REWILD + FREE - 30. 10 THINGS EVERY CONSCIOUS + HOLISTIC MOTHER ENTREPRENEUR NEEDS TO BE DOING IN HER BUSINESS (PLUS BONUS TECH ALTERNATIVES TO SAVE YOU MONEY)

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

In this episode I share 10 things I think every mother entrepreneur *should* be doing in her biz #1 is to begin discerning between desire and obligation (aka STOP shoulding on yourself) I invite you to practice this while listening to this episode. Take what you hear as inspiration. It's not prescriptive! What works for me might not work for you! I also share share 3 tech alternatives to save you money:   1. Milkshake 2. Tidycal3. Thrivecart (👈 this is my affiliate link and I'll likely look like this 💃 if you decide to use it) If you’re curious about private coaching with me, click here for more details Support the showConnect with Nicole on IG (@nicolepasveer) Want to be a guest on the podcast? Fill out this form

You're listening to Rewild and Free. This is the go-to podcast for conscious and holistic mother entrepreneurs who are ditching society's to-do list for intentional living, freedom, and abundance, while creating impact and legacy in their home and business. If we haven't met yet, I'm Nicole Pasvir, your like-hearted mom friend and biz bestie wrapped in one. I'm an ex-nurse turned matrescence guide and business coach, leading women just like you into the new paradigm, where thriving in motherhood is your birthright and so is a successful and sustainable online business keep listening if you're ready to unsubscribe from patriarchal motherhood bro marketing and boss babe culture because in this space we use nature as our framework as we move

towards feminine embodied business development cyclical orientation and slow living together let's rewild and remember as we break free from survival and reconnect to what truly matters. Okay friend, steep your tea and take the most loving breath you've given to yourself today and let's go. Hello, I'm super excited to sit down and actually record this episode. This is stemming from the notes section of my phone where I have curated a list of 10 things that conscious and holistic mother entrepreneurs need to be doing in their business. At the end, I will also include a bonus number 11, which is tech alternatives to save money. I want to preface all of this by saying

that none of this is prescriptive. Take what I'm about to share as a source of inspiration and allow yourself to try things on for size. And if they fit, keep them on. If they don't, get rid of them. In other words, take what resonates and leave the rest. So this really lines up with number one, which is to begin discerning between desire versus obligation. And what I mean by that is really to stop shitting on yourself. So starting to become aware of any time you're noticing yourself, your inner mind chatter saying, oh, I should do this. I should make a post on Instagram. I should send an email to my email list. I should, I should, I should. Catch those shoulds and start discerning. Is this something I actually want to do? Or is this something that I've been

told I need to do? This sounds really simple, but simple doesn't mean easy. This can get really hard because we've been programmed and conditioned to kind of look outside of ourselves for answers. So it can be really easy to want to follow someone else's proven strategy. And I just want to say that just because it's worked for someone else doesn't mean it's going to work for you. And that leads me to number two, which is to redefine success and consistency. So again, discerning whether or not the definition you are currently attached to around words like success and consistency, are those actually your definitions or are you following someone else's definition, likely society's? And if you've

listened to previous episodes, I talk a lot about society's to-do list and how easy it can be to be following this to-do list and this promised idea of finding success in life. And I mean, I could go on a big tangent here, but the point of number two is to really get clear on what it means to have success in your life, in your business, and what it means to be consistent. So what does showing up actually mean for you? So in the context of social media, how many posts, how frequent are the posts in your email marketing, how many emails, what is your goal and your intention behind those emails? Stuff like that, just really starting to think about those from, I guess, a more conscious and

intentional lens. And with that, also beginning to write your own list of rules. Again, this is easier said than done, but it's also an opportunity to start noticing whose rules you are kind of unconsciously already following. And it gives space for you to have this choice point to take more intentional action and stop running your business on autopilot. Moving on to number three, number three is inner work first. So your business can only grow as much as you are personally growing. So the inside out work, the nervous system regulation, the inner child work, the shadow work, the creating space for just coming home to yourself, whether that's through tools like meditation or yoga or journaling,

maybe it's also some physical stuff like exercising or getting massages or seeing the chiropractor. All these things are absolutely important and you can't cheat out on them. You have to do them. If you're not doing them, then who is going to run and lead your business? This is also true for showing up as a mother and I know it's cliche to say that you have to fill your own cup up first but you really do. You can't pour from an empty cup and I think so many conscious mother entrepreneurs have this desire to be able to serve from overflow and in order to serve from a place of overflow you need to be constantly filling that cup up. So number four is to create space for rest.

And I just want to say for whoever needs to hear it, rest is productive. Rest can be a form of momentum if you are intentional about it and if you are very conscious towards the frequency in which you are resting. So what I mean by that is like there's a big difference between just kind of vegging out on the couch and scrolling social media but not even being aware of what you're doing and not being aware of how you're using that time versus intentionally choosing to go put your feet up or choosing to go take a walk outside instead of writing an email. Rest can also look like noticing where you're holding tension in your body. So maybe it's pushing the stroller and you notice that you have this really tight grip

on the handlebars or while you're driving your car. Can you just loosen your grip? Noticing that maybe you're holding tension right now in your jaw and your shoulders. Can you relax your jaw and soften those shoulders? Maybe it's while you're cooking or doing laundry. There's so many moments throughout the day that you can create space for rest. And I don't have this written down in my list, but I want to add in here to also add in space for play and pleasure. And back to the laundry example, the laundry and cooking and doing dishes, those are

all beautiful examples of creating space for pleasure. And all you have to do is open up your senses and really start experiencing and indulging in what your senses are experiencing. So noticing the sense around you and the feelings and the textures of the clothes in your hand as you're folding them or the super soft bubbles as you're lathering the soap on your dishes or the sound of your toddler playing with, I don't know what they're playing with, but something in the background. There's so many moments to experience pleasure throughout the day. If this idea of rest as a form of productivity feels confronting for you, I want to invite you to use it as an opportunity to again dissect what rules you're following.

So if it feels unsafe in your nervous system to take the day off or to not post on social media for a few days, go back to numbers two and three where I talked about getting clear on your definition of success and consistency and doing some of that inner work first, because it's really, really important that your body feels safe enough to put the pause button on and your body feels safe enough to know when it's the right time to hustle and grind versus actually slow down and rest. And for me, I really like to orient to the seasons and to nature when I'm thinking about rest. And we know that, I mean, in nature, there's the four seasons. We have spring, summer, winter, and fall. And I think the common narrative in the business

entrepreneurship industry is to try to be in this perpetual spring and summer and to try to always be on and always be just in a state where we're able to be visible and able to sell and able to produce. And that's simply not sustainable, especially as women, especially as females who run on a 28-day cycle. It's really, really important that we are creating that space for rest. And it's really, really important that we are attuned to our body's needs. And like I said, just creating that space and really reframing the mindset

or your mindset around what rest means and unapologetically taking the time to slow down and not shaming yourself or judging yourself for being lazy or whatever other negative mind chatter might come up from that. Number five is to get clear on your values. And the reason I think this is so important is because if you aren't clear on your values, then you're likely just following someone else's agenda and someone else's definition of success. If you aren't clear on your values, then what are you doing and where are you going? If there's no values to kind of use as a compass in order to measure if you're in alignment, then what are you doing? So get clear on your values so that you can build your

business in alignment with those values and not the other way around. Number six is to protect your energy. So I like to relate a lot of things to birth. It just makes sense for me. And I mean, yeah. So in the birth space, in my former short-lived days as a birth educator, I used to say, do not let other people's fears in your birth space. And what I always meant by that was if, okay, let me, let me share a quick story. So I, during my pregnancy, I knew I wanted an unmedicated birth. I had a lot of fear around committing to a home birth. And in my season of unraveling and unlearning much of what society tells us about birth, I realized that that fear was coming from sources outside of me. It was coming from the potential projections of my friends and family. It was coming from what mainstream media

and Hollywood were kind of portraying to me. It was coming from things that weren't actually from within. And when I was actually able to quiet down the noise and actually listen to my own intuition and my own desire instead of obligation, it became very clear to me that having a baby at home was what was going to be best for me. It was also what was going to be best in order for me to have the best chance of having the type of birth I wanted. And with that, it also became very clear that I needed to protect my energy and not allow other people's fears and other people's projections to have impact on the direction I wanted to go. So this can be mimicked or mirrored. I don't know what word is better in the context of

this scenario, but it can be duplicated in the situation around business creation, especially when you consider creation as anything that you are literally birthing into the world from scratch. Offer creation, content creation, whatever it is, is really not that different from creating a human from scratch. So all this to say, protect your energy and really be conscious and intentional with who you're sharing your ideas with, especially in the early stages of gestation, when you are still brainstorming and soundboarding and just in that very tender and vulnerable space in the cycle of creation where you can easily be swayed and yeah just your your thoughts and beliefs can be

distorted by other people's comments and this can easily be be confused with validation. We as humans, it is a biological need to feel heard and seen and recognized. And that can easily be confused with wanting validation as a source of basically propelling our ideas and outsourcing our ideas is what I'm trying to say. So tangibly, what this looks like is having that community where you have believing mirrors around you, people that really do believe and are in alignment with the direction you want to go in. And if they aren't completely in alignment, they at least hold alignment with the direction you want to go in it. And if they aren't completely in alignment, they at least hold space for the direction you want to go and understand it from your perspective. And also creating very, I don't want to say strict, I don't do anything

strictly, but just being very, again, intentional. I sound like a broken record with that work, but there is a lot of intention in my own business development. So that word does feel fitting. So being very intentional with knowing what you have capacity for in the amount of time that you show up in your business. So that might look like business hours. That might be, especially for those of us in the online business industry, where we are doing so much on our phones and so much on social media, it can be really blurry to know what those boundaries are. So creating set business hours for yourself and also becoming very conscious around your consumption. So just noticing how when you're scrolling social

media or when you're listening to other people's podcasts or when you notice yourself wanting to click on that next free download, that freebie that one of your coaches that you're so inspired by is offering. Do you really need that? Do you really need to consume one more thing? Or do you really need to just start tuning out the noise and looking inwards? Number seven, if you've been in my space for a while, you've likely heard me say masculine hold and feminine flow. I've also shared in previous spaces that I've kind of moved through this I was completely allergic to the idea or to the word strategy. And to the point where if you think of like a pendulum swinging, like I went from one side straight across to the other, and there was a very harsh pendulum swing and I had to come back to center in my own way as we all do. I also had to realize that that center is going to be different depending on the season

of my life that I'm in and depending on the season of my business. So what might have worked in terms of a more masculine strategy versus like more like the feminine, spiritual, more fluffy side of business. I don't actually know what the right words are to describe what I'm trying to explain right now. what might work for one offer might not work for another and what might work for um yeah like the beginning of your business might not work as you start scaling up so my point is here is that we need a mix of both we don't want to be on either side of that harsh like pendulum swing we do want to have our own version of center and the visual that I always like to come back to with this is masculine hold and feminine flow. And I literally envision a box,

which is the masculine container that we all need. We need it in business. We need it in life. We need it everywhere. And that literally is the containment, the safety, the structure around our feminine flow, our feminine creativity, our feminine, the nurturing entities that we bring forward and the creativity, I think I already said that word, but just that more loose and flowy, and just like less structured aspects of our business need safety and containment.

One more visual to understand masculine, cold, and feminine flow is to think of a riverbank. And obviously the river is water, So think of the water as the feminine flow and the riverbanks being the masculine containment. And if that riverbank isn't there and if it isn't secure and stable, the water is just going to start flowing everywhere and the soil, the land around the river is just going to turn to mud i hope that kind of helps paint the picture so this actually kind of weaves into number eight which is to work smarter not harder and some of the more tangible aspects of this are to automate things if you notice yourself doing them repeatedly um and to also like repurpose any

type of content when you can so this might look like using parts of your email into social media content or even repurposing reels into graphic posts and graphic posts into reels, or almost recording moments of yourself working with clients and taking some of that language that you used because you were in such a conscious free-flowing state using that as content. There's so many different ways to work smarter, not harder in the sense of content creation. Another tangible aspect of number eight is to delegate when you can and also to collaborate. So we are humans. As humans, we are pack animals. We thrive in community. We really kind of fucked things up during COVID when we were all navigating life in the pandemic and becoming lone wolves.

We were never supposed to be lone wolves. I think online business development is an opportunity to be really intentional. There's that word again. Around the community you're immersing yourself in. And I'm likely meaning in a virtual space. So again, just being very intentional about who you're following online, who you're sharing your ideas with,

maybe who you're choosing to do IG lives with or to have on your podcast or things like that. Collaboration can be a really beautiful way to extend our audience and our reach and also lean on each other's strengths because again, we were never supposed to do it alone. So if you have, here's an example, I have a friend who really enjoys playing around with Canva. I do not. Me and Canva have a love-hate relationship. I need it, but I really don't like playing around with Canva. I do not. Me and Canva have a love-hate relationship. I need it, but I really don't like playing around in it. So I go to her for a lot of graphic design help because it actually brings her joy. So stuff like that. My friend Beth Wood, Rosewood woman

on Instagram, she's a fantastic page to follow if you're into feminine led business development, which I'm guessing you are if you're listening to this episode. I'm going to use her own words here. And she talks a lot about automate, delegate, and optimize. And I really like this rule of thumb because well basically what she's saying is to automate what you can which we kind of already touched on so there's the rule of three if you're doing things more than three times in a row that's probably a good opportunity to automate it makes your life easier and then delegate so like we said if there's something that you don't want to do or maybe you're noticing it's just not a good use of your time, delegate it. And sometimes that does cost money, but there's

some creative ways to delegate in your business. It could be swapping services, for example, or maybe, I don't know, maybe your husband actually really likes some of like the more bookkeeping aspects and he can help you out. Be creative here. And then the third thing that Beth talks about is optimization. And I love this because the premise of this point is to optimize the less joyful tasks. And for women, this often looks like some of the more masculine stuff. So this is kind of a silly example, but we're going to run with it. This is one that Beth shared with me. Back to the bookkeeping. If your husband doesn't like bookkeeping either and you have to do your own bookkeeping, why not do bookkeeping in the bath?

If you like baths. If you don't like baths, then don't listen to me. But the point is, is do something that you don't really like with something that you do really like. Optimize your time. And again, this kind of comes back to making space for rest and pleasure and play. Make those mundane tasks pleasurable. Maybe this also means bribing yourself. So when you get that task done, you get to indulge in a treat or something. Actually, scratch that. I don't like that idea. I think you should unapologetically indulge in that treat. You don't need a permission or reason to have that piece of cake. Moving on to number nine. Actually, before we move on to number nine, another big aspect of optimization is harnessing the wisdom from our own body, specifically our menstrual cycle. So as I already mentioned, as women, we run on a 28-day cycle and our menstrual cycle, assuming you aren't taking any like oral birth control or anything that is putting synthetic hormones in your body, our menstrual cycle can be an amazing tool to help

us optimize our business because we can start learning and just kind of scheduling our tasks based on the time of month and actually being more efficient by doing it. So harnessing those energy peaks and valleys and those hormonal shifts. And this could honestly be a whole other episode, but again, Rosewood Woman, Beth Wood, she's an awesome resource for all of this. So be sure to follow her if you aren't already. Now moving on to number nine. Number nine feels a little bit hard for me to talk about. I feel like I am constantly working through this myself and it's around money. So number nine, I have written down

as investing in your business. I think so many mother entrepreneurs have a hard time spending money on themselves. We don't have any issue spending on our family and our kids, but spending on our own business is, I don't know, I think this also, excuse me, this also has to do with where you're at in your business. And if you already have, I mean, like a steady flowing business bank account that you can pull money from, but in the early days when you are bootstrapping it and you are literally making investments from your family

savings account it can be really hard to spend that money no matter how much your husband or your partner tells you it's okay it is still really really hard and I just want to offer this reframe that if you were starting a brick and mortar business, if you were like literally starting an in-person say small shop down in your neighborhood, nobody would bat an eyelash if you had to take out a business loan. But as soon as we say that we are just starting an online business, all of a sudden it's taboo in our culture to have to invest money in that. And so I guess my invitation here is again

to really just discern whose belief is that and whose rules are you following. And also around showing your nervous system safety to spend money, I think part of that has to do with building the self-trust, the self-trust in knowing that it's an investment and you're going to make that money back. You're likely going to like tenfold that investment down the road and also detaching from any timelines around that. So, ooh, I think that is actually the hardest aspect is the timelines thinking that, okay,

well, if I invest this amount, then I want to make it back in this amount of time. And if we are constantly living that way, we are constantly showing up in this frequency of scarcity and lack and this really not so great energetic state of urgency that I don't recommend you build a business in. Again, we really want to be in that state of overflow and leaning into the abundance that is always around us. I didn't have this written down, but speaking of abundance, something that has worked really well for me in terms of navigating my money mindset and just showing my nervous system that it's safe to spend money and that it's safe to invest in myself is just noticing all the areas in my life that I'm already abundant in. And I

don't mean abundance from a financial standpoint. I mean, just notice in your life where you have more than enough. And this can be as simple as gratitude list writing in the morning. I like to level up my gratitude list and not just make a list of all the things I'm grateful for, but actually lean into why I'm grateful for them. So for example, if on my list is I'm grateful for my mom and stepdad who live less than a 20 minute walk away from me. Instead of just writing that down and putting a period and ending the sentence, I go on and I really lean into why that is something I'm so thankful for. And I mean, I don't need to share it all here, but as you can imagine this weaves into the support that they provide for me in terms of child care and I mean there's so many things so

just really getting into that and and even noticing how your energetic standpoint shifts while doing that. Another thing here is back to the self-trust piece and really trusting in yourself and your business creation that it's going to work. Something I often have to ask myself is, do I have two feet in the boat? And if I don't have two feet in the boat, that boat is going to sail away without me. If you've read, I think it's called Big Magic, Creative Magic, Big Magic? Shoot, I don't have this written down. I don't have it in front of me. By Elizabeth Gilbert, I think, same author as Eat, Pray, Love. she talks about how creation kind of comes to us and it can leave if we aren't ready to harness it and birth it and I really do believe in that I also believe that our businesses and our creations

are a separate entity from us so if you aren't two feet in the boat, like I said, that boat could sail away from you. So again, just getting really clear on this really spirals back into everything I just shared. This spirals back into your values. This spirals back into your definition of success and your nervous system regulation and your energy and masculine and feminine. It's literally all of it combined. So the money piece is really complex, but I did want to add it in here because feminine, it's literally all of it combined. So the money piece is really complex, but I did want to add it in here because I think it's really important. Number 10 is to have a space holder. This might be a paid coach, someone like myself. This might be a friend. This might be your mom. This might be your husband. Have someone that you

can depend on to be your space holder. So many of us, if you are in the business of serving women, you are already holding space for so many people. If you aren't in the business of serving women, but you're a mom, you are in the business of serving your kids and your family. So it's really, really important that you create a safe space for yourself to truly unravel and just allow yourself to be held. Since this is my podcast, I'm going to give a little shameless plug and just share that my containers are a safe place to question everything you've ever been

led to believe. They're a soft landing to play, to try new things, to fail, to flop, to unravel, and then come back together again. The intention behind all of my services is promoting your journey of unlearning and reclaiming and allowing you to truly step into your purpose with devotion and pleasure as both mother and entrepreneur. So if this sounds like something that you are in need of, say hi, I'm happy to help. I think that's all I need to say for number 10. I'm going to jump right into the bonus number 11, which is some tech alternatives that I think can save you money. So I'm a big fan of one-time payment plans. I think so many of the tech hosting platforms, I don't even know what to call them, the tech stuff, you know, like Zoom and your calendar subscription and your email service provider, so many of them are like a subscription based service where you're paying monthly or annually annually indefinitely. So I'm a big

fan of finding ones that are just a one-time payment. And so I'm going to list off a couple that I found that are my favorite, starting with Milkshake. So this might be an unpopular opinion, this might be an unpopular opinion, but I don't think everyone needs a website. I feel like that could be its own episode in itself. But if you are in agreement with me and you feel like you don't need a website, Milkshake is an awesome alternative. It's like Linktree. And I think Linktree you have to pay for.

Obviously, a website hosting service you have to pay for, obviously a website hosting service you have to pay for, often several hundred a year. Milkshake is a free app that you get to create and customize this basically landing page for all of your links. So I'm actually currently using that in my Instagram bio because my website is indefinitely under construction. I don't have a timeline there. It will get done when it gets done. But for now, yeah, I'm happily using Milkshake and I think it's beautiful and it brings you guys the links that you need. So it's serving the purpose that I need it to. Number two, there's three I'm going to mention. So the first is milkshake. Number two is called Tidy Cal and it is an alternative to Calendly, which many of you are likely using to book clients or podcast

interviews or one-on-one sessions, whatever that looks like. Calendly is a very popular option. Calendly does have a free option, but from my experience, you can only have one event. So when I was using it, I could use it or I was using it to book my podcast interviews, but I had to pay if I wanted to have a separate event for, say, one-on-one coaching calls. And I think that bumps you up to $10 a month, which is $120 a year. So the alternative that I've found and I'm currently playing around with is called TidyCal. And it seems to do all the things

that the paid option of Calendly does, but it's only $29 once. It's only ever $29. You don't have to pay monthly, you don't pay annually. It's $29 once and never again. So yeah, that's a no-bra for me playing around with it so far. Nothing bad to say. It seems to do everything I need it to do. It integrates, like it sends out emails, it integrates with Zoom, it does all the things. Number three, and this is a really big one

and I feel like this could be its own podcast episode as well, but I need to rave and love on Thrivecart. Thrivecart is technically a professional payment processor. It's a good looking one so it makes it stupid easy for your clients to pay you. This is something that I learned early on in my business development is that if it's hard to pay you, people aren't going to pay you. If there are a lot of links or just a lot of uncertainties around what they're filling out, they are just going to tap out and be like, nah. So Thrivecart makes it very professional and very simple on the consumer side of things. It's also pretty intuitive to set up. I do not like tech, but I have been able to figure it out. And the bonus with Thrivecart is, well, there's a couple. One is that you can easily set up all your automations,

so you can link it to your email service provider. And then when someone checks out on your checkout page, on like your checkout page, on like the landing page, again, this is why you don't necessarily need a website because Thrivecart offers you the sales page, which can be your landing page and also your payment processor, checkout page, whatever you want to call it. And then it links to your emails. So then the email gets sent out with whatever details your client needs for what you just sold them. And then the biggest bonus is that Thrivecart is also a course hosting platform. So I have been using Thrivecart to host all of my group offerings.

I built my birth plan bootcamp mini course on it. I host all of the calls and resources for my group mastermind recalibrate in it. Um, and much like any other course you've likely taken on the internet, your clients then get access to basically a private portal and, um, yeah, just a very seamless design to access all the videos or the recordings or whatever it is that you need to house in that space. And so the alternatives to this are, I think Kajabi would be one of the most popular. It's pretty darn pricey though. Kajabi, I looked into it, it starts at $119 a month. And the thing I don't like about a monthly subscription for course hosting is if

you go through a season of life and a season of business where you don't actively have anyone in your courses and you're not creating anything, you still have to pay. Nobody wants to pay if they're not actually using the service. I think another alternative that's cheaper is Thinkific. I looked into that. It's still around like $30 a month. I think they might have a free option with very limited options. But yeah, $30 a month times 12 is, I don't know, but it's a high price tag. And so a reason I love Thrivecart so much is because it's a one-time payment. It's currently only $495. They've been sending emails out to those of us that already have Thrivecart, letting us know that the price is going up likely by the end of the year.

So if Thrivecart is something you're interested in, let me know and I can help you kind of work through it and help you determine if it's something that would be useful in your business. And I do have an affiliate link if you would like to use it. But yeah, ThriveCard is definitely one of the biggest assets to my business. And I absolutely love that it's not a subscription. So I don't have to worry about paying monthly or annually for it. Those are my top three. The list could probably go on, but that could be all day. And I think those three really are kind of the biggest ones and like the most

impactful in my own business right now. And so yeah, that wraps up. That's my list of 10 things I think conscious and holistic mother entrepreneurs should be doing in their business, plus a bonus for tech alternatives to save money. I hope this was helpful. I would love to know which of these on the list you end up trying on for size and what's working well, what's not, or if you have anything to add to the list. So never hesitate to reach out and connect with me on Instagram at Nicole Pazier. Until next time. Okay, before you go, I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode. If you were thinking of anyone while listening, please send it their way. And if anything resonated with you or you love these conversations, please subscribe and leave a review. This really helps the podcast algorithms

put my show in front of more people just like you. And the last thing, I would love nothing more than hearing from you. So say hi, DM me on Instagram and give me a follow at NicolePasvir. Until next time.