At first glance, it looks like mompreneurs have it all. They get to earn a living doing something they love, skip the daily commute, and spend loads of time with their kids. But running a business as a stay-at-home mom isn’t all sunshine and rainbows — it’s a lot of hard work! In many ways, nursing a new business to life is a lot like caring for a baby, which says something about the difficulty involved in juggling entrepreneurship with actual childcare.
 
Countless moms have found ways to make it work, and you can too! If you’re looking for tips on launching your own home-based business, keep reading!
 
Don’t Try to Do it All
 
Between caring for kids and keeping the house in order, you probably don’t have a lot of room in your schedule. Taking on too many extra responsibilities will only lead to burnout. In order to achieve that elusive work-life balance, look for ways to automate and outsource your new business tasks. As Keap explains, you can incorporate automation into every aspect of your business, from capturing leads to handling paperwork! Even the time-draining task of replying to emails can be automated with the right software.
 
Another job you can outsource is registering your business. Many successful home-business entrepreneurs choose to set themselves up as an LLC for the tax advantages and easier paperwork. Instead of taking care of the legal paperwork yourself, you can hire an LLC formation services for this task.
 
Of course, apps, services, and software won’t always cut it. Sometimes you need a real human to tackle those business projects. For example, if you want to announce your new business to the public with an attention-grabbing press release, you will need to find someone to write it for you. Thankfully, online job platforms make it easy to discover public relations professionals available for hire on a project-to-project basis.
 
Streamline Your Life
 
Besides finding ways to outsource repetitive business tasks, you can also look for ways to free up time in your regular schedule. Create a meal plan system so you can reduce time spent grocery shopping and cooking. Teach your kids how to play independently, it’s a wonderful life-skill for them to learn too. Get your other family members to help out with household chores. Learn how to say “no” to non-essential obligations when your plate is full. Streamlining your life is all about saving time and minimizing energy-draining decisions. This will free up some brainpower for your budding business!
 
Let Go of Guilt
 
You should also be prepared to confront working mom guilt before launching your business. Guilt, while common among working moms, can derail your productivity. Mompreneurs have to deal with the constant pressure to satisfy everyone — clients, team members, kids, spouses, and extended family included. Even when you’re burning the candle at both ends, you may feel like you’re letting everyone down. Before diving into your business, identify ways to cope with mom guilt, like being more flexible with the standards you place on yourself.
 
Choose a Compatible Business Idea
 
Often, one of the hardest parts about launching a business is committing to a business idea. You likely have a long list of potential ways to make money from home. How do you choose the perfect idea to run with? Start with what you know. Whether you’re great at writing or you enjoy crafting home-made decor, you should be able to find a way to turn your passion into a business. It’s important that your business idea aligns with your interests and your skills so you will be able to maintain your motivation to stick with it through tough times.
 
Make sure your business idea is also compatible with your financial situation. If you don’t have a lot of money to spend on your startup, you may want to stick with business ideas that require a very small initial investment. For example, Crazy Egg suggests inexpensive business models like freelance writing, selling homemade crafts, tutoring, graphic design, or working as a virtual assistant. With the right attention to budgeting, you should be able to start any of these businesses for under $100. Sticking to your startup budget is easy if you skip unnecessary expenses like renting an office space, purchasing fancy tools, or hiring full-time employees!
 
Pay Attention to Your Legal Responsibilities
 
Launching a home business can be complicated. Part of the reason for this is the vast legal responsibilities that come with business ownership. Neglecting these legal obligations can cause some serious problems down the line! To avoid lawsuits, fines, and penalties, take the time to cover all of your legal bases before moving forward with your business idea. It’s easy to overlook these requirements when you’re starting a business from home.
 
Grow Your Business Slowly
 
After establishing the foundation for a scalable business, you can start thinking about growth. Just be careful not to grow too quickly. It’s common for home-based entrepreneurs to get carried away by the lure of fast cash, but it takes time to build a business that generates sustainable income! Grow your business too fast and your expenses may increase faster than your revenue, ultimately shrinking your bottom line.
 
Aim to secure consistent and reliable cash flow before setting your sights on new growth opportunities. Slow and steady growth will also give you time to solve operational issues, avoid overworking your employees, and keep your customers front and center as you add more responsibilities to your daily to-do list.
 
Running a business is a fantastic work opportunity for stay-at-home moms. While it can take a while to settle into your new schedule, you will get the hang of things eventually. Set yourself up for success by choosing a business idea that aligns with your lifestyle, tackling your legal obligations, and planning ahead to combat anticipated challenges so you can achieve some sense of work-life balance through it all.

Author bio: 
A busy mom herself, Leslie Campos has dedicated her site Wellparents.com to all the moms and dads searching for ideas on being physically and emotionally well. When not working or running her children to various after-school activities, Leslie loves to practice yoga, CrossFit, and watching The Great British Baking Show.

Are you looking for personal coaching support on your mompreneur journey? MindCraft Leadership can help you along the way!
 

Tip #5 – Practice, Practice, Practice!
We come to the last of my tips and if you follow at least some of these you will find the value you extract from your work, or leadership skills, training and development will increase many-fold. This will result in faster career progression, greater knowledge and personal development. It will be a win for any organisation that has invested in you and great for you in realising your potential.
So, Tip #5 is really just a prompt for me to ask you….

”what are you going to do this week to embed your new skills?”

In this series we have explored:

1. the importance of applying skills ASAP
2. visualising the process to success
3. socialising your learnings
4. finding someone to practice with

Each Monday (or other day of your choosing), set yourself a plan to do at least one thing from my list. You don’t even need to have done any recent development, take a quick review of something you have previously learned that really stood out for you and ask yourself...

“what am I going to do this week to embed this skill and make it a habit?”
 
Because training without implementation is a waste of time and money.
If you missed the rest of my practical tips for embedding new knowledge, check them on this page. Or for a conversation about ensuring leadership development results in meaningful change, just message me to book a call to see how I can assist you or your organisation.

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Welcome back for Tip #4 in the series about Embedding Newly Learnt Skills and Maximising the Return on your Training Investment. For this tip we will be talking about Guinea Pigs. No you haven't inadvertently stepped into the world of funny, furry, squeaking animals. I'm talking about finding people to practice your skills with.

A quick side-step for a moment. A client recently asked me if these tips only apply to leadership training and I thought this was worth a brief moment for anyone reading this article. The answer is of course, no. These tips have been written with examples that focus on leadership skills development (because that's what I do), but equally apply to learning gathered through most traditional training programs.

A refresher on tips 1-3. Tip #1 talked about the importance of applying new skills immediately so we retain as much knowledge as possible. Tip #2 had us Visualising the successful implementation of our skills, leading to good planning and confidence. Tip #3 delved into the psychology of why socialising our new knowledge with others helps build strong neural pathways and good knowledge retention. If you have only just caught this blog and want to catch up on the earlier tips, keeping scrolling and check them out.

Finding a good guinea pig (or person to actually practice your skills with) can be an important part of learning to implement your leadership skills for a number of reasons:
1 - they provide a safe space to build your confidence
2 - they can provide feedback
3 - you can discover any pitfalls in your approach before you implement on the main stage

Let's break each of these down a little.

Safe Space
Launching into a new leadership style or technique can feel intimidating, particularly when you are trying something for the first time. You don't want to mess it up as it effects others and potentially your team dynamic. You may also want to be able to implement your new skills with confidence, in which case giving it a practice run with someone else first can provide you with that boost to carry if off with conviction. Whenever I am learning to deliver new training content or have a new coaching technique to implement, I always find a friendly person to do a dry run with. I usually surprise myself with my knowledge and develop a new level of confidence to take onto the main stage.

Feedback
Those who know me can tell you how much I value feedback. I seek it constantly and receive it with eagerness. If your Guinea Pig can also give you quality feedback then that can help tremendously. Be aware though, not all feedback must be acted upon. Although having an open mind in receiving feedback is critical, also take into consideration your Guinea Pig's context and background before actioning. They may not have all the information that you have. Try to be objective in evaluating the feedback.

Pitfalls
Any skill, technique or tool you learn will be valuable, but many will also have pitfalls to watch out for. For example, you might have learnt how team members with similar social styles communicate well together, but when you put these similar people together, you discover that some of them clash inter-personally. Better to find out in a safe guinea-pig pen, than in your gun team at work! Although we can be smart people, we don't usually think of everything, and putting theory into practice can produce unexpected results. Identifying pitfalls before your real-life implementation can be very handy.

Selection
A quick note on how to select a guinea pig. Obviously you want them to be as close to the people you are targeting as possible. But there is also some merit in the completely objective outsider reviewing your skills. They might point out the obvious that someone closer may not. You might want to consider some diversity of thinking too. Maybe someone you don't usually align with. Perhaps you can find some of each for the broadest perspective possible.

I hope you have found some value in tip #4. It's not rocket science, but well worth considering if you are looking to really master your new leadership skills.

To ensure you don't miss tip #5, or any of my other practical blog topics on leadership development, follow MindCraft Leadership on LinkedIn or Facebook, or connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm also always happy to chat about my blog topics or anything Leadership Development related, so reach out here to connect. 

Today is Tip #3 in the series 5 Top tips for Embedding those new Leadership skills and actually value from your training.

We have covered #1 - Apply your new skills immediately, which discusses the importance of application before we forget the whole thing and gives us suggestions for how to apply. Tip #2 covered Visualising your new skills which explores the importance of visualising the PROCESS of successfully putting your new skills into practice, avoiding pitfalls and enabling good planning.
If you missed tip 1&2, check them out by scrolling down.
Tip #3 covers the importance of socialising new learning with others to reinforce neural pathways and maximise knowledge retention.

Have you ever found yourself explaining to another person something you have just learnt and in the process of doing so you find yourself immediately feeling more confident and knowledgeable? Assuming you learnt the subject comprehensively in the first place, this will be true for almost all of us, and for some it will be a crucial step in understanding the content. For many of us we get that feeling of suddenly everything becoming clearer.
There are good reasons for this phenomenon:
Studies have shown that whilst the push (knowledge in) of learning is of course necessary, repeated "pushing" does not make significant difference to retention. Karpicke and Roediger (2008)* found in their research that the retrieval of knowledge (pull) from the brain had a very large positive effect. In other words, once we have learnt content (built the neural pathway) repeating the learning only makes a small difference, but once we start regurgitating this knowledge, the pathways are significantly stronger. So why not simply test yourself after you have learnt something?
Yes, this can work for some. For others, sitting down in front of a self-imposed test is about as appealing as wearing a COVID mask on a humid summer day. As social creatures we long for interaction with others and having others hear and acknowledge our learning elicits positive emotions. It could be for reasons such as approval seeking or validation, or enjoying sharing knowledge, or simply because it is easier and more enjoyable than a paper test. It also supplies an opportunity to build on learning with inputs or examples from others.
Those of you who follow me know that I am all about practical implementation of knowledge, so let me give you a few tips to create retrieval of knowledge events after your learning.
1. Perhaps you are an L&D professional, or sponsor of training in the workplace and you have multiple employees attending the same training. You could arrange a discussion group in the first few days post the course to socialise what has been learnt and how everyone intends on applying it.
2. Arrange to teach someone what you have learnt. If you lead a team perhaps you can provide them with the highlights. Or you could identify someone in your workplace who could really benefit from the knowledge and ask them if they would like you to teach it to them. 
3. If all else fails, when you get home after your training, tell your partner, friends, kids etc what you have learnt. Even if you only cover it for 5 mins, it will start to reinforce your learning. You will also find that by explaining things to a lay-person, someone who does not have much prior knowledge, it will make you put concepts into everyday language, requiring more depth of understanding of the topic.

So, bounce out of your learning with the intent to talk to someone else about your new found knowledge as soon as you can. It will do wonders for your ability to remember it and use it well in the future, making sure you get maximum bang for your training buck.

To ensure you don't miss tip 4 & 5, follow MindCraft Leadership on LinkedIn or Facebook, or connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm also always happy to chat about my blog topics or anything Leadership Development related, so reach out here to connect. http://www.mindcraftleadership.com/contact.html

*Karpicke, J. Roediger, H. 2008, The Critical Importance of Retrieval for Learning, in Science, New York.

Today's focus is on tip #2 - Visualising your new leadership skills in the actual work setting. If you missed tip #1, you can find the first article by scrolling below. 

Tip #2 Visualise your new skills in the actual work setting

If you read tip #1 you would know that ideally you would immediately practice your new skills in your actual workplace in real situations. But if your circumstance limits this opportunity, visualisation is a terrific technique to bridge this gap.

Visualisation has long been used as a way to prepare your mind for achievement. It's used extensively in athletics and other sports for example. It is also touted in self-help books as a way to gain that promotion or make yourself inexplicably wealthy. In business we spend lots of time working on company visions in order to inspire and unite our teams.

There is one thing that the self-help books won't usually tell you, it is crucial to know HOW to visualise in order to actually succeed. In fact this has been researched with a clear conclusion that you need to visualise the process rather than the outcome. In other words, it's not going to do you any good to visualise yourself gleefully throwing millions of dollars up in the air, what is far more useful is visualising the PROCESS that you will go through in order to get those riches. The research (Pham and Taylor, 1999) demonstrated that those who visualised the process had an improved ability to plan, were more able to manage anxiety relating to the task and had significantly better outcomes than those who focused on the outcome only.

If you think about this it makes sense. After all, visualising the process will help you identify potential obstacles, look for efficiencies and mentally/emotionally prepare for scenarios. Focusing on the outcome will potentially create a more blaze attitude and certainly does nothing to create a plan.

So what should you do in relation to your precious leadership skills training (or any training for that matter) to visualise success? 

Ideally you will visualise real work situations whilst still in the training. A decent training program should leave some spaces to do this, but if not, spend just a few minutes in your coffee/lunch break or at the end of the day applying the learned skills to any challenges you are facing in the workplace. 

For example, you might have just learnt about effective communication. So in your break you might draft an email that you know has to go out to your team that leverages the new techniques. Then imagine yourself delivering a talk to your team about something coming up. How do they respond? What do you look and sound like when you are talking. What could you do differently to improve the outcome?

Or you might have learnt about the best leadership styles to apply in different situations, so you could apply this to someone in your team that hasn't been performing to expectations. Make notes on how you might adapt your style to better meet their needs. Envision actually having the conversation with them, take note of their possible reactions and how you would respond. Create the whole journey in your head leading to the best possible outcome.

So go ahead and start visualising your journey to fulfilling your hopes and dreams (and your leadership success too :)).

Caroline Edwards-Chantry is the founder and principal of MindCraft Leadership and is passionate about providing proven and practical leadership performance training, coaching and consultancy that actually returns value. You can contact Caroline for a free, confidential chat by emailing [email protected], or use the contact form by clicking here. 

One of the biggest frustrations I encountered during my prior corporate career was getting quality leadership skill development, both for myself and my team. This is one of the things that drove me towards a career and ultimately building a business around leadership development.

Leadership performance has never been under as much scrutiny as it is right now. Millennials will make up the largest proportion of the workforce by 2025 in Australia, and it is well documented that their expectations of leaders differ from historical attitudes. And these new attitudes are rubbing off on their Gen X colleagues too. Shareholders are increasingly concerned about "how" you do business, it's not just about the profit line anymore. Technology development is now so rapid that rigid long-term plans are passe and leaders are expected to be uber flexible, creative and innovative thinkers. And then on top of that, the COVID19 pandemic has us all looking to leaders to step up and guide us in a completely unpredictable world. 

For very good reason, plenty of dollars are spent on leadership skill development by both companies and individuals. According to TrainingIndustry.com, globally the size of the leadership education industry is estimated at US$366 Billion. But what exactly is the return on that huge investment both for the people it seeks to develop and the organisations that are looking for value?

How many times have you seen or experienced yourself that scenario where someone heads off excitedly on a 1,2,3+ day leadership program. They are taught some great, well evidenced tips, techniques, concepts and frameworks. The excitement builds..."this is going to transform the way I lead my team"..."I'm finally going to be able to start delegating"..."I'll bring these skills back to the office and I will finally be able to get that promotion"...etc.

The trouble is, by the time you have come back to the workplace, you are on catch up. The time spent out the business on your course means that you now have extra work to catch up on. You think to yourself, I'll spend the next day or two getting ahead and then I'll get onto applying that leadership stuff I learnt. In the meantime an urgent issue has come up. You push back the leadership stuff a few more days, and so on. You get the picture.

By the time you come to actually implementing your new learnings you have probably forgotten a large proportion of it. In fact, after just a few days, an adult will have forgotten about 60% of their new knowledge (learn more about the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve - link below). 

So, how do you ensure your new knowledge is both remembered and implemented? I have also identified some simple tips that everyone can achieve that will take your learning from concept to delivering maximum value to both you and your workplace:

1. Apply your new skills immediately
2. Visualise your new skills in the actual work setting
3. Talk to someone about your learnings
4. Get some Guinea-Pigs
5. Practice practice practice

Today's focus in on #1, and I will do a deep dive on one tip each post, so be sure to follow me for the next top tip.

Tip #1 - Apply your new skills immediately

This one is based directly from the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve (love that name, it's unforgettable!) I quoted above. Although Ebbinghaus concluded that knowledge is rapidly lost after acquiring it, the good news is that if you repeat the learning, or apply the learning, the rate of knowledge loss slows. The more we repeat and apply, the more we retain. Brilliant! So this is why we race back to the office, find some unassuming team member and ply your skills. Well not quite, but you get the gist.

Break it up into smaller chunks
But what about the fact that there will be work backing up waiting for you when you return to the office? This is the reality for most of us. Well what if I said to you that you only need to put 30 minutes aside the next day to review your notes and apply one skill? And then 30 minutes the next day, and so on.... Breaking it up into smaller chunks each day will seem more achievable. And when I say put the time aside, actually put it in your calendar and DO NOT BOOK ANYTHING OVER IT. 

Make it part of your day
The other thing you can do is to look for opportunities in your day to apply the skills. After your wonderful course finishes, take a look in your diary for the next week. What have you got coming up where one of the new skills could help? Make a note of which skill you will apply in your calendar entry then just before you attend, take a quick few minutes to review your notes from the course, then away you go flexing your new expertise.

Get a buddy
If self-discipline and time management are real problems for you, or you just have trouble saying no to those urgent tasks, then getting yourself an accountability buddy is a great idea. One idea could be to use your manager. Tell him or her about the skills you want to apply and set yourself some deadlines. A good boss will happily hold you to account and will likely to pleased that their (or your) investment is being taken seriously. Or find someone you gelled with on the course and be each others accountability buddies.

The weekend is a knowledge killer
Try to avoid going on courses that finish on a Friday. The weekend is a knowledge killer. And if you can't avoid it, look for opportunities to practice your skills at home. Perhaps you have learned how to more effectively delegate. Why not practice on the kids? Maybe you have learnt some great communication techniques, then your spouse or friends could be willing recipients.

The long and short of it is, get your skills practiced as soon as you possibly can. Put small chunks of time aside in your week, look for opportunities in your current schedule, get an accountability buddy and try to avoid courses ending on a Friday. And if all else fails, try delegating to your kids. Good luck with that one!

Stay tuned for tip #2 and please follow me and my business - MindCraft Leadership on LinkedIn. And reach out and contact me if you would like a free confidential chat about your, or your businesses, leadership development needs and ensuring your investment pays off.

Why right now is the perfect time for positive personal and professional change and growth.

The COVID-19 pandemic is nearly six months old. You might be "adjusting" to the new normal life of social distancing, schooling, remote (or not) working, not going to the pub etc. Whatever the personal impact has been to you, one thing is for sure, life has changed. And change is stressful for us as humans, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on your personality. So why in amongst all this would personal development be important?

The pandemic has been referred to as a "crisis". Now I think that is a way overused word in our day to day life, but most people would agree that this event would be considered a "crisis". It is commonly stated by motivational speakers and the like that the word in Chinese for crisis consists of the characters for "danger" and "opportunity". This is not a strictly accurate translation, but the characters do represent "danger" and "a point where things happen, change".

And if you think about your M.O., it is likely you can go through your normal (pre-COVID) routine without much thought at all. How many times have you filled out that monthly/weekly report starting with a copy-paste? Or driven to work on auto-pilot? If we are comfortable and capable at whatever we are doing, we usually fall into a pattern of doing it without too much thought. In other words, you are in your comfort zone. Consistently staying in your comfort zone leads to boredom, complacency and stagnation.

So what does this have to do with the current situation? Eloquently put by American writer Peter McWilliams "Comfort zones are most often expanded through discomfort". And most people who seek out personal growth & development actively look to make themselves uncomfortable and challenge themselves by doing something new and different. So when the universe presents us with an opportunity to push us outside of our comfort zone, we have two choices; dwell on the negative aspects or embrace the change to see what we can get out of it. Being out of your comfort zone can involve changing perspectives, obtaining new skills, meeting new people, having more (or less) down-time or learning to use Zoom as your main communication method!

Now I want to acknowledge here that for many people this crisis represents some pretty awful outcomes, ranging from isolation from our loved ones to loss of life. I don't mean to belittle anything that anyone is going through. But if you do have the opportunity, this discomfort you are feeling right now, can lead to meaningful personal development & growth.

I work with professionals in my executive coaching practice who have had major breakthroughs in recent times. The key defining element for them is this feeling of the current crisis bringing their priorities into clearer focus. When we are clearer on our priorities and purpose, our life plans come into sharp focus. For my clients this might be a new job, a new leadership style or a clearer view on their company's vision/mission. Other examples of positive change actions might include:

1. Researching your dream of that start up you have always wanted to create
2. Updating your resume ready to get your dream role
3. Doing some study or educating yourself in something you are passionate about
4. Putting some focus on the actions in your development plan
5. Doing some self-reflection about what is truly important to you
6. Working out how to articulate your purpose in life/work
7. Checking in on your values and how you are living them
8. Seeking feedback from your peers/manager/team members and taking some action as a result

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So if life has handed you some lemons right now, firstly make some delicious lemonade (yum), and then have a think about what positive change you can make in your life as a result. Feel free to leave any ideas in the comment section for positive change actions that might be helpful to others.

Head to my website for more details on how Executive Coaching with MindCraft Leadership can help you make the professional changes you seek. Each 60 minute introductory session via Zoom is completely free of charge and with no obligation.