Inspired with Nika Lawrie

Empowering Mompreneurs: The Journey from Baby Jewelry to a Global Support Movement with Jill Salzman

• Jill Salzman • Season 2023 • Episode 46

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In this episode, Nika welcomes Jill Salzman, a dynamic entrepreneur who challenges conventional wisdom and inspires others to achieve the impossible. Jill discusses the vital need to support working mothers and redefines “the hustle” for entrepreneur moms, advocating for a balance that nurtures both family and business ambitions. 

As the author of "The Best Business Book In The World* (according to my mom)" and the Amazon best-seller "Found It: A Field Guide for Mom Entrepreneurs," Jill has shared stages with luminaries like Richard Branson and Sheryl Sandberg, and even expressed her admiration for Eddie Vedder in a TEDx talk. She hosts the entertaining business podcast "Why Are We Shouting?," a question that resonates deeply with her as she navigates the challenges of inspiring entrepreneurs while being a "mommy mogul," as CNNMoney puts it. Forbes has recognized her as a Top 100 Champion Small Business Influencer and highlighted The Founding Moms as one of the Top 10 Websites For Entrepreneurs. Offstage, Jill is a relatable figure who wears patterned leggings, podcasts from her basement, and attempts to convince her daughters of the existence of cassette tapes, embodying the spirit of modern entrepreneurship and motherhood.


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Nika Lawrie:

Hey and welcome to the show. As always, I'm super grateful to have you join me and my fantastic guest today. I'm so excited to have her. We're going to have a really great conversation about a topic that is so near and dear to my heart and so near and dear to so many women and so many moms. So, Jill, welcome to the show. I'm so excited to have you here.

Jill Salzman:

So excited to be here.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, so we were talking a little bit before the show about kind of our backgrounds kind of similar. We worked in the music industry and did some other things. Can you share a little bit about your story and your background and how you got to where you are today?

Jill Salzman:

Yes, I love that our backgrounds are so similar, because I rarely run into women who've worked in the music business. It's not a thing.

Jill Salzman:

There's so few of us I know and I thought I would be a music I was going to say a music business junkie and then I mushed it together A business junkie forever. And I had my first baby girl and I realized, well, maybe that's not going to work Running around with bands late at night. So I, while managing bands that was the first business that I launched I started my second business, selling baby jewelry, because some people stopped me and said I really love what your daughter's wearing and I said well, you got to go buy it in Thailand, Cause that's where I got it gifted from and I wanted to stop sending people to Asia to buy it. So I thought I'll start importing it. And when I started selling that, I had not closed the first business. I was pregnant with baby number two.

Jill Salzman:

Oh my goodness, About a year or two in Right. And so I did exactly that. Oh my goodness. Yeah, how do you run businesses with two babies in a home office? That's very tiny. So I started a very self-serving business. Well, no, I didn't. I started a very self-serving meetup. I wanted to meet people who were sort of former music business junkies, but also really anybody who had a business and a baby, and I wanted them to tell me how they were doing it really. Anybody who had a business and a baby and I wanted them to tell me how they were doing it really to get me out of my first business. So I loved being in the music business for a long time, but then I was very excited to leave.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, yeah, I can relate to that so much. My whole dream growing up was to work in the music industry. I actually wanted to be a manager, but I went into A&R and said, which I loved and it was phenomenal. But after years of being up till four o'clock in the morning and being in the bars and all those things, I was like I cannot do this anymore.

Jill Salzman:

Well, no, I went into it because I was going to be a famous singer. I was going to be oh, okay, and it didn't work out. Well, it didn't work out because I realized I love the business side of this, yeah. I started doing management and it was fantastic. Yeah, that's awesome.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, so so you started the founding moms from this kind of group that you started. Can you talk a little bit about? I mean, how did that go from just the group to actually starting the founding moms?

Jill Salzman:

Right, that's what I mean when I say I didn't really start a business, because it wasn't an intention to launch this community organization. Yeah, I would laugh at people who talked about community back in the day. It was not a buzzword yet I had this meeting going and we decided let's do this once a month. It's really helpful to pour your heart out to women who get it, who understand. It's not just at the time I only knew women in business who didn't have kids, or women who had kids but didn't have businesses, and it was really hard to find the combo.

Jill Salzman:

Yeah, well, the one meetup turned into six months of meetups where a woman came to me and said hey, I hate driving all the way here. Can you open up a chapter where I live which was four miles away? So I thought she was really lazy. But the laziest woman in the world led me to my light bulb moment because I thought, well, okay, if I open a chapter near her, I need to input her zip code into the website I was using. And then I thought I could put in any zip code to any city. So I just went on a tear and I started opening up city after city after city, and I started to feel like this is something much bigger than anything I've ever done before.

Jill Salzman:

So I fortunately for me, shut down my music management business, I sold the baby jewelry business and I put everything into this new organization. Now I put a name on it the Founding Moms and we've been going ever since. Congratulations, that's amazing, thank you. 10 years, 10 years, and I am still fascinated every day that there are mom entrepreneurs out there who don't know we exist and don't know that each other exists.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, yeah. So tell us a little bit about what Founding Moms does Like what? What is the resource, or support, or community? How does that look?

Jill Salzman:

Thank you for asking. Yeah, we still continue to host founding exchanges which is what we call our masterminds twice a month in lots of cities everywhere never enough cities so we're always trying to open more, and we have an online portal now that we only have had for about six years, where we offer a new video course every month. We have a library of about 70 of them now. We have a buzzing forum where all of our members chat and ask all of the embarrassing questions. We have a business coaching program. We have a program that helps people find virtual assistance. We have literally, if you can think of a resource for mom entrepreneurs. We put it in there because we just want to help people grow and make them awesome.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, it's so cool. It's such, a such a neat thing. I know you and I were talking a little bit before the show as well about, you know, being a mom and either being in a career whether that's a traditional career, or as an entrepreneur, as a founding mom. I mean, our set of circumstances are so different than what the world is set up or structured around, and so we really have to find ways to support each other and work together to manage all of the things that are on our shoulders.

Jill Salzman:

So I love that you're doing this work, yeah, and I love how you frame it, that the world is not set up or designed to support us, and that's something I've again been doing this a decade and never really thought about how there's so much support for entrepreneurs in general, but not if you add this little crazy thing called parenthood.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, yeah, I think you know. I was listening to a friend of mine's podcast a couple days ago and they were kind of talking about a similar thing but they were talking about how the you know the entrepreneur kind of metaphor, and I guess not metaphor. But the buzzword is always to hustle. And my business is called Health and Hustle and the idea is that you can find health even throughout all the crazy hustle. But the idea of just hustle to get it done, hustle, put all your time, stay up late, work all the time, do all those things, that is not a feasible thing when you're a mother and responsible for taking care of children and keeping little people alive and you have to understand how to balance everything. So it really isn't structured around.

Jill Salzman:

I read. It's funny because I have that same reaction to the word hustle, because so many I'm going to generalize men on Twitter talk about the hustle to make $2 billion in six weeks. Yes, so I can't stand that kind of hustle, but when I discovered health and hustle, it was like a breath of fresh air and I took it a different way. Yeah, Because it's not. I want to hustle. I like thinking that I'm a hustler, but at my own parental pace.

Nika Lawrie:

Yes, yeah, yeah. That was one of the reasons why I picked the word in my business. I really played around with it for a long time because I didn't like the the normal context that it was used in the sense of like, if you're not hustling, basically you're a loser kind of thing, and you know, and, and I wanted to take back ownership of that, because my hustle is my own. You know my desire to go get things and to provide for my family and to reach my dreams, and so it was really about taking back ownership of that word. Yeah.

Jill Salzman:

I don't. I don't want to do it the way that. I love the four hour work week, but it's not going to happen the way that he prescribes.

Nika Lawrie:

Yes, yeah, I'm a big fan of Tim, but, yes, I agree, he's not coming from a mom place let's just put it that way yeah, or a parent place at that, I mean even even parent dads it's. It's a different dynamic, it's very different, yeah, yeah, what are those things that that you've kind of seen, either amongst your, your community members, your, your um followers, in the sense of figuring out how to balance, uh, being a founder or in a career and being a mom at the same time? Are there specific tools that you've seen work, or resources, or, um, just tips or advice that you've found?

Jill Salzman:

Yeah, I am not a huge fan of the whole, goal being that we all need to find balance. I tend to prefer the word juggle. I don't think there's such a thing as balance. I don't think you need to achieve it. I really don't ever recommend specific tools, more than the things we're already doing. People seem to be owned by their schedule and you don't need a tool to undo that. You just need to know that you need to stop overscheduling yourself. Create blocks of time for yourself, stop feeding the monster. That is whether it's your schedule, whether it's social media, whatever it is.

Jill Salzman:

You don't really need a tool and obviously there's, like you know, tools like Pomodoro online and different websites that will help you shut out Facebook for 20 minutes so you can get work done but I don't really like recommending those because those don't train you the way you can train your brain to recognize I can't overwork today or I'm not going to be the best parent I can be, yeah. So I kind of want to recommend more of like a mindset shift than actual tools.

Nika Lawrie:

I love that. I think you know one of the things I work with my clients is to really listen to their body and understand that their body is going to tell them you know, am I struggling with not getting enough nutrients from you know, if you're craving a salad, it's because, and alone time it's because you need it. Or if you need a break from work, it's because you need it. And to not overschedule yourself or overextend yourself and really listen to your body.

Jill Salzman:

in that sense, yes, I love that you share that with them, because I find, with all the women that I work with, it's just really hard for them to recognize it. Not something that we're trained to do. We're actually trained, I think, socially, culturally, to ignore it. Yeah, but I'll just get to that later.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, yeah, food and nutrition is often an afterthought, which is really ironic when you think about it.

Jill Salzman:

Re reasons are I agree with you, and so to realize I need this stuff right now and to take care of it. Yeah, it's against what we were all raised to think we should do. Yeah, thank you for reintroducing it.

Nika Lawrie:

Oh well, thanks. Are there other things that you would recommend for people to stay healthy while running their businesses? Are there different areas you think people should focus on?

Jill Salzman:

Yeah, other than my favorite, because it's proven to be the most effective for me is the redoing, rejiggering of the schedule and putting in blocks for yourself. I have a three-day block once a quarter that I do blackout and I highly recommend for anybody who ever goes onto social media these days, which I think is all of us, to try a 24 hour once a month. If you can get to three or four days, it is magical. But I tend to shut off all notifications, put my phone away, put the laptop away, try to remember what a book is, you know, just just not look at any digital anything from it. A lot of people recommend it.

Jill Salzman:

A lot of people don't talk about how hard it is to leading up to it. Yeah, about two weeks to set things up. So I feel good to go that you know things won't break or die without me. And then, once you're in it, it's so hard to come back out of it because so black. But the mental health component of it for me has changed. How I run a business has made me much less stressed, more relaxed. I actually now a decade into running a business that's much bigger than when I started. I work way less hours than I used to.

Nika Lawrie:

It's changed lives, so I highly recommend it. I love that. I'm a huge proponent of that. I kind of call myself a social media minimalist, so I use social media for work, but I don't use it for personal use at all and I try to keep the apps off my phone. Pretty much the only one that's on there is Instagram, because I have to post pictures sometimes, but I rarely allow myself to scroll through it. Occasionally I will, but I work really hard not to engage with social media. Is it hard?

Jill Salzman:

for you.

Nika Lawrie:

It's extremely hard, and and well it I will say it was extremely hard in the beginning. Once you get past that kind of detox, you know the craving kind of thing it's so easy I just don't even think about it anymore.

Jill Salzman:

I in the same way. I laughed at somebody who recommended that I do the detox and then I got into it and realized this is the best thing that's ever happened.

Nika Lawrie:

Oh yeah, yeah, and you mentally feel so much better once you remove yourself out of the chaos that's happening on social media all the time.

Jill Salzman:

Yes, you do. I don't think enough women are talking about this. Yeah, social media is designed to suck us in and have us keep beating it, and beating it, and beating it, and you don't really need to do that, absolutely yeah.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, I don't know if you've watched it too, but there was a documentary it's like a movie slash documentary that came out through the pandemic. It's called Social Dilemma, but it talks about exactly how it's really good if you haven't seen it. But it talks about how it's literally designed to suck you in and it interviews a lot of the people that created the platforms and how they're designed and how they won't let their children get on the platforms.

Jill Salzman:

And, yeah, they're all feeling very broadly right now for having designed with the design. Yeah, that movie was so effective that my 13 year old uh, who unfortunately has a phone, removed almost all of her social media apps. Yeah, one of them. Yeah, I don't think there is one left. Yeah, it's really good.

Nika Lawrie:

It's very, very good, yeah, yeah. It's so amazing how transformative it can be for our lives and our mental health when we pull ourselves out of it.

Jill Salzman:

Yes, yeah, it's just a dark black hole, yeah, anyway. Anyway, I digress yes, detox, that's what I'm about.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, what are some other health tools that you've found when running your business, things that you know? I know you worked at a sleep lab for a while, are there? A lot of us struggle with chronic fatigue or being exhausted. You know, I know there's so many factors that play into that, but sleep is a big one. What did you learn at the sleep lab and what can you share with us in that sense?

Jill Salzman:

Yeah, I was pretty shocked when I got there and learned all of the basics that I think we've all probably read, but, seeing how effective they are, a lot of people believe, if they get a sleepless night or two because they're up late working, that they just have to go to sleep the next night and sleep for 14 hours and they're all caught up. That's not how our bodies are wired. We all need to be and this is really hard but we all need to be going to sleep at the same hour every night and getting the same amount of sleep every night, meaning if you're at 10 PM, go to bed at 10 PM, but do that every night. Don't do 11 and then eight and then 12. If you're somebody who doesn't go to bed till 2 AM, that's fine, but you have to keep that consistent. They won't get into those rhythms where it's recovering and replenishing and your brain works again the next day.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, and it's interesting because it's really easy to get out of your circadian rhythm. It's a lot harder to get back in it and I know that it can mess with a lot of your hormones, like melatonin production and things like that. Melatonin is one that kind of helps you fall asleep or stay asleep, really, but I found that it can be really hard for I know I've struggled with it, but I've had other clients that to get back into that and have your hormones work normally after you've gotten out of the cycle can be hard Long time and unfortunately we have this weekday versus weekend thing where everybody wants later on the weekends.

Jill Salzman:

So another easy one that's really hard in practice is not having that glass of wine before dinner, being aware of bad news. But a lot of people think, well, it helps me sleep. And it does help you fall to sleep a little quicker and then it wakes you up all night long, interrupting the symptoms that you can't get back into. So I've noticed people who pull back and stop doing that so much are like oh my, my whole world is different. I feel so better, I can think again.

Nika Lawrie:

And that's such a thing moms tend to run into. You hear all the time moms like I just need my glass of wine, kind of thing, and it becomes as culturally accepted.

Jill Salzman:

Well, of course I need it. At the end of the day, I deserve it. And if you want to sleep well, you deserve to not have that glass of wine. Have something else instead.

Nika Lawrie:

Yes.

Jill Salzman:

Yeah, I'm sure you know all of those very little itsy bitsy tips like don't look at your phone for a few hours before you go to sleep, do something more soothing before you go to bed to help you fall back into sleep. Every night it's different for everybody, so there aren't really major prescriptions I have, except the biggest one. I've noticed that makes the biggest difference is if you can try to go to bed at the same time every night. A world of difference about a week in.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, and also waking up at the same time too, you know, within like a 20, 30 minute window. Yeah.

Jill Salzman:

So helpful, and then your body starts doing it for you and you don't need the alarm anymore. It's really magical, and I'm not saying all of this as though this is how I function. You're a sucker on the weekends for staying up late. Yeah, I know how to sort of remedy the whole thing once you know.

Nika Lawrie:

Once I fall out of it, yeah, how, how has how have you seen the pandemic really affect moms and especially entrepreneur moms? I know for me it's been one of the best years of my life because it's given me time with my daughter and kind of time to reassess and reevaluate priorities. At the other side of that is probably the hardest, most challenging year of my life. I work from home. My daughter wasn't in school and we had a unique situation where we didn't even have the Zoom calls. It was literally I was her teacher, and so trying to be mom, be teacher and be business owner and be Nika at the same time was kind of a nightmare. What have you seen in your community? Women kind of facing these struggles and figuring out ways to overcome?

Jill Salzman:

I'm sorry that sounds so hard for you. That's bananas. It was bananas. We survived, though I've heard, pretty much across the board, variations of what you just described.

Jill Salzman:

Yeah, where, for a lot of women, we're all grateful for the time with our kids, we're all grateful for the time to rethink and redo and, you know, take a peek at how we're doing things. But everybody has felt more stressed. Everybody has taken on extra hats. Uh, I know a lot of our members ended up having to go and find full-time jobs and quit their companies because, unfortunately, the majority of their partners are husbands who have big paying jobs, so their business came second. So that's the job. She had to change shift gears completely, um, and teach and, and, and you know, dinner cooking, cleaning, all of it.

Jill Salzman:

So there's not really I, you know, the number one issue that seemed to crop up for everyone across the board was that we have a major national crisis in terms of childcare and there's a lot to figure out there. A lot has stopped folks from figuring it out or, you know, a lot of policies assume that we're all just going to figure it out and send our kids wherever we find it, and it's different in every city where we have members, for example, new york city. They don't really have child care places so much as moms there tend to hire nannies. Very different here in chicago, where the nanny thing isn't as hot as going and finding a childcare place or school.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, yeah, and then New Mexico is the same way it's. It's childcare centers, it's. You know, we're one of the poor states in the country and so there's not really funds to hire a private nanny here.

Jill Salzman:

Right, yeah, I actually. I mean, of course it's New York, so it's they've got it figured out a bit more. But the moms there all will talk about how it's a huge struggle because there is no childcare center option, so they have to pay astronomical fees. Anyway, it's a mess and I think, coming out of the pandemic, a lot of women, rather than complaining, of course, are getting up and doing the things they need to do. We're all pumped for the kids to be back in school. Course are getting up and doing the things they need to do. We're all pumped for the kids to be back in school. But I think there's a bigger conversation to be had about how can we support more parents with kids that they need to have be somewhere so they can get work done.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, yeah, absolutely yeah. There's an interesting project I've seen going on too. It's called the Marshalls Project and it's talking about figuring out how to financially support mothers, because one we don't make as much money in our careers compared to men. It's the $70 or 70 cents to a dollar situation. There's a lot of moms that have had to leave their careers over this last year because of childcare, and usually the dad's making more money. So the mom steps out and so they've, you know, lost their their growth in their career and been held back from that. And then you know there's people like us who are entrepreneurs, who don't really qualify for any of the programs that are out there, and we don't have the choice. We're here with our kids. You know I'm a single mom, so even that it's a whole nother dynamic, and so it's a really interesting movement that they're pushing to support moms specifically. So I'm glad that there are things coming out of it.

Jill Salzman:

It'll be interesting to see, I hope it's not just conversation, it act. You know, folks band together and actually work on this childcare issue.

Nika Lawrie:

Yes, yeah. So on a more lighter note, uh, you are an author. You've written two fantastic books I love the titles, by the way and you, can you talk a little bit about your books? One is a founded A Field Guide for Mom Entrepreneurs and the other one is the Best Business Book in the World, according to Her Mom. So I love that, thank you. Yeah, talk a little bit about your book.

Jill Salzman:

Where do you write them? 12 found it A Field Guide for Mom Entrepreneurs, and I really wrote it before. A lot of people said I couldn't find a book on the topic. I couldn't find a book on the topic. There was nothing that talked about mom entrepreneurship. So the first half of the book really is for anyone anybody who wants to go into entrepreneurship how to sort of launch and get going. The second half of the book is how to do it with kids in tow and how to manage those phone calls with a screaming child or the nap and kid.

Jill Salzman:

And then, years later, 2018, I decided to do a compilation of my daily newsletter that goes out to my members. There's like the most well-received emails that I have sent. So it's a compilation of, you know, tips and tricks and interesting stories. I really like looking at historical things, what has happened in the past and how we're kind of repeating it or come a long way. So it's a fun read. It's very colorful and, yes, it's the best business book in the world, according to my mom, it really is. I love that, love it.

Nika Lawrie:

I'm amazed that you can keep a daily newsletter going Cause.

Jill Salzman:

For me, the weekly one is always a bit of a challenge, so the easier it gets, and so I'm sort of in a nice rhythm now. Yeah, yeah, I think I love it, I love it, I love it.

Nika Lawrie:

I think that's the biggest thing, though. The word for is rhythm, is figuring out that rhythm, because that is with the business. It's figuring out the rhythm and how to keep everything moving, and same goes with your family and your kids just figuring out that rhythm and making sure it doesn't get disrupted. 100%, yeah, yeah. So where can listeners connect with you? How can they find you online and find your books and join the Founding Moms?

Jill Salzman:

Yes, everybody come hang out. If you go to foundingmomscom, you can find pretty much everything I've talked about there. If you are on the socials and not yet taking your tech detox, I am at Founding Mom, all over the place, so just come and find me, come say hi, awesome, awesome.

Nika Lawrie:

And I'll link to everything in the show notes. Just make sure it's easy as possible. So I have one last question for you, jill, but before I get to that, I just want to commend you for the work that you're doing. I think one I love moms who, you know, go out and be brave and take the jump and start their businesses, whatever it is, no matter how big or small that business is, and finding people that support those moms along the way. Because it is such a challenge and it really is a juggling act. I just commend you for putting the support out there.

Jill Salzman:

I really appreciate it and I wish more people were doing the work with me. But you're doing the work by highlighting, you know what we do, thank you.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, well, I think it's important and I just commend you for what you're doing, so thank you. Thank you so much, yeah. So my last question for you, jill. It's something I asked all of my guests, but I always get different, interesting answers, and so I'd love to hear yours too. The question is what advice do you have for someone who wants to make a change either in their life, in their community or around the world?

Jill Salzman:

I'm going to recommend that the only way that you can make that change is to go find somebody and talk to them about it.

Nika Lawrie:

I love it. I haven't heard that one before.

Jill Salzman:

I love that Many people want to do it, write it down in their notebooks, create an Excel spreadsheet, try to talk themselves into it. And you can't do it by yourself. You need to get out of the echo chamber and go find somebody who's supportive, who will let you talk it through, because they will help you and, yeah, so many people want to help other people. Stop the embarrassment, stop the whole, you know, talking yourself out of talking to people.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, I think that the talking through is so important, because you get all these ideas but sometimes it's hard to kind of link them and connect them all and put them into you know, something that's actually something that you can produce and create, and so you know, having that outside kind of influence, or even just the feedback, is so important. So what a great, what a great tip.

Jill Salzman:

Love it Well yeah, everybody, after you hear this, come talk to me, yeah.

Nika Lawrie:

Yeah, connect with you. Yes, go to foundingmomscom. Yes, awesome. Well, jill, thank you so much for spending time with us sharing your knowledge and, again, for supporting moms. I just love it, so thank you.

Jill Salzman:

Thanks for putting out this podcast. I appreciate it Absolutely.

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