I’m 27 years old and recently accepted an employment offer from EDJ June 19th. However, to get to the point where I stand today I've had to maintain a work ethic that most people view as "obsessive" or "overdoing it" but I call it "maintaining focus" and "doing what it takes".  <?: prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

In the past 6 years I have completed an Associates degree, Bachelors degree, and an MBA spanning three different universities with the intent to enter into the securities industry following the completion of my academic goals. Back in the day I was a very successful telemarketer with MCI-WorldCom before everything went to the crapper in that I consistently hit 200-250% of goal cold calling. I was actually commissioned by the company to train and mentor newly hired phone reps at the local call center but was short-lived due to the major scandal and loss of employment. I did plenty of face to face sales when trying to recover from losing my position at MCI and achieved a notable amount of success in selling timeshare/vacs. Being that I was a mid-western boy who was naive to many things in this world I didn't learn until at about that time how much of the securities industry revolved around sales via cold calling/f2f. With my sales prowess and drive I knew that's were I needed to be.

I also wanted to earn an MBA but didn’t want to incur student debt so I visited my nearest military recruiter and have been serving in the USAF since that day in 2002. While in the service I attended night classes at <?: prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Embry-Riddle University for my BS and UoP for the MBA with very little time for a social life because of how busy I was. Somehow I managed a few girlfriends in there but frequent deployments make it hard to maintain relationships. 

Anyway, long story short, I just completed my MBA, Picked up the job at EDJ, and will be moving back home for good in December where I will begin my first day of Study for Success with the firm about 2 weeks following my homecoming. Right now I'm currently deployed to the Middle-East with access to the internet which provides me the opportunity to post on this forum and am scheduled to rotate back to the USA in November because my military commitment is finished in December. My life while here in the desert consists of 12 hr duty days seven days per week. When I'm off duty and not asleep or working out I have my face buried in Series 7 prep books. I've already completed my first textbook and am rereading it before I start on my second. (I read through each book twice) I want to have the ability to pass the series 7 before I even officially start studying with Edward Jones.

In everything that I do I work twice as hard as expected and I am so serious about becoming successful in this business that failure is not an option.