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How an Airhead Model Dropped Out of High School and Learned The Secret of Success Is Failure

I returned to college at 44 as I lost interest in my career.

Kelly Burns
7 min readMay 23, 2018
A woman is wearing a cap and gown with a yellow tassel. She is blowing confetti toward the camera. She has blue eyes and brown hair.
Photo by Logan Isbell on Unsplash

When my boss mentioned I should probably get my college degree, I thought to myself;

“Why do I need it? I have come this far already.”

I decided perhaps he knew more than I did about what the future might hold. I wasn’t sorry for choosing to take his advice.

I have worked for many years in financial services. I passed the Series 7 exam while in my twenties, then the Series 6, 63, and 65 exams. I have worked for very successful investment companies and brokerage firms. I also sat for the CFA exam.

I worked my way up from a receptionist of a small institutional sales and trading brokerage office, to being the Director of Operations, Trading, and Compliance, at an investment company, all without having a college degree.

Even though I never excelled at math, I wasn’t afraid of it, and I think my propensity to avoid it had more to do with my love of reading and writing. Algebra takes a lot of time and effort. I worked as a trader in many of my professional roles, and I also loved handling the I.T. problems and troubleshooting computers for the offices I worked in.

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Kelly Burns
Kelly Burns

Written by Kelly Burns

writer and sometimes singer/composer & painter. Italian-American. INFP. I write fiction and nonfiction. www.kellyburns.com

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