I recently had to let someone in my team go I was very surprised by how it panned out tbh I spent hours training them, sending them training videos, voicenotes, lots of guidance, and support. When they made mistakes that negatively affected my bottom line, instead of firing them, I asked, "How did you make this mistake?" How could I have made my instructions clearer for you? All was great, lots of trust and good rapport between us, and one day after 2 plus solid years.. They just went AWOL...
2 days ago • 8 min read
Last week’s email was a bit heavy. I shared the harder side of running an online business. You can read it here if you missed it And I know many of you are feeling something similar in your own work. Feeling stuck, tired, like your time isn’t fully your own. So this week, I wanted to share the other side. Before that, here's a quick note from our sponsor today: Before I started blogging, I worked in a bank. And there’s something I still remember clearly. I used to see corporate managers, many...
9 days ago • 1 min read
Most people think the hardest part of running an online business is… Getting traffic.Making sales.Figuring out the tech. But after running blogs for more than 8 years, I’ve realised something. That’s not the hardest part. The hardest part is something no one really talks about. It’s the mental weight of it all. You’re building something that doesn’t have a clear path. There’s no roadmap. No certification. No formal structure like traditional careers. No one is telling you,“Do this, then this,...
16 days ago • 5 min read
I've just completed an intensive 5-day training program to become a corporate trainer. I've always loved teaching my strategies in my personal workshops. However, more and more companies have asked me to share strategies tailored to corporate clients. There is also a government grant in Malaysia (where I am currently based), which covers corporate training for companies, but I need to be accredited Anyway, the training was awesome. But one HUGE thing stood out Most of the people there had...
23 days ago • 3 min read
For years, I had a very specific dream. I wanted to work remotely alongside my partner. Two laptops. Flexible schedules. The freedom to work from anywhere. So we planned for it. We saved money.I built the blog business so it could support two full salaries.And eventually, we were able to take a sabbatical together. Around that time, I became pregnant with our daughter. It felt like everything had aligned. My husband left his traditional job and joined me in working online. We moved from...
30 days ago • 3 min read
When I had my daughter, I assumed the hardest part of running my business would be time. I was wrong. The real challenge was mental bandwidth (and energy) 🥶 Before becoming a mom, I could sit down and work for hours. Brainstorm content.Plan projects.Experiment with ideas.Pivot quickly. I could come up with an idea and execute the whole thing in one day because I had 8-10 hours of blissful, uninterrupted TIME Now my work happens in small pockets of time. Two hours during preschool. An hour...
about 1 month ago • 4 min read
Lately, I’ve been in a strange phase with my work. For the last 8+ years, my blogs have been my business. They gave me freedom. Income. Even the ability for my husband and me to take a long sabbatical together. But this year feels different. I’m now running the same business while raising a baby. And I’m realizing something: The way I used to work doesn’t fit my life anymore. My time looks different. My priorities look different. Even the content I want to create feels different. For a while,...
about 1 month ago • 2 min read
I set up my second travel blog right after the pandemic, while I was motorbiking through Malaysia with my brother. The blog earned nothing for a solid year, and suddenly, at 13 months, I was able to monetise it properly and earn USD771.25 You can see proof of my earnings here It’s interesting that in my notes, I wrote: ‘I need to diversify revenue sources.’ Clearly, this was worrying me, but why was it taking me so long to diversify my revenue sources? I'll tell you why : Because it's...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
Happy Chinese New Year to those in my community who celebrate it! Recently, I mentioned that I ran an in-person affiliate marketing workshop. You can see how much fun we had here! There were many engaging and useful parts to this workshop, but one section in particular had everyone's eyes widen in surprise. You see, quite a few participants owned blogs but had given up on them because they felt it was so hard to monetise. :( In fact, the workshop was primarily about teaching them how they...
2 months ago • 3 min read