Latest / The Kelly Jedele Show / What Nobody Tells Ambitious Women
Transcript
- Kelly: Hello, mama. I'm gonna say something today that might piss some of you off. And I'm okay with that. The idea that women ⁓ have it all, it's a lie. And the sooner we stop trying to live up to it, the sooner we are actually going to be free. If you're here, you're an ambitious mom, you want more. Kelly intro: Hey, I'm Kelly Jedele and this is the Kelly Jedele Show. the lie we've been sold that you have to pick: the career or the kid, the big vision or the bedtime story. ⁓ calling it. That's not the deal. You can have both. I have built businesses for the last 16 years as a single mom. And you can do it without hustling yourself into the ground, but by choosing strategically every single day. Kelly: That's it for this week. If something in this episode hit, do me a favor. Send it to one woman in your life who needs to hear it. That's how this community grows, one honest conversation at a time. Follow the show, leave a review, and come find me on Instagram. I read everything. Remember, strong doesn't mean solo. I'll see you next week. You're tired of feeling like wanting more makes you ungrateful. So today we are going to unpack the lie of having it all and why it's keeping you stuck and what to chase instead. So while building Let Kelly for the last 16 years and raising my daughter, I realized that balance advice I was getting wasn't built for women like you and like myself. It was Kelly intro: This show is for the woman who wants the business, the brand, the freedom, and the family. All of it. So grab your coffee, your kids' juice box, whatever you got in your hand. Let's get into it. Kelly: When I dropped Carli off at kindergarten, I remember the first few days, I was one of the youngest moms. And I noticed a lot of the moms had extra time, and was working full-time. So I wasn't available to help, to volunteer, to bring cupcakes, to do the extra things that the moms were doing. And felt so out of loop. I was so frustrated. So ⁓ Having it all is something that I feel like we have come through with back in the 80s, back when it was 1980s and the Brady Bunch had Alice and everybody was taken care of and mom was doing it all, right? Well, it became a trap. Having it all assumes that you can do every single role at a hundred percent simultaneously. And honestly. And honestly. That math doesn't math. The real cost of us, the women, us blaming ourselves for failing at an impossible standard. Nobody actually designed to be achievable. That math doesn't math. The real cost of us, the women, us blaming ourselves for failing at an impossible standard. Nobody actually designed to be achievable. So we're not failing at balance. We're not. were there trying get things done. ⁓ So it's not that you're having it all. It means it's having what matters to you. And that's what's so important. You can't have it all, but you can have what you want. And what that means is saying no to a lot of things that are out there. There are things that are right for you and for what you want. And then there are lots of things that the world is offering you that you don't want. And so many times as women, we are not having those crucial conversations. We're not having that direct conflict, that direct conversation with someone saying, that doesn't work for me. I'm not okay with that right now. I can do that later. Let me think about that. As moms, we think we can do it all. So we are trying to do it all, and we're left depleted. We're not sleeping, we're not eating, we're not taking our care of ourselves, and that doesn't serve anyone. So if there's something that we want, we have to protect and reserve that time for ourselves. We've got to focus on what we actually want. That's why the vision boards matter. That's why talking to friends that are in your peer group that actually are doing what you want to do matter. Because we have to be on the same page as those people so that we can accomplish what we want. When we're out there trying to accomplish all the goals of everyone else, that's when we get out of balance. So us thinking that we could have it all is not the right mindset. What we need to do is focus on what we want for our lives. And that's every single one of us. Each one of us has a different outline. Each one of us has to work out differently. Each one of us has to eat differently for our body types and our ages. My life at eating and working out at 20 was different from 30, 40, and next year 50. So we actually need to make sure that the seasons of our lives Are really balanced the way we need them for ourselves and for our families and for our businesses. There are times when our businesses are going to lead. We've got some heavy, heavy seasons of business. We've got some really heavy, heavy seasons of motherhood. And then we also have times like my life right now. I've got time for myself because my daughter is out, she just graduated college. She's out of the house. She's got her own life. So I have more time right now for myself and for other things for me. It's not the same at every season of life. And so we have to have that strategy when we're moving through these things. I remember year three of my business when I hired my first manager, Kate, and the growth took off with our company. We we doubled maybe more than that the size of the company in the year that she started. And I was working all day, I would come pick up Carli from school. We would come home, do homework, do bathtime, reading, class if she had it. And then she go to bed and I would continue doing invoices, marketing, networking, all of the things. ⁓ And there was a season when my life was really focused more on my daughter. So during her high school years, that's when COVID hit, But it was also the time when she was putting herself together to exceed for her future. So her life looked so specific for her, which involved me. I wanted to be a part of that. So I put some things on hold for my business. I put some things on hold for me so that we could focus on her and her career. And that's ⁓ it was a lot. We did online school instead of being in public school for her. And so we had lots of things. for her in that season of life. And and for me, now it's me working on my keynote for my conversations and my speaking engagements, reclaiming things for myself. None of these areas of my life were balanced. Nothing was balanced during those times. But like the one thing that the book with Jay Papasan and Gary Keller, I love that book. And they talk about juggling all of the different things, the different balls in life. And you have some balls that are glass and you can't drop those balls. But you have some, like friendships, like for me it was dating. So sometimes sometimes it was my food or or working out. Those balls were rubber. And I could drop them from time to time. I had to go back and pick them up, can't leave them forever. But I definitely took time to have seasons where I didn't have all of those things going on in my life. And that's all intentional in the design of what things were going on for me. So I want to give you mamas, give you the permission. The permission to look at what you have in your life right now and really want more. Want more of what you want. Not what the world wants, what you see on Instagram, what you think the world wants from you. No, I want you to have permission to do what you want. What that little girl inside of you dreamed of when you started this whole business. I want to give you permission to drop the ball on things that don't matter to you. The Pinterest birthday parties, the homemade everything, the perfectly clean house, the absolutely wonderful dinners every night, or whatever those things are that don't matter to you, substitute those things. I'm giving you permission to be a great mom and a driven woman. Without having to cancel out one or the other. I want you to have permission to define your version of having it all instead of taking on your mothers, your grandmothers, your in-laws, the other moms that are around you in school. So it's not about doing it all. It's about choosing what's important to you and really diving into that. The thing that I want you to do for this week, one thing I want you to do for this week. Is actually write down your version of what having it all looks like. Not your mom's version, not your neighbors, your sisters, your grandma. No, I want your version. Write that down. Look at your calendar this week and ask yourself: Does my calendar reflect This version of my life that I actually want? Do I have things on my calendar that will move me forward in the direction of these goals and dreams in the next week? They could be small, they could be tiny, they could be things that you you think of during the week, people you talk to, Instagram posts that you follow, people you follow. It could be having conversations, it could be looking up websites. When does the school start? When do how much does this cost? What you know, those different, all the different things that your goals and in involve. And if not, if you don't have the time for that, we need to find that time. Because this life, it happens in a blink. You're 20, your 30, your 40, your 50, or 60, quick, quick, quick. It moves. So you are not broken if you don't have it all. If you think that your life isn't balanced and you're missing out on the bigger things, the you know, the finer things that your friends have. Just know that you're a woman with a finite number of hours and an infinite amount of love and ambition. So the work is choosing where to spend that. And doing it on purpose. So I want you to share this episode with one ambitious mom friend who needs to hear this. Tell them to DM you on Instagram what their version of having it all is so you guys can compare and encourage each other and practice saying what you want. The more you say it, The more you think about the details to the right people, be very careful who you talk to about your goals and dreams. But the more you say it, the more it becomes a part of who you are and inside of your fibers of your being. And then automatically you just wiggle your life into the areas of getting there. It will seem like magic once you're there. But it really is making those decisions along the way. Next week, I'll get specific about who this podcast is for and who it's not. And if you've ever felt like you don't fit the mom mold, you're going to want to hear it. So thank you for watching this, for being a part of this podcast, and we look forward to many, many more to come. Have a fantastic week.