S3 E13 - Carrying Motherhood and Business

In this conversation, Sophia Hyde discusses the unique challenges faced by women who balance motherhood and entrepreneurship. She emphasizes the invisible mental load that comes with both roles and the importance of self-care to avoid burnout. Sophia introduces her upcoming program, Rest and Rise, aimed at helping women transform their aspirations into actionable goals while maintaining their well-being. She encourages listeners to challenge the notion that they cannot have it all and provides practical strategies for achieving a fulfilling life.

Click here to join the Rest and Rise 7-day Challenge for Ambitious Moms.

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Have a topic you would love to hear Sophia address on the podcast? Send your ideas to hello@sophiahyde.com

Transcript

Sophia Hyde (00:01.09)
Hello, welcome back This week's episode is dedicated and very specifically for women who find themselves at the intersection of motherhood and owning their own business and it's very very specific for you guys because I see you I Understand both of these worlds carry a massive invisible load

We know we've talked about the mental load of motherhood and how a lot of it is invisible. You're carrying the inventory, what size everybody is wearing. It doesn't matter if they're infants or adult children. If you have adult children, it still applies because you're trying to keep up with everything going on in their lives. They're an extension of your heart out in the world. You don't just shut it off. That mental load, that emotional load, it is still there from infancy and...

for the rest of your life, that is an extension of you and that carries an emotional and physical load. Now on the flip side, if you run a business, this also carries a massive invisible load because it is not the same as being an employee. If you are somebody's employee, you have been given a lane. You have been told this is your lane and these are your responsibilities. And you, that person,

gets to check out from the responsibility of all the other lanes. Now this may not apply if you are in a CEO role. So this also applies to people who are maybe not specifically the title of business owner, but they're a CEO. You're carrying the same load. But anyways, the point is, if you're at the top, then whether you are a solopreneur, then you're thinking about everything, you are every department.

And also if you have employees, it doesn't matter because you still have to know what's going on there. You are still managing them. If somebody asks you what's going on with the X, Y, and Z, you still have to be on top of it. Maybe not all the way in the weeds, but you're keeping your pulse on absolutely everything going on in the company. And if anything goes wrong, it's on you, right? Your leadership will be what is blamed, right? That's how responsibility works, how leadership works.

Sophia Hyde (02:26.422)
And so what ends up happening is when you have this stuff, is, it is different. We know so many people who are men who own their own business and they do not carry the same load as the mothers. It is different because your brain is firing all the time in both areas. And frankly, it's too much for one person and you're like, Sophia.

What are you talking about? It's too much for one person. You're doing it. Lots of people have done it. Yes, yes. But here's the deal. I have done it and many women have been very successful in both motherhood and business. But let me tell you something straight up.

You have to change every cell in your body from the core who you are to the outside. However you used to move through the world, if you decide to walk, I mean, first of all, motherhood changes you, period. I don't know anybody who is the same person after motherhood that they were before. That is just, mean, you change chemically, your body adjusts.

your mind is different, a lot of things are different. So motherhood changes you in general. But if you decide to take on entrepreneurship and motherhood at the same time, the things that used to work for how you move through the world will no longer work.

It is beautiful. You get to dream and create your own life. And you know, a lot of people love the flexibility of it, but there are also parts that are so much harder because I have walked both. I will tell you, even though a lot of times I may only work a 20 to 30 hour week in my business, it was still easier to work 40 to 50 hours a week for somebody else. And to easier in some ways, I shouldn't say that because

Sophia Hyde (04:24.76)
There are things about it that were harder. But it was easier to just check in, do my job and check out. Mentally, it was easier because I had my lane, I had my job. But at the end of the day, if that organization went down, it was on somebody else's shoulders, right? With my business, even if I technically only work 20 to 30 hours a week, there's another part of me that's literally always working because my brain is regularly shifting to my business. It's always on my mind.

I always know how we're doing financially, what's the month, what are the projections, what are the ideas. I'm always carrying motherhood with me and I am always carrying my business with me at the same time in every moment. Hell, I can be in the middle of sex and a business idea will hit me. It's always with you in a way that you can't shut it off the way that you could as an employee. And so I get it and I see you. And I wanna help you.

So I am gonna talk in this episode, I'm gonna get to this later in this episode, I'm gonna talk about something I'm launching called Rest and Rise. I'm gonna be dropping a course, a seven day challenge, but a digital course that's gonna teach you the fundamentals of how to simultaneously rise to your dreams and your goals and your ambitions and rest and rest. Because I will tell you straight up guys.

burnout, neglecting yourself, it's not going to get you there. And this is why I say it's too much for one person. If you try to keep moving through the world the way that you used to, you will end up hitting burnout. You will end up having health issues. It is not sustainable to carry the amount of weight that these women carry and not change how you move through the world. So let's talk about this. Here's one of the things that inspired this episode.

I was already working on the course, but then last week I had coffee with some other entrepreneurial women and somebody said, she was like, yeah, you know, I heard someone say, can't have it all at the same time, right? Something's always gonna be suffering, whether it is, you you wanna have a thriving business and your kids and your marriage and your self care and, you know,

Sophia Hyde (06:49.23)
Is the house clean and taken care of, right? Like some things you can't have all of it at the same time. And you know I said to her? I said, I call bullshit. I call bullshit. Now, I do think that for some people hearing that gives them a breath of fresh air because they probably, trust me, I get it. We all at some point feel like we're failing in one of these areas and you're just trying to keep your head above water. But if the story in your head is that that's the only way to move through the world.

then that is what you're going to prove to yourself and one of those areas are gonna be suffering on the regular. But I'm here to tell you that there is another way. And I call bullshit, you can have it all, you can. I won't accept otherwise. Now, on a given day, one of those balls is probably dropping. Last week, there was a day where I worked more than 12 hours in one day because I was trying to launch this product and I was excited about it.

and I skipped my workout. I skipped dinner with my family. I literally woke up, got ready for work, came to the office, spent the whole day at the office. And then when I came home, I made sure you're getting ready for bed. so I neglected a lot of the other things for one day because I was really excited and I had the energy for that and I wanted to pour it into this. But in that same week, I also left the office. I took a half day so that I could go to my son's open house from two to four in the afternoon. I.

checked in on friends, I think I had sex five out of seven days last week. I mean, there were a lot of great things about that week, but sure, in that one day, I didn't do any chores, I didn't spend any time with the kids, but my life as a whole, still thriving. And so on a day-to-day basis, sure, one of those areas might get neglected. There are...

My house is not clean every single day, but it does get cleaned every single week. Like I'm, I might get behind, but I'm going to catch up. I still have a, my home's still in great shape, even if there might be a day busier than the others. So I don't think that we need to accept this story that we can't have at all.

Sophia Hyde (09:11.66)
because I do believe it's possible. And there are people probably mad that I'm saying that because I get it. I used to say this quote all the time, you can have it all, but you can't have it all at the same time. And I will agree with you, like you have to pick your priorities. I would also love just like, I love school so much and I would so, so, so you guys have no idea how much energy I have spent researching PhD programs. And by the way, I only have a bachelor's degree, but I love learning so much and I would love to go back to school, back to school for my master's.

and I would love to get a PhD. And don't be surprised if one day you do end up calling me Dr. Hyde. my God, I just got chills. Like it made me happy just thinking that, like saying that out loud made me happy. That's how much I love school, but it has, it doesn't make sense right now in the season of my life, right? I am choosing to have that additional bandwidth without the load of what that does. I've said before, so there are parts of that, like you can have it all, but you can't have it all at the same time.

I get that, I've said before, I'll probably go back to college when I send my kids to college, right? When I don't have them in the home, I can probably pour more time into that extra education. But I'm choosing to delay that because it's not as big of a priority as all the things in front of me right now. So I understand at some level that concept of you can have it all, but you can't have it all at the same time.

Sophia Hyde (10:33.528)
But what I will not agree or support is if you think about the favorite life wheel, I do believe you can have a 10 out of 10 life. I do believe all your spokes can thrive and no one's going to change my mind, but I will teach you how, because I get that it's hard. I'm not saying it's going to be easy, but I want to teach you how. So here's, something that's that I really, really, think happens to too many people. I've done it before too.

It's really easy when you have all these responsibilities for all of these people to start using the language one day. And honestly, my husband and I, have built our entire marriage on one day. We have been dreamers since our first date. One day we'll, we were living in a 700 square foot, I'm sorry, 400 square foot studio and saying one day we'll have a house. And eventually we did, right? One day we'll start a family. was seven, we were married for seven years before we had our first kid.

It's like one day we're going to be parents and one day we'll have children. One day we'll have a house. We used to dream of like one day of I spent three years waiting for my minivan. It was like I wanted a minivan so bad, but I didn't make financial sense. So I spent three years talking about my dream minivan and then I did. So it was like one day I'll have a minivan and then I did. And then the mountains, right? We talked about one day we moved to the mountains and then we finally did. So I've spent a lot of time talking about one days and making them happen over and over and over and over again. One of the things that I have found to be really true though is that

the best way to turn a one day into today because most almost all my one days are today's except for some financial goals, some business goals that we have, like some things we still are dreaming and growing and creating. We have more one days to come, but the biggest way to transform a one day into today, your reality is to give it an actual date by when the what's the timeline.

How long is this going to take? Right? And what I have found is that most people set a timeline that has way too much time. Most things can be done in less time than we think. When the average person sets a new year's resolution goal, whatever they said they were going to do for 2025 or whatever year they're in, most of the time it is a goal that could be achieved in 90 days. And so this is part of why I'm launching the rest and rise seven day challenge.

Sophia Hyde (12:59.01)
because I wanna help people take this something about their life that is a one day goal and birth something in the last 90 days of this year.

and we're gonna take seven days to set it up. So I'm doing this seven day challenge so we can get some ducks in a row, teach you these methods, teach you this way, I call it the favorite life method. I'm gonna teach you the favorite life method and then see where you are in 90 days. And I'm gonna support you along the way. I have all that coming, okay?

How many one days do you live with? Just like stop and think about that right now. What do you say one day, one day what? You're going to take a vacation. do you have a dream vacation? Do you have a dream home? Do you have a dream place you want to live? What is the one day that you talk about? And let me ask you this. What would need to be true for that to be your reality by the end of this year, by next year?

And I get it, summer heavier lifts. I look at in our life, right? It was a three-year goal to move to the mountains. It didn't just happen overnight. But I also thought that the home that we have, I thought I was five to 10 years away from it and it happened now. Like, so sometimes you can literally do what's called collapsing time, where something that you thought was so far away can actually be available to you right now.

And that's what I want to focus on. What are the goals that we can collapse? When it comes to goal achievement, creating your favorite life and becoming, having this thriving business and thriving in motherhood and thriving in your relationship and your friendships. Like I do believe you can thrive in every area. But one of the things that people often get wrong with this work.

Sophia Hyde (15:03.306)
is they think that it requires working really hard. And I'm not gonna say you can be lazy and lay on the couch all day, but actually one of the things you could do that's the most detrimental is overworking, exerting too much energy, wearing yourself out, participating in hustle culture. Hustle culture does not work. I won't even follow, I will not follow even on my social media. Somebody who is perpetuating messages of hustle culture,

I remove them, any of their messaging from my life at all. Because it's just not true. One of the things that has to be true is that you have to take care of yourself. And so this is why it's called rest and rise. Because the only way that all those other areas can thrive is if you thrive. So how much sleep are you getting? And are you taking care of your body? And I know someone's listening to this and going, oh my God, Safiya, I don't even have the time. I'm barely keeping my head above water. How do you do all the things?

One step at a time, sister. Like one step. I am not telling you that tomorrow everything will be solved, but we will get there one goal at a time, one habit at a time. You can thrive in every area of your life.

All right, so what does this look like? I want you to imagine, like what if it were true that as you're running your business, you move through your days well rested in a gentle way. You give yourself a lot of grace and it makes it lot easier to give other people grace. You're living in your dream life.

and you're excited for the other people around you that you get to see live their dream life.

Sophia Hyde (16:50.67)
It's possible. You don't have to believe that that's for other people and not for you. I I watched a client, just, the first person who popped in my mind is a client who I've been working with for two and a half years who came to me totally in burnout and it did not, she did not get out of it quickly. It's been a long journey for her to be able to experience rest and create more joy and not.

overwork herself, but their business has grown to the point that they just paid cash for their dream boat. They just went on their dream vacation. She sent me pictures from Q West with them lobster fishing. And she actually took a whole, actually, when she came to me, was just her and her husband owned the business. Now she has several employees and while they were vacationing, the employees kept the business open and running. And she was on her dream vacation that they fully funded with cash from their booming business. And

She did it using all these principles that I'm going to teach you guys. Or that I talk about, mean, Benjamin podcast, a lot of this stuff is just taking ideas that are true and just putting them all into one organized place. What this is not going to be is like manifesting like magical spiritual juju. I get it. Actually. I love that stuff, guys. I do meditations. I've got the candles. I do the journal prompts. I do all of it.

So I am all about that stuff, but what I'm gonna teach you, you can bring that element if you like to move through the world in a very woo woo way, then you can bring your woo woo to this. And if woo woo is not your thing, then you don't need that. Because what we're gonna do is we're gonna be really practical and simple, and I'm gonna guide you guys through some basic principles. Now let me tell you, when I say,

in order to move through the light, to create a thriving life as both a mother and a business owner, how you have to change. Let me tell you what doesn't get to come with you. People pleasing doesn't come. It's going to cost you. I've never met somebody who created a very successful, thriving, beautiful life, who didn't lose people along the way. And I'm not talking about death. That happens to all of us.

Sophia Hyde (19:11.48)
What I'm specifically talking about is people pleasing can't stay. So when you do that, you will have to build the muscle of allowing other people to be disappointed in you. And there are some people who, when you disappoint them, they will remove themselves from your life. It's going to happen and you have to be willing to do it. I've never met somebody who didn't have to face that because at the end of the day,

You can't keep everybody else happy. You have to decide that the, that if somebody's going to be disappointed, this is a commitment I made to myself years ago. In this dynamic, if I'm facing a difficult decision, if somebody is going to have to be disappointed by the outcome of this circumstance, I will not be the one that chooses it for myself. I will not disappoint myself, but I will allow other people to be disappointed in me. And I'm going to

I'm gonna teach you guys some of these, be like, my God, I can't do that. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. I will help you grow that muscle. Okay, so what is Rest and Rise? It's really simple. It is a seven day challenge. It's all through my app. Your favorite self available in all the app stores. The link is down below in your show notes.

If you're on my emails or my socials, you can find any of those places. It's a seven day challenge. It's going to run August 25th through 31st. I'm going to drop a new idea principle. Like it's going to be a short lesson basically. And then you'll have the option to do a meditation or journal prompts or both each day to support that idea. And then we're going to, I'm going to do some live coaching. So if you are participating between August 25th and

31st, then I will have a there's a portal inside the app where you'll be able to give feedback or you'll be able to like participate in the lessons and share those results and I will be able to give feedback and coaching through the app for anybody participating. And if you're listening to this and these dates have already passed, don't worry. It's sitting in my app and you can just go buy it and access everything. Those less those are available to you. After this is all over, it'll still be available for purchase.

Sophia Hyde (21:35.116)
Okay, who is this for? It is specifically designed for women at the intersection of motherhood and owning their own business, but I am not gatekeeping it. If you want in and you want these materials, they're going to apply to anybody from any walk of life can take these ideas and make them their own. Hell, I have listened to football trainings. I am not an NFL football player and I have listened to trainings meant for football players and gotten value out of it because a lot of it's mindset work, right? So.

Absolutely, if you're a man or you don't have kids or you don't own your own business, can you still participate? Yes, but the only life coaching I'm gonna be giving will be specific because this is specifically for women at that intersection. That is what I will be coaching on. So you will just need to take those examples and then just apply them to your life, right? If you resonate with juggling a lot of balls and...

trying to keep a lot of things up in the air at the same time, then this is all going to apply to you and still make you feel seen even if your circumstances are different. But what I have found is one-on-one coaching is very easy to customize any people specifically where they are, but once you go into a group coaching format, there needs to be a centered language to get the most value. It's really hard to jump through all these.

to have all these exceptions, right? but if you're this, then that, and if you're in this walk of life, then this might be different, and if you're over here, then this might be different, and trying to like meet every single person where they are is really hard in a group setting. So this is tailored to women at this intersection, but it's not, I'm not geek keeping it. So if you want these lessons and you can find a way to feel seen inside of those examples, then come on, bring it, it's it's available to you, and it will work.

for you as well. All right, that's all I have for today. You guys, I am so excited for what is to come. If you are ready to thrive in every area of your life, if you are ready to achieve a significant goal and turn your one days and your some days into today and do something powerful this year before this year is over, then this is for you.

Sophia Hyde (23:48.862)
ambitious mothers all around come join. Let's do this. Let's rest our bodies, our minds and our souls. Let's have more grace with ourselves and get a full night of sleep. Let's rest while we rise into leadership, into our dreams, all the way to the mountaintop. Sending you love.