Success coach Ariel Frey always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but she started out working as a server in the restaurant industry for years. “In college, I got a degree in music theater performance and there's so much criticism coming at you and it's constructive but there's a lot of it and I just felt like I was meant to impact a lot of people in a different way than that,” says Frey. “I wanted to do things on my own terms and that's when I said OK I'm going to do this entrepreneur thing and I'm going to figure out how to start my own business. I'd gotten a certification as a Reiki Master Teacher and thought I’m going to use that skill.”

Frey, who was 26 at the time, may have been a certified Reiki Master Teacher (reiki is a Japanese technique for stress reduction and relaxation that also promotes spiritual healing), but she essentially wanted to help others create freedom and live their best lives. The only problem was Frey had no idea how to get clients. “I was putting up posters at Whole Foods and figuring out who my ideal client was. A couple of people came in who I knew and I think the only person who paid me was actually my husband who I didn’t know at the time. He gave me my very first $30,” says Frey. Frey had also invested in a course on developing a six-figure business but she didn’t take any initiative after completing the course. “I didn't really know exactly what direction I wanted to go at that point but I invested in it because I was excited,” says Frey. “Honestly I hardly showed up for it. I had like serious confidence stuff going on. I didn't know what to do and I just floundered around for like three years.”

After a bad breakup, Frey, who was still working as a server, had an epiphany. “I always say that when you're supposed to be taking a new direction or doing something different and you don't do it or there's something holding you back, the universe will finally come in and shake you and make you do it,” says Frey. “It was so simple but it was such a big turning point for me. This woman came in [the restaurant] and I had to serve her and she was a difficult customer but I didn't really think anything of it. All these other people sat down and I knew I had to go and take care of them and she had asked for this sauce so when I finally brought it to her, she was super upset that I had not taken care of her first. And she started attacking my personal character because I didn't say sorry,” Frey continues. “I was really upset and it was after that moment I said to myself, I know that I'm meant to do so much more. All I want to be doing is helping people. And I just won't be making an impact if I’m stuck in this job.”

Frey had another turning point when she was walking home from work and stumbled upon a bookstore. “I had like $20 in my purse and I didn't know why I was feeling drawn in the bookstore,” says Frey. “I thought I'm just going to trust it. So I went in and I said ‘OK what am I supposed to find here?’ And I walked around the store and I was like ‘No that doesn’t feel right.’ And when I turned around, I saw this book, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind [by Joseph Murphy.] I pulled it off the shelf and just opened it up. I opened it to Chapter 9, which was the power of your subconscious mind for wealth. I thought ‘Oh my God this is a sign!’”

Soon after, Frey began to change her mindset and focused on building her business. “What I realized is that I had to start changing my beliefs on what I thought was possible for myself,” says Frey. “I would say ‘wealth success wealth success’ all the time. The statement was in my mind all the time and I would do things vigorously while I would say that mantra. And that's really how I started to change my mindset around what I thought was possible. I just started to tell myself different things that I knew that were already on their way.”

Frey admits that she used to wish someone would discover her, but she realized that you have to choose yourself. “You can really choose yourself,” encourages Frey. “I think a lot of people think “I don't have the resources” or ‘I don't have a lot of money to put into this.’ But we're in the space right now where there's YouTube, you have an iPhone. You can build a website on Squarespace for $12 a month. You can do this for almost free. When Periscope came out and that was really blowing up, that’s what I used. That was my platform. And I got on there a couple of times a day and would share value with people. I just did it consistently and I would invite people to get even more value from me through webinars. The reason that people don't change their lives in this way is not because they didn't have resources but because they weren't resourceful.”

How To Jumpstart Your Dream Life

We also asked Frey to share her advice on how to jumpstart your dream life. See below for her tips:

1. Do anything you set your mind to—One of the things that holds a lot of people back is expectations or beliefs of other people or what they think that other people want them to be doing. You really have the power yourself to go out and make something really great and you don't need anybody else's permission to do it.

2. Be willing to do what other people are not to have what they don't—When her friends went out, Frey wasn't going out. “I didn't think like ‘Oh shit I can't go out.’ I thought of it as ‘here's my why and this is what I want to do with that.’”

3. Master your craft—You should really master what you're doing and keep it simple.

4. Be self-reliant— Know that you can do this, get resourceful and focus on what you want and the solution. When we focus on why it's not working, our brains only create problems. When we focus on what the outcome is and what we really want, that's where creative ideas come in and that's where we get really resourceful.

5. Focus on the why—What's the reason you're doing this? Focus on being of service to other people. That's when things will blow up in a really big way. And that's when you’ll have the drive to keep going because it does take time, work and energy.

Follow Frey on Twitter and Instagram at @thearielfrey.