In this Money Talk With Tiff episode, Tiffany Grant sits down with financial coach and entrepreneur Nicole Stanley to discuss the intersection of motherhood and business ownership. Nicole shares her journey from corporate sales and youth ministry to becoming a stay-at-home mom and eventually launching her financial coaching business in 2020.

Tiffany and Nicole delve into the challenges and triumphs of balancing entrepreneurship and motherhood, offering valuable insights and tips for moms who are looking to start their own businesses.

Tune in for an inspiring conversation about pursuing your passions while managing family life.

Check out the blog post: https://moneytalkwitht.com/podcast-show-notes/motherhood-and-entrepreneurship/

About Our Guest

Nicole Stanley, the visionary founder of Arise Financial Coaching, has profoundly impacted countless lives through her innovative Money Momentum Method. Her journey began with a personal struggle against debilitating financial anxiety in her early twenties.

Determined to overcome this, she enrolled in a personal finance course, transforming her situation from $30,000 in debt to a thriving net worth exceeding a quarter-million dollars by just 27—achieved solely through her dedication and strategic planning.

Connect with Nicole

Website: https://www.arise.financial/

Instagram: @arise.financial.coaching

Facebook: Arise Financial Coaching

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LinkedIn: Tiffany Grant

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Disclaimer: The contents of this podcast are for informational purposes only and do not constitute professional financial advice. Always consult a financial advisor before making financial decisions.

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Copyright 2024 Tiffany Grant

You know what it is. That's right. It's time to talk money with your money

nerd and financial coach. Now, tighten those purse strings

and open those ears. It's the money talk with Tiff

podcast. Hey, everyone. I'm

so excited because I have Nicole Stanley on the line, and I brought

Nicole on because we're going to talk about the intersection of

motherhood and being a business owner. So. Hey, Nicole, how are

you? Hey, Tiffany. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for joining

me for this important topic, because I feel like, like I said before, we hit

record, we don't talk about this enough. Yeah, I would agree

that motherhood is one of those things that you kind of just

pretend isn't going on when you start a business sometimes. And so

I'm sure a lot of your listeners might either be moms or

they currently have businesses, or even if they're working moms. My hope is that

they can get something from this episode. For sure. For sure. So let's hop right

in. Let's talk a little bit about your journey first, just so we can have

a good, solid background. I know people know most of mine, but of course,

I'll share throughout. So how did you become a business owner? Like,

what sparked that interest? Yeah, so I

was working before I had my first child

in 2017, and I worked first

in corporate sales, and then I worked in youth ministry,

and I decided to stay home with my first just because I thought that

this what I should want to do.

And I really struggled, actually, with being a stay at home mom, just

my personality. And I started writing about

personal finance. My husband and I had been on a personal

finance journey from when we got married in 2015.

And I would say that learning about personal finance really

changed the course of our life. We were, you know,

pretty average couple. Just stressed, had student loans, some

car debt. But I found that our financial stress really

affected most of our engagement, our early marriage, and

we decided to get educated about personal finance. And that's

when we first started to dive in. We took our first course, and I became

obsessed. So I was actually writing a personal finance

blog for fun. And I did not know that financial coaching

was a thing or, you know, any of the

business kind of stuff. I didn't even have that on my radar.

It wasn't until I started just naturally helping friends and family

for free that I started to realize, oh, my gosh, this

is actually wildly fun. People can make

amazing progress with their money when they have somebody, you know,

on their side, somebody to help them plan, strategize, make good

decisions. And I. I kind of put that little

nugget in my head as to, oh, I wonder if I did this and I

made it a business. And it wasn't until 2020 when my

husband was furloughed from his job where we kind

of looked at each other and said, okay, well, we don't have any income,

so why don't we start charging people? And that's really when

I kind of dove headfirst into learning about becoming a business

owner. I got trained as a financial coach, and I had

my second child. He was about three months old when I launched my

company in 2020. And since then, I been able to build

the business to have two other full time employees

outside of myself on the team. And I've been able to

help hundreds of clients all over the world become more confident

and successful with their money through financial coaching. Wow, awesome.

And, you know, as you're talking, I'm just thinking about how similar our

stories are. I mean, different in ways, but very

similar. And I always tell people, like, necessity breaches

innovation. So it was like, you know, it came about

that he got furloughed and you're like, okay, well, let's try

this, and then just kind of went for it. So I love that

aspect of the story. So let's talk about being

a mom while all of this is going on, because I know for me, for

instance, when I went full time entrepreneurship back in, what,

2019, a lot of people were concerned, like,

Tiffany, you're a single mom. You have two kids. What are you going to do?

You know, all of that stuff. So what type of things

did you think about as you were preparing? You know, you didn't have much of

a headway, but as you were preparing to do this, what were

some things. You considered when I was starting my business? One of

the big questions for me was how I

could balance being a mom and doing something else. I

grew up believing that kind of being a mom was, like, the only thing you

were doing when you were a mom. And that kind of sucks

up everything. And I, for me personally,

that was a little bit difficult because I actually

became a much more fulfilled mom when I had something I could do that was

around my own interests, that reminded me that I'm still a person.

Right. And I think that's different for everybody. Right.

But in my own life, I realized that me having something as

a woman and as an individual to be interested in helped me

be even more present as a mom. So while I initially

struggled with some guilt, because going from stay at home mom to

full time entrepreneur means I'm going to be spending less time with my

kids, right. I'm going to be having other things that I'm doing.

And I think that's really hard for a lot of people because

many women feel like we have to be moms and almost

nothing else, and that makes us somehow less than a mom. And

so my husband and I talked a lot about kind of the difference

between just time with my kids versus who I am when I

get to be with my kids. And I think that

that's why women pursuing what they're passionate about actually

brings a lot of life to the family. And that's what I found in mine.

At least to your point. You know, a lot of people

think that when you're an entrepreneur, you just have all this time in the world.

You know, you could spend more time with your kids and things like

that, which could be true to a certain extent. But

I always warn people, like, be prepared to work your butt off

at first. Oh, yeah. Especially when you

first start. And so I'm glad that you mentioned that that was part of your

story as well. And personally, like just this

week, I got a babysitter in my new environment.

And I have been more productive in the past, what,

two to three days now than I've been the whole entire time I've been here.

So I highly recommend, like, I usually when

I was back home, I would work outside the home. Or,

you know, just having that separation, I feel really helps as a

business owner. Yeah, it really does. And I think it

helps having, you know, the ability to have childcare

because, you know, when I first started my business, it was

my husband and I kind of passing our kids back and forth during COVID and

I know a lot of women who are working and starting a business, they're doing

that. And that's a very valid part of starting up

is when you don't have childcare yet because you don't have the income. And

I think that's probably one of the biggest barriers to

women starting a business because we don't have that

necessarily built in. Absolutely. And honestly, like,

I had many a long night just so I can work

on my business. Like, I would be early mornings in early mornings,

right? Two or 03:00 in the morning, waking up at six to get

them on the bus, you know, all of those different things just to make sure

that I realize this dream. But to the point that you said before,

I feel like me having this passion project

really have infused in my kids more

love, more caring, more being

in the moment at times and also sharing

with them. So, like my sons and, well, my daughter's too little

now, but my sons, they've expressed interest in being entrepreneurs as

well because they seed mom doing it. So it really has a lot of

benefits when it comes to entrepreneurship. Now,

we hit a little bit on some of the struggles and some of the things

that you've thought about during this process. What is

one thing that if you could go back, you would do

differently as a business owner?

Okay, that's a good question.

I think that if I could go back and do something

differently, it would probably be to

not agonize so much over getting help. At the beginning,

when I started my business, I had invested in, like, a financial

coaching training program. And at the time,

it was a really large investment for me. Right. I didn't

have clients yet. I didn't have know what I was going

to be when I would get clients. I was literally

about to pop with my second, and I

remember just agonizing over it. I think it took me about a year, and

once I, you know, got the training, I finally had the confidence and I was

able to get clients. And so looking back, I think that

year was probably too long for agonizing. And so I could have started

a lot sooner because I wouldn't have just

been, like, hemming and hawing over the idea of spending money on myself or

spending money on my own development, which I think is really hard when you're

starting a business. Yeah, absolutely. Because you're

like, is this going to work out? I have bills coming up.

Is this a good investment? There's so much that goes into that

thought process when you're first starting and you don't want to waste money

because everything is essential,

every dime, every penny is essential to a small business when

you're first starting. So I can definitely agree with that. I think for

me, I wish I would have hired

help sooner. So it wasn't until

I was three years into my business,

like two or three years into my business when I hired my first

person. And honestly, like, hindsight looking,

hindsight 2020, now I'm like, oh, I should have hired somebody sooner

because I am a self proclaimed

perfectionist. But letting go of that

perfection is really what helped me move forward, for

sure. Yeah, I totally identify with that as well.

Okay, we talked about trials. Let's talk about triumphs. What

would you say is your biggest thing that you've accomplished while

being an entrepreneur and a mom? And it can be related to family or it

could be related to business. But what is the biggest thing

that I would say being an entrepreneur has helped you

do when it comes to your family or your business? Yeah, I

think entrepreneurship has a way of really, like, refining

perfectionism in the sense of when I look back at my life

before I started my business, I just was so paralyzed

by what others thought of me. And I

remember just agonizing over the first Instagram posts

and the first times that I got on stories or the first blog posts that

I wrote because I was so afraid of what others

would think about me. And I wasn't really thinking about the

people that I wanted to help. I was thinking more about how I

appeared, where now I feel

almost totally on the other side of that. Like, I'm able

to really speak to the people who need

financial coaching services more so than I'm thinking

about how my friends or family might be perceiving me at the time.

And I think that that's spread, like, a lot of confidence in other places

in my life where I've kind of realized that people

can disagree with you, they can,

you know, not care whatever it might be, and, like, life still

goes on. So I feel like the stakes of kind of how I was living

became a lot lower, if that makes sense, like, the stakes of making a

mistake. I see that as a

triumph because when I look back at myself before I started a business,

I see someone who is really scared, you know,

somebody who was just so concerned about what others thought.

And I think the other thing that I look at as a huge triumph

is I have a full time coach on my team.

And for the longest time, it was

like, I want to become the best financial coach to help

the most amount of people that I can. And then you kind of hit that

limit of how many people you're able to help because there's only so many hours

in the day. And so my next goal became, well, how can I train

someone to be an even better coach than I am so

that both her and I can be helping people? And it

kind of multiplies. Right. And I would say

that really getting to that point with the people on my

team has been like a slow and steady process. But now

that we're there, where I can say, oh, my gosh, I'm so

happy to see that somebody else is able to give people amazing

results, that's able to get clients, you know, saving more.

All of that, like, that feels like something that I never would have dreamt of

a few years ago. Yes. And not only that, you're given someone else

opportunity as well. Like, when you're hiring someone, whether they're a

contractor or employee, you're either helping their business

or you're helping their family as well, while they're helping other families.

So it's like the gift that keeps on giving. So

I definitely agree with that. Now, one more question I have for

you before we wrap it up, and that is if you could

give my listeners, if someone was listening and they're like, I'm

a mom, and I want to be an entrepreneur, or I'm a beginner

entrepreneur, what is one tip that you would give

them? I would say my first tip is,

don't ask people who haven't done it if you can do it.

It would be to search for other women, other moms

who are doing the types of things that you want to do and start to

surround yourself with those voices. Because the worst

kind of poison for a new business

is all the objections that other people have

about the business. Right? Like, people who don't run businesses.

All they have are the reasons why moms can't do it. Where if

you start to surround yourself with other moms who have, what you're going to find

is they found solutions that they can share with you. They

have encouragement. They can also empathize with you, with what you're

going through, because starting a business is not a walk in the park.

And if anybody's selling you an idea that it's a walk in the park, they're

probably full of crap. So, you know, you need to

have other moms, other women in your life who

you're able to talk to about the struggles that you're going through so they can

help you brainstorm. You know, I think that surrounding yourself with those

women can be the difference between a business that never gets off, off the ground

and a business that's really successful because you were able

to get through those hard beginnings, right? Yes,

yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I'm so glad that you mentioned that

because I tell people all the time, like, who you surround

yourself with really has an effect on

how you currently see yourself, but also your future self as well.

So definitely agree with that tip, and thank you so much for

sharing. Now, if people were interested, so if somebody's like, okay,

Nicole, I want to take your tip and use it now, and I want you

to be part of my team. How could people find

you or, you know, follow you on social media? Yeah. So

you can find us on Instagram at Arise financial

coaching, we put out free financial information for

women for small business owners. And if you're a small business owner

currently and you feel like your finances are holding you back,

that might be a time to reach out to a financial coach. So you can

always book a call with us. We can talk about whether or not financial coaching

is what you need. But we make sure that people use

their money in a way that helps them achieve the things they want and not

look at money as the thing that's holding them back. I love it. I

love it. And if you all are listening and you didn't catch all of that,

I will have all of that in the show notes as well. And you have

two examples right here. Me and Nicole, we're mothers and we're

doing entrepreneurship, so you know it's possible.

And so just get the help that you need, if you need any. So thank

you so much, Nicole, for coming on the show today, and I hope you

have a wonderful rest of your day. Thanks for having me, Tiffany. Bye.

Thank you for listening, joining and being a part of the Money Talk with TIFF

podcast this week. You can check Tif out every Thursday for a

new Money talk podcast. But if you just can't wait until next week,

you can listen to previous podcast

episodes@moneytalkwitht.com or

follow TIFF on all social media platforms at

moneytalkwitht. Until next time, spend wise

by spending less than you make a word to the money wise is

always sufficient.