What Does Economic Empowerment Mean to Me - Amy’s Story

In early 2018, my husband and I had a decision to make. We were both gainfully employed at law firms in downtown Chicago, working full-time (and then some). We had one kid and another on the way. He was arriving in April.  

We live in a super tight neighborhood on Chicago’s northwest side and have amazing neighbors, but as for family, our closest relatives are a 3-hour-plus car ride away in Michigan and Wisconsin. So it was just us. 

With our jobs and one kid, it was already challenging to manage sick days, days off preschool, and the daily grind of making it to daycare on time so we wouldn’t miss our train or get to the train on time so we wouldn’t be late picking up our kid at the end of the day.  

We knew having two kids with two demanding jobs was going to be challenging. It was hard enough with one kid.  

Something had to give.  

In February 2018, I sat down with my boss Andrea (yeah, the same Andrea who started Prequal) and told her I was not coming back after my maternity leave was up. (I still remain forever grateful that I even got maternity leave.) I was instead going to start my own marketing consulting business. I was no stranger to running a business, having had my own portrait photography business for close to a decade prepared me in a lot of ways to make this jump.  

I started my career as a journalist, pivoted to being a paralegal and then worked my way into a marketing role. Through my years of experience (and the privilege of being a white middle-class woman), I had enough skills and enough connections that knew I could start my own business. I was economically empowered to build something that would provide me an income while also allowing me to create my own hours, determine my own schedule, and let me prioritize what was best for my family at the time. 

I cried through that conversation with Andrea though because I happened to love my job - in particular the team I worked with. But I also knew my kids wouldn’t be little forever, and I valued being there for them during their formative years. Leaving a 9-5 felt like the breathing room me and my family needed. We needed more options than a traditional 9-5 role provided, and this was our chance.  

So I left.  

Flash forward two years, and I found that once again having options became critical.  

In Q1 of 2020, I had the best quarter I’d ever had in my business. Things were on an upward trend, and if it held, I was on track to make more than I did when I left my full-time job. That was a milestone I was shooting for. But we all know what happened in March of 2020.  

Like the world, my life and plans were ground to a halt.  

With the onset of the pandemic, suddenly my two kids and my husband (and our cat, and dog and fish) were all home all the time in our tiny bungalow. I was still managing a business, but now I was doing it with a 2-year-old and 5-year-old in tow. There was no daycare. Kindergarten became a painful 30-minute Zoom meeting in the mornings. It was the worst of times.  

My husband and I literally went into crisis mode, taking turns keeping watch of the kids while the other shut themself in our spare bedroom and took work calls. And even that was only sustainable for so long. 

Options were key. With me in charge of my schedule, my finances, and my family, I charted our new course forward into this COIVD world. 

I had a list of clients I had been building. They were all lovely and wonderful, but due to my sheer lack of time, I began pairing them down. I didn’t seek out any new business. I crunched numbers and determined what projects and clients I could keep, how much work I could get done in a given week, and figured out a new path for my business.  

And we made it out, relatively unscathed. 

Fast forward again to two years. Times had changed. The world felt more stable. And when I surveyed the landscape in 2022, I decided it was time to pursue another option.  

I joined the Prequal team earlier this year. I did so because it felt like something was missing. Having the ability to meet face-to-face with a team, host local events, and build a community around a shared belief felt like something my soul was craving. I wanted to connect more with my city and the amazing, creative, brilliant women who live here.  

As women, we have options. And I am fully in the camp that if you want to be a stay-at-home mom, you should. If you want to be a CEO of a company and have your partner do the lion’s share of the child-rearing, you should. I want us to all be able to pursue the options that light our hearts on fire. And I knew, my heart was telling me I needed a whole lot more adult interaction and a job that involved me having to occasionally put on real pants and commute somewhere. 

I had done some freelance work with Prequal in 2022, and I wanted a bigger part of what they were up to.  

You see, economic empowerment has given me the ability to make my own choices and to find the path that was best for me at that time. I have opened my own doors because I knew there were people out there in my network and beyond who could use what I offered. Being able to build authentic relationships, make connections, and sell my services gave me the power to make it through some of the most challenging years of my life. And going forward, I’m thrilled to work helping other women see how sales and selling will provide them more opportunities, more success, and more freedom.