A Behind The Scenes Look At My Life As A Solopreneur And A Mom
EPISODE 39
by Dianne Jimenez
This article takes 11 minutes to read
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A Behind The Scenes Look At My Life As A Solopreneur And A Mom
This episode will be very different from anything I’ve released before because I’m taking you behind the scenes of what’s been going as a mom of kids in different schools, wife partnering up with her hubs for a special project we hope will help MANY families out there, a CEO of our home, and the impact on entrepreneur life but mainly my podcast show.
In this episode, I get raw and real and basically just paint a picture of my journey these last few months. I hope you enjoy this episode. It’s less on parenting, organizing or teaching life skills – but more of a view of the human behind the mic and camera.
Enjoy!
Want to go from 'drowning' to peace of mind?
Can I just say, is it me or did this last school year just fly by? I can’t remember much of last fall but it really did zip by right after Spring Break. And now, it’s been absolutely wild this last month, let alone last few weeks with:
- the end of the year special events and activities in and outside of the school for my kids. I can tell you it was a heck of a lot easier when they were all under 1 roof – meaning all in elementary. But with our oldest in high school – wow. It’s a whole other type of busy, not just physically but mentally 100%!
- Then there was preparing for and attending the last meetings before summer with my Professional Organizers group that I volunteer for and am the chair for our Montreal chapter. So there were a lot of loose ends to cover and set up for the fall and winter months, before the summer break.
- If you follow me on social media, just last week, my husband and I made it public knowledge that we will be creating a new course that will come out at the end of the summer. And as crazy and scary as it was to let people know about it, it’s something we believe needs to be put out there. The course will be about teaching parents how to create a “chore”/activity chart kids can stick to and so can they. This would be for parents of school-aged kids specifically.
We announced the other week, for a limited time only, that we were pre-enrolling our first 10 students at a very discounted rate in exchange for their feedback. As of Monday night this week, we’re THRILLED to have 9 spots filled! Did I mention scary? Scary because it’s about sharing what you know and TEACHING IT. The scary part is – you don’t want to screw it up lol! But like anything – it takes a first draft and then we can only move up from there right?
find out how families with 3+ kids tackle the beast: laundry!
So if you’re listening to this right now and you’re wondering – hey! I didn’t know about this and I’d like to know more about that course, no worries. I’ll add a clickable link to today’s show notes where you can sign up and be part of the waitlist. Or you can head to diannejimenez.com/course after this episode. This way, when all the news comes out about the course, YOU’LL definitely be one of the FIRST to know about it and get in!
- Next, trying to get a podcast episode out. Embarrassingly enough, my last episode was released at the end of May and the next one was supposed to come out June 10th… Clearly it didn’t because of everything I’m listing here.. But I did manage to record something – it just wasn’t ready on time and now I’m going to move it to a later date or something. I don’t know just yet
- Finally… life kept happening. Kids get sick, gastro, family visits, a late night trip to the ER only to find out I have fibroids – but my appendix and kidneys are A-OK. So good thing for that but I did have to make an appointment with my gyno. Which is coming up next week. Fun, fun.
The life of a mom-entrepreneur: It’s definitely NOT like what you see on social media and not as smooth as I’d like it to be. However, I know this’ll all be worth it down the road. Plus, I love doing this, sharing with you and being real when it comes to parenthood, our mindset, being a woman, a mom and entrepreneur. So, on THAT note,
School’s out for us living in the province of Quebec. As I record this, it IS the first day of summer vacation, the kids are home, and it’s also a long weekend for us Quebecers. So that means, the husband’s home too! So if you hear any weird noises it’s probably him in the garage or any drilling sounds.
My Secret Sauce for setting the kids up for success
He’s building his barbecue shed in the backyard. And our bedroom is at the back of the house and above the garage. In case you didn’t know and just to be clear, my office/studio is right here in our room! Fancy huh? Lol!
Now, this is the 2nd summer since the launch of my podcast show. And I remember last year, despite ALL the good intentions, and even mentioning it on the episode before the summer hit last year, I warned my audience that my episodes would be released less frequently BECAUSE the kids were home, pool life was about to start again, meaning mom life was about to be amped up which also meant biz life was taking a back burner but not completely shut down.
Well, summer came, we had a lot of fun, I gave myself grace because the thought of my podcast being put on “hold” was always on my mind. And I have to admit, in hindsight, it was bugging me.
Then summer flew by and we had to prepare ourselves mentally for the next season and new beginnings such as, our oldest entering his first year of high school! It started out smoothly until there was a whole issue with the transportation company and the buses. Long story short, I was in a group chat with other moms for a good month and a half scheduling and coordinating carpools for our kids. Yeah, fun-fun.
September also meant volunteering picked back up again with the professional organizers in Canada with our monthly meeting preparations and presentations. Also working at the school started up again, so my schedule took another adjustment. I was happy for the structure to be honest. Because from there, I was able to see the pockets of time where I can work on my business.
Well you know when something good happens and then you’ve got MORE good things flowing in? Well I acquired a new client with an ongoing job helping her and her family get their entire home organized. It’s still going on today and I’m so thankful to be able to have this opportunity but mostly to help them get more clarity, structure and peace of mind down the road.
3 things to establish now before losing your s#!t later on (during the school year)
So the FIRST episode I launched after that long pause last year was November 2022. I forget if it was the beginning, middle or end… but there was a good 5 months between episodes. And now and again, the thought of not putting content out there during that time, like I mentioned before, was bugging me but I also couldn’t let it make me feel defeated even when I saw my stats drop significantly when I released more episodes afterwards. And to be quite open about this, it’s still taking awhile for them to pick back up. But that’s OK.
And might as well slide it in here right now, since I’m talking about it – if you’ve been a listener since the very beginning, whether it’s right after the episode gets launched or now and again, and you find my episodes helpful, insightful, enlightening, or relatable in some way – please post a positive review and hit ‘follow’ or subscribe from whichever platform that you’re listening to. Just so you know, it will help not only my stats (and my ego) but when you do follow or subscribe, it’ll bring my show up the algorithm chain and get more eyeballs seeing it. So that just means more parents who need that guidance, clarity and just to feel seen and heard, see my podcast show in their feed.
Ok. I just had to put it out there lol!
Now speaking of releasing the episodes, I also tried to do what I did before earlier that year when my podcast first came out back in February 2022. And that was to release an episode weekly. Honestly, it was really tough, LIKE really, really challenging. So I made the decision earlier this year in February (I think), which happens to be the 1 year anniversary of the release of my podcast show. And that was to slow down and only release an episode every TWO weeks in hopes to give me more time to prepare and give you quality content. That’s always been a goal of mine and will forever be.
Free training: "How to find time in a busy schedule"
And here we are today, 1 month since my last episode, still giving myself grace because it’s me doing this on my own – without a team YET – and still trying to balance everything else out.
Now the point of this whole episode was to give you a behind the scenes look at what’s been going on. I thought I’d give you a run down of the last month but it turns out, it’s been a whole year process filled with trials, setbacks, reframe and try again especially around my podcast.
Why? Because it’s where people get to hear from me in long form. Sure, I do post images and videos on Instagram and Facebook but it’s merely a glimpse, a snapshot, if you will. And that’s true for ANY social media post out there. At least here, on this platform, you hear me, my voice, my journey and I hope you can relate somewhat..
So where do I go from here? What happens next with this podcast?
Well, if I don’t want things to turn out like last year where I went MIA for almost 6 months, I need to make a plan. And that plan has to make sense for the season I’m in right now, which is summer, and that my kids have a certain capability and understanding of what I also do, aside from being just their mom.
So the plan is to draw out the areas that involve my focus and attention. From the kids’ pool schedule and activities, jujitsu practices (and competition), meal prep, client work, our vacation later in July, spending time with friends and family, taking my mom out on her errands, spending alone time just me and Onnig, working on the course with him… AS WELL AS podcast episode creation and releasing.
Seems like a lot just saying it out loud.
Stay on track with laundry & tips to getting the kids involved
But, notice how I didn’t mention cleaning or organizing? To me, this is ongoing. There is no plan for it, it just has to be maintained. Thankfully, my kids follow the chore/activity chart Onnig and I created. Are they perfect at it? Some days yes, and other days there’s more repeating to do and some frustration. But what’s parent life without repetition and frustration, right?
To be completely honest, this is the first summer the kids will be following the chart. However, it shouldn’t be any different from how it was during the school year. I can tell you that I did change a few tasks that make sense at this time of the year and already, the first day of summer vacation, it’s working, for now. But all this to say is whatever we’re learning and experiencing now with it, will be of benefit for our course and the students who will enroll in it. So don’t forget, you can get on the waitlist today just by heading to diannejimenez.com/course
So back to planning my summer, if you’re anything like me and need to see this all visually, I typically draw it out on the planner I’ve been using for years by W. Maxwell. I didn’t know this when I first got it at Costco years ago, but it’s from a Montreal based company. And I’m pretty happy about that. But what I love most about it is that I can draw out the blocks of time where I’m ‘busy’ and see what that looks like over the course of a week. This helps a ton to see where the pockets of free time are located vs. the busier times.
So that’s that.
I hope you enjoyed the behind-the-curtains view and a glimpse of what mom and entrepreneur life has been like these last few months. I appreciate your positive reviews and follows, like I said. By doing this, it’ll boost my podcast show up to more eyeballs, aka parents like you.
Alright my friends, thank you for being here and taking me along on your day. I hope to see you back here again, next time. Take care – bye bye!
Referenced in this episode
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