Life Lessons – Experience Is A Great Teacher

Life Lessons-Experience is a Great Teacher

post updated 10-07-2024

You do not have to agree with this personal stance about life lessons. However, young people, and older ladies and gents need to know that with intense study and hard work, achievement is possible.

They can accomplish greater things by having a desire to learn more, gain knowledge, and succeed in the untraditional or other sought-after methods, or approaches. There are ways to soar to greater dimensions with determination and solid performance behaviors.

There are many people, myself included who will try to tell another soul, how, where, when, and what they need to do to overcome obstacles in life. Yes, as stated I am included as I write about growing personally, getting motivated, being happy, leadership qualities, real life, faith, and much more.

I do not try to over-reach what I know. I try to give what I have learned from 40 years of living and working in the corporate world, additional study, and life experiences.

This is not a boasting session, nor am I recommending to the younger generation that they do not pursue higher education.

However, this is to encourage parents that sometimes children/teenagers/graduates have abilities not recognized by the physical eye. There are often hidden abilities within an individual that only need to be acted upon, and encouraged.

How Do I know this?

I will say again, that I am not trying to get anyone’s attention by bragging. I am just letting you know that it is possible to be successful in different circumstances.

All without a degree this country girl went from working at the Federal Land Bank in Charleston (7 years) to the city learned from the bottom up and had a successful career and salary. At one point breaking the ceiling at almost 90K, in 2003. If you think that is impossible…I can show you the earnings statement.

Why I Write About “Real-Life Issues”

No, I do not have a degree, and I am not considered a mentor, consultant, or counselor. Life Coaches do not give solutions; (yes, I do write about solutions), but an LC lets the other individual find their solutions by listening and asking questions.

However, I am working on my Life Coaching Certificate as I write this, and no, this is not about doing what someone else has done.

When I first started writing online back in 2009, one of my very first blogs was about Life Coaching. I finally decided to do it for accreditation.

Here Is How I Have Gained Certain Knowledge and Drawn Certain Conclusions About Life – In my Life Lessons:

With that said I can look at myself and know that it does not matter how much I think I know. I am intelligent enough to know there is someone who knows something more than I do.

Do I consider myself infallible? No, and I am not a perfect human, like all other individuals there have been times when I have failed. However, it would take a book to write this part of my life. Lol.

It does not matter about my life’s work, career, real life, motivation, or any other subject about which I write. I know that I do not have all of the knowledge that is in the world.

What I do have though, is my ability to tell others what I have learned. What I learned in the process of my life experiences in general while monitoring others’ behaviors, and how it affected their life and others.

I will give you some of what I consider experience, and you can pass your own judgment.

First, my experience comes from having followed many people in “real life.” I have had many good leaders to follow. Then again, I have had some that were less than emotionally intelligent, in other words, they were just bosses. You know the kind that sits behind the desk and gives orders.

In my final work, I was promoted from the bottom to the top with lots of hard work and perseverance.

Nothing was given to me, I taught myself and did not limit myself as having no formal education. I studied, I practiced, I worked whatever hours needed to get the job done, and I learned everything within my power to rise. I was not obsessed with it and did not even think about it. I just worked hard.

I traveled in my early mortgage career all over the US auditing mortgage loans. This was before digital was the going thing. We visited mortgage bankers in almost every US state. NY, Florida, San Diego, Seattle, North, South, and in between. I am not kidding…I have been in almost every state of this union.

When I stopped traveling in 1992, I became a Mortgage Underwriter, approving, and denying loans for Conventional, FHA, VA, USDA, and Subprime later. I reviewed credit, financials, employment history, and the total financial capacity of the applicants. I was also a Mortgage Loan Officer.

Climbing The Ladder Was Not Always a Piece of Cake

My final full-time employment ended with an SVP title over operations and a Mortgage Loan Officer within mortgage lending. I then contracted for a few years.

My employers included Federal Home Loan Bank, Charleston, MS (we made rural home loans). Freddie Mac in Atlanta. American Residential/Chase Manhattan, National Mortgage, Union Planters, Boatman Bank, in Memphis. As well as The Home Mortgage Store, and others that I contracted for.

The Experiences Were Not Just About the Title of the Job

When you work for multiple people, they each have a different personality. No two people are alike, they do not see the job or life itself the same.

Many people let their personalities interfere with their position. They often let their insecurities, and their need to always be right control them.

When transferring from Atlanta to Memphis, the manager who hired me did not get the second in command’s approval. So, guess what, this person made my life in the new job miserable. This person was insecure and thought that I might in some way steal their predominance. It was all a figment of their imagination.

Firstly, that was not who I am. However, they never gave up on trying to make me feel inadequate, without knowledge, and inferior. I was saved by the bell when another Bank acquired the company. Halleluiah!

There Were Times Of Struggle – but no time for denying my self-respect or integrity…

There was another instance where I had recommended that a person be hired to replace someone else who had left. This individual would be my superior. They had worked for me in my previous position where I was a Project Manager.

Guess what, they were not who I thought they were. They wanted to fire all of the people who had worked for the previous manager. It was my responsibility as Operations Manager to fire someone who was doing his or her job just fine.

I could not consciously do the things that were being suggested to people who did NOT deserve to be treated with such disdain. To this person I became insubordinate. I was never going to go against my character or moral standards for that person or another.

Regardless of your human traits, characteristics, moral standards, or how you respect others, everyone is not going to come forward and give you a helping hand.

I finally had enough and resigned from that manager position with a salary of 45K. In 1992 that was a good salary, especially for someone who had worked their way up the ladder without a college degree.

Yes, there are other instances where my character had to determine my status. There were times that I wondered why I had to experience the inconveniences of these types of life situations.

However, they taught me how not to treat other people. How to encourage others, and most of all know that my character was more important than any job, salary, or position.

I learned many lessons about life. Now, you may be thinking….wow…what was wrong with you, what did you do?

Okay, I will tell you. I was not a person to brag, express my knowledge, and speak up in a crowd. I was often more insecure than I should have been. One of my managers once recommended me as an underwriter with these words: “She keeps her head down and does her job.”

However, there is one important thing to always remember for anyone in a career or any life situation…my motto:

“You give it your best, you work like a Trojan, and that is SOMETHING THAT NO ONE CAN TAKE FROM YOU.”

I never tried to exploit my experience; I just tried to do the job well and with integrity.

“In the end, integrity always wins!”