Eps 667: Trish Gower on Regulated Leadership

On what Joyful Courage means to her:
“Doing what matters so that even after I’m gone, my kids will have the courage to follow in my footsteps. They’ll have the courage to do the things that matter to them so that they can leave a legacy for their family.” — Trish Gower

Resources mentioned

• Trish Gower’s website: messymindedmagic.com
• Messy Minded Magic on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok — @messymindedmagic
• Trish’s personal Facebook profile (where she’s most active): Trish Gaddis Gower
• Sexy and Regulated Mama Summit — free two-day virtual event, bit.ly/sexysummit
• Opal app — screen-time app Casey uses to shut down distracting apps
• SOPs (standard operating procedures) — Trish uses Claude or ChatGPT in voice mode to create them for delegating tasks

Transcription

[00:00:00] Casey O'Roarty: Hey. Okay, if you've been listening this week, you already know that I've been dropping some extra episodes in, and there's a reason for that. I have been highlighting a few of the experts from the Sexy and Regulated Mama Summit, and today's guest, again, is one of them. Her name is Trish Gower, and this conversation is such a good one.
[00:00:19] She works with midlife women on getting their nervous system out of the driver's seat so they can lead their lives and their work from a grounded place, which, as you'll hear, is exactly the kinda thing the whole summit is built around. And here's why I'm talking a little faster today. The summit starts tomorrow.
[00:00:36] It's a free virtual event, two days of moms and the relationships that we have with ourselves and our people, our nervous systems, and remembering who we are underneath everything we carry. I'll be there talking about parenting, Trish will be there, and there's still time to grab your seat. Go do it right now at bit.ly/sexysummit, and I'll pop the link in the show notes, too.
[00:00:59] Seat claimed? Good. Now settle in, because this conversation with Trish is the perfect way to get yourself in the mood for what's coming. Let's dive in.
[00:01:13] Welcome, welcome. Welcome to the Joyful Courage Podcast. This is a place where parents of tweens and teens come to find inspiration, information, and encouragement in the messy terrain of adolescence. This season of parenting is no joke, and while the details of what we're all moving through might be slightly different, we are indeed having a very collective experience.
[00:01:38] This is a space where we center building relationship, nurturing life skills, and leaning into our own personal growth, and man, the opportunities abound, right? My name is Casey O'Rourty. I am a parent coach, positive discipline lead trainer, and captain of the adolescent ship over at Sproutable. I'm also a speaker and a published author.
[00:02:01] I've been working with parents and families for over 20 years and continue to navigate my own experience of being a mom with my two young adult kids. I'm so honored that you're here and listening. Please give back to the podcast by sharing it with friends or on social media. Rate and review us on Apple or Spotify.
[00:02:21] Word of mouth is how we grow. Thank you so, so much. Enjoy the show.
[00:02:31] Everybody, I am so glad that you tuned in to listen to this conversation today. Here's something that I wanna say before we get started, 'cause I don't want anyone tuning out as you hear the content thinking that this episode isn't for you, because it is. My guest today is a business coach, and maybe you thought, "Well, I don't have a business, so again, this isn't mine."
[00:02:59] I want you to stay with me because whether or not you're running a company or, you know, running a small business out of your home You're running something. You're the leader of your household. You're managing energy, and time, and money, other people's big feelings, your own. You're making hundreds of decisions a day from a nervous system that quite often, if we're being honest, is running on fumes.
[00:03:27] And if you're a partner who's listening, if you're a dad or a co-parent or another adult in the house, this is for you, too. Over-functioning isn't just a female problem. It just gets handed to women more often. The skill of leading yourself before you try to lead anyone else is human, and it's something we get to develop.
[00:03:49] So here's the both/and that we're gonna live inside of for this conversation. We can be fiercely committed to the people and the work we love, and lovingly detached from the outcome. We can build something that lasts, and stop thinking we have to hold it all together with our bare hands. We can run a business and a household from the same regulated, grounded place, because it turns out that the tools are identical.
[00:04:16] Connection before correction. We like to talk about that on this podcast. It works with a client, a partner, a 14-year-old, right? Boundaries protect a marriage and a profit margin. Letting people be capable grows a team and a teen. So that's the whole thing we're doing today. We're talking about regulating the leader and noticing that everything she's leading can evolve and develop.
[00:04:45] So we're gonna get into it. The woman I get to talk to about all of this is exactly who you want in your corner for it, Trish Gower. Now I'm realizing, Trish, I did not ask how to pronounce your last name. That was correct. Is it Gower? You did great. Okay, great. Oh, look at me. So you- Trish Gower is the founder of Messy Minded Magic, and a business coach for midlife women who are done being everything to everyone and ready to finally build something of their own.
[00:05:12] And here's why I trust her on the both/and we just laid out. She's walked it. Trish built a half-million-dollar e-commerce brand. She's closed over a million dollars in coaching program sales, and the heart of her work is helping women get their nervous system out of the driver's seat so they can actually run a profitable business.
[00:05:33] And I'd add a steadier home. Her message is simple, and it's the exact thread we're pulling on today. Regulate your mind, elevate your income. Trish, I can't tell you how timely this is for me. Thank you so much for being on the pod.
[00:05:47] Trish Gower: Absolutely. Thank you for having me.
[00:05:50] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. So you say that midlife women are the most over-functioning, under-regulated people in the room.
[00:05:59] So paint that picture for me. What does she look like on any given day?
[00:06:03] Trish Gower: The best way to describe that for me is to tell you that I am here today to talk about garbage. Okay. If I walked into your standard mama or mamaw's house, would I find empty milk jugs in the living room floor, or would I find a nasty bacon wrapper on the kitchen counter?
[00:06:26] No, because we put that stuff where it belongs. We put it in the trash can, and then we pay someone, some people pay upwards of $60 a month to have that hauled away, but yet we let it live in our heads rent-free. All that garbage lives in our heads rent-free. And the thing of it is, you can listen to motivation after motivation, you can listen to affirmation after affirmation, but once that nervous system kicks in, for whatever reason, with me, it majorly happened at menopause, hormone shifts, right, around period time.
[00:06:59] Once that kicks in, it doesn't matter what you tell your brain. If you can't calm your nervous system, your brain can't believe it.
[00:07:07] Casey O'Roarty: So what is the garbage that's staying in our heads?
[00:07:09] Trish Gower: Oh my goodness, everything from, "I'm not good enough," to, "I don't have enough time," to, "I can't do this," to, "I always procrastinate."
[00:07:17] All the things, all the things we tell ourselves that are absolutely untrue.
[00:07:22] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. So over-functioning, I like to think of it as in the context of something that we talk about with parenting, which is that humans are motivated to move in this direction of feeling a sense of belonging and significance.
[00:07:39] Trish Gower: Mm-hmm.
[00:07:40] Casey O'Roarty: So how does over-functioning and self-worth, what kind of relationship do they have with each
[00:07:46] Trish Gower: other? Well, we feel like we have to earn our way. We feel like we have to be accepted. We have to earn that, right? We learn that from the time we were little. I remember painting a picture for my dad one time, my stepdad, of his Saint Bernard, and I brought it to him.
[00:08:00] I was probably 9 or 10, and it was a good picture. Like, I still have it in my scrapbook. But I brought it to him and I was like, "Here, look at this. This is your dog, right?" And he looked at it and he said, "That's good, but the nose is not quite right." And my body just grabbed that. I would liken it to someone punching you in the sternum, like right below the ribcage, getting you right in the gut.
[00:08:24] It's that feeling of not good enough, and I didn't earn his favor, right? Mm-hmm. And so I don't just remember that in my mind, I felt it in my body, and we feel different- Mm-hmm ... things in different places in our body. But yeah, self-worth is directly tied to that because we've been taught our whole life that we have to earn a paycheck, we have to earn the right to be called a good mom, we have to earn the right to be a successful business owner.
[00:08:52] What is success? How do you even measure success, right? Yeah. We have to earn it, and it's crazy.
[00:08:59] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. And it's so interesting all the things that can happen in relationship with others that skew our experience of trusting our God. So a dysregulated nervous system can offer information that is confusing-
[00:09:18] Trish Gower: Very much so
[00:09:20] Casey O'Roarty: right? So if we're trying to trust our gut and our nervous system is all wackadoo, how do we tell the difference between that wise higher self and the human panic or the human need for safety?
[00:09:38] Trish Gower: Survival mode.
[00:09:38] Casey O'Roarty: How do we differentiate those?
[00:09:40] Trish Gower: It's difficult. The biggest thing that people need to realize is that most of the thoughts we have, most of the beliefs we have, are decisions that we've made.
[00:09:50] So I have decided, let's say that I feel like men are unpredictable or are untrustworthy. If I do everything myself, hello mamas, right? Mm-hmm. Because I don't trust someone else to do it right, many, many times that goes back to one experience in our life. Maybe we asked Sally to meet us at the water fountain with a pencil before class and she forgot, and so now friends are undependable, right?
[00:10:20] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:10:20] Trish Gower: Or maybe we asked some fella in our life to provide something for us and it wasn't provided, so now men are unreliable, right? And so you can rewire your brain.
[00:10:33] Casey O'Roarty: Yay. Thank God.
[00:10:34] Trish Gower: I know, right? Remyelination, God love it. But yeah, at the end of the day, we have to provide new evidence, and so we have to speak truths.
[00:10:42] Most of what we believe, anything that's a knee-jerk reaction, anything that's a or that we feel that makes us bunch our shoulders up or draw our eyebrows down, most of that is a lie, and so you have to find the lie, and you have to reframe it and provide new evidence. You know, not all men are unreliable.
[00:11:02] I remember when I asked my husband to take out the trash, and I got up from my nap, and it was out, right? I remember when I asked my husband to pick the kids up from the football game, and they got them. So they're not always unreliable, nor is every man unreliable. I have to reprogram myself to believe truths, and the more you provide yourself solid, concrete evidence towards a new belief, the more you retrain your brain- Mm-hmm
[00:11:24] to believe it, the more your body relaxes and is able to accept it. You can also do grounding work and breathwork and all of the things that help calm that system down before you even start to do the reframing because you gotta get that body in line before you can change the brain.
[00:11:41] Casey O'Roarty: Oh, yes. We talk so much about that here, for sure, and it's like when I think about that particular piece, it's realizing we can slow down the reaction.
[00:11:53] We can slow down and make room for what I'm hearing you say, for curiosity. Yes. And like, "Oh, look at how I want to respond right now." Yes. Let me just pause for a second. And tune in, and maybe pull my shoulders back and down, right? And feel my feet- For me, I put my
[00:12:14] Trish Gower: cape on, right?
[00:12:15] Casey O'Roarty: Right. Yeah. And just really decide, like, what is a move that honors me, that honors my beliefs and my values?
[00:12:23] Trish Gower: Right.
[00:12:24] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. 'Cause reactivity is, I mean, it's good if it's, like, a toddler in the road and a car's coming- Mm-hmm ... but not so great when we're making business decisions- Right ... yeah, or parenting decisions. Yep. That flooded state is not useful. So getting the nervous system out of the driver's seat, talk a little bit more, 'cause there's that, like, ah, that kind of out of nowhere opportunity.
[00:12:54] Like, you're doing fine and, you know, you get an email- Mm ... or a client complains. I know for me, I'm learning a lot about fawning as a trauma response. Yep. I'm noticing that's very deeply ingrained in me, and so I say yes, and I get really, I don't like people being mad at me, whether it's a client or somebody else having to do with business, or even my teenagers- Right
[00:13:21] when the kids were at home. So talk to me, talk to us about what could be kind of a regular practice for us to get to know our reactive responses. 'Cause would you say that it's pretty predictable, like everybody kind of has their go-to?
[00:13:37] Trish Gower: I mean, I don't know that that is something that I've really pinned down as far as, like, what my go-to is, but I can tell in my body when I am in survival mode.
[00:13:48] Mm. Like, if I'm in a state of self-possession or if I'm in a state of dysregulation, if I'm out of control, I can tell the difference. I can tell when I wake up, once I hit a certain age, anxiety became a very close companion, whether a good friend- Mm ... or not, a very close companion. Mm-hmm. And when you wake up and the anxiety is already there, and it's a body response.
[00:14:12] It's cortisol. Yeah. It's stress. It's menopause. Yeah. It's hormones. It's all the things. When it's already there, we try to attach it to something. And so the very first thing I do before I ever get out of the bed is, like, what you were saying, what do I feel under my feet? I feel the coolness of the sheets, the smoothness, you know, the fiber of the blanket that's over me.
[00:14:33] What do I hear? Well, I can hear my sound machine. I can hear my husband rustling around out there. Is my heart rate elevated? Am I breathing deeply, or am I shallow breathing? Is my body tense, or am I relaxed? If I can get that taken care of, then I am able to act or- Mm-hmm ... respond to situations instead of react.
[00:14:57] If I just hop out of bed when I'm like that... Now, let me preface this to say, this is a note that you might find interesting, my husband is autistic. We've been married 30 years. We did not know this until about five years ago, and you can imagine some of the things that we went through in this home with me being ADHD and being a trauma survivor, and him being autistic and not liking change, and being very blunt and very open about what he thinks.
[00:15:24] It was very, very difficult. Yeah. It was very, very difficult. It was like oil and water.
[00:15:29] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:15:29] Trish Gower: But in the last five years, just from knowing that, like understanding my surroundings, which would be part of understanding my spouse, right?
[00:15:38] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:39] Trish Gower: And then understanding my own system and knowing that if I go out there right now, it's going to panic him because he can feel it come off of me in waves, right?
[00:15:48] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:15:48] Trish Gower: But it's also gonna panic me because, just like you said, I want to please him. I don't want to distress him. So many times, on the days that it's super bad, I will just get up, I'll open the door and I'll say, "Hey, I'm anxious this morning. Give me about five minutes. I'm gonna grab my mushroom coffee.
[00:16:06] I'm gonna go in my room. I'm gonna meditate. I'm gonna do some deep breathing, and then I'll be back, and we'll be good to go."
[00:16:11] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:16:12] Trish Gower: And it works. It absolutely works.
[00:16:15] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:16:16] Trish Gower: I just know how to calm myself first so I don't allow those to live.
[00:16:27] Casey O'Roarty: Right, and what I'm hearing you say is you've gotten familiar with what it feels like- Yes ... to be dysregulated. And I think- Yes ... more than anything else, that skill is the number one. That can take us somewhere, right? Yes. Is when we can recognize, like, now isn't a great time for this conversation Listening to you talk about your husband and those people in our life that kind of have that sensitive energy radar- Mm-hmm
[00:16:54] I think teens really pick up-
[00:16:56] Trish Gower: Oh, yeah ...
[00:16:57] Casey O'Roarty: on our energy. I know my kids do and did when they lived at home, and-
[00:17:03] Trish Gower: Oh, yeah ...
[00:17:04] Casey O'Roarty: yeah, so it could be the right words with a contradictory energy- ... and they would be like, "Really? You might wanna tell your face that you're okay," or whatever, you know? They could- Yeah ... feel that out, and I think it's so powerful when we have the opportunity just to learn ourselves, and it sounds like even your husband.
[00:17:24] 'Cause behavior makes sense-
[00:17:26] Trish Gower: Yeah ...
[00:17:26] Casey O'Roarty: right? Behavior isn't random, and so I'm sure that in your experience, him figuring out his neurodiversity was probably like, "Oh, okay. "
[00:17:36] Trish Gower: Well, yeah, and not only that, there was a phase of almost grieving-
[00:17:40] Casey O'Roarty: Mm ...
[00:17:41] Trish Gower: of realizing that how much of my life was so hard because I didn't understand the way I work, and the people around me didn't understand the way I work.
[00:17:49] Yeah. 'Cause we're both in our 50s.
[00:17:51] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:17:52] Trish Gower: And so it's a different day than it was then.
[00:17:56] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:17:56] Trish Gower: Yeah.
[00:17:57] Casey O'Roarty: It sure is. I love my 50s, but-
[00:17:59] Trish Gower: Me too.
[00:18:00] Casey O'Roarty: Damn, there's been some really big bullshit piles that we've slogged through, but it's like thank God I'm 52 and not 22 trying to navigate this, or 32 even.
[00:18:15] Trish Gower: Right.
[00:18:15] Casey O'Roarty: Oh, man.
[00:18:16] Yeah. Life sure does have a way of offering so much growth and learning. Let's talk a little bit about boundaries. Mm-hmm. I love talking about boundaries. I think boundaries are so misunderstood-
[00:18:28] Trish Gower: Yes ...
[00:18:29] Casey O'Roarty: and often get interchanged, especially in the parenting world. I'm wondering about the business world. In the parenting world it's like, you know, boundaries are interchanged with rules and- Yes
[00:18:40] expectations, and it's like whoa, whoa, whoa. That's not actually what a boundary is. And so you call boundaries a business strategy-
[00:18:48] Trish Gower: Yes ...
[00:18:48] Casey O'Roarty: not a self-care slogan. So what does- Yes ... a real boundary look like?
[00:18:53] Trish Gower: Boundaries head a lot of directions, but the biggest boundaries that I really teach and really emphasize are time boundaries.
[00:19:01] Casey O'Roarty: Mm.
[00:19:01] Trish Gower: If you want to be a successful business owner, if you want to have time with your kids, you need to set times, and I mean put it in on the calendar as though it were a doctor appointment, that you have time to do those things. Also, self-care, time to do the breathing, time to do the grounding. I've had this saying for a long time, Jesus had to come apart from the crowd because it was too much.
[00:19:29] In the Bible it talks about Jesus having to come apart from the crowd. If you don't come apart from the things that are beating you up, you will come apart.
[00:19:38] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:19:39] Trish Gower: And I always told people I was like a pop bottle. You could shake it and shake it and shake it- I could take so much because of my upbringing, but once that cap comes off, it's going to be a freaking disaster.
[00:19:53] It's gonna be a mess Mm-hmm. I mean, I put holes in walls. I threw things. I screamed, I cried. I would hit myself as a young person- Mm-hmm ... because I couldn't lash out at the people that were hurting me. So boundaries to me are super, super important, both for self-care, for, you know, preparing yourself for the day, but also for spending the time that you deserve to have doing the things that you love to do
[00:20:22] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah
[00:20:22] Trish Gower: And it needs to be said and shown big time.
[00:20:24] Casey O'Roarty: Yes. Well, I, I love it because I need it. Like, the time boundary conversation is in business, so I'm a solopreneur, I work in my home. You know, I make a huge page of check boxes for the week. I love a list.
[00:20:41] Trish Gower: Yeah.
[00:20:41] Casey O'Roarty: I'm a list girl. Me
[00:20:42] Trish Gower: too. Me too.
[00:20:43] Casey O'Roarty: What I don't do is map out, okay great, when am I gonna do this stuff?
[00:20:49] So my familiar energy is this, like, frantic what am I forgetting-
[00:20:56] Trish Gower: Mm-hmm ...
[00:20:56] Casey O'Roarty: what haven't I done-
[00:20:57] Trish Gower: Mm-hmm ...
[00:20:57] Casey O'Roarty: because it's not mapped out.
[00:21:00] Trish Gower: Yeah.
[00:21:00] Casey O'Roarty: And then when I do have, like if I take days off or I try to carve out time, I cannot shake-
[00:21:07] Trish Gower: I'm missing something. What is it?
[00:21:09] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:21:09] Trish Gower: Yeah.
[00:21:10] Casey O'Roarty: Yes. Yeah.
[00:21:11] Trish Gower: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:11] Casey O'Roarty: So that time boundary piece is really key.
[00:21:14] And you know, it's interesting too, crossing over into the parenting, I talk a lot, you know, when the kids are little, there's all the conversation about, oh, make sure you're doing special time, one on one time on the daily. It's important. It is equally as important when our kids are in adolescence, and- Yeah
[00:21:32] the conversations that I hear so often are they're so busy, we're so busy, there's no time.
[00:21:37] Trish Gower: Mm-hmm.
[00:21:38] Casey O'Roarty: And I really push back on that because, especially with clients who are making a point of meeting with me- Yeah ... for an hour, like, well you made it here, you created this time. And talking about putting it on the schedule, pulling everybody in, taking a look at the master schedule, and getting that one-on-one time.
[00:21:59] Yeah. You don't just wait around-
[00:22:01] Trish Gower: Yeah ...
[00:22:01] Casey O'Roarty: for them to be home. You say, "Hey, you know, Thursday morning, I'd love to go get a smoothie with you or a tea or a coffee drink before school or after school or whatever works. Like, can we do that Thursday morning? No? Okay. What is a time where you have a half an hour and we can make that happen?"
[00:22:21] I think that time piece, we like to tell ourself this story-
[00:22:26] Trish Gower: Yes ...
[00:22:26] Casey O'Roarty: of no time, but in reality it's just poor- Are we- ... time management or just kind of-
[00:22:31] Trish Gower: That's where I was going to go, because the other part of that, and I just covered this with my coaching group this week, we are dopamine seekers. As women, we're dopamine seekers.
[00:22:39] Mm-hmm. I am even more so because I'm ADHD. But that in and of itself is not wrong. Why are you seeking it is the other thing. Am I seeking a dopamine fix for relief? Or am I seeking it as a challenge and reward system, which is totally different, right? Mm-hmm. And so the time that we do have, okay, they're in ballgames.
[00:23:00] Okay, they have this, they have that. The time you're in the car, if dad's driving, is everybody else on their phone? Or are you- Mm-hmm ... using that as a time when you can have a conversation with each other? Just make it a standard that one night of the week while we're coming home from practice- Mm-hmm ... we're just gonna have family chat.
[00:23:16] We're gonna put the phones down, we're gonna chat. We have, in our minivan, DVD systems on the back of the seats, and I let them watch DVDs sometimes, but other times I'm like, "Okay, no DVD today. We're gonna play What Do You See?" Setting a boundary for yourself, not scroll so much and get that constant intake that just makes your anxiety raise whether you realize it is or not- Oh, yeah.
[00:23:38] Five seconds ... because you've seen so many emotional things from, "That makes me sad," to, "That makes me happy," to, "That really pissed me off"- Yeah ... to, "That really upset me," all within a scroll of five minutes. But also the time that we steal from each other in doing that, thinking we're spending quality family time eating breakfast, but we're all scrolling on our phone.
[00:23:57] And I'm not slagging on anyone. I scroll as much as the next person, right? But you've got to set the boundaries if you want that time to unwind or to spend time like you're talking about.
[00:24:07] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. And I'm thinking about those of us that are business owners. Another one for me is how available I am to my clients.
[00:24:15] Trish Gower: Mm-hmm.
[00:24:16] Casey O'Roarty: So, you know, as part of your VIP, like, you get access to me, and you can s- shoot me a text when you need it, SOS, and I'll respond within 24 to 48 hours. Yep. And then I kinda laugh and say, "I'll probably respond a lot quicker than that," because I have a problem with my own boundaries, you know? And I kinda tease myself about that, but it is problematic.
[00:24:38] Trish Gower: It is.
[00:24:39] Casey O'Roarty: How do we let go of that and really sink into, "No, it's okay. I get to have a boundary here"?
[00:24:48] Trish Gower: Yes, but if you set expectations, doesn't even feel like boundaries. So when people come into my program, I tell them, "Okay, our personal one-on-one coachings are the second and third weeks of the month. First and fourth are my business moving weeks.
[00:25:03] That being said, I still do training on those weeks, but every Wednesday is mine. I'm not teaching you how to build a business- Mm-hmm ... if I don't take time apart to build mine. And so every Wednesday I am not available." I mean, to the point where I've had people say, "Well, can we move our appointment till Wednesday?"
[00:25:19] Mm-hmm. And they'll be like, "Oh yeah, no, we can't." "What about Thurs-" They just know that Wednesday- Yeah ... it's my day to move the business needle, to move the money needle, right? And so one of the things you asked me earlier was, you know, I've got this list of things, and I always feel like at the back of my mind there's something that I didn't get done.
[00:25:35] Well, what if you had a day set aside for each thing, and that- Mm-hmm ... you know, maybe it didn't get done at 8:00 AM, maybe it got done at 2:00 PM-
[00:25:42] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm ...
[00:25:42] Trish Gower: but it was clerical work or it was money work- Yeah ... or it was social media content, right? So but, yeah, they know what day is mine. Yeah. Yeah. And I just set that expectation up front as part of our orientation, and it does help.
[00:25:54] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. I mean, there's so much overlap, right? I mean- Yeah ... my daughter just spent the week with my sister's kids, who are nine and four, and she, my daughter, is 23. She said, "Oh my gosh- I immediately realized I have no idea- Mm-hmm ... what I'm doing. Like, she hasn't spent a lot of time with little kids. My sister and her husband are on a rafting trip.
[00:26:16] My mom was around the corner, so that w- But Rowan was on her own, and that first night was like, "Uh, oh, what do I do?" And it was really, you know, had a lot of conversation. She came over last night just about how there's no bad kids. There's no manipulative kids. There's kids who learn how to work a system that's presented to them, and for Rowan to drop in and try to navigate that system- You know, hopefully it was some good birth control because she's still young.
[00:26:49] That's right, yes.
[00:26:51] Trish Gower: Baptism by fire.
[00:27:00] Casey O'Roarty: So what about our tendency, and I think we do it in business, I know for me it's really hard to outsource. Well, one, the financial piece to that, but it's also, like, even when I was a schoolteacher it was like, how sick am I? Because, like, am I sick enough to write sub notes? 'Cause it's such a pain in the neck to write the plan out for somebody.
[00:27:20] I could just go and show up and charge through it. So, you know, I notice that for myself as a teacher- Yeah ... and now as a business owner, trying to train anybody up-
[00:27:29] Trish Gower: Yeah ...
[00:27:29] Casey O'Roarty: to do the things that I would rather not be doing feels exhausting. And then mom, mother role, I don't think I'm alone in saying, ugh, the mental load and everything I'm carrying and all the things I'm keeping track of, and yet I wanna be the one that's keeping track of all those things.
[00:27:48] So talk about the woman who's holding everything together for everyone- Yeah ... versus the woman who's building- Yeah ... something that's sustainable and can last. How do you let go of that being indispensable without feeling like you're abandoning things or dropping plates?
[00:28:05] Trish Gower: Yeah. It has to be. What gets you to six figures will not get you to seven.
[00:28:09] What gets you to five figures will not get you to six. Doing it all from top to bottom is not gonna get you to the next level. It's just not. It might get you started. And to be honest, to be honest, Casey, that is why I sold my e-commerce business. Mm-hmm. Because the fun part of it for me was creating the little booklets for kids and moms to spend time around the table together.
[00:28:32] The fun part to me was picking out the clay and the glitter- Mm-hmm ... and making the slime kits- Mm-hmm ... and packaging that up every month, and my kids would come over and we'd all do it together, and when they lost interest, I lost interest. I was done. And like you said, I grew it, like, uh, $522,692. I have a little counter marker on my desk.
[00:28:51] So it wasn't that it wasn't making money, it was that in order for me to go back to living a- Mm-hmm ... normal life, I would have to hand it all off to someone else and just let it run itself, which was absolutely boring when you have ADHD. I did- had no desire to do that. Or I had to just stay where I was, which was working myself to death by myself, 'cause I didn't have anybody helping me anymore.
[00:29:15] So delegation is so, so important. Now, I did go from printing the booklets myself to having a printer print them and mail them to a fulfillment center. I had a fulfillment center that shipped that. The slime kits I never did outsource, because I had my setup, I had my glue pumps, I had my measuring cups, all of it.
[00:29:34] Like, I just did it all myself. But at the end of the day, if you don't figure out how to outsource some of that business tasks, you can't grow past a certain ceiling. You cannot. You physically are not enough person to do it all Now here's the beauty. In coaching, we have AI. We can make SOPs at the snap of our finger.
[00:29:55] I can make an SOP to train a VA while I'm driving.
[00:29:58] Casey O'Roarty: Tell the listeners what an SOP is.
[00:30:00] Trish Gower: A standard operating procedure. So a piece of paper that says, "This is what you do to get this task done," right? Mm-hmm. It's the list you make for the babysitter. It's the list you make for your substitute teacher, right?
[00:30:12] And so I can go into Claude or ChatGPT, either one. I can put it on voice mode while I'm driving and I can say, "Okay, my VA, this month I'm gonna train her to write my emails. I want her to use my voice, and I will approve them for the first quite a while, until I feel confident that she has my voice down pat.
[00:30:29] But I will set her up a complete AI system to use, and then I will not only create, like, maybe a custom GPT that she can go put the stuff into and it'll spit stuff out, but I also will create a list for her to follow to do it."
[00:30:45] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm.
[00:30:45] Trish Gower: And it takes me maybe 30 minutes to churn that out. Sometimes if I'm doing a custom GPT, maybe it'll take me a little longer than that.
[00:30:54] But I teach my clients to work smart and not hard, because if you make your system simple, then your genius zone, the things you're excellent at, working with your clients, talking to them one on one, teaching them, creating a mastermind, those things come easy. Likewise with your teaching and stuff. If you have your lesson plan laid out, then your substitute teacher's gonna have a lot better day- Mm-hmm
[00:31:15] right? It's the same thing.
[00:31:17] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. And I'm thinking about systems listening to you, Trish, and I'm like, "Trish should be my business coach." Because I'm like, "Oh, yeah, systems." Like, even with our families, I talk a lot about family meetings and how powerful that can be to keep everyone tuned in to the week ahead, to things, you know, that need to be focused on, on relationship, problem-solving.
[00:31:42] It's system-
[00:31:43] Trish Gower: Right ...
[00:31:43] Casey O'Roarty: and it's useful when you use it. And so I'm hearing you talk about systems in business as well, and I'm thinking to myself, "Yeah, Casey, biz systems are useful when you use them." And I think that I probably have some in... I mean, we have either intentional systems or unintentional systems, don't we?
[00:32:05] Correct. We're either intentional about what we're- or we're shooting from the hip, and that kind of becomes the pattern.
[00:32:09] Trish Gower: Correct.
[00:32:10] Casey O'Roarty: So what's one baby step towards systems that you could offer up to listeners today that could be useful in business or in family managing?
[00:32:22] Trish Gower: You know what the most underused, over-available system is- Mm-hmm
[00:32:28] that we have? Is our phone. Being able to say, "Hey," and I'm not gonna say it because it's sitting right there, but, "Hey, make me an alarm for 2:00 PM labeled get the trash to the road." Make me a calendar appointment for 5:00 PM on Thursday to get the garbage to the road. Make me a note or a reminder that says, "Pay the electric bill on Friday at 8:00 AM."
[00:32:54] Because if I don't, I pay what's called stupid tax. Mm-hmm. Which is the late fees, right?
[00:32:59] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:33:00] Trish Gower: And just that little bit of control is doing a couple of things, especially if you make it a recurring reminder. Mm-hmm. It's setting you up to have patterns and habits that are good patterns and habits. It's also putting a feeling of self-worth in you because you didn't pay $120 in bounced check fees, or $35 late fee, or you didn't miss an appointment with your kid's teacher, right?
[00:33:24] Yeah,
[00:33:24] Casey O'Roarty: yeah.
[00:33:25] Trish Gower: I'm trying to translate business to parenting. But I didn't miss following up on an email from a client that was on the ledge-
[00:33:32] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, yeah ...
[00:33:33] Trish Gower: and backed off because I missed it, right? So that's the number one.
[00:33:38] Casey O'Roarty: I have an app called Opal. Opal app actually shuts apps down. You know, a challenge for me is, I mean, I've always kind of been a last-minute girl.
[00:33:48] So it's not necessarily new, that up-against-deadline hustle. However, enter screens- Right ... however long ago that we started, you know, using smartphones, and I start to feel like stuck in writing or in- Yeah ... content creating, and I'm like, "I'll go see what's going on on Facebook." Yes. "I'll go see here. I'll go see that."
[00:34:10] Trish Gower: Right. Here's the other thing that people don't realize, and I think your audience will love this if you haven't already covered it with them. But we tend to, as parents, be time blind because there's so much stuff on our plate, and we think, "I can't get that done today." You said it earlier, we're too busy.
[00:34:27] Mm-hmm. They're too busy. I'm too busy. We're too busy. Part of that is not knowing- Mm-hmm ... how long a specific task or job will take. Casey, I despised doing dishes, forever despised doing dishes. I kept saying, you know, "I'll get to it, but it's gonna take 30 minutes, it's gonna take 40 minutes." So I block out time.
[00:34:46] It takes, like, seven minutes. Gotta have it. Seven minutes. Seven minutes to unload my dishwasher and reload it.
[00:34:53] Casey O'Roarty: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[00:34:54] Trish Gower: It took the excuse away, and it made me feel like a freaking boss. So many times we say, "I don't have time," when in reality we do have time, but we need to know how much time it takes to send an email or to write a Facebook post or to, you know, reach out to a customer, and just slot 'em into those 15-minute windows that we have instead of saying, "Well, there's not enough time for that, so let me go see what's going on on Instagram."
[00:35:17] Casey O'Roarty: Right, and let me sit here and think about how there's no time. Uh-huh. Like, that's the other thing that I'm like, "Oh my God." What do you need? I actually had a whole- For me ... yeah, I had a whole hour that could've been- Yeah. You know, that's me thinking about going to the gym, actually. Yeah. It's like, oh, man, if I would've left when I first thought- Yes
[00:35:35] about this, I'd be halfway through my treadmill time. Yeah. And it's amazing what we can do to stall ourselves out. But I really am appreciating, so, like, thinking about, one, that self-awareness piece around our beliefs, around what we can and can't hand over, but also just recognizing when the story we're telling ourselves is old news and not the truth.
[00:36:00] So there's that beautiful self-awareness piece. We talk a lot about that here on the podcast. Slowing things down, pausing, feeling our bodies, and then really bringing in that self-inquiry. I love all of this conversation around setting ourselves up first- Yes. Yeah ... with the tools that we have, also known as the smartphone.
[00:36:21] Mm-hmm. And how we can use those to really help ourselves. And yes to all of this conversation around time. What is something you wanna say to the parent that's listening that really is straddling their own business as well as the business of the household, feeling overwhelmed?
[00:36:41] Trish Gower: My favorite, favorite thing to tell people right now, um, I just heard this within the last few months, and it so resonated with me, is one of the biggest lies that we tell ourselves...
[00:36:52] Well, one of the biggest lies that we participate in is procrastination. We put things off. We put things off because, A, they're uncomfortable, B, we think they're too hard, C, we think there's not enough time, D, we think we're not good enough, right? Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also, okay?
[00:37:11] Bear with me. If you were walking down the street with your kids- And someone came out of a dark corner and came rushing at your family, you would not say, "I'm not good enough to fight this guy." You would not say, "Well, let me just put this off a minute. Let me wait until I'm better prepared." You would not say, "I can't do this, it's too hard."
[00:37:35] You would put your whole all- Mm-hmm ... into taking that man out, or that whatever out. I don't care if it's a bear. Mm. Right? You have it in you to do the hard thing if you value that thing high enough.
[00:37:50] Casey O'Roarty: Hmm.
[00:37:51] Trish Gower: And so if you can align what it is you're doing with your value system, if you can align what it is you're doing with what you love, so, you know, you think, "Well, yeah, but the reason my kids are so important is because I wanna raise them to be responsible young adults.
[00:38:07] I wanna raise them to be something phenomenal. I wanna give them a good life." Is that not what your business is for?
[00:38:13] Casey O'Roarty: Mm. Yeah.
[00:38:14] Trish Gower: Is that not why you're building a business?
[00:38:17] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah.
[00:38:17] Trish Gower: So if you view it through the right eyes, yes, this is hard, but I'm leaving a legacy. I can do this. I'm not gonna procrastinate. I'm gonna get uncomfortable.
[00:38:26] The more I get uncomfortable, the more comfortable I will become.
[00:38:29] Casey O'Roarty: Hmm.
[00:38:30] Trish Gower: You have it in you. You just have to do it and let it be uncomfortable at first, right?
[00:38:36] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah. Love it.
[00:38:37] Trish Gower: That was the neatest illustration I've ever heard, and that stick with me for the rest of my life. Yeah. We have it in us- Yeah ... if our values are involved.
[00:38:44] Casey O'Roarty: Definitely. So last question, I always close with this. What does joyful courage mean to you in the context of running a business and running a home?
[00:38:54] Trish Gower: Doing what matters so that even after I'm gone, my kids will have the courage to follow in my footsteps. Mm. They'll have the courage to do the things that matter to them so that they can leave a legacy for their family.
[00:39:07] Casey O'Roarty: Yeah, beautiful. Where can people find you and follow your work?
[00:39:10] Trish Gower: You can go to www.messymindedmagic.com. You can follow me @messymindedmagic on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok. I'm most active on Facebook. Honestly, the best place to follow me is on my personal profile, which is Trish Gaddis Gower.
[00:39:26] Casey O'Roarty: Okay.
[00:39:26] Trish Gower: So.
[00:39:27] Casey O'Roarty: I will make sure all of those- Thank you
[00:39:28] links are in the show notes.
[00:39:30] Trish Gower: All right.
[00:39:31] Casey O'Roarty: Yay. Well, re- loved this conversation with you, and excited to hear how it lands for my listeners. Thanks so much for spending the time.
[00:39:45] Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to my Sproutable partners, Julietta and Alana. Thank you, Danielle, for supporting with the show notes, as well as Chris Mann and the team at Podshaper for all the support with getting the show out there and making it sound good. As I mentioned, sharing is caring.
[00:40:02] If you're willing to pass on this episode to others or take a few minutes to rate and review the show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, it helps other parents find this useful content. Be sure to check out what we have going on for parents of kids of all ages, and sign up for our newsletter to stay connected at besproutable.com.
[00:40:22] I see you doing all the things. I believe in you. See you next time.