Civil engineer, serial entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and digital nomad Amber Renae inspires women to re-discover their ‘wow’ factor through presentation, personal branding and self-love.
Not only is she an icon for style, but she’s also an icon for women’s empowerment, through her phenomenal entrepreneurial success story, having built three, 6-figure businesses in arguably the toughest industries, she is passionate about sharing her advice, wisdom and experiences to her peers and 80,000 strong global community.
Jason Crowley: Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us the “backstory” about what brought you to this specific career path?
Amber Renae: I jokingly say that the universe pushed me into this role. Before I started this e-learning business I was working as a celebrity stylist and fashion editor, and had two of the biggest residency contracts in the country. I lost both of those contracts within one month and found myself unemployed and unemployable. I had nothing left except for an e-course that I had created a couple of months before. I spent the next 12 months studying 18 e-courses on all things digital marketing, and the rest as they say, was history.
Crowley: Can you share your story of when you were on the brink of failure? First, take us back to what it was like during the darkest days.
Renae: My first business went bankrupt, and I was diagnosed with cancer, ulcers and was on anti-depressants. This was after working 7 days a week for 6 years straight. I gave everything to that business, literally worked myself to near death. And at the end of it all, my manufacturer went out of business and took all of my stock, leaving me with a whole lot of bills and a whole lot of illness. I then launched another business as a stylist and went on to hold two of the best positions in the country in that industry, only to lose both roles in a matter of weeks and to be left with nothing, again. These are two pretty spectacular business failures, and by all reports I should’ve gone back to my day job as an engineer, but I didn’t. I persevered and during that time I developed incredible resilience. I know now that these businesses were my real life MBA.
Crowley: What was your mindset during such a challenging time? Where did you get the drive to keep going when things were so hard?
Renae: During the dark days, my mindset was just trying to manage day to day. I didn’t have any of the tools and teachers that I now rely on whenever things get a little heavy. I developed a lot of self-care practices and devoted myself to a few teachers who I studied daily.
Crowley: Tell us how you were able to overcome such adversity and achieve massive success? What did the next chapter look like?
Renae: I’m a problem solver and I’m results driven, so when I want something I’ll do what I need to in order to reach my goals. In saying that, I’ve tried and failed many times over in my career, so to be able to be the business leader that I am today means such a great deal to me knowing how much perseverance I’ve had through adversity.
Crowley: Based on your experience, can you share a 3 actionable pieces of advice about how to develop the mindset needed to persevere through adversity? (Please share a story or example for each.)
Renae:
- Resilience is the #1 quality that entrepreneurs need to develop. If I had of quit when the universe dealt me that first big business failure, I would be back in my day job working on a construction site as an engineer!! Can you imagine!?
- There is no such thing as failure, view everything as a lesson. Everything has been put in our path to teach us something. If you adopt this approach in both life and business you will always succeed.
- Choose Progress over Perfectionism. If you’re putting out work that is perfect, you’ve spent to long on it. Aim to put out work at 80% done. Done is better than perfect and speed to market will win in 2019.
Crowley: None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Renae: I have never found a mentor that is able to provide all the direction I need. These days, I prefer communities of peers for guidance. For instance, Facebook groups of people who are in the same business as me, and I am a member of a couple of masterminds that also have shared knowledge. I find these peer-based groups more valuable.
Crowley: Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Renae: My new e-course Freedom Funnels has officially launched for the year which helps people to set up and scale a freedom-based online lifestyle business by teaching e-courses and building funnels.
It’s a truly comprehensive course which teaches every aspect of online marketing from List Building, to Product Launches right through to Funnels and Paid Ads.
I love teaching it as it’s something I’m deeply passionate about and my students are setting themselves up with Freedom businesses too!
It’s incredibly fulfilling, you can check out more about it here: http://www.amberrenae.com/freedom-class
Crowley: You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Renae: Funny you should ask, I actually created an e-course called The Movement: 30 Daily Success rituals to change the way you think in order to live your best life.
It’s Universal topics on a bite-sized actionable level, you can check it out here: http://themovement.me/class
It basically teaches the mindset and daily success rituals that all the most successful and the happiest people in the world implement on the daily.
Crowley: Any parting words of wisdom that you would like to share?
Renae: I personally think vision, mindset and mindfulness make up at least 80% of your success as a business owner. If you can get your head straight and eliminate all of your fears, stay focused and positive, that’s the majority of the work done. The universe will do the rest for you. Also, find a community of people that are in the same industry as you, and be active in that community both giving and receiving value, and keep investing in education.
Crowley: How can our readers follow you on social media?
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theamberrenae
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theamberrenae
Website: http://www.amberrenae.com/freedom-class
