You Were Created for This Time

My first job was when I was 11. I babysat six-week-old twins for a summer in an office conference room while their Mom, the CEO of the Ski Resort, worked down the hall. My last childcare/nanny job was in my early 20s.

I actually applied for my first job when I was 9 years old.

My cousin had lived with us for several months and waitressed at the Pioneer Cafe down the road a ways from our house. I thought that was cool. One day my Mom took a call from the owner of the restaurant informing her that I was there asking to work, and how old was I? As you can imagine, I was a tiny kid, and she wasn’t sure I was as old as I was saying I was. And, child labor laws prevented her from hiring me. Mom confirmed my stated age and I was sent home, jobless.

I finally did get that restaurant job at 16, when I worked as a busser at Godfather’s Pizza. I still have a faint scar on my bicep from the hot pizza pan at the top of the pile I was carrying to the dishwasher. I worked restaurants again in my 20’s after I quit being a nanny. Of the four places I worked, I loved fine dining the best. There’s nothing like a fantastic 4-course meal with immaculate wine pairings and aperitifs, cognac, or espresso to accompany dessert. Combine that with a folded napkin shaped like a shell or a swan, refolded every time you get up, and a crumbed table – oh my gah.

There’s such luxury and care in a meal like that. My mouth is watering as I type.

When I was 15 I asked my Dad if I could emancipate myself. My parents had been divorced for two years, but we were all still living under the same roof. My Mom wouldn’t move to Denver for about another year. I was an energetic sponge and living in that house was miserable. Our life had fallen apart but we were all still going through the motions of “normal” and everyone was seething. I was done and I wanted a divorce from them. The answer to the emancipation question was no and things didn’t get better.

I became an object of control that my parents wielded against each other and in response to that, I put my two birds up in the air and rebelled. I rebelled in every way imaginable and didn’t stop for a long time. I was actually a really good kid and everyone outside my home liked/loved me – teachers, friend’s parents, the people I babysat for loved me but what I experienced in the aftermath of my parent’s divorce, living together period, and their eventual split was not love in the way you wish to be loved by your parents. Everything that was the least bit feral about me got exacerbated while I lived a seemingly “normal” life.

I think that was when I started playing it small.

The natural leader in me, the natural, joyful, eager hard worker in me was not cultivated. I put all my efforts into doing what I wanted, but from the angle of rage at being denied my head of steam. I don’t fault my parents, honestly, at 39 and 44 they were doing what they could in a very complicated and messy situation. And what else would you say when your 15-year-old daughter asks you for her emancipation.

Well, what my Dad did tell me was that I wasn’t capable of taking care of myself and that it was his job to take care of me until I was 18 and graduated from High School, and as long as you’re under my roof you’ll follow my rules, and so on and so on. Dad was a talker and he made sure to review the entire operating manual for how it was going to be for the next three and a half years. The natural leader in me wasn’t gone but denied. Her internal response was, Watch Me.

This is when rebellion went into overdrive in cars with boys going 100 mph down county gravel roads, in bars underage drinking, not at the friend’s house I told him I’d be at but out with my grown folks friends, nearly flunking out of school type of overdrive.

I made myself small to fit into that “you can’t take care of yourself” message from my Dad.

But, I couldn’t stop playing BIG as a rebel with two birds up. Every day I feel small and I seriously wrestle with those two wolves from the parable – my natural leader and my FK YOU rebel. Some of those original messages of devaluation and control still run as scripts in my system.

My journey with CEOs didn’t end at my babysitting job when I was 11. Right out of college (at 30) I had the privilege of working for an amazing CEO running an organization whose mission and philosophy changed my life. I was a terrible assistant, but my nurturing, hospitality skills and experience with Denver’s socialite set served me in my learning and serving at what I now consider CEO Bootcamp. I think this CEO had her own set of wolves and she provided grace for the shortcomings my wolves brought into the equation.

What I’m trying to illustrate for you here is that every step is necessary.

I’ve been successfully self-employed as a Financial Professional for 13 years. That led me to here, where I’m 90 days post-launch of GeboCall, the company of which I’m the Founder and CEO. My business plan, written in October 2018, outlines my Global Vision to Solve the Loneliness Epidemic. I had no idea that 2020 would be the year we experienced a global pandemic or that this would be the time that the scales would fall from our collective eyes about the patriarchy, systemic racism, for-profit prisons, the billionaire coup of our government, and so on, and so on, and so on.

I had no idea of the necessity of my Vision. I had no idea that my upbringing was crafting me to perfectly understand what it feels like to feel lonely. I had no idea that my early and broad work experience would give me an expanding set of skills that would prepare me to launch a company that will go global and will help soothe our weary souls back into connection while simultaneously doing good by promoting the missions of others doing good too.

I’m here to create a ripple effect solution that happens one call at a time.

On that journey, my wolves are mostly managed through a lot of self-care, emotional sobriety, and emotional leadership. The tools I didn’t get through my upbringing I’ve been able to collect on the way, but the natural leader in me has been on this trajectory to this moment in time for a long time. I could deny my necessity by tapping into my rebel wolf. She’s not gone. She could wreck it all if I let her baser conditioned instincts to run the show. But I can’t afford the cost and neither can you. The stakes are too high now.

What has life prepared you for? What answer do you hold that the world needs? Grab your wolves. Launch your uniquely crafted necessary solution. We’re living history and you were created for this time. Let’s go.

Wishing you The Gift of knowing,

Rebecca