Reflecting on 2018
If I could pick just one defining moment for this entire year, it would have in March when I decided that it was time to join forces and take Next With Nita full-time together. We had been in LA for 5 months already running the same routine. I was gone from home from 7-7 each weekday then we would start our work from 7:30 til midnight. Then come Saturday and Sunday, we would cram up our little Honda with clothes and supplies for shoots and battle weekend traffic just to get shoots done. We were absolutely running ourselves ragged and not really seeing any results for all of our hard work on Instagram, let alone actually upload videos on Youtube. It was then that we decided if we really wanted to go for it, then we had to take the plunge and risk it all in order to get the highest reward. We wanted this to be a family business so I just knew I had to take the same risk Nita did last year. She graduated law school and took the blog full-time and never looked back. Similarly, on March 16th I turned in my resignation at my full time job letting go of the salary, health insurance and 401(k) matching.
After making that move, I remember Nita and I took a day trip to Santa Monica beach on a Monday. It was the weirdest most satisfying feeling to be out on a Monday instead of sitting at a desk waiting to come home. We took that day to let our decision soak in, plan the rest of the year and really set goals we knew we needed to achieve to make it through the year. Now, Nita has touched on this before but our story is different from others because we’re taking you guys along our journey, before we can truly say ‘we made it’. Hearing success stories inspire both of us but it’s such a special feeling to share our every day, in-the-moment, progress with you all. Quitting my day job was the scariest most rewarding thing I’ve ever done and our progress over the last 9 months has really shown me that we made the right decision. We moved to LA to network and grow in a more-fast paced environment and that did NOT happen the first 5 months of living in LA. Things were stale and we felt lost, stuck, and doubtful all at the same time. The decision for both of us to take the leap of faith together really shook things up for us in a good way.
We have quite a few goals going into 2019 but I want to shed light on one crazy one Nita and I set out for ourselves in May of this year. Putting a number on something is a very tangible way to see growth and progress, right? So we set an ambitious year-end financial goal for ourselves in May that seemed so impossible at the time. We had to earn enough to make sense for both of us not working a 9-to-5 and we had to make sure Next With Nita could eventually support both of us as well.
We ultimately aimed to surpass my yearly salaried income in 6 months when we had only earned a quarter of the amount so far. We had no safety net, were already behind on schedule to meet our goal, and all we had was our work ethic to make it happen. It was one of those goals that was a pipe dream but would fuel our drive to meet it so we wouldn’t slack in the slightest. A lot of people will tell you that you need x, y, and z to be successful in a career. I’ll tell you what you really need and that’s your passion and work ethic. If you have the drive and motivation— you can do anything you set your mind to.
Nita and I worked nearly 90 hours a week for 6 months and by November, we had already surpassed our crazy, unrealistic goal we set out for ourselves back in May. I say this not to brag because believe me, we have long ways to go before we can even say we’ve ‘made it’ and are successful. We’re just now touching the surface and have to keep working our butts off, especially when we move to New York. I’m telling you all of this truly to motivate and inspire you to chase those dreams that may seem unrealistic at the time. There were very few people in our lives that believed in us when we went all in, very few. My advice is never let anyone stop you from pursuing your passion. We are living proof that if you actually put in the work, you’ll see the results that you never thought would be imaginable.
Never let someone tell you that you can’t do something.
Forever grateful and thankful
Looking back on 2018, there is so much for us to be thankful for. We have our health, our family, our sweet pups, and a roof over our heads. We now have a small business that we built from scratch beginning to blossom and we have you to thank for that. Without your continuous support, we wouldn’t be where we are today. You are the one that enables us to live out our dreams. You are the one that supports us through self-doubt. You are the reason that we are able to do what we do day in and day out.
Thank you for being part of our crazy, rollercoaster of a journey. It means so much to us to not only be able to hopefully tell our success story in the future, but to also have you along to live out our road to success in real time. That’s what’s truly precious about our journey together with you; being able to see the thousand mile journey to success each step at a time.
2019 goals
Network more. Wake up earlier. Make new friends when we move to New York. Eat way less dairy. Make time to enjoy our journey in LA and NY before we have kids! Continue to grow YouTube– creating 1-2x videos a week. Eat healthier + take advantage of our Equinox membership. Focus more on self love. Continue to share more of the real + keep things unfiltered. Learn to look at the big picture.
This was an amazing post. Loved it!