Introducing: The Fearless Femmepire Project

Hopefully you know by now I’m not one of those automated entrepreneurs. I’m friends with my clients, I respond to emails freakishly quick, and I love hearing from you on Facebook, Instagram, blog posts, etc.

You know why? Because I’m so grateful to be here, doing this work, and running my business.

Things in my life weren’t always this happy or filled with gratitude. Actually, it was only about a year ago that I sat in a large law firm staring out the window at the birds.

Seriously.

I could write you a novel about how much I didn’t like being a corporate lawyer in a big law firm. I would tell you about all the awful things that happened, the dark times I went through, and the things male partners said to me that would blow your mind.

But the gist of it is this: I kind of blindly became an attorney without much forethought or intention. I worked really hard, read a lot, and climbed my way up the ladder. But from day 1, I felt like I wasn’t in the right place.

Frankly, I wasn’t really sure how I’d gotten there or how to get out. I felt trapped, confused, and oh-so-hopeless about my career. 

I felt sorry for myself, beat myself up for making a ‘mistake’ (the whole nearly 6-figures of student loan debt didn’t help), got angry, cried a lot… and then, I had an epiphany.

Taking Back Control

Through a lot of good books, podcasts & reaching out to people I admired, I realized I was in control of my own happiness and situation, and I could choose to live a different life. It was OK that my path didn’t work out. And it was OK that people would judge me, friends would fade, and my cushy paycheck would go out the window.

I wish I could tell you that I just got the courage to do it. It actually took a super scary flight over the Atlantic ocean that dropped several thousands of feet in the air to kick my butt into overdrive, but hey – at least it got me to change.

With my feet firmly planted on the ground at JFK, I realized I didn’t have time to wait around. I didn’t have time to play small or wait for things to change or to make me happy.

Like you, when I want to make something happen, I make it happen fast.

Within 3 months of that scary flight, I created my own health coaching business, got my stuff in order, and left the law firm.

Starting My Own Business(es)

I loved having my own health coaching practice! Even more, I loved working with women around the country to move more, have a healthier relationship with food, and find healthier ways to manage stress. I did a lot of corporate wellness work, too, because I strongly believe you can influence people around you (at work or home) with even the tiniest of changes.

But with some time and space from the legal industry, I realized what really lit me up: helping other women (like you!) fearlessly go out and start their own businesses so they, too, could have the same experience I felt like I was having.

Slowly but surely, I started welcoming dozens and dozens of amazing women entrepreneurs into my business who needed approachable, affordable, easy DIY legal help with their businesses. So I created DIY legal templates and started business + legal coaching* w/ them.

Over the last year, my business has grown and progressed beyond what I thought it could.

Craving Community

But with time, I craved community + connection and rallied up the bravery to attend conferences, events, and reach out to people I loved online. At Good Fest in Philly last year, I realized how much I loved helping women in the wellness industry build and protect their businesses. And just recently at FearlessCon, I had a fire lit under me to incorporate core pillars of my business’s values — fearlessness and women’s empowerment — in a serious way. 

Since starting Sam Vander Wielen LLC, I wanted to create my own community with my unique vibe, distinct voice, and involving my amazing clients. (I also wanted to join a book club, but couldn’t find one – but that’s a separate story!)

So Fearless Femmepire** was born.

Fearless Femmepire is an online book club and community for fearless entrepreneurs to read self-development, wellness, business, and self-care books together. We’re going to learn, grow, and connect with one another to fearlessly build our businesses. I just announced the birth of Fearless Femmepire last week, and we already have 90+ members in the group. I knew I was super excited to start Fearless Femmepire, but I was pleasantly surprised to hear how excited you all were, too. Our combined enthusiasm made me think I’d like to turn this into something more.

THE PROJECT

I’m going to chronicle our journey through Fearless Femmepire together through a new yearlong series, the Fearless Femmepire Project.

Not only is this a project to create a community and read a lot of great books with wonderful people, but it’s also one I hope will inspire you to create your own community that makes sense for you and your business.

I struggled to come up with my own community for so long because I didn’t think a legal community sounded fun or logical. Plus, being a lawyer or selling awesome DIY legal templates doesn’t make me who I am or define what I do. Instead, when I think of my business’s purpose it’s to empower women to be able to do what makes their hearts sing. There are so many ways I can do this in my business, like:

• Empower women with DIY legal templates to fearlessly create content they love
• Empower women with business & legal mentorship to teach them what they need to know to thrive
• Create a book club + community for women to read powerful, life-changing books so they can learn how to be happier, healthier, more productive, and creative fearless entrepreneurs

See what I mean? There are so many things you can do in your business if you hone in on your business’s purpose. So the Fearless Femmepire Project is going to do just that. It will not only show you how you can integrate different offerings into your business as long as they’re all based on the same business purpose, but we’ll chronicle our amazing journey together, too.

THE SCHEDULE // FORMAT

Each month, I’ll kick off with a post about what book we’re reading in Fearless Femmepire that month. I’ll chat about why we picked it, what it’s meant to help us with, and what I’m hoping to get out of it (that hopefully you will, too!). I’ll end each month with a reflective post on what we collectively learned or took away from each book + discussion and how it might shape me and my business moving forward.

Here’s what you can expect for the year:

November // Big Magic

What better way to kick off a book club about being fearless entrepreneurs than to read Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert? Although I love the word fearless, and truly believe in it in business, I also know it’s not realistic or an all-the-time thing. We all have and experience fear (for me, it’s about every 5 minutes). But how do we co-exist with fear to live our most vibrant, creative life? Let’s learn together.

• We’re reading Big Magic + chatting about it in the Facebook group**
• Intro Post // On Creative Living Beyond Fear
• Recap Post // What I Learned About Creative Living and Fear {coming late November-2017}

December // The Wellness Project

I’ll never forget this one day last year where I looked around my office: still in my PJs, coffee cups abound, and having sat in my chair for at least 5+ hours. “Wait a minute,” I thought, “didn’t I start a wellness business? I’m the least well I’ve been in a long time!” At the same time, I felt an immense amount of (self-induced) pressure to work, work, work, work. I didn’t want to put the business (or my phone) down. I still struggle with how to find balance, and how to integrate healthier habits into the life of a passionate entrepreneur. With The Wellness Project, we’ll learn how to take charge of our own health, some of the things that might be causing us trouble, and how to find a healthy, hedonistic balance.

• We’re reading The Wellness Project + chatting about it in the Facebook group**
• Intro Post // On Taking Supreme Care of Ourselves
• Recap Post // What I Learned About Taking Charge of Our Own Wellness

January // Book Pick Coming Soon!

I’ll announce the next few months of books soon, so stay tuned!

I’m really excited to see this project take shape.

*Coaching services are no longer offered as of 2020
**The Fearless Femmepire Project is no longer active as of 2021