My first business was making rowing videos for schools. I didn't know how to use Premiere Pro. I didn't know what an ND filter was. I used a tripod as a stabiliser. That was 2016.
Over the next six years, I started and failed at everything. Social media management. Facebook ads. Wedding videography. A software company called Flowkit.io. So much of my career felt like sandcastles, three months at a time, build something, watch it wash away, start again.
Then I built my Instagram account to 80,000 followers for digital art. Launched a Photoshop course. Did everything I thought you were supposed to do. Almost nobody bought. Which ultimately lead to me quitting all of this for almost a year.
When I came back, I did one thing differently: I made myself the brand. Not a themed page. Me. And I built a digital product business, a real one, that did $400K in its first year. Six years of failure and finally something worked.
I didn't start teaching until I'd built the business myself. That matters because most people in this space did it the other way around. I did it backwards. Business first. Teaching second.
And here's the part no other coach will tell you: I'm still figuring it out. Three back-to-back million-dollar years and I'm still hitting walls. Still solving problems I haven't seen before. Still turning those failures into lessons for my students the following week.
I am no different from you reading this right now. I just started earlier and have more scar tissue to show for it.