#Clockedin with Jordan Edwards
Are you feeling stuck in life, wanting to grow, improve your income, or build a stronger community? Join performance coach Jordan Edwards as he interviews world-class achievers—including the Founder of Reebok and the Co-Founder of Priceline—who share their success stories and actionable strategies. Each episode provides practical tips on how to boost your personal and professional growth, helping you implement changes that can make a real difference in your life.
This podcast is designed for anyone looking to make progress—whether you're aiming to improve your mindset, relationships, health, or income. Jordan distills the wisdom of top performers into easy-to-follow steps you can take immediately. Whether you're stuck in your career or personal life, you’ll find new ways to get unstuck and start moving forward with confidence.
How to get unstuck? It’s a question many face, and in each episode, you’ll hear stories of how successful individuals broke through barriers, found purpose, and created systems to overcome obstacles. From building resilience to developing a success mindset, you'll gain insights into how high achievers continue to evolve and grow.
Looking to improve your income? This podcast also dives into financial strategies, offering advice from entrepreneurs and business leaders who have built wealth, created multiple revenue streams, and mastered the art of financial growth. Learn how to increase your income, find opportunities for advancement, and create value in both your personal and professional life.
Jordan also emphasizes the importance of building community. You'll learn how to expand your network, foster meaningful connections, and create supportive environments that contribute to personal and professional success. From philanthropists to community leaders, guests share their experiences in building impactful, values-driven communities.
At the core of the podcast are the 5 Pillars of Edwards Consulting—Mental Health, Physical Health, Community Service/Philanthropy, Relationships, and Spirituality. Each episode integrates these elements, ensuring a holistic approach to self-improvement. Whether it's enhancing your mental and physical well-being, giving back to your community, or strengthening your relationships, you'll receive actionable advice that’s grounded in real-world success.
This podcast is for everyone—whether you're an entrepreneur, a professional looking to advance, or simply someone seeking personal growth. You’ll gain actionable steps from every conversation, whether it’s about increasing your productivity, improving your health, or finding more purpose in your life.
Jordan’s interviews are designed to be perspective-shifting, giving you the tools and inspiration to transform your life. From overcoming obstacles to building stronger habits, these episodes are packed with practical insights you can use today. Whether you're looking to grow in your career, improve your income, or enhance your personal life, you’ll find value in every conversation.
Join Jordan Edwards and a lineup of incredible guests for thought-provoking conversations that will inspire you to take action, improve your performance, and unlock your full potential. No matter where you are on your journey, this podcast will help you get unstuck, grow, and build a life filled with purpose and success.
#Clockedin with Jordan Edwards
#242 - From Corporate Ladder to Family CEO
What would you give up to create the life you truly want? For Whitney Bonds, the answer was clear: television time, social outings, and sleep could all take a backseat to her dream of staying home with her children while building a thriving business.
Whitney's transformation began during her second pregnancy when her priorities shifted dramatically. Though she had embraced the traditional path—college, corporate career, marriage—she now wanted something different. The challenge? She had no entrepreneurial role models and limited resources. "I don't come from a world of entrepreneurs," Whitney explains, "so I had to find other people who were doing what I wanted to do and study them."
Starting with blogging, Whitney took consistent, strategic action while maintaining realistic expectations. Her first year yielded just $5,000—an amount that would discourage many aspiring entrepreneurs. But Whitney understood something crucial: success takes time. Studying successful bloggers had shown her that even six-figure earners often went 18 months before seeing significant returns. This perspective allowed her to "trust the process, not the progress."
The turning point came when Whitney invested $75 in SEO coaching—a significant amount for someone who had quit her job and was saving every penny. That investment helped her blog generate over $200,000 the following year. But her journey wasn't without setbacks. When Pinterest's algorithm changed, her traffic plummeted from 100,000 monthly views to just 1,000. Rather than giving up, Whitney had already begun diversifying with YouTube, showcasing the importance of multiple income streams in today's digital landscape.
Beyond financial freedom, Whitney emphasizes the personal growth that comes with entrepreneurship. She overcame significant fears about public speaking and camera presence, transforming from someone who said "I never want to start a YouTube channel" to a confident content creator who now employs family members and leads speaking engagements.
Whitney's story illustrates that success doesn't require special connections or advantages—just clarity about what you want, willingness to learn from others, and the determination to take consistent action. As she puts it, "If you really want to start a business, every waking moment that you have available should be towards that until you get there."
Ready to build your own path to freedom? Subscribe now and join us each week as we bring you more inspiring stories and actionable strategies from entrepreneurs who are redefining success on their own terms.
To Learn more about Whitney Bonds:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitneymiles
To Reach Jordan:
Email: Jordan@Edwards.Consulting
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9ejFXH1_BjdnxG4J8u93Zw
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jordan.edwards.7503
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jordanfedwards/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordanedwards5/
Hope you find value in this. If so please provide a 5-star and drop a review.
Complimentary Edwards Consulting Session: https://calendly.com/jordan-555/intro-call
Hey, what's going on, guys? We've got a very special guest here. We have Whitney Bonds. She has escaped the 9 to 5, and she has created her own life, and in this episode, we're going to be discussing how she did it, how you can do it as the audience members, and what that new life that you're looking for looks like for you. So, whitney, we're so excited to have you on the podcast. How are you doing today? And for you, how did this journey begin?
Speaker 2:Hey, thank you so much. I'm so glad to be here. And the journey began when I got pregnant with my second child. I was living the life before that. I wanted to be a corporate girl. I did the American dream you go to college, you get the job and you eventually get married and continue the work life. So that part does not stop. And so I was trying to climb the corporate ladder.
Speaker 2:But when I got pregnant with my second child, everything just like what my desires once were had all changed. The desire to climb the corporate ladder changed my desire to stay home and raise my kids. That was my new desire. And I already had my son. That was one years old. And when I got pregnant with my second child, I'm like, okay, that's where I want to be. I want to be home raising my kids. But my ambition didn't leave. I didn't want to just be a stay-at-home mom. I also wanted to still continue to challenge myself, think outside the box box and have more than just be more than just a mom exactly that's how I kind of got it all started and then we can get into it.
Speaker 1:I think, I think that's I think that's one of the most important things, because what we don't realize nowadays is that there's so many options. Yeah, I can see you as someone who's been. Hey, I'm the mom, but I also run my side businesses. It's. What are you talking about? Like we all see you at the daycare every week. What do you mean? You do all this stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's why I think that the nature of the world that we live in today we are at such an advantage because you literally can have these one-person businesses that makes hundreds of thousands of dollars, not even millions, and still be able to pick your kids up from school and be involved and volunteer. It's like this is the we are living at the best time ever, and it's all because of the power of the Internet and being able to leverage your time and have automated tools to keep your business going while you're not even there. So it's just the time that we're living in that we're allowed to be able to do things like this.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and one of the big things that we're allowed to be able to do things like this Absolutely, and one of the big things that we're going to dive into today and Whitney really got good with is realizing how to compound her skills. So what that means is basically you do something once, but you get paid on it over and over, and over and over again. The conventional way we do that is we usually go to work, get paid one time and then you leave and you don't have anything to hold as like how do we get paid again? So this is a completely different way of looking at it. So, whitney, how did your journey? What was the first thing you did and what allowed you to really jump into that? And so just residual.
Speaker 2:Well, the biggest thing for me is I don't come from like a lot of money. I don't come from a world of entrepreneurs, so I had to like find other people who were like I didn't lose my. I didn't have the environment that you need typically if you think you can be an entrepreneur. I didn't have that around me. So I'm really big about how does this work? I need to know that this works, because I don't know anyone that it does. So I used the internet and I found other people's success stories and I studied them. So I was looking at other people who are successful and I studied to see how are they doing this? Does this really make sense? Is this a scam? And then, when you really take the time to look at how they're doing it, it really all does make sense. So I think the biggest thing is just finding someone who's doing what you want to do and then study them to see how you can make what they're doing. Make it your own, and that's literally what I did.
Speaker 2:I started out blogging. I found out there are these bloggers making $100,000 a month and I only needed $2,000 a month. So I'm like, if I can just get a fraction of what they're earning, I can be successful. So I just literally studied what they did. I made it my own and I always say success to me. I understand the long game, especially with this online world. That's what, I think, separates me. People don't. They want money right away and I knew that this would take time. So my first year when I got into blogging, I only made $5,000 the entire year. Most people would give up with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's pause there. No, I think that's incredible because I think you're touching on a major point. The reason people take these jobs is because they get $20 an hour, $30 an hour, $50 an hour and it's guaranteed money. Now, when you're doing a new business, it's a $0 thing and you don't know how it's going to work. And other major thing you brought up, Whitney, is that you talked about coaching, realizing that you can get free coaching at this point with people online and their strategies, and if people want to go a little bit deeper and they're like I don't really get it, you can pay for coaches, but mentorship and coaching is the key to a lot of success from people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I did it myself when I first got started and then I got stuck. So I had to learn SEO, to learn how to get my blog on the search results on Google, and I got stuck. I was trying to do everything in my own power, but I'm like I couldn't go any further. So that's when I ended up and I'm very frugal, but I said I have to get help. And that's when I reached out to this woman who was doing what I wanted to do with SEO and I paid her to teach me what I was missing. And that is everything to me. That changed everything for my business.
Speaker 1:So I implemented what she gave me. Go ahead. I was gonna say how much did what.
Speaker 2:Paying her did it equal like no. It was 75 for an hour call and to me at the time I'm like this is such a huge investment because I was still um at this time. I had quit my job already and I was, we were already. I was saving all of my paychecks. We went down to living on one income. So before I quit my job we were already living on one income and I was saving all my checks just in case if I had to go back to work, if it didn't work out. So I was every dollar counted. So this, even paying $75 for an hour call, was really big for me to do. But I knew I believed in myself enough to say, if I can just figure this out, that's going to be able to make me more money. So that is what I did. And so paying her, that woman, $75 and implementing what she told me.
Speaker 2:It didn't happen right away, but the very next year my blog blew up and I had made over $200,000. So all of that was just so just trusting the process and also, I always say, having a model. Those guys that were making $100,000 a month. I knew their story because I was studying them. It took them 18 months before they even saw a dollar. So I already had in my mind that this is just going to take a while. But if I trust the process and not the progress, then it's going to me. I'm going to get there.
Speaker 2:So because I had a guy that I was following, I knew it would work. I just had to take time to do it and I took the steps to put and implement. Every day, every week, I was writing a blog article, so I was putting my stuff out there and work. It was working for me, not even though I didn't see instant results. But after that, that, that and then so, long story short, I implemented what I need to know for SEO.
Speaker 2:My blog, all my articles, my top articles, were ringing high up in the search results on Google and that is how I was able to get so much traffic to my blog and I was making so much money and just at revenue. Just people scroll and read my blogs, my articles. I was making so much money. I made like $50,000 that year and just revenue. And then the rest came from affiliate commissions. So I'm just like this is insane and that is what got me started into like, okay, thanking God that this is working. And then I was like, just I was I. Just after that, I just went off forward on this. I'm like, okay, this thing works, I'm going all in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely Absolutely. And I think it's so important for us to realize here is that Whitney didn't just make it happen, she took consistent action every single day. So I, whenever I do coaching and whenever I meet with anyone who sets a goal, it's usually three things. It's one we set a big North Star. North Star make enough money from blogging. And I want to share this just so the audience can kind of view this. And how do they set their goals? So it's set a big North Star Make more money in blogging than I do at my job.
Speaker 1:Okay, step one. Step two what are the small actions I need to do to get there? Post a blog every week. Three, what is the accountability? And this is where a lot of people drop off because they go why am I doing this? Like, did you get paid for this? Should I do this? Yeah, and by the time you're at the $200,000 making that, which is incredible, by the time you're there making the money, it's just like this makes no sense. This actually makes no sense. And then people are like hey, can you show me how that, how you did that? And you're like I can back you up, I can back you up. I didn't even realize it was on the right path. So for you, I don't know when you're on the right path, cause I know people constantly are. They quit when the goal's right there. And what kept you motivated and what kept you going? I can do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's why I always say you need to have a guide, someone who's doing what you want to do, and follow them. The only reason I even knew about blogging was because of those bloggers taking $100,000 a month, and the only reason I stuck with it is because I knew it took them a while before they made money. So you need that. You need someone in front of you that is saying like I can do this because they did it. I have that such that mentality of that me too mentality If they can do it, I can too. So I knew I could do it and it would just take time. And I had a good story, I had a good angle, it was all set up to do great. I just had to take the time and trust the process.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I'm going to be honest with you guys. I met with Whitney last week. We did an intro call and she got me so excited about the opportunity of YouTube because she's like Jordan, you're on YouTube, you're posting a lot of content, like, where are you? Like, what is missing? So we started talking about the different strategies and the different ideas and I started diving in way deeper than I ever thought and now I'm taking the whole angle on the podcast completely different and putting it towards YouTube, which has become this really fascinating thing for me. And now it's just how do we make the most out of this? You know what I mean. How do we know when it's our time? How do we know when to take action? So, for you, obviously you've gone through these successes, but it didn't just always happen, and sometimes the land is moving very quickly so we don't even know what's like, what's good, what's bad, where to go, where to put our eggs in a basket, how do we think about this? Yeah, so how was that for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I can talk all day about this. So one of the things that was so, my blog started blowing up. I was getting traffic to my blog from Pinterest and traffic to my blog from Google. These were the two platforms those bloggers are doing. So these are the two platforms that I use. That's how I knew what to use. I just use what they were doing. They had more time, more money, more resources to do these things, so I would say, okay, they did the research for me. I don't have to go out and look and try different platforms when I can already see what's working. Long story short.
Speaker 1:Yeah, sorry, I don't mean to cut you off, but I just want to jump in there. That's such a good strategy if you don't have the time, the money or the resources, focus on reaching out to the people. Focus on reaching out, seeing the people who are successful and focusing on them, because if you do that, they will expedite everything. So, like for example for us like I'm working on the youtube, so it's like who's doing well in youtube now? Yeah they're doing it and focus on that, because they've already tested everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the beauty of this for even YouTube is you don't even necessarily have to pay them. You can literally just study them. You can look at their intros, their thumbnails, their titles and say why did that one do good better than that other one? It's probably the subject matter, but there's reasons to all of this stuff and that's why I love youtube, because the answers are right in front of your face. But um, oh. But to go back to so, the thing is, I was getting over a hundred thousand page views per month just from pinterest, so it was doing really well, but by the end of 2019, pinterest changed their algorithm and my traffic went down to like nothing.
Speaker 1:Explain that in like super simple terms, cause I know people listening are going algorithm.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what are you talking?
Speaker 1:about Page view. What does that mean?
Speaker 2:I had like master Pinterest. It's like you have to figure out how to get your pins to go uh, go viral, and I. I understood it once I got into it, and so I kept just repeating the process. It was working so well for me.
Speaker 1:Essentially is this equivalent to like Netflix, where you go on the home page and then your video drops. Yeah, it's very similar.
Speaker 2:So for people who have been to Pinterest, it's full of just they call them pins, and then you just click on the one that you want to learn more about, and so I learned how to create good pins that people want to click on. When they would click on it, it would take them to my blog. So I learned that skill and so I kept doing it over and over, and then when Pinterest changed something with their platform, the things that I was doing before had just stopped. So I had to change my method and I was trying to do everything to figure it out, like do a new method, and nothing was working. So my 100,000 pages per month went down to like a thousand. So I lost a lot. But the one good thing that happened for me was that Google is actually better traffic and I was getting so much of traffic from Google. Honestly, I obviously did not want to lose that Pinterest traffic, but it didn't really hurt my business.
Speaker 2:So, that was the, but I now only have one source of traffic. What if Google changed their algorithm and everything and I don't get any traffic from them? I'd have nothing.
Speaker 1:And I didn't like that feeling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is something very similar to people feeling at jobs where they'll have a nine to five job and it's like you have one source of income. In this day and age, like side hustles are very viable, a lot of people are doing different things and it's like how do you make money to protect your family and who you are? Because, as a business owner, it's the utmost importance to look for different income avenues or sources or anything, cause if we're only sitting on one thing, it's best of luck to you.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I've learned too many times, I've got burned too many times because Google changed their algorithm. But good thing. What before I, before they changed their algorithm? But good thing. Before they changed their algorithm, I had started a YouTube channel because I interviewed this guy, nate O'Brien, on my blog and I asked him how much do you make? And when he told me that he made over $30,000 in just the month of January just from ads that's not anything else I was like where's my camera?
Speaker 2:Because I was not going to allow my fears of being on camera keep me back from being a stay-at-home mom and taking care of my kids. So being on camera was one of the things that I said I would never want to do. I said I never want to start a YouTube channel. I didn't like being in front of the camera. Who wants to do that? It's a learned skill. I don't want to learn another skill. I had to learn so much with blogging. I didn't want to do anything else, to learn something completely outside my element. But I thought about what do I want more? And what I wanted more than anything was to be able to stay home with my kids. So I chose that over myself and my insecurities that I had about being on camera and I just got started. So I started my YouTube channel.
Speaker 2:Long story short, I did it during COVID. That was a time where I was like all right. And so, long story short, google changed their algorithm and I think a year or two ago, and but at this time my YouTube channel has already blown up and so, even though I lost all my Google traffic, pretty much my income didn't suffer because of YouTube. And that's why I'm just so big about constantly evolving, because the world that we live in, even in the entrepreneurship world, you have to constantly evolve. As these platforms and change and algorithms, you don't even know what's going on next.
Speaker 2:And now I'm all in on YouTube and the sense of security I have right now is that, because YouTube is my main source of income, I don't feel comfortable with this being my only source of income, but with the way the world is right now, I'm actually OK right now because I don't foresee in the future, right now, anything happening with YouTube in the foreseeable future for right now. But this is that. But this is still driving me to want to have other sources of income outside of this YouTube, because I don't want to depend solely on this platform for the way I live my life. I don't want to depend solely on this platform for the way I live my life?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I hope this is a wake-up call to the audience, seeing that even when you're successful in different areas, failure is still and it's not failure, but it's this idea of. I think the biggest challenges we have is that we label things. So we label, like you labeled yourself a stay-at-home mom Cool, most people see a stay-at-home mom. Let me go to pilates at 11, let me get coffee. Let me do this, they don't think.
Speaker 1:Let me go shoot youtube for two hours and talk to my subscribers and see what the community is like and doing this and these different deals, because we have these frames and we don't realize that we can. We can all evolve at any moment, like we have a lot of power inside of us and we can do these things because someone else has done it before. So for you, what is the biggest insight that you want to share with people, letting them know it is possible? Because, like Whitney, you literally did it in the SEO and then you also did it the blog, and then you also done it on YouTube and you start, you're moving it on to different areas, like, how did you get that confidence? Like cause I know there's people listening, going lucky for her like, good for her like, but how did someone else do it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, even when you say lucky for her, I'm just thinking like when I think that there's no luck involved in this at all. I have worked so hard and I think the biggest thing is I always ask well, what do you want? And I think that's the biggest thing, that's the question that they should always have. I wanted more than anything to be able to stay home with my kids and make money on the side. So, because I wanted that more than anything, my the other things that I wanted, like enjoy doing fell off. Like I like to watch TV. I don't watch TV. I didn't have time to watch TV anymore. I like to hang out with my friends. I didn't have time for that because I didn't meet the goal that I really wanted more than anything.
Speaker 2:I hear people say I want to start a business, I'm like, no, you don't, because you don't do anything that's working towards wanting to start a business. If you really want to start a business, you take the time to figure out. Okay, let me just watch some YouTube videos, let me listen to some podcasts, let me try to figure this out. Every waking moment that you have available, if that's what you really want, should be towards that. Until you get there, I always say we are in different seasons of our life. So the season that I was grinding, every day, even when I worked my nine to five, I was starting on my blog. Early in the morning I would get up working on my blog. Then I had to go to work On my lunch hour. I'd be working on my blog. At night, after I got the kids to bed and hang out with my husband, I'd work on my blog.
Speaker 2:It was brutal and it's not pretty, but I was working towards something and that's why I'm saying what do you want? I want it more than anything and I got it because I worked towards what I wanted. So I always just say, like, what are you putting your energy from? And it's not also just working, it's also working to something that works. So that's why I'm so passionate about having a guide, someone who's doing what you are already doing, so you know it works. You know it's not just a guessing game, it's all just like. I know it's going to work. This is my plan and strategy. I'm going to implement it and once you work the process, it's going to work for you. So that's what I would just really recommend to anybody, or say anybody can have a success if you want it. That's really the key.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it's the working of the plan, I think, is the most important thing because, as we've talked about, everyone's got plans, everyone's got big ideas, big goals, big things, but the action is never amounting to what they say they're going to do. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Yeah, walking, the walk is way harder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a lot harder than you think it should be, but that's why it's so important for us to just put in all of our efforts Like you know what I mean Figure out what the opportunity we want is and go after that. So was there any other changes? Obviously, you made sacrifices with friends, television, ideas. Was there anything you had to adjust with your mindset? Because I can only imagine how you felt in the nine to five grind where you were at mentally, first mentally when you're at the SEO point, and then mentally at the point of like, oh God, I lost it again. I gotta go through this process again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a roller coaster. I don't. I think entrepreneurship is something like we try and glamorize it because it really is to me. Me, I love it. I can't foresee myself ever going back the other way. But it is not just an easy ride. There's some days when my business is doing so well and I'm just loving it, and then the next day something happens. I'm like, oh Lord, what am I doing? Am I doing anything right? So it's just like it takes you on a full roller coaster ride. You don't even know are you on the right path? There's no guide to this. There's, you know you have you can have coaches and stuff like that, but you're really the one running it all and you have to make the decisions, and this is something that you don't get prepared for it in the life we live. So it's just um, it's a lot, but it's worth it, I feel like I've grown so much like.
Speaker 2:I have so much more confidence. I didn't want to speak on camera because I didn't speak well. I didn't want to start a YouTube channel because I didn't talk professional. I had so many insecurities about myself and entrepreneurship and starting my YouTube channel and now I actually have speaking engagements. You don't understand how much anxiety I had about speaking in public in front of people, but this has taken me out of my comfort zone and made me into a better person. So I promote entrepreneurship because of the sole purpose of the personal development that you get out of it. You know you, you are forced to be out of your comfort zone and that's why, um, that's what makes you grow, you know I think people are comfortable being comfortable, and that's the problem.
Speaker 2:So um absolutely.
Speaker 1:I, I completely agree. And then you see a lot of people, as they get older and they get in higher levels of their career or whatever it is, they stop stepping into that uncomfortable nature because they're like I don't have to do that anymore. I, I don't have to do that, I'm past that I don't do that. And the thing is for most people is that uncomfortableness goes away after a while because you start getting comfortable in the uncomfortable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 1:That usually happens because you've done something enough times. Yeah so when people start going oh, you're really good at that. Like I did a speaking engagement and they're like how'd you get so good? I go. Well, I lead a group two times a week. I've been doing that for the past like four years. I have over 200 podcasts that I've done. I would expect me to be able to speak a little bit.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, and it's like putting the reps. The more you do anything it's a principle in life the more you do anything, you're going to get better at it, and I think that's the thing that people don't want to do. They don't want to keep doing it to learn, to get better. But I'm all about putting in the reps because I know it's only going to make me better.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And so for you, how's the journey been going, from someone who goes, yeah, I just need $2,000 to making multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars, Because that's whoa. Should we hire people? Should we be doing this? Should we be investing here? How do we think about this? Because you go from this one frame of hey, I was just trying to make a little bit of money. I don't know what happened.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's blown my mind and it's such a blessing Like I have, like, my family. They help me in my business, and I feel like it's such a blessing to be able to like help my family out and me still make a nice amount of money. So I feel like this has just been such a blessing for not just me but my family as a whole too. And like, when I say my family not in my immediate or in my immediate my kids are on payroll, my husband's on payroll Like this is a whole family business. But my, um, my other family members that I have too, that some of them are employed by me and it's amazing that I can employ my family members. And, um, what was the question again?
Speaker 1:I'm just talking. I was saying how, how did you go from basically this idea of hey, I just want to be a stay-at-home mom with a side hustle to this? I'm kind of a CEO right now, oh yeah yeah yeah, I'm making a lot of choices.
Speaker 2:I did not expect my blog to blow up like it did, and then, when it did, I'm just like, oh my gosh, this is an amazing world that I can be able to stay home raising my kids and make money like this, and so that opened my eyes to a whole nother possibilities. I didn't think I'd go this far and I have so much room for growth. Like I'm not. I haven't even I probably did 10% of what I am capable of, and now my kids go to school full time next year, except my little one that still is part time. I'm like I'm going to be a beast because I'm going to have more time and the more time I can put into anything it's going to succeed.
Speaker 2:So but it's just been a journey because, like my first, when my blog blew up over $200,000, I had to pay like over $40,000 in taxes because my business was not set up right, because I used to. I had I should have had an S Corp. I'm like what the world is an S, and now I need an accountant and all these things that did not prepare me for the success. So it's just a lot of learning experiences. So I now have an accountant that now I meet with. Often I have people that I just didn't think I needed until I needed it. So it's just like I said, there's no guidebook to this stuff, but I've just been learning from people along the way. I've been getting into different mentorship programs just to learn, and that's a big part of what I've been doing.
Speaker 2:So once my business started blowing- up I started investing a lot more in my business and myself to kind of figure this stuff out, so that's the biggest thing that I think I did. That got me around the right people who are having already the success and learning how do they do? What do you do with your money? Like these are the things that I have no idea what to do, so I think that's been such a blessing too, and the fact that we get text write-offs for investing in myself and my business. I can write that off. I love stuff like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, people have no idea that coaching is a write-off, and what they mean by that is basically that it goes against your income, like it shows that you didn't make as much. And it's just important for us to realize that, no matter how old you are, whether you're 13 or you're 47 or you're 85 or you're 100, like, we always need to be consistently growing, and I think that's one of the biggest things for us. So how do you feel, whitney, that you've really changed mentally prior to to to now, like being this entrepreneurial person? Cause I know when I talk to some people mentally, they're like I'm stressing, I'm scared, I'm this. Some people are like I'm empowered, but it's only moments. So how do you think it's really changed for you?
Speaker 2:I am like completely different. When I was with the Whitney, when I was with my nine to five, it was just kind of like just to live in a comfortable life. There was no expectations of anything more outside of just like the norm and average. And we're not supposed to be average, Like. My mindset is like I'm not average, we're not supposed to be average. But I was completely living an average life, thinking I'm average, knowing that there's only so much I had a ceiling and there's so much I could only get up to. But then this world has given me a whole nother mindset that they're like I am unstoppable, there's nothing that I cannot do. And now I have the confidence to be able to do and believe, actually believe, not just say, but believe that I can do whatever.
Speaker 1:I want to do pretty much, but I'm completely changed, and it's not an easy process, but it's building a life that you're actually proud of and that gives you freedom. You know what I mean. We all talk about this, but we don't even know what that looks like. So, by actually starting to step into that authentic version of yourself. Do you ever struggle with imposter syndrome or do you ever think like I don't even know how I got here?
Speaker 2:I'm getting better with that because when this changed me, when this guy said imposter syndrome is when you're talking about something you don't know You're. If you you just tell your story and stick to what you know and what worked for you, You're no longer an imposter Like you know in my, this is just my story.
Speaker 2:So I have learned to just tell my own story. And now that gave me the confidence to say why am I scared to tell my own story? When I learned that I no longer struggle with imposter syndrome because I'm literally just telling my story. No one can make this up, no one can say she's lying. This is just me telling my story and saying that I believe that if I can do this, you can do it too. But there's not a lie about this. This is just what happened and. I can tell my truth.
Speaker 1:And if someone's here and they're sitting there and they're like I'm in a job I don't like Whitney sounds amazing, but like I don't know how Whitney did that, what do you think this person can do to prepare? Because I know you mentioned a few things where you're like we were saving paychecks, we were kind of trying on the side, like what do you think they should be doing to prepare for that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say do what I did, Like I. So first of all, I would say pray, Because when I wanted to get out of my job, the first thing I went to was Google. I thought Google had all the answers, but God is the one who has all the answers. So I should have went to God first in prayer and asked my Lord what do you want me to do? What am I supposed to be doing? I don't feel like this is right for me, and when I started praying, I did not get my answer right away. And people want to say, well, I don't hear nothing.
Speaker 2:But I'll never forget what changed for me was four months into my pregnancy. I woke up with this idea and I say it was a God idea and it was the idea to start a blog. But I also say I would never have also thought about blogging, or that wouldn't have came back to my remembrance had I not done the work before looking at other people's success, trying to see what they did. So I think it's a two-part thing. God can help you, but what are you doing? So I'm big about just like. The first thing I would do is definitely spend time asking God what does he really want for you, and then I would look to see what's out there. What are people doing? There's so many people doing so many different things. It's a little bit of information overload, but every day I would say, just do one thing.
Speaker 2:So listen to a podcast about e-commerce. Listen to a podcast about blogging. I don't, I would not recommend blogging anymore. It has to completely change. Learn about YouTube, Definitely. Listen to your stories on your podcast just to get inspired, to see like what are people doing it? And asking yourself is that something I want to do? If it's not, it's okay. You're learning yourself and what you want to do and then keep it going every day, Like, do you want it? And so once you do that, it's bound to happen if you are working towards it. So that's what I would recommend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the biggest thing you said there for me really was two things. One, it was taking action every single day. And when you hear every single day, you go, what about Saturday and Sunday? Of course maybe you double action on those days. Because here's the truth, guys, if you want to work on something, there's really no days off. It's like maybe you wake up early, maybe you work on it during lunch, maybe you a little time at the end. Because here's the truth If you want to get better at any skill, it doesn't require that much time.
Speaker 2:It just requires the focused effort that a lot of us miss because we get so distracted with a million different things. Exactly, yeah, and I'm like saying, doing the laundry, you should be listening to a podcast. Doing the dishes, the time that you're doing something that does not take a lot of mental work, do that. Listen to podcasts, do that to listen to enlighten yourself, like, take advantage of the time that you do have, because you have it. We all have the time. It's just how are you managing it? So that's really what it is. That's what it comes down to.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And then you start to realize that there's a world of opportunity out here and you really do just got to put yourself out there, whether it's trying a new thing, whether it's throwing an offer out there, throwing a video up. And I'm going to be honest with you most of the time you do anything in the beginning, you're probably going to get rejected.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you probably are. So just reject it. And rejection is a good thing, because you're learning like, okay, let me not do it that way again. So it's not even a rejection, it's just like a learning experience.
Speaker 1:So I think I think that's one of the biggest things that you talked about, Whitney is this constant ability to test. You know what I mean, when we're constantly going through and we're testing different ideas out.
Speaker 2:So how do you think about data and testing? Because I know when we talked yeah, I'm so big about it it's the only way you know anything. You know you can't just go. So I'm like every video I do, I'm testing. I'm going to try this title out, try this thumbnail, hope it works. If it doesn't, oh well, the next one's not going to be that same thing. So, thank God, I'm learning. So I'm not doing the same thing over again, making the same mistakes. So the testing is everything. It's like literally everything I do is just testing and my team kind of hates it because they want some normalcy to say like, okay, this is what we were doing. But I'm like constantly testing just to kind of see what works. And then when I do see something that works, I do it again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that means that guys, when you're sitting there working on a video for Whitney, when you're making a video, are you focusing on yourself or is this more for the audience? Because I want people to understand the spotlight thing. That's very important that when we're going through content, it is not the Whitney show, it's not the Jordan show, it's how do we all get better. Yes, we learn from it because we're prepping, we're presenting, we're doing all these skills, but everyone's just a facilitator.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly I constantly, even when I'm recording my videos and working on my script, I'm asking myself, as Whitney the viewer, because I'm hard on other people. So I'm like Whitney, would you still be watching this? Is this some fluff that you're given? Take that out, because you need people to want to like and trust you, and if you're just giving some fluff and stuff that you know that's just not that great, take it out, because if you don't even want to listen to it, somebody else really isn't going to. So always look in the eyes of a viewer watching your stuff and see if this is right for you and right for them. That's just how it's got to be in that lens, not yourself.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and that's why the perspectives are so important that we're noticing that we're working for the audience. So if someone's interested in finding their next business, starting their next thing, what should they be doing? Like, obviously, daily deposits, but like what's the first step? Like I'm sitting there, I'm at home and I go, I don't know. I know I want to do something, I know I don't love what's going on now. What should I do?
Speaker 2:This is actually something that I did. I created because this is the number one question I get is Whitney, I want to start a business, but I don't know what to do. So I, literally I went and interviewed six and seven figure entrepreneurs doing different things, for the sole purpose of just helping you get that light bulb moment. When I went to figure out to Google searching for success stories, I was just kind of searching out there, so I wanted to create something that was just a clean, easy way to say like, okay, these are all different things that people are doing, and then these are their stories on actually how they did it, how much they make, how they got there. Literally, just take the same concept that I use learn from what other people are doing. And then, when I have that light bulb moment, to say like, oh, now that sounds interesting, maybe I can try to do that. Then you can read their story and learn from them. So that's one thing that I do have that I can share with your audience too. That will help them learn or at least get an insight.
Speaker 2:I feel exposure is everything. Had I not been exposed to blogging or those bloggers making $100,000 a month, I would have never started a blog Never, so you have to be exposed to things that you would not have ever considered before. So that's the biggest thing right there.
Speaker 1:And that is honestly the reason I started five years ago doing the podcast, because you hear these stories from these people, you hear these things and you're like I don't know, maybe, maybe not, it could be interesting, I'm not sure. And that's where you're constantly in this learning environment, where it goes. That could be something I'm interested in, that's something I kind of like Is that something good? And you start to realize that there's just an endless world.
Speaker 1:The biggest challenge I always tell people is that if you really look back, probably like the 1800s, 95 of the people were farmers. The cotton gin comes out. Five percent of the people are farmers now and you have this big transition of like when I was a farmer, that's very simple, like you know the path. You might not like the path, but you know what the path is. Then you start going generation, generation, generation, and now you're in this place of wait. I could, um, I could take videos of myself, I could go on youtube and talking to myself, I could drive a cool car for somebody, I could be a driver, I could start a business, I you could work a job, like there's a million different things you can do which causes us this stress of like whoa. This is a little too much. So I always think it's super important for people to realize there's a research period, but it doesn't have to become an analysis paralysis.
Speaker 2:It's yeah, and then take some action yeah, that's why I say like you want to be, that's why I'm just so big about having someone to follow, because then you have a guy you can say like, ok, even on social media, are they even posting? Or their platform, see which ones get the most engagement, what posts get the most engagement. So then you already know this these, this audience, are interested in this kind of content. Like, everything is kind of laid out for us on a platter, but people just don't know how to, what to do. So that's just my biggest thing is the biggest thing to do is find out someone, someone who's doing. Find out what you want to do, find out who is doing it and then study them. That's my biggest thing, that I think that's what's worked for me from blogging to YouTube, and that's the. That's kind of the model that I like to use.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I completely agree, because I think without a model and without a North Star, you don't know if you're going in the right direction.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:It's always important to have mentors. It's always important to get new ideas, new perspectives, Like when we look at a board. When companies have boards, they have people that are in different companies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, why that's so true?
Speaker 1:Why? Because they offer a different perspective. So it's super important to get people to sit there and go okay, you're on the path, you're not on the path, we're doing the thing, you're not doing the thing, it's okay. But you just need to get more opinions and kind of see how people are doing it. But when you're in a tidal wave which YouTube is a tidal wave that's why I'm starting to focus on it more, because then it's easier to just hop in the stream instead of create your own stream, as someone told me one time, because if you could just hop in a stream and you can learn. But I really hope everyone got something, some value from this on how Whitney got out of the 9 to 5 and was able to create this life of freedom. Now, whitney, I know you're doing some different stuff on YouTube. You have some different ideas how to help people. What are some of those things that you're doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the biggest thing with YouTube is just like understanding how to find the right title and thumbnail and topic, like, if you can master these three things, you're going to master YouTube, and if you can do that, you're're gonna make a whole lot of money. So this is what I now teach in a four-week boot camp I tell, show people how to. Well, not, it's more than that, but the main concept, though, is to understand the pillars that you need to uh build to success on youtube, and I just take you each week. I take you do very simple things. One. Uh, every single week you get a task. So it's and because and cause I always say information overload when you get that, you do nothing with it.
Speaker 2:So I've created this four week bootcamp with things that you can actually do, where you don't feel overwhelmed, and every week you're going to have a task, but it's going to be doable with a nine to five. So I'm running that. I just ran it. It did so well the first one. So we're going to do it again in June. And so well the first one. So we're going to do it again in June. And I may continuously do these because they're so good. It's just it went over so well. So I'm like okay, and then we got good reviews so you guys can check out the reviews and all that. But it really helped people transform and actually get out of analysis paralysis and get their channel started and have an actual strategy on how to learn and grow.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And, if you guys didn't notice, this has been one of Whitney's examples. Me and Whitney worked on the title, we're going to work on the thumbnail and we're going to see how this works for me because I'm in a constant learning phase. So when I learned that Whitney was doing this, I go you must give me more, we must learn more. So, guys, whitney has been so knowledgeable, she has so much information. Whitney, where can people learn more about you and hear more about you? Learn about the bootcamp, if they wanna.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll give you the link for the bootcamp, but also you can just my biggest channel is YouTube and so you can find me at youtubecom, at Whitney Bonds. I have a lot of helpful videos and help you learn how to make money from home, and those are the biggest channels. I do have an Instagram Whitney Bonds 101. But if you really want to find me where I'm active, it's on YouTube.
Speaker 1:Awesome, thank you.
