Archives for March 2019

How’d you get into that? How do you run all those restaurants? How does a franchise work? How much money do you make?

These are all questions we get asked on a regular basis, so my husband Byron and I decided to sit down for a little happy hour and spill all the beans.

The Secret’s Out…

Okay, it’s not really a secret, but it’s the first time we’ve really talked about it. As of the airing of this episode, we have 15 Burger King restaurants, with a 16th opening in just a few weeks. Even more exciting is that we are bringing a new restaurant chain to Colorado later this year. In all, we plan to have 100 restaurants before it’s all said and done we’re enjoying our yacht somewhere in the Cayman Islands.

How’d you get into that?

You’ll have to listen to the full episode to get the whole story, but basically Byron started out as a restaurant manager and worked his way up. The restaurant industry has had its ups and downs through his life and our marriage, and it’s ultimately what brought us to Colorado. Byron always knew he wanted to own his own business and when the opportunity presented itself about 10 years before I ever though it would, we couldn’t pass it up.

How much money do you make?

It’s surprising how many people ask us this question; usually strangers. We answer this in the episode as tactfully as we can. Bottom line: we’re not as rich as you think we are. I also had Ramen for dinner last night.

How did you manage to scale while still making sure all the locations were thriving?

This is an awesome question that came from our Facebook Group. We’ve made a lot of mistakes in the 5 years we’ve been in business, but we’re sharing the biggest lessons we’ve learned so far in this answer!

What advice would you give someone who wants to start their own business?

Just start. If you want to own a restaurant, start working in a restaurant. If you want to be a writer, start writing. It’s so important to know the basics of the most entry-level position in your industry, and you have to be willing to put in the work.

How do you find time for date night?

For us it’s been about realizing that date night is the non-negotiable. Everything else revolves around date night. We make the time for that before anything else. It’s been easier now that our kids are teenagers and we can leave them alone, but when they were little we had to get creative. We talk about our stay-at-home date ideas in the show!

Did you love this episode? Share it with a friend or pop on to iTunes and leave a review!

Wife, mom of 6 (with TWO sets of twins!), Tara is one of the most encouraging people I have met. She lets go of perfection with ease, and has a calm about her that people are so drawn to.

Tara went from being a mom of 1, to a mom of 3, then 18 months later a mom of 4. When she and her husband tried for #5, they were surprised by #5 AND #6! Of course, she gets many questions from well-meaning people, like, “how do you do it?” and, “you must be a saint!” Tara talks about her response to those questions and the challenges of having a large family.

She and I talk about the logistics of managing a household and family of 8 people. I absolutely LOVE her hack to get her kids to help around the house!

We also get very real about the “whens” of life: ‘When my house is clean, WHEN I get older, WHEN all the laundry is done…’ and how important it is to celebrate in the mess.

Even though the end result was 6 kids, Tara and her husband struggled through an infertility story. Tara may shock you with her perspective on infertility and miscarriage. It is incredibly inspirational to me, and I can’t wait for you to hear about it!

Tara is an encourager. She makes everyone around her feel important and encouraged. She talks about how she does that and how to use the gifts that are given to us.

One of my favorite parts is Tara’s six month rule. In motherhood, seasons can be rough, but things change so fast. She talks about how everything can change in six months: it gets easier or it gets different. I absolutely love this perspective and plan to apply it more in my life!

Tune in for more from Tara, including how she finds time to herself, what she does, and a wannabe confession that we can all appreciate!

A listener asked me ‘how I do it:’ How I’m successful and manage a podcast, a blog, being a mom, and make it all work. Truthfully, I don’t know how to talk about this without sounding self-righteous or like I have it all figured out, but I am going to talk about my thoughts and some of the things that I’m working through that have freed me up a bit to feel a little more confident and successful.  Let’s do this thing.

The truth is, many days I don’t feel like I make it all work. I wonder if I’m spending enough time with my kids, if I force too much quality time with everyone in my family. Truthfully, I don’t believe I’ve arrived or really that I’ll ever arrive.  That would be boring. I’ve thought for hours about the list of things I would try to give you in order to be successful, but I mean, truthfully, my kitchen island…I don’t try to do “it all.” The last time I tried to do it all, nothing in my life was thriving and I had to get a prescription for Xanax. Xanax is awesome, and if you’re on any kind of prescription drugs, know that it’s totally okay. I just knew that my anxiety was stemming from a place of trying to do it all at the time. Everyone lost out, especially me.

To give you background, my husband and I are business owners. We own a company of 16 franchise fast food restaurants, with plans to grow exponentially over the next several years.  This is where people stop and talk to us like we’ve walked on water. Now, I promise that I’ll have Byron on the show and we’ll talk allll about how we came to be on this business path and answer all of your burning questions. In fact, you can send your questions in to hello@thesupermomwannabe.com and chances are that we’ll answer them on a show in the very near future.

Our kids are 13 and 14 years old, which means they’re heavily involved in sports, friends, school, working for the business, and they. need. rides. everywhere.  

I’m very involved with MOPs (Moms of Preschoolers), which I love. I teach a Bible study. I’ve been involved with my kids’ sports and extracurricular activities. I have a blog and now the podcast. 

It’s a lot.  Now, I COULD tell you all the things that I feel like are ideally the best things to do in order to manage a hectic schedule and a life with a lot of priorities. Like, I make a lot of lists that, um, I almost never follow through with or complete. I buy a LOT of spinach because successful, strong, healthy people eat spinach, but it really just goes bad in my fridge.  Or Could tell you how I have this elaborate cleaning and meal planning schedule to keep us all on track.

But I’m not gonna do that. Because I don’t do any of those things well. And honestly, I don’t believe that there’s any one specific formula for success and managing all the demands on us moms. 

The way I see it, we live in a world right now where everyone is into the ‘side hustle’ and that’s awesome, but I think there is so much noise out there about how to get rich quick or be an overnight success.  People have this attitude of “this is how I’m successful and how you can be too.” And I just don’t think it’s very fair. Yes there are habits that are common to successful people, and there are attitudes you can take to work toward success in your life.  But at the end of the day, it’s ultimately not about success.  It’s about what makes you happy; what lights you up inside, and making that a priority.

It’s not all about making money or having a clean, Instagram  worthy house. I don’t even think that it’s about managing a mom schedule and making sure everyone has equal, quality time, or all the best things from the Pinterest blogs we read.

It’s not about balancing it all.  It’s about finding your center. It’s about embracing the chaos and standing firm in the storm of all things motherhood, marriage, and just life. So instead of giving you a list of how I I’ve found success in motherhood (cringe) or how I manage it all, these are the things I’m doing to help me find my center, what’s most important in my life, right now.

Self improvement

I’m always looking up articles, reading books, and listening to other podcasts about how to improve myself and the processes of my life. The trick is not letting those outward influences convince you that if you don’t do everything they say that you’re not doing it right.  Find what’s right for you.  I have learned so much about how I operate and how to counter some of my bad habits, and from that I’ve felt less like I’m drowning in all the things I have to do.

Quieting my inner critic

I’ve named my inner critic “Sheila.” Listen to the show to hear more about her!

Outsourcing my life

We just can’t do it all, and we shouldn’t! There are several ways that I “outsource” my life. I order my groceries online, I’ll sometimes use a laundry service, and not to mention we have a whole team around us in our business that helps us to be successful.

Scheduling

When I’m on top of things (and I’m pretty inconsistent with that) I schedule everything, down to the hour that I’m going to run specific errands, rest time and podcast time.

Self care

For me right now, that’s in taking notice of myself, with my health, stopping and resting, finding my voice, and worrying much less about the approval of others (although I still have a very long way to go there)

Doing what I’m passionate about.  

I could not survive the “have to dos” if I didn’t have the “want to dos”       Having vision, being inspired is something I believe we’re hard-wired for.

Date nights

We get asked a lot about how we balance our romantic life with running a business together. I imagine we’ll talk more about this in a future episode, but to give you a glimpse, dates and quality time are a priority for both of us. It was foundational to everything, even before we had a business.  We just make it happen…whether we have a sitter, whether a kid is sick…we find the time.  That looks so different from a formal date, but it’s how we’ve survived (more tips and details in the episode!)

Family Time

We’ve learned that family time isn’t always what Pinterest tries to tell us it is. I think us moms can get real carried away with what family time is supposed to be that we forget the uniqueness of our kids and our family. Like, ‘spend 30 minutes of quality time with your kids every day and ask them open ended questions.’ I’m a huge fan of quality conversation and open ended questions, don’t get me wrong.  But I’m coming from a place where I have tried to script my life and my family’s life based on how I thought it was supposed to be. I didn’t really care that my kids didn’t like formal story time at the library or long,…… it was what other successful moms did so that’s what I needed to do. 

Since then I’ve learned that formal family dinners are a thing of the past in my family (except Christmas and Thanksgiving, of course…but even then, those only last about 30 minutes). We enjoy the occasional dinner together, but it’s mostly when we decide to go out to dinner and I’m not busy or weighed down by the preparation of  it all. The most quality time we have with our kids right now is in the car. We share music, they’ll sometimes let me in on their day, and the most meaningful conversation (and most surprising questions) have come from car rides to and from practice.
 
There is ONE thing that I try to do almost every day when it comes to time with my kids.  Rather than forced family fun and scheduling my kids from here to high heaven, I have tried to come home every day when they get home from school and just be available for 30 minutes. I try to do things that don’t mind being interrupted, and just be there.
That’s when I’ve had the most success with family time.

I have to humbly point out the order I put these things in.  Because your center, how you’re fed, how you take care of yourself is most important.  Not the roles that you play. It’s so instinctive to want to take care of everyone and everything else first, but in order to find a center and flow into everything else, you have to make yourself a priority.

You were given a life that’s unique,  that was entrusted to no one else on this planet. I just don’t think anyone can hand a formula for success to you. You can absolutely take tips from other people, but at the end of the day it’s about what works best for you and your family. It’s up to you to listen closely to what rings the truest for you. You’ve gotta find what you’re most passionate about and chase it, protect it, and nurture it.

That’s what I’ve got for you guys today but before I go, my Wannabe Confession this week is this…Never do I feel more like a failure than when I have to throw away bad food. All those vegetables and always that spinach. Man, the plans I had for it.

Until next time…