How do you define success as a mother and business owner? What does it mean to find your threshold of "enoughness"?
We are back this week with Gill Howarth, owner of Bornwise Education, as she uncovers her journey through the peaks and valleys of motherhood and entrepreneurship.
For Full Show Notes Head To 👉https://www.raisingwildlings.com.au/blog/Balancing-Entrepreneurship-and-Motherhood
Other ways we can help you:
How do you define success as a mother and business owner? What does it mean to find your threshold of "enoughness"?
We are back this week with Gill Howarth, owner of Bornwise Education, as she uncovers her journey through the peaks and valleys of motherhood and entrepreneurship.
For Full Show Notes Head To 👉https://www.raisingwildlings.com.au/blog/Balancing-Entrepreneurship-and-Motherhood
Other ways we can help you:
This week we're back with the second part of our episode with Jill Howarth, owner of Bournewise Education over in Western Australia. Last week we spoke about how, for some people, the best time to start a wild business could be during maternity leave or when you have young children. This is the continuation of that conversation and last week, where we talked about imposter syndrome and mindset and all the wonderful things that stop us from starting a business. In this episode we'll talk about what it looks like authentically and transparently for Jill back in the day when she had young children, and more so now when she's got older children. Hope you enjoy the conversation. Here's Jill. We'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land on which we record today the Kabi, kabi and Gabi Gabi people. We recognise their continued connection to the land and waters of this beautiful place. We recognise Aboriginal people as the original custodians of this land and acknowledge that they have never ceded sovereignty. We respect all Gabi Gabi elders, ancestors and emerging elders and all First Nations people listening today.
Vicci Farrell:Welcome to Raising Wildlings, a podcast about parenting, alternative education and stepping into the wilderness, however that looks with your family.
NIcki Farrell:Each week, we'll be interviewing experts that truly inspire us to answer your parenting and education questions. We'll also be sharing stories from some incredible families that took the leap and are taking the road less travelled.
Vicci Farrell:Wear your hosts, vicki and Nikki from Wildlings Forest School, popping your headphones, settle in and join us on this next adventure.
NIcki Farrell:As a mother and society's expectations on you can have everything. Do we want everything? Can we handle all the things? And, I guess, listening to our intuition on what is enough for us, what is too much for us, what is it that we want? What does success look like for us? Can you talk to us about how you've navigated, I guess, leaving a system which was five days a week? Success looks like income and moving up into leadership roles, into a small business, and what does success look like for you?
Gill Howarth:I think, as well as just sort of. You know, it's been helpful for me to reframe not does what does success look like, but what does it feel like? Yes, and that's coming back to that again, isn't it? Because you feel that you feel you feel success and you feel when you're struggling, and not that struggling is not successful, because I would reframe it to go. There's a lot of wisdom in our bodies. When we're struggling, it's actually saying they're sending us such important messages to say something needs to shift or at least slow down enough to acknowledge that you're struggling. Don't keep pushing the boat uphill. You know when I? I don't know what that sounds. Just make that up.
NIcki Farrell:I didn't even flinch. I think, it's shit uphill.
Gill Howarth:I'm definitely not a boat up. I don't know where that came from. You get what I'm saying and it's when I said earlier about that consistently showing up. I think that's a. It's a great. I don't believe in polarities. Yes, keep showing up, but also be monitoring yourself as to when.
Gill Howarth:When you stop showing up, you know there's a consistency in being committed to something, but part of that commitment doesn't mean you shift. You keep showing up when you're in burnout and I think these are all the things that's not taught to do. And I think, as a a mom and a woman and probably just as a human, I think we need to have more conversations around enoughness and recognizing happiness, because it seems really hard for us, a lot, a lot of us, to say this is enough. You know, I'm not in a period where I need my business to grow. Yeah, I think we've become really either what we're going, oh well, this business has stressed me out, so I'm going to quit, you know, and it's. It doesn't doesn't have to be all in or all out.
Gill Howarth:You know, there's times when, like you said, when we breastfeed in and you're awake at two o'clock in the morning and the rest of the world's asleep and you're being flooded with creative ideas. And for me as a writer, that was the most exciting time. When I think back to my breastfeeding is I now as a writer? I think I wish I could get up at three o'clock in the morning and just write and then go to sleep. In the dark age of life where I can do that, hopefully I will be again without having to have a baby to do it.
Gill Howarth:But that, that breastfeeding, that creative, generative time, and how awesome. But then there'll be times where your business isn't about creating something new, it's about really nourishing what you've got. And then you know, like using a gardening metaphor, it's sometimes you're just nourishing the soil, aren't you? You're getting the earth ready for the seeds to be planted, and then there's growth periods and then there's harvesting periods. And I think we're just the same thing that we've done to our school systems of assuming that learning is linear and in a straight line. We do that with businesses as well, and that that's how. What success is that? You just keep going up a ladder that never ends?
NIcki Farrell:Yeah, this would be our first year at Wildlings where I think we're not actively pursuing something big and shiny and new and it feels so good to be saying no to so much and there's a real feeling of success in that, in that I'm comfortable saying no because I know what I need, vicki knows what she needs, we know what our team needs and we all just need to nourish the soil and rest. We're in a resting, we're in, we're in our winter right now and it feels good, it feels really nice to be here and I can't wait to see what that brings in the future. But right now I can't even envision that and I don't want to, but I love that it is.
NIcki Farrell:I think business and life is a spiral or a squiggle. It's not even a spiral. It's not meant to be linear and we're humans and we're humans with families and we don't know what's going on in other business lives, whether there's illness or deaths in the family or babies and just hard times too, that businesses do need to pause sometimes. Or I think we also need to allow more time in our own businesses because we don't need to be on the nine to five treadmill rat race. We can allow ourselves time to to winter and to hibernate, or to blossom and run with things a bit more easily than I think in a nine to five, I don't know. What do you think?
Gill Howarth:Yeah, I think 100% it's. There is so many more possibilities for how we do things than just these these one way. You know, this is what it must look like. This is what success looks like. And you know, we all that whole idea. You go to school and then you go to uni, and then you've got your degree, and then you get a job, and then you buy the house or get married. I don't know what order you're supposed to do that in, but I mean, does it lead to this, you know, feeling of satisfaction for everyone? No, no, it doesn't. I think the reason it does, and for other people, it's just because I don't think anyone else can plan out a path for you.
Gill Howarth:Part of the problem is when we kind of following someone else's idea of what success can look like and what it should feel like, and then people are questioning themselves of what's wrong with me. I've got all the things, I've got the house, and I've got the husband and I've got the kids and I've got the business, but I still feel like I want something more. You know, that is I guess that to me, is kind of the epitome of a lot of pain, you know, because then you always want something that is out of your reach and you're kind of trying to sort of gather things that you're not even sure. It's just this sense of always wanting more, and it's because culture kind of teaches us that but little things as well. I think it's important to push the boundaries. You know, traditionally we're taught that one business can be in competition or opposition to another business. You know, that's sort of the landscape that I feel we've often been taught or grown up in, and we started I think it was halfway through next year, last year, sorry myself and another teacher who was running a really similar type program, and we were friends and we were speaking a lot about things anyway, and on the surface it could seem like we're in direct competition with each other.
Gill Howarth:But we've created this coming together I guess, this network of well, how about we actually support each other, how about we figure out where we can help each other so we're not creating more isolation, because you know, for some women, running your own business can mean you create an even more isolation for yourself if then you've got to do it, all you know, and I don't think isolation is healthy for anyone.
Gill Howarth:So we've kind of gathered there's about six or seven of us, and we're all working in similar areas here in Perth and we try and support each other as much as possible and we also try to create work for other women, to be other mums, to be able to do similar to what we're doing. And that's because I think, because ultimately I like to look to the natural world for advice and for guidance, and you know we hear these beautiful stories of the way one you know, a mother tree will send its nutrients to the other trees around it to support it, and it's nice that you're only as strong as the other life forms around you. So I feel like it must be the same for humans and we really are more supported and more nourished when we work together, and I know that can seem idealistic, but it's something that I believe quite strongly in.
NIcki Farrell:Yeah, same. I think when we started telling people that we were starting a wild business course, people, are you crazy? You're actively creating competition, Like you could be. You could have half a dozen wildlings like businesses on the Sunshine Coast and my eyes just lit up and was like isn't that amazing? Can you imagine how many more children will be able to access nature if there's more of us? Because you know there's not a finite amount of children or families around either, and the more people that see it and the more people that understand it, the more they understand the benefits. I think some of the confidence comes from knowing the benefits and believing so much in the purpose behind the business that failing is not about you at all. It's like, oh, I need to keep doing this for the children, and I think that starting a business that is so purpose led makes the hard times feel a lot easier.
Gill Howarth:That's true. It's an inspiration to keep going as well. And you know, at the end of the day you know myself and Nat and Carmen and Bronny, you know we all work together at Bournemois, but we're just four humans. There's only so many children that we can work with and still do it in a way that feels really authentic to our philosophy, and it feels like, well, like what you just said. You know, imagine if more children and more families could benefit from this.
Gill Howarth:You know, rather than trying to keep everyone in my little pot, you know, it's when I think of that village metaphor that we use it's. I think well, if I could, if we still lived in a village, I feel like I would be volunteering or it would be my job to look after the children, while someone else does the cooking and someone else does the gathering and someone else does the hunting or all the different things that we've done. And we need that in every little pocket, don't we? Because I don't know you want people to connect to the, to the natural space close to them as well. I feel like that's really important.
NIcki Farrell:So, yeah, it does need to be so place-based, doesn't it? And person.
Gill Howarth:Yeah, yeah, and everyone will do it a little bit differently, and that's beautiful in itself. So I think that as well is it makes it easier for for for women in business when we support each other, and I know that there's a lot of like lip service service around that. You know it's easy to say those things, isn't it Like? It's something you know I don't know how many hashtags of like supporting women in business. It's probably like, it's probably like hugely huge hashtag, but there's there's the idea of that and then there's the doing of that and being a truly OK with doing that as well, you know.
Gill Howarth:I think it's creating new landscapes and new cultures and new ways, and same as what we want to do in education.
NIcki Farrell:Yeah, I was just going to say you can't be what you can't see and and by us in different ways, showing what different versions of success or our own versions of success.
NIcki Farrell:So for me it's, you know, freedom and flexibility with my family and time, and not having to get up to an alarm and being very feeling very, very authentic in the mentoring that I do. Rather than that feeling I had in the classroom, even though I know I was working with children and I know I was having a quote, unquote, you know good influence. It didn't reach me in an authentic way like what I do now does. So I think, without being like completely anti capitalism and completely anti, like you know, great smash the patriarchy, we're quietly doing those things by resting and not being competitive and being collaborative and working from home with our children in these harder years and slowing business down to suit the seasons of our lives, and that feels like success to me because I'm not burnt out, I'm feeling purpose filled, I've got a village and and I'm with my family. I just wish more people could access it.
Gill Howarth:Yeah, same same. And you know we, if more people can access it, we all actually benefit as well. You know that that's the beauty of it More people can access it, with each one of us benefits. And yeah, I think that's one of the risks Sometimes I think of women going into businesses if they end up just doing more on their own. You know it's more on their own and that and just that, that doesn't feel very good. And so, opening it up a little bit to do it on your own terms and it sometimes requires a bit of creativity I think we talked about it briefly earlier, just on the call that that, knowing your enoughness, you know knowing how to do that, how to ask for help, all of these things you know sometimes being creative about how your children are included in the work as well.
NIcki Farrell:You know what did that look like for you in the earlier years.
Gill Howarth:Oh, I mean, I feel like that that's been a big, big, big part of my journey is having my children involved in my work and when it's right for them to be in the programs and then also when it's not serving them, like it's constant checking in, constant checking in of that dance of a family, of all of our needs being met. And you know, I did have an experience it's not that long ago, like earlier in this year, where my youngest son was coming with me all the time to Bourne Wise and it didn't actually feel good, you know like.
Gill Howarth:I feel like this is not. And he and he said he had a he I mean he was five at the time, I think and after one session he. So I've been really honest with sharing this. But we came home, you know, one day and he said I hate Bourne Wise and I thought, oh my gosh, what, what do we do with this? So that and that was huge for me, that was huge to sort of navigate that and then look at it really closely and say, ok, what am I really passionate about? Bringing to other children? That autonomy and it's time and it's space and it's been around other adults to provide your child. And then looking at the irony of that and realizing I wasn't creating that for my own son and he was getting that for a while because, like I said, you know, we work now in a network where there's other moms offering similar programs and other educators and he was attending one of those and loving it and then he just grew out of it. It's become too old for that particular.
NIcki Farrell:And I think that and that's enough. You know that's enough. Yes, We've been through the same thing here. Mine is still going once a week, but that's because, just luckily, it suits their interests, whereas Vicki's children kind of grew out of us about a year ago and they're seeking different friendships and different interests and that's enough, and that's OK. And exactly what you said. We can't expect our children to be learning in the way, the opposite of the ways that we're. You know, we're trying to show that we can offer in our programs and I just love that. We all get to that point at some point. It's like I don't ever want to come to another program again, Exactly.
Gill Howarth:And it's, you know, it's that thing of always checking in, isn't it? And I think again of going well, it doesn't have to be this sense of my program's the only program and it's the best program and you couldn't possibly compare this and I can't compare, you know. And then having this sort of hang on, just stop Jill, this is you know. Just think about what's actually happening here and it actually makes a whole lot of sense intuitively. It's just sometimes the mind, you know, the logic mind, is kind of battling with you saying but if your child doesn't come to your program, then it's obviously. You know, what does that mean?
NIcki Farrell:And then you have the logistics. What am I going to do with you? Because this was just so easy. Now it's become complicated.
Gill Howarth:You know, our children are great, aren't they Holding us accountable, like that of just going well okay.
NIcki Farrell:Yeah.
Gill Howarth:And keeping us reflected.
NIcki Farrell:Very grounded.
Gill Howarth:And I'm very grounded, very real, very authentic, and you know this thing of them saying like is you know that, that reflective process that I keep talking about of well, does this? Have we gone through a season? You know? Are we actually entering another season here for you? Yeah, I'm in a different season. So how do we navigate that together? And that's one of the beautiful things of being in relationship with other humans. You know, the only way we can avoid that is to be by yourself and I don't know, live out away from anyone else, and then you have to deal with these negotiations. But I think of it as collaboration, you know it. Just think, well, me and my husband are in collaboration in life and that sometimes has moments where it's flowing beautifully and then it has clunky moments and that's just like the weather is changes.
NIcki Farrell:Yeah, and I think that's the other thing for people starting out in business or anything, even homeschooling, your homeschooling journey, what you're starting out on the first day is not what it's going to look like in six months or a year or five or 10 years, and that's OK, that's enough, like it's so seasonal when you're running a small business alongside your family raising your family. Right now, I've got the children four days a week at the moment and I never thought I could run a business with my children around you dropping off, because I'm doing lots of drop-offs to homeschool programs that aren't mine as well as ours.
NIcki Farrell:And I just thought there's no way I could have managed that, but because of our amazing team who do incredible things, and just the season of life we're in, because my husband had needs. He needed a different business and a different work, and so it's his season now, and that's wonderful, that we can all work together and collaborate exactly like you said collaborate together to make sure everybody's needs are being met and I can only do that because of our incredible team. If I was doing this alone, my God, no way I would have burnt out and combusted years ago.
Gill Howarth:Same. I wouldn't have been able to do that, and then it's even just that I don't know if this is the right, but that the moral support, sometimes of just the family. My husband has been very supportive. He runs his own business as well, but he's always been really supportive of this, of BornWise and like from a space of moral support as well, and parents like friends. I do feel very, very lucky and that I'm often very supported by people and I'm very grateful for that.
NIcki Farrell:That takes a lot of cultivation as well, though, and comfort in expressing your needs and also being comfortable asking for help, as I think, when we talk about the village, I think sometimes we think it's just going to turn up at our doorstep when we have children that magically appear, but it actually takes a lot of work to cultivate a village and accept help, ask for help not just accept it, but ask, because we're all happy to offer other people help and feel really good about it, but it can be really hard to ask for help, so I think I just wanted to add that in there as well, because you do to cultivate what you've got, and I know how much work that's taken.
Gill Howarth:I feel like I'm a natural at asking for help. I'm not sure why it's yeah, yeah, yeah.
NIcki Farrell:Okay. I've got one more question before I should probably let you go. What did working from home look like for you in the early years, with babies and nappies and breastfeeding and a brand new business with no business knowledge, because a lot of people are going to like I can't work from home with children and I get that, and if that's you, that's enough, that's okay. I think that's the first thing, but then what did that also look like for you?
Gill Howarth:Oh, wow, I mean that is such an awesome question. I think I got really good at finding the sort of little cracks and corners in the day. I guess, no-transcript, here's some time to work, here's some time to create. I am pretty good at making sure I have time for myself, even when I have got, like you know, my children are older now so it's like I'm in a different season, but when they were little I was pretty good at kind of creating moments for my own headspace, if that makes sense.
Gill Howarth:And if we're just going for a walk or something like that. But again, I think, getting to know yourself as well, because we don't all do it in the same way. Like my husband, I noticed, would he often write a list before he goes to work in the morning, like a you know dot point list, and he kept suggesting that I did that and that'll never work for me because I'll lose the list or you know like it just won't work because someone will interrupt me. So I actually had to get a really big whiteboard and it's like it's definitely not a list, it's like a mess brainstorm things all over the place, good ideas, but I had to put that something that was really important. I know that sounds like a little thing, but I needed to visually see those things all the time.
Gill Howarth:When I was so breastfeeding on the couch I could see that board because it was kind of like a to do flash vision board and having that in my giving attention to that, giving attention to that, really really helped. But there were also many, many, many interruptions. You know many, many interruptions, many frustrations. How did you kind of having to kind of Sorry.
NIcki Farrell:How did you let the expectation of you know what work used to look like and your working capacity used to look like? How did you switch that from? This is how I work and this is how well I work, or how much I work, or how much I can get done in an hour? How did you switch your kind of mindset around your expectations of what they would look like in motherhood?
Gill Howarth:I think, just being realistic and forgiving of myself as well, of going, I'm not going to get all of these things done. These ideas that I'm writing on this vision board might take 10 or 15 years. You know, this wasn't all what I've got to do tomorrow, but I used to balance, because the creative brainstorming part of my work is really the fun part. That's the bit I enjoy. So I made sure I had some time for the parts that I really enjoyed, because that was the stuff that inspired me and motivated me to keep going.
Gill Howarth:And then the other thing was making sure I was locking in some sort of real job time that I had to show up for, if that makes sense. Because you know, when you're a teacher in a classroom, you just know you're there at 8am in the morning till 3pm. You don't try and schedule something in in that time because that's. You just remember my husband's saying once oh, could you go do that on your lunch break? You know, go to a post office and say, no, we don't leave the school on our lunch break. You know, just anyway. That's what life looked like and I knew I didn't have 8 till 4pm windows anymore in that period.
Gill Howarth:So I made you know when. Would that ever happen? To just be 8 till 4 without interruptions, but I would make had some sort of windows. So I knew, like, ok, from 9am to 9.30pm, and again this required help. It meant like tagging me out with my husband and asking my parents for help to know, ok, this is when I'm actually leaving the house to go and do this thing, this job that needs to be done, or pay attention to this, because I know I'm not. Sometimes, for me, being in a space that is my workspace makes all the difference.
Gill Howarth:Like when I turn up to the workplace because I'm at home. I am very good at going out. I'll just do this, or just read this book, or I'll just fold this washing or I'll just do these things. So you know, I feel like it looked pretty messy and it looked pretty disorganized. You know, in those first few years, and that's enough. Yeah, it was enough and it worked still, you know it still worked.
Gill Howarth:It maybe looked sometimes to someone who goes to a more, you know, traditional sense of business, where they're showing up to an office and there's their phone and there's their. I mean, I've never worked in an office, I don't know if this is what it looked like, but do you know, like the stereotypical turn up to the office thing. Yeah.
Gill Howarth:It was pretty messy and chaotic, you know, but it's. My yoga teacher actually helped me at the time because I remember saying to her and although this is not about what it's about, a yoga practice I'm everything. I can't have a yoga practice when I've got three young children at home and I'm trying to run my business, and how can I do yoga or yoga practice? And she said you just got to shift your ideas around what that looks like. Yes, and she actually got me time lapse video. She said put your yoga mat in the middle of the lounge room at a really inconvenient time like one PM in the afternoon, you know, not a time that you've got to get up at four, but you're too tired to do that, you know, let's face it.
Gill Howarth:And she said just put that yoga mat in the middle of the day, in the middle of the mess, in the middle of everything going on around you and just do what you can. And I actually really loved that little video. I still refer back to it now because you know I was, I think, trying to do the yoga practice while also breastfeeding and my I think toddler you know, he bit my nipple in the middle of the yoga practice and one of my other boys was like tapping me on the head and other boys had a fight. In the background there's messy. The dog walked over my yoga mat and it was really frustrating.
Gill Howarth:I'm not going to pretend it wasn't frustrating, but when I look back at that, I just think I just kept showing up, I just kept doing it and it didn't look normal practice, it did not look like a fancy yoga practice, but I stayed on the mat and I did with constant interruptions, but I just kept showing up. And I think that's the same for the work at home. It might look messy, it might not look like what you want it to look like, but it's just a season.
NIcki Farrell:What a beautiful season. It is messy and chaotic, but it's joyful and hilarious and frustrating and so much mess, but it is. It's so easy to seize it. You know, everyone always says the days are. You know, the days, along with the years, are short, but it truly is and I think when you're starting a business in that season two, it can seem like a thousand years and that nothing's happening. But just putting that creative energy, or any energy, into that dream and that idea, things will start happening naturally, and they might not be at the pace that you could have done them pre-children, but look at the magic. Like how amazing for you to look back on that video. I wish, I wish we could do a time lapse of business in those early days as well. The children, you know, screaming while the podcast is recording it would be hilarious.
NIcki Farrell:Even then, just halfway through this podcast, my sons, who are in the house doing who knows what, came in and gave me a smoothie and I was like this is the little things, isn't it? It is messy, but it can also be beautiful and frustrating and beautiful and awful.
Gill Howarth:It is, and you know, and everything is like that. And I would say, you know, if you kind of think, oh well, if I just went back to my teaching job, everything would be perfect and I wouldn't have to try to work at home, you know, then it's just a whole new sort of stuff of life, isn't it? I think it's again their expectation that life is always smooth, sailing and neat and button up and all of it, especially when you acknowledge different seasons of life and when I think back four years, five years ago, when Bourn Wives was first starting, and it was a lot messier and I was a lot less clear about it and I was breastfeeding all the way through it and so it didn't have maybe the like then. It wasn't in the stage Bourn Wives was at now, but it has so much love and inspiration and beauty and creativity in it and I think that is the flip side of working with children.
Gill Howarth:I mean and working at home with your children, and you know, it shows sometimes, I think, how much commitment you've got to something, because I remember at the end of the day, I think I still want to show up for this, even though there's all this chaos going around it. I never wanted to give up. You know, so I thought that's amazing. That feels good.
NIcki Farrell:Same. I think there's been days teaching where I have not wanted to get out of bed and I have called in sick on days where I just was. I don't want to be at work today, whereas with this business there is so much purpose, so much joy, like spending a day in the forest or anywhere with children. Yes, it can be hard, but the overwhelming feeling that you leave with well, I hope that people are leaving with is that contentment and joy and fun and laughter and connection and I think that's the difference for me between teaching in a traditional classroom and teaching in a way where I can lead and mentor authentically and build these relationships authentically Is that is. Those feelings feel very different.
Gill Howarth:Yeah, 100%, and that's how I feel and that's well-being. I mean, I think if you've got that sense of purpose and satisfaction and you know, if there's some chaos and mess that comes with that, then like that's almost the trade-off and I think that I like a bit of chaos and mess. I think some of that can be really beautiful.
NIcki Farrell:It's life, isn't it? You know, life is not a straight line, it's a roller coaster, and that's how we get to appreciate the joyous times is the dips. It's unrealistic to expect that we're not going to have dips. That's how amazing when we do get to that top of the roller coaster.
Gill Howarth:Yeah Well, one last little thing is that I've just been telling this a lot to people for lots of different reasons at the moment, but I read.
Gill Howarth:One of the children I was working with was interested in storms earlier in the year and we did some research into storms and this little fact that I found was that if we didn't have storms for a period of 48 hours, the entire sort of atmosphere would just be completely impacted and it would lose its balance.
Gill Howarth:And because I like to look to the natural world so much for that guidance and advice, I thought, well, that would be the same for us as humans, the same is for our businesses, the same for our parenting journeys. We're going to experience stormy times, you know, and they're actually really necessary. And the only issue is when we want it to be the same. We want sunny days all the time. You know that is unrealistic and it's also not benefit as well. So I think, if we can kind of remind ourselves of that when we are running our businesses, that there'll be days that are stormy and it doesn't mean that that's not OK and it doesn't mean that that's actually not leading to some sort of new balance or new, new, I don't know, just making things come into balance, I guess yeah.
NIcki Farrell:And on a very real, real world example. Our best days in the forest are, honestly, some of the wettest days that you don't want to leave the house, the most memorable days of the day that the families come and they're splashing and joyous, so joyous. And sometimes those sessions get cut a little short or sometimes people leave early because they're done or they're cold. But gosh, so many sessions, so many times we come out of those sessions and children like that was the best day and the parents are smiling, the world's smiling. It's yeah, we need storms. Yeah, that's the seasons. Yeah, oh, thank you, this has just been amazing. Once again, I think we just need to book you in for a regular. Maybe you can be our regular guest podcast. That'd be amazing. I would be a regular.
Gill Howarth:I've always got lots of things to talk about, but it's always so nice to have to be guided by you in the conversation as well. You know, like it's. It's really. It's really nice to just see what comes up in that conversation and go with it. I really enjoy it.
NIcki Farrell:It feels like we're sisters from other misters across the, across the countries, amazing how similar our journeys to business and motherhood and leaving teaching have been and it's really affirming actually to to see that you know, we're not just an anomaly leaving leaving a secure job and you know finances and whatnot was a risk and it hasn't just paid off for just us. You know there's other people out there and in our business course that this is working for in all the different versions of success, because for some people it is more financial and for some people it is working five days a week. That's amazing and yeah, but they're happy. They're happy and and they are going through the storms as well.
NIcki Farrell:That's again, it's not all, just beer and skittles, but they're coming out the other end feeling like they've made the right decision. Absolutely yeah, absolutely Well. Thank you so much for your time today, jill. We will definitely get you back on, perhaps next year and let's see what comes out of this conversation. So if you've got any questions for Jill or if you have got anything that you'd like us to talk about in another episode, please just on our either of our Instagrams or DMs or email any of us and we'll collate those, and if there's a topic that comes up more than anything, we'll get you back on to discuss that as well. That'd be amazing.
NIcki Farrell:I hope you've enjoyed our two part conversation with Jill Howarth. Born wise, she is feels like a kindred spirit to me and the similarities in our journey have been so uncanny and, like I just said, really affirming for me that what we do is not just a once off, and we know that because we run while business and we've got 100 different people starting while businesses around the country and overseas. But it also shows to me that these businesses have legs, yes, but they have heart, and that it's changing the narrative for women and working parents about what working can look like while you're raising young families and what that might look like for you, what success looks like for you, and giving yourself pause. And maybe you're not ready to start a business during maternity leave, and that's OK too. That is as we've been saying in the past two episodes. That's enough. Postpartum is enough and you are suffering from postnatal depression. If you are just in the weary, weary depths of fatigue from sleep deprivation, it is enough to just be parenting and mothering. Please don't feel like you need to be starting a new business right now either, but it might be the time where you allow a pause in your work life to really ruminate and let those creative juices flow about what life could look like, what work might look like, what that balance or working from home might look like, and it might give you pause to reflect about whether that's worth taking the leap, that leap of faith, and making change.
NIcki Farrell:Change can be scary, but from two different people over the last few episodes you've heard that we're really happy with our versions of success, and they might look very different to what is out in the mainstream media, but it is. It feels good. So maybe after this episode, if you can take a little time to sit with yourself and feel what kind of success you're in at the moment and really feel into that intuition. Whether that feels good Food for thought maybe not, but if you are in that creative cocoon right now, it might not be a wild business. It might be a yoga business, it might be a health business, it might be an engineering degree or an astronaut certificate. What does it feel like for you? I hope it feels good and if it doesn't, I hope you feel inspired and brave enough to just even start thinking what that could look like for you. Until next week, stay wild.