Behind the Scenes of an Online Business Owner

You know me as the teacher turned entrepreneur who gives you all the deets about time management, stress management, and business systems for online business owners. But what else do you know?

Luckily, I am a person behind this screen, not an AI bot nor a cat with an old news reporter hat slapping its paws against the keyboard (I know the latter may be a little disappointing). 

But it seems like you may need more than that.

So in lieu of my normal facts, tips, and strategies for how to create your next easy business system, I’d like to take this time to share a little more about my story. 

And if you don’t care to know, I completely understand. The introvert in me commends your commitment to keeping your circle small. Don’t worry, there will be more informational blogs coming back to you next week. Sign up for the newsletter to get notified.

Let’s start with some fast facts:

• Recovering Burnout Queen…✅
• Organizational nerd…✅
• Cat lady with only one cat…✅
• Degrees and certifications in Teaching and Writing & Rhetoric…✅
• Neurodivergent Business Owner since 2019…✅

And though these quick tidbits about me may tell you quite a bit, they lack nuance and substance. They are great for a social media tag, but not so much for defining my story.

So who is the “Jewels” behind Jewels of Teaching? Let’s highlight a few main pieces below.

Recovering Burnout Queen

I am a Recovering Burnout Queen. I know burnout cycles like the back of my hand from my time in the classroom as a high school teacher. I have had to find all the information on stress management to pull myself through. And still, my worst burnout cycle that pushed me out of the classroom entirely took almost a whole year to fully recover from. 

Learn more about my transition “From Burnout to Brilliance” on the Why I Quit Teaching podcast with Martita Robbins.

I have come to look back at these times with gratitude: I was able to overcome and adapt and lean into who I am and who I want to be. My time as a full-time high school English teacher taught me so much about how to persevere and create and organize and streamline. It also taught me some bad habits. I’m talking to you perfectionism, people pleasing, and overworking. 

I would find myself overworking through burnout cycles again and again in the classroom and even though I left, I found it in my business too. It wasn’t about the environment; it was about the habits and coping mechanisms I had created to survive. 

Teaching just amplified those habits. I had to learn to get to the root of my burnout cycles before I could truly move forward. I had to combine stress-management and time-management to truly embrace a work-life balance that works for me. And that is why I can’t stop talking about that connection in all of my Jewels of Teaching content. Such a revelation drives my work.

Organizational Nerd

As an entrepreneur, I had to find my space. I went through so many versions of my business and who I wanted to really connect with as a small business owner. 

• What impact did I want to have? 
• Who did I want to serve? 
• How could I serve them? 
• What did I find joy in?
• What did balance look like for me?

I ended up working with systems and productivity because I saw the need and knew how to make people’s lives a little easier. I had the experience and I ultimately find organization fun. 

My Type A brain loves to figure out the puzzle and make things easier for my wonderfully Type B friends. 

Plus, it allows me to put on my teaching hat and help others understand how things work. That is the best of both worlds for me. 

Though I may have had to change things more often than I expected and finally feel like I am in my groove, I don’t feel alone in this. So many of my clients have dealt with perfectionism and overworking and changing ideas in their business to see what fits. We all go through this process and it's nice knowing that we can look to those who have been there and learn from their processes too. 

I love the community that entrepreneurship has brought into my life along with the flexibility and balance that I can’t give up. 

I love that I can connect and share and be my quirky self by finding others that are feeling the same. 

I love that I can find people who can fill the gaps: where I can focus in my zone of genius (aka business systems) and they can help me by working in theirs (aka product photography, Pinterest management, etc). 

Cat Lady

I also love cats. Knowing that I adore cats may create some very clear images (both positive and negative) in your head of a self-proclaimed cat lady: something of an elderly woman with a dozen cats mewing around her legs as she scatters pebbles of food and coos back at them. 

But that image, though a possible life goal, doesn’t really showcase that by saying “I love cats” it also highlights why I love all animals. The phrase seems to miss that I am so empathetic I can’t even stand when a clearly CGI cat in a movie is in danger. 

It sounds silly, I know. I accept that level of scrutiny for my sensitivity toward clearly not real animals, and sometimes I wish that I could “just stop feeling this way” and “just enjoy the movie.” 

I truly feel connected with animals; so instead of penalizing myself with “should,” I choose to embrace happiness as much as I can, no matter the stereotypes I may be stuck with.

Research as a Hobby

My Bachelor’s, Master’s, graduate certificates, and multiple certifications might make you immediately think that I know a lot about a lot. And, not to toot my own horn, I do; but having these things is not what makes knowledge special to me. I find a passion and a hobby in learning new things, so I know a lot of stuff about a lot of topics. 

So much so, that it makes it hard to focus on one thing at a time. I’m often found diving so far into one topic for a full hour or more only to come out the other side and find that no one really cares to hear about how the rhetorical and genre patterns of Disney movies are fascinating.

I can tell you everything I know about feline anatomy, stress management strategies, creating a business foundation, stress response cycles, business systems, building a business, Quickbooks, baking, organizing your house, color psychology, how rhetoric works in and out of both academic and business spheres, and so much more. 

Though, I fear if I told you about everything all at once, you may be looking for the exit real soon.

Neurodivergent

And you may not have noticed it yet, but my AudHD traits are right there woven in those little stories and descriptors. They are a part of who I am and how I process the world a little differently than others. They are indicative of how I have coped and how I am learning to accommodate for myself as an adult. 

Because of these things, my life is so full. I have the fantastic opportunity to recognize patterns so quickly that puzzles are no match for my eye and system elements are easy for me to pinpoint. 

Because of these things, I know that I can help others who are neurodivergent like me. 

There are so many of us in the entrepreneurial space, and I want those I work with to know that they are not alone, that they don’t have to do it the same as everyone else. 

You get to be the most unique person and business owner ever, that’s why we get into business. 

So thank you for coming to my TED Talk and learning more about why I do what I do.

If you’d like to hear more about how I run things behind the scenes as a neurodivergent business owner, check out my monthly newsletter. It only comes out once a month so as to never overwhelm your inbox, and inside you’ll find my top 5 tips on the topic of the month to help you incrementally move your biz forward. 

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