I Quit My 80K a Year Job to Start a Business - and I WASN'T Successful

It's time to have some real talk here today. About four years ago, I decided to quit my comfy job where I was making over 80,000 a year to start my own business. I started watching all these webinars that were huge back in 2015 that made these giant promises that if you follow my process, you're gonna be making all of this money. You're gonna make six figures. And I thought, yeah, that's for me. Who cares about that 401k that health insurance? And oh yeah, did I mention that I actually got paid a week to exercise? Well, spoiler alert. Everything that was promised in those webinars didn't happen. So I decided I wanted to share with you what it's really like to start an online business with no bs. Alright, so I'm actually going to get a little comfy here because we're going to have a real talk right now. Hi, welcome back. My name is Trena. If you are new here and I'm a YouTube strategist that's committed to helping you do YouTube better, I whether that's to help you get more leads into your business or for you to grow your YouTube channel, I'm here to offer you no fluff, advice, tips and strategies to grow your channel. First, I want to hear from you. If you're currently working at a job that you hate and you dream of quitting or you are running a side hustle when you come home at night to hopefully quit that job that you hate, let me know down in the comments because I feel you. That is exactly where I was in 2015. So I had my first child in March of 2015 and the whole thing kicked off with a dispute about how long I could have off for maternity leave. Yeah, let's tell people how long they can actually bond with their newborn and if they don't tell them, too bad they have to come back or take leave without pay. Even though you have leave to use, you can't use it for maternity leave. So I luckily did get four months of maternity leave. I tried to get six months, didn't happen. So when those four months were up, I was absolutely dreading to go back to that place. And when I pulled into the parking lot in every day after that, so that first day back I just felt like it was a entirely soul crushing experience. In fact, side note, a couple months ago I had to pick my husband up who works at the same place and I instantly felt that anxiety and that feeling again. And it's been four years since I've Worked there, but just being in the parking lot did that to me. So I went back to work about five months after I had my daughter and I was looking for any kind of out. I couldn't just quit work. That's not who I am. I like to work. I like to have kind of a task to do. And for me, being a stay at home mom just wasn't on my things that I wanted to do. I love my daughter. I love being home here with her like they are downstairs most days while I'm working. But I needed to have something for myself. So I started watching these webinars back in 2015 where I had no idea what webinars were. And I ended up spending over two grand on programs that promised to show me the way to passive income. Magic, magic, magic, magic. Now a little backstory. I already have a bachelor's degree in business and a master's degree in business. So I have some kind of business sense. I wasn't starting a business like at ground zero. I got business. But when I went through business school, I didn't have all this online stuff. So I was looking for help on online strategies. So I dropped my 2k, started following these programs to its doing everything that they told me to do that would lead me to this promised land. And what happened after four months of following these programs was just nothing. I launched a program, four people signed up. One of those persons was my friend who felt bad for me that I only had three people sign up and it did not go anything as this webinar had promised me that it would. Now I was able to really build my authority and get out there in this online world because I was on video. So I really attest the success I did have later on down the line by creating these YouTube videos and getting my face out for people to know. But since I was so brand new, nobody had the trust in me yet. Because I launched this online program. I started my business all in three months. And I just expected people to want to jump into my program. Doesn't happen that way. So yeah, I felt like a total failure. Five months into this brand new business that I started, I promised my husband I'd be making back my 80k income in no time as soon as this program launches, like we're gonna be good. And nothing. I actually started wondering if I had made a total mistake. I started thinking, should I go back to the job I hated? Maybe I should pick up a job at Starbucks. What am I going to do? I was falling into this failure mentality. I can't do this. I'm not smart enough to do this. But the one thing that kept me going was I was driven to succeed and let those people know at that job that I quit, that, hey, I can do this. Because they all thought I was crazy for starting an online business while quitting a perfectly stable, comfortable job, I decided to pick up my bootstraps or pick myself up by the bootstraps and figure out what I needed to fix. Once it was time to reevaluate, I found out I was pregnant. Baby number two. Within the first year of my new business, I had a baby. Baby turn one. Pregnant with baby number two. We sold our house by accident while I was eight months pregnant, had baby number two, all while trying to figure out how to make this online business work. And I tell you this to let you know that on Instagram and on YouTube and on Facebook, you only see people's highly reel. You don't see them struggling behind the scenes. You don't see the constant roller coaster. You don't see that a lot of people you think are doing well are struggling. Just like you. I personally think it's so important for you to know that I constantly don't have good days. There are days that I maybe launched a program and it didn't turn out the way it wanted to. I've had multiple failed launches, or I've had not enough clients that pay the people that I have hired to work on my team. I just want to be open with you to know you aren't the only one struggling. And just because you see people that look like they're doing well, they aren't always doing well. Where was that turning point for me? Where was I able to finally turn the car around and get on a better path and start actually making money? Well, there was no light bulb moment. There are turns, then there are turns again, and there are other turns. So after I had baby number two at the end of 2016, I had clients booked. I was booked right after maternity leave. I launched a program and it did fairly well. And so we were doing good. We were doing great. And then by the fall, things started to dip again in 2016. The clients weren't coming in. The program didn't launch as well in the fall. And so I started to totally rethink. Am I doing the right thing? I also, at that time, was starting to deal with postpartum depression right after Cohen was born. I didn't deal with it. I dealt with it a little bit later down the road. So a Little bit. After six months, I started to deal with that postpartum and kind of entering a fog. And so the whole second half of 2017 was really tough. I really doubted myself and I struggled with this postpartum depression and I did get on medication for it. And I started to see a light at the end of the year. I found a really amazing client that I now still work with quite a bit. And so I had that stability in him. And so things were back up again. But again, I just want to tell you that just because maybe you're in a low in your business or maybe you're contemplating, why did you do this? It's normal. Things go up, things go down. In fact, even when my business was doing well in 2018, I actually was considering selling my business, becoming an employee. I thought maybe this is the right path for me. Maybe I don't want to be in charge of all of these business decisions because there's a lot, let's not mention taxes. And so even though things are going well, I was still thinking like, what's the next step? Is this the right step? Should I do this? I tell you this and I share this story because I want you to know what's going to get you to the other side, to that side that's not feeling doubtful and not feeling like a failure is you actually believing in yourself and the ability to shift and change your strategies when you need to. What has been great for me is finding business friends that also have online businesses to talk to and shoot ideas back and forth from, hear from their experience experiences. And this is a biggie. Not buy into all the ads and all the talk that you see about needing to have a six or seven figure business. Look, if you don't need six or seven figures in your business to make your business feel successful to, you don't think you need to. I got sucked into that thinking I needed to run this rat race to make seven figures. I only need to make a five figure a year income to actually support my family, to go on the vacations we want to and to maybe do some things here or there. And I don't need to spend all of my time pushing to make seven figures. That gives me time to spend with my family instead of doing all this extra work for a goal that I don't need to reach. That's why I don't even work on Fridays anymore. I only commit work days from Monday to Thursday because I know exactly what I need to make for my family. And it's not seven figures. So why work on Friday when I can work Monday through Thursday and make the amount of money that I need to make for my family? I just want you to know also that you can do this. It will be tough. That's totally normal. But just find somebody to reach out to. Maybe check in with each other weekly and understand we all are struggling behind the scenes. You only see our highlight reels, so let me know in the comments below. Are you currently struggling with your business? What are you struggling with? Can I help you? And if you want to start using YouTube to help you grow your business and bring more leads into your business, make sure you click the video that I have on your screen right now to learn how to do that. Don't forget to subscribe to this channel. I'm helping you every single week with new videos and I'll see you in the next video. Bye.