And we’re not really doing that for moms. And so I wanna give you some tips about ways that you can rethink motherhood based on ways that people helped me think about business that I think will be very helpful. So first, there are just, just way better expectations laid out for business, right? Like you don’t meet people who are like, Hey, it’s awesome, it’s fun, it’s easy, just do it. I mean, I’m sure there’s ads out there that say that, but most people know that that isn’t, isn’t true, right? Like even when you’re buying a business program, there’s just an understanding that entrepreneurship is challenging and that no one’s gonna do it for you. That you’re gonna have to figure it out, that it’s a puzzle to be solved. Everyone does it slightly differently. And I think there’s just a way better understanding of the magnitude of what you’re undertaking.

Now I still think as entrepreneurs we get that wrong all the time. It’s still harder than we thought and more complicated than we thought. And it takes longer than we thought, right? But with motherhood, particularly now, because we know that so many women are choosing not to have children and that the culture is really putting down motherhood. So many moms are like, it’s great. I mean it’s hard, but it’s so wonderful. That’s how we talk about it. I mean, that’s not how I talk about it, but I, I think as a culture, that’s how we talk about it. Because we want women to have children. We know that it is good and we don’t wanna scare them, but because of that we don’t really give them great expectations or clear expectations about what it’s really like. I also think we don’t tell our children enough of the reality of the challenges of parenting.

And we, for good reason, I think w we shouldn’t shame children and be like, oh my gosh, you make my life terrible. It’s so hard all the time. Like not that okay. But I do tell my children I was just talking to my oldest and she was telling me what kind of grandma she thought I was gonna be, which was adorable. It was a wonderful conversation. And I said, you know, and I’d really love it if you don’t live here for me to fly out and watch your kids so that you and your husband can go away for a few days. And she said, why would we wanna go away for a few days? And I told her, I said, listen, having children is wonderful and it’s so satisfying, but it’s exhausting. There’s a lot of noise and you have to wake up and take care of them every day for every meal.

And I said, your brain right now couldn’t possibly understand that. And I said, that’s okay, but you will want time away from your kids to rest and relax and spend time with the Lord or spend time with your husband. And so I tell my kids these things so that when they become parents and it’s exhausting, they’re like, why didn’t no one tell me? It was exhausting. I was not prepared for that. And so I still painted in a positive light and I say that it’s worth it. And I usually say, you know it, it’s a calling like God will call you to have children or not.

But I think that we can have better expectations for parents. So think about yourself right now. You can do this for yourself right now in whatever stage of parenting you’re in. You can go ask someone 10 years older than you. What should I expect about this next phase? I was coaching someone and she was talking about feeling very overwhelmed, having a hard time making decisions like picking paint. They’re painting their living room. And I said, well, what’s your life like ? And she starts telling me all the things she’s got going on in her life. She was an entrepreneur, but this was not a business call. It was one of our life coaching calls and masters. And she had a couple teenagers and maybe one in college and maybe one getting married, if I’m remembering that correctly. Anyway, I just began to describe to her what that phase of parenting is like where you’re dealing with teens and hormones and hey, where are they?

They wanna go to their friend’s houses, they’re having big mood swings, but then also like the college age where they’re trying to figure out what they’re doing with their life. And you don’t want them to mess it up. And sometimes they want your help, but sometimes they don’t. And then there’s like, I’m gonna get married. And of course you’re gonna have lots of thoughts about the guy and their age and their money and jobs and should they get married. So you’re like holding all of the life goals and thoughts of all of these people and then putting them first. Because when you have kids that are teens and young adults and they call you, you answer cuz there’s all the time they don’t wanna talk to you. So then when they do, you’re like, woo, I’m gonna take it. But then it’s very emotionally draining.

So of course you get to the end of the day and you have nothing left for you and making a silly decision like what color should we paint the living room? So I just kind of described that phase of parenting for her and I could see her really light up and be like, oh, and it’d be even better by the way if we had a name for it. But like, oh, I’m just in that phase of parenting now and that is exactly what it’s like and nothing has gone wrong and now I can decide how I want to be in this phase of parenting. And that’s what they do so much better in my opinion in the business world is there’s like the startup stage and the growth stage and then the scaling stage. There’s all these stages and, and even stages within those stages to normalize what you’re going through and what you’re experiencing.

And so there are very distinct phases in parenting and then even I think unique ones depending on what kind of family you have. Like if you’ve got a kid who’s really good at soccer and he’s on the special traveling team, there’s gonna be years of your life where you’re like a family who’s doing the fancy sports traveling thing. That’s a phase. And so just having better expectations and knowing I don’t know about this new stage, so I wanna go learn about it. So that brings me to the second thing that I think is better in business than in motherhood, which is that there are mentors and coaches in business and everyone has a mentor or a coach, like everyone, no one’s doing business on their own for the most part. Like in especially in the environment I was in getting a finance degree, right?

In the business plan, competitions, startups, those kinds of groups. I went to a lot of groups, people had businesses and it’s just understood that business is better when you have a mentor or a coach. People don’t ask you why. It’s just kind of an expectation. And yet we don’t have a system like that for motherhood. And you guys have heard me talk about, you know, the concept of washing clothes in the river with all of the other women, right? And, and that used to serve that kind of form of mentorship. And then I think there have been, you know, iterations of that throughout the years where you had help and guidance, but now we don’t. You have the internet and that thing is a bear.

And so seeking out a mentor, seeking out a coach, having someone shortcut the pain of learning, that’s what they do. It’s like you can take a hundred hours to figure it out or you can have someone guide you and it takes 20 hours. I don’t know what the math is on that for motherhood, but in business you’re not embarrassed to look for that. You’re not ashamed. You don’t wonder if you should spend the money on that. Like you just are bought in early on that coaches and mentors will help you be better at business. And so I wish there was just a better understanding of that for moms. And if you don’t have the money to join a program like ours or hire a one-on-one coach, I would just encourage you to be brave and go find a mentor, find a mom who’s older than you, who looks like, you know, that’s kind of like our family, either size, either lifestyle maybe really admire her faith, whatever it is, pick someone and just be brave enough to say, will you be my mentor?

Can I call you sometimes and ask you questions? I’m gonna, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say almost every single woman in her fifties or sixties or seventies would love to do that, would love to mentor a young mom. But you gotta know that it’s a thing. You’ve gotta want it and you have to be brave enough to go seek it. And then of course that’s what life coaching is, right? Life coaching is helping you get through motherhood and short-cutting some of the stages with wisdom and psychology tools and habit stacking and time management. And then just understanding what you’re going through.

We have excellent coaches who do private one-on-one coaching and you can get coaching in our membership. So those are two very different things. But I think they both speak to this idea that having a mentor or a coach help you ex go through stages faster with more wisdom is such a good thing. So the next thing about business that I wish we had better for motherhood is just like an openness to problem solving. Particularly in startups, we’re like throwing spaghetti against the wall. We’re guessing, we’re thinking outside of the box, we’re trying things and you are celebrated for that. Whereas I feel like in motherhood there are boxes and we’re trying to stay in the boxes or hot boxes and be like, is that box better than my box? And I just, I wish in motherhood, I could give all of you permission to just, you’re gonna do it totally different than everyone else. Your job is just to walk closely with the Lord and be a problem solver. And I just feel like there’s more freedom of that in business and it’s celebrated. I’d like to celebrate that more in motherhood. Like you do what’s good for your family, you’re gonna find this very unique combination of things that works for you.

When I find a mom who’s very frustrated, it’s usually because she is in resistance to what’s happening. This shouldn’t be happening, it shouldn’t be like this. She has some sort of ideal like, oh it should, it should fit in the box. There’s that box over there and it should fit in the box and it doesn’t. And I’m like, Hey, whenever you’re done arguing with that box, I’ll help you solve your problem. And so when we are calm and open and in our problem solving mode, we just see solutions that we didn’t see before. And so I just wanna give you permission to do that and really start to learn what resistance feels in your body. Resistance feels like you really think that what’s happening should not be happening and you are not a good problem solver when you’re in that state. Wanna get you into a problem solving state, okay? And the last thing that’s true of both of them, and I think that we fumble this idea in both business and in motherhood, is that you’re never really off when you’re an entrepreneur. You’re never not working. Your brain is always thinking about work. And when you’re a mom, you’re never not mommying. You’re always momming, okay? And so both of them really require intentionally carving out space and time.

When you are not thinking about your business or doing mom things, you have got to create some space where it’s just you and you are not wearing your business hat and you are not wearing your mom hat. And in certain phases of life that might be five minutes in your car, in the garage away from the kids where you are not allowed to think about anything related to the kids. You can think about other things, you can dream, you can sleep, you can scroll on your phone. But we’ve got to learn to create some boundaries around our vocations. And I think we hear about that in both groups, both in business and in motherhood, kind of burnout out and self-care, that kind of stuff. But I just want you to know for either one, it just really does take intentionality. It really does. And it’s worth it. You will be a better mom for having taken time off. You will be better in your business for having taken time off where you are not allowed to think about your business. So

I know that my business background has really helped me in motherhood because I’ve been able to pull some of those concepts in. I think it’s one of the reasons that I read so many books. Like in the business world, it’s very cool. Like the Cool Kids Club thing to do is to read whatever cool business book is happening then. So they really train you in business school to read business books. And so I just carried that on when I became a mom. If I didn’t know something, I would just buy a book about it. And now I don’t know that I read whole books as much anymore, particularly on parenting. I really lean on YouTube a lot. I will just like YouTube a very specific issue and go learn about it. But my willingness to be open and to learn about things, it feels so freeing. And so being a mom is like running a business and having employees and managing time and figuring out HR issues and managing the home, which is like having a store and all the inventory moms are great entrepreneurs because you’re already doing it. You’ve already built so many of those skills.

And so don’t be afraid to think of your home more like a business and just figure out what stage of business am I in? What stage of motherhood am I in? What tools do I need? Who can help me with this? How can I be a better problem solver? What do I wish it looked like? Instead, in business, we’re always setting goals like where are you at? Where do you wanna go? And I don’t think we do that enough as moms. And so I was just thinking about that and I wanted to share that with you. I wanted to share the ways that I feel like my business background has really helped me in motherhood and how you can use those same lessons in your own life.

And then if you are in business, if you are a Catholic mom who’s an entrepreneur, I have three business programs. We don’t talk about ’em that much on this program, on this podcast, but if you join our membership, that’s where you wanna go. If you haven’t even started your business, maybe if you don’t even have a business, like I’ll help you come up with an idea and start that business. That’s what Masters is for. And then when you have an idea and you’re ready to grow it, then you’re gonna wanna join the maid for Business Society, which is where we really learn how to do business hard skills, manage your mind drama, and really figure out how you do business while raising kids? And then once you’ve done a hundred thousand dollars, and not everybody has that goal in the society, but a lot of them do. Once you’ve done a hundred thousand dollars, I’ll help you get there. Then you wanna join the Marion Mastermind. And whether you’ve done a hundred thousand dollars or a million dollars, the Marion Mastermind is about women coming together, pursuing sainthood while raising kids. It’s about learning how to have peace in your business and outside of your business.

And it’s about being part of a community of really deeply faithful Catholic moms who have a strange calling. Entrepreneurship while raising kids is a very unusual calling. And this group is so wonderful,

And once you join the Marion Mastermind, you’re in forever. I wanted a program where we built long-lasting deep friendships and we kicked off with a two day in-person event in Coleman, Alabama. The in-person event is two days for the mastermind, and then there’s gonna be an optional third day for people who wanna visit the shrine of the most blessed sacrament that Mother Angelica built. So that’s why we’re having it there. I really wanted to go there. And then we meet every week and it’s me coaching and us supporting each other and brainstorming, nailing down strategy, talking about husbands and kids. We do all sorts of stuff on that call. And then I coach you one-on-one for six months, and that’s where we dig into whatever your specific goals are. One of my clients wants to work less. She makes good money and she’s pretty happy with her business. She’s like, I’d love to work a little bit less. One of my clients wants to work on leading her team better. She’s like, I know I’m doing an okay job, but I wanna do a really good job. I wanna learn how to do that.

And so if you are wanting to start a business, wanting to grow a business or wanting to join the Marian Mastermind to learn how to work from peace, go check out our website Made for Greatness co. Just click on business. One of those programs will be right for where you are. You won’t ever have to wonder ’cause you’re, you’re either starting a business, you’re growing a business, or you’ve already done a hundred thousand dollars and you wanna grow. And I’m a very good business coach and I have a lot of experience and the group has a lot of experience. So it’s not just me that helps you and I will help you remove whatever obstacle is coming up, keeping you from doing what God wants you to do. He has a business for you and your mind, drama’s getting in the way, or your lack of planning or your confusion about something. And we’re just gonna clean it up and move forward and it’s pretty special.

And for those of you that are not called to business, that’s totally fine. You were called to something else. Ask the Lord what it is. And I will never say that someone is just called to motherhood. That is a huge business. But we all have unique callings and I want you to trust it. Even if it looks different than every single friend that you have or every mom at your parish. Trust, the calling that God has given you comes deep within you. It comes from the Holy Spirit. That’s why it feels like something inside of us that wants to come out. That’s a drive to create. I’m proud of you. I think you’re a good mom. I think you’re doing a really good job and God hand picked out everything about you. Isn’t that cool? And I want you to learn to trust that. Trust the gifts that he’s given you and trust the challenges he’s brought to you. He picked those two. And if he’s called you to business, come join me in one of my programs. Thank you so much for listening and have a blessed day.