Leaving the ‘golden handcuffs’ to follow your passion

Today’s guest is Krystal Ryan, whose refreshingly honest and inspiring story is one you won’t want to miss.

Krystal opens up about her career journey, sharing the pivotal moments that led her to resign after fifteen years as a paramedic. We dive into the tough but necessary elements of that decision and why her focus remains on helping people, even in this new chapter of her life. Krystal talks about what drew her to our Designer’s community and the Power of Process course, the self-discoveries she made through the Clifton Strengths Test, and the personal and professional growth she’s found within our community. 

I was captivated by how Krystal continues to follow her passion for helping others as she navigates this new career phase. This episode offers something different—a check-in with someone in the middle phase of their journey. I bet you’ll finish this episode feeling inspired and encouraged, just like I did! Don’t miss out—listen now to hear Krystal’s story!

Episode Highlights
  • A former paramedic, Krystal Ryan transitioned into the interior design industry after 15 years in healthcare.
  • She launched her business, The Ryan Suite, in late 2022 and started as a virtual assistant for interior designers.
  • Krystal shares her journey of leaving a stable job with “golden handcuffs” to pursue a more flexible and fulfilling career.
  • Krystal emphasizes the importance of prioritizing family and mental well-being over financial stability.
  • Krystal enrolled in the Power of Process course, which helped her gain clarity and establish systems in her business.
Episode Resources

Read the Full Transcript ⬇️

 

Rebecca Hay: Hey, hey, hey, it’s Rebecca, and you are listening to Resilient by Design. Today, I have an excellent shorty for you with Krystal Ryan of The Ryan Suite. She is a POP alum, a 37-year-old mom, and wife living in Haliburton County, Ontario, which is beautiful cottage country. She was a paramedic for 15 years—guys, 15 years—and then decided to resign at the end of 2022, which is when she entered the interior design community. She launched her business, The Ryan Suite, in the fall of 2022 and has been working as a VA to interior designers in North America.

What I love about our conversation is that she is still in the middle of trying to figure out whether she wants her own interior design firm or if she wants to continue helping interior designers with their businesses. She took Power of Process to help her get sorted, get systems in place, and now she helps other designers establish those systems, do SketchUp, and we talk about all the things in today’s episode. I love how she really made a choice to leave her golden handcuff job, which was very secure, because she wanted more for her life and wanted to be more present with her family. She talks about imposter syndrome, leaving burnout behind, and now having flexibility and loving her life. I think you’re going to enjoy this conversation with Krystal, who also happens to share the same birthday as me. Enjoy!

Krystal Ryan, welcome to the podcast. I can’t believe after all this time, this is your first time on the podcast, so welcome. I’m excited to have you.

Krystal Ryan: This is my first time on any podcast. It’s a great debut. I’m very honored to be your first.

Rebecca Hay: Do you want to introduce yourself to our listeners today?

Krystal Ryan: I’m Krystal Ryan. I live in Haliburton County in Ontario, so I’m not far from the GTA. I’m a 37-year-old mother and wife. I was actually a paramedic for 15 years before I switched gears and went into the design industry. I resigned in 2022, and that’s when I launched my business, The Ryan Suite. I didn’t really know where I was headed at first. I just knew I needed a shift. I like helping people, so I actually started as a virtual assistant to designers to start learning the ins and outs of the industry because it just seemed big and scary starting a design firm, and I didn’t really have the experience. So that’s what I’ve been doing for the last year and a half—supporting designers.

Rebecca Hay: Okay, first of all, I love that you are a paramedic, just like another OG in our community, Jamie Sparling, who was also a paramedic and then became an interior designer, which feels like such a giant leap from one to the other. But like you said, you’re helping people, right?

Krystal Ryan: Yes. My husband and I, we’re actually on our fifth home, and we’ve renovated and finished new builds. My husband is also a full-time paramedic, and he runs a construction business part-time on the side. So we’ve kind of been in it for a while. I always knew I had that passion, and I needed a plan B.

Rebecca Hay: I love that. So it kind of comes naturally, like you were already kind of dabbling in that world, so it feels like a natural progression. It sounds like you did it sort of naturally. Were you doing homes and then you thought, “Okay, I think this can replace my income”? What was the impetus to resign? Did you feel confident that you were already getting clients and you had enough revenue to replace your income as a paramedic? Talk to me about that.

Krystal Ryan: Not at all. To be totally transparent, it was building for a couple of years, knowing I needed a plan B. When COVID hit, frontline healthcare was just a dumpster fire. It was really tough. The stress level was building, it was taking me away from my family, and the shift work was just leading to a lot of burnout. That’s when I had to make a decision that regardless of income, pensions, and all that stuff—they call it the golden handcuffs—I had to make that tough decision to walk away from it and then figure out my plan B. So I launched my business in November of 2022, and I resigned at the end of December that year. I kind of already had a plan in place, and I was just letting the pieces fall together as they came.

I had learned about virtual assistants and thought, “Okay, this might be something I could do.” They talk about niching down, so I created an Instagram account and started getting clients that way. But no, there was no replacing the income. There still hasn’t been, to be honest, but I just had to learn that money isn’t everything. I couldn’t keep going down the route that I was.

Rebecca Hay: I really love that you shared that because those golden handcuffs are a real thing. And I know many people who’ve been in that situation where they’re afraid because I imagine, as a paramedic, you have a pension, right? Are you kind of set up for life in a way if you one day decide to retire?

Krystal Ryan: Yes, you are.

Rebecca Hay: That must have been tough but also kind of exciting.

Krystal Ryan: It’s true. It was, and I think it was so hard to get to that decision, but once the decision was made, it felt like a weight was lifted. It was so much easier. I felt like I could finally prioritize my family, my husband, and just sleep at night. That was the thing—I had to train myself to sleep again throughout the night because night shifts were killing me. So yeah, we just kind of hit the ground running with that. I make my own schedule. I’m really light right now with my clients and my caseload. It’s summer, I have two kids, it’s busy. Doing that for the past year and a half, I’ve learned a lot. It was actually your designers’ meetup in January. We share the same birthday, so I thought that would be great—we would go and celebrate our birthday together.

Rebecca Hay: Totally! I forgot. I have a picture of us. We’ll have to use that picture when we promote the podcast.

Krystal Ryan: So good! Yes, and that was great—meeting other designers all at different stages. But then it was through chatting with you that you mentioned Jamie Sparling of Authentic Armor, and I thought, “Holy crap, here’s a paramedic gone interior designer, now business and lifestyle coach.” I thought, “I have to meet this girl.” So I quickly reached out to her, we got connected, and honestly, Jamie has changed so much for me this year. It was just like a breath of fresh air. Because at the start of this year, I still didn’t know where I was headed. I didn’t know if I wanted to start my own design firm, keep supporting designers, or what I wanted to do. And it was through her that I learned it’s okay to still not know what you want to do. I’m all about learning, trying things, and pivoting. And she actually led me to the Power of Process, so that’s how I got enrolled there.

Rebecca Hay: I love that. I love Jamie. We have an episode—we’ll link it in the show notes. I’ve recorded one or maybe even two episodes with Jamie. She shares her whole story—the trauma and PTSD she went through as a paramedic and where it led her and where she is now. She’s amazing. She’s doing mindset and life coaching, which is amazing. I love that she led you to POP. So let’s talk about that. You took Power of Process. It sounds like you were like, “I need some direction on where I’m taking this design business/VA/whatever thing.” So let’s talk about that. She obviously said take it, but why did you think, “Okay, I’m signing up for this course”?

Krystal Ryan: I’m the type of person that if I know there’s a course or an opportunity to learn something, I’m all over it. If I don’t have the money for it, I’ll find the money for it. I was actually considering Power of Process last fall, and I thought, “Well, I just took a course right before that,” and I thought at some point I’m going to have to just start implementing rather than learning, learning, and doing nothing with it. Talking with Jamie about the Power of Process, it was just a no-brainer. She said, “If you’re feeling stuck, if you have imposter syndrome, if there’s something holding you back from getting going, do it now.” The other part of this too is, and you’re very familiar with the CliftonStrengths test, Jamie got me onto that. I learned a lot about myself. One of my big things is I’m an analytical person, so I value systems and processes. I need a blueprint for things. That’s what the Power of Process brought me—it was a whole system from start to finish, the whole client process. And in the year and a half that I’ve been working on studying interior design business and trying to get a grasp on how to run things, I had never come across anything like I did in Power of Process, and it was just like so much clarity. The networking with other designers at different stages in their businesses was exactly what I needed. Again, it just fed that analytical side of me. And another one of my strengths is I’m a relater, so it was so easy to talk to the other designers, the newbies, and the ones who’ve been in business for 10 years. It truly is a little community.

Rebecca Hay: Oh my gosh, I love all the things you’re saying. So true. It is really like a blueprint. And if you’re someone who’s feeling a little scattered, feeling like, “I don’t know, what do I do first? What do I do next? Am I doing the right thing?” Like you said, imposter syndrome is a real thing. And it’s so helpful to know how other people are doing it and not just how I do it, but you see it—as you mentioned—the community inside POP. You see how other designers are implementing what they learn. They share their process, they share, “Here’s what I did the last time that happened to me,” and then you can really get the confidence. What’s changed for you? I mean, you just took the course, so it’s pretty fresh. What have you implemented, or what have you changed? What does it look like now?

Krystal Ryan: So for me, it hasn’t changed a lot of anything right now. And I find that’s partly because I took it, we got right into summer holidays, I have two kids, it’s busy, and like I said, I’ve created this business for myself so that I can prioritize those things. However, what’s great about it is you can keep jumping back into the portal. You can still rewatch the videos, you can still utilize the materials that were shared. So what I’ve done is—I love Canva, and you shared a couple of templates in POP, which was helpful—so I’ve gone into Canva and I’ve set up the checklist, the “What to expect at consultations,” “What to expect on trade day,” all those things, putting your own brand on it. I did a lot of that and tried to keep up with following along with the course as we went. But what’s great is you don’t have to do it week by week by week. You can just jump back in and do it at your own pace, which is wonderful. Where I’m at right now is I’m still not sure if I’m going to launch a design firm, but what I do know is I can take the materials that I’ve learned and help other designers through my own business. If there’s a spot in their client process that they’re stuck with, I can take what I’ve learned from POP and help them implement systems in their business. Again, I just love that analytical side of things. And I do know that if life starts to slow down a little for me and I still want to launch my own design services, I’m set and I’m ready to do it, and I have the confidence. I’ve networked, I continue to network with some of the other women that I met in the course, and they’ve become close friends of mine. It’s just great—the community that you’re fostering through this. I love it.

Rebecca Hay: I love that. I also love that you’re VAing for other interior designers. So like designers listening today—correct me if I’m wrong—they can reach out to you, and they can hire you to help them with the back end. Is this correct?

Krystal Ryan: Yes. The way I started with my VA business was I was kind of doing a whole slew of services because at first, I didn’t know what I liked doing or what I thought designers would want from my services. Then I really started to niche down based on my skill set and what I liked doing. In the beginning, I was doing a lot of admin, and some social media managing, but those are things that I found I just didn’t love doing. I have a love-hate relationship with Instagram. You’ll see if you go to my account today—I don’t think I’ve posted since the beginning of June, maybe—and for me, I’m okay with that. I want clients to come to me because they heard of another client that has used me and enjoyed the experience and the output. So I started with a whole bunch of different services, and then I really started to narrow it down based on the experience I was gaining.

Right now in my business, I do a lot of SketchUp and layout—so construction documents for designers. I love doing that. I’ve become really good and efficient at that, and I find that’s a skill set that a lot of designers don’t possess in their businesses, so they outsource that a lot, and I love doing that. I like putting their client presentations together, whether that’s in Layout, Canva, or Google Slides. I find designers are all trying to just reduce costs as much as they can and use those good programs like Google Suite—it’s a dream, it’s free. I don’t know why more designers aren’t using that to their abilities. Again, Canva is great. I love Canva. So, you know, I help a lot of designers with their client presentations there, and I love doing the construction drawing. I want this to be lucrative for me as well, and being just a solopreneur, the admin and social media managing wasn’t benefiting me or the designer as much.

Rebecca Hay: I love that. And I think a lot of designers are going to be like, “Krystal, I need your help.” I also keep thinking there could be some synergy there between us and Power of Process and you helping people implement what they learn because—don’t need to talk offline—I feel like there could be a little bit of a collaboration there. How many designers take POP, and then they’re like, “Oh my gosh, can I just pay someone to now put all my thoughts and ideas into Canva or whatever”? So there could be a done-for-you opportunity this time around. Krystal and I are going to chat offline.

Krystal Ryan: It’s hard for designers to outsource. It’s hard for them to give up that control. I can be a bit of a control freak, and I like things done a certain way. And I know that’s a big fear for designers when they’re outsourcing—how is somebody going to do it as well as we do it? Or is this just going to take up more of my time getting somebody oriented? And yes, it’s going to take a bit of time in the beginning, but once you establish that relationship and you have someone like me in your back pocket, it’s handy. I started with doing monthly chunks of hours, but then I found some designers were carrying those over because they weren’t using them up, and I thought, “This is kind of silly. Let’s just do it on an as-needed basis—straight hourly, project by project. You can use me when you need me and not have to feel tied down to this bank of hours.” That’s what has worked for me in my business.

Rebecca Hay: I love it. I love how you took Power of Process, and you were not looking to create a full-service interior design firm. I think it’s a really great reminder for those listening—maybe if you’re on the fence about taking POP—that you don’t have to have a high-end, luxury, full-service interior design firm to take Power of Process. Implement systems in your business—you’re using what you learned inside your VA business, helping interior designers as a VA, and that is helping you. I bet you’ve set up processes with those designers, right? So there’s so much that can be learned. I really love it. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. This is amazing. Tell everyone—where can they find and follow you?

Krystal Ryan: I do check Instagram regularly. I’m not posting all the time, but I’m on there. I’m @TheRyanSuite on Instagram. If somebody wants to send me an email, I’m [email protected]. My website is still being built in the back end, but again, not knowing where I’m going with my business, I’ve just kind of kept that tucked away until I figure that out. But yeah, Instagram is probably the easiest, or email.

Rebecca Hay: Thank you so much. That’s wonderful. And I can’t wait—maybe we’ll have you back on the podcast, and we can talk a little bit more about these services that you offer for designers, and you and I are going to chat offline about POP. Thank you so much for being my guest today.

Krystal Ryan: Thank you for having me. I’ve loved it.

Rebecca Hay: I love that episode with Krystal. I actually really loved it because she took Power of Process without needing to be a fully established interior designer. She wasn’t going after a full-service design firm, and yet she was guided by Jamie to take the course, and she has found it to be impactful. She’s using what she’s learned and is now helping other designers to implement. If you guys really enjoyed this episode and you love Krystal’s story, please go give her a follow, say hi, and of course, stay tuned for this Power of Process that’s coming out in September because Krystal may or may not be there helping us. At the very least, she will be there in the Zoom calls as an alum, but I’m going to work with her to see what else we can cook up. If you want to know more about Power of Process, just go to RebeccaHay.com forward slash Power of Process. And I look forward to welcoming you in our next cohort. See you soon.

August 26, 2024

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