Motherhood Raised Our Earning Potential, Not Capped It

We just got home from our fall retreat for Aligned CEO Method clients, a gorgeous house on Shawnigan Lake with a pool, a sauna, and a hot tub, where we spent days masterminding, teaching, and connecting. It reminded us how much it takes to put your business first and go away to do it. And it set the tone for this week's conversation, because the thread running through all of it was the same: when you decide you want a bigger life, there is no cap on what you can earn to build it.

🎧 Prefer to listen? This post began as Ep 631 of the My Aligned Purpose podcast. Listen on Apple Podcasts or listen on Spotify.

This episode was all about earning potential and business potential as mothers. If you are not a mom, stay with us. Take everything we say and supercharge it, without the responsibility of keeping small humans alive. Here are the three things we wish someone had told us about how our earning potential expanded once our little people came into our lives.

Why Motherhood Can Increase Your Earning Potential

One of us has a 10-month-old, and she has always known she is driven and ambitious. She never worried that would disappear when she had a baby. There is a lot of noise out there telling women they have to step back, that business will take a back seat, that you cannot make it happen. And yes, she wanted far more time with her baby than she expected before she got pregnant. But what became obvious is that the line "go after the life you want" now carries so much more weight, because her son will be watching her do it. She gets to be living proof for him.

Here is the practical truth: the life she envisions for him, with the resources, the connections, the opportunities, the travel, and the education, costs money. We live in a 3D world. If she were in a role with a capped income, she would have to do the math on whether she could afford a private school that starts in grade eight before he gets there. Instead she thinks, I just have to make more sales. I just have to grow our business more. Motherhood did not shrink her ambition. It made her want an even bigger, better, more profitable bank account than ever before.

The other one of us put it this way: it is extra motivating, because our kids watch every move we make. They watch how we talk to their teachers, how we treat our families, and how we talk about work and our life purpose. One of our daughters, on mornings she would rather stay in her cozy bed, says she wants to stay home and work in Aligned CEO Method all day. Her teacher heard she wanted to be a doctor, but she told us what she really wants is to be a business coach, she just could not explain it or figure out what to draw. They are absorbing everything.

It also made us think about how much it matters when your child sees a parent who loves what they do. One of us remembered an uncle who complained about his job, and being confused because both her parents loved theirs. He told her she was lucky, because she assumed that was what jobs were like. That is the impression we want to leave.

You Cannot Physically Do It All, So Expand

Our second point is that you simply cannot do it all, and motherhood teaches you that fast. There is the mental load, the physical load, and the emotional load. Becoming a mom is being called on to expand, first physically while you are pregnant, and then for the rest of time in how much you love, how much you can handle, and what you want to build.

You cannot stay small as a businesswoman and a mom. If you are listening and thinking, I am staying small, come and talk to us. Send us a DM at @myalignedpurpose, even a voice note. You need to be around other people who are going for it, or it can feel intimidating and scary. And we will say this with love: we are full-time business owners and full-time moms, and people ask all the time how we do it. We do not believe in perfect balance. We believe in integrating both and choosing what you take and what you leave.

Treat Your Business Like a Real Business, Boundaries Included

Our third point takes us back to May 2021, when Rachel Rodgers released her book We Should All Be Millionaires. She wrote that women, women of color, and mothers should be making millions. Should, not could. One story stayed with us: she showed her children her work hours in her home office, and when the door was closed, mom was working. It was not a free-for-all.

What we took from that is simple. When you are focused on work, be focused on work, and when you are with your kids, give them your undivided attention. If you want to increase your earning potential, you have to treat yourself like a true business owner. That might mean carving out office hours, getting childcare, asking your spouse to step in, or encouraging independent play, and making it clear that this is your real job and how you contribute to your family and make your dreams unfold.

It will not look the same for everyone. One of us hears her kids chatter while she works and loves it. The other cannot handle being interrupted over and over, so she has a separate office (her kids share a room so she can have it), a day a week at a co-working space, and set working hours. She has also taken quiet, passive-aggressive heat over the years for putting both kids in daycare from age one. She loves working, she loves operations and execution, and she is a different mom at pickup because of it. Her kids have friends, love their teachers, and she is grateful for the decision.

Just yesterday, the other one of us took an in-person meeting with her baby on her side. If someone thinks she is not serious because there is a baby in the room, that is their projection. She was there to take notes and listen. Give yourself permission to build this the way you want. If you want your baby at your hip while you create content, do that. If you cannot, carve out the time.

Choose Your Hard and Ask for the Sale

We know some of you are thinking it is harder for you. Maybe you have no family nearby, or you are solo parenting. We hear you. We all have hard. It comes down to choosing between the hards you have and asking what you really want. If you want a big life that costs more money, you have to receive help. You have to get out there. You have to have the thing that is for sale, ask for the sale, and solve people's problems. Nobody is stopping you from growing your business, and you do not have to wait around for an employer to hand you more.

We are so grateful for our children. They are the dedication in our book and the reason we keep showing up and going for it, day after day.

Ready to find out where your energy and sales are really at? Take our free quiz at myalignedpurpose.com/quiz, join the newsletter, and if you want to be surrounded by women who are going for it, explore the Aligned CEO Method.