Ready Set Coach Podcast

Why Your Course Isn’t Selling (And How to Fix It)

• Emily Merrell and Lexie Smith

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Everyone’s talking about passive income—but are they telling the whole story? Emily Merrell and Lexie Smith peel back the glossy Instagram filter and dig into what it actually takes to launch a successful course or low-ticket offer as a coach in 2025.

Emily breaks down the myth of “build it and they will come,” while Lexie throws some real math at our course creation dreams—yes, we’re talking ad spend, ROAS, and whether your 1K followers will cut it. Together, they dissect the economics of digital products and deliver a no-BS roadmap to making course sales work without betting your whole business on it.

This episode is for the coach who’s been tempted by $49 course promises, wondering if their audience is ready—or even wants it. Spoiler: market research matters, and so does managing your expectations.

In this episode, we discuss:

  • How big does your audience need to be to make passive income from courses?
  • What’s the real cost behind a “$100K course launch”?
  • Should you spend money on ads or start with organic sales?
  • How many courses do you need to sell to hit your income goals?
  • Is your course idea even something people want? (And how to find out.)

    Join the FREE Exclusive Network of Coaches  


Kendall Berg:

There's been so many books about being a mom, being a working mom. I've read many of them we touched on earlier. There's probably many of my listeners who are out here just reading everything they possibly can trying to figure out this working mom game. What makes your approach in your book different? What is it about, like, what you're bringing to the marketplace that you feel like is, hey, this is legitimately going to help you feel like you're making traction and making progress.

Whitney Casares:

I think a lot of books start with the strategy and miss out on the perspective change. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that you can read book after book that talks about being more efficient. You can read book after book that talks about self care. You can read book after book that talks about delegating to your partner and handing off the load. But what I have found in my practice and in my work is that until people make that critical decision about how they want their lives to go and about what they really care about, all of those strategies only last for so long. And then you go back to the same way you were doing things. You go back to the same habits that you have because those are just peripheral ways to change things for a small amount of time or kind of make you feel better for a small amount of time. They're not going to fundamentally make it so that you do working motherhood differently.

Kendall Berg:

Welcome back to this episode of Secrets of the Career Game. So many people are trying to navigate a corporate world that is laid laden with secrets, cleverly hidden and unspoken rules to a game that most employees don't even know that they're playing. On this podcast, we try to give you a peek behind the curtains and some tips and tricks to ultimately make you successful in your career and help you progress a little bit faster. We have a super exciting guest that selfishly, I'm really jazzed to get to interview and we're going to be talking about becoming the mom and the person that you're meant to be with. Whitney Cesaris. So Dr. Whitney is a board certified pediatrician, she's an author, she's CEO, she's founder of the Modern Mommy Doc. And her expertise is really grounded in maternal child health and ensuring that moms know that they're not broken. The system is so I am so excited, Whitney, to chat with you. Welcome to the show.

Whitney Casares:

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it.

Kendall Berg:

So why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself, like what really inspired you to write, you know, doing it all stop over Functioning and become the mom and person you're meant to be and to start the modern mommy doc.

Whitney Casares:

Yeah. So my training, like you said, is in pediatrics. It's in maternal and child health. And I always have been interested in that synergistic relationship between mom's wellness and a kid's wellness. But I didn't realize how much I would live it in my own life and how much it would impact me. It's kind of like, I don't know, cancer doctors whose kids get cancer or something like that. Like, it's like I brought it on myself with karma drama. Anyway, so I went to Stanford. I got my residency in pediatrics. I did a public health degree at Berkeley. And I thought that I was pretty hot stuff and that I knew a lot in terms of ivory tower knowledge. And in all honesty, I feel like I was probably pretty judgy in terms of being like, listen, just do XYZ when you become a mom if you want to be successful. Like, what are all these people struggling with? It seems like it should be really easy. And then I had my first daughter and was quickly brought to my knees. And I was brought to my knees in a couple of ways. Number one, she's autistic, so she has high functioning autism, which means that people would have called her like Asperger's in the past. But what it meant when she was really young, especially when I had my second daughter, is that we had tons of tantrums, that she was just this well of need that kind of never ran dry. She's super anxious, she could have really big mood fluctuations, and she took up a lot of my time. But I also was trying to burn the candle at both ends and really lean in professionally. At that time. I felt like, okay, if I just work hard, if I just put in my hours, if I just do my time, there will be a reward for me professionally. And so I'm just gonna go whole hog. And I found myself pulled in a million different directions like an octopus with their arms just stretched out wide, trying to take care of my daughter with this well of need, trying to take care of my patients, trying to really kill it professionally, follow Sheryl Sandberg's recommendations about leaning in. And I found myself miserable. Like, miserable miserable. And also really jealous of other people. Weren't working as hard as I were, but I was, but were somehow having a better life than I was. And so I decided this one day. I had a whole week of meetings over and over, having a huge series of meltdowns. My husband and I were beef. I was in the shower, I was just crying, sobbing, that there had to be a better way. And I decided that instead of working so hard to change what were all of the factors that I couldn't change in my life and to try to, like, fight against myself and what was happening, that I actually needed to start working a lot smarter. And so over time, I developed this framework that is really about prioritizing the things that matter the most to you and then taking care of all the rest of the things that have to get done without them defining you. And when you distill it down, it's really about letting. Giving yourself a lot of permission to say these things are not to be given the same level of time, energy, or attention as these other things that I cherish that I want to at the end of my life when I'm 80 years old, look back at and say, like, yes, I did it. I feel really proud of myself. And the second thing that I had to do, perspective wise, is decide that I was going to be the main character in the movie of my own. So when I was feeling stretched and in different directions, what I was doing most of the time was filling other people's needs or filling other people's pictures of who I should be or what I should be, including my parents, who they are not unique, but, like, Lord love them. They're like, oh, you're going to be successful, you could be an astronaut, you could be a doctor, you could be a lawyer, right? Like, my work was like, you should be able to do it all. What's the problem? And so I had to start really looking inward and saying, what do I want and what do I. And how can I live my life a little more intentionally, a little bit more in presence every day?

Kendall Berg:

I absolutely love what you're touching on. And it's funny that you said you got humbled by your first child, because I had this. This good friend. I had kids earlier than many of my friends. And when I had kids, you know, you're. Nobody knows what they're doing. And I think, like, if you are a mommy listening to this, like, we don't know either. Like, you learn, you build skills, you build frameworks, but, like, we're all winging it, right? And I remember the first time her son wouldn't eat what she cooked for dinner. And she called me and she was like, why won't he eat? And I was like, well, you. You need to get him to eat something, otherwise he's not going to sleep through the night. He's going to wake up in the middle. He's going to make crazy. Like, even if it's ice cream, like, get something in his stomach. And she goes, I suddenly feel so guilty. For every mom that I told, like, they'll eat what I cook or they won't eat at all. She's like, yeah, that's great, till my kid won't eat what I eat. And then she was like, I now feel like the worst person on the planet because I had all these aspirations of how my child rearing would go. And then I had a kid and was like, nope, you want ice cream for dinner? Ice cream. It is like, let's get a full night's sleep so that mommy doesn't wake up. Absolutely crazy. So I think this is such a, like, empathetic experience that us moms go through is like, we have all these, my kids are never gonna watch tv. My kids are addicted to their tablet. My kids are never gonna, you know, eat grilled cheese for every meal. Yes, they will, for three months, because that's their hyper fixation food. And that's what we're rolling with. Right? So I love that your approach was, listen, I need to reframe. I need to take a step back. I need to understand myself and what looking like that main character looks like. And then I need to build systems that really support that. And you talk about that in some of your thought pieces in your book that, like, the systems are really the problem. Let's dive a little deeper into that. What does that mean? And what are the. Some of the things that you have found that really help kind of sift through all of that?

Whitney Casares:

Yeah, absolutely. And before I do that, I want to go back to what you said about this idea of being on our high horse and needing empathy. I think probably the most powerful thing that I can do for people beyond telling them about systems and a framework and all that, is just show people exactly that. Like, I am a pediatrician. I know all of the things. I'm an American Academy pediatric spokesperson. I'm a public health expert. And I still this morning was saying to my daughter, as she would not get up to go to school, like, why are you making this so difficult? Get up. I'm. I'm. You're driving me crazy. Like, this is the experience of being a mom in a modern world, and it's okay. And I think the more that people can see, like, oh, I'm not alone. Other people are not super moms. And maybe they're showing that on Instagram. They're making it look like they're doing everything right. Or that if you just follow steps A through C, you will get it right 100% of the time. But one of my main messages is, motherhood is a journey. You start, you feel like you have it together, and then you go into a new phase, and then you don't have it together at all. And then you go through another phase, and then you have it together, and then you don't have it together at all. And that's normal. It's how it's supposed to be. And part of the reason it's that way is because for most of your listeners, I'm sure this is true. You're a good mom who wants to do the best she can. You're not just going off of, like, decades and decades of, you know, Dr. Spock told me to do XYZ. You're reading articles and you're listening to podcasts, and you're trying to really analyze, like, what's the absolute best thing for my kids. So take heart if you're feeling overwhelmed or if you're feeling like you're alone, you are not alone. We are here with you. In terms of the system. Yes, in terms of the system.

Kendall Berg:

Well, and I think really quick, I want to double click on that, because so many of the moms listening to this podcast, they're going to be working moms, right? And you express it yourself. You were a working mom, and you're like, I want to do all the things. I want to be great in my career. I want to be there for my family. I want to be all these people. And I think when we're at work, sometimes it can look. It does to me. Sometimes I work with women that I'm like, wow, she's like this wonderful mom. And I. I worked with this woman years ago. She was recently promoted into a chief compliance officer role at a major bank, but she won mom of the Year. She had seven kids. She was heading up our compliance department. She was working out six days a week. She was like, just everything. And it seemed like she had, like, this wonderful, like, I just know how to do everything. And you hold yourself to that standard. Meanwhile. Now, looking back, I'm probably like, she sat in her room at night and was like, oh, God, what's gonna drop tomorrow? Like, what's gonna be the next thing? But we didn't see that, right? And so I love this idea of, like, as a mom, as a woman, as, you know, if You're a dad in this situation where you're feeling like, dude, I'm trying to raise my kids, I'm trying to go to work, and I just is not happening. Like, it's okay to have that empathy and that grace for yourself of like, it's okay not to have all the answers and to just be doing the best you can. And so I hope that everybody, if you have been eagerly awaiting the Secrets of the Career Game book, it is officially available for pre order. This book will go over 36 strategies for building success in your career and honestly is some of my best lessons, best templates and best ways for you to start to get the success and the progression in your career that you deserve. If you do pre order the book, make sure that you email a screenshot of your Pre order to thatcareercoachmail.com in order to be added to our top secret community. In that community, you'll have access to me, as well as 2 live Q& A sessions. When the book launches, you'll also get an extra early copy with the first chapter of the book. For you. To read ahead, go to Amazon. Find secrets of the career game 36 Strategies for your career. Go ahead, place your pre order and send us an email. Everybody listening will feel that even as Whitney gives us these amazing tools to create these better systems for ourselves.

Whitney Casares:

Yeah, okay. So when it comes to the systems, here is the main perspective that I hope that people will take away. When I started in my doctoring and in my residency program and then as a private practice physician, I learned really quickly how to triage, how to say, this thing is important, this thing can wait a minute. So if a kid comes in with a bleeding arm and or they have trouble breathing, that kid needs my utmost attention. It's not that the kid who's there for their well visit doesn't matter, but it's just that, like, that kid can wait a second, they can wait an hour, they can wait two hours. We could reschedule the appointment because I have this one thing in front of my face that really matters. As moms, though, in our lives, a lot of times we give equal weight, equal footing to all of the demands on our lives. And we do that because a lot of us have this conditioning that we should function at a really high level. If we do, that gives us a lot of value. It's also because we carry a lot of mental load. We don't have a lot of structural things that are there to support us. There's a ton of reasons why? But we have learned over time, every single thing deserves the same level of time, energy and attention. And what I want people to do is start to parse out no. What are the five things that I want to give my yes to? What are the five things in my life that I care the most about? We all have different ones. In my book, I go through how you can delineate this for yourself. It's usually based off what are your values? What are the things that bring you a lot of joy, what are kind of like your unique gifts that you have? One of mine, for example, is speaking into the lives of working women, Right? So almost always, if there's something that someone's going to ask me to do, even if I don't get paid for it, I'm going to say, absolutely, there's an opportunity to actually have an impact on someone's life who's a working mom. It's a yes for me. Right? Building a strong connection with my kids is a yes for me. That is one of mine. And I don't mean that I'm there every single minute of every single day. But if there's an opportunity, like my youngest daughter wanted to go to the Olivia Rodrigo concert, and I was like, okay, you can either have birthday gifts, or we could spend a little bit extra. We could go to the Olivia Rodrigo concert. Okay, we are going to the concert, because that is a connection we'll dance around. We're going to be singing at the top of our lungs. That's almost always a yes. So that's some examples of things that are yeses. And then what we have to do for all the rest of the stuff that has to get done. But that shouldn't define us, but it threatens to. Things like laundry, things like the dishes, you have to put them into some categories so that they don't weigh so heavily on our minds, and so that when they come at us as obligations or as requests on our time, energy, and attention, we can say clearly, like, ooh, okay, first and foremost, you're not in my priority list. But then secondarily, what do I do with you? So there's a couple of categories that I use in my framework, and these are not like brain science. I just name them so that they're a little more catchy. There's the non negotiables. These are the things you have to get done that no one else can get done for you. A great example in my line of work is patient notes. I have to document every single time that a patient comes in to see me. But what can I do? I can use efficiency. I can use streamlining to get it done a lot faster. Another thing is getting dinner on the table. I'm the person who's at home at the time when my kids have dinner every night. My husband is sometimes. Sometimes is not. So what can I do? I can streamline it and I can kind of half ass it. I can decide I'm going to use what I call selective mediocrity. So I can say I'm not going to do a gourmet meal. It's the middle of the week. I'm doing a rotisserie chicken from the store, a baguette and some broccoli. On a good night, right? On a bad night, we're doing takeout. But like, on a good night, that's going to be the streamlined meal that we're having. The one thing that I do though is I don't stop there because I know that a lot of women, if I just tell them be more efficient, streamline things, that will just allow them to check even more off their list and then what will they do? If their value is based off performing and on doing a lot, they will then add more to the list so that they can keep on feeling valuable. So we have to have other strategies. The three other strategies are the swappables, which is giving other things to people who can be doing them for you and should be doing them for you. There's an entire chapter on chores for your kids. There's an entire chapter on getting your partner involved, which asterisks. This is like an ongoing battle in every single person's home. Do not believe it if someone tells you they have this fully worked out. I don't think there's hardly anyone that does, unless both people are like psychologists and they know how to communicate perfectly. The next one is the contaminators. This is eliminating stuff in your environment so that way you don't have as much that you have to clean up and pay attention to. This is eliminating stuff on your calendar that you don't need to do. It's making a meeting into an email. It's making an email into a Slack message. Like trying to make things so that they don't take up as much time. You have more white space. The last is the heartstrings. And these are the pulls on your attention that you do out of guilt or obligation. It might be things like joining the PTA when you really don't want to. It might be things like spending time Extended amounts of time with your in laws. If you really hate it's about making ways to fulfill the obligations that you have in your life without it overrunning you emotionally and without you losing your sense of self.

Kendall Berg:

Those are so great. And I love that there's this tactical component to it. Right. Because we are all, we're all making trade offs all the time. And you know, I feel very blessed in my situation. I have a wonderful partner. He's awesome. I talk about him on the podcast all the time because he is my delegate to a lot of the time. I work a full time corporate job, I run my own business. I have two kids and a husband and I compete in pageants. Like, I have like a lot of multivariate interests. Right. And all the time I'm like, can you pick up dinner? Can you do the dishes? Can you know, and he fills a lot of that void for me and I feel very blessed to have that. But lots of people aren't in that position where their spouse or their partner or they have a partner to help with a lot of these things. And so I love that you have some other categories of like, great. Here's what the efficiency model looks like. Here's what the Marie Kondo decreases the clutter of your life looks like. Here's what the simplify looks like. Because I do think it's important to have all these different ways to approach the same problem. So I love that we're sharing some of those, you know, not quick fixes, but different ways of thinking about your problem so that you can come up with a solution for it. And something that you've mentioned a couple of times so far in today's episode that I. I love and I want to double click on with you is I've talked about mental load a lot on my podcast. It's a big passion topic of mine because I think specifically in the workplace, mental load is a much better indicator of burnout than time worked.

Whitney Casares:

Right.

Kendall Berg:

We tend to think of burnout and overtime as being synonymous, but it doesn't mean necessarily that you're working overtime. It just means that your mental load is constantly overloaded and you can't escape from it. So I'd love to hear how some of these systems that you're describing, how do those interact with the mental load piece? So say I choose to delegate or I choose to eliminate. Like, what does that mean from like a mental standpoint that we're doing to kind of release some of that stress and anxiety?

Whitney Casares:

Yeah. So I totally agree with you, I don't think it's actually about never being physically exhausted, never putting a lot of time into things. I just put a post up the other day that was on LinkedIn and Instagram that talked about how I went on a vacation with my husband for our 20th anniversary. We took a like red eye of course back home. Then you know, you have to because it's long enough. Then I came back. I immediately that night went I trip to Orlando. I worked for 12 hours at the American Academy of Pediatrics conference.

Whitney Casares: And then I went the next morning at 5:

00 in the morning and took a flight back to be home for my daughter, to be there in time for her to take off for outdoor school, which is this special thing that our school district does to give kids time in the wilderness and whatever. And on the surface that looked like, oh my gosh, I'm doing so much. But really all I was tired physically. Like I had a ton of like emotional bandwidth. I was in the pocket, like doing all the things that I care about. I was spending time with my husband, which is really important. I was doing work for moms. And I was also making sure that I attended to my child's need and that we had a strong connection as she headed off to camp.

Whitney Casares:

So I think you're absolutely right that it's not about trying to make it so we don't work hard physically or with our time. It's really about making it so we don't have that weight on our shoulders. All of the strategies that I'm talking about, the contaminators, the heartstrings, the non negotiables and the swappables are all about making it so that you complete the task and then it's not sitting in your mind anymore. So for example, in the non negotiables, I talk about the idea for laundry, having it be that you have a set time between 7 to 9pm that's what I do every week, where you're folding and putting away laundry. The rest of the time you can wash and you can dry and put it in a pile, but just having it be one moment on your schedule, that this is the moment that I want, that I fold and that I put away. And it could be multiple times a week. But just that idea of this is the only time I think about laundry, I'm not going to think about it any other time. That eliminates the mental load of it. You still have to do the physical work, but you're not trying to think about like Ooh, when am I going to fit that in? I feel so bad. It looks so messy. Same with the delegating. So the swappables. If I am able to develop a system with my partner and fully give them the task of making sure dinner's on the table or in my house, it is a lot of taking to school and getting ready for school in the morning that my husband does. That makes it so that in the mornings and at night when I'm thinking about it, not like, ooh, emotionally, my kids are terrible at getting out in the. In the morning. And so that is an emotional mental load I do not want. I'll pick them up at the end of the day. They're lovely then. But they're not morning people, just like me. So that removes mental load when you declutter. When you decontaminate in your house, it makes it so that as you're looking around in your environment, you have less stress. You're not caring. When am I going to get to that? How am I going to clean that? Oh, I gotta pay those bills. But are they organized? But have I gotten to them? Because everything is kind of neat and tidy and same with the boundaries, actually, with the heartstrings, when you are able to set some strong boundaries on yourself, which means saying, I am going to make choices that fill my own needs at the same rate as other people's needs or even more my own needs. I'm not going to be constantly making decisions based off what only other people need or how are they going to feel. I'm going to make decisions based off what do I need to. That makes it so that you're not thinking in the shower, like, oh, man, does that person feelings? Did I do enough for. Oh, my goodness. That reduces your mental load so fully. This is all about reducing mental load for moms. Every single strategy is. Yeah.

Kendall Berg:

And I love to hear that because it is. I think that's where women I see oftentimes working with clients, that's the big challenge because we give it to you, but we don't release it.

Whitney Casares:

Right.

Kendall Berg:

So then we're thinking and we're thinking. We're tracking, we're tracking. We're stressing ourselves out over something that, like, we have chosen, needs to go into a different bucket, needs to go into a different category. But we're like, but it's my thing, right? And that's where I think it weighs down women. So I love to hear how you kind of think about releasing Some of that with the process. And I know that we. We've kind of hinted towards it, but a lot of this drives up our stress levels. Right. When we carry this heavy mental load, when we're trying to be that octopus pulled in eight different directions.

Whitney Casares:

Right.

Kendall Berg:

There's a lot of that stress increase. And the Surgeon General just released a report about how the maternal stress and the children's stress really intersect with one another. So when you think about that, and you've done studies on this, you know, how do you propose moms take action on this? We as a society take action on this. Individuals listening to this podcast, like, how do we start to address this problem of, like, this interconnected stress building that we're seeing right now?

Whitney Casares:

Yeah. Okay, So a couple things. One, from a systemic level, of course, we need change. And I'm so happy to see child care, for example, the cost of child care being entered into the election discussion this cycle. So important that we are talking about that on a national scale. Paid parental leave that would do a ton. Programs that build more equity in the workplace. Programs like, I have a friend, Mary Beth Ferrante, who does a lot of work about helping parents do what they call parent out loud in the workplace. So that way, the culture changes. And it's not weird to say, hey, I got to take my kid to a dentist. Dentist appointment at 3pm today. Right. And leave a little bit early. I'll come in early on the next day. So that way there's a little bit more flexible, remote working. All of those things make a huge difference from an individual standpoint. I think what's most important for people to know as they're starting to make a perspective change or doing that really difficult work of letting go. Because that really is, I think, at the crux of this. It's about understanding what is the trade off that they will make if they don't for their own mental health and for their children's mental health. Because there's really no escaping it. There's a quote I saw the other day that said, when we get quiet about our own needs, our bodies get loud. And the discussion was basically talking about we get stressed out, we get headaches, we get sleeplessness, we start to feel angry, we snap at our kids, we snap at our partners. We are less effective when we are at work because we're really stressed that way. And then what happens? We have a cycle where we know when parents are more stressed, kids get more stressed. And you, let me say this loud and clear, are not the Only reason your child is stressed or having mental health issues, if your child is having them and it's not your fault. But it is all in an environment. It is in an ecosystem. And so the less stressed you can be the least agitated, the more bandwidth you have, the better that is going to before you child. When I talk about doing less or doing more, just what matters, it's like, well, there's no way I could do that because I have all the education, like, cool. But I know from. And in general that in five, 10 years there will be a consequence. So we know from studies, from the research that's out there that if we don't take care of ourselves, that if we're not attending to our needs, if we are chronically stressed as parents, and what came out with the Attorney General's report, that it does affect our kids. And so that's why I absolutely implore moms and parents in general to take a step back and just take a look at what are my values, what are my priorities, and really try to imagine yourself in the future, like, looking back at yourself when you're 80, when you're 90. I hope you live that long saying, you know, did I feel like I lived the life that I wanted to live and if I didn't, what can I do now? Just make a. Make a small change.

Kendall Berg:

I love hearing that. And it's so interesting because as a, you know, neurodivergent mom myself, like, I get overstimulated very easily, right? My kids know this about me, and we have these conversations where I'm like, hey, mommy needs a clean house. Because without a clean house, mommy's stress gets way higher. When mommy's stressed, everybody's stressed. So we're all gonna clean and we're gonna take this time. Because I get very overstimulated in a physical environment, right? For me, it's not so much noise or sounds, it's just like stuff being where it doesn't belong is like a big activator for me. And so it's funny to hear you say this because I. I'm learning so much in this conversation for you that I never really thought about. But I think about how I tell my kids, like, if I come down in my kid's room and I get really frustrated, my daughter's immediately like, what's wrong? What's happening? Right? And I'm like, mommy's not mad at you, but you have got to clean your room because mommy cannot be in your room because this is adding to my stress level. Right. And so I love hearing this, like, how do we communicate that? How do we have this dialogue? And then how do we create structure and systems in place so that stress level doesn't get as high so that our kids aren't impacted by that negativity and we can kind of maintain a more balanced home? So I love to hear all of this. You know, there's. There's been so many books about being a mom, being a working mom. I've read many of them we touched on earlier. There's probably many of my listeners who are out here just reading everything they possibly can, trying to figure out this working mom game. What makes your approach in your book different? What is it about, like, what you're bringing to the marketplace that you feel like is, hey, this is legitimately going to help you feel like you're making traction and making progress?

Whitney Casares:

Yeah. So I think a lot of books start with the strategy and miss out on the perspective change. I think that's the biggest thing. I think that you can read book after book that talks about being more efficient. You can read book after book that talks about self care. You can read book after book that talks about delegating to your partner and handing off the load. But what I have found in practice and in my work is that until people make that critical decision about how they want their lives to go and about what they really care about, all of those strategies only last for so long. And then you go back to the same way you were doing things. You go back to the same habits that you have, because those are just peripheral ways to change things for a small amount of time or kind of make you feel better for a small amount of time. They're not going to fundamentally make it so that you do working motherhood differently. And that's really my goal, is to help people see kind of a better approach to it, to think about it in a different way, to have a sea change in their mind about, like, oh, my gosh, I don't have to do it this way. I am being taught by society, by my parents, by my fellow workers, by my job. I have to. But I actually really have more control sometimes than I think that I do. One thing that I want to bring up with this is also about people who have maybe a lower socioeconomic status and who might find it like, as they're listening, like, oh, well, that's nice because you're a doctor and you can just do whatever you want and throw money at things. Of course. Okay, The Kardashians, they might have stress about other things, but they don't have stress about doing it all. Are you kidding me? Like, they have nannies and they have house cleaners and they have accountants and they have tons of people that are doing stuff for them. So let's not be silly and think that money doesn't buy you some level of comfort when you are a working parent or a professional. I guarantee you Beyonce, even though she talks about being a working mom being hard, what she means is that she has a hard time being away from her kids and that she has her own, like, perfectionism that she needs to work on and needs to stop doing Levi's ads. Like, she has plenty of money. Why is she doing Levi's ads? But for those who have fewer resources, of course it's going to be more difficult to make choices that are about what do I want, what's going to serve me, what are you're just trying to make ends meet. That said, there are very economical ways to make a shift in your life. You know, you can still declutter, you can still have others, even if you're a single parent who are in your parenting village, who live down the street, who could potentially help you where they're doing the school drop offs, you're doing the school pickups for the family, you can still set some boundaries on. If you're going to lend money to your friend, you can still set some boundaries on. Am I going to have it be that I'm the only person if I have kids in my house who are doing all the cooking and the cleaning and everything, like what? How can I get my kids to have some chores that they're doing alongside me? So I really just want to make a special plug that this isn't for the rich and famous. It also isn't for people who have perfectly well behaved, neurotypical kids only. This is for those of us who have a lot of storms that come their way, deal with a lot of stuff I do every single day. And that's half of why I wrote this book. And that I think is the other key differentiator is that I am not living a life where I just manifest like, goodness all day long. Like, I'm living like a real life with tough kids who have been, I've been in tough situations with them. And that I had to figure it out was like, you know, necessity is the key to invention or mother of invention. It was like that when I figured out this framework. So just to give people a little bit of context in terms of how Much. I value real world and real life solutions over manifesting or like, dream world, Kardashian stuff.

Kendall Berg:

Yeah. And I love to hear you say that because one, I think people severely underestimate how stressful being a doctor is. So just like, quick aside, it's not like Whitney's like sailing a boat for fun nine hours a day. So let's also be clear. But also, I think it is good because you're right. There are things where, like, we hired housekeepers for the first time last year. Game changer. So great. Love having a housekeeper who comes once a month to just do the deep cleaning. I don't want to do.

Whitney Casares:

Right.

Kendall Berg:

We still got to clean the house all the time. Right. But there are definitely socioeconomic levels to this, and I think it's important to call those out. But I think the flip side is having and maintaining your own set of boundaries can be agnostic of your income level, but it has to be intentional. So I love bringing that focus back. So for anybody who's listening to this podcast, Whitney, who has learned a bajillion things from you today, like, I have, because this was so great, what's one thing that you were like, hey, if you're listening to this, if you want to start taking back a little more control, if you want to start finding what are your highest, you know, priorities and really starting to figure out your time, what is one thing you would tell them to go do tomorrow that you feel like could start jumping them into this next future?

Whitney Casares:

Yeah. Okay, so what I want you to do tomorrow is when you're in the shower, when you're washing your hair, take like two extra minutes while you're in there and start to just get a little bit aware. Feel aware of. Like, wow, how am I feeling? Am I feeling exhausted? Am I feeling resentful? Am I feeling disappointed? Am I feeling like I can't get a break? What am I feeling? Because your feelings are the key to what your needs are. So if you are feeling like, I feel amazing, I love my life. I feel great. I feel so energetic. I love being a mom. Then awesome. You don't need anything that I have to say because you're doing better than I am. So you come teach me and write a book and give it to me and I will read it and we'll do a great. If, however, you are feeling stressed and you find yourself being like, yeah, I feel so overwhelmed, then that is a key that you might need to make a shift and start just every day trying to pay attention how do I feel? Where am I today? Because that's going to help you. Even if you don't follow any type of framework that I do, it's going to help you to identify what your needs are and then to start to express them to other people. Even if it's like, I need five minutes by myself at the end of the day, I need to go on a walk and get outside. I need a latte, like, I need to read a book. I need to go be with other moms and have them hear me and feel like I'm not so alone. So that would be my number one thing to do, is start just getting aware about where you are right now so you can figure out where you want to be.

Kendall Berg:

I absolutely love that. Well, thank you so much, Whitney, for coming on the show. I felt like this was such a great dialogue and conversation. If people are listening to this and they want to find you, they want to learn more about you, where should they go?

Whitney Casares:

So the book is called doing it All. Stop over functioning and become the mom and person you're meant to be. It's available wherever books are sold. Amazon is the easiest. And then you can find me@modernmommydoc.com there's tons of freebies on there. I have a free, like five day mini course that you can do. You can listen to the podcast that I have there and I'm on the gram.

Kendall Berg:

Awesome. And we'll tag all of that in the show notes. But Whitney, thank you again for being on today's episode. We'll definitely have to have you back in the future, but if you're listening to this, you like today's episode. Go ahead, leave us five stars. Leave any questions or comments down below so we can check them out. But otherwise, Whitney, thank you so much. This was wonderful.

Whitney Casares:

You bet.