Welcome to the Sixth Degree Podcast, the podcast where we grill our guests about the things that make them tick, and find out how human connection plays a role in their life. I’m your host, Emily Merrell.

Hey, everyone, I’m your host, Emily Merrell. And today is a solo episode, where I’m going to talk about a few things that have been on my mind. So it has now been over, gosh, over a month that I’ve been back from my maternity leave, but maybe by the time this is out, it’ll be about two months. And I took three months off, so I can be with my son, he was born three months, three weeks prematurely, which was really an interesting experience, because I was so hell-bent on working till pretty much my due date, and definitely anticipated him to arrive more on the later side. So I was in for a rude awakening when he arrived three weeks early, my water broke. And all of the plans that I had for myself, all of the events that I was going to be hosting all of the conversations, the meetings, everything I had scheduled, just had to be canceled. And I had to prioritize myself. And I had to prioritize being a mom and figuring out and navigating the beginning stages of a newborn. And it was really interesting planning, maternity leave, because I worked really, really, really, really hard to give myself three months of maternity leave. And as a solopreneur, for anyone else that has their own business and is listening. You know how hard it is, you don’t have someone that necessarily fills your shoes automatically, you’re as hired by your company, or you don’t put an out of office on and just hope for the best. That takes a lot of planning and pre-planning. So the way that I pre-planned my maternity leave, is I worked hard to ensure that things were systematized and scheduled before I went on maternity leave. And again, you know, everything happened a little faster than I thought it would. I was still prepared. And so what I worked hard on doing was pre-writing my newsletters, I wrote, gosh, I think I ended up writing. If we did one a week, I think I wrote 12 newsletters in advance at least pre-writing launch strategies, pre-writing Instagram captions, pre-approving stories that went live on Instagram, I worked hand in hand on my with my team on pre-recording podcasts and getting those edited. And I, you know, took a season off actually. So I ended up taking from June to September off for my podcast. So I could like a pack in lots of recording, and then take those recordings and have them scheduled. Let’s see some other things that I did were just create like systems of operation. So you know, if this thing happens, this is how you respond to it. And then also delegating, like responses to people delegating my events to individuals, which, for me, you know, back in the day, when our events were in person, that was much easier for me to do. For whatever reason, it was easier to trust someone who’s seen an in-person event and let go of an in-person event than it was for me to let go of a digital event. For digital events, I felt like I had to be at all of the events because I couldn’t be at all of the events. So maternity leave and leading up to maternity leave, it was a wonderful practice to delegate these events and recognize that I don’t have to be at every event for an event to be successful. And it was a huge time saver off of my to-do list to be able to delegate that out. And that’s definitely something that I’m continuing to do post-maternity leave as well. The other thing that I really found interesting was that during maternity leave, I felt, I found it really hard not to work or want to work or want to check email. And I felt like my you know, who I thought I was going to be on maternity leave was someone who was going to be completely checked out for my business. And truth be told I did check in on my business and I did still meet with my team once a week for about 30 minutes just making sure that they were okay. And I loved being able to share, you know the growth of my son and may say yes no to things that they had proposed. But I was surprised that I wanted to work more than I did. And I think it was truly by the end of my maternity leave since it fell during the holidays during the Christmas holidays that I felt most ready to extend, my maternity leave and like was more checked out for my business than I had imagined. But it definitely took time. It wasn’t something that just happened automatically for me overnight.

Being back has been interesting. So we moved from San Francisco to Denver, at the beginning of January or mid-January. And the next week was my first week back from maternity leave. And I’ve noticed that I feel very intentional when I work. Like, there’s no going down deep, dark rabbit holes when I think of something and Googling random things, but it’s just very focused. And it’s something where I also love being able to work from home and have, my son at home, and I’m still nursing him. And being able to have these little moments that are broken up throughout the day, and feel balanced. I don’t feel this, this sense of urgency that I had felt on myself before, which I definitely felt pre-maternity leave this desire to have everything perfect and, and make all the money that I can. And now I feel like I run everything on the schedule that works best for me. And I put my needs first. And I put my son’s needs first. I think also, it’s energizing, being, and connecting with adults. And I feel like I can connect with people on a whole new level being a mom that I never really understood before this time. It’s also interesting, you know, as I navigate my days, I’m, I used to be a 5 am Wake rapper, and I’m a gene my way back to that today I woke up at 5:30 am. But my goal in the next week is to get back to 5 am to give myself that tranquility and that that space for myself, from you, know, five to 8 am where I can be in my creative flow, I can work out I can meditate, I can journal I can read, and then operate my business accordingly. I do have help. And I have a part-time babysitter, which has been really, really, really transformative just for my day and being able to delegate and be able to know that my son is being attended to without feeling like I have to get up every time he went first. And then you know, thinking about thinking about his schedule, how I schedule my meetings, during his nap time, like big meetings I scheduled during his nap time, especially on days that I don’t have help. And then in terms of scheduling calls, while he’s feeding, I blocked those time off those times off. And I’m more intentional about being focused and present with him, which is a really, really fortunate thing to have that I wouldn’t have if I was in the corporate world. And then, you know, it’s just, I wanted to talk about how today’s International Woman’s Day. And I just have to say I think women are fucking amazing. They really, really, really are rock stars. And it’s interesting how women do take on a lot of the brunt of child-rearing, regardless of whether they have a really helpful partner or doing it themselves or delegating it to a babysitter, a lot falls on their shoulders. I’m definitely feeling it. But I have to just give a shout out to my partner to my husband, and to my family who have done such an incredible job of supporting me and nurturing me during this time. And my husband gives me one of the greatest gifts of all is he takes our son from seven to eight and he takes him for a walk. And he gets out of the house because he knows that he might be stirring and I might jump move towards him. And I still appreciate that. And then on the same in the same vein. He finished his work at five o’clock, and he’s on Daddy duty. He was very much encouraging of me to go and live my life and go out and meet people and have dinner with girlfriends and in loves being able to take care of her son and I intentionally pump a bottle for the night feeds. So he’s all taken care of and he’s empowered to feed to feed him while I’m away. But again, I’m telling you all this because I think before I had a baby i There were so many unknowns. I was always gosh, I was so I was in admiration of so many women, even then nursing like opening the bra properly. Like how are they doing that? How does it feel? You’re so natural to them. And I think motherhood is a lot like running a business, where there’s a lot of moments that you stumble. And there’s a lot of moments where you’re not quite sure what you’re doing. But you kind of pretend and make it up as you go and, and sorted out and trial and error and find the rhythm and the flow that works for you. So, like, being a mom, there’s no two moms that are the same. I talked to so many moms who know, they feed their child differently, they have a different schedule than I do. And everyone has to do and feel what works best for them. But it’s a lot like your business, there’s not a one size fits all, each business is unique. Each business is unique because it has you at the helm of it. So more like a PSA, just talking about, you know, this International Women’s Day, taking a look at your life, taking a look at your business, and ensuring that it it’s working for you. It’s not working the way that it should work or, because that’s what everyone says it shouldn’t be this way. But making sure that it feels aligned with you that you get excited to show up to meetings that you get excited to do the writing that you feel like you can be multiple versions of yourself if that’s motherhood or a partner or an athlete or whatever it is. And I just wanted to let you know that I’m here, if you ever want to talk about if you ever want to talk about becoming a parent, if you ever want to talk about crafting a maternity leave, if you ever want to talk about, you know, implementing boundaries and delegating. Those are things that I am so excited to talk about and to share. And everyday I feel like I’m in this giant School of Life Where I’m learning more and eager to share it with people who want to listen. So that’s all I have for you today, folks, but if you liked today’s episode, please give it a like, give us a five star review. Share with friends and shoot me a DM on Instagram. I want to hear your thoughts. I want to hear if anything resonated. My Instagram is Emily a Merrill and I’m here for you and wishing you a very Happy International Women’s Day.