Transcript
For anybody out there who is interested in starting their own business and wants to, and is not sure where to start, I would just encourage you just start anywhere. Which might sound a little simple, but you have to start somewhere, right. And even if it’s just something as simple as writing down what it is that you want to do, that’s kind of remind whole thing started is I knew what I didn’t want any more a few years back. And so I just started basically a note on my laptop, just throwing out ideas of what it is I would like to be doing how much money, I would like to be making what my service would look like. And I even got so detailed as to where I wanted to live and what kind of place I wanted to live in. I just kind of basically came up with a very pretty specific vision of what it is that I wanted. And from there, there’s a lot of power in, and first of all, owning what it is that you want. And then there’s a lot of power too, and just verbalizing that. So writing it down, just let yourself dream, which might sound a little bit silly. But the biggest thing is really just allowing yourself and giving yourself the freedom to own what it is that you want and then go for it. Even if it’s just baby steps, starting out, you may just write it all down, start a little tiny side business, or you may even just start researching what it is you want. But I think really the single first thing most important step is just to own it because I think a lot of times as mothers, especially as single mothers, we can put what we want last and what we want last or what we need last, behind the kids and behind everything else. So I think giving yourself permission to want what you want to go for it is the first big step.
I followed you guys on social media for a long time. I love Instagram. So things like Boss Babe pages like that, I’m a words person. So I love any kind of like verbal quotes. I find like word encouragement really, really important. I’ve tended to shy away from a lot of the mom focused groups and not to be judgmental against other mothers. I am a mother, but I find a lot of the mom groups, even if they’re business focused that I’ve gone to before, especially here in America, you just end up talking about your kids, you know? And I’m like, I don’t want to meet with other mothers to talk about my kids. I don’t, I spend every day with them. Like, let’s talk about interesting things. Right? So I don’t spend a lot of time with the mom groups, even the business focus, mom groups, but I do really find, other business pages, things like Forbes, personal motivator, people like Tony Robbins. I follow him because I think he’s amazing. Those sorts of things are really encouraging for me and help kind of keep me on the path to moving towards where I want to go. Another important thing is to have surround yourself with close people who will support you, you know, at least a few good friends. Sometimes families hard to convince to support you in your entrepreneurial endeavors, especially depending on, on how they think.My mom is somewhat supportive, but she can’t really relate because she was a full time mother of eight children for decades. So she can’t really give me the moral support I needed. So you just find, if you find a few other individuals who will support you, that’s also super, super helpful and important.
Single moms can make amazing entrepreneurs. Because motherhood teaches you to prioritize. I would say, if nothing else you learn as a mother, how to get things done. Maybe not always get things done perfectly or amazingly or beautifully, but you do just learn how to better manage your time, and get more done. At least this is in my own experience. Since I became a mom, I was able to get a lot more done in the less amount of time, just kind of by default. And I would say the other reason, at least from, from my own experience personally, is a lot of times hard times can drive you to wanting a lot more for yourself. So in all honesty, right after I was divorced from my now ex-husband, our divorce lasted so long and ended up with this horrible dramatic story and it cost me a ton of money. So I was flat broke at the end of it, like broke, pathetically broke. And I just remember feeling like, okay, I remember kind of making a conscious decision that I was not going to raise my kids as poor children to a single parents, you know, I think a lot of times people still kind of think that if you’re a single mom and the numbers speak for it, you know, single mothers tend to not be the highest earners. Right. And for me, that was a strong driving force because I was like, I’m not going to be a statistic. I didn’t want to be a single mom statistic. I don’t know, like a low level, low standard of living, it was kind of this brief taste of struggling, like really struggling financially. And then also seeing the numbers of how single parent households these were US-based numbers. I’m not sure what they are in Europe exactly. But in the US single parent households are really, really sad. And I didn’t want that for myself or for my kids. So I think single parents can tap into a deep desire to succeed, and that can really feel you. At least it did me, as I did not like being broke, and that fear and living in this place of lack and wondering if I was gonna be able to take care of my kids. So that was a very, very strong driving force. And I think the single parents can tap into that very raw emotion and let it fuel them.
I read a long time ago, and I’m not sure if she was married at the time, but a long time ago, I remember reading about Vera Wang, the clothing designer, she designs bridal gowns and ball gowns. She’s American, that she was a mom. And I’m not sure if was single. I want to say she was in my mind, she was a single mom. She may have been a married mom, but I remember reading somewhere that she would stay up till three, four in the morning, working on her designs because during the day she was working and taking care of her kids, and I read that ages and ages ago, and I remember thinking, wow, okay, that is awesome. That’s inspiring. I thought it was interesting cause she wasn’t just an overnight success story that, you know I’m suddenly making these beautiful ballgowns and making a ton of money and super famous and successful. She was putting in the long, hard hours of work. That was inspiring.
And then there was another woman who actually is my future mother-in-law. I just recently got engaged. And I’ve known the family, this guy’s from my hometown of Georgia that I’ve known him for forever, but his mom was a single mom and she had two boys and an age, 35, she went back to college and went to law school. So she had two young boys. She’s a single parent, went to law school. She had been a secretary and just reached the point where she’s like, you know what, no, I don’t want this life for myself. So I’m going to become a lawyer. She worked, went to law school, raised two kids, and she’s just built this really great life for herself. And that was also like very inspiring to know a real person who I’m close to, who has built that for herself. And it’s cool. Cause she’s in her sixties and she’s still working. She dresses great. She’s got this energy. She’s my new mentor. It’s nice to have somebody who has kind of blazed the trail before you. And isn’t some famous person that’s out of touch. Right. But somebody specific that you know, that you can look up to and be like, okay, she is goals, you know.
