The woman that you want to be, the one who is a present mother and also leading an impactful business.

📍 She's not sharing about it on social media, which probably today makes you feel like, oh, is it even possible? 📍 In today's episode, I'm speaking with Sarah, who is a business coach for. Moms, she's founder of the Moxie Roadmap and she teaches women and mothers how to structure your life and business in a way that honors their long-term vision.

Keeps you connected to your family and your relationship without needing to hustle or fall into tricks such as passive income. We're gonna talk about. How to prepare your business and your body for motherhood before it arrives. Kind of what to do if you're thinking about doing this in the next three to four years.

The three to five things to prioritize to prevent burnout as a mother with a business, and how other women are leading successful ethical businesses without sacrificing presence and peace. I got a lot out of this episode, and I think you will too.

So you've built a business and you've done it without sacrificing your connection to yourself or your family. And looking back, what is, we're gonna go a different, many different places today, but just to begin with, what, what would you say to somebody who's thinking. I believe that I want children one day, but I really love my peace and I love my freedom, and I love my autonomy.

Do I have to choose or what do I do or how do I kind of have it all? Yeah, I think the truth is you can have it all just not all at once. And the caveat to that is you can't have it all by doing it all. No one that has. A relationship, intimate relationship that they love and a family that they love and a business that they love is doing it all.

Uh, there's no such thing as the self-made man, self made woman. It just doesn't exist. And I think what's important to really draw on here is that I did sacrifice upfront. 'cause I did try to build my business in a way that wasn't aligned for me. Because the only framework I had was what the 50-year-old guys were doing.

There just weren't that many women that were married still or had a family and it was working. And so the first five years of Scarlet's life, I did sacrifice time with her and sacrifice time with Johnny and my health and wellbeing. Uh, and then at age five I had to turn that around and go, there's gotta be a different way, right?

Because. Nothing I'm building is worth the relationships that I chose to have in my life, both my husband and my daughter. Uh, and so I had to build it a different way. And so I think being really clear and deliberate about what are those pieces that you want, uh, for you, and being very clear about what those success measures are for you.

And they're not all sales numbers and, you know, fancy cars. Those, you know. My relationship with my husband and how we show up and how we communicate, how we spend time together, it's that my daughter, I was really clear. I wanted her to have the skills to notice and name her emotions and communicate with us all through her teenage years, no matter what other people say happens in terms of their brain functions.

So I think me really deliberate about that upfront and recognizing that building that's going to have a runway. Uh, you can't just go, oh yeah, today I've decided I'm having a baby, and my business will be the way it needs to be tomorrow. It, it requires a runway and it requires some forough. Yeah, absolutely.

I would say myself and every single person listening, one of our biggest values is that peace or stability, or kind of my partner would call it equanimity, but that nervous system regulation, that presence, quality time, patience, like you said, being able to name your emotions, being able to have important conversations.

It's like this quality of life, so. You are speaking about runway, and I know, you know, we spoke about the Moxie Roadmap Foundations, which I'll just say based off of what I understand, it's kind of like the the Soli solid foundations that you teach everyone or women in business to have so that you can scale or expand, but also being present.

That's what I've understood it. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think my question is. What are we supposed to be doing? When or what can we be focusing on now if we are thinking about being calm and being present? Having kids in a couple of years, and we don't wanna feel like we have to sacrifice our creative or professional pursuits.

Yeah. And I think you don't have to, but you can't do it the old nine to five way of working. You have to do it in a way that's structured completely for you. If you're gonna live outside the system that's been created, you have to live outside the system. And so, uh, youre what already exists. So for like the nine to five's a really good example of building your business around a Monday to Friday, nine to five.

That was, that's designed for someone who has a wife at home who's taking care of the kids. It's not designed for you. So being really clear on what are the important things for you when you have a baby, you know, it's not gonna be enough to go, I'll just work in the nap times. I'll work when they go to bed.

You are tired when you have a baby. You have just created a whole nother human being like that requires a huge amount of energetic input. And you need rest as well. And so it's going, what do I want that to look like in advance and how do I plan for that? So it's putting, uh, leverage around yourself, resource around yourself that can ensure that your creative outputs, your professional outputs.

Can still carry on around with the flexibility of going around and nurturing another human being because, uh, they have reliance on you. Especially for those first, you know, three years, they have significant reliance on you and. As that, as they get older, that gets easier. Um, and those first few years you need to be able to take space for yourself.

Uh, so I think there's some really key things. One, be very careful about who you choose to do this with. Life hack. I've got biggest life hack I've got is my partner in life, my husband, my um, my. Goes bringing me food that's like the most clear. Yeah, that's bringing me food. Um, the biggest hack I've got is that I chose a partner in life that's actually a partner that believes in me and believes in the impact I wanna make and believes in the life that we're building collectively and the way that we want to.

Raise Scarlet to be a vibrant expression of herself. We have to be aligned on that. And so I think like the first one is be mindful. Be deliberate. I got lucky. I was not deliberate. I was a 20 something year old girl on an island in Thailand and picked an Englishman up and it's been great for us. And I would say the deliberate, you know, what are your values and are they aligned?

And then rechecking in on that consistently that you are going in the same direction. Uh, you don't have to want exactly the same things, but it needs to be aligned enough that you're going in the same direction together. So that'd be my first one. And then you to be all in supportive of all of the parts of you.

Um, they cannot, can't be just all in until you get successful in your business. They can't be all in until your little side hustle, you know? And then it's successful now. I'm not supportive of it anymore. Now it's threatening to me like they have to evolve and journey with you. So that growth journey, being in a relationship where that you both have to grow is really important.

So that's the first one. Pick, pick well and then support each other to grow and evolve. Uh, and then the. The same thing comes in terms of, because that's a support structure for me, is building the support structure around your career or your business, whatever you are planning to do, that allows you flexibility, but not in a way that, that then becomes a trap.

'cause I think that's the other thing that we do as women, as we build businesses, we build, uh, roles that are flexible for us, and then that flexibility becomes a trap, trapping us into being the primary parent, the primary homemaker, because we build flexibility. Ah, mm-hmm. Yes. Right. And so that becomes a trap and that can be, but people get very bitter and resentful about, well, I built it for this.

Well, yeah, we did build it so that you could do that, and now you're upset that you are having to do all of that. Yeah. And so when I hear you say that combined with what you were saying before, it sounds almost like you are not choosing to be in a nine to five, but you are treating. Your commitment to your work as if it almost was a nine to five of being like, I don't know.

I mean, I noticed that I work from home. My partner works from home and we were literally just washing our sneakers and I was like, and he's asking me questions about, you know, did you use the Stain River? And I'm like, I'm working. And I do the same to him. I've just noticed us get really leaky about it and, and you know, we will have a conversation and we'll be like, oh no.

We're not gonna do that in the future. 'cause I, 'cause I feel like we have that strong strength in partnership, but it happens really easily if we're not really boundaried about it. Like, you can ask me about the stain remover after work hours have finished and then I will be, we'll we're back on domestic duties together.

Um, so being really boundary, but what are the, Hmm. I'm curious about, sorry. Let's just say the person listening. Is sitting and thinking, okay, cool. New phase of my life, Ooh, I've got options. I can either do what that person on Instagram says and follow like that man. You know, the one who, I don't know what's his name, I'm thinking of like the Alex Ho Mosey, like whatever, the gen guy.

Um, or I can do something else, but I, I wanna make sure my foundation's are right. You've mentioned the moxie. Foundations, what are the things that I need to be ticking in my mind or focusing on? Like are you saying really focus on passive income or, and selling courses or really focus on partnerships?

Like I feel like that's, I can, I know, I know it's silly, but I can hear the questions that will be coming through. Yeah, passive income's, a myth doesn't exist. I've been saying this for years. If someone's talking about passive income, big red flag, run around, mile run in the other direction, run, it doesn't exist.

The only people asking about or looking for income are people are like, oh, I don't wanna work very hard, but I wanna make a lot of money. And you know, who's making a lot of money off that? The people that are selling you some myth, oh, the only people making money off, are the people selling you that you can make a lot of money off, please.

The biggest trauma response ever, but we'll talk about that another time. Yeah. Okay. So rule one, run away from passive income two. Yeah. And, and the reason for that is just think about that passive means to do nothing, right? And, and anything in this world is a value exchange is an energy exchange. And so if you are doing nothing.

The value exchange isn't there. Now, are there things that can be super, super leveraged where they will bring money in with you doing less in the future as you get smarter and wiser and more leverage? A hundred percent. Do I work less hard now than I did when I was first starting businesses? Yes, but it is.

It's still not passive. It's still not passive. It still requires me to. Click, keep the flywheel going, or someone, you know, it's either gonna be me or I'm gonna have to pay someone else. So it's gonna require something for me. So for me, it's about. Defining what I want and being very clear about that. Uh, so I start with what are my highest life priorities?

What are the three to five things that matter most to me? Uh, and for my moms, I'm always saying, and you go first. Like, the first highest life priority is my wellbeing. The things that light me up, me, just the me category. And then for most of my mums, they have a, a family or a parenting highest life priority.

And they have, uh, some of them don't, but most of them have a significant other that they're doing life with. So those are kind of the foundations. And then I wanna think about, and obviously business, because I work with women in business, uh, they have that. So there's some sort of. List of three to five things, no more than that.

No human being can manage more than juggling those things at any one time. And then I want you to think forward 10 years from now, which is sometimes a big ask, but 10 years from now, what do you want each of those highest life priorities to look like for you? And I recommend people do that on their own, first and foremost, before they have the conversation with their.

Significant other with their families, just purely because you'll get group think in one way or another. And I always say in our household it's group think in Sarah's way, uh, just because I'm, that's how it's always happened. And so I'm always encouraging my husband to do his thinking and then come and he shares first, and then I share second.

So we are not influencing each other. Can I, can I just put a little bit of science in that because it's really fun? Yeah. Yeah. When we do this inside of every single, whenever we do this inside of any type of like partnership or group. There's been all the, these studies done that show that that's actually how more creative solutions happen and do it your first, then bring it forward, and then the creativity occurs.

And so also really good way of staying true to yourself. But yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so when we first started doing this, Johnny and I had quite different visions of what long term would look like. You know, it's like we're gonna have a 10 house property portfolio and this many stocks and shares and this business running like that, and that business running like that.

And Jane's like, I just wanna be able to travel on us to be able to move around all the time and not be tied to any one place. And I was like, oh, I'm not sure. I don't know how those two fit together. And then, so then we had to come to somewhere in the middle, uh, and we have some of my stocks shares, property investments, and we are living location free so we can move around and do whatever we want.

And so we built towards that. So that was a 10 year goal. And we got to that in seven for us. So being really clear about what you want in each of those and including in the way that you want a parent. Like what does that look like? Do you want mainstream school? Do you wanna unschool, do you wanna homeschool?

Do you wanna, like, what are the things from your baby arriving to 10, what is that gonna look like for you? Uh, and people always say, me, Sarah, 10 years is a long time. I'm like, it is. And I want you to think that big 'cause you'll overestimate what you're gonna do in the next 12 months and you're gonna underestimate what you're gonna do in 10 years.

So thinking like that, and I always say to people, the easiest way to get a frame of how much you could achieve in 10 years is look at at what you've done in the last 10 years. So for me, like what have I done since I was 33 to 43? You know, I imagine a lot of your women are significantly younger than me.

So what did they do from 23 to 33? And when they list it all out and go, oh wow, there's been so many experiences that we've had. Okay, now I can put that frame of reference over what we want to create so that you are clear about what we want. Because as humans, we're very good at listing all the things we don't want.

It's really interesting, some of the things that I've been focusing myself. Also teaching over the past six months have been letting go of, I feel like especially with business, sometimes people come in and they're like, I want to achieve this. I want to sell this group program. And, and, and not only is that this hustle energy that's coming from a dysregulated place, coming from a place of I have to achieve so that I can prove to myself that I'm smart so that I can prove to my dad that I'm smart, whatever the reason is.

But what you are talking about is. What has naturally occurred, both for myself and my clients as we've become like quote unquote more regulated or doing more of this healing, which is like, this is what I actually care about and it would be really wonderful if this business in this way was to funnel into and to serve that.

But if at any time I find that it does not that I'm going to switch to something that does, it just becomes so much less about this attachment of like. I need to sell this. One thing I need to book out. It's like, does this, does this pour into my top three to five values and then letting it go? Yeah. And I think, so that's the other piece.

So first and foremost is like, what is your life, right? What are your last life Friday look like? And then we talk about the business is a separate entity from you. It's not you. Yeah. Um, if you're building a business. Lots of people are self-employed, and that's totally cool. It's a different frame.

Completely. Um, so if you're building a business, then the business has to have a reason for being other than just to make money. It has to be profitable for it to be sustainable, for it to support, it's the vehicle that is financially supporting our family. And I wear two hats in there, right? I wear the, the shareholder investor, and I wear the employee, you know, shareholder, employee hats.

I just get paid. A fair market wage for the work that I do in my business and I should also get paid a return on investment for my, uh, investment in it as well. Because there's years where we invest in our businesses with time and energy and focus where we don't get a return and further down the track.

I'd like that to return. Those things should happen. That's what businesses exist for. And with women, I find predominantly it needs to have a bigger why. It needs to have a bigger impact than that. My clients are not getting outta bed every day to make another hundred bucks, another thousand bucks. So sell out however many group.

People in the group, the it has to have an impact. Whether it be that they are making incredible craft ethical chocolate, or they are running early childhood centers, they have a bigger why underlying that. And so understanding not just that a business has to be sustainable, it also I find is far more aligned for us when we.

Have that why behind it and that it's impactful and it's, and it's leaving a legacy for us. We wanna be building that. Intergenerational wealth in all the ways, not just in, I'm leaving more money behind than, you know, potentially I was given. It needs to be in, you know, physical wellbeing is a, a, a legacy wealth thing that we can give to our children.

Our, emotional wellbeing, our energetic wellbeing, our, all of those things matter. Our spiritual wellbeing matter as much as the financial, in fact, in most cases. I would say more so, it's just that we're so, I. Conditioned that financial wellbeing will bring all those other things, it's not necessarily true.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that makes sense. And there's a podcast that I just recorded on how to identify why and how we also, how why we need to return to it after we've done more healing, I found, you know, people here are like, are doing that conscious like trauma healing and shadow work. And we go into a lot of this work thinking.

That it's gonna be, we wanna make some level of contribution and then we have to reorient say, wait a second, was that actually from the pure assess of who I am or was that based off of fear or based off of, I wanna save somebody 'cause that helps me save myself. And so it's very interesting. We have another podcast, I link that below.

But I wanna end on, I wanna re turn back to something that you spoke about and maybe we can end here. You spoke about how we're so much more capable of achieving a lot more than we think about in 10 years. I'll be honest. I'll say, you know, last weekend I made a vision board with some friends and. I cannot poss I, I actually cry regularly.

'cause I'm like, oh my God, how did I make this amazing life? I couldn't have pictured it. I could not have understood how wonderful it could have been. And there were so many moments where I was like, oh my gosh. It is like, I feel alone. I feel, I feel bad. I feel like I'll never be able to get what I want.

And then I just kind of landed myself in a place where I'm able to look around and be like, wow, this is so much better than I could have. I could have, I could have set goals for. Um, can you tell us about some of the cool things that you've seen some of the women in your community do from this approach?

I. Government is flowing. Yeah. Well we're not, we're not hung up in how it unfolds. Right. And people are always like, but how Sarah? But how? I'm like, just let go of the help just for a moment. Just be clear on exactly what it is you desire and what it is you want. Like really clearly in a positive frame and watch how it magically appears.

And I'm like, I had one client who, um. Works in a space where she works with, people that have high medical needs and, and, and helps care in homes, uh, and because of a unsafe, uh, space, uh, in this particular home that they were providing the service in, uh, she decided to remove themselves from the contract.

Uh, the contract was nine or just under $2 million. Uh, and so went from having this $2 million income stream to nothing overnight. Hmm. Uh, because it was unsafe for her team, unsafe, she felt she couldn't put them in the space. Uh, within three months, four months, uh, she'd built the structures, she'd taken the structures that she'd built previously where we were, you know, getting it out of her head and into a format that other people can use so that she wasn't on call 24 7.

'cause that. Tended to be what happened. And she literally stood up the same support network for a new client that was safe and aligned and fabulous for her and her team, uh, over the Christmas period without sacrificing her family time. And then in April she hopped on a plane business task in Singapore with her whole family, um, including one of her children who are, this is why she got into it, who are high needs, uh, medically.

Um. For Singapore business class, had a beautiful few days staying at Marina Bay Sands. I said Enjoy sipping cocktails in the, in the pool with your children. The kids were just mostly excited to fly business class. Uh, so you know, anything's possible even when barriers come because we're not in control of that environment out there.

We're not in control of what other people are doing. It's constantly evolving and so it's our job just to make the best of what shows up. So that was pretty cool. I've got other clients. Who are in the craft chocolate game and uh, if you know anything about cacao and, and the chocolate game, there's some pretty unethical practices.

And they were like, we are not going to do that. So we are gonna go straight to source. We're gonna pay above market price for our cacao, and we're gonna make sure that we're doing a small batch. Ethical way of working. And so they do that. They landed their biggest subscription contract ever this year going into the UK at Little New Zealand.

Uh, and, uh, considered one of the best chocolate craft chocolate iers in the world. Um, and they did all of that out of their house, and they're now in a big processing spa, uh, processing plant for themselves so that they've got space at home to be a family and things at home as well. Oh man. All sorts of cool stuff.

I've got people that have got SCE centers that have purchased the second one, expanded the team, um, supported and, and I think the ripple effects are, the big thing for me is that I couldn't make the same impact in the world that I'm able to make through the woman I work with in business where I.

They're not just leveling up their life and their family's life, but they're also allowing their team members to become the best version of themselves. 'cause they're leading them from a really, um, clear place. Yeah. And going, Hey, you are here. You can grow with us. And when you go, you can go with love and grace and knowing that we've given you everything you can and you've given everything you can to the role.

And so the impact of, you know, taking women that are working for them and lifting them up from, you know, being an ECE. Teacher to now, Hey, you're helping me run the center. You are running this, you know, you're the center manager. It, it's, you know, I could go on and on. There's so many women that have done so many things and still have the presence to be there for their kids, you know, still can be there when they're teenage girl is having trouble at school with their friends or, you know, they've got medical challenges with a child.

Like they can be there for all of those things. Or just the day to day stuff like at. Practice at the game on the weekend without it feeling pressured. They can actually be present. They don't have to be on their phone doing whatever they're doing or on their laptop. They can be at the moment when they're being mum.

They also have the space and time to be an ambitious business owner. 'cause you can do both that. Yeah. One not mean you are bad at the other. You just have to, like you talked about those boundaries. Really clear. This is when I'm on, this is when I'm off. Uh, so that you can be both or how many places you need to be.

Yeah, I am hearing or taking away and, and this is just me, I'm sure everyone else will take away kind of like, what is it that you want? What is it that you want? What is it that you really, really like? What do you want? Let yourself want it. Let yourself imagine what it could be. Um, share that with your partner.

Find the middle ground. One thing that I really love, when mine and I were dating, we spoke about this and he's like, I really like co-creation. He's like, I love the idea of two people bring one. Different visions, and then you co-create something that's even better. And so what is it that you want, uh, focus on leverage.

Get the things outta your brain that you, this is hard for me. Uh, I've been trying it, it's difficult. That's, but like, what are the things that you know intuitively that if you, that you've had a body to get them out, actually teach them? It requires effort. Um. Let other people do it. Let yourself have support.

Stop trying to be hyper independent. Passive income doesn't exist and ground into the why. And God, women are great aren't they? Like present. Women doing really good work in the world, being valued for what they bring, that is incredibly transformational and important. I, yeah. I just, I think it, it changes the world significantly when we've got a next generation that are looking at mom and Dad as both co-creators of the world that we live in, rather than pigeonholing us into gender roles.

Um, I have a daughter who doesn't ever look at something and go. I can't do that 'cause I'm a girl or I can't do that 'cause I'm not a boy. She looks at the world with everything's possible for me. What am I most interested in? What lights me up the most? And she leans into that. And then we have got the space and time to help her lean into that.

And we have got the, like you say, the nervous system regulation to be able to say when I've been dysregulated, I'm sorry. And own it and move on. Or you know, help her move through those things as well. And. Everything you do as a parent is a first, every time everything you do. And so you, you don't know what you don't know and you're learning the whole way.

And so be ready for that. It's such a journey of evolution and learning the whole way along. And the moment we started sharing that with Scarlet and going, well, the first time you do anything, it's the first time we've ever done it As a parent, you know, how did we do? The game changes. And so if you've got space and time to do that, when you decide to be a mom, if you decide to be a mom, both are totally valid options.

Uh, then you could have fun doing it. Like it doesn't have to be a ball and chain. It can be a, a really fun journey and experience that you can do as a family. Beautiful. Thank you Sarah, so much. How can our listeners find you continue? Learning from you possibly work with you, what do they need to know?

Yeah, so the simplest, easiest way to get in contact with me is at Sarah Greener coach on Instagram. Uh, go hit me up and we can have a chat in the dms or, uh, the best thing actually, I think is having a really clear roadmap if you are building a business, and that's what the Moxie Roadmap does. It, it has you look at.

Those foundations so that you can be like, oh yeah, okay. I've got all those pieces in place before we go to the next level.