Photo: Contributed
Here is a story you don’t hear every day. A full-time high school teacher turns holistic practitioner turns mortgage broker … and sticks the landing.
I love being happy and making others happy. As a child I loved playing house, school and Monopoly. I was the careful one, the saver of money, the happy kid, the energetic one with frizzy hair wearing hand-me-down clothes, skipping rope, roller skating and wanting to learn everything. I knew no bounds. I was the weird kid who wanted to be a dentist when I grew up, because I wanted everyone to have a beautiful smile.
The year was 1984, and my absolute dream was to be an Olympic gymnast, just like Mary Lou Retton. When I saw her on TV I was enchanted. Her smile lit up the stadium. Her determination and sheer power captivated me as she flew through the air. I had never seen anything so beautiful. I cheered her on to that gold medal. Everyone was happy when she nailed her routine. She had all happy powers that I wanted, too. She made it look easy.
So I got to the task of teaching myself gymnastics. I needed a balance beam, so I set up my dad’s wooden sawhorses on the back lawn and practiced my own beam routines, cartwheeling off and learning how to stick the landing. I spent hours and weeks out there on the lawn, pretending I was Mary Lou. I sprinted towards the sawhorses like they were a vault, but I just jumped over them because I didn’t know how to handspring off like she did. I pranced around the yard incorporating my limited self-taught gymnastics moves into my own floor (or yard) routine. I could do handstands, teddy bear stands, somersaults and the splits. I was so happy out there. Turns out I was creating the foundation of future me.
I had so much fun playing and dreaming. I was a well-rounded kid with a big heart, with minimal parental supervision, who eventually toppled off the sawhorses and landed in a heap on the grass … but I channeled my inner Mary Lou and embraced charisma and a big life full of diversity. I never got anywhere with my gymnastics career, no stadium of cheering fans.
So it follows that my career path has been diverse, energetic and as daring as a cartwheel off a wobbly sawhorse. Get comfy? Not me. I thrive on re-imagining. Not too many people know that about 16 years ago I was a high school teacher, 13 years ago I passed my life insurance and mutual funds tests to become a financial planner, and about 10 years ago I started my natural wellness business. Now here I am, back in finance. I challenged myself to learn hard material, practising and honing for months. This field is diverse and challenging. It hasn’t been an ordinary path, but I’m here to stay because I love the field of finance.
I will always be that kid cartwheeling off the sawhorses—the daring, caring, powerful and quiet champion in the back yard.
My personal brand is to create happiness through education and communication. My desire is that my clients have less stress and their home purchase is a happy process. I always want my clients to feel like we are a team, and that we won the gold medal, just like Mary Lou.
In addition to being a mortgage broker, Kate Shivers owns Kate Shivers Allergy and Wellness
This column was submitted as part of BWB Well-Being Wednesdays.
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