I’ll never forget the moment. It’s etched in my memory forever. I was sitting on the floor with my two kids, ages three and one at the time. Both were in diapers, and both were sick. My husband had been deployed or on work-related trips off and on for the better part of three years during this particular assignment in California. I was exhausted. Mentally and physically. And if I’m being honest, I was extremely disappointed in where I had landed in life. I loved my kids and enjoyed being a reliable parent, but my personal achievement muscles were beginning to atrophy. The last three years had rocked my world and I had lost myself. And a terrifying thought kept running through my head:
“Is this all I’m destined for?” I used to have such big goals and dreams for myself. “Is this all there is for me now?”
It was from that very question and at that very moment that I resolved to make a change. For my family. For myself. For my future. The path ahead wasn’t entirely clear at the time, but it was that specific moment of clarity on the floor that would lead me to the best discovery I would make: that I didn’t have to be at the mercy of my crazy military life.
I had the power to create my own future. And it could happen through taking matters in my own hands and starting a business.
Silent Untapped Resource
As a distinguished graduate of the US Air Force Academy, a veteran, and an Air Force Reservist, I still shudder to think of how incredibly close I came to losing my identity and consequently my drive during the span of those three years. It was honestly one of the hardest times in my life, because I felt so out of place, unfulfilled, and generally unhappy.
Yet, my story is not unique to me. It is only one of thousands within the military spouse community that are similar in nature and belong to devoted spouses who silently grin and bear their hidden desires to find meaningful work.
In twenty years in the military, I have seen countless friends and colleagues make a valiant effort to keep a career going through their first few military relocations; however, after multiple attempts, qualifications that don’t transfer from state to state, and the addition of kids, many just give up. Sadly, they decide their efforts are futile. This is especially true for families who endure relocations as often as every year, depending on the specifics of their military member’s career field. With that kind of frequency, even if a spouse does land a great job, it is a major letdown to move to the next assignment and not find an equivalent position (or anything at all). After several rounds of this repeated scenario, confidence wanes and it’s easy to begin to question one’s self-worth.
As a business owner and problem solver, this employment dilemma perplexed me and left me wondering how to fix it. What’s hard is that there is no denying that the military community is full of talent. Having interacted with hundreds of military spouses, service members and families in my personal life over the years, it’s amazing to discover the hidden talents my military spouse sidekicks have picked up through their experiences. Here are just a few talents that could go on a resume for a large majority of them:
Quickly and smoothly relocates the family and kids to a new community at the drop of a hat…sometimes up to twenty times over the course of a career.
Endures long stretches of single parenting during deployments and job-related absences.
Organizes and leads large groups of other military spouses and family members with no formal training (and no pay).
Volunteers on base or post when needed.
Possesses ability to diagnose and complete household repairs (everything from fixing toilets to installing wood floors).
Yet even with all these amazing skills, jobs are still scarce.
Once I made the decision to pull myself out of the haze of my own unhappy situation, I started noticing just how few women in my military network were employed. At the time, most of us were in our early thirties, some with kids and some without. My friends said they wanted to work and some truly needed the income, but nobody had jobs. It was obvious that something was wrong.
As I educated myself, I learned that up to 90% of military spouses are under- or unemployed (underemployed means a person is working for less money than their education would normally earn them). Ninety percent! Having witnessed this unfortunate employment scenario firsthand, I kept thinking what a shame it was to waste such awesome talent.
My Journey
Thankfully, I didn’t allow the drab employment landscape as a military spouse to stop me from finding a better way. When I made the decision to return to the workforce, I naively wanted a job that only required part-time hours so I could be around for the kids, but that could still pay handsomely. Yet as I began my search, I quickly realized how difficult this was to find.
With my background and lack of recent work, it was nearly impossible to find an employer that would entertain a flexible arrangement upon entry. I wasn’t willing to put my kids in full-time daycare, endure the high cost, and bear many hours of lost opportunity with them. So I did what my hard-headed logic often tells me to do, and I resorted to taking matters into my own hands. I decided that come hell or high water, I’d create the “perfect job” by starting a business and make my magical-high-paying-part-time job come alive!
With two children under the age of three, a husband who was in a demanding job, and a California house losing value by the second from a recession, it was definitely not a picture-perfect scenario. But as much as my head knew the cards were stacked against me, my heart responded even stronger with the resolve to make it happen.
And I did.
Putting in one late night after another, learning through failures, pushing myself into uncomfortable places, and unapologetically applying everything I had learned through life in the military, I found a path to success. What’s more, it was like the whole world opened up to me. I learned. I stretched. I pushed. I fought. I grew. And through all of the haze of hard work, consistency, and dedication, I uncovered me again.
This stronger, more confident, and more determined “me” started dreaming again!
A Community with Skill
The beautiful thing with any hardship-to-success story is that you start to discover all of the stories in society that are just like yours and you begin to form your tribe. When I first started out in business, I hoped to find a mentor who was just like me. Someone with a similar background, someone who had already achieved success on their own, and someone who could guide me to do the same.
I was looking for military entrepreneurs.