Consider the Wildflowers
Consider the Wildflowers
111. Business Growth, Babies, & Biohacking: The Secret to Surviving It All with Ashlyn Carter
Welcome back to the show one of our favorite past guests (and a dear friend of mine) Ashlyn Carter, founder of Ashlyn Writes, for the first of our Encore episodes! Last time, we talked about building a business—this time, we’re getting real about how to build a life alongside that business. No fluff, just the good, the bad, and the messy middle of juggling entrepreneurship and family.
If you’re answering emails in the school pick-up line, squeezing in a grocery order while fielding client calls, and trying to figure out what’s for dinner—all without losing your mind—this episode is for you. Ashlyn shares the practical strategies she uses to protect her time, her peace, and how to make it work when it all just isn’t working. (Spoiler: it’s not always going to work.) Tune in for some real talk on balancing it all without turning into the next viral meltdown meme
WILDFLOWER SHOW NOTES
📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:
Ashlyn's 1st Episode on CTW
Strengths Finder
The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast
Culture Apothecary with Alex Clark Podcast
The Blueprint Model
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This show is produced and edited by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co.
I think that one big business hire change that opened my eyes was, and I'll say this till my dying day. Now, you don't need an a VA. You need an EA. But I think once I figured out, and I saw how an executive assistant, an assistant to me, could free me up, it was like, oh, so figuring that out on the personal side is now what I want to do.
Shanna Skidmore:You are listening to consider the wildflowers, the podcast episode 111 Welcome back to the show. One of our favorite past guests and a dear friend of mine, Ashlyn Carter, founder of Ashland rights, for the first of hopefully many encore episodes, while our first conversation focused on building a business, this time around, we're getting real about how to build a life alongside that business. No fluff, just the good, the bad and the messy middle of juggling entrepreneurship and family, if you're answering emails in the school pickup line, squeezing in a grocery order while fielding client calls and trying to figure out what's for dinner, all without losing your mind. This episode is for you. Ashlyn shares the strategies she uses to protect her time her peace, and how to make it work when it all just isn't working. Spoiler, it's not always going to work. Tune in for the lowdown on balancing it all without becoming the next viral meltdown meme. Let's dive in. Hey, it's Shanna, and this is consider the wildflowers. The podcast. For the past 15 plus years, I've had the honor to hear 1000s of stories from entrepreneurs around the world. As a former fortune 100 financial advisor turned business consultant, I have a unique opportunity to see the reel. Behind the highlight reel, I'm talking profit and loss, statements, unpaid taxes, moments of burnout and those of utter victory. Or, as my husband says, the content everyone is wondering, but not many are talking about. And now I'm bringing these private conversations to you. Hear the untold stories of how industry leaders, founders and up and coming entrepreneurs got their start, the experiences that shaped them and the journey to building the brands they have today, stories that will inspire and reignite, encourage to redefine success and build a life and business on your own terms. Welcome, Wildflower. I'm so glad you're here. Hi Ashlyn. Welcome back
Ashlyn Carter:to the show. I'm so honored. This is
Shanna Skidmore:gonna be fun. This is our first everyone listening. We are gonna do we're calling in our encore series, which I'm pumped about, a plus nine and good job, Lauren. I feel like we talk in the first episode, we talked a lot about building your business, and yes, we like touched on life, building a life within that business. But I feel like so many of us, and our the people listening, likely, are so much about, you know, it's my motto, business built for life, like how to build a business that fuels the life you want? But how often does that really happen? It's hard. It's a challenge. Yep, and I know for me, it's been a challenge. Work could easily become, like your first baby identity, like there's so much in that. So I'm excited, Ashlyn, to have you back and just to talk this on course here is really about building the life alongside the alongside the business, and how to maintain that measure of success in your life. So I love it. I'm gonna be unpolished and because these are new questions, but I'm pumped about it.
Ashlyn Carter:Let's be raw and real. And I have just learned all over again this year that is not what you just talked about. Is not something that gets solved
Shanna Skidmore:once. Well, we could just wait right there. Yeah, oh, well,
Ashlyn Carter:you like, you think you're like, all right, I figured it out. And then fast forward a quarter or a half a year, much less a year, and it you have to solve for x all over again. So I love this conversation, because you are, it is the game over and over again. I
Shanna Skidmore:love that Ashland. I feel like that was so insightful, just right there. I mean, and permission again, that it's like not something you just figure out, a move, a child, an illness in a family, like all a new team member, like all of it resembles, Yep, yeah. Hey, Ashlyn, tell everybody who you are, what your job is like what you do for career work and how long you've been in business. I
Ashlyn Carter:love it. I could do that and start with introducing myself. My name is Ashlyn Carter. My business is Ashlyn Wrights and the copy bar. And I'm a conversion copywriter and Brandon launch strategist. So my team and I help, specifically women and creative small business owners make more money with their words. We work with a lot of high achieving entrepreneurs and women so they can see lift on their funnels and on their website words. So that is what my business looks like from an ops standpoint, which I know is this is the audience would be interested about 30 to say, like 40% of our state. Else come from an agency side of the business. So it is done for you work. We're done with you work. And then we also have an education side of the business, which is, of course, a membership, a subscription and a template shop. So that comprises the business side of things. And then
Shanna Skidmore:60% comes from the education. That's percent agency. All right, that is interesting. Yes,
Ashlyn Carter:it used to be more skewed 30, but home girls set this year out in a lot of ways, which I'll talk about. And so, yeah, yeah, percentages changed. So on the other side of my life, I am a mom, and I'm married to Wes, who's my college sweetheart, and a mom of three, and we are in Montgomery, Alabama, which is a city I love so stinking much. I am a hometown. Yes, I am an apologist for Montgomery, and I adore it, and so we moved back last year. So that is my life. And how
Shanna Skidmore:many years have you been in business? And how many team members do you have? I've been in
Ashlyn Carter:business since 2016 so almost nine years in business, and I have at this point, four. Are we at four or five employees, five employees, and I would say about four to five contractors. I'm realizing like grow. I just I want to run even leaner. I'm just always not that. I want to, like, let people go, but I like to me having a big team is not a flex. So I have had, and I know you've you're smiling because you're like, I have been through this. I remember sometimes watching you be on the one side of it, and then I had experience around myself to see what you mean. Um, managing people is really, it's the hardest part of business, I think, is hiring a team. So that's where we are right now, and it feels good. You
Shanna Skidmore:just made me laugh. A big team is not a flex. Let's just pull out some quotes from the copywriter, okay, Ashlyn, this is so helpful. Tell me about your life today. Okay, compared to what it looked like when you first started your business. Just run through a few changes. Seen
Ashlyn Carter:some things Shannon, I've seen some things I feel like I like. Gone to the gone to the starry eyed days where I could just work incessantly. Never, ever got tired of it. Which I love. I I treasured those days. They were a gift. They were so sweet. You just, you have this naivete, this innocence, even when you think you've, like, been in it three years, you know, four years like you, just those years were so fun. And then now, no spring chicken. But I've not been in business, you know, that long, but coming up on a decade, and so my business looks, I mean, just practically speaking, I started my business three months after I got married. Baby. I'd been in corporate world for years, but yeah, so no kids, new husband started. That's how I started my business. So it was like pretty easy to work whatever I wanted, and then I am 100% fat girl. That was not motherly growing up. I mean, I was into the baby dolls, American Girl dolls, duh. But I just and I babysat, but I never was like a baby person, and then fun fact jokes on me. The more kids I had, the more I was like, I love this so much, and so we I mean, sometimes I'm like, are we done? I don't know. I don't know. We're in. We're talking through all that. It is very hard, but I love having three kids, so their ages are five, three and one right now.
Shanna Skidmore:Okay, this is also good, because so many big changes you started right after getting married. Have moved a few times, had the few kids? How have you seen your business shift in these different seasons of life? Like, I think, moving, having children, sicknesses, event like, how have you seen it shift over these last nine years?
Ashlyn Carter:Oh, God is so good, because it is sustained through all of these shifts by very little strategic. I mean, I'm, I'm very futurist, like, what are my strengths? Finders, like, visionary futurists, strategic, like, I do have a natural gifting towards that. But there are some things that came up that I'm, like, I did not plan for that. I mean, just this year. So we moved, we I had my baby September, actually, September 29 I got my kids birthday wrong earlier, talking to you, 29 not 30. We moved five days later states so cross state lines. Moved all new house. He had some eating issues in December, so we were up at Children's Hospital in Birmingham some January, West starts back to work. He took a he's at Delta Airlines, phenomenal paternity leave, but he started a new job in January that has him traveling to Atlanta 1/3 out of the year. And then my mom, in February, had two brain aneurysms, and was in ICU for about a month. And then she's also had another surgery this year to go back and put her stint in her brain. And it was kind of our first summer having a kindergarten age kid where you get like, a summer like it that was a whole that concept was. Very new, like summer break. So this year, I had to opt out of like and I, I kept trying to make it work. And then I this is a whole can of worms we'll get into. But I, I mean, I've seen my business change immensely, and not just those external stressors that I just mentioned, which happen at any stage. But I think internally, too, I had to go through like, the Okay, I've been talking about copy for a long time, a long time now, how do I like still get bit by the bug, and then, how do I continue to have this passion for solving for x, which is what you do as an entrepreneur, and you're always, like, people always have problems, and they'll always pay to have their problems solved. But like, I don't want to become jaded to what their problems are. I want to still have this massive, you know, service oriented mindset towards my audience, and not be jaded by them or annoyed by them, or anything like that. But you have to, when you've been in it for a minute, those feelings can crop up. So I now I'm just like going on tangents. How did
Shanna Skidmore:you Ashton, this is off scripting. But do you feel like you were able to wrestle through that this year,
Ashlyn Carter:I wanted to sell my whole the whole and for nine months of this whole year, I kept thinking like, maybe I want to sell. Maybe I'm done.
Shanna Skidmore:So what happened? I mean, I did you decide to stay? I decided to stay. And what made you just make that decision? Okay,
Ashlyn Carter:this is like, maybe TMI, but I'll say it anyway. I also, when I, and some people know this, I started my business out of eating disorder and partial hospitalization for anorexia, depression and anxiety, and so I have been on a medication for anxiety management Since 2015 so at the beginning of this year, I started to be like, Okay, I, you know, in talking to doctors and stuff, I realized, I think I want to try on my own, which God's in his timing, like, right? It was right about the time I took myself off of that medication, my mom went in hospitalization. I was like, Oh, I'm supposed to be learning how to deal with stress, and now I just want to, like, burn everything down. Because that made me rethink. I mean, you have a moment where a family member gets sick and you do a lot of the caretaking, and you're like, Okay, what is life? What do I want my legacy to be? Like, you look you skirt with death like that, and it just, it rattles you. So I think this whole year, what I realized Gina is that like that I just want to sell, was kind of an escapist desire. It's like it made my brain feel good, I think, to be like, I'm just screw it. I'm just gonna sell and get out of it. And like, I'll know. Like, I'll never have to worry about it again when, like, in reality, that's probably not what I really want. I like work. I want even, even the days where I'm like, you know, do I want to be a stay at home mom? I love solving problems. Like, I would invent problems to solve. I would invent chaos to unravel. Like, I like that. And so I think once that clicked, and I realized this, every time I think, like, Screw it. I'm just gonna sell. How much can I get for this part or this asset? That's that helped me kind of process, and that it was through realizing, like, oh, that's probably a ruminating thought that is an OCD anxiety tendency that I learned about nine years ago when I was in recovery. Now I'm just seeing it again for the first time because I happen not to have the medication. So ah, okay, let me now implement some of those cognitive behavioral therapy techniques that I've learned about and help like, the Bible says, like, my brain can determine how I feel like I can think my way into kind of just like re, restudied all of that stuff. Yeah? So that is how I just realized, no, I just need to solve the problem differently than Yeah. Knee jerking to wanting to escape,
Shanna Skidmore:yeah. Oh, that is so profound. Ashlyn, to send to identify why why you're feeling the way you're feeling, and not not dismissing how you're feeling, but digging a little deeper into where those are swimming fun, because I have a lot of similar thoughts. Like, it's so funny that you said I was never, also, like, never thought I'd be want to be a stay at home mom. Never had that, you know, like, oh, desire, I love my work, but yeah, like, I would totally just hang out with my kids. But it's so funny, because I love my work, like, when I sit down and actually do it, I love my work. And so it is a wrestling and has been for me as well as we've grown our family of like, what does this look like? And some days it does feel easier just to be like I think I'm only going to do this one thing, yes now, and that's just going to be momming. What have you learned? Let me ask. I'm going to skip a question and go to this one for the sake of balance. And you know, I like harmony better. What? What have you said no to, particularly, this. Year, maybe going into I'd be curious about your opting out in this season. What is one thing you're saying no to right now for the sake of balance, or what is something you have said no to this year, just to kind of manage and navigate the year that you've had? Okay,
Ashlyn Carter:that's really great. So again, like, by God's orchestration, not of my own, we happen to have and, I mean, I went, can I say balls to the walls on this we went all out, I guess I should say on the launch in, it was maybe April. No, it was May. I'm looking at my calendar. We did a rebrand in March. Because in March, I was thinking, like, okay, you know, just moved had a baby, mom went through her stuff, like New New Year. Knew me and did a rebrand, and then like, jokes on me, because the rest of the year I was still kind of siphoning through, figuring things out. But on the heels of that rebrand, we did a great launch, which afforded me the opportunity to really spend the rest of this year trying to figure out exactly what you said. So some of it like, what? What do I what? Let me try to do my way, my day this way. Okay, I'm like that. Let me try this day my in a but I didn't have the financial bearing, yeah, stress. I got to play and figure out, Okay, do I like what? I've realized I like four ish to five ish hour days, um, working, and I where I used to could do nights in early mornings all the time. I'm just not in that phase right now, but I, you know, maybe again in the future. But I right now, I really like after the kids go to bed. I really like going to bed really early, and sometimes I like waking up in the morning to work. But I really, I love my reading time and my quiet time and praying. And so I have then learned then that I can have, like, four ish hours, maybe five, to really work, and then I'm about done. So that was like saying no to these, like this, trying to fit in five, nine hour, eight hour days, just not my phase right now. Yeah, other things I've said no to this is kind of a new one, but getting more domestic help because I do you're actually probably very much like this. I love the Martha Stewart life like I would be very like. I love I don't hate laundry. Sometimes I don't hate ironing. I don't hate meal planning. The problem is I hate them because I cannot figure out how to do those and disciple my children and work and, like, serve my team and my customers. So that
Shanna Skidmore:way. About grocery shopping, yes, a lot of those
Ashlyn Carter:things. Yeah, I've like, I've been like, oh, I can't, I don't want to ask for help with those, because I actually really enjoy them. But what I'm trying like for, here's a practical example. I love it's Christmas time as we're recording. I love wrapping presents, but I paid high schooler 20 bucks an hour to give me an hour and a half of her time, and she wrapped a ton of presents. I'm still gonna do some, because I I do enjoy the present wrapping and like making things beautiful, but like that, saying no because I'm my time is my is the one thing I can't create more of it is my most precious asset. I would rather I'm learning to say no to, I guess that's the roundabout way, saying no to this pride, maybe that I had of like giving household chores to others. So it's even like, expanded part of me I'm thinking, do I want to have I don't know if I want a house manager. That sounds scary, but I think family assistant, somebody to stinking run the Amazon returns to the UPS store because it takes so much time it takes, and that's I'm like, when I'm with my kids, I want to be with my kids. When I'm with my customers, I want to be with them. So that's another thing I'm saying no to, I guess. Okay, this
Shanna Skidmore:isn't on the list. But you know, hey, I'm Shanna, and this is how it go. Your launch afforded you the ability to pay your personal salary. And as you mentioned, your agency, I think kind of pays the team, is that? So, like, you feel like you just kind of sat down with the budget and we're like, if I don't push the rest of the year, if I give myself the space to do this, is that how you kind of were like, okay with it. I
Ashlyn Carter:have just, I mean, we finished that launch, and I was like, awesome. We're gonna do it again in six months. Let's go like, that was, I love people. People don't love long. I love like, I'm like, a cheetah in the wild and a launch. I love it. I think it is a party. I When it finishes, I'm like, Let's go again. But then, like, as a month went on after, I was like, actually, I'm really tired. And like, I my kids are going to be home this summer, and I want to lean into my like Charlotte Mason homeschool like tendencies that I read for fun, and do some of these little activities with them. They're so little and I'm going to blink and they're going to be even bigger and so that, yeah, so I think I knew our projections. Our financials, and so we kind of, like the agency side, did really well. Like really, really well this year, better than it has in the past. Because specific, like, from a strategic standpoint, we started offering more micro offers. We offered more done with you, more day rates. We brought a lot of those things back from that was that was a strategic decision last year we kind of played with and thought, you know, like the economy, and it's an election year, and people are a little bit more scared to invest in the big things. And so we brought some of those offers back, and they just did, like, hot cakes. And so that those were,
Shanna Skidmore:I remember that having that conversation like this time last year, we were asked you
Ashlyn Carter:that is exactly. And you looked at my you looked at my blueprint plan, because I mapped that all out. And I was like, Okay, if we do this, like, it's gonna, you know, we need to reconfigure cost of goods, yeah, but yeah, that's how. So I think I didn't really, I mean, you know, I'm a die hard to my blueprint,
Shanna Skidmore:but it, um, you just knew the money would be okay. I
Ashlyn Carter:did. And what I mean, I I, you know this about me, I don't know if, like every listener, I am a very money I've had to learn how to talk about money, yeah, as a business owner, and so it took probably Wes my husband looking and saying, like, No, you're actually okay. Like, or, if you need to, I'm very staunch about, and I know you teach hourly rate, like, I know my hourly rate if, as much as I love designing, you know, Canvas slides, if I can pay somebody on Fiverr to do it, like, less and get 80% of the way there, I'm gonna do and I still have Wes in my ear going, like, No, you're, you're really okay. Like, you, you or we, we've got to spend money to keep you in that place where you are doing the things that only you can do. And so yeah, it might mean we end with less in this category, but it's okay, because you do have to spend money to make money at a point that is
Shanna Skidmore:one of the biggest things right now. I we are, we are actually so similar in a lot of ways, but I feel like in this way, we're different. Like, I have always run my business extremely lean. Yeah, you do, because I am so fiercely independent, stubborn, prideful, and like, this has been my year of like I need help, and realizing that sometimes, like you said, spending money to bring in more business or to allow you to do the work that's gonna it's for me that's actually been really, really scary in the past. Like, because I don't I grew up very much in a anyways, not to get into the therapy side, but, like, probably a very scarcity mindset, and so I'm afraid of spending money before you make it 100% but some, yeah, so okay, this is so interesting, though, because I think somebody said this on one of my calls yesterday. They were like, the YouTuber, you know, success, you know about goal setting, how we're talking about that this time of the year, but the YouTubers who are showing us their eight figure businesses and their giant teams, and making us feel like that's what success looks like. And it's like, you can't I think that there's this picture out there right now of like, make all this money, but we're not seeing all the support that's on the back end. In order to do that. And it is huge. It has to be huge. Yeah, it has to be huge. Okay, that's great. This is also good. Ashlyn, what have you? What has been like the best or the hardest? Maybe either one you choose boundary line that you have like, line in the sand. This, to me, is like either red flag for Ashlyn. Of like, Hey, you're working too hard. Or a boundary line. Of I, you know, I'm always spending time with the Lord, or I always put my kid, like, is there something for you that's kind of like 80% of the time, 90% of the time, this, to me, is like a boundary, and if I can't hold to that, then it's a red flag for me. Okay,
Ashlyn Carter:that's good. There's two that bubble up and then kind of a tertiary concept. So primarily, again, I'll just be frank, this year was really hard on our marriage. We're, you know, past the seven year itch, but we just like dealing with a traveling spouse and trying to figure out our new rhythms and routines. I realized I was putting the kids first before my husband, and biblically, I don't believe that's how it should be. Like, I like, Wes comes first, and our kids are right after that. But like, I was not prioritizing our marriage. And, like, not, I mean, just kind of treating, just not treat him well. And so I think, like, that was a massive red flag that we both, he had to be like, okay, like, we, something's we've got to figure this out. And we, um, have been doing some biblical counseling that has been so helpful. So I think that, like, that was a major red flag me realizing, like, whoa, whoa, whoa, none of this is worth like, damaging my marriage or pushing my marriage to the brink of divorce. Or like, ever cut like, that is not happens not to be an option for our family, but like, we are not like, we've got to figure this. If that's not an option, we've got to figure this out. So that was, like, one big thing this year. And you realize, I don't know, the longer you're in business, and you see how you, like, you said these YouTubers, or you hear about some of their personal life situations, you're like, honestly, I see how that can happen, like, it's, it is very, very hard. So that coupled with kind of, like my kids, like, just realizing, like, I'm not all summer, like I was just not okay with throwing them in and I it was just a personal decision, like throwing them at all these camps, like I just, they're so tender. It like, there will be a day and a time for those, but there's so little right now that they really just want to be with me. And sometimes they don't care if I'm, like, throwing the ball with them the whole time, but they just want to be beside me. And so that being another kind of non negotiable is getting I mean, just in a day, like, I saw a real dad that I was like, That's so true. If you have it, it said, if you have a job that allows you to pick up your kids, that you're you're successful. And that is that I do feel that, um, I think one thing that was hard to not say yes to more, and I realized I had to say no to, is community involvement. Because I, like I said earlier, I love my city so much, and it has a lot of needs, and I was able to see this year how God orchestrated my skill set, in my strengths and my background in journalism, with knowing the right people and helping get stories out that needed to get told at a bigger level. And I it was sometimes real, I mean, but it was nice, because I did spend, I probably build, more pro bono hours this year than I ever have. I That's because I would do them during workout. I was like, That just seems more. I was so burnt out, I guess, on that it was, like, really fun to be a journalist again, and so I but I did get to a point I was like, Okay, I'm gonna have to start saying no to some of this, yeah, because my heart is really pulled to this business, and I don't want to escape from it, and I want this to be the tool that I helped build our family legacy with. But it was, it was fun, but I did have to eventually be like, All right, there's this is the line. The water can come here and no further. This
Shanna Skidmore:is also good. Ashlynn, this isn't on the questions, but I kind of just what have you, and I know I'm sure, like you said, it's changing, it's shifting. It's always reevaluating it. But where have you landed in this season of work and in this season of life, of like success? What does success look like in business for you? What does success look like in your family, as a wife, as a mom, as a daughter? Like, are there, like, maybe just give me one or two for each of like, if my business pays the bills and pays me, is that success, and then if I'm working five hours and able to get it all done, is that success? Like, how have you kind of been like, this is my season. This is where I'm at. What are those markers of success kind of thing? Okay,
Ashlyn Carter:this is like, I'm totally speaking like, from the would it fly by the seat of my pants? These are success from a business standpoint, I think looks like me staying in my lane, which I realized, like i i would tell everybody, like, take strength finder and take it again every year. Like, reread it. But like, I want to get paid to learn and share what like my I want to get, if I can get paid to do the thing that I do best, seeing strategy, sharing what I learned, learning reading and reporting, reading and reporting, and build a team that is able to help me stay in that lane so that we can scale without losing the heart, and serve as many people as possible while making as much money as possible, while I'm working as few hours as possible. That's success, so hard it is. And the thing is, I'm I'm the block on that, because I get in and I'll be like, no, like, I need to do that. I need to do Yeah, you know, I can't let anybody else do that. Well, the minute I deify what we do. Like, no, like, That's dumb. It's my mindset is. Like, the thing that stops all of that from happening is my what happens between my ears. Like, hands down. So a lot of that has been getting out of my way, which I'm really bad at. That's why I always pay for coaching and then success on the family side. I mean, I just just trying to be as in the not, I mean it sounds cheesy or trite, but it just they grow so. Fast. So being, I mean, we do a we are together as a family a lot. We do our I mean, we do a lot as a family. We're our people, and my family is in town, and we're involved in our community and do a lot with our church, but like, the five of us are together a lot. And I That, to me, is success is, you know, family dinners at home, or going out to eat or reading every night to each like, to the kids, and snuggling on the couch, and every morning, going to the same place we always do to have breakfast, and that's six, and that's there's not really like a mile marker in that, but I I just we're so full on time with each other, and that is massively successful to me. Have you
Shanna Skidmore:been able to find, like, contentment, harmony, peace and, like, the Juggle of it all? What helps you just rest? I guess you got children, you're running a business. You got a team. We got all kinds of that. Like, how do you just you think you wouldn't mind? Told me
Ashlyn Carter:the word word Christian, but I really like to say it's gonna be a Christian answer. But like, prayer and coming back to God's word has been the only thing that has brought me peace, the only thing I and that's I love studying God's word like you can read that's fascinating to me. You can read it. You can read the same book again. You can read the same book again. And like reading the bible cover to cover, I've done for I think this is my fifth time this year doing it. And it just that, coupled with, like, a few minutes in prayer before I, like, it's honest to God, the only thing that has given me peace in this year, um, and so that's like, it's just my non negotiable too, is like, I everything could be going crazy, but like, I if I skip one day, like, I really don't. I can't even skip a day because I drown without that. So, yeah, I don't know that's and that's like, probably the most cliche answer, chat G, chat G, p, t, what brings peace to somebody who's a Christian, prayer and reading the Bible? That that is,
Shanna Skidmore:but that's truth. What happened? No, I think I needed to hear, I needed to hear that. So with that said, any specific tools or resources that you recommend in, yeah, finding harmony about, like, tell them, tell them all. To me, like,
Ashlyn Carter:biohacking has been so helpful because I think for the first time, I'm not pregnant in a while, and but I also realized, like, I need to deal with anxiety and stress. And like, my like, it's gonna My house is loud, and it is gonna keep getting louder as they get bigger. And I'm gonna get out of here anytime soon, and I am this routine, like, let me go journal for an hour every day, person trapped in the life circumstances of homegirl. That's not happening for a decade. So how do I deal with that over stimulation, over, I mean, okay, one. Well, this is not, I wasn't gonna say this. Have you ever heard the back to your the back on the wall trick. So when you feel like, when your kids are doing crazy, everybody's like, bananas, just put your back against the wall and it removes, like, it removes one. It's like, physiological. But anyway, that is helpful. What's bio hacking? Like figuring out how your body is responding? Somebody could give a better example. But what I have learned is like how you can hack your way to better sleep better. Like, just lean into how we our bodies are made to function instead of these cortisol, dopamine, addicted, like,
Shanna Skidmore:mechanism of their coffee, yes,
Ashlyn Carter:well, so it little things like, not like, learning how to, don't drink coffee right when you get up, wait two hours, like, because then I would, I would always, I would slump at two o'clock and I would need a nap, and then I would be so frustrated, and my kids would get hung because I'd be like, I'm exhausted. I need a nap. I'm not gonna get one. So, like, little, that was a great little, like, wait on that.
Shanna Skidmore:How are you learning these things? What? Like, how did you start learning about biohacking? I
Ashlyn Carter:would go down bunny trails. The skinny confidential podcast talks about a lot. Is it? Andrew Huberman talks about it a lot. Culture. Apothecary podcast talks about a lot, and I'm like, scrunchy. I'm not, I'm like, semi crunchy. I still love a good, like, topical ointment, but, like, I'll do beef tallow on my face too. You know, like, I believe in balance, but I think I really do feel like some of this has helped me, helped me physically deal with being I mean, we're, we're, ain't it just the number of things that are flowing at us in a day on our phone, as business owners, problems as moms, like it is, it is an insane amount. So those have been helpful, I think. Like, okay, so I'll just start like, in the morning we're my getting an aura ring for. Christmas last year because I kept saying I'm not sleeping. I'm not sleeping. I'm not sleeping. Well, fun fact, I am sleeping. I just like I it has been helpful for me, because on those days where I think I got no rest, I'm exhausted, well, my ring says I got six and a half hours. Is that ideal? No, but it's also, it's not three hours, it's not four hours, it's not nothing. And that, like, mentally, has been really helpful for me. I think trying to get steps in going on, like a walk in the morning, to get that vitamin D in sunlight, and just down the street and back, I can see how many steps I try to get, between 9010 1000 steps in a day. So, like an aura ring has been a really helpful tool. Other tool, like in the morning, the as far as, like Bible reading the Bible recap, it's podcasts like seven to eight to 15 minutes a day, maybe in like, two chapters of the Bible every day. It's like, that's been helpful.
Shanna Skidmore:You listen to the podcast. I do. I read, okay, I read my
Ashlyn Carter:chapters, and I'll listen to the podcast. Um, so that's what valmerie paper, prayer journals have been a tool that I've used since 2015, or 16, um, those have been, I feel like, those are, like, my dailies, and then, like at night this, these are, like, two kind of silly things, but helping calm myself down for bed, there's been three tools. Specifically one, it's called Moon brew moon. It's, is that it It's, um, like, neurotropic hot chocolate. It's basically a hot chocolate before you go to bed, but it's full of all the good stuff and magnesium so like that. And then I do a bath and I have, like, I love these fluid bath salts, so, like, calming myself down. I feel like everything I'm talking I'm just an extremely wound up anxious person, yeah, and so I have to constantly try to calm myself down. I think
Shanna Skidmore:I wonder if people out there listening have said to themselves, why can't I just get this, you know, like the other there's, there's, everybody has running a business, everybody's cooking dinner, everybody's has the children, everybody, what if I keep trying it like
Ashlyn Carter:whatever the children,
Shanna Skidmore:but, but yeah, like you mentioned, in reality, we are living in a time in life where there's so much coming At all times, so much stimulation. Maybe I should say it that way, good word. And I think that we are I have decided I'm taking the word overwhelm out of my vocabulary, because in my life, it's I am not overwhelmed. I'm over stimulated, which is making me feel overwhelmed, yes, and so, yeah, I love this, like, back to the wall, thing I'm trying it, and that is that
Ashlyn Carter:biblical counselor that I mentioned earlier, because I that's what I said. I said, it just frustrates me that women have been doing this for millennia. What is my problem? Like, why can't I figure out how to, like, bring some income into my family and raise like, what is my problem? He was like, Ashlyn, yes, the lights used to go out at when the sun went down, and that was it. So like, you have to realize, like and phones that like you we do, we do exactly what you just said. And I was like, okay,
Shanna Skidmore:the times have changed, and we have put so much on ourselves to do all of it. Yes, yes. That's how I love this conversation. I could keep talking about this forever, but I do have a couple more questions I want to ask and make sure we I ask you before we go, because I just thinks. I just want to pick your brain. Thanks for being real with us, because I think we're all at the end of life. Whenever that day comes, I'll get teary eyed about it. I just want to know like I lived it well, and I think so many of us do, and that's why this matters. That's why these hard questions matter. Because well to you, might not look like Well to me, yes, and our job is to, like, pray through it, ask the hard questions, like, figure it out. Okay, so it sounds like you, you get help in your life. You ask for help. You outsource. So I would love for you to just share what your team looks like at home and in the business. Like, what do you outsource? Give me a few things, and then how do you or have you dealt with, like, wrestled with mom guilt, like, if you're getting a babysitter or if you're working when you could be with them? I heard somebody say, I think on a podcast, like, um, yeah, no, it was Christy Wright, when she was on my podcast, she said I felt bad, like if I could have been with them, I felt like I should have been with my kids. But she realized, like, work is good for her soul too. So that was anyways, let's go listen that one go. But what do you outsource? And then have you? How have you wrestled with, like, being a working mom, basically, to deal with mom guilt? So good.
Ashlyn Carter:Okay, and outsource. You just want me to hit personal or business, too. Yeah. I
Shanna Skidmore:think just personal, yeah, and everybody go listen to Ashland first. I think we talked more about, like, your team, yeah, obviously you mentioned you have four to five employees right now, four to five people, contractors. Like, you're hiring people on Fiverr. Like, it sounds like, you know, if somebody can do it faster than you, or, yes, that's not the best of our time, but I would love to hear on the home side.
Ashlyn Carter:Okay, I think that one big business hire change that opened my eyes was, and I'll say this till my dying day. Now, you don't need an a VA. You need an EA. Like I think of one of the big hires people miss is hiring. And I know we were talking about personal but I think once I figured out and I saw how an executive assistant, an assistant to me, could free me up, it was like, oh, so figuring that out on the personal side is now what I want to do. And so that's why, like I mentioned earlier, that was a higher this year. That was a higher in 2023, or four, and she was with me. Then our first EA was with me about five months, and we realized it's not her skill set fit, and then is it? You know, it was a mutual understanding. And so I went for a couple of months, and then, I mean, I had my eye on the person I wanted it to be, and she's now been with us for over a year, and she's okay. What does she do for you? Oh my gosh, Wendy, she that's the thing she would be. She always says, like, If I lived there, I would do that. If I lived there, I would go run the pants up to the school. I would go grab that from the store that you need it from, or whatever. Wendy, I mean, her core two tasks are inbox sorting. So like every day, taking the inbox sources she knows. She knows Wendy knows everything going on in the business, far more than I do, far more than me. And she is does my calendar too, because I like those are the two things that I cannot spend time on. They suck my time and I screw them up and I mess it up. So those are, like her core two things than any special projects that I have. She probably has done more project management than the average EA. But those are a lot of the things. Like, if I need a right hand person, those are the things I need them. So, oh, could not get by without Wendy. But realizing, like on the family side, I'm so outsourced. I definitely we have a housekeeper. We have probably since we've probably had a housekeeper for about five years now. And I just I adore everyone that we've had in every city that we've had. We've only ever changed when we move the city. Life giving, life giving. And then I will say to Wes because he works a third to half of the year when he's home, he cannot work like he cannot when he's not in front of his computer at work, talking to airplanes. He can't do that from anywhere. So when he's home, he takes on a lot, and I always want to be really clear with that, with people like my husband, does a lot. He'll do school pickups when I you know, have calls late or anything like that. So those are some houses.
Shanna Skidmore:The kiddos are at school. Yes?
Ashlyn Carter:Um, yeah, we use a lot of babysitters. We live close to a college, and so we've got a lot of babysitters. Um, I really, and I was kind of, I mean, I'll just be frank, I was really iffy on the three year old. I've realized every kid is different, and I am not opposed to home school. I am not opposed to keeping the littles all the time. I've gone down. What's interesting is I the youngest was in full time childcare when he was, like, itty bitty, yeah. And subsequently, I've come off of that with each kid. I think I've been more confident. I've my I've changed a little bit on what I believe. And so, yeah, um Yeah, the youngest now, my one year old, goes for about four ish hours a day,
Shanna Skidmore:um, and I have dedicated work time in the day I
Ashlyn Carter:get that's the thing I realized, if I can just get three to four ish hours a day, I can maybe find that fifth hour if I need it, plug it in at night or probably in the morning, is when I do really well,
Shanna Skidmore:and You feel like, for you, that's been the sweet spot of getting your work done in the day allows you to have quiet time in the morning and go to sleep at night and nurture your relationship with Wes and like, okay, yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, I because I feel like so many people integrate really well, like, do all the things end of the end. I'm like that. I just have found, I don't think that's me. I haven't found my sweet spot yet. But Ashlyn, this has been amazing. We got to wrap this up, and I don't really know how, if there was one thing that you have learned in running a business, being a mom, juggling all the things you know and and now your ninth year of business, if there's one thing you could tell yourself about finding balance and harmony played along with Debbie,
Ashlyn Carter:like what like the every time I take a break, I'm like the internet the. Internet changes, but like, people will always pay to solve problems. And like, I can figure that out. If it's gonna look different, I can figure it out in a new capacity. What's more important to me is like playing like that translates to the family side too. Like, these are my people, you know, and this is my city, and, like, that is, yeah, I want to invest really, like, right now I'm just in a phase where I have to invest really hard in that, because we're fairly young family, so that that means I can't throttle to 100 on the business. That's okay. It'll be there. Yeah, it'll be there if I want it to be, and if I don't want to be, that's also okay,
Shanna Skidmore:you know, yeah, being okay, taking breaks. I think that is a big thing to learn. I I kind of took away from that, like, you know, I've seen you slow down in different seasons. I've seen you, yeah, not throttle to 100 and the business will be there when you and I've done the same, and I have sometimes wrestled with, like, slowing down, but yeah, the business will be there when you're ready. It'll be
Ashlyn Carter:there. Ready. People buy businesses. Like, if that helps, like, go back to your then you'll come back and I'll be like, Oh, you bought a whole new business. Like, yeah, here's all these people that are waiting. Yeah, serve them. Just serve them. Ashley, I'm grateful for you. Ditto. This is fun. Thanks. This is good. Hey, Wildflower,
Shanna Skidmore:you just finished another episode of consider the wildflowers the podcast. Head over to consider the wildflowers podcast.com. For show notes, resource links and to learn how you can connect with Ashlyn. One final thought for today from James clear, you can lose yourself, one small compromise at a time. You can transform yourself, one small win at a time. As always, thank you for listening. I'll see you next time. Consider the wildflowers podcast is produced and edited in partnership with the team at Palm Tree podco. Special thanks to our producers, Anthony Palmer, our audio mixologist of palm tree podco, and Lauren from Team Skidmore, without whom this podcast would never reach your earbuds each week.
