How you Quit Your Job, Be a Mom and Work Around the Kids!

Well it’s already spring 2017 and things are underway in the Steadman-Robert household. The girls are 2/3 way through the school year and their Spanish is coming on very well. Getting to know other moms has not been the easiest task however thanks to some birthday parties I’ve managed to get to know a few other English/French speaking mommas. Also the Bric Hotel and Spa ran a Mom and Me event recently and I met some more lovely mums who are home schooling and doing all kinds of exciting entrepreneurial stuff. Just on Facebook today another mom who is working online wants to connect and let children play whilst we work. HOW FREAKING COOL IS THAT.

I have to say I think I am starting to take working from home a little for granted. And I need to stop that. There are many many mothers and fathers out there that cannot work from home and are still going to work everyday because they have to.

In my mind you ALWAYS can find a way, if you focus on what YOU WANT. Make a vague plan on how you could get there and then follow the signs!

I am lucky to live not far from the beach, civilization, have the girls in a decent school and keep things simple. Life is for living and being in the moment so I LOVE working from my laptop and having lots of flexibility. Its wasn’t so long ago I was driving around the UK and working almost 7 days a week. Lucky most of that time I did enjoy what I did. It was just the last few months where I could feel I was just not going to go any further and this voice inside my head kept saying, you can do this for yourself. Just Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway. And I did.

13 years later I have not looked back. I was grateful for the insights that I learned from MRI the company I worked for and on a daily basis I witnessed what made entrepreneurs and consultants succeed or fail and much of it was down to mind set and attitude. Some people were in the same markets – others did well others just didn’t make it click.

My husband and I made sure we went into an area we both KNEW SOMETHING ABOUT! He knew hospitality and I knew recruitment inside out – the systems, the sales side, everything so we put our skill together and within 3 years reached a turnover of $250,000 in our best year.

Then as we got so busy we let the ball drop on investing in more personal, doing way to much ourselves and not in expansion mode and not being right on top of invoices. A very hard lesson learned when we chased extremely wealthy clients (we’re talking billionaires) who just refused to pay us and know that going to court we would not get the full amount. They had no integrity and it made me so mad that these guys pretty much helped us go out of business alongside the terrible recession in our sector that crept up on us in 2009 and pretty much wiped out 6 years of blood, sweat and tears. I do wonder today if we’d found a way to keep going if we would have still been as successful. I wonder.

As it happened, the universe had other plans and they weren’t necessary going to be around this business. We went into survival mode as we had a first baby girl and Franck was forced to take paid employment..to his horror. He swallowed his pride and got on with it. For that I am very grateful, they he lined me up with two jobs and we both were working (me part time -ish) when Ava was about 8 months old.

I feel a little guilty about putting her into day care a few hours a day. But it was also good for me to have a break and be able to pay off our debts that we’d built up in crisis mode.

My husband always says everything goes in cycles, good times, bad times. I am not sure I totally agree with him. Im determined to prove to him that if we stay super positive and let go of any negative vibes that surface, we can stay in the good times zone for longer. I will keep you posted how it goes!

TOP TIPS for Online Freedom

1. Find something you really enjoy doing.
2. Research what is online already and who is doing what YOU want to do?
3. Contact them and ask them how they did it!
4. Look at online working sites like Upwork.com and Fiverr.co – you can become a voice over artist, virtual assistant, graphic designer, singer, actor, programmer – check it out options are ENDLESS!
5. Choose the hours you want to work and make it work for you.
6. Be clear about what YOU want to get out of it and what levels of income you can generate for each niche/contract/task you do.
7. If you’re already a budding entrepreneur – what gaps are there for services in YOUR area. Moms and parents always need help with something!
8. Become an author – again – Parents need all the help they can get – is there something you do or did as a parent that you know will help others? Document it, format it and get it into Kindle, Sell it!

Get that TIME WITH THE PEOPLE YOU LOVE!

If you have any other questions just contact me ; ) here

Amanda x