Toluu

Self Made Chick

Making a Living Online and Lovin' It

How I Dug Myself Out Of The Lowest Pits in My LifeOctober 29

There was a time when I was so broke that I actually ate donuts out of a trash bin behind a store that my boyfriend and I found while walking back to our squat (homeless camp) at the beach. Not joking. To my credit, they were double bagged in a clear garbage bag. (Though this may sound wretched, it was actually glorious! When we arrived at the squat with this beautiful bag of donuts, our neighbors were absolutely thrilled and the score was cause for celebration!)

Although my dumpster-diving squatting days were ‘physically’ the lowest I’ve ever been, they weren’t the most difficult times to overcome. The reason is that I was in a positive mental state at that time. I believed that anything was possible and therefore, it was quite easy to move on once I decided I was ready. It was the times that I was mentally and emotionally buried and beaten that were pure hell… a pit I thought I might never escape from.

I get a lot of email from people who say that they are feeling this way. I know what it feels like to be so afraid to lose what little you have, yet so dissatisfied with your life at the same time. It’s a hellish existence.

I don’t know how it is for others, but there is something about being truly down and depress

How I Gave Away Everything And Ended Up With MoreOctober 6

For the last few years, I’ve been really freakin’ irritated with myself for not living up to my full potential. Know the feeling? Perhaps the worst part about achieving ‘some’ level of success is that once I had something to lose, I was hesitant to gamble it all – especially after having experienced the hell of rock bottom.

But eventually, the dull, nagging torture of knowing that I was purposefully limiting myself because I was ‘comfortable’ became more unbearable than the risk of hitting rock bottom again. And that’s when the blogging stopped a few months ago. That’s when I pushed in all my chips and gambled my entire business, my work, my clients – everything – in the hope of coming up even better than before. And it paid off.

My freelance business was great – it paid my bills and allowed me to lead a comfortable life. But I felt more like my own employee than an entrepreneur, which is my true passion. Several conversations with time management coach Dave Navarro gave me the opportunity to voice what I knew needed to be done for quite some time…

If I truly wanted to follow my dreams, I was going to need to make some major

Hunting Down and Exposing Deep Dark ChallengesMay 3

The insatiable drive to achieve higher levels of success is perhaps human nature at it’s finest - and the reason why we have progressed as far as we have, as fast as we have. However, the natural urge to push ahead challenges another powerful natural instinct - to remain safe and comfortable. Oftentimes, we must battle one of our own instincts in order to satisfy another.

Photo by Lu Barcelos

We all have our dark, personal challenges - the challenges that we are most afraid to admit or to face. These deep, dark inner struggles can prevent us from ever achieving our vision of success if we let them. Not believing that these exist or that you have them is easier than believing it — when we refuse to accept it, we can go through life believing we are doing “everything we can” and wondering why some people “get all the luck.”

I imagine that many of you reading this “know” this one a cognitive level, yet you may still be denying it on a very primal level.

I know this is true for me. I constantly battle with first identifying and then knocking out these deep

How I Tripled My Business Leads in 8 WeeksApril 16

This post offers more of a “mindset” how-to vs. a step by step guide. Every business is different, but I think these concepts are universal.

For years I’ve been doing what I think a lot of entrepreneur’s are guilty of… I’ve been purposefully, and yet largely unknowingly, holding back my business growth. I fell into the trap that all of us fall into at some point or another - my current status was comfortable. Making the necessary changes to grow meant navigating into uncharted waters and forcing myself to change.

But then a few things happened that changed my thinking and helped me to make some dramatic growth steps with my business.

Photo by Ali Ansari

Working With a Coach: Dave Navarro

This point is first because if I hadn’t taken this step, I may not have seen all of these other opportunities. When I called out Dave Navarro to see if he could help me find more time in my day… I got far more than I bargained for. I “knew” cognitively that having a coach was a smart idea since most successful people recommend this, but I didn’t really KNOW how much of an impact it could have on my life and my business.

I’ve learned that if you are really dead serious about taking your business to the next level, you’v

How I Made $2,952 Online with a $0 InvestmentApril 1

This post may come off like I’m “bragging” - but that’s not the intent at all. My goal is to show you how you may just have a few thousand dollars lying around in your brain.

When I published my e-book How I Launched a Profitable Freelance Business for Under $50 (And How You Can Too) online about 10 weeks ago, I really had no expectations. I didn’t build it up with a product launch. I didn’t do any promotion whatsoever other than mentioning in a blog post and creating a separate page for ordering.

Learning the lessons described in the e-book took years of trial and error, but the actual 26 page e-book took only 4 days to write and produce. In fact, I even look my laptop along with me while getting a pedicure. I could have left the laptop at home, but I wanted to be able to say one day that I had written some of it while someone was rubbing my feet.

I didn’t use any expensive software. My original cover was not going to win any design contests - it was just a simple cover that I made on my own. Only after the book sold 200+ copies did I have the wonderful