Cultivating Resilience to Support Your Ideal Life
Jan 22, 2025
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Through mindful business designs and embracing balance, entrepreneurs can thrive in their ventures and build their ideal life.
As entrepreneurs and as women, we often find ourselves taking on multiple tasks between work, family, and personal lives. This delicate balance can be especially challenging during economic shifts that affect business dynamics. Taking a resilient approach to creating your business and ideal life can help manage these uncertainties while continuing to carve out time for yourself.
Embrace a Holistic Business Approach
Resilience is built through embracing a holistic approach to your life and business. You want to create a business that supports your ideal life. Looking at your financial goals and how you want to be present for your family, and yourself are all important factors in avoiding burnout. This involves focusing on economic success, personal health, and family obligations. Ensuring that work habits are sustainable in the long term is vital.
Prioritize the Vision and Values of Your Ideal Life
When you are creating the blueprint of what you want your business to look like, be sure that you are building your business around your life and not the other way around. If it is important to you to have a business that allows you the freedom and flexibility to be with your family, set that out in your plans and build your business around that goal. Be clear about what you want your business to look like and how it can integrate with your ideal life.
Rest and Recharge for Optimal Performance
Rest is a vital component of entrepreneurial success. Many women operate well under high stress, but it doesn't allow you to be the best CEO you can be. You need to be calm and grounded to plan, delegate, and have brain space for bigger-picture ideas. Having regular downtime where you get to be creative and have thoughts outside of your business is essential for avoiding burnout and building your ideal life.
Cultural Conditioning and Societal Expectations
Society's expectations of women have been to perform, meet deadlines, and make other people happy, all while supporting their families. This pressure to succeed is not sustainable or healthy. Take a step back from these expectations and realize what your priorities are. Ask yourself how you can align your actions with what you want your ideal life to be.
Conclusion
Do not forget that You matter. Your feelings matter, your needs matter, the things that matter to you really do matter. Take the time to acknowledge the importance of taking time for your brain to do something other than your business so that you can recharge for better business outcomes and a more fulfilling and sustainable personal life.
About Melanie
Melanie Childers is the Master Business Coach for values-led coaches, course creators, and CEOs. She helps you grow and scale your business while unf*cking internalized patriarchy and hustle culture ("make sure no one's mad at you, stay small and polite, work harder to prove yourself!") so you can have a sustainable, successful multi 6 or 7-figure business that supports you and your community without burning out.
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Full Episode Transcript:
[00:00:00] Melanie: What's up, bad bitches? Welcome to today's episode. I have my friend and colleague today, Molly Clare, with us. Welcome, Molly.
[00:00:20] Molly: I am so excited to be here. This is great.
[00:00:24] Melanie: Uh, we are going to be doing some conversations about resilience and really about having a holistic approach to your business, to how you are leading your family and leading your business at the same time, especially when the markets have changed, economy has changed.
Um, A lot of folks are experiencing a little bit of a dip in their business, and I was just saying to Molly that, you know, your, your go getters probably have their nose to the grindstone right now, but we got to make sure, is that working for you? Are you burning yourself out? You know, like we can't, we can't We can't kill ourselves trying to get that bag.
Right.
[00:01:07] Molly: That's right. And I mean, and we'll talk, we can talk more about this, but it's the worst thing we can do.
[00:01:13] Melanie: A hundred
[00:01:13] Molly: percent. Yeah.
[00:01:14] Melanie: Yeah. So please introduce yourself. Tell us about you, Molly. How, how did you get into business? What do you do?
[00:01:22] Molly: Yeah.
[00:01:22] Melanie: Tell us. Okay.
[00:01:23] Molly: Well, I'll give you the CliffsNotes version of this.
I started my business 10 years ago, um, I became a coach and master coach, um, and started working with moms specifically. So I wrote a book and I offered help for moms who were. Earned out, exhausted, overwhelmed, you know, figuring they're probably failing at being a mom, all these kinds of worries. And so, so I started my business there.
And at the same time, I was doing quite a bit of contract work with training coaches, certifying coaches, and expanding my own abilities to really coach my clients well, so that I could bring many different modalities and basically ways of helping my clients effectively. Um, and so over the course of all this.
Um, I start about five years ago, I shifted to working specifically with coaches. So the thing that I do, you know, in my business is I help coaches to be able to increase their ability to be effective with their clients. Um, and so they're able to understand more about the whole view of their client. Like everyone, all of you listening here, you know, we have thought patterns, we have We have emotions within us that can actually be really helpful for us in our life.
But sometimes we don't really know how to make them helpful. Um, and, and we have a nervous system and we have patterns. So all this to say that I really am very passionate about helping coaches, female coaches to be super effective and to be able to really create a business. That makes a difference and this relates to our topic today Supports the ideal life that they want
[00:03:05] Melanie: Absolutely.
Absolutely. I love that Yeah, I think that we met at a conference a couple years ago but i've been in your world for a minute you've been in mine for a minute and this is just a beautiful culmination of both of those things and I I think that this is going to be a really important conversation for um Our listeners who are working, I know y'all are working your ass off.
I know some of you are like, I don't know if I even want to keep going. And so our goal today is really to help motivate you and to help unleash the resilient part of you and to help you stop working so damn hard
[00:03:46] Molly: because you
[00:03:47] Melanie: don't have to.
[00:03:48] Molly: That's
[00:03:48] Melanie: one of my core tenets is a simple, sustainable business.
And that means. I'm not working 60 hours a week. I never have. And I'm, I'm not about to now. It's like, that is not a good use of our time. So I'm curious about how do you run your business and manage your time so that You do have plenty of time for your family. You do have plenty of time for the CEO. Like I call that, I call those days like my Fridays are CEO days.
And I'm either like I'm sleeping in or I'm reading a book or I'm going for a nice long walk. I'm taking good care of myself. So I'm curious about like how do you. run your days and run your business so that You're not burning the candle at both ends.
[00:04:39] Molly: Yeah. Yeah Um, and as I answer this question, i'm going to give a little bit more of um, Kind of how I run things in my life At a higher level, sort of conceptually kind of abiding by certain principles or concepts, I guess, if you will, that allow me to have that.
Um, and you know, I, I kind of told the, the tangible details of my story, but something I didn't mention is when I started my business, I was becoming a single mom at the time I had three kids. And, um, and I. Also was recovering from chronic fatigue syndrome. So as I share some of the things on, on how I run my day and keep things in balance, this, this is kind of the backdrop of it.
Um, when I started my business, I was pretty terrified to start my business. I didn't have a lot of confidence that I could make a lot of much money as a woman. I had seen my own single mom struggle. I was worried about not being there for my kids. It was like, Oh my gosh, like, I don't think I can do any of this.
but somehow I have to do all of it. Um, and so at the time I made a very firm commitment to myself that I was going to build a business that supported my family financially well. And I made a commitment at the same time that that business was going to allow me time, freedom, and flexibility to be present with my kids, to provide for them emotionally and spiritually.
And so I say that because I really genuinely believe for anyone here listening that is, is wondering. How do I not work so hard or work so many hours, right? How do I have this balance or integration of these parts of my life? And I think one of the key things. is really getting clear on making a decision about what you want your business to look like and how it supports your values and priorities in your life.
Because this becomes like the roadmap, the blueprint to all of it. So I know I didn't really answer your question about the day to day. I'm happy to say more about that, but I feel like that's the first thing that needs to happen.
[00:07:01] Melanie: No, I think that's perfect. Um, Yeah, because I just taught this in a course I'm doing called the client up level.
We talked about, it's not, we talked about creating offers that meet your, your dream client where they want to be. And that like create really like an offer ladder. Dot. Solves all the problems that they might have. So I know a lot of people do that all in one program. And what I was teaching is like, you can, but you can also separate those offers out by, by solution by or by problem.
And one of the things that, that I was mentioning was this concept of don't build your. business around your life, build your life around your business. And like, think about, you know, how do I want my life to feel and how do I want my business to feel? And then look at your dream client and create offers from there.
So what I mean is like, if. If you don't want to be on zoom calls all day long, don't create offers that make it so that you have zoom fatigue by the end of Monday.
[00:08:13] Molly: Right.
[00:08:14] Melanie: Right. That's like, you know, you get to decide how you want to serve, how you want to deliver, what works well for you, what works well for your zone of genius.
And if it's not what everybody else is doing. Frickin great. That makes you different. That's a good thing.
[00:08:32] Molly: No. Right. Well, I have an, and I can talk more about it at the end, but I will say I actually have a freebie that is just this, where it's look at your ideal life and business. It's a worksheet that's going to help you to look at what are, what is the ideal way of doing business?
That's fun and works for me. And what does my life look like and seeing how they fit together? Because I really do think when we have that as the vision. It informs our decisions just like you're saying, right? It informs our decision and, and makes everything easier and better.
[00:09:05] Melanie: Yeah. And I just want to give like carte blanche permission.
This is your permission slip to create a business, to create offers that work for the way that you want your life to work.
[00:09:17] Molly: 100%.
[00:09:18] Melanie: That doesn't mean you don't work. Right. Yeah. That doesn't mean you don't work when it's time to work. Of course you do. But. Make it so that your business fits into your life, not the other way around.
[00:09:31] Molly: Yes. And, and one of the other things I'll say, which again, may not seem like a, you know, super practical, practical, tangible, this is how I run my days. But I think understanding this makes a difference. So as, as your listeners, as you're here and you're listening to this. Think about how much of your time you spend rushing, trying to get more done, hurrying through your to do list, panicking, stressing, all of these things.
So when we think about, um, you know, I, I think more and more people are aware of like trauma responses and the nervous system. It's kind of this like hot topic, right. That we're all aware of and, and something that I. I like to make sure people are aware of is that that when someone is in a flight response, sometimes what that looks like.
Is overworking. And it's interesting, right? Because we would usually not make that connection because we're so on autopilot. And my guess is that most of the, most of the women listening, well, anyone, men, women, but I know it's mostly women, right? All these, all of you women listening, I bet many of you can operate pretty well under high stress when you have a lot going on and you take care of business.
And that's amazing. And here's what I want to offer you when you are in that place of being on autopilot and getting things done, stress and pressure, you are not being your best CEO self, because as you go into that autopilot and you're overworking, you're losing access to part of your prefrontal cortex, which is strategic.
Which is able to plan ahead, delegate all of those things. When we think about the skills required for us to be a leader in our business and in our life. To access the most of that, it actually requires us to be in a state of being grounded and being calm. And so I say this because I don't know how each of you should exactly manage your days or your weeks.
But what I do know is that if you want to accomplish the most that you possibly can in your business, you want to do it the smartest way, make the most amount of money and have the best experience with your family. It all starts with you being grounded, being calm, and being able to, um, really connect with yourself and take care of yourself in a way that allows you to have a clear mind.
[00:12:19] Melanie: Amen. You are preaching to the choir up in here, Molly Clare. Right? Oh my gosh.
[00:12:25] Molly: How much of our lives have we spent, I can say for me, just like, I rushing, trying to do it all, take care of everything. Go, go, go, go, go. And we say, like, there's no time to rest and relax. It's like, no, no, no. Like you have to, or you're just wasting all of this time.
[00:12:39] Melanie: Mm hmm. I will tell you as,
as someone who was diagnosed with, with cancer at 34, the very first thing that hit my brain after the, oh my God, am I going to die part was I might only have so much time left. I better get it all in. And that became my driving thought. And so even in business, the first couple of years, I, I would call what I was doing hustling,
but
it was really operating from panic.
It was, I have this huge list to do. I'm never going to get it all done. I got to sit down and make myself work, but I would spend an hour or two getting ready to work mentally in my brain. But all of that was stress and freaking out and panicking and trying to push and pressure myself. And what it created for me was burnout and exhaustion.
And I had a great thriving business, but I was so tired. I was not in love with it. And I was like, this sucks. I did not mean to do this. And so many of us have done that, that, you know, if you have any shame about that, let that shit go because. That has been like the underlying default for so many, and you need to know that it, it sounds like it's coming from you, but it's actually coming from culture.
The culture that was created by the industrial revolution treats you as a cog in the wheel and that your time. Is your only value and that you better get a lot done in a certain amount of time, or you're not worthy and you're not good enough. And when you have been even an employee, there's all of this pressure to perform and meet deadlines and make other people happy.
And we bring all of this into a business when we are running a business. And we also bring the cultural conditioning of you know, if you were socialized as a woman in this culture to serve everybody and to make sure everybody's happy and to do, do the best and do the most and be the best. And otherwise you aren't good enough.
And what that creates for so many people is that. That panic, that rush, that hustle, that stress of I got to prove myself and I got to work extra hard and people need to see that I'm working so hard in order for me to prove that this was a worthy venture. I did it too. You know, I mean, my, my parents love me and they support me.
But when I left my corporate job, my mom was like, Oh my God, are you sure?
And
I'm like, yes. And she's like, but how, but insurance, but how will you pay your bills? I'm like, I'm making enough money, more than enough money to pay my bills. And I probably leapt before I needed to. But I also had a full client roster and I was like, I'm, I'm burning the candle at both ends with a day job and with my business.
[00:15:45] Molly: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:15:46] Melanie: And so
[00:15:49] Molly: Well, and I, you know, as you were talking, I was thinking about, um, we had, uh, last month, a call in, in our master coach training with a coach, Lindsey Pullman, who she does trauma work. Oh, she's so great. And, and so we had a class in there where we're just talking about societal conditioning and women.
And, you know, she asked a question for us to all consider. What comes to mind when you think about what's expected of you as a woman? And, and I mean, like all of those of you listening, what comes to your mind when you think about what's expected of you as a woman? Um, and I can say for me that as I brought in that question to my mind, it's like, I just felt immediate overwhelm and meets immediate stress.
And the words that came to me were, Get it all done, hold it all together, keep everyone afloat. And it's like, it's just, it's not sustainable. And I think the tricky thing about it is that we can see tangible results from hustling. We can make more money, we can do things. And so it tricks us into thinking that that's the reason and that's the way, but in truth, and I genuinely believe this.
And I know you, you've seen this and experienced this too, that when we can stop that we can, we can say, Hey, no, maybe this way of being isn't sustainable and maybe it's actually not the best way. And we can shift into, um, more of a space of calm. And, and I like to think about it as. When we realize what the priorities and values are for you specifically in your life, and how do I honor my own priorities, my own values, and how do I align with creating the experience of my life that I want?
When we can ground ourselves there and operate from that place, our ideas are better. Our gifts come out. Everything is easier and better. And that is when we really will make the most money and have the most even financial success. And the great part is the rest of our life is a million times better at the same time.
[00:18:10] Melanie: Amen. And I want to add to that because I feel like my, my energy now. Is really calm, really confident, even when, you know, there are dips, not saying my confidence doesn't take hits too, like everybody else. But what I have found for me and for my clients is yes, getting grounded and doing something fun outside of your business.
Because when your brain is under so much stress and so much pressure and your predominating thought or feeling is, Oh my God, I fucking need to make money. What you're doing is adding pressure. and trying to make your brain perform under that pressure. And that's actually the opposite of what you think is going to happen.
What's going to happen is your brain's going to shut down, or you're just going to keep doing the same things that you've been doing with the same pressure and you're going to burn out. And so what I advise is, and this is why I take those Fridays, Is to add some play, add some creativity to your life, add some fun and some joy and just some general enjoyment as a human being.
One, your body needs it. Yes. Your body needs to regenerate and recuperate. And so I love, that's why I love going into nature. I'll just go stand in the woods. We have this great park nearby. I just love to go stand in the woods. By myself, but my hand on my heart and my feet on the ground and just listen to the birds sing that fills my cup.
That's, I guess that's like Japanese forest bathing, right? It's like, you just fill your cup out in nature, but purposefully looking for how can I bring some creativity in my life? Even if it's just coloring with a coloring book and doing something mindless and taking your mind off your business, because what happens in your brain is that then you're.
Your, your mind can make those connections that you're trying so hard and putting so much pressure on yourself to make. And it actually happens in the time when you are not focused on that thing. That's why people like, I think it was Einstein. I'm trying to remember who talked about he would, he would like had plenty of time to do all of this creative writing.
mental processing and philosophy, but he would take really long walks. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. And sometimes by himself, sometimes with a friend and they would bandy ideas about, but often his best ideas came when he came for a walk. And let's, you know, not discount that somebody at home was taking care of him. So thank you to whoever that was, but
[00:20:50] Molly: seriously, well, I, yeah, I mean, and, And the first thing that came to my mind is you and I need to go to a retreat in the woods.
You and I, I'm like, you and I just need to go because I love, I'm the same way. I love hiking. I love nature. It fills my soul. And, um, and I think that, you know, last summer. I, um, I took quite a bit of time and space off of work. I did some extra bike rides. I did a lot of walking. I gave myself so much space and I will tell you the best things I have created ever in my business.
Came out of those times.
[00:21:29] Melanie: Amen.
[00:21:29] Molly: That's that is when it happens. Right. And, um, and so I think, yeah, we need to not only say, oh, well, it's a good idea. You have to take care of yourself, make time for that. No, making time for that is the best thing you can do for your business. I think it's, yeah, it's everything.
So,
[00:21:45] Melanie: yeah. And I think that it's the, it tends to be the first thing that drops off the list.
[00:21:51] Molly: Yeah. Yeah. And,
[00:21:52] Melanie: and so what I want y'all to know, listening, Is that your to do list is never going away.
[00:21:57] Molly: That's right.
[00:21:58] Melanie: There will always be shit in your business that needs to get done and you can delegate it, but your brain will come up with more things to add to the list.
So just knowing that really helped me to know, okay, look, this is going to be here Monday. The world is not going to collapse if I don't make a sale today. Right. And prioritizing I hate calling it self care because I think that there's just so much tied up in that word that sounds like, Oh, it's a mani pedi and it's a spa day.
And that is relaxing. But what I truly mean is time for your brain to do something other than business. So whether it's Hiking, being in nature, enjoying your family, you know, writing, laughing, pulling tarot cards, watching Netflix, you know, coloring in a coloring book, knitting something, whatever. Give your brain some time off to stop thinking about your business, to stop learning, to stop worrying, to stop stressing, and just Just fucking relax so that you can put some pieces together.
Give your brain time to process.
[00:23:12] Molly: Just being
[00:23:13] Melanie: like a learning fountain, you get no time to process. Go ahead.
[00:23:16] Molly: That's right. Well, and, and I think that. You know, we all have familiar thought patterns, right? So many things in our brain are on repeat. We have familiar thought patterns and we also have emotion patterns.
Like we hear about mindset. We also have an emotion set. And, and if we're continuing to perpetuate overworking and how am I going to figure this out? We're actually putting this like deeper groove in our brain. Um, that is like reinforcing that pattern of being that pattern of thinking. And there's so, so much value in taking space from it.
I, you know, I mentioned laughing. I love comedy. I love comedy reels. I love to go to comedy shows
[00:23:57] Melanie: and I
[00:23:58] Molly: love walking and hiking and being in nature and those are, those are just my things. Right. Right. But, um, but there, I, here's a quote that. I remember looking and I couldn't figure out who it originally came from, but it is a quote worth sharing.
And it was something along the lines of, instead of asking, have I worked hard enough to deserve a rest? Ask yourself. Have I had enough rest to do my best work?
[00:24:27] Melanie: Ooh,
[00:24:27] Molly: that's it, right? That's it.
[00:24:30] Melanie: That, that is a fundamental game changer. A hundred percent. Damn. I want to go look that one up.
[00:24:40] Molly: If you're listening and that was you.
Tell
[00:24:42] Melanie: us, tell us. We need to know .
[00:24:45] Molly: It's so true, and I think that's why, you know, I certainly have, you know, as far as how I manage on a regular basis my life to keep balance, you know, some of the, some of the core things I do are I allow myself space during the day to take a walk, to take a breather, right?
I, I manage my energy, meaning. I pay attention to the things in my business that may drain my energy. And then I build in things that are going to give me some more energy. I have, you know, clear days off. I, I have this huge calendar on my wall. If you could see it here, it's like, I think it's like. Maybe, uh, four by six or something like that.
It's a huge wall. I have one
[00:25:27] Melanie: just like it.
[00:25:29] Molly: And, um, and I put on their first the days off. Right. And so, so there are a lot of components to this with. Knowing and being clear on my vision of how I want my actual life and business to be. Then there is building my days in a way that they're supportive of my energy and that they prioritize time with my kids and prioritize time off.
And I'm really mindful of those things. And I really think that some of the biggest game changers for all of you, as you're thinking about having a better quality of life is reminding yourself. That value of having enough rest and downtime to actually think about what you want and allow creativity because it's, it's like a principle that shifts everything.
[00:26:19] Melanie: I totally agree. And I love that you said managing. like scheduling around your energy. So for me, like I sleep, I sleep in and I, my brain doesn't even turn on until at least 10 a. m. So I know that about me and I'm, I'm usually mentally done by about three or four. So it's like, okay, we're going to work between 10 and three and some days we may go a little later if we need to, but that means we take a little off the day, the following day.
[00:26:49] Molly: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:26:53] Melanie: There we go. And I think that it's really important to that self awareness of knowing yourself, knowing your patterns, knowing.
[00:27:02] Molly: And then it's okay. Right? Yeah. Who's
[00:27:05] Melanie: to say
[00:27:05] Molly: that you should be a morning person? Right?
[00:27:09] Melanie: I am not the 5am club y'all. Hell no. That sounds like a nightmare.
[00:27:15] Molly: I'm so the opposite.
So what's funny is my sister and I were in business together for a while. She's a night owl. I'm a morning person. She's two hours earlier in her time zone. So there would be times when she would still be up working and I would be up early working and I get online. I'm like, what are you doing up? She's like, what are you doing up?
You know? And so I think that like, I know that about myself, I get up and I get to work super early in the morning sometimes. And it's great. And someone might tell me. Oh, you shouldn't work so hard or you should do this in the morning instead. No, I want to capitalize on my creativity because believe me later in the day, you're not going to get anything out of me.
[00:27:54] Melanie: Yeah. Like after three I'm toast. I'm toast. Yeah. Yeah. And especially like once we get into like six, seven, eight, I'm like, I can't even make decisions. My poor husband, he's like, what do you want for dinner? And I'm like, I literally don't care. I just put food in the hole. It's fine. Food is great. Oh, this has been such a blast.
If you had Anything else that you want to share or one final tip on managing that wellbeing, managing our balance in our lives as entrepreneurs? Is there anything else that you might want to share?
[00:28:29] Molly: Yeah, I would just say, I know that all of you listening take care of a lot of things, a lot of people, and I just want to tell you that you matter.
Your feelings matter, your needs matter, the things that matter to you. They really do matter. And so I hope you'll make space for that because I think it's everything.
[00:28:56] Melanie: Amen. Absolutely. Oh, thank you so much. Please tell us where to find you out in the world wide web. Yeah. And about your podcast.
[00:29:06] Molly: Yeah. You can find me at mollyclair.
com and my podcast is the masterful coach podcast. And, um, I will tell you, I have a couple, really great resources. One of them I already mentioned. So if you're listening to this, um, you can find it in the show notes too. You can go to my perfect biz. com. And there you can find that training that I mentioned, where you can watch the video and do the worksheet to do your ideal life and business vision.
100%. You've got to sign up for that. It's, it's essential for any entrepreneur. Um, and then also on that same page, I actually have, uh, A private podcast that you can have access to where, um, you know, I'm talking about, um, which, which is more for coaches. If you have coaches listening, where I'm talking about the fundamentals of effective change.
Um, so those are my freebies. That's where you can find me. And this has just been awesome. So thank you so much. I
[00:30:09] Melanie: love it. Thank you. All right, y'all. We will see you next week.