ICU Nurse Felt Stuck in Profession That Pulled Her Away from Family. Then Life Threw Her an Unexpected Curveball (Exclusive)

Jeanne Zamith was a new mom, working in nursing during one of the most chaotic periods in medical history and trying to keep herself afloat. As she struggled with her work-life balance, she got an opportunity that would change everything.

"I graduated nursing school in 2019. I had my son in late 2019 and when I went back to work, it was in a pandemic as an ICU nurse," Zamith tells PEOPLE.

"It was almost like being in survival mode. I was away from my family. I was away from everything I knew. Thank God I had my husband, but there was a lot of fear. I think that contributed to the postpartum depression. Not only was I seeing horrifying things at work, but there was the political landscape at the time, plus the fear of bringing COVID home to a newborn or a young child. There was so much we didn't know at that time. There was a lot of fear involved."

There were "multiple factors" at play making Zamith's first postpartum experience difficult, she says.

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"You had to persevere," she explains. "You have no choice and I think looking back, I felt really numb. I worked my days three in a row so my mother-in-law could drive down, stay with my son, and then I would get to go back to him for four days straight."

"I had also lost my mom the year before," she continues of the tough time in her life. "The mental toll of all of that was a lot. Then we moved from Florida to South Carolina for my husband's residency. And I felt really, really alone."

When it came time to grow her family, Zamith and her husband worked hard to make more time together as a family.

"We knew that we wanted to have more children, but before we started thinking about having a second, we knew that I wanted to be off for a longer period of time than the 8 weeks or 12 weeks that they allow, so we saved up for me to be off for a year," she says.

Having the extra time made the transition to a family of four a little easier for the Zamiths, but "about four months into my maternity leave," she says she "saw the clock slowly ticking with how much time I had left with my daughter."

"I knew that I wanted to find some way to kind of subsidize that income so that I wouldn't have to go back to work full-time as a nurse," she says.

The mom notes that it meant a lot to her "to be able to be home with my family."

"Once you get a little taste of being able to be home with your kids, and experiencing things for the first time... I didn't get that with my son. I knew I wanted to be home more and get to be part of my kids' lives while they're so young," she continues.

Zamith was sharing her feelings with mom friends, including her best friend, who had recently become a creator with LTK, the largest creator commerce platform.

"She just started the year before and told me, 'Girl if I can do it, you can do it. I'm just a stay-at-home mom. I had no background in marketing or experience with anything like that,'" she recalls. "And she was very successful at the time. She said she'd be happy to teach me about it."

Zamith decided to "just take the leap of faith."

"She kind of just broke it down to me and I just hit the ground running from day one, and I haven't looked back since."

The mom of two wasn't altogether unfamiliar with content creation. "I'd create the little videos of your kids that moms do, just to share with family and friends. It was very community-based, like for our own family and friends to see. I'd always enjoyed making content but never looked into the aspect of creating content for a specific audience," she notes.

It wasn't what she initially expected. As she made videos, she realized she had the desire to hone in on a subject rather than display her life at large.

"At first, I had in my head that I would be posting a lot about myself — whether it was through motherhood, being the wife of someone mid-residency, someone who was a nurse, who loves to make sourdough. I have so many hobbies and passions that I had originally shared, thinking, 'I have so much many content ideas,'" she says.

"Once I really delved down into the niche, that's when I really just turned and tapped into the affordable home decor mindset," she continues. "On my own social media, I saw these big, beautiful homes decorated with mostly designer furniture. Of course, there's an audience for that, but as an everyday mom with an everyday budget, I realized there was a gap in the market. I really wanted to tap into that. I'm passionate about helping other moms, no matter their budget, be able to create a home they love."

As she started paying attention to other content creators, Zamith noticed, "Everyone goes into motherhood thinking they'll be this perfect mom and do everything. There's this social media idea that's very polarizing of what being a mom looks like. As I shared mine though, I felt not so alone."

While she was testing the waters of content creation, Zamith kept her experiment close to the vest. It was over a week until she shared the idea with her husband.

"I didn't tell anybody at first, I didn't even tell my husband for a week. I was trying to figure out, 'Is this really something I can do?'" she recalls.

"A lot of people go into content creation, but they don't realize the work that it truly is. For me at first, it was just filming while my daughter was napping and my son was at school. It was about a week in that I finally told him and I think at first, it was a lot of rebalancing our lives," Zamith says.

"He'd come home and he would often take the kids out in the backyard to play for a little bit so I'd be able to film. So there's just a lot of reprioritizing at first, but he's just been so supportive through it all. When I first started just posting every single day, I did not miss a day for nine months. It was a lot and it still is a lot of work, but there was definitely a lot of upfront community building, like in any business."

Her expectations weren't particularly high, but she was shocked when she had her first viral post about four months into her journey.

"I had one post get me to 60,000 followers," she explains, noting her follower count only went up from there. "That was the first time I saw that you can grow really quickly but once you do, you have to put the pedal to the metal. I had to be careful about who exactly I wanted to be in this space and what I wanted to do from there," she says.

"Being a nurse is what makes me a great creator," she notes. "The compassion and empathetic side is something I can share within the niche I'm in. And it's something I'm organically passionate about as it applies to my own family, so it's easy to connect with other people through that."

Zamith's solo success led to her own partnership with LTK, which helped her snag her second viral post.

"I sold over a thousand coffee tables and it just blew my mind," she says. "People were really looking for something that's affordable but beautiful, and so seeing that and hearing from my audience gave me the confirmation I needed that I was doing the right thing. I've grown my LTK following to over 100,000 followers this year. My earnings have increased significantly, so I've continued along with my niche and connecting with my audience. I think it's been a very mutually beneficial relationship and they've been instrumental in my success."

Zamith credits the support of her family and her village for making this lifestyle change possible.

"The biggest challenge is trying to figure out the working-from-home-mom life balance," she says. "I've learned to delegate. I have an assistant that works with me. I have a nanny that comes twice a week who is really an extra set of eyes because my door is always open. I think figuring out the rhythm of our life and making this change and adjustments everywhere."

She also makes it a point to be grateful for every moment she may have missed if her life took a different direction.

"Ultimately, my goal is to be with my kids. I saw my daughter take her first step and I just remember sobbing," she recalls. "I have the video favorited in my phone and watch it from time to time to really understand the impact of what I get to do now and what it affords me. We drive by our land that we were able to purchase this year and dream about it. Every time I get to attend anything at my son's school — a little play, a field trip — the teachers know I'm crying. It's just little things I never thought I would be able to do as a nurse. You can't ask off of work for a 10-minute Christmas parade as an ICU nurse, you know?"

She continues, "I'm just always trying to remind myself of what this has what this opportunity has given me. And now we're expecting baby number three. I'm due in March. I know everyone says they're grateful, but truly ever fiber of my being is so eternally grateful for the difference this has made for our family."

Zamith hopes that other moms will see the possibilities for themselves and prepare for their own leaps of faith.

"If I can start with a four-month-old baby and build from where I was, you can do it. I want to empower other people. I don't ever want it to come across as bragging when I share my story. I just want other people to know it's possible. It's real and it truly impacted this everyday mom's life. There are resources, and I'm always happy to help."

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