The Life We Built Instead of the One We Were Told to Want

What if you didn’t fail at the life you were sold—you simply outgrew it?

In this solo episode of Raising Hustle, I share why my husband and I chose an unconventional life as two business owners raising a baby without a traditional schedule—and how it brought us more alignment, closeness, and peace.

This is a reflection on letting go of the “ideal” script, redefining success, and choosing presence over performance.

If the traditional path no longer fits, this episode is your reminder: You are allowed to build a different life.

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This episode is sponsored by FM Bookkeeping 💛

FM Bookkeeping exists to empower business owners and give them peace of mind around their finances. We believe you deserve clarity, confidence, and support—without shame, judgment, or overwhelm.

Whether you’re behind, confused, or just tired of carrying the mental load of your numbers, FM Bookkeeping is here to help you feel grounded and in control again.

If you’re ready to stop stressing about your books and start feeling supported, visit:

👉 https://www.fmbookkeeping.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Raising Hustle, the unfiltered podcast for the moms who are building empires with babies on their hips and grits in their hearts. I'm your host, Mariel Fry, bookkeeper by trade, hustler by nature, and mama by choice. Around here we're raising kids, raising hell, and raising the bar. If you're tired of choosing between nap time and next level dreams, this is your space. Let's redefine what it means to have it all on our own damn terms. Hey mamas, welcome back to Raising Hustle. I'm so personally excited to talk about this episode because this probably is one that feels so aligned to me and my life. Because the truth is most parents and entrepreneurs were afraid to say this out loud. You didn't fail the life you were sold. You simply outgrew it. Because I know for myself, I was taught that usually dad has a nine to five job, mom stays home, or nowadays we have two dual incomes of two nine to five. We're supposed to do just the daycare or have a nanny or do some kind of school-based childcare. Super predictable routine, weekends off, and truly that that balance of separating work and life. But for myself and my husband, that model does not fit and it does not work. Because we are two business owners. You have a baby with a second on the way, no village, no typical schedule. And yet, and yet, more closeness, more freedom, more alignment than we've ever had before. Because after today's episode, I really want you to think about a different life, what it could cost you, what it gave you, and how peace is often found outside of what society celebrates. Because I know this so relates to me, and I hope, mama, it really relates to you or could relate to you. Number one, we were sold a life that was never designed for us. Let's really dive into this for a second, because when you think of Caveman and before almost the Industrial Revolution, right, there was no like schedule. And maybe there was to a certain point, depending what you did, but nowadays there is such a routine of what life should look like based on societal expectations, cultural expectations. This perfect family. Dad works nine to five, mom stays at home, or nowadays two nine to five jobs, put the kid in daycare, have weekends off, and shut off at five o'clock, commute. And that's just how it should go. Entrepreneurial families will never in a million frickin' years fit that mold. And I'm not ashamed to admit that, like, we're not supposed to feel like we have to work a nine to five, and we can feel like we want to be entrepreneurial. I feel like for myself, before having a child, before starting a business, I questioned corporate America a lot. I questioned going into an office and doing tasks and getting paid every two weeks and asking for permission for time off. It just doesn't feel right. And you feel so guilty that you should feel like honored that they hired you at this job. And for me, it was working in New York and working right outside of Times Square and having this like perfect life. Then why are so many of us miserable in that? Why are so many of us so unhappy? I think it's so rare that you hear about somebody really quote unquote happy working for someone. And I questioned that for a really, really long time, like trying to fit in this mold that never was supposed to be meant for me. And I realized that being an entrepreneur was something I was always meant to do. I remember my husband, one of our first dates, he was like, You should be an entrepreneur. And I said, What would I do? And here I am four years later with FM Bookkeeping, which is my bookkeeping firm, doing Raising Hustle, this podcast, and of course doing Two Cents or Business Networking newsletter. Never thought in a million years this would be my life, but I'm so honest and authentic and aligned with who I am. It feels so good because I can be at home with my child, but also hire the help that I need when I need it. And it's not typical, it's not normal. But I think at the end of the day, we were sold such a promise that this job was going to guarantee us raises, guarantee us promotions. And we're seeing time and time again, I follow LinkedIn a lot, it's just not always the case. And it's really unfortunate. I wish it was. I wish that there could be a better system, I guess, for people to grow and make more money and feel like they're valued. But again, depending on the company, that's not necessarily the case. Because number two is why we rejected the traditional shut setup. Because, first of all, let me caveat this. I started my business before my husband started his. And when I was doing my business, my husband was definitely jealous that I'd go out to lunches and happy hours and meetups and all these things. And he really wanted that too. And for us, our lives no longer look like the normal typical life. I'll work four or five in the morning. I work seven o'clock, eight o'clock at night. My husband works usually during the day. He's running around to a million jobs. Sometimes he can come home to appointments, sometimes he comes home when I have a meeting. We have different rhythms and we have different seasons of life. I have busy seasons, he has busier seasons, and we just kind of work it out. And for us personally, I'm not saying childcare or daycare isn't something that is needed. For many families, that is critical for them to work. We do not have another option. For us, we didn't really want that. We both grew up with a stay-at-home mom, working dad. And we just wanted, I wanted to be home, but I still wanted to make money. And it was really hard for me to balance that. It's really hard for me to figure out what that looks like for our family. May I continue to grow and thrive a business while also raising a human, right? And now raising two. And I feel so aligned with what I'm doing because I feel like I read a lot about mompreneurs and just women working part-time, and they are the happiest women out of any of us. They're happier than the full-time mom, and they're happier than the stay-at-home mom. Not saying either one of those are bad. Let me clarify this, because I don't want someone to have the preconceived notion that one way or the other is better than one way or the other. That's not the case. What I like about the part-time setup is that moms can feel like they have somewhere to go, but they don't have to feel like they're doing it every day. It's kind of the escape or the break they need just to like talk to humans and adults and have the interaction and get dressed up and put on makeup and wear an outfit and like feel beautiful. But also we can be at home with our children and really give them that time too. In anything in life, there's a trade-off. When you work full-time, you're trading off time to work and make money for your family. When you're stay-at-home mom, that means you're staying at home and you can't work, or maybe just the option isn't there right now. But for our family, and part of the reason I came up with this podcast was I want women to feel that they can do this. And I think the biggest way women can build being an entrepreneur, building a business is truly online. If you have access to Wi-Fi, internet, computer, phone, there's so much out there that you can make money doing. And that's why I'm hopefully interviewing lots of different folks who do different businesses. But for me, I felt very in tune and aligned with this because it feels like the right balance for my family. And I just want you to think out the side of the box, maybe this could be the right balance for yours. Number three, our marriage works because our life is so unconventional. So true. I mean, look, my husband will work six days a week. He'll typically work a Saturday, maybe half a day, but he'll still be working. And we kind of balance. We work together, we communicate a lot. At least I try to communicate a lot, put things on calendars, schedule, appointments, everything. Everything lives on a Google calendar. We have a skylight frame. I'm obsessed with it. And we try to just be realistic about what's going on. Sometimes it's day-to-day. Sometimes we plan weeks out. It really depends. I'm more of the planner. My husband is more last minute. But that works for us. And so we may not have a lot of time to see each other, but we really try to make the time when we can. And we try to just communicate, hey, babe, can you be home this time so I can go to this event? Or he'll ask me, hey, babe, can you make me some food? I'm going to pick up. We're trying to just really be there for each other and support each other and be a team. And that's the most important thing is to be a team. And it can be really hard some days, both being entrepreneurs and we both have businesses where clients can be demanding and they need us. But we are building businesses together. Like even though I would never work with my husband in a business, let me be clear. I'll never work with my husband in a business. He'll never work with me in a business. But we are helping each other grow. So a lot of times people will be like, well, what are your dinners like when you go out? And this is as little as we go out. We just talk about our life and our businesses and how we're growing and making money. And what do we want to do? What do we want to plan? Like, it's not so much about like our son, it's about just so many other things, but our businesses that we talk about. Our lives are just not conventional. The thing is, when you work for a nine to five, you get the corporate holidays, right? You get Martin Luther King, President's Day, Memorial Day, maybe you get Good Friday, you get Fourth of July, you get all these holidays. And so naturally, my husband and I will take some of these holidays, but I will tell you a lot of times we probably don't. I'm usually working or doing something on a holiday. And same with my husband. We both work holidays and we both just understand each other. And for us, it's brought us a lot closer. When I had my business and he was a W-2 9 to 5 employee, he couldn't understand my unconventional lifestyle and how I spoke to clients. He couldn't understand why I'd pick up a call on a Friday night or why I did certain things and look, I'm trying boundaries to be better. But generally, he couldn't understand that until he became a business owner. Now he understands. And he went through a lot of growing pains that I went through. So I can coach him to say, listen, you're going through this right now. It's going to get better. Sometimes you have to make the mistake to learn. And for us, we've been able to kind of build these beautiful lives around businesses where we know the catalyst is making money. And look, we have to save, spend, and invest. That's something I believe in with the bottom of my heart that you kind of need this like umbrella. But the the source, the source of this is making money. For the both of us, we are making money, but we're doing it in the most non-traditional way by being business owners. And it can be challenging, but the one thing I love is that we both really understand each other in a way that can be hard if one partner is a business owner and the other one is not. But different strokes for different folks. It's not for everybody. But this is just how our marriage works and this is how we align. Number four, parenting without a village, but with a partnership. So this is interesting because we moved away from family, and I've mentioned this on the podcast before, depending when I upload this episode or when you've heard this. And this is hard depending on the kind of person you are. So I have my sister who loves to support and people. And she has a mother-in-law that comes over, she gets the help, and that's incredible. So a lot of people have that opportunity of family nearby to help them. And that's a beautiful thing. But I think you have to, for someone who doesn't have a village or help, you have to think about what you actually need, especially once you're paying for it. Then you really think about okay, what am I willing to spend the money on? And for some people, they want to spend money on a laundry service because they hate laundry. For some people, it's cleaners. For some people, it's organizers. For many, many people like myself, it's babysitters. I think for Jonathan and I, we are a partnership in terms of just being there for each other. Like if shit hits the fan, like we're there for each other. Like if his car breaks down, I'm the call he's making. And if I don't answer, it's not a good situation. We are there for each other whenever we need to be. And we share that responsibility and we share that trust because we are each other's backup. Because we don't have our parents around, we don't have siblings around, we don't have anybody around other than the family we're building. We have to be there for each other harder than anybody else can be there. And that is what, you know, listen, to and the single moms, my hat's off to you. I think you guys and single fathers, depending if you're how involved you are. But if you're listening to this, of course, I would say mostly single moms. But it's even harder if you don't have the backup or if you don't have somebody as a backup, which I recommend you probably find someone as a backup of a oh shit, God forbid, situation. But I know for us, my husband, the one thing he always said was he never grew up with his father, and I didn't either. My dad worked a lot like his dad. And my husband always said he wanted to be home when he could be for our son. And look, I think a lot of men can't deal with the baby phase, just how it is. But now that my son's a little bit older, he absolutely loves being around him when he can be. And he wants to be home. He loves waking him up, he loves putting him to bed. He'll try to come home in between, depending on if my son's awake or not. But for him, he wants to be an involved parent. He will change a diaper, he will change a baby, he will bay the baby, he will take the baby out if I need a break. He will be there. And he is, he's stepping up to the plate to really help. And so we wanted our son to really see the both of us. And we just think that's incredible because we want to be a tight-knit family. I think for us, we were happy to be siloed. I think for a lot of people, they want to be super involved in family, and that's a beautiful thing too. I don't hate anybody for that. I want to be clear. I think that is a beautiful thing to be in our family and to celebrate and traditions and all of it. But for my husband and I, we kind of saw the writing on the wall living where we lived and the expense, not saying where we live, is any cheaper, but it's much more maintainable to grow our businesses, but also grow our family. And I don't think we could have achieved that living in the area we grew up in, which was kind of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, which is very expensive. So for us, we we love our life. We love that it's warmer weather. We love the palm trees, the sunshine. We're just happier people. I couldn't imagine not living here. So, yes, we sacrificed maybe not having the family help, but we've gained so much more. So I really want you to think about that too, because that's also really important. Number five, the freedom we gained when we stopped trying to look normal. I love this. I love that I can take my son to the library on a Tuesday afternoon, or I can take my son to the museum on a Friday morning. Doesn't matter. We have slow mornings. I'm not rushing out of the house, I'm not getting kids dressed, I'm not rushing to a childcare at a certain time. I'm not trying to be rush hour traffic. I'm not doing any of that shit. I am so aligned with that, and it feels so good that I can be home with him and hang out, cook, get things done. Maybe he plays, he'll flip a book, we'll watch a little TV, whatever it is. There's no guilt around my life. There's no shame. Yes, do I work? Yes. Yes, I work. I'm constantly kind of on my phone, which I know is not good. But I try to take phone calls, I try to be mindful of like my deep work days. But working feels aligned to me. Like I work to live, I do not live to work. And when you have a child, your life changes. It is the biggest shift that I've personally ever gone through. And the truth is, as soon as I found out I was pregnant with my son, one of the first things I did was hire. And I hired contractors to do a lot of the back work because I could not grow and scale at the rate that I am, fortunately, at this moment recording this podcast. But I do not have shame about my productivity levels, my busy season when I really need the help. I know when I am not as busy. I just try to navigate my life based on my business, my schedule, and everything in between. I, as an analytical kind of person here as a bookkeeper, when I look at success, people question this, right? Of like, what does success look like? And I just tell them, what do you want as a lifestyle? One of the biggest things for me is I want peace in my life. I want to be comfortable in my life. I want to be able to financially be able to do all the things I want to do without having to worry. And I don't need big yachts or Lamborghinis or mansions or any of that shit. Money in the bank. I want to have enough for retirement. I want to live my life and travel. I want memories with my children. And I just want to continue to live the most authentic life that I can possibly live. Because I'd rather live instead of performing on social and having this curated feed and being fake and trying to show people a life that's not real. I'd rather actually live in the moment that's real. So for me, when it comes to not looking normal, that's not my intention. That's not what I'm looking for. I'm so much happier living the life that I'm living today than I ever have in my entire life. Number six, let's talk about some of the hard parts. No one talks about. So, number one, finances. For my business as a bookkeeper, I work a lot on retainers, so I can kind of figure out my cash flow pretty quick. My husband's business as a project, dealing with projects and renovations, can be very, very tricky and very, very challenging. I worry about the mortgage being paid. I worried about bills being paid because I'm like, can we afford this? Can we do this? And my husband is like, listen, there's money in the bank, we're fine. And we are. We are. But as an entrepreneur, depending on what you do, there is a lot of unpredictability. Even in my business, yes, it's retainer, but at the end of the day, if I lose clients, then I lose some of my retainer and then I have to gain clients. So it's constantly making sure I have enough business coming through. So if I lose clients, it doesn't affect my bottom line, it doesn't affect my team. I'm able to pay people, I'm able to run my business successfully. The mental load, especially for women. The mental load is so freaking real. It's so hard. You think about so many things. I think for a lot of women, it's the scheduling, it's the appointments, it's remembering the special occasions, it's making things special in general. It's the dishes, it's the laundry, it's the cooking, it's the meal prep, it's the grocery shopping, it's everything imaginable that women just get dumped on. And it's hard. It will always be hard. And I know there's so many amazing content creators and people out there talking about the mental load. And the reality is, is you have to have the conversations with your partner where I say, hey, babe, I'm tired, like I'm tapped out. Can you feed the dog? Can you walk the dog? Can you put the baby to bed? Like whatever it is. Like there's just some days I can't do it. So I try to get my husband involved when he can be around, which is hard. But the mental load never seems to go away. It's a checklist that you constantly or keep on checking the boxes. Now, as an entrepreneur, you never feel off. I don't feel off. I always feel on. And that's really, really hard. I try to take off weekends. It kind of depends on my schedule or what life looks like, but I try to clear some time, especially have some self-time and some self-care. But at the end of the day, as an entrepreneur, you always feel like you're on. I feel like when you do work a nine to five, the beauty is you can kind of ish shut off, depending on your role. But when you work for yourself, there is no like at five o'clock, I'm done. I'm not saying you shouldn't put the boundaries in place. I end up doing that anyway, but a lot of times you feel like there's no off time. So what does the boundary look like? Isolation from traditional families. So we're not traditional. We're just not. It's really hard to have the lives we live to meetings, appointments, networking, scheduling, everything. We do things ad hoc, we do things at different times, and it's not a bad thing. It's just different than other families. And we're okay with that. But for some people, they might not be. So it's just really being mindful. But at the end of the day, we're choosing this life anyway. I would never personally have a boss ever again. Maybe I'll never say never, but currently, right now, how I feel, at this moment, I would never want a boss. I have been my own boss for almost four years now, three, four years. I can't imagine having a boss telling me what to do or going in or asking for time off. Like if I want a day off, I'm gonna take a day off. If I want to travel, I want to travel. Like I don't have rules. And as soon as my kids are in school, right? It'll be very different. But for right now, I get to do whatever I want anytime I want. And that is the beautiful thing about the business I built, at least for entrepreneurship. My husband's a little bit different because he is very based where we are. So it's challenging for him to kind of get up and go. My business is very much virtual. It's a laptop, it's a phone, and then Wi-Fi. That's it. Everything I can do virtually. And that's what I love about my business. And so, depending on the kind of business you want to start or achieve, keep that in mind, the kind of lifestyle you want. It's one of the things I talk about when it comes to success. The biggest thing of success is the lifestyle. And when you think of the lifestyle, then you can figure out the business or what your services are, what you want to offer. Number seven, why our child is growing up richer than we ever did. So, my husband and I more or less grew up, and I'll talk about myself specifically. This idea of the stay at home mom, the working dad, you go to school, you go to college, you get a job. That's like the trajectory. You get your two, three percent raise, you kind of get your benefits and you shut up and you're happy. But for my child now, They're able to see from parents that have a very different perspective and mindset. I didn't grow up with being an entrepreneur. I didn't have many entrepreneurs to even look up to in my life, maybe one or two. Otherwise, everybody else I knew worked. They worked for a company. So trying to almost unwire my brain in certain ways has been challenging. But it's been amazing to create this flexibility and creativity and just alignment in my life that I've never felt before and feeling so secure and confident, which I'm grateful I had kids a little bit later in my life. I didn't have kids in my 20s. I started early 30s, but I built foundations to build a life that I'm really proud of. And I feel really secure about all of it. I feel secure about making my own money. I feel secure about providing. I feel secure about helping, being there for my family, and just feeling like a different lifestyle, that my children will grow up seeing, that the world is so much bigger than what we could have imagined. And there's so many more opportunities than we ever could have thought of. I want them to be part of this story. I want them to maybe really think about it. And if they work for someone listen, I'm happy for them too, right? I'll support any dream they have. But I want them to know that this is an option. This is a huge option and something I wish I would have grown up knowing. And it's why I'm so passionate to talk to like high schools or college to tell people I wasn't a perfect student. I'm not a straight A student at all. But I work really hard and I'm proud of how hard I work. And so it's okay if you're listening to this, maybe as a student or you're an early mom and you're not like an A plus student, you're a BC student. That's okay. Like, school's not for everybody. It certainly wasn't for me. And I want my child to know like if you're not getting like the perfect grades or school isn't working, it doesn't mean you're dumb. It doesn't mean you're not smart. It just means your zone of genius is somewhere else. Number eight, redefining what having it all actually means. So, again, kind of a theme throughout this entire podcast episode today. But really, it's not like money versus family. It's not hustle versus motherhood. It's not independence versus love. It really comes down to like alignment, something I've talked about the entire episode. It's it's an unconventional lifestyle. And you can't do this lifestyle if you're not aligned, happy, excited, and motivated. The biggest thing I've learned in my business is my why has to be greater than anything else on the planet. Because if it's not, fuck that. I'm not doing it, right? I have some really tough days in my business. I had days where I almost threw my business out the window and I was so miserable. But I stuck to my why so hard that I'm still here standing today as a business owner. And I'm so proud of a life that I'm designing where I can work a business, go out when I can, but I can still be home with my babies. And I don't feel guilty for either one. Because that to me is success of having it all. That to me feels right of what I feel is aligned for my life. It's not perfect. I'll always adjust, shift, change, be flexible, adaptable. But I'll always, at the end of the day, want to feel aligned to whatever I'm doing. And if it doesn't feel aligned or right, I'm getting out. I'm done. Right. Or I shift and I figure out something else that actually works. Because number nine, the last one, Rona would feel like they're doing life wrong. So if you're listening to this episode and you're thinking, oh my gosh, Marielle, how could I, how could I do this? How could I even think about a business? Or I'm just so miserable. I don't even know where to go. And I feel lost and broken and unsure. First of all, you're not broken. If you're in an unhappy place, it doesn't mean that you're not a happy person. Maybe it's just circumstantial what you're dealing with. Maybe you're dealing with a shitty boss who doesn't treat you. Or maybe you just got laid off and you didn't have control over that. Because we got to focus on what we can control. Because maybe at the end of the day, that I got laid off a job years ago, and that door closed for the door opening for me to start a business. And maybe that's what aligns with you. Maybe that job let you go could be the biggest blessing of your life. And you just don't even know it. You don't even know what's behind that door. I didn't know until I stepped in. And it was the most magical door I could have stepped into. Because for me, I'm choosing a life that feels right and peaceful and happy. And I'm choosing this. This is a choice. We have choices in life. And it's a beautiful thing. I'm making a choice, like my husband, to build a different life and to find happiness doing something else. If this is your permission slip, you are allowed to build that unconventional life. You're allowed to want to work and make money and also be at home with your babies. Who says you can't have both? Who says you can't do both? Life is very unconventional. Life is very unpredictable. But life can be a very beautiful thing. And we do have control over much more than we think. Look, maybe the control is we apply to jobs. That's a control. We applied for that job and we want that job. Control is starting the business because we want to control our life. Sometimes things are out of control. Like a client leaves me. That's out of my control. I can't help that. And that's okay. Not every client's supposed to align with you. Or when you think about getting sick, sometimes you really can't help when you get sick. Shit happens. So you just have to be aware of what you can and cannot control. And don't be afraid to give yourself permission to do the thing you want to do. I just believe that in my heart. Because for me, closing out this episode, I just want to remind anyone listening right now, you did not mess up by not wanting the life everyone else wanted. You're actually just brave for even admitting it. Because we all think we need the certain hamster wheel lifestyle. We think because everybody has a successful job and they're a manager or director, like that's what life's about. That might not be what you want. And there's nothing wrong with thinking that way. So I want to be clear. Because the life that my husband and I built, for myself being home-based, for my husband being here locally, being business-driven, loving our babies, full of unpredictability, yes, maybe it's a little chaotic, but it's not supposed to be wildly chaotic. It's very intentional with what we're doing right here, right now. Because one day, when your child grows up, like my children will, they won't remember all of this. They won't remember the craziness or chaoticness or schedule. But you know what they will remember? You actually being there for them. And to me, that's what matters most, because this is not a perfect lifestyle. This is not a polished lifestyle. But I'll be damn sure this is the most present lifestyle I could ever give my family. Because for me, that's the life I choose, and I hope that's the life you may choose as well. Thanks so much for listening. This is just the beginning. Subscribe now to Raising Hustle and get ready for raw stories, real talk, and unapologetic ambition. We're showing up messy, loud, and all in because success doesn't wait for quiet. Let's raise our voices, our businesses, and our babies together.