The Create Your Day Podcast

111. Are You Sacrificing Your Home Life for Your Success?

• Jenn Cody | Productivity & Systems for Entrepreneurs • Season 1 • Episode 111

Share episode

Ever feel the high-performance version of you walk through the front door and start running the house like a meeting? We unpack how a powerful CEO identity can drift into every corner of life and unintentionally crowd out warmth, play, and ease. Rather than flipping a mythical “work off” switch, we walk through a practical approach to integration—bringing all of who we are while choosing the right facet to lead with, moment by moment.

We share simple, real-world tools to shift from strategy to presence without losing your edge. You’ll learn how a two-minute threshold ritual can dissolve work intensity before it hits the dinner table, why a three-second pause can transform conversations, and the exact consent-based question that prevents unasked-for coaching: “Do you want help thinking this through, or do you want me to just listen?” We also map a weekly reflection practice to spot where you made someone feel managed instead of loved and set a small intention to course-correct.

Across the episode, we reframe ambition as an asset that needs more gears, not fewer. At work, lead with solutions and foresight; at home, lead with curiosity and connection while keeping your competence available in the background. This shift builds trust, reduces reactivity, and actually sharpens your leadership because real rest returns. If you’ve ever heard “you’re going to make it homework,” this conversation will help you respond with empathy instead of a plan. Press play, try one practice tonight, and tell us what changed at your table. If this resonated, subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review so more leaders can grow power and presence together.

Thanks for listening!

Connect With Me:

📩 Join my email list: https://www.jenncodysolutons.com/subscribe
📱 DM me on Instagram: @solutonsbyjenncody

If you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend who needs to hear this message!

🎧 Subscribe to and Review The Create Your Day Podcast on:
📌 Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Buzzsprout

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, you've nailed the presentation, you have closed the deal, you've led the team meeting with like total confidence. You come home feeling accomplished, maybe you even feel proud, and your daughter asks you, Can you help me with my art project? So you immediately start thinking, what's the most efficient approach? What materials are we going to need? How long is it going to take? And maybe is this the best use of our time before dinner? Then let's say your partner says he's thinking about switching jobs, and you go straight into strategy mode. You say, Okay, let's map this out. What are your options? What's the timeline? Have you thought about the financial implications? And then you see the look. The look that says, I just wanted to talk to you, not get consulted by you. You built this business to create more for your family, right? More time, more freedom, more options. But somewhere along the way, you became so good at being the CEO that you forgot how to just be. My name is Jen Cody. Welcome to the Create Your Day podcast. Today we are talking about something that is a huge issue for people when they are building businesses. And that is how the identity that makes you successful can sometimes make you impossible to live with. So if this is your first time here, welcome. I help ambitious people get clarity and gain confidence so they can scale their businesses without losing themselves and going insane in the process. That last part is what is actually the episode today is all about. So I talk a lot about building a business that's going to serve your life. What I don't talk about enough is what happens when the version of you who is crushing it in your business starts showing up everywhere else and not in a good way. You know exactly what I'm talking about. So let's get clear on this part. When you started your business, you had to develop a new version of yourself. You learn to be decisive when you used to overthink everything. You learn to be strategic when you used to react. You learn to delegate, to lead, to think three steps ahead. And it worked. You built something real, something you are really proud of. But identities don't clock out, right? That CEO version of you, the one who is strategic and confident and always optimizing things, she doesn't just shut off when you walk through your front door. So she becomes your default setting. And now when your child is telling you about their day, you're half listening, you're mentally running through tomorrow's client meeting. And when your partner wants to speak to you and kind of like walk through a decision, you're already six steps ahead with the solution. When someone just needs you to be present, are you busy trying to fix things, improve things, and strategize? You've become really efficient at the cost of being present, strategic at the cost of being soft, and incredibly capable at the cost of being connected. And those are real costs. The worst part is this happens really gradually. So we don't always even notice. Our family may stop bringing the small stuff to us because they know that we're going to turn it into a project. Your partner does they stop asking for your opinion because they know they're going to get a full analysis when they just really wanted some empathy. Do your kids learn to go to their other parent or to someone else for the fun stuff and come to you when they're looking for logistics? That's not fun stuff. And it's not the stuff they're going to remember either. So you become the household COO, the family project manager, the person everyone respects, but nobody really wants to hang out with them anymore. And you're sitting here thinking, I'm doing everything right. I'm building this business for us. Why does it feel like I am losing them? This really does happen. And I've heard people say things that truly break my heart. I've heard people talk about, you know, um, their child asking their partner to help them with something. And when they asked, why didn't you ask me? Their child said, You're gonna make it homework. That is terrible. We do not want our children thinking of us that way. We don't want our partners thinking thinking of us that way. We don't want to get so good at optimizing everything that we optimize the joy right out of our relationships. And this is a big deal. So I totally get it because I know that CEO identity. I coach people to it. She's very powerful. She's the one who built this life. So when you try to kind of dial her back, it can feel a little dangerous, like you're going to lose your edge, like if you're not strategic everywhere, or you're going to slip back being into this overwhelmed person, this reactive person that you used to be. But that's actually not how it works. The problem is not that you became the CEO, the problem is that you started believing you have to be the CEO everywhere, and you don't. In fact, one of the most powerful things you can do for both your business and your family is to learn when to be the CEO and when to be something else entirely. Because ambition, that's not the problem. The problem is when the ambition is the only gear that you know how to drive in. Then what do you do? So, how do you stop being the CEO at home without losing the parts of that identity that do actually serve you? How do you stay powerful in business while also being present for the people that you love? It starts with understanding something that a lot of people don't kind of grasp when it comes to identity. And it's not about turning it off. When people talk about work-life balance, they act like you need to be two completely different people: work you and home you, CEO, you, and then mom, partner, human you. But that is really exhausting. And honestly, it's pretty impossible. You can't just flip a switch and become a different person when you walk through the door. Your brain does not work that way for sure. What you need is not compartmentalization, it's integration. Hear that? Not compartmentalization because so many women, we it doesn't always come naturally for us to compartmentalize, and we think we have to get better at it in order to make this happen. That's not what we're looking for. We're looking for integration. Integration means that you bring all of who you are to every part of your life, but you get intentional about which parts you lead in with different contexts, right? So at work, you lead with strategy. At home, you lead with presence. You still need both things at both places. At work, you lead with solutions, and at home, maybe you lead with curiosity. At work, can you be leading with efficiency? While you're at home, you're leading with connection. All things that we do need in both places. So we're not becoming less powerful. We're becoming more aware of what that power looks like in different spaces in our lives. So here's what I want you to ask yourself. What does this moment, whatever moment you're in, what does this moment need from me? Not what do I default to, not what am I good at, but what does the moment actually need? Because when your child comes to you upset about something that happened at school, that moment doesn't need a strategic problem solver, even if that's what you're good at. It needs a safe person to just listen. When your partner is processing a really hard day, that moment doesn't need a solution, even if that's your default. What that moment needs is empathy. So think about when you're at dinner and everybody's talking about their day. That moment does not need you to optimize it. It just needs you to be fully connected and paying attention. Because I know the CEO in you wants to add value. You want to be fixing, you want to be improving, you want to be strategizing. But sometimes the most valuable thing you can do is just be. Just be there and be there fully without any kind of agenda. This is not weakness. So I don't want you to hold back from this because you think that it's showing weakness. This is wisdom. The more present you can be at home, the more powerful you will be in business because you will learn how to actually rest. You'll learn how to actually recharge. You'll stop running on fumes and start running on purpose. Not like on purpose, like intentionally, but on purpose. You'll be running on your purpose. And this requires something that we talk about a lot here, and that is self-awareness, because you need to catch yourself in the moment if you're going to change it. You need to notice when are you going into CEO mode at home? When are you feeling the impulse to strategize, to optimize, to fix? And that's what I want you to stop and ask yourself: is this what's needed right now, or is this just my default setting? Because I know you, and a lot of you are really brilliant at this. You're going to be noticing that every single time your husband wants to talk about your his day, you go right into coaching mode. You're asking strategic questions, you're offering frameworks, you're trying to get him to see things differently. It's okay. We do this all day long, right? So it's normal for us to try to, for us to naturally bring that home with us. But one day, your partner is going to say, I don't want you to coach me. I just want you to care about me. And that moment is going to change everything for you. So why don't we try to change things before you get to that moment? I want you to realize that the skills that make you an incredible business person, whatever, think about what you do for a living all day. So for me, I do coaching and consulting, right? So the skills that make me really good at coaching and consulting have the potential to make me exhausting to live with if I'm trying to coach and consult my family through their life. So we need to start practicing listening, not coaching, not solving, just being present with whatever the other person is feeling. And it will be uncomfortable at first, and you will feel like you're not adding enough to the conversation. You're not adding value because that's our default, right? We want to consistently be adding value. But then you will realize that your value with these people who love you and who you love, your value with them is not around what you can fix. It's in who you are when you are not trying to fix anything. That is the shift, and that is what integration looks like. Remember, we're trying to integrate that identity, that work CEO identity with our home partner, parent, friend. It's not even just at home, it's with the people we love. How do we integrate those identities? What does this actually look like in the real world? Because I want you to be able to build the muscle, right? That muscle memory is how we know when to be strategic and when to just be present. So I'm going to give you some specific things that you can do that are going to change how you show up when you are around these people. So the first thing we're going to do is around thresholds. Let's call it like a threshold ritual. This is something I want you to do every single time you transition from work to home. So this doesn't have to be elaborate, it just has to be intentional. And some of you don't have any transition. You know, for some of us, we're driving home, so we have a car ride. Do we get home and just sit in the car for two minutes before we go inside? That could be a threshold ritual that we do. Take some deep breaths here. Ask yourself, who does my family need me to be right now? But for some of you, you may not work outside the home. Maybe all of your work is done right here in your house, like me, when I'm not out with clients. There are days, like today, actually, where I am really in my office for eight hours straight. So how do I transition from work to home? Maybe that means I'm going to just change, right? I need to like go inside, reset myself, take off the work outfit, put something else on, and just be a different person, right? Put my family outfit on, whatever that might look like. It just brings you into a different context, a different mode. Maybe you have time to go for a walk around the block, take a shower, five minutes of sitting somewhere quietly. The point is not what you do, the point is that you create a conscious transition, a moment where you shift from being the CEO to being present. Because without any transition, you're going to carry all the intensity of your workday straight into your home, straight to the dinner table, straight to the activities with your children, right? And your family is going to absorb that intensity, whether you mean to give it to them or not. And I know that you don't. So you don't want to burden them with this, but you will. So before you do anything else, I want you to just pick something. One simple thing you can do, maybe before you open the front door, put your hand on your heart and say, they don't need me to fix anything. They just need me. Imagine that. If we can just ground ourselves in that thought, how much more connected and present would we be with the people we love? Put your hands on your heart. They don't need me to fix anything, to strategize anything, to optimize anything. They just need me. That one sentence will help you remember your value at home is not about what you accomplish. It's who you are when you're actually not accomplishing anything else but being present with those you love. Okay, so that first thing, the thresholds. Now, how can we practice listening more? Because now that we've transitioned and we're present with our family, we're present with our loved ones, we want to be present and actually listen to them. So when someone is telling you something, anything at all, can you pause before you respond? It's okay to let there be silence. Maybe even count to three so that you're um consciously making yourself pause for a good moment, and it's not just however long it takes you to take a breath. Count to three. Your default might be to immediately respond, right, with some advice, some strategy, some solution that automatically pops up in your head. You can't necessarily turn that off. So it may still pop into your head, but that pause creates space for you to choose a different response. In that pause, ask yourself, do they need a solution? Or do they need to be heard? Most of the time, it is the latter. Do they need a solution or do they need to be heard? And if you're not sure, you can always ask. It's okay to say, do you want me to help you think through this? Do you want me to just be here to listen? You know, like there's it's okay to ask what someone is looking for from you as well, because maybe they are looking for your help in thinking through something. That's perfectly okay because you're a great person to do that. But asking them and allowing them to lead that interaction, really, really powerful for your relationships. That one question can save so many conversations because it's going to show that you're not making assumptions. You're not assuming what they need, you're actually making space for what they want and not trying to uh drive the bus, so to say. So we have our thresholds, we have our listening practice that we're going to do. Next, I want you to be able to check in with yourself, even if it's once a week. So you're going to set aside 15 minutes every week, doesn't matter when it is, towards the end of your week. So if maybe that's Friday, maybe it's Sunday, whatever you see as the reset button, right? Whenever it makes most sense for you, because this is going to be reflective. This is not about setting yourself up for the week to come. This is about checking in with yourself about how you showed up the week that just passed. So I want you to ask yourself three questions. The first one is, when did I show up this past week as the CEO when I should have just been present? Be really, really honest with yourself. The second one is when did I make someone feel managed instead of loved? No one wants to feel managed instead of loved. And then the last one is, what can I do more intentionally? Or what's one way I can be more intentional about who I am at home next week? So which version of you is going to show up this coming week now? How can you be really intentional about choosing that person? I the reflective exercise, it's not to beat you up, it is to build self-awareness. The more we notice patterns, the easier it is to interrupt them. So we want to really focus on what are the patterns that we're constantly doing. Essentially, that makes it a pattern, right? And how do we interrupt that? Because you might want to even have this conversation with your family, now that I think about it. You can ask them, am I bringing too much of my work energy home with me? What would it look like for me to be more present with you? Everybody's different, you know, like maybe your partner needs something from you that's very different from what your friend or your mother or your sister or your sibling, you know, whatever someone else needs for you to be more present with them. Asking them for their opinion, it takes courage because you might hear things you don't want to hear. You know, that feedback can sting a little bit, but that feedback is also gold because it gives you the clarity you need to be able to make these shifts. Again, this is not weakness. You are not losing your power by asking. You're using your power to build something more important than any business success. And that is real connection with the people that you are building this life for. Imagine. Ah, so beautiful. And they will be so happy that you did this. Nobody really talks about this when we're building businesses, right? We talk a lot about revenue and marketing and scaling, and those things are all important. And they do tell you how you can be a powerful CEO. Those things are all part of that identity. But the identity that you build to succeed in business can become a real hindrance, a real barrier for you with connection in your home. And I don't want you to be lonely in your home. You know, entrepreneurship is a lonely place. You don't want to feel lonely at home, also. The skills that make you really, really smart in front of an audience, the skills that you bring to a boardroom or to a conference room, to a meeting, to a seminar, that can make you exhausting at the dinner table. And nobody is going to tell you that when you learn to integrate these identities and you act, you don't compartmentalize them, right? But you just know when to be strategic, when to be soft. That is one of the most important leadership skills that you could ever develop. So I'm so happy to share that with you. It really is going to change how you show up and how your family receives you. So what I want you to hear is that you do not need to choose between being powerful and being present. You do not have to sacrifice connection for competence. You just have to get clear about what each moment actually needs from you. That person that's building a business, you are building something incredible. And she's not going anywhere. She doesn't need to go anywhere. But she also doesn't need to show up everywhere, right? Sometimes your family just needs the version of you who isn't trying to fix everything. Who isn't trying to fix anything. Be there fully, without any agenda, not weakness, expansion. This is what it looks like to grow your business without losing yourself, and honestly, without losing the people that matter the most to you. So I really hope that this resonated with you. I want you to take this information out there, create your day, create your business in the best way possible. I want to hear how you're implementing this. Right? Let me know. Send me an email, DM me on Instagram. But I want to hear how you're doing and how you're creating the lives, the businesses, the days that you truly, truly deserve. Thank you so much for joining me. Until next time, take care of yourself, take care of each other, and I will see you here next week.