#43 - Leaving Work for Kids: Why I Don't Miss My Big Career with Brandy Drzymkowski
44:59 Share

Welcome to the InBloom podcast. I'm your host, Ella, and today we're talking about the decision to step back from your career to focus on motherhood. So this is a very controversial topic and I'm very excited to dive in.

I recently had a conversation with Brandy, a woman who built a successful career in sales enablement at a tech company. She had a stable salary, was very well respected in her field, spent years developing her professional expertise. And then after her second child, her second son, she made a decision that surprised even herself to step back, to step away from her full-time role and to focus on being present with her children.

It's interesting that choosing to step back from your career to focus on motherhood can almost feel controversial today. We're told that we should lean in, that working is so, so important. And if we're honest, the stakes feel incredibly high. There is the financial impact, the fear of falling behind professionally, the worry, am I going to lose myself in motherhood? And definitely the uncertainty about whether or not you're going to make the right choice. Will you regret it? And then there's the guilt aspect. Guilt about leaving your career,

and guilt about not wanting to leave your career. It's a lot to navigate, but I'm so excited because Brandy's story beautifully illustrates what choosing motherhood is all about, why it isn't actually giving up, and why for her it's about making a conscious choice about what matters most in a very specific season of your life. In today's episode, we're going to explore the real story behind one woman, Brandy's decision to step back from her career

how to know if this choice might be right for you, ways to maintain your identity and skills during the transition, strategies for dealing with emotional and practical challenges that come along with motherhood and come along with choosing to dive fully into being a stay-at-home mom, and how to create a life that honors both your professional capabilities as well as your desire to be present with your children.

So whether you are currently facing this decision, think you might face it in the future, or are just trying to understand what your options are, this episode will help you learn that there's honestly no one-size-fits-all approach to balancing career and motherhood. And that's perfectly okay. Let's get into the episode. I wanted to start off by asking you a pretty general question. How do you spend your time? How do I spend my time? These days...

I spend most of my time watching my two sons. I have a two and a half year old and a six month year old. Six month year old? He's six months old. I spend most of my time caring for them, feeding them, playing with them, facilitating their development, and then generally taking care of the house, cleaning up after them, cooking, cooking.

There's a lot of laundry. And outside of that, I am a freelancer. So I work for a company called Praxis, where I do various jobs, but particularly one-on-one coaching and mentoring for participants who are typically about high school aged or just out of high school. And then I do some curriculum development with them as well. So that is my new normal, but that was not

Yeah, you just recently made a shift from working full time, right, to staying at home with your kids. Yes, yes, I did. I left a full time position that I had been at for four years. And I was like, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this.

The position itself, I'd been in for about three, but I'd been in that company for four. And I decided it was time to take a step back and pursue part-time opportunities while trying to free up my schedule to mostly be with my boys. My husband was previously their primary caretaker. Oh, really? Why did you decide that it was time? And kind of like leading up to that. So prior, if you went in...

and had been at this role for about four or five years. Did you start the role when you did not have any kids or did you start the role after you already had a couple of kids? Yes, I started without kids. I lived in Florida at the time, was a sales development representative. So it was a lot of like cold calling and just getting the hang of sales, learning sales, learning if I wanted to do sales. And at the time, yeah, we didn't have any kids. We were married.

We had just moved to Florida, never had lived there before, but in general had a lot more free time. So I was working a lot because I wanted to be good at what I was doing. But yeah, the difference in priorities is...

Between then and now is pretty staggering. Oh, yeah. So, I mean, if you were to explain yourself, so you'd gotten to this role, were you pretty excited about the role? Were you, you know, hoping to chase these ambitions or like what was your initial goal? And then can you walk me through the process of your goals shifting as you had kids? Yeah. So it's funny. My initial goal with joining the company was called PandaDoc and

was to understand if sales was going to be the right fit for me. I came from actually a musical theater performance background where I got my degree in musical theater. I'd been performing since middle school and went to an arts high school for it. It was my entire life. It was what I thought I wanted to do. And I did work professionally for a few years in that industry, but I made a shift. There was a change of heart. I guess you could say I changed

decided that I really wanted to have a family and that lifestyle was not going to allow me the time and freedom to do so. I know people who have done it successfully, but I know it's a lot of work and it wasn't something that I felt like I could split myself between. I had a bit of a, you could call it a gap year in my early twenties. And I joined an entrepreneurial bootcamp program called Praxis. And I

figured out what I wanted to do. Turns out sales had a lot in common with my expertise and background. I'm not afraid to make cold calls because I'm not afraid to audition. In fact, cold calls are easier because it's not my art that I'm trying to get people to like. It's a product and it has nothing to do with me. So I took to that right away. My goal was to understand if that was the profession for me.

Turns out it wasn't. I found sales enablement through working in a sales position, and that was more suited to my experience as a voice coach, which I had done on the side from performing for several years at that time. I really loved coaching, and sales enablement is a lot of training, designing curriculum, figuring out the best way to help others learn.

and to motivate them and help them see progress in their skills. All of these things I was very familiar with from coaching. And so it was a natural fit for me. Again, not what I set out to find. Didn't even know it existed when I joined the company. But that was how I spent about three years at PandaDoc. And then at the beginning of this year, I

Well, I was pregnant with my second child and I remember how maternity leave went with my first one. And I remember it was really hard to go back to work. And I know a lot of women experience this feeling and it takes some time for it to go away. And if you're really passionate about your work, then that can help, obviously, smooth the transition. But I was kind of dreading it this time around. I don't know why. I just...

I didn't feel like what I was doing was going to be what I needed to be doing for a long time. My older son is starting to need more from us in terms of like his development and teaching. And he's trying to learn his letters and his numbers and his colors. And I just didn't feel like I was able to help him do that while also nursing the baby. And so I went back to work and it

It was really hard. I remember a week after, I think it was the first week I was back. I didn't even do anything yet. I was just getting caught up. And I looked at my husband over dinner and I was like, so this isn't sustainable, right? And he was like, no, it's not because he's also a freelancer. So it was a slow burn, but my priorities and goals for myself really shifted this year. It was solidified when I came back from leave. I was like, you know what?

By any means, I need to figure out how I can be with my boys. I need to figure out how I can raise them the way that I want to raise them. I don't want to pay someone else to raise them. That's fine. That works for other people. But I felt like, why am I teaching all of these adults how to do sales when I could be teaching my son how to read?

It seemed like that was where my priority should be. A long-winded answer to your question. It was a slow burn. My priorities now are facilitating my children's development and living my vocation as their mother and as wife and parent in general. Very different from where I was at three years ago. Dang. How long was your leave? Three months. In between when you gave birth to...

Yes. So pretty much how it works is you have your due date. Could be any time around then. Could be earlier. As soon as you have the baby, you pretty much alert HR on Slack and you say, I had the baby and your maternity leave begins. And you have, I had 12 weeks, which is double what a lot of women get in America. It varies around the world. But yeah, if you've ever had a baby before,

And this is not like, this is not a knock on my company. Again, three months is a long time compared to a lot of companies in this country. But if you've ever had a baby and you know what they're like at three months old, it's insane to me how we can expect women to go back to work that soon. What are they like? Paint it for me. They are squishy and completely helpless. Like,

they're like, they're not even real yet. I mean, of course they're real, but they can't do anything for themselves. Like, I don't know how long would be appropriate, but I do know other countries have maternity leaves for a year, sometimes two years. And there is so much to do with maternal bonding that happens in those critical postpartum months that if you're not around your baby, you're

it shows in your mental health. And some people are particularly sensitive to that. Yeah. For me, my baby wouldn't take a bottle. So while I was already feeling this struggle to leave him, I could not, I had to nurse him every two hours for roughly 20 minutes. So you do the math. Like I'm having back-to-back meetings all day from nine to five on other people's schedules. I am not able to block time off to nurse him.

I can't pump because he won't take it anyway. He'll refuse. How am I supposed to do both? I don't know. So that was my conundrum. And of course, people are very understanding, but there's nothing they can do either. Like you have a meeting scheduled with a bunch of executives to talk to them about a high level program.

And I have to cancel 10 minutes before because my baby is hungry. That's not going to work. So yeah. And, and to top it off, he also, my poor sweet boy, he also didn't like when I talked while nursing. So I had to be completely silent, completely still for 20 minutes every two hours up until like four weeks ago. Oh my goodness. How old is he now?

He's six months now. That's so sweet. And I mean, like something that you didn't mention, but is also important to note, you were working remote. So I wonder, like, hypothetically, you were not working remote. I mean, like you were because you were home able to have him close by still, right?

Like that's a massive struggle. I wonder – I mean I guess most people are probably either having family come and help or maybe some sort of daycare situation or I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So we did it differently with my first. I love working from home. I have worked from home for the past five years. With my first, I started to notice around four months that he could tell when I wasn't paying attention to him. Yeah.

It's hard because your baby will want you to hold them or if they see you leave the room, there are certain developmental milestones where they, it's not a great word for it, but they're clingy. They need your attention. And so you can get away with sitting them on your lap for a little while while you're transitioning back into work, especially if you have

around the three-month maternity leave period. But then shortly after that, they start banging on the keyboard or trying to grab the mouse. And then it's really hard to do two things at once. Working from home is great, but working from home while also watching your child, I would not recommend. It's easy to get overwhelmed. And so for my first, what we did was hired a nanny to come into our house twice a week. And then we had a different nanny who he went to her house twice a week.

And even just having him in the house was hard for me. Again, other people might have different preferences, but when I can hear my baby crying, that is all I can hear. So it was hard for me to focus. Babies cry pretty often. So my work blocks were often interrupted. And then I was never sure if she needed my help with something, if something was going wrong, whatever.

Does he need more food and she can't find something else to feed him? I don't know, but you start, your head starts swirling with all of the possibilities. You're still responsible for this child, even though someone else is watching him. It's really hard to not feel like you need to be there. So working from home and having him be outside of the house was way more effective. But about eight or nine months after we started doing that, well,

My husband had a change of circumstances that he wanted to start being a freelancer. So it worked out that he started freelancing and watching our son full time. But the other part of it was we just wanted to raise him ourselves. It felt like we were shipping him off.

To be raised by someone else. We weren't ever really sure what he was doing there. Like she was great. She always gave me the rundown on when he ate, when he napped, what his mood was like all day, but it's just different. Like it's just different when it's not you. And yeah,

We have, my in-laws live very close by. So luckily we have a little bit of help with care there, but even their schedules, like they still work. Their schedules are pretty packed or varying from week to week. So it's not like we can have something consistent there. So that's why I say it's very dependent on your circumstance, very dependent on your personality. Work from home is great, but work from home with baby is hard. It is difficult.

That's a great note. I want to take it back all the way to whenever you first decided that your priorities shifted. You decided that you wanted a family and you had been pursuing theater and, you know, a career. Like, why did you make that decision? And what was the inciting incident that was like, okay, you know what? I could pursue all of these things. And I really love all of these things. These are my passions, but...

This is more important to me. Yeah, man, that was hard because I was getting into a really good groove with the role that I had. It was at a regional theater. I was starting to really become connected with the people there, feeling like I was making a difference, honing my craft. I think what changed was in theater, and this is actually true for a lot of tech companies as well. It's really easy to get burnt out. There are long days where

It is not a straightforward nine to five. It could be 50 to 60 hours of rehearsal and or shows a week. We were working in a repertory, so that means we were doing multiple shows at once. I got so tired. The only day you have off is Mondays in theater and Sunday nights, which are usually used for partying.

And or sleeping, but usually more of the former. So especially when you're in your early 20s, you're getting used to some freedom. And it was great. I don't regret any part of it. But there came a time at which I was like, knew, okay, so I got engaged. I knew I wasn't gonna be able to have a honeymoon because there was always gonna be another show to rehearse. There was always going to be something else calling for me that was taking me away from

my husband and I wouldn't be able to get married, go on that honeymoon unless I skipped an entire season of shows. And then I was just thinking, you know, from a larger perspective, that's going to keep happening. And the, uh, there was one woman in particular, I know very strong woman. So cool. I really admired her. She, uh,

Stop performing. Well, she was performing all throughout her pregnancy and directing. And then she had the baby. Yeah. And I think things changed maybe for her. I can't speak for her. But then you get so caught up in having the baby and there's so much that the baby needs. It's like, when are you going to get back to theater? Yeah.

Or do you get back to theater or has that part of you in some way been fulfilled by this thing you never knew could exist, this feeling you never knew existed? So that's kind of what happened for me is, yeah, I still miss it. I still want to sing and stuff. But the defining moment was I'm not going to have the freedom to live in

the life that I think I want. And for some reason, I think I want babies. I can't tell you where that came from, except for probably God. But yeah, and again, it wasn't an overnight shift. It was gradual. I really loved that job. I was very sad to go. It took me a long time to be okay with that. And then it took me a long time to feel comfortable leaning into this idea of myself as a mother. Yeah, I want to dig into that in a second, because I think this is something that I...

I think is very relatable. The struggle between like, okay, pursuing something that you really want, fearing the fact that you might regret it later on. Like, let's say that you commit your life to, you know, building a family and then you give up all of yourself. Cause a lot of, a lot of mothers do that where it's just like, they put every single thing that they have into their kids. And then at a certain point they feel as though they lost themselves at some point. And I,

Obviously, that's not the goal. But yeah, could you speak to that a little bit? Like the experience of it and the idea that you said that you were more fulfilled by this thing that you didn't even know could exist. Yeah. I mean, I can't say because I've only been doing this for two years, right? Two and a half years. But I'm a big fan of Jordan Peterson. Are you familiar? Very familiar. So something he...

says when he's giving advice on young people starting their careers is to accept the most responsibility you can possibly manage and see what happens. I couldn't think of anything more demanding than children. Raising kids in this day and age

The advice is very confusing. So there's a lot of gentle parenting tactics that require you to be mom full time. And I mean, like 24-7 you're on mom duty. There is a counter argument for parenting the way that our grandparents era parented, which is a little bit more hands off, a little bit more

imparting the skills for independence. And it's not that gentle parenting doesn't do that. It's just a different style that requires a lot more engagement from the parent. I'm finding that encouraging that independent play and giving my older son, because you can't really do that with a baby, but giving my older son the tools to try to entertain himself by himself is

gives me the time to do what I need to do, which is either work a little bit or just get the house in order so that I can log in after dinner or after bedtime. I think it would be easy to lose yourself and your children if you didn't have a clear identity of who you are.

and what you're working toward, I am fortunate that I have this part-time work with Praxis that really fulfills me. So that fills in the blanks. I know a lot of moms around me who adore their kids, adore being full-time mothers, but also need a break sometimes. And that's perfectly fine. Everybody has hobbies. Like just because you're being a mother doesn't mean you stop pursuing what you love.

You just have to make time for it and trust that your kids are going to be okay if you need to step away for 20 minutes or leave them with a babysitter for an hour or put them in daycare for two hours twice a week.

There are ways to get flexible and be creative without giving up your dreams. Obviously, it's a great responsibility. So they do require a lot from you, but that's where you're growing as well. It's not like you stagnate because you became a mother. There is so much to learn about being a mom. I'm constantly being shown my own incompetencies and learning from them and becoming stronger emotionally and physically.

I mean, there's, I would not toss that experience to the side as something that is not beneficial. It is absolutely beneficial and completely sanctifying. There is no, there is no path that could do this more for me personally.

I love this. And I also love that you brought up Jordan Peterson. I think that was really impactful to me as well to hear whenever I got into a whole phase of Jordan Peterson and it was basically just like,

helping me to understand what I was actually searching for, because I think he's really, really good at articulating things. And, and his, his point there was basically like, if you pursue the thing that is most difficult, the thing that would take the most possible responsibility out of you, imagine who you, who you could become, like, just imagine what you would become if you did all of the next right things that you could imagine. And I think

It sounds like what you did whenever you were younger, and maybe you didn't even recognize it in the moment, but what you did was ask, okay, what is going to lead to my greatest fulfillment? What is going to lead to my greatest satisfaction? And upon meditating on that, you recognized that for some reason it wasn't going to be theater if you had to give up the family portion of your life.

And so you decided, okay, then this is what I'm going to pursue. You know, maybe in the future, theater comes back into your life in some way. You never know about that. But like right now, this is the thing that you're pursuing as something that brings you fulfillment. And then the other portion is just knowing yourself, having the forward momentum to continue doing the part-time freelance work allows you to,

still nurture the parts of yourself that you want to nurture. And some people, and I love this, like I want to get into the habits and hobbies of like, you know, either bread making or like, I don't know, it just sounds so fun or like I'm really bad at keeping plants alive, but it'd be incredible if I could learn how to.

And so those things are all amazing. But then there are also other hobbies. I would consider business a hobby. Even though you're creating value and you're getting paid for it, I would still consider that a hobby in some ways just because it's all the same, whether it's cooking and you're just cooking for your family or you're cooking for your friends or it's doing marketing. Like

It's all learning something, then turning it into something and then sharing it with other people, sharing value in the world. And so there are a lot of ways that I think that can take form. But I do love your emphasis on just how important it is to accept responsibility and ask yourself like,

okay, what is asking the most of me right now? And for you, the answer was my- Yeah. Yeah. It's funny that you mentioned bread making and gardening because bread making was my New Year's resolution this year. And I have since baked several edible loaves. I say edible because they're varying quality, but they were eaten and that was fun. But yeah, it's like

You don't have to stop being creative. It just might take different forms. And like you said, some of them might be paid as needed. Yeah. And I think that's an interesting thing that probably has to do with personality more so because sometimes I think there's this like emphasis on money-making value creation, right? And so it's like you are not worth X unless you are working in this massive job or massive career. And like I've heard a lot of –

just critique on when, you know, women introduce themselves and let's say they're mothers and they're talking to professional women. They're like, I'm just a mom. And like that phrase, you know, the, I'm just a mom.

Like not taking pride in the fact that that is so difficult. And there's a lot of work that is involved in it. And there's also a lot of value creation being done. Like it's the next generation of the world. And also most moms are not just, you know, raising their kids. They're also, for example, learning how to cook and learning how to, you know, there's one person that I really, really admire because she's just an incredible mother. And she actually...

from being this incredible mother has taken up so many different hobbies from like, um, gardening to foraging to like cooking to like literally so many hobbies. Um, now she's thinking about packaging those up and like helping other people to either learn about these things and, or to do them themselves. But like the fact that you can cultivate those, uh,

those skills and then turn it into a business or like, I don't know. I just, I think the, the value creation aspect of it wasn't something that I was thinking about prior. Yeah. And I think the thing I'd add to that is when the time is right, something I've been struggling with actually in particular this week is I have a

Since I left my full-time job, I felt this influx of creative ideas of ways I could create value. And I feel myself hustling to try to earn more, earn more. I'm not secure enough or something because I went freelance as opposed to having that salaried role, you know?

there's something to be said for financial security. And that's not any indication of our actual situation. That's just like, for some reason, the legacy feeling inside of me is I'm feeling very antsy, but also motivated and excited about all of the possibilities in front of me. But I've been, I've been thinking that that might be a temptation to

not take the opportunity I've been given, which is a moment to rest and like, don't forget what you're doing here. It's not that you're freelancing. It's like you're freelancing as a means to an end to be with the boys. Right. So like when they don't need you as much, when they're both taking, you know, a two hour nap in the afternoon, then you can start to

get back to the value creation, the maybe you should always be learning out loud, but like the search for other paying opportunities. And like, again, that I'm very fortunate to be able to say that not everybody has that circumstance. But I've also taken this leap to

For the like, I guess what I'm trying to say is I was losing sight of the point of it, which is to be with the boys because I was getting so excited about being a freelancer and all of the different ways I can create value with what I'm learning. But on the other hand, it's like it's OK to take some time and live simply. And then when the time is right, you're

You can get back to that. You can share. You will probably have more creative ideas because you took a rest, because you took a mental break. Like your friend, who knows if she would have had the idea to package up all of those skills and share them with other people if she had tried to do that while multitasking. And then it's like, are the kids really getting the parts of you that they need if you're constantly thinking about other things? I don't know.

But yeah, there's, we really like Avatar the Last Airbender. Do you, have you watched that show? Have you watched that show? I used to watch that when I was a kid. Well, it's still good. It holds up, let me tell you. And Uncle Iroh is giving great advice to Aang in one of the episodes where he's saying there's nothing wrong with a simple and peaceful life. And I really think that that's true. It can be really easy to change

to join the rat race. It's right for some people. For me, where I'm at right now, I am ready for that pause. And I want to take more pride in the things right in front of me and stop scrambling, looking ahead three years from now, what am I going to be doing? I don't know. Something completely random can come up between now and then. What I should do is focus on what I have and why I have it so that

When the time is right for something else, I'm actually ready to receive it as opposed to scrambling, scrambling, scrambling, like this constant workaholic energy. I am super guilty of it. Very guilty of it. I don't feel comfortable with like not working on something. Yeah, I was about to say that. I think because the hustle, you're saying when the time is right and like you get into this, it almost feels like it's this pull to do –

forget the purpose that you decided that you were going to slow down for, like forget the reasons that you initially pulled back. I wonder if part of that is pace, you know, like you've gotten used to running at a certain pace. And so there's a part of you that's having a hard time slowing down because I definitely have that

inside of me as well, where it's just like, I love moving fast and I love achievement and I love feeling like I'm learning and being able to look back and be like, whoa, like I, I went far or like, whoa, I did more than I thought that I could have done in that period of time. And like, the funny thing is, which I, I have to remind myself is that

The pace that I'm used to and that I like is also the pace that left me burned out. So like it's there's a double edged sword there because I it's like I need to find the right pace where I can still be ambitious and learn and feel like I'm giving myself everything that I need as a human to succeed and feel creative and feel like I'm actually fulfilling, you know, the purposes that I was given.

put here to fulfill, right? Like to be the person that I want to be or to be the person that I think I'm called to be. But like at the same time to recognize that there are different periods. There are periods where actually going slower could be, could be necessary. And like maybe you have to recognize it as a gift. It's like, okay,

There are not going to be a ton of periods of my life where I'm going to be able to go this slow and like just appreciate these moments with the people that I'm around. And maybe it doesn't have to be for a long time, but like just appreciating the moment in its fullness and like all that it has to offer. I think that's cool. I think that's like that's something I've been learning as well.

Yeah. And it doesn't, the achievements don't have to stop. They just might look a little bit different. And maybe it's worth considering why achievement is so fun. Is it the recognition you get from other people? Or is it enough to say, I learned how to make sourdough this year. Never have I ever thought I could do it.

And yet here I am. And now I'm like, and my next goal is to never buy a loaf of bread from the store again. How do I get there? You know, it's like a, is it enough to compete with yourself and to know that you did it? Like, why, why does it have to be for other people? I don't know. That is something else that I struggle with. Right. But you're, you're spot on about the pace. Yeah.

and being stuck in the way things have gone. And I think, you know, there's something familiar to hustling as well in every role that I've had. I'm constantly hustling. And then I,

get burnt out and then I apparently make a career change or have another baby. I don't know, but there's something to, there's something to, sorry, my son just started crying. See, it's so hard to focus. I'm telling you this work from home thing. It's great until it's not great. There's something to slowing down that I think is,

There's a lot of rich experience there too. And it is not wasted time. I also think that I wouldn't necessarily recommend that to people depending on their age. I am turning 30 this week. I hustled all throughout my 20s. There is something important about

doing the hard work when you have the energy for it. Obviously now my state of life has changed, so I don't have the energy for it at the moment to continue at this pace, as you're saying. So I think like, because it's important to go through that apprenticeship phase. It's important to

Yeah.

I do have a friend whose husband decided to change careers well into his 30s. And that was a little bit tough at the beginning because he did have to start as basically an intern. And it takes a lot to swallow that when you're already at a different level from all of your peers if they're all 20 and you're 40. Yeah.

or 35 even, that's just a, it's a different world. It's hard to feel like you are making the right decision. It worked out great for him. And if that's the right move, so be it. But I'm just saying don't neglect the hard work, but don't get addicted to it either. Maybe that's the point. Yes. Love. I have one more question for you and then I'll hit you with some rapid fire questions. Okay. So

I think this, that, that last point that you made is actually so important. And I, I think it, this ties back to what you said initially, where it's remember what it's all for. Like,

When you sit down and there's micro, remember what it's all for. So like in the moment, whenever you're trying to figure out, okay, what's the best way to spend my time with my boys? Or like, what's the best way to spend my day? That's the micro. But then the macro is, okay, what is it all for? Like, what is the point of this life? Like, how do I want to leave it? And I love your point about having the different skills, the varying skills. Like, hey, I just want to be able to say that I made sourdough.

And like, I know how to do it and that's it. And that is pleasing to me. Like the book Range by David Epstein, where he's basically like,

you know, as humans, we're sold this idea of specialization, right? Like we should narrow our focus and go really, really, really deep into something. And while that might be good for some people, like let's say that some people have just an extraordinary interest in a very, very specific topic, my guess is that most humans have interests in varying topics and they all help each other. And so like,

the point that you made about like the different stages of your life. I think the question is, what do I value? And then what are my constraints? So like, what do I value? Right. And I imagine that whenever you were dating your now husband, constraint was, okay, I'm

because I value, you know, this potential future, a constraint is the fact that I'm going to spend time with him. A constraint is the fact that, you know, like I, I do want these, these ambitions. I do want these things in my life. I do want to pursue, um, theater or work or whatever it was, but like, this is my constraint because this is my longterm value. And now your constraints are different because your longterm values, your family and your longterm fulfillment, um,

And your constraint is now two little boys, you know, and also your husband and also all of these other things that it that was not the case before. So obviously, the way that you shift your life has to reflect that or

at least you decided that it had to reflect that. I'm reminded of... Have you seen Gladiator? Was that the one? It's like the older movie, right? Yeah, it's older, but it's one of my favorites ever. And it's kind of funny that it's one of my favorites. But there's this one point where the dad, he's the...

he's the Caesar, like the Roman Caesar. And his son is just a terrible person. And he looks at him and he's like, your failure as a son is my failure as a father. And I always feel that because I'm like, I think at a certain point, anybody that has kids has to decide, okay,

is that also a part of your value system? So like, let's say that you're an extremely ambitious human. Let's say that you really, really want to achieve things in your career. Is that also a part of the things that you want to achieve? Because the way that your kids end up is not a direct correlation of your parenting. Like in, in terms of like, you know, there are some kids that grow up and their parents did everything right. But like,

you really, really do impact your kids as a parent. And so to raise and foster and build important or like not important, but flourishing individuals, I think is really, really important. And that should become a part of that question of what do I value? So that being said, my last question for you before I hit you with a couple rapid fire are, well, is what do you value now? I value sanctification. So sanctification

What is my discerning my call? And that is my vocation as mother. And how can I do that to the best of my ability to glorify God? That's awesome. I love it. Okay. Rapid fire. Okay. Are you ready? I guess.

What advice would you give yourself, your sister, maybe like a future daughter now reflecting on your own journey throughout life? Sorry, this isn't very rapid fire, is it? I would say just pick something and go for it. And don't forget to check in along the way to see if it's still the right call. Nothing is set in stone. Life doesn't stop.

hopefully doesn't stop the moment you have kids, there's more life after that. So don't think that kids are a hindrance to what you want out of this life. Love that. Next question. What is the biggest challenge that you have encountered and how did you overcome it? In like professionally or personally? Anything. Patience and kindness in sleep deprivation. It is very, very hard to be patient, to think clearly, to think through the consequences of your actions and

It is also extremely frustrating when a toddler poops his pants for the sixth time that day and your baby is screaming to be held, but you're cleaning poop out of the kitchen sink. That's hard. Patience is key. That's the sanctification part I'm talking about. There's no other way to learn that skill than this life experience. That's a great one.

And last question, you said that you are currently mentoring students. What is something that you've seen a lot of them come up against and what would you like to give general broad advice on? The most important thing you could probably do is, again, it's Jordan Peterson advice, pick something, anything that sounds of interest to you and try to get really good at it for two years. That's what I did with sales. Wound up finding what felt like my calling at the moment

Got better at that. Now I have all of that experience behind me. I'm excited to get back to it someday. It's continuing to serve me in a different way right now in my part-time work. And all of that came from just picking something and going with it. So it really can be that simple. Again, life does not have to be set in stone. You can change.

be flexible and change your mind, but you got to give it a chance and you got to take action. There's no point in sitting there and thinking about it for two years when you could have been doing something about it. Dang. That was absolutely incredible. This has been such a pleasure. It was amazing to meet you and amazing to chat with you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, you too. Thanks for having me on.

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that.