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

Xuan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

My business really began with my husband’s motorcycle accident. He was badly injured and ended up out of work for a year, and during that time we were living on his temporary disability checks. It was scary and humbling to realize how financially vulnerable we were. I had been bringing in a little money through blogging, YouTube, Etsy, and freelance work, but it was never enough to truly support our family if I needed to. And while I had a background in teaching, I knew I didn’t want to go back to the classroom. I was homeschooling my kids and committed to being home with them, so I needed something that worked with our lifestyle instead of against it.

I’d already been sharing about slow and intentional living and homeschooling online, and people connected with it, but it wasn’t really a business yet. After the accident, I decided to take the leap and enroll in coaching school. I didn’t do it to collect another credential—I’d already been mentoring and supporting people in different ways—but I wanted the structure, the accountability, and the confidence to really step into this work as a career.

As soon as I finished, I hired a business coach whom I absolutely love and credit her for getting me to where I am today. I knew myself well enough to know that if I tried to do it alone, I’d get stuck in the overthinking, second-guessing, and self-sabotaging stage. Those early months were truly messy and imperfect—I built a simple website, took my own brand photos with my iPhone, put coaching packages together, learned the nuts and bolts of running a coaching business (which is completely different from blogging), and started talking about my work. And the scariest but most important part was learning to charge for the kind of support I’d been giving away for free for years.

Looking back, the biggest change wasn’t just getting the business off the ground—it was in me. I stopped seeing myself as “just a homeschool mom sharing her life online” and started owning the fact that I was a coach and a business owner. That mindset shift, along with the support I invested in, is what turned an idea born out of a really hard season into a business that feels both meaningful and sustainable.

Xuan, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a mindful living coach and I help overwhelmed women—often people-pleasers, perfectionists, and caregivers who’ve spent years putting everyone else first—slow down, reclaim their time, and finally put themselves back at the center of their lives. My work is all about helping women create a life they don’t want to escape from.

Before this, I was a middle school history teacher. When I left the classroom to have kids and eventually homeschool them, I started sharing our journey online. At first it was all about homeschooling—curriculum choices, daily rhythms, and the ups and downs of teaching your own kids at home. But over time, people weren’t just connecting with the homeschool content. They were drawn to the bigger picture of how I was choosing to live—slower, simpler, and more intentional. That’s when my focus shifted from education alone to a broader conversation about mindful living.

Now my business has grown into an ecosystem. Coaching is at the heart of what I do—working 1:1 with women and also guiding group experiences—but everything else I create supports that mission, too. I write a Substack newsletter called Cozy Notes, host a podcast under the same name, and share my slow living journey on YouTube. Each of these platforms offers a different entry point: someone might first find me through a cozy lifestyle vlog, then subscribe to my newsletter, and eventually decide they’re ready for coaching. It all works together to make mindful living feel accessible—whether someone is just dipping their toes in or ready for deep, transformative support.

What sets me apart is that I don’t teach this from a distance—I live it. I embody it. I’m raising kids, running a business, and navigating the same messy realities as my clients. I’m not about a picture-perfect aesthetic. I’m about realistic, sustainable shifts that make life feel lighter, calmer, and more fulfilling.

I’m most proud of the transformations I get to witness: women going from exhausted and resentful to grounded and excited about their lives again. That’s the heart of my brand: reminding women they don’t need to do more to be worthy. They just need to make space for what matters most and let the rest go.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

One of the biggest lessons I’ve had to unlearn is that productivity equals worth. As a former teacher and a stay-at-home mom, I was used to measuring myself by how much I could get done in a day. The longer the to-do list, the more “successful” I felt—except I was constantly exhausted, overwhelmed, resentful, and never really satisfied. There was always more to do, more to prove.

The backstory is that when I left teaching and started homeschooling, that mindset followed me. I swapped grading papers and lesson plans for managing household responsibilities and my kids’ education, but the pressure to be endlessly productive didn’t go away. And then, when I layered on building a business, I realized that if I kept measuring myself by output, I was going to burn out completely (which I’ve already done a few times as a college student, teacher, and mom).

It took slowing down—and honestly, a few hard wake-up calls like my husband’s accident—to realize that my value doesn’t come from how much I check off in a day. My worth isn’t tied to being constantly busy or meeting everyone else’s expectations. Now, I focus on prioritizing what actually matters, giving myself white space, and letting go of the idea that doing more automatically makes me better.

That shift has not only changed how I live, but it’s also become central to my work with clients. So many women carry that same belief, and unlearning it opens up space for rest, joy, and presence.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

A story that really illustrates my resilience is the season after my husband’s motorcycle accident. Overnight, everything changed. He was suddenly out of work for a year, and we were living on his temporary disability checks. I was homeschooling our kids, managing the household, and trying to hold it all together while dealing with insurance, lawyers, caring for my husband, and quietly wondering how we were going to make it through. There were days when the fear and uncertainty felt overwhelming, and I had to remind myself constantly to just take the next step, the next breath.

I could have gone back to teaching, but I knew in my gut that wasn’t the right path. It didn’t align with the life I wanted for my family or for myself. So instead, in the middle of that really difficult season, I chose to believe that something better could come from it. I enrolled in coaching school even though it felt scary and uncertain, and later invested in a business coach so I wouldn’t talk myself out of following through.

That year taught me resilience in the truest sense—it wasn’t about being strong all the time or pretending I had it all figured out. It was about allowing myself to be scared and exhausted, and still choosing to keep going. It was about trusting that the small, imperfect steps I was taking would eventually lead somewhere solid. That experience became the foundation for my business, and it’s also the heart of the work I do now: helping women create lives that feel steady and supportive, even in the middle of chaos.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.xuanklevecka.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xuanklevecka
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@cozy_notes
• Other: Substack: https://xuanklevecka.substack.com/
  Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/cozy-notes/id1793403512

Image Credits

Xuan Klevecka