How to turn your passion into a profitable lifestyle business without burning out

How Chelsea Hollenbeck pivoted from nursing to styling and built Good Lines from her first $50 client to a fully booked business in NYC

Hi, I’m Hannah! Welcome to Nonlinear News, where I write for ambitious people choosing the nonlinear path.

A few months ago, I wanted to clean out my wardrobe and level up my style as a chronically busy person who hates shopping. I searched “stylists in NYC” on Instagram and found Chelsea Hollenbeck, the founder of Good Lines.

I was initially nervous about working with a stylist (what if we didn’t vibe, what if it was too expensive). But working with Chelsea opened my eyes to two things at once: the value of personal style, and (because I’m always thinking about nonlinear careers and businesses) how intentionally she’d built her lifestyle business after pivoting from nursing!!

What struck me almost immediately is that this isn’t just a job for Chelsea. It feels like an extension of who she is and a true passion. Every part of it feels like only she could be running it.

Even as she was the one asking me questions in our session, I had a running list of my own: how she’d built Good Lines from scratch while still working as an oncology nurse, how she grew it into the fully booked practice, how she hired and marketed. I asked her if I could interview her for my newsletter because she navigated what many of you are thinking about or doing: turning a passion into a real business. I also wanted her style advice for ambitious people, especially after you leave the corporate path.

We talked about how Chelsea went from googling “how do you make a website” after a night shift to where she is today, what taste and curation mean as core business skills (and why they matter more than ever in the AI era), how to build personal style when you’re no longer dressing for a corporate uniform, and the question every aspiring lifestyle entrepreneur should be asking themselves before they start.

Why she quit nursing and how she decided on a styling business

Hannah: What were you doing before Good Lines?

Chelsea: I’m a registered nurse, and I still have my license. I’ll always keep it. That was the very first job I had out of college, and the only job I had until I started this. I worked at a hospital in Minneapolis for seven years.

I felt very burnt out. I wasn’t finding any joy going into work. There was one day I just looked around and thought, I don’t want one person’s life here. I don’t mean that in a bad way at all. Just: this is not what I want for my life.

I’ve always been very creative. I’ve always loved fashion. My mom’s an interior designer. I grew up in Miami, around fashion. It was something I’d always done on the side for friends. As many people can relate to, my parents were very “job stability, education first.” I was actually a pretty good nurse — I did well with patients, I understood the work.

Hannah: When did you know you were going to leave?

Chelsea: One day I just looked at my husband and said: I can’t do this anymore. I had a lot of anger and resentment inside myself. Why did I choose this? Now I’m stuck forever. All I have is a nursing degree. I can’t do anything but be a nurse. I had a full-on midlife crisis at 28. I’m 32 now.

Hannah: What got you from that realization to doing something about it?

Chelsea: In October 2022, two months after we got married, I worked a night shift, came home, and just Googled, “how do you make a website?” I made this janky little website. I was like, I’m going to start doing what I do on the side for my friends and family. I’m going to make it full time. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. And I just started.

Eventually I quit. My husband and I moved to New York City. He’s a pilot for Delta, so he can live anywhere. I said, I want to move to New York. I don’t want to live in the Midwest anymore. I’m originally from the East Coast. That was it. One of the craziest decisions we ever made. It almost broke us. There was a lot of risk.

Hannah: Were there other things you toyed with, or was it pretty clear from the start that styling was what you’d go after?

Chelsea: It was kind of fashion-related for a while. I thought about doing secondhand shopping, being a curator for vintage pieces. I have a great eye when I thrift. Maybe I’d have a vintage shop and style people through it.

I also toyed with getting my Botox license and offering styling on the side. My business name, Good Lines, was actually because that’s what I wanted to name my Botox business. We have lines on our face, and I’ve always been very body positive. I’m more of a natural person and I didn’t go down the Botox path. But I kept the name. Style is linear too, in the sense of figuring out where the lines on your body are, where your hips fall in relation to your ankles, where everything sits. That’s the formula. And our bodies are beautiful, they do great things for us. So, the name Good Lines stuck.

Side hustling for two years before going full-time

Hannah: How long did you side hustle, and what was the tipping point to go full-time?

Chelsea: I did hybrid for the first two years of the business. The tipping point was when revenue was enough for me to justify not picking up the nursing shifts. My husband and I talked about it financially, what made sense for us. I had a goal number. When I finally hit it consistently for a few months, I said: I think I can make more. The only reason I’m not is that my time is only 50% on this.

Hannah: What did the side hustle look like day to day during those two years?

Chelsea: I was fortunately in a nursing job where I could work as much or as little as I wanted, kind of per diem. After we moved to New York, I worked as an IV nurse for a private company, going to homes and apartments to give IVs to people who were hungover or sick. I’d run around the city with my little suitcase part-time while I was building my website and making content. I was living two lives.

Hannah: And how did you make the actual call to go full-time?

Chelsea: Eventually I decided to stay employed by them but didn’t pick up any shifts for a month. I just wanted to see how it went. I gained a lot of new clients in that month, and I just took the risk.

You have to see enough clarity to know it’s pointing in the right direction, but there’s always going to be an element of risk. It’s never just, “now’s the time and it’s going to work.” It’s making an educated guess, like you would for anything.

Transferable skills from nursing to running a styling business

Hannah: Did you ever feel guilt or shame about making this pivot?

Chelsea: Absolutely. There’s already a lot of unspoken hierarchy in nursing culture. ICU nurse versus med-surg nurse. Nurses who’ve worked 25 years versus five years. “I’m a tougher nurse than you because I stuck it out.” To me that’s complete BS, because every nurse plays a pivotal role in the patient experience.

I felt like I was wasting the gift my parents gave me of college. Now I have this degree I’m not using at all. And I felt: who in the world would ever want to hire me? I didn’t go to fashion school.

In the beginning I felt like a poser. I felt shame, embarrassment. I was like, who do I think I am? I belong in scrubs and back in the hospital. That’s what I chose, now I’m stuck. People judged me. They said, “you’re leaving nursing? That’s weird.” Nurses are very tight-knit — they hang out together, do everything together. I didn’t feel supported. I had to get through all of that.

Hannah: What surprised you, looking back, about how nursing prepared you for running this business?

Chelsea: My nursing career parallels what I do now in a lot of ways. Nursing taught me time management, leadership, communication, and how to match what a person needs.

I have clients who are quiet, low-key. I have to match that energy. In the hospital it was the same. Some patients you could drop F-bombs with, super casual. Others were very type A, family observing every little thing. You have to be a chameleon. I’m able to mold to my clients’ needs the same way.

People talk about their bodies. They talk about their insecurities. These are things I talked about with patients too. The communication, the time management, the ability to wear multiple hats. That’s what made me a stronger business owner.

The styling is the easiest part of the job — and the fun part. It’s running the business that’s more difficult, and that’s where my nursing skills come in.

Getting her first clients and networking her way into NYC

Hannah: How did you get your first clients?

Chelsea: My very first client was a friend of mine. Another nurse, but at a different hospital. She followed me on Instagram and was like, “I love that you’re doing this. I always admired your style. I’ll pay the 50 bucks. Let’s do it.” That was my first review.

Then someone found me on Instagram completely randomly. At the time I was living in Minneapolis. We did in-person shopping, and I got photos of her, and I started building a portfolio.

A friend referred me to someone she knew, a woman in private equity, very high profile. She referred me to a couple of other women. It started to grow.

Then we left Minneapolis, so I had to do a whole new networking push.

Hannah: How did you build a network from scratch when you moved to New York?

Chelsea: When I first moved to New York, I went to a networking event the second day we lived here. I had boxes to the ceiling. I went to that event and thought: I should just make my own networking group. So I made one. I ran a networking event every month for a full year.

It was a way to literally make friends, because I’d just moved here and didn’t know anyone. It was also a way to show my presence. I had this blank slate of New York. No one knew me, I didn’t have that nurse tie anymore. I met a lot of incredible women at those events, and I made some very lovely friends I’m still close to.

Hannah: Looking back, was there a habit from those early years that mattered more than you realized at the time?

Chelsea: Once you get the ball rolling, you have to pay attention to when things are coming at you and grab them. The window is small. Whether or not you do anything with it, you at least have to see what’s behind it.

I’ve responded to every single email I’ve ever gotten. Always. Especially in the first few years, because I did that and didn’t ignore some of them, there were a couple I was doubtful about that ended up being some of the largest catalysts of my business.

How she figured out content and built a recognizable brand on Instagram

Hannah: Your content is how I found you in the first place. How did you figure out what to post?

Chelsea: Content has always been hard for me because it takes a lot of planning. (I’m not a content queen like you.) But I started doing get-ready-with-me videos and client transformation videos. I had a part-time assistant, a student, who came and followed me around taking videos.

Now I have someone designated to help with content. I’ve thought about taking it a step further and having a full-time team do it. I think it would help the business grow. I just mentally have to prepare to schedule time for content, which I’m not super interested in. But social media is a huge way to grow your business.

I looked up the popular hashtags for my field. I tested out different types of videos. Whichever ones got more positive feedback (comments, shares), I’d follow that trend for a while.

Hannah: When did you start thinking about your page as a brand and not just an account?

Chelsea: I decided my page should look like a brand. I keep it cohesive: same color palette, similar font, all of that. It makes your business look more professional. It legitimizes what you’re doing. You want people to remember you by something. A color, a font, your face. It’s like Coca-Cola or the McDonald’s arches.

How she protects what she loves from becoming what burns her out

Hannah: It’s clear you love what you do. How do you protect the thing you love from burning you out?

Chelsea: You have to set boundaries and allot time for yourself. Whether it’s “I’m closing the computer at 6 o’clock” or “I’m not taking on this client again because they were unkind to me.” Those boundaries matter.

Hannah: What about when the thing you love is also part of the work, like shopping for you?

Chelsea: If it’s something you’re passionate about, you have to make time to do it just for you. I love to shop — I could easily find something for myself when I’m out browsing for a client. But I try not to. I’ll go Saturday morning by myself, just to see what I like. No clients, no agenda. That’s how I keep the joy in it.

And the power of saying no. Sometimes that’s the whole answer.

How to build personal style after the corporate dress code disappears

Hannah: A lot of my audience is leaving traditional corporate jobs and the dress code that comes with them. If I’m thinking about style as my own (as opposed to tied to a job), how would you suggest someone start designing that from first principles?

Chelsea: The cold hard fact is that we walk out of our homes every single day and we have to put clothes on. How you show up and how you want to represent yourself, unfortunately, is very important. I wish we could all wear a brown paper bag, but that’s not the reality.

I think it’s important to stop seeing it as “oh, that’s a fashion thingy” or “I’m not someone who cares about that.” You don’t have to. It doesn’t have to be an interest or something you keep up with. But dressing a certain way commands a presence. It helps show your personality. It builds confidence.

The clients I have who care less, when they put on outfits I help them with, they tell me, “oh my god, I felt so good in that presentation today, because my outfit was so good.” Not because they were thinking about their outfit. There was just something that made them feel like, I have this.

Especially as a woman in a position of power, or in a male-dominated field, the way you show up is really important. The first thing people do when they see you is see you. Visually. Before they hear your voice or anything else. It’s what you look like when you walk into a room.

I try to help people think about it less as “being a fashion girly” and more as: what is your presence? What message do you want to convey when you walk into a room?

Hannah: What’s a practical first step for someone who wants to start being more intentional about it?

Chelsea: Take a look at your closet. Separate what you actually wear from what you don’t. Look at the pieces you reach for and find the correlations. Is it color, pattern, fabric? When you understand what you actually wear, you become a more educated shopper for yourself.

There’s a way to bring color into a professional setting, by the way. A lot of clients say to me, “Chelsea, I love color, but I work in a corporate job and I feel like I have to wear black.” That’s not necessarily true. There are ways to keep things professional while letting your personality show.

I also tell people: try things you might not normally try. You don’t know how you’ll feel in something until you do.

Why taste and curation matter more in the AI era (and how to develop them)

Hannah: Your entire job is taste and curation. In my world, people are talking about taste and curation as one of the most important skills in the AI era because AI can generate anything but it can’t tell you what’s good. What does taste mean to you, and is it something people can develop?

Chelsea: It’s not really something I think about consciously. Like anything, people have their niche, their talents. A good singer is just a good singer. They can improve with a coach, but they’re always going to be a good singer. Someone who can’t sing just can’t sing.

I think taste is more innate. Curation is more learnable.

Taste, when I shop for clients and style them, is truly a feeling. I visualize the person in the item — their personality, everything we discussed. That’s how I know. I’m like, you know what, I really think she should try this. He should try this.

Hannah: How would you describe curation, then, since that’s what people can develop?

Chelsea: Curation is more like having an outline of what it is you need. Like if you’re cooking a meal and you need a recipe, you have to find the ingredients. If you’re looking for a vintage item, you do your research on top vintage sellers. You look at different neighborhoods. If you want a higher-end thrift item, you go to a thrift shop in a wealthier neighborhood. Curation can be learned.

Chelsea’s #1 advice for turning a passion into a business

Hannah: What’s your number one piece of advice for someone with a passion (styling, fitness, cooking, design, whatever) thinking about turning it into a business on the side?

Chelsea: Just rip the band-aid off and do it. That is my absolute best advice. Never take no for an answer. Just do it. Don’t care what anybody says or thinks about you.

It’s going to be shit in the beginning. It’s going to be hard and weird. You won’t know what you’re doing. But the difference between the people who succeed and the people who fail is that the ones who fail give up. Don’t give up.

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