Finding The Balance Of Mom-Life And Work-Life With Lindsay Maloney

Sara Nay: Welcome to the agency spark podcast. This is your host, Sarah Nay. And today on the show, I have Lindsay Maloney a self-made business and success coach who specializes in teaching women, how to start and scale their dream coaching business with simplicity and confidence. So welcome to the show, Lindsay. I'm excited. You're here.

Lindsay Maloney: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. Of

Sara Nay: Of course. So on your website, you note that you want the best for your clients and that's why you've learned from the best of the best. So can you dive into your journey a bit and what led you to where you are today?

Lindsay Maloney: Yes, absolutely. I'm always happy to share how I started and how long it's taken me. Cause I think that there's way too many highlight reels and glittery moments online, and everyone thinks this, all it takes is you think of it. And then tomorrow everything magically happens. And so I'm very transparent and open. I started over 10 years ago. I remember laying my son down for naps in the afternoon. And at that time I had one, one baby, and I didn't know what to do with myself. My house was clean. It was in my mid twenties and I didn't know what else can I do until my husband gets home and we can make dinner. And I just felt a little lost. I had started to notice a lot of people were asking me how I had lost weight. I had lost 90 pounds after I had him.

Lindsay Maloney: And I started to get all these random Facebook messages from people that I knew asking me what I did. And I, all I did was I stopped eating crap and I started exercising, right? What a concept. And I started really feeling passionate about helping people just feel better. So I dove into nutrition and health coaching and fitness, and I got all kinds of certifications. And I started a blog. I think my mom read it. Maybe she read it twice in one day. I don't know, but I was really passionate about blogging every day. Sharing what I ate this is before Instagram was even a thing and it was just me in a WordPress site and I, I just really loved doing it. And then my second baby started coming four or five years later and I just hit pause on everything and cause I wanted to focus on her.

Lindsay Maloney: Of course, when I decided to pick it all back up again, I wasn't really into the health coaching aspect of it. I wasn't feeling passionate about it, but I really fell in love with the business side of it. I, because I, at first I thought my pain points where I wasn't running my business correctly. And that is very true because I have no idea what I was doing. I was doing this by myself for five, six years. And then the business side of it was so interesting to me. I have a business degree. I've never applied it in my full-time job because it has nothing to do with my college degree, which is so common. And I decided to scrap the whole health coaching thing and start over with a business coaching aspect of my business. So I started investing in coaches and programs to really learn how to do this. And um, one thing that I learned was, and it's not fun to hear is this takes time. This takes years in the making. This is not something that's going to happen in 90 days, even though that's a shiny gimmick, it's not true. So it took me, I would say it took me five, six years to figure out what the heck I was doing. Then everything started to snowball after that.

Sara Nay: I think that's such a key point. I see a lot of, because we're in the marketing consulting side of things. And so we train consultants to build their own agencies and scale and grow. And that's something that we're always trying to preach is this, isn't an overnight solution. This takes a lot of time. It's a lot of effort. You're going to continue to grow over the years, but the whole get rich quick doing this type of work just isn't true. Ultimately I don't think thank you for sharing that background in one of the things that I know you focus on is working with women specifically and you T you help them think for themselves, but really better yet follow their intuition. So do you mind expanding on that a bit more?

Lindsay Maloney: Yes. Especially nowadays when everything is in our face, you cannot help yourself from comparing your business, your family, your home, your desk, everything to everyone else, as you're scrolling through an Instagram feed or watching stories. And so you're constantly trying to live up to probably hundreds of people at one time. And then when it comes to growing your business, you're trying all kinds of things, trying to grow your business. So you have a bunch of water cups in front of you, and you're putting a little bit of here. A couple of drops in here. You're just trying all these random things, because everyone's shouting at you to try it because it worked for them. And it does not mean it's going to work for you. And the thing is you, your intuition, your trusting, your gut, following your heart, whatever that means for you is going to be the number one most important business tool.

Lindsay Maloney: And it's going to require you to really sharpen it as you grow. I think that when you're first starting, you just want to try everything and see what works. But then if you keep doing that, as you're growing and working with clients and building your business, you're going to be tapped out. You're going to feel really overwhelmed because you're not filling any cup at all. It's impossible to do that. So I always ask my students and clients, when they ask me, should I try this strategy? Should I try this one? And they look, I can just tell in their eyes and their facial expressions that they do not want to do this. But they heard from so-and-so that it worked really well for them, but they're like, should I do this? And they have that face said, well, do you really want to do it? No. Then don't do, for some reason we create businesses on a really high note. And then we start piling on these strategies that we don't feel good about. And it's almost like you created a boss. That's constantly assigning you tasks to do that you don't want to do. And then you start to regret starting your business, or you don't want to go into your office and everything feels hard and difficult because you created the atmosphere for that.

Sara Nay: I think that's so smart. I think it is, as you mentioned, like the more and more access to social media and even like in business and our kids, I worry about that as well for my kids. There's just so much added pressure. And so if someone's really dialed into that, so they pay a lot of attention to social media and what other businesses are doing. That's all they've done. How do you help them focus? Like in following their intuition, doesn't feel maybe as natural because they haven't done it as much. Do you have specific ways you help people take a step back from some of the distractions and focus on internal? What they're actually feeling?

Lindsay Maloney: Yeah. It's not like it, it just is a natural thing. Like I said, you got to sharpen it. I think a first step would be pay attention to how you feel. And sometimes if we're not doing that at all, first up, maybe go on social media. If you're an Instagram person. And if you find a bunch of people trigger you and make you feel less than who you are on, follow them or mute them. There's a lot of people like every time I see this person, there's this little creepy thing in my head. That's, you're not doing that. You should try that. I don't want to listen to any of that. I only want to listen to, I, my, I always say I'm deliriously positive. I only want to listen to things that make me feel good and feel good about my business and how I'm running it.

Lindsay Maloney: So if anything distracts me or it makes me feel less than I'm going to mute them or unfollow them and wish them well, like I would say wish them well, because they're doing what they feel called to do. Don't be like, I'm not following her anywhere. She drives me crazy. Just wish them well in your mind, we'll say a prayer for them, whatever feels right for you and then keep going. So eliminate the distractions. Why do you feel this way? When you do this, how and pay attention to that, maybe you would just need to sit and write it out. Maybe you need to talk it out with somebody, but that your feelings matter. And you didn't create this again, to feel down about yourself, your process. I think comparing your beginning to someone's middle is very unfair for your success and is not going to help you at all.

Sara Nay: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And in one of the, one of your target groups that you work with mainly is women. So what caused you to decide to focus on women specifically?

Lindsay Maloney: I'm passionate about working with women because I love especially mothers, people who are wearing all kinds of hats and they have this, this amazing idea in their head, this dream, they're maybe working a full-time job too, but they know that they're there to give they're there to serve. They're there to help. And they don't know how to do it because they're being pulled in all directions. They have little kids or they're trying to raise a family, whatever it is. And I feel like I can help someone who I am and who I was. I was trying to start a coaching business. I know what it's like to, I have three kids. I know what it's like to just try and fit in one hour of focused work, um, with all kinds of little hands reaching for you and needing all kinds of things, I can really help somebody like that. And so I really try to help women because I am one and I want to help make the world better. And I feel like women do such a fantastic job doing that. Yeah, absolutely.

Sara Nay: I think this relates to one thing that you talk about as well, is that you're not a huge fan of the hustle mentality. And so do you mind diving into that a bit?

Lindsay Maloney: No, I am not. It's a cringe word for me cause I remember thinking that's what I had to do. I was comparing myself to a lot of mail marketing because that's what I listened to at first, when I started my business, that was the louder voices online. And then I thought, okay, well, he doesn't have to get up at night probably to feed a baby. And he probably doesn't have to do this and that their lives are so different from mine. And that's great cause we're different. So why am I trying to create something that is never going, it's following a completely different journey than what I really want. I don't want to work every week in it. I want to enjoy my children while they're still little. I, and I don't want the lights that they have. And I don't feel like the hustle mentality is sustainable for a woman, much less a mother.

Lindsay Maloney: We can't put all of our energy into our business and walk out of our office and be able to, I homeschool my kids as well. I can't put all of that into one thing. I have a lot of things on my plate. So the hustle mentality is definitely not going to work for me. And I think it's unhealthy to keep preaching about that. Um, whether it's in your career or whatever it is, I think it's a recipe for burnout. And I think that also is people may say, it sounds like you hustle all day long with your, just your life in general, but I don't, I have a healthy balance. So whatever balance means for you, that's what it should be. And you shouldn't have to go full throttle all the time to make it work.

Sara Nay: Yeah. And how do you help people then find a balance between, let's say they are running a business and they have young kids at homes and they're trying to advance in their career. So how do you help people find a balance with everything they have going on?

Lindsay Maloney: We have to recognize that we all have the same 24 hours in a day. So how are we spending our 24 hours? And I built my business on nap times. So I knew that someday when my kids aren't napping anymore, I'll have a little bit more time to work on my business. But as that, what I'm really going to want to do. So I created my business on a very lean schedule. And so it's been brought up that way. It doesn't need eight hours of me pouring myself into it. It doesn't need that. It just simply doesn't. So I think analyzing how you're spending your day, when you getting up, what are you doing in the afternoon and the evening and setting your hours? This is one of the first things that we do with clients is how long are you working on your business?

Lindsay Maloney: And a lot of times, especially moms they're working on their business at night after they put their kids to bed right here, I could not get anything accomplished because I'm just like, I don't even know how to spell my name. I don't even know the password for this. Why am I sitting here trying to work? Cause I am not I'm empty. So I found that I was really good and bright and I'm ready to work in the early morning. And so that's when I really started to apply myself in my business. And that's when I was working with clients before I was going to my nine to five. And as my kids got older, the right now are four, seven and 12. My my schedule can change a little bit, but it's just pick an hour a day that you can really apply yourself to your business. You're going to get a lot of things done. If you just allow yourself one hour, rather than saying, after the kids go to bed, I'm going to work on what you have to have some kind of focus. Otherwise you will get nothing done. You'll have 40 tabs open on your browser and you will feel less productive and more scattered than ever. So let's set your hours and stick to them and honor your time. Okay.

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Sara Nay: And one of the things I saw on your website is you have a daily planner that you offer. And so can you talk about, what's included in that a bit more and how that helps. Cause it sounds like that's one of your tools that helps people focus on what's important

Lindsay Maloney: And yes, that is brand new. I decided to, I have a planner, right? I've had a planner since I was 10 years old. I love planners. But then I was always like right now, the exact problem is showing up for me. So if I look down at my planner, it's flipped open to November the week of November 1st. I don't want to see November 1st. I want to see what I got going on today. And so I have to turn the pages and find where I am and then I just lose. I it's, I'm very, I need to be very focused. I can not have a lot of distraction. That's just my brain. And so I love my planner. I love it to death, but I really like having just a one sheet telling me what's going on today, what I need to focus on and what do I need more time?

Lindsay Maloney: What can I give myself a little bit more grace for? So I was making my own planning sheet in canvas and I was just going to print them out myself and just use those. And then I'm like, why don't I just make these into a notepad? So I don't have to have a bunch of paper laying all around. Then I came into it, I have this problem. Other coaches might have this problem too. So why not put this out as a physical product and see where it goes? So I, this literally launched a week or two ago, the planning pad and it's 50 sheets keeps your day super simple and you can track your clients, your meetings, your daily, to-dos how you're feeling, what you need more time for all of that good stuff on a simple sheet that can fit right on top of your planner. And just to keep things a little bit more simplified it's it was really fun to make. I love shipping them out totally new to the physical product world, but it's a great list builder. It's a great way to connect with coaches in some kind of a physical aspect. And it's been really fun to launch it. Yeah,

Sara Nay: Absolutely. So it sounds like when someone would go through the exercise of filling out the one page, it's a combination of not only what are you going to focus on, what are your priorities today, but also a bit of mindset work as well? Is that

Lindsay Maloney: Correct? Yeah. That's one of the first things it's like, what are you grateful for? And how are you feeling? That's the first two questions. And then we get into the, to the business side of it. Cause I think some planners are like super fluffy and you're like, I don't want to do, I just want to write down what I need to do today. I don't want to talk about my childhood every single day. I just need to write this down and that's it. So I love keeping things simple and I love using my planning pen.

Sara Nay: I love it. I want to shift a little bit just cause there's one more question that I'm very interested in because myself I do coaching and I'm also an introvert. And so I, one of the things I saw that you talked about is how you think introverts make the best coaches. So I'd love to hear a little bit more behind your thinking there.

Lindsay Maloney: Yes, this is always asked and I love sharing it because I think it really breaks the mold of introverts thinking. There's something wrong with them. I grew up thinking there was something wrong with me. I was shy. I would rather always go towards the older people in the room. Like I'm just going to find my grandma and I'll be with her. Like I never felt comfortable around my peers. I just always felt like there was something wrong with me. And even growing into my twenties, I would hear you gotta be more social. You got to do this. And then I don't want to, I'm happy being who I am. And then I stumbled upon this article talking about introverts and I had never heard of that word. We're brought up to think we need to be like everybody else. And I always felt like a circle trying to be forced into a square peg hole and it just wasn't working.

Lindsay Maloney: And then this article comes to me and I'm okay. So I am not weird. There is nothing wrong with me. There's nothing that I need to fix, but how can I make this work for me? And then I started to look at my daily life and I've been working from home for 17 years and I thrive working from home because I don't have to be around people. I can be in my comfort zone and I don't have to deal with the office politics and the chitchat and the distractions I can focus because I said before, it's hard for me to focus when there's too many distractions all around me. So I decided to really apply that knowledge to my business and use that as a super power. If I can be an online business owner and talk on podcasts, go online with other people I've never talked to in my life compared to Lindsay growing up in high school in a class of 13 people.

Lindsay Maloney: And she would not stand up in front of them and give a speech. That's a huge, that's huge growth, right? And it's because I'm comfortable with where I am and it's because I'm comfortable with what's around me. Introverts need their comfort zones right there. The, the feelings, the smells, the furniture, everything like we're good at home, which we all are like, we'd always rather be at home. If you're operating a business from your comfort zone, that's pretty amazing. And yes, I know it feels like all the extroverts online are having the success because those are the loud noises that you're hearing. That doesn't mean anything. How many people that start working with me because they see that I'm an introvert. And if I can do it, they can do it. It all comes back to believing in yourself and the qualities that you have and using them as a superpower to grow and use your intuition to guide you to run your business. You don't have to try every shiny object that's out there. If you know what you're doing is right and it feels good for you keep doing it and you're going to attract those people to your business. I love it.

Sara Nay: Thank you so much for sharing all of your insights today. If people listening want to connect with you online, where can they find you?

Lindsay Maloney: Yes, I'm super easy. Just go to Lindsey maloney.com or you can follow me on Instagram, Lindsay underscore Maloney. That's where I like to hang out and you can listen to my podcast, the book, your dream clients podcast as well. Awesome.

Sara Nay: Thank you all for listening to the agency spark podcast. We'll see you next time.