The Mentality Stealing Your Peace as a Millionaire Mom (And What to Do)

After 14 years as an entrepreneur, I know how easy it is to fall into a pattern where everything gets pushed aside in favor of the business. 

The long hours, the constant to-do lists, the endless emails…

Before you know it, you’re living your life around your business, instead of growing your business around your life.

This mindset is called business-first mentality.

And it’s the exact thing keeping you from true presence and time freedom. 

It’s the reason why you’re always thinking about work, even when you’re supposed to be with your family, or when you’ve finally clocked out for the day.

It’s the reason why you reach milestone after milestone and still feel like something’s missing.

Keep reading to learn how to identify if you’re putting your business ahead of your well-being and family, the loop keeping you from reaching the presence, peace and freedom you desire and key questions to reflect on so you can start building a life-first business.

TL;DR? Listen to the podcast episode instead!

How to Know If You Have A Business-First Mentality

1. You plan life around your business

One of the biggest recurring problems I see (especially with high-achieving moms) is that every decision you make revolves around your business.

When something in your life happens, even if it's something you want to do, you respond with,  “That's a work day for me, or that's a day that I have to do this for my business”. 

And while we have to complete our responsibilities to the business, 

Whatever the choice, whether it’s planning our lives around our business or planning our business around our lives, that showcases our priorities. 

If you find that you can't show up for certain things that you want to do, including yourself or your family, because of your business, this is a sign that you probably have a business-first mentality.

One of the things that I do at the beginning of the year is I pull out my kids' school schedule and block off time off…

Time off when my kids are out of school for things like spring break. 

Time off for my husband and I to have vacations without our kids because we prioritize that for our marriage.

I do this before I plan anything for the business. 

That way, when I’m creating launch calendars, marketing plans, and projects, I already know where the non-negotiables are. I’m not working against my life. I’m building a business that supports it.

2. You feel guilty when you rest

Another thing I see all the time? You feel guilty when you’re still. When you’re resting.

We have a running record player in our head, repeating things like:

How can I get more done in less time? 

What can I get done while the baby naps?

How can I find more time in my day to get more done?

Especially as moms, this line of thinking gets really loud.

Because the truth is, we do have less hours in a day. We’re already doing something for somebody or something else 24/7. So when we finally crave rest, our thoughts sabotage it.

And we act from our thoughts. Those type of thoughts keep us running back to productivity, keep us in the hustle and the grind of pushing with the idea that if we push hard and far enough, that once we reach a milestone, then we can rest. 

But we forget that we are wiring ourselves to believe that we are only valuable and feel good when we are productive.

3. You’re living in reactivity

The last thing I see so often as a sign of having a business-first mentality is normalizing a certain level of reactivity in our lives.

When you're reactive, instead of responding thoughtfully, you're operating from a place where there's no spaciousness, no room to think or process. 

You're just throwing out answers, trying to deflect it or get rid of the problem as quickly as possible.

This happens in both the business and at home, right?

If you think through your day-to-day conversations and you're firing things off quickly to just get it done and move on to the next thing, if you are yelling at your partner or your kids, being short with your team this tells us that you're being reactive.

That heightened stress drains us of our ability to experience peace. It takes away our ability to feel calm, centered, or present in the moment.

Being Stuck in “The Fear Loop”

There’s a deeper reason why we cling to this business-first mindset, and I call it The Fear Loop. When we step into entrepreneurship, there are two types of fear that keep us trapped in this loop.

The first fear is scarcity-based fear. 

In the beginning of your business, you need to make money. ey. You need to bring revenue in the door to pay for your expenses and ideally pay for you and your lifestyle.

This scarcity-driven mentality is what pushes us to hustle, to grind, to get things done even when it feels hard. It feels like it's a good fear.

And sure, it serves you in the building phase. It serves you because it pushes you to conquer some fears without even recognizing that you're moving from a place of fear. 

What happens is then when we reach a point to where we are abundant financially, to where we have built something that is established and it is providing for us and our families, then we move to another fear.

The fear of losing it all.

The feeling that if you slow down or if you do anything differently than the way that you were previously doing it, it’ll all disappear. 

You know you've worked so hard to build it and don't want to lose it.

So you push harder, stay busier, and build a life that looks good on paper but feels like you're still chasing something.

The Fear Loop is where people get stuck because you go from scarcity and a real need to uphold it so you don't lose it all. This is a continuous loop because it feels like scarcity (even though it doesn’t exist), and you're convincing yourself that there is.

You’re out of the building phase now, you've reached capacity, you have financial abundance, you're providing for yourself and your family, and now what you're craving is freedom. And so when you think about that and you put these things next to each other of what does freedom and flexibility look like, and then you realize that you are handcuffing yourself.

Embracing A Life-First Business Model

First things first, you know now that what worked to get you here, won’t get you where you need to go next. 

You have control over your freedom and flexibility because you are the CEO of your business, but how can you do that if you’re in The Fear Loop?

If you're recognizing that you need a reset and you’ve been telling yourself you should figure it out on your own or that you’ll find clarity after a vacation or break, I get it. I’ve been there too. 

But if you want to truly reset and build something that fuels your life, not just financially, but in a way that lights you up, you need a new approach.

This is why I developed the Life-First Business Method. My clients are now working less, spending more time with family, and still making just as much, if not more money.

Building, revamping your business, and shifting the way your business is structured—along with the way you're thinking, communicating, and leading—are some of the best ways you can create a life-first business.

We must be honest with ourselves about where we’re not meeting our own standards, where we’re not living up to our expectations, and whether we’re truly allowing ourselves to feel and live authentically.

This is why having an advisor who digs into all areas of your business and your thought process is so important. Someone who can help you see clearly and figure out what to do next, based on where you are and the results you want to achieve.

2 Questions to Reflect On

As you move out of business-first mentality, I want you to ask yourself these questions as honestly as possible:

1. Where are you putting your business ahead of your own well-being or your family?

   I know that every excuse in the book will come up when you reflect on this question. “I have to work this many hours,” or “I have to do it this way.” 

   
   

   But one of the most incredible things I see with my clients is when they realize there's a better  way: by trusting in the small changes that can lead to big results.

2. What are you afraid will happen if you actually slow down?

   Change is hard, and we avoid it. Often, we’d rather stay in the discomfort we know. But, much like my client Gretchen said, she “wishes she wouldn't have waited until it got so bad.”

If you want to talk more about working together, and how a partnership with me would look for your specific business and life, you can fill out an application to see if we’d make a great fit and start the process of taking back your life, your presence and your peace, without losing the success you’ve built.