Speaker:
00:00:00
You know what it is. That's right. It's time to talk money with your money
Speaker:
00:00:04
nerd and financial coach. Now, tighten those purse strings
Speaker:
00:00:08
and open those ears. It's the money talk with Tiff
Speaker:
00:00:11
podcast. Hey, everyone. I'm
Speaker:
00:00:15
so excited because I have Nicole Stanley on the line, and I brought
Speaker:
00:00:18
Nicole on because we're going to talk about the intersection of
Speaker:
00:00:22
motherhood and being a business owner. So. Hey, Nicole, how are
Speaker:
00:00:26
you? Hey, Tiffany. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for joining
Speaker:
00:00:29
me for this important topic, because I feel like, like I said before, we hit
Speaker:
00:00:32
record, we don't talk about this enough. Yeah, I would agree
Speaker:
00:00:36
that motherhood is one of those things that you kind of just
Speaker:
00:00:40
pretend isn't going on when you start a business sometimes. And so
Speaker:
00:00:43
I'm sure a lot of your listeners might either be moms or
Speaker:
00:00:47
they currently have businesses, or even if they're working moms. My hope is that
Speaker:
00:00:51
they can get something from this episode. For sure. For sure. So let's hop right
Speaker:
00:00:55
in. Let's talk a little bit about your journey first, just so we can have
Speaker:
00:00:58
a good, solid background. I know people know most of mine, but of course,
Speaker:
00:01:02
I'll share throughout. So how did you become a business owner? Like,
Speaker:
00:01:06
what sparked that interest? Yeah, so I
Speaker:
00:01:09
was working before I had my first child
Speaker:
00:01:13
in 2017, and I worked first
Speaker:
00:01:16
in corporate sales, and then I worked in youth ministry,
Speaker:
00:01:20
and I decided to stay home with my first just because I thought that
Speaker:
00:01:23
this what I should want to do.
Speaker:
00:01:27
And I really struggled, actually, with being a stay at home mom, just
Speaker:
00:01:31
my personality. And I started writing about
Speaker:
00:01:35
personal finance. My husband and I had been on a personal
Speaker:
00:01:38
finance journey from when we got married in 2015.
Speaker:
00:01:42
And I would say that learning about personal finance really
Speaker:
00:01:45
changed the course of our life. We were, you know,
Speaker:
00:01:49
pretty average couple. Just stressed, had student loans, some
Speaker:
00:01:53
car debt. But I found that our financial stress really
Speaker:
00:01:57
affected most of our engagement, our early marriage, and
Speaker:
00:02:01
we decided to get educated about personal finance. And that's
Speaker:
00:02:05
when we first started to dive in. We took our first course, and I became
Speaker:
00:02:09
obsessed. So I was actually writing a personal finance
Speaker:
00:02:12
blog for fun. And I did not know that financial coaching
Speaker:
00:02:16
was a thing or, you know, any of the
Speaker:
00:02:20
business kind of stuff. I didn't even have that on my radar.
Speaker:
00:02:23
It wasn't until I started just naturally helping friends and family
Speaker:
00:02:27
for free that I started to realize, oh, my gosh, this
Speaker:
00:02:31
is actually wildly fun. People can make
Speaker:
00:02:34
amazing progress with their money when they have somebody, you know,
Speaker:
00:02:38
on their side, somebody to help them plan, strategize, make good
Speaker:
00:02:41
decisions. And I. I kind of put that little
Speaker:
00:02:45
nugget in my head as to, oh, I wonder if I did this and I
Speaker:
00:02:48
made it a business. And it wasn't until 2020 when my
Speaker:
00:02:52
husband was furloughed from his job where we kind
Speaker:
00:02:56
of looked at each other and said, okay, well, we don't have any income,
Speaker:
00:02:59
so why don't we start charging people? And that's really when
Speaker:
00:03:03
I kind of dove headfirst into learning about becoming a business
Speaker:
00:03:07
owner. I got trained as a financial coach, and I had
Speaker:
00:03:11
my second child. He was about three months old when I launched my
Speaker:
00:03:14
company in 2020. And since then, I been able to build
Speaker:
00:03:18
the business to have two other full time employees
Speaker:
00:03:22
outside of myself on the team. And I've been able to
Speaker:
00:03:25
help hundreds of clients all over the world become more confident
Speaker:
00:03:29
and successful with their money through financial coaching. Wow, awesome.
Speaker:
00:03:33
And, you know, as you're talking, I'm just thinking about how similar our
Speaker:
00:03:37
stories are. I mean, different in ways, but very
Speaker:
00:03:41
similar. And I always tell people, like, necessity breaches
Speaker:
00:03:44
innovation. So it was like, you know, it came about
Speaker:
00:03:48
that he got furloughed and you're like, okay, well, let's try
Speaker:
00:03:51
this, and then just kind of went for it. So I love that
Speaker:
00:03:55
aspect of the story. So let's talk about being
Speaker:
00:03:59
a mom while all of this is going on, because I know for me, for
Speaker:
00:04:02
instance, when I went full time entrepreneurship back in, what,
Speaker:
00:04:06
2019, a lot of people were concerned, like,
Speaker:
00:04:09
Tiffany, you're a single mom. You have two kids. What are you going to do?
Speaker:
00:04:13
You know, all of that stuff. So what type of things
Speaker:
00:04:16
did you think about as you were preparing? You know, you didn't have much of
Speaker:
00:04:20
a headway, but as you were preparing to do this, what were
Speaker:
00:04:24
some things. You considered when I was starting my business? One of
Speaker:
00:04:28
the big questions for me was how I
Speaker:
00:04:31
could balance being a mom and doing something else. I
Speaker:
00:04:35
grew up believing that kind of being a mom was, like, the only thing you
Speaker:
00:04:38
were doing when you were a mom. And that kind of sucks
Speaker:
00:04:42
up everything. And I, for me personally,
Speaker:
00:04:45
that was a little bit difficult because I actually
Speaker:
00:04:49
became a much more fulfilled mom when I had something I could do that was
Speaker:
00:04:53
around my own interests, that reminded me that I'm still a person.
Speaker:
00:04:56
Right. And I think that's different for everybody. Right.
Speaker:
00:05:00
But in my own life, I realized that me having something as
Speaker:
00:05:04
a woman and as an individual to be interested in helped me
Speaker:
00:05:08
be even more present as a mom. So while I initially
Speaker:
00:05:11
struggled with some guilt, because going from stay at home mom to
Speaker:
00:05:15
full time entrepreneur means I'm going to be spending less time with my
Speaker:
00:05:19
kids, right. I'm going to be having other things that I'm doing.
Speaker:
00:05:22
And I think that's really hard for a lot of people because
Speaker:
00:05:27
many women feel like we have to be moms and almost
Speaker:
00:05:30
nothing else, and that makes us somehow less than a mom. And
Speaker:
00:05:34
so my husband and I talked a lot about kind of the difference
Speaker:
00:05:38
between just time with my kids versus who I am when I
Speaker:
00:05:41
get to be with my kids. And I think that
Speaker:
00:05:45
that's why women pursuing what they're passionate about actually
Speaker:
00:05:49
brings a lot of life to the family. And that's what I found in mine.
Speaker:
00:05:53
At least to your point. You know, a lot of people
Speaker:
00:05:57
think that when you're an entrepreneur, you just have all this time in the world.
Speaker:
00:06:01
You know, you could spend more time with your kids and things like
Speaker:
00:06:04
that, which could be true to a certain extent. But
Speaker:
00:06:08
I always warn people, like, be prepared to work your butt off
Speaker:
00:06:12
at first. Oh, yeah. Especially when you
Speaker:
00:06:16
first start. And so I'm glad that you mentioned that that was part of your
Speaker:
00:06:19
story as well. And personally, like just this
Speaker:
00:06:22
week, I got a babysitter in my new environment.
Speaker:
00:06:26
And I have been more productive in the past, what,
Speaker:
00:06:30
two to three days now than I've been the whole entire time I've been here.
Speaker:
00:06:34
So I highly recommend, like, I usually when
Speaker:
00:06:38
I was back home, I would work outside the home. Or,
Speaker:
00:06:41
you know, just having that separation, I feel really helps as a
Speaker:
00:06:45
business owner. Yeah, it really does. And I think it
Speaker:
00:06:49
helps having, you know, the ability to have childcare
Speaker:
00:06:52
because, you know, when I first started my business, it was
Speaker:
00:06:56
my husband and I kind of passing our kids back and forth during COVID and
Speaker:
00:07:00
I know a lot of women who are working and starting a business, they're doing
Speaker:
00:07:03
that. And that's a very valid part of starting up
Speaker:
00:07:07
is when you don't have childcare yet because you don't have the income. And
Speaker:
00:07:10
I think that's probably one of the biggest barriers to
Speaker:
00:07:14
women starting a business because we don't have that
Speaker:
00:07:18
necessarily built in. Absolutely. And honestly, like,
Speaker:
00:07:22
I had many a long night just so I can work
Speaker:
00:07:25
on my business. Like, I would be early mornings in early mornings,
Speaker:
00:07:29
right? Two or 03:00 in the morning, waking up at six to get
Speaker:
00:07:32
them on the bus, you know, all of those different things just to make sure
Speaker:
00:07:36
that I realize this dream. But to the point that you said before,
Speaker:
00:07:41
I feel like me having this passion project
Speaker:
00:07:44
really have infused in my kids more
Speaker:
00:07:48
love, more caring, more being
Speaker:
00:07:52
in the moment at times and also sharing
Speaker:
00:07:56
with them. So, like my sons and, well, my daughter's too little
Speaker:
00:08:00
now, but my sons, they've expressed interest in being entrepreneurs as
Speaker:
00:08:03
well because they seed mom doing it. So it really has a lot of
Speaker:
00:08:07
benefits when it comes to entrepreneurship. Now,
Speaker:
00:08:11
we hit a little bit on some of the struggles and some of the things
Speaker:
00:08:15
that you've thought about during this process. What is
Speaker:
00:08:18
one thing that if you could go back, you would do
Speaker:
00:08:22
differently as a business owner?
Speaker:
00:08:26
Okay, that's a good question.
Speaker:
00:08:30
I think that if I could go back and do something
Speaker:
00:08:35
differently, it would probably be to
Speaker:
00:08:39
not agonize so much over getting help. At the beginning,
Speaker:
00:08:43
when I started my business, I had invested in, like, a financial
Speaker:
00:08:47
coaching training program. And at the time,
Speaker:
00:08:51
it was a really large investment for me. Right. I didn't
Speaker:
00:08:54
have clients yet. I didn't have know what I was going
Speaker:
00:08:58
to be when I would get clients. I was literally
Speaker:
00:09:02
about to pop with my second, and I
Speaker:
00:09:05
remember just agonizing over it. I think it took me about a year, and
Speaker:
00:09:09
once I, you know, got the training, I finally had the confidence and I was
Speaker:
00:09:13
able to get clients. And so looking back, I think that
Speaker:
00:09:16
year was probably too long for agonizing. And so I could have started
Speaker:
00:09:20
a lot sooner because I wouldn't have just
Speaker:
00:09:24
been, like, hemming and hawing over the idea of spending money on myself or
Speaker:
00:09:28
spending money on my own development, which I think is really hard when you're
Speaker:
00:09:32
starting a business. Yeah, absolutely. Because you're
Speaker:
00:09:36
like, is this going to work out? I have bills coming up.
Speaker:
00:09:39
Is this a good investment? There's so much that goes into that
Speaker:
00:09:43
thought process when you're first starting and you don't want to waste money
Speaker:
00:09:47
because everything is essential,
Speaker:
00:09:50
every dime, every penny is essential to a small business when
Speaker:
00:09:54
you're first starting. So I can definitely agree with that. I think for
Speaker:
00:09:58
me, I wish I would have hired
Speaker:
00:10:01
help sooner. So it wasn't until
Speaker:
00:10:05
I was three years into my business,
Speaker:
00:10:09
like two or three years into my business when I hired my first
Speaker:
00:10:12
person. And honestly, like, hindsight looking,
Speaker:
00:10:16
hindsight 2020, now I'm like, oh, I should have hired somebody sooner
Speaker:
00:10:20
because I am a self proclaimed
Speaker:
00:10:23
perfectionist. But letting go of that
Speaker:
00:10:27
perfection is really what helped me move forward, for
Speaker:
00:10:30
sure. Yeah, I totally identify with that as well.
Speaker:
00:10:34
Okay, we talked about trials. Let's talk about triumphs. What
Speaker:
00:10:38
would you say is your biggest thing that you've accomplished while
Speaker:
00:10:41
being an entrepreneur and a mom? And it can be related to family or it
Speaker:
00:10:45
could be related to business. But what is the biggest thing
Speaker:
00:10:49
that I would say being an entrepreneur has helped you
Speaker:
00:10:52
do when it comes to your family or your business? Yeah, I
Speaker:
00:10:56
think entrepreneurship has a way of really, like, refining
Speaker:
00:11:00
perfectionism in the sense of when I look back at my life
Speaker:
00:11:04
before I started my business, I just was so paralyzed
Speaker:
00:11:08
by what others thought of me. And I
Speaker:
00:11:11
remember just agonizing over the first Instagram posts
Speaker:
00:11:15
and the first times that I got on stories or the first blog posts that
Speaker:
00:11:19
I wrote because I was so afraid of what others
Speaker:
00:11:22
would think about me. And I wasn't really thinking about the
Speaker:
00:11:26
people that I wanted to help. I was thinking more about how I
Speaker:
00:11:30
appeared, where now I feel
Speaker:
00:11:33
almost totally on the other side of that. Like, I'm able
Speaker:
00:11:37
to really speak to the people who need
Speaker:
00:11:41
financial coaching services more so than I'm thinking
Speaker:
00:11:45
about how my friends or family might be perceiving me at the time.
Speaker:
00:11:48
And I think that that's spread, like, a lot of confidence in other places
Speaker:
00:11:52
in my life where I've kind of realized that people
Speaker:
00:11:56
can disagree with you, they can,
Speaker:
00:12:00
you know, not care whatever it might be, and, like, life still
Speaker:
00:12:04
goes on. So I feel like the stakes of kind of how I was living
Speaker:
00:12:08
became a lot lower, if that makes sense, like, the stakes of making a
Speaker:
00:12:11
mistake. I see that as a
Speaker:
00:12:15
triumph because when I look back at myself before I started a business,
Speaker:
00:12:18
I see someone who is really scared, you know,
Speaker:
00:12:22
somebody who was just so concerned about what others thought.
Speaker:
00:12:28
And I think the other thing that I look at as a huge triumph
Speaker:
00:12:31
is I have a full time coach on my team.
Speaker:
00:12:34
And for the longest time, it was
Speaker:
00:12:38
like, I want to become the best financial coach to help
Speaker:
00:12:41
the most amount of people that I can. And then you kind of hit that
Speaker:
00:12:44
limit of how many people you're able to help because there's only so many hours
Speaker:
00:12:48
in the day. And so my next goal became, well, how can I train
Speaker:
00:12:52
someone to be an even better coach than I am so
Speaker:
00:12:55
that both her and I can be helping people? And it
Speaker:
00:12:59
kind of multiplies. Right. And I would say
Speaker:
00:13:02
that really getting to that point with the people on my
Speaker:
00:13:06
team has been like a slow and steady process. But now
Speaker:
00:13:10
that we're there, where I can say, oh, my gosh, I'm so
Speaker:
00:13:13
happy to see that somebody else is able to give people amazing
Speaker:
00:13:17
results, that's able to get clients, you know, saving more.
Speaker:
00:13:21
All of that, like, that feels like something that I never would have dreamt of
Speaker:
00:13:25
a few years ago. Yes. And not only that, you're given someone else
Speaker:
00:13:29
opportunity as well. Like, when you're hiring someone, whether they're a
Speaker:
00:13:32
contractor or employee, you're either helping their business
Speaker:
00:13:36
or you're helping their family as well, while they're helping other families.
Speaker:
00:13:40
So it's like the gift that keeps on giving. So
Speaker:
00:13:44
I definitely agree with that. Now, one more question I have for
Speaker:
00:13:48
you before we wrap it up, and that is if you could
Speaker:
00:13:51
give my listeners, if someone was listening and they're like, I'm
Speaker:
00:13:55
a mom, and I want to be an entrepreneur, or I'm a beginner
Speaker:
00:13:59
entrepreneur, what is one tip that you would give
Speaker:
00:14:03
them? I would say my first tip is,
Speaker:
00:14:07
don't ask people who haven't done it if you can do it.
Speaker:
00:14:12
It would be to search for other women, other moms
Speaker:
00:14:16
who are doing the types of things that you want to do and start to
Speaker:
00:14:19
surround yourself with those voices. Because the worst
Speaker:
00:14:22
kind of poison for a new business
Speaker:
00:14:26
is all the objections that other people have
Speaker:
00:14:30
about the business. Right? Like, people who don't run businesses.
Speaker:
00:14:33
All they have are the reasons why moms can't do it. Where if
Speaker:
00:14:37
you start to surround yourself with other moms who have, what you're going to find
Speaker:
00:14:41
is they found solutions that they can share with you. They
Speaker:
00:14:45
have encouragement. They can also empathize with you, with what you're
Speaker:
00:14:49
going through, because starting a business is not a walk in the park.
Speaker:
00:14:52
And if anybody's selling you an idea that it's a walk in the park, they're
Speaker:
00:14:56
probably full of crap. So, you know, you need to
Speaker:
00:15:00
have other moms, other women in your life who
Speaker:
00:15:04
you're able to talk to about the struggles that you're going through so they can
Speaker:
00:15:08
help you brainstorm. You know, I think that surrounding yourself with those
Speaker:
00:15:11
women can be the difference between a business that never gets off, off the ground
Speaker:
00:15:15
and a business that's really successful because you were able
Speaker:
00:15:19
to get through those hard beginnings, right? Yes,
Speaker:
00:15:22
yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I'm so glad that you mentioned that
Speaker:
00:15:26
because I tell people all the time, like, who you surround
Speaker:
00:15:30
yourself with really has an effect on
Speaker:
00:15:34
how you currently see yourself, but also your future self as well.
Speaker:
00:15:37
So definitely agree with that tip, and thank you so much for
Speaker:
00:15:41
sharing. Now, if people were interested, so if somebody's like, okay,
Speaker:
00:15:45
Nicole, I want to take your tip and use it now, and I want you
Speaker:
00:15:48
to be part of my team. How could people find
Speaker:
00:15:51
you or, you know, follow you on social media? Yeah. So
Speaker:
00:15:55
you can find us on Instagram at Arise financial
Speaker:
00:15:58
coaching, we put out free financial information for
Speaker:
00:16:02
women for small business owners. And if you're a small business owner
Speaker:
00:16:06
currently and you feel like your finances are holding you back,
Speaker:
00:16:10
that might be a time to reach out to a financial coach. So you can
Speaker:
00:16:13
always book a call with us. We can talk about whether or not financial coaching
Speaker:
00:16:16
is what you need. But we make sure that people use
Speaker:
00:16:20
their money in a way that helps them achieve the things they want and not
Speaker:
00:16:23
look at money as the thing that's holding them back. I love it. I
Speaker:
00:16:27
love it. And if you all are listening and you didn't catch all of that,
Speaker:
00:16:30
I will have all of that in the show notes as well. And you have
Speaker:
00:16:33
two examples right here. Me and Nicole, we're mothers and we're
Speaker:
00:16:37
doing entrepreneurship, so you know it's possible.
Speaker:
00:16:41
And so just get the help that you need, if you need any. So thank
Speaker:
00:16:45
you so much, Nicole, for coming on the show today, and I hope you
Speaker:
00:16:49
have a wonderful rest of your day. Thanks for having me, Tiffany. Bye.
Speaker:
00:16:53
Thank you for listening, joining and being a part of the Money Talk with TIFF
Speaker:
00:16:57
podcast this week. You can check Tif out every Thursday for a
Speaker:
00:17:00
new Money talk podcast. But if you just can't wait until next week,
Speaker:
00:17:04
you can listen to previous podcast
Speaker:
00:17:06
episodes@moneytalkwitht.com or
Speaker:
00:17:10
follow TIFF on all social media platforms at
Speaker:
00:17:13
moneytalkwitht. Until next time, spend wise
Speaker:
00:17:17
by spending less than you make a word to the money wise is
Speaker:
00:17:20
always sufficient.