the bossbabe podcast - 486: I'm Taking a Break

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome back to the Bossway podcast. It is just me today. There is no guest and this episode is going to be a little bit different to any that I have been doing. So I just want to be really honest with you about where I'm at and what is next for this podcast. So I am currently on maternity leave as you're listening to this. And up until a few weeks ago, my plan. My plan, was to use a ton of batched content that I put together so that I could keep releasing episodes every single week and so that it would feel like I was never gone, right? And I feel like that's what we're taught to do, isn't it? To keep the engine running, to keep appearances up. But when I sat with that, it just felt really off to me. Like the actual doing of it, totally fine. Can do that in a day. We can get, you know, the three months of episodes done in a day. That's not a big deal. But it just felt really off because it just felt so inauthentic almost as if I'm showing or proving that I'm still showing up when actually I'm really honoring taking a maternity leave. I'm really honoring being with

Starting point is 00:01:13 my baby and recovering from birth. And I don't want to play a part in modeling a version of success that says you have to pretend you are on all the time and you're not taking any breaks. I have spent so many years telling high-performing women, myself included, that freedom-based business is about alignment. And if I secretly worked, you know, all-nighters to create this fake continuity, or if I, you know, was stretching myself thin or I'm like faking it and putting it out like as if I'm still actually working, I would be breaking my own rule. And I'm going to be totally honest with you, there is definitely fear here because I have never taken a break on this podcast before. I've being really open about that in that, you know, I think the consistency is really, really important.

Starting point is 00:02:02 And I definitely have a fear that taking a break could just completely tank my downloads, my momentum, and that when I come back from maternity leave, I'm going to be starting completely from scratch. I am going to be real with you. I'm terrified about that. And I cannot live my life or run my business based on fear. I choose to believe that I've built something way bigger than a metric. And I'm trusting that those of you who are still interested will still be here when I come back. And so before I stepped away from the business, I have been doing many, many things to set myself and my team up for success. You know, the first thing I'll say is my team has just never been in a better place. I've never had a stronger team.

Starting point is 00:02:48 And we are a small but mighty team. There is not a lot of us, but we are a really great team. we work together really well. Every single person on the team is just an A plus plus player. And so that is the biggest part of the puzzle is having a team that are competent, that you can trust. And what's been really amazing is I have felt so much support from every single person on the team. They threw me a surprise baby shower the week that I was going on Mat leave. And I just feel like everyone genuinely cares about the business, but we also genuinely. care about each other as women, as human beings, as mothers, as friends, as

Starting point is 00:03:31 co-workers, we all genuinely care about each other. And that is something that I've listened to all kinds of people talk about company culture and some people say, you know, companies aren't family and company culture shouldn't be like that. And I actually choose to run a business that does feel like that. I choose to run a business where people do talk as much personally as they do business. and that's what feels really good. We spend so much of our time at work away from our families

Starting point is 00:04:01 and so why shouldn't you have a team that you genuinely care about and you like to hang out with? You know, when we get together in person, we just have the best time when we're on our team hangouts. You have the best time. I used to get Sunday scleries going into meetings. I don't get that anymore because I'm so excited to catch up with everyone and hear about the weekend.

Starting point is 00:04:18 And I'm going on a tangent, but that's the first thing. You know, it's really, really important. Beyond that, I've done a bunch of other things. I have set up some really great systems and SOPs. My team have very, very clear processes documented. They are empowered without me needing to micromanage. In fact, they're probably so happy to just have all of this. You know, we're not the kind of company that micromanages each other.

Starting point is 00:04:40 We all have our own roles. And so everyone has processes and SOPs the way that they do things. And that's been great. I've also made sure that everyone knows exactly what the plan is for, you know, the next three months and beyond that. in fact we're all planned out for launches until the end of 2026 which is wild but they have a plan and they also have flexibility on the plan they know that if they want to pivot if they want to do something else if they want to test something they want to get creative more power to them the business is theirs for them to play with and i trust them and i know that they've always got

Starting point is 00:05:15 the best intentions and so there's a full concrete plan that we can be following and if they want to from that while I'm out, then they get to do that. That's awesome. We also have automated revenue streams. So we've set up funnels and evergreen assets that have our cash flow steady without any live launches. You know, if we didn't make a dollar in the business from the day I went out to the day I come back, we'd still be absolutely fine. And that's because we manage our money really, really carefully at boss babe i always have i take money really seriously and stewarding money really seriously and so that's something that i have been sure to do it's also crazy this is also a tangent but last year i've told you guys that we have had our biggest revenue and profit year ever last year right this year you know

Starting point is 00:06:03 i got pregnant over the holidays and so i came back to work you know in january we the whole team we always take a light mode over the holidays which basically things we're just all offline for two weeks and then we come back in January. I came back in January and then very quickly morning sickness kicked in for me and I just told myself, listen, this is not the year for you to be growing. Like last year was a huge growth year, amazing, crushed it, love that for you. This does not need to be a year that you are growing. You need to be growing a human being. You need to be focused on taking care of yourself. You need to be making sure that your business is really clean and robust on the back.

Starting point is 00:06:42 and you know lots of pouring into team pouring into systems pouring into clients all of that stuff and listen I'm very good at looking at the money I do look at the money but I don't really obsess over like how are we doing year on year month on month all of that kind of stuff I have the metrics that I look at and I kind of stick to that and just before I went on mat leave my CFO sent me a year on year comparison where we were at up until September this year compared to last year and we are doing even better than last year and I cannot even believe it like we are doing so much better revenue wise than last year which is mind-blowing because it was never even the intention and it's been one of those things that has really shown me and I think strengthened my faith too in like taking a break and stuff but it's just shown me when you do the work to really build incredible systems when you hire incredible people when you show up in your zone of genius and you're not worried and sweating about all the little things that could go wrong or are you you know growing and all like if you just do the thing you do really really well and you focus on serving clients and you focus on doing a good job for people amazing shit happens so i'm so surprised about that which has been awesome but yeah it's just put us in a great great position which feels really good for taking a break and then another thing that i've done is just had really clear communication boundaries with partners and collaborators you know i've had my art of office on for a month before i went on mat

Starting point is 00:08:12 leave just saying I'm preparing to on mat leave you know I won't be doing any interviews we won't be bringing any guests on the podcast and I probably won't be replying to your email so you will be back in three months if this is so important and so they just know who to contact instead they know what to expect we've lined all that up and I've been doing that throughout the year so that there's no surprises and no one's kind of left in the dark but even if you're a solo entrepreneur you can adapt things like this you can have your email or responders you can schedule content advance you could have a pinned Instagram post to let people know your timeline so I've just been putting all those things in place and I also don't want to come in here and like preach about

Starting point is 00:08:52 oh I've planned this perfect mat leave and everything's going really well all that stuff because listen I'm recording this just as I'm about to go out and I don't know how it's going to go I assume it's going to go swimmingly I'm assuming it's going to be amazing and if any of you've listened to the podcast for the last few years you'll know my last maternity will did not go as planned and I thought that I'd set the business up in a really great way a few weeks into my mat leave I you know I'm dealing with crying phone calls of launchers not going well and I'm coming back to lots of things that I couldn't have predicted and I don't want to be sitting here saying oh I've crushed it and then come back and be like you guys kind of messed

Starting point is 00:09:33 that up it wasn't so yes I trust it's going to be great and I'd rather do like a recap of how I did it properly when I come back and give you like an honest overview of this work, this didn't, I would do this differently or whatever because there's always going to be things you can improve on. So I'll definitely do that when I come back. And then, listen, if you are listening to this thinking, I could never step away. I get it. What has helped me as a couple of things that I've like shifted my mindset toward that I'm telling myself. And the first thing is trusting my audience, right? I really think people respect honesty more than just constant noise for the sake of it. people will appreciate that I'm being really honest about this more than like if I'm trying to fake it and pretend that I'm online when I'm not. And the second thing is I'm telling myself, growth isn't fragile. Momentum is built on value over time, not a few missed months on the podcast. And so I really had to ask myself, where am I clinging to appearances instead of honoring my capacity? And then if I trusted my work and my community, what break would I allow myself? And so that's what I'm doing.

Starting point is 00:10:39 I'm hoping you'll all still be here when I come back. I hope that I set a better example than this like hustle 24-7 because it's just not me and it's just not the way that I want to run my business. It just would feel so out of integrity to pretend that. So there are so many episodes on the podcast you could go back and we listen to. We have so many videos on YouTube and maybe you'll just be following along on Instagram. You know, I'm sure my stories will be full of baby snuggles and mum life. I am so grateful that I planned my mat leave to be during fall and the holiday season.

Starting point is 00:11:16 Like, couldn't have planned that better. Very cap-recorded me. My last one was during summer in Texas, which, listen, could have probably planned that better, but we live and we learn, all right? And then when I come back, I'm just really excited to continue diving into freedom-based business and then share whatever this next few months has in store for me, because if any of you are moms out there, you know we can plan for the plan, but we never know what's going to unfold. And so I'm sure there are going to be so many things. And so I just want to

Starting point is 00:11:46 close this by, you know, saying thank you for being the kind of community that makes this choice feel really safe. Your support means absolutely everything to me. And I hope that me taking this pause might be able to remind you that rest and success can still coexist, right? Rest and success can still coexist. It is not one or the other. And so until I come back, I just want to say, thank you for listening. Thank you for supporting me. And thank you for joining me on this journey of trying to do things different and build businesses and lives that are free and aligned and beautiful. So with that, I will see you on the other side of maternity leave. And I'm sure I'll have so many downloads for you. All right. I'll see you soon.

Starting point is 00:12:36 Wait, wait, wait, before you go, I would love to send you my seven-figure CEO operating system completely free as a gift. All you've got to do is leave us a review on this podcast because it really supports the growth of this show. This is my digital masterclass where I'll show you what my freedom-based daily, weekly and monthly schedule looks like as an eight-figure CEO, mama and high performer, and I'll walk you through step by step how to create this for yourself. It includes a full video training from me and a plug and play a spreadsheet to literally create your own operating system. It's one of our best trainings and it's worth $1,997, but I will unlock access for you for free when you leave us a review. I know, wild, right? All you have to do is leave

Starting point is 00:13:21 your review on the podcast, take a screenshot of it and then head over to bossbabe.com slash review to upload it. And then you'll get instant access to the seven-figure CEO operating system. Again, to bossbabe.com slash review to upload your screenshot and get access. We are so, so grateful for all of your support and can't wait to hear how the podcast has supported you.

the bossbabe podcast - 486: I'm Taking a Break

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