We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Chloe Thomas a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Chloe, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
Coming from an incredibly strong entrepreneurial family, it has always been ingrained in my brain to “never give up”. I remember from a very young age – whether it was about school or sports – that once you feel like you’ve hit a wall, there’s always a left and a right direction to go.
I began to experience that very quickly when I started my own company as a freshman in college. Being only 19 years old, I jumped head-first into establishing my business solely for the reason of giving myself the extra support I needed to pass my development classes. Between my website development and database development courses, I was slowly drowning and felt lost in my classwork. So, insert my creative agency that allowed me to hone into my skills by offering website development to businesses, while also making some extra money here and there. I slowly gained confidence in my skills and also found enjoyment in what I was doing!
It wasn’t under my junior year (which was actually my final and senior year) that I really felt like an imposter as an entrepreneur. The time had come to decide which company and where I wanted to begin my professional career as a developer. I could always pursue my company full-time – why not?
Well, I didn’t.
I accepted a full-time job as a data developer at a large tech company nearby. It was safe, and it gave me that “real world corporate experience” that colleges preach about frequently. I ultimately chose to believe the lie that I wasn’t good enough to pursue entrepreneurship at such a young age.
One year later, I was still working fully-remote during COVID 19 with much flexibility. This allowed me to work within my company at the hours I didn’t have much work at my corporate job. I continued to build my skillset and grow my network within the entrepreneurial community. Overtime, I grew more confident in myself and my ability to make a living off of this “small business” that I wanted to always pursue. I then put in my two weeks notice, and have been full-time in Chloe Creative since.
Overcoming my imposter syndrome at that point in life merely took time. I had the drive, I had the skillset – I just didn’t have the confidence in myself. After that year of working in corporate, I knew that it wasn’t for me and that God had a different picture for my career. Imposter syndrome isn’t something that leaves and never comes back – it’s something that is a random occurrence here and there (kind of like that seasonal sickess you always get!).
I think I’ll always experience this feeling of being an imposter within entrepreneurship because everyone always has their doubts in themselves every once in a while. There are times where we may not have a large of amount of clients, or haven’t had many leads in a while, or maybe our competitors seem more successful on social media – all of those things happen frequently. But what I do know, is that because of my upbringing and experience in corporate world, I’m equipped with the hard and soft skills necessary to understand that this truly, is only a season and it’s temporary.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
Chloe Creative is a creative design agency focused on serving clinicians worldwide. Now, I know you may be puzzled – but why clinicians you ask? Well, one of our very first clients was a PCOS dietitian in Denver, Colorado. After working with her on her branding and website design, she was so satisfied with my process that she recommended me to a few other dietitians that decided to work with us as well.
I quickly learned that being able to serve individuals within their business was something so special to me, but what also mattered was what they could give me in return. Now, I’m not meaning the money – that’s obviously great to be able to make a living doing what you love – but I care more about how these individuals can touch me as a human. Through working with clinicians, I’ve found that I can learn so much about cultivating a healthy lifestyle that it has truly changed my life for the better.
Now, as of August 2023, we have served many clinicians but mostly dietitians. With each dietitian, I have learned better eating habits, hormone health, fitness goals and how they vary by person, prioritizing meal times, self-care and how that affects your mood and so much more. Being able to learn from our clients has been one of the greatest rewards of serving them in design services.
We work with all types of clinicians such as therapists, chiropractors, neurologists and dietitians. At a creative design agency, we are able to work with these businesses to solidify their branding and strategy, website design & development, social media marketing, email marketing and ways to scale their practice such as memberships and courses.
Our goal and vision for Chloe Creative is to be a one-stop shop for private practice owners for anything marketing and design related. We truly meet our clients where they are and serve them in the best way possible with team members who know their ideal audiences so well.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
There are many skills that I can speak to that I’ve grown to accompany over the years of being an entrepreneur. However, there are a few that were essential into forming me to be the leader I am today. First being, drive.
You have to be a driven individual in order to “survive” in entrepreneurship. There are going to be days where you feel like quitting, where you feel that the conventional corporate job would be the better choice because it’s safe or where you feel you’re unqualified to do the job you’ve been called to do. Driven individuals would acknowledge these feelings but compliment them with positive alternatives. If you’re not driven, you’d be more willing to give into those thoughts and throw the towel in before you really started seeing your successes flourish.
The next thing to know about entrepreneurship is connection. In business, connecting with other business owners will be essential in sharing thoughts and bouncing ideas off of one another. Owning a company can be very lonely at times (we often don’t have in-person coworkers like corporate jobs!) and having a connection with other owners will be your saving grace. From a different viewpoint, being able to connect with your ideal audiences will benefit you from a marketing perspective. People don’t buy from your business because of what you offer (hint: there’s so many people out there that offer exactly what you do) but they’ll buy because of the personal connection they feel when interacting with your brand.
Last but certainly not least, you have to have patience. Now, this is a quality that I’m still working on to this day in both my professional and personal life. If you have chosen to pursue entrepreneurship, you have to understand that things will take time. It might be 6 months before you land your first client, or it may be 6 months that you have no clients. Either way, just know that all businesses experience fluctuations – larger corporations included, it just doesn’t affect them as much! With patience, these things will come to you and you’ll be able to face them head-strong and know with confidence, it’s just a season.
Before we go, any advice you can share with people who are feeling overwhelmed?
Wow – this question is absolutely loaded. Stress and overwhelm is something I experience on a daily basis and have worked to minimize as much as possible.
It’s understandable that owning a company is hard. There are responsibilities you face, problems you’ll overcome and situations where you have no idea how to approach. All of these things in combination of the ebbs and flows of workloads, managing contractors and nurturing clients can result in an extreme overwhelm accompanied by stress and anxiety.
If you’re like me, you’ve dealt with a lingering overwhelm nearly your entire life – through school, through sports, through your career. And the first piece of advice I can give is: you are the only one putting this much stress on yourself.
We often are our biggest enemy. Our internal battle is strong and the first step is acknowledging that you have full control of your feelings and what you can do to overcome them.
Once you’ve understood your level of control, it’s then time to take action. For me, step one is removing myself from a situation. If you find yourself very overwhelmed with a client project, consider taking a break and removing yourself from the stressful situation by going on a walk or listening to your favorite podcast. This allows your emotions to slowly be removed from the situation so you can come back and make a smart decision on how to accomplish the problem.
Step two, I practice self-care. When I realize I’ve had a stressful day, I might take a longer shower, go on a walk with my two dogs, go out to eat with my husband, read a book or simply just “be” in the darkness of my room. Self-care is something that will vary by person – it might be going to get your nails done or meeting up with a friend – whatever it is for you, I encourage you to practice self-care on a weekly basis.
Lastly, consider working with a professional clinician to find strategies on how you can minimize your overwhelm. For me, I worked with a dietitian to understand that I needed to prioritize eating nourishing meals – even when stress minimized my appetite – to ensure that I didn’t get cranky or more anxious during the rest of my day. This has been so wonderful!
Contact Info:
- Website: https://chloecreativestudio.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chloecreativestudio/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chloecreativestudio
Image Credits
Photos by Sara Coffin Photo
