Mama Shaker: Jess, Building Relationships Around Experiences We Share

Jessica Gupta felt isolated as the first of her friends to get pregnant, before she knew that motherhood would bond her to women she barely knew.

“I thought that what I was going through emotionally and physically was something other people couldn’t understand completely,” she says.

And even if friends do have kids, it can be hard for them to remember all of the minutiae that occurs weekly and monthly as your body and your baby grow.

“When I was pregnant, I was connected to two women that were due at the same time as me,” she says. “We started chatting and the relationship grew. I kid you not, there were days when we would probably send over 50 text messages between the three of us.”

Jess and her new cross-country confidantes supported each other through the physical and emotional changes that carried them well into motherhood.

“I think what’s really special is they were the first people I told when I went into labor,” she says. “They were the first people I really reached out to because they had been with me through it all.”

The experience inspired Jess to create Taavi, an abbreviation of “it takes a village,” to match together moms-to-be from all walks of life.

“Getting out of the house can be tough,” she learned after the birth of her daughter. “It’s really intimidating to put on clothes and do your hair and go meet other mothers.”

“What I wanted to create for women was a support system because that’s what I had created for myself,” says Jess, noting the importance of doing so before baby, when you have the “mind space” to “focus on building strong bonds as women first.”

Sharing a similar mindset with her co-founder, Renee, was also helpful in creating a partnership in the early days of Taavi.

“When I met her, we had this really natural connection of ‘hey, we want to honor women during pregnancy,’ to focus on the woman, not just the mom,” she says.

“It’s been a really awesome relationship because we’re both mothers, we both had different experiences in our pregnancy and so we can speak from different vantage points,” she says. “At the same time, we believe in this immense need for community for moms and the support that comes from that community.”

While plenty of pregnancy apps and groups provide information about every milestone and symptom, it was important to Jess and Renee to focus on building relationships between mothers.

“The goal is that we’re actually creating dialogue or creating intimate connection through nurturing friendships,” she says.

How this Mompreneur Makes it Work

Just shy of three years into motherhood, Jess has built a relationship with her daughter using a similar support structure—rooted in the routine that toddlers find comforting, which affords a few moments of solace every parent needs.

“There are some routine components that I started to put into place this year, which has been incredibly helpful,” she says. “One of the goals I had this year was to wake up before my daughter and actually shower and be ready.”

Jess also spends a few minutes in the morning alone writing in a journal about the things she’s grateful for and the things she wants to let go. So she’s refreshed and has a cup of coffee in hand by the time her daughter wakes up.

“I have to be that backbone of routine for my daughter too,” she says. “I think that makes her happy and gives her something to look forward to every day.”

“She’s a stickler for plans. I think that’s just part of their age group. They want to know what they can expect.”

Structure also helps Jess balance the less predictable path of running a startup.

“As an entrepreneur, I think the hardest part is not knowing exactly what you should be doing all the time,” she says. “One thing that I’ve been trying to achieve more of is setting weekly goals as opposed to these grandiose quarterly goals.”

Compassion is also key for Jess. When we spoke earlier this year, neither of us knew how timely her words would be, “understanding that I know shit happens, life gets in the way.”

“It’s hard because in the space of creating your own company, you don’t have a boss telling you you’re doing a great job,” she says. “You don’t have traditional reward structures.”

Jess has realized the reward for any of us achievement-oriented mothers comes in the compassion of reminding ourselves and each other “that you’re doing a killer job, even if it doesn’t feel like it.”

“I think the hardest part of motherhood is that as women we forget to take care of ourselves,” she says. “My hope is that Taavi will bring back some of the nourishment that we we don’t get to experience daily.”

Mama Shaker: Nicole, Guiding the Way to a Sweet Family Life

Nicole Seawell was a high-achieving attorney when her first baby plotted his own course by arriving three weeks early. Now with three teenage boys, she’s learned how to navigate the unique personalities within her family, channel her peak productivity, and ultimately guide others to do the same.

“My professional life kind of went topsy turvy,” she says about her jolting start to motherhood. “I didn’t value the supporting role enough. Once I did, I realized I’m actually excellent at supporting others to get done what they want to, and that has taken me from a good attorney to a great one.”

Nicole found her sweet spot when she “worked one leg in the business world and one leg in the legal world,” because she liked the fast pace of business.

“Where I found my special power was being able to be in both worlds,” she says.

“I was born under a productive star,” says Nicole, adding that she’s been told by Tibetan monks and Guatemalan ancient women that “I have a way of tuning into my ancestors’ wisdom and youth energy.”

“I’m able to see the path forward in any situation.”

Today, that means weaving together her work as an attorney with her husband’s law firm and her coaching business, Sailor’s Sweet Life, which is named after her golden retriever.

“I can’t have a more supportive partner in my legal work than the father of my children and my co-creator in life,” she says.

The ability to tap into prime opportunities for creativity and productivity has also helped Nicole’s coaching clients. In fact, she’s learned it’s not about dramatic, sweeping changes.

“Really what they’re looking for is helpful tweaks,” she says. “Inherently they are them, and they want to stay that way, but they want to be a more productive, more enjoyable version of themselves.”

It Takes a Village

At the root of Nicole’s mission to help families maximize joy and decrease stress are tools like Enneagram to learn about the unique personalities that can form our families and support systems.

“Ninety percent of the time you have good intention by people,” she says. Instead, “it’s miscommunication; people speak to one another like they’re speaking to themselves” that causes tension and stress within a family.

“There’s no better way than honoring each other by speaking to that person or acting with that person the way they want to be treated,” she says.

For Nicole, learning about her sons’ different personality types has been a game-changer.

She recalls feeling frustrated, thinking at the time, “I don’t understand, I’m doing the same thing” as a parent, until she realized, “they’re three different people.”

“It was like a light shone upon our family and so much stress disappeared,” she says.

As a fellow fast-talker, I found my conversation with Nicole energizing. But with her boys she’s learned to change her cadence and count in her head to give her son 20 seconds to respond.

“So much with teenagers is letting them talk when they want to,” she says.

Even so, Nicole believes that every stage of parenting comes with its own challenges. She believes the “enjoy every minute, it goes so fast” reminder commonly dished out to parents of young children is “cruel advice.”

“It is magical, but it’s absolutely exhausting,” she recalls.

And if you don’t love every stage of parenting, Nicole doesn’t believe that mom guilt is necessary either.

“Spare yourself all of that and be your own champion by arming yourself with tools that help you get through it,” she says.

“Along that whole spectrum, if you know you and if you’re doing this with someone else and you know them, this can be so much more of an enjoyable journey.”

As an achiever married to a perfectionist, Nicole and her husband took the time to learn about each other’s personalities and communication styles.

“We conscientiously–when they were real little–figured out how we work well together and how to honor that,” she says. “I can see when I trigger him and he can see when he triggers me, and then as your kids grow you can pull them into the fold.”

She also believes this insight can be applied to other caregivers and extended members of the family.

“Our mentors, our people who teach us, are all over the place in our lives, so being open to that is really important,” she says.

How this Mompreneur Makes it Work

Self-care as a goal can feel intimidating until you know yourself and “what feeds your soul,” says Nicole.

“I love being in nature and that’s one of my coaching principles to reset the heart and reset the mind, but also to open us up to creativity,” she says.

Nicole takes a “brisk walk” early each morning and in the evening with Sailor, no matter what the weather brings in her home of Colorado.

“Unbelievable solutions come and brainstorming that you didn’t think was possible,” she says about recommending afternoon walks to her clients.

She incorporates the “science of timing” in her practice and to plan out her day, based on the book When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel H. Pink.

“On the whole, the way that the world operates and the way that the majority of humans do is that you have an uptick of analytical activities first thing in the day,” she describes.

“There’s a slump that we all kind of recognize around lunchtime.”

According to statistics, more mistakes are made in mid-day surgery, and “judges are more cantankerous, less likely to be compassionate in the afternoon,” says Nicole.

“Afternoon is good for creative, restorative activity, quiet work, collaborative work,” she says.

As a parent who experiences the daily “witching hour” with my boys, I wasn’t surprised to learn that around 4:00 or 5:00 p.m., we all get an energy uptick.

Fortunately for Nicole, she has plenty of it to go around, which she channels into “nourishing” her teenagers after school and at dinner time.

While the path through each stage of motherhood looks a little different, Nicole believes that there’s wisdom to be gained along the journey.

“This is an amazing set of skills and experiences that you’re having,” she says about parenting young children.

“It won’t be forever but put that framing on the whole ride–that you’re an amazing supporter–and you’ll have so many wonderful opportunities.”

Mama Maker: Alitzah, Planning a Future of Being Enough

Former full-time social media influencer Alitzah Stinson began to wrestle with, what looked like, a glamorous gig promoting Fortune 500 brands. Her feelings compounded when a debilitating pregnancy put the future with her daughters into perspective.

“I was on home healthcare, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t bathe myself, I had tubes going into my chest to feed me,” she says, describing her experience with hyperemesis gravidarum.

Suddenly she couldn’t shake the sense that “when I posted a picture on Instagram, I knew there was someone else on the other side of that feeling like they weren’t good enough and I couldn’t be a part of that anymore.”

“I’m portraying this image of perfection that isn’t real…to make them think this skincare cream is going to solve their problems, or this $300 pair of jeans–that I can’t even afford but were sent to me–means something,” she says.

Alitzah also felt like she would set a better example as a mother by staying true to herself, rather than hiring stylists to come to her home under the watchful eye of her 18-month-old daughter.

“For four years there wasn’t a single day where my hair was naturally curly,” she says. “How am I supposed to tell her that her natural self, and her curly hair, is beautiful?”

“Someday she’s going to be looking at people just like me and they’re going to make her feel like she’s not enough,” she feared.

During her inevitable break from blogging, Alitzah realized she was more passionate about charting a course for her premium stationary business, Ivory Paper Co, which she had recently launched after searching for an organizer to meet the demands of her role as an influencer.

So she shifted her focus to helping people take charge of their future–rather than lust over someone else’s curated lifestyle–by providing them with tools “to make plans for everything they’re passionate about–their goals and their life.”

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How this Mompreneur Makes it Work

To say Alitzah is driven is an understatement. She wakes up every morning at 6:00, is out the door by 7:00, works straight until 3:00, spends two hours with her girls, goes back to work for another 3 hours, tucks them into bed and then does one last night shift.

Her mantra to “find planner peace” after carrying around a 15-pound bag to manage her family’s schedule led her to build a local manufacturing operation from scratch. It’s also allowed her to maintain quality control and a family-oriented culture, which includes her husband heading up marketing and her kids running around the office.

While the company is growing 10x month over month, Alitzah says she’s “the least qualified person in the entire world to be running this company.”

“But that makes me happy. I don’t have some fancy degree from Harvard Business School, and I’m an African American, 22-year-old,” she says.

“I always told my husband that I wanted to be what I wanted to see.”

She encourages others to do the same, adding “if I can build a business, anyone can build a business.”

It’s no accident that Alitzah has carried around a planner most of her life and yet, she takes goal-setting in stride.

“I break down my plans to the most miniscule level, because that makes it feel accomplishable.”

In other words, Alitzah has realized that by taking small actions towards our larger aspirations, we are enough.

Mama Shaker: Katie, From SAHM to CHO

Katie Rössler believes that just because Betty Crocker-like domesticity doesn’t come naturally to most of us, we don’t have to feel defeated by it either. In fact, she’s elevated the role of stay-at-home-mom to “Chief Household Officer” using the same resources tapped by top executives and entrepreneurs to be purpose-driven and productive.

This was music to my ears as I suddenly found myself juggling two children and what felt like a million little puzzle pieces managing my home and family, every day of my sleep-deprived maternity leave. Even with divide-and-conquer parenting and a village of helpers, it’s easy to feel like you’re falling short with every half-completed task or interrupted intention.

“We lived in a small apartment but I had the hardest time keeping it up. Like, ‘what are we having for dinner?’ ‘I don’t know,'” says Katie about that moment so many of us have faced in new or recently expanded motherhood, when you realize the passing hours of your day are in control of you instead of the other way around.

“I didn’t go to school to figure all these things out,” she remembers thinking at the time. “What is wrong with me that I can’t clean a home while I sit next to my baby who sleeps a ton?”

Now with two kids, Katie has taken the reigns and designed her daily schedule around routines and rituals that minimize decision fatigue and maximize peace. Listening to her describe a typical morning revealed wisdom in every simplified step–whether you stay home with your kids 7 days a week, 2 days a week, or somewhere in between.

“We have the same thing every morning so that there’s no fight over ‘I want this, this or that.’ It is yogurt or milk and granola, those are your options,” she says about breakfast before her 4-year-old heads off to kindergarten (which is offered between 3-6 years of age in Germany).

“I do allow her to have the option to pick what she wants for a limited time, but if it takes more than 15 minutes then I get to pick,” Katie says about getting dressed. She even builds in a 15-minute buffer for putting shoes on.

“The mornings cannot be rushed, or you’re not parenting at your best,” she says. “If you’re kids are waking up later, my biggest tip is plan everything the night before. Go ahead and pack the bag, have the outfits picked out–yours and your kids.”

“The stress first thing in the morning sets the tone for the day.”

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Katie also meal-plans her dinners, repeats the same menu on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and avoids the temptation of lengthy Pinterest recipes. (Note: I started writing out menus for the week to help me better expand my 3-year-old’s horizons. It’s actually working!)

“I try to keep meals simple because two toddler girls tugging at your legs is just not worth a hot, huge meal,” she says. “Frankly, chicken cooks fast. Salmon cooks fast. There’s a lot of meals that we think we need to add all these things to and there’s a lot of stuff that cook fast and you’re done. Saute the veggies, you got it.”

Katie took inspiration from books like The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM) and A Simplified Life: Tactical Tools for Intentional Living to master her own household and begin helping other moms do the same.

“It’s not about minimalism, but just simplifying so that I feel happy in my home, and happy with my routine, and happy with my family traditions–but in charge of them,” she says.

Katie’s currently reading up on time management with the help of Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, and believes all these books aimed at entrepreneurs are actually more suited to moms than one might think.

“As moms we need to be reading these books,” says Katie. “These are the tips and tools we can be using.”

Women Helping Women Succeed

“I have a passion for helping people plan with purpose,” says Katie. This comes as no surprise since Katie is both a licensed counselor and grew up as a military brat. Every time her family was stationed in a new place, her mother would flip through the Yellow Pages to find kid-friendly places to go.

“I love researching things like that, probably because of her,” she says. “I know with my Masters and working with kids, the importance of routine for them. Because I didn’t used to be a routine person, I found the beauty in it.”

Katie offers a free, yet surprisingly thorough mini course with highly relatable videos to get you thinking about managing your household and family life in a different light.

And sometimes that’s all it takes: a different perspective. After talking to Katie, I picked out this goal-setting planner to manage my family’s calendar, spend a few minutes each morning and night reflecting on the day, and work towards achieving 90-day goals. I now feel like I’m accomplishing something on the most mundane days, even if it’s as simple as getting a nap or workout in while the baby is sleeping.

And while Katie’s full 45-day program is currently geared towards an international mix of full and partial stay-at-home-moms, next year she plans to expand it to moms who work full-time.

“It will take a Saturday or Sunday of sitting down for a couple of hours and really going, ‘What will our schedule look like?,’ add it to your calendar, have it printed out, and put it in your work calendar.”

Katie stays that having your “standard procedure” documented, including things you outsource as a working mom, will prevent those moments of panic when school calls saying your child is sick.

“Have you ever had that email inbox that just keeps going?” asks Katie, comparing the never ending mess that comes with raising children. “It’s just part of the job.”

As Katie points out, managing our families and our careers don’t have to be at odds. Her tips will sound surprisingly familiar to anyone who’s spent time “strategizing” for the next quarter–it’s just a matter of channeling all that professional prowess into our families and homes too.

“Why don’t we use some of the same practices we use in the workplace, like a morning meeting to get everybody together,” she says about the importance of regularly checking in as a family and as partners.

“As moms we don’t have to feel so lost,” says Katie. “We actually have all the tools and skills. We learn them in school, we learn them in the workplace–we just have to apply them differently.”