DNP Ep. 46: The Journey of the Sarah Michelle NP Review

Sandra Pagenta: [00:00:00] Welcome.

Sarah Michelle: Thank you so much. I’m so glad to be here.

Sandra Pagenta: Yeah, no, I’m so excited to hear, oh, your hats and everything you’ve got going on.

Take it from the top. It really explained kind of what your day looks like. I’ve told them what you’re doing. You’re running this big company. You’re CEO woman in charge, but really take me through what your day looks like.

Sarah Michelle: So this is kind of a hard question because I feel like my day changes because we’re still very much, we’re not in startup culture anymore.

In my company. I feel like we’ve evolved past that because crazy enough, a year ago today, I had me, I had a part-time assistant who was a contractor. I have one part-time nurse practitioner who we do these things called love, study groups. So I’ll get up there and I’ll teach and I’ll call people and all this stuff.

And I was kind of grooming her into teaching avatar, but she was mostly running the chat boss. So like, my business was the three of us. So a year ago, this time, you know, it’s almost may someone’s graduation season. Like the big [00:01:00] time is coming up and I was like, okay. We need harder. Some people like, I don’t know who I haven’t totally figured out yet.

I was like, I know we’re going to need just like hands on deck. Like we’re just gonna need help. And so we ended up hiring our first two contracts. And they worked out beautifully and they still work for me today. And so we’ve evolved from me and two part-time contractors last year, we hired on two more after that.

So now we have 15 people, I think, seven of which I know, like I can’t even believe that’s something myself. So seven of which are full-time, the rest are contractors, but our contractors get a lot of flexibility in what they do. So some of them almost, I feel like it close to full-time. Just on the sign up things and stuff that they pick up along the way.

So the thing, even back a year ago today where it was me and two part-time contractors to today, like there literally 15 of us running like full speed ahead all the time, kind of like breaks my own brain a little bit, but it’s been such a massive growth. I mean, [00:02:00] our first year, because I started at the end of may of 2020, the first year, last year.

I mean, we had big growth, but from last year’s may to this year’s may has been like wild growth beyond my wildest dreams. My day to day really revolves a lot right now, unfortunately, around the back end of the business. So when I started my business, I was like all front end all the time. And so what I mean by that, I didn’t have a website.

I didn’t have an email set up. I had like nothing. All I had was I made a Facebook group. And like you said, I gave it away to my classmates for free. And I said, I’ll give you this little course I made for free if you’ll just invite somebody into the group. And so I actually gave it to the first 100 people for free.

And so it’s literally from may of that year to. Sent timber. I think it was it might’ve been almost October. And we can talk about all the melodramas and lessons I’ve learned in business too. [00:03:00] I talked to every single customer on Facebook, people would send me private messages. Like, Hey, I want your courses.

I’d be like, okay, cool. You can pay me here, here, here. I wait for the payment to come through. And now that, okay, send me your email. Now I’ll send you the course. So that had like the zoom recording, all this stuff. So to think about that’s what I did. And I was just like putting my face out there, talking to people, literally nonstop.

Like I remember. The first day that I sold the course, my phone like exploded. Like I remember my husband, I was like, my phone just won’t stop. Like I got overwhelmed. I got through my phone, across the room. I was like, I can’t even keep up with all this. So to go from that, to like now behind the scenes, That’s it in a lot of like software meetings, legal meetings, accounting meetings.

So now I’m like more on the backend, but I really keep up with the pieces that are truly genuinely loves. [00:04:00] Between all of those meetings, because that has to run for day-to-day operations of a business. But between all of those meetings, I’m still doing my left. Say groups, I still teach there. I’m still talking to students in our product community.

I’m still talking to students and Facebook, just not nearly as much as it was in the beginning. So I’ve told you a lot of things now, as I’m going to stop rambling, but it’s been, it’s been so fun. I literally, like, I just tell people all the time, like always dreamed of being an educator. And I always thought, you know, I was very like stuck in that thinking of, well, like this has to be like, okay, I’ll be an instructor off.

We should have courses like maybe one day I’ll become like an associate Dean. The next step would be like a real Dean, you know, et cetera. So I felt like I’m living out my dream just like 20 to 30 years. Before it was, I thought it was going to come,

Sandra Pagenta: but that makes sense. I love it. So I, what I, what I love most about your journey is that you’re describing.

What I hear about like, from a [00:05:00] lot of entrepreneurs, which is, it was all me. I was doing it all by myself and it was exhausting. Right. And then you hear this, like, I always hear there’s this pivot moment where like all of a sudden, the business starts giving back to you and you’re able to step away, but your role then changes because you go from being really close to the front lines to now kind of being the general in the back, making all the decisive moves.

The pieces. Right. One of the things I’m thinking about as I’m hearing you, like, what preparation did you have to then move from being kind of one of the frontline workers? One of the soldiers of the front line to now being the general in the tent, making all the rules and coming up with all the strategic moves that you have to make to keep growing

Sarah Michelle: the business.

I think there were two pieces and their names are Becca and Anna. So I’ll start with Becca. It was. November the first year I was in business and I was worn out because [00:06:00] I was so terrified. It sounds so crazy now, but I was so terrified. We were already having so much success of quitting my full-time job and losing health insurance.

I was like, how are we going to find health insurance? Like, what are we going to do? And that was like a holdup winning my job. And it actually. It took me quite some time after even a hard back on to quit my job. I feel like we coached the like every week, but in November of that year, I literally, and this will sound crazy too, but everything always comes full circle a couple of years ago when I was working as a nurse.

I actually was having to commute in on the weekend. So it’d be almost a two hour drive. I would work Friday and Saturday or sign up Friday. So I worked Saturday and Sunday and then I would drive back home and I would stay with a friend on Saturday night. So I wouldn’t have to date you are commuting between.

And so when I was doing that, My friend, my nurse friend had an idea for a taco truck. And so she, she went and got a [00:07:00] massage. And the lady who gave her a massage was talking about becoming a business coach. And so they did some business coaching together. And so I don’t know why that like hung on in my brain, but it did.

And so when I first started my business in November, that year, I was just like so worn out because I was working 50 hours a week. And then every spare moment I have. I was working on that. So like, I would get up at 3:00 AM because I started teaching at six 30. So I’d give a 3:00 AM. I’ve worked on my business till six 30.

And then when I got off work at three or four or five, depending upon the day I would work till 10:00 PM on my business. And then I would sleep very minimally and I’ll get up and start over. So like, obviously, like I was burning the candle at like literally every in the candle converged. So.

I think Katie talked about one time, a business coach for that taco van that she never fleshed out. Cause Katie always says, so it was like, I’ll just call that lady up. Like I was just like, is she even still doing business coaching? I don’t know, but I would just call her up and see what happens is.[00:08:00]

Literally on a, when I thought about it, we talk on the phone two hours later, I signed up for business coaching within five hours of that, because luckily my husband was very supportive. He, there was a big investment for us at the top, but he was like, if you’re going to make something of this business and he said, I have full faith that you can.

You need help and you need guidance or someone that’s built a business and nobody around us has any experience like that in any capacity. So hard on Becca and my first call with her, she said, I never do this. She said, but you need help. Like today, she’s like, before we talk on the phone next week and do our next coaching call, like, I need you to go ahead harsh somebody.

I don’t care who that somebody is, but you need a virtual assistant doing admin tasks. You need help on the clerical side, bare minimum. And she was like, and once you’ve hired that person, let’s talk about hiring more people. So that was how I ended up with my first virtual assistant. And so the day that I hired the virtual assistant, which was literally like two days later, like I just put a posting up and I was like, [00:09:00] please come take this job.

I interviewed a couple people and I just hired somebody on the spot. I made a post on my Instagram. And I was like, just hired my first employee. I was super excited. Right? Like Jess, it was a big moment. It was huge for me because it was really hard for me to let anybody into anything. I did this because you get like stuck in this mentality and it’s so silly looking back, like people can’t do it as well as I can do it.

But what people don’t see is when you’re doing a thousand different tasks, you can give like 1% to each of those tasks. But if you have someone who’s just working on email, just working on the face, it explodes, right? Like there’s so much more room because they’ve got full focus on one task. Whereas I was focusing on literally a thousand pounds.

So on top of my full-time job, as crazy as that sounds, it was nice. And basically I made that little post about hiring my first employee and some I used to go to school with, or your staff. She said, Hey, you know, we had connected [00:10:00] ironically again, because we went to nursing school together and then we graduated in nurse practitioner school at the same time.

So everybody’s in all the same student groups. So we kind of reconnected a little bit cause she posted her study calendar and I use part of her study calendar for fair. She’s like, do you have any, any help? Just let me know. You know, I’m a stay at home mom right now. I just had my baby like I’ve got Tom and I’ve got the flexibility to do it.

And I was like, okay, cool. Like, I’ll keep that in the back of my mind. And so. Just having the assistant alone. I literally, within like two weeks of that, had an idea for a brand new program that was going to be love. So everything I had up to that point was recorded. I’d always wanted to do something lot.

My students were asking for something, but I’d never wanted it to be love and like the generic way that everyone else was doing it. That makes sense. Because for me as a student, I didn’t find value like. Conference style or webinars style reviewers, just like two, 10 hour days back to [00:11:00] back your brains exploding.

Like

Sandra Pagenta: every, just I did that.

Sarah Michelle: Oh my gosh. It was so painful. It was so painful when I was like, if I ever make anything long, I don’t want it to be like that. That’s my goal. And so those first few weeks. I think I’ve got an idea that could work. I said, because I already know how courses are working because we can see all the students’ success in the Facebook group, which is really fun because every time somebody passes, they come in the group like posts like, oh, path will only get stuck.

Which I still read and people don’t believe me, but I really, I still read every single passing post because it just brings my heart so much joy. Like it’s just like the core of everything that I want to do. I had the idea for something called the launch day group program, which is basically. A five week program where I prepare you for boards and you get like little bits of video every day.

So you get the recorded courses. And then we meet up every two weeks and I’m like, okay, you’ve already learned the content. Right. So let’s do an erotic. Let’s talk about it and let’s make sure you know, the content, right? So they’re like all of the things that I [00:12:00] was needing as a student, I needed the structure of the calendar.

I needed somebody to hold me accountable. We have a private community in there. So I needed someone reputable that answered my questions and nobody out there was doing that either. I mean, it was all just like students on Facebook feeding off of each other. So, I mean, it was just like massive fusion. Really the whole like bulk of the program is to build up confidence.

So you’ve got the content, you can build up confidence in the sessions, ideally at the end of the five leach state tests. So even just those two weeks, I had the idea for that. And so I called Anna up and I was like, I’ve got this idea. It’s kind of crazy. I don’t know if it’s going to work, but I think it’s going to work.

I think it’s going to be like, I think he’s going to be slow to start out with, because there’s a lot of that student education that goes into that program because it is so different. People are like, what are you doing? What’s happening here? Like they need education before they bought, obviously. And I was like, but the one thing I do know is I’m going to need help.

And so I was like, just come on, do the chat box with me and I’ll do the teachings and we can talk about the rest later. And we pretty [00:13:00] much never looked back. She is now my chief operations officer. She rips just as hard as I do every single day. We’re like communication. She was like, It was literally, it was fake.

She was the best decision I ever made for my business was bringing her with me. And so we’ve been able to grow at the right we’ve had because I’ve had her alongside me as well. So I think Becca.

Sandra Pagenta: I want to stop you here, because what you’re saying is there’s so many nuggets and you just have to pick them out before we walk past them.

But what you’re saying is that you had the right people on the bus, right? So like one of the big things about business and understanding how to grow a business is. I hear over and over and over and over again that getting the right people to help you build is tantamount to anything that’s even more important than the mission it’s even more important than.

Values at some points it’s really important [00:14:00] who is working with you. And that’s one of the things that I think is so cool that you’re pointing out, but that also, you just did it and you figured it out. Right. And so a lot of people get so hung up in like, oh, but I don’t have it all figured out or don’t have it all planned out.

I don’t really know if it’s going to work. I think it might work. I don’t know. Okay. So I will do nothing. And it’s like, Just go do it. You just don’t know what’s going to work. Just start. And so those are two nuggets that I’m hearing from what you’re saying that are just so critical. And I really want nurse practitioners to understand that, especially those that are thinking about side hustles or businesses, or what can I do or what can I build?

Just go try it. And what’s the worst that can happen if it fails. You’re right back where you were and you just try it, try something else. Those are really awesome nuggets and. I guess my followup question from that, and again, we kind of go into your journey is when did you decide that you wanted to become a nurse and kind of walk me through this point where you were.

’cause you didn’t wake up one day [00:15:00] Sarah and have seven figure business. And on there, on the bus, getting to the dream and the journey, you didn’t just wake up with this stuff. You built it over time. And so take me a little bit about, I always want to hear people’s like I decided to become a nurse when stories, I think those are really cool.

And then kind of walk me through, I guess we talked a little bit about, but just kind of walk me through quickly, like how you got to, where you did start the business. Walk me through your process because I really want to know when you were like, I think I’m just going to like give out this education to all my classmates.

Like,

Sarah Michelle: it sounds crazy to hear it. So I think there’s two parts of that. I decided to be a nurse, I decided to be a nurse and then I had to read this odd to be a nurse. So what I mean by that is like growing up, both my parents are school teachers or middle school. And so like I’ll always envision myself, ironically, being a teacher, I didn’t really necessarily think about medicine as much.

My parents very much pushed me. I grew up in Eastern. Kentucky is very impoverished, is very [00:16:00] rural. They’re like education is your ticket, right? Education will always be your ticket. And so they didn’t super love being teachers. There’s a lot of politics to go on with teachers. And so when I was going to college, they really pushed me choose something in the medical field because you’re kind of job security, but you’re also going to have the education piece.

You’re going to have opportunities. These are our big goals. And so with their push, I knew there’s no way, cause I paid for school on my own and I wasn’t like eligible for like the grants and stuff and all that good stuff. And my fingers, like just a little bit too much money. So there’s gonna be paying for school.

I don’t know. Painful.

Sandra Pagenta: Yes. Yes, exactly. It’s like, we’re not poor enough. We’re still not wealthy.

Sarah Michelle: I pay for school on my own. And I knew I wasn’t gonna be able to afford medical school and they probably wouldn’t even be able to co-sign for those big of loans. So I was like, what am I going to do? Right. So I decided to be a [00:17:00] nurse, but always had like the teacher part of me, like in the back of my brain.

And so I was halfway through nursing school. And whenever I tell this story, I always say there’s three sides of the story. There’s my side, their side. True. But from my point of view, I I had a panic attack during clinical one day. And so they pulled me aside after the clinical and they were like, you know, you’ve kind of struggled in this class.

It was the first class I’ve ever struggled in. And it was the hardest one of all out there because each class it was UC is a doozy.

Sandra Pagenta: Yeah,

Sarah Michelle: I mean the whole thing, the whole thing is to do the. So I hadn’t done so great on the first test I got involved in the second test. I had the panic attack and clinical, and so basically they pulled me aside and they’re like, do you really want to be a nurse? Like, do you think you have what it takes being this [00:18:00] anxious.

We have a lot of reservations about you continuing in this field with this level of anxiety. And so I had originally wanted to be a teacher. I kind of fallen into nursing and I thought it would be a good fit. And then I was challenged of like, is this something that’s a good fit for you? And I couldn’t even totally decide at the time I was like, maybe I’ll kind of switch majors.

Maybe I’ll try to pursue a master’s in higher education, public administration, like something along those lines. Like I just get through school and do, do more work, do more graduate school. Those were things. But ultimately what it came down to is I had those student loans. And so I was basically going to start from scratch if I started on any other degree.

And so I was like, I’ve just got to do it. Right. And so the kind of the magic moment that happened is with the push of having people that didn’t believe in me and didn’t think I could do it because of my anxiety. I finally figured out that class. So, I mean, I didn’t pass the [00:19:00] first. Literally like the last test and that semester, I, I think I got 94% on or something crazy.

Like I had figured it out. Yeah. I was like, oh man, I’ve got this. And so what that allow me to do, because I figured out that tough class that everybody struggled with is I got asked to be a. And so when I started tutoring, I was like, this is it. This lights me up. I’m still excited about this. I love to teach, like, this is like, I feel it’s the perfect match.

I’m going to have this degree, I’m going to be able to be a nurse and do that. But I’m also, I have this opportunity to educate on the side and it was kind of my first side hustle, which I didn’t realize that at the top. And so I was like, okay, like, I love tutoring. How do I keep doing this? And so it got a little bit more complicated when I actually graduated school and became a nurse.

Because we’re night shifts, I’m working crazy hours, all this. And so this thought did [00:20:00] that, even though I’d only been a nurse for just about a year, I was going to go ahead and get my master’s in nursing education, because I was like, I don’t use it today. That’s cool. I’ll use it in the future. I know I will not, I just want to like do some clinicals or something.

So I got that, but it definitely, I was like, kind of in the groove of school. And my employer was paying for my graduate education. So they paid for my master’s and there’s education, and they were about to take away the payments for graduate school education. So I was like, if I’m going to do any more school, this is it.

And so I signed up for my post-master’s program to be an FNP. So I just kept rolling through, rolling through, rolling through, but what I always tell people too is I told him my now has. And I signed up for nurse practitioner

Sandra Pagenta: school. He was bad. He was bad at the time. He Shay at the time

Sarah Michelle: he survived me in school for all that time.

Planning a wedding for life.[00:21:00]

So, I don’t even remember what I was saying. I was so distracted with my husband,

Sandra Pagenta: but no, you were saying that you were planning all this stuff and you were oh gosh. Oh,

Sarah Michelle: I think I know what I was going to say. I told him when I applied for school,

Sandra Pagenta: getting your postmasters.

Sarah Michelle: I told him that even if I never used the degree, because I thought I was gonna make me a better educator.

And I genuinely meant that when I said it and I still mean it. And so.

Sandra Pagenta: You’re talking about your posts, like the

Sarah Michelle: post certification, because I was like, if I’m a nurse practitioner, it only makes me a better educator all the way around, even if I’m just teaching nurses. And so in the midst of getting that degree is when I actually started teaching nursing students.

And I was like, yeah, this is it. Like, I’m done. I thought this was it, but this is definitely like this lights me up. Being able to address people with anxiety and kind of how that one-on-one impact is really, really cool for me, I felt like almost like tear up and, you know, I got to talk, I came full circle.

[00:22:00] So this is really cool. I, I can think of a couple of students in particular. I’ll tell you just one story. Basically. I was in clinicals and it wasn’t a nursing home, so it was like fundamentals clicked. Cause I was doing that. And it’s so funny to like, look back on yourself, then I’m sure she’ll look back at herself and laugh about this.

But she was so anxious to even like walk in the patient’s room and like where I went to school that wouldn’t have flown that wouldn’t have been a thing. So we literally, like we took a lap outside around the buildings to get her some fresh. And I was like, okay, kind of walk me through what you think it’s going to look like when you walk in there, like, what do you think you’re going to say what you think they might say, like the assessment that we’re going to do together, like all these pieces.

I said, running out here with me, get your nerves out here and then we can walk in and we can do it together. So I was like, you won’t even be alone to do it. Cause I don’t, I don’t like students do things long anyways. And so even just gave me her five minutes to kind of bring herself together. She was able to walk in her room and she did a really [00:23:00] great job.

I was like, I knew you could do a really great job. You just got so tangled up in your head. Which is pretty much what happened to me when I was for paying for my board exam. Yeah. I had an excellent educational again. Excellent. Excellent nurse practitioner education. It was top notch, but that board exam weirds me out.

I don’t know what it was. I don’t know if it was just the pressure. I don’t know if I just had a lot of things going on at one time. I was working two full-time jobs at the time. And preparing for board, there were lots of people. I’m a workaholic. If you can’t

Sandra Pagenta: sell. Yeah. I was going to say you’re like high octane and everything.

You do two jobs. I’m running. I

Sarah Michelle: was, I wasn’t sleeping. I’m just running all the time. And so I got to wonder where, like I was making myself physically sick or they exam. I tried to do every review. I could get my hands on, just like all the pieces. And then I was so aggravated when I took the exam.

Because I take the exam, listen, hour is 175 questions. So obviously like a new Mustang. Right. And I was like, why [00:24:00] in the world? Was this strung out over this? Like this wasn’t that bad. I knew all the content, even from school, like I need to refresh a little bit to take the exam, but I thought the content and I just needed the anxiety piece.

And so that’s how I was like, okay. It was the first person in my class to test. Let me just put out this little review and see if I can help anyone else. So things oddity. At that point in time, I kind of felt really alone. Again. I kind of remind me of being in nursing school. Cause I was like, I’m super anxious, but it’s like nobody around me as super anxious.

And what I realize now is nobody was talking about being anxious. That was the real thing because when we got all the people in this group, this Facebook group, I was like, holy crap. Like everybody is anxious. Like everybody’s like ears falling out, like was so stressed about taking this exam. I ended up striking this chord with people that I just never really anticipated just by making a course that was geared at what I [00:25:00] wanted essentially.

And so really the first, like three, four months of just talking to all the students, we really co-created a lot of the courses together. Like I would get feedback from people I’d make adjustments to the videos. Like we have a maneuver, like I’m original course. That was three hours. I literally like made in a weekend and it was like putting it up there to see what people would think.

I think it’s only gets 10 for addition now. Like it’s kind of one. It’s been a crazy journey, an

Sandra Pagenta: incredible journey. It’s been crazy radical journey. That’s been so fun. I like. Yeah. What I link about your journey too, is that there’s a level of vulnerability and realness that I’m hearing as you were like, I was anxious.

I was scared like walking that student around the building, like I can imagine now as she probably like, I would just think that’d be such a pivotal moment as a nursing student to have a professor that really just like literally walked along the side. It was just like, [00:26:00] Yeah, you’re not alone. And because of your experience with anxiety and what you went through, it made you that much more able to connect to where people really are.

I just think that just makes you so much more marketable as you are more real, more than. Hey, I was struggling with this. Like, this was really hard and people are like me too. Like, cause that’s one thing I want. Right. We all want to be seen. We all want to be known and then to have somebody step into it with us.

And we’re Gabriel and talks about this all this time, all the time about vulnerability and why it’s so why it’s so life-changing because. At that very moment, right? Like you could have looked down at her in the pot of her anxiety and just been like, must be really hard in there. Good luck. You know, when you’re ready, we’ll be out here.

But you were like, no, no, I’m going to climb down into the hole with her and I’m going to walk around and the anxiety and I’m going to just sit with her in it. And then I’m going to tell her, like, it’s not that bad. Okay. Let’s just go off. And she was fine. [00:27:00] Maybe that was all we, that you ever needed.

Exactly. This, this headphone is working, maybe that was all that you ever needed. And so, yeah, like see how much better you can give to someone else when you’re in touch with what’s been going on inside of you and doing that work on your own emotional state. And yeah, I think that

Sarah Michelle: transparency is really important because a lot of people, you know, it was actually really hard for me to say, I was really anxious about the exam and it even took me a little bit of time to figure out, even after I made the course, that that was inadvertently what I geared it towards.

Like if you’d asked me in the very beginning, like, I wouldn’t have said, this is a test anxiety review. I would have said, like, this is a really great content review. Like I’m an educator like up at Tom and then there’s all this junk, right.

Ironically, I was doing a podcast episode last year, I was getting an interview by the resume and she was [00:28:00] asking me something I don’t even remember now. And I just like clicked in my brain. I was like, why have people latched on to this so much so quickly? I was like, it’s, it’s all the testing anxiety piece is all just meeting people where they’re at being really open with how I’m feeling like it was even hard for me.

I had my face on my business for a long time. Just because it was really hard for me to put myself out there like that, like that is not me. And so like I went, I think it was for like may all the way until March of the following year. No one ever saw my face. Like nobody even knew what I looked like. So that way I could feel open to talk about.

So I was just, it was so intimidating for me, for people. I was like, people are gonna think I’m crazy. People are gonna think I’m nuts. No. Like there are tons of people that are anxious out there. Number one, number two, anxiety can make you a really great provider. And I was like, and I feel like people miss that.

And I definitely miss that [00:29:00] when I was in school because I became an oncology nurse and I promise you like mines. It helped me. And I saved a lot of patients because I was super diligent all the time. Like I was super aware. So. I never want anyone to feel ashamed of their anxiety is really important to me.

And it was really hard for me to open up, put my face on things. Talk about it openly on Instagram. Now, like I can do any Instagram story, any moment, be like anxiety, anxiety, but back then, it was really, really tough to be the open and that transparent. But actually one of our core values in my company is transparency.

And along with that empathy as

Sandra Pagenta: well, Yeah. Yeah, we need more of that in the world. We need more people that are being real because it’s how we connect. And I think that there’s so much that’s wrong, you know, and it’s, it’s so strange because of COVID and how people are now more distant and more separate, and you’re more alone with your thoughts and your more.

By herself and social distance, 14 feet. And so like all these things, like it’s not just a social distance away [00:30:00] from people physically. It’s also becoming a social distance spiritually, emotionally, everyone’s struggling because they think I’m the only one because you just live in this little world by yourself and.

I think it’s so great to bring awareness to the fact that like, Hey, listen, like I am, I was actually really good at this, but I was still anxious so many times throughout the process, but you used your strengths, you used your weaknesses and the things that the world sees us. As a way to grow a very successful business, you were using the anxiety that you were thought, oh, this is a weakness.

This is a chink in my armor to really be the thing that you’re like, no, this is how I connect to people. Like there’s this book by Malcolm Gladwell, it’s talks about it’s called David and Goliath. And he talks about the thing that you think makes you strong. Sometimes it’s actually the thing that makes you weak.

And the thing that makes you weak is actually the thing that makes you strong and how in the [00:31:00] world of thinking, oh, this. Goliath size strength that I have can actually be the thing that you brought brings you down. But this little tiny David like weakness that you think, oh, this is never going to conquer.

That big thing is actually the thing that people connect the most. So do that be that little thing that you think nobody will connect to. This is so ugly. Nobody wants to see it. It’s actually the thing that everybody

Sarah Michelle: wants, you’ve got to be authentic. So I think that’s, there’s a lot of that in business and people put on personas.

There is no place for that in my business. Like it, it like literally last week, if you had seen my Instagram stories, like we had a tornado across, through like power lines were down chaos and happenings. I was like, y’all I supposed to get on here today talking about my webinar, but we had power lines down our generators out.

We have baby chicks. Like we’ve got all these things going on, maybe chicks they need there. [00:32:00] So without the heat. So I think you have to be really, really real and that’s not something you can overlook either. I think it’s so important.

Sandra Pagenta: I love that man. That is so many nuggets there. And so another thing that I like to talk about on the podcast is.

Always have blue skies, right? Like it wasn’t always just rainbows, butterflies, unicorns. Like there were moments that you’re like, Sarah, this is not, this is not working. And this is a moment we got to sink or swim or whatever it is. Can you describe maybe a moment that you were like this, this might be it.

I don’t know if I’m going to make it, but you did and it’s even better. Or, you know, whatever, like there’s some moment like that you can think about.

Sarah Michelle: I have arrived books that day, which is definitely a goal because I think this is like, I think everything’s [00:33:00] happened to me. Like in class would be really cool for a book.

There’s a lot of stories I could tell stuff I wrote a book some day and one of the stories I will definitely tell will be about the first time I tried to get a website. I needed a website horribly. I needed to be able to sell stuff without it going through me every single time. It is, it wasn’t feasible.

It wasn’t making sense. I wanted to release more courses, all the things. And so I didn’t even have time to look for a website designer. I literally told my husband, I said, Fonz, whenever you can on Google, I really don’t even care what it looks like. Like if it functions and we can run subscriptions on.

Cool. That’s great. And so we, he found this guy. I actually found a couple of guys and we chose the cheapest one because that was how it started in my business. I’m like all bare bones. Right? Which looking back what you get. And so we told the guy like this is going to be. Here’s what we’re aiming for, et cetera.

And essentially he had a [00:34:00] template. He was just plugging everything in like all the words. And I wrote all the words for the website myself. So really his big piece was doing the subscriptions. So I’m geared up myself and my customers for almost a month and a half. Like I’ve got a website coming in, I’ve got a website coming in, I’ve got a website coming.

It comes two, three days before the website’s supposed to launch. He tells me that subscriptions are impossible and those will never be able to be done. And nobody else in the industry is doing that. I’m like, well, you’re not in my industry anyway. So I don’t know one of the ones you’re talking about and essentially the whole website imploded, but when.

Talking to him about it on the phone. I’m like, I’m pretty quiet. I’m pretty reserved. I know it probably doesn’t feel that way on this podcast. They have had a lot of caffeine. It was getting kind of heated on the phone and he told me, he said, if you’re too emotional to talk about it, I can just call and talk to your husband.

And I thought my head was blown off my body. I don’t think I’ve ever been so angry in my life. I was like, [00:35:00] here, I’ve created this successful business. I just want a website and be able to put things out. The people you’re telling me subscriptions are impossible. First of all, almost nothing is impossible.

Impossible is like, not even in my vocabulary at this point, like impossible doesn’t exist to me. And so then for you to the mean, and the little me like that. And so I told him, I said, I don’t care what it is. Take, take the website down. I don’t ever want to speak to you again. Definitely also speaking to my husband later, I don’t want any piece of this because I think people anywhere near my business that a don’t believe in me and my business, but.

Be also a VSO belittling and demeaning either. Like, come on, like what? And there’ve been a couple of red flags on the way. There have been one point we were talking about the website. He like compare what I was doing to like women that run bake sales. And I was like, that’s not it, but the shoe. But yeah, basically.[00:36:00]

Essentially, my website was just gone overnight and we had to start over from scratch and we had to find somebody else. And so that it sound like a big deal. It was really hard to find somebody else a, it took another month, month and a half of Tom. And see it didn’t work when I finally got it up to. So literally at the top, if you canceled your subscription, I would have to go in manually and give you access till the end of your paid month.

And that was actually when I about like close down the business altogether because of. I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know anything about websites now. Like I’ve created, even for myself, I’m still talking to all these people just about different things now. And it wasn’t a week after that. Once I started fixing all these canceled subscription to every day that I heard the business coach.

Cause I was like, if I don’t figure something out, like time management was and just like mental health was like [00:37:00] no business to me is ever work sacrificing my mental health. I know it was getting to a point. I was sacrificing my mental health, but running those crazy hours and talking to so many people all the time, dealing with people that God.

So that for me was a really pivotal point in my business because number one, I’d have the confidence in myself that I was going to be able to figure it out and tell this guy to just go away, which is really hard. But number two, then just like really go white, please don’t ever speak to me again. My number two, having to figure it out after that point, when I’ve got all these people now that are depending on me and my stuff working.

And that was really, really hard because it was a lot easier when I was just writing it for zoom. And I knew for sure it was going to work. It was a whole different ordeal having a website.

Sandra Pagenta: Wow. That is incredible journey. And you know, as you’re describing it too, I was, I was thinking about the fact that it’s a lot of the journeys from entrepreneurs that I hear there’s this moment [00:38:00] that just feels like a breaking point.

And then they’re like, I can’t do this anymore. And then something happens and they keep going. And I love that you say that nothing is impossible. That word is on your vocabulary because that once you get that mindset, okay. Everything is possible. I can do anything. I just need to open up my mind. I can figure it out now.

You’re not afraid. There’s no fear in the there’s fear in the world, the sphere and the word impossible. There’s no fear in living in. Everything is possible. And so I just gotta figure it out and it opens up your mind. And then all of a sudden you’re like, okay, I can figure this out. Like this is, figure it out.

This is figure out-able or whatever that word is. I can never say it. But everything is figureoutable right. And so you can figure it out. Don’t panic. Don’t don’t, you know, Just don’t give up, keep going. And yeah, look, look, what you’ve been able to do is you just kept going. This is just so inspiring, Sarah.

I just think it’s [00:39:00] so incredible. So my last question is what does a piece of advice for a new nurse that you would say at the beginning, if you were talking to Sarah and she’s just anxious and she’s just finishing stuff and she’s still pushing and she’s not sleeping and she’s on caffeine as she’s doing all her stuff, you were like piece of advice for her to.

And a piece of advice you would tell her toss it it’s garbage. What would you say?

Sarah Michelle: So always lied to her mom myself, and I try to remind like my past self to in a way you make the best decisions with the information that you have at the top. And so like when I hired that website designer, for example, that was the best information I had at the time.

So I think if I could like go back in time, I would just be like, give yourself a little bit of. Because I’m so hard on myself, especially in the beginning. And even today, I’m still hard on myself. Like it’s not like it magically went away, like I’m successful. But always my biggest piece of advice, but people getting going other than just get started, I hate to say that because I feel like it’s like generic and cliche, but oh my God, please just get started.

[00:40:00] Whatever it is you want to do, like people get lost in analysis paralysis, like. Just put it out there. See what happens. It will be messy. It won’t be perfect. And my first course I felt like it was perfect. It was messy. It was messy all the way around, but it was fun. I figured it out. And as it grew, we read maneuver and all those things, but give yourself grace for it to be a little bit messy.

Give yourself some grace to make some mistakes along the way, because they’re going to happen no matter what, especially if you’re new business, I knew nothing about business. I’m still learning about business everyday. Like I’m always trying to absorb more information, but it just comes along with Tom.

And then to delete that one’s a little bit harder. I think. And a lot of ways kind of tie back to what I was already kind of saying to the believe in analysis paralysis. Number one, just there’s something out there, but also the leaf has been so hard on yourself. I think part of why we are so hard on ourselves is.[00:41:00]

We’ve spent all this time, all of this money, we’ve got all this education there’s it feels like there’s all this pressure all the time. There doesn’t have to be this level of pressure. And so that’s really it for you to decide how you want to maneuver that. But I think I answered your question. I got a little bit off on a tangent there, but analysis paralysis.

Sandra Pagenta: Yeah. And I think that what you’re saying is you’ve got to look and see what life looks like for you, that you can’t judge that based on other people and what they decide looks like success. And so you said something and I, and again, the last part of the interview is the rapid fire questions. And so I want to ask you maybe rapid fire, really you know, Rapid fire questions, questions.

I have to do the echo part. It has to be dramatic. But I want to ask you, what does success look like to you? Cause you just said that word, you said, you know, now that I’m successful, but like what does that, how do you define that? Just if you can just spit out, like [00:42:00] what it looks like, is it a number for you?

Is it a lifestyle for you? Is it a, what is it? What does success look like to Sarah? Michelle always thought

Sarah Michelle: as the

Sandra Pagenta: fire, which is.

Sarah Michelle: No, you’re good. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry. I’m always thought success was a number. Always, always, always. I’m like when I hit this, when I hit that success is not a number success is for me personally, Tom freedom and Tom flexibility and gain to do the things that I want to do with my time and setting my own day.

So like last week when the tornado hit, I took a couple of days off and that was okay to do because I had the flexibility to do so. And so. Working in that grind and having two full-time jobs and doing all that stuff. And there had any freedom of time and it drove me nuts and it made me insane. And so I think that’s what I was craving so badly.

And I think it’s part of why I love business so much.

Sandra Pagenta: I know that was a heavy rapid-fire, but I really wanted to hear that. Cause I was like, she, [00:43:00] yeah, that was a heavy rabbit virus. So that couldn’t be rapid, but it was perfect. And so Robin fire, here we go. What is your favorite

Sarah Michelle: animal favorite animal? I would say bye for now. It’s probably my baby chicks.

Sandra Pagenta: Oh, your baby checks right now.

And okay. What are you watching on Netflix and chill? Like, do you Netflix and chill and if you do, what are you watching?

Sarah Michelle: We’re watching steel Magnolias right now. And we kind of rotate through, we also did love his blonde. I like things I don’t really have to think about to wash. Like I like fun things to watch.

So we watched a lot of love is too.

Sandra Pagenta: Yeah. Does that, that one show where they like get married, they started dating behind the door or something like that. And then they like meet. Yeah. Yeah. The pods. Yeah. Yeah. That’s such a crazy show. There was one, I think there was one season where like the girl was so horrible at like, people may means about like that.

She was like,

Sarah Michelle: I remember

Sandra Pagenta: that show is so much fun. Yeah. I can totally see why you’d watch that. And then you don’t have to think it literally, it’s just brightness. You just sit there and [00:44:00] you’re like, okay, this is great. Very entertaining. Well, thank you for your time today, Sarah, this has been, you’ve dropped so many nuggets, so many tree bombs.

I know people are going to get something out of everything you said today. Do you want to do a shameless plug? Let people know where to find you, where they can get your content. All the things that you’re involved in.

Sarah Michelle: Well, thank you so much for listening to me and all my caffeine tangents this morning.

So you can follow me at Sarah Michelle NP on Instagram. That’s probably my favorite spot for you to follow me. I felt like that’s where I get to connect the most through stories and stuff, but you can also check out our student Facebook group, which is literally called like Sarah, Michelle study groups.

So you can find out really easily and you can also connect through my website, which is www dot. NP reviews with an s.com, not MP review, MP reviews, dot com floral, but those are all the ways to get in the context.

Sandra Pagenta: Perfect. And it was a website made by someone who is not a massage.[00:45:00]

I’m just kidding. I might take that out. I don’t know. I might leave it. I don’t know.

I had so much fun. Sarah. Thank you for your time today. And guys, don’t forget to enjoy the journey of your career. Thanks for having. Thank you.