Tina Tower [00:00:00]:
Hello and welcome to her Empire Builder Show. On today's episode, I have a little bit of a change of pace for you, a bit more of a personal episode today where I'm talking about kids because our kids will be grown soon. This is our final year with both children that are at school and our eldest has just started. Started driving, literally got in the car and drove away down the street. And the end of this era, this whole transition that we're going through has got me thinking about the journey of business and babies. I had my business for four years before I had our first baby. And so I have never had, you know, they've never known a mum without having a business. And I get asked the question a lot from women saying, how do you do it? How do you have a business? How do you raise children at the same time? How do you juggle all of those things? And so I thought it was about time to put this episode in there because I've been thinking about it a lot and going, you know, while parenting never ends, you know, you're always their parent.

Main Episode

Tina Tower [00:01:19]:
It's the end of that chapter. It is the, you know, it's so intense at the start and you are so needed for all of the things. And then it's just this slow period of letting go. And now that that has finished or starting to really wrap up way quicker than what I wish it would, it has me reflecting on the journey and has me being so incredibly grateful that I had a business when I was raising babies because, quite frankly, I don't know how people would do it in a traditional job. I just. I just have no idea. And so when people are looking at it and going, how can I balance a business and babies? I'm like, how can you not. More of the question.

Tina Tower [00:02:08]:
So what I wanted to talk about today is I have never been more grateful to run a business. But I do think that often, like, women will look at me now and. And I didn't have people following me when I had small children. So that is one thing that I do want to say at the start is I did not work like I do now when my children were small. So for the first five years of their life, I was the primary parent. And so I was still running my business at the time that Kai was born. I had a retail store, tutoring center and a birthday party place. So it was a business that needed seven days a week.

Tina Tower [00:02:49]:
And so when I had him, he just got strapped into the Bubba Sling with me. I had a cot there and we would go to work every day together. And when he needed to be fed, I'd just crouch behind the counter and feed him. And luckily I was in the industry where I was serving also other mums. And so no one really held it against me and we were able to do all of that. And I quite liked it because I liked being out of the house. I didn't like just sitting there all day. And babies don't do that much.

Tina Tower [00:03:21]:
They kind of want you to look at them and talk to them. And so that was perfect for me to be in the shop and do that. But where it started to get difficult was when he started wanting to move, when he started to kind of wake up after that six month mark and interact a lot more and smile and start babbling and talking and doing all of that. And so I decided when he was nine months old, I closed the shop because I just couldn't do all of that and look after him in the same way that I wanted to. I also fell pregnant at that time. My children are 17 months apart. And so I knew that it was going to be way too much to do both of those at the same time. And something had to give.

Tina Tower [00:04:03]:
And so then I made the decision to. While I wanted business and I wanted to still be able to build and financially we needed to have those two incomes coming in as well. I didn't want to sacrifice, sacrifice my parenting for that. And I think often, you know, we are faced with that choice in going, how do we find that balance? And there are things that I am not proud of. I remember once, so after I closed the shop, the tutoring curriculum that I made, we had licensed that throughout the country. And so I was selling the curriculum as a license. And so that involved flying, meeting a lot of people, helping them open their tutoring centers. And so by the time Cohen, our second son, was born, he was flying with me everywhere.

Tina Tower [00:04:54]:
So I had my kids pretty much attached to me the whole time and would fly with them wherever I had to go. But there was, you know, I remember once, like on an important call and I had. They had baby mum mums, which I think they still have now, like the Rusked. And I was literally, I had the kids in their bedroom and I was putting them under the door with my foot stuck on the door, trying to hold it shut while I was on this call to try and get this deal closed. And so there's things like that that I go, I just can't believe I did things like that. But we do what we have to do at the time and then what happened was my business started growing really well. We moved out of Sydney in 20. So at that time our kids were four and five.

Tina Tower [00:05:47]:
And we made the decision that then we would switch roles, that my husband would become the primary parent and I would focus on the business because I loved running my business. And the potential financially was that we could earn more from the business than what his job could earn. And so it made sense to be able to do that now. There has been many, many times that I have resented it. Like many times where I wished I could be the person staying at home and playing with the kids and doing that. There was a magical year. The year before my youngest son started school, he didn't want to go to preschool. He liked to be at home.

Tina Tower [00:06:27]:
And so we didn't make him. We were like, that's fine, you can have this year. And my husband and he had the most magical year. I think of their lives. You know, that four year old is just is peak cuteness. Peak cuteness. With their little voices and their chubby little cheeks and their little pot bellies and them wanting to hold your hand all the time. And everything is an exciting adventure.

Tina Tower [00:06:52]:
You know, you walk through a bush and they're like, whoa, look at that. Look at the and everything. They can be geed up about anything. And so they got that magical time that, you know, I do feel like for parts of me that I missed parts. But at the same time, one of the things that I reflect on with the business is I was able to be so present and such a part of their life the whole way through to the point where I don't feel like I was the working parent and Matt was the primary parent. I feel like we both got to be parents and that is so rare and something that I think is only what business allowed. There was a couple of years there where when I ran my franchise that I worked really, really hard for about two years getting it ready for sale. So I was working 10 hour days, five or six days a week.

Tina Tower [00:07:48]:
And that was not a peachy time. That was a time that, you know, one of those times that you do what you've got to do until you can do what you want to do. But we got through that. And then since that, it's been, it's been wonderful. It's been we have breakfast together every morning, we have pretty much every dinner together and we've got to do all of these amazing, amazing adventures and holidays. I mean, in 2018 we took a year off and we traveled around the world together. We go away probably about a month or two every single year. Which has meant that now, now that they are nearly grown, we have this relationship that I don't see a lot of parents being able to build with their kids because it's time based.

Tina Tower [00:08:36]:
Because we were able to spend so much time with our kids, we have this communication that a lot of people tend to miss out on. And so I don't know. That's why when I say, you know, when people ask me, how do you run a business and have children? I'm like, I don't know how you do it if you don't. Because I was able to be at every swimming carnival, running carnival, soccer game, training, all of the things that I wanted to be at. I could choose to go to whatever I wanted to do. And having that freedom and having that flexibility, I think is just absolutely priceless. And the best part about having business is you can accelerate and break as you want to through the different seasons, through the different times that your kids need you. I mean, there was.

Tina Tower [00:09:26]:
You would know this if you've been in my world for a while. Three years ago now, our son Cohen had had quite a big accident and ended up in the children's hospital for a while. And being able at that stage, like, that's another time in my life that I have been so thankful that we had a business that I was able to take my foot off the accelerator and just be there with him and didn't have to worry about anything else. But we knew that we'd be financially fine. We knew that, you know, I could just be. Be there and we could do what we needed to do for our family at the time. And it's another time where I'm like, I don't know how people do it without having a business. Like, it'd just be so much harder.

Tina Tower [00:10:07]:
And so, yes, there are different times where business is hard and it demands a lot of us, but it gives a lot more than it takes. And so it's something that I'm really, really thankful for. I will say that it was harder when they were young. I mean, when you've got younger children and they're demanding all of the attention from you and they're wanting you all the time, it can be harder to do business. And my advice to parents in that season is just put everything away when they want you to. I did, and I was still able to build something really, really epic. There is no time that you can get back. And I know that sounds so trite and so cliched, but it's so incredibly worth it.

Tina Tower [00:10:55]:
I mean, what I would give. Now I feel like I was. I was made for small kids. You know, there was. I'm a rare breed in that all I wanted to do was grow up, get married and have babies. So, you know, I was young when we had our children. And I loved that stage so much. I loved being needed so much.

Tina Tower [00:11:15]:
I loved just walking down, holding their hands and them skipping along the road. I loved being able to sing to them at night and them saying, one more song, Mama. And I would sing and they would be so happy and think my voice was so wonderful. They'd just want to read more and more books and just needed me for everything. And I think that too often we're in so much of a hurry to get to where we want to go that it can be. It can be hard to realize that right now, like, you're having the time of your life. And for me, that was like having small children was the absolute time of my life. I knew I shouldn't have talked about that, but it was, you know, it was for me, the best time of my life.

Tina Tower [00:12:02]:
And I'm so glad I got to do it and I'm so glad that I got to be so present for it. And it's something that, you know, even though they don't, they don't remember, like kids don't remember when they grow up what happened. I think they know. They know in their core. And you have that forever. And so when you're feeling like you've got this pull between business and family, there are times where you do have to choose the business because, you know, we have bills to pay. And, you know, I had someone the other day say to me, you know, you wouldn't understand. I'm the sole provider for my family.

Tina Tower [00:12:40]:
And I'm like, I've been the sole financial provider for my family for 13 years. I very much understand the pressure of that. I very much understand when you have to do what you've got to do and you do have to miss things occasionally. But when you have the choice, always choose the thing that's going to make your soul happy. Because often we can be in the situation where you don't want to let down a client. But if it's not going to have long term financial ramifications, choose your family every time. Because business comes and goes, clients come and go, your family is always there, and that is going to be the thing that's most important. And I think that finding a way to have that equilibrium to go, you can.

Tina Tower [00:13:27]:
You can have it all. You can choose all of it, but it's give and take and there's different seasons so that when the kids need you, you can be there 100%. But then when they don't need you, that's when you work like an absolute demon. Like I was when they were sleeping, when they were at school, that's when I would do all my work so that when they were there, I could go and play and I could have the fun. And there are different times where, you know, especially when I had the franchise, there are different times then that I couldn't do that because I had work that demanded it. But on a whole, that's how we do it. And now, now they don't want to play with me, which makes me so glad that I played when I could. And now I just have this waiting period until one day, hopefully I get to have grandbab.

Tina Tower [00:14:20]:
But I do think that a part of that is I feel like I have a life that I've been able to have it all. But a very, very important distinction for that is I don't do it all. I have it all, but I don't do it all. And this is where I could say something that I will say something that some people will really disagree with, but I have found it to be very, very true, is I don't think you should do it all. I don't think that, you know, traditionally, for a lot of women, if women are taking the primary, like, financial provider, if they're growing business and doing that, they're still expected to do all of the housework, they're still expected to do all the kids, because that's what women do. I don't agree with that at all. I don't clean at all. I don't do dishes.

Tina Tower [00:15:13]:
I don't do the washing. I don't do any cleaning. Now, this is where it gets controversial. And I know some people will hate me for saying what I'm about to say, but I also agree, if there is a man who is doing all the financial providing, I don't think he should be doing the cleaning, because I think you're a team and you take parts of each thing. And so I agree with that. No matter what, there is no way that I'm going to be the person who is doing all the paid work while my partner does the unpaid work. But then I'm going to come home and do his unpaid work like that is. We're both that team and we Both have our finances coming in for both of us, and we both have a role to play in that.

Tina Tower [00:15:57]:
I just get the work I do is what makes the money. The work he does doesn't necessarily make the money per se, but I also can't do what I do without him doing what he does. And so I think that there's this unrealistic expectation to not share the load with that. There is. If you find that difficult, if that has brought up something in you. Because a lot of women I talk to feel guilty for not doing traditional women's roles in the home as well. I feel no guilt around that. None.

Tina Tower [00:16:28]:
Not a little bit at all. There is a book and a card deck called Fair Play. Now it lists every task that happens in a family. Things like looking after pets, looking after children, doing the dishes, mowing the lawn, like all of the different things. And it's designed to go, all right, you get all of those cards and then you work out what is your job, what is my job? And then what don't I want to do? And then you get your pile of what don't you want to do? And if the other person wants to take it, like you can trade, or if nobody wants to do it, you then have to figure out, well, can you outsource it, can you delegate it, can you automate it, can you eliminate it so just no one does it? Or, or if it's things that have to be done that no one wants to do, you take the equal amount of cards of the stuff no one wants to do so that you're both eating the same level of shit sandwich in there. And that way you're able to operate it as a team. And I think that that is something that makes it extra difficult for women who are building businesses, is if you've got a partnership where you have an unfair load to bear because it's very difficult to do all of the work, especially if you're working a full time load and then having to do another full time load after that of looking after the home and the kids. So I always like to.

Tina Tower [00:17:53]:
This is another part that I'm sure people will either roll their eyes at me or disagree with me, but sometimes I'm like, I'm like a 50s man, like a 1950s man in that I wanted to go to work and do all the work that I loved and then come home and play with the children and just get the fun bit. I didn't want to do the other bits. But the good part about that was my husband is A service provider. He likes being of service, he likes looking after us, he likes making sure everything is running smoothly. He likes us to be like. His job is to look after me, and I'm high maintenance in being able to do that. But he also knows that as me running a business, I am fairly useless without him. And I'm not ashamed to say that I met him three weeks after my 18th birthday and so I haven't known adulthood or life without him.

Tina Tower [00:18:51]:
The downside could be we're very codependent with each other, but it means that our life works really well because we've got it worked out in who does what and what things make us happy so that we're able to. To have it all, so that we're able to both be there for the children, to both be there for our home, for our hobbies, for our friends, for everything that we want to be able to do. And now that the kids have gotten older, he's starting to do more paid work as well, because they're not needing us as much as what they were. Okay, so prioritise the children. And I would also say with that is make them part of your team. So when you've got your kids from a really young age, when you're doing business, there's going to be different things. Like school holidays is an example. I tried to do a lot less of a workload when school holidays were on, but when you're looking at normal work for a lot of people, you can't take, especially in the early days of your business or when your business is in a growth phase, you can't take off three months of the year, which is when kids are on school holidays.

Tina Tower [00:19:55]:
And so with that, I have always tried to make them part of our team. They attend our events, they attend conferences with us, we talk about business at the table so that they're aware of what's happening. And they had that understanding at a really young age that I had to do the things. So if there was something going on and they were like, you know, I just want to play in the school holidays and I just want to go and do this and do that with you. And I would say, well, I have to go to work, so I have to do that, but I'm going to finish at 2 o' clock. So then at 2 o' clock we're able to do that. So I think that rather than feeling bad about it and feeling guilty about the situation, know how lucky your kids are to have someone that's working hard for them and have someone that loves them and have someone that's trying to build this life for them and give them that freedom. And it's all a trade off.

Tina Tower [00:20:45]:
And instead of saying to your kids, I'm sorry, explain to them what you're doing. Because it's nothing that you should be sorry about. You're like, I know, I mean, I wish I could play with you all the time too, but I have a job and this is why I have a job. And this is what we need the money for and this is what we're going to do with the money so that they have that understanding and so that they're part of that team. So this year I wanted to take them on a trip. So at Christmas time, because this is the last year that I have both of my children at home, I said to them, I want to take you for one solo trip each, just them and me, on our own anywhere in the world for a week. And to me, that's the. That's the memory making that we'll have forever.

Tina Tower [00:21:34]:
I'm hoping that they always remember it. And they're like, that trip was the best thing ever with Mum. And it's something that's in their mind forever because they're now at the age where they've got the memories. All of the trips that we've done before, they don't really remember all of them very much. And. And so I go at the time that this episode is going live, I leave with Cohen next week. And so it did blow out to two weeks. And I mean, quite frankly, if he'd asked me to go for a month, I would have just kept going.

Tina Tower [00:22:04]:
But we're going to Abu Dhabi, Dubai and India and going exploring and doing that. And to me, again, you know, getting on that plane with him and I'm sure because there'll be no one around, he'll let me hold his hand for a minute as well. So I'm going to enjoy that moment. But again, it's something that my business has bought. Like, this is the life and the freedom, both having the time to do it and the finances available. Business has bought that for me. And so, you know, there's obviously different stages where you can resent it, but like I said before, it gives you so much more than it takes. And so being able to be thankful for that and recognize the freedom that having a business buys is so incredibly important.

Tina Tower [00:22:54]:
But yeah, so at the moment I'm just learning. I'm learning the let go. It's a very different transition that we're going through now with that slow stage of. I say slow, slow stage, but it seems to have come around really fast where they're there and they need you for all of their needs. And then all of a sudden, you've got to train them to be independent. And I always wanted to raise really kind, really independent young men. And so you've got to give them a little bit of rope to be able to do that. Even like our oldest son, Kai, he's driving now.

Tina Tower [00:23:36]:
He wants to be a golfer. He wants to go to college in America, and he is now driving himself to golf tournaments, staying in hotels by himself, going, organizing his food and doing all of that. And it has been hard. It is so hard. The amount of time I spend on find my app, just watching him drive and watching, seeing where he is and following him along on the app is kind of stalky. But at the same time, it's this process of being able to let them go, to know that we have done our jobs and to let them fly out into the world and let them grow up. And so I love that we get to have it all. I'm so grateful to business that we've been able to have it all.

Tina Tower [00:24:26]:
And I want you to know that whatever you create, one of the best things about having business is it's choose your own adventure, whatever is right for you in your life, in your family, whether you have a partner or don't have a partner, whether you have kids or don't have kids, how many kids you have, how involved you want to be with them, how much time you spend with them, all of that is architected by you. The best thing about having a business is we get to design our life ourselves. And it's not always easy. There's always hard patches in there. There's always different seasons that you go through. But I think if you know the vision of what you want for your life and you know the way that you want to live and you stay committed to that, then sure, sometimes you're going to come a little bit off course, but you're always going to be pulled back to that North Star. And so if you stay with that, I wanted to tell you that it is all worth it and don't let it pass you by because it's probably the absolute time of your life. I know that for me, it definitely has been.