If you're a creative soul looking for a way to take your photography or event business to the next level without adding more hours to your schedule, you're going to love this inspiring story. Catalina was a wedding photographer working her tail off to make a thousand dollars for weeks of work, but when she added a photo booth to her business, everything changed. She started charging the same amount for just three hours of work, since then she scaled her business to seven figures. Now, if you're thinking, "That sounds like the dream," you need to check out this free masterclass from Photobooth Supply Co. It's called Capture Success, how to turn your creative passion into a six-figure photobooth business. Catalina is going to show you how you can take what you're already passionate about and turn it into a massive profit. You'll learn how you can earn a thousand dollars or more per event with a photobooth rental business. If you're someone who loves creating memories or maybe you've been looking for a fun side hustle, you've got to check this out. Head to photoboothsupplyco.com/goldigger to get your free access and my special promo code. This is your chance to work smarter, create more freedom, and build something truly amazing. That's photoboothsupplyco.com/goldigger. And so that's why I came back because I'm like, "I still have this itch to create. It's something that I've always wanted to do, but the burnout made me fall out of love with it. And I just had to heal myself first in order to really fall back into my art." I'm Jenna Kutcher, your host of the Goldigger podcast. I escaped the corporate world at the age of 23 with nothing more than a $300 camera from Craigslist and a dream. Now I'm running a seven-figure online business that feels even better than it looks all from my house in small town, Minnesota with my family. Here, we value time as our currency. We mix the woo and the work, and we are in the pursuit of building businesses that give us the freedom to live lives that we love. I've always loved turning big goals into reality and I'm here to help you do the same. This isn't just a peek behind the curtain. Come along with me and my guests as we tear the whole curtain down. Every week we tackle practical, no-fluff marketing strategies and host honest discussions on what works and what doesn't. Join me and my expert guests for actionable insights to help you grow your dream business with confidence. Pull up a seat and get ready to be challenged, inspired, and empowered. This is the Goldigger podcast. One of the things I love most about our community is how we always keep it real, about the highs and the lows of entrepreneurship. Today's guest embodies the spirit in such a profound way. Imagine building a multiple seven-figure online business only to step away from it all for a full year to reclaim your health and your sense of self. It is a bold move that takes immense courage, and it's a journey that I think will deeply resonate with you as much as it did with me. My guest today, Vanessa Lau is a creator and entrepreneur on a mission to inspire business owners and creators to lead more authentic and fulfilling lives. Last year, she took a step back to reset, and in doing so, she redefined what success means to her. Vanessa's story is a powerful reminder that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is take a break. Now, with renewed passion and insight, she and Powers fellow entrepreneurs and creators to discover their unique paths to success, rather than following the conventional advice of scaling relentlessly and hustling nonstop. Through her newsletter, The Creator Journal and her YouTube channel with over 800,000 subscribers, Vanessa shares practical advice and personal stories to help others overcome challenges and thrive in their journeys. Today, Vanessa and I are chatting about the common traps in business and how these led to her dissolving her business for a full year, how to follow your intuition if you find yourself in need of a break. And she also shares her key lessons she learned about health, relationships, and most importantly, herself, when she stripped away business from her identity and the changes that she's made in her business this time around to avoid making the same mistakes that led her to burn out in the first place. This conversation is about to leave you feeling inspired and empowered to protect your piece. I cannot wait for you to hear Vanessa's insights about redefining success. So without further ado, Vanessa, welcome to the gold digger podcast. Super quick question. How many tabs do you have open right now? Like actually go to your browser and check if you have ADHD like me, it's a lot. And when you throw a business into the mix, it's even more. You might have a tab for your email marketing system, one for your payment software, one for your CRM content tools, email tools. And with all those tabs, you're spending more time searching through data and less time, you know, growing your business. But with HubSpot's customer platform, you can close all those tabs and access all your tools in one convenient place. With HubSpot, you'll get everyone's eyes on the same work, boost data analysis with AI, optimize workflows for marketing, improve pipeline management for sales, and keep track of every customer question big or small. So close those tabs. It's business growing time. Visit hubspot.com to get started today. That's hubspot.com. Vanessa, a couple months ago, you shared on Instagram that piece is expensive. And I want to know how you came to that conclusion and what protecting your piece looks like for you. You know, that's a really good question. And it's a question that I pondered about a lot during my sabbatical of like, what does piece look like for me? How would I define it? How do I protect it? And now today, I really see peace as a way to love myself. I see peace as an act of self love. Like I love myself enough to advocate for my needs. I love myself enough to put myself first. I love myself enough to make myself feel comfortable whenever I'm in a situation that doesn't feel safe and that doesn't feel comfortable. And for a long time, when I think about like peace and protecting your piece, I always assume that someone else is going to lose as a result of me protecting my own space, my own piece, my own integrity, whatever that is. But what made it meaningful to me of like linking, protecting my piece to self love is because during my time off, I spent a lot of time actually reflecting on how did I get here? Like, how did I get to a place where I had built a multiple million dollar business and had to walk away from it because of burnout? What was my decision making process? And why did I make those decisions? And I kind of traced back to my childhood because a lot of times the way that we see relationships, the way that we make decisions, it all comes back to like our childhood. Our parents are the first examples of what relationships should look like and what the world should look like. And so when I time traveled back to my past, all I saw was a little Asian girl whose parents had immigrated to Canada, who went to a school where no one else looked like her, and she had to change everything about herself to be accepted and to even survive school. So when I think about me as a child, I had to change the language that I spoke in order to be accepted in Canada. I had to change what I brought to lunch to make everyone else feel comfortable because my food was too smelly or it looked different or it looked weird, right? I basically had to change just the movies that I watched, the TV shows that I watched, in order to have a conversation with my peers and feel accepted by everyone else. And so as a child, when you're taught that you need to accommodate everybody, that translates to people pleasing in adulthood. And that's like the story that a lot of immigrants have. And like I don't regret how I did the things is that's what I needed to do to survive in a new country. The same thing my parents like my parents also had to do the same thing. They had to change everything about themselves, change the way that they work, change the way that they speak, change their customs in order to be accepted into a new country. And so when I think about protecting my peace now and I think about that, I think about that little Asian girl that always had to accommodate and change herself in order to be accepted. And when I reflect back on my business, I think about those micro moments in my business where I always said yes to things or where I always like changed what I wanted to talk about on my YouTube channel or changed what my offerings were to please other people. Even though in those micro moments, I felt like I was doing the right thing. When I look at the macro perspective, I was the one that had to burn down my business at the end of the day. I was the one that had burnout. I was the one that like completely obliterated my health for everyone else. And so when you're asking about what does protecting your peace look like, when I reframe that and I think about self love and me showing that five-year-old Asian girl, which was me, that she matters and that I'm advocating for her, now protecting my peace looks like number one. I put myself first at the beginning of the day, not at the end of the day. Back then, when I was running my business, I would wake up, open social media, open Slack, open my emails, and serve, serve, serve, give, give, give, give, because I wanted to make sure everyone was taken care of before I was. And whatever was left over at the end of the day, maybe that's for me. But the truth is I'm exhausted by the end of the day. After the work day is done, I have to hang out with my partner, which I love doing. I love Leon, just as much as you love Drew, but that's not me time. And so now when I am starting my day, it's like a ritual for myself to remind myself that I matter. And so now I start the day with my routine, where at my own pace, I work out, I get my coffee, I journal, I do whatever I need to do to show myself that I am worthy of my own time. That is so powerful. One thing that I think is so interesting, my team actually was pushing back on this. And I was like, Vanessa will get this, but I wanted to have a slogan for our business be helping women build businesses they don't hate so they can live lives that they love. And my team was like, why would anyone think about building a business they hate? And I was like, I have seen so many women get to the top and recognize that what they've done doesn't exemplify what success means for them isn't actually what matters to them. Isn't the type of business that they want to run? Isn't the type of business they enjoy running? And they were like, you can't, you can't say that, like you can't say, like, you want to help you build businesses they don't hate. And I was like, but that's the reality that can happen to so many people. How did you recognize that? What you had built while it was wildly, wildly successful? It was something that wasn't the right fit for you. Like how did you come to that conclusion? Yeah. Oh my gosh. This is a loaded question because I feel like at the tail end of my business, I felt like I built a Frankenstein business. And when I say Frankenstein, like Frankenstein is like a monster that is like made with different parts and it's just like a mess of a, of a concoction. That's what I felt like my business was like because there were so many aspects of my business that I decided on because I wanted to either be someone else or please someone else. So when I look back at like, why do I hate what I've built is because number one, the great thing about being successful or like having your first dose of business success is you get to meet successful people. But then it's also a curse that you get to meet successful people. Because yeah, because you get like invited to like earlier, we were talking about masterminds behind the scenes, right? Like you get like an invitation to join these exclusive groups of other entrepreneurs. You get your ticket to speak on a stage and meet other speakers. You get your ticket to like be on these amazing podcasts and meet like incredible entrepreneurs. But what I have found is that the more successful people that I met, the more I felt like what I built just wasn't enough. I felt like ashamed that I was only doing $3 million a year because someone else over here is doing double what I'm doing or someone else over there is suddenly launching software and like entering a whole different market. And I'm just like, oh, like I am so embarrassed by what I've built. And now I feel like I need to do more and I need to add more to my business in order to feel like I'm on the same level and now looking back, I just want to like slap myself silly that I was ashamed of doing $200,000 a month. And so when I was in those moments like an adding more and more to my business, I realized that this wasn't even something that I even wanted to do. I just wanted to be like everyone else with this like type of business model at the time. Everyone that was doing more than me and my peers that were doing more than me, the common thread was they had a mastermind and I was like, all right, great. That's the key for me to double my business. I'm going to launch a mastermind. But then I fell into this like second problem where I didn't think through that decision. And a lot of my business was like that. I didn't think through a lot of my decisions because I was just always in a rush and social media makes you feel like you've got to have a highlight to show everyone like ASAP rocky, right? But anyways, yeah, like I had the mastermind, I launched it. But then what I didn't realize with the mastermind was the pressure of like working with high ticket clients and the expectation that I put on myself. And so the people pleaser in me back then, because again, I've always wanted to accommodate to survive because that's what I learned from the immigrant mindset is if you want to be accepted, if you want to be loved, if you want to have this, you need to change everything. You need to like just give, give, give, give, give. I then decided, you know what, in order for people to see value in this mastermind, I got to do events like in person events. So I told people that's what they could expect. And then suddenly I became an event planner and then suddenly I got the bill for the event. You know what the most expensive events are? The most expensive events are planned by people pleasers. Ah, yes, yes. Because you just want to add everything. Yes. All the upgrades. Yeah. Open bar. Like, you know, we're going to go on the field trip. I'm going to buy all this swag that like nobody even brought home. Yes. I'm going to spend all the money. But anyways, yeah, like then I became an event planner and then I realized, wow, these events actually cost a lot of money. And so I'm going to need to sign more clients in order for this to be profitable. But then if I sign more clients, I'm going to need to have like a sales team. And so I was like, okay, great. I'm going to hire the sales team. And then in the process of hiring a sales team to close these high ticket clients, I was like, oh, I learned something else that I didn't think through. They need commission and they want like safety. Like they want to know every month, am I going to get a steady paycheck if I'm going to be on your team? And so people pleaser was like, yeah, don't worry, you're definitely I can guarantee you're going to get X amount a month, which then meant I needed to enroll clients every single month to keep these people happy, which then meant an escalated into in order for me to get more clients, I need to change the direction of my YouTube channel and make sure that every single video is now pointing back to this mastermind. And so it just like escalated. And I looked back and I was like, whoops, like, how did I get here? Why does my business feel like it's not mine? Oh, right. It's because I try to be like everyone else. I didn't listen to myself. I didn't give myself enough time to think things through. And I wanted to please everyone else too. And so that ultimately was like the straw that broke the camel's back when I had looked at my business and realized that none of this literally none of this is what I actually want. If you're a creative soul looking for a way to take your photography or event business to the next level without adding more hours to your schedule, you're going to love this inspiring story. Catalina was a wedding photographer working her tail off to make $1,000 for weeks of work. But when she added a photo booth to her business, everything changed. She started charging the same amount for just three hours of work since then she scaled her business to seven figures. Now, if you're thinking, that sounds like the dream, you need to check out this free masterclass from photo booth supply co, it's called capture success, how to turn your creative passion into a six figure photo booth business. Catalina is going to show you how you can take what you're already passionate about and turn it into a massive profit. You'll learn how you can earn $1,000 or more per event with a photo booth rental business. If you're someone who loves creating memories, or maybe you've been looking for a fun side hustle, you've got to check this out. Head to photo booth supply co dot com slash gold digger to get your free access and my special promo code. This is your chance to work smarter, create more freedom and build something truly amazing. That's photo booth supply co dot com slash gold digger. If you're serious about making connections that actually lead to results, LinkedIn is where it's at, especially if you're in the B2B world. With LinkedIn ads, you can get your business in front of the right people like 180 million senior level executives and 10 million C level execs. It's like the ultimate business network, but way more targeted and with fewer distractions. 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So I can relate to so much of this and you know, it's, it's really interesting because as I've gotten older, I've learned that like I can really take on other people's excitement and ideas when I'm in their energy, right? Like people have so many ideas and I was recently at a mastermind and it was the first time in a very long time where I sat there and I was like, I'm really open to learn, but I don't need ideas. I have, I have enough ideas and it was beautiful because I felt so at peace in that space of like, nobody needs to give me any ideas. I want to learn from you and I want to learn about you, but I'm not here for ideas. And I feel like that is something that can happen so easily to so many of us is like just the compounding addition of adding more and more and more, which adds complexity, which adds team, which adds overhead, which adds pressure, which adds time. And suddenly it's like, yeah, it's like a Frankenstein and you don't even recognize it and you don't know where it came from. I am so curious how you were able to literally burn it down, shut it down and walk away as the people pleaser that you are, because that had to have felt shocking. Yeah, it was, it was a crazy like, oh my gosh, I cannot believe I feel this way, but it was also one of those moments that like, I cannot run my business this way now that I know what I know now that I've like reflected on what I've reflected on. There is no way that I can keep going with this and I remember the night that I actually decided like, made the decision, it was New Year's 2023. I had just wrapped up a mastermind event in December. I was so burnt out from it. I spent the entire winter break trying to piece together a fake three year vision for my business to please my team that was like, waiting on like, what's the direction boss? Like, what are we working on this year? And I just felt so fake too, like, how am I going to piece together a three year vision for my business in like a week when I'm burnt out? And I don't even know what I want for my business, but I have to do this because I'm performing for my team. I have to be a leader and I'm afraid to show them and tell them I actually don't really know what's going on. Sorry, like we're gonna have to figure out what you're working on like maybe later. And then I had just come back from that. And then on top of that, I still owed a lot of clients, videos and lessons and things for the mastermind. And at the same time I had my content team pinging me being like, hey, like, what are we doing for the YouTube channel? I allotted all these hours for you. Where's the videos? Even talking about right now like puts me back in that pressure cooker of like, there are so many people that rely on me. And I am only one person and I cannot breathe. And I was at my desk. It was a Saturday evening working on a weekend, trying to catch my breath, trying to figure out what is the most important thing I need to do because everything was just connected to each other. And I almost like time traveled into the future to figure out like, how do I solve this? I time traveled and I was like, okay, if I keep going the way that I'm going and let's say I do meet all of my deadlines. The first possibility is I'm going to end up in the hospital because I already feel like I'm dying. Okay. So not a great option. Second option is I try my best to do everything that I've promised for everyone. But at some point, this is going to compromise my integrity. At some point in the future, I'm going to need to cut corners, which is not what I'm all about. At some point, something's got to give. I can see a future where I'm not even going to make original content. I'm just going to look at what everyone else is doing and be like, you know what? That's a great content idea. I'm just going to do exactly that because I do not have time. Even think about an original thought because I'm trying to hold my business in place and please everyone else. And so neither of those two options were favorable. Do I ruin my reputation, my own integrity, my own self-respect or do I end up in the hospital? And then I thought through just like my business journey and I realized the foundations weren't even there. Like my story is when I started my YouTube channel, originally the content that I was making was like life advice, niche documenting my journey, big sister vibes. And then one day I had a friend that wanted to do a collaboration and the only common ground that we found within our interest was Instagram. And so we did a video randomly. I was just doing her a favor like, you know what? Yeah, sure. Let's do a collab. Help each other. Go to Instagram. My video ended up going viral and we're talking like millions of views in a matter of weeks. And when I look back in that moment, I almost feel like this was a canon event for my career because I had to make a choice. This video is popping off. I'm getting millions of views. Everyone is wanting more from me for this topic. Do I continue to make videos that I enjoy, that I like? Or do I go this route, blow up my channel, pursue growth, do the topic that everyone else wants me to do and stick with that, change everything about myself, like what we were talking about earlier, this is how you survive, this is how you gain acceptance, or at least my immigrant mindset thought that way. I'm going to change everything about what I want to do in order to please everyone and meet this demand. And also looking back in my early 20s, that's what I valued. I valued growth. I felt like I had sacrificed so much to even be a YouTuber. I quit my job for this. So of course, being in my early 20s with no money, with nothing, no job really, if it's just doing it as a hobby at that point, of course, I'm going to pick the route to grow my YouTube channel. But now fast forward in my 30s, my values are a lot different. And so my business foundation was already built on people pleasing. So that was kind of like the, oh my gosh moment, that was like, something's got to give. And I need to stop feeding this monster. I need to stop feeding this Frankenstein because if I continue to perform and I continue to like, for more energy and time and effort, my future is not going to look very great. How did you like, how did you do it? Like, I, you know, I just, I think that there are a lot of people listening, if you have found some sort of success where, you know, it's not exactly what you imagined. And you know, I think of so many times in my career where, you know, like I had a mastermind for one year and the pressure was just so much. And it wasn't in alignment because all I wanted to do was make it worth it for people. It's all, I hear so many similarities of like, I want everyone to earn every single penny back plus some so that it's worth it so that they like me so that I over delivered in every area. And you know, I think what's so interesting is that there are people listening to this right now that either have offers that aren't in alignment. They've created businesses that aren't in alignment. They have ideas brewing where they are looking at, you know, the sunk cost fallacy of like, I've already invested so much time and money and it's not right, but I'm going to keep pushing forward. How the heck did you walk away and shut it down? That is crazy to me in crazy in the most inspiring way. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in an ideal world, in my opinion, is you don't get to the point that I got to. Yes. If you can help it, where like everything just needed to have a whole revamp and change. Like, ideally it's maybe like you beta tested something and then you're like, okay, no, I'm going to remove this. And so my advice to a lot of people, if they're going to execute anything is actually think about how would you exit this? Like how would you leave it if it doesn't work out or if you have a values change and you realize that's actually not what you want? Because for me at the time, I felt a lot of pressure all the time to like execute and to come up with a plan because I had a team that relied on me. I think like adding a layer of being a public figure and having like an audience that wants to know all your moves, like it creates that pressure cooker of like, I need to make decisions really quickly and therefore you don't think things through. And then therefore, you don't think about how you'd exit something. So that would be like, if you could avoid it, that would be great. Yes. But if you cannot avoid it for me earlier, I said the word like, I need to stop feeding the pig. I kind of want to give a little bit of context to that because that was the mindset that I was in. I studied brand management in university. And I remember my brand management professor, he kind of gave us this lesson where the mistake that a lot of companies make is when they see a product line that's struggling, the first thing that they do is they cut the budget. And I remember professor Silk screaming at us saying, if you want something to grow, you need to feed the pig, feed the pig. That's all he said. And that has really resonated with me, like in my business journey, as I think back on, is whatever you focus on grows. And so it's important to cut your losses if it's something that you do not want for it to grow because for me, I built an eight million dollar business in four years. But that was because I just kept feeding this pig that I didn't even want in the first place, but it got to like four years later, where now suddenly a viral YouTube video had turned into a multi million dollar business with all these employees, with all these clients. And just all these things that at the time I felt like I couldn't get out of, but knowing the understanding of like stop feeding the pig, I'm like, something has to stop. And so if I don't rip the bandaid and make the uncomfortable decision to walk away, this is never going to end. And so that's ultimately the decision of like why I did such a drastic exit, ideally most people, perhaps it's not that drastic and in actuality, maybe it's a portion of your business that's not aligned, not the whole thing. It's product line like you mentioned or certain offer, but for me personally, in my journey, it was the entire, the entire thing. And so what I ended up doing was once I made the decision, the first thing that I did was I needed to calculate the cost, like how much is my piece worth? How much is this actually going to cost me to remove all these things? So I talked about our consultant because I had a team, give me an estimate of like what a very generous severance package would look like. And then I also made calculations of like, okay, my mastermind had just started. What would it look like to refund every single customer, even though I had already poured in a lot of money and resources and time into it, but how much would it cost for me to refund everybody? I had that calculation. Okay, now how much would it cost if I stopped like running the Boston Grand Academy, which was my course that was doing, you know, that was enrolling clients every single month? And then I asked myself, how much money do I realistically need to live? What are my lifestyle expenses? Something that I had never thought about before, which is crazy. I didn't ever think about what is actually enough. And so when I did the calculation, it was eye opening to realize that I actually don't need that much. And it was in that moment where I was like, I actually never really needed to launch this mastermind in the first place. I actually never really needed to enroll all these customers every single month into my course. I actually have enough. And so when I saw it from that perspective, it was a lot more empowering to know that I'll be safe. And that's a very privileged position to be in. And that's why my biggest advice too for a lot of business owners is do not immediately spend all the money that you make. You never know what the future is going to look like. You never know if you want to take a break. You never know if like the platform that you're selling your services on disappears one day, you need to have cash and bang for these moments. And I was so grateful that I did. And I realized, yes, my piece is worth this much. Okay, I am obsessed with all this. And you know, it's interesting because I'm a bit older than you by a little bit, but I but I feel like it's so interesting because I have a really old soul in that I've been in so many rooms, like the rooms you were talking about when you get into them. And I always am asking myself, is more better? Is more better because I think that that is such a good question. And when you don't know you're enough point and your safety point, more is I was appealing, right? It always sounds so good. It always sounds so great. And I have sat down with so many peers in our industry who have bigger businesses and make more money who say, I would do anything to go back to a team of 10 or oh, I would die to be able to like take summers off or things like that. And it's so interesting. And I'll never forget coming home from a mastermind where I was meeting my heroes, right? And Drew and I are sitting on the floor in front of the TV watching my bravo eating like terrible takeout sushi from Minnesota. And he said, how was it? And I said, I'm not the richest person in the room, but I'm the happiest. And that is the metric that I've always tried to enter those rooms. Not that happiness is a contest, but that like peace and happiness to me is like the metric of success. But how did you get there? Like, I'm so curious if I could ask, oh, of course, I think like, yeah, yeah, because I see you, like I've obviously followed you for a long time. You were a big part of my personal journey of why I quit. And I'm like, I've seen your Instagram, I've seen you like, you know, rubbing shoulders with really powerful, like big people in the space, right? How have you like maintained that like, was it, were you always like that? Were you always like, you know what, I'm just, I'm happy with happiness. Like, this is enough for me. Or did you also have to learn like a similar lesson that I did? I think both because so to me, I have always been dead, averse. And so we have been so lucky to like, as I've earned money, we've been able to pay cash for everything. I don't ever want to owe anyone anything because to me, that feels like the opposite of the freedom that I crave, especially as an entrepreneur. But I also feel like so many people are rich in their bank accounts and bankrupting their lives. And it's so easy to see that, right? When you are with people like that, and the more that I peek behind the curtains of powerful people, the more that I realize they are chasing something that they will never find. And so it's really interesting because when I, this is why I resonated so deeply with your story. Like, you were my dream guest to come on this show is because when I saw what you did in your year off, it was more than what entrepreneurs that are obsessed with more will never experience in their lifetime, what you accomplished in a year of taking that time off and how you found yourself. It's so interesting to me because I think that I've talked about finding your enough point for years and years and years and the way that I've been able to pivot so many times from being a wedding photographer to a podcaster to online course creator is getting really clear about what is my enough point and like, what do I actually need? And I think that's helped combat that more is better mentality that so many people have because for me and now for you, time is our currency, right? You were willing to trade all of that money that it took for you to claim back your freedom to have your time back. And so I just think it's so powerful when you recognize that because for so long, especially when you're starting a business, we're chasing money. And when we really recognize that like time is life and like, that is what we want more of. It changes everything. So your story is just like hit me in my soul because I have seen so many women, especially build businesses that aren't the dream and that aren't what they would define success as. And as their lives and their values shift, they find themselves almost hating what they've built. And that's not what we want. Yeah. And so I love how you're showing up and teaching the different ways. So let's talk about the rebuild. So actually first, let's talk about your year off. What did you do? And like, how did this achiever driven rule following people, please or girl, learn how to find joy outside of work? Oh my gosh, you know, it's funny because whenever I get this question of like, what did you do? I'm all my mind always goes blank because I'm like, what did I do? I did nothing. I watched Netflix, I slept for 12 hours a day. And I used to be ashamed of that story of like, I didn't do anything. Like, people think like, oh, you probably want on this like, eat, pray love and you probably did a lot like use that time to personally improve yourself on like, no, I rested because that is what my body needed. So in doing that, I learned a lot about health though. So what I learned about health was I did not realize how much stress my body was actually carrying for years or years and years and years. My body had been trained to manage a certain level of stress out of survival, right? And you can kind of tell if you look at my old videos, like, you know, my face is a bit puffier. I have more like, in real life, I had more like anxious energy, like just like talking a mile a minute and just like always like, you know, your body tells you these things, but you ignore them, but it will show you the stress that you've been holding on to. And so when I finally took that break, the sabbatical and like released everything, my body, I needed to sleep 12 hours a day for like half of my sabbatical because that was the amount of sleep debt that I had accumulated for years. And I also got really sick a lot of the times during my sabbatical because it almost felt like my body was purging and releasing all of the stress and all of the tension and all of the things that I had accumulated for years. And so seeing like the contrast and like seeing like, oh my gosh, like, this is actually what my body is feeling, but I don't let myself feel that way. Like my head is just like, yes, no, no, no, no, no, push it away, push it away. Let's survive. Let's let's hustle. Let's make money. Let's sign clients. Do what you need to do to get things done. I realize that this is the result of not taking enough breaks in general because if you let's say actually took your weekends as weekends or maybe took a week off every month, I don't think that you'd be in a position that I was where for half a year, I was sleeping for 12 hours a day and could not move and was sick. And so that taught me a lot about health and the importance of it. And so now I make sure that if I'm feeling like unwell, I will take that day off or I will not work. And this radical was so great because it gave me evidence that taking breaks is a good thing. Like I realized that I never created enough evidence for myself that taking a break and saying no is actually a safe thing to do before I would think if I take a break, I'm going to lose everything. And if I say no, this opportunity will never come on my lap again because that's the immigrant mindset that you were just so grateful that someone noticed you and that you were so grateful that this opportunity came and you better take advantage of it because you'll never get it again. And that's like something that my parents always kind of instilled in me because they were immigrants and they're just grateful to be in this country, right? But that doesn't serve you in business. That doesn't serve you where you've proven your worth. And so I realized that like all of that was going on. And that was a big reason why I just never felt safe to take a break. But then when I took that year off, yeah, of course I was a little bit nervous, like if I come back, what's going to happen, like do I have to rebuild everything? But actually when I came back, so many people were so excited, like it did not hurt anything. If anything helped, I got way more creative. I got just way more open and chill and calm. People love this version of me. And so I have now created evidence for myself that whoa, if I can take a year off and still survive and like thrive actually, taking a week off is nothing to me. Taking a month off is nothing to me. So I've built up that evidence for myself and that was like a really big, big learning lesson from my sabbatical. Okay, let's be real. Why are we still overpaying for wireless? I know I've been guilty of it, but Mint Mobile is here to change the game. For just $15 a month on a three month premium plan, you can get unlimited talk, text and high speed data on the nation's largest 5G network. That's right, 15 bucks. You can even bring your own phone, keep your number and all of your contacts. The switch is super easy and there's no need to start from scratch. You get to keep everything the same and just pay less, like way less. 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But I also think it's universal for women to think that we need to wait for somebody to give us a big break and we can't say no because this could be the big break. It's like the little girls who anytime you meet someone, you're like, this could be my partner. This could be the one and like, oh my gosh, we just had a meet queued in a coffee shop. This is it. Like we tell ourselves these stories out like someone else needs to hand this to us. And I know even for me when I became a mom, there was this innate feeling of like momentum. Like if I slow down, the trajectory will slow down, the momentum will slow down. And I really had to realize and learn how to trust that I can hit the brake pedal and trust myself to remember where the gas is. And I feel like that was a huge takeaway of like, I know where the gas is and I know how to push it if I need it. And I know also to say no, if it's not necessary. And the more women I meet, it is interesting how it's almost like we get on this hamster wheel and just keep running faster and faster and faster and faster because of those lies, right? I feel like I love what you've said. And I also feel like grateful to be to be able to share my story because, you know, at the same time of us being so afraid to slow down and thinking that it's going to hurt us and our business, I am also an example of what it looks like to do things like a mile a minute and then still get a bad result, which is I'm unhealthy. I feel like I'm dying and I had to refund everybody. I had to just do this whole public thing in front of the whole internet of me showing that I cannot keep up with the business that I build. So, you know, in either spectrum, you lose. Yes. Yes. Okay. So let's talk about how people can win because one of the things that I have loved about your comeback and something that I just admire so much is your authenticity and your ability to redefine success and say, hey, what I was doing in the past was authentic to me then, however, it is no longer aligned. And I think one of the hardest things is as we learn, sometimes we look back at our old selves and we're like, you got it wrong, girl, you got it wrong. And that can be really humbling because in those moments, we thought we were right. And so what made you come back and like, how have you approached this reentry with the new lens, the new idea, the new foundation? Yeah. That's a great question. I think it's important not to shame ourselves because I shamed myself for a while of like, oh, I suck. Like I made such bad decisions. Like, why did I do that? Like, I'm such an idiot. Like, just that self talk is just so toxic. I realize like, I still honor my early to like my 20 year old self that made those decisions because genuinely at the time, that's what I valued. And I think if anyone takes anything from listening to this story in our conversation is slow down enough so that you can be in tune with whether or not your values have changed and give yourself enough space to readjust certain parts of the business that do not meet those values anymore. I think we keep thinking that we are going to be the same person for the rest of our lives and have the same ambitions. And I admit it's hard sometimes to feel like you're disappointing your past self and your past vision board that you did five years ago, that you're going to be this multi, multi millionaire and be on the Forbes cover and have a 1 million subscriber YouTube channel. I know it can be hard to disappoint that version of you, but that version of you is also holding you back from like growing and finding this like new identity that you're stepping into because that's just the process of growth, right? And so that's something that I feel is really important to say from the get go. For me, I realized that I wanted to come back because my partner Leon, he actually asked me the question of, okay, imagine you have all the money in the world. What would you be doing? And I'm like, honestly, I would do the same thing that I was doing before, but just differently. Yeah. And I learned that I was actually, I had the best job in the world. Like I had like this was my dream job to make videos, to write, to express my thoughts, to connect with other people. All of that was actually what I've always wanted in a career. But I was just in the wrong team. I was in the wrong department. I was in the wrong company. It's the same thing as like loving your role, loving the activities that you do, but being in the wrong company culture or being in the, like having the wrong manager or like, you know what I mean? But it didn't necessarily mean me to be like, I'm going to go back to a nine to five or I'm going to do a complete career switch. It was recognizing I actually have the power to change the narrative a little bit and change the environment. And I'm so grateful now because I'm almost like rebuilding my business with a new set of values that I now recognize and also like business wisdom that I accumulated in my 20s. And so I want to share some like switches that I've done just to allow people to kind of feel the difference. So yes, number one, back then, I think because I built my business in my 20s, like your 20s is your first decade of being an adult. And I remember in my 20s, the energy was always like, Oh my gosh, this is never going to happen again or I'm in a rush or I need to figure all these things out like ASAP, right? I think that led me to rush through decisions a lot because I always felt like if I didn't figure it out in time, then I would be a failure. But now like looking back at that decade, I'm like, I figured out everything just fine. And whenever I thought that I was never going to figure something out, I ended up doing that. And now going into my 30s and building this business, I now have that wisdom of patience. Yeah. And that's really beautiful because now I'm like, I'm not in a rush to launch something. I'm not in a rush to like figure out the direction of my channel. That is all going to fall into place as I just authentically share my journey, my lessons, what feels right in the moment. And one thing I also learned about myself that I think is very important to share with other people is I recognize that I, even though I was an entrepreneur, I was still an employee. I had an employee mindset through and through. And what I mean by employee mindset is we have been conditioned ever since the Industrial Revolution to work for a monthly paycheck, right? And so when you feel pressure to make money every single month, you are going to rush decisions, you are going to accept things that you don't actually like or want to do. But because you want to make that monthly paycheck, you're just going to say yes to. And that leads you to saying yes to a lot of unaligned opportunities just for the sake of making money. So let's say you have a client and you're like, oh, but, you know, I'm not hitting my target this month, then I'm just going to take on this client. That's not an actual good fit because I want to feel safe in getting that monthly paycheck. And so, yeah, you're nodding, I feel like we've all been there. But now in this new season of me building my business's new era that I'm in, I'm transitioning my mind from an employee mindset to an investor mindset. And how an investor thinks now or at least how I think now is, well, I actually don't think I need to feel that pressure for a monthly paycheck. What if I took a month off to invest in my health, to invest in my creativity? And by taking that month off, I'm able to make my entire year's worth of income in just one week with a launch. What if, and that like changed my perspective on the pace that I work now? Because I have the previous experience that rushing doesn't help you with anything. And now trusting that I don't need to work for a monthly paycheck, I am, I'm being patient and I'm being disciplined in waiting for that moment where I'm able to like make everything I want that is enough in one go. And so that's kind of like one of the really big shifts that I've really instilled in myself now in this new season of business and having that patience. Yeah. Oh, I love that. And I feel like I can feel the wisdom oozing out of you. Well, I had a year to think about this. So, yeah, I mean, but it's so, it's so true and it's so beautiful and honorable. And I think what's so exciting about your comeback and like why I'm just so obsessed with watching it unfold is you are literally just taking people on the journey and it's going back to your roots, right? It's like, you kind of killed the content factory, even in one of the videos you're like, I signed this sponsor and then all of a sudden I like got stuck trying to create the content and I just canceled the sponsor. That's not what I wanted to do. Yeah. I walked away for $200,000 worth of sponsorships because I was like, wait, I'm noticing this pattern again. Yeah. I am chasing this monthly paycheck because these sponsors helped me feel safe. Yes. But as a result, if I'm making content for other people that I don't even want to make, I'm taking away time away from like me creating content that's going to attract the people I actually want to serve and sell to or to like, you know, nurture, you know, you can't have everything. And so thank you for bringing that up because I think that was also a moment where I had this aha moment of like, Oh, actually, I'm going down the trap again. Yeah. Like I feel it. Uh huh. And I think what's so interesting too is that like as you are an entrepreneur for anybody listening, you are constantly learning and evolving and you were constantly stepping back into the same traps, right? It's like any time you think you overcome something, the universe or God is going to give you an opportunity to be like, you sure you share or you got this? And I think that you, what's so beautiful is that like every time you're tested, you get stronger in that conviction and you get more clarity in what that is for you. And so it's just been so awesome to see your vulnerability and to see you be willing to step away to recalibrate. Was there ever a time where you thought I'm not coming back? Like I'm done. You know, we call it a sabbatical, but back in a lie, I was like, I don't know if it's a sabbatical. Like I don't know. I'm kidding. Retiring sabbatical. Like I really did not know, but what I did know was I think it was around, I want to say like month nine of my sabbatical, now called a sabbatical. Yes. I was just so bored. Like I was like, okay, I'm working out every day, I'm watching Netflix. I'm like walking outside with my dog and like in the beginning was nice and I was also traveling a lot, but it got to a place where I'm like, I am so bored. Like I can see why people say retirement is overrated because I just missed having that like purpose and I missed having that like, I'm going to wake up in the morning and like do stuff. And like it, I feel like I'm doing something meaningful and I feel like I'm. And so I really do see my recovery in stages, like the first stage was absolutely just letting my body rest the way that it needed to repeat some relationships that like I had neglected because back then I felt like I spent more time with industry peers than I did my own friends and family, which really showed me like, whoa, this is not the way to do things because now where I need people the most, the only people that are here for me are my friends and family that knew me before the business, right? And then the next phase was like, okay, now I'm going to do everything that's on my bucket list. I'm going to travel. I went to so many places and then I was like, okay, now what? Now what? Like, what is the meaning of this? And so that's why I came back because I'm like, I still have this itch to create. It's something that I've always wanted to do, but the burnout made me like fall out of love with it. And I just had to heal myself first in order to like really fall back into my art. Where can everybody find you and connect with you and follow your journey now? I cannot recommend your YouTube channel enough. I was literally telling Vanessa before it like I went through my texts and just typed in her name and saw how many people I'd sent her video out to because I just thought it needed to be a part of a universal conversation among women about burnout and building something that suits you and your definition of success. So where can everybody find you? Yeah. They can find me on my YouTube channel, Vanessa Lau, and that's where you can really see like the evolution of my content. But what I would recommend is people to actually follow me along on my newsletter. It's the creator journal. So the creatorjournal.co. That's where I treat it as my diary and I'm really updating people on like what's really going on behind the scenes. What I have learned on this journey and I want to mention like make sure I say this so that people know is as I'm coming back to my business, I now realize that we underestimate the power of death. Back then I ran my business just focusing on volume more and more and more and my business model reflected that as well. I was selling courses. I need to make sure I have like all these new customers coming in and you know, I need to make sure that it's every single month. And so that put a lot of pressure on my YouTube channel to feel like every video needs to be selling something in order to get more and more and more and more and more customers. But what I want to make sure that your listeners know about is the power of depth. You actually don't need that much to build a quote unquote successful business and success is defined on your terms. That's also really important. So for example, if you had a thousand people who love you so much, who celebrate you for who you are, who like literally like just want to be in your proximity all the time because they are so obsessed, they feel so seen by you. If a thousand people were willing to pay a hundred dollars a month just to get support from you, that is a hundred thousand dollars a month. That is a one point two million dollar business just with a thousand people. But the problem is a lot of us, we don't think one point two million dollars is enough. We don't think a hundred thousand dollars a month is enough. That's more than some people make in a year. And so when I thought about this and realizing like very similar to our conversation of like monetary, like I actually don't need that much money to like live a good life, I also don't realize I don't need that many subscribers or viewers. Like if they come into my community, I welcome them with open arms. But I actually don't need that much. And instead I'm going to focus on nurturing the one thousand people that like are ride or dies. And that's why I started my newsletter. It all links back to this. Don't worry. That's why I started my newsletter in the beginning. I had 200,000 people on my email list and when I came back, I let it all go. And I restarted my newsletter from scratch in order for me to build a tribe of people who love me for me, who are down to read the content that I write, who are down to like love me for who I am in the season right now. And it has felt so much better running my business and approaching my brand in this way. For those of you who resonate with my story, my newsletter is really where I pour into really where I share where I'm at in my journey. And so I welcome everyone to subscribe and to read my newsletter at the creator journal dot co Vanessa, you are amazing. Thank you for all of our listeners. She has not really gone public with this story on anyone else's platform. So it just means so much to hear this from you and host this conversation and just thank you for your willingness to go first in a lot of ways that a lot of women are watching and it's just making such an impact. Thank you for having me. I think like there's honestly so much more I could be like, you know, I have this like whole year worth of like wisdom that I'm like, have been holding in. And so I'm very grateful to be on this podcast. I think this podcast has done amazing things for a lot of women, including myself. I would not have quit my job. If I was not listening to your mac and cheese intro, like seven years ago and listening to how you turned like a small camera that you bought into the empire that you've built today. And it feels so good to speak with someone who shares similar values to me. And so I really thank you for offering me this space. I think we'll just have to do a part two. That's what I'm. I absolutely need to amen. This was such a powerful interview for me because I've just been so inspired by Vanessa's boldness to take a step back and reevaluate, especially at such a young age. And my mission is to help you build a business that you don't hate so you can live a life that you love. That is as honest as I can get. And so watching her acknowledge and realize that while successful, it wasn't a business that fueled her that she wanted to build her life around. I love that she was brave enough to take a step back. And I sincerely hope that you, my lister, don't have to get to that point to create such a massive decision that you have to make. I hope that you can see yourself reflected in her story in mine. And I am just so appreciative that you are here and along this ride with us. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Gold Digger podcast. Until next time, keep on taking your biggest goals, but don't forget to take a break. Thanks for pulling up a seat for another episode of the Gold Digger podcast. I hope today's episode fueled you with inspiration, gave you information that you can turn into action and realigned you with your true north in life and business. If you've enjoyed today's episode, head on over to golddiggerpodcast.com for today's show notes, discount codes for our sponsors, freebies to fuel your results and so much more. If you haven't yet, make sure you're subscribed so that you never miss a future show. We'll see you next time, Gold Diggers. [music] [BLANK_AUDIO]
