She withstood years of intense abuse but has an incredible disposition

I’ve known Anna Bourland for over 1/4 of her life, and yet, it wasn’t until this episode that I learned that she had endured extreme abuse as a young child. With an incredible sense of resilience and an amazing attitude, Anna has truly embodied what it means to overcome extreme adversity.

[0:00:16.590] – TAMAR:
Hey, everybody, I am super excited. I don’t know what number we’re at, 59, 60 of the podcast. I have a friend this time around. It’s not somebody I randomly met on a Facebook group or a Reddit chat these days. It’s my friend Anna and I’ve known Anna for over a decade now. I guess you can talk about how we met, but she was sharing a story on Facebook. I’m sorry not sorry that Facebook seems to give me rise for a lot of podcast ideas and guests, I guess with covid, and the fact that my, my my local community is is relatively boring. To be fair, I get to get to reach out beyond my geography. And Anna is on the other side of the country, so she’ll tell her she’ll talk about herself. But yeah, I thought she had something to share and I felt that this was the right avenue on the podcast to talk about her story. So, Anna Bourland, thank you so much for joining us.

[0:01:17.700] – Anna Bourland:
Oh, yeah. Thank you for having me, Tamar.

[0:01:19.710] – TAMAR:
Yeah. So where are you in the world? I know I mentioned a little bit, but you can give me a little more.

[0:01:26.040] – Anna Bourland:
Yeah, I am. I’m born and raised in Southern California and I’ve been in this area pretty much most of my life. And I live in Corona, California, in Riverside County. So it’s been interesting, even simply just having the name Corona. Everything I post on social media has a warning because they think I’m talking about covid. (just because I’m checking in because I’m at a restaurant). So it’s been kind of hilarious being from here these days.

[0:01:55.170] – TAMAR:
Yeah, their algorithm hasn’t figured that out, but it’s funny. It’s funny. I’m glad you mentioned that because I was going to say you’re from Corona, right? And that’s I never knew that [it warns you]. You should post that. You should post a screenshot of what you deal with every single day.

[0:02:06.510] – Anna Bourland:
Yeah, well, it’s funny because I moved to Corona about six, six or seven years ago and I’m actually from Anaheim. So I went from being Anna from Anaheim to being from Corona. Yeah.

[0:02:18.480] – TAMAR:
Anna from Anaheim, I like that, I like that. That’s awesome. Cool. So yeah. What do you—I know I met you through I guess I would say more of the industry than anything else so you could talk about that. Feel free to share where, how we met and what you do and where you come from. Like trajectory career wise if you have a little bit of a story in that regard. Absolutely great.

[0:02:44.940] – Anna Bourland:
Yeah. Tamar, we met in such a funny way, I guess, because we were both early adopters when it came to social media. So I know that we’ve been members of, I don’t know, failed social media platforms is really the right word. Just, you know, the candle didn’t keep burning, so we ran across each other and it turned out we were in the similar industries, women and tech specifically. You know, we’re SEO and marketing and all kinds and social media and all kinds of different things that were emerging.

[0:03:20.100] – Anna Bourland:
And we kept talking. And then I remember when you were getting ready to be a mom for the first time, I sent things, clothes and play things and all that stuff for for your first little one. And we bonded over that. And then next thing you know, we were up at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning. Gosh. And that was my time. So you’re a night owl and working on bouncing ideas off each other for your book.

[0:03:49.860] – Anna Bourland:
So that was it was really neat to get to know you in that way. And then, of course, as each of our stories has evolved, we’ve made sure we’re there for those significant milestones cheering each other on. Of course, as far as my career goes, I honestly I ran into a guy I went to high school with outside an Outback Steakhouse. We were waiting for a table and he said, what do you do? And I said, well, I’m kind of dabbling with building websites.

[0:04:21.450] – Anna Bourland:
And that was back with Yahoo! Geocities and everything. And he goes, that’s funny. I work at a