The very long story of how I went from slave wages to success. In 7 years.
In 2015, I struggled to find a job.
I did the respectable thing: I took the only offer that came along and I couldn’t afford it.
I don’t have a magical ✨ framework. But I do have a story.
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I had literally grown up doing radio.
But jobs were few across the country.
I was also 2 years sober then (still sober now).
So I took a job working in the addiction field.
I was working 40-hour weeks but earning only $1200/month. Something had to give.
I kept applying for better-paying work. No luck.
I could no longer afford a car or home internet (or most things, really). So what did I do?
I worked my ass off.
In 2016, I realized I was a helluva sober coach, so I enrolled in a coaching program. I’d listen to coaching books and podcasts on the bus in the morning.
I started DestinyArchitecture.com with NO HOME INTERNET.
I’d either use my phone as a hotspot or the wifi at work on my lunch breaks, which were only 30 minutes.
I’d simultaneously write for my blog, listen to a book or podcast, and eat. I only had 30 minutes of wifi, so I’d have to work fast!
I earned my Life Coaching Certification in 2017.
By then, I’d created my website, blog, and offers. I was certified in Kansas as a “peer mentor,” or sober coach, but now I was a certified coach, too!
But the clients didn’t pour in.
Yet I still worked my ass off through 2017 and 2018. Blogging, blogging, and more blogging.
I was still earning more by offering Reiki sessions and classes locally.
But that changed in 2019.
The market became saturated with Reiki Masters like myself.
I was no longer getting clients, I was totally burned out because I was working in radio again.
I cut back my hours in the addiction field because that was my biggest source of burnout; I no longer believed in what I was doing.
I’d been working on the Senate Bill 6 Program and hated it because many of my 3rd time+ DUI clients had re-offended.
I felt like I was part of the problem because research showed intensive probation didn’t work.
WTF was I doing?
I hated my life. I wasn’t helping anyone. I’d become a coach so I could help people! Why was I “helping people” into jail?
Then, a miracle.
My old abuser called and I ran — there was a radio job open! Surely, the old wreckage of my past in radio would be a soft landing, right?
Turns out, that old abuser hadn’t changed.
I tried so hard to make it work, but the job wasn’t offered to me. Or anyone else.
I was working a radio job, but being paid worse than in the addiction field.
My general manager suggested I’d make more working at Panera!
Imagine telling your employee you couldn’t pay them for their work and they should go work at Panera NOW?
In this day & age with the current sentiment about wages? And treatment by employers?
This was pre-disaster.
This is why I call radio my abuser. In 2019, I was finally ready to leave for good.
I made another poor decision and went to work in TV for 2020. I think you can do the math as to why that was hell.
But it paid the bills.
Which was how all this started!
I remember sitting in that lunchroom at work back in 2016, working on my website, eating my lunch, and thinking to myself:
“I’m earning $1,200–1,400/month with all I do. Surely, I can easily replace this tiny income doing my own thing!”
And I set out to do that.
And I never gave up working my ass off to get it.
I have a degree & tons of experience.
I can produce a TV/radio show or stop a meth addict with a knife who thinks I’m the FBI and wants to end me.
I can coach you into sobriety or coach you into taking action at ANY beginning intersection of change.
Maybe what I’m best at is taking myself and others from total ruin — whatever that is — and empowering back to a place of fearless function.
“Lose the fear and get your ass in gear” is my tagline on the @Fearless5Pod 5 days a week, every week.
Imagine if I’d let fear get the best of me back in 2015?
Imagine if I’d DQ’d myself from pursuing my dreams because I was poor, had no car, and no Internet…
Instead, I found a way.
When I got a car again in 2019, I delivered Postmates in my spare time. I sold my writing services on UpWork. It still wasn’t enough to make ends meet in 2019.
But I never gave up.
This is why I work the way I do now.
When people tell me it’s hard, believe me, I KNOW.
Is it no car, no home internet hard?
Is it riding the bus and Ubering to your second and third job hard?
Is it having your industry tell you to go work in food service hard?
Is it burnout from years of low-pay hard?
What I do know without question is you don’t let it beat you. You don’t quit. You don’t give up.
It’s a long thread for a very small part of a long story!
Its purpose is to light your fire. Because if I can do it, so can you!
I now work remotely for a great company that treats me in a way I’d always dreamed of. I own a car. I’m even getting dental care. It feels like the new American dream…
I’m on a mission to help make YOUR journey easier. Faster.
I don’t want you toiling for 7 years like I did!
I started a newsletter of personal development for content creators to give you shortcuts in both method and mindset.
Follow @WriterHeatherL for more and sign up 📧 at DestinyArchitecture.net
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