Meet Ashley Padek | Mompreneur

We had the good fortune of connecting with Ashley Padek and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Ashley, how do you define success?
Success isn’t a one size fits all kinda word! It’s definitely tailored to each individual. For me personally, my success is in the details. It’s all of these things:

•Being able to pick up my kids from the walker door at school each day.
•The ability to buy the items I need (we need) and lots that are just wants!
•Waking up every morning in our home with the 5 people I love most in this world tucked cozy and warm in their beds with fluffy blankets.
•Splurging on the little things.
•Overcoming the fear of starting over completely (for a 3rd time) and creating a profitable business in only 5 months & continuing to work my butt off to keep it consistently growing!
•Having the strength & courage to take a huge risk.
•Having the ability to help provide our kids with a low stress life where they get to just enjoy being kids! Having no stress doesn’t exist, but I’m confident we’re doing a good job removing unnecessary stressors and struggles for them that many children have.
•Falling in love with my husband a little more each day. I see so many stagnant couples that live like roommates. We spend as much time as we can focused on keeping the fire going. We actually like each other and invest a lot of time into doing things we like to make sure we keep it that way! We’ve both had failed marriages prior, so we are so grateful that we found each other and are able to teach our kids what love truly looks like by example. No doubt about it, it’s nowhere near perfect, but we are pretty stinkin happy (goofy, forgiving, understanding) most of the time.
•Having the ability to give.
•Doing a job that I LOVE! Where I’m excited to work every day and passionate about what I do. To be my own boss and call all the shots. Make my own rules!
•To be able to do some good in the world with my job. With being an influencer, I am sent TONS of items on a daily basis. I don’t need these items but for a short time. So I have partnered with several local charities to donate all these barely touched items to those who could truly need them.
•Holding true to who I am. This was challenging for me for many years, but it has been liberating to no longer let the opinions of others dictate who and what I am.
•Being surrounded with incredible, unique little people ( & 1 big one ) that challenge me on a daily basis.
•Having a place to truly call home. As a child I moved almost yearly and never felt like I had a safe place to land. Feeling safe. That’s success for me.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
It all started at the onset of Covid. I left my safe Orthodontic Dental Assistant job to stay at home with the kids while they did homeschool. For extra money during this time I started selling my clothes on Facebook Marketplace. When I shop I like to see clothes on an actual person so I figured others would too, so I modeled all the clothing I was selling in my pictures. My items were selling really quick and I began getting messages asking me if I would be interested in small modeling jobs. One of the brands I worked with suggested I start an instagram to build a following. So I did, primarily pics in fashion I liked and clothing items I wanted to sell but also favorite beauty items, travel, fitness, lifestyle, etc. By my surprise, I built an organic following pretty quickly. I researched the hashtag game for insta big time!

Anyways, once I hit 20k the idea of truly turning this into a business came to fruition. It all exploded from there. I was getting nonstop emails regarding collabs and promo work! It was incredibly exciting but scary too because I was entering into uncharted territory.. There were so many days I was ready to quit and go back to the dental world, but I just kept going. Slowly but surely I built a pretty solid portfolio with many brands. I began getting contacted for bigger modeling jobs and by local businesses for promotional work as well. But the BIG game changer was when I was contacted regarding live streaming on Amazon! That’s when I knew that this was going to work! Ash Padek LLC was born. The official business made it all feel real. No doubt about it.. there is much work to be done, still learning every single day. It’s a career that you have to be able to keep up with and it’s a lot of work. Like alot alot . Way more than I ever anticipated, but I could not be more grateful that I was given the opportunity to do this. It’s worth it 100%.

My advice: Start with social media. Build up a platform- any of them, you just need one to take off so you can get your foot in the door! Posting smart hashtags is key. Also staying consistent, post at the same time on the same days each week. Plan your content ahead of time (this is easier said than done). Create a theme and stick with it – if you decide to go from fashionista to a foodie -you will lose followers for sure! Doesn’t mean you CAN’T change it, you totally can, you’ll just have to work a lot harder to rebuild. Truly go into with a business mentality rather than a social one. And most importantly be prepared to hit SO MANY walls. There were weeks where nothing happened, I mean NOTHING, but I stayed consistent and then bam I’d get 3 or 4 deals in a day. Feel free to hit me up for advice!

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Well, first and foremost – the food! DFW has some incredible spots. #1 : Mi Dia! Omg.. obsessed with Mi Dia in Plano. Al Biernats. Yum. For breakfast – Taco Joint. Breakfast tacos are the bomb. Oak’d off Greenville- incredible BBQ. Hard Eights is pretty yummy too. We have 4 kids so we don’t really do the whole club scene anymore.. so cant help ya there! We’d probably hit up King Spa at some point, maybe stay a night at the W. If it’s October, then definitely the State Fair. Duh. For happy hours – Mesero at Legacy West or Kai. So pretty much we’d eat a lot!! Get our nails done. We would for sure have to work out at my favorite gym- Body Machine Fitness to burn off a few. Hit up Katy Trail, Klyde Warren Park, and Windhaven dog park to hang with the pups. Pretty chill!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
My husband, Jess Padek. Cliche, I know, but truly… I couldn’t have created any of this without him. He supported me through all my ups and downs. He believed in me when I had a hard time believing in myself! He has been my rock and my safe place. We navigated through this much easier being a team. Relationships are a lot of work too so we made sure to keep a good balance of both. Just as it took hard work to build my brand and business, it took serious work to build & maintain our ride or die kinda bond. He is an inspiration to me as well in business. He is a completely self-made successful business man with a thriving company that he and his 2 awesome partners built. Their company, VIP, is an Accounting & Finance Staffing or Consulting firm based in Addison.

Website: www.ashpadek.com

Instagram: www.instagram.com/ashpadek

Other: www.amazon.com/shop/ashpadek