#GlowGetter of the Week – Gina, Military Vet to Work at Home MomBoss

#GlowGetter – A driven busy woman, who strives to achieve her goals in life, while attaining a beautiful glow inside and out.

In 2014 I was on active duty military in charge of oversight of our Spec Ops Wing armory. In my 17 years on active duty I had deployed 9 times and when I wasn’t deployed it wasn’t uncommon for me to work an average of 70 hours a week. I missed a lot of important moments with my family, but in the changing economy, I always took comfort in knowing that at least I had job security and decent healthcare.
In 2013 that all changed when the defense budget was cut to an all time low, forcing several of the service branches to identify career fields that would need to downsize. My secure job of 17 years was one of them.
The military laid out a few programs to accommodate the large transition of career military personnel and as a result I was given three choices:
– Be rated against my peers in what we jokingly coined “The Air Force Hunger Games”,
– Retire early reducing my pay to roughly $900 a month
or
– Take a severance + a 25% add-on to buy me out of the rest of my contract.

With 3 boys at home and a husband still on active duty our family couldn’t afford to retire early unless I paid down our mortgage and paid all of our bills off so after several weeks of contemplating, I decided to take the severance.

A lot of people thought I was crazy. In the months following my separation I had planned to start my own IT consulting firm, but in the middle of writing out my business plan I realized we were going to have to make huge financial sacrifice to get my business off the ground. The financial sacrifice would mean that I wouldn’t earn an income for at least my first two years (not uncommon for most small businesses).

We were scared, and I felt as if I was letting my family down. It was around that time, at one of my lowest moments, that I was scrolling through Facebook and saw a post from my friend Lisa. The post included a photo of a stack of blueberry waffles sitting next to her laptop with the caption “I love working from home” and in that moment it dawned on me.

I’d spent over 17 years setting an alarm and rushing from place to place with very little time for myself and my family. I hadn’t sat down to enjoy breakfast and a cup of coffee in years. A simple as it was the fact of the matter was, Lisa’s post represented something I’d never had: Freedom.

So at 36 years old with no sales experience, no knowledge of skincare, and no clue how to run a successful home business I found her website and I joined her in business.

Within my first two days I had earned my first promotion and at my one year mark I promoted to the top 2% of the entire company. 10 Months later I promoted to the top 1% of our growing company earning an incredible trip to Napa with my husband.

3 years later and I’ve managed to replace the military income that took 17 years of my life (and countless hours away from my family to achieve.)

The men and women of our military do an incredibly selfless job protecting our freedoms and the gifts that came from my military service are something money cannot buy. I’m grateful for my time in the service but even more grateful for opportunities like Rodan + Fields where veterans like me get the freedom to refocus on family and earn an income in the process.

The decision to leave the military was not an easy one. In the days leading up to my decision I came across this quote from Nelson Mandela that has since changed the course of my life “May your choices reflect your hopes and not your fears”.

So many people allow fear to keep them locked in situations where they’re forced to compromise their time, their family, or their freedoms… a little hope can change everything.