Finding Happiness as a Mother and Entrepreneur with Heather Reed
On this episode, Heather shares:
- Her best strategies for thriving and achieving true happiness as both a mom and entrepreneur providing virtual support
- Why moms fall victim to “Motherhood Martyrdom”
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Her own truth about why she decided to pivot from sleep coaching into happiness coaching, and what that has looked like so far
Links:
The Happy Mom Hangout Facebook Group
If you would like to learn more about becoming a Sleep Consultant, please join our free Facebook Group or check out our CPSM Website.
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Transcript:
Intro: Welcome to Becoming a Sleep Consultant! I’m your host Jayne Havens, a certified sleep consultant and founder of both Snooze Fest by Jayne Havens and Center for Pediatric Sleep Management. On this podcast, I’ll be discussing the business side of sleep consulting. You’ll have an insider’s view on launching, growing, and even scaling a sleep consulting business. This is not a podcast about sleep training. This is a podcast about business building and entrepreneurship.
(intro)
Jayne Havens: Heather Reed is a Happiness Coach for Moms, a Certified Pediatric Sleep Coach, and a Certified Vision Integration Method Coach. She is the creator of the Happiest Mom Society, the Becoming You Vision Board Workshop, the Teach Your Baby to Sleep Program, and the Say Yes to You 90-Day Planning System. Heather is passionate about serving moms by providing a space where they can reconnect to themselves with the support of a loving community and expert resources.
By providing programs, courses, and classes, she empowers moms to embrace the idea that their life balance and unencumbered joy is vital to a fulfilled and happy life for themselves and for their families. It’s her mission to help moms simplify, reduce stress, improve their marriages, refocus on themselves, and bring more calm into their homes. Heather is breaking generational cycles, disrupting the “motherhood martyrdom,” and creating space for freedom, passion, and joy to moms worldwide. Heather, welcome to The Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. I’m so excited to chat with you today.
Heather Reed: Thank you so much. I’m excited to be here.
Jayne Havens: I wanted to have you on the podcast. Because number one, you’re a sleep consultant. But more importantly, I’m pretty obsessed with your pivot to happiness coach. Can you tell us about how this all came about, and what exactly does it mean to be a happiness coach?
Heather Reed: Yeah, that’s a great question. Because I feel like I’ve spent the last year shifting how people see me. Because I was always known as like the sleep lady or the sleep consultant. So, what I was noticing, even in my own journey but also with other moms that I worked with, was that sleep was one part of the equation — a very, very critical, very important part. It’s still something that I work very closely with people on. But it wasn’t the whole picture. More often than not, moms are running very depleted in all areas of their life. So, that’s not just sleep. It’s nutrition depletion. It is depletion in their marriages, depletion in their joy, and satisfaction life.
So, I started on my own journey trying to navigate all of this. How do I take care of myself, while also making sure my family’s needs are met? As I went on that path and started discovering resources, I was like I need to help moms make their way, in a more holistic way.
What happiness coach really is, is a lot of what you were describing, like reconnecting to ourselves and what brings us joy versus just stuffing it all down and ignoring our needs completely, and recognizing that we are just as important a member of our family as the other people in our family that we’re taking care of.
In fact, in many ways, we are the most important. Because when we’re depleted and unhappy, struggling with depression, anxiety, all of these things that are just epidemic in motherhood right now, our family really suffers as a result of that. So, in reading the research, mom’s happiness is vital and critical to overall success, health, and happiness of our whole family.
Jayne Havens: So, you’re out there doing the good work, helping moms to get back on track with their own happiness, which I just think is brilliant. I just love it.
Heather Reed: Yeah, I love it too, especially because it’s so opposite of what we were taught as children — that moms need to ignore their own needs and take care of everybody else. So, it’s just shifting that paradigm. That’s really fun to see. I’m starting to see it culturally and becoming more normalized and accepted. There’s not so much shame around it, which is a beautiful thing.
Jayne Havens: Yeah, when I think of motherhood, I’m also — I’m a mom, but I’m also an entrepreneur. I think that term ‘mompreneur’ is a little silly, but I think it works in this situation. I guess my question to you is, do you have any tips, or tricks, or strategies for keeping that happiness level up and remaining joyful when you are straddling both motherhood and entrepreneurship? Because our plates are full. We have a lot going on. This is tough stuff.
Heather Reed: Yeah, and it is a juggle, right? I’ve heard people say to me, oh, people talk about balance. I think that’s a load of BS. There’s no balance. But there definitely can be. I think it’s really getting to the heart of this hustle culture as entrepreneurs and recognizing that we only have a certain number of hours in the day, and that it’s okay to go slower. So much is celebrated and entrepreneurship of like, “I hit this much money this fast, fast, fast, fast.” For me, especially because I’ve been building my business with my children at home throughout the pandemic. My son just started preschool two weeks ago. I had kids home with me full-time. I had to allow myself the grace that I couldn’t work full-time in my business. That was okay, and that it was okay to grow at a slower pace than what’s marketed out there as what success means. So, that’s part of it. It’s just giving yourself grace and recognizing what’s reasonably accomplishable — that’s the phrase — in the time that you have.
The other thing that works really, really well for me, and has worked really well for my clients, is taking the time to plan and map out what your days look like, so that you can be realistic with your time — which is part of why I created the Say Yes to You Planner. Because it incorporates a lot of my different practices and principles around planning, but also self-care and taking care of ourselves in the process. So, I’m actually running a challenge in October. I can give you the link to it for free in my Facebook group. That’s going to walk people through some of these practices around how to structure your days, and make sure you’re making time for yourself, too.
Jayne Havens: Yeah, I think that your points are spot on. Number one, we have to manage our own expectations and be realistic about what progress and growth can look like in our own lives. I think that comparison is the thief of joy. When we’re looking around and seeing what other people are doing, or sometimes it’s just looking around and seeing what other people say they’re doing, and they’re not even necessarily doing it, that really can suck the life out of you and make you feel like garbage.
I think that the easiest way to be successful is just to be in a competition with yourself. That’s always how — competition is a strong word. Maybe that’s the wrong word. But I always am just looking inward in my own entrepreneurial journey. I’m just trying to get better at what I do on my own spectrum. I’m not looking outward. I’m not looking to see what my competitors are doing or what others in the field are doing. It just doesn’t matter.
My business has to work for me. It has to work for my family. It has to work for my life. Of course, easier said than done. I can sit on Zoom and have this really thoughtful, responsible conversation with you about managing my own expectations and keeping my own self in check. But when you actually start to live and breathe that, I do think that you end up a happier person when you’re not constantly comparing yourself to others.
Heather Reed: There’s that peace. There’s also the peace of just having boundaries around our business, in general. I think with sleep consulting, it can be really difficult. Because there’s bedtime, there’s middle of the night, there’s all day with naps. If you’re not mindful of what boundaries are okay with you, it can consume you. That’s something I had to learn, probably a year into my business. It was like, okay, there are moms who want my support 24/7, like immediate responses. At first, I was doing that. I was finding that I was just wiped out and exhausted all the time. So, I had to put some expectations around. Like, okay, I offer bedtime support, really, reactive, quick response support for this period of time, at the beginning of our package when it’s the most challenging. Then after that, here are my business hours.
Jayne Havens: I think it’s not only managing expectations around the times that you’re available, but also the emotional weight that you’re carrying on your own shoulders because when our clients are stressed. Over the years of doing this, my skin has thickened. I have become less emotionally charged by what’s going on in my client’s homes. But every now and then, you get a client that really strikes a nerve with your own emotions. Just the way that our work can suck the life out of us, from a time perspective, it can also have that effect from an emotional perspective.
Heather Reed: Yeah, and I think when you’re talking about becoming sleep consultants, it’s different than other lines of work that are not as emotionally charged. Looking at yourself and your own personality type, I know that I’m highly sensitive. I know I’m very empathic. If I don’t put some boundaries around those, even just energetic boundaries of like their stuff, I’m not going to absorb this right now. I’ve had times where I’ve completely burned out because I just was absorbing all the things, and I didn’t know how to manage that. So, I’ve heard that from other sleep consultants, too, that they’ve had to take breaks. Just being mindful of daily self-care practices, to recenter, and to allow yourself to build that energy back up within you is really going to be important
Jayne Havens: For people who are listening to this and they’re wondering what does that look like, how do you actually do that? What are the things that you can do on a really small scale to build back your own positive energy, and just resilience and happiness? For me, it could be something as simple as being at the grocery store, or listening to a podcast that I was excited to listen to. Not scrolling my phone, not texting with clients, but just listening and enjoying. Maybe it’s like my kids are in the backseat of the car. I’m actually talking to them and having a really great conversation and enjoying them. It’s easier in the car, because I can’t be scrolling my phone and talking and driving at the same time. But actually, taking those tiny little moments and seizing them.
Heather Reed: Yeah, and it looks different for everybody. I’ve always said, as a sleep consultant, I’m not a one-size-fits-all sleep consultant. Same thing goes for everything I do. I think it’s so dependent on what brings you joy, paying attention when are you feeling happiest throughout your day, like really starting to notice. It could be a dance party in your living room. It could be just taking a second to grieve deeply into your belly. That actually triggers your sympathetic nervous system. So, it takes you out of fight or flight if you’re feeling really stressed and anxious, and puts you back into what should be your baseline state with your sympathetic nervous system.
So, that’s one option that I practice all the time. It doesn’t even have to be work-related. If the kids are fighting and dinner’s burning on the stove, or whatever, that can just help bring those emotions down. Also, I’ve journaled daily, which I highly recommend. It helps get all of that gunk out of your head. I also meditate every day, which, again, is another practice to just release the stress. Then whatever you find grounding, it could be like just standing in your backyard with your feet on the grass and listening to the bird’s chirp. It could be like you said, just connecting with your children.
When I want to take time for those things, if I have a client that’s highly anxious, I’ll just say, “Look, I am spending some time with my family for the next little bit. So, I won’t be available on Messenger for the next hour or two or whatever. But I just want to give you a heads up.” As long as they’re aware that you’re going to be gone for a little bit, it generally is fine. But again, it’s just putting that boundary in place. I can’t be here for you 24/7.
Jayne Havens: When I was reading your bio, you had mentioned ‘motherhood martyrdom.’ This is something that I know we, as sleep consultants, we see this come up a lot where moms feel like they need to be martyrs with regard to their children’s sleep. I’ll sleep when they go to college or whatever it is. But where are some other areas of parenting or motherhood where you see women going into this martyrdom mode?
Heather Reed: I think it’s really around boundaries, in general. It’s what it comes down to at the most basic level. It’s not being willing to put any kind of boundaries in place for our kids. So, we are constantly doing all the things all the time for them. One of my favorite things that I heard was that this woman, she just wanted to drink her coffee in quiet, in the mornings, take half an hour and do that. So, she taught her children. For this half an hour while I’m drinking my coffee, Mommy’s not available. I’m like, they’re obviously a little bit older. She would have her coffee. That was a great way for her to start her day. Or as our kids get older, doing chores. We tend to have this feeling that we have to do everything for them all the time. But teaching them from a younger age, like, you can pick up your toys. We’ve been working with my son on that quite a bit. I was like, “You can pick up your toys and put them away. You can take that to your room.” I know for me, especially when my daughter was little, I got into this habit of I was just doing everything all the time. It didn’t even occur to me to stop and have the child get involved, or stop and ask my partner for help. I think that’s really the crux of it. It’s not taking the time to stop and realize that we are supported and that we have a whole family that can participate in taking care of the home, and making that time to ask. You just have to stop and ask. More often than not, they will help, unless you have an unruly teenager like me.
Jayne Havens: My brain always goes back to where’s this all coming from? Why are moms feeling like they have to be martyrs? The way I see this is a lot of it comes from internet mom shaming.
Heather Reed: Totally.
Jayne Havens: I think there’s a lot of mean nastiness that goes on in Facebook groups, or message boards, or even just in real life, where moms are sort of judging the way other moms are parenting. Everybody’s feeling really guilty about their choices, whether it be sleep-related, or parenting-related, or anything. There are all these experts out there telling us how to parent our kids. If we’re not doing it the way that the influencers are telling us to do it, then we feel like we’re failing, right? How do we — I guess, as moms and as entrepreneurs — funnel through that mess and come out on the other side with something that works for our family?
Heather Reed: Yeah, you’re right in that. So much of it is stemming from judgment. What does judgment trigger? It triggers shame. I was listening to a podcast about shame last week, I think. They broke it down very, very simply to, shame really occurs when you trust others more than you trust yourself. So, we need to sink back into the fact that we are—
Jayne Havens: Say that again. That is so good. Say that again.
Heather Reed: Shame really occurs when you trust others more than you trust yourself. It’s actually from a business podcast. She’s talking about shame, because shame comes up so much as entrepreneurs. It’s the Joyful Marketing Podcast, if anybody wants to go listen to it. Why is this is so important? It’s because we’re outsourcing our own inner knowing. We’re saying, this influencer, this random mom in a mom group, knows better than I do how to parent and raise my own child. That’s never going to feel good. That’s automatically going to trigger, “I’m not good enough. I’m not worthy.” All these bad feelings.
If we can sink into, like, I know that based on the information I’ve read from reputable sources, from my pediatrician, from what I know as a mom, this is the right decision for my family, whatever that decision is. Then just trusting in that. That’s easier said than done, for sure. But the more you can start to practice that, and the more you can detach from those more toxic environments. A lot of mom groups are quite toxic, right? Finding ones that are safe and supportive versus really shaming.
There was a poem that one of my clients forwarded to me on Facebook that was all about like, “It’s not your time right now to pursue your hobbies, to travel.” You may have seen this. It was all over Facebook. It’s not your time. It’s your time to change diapers and deal with sticky fingers and all that stuff. I was like, ooh. My client sent it to me. She was like, this doesn’t feel good. I was like, it doesn’t feel good. It doesn’t feel good to be told that you need to be completely neglected.
What was very interesting, what I found fascinating is, I commented on it with a fairly strong opinion that this is not healthy. The number of people who responded very angry in my opinion was quite shocking. But it didn’t trigger shame in me, because I know deep down that what I’m saying is my truth. I think for those people, it triggered shame, because they did sacrifice everything and probably aren’t super happy about it.
Jayne Havens: Yeah, they’re not feeling good about that choice. But that is the choice that they made for the time being. They’re sitting in that, and sort of stewing in that.
Heather Reed: I think my opinion triggered shame in them because they chose differently. So, I think just knowing that your decisions are the right decisions for your family and trusting in that, and really making that your North Star. You can hear other opinions, but it doesn’t mean that your opinion is wrong.
Jayne Havens: Yeah, I’d love to relate this whole thought process to entrepreneurship. Because I think the same thing really holds true. When we’re trying to build our businesses, there’s a lot of noise out there. You see other people doing it a certain way. It makes you think like, “Should I be doing it that way? Because they seem successful. I’m doing it my way, and I haven’t hit my stride yet.” It makes you doubt whether or not you’re doing it right, or if you should keep going on the path that you’re going on. If you should pivot, or hire a coach, or buy this course, or blah, blah, blah.
I think the real magic moment is when you gain confidence in your decisions, and when you feel good about your path and what you’re doing. It might take some time. I may not have made it yet. But this is what I’m working on. This feels authentically me. This feels like the right decision for my business, for myself, for my brand, for my identity. That’s when you really hit your stride.
Heather Reed: Yep, and I feel like, interestingly, that’s the journey I’ve been on this year and 2022. I’ve been outsourcing a lot of that trust to other coaches and other experts as far as how I should model my business, how I should run my business, how I should structure things. This year has been all about like, I’m not working with a business coach right now, for the first time in a year and a half.
I don’t want to, because I found myself, again, outsourcing that trust to them and not trusting my own truth. Being able to rely on like, I know the best decision for my business. Not to say that business coaches aren’t necessary and helpful. Because I think they can see things from our perspective, we can’t always. So, this is not a slam on business coaching at all. But I was not using it in a healthy way. I needed to learn how to trust my own decisions.
Jayne Havens: I see. So, inside of the Center for Pediatric Sleep Management, we have a really lively, supportive, collaborative, bustling community of both graduates of the program, and then also women who are working their way through the program. I’ll see a lot of times they’ll ask each other like, “Hey, can you share this thing that you’ve created? I’m thinking about creating a newborn sleep guide. Does anyone have anything they’d be willing to share with me so that I can get ideas?” Whatever it is. I’m always encouraging people. Like, don’t do that. Don’t do that. The way that you become great at what you do is by being authentically you, and by digging through the trenches to find your own voice, your own identity, your own style. If you’re selling somebody else’s ideas, it’s never going to work. It’s just never going to work.
I actually have a really good relationship with a colleague. She actually went through my program, but I consider her a colleague. She is a toddler and preschooler sleep coach and parenting coach. She and I will talk all the time on how to support families with 2, 3, 4, 5-year-olds. She has her language and her systems and her stuff. We talk about it. I know what she says. I know what she does. Anytime I ever go to coach a family, I do have what she’s taught me in the back of my head. But if I were to ever try to use her language, it will come out sounding ridiculous and flat. Because it’s not my language. I didn’t create that. She says something. She uses the ‘velvet hammer.’ I think that that’s great. I love the idea of the velvet hammer. But I would never say that. I don’t say velvet hammer. That’s her own work. Those aren’t my own words.
I need to come up with my own way of coaching these families that’s authentic to me, that’s my process. Even though I understand her process, it’s not mine. I can’t pass that off as mine. It doesn’t work. It falls flat.
I think it’s so important to get to a place where we feel confident enough both in our mothering and in our skill as entrepreneurs where we own it. We’re like, this is what works for my family. This is what works for my business. I’m here for it. It’s a process. It’s not perfect. It’s messy, but it’s mine. And I’m working on it.
Heather Reed: Well, and I’ve seen in the sleep space — well, just in entrepreneurship in general. I’m not even sure the right word for it. But thought robbery.
Jayne Havens: That is a great word. Thought robbery. I like that.
Heather Reed: It’s happened to me where I’ve had other sleep consultants literally steal my content word for word, and then used it in their own way. I had a sleep consultant that listened to an interview that I did, where I was sharing, at that time, my signature talk. They stole it and created a freebie on it. I was just like, wow. It bothered me more so because they didn’t have the confidence in their own abilities to own their own expertise and use it in a way that was true and authentic to them. Sorry. The door just opened, I’m not sure what’s going on.
Jayne Havens: That’s okay.
Heather Reed: So, if I could encourage anybody, it’s fine to use people as inspiration. As I was just saying, that podcast, just that one thought from that podcast. But always give credit back where the credit’s due. Like you were saying, those newborn sleep guides. I was tempted to do the same thing back when I created my newborn sleep course. Instead, I spent hours and hours and hours researching newborn sleep. I created my own masterclass completely on my own. I’m so proud of it because I created that. I think there can be some shame that comes from it. It’s difficult to sell something if you know it’s not really yours, right?
Jayne Havens: I think not only is it difficult. It’s damn near impossible. It’s just not a winning recipe at all. Then even if by some crazy stretch of the imagination, you are able to sell it, it just doesn’t even feel great because it’s not yours. That is what I try so hard to instill in everybody who takes my program. It’s that, the winning recipe for success is showing up as you, and getting to a place where you feel really proud of the work that you’re putting out rather than shame that it’s not yours. Because when you show up with this shadow of shame behind you, because you didn’t really do the work to put out something that was authentically you, people can smell that from a mile away.
Heather Reed: Totally. Yeah, even not to shame. If it’s not something you’re really passionate about, you’re like, “I feel like I shouldn’t be doing this because that’s what I’ve seen other people do,” that’s never going to work well for you. That’s part of why I shifted because I was like, I’m no longer in love with doing just sleep. I am in love with doing the whole thing. So, I was finding it very difficult to sell sleep stuff because it just wasn’t where my heart was anymore.
Jayne Havens: I really identify with that. I’m actually finding so much joy recently in supporting parents that have older children, like the toddler, the preschooler, the big kids sleep. Not that I don’t enjoy the infant stuff, but the toddler and preschooler stuff really just like me.
Heather Reed: I love it, too.
Jayne Havens: It’s really great. It’s so much easier to show up wholly and happily when you’re doing what really lights you up. Navigating your own path in a direction of serving yourself, so that you can better serve others, I think, is really crucial.
Heather Reed: Yeah, and listening to those, even if it’s not super obvious to you, if you’re feeling you want to procrastinate on it — I really hate writing sleep plans.
Jayne Havens: So do I. I hate it.
Heather Reed: So, I had hired someone to help me, but I still felt like I needed to edit them all. I was just like, okay, nope. So, I restructured. I have a course that teaches them everything that would be in a sleep plan, and then calls. Because I still love supporting and sharing and giving feedback. But I don’t like writing the plan. Okay, you guys can write your own plans. I will help support you and find the missing pieces and stuff. That’s more of my jam. So, you can really choose however you want to structure your business. It doesn’t have to just look one way.
Jayne Havens: I love that. Maybe I’ll do the same, although I probably won’t. Because I don’t have the time or the energy for that. But I love that, that you took what was not serving you and was not making you happy. You eliminated it from your process, so that you could really focus on the work you really enjoyed.
Heather Reed: I show up better. I think what took me a while to realize is that I show up and serve people better when I’m lit up by my work. I don’t know how much you follow human design. Do you follow?
Jayne Havens: I don’t. No.
Heather Reed: I find it fascinating. I’m a generator in human design, which basically means like if it’s something that your body is like yes, then that’s what you should be doing. If your body is like no, then it’s really not going to serve you or anyone else. I find that when I’m lit up by something, I serve people at a much higher level than when I don’t want to do it. If I don’t want to do it, I just have such a hard time showing up.
I realize I’m not serving my clients the way they deserve to be served, because I don’t want to show up in this way. It takes a little bit of time. I’ve redone my sleep packages probably four or five times in the last three years. But that’s okay, too. Don’t be afraid to change.
Jayne Havens: Yeah, I really identify with that. I think that that’s a universal — I mean, that feels like a blanket statement. But it does feel universal, that people work harder when they like their work and when they enjoy what they’re doing. When you’re going to work and you’re just feeling mediocre about it, it’s really hard to put your best foot forward. I think that’s pretty universal. I definitely feel that way.
For what it’s worth, with the sleep plans, I have a lot of procrastination and dread around the idea of writing a sleep plan. But then I write it, and I’m like, “Oh, that was no big deal.” Every single time that happens, I’m like, “Why am I putting this last, last, last, last?” I wait until the last possible minute, and then it really just comes together just fine. I don’t know why that happens for me every single time.
Heather Reed: I procrastinate. Then it takes me like three times as long as it should, because I don’t want to be doing it. So, I keep scrolling Facebook or whatever. I’m like, God, no, wait.
Jayne Havens: Yeah, get to work. I wanted to ask you, because this podcast is all about the business side of sleep consulting specifically, but really just entrepreneurship in general. I feel a little bit compelled to ask you how you’ve done with growing your business as a happiness coach. I find that moms are always putting themselves last. So, the idea of these moms hiring a happiness coach — while I 100% see the value in it — it also feels like it maybe could be a tough sell. I’m wondering, what has been your experience with that? Have you been able to articulate your value in this line of coaching so that you can build this arm of your business?
Heather Reed: Yeah, so that has been such an interesting question. Because with sleep, there’s an obvious tangible result. With happiness coaching, it’s taken me a little bit of time to figure out what that is, and how to articulate it in a way that isn’t so complicated. Because there can be so much that goes into the work that I do with somebody. It covers so many areas of your life. Finding a way to describe that has just taken me some time to dig in and figure it out. But I really feel like just in the last couple months, I’m starting to really come to a place where I’m articulating that better.
This year, it’s not a totally fair question, because this year I took a step back from my business for the last several months for a variety of factors. So, I have not been putting as much time or energy. I’m just now ramping back up with my son in preschool. With that being said, I have had some one-on-one clients. I have had members in my group coaching program called the Happiest Mom Society. People are buying my planner and journal. People are joining my vision board workshops. It’s happening, but it’s not happening as fast as I would like.
Then it comes back to being fair with myself. It could be very easy for me to judge myself that it’s not growing as fast as I wanted to. But I had to step back and say, “Wait a minute, cut your work hours in half.” You had a period of time where you couldn’t take on any one-on-one clients. You’re putting out lower ticket offers. So, that’s automatically not going to make as much money at first. Okay, let’s reset.
Actually, things are going well. People are starting to now recognize me for the happiness coaching, which was a big thing I’ve been working on this year. So, that being said, revenues down from last year when I was doing exclusively sleep work. However, I’m feeling it starts to build. I’m feeling all of the pieces come together. I really had to figure out what my suite of services looked like, and how they all fit together. Now I really feel like those puzzle pieces are coming together in such a beautiful way. I’m super excited about it.
Jayne Havens: I think that where you are right now with your happiness coaching is where a lot of our listeners might be with their sleep coaching, where they’re just starting to get their footing and figuring out their systems, their messaging, their brand identity, what they stand for, what transformation they offer.
When you’re in that moment, when you’re at that crossroads of like you finally figured out what lights you up, the transformation you know you can get for your clients, then it’s just like one of those — what is it? — book, The Tipping Point. There’s a line in that book about all the work that goes into water getting cold enough to freeze at 32 degrees, or whatever it is. You don’t see any of that progress as the water is just getting colder. Then all of a sudden, the water is ice.
It seems like maybe that’s where you are a little bit in your business. I think that’s where a lot of listeners of this podcast are either. Either they’re already sleep consultants, and they’re working on getting their own traction, or they’re thinking about doing this. They haven’t even said yes to themselves yet. They’re still in their own heads about what their businesses are going to look like, how they’re going to find the clients, what they’re going to say, how they’re going to build the business. They’re just afraid to say yes to themselves. Then that moment where they decide to say yes, it’s like the ice has frozen. Now they can get going on their way.
Heather Reed: And one thing that I think — at least for me, and I’ve seen in some of the sleep consulting groups that we’re in together — is there can be this perception. It’s like you get certified, and then people are just going to be banging down your door because they want help. For me, that wasn’t the case. I have to learn a lot about business and marketing and sales to really understand how to communicate that transformation. Who is the person that’s going to hire me? Because for a long time, I was wasting my time talking to people that would literally never hire a sleep consultant. Figuring out how to target your message appropriately, how to market it appropriately, and how to sell.
Jayne Havens: And how to talk to the right people. Like, where are the right people?
Heather Reed: Where are the right people? What’s the demographic? I remember spending a lot of time on sales calls and figuring out okay, these are the people that say yes, and these are the people that will never say yes. Okay. So, now I know who those people are. Now, where do I find those people? Then coming up with a strategy. So, looking at business from that perspective is really important.
I came into this. I knew nothing about running my own business. It really took me a long time struggling, and then I hired a coach. That helped, and then I hired another coach and that helped give me some of those foundational pieces. I love that in your program, you offer that as part of the certification. It’s a complete game-changer. Because I wouldn’t have spent the first nine months of my business with zero clients if that—
Jayne Havens: Yeah, that was the main reason for why I created my program. It was because I saw all of these women coming out of other sleep consultant certification programs. Yes, they knew how to sleep train a baby. They knew how to establish boundaries with a toddler, but they had no idea how to find clients. They didn’t understand sales. They didn’t understand marketing. They didn’t know how to create systems in their business, and they didn’t have the proper foundation of the mindset of an entrepreneur.
I always say the four pillars in my business program are sales, marketing, systemizing, and mindset work. The mindset work is the most important piece of the puzzle. Because if you don’t believe that you can be a successful entrepreneur, then you can’t.
Heather Reed: Yeah.
Jayne Havens: The flip side of that is, when you do believe it, then it’s possible.
Heather Reed: Yeah, absolutely. That’s been the biggest part for me, too. Thankfully, I’m an extremely stubborn person. Even though it’s been a very difficult journey for me in terms of like I didn’t have instant success. I had to really dig in and do a lot of work. When you come to the other side of that, and you start to see the fruit of all of that labor, it’s like, this was worth it. Not just that, but a lot of that mindset work makes us better humans, and better mothers, and better partners, and better friends. You actually end up changing not just the lives of your clients, but your own life and your own family, and breaking those generational cycles. It’s so much bigger than just the mindset work.
Jayne Havens: I love that. Actually, the last question that I had written down to ask you, which I feel like you just answered. I wanted to ask you point blank, if you have found true happiness on your journey through both parenting and entrepreneurship. I feel like through this whole process for you, you’ve come out on the other side happier.
Heather Reed: Yep.
Jayne Havens: I have, too. So, I totally identify with that. Through struggle and hard work, it builds resilience and, ultimately, confidence and happiness.
Heather Reed: Yeah, and I think, for me, I had no idea that that would be part of the journey. I hate to say that I’m the happiest, because I always think there’s room for growth. There’s a coach that I follow who says, you’re never healed. You’re always healing. There’s always another layer. There’s always more work that we can do to be an even better version of ourselves. Yes, I’m by far happier. I have so many more tools in my tool belt for how to parent, how to manage my own stress, how to heal my body. So, yes, I would say 100% happier than last year.
Jayne Havens: Before we wrap up, where can everybody connect with you if they’d like to learn more about your programs, just get on the route to a happier life for themselves, where can they find you?
Heather Reed: I’m on Instagram @heatherreedcoaching. Also, on Facebook at Heather Reed Coaching. My website is HeatherReedCoaching.com. Then if you are interested in the upcoming Say Yes to You — it’s so funny you use that verbiage, too. Because that’s my planner in my Say Yes to You Challenge. But if you are interested in learning more about my planning system — because I use it to manage my life and business, I hate separating them — you can find me in The Happy Mom Hangout, I think it’s what I rebranded my Facebook group. But you can find it on my Facebook page, too.
Jayne Havens: I’ll make sure to dig up the link, and I’ll link your Facebook group in the show notes.
Heather Reed: Yes, perfect. So, that’s coming up in October. That will be October 10th through 14th, it will be. It’ll be a free challenge. So, you can start using some of the practices I use every day.
Jayne Havens: Awesome. Heather, thank you so much for being so candid and honest and transparent about everything that you’ve gone through in your business and your journey. I just literally love everything that you’re doing. I’m cheering you on from the sidelines. Congrats on what you’ve got going on so far. I can’t wait to see what you do in the next year or so.
Heather Reed: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
Outro: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, it would mean so much to me if you would rate, review, and subscribe. When you rate, review, and subscribe, this helps the podcast reach a greater audience. I am so grateful for your support.
If you would like to learn more about how you can become a certified sleep consultant, head over to my Facebook Group, Becoming a Sleep Consultant or to my website thecpsm.com. Thanks so much, and I hope you will tune in for the next episode.