hi friends. So on this channel, I talk a lot about how I started my small business, but I don't really talk about what happens after. For example, I started my handmade Art Shop about 4 years ago, and I feel like I'm a completely different person from who I was before. If you've watched any of my older videos, it's not hard to see how much my life has changed, not only financially, but mentally, emotionally. My whole perspective on life has changed completely for the better, even after just selling one single thing. And I want to share this part of my journey with you all because maybe after watching this video, you'll realize that you can do it too. But before we get to the rest of the video, I want to talk briefly about our sponsor, which is Universe. I used Universe to make my new Linkin bio website. It's crucial for running my business, and I'm so happy that it looks so much better now. Universe is a drag-and-drop app for creating websites where you can easily

pick a personalize.com domain and hyper-customize your site to match your creative vision. You can use it on your iPhone, your iPad, or your computer. You can make any type of site with Universe, from a simple link list to a full portfolio or online store. And if you don't want to use a template, you can also use their AI assistant named Gus. Or you can simply just start from a blank canvas, which is what I did. And if you're in the US, the Universe Cell Block will enable you to start selling your creations and start making money in minutes. You can also use the download block for digital items. Although the sell and download blocks are US only, the PayPal block is available for everyone. Universe is free, but if you want to remove the Universe branding from your website, you can upgrade to Universe Pro. This will also get you access to a custom.com domain, menu styles, and the ability to make discount codes. You also get a lower flat 5% transaction fee and quicker payout. So I'll have two different links down below for you guys.

the first one will get you 25% off your first year of Universe Pro. Or you can use the second link to try Universe for free. Thank you, Universe, for supporting this Channel. And now on to the video. Growing up, I was actually a really happy child. I had so many dreams. I wanted to be an actress, or a singer, or an author. But as I went through adolescence, things got really hard for me. My family began to really struggle financially. And this was also a point in my life where I began to understand really what that meant. And as far back as I can remember, my parents were always fighting, always screaming. I remember they would always fight in Vietnamese. And even though I couldn't understand most of it, I would still stop everything I was doing to just listen. Because I felt like if I wasn't there, something bad would happen. Like even though I couldn't understand a single word they were saying in Vietnamese, I couldn't block it out. It just felt very emotionally unsafe. And that somehow everything was my fault. If you've ever

experienced financial struggles, you know how stressful it is. It's a type of stress that is so pervasive, it's generational. And from a very young age, I was instilled with a fear that nothing lasts forever. And I'm embarrassed to admit this myself, but I also developed a huge chip on my shoulder because I saw what other kids had, I saw what other families were having, and I was like, why don't I have that? So by the time I turned 15, I immediately got my first job. I worked at a berry kebab stand at the Rocky Stadium. And very soon after I started getting paid, my paycheck started going back to my family. Fast forward four years later, I'm 19 years old. I'm starting my first business. And by then, I had already worked seven different part-time jobs. I was a full-time graphic design student. I already had experience in the corporate design world. I was on my way to get a 9-to-5 job. That is exactly what my parents expected of me.

and what I expected of myself. I never expected anything more, but as you guys know in 2020, the pandemic hit. There was a lot of time to just reflect, and I think deep down intrinsically, I knew that the corporate life was not for me. I hated the meetings, I hated going on zoom, and it felt like I was wasting my life away. And I just knew myself as a person that I can't commit myself to doing something that I don't want to do. I'm that type of person who needs to be passionate about her work. Thinking about it now, I really, really commend my younger self for realizing that so early on. It takes a lot of courage to start a new business, to try something new, to put yourself out there. And that is the first thing that I want to talk about. My whole life, I never saw myself as a courageous person. As you can imagine, I grew up very averse to risk because if I mess up, who is going to help my family? I've always viewed myself

as rather pragmatic, so that's why I chose graphic design over Fine Arts. But as I was in my second year of graphic design school, and the excitement died down, I realized that this job is not for me. I'm not interested or passionate enough about graphic design to want to improve. What I did like about graphic design though, was the storytelling aspect of it, the brand building part of it. So once I started realizing this, I took a leap of faith, took all the skills that I had as an amateur graphic designer, and made my brand, uncomfy. This specific part of my journey, the part where I just simply started, taught me so much about having courage, about having faith, about having excitement and pure joy, just simply doing what you want without gaining anything in return. I sold my first thing for $12, and shipping was $25, so I literally lost money on my first sale. But I was still so excited that someone from across the world wanted to own my art, and that little moment gave me the courage to be like, I'm going to stick with this thing. I'm

going to take a leap of faith. I remember after 2 months of running my account, I had like 500 followers on Instagram. And looking at that number, I thought to myself, This could be big. Hi friends, so I'm editing this video right now, and I feel like my thoughts were a little discombobulated. So I just want to add some extra food for thought. When it comes to courage, it's like a two-prong issue, right? It's like you need the courage to start, and then you also need the courage to keep going, even if you feel like you're trying your hardest and nothing is coming out of it. I get those types of messages a lot, and what I want to say is that the way you can trick yourself into being courageous is to just tap into your inner child, be curious, and have fun with every step of the journey. Like if you're posting on Instagram, I wonder what will happen if I start posting voiceovers instead of time lapses. I wonder what will happen if I

share about this part that I think is boring, but maybe others will think it's really interesting. Use this time period where no one is watching you, no one is judging you to literally do whatever you want. Like I started a brand new account with zero followers. I didn't follow anyone. I knew I wasn't worried about real-life people judging me. One last thing I'd like to note is that after a couple of years of doing this, I realized that my tolerance for taking risks is much higher than it was before. Like one huge example is that typically being self-employed is a risk because you don't get the benefits and you don't get the support of a big company. But I actually don't view being self-employed as a risk. It's crazy how my mind has changed because I've seen so many people take jobs that they're not happy with. They go through life not happy, and then they end up being laid off anyway. I've also seen both sides where a family member takes a huge risk, and it does not

pan out at all so I've seen both the good and bad sides of taking risks. And I said this at the beginning of the video. I realized that nothing lasts forever, right? So you might as well go through life doing what you want. And I think I talk about that later on in the video. I'm not saying to quit your job. I'm saying to take calculated risks to improve your quality of life. And if starting a side hustle, if working on your passion will make you happier and improve your quality of life, I think you should totally do it regardless of how scared you are. So after having the courage to start, that courage and dedication eventually led to confidence. This is probably the most valuable and most life-changing thing that my small business has given me. If you watch any of my older videos, you can see how viscerally uncomfortable I was, how anxious I was, how quiet and introverted I was. But having a small business, having to advertise for it through my face, through my voice, through video, slowly and steadily through each

video. I got better and better at talking. If you were naturally born a yapper, I really envy you because for introverts like me, it takes so much energy to actually talk to people. Like, I don't think you understand. Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I proved to myself as an introvert that even though I wasn't born with the ability to speak charismatically, I eventually just developed the skills. And that gives me so much confidence because the fact that I can say that I started from here and I got to here, that makes me really, really proud of myself. I've also gained confidence in other sectors of my life as well, such as in my art making. I was always artistic and creative, but I was never like good. I never thought I would amount to anything amazing with my art. I couldn't draw the perfect portrait or I couldn't draw super realistic things, and overall my mindset was that so many people are better than me. That's still true to this day, but now I realize

I don't have to be the best. My small business made me realize that even though I'm not the best at what I do, I am still valuable. People genuinely care about my art, and they connect with my work. I would take that amount of human connection over technical skill any day. [Music] With the courage and confidence that I gained from my small business, my whole perspective on life inevitably changed as well. I find myself being much more of an optimist rather than a pessimist now, which is crazy because I'm a Capricorn. Having an abundant mindset is so, so important, especially when you're self-employed. I'm still very much pragmatic about my finances, but I do find myself being more, how do I say this, delusional. I truly feel in my heart that everything will work out for me in the end. Like I am so, so lucky. Because of my small business, I'm able to meet all of my needs. I have an apartment, I have a little dog. I'm going to cry, um.

have more than enough for myself, plus I can still support my family. I recently fully funded my parents' trip back to Vietnam for a full month. I paid for my dad's dental procedure that he's been needing for years and years now, and now he's so happy that he can eat all the foods that he wants and talk to people with confidence. Like that is something that we take for granted, is our teeth. Um, long story short, I've been able to do all of that because I started my small business. Overall, I'm just so excited about life in a way that I've never been before. Deep down, I think I still am a naturally anxious person. Like, I do have my bad days, but I find that more often than not, I convert that anxiousness into excitement and abundance. And I feel like that is the big life hack ever. Like, if you're nervous about something, just find a way to be excited about it. Because when you start your small business or your content creation journey, there are going

to be so many opportunities just thrown at you that you feel like you're not ready for yet. But what you can do is take that nervousness and just, like, I'm so sweaty and nervous. Instead, say, I have all this energy in my veins. I can do it. Speaking of opportunities, your small business will inevitably get you somewhere that you've never thought you'd be. Just this past year alone, I was invited to speak at an artist panel for my school. Then I was sponsored to have a booth at Dragon Boat, so I got to vend, like, a huge booth for free, basically. Then I was sent to Austin, Texas, for an influencer event because they saw my small business account and thought that I would be a great ambassador for their brand. And just a week ago, a huge company sent a whole production team to my apartment to film a commercial. I had to memorize lines and take the director's instructions, and it was like a full circle moment for me because one of my first dreams as a child was to become an

actress um, that was just crazy. And in between all of that, I've gotten to work with such cool Brands: Croc, Fanta, cricket. And it's all because I posted about my small business on social media. And it's so wholesome because all the small businesses that I started off with on Instagram have grown tenfold with me. Like Garbo from grumpy kid Studio, she is doing huge, huge things now. Chazelle on YouTube got to work with The Sims and the miniverse. Like it's crazy to see how much opportunity is out there. Even if you feel like what you're doing is saturated, it's really not. There is still room for you to grow. Starting my small business has also given me the immense gift of flexibility. Not only do I just get to work from home, but I have a schedule that revolves around me. It revolves around what I want to do, so I can be spontaneous. If I'm feeling sick or if I'm feeling tired, I can rest. The same goes for the flip side. If I feel up to it, I can work myself to

my very limit because I know that there will be a reward at the end. Because I Am My Own Boss, I value my energy more than anyone else in the world, more than any boss or any manager could ever value me. I value myself more, and I think that's one of my favorite parts of this whole arrangement, is that I can do whatever I want to do. For example, I recently made a giant Maxine lamp. Wait, let me grab her for you. I recently made this, and I thought of her one night while I was brushing my teeth, like, Oh, what if I make a giant Maxine? Oh, what if I put a light in it? And the very next day, I was able to film this whole video and upload it. By the next day, so that whole video only took like 3 days to make because I was able to just drop everything and make it. While most aspects of a small business require a lot of planning and a lot of waiting, there are some things where you can just be super, super spontaneous with.

it, and I love that because the more ideas that I can simply just act on means more things that I make and put out into the world. That's like one of my biggest goals is instead of just thinking of ideas and letting them die on the back burner. I want to act on them as quickly as I can. And the last two things I want to talk about are discipline and self-love. I think I already touched on this a little bit, but being a business owner really made me learn how to be disciplined. When you're working by yourself, there's no one to hold you accountable except you. So that can be a really hard thing to cope with, especially if you don't get everything done. I found it really hard to be kind to myself at first because I didn't accomplish what I set out to do. As this kept happening over and over again, like not getting something done and being really dejected and upset with myself. I realized that for my sanity, this cannot go on any longer. I can't keep beating

myself up for something that is so trivial as a video. This learning curve is what led me to be able to set boundaries for for myself, to have discipline, to work hard, yet still take care of myself, and still love myself more than anything else. At the end of the day, I sleep at least 7 hours a night, I exercise daily, I bought a hot yoga membership. Like, I am taking care of myself better than I have ever before, and I learned to do that through my small business because I love doing what I do so much. Like, I want to do it for as long as I can, and in order to have that longevity, I need to take care of myself, and I need to love myself. Okay, I think I went through everything I had on my list. Thank you guys so much for watching this video. We appreciate you all so so much. I want to close off this video by reiterating that all of these life improvements didn't happen overnight. It happened over years and years of me

working hard on something that was initially super super small. I equate starting a small business to planting a tree, almost. It starts off as a super small seed, then it turns into a sapling. Over the course of a couple years, it will eventually turn into a tree that can feed you and your family for many many years to come. Let me know what you think down in the comments. I'll see you next week. Shoulder I was cleaning her shoe when it clicked on the TR over in the bright morning de we brush and we braided Dandy lions.

how starting a small business changed my life (& it can change yours too!) ✿ let's be vulnerable

how starting a small business changed my life (& it can change yours too!) ✿ let's be vulnerable