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RCC 30: Running a Successful Business with Kids at Home with Chanci Dawn

If you’re a parent and you run a business from home, it can often feel like your attention is being pulled in a million different directions.  Remembering pajama day at school, scheduling calls with clients, managing your own team, and getting everyone out the door in the morning is enough to make anyone feel overwhelmed. And that’s not even touching on the “mom guilt” that often plagues parents who work from home, leading them to worry they’re spending too much time in the office and not with their kids.

To talk with me about running a business while raising a family, I’m joined by entrepreneurial powerhouse and mom-of-five Chanci Dawn. She was a teacher until her daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumor, which made Chanci finally step through her fears and dive head first into entrepreneurship. She built a home-based business so she could be home full-time with her daughter, becoming a top earner in an MLM company while training to be a nutritionist and life coach. 9 years later, Chanci specializes in coaching moms to build their home-based business with confidence and without burnout or overwhelm.

Chanci and I talk about how her daughter’s diagnosis pushed her to become an entrepreneur and follow her passions rather than stay in a career that didn’t light her up. We share some of the issues many people face as they build a business from home and why these obstacles are still so much more rewarding than doing a job you don’t enjoy. And we discuss the crucial role of self-care in building a business that supports and adds to your life, not subtracts from it.

In this episode, we discuss:

  • How to deal with some of the common challenges of running a business from home while raising kids.
  • How to reframe your guilt about working from home rather than spending every second at home with your kids.
  • Why Chanci decided to pivot from teaching to entrepreneurship and finally to life coaching.
  • The changes she's experienced in her life and business since deciding to go all-in on coaching.
  • Key thought work and self-care that Chanci incorporates into her day to ensure she's in tip-top shape for herself, her business, and her family.
  • How she went from feeling spiritually dead to alive with purpose once she switched career paths and allowed herself to prioritize freedom and time over a traditional career.

Enjoyed this show?

FULL EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Welcome to the Rich Coach Club, the podcast that teaches you how to build your dream coaching practice and how to significantly increase your income. If you're a coach and you're determined to start making more money, this show is for you. I'm master certified life coach Susan Hyatt, and I'm psyched for you to join me on this journey. You're listening to episode 30, here we go.

There's a hilarious comedian named Jim Gaffigan, and you may have seen his specials on Netflix. He's a husband and a dad, and he has these four small kids at home. In one of his comedy shows, he has this joke where he says, "People always ask me, Jim, what's it like to have four kids?" And he says, "It's like just imagine you're drowning and then someone hands you a baby."

That sounds about right. Raising four kids, three, two, or even just one kid is a huge responsibility. I mean, I've got two. I know. And when you're running a business and parenting at the same time, holy moly, it's a lot to handle and it can feel like your attention is being pulled in a thousand different directions.

There's carpool and PTA meetings and bake sales and fundraisers at school, and helping your kid with his homework and dance practice and karate lessons and sleepovers and putting dinner on the table, and worrying if your kid is getting bullied at school or having unsafe sex. I mean, a million things pounding in your head.

And then on top of all this, you're supposed to like, write an inspiring newsletter to promote your new coaching program and get enrollments rolling in. Dude, this shit ain't easy. However, it is possible to build your dream coaching practice and be a great parent, and many people have done this and you can do it too.

It's not an unattainable fantasy. I promise, you can do this. I can share with you guys in the show notes some of the recent hilarious texts from my kids while I've been on this book tour. I mean, if I can do it, you can do it. Some days there's going to be a clusterfuck of chaos and other days will run really smoothly, but in the end it's all so worth it.

And in today's episode, we're talking about how to run a successful business when you've got kids at home. Even if you're not a parent, you will enjoy this episode because it's going to give you some insight on what it's like to raise small human beings and if you've got clients who are parents, it's also good to have this kind of empathy and insight into their situation. Alright, let's get this episode rolling along.

As always, we're starting with a segment that I call Your Two-Minute Pep Talk and this is the part of the show where I share some encouragement and inspiration to get your week started off right. And I try to keep things to 120 seconds or less.

So, I had a client once who said to me, "Susan, every time I sit down at my computer to work on my coaching business like, I sit down to write a blog post or work on my marketing plan or pitch a potential client or whatever, I feel kind of guilty. I feel like I'm taking time away from my family. I feel like instead of being so self-indulgent and working on my coaching practice, I should be spending time with my kids."

So this is a common thought and feeling. I've heard so many women talk about this mom guilt, me included. So many moms and dads too feel like no matter how much time they give to their families, it's never enough. So yeah sure, you can think to yourself, "Every hour I spend on my coaching practice is an hour I should be spending with my kids," or you can try on a different mindset.

Instead you can think to yourself, "Most people hate their jobs. I don't. I love my work. I love coaching. I'm so passionate about what I do and I want my kids to see me pursuing my dreams and building my business. I want my kids to know that it's possible to find a career that you love, and I want my kids to have that kind of role model in their lives. I want my kids to grow up and think, wow, mom is so creative and brave and amazing. My mom is an entrepreneur and my mom is so cool."

Listen, I don't know that my kids actually think or say that yet but they're going to. That kind of attitude is what you want to adopt. It's so true and it's so powerful for your kids to see you pursuing your dreams. This is a good thing for them to witness and if that means you're not available for every single field trip or bake sale or homework session, that's okay. It's much more important that your kids have a mom who is happy, inspired, excited, and lit up about life.

So here's a quick story for you. I have a friend who's all grown up now. She's in her 30s, and when she was little, her mom was a professional opera singer and later became a vocal coach. And this meant her mom had a pretty unusual work schedule. So often, her mom wasn't at home for dinner at night because she was performing at the opera house downtown and often, her mom would fly out of the country to Denmark or Austria or somewhere far away to give a recital.

She gave her kids tons of love when she was at home, but she definitely wasn't a typical soccer mom and she didn't do a lot of the typical mom stuff. My friend says, "You know what, I am so grateful that my mom wasn't at home all the time. I'm so grateful that my mom wasn't available to do carpool every single day. I grew up watching my mom go after her dreams. I grew up watching that and now that's how I live my life too. I'm following in her footsteps and creating my dream life because she showed me how it's done."

So if you're feeling that icky mom guilt creeping into your head, please remember the story I just shared and remember, you're not a typical mom. You're an unusual and exceptional mom and you're a very special kind of role model for your kids. It's good for your kids to watch you dive passionately into your work and it's good for your kids to watch you shine and do something you love and this is a gift for your kids. Something you're adding to their lives. Not something you're taking away. Parental pep talk complete.

So now we're moving into the part of the show where I give shout-outs to you. Shout-outs to my precious listeners and clients and all the wonderful people in my business community. And today, I want to give a shout-out to Alison. So Alison gave me a five-star review on iTunes and the title is, "I fucking love this podcast."

"I knew within seconds of finding and listening to Susan that she would be my new virtual coach for all things coaching. So many awesome business tips. Such fun, upbeat topics. She doesn't waste any time with fluff, right to the point, and I love it."

Oh my gosh, Alison, thank you so much. That means so much to me. And hey, if you have something to say about this show, please send an email to my team, support@susanhyatt.co, or post a five-star iTunes review about the show, put something on social media and tag me, and you might hear your name on a future episode. I love giving shout-outs to my community so holler at me. Thank you for the love. I love you right back.

It's time for the interview y'all, and today I'm speaking with Chanci Dawn. Chanci has the most incredible story and I'm jiggling in my seat because I just can't wait to introduce this woman to you. So Chanci is a mom with five kids, and about nine years ago her daughter Celeste got very sick. It was a brain tumor, and this diagnosis was so stressful and frightening for the whole family and it also became fuel for Chanci.

Chanci decided, I need to help my daughter get well and that is my highest priority, and she also realized, life is so precious and we never know what's coming next. She decided she didn't want to waste any more time stuck in a career that she didn't enjoy.

So after her daughter's diagnosis, Chanci completely reinvented her career. She figured out a way to work from home so she could set her own schedule and have more freedom, and more time to take care of her daughter. She started working for a network marketing company and trained to become a nutritionist and a life coach.

And I have so many questions for Chanci about how she balances business and parenting and the rest of her life too. I know you'll love this conversation with the amazing Chanci, and here we go.

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Susan: Welcome to the show, Chanci Dawn.

Chanci: Thank you.

Susan: I am so excited to have you here. I've gotten to know you this year and I'm so impressed with you, and there's so many things that you could share with Rich Coach Club, but I think there's two things in particular that impress me. Number one, you are running your business while also parenting five children. So whenever - honestly, whenever my clients - I have two of you and you know each other who have five kids. So whenever I have clients that complain about how they don't have enough time or they don't have enough energy, I'm like okay, so let me tell you about my clients with five kids and you can shut all the way up. And then number two, the other thing that I would love to highlight about you is that you've been successful in other entrepreneurial endeavors and made a big bold choice to pivot and become a coach. So welcome to the show and thank you for sharing your genius with us. I can't wait to dive in.

Chanci: I'm so excited to be here. Thank you. When you asked me I was just like - I think I told you, "This is a dream come true." So I'm really pumped. Thanks Susan.

Susan: Well, I think it's important for us to hear stories, real stories of coaches who have made big bold moves and who are living their lives doing all the things - parenting kids and getting people off to the bus stop and so let me ask you this. Talk to us about what it was like building your last business and what your goal was with that, and when did you decide you know what, I think I want to do something different.

Chanci: Yeah definitely. So nine years ago, I was a teacher and I liked what I was doing, but I just - I didn't have a passion for it and I was really wanting to teach. When I went into teaching, it was so I could have my summers off and my weekends off, right? So time freedom has always been something that I really value and so when I - my daughter, she was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and I really - I just thought, you know what, life is too precious to waste doing something I don't love doing, which was staying home with her.

So that's why I found network marketing. I found a company that I aligned with and I jumped in and I went hard and I built hard, and within about seven months I retired myself from my teaching career. So that was my big why to be able to stay at home with my daughter as she was healing and being able to help her. From there, I was realizing I was quickly going to be a single mom and I wanted to still be able to number one, stay home with my kids, and of course with my daughter, and number two, I wanted to be able to provide a really great lifestyle for them with lots of - just to show them what was possible.

And so I was like okay, this is what I'm going to do. Full on, and I did it. But at the same time Susan, that I found network marketing, the exact same month I actually was training to be a life coach. So that was always my true heart's passion, yet I saw network marketing at the time to be the vehicle at the time to do what I needed to do because I didn’t have the belief in myself as a life coach yet.

So I went hard, I did it for eight years and accomplished what I wanted to. I've been able to stay at home full-time with my kids and run this business. Since then I've met a great guy. We have five kids because it's a blended family. I did not have five children myself. I had three, which is enough, and...

Susan: That's enough. That's one more than me.

Chanci: But you know, now we have the five together and it's really great. And last January I sat in a cabin and by the fire and I just was journaling and I was bawling and I was like, you know what, I have accomplished the ability to stay at home, I'm making a great income, but something is missing. And I was beside myself until I started getting really real with myself and saying you know what, it's been there all along.

So my passion has always been coaching and in the nine years in network marketing, my very favorite part of that was discovering women's whys because my why was so powerful and it allowed me to be able to put my whole heart into this business. I love discovering women's whys, I love learning their purpose and helping them achieve that, and that is what I want to do. Not constrained to one company but on a massive level, to be able to help so many women achieve their dreams and live their why.

So that's when I had to get really real with myself and say okay, I am terrified. I think I told you I'm like, oh my gosh, I don't want to have to live in a van down by the river. Like, can I do this? But I realized if I don't step towards my purpose and being a life coach, I am selling myself and like all of these other women short.

Susan: Yes queen. So let's go back a little bit. So I love that you made the decision because life happens and things happen and a dramatic circumstance of your daughter recovering from a tumor and you saying, you know what, like that shook you awake. I think every entrepreneur has a moment where something woke them up, where they were like, okay I am no longer okay with doing things according to somebody else's plan or timetable and I'm going to do my own thing. And so network marketing was your thing and you were successful at it, you were able to work from home, which honestly, many of the people listening to this podcast, that is their goal.

I just want to be able to work from home. I just want to be able to do my thing. That was my objective when I became a coach. I was like, how cool would it be to just be in my home office and spend my time helping people create the lives that they want. It just seemed like such a pipedream at the time but also it was so motivating for me to imagine doing that instead of selling houses. So for you, you were like okay, crying in the cabin. I was crying in my bathtub. So we're both having these experiences where we're crying. What was the thought that helped tip you over? What was the tipping point when you were crying in the cabin that made you realize like, I've got to be brave enough to go for it?

Chanci: I felt spiritually dead.

Susan: Oh my goodness, that is not the answer I was expecting. This is so juicy. This is the point, you guys listening to this podcast. I was spiritually dead. What are the symptoms of being spiritually dead?

Chanci: Just going through the motions but not feeling lit up. I felt like I was doing a good job because I was showing up for my team, I was doing the do, but I felt sad. I felt that something huge was missing and I knew it wasn't outside of me, and that's where the spiritual aspect comes from. I knew it wasn't outside, I knew it was something that I was selling myself short on and that's it. I actually in my journal, I have written from that day like, I am spiritually dead and circled and circled and circled, and that's when I started falling. I was like, oh my gosh.

Susan: I can hear the emotion in your voice right now. And so when you circled it, since you made that decision, you were like okay, I'm spiritually dead, what has it been like? I know it hasn't been all rainbows and unicorns for you, but what have you noticed is different since you made the decision that you were going to go all in on your coaching practice?

Chanci: Well, I have this truth bomb on my wall and it says let it be easy, and it has turned from the work I was doing feeling painful to I just feel so, so excited and I feel so lit up by it that the hard work - because this shit is hard. Like, I'm building this coaching practice is not easy, but it feels good. And to me, that's what's easy about it. Making the choice every day to be consistent, making the choice every day to show up for myself, to do the things that I find difficult because I'm feeling spiritually alive now, because I'm on the right track. I'm on the right track for my purpose.

Susan: So what does it look like for you to now show up for yourself?

Chanci: Yeah, well first of all investing in coaching was huge because going from a place of feeling pretty good, like affluent, I could afford what I wanted, to stepping away from a network marketing business and I'm still making residual, which is beautiful, but it's not what it was. So being at that place and saying okay here I am, and my money is where it's at and I'm still going to make the choice to invest in myself heavily. That is an action that came fully from my thought and my belief in myself to do this that it has changed everything for me.

So it's that stepping forward, investing in myself, investing my belief, and holding myself accountable to every single day to get that content out, to make the offers, to make connections with people. I'm an introvert and I built my network marketing business online. But I know in order to take my coaching business to where I want it to be, I need to actually get out and network. Face to face, meet people, that's exhausting but because I'm doing something that's so aligned with myself, even though it's still exhausting, I'm still doing it and I want to do it, and I'm taking care of myself. I mean, I love when you say the best business plan is self-care because I'm having to make the choice every single day to take care of myself at such a high level so that I can in turn pour that into my business and getting out there and all of that. And it's amazing, I love it.

Susan: It is amazing. I remember when I made the decision to leave real estate and I did, and I actually did. One of the funniest things about that story was I didn't even go pack up my own office. I had a friend of mine who also lived in my neighborhood, her son was a teenager at the time and he would install my real estate signs and fill my flier boxes and cut my yard, that kind of thing. And I sent him over to pack up all my stuff and I just had him put my office belongings in my garage. I honestly didn't even open those boxes for a couple years until after I had exited.

But I remember like, power-walking through the neighborhood with my dog and I ran into another neighbor who I hadn't seen for a while. I mean, we just exchanged niceties and then she said, "I can't get over the difference in your face." And I was like, I honestly think that's what happens when you lose the stress of doing something you're not supposed to be doing. It's so taxing to show up every day for a gig that is soul-sucking. And when you start, even though this life coaching entrepreneurship gig - there are certainly plenty of things that we all do that aren't our favorites, it still beats the best day of doing the wrong thing.

Chanci: Yeah, because you're in alignment. And when you're in alignment, it's letting it be easy. To me, that just makes so much sense. I remember back years ago, someone said to me - this is not my quote - but when you do what is hard, life is easy, but when you do what is easy, life is hard. So it would have been very easy for me to sit on my ass, talk about my company here and there, coach my team, that would have been easy because I already had a foundation built. But man is that hard. Like I said, I felt spiritually dead.

So when you have that fire inside of you and you know what you're supposed to be doing and when you get honest with yourself, even though it's hard, oh my goodness, it just flows. It's a totally different experience. And I love it Susan, the face thing, someone actually said that to me. I took some pictures, selfies in different events, and a couple people wrote to me and they're like, "You're looking younger. What are you using?" They thought it was some cream. I'm like, I'm just stepping into my power. They're like, really? Okay, kind of weird for them. But I'm like, truly that is what's happening. I feel alive.

Susan: It's so true. I honestly, when I share before and after pictures of me, I'm really like, look at my face. The before is me looking kind of grey. Not my hair. It was dyed platinum, but my actual skin tone and my eyes are not alive and now it doesn't matter if it's a selfie after running or a professional headshot. It's the energy that is present when you're a woman who's aligned and who's doing what she's meant to do, there's no better youth factor than that.

And so in terms of doing from - I love this, I think I may call this episode like, going from spiritually dead to alive with purpose or something because when you go from what you consider to be spiritually dead to being in alignment with your purpose, absolutely when people ask me things like, how do you get so many things done in a day? And a lot of it's hard stuff, some of it is that I've been at this for a while, but some of it is because I'm motivated to do the hard things because I understand what it feels like to be working hard at something I don't want to be doing. So it's like, it's a miracle, it's an unbelievable honor to be able to work from home and do what you want to do and be your own boss and all those things.

Chanci: Yeah, and change people's lives. When I coach someone and when they write me the next day with thoughts about the coaching or what happened even that night, my gosh, it gives me such adrenaline I could run a marathon. I'm not a runner and all of a sudden, I want to be because I'm like, I'm so pumped up. There's nothing that I could think of that would be better to do. So it's just so worth it. It's so worth stepping into that. And I love seeing other women get that, that ignited. Like, their why and then really going for it, really narrowing down their why, really going for it and busting through their own limitations. There's nothing more fulfilling that witnessing that and being a part of that. It's just so good.

Susan: So let me ask you this. So, in terms of making the hard decisions that you've made, so to go from teaching to working for yourself, creating your own paycheck, and then transitioning from network marketing to coaching, what do you think - because I also love talking about self-care as a business plan - what do you think in terms of your mental health, your thought work, what are some of the top things that you've told yourself during those transitions that helped you stay the course?

Chanci: Top things that I've told myself, so I was trained by Brooke Castillo, The Life Coach School. So I am all about getting real with my thoughts. So really, every single morning before the kids wake up, what I do is I get up and I actually go sit in my bathroom because for some reason that's my sanctuary. I sit there and, on the floor, and I do a thought download. So I do a thought download for 10 minutes about absolutely everything that's coming up for me, and then I look at those thoughts and I get really real with myself.

Because some days my thoughts are really like, yeah this is great, some days I'm like, oh my gosh, I just want to go back to bed. So I don't think it's any generally something I can pinpoint on a larger scale, but it's every single day showing up for myself, getting really real with where my thoughts are, and looking at what are these thoughts creating in my life. What results am I getting directly because of these thoughts, which are ultimately beliefs about myself.

So it's just that practice that never ends. Every single day getting really real, and when I start to become critical or I'm not growing as fast as I want to, or all of these - that mean girl brain - going back to her, going what's really going on here. And just being so compassionate again, with those thoughts. This is what's coming up for me, it's all okay, and now I'm going to level up and choose to think different thoughts that's going to help me feel the way I want to feel to take the actions I know I need to take to build this business.

Susan: So what have you noticed, and I obviously was trained as well by Martha Beck and Brooke, and so I'm a fan of both of those life coach schools, the foundation is thought work. So in my opinion, becoming a master self-coacher is key to running your own business because there are a million times a day that things can go sideways that you could look at it one way or the other. I was joking with a class that I was teaching earlier that I took a screenshot of my rank on the latest Peloton class that I took.

So Peloton, for those of you who don't know is a very fancy schmancy spin bike where you can join live classes. There's a monitor right on the handlebars and it is a marvel and a miracle that I own one because I am not a gadget person, I am not a home exerciser person. I am obsessed with this Peloton. Anyway, I was taking a class this morning and it was so bomb. The theme of it was Queen, so it was all music from Queen and it was such a blast. I worked my ass off. The class itself, the replay is a couple years old.

So over time, almost 16,000 people have taken that class. And at the end or even during the class, it tells you what your rank is. So where do you fall with all these other bikers? And I'm honestly like, no matter how many people are on the class, I'm always in the bottom third. I'm not - I'm five foot three, I have short legs. I'm not that fast and I don't really care that much. But anyway, because there were 16,000 riders, let's say I was rider 10,5000. And I took a screenshot of it because I was like, you know, you could look at this one of two ways.

I could say over 10,000 people are faster than me, or I could say I biked faster or scored higher than 6000 people. And you know, ultimately how I feel, but how I feel comes from what I tell myself about that ranking and I think in business, that can happen so often that we're like, oh, I didn't hit my money goals or so and so just scored a book deal and I didn't, and we can make it mean such terrible things about ourselves instead of telling ourselves things that are helpful so that we stay in alignment so that we then take action that makes sense for our business.

Chanci: So true. And you know it's really interesting because right after my cabin experience when I'm like, I'm going for coaching, I looked you up because I had remembered you back when I was training years ago and it was that kind of in the beginning of your career and I looked you up and I was like holy crap, look what she's doing. I'm like, this is unbelievable. And for a moment I started to think, if I hadn't wasted my time building this network marketing business, which is so funny because it was such a not a waste of time. But the mean girl started to come up.

I'm like, I could be accomplishing so much more right now in my coaching, but then I thought, no what am I thinking? And I started to look at you and look at other coaches and be so inspired. I'm like, they are doing something that is so amazing in the coaching industry, and if they can do it, so can I. So it's like looking at those faster riders or whatever being like, they're a human being just like me and if they could do it, so can I. So I just love that. I love surrounding myself with coaches who are making amazing money because I'm like, this is where I can go, this is what I can do, and this is what I can inspire others to do as well. So I love - I just think it's so great and yeah, that is so good. I love that. And I also love how much you love your bike.

Susan: Right? You may not ever want to take a spin class or get on the bike but it's like...

Chanci: So funny. I was actually on a coaching call with you when they knocked on your door to deliver your bike.

Susan: Oh my god, that's right.

Chanci: Yes, and you were like, wait, and you went and got it, you came back and you were so pumped, and now I'm like, I need to get myself one of those because it seriously sounds like a game changer.

Susan: It's so - it fills me with such joy and I have to say, for any of you considering it, the instructors, the female instructors particularly are life coaches. I mean, the stuff that they say during class - now, I'm someone who I had only attended a couple of spin classes in my whole life and I hated each and every minute of both of them. Now looking back, there are many reasons why. I'm sure I was walking into a spin studio and doing a class that I was not prepared to do. You can't just show up and do the hardest class.

And no instruction and the instructors in those studios weren't entertaining. This is - Peloton's got this nailed. They've got instructors that are not only great teachers but they're highly entertaining, and they also deliver very life coachy messages throughout each class. So I feel like at the end of the day when I go down in my basement and do that bike, that it's my own private coaching session. It's my self-care and it's - I am aware that in order to create maximum output in my business, that I have to be devoted to self-care and that's part of my personal plan like yours. So let me ask you this. As you move forward building your business - I love asking people this question - what helps you feel rich that costs very little or no money?

Chanci: Okay, so there's something that helps me feel rich that cost me money, so I'll talk about that first, and that's investing in coaching for myself. And the reason being is just because it helps me feel rich in spirit because I'm investing in myself and I'm believing in myself enough to do that. So that definitely costs money, but it's so worth it. What helps me - oh my gosh okay, I'll give you an example.

On the airplane, you inspired me and I asked for the full can of bubbly water. I took a picture and I posted it on Instagram because I was like, asking for what I want in life, that makes me feel rich, and that's free. You can ask, and showing up like that. And when I did that, I asked, and it was such a small thing but she's like, "Yeah, of course," and she handed it to me. It was like she was handing me the Holy Grail. Here's this full can, and I was like, can I have two snacks? And it was just so cool, and I loved that because I think it costs nothing to show up for yourself and every single day you can choose to do that and ask. Ask for what you want because really, it's there for you.

Susan: Ask for everything. I love it, and I love that that helps you feel - it helps me feel like - so when I asked for exactly what I want and this is a challenge to all of you listening. Just like Chanci said, it could be asking for the full can on the plane so there's a blog I wrote about that, or it could be asking for the bench seat in a restaurant or it could be asking for your housekeeper to do something different than how they've been doing it that irritates you.

So you're expanding your capacity for receiving what it is that you need and we talked about capacity on a couple of episodes with Lisa Fabrega, if you haven't listened to that episode, you got to listen to that one. But Chanci, you are such an inspiration for coaches who are getting started and I appreciate you with all those five kids, taking time today to deliver some goodness to Rich Coach Club.

Chanci: Oh, it's just been my pleasure. Thank you so much, Susan, this has been great.

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On today's episode, we've been talking about running a business when you've got kids at home. And before we wrap things up, I have one small suggestion for you. Start setting consistent office hours for your coaching business just as if you were commuting to an office and working at a typical job. Your office hours can be whatever you want. It could be Monday through Friday, eight to one, it could be Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 10 to four.

Whatever schedule you want, but whatever schedule you decide upon, I want you to treat this time seriously and be devoted and consistent. And - and this is the most crucial part - I want you to notify your fambam, your family about your work schedule. Let your partner and kids know from eight to one, mom is working. My door will be closed, my headphones will be on. I will be focusing on important projects, please don't disturb me unless it's a major emergency.

Listen y'all, when my kids were little, when I started this practice, they were six and eight years old. They were in school but after school or there was a snow day or some kind of school holiday, I was like, listen, unless there's blood, I don't want to see you at my office door - this house was built in the 20s so it's like a parlor type door with glass, and little Cora Hyatt would come stand where I could see her and press her Polly Pockets up to the window like I need help, this is an emergency.

But really, it took me a while but I trained them. You could also tell your family, pretend I'm at an office giving an important presentation and you're not going to bust into the room and interrupt unless something major is happening like the house is on fire. And true story, I have to tell this little story. When you work from a home office, many of you know, there are pros and cons to that, and one of the downsides for me is that any time something needs to happen at the house, any kind of contractor needs to come it, it can throw a wrench in the quiet that I require to do sessions and do webinars.

And one time for like, a solid two weeks, I had a paint crew coming in to remove wallpaper and paint the house. And it was just unavoidable that it was going to overlap with business hours. And I'd known these guys for years and they knew the drill. I'm like, listen, unless the house is on fire, someone's dying, do not come into my office. And one day I put a pot of chili, I made a pot of chili in between sessions and I left it to simmer on the stove, except I left the burner set to high.

And I was teaching a class and the painter was standing in the doorway waving his arms. I could hear all this ruckus happening and I'm like, waving him away, and what was actually happening was the chili was bubbling over on the stove and there were legitimate flames, so they saved my house from catching on fire that one time. So fire, blood, that kind of thing, you got it?

You might have to really train your family to respect your office hours and if they forget about the policy, just gently remind them and if they forget, remind them again. Hold firm on your boundaries and do not waiver. And pretty soon, they will get the message. You can also remind your kids, hey, if mom gets interrupted, then mom can't finish her work and if I can't work, then we have less money and if we have less money, that means no Nike tennis shoes or Xbox or trip to Disney.

You can frame things like that and your kids might suddenly feel inspired to respect your office hours. Now seriously folks, set office hours. Do it. Do it. I am constantly harping on this with my clients because it has changed my effing life and my business too. I don't know any successful entrepreneur who doesn't practice consistent business hours, but I know a lot of broke entrepreneurs who don't stick to consistent business hours.

It's so important, especially if you have kids. As a parent, your time is an extremely previous resource so you need to be extra super intentional with what you're doing and when. Set your office hours and stick to them and this will make such a difference for you. You'll thank me later.

Thank you for listening to today's episode. If you're running a household with kids and running a business, please give yourself a big hug and congratulate yourself because you are a damn superhero and that's for real. I hope this episode helped you remember that investing time and energy into your coaching practice is not something that makes you a bad parent. It makes you an amazing parent. You are being a role model for your kids and this is a good thing for them to see.

Also, I hope this episode has inspired you to choose office hours for your business and stick to those hours and get your family on board too. Train your family to respect your work time. This is such a great move because it means when you're working, you can really work without being interrupted and then when you're with your kids, you can be really present with them too. It's better all around for everyone. Win-win.

Alright, thank you so much listening to Susan Hyatt's Rich Coach Club. If you enjoyed today's show, please head over to susanhyatt.co/rich where you'll find a free worksheet with audio called Three Things You Can Do Right Now To Get More Clients. You can download the worksheet and the audio, print it out, there's a fun checklist for you to check off. Just three things to do. Check, check, checkidy-check.

This worksheet makes finding clients feel so much simpler and not so scary. So head to susanhyatt.co/rich to get that worksheet. Over there, you're also going to find a free Facebook you can join especially for coaches. Bring your coaching practice and your income to the next level at susanhyatt.co. See you next week.

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