Today I share a little update with you on what I've been up to (spoiler not a lot haha!) and life in Lockdown 2.0 in Melbourne.

Hello and welcome to today's episode with the delightful Annie Love.

I hope this finds you all well and managing the juggle. We are now a few weeks into home schooling here in Vic which has been quite the roller coaster ride. Some days are good and some are bad. In some ways I think us business owners have been training for this a long time,let's face it, we are used to the juggle, working in the spare pockets of time that we have and having to pivot and be agile when things don't' go to plan. That is not to say things are easy but it's something I've been reflecting on when I look around at my business owner friends who I'm so proud of at the moment.

As business owners we don't have the luxury of tucking into any carers or annual leave, many of us don't have colleagues who can support us on tough days and the future of our business rests on our shoulders yet the courage we showed when we started our businesses is shining through now and I just want to let you all know that it may not feel like it but you are doing an amazing job.

I have to warn you that you will need to listen to today's episode with tissues handy, however you will also leave the episode with a smile on your face looking at your life with a new perspective which couldn't be more timely. I also wanted to thank Annie for sharing her story, as you will hear it is not an easy story to tell but Annie is determined to share so she can help others find the light during difficult times.

I first came across Annie Love's story a year ago and it is safe to say it stopped me in my tracks. How Annie and her family had experienced everything they had in a few short years felt unjust and unfair but there was something about Annie, that this remarkable women could not only still find the positives in life but radiate love and light the way that she does was incredible to me. I feel incredibly honoured that Annie came into my life a few months ago. I have been coaching Annie but I have to say in the short time we've worked together the roles have been reversed and she has changed the way I look at my life.

Based in Brisbane, Annie wears many hats - wife, mother to three beautiful boys, co-owner of Grassroots IT with husband Ben, writer on the Mummalove blog, life coach and I'm thrilled to say new podcaster. After a rollercoaster of a parenting journey, she is well placed to help women find joy and create their best life even through difficult circumstances.

In the episode Annie discusses:

- How Annie and Ben created a business that was flexible around family

- How Annie has navigated indescribable grief through her life

- Down syndrome awareness - how Annie and her husband worked through the diagnosis of down syndrome of their youngest son Nicholas

- How Annie and Ben dealt with the diagnosis of leukaemia and the chemo treatment of their eldest son Sam

- How Annie is helping other mothers through life coaching

I'm so proud of Annie who has just launched a new podcast called 'The Mummalove Podcast'. The podcast is about finding light even in the midst of darkness. I've been lucky enough to get a sneak peek at some of the episodes and they are amazing. I would be so happy if you could jump on over to the podcast and give it a listen and share with any friends who you think it may help. Here is a link, https://mumma-love.com/podcast/

So now let's get on with the show.

Here is the video I mentioned in the podcast of the gorgeous Nicholas,

Today's episode is with the beautiful and wise Michelle Broadbent. We recorded this well before iso life began and I have to apologise for being so behind with my episodes this year. I'm going to be changing things up a little which I'll share with you soon just to make this more manageable while juggling business and now home schooling!

Michelle supports female entrepreneurs as they navigate their way through to the next stage of business growth. Michelle is a trusted confidant and sounding board. She is tuned-in to what her clients need and prides herself on providing balanced advice with a big dose of TLC.

During this chat Michelle and I must have been able to see into the future as there was so much we discussed that will be able to help you navigate this period that we are currently in.

In the episode Michelle discusses:

- How to get really organised in your business and become a master of your own time

- How a Career Coach helped her change careers

- How she has created a business that supports her lifestyle as a Mum of two daughters

- Some amazing productivity and time hacks

- The importance of creating systems within your business

- A great tip on how to manage your wardrobe which is something we can all do at the moment and will help with our budgets!

And finally Michelle discusses the importance of nurturing and maintaining female friendships. This is something we haven't covered on the show before an d it is so timely as I've found for myself I've been leaning on my female friendships more than ever before the last few weeks.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself recording this but also learnt a great deal which I know you are going to as well. So now let's get on with the show.

You can find Michelle at https://www.michellebroadbent.com.au and on Instagram @michbroadbent

Welcome to today's episode of Business Between Bells with Tracy Harris from Mums with Hustle.

I hope today's episode will provide you with a bit of relief in light of covid-19, we recorded this two weeks ago when it felt as if circumstances were very different and it was a really enjoyable chat.

I've been following Tracy's journey since the very beginning, her eldest son and my daughter are a few months apart and I started my business not long after hers. It has been an absolute joy to see her and her husband Karl grow it into the empire it is today helping Mums from all over the globe design their life first and business second by harnessing the superpower of Instagram as part of a complete digital strategy. I'm a founding member of the Social Method Society and I have to say it is a community like no other.

In today's episode we discuss:

- How Tracy and Karl have walked the talk and created their business around their values and life vision

- How their son Ethan and the family are transitioning into his first year of school

- How matrescence transformed Tracy into a new person and was the catalyst for her starting her successful business

- How we all need to keep our 'future selves' in mind when designing our businesses

- How Tracy developed a membership model for her business 'The Social Method Society' and her decisions behind going all in on this and how it has paid off

- The importance of seeking out mentors in business

Tracy's energy is infectious, and I think this will be such a great pick me up for you at the moment. I hope you get as much out of it as I did.

You can find Tracy at https://mumswithhustle.com/ and on Instagram @mumswithhustle

Today's episode is with the awesome Nat Stewart from Business Jump who can I just say is a total Mum boss, recording this episode while her 8 month old twins had their nap!

Nat is a mother of four and the strategic powerhouse behind Business Jump; an online business that provides a platform for other mothers to jump start their dreams of running a profitable business from home.

Nat regularly bares all with her tribe of a collective forty thousand mothers and business owners, sharing stories of not just her learnings in business but the real and raw events that shaped who she is today.

In today's episode Nat discussed:

- How she manages the family/business juggle with two children at primary school and twin baby girls

- How Nat's remarkable business growth has been mostly an organic process

- How she keeps her business and its systems simple

- The importance to Nat of sharing all elements of her story - warts and all

- A really important discussion around mental health and how Nat manages it as a business owner and Mum

- And how Nat has used PR in her business

This was a refreshingly honest chat and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

I also just wanted to say we talk about Post Natal Anxiety and Depression and just general mental health in this episode. Please do know that you are not alone and if this conversations brings up anything for you, there are amazing organisations out there like PANDA, Cope, the Gidget Foundation and Beyond Blue.

Welcome to this week's episode of Business Between Bells! Today's episode is with Tina Tower.

Tina Tower wears many hats she is Mother of 2, entrepreneur, author, and high performance business consultant.

After investing in her first property at aged 18 and founding early childhood tutoring franchise Begin Bright by aged 20, Tower credits her achievements to an unbreakable desire to succeed and believes all women can create a plan for their ideal life and absolutely commit to working towards it - no matter who they are, or where they currently stand on their path to success.

In her new book One Life - How To Have The Life of Your Dreams,Tower reveals she is no stranger to adversity, hardship and the agonising guilt associated building a business while raising a family, and believes inevitable difficulty must be embraced and handled effectively in order to enable growth.

In today's episode Tina discusses:

- How as parents and busy business owners we need to be super diligent at planning out our time

- How Tina tackles big projects and how she wrote her book in one week!

- The importance of preserving energy

- Tina's thoughts on Mum guilt

- And Tina's experience of taking her family on a 9 month worldwide adventure last year

I hope you enjoy the chat as much as I did! So now let's get on with the show.

Welcome to this week's episode of Business Between Bells! Today's episode is with Caroline Guillemain-Brunne Founder of Organise Curate Design. The school holidays are over or nearly over for some of us and this episode is all about getting you super organised for the school year.

I think there is no better person than today's guest to help us get organised for the school year.

Caroline from Organise, Curate, Design has spent more than a decade mastering the art of life management. Growing up in a large family, Caroline was no stranger to diaries, planners and checklists. As a result, organisation became an innate part of Caroline's personality. It wasn't until many years later when she began her career in the events industry that Caroline realised her talent was more than a skill set.

Organise.Curate.Design. a life management agency with a focus on assisting people to streamline their life in order to refocus their time on what matters to them the most. Sounds amazing right?

Caroline is Mum to two sons and shares so much in the episode on how she manages her household and gets the boys organised for the school year. We also talk about:

- The importance of empowering your children to take on daily responsibilities

- How to manage your household like a boss

- How women in business need to remove the 'shoulds'

- How we can manage the mental load as parents in business

- Some really practical tips on meal planning and gift giving

Caroline provided me with so many valuable tips which I'll definitely put in place this year. I hope you get as much out of this episode as I did and wishing you all the very best with 'Back to School' or like in my case 'Starting School' to all the preppies!

Happy New Year and welcome! It's a new year and a new season for Business Between Bells!

I can't believe we are already into season 2 and our fabulous guest Kate Toon is the perfect person to kick off the season!

I'm recording this intro at 6am in the morning because school holidays and I'm trying to squeeze work in when I can at the moment. I was chatting to a friend in business yesterday and we were saying how school holidays really bring that 'family/business' blend to the forefront, Mum guilt and business guilt can often kick in and we can feel as if we are just not managing to be the master of all tasks.

So enough about me let me introduce you to today's fabulous guest, Kate Toon.

Kate Toon is a writing entrepreneur, as well as a popular coach, speaker, author and podcaster. For anyone who is interest she's also a mad good hula hooper.

Her digital education businesses The Recipe for SEO Success and The Clever Copywriting School have helped more than 8000 small business owners grapple the Google beast and write better content.

Kate runs Australia's only dedicated annual copywriting conference COPYCON.

Author of the popular business self-help book Confessions of a Misfit Entrepreneur: How to succeed in business despite yourself, Kate lives on the Central Coast of Sydney, where she loves wandering on the beach with her son and her CFO (Chief Furry Office-dog) Pomplemousse who was a keen to make a guest appearance on the show!

I just loved this chat with Kate, she is as refreshing an entrepreneur as you will get. Real, relatable with a very healthy dose of humour thrown in. In the episode Kate discusses:

- How she has created a very successful business that very much runs between bells

- How things really changed for her when her son started school

- How she works to strong boundaries where she tries not to work nights or on the weekends (if she isn't speaking)

- How she hasn't always been able to be so strict with her bourndaries and that in the early years she really had to put in the hard yards to make this happen

- As leaders she feels we really need to lead by example when it comes to this parenting/business space and she is doing this by offering a creche at her next CopyCon Conference and allows guests to bring their babies

- How she has used speaking to really elevate her brand

- Some really brilliant productivity tips she uses to get as much done as she can

And finally Kate discusses and definitely practises what she preaches the importance of showing up as you quirks and all.

As you can tell I thoroughly enjoyed myself recording this but also learnt a great deal which I know you are going to as well. So now let's get on with the show.

An episode that explores how you and your family as a business owner can help with Bushfire relief in Australia.

I don't know about you but I've found it hard to work over the last few days and have just been wondering what on earth I can do to help with the bushfire crisis that has hit our nation.

Bushfire Business Bundle

Little did I know that another Mum in business Bianca McKenzie who lives just down the road had been feeling the exact way I have been the last few days. Her family and her were planning to spend their New Years in one of the bushfire affected areas but pulled out last minute because her husband was unwell.

In the last few days she has amazingly put together a 'Bushfire Business Bundle' calling on her friends in business to donate tools and resources to the tune of $1024, she is selling these bundles until next Friday 10 January with all proceeds going to the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal and WIRES.

In addition to this she is also selling a number of one off coaching and course experiences with all proceeds going to the charities listed above.

You can check out the offerings here. https://biancavanmeeuwen.lpages.co/bbb/?fbclid=IwAR2-2SG1NuhM17TCTLQloh3wQuzLwE35e60QmHDgcJbZnsZAVRrfagI2o_w

Please share this initiative on social media as the more awareness we can bring to it the better!

You can follow Bianca on Instagram @bianca_mckenzie and Facebook https://www.facebook.com/bianca.vanmeeuwen

My family fundraiser

After waking up on New Year's Eve to vivid red images of devastation along Australia's eastern coastline. I couldn't stop thinking about how I could help. Nature and natural disasters like this have a way of making you feel so small and I wondered how on earth anything I could do would help the situation.

I especially couldn't stop thinking about the brave volunteer firefighters saving people, animals and homes in the most frightening of circumstances.

I had a chat to my five year old daughter Hannah about it and she kind of made everything sound so simple, 'I know Mum how about I sell some bracelets and give everyone a free drink who buys one!". She received a jewellery kit for Christmas and has been busy making bracelets ever since so to her this was a no brainer!

This got me thinking even more. So many of us are at home or on holidays with our little ones feeling completely helpless and they want to help too and they have some really great ideas! Let's be honest we are also looking for activities (that don't involve screens!) that will keep them entertained at the moment. Through my work with charities like the ASRC, World Vision and the Cat Protection Society over the last three years I've seen firsthand some of the amazing fundraisers children have come up with to raise much needed funds.

So my daughter and I have decided to set up a GoFundMe page to raise funds for the CFA and everyone who donates over $20 will receive a handmade bracelet, unfortunately the free drink is just logistically too hard! You can donate to Hannah's project here.

I wondered if you would like to join us by setting up your own fundraiser? It doesn't have to be jewellery making it could be anything - a lemonade stand, car washing, cake making, a garage sale, a swimming challenge, you name...

You are listening to Episode 21 with Samantha Dhu.

Hello listeners and a very warm welcome to today's episode! I can't believe how fast the end of the year is approaching, I don't know about you but it feels like everything has gone up a notch and parents in the school car park are driving just that little more erratically. However, does the festive season really need to be like this are there ways we can in fact relax and enjoy this period with our over excited kids?

I'm happy to say that there is and that is why I've invited Samantha Dhu on the show today.

So now let me introduce you to Sam. Sam is a Mindset Transformation Coach, Clinical Social Worker and highly qualified Psychotherapist. She works with modern-day business women juggling many roles to go from overwhelmed and stuck to energised and aligned.

Sam lives in Perth, Australia with her husband Nick and three and a half year old daughter Amelie.

Sam is all about doing Christmas on your terms and that we need to remind ourselves the stories we tell ourselves around Christmas, swapping them over from this season being hard a hard one, that we have to say yes to everything and buy everything over to choosing this Christmas to be a relaxed and enjoyable experience with family.

Sam also talks about:

- The difference between Mum guilt and shame which is a take on what we perceive as 'Mum guilt' that I've never heard before and is something that will help me and I'm sure will help many of you too.

- How Sam performs small acts of mindfulness throughout the day and deep belly breathing to assist with stress

- How Sam has noticed that with many of the Mums she works with they feel torn between being a mother and their business

I hope you love this episode as much as I did and it helps you have a relaxed and enjoyable Christmas.

Sam's website is https://www.samanthadhu.com.au/ where you can download her free audio guide and you can also join her on Instagram @samanthadhu

You can sign up to the waitlist for Katie's course https://katiemaynes.com.au/the-pr-classroom