Corporate pharmacist escapee 💊

After dedicating over 12 years of my life to becoming a pharmacist and climbing the corporate ladder, I had enough.

Every day I dreaded work, but I just “sucked it up” while my health quietly got worse from the constant cortisol dumps. Then one day my pharmacy supervisor took his own life. And I remember thinking… “that’s me in ten years.”

So I took the leap of faith and quit after my dad passed away in search of a better oath.

But right after saying goodbye to my prestigious six-figure career, I was back at square one, making $100/month as a YouTuber.

While mastering the art of talking to a camera by myself for hours, I dug deeper into the world of digital marketing and high ticket sales.

So I invested in a few online programs and thought it would be easy to land a client. The “gurus” said it would be easy. 

They were wrong.

The gurus weren’t completely wrong. 

Digital marketing and high ticket sales roles were in demand, for experienced people, not beginners like me.

Some of my friends and colleagues quit, but I was determined to figure something out. I remember months when I was “getting by”, making <$300 / month from YouTube.

To be honest, this was a dark time for me.

I didn’t have too many people that could relate. But luckily the girl I was dating gave me the emotional reassurance that everything would work out.

Then I had a big break.

I landed a ClickFunnels 2 comma club client, which was growing rapidly and scaling. It was time to say hello to the five-figure paydays, right? Wrong.

A month in, I almost got fired. Everything I learned in the “guru” program failed miserably and wasn’t working.

If I wanted this to work, I had to learn fast.

So I did what I knew how to do. I made friends with the top performers, reverse-engineered their process, and read basically every sales book on Amazon.

Because I already knew how to learn from my pharmacy years, I cracked it, scaling the business to $1.2M in top-line revenue in under 10 months.

The crazy thing was that I was starting to outperform people with 20+ years  of experience.

My edge wasn’t a secret script. It was bringing the the soft skills of healthcare into the sales world obsessed with tactics and pressure. There was a calmer, more human, neuroscience-based way to sell.

We basically starting having real conversations.

So I started sharing my lessons, mistakes, and experiences of what I was learning online as a newbie on YouTube. And something crazy happened…

As I was learning how to make content, opportunities opened up.

Business owners reached out for consulting and JVs. Then the DMs and emails started coming from viewers all over the world.

Some had questions. Some just wanted to connect over the same stuff I was living, business struggles, being single, losing a parent.

That’s when I realized the world doesn’t need another “guru”.

They need a friend.

Someone to remind them they’re not alone, and that they’ve done more cool shit than they give themselves credit for.

One of the most life-changing moves I made was enrolling in Ali Abdaal’s Part Time YouTuber Academy. 

Then years later, Ali and his team asked me to help them with sales.

So there I was, running sales for one of the biggest creators on the internet, and every day I got to talk to people who felt more like friends than leads.

I was supporting creators I actually admired, and thriving while I did it. I even I built my own YouTube mastermind from the people I met and we became closer friends.

What worked wasn’t a script, or a funnel, or some closing trick. It was all about relationships and having real conversations. 

But even with everything working, I felt a pull to bet bigger on myself.

So I moved to Asia.

Not gonna lie, moving here had been my dream since I was 21 and in pharmacy school.

And even though I loved my time with Ali, I wanted to build my own brand and get back to my original YouTube vision.

So I made the leap to take bigger risks, bet fully on myself, and build a life with actual creative flow. My mornings now look like jiu jitsu and working on YouTube videos from random coffee shops in Vietnam.

Behind the scenes betting on myself when everything’s uncertain is terrifying. But I try to remember that my family came to the US with nothing but a dream of a better life.

That’s literally why this whole thing is called Refugee Hustle.

I won’t pretend it was clean, though. It meant disappointing people I love,. It meant being far from people who passed while I was gone, like my grandma. 

But I’d still choose to do the harder path every single time. 

If any of this hit, the restlessness, the feeling that you’re meant for more, the fear of betting on yourself, you’re not alone.

I write about all of it, the real, unfiltered version, in a monthly newsletter called Creator Confessions.

Sometimes there's stuff that's too honest, messy, or juicy for YouTube.

That's what this is for.

Once a month I sit down and write out what's actually going on behind the scenes.

The wins, the dumb mistakes, and lessons I'm learning in real time, along with whatever I'm figuring out about building a creator business and a life I actually like.

Think of it as a letter from a close friend.

If that's your kind of thing, hop in 👇