The quick, short answer is yes, but let me go on and explain.
When I found out I was pregnant with baby number four, otherwise known as the THE Leila, I knew almost instantly that that the life I had been living would never be the same.
I told my husband that I felt very strongly that I should not return to working full time outside of the home. After some very long and painful conversations, he agreed that we would, “Give it a try for a couple months”.
During those months, I was as financially strapped as I’d ever been, but honestly I was quite happy as well. It was this time period that opened my eyes to the exact concepts brought out in Crystal Payne’s newest book, Money Making Mom. If you’re not familiar with Crystal, I don’t know why you wouldn’t be by the way, but she is the founder of www.moneysavingmom.com, a website focused on helping moms save more so they can live more.
In her new book, Money Making Mom, she tackles what happens when saving money just isn’t enough. Crystal has graciously opened her heart and her life, to show us what to do when you actually have to earn money, either to survive or because you have a burning desire to give creatively to the world. What I love about the book is the journey that Crystal takes us on a journey from the depths of frustration and overwhelm in our finances to a self-actualizing personal discovery of our unique passions and abilities.
But what good is all of this self-awareness if it doesn’t come with a dose of practical reality? It’s not any good! That’s why the stories from Crystal and her readers about how they earned as little as Christmas money all the way to replacing full time income are so helpful. There’s comfort in seeing not only the metaphorical beauty in someone’s culminating chapters but also their humble beginnings of their sketch pad full of notes. The book is filled with perfectly placed tales of how not one or two, but a multitude of moms found their way from scraping by to bringing in cold hard cash. It also includes the honest tales of businesses that failed, and shows how even in failure there is room for success.
So the question is, do you have what it takes to be a mompreneur? Do you have a burning desire, or need, to bring in money to supplement or sustain your family? Did you put your dreams on hold to marry the man of your dreams and are now haunted by the what-if’s? Make no mistake, as a new entrepreneur dipping my toes in the pool of small biz startup, I can guarantee this life is not for the faint of heart. Don’t let the Shark Tank fool you, there’s very few, if any overnight success stories. You may indeed reach that tipping point where your business suddenly gains enough momentum to take you to the next level of financial comfort but before you get there, there will likely be lots of late nights and early mornings with blood, sweat and even tears. I’ve taken a little help from Money Making Mom to come up with a few questions to ask yourself to see if you’re built for this life.
Why do I want to own my own business? Are you trying to replace an income or just want to increase that free cash at the end of the month? Maybe you’re just unhappy in your current career or do you want to fund your hobby? Perhaps you have a deeper calling a desire to fill a need in your community. Whatever the reason, it’s important to be clear, the challenge of starting a business can wear down even the most enthusiastic, knowing your why will keep you fueled.
What am I passionate about? I love this question because it’s so easy to get pulled into things that you are good at or even that other people need you to do, and without being fully aware you realize you aren’t passionate about what you spend a great deal of your day doing. For me passion is about combining something that you are truly gifted or skilled in with something you really truly enjoy. If you’ve found something that combines those two things and there is a market for them, then you may be all set up for a business for an enjoyable business.
Am I willing to fail? Of course we don’t take on challenges with the goal of failing, however the reality is, that at least some of the time we will. If you aren’t willing to accept that possibility, to be honest entrepreneurship probably isn’t the right fit for you. There is a pin that comes up on Pinterest every so often about all of the largely successful professionals that started out with rather large failures in life. From Michael Jordan to Oprah, there is no success without some failure. Being willing to bounce back from that failure is what makes them great.
The amazing thing that Crystal shares about failures in her life, is that sometimes those failures teach us wonderful things about ourselves and about the business that we are building, if we let it.
There are many more pearls of wisdom in the book from Crystal and other money making moms. Things like how to know if a business is right for you or when to leave your full time job and make your side hustle your only one. There’s even information about the basics of business, in simple terms, so that those of us without an MBA can understand without the technical jargon of traditional business books. My favorite quote is the I used in this picture, it’s one I tell my coaching clients often as they grow overwhelmed with the big picture of raising children or starting from scratch in careers, keep moving in the right direction, because small steps really do add up.
So if the momprenuer bug has bitten you and you’re ready to be a money making mom, drop me a line in the comments or hit me on social media @IndyParentCoach. I’d love to cheer you on!
