VA Success Spotlight: Meet Wendy

Meet Wendy Gregory, Crescendo Solutions LLC. 

When Wendy joined VA School, she had been out of work for over a year. 

Not for lack of trying. She'd been applying to dozens of places. Wendy has a resume most people would envy: she worked on Capitol Hill for two members of Congress, then spent over a decade in finance. And still, the applications went out and nothing came back. 

She'll tell you plainly what she came to believe: at a certain age, at a certain level, you just aren't going to hear back from people. 

She could have kept applying. Instead, she had a revelation. 

"I have too many skills, and I'm too much of a hard worker, to not do something else. I need to pivot somehow." 

That's when she found the Launch Pad, and then VA School. And here's the part I love. She didn't frame joining as taking a chance on me. She framed it as a challenge to herself. 

"I could sit around for however long and continue feeling sorry for myself, or I could just go get 'em. It's a decision point, basically." 

A decision point. Not a personality trait. A decision. 

Wendy joined VA School at the beginning of August. 

By late August, her website was live. 

Let me say that again, because I've watched a lot of people start this journey. In weeks, not months, she has her website up, she's ready to take client payments. Her calendar is connected to TidyCal and ready for bookings. She announced to her network, and her business cards are on the way. 

And none of it was familiar territory. Wendy has deep experience with technology, but she had never built a website in her life. All of this was new. 

"I learned that I can do just about anything if I can just have the patience to get through it. One step at a time. Don't try to jump ahead. Do what's in front of you, finish that, and then do the next part. And allow yourself some grace as you go." 

When she announced her business, the responses poured in. People excited for her, ready to share her name with friends and colleagues. She's already had two discovery calls, with another on the calendar, plus a networking mixer coming up. She's in motion. 

So what's driving her? 

Wendy is a single mom. Her daughter needs rides to school, pickup at 2:30, a parent who can be there for sick days and Christmas parties. Her mother recently moved in with them, too. Before this, Wendy was driving 50 miles a day trying to hold it all together, and she still couldn't be there on the days her daughter really wanted her. 

That's why she chose this lifestyle. I always tell people this work doesn't give you freedom, it gives you flexibility. Freedom is sitting on a yacht with nowhere to be. Flexibility is building your work around school pickup at 2:30. And flexibility is the thing that lets family come first without giving up an income. 

And she treats that flexibility with respect. The minute she's back from school drop-off, her workday starts. 8:30 to 2:30 is go time. 

"I'd rather be playing with my dogs right now. I'd rather go outside and mow the yard. But I'm not going to do that. Those are work hours." 

She said something else in our conversation that stopped me: 

"There's a dignity to work that I think you lose when you're out of work." 

That's the thing nobody talks about when they talk about unemployment. It's not just the paycheck. It's the structure, the purpose, the sense that your skills matter. Wendy decided she wasn't going to wait for someone else to hand that back to her. She built it herself. 

I asked her what she'd say to someone sitting where she was a few months ago, out of work and wondering if they have what it takes. Her answer wasn't about tools or templates. 

"You need to understand that you are the thing, and then you just need to be the thing. Stop asking for permission." 

Discipline. Perseverance. A goal you keep in front of you. That's Wendy's formula, and she's living it every single day between 8:30 and 2:30 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 

Wendy is just getting started, and she's exactly on track. She made the decision, she did the work, and now she's lining up with the people who need her. I can't wait to update you on where she is a year from now. 

You can have this too. Wendy didn't wait until she felt ready or until the timing was perfect. She decided, and then she got to work.