Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in personal development but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Hazel Williams, Founder and CEO of Big Girl Interrupted, located in Toronto, ON, Canada.
What's your business, and who are your customers?
Big Girl Interrupted is a women’s empowerment community, and we help women set goals and crush them! We are here to help women become their own versions of amazing! Our mission is empowering women everywhere—we want them to have the confidence, strength, and self-love they need to live their most courageous life. Together we will support awesome goals and cheer on unstoppable ambition - so that every woman can be bold unabashedly.
At quarterly vision board bootcamps, our attendees have a unique opportunity to take time out and focus on self-care and personal goals. This self-exploration unlocks their potential as they create plans for an amazing future!
Tell us about yourself
I am a woman of strength and resilience, continuously pushing the boundaries to reach greater heights. One thing I value is embracing life’s unexpected interruptions with grace and dignity – this keeps me informed on what kind of person I want to be while learning something new every day about myself!
As a proud mom and dog mom who has navigated life with a non-visible disability, I’m the CEO of Big Girl Interrupted—a compassionate educator, coach, sister, and friend. My goal is to help others realize that interruptions can be our best teachers, however challenging they may be! Together we will make sure you have all your cheerleaders in place as you strive for success—feel free to brag about it when you get there!
In March 2018, Big Girl Interrupted was born. It began with a simple yet powerful question: What’s interrupting your life? My outer appearances may have shown that it was weight gain and excitement for returning back to school in my late 30s - but beneath the layers were much bigger obstacles manifesting themselves into anxiety, negative self-talk, and self-doubt.
What motivates me each day is the voice notes I receive from other women and men that see me on different social media platforms and thank me for doing what I am doing. I also get motivated by the long text message conversations that I have in the DM’s on Instagram or Facebook from people.
The most empowering motivation is our in-person vision board bootcamp events. The in-person comments confirm that my vision is more powerful than me. At our most recent vision board bootcamp event, the common theme among the women was they didn’t know what to expect, and they had a few goals in mind, but after I took them through our vision board process, they realized their goals were even deeper than what they thought they were going to be.
What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?
My biggest accomplishment as a business owner has been the relationships I have built throughout this journey, as well as all of the new experiences that I encounter on a daily basis as a business owner, from the systems I put in my business so that it is a smoother process for my community to experience what we have to offer. I am enjoying the cool applications like jaser.ai or CapCut that I can access right from my phone. Lastly, hiring a virtual assistant who will take over the areas in my business that I am not an expert in.
What's one of the hardest things that comes with being a business owner?
One of the hardest things about being a business owner is having all of these ideas of where I want my business to go and the need to get started now and put them into action while I still have other projects going on. And what I have put in place for myself to continue the excitement in the business. I have a brain dump journal in which I write all of my ideas once a week, sometimes 2 or 3 times a week. In my quarterly goal-setting planning, I go through my journal to see what ideas I have written and if it aligns with our quarterly goals.
What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?
- Starting your own business: Take some time and ask yourself why you want to start your own business. Ask yourself this question every day for five days. Look and reflect on each answer, and under each answer, write how it makes you feel. Once you are feeling good and confident about your answers, start thinking about what areas in yourself you want to make an investment in, for example, business coach, business start-up coach, goals-setting coach, or mindset coach. You can also look at what business start-up programs are out there because they often give grants if you complete certain programs.
- Running your own business: Write down everything you are doing in your business and look at what things you don’t like or enjoy doing. Set goals to pass 1 to 2 tasks over to a virtual assistant per week or month. You could do that for three months and then review the progress you made with that help in your business.
- Grow in your business: I believe that investing in yourself is key to your success. That could look like joining mastermind groups that have people who are where you want to be in your business. Attend networking events with people doing the same things you want to do and more. Lastly, connect with a mentor who you can access and bounce ideas off.
Where can people find you and your business?
Website: https://biggirlinterrupted.ca/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Biggirlinterrupted72
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/biggirlinterrupted/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/big-girl-interrupted/
If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.
Turn your craft into recurring revenue with Subkit. Start your subscription offering in minutes and supercharge it with growth levers. Get early access here.