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Motherhood changes everything—our bodies, our priorities, even our brains. But what if it didn’t have to cost us our business dreams?

In this inspiring conversation with business coach and mama Cait Scudder, we explore what it really means to thrive as a modern mother—without sacrificing our ambition and our goals.

Cait opens up about her own journey through motherhood, how birth rewires the brain, and why guilt no longer gets to run the show in her life. We dive into the daily practices that keep her grounded, the mindset shifts that free her from comparison, and the powerful truth that mothers don’t have to choose between being present with their children and pursuing their business goals.

If you’ve ever wondered whether you can “have it all” as a mother and entrepreneur, this episode is your permission slip and your playbook.

About Cait Scudder

Cait Scudder is a business coach, speaker, and host of The Millionaire Mother Podcast. She helps ambitious women scale their businesses while leading lives filled with love and presence. As a mother and entrepreneur, Cait champions a vision where motherhood and ambition are not in conflict but in harmony.

In this episode we chat about:

• How our brains literally rewire after giving birth (4:19)
• A new definition of ambition for mothers (8:52)
• How to align business and family goals (14:52)
• What it truly means to “have it all” (22:37)
• Why guilt is optional—and how to unsubscribe from it (27:43)
• The first step to rewriting the story that mothers can’t have both (37:13)
• Cait’s daily routine for presence and productivity (42:27)
• Her take on homeschooling (47:12)
• Inside scoop on The Motherhood and Ambition Summit (49:43)

Episode resources:

• The Motherhood & Ambition Summit (join for FREE)
• Mastering Your Mean Girl by Melissa Ambrosini (book)
• Open Wide by Melissa Ambrosini (book)
• Comparisonitis by Melissa Ambrosini (book)
• Time Magic by Melissa Ambrosini and Nick Broadhurst (book)
• Cait Scudder (Instagram)
• The Millionaire Mother (website)
• How This Mama Built A Million-Dollar Business In 20 Hrs/Wk With 3 Kids with Cait Scudder (podcast)
• The Millionaire Mama Blueprint (& What No One Tells You) (podcast)
• Dr Joe Dizpenza (website)
• Airtasker (website)
• Care.com (website)

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The following transcript has been automatically generated and not checked for accuracy.

Melissa: [00:00:00] The Melissa Ambrosini Show. Welcome to the Melissa Ambrosini Show. I’m your host, Melissa bestselling author of Mastering Your Mean Girl, open, wide, comparisonitis and Time Magic. And I’m here to remind you that love is sexy, healthy is liberating, and wealthy isn’t a dirty word. Each week I’ll be getting up close and personal with thought leaders from around the globe, as well as your weekly dose of motivation so that you can create epic change.

Your own life and become the best version of yourself possible. Are you ready? Beautiful. Beautiful. Hey, beautiful. Welcome back to the show. I’m so excited about this episode because I have one of my beautiful friends, Kate Scutter, back on the show, and we are talking all about motherhood and ambition, and this is a conversation that you do not want to miss.

And for those of you that have never heard of Kate, she’s a high school teacher, turned multiple [00:01:00] seven figure business mentor for mother CEOs. She’s a TEDx speaker, host of The Millionaire Mother Podcast and internationally recognized online business expert, as well as a loving wife and mom to three kiddos.

Four under four. Kate’s mission is to empower ambitious mothers to create the wildly profitable businesses they dream of without sacrificing the rich motherhood experience they desire and deserve. Kate’s helped her clients generate over $30 million in collective revenue, and her work has been featured in Forbes Fast Company and Business Insider among several other publications.

You can catch glimpses of her Homesteading Mama Life in Maine at The Millionaire Mother on Instagram, or find her on the Millionaire Mother Podcast where she shares weekly episodes on how to build and scale a company to create extraordinary wealth. While navigating motherhood. Like I mentioned, this is her second time on the show.

If you wanna listen to the first time she was on the show, that is episode 6 [00:02:00] 6 1 and I went on her incredible podcast, the Millionaire Mama Podcast, and we aired that episode right here. And that is episode 6 5 9. And I’ll link to both of those other episodes in the show notes so you can go and listen to those because they are incredible.

Now, for everything that we mention in today’s episode, you can check out in the show notes and that’s over@melissaambrosini.com slash 6 7 4. And we also talk about her Motherhood and Ambition summit that is happening right now. And it is totally free, and all you have to do to register is go to melissa ambrosini.com/summit to save your spot totally free.

Now let’s bring on the inspiring Kate Scudder.

Beautiful. Kate, welcome back to the show. I’m so excited for round two baby. Round two. Yes. We [00:03:00] had such an amazing response from you coming on my show. That was episode 6, 6 1, and then we also aired me on your show, which was episode 6 5 1. So we did the swapsies and we got such a great response that I was like, I’ve gotta bring you back because there is true.

Soul sister Energy here. I feel like I have known you forever and I’m just so grateful that our paths have crossed and that you are back here for round two. 

Cait: Oh my gosh, same mama. It is so good to be here and so, so happy to be here. 

Melissa: So before we dive in, can you tell us what you had for breakfast this morning?

Cait: That is hilarious. I was just cleaning up the kitchen with Toby. I had a, a pumpkin spice smoothie is the, an protein smoothie with some truvan protein powder. I am not an ambassador, although I should be. It is well and truly autumn over here in New [00:04:00] England, so I am into pumpkin spice. Everything, but I’m cracking up because Toby just asked me to remember some random fact as we were cleaning the kitchen 15 minutes ago, and I was like, babe, I can’t even remember what I had for breakfast this morning.

And he’s like, really? I’m like, all right, fine. I had a smoothie. So had he not asked me that, I might not have been able to answer that for you. 

Melissa: It’s crazy how our brain changes so much when we give birth and when we become mothers. Like I would never have said I was someone who would forget things. Like I would never.

And since having children, I’m like, I don’t know what I did yesterday. People are like, how was your weekend? And I’m like, I dunno what we did and I have to really think about it or go back and look at my calendar to see what we did. 

Cait: Yes. Well, okay. Did we talk about this on the last episode about the chem?

Did I go into my whole neurochemistry thing? Please go. Okay, because I wanna talk to you about this because this is so real and I had the most perfect example of this happen [00:05:00] exactly yesterday. So you’re hundred percent right. Our brain changes, our neurochemistry changes, the makeup in our brain changes from pregnancy.

See through multiple years postpartum are gray matter, which is the part of the brain that is responsible for memory recall, short-term memory, executive functioning, that like quick thinking, which is why we say, oh, I have pregnancy brain, or Oh, I have mom brain. We can’t remember the word for something.

We can’t remember what we had for breakfast. But during Trence, the another part of our brain called the default mode network, the DM. N, which is a bunch of different centers in the brain, but it’s called the default mode network. This center like exponentially increases, so it’s wild. If you look at like brain mapping and patterns of different sections of the brain and how they change during pregnancy, postpartum, and that whole window of ma trence and that threshold crossing of Matre, this default mode network increases [00:06:00] and what that network is responsible for is.

What we would call just colloquially or like into our intuition, our mother’s instinct, our knowing that something is up. And literally just yesterday, because it is fall here to, in our kitchen, we have this beautiful fireplace, but it’s like an open fireplace. It’s kind of at baby height. It definitely freaked me out with baby one.

Now with baby three. I’m like, they’re fine, but I, I, I was like on the other side of the kitchen. And I just knew I could like feel, I can’t, I can’t explain it to you. I couldn’t, it wasn’t in my line of vision, but I just knew that James was close to it. And sure enough, I turned around and he was reaching his hand.

’cause he’s been like trying to help Toby with lots of jobs. He was reaching his hand into the fire and I was just like, James, no, but, and he was totally fine. But the reason I’m sharing this story is this is. Such a perfect example of this spidey sense, this mother’s instinct, this maternal intuition, which, and this if, if, when you think about this, it makes [00:07:00] sense.

Our ancestors had this evolutionary adaptation of our brains not needing to be a sharp with things like short-term memory recall, but that instinctual knowing has what? Is what has kept babies alive for millennia. And what I think is so cool about this when we think about how it applies to business is that so often when we hear interviews with billionaires or people who have built, you know, industry disrupting.

Way paving technology or innovation inside of different industries. They cite intuition as their number one superpower in business. So it’s so cool to think about the way that our brains in motherhood actually prepare us for exactly that. Mm-hmm. 

Melissa: I also feel like it’s such a beautiful time because our brains are.

Shifting so much, they’re so malleable that we can literally download [00:08:00] new programs, new belief systems that we want. To take forward with us and we can delete and erase the ones that we do not want that are no longer serving us. So I think it’s such a beautiful time instead of beating yourself up because I have seen women beat themselves up.

Oh, you know, my mum brain. And like think of it like it’s a negative thing. It is not a negative thing. It is part of nature and it’s a beautiful time to be dropping in these new programs. 

Cait: A hundred percent. I couldn’t agree more. And I also think it’s our brain, like self filtering out the stuff that we don’t need.

You know what I mean? It’s like making space for the the function that we actually require at this stage in season. Yes. 

Melissa: Oh, babe, I love this already and I’ve got so much I wanna dive deep with you. Today we’re gonna talk about your incredible Motherhood and Ambition summit, which is coming up. We’re gonna talk about that.

I wanna [00:09:00] talk about redefining ambition as a mother and what it means to pursue both work that we love in the world and in the home. Like be the present mothers that we wanna be. I wanna hear how you have navigated these two worlds. Can they coexist? Can you do both really well? I wanna hear your thoughts.

Cait: Mm. I love this question. I’m so here for it. So yes is the short answer. Absolutely. We can do both and we can do both well. However, if we are trying to pursue our definition of. Success, even our definition of ambition as it was before we had children. And I would say as a mom of multiples, as are you, we really have to reexamine that definition of success, that that understanding, our own understanding of ambition.

After every [00:10:00] single birth, after every single pregnancy, after every single child, because it completely changes the constellation of the family, the rhythm of the day to day, our own capacity as a mother, the infrastructure that we need to be able to support a harmonious rhythm. So I mean, absolutely it’s possible to do both and do both well.

And I think what is required, just like you wouldn’t plug. Get into your car and say, where are we going today? I don’t know. Let’s just drive and find out. I mean, you could go for a ride that way and that that would be one experience, I suppose. But for many of us, when we get into our vehicle, we’re plugging in our coordinates.

We know where we’re wanting to go. We have us. Sense of where we’re headed that allows us to get there. And I think with motherhood, what happened for me certainly is, you know, having my first child was a massive identity shift. It was a massive identity awakening, and yet it really [00:11:00] wasn’t for me until I had my second, and then again at a whole nother level when I had my third, when I really had to rebuild.

My sense of ambition from the ground up. So when you ask about redefining ambition, for me, you know, before I had kids, it was just as an entrepreneur, it’s like, you know, seven figure business, bestselling book, big podcast, you know, impact income. Like that’s how I was defining success while also of course having my health and having a vibrant marriage.

But it was like. It was easy to put professional accolades at the top of that list while also making sure that my values and my personal life were aligned. But then you had children into the mix and for me it was like it became just so abundantly clear If my definition of success, if I’m just trying to like.

Squeeze my kids in, like I’m trying to fit into an old pair of jeans. If I’m just trying to, you know, hop, like, just [00:12:00] get in there that, yes, I’ve got kids and I’m, I’m bringing them along the way, but my number one pursuit, my number one ambition is just about the money. Something’s wrong here. Something isn’t designed for longevity, and what’s wild to say about that is that for me, my business exploded in pregnancy.

Like I crossed seven figures when I was pregnant with my daughter. I had a $300,000 month in the last month of my pregnancy with Ella back in 2020 and that like something just. The floodgates really opened and they, you know, the phrase, A baby brings a loaf of bread. I always joke like my babies bring a whole bakery baby.

Like they’re bringing the whole French patisserie. And it’s really true. There’s so much creativity that opens. But what happened for me in that it was really recognizing. I am here to steward a big body of work, and in order to do that, I really need to make sure that I am weaving into [00:13:00] my success metrics.

I am weaving into my understanding of what it means to be an ambitious woman. The kind of mother that I want to be is all my bandwidth consumed with my next launch or my next professional pursuit, or speaking on a stage like I used to be like, oh, my biggest dream is to be a keynote speaker and be flown around the world.

And I’m like, now my biggest dream is to stay home and to make incredible money. An incredible impact. And we do, we’ve made millions and millions of dollars since I’ve become a mother, but to not have to travel, to be able to do it in my slippers, to be able to cook a homemade meal for my family every single day, not because I begrudgingly have to, and I’m huffing and puffing from the studio down to the kitchen and feeling split and like I’m falling apart.

And there are moments that I do feel like that. So let’s just be real. But I, I’m, it’s not about doing both to prove this. Superwoman energy. It’s about doing both because both [00:14:00] are part of my definition of success now. 

Melissa: Yes, babe. I love that. And you know, for me personally, I’ve never done anything in my career to prove to anyone else.

It’s always been for myself, and I don’t want people to kind of. Look at you or me and go, well, she is doing both, so I have to do that. Let’s not compare ourselves to anyone else. I think what’s really important here is you got really clear on what does success look like for you, and you went after creating that.

And that’s really important that we do that, that we go, what does it look like for me? What does that look like? How much am I working? What does that look like? Is it one day a week? You know, this is the thing that I toy with and I’m gonna be really real here with you. So there are female businesses on social media like that.

I know [00:15:00] big women that I’ve been in their masterminds and it’s incredible what they’re doing. I admire so much what they’re doing. And the impact that they’re having, the income that they’re generating, what they’re doing with that income, helping and serving, but their children are in full-time care. And I don’t wanna put my children in full-time care.

And so like that is for me, I was like, do not compare yourself to those people because it’s not a fair comparison. Like if I had, and I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with putting your children in full-time care. Like if that is true for you and that’s what you’ve gotta do, then you gotta do what’s right for you and your family.

But for me, I don’t wanna do that. Therefore, like. There is a level of sacrifice that I have to make in terms of like where I want my business to be. The income and the impact [00:16:00] goals. What are your thoughts on that? 

Cait: A hundred percent and I mean, what really comes through for me so strongly is I’m hearing you say that is.

Uh, number one, putting the blinders on and not doing the comparison game. I mean, I think it is helpful to take in inspiration and stories from other people, but if you find yourself doom scrolling and in this comparison loop of look at her living her dream, having it all, doing it all, it’s just like that helps no one ever.

So get outta that habit. Absolutely not. And what you are highlighting, I think is so, so important, which is seasons, right? Like we talked about this the other day. You don’t have to. This feeling of being behind or the danger. I think the real danger of when we compare ourselves to other people is we start to feel like we’re in a race.

Whether it’s we’re in a race to get to a certain number of followers, or we’re in a race to get to a certain metric, or we’re in a race to, and even if internally, we’re only racing against ourselves, when we start to look [00:17:00] outward and look at, oh, well she’s doing this, she’s doing this. That can be really dangerous.

So I 100% agree with you to come home to self. Come home to center. What am I placing as my highest priority in this moment? And building for that. And I think it is important to see beautiful examples like you, like myself, like others who are finding their way. Not to take that particular way as the gospel truth that every person has to follow exactly to a tee, but to mix and match and feel like, okay, you know, I talked to colleagues of ours, friends of ours, people in this industry who are also crushing, who are like, you couldn’t pay me to want to cook dinner every single night.

Like that’s something that I would happily outsource. And I’m like, for me. That that doesn’t fit my definition of success. Not because I think it’s like wrong, morally wrong to order DoorDash or something, but because for me, I know that part of my legacy when I talk about building a [00:18:00] legacy in the home and in the world, I mean that.

So seriously, like every single time I go into my kitchen, oh, why am I gonna cry? Am I, I’m like, am I getting my period early? Every single time I go into the kitchen, I light a candle and I put on music. And that is because my mother did that when I was growing up. That is her legacy. She didn’t teach me, this is how you mother.

She just did it. And that I absorbed that through osmosis. And I said this to her the other day. I was cooking like a beautiful pot roast dinner. It was a sundae. Grassed beef from a local farm. And I’m like, my love for, I’m sure my love for cooking came because she loved cooking and she loved nurturing our family.

She loved creating an environment that was warm and felt like I would come home from sports practice. There would always be something delicious on the stove. There would always be a candle lit, and now that is a tradition that I carry on. So it’s really, really important to me that whatever I’m building for, [00:19:00] I’m building with that in mind.

So whether it is. The childcare piece, and it’s like, I am not actually, it doesn’t fit my definition of success to be away from them 40 hours a week, or it doesn’t fit my definition of success to outsource some of these important home things like for me, with the cooking and the home making and the energy and the essence, particularly of the kitchen.

Those are things I’m not prepared to sacrifice. Then on the other hand, laundry, I am very happy to sacrifice. I don’t feel a particular emotional attachment to doing my laundry, and so that is something that I outsource and that I sacrifice. So I do, I think it’s so personal and I think it really is about.

Recognizing what do I value? I’m not running anyone else’s race but mine. What do I value? How do I want a mother and what am I prepared? How hard am I prepared to work and how much am I premier prepared to work in that juggle on the other side? 

Melissa: Yes. Oh my [00:20:00] gosh. I love that so much that your mother did that.

It’s so beautiful. I put. Jazz music on, like we have jazz music softly playing in the background. 

Cait: Stop. We’re on vintage autumn jazz right now. Are we the same person? What’s going on? It’s the best. That slow jazz and a candle, it’s just a vibe. 

Melissa: My nervous system loves it. I’ve tried bin beats, I’ve tried classical music.

I’ve tried Mozart. Nothing affects my soul and nervous system. As deeply as jazz music. So we have it on volume eight, which is like just audible. It’s like beautiful. I have that playing in our house whenever we are eating our meals and also whenever we sit down for dinner, I light a beeswax candle that Bambi and I have made.

We have made that candle and it’s so beautiful. It’s just such a [00:21:00] beautiful ritual. I lay the tablecloth, I put place mats. I. Lay the cutlery. I mean, this is not like fancy, it’s a linen tablecloth that I tie dyed myself, and it’s not actually about like having. Beautiful or expensive things. It’s just about the ritual for me now.

I saw my mother not do what your mother did. I saw my mother rush dinner. I saw my mother not really enjoy it. She was a working mother and three children and she was very busy. And you know, for her dinner was always an afterthought. And I noticed myself when I became a mother, slip into those same habits.

I would throw a place mat on the table, not neatly, place it perfectly. And I remember catching myself one day going, oh no, no, no, no. That’s not what I wanna do. I wanna set the table beautifully. [00:22:00] I want this legacy, like you said, to carry on. I want my children to remember the feeling of. Dinner time of mealtime in my house.

And so now I do those beautiful rituals. But I loved your idea of lighting a candle whilst I cook as well. I love that idea too. But we usually do it when we sit down and we do a gratitude prayer and a little song, and it’s just such a beautiful thing. So I think we all need to get super clear on what is success for us in the home and what is success for us in the business.

And I wanna hear, can you redefine what it means to have it all as a modern mother? 

Cait: For me, having it all is about fulfillment. On a soul level, it’s about fulfillment and fulfillment. The thing that is different from achievement. Versus fulfillment. [00:23:00] Achievement is something I have gotten, something I have done, a marker that I have hit.

Fulfillment is a feeling nobody can tell you that you have arrived at fulfillment except for yourself and your own soul. So for me. The feeling of fulfillment is what it means to have it all fulfillment in my marriage, knowing that not, it doesn’t just look good on the outside. It feels good on the inside.

Toby just got back from a trip. He was gone for a week at a Joe Dispenza retreat. Have you ever done Joe Dispenza? He’s supposed to be amazing. I’m like, he’s waking up at 4:00 AM to meditate. I’m like. Okay. That was amazing. I’ve never done 

Melissa: his retreat, but I want to, I think once I am out of my breastfeeding season, do you know I’ve never had a night away from Bambi.

She’s four and three quarters and I’ve never had a night away from her ever. And mainly because like I [00:24:00] have not been ready. 

Cait: Yeah, I so hear that. I’m going away from James one night tomorrow, and I just, I like talked to him for half an hour about it tonight. I was like, buddy, I so, so feel you with that.

It’s a huge pro. It’s a huge step. It’s a totally huge step. 

Melissa: Yes. And I think as well, like coming back to like, you’ve gotta do what feels right for you. I have friends that left their, their, you know, three week old of overnight. I’m like. If that feels good for you, go for it. Like you’ve just gotta do what feels right for you and not compare.

I wrote the book on comparison. 

Cait: Yeah, totally. You did. You literally wrote the manual. And 

Melissa: it’s, you know, I need to remind myself all the time. 

Cait: Oh, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. I love that so much. Well, going back to what I was saying before, so Toby was away anyway. He came back and I, we have a beautiful hydrangea plant.

We have a big garden here at our farm, and I came into my bathroom and he had picked a hydrangea from our garden and put it in this beautiful vase, and left me just like the sweetest little note, and I’m [00:25:00] like. That that’s having it all to me, my children running up to me and giving me the biggest cuddle, but also feeling.

Like close enough when I drop them off for a play date or something to go run and be part of it. That’s fulfillment. My home feeling harmonic and filled with love and beautiful, not because it’s fancy, but just because it is. It’s just infused with love. That’s success for me. Having financial freedom, creating an impact in my business, seeing my clients like changing their lives, changing their marriages, changing their.

Line, literally their lineage and their, their entire financial reality that’s having it all to me. And so I talk a lot about the transition, not just from maiden to mother, but from like. How would I wanna say this? A more immature, for lack of a better term, expression of the feminine. And [00:26:00] there’s nothing wrong with immature.

It’s just a younger, there’s so many beautiful things about the younger versions of us, and I would be lying if I said there aren’t things that I miss about my maiden days. I was scrolling back through old photo shoots for something and I was like, girl, friend, those legs, are you serious right now? And I was just remembering that.

Lifestyle when like, oh, the biggest concern I had living in Bali was like. Which raw, organic vegan cafe am I gonna work from today? And now it’s like, how am I gonna spread myself like an octopus and do all of these things that I have to do? Right? So it’s not about like shaming our earlier selves or shaming our maiden selves, but it’s just about recognizing for me the evolution of maiden into Mother made into matriarch.

Embodying this mature feminine is about moving from. Striving just for achievement to really measuring, having it all by fulfillment. And what’s super cool, and there are many teachers on manifestation, [00:27:00] that’s not necessarily my main thing, but there are many, many teachers on manifestation. I’m sure you’ve interviewed a bunch of them on this show who will say that the fastest way to get to what you want, so the achievement that you want is to start by being in the.

Experience of having it. And so for me that is what having it all is really about. Can I savor and fully receive everything that’s already here? Can I choose, actively choose what I’m choosing so that I can expand my aperture to fully receive it, be deeply fulfilled by it and create more from that place.

Melissa: Yeah. Beautiful. I love that so much. Let’s talk about guilt. Guilt. If we’re working too much guilt, if we are not working enough. There’s, there’s the motherhood guilt, there’s, I know papas feel the guilt too. I heard someone once say, before I had my first, I chose [00:28:00] to consciously unsubscribe from the guilt.

And she was like, I’m not, I’m not gonna buy into it. I’m just not. And then she had her son and six months in, I said. Have you felt the guilt? And she was like, oh yeah, oh yeah. Even though I had the awareness. So how can we unsubscribe from the guilt? I wanna talk about like what do you do, like when it comes up strategically, how do you move through it?

Cait: Okay, so I’m gonna give you a really good example. So yesterday I was in the car driving my two big kids to EG. Now goes to kindergarten. You’ve got three kids. Can you tell us their ages? So I’ve got Ella, who is almost five. She’s gonna be five in a couple of weeks. I have Jack, who’s three and a quarter ish, and I have James, who’s 18 months.

I’m still co-sleeping and breastfeeding around the clock, my little jamesy and, and then we’ve got Jack and Ella, and [00:29:00] they look like twins. Jack is enormous. So that’s my crew. They’re the best. The best. Are you having any more, or are you Yeah, we wanna have at least one more we’re we want a whole wolf pack.

My dad’s like, make a basketball team. I’m like, I dunno about five, but we’re definitely going for four at least. And then we’ll see how we go. Oh my gosh, you’re amazing. Yes, it’s wild. But you know, it’s, I think. It’s kind of like pregnancy itself. I don’t know if you can see or you can’t see from where the video is right now, but I have this belly cast of like a plaster belly cast for my last pregnancy, and I grow big babies.

Both the boys were 11 pounds. It’s like our bodies expand past the capacity that we think should be possible. I don’t know if this happened to you, but I feel like every time towards the end, like 37, 38 weeks, I find myself looking down at my belly and being like. What has to come out of where now like, okay.

But you know, it’s just like our capacity grows with each [00:30:00] child and that’s just how it is. So anyway, I was in the car driving Jack and Ella down to school. Jack goes to this little cute, cute little home preschool, which he loves, and Ella is in kindergarten and Jack. So we drop Ella off first. And Jack was coming home and we are just trying out a new like part-time nanny at home with James.

I’ve been juggling like no childcare, so we’re in just a flux over here. So we don’t have it beded down. It’s just been a moving feast over here. But anyway, Jackie, our, everyone in our house has been moving through a little cold and Jack started to cry in the car going from Ella’s school to his school, and he’s like, mom, I’m feeling really sad.

I don’t wanna go. And I, in that moment I was like. Shoot, should I? And it was, it was interesting ’cause I’m normally just like, trust my gut. I’m a splenic manifester. So I’m very much just like trust my gut, trust my instinct and just move with it. But I was really like. [00:31:00] What’s the right thing to do here? I, he’s just having some feelings.

I know he’s gonna be fine now. I wouldn’t have just left him crying. I would’ve stayed with him. But he loves his little preschool. Well, I didn’t, I I was like, it’s okay, buddy. You can come home. Part of me wanted to see how he would go with this new nanny at home and how she would go with two of them. So I was like, that’s just what we’re gonna do.

But then on the way home, I was beating myself up so much, Melissa. I was like. I did not set a strong container for him. Like he, you know, I, I don’t believe like our, we don’t subscribe to one particular parenting philosophy, but I don’t believe in like that it is in the best interest of a child to just bow to every whimsy that a three-year-old has.

I think they do need that structure and so I was just being so unusually hard on myself and what really helped me in the moment, not spiral and not go down a rabbit hole, was like Kate. You made the choice that you made, maybe you would do it differently next time, but [00:32:00] like Jack doesn’t need you to spiral out right now.

Jack needs you to be, I love the Dr. Becky phrase, a sturdy leader right now, and you might have like given in to that request. And that’s okay. You’re an amazing mom. And so I really like coach myself like that. I literally pep talk myself. I was doing that in the car on the way home, not out loud so that he could hear it, but I was really having to self-coach myself through that.

And I think this is true in business, this is true in parenting. The way I think the single best way to combat the guilt is to not participate in the crusade of making ourselves wrong. We have to just. Back ourselves in the decisions that we make. Know that we are doing the best we can with the information that we can at the time.

Always available to refine, always available to learn, but not find the like niggly satisfaction of giving ourselves a hard time. 

Melissa: Yeah, [00:33:00] absolutely. Just before we started, we were down in the kitchen and I was so flustered, like we’ve just finished breakfast, there’s stuff everywhere. There’s like five loads of laundry.

There’s food everywhere. The dishwasher is still not unpacked. And I said to Nick, Hey, like, what if I tried a new strategy and I just left the house? All day and then cleaned it up once at the end of the day and he was like, I think that strategy is extremely flawed. And I feel like if we just kind of like as we go, we do little bits and I was like, I’m gonna try it.

And I was getting so flustered like Prince had just fallen, hid his head. Bambi was not wanting to go for a walk with our nanny. And I knew I had this interview with you and I was like, and Nick could see me kind of like spiraling and he just goes, Hey babe, you are an amazing mom. And I was just like, like, I just, I needed that.

Yes, I needed that, but like, why can’t I do that for myself? You know? And like let’s all set [00:34:00] alarms in our phone that go off at midday every day or whatever time that say, you are an amazing mom. You are an amazing mom. Imagine if that went off every day. I’m gonna do that. 

Cait: I love that. Yes, me too. I love that.

That’s so great. Yes, to that alarm. And it’s funny, in Jack School, they have this classroom, I can’t remember what the platform is, but it’s a platform that lets them send like secure photos, just. To the like five parents that are part of this little homeschool playgroup. And I was looking at all the different activities that she planned and I sent her this text of like, thank you for being so thoughtful and thank you for loving on our boys so well.

And it just, as I was sending that message, it was such a moment of self-reflection because. We’re not publishing like nobody would know of that moment that you just shared where you were juggling a million different things. ’cause these are the thousands of unseen moments in motherhood that each and every person listening to this episode, who’s a [00:35:00] mother lives day in and day out.

And we don’t have an audience other than our families, who are also pulled in a hundred different directions. Or kids who are kids and not necessarily gonna say it, especially when they’re super young. But having those glimpses in those moments, whether it’s your husband from the outs. Side or a care provider or somebody just hold up that mirror and be like, wow, you put so much care into this.

I think it can just make the world of difference. So I love that invitation to turn it back in on ourselves and even just call to mind, like think about 10 of the thoughtful things that you did today that nobody might have praised or seen, but that you did well. Like we’re fucking amazing. Totally. 

Melissa: And the thing is, baby, like.

I care so much. I care and like, and it’s making me emotional. Even just saying it like I care so much about their childhood. I want it to be so beautiful [00:36:00] and so magical. It’s my job to make it beautiful and magical and warm and safe. No one else is going to do that for them. It’s me and I care so deeply.

That I think I put a bit too much pressure on myself sometimes. And yeah, like when there’s laundry everywhere and, and things everywhere. I think this is like another thing that I do really well is like anything I don’t wanna do, I outsource, and we spoke about this before, like I don’t want to do all the laundry.

I don’t wanna make beds, I don’t wanna clean the house. I would rather be with my children or be working, you know, I don’t want to take up my time doing that for this season in my life. Like sure. Like, you know, I look at my parents who, they don’t have their three children in the house. They, my mom has time to mop her floors, like, you know what I mean?

And we care so much about our home, and [00:37:00] we also care so much about our work and the work that we are doing. The impact that we’re having and and wanting to help other people. You and I both care so deeply. So for someone listening who dreams of having both that beautiful, rich, abundant family life and also the ambition, the business, the success, the impact, the income as well, where can they start today to start?

Rewriting the story that they must choose between the two. Like where can they start? 

Cait: Okay, what’s coming up is super practical and I always think that a grounded, practical tip when we’re swirling in the chaos of trying to hold both is really helpful. Start making a list of the things that you feel like you are drowning in at home.

Like laundry. Exactly. [00:38:00] Like laundry. It could even be like I shared with you before, I love cooking, but I don’t like necessarily doing all the soup chef stuff. I don’t like doing the chopping of the onion. I mean, I don’t mind it, but I don’t need to do that. And this is something we talk about a lot as you know, I’m a business coach, you’re a business coach.

People who, when we, we hear this talk a lot in our businesses, but the thing that I have seen over and again, coaching now. Thousands of mother entrepreneurs. Is that the actual advantage or the actual thing that most of us need help with in order to do both? Well, it’s not first another business strategy.

Yes, there are strategies to build your business more in alignment with motherhood, refine your offer suite in a way that. Serves you more for motherhood, but before we even address that, where I would say for a mother who is wanting to start is do an audit of where you are drowning at home. Because we all know when our brain is pulled in 10 million different directions, it is nearly [00:39:00] impossible.

Even when we get an hour and a half of nap time, free and clear to work on our business, it’s really hard to focus during that time when we have. So many mental open tabs on the home front. So the first thing that I would say is make a mental list of all the places that you’re drowning at home, and then I want you to look at your hourly rate.

What I mean by that is, now you, this is, this is relevant for any different industry. This is relevant for any different business model. I’m sure our listeners here have a range of different businesses, but I want you to think about. If I outsourced this task, if I hired somebody for $30 an hour to come in for three hours this week to help me with laundry, would buying back those three hours of my time enable me to make more than $90?

If so, make that hire because what. Uh, there is a drastic difference between having it all and doing it all. [00:40:00] And many of our generations, the, the generation they became before us, our generation’s mothers, they were of the superwoman generation. You know, it was post the message of the seventies and eighties of like the feminist era, which was very.

Important milestone for women, and I’m so grateful to our ancestors for going through that whole process. But what emerged from that was, I’m equal to a man. I can do it all. I’m just gonna like hustle my way in a power suit with shoulder pads and have it all by doing it all. And what we saw is a generation that suffered from a ton of autoimmune conditions.

My mom has an autoimmune condition, a ton of health issues, a ton of adrenal fatigue, a ton of burnout, and we really are that first generation. Who is able to build a seven figure business from our phone if we so choose, and if we so desire who are not having to make that sacrifice and trade off. And [00:41:00] so I would say closely examine the places that you feel like you’re drowning.

Closely examine your internal conditioning. That says outsourcing some aspect of home life makes you an inferior woman, an inferior mother, somebody who doesn’t care, somebody who isn’t, you know, invested and get really devoted to freeing up some of your bandwidth. So that you are able to hold both and build both in the way that you truly want.

Melissa: Mm, I love that everyone, go and make that list. Make that list and delegate, delegate, delegate. You can use websites like Airtasker. I’m not sure if you have that. Yes. Where you are. 

Cait: Yep. We’ve got care.com. Yeah. I used Sarah Tasker when we were in Australia. That’s so funny. Yep. It is the thing, and I think that examining the parts of us that feel, oh, I feel bad.

Oh, I feel guilty. It’s like, if you truly, my [00:42:00] experience is if you truly wanna have it all, you have to let go of the idea that you need to do at all. 

Melissa: I do not feel bad or guilty at all for other people cleaning my house. Or for folding my laundry. I do not feel bad at all for that. Nope. No. No. I would rather be playing with my children.

Yep, a hundred percent. Oh, I love that practical tip. So good. So, so, so good. So talk us through your day at the moment. When do you work? Like when do you get it in? Talk us through a quote unquote typical day in your life. Three little kids business and you’re currently living in Maine, which I’m gonna come visit for sure one day.

Cait: Babe. Oh my gosh. You’re a kiddo. I am like, yes. Get over here. We were on 12 acres. We really have, you were speaking of a magical childhood. Every day I go outside with my kids, I, I just pinch myself because it really is a paradise here. Like they, for them. [00:43:00] We’ve got 12 acres. We’ve got free range chickens just roaming around.

They’re absolutely nuts. They think sometimes they try to go into the house. It like really is a zoo. They’re so sweet. They make us the most beautiful eggs. It is just so special. So I wake up around anywhere between five 30 because my little jack, Jack likes to come into the bed around then and six o’clock we get up, we go down and have breakfast.

I get the kitties, the big kitties ready for school. This is a brand new routine, by the way, as of three weeks ago, because we just started a new school year over here in America, and Ella just started kindergarten and Jack just started this school. So we’re still getting into that, that rhythm and flow. I drive the kids to school.

It’s a bit of a far drive for us. It’s about 40, 45 minutes, so I don’t get back to my house until around nine 30 or even 10. So I don’t start my working day until then Now. I will say, just to get, again, I wanna keep it super valuable and super practical. One of the things that I have become [00:44:00] exceptional at as a mom, I think Tony Robbins originally came up with this term and called it chunking, but basically, and James Clear calls it habit stacking.

It’s not so much of a habit stack, but it’s like. What can I do in my time? So I can do two things at once. Not to fragment my brain and, you know, be super distracted, but I am obviously not like checking emails or writing content or something while I’m driving my home from dropping off my kids. But if I need to listen to some voice messages or I need to have a quick, you know, oftentimes I’ll hop on a quick impromptu 15 minute phone call with my.

COO, who lives on this side of the world and lives in my time zone, and I’ll just brief with her for the day. So I don’t have to do, I don’t have to wait to sit down and slack her, Hey, can you do this? I’ll just pick up the phone and call her when I’m driving. So those are some examples of things that I do in the car.

I’ll get back to the house. I’ll work from 10 till about [00:45:00] three. I mean nine times out of 10. I will break for lunch in the middle of the day, barring a meeting of some kind. But I have a lunch break, hour long lunch break scheduled into my day so I can eat with the kids. Well, the kids now, it’s just James.

It’s, see, it’s so weird. They’re not that. They’re not here right now, but I’ll have lunch with Jamesy. He’ll go down for his nap. I’ll get another couple of hours of work in and then. The big kids get home around 3 45 and I’m here with them and you know, I’m doing the second shift right now, it’s eight 20 my time, local time PM at the time of recording this.

So sometimes if it’s a other side of the world call or I’m getting back and catching up on some stuff that I didn’t have the chance to, I’ll work even after the kids go to bed. And I really wanna name that because. Again, talking about guilt, a lot of, a lot of the messaging, this like really drives me nuts in the online space, is like just be in a bubble bath and manifest it and don’t work.

And if you really have it made, you are like [00:46:00] barely working and making millions. And I think we do such a disservice. Like if you wanna build a million dollar business, you better be prepared to work, not to work all the time. Certainly not to grind, but certainly to put your devotion into it. And for a lot of moms.

Again, going back to our definition of success, sure we could work eight to five, like most quote unquote normal people are. But then we have to sacrifice, you know, being there for our kids at these critical moments of their day. And so I often choose to work on, I’m writing a book right now to work on some other special projects to do interviews like this after hours.

I call it the second shift. And that feels, and not always, sometimes I’m tired and I don’t wanna do that. I just wanna read a book or something, but. I think it’s so important to normalize that time to work and not make ourselves feel bad or wrong, or like we’re doing it wrong if we, you know, work after our kids go down.

Melissa: Yeah, absolutely. I love that you said that because you know, sometimes you just have to [00:47:00] get a little bit in and I try not to go too late into the night. I put my blue light blocking glasses on, but if it requires me to do a little bit after they’ve gone to bed, then I do. So I love that so much. Another question for you.

Did you ever think about homeschooling your children? 

Cait: Oh girl. This is the, this is the debacle. Yes, I have thought about it. I think, yes, we will end up homeschool. I mean, we have to, right? We, when I say we have to, we decided to put Ella and Jack in school, the two schools that they’re in right now, this year, because we are.

Full-time. Our person who was with us full-time over the summer, well she wasn’t actually with us. She was only eight to one. Anyway, our, our consistent nanny is moved, and so we were like, okay. I knew that I wasn’t gonna be with them 40 hours a week, like full-time at home, but we didn’t have any leads at all for home [00:48:00] care, and I felt that where Ella and Jack were at, they really could benefit from a cadence and a structure from a school environment that felt aligned with our values.

So anyway, long story short, we decided to put them in school. However, I know that long term for the kind of travel that we wanna do for the flexibility we have property in Australia, Toby’s Australian as you know. We just want, he’s like convinced, he’s like, I wanna go sailing one year with them. I wanna do an Africa overland adventure.

My best friend lives in South Africa, so I’m just like, we we’re, we’re just gonna be world, world schoolers. I know that. So we’re doing. We’re doing a really sweet school setup for them this year for the big two, but homeschooling is definitely gonna be in our future. And you know, going back to what I was speaking about before, I am in a season of really big crescendo in my career.

I’m writing a book, there’s. So many different [00:49:00] cool initiatives that we have on right now, just really focusing on impact and growth, and so it works to have them in a school that’s really serving them. I can so see that once the book is out that I will have more bandwidth and capacity on the home front and home.

I’m, I can’t wait to homeschool them. So yes, we’ve thought about it and it’s all about timing and seasons, right? Yeah. Can we please. 

Melissa: Live on the same land together and raise our babies 

Cait: together. Millionaire Mother Commune. 

Melissa: It’s happening. I love it. It’s so beautiful. Oh, this is, yeah. Just what dreams are made of.

Right? So I love that. Now I wanna tell everyone about the Motherhood and Ambition Summit, which is running from September 30 till October nine. 

Cait: It’s actually just dropping on the 10th. So the promo window is from September 30 to October [00:50:00] 9th, but it airs on 10 10 at 10:00 AM Eastern New York time. Amazing.

Melissa: So tell us about this summit and I want everyone to go to melissa ramini.com/summit. S-U-M-M-I-T to check this out, and I’ll put the link in the show notes as well. But tell us about your Motherhood and Ambition Summit. Is it free? Tell us what we can expect. 

Cait: A hundred percent. Okay. I am so excited about this.

It is totally free if you are a mom, even if you’re not a mom, if you’re even considering having kids and you want to create an impact and amazing income in your business, you are grappling with what does work, what does career, what does ambition look like for me while I’m holding motherhood, you need to register.

I have. So many amazing women in my life. Melissa, you included as one of them who I just [00:51:00] love, adore, respect women who come from all sorts of different backgrounds. We have New York Times bestselling authors, we have international speakers, keynote speakers, facilitators, women who come from the motherhood and parenting spaces, women who come from.

The business and entrepreneurial spaces, women who come from health and spirituality, this incredible convergence, birth workers, women of all walks of all spectrums and stages and seasons of motherhood who have built extraordinary success in the external. And they have grappled with this core question of.

What does it mean to hold both, and how do I hold both? And just as we spoke about so beautifully today about not feeling like we have to do it the same way one certain person is doing it. I wanted to bring together some of these leading voices in the space of motherhood and entrepreneurship. To hear how she’s [00:52:00] done it, how she’s done it, so that women who are wanting to build both, who are wanting to pursue both motherhood and their ambition, can hear from a variety of different accomplished speakers who are living their version of having it all and get their insiders.

Secrets. There are practical tips as well as the inner shifts that have made all the difference. And so that is what’s happening inside of the summit. The juiciest thing that I will say, because I, I’m not a big summit person, which is so funny to say, but I created this summit for, not summit. People like me, I’m like, I don’t have.

Two, uh, 90 minutes to listen to each one of these interviews. So we made this summit super digestible for busy moms. The interviews are between 12 and 18 minutes. They are punchy, poppy, and they are gonna give you so much value from some of your favorite people in the online space. You, you just, it, it’s not to be missed.

Melissa: Okay? I am so [00:53:00] excited for this and I am totally not a summit person. I get requests to speak at summits every single week in my inbox. My team send me them all the time, do you wanna do this summit? Do you wanna do this summit? And I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Then you drop in and you’re like, can you speak at this summit?

I’m like, hell yes. And it’s only 20 minutes I am in. Whatever you create, I’m just all for. So, I’m so excited. It is totally free. The Motherhood and Ambition Summit, go to melissa emini.com/summit to register. It’s going to be amazing. I’ve seen the lineup of people and it’s going to be epic. So I’ll link to that again in the show notes for you guys.

So, Kate, this has been so amazing. I absolutely love any time that we get together. 

Cait: Same mama. It’s just such a joy. It’s like we’re picking up from a conversation from [00:54:00] long ago. It’s the best. It’s so good. 

Melissa: Before I go, is there anything else you wanna share and how can I serve you today? 

Cait: Hmm. I mean, you just did.

I feel like what? A cup runneth over filler upper to be able to pop on. I was saying to you, you were scrambling at post breakfast. I was scrambling post bedtime witching hour. And just like what an exhale it is to just drop it with a girlfriend after being full on in parenting. What a gift. What I wanna say is come join the summit if you’re listening to this and know you are absolutely born for both.

Melissa: Mm. Thank you, beautiful lady. It has been such a pleasure to have you back on the show. You’re always welcome. Thank you so much for having me.

I hope you got a lot out of this conversation, and if you did, please follow and subscribe to the show and leave me a review on Apple Podcasts. And then I want you to email me a [00:55:00] screenshot of your review to hello@melissaambrosini.com and I will send you my wildly wealthy guided meditation totally free as little Thank you for taking the time to leave me a review.

Now come and tell me on Instagram at Melissa Ambrosini, what you got from this episode. What is your biggest key takeaway? I love hearing from you and I love connecting with you. And before I go, I just wanted to remind you to register for the Motherhood and Ambition Summit. Go to melissa ambrosini.com/summit to save your seat for free.

And just a final thank you for being here. For wanting to be the best, the healthiest, the happiest version of yourself, and for showing up today for you, you rock. Now, if there’s someone in your life that you can think of that would really benefit from this episode, please share it with them right now.

You can take a screenshot, share it on your social media, email it to them, text it to them, do whatever you’ve got to do to get this in their ears. And until next time, don’t forget that love is sexy. [00:56:00] Healthy is liberating, and wealthy isn’t a dirty word.

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