Moms Making Moves Today
Moms Making Moves Today
Mom, Being an example to our children is so important
Today we have mom of 2, a daughter of her own and a bonus daughter on the show! Adrienne MacIain lets you know what you are thinking or wanting to do "That's Aloud". Adrienne is dropping gems this entire episode.
She’s sharing how to be an example to our children by pursuing your own dreams and aspirations. If you’re torn between providing for your family and reaching for passions that you have always had this episode is for you.
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Guest: Adrienne MacIain
Website:https:linktr.ee/thatsaloud | Instagram:@thatsaloud | Facebook: That's Aloud
Moms Making Moves Today Podcast
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You're listening to the Moms Making Moves Today Podcast, listen to moms share their stories, lessons, and best practices on how they're crushing it in business health, faith, and their communities. Plus so much more. Here's your host, Andrea McKoy.
Andrea McKoy:Hello and welcome to moms making moves today podcast. If this is your first time, welcome, welcome. If you're a returning visitor. Thank you for coming and joining us again today. We have Adrienne MacIan on the show. She's has a daughter and a bonus daughter and Adrienne had to make a hard choice between following her dream and keeping the steady paycheck and insurance that kept her family afloat. Ultimately she decided that s et an example of bravery and integrity was the most important g ifts she could offer her girls. Now, Adrienne is a successful solopreneur, freelancer and has her own podcast and she's living in life that she only dreamed up two years ago and she's here today to let us know whatever it is that you want to do. That's a loud.
Adrienne MacIan:So we are in for a treat today and we're going to jump right in. Adrienne, tell us a little bit about your story. We know your a mom give us the goods. Absolutely. So I'm actually a mom to two little girls, one of which I gave birth to the other one I call my bonus daughter because when I was pregnant with my first daughter, Aria, uh, her dad and I decided that we were better off as pals and I really encouraged him to go and find someone who was a better romantic match for him, which he did pretty quickly. And so then his wife now is wonderful and she got pregnant almost right away. And so the sisters are very close in age and so we take them as a set. I really feel like even though Iris is not my biological daughter, she is my daughter and she calls us both mom, our kids actually like to joke that they have two moms and two dads. And so they're luckier than all the other kids, which I think is great. They have, yes, they got two sets. So I was working as an executive assistant and when I started being an executive assistant, I actually really loved it because I was able to help so much in the growth of the startup where I was working and I was helping them with their branding and with their voice and their message, getting the story of who they were out into the world, but then they got bought by Microsoft and so I realized very quickly that being an executive assistant in a big company was a very different animal than being an executive assistant where I was treated more like a chief of staff and so suddenly I was just relegated to calendaring and travel planning and it was really, really boring and a terrible waste of my talents essentially. I was kind of stuck in this rut and feeling like, what? Why am I doing this? What am I doing here? But I felt like I think a lot of people do, a lot of moms in particular, like I couldn't leave because what would happen to my kids, they wouldn't have insurance without this job that I had. They were both on my insurance at that point. And so I, I started this podcast kind of as a survival mechanism. And like I said, at first I started telling my own stories because I've always been a writer and I've always loved to write and I love just sharing my funny and heartbreaking and heart wrenching stories. And so I started just sharing these stories on a podcast and I called it, that's allowed because it's like, I think of it as the two sides of that little inner dialogue that you have whenever you think about like, I want to tell this story, but I'm not sure how it's going to receipt be received. On the one hand, there's this little voice that's like, um, you know, that's allowed, right? We can all hear you. And then there's the other side that's like, no, that's allowed. I'm allowed to talk about this because I'm sure I am not the only one who has experienced something like this. And I don't want everyone else out there who's living through this to feel like they're alone. I want them to know that like I've been in that pothole and like I know, I know what it's like down there, so I can tell you how to step around it. Or I can tell you how to crawl out of it. Like choice is yours. That is so awesome because so many times you hit it right there. We feel like we're alone and then no one else in the world is experiencing or has been where we are. And that's just simply not true right now. Your story is unique. I mean, absolutely like the details of it are yours. Nobody else has exactly the same story, but you'd be amazed how many experiences or types of experiences are completely universal. Everyone's had that same sense of heartbreak. Everyone's had that same feeling of pain and loss and grief and whatever it is that you've been through. So what I realized was, Hey, I'm probably not the only person who has stories like this. And I realized that I could help other people get their stories out by kind of coaching them through the process of telling these stories. And so that's what I started to do. And then I realized, wait, I be doing this full time. This is my gift. I just kept getting the feedback over and over again on the podcast of people saying, it's never been this easy to tell my story. I don't know how you did that, but that was amazing. Uh, you know, you really have a gift for this. And so I went, gosh, I do and this is what I should be doing is helping people get their stories out there. Meanwhile, things were getting worse and worse at work to the point where I was about to lose my job and I wasn't sure I cared honestly. So my boss, uh, who was a woman, I won't name names, but she's very particular and she has a really strong sense of her brand. And one day I was in a hurry because I was frazzled with a bunch of just horrific busy work that had been piled on my plate, just like stuff that took no brainpower but had to be done quickly. And there was a ton of it. And that kind of detailed work. Just like drains me, it just drains me of all energy. And so she came up and said, okay, I need you to send an email to the organizers of this event to let them know, you know, to ask them about my accommodations and things like that. So I very quickly, you know, sent off this email, not even thinking much about it. Well it turns out I had sent the email not to the organizers of the event, but to the list of everyone attending this event included the CEO of the company. And he looked at this very obviously quickly and poorly written message and was furious and said it damaged her brand and it made her look bad in front of the entire company and basically demanded my head on a platter. And so I went to the back stairwell and just balled my eyes out and thought, you know, they're right. My whole jam is branding and communications. And so if I'm in a position where I'm not able to do that, well then something has gone terribly sideways in my life.
Andrea McKoy:Imagine at that time it was probably two voices. One, okay, I'm done here, but then I need to take care of my child home. How do I do this?
Adrienne MacIan:Right. It was panic, you know, it was all out panic. And so the first phone call I made was to my husband, my now husband and I, you know, told him what happened and he said, good, good. You know, this is obviously not what you're supposed to be doing. You've got this podcast, people love it. That's obviously what you're supposed to be focusing on. And I couldn't believe he was saying this to me because we were broke as a joke.[inaudible] but I was like, all right, you know, if you're going to me through this leg, let's do this. But then the second phone call I made is I called up my husband as I like to call him. And I said, listen, I might be losing my insurance. What other options do we have? And he said, Oh, well, you know, uh, his wife Renee, like Renee might be able to put the kids on her insurance. And I was like, that's been an option this whole time. You're like, why would you tell me? I just never asked. I never asked. I just made an assumption that this was an impossible situation and I created this no win situation for myself for no reason. And how often do they do that? All the time. And so, you know, I left that position and I started my own business and I have never been happier in my life. Wow. Even through debt, even through, you know, being the broker, there were months there where I couldn't afford to get a haircut. I couldn't afford to go out to eat. I couldn't afford to do any of that stuff. And you know what? I didn't care. I didn't care about any of that because I was finally fulfilling my life's purpose and all the work that I was doing felt genuinely valuable and meaningful to me. And that is worth more than you can possibly imagine if you've never experienced it. I'm telling you, do it before it's too late. And the thing that I realized, I had a conversation with my daughter after all of this had kind of gone down and she said to me, wow, mom, you seem so much happier now. And I said, babe, I am like, I'm so much happier now. They know. Oh they know. And she said to me, well, why didn't you do this sooner? And I was like, Oh, you know, it's complicated, grown up stuff, blah blah, blah. And she's like, I don't think so. They're like, well, if that's what you want to do, just do it. Just do it. And she said to me, would you tell me to get a job that I don't like? I was like, no, no, I wouldn't. And I realized that setting an example for her was so much more important than anything else. So if I had to do all over again, I would do everything the same of course, because I have no regrets because I just, I look at that kiddo and I go, wow, she got to see me go through that process of recognizing this is not right for me. I need to do something else and going through the work of changing it. That's amazing because we want so much for our kids. And then they were in a situation where they weren't happy or they were able to move,
Andrea McKoy:do something. But then when it comes to us, we're like, no, let me think about this. We're kind of like tiptoeing into a, and you're right. Being an example is like one of the greatest gifts you can give your kids. We are given them were supposed to go raise them into a point where they're able to, you know, do for themselves. But you have to be the sample while we have them as well.
Adrienne MacIan:Yeah. And it, it works in relationships too. This is the other thing, people use that excuse so often. Oh well I'm staying for the kids. No you're not. Let me tell you something. My parents did not get along and I knew it and every time they fought I heard it and it hurt me. It hurt me every time. And when my dad finally left, I was relieved. I was relieved because there was no more fighting in that house, and I love my dad. I ended up living with my dad for a long time, but like it was so much better than the fighting, and so if you're not happy, you are not doing right by your kids. Don't tell yourself, Oh, I have a responsibility to my kids. The responsibility you have to your kids is to be happy and set an example of how to take care of yourself as a grownup because that's so loud. Right. That's a loud
Andrea McKoy:right. That's right. That is awesome. Thank you for that. That was good. Tell us a little bit more about your podcast, where they can find you.
Adrienne MacIan:So it's called the vats allowed a L O U D podcast. You can find it on all the pod places and you can find me at www dot that's aloud.com you can find everything that I do there. I do a voice work, I do writing, but the main thing that I do is story coaching to help people find what their core story is and get it directly to the right audience. The podcast is really about helping people tell the story you're telling. So if you're listening to this and going, Oh, I have a story like that. Something that's just, you know, pops up when I say that and it scares you a little bit, but it excites you a little bit. The idea of getting it out into the world. Let me know because I would love to have you on.
Andrea McKoy:Thank you. Before I let you call the light, I'm going to just throw questions and you're going to give me the answers. Pop in me leading in your don't
Adrienne MacIan:make out about it, whatever you want to say. Alright. If you could have a super power, what would it be and why? I think I would love the super power of being able to speak the language fluently, just to have that like on the tip of my tongue, be able to understand and then speak any language so that I could communicate with anyone on the planet. That would be amazing. And I think the reason why is just because communication is the only way that we really are able to connect, right? Like there's verbal and nonverbal communication of course, but nonverbal communication is pretty universal and so it would be wonderful to have that extra layer of just being able to understand people's stories everywhere I go. Because everybody's got a story to tell. They do. Yeah. Yeah. What is your go to mail? My what? Your go to mail. Oh yeah. Quick and easy pesto and pasta. I'll just make some spaghetti tossing some pesto. Maybe I'll cut up some little cherry tomatoes if I have those around. Like easy peasy and very satisfying. Yes. So good. So good. Alright, last one. What is your favorite word? Probably shenanigans. I love the word shenanigans because it just sounds like what it is. It has that kind of silly ring to it where it's like, Oh, shenanigans. Yeah. And it's fun to say, and before we let you go to moms, okay, fill your cup first. Recognize that you have nothing to offer. If your cup isn't filled. It is, we're primary responsibility to be a good parent and to be a good parent, you have to take care of yourself first. So make sure that you are not neglecting yourself. It is so easy to do. It is so easy to put everybody else ahead of yourself and to think that's normal and that that's okay. You have a responsibility to you and you have a responsibility to let your kids see how to take care of themselves by watching you as an example. So self care, super duper important. Thank you. You have given
Andrea McKoy:us such great nuggets, so excited that we were able to have you on the show today. It has been a pleasure and he let him, moms and everyone else know
Adrienne MacIan:it's so loud. That's a loud, yeah. Get your voice out there. Get your truth out there. Don't think too much about, you know people gonna judge you. Yeah, people are going to judge you. That's what they do, but it's about them. It's not about you. Your story is yours and the more you get it outside of yourself, the healthier and happier you will feel
Andrea McKoy:I think on that numb. We can leave it right there. Thank you.
Speaker 1:Thanks for joining us this week on mom's making moves today. Podcast. Check us out on Instagram and Facebook at moms making moves today. As always, subscribe to the show to catch every new episode and leave us a review so we can continue to bring you fresh content. See you next week.