Rachel Jimenez harbored a longstanding desire to become a teacher, specifically aiming for a career as a college professor. However, she revealed that she has always been "debt averse” and was aware that the teaching field may not always offer competitive salaries, despite requiring multiple degrees. As an alternative, the 35-year-old mother pursued a business career and eventually established an Etsy store in 2019, per CNBC Make It. Her store specializes in selling printables, such as an Elf on a Shelf game, which customers purchase and print at home. Remarkably, in 2022, her store generated over $110,000 in passive income, marking the second consecutive year of achieving six-figure earnings.
Etsy thrived, with Jimenez dedicating only two to ten hours per week to it, so she decided to explore her passion for teaching in January 2022 and launched an online course. Leveraging her expertise in positive organizational psychology from Claremont Graduate University, she created the course 'Optimize Your Life Academy' to harness the power of positive psychology for personal success. Currently priced at $297, the course has generated over $10,000 since its launch in January 2023.
How did Jimenez do it?
Keeping a positive approach
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Jimenez has always found positive psychology to be a potent tool for shaping her outlook on life. This field emphasizes individuals' character strengths and promotes gratitude exercises, as per Psychology Today. “When you’re thinking positively,” she says, “you’re more likely to take action and when you take action, you’re more likely to get results.” The course comprises a series of videos covering topics such as defining success and time management. Additionally, it includes a 70-page workbook featuring exercises on goal setting, stress management, and more. “My course kind of talks about the strategies and the tools that a lot of people don’t know because they don’t study positive psychology,” she says.
Too big of a promise statement?
So far, approximately 30 individuals have enrolled in the course and Jimenez has gathered some valuable insights. She realizes that she may have taken on too ambitious a topic, considering the course's subtitle is 'How to achieve happiness and success.' One participant candidly expressed, "I enjoyed your course, I liked it. But it just feels like the promise statement is so big."
“I believe all these concepts that I’ve learned have helped me achieve happiness and success," says Jimenez, but she still grapples with the challenge of measuring such outcomes and determining when they materialize. Realizing the importance of managing expectations, she acknowledges that guaranteeing life-changing results could lead to disappointment if not achieved.
Trial and error is part of every entrepreneur's journey
Looking ahead, Jimenez is considering adjusting her course based on valuable student feedback or even developing an entirely new course. Whichever path she chooses, her aim is to unveil the updated or new product by January 2024. Simultaneously, she has embarked on another teaching venture. In June 2023, she took on the role of an adjunct professor at Mt. San Antonio College, instructing a course on commencing and managing a home-based business. “I think what I’m learning in my entrepreneurial journey, in general, is just that it’s all about trial and error,” she says. “And sometimes something might feel like a failure or like it’s not doing as good as you expected it to be but … you learn something from it.”
The secret sauce of Jimenez's success
The mother of two had tried several side hustles like dog sitting and babysitting before she started the store and went big. She has also given courses on building a business and budgeting and has written for various blogs. She achieved most of this while working full-time, and her most recent job was that of an administrator in higher education. “I think that’s part of my success,” she says. “I was testing different things slowly over time, and then, eventually, all the information and knowledge came together.”
