The ReInvent Blog

I was in a job I absolutely hated.

My youngest had just started elementary school, which meant it was time for me to go back to work. I found a job at a tech company in customer support in Silicon Valley, authenticating security clearance certificates for the DoD. Everything had to be perfect. There was no room for error. Customers had to fill out endless forms, which often had to be redone several times. They were not happy.

To make matters worse, I was being trained by someone 15 years my junior who was hypercritical: regularly impatient, consistently frustrated, and openly condescending. Needless to say, it was incredibly stressful.

On top of everything, I had a side hustle, doing social media management for restaurants after work and on weekends, all while raising two young children. It wasn’t long before I was completely burned out.

The practice that changed everything

Because I’ve always taken my mental health seriously, a friend introduced me to manifest journaling. I’d seen the movie The Secret, I’d read Think and Grow Rich, and I’d watched so many examples of people using this practice to change their lives. I was desperate enough to try it for myself, so I did it religiously, every single day.

Meanwhile, I had friends in tech sales. I truly believed it was something I could do, so I updated my resume and kept it handy. Then one day, out of the blue, a friend reached out to say they had a job opening. I was constantly refreshing my email, so when his message came through, I sent my resume in about three minutes flat.

The interview

He told me the hiring manager already had his heart set on another candidate, but that I should come in and interview anyway. I was not to be deterred. I thought about every way I could convince him to hire me instead. I asked whether the other candidate had offered a commitment. When he asked what I meant, I said that if he hired me, I would commit to the job for three years.

As the interview went on, he started slipping into training mode, so I tried to close him. I said, “It sounds like you really want to hire me. How soon would you like me to start?” I said it tongue in cheek, and he laughed. I tried to close him two more times in that same interview. By the end, he was smiling and laughing. Later, my friend told me that after I left, he walked over and said, “Hire whoever you want.”

The catch, and the timing

But there was a catch. The VP required a minimum of five years’ experience, and I had zero. Just by chance, he was out of the office that week because HP was acquiring the company I was interviewing for. This is where it gets interesting. Job requisitions rarely open and generate an offer letter quickly, but in this case the rec was open, the offer letter was generated, and I had signed it before the VP came back.

The day I got that offer letter was the day I landed my first six-figure sales job. I tripled my income with a single offer letter. That began a high-tech sales career that generated seven figures over the next ten years.

There were things already in motion. I just had to align my identity and my beliefs about what I was worth for that offer letter to materialize.

How manifesting actually works

Looking back, so many variables had to line up for that six-figure offer letter. Of course I was prepared with my resume. Of course I was reaching out to my network. But there was no way I could have orchestrated the VP being out that week. There was no way I had any influence over HR opening the req and generating the offer letter so quickly.

But that’s how manifesting works. There were things already in motion. I just had to align my identity and my beliefs about what I was worth and what I was capable of, and that offer letter materialized.

I still remember holding that offer letter in my hands, on HP letterhead. I felt so deeply grateful, so humbled to be blessed with that opportunity. It changed the course of my life forever.

I was able to quit both the full-time job and the side hustle in favor of work that was aligned with who I knew I really was. And I knew who I really was because I did the inner work. I took action to change my subconscious beliefs about what I deserved.

The universe took care of the rest.