Ep #195: Being Fully Present at Work and at Home

Welcome to the Make Money as a Life Coach® podcast where sales expert and master coach Stacey Boehman teaches you how to make your first 2K, 20K, and 200K using her proven formula.

Hey coaches, welcome to episode 195. Today we’re going to talk about being fully present at work and at home, that elusive work life balance. So, I’ve been thinking about this a lot as I have recently had a new baby and I’m coming back from maternity leave. I have spent a lot of time over the years working on the result of working three days a week and making x amount of millions of dollars, three days a week and $10 million. And taking lots of vacation time.

And I always teach my Two Million Dollar Group students and even my 200K students how important it is to have a robust home life, whether you have children or not, whether or not you have a spouse or not. Whatever your life would be outside of work, making sure that that’s very robust. And what happens a lot of times when we are building businesses is we, especially as life coaches, we teach people how to do life, how to have more expansive lives. We forget to have a life.

And then when we’re working we really struggle with, how do I balance both. So now after spending many years doing this on myself as a single person and then as a newly married person, working three days a week with a multimillion dollar business. I’m challenging that even at another level now that I’ve added this little baby human into my life. And it feels more, here’s what it is.

Before when I did not have my little baby human, I was able to get away with, you know, let the lines be blurred a little bit more then now I feel comfortable in my heart and soul doing. And so, I’m at this next level of going through this work and figuring out how I really want to have this presence when I’m working that allows me to feel like I’m living my fullest potential and doing my big work in the world. And then when I’m at home I just want to feel like mama and my husband’s wife.

And I want to be all in on my family as if I would be if I were a stay at home mom. And I know that that’s a really big ask. But I will say I’m not doing it perfectly, let me be very clear. There has definitely been a lot of bumps in the road. I will say the thing that was the hardest for me was just going back to work in general. I did the episode on Value Bank 2.0 where I really had to focus my thoughts very differently when I went back to work and get very excited about my clients and the value I was creating in the world.

And then I got on stage at 200K Live, and I got really excited about that room. And just anchored back to my own mission, and my own why, and me as an individual person. So that was more of my work here. But now to get back into work, but now that I’m back at work it really is, how do I really get the most out of the time I have with my son. And make every moment count and not let hours just disappear where I’m sucked into my phone, or sucked into TV, or doing things unconsciously that I don’t want to be doing.

And how do I really laser in and do high quality work in the times that I do have working especially when I’m nursing? And that schedule’s all day long, it’s not just I get to be in my office for eight hours uninterrupted and the focus is easier. It’s every three hours there is an interruption and an engagement with my son. So, I’ve been doing this work of being fully present and really focusing on my home life and my work life as separate entities.

And I have found three things that have helped me be incredibly successful at this in a way that surprised me. Even though there’s been bumps in the road, surprised at how well I have been doing this thus far. And I wanted to share that with you all because there are a lot of new mamas, especially in 200K that are coming in as new mamas into the 200K work or they have 200K businesses.

And now they’re having new babies, or you might be starting your business and you have teenagers who are in high school and they’re playing sports. And they’re learning to drive and so you have this pull at home that you really want to be all in for. And even if you’re single and again you just love to travel and you are on the dating scene and you want to be all in, in that scene. I want you to be able to have a robust home life.

And so, I want to share these three things that I think have been really important in me achieving this. I really genuinely, I know a lot of people talk about it and it feels kind of like bullshit for no better term but that’s not been my experience. I think it really is the only reason that I am able to still achieve what I’m achieving. My 200K live event was the best work I’ve ever done. I enjoyed so much of my experience there that week and doing Two Million Dollar Group and doing a team day with my team.

And I felt like I actually took a vacation with my child and my family. And we had our first family vacation and there were so many little moments woven in that matter in my memories. And so, I want to share how I’ve done all that so you can start implementing some of these things for you. Okay, so let’s just without further ado dive in.

And actually, I just want to say one more thing which is, no matter where your journey is whether it’s you’ve got a new baby at home, you’ve had kids for a very long time at home but you’re introducing a new business. That new business is now your new baby. Or you just want to have an incredible life outside of your business. This episode is for you so don’t put it aside. So, let’s dive in.

So, number one, and I was coaching someone on this that had nothing to do with babies and kids at all recently in our last 200K class. So, everyone listen, this one’s the most important one if you want to have defined boundaries and defined lines between work and home. Alright, are you ready? And some of you are not going to love this, especially my creatives out there. I get it. I used to be like this, but the number one thing is scheduling. And I’m going to break it down for you.

So, number one, you have to decide actual working hours and off hours firmly ahead of time. Number two, you have to put it on the calendar. And you have to put it on the calendar as first priority first. So how I do this is for example, I put my nursing schedule in my calendar before any of my work stuff. I put my days off in my calendar and my hours off within the days that I do work. All of that goes in first. And then number three is I honor it.

Now, number four, when I can’t honor it, when things go astray I look at what is most important temporarily and why. Now, that might actually be my business and that might be for example, my health or it might be my child. I have lots of examples of this. One of the things when I first came back from maternity leave the day I was scheduled to come back I came down with the most wicked virus ever. I was sick for four week straight. I missed two full weeks of work. I could not even talk, I was just coughing so much. It was not COVID, but I was so, so sick.

And in that moment I could not honor any of my schedule, any of my deliverables. I couldn’t even put my child first. It was like there were times when my nanny and my husband were feeding my child and I was missing nursing schedules just because I needed to get sleep. I couldn’t get enough sleep to actually get better. I mean it was really wild how sick I was. So that was a time where it was just really obvious that the most important thing was my health. I was having supply issues with my milk supply. It was crazy.

It was very easy to decide that that was my priority. When I got better the 200K live event was coming up and because I had been sick, also the last two weeks before I went on maternity leave, I got COVID. So, I literally bookended my maternity leave on both ends with being horribly ill. And so, I missed four weeks of my time to write sales emails for our prelaunch. And work on our 200K Live content and all of those things.

So, when I came back I had to prioritize those things, meaning even though I didn’t want to and even though it was a little uncomfortable I left my house, booked a room at a hotel, and spent the entire day 9/10 hours straight working on the content, and organizing it, and putting it together for our live event. And it was so easy, actually I don’t want to say it was so easy. It was so clear to make that distinction. I knew what had to be done. So that’s another way you could frame it, is when you can’t honor it, when things go astray you look at what has to be done.

And then I’ll give you just one last example. When I first came back to work one of the things that was happening is my team were scheduling me, putting in my schedule and then I’d have back to back calls and there was no time for nursing. And I told them, I made a decision, “I’m nursing. That’s what I’m doing. So, you have to change my schedule, you have to rearrange it.” We came up with what most likely would be my son’s nursing schedule and we put that in the calendar.

And then I honored that, there was a time where I was on a team meeting, and I just nursed on the call. I was like, “This is what’s happening, it’s the priority, this is what happens.” So, if things go astray you have to look at what’s the most important temporarily and why. And then recognize that prioritizing what’s most important right now, so hear me say this, recognizing that’s what’s most important right now doesn’t make it most important always. That’s so important, if you have to prioritize your business for a day, a week, a couple of weeks.

You might need to do that, it doesn’t mean you’ll always do that, it just means that in that moment your business needs you the most out of everything. I always talk about this idea of protecting the profit with my students, sometimes you have to protect the profit because protecting the profit means protecting the family. So, you just look at when things go astray what’s the most important and why. And that it’s not going to always be the most important always.

And I do think it’s important to note here that the reason this feels like it’s been mostly working for me, and I feel like I’m doing a really great job transitioning is because I’m staying out of all or nothing thinking. So, all or nothing thinking is I always put my family first and my business gets leftovers. So, in the summertime I disappear from working while my kids are on summer break, and I stop taking clients, and I stop marketing, and I shut it down and I forget I have a business.

Or all or nothing thinking on the other end is I can’t leave my business ever, if I stop thinking about it for a second the money will dry up. I think you will have the most success protecting your time and your profit with being in the middle, taking each situation at a time. And asking yourself in this moment, where is my attention most important and why for now. And you do have to be willing to be flexible and not tethered to your schedule.

So, for example, if I have scheduled myself to work and let’s say my child is really fussy and is going through a leap or a growth spurt, and he really needs his mom. If I’m working on off camera stuff but it’s got a deadline I might work after he goes to bed in order to get the work done. If it’s not time sensitive I might move it to another week. If it’s on camera I have to decide, show up and let someone else love on my baby like my husband, my nanny. It’s a great time for him to get special time with dad.

Or just in general just to let someone else comfort him. That’s an important thing for him to learn as well. Or I have to find a replacement coach or reschedule. I personally for my own, the way I like to do things, I will only do that in the event of something really serious. If I’m scheduled to show up somewhere, I take that to be really important. But I get to ask myself each time what my answer is for each scenario and why. Holding both my personal and my business values and not seeing them through that all or nothing lens.

And what I don’t do or what I won’t do is beat myself up for not working when I said I was going to, or for working from bed while my son sleeps, or for example I’ve made notes for this podcast while my son was taking a three hour nap in my arms after getting his vaccines. I’m not going to beat myself up for that. The way I think about that is you would never beat yourself up for taking a detour on your route because the road is closed. You would never take that personally.

So, flexibility is key, and I think when you’re truly honoring your calendar in most normal situations it’s much easier to recognize times where you need to be flexible and not beat yourself up when things go awry. But when you don’t have a schedule and set times for off and for on and everything is sort of left up in the air. And there’s a lack of organization and lack of decisions ahead of time, that I think is what creates the feeling, that guilty feeling or feeling behind, or the judgment and the beating yourself up, and questioning your choices, and how you’re spending time.

If you feel uncertain about how you’re spending your time, it is likely because you don’t schedule and honor it. So, you don’t have that predominant self-concept within yourself of I schedule things, and I honor them. And I’m super clear about my boundaries around work and home so I don’t have to beat myself up or change how I think about myself if something goes awry.

And I need to be flexible and reschedule because my predominant viewpoint about myself is that I always show up and I always deliver, and I always honor my calendar, and I always, honoring that boundary. I remember a time where I would consider myself a hot mess, that I never scheduled anything, and I was always late. And I just kind of never knew when I woke up and showered and got ready for the day exactly what I was going to do that day. It was just like, well, whatever gets done today, whatever I feel like.

Wherever my creative flows take me, it was much easier for me to beat myself up. It was much harder for me to figure out what was the priority and why. It was much harder for me to be present when I was off work and when I was working. I would be running errands in the middle of my workday. Everything felt scattered and so of course my reaction to things happening in my schedule and all of that. Of course, that reaction would also be all over the place and scattered because of my predominant self-concept.

But when you develop that concept of trust with yourself, I schedule, I honor it, and I have my priorities very clear, I know where my boundaries are with my work time and my off time, and then something happens, it’s just so much easier for you to handle it really powerfully and to decide what’s the most important.

So, if that’s not happening, you’ve got to clean that up. That’s the very first part, that’s a whole podcast almost in itself. But the next part that will help you do this is that you have to get to the essentials. So, this is step two in this three part process. Step two is you have to get to the essentials. So, you have to let go of the smaller things that used to matter or that might feel like are very important now. And delegate decisions to either your team, or your support system, or just stop doing them.

If you want to have very clear boundaries and time, and this is what most people do is when they go to schedule they realize, oh my God, there is no way I can get all the things done that I typically get done. Which is why most of you end up working in your off hours to begin with is you didn’t properly estimate what needs to go on your schedule. So, in order to get everything on the schedule and still be able to honor all the work time that you want off, you have to edit what goes on the schedule both personally and in work.

So, I’m going to give you some examples especially for the new mamas if you’re like me and everything feels important. So, at home, this is a silly example, but I remember ordering these top of the line diapers and wipes, Coterie, I just was so excited. They were so soft and so luxurious, but my nanny and my husband didn’t like them. They didn’t think that they worked as well as other things. My husband found the formula. He ended up being the one to research and find that.

He found a stroller, I didn’t love it, but I just kept using it. So, I let them decide the diapers, I let them decide the formula, I let them decide the stroller. These are things I just didn’t have time to put on my calendar. And they felt like things that although I could have ruminated on and let them be really, really important. I just decided there were other things that were and we’re going to talk about that in just a minute. But what are the things that you could let go? What are the decisions you could stop making, the things you could let other people do? Maybe that’s make dinner at home.

Maybe that’s doing the laundry. In your business that might be, especially if you have a bigger business, like someone writing copy for you, or someone running your social media. And for me it was really small things I noticed at the 200K event. We do these videos at the beginning of every day that are super inspirational and very tailored to what we’re going to talk about for the day. And I always approve those ahead of time. And my team is like, “Do you need to see this video and approve it ahead of time?”

And I’m like, “Do we have time to redo it?” They’re like, “No.” I’m like, “Well, then do I need to look at it? It’s going to be great, put it out there. I don’t have time to review that.” Or we do my slideshows that I’m teaching, I really like every line to be clickable. And once they got everything done they hadn’t made it clickable. And we didn’t have time to fix it and I just had to let it go. I had to let them do the slideshow for the first time the way that they needed to do it just for it to get done since I’d been sick for so long.

That’s normally something we have plenty of time to review. But because I had been sick for so long we didn’t have that luxurious amounts of time to do that, so I just had to let it go with how they decided to do it. And it was totally fine anyway. So maybe when you decide what’s essential and what you’re going to let go of, I’m letting this go… and it will be totally fine. And so, you may have to hire help or be okay with things not getting done. So, what’s not essential when you look at all the things that you have to schedule on your calendar, that’s going to be your favorite question.

I’ve noticed myself thinking sometimes that I need to be at every single bath time for another example. But my husband loves bath time. So, I let him have that as his thing and I jump in if it’s easy and natural which is more than 50% of the time. But early on I noticed that my brain was telling me, I needed to be there a 100% of the time. And I’m not always working during bath time, almost never am I actually working during bath time. But sometimes that’s time for me. It goes back to I also have to be a priority.

Or sometimes it’s more helpful for me to do something else around the house so that Neil gets to have time at the end of the day for him. Now, that’s just one more example but I want you to just know you might not have – your life as I’m giving these examples may not be set up like me. I don’t want you to get too caught up in that. But instead apply it to how it makes sense for you and your setup. And I really suggest asking yourself in your business and your personal life, what are your essentials and why?

What is most important to you? And I really had to question this for myself with my brand new baby. What do I care the most about? And I find this with entrepreneurs, you guys think you have to do everything in your business, you’ve got to be all over the place, on all the social media platforms. You’ve got to be doing all the things that everybody’s doing compiled into one instead of what do I love the most to do? Where do I like to be? What are the things that are the most essential for me?

There isn’t a right answer to that. Some people love Facebook. Some people love Instagram. Some people don’t want to be on social media at all. They want to be in person. Some people don’t have the ability to be in person. So, you’ve got to think ,what’s the most essential for me? What feels most important to me and why? You may not have the same setup as me. Don’t get caught up in that. You have to apply what I’m talking to you about and teaching you today for how it makes the most sense for you and your setup.

And so, I really do suggest it’s not just what is not essential but really asking yourself in your business and in your personal life, what is essential and why? What is most important for you? So, it’s when you look at your schedule and you’re looking at what can I take off and then also knowing what always has to be on there. So, I’m going to give you some examples. With my baby, my most important things are nursing rather than pumping for at least 75% of the feedings, if not all of them.

I’m willing to go down to 50% if I have to but my goal is always to be at 75% or more or all nursing feedings. I want to take a walk with my baby every single day. I want to be at least a few playtimes every single day. I always joke, I’m the fun parent with my dogs, with my kid. I love playtime so that’s going to be a really important one for me. I don’t care so much about being the person who puts him down for naps or gets him dressed. I don’t have to be with him for that first hour of the day. He’s so sweet then, you all. He’s so sweet.

And if I get plenty of sleep I love to have that time with him but if I didn’t I let my husband have it. And I go back to sleep. I’m going to talk about this in an upcoming episode as well about protecting the asset. But I’ve got to have my sleep if I’m going to be coaching all day. Something that I also don’t care as much about is packing for trips. I would love to do it if I had time but my nanny’s better at it, I let her do it. I let her pick out all the things.

And Neil, he gets to be in charge of giving the meds, and the probiotics, and things like that. If we’re feeding a bottle I almost always delegate that out and take that break. Baths are optional. But see how clear I am based on my preferences and what’s most important to me. The walk, the playtime, nursing. I know those three things matter to me the most.

For my business, sales emails, the podcast, and the coaching itself are some of the things that are the most important, or the most enjoyable for me, or teaching at our live events. What I don’t handle all the time is our social media or our intricate funnel work. If they need me to write new content, or create a new funnel I’m going to do that. But to maintain them and do these little tweaks, I’m not so much involved with that. I don’t attend most of our team meetings. I only do the final interviews for hiring candidates.

I know other CEOs who want to be at the meetings, but they might delegate out writing the sales emails for example. The other thing you guys all have to consider because I’m giving you examples for where I’m at now. But what’s most important for you at the stage that you’re at. You might not be at the stage to hire anybody. You might not be at the stage to retire with your husband. So, what’s the most important for you at your stage and what is not essential at your stage?

And then the final piece of the three things that will help you achieve a more fully present business experience and life experience is presence. I have to add this, it’s in the title and we’re talking about that’s the result that we’re after. But it’s something I feel like you have to say out loud. If you’re after the result of presence, if you’re after a more robust experience then here are the two things you can’t do. You can’t be thinking about work when you’re in your home life. And you can’t be thinking about your home life when you’re at work because then you’re not present.

So here are two ways that I like to think about this. This is what I tell myself and I tell my brain very intentionally. Stacey, you’re not getting work done thinking about work. No work is actually happening when you’re thinking about it and you’re not available to actually do it. So, you’re not getting work done thinking about work. And you’re not engaging with your family when you’re not with them. Our brain likes to think about engaging with our family but that’s not actual engagement.

It’s like, let me think about playing with my baby but I’m not actually playing with my baby so let’s do what I’m actually here to do. Don’t be elsewhere in your brain. You will have less of an experience with both this way. I literally tell my brain, I cannot work on this right now so why am I thinking about it, or, so don’t think about it. Because it happens, it comes up. I might be putting makeup on, and my brain wants to think about work. I’m like, “Wait, I’m not available for this right now.”

I actually noticed this even today when I was putting makeup on. I had this amazing idea for something I want to do this year in my business. And I almost went to go find my phone and message my EA and tell her to start getting the project moving and what she could be doing. And I could have done that right then and there, but it wasn’t my work time. It was my me time, it was my getting ready time. I only have so much of that before my baby wakes up and needs to be nursed again.

That’s in the calendar, it’s my me time and I’m not really available to work on it. It would actually take me a 30 minute potential either email or a meeting to give all the specifications. So, I just need to log that in the back of my brain for when I am available to work. So, if I’m not available to work on it right now, just stop thinking about it. And I just let it go. I’ll pick back up later when I am available to work on it. I have practiced this for years, only thinking about projects when I’m available to work on them.

I think our brain likes to be productive and multitask, so that’s what it’s telling you is that when you’re thinking about work when you’re doing other things is that you’re multitasking, you’re being more productive, you’re actually accomplishing more in your day. It’s a lie. The only thing that happens when you think about work when you’re not at work is it takes away from your personal enjoyment.

And one of the things I’ve also realized to myself and that I think about is that when I am not working and I’m thinking about work or when I’m thinking about my kid at work and feeling sad. Either of those scenarios take away from my personal enjoyment and my work potential. Our brain tells us it adds to it, but it really just takes it away. Now, it still happens and when it does, trust me, you can ask my employees about this, I’m such a verbal processor when I am thinking about one thing, when I’m trying to be present in another.

I’m a very verbal processor so I find it’s very useful for me to just say it out loud, when it does come up for me, address it, feel the emotion, not resist it and then I just move on so much quicker. So, I remember walking from the 200K event, I had just been teaching on stage and I was done for the day, so I was walking off and they were walking me to the elevator. And I just said out loud, “I’m really missing my kid right now. This is really hard.” I just expressed my feelings. I feel that heaviness and then I get back to the moment, to the work.

I was done for work for that day but if I didn’t say it out loud, I didn’t address it, I didn’t let myself feel my feelings, that would have carried with me through the rest of the day and then into the next day when I was on stage. So, it’s almost like if I give it the attention it wants for a moment, and I honor it then it lets me move on. If our emotions need attention and we just keep ignoring them and shoving them down then they keep coming back and asking again and again for that attention, ironically like little children.

So, 50% of the time or more, for me I experience this I feel more like 60/70% of the time. I am just in the moment. I’m working and I’m all in when I’m working. And I am in the joy of my baby when I’m playing with my baby and I’m all in present with him, not thinking about the things that I have to do. So more than 50% of the time that does work for me. Now, there is 25% of the time that I just need to verbally process some thoughts and emotions in order to get there.

And then there’s 25% of the time or less where I notice I’m not being present, and I just forgive myself when all else fails. If I have something really big drop on my plate and I start spinning and I think about it all bath time, all during bath time, or when we go on my coveted walk, my family walk. And I have to spend a whole lot telling my husband about it, I have grace for myself. I also tell myself I am carrying a lot. We all carry a lot. It’s okay to not carry it perfectly.

I’m going to say that again, I’m carrying a lot, you’re carrying a lot. It’s okay to not carry it perfectly. Now, the final note that I will make is as a new mom I have had a lot of wishful thinking about being a stay at home mom, legitimately thought about it a lot, just closing it down, or I’m taking time off. And I can imagine that that would be an even harder decision if my business was in the beginning stages. Right now, it’s pretty easy to talk myself out of it. I run a $10 million company and I love to fly private.

So, my husband’s always like, “I’m not going back to work so I need you to want to go back to work.” And we just kind of have that little inside joke. But I could, think back, if I had had this experience when I was just starting out before I made my first 2K, or I had just made 25K or even if I had just made 200K. I could see that that decision would be even harder.

But here’s what I remind myself and if you do happen to be a new mom and this could be something that comes up for you, I want you to be able to borrow this which is I think about how much I love what I do. And I think about that that is for me and I’m able to be able to afford things for my whole family’s future because of it. So, when I think about that, this work that I do even though it takes me away from my really robust amazing home life, this work that I do is for me.

And also happens to afford things for my family for their future because of it. I feel so grateful. So right now, when I want to just daydream about being a stay at home mom, instead I think about the fact that what I happen to love doing, coaching is also building us a dream life right now and in the future. And I get to get really excited about that as a piece of the puzzle of my really robust life. And thinking about figuring this out, figuring out how to run a 10 million, 20 million dollar company and add this new baby into my life.

This journey makes me feel really proud of myself. So that’s another thought that you can borrow. I get to have my business, do what I love and make money, and be an awesome mom. I have the ability, the opportunity to have all of that. So those are just a few of the thoughts you can borrow if you are, if you do happen to be a new mama, or a mama and you have these thoughts about it being really hard to manage both.

So, I really hope that this helps you out, you new mamas, old mamas, everyone, whatever stage you’re in, I hope it helps you, the non-mamas and the papas who haven’t had kids yet, or you don’t want them. I still hope this episode helps you create a more dreamy, delicious life outside of work. Again, know that the same process and mindset is how I got to three days a week and I’ve been able to travel the world which is also one of my priorities in living a robust fun life.

One of the things I love to do outside of my business before I even had a baby, also really into fashion. So, I’m planning New York Fashion Week in February. Something just for me that I love, that has nothing to do with business and nothing to do with being a mama, I just love that. And my business gets to help me deliver those things.

And I will say just one more final thing which is when you do this, when you do this work, and you actually have great quality time away from work your brain will be less stressed and less overworked and more potent when it is working. Which is why I think the 200K live event was so valuable and went so well, and was received so well by our students because my brain was working at its most potent level because I’ve been practicing this so deeply in the month that I’ve come back to work after maternity leave.

So, I really hope this is helpful for all of you out there. I love you all. Have an amazing week.

Hey, if you are ready to make money as a life coach, I want to invite you to join my 2K for 2K program where you’re going to make your first $2000, the hardest part, and then $200,000 using my proven formula. It’s risk-free. You either make your 2K or I give you your 2K back. Just head over to www.staceyboehman.com/2kfor2k. We’ll see you inside.