Welcome to the launch of The Female CEO...

So here it is, my first ever blog and my God I am nervous, I’m not sure why, I’ve always been a better speaker than a writer - I don’t know if it’s the fact I have bad dyslexia, so most of the time I’m just hoping I don’t embarrass myself with whatever horrendous spelling mistake I might make! *I’m thinking who can I get to proof read this as I’m typing!* Another one of the 110 tasks I must think about today, but that’s life when you’re a mum, businesswoman and wife-to-be!

Let’s face it, most of us have to play at least one of these roles and wow, it’s not easy. I have the pleasure of playing all 3, and when I say pleasure, I mean that, of course it’s a blessing, a dream and what I always wanted. But not one of these roles comes easy to me, they’re all difficult in there their own way. My story didn’t start all singing and dancing. I’ve seen 21st century poverty, everything I have, I’ve worked for, not one single thing was handed to me. It is simply, pure blood sweat and tears leading me to the success I have today running my own businesses.

The aim of setting up The Female CEO is to share not only my ‘highs’, but my ‘lows’ too - The struggles I’ve been through and how they can be overcome them. My goal is to ensure whoever is a client of mine, whether it’s the struggling mum just keeping things above board; or the wife that’s having to choose between her husband or her career and not knowing how to manage both without one failing; the strong, boss babe looking for how she can take her business to the next level either with business growth, finance growth or even person growth within the business. Us as woman put an extreme amount of pressure on ourselves, this generation is the worse for it yet. We are expected to be the mum, wife and business woman, and whatever we do isn’t right. We are expected to play all of these roles full time, with very limited hours in the day, and I want to help make this easier for you.

It’s amazing how one minute you go from a business meeting, making big choices on yours or other people’s futures, to trying to convince yourself that another night of dinosaur chicken nuggets won’t cause your child any harm! Anyway, I will stop rambling and get into what this blog is really about…

So, I’m Charlie, owner of Enhance Aesthetics, Enhance Training Academy and The Female CEO Business Mentoring and Coaching. As you can probably tell, my background sits firmly within the beauty and aesthetics industry, which has always been and always will be a passion of mine. I’m 29, 30 is creeping up causing a hell of a lot of anxiety… anyway back to my point… I’m nearly 30 and have been working in the industry for almost 12 years. I graduated from college in my hometown, Milton Keynes when I was 18 with an NVQ. Level 1, 2, and 3 in Beauty Therapy. My goal was always to run my own salon, but realistically for me at only 18 it wasn’t achievable, so I worked in a salon instead, where I very quickly found out this just wasn’t for me. I will openly say I’m money motivated, and I always have been. £12,000 a year to work 40-hour weeks, doing back to back treatments has never sat right with me, so off I went into the real world working for an instruction company, insurance company - you name it, I’ve done it. I’m thankful for this now as I have learnt a lot from a business perspective. Even with these jobs, I always kept up with my beauty business on the side, forever having the double income mind set.

I stupidly married young, to a man who had the view that woman are simple - to be seen and not heard, and as you can imagine trying to break free and be the strong, fierce business woman I’ve always had bubbling inside me, was near impossible.

Luckily, I’m here to tell my story and share my success… to which we can thank divorce for that!

So, there I was at 23, divorced, broken down, with a baby and not a single penny to my name. I felt sick every day I got closer to returning to my 9-5 office job as an insurance consultant, whilst trying to manage on my £129 a week maternity pay. I went from a good wage, 2 incomes from myself and only 50% of the bills, to being left alone with all bills and absolute pennies in my pocket. I had this new, amazing baby, a dream of mine, a son I wanted to give the world to, when in reality I struggled to provide the basics such as milk. There were countless times I had my hands down the sofa or old handbags hoping for a few pound coins and not coppers, not forgetting walking to the shop late at night putting on £10 gas and electric as I had used the last of the emergency and wasn’t at the point of being able to afford a car.

However hard these times were, I would not change them for the world. I’m welling up as I write this, but this is my story, and I want to get out what can actually be achieved by honest, hard work and no handouts! My memories from the harder times are some of my favourites, me and my son in our little one bed flat, he was my purpose, my reason to carry on and most of the time I needed him more then he needed me.

THE WORKING MUM

Let’s get it straight, being a working mum will never be easy, however much someone wants to try and sell it to you. I personally still struggle with ‘mum guilt’ all the time, but what I have learnt is, this is how I am. It’s me, its who I am as a person and I honestly doubt that I will ever change. There is a controversial debate I see a lot of, and I do struggle to pick a side, which is unlike me. I don’t do sitting on the fence, but I do understand both sides of the argument. So here goes, let’s see what you think -

DOES HAVING CHILDREN MAKE IT HARDER TO BE A SUCCSESSFUL BUSINESS WOMAN?

Here are my points. Having children limits you regarding time, how can you put everything into something when you have little ones wanting your attention 24/7? So, what then… Hope you’re lucky enough to have family support; A parent that is retired; Or a mother in law that you can stand to be around for more than 3 minutes? If only to be so lucky ay!

Or, you can be like me with a £1200 nursery bill at the end of each month (I won’t go into the sleepless nights of how I was going to find that money or the guilt of leaving him there) it only took me 30 times a day to tell myself how beneficial it would be. Any business woman knows that, building a business takes a lot of your time! I’ve spoken to many mums that honestly just love the break, they are business minded and they have always kept that a priority, and why not? Becoming a mother doesn’t mean you have to give it all up, a lot of us lose ourselves because being a mum consumes all of us, but for others the guilt is just too much. I’ve been there, I’ve been that mum that cries on the way to nursery. My point is, and my personal opinion to this debate is simple - Would I have done as well as I have without having my son, Aidan? My honest opinion is, NO! It’s hard, yes, but 10000% the love and strength of a mother goes further than any other. Everything I do is for him and that makes me unstoppable, being a mum to me means I have no option, and that right there is what I put in to the success of my business. So, for me having children gives me the upper hand and remembering this, what you can do for them makes you ahead of the game. But, there is definitely ways to make it easier to manage, so here’s my two top tips:

• Join the 5am club!

If your child is anything like mine, he’s not up until 7.30-8am, so a lot of my work load is completed before ‘mum-mode’ even needs to kick in. It took me a while to join this club, I’ve never been an early bird, but I’m so glad I did. If 5am is too early for you try even an hour earlier then your normal wake up time.

• Lists, routines and timetables.

I’ve got more planners then I’ve had hot dinners. I’m old school when it comes to this, you can’t get better than pen and paper, coming from a girl that can just about use a word document on my laptop - paper always works best. My lists consist of morning routines, seems silly but it works, I write down what I have to do from breakfast to getting Aidan into his school uniform. I then tick them off as I go, not only does it make sure everything is done, but it also gives you the feeling of accomplishment, all before 8.30 in the morning.

I then have my work to do list, one for Enhance, a separate one for my coaching and business development at The Female CEO. Then finally, I have my personal one which consist of anything from doing a load of washing or remembering to do the food shop to avoid another Deliveroo!

For my mum guilt and anxiety I found writing in my planner, 5 reasons why I’m doing what I am doing helped me to digest everything. I want to give Aidan the very best and building my business to help us create memories together, is what I need to do.

With the hours I do put into work, I am however ALWAYS there when he needs me. We all know what it’s like, big day at work with so much to do, and you see the school number show up on your phone, knowing what is about to happen. But, I would always ensure everything was dropped and I will always be there within 10 minutes - Because that’s what mums have to do, that’s in our job description, no matter what any other role includes!

What working for myself has given me is the freedom to be there for him, working for yourself is the best way to work around your children, because let’s face it, no employer is ever that understanding if we are truly honest with ourselves. I’ve never missed a school play or sports day, neither will I ever because that’s the important things to me, so that’s what I will make happen.

THE WORKING WIFE!

So Marriage and then Divorce obviously wasn’t enough to put me off, because here I am, running my businesses, trying to build an empire, be a good partner and an even better mum, whilst planning my second and final wedding! Something that has been pushed to the side because there is never enough hours in the day, and sometimes it feels like most things to do with my relationship is pushed to the side because of work. Lots of woman I talk to say they feel pressured to pick between a good relationship or their career. Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand, there’s been times where I’m so busy my hair is a mess in my big comfy pjs no bra on and I’ve forgotten what make up is, praying that my finance still fancies me and isn’t going run off with the girl in the gym that clearly has weekly blow drys and 8 hours sleep.. oh, and time to work out!

I actually work with my partner, we run our training academy together which people always say must be hard, but It’s really not! Nicky and I compliment each other and he is very good - he lets me run things and he just does what he told - which helps because I’m a bit of a control freak. What we did need to learn though, is that being together at work doesn’t mean you’re spending time together. We are together, but often we don’t even have a conversation, and when you get home after talking all day to your clients, the last thing you actually want to do is talk. So, date nights are a must! We make sure that 1 night a week is for us, even if that’s just a cinema date or some dinner together, we make sure wo do something. Communication is key with everything in life, especially with your partner. They should want you to be successful, in a partnership your success is his too, right?

So it’s time to round up my introduction and welcome you to ‘The Female CEO’. Business coaching, development, masterclasses and workshops – here’s where we make the magic happen.

Do you want to join the ride?