Transcript
Speaker: Hi, I'm Kristi Winfrey and I'm so excited you're here with me today.
Speaker: Welcome to the Not Just a Daydream podcast.
Speaker: about the life you wish you had?
Speaker: Yeah, me too.
Speaker: Well, for many years, I felt stuck and I felt those dreams would only ever be just daydreams.
Speaker: Today, I now run a thriving six-figure virtual business that allows me to have the freedom to work and live from anywhere.
Speaker: I also teach others how to grow and operate a successful TC business with their very own.
Speaker: If you're looking for inspiration, motivation, and application, then this is the podcast for you.
Speaker: In here, we discuss business, dreams, goals, and everything in between.
Speaker: Welcome to the Not Just a Daydream podcast.
Speaker: Hey everyone, welcome to today's episode.
Speaker: Today I am introducing you to Samantha Harris.
Speaker: She is running a very successful virtual business, one that allows her and her husband to live kind of a more nomadic lifestyle.
Speaker: And up until recently, they were traveling around the country and living in
Speaker: in their RV slash camper van and still running a very successful virtual business.
Speaker: And I just love that because it really embodies freedom.
Speaker: And one of the reasons that, you know, it's great to be a business owner.
Speaker: So joining today's conversation, Samantha's got some really great insights on how to make an exponential income that will bring you more freedom.
Speaker: Welcome to the show, Samantha.
Speaker: And if you'd give us just like a little introduction, that would be great.
Speaker: Hi, Christy.
Speaker: Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker: I'm really excited to be here.
Speaker: So as she said, my name is Samantha Harris.
Speaker: I have a very interesting life currently.
Speaker: My husband and I live between a big diesel 40 foot motorhome and a self-built Ford Transit camper van.
Speaker: So we do a ton of traveling, mostly West Coast.
Speaker: But before we started recording, Christy and I were just talking about, you know, where have we been?
Speaker: And we did go to Colorado.
Speaker: So we drove through, I think it was like six states to get there.
Speaker: And we saw some really cool places in Idaho, which were really unexpected.
Speaker: But I would definitely say my favorite place in the world that we visited remains the West Coast.
Speaker: We are West Coast people, born and raised in Washington State, spent the last 10 years in San Diego.
Speaker: And now we are back here in Washington, kind of as a home base.
Speaker: But we don't spend all that much time here.
Speaker: And that's by design.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The summers here are absolutely beautiful.
Speaker: If you've ever been to the Northwest in the summer, you may have fell in love with the place, but it's like one of those, like those most deceiving things ever because the rest of the year is, you know, kind of gloomy and wet.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think whatever I went to.
Speaker: Oh, when I went to Washington, it was in the summer and I did fall in love with it.
Speaker: And so I know what you mean.
Speaker: But in Texas, it is brutally hot here.
Speaker: Oh, girl.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: What part of Texas are you in?
Speaker: Houston area.
Speaker: Houston.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I've never been to Houston.
Speaker: I know my sister lived there for quite a few years, but now I have some family in Austin and I've been there, I think three times now.
Speaker: And I've tried so hard to like Texas.
Speaker: I wanted to like it so bad.
Speaker: You know, my husband and I are big rodeo fans and we love the idea of Texas, but
Speaker: Man, the weather does not agree with my body.
Speaker: I've got autoimmune.
Speaker: And so staying at sea level on the West Coast, you know, the barometric pressure and the humidity, all those things like play into it.
Speaker: And I will tell you where my body actually feels the best is Arizona.
Speaker: Oh, interesting.
Speaker: Yeah, because I typically don't like the heat, but the dry heat is different.
Speaker: I thrive in the dry heat.
Speaker: So eventually we actually plan to relocate home base to Arizona.
Speaker: But right now, yeah, we are soaking up the summer here in Washington, having a great time finishing up the van.
Speaker: It is almost finished.
Speaker: We have had it for a year.
Speaker: We've been using it since January.
Speaker: But my husband is just putting the finishing touches on it this month.
Speaker: So we're really excited about that.
Speaker: We have been doing nomadic life now for almost two years.
Speaker: I started when I started business, I had started with this little Christian based clothing company called Houghton Humble because I was working for a clothing distribution and production company.
Speaker: And so what we did at my job was help people basically design clothing lines, create them, put them into production.
Speaker: And a lot of my job was actually helping people market it.
Speaker: And I did that for free.
Speaker: Like it wasn't really like included in my job, but it was something I really enjoyed.
Speaker: And one day, one of my students said to me or not my students, one of my clients said to me, Sam, why are you selling T-shirts?
Speaker: Why aren't you teaching social media?
Speaker: And I was like, well, that's not a job.
Speaker: And this was late 2016, early 2017.
Speaker: And I said to her, that's not a job.
Speaker: And then funny thing is two weeks later,
Speaker: it became my job.
Speaker: I had been praying and just hoping and asking God, Hey, when you say it's time to go, I'm jumping and I'm jumping twice as high.
Speaker: Like I am ready.
Speaker: And I always knew if I left that job since I'd been recruited into it and I truly did love it.
Speaker: Um, and I love the people that I worked for and I worked with, um, but I was ready for something more and I was always so impact focused and, um,
Speaker: I knew that there was something bigger for me than sitting behind a desk.
Speaker: I kind of have what I call desk aversion.
Speaker: I am not an hourly girl whatsoever.
Speaker: You know, I still, I was talking to my husband last week saying, you know, isn't it just so funny?
Speaker: Like we would sit around, really there wasn't anything going on between three and five.
Speaker: We were just sitting there waiting out the clock.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And how silly is it that people have to do that just to make a living?
Speaker: And, uh, you know, I've always been in sales and, um, I just, it has never made sense to me to sit at a desk.
Speaker: So as we're recording now, I am in bed.
Speaker: It has the best acoustics in here, but it's also the most comfy.
Speaker: And I am excited for one day to have a desk again in a house because it's been two years without.
Speaker: But I would say I probably still won't use it very much because I am just...
Speaker: I'm just desk averse.
Speaker: So, um, once I decided like, Hey, that actually is a job.
Speaker: And you know, the Lord told me like, okay, it's time you're going to start a marketing company, which was so funny because I really thought I already had a clothing company and I thought, okay, this is what I'm going to leave my job for.
Speaker: Um, I'm, I was set on that.
Speaker: I wasn't
Speaker: married to the idea, but I just thought, okay, that's what makes sense.
Speaker: Cause that's what I'm doing now.
Speaker: Um, but it wasn't what I, what I did.
Speaker: So, um, I know that you wanted to talk about how I got my first client and it is a wild story.
Speaker: So, well, before we, sorry, before we hop into that, um, so what was kind of the, you said within like two weeks, then you had started your social media business.
Speaker: Like what was the deciding factor?
Speaker: good question.
Speaker: My mom got cancer and life just kind of my priority shifted.
Speaker: And that's where I really started praying and saying, okay, God, like I am, I'm ready for something different.
Speaker: Um, because when she was diagnosed, she told us January 1st, 2017 that she had cancer.
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: My, you know, I am an Enneagram 2 and I... I am too.
Speaker: You are.
Speaker: I am.
Speaker: I flew to Denver and I wanted to be there for her surgery and her recovery.
Speaker: And, you know, I was in there throwing away all her scented soaps and, you know, cleaning out everything and making sure that...
Speaker: She was just fully taken care of.
Speaker: And during that time, there was no reason that I couldn't work remotely.
Speaker: But my bosses just really didn't like the idea of it.
Speaker: And it bothered me.
Speaker: And so I was like, you know, this is so silly that I have to have all this guilt and all of this
Speaker: Like just yucky feelings.
Speaker: They should have been like, oh, yeah, go take care of your mom.
Speaker: Work when you can.
Speaker: It's totally OK.
Speaker: But that wasn't the case.
Speaker: And so I really started thinking, OK, I've got to reprioritize because I can't be a slave to my job anymore.
Speaker: I am working so hard for a company that doesn't belong to me.
Speaker: And that at the end of the day, I'm reaping almost nothing from.
Speaker: And because it was a startup, I made so little money that it wasn't even funny.
Speaker: And I knew that I knew I had to make more money, but that wasn't really my focus.
Speaker: So
Speaker: um, the, I guess the, the real driving factor behind it, since as an Enneagram too, sometimes it's harder to make decisions for yourself.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because AM were more loyal to.
Speaker: So I knew that I wouldn't have ever left unless it was the right time and like the right circumstance.
Speaker: And I, I kind of knew it had to be for another reason other than just me.
Speaker: So I wanted to be able to be in charge of my time and, you know, help my mom recover from cancer and,
Speaker: be there for my nieces and nephews and just kind of live my life, you know, not shackled to a job or a desk.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And which is what you're doing now.
Speaker: I mean, you're not even bound to a specific place you live, which is, I love that.
Speaker: I love that you guys travel so much and you just get to pick up and go wherever you want.
Speaker: It's awesome.
Speaker: It is, it's different than I thought it would be, but it is really, really awesome.
Speaker: Just, you know, I kind of sit there every day in awe of,
Speaker: wow, I don't have to be anywhere.
Speaker: And I have autoimmune, like I mentioned, and I've struggled with it for a long time.
Speaker: Basically what happened was I was working so hard at my job that I put myself in a flare and the flares just kept getting worse and worse.
Speaker: And I was in just a really bad state with autoimmune up until the point that I started my membership.
Speaker: So the first couple of years of business,
Speaker: And I think all the time about how I don't have to call out of work.
Speaker: And that is such a huge blessing because nowadays I would probably say that I couldn't even have a job if I wanted one.
Speaker: Because I have so many things that are going on health-wise that it just wouldn't
Speaker: be sustainable for them or for me.
Speaker: So being able to work in, you know, the three hours a day, three days a week that I do work is such a blessing that, you know, the Lord has provided because otherwise, if I was sitting at that desk, I would just get so exhausted.
Speaker: And I, I truly would have needed to go home, but I wouldn't have been able to.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So, so, I mean, that sounds amazing that you work three hours a day and, and three days a week.
Speaker: I, I definitely want to probably touch back on that here in just a little bit, because I think a lot of people would be like, I want that kind of life.
Speaker: And I'll, you know, what you are doing are truly embodies why I created this podcast, because I, it's all about seeking those dreams and not only just in business, but in your personal life too.
Speaker: And so,
Speaker: Y'all created the business that you want and you created the lifestyle you want by being able to just pick up and go and travel.
Speaker: So I think that's so cool.
Speaker: Now you were going to tell us about how you got your first client.
Speaker: So for me, I am someone who unfortunately seeks validation from people and I'm working on that.
Speaker: But I think the Lord knew that I needed that when I first started because the day after I quit my job, I had already had a coffee date set up with a girlfriend who was visiting from out of town.
Speaker: And she was a big producer in an MLM business.
Speaker: And she was looking for help with social media, but I didn't know that.
Speaker: So I'm sitting there with her having coffee and we're just chatting.
Speaker: And she's like, so what's new with you?
Speaker: What's going on?
Speaker: And the reason we connected was actually from my clothing business.
Speaker: Her daughter also had a clothing business and we would collab on things.
Speaker: And that's how we met.
Speaker: So she knew about the clothing business.
Speaker: She had no idea that I was starting a social media agency.
Speaker: And we meet for coffee and I tell her, yeah, I just, I quit my job yesterday.
Speaker: And she's like, no way.
Speaker: Like, what are you doing now?
Speaker: And I said, well, I think I'm starting a social media agency.
Speaker: And she grabs me like both my arms and she says,
Speaker: No way.
Speaker: And I said, yeah.
Speaker: And she goes, well, I'm your first client.
Speaker: And I was like, what do you mean?
Speaker: And she said, I'm here in San Diego because I went to this conference about how to do your own social media, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: I didn't resonate with the girl the way I thought I would, but I love you and you are going to be my social media coach.
Speaker: And I said, that's awesome.
Speaker: No way.
Speaker: So within the first two weeks, I had replaced my salary at my job.
Speaker: And that was enough for me to be like, oh, wow.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Like, I'm good.
Speaker: I don't have to be scared.
Speaker: I can do this.
Speaker: I did.
Speaker: I mentioned I was not making a ton of money at my job.
Speaker: So I had previously...
Speaker: Looked for some additional employment, which was through Stitch Fix.
Speaker: And it was completely remote.
Speaker: So I was a stylist with Stitch Fix for about two or three months before I quit my job and then a year into my business.
Speaker: So I did have that little cushion, but I will say like I never really needed it.
Speaker: Everything was steady from that point on, which was such a blessing because again, I think everyone knew I wouldn't do it if, if.
Speaker: It wasn't steady.
Speaker: You know, it would have freaked me out.
Speaker: I would have gone back and gotten a job, a full time job again.
Speaker: And that truly was not what I wanted.
Speaker: So, yeah, things just kept growing from there.
Speaker: I was I was really blessed to have already done so much networking in my career that.
Speaker: I happened to be opening something in an industry that was starving for it.
Speaker: And I knew all these people that needed my help.
Speaker: And so at the time, it was like a gold rush.
Speaker: It was crazy.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: And I, I'm sure, you know, you were, I guess one of the pioneers, right?
Speaker: Because at the time you were saying that social media wasn't really a job, but then you started doing it.
Speaker: So, um, I'm sure that probably helped as well.
Speaker: How did you go about pricing, like knowing how to price your, um, your offers?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I would say not by any strategy whatsoever, just by my gut, which technically was like very underpricing myself.
Speaker: But, you know, when you're a new, when it's a new industry like that, it's hard to say what pricing should be.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And it's so funny too, because pricing is so relative.
Speaker: When we're in an online business in the world of online business,
Speaker: People understand pricing for these types of services with coaching and with done-for-you services and all those types of things with online services a little better.
Speaker: I met with, even just recently, I met with a local business.
Speaker: And when I told them the price, she was just baffled.
Speaker: And she was like, oh my gosh, that's crazy.
Speaker: And I said, that's actually half the price of what I usually charge.
Speaker: But you guys are a little bit different.
Speaker: So I'm quoting you something different.
Speaker: She's like, oh my gosh, that's crazy.
Speaker: I did work with mostly personal brands that were representing themselves online.
Speaker: Most of them were online businesses or like, I guess, selling something online, not necessarily performing anything in person.
Speaker: If they were, they were like, you know, performing a service like a massage therapist where they still had people needed to get to know them online and then they would go do the work in person.
Speaker: But they all had this big online presence and a need for that online presence.
Speaker: So, yeah, I think at the time I went with my gut.
Speaker: Now there's a lot more, a lot more strategy involved in it, a lot more, you know, validation and feedback and, you know, taking hard look at what's around and what's out there.
Speaker: But definitely just kind of pulled numbers out of my butt at the time.
Speaker: I mean, sometimes whenever you don't necessarily have something to go off of and you're new to the industry, like you said, I can totally understand that.
Speaker: And I think it's so common to undervalue your work when you're new.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And if I could encourage anybody, you know, to just know your worth and price accordingly because, yeah, because you're worth it.
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: So, um, so you said that you had, you know, started like a business and, um, uh, becoming a marketing strategist and a business coach.
Speaker: So may you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker: So the way we started, we've pivoted quite a few times.
Speaker: And something I always say, and I'm gearing up actually to go on this whole campaign about on social right now, is that pivoting is alignment.
Speaker: Pivoting is required for you to stay in business.
Speaker: If you think about us as entrepreneurs, a lot of us don't stay in jobs longer than two or three years.
Speaker: Because we're bored, we're misaligned, we want more freedom, you know, whatever it is, right?
Speaker: And so if you think about yourself and your own business journey, you need to go into this knowing that things are going to change.
Speaker: If your ideas are not malleable, and I say this about membership, of course, if your membership is not malleable, then
Speaker: then it will fail, right?
Speaker: If it's so stuck in one place, then you decide that's the only way it's going to work, then it's not going to be something you're doing long term.
Speaker: And if you're okay with that, that's fine too.
Speaker: But you should go into business as a whole, as an entrepreneur, knowing that it's okay to change your mind.
Speaker: It's okay to change your direction.
Speaker: It's absolutely okay to pivot.
Speaker: And I would actually say it's encouraged.
Speaker: because pivoting is alignment.
Speaker: So yes, I love that.
Speaker: The way that I started in business is totally different than where I'm at now.
Speaker: We started as a social media agency, done for you agency.
Speaker: And this woman who grabbed my arms and shook me and said, you're my coach.
Speaker: She wanted a hybrid of coaching and done for you.
Speaker: She wanted it done for her now, but she wanted to learn how to do it.
Speaker: And I really respected that.
Speaker: And I thought, you know, long term, I would so much rather these women that I know be empowered to show up for themselves on social rather than paying someone else to do it.
Speaker: Because social media, especially at the time, so relationship driven and
Speaker: just all about connection, that it's hard to quote unquote fake that, right?
Speaker: And there are some industries where it doesn't matter.
Speaker: It's more just about SEO.
Speaker: You know, if you're like a lawyer or someone who's just trying to show up in search, then that's fine.
Speaker: But if you're a personal brand, an online business owner, your social presence is one of the most important things that you can put out there.
Speaker: And so I really fell in love with the idea of coaching women through this.
Speaker: And so we started as done for you.
Speaker: We actually still do some done for you to this day, but it, it was very choosy because for most brands, especially personal brands, it's not the best choice.
Speaker: It's better when you show up as yourself.
Speaker: So we pivoted from only doing done for you services to
Speaker: into the coaching side of things, really creating strategies that were customized to their needs and their goals and the way that they were able to show up.
Speaker: Because some people just are never going to do video.
Speaker: And some people just don't want to write a post every day.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so everything was customized to them and they would leave our coaching together, having a plan for an entire year and
Speaker: And not just a plan of knowing what to post, but where to post it and why they were posting it and who they're talking to and what the tone was, what their brand should look like.
Speaker: And so that really became our bread and butter was creating these strategies for people over the course of
Speaker: their business.
Speaker: And as we know, in that era, Instagram was changing like every week.
Speaker: There was new features that were being added.
Speaker: And, you know, this was the time when stories had just started.
Speaker: And so stories were a big, a big way to attract people and get some conversations going.
Speaker: But, you know, then they added live video and then they added highlight bubbles.
Speaker: There was just always something new happening.
Speaker: And so what would happen was I'd educate my clients on this stuff.
Speaker: And then they'd come back a month later and say, Sam, what is this?
Speaker: How do I do this?
Speaker: What's going on?
Speaker: And I'd say, oh, OK, we need to book another call, I guess.
Speaker: And I didn't like that.
Speaker: So I kind of looked at my clientele and I looked at my time and I looked at what was going on.
Speaker: And I said, there is a missing piece here.
Speaker: After my clients graduate my program, they always have questions.
Speaker: They always need support.
Speaker: And one of their biggest pain points, especially on Instagram, was that they didn't have fresh photos all the time.
Speaker: They were getting their photos done, you know, professionally, maybe once a year if they were lucky.
Speaker: And they just didn't have the content.
Speaker: And we don't want to just post graphics on the Internet, you know.
Speaker: We know, especially for personal brands, that your face is always going to be the best choice.
Speaker: So the pain point really was that their pictures were getting taken either once a year by a professional on date nights by their husband who, you know, doesn't even look at the phone, doesn't care if your bra strap's showing.
Speaker: He's just laughing a couple photos.
Speaker: Okay, done.
Speaker: You know, he doesn't even make sure the flash is right.
Speaker: Or they've got, you know, a three-year-old at home that is taking the most flattering, most blurry angle of them.
Speaker: So I kind of put all that together and I said, what if I created a space for my clients to land that served them on an ongoing basis, kept them up with education, supported them as they're doing this?
Speaker: Because a lot of people, you know, they'll pay for the service and then it's hard to keep doing it, right?
Speaker: It's hard to keep going when you're all on your own.
Speaker: But we also needed to create a solution for people who needed fresh photos,
Speaker: on a consistent basis.
Speaker: And so that's how our membership was born.
Speaker: And when I brought this idea to my friends, especially my friends who weren't clients, they said, well, I want to do that with you.
Speaker: I want to go to those meetups and I want to learn, even though I haven't been a strategy client of yours.
Speaker: And I said, okay, well, I guess I could open it up to the public and it could just be a thing, right?
Speaker: And we can have fun with it.
Speaker: And so funny enough, I was supposed to kind of not pilot a launch, but like
Speaker: Give a presentation that should have led into this and kind of validated this on Halloween one year.
Speaker: And I had to go to the hospital instead of that presentation because I was so sick from overworking myself.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I kind of had this wake up call like, OK, we've got to do this now.
Speaker: I've got to start really reorganizing my time because at the time, like I had mentioned, the need for these social strategies was so prevalent that I was seeing eight clients a day.
Speaker: Oh, gosh.
Speaker: I did not put breaks for for myself in there.
Speaker: You know, I'd be lucky if I could throw in a granola bar and maybe use up three minutes of one of my calls to pee.
Speaker: Like it was really unhealthy.
Speaker: And again, as an Enneagram 2, that was a bad choice that I made.
Speaker: But I was so about saying yes and accommodating everyone.
Speaker: And that was a huge mistake, you know, looking back.
Speaker: But I also think it got me here.
Speaker: It built the character and it built...
Speaker: this part of my business, which I don't know if I would have ever done had I had healthy boundaries starting out.
Speaker: So that's a really good point.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm not going to say that I regret it, but I will say like, uh, do as I say, not as I did.
Speaker: Think about the exponential income piece before you actually need it, I guess.
Speaker: Because I wasn't willing to give up any money.
Speaker: So I wasn't going to take less clients, right?
Speaker: And I wasn't really trying to charge a ton more money at that time.
Speaker: And so I had thought about it after the fact and was like, well, this is also a good way to make more money without having to work so much.
Speaker: So I think I was able to cut my...
Speaker: Cut my client load in half, which was still a lot.
Speaker: But it was, you know, it was something.
Speaker: It was a huge relief for me.
Speaker: So we kind of launched on a hope and a prayer.
Speaker: I had no idea what I was doing.
Speaker: We had, I want to say around 50 people show up to our beta launch party.
Speaker: And we were just kind of throwing wet noodles at the wall, seeing if they stuck.
Speaker: And this was your membership program?
Speaker: Mm-hmm.
Speaker: This was – so we had like a brunch kickoff.
Speaker: And really all it was was I was going to kind of tell them like, hey, this is what I want to do.
Speaker: Let's go do it.
Speaker: So after brunch, we went out and we took the photos of each other and we had fun.
Speaker: And I want to say I had about a 70% conversion.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: That's amazing.
Speaker: Because it was just so needed.
Speaker: Like at the time, it was just perfect timing, right?
Speaker: And –
Speaker: Another thing was that we had a live launch like that.
Speaker: Like when you have people in person, whether it's in person or online, when you do a live launch, there's something really magical about
Speaker: welcoming people in right there.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: So within our first month, I want to say we had about, I can't remember what it was, double digits of members.
Speaker: And then we had our first meetup and then we started doing our online education and putting the muscle behind it.
Speaker: So it was kind of a twofold.
Speaker: I called it a hybrid membership of an online and in person.
Speaker: Um, these are hard.
Speaker: These are a lot of work because, um, I, I didn't really envision growing outside of San Diego, but within a year, within our first year, we had nine chapters and we were slated to launch our 10th chapter April.
Speaker: I think it was April 14th or something, 2020.
Speaker: Um, everything was planned for Charleston.
Speaker: We had a leader and, um, we had a location and it was going to be the cutest thing.
Speaker: Downtown Charleston, South Carolina is just the cutest place.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: That would be cute.
Speaker: And I was so stoked to go.
Speaker: It was going to be my 29th birthday.
Speaker: It was going to be just a huge hit because it was going to be our 10th chapter.
Speaker: And COVID obviously happened.
Speaker: And so we were back to pivoting.
Speaker: And so we pivoted and pivoted and pivoted.
Speaker: Unfortunately, in COVID, I made it my personal mission in my head to keep everyone in business.
Speaker: And that was super toxic.
Speaker: That was a huge burden that I did not have to carry and something I totally learned from because you're here to serve your people.
Speaker: But when you get over invested, more invested than they are, that starts becoming toxic.
Speaker: And so.
Speaker: And COVID, I really started learning things about myself and learning, okay, wow, that wasn't the healthiest decision.
Speaker: I have this, you know, anxious attachment style that I really need to let go of.
Speaker: And I'm so, so obsessed with other people's validation and making sure other people have a good experience that I am not having a good experience.
Speaker: That's not good whenever you're the business owner.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so I started to reevaluate and tell myself, wow, this is getting to be a lot like how my jobs work.
Speaker: This is getting to be a lot about serving someone else and not being in a place at all that's serving me.
Speaker: And I'm still sick and I'm still struggling.
Speaker: And, you know, I am still just waiting for other people's validation when I didn't need to do that at all.
Speaker: I was fully booked.
Speaker: People trusted me.
Speaker: I had a very well-functioning business at this point.
Speaker: And
Speaker: I said to myself, what if I started building my business around the life I wanted instead of living in what's left over from my business?
Speaker: Which was at that time, honestly, nothing.
Speaker: I had no time.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: To do anything.
Speaker: We had started in 2019, I think, maybe 2018.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: going on these little weekend trips.
Speaker: So my husband was in sales and I obviously was in sales too.
Speaker: But when you're in sales, you can't really afford to take time off because you're used to the money you get when you're making sales.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Not an hourly wage.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so it was easier for me, I guess, to schedule time off, but I never did it.
Speaker: And we would take weekend trips.
Speaker: So anytime there was like a holiday, we would take a three-day weekend and we would go to Arizona.
Speaker: We fell in love with Arizona and I started thinking like, wow, this is just not enough.
Speaker: Like I need to actually take a vacation.
Speaker: We'd never taken one.
Speaker: And then it really just started to sink in.
Speaker: Like what if...
Speaker: I built a business that was more exponential.
Speaker: And so in 2020, people started coming to me during the pandemic, asking me to help them build memberships.
Speaker: They had seen how successful my membership was.
Speaker: They had seen how I built it and that I had really created a framework that worked.
Speaker: And,
Speaker: They started coming to me and saying, hey, can you help me build an online version of a membership in my niche?
Speaker: And I was like, sure, I can do that.
Speaker: Let's figure it out, right?
Speaker: I'm always up for a challenge.
Speaker: I'm always up for reinventing the wheel.
Speaker: And so I started doing that.
Speaker: And I think I built about 20 in that summer of 2020, which was absolutely insane to think about.
Speaker: But everyone wanted it.
Speaker: And I started thinking, what if I just started teaching this?
Speaker: I started falling out of love with social media.
Speaker: As you probably remember, social changed a lot in 2020.
Speaker: You know, they started restricting hashtags and just things got weird.
Speaker: And I just wasn't in love with it anymore.
Speaker: And I also didn't believe in it as the end all be all anymore.
Speaker: I thought it was one of many, which is what I teach now, obviously.
Speaker: It wasn't the only place to be.
Speaker: And so I just got really unattached from social and I decided to become a membership mentor full time.
Speaker: And I would say about six months into that was when we made our decision to hit the road.
Speaker: You know, I think like like I've mentioned already, everybody reevaluated their lives in 2020.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: We prioritized, we pivoted till the till the cows came home.
Speaker: And I turned to my husband one day.
Speaker: I remember exactly where we were and when it was.
Speaker: And I turned to him and I said, what if we bought an RV?
Speaker: Because he had been toying with the idea for years.
Speaker: And I...
Speaker: I just love San Diego so much.
Speaker: And it was funny because we've always wanted to own property in three places.
Speaker: We wanted a lake house in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaker: We wanted something in San Diego.
Speaker: And then we wanted a house with a pool in Arizona.
Speaker: And we've racked our brain for years trying to figure out how we could do this.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And I think that the conclusion we came to was that the RV would be the solution.
Speaker: We could be in all three places in the same year.
Speaker: We started playing with the idea.
Speaker: We came home to Washington to kind of scope out like, you know, the situation if we created Washington as our home base, because there's nowhere and nowhere affordable to park an RV in San Diego.
Speaker: So it just wasn't going to be feasible for San Diego to be home base for us.
Speaker: But we decided that he would quit his job.
Speaker: He would walk away completely and we would live on the road.
Speaker: And that's what we've been doing for the last two years.
Speaker: It has been such an adventure.
Speaker: So many tough times because RVs are always having problems.
Speaker: And then so many exciting things that we like never would have dreamed of either.
Speaker: And the freedom that has come with it and the ability for me to not only retire my husband, but also create a life that
Speaker: that is supported by my business where I feel supported in my health.
Speaker: I'm not overworking myself.
Speaker: I feel supported financially.
Speaker: I feel supported in the way that I'm doing the right thing with the right people has been absolute magic.
Speaker: And it didn't happen overnight.
Speaker: I did learn the hard way, obviously.
Speaker: But now I get to help my students and,
Speaker: get there a lot quicker.
Speaker: And so that is really the point of what we do now.
Speaker: We help women specifically find their niche in exponential income, pivot their business until they need to really get comfortable with what they want.
Speaker: And what a lot of them want is something like I've created where it's a three-day work week and
Speaker: It's, you know, three to five hours a day.
Speaker: And it is something that is exponential.
Speaker: And so when you start adding exponential income to the mix, that's where the game changes.
Speaker: That's what makes it possible.
Speaker: When I was seeing eight clients a day, I was working eight plus hours in front of the computer.
Speaker: That didn't count all the time I spent on the back end and all the prep work and all the homework, right?
Speaker: And so I was just way overworking.
Speaker: And I started thinking to myself, what if I had all eight of these people at once?
Speaker: And I did eight people in one hour instead of eight hours with eight people.
Speaker: I can make the same amount of money and I could work less or I could get more and work less.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so group programs came about in my business.
Speaker: And so I had the membership program.
Speaker: I started creating group programs.
Speaker: I also have a backend membership now for where my clients land.
Speaker: But yeah, the pivot, there's so much power in the pivot and there's so much power in truly figuring out where you want your life to be.
Speaker: And it doesn't have to be living on the road.
Speaker: You know, my husband and I don't have any kids.
Speaker: And so we have a couple things in our life that make this a little easier for us.
Speaker: But maybe you want to parent your kids instead of putting them in daycare.
Speaker: Maybe you want to homeschool your kids or you want to be present in their school life, right?
Speaker: Whatever it is, you want to be a more present parent.
Speaker: You want to be a more active person.
Speaker: You want to be hiking in the day instead of, you know, sitting in front of a computer.
Speaker: You want to just go adventure and learn how to surf, whatever it is.
Speaker: Like your life is so much more important than just how you make money.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: And there's a lot of purpose behind our businesses and there's so much impact that can happen.
Speaker: And to me, that is the core behind why we start our business.
Speaker: But our business shouldn't be the reason we live our life.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely not.
Speaker: Yeah, it should support the life we want to live.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And if you look at America, it's the opposite, not only with business, but also with workers, just any type of worker in America, their job, their work.
Speaker: comes before everything.
Speaker: And I was totally that person.
Speaker: I was the 2017 boss babe hustle culture all in.
Speaker: You know, you got to earn it, which I still believe you have to earn it.
Speaker: Totally believe you have to do the work.
Speaker: But it shouldn't be the most important thing in your life.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And there's a season of hustle.
Speaker: And then there is a season of getting out of that.
Speaker: You don't have to hustle forever.
Speaker: Maybe just when you're first starting something.
Speaker: You've got to have a plan for that hustle to be temporary.
Speaker: Because if not, you'll get addicted and you'll hustle your entire life.
Speaker: And that's, I mean, I hustled and hustled even when I was teaching people not to hustle.
Speaker: I was still hustling.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Because I was addicted to it.
Speaker: And I loved and lived for that validation that I was getting.
Speaker: And I thought, what if I switched it up?
Speaker: What if I stopped living for that and started living for the way life feels and what I can do with my life and where my purpose is outside of just working, right?
Speaker: And truly enjoying things and seeing the world and not just taking a vacation, but living like I'm on vacation.
Speaker: So yeah, it's, it's been quite the journey.
Speaker: But yeah, that's, that is our focus is, is teaching people that they can have this life that they dream of that actually seems like so far away when it's really not.
Speaker: When you start working smarter and not harder, when you start really focusing on, okay, what do I really truly want and need out of my life?
Speaker: And how can I build a business and offer suite that supports that instead of
Speaker: Only being reactive to what everyone else needs because that's what I was doing.
Speaker: I was reacting.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I mean, if you're constantly reacting to what everybody else needs, you'll never have the business that you dream up.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: And it won't, it'll never be for you.
Speaker: It'll be for everybody else, unfortunately.
Speaker: And I would just like to point out, you said you were turning 29 a couple of years ago.
Speaker: How old are you now?
Speaker: I'm 32.
Speaker: I'm 32.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: So you're 32 and you said you retired your husband.
Speaker: I mean, that is just amazing.
Speaker: And I want all the listeners to hear that.
Speaker: Like you can do this at a young age and, and it, and also it doesn't matter how old you are either.
Speaker: Like if you have a dream on your heart, just go after it.
Speaker: But that's, that's incredible because, you know, some people, so many people feel like, well, they have to work until they're 65, 70 before they can retire.
Speaker: And that's not the case.
Speaker: So, um, well, thank you so much for all of that.
Speaker: I mean, that was just so inspirational.
Speaker: Um, I, we were kind of coming to the close of our episode, but I do want to ask a few questions.
Speaker: So, um, what is one piece of advice that you would give to somebody who, um, has that dream and, and wants to, you know, chase a daydream?
Speaker: I think the piece of advice I would give is just to take the leap and to trust.
Speaker: to trust yourself, to trust God, to trust that if you have that dream in your heart, that it's there for a reason.
Speaker: That's good.
Speaker: And then what would be one book or podcast that's been very influential in your life?
Speaker: You know, I've been thinking about this and I actually think I like the podcasts that are quick and to the point.
Speaker: I do love to listen to long form podcasts, but I think the most influential and the most like easy tips and tricks would definitely be Christy Wright's podcast.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: I've heard of her name.
Speaker: She used to be with or is with the Dave Ramsey group.
Speaker: Is that right?
Speaker: She was with the Ramsey Network and she had a business called the Business Boutique.
Speaker: So she's a business coach.
Speaker: That's right.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: She's a Christian business coach.
Speaker: And now she's kind of shifted a little bit into talking more about...
Speaker: like money and freedom and, you know, things like that.
Speaker: Still business related, but very much with a Christian focus.
Speaker: And yeah, so she's relaunched her podcast just as the Christy Wright show, I think is what it's called.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: But it's really, it's really easy to listen.
Speaker: You know, every week she gives an assignment, which is totally my style.
Speaker: But I want to say it's like a 10 to 15 minute podcast every week.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's awesome.
Speaker: And lastly, how can people find you?
Speaker: Mostly I hang out as far as chit-chatting and get to knowing each other.
Speaker: I hang out on Instagram at samanthaharris.co.
Speaker: And I'm pretty much everywhere else on the internet at the same place.
Speaker: My website is samanthaharris.co.
Speaker: You can find some awesome freebies there that will help you start with membership and start with an exponential offer suite.
Speaker: And I also have a newsletter that that will get you on to that I send out once or twice a week called the Midweek Fix.
Speaker: So I'd love to connect with you there as well.
Speaker: Nice.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: Well, thank you so much for being a guest.
Speaker: We truly appreciate it.
Speaker: And this has been such an empowering episode.
Speaker: So I know everybody's just going to love it.
Speaker: Thanks for having me, Christy.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Thanks so much for tuning in today.
Speaker: If you'd be so kind and leave me a quick review, I would love to hear from you.
Speaker: You can also connect with me on Instagram at Christy Winfrey.
Speaker: If you enjoyed today's episode, please hit that follow button.
Speaker: And until next time, keep chasing those dreams, my friend.
Speaker: Remember, you are worth it.
