How To Transition Out Of Your 9 to 5

Welcome. I'm so excited about this episode, you guys. If you are in a 9-to-5 job and you are doing a side hustle, or you are thinking about doing a side hustle and you want to quit your full-time job, this is a lady that you must get to know. Her name is Amber Lashawn. She has a business called Brand Girl Magic. And on this episode, she's going to share her escape plan from her 9-to-5, as well as some mindset shifts you should be having or conversations you should be having with yourself when you're thinking about leaving your 9 to 5. On top of that, what's super cool is that I had a previous conversation with Ms. Amber Lashawn, and that happened back in 2019 towards the end of the year, but she had a pivot in her business, and so this episode seems a little bit more fresher and like we're continuing a conversation. So I hope you guys join in and tune in. Can't wait to hear what you think.

Welcome to She's Crafted to Thrive. I'm your host, Nikita Williams, and this show is for all the ladies who are making and creating things that they love. You will hear conversations about the real everyday struggles of juggling life and business while trying to maintain passion and harmony. As women, we have the skill of getting things done, but sometimes we get in our own way. It's here where you'll see that you're not alone. You'll discover that success does not mean perfection. Fear and negative thoughts and challenges are all a part of the journey, and on this podcast you'll find the inspiration and tools you need to have a life and business that thrives. You guys, I'm super excited, um, to have this young lady on this show. She is the owner of Brand Girl Magic. Yes, please tell us who you are, Amber, and what you do and let's kind of get to know you a little bit. Of course.

So my name is Amber. A lot of people know me as Amber Lashawn, is my handle on Instagram, and I am the founder of Brand Girl Magic, which is a one-stop shop for women to be empowered and grow confident and consistent in the brand that they are trying to build so they can turn their passions into profits.

Oh, I love that, turn their passions into profit, you know.

Yes.

Anytime you say profit, you just hear cha-ching, cha-ching.

We need the money, we need the money coming in, right? And why not make money doing something you love doing? If not, then why are you doing it, right? So Brand Girl Magic is all about empowering you to be able to find out how to make that happen for you.

Okay, so before we delve in a little bit about that, like, how— what's your history? Like, what's your background? Like, where Where'd you come from before you started to hop in?

Yeah, so I'm from Orlando, Florida, um, and I decided to go not too far away from home and hop on over down I-4 to the University of South Florida where I went to school and I studied in public relations. And that's kind of where I first got my hands on what branding is and learned that that is what I enjoy doing it in so many different facets. So I worked with several organizations on campus and I was active in various departments and had all these fun internships that allowed me to shape what branding meant to me. And I got to turn that into what at the time was my dream job, working in Major League Baseball, because I just knew that my future was in sports. I—

what?

Really? I— girl, I am obsessed with sports. Sports. It's been a part of my life since I was a little girl.

Oh my gosh, I never would have guessed that.

I love, I watch football every single Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday during football season. But I just knew that I wanted to experience that camaraderie of sports and get paid to do it. So I networked my way into a job working for the Tampa Bay Rays in their community relations department. And through there I was able to help not only the Rays as a brand, but also the players and their wives establish their philanthropic leg in the Tampa Bay community. So cool. That's kind of like where I come from. So branding is in my blood. I am so obsessed with it and I'm just so happy to get to create that and make it a future for myself now.

That is so cool. Okay, so you guys are probably listening to this and you're going to notice that this episode is a little different because I've edited it differently and I've had a whole nother conversation with Amber about something completely different. But even in that conversation, this did not come up. So I'm like, it did not. So I'm like, oh, wow, that is so cool. Well, that is pretty cool. So when you said— when you just said, all I could think in my head is that show. What's that show? Girlfriends? Is it Girlfriends where they all like like, they're like, what is that show?

And like, they're all in baseball.

Oh, The Game. The Game. Literally, you said that and I said, you was like the Game PR girl.

I was. So like, imagine like all the players, you know, they have like what they need to do in the community. I would set that up. I would schedule it. I would get them out and about, making sure they were on point. Um, but I also did the same thing with their wives because kind of like the Sunbeams, we had the Wives. Like that was a real thing.

Wow.

So they really had like community service initiatives that they had in the community that they wanted to do, whether it was in the stadium, out of the stadium, it was my job to make it happen and to help them position themselves with whatever organizations best made their wishes come true. So I, I am a planner through and through. The strategies and making it happen from social media to getting feet on the ground. So that's why I'm such— I don't believe in just online marketing. And I think that my history in the world of branding has done that is there's so much power in getting your feet on the ground and getting out there in person. So yes, I was like the head of the Sunbeams.

Oh my gosh, I love it. Well, I think that's so cool because basically that kind of has put put you in a position to really know how to, like, in this world of branding, we say it's new, but it's not really new. It's just changed its face.

Exactly.

But I think as a business owner, we— business owners are now are much more aware that they themselves are outside of what they do is a brand. And so it kind of makes sense whether we realized it or not before this time. That no matter what you're doing, you're not selling your product, you're selling yourself. And so part of that is allowing people to know you. And that was probably really fun ground to take these women who are supporting their husbands but probably have their own thing and want to do their own organizations to help those things going on, probably their businesses. And so helping them to incorporate those into brands that are separate maybe from their husbands. Totally very cool. Go ahead, girl. Do that.

Thank you. It was really fun. It was great. And it led to a lot of friendships and relationships outside of it. So I've become great friends with some of the wives over time and it just continuously led on to additional opportunities. And it was through doing that and not allowing myself to be intimidated by the stage, that I was on that I think I learned the biggest lesson of life really is to insert yourself. Like, if there's something that you want to do or you want to try, insert yourself and say, I'm going to do it, I'm going to try it. We'll see if it works. Closed mouths really don't get fed. And through that opportunity, I had to leave unfortunately when I got diagnosed with endo because I couldn't keep up with the physical demand at the time, but I maintained some of those relationships that allowed me to still do things like plan baseball camps with, you know, one of the former players and be able to help outside of that in a moment that I felt that all hope was lost. So it was life-changing and it's what I needed to help give me a different outlook.

Wow. That is That's pretty cool that networking is so important, like, just in whatever genre of work or business or business, whatever you're doing, creating those authentic relationships with people can always extend beyond your current circumstance. And I think people don't think about that necessarily because they think of certain business relationships in a time box, and that's not a true authentic networking relationship. You know what I'm saying? It's just not. And it's interesting because I wouldn't say it's necessarily similar, but in a completely different lane, that's kind of where I came from, working in networking. And I mean, I was hired to go and network and tell people about their brands and what they do. And it always was amazing to me when I would have to go back to the business owner and to them how this actually works. You aren't just showing up to sell products, you're showing up to be a resource that may not be you. It could be someone else. And so that makes you valuable at any time. And so what happens is you become that top of mind so that even though you've left the race, they're thinking, oh, but Brandi was Amber was really good.

Amber did that.

Yeah, Amber did that and she probably could still do that and bam, you have these opportunities. So it's not always about what you get, it's what you give. And I love how you just said about the inserting yourself. My word for 2020 is to create.

Yes.

Because we, we, we can't wait for things to happen. That doesn't work. Like it just doesn't work. I think I'll do an episode completely on a solo episode talking about, you know, we were created to work. We weren't created just to be, hey, you know, I'm sitting here, what's up? You know, we're not here just hanging out. We are literally created to continually to recreate something.

Yes.

And so in order for us to do that, we have to do the work. We have to, you know, keep going. And so I love that you said that about, you know, shifting your priorities, because when you have a chronic illness like endometriosis, you have to figure out what works for you. You have to kind of listen to your body and, you know, do all those things. And since we're talking about that, like, in review, you know, of 2019, which is crazy, you know, crazy, right? Like, we're in a whole new decade, 2020. Where did it go? Yeah. How has endometriosis, like, played a major part in creating Brand Girl Magic?

It is everything. To say the least. I wanted to make sure, well, my first priority was to regain control of myself. I felt in 2018, I gave in and let endometriosis control me. I let it control my emotions. I let it control how I saw things, my outlook. I let it control me. And going into business for myself was me reconnecting with what made me happy. I had to leave The Raze, I felt like I lost a big part of my identity because literally from the moment I was in college, so back in 2010, from then until my job at The Raze, like all I ate, slept, breathed branding. From literally organizations that I was leading to jobs everywhere. That was my life. That is what made me happy. And I knew I was going to make a career out of it. So when I felt I felt like I was not going to be able to do that. I was like, what am I, Lord, what am I on earth for right now? What is my purpose? Because right now I don't know and I don't see it. And it was through endometriosis and then my dad passing that I was like, life is short and I can either sit here and I can sulk or I can make a decision to get up and do what's so important to me and just find out what that looks like for me. And so Brand Girl Magic is all about regaining that confidence no matter what your circumstances. So whether you are going through something that is hard, you can get out of that and still do something for yourself no matter what job you're in, in a 9 to 5. Hello, I work a 9 to 5 that I am not happy at. And I am working to build that future for myself. And I know there's so many other women that are in that same boat. You're stuck at this 9 to 5 that does not feed you. It does not make you happy. It's draining you. Yeah, you could sit there and complain about it all day or we can do something about it. How are we going to work to change that? And so Brand Girl Magic is all about giving women the magic to overcome those circumstances and create the lane for themselves. With the brand and business that they want.

So you are going to, with this business, you're going to give, when you say magic, you're going to give them the tools they need in order to make that transition. And I think it's cool. I don't think I've had anyone recently on the show that's working a 9 to 5. I think a lot of the ladies that I have, either they had a side hustle, like they're working part-time and doing the side hustle, or they have already made that leap into doing this full time. And so it's really cool to have you on the show because that's a different perspective. A lot of people can— there's a lot of different roadblocks to jumping into a business or to making your hobby that's a side hustle into the 9 to 5. It's not as easy as everybody wants you to think it. And there's a lot more, I think, mindset shifts that you have to have when you are going through this process because we live in a very instant gratification world where we're thinking, well, I do this, I should get this. And if you're working 9 to 5, that's kind of what we do. We go to work, you get paid. Like, it's just how that works.

I show up, I do the same mundane thing every day, and then I get paid for it every 2 weeks. I know for sure that check is coming.

Right, right. And that's amazing for someone who's starting out and trying to create a business because you have some consistency. There's nothing wrong with that. I don't know what, you know, there's nothing wrong with that.

No. And it's all about like your outlook and perspective and that, like you were saying, the mindset, you've got to have a shift. So the way I choose to look at it, and when I find myself complaining about it, I stop and say, Nope. I'm thankful that I have this job. It is allowing me to invest in myself. So I take the money and I just say that my 9 to 5 is my main investor in my business. So that is how I take myself to conferences that I want to go to. It's how I try out new tools that I want to try out. It's how I buy into different masterclasses or programs that I want. It is how I am funding my business until you are at a space where you're thriving and you're where you want to be. It allows you, it gives you the freedom to do that. And so it's all about the mindset and the way that you choose to look at it.

Yes, I love that, girl. That's a good one. I love that. What was the phrase? It said my 9 to 5 is the main investor for my business. I love that. That's such a good mindset. It's a good reminder too. Like, you're not just doing— you're not just working yourself to death, but it is giving you an opportunity to pursue the possibility and the future of you not doing that 9 to 5, right?

It's on the calendar. Yes, it is on the calendar. Q1, I have an action plan. I think that that's something else when you're working 9 to 5. Well, 2 things. One, full-time entrepreneurship is not for everybody. So I think that this pressure that everybody's got to go start this business. No, honey, because I mean, that'd be for you. Like, everybody does not have the mindset and the structure that you need to run your own 9 to 5. It's okay to have a side hustle and just have an extra stream of income.

My husband is that person. He cannot. We have tried so many times to do a business together, and every time he's like, I hate this. I'm like, it's okay, baby. You can work and I'll do my thing. Thank you.

I got this. Think that's not for you, boo, that's okay. But that doesn't mean that you can't have an extra stream of income coming in. So let's work on that extra stream of income. For me, 9 to 5 is not it. It's not it. So for me, I've created an exit plan I've been working on throughout 2019. I've been saying that like 2017 was my year of tragedy. 2018 was my year of reflection. Collection, and 2019 was my year to figure it out and make a plan. So 2020, I'm ready. So for 2019, a part of that plan was what is my escape plan to get out of this 9 to 5? So how much money do I want? That is the route that I'm taking is I want my savings at a certain amount. So if I didn't make not a penny coming in for 6 months, 6 months, how much money do I need to be able to cover my bills? I don't plan on not making a penny for 6 months.

Yes.

But like, what if that's the case?

Yes.

So I've set myself up in that way and I've literally just have been planning and create an action plan that works best for me. Some people quit on the drop of a dime and go for it and it works for them and it works. That's not me. I already know that about myself. I am very structured, and I am a planner. Like, I need to be able to plan for A, B, and C. I can be somewhat fluid, but no, I need a plan in place, and I know that about myself. So me leaving my job is not, you know, not something that's coming out of the blue. And I think that's something that's very important to communicate, because with a lot of coaches and businesses out here, people are like, I quit my job and now I'm making 6 figures. And it's like, no boo, let's really talk about what happened.

I love it. No boo, let's really talk about what happened. Yeah.

Let's talk about it. Like, how long were you working your business with your 9 to 5 to get there? You know, did you save up money ahead of time? Like, there's a lot of different factors that may have come into you getting there, and those need to be communicated so that people are not falsely jumping into this glamorous way of, yeah, I'm going to quit my job and be a full-time entrepreneur too. No, it's not that simple.

Yeah, I read when I was doing some training for coaching and stuff, it's called the false legend theory out there. There's a lot of coaches, a lot of people that are out there saying, oh, I did this and it just happened. And it's like, wait, no. Wait a minute. You know, you really think about it. A lot of successful entrepreneurs that we see right now, they've been in this business for 10, 11 years before they really like found their place. So you can't just say I'm quitting tomorrow. I mean, some people can, like you said, some people can straight up be like, I need— they need that kind of like scare factor to get their butt into gear. You know, some people work that way, but most people don't. Like, you know, I got bills, I got a I can't tell. I got all those things. And let's not forget the factor of having a chronic illness. Like, yes, you have a chronic illness. There's other bills. There's unexpected. Like, we already have enough unexpectedness going on.

I've got hospital bills that I've had to pay off. I've had surgeries that I've had to pay for. Like, all these other, like, expenses. And this is another thing that kills me about social media is, like, a lot of people— the big thing right now is, like, you need to stop renting and go buy a house. I can equate that to business, right? You need to stop working your 9 to 5 and go start that business. But when you go do those things that people are telling you to go do and you're not prepared to go do those things, are those people going to pay your bills? No, no, they are not. So I am not going to let them dictate what I do and what's going to work best for me and my time of life. And so I know that I, as a woman that has a chronic illness, I have additional billing that people don't have to worry about. I have to be concerned about what I eat. I have to be concerned about what medical bills I need to pay for and take care of, what medications I need when I'm not feeling good. And I have to be prepared for, okay, if the health insurance shifts when I leave my job, what is that going to look like if I end up in pain and I need to go to the hospital? You know, that's a bill that I'm going to have to be prepared to take until I end up in a space where I have a full-time job. So, or I mean, you know, I have new health insurance revenue area. So do what's best for you based off of what your life and your lifestyle is.

Yeah. So if you were to give a young lady who is working a 9 to 5 and she probably does have a chronic illness, and I'm telling you, I have a lot of listeners who have reached out to me who are exactly you. Not exactly you, but circumstantially. They are working a 9 to 5, they are doing a hustle, and they are dealing with fibro, endo, lupus, all these different things. Right? And so they're thinking, oh my gosh, what? They're thinking, oh my gosh, how am I going to even create this plan? What should that plan look like? Is that something that at Brand Girl Magic that you are going to be helping them with through that process?

Yes, because, because of what I have been through, I know firsthand that you've got to get yourself in order before you can truly get your business in order.

Oh yes.

And so Brand Girl Magic, it's all about aligning not only your business but your personal life, because if your personal life is a madhouse, then that's going to translate into your business. You're not going to have the energy that you need to be I'm going to be able to get this part of it going. And that's a major part of why I'm able to be where I am today is because I recognize that in myself and I took the time to work on myself. I figured out what I needed to do. I went into counseling after my dad passed to get that part of my mental health together. I went and I found Indo-specific doctors to treat me that can help me get to a manageable place with my disease because I knew with stage 4 endo and the severity and the amount of pain that I was in, that there was no way that I could do my business onto the level that I wanted to do it. So I needed to get my health together in that regard as well to be able to be the best version of myself. I need to be able to show up. And a lot of times what prevents us women from showing up in our businesses is that confidence. It's like, lack of confidence equals lack of consistency, in my opinion. So what we've got to work on first is how to gain that confidence.

You are so, so, so right. And it's so, so true. It's one of those things that you don't realize when you're battling anything. And I talk— obviously you guys know when I talk about chronic illness, I know there's people out there who don't have a chronic illness that are about battling life, period. Just life, period. Okay. But it is something that I have learned that if you don't deal with the past, it will stop your future. It will straight up— you will keep hitting a brick in the wall because you are not letting something go. You are not processing it. You are not acknowledging it. You are not a lot of these things. So if you are hitting yourself and you feel like you keep falling at the same place, maybe step back from the business and look at your life and look back at seeing what is going on. And for me, just like you said, for me, I had to do that. And it wasn't for me doing it because I realized, oh, I got to look at my life. It was like my body said, sit down, look at your life. You can't keep like pushing yourself to be this person because that's not you anymore. And it's, it's, it's a grieving process that you don't know that you're going through until you really have to look at it and you're like, you know what, I have to think about how I'm living my life in order to live it, right? You know, you gotta look at it completely differently.

Yes.

So how, how you do that is you have to have those moments. You have to write it down. You have to to someone, whether that's a counselor, whether that's a good friend that's not going to hold back but truly be there. Truly. Truly, right? Whether that's your mate, whoever that's going to be, whether that's spiritually. For me, it was spiritually. Looking at things completely differently, it just made me focus on what I needed one to acknowledge. And then do what I needed to do in order to keep moving forward.

Yeah.

So building a business is like the tip of the iceberg. The rest of it is much more— a lot of people say business is business. I hate that saying. No. I hate it.

Business is personal.

Business is business, yes. I get that. When brass tacks come down, you got to have everything on paper and all that kind of stuff. But business is not just business. Business is like what you feeling, how you dealing with your life. It's very personal. I don't understand people who think it's not personal. It is.

It all comes in. I think something that you said that's very important is it's a grieving process when you're going through something in life, whether you are grieving a person or whether you are grieving a loss of some sort, there's a grieving process. In there. And I know I was in that grieving phase. I grieved my father. I was also grieving who I formerly was. So this person that I worked so hard to build, and this person I worked so hard to create and to be for myself, was no longer because I had faced these tragedies all in the same year. So I'm— I looked at myself and I didn't know who I was. Like, I did not know who I was in the mirror any longer. And I grieved that. I yearned to be like, why can't I just be back to myself? And I literally— and it was through my boyfriend who was like, you're not that person and you need to figure out who you are. Like, stop. Like, it's time. And it was through that that I actually started looking at that and say, okay, what parts of myself do I miss? And what's never coming back? And how and what does that look like now? Like, you've got to learn, you've got to learn to love who you are, where you are in your phase of life before you can move on to the next phase. And Brand Girl Magic, I will— I'm not a counselor. There's plenty of parts of life that I am not an expert in beyond branding. But my goal of Brand Girl Magic is to bring those experts to you. So through the membership, there will always be guests. There'll be 2 guest speakers a month, one that focuses on business and one that's going to focus on your life. That's going to come in and it's going to talk to you about different areas and setting different goals of your life so that you can be good, well-rounded. I don't want to just push business, business, business and show up, show up, show up. I want to figure out why are you not showing up? And let's work on that as well because I can't tell you to show up if you're really hurting inside because you're not going to. And I know what that feels like. And I know what it took me to actually start showing up and, and I just want to empower other women and let them see that there's a light at the other end of this tunnel and you just need a helping hand to get you through. You need somebody that understands what you're going through and what you've been through and understand that this is not easy and I'm not here to make it look easy.

Yeah, I love that. So what are some, what are some things specifically specifically. I never say that word right. What are some things that the Brand Girl Magic membership is going to bring that's different from other people? Because honestly, there are a lot of these groups out there. I'm a part of a few, but not all of them are the same. What will set you guys, you apart?

I am all about taking action for yourself in your life and in your business. So weekly I will be providing action prompts that are going to be based off of the theme of the month. So for example, January will be focused on intention and there will be weekly prompts for you to bring intention into your life and into your business. And then as I was mentioning, we'll have guest speakers every single month to come in and give you value, value, value. So starting out in January, actually, We'll have Sarah from Copper and Co Marketing who's going to come in and talking about being intentional in your business on social media and what that looks like. But then we're also going to have somebody else come in and talk about setting goals and being intentional with your goals for your body and what your goals are. It's, you know, new year, new goals. And a lot of people's top of their list is, oh, I'm going to get fine this year. You know, I'm going to drop all this weight. I'm going to drop this. I'm going to do this. But the same way that we stop and we break down and say, okay, I'm going to set these goals for my business, you need to set these goals for your life because in order for you to run the best part of your business, you've got to get to be the best part of yourself. And so you've got to work on the personal as well. So the main focus of the membership will be finding balance between the personal and the business and getting a guide all the way through that.

Very cool. I like that. I like that a lot. I think it will be a great membership for for you guys who are ladies especially. I think it's so nice because it— I think there are going to be a lot of women who are in the 9 to 5 who will need that kind of support, like, you know, because it's hard. I mean, it's hard enough going 9 to 5 and then going home and trying to run your business. Oh, you have life, like, if you have kids, then you have that going on, then you have all these little things. And I'm a big believer in I follow Jasmine Starr. She's a—

Oh my gosh, I love Jasmine Starr. She is bae. She is goals. I just love the way that she— I just love her.

Yeah, yeah, I love her too. So she says this, but I've always thought this. This has been a thing that I've always felt, even when I was hired to do networking, even when I did things, even when I go to stores and I'm I must, I love to support the local. The power of one, like the power of one is no joke. Like we always get so consumed in like all of the things, right? But what if you just did one thing a day? One thing. You've done like 365 things for the year. Like that's amazing. Like you would have done 365 things you never would have done because you just did one thing a day. And it breaks down just that one thought of one thing can like make crazy craziness. Like if you did one thing a month, even that's a 12% increase in something.

Like, like you got to start somewhere, you got to take the step forward. And I think, um, what becomes like the hardest part of it is everybody knows to set goals, so then they set goals and then they put that piece of paper away and they never look at again. And that just doesn't work. And you need them in your life and in your business. So how do I take these goals and make them tangible? Like, you've got to break them down. And this is where I'm going to be, then how can I get there? What steps can I take to do?

And I—

we don't have to— there's a lot of comparing things to social media.

Yeah.

And so people And I've been guilty of this myself, not wanting to take the step because somebody else is doing it better, quote unquote.

What we think is better.

What we think is. And so we're comparing ourselves and we're like, I'm just not going to do it because I can't compare to that. I can't keep up with that. And that is the biggest pile of BS, period. You can't. You've got to to take the step. You have to remove that fear and say, I'm going to do it. I'm going to show up. I'm going to— I look crazy right now, but I'm going to pop up in these stories. I don't care. My hair is not done. I don't care.

I don't have any makeup on. Yeah, that's not an excuse anymore, people.

There's pop culture. I don't care. There's all kinds of stuff. I show up at this point. You're going to get me. The only thing you don't see is the braids that may go under my wig if I'm wearing a wig. But other than that, at this brow is not done. You're going to get it. I rarely show up in my stories with makeup on because you're going to get me. Like, I don't care. Like, that's just what you're going to get. And I've had to apply that to every step of my business because I have like my Jasmine Stars and people on Instagram that I admire. And there's certain things that they do that are part of what Brand Girl Magic is. And I've gotten that fear of like, Oh, why would people come to me if they could go to Jasmine Star? But no, because Jasmine Star is not Amber Lashon.

Exactly.

And there's so much that I have to offer that I have to bring. There's different takes on things that I have and I'm doing things differently and I need to be confident in that. So now like my mantra for 2019 is just do it. Like I don't care if it flops, it flops. If it works, I did it. It works because I did it. And if it flops, then what? Why did it flop? How can I fix that and do it all over again? Like, I— fear is just not a limit this year.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, I so appreciate having you on the show. Actually, just after doing this, I really do feel like this in itself was an amazing episode. And I think the other one where we recorded will probably just be mostly about our endo journeys in general, just what that feels like, what that looks like as a business owner. But I love what you're going to be doing with Brand Girl Magic. I think it's going to be great. It's one of those things that you just said about other people are doing— everybody's doing something that's the same thing. Nobody is creating anything new. You know what I'm saying? Not anything really new. Maybe we are seeing it differently, but every person and how they express it is going to be different because their circumstances of why they're doing what they do is completely different. You know what I'm saying? Like, so it, you will, someone will be attracted to you and your message because of your story and what you and how you do it. Not because, you know, someone, they're not thinking about somebody else. They're thinking about somebody else is going through or has gone through what I have and she probably understands and gets me better. Nobody's thinking about that other person. You know, it's, it's a, it's a cliché we've all put in our heads. And it's not just social media, it's the commercial world in general. Bombarded with what we should expect, but not what we want, but what we should—

like, they're telling us what we want, and I just don't have time to live in that space. Like, I— with— and I think with adversity and things that happen in your life, I think we have full power over how we choose to allow it to impact us. No matter how long it takes us to realize that we have that power, we have that power. And when you have that mindset shift and realize that you have that power, you become invincible. And so I truly feel invincible right now. And I just— nobody else is going to be able to tell me what's right for me right now. Right now, nobody could tell me nothing, honestly. And I want to help other women get to that phase as well because it has changed my life for the better and has brought me such great fulfillment. And there's so many women that are stuck right now, and I'm here to help get you unstuck.

So where can they find you online and what is coming up for— what is coming up from Brand Girl Magic?

Yes. So you can find me on Instagram @brandgirlmagic. Same thing with Facebook @brandgirlmagic. The website will be launching in January, so stay tuned for that. All those details will be found on social media and I will be releasing my first program, Corporate Hustlin', which is all about managing your 9 to 5 and starting that business. But until then, you You can go to Brand Girl Magic on Instagram and click the link in the bio to join the membership. I can't wait to have you. It's going to be such a good time. It's my baby and I can't wait to share it with you.

Well, thank you so much, girl. Amber, it's been so fun to have you on the show.

Thank you for having me, Nikita. Whenever you need me, I love talking to you. We have great conversations and thank you so much for having me.

All right, ladies, that's a wrap for this episode of She's Crafted to Thrive. Thank you so much for joining me. Please share with your friends and be sure to like and subscribe and leave us a review on iTunes. In the meantime, check us out at sheescrafted.com to check out the show notes for all the goodies and things that we talked about. And there'll be links there for you guys. So in the meantime, just remember, you are crafted to thrive.