When We Fall, We Rise: A Former Teacher's Trial to Triumph

It is 9:29 am on January 18th. It is a Tuesday, which, like every Tuesday, means Job Connection Tuesdays. I am hard at work responding to comments and I get a message. It is from a woman that I have known as a regular on my post but not much more than that.

She tells me that she is getting solicitation messages from people claiming to be recruiters. This is something I encourage job seekers to do as I try to maintain a safe space. I thank her, block the person and we have a short back and forth. She offers to help with my post and compliments me on the platform I created.

Skip to the following week, she reaches out again, this time offering words of strength in relation to a live I did explaining how we just got the verdict in my cousins murder. This time instead of being a random contact, she is showing herself to be compassionate and empathetic.

February 1st rolls around and I do a live on Black History Month, this time she sends me the following link:

For those that don't know, Dr. Joy DeGruy wrote a book called, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. It is a book that changed my life.

By this point, she is no longer 'she,' she is Amanda MacNeven. A name, a person, a connection and a thoughtful individual I am starting to think of as a friend.

We connect over both having ADHD. Amanda's was diagnosed later in life, while I learned very early.

At this point I invited her to my Zoom Office Hours that I hold every Friday for members of The Job Connection Tuesday Collective.

She joins office hours and there is a group of maybe 15 of us including Tracey Borreson, who is a close friend and a leader in the collective.

Somehow towards the end of the office hours we get on the topic of mental health and neurodiversity.

Amanda starts opening up to the group. Very early on as she is talking I can tell this is not going to be the standard contribution. She opens up about how she was a teacher and she absolutely LOVED it. She is passionate about helping improve the lives around her and takes great pride in her capability. But she had to make one of the toughest decisions of her life.

As she continues, tears are visibility streaming down her face. She had to stop teaching because it was taking a physical and emotional toll on her and she had to decide what was more important to her; the love she had for her job or the love she has for herself.

If she chose the former she would be ignoring the stress and side effects, suppressing them as deep as she possibly could in the annex of her mind. If she chose the latter, she was turning away from a love and moving into a world of the unknown.

She decided she loved herself more that the job.

The strength it takes to make that kind of decision is heavy enough, but now she was staring into the darkness with no direction or flashlight.

There had never been a thought of, 'this would be a good plan B...' the only focus was, 'What do I need to do to heal?'

Amanda let us know that eventually she decided the most direct route to a new career was through Customer Success. But this presented yet another problem.

Interview after interview and no hiring managers seemed to want to acknowledge the immense (personal opinion) amount of transferable skills teachers bring to the table.

It was an endless cycle of rejection after rejection and Amanda felt worthless. All she wanted was for one person to see her for who she is and everything she brings to the table. It was maddening and she did not know what else to do.

By the end of the call, there was not a dry eye. Many of us knew exactly how she felt. We had been there. Whether it was relating as a neurodiverse individual, a teacher or just a job seeker, this group got it and because of that it became cathartic.

The bravery of Amanda in telling her story would have long lasting affects well beyond the 90 minute office hours.

Once office hours closed, I couldn't get Amanda out of my head. I found so much strength in her telling her story. There was a lot of commonality in the way she shared to the way I approach my speaking engagements.

I wanted to do something, but I wasn't sure what. If I am going to attain this level of audience, shouldn't I be able to help such a deserving individual find something worthy of her talents?

It was at this moment I figured it out.

I was bringing back The Women's Empowerment Series for Women's History Month and was going to be interviewing 7 different women from 7 different walks of life. I wanted to bring Amanda on to highlight her. This would not be a situation we asked people to give her a job, but used it as a way to show her for her immeasurable strengths and show how her transition as a teacher is similar to so many of those leaving the profession.

By putting her in the series with the other amazing women I was interviewing, I also wanted her to realize she is on the same level as everyone else. She was not a lost cause, rather that companies were losing by not hiring her.

As viewer after viewer wrote in and commented I could see Amanda's resolve strengthen. Whether she realized it or not she was showing more confidence.

A few weeks later, Amanda stepped out on her own. She spent some time on Canva.com and created this document...

The document showed how her work previous work translated to being a CSM.

Amanda was commended for her work. People started copying it and it gained over 15,000 views.

Amongst these views was a company that reached out to her. They loved what she did. They loved her passion and work ethic. They wanted to talk to her.

Nervous but excited Amanda went through the process.

Then one day I got this..

There are very few times in my life I have been so excited that it manifested itself physically...yet when she told me I jumped from my chair.

In a very short time period Amanda went from someone that really did not believe there was light at the end of the tunnel to a person that realized other people really did see value in her.

It provided validation that the decisions she made, the tough gritty decisions...that she was right.

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The thing about Amanda's story, and frankly one of the reasons I am so proud of her and want to highlight it, is because her story is the story of so many transitioning teachers out there. People that rarely get the credit and certainly never got the pay associated with the importance of the work they do.

Amanda's story represents hope and a guiding light to those teachers that need someone to hold out a hand and let them know that it is going to be ok.

While I am not a prophet or a psychic, I have been around long enough to know I can tell you with absolute certainty that your moment is coming as well.

As the son of a 25 year kindergarten teacher, I want all of you to know that you are seen and appreciated. Thank you for the work you do, thank you for the long hours you put in and thank you for being the ones that shape every generation and give this world a fighting chance. You are loved.