EP 2 + Taking A Long A** Break in Your Biz (aka Maternity Leave)

 

 

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Today we’re sharing the deets of taking maternity leave as a business owner. Take the LONG A** breaks we sometimes need. Join us while we talk about how it’s possible to take breaks and what you need to do to make it work.

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Full Episode Transcription: 

Hi, my name is CarliAnna and you are listening C-E-Over It.

Welcome to episode two of season three. Yay, we are keeping this podcast going. I know. I feel like what season two I was like, Yes, we’re gonna be doing Season Two and it’s coming back. And then I did like six episodes and fell off the face of the planet because the pregnancy was way too hard. So every time I like to do another episode with this podcast, I’m like, Hey, we’re back. Like we’re still continuing it. So yay, yay. happy about that.

In this week’s episode, we’re going to be talking all about taking breaks. And not just like any breaks as a freelancer. But taking like a long a breaks as a freelancer, like I’m talking about how to take one to two months of time. And as always, we’re not going to be giving you like, these are the things to do. I mean, we’re gonna be talking a little bit about that, but we’re just gonna be like discussing it and having a conversation because as always, I really want this podcast to feel more like an escape and like a fun listen to than how to podcast. This is not how to podcast. This is supposed to be a fun and cool podcast. Not that how-to podcasts aren’t cool, but you know, you know, you guys know what I mean. Let’s first though get into the snacks and track segment snacks and tracks.

Okay, starting with the tracks I have been listening to one of my favorite books already and will technically read it in 2022. But I read it at the very end of 2022. And after I had done my 2022 like recap of the books that I had read, so tiny, so 2023 book, I already know it was going to be my top five, fav cut five, my cup fave 5.55, whatever, for 2023 because it was so good. And I actually almost didn’t read it because it’s not a book that I would normally read. It’s a science fiction book. And it’s called Hail Mary by Andy Weir. And for those of you who have already read science fiction books, I know I’m so so late to the game like they’re already making a movie out of this book, which I’m so excited for. But if you’re like a fantasy romance girly, like me, and you don’t normally read science fiction books, pick this up, you will not be disappointed. The bromance between the main character and I don’t want to ruin it. But like the other character. It is so sweet. No, and it’s not like an actual romance. So just like buddies, they are the like sweetest cutest buddies, I cried. By the end of it. It also made me feel really smart. Because the way you can tell either the guy who wrote this same guy who wrote The Martian, by the way, he either really, really knows this stuff very well, or he brought in an expert, because everything that he was going through in the book, I was like, Wow, this could actually happen. And you sound so right. And I felt like I was learning a lot. It was really interesting. But he talked about things in a way that he didn’t like bore you to death with like facts and information on posts is like really interesting. I mean, right from the get-go. It just sucked me into the book, which was perfect because I was in a big huge reading slump. And I was like, honestly, I just want a book to suck me in. Like, I just want a good story. I just want a good story. I don’t care if it’s a romance. I don’t care if the world is amazing. I just want the story. And so I picked up this book and it filled that void. Exactly, like the quickest read of my life. I think I read it within like, I read it during Christmas break. And so I feel like if I weren’t with my family would have read it in three days. But I think I read it in seven days because I was with my family and I’m orange light, but it was really really good. I filled the void perfectly. I think the main characters were just so so cute. I fell in love with them. Immediately. Please, please read this. This is definitely gonna be on my top five for 2023 I loved it.

Okay, and then what have I been snacking on? Okay, this is another really good snack. That sounds so basic. But guys, I have been obsessed with it ever since I found it on Tik Tok. And I honestly don’t even know how I found it. It’s just a snack account, but it’s such a basic snack. When I’m gonna tell you the secret ingredient that’s gonna level up this entire snack. Okay, so So my snack first. Preferably. I like a homemade slice of sourdough. If you’ve been like following me on Instagram, you know that I’ve liked recently gotten into sourdough making and it’s been really fun. And so I have been having a lot of homemade sourdoughs around. It’s been super fun. Sourdough is super easy. By the way, for those of you who are like wanting a creative side hobby, do sourdough. It’s so much fun. There are so many things that you can make with sourdough. It’s so much easier than I thought it was going to be. But I will say I did buy my sourdough starter. I bought it on Amazon from like San Francisco sourdough. And I feel like that made the process so much easier because it’s getting the sourdough started is the hardest part. So if you’re just like by sourdough starter for someone else, it’s so much easier because I’ve tried making my own sourdough starter and it’s freaking hard anyways, so you get a slice of sourdough, or whatever bread I’ve made it just regular bread before too and it’s honestly still a good get a piece of bread, put it in the toaster, toasted to perfection. Step two, take it out, and put your desired hummus flavor on the piece of toast. And I know what you’re thinking Carly Hummus Santos is really not that crazy. I know. And I actually don’t even really like hummus toast. Like I feel like hummus has to be paired with something lighter and crispier not like bread because like hummus and toast. It’s like, I feel like I’m just eating all carbs. Like it’s just, I don’t know, it’s not enough like flavor for me. It’s like too much of the same texture. Like I like hummus, like vegetables or chips. Do you know what I mean? I don’t really like hummus on bread all that much. But the hummus and other bread. My favorite flavor, by the way, is the What’s it called? roasted red pepper. And that’s gonna be a pretty pretty much all hummus companies have a roasted red pepper pepper flavor. I’m sure if your husband you’ve heard of it. That’s my favorite flavor anyway, so I put that on top. And then this is where it really gets good. I put pepper on it no matter what other toppings I put on my hummus dose. I always put pepper. And are you ready for the secret ingredient? truffle oil. Oh, my gosh, truffle oil plus the pepper on the hummus dose, like even my husband who doesn’t like hummus. And again, I like hummus toast like we’re both like whoa, that was really good. Like one time like the when I first discovered it, I made like an array of different toasts for lunch for us because that’s all I had. So I made like peanut butter, yummy toast and I made the avocado toast and then I made this hummus toast and add all of the different toasts that we had had for lunch that day. That hummus toast was definitely our favorite. Even my husband came down was like holy cow that hummus dose was so freakin good. And we’ve been eating it ever since it is amazing. And I will even put like little sliced cucumbers on it. And even some like chicken like shredded chicken on it to have like, and then I’ll turn it’s like an open face sandwich. After you put like the pepper and the truffle oil on it. Honestly any toppings I think would be really really good on it. But anyways, try that hummus toast and let me know what you think. Because it is really, really good. The truffle oil is what really makes it super good. Obviously truffles make everything yummy.

Okay, and that’s everything for snacks and truck segment. Now we’re gonna do the little life update. I don’t really know pay Okay, life update what’s been going on lately. Um, life update is going to be a little bit of a ramble. I don’t necessarily have anything planned, but things that I want to be talking about. So I’m just going to like, let you know what’s currently on my mind right now. 2023, I decide is going to be the year that I get my body back. If you guys saw my Instagram, he saw that, like I decided I was going to be waking up at 5am to do to our workouts because of how important they are to me not because I’m like, Yes, I’m gonna be this baddie, who like only thinks success comes from waking up at 5am Because I don’t think that at all. Like that’s so dumb. Like the book, The 5am Club, I’m sure it’s great. I will never read it though, because I just don’t think that success in your life is gonna be changed from waking up at 5am. But working out for two hours everyday just moving my body feeling strong if doing something just for me, especially when I have been pregnant three times in the past four years. And my body just doesn’t feel like my own is so frickin therapeutic to me, like literally it is my therapy, I cry almost every time I work out because I’m like doing some hard left and I’m listening to like this empowering music and I’m like, I don’t know if I can do this last set like this is really heavy or like I don’t know if I can do the last five minutes whatever. And I do it I’m like wow, that was like so hard. Like life’s so hard, but I did it I can do this like I’m amazing. And then I keep you know and then I do the next lesson is awesome. So I decided that this year I’m just going to completely take my body back after being again pregnant three times in the past four years and so I’m going to be waking up at 5am so I can really prioritize those 5am workouts because especially when I do have in the mornings the rest of the day because so much better I am such a better human being when I do that.

So I’m going to be doing that I also was like you know what I need to like actually do my skincare how many we’ve been washing my face the past six months because I was just so tired? I like brushing my teeth. Like it was like no I needed to take care of my body and take care of myself so I’ve been doing more skincare I’ve been trying to take more regular showers. You know what I mean? Like I’m just having this year be the year my body is my body and I get to make it feel like how I want it to so I’m really excited about that. That’s been fun business-wise. I don’t know. I don’t feel like there’s like anything new really going on business-wise like we had our 22 Nice to Recap meeting at the end of the year last year, and that was honestly just really cool to see because I don’t know, I don’t know if any of you guys like imagine yourselves, like with a team. But I always did. And I always like imagined, like this team of amazing women who care about my company just as much as I do, and who are bringing ideas to the table. And people that I can like, brainstorm with, you know what I mean, not just people that like, I do what they like, I tell them to do stuff, they do what I asked, and like, That’s it, like, I want people on my team. And I want to pay people so that they care enough, you know what I mean? Like, where we all collectively are responsible and care about the result of what happens. And so I don’t know, just after the 2022 meeting, I was like, This is so cool to like, see this happening? Like, we were all brainstorming? Like, what are the things that we want to be doing? What are the things that we felt like 2022 was lacking? And what can we do better? And then also, just to hear, like, I was able to, like, let all the leaders like, give them a chance to be like, Hey, tell me like, where do you see yourself within CarliAnna? And like, what are your goals within CarliAnna. And to hear like, Oh, this is something I would like to do personally. And this is where I would like to be placed within the company. And like, this is what I love. Like, it just it feels so empowering and cool to be able to provide lives for people and to be able to say yes, like, I want to make that happen for you. Like, let’s figure out a place where you get to stay on more as a consultant versus the doer, let’s, you know, figure out a place within the company where you can take on the communications and the writing versus, you know, creating the posts or like those types of things. It’s just really cool. And so I just am been feeling really excited about Team CarliAnna, where we’re going in 2023.

Nothing like, necessarily new. Like, as I kind of said in my last podcast episode, where we recap 2022, and we’re going into 2023 2022 was like a real stabilization year. And 2023 is like the year where I’m excited to see all that stabilization. And all that internal work, like turns into growth. And I hear I mean, like, I don’t want to like jump the gun and be like, I really feel like this is the year is going to be like a big growth year and like stay up for it doesn’t, you know, I don’t want to jinx it. And then it doesn’t happen. But like, I don’t know, like, I just get a feeling where I don’t know if any of you guys get the feeling in your business where like, this is a year like I’ve been putting in the work. I’ve been seeing the stuff happen and like now is the freaking time for stuff to happen. And I’m excited to see where 2023 goes again, it’s not like we’re doing anything crazy or anything new. But it’s just like things are working now. Like we’ve got it figured out. We’ve done the work. Now is the time to like, capitalize on that. And I’m just really, really excited to see what 2023 goes on, who knows, it might not actually happen. Maybe there are lessons that I’m not even aware of that need to happen that are going to happen this year, because that happens quite a lot where I’m like, Oh, wow, this crappy thing happened. But I’m glad it happened. Because now we know and it’s not gonna happen again. You don’t I mean, sometimes things like that happen and that’s okay, but like, we just been having. I’ve been having a lot of that lately. So I feel like 2023 is going to knock on one gonna be the year for growth. We’ll see. I don’t know.

Okay, anyways, that’s my little personal life update. Now we’re gonna be getting into our subject for the day, which is taking a break which was inspired by my maternity leave, because, again, off 2022 was, I don’t want to even frickin repeat myself again, because I’ve been saying this. So many times, I was focused on taking maternity leave, you know, taking a big break. And then for the first time. I feel like this is when I was able to really successfully take like two months off and truly not have to worry about a single thing. I’ve had three kids, and I’ve taken three maternity leaves. And obviously, each maternity leave gets better and better. I just feel like I’ve learned a lot when taking maternity leaves and taking big breaks. So I kind of want to just like talk to you guys about the things that I feel like I have learned the things that I don’t know stigmas and stuff that come up when it comes to talking about taking big breaks.

So let’s get started. So taking breaks as a freelancer is kind of a tricky situation because it’s not something that like you when you’re working as a QA nine to five jobs like you have a certain amount of paid break that you get to take or a built-in maternity policy like you’re the one that has to figure it out on your own. You are your HR person and you are the boss. So you have to be in charge of knowing Okay, how many breaks can I profitably take a year and how many days is that going to be evil? Well, it’s just really a tricky situation that no And is ever going to teach you how to do like, you have to figure it out yourself. But just so annoying. That newer is my lovelies. Because again, I’ve done this three times, and I’m here to help you out.

Now first start with things not to do, because I have ordered a lot of things to not do, maybe not a lot, but some things, things not to do not hire someone like the month you’re giving birth. And like have that person be your replacement and like don’t give them any training. That’s something that I did, I hired a graphic designer, who’s amazing and awesome. But I hired her like the month I was giving birth because I had signed on to new clients. And I was like, if I just like hire someone to do the work for me, and I just like guide them through stuff on my phone. Like I can still take these clients on and be making some money versus making you know, no money. Which is honestly, it’s not a bad idea to do. I love the idea of hiring people to like replace you, especially when you’re needing to take a break and to be taking just a smaller percentage of the profit for yourself. But something that I didn’t do here, which is you’ll see the difference between my very first maternity leave. And then my last maternity leave was I offered that first person basically no training, there was no like slow lead in between transitioning from you know, like being hired to like being in charge of everything. I basically like hire the person. And then I was like, okay, like so you can do the brand design yourself. Like I’ve done the brand strategy here my notes like go do it. And like we had never worked together at this point. And so like me just giving her full reins right off the bat was a horrible, horrible idea, no matter how amazing she was. Every person that you bring into your company needs an onboarding plan, and they need to be slowly transitioned into the role that you want them to take because it is going to take training, especially if it’s going to be a role that is like something you normally do that is kind of your specialty, like design, or coaching, or whatever it is what we did with this maternity leave. Because we basically did the same thing. I got pregnant, and then in January, we hired Hannah. But instead of just saying like, Okay, you need to do all the calls all by yourself right now, we didn’t do that. Instead of doing that we basically gave I kind of talked about this in the last podcast episode. But we hired her in January, and from January to February, she didn’t work at all her start date was February 1. And then in all January, me and my OBM Abby, we created this onboarding plan for her, we created every training resource that she needed, we created everything to help her feel confident and to help her succeed and her role. And I really feel like because we did that out, her onboarding was so successful. So so glad we did that we’re doing that with every employee. Now we’re actually going back with our other past employees that we didn’t do this for. And we’re creating this for them so that they have this resource. And they have more of an idea of what their role is what they’re you know, what KPIs are trying to hit, like, you know, where they can grow, where to go for help, all that stuff. Anyway, so we did that for a month. And then like in our onboarding plan, or like a month one, your goal is to be able to answer questions without asking for help and to stop needing Carli’s approval. Because basically the first two weeks, we were like, Okay, you can answer questions in the group because she was coming out as coach. But you need to run every response by Carli first. And because I know it’s a little annoying, and it’s hard. But because we did that in the first weeks, I was able to give her so much advice. And by the end of two weeks, I was like, Yep, you’re good. You can respond now and you don’t need my help.

So that was our month, one goal. And then like a month, two goals was like, because the calls were a little bit more live. I was like start answering questions during the calls. And then three, I couldn’t even remember what month three goal was. But it was just like kind of more of where we wanted her to be. I think it was like running a bmm coaching call by herself or something like that. And we got her there. So we had three months to like, help her learn her role. And that was awesome. And so by the time that my maternity clip came, which was six months after we had initially hired her, I was so confident that like she could totally take this on, and she could totally do the things that she needed to do so that I could fully take a break. It was awesome.

My team is very, very like well versed on where to go for help. And so when I was on my maternity leave it wasn’t like like I told them I was like if you guys need anything like I’m on my phone, I can like you know I’m not gonna be on my computer but I’m going to be on my phone like I can answer anything that you guys need. But because Abby’s done such a good job at like being the person that answers questions and being known as like my right hand so that like everyone can go to Abby for help. And so like, Hannah went to me for help our social media person like, went to her for help. We were doing this big launch. So our Facebook ads, I was like, just go out to Abby, go ask Gabi. And so literally Abby was handling all of that while I was on maternity leave. And it was awesome. And so because everyone knew their jobs really, really well. Abby was kind of the right hand like almost like the barrier entry point. Just while I was on maternity, maternity leave to answer questions. I was awesome. We’re also going to do an episode I’m really excited about this. This is like kind of a side note sidebar. We’re gonna do an episode where I bring in my whole team and we’re gonna be kind of talking about the roles of my team. So if you guys have any questions, make sure to go follow us like on Instagram, the podcast, Instagram, and my personal Instagram because I’m going to be putting a question box.

So if you have any questions about how our team is run, or like specific questions for team members, like what are their anyways, coming back. So having that timing difference was a huge guys, I would have died. If I didn’t do that I pretty much died the first time like both my clients. That first time my first maternity leave, and I just like hired so much she did such a great job. But like, again, like we just didn’t really have plans in place or anything in place for her to like really succeed in her job. Both of my clients that I had during my maternity leave the first time were like pissed at me, didn’t end up ending going well, I think one ended up maybe one was fine. I just remember one, in particular, did I did well, and they were like, we hate this or that even though we did exactly what they asked it was weird. Anyways, so don’t do that and do the other thing instead. Also a few other things that I learned, which I don’t know if you’re able to be entirely helpful. But there are six states that offer self-employed peeps on maternity leave because there is now an act where like, I don’t know and if you don’t live in the US have a just disregard this. Because we are all really jealous of you that you get like a government-paid maternity leave. And that we are the only country that doesn’t have a frickin government-paid maternity leave.

So if you are listening from somewhere else, just, you know, let go enjoy your maternity leave that’s paid and just ignore us old USA folks that are apparently 70 years behind. But there are six states that do offer this, I don’t even know if it was it was like California, Washington and Washington DC. But apparently, even that’s not super great. There’s like a lot of, it’s still kind of a pretty privileged program. Like you have to take off a certain amount of time, there’s still a lot of barriers to enter into that which is not great. You can also buy a short-term disability insurance, which is kind of expensive, not super great. And you do have to buy it three months before you even get pregnant. And I’ve heard the premiums are little tad high. So and I don’t even know if it’s worth it. But just things to look into that I learned while I was researching for this podcast episode. So there you go. Obviously, one thing that’s helpful to do is to plan to save money, just save money, you just never know what’s gonna happen. And if you physically can’t work, just, it’s better to have a savings account, if you can. Okay, another thing that I feel like really helped us and I’ve done this, how many times have I done this? I think I’ve done this every all three times. And I’ve been really, really grateful it really saved me, especially that first time when Yeah, I had been taking most of the clients didn’t really have a big team is I once I got pregnant, I was like, okay, cool, I need something that’s gonna like pay me while I am not working. So all three times I launched, I didn’t launch a new thing. But I did do like a big launch before I went on maternity leave. So anyways, and this was like a passive income product because Okay, everyone who tells you that passive income is truly passive is 100% line. It is not true, like passive income requires a lot of work upfront, in order to get sales. But there is a pro to passive income where you do have to do a lot of work upfront. But once you do that work upfront. And if you need to take a pause for like two or three months, which is perfect for maternity leave like you can still get paid through that passive income.

It’s not something that’s gonna pay you forever and it’s not like once you create it, you’re done forever, and it’s just gonna sell on its own like passive income is something that you have to continually sell. Here’s a little like, pause breaker for you guys. I guess. I told my 10 kgg students this or I was like if you guys love marketing, do more passive income because that’s going to be your job from now on. If you love creating and you love doing constant do one to one service projects like branding and web, it just kind of depends like what you want your job to be if you want to be doing more than marketing, and you want to just create it once and then sell it and that be your focus, do passive income. But if you want to be focused more on the actual doing in the creating constantly do the other stuff. But having that passive income all three times and like we do like a big launch like a month or two before I’m gonna go on maternity leave, so then I have like a few payment plans coming in. Like my first launch, like, I think that’s when we had sold bmm the very first time and I had like maybe $1,500 was the payments coming in. And that’s like what I was living off of. Plus, like those two clients, like I was making a small profit percentage from those two clients. So like I was living off of not very much $1,500 A month plus whatever it was I was making from the profit from the clients, that was enough to pay me and I was like happy enough without where I could like, take a few months of a break, you know what I mean? So having, even if it’s like, it doesn’t have to be a course it can even just be like some kind of like day rate thing that you do and you like sell day rates at a reduced price or something for after like when you come back from maternity leave, or like this is going to be the last time that we’re doing you know an XY and Z type of project and sell those like just having like some kind of big push before you go on maternity leave has been really really helpful for us to make sure we go into maternity leave confidently and like we don’t have to do a ton of selling. That’s tip number two, I guess is like having some kind of passive income.

We also have questions about passive income we can talk about it more to oh, here’s okay, this is like a maternity leave specific tip. I guess a lot of this has been pretty maternity leave specific. But something that I feel like I wish someone would have told me is that when you’re planning for him in surgery leave like you don’t know how that maternity leave is gonna go. And you don’t know how that pregnancy is going to go. I kind of have an idea now because I’ve obviously done three times. But my first time I had no idea I was gonna feel so freaking terrible my last month of pregnancy. I really, really wish I would have taken that entire last month off just completely off. Because I felt so so terrible. So honestly, like, one Be careful that last month of pregnancy you also don’t know if you’re gonna go into labor early like who knows, like, be so so so flexible that last month, you have no idea what’s gonna happen to be effects flexible. And then I know a lot of people who are like, I’m just gonna have like a three or four-week maternity leave, and then I’m gonna come back time for longer just plan for longer, you are going to feel insane, you’re gonna feel unsafe, even if you feel good, you’re going to feel like a good level of insanity. There’s still some level of insanity that is going to be happening on in your brain. And you shouldn’t be coming back earlier than six weeks minimum.

Honestly, I would plan for three months off if you can, because again, like was my first I’m I plan for three months off and I took the full three months off because one my son was insane. So frickin hard. It was the hardest baby I’ve ever had. And now we know he has autism. He was such a hard baby so freaking cute, but like, it was so hard. And also I was suffering from postpartum depression anxiety a little bit didn’t really realize why I was feeling crazy. Until after those three months. You don’t know if you’re gonna struggle with those things. Yeah, I would just plan for like, maybe depression and anxiety is gonna hit you honestly, like just just plan for it to hit you. Because I don’t know at least was because that’s probably been the only time that I’ve had like full on depression anxiety. With LC I felt really, really great. But I still had some sort of form of anxiety you don’t I mean, like your hormones and your body is just odd whack you’re sleep deprived, you still feel crazy a little bit. And so giving yourself like with LC like I came back after six weeks, but like I couldn’t do as much as I hadn’t before. And so I’m glad that I gave myself a long buffer zone to come back and to feel I don’t know, like just give myself grace for like feeling weird and being like, Why do I feel so freakin angry today? You know what I mean? And then with this last pregnancy and this last little baby of a letter. I bounced back pretty quick. I had postpartum Rage was really weird, but also she’s been my worst sleeper. So I’ve been more sleep deprived than I have ever with any of the other babies been before which is something that obviously I can’t do anything about. I can’t plan anything around like, I don’t know. It’s just it’s a weird thing.

And then this is my last like specific maternity leave tip that I would tell anyone is to invest in baby products. This is not necessarily a business tip but it is Okay, it doesn’t sound like one but it is, but invest in baby tips or baby things. I guess this goes, Okay, pause I guess this goes for not even people who are experiencing maternity leave, but like, just a life tip in general, like, invest in life things that are going to make you feel less stressed at home. But okay, so like for baby things, we got this new and this is back when it was I think it’s like over $2,000. Now I don’t know if I paid $2,000 for it, but like back then we bought it used we got it for $500 and one and that was a stretch so but back then we invested in this new because I sleep is freaking important to me. So I’m buying this really expensive thing. Because I don’t want to go to work being freaking tired. And it’s worth the $500 to me. So we bought it and I’m really glad that we invested in a really good quality baby item to help me feel less stressed that I can do better work and just be a better human being. But I think that also goes for like, Okay, I freaking hate doing the dishes, or I freakin hate chopping my vegetables. Like if I could chop my vegetables like 10 times quicker than I would. I don’t know, you know, I mean, I just would be less stressed, I would be able to do things better, I would be able to take less time away from my work, I would be able to enjoy making dinner more, just buy the pre-chopped vegetables behave like it’s a little bit more expensive. But like if it’s good and make your life that much easier.

Consider the investment cost into your happiness. You know what I mean? Like there are just some things especially when you like, are needing to take breaks and your business, which everybody does. Everybody does. You need to like, take little private things like personal things. You know what I mean? Like, and factor that into you being taking a break like buying the chopped vegetables versus the normal vegetables buying a more expensive bassinet because it’s going to help you sleep a little bit better 100% worth it. I’m going to invest in that every single frickin time if it makes my life easier. I’m gonna get a Starbucks every single week, even though I know it’s so freakin expensive. It’s bringing me so much happiness and making my life so much more survivable. Not even survivable, but drivable like it brings me joy looking forward to that every single week a routine Starbucks, heck, yes, I’m investing in that because that is my happiness. And that is my little weekly break that I get to take.

And I’m so glad that I did. It has a long little spiel, but I hope that’s worth it. I don’t know, I just have been, especially since we did just have 2023 break like Christmas break, we always take two weeks off for our team. And we were kind of focusing in 10 kgg on like taking breaks and how to take breaks and making sure that you have balance within your business because every single month now we like are focusing in a theme, pretend kgg every month and we just like focus on different things and be like have like no lectures, but like discussions and breakout rooms and practicals around those things. And 20 Summer of 2022 I feel like I’m getting dates, right, like I said, 2023 Anyways, December 2020 to deal with spokes on brakes. And one thing that like we talked about a lot was like you guys are your own freakin boss. Like I said at the beginning, you’re your own HR person, and you have the power to treat yourself, if you’re the only one working in your company to treat yourself as your number one employee. Because a lot of us I know have like dreams and ideas to be this awesome, sustainable ethical boss where we like treat our employees like rock stars, we’re giving them breaks, if they need to go take a mental health day, we can give them that mental health day and provide it easily. Like I love being able to create this dream life for people and to be able to be a boss that is understandable and like making people’s lives easier, while also like giving them the money that they need.

You know what I mean? But like, before you even have an employee, you have to remember that you are your first employee. You like you’re the boss of yourself. And if you don’t treat yourself how you want to treat future employees that how and when are we gonna break this cycle? How are you supposed to treat other people like that? If you can’t injure yourself like that? Do you know what I mean? Like, if you are expecting your employees to only work four days a week and you want them to take Christmas break, but you expect yourself to work 80 hours a week and to never take a break. Like you’re going to feel so much resentment towards your employees or you’re never even gonna get getting give that to your employees. Like you have to start that with yourself. You have to start being the best CEO to you. You need to be a better boss for yourself so that your future employees can have a good boss. So if you’re not going to do it for yourself, at least do it for your future employees for you. have family for all those people that really depend on you. Like, take the breaks, invest in the chop veggies, people, do what you need so that you can be a well rounded person. You can have hobbies, again, you can stop working at 5pm.

Do what you need to do, which I know is so much easier said than done. And sometimes you’re like, I’ve got bills to pay though, Carly, like, I need to get this deadline done. Not everything is always first as life and death as we think it is. You can email your client and be like, I need to push it two more days. Like can we please push our deadline? Two more days? Sure, yes, we can do that. Right? Like, nobody’s gonna die. If you push a logo, two more days, that’s okay. That’s fine. Put it in your contract that you can push things. Two more days. It’s okay. And also, Starbucks, I saw this. I see it was from on Instagram. Starbucks, the week is like $2,000 a year. And then also on that tweet, it was like $2,000 a year at $7 a drink, you know, whatever, at a week, that’s not gonna ever be enough for you to like, invest and make millions of dollars back from like, it’s $2,000 a year for your happiness. Yeah, I think that’s okay. I think that’s worth it. So if there are little things like that, that give you joy that makes your life easier, like take the small little joys, obviously, we need to do it within our budget within our means. But like, you’re okay, I don’t want you to feel guilty about buying something that’s not necessarily responsible, but it makes you happy. Anyways, that’s kind of my whole thing on taking breaks. Like I again, I don’t want this to be like a whole how to thing I hope it just like empowers you to feel like you can take breaks and high come away with a few helpful tips to be able to take more time for yourself and to feel creatively refueled. Take time with your family, do whatever it is that you need to do travel, get justice, I have to be like taking a break for maternity leave. Obviously, that’s where I have the most experience. Like you want to take breaks to go take two months where you just travel the world do it you should do it. 100% do what’s gonna make you feel happy.

There’s always a workaround. There’s always a way to do it because life is not as scary as we think it is. There are not as many things that we feel like we have to do. We actually have to do, there are a lot of things that we could let go of. Okay, I will see you guys next week.