Holy freakin’ smokes, my friends!
I cannot believe I’m saying this but it has been 2 FULL YEARS since I quit my safe, full-time job mid-pandemic to fully commit to entrepreneurship and wow… what a good decision.
I want to take some time to celebrate the accomplishments I have achieved since that fateful day, but first, I think it behooves us to discuss why on earth I made the big bold move in the first place.
As with many origin stories, there were a few inciting incidents:
Realizing the power of a good resume - October 2011: My step-mom, Karen, helped me write the best resume I had ever seen for grad school applications and I suddenly felt hopeful about getting accepted, which I did. Wow, resumes are powerful.
An extremely painful job search - February 2014 to October 2014: Determined to stay in the States to work after grad school (I’m Canadian, fyi), I applied to 116 jobs but no matter how far I got in the process, once I told them I needed a work visa, the answer was ”no”. It was a great learning experience as far as job searching goes, but omg… that sucked.
A fascination with business/personal finance - December 2016: I woke up in a cold sweat. I’m nearly 29 and I know nothing about money. I read 14 personal finance and business books in the next 3 months, build a personal budget, payoff my last $12,000 in student loans in 6 months, start investing, and set my sights on launching a “side hustle” to add to my income.
The side hustle begins - January 2018: on the cusp of turning 30, I invest $144 carefully budgeted dollars to set up a website and I launch my resume writing and interview coaching business! Thanks to support from my Facebook friends, I start pulling in 4-5 clients per month. Not bad!
A string of professional disappointments - May 2019 to October 2019: My work gives me an “Emerging Leader Award'' and then proceeds to turn me down for 3 different promotions. Each time, the person promoted was well deserving of the role, but nonetheless, I’m devastated. My side hustle is making enough to cover about half my monthly expenses, so I forge a 9-month exit strategy including budget, forecasted revenue growth, and cash flow estimations. I present it to Ariana, she approves. We’re good to go!
It’s Go-Time - July 31st, 2020: I’m working remotely from Ariana’s parents’ cottage. I finish my final meeting at 4:30pm and close Microsoft Teams for the last time. Let’s build this business for real!
It’s so crazy/awesome that all that happened the way it did and I’m so grateful it lined up perfectly as it did. Speaking of which, I’ve been through so much since that 2020 transition and I wanted to just recap (please note, these are not fully formatted resume bullet points LOL):
Built a TikTok audience of 415,000 followers (what the heck??? How?)
Built an Instagram audience of 84,000 followers
Created and launched my Job Search Institute Program which has helped 100’s of people
Wrote and published 2 ebooks
Built an email list of over 30,000 subscribers (thanks friends!)
Served over 500 amazing clients
Became a social media influencer (not the cool kind, but still 🤓)
Incorporated the business as a legal entity
Grew enough for Ariana to quit her job and work with me full time.
Helped millions of people with bite-sized job search advice
Enjoyed the heck out of it all!
It feels weird listing all my accomplishments like this but in a business where I do this all day, everyday, I guess I had better get comfortable doing this for myself too!
I want to just end this little celebration blog by saying thank you! For everyone who’s watched or shared one of my videos, and everyone who is on my email list, and of course to all my wonderful clients… thank you!!!
I couldn’t / wouldn’t do all this if it weren’t for you!
And one last thing… there’s one goal I’ve yet to achieve and you can help me do it. I’ve always wanted to be recognized out in public and it’s yet to happen. So if you ever see me walking down the street, please stop me and say hello!