41. The Unscripted Year: Unexpected Lessons from My First Year in Business

Join me for Rewriting the Narrative Writing Workshop

In this episode, I speak directly to women who are starting a new chapter - whether that's launching a business, going back to school, or even stepping back into the dating world. 

I share the surprising lessons, mindset shifts, and real moments of growth that shaped my first year in business, and how those same insights can support any woman navigating change.

You’ll hear about embracing uncertainty, learning from the unexpected, and finding confidence in the messy middle of starting over. If you’re a woman stepping into something new - a career shift, entrepreneurship, education, or personal reinvention - this episode offers practical reflections and encouragement to trust your own unfolding.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Heal Thrive Prosper. I'm Andrea Tanase. And if survival mode made you forget who you are, I'm here to help you remember. After hitting rock bottom and rebuilding my life from the inside out, I now guide people like you, the cycle breakers, the strong ones, the overachievers, to unlearn harmful patterns, reclaim your worth, and build a love and life that feel like freedom, not survival. So grab your favorite snack and let's heal, thrive, and prosper together. Welcome back. Believe it or not, it is the one-year anniversary of this journey of my business. And it's been a journey of roller coaster, and I've learned a lot. And I took some time to reflect. And I will also be celebrating because I do believe in celebrating everything. But today I want to share my takeaways, my lessons learned, and what you can take from me as I continue on this path. This week on Instagram, which by the way, if you don't have me on there, please add me. I would love to keep in touch with all of you. It's at Heal Thrive Prosper. But this week I posted a reintroduction of who I am. And I wanted to bring that a little bit here before I talk about the past year of my life. So I added in that I'm a relationship educator, I'm a coach, I'm a speaker, obviously podcaster, I'm a writer, a wife, I'm a dog mom, and I am located in sunny Southern California. I also talked about my one-on-one coaching program, the fact that I've been doing speaking engagements and I want to continue pursuing those, the fact that I have my weekly newsletter. I just wanted to let everyone know how they can work with me, how they can keep in touch with me. And so remember that those links are always in the description in the show notes of every single podcast episode. And I would love to be connected with you. Okay, now for the reason you're really here. Let's get into the past year. So it's, like I said, been a journey, but I didn't think that it would be such a personal growth journey. If you've ever heard anyone say that entrepreneurship is a crash course in self-development, uh, yeah, they're not wrong. You will literally have to face every part of yourself, every insecurity, every shortcoming that you think you have or or don't have. Um, you will inadvertently be forced to compare yourself to other people who are doing the same thing that you are. Just so many things will come up that you don't even realize. You will see how some people get ahead, you will see how some people get clients, you will get opportunities to be an integrity or not being integrity. I mean, oh, I have so many stories. Like, uh, believe me, I am writing a book. It it's in the works. Um, many books, actually. But right now, only one, but eventually there will be one about this whole journey because that it's just been it's been shocking in good ways and in bad ways. But this first takeaway really is that you'll be forced to face yourself in the mirror and you will either, you know, address those things or you won't address those things, but they will come out. The next thing that I thought about is how growth has looked completely different than what I thought it would be. I mean, if I'm outside looking in, a successful business is what? How much money you make, right? Um, how many followers do you have? It's all metrics, it's all data, numbers. I've really learned that growth, even in business, means a lot more, especially when you have a purpose-led, mission-driven business. I'm here for a purpose. Um, the money is a byproduct of that. And honestly, when you're first starting your business, there are more expensive expenses than there are money. So let's get that straight. But growth for me has looked so different. And here's a really good example. Um, I'm in a healing and CPTSD online community, and the creator of that community, uh, Danny, created a challenge where every month you post how many unfollows you got on your Instagram. And at first I thought it sounded silly. I'm like, okay, what's you know, what's the point of this? And it's called the unfollow celebration. Now it's literally become my alignment ritual. Every month without fail, I have like 25 to 30 people unfollow me. And I've had the account, I mean, since 2019, 18. And I'm a completely different person now. I'm honestly doing completely different things. And so while I'm getting new followers, you know, constantly, it looks like the number's not going up month after month. I mean, it's inching up, but because I'm losing followers. And to people that would seem like a loss, but really it's alignment. And I didn't really look at it that way, you know, until Danny sort of put it in that way, right? Framed it that way. But then the more I paid attention to the unfollows, the more I'm like, oh yeah, like this is actually not a bad thing. Just like when you're going through a healing journey or growth journey and you start losing people that really shouldn't be in your life, that don't contribute to your life, that aren't like really aligned with the person you're becoming, like, yeah, it's a loss in the moment, and you might mourn that, and it might be it might feel real, and it is real, but it doesn't mean that it's bad, right? And so that's how I look at that. So my relationship with numbers and social media and visibility has completely, completely changed. I mean, even the way that I record these episodes, I used to script them and take hours to plan. And now I'm literally sitting down, I have five bullet points, and I'm just talking. And I love it. Um, I love it. And that's probably why I haven't I'm playing around with the idea of having guests. And you guys message me on Instagram if you think that I should. I get messages, um, emails weekly, multiple of people that want to be on my podcast, which is amazing, a blessing. I'm honored that they want to sit down and talk to me. But I just love what I have going here. I'm just yapping, talking to myself, um, and seeing how many of you are listening. And so, all that to say, uh, growth has has been, it's been amazing to measure it, not in money, not in followers necessarily, but look at it in a different way. I want to create an impact. I'm here for a reason. I'm here to share my story. I'm here to help people on their journeys. And so that is what my focus is. And I love the way that I really learned that lesson this past year. And so I challenge you to start looking at growth and progress differently in your life and see where you can catch things that maybe you wouldn't regularly catch if you just look at it from a different perspective. Next, I don't know if this is really a lesson learned, but this is just what happened. Um, a lot of people think that they need to know exactly what they're doing. Like, let's say you decide that you want to sign up for one-on-one coaching with me. I could tell you know what's in the program, what the transformation is going to be like, how I can support you. And a lot of people, I mean, some people get on a call with me and they have, you know, a million questions, and that's totally fine. You're making an investment of time and money. You're trusting me with your life, not like your actual life, but with your your day-to-day um, with your relationships and just your your ins and outs of your personal life, right? And, you know, some people get on a call and they're like, okay, well, what do I get out of it? How much money is it? Sign me up. Well, I was always under the impression I was the person that had a million questions. And a lot of times the million questions that I had, it wasn't just questions, it was like I never wanted to make the leap to really invest in myself because I felt like I didn't have the answer. Like I didn't know exactly what I was going to get out of it. And honestly, just making the leap is what will start to shift things. Like as soon as you sign on the dotted line, right? As soon as I filed my paperwork for my for my LLC um in June of last year, and then it got finalized in July. Like I didn't know what was, I knew what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to do life coaching. Now I'm doing so many other things, right? And volunteering, um, I'm speaking, I'm writing, I'm I've met so many amazing people, right? I'm I'm doing a lot, and none of this was really, I couldn't see this at the beginning, what it was going to turn into. And that's what happens when you invest in yourself. You really don't know exactly where it's going to go. And that's the whole point. You take like what one foot, one foot in front of the other, right? And the next step will reveal itself and will reveal itself. And there will be challenges, and you might take three steps back and then four steps forward. But that part, I think just navigating this the past year has really also helped me navigate life because I look like look at this as like a microcosm of life in its entirety. There will be seasons where it's just not the greatest, right? And then there will be seasons where you know you're winning, everything is great, um, everything feels great. But if you are, if you know that and you're prepared, like you don't have to know exactly what's going to happen or how everything's going to play out. You just have to be brave enough to take that next step. And that's probably, well, I started this by saying that. I don't know if that's a lesson, but that is a that is absolutely a lesson. And even when I coach my clients, I mean, they get frustrated and they think they're not making progress a lot of times. So a lot of the women I coach are like, you know, perfectionists. They're just amazing at everything they've ever done, right? And then they have personal goals and they're like, they want to get everything done in like a month or two. And like, your goals are so big. I am sorry to break it to you. It's going to take years. But good news, if you start now and you have me by your side, you're going to get there with a lot more ease and less frustration than you would have otherwise. Um, and asking for help for me and my business also has just changed everything. My business coach is amazing. Um, I have a lot of support. I'm in support group, peer support groups, um, and all of that is is great. So I highly suggest that you get a coach, invest in a mentor if you can, because it it will make the path a lot, a lot less frustrating. I mean, I've learned a million lessons. Like I said, I'm I can write a book about it. Um, but if anyone has questions, always feel free to reach out. Remember, I am here for whatever you need. Check the show notes, check the description for how you can get in touch with me, get on Instagram, get on the newsletter, get on a free call with me. I would love to meet with you. I'm also hosting a writing workshop, which I'll also put in the description. I'm doing so many things. I don't even know if I mentioned that last week, but I'm hosting a writing workshop called Reclaiming the Narrative, all about exploring identity, culture, and our experiences. And it is five sessions every other Tuesday, starting July 14th, 2026. If you're listening to this beyond that, that is totally fine. I probably have so many other things going on right now as well in the future. Um, but all the links to everything is in the show notes. As always, I am so grateful you're here. If you're still listening, I have a task for you today. Please share this with one friend. Let them know maybe they want to take that leap into entrepreneurship. Maybe they need a life coach. Maybe they are going through a rough time and they need some inspiration. Share this with at least one person. I appreciate you so much. Thank you for listening, and I'll talk to you next week.