chapter eight 
chapter eight 
EMBRACING IN-BETWEEN 
The big mission inside of you is seeking expression. When God calls you to something that is not on your radar, embrace it.
As you now know, the purpose journey begins in the Discovery Stage, where we are bathed in The Rules, and later we make decisions about what kind of life we’re going to pursue in the Talent Stage. But after a while, many of us start feeling uncomfortable there. Our inner rebel gets tired of the old, bored with the predictable, unsatisfied with the superficial, and ready to relinquish our identity addictions. That’s when the really good (and scary) stuff begins. When we’re done, God gets started. Heaven unleashes its Holy arsenal and uses everything at its disposal to move us from our Comfort Zone into the Growth Zone—or is it a war zone? Probably both. Little me isn’t going to let your higher purpose unfold without a fight.
As comfortable, familiar, and maybe even exhausting as the Discovery and Talent stages are, they can’t compare with the more fulfilling life that awaits. But what is that exactly? We feel something greater in the future calling to us. It tugs at our soul and agitates our spirit. But we can’t quite see the bigger picture . . . and, we’re not 100 percent sure we want to either.
What was once stable is now shaky. People you trusted are now letting you down . . . deeply. Your job suddenly ends. Your kids go off to college. You lose a loved one, or something unexpected intrudes upon your plans and dreams. Your life somehow gets flipped upside down. You ask . . . Who am I now and why am I feeling this way? Where did these tears and this newfound fear come from? Why is everything changing around me . . . everything I worked so hard to establish? What does all this mean? What do I do now, and where in the heck am I going?
What. Is. Happening. To. Me?
God must be trying to get your attention. And now you find yourself in a peculiar place. A wilderness and place of transition. A place in-between where you’ve been and who you’re called to be. That place is probably extremely uncomfortable, because you’re no longer in control. Welcome to stage three of the Purpose Map. Welcome to The GAP.
THE GAP I don’t like change. I never have. I love predictability and I love a good plan to follow. Give me a checklist and a strategy, and I’ll give you results that’ll wow you. I doubt I’m the only one who wrestles with God for the steering wheel. I want Him to drive, but I still secretly wanna know what He’s doing, where He’s going, and how He plans on us getting there!
But then disruption comes in and changes everything. It disturbs our attachment to predictability and anything that has too much of our heart and attention. God is actually trying to get us to shift. Here is why.
God won’t bless where you no longer belong.
It’s the principle of here versus there. God can’t bless you here with what He has for you there. If He gave you your there blessing, you’d never move from here. You’d stay. So sometimes the reason God seems like He isn’t answering your prayers is that the provision doesn’t fit with where you are.
God isn’t being mean. He is being a parent. You never learn how to walk unless you take forward steps. If you’re always carried, or if everything comes to you, then you never find your legs. You never learn what it takes to get up from where you are to get to where you could and should be.
God isn’t holding a blessing hostage, He has just put it there—smack in the center of the place He wants to get you to. However, the place in-between your here and there is The GAP.
It’s that obscure place of transition. It’s when you know it’s time to leave where you’ve been, but you’re not completely sure where you’re going.
Sometimes we choose to enter The GAP. Desire leads us to do something new and different. Sometimes we get frustrated into it. We can no longer stand our circumstances and we just know it’s time for a change. And other times we get split-rocked into it.
But this in-between place of uncertainty isn’t supposed to be permanent. And it’s not supposed to be punishment, although it can seem like it. Being in The GAP is like moving from the womb to the birth canal. At a certain point, the womb gets too small and it’s time to move on. You can’t stay in the incubator forever. But the canal is tight, dark, and uncomfortable. You’re being pushed, pulled, squeezed, and poked all at the same time. Naturally you wonder why in the world your mother is doing this to you. Everything was going just fine before! But this transition is necessary for your new season to begin. New experiences. New possibilities. Ample room for growth. The danger is staying where you’ve been. It stunts your growth and limits your future. If you stay, the womb becomes a tomb.
The best is on the other side of birth.
There is a reason babies comes out crying. They’re mad! They’ve not known anything other than the comfortable warmth of the womb. The unfamiliar is almost always unwanted . . . at least initially. And there is nothing sexy about birthing. Even deliveries without the intense pain aren’t pretty—beautiful but not pretty. It’s messy. Most things that matter are.
But this is how the shift into higher purpose and a season of calling happens in our lives, and it might be what is happening to you now. You’re being evicted from here and relocated to there. And just because a life shift is messy, that doesn’t mean it’s not majestic, too.
WHY ARE YOU IN THE GAP? 
If you’re in The GAP, it means you have outgrown your Comfort Zone. It doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with where you’ve been. You may have been very successful there. But we’re not interested in mere success; we want a life soaked in significance. You may have been sensing that it’s time for change, though you may have been ignoring, delaying, procrastinating, or avoiding it. Maybe you haven’t been able to decipher what the change should be. Or maybe you’ve been too busy to focus on it . . . to listen . . . to surrender . . . to make room for more.
You’re not and never will be invisible to God. You’re necessary for His master plan.
What are you hiding from exactly?
Your calling.
Your true calling.
Your higher purpose.
The GAP is God’s way of moving you from your Comfort Zone into your purpose.
It’s time to find your voice. It’s time to discover your new possibilities, resurrect dormant dreams, and step into a new season of impact, influence, leadership, giving, love, and service.
First, you’ll have to unload a few of the beliefs, people, and attachments you’ve been holding on to. This won’t be easy. So take a deep breath. Now take another if you need it.
You’re in The GAP because you’re somehow unsatisfied with where you’ve been. Not necessarily unhappy, but you’re hungry for more. You are no longer content with where you’ve been and what you’ve accomplished. And, God needs you in new place.
Let me pause to say that discontent, too, is a mixed bag. If we’re unsatisfied because we’re never satisfied, then that’s a different thing. That’s chasing after the wind—a search for meaning found in doing. As a seasoned striver and achiever, I know that breed of discontentment very well. It’s rooted in trying to prove worth and significance. Embracing significance, however, is very different. It’s surrendering to truth. The truth is you are already fearfully and wonderfully made—beautifully complex, permanently loved by God, and necessary to Him and therefore humanity. There is nothing for you to prove.
Disruption comes to replace discontent with destiny—to draw us into a deeper dimension of living, giving, and flowing.
There is, however, something bigger for you to unleash. When destiny begins to brew and bubble in your belly, it’s time to get ready for a new kind of delivery. That’s a healthy discontent; the sign of a healthy, supernatural pregnancy.
I know many of us have been told that only some people are called to lead, and that the rest of us need to grow where we’re planted. Not so. While it’s true that grounding yourself is key for development, the question is, what are you being developed for? I mean . . . why grow your faith anyway? Are we supposed to be trees planted in one place? Or are we supposed to be fishers of men like Christ? To get out of the boat? The GAP is about finding the courage to take that step. After all, we’re more like eggs than seeds. Both grow, but only one can move. The only way to move into your purpose is to travel through The GAP.
The GAP is also about gaining an appreciation for your gifts and your voice—learning to tap into the good stuff God gave you and to actually start flowing in it . . . not just having drive-by experiences with your God-giftings. The GAP is like a classroom that teaches you to live at a higher level and in a higher frequency . . . one capable of attracting what you need and accelerating who you truly are. On the other side of The GAP, you’ll learn to activate your voice, gifts, and influence, but this time is about paying attention, unlearning, and discerning what new season God is calling you to enter. Purpose always leaves clues. But for now, understand that there is a destination. A there awaits.
Being in The GAP can be scary, because you’re not in control. When things outside of your control start happening, God is reminding you who is really in control. You can’t keep clinging to the stuff that’s been keeping you here. So, if you won’t just go there . . . then God has to start emptying out and stripping down your here. Cue the split-rocking, quaking, and life-shaking.
Warning. Regret, resentment, shame, and self-doubt will certainly sprout. Little me will lure you into blaming yourself for events that have been happening around you . . . the things you feel you’ve lost or just messed up. Remember that God did not bring you to this point only for you to live under the weight of past regret, shame, self-doubt, and blame. Blaming yourself is only going to prolong your stay in The GAP and cause you to miss the new opportunities God has coming to you. Stinking thinking is a trap.
God doesn’t live in the past. Regret does, but not God. So let’s leave regret behind, too.
This growth stage is also about realignment. Alignment with God is necessary for our divine assignment. The GAP gives us a chance to get an overdue adjustment while God brings all the skewed parts of our life into proper, powerful, and purpose-ready order. Think of it like going to the chiropractor—it’s about getting everything working the way it’s supposed to.
Higher purpose is always on the other side of a process.
God sends his promise by way of a process, which is why we miss it! We think it is going to fall out of the sky like manna from Heaven, but The GAP is where we must go to enter it . . . our purpose, more provision, more healing, and even more miracles. It’s all on the other side of process. This is what comes after your split-rock moment. The GAP is your wilderness between Egypt (what you’ve known) and the Promised Land (what you’ve been praying for and are destined for).
What we’re moving toward is not necessarily a bigger house, more money, less stress, or better relationships . . . although I have no doubt that everything is better on the other side of surrender. God doesn’t leave our heart’s desires behind as He ushers us into our destiny. But a shift isn’t about stuff. It’s about exchanging your current plans for the life God is calling you toward. And, it’s about getting where God needs you to be in order to accomplish something new that Heaven is seeking to do. It’s a great question to ask: God, what is the new thing you are leading me to?
The Word says God’s yoke is easy and his burden is light. That sounds like a new and better life to me.
I’ll share how I found myself in The GAP. Hopefully, it will make you feel more at ease about what God is doing in your life, how he tends to do it, and how he specifically uses life circumstances as an interactive classroom preparing us for a larger mission.
THE SHIFT BEFORE THE SHIFT While infidelity was certainly my awakening, it wasn’t actually the beginning of my time in The GAP. It was really more in the middle. It was what awakened me to a shift already in progress.
I knew well before that curbside chat with God that my life was not my own. I didn’t know how I’d gotten here, sinking in shame as a woman scorned, but I knew I wasn’t meant to stay here. If you recall, I asked God one simple question, Why did this happen to me? And, God answered, You’re going to be able to change the lives of women like never before.
Over the next several months, I had a chance to really marinate in those words. At first I was thrown off by the focus on women. That wasn’t my desire—not consciously. Outside of my close circle of girlfriends, I didn’t always have great experiences with women professionally. There was an esteem-wounding tension there. But what was really significant wasn’t the focus of my new assignment, it was the process of getting there. God said I would be able to change the lives of women like never before. I realized that that meant I wasn’t able to yet. Said another way, Marshawn here was not at all ready for God’s there. Not her heart, attitude, or skill set. I can see now that it was true.
I knew the Holy Spirit. God and I had had some awesome adventures. But it was time for something higher. The old rules I’d lived by couldn’t go with me into the new place, and neither could my addiction to success. I needed to learn something new called flowing. It’s surrendering to God’s leading in real time . . . letting go of my normal and my way for His new and His way. There was indeed a shift already in progress.
THE STRUGGLE TO LET GO It’s time. That was the message I kept hearing in my spirit. But it didn’t make any sense. I had worked hard and found myself sitting in a fancy office on the twenty-first floor of a luxury high-rise office building, doing what I’d always said I wanted to do. I was a fully-licensed-to-practice, real-life Clair Huxtable. My law firm was one of the best in the country and one of the biggest in the city. It was prestigious, it paid insanely well, and it was what I had always wanted. But I felt like a prisoner trapped in a palace. I certainly couldn’t complain—I had a wonderful job, I’d bought a home, and I had my own smartphone. (Having one was a big deal back then; for some reason, it seemed to really represent that I had made it.)
I had an office with a view, a secretary, a baby-blue paycheck that came every two weeks, benefits, and my BlackBerry. It had only been a year and a half since I started at this firm. So why in the world was I feeling trapped? Why was God telling me it was time to make a change when I’d only just gotten started?
It turns out I loved the look of law, but not the life. I liked wearing the suits and having the business cards. I loved the way people were impressed when they found out I’d gone to Georgetown. But actually being a lawyer was not fun. Not for me.
I didn’t love my work; I didn’t even like it. It wasn’t nearly as exciting as the law and order shows I watched on television. It wasn’t even as interesting as The People’s Court, and they don’t even have lawyers. While I had some awesome days and wonderful experiences here and there, I had started praying about the tension and dissatisfaction that was growing greater by the billable hour. I was incredibly grateful for my job. I knew it was a blessing and a rare opportunity, and I didn’t want to grumble. I, too, had been taught over the years how important it is to bloom where you are planted. Now I know why this was such a popular sermon topic. It’s tough to get up day after day when you don’t really like what you do. The Rules I learned said that getting to love what you do is a luxury, not a necessity. So I learned to hush ’n buckle up, and to stick it out.
But I wasn’t fulfilled. Thankfully, during my first year of practicing law, I had negotiated an opportunity to enter a six-month fellowship working at a legal aid office. My firm basically paid me my big firm salary, but “loaned” me to the legal aid office so that I could gain experience and provide free services to those that couldn’t afford legal representation.
Now, legal aid was different in every way. My legal aid office didn’t come with a high-rise view of Midtown or a U-shaped maple desk with a new laptop. My legal aid desk had seen its day . . . maybe a few decades in fact. It had carvings in it and came with a wooden chair (try sitting on a tree all day) and a chunky, white-turned-dingy old school desktop monitor that looked like one of the first computers ever made. There was a break room, but no fancy futuristic instant coffee and tea makers. On the first day, I went to heat up my lunch and just assumed there would be paper plates like at the firm. No ma’am. I used two or three coffee filters and bootlegged a plate. (Don’t judge me . . . I was hungry!)
My job was to represent tenants being illegally evicted by their landlords, some of them slumlords, and to represent people unlawfully fired from their jobs.
Providing free legal services to the poor was some of the most rewarding work I have ever done. It was not glamorous, but it was good. I helped a single mom to stay in her home after the landlord tried to evict her because her son was mentally disabled. There was another mom who worked two jobs, still making less than a livable wage for her two children, who was being evicted because someone randomly mentioned her name in a police report as being involved in a crime that happened at her apartment complex. She wasn’t even at home that day. She was at work. The police never followed up with her, and they never arrested her. However, because her name was on the police report given to the landlord, the landlord evicted her. She didn’t have a voice and she didn’t have the money to move. When I visited her apartment, there was mold in the ceiling and air vents. It was everywhere, and she had young kids. These conditions were unlivable and illegal. So not only was I able to help her win her case, we countersued the landlord and won $5000 for the deplorable conditions, and she was able to use the money to move into a new place.
There was an elderly woman who was being kicked out of her home because she kept falling. She was physically disabled and severely obese. Her family lived in the area but almost never came to check on her. When she fell out of the bed, sometimes she’d be stuck, alone, on the floor for days, unable to get up . . . and unable to go to the bathroom. To get up, she often had to call the fire department for assistance because of her size. The landlord found this to be too big of a burden. I visited her apartment as well. The smell of dried urine and roach infestation was almost unbearable, but she was absolutely adorable. We were able to secure daily in-home assisted care and some special accommodations. Landlords can’t evict someone with a disability because of their disability.
Dozens of stories like that came in daily.
At the end of the six months, I returned to my high-rise office, and everything was just as I had left it. As my assignments started to pile up, I realized it wasn’t that I didn’t love the law—I didn’t love where I was. I didn’t enjoy pouring my talents into places empty of purpose. This is why I was tired. This is why I was unsatisfied. There was nothing wrong with the firm, it just wasn’t where I was supposed to be. It may have been purpose-full for others, but it was not fulfilling for me.
I can’t tell you the details of any of the big corporate matters I worked on. I still draw a blank. I know there was lots of money at stake, I know I billed a ton of hours working tediously, yet none of it sticks with me. But I remember the legal aid cases. I remember the people . . . the women I helped. Their eyes. Their stories. Their humility, and each woman’s desperate desire to find someone who would listen and help. We all need someone. Being able to be that person for those who didn’t know where else to turn was God’s way of holding up an identity-revealing mirror to me.
The legal aid experience showed me what I’ve always known to be true: I was built to help people. I didn’t know at the time that it was women in particular. I didn’t even realize at the time that almost all of my legal aid cases were representing women. I didn’t have eyes to see or discern that clue back then. But I did know I was created to serve, to be an advocate and to help others overcome the obstacles that stand in their way. I wasn’t built to help enormous corporations make more money or cover up their mistakes.
We’re all built to fight, but when we fight the wrong fight, we begin to break. You can’t bloom where you’re not supposed to be planted.
Toward the end of my time at legal aid, the mother of a disabled son came by the office. She had brought me a large cup of mixed fruit, some plastic utensils, and some paper napkins in a white plastic grocery bag . . . probably from the corner store. She was originally from Ethiopia and explained that although she didn’t have much money, she wanted to thank me for helping her stay in her apartment. She was so insistent, but we weren’t allowed to accept gifts or payment of any kind—not even fruit. But her offering was far greater than any paycheck I had ever received. She didn’t give out of her surplus, she gave from a place of sacrifice.
My craving for success, the need to look the part, started to subside. I realized I wanted to do work that mattered, not just to look like I mattered. I wanted to be in the trenches with others in need, and I wanted to be the bridge to a better future if it was in my means. That feeling changed my life. Back when I was volunteering in juvenile detention facilities, I’d had that feeling. At the fancy law firm making a fat check, that feeling was nowhere to be found. I’d climbed the money mountain, but the view at the top wasn’t as impressive as it seemed.
I found myself at odds with my boss. She was a well-connected female partner at the firm, someone I had hoped would be my mentor, but . . . let’s just say it didn’t work out like that. Just about the time I started at the firm, I was on The Apprentice (more on that below), and she didn’t seem thrilled that someone so young in her legal career was on a major television show. One day during a mentoring session, she mentioned that I had the name recognition some lawyers work their entire lives for. She implied I was supposed to be a run-of-the-mill first year associate who was supposed to work her way up the ranks like everyone else, like she did.
While I can appreciate the bigger picture today, her words really broke my heart at the time. I had been looking forward to having a female mentor—it’s something I think all of us women secretly crave. We want to be believed in and poured into by a woman who is where we want to be, and who not only sees something great in us but is passionate about unlocking that greatness, too. Her being a successful woman with brown skin only made her approach toward me more difficult to swallow. It felt like hazing. I realized I wouldn’t necessarily be welcomed here, either. I’d have to shrink to belong.
The work environment became toxic and stressful. I felt like I was back in elementary school again. I avoided the hallway that required me to walk by her office. Anxiety set in, and I started losing hair and losing weight my already thin frame didn’t have to lose. When our body starts breaking down, that’s God’s final warning. I felt like one of the people in the hostile work environment cases that I worked on as an employment lawyer!
Looking back, I can see that I had placed expectations on the shoulders of someone else who was not in a position to give me what I was hungry for—mentorship and having someone who believed in me wholeheartedly. Someone simply cannot give what they don’t possess. But insecurity takes on a mind of its own, and I didn’t have the tools to understand that at the time. I take responsibility today for how I viewed that time of my life. In some ways, I suppose she was my mentor. Maybe not the one I wanted, but in retrospect, she was what I needed. Without that friction, I wouldn’t have felt the tug of discontent—a labor pain indicating the time to move was drawing near. It can be unpleasant, but it’s still divine providence at work.
We must focus on flow, not fault.
So maybe it did make sense. Maybe I kept hearing It’s TIME! in my spirit for a reason. But time for what? I didn’t feel led to go back to legal aid, though I loved the experience. And, I didn’t know what I would tell others if I left the firm since I had just gotten started.
As I prayed and really surrendered myself to the possibility of doing something new, I started having new dreams and desires. While I was in law school, one of the ways I supported myself was teaching communication skills and seminars to pageant contestants, professionals, and some politicians. I did some copy writing, speech writing, résumé writing, and built what I called “platform messages.” Basically, I helped women figure out what they needed to say, to take their desires and give them organized direction and the best presentation possible. Today, we call it branding. Back then, it was just called communication! I was really good at this brand-building, message-making thing, but I stopped when I started practicing law because I didn’t need the side income anymore.
But now God had my attention. It was time for a change, so what exactly was I supposed to do?
THE APPRENTICE Now, I promised I would tell you more about how I ended up on television, and I want to do that here, because it’s a part of what was happening to me in The GAP.
When I was in my last semester of law school, I auditioned for a television show called The Apprentice, airing on NBC. It was a blockbuster reality show about business. The contestants would compete on various business and marketing tasks proving that they had what it took to be the protégé of a prominent real estate tycoon named Donald Trump. This was twelve years before he became president of the United States.
People always ask how being on the show came about, so I’ll share a bit about that here. Honest moment: I often shy away from telling this story because I’ve never wanted to be defined by it or to have my life viewed through the lens of one fleeting season. But it was an epic, life-expanding experience and part of my unconventional shift into higher purpose. It taught me about gifts and abilities I didn’t know I had. And it’s a chapter in a larger story much bigger than me. All of our chapters matter. So here we go! I invite you to view this through your purpose lens as a fellow teacher in training, too, okay?
I got an email announcing the casting for the first season of the show during my first year of law school. I knew I wanted to audition. In fact, I knew that I wasn’t only going to audition for it—I knew that I was going to be on it. I can’t explain why—I just knew it. The problem was, I had just started law school at Georgetown and didn’t want to interrupt my studies. It’s hard enough to get admitted in the first place. But I embraced this belief as a certainty anyway.
Two and a half years later, I was ready, and I auditioned, just like everyone else. I didn’t have a hookup or know anyone on the inside. I stood in line in the parking lot of a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Alexandria, Virginia, to wait for my turn. NBC and Mark Burnett Productions were actually casting for two versions of the The Apprentice that year—one hosted by Donald Trump and a new spin-off hosted by Martha Stewart. I was standing in line for the Trump audition. The line was really long, and I heard the Holy Spirit tell me to get in the other line. It was cold, and I was standing outside in heels. So between the chilly wind gusts and having walked with God long enough to move when He said move, I got in the shorter Martha Stewart line.
Once I made it inside the dealership where the interviews were happening, I was seated at a table with ten other people, including one female casting director. She was petite and thin, with short brown hair, and she had a total poker face. The casting director threw out questions that would naturally spark debate, to see which voices and personalities were unique enough to stand out. In about ten minutes, we were done. She took our applications and said we would hear by end of day if we had made it to the next round.
I went back to my apartment and literally waited by the phone all day. I probably should have been studying, but I didn’t want to miss that phone call. Six p.m. came. I figured they were still working. I made a sandwich and reflected on how I did during that interview. And then 10 p.m. rolled around. I figured I would get ready for bed, but I wouldn’t shower until the next day so that I wouldn’t miss that phone call! At midnight, the day was officially over and I hadn’t heard anything. Tears started to well up. I’d been holding on to this vision for two and a half years—but maybe I was just dreaming. I turned the lights off, plugged my cell phone into the wall, and tried to go to sleep.
It was pitch-dark in my apartment bedroom when the blue light started flashing on my phone. The casting director was calling. Hallelujah! I played it cool. She had no idea I was laying my head upon a soggy, tear-soaked pillow. She invited me to the next round of auditions. I had made it in after all.
For the next four weeks I went through the entire casting process, auditioning for the Martha Stewart version of the show. I had to do interviews and put together videos. Back then there were no video cameras on cell phones. I had to use actual film and tapes. I kept advancing from one stage of the audition process to the next. Finally, the casting director called to say the network wanted me on The Apprentice—only they thought I would be better suited for the Trump show. The one I had initially planned to audition for.
This experience always reminds me of how reinvention really works. Reinvention isn’t always about doing something new or getting instant results; it can be about following an unconventional process to get to God’s original intention for your life. Purpose doesn’t always seem to make sense, but if we follow God’s voice, we’ll still get to His intended destination.
I was still in law school at this point. It was my third ’n final year, and I had held on the entire time to the vision that I was going to be on the show. I’d had absolute certainty about it—it wasn’t stubbornness or arrogance, but an inner assurance. Maybe that’s what faith is really about. I structured my entire class schedule around when I estimated the casting would take place and when the upcoming season would start taping. I didn’t actually know when or where the auditions would be, but I chose courses and clinics representing clients in legal matters in my final semester that wouldn’t require me to be on campus to finish final exams and to graduate. With no exams, I could turn my papers in early and finish my clinical work, too. That was the plan. And that’s exactly what happened. Sometimes our guesses are really divine guidance.
Faith is making room for what you’re expecting to experience even if you have no clue or zero control over it actually happening.
I was on the show for ten out of thirteen weeks—almost making it to the very end. I learned how much we can actually accomplish in short periods of time when we commit to bringing our best. If it interests you further, you can learn more about my incredible experiences on that show, along with business advice for how women can elevate our approach to sisterhood and career success, in my previous book, S.K.I.R.T.S. in the Boardroom.
Here is the cool thing. While I was still taping the show, the network flew me to DC so that I could walk with my graduating class, which I didn’t think I’d get to do when I committed to this plan! They flew me in on a Saturday morning and then flew me back that same evening to New York City to finish taping. I didn’t have to abandon my degree or my dream.
On the show, I discovered I wasn’t just a good speaker with the gift of gab. I had the ability to put together and lead major advertising campaigns for companies like Lamborghini, Bally Total Fitness, Dairy Queen, and Under Armour. I even did a campaign for Star Wars! I came up with our team name (Capital Edge), taglines for most of our projects, and was always the team’s go-to presenter when it was time to show our work to ad agencies or in the boardroom for final judgment. I was using the same skills I used to help Miss America and Miss USA contestants come up with their platform messages, and now I knew I could do more . . . be more.
Exposure expands our expectations.
New skills and untapped abilities emerged, and my existing strengths found an elevated home. All of that increased my confidence but also my understanding of potential. We don’t know what we’re really made of until we’re tested, stretched, engaged, and challenged. That’s when your gifts, your voice, and signs of your next-level calling sprout and stand out.
IS THAT LIGHTNING? The morning after my last day on the show, I woke up frustrated and shell-shocked that I got fired. But then a lightning bolt of clarity struck my soul again. And with it, there was an out-of-the-blue desire to start working with athletes. This was not something I had ever even thought of before. I actually remember listening to my peers in law school fight over the few seats available in the only sports law class offered, and knowing I wasn’t at all interested. But now, a couple of years later, I wasn’t just interested, I was fascinated. Certainty struck again.
I immediately called my mom and told her that I didn’t know how this was going to happen, but that this was what I would be doing. I’d be helping athletes to communicate better and to build a future off the field. I probably sounded nuts! That’s why I called my mom. She pretty much always supports my off-the-wall visions . . . and even prays in agreement with me for this crazy stuff to come true. My dad, over time, became the same way.
So though I had no idea how this was going to happen, I spoke it into the atmosphere with full conviction that it was going to take place. Now, it’s two years after the show, I’m dissatisfied and physically and emotionally stressed in this high-rise law office, and that off-the-wall desire to go into sports was coming back. That blurry vision I had been carrying became a bit clearer. The desire started turning into vision. I started getting specific ideas and strategies and a new picture of what my impact could be. I shared my idea with my mentor in the firm—and, well, you can imagine how that went. The firm wasn’t open to my idea because they said I was too young. I was thinking a little too big for my britches. Apparently, I didn’t need to focus on generating business or making relationships (the stuff that all of the successful partners had mastered to become partner). I needed to do what first year lawyers do, which is research and networking with other lawyers . . . not prospective clients.
Oooookay. I’ve always been good at high-level networking . . . like meeting people impossible to meet and closing deals with companies that seem way out of reach. But that was not valued here. I mustn’t step out of line or get too much shine. Perhaps you can relate? I needed to stay in my place, keep my head down, and keep my ideas and opportunities (even for the firm) to myself.
While this was going on at work, I started actually meeting new people that happened to be in or connected to the pro sports world. It had taken two years, but I had arrived in an oasis of opportunity. If the firm wasn’t going to be open to this, I decided I would just start my own agency. I didn’t debate this for too long. I often get a “nobody puts Baby in a corner” burst of motivation that drives me to ignore critics, separate from the pack, and do my own thing. Waiting for approval and permission has never been my strong suit.
Picking myself has always paid off.
I continued to do my work at the law firm, which required a minimum of sixty hours or more per week. In the evenings and on the weekends, I worked on my business. I started with a name for the business, a website, and some business cards. I’d call it EDGE 3M, which stood for Expect Dedication Genius and Excellence, and would focus on representing athletes in media, marketing, and management opportunities (hence the 3M). It started with communication training, but it evolved into so much more.
I had my first order of self-designed business cards shipped to my law office, which was a really dumb idea! The box arrived with a sample of the card taped to the outside of the box! My heart stopped, but I walked over and grabbed it like it was no big deal. Thankfully, I spotted it on the edge of my secretary’s desk before anyone else saw it . . . I think!
That same evening, I was slated to go to the opening ceremonies for a major convention for minority MBAs. That night I met someone who worked for the global sports apparel company Russell Athletic. I exchanged business cards with the gentleman and followed up the next day. He not only became a good friend, he agreed to sponsor one of my then pro bono athlete clients with a product endorsement deal. I had taken on a few pro athletes who weren’t yet paying me, but having them as “clients” gave me the experience and the time to develop key relationships with media outlets and corporations that could lead to more endorsements, TV contracts, and marketing deals. I was willing to get the experience to get in the door.
It was working. Slowly but surely, it was working. So I put my exit plan in place. I would start charging the pro bono clients, keep working on nights and weekends, save up more money, and eventually make the leap.
THE TIME COMES WHEN YOU LEAST EXPECT IT I’d estimated I had about six more months to go before making the big leap into entrepreneurship, when the word TIME started flashing in my dreams and interrupting my plans. I kept hearing this as a recurring message when I read my Bible, went to church, when I brushed my teeth . . . everywhere. Then the final sign was when someone gave me a book that had the word TIME in large bold print at the top. That was my tipping point.
Now God really had my attention! Seeing that title wigged me out for sure. But what was He trying to say or get me to see? As I stared out my bedroom window, the Holy Spirit sweetly said this to me: “It’s TIME. TIME stands for (T)otally (I)n (M)y (E)lement as long as you (T)rust (I)n (M)y (E)xperience.”
I was floored, intimidated, and intrigued. The Holy Spirit regularly speaks to me in acronyms . . . but c’mon! Two for one this time?!
I didn’t feel ready to make the leap to go out on my own just yet, but clearly God was saying I was. I wanted to save up some more money. I wanted more paying clients. And I wanted more time to get ready and make sure this was the right decision. I had a mortgage, bills, and no roommates that I could split expenses with. I wasn’t on my parents’ health or car insurance anymore. The realities of life went through my mind just like they do for everyone considering making a leap and major shift. While I was scared, I was absolutely certain this was God’s voice, and I knew I had a small window of opportunity to listen to it. As with the Apprentice audition, it was time to get out of the predictable line.
The next day, I gave my two weeks’ notice. Some of my coworkers were naturally confused at why I’d give up a cushy six-figure job for the chaos and uncertainty of entrepreneurship. I didn’t really have answer, so I simply said, “It’s just time.”
After all, I had some prospects on the table and was hopeful they’d soon become paying clients, though none had come through yet. And I had one solid consulting contract that had been in place six months, with an investment firm. I used the money as starting capital, and I figured it would get me by until I inked a management deal with an actual paying pro athlete. At least, that’s what I thought until disruption bulldozed my doorstep. The company that had me on a retainer lost its $50 million credit line. Fifty million dollars! They immediately canceled all of their contracts, including mine, with no advance notice. I couldn’t reach anyone . . . no one was answering the phones. It was like they disappeared. Deep breath.
I had just finished the last day on my job! I didn’t have that biweekly blue check to fall back on. In fact, all of the stuff from my law firm office was still in the trunk of my truck. I was glad I’d gotten a few extra pens and pads of paper before I left, because I was going to need every dime I could spare. I didn’t have the luxury of panicking. I had bills, and I sho’ nuff wasn’t going to ask for my job back! I knew I’d have to focus.
New dreams must turn into new decisions to form a new reality.
I got so stinkin’ focused and I ended up signing my first paying client (hallelujah again!) just a few days later. He was a pro football player who had just signed the highest-paying defensive end contract in NFL history at the time, $62 million. And now I was his marketing agent. I’d be able to afford pens and paper now . . . and keep the lights on . . . and probably more. All of the free work and trust-building paid off—not with everyone, but with the right one. I guess it was indeed TIME.
MAYBE YOU’VE BEEN CHEATING, TOO I was running EDGE 3M—which was becoming the fastest growing woman-owned sports agency in the country in less than a year—when I met the man who later became my fiancé. That’s significant to note because I was already in a shifting phase, but didn’t realize it. I didn’t realize that I was most passionate about working with women because I still had that inner tape playing in mind that said, You don’t like women and women don’t really like you. And they don’t get you. So, I hid out in the sports world.
Think about it. What old inner tape, plans, or limiting beliefs might be blocking your bigger?
I didn’t realize at the time that my career shift wasn’t about a job, it was about moving one step closer to my higher purpose . . . to there. I didn’t fully realize I had a gift (not just a talent) for branding and messaging that was transferrable. I didn’t realize that branding, business, and law would also be necessary for my future assignment. And I also didn’t realize this was just a pit stop—I planned to retire in the world of professional sports—but that I would use those skills for a bigger, yet different purpose. The leap from law to sports got me out of an office, but it wouldn’t get me fully into my life mission.
Leaping must become a lifestyle.
I just didn’t know exactly where else I belonged . . . so it seemed easier and more comfortable to stay. Perhaps you can relate? That unsettled feeling starts to taunt you and haunt you. Inside you know there’s more for you to be and do, and you’re right. What’s on the inside, the rebellion ready to cause a revolution, is persistently trying to get out.
I started the sports agency years before I got engaged, but in both scenarios cheating was front and center. In my relationship, I was being cheated on, but at my job, I was cheating on my calling. And in both situations I knew deep inside that I was in circumstances where I didn’t belong permanently.
So I’m curious. Before we move on to learning what it takes to get out of The GAP and actually enter your calling, what parallels have you found in my story?
What unlikely messes and naysaying mentors can you now be thanking God for?
What frustrations have you been feeling that might indicate it’s TIME for a shift?
What dormant desires or blurry visions have you been carrying for far too long?
What broken perspectives from unpleasant experiences have been holding you back from entering (or even recognizing) possibility?
What is it that you now realize hasn’t happened to you but for you?