What Happens When You Don’t Quit with Yvonne Gimbert

 

This week on the Becoming a Sleep Consultant podcast, I’m joined by Yvonne for a very real conversation about entrepreneurship. We’re talking about the emotional rollercoaster. The slow months. The self-doubt. The awkward networking. The behind-the-scenes work no one sees.

We also talk about what happens when you stay the course. How confidence grows through action. How preparation pays off. How small, consistent efforts eventually turn into real momentum.

This episode isn’t about overnight success. It’s about grit. It’s about doing it afraid. It’s about preparing like a professional even when you don’t fully feel like one yet.

If you’ve ever wondered what it really looks like to build a sleep consulting business from the ground up, this conversation will give you an honest and encouraging look inside..

 

Links:

Website: Dreamworthy Pediatric Sleep Consulting
Instagram: @yvonne_sleepconsultant

 

If you’d like to learn more about becoming a Sleep Consultant, please join our Facebook Group: Becoming A Sleep Consultant

CPSM Website: Center for Pediatric Sleep Management

Book a free discovery call to learn how you can become a Certified Sleep Consultant here.

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Transcript: 

Intro: Welcome to Becoming a Sleep Consultant! I’m your host Jayne Havens, a certified sleep consultant and founder of both Snooze Fest by Jayne Havens and Center for Pediatric Sleep Management.

On this podcast, I’ll be discussing the business side of sleep consulting. You’ll have an insider’s view on launching, growing, and even scaling a sleep consulting business. This is not a podcast about sleep training. This is a podcast about business building and entrepreneurship.

This week on the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast, I’m joined by Yvonne for a very real conversation about entrepreneurship. We’re talking about the emotional rollercoaster—the slow months, the self-doubt, the awkward networking, the behind-the-scenes work no one sees. We also talk about what happens when you stay the course: how confidence grows through action, how preparation pays off, how small, consistent efforts eventually turn into real momentum.

This episode isn’t about overnight success. It’s about grit. It’s about doing it afraid. It’s about preparing like a professional even when you don’t fully feel like one yet. If you’ve ever wondered what it really looks like to build a sleep consulting business from the ground up, this conversation will give you an honest and encouraging look inside.

Jayne Havens: Yvonne, welcome back to the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. I’m so excited to have this conversation with you today.

Yvonne Gimbert: Thank you so much, Jayne. I’m so excited to be here again.

Jayne Havens: Before we get started, tell everyone a little bit about you and why you wanted to become a certified sleep consultant.

Yvonne Gimbert: Yeah, so I am a mom of two. I’m a former pediatric nurse. I was a stay-at-home mom for several years and then was looking to go back to work, but I knew I didn’t want to go back to the hospital. I didn’t want to do the shift work. I didn’t want to work holidays. And with my pediatric nursing background, my friends ask me anything and everything about their kids. Sometimes I just have to tell them to go see their doctor.

But I had a friend. His kids are younger than mine, and he was really struggling with sleep. His wife had asked me, kind of, what the heck do we do. This is before I had any training, but I just told them what I would do in that situation. His wife called me the next day and said, “Oh my God, we had a good night of sleep. That was amazing.”

My friend knew that I was looking for work at the time. I thought he was joking, but he actually sent me a link to your program. He was like, “I think you should look into this.” I honestly thought it was a joke at first. I just kind of brushed it off. And then I looked at your website, and I’m like, “I think I could do this, and I think this would be really cool and really fun.” So I got on a phone call with you and, yeah, signed up shortly after that. And I’m so glad that I did.

Jayne Havens: So take us back to when you first graduated. What were you expecting your first year in business to look like?

Yvonne Gimbert: Yeah, I knew it was going to be tough. I didn’t think it was just going to be magically getting all these clients right out of the gate. I don’t think I realized how hard it was going to be and all the work I was going to need to put into it. I thought I would have maybe a couple of clients per month, maybe go a little bit of time without having any. It was a lot harder than that.

I got a couple of clients right out of the gate, and then I went several months without any clients. Then I had a couple more and then go another couple months, and it was just — it was frustrating. I kept kind of doing the things. Every day I just kept working on my business. Eventually, things came together. But that first year was hard. It was really hard.

Jayne Havens: I think you were on a little bit of an emotional rollercoaster, right? The highs were really high and the lows were really low. I hope it’s okay that I’m sharing that on your behalf. We would have conversations where I could see you were just so down in the dumps and frustrated, feeling like this is never going to work. And then I’d hear from you three months later that you were on the top of the world. I think that is very typical in entrepreneurship.

Especially for people who work in the hospital system, if you’re a nurse, or if you work in a school, and you’re a teacher, your work is very steady and predictable. You know what’s coming. Even if it’s crazy, even if it’s chaotic, it’s a predictable level of chaos, right?

I think you were on a little bit of an emotional rollercoaster, and I wanted to give you an opportunity to share your story today. Because, look, I don’t think the rollercoaster ride is over. I think there will be other moments in your entrepreneurial journey that feel like you’re at the bottom again. That happens to all of us. But I wanted you to share what it looks like at the top a little bit, because you’re feeling like you finally have a handle on it, which I think is really, really exciting.

I’m wondering if there were things you did behind the scenes to continue your learning, to keep working when things were feeling really hard. Because I think what happens with a lot of people—it didn’t happen with you—is that people just stop. When business feels really hard, they just quit. And you didn’t. So I’m wondering, when things felt hard and when things felt slower, what were you doing behind the scenes to sort of keep it moving?

Yvonne Gimbert: Yeah, it is definitely — it’s been an emotional rollercoaster. I think if you are prepared for that, it’s easier to deal with. What I did was, during those times where I didn’t have any clients, I didn’t know where I was going to be getting any clients, I just really took that time to try to work on my business, to reach put to people, to try to make connections. I joined a business coaching program that was really helpful and just take that downtime to work on things.

You know, when I first started out, my sleep plans were just like this Word doc. It was fine, and I think my clients were okay with it. But looking back, I’m like, “Wow! It was a lot of words.” Just like a bunch of words. And so I take that time. I used Canva, and I created a pretty document. Then I created a lead magnet that I could try to start building my email list, doing a lot of things like that. I listened to so many podcasts on anything—from email list building to sales, to marketing, to sleep training. Everything. I really took those times where I didn’t have the clients coming in, I wasn’t making the sales to really focus on learning and growth.

Because when I am supporting a lot of clients, I don’t have as much time for that sort of thing. And you do, as a business owner, you have to be working on all these things all the time. So just really focusing on taking those moments to do the things that I knew I wasn’t going to have time to do when I was supporting a large client load. The other thing I did is—I still do this actually—when I’m writing a sleep plan, I scour the CPSM Facebook community. If I’m working on a six-month-old’s sleep plan, I’m searching for six-month-old schedules, nap transitions, and all of that—just trying to learn from the community, right?

Jayne Havens: Yeah, I think you’ve always been really good at just digging deep. That is what I think separates you from others who maybe just lose steam or lose interest. You’re just always willing to dig a little bit deeper. You have that grit and determination, that I think that does not come naturally necessarily. You either have it, or you don’t. And if you don’t, you have to work really hard for it.

And so I think that that is a major factor for you. I’m wondering, where along the lines did your confidence shift? Because the way that you talk about your business now is with a completely different energy and a completely different aura than maybe six months ago. And so I’m wondering how that happened. What did it take for you to really feel like, “I’ve got this. I have a business I can be really be proud of myself”?

Yvonne Gimbert: I think part of it was just starting to see consistent clients coming in. Even on those discovery calls where people were not maybe necessarily booking me, having these conversations and realizing that all that stuff I was doing a year ago actually was building to this point. I’ll get on calls with people and they’ll say, “Oh, I’m in this mom’s group, and everyone is raving about you.” And I’m like, “What?”

So kind of like hearing those things of, you know, I’m not even aware that this mom’s group is talking about me, but realizing that just that determination to not quit and just keep doing something every day to move me forward. When I kind of realized that worked, that’s when my confidence really just — I started to actually feel confident.

Jayne Havens: I think networking is part of your business development strategy, right? Can you speak into that a little bit? What does that look like? Who are you networking with, and what relationships would you say have blossomed? I’m sure others are coming down the pipeline, hopefully.

Yvonne Gimbert: Yeah. So networking didn’t come naturally or easily for me. It still makes me nervous to reach out to someone and say, “Hey, would you like to get on a coffee chat?” But I just really, especially in the beginning, I really just forced myself to just reach out to people. Anyone who might have a similar audience that I was looking to that would be my ideal client, I would reach out.

Even when it felt hard, even when I worried—are they going to think I’m like crazy or rude or anything like that—I would just reach out over Instagram, or email, or walking into different clinics around my neighborhood, and just putting myself out there even when I didn’t want to. Because most of the time, I didn’t want to. I found some people just weren’t interested. I had to just say that’s okay, just move on, and not make it about me. I had some really awkward conversations, Zoom conversations. Like I would get off the phone and just think, “Okay. All right. That’s not going anywhere. That’s all right.”

And then I’ve had some really great connections. I go and do a lot of talks at different moms’ groups. I’ll do Q&As—actually, virtual Q&As as well in WhatsApp groups. And I find those connections have been the greatest for me. This is where I’m finding that a lot of my clients are coming from.

I’ve also found, like, I had one experience where I had kind of reached out to this woman. I went to some of her events, but it wasn’t really getting there. Just wasn’t a lot of traction there. But then, a woman that I met at her event started her own thing. And it was just like, I never would have thought that, you know. So you never know where a connection might lead, right? It might not even be the person that you initially connected with. They might know someone who you should get connected with, right? So just reaching out to anyone you can and not being afraid. Or if you’re afraid, just doing it afraid.

Jayne Havens: And do you feel like now you’re less afraid? I mean, if you think back to a year or a year and a half ago what it took for you to do that outreach, make those connections, have those conversations, and how you were feeling on the inside compared to if you’re going to connect with somebody now, I imagine the anxiety level is different.

Yvonne Gimbert: For sure. Absolutely. Yeah, you do definitely gain some just confidence and momentum and all of that. I will say, the first time I ever went and did a talk at one of these moms’ groups—I had launched my business in August. This talk was, like, at the beginning of December—I was terrified. I practiced. I wrote out the talk that I was going to give. I practiced it. I recorded it. I listened to it back. I went and I did the talk, and it went really well. I was so afraid a mom was going to ask me a question that I wasn’t going to know the answer to. I was terrified of that.

I came home and my husband asked me, he said, “How did it go?” I said, “It was great. It went so well.” His comment was funny. He’s like, “Well, of course it did. You prepared like you were giving a TED Talk to 25,000 people.” And now when I do these talks, I feel much more confident. I prepare a bit. I just go and I show up.

Jayne Havens: You jot down a few notes. You have a cheat sheet, and you go.

Yvonne Gimbert: Yeah, right. Yeah.

Jayne Havens: I think that’s such a great share. Because just the fact that you are willing to put in the time and the energy to prepare so that you could feel comfortable and that you could show up as a professional, I think, speaks volumes. I think not everybody does that, you know. I think some people think, “Oh, I’m giving a talk. I’m scared. I’m totally unprepared. I’m going to go do it.”

And who knows what comes of that? Maybe they do great. I mean, that’s sort of how I was. I was sort of more impulsive when I was starting my business. I did not do a whole lot of prep, but I just sort of relied on my knowledge. I definitely was a little bit more comfortable speaking in front of people. That was always a part of what I did.

You know, I was definitely more impulsive. But if that felt like what you needed to be successful in the beginning, the fact that you did that for yourself, I think, is really commendable. Because a lot of people will not do the preparation. They won’t set themselves up for success, and then they’ve wasted an opportunity—where they really could have made some great connections and impressed a room of moms, but they didn’t because they weren’t prepared, right?

Yvonne Gimbert: Right. Yeah, I think I just am determined to succeed. I will do whatever it takes even when it feels scary, even when it’s a lot of work. I will do what it takes because I want this to be successful. I always have.

Jayne Havens: I can tell that the whole networking and business development side of your business is coming easier to you. That’s clear from our conversation.

Do you also feel like the client support side is coming more naturally? I think I remember in the beginning that you really — and this is okay. This is amazing that you did this. I don’t point it out to say it as anything other than to compliment you. But you did lean very heavily on our CPSM community.

Like when you landed a client, you asked 15 questions and really sought out all the support and all of the information. Now I don’t really see you doing that. I actually see you answering other people’s questions. So I’m going to gather that the client support side has also become more natural for you. But can you speak into that a little bit? Do you feel like you really do feel more comfortable?

Yvonne Gimbert: I do. Yeah, I definitely do. Part of that is just the confidence of, I am a sleep consultant, right? I have a successful business. I still do lean into the CPSM community when something is a little bit tricky. I mean, I have had some tricky cases recently. But I think I feel more confident in putting something out there for my client, giving them a sleep plan. And then if something is a little off, then I’ll go to the CPSM community.

But I think as you have more clients, and you see that this works, when parents implement your sleep plan correctly, it does work. And so just seeing more and more clients being successful helps me to realize, “Okay, I do know what I’m doing.” Your confidence does build as you go and as you get more clients, yeah. But the CPSM community is always there for you, and that feels like a great safety net for me.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, and you should always have that, you know. I never want anyone to feel like, “Oh, they’ve been in business three years. They can’t ask a question.” They should. But I do see a shift. It’s not just with you, but I see a shift that somewhere along the lines, people go from being the ones who ask all the questions to being the ones who answer all the questions. I think that’s really beautiful.

For people who are listening, who are perhaps just getting started, or even just thinking about getting into this field, I think it’s really important that we be transparent about the fact that there’s a learning curve here, right? Like with any new career, if you were to start in nursing tomorrow, it would feel really overwhelming and complicated and hard. And then a couple of years in, you’re like, “Oh, I’m a pro. I’ve got this.” I think that’s true with anything.

And for many women who are just starting in this field, it’s their second act, right? They’ve already been a teacher, or they’ve already been an accountant or whatever they are, and this is their second act. It feels really overwhelming sometimes to feel like you’re starting from the beginning again. That’s an overwhelming feeling.

Yvonne Gimbert: Yeah, I remember in the beginning when I would see all these questions, and I was on the Facebook community, I almost was — I don’t know even how to describe it, but I felt like I should be contributing more. But I didn’t always know the answer. I think just some advice is: Just get in there and just participate in the community. Because I do. I think you learn that way. And it feels really good now. When I see those questions, I’m like, “Oh, I can help this person.” I love that.

Jayne Havens: Is there anything that you wish that you worried about less, like in hindsight, the things that really used to get you bogged down that now you can say that was not a good use of my mental energy?

Yvonne Gimbert: Yeah, I think just worrying about what people would think about all kinds of things, about my journey to become a sleep consultant. I know there were some people in my life who were like, “What are you doing?” I think, had I just been able to not worry about that at all, it would have just — I mean, I still did it. It didn’t change my path, but it would have just made my path been a little bit easier if I wasn’t worrying about what those people thought.

And getting on social media. I’ve tried to build up an Instagram following and creating reels. It’s fun. But in the beginning, I used to film those reels 40 times before I would post it. And now I’m like, “All right. I’m just going to film a reel and I’ll throw it out there.” I wanted it to be perfect. So just not worrying so much about what others think.

And then also, just getting out there and trying things with the networking, just not worrying about what someone thinks. I mean, I did that. I did it anyway. But in my mind, especially in the beginning, there was a lot more inner chatter of, “Oh my gosh. What are they going to think? Oh my gosh. I sounded stupid saying that.” All these things. I think that would be helpful.

Jayne Havens: Yeah, actually, what you touched on is really relatable. I felt that as well when I was first getting started in this field.

Prior to becoming a sleep consultant, I did about a four-year stint as a stay-at-home mom. Before that, I was more in the corporate world. I worked for a big catering company in Washington, DC, in sales. I was home for four years, and then felt like I wanted something more. I wanted to be working. I wanted to contribute financially. I wanted to use my brain like an adult again.

I had all of these feelings of wanting more than stay-at-home-mom life, which I had a lot of guilt around, because, what a privilege, right? I was so lucky to be able to be home and prioritize just caring for my kids and raising them, and yet that didn’t feel like enough for me. I was a little bit embarrassed, is almost the word I want to use, to say that I wanted to do this.

Putting that out there to the world was really something that tripped me up a little bit, you know? I think so many people feel that way. They either have some sort of professional career that feels really different, or maybe more official, or more prestigious, or whatever, however you want to look at it. Like you were a nurse, and now you’re sleep consulting. Like, why aren’t you doing nursing? Because I don’t want to do nursing. Nursing wasn’t bringing me joy, right? There are so many reasons.

And so really looking that straight in the eye and saying, “Yeah, this feels a little embarrassing,” or, “It feels uncomfortable,” or, “I don’t know what people are going to think or what people are saying,” I still think about that. I use Facebook primarily to grow my business. Every single week, I post on my main Facebook page. I post about my podcast. It’s every week, self-promotion. What do people say? Do they say, “Oh, all she cares about is sharing about her own podcast”? I don’t know. It’s how I grow my business. It’s what I do.

I’ve had to get over the idea that maybe there are some people in the background who are saying things—and maybe they’re not. Maybe nobody is paying attention, right? Isn’t that what Allison Henderson always says? Like, “Nobody’s paying attention to you. Nobody cares.” She’s probably right about that. But I think in our minds, we all struggle with that a little bit. Like, what is everybody else going to think? What is everybody else going to say? But to all the haters, I have a really successful business, and now so do you. We’re working on ourselves. We’re growing, and we’re challenging ourselves. Who cares? If you’re happy, get out and do the thing.

What I know is: I have a ton of cheerleaders, and I think you have a ton of cheerleaders too. And so we can’t worry about what people might be thinking or might be saying. We just have to surround ourselves with people who believe in the work that we do and are cheering us on and making us feel really great about everything we’re working on. I don’t know. That’s my rant on my soapbox for today.

Yvonne Gimbert: Yeah, I couldn’t agree more.

Jayne Havens: If you could go back and give yourself a piece of advice—beyond don’t worry about what other people say—what would that be?

Yvonne Gimbert: I think it would be, like, the journey that you’re on is the journey that you’re meant for. You don’t know where it’s going to take you. And that’s okay. Just trust that you’re on the right path. As long as you are enjoying life and you feel fulfilled, then just keep going. There were moments over the last year that I wondered, “Am I doing the right thing?”

Honestly, over the summer, I was crying to my husband almost every day, going, “I’m doing all these things, but I’m not getting any clients. What am I doing?”

He said to me, he said, “But are you enjoying going to these moms’ groups and working on your website?” And I was. That was the thing. I actually was enjoying it. I just had this idea that I was supposed to be making money more quickly, right? And so I said, yeah, I am enjoying it. He said, “Then just keep doing it.” And it was shortly after that things kind of started to click. I realized, okay, my journey was a little bit slower than I thought it was going to be, but that’s okay. I was always meant to be on this path.

Jayne Havens: What an amazing husband you have. I think that’s fantastic that he noticed that, that even when your business was feeling slow and you were feeling frustrated mentally, he could tell, he knew you still loved this work. You were enjoying connecting with moms. You were enjoying the opportunities that you did have to support families. I love that he just encouraged you to keep going. Because I really do think that you are at a point right now in your business—

I don’t know if you fully believe it yet, but I see it where you do have momentum. You are at a point where you’re getting discovery calls. You are landing clients. It’s happening. And that doesn’t mean that one random August or November, it’ll be slow. That happens. It happens to all of us. But you, I think, are at the point now where you have a real business, and it’s going to continue to grow. You’re doing great things. Your confidence is up. It’s only good things from here, I think.

Yvonne Gimbert: Yeah, I feel that. I really do.

Jayne Havens: I love that you feel that, because you have not always felt that. So I love that you’re feeling that.

Yvonne Gimbert: I haven’t.

Jayne Havens: I love that you’re feeling that. Before we wrap up, do you want to share where people can follow you—your website, Instagram, whatever you want to share?

Yvonne Gimbert: Sure. Yeah, my Instagram is just @yvonne_sleepconsultant. I’m not as active on Facebook, but Facebook is just @dreamworthysleeps, and my website is www.dreamworthysleeps.com.

Jayne Havens: Yvonne, this was so great to catch up. I love where you are right now in your business. Keep up the good work, and we’ll have to check in again soon.

Yvonne Gimbert: Thanks so much, Jayne. That would be great.

Outro: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, it would mean so much to me if you would rate, review, and subscribe. When you rate, review, and subscribe, this helps the podcast reach a greater audience. I am so grateful for your support.

If you would like to learn more about how you can become a certified sleep consultant, head over to my Facebook Group, Becoming a Sleep Consultant or to my website thecpsm.com. Thanks so much, and I hope you will tune in for the next episode