From Creative Entrepreneur to Fractional CFO: My Origin Story

Welcome to the Creative Mind Smart Money Podcast where we turn financial confusion into creative confidence. I'm Samantha Ek, the keeper and fractional CFO for creative entrepreneurs. Each week I'm sharing my financial expertise and actionable strategies to help you build a thriving creative business. Plus, you'll hear from industry experts who bring fresh perspectives on growing your business beyond the numbers. As building a successful creative business starts with strong financial foundations, your next chapter starts now. Hello, hello friends and welcome to March. I can't believe I already in the third month of the year of 2026. So we're already technically, well, not technically, we are recorded the way through the year, which is insane or we're stepping into a quarter of the way through the year, I guess I should say. So I mentioned this in the last episode at the end of the last episode, but today I really want to take the chance to kind of sit back and relax and get a little bit personal, step away from all of the business stuff and really talk about who I am and why you should trust me in the first place. You've been listening to this podcast for over 80 episodes if you have been here. And I've never really had an episode where I've talked about and said, "Hey guys, this is me. I'm Samantha. Nice to meet you. This is who I am. This is what's been going on in my life." And I feel like that's such a shame because you guys don't really know me. You've been listening to my voice for 80 episodes, but you're not like, "Oh my gosh, I know Samantha. If you did want to work with me, you're not like, "I do want to work with her." And you're like, "Who's this check that's talking to me every week?" So, you know. So today we're going to get a little bit personal. We're going to let Lizze, we're going to let our hair down and we're going to really talk about who I am. And this is going to happen all my long. We're not just going to talk about who I am. We're going to talk about my background. We're going to talk about why I chose creatives. We're going to talk about all that stuff. And we're just going to really dive deep into these topics. So the first thing I'm going to talk about is my background and where I grew up and things like that. So, I am originally from Canada. So if you didn't know that, hi. I probably don't sound like it. Maybe I do. A lot of people tell me I have a slight Canadian accent because I grew up in Canada until 2020 when Mu and my husband moved here from Alberta to Texas where I am now. And if you didn't know that, well then hello, I'm in Texas. So I did grow up in Canada in Alberta most of my life. I was born in British Columbia, which is these provinces right next to Alberta. And then Mu and my family moved to Calgary and I lived most of my life in Calgary. We did move around a little bit early on in elementary school. We moved to Denver and I lived in Denver, Colorado for a few years before we came back to Calgary. And then after we came back to Calgary, I think at about sixth grade, yeah, it was about sixth grade. We moved to the Philippines, which is my mum is Filipino. So we moved to the Philippines and we went to the Philippines and spent some time in the Philippines for about six months before my grandmother had some help issues and we came back to you. I kind of spent some time with her, but also just be here again. That was the weirdest transition period probably of my life. So going from Colorado to Calgary really wasn't that bad. But coming back from the Philippines, I think we were midway through. I'm trying to remember. I'm pretty sure it was November that we came back from the Philippines. I'm not wrong. It was either October, November. So school year had already been well underway. When we came back, it was one of those really weird experiences from movies and TV shows where we kind of came into this mid-year point and everybody was like, "Fuse this new girl." So it was really strange. And I felt really off because there was a lot of people that were surrounding me that were new. I think that was one of the most formative times in my life, for sure, was because there was just a lot of moving around that happened. From that point on, we did stay in Calgary. We didn't move anywhere else. We stayed in Calgary. That's where we lived until I met my husband back when I was 18. And we started dating. I met my husband on e-harminy. There's a little bit more of a tip for a background for you. I had had a lot of really terrible relationships in the past. And I just decided, "Okay, you know what? I'm just going to get married. I don't want to deal with boys anymore. I'm not at." So my husband's six years older than me. We met on e-harminy. He was from Emoton. I was from Calgary, which is a three-hour road trip. We didn't see each other all that often. We got to see each other every two weeks. Our relationships started off being very long distance. And it made us really, I guess, fall in love a little bit more. And I know I'm getting super personal here, but I really want you guys to really like get to know me and understand who I am. Here we got my, my parents decided to move to Maryland in the US. If you don't, I guess I didn't really explain that, but my dad's been Americans. It's for, so when me and my brother were born, he actually made us dual citizens. So we have the option and the availability to either live in the US or Canada. But when we move to Texas, it's just been home. So there's just isn't anywhere in the world I'd really rather live. And I've already told my husband that like, this is home, this is where we want to be. Anything, this is where we're going to like set up our roots and really dig in and live our lives. But anyways, my parents moved to Maryland. We moved to Edmonton to be near my husband's family. After a few years, my husband lost his job due to COVID. And we decided that hey, I'm an American citizen. Why not? Immigrate to the US. So we came over in 2020 in the midst of COVID. We had to sell everything. So we came with two check bags. And we came over here. Now, during that time when we were in Canada, I had started my very first business. And I'll go deeper into this a little bit later. But it was where I was designed, not really designing, but I was sewing clothing. So I sewed kids clothing. I had a serger and stuff like that. And I started a business where I sew kids clothing. And one of the things that I will say is this is where the start of my, I think, not really obsession with numbers, but where my relationship with numbers and things like that. Kind of started because realistically, I was looking at my business and saying, okay, you know, I have this much money and just to give you context in like real life situation, my husband was working and I was not. So there was only one income in this, in the house at this time. So it was definitely a little bit tighter. We could have worked it because my husband was making really good money. The company that he worked for, he was doing robotic welding and like they were paying him phenomenally well. So it was fine for me to stay home, but I really wanted to try doing my own business and doing something creative because that's, I've always been this creative person. I've always done creative things. I've always been puzzly and I've always been drawing. I've always been, you know, making things with my hand, painting whatever it is that I could do with my hands or whatever it is that I could create. I was doing something about that. My family had known that growing up. So starting this clothing business where I was doing these things with children's clothing. And I specifically chose children because it was very easy and very simple to sew. You could buy like a yard of fabric and make like three outfits out of it instead of just one. So it was nice to be able to like stretch a $30 yard of fabric across three different items. But that's where my relationship with money really started was figuring out, okay, this is the amount of time and putting into it. This is the labor that I'm putting into it. And it wasn't just the labor. It was also figuring out the material costs. So saying, okay, a yard of $30 fabric, which is stretchy like cotton like the fabric, which is like a very unique printed fabric and it comes in all these really cool colors and like patterns and you can get like storewares and all these things. And figuring out what the cost of that was. But then also understanding and learning and why I'm kind of like empathetic with creatives. So we used to go to a lot of markets and stuff like that. And I used to always help have people tell me why would never be that like why would I not just go to Walmart and buy my dollar, a $10 t-shirt when you're selling yours for $30 dollars. Well, you know, it was always really tough for me to come up with that explanation of like, well, it's handmade. I put the time and work into this. You know, it's not just something that you can just go to Walmart and buy. It's something that I've put the thought and time and everything into it. But that's really where my very early reach of money started with is back when I was running my business, my clothing business in Canada. And I will say I was terrible at it. I didn't make any money in that business. I didn't understand what I was doing. I didn't even look at my numbers on a true basis. Sure. I had to come up with pricing. Sure. I had to know, okay, how much money do we have in the bank account so that I can spend money on this business? I did not have my own business bank account. I didn't open a business bank account. I did not have my own, you know, I didn't keep track of what I was spending. I didn't keep track of what I was making. I didn't even keep track of if I was making money. I just made items and I sold them. And if that's anything to tell you, like who I am as a business owner and why I'm so passionate about what I am, like that is the core of it. I didn't learn my lesson during my first business. And I'll tell you that right now because of course we're going to bring it into that in the next step. episode where we really dive into when I learned my lesson and kind of like how I came connected to money. But I think that the thing is I've always been very organized. So there's like a very old personality test that you can take where it tells you I can't even remember what it is. There's like four different types of personalities and I remember one of them is like Maddox. One of them is Mel and Collie and I think the other one is um oh my gosh. I can't even remember what it is but that's okay. All that's important and all that we understand is that I'm someone who's very organized and someone who's like very understanding but I didn't I didn't look at those numbers. So in reality I was digging I was digging myself a hole. After looking back at that and starting the current business that I'm in I really I really really thought about it on a deeper level and said you know I don't ever want anybody to feel this way and and that's a thing right as creatives we're so busy creating and like that is true in my story in it of a tell that I was so busy just creating clothing and having fun selling it and seeing children wear it and it was such a joy and exciting and I just loved doing what I was doing that I didn't think about the back end or the money stuff and it's so true because like at the social media manager as a web designer as a graphic designer you're so busy creating and creating these beautiful and like stunning pieces of work and things that are being shown that you forget you forget about the backside and it doesn't make you a bad person and it doesn't make you a bad business owner it's your passionate about what you do and I was so passionate about what I did and and that's why I was so focused so focused how making things that I didn't care and I neglected the backside and I will say this too I didn't even look at social media I didn't know anything about business during my first business I just kind of rolled into it and did stuff did I look up how to set up a business properly how to do this and everything out of course I did and you know in Canada there are rules where you can just have a business as long that has like a part of your name in it I think I called myself eclectic boutique which was my last name is ec if you guys don't already know that what you should but that's kind of like where I really grew grew my business so sure I looked up the formation I looked up sales tax I looked up all that stuff but I didn't really understand any of it and I knew I wasn't making any money but I didn't look at it I didn't care because I was just so passionate and enjoying what I was doing but it came to a point where I realized there's more to this there's more to money in business than just creating that's what I really want to talk about during the next episode I want to keep these short and fleet really you know get to know me get to know where I'm from everything like that so that is my origin story there and I do want to talk a little bit about kind of like my work background and things like that like what happened so you know I didn't start off just in my own business of course I actually when Mima has been met and we got married I was working for my dad at a logistics company and I was doing inventory control so I had a very early relationship with numbers and a very early understanding of numbers but I will tell you this I've never been good at money throughout my entire childhood I was a spender I still I'm a spender but I'm a smart spender now of course but you know I was a spender and I spent money and and there were things that went on there but to get back to the point I worked for my dad at a logistics company doing inventory and quality control and that's where I kind of like became a love for a spreadsheet my manager really showed me excel and dove me deep into like things like V look up and things like that and I I started to kind of have a deep appreciation for numbers and the mystery of numbers and figuring stuff out because we'd have pallets go missing or counts will be off and it would be like figuring out why they were off of what happened like where did things go wrong and that's really where my love of number started you know after that job I think I went into when we were in Edmonton before I started by clothing business actually it was after I started clothing business because it was just right before we decided to come to the US I was in a debt collection company doing accounts I guess accounts payable in the in a sense I was recording payments that were coming in from these people's debts and making sure that they were recorded properly and things like that so I've always had this connection since the conception of my job or my career of numbers obviously there's part-time jobs that I haven't always the younger that we're like retail but since my like professional career I've always had this like deep connection with numbers and so it doesn't come from nowhere I've had such an extensive background with this and you know I think there's more to explore there so obviously we're gonna explore more of that over this next month guys so I hope you're enjoying this episode and that you want to stick around obviously if you liked it and you think people need to get to know me better please like it share it subscribe and as always guys I wish you the best week forever we'll see you next week farewell fellow travelers