About Leah
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Urban 20 Something (no, not just for twenty-somethings in cities!) was founded by Leah Gervais to rewrite the conversation about what’s possible for twenty and thirty somethings given the passions and potential our generation holds.
I’m Leah, and when I started Urban 20 Something over two years ago, I had no idea it would turn into the movement that it has today.
It was during my own quarter-life trap that, out of frustration and intense feelings of “stuck”, I started this website to reach out and relate to other young professionals feeling the same way. I didn’t have any of the answers at the time and was disappointed in how my life would turn out, so I wanted to use this website to document my exploration for a more fulfilling career, financial freedom, and some clarity.
Little did I know, my website would not only document my journey to clarity and fulfillment, but my website itself, and the business it turned into, would become my career fulfillment and financial freedom.
Now, I work with ambitious budding entrepreneurs all over the world to monetize their existing passions and experiences by packaging them into helpful, transformative products and services and build their businesses from their laptops with strategic marketing.
My most successful clients have typically been the “driven one” in their friend group or family, and they’ve known they’re meant for an extraordinary life. Though they may have had frustration and disappointment with how things turned out after college, they’re not willing to settle with that as their reality. They’re on fire, on helping fuel their flame is the most rewarding work I could ask for!
Any of that sound familiar?
My story
I started Urban 20 Something when I declined my law school acceptances. This was a scary time for me as attending law school had been my lifelong plan and I did not know what I was going to do instead. But as I often share, the final day to confirm that I’d attend the schools that had accepted me, I woke up with a bad feeling in my gut. I listened to that gut reaction and declined my acceptances, not knowing what else to do instead
There’s a bit more to this gut reaction, though. It wasn’t just a fear that came up, but it was a distrust in this being the right path for me. Though I was interested in law school and the legal profession, I was not so interested in the six-figures of debt, and worried that there was creative part of me that would be suppressed if I went down this path.
So, having no clue what was in store for me, I decided against this long-standing, reliable and safe plan of law school in pursuit of a different story; a story that was uniquely mine.
Traveling Alone
After making this decision, I was at a loss as to what to do with myself. At the time, I was working as a paralegal. Once I had decided that I wasn’t going to pursue a career in the legal field, I began to question how beneficial staying in that position was for my career development.
So, even though I felt incredibly lost as to what I would do with my life, I went back to the drawing board and got back to the basics. I started making a list of what I knew were requirements for my life. Finding and living those requirements were the whole reason I declined my acceptances anyway, so I felt the need to come through for myself!
While many of my dreams seemed out of reach (a fulfilling career seemed far from possible at the time, for example), one of the requirements I decided to act on was traveling.
So, I packed up my entire New York City apartment, found a subletter, bought a one-way ticket to Cambodia and started Urban20Something.com as a blog of sorts to document a city girl’s solo journey throughout Southeast Asia and through self-discovery.
From Blog to Business
While in Southeast Asia, my blog mostly remained just that… a blog. But through my writing online, I was able to learn how to find freelance writing jobs. This was hugely helpful in supporting my travels and I was delighted to learn how to make money from my laptop. In fact, I was hooked.
I soon decided that I wanted to make an ecourse or another digital product. In particular, I was eager to find en ecourse topic that could support other twenty (or thirty!) somethings that also wanted to take a gap in their careers, travel alone, and learn to make money online.
But, I wasn’t yet confident in my ability to create a digital product, and even if I knew what to create one on, I had no idea how to begin selling it or marketing it.
When I was ready to come back to New York after four months of traveling alone, I knew that I was going to be applying to jobs with the odds stacked against me. After all, I was living in a small apartment in Bangkok at the time. I had no New York address plus I had a gap in my resume to explain.
After lots of research and too little sleep, I figured out how to leverage my job applications to benefit me given my situation and where I was. My hard work paid off, and I actually had the easiest job search process of my life- receiving more job offers than ever before!
As I shared my story, I started receiving emails and comments from people asking how I was able to pull this off. Lots of others wanted to travel, but worried about getting another job. Or, they worried about having a career gap in general. Eventually it came to me: this is exactly what I should make an ecourse on!
Sound familiar? Now, I work with budding entrepreneurs all over the world to package their own learnings and experiences into products and services to sell online. Let’s make you the next success story!
Now, it's your turn...
Now, I’ve turned my story and my journey into my business, and I support incredible, passionate people all over the world to identify their own way to help others, and teach them how to build products and services, market them, and make big money.
Does any of this sound like you?
- Crave the ownership and creation of something that’s completely theirs; not just working to build someone else’s dream
- Know that they are meant to do big things, but feel stuck in the status quo
- No longer want to go through the motions, and are ready to make a change
- Desire to impact people’s lives and help them, even if they’re not completely sure how to proceed
- Love the idea of running a business from their laptop so they can work from anywhere
- Want financial abundance and the power to create their own income streams, not relying on a set paycheck every two weeks.
- Feel some disappointment in how their post-college life has turned out (living paycheck-to-paycheck, little time to travel, little career fulfillment) and thought things would turn out differently
- Are big dreamers and doesn’t settle!
Learn how I went from a confused, disappointed college grad
to building a side business that earns more than my day job
and the seven steps you can take for your transformation too!