What most people don’t know is, I’ve always been an entrepreneuher. I started an Etsy Seller’s page my sophmore year of high school selling bedazzled things. That business evolved about 4x before I entered my early 20’s when I started selling at local farmer’s markets and pop ups. I call my early 20’s my discovery era, I started to acknowledge my trauma and wanted to understand myself more, let’s face it, looking inward isn’t as easy as it seems. I gained a profound interest in holistic wellness and healing which led me to a beautiful community of local businesses. My little side hustle became real when I signed my first lease in a co-op marketplace at a local mall. The success I had in the malls is what really caught my attention… at this point, I had been at my steady job for about 6 years and decided to climb the ladder. I couldn’t believe I was taking home checks that were equal to my 40 hour a week job, like, is this real life? I quit the pop up life and invested in my spaces in local marketplaces - this is where I figured out I have a natural eye for design. At this point, I’m a young Assistant Manager at a big box retailer on track for a promotion to General Manager. In hindsight, it’s like I was living two different paths, this one that fed my soul and ignited my creativity and connection to self, than the other that did the opposite but it paid my bills and was the path I was supposed to take. Now, hear me out, I’m very thankful for my 15 years in retail management and leadership, it unknowingly laid the foundation for my actual purpose but in May 2023 I couldn’t walk both paths anymore… they came to a head when I lost my grandfather, he was my moral compass, my inspiration and my hero. Double down on this and throw in a major health scare. Talk about a full blown melt down and dose of mortality. I was lost - it’s so interesting to look back now, I just want to give my past self a hug and let her know everything will work out the way it’s meant to. The 8 months between May and December were the most connected and disconnected I’ve ever been. It’s like my spirit and physical body knew change was coming but my logical brain refused to accept it. I forced myself to get up everyday and get to work but the love and passion I felt walking through the doors of my job was gone. What is happening? I force fed that life for as long as I could until I couldn’t do it anymore. December of 2023 is when I found the courage to have the most honest conversation with my boss at that time, I did it - I resigned. Now what? It was freaking go time! The second I said no to everything that no longer served me and started saying yes to what did, everything fell into place. I was approved for my 1st commercial lease in the beautiful community of Orange, Ca. Fast forward to 1 year later, my shop is celebrating our 1st anniversary, and we are now home to over 45 local, women owned businesses. There’s a lot of details that occurred in between the big moments that I’d be happy to share, it’s unbelievable how quickly everything fell into place for me. If my story resonates with you, it’s your sign to stop playing small… let’s figure this out together.