YOUNG Entrepreneur Feature
Kristyn sutherland
I MADE IT HAPPEN When you have kids young, and you look young, and you are young, it can seem like the world just doesn’t want to give you a chance. Kristyn Sutherland well knows that feeling. Kristyn heard from many people that having her first child at age 19 meant she was destined to fail. “I was always put in this weird little category,” she says, “like, ‘This is what you chose – failure – because now you’re going to be limited and poor for the rest of your life. You made this mistake and now you’re going to be stuck in it’.”
Just a statistic She decided she was not going to let other people’s judgment – that she would “just be another statistic” – determine her future. Those around her made an assessment that her worthiness as a person came from having financial success and a strong career, and, she admits, proving to them that she could make it financially and professionally was the fuel to her fire. And so, making money and being a professional success became her number one goal. “I told myself I was doing it for my kids, so that they could have financial stability and live a good life,” she remembers, “but really, I just had this driving need to prove my worth to the naysayers, to show them that I can make it and be financially independent. I wanted them to see that I am smart and capable can do it all on my own and do it well. The problem was that even though I wants to prove them wrong, I really didn’t value myself or know my own worth.”
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