Mothering Our Ambitions
In this season finale of With Both Hands, we reflect on what it has meant to speak honestly about motherhood, identity and ambition. We explore the unexpected vulnerability of recording these conversations, the emotional hangovers that followed, and how sharing our stories has challenged the old masks we used to hide behind.
We reflect on the realities of raising children across different ages, the shifting shape of “balance”, and how our understanding of success has evolved beyond traditional markers to include integrity, community, softness and ambition held together. We discuss the hard-but-simple choices that shape family life, the contradictions women are asked to carry, and the deep value of allowing ourselves to be seen.
As we look ahead to season two, we open the door to a broader range of voices and richer conversations, inviting mothers from all spheres to join us as we continue to explore what it means to live, work, and mother with both hands.
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Connect with us both on Instagram
@laura.hadcroft, @clarethorpe_ and @withboth_hands
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Transcript
Hello and welcome to with both Hands.
Speaker B:I'm Claire.
Speaker A:And I'm Laura.
Speaker B:And we are two mums that met on the Internet.
Speaker A:So hello, everybody.
Speaker A:We're back for our final episode of season one.
Speaker B:I can't believe we've done a whole season.
Speaker A:We've done a whole season.
Speaker A:Oh, my God.
Speaker A:To celebrate the fact that we've got to the end of a season as two mums with six children between us, we thought we would do a recap episode, a bit of a debrief, what we've loved, what we've not loved, lessons we've learned, and where we're going to head to next.
Speaker A:Does that sound like a nice enough conversation for you, Claire?
Speaker B:I think I can get on board with that.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker B:Let's do it.
Speaker A:Let's do it.
Speaker A:So I have some questions.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker A:I always love reflecting, like, even when I'm in my journal.
Speaker A:Like, yes, I love looking to the future, but I always love looking, like, what did we do?
Speaker A:Did we do what we set out to do?
Speaker A:Did it feel good?
Speaker A:Did it not?
Speaker A:Is there anything that we'd want to change?
Speaker A:So thinking about, like, what we've just done over the last five episodes, give me your thoughts.
Speaker A:Like, what's your biggest learning?
Speaker A:What surprised you?
Speaker B:What surprised me?
Speaker B:Do you know what?
Speaker B:Okay, this is what surprised me.
Speaker B:I am a person who has always had a lot of words.
Speaker B:Words are my thing, which sounds weird because I'm a designer, but I have always written.
Speaker B:And anyone who knows me will tell you, including yourself, that I very rarely shut up.
Speaker B:So words are.
Speaker B:I knew I wouldn't have a problem with talking.
Speaker B:I knew that I probably wouldn't run out of things to say.
Speaker B:Like, I've got lots of ideas.
Speaker B:I've got lots of opinions on things.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And I knew that I'd be able to verbalize them.
Speaker B:What has surprised me is.
Speaker B:And this crept in maybe after episode three came out last week.
Speaker B:No, a little bit before that.
Speaker B:Actually.
Speaker B:It was after the first two episodes dropped.
Speaker B:Even though, like, we haven't had any.
Speaker B:All the feedback that we've had so far has been so positive, hasn't it?
Speaker B:And we've both been getting lovely messages from lots of women who have really been enjoying, listening and feel heard and seen and represented.
Speaker B:And it's.
Speaker B:It's really doing exactly what we wanted it to do, and it's touching the people that we really wanted to touch.
Speaker B:But I have noticed, like, little things start to creep in.
Speaker B:So, like, seemingly unrelated, like, I had a conversation with another parent at school.
Speaker B:And I came away from it feeling like I'd made a fool of myself.
Speaker B:I don't think I had in objective reality, but I got.
Speaker B:Had this feeling, and I was starting to feel.
Speaker B:I had a couple of social interactions where I was noticing that I was feeling a little bit uncomfortable in myself and sort of thinking, oh, you.
Speaker B:You know, you've.
Speaker B:You've overshared or you've said too much, or you've.
Speaker B:You know, they.
Speaker B:Oh, God, they probably think that you're.
Speaker A:Whatever.
Speaker B:And these little.
Speaker B:These little things in my head, and I was like, what's that?
Speaker B:Because, you know, I've had a lot of therapy, so when stuff like that happens, I'm like, okay, where's that coming from?
Speaker B:And I realized that it's like a bit of a vulnerability hangover.
Speaker B:I mean, because this is new to both of us.
Speaker B:I've never done anything like this before, and I could recognize it as like, oh, this is because you've put yourself out there in this way, which feels quite vulnerable.
Speaker B:We're talking about things which are things that people have opinions on.
Speaker B:So even though all the feedback we've had has been really lovely, and we're hitting our people who obviously resonate with what we're saying, the expectation is that at some point we will hit people who don't resonate with what we're saying and who potentially are going to disagree.
Speaker B:And, you know, there's sort of.
Speaker B:I can feel this stuff coming up where it's like my eldest daughter perfectionism.
Speaker B:I want everyone to like me stuff, and I can feel these things floating up, and I'm like, oh, God, that's so uncomfortable, like, sitting with it.
Speaker B:It's just.
Speaker B:It feels quite uncomfortable.
Speaker B:And I was like, okay, that's interesting.
Speaker B:So I don't actually need the negative feedback to exist in reality for that feel to come in.
Speaker B:It's just there.
Speaker B:It's obviously something in me that feels very vulnerable and very exposed.
Speaker B:And that took me by surprise, for sure.
Speaker A:Yeah, I can resonate so hard.
Speaker A:I actually went out to my girlfriends just as we were thinking of dropping it, so we'd already recorded.
Speaker A:It was there, it was ready to go.
Speaker A:In fact, I think it was already on the streaming platforms.
Speaker A:We just hadn't told anyone it was there, and I was talking to them about it and how, like, scared I was to put it out into the world.
Speaker A:And one of my best friends, she was like, law you yap for England.
Speaker A:This is like your perfect outlet.
Speaker A:What are you even scared about?
Speaker A:I was like, oh, but it's not the talking.
Speaker A:The talking is easy.
Speaker A:Like, I talk all day, every day.
Speaker A:I share my thoughts with anyone who will listen.
Speaker A:I love doing that.
Speaker A:But when that's not aired, when that's in the confines of the coffee shop or your front room or your kitchen table, it feels much safer.
Speaker A:And I have also had to work hard these last few weeks since it has been out in the world on creating safety for myself.
Speaker A:To be like, it's okay to be seen, it's okay to be out in public.
Speaker A:You're doing good work and it's okay to have this conversation out loud.
Speaker A:It's actually really needed.
Speaker A:But that hasn't come easy.
Speaker A:Like, that has been hard work for sure.
Speaker A:Like, that has been the thing I've had to work really hard on the ideas for what to record for the conversations, they come.
Speaker A:But yeah, the actual taking that leap and putting it out into the world and letting you guys hear it was by far the hardest.
Speaker A:It was much harder than I thought it was ever going to be.
Speaker A:I just thought we were just going to click a button, it'd be fine.
Speaker A:But actually that button click was very difficult.
Speaker B:Yeah, I agree.
Speaker B:I haven't felt like the day that the first two episodes dropped, I had full, like nervous butterflies and I haven't had that feeling for quite a long time.
Speaker B:I was like, oh, I find it much more vulnerable than when I put stuff out there for Fabled for my, for my.
Speaker B:For my brand, my branding business.
Speaker B:Because I think that's.
Speaker B:There's like a.
Speaker B:There's like a wall.
Speaker B:There isn't there.
Speaker B:It's the business and it's still me because, you know, I'm a one.
Speaker B:One woman, one woman studio.
Speaker B:But there's some.
Speaker B:There's something about being behind the facade of the business that makes it a lot easier.
Speaker B:This is like having vulnerable conversations about things which are.
Speaker B:Which feel much more kind of personal and vulnerable.
Speaker B:I guess I don't have a better word.
Speaker A:Well, yeah, we are.
Speaker A:Like, that is.
Speaker A:That is what we're doing.
Speaker A:Like, we're having conversations between ourselves, but we're allowing it to be recorded so other people can listen in.
Speaker A:And that is a totally new concept for me.
Speaker A:I've not allowed that to happen before.
Speaker A:And it's a new concept for you too.
Speaker A:Like, this is new.
Speaker A:And I think it's really important that we share this right now with our listeners because I don't ever want it to look like we're finding any of this easy.
Speaker A:I just think work that is required in the world always comes With a little bit of resistance, like internal resistance.
Speaker A:And if you're doing work that feels a bit hard, it's usually because that's the work that needs to be done.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Like when you're doing GCSEs.
Speaker A:For me, I hated doing my coursework.
Speaker A:GCSEs are in my brain at the minute because my eldest is on his GCSE year.
Speaker A:So obviously it's bringing all, all my 16 year old self back, which is fun and also hard.
Speaker A:But yeah, like, I used to put that off.
Speaker A:I used to put my coursework off because I found it hard, but it was required, like I needed to do it.
Speaker A:And I think that is like, that's still the same.
Speaker A:Like in your career, in work, in building a business, in doing this thing that we're doing now.
Speaker A:The hard things are the things that are going to push you forward on that path to your dream.
Speaker B:100.
Speaker B:I also feel like it's a bit of a wake up call to.
Speaker B:It feels like it's kind of necessary, like evolutionary next step.
Speaker B:Like I feel like the last few years I've been on a very big journey of tearing down various masks and walls and ways of presenting to the world which weren't myself.
Speaker B:And tearing all of that down was just painful.
Speaker B:Let's just say that painful.
Speaker A:This is, this is actually, I just want to come to this because if any of you follow any like healing on the Internet, so like healing journeys or healers or anything a little bit.
Speaker A:Woo.
Speaker A:Woo.
Speaker A:It's always.
Speaker A:The visuals are always very soft and calm and Zen when healing is actually raw and painful and lots of crying and running snotty noses and days in fluffy jumpers.
Speaker A:Recovering from your therapy.
Speaker A:Like when you're tackling big things and healing from huge things, it is not pretty beaches and yoga.
Speaker B:No, no.
Speaker B:Not so much as shedding as like a visceral bloody.
Speaker B:Crawling out of my skin is how I describe it.
Speaker A:Same awful.
Speaker A:But once you've done that, you can create a podcast and everything will be fine.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah, kind of.
Speaker B:It's a bit of a shortcut, but yeah.
Speaker B:But no, what, what my point was going to be was from that point, from that, from.
Speaker B:How can I put this?
Speaker B:The girl that stood behind that wall a few years ago is mind blown by the version of me that's sat here now recording a podcast with you.
Speaker B:Like, she's mind blown.
Speaker B:She's very.
Speaker B:I feel like she's very proud.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker B:Nice.
Speaker B:And that feels very affirming.
Speaker B:Like you say that we're doing work that is important to do.
Speaker A:I honestly think this podcast is more important than any of the work I've ever done before.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I've worked on multi million pound deals.
Speaker A:I have.
Speaker A:Like, this is.
Speaker A:Again, like, it's what I teach in a lot of my work with my clients is this value piece.
Speaker A:Again, I'm an accountant.
Speaker A:I do numbers for a living.
Speaker A:But what is value?
Speaker A:And the modern masculine world attaches value to money and things that can have a value attributed to it, such as the price of things, the cost of things, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker A:But the way I see value is you can't really quantify it.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's what's in your heart.
Speaker A:It's what.
Speaker A:What you need to do to create a better world internally, externally, for your family, for the people you love.
Speaker A:And this podcast for me is by far the highest value thing I do in my weeks because of.
Speaker A:I know the lives we can change with it and the women we can hold and the capacity we're increasing in our own selves to create more space, to have the bigger conversations, to invite guests in that can expand what we're already discussing.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:When I think about where this could go, I get full body tingles.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:It's so exciting.
Speaker A:So exciting.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:And because it's true.
Speaker B:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker B:It's.
Speaker B:It's rooted in truth.
Speaker B:This is.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:That's a crossover between what you do with your clients and what I do with mine, actually, is this kind of values piece, this idea of.
Speaker B:Because I. I get a lot of what I do with branding.
Speaker B:I get a lot of clients come to me with a preconceived idea of what they should be doing based on what they.
Speaker B:Various people on the Internet have told them you should be doing to build a brand and build a business.
Speaker B:And a lot of what I do is coming back to this.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:What's the important thing?
Speaker B:What's the.
Speaker B:Why do you want to do this?
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:You want to make money?
Speaker B:Of course, nobody builds a business with the intention of being skin.
Speaker B:That doesn't make any sense.
Speaker B:But what is the thing you want to bring to the world?
Speaker B:And this feels like a thing that I want to bring to the world.
Speaker B:This feels like an important thing, a space that we can create.
Speaker A:It is.
Speaker A:Honestly, I'm just sat here smiling, which obviously is not coming through on the audio like gleaming Cheshire cats.
Speaker B:Maybe if one day we move to video, but I feel like maybe one day.
Speaker A:But we're not there yet.
Speaker A:We're not there Mainly because we're two mums that do not have the capacity to make ourselves look for video.
Speaker A:Which also part of me feels like that shouldn't.
Speaker A:Maybe we should just turn up raw.
Speaker B:Look, I brushed.
Speaker B:I brushed my hair this morning.
Speaker B:Speak for yourself.
Speaker B:I'm wearing lip balm.
Speaker B:Like, I'm ready.
Speaker A:I'm not wearing lip balm because someone in my house has misplaced my lip balm and it wasn't me.
Speaker A:Someone's taking it and my lips feel really dry and it's really actually irritating me.
Speaker B:I have things stashed.
Speaker B:I have a nappy bag stash.
Speaker B:I have a handbag stash.
Speaker B:I have a bedroom stash.
Speaker B:I have a bathroom stash.
Speaker B:I have a car stash.
Speaker A:Just you wait till you have a 12 year old that knows what these dashes are, goes and gets them.
Speaker A:Yeah, she's already trying.
Speaker B:She's 20 months old trying to, like steal my eyeshadow or my makeup bag.
Speaker A:So, Claire, do we think our perception or our understanding of having it all has changed since we've done the podcast, or do we think we already had a hold of what that meant to us, or do we think that we might have.
Speaker A:Whether our perceptions have changed a little bit?
Speaker B:I think that for me, having these conversations with you specifically helps me to envisage a little bit further down the timeline because your kids are older than mine, your youngest is the same age as my oldest.
Speaker B:So when you talk about your teens and how you parent through that and the other milestones along the journey, I feel like that's quite expansive for me because I don't know if you found this, but I think when you're in the season of very little kids, your world can become quite small because you're very entrenched in the day to day.
Speaker B:You have to.
Speaker B:There's not a lot of stepping away.
Speaker B:You know, with babies, you're with them most of the time, or at least the way that I've chosen to parent my daughter has never been away from me yet.
Speaker B:So your world can become quite small.
Speaker B:There's not a lot of space.
Speaker B:And I have found it quite expanding to kind of get that glimpse of a little bit further down the timeline and kind of the slightly older kid stage.
Speaker B:Like, I'm excited for that.
Speaker B:It's like a weird kind of dichotomy, isn't it?
Speaker B:Because I love being present in the moment with the little kids and I actually love this stage.
Speaker B:Like my daughter's in the toddler stage.
Speaker B:And I think that like 18 months to 3 little zone is so nice because you don't have to worry particularly about, like, behavioral stuff or any of that.
Speaker B:You're just in this little kind of bubble with this tiny little cute toddler, the lack of sleep aside.
Speaker B:So whilst kind of simultaneously being present in this little kid stage.
Speaker B:And as my little boy, who is turning 6 in January, I can sense in him there's been a little bit of a shift over the summer.
Speaker B:Physically, he's shot up, he's so much taller and he doesn't look like a little kid anymore.
Speaker B:There's like speech inflections and he's picking up stuff from older kids.
Speaker B:So I can feel myself on the cusp with him of stepping into this next little stage, like the 6 to 10 bracket.
Speaker B:So I feel like having these conversations and then being a bit more wide ranging than just what you hear, a lot of which is the immediate postpartum and baby stage.
Speaker B:If we're honest, when people talk about motherhood in public, a lot of it's about the baby stage.
Speaker B:So, yeah, I found that really helpful, like kind of that expander into the future a little bit.
Speaker B:And I've really enjoyed that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I think I have seen it both ways, actually.
Speaker A:So, one, I've really enjoyed talking about it because again, there's not many spaces that talk about teenagers and preteens and anything from school, I think.
Speaker A:I think it's all preschool and before that, a lot of the conversations are.
Speaker A:And part of that is because how much then happens?
Speaker A:So the admin from school, the social lives of your kids, the socialize of you.
Speaker A:And also you've got building businesses and basically your time.
Speaker A:So your world gets bigger, but your time gets smaller.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Which then means people don't have the capacity to talk about it, which then can mean that you feel quite lonely in it.
Speaker A:So I've really loved having a space to have that conversation that it feels really nice for me.
Speaker A:And also because your children are still really young, it's given me that reference point of actually how far we've come.
Speaker A:Because that's the other thing.
Speaker A:When you're not in that anymore, you kind of forget what it is.
Speaker A:And I think actually having you to remind me of the sleepless nights and to remind me of what that feels like and to remind me of what it feels like when your eldest hits all these markers and you're in it, but you're also got the younger children that you're still mothering.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's helped me give that reference point of how far we've come which has then meant I've spent more time really present with my little ones because I know how quick that goes.
Speaker A:For instance, we're hoping to go on a little trip in a few weeks time and our eldest has asked not to come with us.
Speaker A:He was like, I really want to be out with my mates that weekend.
Speaker A:Can I stay at my mates and not come with you on, on the trip?
Speaker A:And yeah, that's it.
Speaker A:That's the first time that's happened.
Speaker B:That hurts your heart, doesn't it?
Speaker A:I don't know.
Speaker A:Actually, like part of it, yes.
Speaker A:This part of me that's like, it's happened.
Speaker A:There's another part where it's like, oh my God, it's happened.
Speaker A:He is growing up and I'm buzzing for him because that is job.
Speaker A:My job as a mother isn't to control and keep in, it's actually to give them wings that they can use to do good in the world.
Speaker A:And if he feels ready to not be with us.
Speaker A:Actually, I've done a really good job.
Speaker A:I've done a really good job.
Speaker A:I've done my job.
Speaker A:That is what I'm meant to be doing is creating adults that feel safe in the fucking world without me.
Speaker A:So yes, it is this dilemma of oh my God, I just want to have my kids around me all the time.
Speaker A:And also I did it, I created a human that enough to have his parents out of town and he stayed and be with his pals and stay at his mate's house.
Speaker A:Feels pretty, pretty good as well.
Speaker A:Yeah, very mixed feelings.
Speaker A:But yeah, it wasn't that long ago that I feel like I was doing the sleepless nights with him.
Speaker A:And do not get me wrong, I'm still having sleepless nights with him because he does not understand curfews.
Speaker B:The other kind of sleepless night, other.
Speaker A:Kind of sleepless night.
Speaker A:So yeah, but on the whole, like it's incredible, honestly, incredible.
Speaker A:And then we've still got the five year old that will forever be a baby.
Speaker A:I was speaking to one of my friends who is her partner is the youngest of four and she was like, everyone just babies him.
Speaker A:She was like, like he still gets babied by his brothers and sisters.
Speaker A:He's an adult, he's got his own children, but he's still the baby of the family.
Speaker A:I was like, yeah, that will be my youngest.
Speaker A:I still call him baby, he's five.
Speaker A:Like he's the age of your eldest.
Speaker A:And the way that we will Talk to our 5 year olds will be very different just because of where they are.
Speaker B:Oh, no, I still call him.
Speaker B:He hates it.
Speaker B:He held me off, but I still call him.
Speaker A:You are my baby.
Speaker A:You'll always be my baby.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So, yeah, like I found that lovely, like being having that reference point.
Speaker A:And some of the feedback from our listeners has been that they've loved having that spectrum and that it's not just two moms talking about nappies and toddlers and it's also not too much just talk about teenagers.
Speaker A:The fact that we have this spectrum has been really helpful for our listeners too, which I don't think I thought much of like before because it wasn't like we were looking for people to do this with.
Speaker A:It was just this actually naturally occurred.
Speaker A:But actually that's a really nice thing that I think.
Speaker A:And yeah, I just think it's lovely that people have resonated with that as well that we've got this broad spectrum of parenthood.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:The range is 20 months to 15.
Speaker A:15.
Speaker A:Year 11, final year of school.
Speaker B:Final year of school.
Speaker B:So we really are, we really are touching on all the bases.
Speaker A:Final year of school.
Speaker A:And I honestly feel like it was just yesterday I was in year 11 and anyone who's listening who knew me in year 11, I'm not that person anymore.
Speaker A:She just reads ahead sometimes.
Speaker A:But yeah, like having a child in year 11 when honestly I do feel like it was just two minutes ago that I was.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'm 37 with two kids and I still get that feeling sometimes of like, okay, so when do the grownups get here?
Speaker B:Because I can't be only person in charge of these children.
Speaker A:We went on holiday in the summer to Tunisia and see who is my 8 year old.
Speaker A:Out of all my children, he's probably the one that's scared of a lot of things.
Speaker A:So he's really, really like, he's quite a apprehensive young man.
Speaker A:All my others have no fear.
Speaker A:Like, it's constant.
Speaker A:Are they going to die today because of the risk they take?
Speaker A:C's not that person.
Speaker A:He's always been very considered and a bit like he takes his time with everything and he makes sure that he's going to be safe before he does anything.
Speaker A:And I absolutely adore that about him.
Speaker A:But when we're on holiday, he was like, I want to do that.
Speaker A:And I was like, what?
Speaker A:He was like that and he was pointing at the sea and it was parasailing.
Speaker A:And I was like, okay, are you sure?
Speaker A:He was like, yes, I want to get over my fear of heights.
Speaker A:I think that's a way to do it.
Speaker A:And I was like, cool, okay.
Speaker A:My husband, petrified of heights.
Speaker A:There was no chance he was going to do that with him.
Speaker A:I was like, that's going to be a me and you thing.
Speaker A:We're going to bond.
Speaker A:He was like, okay.
Speaker A:So we went.
Speaker A:And we went paragliding, parasailing, where we attached to a boat and go really high.
Speaker A:Anyway, we get the harnesses on, we're on the beach, we're attached to this parachute.
Speaker A:And the guy who's like, right, okay.
Speaker A:When I shout through this walkie talkie.
Speaker A:So he's putting a walkie talkie over my head when I shout this walkie talkie, you need to let go and pull left.
Speaker A:And I was like, I do.
Speaker A:He was like, yes.
Speaker A:I was like, is there not an adult coming with us?
Speaker A:And he looked at me like, you are an adult.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I was like, I am, yes.
Speaker A:But I've never done this before.
Speaker A:Technically, yes, I'm an adult, but you're sending me up there with my child with no, no adult.
Speaker A:And he was like, yes, you've got the walkie talkie.
Speaker A:When I say left, pull left.
Speaker A:And I was like, okay, so then we're up.
Speaker A:Like, I had no chance.
Speaker A:We were already attached when he was telling me all.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So I spent the next 10 minutes whilst we were up in the air petrified.
Speaker A:I could not enjoy it.
Speaker A:I had him telling me low, mum, look at all the jellyfish.
Speaker A:I was like, great.
Speaker A:So we're now also above jellyfish infested waters.
Speaker A:Just what I want to hear.
Speaker A:And then, yeah, the guy was like, pull left.
Speaker A:So then I had to let.
Speaker A:Obviously I'm holding on, white knuckles, holding on for dear life because I'm petrified.
Speaker A:He's like, pull left.
Speaker A:I had to let go whilst in the air to pull it.
Speaker A:So I'd come round onto the beach anyway, we didn't die.
Speaker A:I'm here to tell the story.
Speaker A:But I was petrified.
Speaker A:He loved it, had a whale of a time, enjoyed it thoroughly.
Speaker A:I did not.
Speaker B:That seems like a lot of responsibility to put on a person who's never, never done it before.
Speaker A:I would like let go, let go, let go.
Speaker A:When you're all the way up in the sky above jellyfish infested waters.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I remember when I first moved into my house with my little boy on my own.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I remember lying in bed at night and just being like, I am the only adult living in this house.
Speaker B:If anything happens, if there's a break in, if there's a fire, anything I am the adult in this house.
Speaker B:I am solely responsible.
Speaker B:And I used to, I remember I used to lie there at night, like, how would we get out?
Speaker B:Like, plotting escape routes through skylights.
Speaker B:And like, what would this, what would I do in this situation?
Speaker B:And it was really like, yeah, it was.
Speaker B:It's a lot.
Speaker A:Being the only responsible adult.
Speaker A:You don't feel like an adult, Like.
Speaker A:Yeah, I don't think that ever arrives.
Speaker A:Do we ever just be like one day be like an adult today?
Speaker B:No, I don't think so.
Speaker B:I imagine I, I feel like I'm gonna have a very kind of discombobulating experience when I'm 80 and I'm looking in the mirror and I'm like, hang on a minute, I'm 24.
Speaker B:What's going on?
Speaker A:Me too.
Speaker A:I think that's.
Speaker A:I think that's life.
Speaker B:Yeah, I do too.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And actually I think it's because adults, when we were kids, pretended they had it all together.
Speaker A:I think that's something we don't do anymore.
Speaker A:I feel like adults don't pretend we have it all together anymore.
Speaker B:Yeah, we're just like, yeah, we have no idea what we're doing.
Speaker B:Also though, the fact that, like, when I actually think in my head about the age my mum was when she had me, like, it blows my mind a little bit because, you know, when you're a kid, grown ups seem like ancient and they know everything and they, they, you know, they know what they're doing.
Speaker B:And I'm like, my mom had me when she was 28.
Speaker B:And then I think about myself at 28 and I'm like, oh, holy shit.
Speaker B:Like, she did a really good job of pretending.
Speaker A:Really good job of pretending.
Speaker A:I don't even pretend.
Speaker A:I just like to.
Speaker A:For kids, particularly my elder two, because they tend to ask more.
Speaker A:So my younger two don't really.
Speaker A:I don't know if it's like a neurological development or whatever, but my older two are definitely more inquisitive and curious about things.
Speaker A:So they will ask questions.
Speaker A:And I'm always saying to them, mate, I don't know the answer to this.
Speaker A:I don't think there is a perfect answer.
Speaker A:We can have a conversation and try and work it out ourselves, but I'm not gonna package this up as though I know it, because I don't.
Speaker A:And this is your life.
Speaker A:Like, we're obviously having lots of conversation about A levels and career prospects and where that's all going.
Speaker A:And I just think there isn't a perfect answer that you can tie up in A bow.
Speaker A:And, yeah, I get the whole, oh, I'm a tester child.
Speaker A:You test.
Speaker A:You test your parenting out on me?
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:I sometimes say to my oldest, and it's not the same because he's 5, not 15, but I do sometimes say to him, he'll ask me something, and I'll be like, do you know what, buddy?
Speaker B:I. I don't know the answer to that because I've not done this before.
Speaker B:So I'm gonna just take a minute to think about it, and I'm gonna come back to you later today, because in the moment, I don't.
Speaker B:And he's just like, oh, okay, Mom.
Speaker B:Like, he's very.
Speaker B:He just takes it on the chin.
Speaker B:But, yeah, sometimes I'm like, wow.
Speaker B:I don't.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:He's into asking big questions at the moment.
Speaker B:He's.
Speaker B:He's quite taken with the idea of God, and he's asking me lots of questions about, you know, existential.
Speaker B:Like, why do we exist?
Speaker B:It's kind of like you.
Speaker B:I'm like, we can talk about this, but also, you're five years old, so there's only so far we could take this conversation, and I don't have an answer for you.
Speaker A:And that is actually really important, because when they're older and they can hold that conversation longer, this is how we build that muscle of being able to have conversations that we don't know the answer to.
Speaker A:And it's so important for adult humans to be able to do that that I think we miss, because school is lots of right or wrong, right or wrong, tick or cross, tickle cross.
Speaker A:And to actually have those conversations in your house of, like, I can't answer this perfectly for you, but let's have the conversation is probably some of the most important work we do as parents, in my opinion.
Speaker B:I agree.
Speaker B:And also fostering the kind of idea that you can find things out for yourself and the curiosity approach, rather than the idea of wanting to know, you know, have all the answers.
Speaker B:So, like, a lot of the time, if.
Speaker B:If my little boy asks me something I don't know, I'll just say, I don't know the answer to that one, bud.
Speaker B:Do we have a book that we can look in or what could we search for?
Speaker B:Like, I've got my phone.
Speaker B:What can we search for that might be able to tell us the answer?
Speaker B:And just try and get into the habit of, like, if you don't know something, try and find it out instead of pretending you have the answer.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Which I think a Lot of people do, you know, they obviously want to seem clever, so they pretend they have the answer even though they don't really know.
Speaker B:I don't want to lean into that.
Speaker B:You know, I really want to lean into the idea that it's absolutely fine that you don't know the answer to that, because why would you know?
Speaker B:You don't know until you know.
Speaker B:So ask the questions.
Speaker A:Yeah, I'm really hoping that this, what we're building with both hands is that as well.
Speaker A:I want our listeners, and I hope that's really come across that we do not have the answers.
Speaker A:We are trying to work this out ourselves, and this platform is us doing just that.
Speaker A:And I've really enjoyed doing that over these last few.
Speaker A:Well, this, this first season, I've really enjoyed getting into the conversation and then the conversations that happen in the DMs off people that are listening has one of my favorite things of this whole thing so far.
Speaker B:Yeah, me too.
Speaker B:There are a few things in life that I love more than just sitting and diving into a topic.
Speaker B:Don't really even care what the topic is.
Speaker B:I just love, like, if it's important to you, I will happily just sit and, like, dissect it for hours.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker B:Hours.
Speaker A:Two yappers.
Speaker B:Yeah, My substack's called Late Night Deep Chats because that's always been one of my favorite things.
Speaker B:Like, I'm always down for a deep chat.
Speaker A:Yeah, me too.
Speaker A:Hence why we're here and you're all listening to our deep Chat, so.
Speaker B:Yep.
Speaker A:Good for you.
Speaker A:I was going to say something and I completely lost my train of thoughts because.
Speaker A:Brain fog.
Speaker A:So I'm just.
Speaker B:Well, do you want to loop back to the idea of how we're balancing?
Speaker B:I know we're rejecting balance.
Speaker B:We really need to come up with a better word because I just keep.
Speaker A:Saying it doesn't is a better word.
Speaker A:But I think anyone has a new.
Speaker B:Word, can you please let us know?
Speaker B:Because we need a new word.
Speaker A:I think balance is the right word.
Speaker A:I think it's the definition of balance that needs changing.
Speaker B:Okay, fair enough.
Speaker A:Like, I don't think balance has to be equal on both sides.
Speaker A:I don't think that's balance.
Speaker A:Balanced is to have the weight so you don't fall off.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Distributed however you need it so you don't fall from whatever it is you're doing.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because I also don't like the idea of juggling, because that just feels stressful.
Speaker B:No, I hate the word juggle.
Speaker B:Yeah, very stressful.
Speaker B:Very frenetic.
Speaker B:We need a word that encompasses our, like, visual with both hands.
Speaker B:Because that's what it is.
Speaker B:It's this, isn't it?
Speaker B:It's like the, the scales.
Speaker B:Each hand is one side of the scales and tips like this.
Speaker B:I'm doing it and nobody can see me.
Speaker B:Also those weebles, that's more accurate.
Speaker B:I'm thinking like scales of justice and you're like, yeah, or weebles probably.
Speaker A:If that is not this pair of us.
Speaker B:That's it.
Speaker A:That's how it is.
Speaker A:Art direction.
Speaker A:Laura will always simplify to the simplest thing ever.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Claire will always make you look beautiful.
Speaker A:I love that.
Speaker A:For us.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:I think we need to discuss, like the whole success thing and what we think it is, whether that's changed in the conversations that we've been having and the message that we want to deliver about success and what that means to us and motherhood and parenthood and, and, and, and I think for me, success.
Speaker A:And again, I come from this background that is very male oriented.
Speaker A:I've been in business for decades now and it's always about KPIs and pushing further in the growth charts and getting the control area, like, more stable.
Speaker A:So you're not getting loads of variation on your month on month targets.
Speaker A:And everything should always be tracking upwards.
Speaker A:And there's part of me that absolutely adores that.
Speaker A:Like, I'm not even going to pretend it doesn't, because I do.
Speaker A:I love a graph that trends upwards.
Speaker A:I also love the quiet success of birthing my baby at home against medical advice because I know my body better than a room full of doctors who wanted me to do it a different way.
Speaker A:And I like the quiet success of building something like a podcast that might not be generating revenue yet, but has potential to do that in the future.
Speaker A:But it's doing good work.
Speaker A:And I love the success of seeing my kids faces when I pick them up unexpectedly on a Friday afternoon, like I did last week for my daughter to pick them up from school so she didn't have to spend an hour on a bus on the way home.
Speaker A:To me, that's all success.
Speaker A:And it's not all about the money in the bank and how much work you've done and the clients you've touched.
Speaker A:That is all really good work.
Speaker A:But it's also the other stuff that to me makes a round, fulfilled, happy, joyous life that I really want to live.
Speaker A:Like I want to live that well rounded life.
Speaker A:But it's an ambitious life.
Speaker A:It's not settling, it is growing into my biggest self, taking up as much space as I can hold, and also empowering as many people to do that as well.
Speaker A:And that's what success is for me.
Speaker B:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker B:I find my ambition is something that I wrestle with, I think, because I think I hold a lot of contradictions around what ambition looks like.
Speaker B:I think I hold a lot of inherited around what ambition looks like in women.
Speaker B:And I think that I.
Speaker B:And this podcast, again, is really.
Speaker B:Is helping move this forward, working through this idea of what it means to aspire to wealth.
Speaker B:And you know this because we've talked about this and Laura's helping with this a lot, but it's this idea of ambition and being.
Speaker B:Because I value softness and I value the way that I've built my business into my life to enable me to lean into being a mother, to very, very important to me, and learning how to redistribute the idea of success into things like you say, like the fact that you birthed at home, the fact that my daughter slept through the night last week for the first time in 20 months.
Speaker B:The level of success is so disproportionate that.
Speaker B:But to me, that's like such a huge success.
Speaker B:And so balancing all these different definitions of success, I think that my own ambition is something which potentially I've been in.
Speaker B:In a position where I've leaned so far into the softness that the ambition has been lost a little bit.
Speaker B:And I feel like at the moment, I'm in a transitional period where I'm stepping back into that ambition with a kind of renewed sense of owning that and knowing what that means.
Speaker B:And I think that that's probably true of a lot of women.
Speaker B:I think that our ambition is something which people find threatening or scary quite often, which is why I think we end up with women's strength or empowerment being depicted within a masculine lens, when actually it's finding a way to hold ambition with the softness that feminine power brings.
Speaker B:And I feel like that is something which I wrestle with a lot in my definition of success.
Speaker A:Yeah, I do, too.
Speaker A:To be fair, I wrestle with it from the feminine side because my training, everything has been very masculine.
Speaker A:So I'm having to unlearn and repair it myself on how I do this from a feminine core.
Speaker A:And there's no textbooks.
Speaker A:Like, there's literally.
Speaker A:And I learned from reading and seeing and doing.
Speaker A:And then.
Speaker A:Yeah, but then I've also learned that if anyone's into human design, I am a manifesto.
Speaker A:So I am kind of the kind and according to human design and the person who goes first so it also really resonates that I am here going first on this and like write in the textbook on what it is to be in business as a feminine leader, not just a female.
Speaker A:And I think that's really key.
Speaker A:Like for me, success isn't dressing ourselves up as men and acting like men in business.
Speaker A:That is not successful.
Speaker A:To me, that is what causes us to have hormone imbalances, autoimmune diseases, because we're not living aligned to our bodies.
Speaker A:And there's been studies on this now, like we are harming our internal systems by trying to live in a way that's unaligned to our natural rhythm.
Speaker A:So I am really trying to strip that back and live aligned whilst not making an income and wealth for the future.
Speaker A:And I don't want to create wealth just so I can sit on it and be like, oh, look at all this money in my bank account.
Speaker A:Isn't that beautiful?
Speaker A:I want to earn a lot of money so I can give back to the communities and help people who come from backgrounds that I came from but haven't had the luck or the opportunities that I have managed to have.
Speaker A:I really want to give back.
Speaker A:That is something that really pushes me is to keep going, to give back.
Speaker A:And again, it's that village.
Speaker A:For me, success would be if the particularly in the Western world, we moved more to helping each other again and building communities and not being in this ultra independent world because I just don't think it really works for many people.
Speaker A:I think if more of us actually reached out and started helping each other, we would find we wouldn't be having a conversation about taxing the super rich because we'd be able to make our own money and make ends meet and do the things we want to do much easier.
Speaker A:That success for me is complex.
Speaker A:Ambition is definitely there, but it might not look the way ambition is seen in the movies.
Speaker A:That I don't want to be the Wolf of Wall Street.
Speaker B:Nobody, nobody, nobody does.
Speaker B:That's okay.
Speaker B:Lots of people do.
Speaker A:But lots of people do.
Speaker A:And it's like that, isn't it?
Speaker A:I don't want to be doing business for business sake.
Speaker A:I really want to be doing business that is purposeful.
Speaker A:And we talk about these paradoxes all the time and these narratives.
Speaker A:And again, I think this whole point of yes, I want to make profit doesn't have to mean and not purposeful.
Speaker A:I truly believe that you can have a purposeful business and make profit.
Speaker A:It doesn't have to be.
Speaker A:And just because you want to make profit does not make You a bad person actually, as long as you're making profit and doing good with it and making decisions that benefit people and the planet, then great, that's what we should be doing.
Speaker A:Because we wouldn't be in business if we weren't trying to make money.
Speaker B:I think it comes down to acting with integrity, doesn't it?
Speaker B:I think it comes back to having that center and being able to look at a decision and say, does this fall within my, I call it my sacred ground?
Speaker B:It's quite woo woo.
Speaker B:Does fall within or outside of that sacred ground of my intuition?
Speaker B:Does it?
Speaker B:Is, does this feel aligned?
Speaker B:Because if you start making too many decisions that fall outside of that circle, you're going to end up in a place where success is probably potentially not going to look or feel the way that you would want it to.
Speaker A:And I think as well, like this is all of it.
Speaker A:Like people seem to think that to make a profit means that you're making a bad decision.
Speaker A:So we're fed this narrative a lot that to make money means to harm something else.
Speaker A:Or if I make money, that means that you're not making money because there isn't enough money to go around everybody.
Speaker A:And it's just not true.
Speaker A:It's really not true.
Speaker A:There is enough in the world.
Speaker A:There's enough resource for everyone to do well if you know how to do it.
Speaker A:And that's the issue.
Speaker A:Like we're not educated to, to do this stuff.
Speaker A:We're fed this narrative that we all have to do everything ourselves.
Speaker A:So then because you are now trying to be a designer, an accountant, ops manager, you're also trying to do the work that you were doing.
Speaker A:You're trying to serve clients.
Speaker A:You can't do all that really well.
Speaker A:And then that actually keeps you really small because you can't do it all.
Speaker A:There is not enough time in the day to do all the things yourself.
Speaker A:And actually by investing in support, you're actually giving money to someone else, which is actually helping the economy.
Speaker A:That is what actually happens.
Speaker A:So I think the fact that we're all trying to do it all ourselves and keep all our money to ourselves because there isn't enough money to go around, so we all have to keep hold of it, is actually stopping that money moving, which would then generate it more and then everyone would just feel better.
Speaker B:Yeah, because you're creating very simplified there.
Speaker B:But yeah, there's also the fact that is important to bring in, which is that, yes, like theoretically there is enough resource in the world for everybody to do well.
Speaker B:In theory, however Systems have been established and built to stop that from happening for certain groups of people.
Speaker B:So the other part of that is that if you have that mindset of the money being kind of cyclical and moving that money around and reinvesting, then you're also able to reinvest into service providers, businesses, people, products created by people who potentially have more hurdles to jump to get to that starting line.
Speaker B:And that's important as well because that's a way that we can at grassroots level, bring more people into that community and into that village and make sure that we're lifting everybody.
Speaker A:Yeah, like we had a conversation about coffees.
Speaker A:It was off air, but we had a conversation about coffees and whether we should buy a coffee every day.
Speaker A:So I buy a coffee most days and some people would say that's a waste of money, you shouldn't be doing that.
Speaker A:You should be keeping hold of your money and saving it.
Speaker A:And there is an argument for that.
Speaker A:There is an argument that we should be saving our money and looking after our future selves.
Speaker A:But I see as one, I like coffee and two, I only go to independence.
Speaker A:So I am putting that money into a small business that needs to sell coffees.
Speaker A:That means that they can then pay their people and it circulates.
Speaker A:They then they've got money to put it into whoever else they then invest in.
Speaker A:And it keeps that money circulating.
Speaker A:So those small purchases that I make, I actually see them as an investment into the communities in which I'm living.
Speaker A:And that is a whole concept, seems to blow people's minds sometimes.
Speaker A:But every pound you spend, you are cheap choosing to put that money in, yes, you're getting something back, but that's the same in investment.
Speaker A:So where you choose to spend your money on a day to day basis is investing and is like back to your integrity.
Speaker A:And I just think not many people understand that as a whole concept of how the economy works.
Speaker B:I feel like that's just a whole episode there, Laura, potentially a series.
Speaker A:I feel like really high level, very money there.
Speaker A:Sorry everybody, but I wanted you to understand, like for me success is having the capacity and the resource to be able to make those decisions.
Speaker A:Yes, there was a time in my life I could not afford to pay for a coffee from an independent.
Speaker A:Most years I had to buy from the supermarket, the dried coffee bean, which was a big like corporate.
Speaker A:I have now moved to a point where I have the resource to be able to do the other bit.
Speaker A:And there was a time in my life I didn't like 15, well, 16 years now when we found out I was pregnant with our elders, we were homeless.
Speaker A:Like, we had nothing.
Speaker A:I had to go to family planning to get the pregnancy test to find out if I was pregnant because we didn't have enough money in the bank account to buy a pregnancy test.
Speaker A:When I tell you we had nothing, we had nothing.
Speaker A:Nothing at all.
Speaker A:So we haven't always had this resource.
Speaker A:And I think that is another, like, success to me isn't necessarily.
Speaker A:That is the fact that I can give back to my community now when once upon a time I couldn't.
Speaker A:And I want to be able to give even more back to my community now.
Speaker A:I can buy a coffee most days.
Speaker A:I would like that to be much more than that.
Speaker A:I'd like to help schools a bit more and I'd like to do.
Speaker A:To do bigger work.
Speaker A:But to do that, I have to make the profit first.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:If I don't have it to give, I can't give it.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:And I think that when we think about philanthropy, most people think of that only on, like, millionaire level.
Speaker B:You know, the only people that can afford to invest in philanthropic activity is.
Speaker B:Yeah, millionaires.
Speaker B:J.K. rowling.
Speaker B:That's what people, you know, comes to mind.
Speaker B:You know, people giving millions to hospital wings and what have you.
Speaker B:But actually, if on an individual level, those of us who are in the business of generating our own wealth, so anybody who's entrepreneurial or has their own small business, if we worked more in the mindset of that, that success can look like just making enough to be able to be intentional with your purchasing decisions and invest in your local community in that way, then we would end up with a lot more.
Speaker B:That's a step away from the monopoly that big corporate holds, isn't it?
Speaker B:And it's a step more towards us being a bit more in control of our decisions of what we do with our money, of what we do with our wealth and what our communities look like around us.
Speaker B:Because at the end of the day, if you're investing the community that's directly around you, that community is then going to be able to rise up.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker A:So how simple?
Speaker B:Yes, it seems like it would be, doesn't it?
Speaker A:But just because it's simple doesn't mean it's easy.
Speaker A:No, that's.
Speaker A:People get like, if anyone's telling you selling, telling you something's easy but complicated, they're probably lying to you.
Speaker A:I find that the way the world works, there's a lot of simple things, but it's hard.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Hard but simple like that is what I think runs the world.
Speaker A:Hard but simple.
Speaker A:And the more.
Speaker B:Huh, that's what should run the world.
Speaker B:If we all operated on the basis that we do the simple thing.
Speaker B:That's right.
Speaker B:Even when it's hard, the world would run a lot better than it does now.
Speaker A:We'll end there.
Speaker B:No, we're not gonna, we're not done yet.
Speaker A:But yeah, that is it.
Speaker A:That is.
Speaker A:Is it?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:We do the hard things when they're the right things.
Speaker A:We do the right thing even when it's hard.
Speaker A:Not the easy thing, but I do find a lot of the simplest things are sometimes the harder things to actually do.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Simple thing.
Speaker A:Go to the gym every day.
Speaker A:Very hard.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Honestly, it's everywhere.
Speaker A:The hard thing, prepping your food for the week so you're eating well.
Speaker A:That's hard.
Speaker A:The simple thing is the, the easy thing is to get a takeaway.
Speaker A:But that's not the simplest thing.
Speaker A:That's not putting back into your local community at a grassroots level.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker B:And you know what?
Speaker B:This, that just makes me think of when we talk about definitions of success, that kind of encapsulates the issue that I have with the common narrative on social media around building a business, which is that it should be easy.
Speaker B:The common narrative is, you know, six figures in six months or you know, how to take this 10 step roadmap and turn it into a, into a million pound business.
Speaker B:And it's like, a, that's not true and B, why would you expect it to be true?
Speaker B:Why would you think that this should be that easy?
Speaker B:Do you know what I mean?
Speaker B:If it was that easy, everybody would be doing it.
Speaker A:We'd all be millionaires.
Speaker B:All be millionaires.
Speaker B:But actually it takes, it's hard and it takes time and it's like hard.
Speaker A:Because we are made of strong stuff and we can do hard things.
Speaker B:100.
Speaker B:We talked in the last episode about Victoria Beckham building her fashion company.
Speaker B:It's taken her 20 years, years.
Speaker B:And it's been bloody hard.
Speaker B:Yes, the outcome is spectacular and that's what it is.
Speaker B:The expectation that we have that we should be able to take the easy route and have a spectacular outcome is so off.
Speaker B:And I think it pervades everything and particularly in the business narrative that we kind of operate within.
Speaker A:So back to success.
Speaker A:I always think I'm going to bring old lady Laura out and I want her to look at my life and be like, did we live a good life?
Speaker A:And that means we got some bruises, we stood up against some bullies, we brought up a family that is phenomenal.
Speaker A:And you're so proud of every single one of them, even the ones that have made shitty decisions along the way, but they've picked themselves up, dusted themselves off, and carried on.
Speaker A:And I'm sat there and I'm looking at this life that I've lived and feel like I've lived it, which doesn't mean I've sat happy all the time, because that's not living.
Speaker A:That is some utopia that doesn't exist and nobody wanted to.
Speaker A:Like, I have been through trauma in my life.
Speaker A:And if you asked me if I could wave a magic wand and erase it, I'd say no, because that is who I am.
Speaker A:It's.
Speaker A:It's is kind of what brought me today.
Speaker A:Yes, I'm in therapy to deal with it.
Speaker A:Because I think by dealing with my therapy, dealing with my trauma, it will ensure that I live an even bigger, better life without the weight of the trauma.
Speaker A:But would I want it gone forever and never have to have gone through it?
Speaker A:No, because I think it's what makes me a kind person.
Speaker A:I think it's what makes me a safe person.
Speaker A:Because I know what it feels like to feel unsafe and know what it feels like to feel like there's absolutely nobody in your corner.
Speaker A:I know what that feels like.
Speaker A:And because of that, I make sure anyone in my circle never feels like that when they.
Speaker A:They're around me.
Speaker A:So I was like, success for me is having that life that feels like a life that's.
Speaker A:Collected stories, that I've traveled the world, that I've met some of the most incredible people.
Speaker A:And Even now, at 36, I can say I've already done a lot of that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I just want more of it.
Speaker A:I want more deep conversations.
Speaker A:I want more people to change their lives and see that they don't have to live the life that they're currently living, that their future's in their hands and don't need to wait for someone to come and rescue them.
Speaker A:They can just pick it up and do it themselves.
Speaker A:That success, me, is not just palm notes and money in the bank.
Speaker A:That just.
Speaker A:That's a tool to enable me to live the life I want.
Speaker A:That isn't the purpose of my life.
Speaker B:I totally agree.
Speaker B:My nightmare would be getting to the end and realizing that I lived a sanitized life, that in the pursuit of ease, I had missed out on the.
Speaker B:The guts of it.
Speaker B:Like, life should be messy and raw and.
Speaker B:And bloody, because that's what it is.
Speaker B:It's a visceral thing.
Speaker B:We're living things on this living planet.
Speaker B:And it should.
Speaker B:It should feel painful and joyful and exhilarating and all the things.
Speaker B:I think that the fire is necessary.
Speaker B:You have to have the fire to have what's on the other side of it.
Speaker B:I don't think you can do one without the other.
Speaker B:In my experience, and I am someone who has been through the experience of burning down the entire life that I had built and established, literally burning it all down to the ground and starting again, and that I would not erase that experience for the world because I would not be myself without it.
Speaker B:I would never have found myself again if I hadn't have had to crawl through that rubble to find myself in that rubble.
Speaker B:It's so necessary.
Speaker B:And that, I think, is success.
Speaker B:If you can keep finding yourself over and over again and keep coming back to yourself throughout everything, that is success.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And being able to find yourself is so underrated.
Speaker A:Like, we mean our versions of our current reality of ourselves.
Speaker A:Like, we're chasing our dreams, not someone else's.
Speaker A:We got relationships with the people that we want, relationships with all of that.
Speaker A:We.
Speaker A:That is just.
Speaker A:Yeah, for me, that.
Speaker A:That is life that is living and I want to live this life because how privileged are we to be like 100 without wanting to go mega.
Speaker A:Woo.
Speaker A:Woo.
Speaker A:I honestly feel so grateful for.
Speaker A:For being here.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:That feels like a nice little.
Speaker B:Like a nice little point, doesn't it?
Speaker A:It does, yeah.
Speaker A:I think the only last thing that we need to just round off is where next?
Speaker B:Where next?
Speaker B:Season two.
Speaker B:Do you know what?
Speaker B:I love the fact that we're like, what's next for season two?
Speaker B:And when we started this, we were like, let's just see if we can do a season and just see how it goes and just see.
Speaker B:And now we're, like, buzzing like, let's do season two.
Speaker A:Let's do season two.
Speaker A:I think it's time to get some people in.
Speaker B:I think it's time to get some people in.
Speaker B:We have got so many ideas of people that we would love to talk to and conversations we'd love to have.
Speaker B:And so we're hoping that that's what we're going to be able to bring forward for season two.
Speaker A:I feel like there's no hope.
Speaker A:I feel like we're definitely going to be able to do that.
Speaker B:There you go.
Speaker A:We've already got people that are pitching to us saying, I'd love to be on your podcast.
Speaker A:Are you doing guests?
Speaker A:The answer is yes.
Speaker A:We are going to be doing guests for to.
Speaker A:We want to invite more people into these conversations to get their perspectives on what it is to be a mother and a business owner or even just in on the corporate ladder, like building something, building a life alongside their motherhood.
Speaker A:We really want to invite those people in and we're also really interested to know who you, as listeners, would love to have on here.
Speaker A:So who would you want us to be having a conversation with?
Speaker A:People in your sphere that you might be like, maybe these girls don't know about this person, but they're gonna add so much to.
Speaker A:To this conversation.
Speaker A:Please reach out and let us know because we really want these conversations to be deep and valuable.
Speaker A:Like, we want you to take a lot away from it and feel seen and heard and held.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:So we're opening up the floor for season two.
Speaker A:We're opening up the floor for season two.
Speaker B:Stay tuned.
Speaker A:Honestly, I'm so excited.
Speaker B:Me too.
Speaker A:We've also got ideas for series three, which will insane too.
Speaker A:So we're not going anywhere yet.
Speaker A:Like, yes, this is the end of season one.
Speaker A:We're gonna take a small pause.
Speaker A:We're gonna find the guests that we want to come and join us here and then.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:The world is our oyster.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker A:To end on a cliche.
Speaker B:Why not?
Speaker B:I love a cliche.
Speaker A:Have we got anything else that we want to say?
Speaker B:I don't think so.
Speaker B:I think we're just.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B: Will be back early: Speaker B:Yeah, as mums who work, we take Christmas off hard boundary.
Speaker A:Hard boundary.
Speaker A:Particularly when we love chatting.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:But we have decided that we don't want to be doing a lot of everything in the later end of the year.
Speaker A: So, yeah, we will be back in: Speaker A:I would like to say thank you to all of you that have listened so far and for sharing us in your mum's groups and in your whatsapps and wherever else you've been telling me you've been sharing us.
Speaker A:And keep doing that because the more traction we can get, the better.
Speaker A:If you want to like and subscribe and do anything else that you want to do, leave us a review.
Speaker A:That'd be really helpful as well for us to grow this so we can impact more people's lives.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:And keep, keep dropping into our DMs.
Speaker B:Tell us what you want to talk about.
Speaker B:Tell us your point of view.
Speaker B:We want to open the floor for this as a conversation.
Speaker B:It's not just about our voices.
Speaker B:So keep having the amazing conversations with us that you've been doing in the DMs.
Speaker B:We love it.
Speaker A:But for now, I've been Laura.
Speaker B:And I have been Claire.
Speaker A:And this is with both hands.
Speaker A:Bye, Sam.
