Tag Archives: mum

Mothers who are juggling making incomes form their interests with raising kids (and, in some cases, holding day jobs down too)!

Stephanie L H Calahan, The Business Vision Catalyst – Episode 98

Business Vision Catalyst and founder of Calahan Solutions, Inc. Stephanie L H Calahan works with busy, purpose-driven entrepreneurs at the intersection of heart and head, to leverage their business and get their message out with power, ease and joy; so they can make a powerfully positive difference in the world, exponentially up-level their profits, shift their mindset towards possibility and take a no-excuses approach to boldly creating a highly successful and meaningful business built around who they are. In short, to enjoy a highly-successful and meaningful business… while working less.

After Stephanie chose to leave a successful-on-paper nine-to-five corporate life that was putting her through an emotional and physical wringer, she quickly discovered that if not approached correctly, entrepreneurship could be just as damaging. Ultimately, she stepped back and re-defined everything, and now lives a self-employed working and family life that brings her all the benefits she offers her customers.

Stephanie and I have a great chat about being a consultant from childhood, armchair travel, unlocking the golden handcuffs, a blinding flash of the obvious, giving a child the benefits of a stay-at-home mom without being one and the crippling fear of disappointing your spouse.

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Lauren Dawes: Hybrid Paranormal Romance Author – Episode 97

Hybrid paranormal romance author Lauren Dawes writes the Half Blood series, four novels of the Helheim Wolf Pack, and the Dark trilogy, tales of ancient Norse gods living and battling amongst humanity. The Dark series are published by Pan MacMillan, while Lauren self-publishes the Half Blood series.

Lauren was born in South Africa to English parents who then raised her and her brother in Sydney. She loves reading, naturally, but also travelling and, perhaps unsurprisingly given the action-packed nature of her novels, muay thai kick boxing. Her love of urban fantasy and paranormal romance sprang from reading authors like Laurell K. Hamilton, J.R. Ward and Charlaine Harris.

Lauren and I have a great chat about what Stephenie Meyer did to the vampire genre, the author’s burden of the rejection slip, juggling writing with raising a youngster while the armed forces make off with your husband, the work of world building, going from writing a novel in private to speaking at panels in conventions.

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Why Being Paid to Play is Vital to Raising Your Kids

One of the things that Adam of Sprue Grey wrote in his comment on Episode 3 was that he feels that being a dad to a young kid means that he has to put his unfulfilled wish to open and own a geek culture store on hold.

Now, I’m not a Dad. Well, not of human kids, anyway: Vickie and I have a pair of fur-babies.

But that thought gets to me. Why must it be an either / or?

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Solopreneur Style Maven: Gerlinda Aras, Mirror Image Consultations – Episode 31 / Brazen Episode 3

Gerlinda Aras of Mirror Image Consultations.

Gerlinda Aras, owner, operator and chief stylist of Mirror Image Consultations. Image provided by Gerlinda.

Welcome back for the third edition of The Paid to Play Podcast released in conjunction with Brazen!

Having a child tends to put a cramp on your ambitions – a stable, secure income from an employer looks more attractive than the unreliable income of a freelancer when you need to feed, clothe and educate your kids.

Cairns local Gerlinda Aras, though, used the impetus of wanting more family time than her day job would allow to create her own business as a style consultant for individuals and clothing store chains. With a little help from family and friends, Gerlinda is now completely self-employed and has no shortage of work!

Listen in to find out how Gerlinda does it – and how I’m applying the lessons I’ve learned from her in my own search to get paid to play!

Styling Her Way to Self-Employment: Gerlinda Aras, Mirror Image Consultations – The Brazen Careerist

As this is cross-posted from the Brazen Careerist web log, I’ve closed all comments on this page. Can you place any comments on the Brazen page linked above, please?

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Ultimate Freedom through Internet Entrepreneurship: Michelle Ward, Episode 26

I’ve listened to a fair few life-change and small business podcasts in the last year or so, and a lot of them talk about Financial Freedom as an aim and an achievement. It’s one thing to hear podcasters in the States talk about it, though, and another thing to meet an example of it.

Michelle Ward has been pursuing alternative income streams for almost a decade and has amassed such a broad portfolio of affiliate sales sites that she has the freedom to explore where her interests take her, whether full-time employeehood or even freelancing. After getting to know her at work, I just had to talk with Michelle about how she became an Internet entrepreneur!

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Episode 13: Leigh Dall’Osto, Supplemental

Leigh Dall’Osto is one of my more popular guests, and her story of going from the campaign trail of a local government election to opening a successful fusion of cafe and community centre in Edmonton, on Cairns’ south side, has garnered some interest outside the podcast too.

A few weeks ago I was talking with one of the writers at work about the podcast, and he asked me if I could pen a few words about career changes with Leigh as the sample case. I submittted a draft, and he asked if I could get Leigh to tell me more about that period between when Leigh lost the election and opened the cafe.

Thankfully, Leigh was happy to answer my extra questions over the phone. Thanks to having Leigh on speaker, I was able to record the conversation for quotes in the article – and after I was done, I realised the recording would make a great episode!

So please enjoy the return of the effervescent Leigh Dall’Osto to the Paid to Play Podcast!

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Episode 12: Mur Lafferty, Author and Podcaster

Mur Lafferty is one of the first podcasters I ever listened to. When I decided to take a crack at writing again, I stumbled across Mur’s podcast I Should Be Writing and downloaded as much of it as I could – which is a lot of episodes. Just recently, Mur recorded her 250th episode – and that’s not counting all the extra episodes she’s done.

I Should Be Writing is for people who want to be authors what I hope my podcast is for people who want to follow their passions. Though she has a strong genre focus, Mur interviews authors who have secured themselves publishing deals for any works, asking them about how they write and how they got published. Not only that, Mur gives all us wannabes a little moral support by talking about her own progress to published authordom.

That’s right; Mur Lafferty is also an author, with two novels (one published and one self-published), a series of novellas and a raft of short stories – not to mention another novel coming out next year via publisher Orbit Books!

But not only is Mur a podcaster, she’s a podcasting professional. On top of I Should Be Writing, Mur is the senior editor of the science fiction short story podcast, Escape Pod (for which she also writes and narrates) and host of the official podcast of UK publisher Angry Robot Books.

So I just had to interview her about how she gets it all done!

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Episode 6: Leigh Dall’Osto, Plan B Cafe

The common trend in career changes is people giving up their old job in order to focus on what they love to do. While opening and managing a cafe might seem about as far removed from politics as you can get, Leigh Dall’Osto opened Plan B Cafe in order to keep doing what she’s always wanted to do, even when political avenues closed on her – help bring the people in her community, the town of Edmonton (around fifteen kilometres south of Cairns), together.

In my second location recording, I had the chance to sit down with Leigh at her cafe and talk about just how a cafe can help people get to know others in their own town – and what some of the surprises along the way have been!

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