From Struggling to Six Figure Months w/ Leah Gervais – Ep. 31

In this episode, we cover Leah’s start in her entrepreneurship journey (01:15), how mindset has played a role (04:39), and the importance of taking action (18:02).

Check out this video “How to Start a 6-Figure Business and Travel the World”

Audio Transcript

Hello, welcome back to The Wanderlover Podcast. We have such a special guest with us here today. She’s a close friend and one of my day one inspirations. Welcome to the show, Leah.

(44s):
Thank you, Danielle. Thank you so much for having me. And you have always inspired me too. Oh, Oh my God. I feel like it’s been years since we met. So Leah and I met in New York city at like a pivotal moment of both of our careers. I think I had just quit my corporate job and you were diving into entrepreneurship, right? It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come. I know, and would you like to describe your journey of how you went from a corporate job to creating like a multi-six figure business? Yes. Thank you. So hi everyone. My name is Leah. Thank you so much for having me Danielle Long story short. I started my now business as a blog in 2016 when I was working as a paralegal in New York.

(1m 28s):
And I knew I wanted to not do like law, but I didn’t know what else to do. And I was sort of craving something different. So I started this blog out of just sort of confusion and I wanted to write about my confusion and I did, and it was weird and no one really got it. I didn’t either. And I was all on track to go to law school and I had taken the LSATs and I was accepted. But for whatever reason, this directionless, you know, not successful blog was kind of pulling me more. It had barely started at that point. So I ended up declining my law school acceptances and over the next, I would say two years kind of trying to put the puzzle pieces of my life together.

(2m 10s):
You know, I was only in my young twenties, so I don’t think anyone knows what’s going on with their life, but I felt very lost because I had always thought I was going to go to law school. So I had this struggling blog, this blog that wasn’t making me any money I traveled for awhile. I got a job at a nonprofit and I really did love this nonprofit, but for whatever reason, this sort of whisper of entrepreneurship just never, never stopped coming to me and being loud, honestly. And it just got louder and louder. The more I tried to suppress it. So after about two years of starting it and working at a nonprofit, I had basically two moments, which I can get into if you’re interested. But I had two moments where I really had to look hard in the mirror and say, am I going to do this, or am I going to not do this?

(2m 55s):
And those really propelled me. And within a matter of months from there, my started taking off. It took off really quickly. I was able to quit my nine to five job in 2018. I had my first I figure month in 2018, I hit six figures in 2019, and then six figure months in 2020. So it happened quickly once, once I decided it was going to happen, it happened quickly. I love that. And you are just an amazing, inspiring person. Like you walk, walk the walk or walk the talk. Well you both, hopefully, You know, like I messed that up every time I say, and I never learned what the right way is, but yeah, no, you literally committed to your business in a matter of like, you know, it was on and then off with corporate and now it’s thriving.

(3m 47s):
I’ve seen it grow too. You are urban 20 something when you first started and now it’s like solely your name. So the different iterations are all just amazing. Well, thank you so much, Danielle. That means a lot to me. I obviously think the world of you too. And I’m so humbled that you have been part of my programs and that I’ve been able to have, you know, a seat into your own journey too. And yeah, I mean, I have pivoted a lot and I, and I like telling that part of my story because I think that keeps a lot of people stuck is feeling like they need to have all these things figured out before they move. And it’s like, even if I had thought I had figured things out, I would have been wrong and I would have pivoted anyway. So I’ve never, I’ve had to learn to not let that stop me. Yeah. You can’t wait for the perfect moment and you can’t wait to have the perfect idea because in that time you’re waiting and thinking about it.

(4m 32s):
You could have been like, you know, going through three chapters already. Exactly, exactly. And more money. So, So what do you think has changed the most about you and your mindset and your business systems going through each of these iterations? Oh, what a good question. I think the number one thing that has changed between who I used to be before I was an entrepreneur and who I am now is the pure excitement around how limitless we really are. I don’t think I had that. And I, it’s not that I was a PA I’m actually relatively optimistic person naturally, but I do think that society really molds us to so much realism.

(5m 13s):
And that’s been probably my biggest blessing of all of this is both the work I’ve done on myself and that I’ve had to do, you know, because you do have to do a lot of things that people don’t think you can do, and that do sound foolish and that do sound risky and having to almost lie to yourself to the point where you think you can do it anyway, and then doing it, I think has been the biggest and best change. Just really having a limitless mindset. But you know, there’ve been, there’ve been other changes too. I mean, I think I do things that I think I work a lot more now than I did ever at a nine to five. I’m trying to think of like a negative change in, I honestly can’t, I think it’s been a net positive, but I, one thing that I think has changed a lot about my business, the way that I work, you know, I had those two years of kind of struggling on and off.

(5m 58s):
Is this gonna work? Is it not? Am I side hustler? Or what the hell am I doing is I was, I had such creative analysis paralysis and I had really bad, shiny object syndrome. And I think both of those are very common and creatives where you have a bunch of different ideas, but executing is hard. And I, I actually saw Bethany Frankel do an interview on this a few weeks ago and I loved it. She said that like money belongs to those who actually execute and follow things through. And she used the example of, I think they’re called the Winklevoss twins from say that they started Facebook and she’s like, it doesn’t matter who started Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg did Facebook. Like he executed it. So anyway, all this is to say, I spent two years being not good at executing, having idea after idea after idea.

(6m 41s):
And just thinking if my idea was so good, then it would work. And in reality it’s the idea is not enough. You have to kind of see it through even in perfectly. So I think I’ve gotten better at that. And I also think that shiny object syndrome was a huge thing that I had to overcome. I think I had it badly over those two years, really shiny object syndrome is just a form of self doubt because it’s always you assuming that other people know something that you don’t know. And one of the things I like to talk about in my mastermind is, you know, is that like you can become so shiny that you are only distracted by yourself and you can’t even look at other people. So those are probably the two biggest things I had to change. And I think a lot of it comes down to persistence and just, you know, keeping at it, even if all odds are against you, if everything’s telling you like you can’t do it, like you need to have firm belief in yourself that it’s going to work out and you are capable.

(7m 31s):
I totally agree. Yeah. And I think you do such a good job inspiring and instilling that in your clients and people you interact with. So what keeps you inspired? I, that’s a very fun question. I feel like I can get really deep with this one. I think what keeps me in the creative realm, which is where kind of my inspiration comes from and where my permission almost to do things comes from, you know, I feel like I’ve set big goals in life and I’ve always kind of had a vision for my life. And those are, those are what I am working toward, but it doesn’t always feel good to work toward that everyday. And it doesn’t always feel good to know what to do every day.

(8m 14s):
And I really try to ground myself daily, especially in the mornings with the reminder that we are just spiritual beings, having a human experience. And that helps me take things less seriously. And it helps me feel like I give them, it helps me give myself more permission to just try different things and have fun with things and not feel like I have to do everything. So by the book or so, how I think they should be done. And, you know, I really had to hone in and anchor into that philosophy when my dad passed away three years ago, as you know, I lost my dad. That philosophy has very much helped me come to peace with the fact that he’s not here as a human anymore, but spiritually that he is here in that spiritual, in that as a human, he had a great life.

(9m 1s):
So I’m really grateful that I kind of had to sit with that because I think that that has helped me continue to be inspired. And, you know, as my business has grown and as we’ve gotten a bigger team and more clients, all these things that I’m so grateful for when you, if you aren’t proactive about zooming out, it gets very busy. And I think when you’re in kind of like to do lists communications, talking to people, managing things, you know, those are those, it’s hard to be creative in that place and it’s hard to stay inspired. So that’s a philosophy that I really try to at least anchoring to once a day, if not actually like meditate on it. And I think that that just gives me permission to have fun with this and almost treat it like, yeah, it’s like my mental playground is how I think of it.

(9m 41s):
I love that. And I feel like the more you zoom out and the less, like, you know, in the to-do list in the day-to-day actions, that’s where magic happens. You know, that’s where you create stuff from an idea because you’re giving yourself that space to be in flow. Whereas if you’re so focused and I can resonate because you know, my to-do list or my calendar is always like things I have to do. And every time I look at it, sometimes I’m like, Oh my God, I’m so lucky to be able to do this. But other times it gets overwhelming to the point where I’m not thinking from an inspired place. Right? Exactly. It’s I think it’s something you have to be more proactive with as your business grows to like yours. How’s Danielle so much, you know, it’s, it’s one of those new levels, new devils kind of concepts.

(10m 24s):
It’s I don’t think I realized that so much earlier on, and now the more it’s grown, the more I realize that you have to be proactive about remembering that because it does get busy very fast and need, like you said, the busy-ness is a blessing, which is almost more sneaky because then you don’t fight it that much. And you have to, honestly, Yeah. And everything you said about like, you know, starting a blog, starting a business from the ground up. Like I resonate with that. There were times when my blog was like, what am I doing with this? And spending so much time on this blog post? I didn’t know anything about marketing. I didn’t know anything about like what to do after publishing. So everything, you know, that you went through, I went through, so all the listeners, if you’re going through it, there is a way out.

(11m 5s):
It’s not going to be this like struggle and stabbing in the dark forever. I agree. You’ve done an amazing job, Danielle. So I would love to learn about how your business has grown in this past year. And I’ve seen you, you know, take on new additional team members and really scale up your marketing, who was the first person you hired? The first person I ever hired was a VA. And it’s so funny looking back because I remember hiring him and I was like, okay, you can work three, maybe four hours a week. I was so terrified because I didn’t think I could afford anyone. And you know, it was like right as I was quitting, my nine to five and I was, my business was taking off financially, but I was just so scared because I now didn’t have a nine to five income.

(11m 52s):
And so anyway, that was the first person I hired, but that was, let me think about this. That was all that I had for almost a year. And then what happened last year? You know this, but this was actually just around this time last year is that my sister, Abby, who had started helping me with some things on her nine to five, she worked at a hedge fund in New York, her and I just started talking, there was some wind involved. And we were like, what if you just worked with me? Like, what if you just did that? What if we just did this together? It’d be so cool. We could create together, you know, didn’t day in and day out. So she was the first person I hired full-time so she, that was a very scary thing for me, that that felt like, you know how sometimes you make big investments in your business.

(12m 36s):
That that was a big investment. I had hired someone that I had to commit to and like pay taxes on and health insurance. So that was a year ago. So yeah, that was my first full-time person. And since then, so the PA, as of this recording, it’s been pretty much exactly a year since COVID hit. So it’s been an interesting year, but how my business has grown is that I have honed in on what I think my strengths are, what I think our business strengths are, and really tried to grow them. And this was another thing I had considered sharing. When you asked me what I had done differently, kind of a specific philosophy that I have is to go through periods of creating and then scaling and then creating and then scaling.

(13m 22s):
And sometimes I’ll go a whole year of like one year, the year. I think it was the year, my business hit six figures. I actually didn’t really do anything new at all. I just really kind of honed in on and fine tuned the things that I offered, you know, and then I created a little more and then we scaled more. And so anyway, now we’re in, I guess we’re in a little bit of a creative phase. We just launched our membership, but that is really how I think about things. And the last year was a lot about, especially because of COVID, I didn’t want to have a ton of new things. It just really wanted to support people with what I knew we were really good at. So we just tried to make more of that. That’s so cool. Go back to what’s already working and really fine tune it. And scale from there, you don’t need like a new product every month.

(14m 5s):
You don’t need to constantly be creating without seeing it True. Yeah. It makes me want to cry to think about that, you know, and sometimes it can feel limiting because you’re like, I want to create, I want to make a new product and I get that I’ve been there. I have those moments. I have those showers where I’m like, I just thought of the coolest thing ever. And I like want to get out and write the whole thing, but there’s equal excitement in delivery. And in really seeing people affected by what you create and in really seeing people’s lives or businesses or whatever you do transform by what you create. And you can’t really fully see that if no one knows about it, you know, scale your side hustle has been such a good lesson for me. You know, you’re an alum of scale, your side hustle, Danielle, you know, I’ve done it, I think nine, eight or nine times at this point.

(14m 47s):
And it’s, I think has a great reputation at this point. We have so many success stories. I’m really, really of what it’s become. It obviously is a big financial part of our business. When I started it, I think I had like three people in it. You know, it was not, it was not a huge success. It’s not like I just launched out into the world and birds what it is now. And I think if I would’ve let myself be discouraged by that and wanted to just create something new, which I did have her just to do. And I did do to some extent, but if I didn’t kind of see it through, I don’t think I would have, I don’t, it would not be what it is now. And I don’t think it would have helped as many people as it has now. Yeah. And that takes so much dedication. And again, like belief in yourself to look at those numbers and be like, I can do better instead of letting it discourage you, which is what I see, you know, working with new entrepreneurs, a lot of them questioning themselves.

(15m 31s):
They’re like, this means I’m a failure. This says something about who I am and my capabilities. Right. And they can’t see outside the box that if they implement new ideas and learn new things, new things are going to happen. And it’s only going to go uphill from there. I totally agree. I think that’s great advice. Yeah. And that’s awesome. Like three people, your first run ever. I know, looking back, I was like, woo My mastermind right now, my worst fear even before launching, I was like, where’s sphere one person. I’m just going to have one person. I’m not going to know if I’m going to sign them on as a private client. How is that? Even a group. Sure. Totally. And yeah, but the more you feed those thoughts too, I try not to, you know, think about it too often because it’s basically like praying for what you don’t want.

(16m 18s):
Every time I think about that, I’m like, all right. Switch and think of the best case scenario, Right? Yeah. I mean, I love that exercise, you know, like, why am I choosing to be a worst case scenario person? But I also think the cool thing about like being in business for as long as you and I have, which is still relatively new. Like when you look at everything that’s happened in a short amount of time and we’re, I’m so grateful for that, but it’s, it’s so cool because you get good at both. You get good at both, like switching your fears. Like, Oh my God, my mastermind, only one person is going to join. I’m going to be a laughing stock versus like, what if I sell this out? It would change people’s lives. It’s amazing. But there’s also this cool kind of backbone that you develop where it’s like, okay, my biggest fear could happen and I’d be okay.

(17m 3s):
That’s also super liberating is where you don’t even have to like be afraid of those fears anymore. Because even if they did happen, they probably won’t. But even if they did, you’ve probably been through worse and you’d probably be able to handle it. And you’re like you said, if you know, not to attach meaning to it, it doesn’t really matter. And you can just figure it out and move on. And tomorrow’s a new day. Yeah. And it’s your business, right? It’s Your, exactly, exactly. A lot of courage and a lot of power to really, you know, I see you as the CEO of your company and you make decisions so quickly, you, you know where you want your brand to go. And I feel like that’s what draws so many people to your message.

(17m 44s):
That’s what inspires everyone around you to take action. Oh, thanks Danielle. So did you always Think that about yourself? Thank you. That’s so sweet. I think that I have always been Pretty. I think I’ve always been an action taker. I realized that that might sound a little contradictory because I said at the beginning that I didn’t always execute that well, but I think there’s a difference between taking a lot of action and seeing things through. I think I always took a lot of action. I don’t think I always saw things through and I do think I do better now, but the one thing that you mentioned that I have had to get really good at, which I was not was I had to make faster decisions.

(18m 26s):
I had to realize that it was completely holding me back to, to stay in indecision. And to your point, as you said that, you know, if you are just continue looking for clarity, what it could be clarity, it could be anything. If you continue to wait for an answer in a decision, you don’t realize that you could have made the decision either. How did it work out for you made the decision, it not worked out for you and made a different decision all by the time you’re still there thinking about the first decision. And you know, that is really the main reason why nothing happened for me in those first few years. I can blame it on the fact that I didn’t know SEO. I can blame it on the fact that I was directionless and that was all true. But that all stemmed from the fact that I hadn’t actually decided I wanted to do this yet.

(19m 7s):
I hadn’t actually decided I was going to go all in yet because what those years looked like of nothing happening were consistent. Just, hi, I’m cold with what I was doing and excuse a minute, you know, like I’d have a month where it’d be like, okay, this month, I’m going to figure out X, Y, and Z. But I don’t know how, but I can’t afford it, but is this really working? But I don’t know who my like always coming up or, you know, but I’m busy or like my nine to five, I always had a different excuse. And so when I did make the decision and that’s really clearly how I think about it. Like once I decided I just bulldoze over those excuses and I, I went into debt to do it. I’m pretty open about that. Like I, you know, cause I don’t want anyone to think that all of a sudden these resources just magically appeared for me.

(19m 48s):
They didn’t, I went into debt to do it. I didn’t know really what I was doing. I certainly did not do what I do now because I didn’t even know how to do what I do now. So I had to just start where I was and really quiet. The other voices in my head that had those excuses, because I literally studied what it meant to make a decision. And when you really make a decision, there’s no other option. And like trying to think of a good example, like if you’re on the plane To Paris and you’re halfway Over the ocean and someone’s like, well, why don’t we go to new Orleans? It’s cheaper. If you’re not going to like, no, you’re going to parents have already decided you’re going. And you’re like, you’re on the plane. You know, the ticket’s been bought, you’re going to spend whatever money you’re going to spend.

(20m 31s):
It just is what it is. And you have to think that’s how I think about decisions. Now, once you’ve made one, anything else telling you, it might not be a good idea is irrelevant because you’ve already made it. And so that, that’s something that I’ve worked a lot. Yeah. And even like, when you make that decision, so of your past beliefs, They change and they come second to that decision you made. And I want to go back to like taking on debt, you know, spending money in different ways that you weren’t used to spending before. And that’s how you grow your business. That’s how you leverage debt in order to expand into ways that your business wasn’t previously expanding before. And I think that, I think at least coming from the finance world, it’s scary.

(21m 12s):
It’s like, you don’t want to have huge amounts of credit card payments a month. You don’t want to have this. It’s just like a heart. No. Although in other situations like when you’re buying a car, when you’re buying a house, it’s so normalized. Right. And it’s like, if you’re going to get a bigger house, a better car by taking this on, why not build a bigger business, Right. Yeah. I mean, I think about that all the time. You know, if, if I didn’t do that and I was terrified, I was very, I, my dad was a CPA. I was very much brought up in a similar mindset of like, that’s just a, no, there’s just no time in your life when credit card debt is justifiable, you know, but, but mortgages, but student loans or whatever the case may be and I lost sleep, you know, it, it, it was, it kept me up at night.

(21m 58s):
I was ashamed. I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to tell people, all that stuff I went through. And you know, now at this point here we are a year into a pandemic. If I would have to, if I didn’t do this, two things would have happened. I, there were two paths I was on. One is I would have gone to law school where I would have been nearly, if not six figures in debt, I would have been a lot, had a lot of student loan debt. I would have probably been furloughed, honestly, you know, just because it would have been a new associate. And that’s how, like, that’s what happened last year. Or if I hadn’t, then I would be still working, but I would still have all this debt. And I probably would be working more than first years already do because you’re picking up the sock for the people they did have to furlough, or I would’ve stayed in my nonprofit job where I know given the trajectory I was on, unless I had gone to graduate school, I lost school.

(22m 46s):
I would not be making as much money. They’re not nearly as much money there as I do now. So you know, that credit card debt is the best financial decision I ever made. And like that still blows my mind to talk about it. And I want to be clear to anyone listening to this. I’m not advising you to go into, but it’s, it’s a great example of questioning norms. And so many of the things they know, and I’ve been talking about here is about like looking at where a different scenario could exist right. In front of your eyes. And, you know, realizing that yeah, the worst case scenario is that, Oh my God, I had nightmares that I was going to end up on CNN. I was going to be like the poster child for falling for an internet scam that like never got out of credit card debt. That was so stupid wanting to be Instagram famous.

(23m 28s):
I thought that was going to be me. And so, but the complete reverse that the best case scenario did end up coming true. It wasn’t always easy. I didn’t always, wasn’t always able to pay off my minimums. I, you know, I had debt for awhile, but it will forever be the best, like the greatest financial decision I could’ve made for myself and my future and my family. Yeah. And I Think like going through those worst case scenarios, like you didn’t end up on CNN. No, I did not. And the reality is like, you know, you pay a fee and you pay it off and you’re growing your business and that’s it. Right. That’s the end of it. And that’s what happens when you make decisions, when you decide, yes, I’m going to commit to my business, this is going to happen.

(24m 9s):
And then you like start changing what you previously thought about investing about leveraging and that’s the new directions. That’s how your business grows from like 10 K months to a hundred K months. And because of decisions and changing what you previously thought was normal. Yeah. Exactly. Decisions change everything. And I don’t know if you teach a lot as an entrepreneur, I don’t know if you, I’m sure you have experienced that at some point, but I don’t think people realize how much more decisions you have to make when you work for yourself than you do at a nine to five, like little decisions. Like when you should get up in the morning, when you have to leave to go to work, when you have to be at work, when your lunch break is like, I’m very grateful that I don’t have people making those decisions for me.

(24m 53s):
I wouldn’t change it. I love the freedom of deciding it for myself. But you really do only have so many decisions that you can make in a day. You’ll you, we all get decision fatigue. There’s, that’s why you see people like Mark Zuckerberg wear the same thing every day, because he doesn’t want to take up the mental space of like what to wear or a lot of entrepreneurs eat the same thing for lunch every day and things like that. So you have to, that’s another kind of deeper thing I’ve had to learn with decision-making is how to manage how many decisions you make in a day, because it does fatigue you after awhile, Especially if you’re indecisive, Which you don’t make decisions quickly. Yeah. That’s true. That will make it even harder and more fatigue. And I think I heard, or I read that you stopped drinking alcohol recently.

(25m 36s):
Right? I did. I did God. How’s that going? Life-changing I definitely recommend it. If you’re interested. I know it’s a very personal thing. So, you know, everyone can do with it, what they want, but it actually, a lot of the reason that I decided to do this is what we’re talking about here is because I was sick of having decisions that I made be around alcohol. Should I drink? If so, how much am I going to drink? Is this gonna make me, is this going to be worth it? Is this gonna make me feel tired tomorrow? Whatever. Is this going to disrupt my sleep? It just felt cleaner. I just was like, what if I just totally stopped? Because here’s the thing I can always decide to start again, always going to be there and you can just make another decision, but I just, yeah.

(26m 21s):
I just made the decision to stop. And after I decided I did a lot, I kind of, I kind of reversed it, it, it’s not like I did all this research and then stopped. I stopped and then did all this research on why it was a good idea. And I’ve just completely lost the desire, which is fascinating. Cause I was, I loved like my happy hours and everything. And I was a pretty, pretty open about that. I shared it on our rooftop. I know, I know. I mean, those types of things I’ll miss, but the thing is we’d have just as much fun on a rooftop eating tacos or something. Yeah. Ugh, love tacos. Yeah. And this actually sounds like really compelling. We had like a going away party on a boat yesterday and I’m like really feeling there’s drinks I had yesterday.

(27m 1s):
Like I think I’m going to stop drinking, like Especially on a boat. Oh my God. A windy boat size and you’re you’re currently in Miami. Yeah. Yes. Currently Miami. Yeah. So Leah like spent your life in New York and decided to just move to Miami in the middle of the pandemic when New York was just really not what it used to be. And it’s awesome that you were able to just completely uplift yourself, bring your business over and work from there. And now you go to the beach every day. So lucky. I know. So, so blessed. I feel like I, I don’t know how I could ever go back to not having a laptop business.

(27m 44s):
And I know that sounds so spoiled. I’m sure you feel the same way. I literally can’t imagine not being able to like go wherever I want every day. Yeah. I remember it like it was a few months before we had first met. I was complaining about going into the office and not liking my situation, you know, going into the office when, before the sun Rose and then leaving after the sunset. And you’re like, am I, am I seeing daylight ever? Oh my God, totally. I remember like right before, right when I quit my job, I ha I worked there for like six weeks before I actually was done. And I remember going, like, we’re just so acutely aware how I love New York.

(28m 26s):
Danielle knows I love New York. I it’s, it’s like before my husband, it was the love of my life and even married. It’s still the love of my life. Don’t tell him, but it is just like the only thing I’ve ever really, you know, when I was little, I didn’t really know so much what I wanted to be when I grew up or all those things. I just knew I wanted to be in New York. And so anyway, I’ve always loved it. And I was just so acutely aware at the end there of like how my experience in New York. And so many peoples are like an overly shrunk apartment, too small of an apartment into an overly crowded smelly subway into an overly air conditioned, poorly lit office every freaking day, five days a week. Like that is how people spend their lives in New York. And that is the experience they have of the greatest city in the world.

(29m 8s):
So, you know, when I was quitting, my job and everything was taking off in my life was just transforming in the most spectacular ways. I was so giddy about being able to work from my computer, from a hotel or from a plane. I was so excited about that, but I remember just being equally excited to be like, wow, I can just like get up in the morning when I’m done with this, take the subway to whatever neighborhood I want. I can go to the West village. I can go to Brooklyn. I can go to the Bronx. I can go wherever and just work from a coffee shop there. And that is so cool. Like how, what a great way to live in New York is to be able to go and explore different work in different coffee shops, work in different works, whatever, like work in different. I worked in bars all the time just because I wanted to experience the city.

(29m 50s):
And yeah, I mean, it was, that is, that’s the, that the that’s the freedom that was equally as exciting to me as like the freedom that, you know, is the glamorous laptop lifestyle. It’s just really getting to do whatever you want to do. Yeah. Very liberating. And I remember when I was working in corporate, I like was telling my best friend, you know, everyone probably thinks we had this glamorous New York city lifestyle, but we’re just eating salads in our cubicle every day at lunch, because we can’t even afford to take like a 20 minute lunch break. We had to eat at our desk. And I was laughing at that. Yeah. And the first day when I had quit my job and I remember walking down the streets of East village, I’m like, Oh my God, like, this is time.

(30m 33s):
This is time that I never had before. And it was a surreal experience. I remember looking at other people too, being like, how are, what? Oh, that gives me chills. I can picture you doing that. And just being like, Whoa, it’s like the whole world. And when we did that interview that we work. That was really cool. Yeah. You were like my second podcast guest guests, And now I have a podcast. So I love that. We’re like part of so many milestones. I know. Yeah. I actually, to be honest, when I went onto your podcasts, AIDS didn’t know exactly what a podcast was. I was like, sure.

(31m 13s):
I’d love to be a part of this and never, you know, never had the thought that I would ever create one. Yeah. And just how things change within a year or two. Yeah. It’s crazy. Maybe you should, maybe you should come back. I would love to yeah. Like a recap or an update. Where is she now? Very true. Hollywood story. Yes. Well, it was amazing having you Leah and catching up. Do you have any last words for the audience as the inspiring, amazing person you are? Oh, thank you. Well, to all of you guys who are listeners of Danielle’s podcast, you could not be in better hands.

(31m 56s):
She knows her stuff. And talking about walk the walk. I don’t think anyone does it better than you Danielle. And though I know Instagram can be a comparison trap or it can be a little bit mindless and not always the best for your mental health. I do recommend just go save some of her photos and just look at it when you need a reminder that anything is possible because it is. And I think that Danielle has really shown that for herself and her life. And hopefully I have also, you know, just reconfirmed that if there’s any doubt and you know, I don’t know, just go for your dreams. That’s the last thing I want to say. I love that.

(32m 36s):
And I will link your socials in the show notes. Everyone give Leah a follow. Leah also has a podcast that I will hopefully be back on your biggest vision show Episodes every week. And we also have a membership. I don’t know if it’s okay if I share that, but if you’re interested in our membership, we also have, it’s a monthly membership and we have two calls a month. So if any of you guys are interested in like the type of things I talk about on my podcast, but asking me questions, if you, if you ever don’t love it, you can always cancel, but it’s, I run it. I’m the one in there. And I’d love to connect with you. Thank you so much for being on the show. Leah, Thank you so much for having me. It was wonderful to catch up with you and thanks for having your listeners to listen.

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✧ Follow Leah on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leahgervais_

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