Whew, I’m exhausted. But kind of proud of myself too. You see, on a whim I applied to a job a few weeks ago not really thinking I had a chance of getting it. I knew of this company (yes, they are legit) and they always wanted college educated employees, which I’m not. I knew they had stringent testing just to get hired and lets just say, it’s been quite a few years since I took a test (mammograms don’t count!).

My first shock was that they were interested in me even without a college degree. They wanted somewhat internet tech savvy people for this job and that’s more important than a college degree. A year ago, I would have not called myself tech savvy. I was lucky to be able to get my email and my orders from my ecommerce site. But after building a dozen sites for myself and others, I guess I am now!

So I take the entrance exam. A 2 HOUR entrance exam. A 2 hour entrance exam in which my mother repeatadly calls me to ask me things such as can I pick up some milk for her and am I still coming over the next day. MOM! I know she wasn’t intentionally trying to sabatoge me, it’s just at 81, she has trouble remembering things like not bugging her daughter during certain hours so she can take an entrance exam in peace. Despite my mother, I still passed the entrance exam. It was really difficult and I just had o go with my gut on some of the questions so I was surprised I passed.

Next, they give me a large study guide I have to read through to explain just how to do this job. Now here is where it’s deinitely more of an advantage to train in an office where you can ask questions. So many things seemed contracdictory or needed clarification but there was really no one to ask.

It takes me several days to go through the material but I finally wade through it. I still don’t know at this point if I understand it but I feel like it’s not going to get any easier so I bite the bullet and take the first part of the test. If I pass this part, then there is an 8 hour test afterwards. I told you they like tests!

So tonight I take the first part of the test . I hit the submit button and go to my email where I will find out instantly if I pass or not. I passed!!!  So now I’m taking a break before I tackle the long 8 hour portion of the test. Fortunately I don’t have to do it all in one sitting. Send me some positive energy and prayers that I pass this one!

I started thinking, why am I so shocked that I passed these tests?  I know in my head I’m not stupid. For any "outside" job I have had, I always learned it fairly easily, usually quicker than the other trainees and was often given more advanced tasks. I did well in the college classes I did take. And although I seemed clueless in grade school and didn’t do well (it was the 60′s & 70′s when they used us as guinea pigs and tried the "new math" and "new English" on us, only to change it back when the kids were totally confused); I did do well in high school.

So why do I still feel so stupid most of the time? I’m not sure. It may be because I have always had to work for those grades. It just came naturally to my sister. I never saw her struggle over a text book or have to work for any grade, yet she always made the honor roll.  I also remember when I was having trouble in grade school that my mother who was a teacher, insisted I get my IQ tested. She was worried that my poor grades indicated that my intelligence was sub par. When it turned out to be above normal, then she thought I was lazy for getting poor grades. I  was neither.

If you are still here after this long essay, God bless you. I guess it just boils down to that I know in my head that I’m smart. I just don’t know it in my heart. How do I get it to where I know it in my heart?

Am I the only one who has this hang up?

Biz Tip: Use Feed Agg to submit the RSS feed of your site to it. It willdefinitely give you an edge in your search engine rankings. If you don’t know how to find your RSS feed, click this symbol on your site and look at the address that comes up in your browser. That’s your RSS feed. Copy & paste it into FeedAgg.com and should notice your site going up in the search engine results for your keywords within a few days (I did!).

Today’s Quote: "I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure-which is try to please everybody." Herbert Bayard Swope