‘When it all changes, change it all’ – how one mother made major changes.

Running a business whilst being a parent is never easy but it can be the best thing you will ever do! I have always had a strong desire to work for myself, I suppose that the 9 to 5 thing has never really suited me and whilst I have had really great 9 to 5 jobs the best ones were always those that offered a certain amount of autonomy.

I first decided to set up my own business when I was about 8. It was called the Brown Paper Bag Co and I’m not really sure what it was meant to sell, I just remember that everything I sold had to be in a brown paper bag because I thought that looked like a cool branding idea! Since then I have explored many business ideas, all of which have been focused (without me really realising) around a central idea of helping others to find themselves. After my degree in Psychology I did further training and qualified as a Psychotherapist and used this to work as a coach with individuals and businesses. At the time I was also working in a full time Marketing Managers role and loved the idea of combining coaching with helping small businesses start up so that’s what I decided to offer and it started to really take off…

Then my lovely son came along, he was very much planned but naively I was shocked that he came along so quickly after my ex-partner and I decided to try! I had always wanted children and I knew that I wanted to make the most of the time being a mother so I put everything on hold and gladly devoted myself to being a mum. When Noah was about a year old my old boss for whom I had been working for as Marketing Manager asked my partner and I if we would accompany him to Monaco to start up his now very successful building business – we decided it was an opportunity we couldn’t turn down and followed him there, leaving everything behind in storage, having sold the house.

Monaco was indeed a fantastic and beautiful place to live but I hadn’t given much thought to the fact that I had given up my support network along with everything else. I grew increasingly lonely as I realised that having a young son, with no friends or family to look after him whilst I tried to do a bit of work was just not happening. My partner was working lots and I was left alone with a small child in a place I did not know and could not really explore because I had no money to do it with. I grew more and more isolated and wanted to go home. As I thought about the loneliness I felt I realised that perhaps I was not the only one who, in the pre-school years of motherhood, felt that life had become smaller and different and that a whole new world of mums needed to be located and explored. I felt that telling other mothers where they could go to meet people, where different groups were being held, and what motherhood could really be like might be a useful thing for a lot of people. So, that became the project that saved me from feeling so useless and alone.

From our apartment in Monaco I got together a business plan for what I was going to do. I phoned accountants and printers and designers in the UK and got everything set up ready for our return to the UK (we had made the decision by then to return after a year of being abroad). I submitted my business plan to a competition, which if I won would mean I would have a subsidised office space, £2,000 to play with, and a lot of help and support. Somehow I did end up winning that competition. I got my office, received lots of press coverage because my business plan had won, and life was back on track. I launched my magazine, Nought to Nursery, having taught myself design and layout so I could do it all without extra money, and started to distribute the 30,000 copies I had printed across all of the local nurseries, schools, play schemes, cafes etc. I was able to work as flexibly as I needed and motherhood and work seemed to fall into place, so that it all fitted together very well.

That was when the next problem surfaced – no one said it was easy right?! Another magazine, a franchise, aimed at exactly the same demographic as mine started just a week after I had fully launched. The fact that they had access to a national database of regular advertisers to keep them funded through the early days made them streets ahead. I had to sell the advertising space in mine to make money and it was something I realised I wasn’t very good at and really hated doing! Needless to say I struggled to compete and much as I loved the magazine I had to let it go so I didn’t go into further debt trying to keep it alive.

There were however, a number of people who had been contacting me after I won the business plan competition to ask if I could help write theirs…I agreed and started to help a few people, I also started to advise them on their marketing having done this previously. I also found that many of them wanted a coaching style approach to know how to define their business offering – I had found myself back in coaching! I approached Barclays Bank to ask them if they would refer their new small business customers to me and after a few talks I ended up being one of their official referrers and got people from all over the area who were setting up businesses and needed marketing consultations. I started to offer talks in school to help students become more motivated, I offered coaching to corporations and held talks and workshops. Things were again going well.

But you know it’s not happily ever after yet…I then had a bit of a personal disaster. I found out that my partner no longer wanted to be with me, he had found someone else and even trying for six months to hold it all together it wasn’t to be. I was devastated to say the least. Work held no interest for me. I was thrown into a state of panic over how I would provide for my son alone and what on earth we were going to do. I neglected the business as I fumbled around trying not to fall apart, trying not to cry all the time and trying to find my feet again. I eventually found my son and I somewhere to live that we could just about afford, it was tiny but idyllic in a lovely village that we still live in today. The one good thing to come out of what felt like the end of the world was that I had a sense of total liberation. I remember (and so does my son as he often reminds me of it), driving one day and saying very excitedly to Noah “we can do whatever we want now, Noah, we can go anywhere, do anything. It’s you and me and we have a whole world of opportunities to explore”. I truly felt like I had been given a gift of a brand new start and that we needed to make the most of it.

So we moved into our new village virtually penniless and began exploring what was next. I started volunteering at the local school when my son enrolled and became Chair of the PTA which really helped to get to know people and help in the local community. I also knew that now was the time to fulfil a couple of lifelong dreams. The first of these was to write a book, the second was to act. I began a few ideas for a book but none really called to me as something that I knew I could finish but I did sign up with a few acting agencies and began getting auditions and jobs. My only claims to fame so far are being an extra in a Richard Gere film, being nominated for Best Actress in a short film and being on a Sky advert! I was having the time of my life and I was able to pick my son up every day after school and spend hours of wonderful quality time together in the countryside. I knew though that to survive financially long term I would need to find a more permanent and stable career. I decided to retrain as a Primary School Teacher and was lucky enough that Noah’s school allowed me to train on the job as part of the GTP training scheme where I could earn as I trained. I then got a job at the school afterwards as a part-time position had become available just as I finished the training. I worked three days a week and on my two days off I finally wrote my book and published it on Amazon.

The following year a full time position was available and I took it and had a full time wage for the first time in forever! It was great to become more financially stable, we moved to a bigger house and things became more settled. The thing that was sacrificed was time, don’t believe that teachers work from 9 until 3.15 it’s a total myth! I have never been so consumed by a job, never worked so hard and never been so involved in a world. It’s a wonderful world, a precious one and the children I have taught have taught me so much. I realised though that I needed to spend more time at home, it wasn’t fair to my son that we never saw each other anymore and I wanted to rectify it, even if that meant giving up the money that was now so much better.

Which brings me to today, today I am again part-time teaching, for one more term before I am completely self-employed again. I started a blog once I had handed in my notice at school. The blog gave me a chance to write regularly and a chance to interact with people who are also starting their own businesses. I wanted to coach more again and that is what I am now doing, alongside some more acting (I am making a film next week!) and writing another book. I offer the coaching through retreats that my friend runs, to individuals at my home or over the telephone and also to groups of people who want to discover how to turn their lives around. Personally things are brighter too; my son has a great relationship with his Dad. My ex-partner and I co-parent well together and have moved on to form a valuable friendship with one another.

Without the journey I had been on I wouldn’t have had the experiences, hard though some of them were and many I haven’t mentioned, I wouldn’t be here now doing what I really want to do and able to empathise at a much deeper level with what other people go through. If I have learnt anything it is to really reach for your dreams because they can come true and they do. You can be a devoted parent and still follow your own path to happiness, you can be successful in life and do it without having a huge sum of money behind you first, you can be who you want to be and you must.

When I was trying to decide whether to go part-time again or not I spoke to my son and put the following to him “If I work part-time again we will have less money for a while but more time together, if I carry on full time we will have more money but things won’t change from what they are now, what would you choose?” He said in reply “Mummy If you can really go part-time I will give up all my birthday presents every year and never have any treats so I can see you more”.

Well, what can you say to that? My decision was made in that instant. Money doesn’t ever buy back the time that you could spend with your child, spend time wisely and money sparingly and I guarantee life will be infinitely better, and it is.