Design Your Business to Serve Your Life with Danielle Throckmorton

SPEAKERS

Rita Suzanne, Danielle Throckmorton

Rita Suzanne  00:01

Welcome to the Mom Owned and Operated Podcast, the podcast about moms and for moms, where we have candid conversations about running a business, raising a family, and remembering ourselves. I’m your host, Rita Suzanne, a single mom of four, digital strategist and provider of no nonsense business strategies and tactics.

Rita Suzanne: 0:27

Hi, I’m Rita Suzanne, and today I have my guest Danielle with me. Danielle, I’m so excited to chat with you today and talk all about one of my favorite things, which is mastering your time. Tell everyone a little bit more about you, your family and your business, please.

Danielle Throckmorton: 0:44

Thanks so much for having me. So, yes, also my favorite topic. I am so happy to dive into this. A little bit about me. So I am Oklahoma-based and I have three children. They are wild teenagers 14, 14, and 16. And I have been married for goodness eight years and together 10. So we’re a blended family and I am a multi-passionate entrepreneur. So I own three companies from events, from hosting luxury retreats as well, but I have an event company where I help other people execute retreats. And then I’m also a business revenue strategist, so I work with entrepreneurs to help them master time, money and energy. And we also have a plumbing company. So we are a full entrepreneurial household over here.

Rita Suzanne: 1:33

I love all of that. How are you managing all to do all of those things? Because that is a lot.

Danielle Throckmorton: 1:40

I know that is why I had to make Time Mastery like a non-negotiable for me and I got asked that a lot because I launched my first company and then about two years in, I went full time and left my full time job and then within the next year, I had launched my second company and they were like, ok, how are you doing this?

Danielle Throckmorton: 1:59

Because at that time my kids were five and seven and I said, well, I had to get really clear on what I valued. I had to get really clear on what my capacity was energetically, so that my family didn’t just get what was left of me. And also there was a lot of processes like delegation, automation, different things in my business, but a lot of it was the framework of how I revisited my time and how I was intentional with what, who and where I spent it. So we can definitely dive into that further today. But for me I didn’t realize what I was doing was like special or something that other people weren’t implementing, but pretty type A person and figured out like if I really want to be an intentional mom but still run a business, something has to change. And so I started getting really intentional with what that looked like.

Rita Suzanne: 2:49

Yeah, I think it’s super important and I find that a lot of moms specifically like we start our businesses because we want to spend more time with our kids. But and this happened with me when I started my business I started 10 years ago, but I was so determined I wanted to make sure that my business was going to succeed right, so I literally was designing my life around my business, and so my advice is always now to other moms is like really design your business around your life. And so do you have any tips and advice on how moms and women can actually do that instead? Because I feel like if they start out with that path, that would be the better way to go.

Danielle Throckmorton: 3:37

Yeah, so I’m actually the same way. You have to have a business that serves your life, but you also have to have a system that ebbs and flows, as our life ebbs and flows. And I made the same mistake. My desire to become an entrepreneur came after the loss of my sister, and I was working full time and only seeing my daughter a few hours of each evening. I was a single mom at that time and I was like I don’t want to choose whether I take care of her when she’s sick or I get a vacation with her. Of course you chose when they were sick, but then I had very little time to I get a vacation with her. And of course you chose when they were sick, but then I had very little time to spend just being present with her. And that realization that that sudden loss in my family really had me be like is this? What success looks like for me is working from 8am to 5pm, an hour round trip from my home, seeing the kiddo for two hours and putting her to bed, and then on the weekends, I’m so exhausted that she got nothing right, like she got what was left of me, and so that was kind of the backstory for me.

Danielle Throckmorton: 4:40

Well, when I built my first company, I was I’m a certified wedding and event specialist, and so I built a wedding agency, essentially just serving and hosting luxury events, and, yes, I had more time during the day, but then, as my kids started school, I was working when they were out of school, and so I ended up building this business. That was like the opposite, or really the same. I thought it was going to be the opposite of what I wanted and realized I had just repeated a pattern of like now I’m working 15 hour days on the weekends and I’m missing my kids, and so that’s kind of where the whole like your business should serve your life came from. For me was like, okay, I need to be able to ebb and flow in my schedule and my and my work. As my kids lives ebb and flow, just like when they’re graduated from college and they’re moving on or they go away to school. I want to be able to travel and to see them. So I’m all about really designing a business that serves your life, but you have to figure out what do I do right now to get to where I want to go?

Danielle Throckmorton: 5:37

So, as a strategist, of course, I want you thinking ahead of like what would it look like? Of course, for me I think five years, typically, because, think about it Our kids are in elementary school, then middle school, then high school and then college, right? So, kind of, for me the five-year framework worked really well in my mind and I’m in that season of like same as you read, I like five years. Our kids are going to be grown. That’s wild. So what is that going to look like? Well, I knew I didn’t want to look location specific business, so I retired full-time from the wedding industry back in November, pivoted that business and then for the last five years I’ve been building a business that allows me to travel. It allows me to do what I’m still passionate in leverage the skill sets that I still have. But I use a lot of what? If you want me to go deeper, I’ll talk about the tools I use, but I don’t just want to ramble. So, is there any questions before I move past this part?

Rita Suzanne: 6:26

I mean, I think sharing tools is definitely something that everybody wants to hear about, right, because people love to hear what’s going on inside of other people’s businesses. Like they want to know what are the tools that you use, how are you using them. They would love to even see you use them, you know. Like that’s what people love to know.

Danielle Throckmorton: 6:46

Okay. So this is where I nerd out because, being with you, being 10 years into your business I’m eight years into my business how much have we went to conferences or different things and I host retreats. So I’m like such a freak about making sure people leave a tactical. It’s like I don’t just want to come and be inspired. So if you are like been listening for this long and you’re like, okay, this is the same, yada, yada, yeah, great, glad you could run a business and like be a mom. But my life sucks right now and my kids are crazy. We’re running all around Like you’re not alone. Listen, because I have some tactical things, because this is where I love as an educator to like just show you. But the deal is is I have I had this best advice given to me years ago and it was like if someone tells you that there’s only one way to do something, you run the other freaking way. Right, because I feel like we have, as we’re both strategy girls, so we know that like there are strategies and frameworks that work. But every human is different the stage of life that they’re in, their energetic capacity, their personality, right. So what I have designed was a framework to decide okay, in this season of my life, what do I value? So I have a free core values workbook. I will totally give it to everyone that wants it.

Danielle Throckmorton: 8:00

But you dismiss this because you hear it so often like know what you value, know what you value, know what your business values are. And then you’re like cool, but like I’ve done that already 10 years ago. But who you were 10 years ago and who you are today is totally different. Who you were at the end of last year and where you are at the end of this first quarter is totally different. You’ll know it. You’ll know when that shift happens. So when you start looking at your schedule and you dread things, or you’re coming at the end of the day and you’re like, man, my kids are getting nothing of me. Like you start feeling that disconnect, that getting nothing of me. Like you start feeling that disconnect, that’s when you know something has shifted and something is not working and is no longer feeling aligned. So I start there first and I’m like okay, for me, family is something I value. Family is very broad. Okay, but what does it look like on my schedule to ensure that the things that I value the most are happening? People say, well, I value my family. I’m like, show me where they’re at on your calendar, right? So for me, my family is. I do not take client calls after three. That is my time with my kids. That is the time with my family. That is where I’m spending going to the gym with the kids, cooking dinner for them, talking about lives. Weekends are protected. I no longer work weekends. I retired from that industry.

Danielle Throckmorton: 9:09

You may be in a season where weekends is your bread and butter, right. So deciding what does that look like, moving forward, but in this season, where can I make sure family is a priority at the other parts of your week, right? So just making sure in this season, where you’re at. So I always ask to come up first with what we value.

Danielle Throckmorton: 9:26

If I say I value my health, is there a time to move my body? Is there a time to journal in the mornings? Is there a time to have a healthy conversation with my husband, a date night, like all that affects my health, right, our overall, like overall wellbeing. So I have kind of a template. It’s super nerdy. I’m just going to give you the best description I can through voice. But it is a spreadsheet and it is like all of my favorite colors. Okay, so it has like purple is my favorite color, so everything that’s like associated with my wellbeing is going to be in a dark purple. Anything that’s in my family time is a light purple, because to me I’m like that is like, oh, I just love getting to spend time with them. Then I have my green because we all need to make money because we’re all entrepreneurs and we’re running a business. So I want to make sure that there are still sections of my time where there’s a lighter green for administration, backend stuff, which a lot of times for me is delegating and making sure that I know what’s happening in my business. And then I have like the darker green where I’m coaching, I’m doing face-to-face, like transactional type work.

Danielle Throckmorton: 10:28

So when I look at my schedule I’m like, okay, I’m still running a business, but I’m also being an intentional mom. The front end of my day is protected until 9am to make sure that I have got the kids off to school. Things are going great, I’m ready, my foundation is laid, and then I have certain theme days that I do and you’ve heard of this, I’m sure you’ve taught about this like CEO days. Right, I call mine me Mondays, because that’s when I work on the back end of my business and I sprint and I get things delegated to the team. If you don’t have a team, you’re looking can I automate it? Can I ditch it? Is it actually important?

Danielle Throckmorton: 11:00

And then I have the three days throughout the week the Tuesday, wednesday, thursday where I’m coaching and educating, done by three, to pick up my kids, and then on Fridays.

Danielle Throckmorton: 11:16

Those are either an overflow if I’ve been sick or something happened, or I call my Fridays because I can go and have a pedicure, I have lunch with my girlfriends and set my energy to where it needs to be so that I can show up for my kids for the rest of the weekend as the mom that I really want to be.

Danielle Throckmorton: 11:25

Now this sounds easier said than done, because life changes and things ebb and flow, so I’m going to let Rita share a little bit more before I go further, because I could talk about this for hours, but that’s just one thing that I do is I create an ideal template, because I can’t just snap my fingers when my week has been all over the place for six months and things are booked out two weeks and think next week it’s going to look the way that I want it to. What it does is it gives you a framework. This is the vision that I’m casting. If I could have an ideal week, this is what it looks like. And then we start to say yes and no and we start to direct things to start serving us to meet that vision that we have. And it’s so much closer than you think.

Rita Suzanne: 12:14

It truly is. Yeah, I agree, I do. I do something very, very similar. I don’t take any calls on Mondays or Fridays, and I will. If I do any networking, it’s usually on Tuesdays, wednesdays or Thursdays Any local meetings that I have as far as like local networking. I will do some stuff on Fridays, but it’s usually because I’m going to be out or I’m going to be out doing something and I don’t have gym on the day that day. You know. So it’s, it’s. It is more intentional and you know, and, like you, I don’t have, I don’t have social media notifications on my phone. I, you know, I don’t have social media notifications on my phone. I don’t have my work email on my phone. I have all these boundaries in place in order to maintain, I guess, my sanity right, because otherwise I feel like that is where we slip and that’s where we end up becoming burnt out.

Danielle Throckmorton: 13:14

that’s where we end up becoming burnt out and the biggest problem us as mom business owners fall into, I think the biggest problem is the burnout, yeah, and that’s, and that is where I gotten when I was working in the wedding industry and I was like, okay, I can’t meet everyone else’s version of success and we’re all in different seasons. So I’m comparing your you’re listening, comparing your season to two moms that have teenagers. It’s a bit different when you have really littles, right, or you’re a single parent, or or you have shared custody, and so it’s like a week on is kind of crazy and a week off is a little lighter. Like the thing is is that you need to design it to where it serves the season that you’re in. And I have a tab too that I use because it’s pretty consistent.

Danielle Throckmorton: 13:52

But we have three kids that are in sports and one in competitive traveling sports, and so when that happens we have to adjust. Dinners look different, decompression time looks different, the time that I’m moving, my body looks different. But I still have to make sure that the things that I value, that are going to fill my cup, are happening, despite whether it’s a bit crazy or not. If I neglect my health for four months because my kids are in traveling ball season, then it’s going to be extremely hard to get back into it. But secondly, my physical health is going to suffer and I’m not going to be able to sustain coaching, be able to play with my kids after and playing catch in the yard, doing whatever Right. So I want you to figure out like, what does it look like to give ourselves permission to change? Summer looks different for me.

Rita Suzanne: 14:36

Oh yeah. So, what’s working right now, yeah, yeah.

Danielle Throckmorton: 14:42

So now we have to start kind of not like start setting those boundaries that Rita mentioned and start guiding our clients towards what we really want things to look like. So that’s just a small part, and then we have to be consistent, which is what I do, which I can share.

Rita Suzanne: 14:56

The next kind of tactical thing that I do yeah, and that’s the thing I think one of the things that a lot of women struggle with as well is the consistency piece. Right, we struggle with the burnout and that’s because we’re trying to do way too many things, but then we struggle with the consistency because we are again we’re trying to do too many things and then we fall off because we’re doing all of these things and then things just start dropping and falling off. So, yes, let’s talk about what your strategies are. Tactics are for staying consistent.

Danielle Throckmorton: 15:33

Okay, so you’ve created this ideal week. You figured out, like what do I value the most? How does my ideal week look like? I know I have to start now like adjusting my calendar or start adjusting things to start getting to where I want to go. Like no, I can’t take a four o’clock anymore because I’m done at three. But there’s a way to approach boundaries where there’s a mutual. When, like you’re not going to get the best of me because I’m low energy at that time, you’re not going to get the best of me because I’m split focus and I have kids running around in the house and opening cabinets and doing all the things right. So it’s also like addressing that to not like I’m just setting these boundaries, even though we don’t have to explain, we don’t have to do that, you guys know that. But the truth of the matter is like when you are split focused or you’re low energy, you’re not showing up best for your clients. So giving them that permission to understand, like I understand that you can only meet at noon. I’m not available at that time because X, y and Z. But I do have these open and sometimes we lose people. But at the end of the day, we don’t want to be dreading our work. They deserve a person that’s really excited, right?

Danielle Throckmorton: 16:31

So I do what’s called a Sunday success session. So now that I kind of know what my schedule looks like and how I want it to look, it takes consistency, right. Some people don’t want to do it on a Sunday. I take around 15 minutes or so on Sundays and I go through what is called just my brain dump session. So the first part of that is I’m like okay, look at the calendar, what’s coming up? Oh, this task has to happen because I have this with Rita coming up, or I have to do this because I have an appointment, or, oh, yeah, I forgot, leah has this event and needs x, y and z. So I’m just extracting everything right there on the marker board. I usually do it with sticky notes and just throw it out of my head, do it on paper and make a list. And then I go through and I think of three things.

Danielle Throckmorton: 17:10

I’m like what can I delegate? So for you, if you can’t delegate yet, what can you ditch or automate, because sometimes the things that you’re doing are not urgent in that week, right, and so I go through the delegate, automate, ditch or keep, because there are sometimes only things that I can do, and one of the parts of getting to where we want to be in our businesses is that the truth of the matter is the people who are running three companies. They are not doing it by themselves and if they are, they’re not living a quality of life that is sustainable, more than likely. I can’t speak for everyone, but I just cannot see that happening. So I make sure that I delegate and I do those things on Sunday. So on Monday, when I’m working on the back end of my business, I’m doing the only me tasks. I’m setting out those things first and then I can jog throughout the week while I’m serving my clients, rather than the split focus. But I do that on Sunday and get it all out of my head. My husband and I will meet on Sunday night and we’re just like okay, I have this kid here, that kid there, what are? Okay, we have games that night, so we’re eating out, like we plan kind of a way to be on the same page because we are both entrepreneurs. And then each evening I do what’s called a 15 minute of intentional focus and I know you guys are thinking, holy crap, how does she do all this. I do the ideal week very rarely, when things are starting to shift and fill off right, but it becomes easier One day a week. I’m asking you to delegate, to ditch and to extract what’s going on in your brain. But what happened on Sunday? Monday, everything blew up. Our emails are full So-and-so did this? This kid got sick, so we can’t expect what we set in place on Sunday to look the same every day. So I, while the husband showers, I take a brain dump, just on paper.

Danielle Throckmorton: 18:49

I actually use Artful Agenda too, and I really love that app. I don’t know if you’ve ever used it. Yeah, it’s like 35 bucks a year. It’s like super affordable, but it just makes my creative heart sing. It’s like a scheduler and a task manager. It’s really fun. But I just get it out of my head because I’m like, okay, this happened, this changed, I need to do this tomorrow, and then I just wait till the next day when I’m in the office. But it’s out of my head. Everything is taken care of.

Danielle Throckmorton: 19:12

I can lay my head down at night and sleep, but in the beginning of the morning I have my notebook with all the things that I need to do that have shifted so that 15 minutes of focus allows me to be like okay, is something else now a priority over this?

Danielle Throckmorton: 19:25

Do I need to shift an appointment? Do I need to say no, okay, I’m behind on this. Do I need to create a block of time? I don’t use my computer at night, so I do it on paper, old school, and then I show up in the office the next morning and I bring up it into my calendar or delegate to my team and it team and it’s off my plate. So that’s kind of how I maintain it, kind of figure out what I value. First I create that ideal framework and then I show up each week to assess like what do I want to say yes to? What can I handle? What can I not? What can I let go of? And then that 15 minutes of focus allows me to just be consistent with mastering my time, Because if you don’t master it, someone else is going to. So it requires that you give attention to it.

Rita Suzanne: 20:10

Yeah, I’ll do, like a note, something in my notes app or, you know, physical paper I love. I’m an. I’m a list maker as well, so I will definitely. I’ll be driving and I’m making notes. Oh yeah, I have to do this. Oh yeah, I have to do that. And instead of, you know, going into an app on my phone, I will just make a list and email it to myself or save it to my notes notes app and then just go in and and, you know, fix it or whatever I have to do, you know, later on.

Danielle Throckmorton: 20:42

Efficiency wise, doing it on your tech would make sense. I just try not to do tech at night. So for me, like again, you’ve got to figure out what works for you. If making a list on paper for the extraction and then circling delegate is in purple and automate is in red and only I can do tasker in green, because those are money making activities, like you don’t have to do the sticky note wall, you don’t have to do a list, you can do it right in your software, your CRM, like whatever works for you. But the idea is finding a system that works for you and being consistent.

Danielle Throckmorton: 21:12

If Sundays are not your jam, do it Monday morning, do it Friday before you leave the office, like whatever it is that works for you. But I can tell you, when people come to me and are like, how have you ran? Three companies still show up as a mom, still find time to work out, still try to do those things, it’s because I prioritize what I matter most or what matters most and that I care about the most and I’m consistent with revisiting it and protecting it. But I don’t always get it right, guys. There are times where I’ve overbooked myself, like giving myself grace, but there are more times than not where I get it right, and that’s because I give attention to it.

Rita Suzanne: 21:47

Yeah, and I think that that’s important. And really all I was saying with the list is like just getting it out of my head. You know, just like I’ll remember, you know things, and I’m just like, oh shoot, I need to. You know, write this down. And you know, make sure that I actually go back and do it or revisit it, or, you know, make sure that somebody else is taking care of it.

Rita Suzanne: 22:08

And lately, what I’ve been doing is taking things off of my plate and meaning, like before, when I started this podcast, I had a directory that went with it, and it was a free directory, and and then I was like, okay, now that I have X amount of people in this, I’m going to go ahead and monetize it, and. And then I thought about it and I was like, you know what, I’m just going to let it go. I’m just going to, I’m just going to let it go. I don’t even care that much like in educating people on why it’s important to actually be in a directory, right, it’s important to be in a directory is great for your SEO, it’s great for, you know, backlinks, it’s really good for your exposure, blah, blah, blah, all these other things, right. And so I’m like you know, trying to tell them it’s great for all these things, but I just don’t have the energy to do that.

Rita Suzanne: 23:03

And I also closed my shop, and you know, I was like. You know, I’m just taking things away in order to alleviate time for myself, because I just want to focus on the things that I feel like are more important for me. Could I delegate those things and have somebody else take care of it, like I did? In the beginning? Sure, but then, you know, I just feel like it’s just too much for me to kind of manage and oversee. Do you know what I mean?

Danielle Throckmorton: 23:34

No, I do, and the thing is so. You know I talk about mastering time, money, energy. Well, when you look at your time and you create that ideal schedule and you’re like, okay, I only have from nine to two each day to serve clients, looking at your offer suite and being like, okay, well, is it priced to the way that I still hit the revenue goals that I need for the time availability that I have? Strategist, I’m looking and saying I can only take X amount of coaching clients one-to-one. Well, in order to collapse that time, maybe I need to do a mastermind and maybe that pricing needs to look a bit different. Or, hey, I know that I’m going to work less hours in the summer, so what do I need to be doing intentionally throughout the year to plan for that? In order to master the money and the energy side of things, you have to master your time, because the time mastery is what’s going to give you the ability to make more revenue and be strategic with it. Because the thing is is, when you do this and you realize, oh my gosh, I have to work with 16 clients a week in order to get to where I want to go financially, energetically, that is not sustainable. So then it lets you say, okay, what else needs to look different? Is it the pricing? Is it the actual offer in itself? Is it that this whole thing over here, this shop or this business that I have is completely distracting me from what I want to do differently? That was hard for me to let go of a six figure stream of revenue and a successful event company that I had built for almost a decade, that I honestly got leads without having to try. And then here I am, like building a business that was like brand new from the ground up and I was like this is insanity. Like everything you wanted is here and you’re walking away from it, but everything I wanted financially wasn’t giving me everything I wanted to experience as a mom and as a wife and as a daughter. Like I have this one life, you have this one life, so let’s design that business to then meet what you need. I love showing up on the hours that I do and pouring into my clients because I designed it that way. If I was showing up for them at 6 PM, I’d be resentful, I’d be frustrated, my family would suffer. So like I’m smiling so big right now, even though you can’t see me because I’m like it is closer than you think that it is. But when you, when you start creating this ideal schedule and you’re like, oh my gosh, like no wonder I’m drowning, the thing is is show so much gratitude for yourself for actually taking the time to have the realization that the time and the energy that you’re putting in versus the money you’re getting it isn’t worth it. Something’s not working, something has to look different, because what you’re doing right now, it may work for a short season, but it’s going to lead to that burnout, redimension, it’s going to lead to resentment. It’s going to lead to making mistakes in your business or sacrificing relationships that you truly value, and sometimes not even knowing it, like.

Danielle Throckmorton: 26:17

I’ll share with you just a little personal thing for me two years into working both businesses and trying to be a mom, and I got married in that whole mess of things, and my husband came to me one night and he like sat down on the edge of the bed. He was like, babe, the guy he’s like I’m so tired of seeing the top of your head. And that hit me really hard because I thought, well, I mean, he’s doing his thing and doing this Like I didn’t even realize how much of a disconnect it was. But he was literally like I’m so tired of seeing the top of your head, like I miss you, and I was just thinking like it’s not worth it. That email can’t wait till tomorrow, you know, or I maybe need help because I can’t maintain it on my own anymore. But that really hit me in my gut when he said that, because he’s so patient. But he was like very sad. Something’s got to change.

Rita Suzanne: 27:04

Yeah, I would say that one of the things I feel like, because I am so dedicated to my business, it has contributed to the failure. You know the failure. It did contribute to the failure of my marriage. It was a factor of that. It wasn’t the main contributor, but it was. You know I I put a lot of energy into it and I always am telling the story about. You know, I wanted to be home so much with my kids and be be there with my kids, but I was putting so much of my time and energy into my business that my kids would literally draw pictures of me on my computer. Like you know how they’re in kindergarten and they’re drawing pictures and this is my mom. She’s on her computer. You know, like that’s all she does. And you know they would ask like what does your mom do?

Rita Suzanne: 27:56

She’s on her laptop all day you know, like that’s what my kids answer would be, would you know, would be things of that nature, like she, all she does is work and I, you know, and I would feel so bad about it because. But in my mind I was like I’m doing this for them, you know, I’m doing this for them especially, you know, once I got a divorce and I’m a single mom, like then you turn it up, it turns up to even a higher level of must do right. And, and I always tell people like the, I think the driving force for a lot of entrepreneurs, whether you know, it doesn’t matter gender, whatever the case is is time and financial freedom right, and oftentimes it takes time to get the time freedom right, because the time that it takes for you to build your business is often you have to go in and you’re just working, work, work, work, work, work. Initially, you’re building from from the beginning.

Danielle Throckmorton: 29:04

Yeah, and I think that that’s you know. There’s going to be seasons, like people always talk about balance, there’s going to be seasons where I I don’t I actually despise that word, just honestly because I think, yeah, like it’s um, but there there is intention. And if you know that there’s going to be a season where your business is going to lead a little bit more forward, how can you be intentional with what my dad always told me? He was a single dad and he was an entrepreneur of two daughters and he had us both full time. And he would say it was always about the quality of time versus even the quantity of time. And if I look back at my childhood, my dad worked hard. He would drive two hours one way and two hours back to make sure he was home for dinner because we were all you know, he was all we had.

Danielle Throckmorton: 29:44

And I look back and I’m like you know I may have had a lot of times where my dad wasn’t in the stands at a game because he was working, but then when we were home on the weekends, we were playing, he was down the floor with us, he was engaging with us, we were outside, even doing chores on the property, making it fun and going and doing a little. You know, run to the grocery store and getting icy, or you know, like truly. I look back and I’m like if he can do that as a single dad running a company that’s over four hours round trip away, we can do it, but it doesn’t always mean that there wasn’t times that he didn’t miss certain things because he had to prioritize some things. So I think the thing is, if you’re going to be busier in a certain season, being intentional with the weekend time or whatever it is that few hours you have, what did they want to do Now? What is it that you want to do? What do your kids want you to do? Could you give them two hours of that quality time and fill their cup? And then they’re going to be like that was amazing. And then, guess what, you just got six hours back. I mean, I don’t really know if that’s super religious, you know realistic, but my kids were five and seven when I grew that business, um, and I remember like there were times where I was so tired but if I would just give, you know, two hours of undivided attention to watch the movie they wanted, or whatever they were, their cup was filled.

Danielle Throckmorton: 30:52

Um, so I think, too is looking at it in the season that you’re in is how can we then make up for that time? In a sense, because we’re going to have hustle seasons. We’re going to have seasons where we have more time, that’s free, and it’s taken a lot of years for you and I both to get to the point where our businesses do serve our lives. So, the ones listening to this, I’m telling you it’s closer than you think. Give yourself some grace. But I’m telling you to start getting clearer now, because you don’t want to be in the same place that you are now. Five years from now, right, five years from now, maybe your kids are graduated, like ours. What is that going to look like? Do you have the freedom to go see them? Do you have the freedom to be that present mom and giving ourselves grace for what happened in the past? Because all we can do is focus on what we’re doing from today forward. That’s all we can do.

Rita Suzanne: 31:36

Right? Yes, I think, I think that that’s super important. So let’s switch a little to talk about one of my favorite topics. So the reason that I started this podcast was because of the situation that happened with my sister. So if, for anybody who doesn’t know so, in January of 2020, I found out that I, you know, after I had gotten divorced from my first husband, I got remarried. I found out that my second husband was not faithful and then, two weeks later, I found out, you know, my, my baby sister, had passed away, and then COVID kicks in, and then I filed for divorce and I filed for custody of my two nieces, leaving me a single mom of four kids, right? So all that happened in 2020, bad year for everybody. It was a horrible. It was a horrible year.

Rita Suzanne: 32:30

So January 21 comes around and I think of this name, mom owned and operated and I think what am I going to do with this? And I think I’m going to, you know, have a podcast, and I think what am I going to do? I’m going to. What am I going to talk about? I’m going to interview other moms because I need to know how they’re doing it, because I’m struggling so hard right now. I’m struggling to connect because obviously and I would say obviously I had disconnected myself from everybody, because I was in a place of grief, right, I was grieving so hard from all of the things that had changed in my life and because, when all of these things happened to me, I had to restructure my business and my life in order to accommodate now having four kids and being a single mom.

Rita Suzanne: 33:18

And so, you know, I was grieving and so I was like I have to figure out how to do all these things. I need to figure, I need to ask all these other mom business owners how are they doing it? Because I need to know, and not just how are they running their businesses? Because I know how to do that, but how are they? How are they, like, taking care of themselves? Because that’s what I wasn’t doing. And so let’s, let’s turn it a little bit and let’s talk about how are you remembering yourself? What are you doing for you, danielle?

Danielle Throckmorton: 33:49

So I have part of my ideal week was to carve out time for my intentional time. So I call it like my foundational work. So I have a little space in the corner of my office over here and it has like my journals and my books and my incense and all the things that I love pictures of my grandma and like just things that make me happy and I had to prioritize, like meditation, prayer, different things that resonated with me, because I found that I was so dysregulated. I was high stress. I was like just serving and pouring into everyone else. So in 2018, I started what’s called my intentional time and my intentional space, because my word that year was intentional, so you probably heard me say it like a hundred million times. I have a retreat called weekend of intention. I have my quote that people know me for, but it’s on all the shirts and the mugs is intention without action is mute. Like it shaped so much of me because that’s when I was coming out of the deep burnout. I was also coming out of the grief of my sister navigating custody battles with a blended family. Like that’s where her and I were like, oh my gosh, you have so much in common and I needed to lay a solid foundation for me in order to show up for my kids and to show up for my business, but ultimately I had to matter and then I also do what’s called transition time. So if you follow me on Instagram after this, you’ll see I live in like Oklahoma. It’s not what you would picture. I live in the most magical property ever, and maybe I’m biased, but I’ve lived here since I was nine, so I share the property. I bought land next door to my dad when I was 21. And so this is the land that my sister and I grew up on. We have a live, spring and trees, and people think I’m at a park or a jungle or something, but I just go out for 15 minutes and I just walk. Other things for me, if it’s freezing, cold out or it’s pouring rain, I will like listen to music or I will do some yoga. I do some foundational things here and there. Transition time for me is after work and before I see the kids, because I have to switch hats Literally. I wear hats kind of my signature and I’m like, okay, I got to take off like this hat for work and I have to switch into my mom cap and I have to, like, cook dinner and ask how their day was. And it’s not all about me right now, it’s not all about my clients, but see, it’s been clients all day and it’s been them all evening. So I do have to carve out that time in the ideal schedule where it’s in that purple. I said this is your transition time.

Danielle Throckmorton: 36:06

My husband will literally watch me on the days that I’m like hustling and I’m cutting up veggies and I’m angry, and he can tell. He’s like hey, have you been on the trails today? And I’m like no. He’s like, hey, let me, let me do this and you just take a minute. Like my family has learned over the years that like, if I take 15 minutes for myself, they’re old enough now to see it that I’m a whole new person. I am not dysregulated, I am not irritable and sometimes let’s be honest sometimes when it’s been real rough, I just go to bed early, I take a bath, I shut the door and I do nothing. So it needs to look what it like, what fits into your life. But that’s what I do.

Danielle Throckmorton: 36:42

And then I’ll share one more thing that’s pretty cheesy. I do a joy list and so you could do this If you don’t already. Pull out your phone and I want you to think what is something that would spark joy for me? That is not expensive, hard to get. That is not expensive, hard to get, like just something simple. So for me, popcorn, root beer, fresca, heineken, zero, walk in the woods or park, my Bad Bee playlist because you all know you have one. Like I have the simple things and it’s purple. And it’s in my phone because sometimes when I don’t feel like joy and I don’t feel happy, I can choose to do something that’s going to shift my energy and not leave me stuck feeling that way. So sometimes the bad B playlist is on. I’m in the car, in the driveway sometimes.

Rita Suzanne: 37:31

Yeah, I love that. I mean I think that that’s so, that’s, that’s a good way to to actually get into it, right? Because you just you revisit the list and it just kind of gets you in the mood to you know, change, change whatever is maybe yeah.

Danielle Throckmorton: 37:50

Mama and your kids are screaming in the backseat of your minivan right now while you’re listening to this podcast and you’re like, oh, I might just pull into the seven 11, grab it, I see, it’s okay. One I see is not going to kill you, but if it gives you that sense of joy, just that spark of like, oh, it’s crazy how much we can pivot that emotion. I’ve taught my kids that I’ll ask Leah, I’m like where are you at on the emotional scale, especially during COVID, when we were homeschooling and she couldn’t see any friends and she was in fourth grade and her whole life was ending and I was like what do you need? Like on here? And she’s like well, I’m here, I’m angry, I’m like right, okay.

Danielle Throckmorton: 38:22

So if you’re angry, where do you want? What do you want to feel like? Well, I don’t want to be angry and I don’t want to be sad. And I’m like, okay, so what’s on your list? And she’s like bubble bath or she’ll for you. But those are short, inexpensive things. A $2 soda is going to change my whole mood to have a Barks root beer in my hand Right, and that makes me just be able to kind of shift that energy back to and grounds you. Maybe. Maybe that’s really what it does is maybe it just grounds you back into like. This is how I want to feel.

Rita Suzanne: 38:54

Right that time in your life, from when, when you first experienced it probably, um, yeah, I think that that’s important, you know, because I think that I sometimes people associate self-care with different things oh, I need to go get a manicure, pedicure and I always try to remind them that it doesn’t have to be, that it really can be as simple as you sitting in your car for a minute or, you know, being in the bathroom by yourself, you know, like you know, I remember for the longest time I couldn’t use the bathroom by myself because my sons would stand in there and talk to me forever, you know, and I’m just like, can I just be alone for a second, you know? So, yeah, it just, really just, and I love that joy list. I think that that’s, that’s adorable, and I think it’s something that everybody should add to their, to their phones and keep. You know, keep them, yeah.

Danielle Throckmorton: 39:53

Well, I think, like happiness is isn’t something we necessarily can control, like it’s a result of our circumstances, but joy can be intentionally cultivated. So if I can intentionally grab that favorite drink or whatever and like and that’s why I want to bring it back to the basis is like not everyone has the money or the time to go get a massage, not everyone has the money or time to get a pedicure. I plan for some of those things now in this stage of my life, but it wasn’t always possible. So what could I do to spark that joy in that short time? And and for me it’s a certain song that hits right, or my favorite treat when I’m having a rough day, my husband brings me Thai food and like he knows, like when I have Thai food I’m going to be a whole new woman the next day, like that’s my guilty pleasure, but like that also helps. Cause sometimes, like when I’ve shared this before in groups guys women don’t actually know what brings them joy and it brings up so much emotion.

Danielle Throckmorton: 40:44

So if that’s you thinking I have my phone notes open right now and I don’t even know like, think about when you were a kid, what brought you joy. Mine was running around barefoot, being in the woods picking flowers. I do that now. If you follow me on Instagram, I’m like who is this little weird hippie? No, I mean I’m not that extreme, but I am internally a giant hippie and I will go out there and make dandelion tea and do like the cheesy things, because that feeds my soul. I’ll look and be like how have I been out here for two hours? Like people are probably worried about me, but that doesn’t cost me anything.

Danielle Throckmorton: 41:14

So what can you do? That just may cost you time. What can you do? That just may cost you time. So again, the joy list is going to be something quick, but a quick walk in a park in your neighborhood or something like that. If it can change your actual composition of how you feel, your energy, your mental health and you can walk in as a whole new person, it’s wild. It is wild what that joy list can do for you.

Rita Suzanne: 41:34

Yeah, I think it’s important to really, like you’re saying, cultivate your own joy, because a lot of people don’t realize this, but you know, our brain is like 80% of your thoughts are negative, just intrinsically. Like you, you can’t control that, and so that’s why we do affirmations, that’s why we do these things, because we’re trying to restructure our brain and get these negative thoughts out of our brain, and so if we have something like this joy list, then we have something to reference to really get us take us back to the places where we experience the joy and we can revisit that spot, and I think that that’s really a lovely thing for people to do, and I hope that some people take that and start implementing it, because that’s a great suggestion. Okay, so where can everyone find you online, daniel? Where are you?

Danielle Throckmorton: 42:29

Okay, so I’m Danielle Throckmorton. I know it’s a lot to spell out, but I’m wearing the big hat and all of the pictures. But Instagram might be a really good first place to look for me, so that way you could see what other businesses are tied there. But I actually have it’s free. When you, when you get on my website, or if you want to send me a message and just say, time, mastery, or like I saw your episode with Rita and I want to get more tools, I actually have all the tools I talked about. So, like, the template to create your ideal week, the core values workbook, the Sunday success session, video training everything is free. Everything that I just mentioned is free on my email list. And then I’m the person on the other side of it. I’m the person I run my own social media the only thing that I haven’t delegated just because I really love connecting with people. Same thing with my email. So, like, if you want to send me your joy list, I would love to see it. If you were like hey, I started working on this template. I have a video on, like how to edit the template, so I have given all of that out there for free, because at the end of the day, like what she just said about, our mindset is we think we don’t have enough time because we don’t, because we’re not mastering it. We don’t, you know, we don’t think that.

Danielle Throckmorton: 43:37

This is what you’re hearing is like it feels so far away. Good for her, good for Rita, right, but the reality is like you are the master of your time, you are the master of your money, you are the master of your energy. If you’re not feeling that way, put yourself around more people who are saying I have done this and you can too, and give yourself the permission to take action, because you heard this episode and, like my quote says, you can intend all day long to master your time, but if you don’t take the action, then it’s me, you’re going to be in the same position you are right now, six months from now. So my gift is to give you guys those tools to implement, but, at the end of the day, if you do nothing with them, then you’re going to be in the same position, right?

Danielle Throckmorton: 44:17

So I would like to connect with you on Instagram first, but really, I really would love to see what’s coming up for you and what is it that came up on your joy list. If you don’t know where to start, let’s brainstorm. I really do want to just get to know women and support them because, just like Rita, like we’ve both been burned out entrepreneurs who are struggling and are trying to still maintain being a mom and a wife and an auntie and a sister and all of the things. So you’re just not alone and I look forward to getting to know you guys better and I’m just so grateful for the opportunity to be here.

Rita Suzanne: 44:52

It’s been such a pleasure and your website and all of your links and everything will be in the show notes and they can connect with you there. Thank you so much. I have loved chatting with you. I could go on and on.

Danielle Throckmorton: 45:07

Well, thanks for having me. I hope you guys enjoyed it. And Rita, thanks for holding this space. For us it’s so important.

Rita Suzanne: 45:16

And there you have it. I want to encourage you to remember that being a mom who runs her own business is not easy. We all struggle, but just keep moving forward. And don’t forget to make time for yourself. As moms we are usually the first thing to go to the bottom of the list. If your business is overwhelming you and you need real solutions, not just some sugar coated suggestions apply to work with me at ritasuzanne.com/apply