239 – Why You Want to Create a Business that Includes Semi Passive Income with Oksana of Oksancia

Gift biz on wrapped episode 239 Oh it was such a

big deal to start receiving those first sales.

I cannot even describe how thrilling it is At Tinton gifters,

bakers, crafters,

and makers pursuing your dream can be fun whether you have

an established business or looking to start one now you are

in the right place.

This is gift to biz unwrapped,

helping you turn your skill into a flourishing business.

Join us for an episode packed full of invaluable guidance,

resources and the support you need to grow your gift biz.

Here is your host gift biz gal,

Sue moon Heights.

Hi there,

it's Sue And welcome to this week's show.

Whether you're a first time listener or have been following me

for a while,

I'm thrilled that we're together here today.

I also want to thank those of you who have reached

out through messages and emails.

It means the world to me to get your comments and

learn about you.

As one of my listeners.

If you haven't connected with me yet,

I can be reached at SU,

at gift biz,

unwrapped.com. This email address comes directly to me,

so you'll get a response also directly from me.

I welcome any feedback about the podcast,

what you find helpful,

other things you'd like to see in the future,

anything you like.

The show exists to help you advance,

so sharing your thoughts helps both of us do more and

be more with regard to our talk today.

It's a special one.

Indeed. You know,

I never know for sure where our conversation will go.

Yes, there's some direction as we get started,

but it's very loose and we just go where the conversation

takes us.

I try to put myself in your shoes and ask the

questions that you'd ask or emphasize points that I really want

to make sure that you get,

but this conversation took me by surprise,

a pleasant surprise because I think it's going to hit home

for a lot of you.

You're going to hear the steady progressive development design licensing business

and how she overcame many obstacles that could have served as

excuses and held her back.

We talk about international moves.

Tap talent is having a baby in a foreign land and

one overarching challenge.

She reveals close to the end.

Throughout it all,

you'll hear the drive of a determined woman with a passion

for her art and a love of serving that proves bigger

than any of her limitations.

It is my joy and honor to bring you Oxon as

story Today.

I am so excited to introduce you to Oxana posse SNI.

GENCO Oksana is the owner and designer of Exxon SIA textile

Design studio and school.

Her passion is to help creative people express their vision and

connect with their customers by creating unique and beautiful repeat patterns

and collections for their products.

Asana has a master's of arts degree from Rugg university in

the Netherlands specializing in children's books.

She's illustrated to published children's books and products,

including her design sell at best buy Barnes and noble,

Amazon and CVS pharmacy.

She has a portfolio of more than 10,000

vector illustrations in designs and has collaborated on more than a

hundred client custom design projects.

Asana now lives in California with her amazing husband and sweet

little girl together.

They love to make arts and crafts,

read funny books and travel while collecting creative inspiration and adventures.

Asana, welcome to the gift biz unwrapped podcast.

Thank you so much for having me,

Sue. I'm so excited to be here.

I am so excited too,

and you and I met in person at Pat Flynn's first

event. We were at our little high table and we were

just drinking some coffee and we immediately bonded.

I loved hearing everything that you were doing and right then

and there we talked about having you on the show,

so I'm so thrilled that we're actually making it happen.

Oh, I am so excited.

I was just blown away by your podcast.

I've been learning so much since I met you.

I actually,

you introduced me to your podcast during the conference and since

then I've been just binge listening to all the podcasts.

It was so awesome.

Thank you.

Of course.

I love hearing that.

So help us learn a little bit more about you as

you were describing yourself through a motivational candle.

So what color were really works for you and what type

of a quote or a motto would be put on a

candle that would really speak to you?

Oksana interesting.

That's actually,

I worked for a few years for a company,

collaborated with a company they do sent,

it says chaise and candle.

So I do have my repeat button designs on a line

of candles.

So that's kind of fun.

Oh well you have to tell us what line that is.

What is it?

It's called floral simplicity line.

Floral simplicity.

Okay. They have basically my designs are all 95% of their

sense and including candles.

That's fun.

I loved working with them and it was a really fun

couple of years that we collaborated together and going back to

my candle I would say would be a floral repeat,

better in design.

I love nature.

So I love creating floral ones and it will be probably

purple, pink and yellow since those are the colors that my

brand colors.

And also the colors that I love the most and the

quote on it would be an eye expand in abundance,

success, health,

love and joy every day as I inspire others to do

the same.

And this one of my Favorite things that I repeat to

myself, and it's from one of my favorite books,

it's called the big leap by gay Hendricks.

I love that.

That could be something that you like,

say to yourself while you're brushing your teeth every morning or

something. That's exactly what I do.

I have at rest analysis,

and I have this kind of trick that I developed the

habit. When I can sleep at night,

I wake up and I cannot go back to sleep.

I just repeat this quote in my head over and over

and it always puts me back to sleep and I feel

like I trained my subconscious more on living this kind of

improving myself while inspiring others to do the same.

Beautiful. So do you give permission to all of our listeners

to jot that down and use your quote as well?

Of course.

I didn't come up with it.

It's from the awesome book,

the big leap.

That's the title of the book.

I not only love the quote,

but I also love how you're using it.

I think that's perfect because self-talk does so much for our

psyche and I've heard more and more recently how when you

do that right as you're falling asleep,

it just continues on.

It deepens the impact further,

I guess I'd say.

Definitely. I totally agree.

It's been a very big help for me,

especially since they started doing a morning routine and this kind

of things at night when I wake up really helps.

Wonderful one.

Right. Well,

okay, so take us back a little bit and share with

us how you got started.

I just picture you,

first of all,

give his listeners.

You have to know that Exxon is this cute little petite,

just adorable little ball of energy.

You know?

Have you ever seen people who are like really tiny but

their energy and their passion is huge?

That's so,

I don't mean to embarrass you,

but people have to know that that's who you are.

So I picture you when you were little as also being

all artsy and designy and creative.

Were you always that way?

Actually, yes.

And how I knew it is because I was the go

to kid at my school who has to do all the

posters for all the events and you know the teachers.

I feel like now that I'm older,

I feel like the teachers sometimes know you and your strengths

before you yourself know them.

So that's what this kind of thing always happened.

And the other thing is they would put me in front

of people to recite poetry or do some inspirational talks.

And when I was growing up,

I never knew why.

I always felt like,

why are they always asking me?

But now I started doing my own YouTube channel and now

I'm like,

Oh, now I get it.

Now you can see it in yourself.

Yeah, now I can see it.

So it's funny how that happened,

but I did.

I was a creative kid.

I always loved arts and I loved crafts.

And my mom taught me how to design clothes and actually

creates them and make up your own clothing designs and patterns

and these kinds of things.

So even though my mom is not an artist,

but she is a very good team stress and the teacher,

so my love of art and fabrics comes from that.

Time Started way back then way back to the Ukraine.

Yes. And the school was actually really lucky because I bet

those would be worth lots of money now given the way

your career has progressed,

they got it for free,

but little did they know what they actually had.

Oh, it was fun.

I loved it.

It was fun to see my designs everywhere when I was

growing up and I had no idea that I was doing

it because I was very much into poetry back then and

I was very lucky because I entered some competitions.

I won competitions as a child in the Ukraine.

I grew up and was born and grew up in Ukraine

and a small town in the Western part.

My parents still live in the same house there and so

it was awesome.

I actually really loved,

I consider myself lucky having a childhood that I had there

and what happened was I was very much into poetry,

so I didn't really develop my art skills seriously and professionally

after I finished my college,

my universities,

so just somehow the creative was always there in different forms.

Right, because you were educated,

but it was still an art degree even though you were

doing children's books.

Well, actually it is the master of arts.

One of my masters,

I have two masters,

but one of them is master of arts,

but it's actually more of languages and culture.

It's a little bit weird,

but this is how it goes and I think the arts,

in a way,

our literature as part of them,

and I specially transitioned into visual arts and graphic arts when

I became interested in children's book illustration in the Netherlands,

when I did my scholarship at the university,

my love of children's books started back then and then since

then, my goal was to publish still children's books,

which it happened.

Yeah. I was very,

very grateful that I found a publisher and we worked together

when I lived back in Europe.

So even before I moved to us.

Okay, so before we move on,

Exxon, you were telling me a little bit in the pre

chat that there's a little bit of a story behind your

last name.

So I'm going to try and say it once again and

I want you to tell everybody this story.

Okay. Okay.

So you say your name Passy snake GENCO.

How'd I do?

Very good.

It's a tricky last name.

That's even when I was going to college,

it was a tradition to call out everyone by last name.

Back then when I was there and the,

what happened was the teacher would always reach me and just

always use my first name and say,

you're Ukrainian.

Right. So they,

even in my own home country,

it's a tricky last name,

but the funniest,

I actually really love it because my father,

he is an engineer,

but when he was getting a little bit older,

he decided to become a beekeeper because our last name is

actually the means in Ukrainian.

The son of the beekeeper.

So I am now a daughter of a beekeeper.

Oh, that's so funny.

And my father became one because of our last name.

I still keep it.

I love it.

He became a beekeeper because of the last name.

Yes he did.

He actually really loves beekeeping.

He's very much into it.

He's a big fan.

But I think in a way he says,

everyone was telling why are you still not keeping bees with

this last name for years?

So eventually he started and so finally he's like,

okay, I'll do it.

I'll do it.

Yes, exactly.

Oh my gosh.

That's funny.

Okay, so take us to the time then.

When you established Oxon SIA textile design studio,

how did that come about?

Sure. So what happened,

it was that I was studying,

I was doing two master's degrees into different countries at the

same time.

One was in the English and the other ones was in

Dutch and they felt really,

really tired and burned out.

To be honest,

I had to write two thesises at the same time,

the same summer,

and to defend two degrees in two different countries.

So I was really tired and the only thing that I

started thinking about is the how can I just do my

art and just get away from the science and the intensity

of studying.

I successfully graduated,

but it's still,

it was took a lot out of me,

so I decided to just focus on my creativity for awhile.

I have so understanding such an understanding husband is super supportive

if we've been together 15 years.

So I was lucky because he says,

okay, of course if you want to draw for a while,

just draw for awhile.

And that's drawing for awhile was back into South and three

I think Southern three or four,

something like that.

I'm already forgetting.

But what happened was that I just wanted to draw for

myself as a hobby.

I always loved drawing,

so I took a few months and then a friend introduced

me to a way how to create digital illustrations and how

to market them online.

So I really love this idea.

I was so excited and fascinated by it and I researched

the software,

which is Adobe illustrator.

Then I said,

well, it sounds so fun.

I can just try and it always went together with my

dream of becoming a children's book illustrator back then.

So I just started drawing for myself and started posting those

pictures, simple illustrations,

a lot of children's illustrations back then on the website and

then a few different websites and I started making income pretty

quickly. It was a small income for a few years.

It was,

let's say side income for awhile,

but I loved it so much and it felt so satisfying

for me that I didn't really want to go back to

my languages anymore or linguistics.

I really wanted to focus on the arts.

So this is how it started.

Yes. Got the bug,

if you will.

Yes, very much.

The online business,

I've had mine for close to I think 14 years now,

so definitely I'm a big fan.

It's been going on.

It's a love affair of many,

many years now.

Okay, so am I understanding you correctly that you just started

this for fun,

but did you already have a website or did you just

decide to create a website to put your artwork up?

They're still all for fun and It started to become noticed.

Is that what happened?

So I didn't even have a website for a long time

to be honest.

It was all on the platforms which are called micro stock

websites. And the most noticeable out of them are Shutterstock and

I stock now it's Adobe stock.

So these three,

let's say Rhonda,

the biggest players in that field,

and I didn't really need a website because customers wouldn't come

to my website necessarily in the beginning.

They would go directly to those sites and they will search

input. Let's say you have a line of backpacks and you

want a line of patterns to go on all of them.

So you would go there and then you search for repeat

pattern design.

The only thing that I have to tell you,

you have to have a special kind of license.

They have different licenses,

but people buy different types of licenses for the same type

of design depending of what they need.

So I didn't really have a website for a few years

actually. And then I really got one because I started getting

inquiries from clients from us,

but a lot of manufacturing clients.

The same as I mentioned,

the client found me,

they were making a line of candles and sent it products

and the other one was a baby wearing company so they

would find me and since the actual one on one clients

started coming and they did want already preexisting designs,

they wanted something totally different than you,

which I could create for them And probably something that then

would be just theirs.

Just there's,

yes, of course it is a different kind of project.

It's a different price point.

It's a different type of work that we did with those

customers and then I started my website,

so not to necessarily sell my designs right away but to

collaborate with people so they can find me.

They can see testimonials from other customers.

That was the purpose of my website back then,

but the main sales as in the semi passive income quality,

I still 14 years later I get from my micro stock

portfolio and I have close to around 10,000

a little bit over 10,000

files for sale there and people licensed them over and over

where day and night from all over the world.

What a beautiful business model that is.

I am so grateful for it.

I'm glad my friend introduced me back 14 years ago.

Oh my gosh.

It's so interesting to me that you were doing it for

fun. You,

I guess new from Adobe illustrator,

you learned that that was where you should put your designs,

but then to start seeing people wanting them and licensing them

had to have been such an exciting time for you because

even though you loved your designs,

you didn't know for sure how popular they'd be with everybody

else, but clearly they were,

Oh, it was such a big deal to start receiving those

first sales.

I cannot even describe how thrilling it is when you're just

drawing for yourself.

We can show it to some people and they might say

they might like it or something.

They're just being polite,

but when actually pay money for your designs and they don't

know you so they don't have to be nice and say,

Oh, that's beautiful.

Right. This is just amazing.

I personally really love the collaboration with other people.

I know some artists have a little bit of harder time

with imagining other people using their work on their products,

but to me it was such a thrill to see a

mom with a baby and they're carrying a baby in the

sling and the sling has my design on it,

but they're hugging another awesome client that I worked with.

They have the line of baby wearing slings and when I

saw all of those moms and babies is just,

I was literally crying.

Oh well I think it does Take a special person because

you don't need to be known for the artwork that's on

the product.

It's whoever has purchased and licensed your imaging for their product,

but you get the gratification in the way that you just

said. By seeing it out there.

I always loved it.

I always loved it.

I love to see other people's designs.

I always collect other people's designs because I just find them

inspiring little product cups and scarves and bags.

I just sometimes I just love to surround myself with that

and it's being inspired by other people and to see my

designs out there on the products.

For me personally,

it was one of the best things ever and still is

when I get a package from my client in the mail.

We just recently got another client sent us a package with

matching outfits for me and my daughter.

She's five.

Oh, we have the pictures and it's actually,

it was a little diagnoser print.

I know it sounds kind of weird,

but it turned out very cute and my daughter loves it.

She wears it to school,

little kind of flying dinosaurs pattern and we went to a

museum and took a picture next to T-Rex bones.

Oh, that's so fun.

It's so fun.

This thing is actually much more gratifying to me than just

being in a gallery to be honest.

It takes my particular character and I don't many fellow designers

who love that.

Yes. It's really nice too because like you're saying,

I know you say it's semi passive income cause it was

a lot of work to get there,

but you are getting royalties now every time somebody buys and

you're not having to do more work.

So that is beautiful unto itself.

So Exxon SIA textile design studio,

did it start when you had the website or at what

point did you like officially make it your own business?

I officially made it my own business in the Netherlands when

I started making enough income to pay taxes.

They have a cutoff time.

And when I realized that I had to pay taxes,

of course I had to do,

but if you're just making a small amount of money back

then at least I didn't have to register right away.

But then over time,

of course I started making more serious side income and I

wanted to feel focused on illustration back then.

And that's when I was starting to think about creating a

brand and a website and attracting actual one on one clients.

So that's what's the idea.

Then however,

I knew that we will be moving to us,

so for us personally,

we are a traveling family.

I lived in three different countries at this point extensively for

a longer time,

so arranging the business will always has to be with the

consideration of international travel and living abroad,

so you have to be location free if you will.

You have to be able to work from anywhere.

Yeah, very important for us and it works out beautifully.

It sure did because I transitioned very well in the Netherlands.

They had the actual art studio set up just for myself.

I had all the paints,

all the easels.

I had the canvases,

the whole dream setup.

Luckily my business didn't need any of that.

It was just for me as a hobby.

Let's say I play with paint,

actual business was all digital and I just took my computer

with me,

took the hard drives with me and moved to California.

Beautiful. And I would suggest that physical creation also still helped

fuel your digital inspiration at the same time.

That's true.

I did have an Etsy shop for awhile with children's nursery

prints and design little canvases.

I had that line of cute little elephants that was fun,

but still in comparison,

my digital work really gave me so much freedom that I

stuck with it through the years.

Alright, so to hear you tell the story,

you started the website because people started coming to you and

wanting their own unique designs that could only be used by

them, right?

Yes, correct.

How did you go about defining what that whole process would

look like?

And I'm saying this gift business nurse because,

and I love the fact that axon is here sharing her

story with us because if you make knitted scarves or you

are a candle maker or whatever it is,

first off,

if you're a candle maker,

you want to maybe want to look at some of Exxon

as designed.

But apart from that,

if there's something that you know how to do that you

could put into a digital format,

whether it's a video or downloadable lesson on how to do

some of the things that you could do,

you can start creating your own sources of semi passive income

as well.

So I'm wanting you to start thinking that way because that's

a way where you're not adding incremental costs and time to

your business,

but you're adding incremental revenue long term.

So start thinking a little bit about that as we continue

talking. But so getting back to what I was saying Oksana

is you were lucky because customers were coming to you,

but then all of a sudden you had to set up

a system.

Yes, 100% I always wanted to be very professional in my

work when I was just starting out.

Since I am a linguist by education and the literature major

at the same time,

I definitely didn't have all of these processes aligned.

However, I did know a technical side of design.

I knew what manufacturers would want and of course every manufacturer

and their product and project differs so I always have to

account for that.

But definitely I figured out the system by studying online how

to set everything up and many times I created step-by-step checklist

for myself and I used online tools to create the contracts

that I needed.

I was very always very careful with the special contracts to

protect myself and my clients of course.

So I took it very seriously from the first client.

I took it very seriously and definitely I wanted to have

an actual business.

I had the actual business in mind when I was starting

to work with one on one clients.

But to add to your excellent point that you just made

before this,

I want to say that I,

overtime I started teaching all of these systems.

So right now I have an actual online school was close

to one South and that fellow textile design beginners that wants

to build a similar business that I built over the years.

So all of these educational things and tutorials over time that

I was creating for free grew into a actual school online

school that I have right now.

Perfect, so you're demonstrating exactly what I was just suggesting for

others. Yes.

What's you suggested is excellent because I feel like I grew

my business very significantly.

The original business has grown over the last two years and

growing right now as we speak.

So you have three sources of income.

From what I'm understanding,

you have the licensed designs that anybody can purchase online.

You have your one-on-one collaborations and then you have a group

of students who are part of your school and the learning.

Yes. It's three of those.

Is there anything else you're holding back on us Exxon?

Huh? Are those the three?

Actually, I do have a YouTube income.

I have a small channel.

It's a news channel.

I have close to almost 17,000

subscribers right now,

so it's still a small channel,

but it's a sense,

it's a micro-niche,

which I teach a vector,

textile design,

particular kind of textile design.

Even then I had an awesome,

awesome creative community that we are all very close together and

communicating regularly,

so I call them my creative family or am I amazing

creative friends,

so I'm so blessed to be able to have these awesome

people in my life and to be able to teach them

something. But YouTube income is the ads that people have on

YouTube videos.

Oh, that's a small percentage,

but it's also a recurring monthly income as well as some

referral. So I would say affiliate side of business and also

very small at this point.

So not a big portion yet,

but it can grow and a lot of little small things

add up to something more significant.

Exactly. That's what I noticed over the years and it's been

working well.

It's been growing too.

Well, story Is all beautiful.

It all sounds full of success and everything is perfect,

but there has to be a time when you had some

challenges. Can you share with us at least one so that

we know you're human,

like all of us?

Oh my goodness,

I am very human,

very much.

Our conversation from here goes deeper and take some more serious

tone. So I thought before we get into all of that,

we'd stop for a quick word from our sponsor.

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Well, the biggest challenge in my life that I share always

with my audience is that I am a chronic migraine sufferer

and the migraines that I have,

I've had them since I was at least five years old

all my life.

And what happened with me is that for all my life

there's really bad and unfortunately right now as we speak at

the day 17 of a cluster migraine.

So not everything is fun and pretty with the health issues.

And I am open to talk about it because I know

a lot of people suffer from migraines or other chronic health

issues and I decided to share my experience and the business

that I was just describing is in a way influenced by

my condition,

by my health.

Because I did not want to work for somebody else and

be responsible to be there at a specific time because any

day, any moment of a day,

I can be in bed.

I would have to take to bed a lie in the

dark for the rest of the day or be even longer.

That's just,

that's kind of my story,

which I happy to share that you guys are listening.

If you have a chronic health condition,

I really recommend looking into semi passive income and setting up

streams of income like that because it can definitely change your

life and I do have great times.

I have great weeks with no migraines.

I have an awesome little girl that we play with and

partially I wanted her to see a mother not only sick

in bed many days every week,

but also one who goes after her dreams.

No matter,

No matter.

You are a perfect,

perfect role model and as you've been sharing this,

I didn't know this about you,

but you could have used this as an excuse,

right? To say,

Oh well I couldn't possibly build anything because how could I

possibly do it?

But that's not what you did.

You've taken what you have available for yourself and worked around

it. Been resourceful and worked around it cause you could have

gone a different way.

Aksana I am so lucky to have very supportive parents.

I grew up being very supported in that and it must've

been very hard for them.

Now being a parent myself and the same as my husband,

he's awesome,

is really,

really supportive.

He always knew that I can,

I have the potential to build a business like that.

Maybe they barely even know about my online school.

I didn't even know that potential until recently.

Now I am really in love with it.

It was this side,

but the being creative and creating an inspiring other people and

collaborating with people,

that was always my dream and I'm so glad that I

started. I'm so,

so glad that I started.

I cannot even tell you.

Every day I wake up and I go to my computer

and they say,

I cannot believe that I didn't chicken out and just start

and did something instead of complaining about my health.

So this is my life right now.

And some days I can not make a YouTube video and

I cannot make a lesson for my course or make another

pattern because I cannot look at light.

Okay, let's take a look at my screen sometimes.

So having an online business involves looking at screens the same

as drawing and making digital art.

I have my challenges,

but at the same time,

you know what?

I will share the very empowering thing that happened to me

just last year.

I figured out that my body can have these limitations,

but you know what?

The systems that I built and the business that I built

does not,

my business doesn't have a migraine.

So if I concentrate on systems and I grow them and

I make them run well,

and maybe eventually I'm thinking of hiring a team,

I'm already studying for that and looking into that so that

I can build something bigger beyond my limitations.

That's kind of the stage that I'm looking at and the

systems that I use for business,

they don't have a migraine.

That's what I tell myself.

That's a great quote right there.

Actually, I hope it would be inspiring to some of your

listeners too because I believe very strongly about,

it's one of my passions to share what's possible was health

limitations. Well,

and my guess is that based on what you've built,

also you don't have the stress as you were saying earlier

about having to be at a certain place at a certain

time because you don't work for somebody else.

I don't know anything really about migraines.

I'm feeling a little guilty about saying that right now,

but I'm wondering if just the relief that that's not an

issue for you.

You can work when you're able to work and not when

you can't.

Also might reduce how severe or how often they show up

because you don't have that extra pressure on you.

Oh, 100% 100% I am so grateful that I created the

income for myself to support me and my family so that

I don't have to stress out.

I never wanted to take hardcore pills from my headaches because

I knew that if I work for somebody else,

I would be responsible to show up every day and even

though I am so responsible for my students,

I always show up for them as much as I can,

but I can always reach out and tell them,

let me just do it tomorrow,

and I share that with them that I will definitely follow

through. Yes,

maybe not this hour.

I needed it for my health.

All of your students know this is part of your story.

Yes. Yeah.

I share it.

I don't speak about it in every video.

I don't want,

it's not the biggest part yet,

but to be honest,

I am growing that awareness.

I want to spread the message of creating a business and

systems. Even if you have health limitations,

Do you feel that this has affected your ability to grow

at all?

Not in terms of what you're able to accomplish,

but in terms of the receptivity of you and your product?

You mean my teaching?

No. You know what?

The fact that you have,

and I'm asking this because I have a couple of people

who are probably listening right now who also have different types

of limitations.

Let's face it.

I mean all of us have limitations of some sort to

different degrees,

right? We have physical limitations,

psychological limitations.

Maybe some people are battling a disease.

Maybe some people have trauma of some sort.

Like there's all different types of things that could happen and

often I've gotten into conversations actually with some of my students

saying, I've got to keep that hidden because if people knew

they wouldn't buy from me.

Hm. That's interesting.

To be honest,

I never thought about it like that.

I feel like I probably would be a harder as employee.

That's, I thought about that.

I never really thought about any issues with my designs or

my lessons because I have everything pre recorded.

I feel like definitely I was always concerned for me being

physically showing up for work right.

Every day and staying there until the end because I know

when I was going to college and to university and even

to school,

I had to leave very often.

I had to skip many classes just because of my migraines,

so I always wanted a passive income kind of situation and

to be able to create a product which were already created,

I didn't have to deliver them live and be physically on

location and other than that,

if I create them,

be it patterns,

be it,

it designs,

illustrations, books,

videos, or my lessons or online courses,

all of those are prerecorded.

That's gives me a lot of support.

I know that all of them are done and my students

can use them and learn from them anytime or students and

clients too can use them any time.

They don't depend on my health.

Right. Okay.

I appreciate so much how open you're being about all of

this. And I have one more question for you on this

and this is really your recommendation or your experience for someone

who's in a situation like this so they have some type

of what they've defined as a limitation for themselves.

Right. And you were saying how happy you are that you

made the move,

that you took the action to do it,

you overcame any self doubt or concern.

Can you remember or do you have any suggestions for someone

in that situation about how you were able to just go

ahead and keep going even past that concern or question?

That's a great question.

So I love it.

I think there will be two parts answer to this question

in my case.

The first part is that I would just take any time

you can and it can be 15 minutes a day,

but be as consistent as possible.

So what I did when I was pregnant with my daughter

and then I was with her,

she was with me full time.

I was the caregiver full time for two and a half

years away from any relatives.

I was in California already.

So what I did,

I would spend on my business even 30 minutes when she

was napping or I would spend an hour or maybe two

hours and sometimes she would just play next to me,

but draw next to me and I would draw on my

computer. So whenever I could to be consistent,

even 15 minutes a day,

that was super,

super important.

It got me through some years where I saw significant growth

in my business.

Even though I was working one hour per day or even

many days I wouldn't work because I wouldn't feel well.

So I believe strongly that even 15 minutes of consistent work,

not even at the same time every day whenever you can,

but just make it a habit.

And in a year or two or three you will see

amazing results.

So that's a part of one of my suggestion.

Take any time you can.

If you can do six hours per day,

perfect. If you can do 15 minutes per day,

that will get you far too.

And the second part is to create semi passive income streams.

If you have any sort of limitations else or otherwise,

I would seriously research how you can contribute.

Is it tutorials,

is it designs,

is it basically anything that you create,

let's say that will be sold online in a recurring manner

without you being present,

delivering the product,

it will really,

really help you and definitely will help your family and it

will create so much freedom and peace of mind.

I am the living proof of that with my health issues

and I take care of my child with my husband of

course, but we don't really have much support since we live

international family.

We live abroad expats and what happened was that I everyday,

me and my husband in our kitchen,

we drink tea and we say express gratefulness.

That's back then we started and I always say that he

was the one who got me fired up because I,

my friends told me about it and I said,

I don't know anything about it.

But then when I told my husband he was coming from

a software development,

he's actually a physicist.

He's in physics right now,

but he was coming from software development.

He's like,

I think this is genius.

He was telling me this,

this is brilliant.

He saw an opportunity,

and back then I think I was just starting to use

email, so I didn't really know anything it,

but seeing his eyes light up and he's not an artist.

He could do it himself,

but he said to me,

do it.

It's great to be awesome.

He saw this vision and I got fired up.

I still remember his face.

Oh, that's so cute.

Well, he was a supporter of yours all along because he's

the one who said,

go ahead and just draw.

Right. Not even before you started any monetizing anything.

He just said,

go ahead and just draw.

Right. Well,

yeah, and it took years.

It took me years since I wasn't even an artist yet.

Right. I wasn't literature and I was good at drawing and

sketching, but I was not a professional quality artist yet.

I always tell all my audience and my students that give

yourself some grace and give yourself some time to learn how

to be a designer,

to learn how to be an artist and you will get

there if you're persistent and you put your passion in there.

But what happened was my husband,

he actually,

one day I came to him being an illustrator back then

I already had my first book published,

but I told him,

Oh, I really love those repeat pattern designs for fabric,

but I can not make them happen in this particular technical

vector format.

It was back then,

they didn't have even the built in tools for that and

I still don't use those tools.

They are not very helpful for my particular case,

for technical specifications.

But I just told my husband and he's a physicist,

he has nothing to do with that software.

He had no idea what to do with it and they

were told him this one time,

told him that second time.

And you know how sometimes our men who love us,

they want to fix things for us.

Always. Yes.

He sits me down and says,

okay, show me.

Show me what you mean.

I don't get it.

So I showed him,

this is the challenge.

I show him,

this is what I want to create,

but it's hard.

It takes me a whole week to create one design.

So I still,

I have goosebumps all over my body,

but since I remember that,

when every time I remember that,

because what he did in five minutes,

he figured out a system.

He said,

so why don't you this and this and this and this.

Five minutes to him?

No, I just looked at him,

you know,

my jaw dropped and I said,

wait a minute.

It's brilliant.

It's simple and the brilliant at the same time.

So the very next day I sat down and I created

five designs in three hours with his system.

So he designed,

basically, he adjusted the software for me without going into the

code. You know,

it's amazing to me how somebody who's not in the field

and kind of understand what you're trying to do can come

up with a perfect solution.

And it was unbelievable.

This synergy that happened,

I still feel it.

We still talk about it and it's already been at least

12 years since that time and I still use that system

and I teach it to my students.

Well, I love my husband,

he's awesome.

I'm the biggest fan of his because the suggestions that he

gives to me as non-artist,

as a technical guy,

sometimes it blow my mind.

Right. Well that's just a good lesson to all of us

that sometimes we think that,

Oh well you're not going to understand whoever it is you're

talking to because you're not part of the community when they

might have the best solution because they're not part of the

knowledge base.

You know the standard information that's out there.

Exactly. That's to collaborate.

I feel like it's really great.

So one final topic I want to touch on just briefly

and that is your style and way of working with customers

because clearly you are a pro at it.

You have a whole slew of students,

but you also have your one on one clients.

Can you give us any tips or thoughts or suggestions on

how to work with people as you're working them through your

system? Oh,

of course.

I love to talk about it because I love my clients

yearly. One of my clients actually moved with her whole family

close to us and they already been to my daughter's birthday

party. Oh,

love that.

I love people who I work with and I've met so

many people all over the world.

Being a very international person myself,

I definitely have you as clients.

I have clients from Malaysia,

I have clients from Europe,

from all over the world,

and I'm so blessed to learn.

Every time I work with them I learned something new.

I learned something new about their business,

their products.

That's awesome.

And what I usually do with my one on one design

clients, I like to talk to them on Skype whenever I

can so that I can get to know their business and

I love to create mockups for them.

So not only show actual artwork but also how it would

look on a similar product that they have.

Because for some people I feel like they cannot envision as

quickly. You can tell me a purple floral pattern in this

style and I can have it right in my head immediately

was the experience.

But many people they like to see the results.

So I like to show them more how their products will

look with particular design and then we work on that.

And also I like to give them a little presence on

Christmas or on their birthday.

It's just like a little something to connect with them and

reconnect and stay in touch.

So that's if you things that haven't,

but I definitely love taking pictures of their work and showing

people and dressing my daughter up in outfits from the company

that I work with.

And taking pictures next to dinosaur bones.

Yes. Dinosaur in both.

Yes. Wonderful.

So what's the future gonna hold for you?

I'd love to just talk a little bit,

get in your brain of where you think you're going with

everything within the next few years.

What do you think?

Well, my business and life changed the moment that I realized

that I have passion for sharing as I love encouraging people

and sharing my story and actually giving people systems and resources

that helped me.

I really have a big passion and the shifts that happened

two years ago and what I feel like there is a

lot of things that I want to share at create and

make easier for people and help inspire people with the message

about how to empower their life and create systems to grow

beyond their limitations.

So it's definitely,

I feel a strong energy coming from that direction.

But creatively I always have plans and ideas for different lines

of products or collaborations.

Definitely have a lot of visions and inspiration on my computer

right now waiting for my moment because I'm very organized with

my time,

how I spend it.

And I have slots for create to being a,

wearing a designer hat and I have time for wearing a

video editor hat and I have time for wearing a mama

hat, just being a mommy.

I love to segment my time like that.

And I do feel different kinds of interesting opportunities and energies

coming from all of those directions.

And what I would love to happen is for me to

improve my health.

If I'm completely honest with you,

if I could wave a magic wand,

I would love to improve my health and find a way

to get better because I feel like I can contribute on

a higher level to this world.

Well, you never know and my wish is going to be

that that happens because then you can then you could spread

more of all your goodness to everybody else.

Oh, thank you Exxon.

This has been so interesting.

Your stories are fabulous.

I've loved getting to know you more through your stories of

the podcast.

You are just so cute,

so professional,

so buttoned up.

And I know our listeners can hear this too as you

are so genuine in what you're talking about in terms of

sharing and being generous with what you know and making yourself

vulnerable to,

to talk about things so that you know it will help

others. So for all of that reason,

I really,

really appreciate everything that we've talked about today.

How can our listeners get in touch with you?

See more of what you're about,

where would you send them online?

Definitely would be my website and thank you so much for

your kind words.

You're welcome.

I really appreciate it.

Spoken in truth.

Oh, thank you.

I really appreciate it.

If you want to learn about what I do,

I would love for you to visit dot com and it's

okay. S a N as in Nancy,

C I a.com

and that's all of my personalities and creative side and the

teaching side.

All of that is on my website.

I have a lot of tutorials there too.

Beautiful. And I'm kind of feeling like even if some of

our listeners here aren't into more of the design mode,

just going over there,

we'll put a smile on all our faces,

seeing all the things that you have.

We'll just make people happy just unto itself.

Thank you.

Well, thank you once again continued success and I look forward

to staying in touch.

Thank you.

Me too.

Exxon, a heartfelt thank you for opening up and sharing with

us about your chronic migraines.

It's such a powerful story of making adjustments in your business

in life to accommodate your needs and also fulfill your dreams.

If you as a listener,

find yourself in a similar spot with different challenges,

perhaps. I hope you've been encouraged and energized by axon as

story and it bolsters your own actions to go after what

you want in life.

No matter what hurdles face you on deck.

Next week is a story about another woman who went up

against the odds in a different way.

Let's just say it's a mini miracle.

She got her job in the first place and once she

did, she walked into a beehive of activity and got stung

more than once.

More on that next Monday.

Bye for now.

I want to make sure you're familiar with my free Facebook

group called gift biz breeze.

It's a place where we all gather and our community to

support each other.

Got a really fun post in there.

That's my favorite of the week.

I have to say where I invite all of you to

share what you're doing,

to show pictures of your product,

to show what you're working on for the week,

to get reaction from other people and just for fun because

we all get to see the wonderful products that everybody in

the community is making.

My favorite post every single week without doubt,

wait, what aren't you part of the group already?

If not,

make sure to jump over to Facebook and search for the

group gift biz breeze.

Don't delay.