Mompreneur Life with Andrea

EPISODE 259: Mompreneur Life with Andrea

Andrea Olson:
Hey guys, welcome to the podcast. Yeah, this is Andrea. You heard me right. Nicole is going to interview me today about something that is not EC and I'm excited because I handed off the podcast to Nicole about a year ago, almost?

Nicole Cheever:
Yeah.

Andrea:
And you guys have been loving it so much, and I've been loving the break, and the break I've been using to start a third business, and it's part of what we're going to talk about today. But Nicole, take it over.

Nicole:
I'm so excited to chat with you today, and I've absolutely loved doing the podcast. This, for everyone listening, is going to be episode 259, and we'll give you all the information at the end on how you can get all the links and everything, anything Andrea's going to talk about, so you can join what she's got cooking up here. So let's get into it.

Andrea:
You know me, there'll be links.

Nicole:
Oh yeah, there'll be all the info.

Andrea:
I won't leave you hanging.

Nicole:
So this is not your first rodeo. You started this whole working from home mama business years ago with Go Diaper Free. So tell us how that all happened.

Andrea:
All right. So my ex, his dad got laid off and we ended up on food stamps. And he was going to start a business and he started listening to this podcast, Pat Flynn's podcast, actually, Smart Passive Income. I think when my son was born in 2010, Pat was on his fifth episode or first episode, I don't know. He basically, I had a baby, he had a podcast that summer.
And so I started just listening along too because I was like, okay, if this doesn't work out, if he can't start a business, what are we going to do? We lived in Berkeley, California. Very expensive. I think our rent was $1500 a month at that time, which was like ... I mean at the time for just people, just having a new baby, it was a lot. And I would say the freak-out combined with my ears perking up when I started hearing about what is this thing, passive income? I was super motivated.

I looked down at my baby and I was like, dude, I cannot leave you with somebody else, pay that person $20 an hour, everything that I'm making if I'm working for somebody else, turn around and pay it to a babysitter and have somebody else raise my baby. It didn't make sense. And I also felt totally freaked out. There's no way that I can rely on this possible whim. He never actually got his business off the ground. He does have a business today, but that one didn't fly.

And luckily I was eavesdropping in. I started listening to the podcast myself. I started doing the exercises Pat assigned on the podcast like choose your business type, choose your product type, all the OG things in the very beginning. It ended up working. Within a year I had written and launched my book, EC Simplified, which was the predecessor to Go Diaper Free, and I launched it to 74 people. And then within a year from that launch, my son was two, I had made $45,000 in one year off of one ebook, one blog, and building the beginnings of a small audience that's turned into a seven figure business.

And by the way, I committed from the beginning to only working three hours a day at the most. During the writing of the book, it was more like six hours, but I was nursing every hour on the hour, so probably three hours total. And to this day I try really hard to keep it to that. Sometimes three minutes a day just making a reel and postpartum, sometimes three hours a day in the beginning when I just had to make a blog post. And wow, going from food stamps to seven figures while having six babies during that time while having a divorce, while having all the ... actually technically two divorces. It wasn't because of my businesses either, but I definitely had the ability to leave toxic situations because I created ... I was a self-made woman, and I had the freedoms my mom didn't have to be able to leave my father when she did. She could have left way earlier if she would've had anything. And I saw her struggling and I definitely was like, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not going to do the same thing.

So that journey and that sticking to my rule of three hours a day has taken me so far to where I don't feel any regret at having missed anything in my kids' lives because of this business that I intentionally created in this way. That's basically it in a nutshell. Are we done? I'm just kidding.

Nicole:
Yep, that's it. Thank you!

That's incredible. I mean, we think about the messaging today about having it all, right? And I think most people, when they consider having it all, it's the corporate career and the family and all of that, but so much of that separates us from our children. And what I love about, even from my first encounter with you, everything that you're about, it's all about fulfilling the fullness of your role as a mother, not having it in these little pieces and making these enormous sacrifices of letting someone else care for your child. If you're able to organize it and be really intentional about it, you actually can have it all.

Andrea:
You can. And I get asked this question all the time. Andrea, how do you do it all? I don't understand how you do it all. They look at my life, they're like, what? Because they're looking at my life 13 years from where I started, and it definitely was some very specific pieces that I put into place. I call it spinning plates. You see those fantastic acrobatic shows where they're spinning all the plates. That's kind of how I feel, but I feel like one of the people on stage doing it, not a person in my kitchen trying to spin plates. I get something going and I automate it as best as I can and I get something going and automate it. But really, if I could give just one little secret to my success, it would be that I had a singular focus and I had a very important why.

My impetus was my child, and my focus was just on teaching people infant potty training and just selling one book. I see all these digital entrepreneurs who have a suite of products, and I'm like, what do you really make? How could you possibly ... it's like having a suite of children and I have a suite of children.

Nicole:
You do.

Andrea:
We have a suite of children. It's very hard. They are just like, can I please have a one-on-one with you? And I'm like, how about we schedule that into next week? Let me get a babysitter and figure out all the logistics. If I had a suite of products in the very beginning, I know for a fact it's the number one thing that you cannot get traction without a singular focus. So I feel like-

Nicole:
It splits your attention, right? It splits your attention and your energy and everything.

Andrea:
100%. And that you can't give 100% to anything if you have multiple things. And it's in the beginning. Now at this point, I have 14 people on my team, including you, and learned how to delegate, learned how to like, oh, I'm not very good at letting go at all, but I've learned that I have to. And I've got 14 or 15 products now, but I didn't start with that.

So I just want to warn everybody listening. If you're part of our community, and I know there's a lot of you because if you're doing EC, you're driven. You're obviously not the normal mom. You're trying to do your very darn best, and a lot of you are totally content with staying at home with your baby, and that's all you want to do. And then there's a lot of you who, I know this from years of people reaching out to me and being like, how did you build your online empire? I really want the same thing. I just had a baby. How do I stay home with this baby?

I hear you guys in the Go Diaper Free community, and it's just like, now's the time for me to pay it forward and to show other moms how to do this. And I know we'll get into that question, but very basically, I feel like the singular focus is something that is so hard today.

Nicole:
It is.

Andrea:
Everybody's telling you to do everything.

Nicole:
It's total bombardment, from every angle.

Andrea:
So I was just doing some research for my YouTube channel that I'm going to launch on Mompreneur stuff, and I was like, okay, first of all, most of it is men, and second of all, every single one of them is the man hustle, whether it's a man or a woman. And I'm like, no, no, no. I do the mom hustle. It's a very different thing.

Nicole:
Absolutely.

Andrea:
You can't stand it. You're just like, what? You expect me to do what? I watched Noah Kagan from AppSumo, who I love. He's got an $80 million a year business, so way bigger than mine, right? But I don't want his life. He doesn't have a family. And then 8:00 AM to 10:30 PM he goes through a day in his life and his work is like 8:00 to 6:30. And I'm like, dude, I can't.

Nicole:
No way.

Andrea:
Imagine, right?

Nicole:
No way.

Andrea:
First of all, I'm a mom. But second of all, even if I wasn't a mom, why would I want to work 10 hours a day?

Nicole:
What kind of life is that, right?

Andrea:
It's not a life. You're all work. It's like Gary V. too. Gary Vaynerchuk. All work and hustle and work your butt off and do your side hustle. No, no, no. That's not how I did it, and that's not how I teach other people to do it.

Nicole:
No. So we're looking at you 13 years down the road, like you said, and you do have this suite of products. The book snowballed into Tiny Undies and a whole line of gear to help assist parents who want to potty their babies as early as birth. But even just back then, and it sounds like about 2012 or so, you made $45,000 just off ... so that's almost 10 years ago now, off of one digital product. And I think that's such an important message. It's like you're looking at these people who are successful and deciding whether or not you want their lives. All of us looking at you, we might want to get there where you are one day, but you have to start at the beginning. You can't start with gear, and a book, and-

Andrea:
And there's so many shortcuts. But the very, very first step ... okay, so I did a live stream. We have a Facebook group. It's amazing. You should definitely join it. We'll link to it.

Nicole:
Yes.

Andrea:
It's facebook.com/groups/AndreaOlson. So if you just look me up, you'll find it. And it is a sweet, safe, wonderful place where we are all exploring all the things about starting this business. And I do a live stream there pretty regularly, like once a week right now, and I did one on ... oh crap, now I'm mom brain. What was I just talking about?

Nicole:
Okay, that's both of us.

Andrea:
Can you have Dave edit that part out?

Nicole:
Yeah, absolutely.

Andrea:
Oh my God, what was my livestream? Okay, now I have to look up my livestream from last week. Anyway.

Nicole:
We were talking about starting with one thing, being focused.

Andrea:
Thank you. It's obviously important.

Nicole:
I'm looking ahead to what's next. What are we talking about?

Andrea:
Yeah, you can look at your next things, but what did I talk about last? Okay. Oh my God, I hope we don't edit any of this out. What's the first step to starting a business? So that's the question I answered last week in the livestream. Okay.

And the very first step is not figuring out what business or starting your email list or making your logo or your ... oh God, please don't make your business cards first. I've fallen for that actually in partners in the past. They're like, here's my business card. They didn't have an actual business or any kind of success. They're just a poser. So anyway, don't start with a business card.

The first thing you start with is a calling. So you're being called to something that sounds super exciting and you're just like, whoa, I totally want to do this. And the second step is saying, oh, heck no, I'm not doing this. And the third step is a guide appears like Yoda to your Luke, or the Ghost of Christmas Past comes through and guides you through the hard things, the trials and tribulations, and walks with you. And then you go and you do all this work and you come back home and you share. So that's the hero's journey. That's what Star Wars is based off of, Joseph Campbell all the things.

Nicole:
You're the Yoda.

Andrea:
And I'm the Yoda now, but I was the Luke. So when I first felt called, I was like, but how could I do this? I have a baby, and I don't have childcare, and I can't afford childcare. Oh my gosh, all the problems. But the first step is being called. After I get a hold of all these people in our group, I'm like, yeah, you have too many ideas and you have so much untethered ambition, which is beautiful, but we need to rein it in and pick one. And they're like, which one? Will it be good? Will it make money?

So from those conversations in this group, I created The Incubator and it's just like, figure out what your one thing is and stick with it for at least 12 months. Because what I did in the beginning was just that, I stuck with it for five years, and then I had created a problem. These moms with kids out of diapers at 10 months, 14 months, had nothing to wear. No underwear fit them. So I solved it with Tiny Undies, and I surveyed my audience and I found out what they wanted, and I was very careful and very, very calculated with it all, and that built naturally and very well because I was very in touch with my community.

So my version of that to help people get the clarity in the beginning is The Incubator, and it's just like, okay, let's figure out out of all these ideas, which one is going to fly and pick it, and choose a platform and choose a content type, and just not be on all the social media and all the things. Because I will feel like I'm going to puke if I have to just think about starting on Instagram. When I started, I got nauseous every day for a month, and finally I took the app off my phone and almost quit, and now I figured out how to do it and I can make it really easy. But all the things that I've learned over this time, when we go back to the beginning, the reason I had success is because I was clear and I had inspiration. And the very cool thing is everybody listening has inspiration because you're all moms or you're pregnant. And that means you're like 50% there. It's just a matter of like, okay, cool what should I do?

It's super fun. I love talking about pottying babies. I mean, it's so silly, but I love talking about it to anybody who will listen. And then my other desert island topic is businesses. I'm a total geek about everything. I love it. It's fun. And then it gives me this freedom to have this amazing house and this amazing studio and all these children. Sometimes, I mean, they drive me nuts sometimes. It's like, wow, I have them all the time. This is a lot. But this is what I want and I don't want to miss this. I wouldn't miss this for the world, however hard it is.

Nicole:
I've been in some of those chats just as part of the original Facebook group and The Incubator, and it's really amazing. I mean, so many of these moms are so driven. That's the dream life is being able to be with your babies all the time and fulfill your calling that's deep within you that you have this drive for. And these moms come into the chat and they have all these incredible ideas. I just loved watching you just like, okay, let's focus these. Because that's the thing. I think all of us have incredible ideas and we have kind of talked ourselves out of chasing them because they're so big and they're so scary and complicated and there's too many moving parts.

Andrea:
Because we can’t even fit in a shower.

Nicole:
Right.

Andrea:
When are we going to shower? I literally didn't shower for six days this past week because I’m in the middle of a launch, and launches suck. I'm just like, how does a new mom who's on maternity leave deal with that?

Nicole:
Overwhelmed, yeah.

Andrea:
So for me, it feels like this rocket ship that's trying to launch in my chest when I have this thing that I know I need to do, and then it feels trapped. So I feel like I'm literally going to explode or implode if I don't do something with this dream. Our dreams, us driven moms, our dreams are unshakable. And if you're listening to this going, yeah, that's totally me and I feel trapped, then that's where hopefully I come in as the Yoda, because this doesn't have to be something that blows you up from the inside. There's a place for it. And then in all the guilds and all the things, here's what I want to say about that. You owe it to your kids to be following your dreams and show them a model in life of what it looks like to go after what you want, and to also tend to your family, especially if you have daughters, they need to see you. I heard some teens talking in the donut shop five years ago, and it really perked my ears and I almost said something. One of them was like, I really want a husband someday. And the other one was like, yeah, me too. I want a family. Yeah, me too, but I also want my own business. Oh, well, I guess I'll have to choose. And I was like, no.

Nicole:
Oh. No.

Andrea:
You don't have to choose. And actually you can choose, and then it might end up making you feel sick because you are just not fulfilling your full potential, which is the people who are built for both the business and the babies. And it's just like if you know who you are, you know who you are.

Nicole:
This is totally unscripted. I'm going to go off the side now. You talk about having had PPD with your first.

Andrea:
Yeah. Postpartum depression.

Nicole:
And how hard that was. How do you think being able to follow your purpose and follow your vision might have helped that?

Andrea:
It helped tremendously. I would say once I got the thing launched, my mental health definitely got a lot better when I started being able to help other people with anything. But with EC. Now being in the toxic relationships, very hard to recover from PPD in the middle of those, you know this. We’ve had talks about this. And I think a lot of people listening have problems with that today because we've got a lot of men who haven't gone through rites of passages and are little boys and immature, and they have really narcissistic tendencies. And unfortunately, us empathic, wonderful, caring mom types get drawn into that kind of a thing.
So I struggled with that for years, and then I really built my business up the last three or four years when I was trying and planning and working on a six-year plan to leave my husband, my ex-husband. And after all of that, my mental health was tremendously better. I still with this sixth baby, have struggled with PPD a little bit. If I didn't have my business as well, I'd be drowning you guys.

Nicole:
That's exactly the word that came up to mind.

Andrea:
I would be drowning, yes. I'm not built for only stay-at-home mom. I get really drained and actually recently found out ... I read the Highly Sensitive Parent. It's by the woman who wrote the Highly Sensitive Person. I took the survey there and I was like, oh, wow, that's totally me. I have a feeling we have a lot of HSP moms in our Go Diaper Free community.

Nicole:
Oh yeah.

Andrea:
Because if you're highly sensitive to the needs of others, you're going to be like, oh my gosh, you shouldn't be going in that diaper. So I feel like probably the majority of us are, but with having that little thing, that little wrench in my wheel too, it's made it really hard. So without taking big breaks, 20 minutes for me is a big break for my kids. During that time, I also want to be fulfilling Andrea's needs and Andrea's dreams and Andrea's calling in the world.

So I believe we were created to be creators, and the image of our creator. And guess what? That means I need to create or I will die. And that's creating babies, that's creating business, that's creating products, that's creating wellbeing, that's just creating spaces, gifts, dances, whatever it is.
And I feel like when I get asked how do I do so much, I'm just like every single thing I've chosen to do, and I prune quite often, everything I've chosen to do and I'm doing right now fills me back up. It's a feedback loop. So it comes back in.

Nicole:
Yeah.

Andrea:
And it helps me to be stable, sane, happy, content, and then when I feel overwhelmed or too much, I just start cutting out things that don't give that back. And I think everybody should do that.

Nicole:
Absolutely.

Andrea:
So many women don't do that.

Nicole:
I don't think I've ever told you this, but your first iteration of this program, the Mamaworx program, you launched it back when I was newly postpartum, and I was in your first beta group kind of thing. Your first group. And I was in a really tough place, drowning postpartum. I'd been isolated from family, and it was a lot. It was really, really, really tough. And just having that thing I was doing for me every day. Because I think it's so easy, especially as a new mom, to drown in that, well, my baby has to come first. I have to do everything for my baby first. And we hear the analogy of the oxygen mask, but most of the time, none of us ever follow it, right? We're just taking care of the baby first and we're dead last.

So it sounds like postpartum, this would be worse. It sounds like it would be overwhelming on paper to add something to it, but it's almost like that touch point that breaks you out of that new mom overwhelm to like, okay, I've committed to doing this thing. And when that thing's for you, you're filling your cup and you don't even ... maybe it's just a psychological trick. You don't even realize you're doing it. So it doesn't feel selfish.

Andrea:
It’s self care.

Nicole:
Because doing it for your baby ultimately. Right?

Andrea:
What's the difference between selfishness and self-care?

Nicole:
Exactly.

Andrea:
I never even thought about that until this very moment like, okay, am I being selfish by working on my business? That's how my ex-husband always made me feel. And it just wasn't true. I mean, not that he made me feel that way. I felt that way whenever he'd say whatever he'd say. And I'd feel like, oh, man, am I? I questioned myself. Am I being selfish? Am I a terrible mom? Constantly hearing this messaging that you're a terrible mom on top of what you're already thinking in the mind of the guilt and everything, because when you have a baby, you immediately feel guilty about everything. Everything gets flipped upside down. But then when I'm actually working with my customers and entertaining my followers and connecting and teaching and helping change lives, and somebody comes out of nowhere in gymnastics or a festival or whatever, and I was like, you literally changed my life. And I'm like, that's weird, but great.

But I absolutely feel like that's self care. It's not selfish. And if anybody else says it's selfish for you to want to start a business right now, it's because of them. They have issues. Maybe they feel insecure about their inability to have what you have, your talent, your drive or your ideas or your goodness. And there's a lot of people out there who will try to cut us down before we can get started. And I think, well, if you have a good husband, great. Then the only other things getting in your way is just you and just going, well, I have terrible time management right now. At The Incubator, we completely address that. There's two courses in it, The Clarity Lab, which is about finding the one business idea and then the other part, I really wanted to create something that helped moms be able to have the space and time for a business. It's not just time. It's uninterrupted time. It's not nap time. My tagline is “not make a business at nap time” because that's just not going to work.

Nicole:
It's unreliable at best.

Andrea:
What am I going to do? A reel? And then what? Okay. To build an actual business that works for you when you're not working, which is passive income, you need uninterrupted time. And the biggest struggles in our group is, how do I find that uninterrupted time? It's almost impossible. Well, we have ideas. There are lots of ideas. But also have that idea, what do you do? What do you do with that time? First of all, what do you work on? And second of all, how do you organize your time so that you get things done? What's the maximum productivity that you can achieve during this precious time that you are literally choosing to not spend with your child? Can we say pressure?

Nicole:
Right? I feel that.

Andrea:
You better do something good.

Nicole:
I feel the procrastination when you're just avoiding the tasks that you need to do because you're just so overwhelmed. Anytime I get this unexpected chunk of time, if I have a ton of things on my plate, I get this paralysis. That's what it is.

Andrea:
I don’t do anything. I do nothing.

Nicole:
Analysis paralysis where I'm like, but what thing do I do first? Because they're all important. How do I figure that out? Because we wanted to tie this in when we plan this episode about how you balance it all. So there's the time aspect and then the prioritizing, which I think because so many of us haven't been in your shoes and we haven't gone on this 13 year journey, it's hard to see ahead. It's like, what's going to get us there? So this service that you're providing to moms and really any parent that wants to have this life is incredible. It's a roadmap. I mean, that's what Mamaworks had started out.

Andrea:
Each of the things, The Incubator and The Accelerator have a roadmap. It literally is a graphic that shows you exactly what comes next.

Nicole:
I love your graphics.

Andrea:
You sit down, you're just like, what do I do? I wish I had a boss that told me what to do when I said when, and I just don't. I'm like, has somebody please tell me what to do? I've asked you guys on my team.

Nicole:
That's why you've hired a few of us to do that.

Andrea:
Yeah, please tell me what to do right now. And then I'm like, I don't want to do what you said because I don't like having bosses. But yeah, when I sit down, when Jordan, my partner, takes the kids to school on a Tuesday or Thursday. Every time, I'm caught off guard like, oh, I have an extra hour. And then I'm like-

Nicole:
What do I do with it?

Andrea:
I’ll tidy up the house and I'm like, but I just wasted an hour. I could have been hyper productive. So I'm also developing a journal. By the time this episode comes out, it's actually going to be out and available.

Nicole:
We'll link it.

Andrea:
Yeah, we'll definitely link it. It is literally the journal that I need. I hate all these journals that have all this extra crap and all this goal setting. I've not done any goal setting until the last calendar year of my business. And even that's been a stretch, really hard for me. But what I want in my journal is what are the three mom things I need done today and what are the three business things I need done today? And anything extra is bonus points. And then I have a parking lot where all of the other things just sit, and then I have-

Nicole:
You can offload them so you're not like ... it's not here in your brain taking up space.

Andrea:
Taking up space. I have too much to do to have it hanging out in my brain. I would implode or explode. So I take all my thoughts and I capture them. Mom later, business later, or parking lot doesn't really belong anywhere. Maybe it's a whim or a wish or an idea or whatever. I honor all of them and give them their place. And then I pick three in each category to do a day. If I get those three things done, hooray. It's like the bar is so low that it actually tricks me into being more productive than that. And then I get into these old habits where I just write things randomly wherever. This sheet I'm holding up and it's just like-

Nicole:
Find the closest pen in the closest blank space.

Andrea:
Yes. And Jordan's like, why do you write all your things everywhere? You can't find your notes. Did I put it in notes on my phone? Did I put it in ...

Nicole:
There's too many places to put things.

Andrea:
Is it in Voxer? Did I dream this? Oh, yeah, it's crazy.

Nicole:
Is it in a voice note? That's my worst thing. Did I put it in a voice note?

Andrea:
I've been doing that lately, and I'm like, why am I doing this? So the journal is a catch place for all of that. And it also has the roadmaps in it too. And then you can time block or do whatever the thing you do with your time. And every day you can be like, okay, I definitely know I have an appointment. I don't try to be a flake, but definitely miss appointments every week. So you can write down your appointment, you can write down your three things, and that's all. That's it. And guess what? There's a monthly calendar. Look, here we have a birthday party. I need to remember that. I'm trying to make it as simple as possible for myself every year, every day, every month. It's a constant pruning of myself.

Nicole:
Work smarter or not harder.

Andrea:
Work smarter, not harder. And to maintain that as a, don't grow your business to an $80 million AppSumo Noah Kagan business or a Gary Vaynerchuk empire. I don't need that. I need my seven figures a year empire. Yeah. I can send all my kids to private school. I can pay all the bills. I cannot not have to rely on a toxic marriage to support me. I can do the things that Andrea needs to do. I can take vacations whenever I want to. I can do huge amounts of repairs to my 1890 farmhouse, which I just did this last month, and thank God for my business because I was able to pay for that.

And my next step is to start investing so we have generational wealth. That's what I want. I don't want to be like this multi bazillionaire who has all the whatever private planes and crap, I could care less. I want to provide for my family, have a nest egg for them, be debt free, take care of all the things, and I want to go to the beach a couple of times a year. That's literally what I want. And I feel like the biggest thing above all that is I want my time. I want the freedom that passive income provides, and then I want to help other women get that freedom. And then I want to make this space, and we're making it right now, and it's beautiful and it's safe and it's wonderful where we can actually have Mompreneur issues and not be shot down by a manpreneur doing the man hustle, and there's no space for us.

Nicole:
Or other women who aren't mothers.

Andrea:
Other women who aren't mothers.

Nicole:
Being like, well, you chose this. You chose to be a mom.

Andrea:
I love them but I cannot take their advice. I can't. Because I'm like, you don't get it. And I'm not boohoo. I'm a martyr and oh, I'm such a victim. And no, it's actually like you just don't get it.

Nicole:
You have to be there to understand it. It's literally you have to be there.

Andrea:
You can't understand being a mom unless you've literally given birth, whether c-section or vaginally, I don't care. Or adoption. You have responsibility for a little child and you're the default parent, guess what? Your life is different. And there is no business training program.

Nicole:
And your brain is different. Your brain has been wired differently. You have this background in psychology, so you understand all that.

Andrea:
Your brain is different. I have my Master's in psychology, and let me tell you, we did our group mindset coaching yesterday for my Accelerator program. It was fricking beautiful. And all the mindset issues, I'm like, I got those. And I'm a trained therapist. I don't practice, but I am trained in group facilitation. I eat it up. I love helping people. And I'm just like, where have I been able to find help with these mindset issues that only a Mompreneur can come up with? Or a woman who really wants to have a business and doesn't feel the confidence?

You can't just tell a normal therapist about that, I don't think. I feel like that this is an era and time where the opportunity's huge. Not all the men are able to find the right work to provide for their family, nor do they want ... some of them want to be the stay-at-home dad. Or both parents are just really entrepreneurial and just want that, or maybe I've got a single mom. I've got a single mom in my program. I'm just like, girl, you're getting it. And this is so good.

So there has to be a place for us, and I'm putting my flag in the ground, and this is the place where I am helping to bring up other Mompreneurs in a way that I didn't get to. I had too much struggle and way too much time to build this empire. I want to condense that timeframe for people. And I want to make it in a way where, oh, I've been burned out a few times during all of this, where I want to quit every single day, or I literally take six months off, and my business kept going, but I was so out.

Nicole:
And you learned from that.

Andrea:
Yeah, I learned from that and now I can help prevent that for other people. There's a way to do launches that isn't going to kill you. There's a way to just get your idea validated from somebody else so you feel confident in putting all your eggs into one basket. That's a huge thing. Could you just stamp your approval, Andrea? I'm like, yeah, I'm just random person, but okay, I'll stamp it. And that's all they need.

Nicole:
But there's the group. They're talking about their ideas in the group, and it's just a way to kind of poll their audience in a way, because they're all moms. So you've really created this amazing space. And you say you don't set goals, but it sounds like you really set a vision, right?

Andrea:
Vision. I'm a visionary.

Nicole:
Since I've been working with you, you're like, I'm going to get really clear about this thing, visualize it. And I'm like, yeah. I mean, I'm a really visual person, so I'm like, yes, let's do this.

Andrea:
Yes, let's do it. I've got whiteboards there, there. White paper everywhere. I'm just like, yeah. If you're a visionary ... so I'm also a manifesting generator with human design. And my Enneagram, I can't remember. It's like an eight I think, but I've got this massively hyperactive brain, and I'm a quintuple Virgo. I've got all these super extreme readings in all the things.
And what I found is that if I can contain all of that in the simplest form possible, and it's like taking a magnifying glass that my kids do and starting a little fire from the sunlight or burning an ant, which I would never do, but they've done it. But you take that lens and just focus in all this potential creative energy.

And all the people who are still listening to this episode and you've stuck around to the end are just like, heck yeah. I'm the driven mom. And what you're saying, you're describing me. It's like you're in my room. So you also would benefit from just focusing all of that down and just concentrating all that amazing, powerful creative energy that I feel like only moms have. And not all moms, but the driven ones, the visionary moms are just like, I need-

Nicole:
And who doesn't want that focus? I mean, that's your gift, really, right? It started with EC Simplified. You took all of that info about elimination communication that was confusing and contradictory and just overwhelming, and distilled it down into really clear, easy to follow-

Andrea:
Step by step.

Nicole:
Easy to understand steps. And that's been your gift.

Andrea:
And what actually works, and what works right now. And so I've been part of a mastermind for a couple of years with Russell Brunson from ClickFunnels in his seven figure to eight figure mastermind. It's been surrounded by a hundred amazing entrepreneurs for two years.
And so I'm also listening and eavesdropping and going, okay, what is really working? And I noticed that I'm one of the only people in that group who has built my online empire organically without paid ads. And now I'm trying to figure out paid ads, all the things that most of these people made their wealth from. But what I really love is that from doing it all organically, I have created these deep relationships with hundreds of thousands of women and men, community, and the world, and their babies, and the purpose and the feedback loop and all the energy and stuff.
It is amazing.

What I want is for everybody listening, if you just kind of have a business idea or I feel like there's something in me, maybe you can help me get it out. Or I've got a bazillion, I get an idea a day, Andrea, what do I do with all this? Or I've started a business, I started all the social media, I've tried all these things and I can't keep up with anything. I've tried to launch a course, nobody bought it. If you're listening and that's you, please join the Facebook group, and then instantly as fast as you can, join The Incubator and get clear and make space for the business and figure out where to put all your thoughts. I also cover a little decluttering stuff.

Nicole:
Oh yeah.

Andrea:
I took 11 trash bags of stuff out of my house, just my kids' rooms, last week because I'm practicing what I'm preaching. And guess what? I didn't have to pre-clean this morning when I have cleaners. That's one of the ways I self-care, treat myself. They came in and they could actually clean my kids' rooms and I don't have to pre-clean. It's amazing. I'm saving time.
So in Mother By Design, in our Incubator, we talk about that. So if this is pricking your ears and you're just like, oh my gosh, can you please just give me the links? Go to the page, get the links, all the things, and join me in there. And then if you're just like, okay, well, I'm actually completely ready to go, ready to invest. I want to join your group coaching. I want your advice Andrea, personally, that's my Accelerator. And I'll take you through starting and growing. And it is a lifetime commitment to each other, weekly coaching with me, mindset and business, mom stuff and business stuff. I will help you to take all the steps and then be there for when you're just like, okay, I'm at this stage now. We're going to build this together. And that's what I've got. We can put all the links in the show notes.

Nicole:
Godiaperfree.com/259.

Andrea:
And you can also go to andreaolson.com and you'll see all the things. Don't spell my name E-N, because that's-

Nicole:
It's not going to work.

Andrea:
That's not going to work. It's O-N.

Nicole:
Well, and going back to that trust factor, the relationships you've built with everybody throughout your career and throughout your businesses here. For everyone listening, if you've been trying, like Andrea said, you've been trying to get something off the ground or get clear on your ideas and everything, and you've used other coaches before and they haven't worked for you, the fact that she is in these other masterminds is killer. You should always be looking for a coach who's also trying to grow themselves. Not someone sitting on high being like, I know everything. She's keeping up with the times, she's growing herself. She's figuring out how can she make things better and simpler. And that's key. Talk about trust factor. I need that in a therapist, too. If I'm going to therapists and they're not also in therapy.

Andrea:
Therapist, a couple's counselor. Yeah, they better be getting their own therapy if they're going to have me. But also needing a coach and all that, and a coach who's been where you've been, but whether you choose to work with me or not, or join a group or not, please choose somebody who has not made their money teaching other people how to make money, right?

Nicole:
You've actually done the things.

Andrea:
I’ve got a course on courses, I can teach you how to make a course, but I've never actually made money doing anything real in the world other than teaching how to make ... it's like I'm kind of making fun, kind of not. I have a couple of mentors who are experts on making courses. But I definitely felt like, look at what else they've done. My mentor, Pat Flynn, he started off by selling an ebook on architects, passing some lead exam or something.
So he legit did the online passive income thing, and then he started teaching about it from a real business. So whoever you choose to work with, please pick me of course. But if you don't, please make sure that they're not making their money teaching other people how to make money and that's all they've ever done. For me, that smells like scam fraud.

Nicole:
Yeah.

Andrea:
No. And then you're probably thinking, well, I'm a scam. I'm a fraud then, because I've never really done anything. Well, in the Clarity Lab, in The Incubator, I show you that you have done something and through the exercises I put you through, you're going to be like, oh my gosh, I have something amazing to offer. And then you'll get validated by all the other people in the group, and then you'll be well on your way. And that's exciting. And when we have challenges, we're there for each other to pick each other up. And that's the feminine aspect of building a business that I think a lot of these coaches are missing.

Nicole:
Well, and how many of us already are isolated? Don't really have a great in-person community anyway, and then throw on top of that, I don't have a great support community who also wants to do the things I want to do and believes in this. I mean, talk about like-minded, again with the mom guilt and the other messages of like, oh, well, you should just be with your baby and you're neglecting your baby. It's like, we don't need any of that. We need to cut all that ugly noise out and have this community. And that's another one of your gifts is building these amazing communities.

Andrea:
It is. I'm a gatherer. I’m a gatherer of people and I love it. And I used to be a performer in dance. I love doing the livestream, teaching new things, all the stuff, but mostly just making things easier for people. So come and join me. Got to go around and pick up a kid, and I-

Nicole:
Me too.

Andrea:
Look forward to meeting you in my group, you guys, and nice to be back on my show run by Nicole.

Nicole:
Thank you for coming back.

Andrea:
Thank you for doing an amazing job with my podcast.

Nicole:
It's been so much fun.

Andrea:
All right, time for the outro.

Nicole:
All right.

Andrea:
Godiaperfree.com/259. All the links are there.

Nicole:
Everything. We'll see you guys next week.

Andrea:
Thanks, Nicole.

Nicole:
Thanks, Andrea.