Meet Mya Nichol

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Mya Nichol a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Mya, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
For a long time growing up I thought I knew my purpose, being a nurse. I had been through a series of events growing up that landed me in the hospital many times and the nurses always took good care of me. Because of their influence I decided I wanted to be a nurse so that I could be the bright light in others lives when they ended up in the hospital. I didn’t love the sight of blood (it made me woozy) but I was determined to get over that and become a nurse. I decided that I was going to become a nurse my sophomore year of high school and immediately started taking courses at my local college to start working towards my nursing degree while I was in high school. I graduated high school as valedictorian and with my associates of arts from the college of southern idaho and went on to brigham young university to get into nursing school. Even with having good grades and extracurricular activities, the first time I applied to the very competitive nursing program, I was denied. That didn’t stop me from wanting to become a nurse though, it only fueled my fire more and made me even more determined. So in between the next admission deadline, I worked hard to boost my “resume” for nursing school taking on another job and doing more service in my community. I finally got accepted in Nov 2019 with a start date from nursing school in Jan 2020. Upon acceptance, I received a series of emails reminding me how hands-on and time consuming nursing school would be and I realized as a newly married student that I would need to work a job to pay for college and life but because my school schedule was so rigorous I needed a flexible job. So I started looking around and came across an ad on instagram that said “are you a college student in need of a flexible job?”, immediate I clicked on it and it lead me to an application which I filled out. Turns out the opportunity was to start a business doing network marketing and the girl who had put out the ad was actually at the same university as me so we met up and I loved the idea of it so I decided to give the business a try. I started my network marketing business in dec 2019 and immediately fell in love with it. That first semester of nursing school I would go to school and work my business in every nook and cranny of my life – 5 min here and 5 min there. And when I wasn’t working on my business I was thinking about working on my business. I was IN LOVE with digital marketing, creating content on social media, and selling. As you know, COVID hit middle of my first semester which threw a wrench in everything in the healthcare industry but also across the whole world and it made me even more heavily consider if nursing was what I wanted to do. But I got through my first semester and I had the summer off because of the way my nursing program was scheduled so I took my NWM business full time and was thriving. I truly wasn’t making much looking back ($1-2k a month) but it felt like I was making a lot and even better than the money, I loved what I was doing. When time came for nursing school to start back up, I decided to drop out and pursue my NWM business instead. I thought I had found my purpose in NWM and there was an opportunity there so I pursued it. While doing NWM, I was presented with the opportunity to do social media management for a local pest control company so I took that on alongside my business and later was also presented with an opportunity to be hard of social media for a start up company. I thought NWM would be my 5,10,20 year plan but life had other plans for me. After growing my own instagram account and falling in love with the process of learning the algorithm and finding out that I had a natural eye for content creation and was a great entrepreneur, I opened up my own business teaching business owners how to grow their accounts, increase their sales, and pursue their dreams.

I thought that a lot of things I did on my journey was “my purpose in life” but as new doors were opened and new opportunities presented, I kept my options open and it has led me to where I am today which is doing what I truly love most. If I hadn’t of said yes to network marketing and taken a chance on myself I would be somewhere totally different and I know that I wouldn’t have ever found my true purpose. There were many scary moments along the way – dropping out of nursing school, quitting network marketing, starting my own business, etc. but they all were necessary in me finding my purpose. But also as I write this I can’t help but wonder if “my purpose” will change over the next few years, especially as I recently became a mom.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
I feel like I kinda already answered this but here’s more specific detail:

what I do: I am an instagram coach and over the last year I have also taken on business coaching. My main focus is helping business owners grow their visibility through Instagram and then leverage that to increase sales and leads. I teach this in a sustainable way so that people can still have a life while growing an account and building a business. My motto for 2024 is “stacking income while stacking memories” meaning that you’re making money while you’re making memories with your family/friends

my purpose in the online space is to talk about the things that aren’t being talked about which is why I started my podcast Radical Disruption. I talk about things like content being stolen, disputed payments, failed launches, trolls, and more!

I am currently working on an in person event called Profit Mavens Summit that will take place in Salt lake city end of 2024 that will be for entrepreneurs who are looking to increase their profit, sales, and repeat customers

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?
1- being willing to get out your comfort zone and try new things: if I had stayed doing what I always knew, I wouldn’t be where I am today. daily, I try to push myself out of my comfort zone and try something new. on instagram this looks like experimenting with new content, on my podcast this means sharing things that aren’t being talked about, in my business it looks like creating offers that are innovative and different. for people new into their journey this means saying “yes” to things that are scary – go live on instagram, do a collaboration, launch the offer that you’ve had the idea to do for years now

2- determination + discipline: everything I put my mind to, I make it happen. no excuses. I’ve realized in life that motivations is only temporary, discipline is what will last. motivation gets you to it, determination gets you through it. to get disciplined you have to create habits and the best way to create habits is to start small. I love the book “atomic habits” for more on this but habit stacking is probably my best tip for creating discipline. take something you already do in your day to day life, like brushing your teeth and add a new habit to it. so maybe it’s while I brush my teeth, I am going to post a piece of sales content

3- failure: i’m not sure if this is a skill or quality but it’s so important. You cant fear failure, it’s part of the journey. the more you failure, the quicker you get to where you want to go. the reframe of seeing failure as a stepping stone is so powerful. my biggest piece of advice here is to write down on a note that you can see daily – “each failure leads me closer to my goal”

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
It’s so easy to get overwhelmed as an entrepreneur because we wear a LOT of hats and the to-do list is never ending

When I find myself getting most overwhelmed is when I’ve written down all the things I need to do and it’s 50 tasks long and I can’t accomplish them all in a day so I end the day getting 1-2 things done on the list and I feel like a failure and then the pattern repeats each day

I’ve found that giving myself 3 main tasks to do each day and planning my day BEFORE it begins (I plan it the night before) helps me wake up with purpose and direction and feel way less overwhelmed

The other thing I do is make sure that I don’t take on more than 1 big project a month. “BIG” is relative to each person but for me a BIG project would be a launch of an offer, speaking at an event, creating a new offer, etc. So that way I’m not adding too much to my calendar all at once

Contact Info:

Image Credits
Brand Photos: @paigemckenzi

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