The Untold Story of the Entrepreneur's Wife by amy stefanik Kevin Harrington

Author:amy stefanik, Kevin Harrington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-20T00:00:00+00:00

A MINDSET SHIFT

1

IN THE BEGINNING

O UR STORY STARTED like many others when Matt and I were introduced to one another by a mutual friend that happened to be my neighbor. At age twenty, I’d just gotten out of a long, somewhat tumultuous relationship, and so, at the time, I didn’t want to get into a serious relationship. A Florida girl my whole life, I’d grown up in Lakeland, a city west of Orlando once known for its citrus crops, first planted by the earliest settlers in the mid-1800’s. It was a place where people were often born and raised, and they married one another and started their own families, an area where everyone knew everyone.

Originally from Ohio, Matt was twenty-one and a college basketball player. He had come to attend the University of South Florida in Tampa, about a half-hour’s drive from where I lived. When we first met, it was a bit awkward. But as Matt talked about his desire to get into real estate, I became intrigued by this northern guy’s visions for his future. It was my first glimpse that Matt wanted to be an entrepreneur.

The next weekend was our first date, a group date really, and Matt and I joined friends for dinner and drinks. I found myself drawn to the good-looking, dark-haired guy that was so different from the boys I’d grown up around. The more he talked, the more I realized Matt’s visions were much broader than the hunter-type outdoorsy guys I’d known. I loved his energy and the way he saw the world as a huge place filled with opportunity for anyone willing to get a piece of it. Although I couldn’t identify it at the time, Matt had an entrepreneurial mindset, and as handsome as he was, I was especially drawn to his positivity and his desire to succeed. It was like he recognized the endless possibilities that awaited him, if only he worked for them.

When we first met, Matt and I both lived in apartments, and we each had a roommate. I also had a sweet one-year-old daughter, whose father I had married as soon as I’d graduated high school. Divorced for just six months when I met Matt, I was a young, single mother, much to the chagrin of my traditional parents who would celebrate their fiftieth wedding anniversary a few years later. Mom and Dad felt that marriage was ‘for life.’ Although I’d known my daughter’s father since we were both thirteen, everyone agreed that I’d made an error in judgment when I married him just after high school.

As the youngest of their seven children, Mom and Dad were concerned for my future as a single mother, but they were equally enamored with their granddaughter, a constant fixture in their lives. Raised in a strict Christian family, my values were instilled at a young age and reinforced throughout my life, and I knew I’d raise my daughter in the same way. Maybe those values were the catalyst for my decision to leave my husband when I didn’t like how our relationship began changing.

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