Stop Dreaming and Start Doing with Jayne Havens

 

Links: 

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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.

Jayne Havens: Hi, everyone. Welcome back to the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast, where we talk about building your dream career, growing your business and finding joy in the journey.

Today’s episode is inspired by a comment that I recently received on a Facebook post that I made yesterday. Actually, by the time we are airing this episode, it will be a week and a day ago. But you get my point. I shared a picture of myself and my kids outside in the snow. We live in Baltimore. We got about five inches of snow yesterday, so my kids were off from school. I was juggling work and managing them at the same time. It was actually a really fantastic day. It was filled with lots of time outside—sledding, we were using food coloring to draw on the snow, and I even got to see my little two-year-old nephew enjoy the elements because he lives right down the street from us.

So I shared this post on Facebook, and somebody commented on my post. She said, “Oh, I wish I had your story or life.” This comment gave me pause. I wanted to talk about it on the podcast today because I think it’s worthy of an unpack. This is not the first time that I’ve ever heard someone say to me that they wish their life was more like mine. And yet, each time someone says it, the comment stops me in my tracks.

While on some sort of level, I guess, it’s flattering, it also makes me want to be really transparent about the story behind the success that is my business and my life story—the ups, the downs and the hard work that goes on behind the scenes.

If you’ve ever found yourself wishing for someone else’s life, or career, or achievements, this episode is definitely for you. Let’s talk about what it really takes to achieve your goals and create a life that you love. Before we get into it, I guess I want to take a few minutes and share my story. For those of you who have been listening to the Becoming a Sleep Consultant podcast for a bit, this will be old news, but I do feel that it’s a relevant share for context.

My story starts as a young professional working as an event planner before I got married and started a family. I was working in Washington, DC for a big, fancy catering company selling events. I was working nights, weekends, holidays, and I was always working. I was always stressed. I used to wake up sweating in the middle of the night because I would remember that I forgot to order coffee makers for my 7am breakfast downtown. I would jump out of bed, and I would start making calls to see who could right my wrong, to make sure that the event could go off without skipping a beat.

Sometimes the mistakes weren’t my own. I will never forget a wedding that I was catering in Georgetown. It was being hosted in a small, historic home, and we were only allowed about three hours to set up the entire wedding. It took a solid 30 minutes or more to unload everything off of the truck and into this home. Then it took probably another 30 minutes or more to inventory all of the food. So with about 90 minutes before the start of the wedding reception, my lead chef let me know that none of the past hors d’oeuvre had made it to the event. I had ordered them, and they had been marked as packed on the food list, but they just weren’t there. They were not in the house.

We had 90 minutes until guests. Our off-site kitchen was about 45 minutes away, and I am sort of shaking in my boots trying to figure out how we were going to make this right. I was wondering, like, is the food sitting on a loading dock somewhere? Had it been accidentally delivered to another party? Should I run to Whole Foods down the street and see what I can scrounge together? But that’s not what my clients had paid for.

If your blood pressure is elevated listening to this story, imagine what I felt like living it. I will skip to the good part and let you know that we found the food sitting in a hot box left behind on the loading dock of our catering kitchen. Again, like 45 minutes away. The good news is a truck was able to race the food to the event and, thankfully, most of the items were being served chilled. Think shrimp cocktail, for example. So there wasn’t a need to warm everything in time for guests.

Whew! Oh my gosh. I was so glad to get out of that line of work when it was time. So let’s fast forward, okay? When my son was born in 2012, my plan was always to leave catering. I think after that story, you can understand why. The stress, the anxiety and the pressure was eating away at me slowly. I had always dreamed of being a stay-at-home mom. And when Sid was born, I let my employer know that I wouldn’t be returning to work. I left a six-figure career, and everyone thought I was nuts. But at the time, it was the absolute best. I got to be fully present with my baby and enjoy being a mother for the first time.

Sid was a fantastic sleeper out of the gate. Honestly, I thought I was the best mom ever, and I had it all figured out. Well, that was until he hit the four-month sleep regression and he went from sleeping through the night to waking hourly, every single hour on the dot. He just wanted his pacifier replaced, but I was exhausted. And as a first-time parent, I had no clue why this was happening. This was before Facebook groups and online courses about sleep, so I had to actually read a book. I vividly remember sitting on the floor of Barnes and Noble surrounded by books about infant sleep, trying to figure out what I could do to get my little guy back to sleeping through the night again.

After some pretty extensive research, I decided to implement a variation of the Ferber method. Sid cried for 27 minutes, and so did I. But the experience was life changing. After that first night, he slept through every single night after that. Naps got better on a slower timeline but still improved drastically. And I was sold on sleep training. From this point on, I wanted to tell everyone I knew how I could help them sleep train their baby. Luckily for me, I had lots of tired mom friends who desperately wanted my help. I spent the next four-ish years helping friends and friends of friends improve sleep for their babies. I loved this work, and I wasn’t even getting paid for it.

At some point, shortly after my daughter, Ivy, was born, I decided to turn my hobby into a business. Ivy had a milk soy protein intolerance and, generally, she was a pretty miserable baby. She slept well because I knew my stuff. But if she was awake, she was crying. This all took a toll on me, and I desperately was in need of an outlet. I decided, on somewhat of a whim, to enroll in a sleep consultant certification course. I felt ready to turn my hobby and my passion into a business.

And you know what? The beginning wasn’t so glamorous. I spent many hours learning, experimenting and figuring things out. I had to learn everything as I went. I had no one guiding me or supporting me through this process. What I did have was passion and joy and excitement for my work. I made sure to always lead with that, even as I was making plenty of mistakes along the way. I think, sometimes, when we see someone else’s success, it’s easy to imagine that it all just fell into place for them.

But the truth is, success is rarely, if ever, an overnight thing. I worked very hard to stand in the position where I am today. I don’t sugar coat it or pretend that it happened easily. It was one step in front of the other, continuing to commit to my own excellence and a mastery of my craft. I am still very much a work in progress, even today. I guess what I want you to hear from me on this episode is that, yes, dreaming is important, and it’s where everything begins. But dreaming alone will not get you where you want to go. You have to pair your dreams with action. And sometimes that action is messy, imperfect and uncomfortable.

Taking that very first step—whether it be enrolling in a course, or reaching out to a mentor, or just setting some time aside to outline your short-term goals—you have to take that very first step. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Trust me. It will not be perfect. Progress matters far more than perfection. I think a lot of people miss when they see someone else’s success, the work that goes on behind the scenes. Yes, I shared on Facebook that I was enjoying a snow day, juggling client calls and serving my kids hot cocoa. That was real life.

What is also real life, the days, the months, the years it took me to get to where I am today. There are sacrifices I’ve made and challenges I faced. But here’s the thing. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, because every ounce of effort has brought me closer to a life I’m proud of and a career that allows me to bring in income for my family while being present for my family at the same time. And you can have that too, really. You actually can.

It most often does not come in the form of overnight success. If it was that easy, literally, everyone would be doing it. It won’t look exactly like my journey because your goals, your strengths and your circumstances are uniquely yours. But the principles are the same. Dream big. Work hard and keep going. I hope this episode has encouraged you to look behind the highlight reel and see the real story behind success. Your journey won’t be perfect, and it won’t always be easy. But I promise you, it will be worth it. So decide today that it’s going to be the day when you stop wishing and start doing.

Your goals are 100% within reach. All it takes is one step at a time. If I have inspired you to take that first step, allow me to spell it out for you. That first step can be to click the link in the show notes of this podcast episode and book a free discovery call with me. If you’ve been lurking in the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Facebook group, or maybe you’ve been reading my emails for some time, or perhaps you spend every Tuesday morning binging the Becoming a Sleep Consultant Podcast, now is the time to take action. Hop onto my calendar. Let’s connect, and let’s get you going today.

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. Jayne Havens