From Pre-Med Dropout Sleeping In The Parking Lot of a 7-11 to 6-Fig Coach (My Story)

How An Insecure Pre-Med Dropout Went From Sleeping In The Parking Lot of a 7-11 to Multi 6-Fig Coach & Consultant in 3 Years

(and how you can use these 3 Key Lessons to do the same in half the time)

Preface

"What the hell do you mean you don’t want to be a doctor?

"We didn’t sacrifice our life just so you can waste your life here in America”

“Get out! Get out of here you stupid kid! And don't you ever come back! I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!”

Those were the last words I heard from my mom when I told her I wanted to start my own business back in 2017.

The idea of starting a business was unheard of in my family.

My parents immigrated from Vietnam in the 1980’s and settled in a little town called Garden Grove. It was here where they worked as factory workers making only $3-$4/hr to make ends meet.

They sacrificed a lot for me to have a better life in America.

So it felt almost like a betrayal when I told them that I didn't want to be a doctor.

I tried my best to set myself up for med school.

Throughout my 4 years at UCI, I:

• Starting my own healthcare internship managing 25 interns
• Lead my own Public Health Research Project with a team of 13
• Worked at a PT/doctor's office for 6 months
• I even got went through a 3-month EMT Certification

But by the end of it all, I realized that this field wasn't for me.

I hated it all.

And that the dream of being was never my dream to start.

Deep down, I knew I always wanted to start my own business (an online business to be exact)

It took me 2 years to build up the courage to tell my parents this.

And when I did, I found myself in the parking lot of a 7-11, contemplating if I made the right choice.

I remember telling myself things like:

• "People like me (Asians) don't start businesses, it's a white people thing"
• "I'm so short, how can I get anyone to take me seriously? "
• "What do I even have to offer anyone? I'm so young. I'm stupid. I'm an idiot"

My body felt numb.

I felt like my parents and the world would be a better place without me.

I wanted to disappear and rid the world of my burden.

But after a while, that feeling of sorrow and sadness turned into anger and revenge.

I knew that I wanted to prove my mom wrong and show her that I had what it takes to be successful on my own.

On top of that, I wanted to be able to help retire my dad. He was 62 years old, and his health was on the decline. I knew that I wanted to have the financial freedom to allow him to retire.

And most importantly, I wanted to do this for myself. I wanted the freedom that came from having a completely remote business.

The ability to travel the world, work on my own time, and choose what I wanted to do, when I wanted to do it, with whoever I choose.

This mixture of motivation was all I needed to get my ass into shape.

I had all the ambition and motivation I needed to succeed.

The only problem was, I didn't have any of the skills.

Nothing that I learned from college was transferable to starting an actual business.

I didn't know how to market.

I didn't know how to sell.

I couldn't even hold a conversation with someone without feeling overwhelmed with anxiety.

I was a shy, broke, Asian kid with a handful of insecurities, anxiety, and childhood trauma.

And yet, I somehow figured it out.

5 years later, I run a multi 6-fig coaching and consulting business from the comfort of my own home. I managed to successfully retire my dad, take care of my loved ones, and have the freedom to travel at ease.

It wasn't an easy journey.

I made many mistakes along the way, but they were all essential to me becoming the person I needed to be.

The person who is worthy of wealth, health, and the relationships I desired.

This journey has not only transformed my life, but it transformed how I operate and think as a person.

I went through what I consider the 4 stages of entrepreneurship. All of which were essential to helping me build the business I have today.

Today, I share my story and lessons with you in hopes that it inspires you to go out and chase your own dreams.

May you extract the lessons from my failures so that you can gain perspective to not make the same mistakes I did.

Enjoy!

And today, I want to share with you my journey in hopes that it inspires you to start chasing your dreams.

May you extract the lessons from my failures so that you can gain perspective to not make the same mistakes I did.

Enjoy!

Stage 1: The Productive Procrastinator

(aka Wantrepreneur Syndrome)

At first, I decided to go what I call the "cheap route". I thought that I could figure this all out on my own. This included:

• Watching a bunch of free training and webinars that I saw from random Facebook Ads
• Signing up for every newsletter, lead magnet, free guide, or free workshop I could find
• Finding ways to get books and online courses for free or cheap

I was learning about drop shipping, Amazon FBA, selling digital products, affiliate marketing, blogging, social media marketing, digital marketing... the list goes on!

I felt productive. I felt like I was doing so much. I felt like consuming all this information would help me start the business of my dreams.

But after 1.5 years of doing this...

I was left with informational overwhelm, imposture syndrome, and massive self-doubt.

I experimented with Dropshipping, Digital Fitness Programs, and Affiliate Marketing – but never found any success (I actually lost around $1,000 by the end of it all)

I felt completely lost. It was here that I realize that starting a business is wayyy harder than I thought.

I was optimistic at first, but reality showed me that I have a lot to learn before I can actually run my own business.

It was here that I had my first epiphany in business:

"What if instead of trying to start a business I know nothing about, I just work under someone with that business and learn directly from them?"

It was here that I began to seek out mentors.

I started messaging people on LinkedIn with a marketing agency or coaching business.

50+ customized messages later, I found my first mentor.

He allowed me to crash on his couch as I worked with him in his digital marketing agency.

And thus began the next stage of my entrepreneurial journey.

Stage 2: The Skillless Apprentice

My job here was to generate people interested in our services and book a call with us (this is known as a Setter). From there, my mentor would close the deal and give me a percentage of the total deal closed.

At first, I sucked at everything.

I was trying everything I knew to get clients into the business. I was doing BNI, networking events, cold calling, and even direct mail marketing – but none of it worked for me.

Instead, I got rejected, humiliated, and almost kicked out of my mentor's couch.

After another week of zero clients, I curled myself up in the backseat of my car trying to find a new solution.

It was here when I thought to myself:

"What if instead of going out and finding clients, DMing them, I got them to come to me instead and reach out to me?"

But as I started digging, I found that this is a very viable strategy that many Fortune 500 businesses use.

It is known as inbound marketing, and from here, I started self-teaching myself everything there is to know about inbound marketing.

I taught myself copywriting, email marketing, social media, and funnel building.

I spent all weekend learning these skills, surviving purely off cup noodles and the Disney Frozen soundtrack.

What happened next blew my mind.

• 7 days later, we signed our 1st client!
• 30 days later, we sold out on all services and had to start a waitlist.
• 60 days later, we upgraded to a brand new office.
• 90 days later, we were celebrating by spending a month in Thailand partying and working. I was finally starting to live the dream.

Overtime, people started noticing my work, and I got hired to help them generate more leads and clients for their businesses.

This allowed me to branch off from my mentor and go all in on my own consulting business.

At the time, I didn't really have a clear offer. I called myself a Marketing Consultant and would do whatever people were willing to pay me for.

This included email marketing, social media campaigns, funnel building, sale pages, etc.

This worked okay at the start, but as time went on, I started to see the flaws in my decisions.

• Having a general offer didn't allow me to charge a lot of money for my services
• Once my referral source dried up, I had no other way of getting new clients
• I had no systems in place. I'd wake up every day feeling scattered-brained with no idea what to do next

At this point, I knew my problems were too advanced to find in a book, course, or free mentorship.

To advance to the next level, I would need to start specializing and building out systems for my business.

This lead me to enter the next stage of business – Paid Coaching, Mentorship, and Masterminds.

Stage 3: The Intelligent Investor

This transition was the most difficult for me.

Although I was making some money at the time, it wasn't a lot. (about $4-$5k/month).

On top of that, I used a lot of the money coming in to better my mental health and heal from emotional trauma.

I was doing:

• Healing work (spiritual, energy, emotional, mental, holistic)
• Mindset work (NLP, hypnotherapy)
• Transformational Workshops (relationship, inner child, personal development)

Pretty much anything that I could get my hands on to better heal from my past trauma and insecurities.

So by the time I knew that I needed to invest in paid coaching and masterminds, I was very hesitant.

With only $500 to my name and $10k+ of debt, it was hard to convenience myself to pull the trigger.

On top of that, the mastermind I wanted to join was for ADVANCED business owners (6/7-fig businesses)

And even though I didn't fit that description, I knew that was where I wanted to go. I knew that if I didn't invest now, I would be losing out on even more time and money by not knowing how to grow to 6/7-figures.

So I got resourceful. I opened 2 new credit cards and invested in my first high-ticket coaching program.

I was ecstatic! I felt like this would finally be it.

The mastermind taught me an entire system to get clients into my business.

And after implementing the system and turning it on...

....nothing happened.

No clients. No money. Nothing.

It was frustrating as hell.

WHAT AM I DOING WRONG!?

I hopped onto the coaching calls for help, but that only left me more confused and more doubtful.

(most of the advice I got was too advanced for me as I was the youngest owner there)

It was at this point that I started to panic.

"Maybe I am in too over my head? Maybe this is not for me?"

"Am I too young for this? Too dumb? Too stupid? Too inexperienced?"

"Maybe I was never meant to do my own thing. Maybe I should of stuck to a 9-5 and played it safe."

I needed to clear my head.

So I booked an Airbnb in San Diego for the weekend to brainstorm and figure out what was wrong.

I started to meditate, and after a few sessions, I had an epiphany:

"What if instead of forcing myself into this cookie-cutter system – I customize it to better work for me? "

It was an idea that sounded difficult, but I had a feeling that it would work.

So I went back to the drawing board and stayed up all weekend to figure out ways where I could completely flip the model and make clients come to me instead.

Then, one hour before I checked out of my Airbnb, I figured it out!

I went to work applying this new system. Needless to say, the results speak for themselves.

• 3 days later, I closed my first client for $3,000!
• 8 days later...another client for $4k.
• 20 days later... another client $6k
• 30 days later, I had my first ever $20k month.

And the results kept going from there. I was getting clients left and right. Before I knew it, I had to actually STOP marketing so thatI could catch up on the work.

As I kept getting more clients, I continued to invest in other masterminds and programs. All while customizing it to best fit my strengths and business.

Over the next 9 months, I quickly grew my brand new coaching business from $0 to over $300k in revenue... all WITHOUT having a website, following, or funnel

In fact, all I did was use my social media profile, Zoom, and a simple Google Form to close clients for $3k, $5k, even $10k.

And the cool part was, I didn't have just one offer, I had 5! (I wouldn't recommend this, but that's what I did to see if my new method would work for other offers)

For my highest month ($81.6k), the math looked a little something like this:

• Mindset Coaching (12k/month)
• Relationship Coaching ($12k/ month)
• Fitness Coaching ($12k/month)
• Social Media & Brand Consulting ($20k/month)
• Business Start-Up Consulting: ($25k/month)

And like before, people started noticing how fast I was growing and wanted help.

I was getting 20+ messages a day from people asking me to help them start & grow a coaching /consulting business.

I was hesitating at first. I thought to myself:

"What if I got lucky?

What if I'm special?

What if these strategies only worked for me?

But after it seeing it work for me and my 5 different offers, I decided to test it out.

I took on a small group of 5 people and once a week, would hop on a Zoom call with them and teach them my new system.

And like me, they started getting clients and results too!

I was mindblown! I couldn't believe how fast my clients were getting results

And ever since then, I stopped all my other offers and decided that this would be my bread and butter (you can see all of our client's results here).

This brings us to today and my current stage of business.

Stage 4: The Peaceful Creator

Today, I've streamlined an entire system to help people start & grow a coaching or consulting business around their passion, interest, or expertise.

This has allowed me to be able to pay off my parent's house, retire my dad, and be able to travel the world with my friends and family.

Because it was never about the money. But rather, what the money allowed me to do for myself and my family.

But the greatest thing that came from this journey was seeing my own internal transformation as I went through each stage.

• Getting kicked out at 21, working 10-12hrs days, and sleeping in the backseat of my car for the first few years of business has made me more resilient, disciplined, and mentally tough.
• Being forced to constantly re-engineer myself and my identity to achieve the next level of success has made me adaptable, stoic, and relentless.
• Making money, losing it all, and making it all back again, has made me learn to trust myself, my abilities, and my intuition.

To me, it's not the end result that makes the journey worth it. It is seeing the person you are able to become in the goal that is the most rewarding thing.

And thus, I continue to strive for higher and bigger goals. To help more people, build a bigger business, and impact more lives.

I do this not out of ego, fame, or status (although all of those are nice) – but out of curiosity, fun, and exploration of the person, I will become in pursuit of it.

Takeaway: 3 Lessons of The Trade:

With that said, I want to leave you with 3 Keys Lessons that I wish someone told me sooner.

1) Choose Your Own Race, and Carve Your Own Path To Win

"There’s a quiet confidence that comes from running your own race, from no longer measuring or comparing yourself to others. That you’re on the right path and not led astray by the many tracks which cross yours of people who are hopelessly lost.”

– Benjamin Hardy

You only lose when you choose to run races that you never signed up for.

I always knew the race of being a doctor wasn't for me, and yet I ran it anyway.

If only I had the awareness and courage to say no sooner, I could be a lot further ahead now.

But it's perhaps the most impactful lesson I've learned to date.

Society, your parents, friends, co-workers, peers – they'll all try to tell you to follow their definition of "success".

Other coaches, gurus, and YouTubers will try to tell you there is a "best way" to do something.

But the truth is, there is no "best way" to do anything. The only "best path" is the path that is deliberately designed and paved BY YOU.

You are responsible for creating your own meaning of what winning and success look like. You get to what wealth, happiness, and fulfillment look like. You get to decide what that looks like and feels like.

And once you figure that out, it's okay to carve your own path there (in fact, it's recommended)

Had I refused to build out my own system for business, and forced myself to fit into someone else's system, I would of quit by now.

No one will ever know what is best for you except for you. You know your strengths. You know your weakness. And it's up to you to carve your own path that maximizes what you're good at and minimizes what you suck at.

You don't have to follow anyone else's blueprint. Choose how you are going to do things your way on your own timeline.

Because you are the creator of your own destiny.

And be it through intention or ignorance, all your successes and failures are brought upon you by none other than yourselves.

"The only real test of intelligence is if you get what you want out of life"

– Naval Ravikant

2) To Get All You Want From Life, You Must BE the person Worthy of Those Things

“We as humans will always act, feel, and perform in accordance with what we believe to be true about ourselves. We will act, or fail to act, not because of a lack of willpower or knowledge, but because we simply do not see ourselves as the type of person to carry out such a task.”

– Steven Vu (inspired by Maxwell Maltz, Psycho-Cybernetics)

The origins of all your success, and lack of success, will always stem from one core source:

The way that you see yourself and what you believe to be true about yourself.

We often fall shorts of our goals because we simply do not see ourselves as the person worthy of those goals.

When I decided to start my own business, I didn't see myself as a business owner. And because I didn't see myself as that, it was hard for me to do the things that a successful business owner would do (market, sell, network).

I just saw myself as a shy, insecure Asian kid – so I did exactly what a shy, insecure Asian kid would do. In my case, it's spending hours learning a bunch of stuff without actually doing anything.

It wasn't until I took on the Identity of a 6-fig coach/consultant that I was able to do the things necessary to achieve that result.

It was easy to post content, take sale calls, and provide an amazing service because that is what a 6-fig coach/consultant would do – which is who I already am.

The same thing applies to all other areas of life.

At any moment, you can DECIDE to re-engineer yourself and become the next-level version of you.

You must first SEE YOURSELF as the person who embodies the traits worthy of the things you desire.

And from there, you choose to live those traits because you already see yourself as that person.

Own it. Live it. And outwork the doubts that come to reinforce that Identity.

3) Seek Mentorship Early, Eliminate the Tax of Ignorance

"If I have seen further, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants before me"

– Sir Issac Newton

I wasted 1.5 years trying to "figure it out" on my own. It wasn't until I sought mentorship (whether free or paid) that I was finally able to get results.

The key to moving and growing quickly rests on your ability to condense time.

How do you condense time?

By buying the time of other people who have already paid the time to achieve the thing you want.

Ignorance of not knowing how to create the income you want is costing you that amount of income.

Not knowing how to make $10k, $20k, $30k, even $50k+/month is costing you $10k, $20k, $30k,$50k/month.

The deadliest tax you have to pay is not to the government. It is not capital gains tax or income tax. It is the TIME TAX of IGNORANCE.

Most people stay stuck in life and business because they don't know what they are doing.

(It's like you're trying to hammer in a nail with a toothbrush – you just don't know any better)

Thus, you should always be willing to invest in skillsets that will make you more money.

Because once you have it, it pays you back forever, with interest.

My investment into my 1st coach didn't get me to $10k/month.

Neither did my 2nd, 3rd or 4th coach.

It wasn't until the 7th coach that finally got to my $10k/month goal.

But that doesn't mean each coach prior was a waste of time or money.

Each coach and mentor I had prior got me on the PATH towards $10k/month.

They each got me 3-5 steps closers to the goal vs me only getting 1-2 steps closer trying to "figure it out" by myself.

Your goal in life is to pay down the time tax of ignorance as fast as humanly possible.

The best way to do that is to invest in yourself.

And there is no greater investment you can make than to learn from someone who has already paid that tax for you.

For they will be able to tell you what to do, how to do it, and what order to do it in.

They allow you to rapidly download the skills, knowledge, and perspective needed to do what would have taken 5 years into 5 weeks.

You are a Product of Your Decisions

You are exactly where you are today because of the decisions you choose to make.

And if you wish to be in a better place. If you wish to be richer, happier, and healthier, it starts with making a new decision.

Decide to crave your own path to success. Decide to become the person necessary to achieve those things. Decide to seek help early so that you don't have to pay the tax of ignorance.

There is no silver bullet or magic pill solution to anything.

Some things can move you closer to your goals. Some will set you back.

You will either win or you will learn, and both of those get you closer to wherever it is you want to go

Success has a price of admission. And you can choose to either pay that price with your time or your money.

Neither will have a 100% success rate. Both will take a lot of hard work and sacrifice to make happen. But your chances of success will always be greater if you seek to stand upon the shoulder of giants before you.

Choose wisely, my friends.