"Don't Be Afraid to Start at the Bottom!": Lisa's Path from Poverty to Proficiency
A Free and Virtuous People Story
Editor’s Note: This article is the third (see the first and the second) in an occasional series that will tell the stories of “ordinary” people who have flourished and contributed to their communities through the practice of everyday virtues such as courage, perseverance, compassion, thoughtfulness, and generosity. In the face of diverse and sometimes challenging environments or circumstances, they have demonstrated true freedom—the capacity to choose the good and strive toward the end for which they were created. They may never be featured on magazine covers or collect millions of social media followers, but they are at least as deserving of emulation as the entertainers, athletes, politicians, and other “influencers” who dominate the headlines. They are the backbone of a free and virtuous society.
Lisa Curry is vice president, senior financial center manager at a regional bank in Florida. She has been married for thirty-three years and has one adult son. In her spare time, she enjoys traveling and boating with her family. By most people’s standards, she has enjoyed personal and professional success. But that doesn’t mean her journey has been an easy one. Lisa’s experience shows what can be achieved by embracing “old-fashioned” values such as integrity, determination, and hard work.
“Very Dysfunctional”
Lisa grew up in the Midwest, the oldest of three children in a family that struggled with poverty. She describes her childhood environment as “very dysfunctional” and lacking stability. Her family moved frequently until settling in a rental where she lived the last ten years of her childhood. She was surrounded by a culture of poverty and dependency and remembers her family joining others to stand in line to receive free cheese, milk, bread, and other staples.
In the face of this dysfunction, Lisa demonstrated early on a determination to forge her own path. Her first job was delivering newspapers—at age eight. By regulation, that was too young, but she says, “The newspaper could not get anybody to deliver in our area, so they allowed an eight-year-old to do it.” She was up at four every morning to prepare and deliver papers before going to school.
At age ten, she started babysitting for a neighborhood family, putting in thirty hours a week. She took any other job that came her way, “looking for any way to make money so that I could buy school clothes or other necessities.” After graduation from high school, she worked three jobs, qualifying for a loan to buy a used car, and the day after she turned eighteen she moved into her own apartment.
Lisa’s impressive climb out of poverty and dysfunction was not merely the result of hard work. She also had to overcome a sense of inferiority and inadequacy stemming from her humble background. As a child and teen, she says, “I was very shy and unsure of my own value. I was always worried about how people viewed me and looked to validate myself through others.”
Lighting the Way
Even in her troubled community, Lisa found beacons that lit a path out of the darkness. At the end of eighth grade, her teacher distributed an application to all the students for a summer work program operated through a partnership between the city and local nonprofit organizations. Low-income children who were turning fourteen that summer could apply, and parents would need to sign a work permit. Lisa was accepted into the program and went back to school for two weeks to take tests for aptitude and job placement. Monday through Friday during that summer, she rode the city bus to an elementary school where she helped prepare free lunches for kids; then walked across the street to a small church where she tutored elementary students in reading; and finally caught another bus to a Salvation Army location to help teach at a summer art camp. It was a “great program,” she recalls, because it “not only helped those in need but gave a hand up to teenagers by giving them a job for the summer.”
There were also people who provided crucial models and support. She credits her great-grandmother, “such a strong woman,” who “overcame so many obstacles in life, so I knew I could too.” Another bulwark was the mother for whom Lisa babysat. She helped Lisa get a job at a restaurant, taught her how to drive, and “rooted for me every step of the way.” Finally, Lisa’s husband “has been my rock.” They began dating when she was eighteen, and he was “everything I was not.” While Lisa was shy, empathetic, and caring, her beau was confident and assertive, acting without regard to the opinions of others. They both needed what the other supplied, and “over the years our personalities have rubbed off on each other, which is a great thing.”
Lisa and her husband got married in the Baptist church she had attended growing up. She and her sister rode the bus that this church provided to get to services “every Sunday and as many Wednesdays as possible.” The church “was a sanctuary for me,” she says. Her faith has always been important, and she sees it as having given her “a solid foundation.” Lisa and her family have attended various Christian churches over the years since, and she is comforted by the conviction that “God is with us always.
Proving Herself
On her own, with a job, a new love, and a “fresh start,” Lisa found that her “confidence began to grow.” She realized that she could not be reduced to being “a product of her upbringing.” Instead, she possessed the capacity to realize her God-given potential. Slowly but surely, she ascended the professional ladder. She worked in homebuilding, title insurance, real estate investing, and then founded her own notary business. Finally, she landed in banking, where she has been for the last fourteen years.
With no college degree, she had to demonstrate her competence at every stage. When starting or advancing at various businesses, she says, she “really had to prove myself through the interview itself or through my work.” Even so, once these companies gave her the opportunity, she was able to “excel and grow within the organization.” Although she recognizes that “a college education is very important,” she notes that her experience shows how it does not automatically enable success. Equally important are “wide experience and a drive to succeed.”
Asked to identify the qualities that enabled her to excel, she cites “reinvention, adaptability, empathy, and pride.” By reinvention, she means the willingness to “try new things” and not avoiding shifts into new jobs or even new industries. “I had gained so much knowledge from my other jobs that I was able to use in banking and I brought a fresh perspective.” Pride, she explains, “comes in many different forms. For me, it was a motivator. I did not want to be viewed as a charity case, nor did I want people to know how bad my home life was. I wanted people to view me as Lisa.” Pride was the impulse to provide for herself and to reveal her own character in the midst of a challenging environment. She paid for her own school lunches, even though she qualified for free meals. She paid for her senior pictures and her prom dress, because she was working and had the means to do it. “I also helped support my family. I was proud that I could do so.”
Lisa points out that banking and financial services encompass a variety of jobs, skills, and career paths, ranging from more people-focused to more technical. But she sees common traits that contribute to success in any field: honesty, the desire to help others, open-mindedness, strong values, adaptability, and a drive to succeed.
“At the end of the day,” she says, “you have to look at yourself and be proud of who you are and of overcoming any obstacles thrown your way. We all have failings in life, but they are learning experiences that help us grow and bloom where we are planted.” Her background made her the perfect fit for the Freedom & Virtue Institute, where she serves as treasurer on the board of directors. The institute’s Self-Reliance Club program cultivates the qualities that Lisa has modeled throughout her life. Her advice to young people is “Don’t be afraid to start at the bottom! That leaves so much room to go up.” She speaks from experience.