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Welcome to Make More Money without Selling Your Soul with me Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert. This podcast is for you if you are an online entrepreneur who is looking to simplify their business to scale.  On this podcast you can expect to hear regular talk about wealth, about selling and about wellbeing. Because I believe these three core fundamental things are pivotal to your growth moving forward.

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Hello and welcome to make more money without selling your soul with myself Polly Lavarello, evergreen marketing expert and cushy business pioneer.

And this week, I promise to make it a personal one. I’m not going to be sharing tips, I’m not going to be sharing takeaways, I’m just sharing a little behind the scenes about what it is like to be a multi six figure business owner with children who have additional needs. Now, I almost hesitated calling the episode that because, yes, they have additional needs in terms of what society would deem additional needs. But really, they are just sensitive, highly inquisitive, highly energetic children who unfortunately I don’t believe mainstream education supports adequately. In a world where we had a decent education system, I believe they would not be considered children with additional needs. They just quite frankly struggled to sit down for several hours looking at a board. And unsurprisingly, as someone who is most likely undiagnosed autistic ADHD, I entirely sympathise. And I guess it’s challenging, right? Because it’s the lens, I’ve always lived my life through being autistic and ADHD without actually truly understanding that. But now that my children are in a similar predicament, it’s hard to see it from any other perspective than my own. But people do you regularly ask questions. And obviously, I did an episode not that long ago, talking about how my partner does a lot of the laundry, or the shopping, I say a lot of the laundry, let’s be honest, all the laundry, all the shopping, most of the cooking and all the cleaning. And therefore, you know, that’s how I have a multi six figure business because I don’t have to do very much. And I guess that’s partly why I felt the inclination to record this episode. Because I felt it important to be perhaps giving a slightly I don’t know, I just didn’t want to kind of put it all through one particular lens.

Because while yes, that is also all true. At the same time, I have children who from the moment they wake up to the moment they go to bed, require my attention. And while they’re at school, they don’t. And you know, up until five o’clock, when I allow myself to work, from the moment I shut my door and go downstairs to spend time with them. That’s me, I’m in mum mode, and very actively in mum mode in a way that perhaps other parents don’t necessarily need to be. I’m also having to actively advocate for my children and fill in very, very, very long forms for things like ADHD applications, and eh, see applications and all the things all the paperwork that comes with having a child with additional needs, which believe me is quite a lot. And obviously just monitoring how they’re supported at school to ensure that they’re being adequately supported, which unfortunately, in mainstream schools, you know, where they’re getting just increasingly less funding, it’s a job in itself, because whether they’re doing their best or not ultimately, most of them, I don’t think I’ve met one, let’s put it this way, I don’t think I’ve met one parent of a child with additional needs, who hasn’t had to advocate on their behalf. No matter how hard the school tries, ultimately, it’s just necessary, most of the time, because the teachers and their TAs and stuff, oftentimes even the heads, don’t have knowledge around send to be able to really fully support the children in a way that they need to. They put on workshops.

So parents are most the time I sit there thinking your teachers could all benefit from this. So ultimately, I guess what I’m trying to say here is it kind of feels like its own kind of part time admin role that I run alongside doing all of these things. And it’s been my biggest motivation really, to not just have a business. You know, a lot of the time people, you know, sociate me with a word ease and simplicity, and fun, and joy. And those things are all really important to me because of my personal circumstances. Because being a parent requires every single shred of patience within me. It really requires a huge amount of nervous system regulation for myself to support children to children who are highly dysregulated the majority of the time, it takes air Every part of my being really entirely honest. And if you’re a parent and you’re listening to this, I’m sure you can relate, you know, whether it’s a daily thing, or whether it’s just a thing that you’ve had, you know, seasons of, I think everyone can relate to that sense of just feeling like there’s nothing of you left, you’re giving everything to your child to try and give them the best experience the best upbringing, but it can be exhausting. Which is why, you know, in the early days, when I first was a contractor in 2019, before I launched as a personal brand, I was about to reach burnout, and I was exhausted, I was working really long hours, I was working with clients who, to be honest with you were quite disrespectful towards me, they were underpaying me cutting corners in every single place and kind of treating me like their therapist as well as their as well as their contractor, which is entirely my fault. You know, I look back and that those are all things I allowed. And this is why I say the journey to being a CEO is it’s not just a strategical one, it’s very much a mindset piece to that people pleaser, who I was back then that person who perhaps had insecurities as to kind of just how good I was really kind of affected how I showed up the kind of clients I attracted. And I don’t want to say I attracted those situations, but I certainly didn’t help them. Because I didn’t confidently advocate for myself, I didn’t confidently put boundaries in place. I didn’t confidently say, this is what you’re paying for. And this is what you’re not.

So you know, this is how I ended up in, you know, a situation where I was overstretched by my children, overstretched by my clients. And it all felt like way too much. And I don’t want that for anyone else. And since then, I have been supported by various coaches and mentors. And it’s no coincidence that the majority of the support I’ve received over the last three years being an online business has mainly been around nervous system mindset and subconscious and energetic, very little of it has actually been strategical, because ultimately, on the majority of occasions where I’ve looked for strategical support, I’ve not actually been learning anything very new. So the kind of strategical support I get these days is more peer to peer and learning from others who are in you know, doing similar work to me to see what it is what knowledge they have to share. Because I found it really challenging to find anyone who was kind of more in the online business world than I was who could tell me things that I wasn’t already seeing. I know that sounds arrogant, and maybe that’s the autism in me, but it’s just the truth. And always welcome to that being changed. I’m always on the lookout for that person who can be that person for me, but I’ve struggled to find it so far.

And at least not anyone who’s not just being all smoke and mirrors anyway. So, yes. So back to where I was, Can you tell I’m also on the spectrum. It’s been a journey of you know, getting past that burnout and becoming the boundary of human being who wasn’t just a people pleaser, who wasn’t overstretching themselves. And this is why you know, for me work is something that has to fill my cup, it has to be something that doesn’t make me feel drained, it has to be something that’s balanced with well being activities, were taking care of myself, because I had really bad COVID, which turned into long COVID I had IBS, I had regular migraines, I had all the things, all the signs of a body that was essentially shutting down on itself back in 2019 and early 2020. The long COVID Only got rid of mid 2021. Unfortunately, I haven’t had any of those horrible clues that my body is, you know, falling into pieces. And ultimately I don’t have it sounds awful. But I don’t have any control over my experience with my children, I can find various coping mechanisms and stuff. But ultimately, I live in a very charged, very noisy, very demanding household with two very small children who I adore. And I wouldn’t have them any other way. But like I say, it really takes so much for me so much. So that when it comes to my business, I need to have my team there supporting me. I need to have systems and structures in place. So I don’t have to be doing a monotonous things day in day out so I can be in my zone of genius. I need to have clients who liked me up who I enjoy working with who equally thrive and a joyous working with me too. I need branding and photography and experiences and all of those things to just feel exquisite. Because ultimately, it’s the one area of my life. I really do have control over and one of the beautiful things that’s happened alongside running my online business is actually recognising that this strength this way I’ve been able to curate my lived experience through my business has had a ripple effect on who I am outside of my business to when I started out in business As I would never dream of not being at my desk at 10 o’clock, I would think that was naughty, that someone was going to find me out that I didn’t equitably make way less money. But now, the mature experienced business owner, me recognises that taking time out before, you know, knowing that school drop offs can be intense, not being at my desk immediately at nine o’clock or 915 enables me to regulate navels, me to get into my CEO mindset to look for the opportunities and the day ahead, to ensure I’m working with my flow

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And it feels amazing. It’s you know, it’s also that mindset that has me booking in, you know, I’m on a subscription basis, baby with massages every month, because I know that that again, helps me stay calm and regulated. It’s a lovely treat to look forward to every month, I have my monthly manicures, I have my personal trainer who I go to see at the gym. And the old version of me would have thought, Gosh, that woman’s indulgent. But you know, I’ve come to recognise through a series of events over the last few years that we don’t know how much time we have on this planet, I want to make money, and I want to feel good. And I want to give my children the best upbringing that I can, I want to be present, I want to be having dinners with them every evening, I want to be taking them to their clubs, I want to be dropping them to school every day. And I think one thing that’s always been really present for me, is a lack of willingness to compromise on any of that. There are certain things that in my business, if you’ve worked with me, you’ll probably know about it. There’s certain things I am willing to compromise on. Because I’m only human, you know, it’s kind of exhausting keeping up too many things at a time. But when it comes to my children, and ensuring I’m there for their sports days, or their assemblies, which are getting next to no notice for, you know, I even ran out the other day and halfway through a sales call to attend a school trip that the school forgot to tell me I was meant to be on. And of course, I felt rubbish in that moment. And of course, I felt a bit unprofessional. But as I was there and feeling those little hints of guilt, I reminded myself that I chose to do this because A, I didn’t want my son to be excluded from a school trip. And secondly, that this is why I have this career that ultimately for that woman I had to leave it was a minor inconvenience. And I was going to make it up to her tenfold. And secondly, that by doing that, you know, my going out and getting to spend that time my son, I was honouring what I got into all of this for in the first place, which was flexibility.

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So yeah,  I mean, I didn’t want to make this a very long episode. Because ultimately, I think I shared on the last episode at the end that I could be ranting, I could be moaning, I could be saying a lot of things because ultimately raising a child with additional needs is really challenging. But I guess for this episode alone, it felt kind of important to share how it has framed my view of business. And as to why that’s why I believe joy and integrity and simplicity and ease and connection. And being supported are all such valuable things. And that ultimately, you know, it is an area of our lives, we have so much control over so much control. And it gets to be something that really, really fills you with joy. And you do get to have that balanced business that enables you to be the business woman, the parent, everything you desire. And yeah, you do get to hit multi six figures while still making all of those kinds of compromises towards being the parent you desire. And looking after yourself. So yeah, if you wanted evidence, is it possible for you to if you are a single parent, if you are a parent of children with additional needs, if you’re finding it hard right now, know that there are many tears shared behind the scenes of this business. There are many moments where I feel outraged and angry at the system and wish I had more time to give back. And and I do plan. It’s part of my bigger picture my bigger mission and vision one day to do something that helps people in this space more because the sport isn’t there. And I remind myself daily that having this business by my own design is also reminding and showing my children what’s possible for them to so that should they ever find an office environment overwhelming?

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Should they ever find this sense of justice gets in the way of them being able to work appropriately with

a boss, should they ever find that essentially, their you know, additional needs makes it hard for them to work in a certain way that they can be their own boss and that they get to live their life on their own terms. So there we have it. Next week, I shall be back and I’ll be back on the business theme, talking about three organic and easy ways to grow your mailing list. Well, I look forward to being in your ears again next week. In the meantime, if you would like to dig in to resources around what will support you to be the best CEO on the web. Then go along to the one academy.co.uk and check out all the good stuff on there. We are currently working to revamp it and make it even easier to navigate even easier to get make the most out of the tools and there’s even an online community in there where you can connect with me and influence these podcasts moving forward. So I hope to see you on there and in the meantime, I’ll be back next week.