Startup Parent

#130 — Goal Setting, Making Progress, and Minibook Updates

It's almost the midpoint of the quarter and I want to check in with progress notes.

My goal this Fall has been to step back from the weekly recording to gain enough space and clarity to do some of the writing projects that have been on the back burner. It turns out “doing all the things” isn’t a useful plan or viable option when you’re a parent and a business owner. If you want to hear more about how I made the decision to take a temporary break, check out Episode #127: Pivot or Pause, and Episode #129 where I share the first update on my writing progress.

What’s the big-picture goal? I want to write, publish, and ship the first draft of some of our minibooks in our collection. I’ve had ideas burning a hole in my pocket for ages and it’s time to take them out of my head and put them onto the page.

The good news? We shipped the next MiniBook!

Over the last three weeks I’ve been focused on creating a MiniBook called The Pregnancy Reading List: Short, Sweet Summaries of All The Books So You Can Take All The Naps.

I've read probably at least 100 books on motherhood, parenting, pregnancy, fertility, women's health, wellness, and postpartum care. And I get this question a ton from all over—'Hey, what's the best pregnancy book for my friend?'—or "Do you have any favorite parenting books?"—I mean, gosh do I have a few favorites. But I also know how overwhelming it is. Many of these books can be massive—900 pages!—and it can seem like a second college degree just to read all of these books.

The book is now available on our website. If you go to startuppregnant.com/minibooks, you'll see the books we're working on, and you'll see that The Pregnancy Reading List is available right now. It comes in PDF, mobi, epub, and web format, so you can read it on your e-reader, Kindle, on any website, or download it as a PDF.

Also, when you buy a copy of the book, you also get free access to all of the future versions of the book—every time I update the book, add more summaries or notes, or edit it, you get a free download of the latest version.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/130.

#129 — If you feel like you don't have enough time for it all, you might be right.

I’m tired of all the advice to hustle harder and put better productivity systems in place. I’m great at systems and great at productivity and I’m really good at working harder. 

Sometimes you don’t have more bandwidth to give, or more strategy to apply.

For me, realizing that I have to shift things around and really focus—and prioritize—has been painful yet key in building my business. 

I cannot claim to be able to podcast, write books, run a business, be a parent, get enough sleep, and stay well-connected in all of my friendships. That would be a lie. I’m tired of being sold this lie.

If you’ve been following along on the podcast, I’m sharing my real-time decision to ‘pause’ the podcast while I bring something else into focus: the writing and publishing work I want to do both for myself and for Startup Pregnant. I’m taking you behind-the-scenes of my other projects, and giving you a glimpse into how it’s working.

Why? Because these shorter mini-episodes take me significantly less time than the longer-form interview podcasts, and I’m publishing them only as frequently as I can manage. 

Join me this Fall as I share how it’s going, and we’ll be back with longer episodes when the time is right.

PS: If you’re hankering to join us for the next 90 days and you want to focus on getting one thing done in the next year, take a listen to the previous episode, The Next 90 Days, and join us in our Facebook Group and tell us what you’re working on for the rest of 2019.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/129.

#128 — What's it going to take?

As business owners—and parents!—we’ve got limited time. SUCH LIMITED TIME. It’s crazy how fast the days fly by and how maddening it is to slot in all of the family logistics across work time and still get anything done.

As we approach the end of the year, and think about the last quarter of 2019, it’s a great time to focus on one final project or sprint. What would make 2019 great for you? What project, if you made some major headway on it, would really move the needle for you? 

In today’s episode, I share what I’m focused on for the next 90 days, and how I’m changing the podcast format for the rest of the quarter to help me get even more focused on what I want to ship. If you want to join me and take the next 90 days to focus on a specific goal, share with us in our Startup Pregnant Facebook Group and stay accountable over the next 13 weeks to finishing the year strong.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/128.

#127 — Should I stop podcasting?

As we geared up for Fall, I felt the urge to stop this podcast for a while. To be honest, it scared me a little—I couldn’t stop, could I? So I asked the group of smart women in our online Startup Pregnant community group and got a ton of wonderful feedback. You all helped me think about this process and what felt like a hard decision from so many new angles. 

In this episode, I share some real talk, behind-the-scenes of what it takes to be a content creator, why I feel like the podcast is blocking other work that I want to make, and just how hard it is to build a business as a working parent sometimes. Honestly? I just want more time! But in lieu of that, I had to step back and make some hard decisions. Listen in to hear where the podcast is going next.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/127.

Every week, I get questions from listeners about business, life, parenting—and more. And I want to answer them! From building a company vision to dealing with burnout to negotiations in your partnership, I’m willing to go there and share everything I know.

So, we are experimenting and trying something new here at Startup Pregnant. We're starting a private monthly podcast, a fireside chat session between me and you. From time to time I'll bring on guest experts to help answer the questions, and you'll get to listen in to all of the challenges people bring our way.

Right now, I’ve got a long list of questions from all of you, and I’ll be rolling through them and publishing these conversations as a private Q/A podcast. In today's episode, I'll share with you how to submit your question to us, some of the juiciest questions we have so far, and what you can do to get access to this private podcast.

SUBMIT YOUR QUESTIONS: 

www.startuppregnant.com/question

GET ACCESS TO THE NEW PRIVATE Q/A PODCAST:

When you become a backer on Patreon at the $7/month level, you'll get exclusive access to all of these episodes, including the back catalog of past episodes. Head to www.patreon.com/startuppregnant to become a supporter and get immediate access to the episodes.

#125 — What's next?

We’re back from summer hiatus, and it was wonderful. Better than expected, honestly. I didn’t take enough time to rest after either of my babies, and this break, while three years delayed, was everything. In today’s episode, I share how we set up a family sabbatical, why breaks are essential for entrepreneurs, and what’s next on the horizon for Startup Pregnant. If you’re struggling with entrepreneur burnout, if you’re in need of a break, or you’re curious about what’s coming up next on the show, come join and listen in.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/125.

#124 — Summer Break? Where Do the Kids Go While Their Parents Work and Other Thoughts On Summertime

Summer break.

As a child there was no sweeter words in the English language. With its promises of long, warm, lazy, school-free days, summer break was essentially synonymous with freedom.

But now that the vast majority of households include two working parents, summer means something very different: the end of the public school year, gaps in childcare, expensive camps, and impossibly long waitlists for affordable care options.

Today, Sarah digs into her own family’s experience with summertime care gaps (hint: it involves lots and lots of logistics) as well as her personal and professional goals to take a true summer break. She also pulls back the curtain on Startup Pregnant’s two year history (!) and shares the advice she’d give someone starting out on their own business building venture (hint: take a break).

• The existential summer break question of the modern era of two working parents: what actually does happen to the children? Have we solved for that yet and what does it look like?
• How there are 81 days every single year when kids are out of public school but parents are supposed to be working and what solutions people come up with to make conflicting schedules work.
• Sarah reflects on where this podcast started and shares some of her process for why she decided to take a summer break and why she’s so excited about it.
• Sarah shares that taking an August break is a decision she made for herself as a person and as a business owner, but also because she believes deeply in the power of rest for all people, including her audience.
• The benefits of taking maternity leave as an experiment in stepping back from the day-to-day of running a business.
• What the pace and intensity of Startup Pregnant interviews and podcast will look like beginning in September and moving forward into 2020.
• How Sarah noticed her attachment to consistency and doing things the way they’ve always been done and how that worked in the beginning but how it now possibly holds her back.
• What she’s looking forward to in this time away and hoping for the audience during the break (hint: if there is someone in your life in the thick of parenting or entrepreneurship, share this podcast with them)! 

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/124.

• www.startuppregnant.com/ask
• www.startuppregnant.com/courses

#123 — How to Focus When You Feel Totally Overwhelmed or Unclear

You wake up in the morning, look at your to-do list, and find that you have 27 things on it. Then throughout the day, somehow projects just keep unfolding and expanding in front of you. No matter how much coffee you drink or deep breathing you do, you just feel totally overwhelmed by it all and don't know where to start. 

Sound familiar? It's an experience almost all of us can relate to, and these feelings of being overwhelmed can take even the best of us down.

Today Sarah shares her three best tips for how to focus and regain clarity when you're in the fog of overwhelm, so that you can keep going and get your most important work done. 

Having clear priorities, using quarterly and monthly planning, and getting a good nights’ sleep are all great tools for planning and mapping out your time—but as a parent? Yeah, that’s harder. Invariably, as a mother and a worker, unexpected projects and challenges will constantly get thrown in your lap. So how do you handle those days when you just can’t seem to get ahold of your to-do list or even figure out how to get started when so much is being asked of you?

If you are feeling swamped, or you're back in that place where it's hard to focus and you don't know what to do, listen in. This one's a good one.

• The three tools Sarah uses when—despite her planning and best of intentions—she ends up feeling overwhelmed.
• The danger of prioritizing little wins and counting on that momentum to guide you through the day.  
• How many big projects Sarah believes people can truly prioritize at any given moment. 
• What “Yak Shaving” means and how to stop yourself once you realize you’ve gotten off course. 
• Why, intense metaphors aside, working moms need to not just “kill their darlings” but “stab their YouTube dreams in the eye.”
• How to use your calendar to prevent overwhelm and account for even the smallest tasks. 

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/123.

• www.startuppregnant.com/ask
• www.startuppregnant.com/courses
• startuppregnant.com/question
• Annual, Quarterly, and Monthly Review Templates

 
IF YOU ENJOYED THIS EPISODE, CHECK OUT

• Taking a Maternity Leave When You Run Your Own Business — Episode #031 With Stacey Trock

What happens when we listen fully? Without interjecting with our own opinions or experiences? Without asserting a best possible outcome or stating facts to support a specific viewpoint?

How often do you leave a conversation—with a friend or colleague—and think to yourself, “They just don’t get what I mean/how I feel/how complicated this is.”

How often do you catch yourself offering advice or trying to fix a problem for a friend before you realize they really just want a safe space and a friendly ear to empathize and process with them?

Sarah digs into these overlapping experiences and asks the big question, “How can we create space in our personal and professional conversations to allow for real connection, true empathy, and beautifully nuanced understanding of one another?"

Today we’re talking about how deep listening and thoughtful questioning lend themselves to much more open, nuanced, thoughtful conversations and relationships. Sarah is going to share the incredibly simple and astonishingly powerful tool she uses in her personal and professional life to connect more deeply with people, to grow her business, and to be of the deepest service to her clients, friends, and mastermind groups. 

• How we tend to believe we know what’s best for others based on our own experiences, information, and desires.
• How quickly we lose sight of the true goal of conversation—connection—and instead move into problem solving, telling our own stories, or moving on to the next point.
• Sarah’s experience in her second birth of hiring and then ultimately choosing not to work with a doula who, rather than listening to Sarah and Alex’s preferences and desires, attempted to “educate” them into choosing a different path.
• The delicate and crucial difference between presenting useful information so someone can make a thoughtful decision for themselves and believing that someone “ought” to choose a specific choice due to the information you have.
• The profound power of a woman’s birth story and her decision to experience a pain-free birth.
• Why we strive at Startup Pregnant to present a wide range of experiences of pregnancy, parenthood, and work and why we always begin those stories with “in my experience.”
• The not-so-secret reason that coaching and therapy are so highly in need in our current culture.
• The super simple, incredibly effective tool Sarah uses in her life, masterminds, and with her corporate clients to build relationships and close deals.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/122.

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

• startuppregnant.com/ask

#121 — Redefining Startup Success: Shutting Down A Lucrative Startup 

What happens when your vision of success changes while you're building a wildly "successful" company?

Allie Siarto built an incredibly successful company by all of today’s metrics and standards. She and her partner were ready to sell the company—but then she hesitated. 

What changed? 

In today's episode, we talk with Allie about how walking away from a “successful” business taught her to rethink what success really looks like. Together, she and her spouse decided to shut down a wildly crazy successful business and fire all of her employees shortly after having her first daughter. She realized she could not stand the thought of sending her to daycare and then going to work every day to work on something she didn't love. 

Redefining startup success: shutting down a company to build a vision of a different life.

The business had been all about making money and pursuing the idea of success that other people had told her she should pursue, but it had not been about creating the life that she really wanted for herself. When she shut down the business, she worried, of course, what other people would think and whether or not they would think she had failed as a business owner, especially. She worried about what her employees would think of her, but the result was that it left her with more time to pursue a completely different business, a more fulfilling and flexible career, one where she built a team of wedding and portrait photographers. Her clients used to call her at all hours with all sorts of emergencies and cause a huge amount of stress in her life. Now, she plans her schedule way in advanceShe also spends a month in Florida every year and plans sailing trips across Lake Michigan without worrying that she will miss an urgent call from a demanding client. 

Today, we’re going to talk about how she shifted from one to the other. We cover what it felt like to walk away when Allie had little kids at home and how to stop worrying so much about what other people tell you success should look like: instead, focus on what you truly want and need in your own life right here, right now.

• The early days of building Loudpixel (her first company), and the stress it caused on her life and partnership.
• How she listened in to what “selling” felt like and how she realized she was building a company—and trying to sell it—for reasons that weren’t really hers.
• Why the birth of her first daughter prompted her to rethink what she was building in business, and why she eventually shut down the company.
• How the space and freedom from shutting down a company let her rebuild a new vision of success, with her life and priorities in mind, and what she is now doing today.

FULL SHOW NOTES

Get the complete show notes with episode quotes, photos, and time stamps at http://www.startuppregnant.com/121.

Allie Siarto runs a team of award winning portrait and wedding photographers out of East Lansing, Michigan, along with the Photo Field Notes Podcast, an educationa