Latest / The Rave Social Podcast / 52 The Entrepreneur's Guide to Guilt-Free Maternity Leave with Alyson Caffrey

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52 The Entrepreneur's Guide to Guilt-Free Maternity Leave with Alyson Caffrey · The Rave Social Podcast

• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Rave Social Podcast.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Jaden, and today we have a special guest, Allie.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Allie is a best-selling author, systems and operations strategist, and self-proclaimed Jock Jams dance party leader for their little family of four.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: We love that.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: With more than eight years of experience working alongside growing companies, Allie has discovered that building a business doesn't have to drain all the parents' time and resources.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, with the right structure, it is possible to create a thriving asset, one that operates independently, can be passed down, and leaves a lasting legacy for generations to come.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Allie is the leading maternity leave coach for business owners in the US and has helped hundreds of women navigate the challenges of welcoming a baby if they work for themselves, which that's so many of us.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm really excited to get into this today.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna talk about um the entrepreneur's guide to guilt-free maternity leave, and we're excited to get into it.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome, Allie.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Jaden, thank you so much for having me.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm super excited.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, me too.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, before we started this call, you and I were talking about how so many entrepreneurs, especially women, like we start these businesses and we think, okay, we want to start a family, we're trying to get pregnant.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: How do I plan for maternity leave?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing that you mentioned was we want to like kind of copy and paste the structure that we've seen in the corporate world.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk a little bit about that, why that doesn't work and kind of just, yeah, get us on the right track?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is um honestly one of my favorite things to talk about because I think maternity leave as a self-employed person is a very under-discussed topic.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think the assumption when we go out on our own or we start our own thing is that we've created all this flexibility and freedom in our life.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I've been in the game eight years and I have rarely seen a business owner that has a successful business that is truly removed from every single thing inside of the company.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many things as your business grows and evolves that actually require a lot of your time, your space, your energy, and all the things.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think if any business owner is listening, you're probably like, oh, thank God, Allie, you've addressed this.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: I don't feel free.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't feel like I could go out for 12 weeks and actually take a maternity leave.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: And that is so common.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: So when we get pregnant or when we start to try to have a family, what ends up happening is we copy and paste.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: We look at our friends and our moms and our sisters and all the people who are taking maternity leaves from traditional corporate roles.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And we're like, cool, you get 12 weeks paid maternity leave.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: And you start to look at your books and look at your calendar, and you're like, well, dang, I can't take 12 weeks off from my business and come back to anything at all, right?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: All my clients are gonna leave, or my teen's not gonna know what to do, or I don't have enough cash, or all the things, right, that start swirling around in our brain.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that is issue number one is we can't just copy and paste what employees are doing for maternity leave.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I invite you to just consider that we can do something that is actually more supportive because pressing pause for 12 weeks and then just coming back to chaos in an inbox full of stuff actually doesn't support anyone.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, listen to a lot of employees who talk about maternity leave.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: There's a ton of issues there too.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we as self-employed women should have a better way.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_01: We should be in a position where we can determine what maternity leave looks like for us, whether that looks like working a little bit, dare I say.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: So removing the guilt from checking in on the business, checking in on things inside of the company or with your team, um, and really just creating this new framework for how we approach taking this time away from our business.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_01: And as you said, Jaden, earlier, I mean, I've written books about sabbatical, I've written um lots of articles about operations and how separating from your business can be good for the company.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: And I actually believe that maternity leave can be such an incredible opportunity for business owners to create some more structure inside of their business so that when they become a mom and week 13, 14, 15 comes, right?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: You're still gonna have an infant at home.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: So creating a business that can actually function in a way that supports the type of mom you want to be and not actually just compete for your time with your young child.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's I love the way you said that because I saw TikTok a couple weeks ago and it was like this mom who was like, I'm so frustrated.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I walked into my baby, like that her baby's like six months old room, and there's laundry everywhere, and she's like, and I'm feeling so frustrated.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then I look at my daughter and I think, you're not the problem.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is the laundry, it's the workload, it's all this other shit I have to do.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: But like when you're trying to balance the both of those, that frustration, you know, you can look at your baby, your infant that needs you and be like, but you need me too.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it just like adds to that overwhelm.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So being able to, I think, have those systems in place, like you're saying, that give you the freedom to be a present mother and not get to those points where like you don't feel like you can handle it.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I always say that we don't want our business to be a source of stress on maternity leave, right?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like we want to remove the other stressors because listen, becoming a parent is stressful.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's gonna be things vying for your time, you're not gonna be sleeping.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_01: There are so many beautiful things around becoming a parent.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: I wish someone told me more positive things.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think Jaden, that's how you and I originally connected because we were like, yeah, let's cheer about becoming a mom because it's awesome.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: But generally speaking, um, you don't want your business to be a source of stress so that you can just be there.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can bring your full self to the season of challenge that is becoming a parent and all the identity shifts that happen.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I do just want to say that, like, when I have two sons 17 months apart, and both times I had a child, a new version of me also was birthed.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: I really do believe that.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that when we go through such monumental changes in our personal life, we cannot expect that our business is gonna stay exactly the same because our business might have been our first baby, or our business is something that we really passionately care about, changing, you know, things in the world or changing lives of our clients.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: So, generally speaking, I think that because it's so tied to you, we can't go through this experience.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: It's physically impossible to go through it without considering that your business may need to shift, also.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I've had so many, I like we want to have a family eventually.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I've already started looking at my business like, well, how I'm doing it right now is fine because it's just me and I can like do, I can work whenever, and like it's just really flexible because like it's literally just me.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I've looked at it and been like, oh my, like if I had to care for another person during this, like I'd probably lose it because I wouldn't have the flexibility needed.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, I still have 10 hours of work to do every day, plus take care of a child, like that's not gonna work out very well for me.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and it's made me, it's made me like consider, you know, what does my business look like as I like how how what does my business look like as I become a mother?
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: How is it gonna shift?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Do I still want to do social media management?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Do I still want my business to be this way?
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe is there room for new a new business to be born or shifts that way as well?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like I think it's just, I don't know.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: I I would love your take on this, but like opening yourself up to what the possibilities could be.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like it could be so much better than you even imagine.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be a bad thing.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, wholeheartedly.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And I think um, you know, a lot of women that I've worked with in the past, we've planned hundreds of maternity leaves with self-employed women.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: And the biggest misconception is that growth needs to stall during maternity leave.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: You could make a strategic decision to pause clients and, you know, really take out an extended break.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_01: But I have found that over the last three years of planning maternity leave and eight years of planning strategic absences from the business, our best ideas come when we're not in the thick of the business.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Our best breakthroughs, our best new um directions, anything.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's again impossible to consider that we change so much and that we don't get offered a new perspective on how we're doing things during maternity leave.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: I am here saying that master maternity leave, my company, was birthed when my son Jack was born.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Truly.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: And it's amazing because like I almost feel like he and I got to create that together in this like really interesting way.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's incredible.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I love that so much.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: Like it gave me chills because I'm just like, yeah.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And like I feel like there are also business owners that I've have followed their journeys, and like um they they maybe had a business, and then whatever, they had some kids.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: There was maybe a pause in even entrepreneurship if that was their choice or whatever.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: And then they have a kid or a few kids, and then like their new business that is actually like so much bigger and like more magical and abundant comes from it.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I love looking at those examples because, like I said at the beginning, it just it can you also can hear the other side of that where people are like, My life is so hard, it got worse, my business like tanked, whatever.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I I feel like just choosing to look at the examples of people who like either got more successful or had a really enjoyable time off, whether that was tied to money or not, like that's where I want to look when I'm looking for examples.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you want to see the positive outcomes and you want to see the folks who, and this is the thing I think that is true about most entrepreneurial women who are taking maternity leave, is sometimes, and I was here, my first maternity leave, I thought I'd chosen the wrong profession.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, could I actually be a mother and a business owner at the same time?
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: I physically don't have enough.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have enough time in the day.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: There's too much on my shoulders.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_01: I remember literally feeling like I chose the wrong career.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: And when I got pregnant with my second son, I was like, no, there's gotta be a better way.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: There's got to be something that I can do to create the type of space and the type of business that I really want that supports what I'm doing.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that moms listening or expecting moms listening or trying to conceive moms listening who are thinking, like, I can't do this.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is just too much for me.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: There's too much on my plate.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have anybody on my team to even hand stuff over to.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna lose all my clients.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_01: You've created something out of nothing.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Starting a business means that you've identified a need or a gap for your community or in the marketplace, whatever that looks like.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so you've done it before.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: You've created something out of nothing.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_01: And so we can do that as self-employed women taking maternity leave.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: We can create something that is better than we could have even imagined in a traditional nine to five.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Just because we don't get maternity leave, we have the opportunity to create the one that's actually right for our business and our family.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: I love the perspective shift of like just because you don't get it doesn't mean you can't create it.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: I love that so much.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, okay, getting a little bit into like some more like nitty-gritty questions.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, when it comes to maternity leave, what are the biggest like guilt triggers or problems that entrepreneurs face when they're actually trying to execute?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: This is an excellent question.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll address two really important ones.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: The first is the all or nothing mindset.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: I need to take 12 weeks or I can't take a maternity leave.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: We need to just kind of squash that one down because I have rarely met a business owner, like I said earlier, who can actually meet maternity leave and just take 12 weeks, radio silence, go out like you would in a traditional nine to five.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: So all or nothing can kind of be pushed to the wayside.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: I think generally speaking, all or nothing in most things, you can kind of take that advice.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: But when it comes to maternity leave, I know so many women, both in our programs and my one-to-one work, where we really craft a maternity leave kind of experience where they really power down and they check in strategically.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And we can kind of be in a position where we work a bit on maternity leave or a bit during strategic times during maternity leave.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And we really define that kind of ramp down and ramp back up period into the business.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: So I think generally speaking, again, we're changing the whole conversation around how this happens and we want to remove that all or nothing mentality.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: It is totally okay if you want to come back a few hours a week and you have the home support with baby to do that.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: I remember when I was planning to have my first son thinking that because I didn't have this long Parisian maternity leave available, that that meant I was a bad mother.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: That is so untrue.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's fundamentally untrue.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I think had I removed some of the guilt early on from working in the business, um, I think my postpartum experience, particularly the anxiety that I was experiencing, would have been a lot smoother and a lot more supportive to me emotionally.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so all or nothing out the window is the first thing.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um second is for sure, um, making sure that you are in a position where you understand the logistics.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: So most of what we do at Master Maternity Leave is helping folks understand budget, team, and timeline.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the biggest three things that go into planning a successful maternity leave when you're self-employed.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because generally speaking, what you don't want to do is you don't want to say, I want to take 12 weeks, and then not look at the numbers to understand if you have enough money to take 12 weeks and then feel like you get halfway through your maternity leave and then you have to come back unwillingly into the business.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: That's a hard place to be in.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was in a position where I didn't have enough cash reserve to take the maternity leave.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted on the first round.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: And I was still very, very much involved in my business when I had my first son.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so if I had looked at that and planned for it a little bit more ahead of time, I would have said, great, I can take two full weeks off.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then here's what I need to do after that instead.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: I got pulled back in on Monday after having my kid on a Thursday, and I felt really, really guilty about that.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Very, very guilty.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_01: So we want to talk budget, team, timeline, right?
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: Who is in the business right now?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Who could we get to support us in the meantime?
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're solo in the business, you really want to start to think about at-home care team instead of people who are actually in the business, um, talking with your partner, talking with, you know, family that you have in the area, however that looks.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but those will remove a lot of the guilt, right?
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: Not feeling like if I check my email, I'm a bad mom, or not ignoring some of the planning things and then being in the thick of leave and being like, oh gosh, I have to choose.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_01: I have to choose my business or my baby.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what we don't want to do.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to have situations where um, you know, choices come up, business or baby, right?
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: We want to always feel intentional about that.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I think one thing that I've found a lot of value in what you're saying is like not everyone's maternity leave needs to look the same.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like for some people, like honestly, I feel like even for me, like I enjoy working and like I enjoy being in my business.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: So spending some time there might actually make me feel better about what about the big changes that have happened in my life.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: If I have like the spaciousness to really show up for them and like not make that choice between baby and business, it's like, no, I did this on purpose and I have childcare, or it's strategically planned in whatever way, so that I actually can come back how I want to.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: Such a good shift.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's guilt free time, right?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: Or guilt let like less guilty time because I think when we are in the thick of it and then we do want to work in our business, that desire to want to work, which I also had on both of my leaves, and I can relate to that so much, but I still had that creep in of guilt being like, why don't I want to just be on the couch with my baby?
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't I want to just sit and stare at the baby all the time?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe that when we're so deeply connected to a passionate purpose inside of our business, that is also something that fuels us and makes us a better parent to our children when we are presently with them.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I would so much rather go and hammer out an hour worth of work so that I can come back and be with my child fully without thinking about the endless list of stuff that I have to do.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so just having that permission, a lot of women who are in our master maternity leave community, they're just like, oh wow, okay.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: I never felt like I could share how I was feeling or I never could quite put words to the fact that in my first maternity leave, I didn't really want to work, but I did, right?
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to work, but I made myself feel bad about it.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think even just having these types of conversations, having a place where other women are also planning, I believe has been super supportive, even for my, you know, mental health around business and baby and working and not working during strategic times.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_01: And um, yeah, I think it's super supportive.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the community part of it is so big because you just can't see inside people's businesses.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes it looks like people are doing it all like from the outside.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And but in reality, like they have full-time childcare, or in reality, like their partner is home all day or whatever.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like you don't, you don't actually know, and you don't get to see the full picture.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I feel like the more women are like willing to share their experiences and share what they did and how they planned for it in a way that like filled their cup and their family and their baby, and like they fulfilled all the needs, is so valuable because it just shows us like you can do it in a good way that feels good.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think being available to announce what you don't know or gaps that you feel like you could use some support with, that is a skill that is bolstered through motherhood.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: I know so many women who are getting better at it, so many women who are challenged by it.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: And just being able to open up and say, hey, I want this.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: This is the thing I want.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: And everything that surrounds it is sort of figure out, to use Marie Forleo's term.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: We can figure out childcare, we can figure out part-time work for your spouse or whatever that looks like for you.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: And it's challenging, of course.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: But the other thing I'll remind moms who are listening or expecting moms that are listening is all of this is seasonal.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_01: So for us, when our kids were young, as an example, we had a part-time nanny and a house manager in our home.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: And our nanny was with us for 12 hours.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then every day for an hour, she would do things like fold our laundry, schedule activities for the kids, put away orders that were dropped off from Target, like those types of things.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_01: So that when I came down to be with our sons, I was not needing to do some of those things.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: And our house was more cumbersome to manage, I will say, at the time.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_01: And both of our kids were younger.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_01: So when we moved uh last year to Colorado, we have a rental house while we're looking to move to our next place.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: Fingers crossed, everybody listening, that we moved this year, by the way.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but all that to say, we rinsed and repeated the old systems from our old house.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as we landed here in Colorado, we were like, let's staff a nanny 12 hours a week.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Let's see if she can do um home management stuff.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_01: But we're in like a 1300 square foot rental.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I told my husband Steve, I was like, this doesn't actually make any sense.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I just entered into a season where I was really wanting to be primary caregiver for our sons.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: And our nanny came over three, four times when we had hired her back in October of last year.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I was kind of like, hey, Steve, you're gonna hate me, but I don't think I want to do this anymore.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: And so the reason I share that with you, it was a challenging uh realization to come to is that even if you find a care team, even if you are doing things on your own, it's always temporary.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_01: You can always shift up your care team.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: You can always shift up your schedule, you can always change.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think a lot of moms, especially when they start in early motherhood, they're like, oh, we have a nanny, or oh, we send our kiddo to childcare.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_01: And generally speaking, my older son Frank went to daycare when he was young so that I could work inside of the business when I first went back.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: And um, we decided that that just wasn't a fit for us.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, hey, this is way too stressful, him coming back sick or me worrying about his care, not having him home in the house.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was like increasing my anxiety.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just like, you know what?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Screw it.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: Not worth it.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: We're just gonna come back.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I think too, one of the things I always encourage to my moms is like, you just sort of don't know what you don't know until you know it.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: And being able to have the systems in your business and your business structured in a way where you can.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sort of move stuff around is the best thing, in especially when like the kids are at home under the age of five.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because my oldest son is going to turn five uh next week, which is super exciting.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: And generally speaking, our calendar has changed a ton of times in this last five years.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: My business has taken multiple iterations, and I've still been doing the same thing just in different applications, especially after launching master maternity leave.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope that that's encouraging too, that you can always ask for what you need.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: You can always find additional support, and you can always change if it's not working in that season.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: I, wow, that's so big because it does.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think even without kids, like even just in my business, sometimes entrepreneurs in general, like it can feel like, oh, I'm stuck, or like I'm I have too much to do, not enough time to like put this passive offer out because I'm doing all these like one-on-one, blah, blah, blah.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like it just can feel like that.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: But the truth is, is that like you created your business and like you're the creator of it today and tomorrow and the next day, and you do like you can make those changes when things aren't working.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're the one you you're in charge of that, and you get to do it.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's so cool.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: I like it.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: It can be overwhelming, I'll acknowledge too.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of times when we think about what we want to do in our life and business because I'm not location dependent, because my husband doesn't work.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: There have been so many times where I'm like, we could go anywhere.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's that is crazy.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_01: It's very overwhelming.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so the same thing is true.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I do I do want to acknowledge that it does bring its own hard.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I prefer to be able to be the shot caller, if you will, right?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: Just to be able to actually make the decision on where we want to go.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's true too, like getting back into the maternity leave, like corporate versus self-employed.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'd rather be in a position where no HR department decides what kind of maternity leave is supportive for me and my family.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_01: I want to decide.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what if I do want to work a couple days?
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can't.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have to take this benefits.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, like that's crazy.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: No, I agree with you.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: I love creating my own reality.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I had another question on here that was a little bit more like logistical about entrepreneurs that are worried about like letting their clients down by taking time off, or maybe like their business is built on like a one-to-one, or like their clients are used to working with them, and then now maybe they need to hire somebody, or like those are more like bigger shifts.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like how do you help people navigate that?
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: That is an excellent question.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_01: My business was primarily one-to-one when I had both my sons, and people were hiring me for my operation strategy brain.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I was fractional COO at the time for my first kiddo when he was born.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: And um, my business was totally reliant on one-to-one work.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have any passive offers.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have any coaching even at the time.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the thing I'll say is one of two things are typically true.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, and I did this on the heels of having my first son, is you can get some kind of strategic brain, if that's sort of how you operate, into the business in lieu of you that you can kind of coach behind the scenes.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, fun fact when I was uh, what was it?
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_01: Probably three months into having our first son, I hired, like as a 1099, a gal named Allison.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: She has the same exact name as me.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_01: And she had all of my strategic conversations with all of my clients.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just basically had her contract under the business.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: She had an operations agency email address, and she would go in and she'd be like, hey, listen, Ali said X, and here's what we're gonna do here.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so she was kind of the driving force behind the projects.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: But she and I could have a private Zoom meeting when I was nursing so that I could tell her exactly what to do and she could still download stuff out of my brain.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: So that's option number one is to get a person into your life who could be a strategic uh either partner or could support some of the things that you're doing.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: That could be a 1099 contractor, that could be some, especially if they have their own business.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that could be uh a hire that you make into the business.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_01: So that'll be, you know, of course, a growth decision for you.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing that I always talk about.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: So the second option, and they're both, you know, you know, they're not mutually exclusive, they could both be used together, is to create a really intentional client journey and to be very, very sure that you're communicating with your customers and your clients.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, listen, I'm gonna go out for three months, but we're gonna do this front loaded strategy.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: And here, I'm gonna give you on a silver platter all the stuff that you need to do over these next three months.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, are you going offline, but also you're sort of front loading all of that work for your clients.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I work with high performance coaches, CPAs, stuff like that, like people who are doing strategic work a lot.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: I also work with people who are hairdressers, nail technicians, lash artists.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it is wild sometimes when you think about a lash artist who builds her entire book of business over a five-year period and then she has a kiddo and everybody leaves because they need to go and get their services done.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: And it's tough.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: So when you look at something like that, there's two ways, right?
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can, I helped my hairdresser through maternity leave, by the way, and this is exactly what we did.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: We took a look at her entire book of business.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_01: So people who've booked with her ever, right?
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: If they're in the area, they're getting a text, they're gonna get booked on the calendar.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so we created some, you know, urgency, which I think you can use maternity leave as an actual urgent factor.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I coach with Natalie Ellis from Boss Babe.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: She's expecting a kiddo here in the next couple of weeks.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: And she did this often.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_01: She was like, hey guys, this is the last time that you can work with me this year, one-to-one.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, what a brilliant idea.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: Use it as a forcing function.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: So we did that with a lot of our clients who have one-to-one services.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: We're like, hey, listen, we're going out on maternity leave, and here's the deal: you can book with me until this period, and then I'm gonna take deposits for March when I come back.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna take deposits and get you on the books.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that, even in and of itself, is going to keep your customers not only with you, but also you can make them feel top of mind in the meantime.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_01: So even writing a couple of emails to them or sending them a few texts throughout the process actually makes them more likely to stay.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: One of the things that we do in all of our programs is create a client continuity plan.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I think generally speaking, it's probably one of the most anxiety-decreasing things that we do at Master Maternity Leave because everybody wonders how am I gonna tell clients?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: When should I tell clients?
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: What should I be telling them?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: You know, all of those different things.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I think what we want to remember when we're planning maternity leave as a self-employed individual is we need to do the thinking for our clients.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Because if we don't do the thinking for them and tell them exactly what's next and exactly how we plan to support them in the future, they're gonna get shiny object or their brain's gonna start trailing and they're gonna go find somebody else.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's so true.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: I love, yeah.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: I it's it's interesting to think about like hairstylist nail techs, like you're talking about, because because, like you said, if they're they come and get their lashes done every month, like there's gonna be a month or two months or maybe three months that like you're not available to them, and they're gonna go to someone else, and then like you just lost your whole book of business, like in that period, unless unless you have like a strategic plan.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's so interesting because I'm obviously not a lash tech, but I if I was, I would be like, holy shit, what am I gonna do?
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_01: You can imagine how difficult some of those decisions are.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I think generally speaking, that is another point for the first category I discussed is getting a strategic partner in place.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_01: So whether you bring them in to operate under your name, or you say, hey, listen, Allie's gonna do your lashes for two months while I'm on maternity leave.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: And then we come back, you guys can rev share or split that deal, and you can have, you know, support inside of your industry.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think generally speaking, I will say emotionally, most clients that I've supported, um, you know, announcements about maternity leave or announcements of client continuity plans have been overwhelmingly excited for the moms I've worked with.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_01: So they really do want to support women.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think we sometimes forget that our clients are also human beings who've also probably had kids.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so just describing to them what the situation is, how carefully you've thought through things, we can probably expect that these human beings are gonna come back and be like, oh wow, you've crushed it for me for this amount of years or this amount of months.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I'm of course gonna support you.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: So massive goodwill there.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_01: And that the majority of folks in our industry who are doing what we are doing, they're not trying to poach our clients, right?
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like they're they really do.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: I think if all of us got complete market saturation and all of our stuff, like we would not be able to support everybody who wanted to work with us.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think creating some openness to sharing clients or sharing strategies or being like, hey, could you come and support me for a short time?
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: I can pay you X.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think that that means somebody's gonna come in and steal all of your clients.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you know what?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: If they do, that's more about them than it is about you.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: Like you did the thing that you were supposed to do and you made the strategy.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: Sign a contract.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: That took it.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Contract is a logistics of play.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and I don't think you're gonna sell my clients, but you still have to sign this paper.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I also think so.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_00: One of my friend social media managers, before she became a social media manager, she was working for a dentist's office as their like marketing manager.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: And one month before she gave birth, they laid her off.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've had these conversations multiple times.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_00: And um just talking like that has instilled a fear in her that, like, even though now she has her own business, which that obviously triggered her to start her own business and now she's here, we've had conversations about like how it makes her nervous in the future to like tell clients because it feels like they're they could lay you off or fire you or whatever.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I love what you're saying about like most people want to support you, and I think on that same note, people who are afraid that you having a baby or going on maternity leave is gonna ruin everything, they're probably not a good client for you to have, anyways, and you don't want to work with them.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: So good thing they're leaving now instead of you know dealing with them for more time.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like you just don't want that in your business, anyways.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I think that's it's a great opportunity to clean house.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_01: It's a great opportunity.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: One of the um cohorts that I'm running right now, we had this conversation on Tuesday about raising your prices or changing your offerings.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: And this maternity leave is such an incredible forcing function to be like, hey, listen, I'm going out on leave.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_01: Here's how this is gonna work.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: And when we come back, here's what we're gonna be doing.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: Here's the new process I've created for you.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that means your fees are gonna be X or whatever.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_01: I actually think I know that this feels directly contrary to a lot of the emotional feelings around announcing to clients and having them leave.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think not only will they stay, but as you professionalize your operations, your systems, your approach to things, they will find more value in your services and be willing to pay you more, without a doubt.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: So true.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: So true.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because you're just refining that client experience as you go, like incredible.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um okay, let's see.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love this question.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, how do you help women redefine what success looks like during this season?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: How do they know, like, am I doing enough?
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Am I doing too much?
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do you help them?
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, because it's really an internal thing.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, nobody can tell you if you're doing enough, but how do you help them figure out what enough is for them?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: So this is a very loaded question.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I will say it's probably part of the human motherhood business owner condition to always be defining and redefining what enough is for you in the season.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: And so I often just like to take sort of the blanket approach of determining what season you are currently in, and you can kind of use the standard for seasons of nature.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, are you?
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: I believe in maternity leave most likely in a winter stage.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so, winter to me means that you're pulling back from a lot of things, you're resting, you're rebuilding, right?
• 34:27
  SPEAKER_01: And I think generally it can be that it's summer outside, but you are in a winter state in your life.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_01: And also that that doesn't need to follow kind of the standard three, four-ish month process.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like you could be in winter for a year.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: I spoke with a mom who was planning her maternity leave earlier today, and she told me that she hit an intense breaking point and hit burnout in her business last year.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: And she said that she's spent the majority of this year wintering, like really honestly rebuilding from that, focusing on her team, focusing on herself.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's really important to understand what kind of season you are in.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so whether that's quarterly, whether that's weekly or monthly, really just taking a look.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: You can trust that your body knows before your brain knows, honestly.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_01: And with when if you take time to sort of sit with yourself and be introspective about what you're feeling, what your desires are, my thought process is that you should be within two seasons of determining where you are.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: So, like I'm between summer and fall right now, 100%.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: It just so happens that it happens to be between summer and fall in real life.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: But generally speaking, that was sort of my situation.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_01: Summer to me means like highest energy, highest output, maybe not the most fruit, but like really honestly focused through spring and summer on like working land and planting seeds and relationships and external stuff, right?
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then fall moves into harvest and more internal and introspection, more reflection, right?
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: So those types of things are true for I think a lot of business owners.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so to me, I ask, what season are you in?
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: If you're in a winter season, you shouldn't have a call full of calendars or a calendar full of calls, excuse me.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you shouldn't have a calendar full of calls.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: You should be in a position where you are doing lots of things like journaling, doing lots of things like stretching and meditation and like really turning inward.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I also encourage my moms when we're moving into this new season to build in those checkpoints.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, like I said, quarterly at the very least, I often will do a weekly check-in with myself.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: So every Friday afternoon, I'm like, what happened this week?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: How did I feel?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: And what do I need to do at the, you know, beginning of next week, or what's the priority for next week?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: It's super, super helpful to kind of just stay in that reflective state.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_01: But I will tell you, Jaden, one of the biggest things I did when I had my second son was instead of planning only one week in advance, I have been planning based on a 30-day or a 28-day cycle.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think for every single woman who is running a business, planning with your cycle is one of the most incredible things that you can do for yourself because I remember I'm so type A.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: And especially before kids, I was like, I'll just run through the wall if there isn't a door.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Like it's totally fine.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_01: I'll just force it right on through.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember being really exhausted a lot, but I didn't have a lot of other things in life that I needed to direct my attention to.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so planning with my cycle was so incredible because I would actually move into my natural energy levels.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: Like when I'm in the third week of my cycle or fourth week of my cycle, I'm in a position where I take a look at spreadsheets, I sit and look at the numbers, I don't have to do my hair, I brew some tea or coffee.
• 37:58
  SPEAKER_01: Like that's sort of what my level is of energy.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I think adjusting that timeline too, not everybody who reaches out to you needs something same week.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: It just is what it is.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_01: And I think unless you're doing work for that person and they've hired you one-on-one, you can put, of course, parameters in place to get things to people faster.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_01: But if somebody reaches out and they're like, hey, I want to do this thing or whatever, you can say, Hey, listen, I'm taking it in and I do this on this date or in this time frame, I'm gonna get back to you.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I always find us as moms, like when we do our to-do list, it's either like daily or weekly, we rarely give ourselves a month to get something done.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's good for two reasons.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_01: One is giving ourselves space and grace, which is what we're talking about here, right?
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_01: Defining whether you're doing too much or too little.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: And the second thing is imagine instead of like, for example, banging out a marketing funnel in a day or a week or whatever, but you had 30 days to do it, how much better and higher quality that thing would be once you put it out into the world.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think generally, I know that type A people like myself, I mean, I struggle with patience every single day.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um I have to try to ratchet it back and not, you know, go to okay, let's just block a day and get all this stuff done or let's just get everything done this week so that we can relax on the weekend or whatever.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_01: Just being okay with some of those open loops.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_01: And um, that is something that I think has contributed a lot to my definition of enough.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because if I start to think about all the things I could be doing and like overloading myself, I have a propensity to just really overload myself and my calendar.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um so broadening the horizon has been helpful.
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_00: I agree so much.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_00: I've even experienced that, like just in my business recently, where I'm like, you know what?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't get it done.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's fine.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can do it another day or whatever.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: And because same, like I'm I'm just very like, we have to do it right now.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Is there an open task?
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be closed.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: Like exactly if the box isn't checked, like we're gonna have a problem.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but like the more I've actually given myself flexibility because those deadlines are me.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I gave myself that deadline.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody else cares what I'm doing.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's just me.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I've just noticed like a lot more softness and like flexibility and just like freedom in every day because I'm like, I know for sure I'm going to get that done.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't need to happen right this second.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: And like you said, it's gonna be better if you don't rush it, like really take your time with it.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, my next question for you is where and when should you start planning for a maternity leave?
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: I would say as soon as possible.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's the same answer I would give if someone asked when's the best time to plant a tree, right?
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's today or a long time ago.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think generally speaking, a lot of moms that I work with, um, A, they don't know how to approach.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: So having some kind of idea of what you're looking for, what you want, what you can afford, those are going to be really important things to just figure out.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: I work with a lot of moms who are trying to conceive.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I will say that logistically speaking, a lot of trying to conceive moms are more eligible for any of the state programs that are in the United States.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_01: They're also more eligible to sign up for insurance privately for short-term disability, all those types of things.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because unfortunately, a lot of insurance companies take pregnancy as a pre-existing condition.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: So if you are currently I know, ridiculous.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um but generally speaking, even in, and I mean I coach in Canada from time to time, but even in Canada, their paid family leave program for self-employed women, you have to opt in 12 months in advance.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's like they don't even want people to actually take advantage of this.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: And not only that, when you do opt in in Canada, you have to continue paying, even if you don't plan to have any more children.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: So sometimes, even though the state programs and Canada's program feel supportive, a lot of times they really aren't.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's supportive to know that these things exist.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's supportive to know if you want to take advantage of them.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's also going to be best case scenario if you have a plan and you have a savings and you are in a position where you're planning for yourself.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if you want to get support from, you know, a company like ours, I always encourage moms who are planning to come and join our communities.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: But generally speaking, it's probably sooner rather than later.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because what you don't want to do is you don't want to be in a situation where, like I did in my first maternity leave, I sort of ignored the numbers.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh, I'll just figure it out.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_01: Like I figured out everything.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_01: And that was sort of my ego coming in, my type A.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: My also, I didn't have experience.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_01: I was never a mom before.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_01: So I wasn't sure what I was doing.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_01: And generally speaking, I do wish, especially because we tried for two and a half years to have our first son.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_01: I wish I'd spent that two and a half years putting some cash aside and doing some of the things that we talk about in master maternity leave.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: So smart.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: I also kind of to piggyback off that question, I feel like do you ever see women struggle once they get pregnant?
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's not like you just are pregnant and everything's perfect until you have a kid.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what if you're tired?
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_00: What if you don't feel well?
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, all those things.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was so sick with both of my boys.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like rinse and repeat with pregnancies, they were exactly the same.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_01: I just carried a little bit bigger with my second because it was so quickly after that we'd gotten pregnant.
• 43:46
  SPEAKER_01: But I was down and out from like week six to about week 14.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_01: Couldn't stomach anything but salt bagels with butter.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like it was just so bad.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny, one of one of My clients, um, so she's pregnant now.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she's due in October, and she had a really rough first trimester, also.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a couple of things.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: We have a few resources, some incredible um health practitioners that specifically support with nutrient deficiency for early stage um, you know, nausea and that sort of thing in pregnancy.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_01: I do think that there's also a biological thing.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_01: Had I known about some of these resources early on in my first two pregnancies, I would have definitely utilized.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but generally speaking, yes, we often find that not only throughout your pregnancy do you feel like you want to sort of like pull back from the business, but also after that initial fourth trimester or 12-week postpartum period, because I was actually talking about this yesterday.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_01: What we do is we again rinse and repeat this like corporate model.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_01: And corporate model says you have to take all of your maternity leave at the same time, right?
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_01: You get this much time off and you can just take it all right now.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_01: I believe that generally speaking, we can pepper in our maternity leave throughout the entire first year and even during pregnancy when we want to do that.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_01: So, like for me, when I was pregnant with our son Jack, I knew I was gonna get sick.
• 45:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started making a plan to actually be off for like August and September in my first trimester.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I just spent the that time with my younger son.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: We were like watching movies and snuggling, and he just loves that.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I was feeling kind of sick.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I was like, oh, I don't really feel like doing anything else besides watching movies and snuggling.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, all that to say, I think this is a great question because yes, some folks have really challenging pregnancies and they do sort of need to move out before the due date comes.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes moms do want to jump back into work where it makes sense for the business to jump back into work after four weeks, six weeks off.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_01: And then they take an additional four to six weeks when baby's like six months and starting to wean or something like that, right?
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_01: So you can sort of be flexible, which is again another vote for the fluidity of self-employed maternity leave that you get to make these decisions for yourself.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_01: The other thing I'll say is that I work with a mom one-to-one who does she just had her baby a couple of weeks ago and she does a big uh Black Friday launch.
• 46:09
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, oh, okay, well, I'm gonna take some time off, but I'm gonna come back for this Black Friday situation and then I'm gonna take some more time off after Black Friday.
• 46:17
  SPEAKER_01: So you can also ebb and flow with your business's natural rhythms.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_01: If you're like, actually, this is a huge revenue driver for me.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna get some support from my mom or my sister or my cousin to come in and support the baby so that I can be present for the team and leading this Black Friday charge.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: That's also totally fine.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_01: So again, no one size fits all jargon from me here, no like prescription.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very, very for designing maternity leave around the business's needs, around the mom's needs, around the family's um aspirations, all those things.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I just love the perspective that you've offered that maternity leave is like a business strategy.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, it's not something that you are just planning for, like, I'm planning for maternity leave, I'm planning for four weeks off.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's not what it is.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's like a plan to be able to shift and evolve your business as needed because you aren't gonna know everything.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: You can't tell the future, you can't tell right now that you're not gonna have postpartum anxiety or something.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like you just don't know.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: But building in the systems and support and savings account and all the different things so that you don't feel like you can't take the time off when you need it.
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 47:31
  SPEAKER_01: Totally.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think after almost a decade in operations, one of the things I've been met with most frequently is I want to be soft and flexible in my business.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_01: So why would I invest in systems and why would I invest in putting red tape into my company?
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I believe that if you invest into the systems in your company, it allows you to be more flexible versus the other way around.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_01: If you have no systems, no safety net, no things that are sort of catching everything inside of the business, then we, as the owner, get pulled back in reluctantly or pulled back in on weekends and nights and times where we want to be with our family and all those things.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think there is a really incredible, like two-circle then diagram of like the left brain, right brain situation.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: And most often I think business owners will um buck back against creating some systems or some consistency in their business.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_01: But I believe that it is something that supports us being able to be fluid, being able to have the fullest expression of our creativity, um, the fullest expression of who we want to show up, uh, you know, as a mom.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it just supports everything.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's we're a little bit woo on this podcast, but it's just reminding me of like the feminine and the masculine, and like oh, totally.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_00: You always hear people just be like, especially women, be like, I just want to be in my feminine, like soft girl era.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to be flowy and whatever.
• 48:52
  SPEAKER_00: But it's like if you don't have the masculine container of the structures and processes and SOPs, like you can't have the feminine.
• 49:03
  SPEAKER_00: You won't get it because you have nothing to keep the order.
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like those aren't like the the masculine or the left brain or whatever we want to call it, like whatever it is, is just holding the form so that you can do whatever you want.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_00: You can be flowy, you can be flexible.
• 49:22
  unknown: That's right.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because the moon can't take its phases without the presence of the sun.
• 49:26
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I'm saying?
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, like generally speaking, they do work together really, really well, but we have to sort of define those containers.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the biggest challenge is trying to always be soft in the business.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because then if things aren't working out the way that you want them to, or you're feeling stuck, there's almost like nothing you can look at from a tangible perspective to point to and be like, oh, that's what's actually making me feel stuck.
• 49:52
  SPEAKER_01: Let me change that.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: And so we can't actually tap into, I mean, the numbers in our business, the systems that might be broken, the people that might be either underperforming or need another position inside of the business, right?
• 50:05
  SPEAKER_01: So those are the types of decisions that I believe systems can help us make.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_01: And it will make them feel more logical, less emotional.
• 50:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like use your gut.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_01: Your body will know before your brain.
• 50:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I really also like being able to look at the numbers to check my gut.
• 50:22
  SPEAKER_00: A hundred percent.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's have a little fail-safe in there.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_00: And and like uh this is totally a side tangent, but like I think when you want to be feminine, flowy, all those things, like looking at number your spreadsheets, like people are like, ew gross, like I don't want to do that.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_00: But there's like actual magic there and patterns that could make your life and your business like so much easier if you would just like break down that wall a little bit and and actually take a peek, like wholeheartedly.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_00: You think could change it?
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_01: Pulling back the curtain and actually looking and sitting with your numbers is one of the most incredible things.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think, again, like if you don't know the number, I was on a coaching session about budget for maternity leave earlier this week.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the moms straight up said to me, She was like, I had never done this exercise before.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: She's four months pregnant.
• 51:12
  SPEAKER_01: She said, The number isn't as scary as I made it up in my mind.
• 51:17
  SPEAKER_01: And so she had all this emotional baggage.
• 51:19
  SPEAKER_01: She straight up told me on our first coaching session that she couldn't afford maternity leave.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_01: She's like, I can't afford what I want, I already know.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then she did the math, and I was like, Well, where'd you stand?
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_01: And she was like, actually way better than I thought.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Great.
• 51:31
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the power, too, of the numbers.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes is you feel like back to our conversation about enough.
• 51:37
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes you feel like you're not doing enough or your ads aren't performing well, or whatever the heck it is.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then you get into the numbers and you're like, oh, actually, this is doing pretty great.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_01: Or it makes something very known to you that you might have been feeling in your gut for a little while.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like earlier this year, we changed CFOs in my business.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: And for a long time, I had this gut feeling that the previous CFO was not my person.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, I don't know about this.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: I we were together for three years.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_01: I was just like, I think with the new direction of the business, we need to consider a new regime.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'd been putting it off and putting it off.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then I looked at my numbers, and the books told me that this person was not the right person for me.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it was because I jumped in and looked at the numbers, and now I have an incredible CFO who I am absolutely in love with, who is so supportive to me.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so sometimes you do get to feel that gut feeling first, and you can lean into, okay, intuitively, I do feel like this isn't working out, and then you can go check for the proof.
• 52:37
  SPEAKER_00: I ah, so good.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 52:40
  SPEAKER_00: I like take a shot for every time I said I love that in this podcast episode.
• 52:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I just do.
• 52:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's so we're gonna have some hammered listener and they're gonna have a great time and share this with all their friends.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'll put that at the beginning so that they know to get ready to take a shot.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um okay.
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_00: Before we close out, I do just want to ask you um one more question.
• 53:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
• 53:08
  SPEAKER_00: This could be like professionally, it could be just in your life, doesn't matter.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so I would say ask for help sooner.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_01: I am a huge type A, I have a huge capacity to work, a huge capacity to hold um clients' challenges and those types of things.
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think had I known this and acknowledged this younger, I probably would have asked for more support um earlier in my career, earlier in my personal life.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I just feel like every time I release something that I can't do or I don't have the capacity to do, or even when I just wave the white flag and I'm like, I don't know how I'm gonna figure this out, but I might need some support.
• 53:50
  SPEAKER_01: I have just been met with a so much love from community.
• 53:54
  SPEAKER_01: I think all of us underestimate across the board how much people are willing to support us if we ask for it.
• 54:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and B, I have just been introduced to so many incredible brains, and my community has grown just from being able to admit and ask for support when I need it.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I would have done that so much earlier, both in motherhood and also in my professional life.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_01: So uh across the board, just raise your hand, ask for support.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it always ends up, I think, being great.
• 54:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like just because you can hold it all doesn't mean that you should or that you have to.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's definitely something that I battle with all the time.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, but I can.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, that's right, but should you?
• 54:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you want to?
• 54:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's crazy.
• 54:40
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to do all that.
• 54:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I love that so much.
• 54:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for sharing your knowledge with us and coming on the podcast today.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was great.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Jaden.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: I had a blast.
• 54:49
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, we'll see you next time.