At Ensley Elementary School, I wanted to be a teacher. At Wedgewood Middle School, I wanted to be a high school student. At J.M. Tate High School, I wanted to own my own motorcycle repair shop, be a doctor, and be the Vice President of an electronics manufacturing company. At Pensacola Junior College, I wanted to be a preacher. At Mississippi College, I wanted to be a college professor. At the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, I wanted to be a seminary professor. While studying pastoral care at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, I wanted to be a Clinical Pastoral Education Supervisor. While studying pastoral counseling at the Baptist Health System of Birmingham, Alabama, I wanted to be a pastoral counselor. While studying marriage and family therapy at Auburn University, I wanted to be a marriage and family therapist.
While working as a pastoral counselor and marriage and family therapist, I formed an investment company with friends, invested in a mother-of-the-bride dress store, private label perfume, and a technology start-up company, and toyed with earning an Executive MBA to facilitate making the jump to business as my main occupation. I also toyed with the idea of trying to make the jump to becoming a full-time motivational speaker. Don’t laugh. There was a period when I was in high demand around Birmingham, Alabama and averaged speaking in two or three different venues per week.
I managed to combine business with counseling and therapy by running Employee Assistance Programs for companies. An EAP provides counseling and referral services to employees and their families at the company’s expense to try to reduce overall healthcare costs and time away from work. I served 5 companies and provided for 7000 employees and their families before leaving Birmingham.
I moved to Alpharetta, Georgia to get married to a veterinarian who owned her own business. I had nothing to do with her business at first, but gradually got involved because her business was growing and my attempts to build a practice as a pastoral counselor and marriage and family therapist was not. Soon after arriving, I affiliated with Covenant Counseling Institute in Snellville, Georgia and they gave me their office at Oglethorpe Presbyterian Church. I added offices at Alabama Road Baptist Church in Roswell and Crabapple First Baptist Church in Alpharetta. I offered counseling services at all three locations every week, but never made more than $1000 per month.
I started working as a receptionist at Loving Hands Animal Clinic. I got promoted to Business Manager unexpectedly when a long-time employee quit. I frequently worked two jobs per day – pastoral counselor and animal clinic employee. Eventually I handled paying the bills, payroll, bank deposits, some purchasing, kennel assistant, cleaner, and receptionist. I helped as a veterinary assistant in a pinch, but failed as a nurse.
After two years of living between pastoral counseling and Loving Hands Animal Clinic, I decided to become a computer systems engineer. You didn’t see that one coming, did you? I’ll tell you more in Part II.
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