Episode 152: Quit Story: Giving Up a Successful Coaching Business to Become an Award-Winning Food Blogger with Kim Van

I first connected with Kim online when we both started our coaching businesses several years ago.

Since then, a lot has changed for both of us, but one of us has continued with coaching while the other has made a drastic pivot into an entirely different arena.

Even though Kim was running a successful coaching business, she ultimately decided to stop coaching altogether to pursue another set of skills and passions. 

Today, she is an award-winning food blogger and content creator, and is well known for her Tik Tok videos where she recreates the best food from Vancouver’s restaurant scene and Vietnamese food from her childhood. 

During the day, Kim happily works full-time in local government supporting the emergency and environmental needs of her community.

With all that being said… I am delighted to share that Episode 152 of The Thought Leader Club Podcast (featuring Kim) is now available on iTunes, Spotify, and YouTube.

In This Episode:

Why Kim stop her coaching business and podcast that was working and signing clients

Cheryl:

Today’s guest is Kim. And I’ve known Kim for maybe three years. I think, maybe four years. Not too sure, but we connected on Instagram at first.

We were both coaches on Instagram, back in 2020, maybe 2019. We will have to check our archives to see when we first connected. But we both started out as coaches.

Kim no longer does coaching primarily. And we’re gonna dive into what she does now. All the different things that she’s tried out before, and what she’s really known for right now. We’re gonna dive into her career story in a second. 

I’ve known Kim for a while now. And I’ve also had the pleasure of meeting Kim in person in Vancouver. We had some delicious ice cream at Earnest Ice Cream in Vancouver. I have very fond memories of that. 

And Kim, you brought me to walk along the water. What’s that place called? The water?

Kim:

The Seawall.

Cheryl:

Oh, yes, the Seawall. You brought me to the Seawall for the first time in Vancouver. It was just such a lovely night.

But anyways, we’re not here to talk about the Seawall or ice cream. Today we’re going to talk about Kim’s Quit Story. So without further ado, Kim, could you kick off by telling us a bit more about who you are and what you do?

Kim:

Hi, my name is Kim. I am right now an award-winning food blogger and content creator. I am the creator of Hey Kim Let’s Eat!, which is the food platform on TikTok and Instagram. I also met Cheryl through my previous work, which was worklifemoney.co. It started off like this. It went through so many phases. So it’s really hard to say but it started off almost like a personal diary for personal finance, growing up, adulthood. It turned into more careers.

Then I worked with Cheryl before. And it was such a fun time. That was the one of the things that I wanted to talk about today.

Like Cheryl said, I live in Vancouver. So always let me know if you’re here because we can go for ice cream, that’ll be great!

I’m so excited to talk more about my own story, my own Quit journey and also how not just my career came into play with it, but how I’ve navigated social media and have been multi-passionate and doing different things at different times. 

Cheryl:

Hmm, I also want to chime in and say that Kim is also working a full-time job. I think that’s important too, for us to know and dive into as well. Because I know that your in-person career matters a lot to you. So we’re gonna dive into that as well.

To piggyback off of the introduction you just shared, maybe for the audience who might have never met you before, now they’re thinking, wait, so you started a coaching business a few years ago and now you are an award-winning food blogger and content creator. Maybe they’re like how, what happened? 

Let’s start with the elephant in the room.

Why did you stop your coaching business? Let’s start there.

Kim:

Well, for me anyways, like I never went into it. Wanting to have a coaching business, that was never my intention. I started with Work Life Money, which was my previous career and personal finance blog. I started it, I think in probably 2018. And it just evolved into many different things.

Then, coaching just became more a part of my business, it became more natural when people started asking me a lot of stuff. For a long time, I just documented my journey. When I first started that, I was in a place where I was struggling in my career, my personal career.

I want to start off by saying, and for people who don’t know me, I love my job. I have never, and Cheryl knows this, I never, ever had the intention of ever quitting my job before in 2018. I never had it when I started, when people started asking me for help and things like that. I never had that then.

And I honestly don’t even have that intention right now. I love my job. I love the work I get to do. I work in public service, and it is very meaningful and fulfilling to me. 

And so yes, it seems kind of weird that I had all these different things, but honestly, they just started off as passion projects. Especially when it came to Work Life Money, my career platform, was honestly a diary of things that I was going to, as I was navigating my career, and I just shared that stuff online.

Then it just started to gain more in popularity and grew my audience bigger. I started working with different online publications and so that grew my audience. There were just certain aspects of it that I never really intended that to be the outcome. I never also went into it with the intention of coaching. It just kind of happened after people started asking me how I was able to start getting the traction that I was.

So when you ask how all these things are connected, it was really honestly passion projects of things that I’ve done outside of my career. And that’s one of the things I feel like I have a lot of ability to talk about because I spent so much time talking about my career. I did this so often, like I had a podcast, I had a blog that got thousands of views every month. I did this for a long time.

So one of the outcomes that came out of it is I’ve really tried to cultivate a dream life instead of just a dream career. My philosophy behind that is my dream career is the career that basically contributes to my dream life. And it looks different at different stages in my life.

And so when you ask like, Oh, why did you like, Oh, why? Why did you go from career to food blogging? I felt I had accomplished what I wanted out of that, out of that passion project. And I was like, you know what, I’m good. I reached my dream career.

And now after that, I was like, okay, like, I want to move on to the next dream now.

So you ask, oh, how are those connected? These were just all dreams and all things that I just put out there and they just transformed in different ways.

Cheryl:

I love the relationship you have with the things that you are focusing on in your life. Because I think someone might be listening right now and be like, damn, like Kim really did well in her coaching business, in her podcast, in her blog. To them they’re like, and she gave it all up. Some people might not be able to fathom how you could let go of something that was working beautifully? But I think the relationship that you have with Work Life Money was a very very healthy one, first of all.

Because we all have so many different dreams and Work Life Money at one point was the dream. But you also have many other dreams and that dream, at least for now, Work Life Money has come to an end. And now you’re pursuing something else that’s super cool.

Backstory for the audience. The reason why I decided to reach out to Kim and reconnect and invite her to the Quit series was because I opened up TikTok. Every time I open up TikTok, Kim is the first person I see on my TikTok. That’s how good her content is. And the algorithm is pushing her TikTok content to me. We’ll dive into that in a second.

I thought it was so cool how you are owning your dreams at different junctures of your life, you’re really owning who you are and what matters to you at the time. And I respect that so much.

One of the biggest fears that maybe our audience of this show in particular might have is because this show used to be called the side hustle club podcast. And we talked a lot about building a coaching business side hustle. For a lot of the audience who might be an OG listener, they might be worried that their business doesn’t work out or their priorities change, and they’re ashamed of it.

So I think it’s really refreshing to hear your perspective, and how your relationship with your work is, because it’s such a different angle.

Kim’s honest thoughts on side hustling and quitting in the context of career; Everything that Kim has tried before

Cheryl:

My next question is, like, to someone who might have been building their side hustle or their business, whatever that is, whether it’s a full-time or, or part-time business. And now they’re just feeling like, I don’t think in this upcoming season of life, it’s just not the main focus.

Maybe they’re moving countries, maybe they’re starting a family, maybe they got a pet. I don’t know. But like, in this season, it’s just not the priority, and their goals and dreams might have changed, what’s something that you could share with them, if they’re feeling disappointed in themselves and shaming themselves?

Kim:

The one thing I would like to be very open about is putting yourself out there and doing this is never a waste of time, unless you didn’t enjoy it.

There is so much rhetoric, there’s so much pressure like online and that you have to, I don’t know, like have a certain type of business or live a certain type of life or meet certain metrics, or live a certain lifestyle, and that is what deems success.

It is all about my personal definition of all my life as successful is that the aspects of it are contributing to my overall life success. One of the things I really talked about in Work Life Money all the time, is that you are not your career, that is not your identity.

So if you need to step aside and focus on another part of your life, then just know that you can learn so much from that. I’m going to go through this in the podcast, but Work Life Money was also not my first blog. It was not my first time, it was not the first thing I quit. It was not the first thing. There have been so many reiterations way, way, way previous to that.

I wanted to be very upfront and honest about this. Because I failed many times, the learning and what helped me become more successful later on is the fact that I failed. The fact that I said, hey, you know, this isn’t working for me at this time.

And I think that this is something that you can feel so guilty about. Like, oh, I put so much time and effort into this and I didn’t get this certain type of result, I must be a failure. It’s like, no, you’ve learned your lessons, the faster you fail, the more that you can incorporate.

Also, you’ll learn that if something is not for you anymore. I quit so many times in so many different types of blogs, podcasts, you name it, I’ve done it, right.

One of the things that I really want people to understand when they move into different things in life is that your dreams can and should change as your life changes. You will get new inputs, you will learn new things, there will be other parts of you that are important that you didn’t know back then. And that is okay. That means you are living a great life that has adventure, that has challenges. How boring would it be if you did one thing for the rest of your life and that’s what you did for 60 years, you never learned or changed and nothing happened in that timeframe.

So that’s something I would tell someone is don’t beat yourself up for that. Every person and whether or not they choose to admit it, has failed to become a certain level of success. Take that as a lesson. It’s okay to step away from something.

This is one of the things that I’ve really learned. It’s okay to love doing something and not love the lifestyle that comes with it. That doesn’t make you any less successful or any less able to do it, if that makes sense.

Because I think a lot of us put pressure on ourselves that this is the thing that needs to make me money because I love to do it. But you could do something and not have to be your all and your identity. 

Even at the height, Work Life Money was never my full-time income. It was never like anything like that. 

Even at its height, I’ve never ever contemplated quitting my job. I loved helping people. I loved getting feedback from my community. I really love the fact that I was able to take clients or people that came to me for help, and just do it. Basically just help people on those terms without having to feel like the pressure of being, Oh my goodness, I have to sell. Because to be honest, I didn’t love that lifestyle. I didn’t love talking about my career all the time. It was starting to consume me. So I was like, you know what, I tried this thing and I didn’t love it. And that’s okay.

To give another very brief example, before this, I was also a travel blogger, because I traveled so much in my 20s. And everyone was like, you should be a travel blogger! I love to travel. I do not like talking about travel, and not to the way where you can actually make a business out of it. Because when you’re actually traveling, when you get into the travel blogger world, you really, really need to be selling places. I found it very artificial at times.

Also, I did not love the lifestyle of these travel bloggers. I was at these places with travel bloggers, and they would be on their phones all the time. And I like to go to places and I do not want the pressure of having to be on my phone. I don’t want to keep an eye on a camera and be watching everything through a camera.

Again, I tried it. I was like, you know what, I learned something. This was not for me and that’s okay. I put a lot of time and effort into it. And I was like, okay, that’s not for me.

I want anyone listening to know that’s okay. You learned something because you tried and went for it. And that lesson in itself is very valuable.

How Kim started and grew her food blog, TikTok account, and brand as a content creator

Cheryl:

Mmmmm. You know what now? I’m really curious.

I really love so many points you just shared. Right now, the point that really jumped out at me is you mentioned that… My favorite thing so far is that your work is not your identity. I want to talk about that.

Because right now, you are known as Hey Kim Let’s Eat. That’s your handle on TikTok and other places.

Because I like your concept about letting your career create your lifestyle, could you give us a picture of what your life looks like right now? Could you paint a picture of how these pieces of your full-time job and Hey Kim Let’s Eat fit together? Give us a day in the life.

Kim:

Of course. I work a nine to five job. The very unpopular opinion is that I love my nine to five job.

I always found that very contrarian, especially in the career space I was in. Because so many people who would go into coaching are going to be like, oh, you hate the nine to five job.

But I was like, especially if you’re in the career phase. I was like, why would I talk about careers if I didn’t love them? Like, if I didn’t love the nine to five, like why? Why would I contemplate leaving my nine to five and then tell other people to get a nine to five job? It felt so out of place for me.

I’ve always loved my work. I love my nine to five job and I also love the portion of Hey Kim Let’s Eat because they allow me to exercise my skills and utilize my skills in different ways. And it contributes to the lifestyle that I want.

So I work in public service. Again, it’s very strange to me how people look down on a steady paycheck like it’s a bad thing to have. But I do like the stability of having to do work that I really love, working on projects, working on meaningful stuff for public service that I really enjoy. And then also getting the steady paycheck that comes with it.

I always found this really strange. Especially when there’s so much of an audience that’s American, especially when you have your when you speak English, right? In Canada, we have free healthcare. So many people in America, their jobs are tied to their health care. So yeah, I also love my health benefits. I also love everything that comes along with that.

I love the fact that I get to create food content without the pressure of anything. I’ve worked with brands before, I’ve done things like that before. But I can create, and I get to do things that I really want.

So yeah, my job looks regular. I’m a regular person, I wake up, I go to work. I have hybrid models. So sometimes working from home, sometimes in the office. Then I come home, and usually on the weekdays, I’m testing recipes. I figure out what I want to do. Then on the weekends I film, and upload and, and edit throughout the weekdays as well. So that’s what my day-to-day life looks like.

There’s all these other aspects of it. I love what I do because I get what I feel like is the best of both worlds. I get to do my job. Even though I love my work, it’s not like 24/7. It’s not a job that consumes me. I get to say, hey, I get to do this thing. It’s super fun, I enjoy it. It gets me the lifestyle and the things that I want, the benefits that I want. And then I also get to do this other thing at night and on the weekends.

I just get to do it. Just cook and do the fun stuff that I want to do. Then I go back to do the other fun stuff. Because I have a full-time job that has paid PTO (paid time off), when I go on vacation, I just do that too. I live a normal life and I enjoy those aspects of my life.

Cheryl:

As someone listening to you share just now, it’s so heartwarming, but also inspiring and uplifting for me to see how much you like yourself and you like your life. Because so many people don’t. And I am so happy for you. But also as a listener, I’m like, damn, this is possible for so many people!

Your job is not like your end all, be all, and there’s so many ways to create a lifestyle you really like. For some people, purely working a nine-to-five job, that’s the way to go. For others, having a full time business is the way to go. But for others, it’s a blend of many different things.

Side question, could you give us a glimpse of the type of food content you create? We know you’re an award-winning food blogger, we know you create content on food. But what do you create content on specifically? Could you give us a glimpse of that?

Kim:

Yeah,  this is one of those things where it’s really helpful that I’ve been online before.

I just started doing things that I like. It’s almost like throwing spaghetti at the wall. I just started making recipes that I like and started doing other types of food content. And I did win a food contest earlier this year. That’s why that was the first time I was like, oh my God, I can do this. And it’s not that you need that type of validation, by the way, or any type of validation to start what you’re doing. 

What kind of food that I personally create. I do a lot of restaurant recreations. And I do a lot of Vietnamese food because my family is Vietnamese. I just love recreating stuff. That’s basically the concept of my food platform.

I recreate a lot of restaurant recipes. And I recreate a lot of Vietnamese recipes that basically I have my own take on or especially because I’m from the north part of Vietnam, my family is. It’s not like a lot of the nice food that you see online. It is more southern. It’s because the southern area has a lot of expats and so there’s a lot of food that comes from the north that I make as well. But yeah, that’s kind of where I started.

And it’s funny because I didn’t really come out of it – we creating recipes right off the bat.

I started doing this actually years ago. I’ve always loved to cook, by the way. I’ve always always loved to cook and I grew up on the Food Network. I never really went to restaurants when I was a kid so I just watched the Food Network non-stop.

I got to this point in my life where I started making recipes because we recreated restaurant recipes for a couple of reasons. One, because I could not line up anymore. Something about me when I got older, I lost all patience for lineups at restaurants. I’m sorry. There’s so many great restaurants in Vancouver. They all have long lines. I can’t do it anymore.

Number two was the pandemic. When we stopped getting to go to restaurants. That was really when it was like, I’ve always done this, but that was really when I was like, Okay, I’m gonna have to start recreating some of my favorite restaurants because I literally cannot go to them anymore.

And it was funny because one time, I was eating dinner with my husband and I had recreated, again, something personally just for me. And I was like, I don’t know why people go out to restaurants all the time when they can just make it at home. And he just looked at me and he’s like, you do know that other people can’t do that, right? You do know that other people can’t just taste stuff and figure out how to make it and how to redo it themselves, right?

And I was like, oh, okay, I didn’t know that. That was not something I just thought that was something everyone was able to do, right? So I started making recipes like that. And then just kind of overflowed. People just start making suggestions. And then it just kind of grew from there. Yeah.

The role that family and culture played in Kim’s career trajectory and decisions

Cheryl:

Speaking of your family and your Vietnamese background, I’m curious to know if your family or culture or even just society in general, because we’re talking about career, doing things that are helping you create a lifestyle that you want. I’m curious to know did your family ever try to poke you in a certain career direction? Or were they more open? What was your family’s relationship with your career decisions?

Kim:

I’ve always felt this. I think my biggest privilege in life is that my parents really wanted to be parents. They have always supported me and I now understand as an adult, that’s the best gift I could have ever been given. Because while they did have dreams, they did have things that they wanted for me, but they always wanted the best for me. A lot of parents just want the best for their children.

When I was younger, they wanted me to be a pharmacist, just because they felt like it was a very secure job. And they just thought, like, I was always good at science. And you know what I mean, like, and things like that. So they just thought that this was the angle.

But my parents have always been like, very, very supportive of anything that I’ve done. Even when I had no career choice, my parents were surprisingly very supportive. I think that it’s not as common for Asian parents, especially since my parents are immigrants from Vietnam. They made huge amounts of sacrifices for our life in Canada. But they have always just been wanting me to be happy.

My parents have always had this outlook in life, that they’ve taught me that I could do anything if I was willing to work for it and earn for it, right. So there was nothing that was out of reach for me. But I would have to put in all of the amount of work for it.

Also at the end of the day, I have to be happy. They are always very conscientious of that. They’re always wanting to make sure that I’m happy. And I’ve changed careers many times in my life, by the way. So that’s one of the reasons why I’ve always been able to do that.

That’s one of the reasons why I’m able to put myself out there sometimes. I’m very lucky, I never had the pressure that I was disappointing my parents with my life, my career choices and life choices. I understand that it’s not everybody’s take on it. They had high hopes for me, like to be a pharmacist. That was something that they wanted me to be.

But they instilled in me, probably to a delusional level, that I could do anything if I was going to work for it. So they never didn’t believe in me, that I couldn’t do something. They’re like, oh, you’re gonna do this thing. Okay, you can do it as long as you know, you’re willing to work for it.

Cheryl:

That’s so nice to hear. I’m very happy for you and that you were also supported by them.

My brain is curious. This is a completely random question. Because you have a knack for cooking and culinary skills and you didn’t go to culinary school. But you’re pretty good at recreating recipes and things like that. I’m curious to know, are your parents or family members good at cooking? Where did your talent come from?

Kim:

It’s funny because again, it’s kind of one of those things where my mom, she cooked up primarily for our family. My mom cooked every meal, basically, when I was growing up. And again, I had no idea. I did not realize until I was an adult how lucky I had a mom who cooked everything for me.

She was one of the first people that would see something on TV, and she would just make it. She was just like, you know what, those people can do it. My parents have always been like, well, other people can do it. As long as you’re willing to work for it, what makes you think that it’s not possible for you when it’s possible for other people? That’s kind of like when I first looked into it.

But cooking itself, honestly, this sounds so bad for me to say, but the Food Network literally taught me everything I know. When I was a kid, I would sneak TV at like 12am in the morning, and it was when Rachael Ray’s thirty minute cooking series would be on. 

Before pre-Internet days, and obviously recipes are now so readily available, but we did not have faster Internet and not everything was on the Internet in those times. I would literally write down her recipes as she was doing them on TV.

How Kim got really good at recreating restaurant food and how you can get good at the skills you want to build on

Kim: 

And when you say, oh, how did you get so good? I wasn’t always good. I’ve failed a lot. It’s just practice. It’s not like I had an innate ability that nobody else in the world had. That’s one of the things that I wanted to teach when it comes to my cooking platform. You can totally do this. I’m not special in that way. I want to demystify the fact that, oh, you have to go to a restaurant, because they’re the only ones that are special enough to cook this. It’s like these people are humans, they cook the food. You can learn the skill as well.

I failed a lot. And it’s funny because I think I’ve traumatized a couple of people on my way. When we were really young, I made my sister like this Alfredo. It was so bad, but she didn’t want to hurt my feelings. So she ate the whole thing. And I think that to this day, she still has a little bit of PTSD when it comes to eating that kind of stuff. Because she ate so much because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings. But it was bad. But she’s like, I didn’t want to make you feel bad.

There’s many things that I’ve made that were not great. But again, I just kept practicing and kept trying. And eventually, I kind of got it to a place where I got way better at it. Honestly having Hey Kim Let’s Eat, it has also made me better. That’s why I enjoy doing it.

Because I do so many recreations, other people ask me. So I always put myself in a situation where I’ve never done something like this before but let’s see how this goes. That’s why sometimes it takes me a few tries to do something. But I was like, oh, I’m so glad I didn’t just stick to only what I know. Yeah. 

Cheryl:

There’s so many really good nuggets that you just share. I’m just gonna pick out a few.

I think for a lot of the audience members, they are building their own body of work or building their thought leadership, they might be building a business or a personal brand. Honestly, all of us, when we’re starting to pursue these thought leadership goals, this body of work, business brand goals, we are going to suck.

And I really love what you said, Kim, about, yeah, I sucked too at the beginning. I love that because people just see the TikTok that you have today and they’re like, oh, she’s always been talented. She just had a natural born talent for it.

But you were, at some point in your life, not good. And you practiced. You put in the reps. It’s been an ongoing journey.

And you even said that even starting Hey Kim Let’s Eat, helps you get better. So the skills that you want to build, the dreams that you have. It’s an ongoing journey. Right? It’s not like you were just born with it and you get good in like, four months, it’s gonna take a journey.

Kim:

Exactly. And like, I want to reiterate that like, yes, it’s practice. And that’s again, what my parents really taught me. That’s what I grew up doing. It’s like, hey, if you’re not good at something, just practice it more and eventually you will get better. It’s hard to get worse. You know what I mean? Like you’re just gonna get better the more that you do it.

I want to also talk a little bit more about that because from where I am right now, it’s funny because you asked me this, how I was so good at videos and how I was so good at shots and stuff like that. Not as much video, but I’ve done a lot of content creation before. Even before worklifemoney.co. I’ve had many, many blogs before that. So I know. I’ve done that before. And it just looks good now. But there were many videos that were really, really bad. They were really cringy.

Like, again, and I have Hey Kim Let’s Eat, the food blog, as well. I set up that blog super, super quickly. I did it in like one afternoon, because I’ve done this 10 times. I think my first blog, that was like 10 years ago. I’ve done it. I know how to do it. I know how to work these systems, because I’ve failed so many times before.

And so all of these skills that you have, build on themselves, and I don’t think people really see that. When you’re doing things, when you’re putting yourself out there, even if you don’t feel very good right now, you will build on that skill. It’s pretty much impossible to get worse than before you started.

Cheryl: 

Yeah.

I remember I asked you this question when we were having a catch up, I think about a week or two ago. Because every time and intellectually, I should notice. I think for all of us, what happens when we see someone’s content, we’re like, damn, it’s really good. And we just forget that it’s not overnight.

I’m even susceptible to that. I would literally open up TikTok, see Kim’s video, and she’s really good at making these TikTok videos! How? I’ve known you for years, and even I am susceptible to forgetting that.

Kim:

You can scroll back, for anyone who wants to look at it, scroll back to my first video. You will see that I did not have my angles correct. My voice overs were not great. And I tried a lot of different things. I tried a lot of different lighting and a lot of different ways to do things.

I just eventually found what worked for me. Again, it will work differently for many different people. My style is not everybody’s style. And both can be successful, by the way.

Really, all I did was practice. And one of the things that I’ve really learned. Again, it was a learning lesson from my work life for many years prior to that. You have to take your personal self worth out of your content. If a video does not do well, I do not blame people, that they don’t like me. That’s what I used to do, by the way.

And I say that very with a lot of caution that I used to be that person who used to put so much of my self worth. Especially when you work so hard on a video. It did not get that amount of views, it did not get comments or likes. It’s not a reflection of you as a person.

So when videos did not perform well, by the way, for the first couple of months when I was doing it, it’s not like I blew up overnight or anything like that. I’ve never actually even had a video go viral.

It was just practice. I was like okay, so it doesn’t really work this way. Let me try it a different way. It doesn’t work that way. It’s not that people don’t like me, it’s just that they don’t like a certain angle or they don’t like a certain lighting. Or I should be showing something in a different type of way. That’s it. That’s all it is.

It’s also, at the end of the day, social media. My videos are less than a minute long. It’s not like these people personally do not like me just because they did not like a video or they didn’t watch the video all the way through.

TikTok vs Instagram

Cheryl:

Speaking of TikTok and one-minute videos, because I’m personally not exactly active on TikTok. I might repost some snippets from my podcasts on TikTok, but I don’t create content for TikTok.

My impression is that TikTok audiences are very savage. They have a lot of not-so-nice comments, oftentimes. I’m just curious, what’s your experience? Or what’s your audience like? Do they leave nice comments or not-so-nice comments? What’s your experience?

Kim:

Yeah, so this is really funny, because that was also my perception of TikTok prior to getting on to it.

One of the best pieces of advice which I mean, I’m sure everyone knows, like, I’ve heard it before is to concentrate on one platform at first because doing all of the platforms is especially when you have a nine to five job is a lot. And people who do it have teams. So do not compare yourself to other people.

When you say what my comments and situations are like, it’s so funny because TikTok is so nice to me. I had this idea that people would be so mean to me. They are not. One of the things that I’ve learned is that you just have to feed the TikTok algorithm the right amount of things now.

I started to get hate comments after a certain amount of followers and when certain videos got a higher amount of views. I would say 90% of the time, and there was a time when I had thousands of followers, it was like, every comment was nice. It was so strange. It was like everyone was nice to me. And I did not tell my friends or family about TikTok or anything I was doing. So these are like complete strangers. And they were just so nice to me.

And I started an Instagram and I have a couple of hundred followers on that. It was just me reposting. I was maybe at like a couple of hundred followers. Very, very little. And I started getting a lot of hate comments. So Instagram was way meaner to me. I was like, I’m not even that popular. I don’t even get that many views on this. And it’s so negative.

So that was very much just my experience. Because, again, everyone has different experiences. But that’s why I like TikTok more. Because the algorithm, this is just my opinion, is better at feeding it to the right type of person. So when content goes to the wrong person, and they don’t like it, I don’t take it personally because it’s like, oh, they don’t like it. I’m not for them. The algorithm just fed them something that they didn’t really want to see and they left a negative comment. But it’s not a personal reflection of me.

And if you go through my TikTok, I’m not at all adverse to critical comments. So many people are critical in my videos, especially because I do restaurant recreations. And sometimes people even when they’re critical on TikTok, a lot of people are really nice about it. They’re like, I’m sorry, I’ve worked there and they actually did this. And I was like, thank you!

If your opinion is to make me a better cook, I’m so thankful for you telling me that. I would have not known that if you hadn’t told me that. So I really, really appreciate those comments. And so yeah, that’s my opinion.

But also this is now my perception of dealing with hate. I just block people, all the time. If someone leaves me a comment, and it’s just pure hate, and nothing else, but hateful. You know what, life is too short. And I see it as a favor to this person as well, because I’m like, you don’t like me? And that’s okay.

I actually think that that’s a perfectly valid opinion to have. You were fed my content mistakenly. I’m going to block you to make sure you do not see my content anymore. Because there are literally hundreds if not thousands, if not millions, I don’t even know on TikTok, food creators that are so great out there. You need the algorithm to find someone who is the right fit for you. I don’t take it personally.

Cheryl:

So good.

Kim’s goals as a food content creator and more about Hey Kim Let’s Eat

Cheryl:

To segue into the next question, now that you’ve established yourself in the food, blogging, food concentration space. When people think of you and they think of your food content, they think of your restaurant recreation videos.

At this point in your food, content creator journey, what would be the next stage you’re aspiring towards or your next goals and dreams and vision? What do you see next?

Kim:

I had one goal in creating this actually, and this is a goal that I actually told people about on Work Life Money. Like that was my fun fact. You know what I mean? I’ve always wanted to compete on the Food Network.

I would tell people and I wrote it in my About Me section, that my non-career related goal was to compete on the Food Network. I feel like it’s important to actually have goals outside of your career. It’s okay to have personal goals as well.

So that is the next thing that I would ever want to do. And learning again, different ways of cooking and doing different things, submitting myself into cooking competitions and stuff like that. I’m putting myself out there. Right? That’s my personal goal.

My goal for Hey Kim Let’s Eat in general as a whole, is where I want to teach people that you can create restaurant recipes. You can do it. I get so many comments when people do it, they’re like, oh my God, this does taste better!

My personal opinion is that it is better because it is not only cheaper to usually make it at home, sometimes, it depends on what it is. But it’s also better when you, I just feel like when you make something, you make it the way that you want to. And I do believe that you cook with love. And when you cook for people that you love, it tastes better.

Because you love the person that you’re cooking for, it’ll taste better to them. Because you put that kind of care into your food when you cook for people you love. So that’s one of those things I want to grow in Hey Kim Let’s Eat.

But at the same time, I’m very, very happy with what I’m doing and where I am right now. I just want to continue sharing recipes. I want to also continue sharing Vietnamese food, things that I grew up on. Especially when I was born in Canada, I do not want to lose touch with my roots. That’s why to me it’s recreating the food from where I came from, that I had when I was a child. But also like the food that my parents came from. This is all part of my heritage and things that I find is important to keep up. 

Those are probably the three things that I have. I would love to see in Hey Kim Let’s Eat. 

Cheryl:

Mm hmm. Let’s see.

For someone who is a complete newbie at cooking, what would be the video that you’ve posted on your TikTok or your blog that you will suggest? Like, I would definitely recommend you to check out this video or recipe as one of your first ventures into cooking. What would you recommend to a beginner on your own platform?

Kim:

On my own platform, it’s like cheating, I have three videos. It depends on what you’re looking for, but if you want to just start cooking, I don’t know if there’s a specific recipe that I would say. You don’t even have to try my recipes. Just recreate something that you like to eat. Start with creating something that you’d like to eat. I have a video pinned on my TikTok on how I created Hey Kim Let’s Eat. That is a very helpful start. 

Because it’s my journey and why I do this, and everything that happens afterwards. I don’t know if there’s a specific recipe that you need to try first. But I would say that just recreate something that you like to eat and start from there.

There was a recipe from the Cactus Club Portofino where I just went through everything I learned. I was like, Hey, I learned that they do this, and I didn’t like it. I learned that they did this, and I didn’t like it. Sometimes, a lot of times you just try something here like, oh, this is how it works this way and this is how it works this way, and then just kind of go from there.

Cheese board memories and thoughts on quitting

Cheryl:

This is another side memory I have of Kim. I remember a few years ago, I was trying to make a cheese board. And then you sent me a picture of a charcuterie board you made and I was like, wow. That’s so beautiful.

Then I remember you gave me some quick tips on what kind of cheeses go well together on the cheese board. That’s a fond memory I have of you, by the way. 

Kim:

I bring cheese boards to everything. For someone who cooks, and cheese is not cooking, but cheese is my favorite food. It’s my favorite thing to eat. That’s why I always bring cheese, like charcuterie boards, to a dinner party. That would be my first choice to bring something.

It’s one of those things where you just get creative and you just start from somewhere, right? You start from there and then you’re like, oh, this goes well together. And you like this. Then you just kind of come out of that.

That’s the whole premise of cooking sometimes. It’s like, you just do the things that you like. There are no rules. You can cook with it, whatever you want, actually.

Cheryl:

Mm hmm. Awesome.

As we are starting to near the end of our conversation for today, I want to tie it back to the Quit Story really quickly. I want to ask a final serious question and we’re gonna wrap up with some rapid fire random questions afterwards.

As a final serious question, what does quitting mean to you?

Kim:

I don’t really define quitting as you’ll never do something again. I think quitting is just having the courage to do something else. You can always return back to the things that you “quit”. That’s what has really allowed me to do different things.

When I say I’ve quit travel blogging, I quit travel blogging to a certain extent. But I actually still travel blog when I’m traveling. I just do it for my private Instagram story for my private, personal friends and family. That’s it. I still take pictures, and I still talk about where I’m going and what I’m doing and things like that.

The idea of quitting something, and you can never ever do it again, I feel is very harmful to think of it that way. Not really harmful, but maybe not the greatest mindset to think of that way, because then it puts so much pressure on your decisions.

But I also think that like what I tell myself, essentially, whenever I quit jobs, whenever I quit anything, whenever I do anything, choose to do anything different, the one thing that I ask myself is that if I was smart and talented enough to get there, now I can go back, right? Like, if this doesn’t work out, I can go back to it. It’s okay.

That’s one of those aspects that allowed me to just be like, hey, I’m going to be able to do this. Then I can do that. And if it doesn’t work out, that’s okay. I can go back if I really wanted to, I could really revive work like Work Life Money. I did it once, what makes me think that I couldn’t do it again?

Having that mindset has allowed me to just be able to have different adventures and also different passions. But also the fact that none of this defines who I am. If you asked me who I am as a person, I would say that I’m smart, I’m creative, I’m kind, I’m a problem solver. I’m all of those things, in different aspects of my life. I’m those things in my nine-to-five, I was those things in Work Life Money, those things in Hey Kim Let’s Eat. Those are still the values that I have. I’m just doing it in a different way. 

That’s what it is for me. It’s okay to complete your dreams. I feel like so many people are very adverse to this. Work Life Money got me my dream career. And that was the goal of it from the beginning. So I’m okay to just say, hey, that dream is done. It’s not like I’m quitting it. It just reached its purpose. Now I’m chasing a new dream.

And will I be doing Hey Kim Let’s Eat until I die? Maybe, maybe not. But once I reach my goal and my dream, it’s okay to move on to the next thing because my life has changed. And there might be another focus in my life. Right? I might have another dream. And I think that is what makes life rich. That’s what makes it fun.

Cheryl:

I love that. And it’s so resonant with me.

Because it just reminded me of last year when I quit my PhD. Finishing the PhD was a dream for me at one point, but then because of the pandemic, I was separated from my loved ones for almost two years, my dreams changed. And I quit my PhD.

That’s not to say that, I don’t know, maybe in 5 years or 10 years, I might do a PhD again and finish it this time. I have no idea. But I really resonated with what you just said that it’s not all or nothing, black or white. Just because you close it for now doesn’t mean it’s permanently close. It doesn’t have to be so dramatic. You close it for now, you can open it later. It’s fine. 

Kim: 

Exactly. I love that you said it. Because I think that the “all or nothing, very definitive” mindset, the perfectionism, all of that, just takes such a huge toll on people.

Cheryl, you are the perfect example of that. If you got into a PhD program the first time, you could do it again. You already did it the first time. If that’s really, really what you wanted, you could go do it again. And who knows? You’re gonna feel the same. Like you could do it when you’re 40. You could do it when you’re 50. You could still complete a PhD. Okay, I understand that there’s some skills in life that maybe you can’t be like an Olympic again, there are some things that may not be as tough to return back to. But for that, you could do it again. 

And I love that your example too is like you could love your PhD program and not love that lifestyle that came with it. And that happens so much in careers.

I want to also just add this because I had the same idea as you. I know you were in law school, and I did not go to law school. But many people in my program went to law school. And it was one of those things I did think about. But I was like, oh, I do like it. I am interested in law, but I do not want to be a lawyer. I’m sorry. I have friends who are lawyers. I’m very proud of them. But that lifestyle really isn’t for me.

Just because you have an interest in something, you don’t have to be all or nothing. You don’t have to be like, oh, I have to be this. And I want to say that as well.

Because I love cooking, and I love food, people are like, oh, you could be a chef. That would probably be the first thing that comes to mind. Do you know how hard it is to work in the restaurant world? It’s not all sunshine. I personally don’t want that lifestyle for myself. I just like cooking and doing the fun part. I don’t want to do the other part and that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. And it doesn’t have to define you as a person.

Cheryl: 

So good. So, so, so, so good. Okay, so thank you for sharing that. 

The food that Kim doesn’t like, great food in Vancouver and travel plans

Cheryl:

Now we’re going to wrap up with some rapid fire questions, which I did not prepare. So I’m gonna think off the top of my head and ask you what comes to mind.

We’re going to do three questions.

First question is, what’s a food item that you do not like?

Like, I hate papayas. I do not like papayas. I will not eat them. I just hate them.

What’s yours?

Kim:

Pork blood.

I don’t like it. Sorry. I don’t like it. I’ll eat a lot of weird stuff. I will eat almost anything, but I really can’t with that.

Cheryl:

Does your family like to use a lot of pork blood in their dishes?

Kim:

No, they don’t, which is very nice.

But like, I have been into Vietnam. And I ate pork blood there. And it’s like, fresh pork blood. It kind of like scarred me. It’s just not for me. 

Cheryl:

Yeah, I remember my first time eating it. I think it was back in my university days. I was eating Vietnamese food. And I was like, what is this? Then the person that I was eating with, they were like, oh, just eat it. Just eat it. Tell me what you think.

And I ate it. And I’m like, I don’t like it. And they told me what it is. And I’m like, ew! You know, it just wasn’t for me.

Okay, question number two. If someone were to come to Vancouver and you were to invite them to your house, what would you make for them? And then the second part of the question is, if you were to bring them out to a place in Vancouver to eat, where would you bring them to?

So what would you cook for them? And where would you bring them to eat?

Kim:

Um, if I was going to cook for them?

Cheryl:

Yeah, if you invited them over and you were going to cook for them, what would you make?

Kim:

I make people a lot of things. Quite a few favorite dishes, but it’s all Vietnamese food. 

I love my mom’s spring rolls. Those are like a fan favorite.

Vietnamese chicken wings, that’s also another one. It depends on the season, to be honest, because those are more summery dishes.

But if it’s winter, pho probably. It’s the easiest thing to make for a lot of people and most people love pho. Those are the things that I would make if you came to my home.

If you went out to a restaurant, I’m torn only because I feel like there are some restaurants you have to go to. They’re not so much my favorites necessarily, but it’s like a Vancouver thing. You should go. Like you go to Miko for sushi. They’re well known for their sushi.

If we were going for just something casual, I would bring you to like my favorite fried chicken place. It’s called The Frying Pan. That’s a casual place. It’s on Denman. Again, it depends on the season. Go to the beach, eat chicken. I don’t know. That’s more like a walk along the Seawall kind of vibe.

So those are probably the two places. There’s so many great places that may come up, but those are probably the two places I’d probably take the person first.

Okay, so that said, the next time I see you in Vancouver, I’m expecting one or one of the two things you just talked about, which is either you bring me over and you cook me your Vietnamese food and the chicken wings. Or we go to Miko or The Frying Pan.

Kim:

The Frying Pan. Yeah, that’s a fried chicken place.

Cheryl:

Okay, I’m just putting it out there. The next time I see you in Vancouver, we’re going to do one or one of those two things.

Kim:

Definitely. Yeah.

Cheryl:

Okay. Nice. Okay, final question. What has been your favorite travel place that you’ve been to so far? And are there any travel plans on the horizon for you?

Kim:

That’s such a hard one.

Cheryl:

Yeah, that’s always a hard question.

Kim:

I’ve been to a lot of places. I’ve done a lot of really great things. My answer is usually my favorite place. The most beautiful place I’ve ever been is Pulao.

But my favorite place is so biased, by the way, is Italy. Because I used to live in Italy. I just love the food of Italy. It’s so so biased. This is all by the way, not counting Vietnam, because my family’s there. Like that’s just too easy of an answer. Like, of course, I’m gonna go see my family. So those are probably the two places.

It’s really, really tough for me to pick honestly. There are so many factors involved. 

I’ve been in so many places before, but let’s just use the easy answer there.

And travel plans in the future. I’m actually planning on going back to Vietnam. Hopefully, we’ll see. I mean, it’s just one of those things, but we’ll see what happens. Then maybe to Taiwan, next year. Hopefully getting to see my family and just eat more.

Cheryl:

Amazing! And I hope that you and I will meet up either in Vancouver or who knows where else in the world sometime soon again. Yeah, we’ll make it happen for sure.

Okay, so Kim, to wrap up, could you tell us either how can people work with you or how they can support your work?

Kim:

Yes, so I have a couple of platforms. So my main one is TikTok. You can find me on TikTok at heykimletseat. I do have an Instagram as well. I don’t post as much as I should. Although I’m trying. It’s it’s also @heykimletseat. It’s heykimletseat everywhere.

My blog for all my full recipes is heykimletseat.com. I have a YouTube channel which I will be starting. I just upload the shorts right now. But I want to create more longer form content. It’s heykimletseat. You can always contact me via email which is heykimletseat@gmail.com

But yeah, those are all the places that I am. I’m most active on TikTok, email and Instagram, if there were probably the first three to contact me on.

Cheryl: 

Wonderful.

Thank you, Kim, for joining us. For the quick story series you shared, you shared a lot of really good perspectives that I think are going to be applicable to honestly like every human being who listens to this episode. It’s going to help them in some way, shape or form.

I’m very appreciative of everything you shared and for being here. I’m so happy that you’re here and I cannot wait to see you again.

And to the listeners, to the audience. Thank you also for being here, and I’ll see you all in the next episode. Bye everyone.

P.S. And if you loved this episode, you can 1️) Leave a 5-star rating and an awesome review, and 2️) Share the episode on your social media.

About Kim

Hey, this is Kim and she loves to eat! Kim is an award-winning food blogger and content creator from Vancouver, BC. She is the creator of “Hey Kim, Let’s Eat!” where she recreates the best food from Vancouver’s restaurant scene and Vietnamese food from her childhood. Her goal is to breakdown the secrets of restaurant food and show that yes, you can do it too! During the day, Kim happily works full-time in local government supporting the emergency and environmental needs of her community. Always ready to eat and up for a culinary adventure, her lifelong dream is to compete on the Food Network.

Connect with Kim

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@heykimletseat

Website: https://heykimletseat.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heykimletseat/

YouTube: https://youtube.com/@heykimletseat?si=a85njEPlkXyAjvUa

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