We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Chimdi Ihezie. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Chimdi below.

Alright, Chimdi thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

Every time I consider the presumed stability that would come from a regular 9-5 job (the daily structure, the supportive team, the healthcare benefits) and I bring this up to my friends who have these jobs, they are QUICK to shut me down.

“Chimdi, it’s the ghetto,” they implore. “Keep your freedom!”

Ultimately, the more I examine what I want from a 9-5 compared to my life as a creative business owner, I realize what I’m searching for I can only give to myself.

The sense of safety, the sense of protection, the sense of holding. The looks and words of affirmation that say, “Yes, you are doing a good job. Your contribution IS meaningful. You really ARE an asset to this team.”

But any words of worthiness will ultimately fall flat if I don’t have the ears to hear them. The phrase “Happiness is an inside job,” feels relevant, because whatever joy I have as a human being, I bring to my work. It’s the same way I brought the stress and anxiety I already had in my body to my previous 9-5 roles. That’s why leaving those roles behind didn’t fundamentally change how I felt.

The biggest blessing, and my deepest appreciation, of being a business owner is that I have SPACE. I have time in the morning to take a deep breath. I can wake up slow, go for a walk, swim in the ocean, make a cup of chai tea.

I feel powerful. I know that I am the master of my time and my day, and I get to create what feels good and say no to the rest.

I am my own priority, and my needs don’t come second to some external deadline imposed by someone else.

I am free.

And I don’t take the responsibility lightly. Whenever I do start feeling the weight of it, I have a support system of family and friends to remind me, “Yes. You got this. Stay free.”

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

While I’m conducting this interview in Mexico, 10 minutes from the beach, I never would have thought I would be here after growing up in Maryland. I first thought my work would be in the nonprofit sector and I graduated from a Master’s program with a degree in Public Policy, determined to transform our political system.

Disillusionment quickly followed.

But I didn’t yet have the courage to leap fully into a creative life.

2017 was the year everything changed. I started my YouTube channel (@ChimdiIhezie) and started bringing folks along on my journey, covering everything from apartment tours to eye surgery. I then joined Remote Year in 2018, and every month moved to a different country (if not continent) with 30+ strangers. Finally, I started working for a leadership organization and had my first experience as a coach.

When 2020 rolled around, I thought I was in an amazing position — to already have a remote job, to already have traveled the world, to already have “lived my life.”

In fact, I thought that if I were to die tomorrow, I would have no regrets.

Except one.

I never had the courage to quit that job and actually create life on my own terms.

March 2021 was the death of that regret. I left my role and combined my love of creativity with my coaching skills and started offering Creative Coaching.

All this while my YouTube channel was scraping just under 5K subscribers. But I knew that if I took the leap, the net would appear.

And appear it did.

The video I made about quitting my job went viral (and it’s now sitting at over 230K views). My channel started to grow and has now surpassed 20K subscribers.

I started receiving creative opportunities, from voice over work to reality shows, and I started to bring clients into my business.

But the most powerful shift happened after engaging with the Timeless Wisdom Program, an intensive 2 year program focused on healing personal, collective and ancestral trauma.

I realized through that program how I had been unconsciously driven (in all areas of my life) by fears I had never met and processed. And as I went through the healing process, I learned what it meant to be vulnerable. I learned what it meant to be held in that vulnerability with love. And I developed the skills to deeply witness myself and my clients, elevating my coaching from simple creative strategy to profound emotional and personal transformation.

I am most proud of the way clients are attracted to my work not because of anything I’m saying but because I EMBODY the light of my soul, and that I support them in realizing they have the power to do the same.

And now, I am able to reach people through YouTube, hold space for them weekly through my partnership with HelloCreator, and if they want more support, work with them 1-1 through my Creative Freedom Coaching program.

To go from seeing work as merely a “job” to embodying my purpose every single day has been the biggest gift, second only to getting to support others in having the same life-changing insight.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

As a coach helping creators show up consistently and authentically, I knew I didn’t have a business case unless I was embodying both.

So while creating on YouTube, I was often walking with the question of what does consistency mean to ME and am I willing to be authentic when I show up?

That has meant taking breaks when I need to, showing parts of the journey that haven’t been sexy, and modeling what it means to give myself compassion when I haven’t been where I “thought” I should be.

Because I’ve been creating for over 7 years, my clients have gotten to witness my journey in real time. They’ve been able to see my light get brighter and brighter, they’ve been able to see my channel grow and my community strengthen, and they’ve gotten to witness me be in the fullness of my expression. Because they saw where I started and where I am now, they recognize that not only is this kind of journey possible for them, but I am uniquely equipped to be the one to support them.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

When I first heard that marketing is essentially getting people to 1) know 2) like and 3) trust you, it became clear how I’ve been able to grow my social media following to over 24,000 people and build genuine relationships with the members of my community — to the point where they become real friends, recurring clients, and even refer opportunities to me.

And that is because I am committed to deepening how I know myself, how I love myself, and how I restore trust in myself. And I’ve been sharing this journey transparently with my audience. And as I have deepened all three of these things, my audience has mirrored this depth right back to me.

In practice, this means exploring parts of myself online related to my beliefs, my family, and my life. It has meant being rooted in compassion and understanding when I explore topics, so I am not creating judgement or exclusion. And it has meant knowing when to say yes and when to say no, to honoring my boundaries whether it’s with who I talk to or what I decide to publish.

Ultimately, it’s meant deepening my spiritual practice so I don’t get confused thinking that who I am is reliant on the size of my social media following or the deposits in my checking account.

The more we are deeply connected to our own self-worth, the more we can make decisions and create content from this embodied place. That embodiment magnetizes people to us, because they see how bright we are shining and want that light to fall upon them too.

So my advice to folks early in their journey to building their social media presence is to get really clear on who they are. This clarity will allow them to bring the right people into their community and remain committed to their authentic self — no matter how long it takes for those people to come.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://chimdiihezie.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachingbychimdi/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chimdi-ihezie/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ChimdiIhezie