In this episode, I sit down with Fashion Designer Allison Izu.  Allison has two children, ages 9 and 7. We talk about how she manages her time and priorities and how she juggles her very full plate. We have a spirited conversation about “doing it all”, and we chronicle her journey from the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC to coming home to Honolulu. We discuss the many iterations of her business and the obstacles she encountered along the way. She also talks about how synchronicity and a particular “a-ha moment” led her to where she is today.

Allison created a simple system called “Live Your Letter” to help women understand how to dress and what type of clothing styles accentuate the best parts of them.

If you’ve ever struggled with figuring out what to wear to look good and feel confident, what styles best flatter your body shape, and if you’d love to learn about a fashion entrepreneur’s journey, you need to listen to this episode!

If you have a student-athlete in the 8th, 9th, or 10th grade (and they’re interested in playing sports in college), this episode is going to be super valuable for you.

In this episode, I talk to Certified Financial Planner Shellane Ogoshi. Shellane graduated with honors from Hofstra University with her B.A. in International Business with a minor in Finance.  She obtained her MBA with a concentration in Finance shortly after that, while coaching Division I and Division II Women’s Volleyball and working full-time. Shellane has also attained the CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and Certified Investment Management Analyst (CIMA®) professional designations.

I asked Shellane to be on the show initially because of her expertise in financial planning, but when I found out she was a former D1 College Volleyball Player and D1 Volleyball Coach, I had so many questions for her about college athletics and recruiting.

We cover so much ground in this interview. Shellane talks about general strategies to save for college (everyone’s financial situation is so different that it would be impossible to talk specific strategies), available resources, how students get athletic scholarships, the recruiting process, how to stand out to college coaches, and expectations for a D1 athlete.

If you’re a working mom who has questions about how to afford college, the resources to begin the college planning process, college sports and the athletics recruiting process, you need to listen to this episode! 

In this episode of the podcast, we sit down with Meditation and Yoga Instructor Annemaree Rowley of Cool Calm and Collected.

After discovering yoga and meditation when she was 16, Annemaree embarked on a path where she realized her passion and purpose was to teach yoga and meditation to others.  She was educated at the highly esteemed Sivananda yoga schools in Europe and India before starting her business, Cool Calm and Collected, over 20 years ago in Melbourne, Australia.

Today, Annemaree has a global audience of over 10K followers on Insight Timer.  Her meditations are soothing, instructional, healing, and peaceful.  

If you’ve ever struggled with being overwhelmed with the different types of meditations and not knowing where to start, being doubtful as to its benefits, and feeling like there’s no way to fit meditation into your already jam-packed schedule, you need to listen to this episode!  

And as a special bonus, Aneemaree does a short meditation exclusively on the podcast!

On the show today, we have Debbie Aurelius of Peppermint Fish. Debbie is a professional communicator and specializes in digital communications.

Debbie’s path to Peppermint Fish wasn’t linear in any way. Her first career was in commercial insurance and after a while, she ended up in Learning and Development, and eventually, in digital communications.

After commuting three hours (one-way) to her Corporate job for a year, she decided to open up her own digital communications agency. At Peppermint Fish, she helps clients with end to end processes on producing podcasts, webinars, and courses.

I asked Debbie to speak to our audience of working mompreneurs about creating a course. Although we don’t get into all of the technical details, we get into the process of how to think about the content and structure of building out your course. And even if you’re not building a course, her advice can be applied to any program or offer that you’re working on for your business.

If you’re developing any kind of program, offer, or course, and you’re struggling with knowing where to start and how to structure it, you need to listen to this episode!

On today’s show, we have a conversation with working mom Chloe Bass, whose overarching mission in life is to help others. This is evident in the work she does, both at her 9-5 and in her side hustle business.

By day, Chloe works for an NGO ensuring food safety and empowering women around the globe. After earning her undergraduate degree (she double majored in Biblical Studies and Communications), she worked in foster care in New York City, where she discovered that she enjoyed working with women from other countries. She then went on to earn her advanced degree in International Administration and after graduating, ended up in her current role. Chloe has been working full-time for this NGO for the past 6 years. Although this position is a typical 40 hour per week job, she has some flexibility. She works a 9/80 schedule, where she works 80 hours in 9 days, with a day off every other week.

After her son was born, Chloe was genuinely surprised by the lack of support and resources to help new moms with juggling their newfound responsibilities as a mom along with their 9-5 day job.  She created her coaching side business, "Making Working Motherhood Work", to fill the void.

In this episode, I talk to Chloe about how she got the idea to start her coaching business, how she got her first client, her marketing tactics, how she got her first speaking engagement at a conference and her #1 working mom hack!

If you’ve ever struggled with not knowing how you’ll find your first client or your first gig, and you need some inspiration, you need to listen to this episode!

Our guest on the show today is Marketing Consultant Mary Czarnecki.  Mary has spent her entire career marketing for Corporate giants like Johnson & Johnson and WebMD.  For her side hustle, she takes the stuff she learned on-the-job and helps entrepreneurs market like a boss.

If you've ever struggled with not having a clear picture of who your audience is, identifying your ideal client but not knowing what to do next, and starting your personal brand by choosing color palettes and a pretty logo as the first step (hint: this is not where you should start), then you need to listen to this episode!

On today’s show, we’re going to explore five essential pieces of advice for working moms, and especially for working moms with a side hustle. I truly believe these are foundational and absolutely critical to your success!

We discuss how as working moms, we often operate with the mindset of time being scarce or non-existent because we're so busy!  But what ends up happening is that the meaningful stuff we want to get done falls by the wayside.  We also explore getting over the guilt of being a working mom and what science and research have to say about the impact of working outside the home on children.  

Then, we discuss decision fatigue, self-care, and the reasons why developing the growth mindset is so important.

Our guest on the show today is Marlis Huebner. Marlis earned her Ph.D. in Biotechnology from the University of Cambridge, is married to a fellow scientist (who she met at the University) and is a mom to two children, ages 9 and 6. The Huebner family put roots down in their native Germany after “country hopping” and living in the United States for two years.

After her daughter was born, Marlis said: “things really started to fall apart”. She was struggling to find a balance with all the things that go with being a working mom—trying to be the best Manager at her Corporate job, and the best mom and wife she could be. Marlis said she felt like she was “succeeding in my career but failing as a Mom", and she began to resent her job. And she got angry.

Once she recognized that her anger was impacting her relationship with her kids, she decided to try to find a way to resolve her anger. She began taking entrepreneurship classes to investigate options to get out of her current Corporate career. Along the way, she discovered the mindset that helped her to overcome her anger issues.

After about a year of working on herself through seminars, classes, and books, a noticeable shift occurred and moms at her workplace began commenting on the positive changes they noticed in her. And that is how Marlis’ coaching business got started.

Now, Marlis helps working moms balance work and home and aims to help 500 women each year through her business.

Listen to the show to discover how Marlis got her first client, and to hear about the surprises and stumbling blocks she faced as she began to grow her side hustle.

I had a wonderful time interviewing mompreneur Rachel Turner of Hello Sleep. A few years ago, after getting her second child sleeping through the night before her maternity leave ran out, Rachel thought she might be on to something. Rachel knew she could help others with her knowledge and decided to strike out on her own as an Infant and Child Sleep Consultant. She loved the idea of helping tired parents get more rest so they could be more present and available.

She completed a sleep consulting certification program and remains certified to date.

Rachel opens up about how she got her first client, how she plans her content calendar, and most intriguingly, how she used (and continues to use) one simple strategy to build her business: she asks for things. Most of us are afraid to do this one simple thing because we’re afraid of being rejected. Listen to the show to see how asking questions has helped to build Rachel’s credibility as a sleep expert.

On the show today, we have Carina Groombridge from Carina Groombridge Coaching.

Carina is an Engineer in the Aerospace Industry and works a traditional 9-5 in the office. After she had her daughter, she realized she wasn’t passionate about engineering and began searching for another career. She wanted to show her daughter, by example, that she could do whatever she wanted to do in life. But Carina felt that she wasn’t living true to her own advice.

She first discovered sleep coaching and life coaching, and further down the road, she had a “lightbulb” moment while talking to a fellow coach. She instantly “knew” that mindset coaching was the path that she really wanted to pursue.

Carina faced the same issues that every new entrepreneur faces when starting out—the fear of being seen and judged, and gaining enough exposure to get the ball rolling. To combat this, she just took action. She pushed past the fear of being seen, and challenged herself to do 21 days (in a row) of Facebook Lives! This helped her to get visible and soon thereafter, she got her first client!