We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Laura Anderson. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Laura below.
Laura, appreciate you joining us today. Owning a business isn’t always glamorous and so most business owners we’ve connected with have shared that on tough days they sometimes wonder what it would have been like to have just had a regular job instead of all the responsibility of running a business. Have you ever felt that way?
I can say, with my full chest, despite what others would lead you to believe- I am MUCH happier as a business owner.
Is every day perfect? No. But every day as a business owner, even the bad ones are MUCH better than the best days as an employee.
I have full autonomy over my own life. I can’t even put into words how liberating and freeing the feeling is. To wake up every single morning and dictate my day based on how I feel and how much output I want to give that day.
My husband is a stay at home Dad so we are at home together all the time as a family. Neither one of us gets to miss out on a single moment.
When my husband and I take our son out to lunch or to the park in the middle of the work day I’ll often turn to him and say… “Could you imagine if we had to be a job right now instead of this?”
It constantly reminds me of how lucky we both are.
No boss, no asking anyone permission to do what I want when I want, the ability to make more money than I’ve ever made. To decide how I want to spend each and every day. Nothing compares, nothing even comes close.
I pick business owner in every lifetime.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
My name is Laura Anderson, although many people online know me as Digital Laura Anderson. I’m a digital entrepreneur, marketing strategist, speaker, author of The 10 Hour Work Month, and educator who has built a multi-seven-figure business by helping people leverage digital skills, AI, automation, and modern business systems to create more freedom, flexibility, and income in their lives.
My journey into entrepreneurship wasn’t traditional. I struggled academically, flunked out of college, and spent years trying to figure out where I fit in. I always knew I wanted more control over my time and my future, but I didn’t have a roadmap. Through trial and error, countless mistakes, and a lot of years of persistence, I discovered the power of Media Buying and online business. What started as learning digital advertising and social media marketing evolved into building a thriving business that eventually allowed me to replace traditional employment, create financial freedom for my family, and design a lifestyle centered around flexibility rather than burnout.
Today, we are living through one of the biggest workforce transformations in history. Artificial intelligence is changing the way people work, businesses operate, and careers are built. While many people are understandably worried about AI replacing jobs, I believe the greatest opportunity belongs to those who learn how to use AI rather than fear it. My mission is to help people become irreplaceable by teaching them how to combine human creativity, strategy, and expertise with powerful AI tools.
Through my educational programs, speaking engagements, content, podcast, and book, I teach people how to develop what I call “digital trades”—high-income digital skills that can be learned without a traditional degree. I show students how to use AI to work smarter, automate repetitive tasks, improve productivity, attract clients, build systems, and create businesses that are positioned for the future rather than vulnerable to it.
The biggest problem I solve is showing people that there is another way. Many talented individuals feel trapped in jobs they don’t enjoy, working long hours with little flexibility or financial growth. Others are worried about layoffs, automation, and how AI will impact their careers. I help them develop valuable digital skills, embrace emerging technology, build authority in the marketplace, and create income opportunities that allow them to thrive in a rapidly changing economy.
What sets me apart is that I don’t teach theory, I teach what I’ve personally done. Everything I share comes from real-world experience building my own business from the ground up. I also focus on practical implementation over hype. While many people talk about AI, I teach everyday people how to actually use it to generate income, save time, grow businesses, and create more freedom. My goal isn’t to help people work harder, it’s to help them become more effective.
One of my proudest accomplishments is creating the 10-Hour, $10K Work Month Accredited Trade School, which challenges the outdated belief that success requires constant hustle and 80-hour work weeks. I’ve watched students gain confidence, start businesses, land clients, increase their income, and in many cases completely transform their lives. Seeing someone go from feeling stuck and uncertain about the future to confidently building a business powered by modern digital skills and AI is incredibly rewarding.
Beyond business, I’m a wife and mother, and that’s a huge part of why I do what I do. I believe technology should create more freedom, not more stress. The freedom to be present with my family while still building a successful company is what inspired me to share these strategies with others. I want people to know they don’t have to choose between financial success and quality of life.
If there’s one thing I want people to know about me and my brand, it’s that I genuinely believe ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things when they have the right skills, guidance, and mindset. We are entering a new era of work, and while change can be intimidating, it also creates incredible opportunity. My mission is to help people navigate that transition, master AI instead of being replaced by it, and build businesses and careers that give them both financial success and personal freedom.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
One of the most defining moments of my life happened on an airport floor crying my eyes out, and for a long time, it was a memory I didn’t want to revisit.
At the time, I had spent years trying to build a business while working jobs I hated just to survive. I was doing everything I could to make my dream work, but from the outside, it looked like I was failing. I had just gotten out of a toxic relationship. I was broke. I had lost my apartment. I had lost my car. I remember walking two miles to the grocery store because I couldn’t afford transportation, filling my basket with food, only to have my card declined at checkout. I then had to walk the two miles back home with nothing. Those were the kinds of days I was living through.
Eventually, I ran out of options.
I used the last dollars I had to buy a one-way Spirit Airlines ticket from California back home to Florida. It felt like surrender. Like I was giving up on everything I had spent years trying to build.
When I arrived at the airport, I had about twenty dollars left in my bank account.
Twenty dollars.
Everything I owned in the world fit into two suitcases. That’s all I had left. No apartment. No car. No savings. No backup plan. Just two suitcases and a plane ticket home.
As I stood at the check-in counter, the airline agent weighed my bags and told me they were too heavy. If I wanted to bring them, I needed to pay an additional baggage fee.
I remember my stomach dropping.
I didn’t have the money.
Not even close.
I stepped away from the counter and completely fell apart. All of the emotions I had been holding in for years came crashing down at once. The exhaustion. The embarrassment. The disappointment. The feeling that I had spent years chasing a dream only to end up with nothing to show for it.
I found a trash can nearby and started pulling my belongings out of my suitcases. Piece by piece, I threw away what little I had left just to make weight.
Standing there in the middle of an airport, throwing away pieces of my life because I couldn’t afford a baggage fee, was the lowest moment I’ve ever experienced.
I felt like a failure.
I felt ashamed.
I felt like everyone around me was moving forward while I was going backwards.
But something happened when I finally got on that plane.
As I sat in my seat staring out the window, exhausted, defeated, and unsure of what came next, I made a promise to myself.
I said, “This cannot be how my story ends.”
I didn’t know how I was going to rebuild my life. I didn’t know how long it would take. I didn’t know if my business would ever work.
But I knew I wasn’t done.
That moment changed everything.
Not because my circumstances immediately improved, but because I stopped seeing that experience as proof that I couldn’t succeed. Instead, I started seeing it as a chapter in my story, not the ending.
Today, people see the businesses, the book, the speaking engagements, the media features, and the life I’ve built. What they don’t see is the girl standing next to a trash can at LAX with twenty dollars in her bank account, trying to decide which possessions she could afford to keep.
That’s the version of me I’m most proud of.
Not because she was successful.
Not because she had everything figured out.
But because she had every reason to quit and chose not to.
That airport wasn’t where my story fell apart.
It was where it began.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
One of the biggest lessons I had to unlearn was the idea that there is only one “right” path to success.
Like many people, I grew up being told that the formula was simple: get good grades, go to college, get a degree, find a stable job, work hard for 40 years, and eventually you’ll be successful. It was presented as the safest path and the path everyone should follow.
The problem was, that path never felt right for me.
I struggled in school. I wasn’t a great student. I eventually dropped out of college and spent years feeling like I was behind everyone else because I wasn’t following the script society had laid out. For a long time, I thought my lack of a degree was something I needed to overcome or apologize for.
What I eventually realized is that education and intelligence are not the same thing. A degree can be valuable in certain professions, but it is not the only path to building expertise, creating value, or becoming successful.
In fact, we’re now living through one of the biggest shifts in the workforce in modern history. Artificial intelligence is changing industries faster than traditional education systems can adapt. Universities often take years to update curriculum, while the skills employers and clients need today can change in a matter of months.
The lesson I had to unlearn was that credentials are more important than capability.
Today, I believe adaptability is the most valuable skill a person can have. The people who will thrive in the AI era aren’t necessarily the ones with the most degrees hanging on their wall. They’re the people who can learn quickly, solve problems, leverage technology, and continuously evolve as the market changes.
Ironically, many of the opportunities I teach today didn’t even exist when I was growing up. Digital marketing, content creation, media buying, AI consulting, automation specialists, and countless other digital trades have created entirely new career paths that often value results more than résumés.
That doesn’t mean education isn’t important. I believe learning is more important than ever. But learning and formal schooling are not always the same thing. Some of the most successful people I know are constantly learning, constantly adapting, and constantly developing new skills regardless of whether they have a degree.
Looking back, I spent years believing I was behind because I hadn’t followed the traditional route. Now I realize that stepping off that path forced me to develop the very skills that would ultimately create my success: resilience, creativity, self-education, adaptability, and the willingness to embrace change.
The biggest thing I had to unlearn wasn’t a business lesson. It was the belief that success comes from following someone else’s roadmap. The future belongs to people who are willing to create their own.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/10hr10kworkmonth
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/digitallauraanderson
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Digital-Laura/100068225064311/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/digitallauraanderson/
- Twitter: https://x.com/digitallauraa
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/lauraanderson
- Other: tiktok.com/@digitallauraanderson
The 10Hour $10K Work Month Accredited Trade School- https://www.10hr10kworkmonth.com/10hr-10k-work-month-accredited-bootcamp-copy-2
The 10 Hour Work Month Book -https://www.amazon.com/10-Hour-Work-Month-Automate-Doing/dp/B0DN23DNS6/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0
My Inner Circle Substack – https://schoolofantiworkaholics.substack.com/
