Raising Your Business: For Moms Growing Their Business and Raising Their Family

100. ChatGPT Interviews Me! Special 100th Episode

ā€¢ Yael Bendahan

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We made it to 100 episodes! Cue the confetti and nursing-baby-in-lap dance party šŸŽ‰

For this very special episode, I handed the mic over to ChatGPT (okay, technically just a list of questions it came up with) and let it interview ME. And yes, it was as fun and chaotic as it sounds.

I answered everything from my morning routine (spoiler: it involves gratitude and coffee with frothy milk) to my biggest business lessons as a mom of six scaling a coaching business in part-time hours.

Whether youā€™re an eldest-daughter-overachiever, an Enneagram 3 in denial, or a mom trying to build an empire while wiping butts (literally), this episode is for YOU. We went deep, we went honest, and I didnā€™t hold back on what Iā€™ve learned in 100 episodes of raising both kids and a business.

Hereā€™s what youā€™ll hear:

  • My real (non-aesthetic) morning routine with 6 kids
  • The Broadway soundtrack that perfectly captures my parenting mood
  • What Iā€™d do if I wasnā€™t a business coach (hint: it involves babies)
  • The weirdest place Iā€™ve Voxered a client from
  • The offer advice I think is holding moms back
  • What I actually learned from my first 10K month
  • Why content calendars kinda suck (and what to do instead)
  • My hot takes on ChatGPT, funnel myths, red flag clients, and million-dollar moms

This episode is a behind-the-scenes pass into what it really looks like to build a sustainable business that supports your familyā€”without losing your mind or yourself in the process.

Resources Mentioned:

Don't forget:

  • Subscribe and leave a review if this episode made you laugh, cry, or shout ā€œSAME!ā€ in your car.
  • Screenshot and share this episode on IG Stories ā€“ tag @theyaelbendahan so I can cheer you on!

LINKS
šŸ“ˆThe CEO MOMS Growth Matrix - feeling stuck or plateaued at your current revenue? Snag your custom roadmap for sustainable growth from $0 to multi-6-figures in this FREE training! >>> yaelbendahan.com/matrix

šŸ”„Join my FREE 3-Day Program, LEVERAGE - the process thatā€™s creating multi 6 figure years working nap times and being a full time mama of 6. Claim your spot here >>> https://yaelbendahan.com/leveragepod

šŸ’°Offers in Your Pocket - 11 Offers You Can Pull Out of Your Pocket and Sell This Week! Only $9 - yaelbendahan.com/pocketoffers

šŸ’ƒ Apply for the CEO Mom Mastermind if you're ready to scale sustainably to $15-20K+ months. Read more about the mastermind here OR go straight to the application here.
Want to chat about the mastermind before you join? DM me on Instagram - instagram.com/theyaelbendahan

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to the 100th episode of Raising Your Business, and for today's episode, chat, GBT will be interviewing me. Welcome to the Raising Your Business Podcast. I'm your host, Yael Bendahan, founder of CEO Mom Academy, mom of Six and Lifelong Reading addict. This podcast is here to empower moms to run their businesses and lives like the powerhouse CEO. They are. I want you to believe that you can have the business success you desire. And be present with your family and to give you my best tips and strategies for how to make that happen. I'll be sharing the honest reality of balancing business and motherhood biz models that work for you. Marketing simplicity, and the mindset of A CEO, mom. Now let's dive in. Hey. Welcome back to the podcast, and today is the 100th episode of Racing Your Business, which is insane. And I think technically actually there have been more than a hundred because I have uploaded things like free trainings that I've done, or challenges that I've, but this is like my hundredth official episode and it feels very exciting to me. Really exciting. I was actually inspired to do this by my friend Lynette, who was inspired to do this by someone else. And she had this thing where Chat gt interviewed her on her podcast and like it would ask, she just had a list of questions from Chat gt and she just answered it and I thought you know what? Why not let you get to know me a little bit better? After a hundred episodes together, if you're still listening, hello. So good. So good that you're still here with me. And I and I thought it would just be super fun to just talk about all the things like, and and it's not just business stuff, it's also life things. And what it's gonna do is go through from like lighter sort of icebreaker questions to deeper and deeper questions. I am gonna this might be longer and I might record this in sections because I actually have to leave to pick up my son in 10 minutes. So I'm gonna start over here and if you want to connect over, any of these things, if you're like, oh, I, this is my morning routine and, if you wanna share anything about, what, what really landed with you or what what we had in common. I love to hear that. I absolutely love to hear that because it's so funny. I realize that I actually tend to attract a lot of eldest daughter type A overachieving, Enneagram threes. And it's just like the, nerdy, geeky. People who are my favorite kind of people. And I just I'm like, it's so funny how I tend to just achieve, keep attracting those people as clients. It just keeps happening over and over again. So if you are any of these things or if you resonate with any of the things I discussed today, then please reach out to me and let me know what landed with you. Okay, so let's get started with some icebreakers. What is your real morning ritual before the house wakes up? Coffee, chaos, or both? Okay. I'm gonna be totally honest. I am a revenge bedtime procrastinator. I stay up way too late. I know I shouldn't. But as a mom you really would just treasure like the quiet time. And so I do not wake up before my kids. Like I wake up when my baby wakes up. Basically which is usually around like 6 30, 6 45. Occasionally I'll go get him or one of my older sons who are getting ready for school early'cause they leave by 7:00 AM So they will go and get him and bring him to me. And so my morning ritual honestly is lying in bed with my baby and nursing him. And just like focusing on gratitude, like that's like my mind. I do like my mindset work, like while I'm nursing, so I'm like half asleep. But I'm thinking about all the things that I'm grateful for and all things that I'm, I would like to be grateful for. And I talk about this in my mindset my, my rich mom energy mindset challenge. It's a 35 day mindset challenge. I'm actually gonna link it in the description. It is so good. My clients call this like my most underrated program and I really should just do it live again. It was so much fun. Last time I did it live. But I just that's my morning routine is like lying there and nursing him and being I need to get the other kids up because I have children who are very a, DD and get very distracted. Need a lot of time to get outta bed in the morning. So yeah, that's my morning ritual. I tend to have my coffee either I'll drink, I'll make, we just got a new gorgeous like coffee maker the ninja. Lux cafe or cafe Lux or whatever. And so it makes these beautiful espressos with froth milk. So I will either make it like, and I'll drink it as I'm driving all the kids to school and, or I'll have another one or my first one when I come back and I can sit down and do my journaling and my planning for the day. So that is my morning ritual, literally just lying in bed, nursing my baby, and thinking about the day. If your life right now had a soundtrack, what song would be on repeat? Oh my gosh. Okay. I am a Broadway, like a Broadway geek nerd, whatever you wanna call it, the song from Dear Evan Hansen. Anybody have a map that the moms are singing at the beginning of the show? When they're like, they have these teenage sons, they don't know how to deal with them. There's one that's very sad because he, whatever, I am not gonna get into it, but I thank God I don't, I'm not dealing with anything like that as far as my kids go, like terrible stuff. But I. I really feel that way because I have, like I, I have a teenager, I have two teenagers. I have a preteen, I have an elementary school kid, a preschooler and a toddler, and I crush the little kids thing. I'm so good at momming little children. It's that's my vibe. My vibe. And so learning to be a mother of teenagers. It literally feels like I'm walking around blindfolded trying to figure out the best thing to do. So anybody has a, have a map. Like that to me feels like my, the soundtrack of my life.'cause I'm like, does anybody, anybody have a map to help me figure out what to say to my child when he says ridiculous things to me? Or how to respond or how to react when, I have to set boundaries. I don't know. It's a whole new set of skills. So that would be my sound, my soundtrack. Okay. If you weren't coaching moms in business, what totally different career would you secretly crush? Ooh, I would love to be a midwife. I would love it. I love childbirth. But I guess I would have to go to like nursing school and stuff. And so maybe I wouldn't wanna do that, but then I would maybe just be a doula. But I dunno, I would just love to be a midwife. I think it'd be the coolest thing ever. If I didn't have little kids at home who needed me at certain times, then it would definitely would be something that I would be interested in doing. But I just love what I do so much, and what I do is so flexible that it just doesn't feel like worth it. So I might become a doula, like for fun, and then maybe, maybe go along with my daughter when she has her first baby, which she's five now, so I, that'll be in at least 15 years. Plus. I don't know. I, that's the, I actually wanted to be my dad is an OB GYN and growing up I always wanted to be a doctor like him. I wanted to be an OB GYNI ended up getting, not really finishing high school and getting married at the age of 18, so that did not really work out. But I do love anything like childbirth related, so that's what I would probably do. Okay. What is a CEO mom moment that made you laugh this week? Oh, I was doing like an intro video. I was doing an intro video for a program that I just joined and I kept trying to record it and I had my baby on my lap. And every time I would hold the camera up, like in selfie mode to talk into the video, he would go cheese.'cause that's what he does. If you point a camera in his direction, he is just like always like immediately like cheese. And he will hold up like random, like remotes for like air conditioners. And things, and he will just be like, cheese. Like it's the cutest thing. So I dunno, I I was like, you know what I'm gonna just leave it like that because this is just my life. Like my life is me, businessing, and also mommy at the same time. And so I was just like, it just felt like it really encapsulated like why I do what I do. Okay. Behind the scenes of, now this is, these are questions from behind the scenes of CEO Mom life. Okay. What are these, what is the strangest place you've, I've ever taken a client Voxer voice message or sent a message from, oh my God, this is so good. I have coached my clients in voice notes while wiping kids' poopy butts. Okay. I do it all the time. I'll be like, I'll run to the bathroom to talk to my clients because that's where nobody will bother me. Presumably I can lock the door. Or I'll be coaching them while I'm cooking in the kitchen, but occasionally when I'm really on a roll, my daughter needed me to wipe her and I was like gotta keep doing. And I literally said that in the thing. I'm like I'm wiping a butt right now. And, and it was actually so funny because my clients actually loved it so much. They're like, this is why we work with you, because you understand what it's like to be like thinking about business while wiping a dirty tush. Anyway, so yeah, that was it. That was the strangest place I've ever taken a client boxer from. What is the most unhinged request or assumptions someone's made about your business? I don't know. I haven't really gotten unhinged requests or assumptions. Oh, yeah, I did. Oh my gosh. I had one person. I was doing a market, I had a market research survey happening, and I, and in it, I said if you could create the perfect offer what would it be like that I could offer? And there were like a$9 membership where you teach us how to create to create and sell premium offers without sales calls and also blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she basically mapped out like an entire super premium Mastermind, but like for$9 a month. And I was like, wow, these$9 month memberships really set some expectations that I don't know if people can really deliver. So that to me, felt a little bit crazy. I'm like she, I did say, dream big. So I, she understood the assignment, but I was like, okay, that is good to know, to understand people's expectations and also the reality of what goes on in the online space. Okay. How do you explain your job to people outside the online space? What reactions do you usually get? I just basically say I do digital marketing. I don't even really, sometimes I'll say I'm a business coach for moms who wanna build businesses online. If I, if people are, wanna hear that entire sentence, but usually like when, like whenever I fill out in school forms, I just write digital marketing because it's just easier. And they're like, oh wow. Oh is, oh, do you work for a company? Oh, you work for yourself. Oh. Like they just, they found it very, they find it very cool.'cause I do not give off like, fancy, Lux CEO vibes. I'm very like. Mommy slinky skirts, button down shirts sort of things. Okay. What is the least glamorous things about your work days that never makes it to Instagram? Oh my God. Like my whole life. Like my, my life is not glamorous. Like I think that to me, my life is goals in terms of this is what I want. Like I just wanna be with my kids and like just sitting on the floor playing with the baby or making dinner and listening to everyone complaining about maybe I don't wanna listen to everyone complaining about how I never make what they like. Because I do, by the way, I do make stuff that they like. But they change their minds on a regular basis. What the heck am I supposed to do? Listen, the thing is I think it's really just like the. When I really meant to get stuff done during the day and then I didn't, and so I ended up staying up late to get it done. And that is just kinda like the reality of motherhood because like your days don't just go, they don't just go perfectly. They don't. Kids stay home from school or they take a much longer time to get to school in the first place. Or they they. Have a random day off from, a vacation or, I don't know. My husband has a last minute shift that he gets and I thought he was gonna be home and now he's not. So that is just like the reality of my life and it isn't glamorous, but is the life that I want. Like it's the life that I want. That's why I built my business was so I wouldn't have to go out to work every single morning at a certain time and not be home all day and not be able to be with my kids, not be able to take them to the doctor when I need to and not be able to, just, take my baby to school late because I just wanna have a little cuddle with him or whatever, that is it Like my life is not glamorous, but it is actually so glamorous because it's exactly what I wanted it to be when I growing up, like when I wanted, I imagined being a mommy. This is what I imagined doing, except I imagine doing it with less money.'cause I didn't think I was gonna work. But now I'm like, I feel so lucky that my business enables me to be able to do that and be that present mom and also. To be able to bring in income for my family. Like I, I just feel so lucky. So I don't know. What's the least glish thing about my workday is I don't know, wiping tush or literally like what else? My kids who keep coming into my office and they're like, I have to ask you this very important question, even though the very important question is, can I have this thing from the freezer? And daddy is sitting on the couch and I'm like, you have another parent? I don't know. But that's just regular parenting stuff. I don't know. I don't really know the answer to this question because I feel like my life is not glamorous by the strict sense of the word, but it is aspirational for me because this is what my clients want. It's what I want. And that's the life that they desire, right? So it is what it is. Okay. Next question. What is the most damaging myth about scaling? Moms believing right now? And if you hear my voice sounds a little different, it's because it's a different day. I'm recording this on a different day. Okay. So what is the most damaging myth about scaling that you see moms believing right now? Okay, this is actually a really good question. I think that there's like these two competing philosophies that are both to me, feel very toxic. The one is the hustle thing where it's like filling your, filling your. Filling your schedule with scale sales calls and stuff. And I think that's actually gone down a lot in the past few years. People are very hustled out. They're just tired. Okay. And that's not being said anymore so much, but I think it's gone a little bit to the opposite extreme where people are like you shouldn't really have to work. You shouldn't have to do anything. You just sit and play and lie on the beach and then and money's just fly into your pocket. And that is not true either. Okay. And I really do think that is a certain level of understanding that it's going to take work and it's gonna take some level of discipline and it's going to take sitting down. And the truth is, I know like my business has not done as well in the past couple of years because I have not been as on, on task necessarily because I've had a lot. We've had a lot going on. And my business is still running and it's still up and running. I'm still making money and I'm so grateful for that because of a lot of things that I've put into place, before, before these two years are up. When I found out I was pregnant and Israel, was attacked within 24 hours of each other and, we've been in a war ever since. And actually right now as I record this apparently there is going to be a ceasefire. And Hamas is returning our hostages, which is what we have been all praying for two years. It's, it'll be exactly two years on the Hebrew date. Exactly two years since they were taken. Like it, it's hard to explain because it's hard for people outside of this to understand, but. The Jewish people really, we are a very small minority in the world. We feel like a family and these hostages that are, that have been sitting and, and being tortured and starved, like they feel like part of our family. And it really, no matter how much we go through with life and we continue on and we, keep having babies and, going to work and taking care of our kids and living our life there's a certain, there has been a certain level of, not really being able to like function at the level that I really wanted to grow my business significantly, which is what I wanted to do over the past couple of years. But the fact that I've maintained my business is already pretty great. I'm actually really proud of that. But but the growth has not happened the way I wanted it to because I have not been in the place of having the emotional capacity to have the level of discipline that is required. Okay. And I know that, and that's why I'm not like, I'm not like, oh my gosh, I don't know what happened. I know what happened. I know what happened. Don't tell me, don't tell me. You don't, you have no idea. So that's what I've found is if people are people are being like, oh, I have no, I, nothing's working, then I'm like, okay, you're not really posting content and I don't really see you putting out offers. Then what do you expect is going to happen? Are you gonna just optimize your Instagram bio and then all of a sudden, like money's gonna start falling out of the sky? So I see a lot of online coaches who either. Do not have, children are not married, or maybe they are married, but they don't have children yet and they're preaching consistency and they're preaching, gotta do the hard work, which you do have to do. You do have to do work. Okay. I don't know if it has to be hard, but like you do have to do the work. But they're preaching all this consistency. Consistency. And it is it is just something that I. There's a certain level of consistency that is not necessarily going to be possible as a mother. And like you have to find your version of consistency, but the consistency that they're preaching is not going to work. And they also have business models that frankly are just not sustainable as mothers. They're not. And then I see also ones who are mother. Okay. And they are mothers and they have six figures, seven figure businesses, which is great. And I love that for them, but they started their business way before they became mothers. They've built a lot of infrastructure already, as as single, single women or as child free women. And then they have all this infrastructure in place. They have all this team in place, they have all this money in place, and then they're like, oh, this is how I live my best life as like a soft, my soft life. And so to me this is setting up a lot of expectation for, for disappointment. Like it's a lot they're setting a lot of people up for disappointment because people are expecting certain things to happen or cer, certain things to just work or like thinking, oh, the problem is I don't have this huge team, or the problem is this or that. But the fact is that they're just not at that stage of business yet. They were able to grow a significant amount of their business beforehand. Okay. And that to me, that to me feels that to me feels like it's just a little bit misleading. Okay. Because yes, I do believe in, soft life. I a hundred percent. But I also think that there's gonna be a certain amount of work that's gonna need to be done if you are building your business as a mother, okay? Not before you become a mother, and then continuing to get as a mother, but as a mother. And the truth is, as I was talking to my friend Meg and she she started her business. Not as a mother. And then she had her children, and now she's now she's she literally had to, she literally had to remodel her business because it just wasn't the business that she had built before becoming a mother. She had, okay. She had savings and she had a lot of infrastructure. She already had an audience, so she had a lot of that already. So don't forget that, but she did have to, she did have to remodel her business and revamp her business for for her new life as a mom. So I think there's a certain, I think the most damaging myth about scaling is that it doesn't take any work or that it's just like about letting go or softening or blah, blah, blah, which is all very well and good until, you know until. You're not even at the stage in business and you're like expecting all this stuff to happen. You're expecting all, these sales to be made when you are not making it happen because you are not at the stage yet where it can just happen automatically. And I work with my clients on allowing it to happen automatically. Okay. However that takes time and building it up and it's just a very it just does take time. Okay so that is, that's just what I, I wanna say about that. That this whole, I think like I don't think we need to worry about the hustle culture as such. I think the issue is the issue is the, is believing that it should just happen and expecting things to happen without actually putting the work in. Okay. So if you could ban one piece of advice floating on Instagram, what would it be? Honestly, I think that it is the content calendars, which is hard because I know people who sell content calendars, and I definitely give I have a lot of content prompts from my clients inside of my courses and there's, it's not like a, it's not like they were bad, but I do think that content calendars are just gonna. Help you create very generic content. And I think that instead of being like, oh, what do I talk about today? Lemme look at my content calendar and pick a prompt. But I would rather you just sit and and have your content make sense in terms of your sales plan. And so I think when it comes to your sales plan when I talk about sales planning, really it's like being like, okay, what am I selling? How long am I selling it for? How long is my launch, for this offer going to be working backwards. Okay. What am I gonna be doing to get leads leading up to that? What am I gonna be doing to as a conversion event? Or some sort of of hype offer or some sort of hype event, right? And and that is your sales plan. And so your content. Needs to make sense within those kind of stages of your promotional periods as well. So while I do think that it does help like I, I like these hooks. It's so great to have hook ideas for content. You definitely need to have a very and actually I'm doing this right now with my friend and coach Megan, who I'm walking through I re rebuilding my source of all truth, so to speak. When it comes to my business, my offer is what makes me different, what makes me unique, what makes me stand out. It's stuff like that I already know, but I felt after a couple of years not really refreshing it so much, I feel like I really needed to go back to basics and get really back in touch with what. Why hire me? Why work with me? Why is my stuff the best thing in sliced bread? If it's not the best thing in sliced bread, what do I need to do to make it that way? And so when you have a lot of that stuff in place, when you have all that information in place, so you have your unique selling points about yourself, about your signature framework, which I'm always talking about, have your signature framework. Have your signature framework, right? When you have that. In place and you have also your offers and all these things about your offer. And actually give my, I give my clients content ideas to sell their offers specifically. So you're not gonna just be, thinking about okay, where are people right now and how can I create little content breadcrumb, so to speak, to lead them closer to where they need to be in order to understand that this offer is the best thing for them. But also. Having the logistics around your content in, in, in a, you could have one main document, you could have a different document for each offer, but what are the logistics? What are the inclusions? Why do you have all these inclusions? What is the framework you taken through from start to finish? Why do you do it this way? Why is your container structured a certain way as well? What is your, what is your story of this offer? What made you create this offer in the first place? What about your experience makes you uniquely qualified to deliver it? What is your style as a coach? All this kind of stuff, right? And whenever I am doing, whenever I'm creating an offer, right? I will journal this stuff out, I'll journal all of it out and helps me get really clear on on exactly what I need to do all the points that I wanna get across in the promotion of it again. Yeah, you can technically use a content prompt, but I do think that's just worth having these, like journaling brainstorms for each offer and even doing it again. Every time you plan on relaunching an offer or if you're creating an evergreen funnel for it before you create the evergreen funnel so that you can get it really fresh in your mind and get it really fresh, as you're creating the marketing content. So that, to me, I just, I don't like the content calendar thing. I just, I think that it's just, it just doesn't work. Your content calendar needs to be custom to you, needs to be custom to what you're selling, needs to be custom to, again, like your season, what's going on, custom to your signature framework as well. And I teach, I, I literally teach how to do this in the nonviable marketing method, which is my mini course on how to create how I create content. And I have a really easy basic Google spreadsheet that really helps me brainstorm everything I wanna talk about when it comes to selling my offer. That's why I highly recommend having. That main signature offer, that emerald city of offers where all roads lead to that offer, and then anything else that you're selling all kind of just trickles back to apply for this offer and move towards this offer. So I, that really makes things so simple for you as a mom to create your marketing content, to create your sales content, and to continue to bring people into your world and into your offers because you are creating so much brand and offer awareness around not just your offer, but also your message, also your unique selling points, also your framework. And so that is why I just do not believe in content calendars as a whole. I think it's great if you're just getting started and you just some inspiration to okay, what the hell do I talk about today? Sorry. But I do think that it's worth just sitting down and doing the actual work when you're creating your content. Okay, next question. What is one hot take you have that offer as the most coaches would disagree with? Ooh I, Ooh, that's the thing. It's so funny because. Back in the day, people were like, you need to have a signature offer. I talk about, I was talking about signature offers since 2020. Okay. And then people were like, no, have a multi offer business with all these different offers and all this kind of stuff, right? And then it went back to, oh, have a signature offer. Now we're doing a signature offer Again, I really do think that if you are a mother. Really having one signature offer is gonna be the best like your golden ticket to a sustainable business because it just creates a lot of that kind of sustainability for you and that like that that, that simplicity that's going to enable you to. Be very focused when it comes to your offers, your marketing, your messaging. And so whether you have one offer, let's say two, like I have one friend who she has basically like two main offers that she cycles through selling, and then she has smaller ones that she pops up in between and I love that. And her smaller ones, you can always, I think when you buy her smaller offers, you can, you have a certain amount of time to apply those towards one of her coaching programs. So I love that. That's also pretty simple in a way because. Either way, depending on, what stage of business you're at, you can just decide, oh, I'm gonna apply it towards this one or that one. And she has these like kind of micro like whatever, micro these a few hundred, say$300,$400 offers that she sells in between to give people one very clear result. And then she will be like, okay, great. Now you wanna apply this towards this coaching program or the other one, depending on what stage you're at in business. And so I really like that. So I really think that, again, the simpler, the better. As far as I'm concerned, as far as mothers are concerned I don't think that you need to do that. You, if it doesn't speak to you, it doesn't speak to you. But I will say that I have not casting my mind over all the coaches that I know. The ones who are always selling like a different thing every single day. It's oh, here's my one-to-one and here's here's a new mini mind and here's a new mastermind and here's a new micro mind and here's a new like a membership and a new coaching program here and a coaching program there, which is great. Like I love it. And I love learning things, right? I'm happy to buy that stuff, but I'm not going to have a business that runs like that, honestly, because. I know that I personally cannot hold more than two live containers sustainably for any long period of time. And ideally, like my sweet spot is one, I like to have one main place I'm showing up for every week and every day. And that is my core place with the, an occasional one-to-one client added in here or there. So that's what I would say. That's my hot take. My hot take about offers is that. Simplicity cells and anything you create should be leading towards your Emerald City offer, which is the one thing that everyone comes to eventually, like the landing pad. You want everyone to land in eventually when they come into your world. Okay. Next question. What is a tool or strategy everyone's hyp that you think is actually holding mom's back? Okay, I'm gonna chachi BT and AI and Claude and all that kind of stuff. It is amazing. It's a blessing and a curse. Excuse me. It's a blessing and a curse. And and the reason why I think that is because I think that as moms, it just, the cool thing about AI is just does so much work for you that it can become very seductive to just be like, okay, create my content, create my post and then it does, and you post it and then you move on with your day. But that post is just adding to the pile of. Sludge that the online co content space is, like you can tell, I can tell if something is written by ai and I can def, I can definitely tell if something is written by ai. And what I personally find is that is that it, is it, this content is actually going to break trust with your audience. So what I recommend, and I actually, I have a, I have an episode about how I use ai, how I use AI too much. And what I did to fix it, but I personally do is either I'm gonna plug what I, what, like my stuff. So I'll say a call, a client call. I'll plug that into the chat and I'll be like, help me come up with, some hooks to create these kinds of posts to sell this offer. And it knows what my offer is. Okay, great. Or Claude, I find Claude writes much better. But it will take my existing call and it will find, it will pull out hooks and pull out angles from that call. So it's not kinda just coming up with stuff by itself, because when it comes up with stuff by itself, a lot of the time it's like just wrong. You're like totally made up. And it's you remember that client that you spoke about? And I'm like, no, I never had that client. So either you feed your existing men, content into it, or you get it to ask you questions, and then you answer those questions and then it's still coming out of your head. And that to me solves the issue of when it comes to when it comes to. When it comes to, outsourcing too much to ai, it really, it will really help you and definitely. You wanna, if you wanna use chat BD to write like your first draft of something, okay, fine. But, I, I would not just copy and dump and move on with your day. It, it, honestly, I do not think it's gonna serve you. It's not gonna serve your audience. It's not gonna help you stand out. Certainly. And you think it's saving you time, but it's actually losing your time because it's losing you trust. And that is gonna take you a lot of time to build to build back up. That is what I think. I definitely think there's a lot of amazing ways it can be done. It could be used. I'm currently testing out something new that my friend created where I record, voice notes and then it turns it into different pieces of content. I'm testing it out right now. I wanna see how it works before I can recommend it. So again, great thing, but it has to be used responsibly, right? With great power comes great responsibility. I'm a geek. I'm a nerd. It is what it is. And and so I really do think that, it will feel like it's saving you time, but actually it is losing you trust. Okay. Ooh. Next batch of questions. What is a client red flag? You can now spot instantly. Okay. This is something when they talk to me like I'm going to save them. Like I've tried everything and nothing worked and this is gonna be the thing that saves me. That to me says red flag. Because honestly, I'm not God. I'm not a savior. And I cannot, if nothing works. I can't really help you, because it means that to me nothing works. It means that either your mind is not in a great place and it's gonna take a lot of work to get out of it, or you're just barking up like the entirely wrong tree. And I've had times where I've really tried to talk clients out of their niches or out of their, what they were doing.'cause I really strongly felt that like they, it just wouldn't really fit them. And they're like, no, I really I really wanna serve this audience. I'm like, okay, great. But I just feel like this movie, this offer maybe is not so aligned with this kind of audience. Maybe you wanna speak to this level of audience. And they're like no. I really like this audience. And it was and then it didn't really work so well because it was not aligned with that audience. I find sometimes when people like, like they, if they see you as the savior, it's just going, it's just, it's not gonna work. Because odds are, it's just going to make you feel like they're gonna eventually. Like first they pedestal you and then if you fall from their pedestal, because let's say the advice you give them doesn't work or they don't implement it the way you told'em to implement it or whatever it is, then they fall, it falls really hard. Okay. And I've seen that happen in the masterminds that I'm in, like with other people in the masterminds, how they went from oh, this coach is the best, things in Betty White and then all of a sudden she's the worst thing ever, right? That's just a big red flag that I've noticed. What is one boundary I put in place that changed everything for me? Not working on Fridays. I do sometimes do a little, sometimes I'll just check in on my clients quickly before on in Slack just to see if they're doing okay. But because, and they appreciate that because then I'm offline for the rest of the day because usually I'll be logging off on Friday around like 9:00 AM 10:00 AM Eastern due to my time zone. And because it's my Shabbat, it's my Sabbath and we don't use electronics on the Sabbath. And that is a that, that is just like, it's kinda like a mini boundary because I don't feel the need. Basically, I'll not save any work for Friday. I do not feel the need to work on Friday. It just makes me a lot less stressed when I need, know that all I need to do is focus on my family and cooking and baking and cleaning and doing what I need to do to get ready for the Sabbath. So I just do not work on Friday. Another thing that I really don't like to discuss another boundary that I put in place that I really don't like to do is talk about my marriage. I will mention it from time to time there. Actually, I do have one episode that's gonna be coming up that I'm gonna be discussing marriage and entrepreneurship. But I really overall do not like to I don't like to boast about my marriage or brag about my marriage or my husband or whatever like that. I don't know, it just feels every once in a while I'll post if it's our anniversary or if it's his birthday, father's Day, whatever. I'll post something maybe when we go out on a date, but like for the most part. We were taught, we were raised, to believe that blessings come to those who sh keep their mouth shut. I thank God I have an amazing husband. I have a wonderful marriage. It's been a lot of hard work and I will make reference to that because marriage and entrepreneurship as a mother, very often is very intertwined and it can bring up a lot of stuff. But overall I do not like to discuss my marriage in depth, when I tell my story and stuff like that, because to me it just doesn't feel like it's right. It's not just my story, it's also his story. And so I just feel like it's not the right thing to do. Like either way. If I post about, like if I complain about him, online and it's not respectful to him, and if I brag about how amazing he is, then it's gonna make other people feel bad about them, their lives maybe. I don't know. So I just don't, I don't see it as a win in either direction. Okay. Have you ever had to make a tough call with a client or a collaborator? What did you learn from it? Yeah, to be honest, there. There has been I have had a client who she, came and she was one of the savior ones. She very much she very much sucked up to me, oh my gosh, and you're so amazing and you're so amazing and you're so awesome and I love you and I just wanna learn from you and you're just so inspiring and whatever. And I was flattered and I felt like she had a lot, she had good foundations. Like she could have done really well. And she actually started doing really well. Immediately from joining my, as soon as she started joining, as soon as she joined my program, she was already getting wins and getting new clients and. And then, I don't know, she just all of a sudden just suddenly like from one day to the next, she was coming into our calls, showing up, participating, enjoying. Then one day she was just like, I haven't got what I want from this thing. I don't, from this program. I don't like it. I, and it's blah, blah, blah. And and I insist that you let me outta my membership and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And she like a lot of really rude. Things rude. I forgot what she said exactly, but it was very rude to the point where I just blocked her because I just didn't even want that energy in my life. In any case I had to make a tough call there because she signed a contract and I was within my rights to hold her to the entire contract. And I felt like that was that was just not. The energy that it was coming from, I just didn't see how it would be a win to hold her to it. But it made me very it made me very cautious about, taking clients in the future, keep an eye out for those red flags like the over like the overly flattering and kind of stuff like that. But, when, what I did do, because I realized this was like a misunderstanding maybe was I added to my contract that. A payment plan is not a membership and it is simply, me just financing your payment and therefore, once you said, once you sign the payment plan, you are gonna be held to that. Because I realized that if she said let me add my membership, and I was like. But it's not a membership, it is a extended payment plan that that I offer to you because you couldn't pay in full. And so I realized I really had to put that in words, specifically in my contract. So that was what I learned from it, is be very specific in your contract and kind of check, keep an eye out again for that, like those red flags, like the over flattering or the savior language. Or anyone who's who, anyone who said that oh, I worked with all these different coaches and I didn't like them. She, they give different reasons why they didn't like this one or that one. Odds are they're gonna find a problem with you too, because if someone has a problem with a lot of different people, odds are the problem is not all the other people, it's probably them. So that is that is what I learned. Okay, let's, oh, now it's asking about the hidden side of money. What did your first 10 K month actually feel and how is it different from what you imagined? I actually don't remember my first 10 K month because it happened without me even realizing it. And all of a sudden it was like an 11 K month. It was like after I left my first mastermind, I had about a month or two after that and I didn't even realize that I'd hit an 11 K month until like after the month was over and I was like, oh, shoot, that was last month was$11,000. And I was like, or$11,000 and something. I was like, wow. Like I didn't even realize that. That was so cool. And so I guess if what was different was that I thought it was gonna feel better and more exciting and more oh my goodness. And I was really proud of myself, but I realized like it didn't really take away all the self-doubt and all the self stuff, all the, like the self-confidence stuff. And that was. And that was what was interesting to me. I felt like once I hit 10 K months, I was gonna feel like a boss and like I knew everything and I was like, no, because I still felt like maybe it's a fluke and maybe I, I need to do more and maybe I need to be doing less. And what do I, what am I, it didn't really feel the same way I thought it would feel, but it did feel good because I was like, wow, I have all this like bonus money that I can save and, and or take out as a bonus for myself at the end of the year. It was very fun. It was very, it was fun, but not as exciting as I thought because. The mindset stuff was still there. And I see it, what's the hidden side of big months that no one really talks about? I think the hidden side of your first biggest months, like when you have, I come down my first 10 K month, when I have my first 20 K month, my first 30 K month even, is that it's gonna bring up a lot of insecurities. Like I just said, it's gonna bring up a lot of insecurities and that you're not like, I don't know that you. You're gonna be like, oh my God, like, how'd this happen? It must've been a fluke. Like, how did I do that? How can I recreate this? And you kinda have to retrace your steps and and oh, and now, and then you realize, oh, it's not even recurring. So now I'm back to 5K months, like af the next month after that. So I think that it is it's fun, but I think that like you really need to do the inner work to stay regulated no matter how much money you're making. Because you're gonna need to be able to be regulated in order to hold that much money without immediately freaking out. What have you learned about building a recurring revenue that keeps you sane as a mom of six? That's a really good question. I think really for me is building an offer that can stale, can scale sustainably is the most important thing. But without expecting that, it's not gonna take you any time at all. And that's the balance like you have to deliver to your clients. Like I, I love my mastermind so much, but I've, I've really thought about it going back and forth what does it look like? Do I add this kind of one-to-one or that kind of one-to-one? And so I really built it in a way that I can bring in 10 people or 20 people, maybe 25 people up to 25 people very simply and not feel overworked. Okay. So you really wanna think about the container of like how you're doing it. What is the offer that you're using to build that recurring revenue? If you're just doing it with just one-to-one clients, that's all very well and good, but you know it, depending on how long those contracts go, these are very limited recurring revenue months. And then you're back to square zero again. I think that number one, knowing the right offers to use to build that monthly recurring revenue. So a premium offer that has, considerable, like nice chunks of recurring revenue rather than$47 a month I think is what you want, probably wanna focus on. And I also want you to know that you can build recurring revenue as a service provider. You can build, you can have creative retainers that can enable you to build recurring revenue even as service provider when you're starting out. Okay? So I just wanna let you know that as well. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't have a membership. Like I have one client who has a membership and she loves it, but she really needs to work on like traffic. Okay.'cause that is gonna require a lot of traffic to scale to the point where it's gonna make a really big appreciable difference in her business and her life. And so either you're gonna use your membership as a way to nurture people and feed a more premium, offer, higher ticket, or you're going to. Have loads of traffic go towards that membership and like ev all everything goes through that membership like ads and YouTube and reels and all your traffic goes towards that membership and you're pumping a lot of traffic in monthly. So that is my, what I've learned, I. It also has to be something that enables you to like, deliver it without going crazy. So like I, I have a lot of asynchronous work in my ma in my mastermind, right? So I, we have a Slack channel that I will go, I will coach my clients in. I found a thread that was like 45 comments long, where we went back and forth over one of my clients launch plans, which I'm happy to do. But it needs to be asynchronous. I have one call a week with my mastermind that is where we have our calls and then and then. And then we, but then when they get reviews like in Loom or they get coaching for me in Slack, like a lot of it is on my own time. And that's what enables me to do this as a mom of six. Okay. What is one thing in the online space that secretly drives you nuts? I think for me, really it's the moms who are like, oh, the million, I'm a millionaire mom, millionaire mama, whatever. But they. Either had a they already had a, something huge that was supporting them beforehand. Whether it was their business that hit a certain level, and then they had children and their children's kind of then they had a nanny, they had help, they had, a house manager, or like a cook or whatever they did. Which I don't begrudge them at all, but I just don't like them. Basically saying, oh, just do it like me, because you can't just do it like them if you don't have the infrastructure in place. Or they had a corporate job or something that was supporting them, or a husband that was supporting them as they built their business that they didn't need to, they weren't depending on their business income in order to survive. I really, I hate that they leave that out, or they sideline it because then it, it just implies that you can have these a hundred K months, 200 k months, whatever. Without that foundation in place, that kind of annoys me. Okay, great, you're a millionaire mom now, but before you were just a millionaire and then you became a mom. So please tell me how to, tell me how to become a millionaire while you're a mom from scratch. And then, then let's talk. So that's that kind of drives me nuts. But it is another thing is really just like the there's like a. A pyramid scheme. I'm not gonna say the name of the person, but there's a certain person in the online coaching space. It's like the top of this pyramid. And then you can like literally see the downline of all the coaches that worked with her and that worked with each other and that learned from each other. And you can really like, trace I joke that you can trace it through the branding. Like you have like the bright pink, bubbly candy, pink branding with lots of bright and and Starbursts and flashes and huge like neon letters. That's one branding kind of downline. And then you have the dark, moody black and white photo branding like. And so I just, that annoys me. Like as soon as I see it, I'm like, already, I'm like, okay, great. Which, okay, I know exactly which downline, I know who your coaching grandmother is, so to speak. So that kind of just just makes me roll my eyes and, it rubs you the wrong way. And I just, I didn't like, I just don't like that, because I think that a lot of that, that, that world is very toxic. I could do an entire episode about this, honestly. But there's just like this is where all that, the whole coaching industry got their bad, got a bad name from where they're like, just pay me$20,000 for the secret offer to play in the potentiality of what you can do and all that like that that, that. That, I don't know, psychobabble or whatever it was, that they were just basically just being like give me your money and everything will change because you came into my energy. I cannot stand that. I can't stand it. So that just drives me crazy. What has it been used to teach or believe that you now see differently? Oh, this is a really good one. Okay. I used to talk about selling every day, and I do believe that you should sell every day. I still do. If you wanna make money every day, I think you should show up and sell every day. However, I do also now understand that I dunno, for some reason I was able to do it much easier when I, when my kids were all younger, but I don't have the same capacity to show up and sell the same way I used to every day like I used to. Okay? And so I, to me, I would rather build more I would rather build more. More infrastructure in the back end that will do the selling for me. That, that, so that way, like I, I don't necessarily need to be selling front facing every single day if I don't want to, if that makes sense. So I'd rather be able to like, have ads going towards lead magnets that go into, funnels or have ads that go towards application funnels, like things like that. But I'd rather do that than have to be showing up every single day. With sales content. That's what I'd much rather spend my time on right now. Okay. So that is something that I use teacher believe and I'd be like, oh, you don't need funnels. And you don't need funnels to make six figures. You don't. But I do think that the go beyond six figures, you definitely need funnels. Okay. That's what I think. Okay. What. There's a lot of questions here. I'm trying to find some good ones because we're, it was already getting really long. So what trait or habit has mattered more than strategy in building your business? To me I really think it is a mindset thing. And I know that's so cliche, but there's also like this, there's a certain level of confidence and when you don't feel confident, like leaning into what makes you confident because there are people who are going out there who are so mediocre. So mediocre, and they're absolutely not. They're absolutely not as good as you at what you do, but they're showing up with a lot more confidence and so people are buying from them. Okay, I really think that if you are not showing up, as your full self and with confidence and just taking up space, right? And really like showing up, knowing that you are, your clients would like, the best thing they could do would be to hire you. Then you need to do the work to believe that, right? And if it's not actually true and not in integrity to believe that, then do the work to make it true. So that is honestly that's, that to me has been the biggest thing. And I have to talk about that. I talk about that a lot because I realize, like I actually talk about mindset a lot more than I thought I do in my coaching. And the truth is, it's a huge piece of what I do with my clients because I'm like, okay. What are like when they come to the, with strategy, like the first thing we work on is, okay, what's your capacity? What are your non-negotiables? What you absolutely, do not wanna do. What do you feel comfortable doing? What do you not feel comfortable doing? Because that is really like the first thing step you have to take. Because if you don't, if you're doing stuff that doesn don't feel comfortable for you, you're not gonna be convincing, you're not gonna sell, you're not gonna do well in your business. So I really do think that is the, is keeping my mindset strong. And my mindset has not been strong. My business has not been strong. So even though I had the best strategy, the business has not gone as well because I was not showing up with the conviction. I think conviction is the biggest thing. Conviction in yourself. Conviction in your offer is conviction in, in, in what you do for your clients. And when you have that kind of, that trifecta of when. Of belief, of conviction, then that is going to serve you. So well ooh, there's so many good questions here, but I'm gonna just wrap up with a couple. Okay. We talk about burnout and spirals and things like that. How do you reconcile your ambition with the real emotional weight of raising six kids alongside it and not burning out? And this is a really great question. I, first of all, I have six children. I do not feel like I'm done yet. We're, this is still a negotiation with with the other party, but I think, I know if I didn't have my kids like. Maybe I'd be doing, I'd be like, so fur so much further ahead. But in a way, I think like the thing that has kept me going, and this is another question, like when things feel heavy, when things feel like too much, what keeps you showing up anyway? Keeps you going anyway, my family is, what keeps me going is the dreams that I have for them. What I want for them is what keeps me going. And so I have to accept like to me, like I said, like my idea of luxury is different than the like. Idea of luxury overall. I have to accept that maybe my growth is not gonna, maybe it will be, maybe it won't be, maybe it won't be as fa, maybe it will be faster or maybe it won't be as fast. I don't know. But it is my journey. And if I'm making the money that I need to support my family, and maybe I'm not putting as much as I want to into savings because I don't know, my kids just started eating like three times as much, or my kids just all, they all grew out of all their pan at the same time or whatever. I don't know. But the fact is if my business is able to support my family, then that is something to be grateful for. And so if I'm not, catapulting beyond, doubling and tripling and quadrupling and, 50 K months and a hundred K months and whatever that's okay. And would it be nice? Of course it would be nice. I would love that. It would be great. But I also have non-negotiables and there, I have, I had a coach in the past who'd be like, I knew that I was gonna show up and do whatever it takes as long as it takes, no matter what it takes. And I was like, I'm not gonna do whatever it takes. I'm not gonna because if it takes my family, if it takes my marriage. If it takes my mental health, it's already taken my physical health, then I'm actually like, that's a new thing I'm really working on this year with my husband is our physical health and our, our wellness. But if it's gonna take those things for me, that, that's, that is the most important thing to me in my, my, my role as a wife and a mother is my most important role. Bar none there are some things I will not do. I will not build my business in certain ways. I will not do certain things. I will not build my business on just doing sales calls all the time. Like I simply cannot it's just not possible. I won't do it. I'm like, and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna have to just find another way. I'm just gonna have to find another way. So that's how I recognize silent. I'm very ambitious. I'm an Enneagram three. Okay. When I was in high school, I wanted to be an O-B-G-Y-N, just like my dad. I then, I. Then I dropped out of high school and and then I put, then when I got married at the age of 18 years old, and I, then I got pregnant a few months later, I decided that like my goal was going to be the best mother in the world. Now, obviously I'm not the best mother in the world according to my children. Sometimes I'm the worst mother in the world, but I really, to me, my ambition is to be successful alongside being the best mother I can possibly be and the best wife I can possibly be. So that's my ambition. So if my business is growing or at least maintaining throughout that, then that's, that to me is hitting my goals. So I feel really good about that. Okay. There's two last questions. If you had to start over completely over today with 15 hours a week and zero audience, what would you do first? And lucky for you? I already have an episode all about that. I'm not gonna even repeat it here, I'm gonna just link it in the description which is exactly what I would do if I was starting from scratch. So I'm gonna just link it in the description. So go check it out. It's really good. And and what piece of advice would you leave for the mom listening who feel is behind or not enough and. Oh God, you are enough. You are so enough. You are the perfect mother for your children. And when you find you know the right mentor or the right way to do things your way, you'll find a way to do things your way. And it might take some testing things out and throwing some spaghetti at the wall and figuring things out, but you are more than enough. Okay. And. I can tell you that you're not behind, but you're still gonna feel behind because there's so much stuff that you want for your family. I know that. I know the feeling. Okay? So all I'm gonna say is as long as you have your values and your priorities very clear to you, and you make your, create your strategies and implement through the lens of those priorities, you'll be fine. Because that is how you're going to hire the right coaches. That is how you're going to find the right strategies for you. That's how you're gonna find the right business models for you. Doing it through the lens of what you value most, whatever that looks like to you, whether it's staying home with your kids or or sending your kids to great afterschool activities, or taking amazing vacations with your family or traveling the world, whatever that is, you're going to do everything through that lens, and when you do it through that lens of your priorities and your values, the path will become clearer. It will become clear and if you, obviously, if you wanna chat. I am a mom of six children. I started my business with four children, so I know a little, what a thing or two about having a business and growing a family at same, at the same time. If you wanna chat with me my CEO on Mastermind is on wait list right now. So if you wanna get on the wait list, just send me a message with the word wait list on Instagram and I'll get you on the wait list for when it opens and we can chat about whether it's the right fit for you because honestly I want you to build the business that you deserve with the family that you have, with the goals that you have and hit those goals. That's what I want for you. That is it. Let me know if you enjoyed this episode format of having chat, bt interview me, or having me just answer interview questions. I'm actually curious to see how it lands. So let me know if any of these landed with you and I cannot wait to be back with you next week. Happy 100th episode friend, and I will see you again next week. I. I can't thank you enough for listening to raising your business. I hope this episode has inspired you to take another step towards building a business and life that you love, and growing your income in a way that works for you and your family. If you enjoy this episode, please take a second to rate and review and let's connect that on Instagram screenshot and share it on Instagram Stories so we can get the word out to more mom business owners like you. Tag me at the El Behan and share your biggest breakthrough from today. See you next week.