Hustle Sanely

317: *all* the life updates - More kids? New job? Evvy going to preschool?

• Jess Massey

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0:00 | 30:32

It's the 5th Tuesday of the month, which means we're due for a chill bestie-style episode 👯‍♀️

In this episode, we're doing a coffee-date-style catch-up where I'm filling you in on what's been going on in our lives bts! I'm chatting about our temporary pause on homeschooling plans, a new job, and changing my mind about sharing my daughter online.

Grab a cup of something cozy and let's chat, bestie!

| RESOURCES | 

SPEAKER_00

Hi friends and welcome or welcome back to the Hustle Standy Podcast. I am so glad that you're here and I hope that you're taking care of yourself. So this month actually has five Tuesdays, and anytime that a month has five Tuesdays, I always use the Fifth Tuesday to do a little bit more of a casual, chatty, bestie style episode. And even though we're only doing podcast episodes every other week now, I still wanted to stick with that because I love doing my casual bestie episodes with you guys like once a quarter. So normally I share like my current favorite products and things like that. You know what? I feel like we are due. We are due for a heart to heart, a little catch up, a life update, if you will, because things are changing in our lives. So I thought it'd just be easier to sit down and do a videoslash podcast episode where I really get to share with you like what's been going on in our lives, how things have been going behind the scenes, the changes that are coming, and like all of that. So that's what we're gonna do. We are doing a little chatty life update style episode. I have a lot, I have a note on my phone to help keep me on track. I've just been getting a lot of the same questions on Instagram because I've been kind of like alluding to like things are changing, like our season is different, yada yada yada. And to be so honest, I have such a love-hate relationship with short form content. So like Instagram, it's so hard, I feel like, to just like share all the things that I want to share on Instagram and like get them across, unless I post like 800 stories, which is so annoying for you, and also it's like annoying for me. So I figured, you know what, we're just gonna do a little life update catch-up coffee date style episode here on the show. So pause this video slash pause this episode. Go make a cup of coffee. I am drinking a salted honey ice latte. It is so good. We'll see if I actually drink it or if it just sits here and gets uh watered down while I chat. Because we have a lot to talk about. So make sure you have a cozy little beverage, okay? So where do we start? Where do we start? Okay. The first thing, I feel like I'm just gonna jump in and share the thing that I've been like the most excited slash nervous to share. Well, actually, I'm excited slash nervous to share all of this stuff because it's not like I've been keeping things from the internet, but like also I'm just in a different phase of my life. I'm in my, you guys, I'm 36. Is that mid-30s or late 30s? I feel like that's mid-30s. I'm in my mid-30s and I just in my 20s, I loved sharing my whole entire life on the internet. Like I loved it. Now I don't know if it's because I'm a little bit older or because I'm a mom or because I've been online, like chronically online, for well over a decade at this point, that I'm just wanting my life to be a little bit more sacred feeling, and I don't necessarily want to share every single detail of my life on the internet. But I feel like my YouTube family, my podcast family, like I just feel a little bit closer with y'all than like Instagram. You know what I mean? I feel like it's more of just like the long form content versus short form content. I feel like I can get my heart across better with long form content. So, okay, let's start with what is changing the soonest. Like what I keep saying, like over on Instagram stories, like our season is changing, like thing, like I really want to make the most of this summer because things are changing. This, we found out about this in May. Let me just start out right out of the gate. I am not pregnant. Okay, I feel like anytime people talk about like, oh, season changing, people are like, oh, she's pregnant. I am not pregnant. Actually, we'll start with this piece of news. Adam got a vasectomy a couple weeks ago. So I will not be pregnant. You don't have to be anticipating that announcement. When we had our daughter Everly, she's three and a half now. We knew that we only wanted one kid. And I know that that is very controversial. And I don't care. I know that it's just the best option for our family because of the kind of life that we want to live, because of my limits and my mental health. Like, I know that we are complete with one kid, and Adam feels the same way. So he got a vasectomy a couple weeks ago. So I just want to get that out of the way right at the beginning of the video so that you you're not like anticipating like some pregnancy announcement type of thing. Like, that is not what is happening in this video, okay? So, okay, back to what I was talking about before. I knew this video was gonna be a little bit all over the place. Hopefully, you're down with that. Hopefully, you are treating this as like a coffee date with a girlfriend because that's how I'm treating it, okay? But the reason that I keep saying that I want to make the most out of this summer and just be really present and intentional and romanticize it, Everly is actually starting preschool, which I could cry just saying that in August, which was not the plan, okay? Y'all know because I've shared it very openly on Instagram, our plan is to homeschool Everly, and that is still our plan. However, there is one specific preschool that she has been on the wait list for since she was six months old. She's three and a half. She's been on the wait list for three years. She just got a spot in May. Like, we found out at the end of May that she got a spot, and we were like, wait, what? We did not expect it. We thought that that ship had sailed. Like, we just were like, okay, that's not happening. So I was gonna start homeschooling in January and like do preschool at home. But since she ended up getting a spot at this school, I'm obviously not gonna say what school it is for security and safety purposes, but it's like not a typical preschool. It's a very niche type of preschool, and it's something that we know she is absolutely going to love. And so she's gonna be going to preschool two days a week. And like I said, she is starting that in August. So she is going to be going to preschool from August 2026 through July of 2027. Like that is our new plan. Because she's three, we have the option to send her part-time instead of full-time. So when they go into the four-year-old classroom, then they have to go five days a week. Like you don't have that option to choose two, three, or five days a week. So we decided after chatting as a family, me, Adam, and Everly, that she's only gonna go to this school for one year. And then when it's time for her to like go to the four-year-old classroom, that's when I am gonna start homeschooling here at home. So not this coming up fall, but fall 2027. And so we're gonna start doing preschool homeschool here at the house, and then she is going to get to pick a sport to start. So she knows the drill, she knows that she's gonna be going to school at this school that she's very excited about for a year, and then she knows that after that year's up, she's gonna come home, do homeschool with mom here at the house, and get to pick a sport. So we're all so excited. Like I said, very, very, very unexpected. It did kind of skew our plans a little bit because I was gonna start homeschooling her in January, but now I won't be starting until next fall. So that gives me a little bit more time to gather myself for homeschooling because that's the question that I keep getting asked on Instagram so much is like, what are you doing for homeschooling? Like, what curriculum are you using? Like, what is your schedule gonna be? People just want to know. And like, I get it. I am also on Instagram looking up like what homeschool moms are doing, especially working homeschool moms and all of that. And so I promise as soon as I know what I'm doing, I will share with you guys as much as I can. I have it on my well, now I was gonna spend this summer like hardcore, like looking up homeschool stuff, like deciding what we're gonna use, what we're gonna do, all of that. Now I'm not putting as much pressure on myself to do that. I will probably wait until December slash January to do that because that is like my slower season for work, hustle sanely. So I'll have more capacity to be able to focus on that stuff. So next year I will share with you guys our homeschool plans. And then while we're talking about Everly, I'll go ahead and share that she is starting dance in July. She is very excited. This girl loves music, she loves singing, she loves dancing, she loves putting on concerts for us. So she has been saying that she wants to do dance. So I found a place near us that has a three to five-year-old dance class that just runs for a month in the summer. It's a mix of tap and ballet. She's very excited for ballet. So she's gonna be starting that in July, and it's just for the month of July. Like it's kind of more like a summer camp type of thing. And so she's gonna do that and then she'll start school in August. So lots of changes coming up for our family as far as like what our schedule looks like, how our time is gonna be spent, and all of that. So that is the first couple of updates because I threw the vasectomy update in there as well. So let's break for a sip of coffee. Okay, I have one more Everly-based update, and then we're gonna move on to, I guess all of them kind of have to do with Everly, but I mean, I'm a mom. You know what I'm saying? So, okay, I have recently made the decision, which you probably haven't even noticed. I made the decision, well, you're seeing this the end of June. I kind of started doing this at the very beginning of June. I actually stopped sharing Everly's face and her voice on my Instagram, um, and just like online anywhere. And I have been feeling when I first became a mom, I didn't mind sharing her online at all. I was just like, yeah, like I don't really see an issue with it. Maybe it's because she was so little. Now that she's just like, I don't know, her own person, like she was always her own person, but like I don't know, she's older, her personality's coming out. Like, I just want to protect her. And also, I have just been seeing way too much creepy stuff like on the internet when it comes to sharing your kids online, like incidents that have happened when people are out and about, like strangers recognizing their kids, and like obviously my platform is not that big where that would happen, probably, but like you can never be too careful, and also not even just like that kind of stuff, but like AI. Like, I just don't want to be like putting her face and her voice out there for people to like take and use and like manipulate. I don't know. And if I'm feeling the nudge to stop sharing her face and her voice online, I feel like I really need to honor that, you know. Um, I'm not saying I'll never show her face or her voice ever again, but at least for the foreseeable future, I feel like that's just something that I'm gonna keep sacred. And honestly, Adam is very on board for this. So, like I said, you probably didn't even notice because I'm still showing like her hands, the back of her head, like she's still like in my content, just not her face and uh her voice. So that's another little life update. And then the last one, this is like the biggest one, and I feel like I'm gonna be spending the most time talking about it. So let's take a little coffee break one more time before we get into this long spiel that I'm about to go into. Okay, this one is the one that I don't really know how to talk about. I'm gonna do my best, but I'll probably stumble over my thoughts and my words a little bit because it's still something that I'm kind of actively, I guess, working through mentally. And so earlier this year, so I guess to go all the way back, most of you guys, if you follow me online, you probably remember that at the end of 2024, actually on Thanksgiving, I lost. I could still cry talking about this, and it's been almost two years. I lost my grandma to pancreatic cancer. She was so much more than a grandma to me. She was my best friend, she was a mother figure in my life, and losing her rocked my world in ways that I just like I can't even put it into words. Like it, I feel like I have had residual grief effects over the last year and a half because I feel like the first six months after losing her, I don't know, my Enneagram type three, my type Aness, my eldest daughter instinct like kicked in, and I was just kind of in fix-it mode. I was making sure everybody else was okay. I was like making sure that you know all the ducks were in a row with my granddad and like all of their, you know, just stuff like that. And I feel like once everything was quote good, then I kind of broke down. And I feel like I spent the last half of 2025 actually starting my grief process. And then I feel like I'm just now coming and we're like halfway through 2026. So it's been I I feel like I spent the last year like grieving pretty hardcore. And I feel like I'm just now getting to the place where I'm like, okay, like I can catch my breath again, and like I still have like waves of grief, but it's not all day, every day, like it was. Anyway, I feel like when you experience something like losing someone who's so important to you, it really does just change something in you. And so I feel like, I mean, obviously, you guys know that I'm a recovering workaholic. Work has always kind of been my safe place. I have always felt very valued when it comes to work because I've always been good at what I do. I've always really attached my worth and my identity in my work. And so I feel like over the past couple of years, I've been learning how to kind of break away from being so dependent emotionally, mentally on work. And so I found myself at the beginning of this year kind of falling back into my workaholic tendencies because I didn't want to sit with my grief. Once I was working through that and I realized, like, okay, we're starting to lean on work in an unhealthy way again. I started getting this feeling, like this undeniable feeling in my heart that I could not ignore. I was trying to ignore it. I was trying to push it down, I was trying to focus on other things, but I just had this overwhelming feeling, like an undeniable feeling. And this is how the Lord works with me. Like it's how I feel like he and I communicate. Like, I just get these undeniable feelings that I cannot hide from or shy away from until I deal with them. And it's always like a change that's coming in my life, and I never like I don't like change, and so I'm always kind of like nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. And so I I tried ignoring it. I just tried to like, like I said, focus on other things, but it was all consuming. Like these feelings, and I'm gonna tell you what the feelings are in a second, they were all consuming, and I could not get them out of my head. And like I said, this started in like mid-February. I didn't talk to Adam until like April. Like, I was trying to just make these feelings go away until April, and finally I couldn't anymore. I was like, I have to talk to him about this, and so I was so nervous. Adam and I, you guys, we've been together this year, it will be 20 years that we've been together. We have been dating for 20 years, married for 12. Yes, married for 12 years. I'm like, wait, what year is it? 2026. We're working on our 2027 collection right now, and so I literally never know what year it is. So yeah, we've been married for 12 years, together for 20, and uh I still get so nervous to talk about emotionally heavy things. And I think it's because I am kind of an emotionally closed off person, believe it or not, like it takes a lot for me to like feel comfortable and safe having like very emotionally dense conversations with people. But like I said, it was just this undeniable thing that I couldn't hold in anymore. And so I approached him about it, and it went so well, like it was so well received, and the feelings that I was having was I don't want to be our primary financial provider anymore. So I have been our primary, like the breadwinner of our family since I started Hustle Sanely. So back in 2018. So what is that 2018, 19, 2022 1, 2, 2, 23, 24, 25? Eight years. I have been the breadwinner of our family for eight years, and that was never intentional, it just kind of happened because Hustle Sanely took off and it just we we leaned into that. And so I told him that I would like to be able to focus my time and my energy on Everly's care and Everly's education, and because of that, I would need him to like shift roles with me. I need him to step into being like the primary earner, like the financial earner for our family, so that I can step more into the caretaking role for our daughter. Because right now, I would say Adam does more of the caretaking, and I focus more on working so that I can make money for our family, right? So I was just so nervous to have this conversation with him because I didn't want to put pressure on him. I didn't want to make him feel like he wasn't doing enough or, you know, whatever. And also, and this is the part that feels very vulnerable, and I feel like some of you guys will be able to relate to this. Like I just mentioned, I have always found so much of my worth, so much of my identity in what I do for work. So feeling this pull to step down from work and focus on being a homeschool mom is very scary for me. Adam and I talked, and like I'm gonna go back to therapy to make sure that I'm okay as we transition into this. It's gonna be like a lot of mental stuff that I'm gonna have to work through to not depend on me finding my identity and my worth solely in my work. And so it's gonna be, it's gonna be a test for me, really, to the last couple of years of really trying to live a peacefully productive life and not be in this hustle mode, like this quote, boss babe persona. Like that's always just what I've been known for. And like, even though I'm only working three days a week, like when you're an entrepreneur, when you're a business owner, when you're the primary provider for your family, you're always thinking about work a little bit. Like, I haven't met one single person who is in the situation that I'm in who isn't thinking about work a little bit all the time. Like it's always lingering in the background, right? And so I told Adam, I was like, I I know, I know that this sounds very privileged, very kind of silly, but it's like, I don't know, it was just like a way that I could communicate to him how I was feeling. And it's like, I don't want to work to have to provide for our family. Like, I want to be able to work for the vibes because it takes a different toll on you when you're the primary financial provider. Like, there's more pressure that goes into work. Like I said, I know I'm kind of fumbling over my words a little bit because it's just it's very hard to talk about. I'm still working through it myself. Anyway, that's just kind of where I'm at. I'm wanting to lean out of working so much and to lean more into being Everly's primary caretaker and focusing on her care and education. So, our plan for how we are working toward that, how we're gonna make that happen, it's actually kind of funny. So, okay, if you don't know, Adam has been in HVAC for over 12 years, air conditioning, if you don't know what that is. And so he has been in commercial air conditioning for a very long time. He's very good at it. He took a couple of years off to explore other things when Hustle Stanley really took off. And he tried a couple of things, he got his personal trainer certification, but he realized like he just didn't want to do that for work. Like he likes helping people when it comes to like their health and fitness goals, but he just doesn't want that to be his job. And so a year ago, actually, last June, June of 2025, he went back and got a part-time position at an AC company two days a week. My family's AC company, my family owns a commercial air conditioning company, and so he works there two days a week right now. And so he committed in order to get a part-time position, because typically they don't hire part-time, he committed two years. So he is there until next June, June 2027. But and I said it's kind of funny because when we went and got his vasectomy a couple weeks ago, in the same plaza that the place was that we went to go get his vasectomy, was an HVAC school. We went there and we spent a couple thousand dollars on books. He's not going to school. He feels like he doesn't really need to go to school because he's been doing it for like over 12 years, like I said. But he got the books that he needs to study. He has to take a few tests in order to get a couple of different licenses to get certified in the state of Florida so that he can start his own AC company. So he is gonna be starting a residential AC company here in Florida once he gets all of his tests passed and his licenses acquired and all of that. So that is his plan for the rest of this year is to study for all of those different tests that he has to take. And then hopefully by the end of this year, he will have his all the licenses that he needs. And then hopefully by next summer, which is when he can leave the position that he's in, he'll have started his own AC company and then he'll be able to focus on just building that up. So our plan, I mean, we live in Florida, if you don't know, AC companies they crash, like they do so well. And so Adam is super confident that his AC company will be able to replace my hustle sanely income. And so that means that so, like I just shared with you guys, Adam is currently working two days a week, and it's more for like our vibes money, is what we call it. So, like, like when we want to go out to eat, when we want to go buy a coffee three days a week, like his money is kind of just like our fun money, our vibes money. And so that is what I mean when I say we want to switch roles. Like, I currently, like my income from Hustle Sanely, it covers all of our living expenses. It's what we use to put money into our retirement accounts and like all of that. Stuff and so we're wanting to reverse roles, we're wanting to my income to instead be for the vibe, so like going out to eat, doing fun things, getting coffee, vacations, and his income to be focused more on covering the living expenses. Now I know that people do things differently. We personally share finances, like we don't have like his and her finances, everything is just ours, but it's just like a matter of like who's bringing in what kind of a thing. So when I told Adam that I wanted to swap roles with him, he was so excited. And like I said, I was so nervous to bring it up because I didn't want to put any weird pressure on him. And he's the one that when I said, I was like, this is what I want to do. What do you think? Can we make this happen? He was like, I'm gonna start my own AC business. And I was like, You wanna do that? And he was like, Yes, I want to do that. And I was like, amazing, okay. And he shared something with me. Hopefully, he doesn't mind that I share it with you guys. But he said that his biggest dream is always to support my dream. I'm gonna tear up. And so he said the past three years, three years is like when we had Everly three years ago, he said the past three years have been the best and the worst of his life because he loves being Everly's dad. He feels like he was created to be a girl dad specifically, but he also has felt worthless and uh not valuable because he hasn't been the financial provider for our family. Like he hasn't been contributing very much financially to our family. Let me tell you, this man contributes in 1,000 other ways on a day-to-day basis. He does all of our cooking, he takes care of all of our like life admin stuff. Like Adam brings so much to the table. It's actually insane. But anyway, he said that it's been the best in the worst three years of his life because he's been so fulfilled as a dad, but he's been so unfulfilled, not working. And so I was just like, I didn't know that you felt that way. And he was like, and I thought that me supporting you, being able to pursue hustle sanely hardcore was your dream. And so that's why I've never said anything. And I was just like, oh my gosh. And I was like, well, it has been for so long. Like that has been my dream is for me to be able to focus hardcore on growing hustle sanely. And so you have been supporting my dream, but now my dream is shifting, and so I'm sharing that. Anyway, I am very grateful that we are both on the same page and that we are gonna be focusing over the next couple of years on us, like kind of swapping roles as far as that goes. And it's just the timing is honestly so great because, like I said, Everly will actually be in preschool until next fall. Our kind of hope, our vision in our head is that two years from now, Adam will fully be the primary financial provider. So he has two years to study, get his license, start his business, and then build it up and like get it going with a customer base. So that is kind of our game plan. That is what we are working toward as a family right now. Okay, so to wrap this up, like what does this mean for Hustle Sanely? What does this mean for like my work? Honestly, nothing as far as you're concerned. It's just like the mental relief of knowing that I am not gonna have to carry the weight of being the primary financial provider long term anymore. Like, just that alone has given me already so much of my mental, like my creativity back and my excitement for work because it's not so like pressure-filled anymore. The biggest thing that I'm excited about is that I'm not gonna have this pressure to grow, hustle Sadly. I'm gonna be able to just show up and steward what I have well because I feel like, and I don't know if it's just me or I don't know, but I feel like when I became a mom as the primary financial provider, the pressure just got heavier because I knew that I was no longer just providing for Adam and I anymore. I was now providing for our daughter as well. That coupled with the grief of losing my grandma was just a very heavy thing for me personally to carry. And it took a lot, I'm trying not to cry, it took a lot for me to like reach out and tell Adam, like, I need help, like I don't want to do this anymore. And so I'm really proud of myself for admitting it out loud and also just like bringing him into the conversation. And so please hold. I need to gather myself. Okay, I pulled myself together a little bit, but I am just so grateful that we're both on the same page. I am grateful that I know I've been in both places when it comes to work, and like when I first started Household Sanely, it was kind of on accident, and I was not the financial provider at that time, like the primary financial provider for our family at that time. And I had so much creativity. I was so excited about everything I was doing because I just there I didn't have that pressure. But I feel like as years have gone on and like I've remained the primary financial provider and then becoming a mom and then losing my grandma, it just became too much for me. And I need a shift. And uh I don't know how everything is gonna work out. I don't know if we're actually gonna be able to stick to our two-year timeline. Like, I just I don't know. And the thing for me, like, there's so many moving parts that go into Hustle Stanley. Like, I create content, right? Like the podcasts, Instagram, YouTube videos. We have a physical product line, like our paper product line. I have courses and I have my memberships. So I have two memberships that I run Hustle Stanley Study Hall, and then that's what she read book club. So I'm spread very thin when it comes to work. And I only do three-day work weeks because I do want to be able to be a present mom. But like I said earlier, I'm still always thinking about work in the background. How can I grow the business? How can I get us out there more? How can I scale? Because I knew that I am the provider financially. And so those thoughts of like how to grow, how to scale, how to optimize, like they're just always in my mind. And I'm exhausted. I am exhausted. And I'm so proud also that I don't feel like a failure for admitting this stuff. Because based on conversations that I've had in the background with other female entrepreneurs who are in my position of being the financial provider for their families, they feel the same way. But it's a very odd thing to talk about, like especially in front of other people, right? Like it's just a weird thing to talk about. And so I'm proud of myself that number one, I'm having this conversation. I'm proud that I'm not ashamed that I'm feeling these things. And I'm proud that I'm doing something about it. So as far as Hustle Stanley goes, it's not going anywhere. It's just how I show up for it is going to shift over the next couple of years. And as I lean more into focusing on homeschool, like maybe my content might shift a little bit. So I just I don't know what that looks like. I'm kind of trusting the Lord and like going into this with open hands and an open heart. I am very excited to be working toward not having to carry the weight of being the primary financial provider forever now. Like there's a light at the end of the tunnel. I know what we're working toward, and even that alone has like reinvigorated my creativity for work. And I feel like I'm excited about work again. And so anyway, I feel like I'm getting off on tangents now, and this is probably getting quite long. But to wrap it up, I love you guys so much. I love our community so much. I'm so grateful for the work that I do. I'm still so passionate about the message of peaceful productivity and hustling sanely. But now I'm gonna be able to just operate in a little bit more flowy kind of a way rather than feeling like boxed in and stressed out and just like like I keep saying, like this pressure. You know what I mean? So anyway, thank you guys so much for listening to my rambly life update. Hopefully, this answered some of your questions. Hopefully, it helped some of you guys to feel seen and not alone if you're like feeling similar feelings to me. I feel like a lot of us are kind of coming out of that hustle culture girl boss era and just like it feels scary to be leaning into a softer version of myself, a more gentle version of myself because it's just not who I was for so much of my life. And so it's exciting, but it's also like a little bit nervy. You know what I mean? But anyway, I love you guys so much. I appreciate y'all listening. We will be back to our regularly scheduled peaceful productivity episodes in July. But I love you so much and I hope you have the best day ever.