Latest / The Kelly Jedele Show / Mom and CEO: 5 Truths for Single Moms Building a Business
Transcript
- Kelly Jedele: my girl followed her dreams because I followed mine. So will you be the one to show your kids what it's like to follow your dreams? Kelly: Welcome to the Kelly Jedele Show. I'm Kelly. 17 years of building businesses and zero interest in hustling myself into the ground. If you want the business and the life, you're home. Let's get into it. Kelly Jedele: Welcome back to the Kelly Yadely Show, where it's all about motherhood, mindset, and no limits. Okay, so today is going to be personal, real personal. For the last 17 years, I have built Let Kelly, my cleaning company. And for a big chunk of that time, I was doing it as a single mom. No partner, no backup plan, just me, my daughter, a whole lot of coffee. And a and a business that I refuse to let fail. So people ask me, how did you do it all? How do you do it all? And the the answer is I didn't, not very gracefully. So there were tears, there were bills that I didn't know how to pay, there were systems I didn't know how to create. And I always wondered if I was ruining my daughter's childhood just for my dream. So here's the plot twist though. Being a single mom didn't hold my business back. It made me dangerous. And building the business, it made me a better mom. So if you're a single mom running a business or dreaming about starting one, pull up a chair. I've got five things I want you to hear today, and I'm not going to sugarcoat a single one of them. Let's go. So one of the things about being a single mom and a business owner is they y the mom guilt. Like mom guilt doesn't escape us whether we're a business owner or whether we are You know, a W-2 or a stay-at-home mom. And I've had this conversation with women over the years, and it's just one of those things that you you feel that guilt and you have to keep going. There's not a time in your life when you're a mom that you don't feel guilty. Like I maybe you're different, maybe you have it figured out, but I had long days, late nights, working on the weekends, and I just often saw my daughter without me. And so I would take point. that you know those were the times when I really needed to focus on you know maybe taking a moment without my phone to be with her and I I remember she went with her dad the first third and fifth weekends for a long long time and then we switched to the alternate weekends because you know life but when she was with him I remember you know trying to decide do I want to go Go out with friends, do I want to go on a date? Do I want to clean? Do I want to rest? Do I want to do chores? or do I want to, you know, work? And so I had to choose. I had, you know, two days to myself for for that particular week and and a lot of times work one. So I would make sure that I use that time specifically to get ahead, but also make time for myself as well. So, you know, I would exercise a lot and then I would, you know. I would sign up for races. That was a huge thing that I did when when my daughter was young because I knew that if I paid for a race, I'm financial savvy enough that if I paid for a race, I was showing up. But I paid for races that I couldn't just show up for. I had to train. So I had an excuse, I had a reason, and I had, you know, money on the line. So I would do that. And that that really helped with the mom guilt because I wanted my life. I didn't want to just be living a life for business or a life for her. I wanted my life as well. So trying to balance all of those things is real. And also you just have to give yourself some slack and know that the mom guilt is going to be there. The second point: no backup plan. So Congratulations, you're the plan. So I heard this recently that if you have, say you're running a marathon and you decide at mile 13, you're going to put an extra car. You or whoever you're running with, you're gonna put a car mile 13 so that when you get there, if you're tired and you don't think you can finish, you can drive that thing to the finish line and be done. Don't worry about it. But if You are running that marathon and there's no car at mile 13, what's your mindset gonna do? You are going to commit to finishing. It's a whole different level. So when you are the the plan, when you are everything and all the things to your kid and to your employees, you don't put yourself in an option to be able to bow out or not show up. And in my life, I remember when I was a little kid, my my dad was military. And my mom was a teacher's assistant. So she worked in the school system. And I don't remember either one of them just having a day where it's like a mental health day where they just don't go to work. They weren't feeling good. Like my family, now we are, you know, able-bodied, healthy people. So I I do understand there's differences. So, but my family would go and just go to work every day. Like that's what I saw from my parents. And so that's that's what I expected from myself. And so that's what my daughter and I did. So we just every single day and I will say she was going into first grade when I started my business and she had just finished kindergarten and the Commitment to getting her to school every day got me committed to my job. Like when you are a business owner and you have a small child in elementary school, you have got to get that kid to school on time. And for us, that was 7:40. So every single day that kid had to be sitting in the assembly in the cafeteria at 7:40. And so I did that every single day, except for I think Fridays. Her dad had her most Thursday nights. So I had I had a day off. But that's the day I had my meetings for my employees. So it didn't really work that way. You know, it just it just is what it is, right? But I remember like that that was part of our routine. And having her at school and then starting my day was how it worked. I dropped her off, went back and met the employees and started the day. And in the beginning, when I didn't have employees, I dropped her off and then went to my first client. So it was just, you know, just going. And then in the summer, I had her set up for different camps and programs and theater and all of the things, like week after week after week for I think eleven weeks is the school summer. I don't know if that's still the same. But she would we would go drop her off and then go to work. And so we just had this routine where it just kept going. So and then I will say, the third point is strong doesn't mean solo. I used to do everything by myself. I was so independent and so so committed to doing it all. And I was like, my way is the right way and all of that. And I really had like that type of mentality in the beginning. And I saw as I was growing my business just how different I needed my employees to be from me because I had a s way of doing things. But I remember there was I had several a few different managers. Not you know, probably like I think over the years I've had like maybe five or six, maybe seven. And I've noticed that the ones that have different personality styles from me, like the DISC personalities, the ones that have different personalities from me are a better match. So we can yin and yang it with employees and clients and just situations that happen, as opposed to me hiring the same type of person as myself. And so that is powerful. And even now, I've got different employees that different personality styles that really just shine. And I am I I work fast. I am I make a lot of decisions fast and I am high energy and so to have that type of person around all the time is a lot, you know, especially for my, you know, housekeepers that are more quiet and timid and shy, maybe younger than me. you know, I'm I can be a lot. So and I am not afraid to admit that. So having my manager who currently it works with me, she is a lot more calm. She makes decisions a lot differently than I do. And having that balance really, really helps. I can tell just in the office, having different personalities when we're having meetings and we're having just different conversations with our teams and and and clients, it just really helps things smooth over better. for example, we had a meeting two weeks ago with our team and I was we were talking about cleaning ovens and I was like, hey, you gotta clean your ovens. And she got like upset, like not just like passionate about the oven cleanings. Like it was just like a total different volume from like her experience and mine. And I love that. Like in the moment I was like, this is exactly what I need is to have someone who is feeling differently and was able to use different expressions and different words to explain like what the experience was for our clients when they sign up to get their oven clean and it doesn't happen. And we really went over that with the team. So it was really, really nice to have that. So having a group of people, having a tribe, a an accountability group, my Monday accountability call with my six friends, that is epic. This week was so beautiful. The the conversations that we have inside of that group, we're we're from Canada and the United States, different time zones, different ages, different lengths in businesses. And having those different voices to really share what the hard things are and get get our experience. it's just So good. This week's call was really, really good for my heart and for my soul. I'm I'm dealing with just some more existential thoughts that that I have that come and go. And then the 10-year anniversary of my mom passing. So just life, right? Just life. Nothing nothing big, nothing huge, just just figuring out life and really like allowing the thoughts to come and allowing the things to go. So The fourth point is your kids. Your kids are taking notes. So I will tell you, my sweet daughter was three years old when she told me that she wanted to be on TV. And because I am an entrepreneur and a business builder, and I I don't see life as a lot of rules. I I heard her and I was like, absolutely. And so we went on this path of her figuring out what her dance was, what her style was, all of her talents were, and really like we she learned voice and acting and s so much theater, so much theater. And now She is living her life in New York City. Like she has an agent, she is performing, she's doing all of the things. And I I truly feel that being an example of showing her like what I wanted for my life and having watch having her watch me do that gave her the path, the energy, and the clearance to go follow her dreams. So they are watching everything that we do. So if you talk about wanting to start this company and you start talk about wanting to start this business and you talk about wanting to do these things yet you don't do them, your children are watching. Your children are taking notes. mom doesn't want to. You know, in this family we don't follow our dreams. In this family, we don't pursue hard things. So when you're doing those hard things and you fail, and it's hard, and To repossess, not repossess, I had to put a paid a payday loan on my car. And for whatever reason, my daughter had to go with me to sign that paperwork. And she was with me through so many processes that that she's heard me over and over. process information, have conversations with clients, have conversations with employee because she's in the car. You know, she was she was the for the first five years of my business, I ran it out of my home. So when she was home and I was on the c on the phone, that's what she heard. Like this was her life. And then of course as she got older into middle school and high school, she has like her dad's engineering brain with like math and science. So she is very, very logical and very smart. And so I asked her opinion. And so she is doing like business consulting and all of this alongside of me, like with me, building she darn near my partner in life and business. Like we did life together. It was wild. And I respected her opinion. Like when she came to me with ideas, I listened. And I still do. I still do. I ask her for opinions. I ask her about this podcast. I b I asked her about editing. She gives me ideas and feedback about my ex my like what I am doing and how I can improve. And that is so epic. And I know that is because she got to see me do things and be confident and do them scared. Like do things that I know that I could have done better. She probably learned from watching me fail. Like, I don't want to do that. Or like the just the different things that I have messed up. I know that I know that she's learned from that as well. So, my gosh. Okay. And then the fifth point. Anyone who says that you have you have to choose is lying. Business or motherhood. You don't have to choose. Girl, I'm doing both. I'm still her mama, even though she's gone and graduating college. And it won't be perfect. It won't be balanced every day, it won't look good every day, you will be tired, she will be tired. So you've got to give them something good to watch. You know, you've got to give them a whole show. So my girl followed her dreams because I followed mine. So will you be the one to show your kids what it's like to follow your dreams? And that's that's the magic right there. So To every single mom running a business off of actual coffee and pure spite, keep going. You're a boss and you're just getting started. Thank you so much for your time today. It's such a pleasure to share these moments with you. If this hit, please send it to one woman who you know needs to hear this, one mom that's out there making it happen, no matter what. Share this, subscribe, and also if you're interested in being a sponsor on the podcast, get a hold of us. All the notes are in the show notes. So, so grateful to have you here today and always. Have a great week. Bye. Kelly: That's the show. One favor before you go. Send this to one woman who needed to hear it today. Strong doesn't mean solo. I'll see you next week.