250 Juggling Motherhood and Entrepreneurship with Kelly Roach
Are you running a business and juggling motherhood? I sit down with Kelly Roach, an entrepreneur who masterfully balances six successful businesses, motherhood, personal time, and her faith. Kelly shares her insights and strategies for ensuring that business goals align with family goals, resonating perfectly with our focus on intentional planning. She opens up about how she stays present for her daughter's activities and makes business decisions that prioritize family needs, addressing the common guilt many women feel about seeking help and delegating tasks.
In this episode, we cover:
- The significance of intentionality, planning, and sacrifice in achieving harmony
- Aligning business goals with family goals to reduce guilt and stress
- Practical steps for implementing support systems and delegating tasks
Connect with Kelly:
www.kellyroachcoaching.com
www.instagram.com/kellyroachofficial/
www.linkedin.com/company/kellyroachinternational
Podcast: The Kelly Roach Show
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FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Megan:
Hey everyone, I have a new guest for you today, kelly Roach, and I'm really excited for you all to listen to our conversation, because her approach to how she juggles six yes, six incredibly successful businesses and motherhood and time at home and time for herself and her faith, and all of that is 100% in alignment with everything that we talk about here on the show and 100% on alignment with the importance of intentional planning, which is what you all know I am all about. So I'm thrilled for you all to meet Kelly Roach today and we're going to be diving into how do we make sure that the goals with our business and our family are aligned together. Welcome to the Work-Life Harmony podcast. Guess what? You don't have to feel constantly overwhelmed, exhausted and stressed out. There is another way. When you have the right systems and tools to plan and manage your time, you can live a life of harmony. If you're ready to stop feeling overwhelmed, this is the show for you. Well, hello everyone. Welcome back to Work-Life Harmony.
Megan:
I have a new guest for you all today. That is super fun for me because I was just sharing with Kelly before we started recording. I've actually known about her for a very long time, so this is a great opportunity for us to chat as close to in real life as we can. I'm going to let Kelly give you a little bit about her background, but I was first introduced to her as a fellow entrepreneur. She teaches a ton of valuable content for women building businesses online, especially so when I was newer in business. I learned a lot from you, kelly, so it's a treat for me to have you here, and we're going to be talking today about something that's near and dear to my heart, which is how do we build a business, as women, that supports our family goals, instead of feeling like we're constantly push-pull, battling, feeling guilty with all this stuff? So welcome to the show, kelly. I'm so thrilled that you're here. Thank, you.
Kelly:
I'm excited to be here.
Megan:
So why don't you tell everyone a little bit about yourself, your journey in entrepreneurship and how you got to where you are today?
Kelly:
Yeah, absolutely so. I'm a business mentor and strategist. I have been in the entrepreneurial world since 2012, and I help individuals to build six-, seven and eight-figure businesses online, really focused on the strategic innovation side of things, so that people can build family and faith-first businesses. So, definitely, the theme of the show is near and dear to my heart. I have a 10-year-old daughter, madison, been with my husband for 18 years now, which is amazing, and I think where I've really put a stake in the ground is trying to bring back to the entrepreneurial world, remembering why we're doing what we're doing in the first place, right, and I think that, especially for women, there's always been this push-pull of you can have it all-ish, right.
Megan:
You can have it all, just not at the same time or whatever caveats they put around.
Kelly:
It all just not at the same time or whatever caveats they put around, yeah which I just I actually don't resonate or believe that, but I do think it takes a lot of intentionality around your business and life design and a lot of thought and a lot of planning and sacrifice. But with planning and intention and sacrifice you can in fact have it all. You can have a wildly successful and profitable business, a thriving marriage, time with your family, great connection with your children, and you can get to take care of yourself too, and so that's a little bit of my motivation in helping people build really success, being able to see the other side of the reason why we build successful businesses.
Megan:
For folks that have been listening to the show with me for years, you understand why I have Kelly on the show. That is everything that we talk about here. It's at the heart of the top program around leaning into planning so that we aren't pulled in 10,000 different directions all the time. I would love to start first with learning more, because I think this means different things to different people. What do you mean when you say a family first business?
Kelly:
Yeah, to me it's being available when our children are available, right. And so, like I'll give the example of me like Madison is 10, right, so I run. I have six companies in my portfolio Now. I run multiple businesses on the Inc 5000 list. There's a lot going on. However, what's really important to me is, when she wants to have a, that the answer is always yes and that I can be available to be the supervising parent to do that. When she has a cheer competition, when she has one this weekend, that I can be available to be the supervising parent to do that. When she has a cheer competition, when she has one this weekend, that I can be available and present to do that. And, by the way, I'm in the middle of a live launch right now and I'm not going to be launching on Saturday. I'm going to let my team run the show and I'm going to be at Madison's cheer competition.
Kelly:
So, to me, family first means that you make your business and life decisions with consideration of what your family goals are first, and then you build a successful business and life plan around that. And I don't think that that means that you can't or won't be successful in business, but it does mean that you have to be strategic. And also, let's be honest, I think for women, there's a lot of guilt around asking for help. There's a lot of guilt around letting go of things at home that add zero value for you to do. If I had a dollar for every woman, that's like, and I was up until 10 o'clock scrubbing the kitchen floor and doing the dishes and blah, blah, blah, and I'm like no, no, no, no, like you can afford to have someone do that for you and that adds zero value to your family.
Kelly:
Your family is not laying in bed at night, god. I'm so thankful that Jenny Ray stayed up until 11 o'clock and scrubbed the kitchen floors. They don't care who scrubbed the kitchen, nor are they even noticing Right, exactly, exactly. But what they do care about is when they're like mom, can you play a game of Uno with me? That the answer is yes, and so that's why I say being intentional, because I see so many women that do things out of like, guilt, habit and obligation that add no value, but take their time, and then they don't have time for the things that actually do add value, which is those interactive and very like, precious and core moments with their family and in their business. So it's just making those decisions right.
Megan:
And I love that you said your specific family goals, because I think it can be really hard sometimes for women to admit that maybe there's something child-centric we don't want to do Like. For me, I had a huge, so we're on similar paths. My husband and I will be married 18 years this year and my daughter's 13. So we've been that same stage of life and I can remember when she was really young I was so excited for her going to school and like field trips. I was like I'm going to be, like that's going to be so much fun.
Megan:
And I went on my first field trip and discovered within the first 10 minutes I'm not a field trip mom, like I hated every minute, yeah. And then I felt guilty for saying I don't want to volunteer to be the mom that goes on field trips and it took me a long time to get to that place. And so I love that you said your specific family goals, because I think part of that if you are juggling a business and you're a mom is being okay with saying you know it doesn't mean I have to do every possible thing with my child either. There are things I'd say no to, so that there are the things I really enjoy doing. I'm available for.
Kelly:
A thousand percent and I think that that also comes down to knowing your and to your point. I think that, especially with the pressures of culture and society, I think in both business and in life there's a lot of business leaders, whether they work in corporate or whether they're out on their own, that are doing a lot of things to like meet the expectations of other people that don't necessarily align with their personal career trajectory or business or home life goals. And when you remove all that from the equation it does become very manageable to be present at home and to be a high performer in the workplace. But I will say you absolutely need support Like you cannot, especially if you and your spouse are both working Like. I have been so blessed and I have an amazing husband and he has been full time at home since Madison was born, which means he's managing the house, he's managing the vendors, he's doing work as things come up, he's always available for medicine. If you do not have that scenario, you have to hire help to fill that gap and part of your business plan or your career plan if you're an executive or you're a manager, you're a leader part of your income has to go towards filling those gaps, because otherwise it will cause marital issues, it will cause a huge divide between you and the family, and we've seen this. Women being full-time in the workplace is still a fairly new. It's only a few decades old, okay. And so it's clear by the divorce rates and it's clear by what's happening that it's not really manageable to have both partners working full time outside of the home or in a in a aggressive career and not have help in some way, shape or form.
Kelly:
So many women feel guilty. They feel guilty giving themselves the support that they deserve. They feel guilty spending the money. They feel like they should save the money and like it's. They should just grind a little harder and they should just get up earlier and they should just work later and whatever. They feel guilty giving themselves what they deserve.
Kelly:
But I have always said this and I really believe this to be true the greatest gift that you can give your family, the people that you say that you care about, the people that you say, oh, I'm doing everything for my family. Everybody always says that, right, I'm doing everything for my family, oh, okay, well, if you're doing everything for your family, the best gifts that you can give them is a healthy, happy and whole version of yourself. And so if you're just like broken and burnt out and exhausted and just grinding it out and there's nothing left, it's defeating the whole purpose of what you said you wanted to do. What you said was important to you and I think it's just important to come back to that because I think, especially if you're a leader as a woman, like there's no one in your life that's going to say that to you.
Kelly:
Yeah, Like there's no one in your life that's going to like initiate that for you. Like hey, why don't you like get this help?
Megan:
Or why don't you let me? I see you're drowning. Let me step in and yes like it's, it doesn't happen.
Kelly:
It's, it's not going to happen, and I also think we carry it really well, right? So, like a lot of times, you could be like feeling like you're completely drowning and your friends are over here and your family's over here, like, oh my gosh, you're so amazing. How do you do it all Like this? And you're like, no, I'm actually dying right. Like no one knows, though, because you're great at it. So, yeah, it's just being real with yourself and knowing your worth and asking for what you need and investing in what you need, and realizing that that 30 minutes that you got back of energy to put into your relationship, to put into your children, that's like immeasurable.
Megan:
Like it doesn't matter how much it costs you to get help with that thing, you can't get that time back and I thank you for being so open and transparent with the help and support that you have in place, because it's very hard for me sometimes when I see other women out there juggling all the things and make it look as though they are the one doing it all without being very open and honest with no. I'm able to do this because a lot of these tasks and roles and responsibilities someone else is stepping into and I think the more honest that's why I always love talking about my team. I'm like I wouldn't have this company without my team, but it wouldn't survive, and I think the more that women that we can pull together and very openly and honestly go. No, here's how I get help and here's what my support system looks like. Just makes it. If we can normalize that so that people can ask for help.
Megan:
People are looking for ways to outsource, to hire, to job share, trade. Whatever that looks like can be something I think we all need to get comfortable with thing. I think we all need to get comfortable with. Yeah, so where would you say is a good place for people to start if they're feeling like they're in that push-pull right now, with feeling when I'm at work, I'm feeling guilty, I'm not with my family. When I'm feeling family, I'm feeling guilty that I'm not working. What can we put into place to start align those, so that our business and family goals are one in the same?
Kelly:
Yeah Well, I think it's a two-part process. So part one is everyone feels like they know their values. Like if you ask someone like, do you know your values, they're like, of course I know my values, right. And then you're like, oh, okay, cool, so let's go through those values and then show me what that looks like in your life. And then there's like this huge disconnect between what people say that they want and how they want to live and what their values are, and then what their life actually looks like. And then, of course, they feel dissatisfied. And it's to your point, whenever I'm here, I feel guilty, like I should be there. Whenever I'm here, I feel guilty should be there, Right?
Kelly:
So I think number one is just being really honest, like brutally honest with yourself about what your values are and then what effort you're making to create the congruency between them.
Kelly:
A lot of times it's like this little shift in intentionality or this little shift in a change of process, and a lot of times we don't think about things at home from like a business or process orientation, but it absolutely is. When I look at like the way that my husband and I function in our roles and responsibilities as a team, as a couple, we have very clear ownership over when it comes to this, billy leads and when it comes to this, I lead, and so it eliminates all that back and forth that most couples have constantly, where there's fighting and there's back and forth and then there's resentment and all of this because you thought this person should have done this and they thought they should have done this, and it's just so. What what I did actually was I created for my clients and actually I can give it to you and you can link it down in the show notes below this was.
Kelly:
I created a very detailed list of like at home responsibilities that need ownership, because what has to happen is and I love that you said ownership, not delegation.
Megan:
No, because delegation means you're still checking in and you haven't transferred the ownership, so important.
Kelly:
That's exactly it, and when there's ownership, it's either them, you or you're hiring someone, and what it came down to be is it's an extra 40 to 60 hours a week that someone has to take on, and so if you and your spouse are both working, this is when you listed up all of the things that one of you owned yeah.
Kelly:
But like we get a lot of help too, right? So the thing is, is no wonder everybody's burnt out and going insane and feels like they can't have a marriage and feels like they don't have time with their children because they're working 40, 50 hours a week, and then the at-home responsibilities are like another 30 hours a week per person on top of that. And it's like this math doesn't math, right. It's one thing if, like, one of the partners is going to be home full time and they're going to take a really significant portion of that which Billy does in our life. That's not possible for everyone, right?
Kelly:
That's not realistic for everyone. But I will say like, even when I was just getting started in my corporate job, when I started my corporate job, I immediately hired someone to do cleaning for me. I immediately hired someone to do laundry. I immediately started sending out my dry cleaning. I took all these at-home things off my plate before I was even in a relationship with Billy, because I wanted to be able to sustain peak performance in my job and also be able to have a life, and we have to think about investing in ourselves in that way. I started doing that when I was 21 years old.
Kelly:
I wasn't this like wealthy eight-figure business owner. I was in an entry-level job and I was making commissions and I was working really hard to get to my budget and to make my bonuses as a new person early in my career. But I already knew at that point that it wouldn't be sustainable if I didn't focus on identifying what are the things that add value for me to do and what are the things that don't add value. And I think that for everyone listening, there's always this guilt around spending the money and it's like I don't have that money. No, you do and you're spending your time doing things that. If you spent that time on a high value task in the business, you would 10x that you would take back your time. You could take part of that time in the business. You would 10x that you would take back your time. You could take part of that time for the business, part of that time for the family, and you're still netting more income.
Megan:
And you could even it might just be taking time for you to rest and recharge For sure, so that you show up at a higher frequency, and all of that. And it's funny, when you were talking about 21, I was thinking back to right out of school. The big thing that I did first is like investing in myself as a single gal with her first job. I'm old enough that I had to wear clothes that needed to be ironed and pantyhose and all of that.
Megan:
And I can remember at night sitting there ironing, like ironing in front of the TV, and it just literally was soul sucking for me to iron. I hate it. And I finally was like, okay, but I'm thinking I can't afford to dry clean this, yeah. And then I took a look at my budget and I was like Megan, you could eliminate like two small things in exchange for paying someone else to iron these clothes for you, and the self-satisfaction that I got. I in a such a good mood, I rested better, I slept better, all of it it doesn't have. I think we all think, oh, this is going to cost a million dollars to get help.
Kelly:
It can be small, incremental things like that absolutely, and you know what you you can even get an intern for for 10 15 bucks an hour like there's. There's just where there's a will, there's always a way. Let's put it that way. It's not about like that you need to be at this level. It's not about that you need to be making so much money. And again, like to your point, I had the same experience. That's why I started sending my suits out for dry clean, Cause I was in sales.
Kelly:
I had to wear suits basically every day and I was like I'm not doing this. This is insane. Like I need time to recharge after working 60 hours a week to like get myself in a mental space to be able to go out and do the work. And so I think it's just being like brutally, brutally honest with yourself about where are you spending time on non-value-add things and just getting over the spending the money, spending the time, pushing through the discomfort, and then this is what I always say it's keeping yourself accountable to say, OK, you know, I'm going to spend this extra 500 bucks a month, or I'm going to spend this extra thousand bucks a month to get help on this thing and I'm going to make sure that when I take back my time that I make far more than that as a return on that investment, and so it's just thinking about it that in that way. Now, how do we?
Megan:
go about, if we've thought about our values and we're putting some intentionality around that. What suggestions do you have on bringing the whole family, so that this does become a family goal and everybody's on the same page?
Kelly:
Yeah, we actually, at the beginning of the year, every year, we set our family goals for the year. Whenever I'm doing a launch, we talk about like, okay, like, what are our goals, what is the decision that we're going to make after this? We each go around, we talk about the trips we're going to do for the year. What's your vote? What's your vote? Everybody gets a vote right, so it's just. I think that's one of the other big things.
Kelly:
I think a lot of resentment can build in a family when one person is an entrepreneur and they're like grinding it out. And let's just be really honest, there's seasons of sacrifice, absolutely. There are seasons of sacrifice when you're building something and if it's just you just like on this journey, like, oh, I'm doing this for my family, and then you're like never available and you're not talking to them about it and they don't see the positive outcome of it, then like, why would they be excited and be supportive? Whereas if you integrate them into okay, like, these are my goals for the year. This is what I'm working towards. Let's plan and talk about, like, as a family, like what does this mean for us and what are the decisions that we're gonna get to make and what are the things that we're gonna do together as a family as a result of this sacrifice, this investment or this time that I'm spending? And again, I think, more than anything, it's keeping in mind that what our families want from us more than anything is time together. Time together, experiences together.
Kelly:
So I think, if you remember, that, it makes it a lot easier, because I think so many entrepreneurs put so much pressure on themselves to buy and do and have and create, and I love money and I like building wealth and all of that is really, really good. But I know, and I'm crystal clear, that if Madison had a choice, mom could make another million dollars to put in the bank account or she can come up in your room and she can watch you do your Ariel silk for an hour. You better believe she's going to choose for me to come up and watch her do the aerial silk for an hour. And it's remembering that every single day and like holding those things in balance Right. On one hand, I have to do the future oriented thing because she doesn't know that she may need to have a support, right, if something were to happen. We want our family to be taken care of Right, but on the flip side, it's remembering what actually matters to the people that you're doing it for.
Megan:
Yeah, and I love how you talked about bringing the whole family in on the goals.
Megan:
That was something I didn't do well early in business, and all of a sudden it'd be a week and everyone's like, well, you're edgy, and they didn't understand, because no one else in my family is an entrepreneur, and so I've learned to so much better communicate that now.
Megan:
And so the whole family knows if it's a big week, some holding an event or not, and so now they know, oh well, mom's probably just gonna go take a bath tonight and we'll hang out and play a game without her. But they also know, and it ends after x day we're back to normal, and so that was definitely I think that's a great tip, so something I wished I had done earlier in business than I did. But it's so easy to just I'm in work mode and so I don't talk about work outside of work mode, and I think learning how to integrate that together is is so good. Now, I know that you have, and I know we're we're running out of time, but I would love for you, real quick, to share a little bit about this Kairos that I've seen you talking about.
Kelly:
Yeah, yeah. So I I launched a program on the mental game of leadership about a year ago because what I was finding was, obviously I've been a strategist for over 10 years in the entrepreneurial space. I help people build very substantial and successful businesses. But I was really looking at what is the difference between people that survive versus people that thrive? And the mental game is really at the heart of that.
Kelly:
And for me, I had always really kept my faith very separate and very private.
Kelly:
I never talked about it and I was seeing so many entrepreneurs struggle and I was starting to realize like I think that faith has very much been pushed to the sidelines and a lot of people.
Kelly:
I personally feel like it's hard to make it as an entrepreneur in the long term if you don't have some type of like spiritual or faith component to your approach to leadership. So I really wanted a space where I could bring in the mental game, spirituality, faith building, you know and and help entrepreneurs to really look at their life holistically. It's really it's like everything that we're talking about here today. I wanted a space because I think that when people come to someone like me for business coaching, we're in a very small, narrow window and people are coming to learn the live launch method or the conviction marketing method. They're learning sales, they're learning marketing whatever, but they're not realizing like all of the work that goes into, like the personal growth to become the person that has built what I built, if that makes sense and I wanted a space for people that were interested. They're like, yeah, I get it.
Kelly:
It's more than just like it's more than just a grind of taking action, like there is there's a psychology, there is a mental game, there's a faith component, there's this holistic life building. Like I look at the trajectory of what I've done, it's been 12 years now and I've seen so many people come and go. I've seen so many marriages fall apart. I've seen so much drug and alcohol addiction. I've seen so much psychotic, like mental issues in the space. I've seen a lot of people that were either my peers or even people that were beyond me that like they're, just they're gone, like and and. And. So I I wanted a space where I could help people that really want to build something sustainable that's going to last, with consideration of their faith, their family, their life. And it doesn't mean you're setting lower goals. I still I'm a huge dreamer. I love helping people set big goals, but it's like doing it in consideration of and in a way that is not destructive but instead constructive for your life.
Megan:
And for anyone that has done any goal setting work with me, it's one of my biggest pet peeves, which is what I love. What you're doing is when people hold these goal-based workshops that are, I call it, basically setting goals in a vacuum, where you leave your real world, you go, dream big, you create all these goals and then we never address. But here's the reality and here's everything else in my life. How do I marry these together so that it is sustainable, so that it is realistic and it's not just I fizzle out in three years because I went too hard, too fast? So thank you so much for being here today, Kelly. Where is the best place for people to connect with you?
Kelly:
Oh yeah, definitely. Well, I would say, come listen to the Kelly Roach Show, definitely. I released two episodes a week. Fantastic podcast, highly recommend. Thank you. Yeah, so come listen to the show. It's just, I pour into it every single week and there's always something new. It's always on the cutting edge of what's happening in the growth space. And I'm on social media. I pop in my inbox. Come say hello, say you heard me on the show Love to connect.
Megan:
Wonderful. Thank you so much, kelly. Getting on top of all things time management, organization and productivity doesn't have to stop just because this episode is over. If you are feeling overwhelmed, your calendar's out of control or you're just running in a race that will never end in terms of your to-do list, I have great news for you. I have an app in both the App Store and Google Play called the Pink Bee, and it is chock full of small but incredibly powerful trainings to help you get out of overwhelm. It includes my signature Ditch the Overwhelm training and introduction to my time management framework, built specifically for women. In addition, you get access to my Epic One Notebook Challenge and some tips and tricks on how to get your phone organized to minimize distractions. All of that is available for you right inside the Pink Bee app. So open up either your app store or Google Play, do a search on the word the Pink Bee all one word and download the app to get started today.
