Dedication: Hard Work, Patience, and Everything In Between

By Alicia Harrison, Financial Advisor | MoneyScript Wealth Management

Before you read another word, go pull up Nipsey Hussle's Dedication. Save it for the end. I promise it will hit differently once you know the story.

The Why Behind Everything

Seven years into building MoneyScript Wealth Management from the inside — operations, marketing, client service, insurance licensing, nearly 300 households — I made a decision.

It was time to take my career to the next level and step into my power.

I was ready to increase my impact and continue to build a legacy. To serve our clients and our firm at a higher level. To claim something I had been building toward for years — ownership. A seat at the table not just as an operator, but as an officer of MoneyScript Wealth Management. To do that, I needed the license. No shortcuts. No workarounds. The credential was the requirement, and I was willing to do whatever it took to earn it.

It was about my own MoneyScript, the story I believe about what I am capable of and what I am here to do. A higher sense of I belong here. Respect as a woman in finance. The mission was always bigger than me and my why was clear.

Everyone won’t understand your why. Everyone won't understand your hustle or your dedication to your goals. And that is okay. Your why was never meant for everyone. It was meant for you.

So I enrolled in an accelerated CFP education program at SMU. And I had no idea what I was really signing up for.

Studying Everywhere But a Desk

The first sign this journey would demand everything came early.

I was on a girls trip — bags packed, everyone ready to exhale — and there I was, flashcards out, stealing study hours between dinners. Then came a destination wedding. I was fully present and also somewhere in chapter nine of financial planning principles, finding quiet corners and early mornings to stay on track.

Nobody sees that part. Nobody applauds it. I chose the long game in real time. Trips to the library, early mornings, late nights, study groups, missing out on life to focus on what needed to be done. 

I hosted MoneyScript's annual retreat — planned it, led it, showed up for every moment — and at one point stepped away to attend a virtual lecture. No retreat for me. Not from the firm and not from the goal.

What I Gave Up

Here’s the part nobody posts or talks about.

• Birthday parties, family and friends: I missed them and sent my love from a study session. (also scaling back on my daughter’s birthday party, I didn’t have the capacity to plan big celebrations)
• My daughter: basketball games and gymnastics meets the ones that fell inside protected study windows. There was only so much time in the day. 
• Family movie nights: I said no more times than I wanted to.
• Date nights: the intentional, reconnecting kind that marriages need. My husband did carry a lot during those three years, including an extensive work and travel schedule that took him away from home regularly. Many nights it was just me, managing the household, parenting, studying, and running a firm all at once.
• Social media and television: a deliberate digital detox, an effort to reclaim my time. Every minute spent scrolling was a minute I didn't have.

Together, they added up to three years of a life that looked different than I wanted. I made that choice over and over because I believed in what was on the other side. Not everyone understood it. That was never mine to manage.

The Community That Carried Me

I did not do this alone.

School carpool. Camp pickup. The logistics of raising a child while working full-time and studying. I leaned on my people heavily and they showed up. There is a particular grace in asking for help and having it given without condition.

At the firm, I leaned on our team and our core values when the career-family-student balance became genuinely heavy. I didn't have to explain the mission to the people around me. They already lived it.

Our team also read Mel Robbins' The Let Them Theory as a book club. Then I attended her live seminar. I had been carrying the weight of things I couldn't control — other people's timelines, opinions, reactions to my journey — and it was exhausting. Mel's framework gave me permission to put that weight down and redirect every ounce of energy back to myself and my goal. Let them. And keep going. That shift was one of the most important things I did in those three years.

What I Had to Face About Myself

I failed the CFP exam twice after 500 hours of preparation and a year at SMU. I pivoted to the Series 65. Failed the first attempt. Missed passing the second time by one point. Missed the third time by two points.

And the professional weight didn't let up. During this same season, two key employees left the firm without notice. No transition. No runway. Just gone. I absorbed the workload, kept the firm running, kept our clients served, and kept studying. There were weeks where I didn't know which role needed me most  and I had to show up for all of them anyway.

Meanwhile, Yohance's business travel kept him on the road, and his demanding work and continuing education kept him busy which meant I was managing the household, our daughter, and my coursework largely on my own for stretches at a time. It was a lot.

And my body was going through its own transformation. Hormonal shifts and the early signs of perimenopause. Brain fog, disrupted sleep, energy that didn't show up when I needed it. I was trying to retain complex financial concepts while navigating a hormonal landscape that made focus genuinely harder. That is not an excuse. It is the truth, and other women deserve to hear it named out loud. I also gained weight which showed up in my body and in my confidence.

And then I had to acknowledge what I had been dealing with mentally: it was more than nerves. It was test anxiety. A racing heart, sweaty palms, pressure that took over the moment the clock started.

This was something I needed to address. Then I was given the book by my friend, Test Anxiety No More by Dr. Bianca Busch. I attended her virtual seminars. I started moving my body, sleeping like it mattered, and addressing my hormonal health rather than pushing through it. I treated my whole-self as part of the preparation.

Before my 4th and final attempt, something shifted. I took control and stopped letting the exam results control me.

I knew the material. 

I had always known the material.

The Question I Had to Keep Answering

There were moments where I genuinely did not know if I would make it. I was truly uncertain about whether this was meant for me.

There will be people who don't understand your hustle. Those who question your timeline or why you keep going after a setback. That is their perspective to hold. Your job is to keep answering your own question. I was reminded of Simon Sinek’s - Start With Why

I repeatedly asked myself: Is the reason why I started still true?

Every time I asked it, the answer was yes.

Here I Am

After three years. Four attempts. One pivot. One book gifted at exactly the right moment. One seminar that taught me to let go of what I couldn't control. Two employees who left and a workload I absorbed without putting down my pencil. A husband whose work and travel schedule meant I held it down solo more times than I can count. A hormonal journey I'm still navigating. Twenty-pounds (I'm still working on keeping off). One daughter, a community, and a team who held me up when I couldn't hold everything myself.

Alicia Harrison. Financial Advisor. Officer. Owner.

Your journey will not look like mine. The timeline, the detours, the setbacks, they are not evidence that you are in the wrong place. They are part of how some of us are made for what we are being called to do.

Again, not everyone will understand your why. You don't need them to. You just need to keep going.

Dedication will get you there.

Now go listen to Nipsey Hussle's Dedication. Hard work plus patience. The sum of all sacrifices. That's exactly what this was for me— and if you're in the middle of your own hard season, I hope it gives you what it gave me.

At MoneyScript Wealth Management, we believe in the long game — for our clients and for ourselves. Schedule your complimentary 15-minute discovery call today. 

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