives, Women Executives, Work