Pame Barba grew up in a sweater factory in Ecuador, moved to Atlanta as a kid when her family's business collapsed, and watched her parents build a flower import company from a single box of roses in their garage with absolutely no idea what to do next.
She went on to burn out of tech at 27, attempt a startup, run her own brand coaching practice for years, get her master's from NYU, and eventually go back to a full-time corporate role; all while building a coaching business on the side. On a recent episode of In Her Words, she was direct about what she's learned from all of it including the parts that didn't work.
Four things from this conversation I keep coming back to.
1. Entrepreneurship is a mindset game nobody prepares you for.
Pame grew up surrounded by entrepreneurs. She knew the rhythms of running a business, the long hours, the uncertainty. And still, when she stepped out on her own, she was caught off guard by how much of it was internal.
In a day job, she said, it mostly doesn't matter if the work lands; you do your thing and you get paid. When you're running your own business, you're putting everything into something with no guarantee. And the question of how you keep going when nothing is certain is one that no certification, family background, or business school prepares you for.
What she landed on over time: entrepreneurship is something you choose every day; not because it's easier, but because it's the right fit for where you are. And that choice has to come from somewhere internal, not from the promise of a hockey stick chart or a 25K month.
2. Stop asking "how do I scale" and start asking "what is enough?"
Early in her business, Pame was doing what a lot of us do: chasing the big numbers, following the online coaching playbook, measuring success by whether she was growing fast enough. She even got on Forbes as a startup founder. And she still wasn't financially sustaining herself.
The shift that changed how she ran her business and how she advises the entrepreneurs she works with was swapping the question. Not "how do I get to six figures" but "what is enough to get me through? And how am I going to make that happen?"
That reframe doesn't mean settling. It means getting honest about what your life actually costs, what your business can realistically support, and whether the model you're running is designed for you or for someone else's highlight reel.
3. Going back to corporate doesn't mean you failed. It might mean you're being strategic.
This is the part of the conversation I think a lot of people need to hear. Pame went back to full-time corporate work after years of running her own business. And she talked openly about the quiet shame that can come with that; the feeling that the entrepreneurship community expects you to be all-in or nothing, and that returning to a company somehow signals you couldn't hack it.
She pushed back on that directly. Entrepreneurship looks different depending on your socioeconomic background. The "quit your job and bet on yourself" narrative is largely told by people who don't have to worry about being their parents' retirement plan, or funding their own benefits, or supporting siblings. For a lot of us, the smarter move is to use a stable income to build; getting reps in, building savings, accessing professional development that would otherwise come out of pocket.
Pame called her full-time job her "business sabbatical." A place to breathe, get stronger, and be ready when the next season opens up. That reframe stuck with me.
"I don't think you're in it or not. If this is the life you want to build, how can you make it work for you?"
4. Anxiety in your business deserves more than a mindset reframe.
Pame was generous in sharing how anxiety has shaped her path — including the ways she didn't recognize it until much later. She described looking back on decisions she made in her business and realizing, after the fact, that anxiety had been running the show: the client she worried wouldn't be happy, the pivot she made after one thing didn't work, the job she quit impulsively with no plan because she didn't have the language to say what she actually needed.
What shifted after 2023, when her anxiety got bad enough to force a real reckoning, was her relationship to it. Her therapist compared it to tinnitus; the ringing in the ear that has no cure. The treatment isn't to silence it. It's to learn to live alongside it, to recognize it's there without treating it as a signal that something needs to change right now.
A lot of what gets sold online about anxiety and business is reductive; it's your thoughts, just reframe it, manifest your way through it. Pame's experience was that she needed different support than that. Worth naming, because I suspect she's not alone.
You can find Pame on LinkedIn, through her newsletter Start Something, or at holapame.com.
This episode of In Her Words is available wherever you listen to podcasts. If you're in a season of questioning what entrepreneurship should look like for you — I think this one's worth your time.