What I learned about success from vanessa lau. 

I was lying on the couch one day, staring at the ceiling and I had a pit in my stomach. I was struggling to grow my Instagram account and make waves with my blog.

For months, I had been waking up at ridiculous times, all so that I could pursue this thing called starting a business for myself. I had a headache that just wouldn’t go away and I was feeling defeatist which was my normal mood. 

Most times I was on cloud nine, but today I was tired of endlessly pursuing my dreams and hearing crickets. I just wanted to give up. What is an unemployed girl supposed to do. 

I had given up years ago on pursuing a 9-5 job because when I sent out fillers all I heard was the clicking of my keyboard and then nothing. Most days were spent with me watching television and I was starting to become a couch potato. Flash forward years into the future and I was actually doing it. One day, I decided to talk to my niece about was I going through.

“Maybe, I should change my brand. I mean, it could be that I am just not getting fillers because no one is interested. It is not like I can sell products to myself.”

She looked at me and with the wisdom of most nineteen years old, she said. “Yeah, maybe.”

No one was going to give me the answers I needed so I decided to search for myself. After that is what Google is there for so I have been told countless times and I dove headfirst into the murky waters to see what I could find.  

This is what most gurus talk about when it comes to success, that there’s no such thing as overnight success stories. We hear all about it because who doesn’t want to be motivated and they are motivating. I couldn’t find anything on Google to ease my heart so I went to Youtube and something popped up in my feed. What drew me to the video was that we shared the same first name then the second thing I looked at what was the title. It was about how to grow your Instagram account.

I watched the video, it was the first time I heard about Vanessa Lau, I have embarrassed to even say that especially when I found out that she was a millennial business coach. I had believed for the longest time I knew all the top dogs in the millennial niche. I realized with shame that wasn’t the case at all and I started to look up anything, I could about her.

Vanessa saw the world in a way that almost every successful person does. I subscribed to her email list then and then hoped onto her Facebook group. I knew of a few people who had achieved the success she had, but I discovered that she was different from most entrepreneurs.

A question played in my mind, “how much are you willing to sacrifice to go after your dreams?”

It was from a documentary I watched weeks ago called the “Age of the Entrepreneur,” and now I had to ask that question. Often when it comes to entrepreneurs or anyone that’s successful, we never see their sacrifice or hard it was to reach to the top, but with Vanessa Lau, I came to understand that nothing comes easy.

In fact, most things are hard to achieve and it takes time to move the needle. These are the five things I learned about  success from Vanessa Lau.

Not everyone’s backstory is the same

“You need a job, most successful people had a job and then they made their money on the side,” I often heard when I spoke to people about my dreams.

“Yeah, I have been trying that for years, still have no job. It isn’t like I can go to someone else’s office and do a whole Beautiful Mind thing and be offered a

job.” They’d shake their heads and mumble something under their breath.

When you listen to the advice of successful people, most of them say things like don’t quit your job. Instead, keep working and start saving money for your dream career. Well, they have a point, but there are a lot of people who don’t have that choice. 

A lot of people no matter how much they try, can’t get employed and find themselves watching Youtube videos of how to make money online. Take Lewis Howes, for example, he was sleeping on his sister’s couch and came up with an idea to help people on LinkedIn get jobs. Eventually, with time, he started making strides and he then created the School of Greatness.

Then there’s Vanessa Lau who quit her job without a backup plan. She left her glamorous corporate job and ended up working as a part-time coffee barista to support herself while working on launching her business. 

Invest in yourself

“I mean why would I pay for something if I can get it free online,” I hear a lot of times.

“Well, Youtube is great and all, but you still are missing out on important information.”

“Online courses are a scam,” after hearing that I would nod and change the subject.

It is normal to want to not pay for anything after all nowadays you can literally get anything for free. And that is the problem, I get it, spending money that you don’t have is terrifying because if everything plops then well what do you do next. You can’t exactly go to your family members and ask for money. 

But investing in yourself is important, more than that it is necessary if you want to be successful. In my early twenties, all I did with my money was buy food from expensive restaurants and movie tickets. I didn’t invest in myself, I saw no need to do that, I didn’t learn any new skills and that was the problem.

Vanessa Lau while working as a barista invested in herself, bought courses and surrounded herself with six and seven-figure entrepreneurs. We all know that

that what a barista earns is crummy and yet she found a way. Danial DiPiazza from Rich 20 Something was a waiter before he started his freelancing career and within four months had made enough to launch his business. 

Vanessa Lau knew there was more to life

I had a dream internship way back in 2014, the first six months of the year was like a dream. I had lived in Switzerland and now I was living in South Africa, doing my internship. I was also getting paid, it was unbelievable, but the problem was that I was depressed. I had to get onto a train to get to my workplace and I dragged my feet ever day.

The job was boring and I looked forward to Fridays like most of us do when we are working. For other people in certain parts of the world they look forward to their Saturdays.

“Is this what working is like?” I asked my mother on the phone.

“That’s what growing up is like,” she said. “With time you will get used to it.”

I nodded, even though I knew she couldn’t see me. I felt this emptiness that I couldn’t describe. Later on, I realized most people feel this way, they don’t like looking forward to their weekends. They drag their feet on Mondays, over indulge in coffee, they loathe their bosses and don’t believe the message of the company. 

Even people from Facebook eventually lead their jobs because there’s no perfect job unless you work for yourself.

Peter Voogd, the millennial thought leader, once said, “you either are building your dream or someone elses.” 

That statement changed the way I looked at life. Vanessa Lau must have felt the same at one time because she worked on her dream knowing that there was 

something more out there and she just had to followed the yellow bricked road or in this case the steps to get to where to wanted to go. 

Hustle is the name of the game

I was at the top of my class in Switzerland, I can’t tell you how competitive schooling in Switzerland is like. They believe in bulking one year of school into six

months.

For me, getting there wasn’t easy. My parents had to take a loan to pay $24,000 for the six months I’d be there and I had got there late. Normally, nothing

happens in the first week of school. Boy, was I wrong? I was so behind, they had already begun writing their thesis report papers and I had to catch up and

that wasn’t easy.

I believed as most millennials do that if you go to an overly priced school, hustle until your eyeballs pop out of your skull, make it into the top position and

you will get a good job. I did all that, had an internship and I found myself unemployed despite pulling all the stops. Most millennials believe that a job will fix

everything, in the past it did, but now it doesn’t.

I am not saying that a job is bad if it is for you then great. Vanessa Lau like a lot of millennials are made to believe in a lie that society often tells. Unlike most

millennials she went after her dreams despite the odds because she understood that a job won’t satisfy you.

I know a lot of people who feel as if their job isn’t satisfying them, but they still do it because they think that’s the only choice they have. That it is the only

thing that they can do. I get it, but at the same time. I ask myself the question, is it worth it in the end.

If you are strapped for cash and want to start making money on the side to help you build your business, here are quick side-hustle ideas to get you started.

You need a mentor

One thing that people always struggle with is paying for a mentor, but here’s the thing if you want to get to the top a lot quicker then it is important that you

have one. The difference is paying for a course or a book is that it only delivers a handful of great advice. A book can only tell you so much about how to

achieve success before it becomes redundant and the same thing for a course.

There are so many books that I read and invested money in buying courses. Invested time in watching webinars, but I couldn’t ask questions. Before Vanessa

Lau could achieve success, she had to surround herself with people who where were she wanted to be. Last month, I invested in a mentor. It was worth every

penny because even though the information is free there are still missing pieces. For example, how to successful people find affordable virtual assistants?

You can only learn this from investing in a course or how do you find a loan for your business. There are plenty plus solutions out there to meet your needs,

you just have to look for them.

I have learned so much in one month then I have learned in three years of paying for courses. Every successful person has had a mentor and still has one.

Vanessa Lau is no different. 

You need to be consistent

Every entrepreneur says the same thing, you need to be consistent, whether it is with your blog, growing your Facebook groups or Instagram. You have to be

follow through, but I had no idea how powerful it truly was until Vanessa Lau sent an email letting her email subscribers know that she has grown her

Youtube account to 100,000 in a year. Yup, not an exaggeration. In a year, that’s incredibly inspirational and I think most people don’t talk about consistency

enough and it can get overlooked.

Being an entrepreneur is a lot of work, in fact, it requires dedication and effort to make things work, and it doesn’t happen overnight. Nathan Chan always

says, if you want to grow your Instagram account be consistent, post once to twice a day. How many of us actually do that, but Vanessa Lau kept doing it and

she’s the epitome of what it means to hustle for your dreams. She has an awesome course on how to grow your Instagram account, you can find it right

here.

Vanessa Lau shows us that success is possible, but it all comes down to how dedicated you are in actually making it happen. She’s a millennial that

understands how important to chase after your dreams, no matter what anyone says. Here are some awesome free resources from Vanessa Lau on

dominating social media and creating an unstoppable brand.

Be respectful and resourceful

I am part of Vanessa’s awesome 10, 000 member group and one of the things she lists down in her announcements is to be respectful. When you are starting

out, it is easy to forget your manners. But even social media requires you to be respectful. Sending messages to people in Facebook groups is disrespectful

and yet a lot of us do it.

Another thing that we do is go to groups and start asking questions without doing our research. When you are starting a business, you need to be

resourceful.

Google has to become your new next best friend and that is the only way you can grow. If you want to achieve momentum then that’s what you have to do.

Vanessa Lau reminded me of that, you need to learn how to be resourceful and then what you learn you can then use to build your brand,

What lessons did you learn from an influencer and it is your main take away from this post? Comment below.

                                                                                     Keep Pushing

                                                          Vanessa