Leaving Corporate Law, Loneliness of Entrepreneurship, and Finding Deeper Purpose with Stephanie Chan

#134. Stephanie Chan, a former lawyer embarked on a challenging path of leaving a stable 10-year legal career to pursue her entrepreneurial dreams. Stephanie candidly shares the hurdles she faced during those initial years—self-doubt, emotional struggles, and financial stress—experiences often unspoken but familiar to many entrepreneurs.

Discover the importance of building a strong support team, or as Stephanie affectionately calls them, "cheerleaders." Learn how finding people who believe in your mission and capabilities can uplift and guide you on your path to success.

Stephanie unveils the transformative power of self-reflection, urging listeners to identify their true driving forces. By sharing her own journey of realizing that making a positive impact on others fuels her passion, Stephanie encourages everyone to embark on their unique introspective journey.

Let's Connect!

Looking for a Toronto Realtor?: Book An Intro Call

Jenelle Tremblett: Website | Instagram | TikTok

Podcast: Website | YouTube | Instagram | TikTok

Stephanie Chan: Home To Home | My Care Base

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the ebb and glow podcast. I'm your host, Janelle Tremlett. And I'm a firm believer that even when life doesn't go as planned, it is taking you exactly where you're meant to be on this podcast. I'm here to help you finally release control of what you think you want and begin to just trust in the ebbs and flows of life. Each week, I will show you how to build that positive mindset radiate with self confidence and cultivate an unshakeable resilience. Let me prove to you that even when life ebb. You will glow. hello everyone. And welcome to episode 1 34 of the Eben globe podcast. I'm your host Janell Tremlett and today's guest. I have Stephanie Chan. She is a senior living advisor who has founded two companies, helping seniors with a variety of things, including health care, navigation, care planning, transitions, and finding vetted in-home care. Stephanie left a legal career after 10 years to pursue entrepreneurship and has never looked back. I love my conversation with Stephanie. It was my first interview with a guest after coming back from vacation. So It was nice to get back into the swing of things, having some soul enriching conversations as always, and having people share their stories that are relatable to the average person. So when I asked Stephanie initially, What are some abs that you've had in your life? Talk to me about some struggles. And she said it was really hard for her leaving a stable career where she practiced law for 10 years and then starting a business from scratch. She felt was very challenging. She said those first few years of self doubt, emotional struggle and financial stress are things that she's sure many entrepreneurs face, but no one really talks enough about. I asked, how did you navigate this time of your life in order to get back into the flow of things? She said her thing was building a great support team around you. She likes to call them cheerleaders and finding people who believe in your mission and your capabilities. She said, it's this group of people who will lift you up and help keep you on your path when you have that self doubt. Throughout the conversation. And towards the end, I asked Stephanie to look back at all of these difficulties that she's had. And how does it make her glow today? Stephanie said she has found a much more rewarding life path by realizing that what drives her is the feeling of making a positive impact on others. And she said, while that may sound cheesy, it's true. She thinks it's important for everyone to self-reflect on what really drives them. And it will be different for everyone. Of course. Once she realized what drives her. It guided her in deciding what endeavors and projects she really wanted to be part of or not. I knew you're going to love this conversation. If you're feeling like where you are in life is not what you're meant to do, then maybe you'll learn a lot from this conversation and get some inspiration to make a change. I know I've made many changes in my life and. Maybe it looked like I made them cold Turkey, similar to Stephanie, but a lot of the times when people. Make decisions and changes that look. Impulsive on the outside we've actually probably have been unhappy for a long time and it's just we finally rip that bandaid off So enjoy the conversation with stephanie please make sure to share it with a friend who will also get value as well okay enjoy Stephanie, thanks so much for being here. Thanks for having me. When I was away, I was looking forward to our conversation. good. And but before we get into that, I like to always ask people when I have people on here, is kind of what's happening now. Is there anything that's happened in the past week or month, maybe within your business or personal life that has kind of set you back a little bit or made you stumble a little bit? Lately, I feel like um, I think we've all had these moments where you feel like a little hamster on a wheel and you're running and running and running and really getting nowhere. So for a while I was feeling like that, where I just felt like everything I was doing was having no impact. Mm-hmm. Or not moving the company forward. So, lately it's been a little bit of that, but I have good days and bad days just like any other person. I'm so happy you brought that up cuz that's exactly how I'm feeling lately. So my question to you is, how do you get the pep back in your step and get the motivation back? what happens when I'm in these kind of slight lows is, it only takes a little bit of something to bring me out of it. Yeah. Like, it doesn't take a lot. And so like, I'll get a new client call and then I'll bring you Yeah. It'll give you the pep, right? Yeah. Or otherwise I do something like movement, some, like, something, some form of exercise usually will lift my spirits. Or, you know, a hobby doing something totally different. Yeah. Yeah. Just to get the mood up. I don't know if it's the post vacation stuff that I'm feeling, but it's more, I think when you take um, a couple weeks away from your business or some type of vacation, you come back and have a new set of eyes on everything and then you, think to yourself, okay, what's, what's actually making impact and what am I just doing to do? And I think that's where I'm feeling things right now where. What parts of my business do I wanna continue? Is there anything that I need to spice up a little bit? Is that how you kind of feel? Yeah. When I go on vacation and I come back, I find it it takes a while for me to get back into the groove. Yeah. So it, it's the first week after vacation is always the hardest. Yeah, I'm, I'm still within the first couple of days. Are you in the first week? Yeah. Yeah. I, I got back late Thursday night. Did, did a pretty full workday Friday, little bit of work Saturday, didn't work Sunday and today. And I struggle a lot with working, doing busy work as opposed to work that's really gonna move the needle. And knowing when to switch gears throughout the day and also understanding like, okay, it feels a little bit slow. Should I use this opportunity to maybe do a hobby just to boost my spirits up again? Or is this a perfect opportunity to start something that's really gonna push my business forward? Right. Entrepreneurship is hard. It is. Especially solo entrepreneurship. Yeah. It's lonely. Really, really lonely. It's lonely. There's mental health issues. Mm-hmm. It's isolating. Yeah. But then it's like marriage in the sense that if you, if, cuz I've had a co-founder. Yeah. If you don't have the right partner, you're better off solo actually. So It's kind of like the grass is always greener kind of thing. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. What I found very interesting when we were chatting last time is that you did a business degree and then a law degree, and then worked in the corporate year for how many years? The corporate law. I left just law for 10 years and then I left cold Turkey. What drove you to do business initially and then why did you wanna go do your law degree? So, Business interests me. So I did a business degree at UBC and that was the funnest time of my early adulthood. Good. Like, it was just so fun. I loved university, I hated high school. And but I loved university. I think I really kind of had my people call it your adult formative years. But I really came into my own And um, really enjoyed it. At the end of my first degree, I didn't have a clear direction on what I wanted to do, so I majored in finance. Mm-hmm. And at the time, and I think universities do a better job at it now, but at the time I. There wasn't a whole lot of awareness around all the possible different careers for every discipline. Yeah. And so there was kind of like, do you wanna be an accountant or do you wanna work at a bank? And I didn't and you wanna new brand market and yeah, I didn't understand all the nuances and possibilities. And also I didn't feel like I was at a mindset of a maturity level that, you know, where I wanted to, I was ready for a. Full-time career. Mm-hmm. So I decided to get a second degree and law interested me. I took a couple of business law classes in commerce and um, I really liked it and I really liked the instructors and I thought it was really interesting. So I went to law school and um, law school was fun also. And. At UBC as well. At ubc. And I will say, in my opinion, and again, I think universities do a better job now, but law school does not prepare you for the actual practice of law very well. And it teaches you the fundamentals. It teaches you the basics for sure. Mm-hmm. Um, And there's a lot of things you need to learn to be able to be a good lawyer. But the actual practice, especially corporate law or what's called solicitor's work is. Really different from litigation mm-hmm. Where you're going to court and you're taking on cases. So there's a real like, divide between different types of law. So when I actually got into the real world and started arguing, I just realized it wasn't for me. And I always thought, okay, well shoot, I just put myself through law school. Maybe I should give it a shot. Mm-hmm. And so what happened was, An opportunity came up like after my first year at this law firm where one of the partners went into VP job at one of our clients. And a few months after he left, he called me and asked if I wanted a job okay. At that client company. So I went And it was a clean tech company. They were doing really amazing things. At the time when the tech scene was really strong in Vancouver, and this would've been, I'm dating myself a little bit. This would've been the late nineties. Wow. Oh, I, yeah, I, you were so much younger than that. And so I had a great time, learned a lot. I think when you're like in any career, I think as you're going up the learning curve and there's an excitement around learning on each deal that you're doing and it's exciting and it's all positive that that can keep you going for a while. So I actually end up staying in that job for nine years. Wow. What I'm hearing is themes of sunk cost. Because you are like one year in out of law school and you're like, I don't know if this is for me. And then all of a sudden, 10 years has gone by. Mm-hmm. And because it's just, it's, I'm sure it's so all encompassing that you're just, again, you're on that hamster wheel so much that you don't even realize. You don't even have a moment to think to yourself like, do I really wanna get off? And how? Yep. Yep. A lot of people don't know how. Yeah. And a lot of people don't have I think they, they don't know if they can do anything else. Hmm. And they're at maybe a different set of circumstances in their life where they can't take the risk. I think that's a lot of people. Yeah. A lot of lot of people, they don't wanna take the risk or they actually can't. Like if I, if I had kids at the time I was thinking of leaving law, I don't think I would've left. Actually, I, I think I would've maybe found another job within the legal field and just try to make it work. Cuz I wouldn't have put my family at that kind of risk. And also it's the student debt. Maybe after two years and after a few years in law, you kind of start making good money, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I'm sure again, you even though you have two degrees after, if you wanted to get out and and change, you may be taking a salary cut. You get used to a certain lifestyle. It's a lot of change. Yeah, for sure. The salary cut is for sure, because you go into entrepreneurship not knowing when your company's gonna be profitable. Mm-hmm. And so you have to be able to finance that somehow until you're cash flow positive. Right. Yeah. So talk to me about some of the years working in law and what eventually made you want to leave altogether. You, you describe it as cold Turkey, so yeah. Obviously when you do anything cold Turkey, anything around a job or changing cities or relationships. Yes, it seems cold Turkey, but it's built up and thought about for so long that it's cold Turkey because at one point you're just finally fed up and you just pull the trigger. That is totally it. You actually hit it. The nail on the head because I had been thinking of leaving for probably two years before I actually did. Wow. And law is a good career and you don't wanna leave it just for anything. Mm-hmm. Um, And it was not a popular decision in my family when I announced that I was leaving law. And so it took me a couple of years to find the idea that I thought would be worthwhile. Mm-hmm. But during that time, my. Misery at Work was building and I just didn't wanna live like that cuz misery just attracts more misery in a way. Yeah, agreed. exactly what you said, it was time to pull the plug and so when I made the decision that I finally had an idea worth leaving law for Because there was an emotional element in it of having this unhappiness pent up for so long, I decided to just dive right in. Hmm. Um, Somewhat naively in hindsight, I think if I had to give advice to anyone thinking about a career change, I would want to help them or advise them do it, to do it more gradually or, yeah. Get yourself more prepared. I was, in hindsight, quite unprepared. I made a lot of mistakes in that first year. But the funny thing is you can't take yourself too seriously because I remember looking back, thinking, I thought I had it all figured out. I thought I knew what I was doing, but in hindsight, I knew nothing. But the naivete is probably what got you through those first few years Now, Yeah. Yeah. And you just kind of figure out as you go, and there's this kind of concept in the startup world called fast fail. Yes. And it means that you just go and do nothing has to be perfect. You go and try and test out the market and you just have to adjust really quickly. Mm-hmm. And that's how you learn. What didn't you like about working in law towards those last few years? Describe some of the days. A lot of it it, it was twofold and without naming anyone, it was my boss. As I got to the later years in my job, I really did not like my boss. And I, as I moved up the company, I switched bosses three times. Hmm. And so, the fellow who initially gave me the job, Who brought me over from the law firm I loved. But as I went through all the different stages as I got promoted, I really didn't like the boss at the end. And in fact, it was kind of probably a blessing in disguise because had I liked all my bosses, I might. You'd be there stayed. Yeah, you well, you'd be there. So how long you been doing your business now? 16 years. Um, So you'd still be there the first business? Yeah, perhaps. But it was the boss and also the work, like even if I had a great boss, I think at the core of it, when you get you know, five to 10 years in a line of work mm-hmm. You kind of plateau in your learning. And so you get to this point where you're just doing, and I think anyone who. Wants to remain happy in their career, really has to enjoy the fundamental work involved. Mm-hmm. And you didn't, I didn't enjoy negotiating deals anymore. I didn't enjoy writing contracts. I didn't enjoy compliance work. So all of that, that comes with being general counsel of a public company. Um, What did you like? I like the people actually, I just, the boss. I actually liked the team. Of your coworkers or the clients? A lot. The coworkers. Yeah. I like the coworkers. I actually really love the mission of the company cuz it was a clean tech company. Yeah. And I liked the salary. Yeah. But I got to a point where I really had to decide that money wasn't important. Hmm. And it wasn't worth. The lack of happiness, that happiness was more important and I actually still think happiness is underrated. Yeah, yeah. I agree. Yeah. You said when we last chatted that you felt that money was no longer important, and you felt like you were suffocating and you said all of the money in the world didn't matter if you were miserable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was suffocating that's a good word. I, I, that's exactly how I was feeling. And I think in, in careers where, like in the legal career, if you really hate what you're doing and you get sloppy Yeah. Some serious mistakes can happen. That have huge consequences. And that mean that goes for a lot of different careers. Mm-hmm. And I didn't want that to happen. I didn't want to make like a devastating mistake because I was getting sloppy. Because I was miserable. And that could also ruin your reputation even if you left law. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like whatever I do, I wanna be a top performer, always. Mm. And it's hard when you hate what you do. Ugh. Yeah, I get that. Right. So talk to me about your family. They were hell no. About this change. And for the audience, if you haven't figured out just by our little bits of conversation, Stephanie ended up going into entrepreneurship as I alluded to in her bio. Going from law and having a great salary and saying, Hey, I'm just gonna go launch my own company. Yeah. Family is gonna be. It's hard to be supportive, but I think it comes from love and risk. And Worried about you. Yeah. So I think there was a degree of shock. Yeah. And why is shock they didn't think like you? They didn't know. I hadn't told them that I was unhappy because I we're not a family that talks about stuff like that. Right. Of course. And so, they didn't know how unhappy I'd been and I think after I just explained things to them, I think any parent just wants their child to be happy. And so they did a, after the initial shock, they ended up being supportive. But it was just the initial shock. Hmm. What was the response? They, they were just worried. I think they were worried. I think they were they thought I was making kind of a knee jerk decision based on, I don't know. And they thought like, couldn't you just get a different job? In law, like if you don't like the company, why do you have to leave law altogether? Why don't you just get a different job in law? My mother said to me at the time, why don't you just endure it for a few years longer and just retire early? But you had to appreciate where, where the love is coming from in that, but, If you ended up going into entrepreneurship, I, you're smart enough to know that you want to be happy at right utmost happiness and, but there is a lot of people in this world that. They're just gonna work to work and their real life is after work. Yeah. But in law, if you're working around the clock, you don't have any time for real life. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people their work and their salary are just means to another end. Mm. Whereas my work is I consider it like the core of my purpose. Yeah. So I ended up finding something that I feel really is my calling. So it all ended well. I agree. I love that. You mentioned that you didn't like your boss. Do you believe that the universe is always working in our favor? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I think there's things going on that we cannot ever understand. I agree. So, yeah. So you had one business first before you landed on what you're building now. Yes. What was the first business? So, the first business is still going strong. So home to home is the name of that first business. And right away I kind of felt like helping seniors was my calling. Why? And so at the time, the idea came to me, It felt really right. And kind of along the lines of, do you think there are things in the universe, kind of that work In our lives? I kind of felt exactly like that because I've been asked that question before, how did you know what to leave law for? Mm-hmm. It felt like there were these intangible forces. Behind me, pushing me down this path. And that's the only way I can describe it. I felt like I was being guided. Mm-hmm. And it just felt really right. In hindsight, I do wonder if part of it was that I so desperately wanted to get out of law, but it does it, it did. I remember very vividly it felt like I was being guided down a path and Very early on, like in the first year after I had worked with some clients, I knew this was my calling. Like I just knew right away because I was doing something finally that was helping people directly, not just helping a company and having a meaningful impact. When someone really needed the help, even for a short moment of their lives. So home to home, we, what we were doing there is we help people with healthcare navigation and care planning. Okay. Downsizing and transitions. And so a lot of these people, When you, when you're at a point where you're experiencing those issues, you're usually in your late eighties. Cuz people, like younger seniors, like in their sixties, very few start really thinking about care needs. Um, People are living longer, more healthier. Yeah. They're still pretty healthy at that point. Yeah. So it isn't really um, you know, barring any kind of diagnosis of anything, it's not really till your eighties that you start really realizing you need help for a lot of people. And so, you know, you're in your eighties or nineties, you might not have kids around and I just found helping them was so meaningful. And seniors have such a level of appreciation that is so different from any other age group. Yeah. And probably any other industry. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. How did you get your first client, if your clients are seniors in their eighties, how did you get your clients and get your company off the ground? So we kind of try to connect with the adult children because often, okay, it's the adult children who are coordinating things for a parent or helping out in some way, or they're the first to recognize that the parent needs help. So we've always. Targeted both the seniors and how we, we think about how we reach them, but also how do we reach the adult kids. Mm-hmm. I don't remember how I reached my first client, but I think it might have been a referral through someone that I met. Okay. Yeah. And then it kind of just took off because in that first year you just, you do a lot of marketing Yeah. For awareness building. And you talk to like thousands of people in your first couple of years and. You just hope that people remember you and start referring to you clients. That's kind of how it was. Tell me about it. Right? It's a little bit of what did they call in marketing? Um, Word of mouth. Word of mouth, but um, like a very wide net. And then you kind of have to see what sticks. Yeah. And plus going back to me, you know, looking back how naive I was. Mm-hmm. It's not like I had a super focused marketing plan either. Right. So I really was just trying to talk to everyone that I could, trying a lot of different marketing techniques. Mm-hmm. Getting help. I, I did. I was at least aware enough to know that marketing wasn't my forte and so I did enlist help. Good. Um, Yeah. Your forte was being able to have those legal documents pretty tight. Yeah. Yeah. You mentioned before that you went through your life savings by building this first business. Yeah. That must be stressful. Yeah. So the way I finance the first business versus the second business, totally different. Yeah. Um, And, and totally different capital needs as well. Yeah. So the first business, because it was service based and, you know, there was no, wasn't manufacturing anything. I didn't have a lot of capital that I needed. I wasn't making a product. And so, It was just trying to keep costs at a minimum and funding my own monthly expenses, personal and business. And the first couple years were really rough. I, I will say cuz I made a lot of mistakes. I spent money where, in hindsight, probably didn't need to be spending. And it took a long time to get cash flow positive and those were really hard years. I don't think I would. Wish that on anybody, to be honest. When it came time, you know, many years later, when I started the second company a few years ago I raised um, it's called a Family and friends round. Yep, yep. Um, With some friendly angels and, and some friends. And so together with my money, it's been largely. Externally financed. And that brings a whole set of other issues, trust me. you have a lot of cooks in the kitchen then. Yeah. But um, at least I didn't have to go through my life savings again. Did you have anyone back in that time, during your first business to share that burden with, did you have a partner? Did you have family around you? Like Yeah, like hearing your story. It seems very lonely. It was very lonely and it's one of the reasons why I wouldn't wish it on anyone. And if I, if I actually could go back 16 years and do that first business again, I would do it totally differently. Why? I would've probably found a way to have part-time income while I did my business plan, my research. But what I, what I did at the time, because I kind of a. Dove in fully is I quit law and I spent six months unpaid, kind of like I've never taken a sabbatical before. I took six months to learn as much as I could about senior living. I talked to industry experts. I met with people from various organizations in the senior living industry to try to really kind of, build a business plan and hone in on what service was needed. And that helped. But I s I still kind of would do it differently. And back then the startup ecosystem was much weaker than it is today. Like a person starting a business today has a huge number of various incubators, accelerators, courses, programs, mentorship programs, tons of resources to help them launch a business. But 90% of that didn't exist 16 years ago. Or at least I didn't find it. Yeah. It didn't, it didn't exist. Yeah. And so starting a business 16 years ago was really different than it is now. And so I found building the second business really different. Mm. In the sense that I had some funding I have a team, I have a board of directors, I have advisors, I have mentors. Like I made sure I had a lot of support. Hmm. Do you almost wish that instead of going cold Turkey, you may have just reduced your hours in law, whether go back to part-time and then while learn everything at the same time? Yeah, there's a lot of people that give the advice that say if you're not, if you're not going full-time right away, you're not that serious. But that's, that's true. That's a good point. Good point. The cost of living, like even back then, it's not as much as it is now, but like, my God, like you people can't be going cold Turkey. It's, it's just, I just don't think this makes financial sense. It's a lot of risk, hence the draining of my life savings. And, you know, I really got to a point where money wasn't that important to me. I just wanted to put in everything I could into building the business. But if I could do it again I would've maybe made a more rational decision to have some sort of. Income while building the first business. I've made very rash, impulsive decisions like that, moving cities, quitting jobs before I had another job. Yeah, it's pretty stressful, but I don't know. I think it builds like a different level of resilience in you, don't you think? For sure. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, as people always say, hindsight's 2020. Yeah, of course I would do it again. If I did it all again, I'd plan better and blah, blah, blah. But I don't know, would I, would I be in the same spot I am in today without that risk? I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. That's how you learn. That's how you learn. I mean, you're either going to take that impulse and take those rash decisions then, or later on in a different area. I think it's easy. I think it's better to learn them earlier than later. Yep. I agree. Mm-hmm. What did uh, everyone in your coworkers back in, uh, law think as you're building your business? Did you keep in touch with them? Yeah, so interestingly law school is a place where you would think everyone ends up in a law firm, but at least in my class, a lot of my friends Went off into different careers right away. Mm-hmm. So I actually, at the time I quit, I only had a handful of friends from law that stayed in law, like people either left before me. Oh, interesting. Or never practiced law after graduating. It's people just like to spend money on school. Like, I think like law school. I don't know. I think some people decided right after law school, it wasn't for them. Yeah. Some of them got interesting careers elsewhere. Yeah. Some people left after a few years of practice, like it's all over the board actually. Mm-hmm. So my friends and my colleagues were all really happy for me. I remember I have a group of girlfriends who we see each other at least once a month and some more, and we've all known each other since we were 13. So we're high school friends and They were really, really supportive through my transition. In fact, I remember brainstorming the company name home to home in one of our girls nights. Hmm. Nice. Yeah. Yeah. It's good to have supportive friends around you. Now that you are in the entrepreneurship world, have built a second business, do you strand yourself with other entrepreneurs? Absolutely. One of the things I love most are mastermind groups. Mm-hmm. I recommend them to everybody. So that's, it sounds pretty expensive though. No, they are, but you know what, if you network enough, you can get a group of people just to, to do it like, just as for free Yeah. Colleagues. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz you can organize your own. Yeah, true. There are ones out there that are less expensive, but those have been really good. I think, you know, the pandemic of course kind of made us all not be able to network as easily, but. I do try to surround myself with other. Entrepreneurs and company founders. I'm in this. So my second business is a marketplace, right? Yeah. It's a marketplace of pre-vetted caregivers for hire, and I found this amazing group of marketplace founders. Hmm. So, All over the world and I save you so much time and like knowledge wasting. It's such an interesting group of people. Mm-hmm. And the fellow who has built it has done an amazing job. Like everyone on that platform is so engaged and wanting to help each other. Like, it's amazing what this, this is almost like a marketplace for marketplace founders. Yeah. And so it's a great group of founders. Anytime I wanna ask a question about anything, I guarantee you there's someone who has already experienced the problem. Of course. Of course. Yeah. I'm glad you brought that up because that's something that I've wanted a lot lately is almost like a mastermind group of like real estate agents. And it doesn't have to be just in Toronto, but maybe even Canada or the us, but more so people that are kind of in the same level of business as I am and kind of run their business similarly. I'm like, I wanna know, like, okay, well what do you, you use for your c r m? Like, yes, how did you attract this client? Like what do you do when you're like uh, business is a little slow. You need that because, My friends don't understand what I struggle with. The only people that are gonna understand what you struggle with are the people doing it as well. Other, other founders, other people within the uh, home care industry. You have to, yeah, I totally agree. You need to network with people who know what you're going through, cuz they've gone through it. I know totally. I, I totally agree. And I'm sure you realize as you're sharing stories throughout these masterminds that you probably don't realize that how much you have to offer because of something that you've already experienced or learned that maybe someone else hasn't yet. Right? Yes. Do you have any examples of that, of like what you're learning from other people and what you've been able to share with others? Yeah. So I remember being um, in a mastermind a couple years ago where You know, they wanted to, cuz not everyone has a board of advisors and not everyone has a board of directors. And so, plus in my legal career I did corporate governance as kind of. What I did a lot of. So, I've often helped others on like, when is the right time to form a board? Who do you want on it? How do you get advisors? How do you know how much to pay them? And, and things like that. And then where I've learned from others are kind of around the areas that I'm weak, particularly marketing and customer acquisition. Hmm. And you feel like yeah. You've learned a lot from mm-hmm. Others on that. Yeah. What I like about those situations is it's like having coworkers without having coworkers. Right. Nice. It's like someone said it's like having your personal board of directors or a peer board. Yeah. Yeah. That's cool. What we talked about at the beginning when I asked like, oh, like kind of what are you struggling with today? you mentioned that. Yeah. Just like the laws of the business and trying to get the motivation back, but what are you building these days as part of your business? so the second business in particular is tech forward. Like we're trying to incorporate tech and build tech to move forward the home care industry. Hmm. And, and using tech to help family caregivers find the help they need quickly. You feel like this industry is so dated still? Hey, yeah, it's very dated. It's high touch, which makes the use of technology a little bit tricky because you never wanted to be a hundred percent automated because when a client is contacting you, because their mother needs care, they don't want there to be no one on the other end. Like they want to be able to reach a person. Mm-hmm. So, it's kind of balancing, well, how do we use technology to make the whole experience better without losing that personal touch? And so that's what we're working on, is building that technology, but also with the customer service that clients want. Hmm. Interesting. I, I would agree with that. It's hard to find that middle ground because if it's all personal touch and all human to human, you're gonna be paying labor costs like crazy. Right. And you don't, you don't want that because what's the point of having a tech company if it's all labor based? Yep, exactly. So we're building technology to take care of the things and to streamline things that can be automated, but always having a person that customers can talk to if they have a question about their caregiver my question to you, we talked a little bit about this last time. Just the, the, the darker moments of entrepreneurship and especially building a business. We've, we've touched on it a little bit, but when we think of big companies that go public and that become unicorn companies, we do not think about years and years and years and hours and hours of all the work that went behind building that, all the failures that has happened. So while you're building this company, what are some of the dark days? There's a lot of dark days and It's not so much me asking or telling myself I don't wanna do it, but it's this feeling of I'm never doing enough. Ah, and it's this, not, it's not quite the imposter syndrome, but it's very close where if I'm honest, and if I can be very vulnerable right now, I feel like a failure most days. Why? Well, it's. It's this feeling of not feeling like I'm doing enough. And it's like before you know it, the day's over and I've only gotten half of my to-do list done. And it's feeling like for the time that has progressed, I should. Have more traction by now. I should have more revenue by now. I should have more of this, this and this. Like as a solo entrepreneur, I think especially when you have investors I think it's common cuz I'm sure I'm not the only one feeling this. I think it's common to feel like you, you're not achieving enough. And partially it's fueled by hearing about the unicorns. Hmm. And you compare yourself to the really successful stories that you hear and you think, oh my God, why is it so hard for me? And I understand like, I'm, I'm not building a tech company, but I completely understand where it becomes seven, eight o'clock again. And you think, what the hell did I get done today? And you know, you worked all day. You're existing. Exactly. That's exactly it. But I find something that helps me is looking back at the end of the week or the end of the month and saying, Ooh, okay. Those couple big ticket items got done. But it's hard when you're, when you're so, mm-hmm. In the trenches of it, every single day you almost have to take you, you gotta do the bird's eye view of like, yeah, wow. Look where my business is today as opposed to six months ago. Yeah. As the time is gonna pass. Yeah. So my board's been very supportive and I would say cuz they're the bird's eye view of, they, they see, they see the traction, the progression. Yeah. Also as a solopreneur where you're really light on management because you're still kind of bootstrapping things. It's really hard, and everyone talks about this, it's really hard to work on the business when you're in the business day to day so hard. But then it's hard to extract yourself from being in the business when you have no one else. To pay bills, schedule meetings, take every meeting like you're, it's, it's just you end up in this cycle. But I think I'm self-aware enough to know, like that's my issue. I need more time to work on the business as opposed to in the business. Yeah. One thing that I try to do, and I don't know if this would apply to you, but. I find a time in the day where I dedicate this is the time to work on the business and for me, if I wanna do anything that's gonna move my business, it has to be the first part of the morning because the moment kind of the day starts, clients are calling me. People wanna view things like it is more day-to-day. I just got back from vacation, so I'm no expert on it. I'll restart again. But it helps. It helps. Yeah. And cause it's like working out if, if you're the type of person that, if you don't do it first thing in the morning. You're not doing it at five o'clock, you're not doing it at seven o'clock the day takes over. So I think there's a book called like something, I think the phrase is like, eat the Frog. It's like do the biggest, most important task first. Do you, do you know that, like that concept? I haven't heard of it, but I have heard of similar. Pieces of advice from other people around. You know, whenever people talk about time management. Yeah, I have heard what you've just said. I've also heard people say, you've got to actually block out time in your calendar so other people who have access to your calendar. Yeah. Don't think you're free. Um, Yeah. And so it's making it clear to yourself and others this time is for whatever. I agree. Um, And blocking it off in your calendar, I know for me, and I'm sure it's the same for you, the, the tasks that make money, the day-to-day task when you don't know if you're getting paid next month and how much it's very easy to fall, fall into the trap of just taking on more and more and more and more. Yeah, I feel that. I wanna ask you a little bit more about intrinsic values. Because we talked a lot about money and how money fueled you for a bit in corporate law for a bit, but I mean, after many, many years, mm, it doesn't really, you don't really care about it anymore. what I like about what you're doing in your businesses today is that you say there's a lot more intrinsic reward to do with it. You mentioned the last time we spoke about having clients that are prisoners of war and Holocaust survivors, and there's not many more years of. Being able to talk to people like that. Mm-hmm. And, and you're realizing that, wow, I'm gonna have more of an impact on them and they're gonna have more of an impact on me than the type of work I was ever doing before. So we wanna talk about, yeah. In all the years I've been helping seniors through my first business and now the second The only thing that is constant is I know that every client's gonna be different. Like that's the only thing that I know for sure is every client has their own story and they're all so interesting. Mm. Um, And I think because of the generation and the years and all the world events that they, they've lived through, I just don't think we're going to get. Such a diverse set of stories with our own generation because we've really not endured much hardship in our own generation. Mm-hmm. Comparatively speaking. And so, I hope that the stories of the older generation don't just dwindle away. I hope they get passed on and I hope they get recorded. But I do find it interesting and I think It is intrinsically rewarding for us to hear the stories because it gives you a different appreciation of life. It gives you a different appreciation of humanity and what we've gone through as a society to get where we are. And regardless of someone's background and their stories, it actually is really rewarding to just help someone. I think for me it really. Creates endorphins. It makes me feel good about the business. Both my businesses I think help people in really unique ways. And so I really enjoy that. Mm-hmm. I mentioned when we met the first time that I feel like my mom should be in this type of business. I feel like just watching her, she's in sales similar to me now, but watching her with seniors, I'm like, I don't know if anyone does it better than you. And I don't know, I, I, I hope sometime that I could help her financially in a way where she could go and explore that different career, you know? Yeah. But yeah, like, I don't know. She just has such this like tender way of taking care of them that. I feel like it's, it's pretty rare to have, don't you think? Yeah. Yeah. It definitely takes a certain personality. Not everyone is, you know, wanting to do that or cut out for it. And I think also seniors can tell if you're authentic or not, too. Oh my god. And they'll tell you, tell if you're in it for the right reasons. But what I can say it's been Mutually transformative. Like I've talked about how I wanna make a meaningful impact on my clients, but my clients collectively have also made a meaningful impact on me. Probably bigger than you could have ever imagined. Yeah. Yeah. before we close it out, what's some things just chatting to seniors that you've learned just about life and just their wisdom? They have way more wisdom than we give them credit for. Of course. Um, One particular story that has stayed with me is I had a client once as couple and they told me their story and I don't think I'll ever forget it because it, the principle of the story is love at any age. They got married when they were 88. Oh. And so obviously when that came up in conversation, I asked for, how is it that you met and fell in love at age 88? Mm-hmm. And it turns out that they've been friends. Since they were young, they each married other people and they were each in each other's wedding parties. Wow. So they were really close friends and each of their spouses passed away and then they fell in love with each other. Oh, and they decided to spend the rest of their lives together. They fell in love and they got married at 88 and that's how it happened, and I thought that was such a neat story and so Oh, cute. Uplifting and sweet. Yeah. Here people are my age at 30 thinking that they're too late in life to do anything. Hmm. I don't think people realize life is age. Yeah. Hmm. It's so cute. And I bet they're just so happy. It's been a few years since I've helped them, but I yeah, they were really happy. Hmm. Yeah. What kind of advice do you have as we close it out? What kind of advice do you have for people that are in a career that they know they do not like and they, like you are miserable and they dream of more, but don't have it in them to take the risk? I would say take baby steps and go talk to people. Go talk to people who have taken that leap. Ask them what it was like, ask them the highs and the lows, like, you know, really go into it eyes wide open. But by talking to these people, hopefully um, you can find the courage. I think it's about courage and confidence. And I think that's like 90% of it, 10% is being prepared. Mm-hmm. Um, But the lion's share of it is about your attitude, about it all and also having the degree of support around you. So, I think it's really important to have what I call cheerleaders. So these are people that. Think more highly of you than you think of yourself. And will always lift you up when you're feeling down. And if you think about who you have in your life that are true cheerleaders like I have I have a lot of friends, but I would say just a few people that I would actually put in that special category of, they honestly probably believe in me more than I believe in myself. You need those people. You need those people. And. If you're lucky to have maybe even three, keep them around because you'll need them through kind of the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. Yeah. I'm learning that as uh, the last couple years being in like somewhat of entrepreneurship of working for myself. Yeah, there's definitely some people that won't support you as much as you thought. They would, and there's some that support you a lot more than you ever thought they would. And, uh, you know, who to keep closer around, especially, it's a, it's a hard business. It's, it can be lonely like we've talked about multiple, multiple times. But yeah. Any last final words? Anything you feel that's left unsaid? No. I think it's been a great conversation. I would say to anyone out there who's, you know, thinking of taking any kind of risk, mm, you can do it. You can do way more than you even realize. I know. during this conversation, I just reminded myself that I had to voice note a friend of mine, because she's going through a little bit of a, almost like a mid quarter life crisis, I would say, of saying, I don't like anything about my life. I don't like my career. I wanna just change it all. But I, I feel stuck that I can't. and I said to her, I'm like, I don't wanna, I don't want to minimize how you're feeling, but they don't really seem like roadblocks to me. Like you're putting roadblocks there that I think you can easily move out of the way. And I realized as I was saying that to her, I'm like, it's all mindset. What you think is a crazy roadblock. The next person could, could think, no, no. Why don't you just do this? Yeah. Why don't you just do this? And sometimes people don't wanna hear solutions. They wanna vent for a bit first. Yeah. And so I asked her, I said, Sorry, I should have asked like, do you want solutions or do you want to vent? Because I, I, I'm, I wanna help, I wanna give solutions, but. I need to talk to her again and see what changes is she gonna make, because I think a lot of it is just she needs to start chatting to a few more people and, and get her mind expanded a bit of kind of what's possible for her. Yeah. So, yeah. And she needs to come to, into it in her own time because I was Yes. Planning about law for like two solid years before I was to the change. Yeah. Cause you, you just, you know, it takes time to be ready to make a decision. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my. Stephanie, thank you so much for this conversation. Uh, First podcast interview back after vacation and it feels good. I like it. Good. Well, thank you for having me. It's been a great chat. Of course there is so much. When you're building your own business, there's a lot of burnout. There's a lot of disappointment. There's feeling like you're constantly failing and never moving ahead ever, but. It's just a reminder in this conversation to one, if there's something that you're dreaming about, take the risk and make the plan and take the steps. Maybe not as impulsively as you did or I did, but definitely make some kind of change. And secondly, that's, yeah, you can, you're quite capable of doing whatever you want and it's never too late to make the change, so. Right. Stephanie, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Did you know that I'm not only a podcast host, but in my full-time career, I met Toronto based real estate agent. If you are someone, you know, is a busy professional looking to get into the Toronto real estate market, I highly recommend reaching out to me. You can go directly to my website@wwwdotjenelletremblant.com. And you can click the let's talk button to book a call with me. I work with buyers, renters, and sellers in the downtown and east end areas. So don't hesitate to reach out to me and I would love to help you find your next home. And in the meantime, we'll see you here back next week.