I Quit My Corporate Job to Be a Content Creator… and It Got Messy

I quit my corporate job thinking I was about to “build my dream life”… and within months I was questioning everything.

This episode is the real story — from being a creative kid, to losing that part of me, to trying to find my way back.

We’re talking about figuring out what you actually want in your 20s, the pressure to follow the “right” path, and what no one tells you about trying to build a life around creating.

Timestamps:

0:00 – this episode is a little different...
2:00 – your high school self knew more than you think
3:30 – then college kinda f*cks it all up
16:00 – I quit corporate… and people thought I lost it
21:00 – how to actually find yourself after corporate
31:00 – the one skill that every creative entrepreneur needs
37:00 – the quote That Changes Things

If something in this episode resonated with you, DM me on Instagram @monicagbulnes — I love hearing your thoughts and your stories.

And if you’re enjoying the podcast, don’t forget to follow and leave a review 🤍

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Damn, I I think maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I really need to like be employed by someone, and maybe entrepreneurship isn't for me because I can't seem to get a grip on what I'm supposed to be doing right now. And I think a lot of other people thought I had lost my shit, and I was just like going off the rails. Hello and welcome back to That Changes Things, the podcast where we talk about little mindset shifts that can change everything. And today's episode is gonna be a bit different because I wanted to talk to you about what it has been like throughout the years coming into a creative career and entrepreneurship and how I went from being a really creative kid to totally losing that part of me when I was in college and working a nine to five job in corporate America and trying to figure out what the hell to do with myself, feeling so lost and disconnected. And I just wanted to talk about that because I feel like not enough people talk about that struggle of like coming into your own and figuring out what you want to do with your life and that struggle that you have in your 20s to figure out where you're headed and that feeling of being lost and then finding my way back and my journeys through entrepreneurship. So I just want to like maybe ramble a little bit, maybe be all over the place. I say that, and then I end up like chopping and editing the fuck out of the episode. But I'm gonna try. I'm I'm gonna try because those are the podcast episodes that I enjoy the most. Even when people leave in like their um and if they take a breather and their silence for a little bit, you can enjoy the silence with them because it's actually a natural conversation. So I'm trying to lean more into that style. And I really hope you guys enjoy this episode. So without further ado, let's get started. Even though we're in Orange County, California right now, this story really starts in New Jersey, my hometown where I grew up and where I went to college. I would start in high school, but I feel like there's nothing exciting to talk about in high school. I guess the main thing is I was really fortunate to have a high school that had this crazy budget to pour into extracurriculars. And I'm just like a really creative person. So I loved all of the creative things. I was in sewing club, I made my own clothes, I was in all the art classes, like the drawing classes, the painting classes, and then I also loved the more like digital side of things. So I was in like photography club, and then I also did a documentary for social change class, which was so cool because it was my first intro to iMovie and like making a movie and a video and interviewing people. I think high school really shows you what kind of person you are before you even know it. I think every person can look back at their high school experience and find something so fun that they used to do that they haven't done in years. There's so much comfort in nostalgia, and like they say, history just straight up repeats itself, right? So if we found comfort in these things as a kid once upon a time, who's to say they wouldn't enhance or enrich our adult lives? Who's to say that we need to get so far away from the things that we did as a kid in order to become adults and grow up? And I get a lot of inspiration in that and looking at what I did in high school when I wasn't asked to do something that's gonna make me money and I wasn't really like focused on how other people felt about it. I just wanted to take electives that were interesting to me or join after school clubs that were interesting to me. And I use that to my advantage a lot now. But as I talk you through my journey, you're gonna see that I got so, so lost along the way. And now is when I'm finally coming back around to things that I enjoyed as a kid that are becoming staple parts of my creative entrepreneurial content creation journey. So then came that time when everyone around me was applying for colleges. That was like the next logical step. It was like unheard of to not go to college, especially at my high school at the time. I don't know, I kind of felt like, all right, it was time to leave all that childish shit behind, you know, like it's time to enter the working world and do what society says that you do. And I didn't know the first thing about that because I felt like my head was just like in all this like artsy fun stuff that I enjoyed. Like that's where my mind was at. And then I thought of college as like this separate thing, like, all right, time to put my big girl pants on and like grow the fuck up. And I think that's the main problem. Like, this is where the problem begins. And if it's anything like that now, I really hope it stops because I think it really fucks you up for a long time. Because college was like the first time that I ever thought that I could be lost, you know. Like I was never like thinking that I was lost or trying to be found or wondering where I was going. And with everyone around me, like applying to all these colleges, I really was so lost. Like, I wasn't thinking about college at all. And I remember I applied to Rutgers University because my sister was going there, and I had like gone to hang out with her and party in her dorm. So I was like, all right, I guess Rucker's really cool. I wasn't thinking about what my major was gonna be, where uh where I should go. And I actually went to community college for two years and I got my associate's degree to make it a lot cheaper because I knew I was gonna have this huge student loan afterwards. So I got a basic liberal arts degree and I just used it as an exploration time. So yeah, I loved my intro to business class and it was just like exposure to all different types of business, and I really, really liked marketing because it played writing plays a huge role in marketing and creativity does too. So I love like how to market a product and like how to get people interested in a product and what the packaging is gonna look like. So that's what I thought was really, really interesting. And the big problem with that is that because I transferred in uh an associate's degree, I only had so much wiggle room and I couldn't get into the business school, which is where the marketing degree is. I could have gotten into it, but I would have had to have a six-year-long stint in college. Like it would have taken me an extra two years in order to go back, take the classes that I missed, reapply for the business school, which only happens once a year. So it was just what Rutgers University students like to call the classic are you screwed? And that's life, right? Like sometimes logistically, it makes it impossible or really fucking hard to do what you want to do. And you just have to like find another way, especially if you're really passionate about it. And I was not passionate enough about marketing to find another way. So I went to a guidance counselor and they were like, hey, I mean, I know you really want to do marketing, but if you do economics, you're only like a few classes away and you can graduate on time. So I was like, okay, let's just do econ and I'll just do marketing extracurriculars. Like I joined the marketing club, I wrote for my collegiate newspaper, I landed an internship at Panasonic in their marketing department. So I was like, all right, I'm fine. I can major in econ and you know, still do marketing stuff. Um, great, until you're trying to get a job. Come senior year, and everyone was like gearing up to get a job. And I'm like, shit, okay, like this is really happening. Like, I didn't think about like getting a job. I don't know why. Like the end goal for like college wasn't a job necessarily. It was just kind of like a way to buy myself time until I knew what I wanted to do with my life, which is like a hell of an expensive way to buy yourself time, I know. But at least I was like expanding my vocabulary and meeting new people and you know, trying to figure out who I was. I got to live on my own and do the whole like dorming experience and learn random facts about life and business and other subjects that I definitely would not know if I wasn't forced to learn them in college. So I can't say I regret the entire experience as a whole because I think I would be a totally different person without my college experience. And I'm really like grateful for that. But I was slowly starting to see the repercussions of your actions when all you do is what other people are doing and listening to other people and what they think you should do with your life. Because had I been an only child and not seen where my sister went to school, would I have applied at Roker's? Probably not. If I had just picked a major that I wanted to pick and not listen to any outside noise, would I have picked economics? Hell no. Come time to get a job, it was really, really, really freaking hard because I'm going up against people who have a marketing degree. I'm applying to all these marketing jobs, and obviously they're gonna look at someone who has a marketing degree from Rutgers Business School and all this other stuff to support it. And I have an economics degree and I have a marketing internship, and I have, you know, like all these random things that I did on the side to support the random econ degree. And I would like try to spin it, you know, like econ, it's an interesting lens to look at marketing through. And it did give me an edge, but I don't think it was enough. I was just like, where the what the hell do I do now with this econ degree that I don't give a shit about? I'm not gonna apply to any econ roles. Like, I didn't want an analyst role. Every economics major goes into an analyst role, and that was just gonna bore my brains out. So I'm like, what the hell do I do? I literally contacted every person I knew, trying to get a job, and it did not, it did not happen. I really wanted to work at like Estee Lauder or L'Oreal, like a big marketing conglomerate corporate company. I thought that would be really cool. I loved Devil Wears Prada as a kid, which this is so timely considering Devil Wears Prada is coming out soon. I just loved that whole like corporate baddie, like wears her high heels to the office and rides the subway or like takes a private car in the city. And I just thought that was really cool. So when my friend reached out to me saying that she had an opening in her job in New York City, I was like, all right, I have no other leads. Let me just try, see if this like becomes my corporate baddie era. So I landed that job and it was actually an event planning job. So I was a conference coordinator and I would put conferences together for pharmaceutical companies and around topics in the pharmaceutical industry, which was boring as shit. And it was really, really hard actually. At first, it was it was hard, and I was like, ooh, okay, I like a challenge. Give me, give me a challenge. I love a puzzle. Let's do this shit. This is what I, you know, I graduated, this is what life is, like, this is what it's gotta be, and I need to learn how to get better at this. Because even though I just graduated, I was the one putting together meetings and calling the marketing department, the sales department, sponsorship department, and getting everyone in a conference room and being like, hey, this is our next conference, this is what the conference is about, this is the kind of sponsorship that we want to target to fund this conference. This is the kind of marketing that we should be looking at. What kind of location should we pick? Is this a conference that makes more sense if it's in San Francisco, XYZ, which seems so cool, right? Like at the beginning, I was like, okay, I could do this. Like I even got to travel, which was really cool. My favorite travel was San Francisco. It was my first time coming out to California. I got to experience San Francisco in a totally different way. So I was like, I got this is easy. I got it made. This is a great job. I'm I'm in good hands. All of my coworkers were the same age, if not like a little older. So we would frequent karaoke bars, which I fucking love karaoke. So the fact that I had like a bunch of people around me that loved doing karaoke, like we were always shutting down some New York City bar, and I'm always running to the train trying to get my ass back to New Jersey in time before the train stopped running to my small little town in New Jersey. And I got to wear the corporate outfits, you know, like this was the era of like uh paper bag pants with like the little tie at the waist, and I would wear blazes and my jeans. I loved my casual Fridays. My go-to casual Friday outfit was a pair of Levi's with a black blazer and some black like combat boots that had like a heel. I had the time of my life and everything was great until my company got acquired by another really big events company. And the acquisition was a shit show. The office was no longer just two train rides and a couple blocks walk into New York City. Now, from New Jersey, to get to that office, I had to take, well, first of all, I would drive my car to the station because it was quite a walk. Park my car at the station, then take a train, then take another train, two subways, and then walk like five blocks to my office. It was like a truck. It would take me like two hours, if not more, just to get to the office. So by the time I got there, probably hungry again. Whatever I ate this morning, I definitely burned off. And I've already had a whole day, let alone an eight-hour shift, to then do that same commute back home. Not only that, the office was changing, management changed so much, the nature of the job changed so much. And there were firings left and right. Even a man who had been with the company for years, he had a wife and kids. I'll never forget it. And they just like laid him off like it was nothing. And I think that was my first introduction into like the instability of the job world because I think I had been convinced at that point that you get a job and you have job stability. You know, like you have a 401k, you have, you know, you have your regular paycheck coming in every two weeks or whatever it is. And that was just a time where no one was safe. And I felt the trauma move through the office because everyone was scared they were gonna get fired. Like you would get called into the office for like a simple meeting and you were shitting your pants because you thought that you were next. And you would come back from a meeting and people are like, Are you good? You know, like kind of thing. So it was a really traumatic experience. And I just really started to ask myself, like, do I want to do event planning? Because we were acquired by this huge events company, and they wanted to see that you really wanted to be there because I think they just wanted to restructure the entire team. I think that is what the turning point was. Like it was less a small office and it was more like a career. And I was asking myself at the time, like, is this my career? Is this what I want to do? And that just brought up a lot of a lot of really great points, you know. I would look at some roles and and be like, okay, that's the role that I want, but I can't get into that role for like five years, five to ten. Like, some people would tell me, hang in there because this is an entry-level role, and you might be there in 10 years. I'm like, damn, I don't want to do this for 10 years. I don't think I'll be able to do this for 10 years. And it was the first time that I felt like my job was hard, but I didn't care to conquer it. It's one thing to meet a challenge, and it's another thing to meet a challenge and be like, that's someone else's challenge. Like, I really couldn't care less if I'm good at my job, if everyone thinks that I'm on my shit or doesn't think I'm on my shit. And I wasn't on my shit for a long time. And I lost myself in that because I'm one to care and I'm one to love what is in front of me and do it with as much integrity and passion as I can. So for me to see something in front of me and not care whether I'm doing a good job at it or not, I felt lost. I think around that time is where I read the quote, choose your heart. Um, and I actually pulled it up because I want to read it to you guys. The quote is marriage is hard, divorce is hard, choose your heart, obesity is hard, being fit is also hard. Choose your heart. Being in debt is hard, being financially disciplined is hard. Communication is hard, not communicating is also hard. Life will never be easy, it will always be hard, but we can choose our heart, so pick wisely. If I'm gonna be doing something that's hard, I might as well do something that's hard, but I love it, you know? Like it's hard, but I'm passionate about it, so I keep wanting to do it. Why am I just doing this? Because it's hard. So people respect me more so that they think highly of me because other people are doing it. Like, why, why? And another quote that actually played a really big role. I'm a really big quotes person, so I hear a quote and it changes my entire life, and I'll remember that quote forever. So I have like a quote library in my head. So that one was may your choices reflect your hopes, not your fears. That one's by Nelson Mandela. And I was like, damn, that's good. My choices right now are reflecting my fears because I'm scared of quitting this job. I'm scared of what the future looks like. I'm scared of not knowing where I'm going and leaving this job and not knowing if I left something good or if I should have gone down this path and I should have stayed. Right now, I'm moving out of fear. All of my choices have been from fear, and I don't want to live that way. If you know, my first episode, the accident hit me real good. And I'm like, damn, God forbid I were to pass away. I know this is so dramatic to be like, oh my God, if I pass away right now. But when you have trauma, that'll do it to you. So I do actually think that a lot. And I asked myself, like, if you know, if I had made these choices in my life, you know, and and something were to happen, I'm I'm proud of the choices that I made. And I genuinely couldn't be proud of myself being in corporate for five years, 10 years, not knowing what it would have been like, what my life would have been like had I done anything else. Um, and that's I want to speak for me personally. I'm not shitting on corporate whatsoever. It's just not for me personally. I know it's for so many people, so many people that don't want the instability or the lack of structure or the unknowns of being an entrepreneur. And I totally get that, trust me, especially from someone who's been doing her own thing for four years. I get it. It's very, very challenging. Um, but for me, I just needed to know what was outside of that bubble. So I quit. And I remember I made a YouTube video the day I quit. I was like, I quit my job. And there was like this big flashy thumbnail with me with my hands up and my mouth open, like, ah. And I thought that was it. Like, damn, I did something, you know, like I'm on to something. I really thought that that was like, you know, the change and the beginning of the rest of my life. And it kind of was in its own unique way. I mean, there were so many different entrepreneurial ups and downs that that I'll get into, but in a way, it sort of was. And I think a lot of other people thought I had lost my shit. And I was just like going off the rails. Like, I just graduated college, I just landed a job after months of looking for a job. And I think like I I was there for like a year and three months, and I was like, no, I'm not doing this. And a lot of people were so worried about my resume that I would never be able to get another corporate job ever again if I ever wanted to fall back on it. And I was like, bro, I can't think like that. You can't live your life always watering plan B in the background, like thinking that plan A is just not gonna work out. You know, like I personally can't live that way. I have to focus on plan A. There can only be plan A. I actually lost a few friends because they thought that I was making a huge mistake and they would just like try to talk me out of it and thought that I just like wasn't thinking rationally, but I had to do me and just keep going. And I didn't realize how hard entrepreneurship was at the time. So I was like trying to figure out what do I do next? Like, do I start a website? Do I start posting on social media? Do I try to make like uh an e-book? Everyone was like making like these e-books and making money off of it at the time, and like the fitness, Instagram fitness era was like booming and stuff like that. So I just like didn't know exactly which direction I wanted to take with it. And I just felt like I was I just felt like during this time I was always trying to figure out my life's purpose and what I wanted to do forever. And it just felt so heavy. Like I I had this feeling like I was gonna get on that train headed in that direction. And if I got on the wrong train and picked the wrong thing, I would go miles and miles in the wrong direction. And there was just like no coming back from making that mistake. And I guess that was kind of the way that I felt about corporate, you know, like losing five, 10 years to a job and picking my head up and being like, shit, I'm not happy, you know? So I just I had that feeling also in entrepreneurship of like, you know, what if I like, what if I pop, what if I make something and it pops? And let's say I popped in the fitness industry and I don't want to keep making fitness content forever, you know, like what do you do then? I just didn't know how to pivot or rebuild or just trust the process. And I was in that mindset for a really long time, just trying to figure it out until I started to think like, what if I just follow breadcrumbs? You know, I just I need to just follow one thing. What's one thing in front of me that I can do right now and that excites me or would lead me in an exciting direction and just slowly start building? It was a really, really hard time for me. I'm not gonna lie. It was it was odd jobs Monica era where I just like I would do one thing. Like I started freelance writing on Fiverr, which was great, and it was actually surprisingly really good money during the pandemic because everyone wanted to work on their side business now that they were either collecting unemployment or working from home a lot more. So a lot of people were buying articles for their websites. I was posting on social media, and then I was like, I don't know what I'm doing here. Like it just, I think COVID was kind of lifting, and I was like, all right, everyone's going back to work, and I'm really not making a killing doing any of these things. So this isn't really exactly what I had in mind. The writing was just uh a tricky spot because you had to put a lot of time in. To it. So the amount of money you would make on the time put in just never was enough because you can only price a writing article so high. Unless you're writing for like publications and stuff, which I would have to pitch myself for. And again, choose your hard. It's just not like what I really thought was interesting and wanted to dive deep in and commit and spend all this energy and time on. And that's okay, you know. So I started getting jobs because I was like, damn, I I think maybe I made a mistake, you know, like maybe I really need to like be employed by someone, and maybe entrepreneurship isn't for me because I can't seem to get a grip on what I'm supposed to be doing right now. So I started working for a Korean skincare startup. It was a shit show. I quit. I had a very controlling boss. Um yeah, I'm not gonna say more on that, but it just wasn't a good fit. But I think it really made me feel like I keep quitting and I never commit to anything and I can never find something that I want to stick to. And that was really hard on my mental because I felt like something was wrong with me when really I was just experimenting and trying different things, trying to figure out where I fit in the world and what I wanted to do with my life, which anyone listening, I would recommend that too. But especially if you're unhappy where you are, the only way you're gonna figure out where you're happy is to experiment. And even if you're unhappy where you are, it that's not a bad thing necessarily. It's just data. Sometimes you have to go through a process of elimination to figure out what you don't like to start narrowing down what you do like, which I think is what Odd Jobs Monica era was all about. But at the time, as you can probably imagine, it's just so mentally exhausting. And you just wonder what the hell is wrong with you and why everyone else can keep a job and you can't. And it and it wasn't that, it's just I was looking for happiness, you know, like I was being picky with it. I wanted to find something that brought me joy every day that I woke up in the morning excited about. And maybe that wasn't top priority for other people, you know. I also didn't have like a family to feed. I, you know, I was just graduating college and stuff, so I was I was in a different headspace for sure. During this time, I also started becoming more aware of the fact that I was attracting jobs that were vibrating on the same like frequency that I was vibrating on, and I really didn't have this crazy confidence in myself and what I could bring to the table, what I could offer, because I was just stuck on my economics degree and and my resume and that not working out the way I expected. So I really didn't know my value, and I would just attract other people or businesses or entrepreneurs that were hiring me that didn't see my value either. And it would just put me in really sticky situations. Then I went to work at a restaurant and I started uh packing to go orders because I was like, all right, maybe I can just do like a side gig job and have some side cash coming in, and maybe that'll make me feel a little more free to create and not put so much pressure on what's gonna make me money. And that was an interesting sh chapter. I'm grateful for that chapter because it really humbled me. Like being a server was really, really hard, harder than I thought. And it also gave me the flexibility to be like, I'm gonna be gone for a month when Josh and I got called to film on a TV show with MTV, which dare I mention this because it's just such a cringy, cringy thing. And I'm really happy that it didn't go anywhere and that it didn't gain any popularity whatsoever. But but it happened, and I got that experience as well, and that was part of my odd jobs era, and I'm really happy we had that experience because we just look back and laugh tremendously. And I mean, it's not every day you get to film a TV show for a month in Malta off the coast of Italy. So we got a free vacation and it was an interesting time in our lives, and it turned out to be a breadcrumb that then led to other things in my entrepreneurial journey, which I'll talk about in a second. And then the last job in my odd jobs era was a marketing position for a rock climbing franchise. It was really cool because I got to work in the rock climbing gym. What wasn't cool was the fact that it was a franchise. So I was only one person for the marketing department as a whole. And I was trying to cover like four different locations and market all four locations, but they all had their different vibes because they were all in different types of towns and communities. And it was work overload. And I think the main thing that sticks out to me about that experience was the frustration of not being able to do things the way that I wanted to do them because I love marketing, I know fitness. Yes, I didn't have this crazy rock climbing education, and that was definitely a big hurdle for me and it's something that I delved into and I would rock climb, and Josh even got into rock climbing, and we would just try to like get to know the culture and the terminology and the finesse that it takes to rock climb. But yeah, there was just this resistance from upper management with certain things, and it just wasn't, they weren't like in the new age of social media, and I was just thinking new age, so I'm thinking, oh, let's get them on Snapchat. Like Snapchat was really blowing up at the time, and I wanted to make like a filter for them that like people could scan in when they came into the rock climbing gym. Like, I just wanted to do all this like new age shit, and it was at an older establishment, so of course I can see like why that didn't work out in hindsight, but um yeah, I also wanted to design like these trippy t-shirts with like an alien on it that had like a peace sign and was like riding like um like a swinging like like a moon, but it was like swinging like a wrecking ball. And it was just like this trippy shirt that I thought like a lot of people in the rock climbing community would like really fuck with and want to wear while they climbed. Yeah, I don't know. I just I get I get how that sounds and that totally it's fine that they didn't want to do that, but I think it just like showed me like, all right, if you want to be that person that has all these crazy ideas, then you gotta do the crazy ideas, you know? Like it's just that concept of when someone tries to tell you how to do something that they've never done, and it's like you don't know your ass from your elbow because you've never actually done this before. So I felt like I was talking a lot of shit, and I'm like, all right, well, if I'm really gonna like talk all this shit, then I need to try to be my be be an entrepreneur and build my own thing and see how hard it is to take someone else's advice, you know, and to like do it a different way. Yeah, I just I realized that I had always up until that point wanted to do my own thing and felt like I wanted to call the shots and get like annoyed when I couldn't, you know, call the shots. And I was just like, if if I'm gonna make a fucking mistake, it's gonna be my mistake. And if I'm gonna make a banger, it's gonna go to me. It's going in my pocket. So this kind of planted the seed again of really wanting to be an entrepreneur. And as hard as this time was looking back, I think I really needed it to just know, you know, to move into doing my own thing and experimenting with entrepreneurship and know that I had tried all this other stuff. I had tried retail, I had tried restaurant, I tried working for startups or other companies. It's not that I just had that one corporate experience and never went back into it. I think this was my sign that I just kept, you know, cycling through all these jobs and never really getting the same satisfaction out of building my own thing and being my own boss and going on that adventure. And it's some of the trickiest times in our lives because I think we want to always find that one thing that we've really enjoy, but we don't want to do all the other stuff that we don't enjoy. And sometimes we don't know if we're gonna like something or not, but you have to experiment and try, and that's a really tricky place to be in. And it also can be not well received by people around you who might be like, dude, what are you doing? You know, like you have a degree and now you're, you know, working at a restaurant or like you're quitting your job and you've been looking for a job for six months. Like it can be hard for other people around you to be watching you and be like, what are you doing? And if you have someone around you who's going through this, please just let them rock because it's hard enough as it is, and it's a very experimental time, and you really don't need someone else coming in and confusing you and being like, Oh, you need job stability, or this is how it's supposed to be societally, this is what you do, or this is what you said you were gonna do. Like, you will come to the end of that discovery period with data, with knowledge of what you don't like, and through that process of elimination, figure out what you do like. I promise. But you have to let yourself not like stuff and try stuff and be bad at it and decide it's not for you. And I'm honestly realizing right now as I'm saying this, that I got that skill to bring into entrepreneurship and be able to try stuff and be bad at stuff. And I'll talk about that more when I get into the entrepreneurial ventures. But really quick, I just want to say thank you so much for making it this far into the episode. And I'm so curious what you're thinking while listening to this because it's just one of those episodes where I feel like I'm just letting you into my brain. So if something's resonating with you or you have your own version of this story or thoughts on it, DM me on Instagram at Monica G Bolnes. And if you're listening on Spotify, you can actually comment on an episode now, which would be really cool to like start a conversation in the comment section. And of course, don't forget to follow the show, helps more people find it, and so that you can get notifications when I post episodes every other Tuesday. Okay, let's keep going. Now diving into the entrepreneurial side of my journey. So around that same time is when Josh and I decided to move to California, which is another episode in itself that is coming soon. And I told myself, okay, I'm gonna move to California. I wanted to restart up my writing business. I had some new ideas with that and thought I could really, you know, hit the ground running there. So I was like, all right, I have a three-month runway from when I leave this rock climbing job. I'm gonna start up my business in these three months, build my website, start getting a clientele. I even took a class on like how to do certain types of writing that I can make more money on. And once I go to California, no more odd jobs, Monica. No more. I'm sick of this shit. And I don't care if I'm broke. I just need to be an entrepreneur and just like try to make shit and see what sticks. Like, I can't be going in and out of these jobs because I lose my focus. I stop working on my entrepreneurial ventures. I start focusing on rock climbing or on how to be a server, on all this other stuff that is just a genuine distraction from my path at this point. I it's inevitable. I've gone in through so many jobs, and clearly I just want to do my own thing. So we moved to California. I started the writing business. It was like, okay, again, it just like really didn't give me the financial stability that I was looking for and the payout that I was looking for. Like, I would put all of this time and effort into these articles, and it just really wasn't worth it financially. And I just wanted to look in a different direction. And I went back to following breadcrumbs. Okay, what's in front of me? At the time, Josh and I had gotten verified on Snapchat because of the TV show we were on. The TV show launched when we were living in San Diego. I followed that breadcrumb. I started posting on Snapchat every day. I created a beautiful community on there. Shout out if you're listening from Snapchat. I think I grew to like 70K on there. And it was just a really fun time for Snapchat too. There were so many events and we met so many new people. And Josh and I had a really, really fun time in that era. I even have this really cool scrapbook of like all the memories and activities at Snapchat. What else? I don't know, crazy concerts. They still have cool concerts. Like we went to an MGK concert recently, Kit Cuddy movie premieres or like Coachella events. Like it was a time. We had so much fun in that chapter. I was making fashion content around this time, a lot of like outfits and makeup content. And this is the point that I'm trying to make. Like, you have to try so many different things. You just need to be able to try and fail and try again and fail and try harder and fail and try again harder and fail again and like not take it personally. You just need to be built different. And I think the more you do it, the more you develop this thick skin of like, all right, I'm gonna make this happen and I'm gonna just work and tweak things and keep on working. Because then Snapchat evolved into something else, and I followed a different breadcrumb. And now I'm here, I'm in this mix where I create content about mindset shifts and organization and inspiration. I post on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, and I'm also doing UGC, which is content creation for brands. So I make like video and photo content that I sell to other brands so they can use on their social media or they can use it for ads or marketing materials or on their website. And then I started a podcast, and now I'm here with a new venture and a new baby and a new experience that I know nothing about. And you just gotta be like brave enough to be bad at something new and put yourself out there in a major way. And you know, if it doesn't do well, you either care and you give a fuck to press harder and to keep doing it and figure out, okay, that didn't do well. Why was that? Why didn't this video do well? Now I'm in the era of tweaking because I this mix feels so me and this podcast feels so me, and it just feels so right. I haven't had this feeling with any other business venture that I have done in the past. So now I'm in the era where I give a shit so much. You know, like you care to keep going, you care to keep trying and experimenting. I don't want to scare you away. If anyone's listening that is like interested in entrepreneurship, please don't be scared away. I always say it's the self-improvement journey of a lifetime because I truly believe that you can only grow in your business as far as you're willing to grow mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and your business will become the best version of itself as you become the best version of yourself and continue to learn. So I think it is a beautiful thing. Entrepreneurship to me is like a puzzle that I haven't figured out. And the fact that I haven't figured it out and I've figured other things out in the past makes me feel like I can figure this one out. Like I know that if I keep going and I keep trying, I'm bound to see the vision come to life. I feel like now more than ever, I get to do all the things that I loved to do as a kid. As a kid, I loved to write and speak and tell stories and teach people things. My parents will never let me forget my first grade teacher, Mrs. Coffee, who I would like go up to her after the weekend and I would just like catch her up on my weekend plans. And I'd be like, Yeah, I hung out with my family friend and I went to apple picking with my parents and whatever. And there'd be like a line of students behind me waiting to like get their papers graded, and I'm just like telling this teacher my whole life story. But like, here I am on a podcast telling you my whole life story. Like, shit hasn't changed. I think the beauty of life is being able to do the things that you did as a kid, as an adult, because it brings such a childlike joy out of you that you don't get from, I don't know, a corporate office and a fucking cubicle. So I think the journey I've been on has been to go back to what I liked to do before society had me thinking about a career and money or what made logical sense or what, you know, socially is acceptable. And instead just following what feels interesting to me and what I like to do. And now I feel really grateful that I went on this journey in my younger years so that as I move forward in my adult life, I can continue to pursue these things and enjoy them because my routine is the best that it's ever been compared to my corporate years and all that stuff. Like I enjoy what I do now, even if it's messy and yes, unpredictable and always changing and I always feel like a beginner. I I still love it. It's a hard that I'm choosing because I'm interested in getting better at it. And if you're listening to this and thinking you want to do something creative or have a drastic career change, or even start like a side gig or a little side hobby, it's never too late. Don't think that this journey had to start years ago for you to be in it now. I think the amount of enjoyment that you get out of doing something creative or doing something you've always wanted to do, or doing something that you've always wondered what it could lead to is so beneficial and so worth it that you could literally start something, start a new hobby or a new interest at like 60, 70 years old. And to me, it's worth it. I mean, you got to experience it in this lifetime, didn't you? So it's better than never having done it at all. There's so many people I feel like in their even in their 40s and 50s that feel like it's too late to start something that they've wanted to do for years. I I never think that it's too late. So to wrap up this episode, I want to leave you with another quote. I actually think it's a poem. This poem explains the idea that I'm trying to convey in this podcast better than I ever could. And it's another poem that really changed my life. So I hope it changes yours. Finding yourself isn't really how it works. You're not a$10 bill in last winter's coat pocket, and you're also not lost. Your true self is right there, buried under cultural conditioning, other people's opinions, and inaccurate conclusions you drew as a kid that became your beliefs about who you are. Finding yourself is actually returning to yourself, an unlearning, an excavation of remembering who you were before the world got its hands on you. Emily McDowell. Thanks so much for hanging out with me. I hope you enjoyed this episode, and I will catch you in the next one.