Today is a topic near and dear to YGTMama. We are looking at not only identifying as a BOSS but as a BOSS and a MAMA. When you are climbing the corporate ladder it can feel like you have no power over your life, punching in and punching out every day. It’s easy to look at entrepreneurs with envy and wonder how on earth they did what they did? Then… when motherhood happens, the task can seem even more daunting. How is it possible to start a business or write that book or do that thing (whatever it is you are passionate about) with tiny humans in the picture? Well, Sabrina figured it out and so did fellow Boss Mama Lianne Kim.
Lianne Kim is the Founder of Mamas & Co. an online community of over 300 Mamapreneurs across Canada and beyond. Mamas & Co. aims to help mama entrepreneurs fast-track their business success by giving them direct access to the people, skills, and resources they need to succeed. With two decades of experience in sales and marketing, Lianne is also a business strategist and coach with her company Think Big Sales Consulting. She is wildly passionate about helping female entrepreneurs; she offers coaching, consulting and online courses for every stage of business owner. Her goal is to empower mamas all over the world to create the business and life of their dreams! She herself is also a mama to two kids, Julia and Alex.
‘Boss Mama’, ‘Mamapreneur’, ‘Mom Boss’, these are all catch phrases that identify a massive movement towards women and moms starting their own businesses. Lianne feels that that movement is happening quicker in Canada compared to our neighbours to the south, due to the fact that our maternity leave is longer. Women in Canada now get up to eighteen months off. These months are important for mamas to create a strong bond with their infants. She also thinks this is a big time for self-reflection and questions like - what is my life really all about now? You re-evaluate your role as a mom, a wife, a partner, a friend and a career person. In Lianne’s experience, with maternity leave, she had all this time to think about what she really wanted to do with her life. She felt that high school, university, first jobs, second jobs, promotions, husband, and kids all just flew by in a blur of milestones. Most likely this is the case with a lot of moms, so when their priorities shift in that year off, they have time to think and more questions start to surface like - what is my next move?
Being a boss does not necessarily mean that you are a boss of people, it is about being the boss of your life, essentially taking control of your own life. What was once important before, may no longer be important now and passions you may have pushed aside when you were younger in order to work at your ‘real job’ may start to resurface. Women are taking their power back by being the boss of their own life. They want to be present with their kids but they also want to do something for themselves. Lianne adds to this by sharing personally it was a bit challenging starting a family, at times she wasn’t sure if it was going to happen. So when it finally did, it she wondered if she could create her dream family life, what else could she do? At the time she was selling over two million dollars a year in high-end travel as well, she questioned what would happen if she channeled all that work into something she was personally passionate about, what could she make for herself?
Finding what you love, so you can do more of what you love, so you can be with your kids more, who you love...this is what it’s all about. It’s not about balance, it’s ever moving, ever evolving. Lianne prefers to use the word ‘fulfillment’ instead of balance, as balance is not something that is attainable; being fulfilled is. To Lianne, you’re never going to be fulfilled being good at one thing, we want to find those few things that really light us up and run with them.
