The Growing Pains Podcast
Growing a business and a family? Join host Alyson Caffrey as she interviews mompreneurs who have scaled businesses and juggled life at home. Having it all may seem like a pipedream, but we are making it happen every day. Tune in and fold time in that carpool line!
The Growing Pains Podcast
The Power of Pausing with Melanie Chandruang
What if taking a break could make you a better entrepreneur and mom? In this episode, Melanie Chandruang shares her powerful journey of pausing her thriving business for motherhood. From battling infertility to managing an unexpected pregnancy, Melanie's story is a testament to the strength found in stepping back. Discover how she navigated the challenges of rebuilding her career after a year-long hiatus and emerged with renewed confidence and perspective. This conversation is a must-listen for any parent-entrepreneur wrestling with work-life balance and the fear of pressing pause on their professional dreams.
Topics covered in this episode:
- Melanie's background and how she founded WeConsult.
- Taking a pause in business for maternity leave and early motherhood.
- Financial considerations and family support during career pauses.
- The importance of self-care for working mothers.
- Strategies for rebuilding a business after a long pause.
CONNECT WITH MELANIE:
https://weconsult.io/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/melaniechandruang/
RESOURCES FROM ALYSON:
The Kid-Proof Business Checklist
https://alysoncaffrey.com/checklist
Maternity Leave Planning Guide
https://www.mastermaternityleave.com/guide
Are you juggling the challenges of running a business while raising your little ones? Do you crave more ease in balancing your professional ambitions with the demands of parenthood? Well, sit tight, you're in the right place. I'm your host, alison Caffrey, and I understand the growing pains that come with building a business while nurturing a growing household. Think of this as a soft spot to land when you feel like your ambitions are starting to become just a little overwhelming. Welcome to Growing Pains.
Speaker 2:Hey and welcome back to the Growing Pains podcast. I'm your host, alison Kaffrey, and today I sit down with Melanie Chan-Juang. She is the mama to two beautiful little babies and she has done something so powerful that we discuss in detail in this episode, which is take a pause. She hung up her hat in her business and she really just embraced the season of postpartum and early motherhood. There were challenges in that, of course, and there were a lot of beautiful moments there, and I'm so excited to actually position this to some of the moms listening because the power of pausing during maternity leave is so, so, so incredible and it can absolutely be done.
Speaker 2:Melanie is living proof. So Melanie's the founder of WeConsult, which provides fractional COO services to agencies very near and dear to my heart. Her specialty lies in strategizing infrastructure to help owners get out of the day-to-day and make their business run like a well-oiled machine. Her two little kiddos, ellis and Juniper, actually came after some struggles with infertility and Melanie talks about that inside of the episode as well and their family actually moved from California over to Michigan and they're just loving exploring the new surroundings in the Midwest. So I love this episode because A pausing is powerful Midwest.
Speaker 2:So I love this episode because A pausing is powerful. B being in a position to actually create a business that fits your life, and not the other way around. There's so much out there around how we need to grow a team and how we need to do all these different things, and Melanie actually, strategically, was making some decisions on what type of business she wanted so that she could accommodate these types of pauses, which is so incredibly beautiful, and so I can't wait for you guys to listen to this episode and listen to Melanie's story, because it is absolutely incredible. I'll see you guys inside, melanie. Hey, welcome to Growing Pains. I'm so excited to have you here. Thank you.
Speaker 3:I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 2:All right. So we've known each other for quite a few years, but I would love if you could just kind of set the stage for us. So tell me a little bit about your business and a little bit about the family that you have at home.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I am the founder of we Consult and I offer fractional COO services to agencies. And then at home I've got my husband and a newly turned three-year-old he turned three in March and now it's the end of May and then I have a 16-month-old daughter and also a 16-year-old poodle Bichon mix, who is the oldest out of all of them. I should have listed him first. So that's our little family unit. It's quite interesting every day, as you can imagine.
Speaker 2:So, oh my gosh, yeah, full house over there. We it's fun Because, like we, you know, have been kind of working in the agency space for a long time together and so we've connected over the years and our kiddos are really really similar ages. So I totally understand like the chaos that is life behind the scenes. What's your number one thing, like when stuff I mean inevitably right Stuff gets like totally out of control, or like people are screaming and stuff's super loud and the dog needs to go out and it's the whole nine. Like what's like your number one go-to thing to just kind of like de-stress in your environment?
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, I feel like that's literally every day in any given moment, like literally, I just had to kick the whole family out.
Speaker 1:So I'm like, I'm recording a podcast, but it was literally you know our youngest, juniper, is melting down because she's teething crying.
Speaker 3:Had to give her some medicine. My son you know, didn't want to go to school and I honestly it sounds really selfish, but in those moments I make sure that I take care of myself.
Speaker 3:I'm like I'm going to get my beverages that I need to consume in the morning. My go-to is matcha tea. I always eat breakfast. I always take care of myself and obviously, if I have a screaming baby, I'm going to be holding her and taking care of her too, but I always make the time to take care of myself and that's always been the case since, like both kids were born. I remember meeting moms and they're like I haven't showered in days and I'm like I showered this morning.
Speaker 1:I always have to do it.
Speaker 3:I always have to make sure that I'm okay in order to take care of everyone else.
Speaker 2:It doesn't sound selfish to me now, but like talk to me when Frank was first born and I really struggled with like that, finding time and particularly to, I think, for food for me specifically. I'm wondering if this is true for you. Our, like my needs changed a little bit. I used to be able to wake up and blast through and not have any breakfast and I would do like a little intermittent fasting situation where I would eat at like 12 or one o'clock and then I'd stop eating around eight. But now breakfast is mandatory or else everybody in the house is like worse off for it because I get super hangry. Did your needs change when you became a mom?
Speaker 3:Oh, I mean, yeah, I feel like my emotional needs got way more elevated. I feel like I have always been pretty independent and I've been. I've just been able to pick myself up by my bootstraps and just power through something. And when I became a mom I became a blubbering mess. Not that that's bad, but for me that was new and I needed other people to talk to and to vent to and cry to and all of that good stuff. And so, yeah, I became way more in touch with my emotional side and those needs, you know, bubbled up and I needed to address those.
Speaker 2:So that's so funny. We talk about that all the time actually in the house, because Steve, my husband, will say that I am hard to tap into emotionally sometimes. But now, since I became a mom, like I'll see a Kleenex commercial and if it like hits you in the fields or like God forbid, there's like a dog on the television and I just start bawling Like I'm just crying at these things, but like is that what happens?
Speaker 3:They just like get you in the soft spot and you're like, oh, I'm a mom now, so this just makes me super emotional and I think it all starts with that postpartum period where it's like the, you know, a mild version of baby blues, where you're really just hormonal and already crying and obviously that kind of tapers down. But it never goes down back to the base level where you were originally at. You're always just coasting above it. And so I'm like, okay, this is the new me. I mean, I love it, I'm glad that I have this new, you know, trait. So totally.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it's made you a better leader in other areas of your life, which I'm a huge proponent of. Right being emotionally available and empathetic and being able to connect with people on that level is absolutely a superpower.
Speaker 3:When I need a shoulder to cry on, I fully believe in therapy, and so that has also been a really good soft landing place for me.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic. I want to talk about the timeline a little bit. So you had WeConsult and then you had your two kiddos and what was that transition into motherhood like for you? And specifically from a business owner perspective? Because a lot of times, like we I mean all over the place in terms of timeline of women who've been on the show we've had mamas who've had their business for a long time and then had their kids. We've had mamas who've been in corporate and then decided, because they couldn't understand how to like juggle both, they decided to go out on their own.
Speaker 3:So, talk to me about what that transitionary period was like for you. Yeah, so I started we consult in early 2018. So it's been about six years and in those early days, well, so before we consult, I was working in-house at an agency and I remember at that point I was like, okay, I think we want to have kids at this point, maybe we should start trying. And then, of course, the agency that I was at was acquired, and I did not. I decided not to join the acquiring company. It was an acquirer. Um, it was a multi-thousand person product company, and so it went from 40 people into I don't, I want to say like 3000 people.
Speaker 1:Oh, wow, yeah, that's not for me Um, I don't want. I want to say like 3000 people, oh wow, yeah, that's not for me.
Speaker 3:Um, I don't want to do accounts payable all day.
Speaker 1:That was what was offered to me.
Speaker 3:Oh, wow, yeah. When I shifted to WeConsult, I then had to make a decision Am I still going to try to have a baby when I my life is so up in?
Speaker 1:the air right now.
Speaker 3:I don't know what I'm going to be doing for work. I don't know what insurance I'm going to have.
Speaker 3:So ultimately I decided to kind of press pause on the starting a family at that point.
Speaker 3:And then a year, about a year, and I said, you know what, I'm not going to wait forever, I don't have forever. And so, um, when you know, a couple or a year in start trying to have a family, and it took us a very, very, very long time in my, in my eyes, and we had fertility struggles, we had to go through multiple fertility treatments and surgeries for both of us, and so it wasn't really as someone that has always just, if I want something, I just work harder at it, and with this particular piece of my life, I wasn't able to do that, I wasn't able to will myself into being a mom and having a baby. And so I fast forward to 2020, right before the pandemic happened. I got pregnant through IVF, and so I was ecstatic, but I was also extremely sick. I had morning sickness all the way till 22 weeks, and so for me, yeah, I was just, you know, running my business, just kind of trying to maintain things, and when I had Ellis.
Speaker 3:I had Ellis in March of 2021.
Speaker 3:It was still like the middle of the pandemic the vaccine, I think, had just come out, so people were still very, very scared to go outside and interact with people. I remember, you know, pushing him in the stroller and no one. You know, when you see someone with a stroller and you see that they're kind of a newborn, people will come over and get excited and want to take a peek. That did not happen. It was just such a weird time and so, yeah, it was just a time of maintaining and I knew that I wanted to go back to my business. But because we had struggled so long and hard, I didn't want to just jump back into things for the sake of jumping back into things. I was able to press pause. I didn't have a team of people to rely on, and so I knew that pressing pause meant I'm not going to be doing any client work, I'm not going to be doing any content marketing for my company.
Speaker 3:It's really just go.
Speaker 3:I'm going to put it on the shelf and I'm going to come back to it when I feel ready, and my personal goal was I want to take at least four to five months off, and um and I, I was able to do that. Um, I went back when he was about five months old. And I mean I go back to a conversation that I had with a colleague a few years prior because or a couple of years prior, I guess, because you know it took us so long to have kids I had. I am a fact finder and researcher, like I like to gather information, and so I was asking everyone during that time, like what's it like to be a parent? What you know? What would you have done differently? What do you think you did? Really well, I would ask everyone. And one conversation that I kept going back to was with a person that I was working with and his wife was a really successful um, you know marketer and she had a it has a very successful career.
Speaker 3:And he said yeah, when our kids were young, cause they were all grown at this point. Uh, she took five years off to be with the young kids and, uh, that sounds like a long time, but in the whole scheme of things, now that our kids are older, it was literally a blink of an eye, it was a blip on the entire you know radar of her, of her career, and so I kept going back to that, knowing that five months for me sounds like a long time, but I'm sure when I look back on it it will be a blip.
Speaker 3:And when I look back on it it will be a blip. And when I look back on it it was. So, that was the, that was the decision to take the pause for baby number one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I really appreciate that perspective of the five years, because when I first heard that, I was like whoa, five years off, I mean, what is that going to be like? And I think it depends on your situation, right? If depends on your financial situation and what your partner is able to contribute in that way. And I think that if we're able to create that for ourselves, and whether it's exactly when you become a mom or if it's three or four years later when your kids are still little, but you can kind of take that time midway, I think it's really important to emphasize that, although it feels like a long time, in the big picture, it really is a small amount of pausing that you're doing in terms of your career trajectory. So you're on the other side of this five month pause.
Speaker 2:What was it like getting back into it? Because I think I know a lot of moms who are likely listening and they're probably like me where I'm over here, like I don't want to sacrifice anything. I can do it all. I can do the mom thing I can do, the business thing I can do whatever, and so, like pausing is something that I actually think. I think moms listening to this show are likely more afraid of pausing than launching a book on the heels of maternity leave. Truthfully, I actually do feel that way. And so what were some of the hard things you needed to confront? A going into the pause, or even during right? Did you feel like you were fully able to kind of like saturate in the benefits of that pause, and what was it like coming back?
Speaker 3:in the benefits of that pause, and what was it like coming back? Um, let me think about this. So, during the pause, I feel like going well. Personally, for us, going from zero to one rocked our world.
Speaker 3:Even though I tried to gather so much information, but I wish I had had more friends with little kids and they had just said spend a week with them alone. I'm going to Europe, and that will give you a true sense of what is going to happen, what's going to unfold the chaos. So during those five months, honestly I was just trying to survive. I was really like you said. People in our industry are type A people doing operations especially. I wanted everything to be planned, I wanted everything to be researched. I remember during some you know my son's crying. We're like what's going on with him.
Speaker 3:I would sit there on my phone like trying to research answers.
Speaker 1:And my husband's like hello, hello.
Speaker 3:We have a screaming baby right here. I'm like okay. I'm sure there's an answer somewhere. I was that mom right. So yeah, the five months we were, we were obviously struggling, but I could not imagine also going back to work at three months or less than that.
Speaker 3:So I'm really glad that we had the time together as a family to just get our bearings around what the heck was happening in our lives now. And going back to my business, I I actually, I mean, I felt good about it. Um, I was really lucky that I had a prior client that wanted to re-engage um at that five month mark, and so for me it felt really great because it was comfortable more comfortable than starting a new engagement and just working with totally new people.
Speaker 3:And you know, at the start of any engagement, it can be a little nerve wracking, because you're like I don't know what this dynamic is going to be. Yeah, no, the personality quirks of everyone that I'm going to be surrounded by, and so I knew what I was getting myself into and it was just a continuation of certain initiatives that we had kicked off, you know, a year prior.
Speaker 3:So yeah, going back to work, I was excited. What I didn't foresee was the lack of energy and time that I would have to invest in my actual business, because not only are we doing client work, but it's also running the actual business.
Speaker 3:and making sure that you know our content is getting out there. We're able to share information and make sure people see us and create visibility around our companies. And that piece I totally let go because I knew I didn't have time for it. There was just not enough hours in the day and so for me it was just focusing on the work, my client work, and that was it. That's all I could manage in that time period of coming back.
Speaker 2:I think too, for like I mean, I'm speaking to a fellow ops girl here like the harder part for me, I think, when I came back from my first leave. So with my first son, frank, it was easy for me to do the client work because that's where I felt like I was most comfortable and I thrived and actually took the least amount of like challenging mental bandwidth, like I'm not a natural marketer, I am not a natural like SDR, that's not my role in life and I've had to learn those things. I've had to learn how to manage people who are good at those things in the growth trajectory of my company. But when I remember I only had a handful of teammates who mostly were working with me in a part time, like contracted capacity, when I had my first on Frank, I was like, well, I don't have any time to do business development because that's not my strong suit and it's not what is the most demanding on my time right now. So I felt like I also did the same thing. I kind of like put it aside and with our second I kind of I felt like I had a second at bat.
Speaker 2:So talk to me about the second experience because, honestly, sometimes I even feel kind of bad. Honestly, like if I'm being totally transparent about this, I almost feel bad sometimes that Jack, our second son, had an easier transition into life and, like those earlier earlier days and those earlier weeks, I felt like I was more present, I felt like I was happier, I felt like, in general, I was like I got this, we got another kid about this point, so like, at the very least, I know the next 17 months are fine. So what was the second iteration of this? Like? Your pause looked a little bit different too, if I'm right. Okay, so talk to me about that.
Speaker 3:So our first son conceived through IVF. So so our first son conceived through IVF. I am 13 months postpartum and I find out that I am naturally pregnant with a second. So my gosh, yes. And so one part of my brain is like oh, my gosh, this is a miracle, literally a miracle, because we never thought that we would be able to be at this point. And then we're pregnant naturally with our second baby. The other part of me was an oh crap moment, because I was just starting to feel like myself again and starting to invest in my business again, invest in me again, in really doing things that not just survival mode of like okay, I want to take showers, get myself fed it was like okay, what do I want to do with a little bit of extra time that I have?
Speaker 3:that's gonna make me happy and fill my cup even more. So, um, there was this dread moment and also it for me. Having so what would ultimately be a 22 month gap between the two was not my ideal. Um, I wish I would have had, or in my mind, that I wanted a bigger age gap and, to be honest, if I had been able to plan it, I don't know if I ever would have had a second, because going through the IVF process emotionally, I knew, would have been such a big toll on me. I don't know if I ever would have had a second, because going through the IVF process emotionally, I knew, would have been such a big toll on me. I don't know if I would have ever bit the bullet and said, okay, I'm going to go for it. So I had kind of come to accept that it may not happen.
Speaker 3:So I'm 13 months postpartum, surprise pregnancy and I was sick again, this time until 24 months or 24 months, that's a very during this time. So this was when we were in San Diego and we realized, okay, we have no one here, no family. We live in a rented house. What are we going to do with another baby? We don't have room for another baby.
Speaker 1:We literally did not have a plan for it.
Speaker 3:So ultimately we decided to purchase a house in Michigan, which is where I originally grew up, and so, then, my husband and I both own our own businesses, we're doing client work, we're raising our son, I'm pregnant and sick, and we've purchased a house that we now need to move into across the country.
Speaker 3:So for me it was literally just getting through every day, one day at a time, in order to get to the final resting place of being here in Michigan. That was all I could think about was what do I need to do? What do I need to do? What's the next thing I need to do? So just to kind of paint the backstory behind how we kind of came into this, you know, second pregnancy and then ultimately had my daughter, juniper, in January. When we got, I got here in, uh, on Halloween, and then I had her in January oh my gosh, it was a whirlwind. And also after I hit my 24 week mark I think it was a few weeks after that they test you for gestational diabetes, and I had gestational diabetes with my second.
Speaker 3:So I'm from sick to still sick, but a different kind of sick that I'm having to navigate. I was diagnosed the week before I was moving and so I was like I don't know what to do. So for me, literally just survival and getting to Michigan. And then when we finally got here and then I had the baby her name's Juniper I had zero intention or goals to get back to work. I was like I'm just going to take as much time as I feel like I need to in order to get back on my feet, because that was a lot we navigated in the last year.
Speaker 3:So it was less of a um, really sitting down intentional, like decision, and it was more of a just a like a primal need decision of like I need to take this break or else I'm going to crash and burn because there's no way that I can handle everything that just happened and also get back into my business. So that was, yeah, which I ultimately, with her, took a year off. I yeah, it was a full year, which there were times during that year that I really freaked out about. Oh my gosh, I've left my business to just kind of crumble and waste away on a shelf, but ultimately I knew that I had to again come back to myself and take care of myself, because if I didn't replenish everything that had been taken out of me over the course of you know, the last year, that there would be not much left to to be able to give into my work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to talk about coming back into the business after a year, but first, I think for women who are considering this if they're listening and they either are expecting or they've got young kiddos and they're like man, this is a lot and I would love to try to figure out how to take a year off. I imagine there was a massive financial consideration on what that would look like impact for your family, but I really want to talk about how you approach this and what key conversations you needed to have, because I imagine that your husband needed to be on board and supporting this. I imagine that your clients needed to be discussed with and anybody that you are partnered with. I know you have a small team, and even less so now that you've kind of jumped back into things, but talk to me about some of those key conversations you needed to have and how you approach those.
Speaker 3:But talk to me about some of those key conversations you needed to have and how you approach those Right.
Speaker 3:Obviously, my husband was a huge advocate for me taking this time off and for us it was a lot of financial conversations how are we actually going to make this work? And we're fortunate enough that he at the time was running his own agency and we said, okay, I can press pause on my salary and he can, you know, pick up, pick up that burden. And we had to let go of childcare. In San Diego we had a nanny for my son and when we moved here to Michigan we tried to have a nanny. It didn't work out, but ultimately it was for a good reason, because financially it also helped us out. So my husband and I switched off. It was mainly me, and then my husband also stepped in once or twice a week to help take care of my son. So his business also took a hit. It wasn't just me pausing, it was also pausing. So it was a. It was a really big decision for both of us. But ultimately we knew our family comes first. We want to prioritize that and we're going to make this happen, um. So, yeah, I, I'm really, really fortunate that we were able to get to that place, um, and come to that decision and make it happen.
Speaker 3:And other people I mean I feel like client work. I had been very frank with them that here's my stopping point and so let's get these initiatives done. At the stopping point, and I said I don't know when I'm going to come back. The only people that I talked to that I had to have any kind of awkward conversations with were prospective clients. I was still taking sales calls, which is crazy, and I would say you know, I'm not available for X number of months, which to them it's like you're not available for what? Seven months, like that's insane. Okay, they're not going to wait for me, but I still wanted to be able to help people and help guide them to a place that might be or someone that might be able to help them as well.
Speaker 3:So, um, and for my, my personal team, I, for WeConsult it was just me I had a um assistant at one point in the very early days and eventually she wanted to grow in her career. You know we consult, I do a lot of the hands-on work with my clients and it wasn't really an opportunity for her to get in there and do that. And so I said you know what my husband's agency needs? An ops person. You would be amazing, I can train you. And so I eventually found that kind of a route for her.
Speaker 3:And so, in regard to team, there was no one that was waiting on me, and I did that intentionally because I did not want to feel a pull for my company to go back into it prematurely when I knew I wasn't going to be ready. And even if all the stuff that transpired in me needing to take a year off hadn't happened like hadn't gotten sick, hadn't had to move across the country, I still would have intentionally kept it just me, because I knew that in this phase of life I did not want to feel guilt or obligation to anyone except myself and my family. So I was really clear on that.
Speaker 2:That's a really awesome perspective, melanie.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I think it's often that we hear the opposite perspective that in order to do the things you want to do to take the time off with your family, you need to have a team, you need to have people that can support you, and I think that that's a good perspective because I do feel that way as well, especially through growth seasons of the business and as we've amassed more people who are incredible, who serve our clients, that there's this, there's a pressure, right, there's a pressure to grow, there's a pressure to make sure that you're getting people the right things at the right times.
Speaker 2:And it does take a little bit of a toll and I just appreciate, I have to honor, like, the boundaries and the specificity that you've put around this experience Because, although I'm sure nothing can prepare you for being a parent and I think you said before like it rocked your world, it rocked ours and I also read all the books possible and consumed all the podcasts, like in true data gathering, fact finder type of personality, like that was totally me as well, and I still felt like I was largely navigating like completely choppy waters and every day was kind of touch and go in the very beginning there. So I'm glad that you've put some of those boundaries around, cause I pro I think it probably helped that experience go really really well. Helped that experience go really really well. So talk to me about coming back.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:What's it been like? So, in the year that I had taken off, I, like I said, worried about my business. Oh my gosh, it's been this many months Now. It's been this many months. And when Juniper turned a year old, I said you know what I feel, mentally, ready to get back into work. And then I came back to my business and I realized, like I have nothing here, like it's it was just a business name and any of the past client work that I've done, but in terms of any potential leads coming my way, had totally dried up at that point Because, remember, after my first was born, I gave up on any kind of marketing for myself no podcast, no blog writing, and and so it all dried up.
Speaker 3:And so I'm like, oh my God, I'm starting from zero, I am starting from scratch, and it's been over a year since I've used my strategic work brain to work on any of this. I I mean, I cried a lot and I remember posting on LinkedIn because I had deleted LinkedIn from my phone because it was too painful to even get on LinkedIn to see what everyone else was doing. I'm like, okay, I remember you know other consultants had started their careers around the same time. Now they have a book coming out and they have. It was just too painful because there was this constant comparison of where am I at and where are they at, which obviously is not healthy. But when you're looking at your surroundings you it was for me natural to gravitate to like, okay, where's everyone else at? Um, so extremely painful.
Speaker 3:Um, I finally redownloaded LinkedIn and cause I? I tried one post. I was like, okay, I'm just going to put out some posts about me consult, not like I'm back, but just here's some important content that I believe in. And I felt like such a fraud. I'm like I can't just turn this back on and pretend like nothing happened. And so I posted and I basically poured my heart out and said I deleted LinkedIn because it was so painful over this last year to even think about my career and for me, in that post I talked about you know how hard it is to be a parent who is heavily invested in their career and heavily invested in their family or spending actual time with their family. Um, and and so that kind of freed me up to not have to pretend that I was just putting on this facade of I'm back again or not even back.
Speaker 3:I never left and here's my business, and so that for me was really important to just shed some light on. Like this is not easy and I am really struggling here and I'm just going to build my business back up just one brick at a time and see where it goes. And the response was so positive and just motivating. People were like I'm so glad you said this. And from there on I, like I said my personal project to just figure out the lay of the land, having conversations with other consultants and coaches and people that service our industry, and when I started having these conversations I had the biggest feeling of imposter syndrome.
Speaker 3:I'm like I do not know what I'm doing. I don't know if I ever knew what I was doing, because I think I hadn't thought about any of the concepts in a while or any of the really strong beliefs I have about business and running an agency I hadn't tapped into in a while, and a year doesn't sound like that much, but when you're in the thick of postpartum it's like five years. It feels so much longer that you, when you're turning that part of your brain off, to turn it back on is so much harder than you know where. It feels like it's just a year. So tons of imposter syndrome going into these conversations, and so I use that those conversations as an opportunity to just learn as much as possible.
Speaker 3:I'm like what do I need to know about the industry and what you're doing and how you're servicing your clients so that I can be better at what I do? And I would share here is what my services look like, how would you treat them, what do you think about it, what's the? And? So I just gathered as much information as possible and that's what I've been doing for the last few months, Cause now, like I said, end of May, that was in January, so it's been about five months now of me just working on my business and having all those great conversations.
Speaker 2:It's interesting, a lot of um. There's a couple of, like, mastermind and coaching groups that I've been a part of, particularly, and they ask this question, this question that you've kind of been gifted in the experience of pressing pause for a year. Is there like if you had to do it all over again, what would you do differently? Or if you had to start from scratch, what would you do? You know, to build your business today and I think there's probably a lot of things right that as you grow a company and again amass a team, amass clients and all the things, you would do things natively differently. Or you know different things about running a company for six years versus when you first started in year one. Right, there's just stuff you need to learn. And so I think that to me, like an outsider looking in and I know it's super duper tough to basically press pause for a year and then be in a position to, you know, go out and hunt for new business or try and figure out what your marketplace positioning is or kick up a content engine again, like that's so much.
Speaker 2:And we connected on that LinkedIn post that you made. That's how we got reconnected, because I saw your heart in that post and I was like, oh my gosh, yes, like this is what I went through, this is what a lot of our listeners here on growing pains are going through. So I think there's an immense power in what you have, kind of quote, unquote, starting over right, like you still have an idea, you still have these passions and things, and I actually believe I wonder if you've experienced this too that fundamentally being a different person now that you are a mom, I do think that you have a different perspective to offer your business, your clients, your frameworks, your concepts. Have you been feeling like, as you've been pouring into this strategically, that things have felt like more clear to you? Or are they feeling like I don't know like you're almost coming at it from a different brain?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I think so I mean. I know so. I think early on in my career and even in my consulting career, I have always been a huge advocate for the people on the teams. I have been on those teams and felt like I wasn't. I didn't have a seat at the table and I didn't have good managers. I didn't have any mentors and so I was always just rooting for the team.
Speaker 3:What can I put in place to make the experience of working at this agency the best for them, so they can do their best work, and I think over the years of becoming a mom, especially working with agency owners that are parents themselves, I have seen how difficult it is to run a business. Seen firsthand how difficult it is to run a business and also have a life that includes family. Sometimes not, though but a life outside of your business.
Speaker 3:And so for me, I have so much more empathy and just, I don't know, a fire in me to get the owners out of the day-to-day because they're stuck in it and they can't get out of it, and out of it so that they can actually focus on the running the or, you know, growing their business and also giving them more time to spend with family or spending time doing whatever they, their passions are, outside of work.
Speaker 3:I think that's been the biggest mind shift over the last few years and now it's very clear that's. You know, I still have that. I'm really glad that I have both the aspect of wanting to take care of the teams, but now it's also the owner and advocating for them, and I think that's one of the biggest things that I'm most clear on at this point is okay, that's usually the biggest bottleneck is an owner not being able to delegate to a leadership team so that they can run things and take things you know off their plate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you and I are very much cut from the same cloth on that one. I think that, honestly, it's so challenging. I was writing an email to our list the other day. A person I mentor actually went to one of my clients and was like, hey, I can do this work for you. And I was like, interesting, didn't expect that from the person that I mentor. We have a really great working relationship. And the client told me immediately he was like, hey, listen, just so you know, this is what happened and I was like, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:So I started thinking about it and I'm like there are not enough operations people to possibly in the world support all of the founders that need help Like truly there are not. And I really really do believe that so much of what we do as operational support people is not utilized enough by folks who are growing companies. I really do believe that. I think sometimes they have blinders on. Sometimes they're very, very aware of the fact that they have basically been burning the candle at both ends in the middle and that they're stuck in the weeds of their company or they're doing something that's not their natural gifting or skill set or something of that nature.
Speaker 2:But I really do believe that people like us, melanie, compliment business owners so so well, in the sense that we are like that natural speed bump right. We're like hang on one second, let's save you from you and let's like ratchet that back a second. So what are you excited about? I wanna land this a little bit and, um, give some folks, um, some, you know excitement. Uh, what, what to follow you around and what's exciting about next steps?
Speaker 3:here. Yeah, I mean I'm getting back into client work and so that for me is really exciting and it's been a blessing in disguise that I did take the pause and I came back with this imposter syndrome and had all these conversations and have been kind of just immersing myself in knowledge. I feel way more confident in what I offer in my services than I ever have before and I had. It took time to get there.
Speaker 3:When I came back, I literally was like maybe I should just do some pro bono work, for free and now.
Speaker 3:I'm at a point where I'm like I'm in charge more than I ever have. Maybe I should just do some pro bono work for free. And now I'm at a point where I'm like I'm going to charge more than I ever have because I know that in terms of skill and what I offer, it's worth it. So I'm going to get back into client work, going to get back into, you know, writing content to share with people so that if they can't work with me, then they can at least get some useful information to help them implement it themselves within their own agencies. And, honestly, here in Michigan it's summer and the kids haven't been sick in a few weeks and so it's really just spending time outside and exploring this new environment that we're in with the family. So lots of exciting stuff on the horizon and yeah, I'm, I just feel really grateful to have made it through that big, really painful, you know, hump in my career, so that's amazing.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited for you, Melanie, I am so excited to follow along. Where can moms who are listening go along with your journey and see? Um, you know all the things that you're up to? Yeah.
Speaker 3:So I uh post on LinkedIn. So if they want to find me on LinkedIn, I'm there and um on my website. Uh, it's we consultio. They can find um me there and my content there and you know anyone that wants to reach out, they can always email me. I'm always available, especially to fellow women that are in this space and also moms. I'm all ears for them, so yeah.
Speaker 2:Amazing. Thank you so, so much for joining me today. I appreciate everything that you've shared and I will link up all the things and ways to get connected with you in the show notes. Thank you so much again.
Speaker 3:Amazing. Yeah, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of growing pains. I know that you have so many things vying for your attention right now, so I am so grateful that you just spent the last hour or so with me. So I hear all the time from mompreneurs Allie, allie. What systems do I need to have in place in order to thrive in business and in parenthood? If you go over to alisoncaffreycom slash checklist, you can grab my kid proof business checklist and it will get you started in the right direction around making sure that you build a business that doesn't steal all of the time away from your family. If you loved today's episode, I would be so, so, so honored if you would leave a review on the podcast. It helps us reach even more incredible mompreneurs just like you and give them the resources they need to be wildly successful in business and wildly present at home with their families. Thanks so much again and I'll see you next time.