Woah. Talk about a major break from blogging. I have been so swept up in motherhood and in launching my wellness company, Mindful Mamas, that I haven’t even had time to breathe let alone write for Love & LaRock.

It’s been my biggest honor to take you behind the scenes into my life. Shy away from the hard topics? Not me! I’ve taken you into the depths of postpartum depression, the ups and downs of marriage and motherhood, navigating career changes, and more. Today, I want to pull back the curtains a bit and talk about what it’s been like to pour our entire life-savings into my new business venture, Mindful Mamas—a wellness company geared toward teaching moms and moms-to-be how to live their best life through self-care and mindfulness.

So ready to get the deets? I am answering the top question I have received on how running a start-up company has affected and enhanced my marriage. Let’s do this.

Marriage After Baby: Start Up Life

Was your husband on board with you when you said you wanted to start a business?

When I had the idea for Mindful Mamas, I knew I wanted to go big, meaning I wanted to create an app that would be accessible to women around the world, but I wasn’t sure where to begin. My friend Nicole from the @thedigigirls had just launched a membership site to teach women how to take and edit photos on their phone. She suggested I start something like that which was brilliant because a) I had NO clue if Moms were even ready to learn mindfulness and b) until I proved that there was a market for my idea, I wasn’t going to spend the $150,000 it takes to build an app.

The total investment for Mindful Mamas version one that was launched two weeks before my son, Lennon, was born was about $7,000. I don’t think I had a clue what was required to launch a membership site, but I am so glad I did it. For one it led me to the 120 women who were truly ready for transformation. They were the ones that signed up right away and many of them are still the women I talk to weekly. They truly gave me the confidence I needed to go big. Also, I found out that online marketing is not as easy as “hey followers, come join my club.” Ha. There is so much work involved in building a brand, and course, and thank goodness I found Jenna Kutcher’s Goal Digger Podcast because I binged almost every episode since launching version one.

When we go to launch the Mindful Mamas app (which will be available to order for pre-sale on Valentine’s Day by the way), my team and I will be light years ahead of where we were the first go around, and we will actually have a launch plan. Imagine that?!

Okay, holy tangent. Sorry, I haven’t even answered the question yet. Short answer, yes. Perry has been uber supportive of this. He saw what I was able to build with Love & LaRock while working a full time job as a school psychologist and didn’t for a second doubt that I could do it again with Mindful Mamas. Now did he know what he was saying yes to exactly or how it would change our life? Nope! I’ll get into that more later.

What’s been the most challenging part for your relationship?

The most challenging part has been the work/life integration piece. I do NOT believe in work/life balance. When I try to balance it, it goes to shit and I feel guilty for being a terrible mother and business owner. When I think of my life as integrated, I can choose what needs my attention and know that sometimes that means I am in full mom mode and other times full on Beyoncé-like run the world work mode.

When we had Lennon I was working a lot, and while I wish I had maternity leave, I didn’t. The show had to move forward and I had to make it move. Perry decided to go down to working only half time, which was a HUGE leap of faith, so that I could have more time building Mindful Mamas. Perry took on more of the role of being with the kids and tending to the house duties.

There are times when it is really hard for both of us. We can’t seem to keep the house tidy, we eat take out more than we would like, and when we both have deadlines for work, tension can surface. Perry watches Lennon during the day. Then after dinner, I do the bedtime routine with the kids while he works. It leaves very little room for connection, but we know it’s just a phase and we will get back into spending more intentional time together soon (hopefully after the app officially launches). We already planned a date night for the night after it does!

Yup. Almost fell here. Thanks P for catching us!

Were there any non-negotiables or hard stop points you put on how much money you would invest into this business?

Oh yes. We had a lot of discussions on this. Would we sell our rental house? Dilute our stock? Drain our savings? These were all discussions we had over the course of several months and decided that we would be all in, but with limits.

This meant that I would take on extra work and hustle for brand partnerships for Love & LaRock. We would essentially live off of Perry’s half-time income while we drained our savings account as much as we needed to. We also decided that we would do all the aforementioned but hold onto our assets like our Tesla stock (because Perry loves Elon Musk) and our rental property. Those two things are hard NOs for us. Both of us have jobs that don’t come with a retirement plan and we have to protect our family’s future.

And before I go further, I need to check my privilege. I know that we are unbelievably lucky to be in a position to pursue this together financially. We certainly aren’t rolling in dough, but we aren’t struggling either.

Who takes care of the kids if you are working so much?

We both do. Perry does more of the day-to-day nap time and Lennon duty while I typically take Winter to and from school and do bedtime routine. Some days it feels really hard to be away from my family or to duck out a few hours here and there on the weekends, but when I am with my family I am really with them. Mindfulness helped me lock into the micro-moments of joy and really soak in the memories with my kids. It’s rare that I am thinking about work when I am with them.

How do you stay connected when you are both so busy?

The best way to stay connected is to be really good about being intentional with the time we do have. When we go for walks, we just enjoy the company and the outdoors. When we watch a movie, we cuddle and watch without distractions (like phones).

We have some work to do in terms of making alone time a priority (hence why I already scheduled out our date night months in advance), but I am so thankful that when we are together, we stay present with one another.

Also a shared calendar! Ha! Ask Perry how resistant I was to this for some reason and as a result, how many tiffs we got in when something was double-booked. Shared calendars have helped mitigate any unnecessary conflicts when it comes to who is where at what time.

Well friend, that’s all for now. If you have any other questions for me, drop them in the comments below.

Photos by Kyla Fear | Minnesota Sweatshirts/Shirts from our dear friends shop, MN Apparel.

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