171: The False Choice: Career vs. Kids vs. a Third Way

Most working moms feel trapped in an impossible choice:

•  Stay in your career and miss out on time with your kids.
•  Or step back to be with your kids and give up financial security.

But what if that choice was never real to begin with?

In this episode, I share how I refused to accept the “either/or” path — and instead built a third way: growing my business in just one focused hour a day while working full-time and raising two kids.

Here’s what you’ll learn:

• Why the “false choice” keeps so many moms stuck
• How I carved out 1 hour a day to grow my side business
• The 3 key components that make this possible (Mindset, Energy, Systems)
• Quick wins you can try today to start creating your own third way

Want to take the next step? Grab my free starter kit: Your First Client in 1 Hour a Day: The Side-Hustling Mom’s Starter Kit → https://sharonsinghsidhu.com/start

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the podcast. So today's episode is all about this idea of how many working moms like me believe in the fact that they have to make this choice, which I call it a false choice. So what am I talking about? Well, let me ask you directly now, as a working mom, have you ever felt like, you know, you're trapped, like you're trapped between having to stay in a job to earn a steady paycheck and then on the other hand that means that you're kind of like sacrificing time with your kids or time with your family so it's like if you stick to the job yes you get the regular pay but then you miss out on the time with your your kids right and your family and if you quit your job then you will miss out on the financial security and the financial independence and for some of us we actually may not be in a position to be able to quit our jobs right we might actually be the primary earners and where everyone is counting on us and so you know as a working mom this has always been something that motivated me and you know kind of like drove me to find a better way because as a working mom myself the primary kind of caregiver as well as the primary earner it's I remember when the kids were very young and even now even though they're bigger now they just need us in different ways but I was always rushing you know I was always rushing between dropping them off at child care then rushing to get into the office and then you do your work like a crazy maniac to try to get everything done on time the priorities for the day done so that you can pick them up from child care on time and then go home and spend some time with them and maybe have a meal with your husband and your family your parents and then you know you're exhausted and you're tired and so I just feel like you know that really wasn't how I wanted to continue living my life for the rest of my life or at least until the kids you know grow up and become adults and have their own families but even then I just you know I'm at the stage now where they are a little bit older but I also know even even when they finally leave the house I also want time for myself I want time for myself to take care of myself to pursue my own interests I want time to spend with my husband I want time to spend with my mom you know and my brother and my family and just we all just kind of want to have some time for ourselves too right and And so I just want to highlight how this actually is a false choice that many of us working moms feel that we might be stuck in, like we have to choose between our corporate jobs for the sake of financial security and then give up on the time. Or if we quit our jobs, then we might have a little bit more time and a little bit more freedom, but we don't have any financial stability. So that's what today's podcast is about. I want to give you like an alternative, right? So for me here in Singapore, like I said, it's like we don't really... many of us don't have the luxury of quitting our jobs. It's very expensive here. People do work pretty long hours here. Childcare is very expensive. Just general basic, you know, like the cost of living here. I mean, if you're in Singapore, you understand. If you're not, maybe you can relate if you're living in a high-cost city or maybe you've heard about how we're so infamous, right, for our housing, transportation, and just generally a lot. It's like, just costs a lot to live here. So, you know, but I... really didn't I refuse I refuse to kind of have to choose between my career my kids because I am pretty ambitious and I do have things I want to get done in my life there are things I want to do contributions I want to make you know I really want to create an impact through the work that I do but I also knew that I want to be a very present and involved mom I didn't want to miss out on their milestones and I want to be there for them when they needed me when they're sick and unwell and I know sometimes we think that okay it's like equal kind of equal responsibility between me and my husband but it's not like my husband doesn't you know if I asked him of course he will always pitch in but as a mom I feel like we just have a different kind of a bond with our kids and as a mom I want to be the one to be there it's my choice and my decision and I want to be there and so I you know then also so I have this dilemma right there's work I want to do my career and then there's the children as well and my family I wanted to be there for and so I wanted to continue doing the work that I love which is is really what I'm passionate about is training, is leadership development, is being a trainer, is coaching. And I wanted to do that. But then I realized that at some point I was hitting also a salary ceiling, right? Because in the corporate world, every job is guided by a pay range. And when you get to the maximum of that ceiling, that range, your other options will be either you advance and you move into another role. that opens up another pay range, right? But for the work that I was doing, I was already at pretty much the maximum. And I did not fancy the next role. And that's why I constantly say no to promotions because that next role, at least in my field, would mean that I would have to do things that would take me away from the work that I love doing and actually venture into areas where they are not particularly my strengths, okay? And so then I really had to get creative, right? So I want to do the work that I really enjoy. And then, you know, at much earlier in my entrepreneurial journey, I was also very much in the personal finance space because financial freedom was something I'm, you know, I'm always interested in and was really interested to become financially free. And so I did a lot of like studying research, talking to people. And if you listen to my older episodes, you'll find that this podcast really started off as the central theme around financial freedom. And it still is because we all practically need money to live and we money is a great tool for us that gives us a lot of options and choices and opportunities and a comfortable lifestyle and and all of that I'm sure you're aware of that right but then I realized that you know with um for those of us so many of us dream of like passive income streams multiple income streams we talk about how you need to invest and then you know you live off your dividends from your investments but you know what the thing is number one there's no such thing as passive income apart from if you maybe have already inherited inherited you know a sizable amount and then that money can work for you and then you know whether it's through property and rental income yeah that that is probably the most passive or you can put it into investments and then they can actually earn you dividends and that's probably quite passive but for the majority of us there really is no such thing as passive income because even if you want to accumulate the capital you need to put in some sort of energy to create it right the law of compensation if you're into universal laws you understand this is how the world works. It's an exchange of energy. You have to give something in order to receive something, right? And when you don't have that balance, like things go out of whack, right? And it's not sustainable. So I knew that, you know, even if I wanted to work on financial freedom, I needed to have a substantial capital that I could invest in. And that's also what we do. So a sizable part of my income goes into our property, right? In Singapore property, obviously, things are cooling down now with the recent cooling measures but nevertheless in the land scarce Singapore to be able to hold on to land in Singapore is very very it's a premium you pay a lot but the returns are also there and so that's where we put a lot of our income into and we do get rental property so we have like a certain portion that is you know passive in a way but what I'm trying to say is like you know you are not and in a job right no matter how much you earn and maybe yeah of course if you're earning like quite a large amount of money, but that comes with many trade-offs. You could probably, you know, start to siphon and tuck away some money and then put it into investments in kind of like traditional way of like how you would grow wealth. And that, of course, is important. But for me, if I wanted to do work I love, I'm already hitting the salary cap. I need to accumulate substantial capital in order to invest to get passive income. For me, the way to accelerate that, the way I saw it was to actually build a business and where I'm an owner and that means that I can accelerate my capital accumulation because there's no such thing as a salary cap I can focus on doing the work that I love and I'm very good at and then and then you know then I can accumulate that kind of like sizable kind of capital right and so I also knew that because I wanted to be present with my kids I mean and my mom obviously as well that I didn't want to trade my time for money so I had to cut off that link where most of us in a are trading our time for money. And so for me to cut off that link, in other words, if I put in one hour of energy and work, I didn't want to only get$1. I wanted to be able to get$5, right? And so the way to do that for me is also to look at, well, how can I access a global audience? And that is the reason why I actually feel so passionately about how the online world and literally, you know, the pandemic has opened up so many opportunities for us working moms to Technology is now at a point where it is pretty accessible and pretty affordable to be able to reach a global audience. You know, social media platforms are free. You can reach people that you could never have reached before. And so this opens up a lot of opportunities for us working moms. And so this is how we can leverage our time and so that your one hour is no longer just$1 and you can work around time zones. So let's say if you're a working mom and you want to work around time where maybe your kid's maybe spend two hours in childcare in the morning and you want to use that as your working time, you can. And then when they're back, you can actually spend time with them. And then when they go to bed or when they take their nap, you can also work. And so this flexibility, I feel, is where the online business is. It gives us that flexibility. And hence, that's why I came to the conclusion that starting and growing an online coaching business on the side of my full-time job was one way that I could actually be able to do the work that I like, not be kept by salary caps and work on becoming financially free and also then have time with the kids and the family and have the flexibility more than anything. And so that's why I call this the third way, right? This is really the third alternative way for many working moms to actually have a viable career, do work they love, continue to learn and grow professionally and still also be there for their kids and also be able to build a good financial stability or foundation and so I know like it sounds like perfect and I'm gonna say it's not perfect because it's not necessarily all neat and tidy I've made a lot of mistakes I've done gone through many trials and error a lot of doubts and uncertainty but you know it worked for me because the other criteria I had was that I didn't have all the time and energy in the world right as a full-time working mom I've got a job like really a proper full-time job I have to show up in the office and then I've got the kids and the family right so I have very I would say I have limited time and limited energy so I wanted to be able to do this in one hour a day so that was really how I kind of asked myself these questions how can I do all these things with the time that I have and make it work and it worked because I have signed clients by using my own kind of I guess like mom proved approach and And so I wanted to come on here to really try to encourage those of you who might be feeling trapped like I was. I was feeling completely trapped, didn't know what to do, but all I knew was that I wanted to find a different way that was not kind of like tied to the traditional old ways of doing things, which I feel are totally outdated in today's world of work. And so I wanted to come on here to just let you know how, you know, if someone like me, who's just a regular mom, I'm not particularly special or bright in any way, can do it, then so can you. And so I really wanted to come on here. Most importantly, it's kind of like debunk that choice that you have to choose between a job or your kids. It is not like that anymore. You don't need to choose between your career or your kids because there is this third way where you can keep your job and you can start a business on the side and you can do it in the limited time that you have. Okay. And it really isn't about working harder. It's about working smarter. I know that you've heard this all the time. So what does it mean? to work smarter. Well, let me just share small things with you. I built my business on the side in pockets of time, literally 10 minutes slots here and there. I start my mornings early. I'm usually up by about between 4 to 4.30 in the morning. And of course, I go to bed. People ask me, huh, what time do you sleep? I go to bed. I aim to go to bed. Usually by 9.30, I'm kind of like starting to brush my teeth, get ready for bed. And then round about probably like 10, between 10 to 11, I would actually be in bed and mind you you know it's like some days are better and some days are worse and also I want to remind you that I'm at also like a stage where my kids are a little bit older of course when they were much younger my routine the timings was a little bit different too and so the thing is it's not about like you listening to me here and think you have to like follow my template and like do everything you know that's one mistake I made I used to follow these experts and gurus and then I try to follow their approach and I try to adopt their strategy and then I get very stressed out because I can't keep up and then I feel like I'm falling behind and then I feel like I just can't do it. I can't make it. I probably will never ever be able to, you know, kind of build that kind of life that they kind of market and promote to you, right, on the internet. And I realized one thing that all of us have very different circumstances and we just need to pick and choose what works for us and then we just need to make it work for us and find a way to make it work for ourselves. And so for me right now in this season of life that I'm in, I am able to wake up early I am able to go to bed a little bit earlier than before. So I use these small pockets of time, 10 minutes in the morning before we head off to, you know, like the commuting, right? Like drop them off to school and then I get myself to work and all of this. And so I use those pockets of time. Like when I'm commuting, when I'm driving, I listen to a lot of stuff that helps me, that I learn from in terms of whether it's growing a business, working on my mindset, getting ideas, you know? So commuting is a big... for me, a big slot of time where I actually invest in personal development. My lunch hour at work, I don't go out to eat. I bring my lunch in. It is kind of like my time, right? For me, I'm not paid on my lunch hour. So unless there's something that I really need to attend to at work, I'm not working, right? And I'm actually working on my business. I prioritize myself and my business and why I'm doing this for my family. And so that one hour of lunch, people do ask me to break it down as well. So let me break it down for you. I take 10 minutes 10 minutes when you have your lunch totally present with your lunch totally appreciating the food that's right in front of you not scroll social media while you're eating I'm saying like when I have my lunch I'm completely focused on my food 10 minutes is more than enough for me to feel nourished and feel grateful for the food that I have and I'm ready to go for the remaining 15 minutes to work on my business okay so that's lunch that's what my lunch hour looks like and then after dinner I I'll have dinner with the family and then we'll spend some time chatting. And then after dinner, I might actually get onto social media and then start engaging and connecting with people as well. And some days when I have calls, I don't do that. Then I'll do calls. Some days, actually, we end up talking more with the family. And then so that's a bit more like a flex. I call it like a bit more flexible time after dinner. And some days, you know, I just don't feel like doing it. And then I'll watch TV. So like I said, it's not like it's perfect. Weekends are when I actually do have a little bit more time so if I want to catch up on certain things that's when I will do that on weekends as well as all my administrative things you know like updating and looking at my metrics and my analytics and that's when I will do that and so that's kind of like you know how to make good use of the time and work smarter right and so I found that doing this that you know all of these things really rested on three foundational pieces right which is my mindset my energy and my systems okay and so So being able to master my mindset, my energy and the systems I use. And by systems, I don't just mean technology, although I do use a little bit like apps and things here and there. But I'm just talking about even your day to day, your day to day routines. That's a system, right? That's a ritual. That's a habit. It's a kind of system. A system is nothing more than what's your process for getting something done. And so these three components, right, really is very foundational to helping me to be able to do what I do. like to do everything that I'm doing it's helping me to leverage my time which by the way time is just a man-made concept again a lot of us like I'm guilty of it I used to think I have no time I don't have enough time you know but it's really a man-made concept this whole notion of time and we can always learn to expand it bend it contract it and mold it and melt it to how we want to use it and how time can serve us rather than we become slaves of time okay and so And then also my energy, how do I leverage my energy? Again, not just one hour equals$1, but one hour equals$5, right? And how I'm interacting and how I'm coming across with all the people around me, all of these things, right? How you're using your energy. So mastering my mindset, my energy and my systems has been really quite like the, it's an ongoing work. It's never done. But over time, I've learned to really see what are the key pieces that I needed to have in place in order for everything to work and so i want to come back again as we're like kind of concluding the episode a little bit um to just just kind of let you know that you even if you feel like sometimes it feels like there's no time left after you're you're done with work and family you get nothing left right to even build a business on the side sounds so overwhelming or you might think that oh i can only do this when my kids are older maybe you listen to me and you hear that oh yeah she can do it because her kids are older well you know i've been working on this even when my kids were very young. In fact, it was because I had kids that I decided I needed to find this third way because the traditional nine to five isn't built for working moms, right? It's not supportive of working moms. And when you try to be a good worker, your family suffers. When you try to be there for your family, the workers and the bosses and all that say you're not committed to your job, right? And so I think like that's not true on either front. Like I said, a lot of false beliefs, like, you know, just kind of like... based on nothing, based on some old story that's no longer relevant. And we really need to kind of like update our beliefs, right? And you might feel that if you try to do this, you are going to burn out. You're going to be totally exhausted. I want to reassure you that really you're not alone. This working mom over here, right, has kind of like found a way that works for her and you don't have to figure it out by yourself. And that's the reason why I talk about this all the time, because I feel like I've spoken to a lot of working moms and this is like the consistent thing that always comes up right this idea that you can either have this or that you can't have both and that it's not workable and so I just wanted to like come out here and say that I'm living proof that you can do it right you can work full time you can raise your kids you can build a business on the side and I do it like you heard my lunch hour basically that's the key one that I have focus work for an hour a day you can do that in just one hour a day right And so if you're thinking and you're listening to this and you think, oh, that sounds great, so then how do I even go about starting? Very first thing I would say is to audit your day. Audit your day for two weeks. Just track every single thing you do from the moment you wake up to the time that you go to bed. Yes, it sounds like it's a bit tedious, but isn't it worth it? Isn't the dream that you have, the life that you want to create, isn't it worth it for two weeks? So just make a note of whatever you're doing and then see where you can find, review your audit, right, and find one pocket of time where you could maybe find about an hour. And it could be 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there, 10 minutes here, and then you accumulate it to an hour. I'm not saying that you have to have one uninterrupted block. That's another thing. It doesn't happen, right, for moms. We don't ever get uninterrupted blocks and hours of time. Never, right? We just get pockets of time here and there. When the kids take a nap and right before they wake up, it could be to minutes it could be an hour sometimes it's 10 minutes you put them down to sleep and then you you kind of just about to creep out of the room and they wake up right i know that feeling and so so you you can just find whatever you can find where whichever pocket of time you can find um make a note of that and then second thing is reframe your belief okay so write down it's not career or kids it's career kids and my business so i feel like when we we retrain the way we think and see things, you know, our mind automatically goes and finds the relevant answers. So feed yourself better questions to get better quality answers, right? And then the third thing that you can do is just take one micro action. I'm talking about micro, micro, micro, no need to be so big and dramatic, right? I have found that it's often the smallest, simplest actions that make the biggest impact, right? And so it could be just writing down an idea Maybe just write a comment to someone's post or someone else's comment on a LinkedIn post. Maybe you can outline something you want to write, something you want to post. Maybe you can connect with one potential client. Like these are small things, right? And these are very small, doable things that anybody can start with today. So three quick action steps for you. Audit your day. Find pockets of time. Reframe your belief. It's not about this or that, but it is this, that, and that. Okay, career. Okay, and my business. And then number three, take one micro action, small steps, something you can do today. All right. And so just remember, don't, you don't have to accept this false choice. There is a third way. And I definitely want to talk about, you can hear that I'm talking about it nonstop. And I definitely want to share and show you how. So if you are ready to start, I've put together a free starter kit called your first client in one hour a day. I kind of like thought about how did I actually sign that first client with a Like, not really anything, right? It's just my usual one hour a day kind of effort. And so I put together what I thought were the key steps in this free kit. And it's called Your First Client in One Hour a Day. It's the Side Hustling Mom Starter Kit. Obviously, it's very customized to us working moms. It's literally all the things that I did, the exact system, right, that I use to grow my side business in the margins of my mom life. Okay, so if you're interested in that, you can just go to sharonsingsiru.com forward slash mom. I will put the link also in the podcast show notes so you can just go there. Otherwise, just go to sharonsingsiru.com forward slash start. All right. Thanks so much for being here with me today. And remember that your one hour a day, it is good enough for you to already start creating the life and business that you want. Okay, then I'll see you next week. Bye.