Overcoming Societal Expectations: Follow Your Dream to be a Work-From-Home Mom - with Yesenia Faiella S4E47

Unexpected twists, life-altering decisions, and strategic moves - this conversation with Yesenia (Jess) is like a roadmap to creating a life worth living. Dive into her story and learn how to overcome societal expectations to craft your own path. Oh, and did I mention, it all started with a bold leap into entrepreneurship as a mom? A leap she made not just once but three times!

Imagine breaking free from the guilt and finding the courage to pursue your passion while balancing motherhood. It's time to discover how to overcome these challenges and create your dream as a successful work-from-home mom.   Let Jess's story inspire YOU to explore the journey of transitioning from a traditional job to entrepreneurship as a mom and find fulfillment in the process. 

I feel like everything that I've done thus far and even what I will do now will lead me to the next thing. - Yesenia Faiella

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Master the art of transitioning from a traditional job to entrepreneurship and pave your path to success.
• Discover the secrets to finding fulfillment through a career change and creating a life you love.
• Hear how your CliftonStrengths will lead you to a life of ease and excellence.
• Uncover effective strategies for homeschooling while working from home, achieving balance and productivity.
• Learn how to overcome family & societal expectations that are keeping you stuck. 
• Explore the possibilities of relocating your family to create a dream lifestyle and finding your personal and professional paradise.

Connect with Yesenia Faiella:
www.mamasnextmove.com
IG - @mamaofbothworlds
YouTube - Mama of Both Worlds
NEW podcast -  Not Your Average Family Hi Five Living Life

Transcript

00:00:00
I felt like I had the dream life. I had a wonderful husband and a beautiful baby. We had just kind of bought our new house, and everything was the way it's supposed to be, right? Like the way that when you think of your future. I had checked a lot of these boxes, and so I was feeling very sad that I wasn't able to have the freedom to spend the time with my son and then feeling guilty for feeling that way because, well, at least we were know a good position in other areas of life.

00:00:36
Welcome to the discovering your calling podcast. I'm your host, Sheri Miter. I'm here to help you unleash your strengths and get clarity on your calling. I believe when you find your purpose in life, fulfillment, joy, and success will follow. If you're ready, pop in those earbuds, hit that follow button, and join me on this journey toward discovering your calling.

00:01:00
Our guest today is Yosenya. She is a wife homeschooling mama to three boys and the mama behind mama of both worlds. She took a leap of faith eight years ago when she quit her nine to five job as an attorney in order to build her own law firm, which she did quite successfully, growing it to a six figure practice and paving the way for her husband to quit his job and join her in the practice. When she realized she enjoyed building the business more than she enjoyed practicing law, she made the decision to pursue her passion and become a business strategist for moms. You could say she knows a thing or two about how to overcome society's expectations and other people's opinions in order to create a life worth living.

00:01:44
Today, you can find Yesenia and her family living in Hawaii, where they have created this dream life for themselves. And they enjoy eating pizza on the beach while catching sunset with friends. I can't wait to dive into this conversation with Yosenya. All right, well, welcome, Yesenia, to the discovering your calling podcast. And I am so excited to have this conversation with you as I was just sharing before we hit record.

00:02:15
I feel like I get to talk to my Clifton strength sister today because we have a lot of common, not quite twins, but we do have a lot of common strengths. So we'll dive into that as we dive into your story. So welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

00:02:29
I'm really looking forward to this chat and especially because of these strengths, because I do know my strengths, but I've never really talked to anybody about them, so that'll be exciting to do as well. Well, we can always book a deeper dive into them, too. We don't have time today. I love talking. That's my sweet thing to do, really decipher people's strengths.

00:02:52
So this show is really about helping others hear the stories of the women who have gone before them or the men that have gone before them, who have taken that bold move, that brave move of stepping away from one career in order to find their calling. And you've done this twice. So I'm really excited to hear your story and what led to the different changes. So if you can take us back, and I don't even know what the time frame was, but take us back to when you were working as an attorney and kind of share with me and the audience a little bit about what was it you were doing and what preceded that first change that you knew you needed to make perfect. Yeah.

00:03:37
So I was working as the staff attorney at a local probate court. I had gone to law school. Both me and my husband are lawyers. So we went to law school together, graduated, thankfully, both passed the bar together, and then we each had our traditional law job. And so it was a really great job, state job, great benefits, and as far as hours are concerned, it was 830 to 430.

00:04:01
So I wasn't doing the kind of law work where I had to take my work home with me or where I was expected to stay late hours. That was my husband for sure. But I had more of that easier route, and I enjoyed what I was doing. I was definitely learning a lot. That was basically my first job out of law school.

00:04:21
And so I acted as basically like the right hand to the judge. So I was doing a lot of the research and the brief writing and sitting in on the hearings and interacting with the patrons of the court and helping them with the motions they had to file, things like that. And like I said, it was great. I actually got the job while three or three and a half months pregnant with my first son. And so I let them know and I still got the job, which was a very big relief.

00:04:50
So they knew that I was pregnant and that I would be taking a maternity leave. And so I had my son and I had a very short, to me, ten week maternity leave. And it was very hard for me to go back. It was very hard. And I went back because obviously we needed to be a dual income family.

00:05:09
That wasn't just our reality, that I could stay home and I had great support. So my father is a fireman, or was, he's retired, but at the time he was a fireman. And so his schedule allowed it so that he could watch my son two days a week. And then my best friend's mom was watching my son the other three days. So as far as easing into not being with my son, I definitely feel like I was blessed in that sense, but it still was hard.

00:05:33
I felt like I wasn't able to enjoy the time with him. I was definitely living for the weekends. I had the Sunday scary Sunday night would come, and I'm like, oh, man, we have to do this again. And I kind of felt jipped, and I felt very. What's the word?

00:05:51
I felt bad for feeling that way because in the big picture, I felt like I had the dream life, right? I had a wonderful husband, a beautiful baby. We had just kind of bought our new house, and we were getting into renovating it. And everything was the way it's supposed to be, right? Like the way that when you think of your future.

00:06:12
I had checked a lot of these boxes, and so I was feeling very sad that I wasn't able to have the freedom to spend the time with my son and then feeling guilty for feeling that way because, well, at least we were in a good position in other areas of life. But anyways, I went back to work that first day, and the atmosphere had actually changed at my job. And so while I was pregnant, I felt like the judge who was basically like the boss of the courthouse, he was very easy going, very accommodating, very concerned for my well being. It was really a great place to work. And I felt like after I came back, it was like this flip had switched and I no longer was this pregnant woman who needed coddling, so to speak.

00:07:02
And so the environment shifted. And I just remember thinking like, this is what I'm leaving my son at home for. It was things like being reprimanded for eating my bagel at my desk in the morning before work started. And that never had been a problem beforehand. And so that's why I was doing it.

00:07:23
It's way from the public. Everybody does it. And so anyways, the environment shifted, and I was just feeling like, I'm leaving my son, and I'm not feeling appreciated at work. I'm not being acknowledged for the efforts that I'm making. It's a lot.

00:07:40
I was working 30 to 35 minutes away from where I lived. Thankfully, it was in the town where my parents lived, so that kind of bridged the gap a little. But I was like, man, I'm a new mom. I'm staying awake through the night, getting up to feed my baby, I have to get him ready in the morning. I have to drop him off, and I'm getting here on time, and I'm ready to work, and you can't eat your bagel at your desk.

00:08:02
It's just like, man. And I'm like, I got to figure something out. I got to figure out a way so that I can have a little bit more flexibility. And so that's what I did. I'm just curious.

00:08:12
I don't mean to interrupt, but I'm curious as to, do you think that the atmosphere had changed that much, or were you now just aware of some of the things because you changed? Yeah, that's a great question, and I don't think I've ever considered that, but I think you're right in that my priorities have shifted. What I wanted out of life had changed, and I maybe was able to turn a blind eye to it. In the beginning, it wasn't, like, that much of an inconvenience because there wasn't something significant on the line, right. So now my son, and it was like, man, I could be at home spending time with him instead of being here.

00:08:52
Just everything that was happening. But I think you're right. I do think that there was a slight shift. I think he definitely felt like he needed to take care of me while I was pregnant. And then it was like, okay, well, you're back to work.

00:09:05
Let's go. But so where I was like, oh, I was a changed person. Motherhood changes you. I think while you're pregnant, you're going through those shifts, but when you have that baby in your arms, everything. Yeah, totally.

00:09:20
Everything changes for that. Yeah. And I think, too, that I asked the awareness question, because one of the things I talk about a lot is that once our mind is focused on something new, we start to see things that we never saw before. But they've been there. They've all been there.

00:09:37
It's just that wasn't what we were focused on before. And I think when we make that shift of, like, oh, I don't know if this is what I want to be, then we start seeing all the things we don't like about that situation and all the things we want over here instead. And we just have that awareness, even though it's been there. We just, like you said, could easily. Ignore it before looking at things from a different lens.

00:10:01
Now, I remember friends would tell me, or even, I've experienced this myself now. It's like, now that I'm a mother, when I watch this movie, you start to think about things differently. So, yeah. Looking at things from this different lens now, right. It's a whole different lens.

00:10:15
It's like putting a whole new pair of glasses. Right. So when did you know? When did you finally feel like, okay, I'm not going to keep doing this. I can't keep doing this.

00:10:27
Yeah. So I think at that first week, I was pretty devastated, both in leaving my son and then the way that I was feeling treated at work. And so I think the seed was planted during that week. But I didn't start watering it, so to speak, until a while had gone on. I would say at least six months.

00:10:47
And I remember buying this book. I can't remember exactly what it's called, but it was about the solopreneur track for lawyers, and it was something to help you hang your shingle. And I bought this. I don't even think I told my husband that I ordered it. I'm like, this is doable.

00:11:03
And I started reading it, and I was just kind of, like, inspired. I'm like, I could do this. I could use all of the knowledge and experience that I've had in my current role and just go on the other side. Right. Instead of serving from the court side of things, I'll be the attorney coming to the court.

00:11:20
And I started having that conversation with him. And it's so funny because we're like the same person, but also in things where our viewpoints are different, where I can just be like, let's do this. Let's try these things. And he's more like, let's not. Right?

00:11:38
That's your high futuristic there. Listen, I got this. I can do this. And to be fair, right? He was already doing that.

00:11:48
He was doing what I wanted to do for someone else, so he understood what it took, right? So he's like, wait a minute. You've never even served in that capacity before. You've never represented a client. Are you going to start representing clients?

00:12:01
Where are you going to get the clients from? I know what this is like. And so it took a very long time. We had this conversation, so much so that I'll tell you, I gave my notice. I ended up giving two months notice, which was very generous and very long.

00:12:16
But I didn't want to leave. The clerk of the court was going to have to replace me. I didn't want to leave her in a situation where she didn't have somebody to take over. So I gave them two months notice. My son was 18 months old by that time.

00:12:27
Okay, so he gave two months notice. And so at 20 months was when I went out on my own and started my law firm. So it didn't take 18 months of convincing. It took 18 months for me to plan. I didn't want to just leave and say, like, I'll figure this out.

00:12:42
I had a really strategic plan in place. There goes that strategy strain. Because in the law, I'm sorry, in the court that I worked for, there were court appointed attorneys. And so attorneys would get on a list and the court would appoint them. And so I was like, I'm going to get on the list.

00:12:59
And so that's how I'll generate those clients. In the beginning. I'll do quarter points at work. I'll know that the pay is steady because it's being paid from the state. And so I put my application in and I got on that list so that the second that I was working for myself, I knew that I was going to have leads coming in.

00:13:16
And so that took time and a process as well. I had to get all my ducks in a row. But, yes, when he was 20 months old was when I started my own law firm, just out of my home office with my son on the other side of that wall. He was with a babysitter. We hired a babysitter who could come and work in the house with me.

00:13:33
And I think she was doing three days a week. And then I had the other two because I did have to do client meetings. I did have to go into court hearings. So I need somebody to help me take care of my son. But I wanted flexibility to be able to work my schedule around him instead of working him around my schedule.

00:13:49
Right. And I love the long Runway, we'll call it, because I think, and I just had another interview and we talked about this as well, that so many times we get in that mode of, I can't do this anymore. I just want to quit tomorrow. And for most of us, that's not the realistic plan. But what you can do is start getting, order the book on Amazon, get the ducks in a row, start taking the steps.

00:14:19
And I'm just curious, if you go back to that time period of, like, you knew there was a date on the calendar, did it make it easier or harder to continue to show up to work, or did it change at all? Both. Some days it was really easy, and I'm like, I'm counting down longer. And some days it was harder in the sense of like, we're so close, do I have to keep going? Can I just stop now?

00:14:47
Right. I make certain changes during that period. So I cut my hours down to four days a week. And so I was able to actually persuade my boss, the Judge, into, hey, I'm getting all my work done in less than the amount of time I'm working. Right?

00:15:06
Like, you don't actually need me this extra day. And my childcare situation was changing, and I didn't have a place to put my son for three days a week, whatever it was. So I was able to actually get them to agree to let me go down to four days a week. So I had that day in between, it was Wednesdays. That's why I say in between where I could spend time with my son.

00:15:28
But also, I was working on the plan, right? Working on getting my website up and networking. I was having meetings with other attorneys who worked at the court and getting their advice because they had their own practices. So I was making moves and taking action the way that I could. I still needed to work, but that didn't mean that I couldn't take action, and I couldn't work towards realizing that goal.

00:15:51
And so I spent a lot of my time just building for what I wanted. Yeah, and that's so smart, because that's one. You did so many things that I love there that I just want to make sure that anybody listening really heard that, that you could make some changes at your current job. Maybe not everybody will go with that, but I see that a lot people I work with that sometimes it's just the position you're doing. Maybe it's the days of the week.

00:16:20
Maybe it's the hours you come in. What little changes can you make? So that Runway period is a little bit more tolerable for you, but at the same time, continue. And it's not easy. Right?

00:16:33
It's hard because you're kind of double. You're working extra. It's not almost. You are working more for that short period of time to get to that place that you did that. So what was your mind like during that time?

00:16:51
Did you have doubts? Did you ever think, am I making the right move? Or did it always feel like, oh, no, this is so in alignment. This is what I'm supposed to be doing? I think that I just have the type of personality where I'm going to give it my all, and I'm not going to make that judgment call.

00:17:10
Like, okay, it didn't work until it's not working. And so when I went into this, I told my husband as well, I'm like, listen, if it doesn't work, I'm hireable I back, it's not the end of the road. It's not like, well, we're going to lose the house now because you're, and I had to keep reminding myself of that. I'm like, this is one path, but it doesn't have to be the only path. And if that path hits a dead end or it hits a roadblock that we can't get over, I can choose a different one and I can go back to work, but I'm going to regret if I don't even try.

00:17:42
I don't want ten years from now, 15 years from now, say, like, wow, what could have been if I tried, and if it didn't work, it didn't work, but I would know. I was nervous in the sense that this was something new that I hadn't done before, but I wasn't nervous. Like, this needs to work or else we're going to lose everything. I knew even if I couldn't get. I'll go wait tables.

00:18:06
I'll go do whatever I need to do. I'm going to make it work. And I'm not going to put my children or at the time I just had one, but my family on the line, right? Because I think that a lot of pressure, me and my husband have had so many conversations about this, how once you have kids, you feel that extra layer of pressure. It's not just you.

00:18:25
It's like, well, my kids and I want to be able to provide. I want to put them in a situation where we may be losing the house or we don't have food on the table. It's different when it's just you. And for both him and I, I think we used becoming parents as motivation, and it was like that motivation that we needed to be better, do better, lead as an example, what do we want them to get out of life? Are we willing to take risks for them instead of in spite of them?

00:18:53
Right? Like, well, we can't do it because we have kids. We instead of told ourselves we have to do it because we have kids. And I love that. And I think, too, that you're setting an example for your kids to be willing to take risks, be willing to try something new if you're feeling called to do that and just give it a try.

00:19:14
And also know that, like you said, you're hirable, you have skills. So if it doesn't work, you go back. They probably would have hired you back where you came from. Somebody told me that here the other day, and they'll probably pay you more when you go back, it seems risky, but when you look at it that way, that it's not as risky as somebody might think it needs to be to step out of one career and into another. Yeah, I think that we underestimate our ability to navigate those situations.

00:19:48
And I'm going to know when I've tried enough. And I think that that barometer changes as we grow. Right. And so for me now, that barometer has probably gotten a little bit closer to that risk mark. But we're in charge of setting that barometer.

00:20:05
Right. So we're in charge metrics. We're like, okay, if we haven't accomplished this by this time, we know how much of a savings we have, we know how much support we have, we know that we have a fallback plan. So is it risky? Yes.

00:20:18
But you are also in charge of setting the parameters of that risk. Right. I love that. I do want to mention, just take a pause here from your story to mention what your strengths are, because I would love to. We already mentioned a couple of where they show up, but as we talk to see where the strengths are playing in the decisions that you made and how you live your life.

00:20:46
And so Jeff's top five are strategic futuristic, which is funny because my number one is futuristic. My number five is strategic. So we totally get each other here. And then you have focus, relator and activator. And again, I call you my Clifton strength sister because I have all of those in my top ten.

00:21:12
And for anybody that's new to strengths, there's 34 talent themes. So to have somebody have similar, that many similar themes is kind of rare. That's why I'm excited about it. And especially futuristic and strategic. Like people with high futuristic, we live in the future and we can visualize what the possibilities look like and what it can be like.

00:21:39
And almost like we dream in Vivid color is how I like to describe it. And I think because of that, it does set us up to be a little more willing than others to follow the dreams we have. Because they're so clear for us that we almost can't not follow the dream. That wrapped it up for me. Like, yes, exactly.

00:22:05
And then high strategic, again, our minds are constantly coming up, well, I could do this, I could do that. Well, this would work. And if that doesn't work, then we have plan B and we can even go to plan Z and we're totally okay with that, right? There's always another option. And strategics, we love options.

00:22:23
We love to figure things out because we'll figure it out. There's always a way. So how do you feel like, then you made that change and then how long? Well, sorry, I'm like double loading you with questions. But how long did you stay in that before you started to feel like, oh, wait, there's something else here.

00:22:42
Okay. So started the law firm within two years, I was able to pave the way for my husband to quit his job. So he was working that very just time consuming, life draining, life looking job. They wanted him evenings, they wanted him there on the weekends. And we had our son that we just had become parents, and he wanted to really enjoy that.

00:23:05
And his then boss was very like, I don't want to use the word workaholic, I don't know another term for it, but very work focused, work centered. And would really tell my husband, like, if you want to make partner or if you want, you got to put in the hours, I see something in you. And it was kind of like dangling that carrot. But I was able to pave the way for him to do that. So we were able to live off of my income.

00:23:30
I had replaced my income within a fraction of the hours I was working in the first full year. So he actually left his job two months or three months. Two to three months before we had our second son, which again, is like, people were looking at us like, are you nuts? Thinking you're going to have, this is not the time for you to quit your job. And I think a lot of people didn't know what I was actually doing.

00:23:54
And I think I was very much seen as the mom who works from home, and they didn't understand that. I had built a law firm and a law practice, and I had clients, and I don't think a lot of people really understood that. So we had our second son, and I started to share my story. So I started, at the time, it was just going to be a motherhood blog. I wanted to start sharing our journey, and I wanted to help other moms just hear my story so they could see what's possible.

00:24:23
And I named the blog mama of both worlds because I wanted to have moms understand that they could have the best of both worlds. That was my mission. So just started sharing, sharing what was possible for us, what was our life, what our current life looked like. I would share pictures of us in our office space with our newborn in his little swing. And we were both there at work, and it was just really an enjoyable time period.

00:24:50
I loved it. I loved sharing all that. And so then I started having moms reaching out to me, saying, hey, can you teach me how to do this? Can you coach me on this? And I had already started thinking about, how can I do this?

00:25:03
How can I start to break away from the law firm and really activate this strategic side of my brain? Because I think I had realized at some point what I loved about the law firm was actually building it and growing it and that side of the strategy. And so, yes, there's strategy involved in your caseload and in being a lawyer. And so it was active in that sense. But I was like, man, I could even take this further and really get my creative flow going if I had this other outlet, which is how the blog started to begin with.

00:25:37
And so people asking me if I could help them. And so I said, absolutely. This was just confirmation of the ideas that I was having. So I started to kind of was in that transition phase of still putting out content for the blog, but over here helping women who were asking me for help and then made that full transition. So, gosh, that was kind of a long way to answer your question.

00:26:01
But two years into starting the law firm, I started to share my story. And then like a year after, so three years into the law firm, I started to take a smaller role in the law firm and put more on my husband with other things. Do you tell him I see potential in you? I think you can make partner, pick it up.

00:26:27
And again, I think what you're sharing is just the perfect way of doing things and figuring it all out. Because starting the blog was sharing what your story. And usually when we start our calling story, for many of us, especially for a coach or a consultant or anything along that lines, it's because we've done this, we've had this experience and people want to learn from our journey. We're just a couple of steps ahead of them and we can take them with us and guide them along the way. But I think starting the blog and sharing your story without expectation and maybe again, strategic, futuristic, I know there was a plan in there, we can't help it.

00:27:18
But just starting it from that place of like, I'm just going to share my story and having people start to reach out to you is such a less stressful way of building a business sometimes than feeling like, I got to do a blog, I got to do a podcast, I got to do a YouTube channel, because I need clients, I need to build this business. And the aura of it is so different when we have that perception versus like, I'm just going to share my story so somebody else can read what I did, give them hope, give them possibilities. It was all about connection for me. I just really wanted to connect with these other women. And if I'm being honest, I saw other influencers, and that was kind of at the peak of influencer marketing and brand partnerships and things like that.

00:28:05
And I was like, I can totally do that. That would be fun to bring another brand story to life. And how could I help my audience see the benefit of someone else's brand and things like that? And so it started with sharing my story and how can I help others grow along the way? And then it just evolved and kept evolving into more and more.

00:28:26
So when did you know that it was time to totally shift into that realm of the business? So happened everything changed for everybody. And courts were closed. There was just, courts were closed. Nobody was selling houses or buying houses initially, right?

00:28:43
Because then there was this really crazy peak in the market, but there wasn't a lot going on. And so I had already started mom of both worlds, and I was coaching clients that year gave me an opportunity to really just dive into it. I'm like, well, I'm not doing anything else right. We had a couple of things going on with the law firm, but for at least a good six months, there was really not much to do. We couldn't.

00:29:13
The courts were all closed. They weren't even doing things virtually for a little while until they got the processes set up and everything. And at the time, we had our two kids. Our oldest had gone to kindergarten and then came home. Our little one was like three and a half.

00:29:30
And I'm like, I'm just going to pour into this. I'm going to pour into this right now. And so it kind of happened organically where this is what I have to do right now. So once the world started opening back up, I was like, well, I don't think I'm going to really return. I wrote to the courts and I resigned from my court appointments and put all the steps into place so that I didn't have as much of a load.

00:30:00
We did, like, estate planning, so I would still do that. Where someone come in, they wanted wills drafted and stuff like that, I could do that. And it wasn't very time consuming, things like that. But for the most part, I had stepped down. 2021, I was out.

00:30:16
And then I also got pregnant with our third son at the end. So, like, September of 2020. So then it was like, then we had a newborn. So I wasn't really doing much lawyering either. So it kind of was like this natural, organic transition into, you know what?

00:30:34
I'm just going to do mount of both worlds from now on. And I imagine that was actually when my business kind of, I was doing the same transition from direct sales into creating. And it was because of COVID again, strategic mind, that I realized, like, well, wait, I love helping business owners figure out, okay, how can. One of my first clients was bridal event planner. And it was like, but Linda, you could do this, this and this.

00:31:02
You just got to pivot. You just got to change. So I would imagine that that was as tragic as some of the COVID things were. There were some beautiful things that came out of it. And probably for you is perfect timing, because so many people realized they wanted to make a career transition or were forced to make a career transition or priorities shifted, and so many people were starting to really search for what else could I do?

00:31:27
And you're there waiting for them to help them. Yeah, absolutely. And because of everything that I had put in on the back end of that, with the relationships I was making and the content I was sharing, I guess it did feel kind of like a perfect storm, so to speak. So let's transition a little bit for anybody watching YouTube. You can see the beautiful palm trees.

00:31:51
Is that the ocean in the back there, the sand and beautiful there? And so you are in Hawaii from Connecticut, and talk to us about, like, where did that vision come from that you knew that's where you wanted to go and making that reality? Yeah. So I have always been drawn to hawaiian culture, to the islands of Hawaii, had never been here. I don't have a reason for it.

00:32:20
I wish. I mean, I feel like most people are like, well, yeah, it's Hawaii, but it felt different, though. So my background is puerto rican, so I've been to the island of Puerto Rico, and I love the island of Puerto Rico because of the family that's there. But I never felt like I need to live here. So it wasn't just, like the island vibe, it's just this connection that I've had with this island, and I don't know where it stems from or anything like that, but that's always been a dream of, like, even as a child, I would remember saying, first of all, I can't wait to get there.

00:32:51
And then wouldn't it be amazing to live there one day? And I actually, when we were packing, found my report from, I think I was in third grade. It could have been fourth, but I did my report on Hawai, and we had gone down to Florida to the polynesian hotel down there when I was, like, that age. And so there's a picture of me on the front with a grass skirt and the layer on me, and I'm like, wow, this is like a full circle moment here. That's cool.

00:33:17
Hawaii. But in the beginning of 2020, before everything happened, we had decided, we're going to go. We're going to go have our visit and booked our hotel in February. And then everything happened in March, and then even in April, I think we booked our airfare for September because we're like, yeah, goodbye. Like everybody else.

00:33:39
It'll be back to normal soon, right? And it was not. The hotel was still closed, so our trip was canceled, and it was like, man, so discouraging. I really wish that we could have come, but we were able to get everything moved to the next year, September. So September of 2021, we came and we stayed for two weeks and loved it.

00:34:02
Now, if I rewind to right before I got pregnant with my oldest, when me and my husband were still kind of looking for, what's our move here? I was looking for my job at the court. We considered moving to Hawaii. We were like, this is the time. Let's do it now.

00:34:17
We have no kids. We don't have jobs that we're stuck to. Like, let's go. Let's move to Hawaii. And we started putting things in motion as far as researching things and getting everything together.

00:34:27
And then I found out I was pregnant. I'm like, man, well, we're not going to go now because all of my family was there and it was our first born, so we wanted to stay close. So this has always been. I share that to say this has always been something that's been in the back of our minds or at the front of our hearts, really, to do so. I knew, though, I was like, I just have to get my husband on the island and he will be committed to making this, because he would say, yeah, one day when we're older or when we retire, maybe we'll retire there.

00:34:57
And I'm like, what do I know? And so we did. We came on this vacation. We stayed. He fell in love.

00:35:04
He's like, what do we got to do? What do we got to do? And I'm like, okay, I got him on the hook. So we went back home September, and I actually booked an Airbnb to stay for an entire month the previous June. So we came for the entire month in June 2022.

00:35:21
We were like, we just have to live there, not go on vacation. To really feel is this the right move? And again, this is just that plain part. While I am like, yes, it'll all work out. I do want to take steps to like, so it's like, yeah, let's do this.

00:35:36
This is the next step. It's going to happen if we feel confident, if we feel confirmation. So we went. We stayed an entire month. Because of our lifestyle.

00:35:44
We were able to work from here remotely. And at the end of that month, we were devastated to leave. And we were like, okay, we're coming back. And we're coming back by the end of this year, which was crazy. We had a law firm to close down, a house to sell.

00:35:59
We still had to finish renovating because I told you, we bought this house when my son was just born. And it was a foreclosure that we literally gutted. And then you have another kid, and then you have another kid, and then pandemic happens, all trying to. So we had a lot of it done, but the master bathroom was just studs everywhere, like nothing. And so my husband had to build it from the floor up.

00:36:21
And we did all of that. We had a plan, we had support. We put things in motion. And June 30, we arrived back to Connecticut from our month stay, and we moved here December 20. Wow.

00:36:35
You were probably selling the house in the prime time of real estate anyway, too. So, again, perfect timing. Yeah, we've been here now for. It's going to be 15 months. It's the best thing we've ever done.

00:36:49
And I do want to just touch on, because you mentioned this either before our call or at the beginning of our call, just because it felt right, it doesn't mean that we didn't. We were leaving our entire family. So my family had already all moved out to Florida, but my husband's an only child, and his parents were there and his extended family. And we're very, very close. And so it was a decision that we had to know.

00:37:15
We had to take all that into consideration. We have young kids. Are we going to be taking them away from their family? And is this the right move for our family and all of the things. And as confident as you are in your decision, you're still going to feel it's okay to feel excitement and sadness at the same time.

00:37:32
And I just. That, because it can feel like, yeah, moving to Hawaii is obvious, right? Like, yes, but no. We made sure that we felt very confident and secure in our decision, but that doesn't mean that we weren't grieving, leaving behind our house and leaving behind what we knew the familiarity of it. Our law firm was really thriving at the time and we were going to go from having that and my business to just having my business down.

00:37:59
So a lot went into consideration when it came to making that decision. Yeah, I'm so glad you brought that up because it's so true. And as I always shared, and most of the people that listen to this podcast know my story, that my husband and I have been living on a sailboat. And it was a dream and there was lots of trepidations and it was something that we loved doing, but yet we didn't love doing. For us, it ended at like, no, okay, that chapter.

00:38:23
And actually, I say that book is now closed. But I'm so glad we did it because you always would have second guessed it, but the whole process of it was hard because we sold everything and we have kids, grandkids, and yeah, it's a messy, messy thing to do, but sometimes you just have to do it in that messiness and know that that is normal. I think that we have told ourselves this story that we have to be like 100% certain of something, and I don't think it's possible to be 100% certain about anything. That's something that it's kind of like, how could we think that? It's the unknown.

00:39:06
We can't be sure of the unknown. Right, right. And so I think that wanting to be 100% certain about something really has held people back from making decisions that would have really served them because they think, like, unless it's 100%, it's a no. Right. But are you 100%?

00:39:24
It's no. So why are you giving more weight to that? Right. You know what I mean? If you're like at a 90%.

00:39:33
Yes. Well, what are you at for? No, probably less than that. But why are you giving more weight to that? It doesn't have to be 100% certain because you're never going to feel that way.

00:39:42
And in fact, your confidence is boosted by taking action. Right. And so taking that action is going to grow your confidence. Right. It's not like you get before acting, you have to take action and show yourself.

00:39:56
We're good, we're safe. This was a great thing. I know how to do this now. I can repeat it, I can learn from it. And then you grow in your confidence because you're like, I've done this, I've conquered it.

00:40:06
Whether it was in the way that you had hoped or a different way, you've still conquered it because you've taken that action. Right. So good. And listening to you, I'm thinking, friend of mine once, talking about driving, like taking action on anything is kind of like driving on a foggy night or foggy morning, and you could only see 5ft, maybe 10ft in front of you. You can't see the whole journey and you're not really supposed to, necessarily, but you just drive the next 510ft.

00:40:40
Or take that first step. Take that first action. Like you said, buy the book and hang a shingle. And I think from my experience, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this is what I have found, is if I am on the right path and I still pray that God will give me a neon sign that's yet to happen that says, sherry, this is what you're supposed to do and this is where you're going to do it. And this is how it's like that hasn't happened yet.

00:41:06
I'm still waiting. But in the meanwhile, I feel like every time I've taken a step that has ended up being on the right path, then that next step does show up. So then I can see, using the fog analogy, I can see the next step. And it's not always smooth. There are some road bumps and detours, but it works out pretty like things start to fall in place, things start to align.

00:41:32
Whereas the times that I got way off track of where I was really supposed to be going, it just seemed like there was, like, roadblock after roadblock after roadblock and just nothing seemed to work out. And it's a very hard thing to discern because, like I said, there's still small roadblocks that we run up against, but it's just like, dead end, dead end, dead end. And I think learning to discern the difference of, like, am I on the right path and this is just a bump in the road, or are these dead ends trying to tell me something? And what's your experience with that? I actually had this conversation.

00:42:11
I'm not going to be able to remember exactly how we had it, but as you were saying it, I'm like, yes, we had this conversation, both my husband and I, when we were having. Working towards the move. And I said to him, I remember saying to him, I feel like people, most people think to themselves, especially, kind of like, in that religious aspect of it, right, where it's like, if it's God's will, it'll clear path, not right. And when something gets in the way, then it's like, well, it wasn't meant to be. It's not God's plan for us.

00:42:42
And I remember telling him that's really not what it's about. I don't think that it's God telling us that it's not supposed to happen, but I think it's God or whoever, universe, whatever you believe in. But I feel like it's just a way for us to gain strength through it. Right. And to learn on the path.

00:43:05
And it's not supposed to just be a clear road. I think that we think that way and we're like, if it's meant to be, then all of the doors will just be like wide open. Right. Sometimes you actually have to open the door. Right.

00:43:18
Right. You have to turn the handle. At least turn the handle. Right. Well, it's closed, so no, sometimes that's what he's requiring of you.

00:43:27
Right. Are you willing to walk through that whole move?

00:43:34
It was a ginormous feat. We were having to sell the house and close down our firm, but also pack up a pod and have it shipped here before we left Connecticut so they could get here shortly after we got here. And what do we keep to live with while we're here? And all the things and getting the house ready to sell, that was a huge feat. Plus, I don't know if I said this yet, but we decided to homeschool our son after the happened.

00:44:04
So we were also schooling our child through all of this. It wasn't like we were sending him to school for the day and we had hours to our own choice. But no, it wasn't like, it was like, yeah, we made this decision and now everything is smooth sailing. And even just getting our dog here, there's so many boxes that you have to check to get your dog here because Hawaii is a rabies free island and so you have to get all these done. And then it's like the plane that he's going to be able to fly on and they only take two dogs on each flight.

00:44:36
When I tell you it was like jump through hoops, but not letting that deter you and not letting that mean that, well, if it's not going to be smooth sailing, then it's not for you and then you can get here and things can change. What our plan was hasn't been exactly as we saw it and we're okay with. And so you started the podcast. You said you've done this a couple of times, this transition from I'm currently transitioning into a third act because I'm like, wow. And I think that that's probably my strengths at play.

00:45:16
That's the type of person I am. I like that wonder. I like that adventure. I feel like everything that I've done thus far and even what I will do now will lead me to the next thing. So I feel like it's just been leading me to where I feel very confident today.

00:45:34
We're like, okay, this is what I want to do. And again, I think with strategic, we don't want to be boxed in. I'm realizing that again for myself and I've been here. That's why I didn't really want to do that because that was starting to feel like, oh, I'm getting boxed into this one path and I don't like that. So actually, let's just kind of wrap up here and I'll give you a brief little strengths and we'll see how they've showed up in making all these decisions and wrap up with any last advice you have for anybody in this place of like, ooh, do I need to make a new, do I need to quit my job?

00:46:11
How do I do that kind of thing? But we talked about futuristic, we talked a little bit about strategic, and you were getting like a minuscule little thing on these, but focus relator and activator. And I can hear the relator in there, too, because anytime you start a business being able to connect with people, and you even use those words of, you just wanted to connect with other moms, and that's high. Relator. Relators versus woo.

00:46:40
In no themes, I say versus very, I shouldn't even use the word versus relator instead of woo because you could have both. But woo stands for winning others over. It's not like the woo woo, but people with high woo, they just love to have lots and lots of friends. They want everybody to love them. Whereas people with strong relator, we are good with a smaller, tighter circle, but we go really deep.

00:47:06
This makes so much sense.

00:47:10
And I can hear that when you were talking, like you said, just why you started the blog, you wanted to connect with other moms. It's probably how when you work with people, whether it was as an attorney or with your new business, that it's that relating to them and connecting with them on a deeper level, which is such a beautiful thing. And then with focus. Focus is such a funny one for me because it is my number ten theme. It is the first activating or executing, sorry, executing theme that shows up for me because there's four main domains.

00:47:45
Each 34 themes are put into four big buckets of influencing, strategic thinking, relationship building and executing. So focus is my first executing theme, and that was like a whole light went off for me. It's like, that's why I have great ideas, but I don't get anything done sometimes. And with focus for most people and love to hear, if you feel like this is how you work, that a lot of people, like, multitask. Multitasking does not.

00:48:18
Well, it's been proven that's really not a good way to work anyway. But for focus, we really have to put head down, give me 2 hours of uninterrupted time, and I can conquer the world. But if I have to shift gears constantly, I get nothing done. And I think that's why I've made decisions that I've made. Like, we have someone who comes to watch our children two days a week, because you hear the term very often, especially in the mompreneur space.

00:48:47
Like, work in the cracks of your day. I cannot do that. If it's like on the. In Facebook groups, responding to things. Sure, work in the cracks of your day does not work for me.

00:48:57
I'm like, no intentional focus. Time, focus. That's what I say. All time to knock something out. Otherwise, I can't just be like, all right, five minutes here and then five minutes there.

00:49:10
It doesn't work for me. Yes. So if you're relating to this, that our conversation here, then you probably have high focus, too, because that's definitely the way I am. And it's interesting interview I just did. She's a good crack in the day.

00:49:25
That's exactly the word she used, was she can work in the cracks of her day. She's a mom of four, and that's what she does. That works for her. But, yeah, for people with high focus, that does not work. And if somebody's trying to tell you to do it that way, it's very frustrating.

00:49:40
I was in an environment that that's the way we were taught to work. It's like I can't shift. My brain can't shift gears like that. Because working the cracks of my day means in between my children here, and I'm paying attention to what they're doing, even sometimes. Last night, we put a movie on, and I brought my book over there, and I'm like, no.

00:49:58
And I had to put the book down, and I'm just watching the movie. Like, I cannot. It makes so much sense. Yeah, 100%. Like, if I'm working, I put jazz music or study nothing with lyrics.

00:50:16
I can't even have a lyric in the background if I'm working. I'll start. Singing along and I'm like, wait, exactly what was it? Or I'll type the lyric, I'm working on a block. And all the lyrics, what I'm typing, it's like, no, I can't.

00:50:30
It truly is one thought, but when I focus and I have that thought, oh, man, I can get some good stuff done. And then activator is, we're ready to jump in. And I think it's with activator, sometimes that makes it a little easier for people like you and I to take the risk, take the jump, because activators are sometimes that person, that high, high activator without strategic will jump out of the airplane without even knowing how to pull the parachute. Now, activator with strategic, you've got a plan, but you're willing to jump out of the airplane and kind of figure things out. You don't need to know all the details yet because you have somewhat of a plan, but eventually you're just going to jump and just do.

00:51:15
And I feel like that's what I said to you. I literally said those words. Yeah, we knew we wanted to move. To Hawaii, but we wanted to play it, so we went and stayed for a month. Yeah.

00:51:23
So I will jump, but I want to know how to pull that cord before I jump. Yep. You don't need to know all the details, but enough there. And that's where the activator plays in there of being able to just step in and just figure it out. Whereas some people with deliberates and high deliberates another one that they will deliberate, literally, like, think about things for days, they have to have all the pieces of the puzzle before they step into it.

00:51:55
An activator is, and that's also, too, why we need people to balance in our lives as well. Agreed? Agreed. Yeah. So anything else that we didn't cover that you wanted to say today, or last minute advice for that woman that's sitting on the fence thinking like, I just had my baby and I know I don't want to keep showing up.

00:52:16
At work, but I'm scared. I would say that the biggest thing that I've noticed in how I've gotten to where I am today, and I like to leave people with this advice all the time, is by overcoming other people's expectations of me. And I think that that really holds us back and keeps us where we don't want to be. And I've had to do that quite a number of times when I have this really great state job and what do you mean you're going to quit your job and then it's okay. Well, I'm a lawyer.

00:52:49
And what do you mean you're not going to be a lawyer? Know, not sending our kids to school and deciding to homeschool. We've done a lot of unconventional things, moving to Hawaii. And so at the end of the day, I think it's me being very secure and confident in what I want and not caring what other people think about the decisions I'm making, because it's very easy, especially as entrepreneurs and especially when starting out, to carry that pressure. When we're showing up on social media, it's like, oh, am I being annoying by talking about my business or am I posting too much about my business or are they going to be offended if I say something?

00:53:26
And we tend to care a lot about what other people think. And for me, it was understanding and shifting from like, that can be their truth, but it doesn't have to be mine, right? If they think that I'm crazy for homeschooling my children because they have ten reasons why they can share that with me. They're allowed to, and that's their truth. But it doesn't have to be my truth, and I don't have to let it influence the decisions.

00:53:51
If I'm already set, obviously, I am going to take into consideration things that are presented to me that I think would serve me. But knowing that line, right? Like drawing that line and understanding that we define our own, what does it mean to be a present mom? I told you, a lot of people, I don't think they saw me as the lawyer with the law firm. They were like, oh, you're home with your kids, and it's like, no, I'm a lawyer.

00:54:15
Well, you should be home with your kids if you're home, right? And so defining what that meant to me to be a present mom, defining what it meant to hustle, because sometimes people be like, well, you're hustling. Well, am I really? What does that mean to me? Right?

00:54:28
Maybe to me, my boundaries are not working past a certain amount of time or not missing a sport event. So just, like, not letting other people's opinions of what's expected of you as a woman, as a mother, as an, you know, have an impact on the decisions you're going to make and really making them because of the life that you want to create for yourself and for your that. I love that. And that's a beautiful place to end. So, Jess, thank you so much for being here and sharing your story, sharing all the strategic way.

00:55:03
You made it happen over and over and over again, all of the different pieces of it. I truly hope that anybody listening to this, you may even want to go back. I feel like there were so many little pieces of your story that somebody could take and grab this piece and like, okay, I'm going to go do that. I'm going to go order the book on Amazon that I need to get that first step. Okay, now I'm going to go back and I'm listening to this again and I'm going to go do this step that Jess said to do, and then I'm going to go do this step.

00:55:31
You don't have to do it all at one time. Like she said, it was, what, 18 months for you? 16 months. So it doesn't all happen overnight. But just listen to the steps, take the advice.

00:55:42
And where can anybody listening connect with you, follow you, find you? I just kind of like, told you I'm going through this little transition piece here. So the place that I'm hanging out most right now is actually our family's Instagram account where we share our lifestyle and where we live. And it's high five living life. And my husband and I are actually starting a podcast together called not your average family.

00:56:08
So we already have the trailer out. And if you want to hear more of what you heard today, and from my husband's perspective as well, and just natural conversations, organic conversations between him and I about all of these topics, then not your average family is a good place to start. That sounds great. All right, so when is the podcast? Is it out yet?

00:56:28
Find it there, but the episodes will be dropping next week. Awesome. Oh, so fun. This will probably air next Monday, whatever date that is. I'm going to put this out soon.

00:56:42
So what date is your podcast going live? Wednesday. Whatever. Wednesday is next week. I'm sorry, the 14th.

00:56:50
Okay, perfect. Because this will be, like I said, on Monday, and you can find not your average family. And we'll have the link in the show notes for you, too. All right. Thank you again, Jess.

00:57:03
I so appreciate this conversation. Thank you. It was really great to have and very insightful for me as well. So thank you for sharing your expertise with me. Oh, you're welcome.

00:57:15
Thank you for spending this time with me. My hope is something you heard today inspires you to take action toward discovering your calling. I just have two favors to ask of you before you go. One, if you found value and enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and you might hear your review read on a future episode and two, can you share this episode with three friends who will also enjoy it as much as you did? By doing these things, you will help us grow the podcast to make a bigger impact on the world.

00:57:46
And until next week, remember, you've been created to live a life of fulfillment, freedom, purpose, success, and joy. Close.