In this episode...

 Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies

Laura Hargrave: Welcome everyone here at Boss It. We would love to hear from you. Join us in our Boss It community by heading over to our website, bossitclub.com, and join our mailing list. As we grow, we will be launching our community of fellow Boss It BFFs, and we want you to be a part of it.

Okay, Sophia Noreen, let's dig into this. I can't wait to tell them all about how we got here.

Sophia Noreen: Welcome to the Boss It Podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen and I took an Etsy startup and launched it in big-box retailers within 12 months. As a creative with an entrepreneurial drive, I left my full-time career in healthcare to find better harmony between career, family, and self-care. We believe you can have it all. Yes, you can launch and run a successful scalable business while maintaining harmony in all aspects of your life. We believe we can learn from each other and draw on many experiences to create the best life possible. During each episode, we will share proven life hacks that will keep you on top and striving every day.

There should be no hesitation. Make a plan. Take action. We are here for you!

Sophia Noreen: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the boss at club podcast. My name is Sophia Noreen and I am so extremely excited to have Sarah on the show with me. Hey Sarah, how's it going? 
Sarah Peck: Hi, it's going so well. Thanks for having me. 

Sophia Noreen: Yay. We're so excited to hear all about your entrepreneurship journey, but before we get started, I want to know about your mantra. 

Sophia Noreen: What keeps you up and going every day, but we have this quote. 

Sarah Peck: With my company started parents and I use it all the time. I send mugs out around it. We don't have to do things the way they've always been done. Yes, that's good. Yeah. I work with parents and I work with entrepreneurs and we are alive in a Washington hustle culture. 

Sarah Peck: And we are as mothers topic, we're supposed to do it all and be perfect. And this is a constant reminder of that. You know, you don't, you don't have to do it all. You can suck at things like it's totally fine to be bad at things and not do things. And also you don't have to work nonstop in your life. Like there's so many other things about life that are also important. 

Sophia Noreen: We don't have to do things the way they always have been done. So I can resonate with that completely. I won't go into much into my back story, but I'm from an Indian culture and women never traditionally in my family were outside of the home. So that definitely is going on my board as well. So thank you for that. 

Sophia Noreen: So how is this mantra helping you today? Tell us about your entrepreneurship journey. How did you get into this?

Sarah Peck: Okay. I love this question and I will say when you send over the email, that was like, what's your mantra? That's my company mantra. The one that I want to share. That's like my second one, that might be a little bit of a cynic. 

Sarah Peck: I hope people enjoy this and hear this the right way. Is the world around. I like there's a lot of lies up there. And especially for women, I want you to be really skeptical about what's going on because there's a version of motherhood where you're supposed to look perfect for. Pregnancy is supposed to be easy. 

Sarah Peck: We are supposed to love having kids. This is supposed to be like your heart and soul, and you want to do it for free and there's nothing else that's more fulfilling. And I actually think that's all. I think motherhood is a lot of hard work. I know a lot of parents that struggle with being a parent, but dads are great caretakers.

Sarah Peck: And so part of the mission of our company is to tell the truth about motherhood and to expose the lies that are out there. And I will say it's the same with work. A lot of people are accidentally. Maybe it's not deliberate, but they're accidentally lying to you about how much you should work, how much you should make, what work is for. 

Sarah Peck: There's often a invisible power dynamic at play where people or culture. But it's sharing these lies, get something out of you at your expense. So that's kind of my mic drop of like, people are lying to you watch out. But if I could go back to my 20 year old self, I'd say be a little more suspicious, also be trusting and kind and loving, but also this mug I'll show you because. 

Sarah Peck: Yes.  

Sophia Noreen: So we do B of a bitch. I love it. 

Sarah Peck: I believe so strongly in like being kind, being supportive, being generous. You can do all of these things, but also if people are mind you or taking advantage of you, full stop boundaries, hard, you know, I'm going to be kind to myself and you may think that's not nice, but actually I'm protecting myself and you can't take advantage of me. 

Sophia Noreen: And as women globally, women tend to always put themselves second to their family. And I'm not sure if it's, this is me being a scientist. If this is really an innate quality or if it's something that society has conditioned us to do since birth, like it could be the whole estrogen testosterone dynamic. 

Sophia Noreen: It could be male, female energies, whatever. It there. And so women have to be aware that society is looking out for themselves, right? It's not like they are going to be saying, Hey, what can we do for Sarah today? What does Sarah need today? And he's like, well, what am I going to do for myself today? Right. 

Sophia Noreen: And, oh, Sarah's there. Maybe Sarah can help type of thing. 

Sarah Peck: What's the whole nature nurture, right? Like maybe there's a whole bunch of stuff that we can figure out biologically. But a lot of that's been not proven for a very long time. There's overwhelming evidence that dads hormonally changed when they have kids. 

Sarah Peck: Dads are really great caretakers and everyone has a different level of care-taking. It's just like height, right? Like we're all going to have some sort of height. Some of us need maybe more. But that nurturing, that nurture side, you bet. We're culturally conditioned with girls given dolls. What do you want to be when you grow up a mom, you're going to be such a great mom. 

Sarah Peck: How many kids do you want to have? We don't ask this of guys. And yet I had a little six year old. He's a six year old boy, as far as I know. And he goes, why can't I have babies? I really want my own babies. And then he's like, so I'm going to have to get married to someone like you, just so I can have my own babies.

Sarah Peck: And I'm like, You love kids and you're allowed to love what you love. You're allowed to cry. You're allowed to do all of these things. 

Sophia Noreen: Exactly. And it's great that it might be the generation that we're in, but we're accepting of that quality more invoice, right? There's no reason why boys can't have that. 

Sophia Noreen: There was never a reason why a boy could never have adult. Actually, one of the first products we made for a part based business was a little boy doll named Adam. And I saw little boys walking past. I know there are so young, like two, three years old and they wanted to take the Dolly. Here's at first we're like the girl doll sold out completely. 

Sophia Noreen: The boy doll is still lingering around in our inventory, but the point is that society has an embraced it. But when we see kids wanting the product, then we know that there's a natural instinct to nurture, even as boys. I mean, this is great. I'm glad that we kind of segue it into the parenthood because that's what your company's all about. 

Sophia Noreen: So talk about that and tell me, why did you start your company? 

Sarah Peck: Thanks. I'm the CEO and founder of startup. Our colloquial tagline is like we help tired working moms, make friends and moms. My friends are buried in there as we also try to make the world more equitable for parents and across genders. We know so many dads that want to be involved fathers and to be a part of the. 

Sarah Peck: We also know that traditional family I'm using air quotes here is also one of those things that would fall under a lie. 40% of American families don't have two parents, but what does that look like? There's tons and tons of different family organizations. There's so many different ways to have kids and raise kids. 

Sarah Peck: We want to tell that truth about like, Hey, here are all the ways that parents. And there's no right or wrong way to be a parent. You don't have to have two and a half kids, which is also like so strange. Two parents, two and a half kids and a dog to have a family. You can have an aunt and an uncle living in the same house. 

Sarah Peck: You can be a single mom. You can become an adoptive foster parent at age 50. You can try for kids and then change your mind. There's so many ways to go through the parenting journey and by telling the truth, we hope that more people feel alive. Like their full vitality empowered and able to say, Hey, this is my journey. 

Sarah Peck: I don't have to fulfill your dream for parenting. This is my,  exactly. 

Sophia Noreen: And it really helps people not feel like they don't belong. Yeah. And again, I think in the last few years I've seen a lot of media around providing a little bit more appropriate family unit because it's, doesn't look like one type of family. 

Sophia Noreen: We have multiple ways that a family can be combined and you can have parents that are the same sex. So those are things that society now is embracing more. I've noticed anyways, up here in Canada, I'm sure in the U S the same. So it will go from culture to culture and across the globe different. On how it's accepted, but I think that's really great that you have taken this on because not only are you helping the moms to helping the dads basically enjoy parenting, enjoy it with others.

Sophia oreen: So tell me a little bit more, how does your company exactly you'd have the podcast. I know that. And do you have anything else that goes along with the podcast?

Sarah Peck: Yes, we do. So start parent podcast. And we get sponsors for it, which is amazing to me. We got sponsors before we launched and that's when I was first like, oh, I'm going to have to figure out taxes and business structures and everything. 

Sarah Peck: That's how the business started. We have a website and blog where we have a lot of amazing people on our newsletter list. We send an email out every Friday, which is fun. And then we have the wiser. And this is our flagship leadership program. So we invite 40 women every year to come be together in a leadership incubator, unlike anything they've been a part of, we try to not train you and all the masculine ways of working. 

Sarah Peck: We're not telling you to push harder. We're not telling you how to show up and do it all. And Lena, instead, we teach you how to make hard to say. How to deal with the overwhelm because overwhelm will never go away. How to show up with confidence, even when you feel behind how to stop being a type a if we're like, oh, I've got to do everything. 

Sarah Peck: That's going to be a trap for women. We teach you how to create really safe spaces with trusted co-mentors and. How do you talk about really hard things with each other? How do you allow that conversation to be a learning space without inflaming emotions? So it's one of my favorite things. We've been running it for five years before 40 women come every year, all year long. 

Sarah Peck: And I'm so proud of it this year. When you start something, you're validating it. You're testing a concept. You're tweaking. You're refining. I'm finally in the year where I can confidently say what I built is really good. 

Sophia Noreen: And I want to dive into that a bit deeper because you're right at the very beginning stages, it takes time to refine your idea.

Sophia Noreen: You said it very well. And really understand who you're helping and getting that feedback from your clients or your customers on what has worked for them. And then iterating and changing things can be as truthful as you like, is this the first time you feel like, yes, I've gotten it or did you have this feeling in previous. 

Sarah Peck: If you go to my career arc now I've been working for 22, 23 years. There's a lot in there. And it includes working in architecture for five years, architecture design, starting my own freelance agency, working at a startup. And then I started startup pairing after I had. Some of those milestones. When I first realized in architecture that translating what people were saying visually into words was something I was really good at that was really important.

Sarah Peck: And that helped me launch my freelance agency, realizing that there's these brilliant people out there who have incredible design. But if they can't communicate the vision of what we're going to build to the developer, to the stakeholders, to the town, it's never going to get built. And that's like a huge communication challenge. 

Sarah Peck: I worked for Fios for awhile as a ghostwriter. So again, taking people with really smart ideas who struggled with writing in particular, and I helped them get their ideas to life. And so now I'm doing it for myself, which is really fun too, because I want to tell the truth about parenting and motherhood. 

Sarah Peck: I knew that I was onto something by year three for the Wiseman's council, people were returning. Right. That was the first clue. Oh, people are buying used to get this thing costs $5,000. It's not a small ticket items. So for people to pay 10,000 and then 15,000, well, it's not quite that because there's an alumni discount. 

Sarah Peck: Like when you return, it's more like $3,000 for alumni, but still for people to have that kind of lifetime value to be joining me as, like, that's not a small purchase for most people, even if it's a business. 

Sophia Noreen: Yeah, it's an investment, but there must have been value for them to ask, to be returning low ticket or high ticket. 

Sophia Noreen: It doesn't matter if you've ever turned customer. I say that you've validated your product for that ideal customer at this point. So what is the 80 20 rule? So then you go and you say if the 20% are going to bring in 80% of your profits, so go to those 20 and build up that community. So that's great by year three, though, it sounds like you felt it was going somewhere and you stuck to it. 

Sophia Noreen: That's right.

Sarah Peck: Both the podcast and the wisdom of. Have been hits. I really like the product mix, but we have 125 five-star reviews. When I look at the reviews, I can't make it up. It's not like this is a great podcast. People are like, she saw me when I was pregnant. That she's validating this. She doesn't talk about this.

Sarah Peck: She doesn't talk down. Like these reviews are paragraphs long and that told me, oh, I'm hitting a nerve like this. Isn't sometimes you puff yourself up. You're like, this is going to be the greatest thing in the world. Delivering on the promise is so hard. And I think there's also some humility there because your idea and your execution, there can be a gap. 

Sarah Peck: I know what I want to build. And the execution is like halfway there. And you've got to listen to those people who are like it. Didn't do it. This part didn't work. I was really stressed when I started, it was too much information, too fast. I had to slow down and I had to talk about the onboarding experience because many people who are joining are pregnant when they have little.  

Sarah Peck: And so if they miss the first month, because look at the world, they missed the first month because their kid's sick for two weeks and then they're on vacation. How do you help people back into a program? So we've really finessed that and may just such a beautiful program. I love that as beautiful. 

Sophia Noreen:  And you're doing such a big service for parents, starting parenthood is, I mean, myself, I'm a mom, you're a mom. 

Sophia Noreen: We get it. Not easy. It's not an easy journey. And I think it's even more difficult for people who may not have here group. That's going through the same thing. I was blessed that I had girlfriends that were pregnant at the same time as me and we leaned on each other, but not everybody has that. And so your group provides that perhaps tell me if this is correct, but are you then helping these women nurture them in the leadership realm and then put them back into the workplace or what's really the goal for your leadership? 

Sophia Noreen: The wise council? What is the women's council?

Sarah Peck: We call it the WWC. So I tell people that this $5,000 is going to be better than a business school course that you took, because you're going to get actual business skills that are more important for helping you decide what to do next. Then most business schools teach, and I want you to make lifelong friends. 

Sarah Peck: So within those 40 people, you're probably going to resonate with eight to 10, like eight to 10 are going to be like, I like these people, like they're in the same business as me, or like they have the same style as me and two or three of those. You're going to talk to for the next five to 10. Beautiful.

Sarah Peck: And then the next part is the network effect where there's 40 people every year. Right? So we're compounding, I have big visions for this group. These are the people who are going to create venture capital funds for women, for people of color. These are the women who are going to change the workplaces. 

Sarah Peck: They're the ones that are going to stand up because so many women are. In our leadership positions. You're the only one in your parents' circle. You're the only entrepreneur. You're the only woman. You're the only woman of color. You're the only single mom. You're the only person who's like a VC manager or CEO level. 

Sarah Peck: And you're constantly looking around having to live this isolated lonely, overwhelming way. And then when I bring them together in the room, they're able to say, oh, I don't have to code switch anymore. You understand? When I say that I only slept two hours consecutively last night and my brain feels like it's breaking, but I also have a live television interview.

Sarah Peck: How do I get through it? And you're going to have a whole bunch of moms telling you like caffeine under your eyes, but also you have to nap afterwards, cancel your scope kids thing, do right. We're going to support each other in getting through it. And I encourage women to brag to each other about not doing it all. 

Sarah Peck: And so I will post in this group, like got done with my work at 4:00 AM and watch an hour of TV before I go pick up my. Because I can be successful like this. Yes. 

Sophia Noreen: l love it because you're giving permission. I was just talking to my cousin last night, we had an event, it was the middle of the workweek and I thought, oh, I won't go.

Sophia Noreen: But then I thought, no, I need to go because there's some elders there that hadn't seen a long time. So he went, she was burnt out. She was like, had the worst day. And she just said to me, I can't do it all. I need to get a nanny now. And she said, I probably should have gotten a nanny four years ago. But I was just so scared of spending the money. 

Sophia Noreen: Cause I wanted to do something else with that money. And I heard her, but I said to her very clear that I'm like, you are really suffering from being a people pleaser. You don't need to volunteer for everything. And she herself said that she's like, I just say yes to everything. And why do we do that to ourselves? 

Sophia Noreen: Right. And ambitious or non vicious, just because you say no, or if you take time for yourself, doesn't make you any less of a person. Mom. Whatever you want to title yourself at that moment. I love that. I think that really hit a nerve with me. I love the fact that you're giving women permission to really own whatever it is. 

Sophia Noreen: Like if they want to watch TV, for example, they can own it and do it and feel proud about it. So I love it. 

Sarah Peck: Yeah. Leading right into the topic that comes up so much, which is how do I say no? So I have a book on this. I have a talk on this. It's a common exactly. Like you talked about with. Part of it is cultural. 

Sarh Peck: We are trained to be in service to others. We're supposed to be a good wife and a good mom and women are supposed to make it look easy. Right? Think of Maybelline. Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline. Don't let people see you wearing makeup. Don't let people put on, like, there should be no effort. 

Sarah Peck: You're not allowed to do. Right. You're just supposed to be beautiful. It's supposed to be easy and you're supposed to basically lie about what it looks like. You'll see all these moms trying to have it together after they have a newborn and they like, we're all racing to try to pretend to each other.

Sarah Peck: I've got my stuff together, but the truth is mother guys really hard. Having a new infant is a tremendous amount of work. There's a reason it's easier to go to work as a dad and then stay home with. Most economists underestimate the amount of work that household labor is. And they lie about saying that it's meaningful and fulfilling. 

Sarah Peck: It can be like, sometimes it is really meaningful for me to make food for my kids. Like sometimes I really love making art projects with them. Yeah. 168 hours a week. I don't even like my job 160. I don't think my husband 168 hours a week, like an absurd expectation, but we're cultured this way. Which means when we say no, it goes against everything worked. 

Sarah Peck: And other people get really upset if you're going to invite me to something I'm like, no, I don't. Ooh, what does that sound like? That's exactly right. You're going to judge me. You're going to say, like, I'm not performing the role people expect. So I teach people how to say no, what to say. The confidence it's hardest. 

Sarah Peck: The first time you do it right? The first time I do it, you're going to be totally like, wait a second. And then I give people these scripts, basically. Nobody can argue with them. Right? For example, let's say somebody asks you, what do people ask you for? Do you have an eye? Like, do you have a common  one?

Sophia Noreen:  I guess we'll do a social and a common one is, oh, let's go out tonight. 

Sophia Noreen: Let's go out on like a Friday, Saturday night live. Some of my girlfriends are like my husband's going out and I am going to be home by myself or with the kids. Do you want to come over?  

Sarah Peck: Ooh. Okay. That's a really good one that reminds me also of like bringing all these fancy big goods that you made from scratch to your school every week. 

Sarah Peck: First, I want to ground people in the fact that when you say no, you give other women permission to say. So you're going to actually help them be able to say now, and I've had people tell me this all the time. Like, wow. I started saying no, and my friends came up to me. I'm so glad you said that because it freed me to do the same thing. 

Sarah Peck: So my script in this situation, and this one blew up on Twitter a couple of weeks ago. I really want to ex thank you. X is just, you could say, Hey, I really want a, Hey is really important to me. I love that you thought of me. If I do a, I don't get to do B and B is one of my, and then you increase the importance of be over a, so give you an. 

Sarah Peck: I would love to hang out with you. I love hanging out with you. I'm so glad you thought of me. I am in the middle of working on a book and writing a book is my lifelong dream. And if I don't write my book, I'm going to be released. Yeah. If your friend says, no, I'm in more important than your book, that's not good. 

Sarah Peck: A friend.  

Sophia Noreen: He would actually take my, my words here at the book. Let's go in and get out your book. You wait till tomorrow, right?

Sarah Peck: They're going to say that. And then you're going to say something. Like I say that to myself every day and I have to actually take myself seriously. 

Sophia Noreen: Yeah, you have to do, because again, if you're not going to set the, no one, else's going back to the whole theme about how society's lying to you.

Sophia Noreen: Right. And I'm not sure if that was the exact term, but it pretty much that it's almost like survival of the fittest. If you take it really back into the science of things, basically someone is always going to say, how's this going to benefit them? Yeah. And they'll go and look to others to see perhaps how it's going to benefit them. 

Sopha Noreen: So not casting a negative light on people, but basically highlighting the fact that you have to say no, and you have to say it's cheaply enough. So you're not going to damage the relationship, but you have to say no redirection.

Sarah Peck: Like I'm a morning person. And I love writing in the morning. That's when I can think by around 1:00 PM my brain Kosh stuff's off. 

Sarah Peck: It gets better at admin tasks and doing things that are more profitable. So when people ask me for a morning coffee, I will redirect, I hold Friday for social only. Okay. And I'll say happy hour. Cause I know I'm useless at happy hour. I'll say, oh, I can't in the morning, but Friday at four, like, are you available then? 

Sophia Noreen: Yeah. Smart. And I think I've employed that a bit. Yeah, I have. I'll say let's hang out on Sunday afternoon because back-to-back with meetings and I basically say I don't own my calendar. Somebody else is managing it for me. So I'm not allowed to hang out with you until this time.  

Sarah Peck: Right. And then enroll them in your goals. 

Sarah Peck: If you have a big goal, you can say, I can hang out with you. Once I finished the first chapter of my book, I'm saving the last Saturday of the month for hangout. Let's put it in here and then slow down the cadence. So instead of every single week, you're not saying no to them forever. You're just saying, okay, I've got one social thing reserve, especially for you, because I love hanging out with you. 

Sarah Peck: We're going to do it on this day. And that gives me two Saturdays to write. And then we're going to drink our faces off. If you drank to celebrate that, I did it right. So enrolling, rolling. Oh, I  love that. 

Sophia Noreen: That is, and it makes them then your accountability partners, for the example, they keep giving, which is the book, which I know is very difficult for people to get up and get going out because you've written, it is a very long task, right? 

Sophia Noreen: Putting your thoughts and words on paper, it takes time and energy. So I think that's fantastic. Enrolling them in something like that. That's great. I'm going to definitely be borrowing some of these strategies for. 

Sarah Peck: Well, and I'll tell you like the slippery ones are when you just need more sleep. When there's not something tangible that you can enroll them in, or if you just don't want to. 

Sarah Peck: Let's say your friend is asking you and you just don't want to do it. Women have the hardest time saying I'm so sorry. I just don't feel up for it. I don't have the energy. And I want to tell you, you are allowed to say that to people you love. And if they're like, wait, get in game mode. I don't have friends like that anymore. 

Sarah Peck: Cause I'm such an introvert. But if they really pester you say, I really need you to respect that. Like, this is something I'm working so hard on and all this peer pressure, it makes me feel worse than. You can also enroll in sleep. You can enlist the help of your doctor. My doctor says I haven't been getting enough sleep and I need to focus on it. 

Sarah Peck: So I've got to get nine hours, but if I get nine hours, three weekends in a row, I can save one of these weekends for hanging with. 

Sophia Noreen: I love that. The same idea, right? It's a goal. You get them to be involved. You said, listen, I'm going to hang out with you at this time. This day, let's look forward to let's plan. 

Sophia Noreen: Right. So we can actually make nice reservations at a nice restaurant that we've really been wanting to go to. We pick our outfits. I really find that the event is just like that. Of the iceberg of fun, but the planning all the way up is that real core meat of it. I didn't ask you for tips. I just wanted to know your journey and you just gave us, oh my gosh.

Sarah Peck: I love saying no. I keep my friends now. The conversations I have with my friends are they're like, how do you say that? They texted me. Oh my God, my step-mom is asking this or my in-laws are asking, what do I do if you're a parent listening to this. Also remember that saying no is so important for your kids to see because your kids need to learn how to say no to. 

Sarah Peck: And if they have a mom, especially somebody that never says no, somebody that always gives himself up, you're actually training your kids. To have a servant to have somebody that's always in service of them and that is spoiling them and it's not good for them. And so I'll give it a little example, but my kid's birthday is coming up this weekend and I wrapped one of the presents last night and he woke up and he thought he was, I want to open it. 

Sarah Peck: Now. I was like, no, this is for Sunday. This is for your birthday. And he was disappointed. And my husband and I talked to each other and we say, we don't have to take disappointment away from him. We don't have to save him from these feelings. He's allowed to be frustrated that we said. Yeah. In fact, it's arguably a really good thing that you understand and feel those feelings and go through the cycle. 

Sarah Peck: You can be frustrated as a human being. You're never going to get out of being like, this is a lifelong thing. So when I say no, and I'll say, no, my kid will ask me, mom, I really want to play video games. And I say, you know, bud, I don't like video games. I'm happy to play this game, this game or this game, but your mom never going to play video games with you. 

Sarah Peck: That's okay. You'll have other people in your life, but that one's not for me. And it gives him permission to. Hey mom, I don't like swimming and I really like karate faculty who were role models for them. 

Sophia Noreen: It's part of their mental model. Then if you're always saying yes, and if you're always letting other people basically direct your life, your child will use as a mental model. 

Sophia Noreen: And I think that's the takeaway, right?  

Sarah Peck: I have two little boys and I used to work in the college dorms. When I was a grad student. I was an RA, like I've been around lots of 18 year olds and I cannot tell you how many of them. Yeah. And they do not know how to do laundry. They do not know how to make their bed. 

Sarah Peck: They do not know how to keep their room clean. They know none of this. And to the point where I've seen them, like destroy their clothes, because they don't know how to do laundry. It's not that they're lazy. They just don't know how to do it. I'm like we're not helping when we don't let them do these very important. 

Sarah Peck: Yeah.  

Sophia Noreen: Yeah. And we're going all down the line of rearing of women and girls versus boys, right? Because society expects girls to be able to do those very domestic light chores. I would say, and boys are somehow don't want to do it. And then the parents want to fight and then they just let it go. But they're going to pay for it later because you're right. 

Sophia Noreen: If they have to go live on their own, I don't know. Many people were moving out very fast. Regardless. I don't think you want to be retired and doing your kids' laundry. So do yourself a favor today and don't say yes to that either. Right? At a certain point in life, I'll be completely transparent. I have the two girls and they will fight with me relentlessly to do very simple. 

Sophia Noreen: Like unload the dishwasher and I'm doing it. Not because I'm, I need them to unload the dishwasher. I could very well do it myself. I'm trying to teach them that this is a responsibility of living in a household. And I want you to be able to do these tasks in the future. I want you to be able to own whatever it is that you have selected that as your task, right? 

Sophia Noreen: You, we gave you a list, you selected it. So you have to be responsible and actually own up to it and do it when it's being called to be done. And sometimes I will fight with them and I give up, I'm like, they're not coming and I'll just do it because it's slowing me down with my task. If you want to call it the supply chain, I'm the one loading the dishwasher. 

Sophia Noreen: So anyways, the next question I have for you is advice. So go back five years now because you started a couple of entrepreneurial ventures. Let's talk about any of them. Really? What is one piece of advice you would give somebody who's starting today in their.  

Sarah Peck: Charge money. 

Sophia Noreen: All right. Okay. I need to ask, why did you never charge money? 

Sophia Noreen: At some point.

Sarah Peck: I see so many people with hobbies or so many people who are like, well, I'm just going to do this for free for my friends to feel at work. That's not validating your business. That's doing work for free for your friends, right? If you're starting a business, you need to charge prices and you should charge higher prices than you think you should. 

Sarah Peck: Because a business that doesn't have profit and doesn't make you money and doesn't pay you. It's not a. So here's a statistic. That's so discouraging 88% of women owned businesses generate less than a hundred thousand dollars 88. Now there's no judgment here for there's so many people who've got so much freedom out of creating a $40,000 a year product as a part-time role. 

Sarah Peck: Right? There's all sorts of professions that are so valuable and so worth it. And you don't have to do a seven or eight figure business to be successful. I would wager a guess that the majority of those businesses are under charged. And they are okay with perpetuating the lie that women's work should be free, that we should charge for our work. 

Sarah Peck: And your work is valuable. Your time is valuable. There's no value to you as a person. It's not like charge more because you're so valuable, but just charge money. And to me, the sweet spot is when you start to put prices out there where a handful of people say, no, I mean, now you're finally charging enough and that's when you're winnowing in, on the space, in their business, that's the right. 

Sophia Noreen: That's good because you don't need to service everyone. You are there to pick your most ideal client. Your ideal client will pay the price that you are putting out. So would you say that there's a hundred ideal candidates and say all a hundred are going to pay that price point? How many should we expect a drop off when you elevate you.

Sarah Peck: It's totally going to depend on what your service is and where the price points are. So if you're charging $25 and you start charging a hundred, you might have a huge drop-off. You might not, but if you're turning 2,500 and go up to 2,800, you might not see anything. For me, it's all a communication issue. 

Sarah Peck: And what I would encourage people to do, especially people who are not raising their prices, because what you're doing is you're giving yourself a demotion year over year. When you don't raise your prices, you're actually lowering your salary every year because inflation's around 3% on an average year, cost of living goes up. 

Sarah Peck: Your experience and expertise scope are improving. I. I encourage people to raise their prices in January and in July. And you give people, and if you only want to do it once a year, that's fine. But the in December you say, Hey, such a great time, working with you. If you're a service provider, our prices are going up in January. 

Sarah Peck: If you want to buy things, you can sell off your inventory. Through sales. You can have people lock in for the next year at the current prices, but just give them a heads up. Hey, next year, our prices are going up to this, this, and this. And then in July, the end of the fiscal. Our prices are being adjusted accordingly. 

Sarah Peck: We have loved working with you. We want to say this. We want to give this to you as a thank you. We want to offer you these packages. First. We're going to send everyone a mug. I don't know what it is. You can be super kind and also be like, yo, my prices are going up. Yeah.  

Sophia Noreen: And you're giving them enough window of time to lock in. 

Sophia Noreen: And you say lock in at your traditional, your older price and you get them locked in for the year. You say blocking up the new price. Thank you. Here's a mug. And this is what it is.  

Sarah Peck: It's up to you and how you charge your prices. People really like being rewarded and thanked for being a loyal customer. So do something to reward them and thank them. 

Sarah Peck: Right. And then explain to them that the prices are going up. Here's the new rate shit. She asked him if you have any questions, but there's no reason you can't think of. Yeah. Related to this for people who are starting out new. I did this when I was doing copywriting for people. I didn't know what to charge for charge $40 an hour or $60 an hour. 

Sarah Peck: I did some writing for friends and what I did was I listed at a hundred dollars and then I listed a 50% or a 60% discount so that they knew they were getting this a hundred dollars an hour service at a special price because they were a friend. But when they referred me to people, I wasn't going to suddenly 200 times my. 

Sarah Peck: They're like, oh, this person is a hundred dollars an hour for her writing. Beautiful. 

Sophia Noreen: That's such a great way of doing it as well for family and friends will always try to avail your services.

Sarah Peck: So friends and family discounts anymore, but when I was starting out, that's what I did. Yeah. 

Sophia Noreen: And sometimes it's just a good way of getting you motivated and getting the momentum going because the very beginning, it's hard to find clients to target. 

Sophia Noreen: How long it will take you even to do certain things like copywriting. You may not know right. How long it will take to write a blog, for example, that's fantastic. Okay. So charge from the beginning, some people are like, let's do the beta group. If they're an online product that they're charged money. And we did the same thing, actually, right? 

Sophia Noreen: When we launched our consulting side, there was never a moment of free. It was a moment of discounted to understand that they knew that we're still formulating our offering, but it was never. So I love that. That's fantastic. Fantastic advice until now  

Sarah Peck: You're doing something for free. If the hobby or exactly, or a gift.

Sophia Noreen: Yeah, I'll be right.

Sarah Peck: back. It's a hobby or a gift, but you're not helping your business. You're not validating anything either. You're just giving stuff to people. 

Sophia Noreen: Yeah. A hundred percent. Okay. That's a good takeaway. Even for me, have to remember charge, charge, charge, guys. We're all business owners here. Okay. 

Sophia Noreen: Next. How do you manage your time? You have a lot going on your mind. Sounds like you have the businesses there, but it sounds like you have a kind of a couple of segments in the business, including a podcast. So how do you do it all? 

Sarah Peck: Well, first of all, totally embraced that I don't. Right. I think that, especially as a mom, but also as an entrepreneur claim, that things that you're bad at claim, the things that you won't do, right.

Sarah Peck: We're in a world where it's like, you have to be on Tik TOK and Instagram and Twitter and LinkedIn. And like, you have to be in seven places. No, no pick one. And maybe it's an email newsletter, maybe it's Twitter, but think about your target audience. Like where am I tired moms going to be? They're probably not going to be on Twitter with a bunch of journalists, like, honestly, yeah. 

Sarah Peck: There'll be some other comedians out there, but I go there, like I don't Twitter because me as a person. Like it's Twitter. Not because me as a business is thriving over there. You just feel, I guess, the distinction. So pick the couple of things that you're going to be good at. I want to be really good at a podcast and really good at a women's leadership council. 

Sarah Peck: Know I'm not going to be really good at making technology. I'm not going to be really good at all this other stuff. So, first of all, I would say, cut your workload. And do half as much as you think you should really focus on the things that you want to be good at. Like, for me, we did the same thing in our family, so I want it to be really supportive of my kids and sleep and I'm reading. 

Sarah Peck: Okay, good. And the sad part for me is that I also think food and exercise are really important. And if those are number well, food is like down there, but exercise is number three. I can't be the world's greatest house cleaner. I can't be the world's greatest socializer. I don't want a trophy for every single category, but we've really focused on getting our kids good quality sleep to the best of our ability. 

Sarah Peck: I know that's a loaded subject and we read to our kids all the time and that's what it would, that's what we're going to be good at. And then food, I basically throw out like what I do. I was just talking to a doctor about this the other day, but they get string cheese, they get wheat bread, they get McDonald's, they're going to eat a whole smorgasbord of things. 

Sarah Peck: And I try to just make sure one meal a day has something great for them in it. Even if I'm like sneaking spinach.

Sophia Noreen: There you go, this just goes along saying you say no. And so that's how you manage your time. And even when it comes to domestic tasks, when it comes to raising your children, you are saying no to a certain thing.

Sophia Noreen: And I actually love that because going back to being that people please are trying to do everything. Just even thinking like we all are women, we all understand, right. There's 100 things. You can just enough home, but you've said, okay, sleep and read. It's movement and food, housecleaning and socializing are not even on the radar.

Sophia Noreen: Right? Those are not the priorities here. So I just think that's so refreshing. It's so, so good. 

Sarah Peck: I could say that once in a blue moon, when we do have like friends over for dinner, I'm like, Hey, this is not a fancy party. I'm going to make pasta. I'm just going up. Like I've got pasta. If someone can bring a can of sauce that are ordering pizza, and if we've got any allergies, we can order gluten-free pizza or whatever we need, but like we're not working hard. 

Sarah Peck: This is not a six course meal. My kids are gonna throw it in the trash. Anyways. All I want you to do is come over. Please bring an $8 bottle. Oh, I love that. 

Sophia Noreen: It was great. It like, listen to this pastor, but just bring the $8, right?  

Sarah Peck: K12 of the range. That's the range where you're not going to get a headache, but anything higher than 12 and you're working way too hard unless you love wine.

Sarah Peck: Like if wine is one of your things and like, by all means you would also bring an $8 bottle for me. I'm not going to know. You can pour it into a fancy bottle.

Sophia Noreen:  And I won't, even though it would be pretty glass, I'm the period girl. I usually the Perriers I see the period can.

Sarah Peck: I don't drink very much wine. 

Sarah Peck: So like that's also, if you bring it over and probably just go look at it and be like, that sounds like a headache. 

Sophia Noreen: See right beside the pastel with no sauce.

Sarah Peck:  Yeah. And I'll microwave some frozen broccoli. So we can say we tried, there you go. 

Sophia Noreen: You get your full of acid in, so you're all good.

Sarah Peck: As we pretend they're like little trees.

Sophia Noreen: And then I ate them when I was a kid. I was like a tree. I felt so big. Oh my God. Well, that's a beautiful tip. And we are actually going straight into how you manage your mental health. So I feel like all of these things are tying into this huge topic of mental health and wellbeing. So how do you manage that? 

Sophia Noreen: Oh boy. 

Sarah Peck: So movement is one of the top things, socialization, like in the right amounts. I've got to get out of a C people, movement eating well and sleep. Basically what I just said about my kids also applies to me, but it's really, really, really, I think hard to take care of yourself as a mom and a new mom, because so much pressure is on. 

Sarah Peck: Someone said it really well. It was like, they just treat you like this vessel for a bit. They don't actually let you have an identity and people will make decisions for the health of the baby without ever considering you. And so you see all these sleep deprived moms who are going through profound mental health stress through psychosis, through extreme sleep deprivation, through iron loss, and they destroy their bodies and their mental health because no one is looking out for them and saying, you know what? 

Sarah Peck: It's okay to sleep, train your child because they need us mentally. Well, Yes, right. It's okay for you to take a full shower and have someone else to look after your baby. If you do not have to be the only one caring for your child and you absolutely do not have to do everything perfectly. It's okay. If you're torturing yourself with breastfeeding for three months and it's not working, it's okay to lean on formula or other things for support. 

Sarah Peck: Like these are the messages I wished I'd heard as a new mom. Hey, listen. It's okay to make it easier on yourself. There is no perfect. You matter, you're a new mom. So with that for me mentally, this is a whole nother podcast episode, but I've had depression and mental health challenges my whole life, and I've dealt with them. 

Sarah Peck: I've been in therapy for years and love therapy. Now we're in like I'm in therapy. My husband's in therapy. We're in couples therapy. There's just so much therapy in our house, but also. Like we take our mental health really serious because at this point, if I'm not okay, my business isn't okay. My kids aren't okay. 

Sarah Peck: My relationship's not okay. It's more important than everything else. And we live in a culture that celebrates sleep deprivation. We, people boast about how many hours they work and how little they sleep. And we know. Sleeping less over a long period of time is one of the highest contributors to cancer, diabetes, heart disease, and the culture. 

Sarah Peck: We fat shame so many people because we say obesity so bad. Cause it's so bad for your health, right? Like this whole culture is awful about being overweight and yet sleep is actually more important. Nobody is telling you, like you only got five hours of sleep. That's a really bad for you. That's a route to cancer. 

Sarah Peck: We need to help you get more sleep when it comes to my business and my. I don't employees, but contractors and people that I work with and partners, I'll say they get sick. I'm like you breast. We can not put out a newsletter this week. We can stop the podcast. No, single podcast episode is more important than this. 

Sarah Peck: Now, if you're missing it every week for three months in a row, then we've got to talk about workload. But we've got to get sleep and we've got to treat it more seriously because it's the number one we've got to get out. We've got to get moving. You can't see this, but I'm standing on a treadmill desk. I bought a treadmill and a standing desk. 

Sarah Peck: Yeah. And so like, I try to walk. I feel like such a cool grandma. I like walk at my desk.  

Sophia Noreen: No you're setting the trend of what everyone should be doing. I have a standing desk, but on a treadmill desk, that probably should be my next present myself in the basement with everything else because. Very very, very bad for you sleeping as well. 

Sophia Noreen: If you don't get enough, sleep is very, very as well. And again, I'm a physiotherapist. So sitting, I'm always like watching people slouching in their chairs and I like lectured on the death, but sleeping justice the same again, we don't need to into the science and that I think we all instinctively know that we need to sleep more, but then I questioned as to why we don't. 

Sophia Noreen: Is it that we've put too much stuff on our plate and perhaps we need to go back to your tip on saying no to more things, which I think has been the theme of our entire conversation.  

Sarah Peck: Right. Going through it all and say no to a lot. Yeah.  

Sophia Noreen: I'd like that quote actually of yours. Don't do it all and say no to a lot. 

Sophia Noreen: That has fantastic. Oh my gosh there. I think we need to have you on again for another show.  

Sarah Peck: Love that moms who are listening by the way, just know that anger, rage, irritability, postpartum, depression, and mental health struggles. Don't always look like sadness sometimes. It's I can't sleep. I'm really stressed. 

Sarah Peck: I can't stop thinking about this. I'm angry. Like for me, part of it is like I get super irritable and enraged when something goes wrong. And I was like, oh, oh, that's fine. That's one of my traits. Like, that's one of my little towel signs that I'm not doing great. What do I need more of in my life?

Sophia Noreen: How do I reduce the stress? 

Sophia Noreen: Yeah, exactly. Sometimes the token sadness with depression is not right. And so knowing your. Understanding what triggers you? I think people need more therapy or self therapy if they can't perhaps go to therapy. Because I don't know if you figure that out by yourself. I don't know if you can figure that out on your own. 

Sophia Noreen: I don't know. You tell me, did you have to go through some level of introspection to understand that those actually were your triggers?  

Sarah Peck: Huge journaler. I love pattern seeking. I want to say neurotic. Cause I don't think it is. I'm very geeky. I'm like very organized and like color-coding things and I like systematizing things. 

Sarah Peck: And so I like looking for. And I also think that therapy or any counselor or somebody that can help you see who you are with so many how to hack your system, how to be smarter. The best hack is to have somebody look at who you actually are, and it can be totally terrifying, but then it's really.  

Sophia Noreen: Yeah, exactly. 

Sophia Noreen: Oh, Sarah, this is so good. I'm going to let you finish off by telling everyone how they can find you. And we're going to put everything in the show notes. So it's easy for people to just click and go straight to your podcast page to tell us all, where did we find you?

Sarah Peck: Oh, great. I love talking about how to say no, and I love talking about how to do half. 

Sarah Peck: So I have a book called how to do half and I have a book on setting boundaries and saying, no, you can find them on my website. Sarah Kate picked up. Or on my business website, startup, parent.com startup parent has a newsletter sign up. We had people rave about it on Fridays, cause they're like, oh, I never thought of that, that way. 

Sarah Peck: So I love dispelling myths and telling you. And our podcast is coming back online this summer, but we've got 200 episodes out there and unbroken streak of five-star reviews. So go subscribe to the start-up parent podcast, leave us a five star review because that would be amazing.  

Sophia Noreen: Yeah. First year. And I'm going to definitely put that on my listen lists because there's some amazing tips that you've shared with us just in this short little interviews. 

Sophia Noreen: So I can't imagine. But the podcast is, and those books sound actually fantastic. 

Sarah Peck: So Twitter and Instagram, I just started a tickler channel, but that's a little bit of an experiment, but you can find us at startup underscore parent and Instagram. So my boundaries on Instagram for mental health and there on Fridays sign on Thursday night to set everything up. 

Sarah Peck: I chat with people through the end of the day, Saturday, but we do our lives on Fridays and I try to stay off at Monday to Thursday, because like you were asking before, how do you get it all done? I cannot do it all in single day. If you want to hang out with me on Instagram, on just Fridays, I've written for Harvard business review about how to like, not be addicted to social media one day a week. 

Sarah Peck: And other than that, if social media isn't for you, then the newsletter is a great way to have a current.  

Sophia Noreen: Yay. Fantastic. That's awesome. So we'll link everything in the show notes. Thank you again, Sarah. This was such a fantastic interview. I am extremely excited to relisten to the entire podcast, so I'm sure everyone has enjoyed it as well. 

Sophia Noreen: And you guys remember, you can make a plan and take action and yes, you can have it all. We'll talk to you guys again next week. Take care. Bye.

Sophia Noreen: So my fellow Bosses, did you enjoy that episode? Now, it's time for you to make a solid plan and take action. But first, remember to subscribe and follow the Boss It Podcast so you receive a notification whenever we drop an episode. Remember to leave us a review on iTunes. Take a screenshot of your review and share it on Instagram as a post or a story, and tag us at Boss It Club. If Instagram is not your thing, no worries. Email your screenshot to [email protected]. As a massive thank you, we will be sending you our top 50 tips for starting and scaling a business. This list is exclusively for podcast reviewers so don't miss out. Now, remember Bosses, make a plan and take action in all aspects of your life. Yes, you can have it all.