Death to the Mom Hustle | 21
Show Notes:
The to-do list trimmer Tracy Stanger is here! We are talking the myths and influence of TV moms, unrealistic expectations in motherhood and how the grinding and hustling culture is toxic.
Transcript:
Julia: Hey friends, it's Julia. And guess. What we're back with another fun episode of Pop Culture Makes Me Jealous. On this week's episode, my friend Tracy is here and we are talking TV moms and her business. She is an anti hustle mom, but first this quick message.
You shouldn't have to choose between work and family and let's face it as moms. We are often put in that
position, whether we work for ourselves or we work for someone else,
Tracy stinger can help you learn how to create flexible business that allows you to pursue your dreams. Even with little ones, trying to take up all of your time.
I remember when my son was little, getting anything done was kind of. An interesting hurdle in life, but I overcame it with a little bit of stress, a lot of stress, a little bit of heartache, and we've come through to the other. But I'm here to tell you, Tracy has figured out a way to make that easier. So head on over to Tracystanger.com to learn more about how to build your dream business, make the impact you are meant to make on this world and be the kind of mom you want to be by doing less but better.
And now here we go to the show.
Tracy Stanger. Right? I said it right.
Welcome to the show. I'm so excited. You're here is this your podcasting debut?
Tracy: It's not my first, but you're, it's, it's been just a few and I'm really excited because. Uh, way that I want to get out into the world and into your earbuds and get to talk to more people.
Julia: Oh, I'm really excited.
You're here. So I understand that you are very antibusiness hustle, which thank you because I can't work 24 7 guys. I ain't got, I barely could handle 40 hours a week and you coach moms and how to change the world by doing less. Doing less but better. So let's talk about it. Tell me more.
Tracy: Work better. Less with better.
Yeah. So my idea is if you can spend less time getting better results, which then gives you more time, energy money for all the things that actually will change the world when your business is check-in and you have time to attack social issues, or even just the way that you're doing business, paying thriving wages, doing ethical marketing, stuff like that is changing the world.
We can rise up and like, be good businesses that are actually making things better. Um, and I say you can work less hours and get better results because when you're just focusing on your most impactful tasks, the things that you're best at the things that are easiest for you, um, the things that actually work with the season that you're in, like, moms clearly don't have a lot of time, right? That's we have maybe 10, maybe 10 hours, 20 hours a week. You don't have time for a 40 hour job, but when you just, that limit actually helps because you are forced to pick just the tasks that are going to make the biggest impact and, um, to really focus and you can then make it easier to get those tasks done by simplifying the process, automating some of it and, or delegating, but like, why are you going to delegate something that doesn't need doing anyway? It's all about that purge first.
Julia: Yeah, definitely. So I'm what I'm willing to bet are my listeners are going Juliet. What does this have to do with pop culture and any of the things that you've talked about and here's how it works, guys.
TV moms and movie moms are kind of like our first introduction to motherhood other than our own moms. Right. We have our own moms, but not everyone grows up with their mom or they have a step-mom or what have you. So, so TV moms are really like the most universal visual aid we have in motherhood. I'm dying to know who is your favorite TV mom.
And why?
Tracy: So when you asked me this, I had to really think about it. First of all like the shows that I watched the most there aren't TV moms. So I, when I started thinking about like, we watched friends Frasier and cheers on repeat, those are like, are going to bed. Background noise shows. I love Frazier. So it is still so good.
Yeah. So, but when I thought about that, like, okay, well, what do I watch all the time? It's probably a mom from that. There is not, there actually are moms in all those shows, but that is not what we're watching. They're not part of the fun their, their motherhood is actually like back-burnered you never see the kids, the mom life story is not why we're watching it.
So I thought that was interesting. And you guys kind of touched on that in your, in your last, in your TV moms, like, you know, it's hard because they're not, they're not in there, but when then when I thought about it more so. I loved Nancy from weeds. I don't know if you've seen that, but like she, so what I'm looking for in a mom take like fun, still fun and cool, and like hot and, but also smart and get shit done.
And, you know, having, she always had a clean house, like granted, we saw that she had a housekeeper, but just having like all the things. Going on and then really the best mom that we all want to be, that I want to thank you. You want to be Claire Huxtable? Because again, she's like still gorgeous. She has fun with her husband.
She has fun with her kids. She has a great career. The house is always spotless. Like it, she's got the whole picture. And, and when you think back to, to like the full time, not like my favorite shows now. The old mom shows are all that too. Like the house is perfect. The kids are happy and healthy and having fun and all that.
Like, that's what you're looking for in a TV mom. Yeah. Like I remember
Julia: when Rachel and Ross, you know, that was a whole thing when they have. Emma, like
Tracy: that was part of the story. And then she's like,
Julia: yeah, like what happened to Emma? Where's Emma all the time. Like how are you guys doing this?
Tracy: Yeah. How are you guys hanging out?
Yeah. Oh
Julia: man. And now Emma Green would be,
Tracy: oh, she's like 20. Yeah. 20 years old. That hurts. I don't want to think about it. I'm sorry. I brought
Julia: it up now.
Tracy: Just kidding.
Julia: Um, but you're not wrong though, either because the Frazier, when Daphne gets pregnant, you know, her pregnancy is a storyline, but then she has the child and it's not as, um, prominent, like you say, and Roz
Tracy: too.
Like she has not Daphne, but definitely. Oh yeah. But definitely has a baby too. And it's like, oh yeah, there's that bundle? Oh yeah. There's that prop.
Julia: Yeah. How do you balance this man? Claire had it all though. She was so cool. And I think I talked about it on the TV moms episode too. Like I wanted to be Claire so hard and then, you know, going to law schools kind of a lot.
So nothing's.
Tracy: Yeah, no, I don't, I don't want that job. I just want that, like, you want that. Success like, you know, a lawyer is the most accessible thing you can do, like want to be, we're all ambitious. And you know, my clients are super ambitious and that's where it comes into. Like, how do I actually get it all done?
Like they have so much they want to do, but the answer is still. Trimming it down to just the most impactful. Well, that's hard too,
Julia: because I feel like as women and I'm generalizing, you know, we think everything's important. We have to handle every single minute detail, but then, but then you don't necessarily certainly know how, like what can be on the back burner?
What can. Come off your list. Like that's a really hard decision to make, unless somebody from the outside says, do, do you really need to do that? Like, this doesn't seem important to me. And then if you can't justify, oh yeah, it's important because you know, then it's, but it's hard to do that. If you don't have that outside element to say like, is this
Tracy: important?
And where is that? It's important because coming from, is it important because you saw Claire Huxtable, do it, is it important because you think society requires you to, or is it important because you actually want it and like, we can talk about the dishes here because that's the bane of my existence. I know you, you and I have talked about it at least a couple of times already, too.
And you know, everybody has this problem, but so I'll go in spurts where like I can get the dishes done every day. I can have clear counters. And then there are days where it doesn't happen for a couple of days. And the bull counter is clean, is full of shit. And sometimes there is garbage and it's gross, but, but also I'm learning to just be cool with that because it's not.
It's not about like, my kid's not unhealthy because the dishes are not done every Tuesday, but it's not like if my mom came over, she wouldn't like, judge me. She wouldn't be mad at me. Even if a friend came over like dirty dishes too. So it's not society it's strictly do I need a clean counter today? And sometimes I do.
And that's when I get them done. Like I want to live in a clean house, obviously. It's nice waking up in the morning. Stuff there, but sometimes I don't care that much. And so I cannot do it and that's fine. Yeah.
Julia: Yeah. Oh man. Dishes are the bane of my existence, or even do
Tracy: you need to own dishes maybe right now is the season of paper plates.
That's. That's
Julia: not a bad point because we have been doing a lot of like takeout. And so when we do run out of silverware, I'm always like we don't cook here.
Tracy: Here's the
Julia: silverware. Um, and it's hard cause I don't have a dishwasher. I am the dishwasher. So it's like clean it up. We did pair down our dishes a couple years ago.
Cause I was like, I don't want, w why do I need a set of 12 dishes? Like. Because I'm going to have a dinner party. I'm not gonna have a dinner party. Like that's not a thing that I'm going to have. First of all, you can't get told people, my apartment, like good luck there. That idea comes from my, you know, watching television and these moms host these elaborate dinner parties and they have the 12 P peace settings and they have all the things and the tablecloth, but it's not me.
I can't do that. It's
Tracy: a set with set dressers and people that wash the dishes. If there was even real food on them, we are not the same people.
Julia: Right. But I still want my life to be the 30 minute, 30 minute buttoned up. Perfect. You know, delusional a little bit, but
Tracy: okay. But it's what we see. I mean, we're not wrong for absorbing that.
But you, you know, we, like you said, we see our own families, but then you see all these other families, the majority of the families that you're seeing are the ones on TV and movies. So that's what you think is normal. It's not the one thing that's going on in your house.
Julia: It's like, does this represent life or does, are we trying to represent art the age old question?
I don't, I have never taken an art class or any kind of creative class. The question hasn't been posed, which leads us into our next discussion topic, which is, you know, expectations of motherhood and breaking down those myths of successful TV and movie moms compared to like, what's actually real. And to your point, it's the set.
They have people doing that stuff, but it's so easy to
Tracy: forget that. Um, and or it's a character who can afford the kind of help that maybe we can't. So to this idea, I just, I love. I like, don't like, I'm not sure, but I think we're seeing from the TV and movies that moms are caregivers. And I take that on myself too.
And I do want to create a nice home, like ideally, yes, my counter would be clean every single day. Sometimes I don't have the energy to do that. So. I choose not to care, but yeah, if it was a perfect world, I would live in one of those TV sets where everything just magically happened, that fridge was always full and let it, uh, um, and I, I don't know how much of that comes from watching.
The TV and seeing that moms or caregivers, or if that's just like a hobby that I happen to, like, like I own books on homemaking, I'm interested in the topic. And then I really don't know if it's because. Societal realized to think, I don't know to work, but we'll make it a word or if that's really just an interest I have, but I think it definitely could be coming from that mom myth.
Yeah.
Julia: That's really interesting too. So I, you know, I didn't put this in our notes pre hand biker up on, I, I love Lucy reruns. They were every like, oh my God. Yes, I want it. And you know, the majority of the time Lucy and Ethel are in the kitchen and they're cooking and they're doing all these things and they're judging.
Wake up. Beautiful. And I know again, I know that they wake up
Tracy: makeup on and
Julia: they're gorgeous dresses and only rarely do we see Lucy sort of dressed down in comparison to Claire who, when she is at home, you know that she's had a home day cause she's wearing a sweater. And jeans and still look stunning.
So Felicia Rashad, God you're, I don't know some kind of specimen that is just magical, but it is, you know, it is, it is how much of that, because we see so much of that as children. But, you know what? I don't really care about homemaking personally. That's not
Tracy: an interest for me. And you clearly have watched just as much TV, so, and it didn't get you.
So that's cool. Like maybe it really is just like a thing that I am interested in and you know, I wasn't beating myself up about it anyway. Like I'm going to, I'm pretty good at saying I don't care what you think. I don't believe there is any such thing as half to like, I'm going to do what Tracy wants to do.
Which is great. Did,
Julia: was it hard, like, have you always been that way or did, was it hard to like, was that something that you discovered because of motherhood? Like how did that,
Tracy: we didn't get it always been like this I'm an only child and I had lots of times. Do what I wanted, like my parents were, my mom was working, so she was gone, you know, I was a latchkey kid.
I could do whatever I wanted all afternoon. Um, my dad is a chef, so he was working on weekends. Eventually I was too with him, but, um, no, I always got to do whatever I wanted. And I've always been the like work smarter, not harder done first because. Throw out the, we don't need to do that. I'm not going to do it.
So I'm like all through college, all through previous businesses. That's actually what I did at my nine to five was like, why are, why are we doing all these things? What is, what actually needs to get done to get the results you're looking for? How can I make that happen faster? My thought
Julia: process. Yeah. I hate unnecessary steps.
Don't give me unnecessary steps. I'm not going to do the job then. Exactly. So let's talk about mom guilt. Cause that's a thing that we all, some of us, a lot of us, more than others suffer from, and I feel like your. Business model that you have and what you do with coaching moms really like removes us from that guilt.
So let's talk about, I mean,
Tracy: that's my goal. I don't believe in mom guilt. Like I understand that it's a thing. I hear people saying all the time. I understand where it comes from, but I think that it's garbage to do that to ourselves to allow it. So I just, I don't allow it and I try and coach people out of it.
And I think a lot of where it comes from actually is just. Caregiving again. And is that coming from watching TV or is that just like our innate thing? Um, I do a lot of studies on personality typing and in Gretchen Rubin's four tendencies. The obligers is the most of the population is like 70% or more of people are obligers.
And it's really easy for them to do things for others, but not as easy for them to do things for themselves. Having that tenancy is going to make it much easier to allow mom guilt, to creep in and to think like, I shouldn't be working on my business right now. I shouldn't be ditching the dishes to watch TV, any of those things and feeling like you need to be doing something for someone else.
So that the antidote antidote to that kind of, or what I would tell obligers is to focus on what. You're doing for yourself, how it actually is helping others, how you're taking your rest is making you a better mom, how you building your business is showing your kids to do something that they want to do with their lives and that you're making an impact, um, or even to focus on how your work is helping your clients are focused on how.
What do you think you should be guilty for is actually helping someone else? Yeah. It's funny
Julia: that you say that because every time I start a new little creative project, you know, starting a new creative project always takes a ton of time. And so I always, when my son was little, there was a little bit like, oh, you know, okay, I'll wait until he goes to bed to start stuff, blah blah.
And now that he's older, you know, I've tied him into some of those things. Like I did a web show years ago when it wasn't that great, but I tried and. Brought him into the post-production process. And then even with this, with doing the podcast, I've kind of tied them into stuff. My watercolors, I, you know, I ask his opinion.
I kind of, whenever we're sitting in painting, you know, or I'm sitting in painting or watching TV, Lord have mercy on my tongue, we're watching TV together and I'll ask, you know, do, I'm not sure about this color because sometimes you kind of get too close to your. Yeah. And what I noticed is now that he's sort of coming to the close of his high school career, he's creating his own.
Projects and he's looping me into it. Like, Hey mom, I
Tracy: want to do this. That's on you as that example for so long. That's wonderful. That's exactly what you want to give him. My friend Bethany was just talking about this the other day. She writes a book called permission. Granted, she gives you permission to like cultivate courage and do what you want to do.
Um, she was like, We wouldn't look at our kids and say, gee, I really hope you stifle that passion project that you have. Gee, I really hope you just like come form and, and, you know, do the dishes go to work and go to bed? No, we want them to be full happy people. So we should do that too. We shouldn't want that for ourselves.
And where is that mom? Guilt? That. No place there and you should be proud of what you're doing. Really.
Julia: Yeah. Ah, we've recently started talking about how moms look on TV too, because women, when he was little, oh, you should try for our girl too, because boys don't always really like take care of their moms and he needs somebody there to take care of you and like all this stuff.
And I'm just like, Cool. Thanks. Like I,
and so
Tracy: isn't that crazy? Yes, but also we got the exact opposite things. The girl and this lady puppy, it was just a baby. I was dressing her in like boy clothes. Cause that's what I liked. And this lady came, I was like, oh, is that. Oh, that's a cute little boy. I said, no, it's a girl. She said, are you sure? But then the next thing she said is, well, you're still young.
Like better luck. Next time. Hope you get the good one. Like, oh my God, people just are stupid and have stupid opinions. I'm like, gosh. Yep.
Julia: Thank you for your unsolicited opinion today. Weird old lady. My brother actually recommended that I watched the mighty ducks reboot because we had the mighty ducks in our house.
We had them on LaserDisc.
Tracy: Wow. That was nice on the record. Why we thought laser
Julia: disc was cool. I have no idea. It really wasn't that practical because it was now because it was new and shiny, literally shiny, shiny. Um, and so my brother was like, oh, you should have you watched the reboot yet? And I said, I don't know.
Cause you know, I'm having a hard time with some of the. It's like whatever. And mighty ducks is so important to my childhood, to our childhood. And he's like, no, it's good. It's really good. There's like a single mom in it or a mom and all this stuff. Right, right. Speaking of speaking of the ultimate single mom and, um, and, um, he's like, it's a great message because it, you know, is a positive spin and blah, blah, blah.
Uh, my family is very sensitive now to the negative spin of single motherhood, because, cause that's what I am and I, okay. I will add it. And plus you brought back Emilio and um, I'm here for that. I'm here for that. Can we digress for a second and just talk about Lorelei? Yeah. Cause I feel like she would be your ideal client.
Tracy: I think she might be a little too much on that now I got to do it all spectrum though. When I, when people come to me and just want me to help them cram 80 hours of stuff into 24 hours a day, they're not going to be happy. Like I can't, I can't help you with that. You have to literally get rid of some stuff off of your to-do list to make the bigger impact like, and I don't know.
So I was trying to think of that, like, who would really, um, you have to be. Uh, where am I going? You have to be down with doing less you, you know, be smart, be ambitious, be wanting to change the world. But, um, Maybe you're just helping you're overthinking. Like I was talking about Gretchen Rubin's four tendencies, the other really popular one of which I also am is questionnaire people that like, just ask all these questions and maybe get analysis paralysis and can't make a decision what to do.
And then the other people who are people pleasing, obligers stuck in that mom guilt. And you know, so their to-do list is clogged up and they don't want it that way. That too, that's who I'm looking for
Julia: now. I'm kind of curious on which one I fall into for that, um, those four, um, areas. Cause I'm always. I'm a very moody person.
Tracy: So let's do a quick, a quick test. Is it? Yeah. Is it easier if someone says like, here's the rule, do it, or if you're like, I'm going to go out and do this, is it like, okay. Yeah. I decided and that's going to happen. Oh, okay. Is it, you know, someone else needs me to do it, I'll be there, but if I want to do something, like I decided I'm gonna, um, start eating healthy.
But if nobody holds me to it or if it's not, like, if it's just for me, someone else's like, Hey, don't you want some pizza? You'll be like, yeah, give me that pizza. Okay. Pizza pizza, polar. It doesn't matter if you decided you wanted to do it, they decided that you should do it. If someone is like, this is what you're doing, or you've put a new rule in place, it's still going to be super hard because like, you can't make me, I'm not the best rule follower.
Yeah. We're definitely crossing off that first one. And then the other one. Can you do it? Like if someone else tells you, this is what you're going to do, do you have to like ask a bunch of questions? Think about it, decide for yourself that that's something you should do, but if you had decided no, yeah, this is the right way I got this.
Like, you're gonna go for it.
Julia: I'm I I'm on the cusp of ask a lot of questions and go for it because there are some tasks that I'm just like, I'm confused. I have questions. And then once I ask those questions, then I'll be like, no, or yeah. Okay. I'm here for.
Tracy: But you have to decide that that's a reasonable thing to
Julia: do. Yeah. I have to decide it's a reasonable thing to do.
Tracy: Yeah. So that's the questionnaire. That's what I am too. And that you can be kind of, you can be kind of in between that and upholder, which is the, just tell me and I got it, but you could be in between that and the, it doesn't matter if I want to either it ain't happening, but for the most part. Once I am just like, if it's got my golden seal, it's cool.
That's a questioner and that's, and that is one of my ideal clients because you, um, You could be holding yourself up just by, over questioning. And if we can just point out that that's your tendency, first of all. And so you start recognizing it when you like planning something new and you go, oh, I'm questionary.
You can, you can speed things up a lot. You can make your actual work product, come out a lot faster.
Julia: Oh my God.
Tracy. Let's just talk about how I think you made it a little bit easier for my life.
Tracy: That's literally my job, what I'm here for.
Julia: Let's talk about work-life flow and the whole balance of moms. We kind of touched on it a little bit, but. There's things that we get wrong, but we don't think that there again, because we see a lot of representation on pop culture and we see these women, even after 30 minutes, they've, might've had these little bits of failure in 30 minutes, but it's buttoned up nicely
Tracy: at the end.
Yeah.
Julia: So let's talk about it, lets that work-life balance.
Tracy: Sometimes I use work-life balance on my hashtags on Instagram, but I also kind of don't like that phrase. I don't think that it's. I can't. I want us to just call it life. Like we work, we have, obviously we need to pay the bills, but also we have things that are innately in us that we are meant to be sharing with the world.
And, and that's what I want, like your business to be. Um, but that's not like. That's just part of your life. Like how can we intertwine it into your days? How can we make rest part, part of your work? How can we make work part of your life and, and get rid of that mom guilt for having the both, um, Is that making sense?
I, but it's, it shouldn't be separate, but also at the same time, like I do say, have boundaries and try and keep them, like, if it's family time, be all in with your family and let your brain turn off work so that it can recharge and be ready and raring to go. Next time you sit down to work and that, that rest.
So it's, so this is how it gets kind of combined into one, right? Because that rest, that you're doing. And focusing on your life stuff is to the benefit of your work. It's, it's part of your work. And just like that, like we were talking about showing your kid that you are doing all this amazing stuff that works stuff is part of your life.
Yeah.
Julia: In my
Tracy: normal job, in my
Julia: normal job, it's a 24 hour industry. So one of the things I had to start doing was turned my work phone upside down when I get. Because it's flashing because it's social media management and you're just like that's happening. So now I'm trying to help my team understand. If I'm, if it's off hours and I'm not responding, it's not because I'm intentionally ignoring you.
It's that this is now home time. And yesterday my son was
Tracy: intentionally ignoring and good for you fed
Julia: and you know, kind of reinforcing like, Hey, it's not an emergency, this, this information you just sent me. Doesn't have to go out right now and, and helping people understand that is really, really hard.
Tracy: It is because I don't, I don't know why actually. Why don't we all think that everything's an emergency it's like, really? Is it? Yeah, it's an online business world. Like nothing is an emergency.
Julia: There's not a, there's not, is there a dead body involved? Are we looking, is there a fire blocking the freeway?
Like these are actual emergency. Like, are we flip? Is there somebody fleeing a crime scene that's heinous and scary that we need to worry about. Those are actual emergencies. So now I'll text back and say, Thank you for the information. I will package it and get it ready for social on Monday. But Tracy, that was really freaking hard to get to that point because there was this whole lot of like, I gotta get, I gotta show that I'm a team player.
I got to show that I'm a hard worker and I'm dedicated. No, no, no, no. I'm dedicated.
Tracy: Yeah. But questioning how the response was going to be. And maybe yeah. And afraid. Yeah. So you had to think of, am I going to say this the right time, the right way to the right person? That dah dah, dah. Yeah, totally. Yeah.
Julia: And if I don't and so now I have to add, I will package it and do it on this day, because if I don't add that.
Then I get built. They'll do it anyway.
Tracy: And then I'm telling you don't want them like going off and thinking there it's not handled, but that's totally, exactly right. So you've thought through like, how can I set this boundary and still get them? We're looking for results. What are the results that they want?
They want that message put out there. So how can I get them that results in the time that I actually want to spend them? And that's how it is. Yeah. Between
Julia: you and me. I'd rather just do video shoots and take pictures all day, then some of the other
Tracy: stuff. Yeah. So between you and me, one day, we're going to figure out how you get to do that.
That's like your zone of genius stuff. That's going to be the easiest, best results from you. Build something really awesome. Let's
Julia: talk celebrity moms. They make it look so easy and it's not fair. And I know, and I understand they have resources and teams. I get that. But like, then they start these businesses and you're just like, oh, this is so fresh.
Not frustrating. Yes. Good for you, hurrah. I'm so proud of you that you've like carved out in this industry. That's clearly male dominated, but also it just like, why do you make it look so easy?
Tracy: It has they lit it's literally the teams though. I mean, they are just the face. They are licensing shit. People are coming to them and be like, I have this entire business already mapped out.
Can you just sign your name? That's there. And I don't, I don't know. 100% that that's what's happening all the time. Maybe these people are also doing it bootstrapping themselves as well. But like, when I, when I thought about this, like who's a celebrity mom mogul. The first one that came to my mind is Chris Jenner.
Oh yeah. Like I just started, I watched the Kardashians for the first time. Last summer during the quarantine, but I am obsessed. I'm all coming to an end.
Julia: So how does that feel?
Tracy: I know I'm so I'm very upset, but Chris Jenner, I mean, that is the definition of mogul. I can't even, you don't even know everything that she has got her hands in and what, everything that she's doing.
And she's clearly very. Smart and business savvy, like she built this whole thing. Um, so like, like I said, I'm fascinated by her, but at the same time, granted, it's a show who knows how much of this is real. Even on the show, you see how spread thin she is. She's not able to do it all. She's constantly like on her phone, ignoring her children.
They're always asking her to put her phone down. There's always something that she's like, I'm not able to go there. Cause I got to go here. She, she needs. Yes, but I'm afraid she might be at the, do it all. I've got to do 58,000 things today in this one hour, I might not be able to help even that, like, she has so much help.
She's got, you know, she's got business managers, you know, housekeepers. She hasn't even washed her hair and. Yeah, forever though. It would
Julia: be nice if somebody else washed my hair. For me, I'm scared
Tracy: to, on my list of things to get done, I'm going to just check. I want to do only what I want to do and get someone else to do for me eventually.
One day, you're
Julia: not wrong though. She's constantly. She's like literally the epitome of hustling because she's just working so hard. They call her the manager and all the tablets and stuff, or just general mama Jair.
Tracy: That's
Julia: stressful. I wonder if that effects her relationship with her kids. Cause they're cause she's their manager.
So
Tracy: that means that totally is like, I think at this point they're just all co-workers and you will even see on some F let me tell you I'm the.
I don't remember which one, but a kid was sick and she was like, no, you have got to go to this work obligation that I got for you. Like, I don't care do get there. Like that totally crosses the line from like, if you're a mom, you're going to be like, oh, it's a baby, but no, she was like, get to work. Quit bitching.
Wow.
Julia: When my, when, even when I'm sick, I'm like a grown ass woman, even when I'm sick, my mom's like, can we bring you
Tracy: anything? Mommy. Can you make me soup? I mean, she's showing love in another way by creating them, turning them into billionaires for that. I guess
Julia: that must be nice. I know when it was, I think it was Forbes announced that Kim Kardashian's the newest billionaire and I was just like, cool.
Yeah, you want to pay my rent, Kim? Invest in it. You want to advertise on my podcasts?
Tracy: Yeah, maybe she does. Yeah, she does. What
Julia: are those things? She did those, um, skims, the body stuff. I hear good things. I don't, I haven't tried it, but there was a lot of controversy about what she was originally going to call.
I
Tracy: think that was a ploy, I think, full on PR style. They're very smart. They know what they're doing. That's actually a really
Julia: good assessment because it did get tons and tons of attention for the line.
Tracy: Oh, I don't think it was planned the whole time.
Julia: Okay. So there's this myth that you have to hustle and dedicate every waking hour to, to business in order to be successful.
I mean, literally every
Tracy: conference I've been to.
Julia: Yeah. Every conference, every. Hop into clubhouse and they talk about how to do improve your podcast, anything. Right? And so I feel like this is flawed logic and a very specific type of lifestyle, which I don't have the stamina for the lifestyle I have. Now
Tracy: I'm curious to think what kind of wipes out can handle that?
Like, you know,
Julia: all these people were like, here's how all the people at 3m, how successful they are, who wake up at 3:00 AM and work their day. But do you go to bed at 5:00 PM? Cause that sounds like really shitty to me. I'm
Tracy: literally not sleeping and burning their body into a crisp. Yeah.
Julia: And so I'm curious about what you think about the whole hustle culture.
That's so prominent now. I mean like it's, we are bombarded with it every single day.
Tracy: Yeah. Um, obviously I am anti that I G bio even says anti festival business coat. Um, I just think it's ridiculous. Like you literally. Cannot, you do not have the number of minutes and hours in your day to do all the things that all the people are telling you, you need to do to be successful.
Um, that even clubhouse, you brought up as an example, I have not been on it. I don't know, plan to go there. I w when it came out and I was like, oh, you can just sit and listen to other people. Talk. 19 hours a day. Like, why aren't you, when are you going to do life and your business and like this who ha you don't have, I don't have time for that.
So that never happened to me. What I think is that, you know, they're all trying to sell you something really. I mean, they want you to learn, see, you have to be an expert in SEO. I spend your whole life doing that. These people that are selling that have done that, like that's all they focus on. You could spend your whole day learning to create gifts or to be on Pinterest or whatever, all these things that they're saying you have to do, but really all you need to be successful in business is something to say.
Some way to sell it and some way to count your money and keep it coming. Right. You got to have a mechanism for someone to pay you and know what's going on, but that's it. And when you simplify to just the most you tasks, the best way for you to work, um, you will. Hand over fist, more progress. Like if you think about somebody that is spending all that well, I'll use myself as an example, actually.
Um, a previous business that I had, I was, um, freshly ish out of college. And I had transitioned from doing, um, selling clothes, vintage clothes online. To being just a personal stylist, but it's also trying to be an editorial stylist. So that was already too much. That was two jobs I was trying to do at the same time.
Um, but I was, I was spending all day creating content, creating those editorials, creating I was on Twitter. I was on Facebook. I was on, um, Instagram. I was making blogs. I was like all this stuff. And it's almost like you're throwing, you're throwing your energy. So many places that it can't make headway on any of them.
Right. If you focus just one little thing, you can get really good at that, but I was going. All the time, hoping that one of these things was going to get someone's attention and turn me into a millionaire. Like I didn't understand marketing or, you know, the best way for me to market. And I burnt myself out.
I was, I went through that for a couple years, um, and just always feeling like I needed to be working. And never, ever able to relax. Like if I read a book in the afternoon, I would be berating myself for it while reading, like you're taking this, this two hours, you could have been doing a blog post that was going to make you, that was going to be the ticket.
Like, and you can't go, you can't. It's not sustainable to build your business that way. Like you have to have rest, you have to, um, you know, focus, simplify to just those something to sell some way to sell it some way to count your money. And that's how you're really going to make progress like that girl burned out.
I could have, you know, if I did gotten slower and, or picked something, just one thing and focused on that maybe that business would have still. Been here. Right. I could have gotten so much further instead it fizzled out. And that's what I'm afraid of for the moms I see doing business that are like, if I just do all the things that'll work like, no, no, you're gonna stop.
You're going to have to quit because you. Sustainably do all the things, right? Cause you
Julia: will burn out. I mean, in burnout's a really big thing and now there's the self care culture, which yes, let's promote self care, but the monetization that's happening in the self care culture, it may leaves it unaccessible for moms like me who are on a very tight budget.
So I have to like, you know, think about, I have to be realistic about what that self-care looks like.
Tracy: Um, massage and going to get your pedicure and all of that. Like no self care is giving yourself that afternoon to read the book and deciding to do paper plates instead of the dishes and a little special like bash.
Julia: Yes. That's kind of, so circle back on Lorelei Gilmore, that's kind of, one of the things I did love about her is that shoot there's this scene. I forget which episode, but she and Luke are dating at the time and she they're getting food or whatever, and he gets bulls and he's, she's like, oh, that's cute. We are we out of, who's going to wash those and then she puts them back and then he gets spoons and she's like, are we out of plastic?
Tracy: Yeah. You know, and I love that about her. That's true. Like, do
Julia: you
Tracy: do what works for you? How you want to see things happening and this season of life you're in. That is always the right
Julia: answer. Yeah. But when she does, when she and Suki are opening the end, I mean, there's that episode where she's trying to get her hair cut and nothing's going right.
And her grandma's visiting and everyone's just like pulling at her and she can't set boundaries on people. Like she can't enforce the structure.
Tracy: Yeah.
Julia: I mean, it breaks my heart, like when she like loses it on Suki. Cause Suki just had a baby and she's like, I'm so sorry. And she's like, the Oven's getting sent back to Canada and like this whole thing, and you're just like, Laura live, you had just said I can't do everything.
I mean, I don't know if that's the simple, if it's really that simple, but I really think it is like,
Tracy: If we can just cancel the, do it all idea. Cause it's literally not a thing where we're, what we've been seeing is just to bring it all back. We've been seeing it portrayed to us, but it's not real is literally not real.
And as soon as we can say, oh no, let me actually live a real life that has worked and rest and life in it. And it just, it is that simple. When you start saying, I can say, as soon as you say, I can say no to things. That's the fact too, to fixing this for yourself, I would love
Julia: to see a TV show or two or more that does have that more of a well-rounded mother hood representation, because they only pick snippets like certain angles of it, right?
Like where it's like, like we, when we were talking about this episode, you had commented about, um, Christina obligates character and dead to me.
Tracy: Yeah. I was just thinking about that one because, um, I just started at the, the other day, cause I was like, maybe that's one of my favorite TV moms. Cause I did love that show and the very first episode she is like boring.
At night, which what mom is bored at night. So she has just lost her husband. She's a newly single parent. Um, she's a very successful realtor, right? So she's got all that going. Her house is spotless. Like I remember even the first time watching this show, this stuff. Pops up any cause I'm like, I want to live in a place like that.
This girl have time. Like when, when is her cleaning schedule? I want to see that on TV and on Tuesdays I dust and I'm Wednesday. Um, but I was just like floored that it's 10:00 PM and she's in a quiet house, even though she has two children, boys who
Julia: are not to gender children, but like.
Tracy: What are, what are those children doing right now that she, everything that no dishes to do, no cleaning to do?
She's just like Tweedle Dee, what should I do now? Like, no, that's not real. Right. I wish it was.
Julia: I know when I got a promotion at work is like, can I afford to bring somebody into the house to clean? And that. But that's like, for me, that's how I'll know I've made it is to have somebody help me not do all of the cleaning.
Cause I really do love scrubbing the sink. Like there's something cathartic about it for me, but just like, there are days when I'm just like, I need, I need help. I need. I can't seem to keep the, like, why does the floor always look like this?
Tracy: So even without hiring a housekeeper, I still say there's like ways around it, like asking the other people that live in the house, or even a friend, like maybe you love scrubbing sinks.
Maybe you trade with a friend who hates it, have them come do the floors. But honestly, I always joke, like. I here's all my best tips for working moms. The last one is get a Roomba has changed my life. It's actually kind of hard having a toddler cause you have still have to pick all this stuff off so it can run.
But assuming that your floors are tidying up and you can just. Do chord maintenance like you can robot proof your house. Oh my God. Like I hate, I hate doing floors. And so let me find an alternative that gets me the results. It doesn't have to be like, it's all, I'm always about like, what are the results?
We're looking for, how can we make that happen? It might not be the solution that you're thinking that I have to do it, or I have to hire someone. There might be another solution. Yeah, right.
Julia: Yeah. If my teenager would just take out the fucking garbage before
Tracy: it gets too full.
Yeah.
Julia: I can't like yesterday.
It was an actual thing. Like, Hey. This is the third day in a row. Now I've asked you to take out the trash, like there's literally garbage piling up on the counter now because we can't fit it. And, um, this makes me upset when I die of a heart attack. It's going to be because of this.
Tracy: I wouldn't have never said it that other solution of like getting them to do it or.
Or can we just not create the garbage at all, but I don't know, but like, cause we were having that same problem. Garbage was husband's duty and it wasn't getting done the same thing. Like, do I have to ask you a million times? Well, the solution ended up being, I traded him for something that I didn't want to do and that garbage is my job.
I don't mind doing it cause it wasn't like an added thing to me, but it is getting done now. Right. There's like always, what is. Another solution that gets you the results, the results you're looking for are the garbage out the house, not the kid.
Julia: Right, right. Cause I've never been like chore, a chore driven mom.
It's always been like, this is just what we need to do to have like basic sanitary units in the house, scrubbed the seating. So we've got to take the garbage out, like different things like that. Wash the dishes. What have you, I've never been. In my house. It's never been, these are your chores. Yeah. It's always been.
Yeah. Cause I hated doing chores as a kid. I hated that obligation. And then, and it was monetized. Right? You get your allowance, if you do your chores. And I think that mentality was to help teach, you know, like you have to work to earn money, you know, money's not free, which yes. But chores. Wasn't the way that that would have taught me that that's not the child.
Tracy: I was, if you'd said,
Julia: if you want to watch television, you have to do chores. Well, my parents did try to do that. Actually. They made TV tickets and you had to do, you had to do chores to get the TV tickets, but for me it was. I was going to watch TV anyway. I don't know. That was a bad example.
Tracy: I was just going to watch it's because of your question or status, you're like, that does not make sense.
That doesn't make sense to me. I, I love I can tie it all back to that. I
Julia: love that. I know we already kind of touched a little bit on who your ideal mom client was from TV. And, and I know we already talked about that a little bit, so I'm gonna carve out this last couple of minutes for. Tell us where we can find you and the best way to connect with you and, and what that process looks like.
Getting started with you. If somebody wanted to reach out to you for support. Okay.
Tracy: Yeah. And again, This is I'm here for you, moms who have all this stuff you want to do, but just want to do it the less, but better way. Like, yes, I would love to have a trimmed to-do list. Just tell me how to figure out what belongs on it.
Um, so absolutely come find me on Instagram. I'm there at Tracy that standard. Um, I I'm always in the stories, not so much the posts and this goes back to. Do what you want. Posts are like a little too much pressure for me. I do them every once in a while when I like really got something to say and just to like, make sure, you know, if you're brand new to the page, what I'm about, but I'm in stories trying to teach and encourage, and this shows you.
What, uh, um, mom life balance in major air quotes looks like. Um, so find me there. You can go to my website, Tracy finger.com and find, um, when you get onto my email list, I also give you my guide on how to find one to two hours in your day. So really to start, um, looking at your to-do list and adding the things that you wish were there and removing the things that are keeping you back, or, you know, not make popping, you make them.
So you can find that. And then, um, to work with me, I have a course, which I just bundle all, all of this information that I wish you had on my, how to literally sort purge and organize your to-do list. Like you have to get rid of the stuff that doesn't need doing and then how to get those, something to solve some way to sell it.
Somebody to counter. All dialed in much easier for you. And I do. One-on-one coaching this spot season and all about that stuff had Tracy's name.com. Perfect.
Julia: Well, I'm really glad you carved out time today. I know, um, for people who are listening, I record my shows on Sundays. And so I really appreciate you, um, taking the time to, to record with us on a Sunday.
Um, and. Having the time and taking the time to prepare. I think that, like, it means a lot because there's a, there's a lot of preparation that goes into each episode. Sometimes it doesn't feel like it, but it really does. And so, you know, work. Um, and so I'm just excited that you're here. And I think at some, I think maybe it would be fun to have you back, especially maybe around the holidays.
Oh
Tracy: yeah.
Julia: I'm sure it will talk in the DMS all the time. Still,
Tracy: please. This has been so wonderful. Thank you so much. .
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