Underdog Story In The Making

What's up y'all. This is my first post on here and I wanted to sorta share my story on the start of my journey to breaking into IB. When I do break into IB my story will one day be worthy of an underdog story that I hope will inspire people. 

Background

I am currently a 21 year old, black, community college student in my second year and will be transferring to a 4 year university next year. I grew up in a lower middle class family with my Dad and Stepmom that deserves the title of my Mom. Biological mother was somewhat apart of my life but was too poor to really support me and my sister. It was interesting going back and forth from different lifestyles with my Dad who makes six figures and biological mom who lived in Section 8 housing. I believe growing up that way really motivated me to want to become wealthy. My Dad taught me to work hard while my mom taught me to believe in conspiracy theories and blame corporations and the government on her poverty. It wasn't until my junior year where my life really started to fall apart. My family was crumbling mostly due to my biological mom telling half truths about her marriage with  my father and how he ruined her life. My sister and I were just kids and loved both of them but we both grew animosity towards my Dad and Stepmom based on my mom's lies. This created chaos in my family and I went from a 4.5 GPA student to a 3.5 student in a critical year for college admissions. I went from considering Stanford and Vanderbilt to settling for a public school called UNC Charlotte. 

October 2021

During this time I had fully repaired my relationship with my Dad and Stepmom and practically cut ties with my mom. I lived in Charlotte which was around 2 hours away from where I grew up. This was a time in my life that was pivotal for my future even though I had no idea at the time. I was the type to not ask my parents for money in college so I was struggling to feed myself while also focusing on school. Doordashing kept me afloat for awhile until I had to eventually get a part-time job. I'll spare most of the details but financial problems were the least of my worries during this time. There were so many things that happened to me like finding out my sister was SA in college and being betrayed by all of my friends that I had made in college. I was in a relationship with my current girlfriend who I love very much but outside of that I was a complete loner at my college. I'm an extrovert so I could've made new friends but if you knew what they did to me you'd probably steer away from making any new friends as well. I had hit rock bottom and my mom's ideology of blaming others was beginning to creep in. I didn't care about my performance in college because I thought it wouldn't matter. I was fully prepared to end my life in October 2021. I thought I couldn't take it anymore. But with the support of my girlfriend and family I was able to bounce back. 

Angi and My Current Status

I decided to start fresh and transfer some of my credits to the community college I currently attend. I was doing mostly online classes so I decided to look for some remote jobs that might've given me some sales experience since at the time I wanted to start my own marketing agency. I was able to get a job at Angi which was an online platform that connected homeowners to service professionals. My job was to cold call 200-300 service pros and get them to buy advertising on the site. I actually did a pretty good job and was 1 of the 6 new hires that came out of my training class of 40 professional salespeople. On a whim I sent an email to Joey Levin the CEO of IAC which owns Angi and a few other online based businesses like Investopedia and People. A few weeks later he actually called me on my work phone and I pretty much asked how he got to where he was. He told me he was a junior banker at Credit Suisse and worked his way up to getting on the board of directors at IAC and being appointed as the CEO. That was the first time I had ever heard of investment banking lol. But I was very intrigued to know what it was since it clearly propelled him to become a CEO of a billion dollar company. After the call, I did my research and I immediately knew this is what I wanted to do. I told Mr. Levin that I was quitting Angi to focus on getting the best grades I possibly can get and wished me luck. Today he sent me an encouraging email and I continue to thank him for changing my life. 

Conclusion

I am now currently learning all I can and absorbing as much information as possible and looking for some internship experience to add to my resume. I appreciate everyone who read this and I would love to hear your stories and advice you would give me on my journey.