Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Isabel Guido. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Isabel , thanks for sharing your insights with our community today. Part of your success, no doubt, is due to your work ethic and so we’d love if you could open up about where you got your work ethic from?
I get my work ethic from my entire family. My mom adopted me from Russia as a single mom when I was a year old. She worked hard to make sure she could provide me with the best life. My mom has always told me to dream big and that anything is possible, so having that constant support helped form my drive to want to work towards goals. My Uncle Frank, my moms brother, owns an electric bike shop called Piedmont eBikes in Winston Salem, NC. He opened up his shop a few years ago and helped me get my dog training business started. Being able to bounce ideas off each other and talk business has been super helpful. Seeing him decide to start a business really inspired me to go for it as well. Mark, my other uncle, used to own a deli 20+ years in Mesa. Being around my family who not only constantly supports me and my passions, but they also are extremely hard working as well, continues to make me want to achieve bigger goals.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
My name is Isabel but I usually go by Izzy! I am 20 years old and own two businesses. My passion ever since I was little has always been animals. For a while my plan was to become a veterinarian and open up my own practice. I was so determined to be a vet, that I went to Arizona Agribusiness and Equine Center for high school specifically for their vet program. Well…I didn’t chose my electives in time and wasn’t able to do vet classes my first semester. After the first semester I quickly realized that maybe being a veterinarian wasn’t my dream anymore. I was an “okay” student. I really didn’t enjoy school, and there’s a lot of schooling involved to become a vet. Towards the end of freshman year I really got into dog training, specifically service dogs. I was training my personal dog Charlie, a shih tzu, to be a service dog, as well as helping my friends train their dogs. Fast forward to senior year. At first, I wasn’t going to attend college after high school, but my mom last minute made me go. At first I was excited to start something new, but after the first few weeks, I started to hate going to class. Fast forward to second semester and I was skipping every class and stopped doing the work. After failing every class that semester, I finally convinced my mom to let me drop out (….as long as I pay her back for that semester). I didn’t really have a plan on what to do next. I was working part time at a doggy daycare while doing dog sitting and some training on the side. I knew I needed to act fast because the last thing I wanted was to have to go back to college. October 2022 is when I first launched Midnight K9 and February of 2023 I was working for myself fulltime. A year and a half in, and I love doing what I do. I was already training dogs before opening up my business, the #1 thing I wanted to avoid was burnout. I knew that I could not only train dogs for the rest of my life and needed a second job.
I have always been into photography and making videos, but I never thought about doing it for a living. After opening up my training business, I discovered how the quality of content you post on social media can drastically affect your business. I decided I wanted my social media accounts to have high quality posts, so I invested in a camera. For a while I was only getting content for myself and my friends. I knew I could expand into the photography/videography world, but I wanted to get my training business to a good point before starting a second business. I launched Guido Media towards the end of 2023, so it’s still fairly new! Being able to be a videographer one day, and a dog trainer the next is the dream life for me. Every day is different and it never feels like work.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The top three qualities/skills that were most impactful on my journey were: continuous learning, effective communication, and resilience.
My advice for people who are early in their journey would be: to stay curious and continuing exploring new interests because this will help you find your passions and strengths. You also should find mentors and start networking, as this will help you land jobs and get your name out there. Learn to embrace feedback as a tool for improvement, and most importantly, make sure to have fun.
Okay, so before we go we always love to ask if you are looking for folks to partner or collaborate with?
I love collabing with people! I love to film anything action (car racing, bull riding, dirt bikes, etc.) If you do anything like that feel free to send me a message on Instagram! @guidoo.media
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/midnight_k9/
Image Credits
Cerb.A.Derb Media
