From Seven Figures to Starting Over

Amanda Nowak was supposed to be writing a job description. She was on vacation, taking her first real break in years. Her plan was simple: hire a general manager, come back refreshed, and keep the business growing.

Instead, she broke down at dinner.

“I told my husband, I hate my business. I don’t ever want to go back,” she says.

At the time, Amanda was running a successful design business with a 5,000-square-foot warehouse, eight employees, and seven-figure revenue. But it didn’t feel like success. It felt like suffocation.

That moment was the beginning of the end. And the beginning of something new.

From Supper Club to Senior Living Design

Amanda grew up inside a business. Her grandparents owned a supper club on Lake Delavan, and her whole family worked there. Her mom ran a gift shop. Her uncles took over the restaurant. Nobody had a corporate job.

“We went there for Christmas. We worked there during the summer. If someone didn’t show up for a shift, we could get called in,” she says. “It was all I knew.”

After graduating with a fine arts degree in interior design, Amanda joined Brookdale Senior Living. She spent five years running high-volume renovation projects, sometimes juggling as many as 60 a year. She became obsessed with the details, especially the accessories in memory care units that made sterile spaces feel like home.

But sourcing those items was a logistical nightmare. She was flying around the country with nothing but a Walmart and an Ace Hardware to work with. The design wasn’t fun anymore. The accessories were.

So She Turned the Accessories into a Business

In 2012, her husband’s catering business was taking off, and they needed more flexibility. Amanda went to her employer with an idea: what if she left full-time but stayed on to handle the accessory sourcing?

“They said yes. They were my first client,” she says.

She ran the business from a spare bedroom. Then it grew. More clients. More inventory. More team members. By 2021, she had eight employees, a massive warehouse, and a company that was thriving on paper.

But she was miserable.

“I built the thing I thought I wanted. But I hated it.”

She Didn’t Want to Scale. She Wanted to Breathe.

Amanda was handling every department. She was working 70 or 80 hours a week. So she got help. Slowly, she cut back. She shrank the team. Shifted the model. Focused on profitability.

“I was working less and making more. But I still wasn’t happy.”

The supply chain crisis had changed everything. Instead of choosing beautiful pieces, she was chasing shipping delays. Every project was a fire drill. Her values had shifted. She wanted peace. She wanted freedom.

“I realized I didn’t even like design anymore,” she says. “I liked helping people figure things out.”

That realization came with clarity. She wound down the business in 2023. Transferred some clients. Let the rest go. And took two and a half months off.

“I reached the end of the internet. I realized I can’t not work. But I never want to feel that burned out again.”

She Started Over. This Time, With a Mission.

Amanda launched Element 8 later that year. It’s a coaching business for women who are successful on the outside but exhausted on the inside.

“They’re secretly miserable,” she says. “They feel shame for not loving the business they built. I help them figure out what they actually want—and how to build it differently.”

She offers six-month coaching programs, accountability partnerships, and is developing a group program for founders who want lower-touch, higher-impact support.

She also created a calm physical space for events like breath work, sound baths, and workshops—tools that help regulate the nervous system and create community around hard conversations.

It’s Not About Doing More. It’s About Doing it Differently.

Amanda loves working one-on-one. She loves helping women rest without guilt, pivot without shame, and realize they don’t have to suffer to succeed.

“There’s this idea that you have to do one thing your whole life. That’s not true,” she says. “You can do twenty things if you want. You get to choose.”

That’s the message at the heart of Element 8.

You don’t have to keep running a business that doesn’t fit you anymore. You can stop. You can shift. You can do something else.

And when you’re ready, Amanda will be there to help.

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