The Playful Mompreneur

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Today’s episode found its own hashtag, #shedtheshoulds. My super spunky guest Amanda Jefferson said it at the beginning of our interview and then it kept cropping up as a theme.

If you’re feeling like you “should” be doing a whole lot of things — whether that’s in your business, in your parenting, or in life in general — then take some inspiration from Amanda. 

You don’t have to unschool your children, or completely change careers, or get a nose ring (not unless you want to!) but Amanda’s journey is proof that you don’t have to stick to a path that’s not working or that’s going to lead you to burnout. Instead, she encourages us to choose the “fun and easy.”

Amanda is the owner of Indigo Organizing and one of the world’s first KonMari consultants. She left an inspiring yet stressful 20-year career to start her own business because she felt frazzled with life and was on the point of burnout. Now, she helps people have less stuff, less stress, more space and more time for what matters.

This is something that Amanda has modeled in her own life. 2020 was a challenging and painful year for her. Not only did she have to deal with the challenges brought about by the pandemic, but she also lost both her sister and her father to cancer — within two months of each other. 

Amanda shares how this tragedy prompted her to let go of all the rules she thought she “should” be following, and instead do business and life her way. This has been another step in what Amanda calls her creative renaissance, which began several years ago when she decided to leave her job, start her own business and completely change careers!

If you’re looking for some inspiration to face your own challenges, then tune in! Amanda is incredibly wise with a delightfully quirky sense of humour — I know you’re going to be fist-pumping by the end of this episode.

Here are some of the topics we cover in the interview (many of them mic drop moments, I might add…):

• Amanda’s creative renaissance (no, it was not a mid-life crisis!).


• The events that led her to choose unschooling as an education approach for her daughter.


• How she left what was in many respects a dream job — but in other respects a potential catalyst for burnout — to start her own business in a field that was relatively new to her.


• How clutter creates cognitive load and how Amanda helps her clients to win the war on external and internal clutter.


• How Amanda has carved out an ideal schedule that works for her — even while homeschooling/unschooling and dealing with the loss of two close family members in 2020. In fact, her schedule has even made it possible to consider spending the US winter in Chile, for their summer!


• Why Amanda has chosen to focus on the “fun and easy” and how this has changed everything for her.


• Lots of book recommendations from someone who is clearly a bookworm: Untamed, Playful Parenting, Minimalist Parenting, The Untethered Soul.


• How to deal with our inner critic and the shift that has enabled Amanda to take life and business less seriously.


• Why finding a community of like-minded individuals can be so powerful — but why is it also important to “keep your eyes on your own paper”!

Connect with Amanda:

• Indigo Organizing Website


• indigo_organizing on IG


• Indigo Organizing on Facebook

Connect with Shelley:

• shelleysmithcreativ...

Are you a member of the Playful Mompreneur Club? Go to playfulmompreneur.com to sign up. I'll let you know when a new episode drops and share some bonus content with you too — like free resources and excerpts from my upcoming book.

After a dozen episodes of the Playful Mompreneur Podcast, I'm convinced that we're on to something when it comes to embracing playfulness in our own businesses. The mompreneurs I've interviewed so far have testified to the fact that when they've become more playful, there's been more ease in their businesses, and success (in all its forms!) has followed.

But you may be left wondering:

• What do play and playfulness really mean?


• Why should I embrace playfulness?


• What does play look like for me (as a responsible adult!)?


• What does play look like in the world of business ownership and “work”?

All great questions that require some expert answers. So, I’ve reached for Stuart Brown’s book, entitled Play: How It Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination and Invigorates the Soul.

In this week’s episode of the Playful Mompreneur Podcast, I review the book and reflect on how the theory and research have been borne out in my own mompreneur journey.

Fun Fact: I recorded this episode a few months ago, as part of my research for my book. I’ve been waiting excitedly for the right time to air it. And I think that now that you’ve heard from several mompreneurs about how playfulness has transformed their business journeys, it’s time to learn some more about the concept of playfulness.

Timestamps:

• 05:42 Thanks to Cate Curley at My Little Poppies/Never Board Learning for recommending “Play” by Stuart Brown in her course, Gameschooling (affiliate link). I'm really enjoying Gameschooling and I highly recommend it to homeschooling moms who are looking to intentionally add a bit more play into their homeschool days.


• 07:39 Why is play important to us as adults?


• 10:37 Stuart Brown’s definition of “play”


• 17:36 What does play look like for adults (and specifically mompreneurs)?


• 27:06 Work and Play (and why I love the chapter title: “The Opposite of Play is not Work”)

Follow me on Instagram and snap a selfie of you listening to the Playful Mompreneur Podcast!

Are you a member of the Playful Mompreneur Club? Go to playfulmompreneur.com to sign up. I'll let you know when a new episode drops and share some bonus content with you too — like free resources and excerpts from my upcoming book.

Join Ashley’s FREE Screentime Challenge to create a digital wellness plan that's perfect for your family — May 24th to 26th in her Facebook Group, the Joyful Mama Mentor.

One of the plays from the Playful Mompreneur Playbook is: Focus over FOMO. This is a theme that came through very strongly in my interview with Ashley Becker-Nunley in last week's episode.

So in this episode, I'm reflecting on our interview through the lens of "Focus over FOMO," highlighting the ways that Ashley has stayed focused — both as a mother and as an entrepreneur — even when it's been very tempting to give in to the Fear Of Missing Out.

My key takeaways are:

• Tactics like being on particular social media channels or using the latest tools and tech can come from a place of FOMO and can lead to Shiny Object Syndrome or resentment that you "have to" use a particular tool or channel. However, Ashley has completely reframed her mindset around using social media (and Facebook in particular). She's now using social media to get hyper-focused on her people and her business goals. Who woulda thought, right?!


• As moms, we wear many hats and at the moment, one of those is that of "teacher." But Ashley has decided to hang up the "teacher hat" and only wear her "mom hat" with her son. In so doing, she's focusing on the mother-son relationship and letting his school teacher wear the "teacher hat."


• When we're operating from a place of FOMO, we've got this grippy, grasping energy. We are so attached to a particular outcome that there's very little room for playfulness or fun. Ironically, with more focus, there's more space to play!


• How Ashley needed to update her ideal calendar so that it was aligned with what she wanted for herself holistically. She realized she was working more hours than she had intended (yes, because she loves her work and is so playful about it), but she needed time to recharge her battery and for self-care.


• How Ashley keeps focused on her audience and niche by journaling about them and their needs every day. I love how this activity is both a self-care activity and a client-service activity! :)

Connect with Ashley
Joyful Mama Mentor Group on Facebook
Joyful Mama Mentor Website
Joyful Mama Mentor on Instagram

Connect with Shelley
Join the Playful Mompreneur Club
Shelley Smith Creative on Instagram
Shelley Smith Creative Website

Are you a member of the Playful Mompreneur Club? Go to playfulmompreneur.com to sign up. I'll let you know when a new episode drops and share some bonus content with you too — like free resources and excerpts from my upcoming book.

Join Ashley’s FREE Screentime Challenge to create a digital wellness plan that's perfect for your family — May 24th to 26th in her Facebook Group, the Joyful Mama Mentor.

I get it: kids can be playful. But how can I be playful? I’m an adult. A business person. A parent. They’re all pretty serious gigs, right?!

If you’re asking these questions, then my guest on this week’s episode of the Playful Mompreneur Podcast, Ashley Becker-Nunley has some answers for you. She’s one of the most playful mompreneurs I know and — maybe ironically, but maybe not — she also takes her mission and her clients very seriously.

Ashley is a play professional. She is an occupational therapist who works in several schools and she has her own parent coaching business. As you'll hear on the episode, play is most certainly Ashley’s zone of genius. And it infuses every aspect of her work, not just when she's working with the kids, but also while she's working with parents and running her own business.

Ashley has been building in her parent coaching business for the last few years — so she knows what it takes to do the work of business building, while still keeping her energy light and playful. So, if you've been wondering what it really looks like to be playful as an entrepreneur, then this episode is for you.

Oh, and no prizes for guessing Ashley’s word of the year. Yip: PLAY.

For timestamps and full shownotes, go to playfulmompreneur.com/#ep11

Tra la laaaaah!!! Oh yes, this episode contains Captain Underpants jokes. Sorry.

Connect with Ashley
Joyful Mama Mentor Group on Facebook
Joyful Mama Mentor Website
Joyful Mama Mentor on Instagram

Connect with Shelley
Join the Playful Mompreneur Club
Shelley Smith Creative on Instagram
Shelley Smith Creative Website

Are you a member of the Playful Mompreneur Club?
Go to playfulmompreneur.com to sign up for free. I'll let you know when a new episode drops and share some bonus content with you too — like free resources and excerpts from my upcoming book.

OK Playful Mompreneurs, it’s time for us to rewrite the rules of business. I’m talking about the rules of big business and corporate institutions. I’m also talking about the hustle mentality of the startup world. And yes, I’m even talking about some of the rules within the small business and indie entrepreneur world that are simply not vibing with you and your mom-infused life.

Are you with me?

My interview with Lynne Huysamen (Episode #8) got me all fired up about how we as mom business owners have a unique opportunity to blaze a new trail. In fact, it’s a trend I’m starting to see with all the other mompreneurs I’ve interviewed so far for the Playful Mompreneur Podcast and my book.

Here are my five key takeaways from Lynne’s interview:

1. Always be on the lookout for opportunities to simplify your business. In Lynne’s case, this meant pivoting her business from an online store to a blog.


2. How can you prove your business concept in the simplest way possible? (You know I’m going to come back to MVP — Minimum Viable Product here, don’t you!). And on a deeper level: Your proof of (business) concept has nothing to do with proving yourself as a person or validating your self-worth. You don’t need to prove anything. You are awesome.


3. What exactly is your energetic flow and why is it so important? Nature isn’t in production mode all year round and we don’t need to be either.


4. Priorities over productivity. It’s one of the new rules for business that I’ve got queued up for a whole section of my upcoming book. For a long time, I’ve felt like I’m not a productive person because it’s very rare that I complete my to-do list for a day. But I’m realising the problem is not me, it’s what’s on the to-do list i.e. my priorities. That’s what needs fixing.


5. You’ve got this! Sure, there are challenges along the business owner journey, but you are not only capable, but you’re in control of exactly how you want your business to run.

Connect with Lynne and the Kaboutjie Community
Kaboutjie Parenting Community on Facebook
Kaboutjie Website
Kaboutjie on Instagram
Lynne Huysamen on Instagram

For full shownotes, and to join the Playful Mompreneur Club, go to https://playfulmompreneur.com/#ep10

Are you a member of the Playful Mompreneur Club?
Go to playfulmompreneur.com to sign up. I'll let you know when a new episode drops and share some bonus content with you too — like free resources for work-at-home business owners and excerpts from my upcoming book. xo, Shelley

What’s a topic that you could talk about for hours? Someone asks you a question about _____ and the next thing you know, you need a drink of water because you’ve been talking so much!

For Lynn Huysamen, that _____ could be filled in with: monetising a blog. (And, to be clear, it was in the best possible way — I’m not talking about regretting asking cousin Sally about her genealogy research or great uncle Pete about his shipbuilding in bottles!).

You can catch my full interview with Lynne in Episode 8 (the episode prior to this one), where she talks about her business journey and managing her time and energy as a mompreneur. But in this episode, she's giving us a blogging mini-lesson and sharing how she makes a full-time income through blogging and related services.

Lynne’s enthusiasm about monetising a blog was infectious and the strategies she shared will be very empowering for current bloggers, or moms who are considering blogging as a business.

Connect with Lynne and the Kaboutjie Community
Kaboutjie Parenting Community on Facebook
Kaboutjie Website
Kaboutjie on Instagram
Lynne Huysamen on Instagram

For full shownotes, go to https://playfulmompreneur.com/#ep9

Lynne Huysamen a mompreneur blogger. She has successfully turned her blog into a business that provides her with a full-time income by working weekday mornings only. In the afternoons, she’s in full mom-mode. And on the weekends, she goes into what she calls “sloth mode.”

For full shownotes and to join The Playful Mompreneur Club, go to: playfulmompreneur.com/#ep8

But here are some of the topics we cover in this episode:

• Why Lynne decided to change her business model from an online store selling physical products to a blogging model.
• The importance of self-care and nurturing yourself, particularly as a mompreneur.
• How Lynne runs a pretty tight ship in her home during the week, but lets go of all the rules on the weekend.
• How to know when to quit — or at least when to call it a day and go out for ice cream!
• And lots of encouragement for your playful mompreneur journey — even when the going gets tough.

P.S. Tune in next week for a mini-lesson on how to monetise your blog. Lynne shared so much great information that I decided it deserved its own episode!

Connect with Lynne and the Kaboutjie Community
Kaboutjie Parenting Community on Facebook
Kaboutjie Website
Kaboutjie on Instagram

Are you a member of the Playful Mompreneur Club?
Go to playfulmompreneur.com to sign up. I'll let you know when a new episode drops and share some bonus content with you too — like free resources and excerpts from my upcoming book.

Being an entrepreneur, especially a mompreneur requires boldness. And last week’s guest, Brandy Mabra is a shining example of what it means to be bold in business and in life.

In this episode, I reflect on my interview with Brandy and how her boldness comes from a place of playfulness. Her confidence in stepping up as the CEO of her business also has a playful edge to it. And I love how she’s using the best parts of her corporate skill set to not only build a very healthy business of her own but also to teach and mentor other mompreneurs and female business owners.

Now when it comes to building a business and stepping into your role as CEO, the question of hiring invariably comes up. So in this episode, I add my thoughts to what Brandy shared about her hiring journey (hint: she hired early!).

I also chat a bit more about the importance of finding your people — something that both Brandy and I have been intentionally working on lately, and which I think is an ongoing project for all of us.

And the final point that I’ve highlighted is possibly the most important. It’s the most fun, but probably the one we don’t pay enough attention to, and that is: taking regular breaks away from work. Ideally, take a holiday or vacation for 4-7 days, but if that’s not possible, then plan a staycation at home, but do something out of the ordinary — your brain will thank you for the downtime and reward you with some great ideas and clarity.

Here the highlights of this episode:
03:01 Takeaway #1: Be bold and move forward with confidence — be unapologetically bold!
05:37 Takeaway #2: Bring the best parts of your previous (corporate) experience into your own business and ditch the rest.
06:54 Brandy’s 6 Pillars of Business Excellence
10:02 Takeaway #3: Ask for and accept help in your business and consider hiring
13:05 Takeaway #4: Find your people and be generous to them
23:33 Takeaway #5: Take regular “CEO Breaks” where you switch off from work completely — and make sure they’re in the schedule, way in advance

Connect with Brandy on Instagram @savvyclovercoaching  and at savvyclover.com.

Are you a member of the Playful Mompreneur Club? Go to playfulmompreneur.com to sign up. I'll let you know when a new episode drops and share some bonus content with you too — like free resources and excerpts from my upcoming book.

What does being a CEO mean to you? Managing a corporation of hundreds or thousands of employees? Super important board meetings? And the power suit — you’ve gotta have the power suit!

But in this new world of business, the definition of being a CEO has changed. And as a business owner, or aspiring business owner, you are a CEO — the power suit is optional!

And if you’re thinking: “I’m just a one-lady shop — I’m not a CEO,” then my guest on this week’s episode of the Playful Mompreneur Podcast, Business and Leadership Coach Brandy Mabra, would beg to disagree! Today, she’s going to tell us a bit more about why you absolutely can and MUST claim the title of CEO — unapologetically.

This lady totally OWNS her role as CEO of her business, Savvy Clover Coaching and Consulting and she equips her clients to show up unapologetically savvy and build their businesses to 6 or even 7-figures. And today, she’s going to be sharing how you too can step up into your role as CEO of your business — even if you’re just getting started.

What I loved about my interview with Brandy is that she’s brought all the good parts of the corporate world into running a small business. She’s ditched a lot of the stuffiness of business but used the structures and processes from her corporate life to create plenty of space for play in her own business today. Testament to this are her regular CEO Breaks and playing along with her basketball-obsessed family.

Connect with Brandy on Instagram @savvyclovercoaching  and at savvyclover.com.

Are you a member of the Playful Mompreneur Club? Sign up at playfulmompreneur.com. I'll let you know when a new episode drops and share some bonus content with you too — like excerpts from my upcoming book.

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” That’s a Theodore Roosevelt quote, shared by Rowena Mabbott, my guest on last week’s episode of the Playful Mompreneur Podcast (Episode #4).

At first, it sounds pretty obvious, simple even. But as I reflected on Rowena’s interview and on this quote, I realised that it has so many powerful implications for us as playful mompreneurs.

Rowena shared a whole lot of examples of where she did what she could, with what she had, where she was at that time in her life and in this episode I’m going to be highlighting them for you. Because even if you have as little as 5 hours a week to work on your business right now, then that’s what you have. I’d love to help you come up with a plan to do what you can with the time, and also the resources, and energy, and experience, and support — that you have.

One of my favourite ways that this can play out in business is to develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) or Minimum Viable Offer (MVO). This is something Rowena has done very successfully, and playfully :) and so I dive into this concept in some more detail in this episode.

Timestamps and Links:
00:00 Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.
03:23 Takeaway #1: You can start your own business journey by working for someone else
06:57 Takeaway #2: Sometimes taking the hard way is the right way
13:10 Takeaway #3:Take the pressure off and get answers quickly with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
18:33 Takeaway #4: Seasonal planning and living. 

• Get your copy of Rowena's Design Your Season Self-Guided Workshop here.
• Get my sales page design + copywriting course, Sales Page Superhero here.

23:09 Reflection Question: What resource might you already have — on your computer or in your brain — that you could easily turn into a digital product? Share your ideas with me @shelleysmithcreative on Instagram or email [email protected]
23:33 Takeaway #5: Just Start!

Connect with Rowena:
rowenamabbott.com
@rowenamabbott on Instagram

Connect with Shelley:
shelleysmithcreative.com
@shelleysmithcreative on Instagram

Join the Playful Mompreneur Club at playfulmompreneur.com. That's where you'll also find past episodes and shownotes. Please subscribe to the Playful Mompreneur Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts and leave us a favourable review if you're so inclined — I'd really appreciate it if you did!

Questions or comments on this episode, email Shelley at [email protected]