MOMENT | Motherhood Isn’t the End of Your Career — It Might Be the Beginning

0:07Hey everyone, it is Zoe here. Welcome, welcome. It's Monday, which means it's Motherkind. moment day, your little shot of inspiration on a Monday. Today is with Debbie Wasco OBE. She's an incredible entrepreneur. She founded and sold her business for, wait for it, 54 million when she had just become a single mother to her one and three-year-old. And there is a line in this moment that I really want you to hear. And it's this, we do our best work as women when our backs are against the wall. And that really struck me as true and quite motivating. When I look at the businesses, the career moves, the big risk and the choosing a different way that I see in our community, it often comes from a moment of our backs being against the wall, a massive constraint like childcare or a financial constraint or a divorce or a big move or grief.

1:00Whatever it is, I've witnessed that it's those big hard things that often lead us to think effort and we go for it. So I hope that you like this little shop inspiration. Make sure you subscribe so you never miss one of these little Monday moments ever again. And I will see you this Thursday for another incredible full episode of Motherkind. And remember, I am right here cheering you on.

1:34I wanted to ask you about risk because you said, you know, starting your business young is, you know, the best time to start it. But everyone listening to this is typically, well, they will be mothers, about 90 % of them will be mothers where there is really high fixed cost mortgages, potentially childcare. We know the cost of childcare is more than the cost of most mortgages in the UK. What would you say to that woman? Because I know you also had this experience of starting your, I think it was your second business when you did have two young kids. How do we square that circle and how can you mitigate risk, but still find that belief in yourself to take the leap?

2:08So I think the data on this is super interesting. So what we see in the UK is that the majority of female entrepreneurs are over the age of 40, right 85 and this is a recent HSBC study with um noon uh which is a platform I think Eleanor describes it as a platform for queen ages so probably the kind of next gen on on your audience shows that women tend to get going later in life particularly since the pandemic and I think there's something in all of that probably in your parlance around beliefs and attitude and I think as you get older, A, you have more of a desire to self-determine. B, I think post the pandemic, there was this sort of quiet quitting and a lot of women thinking, I don't want to keep doing the job for the man.

3:01And most of the time it is for the man. So I think that women listening to this should take a great deal of confidence from the fact that women's careers are not linear. And women's careers are not the same as men's. And that's okay. And actually that's our superpower. hour so I think all of the data shows the art of the possible and that women are doing it in droves then there's the reality so it is absolutely the case when I founded Love Home Swap my children were tiny and the story of the business PR story also happens to be the true story which is convenient which is that I went on holiday and the kids were probably two and three months I went to an expensive hotel and sat inside because I was feeding one and the other one wasn't sleeping and the tv was on with the sound off and i was eating you know like one of those like when you're really in it and on the flight on the way home i watched the film the holiday which you may or may not have seen which not which is you know if i knew how many times i was going to have to talk about that film maybe i'd have put something different but probably a couple of thousand and that was the inspiration i thought just like even exists what i really want to do right now and if we think back to that time and for your listeners when your kids are so small and they're so dependent on you I wanted to swap my life actually as well as my home and that's what happens in the movie the holiday where Kate wins all that so that genuinely was the inspiration for the business and then six years later I sold it for 53 million and of course that makes it sound like it was you know easy peasy and it wasn't it was really hard really awful really amazing really uplifting impossible boring and everything in equal measure that we just don't talk about enough because everybody's story and mine I think can probably look glossy because it's how I made my fortune my second fortune but you know the backdrop to that was I got divorced when my kids were one and three I was a single mom and to the point on risk and how do you do it my thing is I only know how to do that thing.

5:13I've only had a job for four years of my life. I mean, now I'm like on boards and things. So maybe I'm a grown up, but the only way I knew how to build my fortune back, because nothing focuses the mind quite like giving half of it away when you get divorced, is to take a big swing. So in that sense, maybe it did look a little bit crazy, but I think we do our best work as women when our backs are against the wall.

5:43And now a quick word from our sponsors.

5:50Also, from a what brings you joy and what brings you energy, which is probably what I've done a lot of work on in the last five or so years. I like building Phoenix from the flames. You know, I my joy during that time was going to work because the rest of my life was super hard, falling apart. I was on my own with the kids. You know, it's pretty grim. But I needed to get rich. You know, I really did to have the life for me and the children. And nobody was going to do it for me. And this is my grandmother's voice in my ear now. You know, like, what are you going to do? Lie down on the road and cry.

6:28You know, one of the things that may be useful to people listening around risk and pain and things going wrong, which is the thing that I always want to talk about, because it can look amazing and dresses and high heels and big houses. And it was not like that. But I give myself 24 hours of anything. Right. The amazing successes. And I have had some and I've had nice things happen and accolades and 24 hours. to feel great, then back to it. Shit, 24 hours to lie on the floor and cry. And I do all of that stuff. And then I'm back on it. And I find that useful because you have to feel it and you have to feel the fear and you have to feel the risk, but you have to manage yourself.

7:18And I am really good at managing myself. And I've learned how to be really good at managing myself through really difficult times. And I think if you scratch the surface of any successful entrepreneur, they have genuinely and generally suffered adversity. And I think that you do, right? Nobody's life is perfect. However glossy it looks is what you do with it. It's so inspiring. And I love that 24 hour rule. I really do. I actually had yesterday, I just felt I'd struggled all day yesterday. And this morning I was like, right back on it. And I've sort of applied your rule. I'm like, right, come on, let's go.

7:51You still got the rest of the week you know i heard this really good interview with tom hanks where he when asked what his mantra was for life he said this too shall pass and he said things are terrible and this too shall pass things are amazing and you're on top of the world this too shall pass it's recognizing that there are ups and downs, right? Which is trite, but true. And goodness knows motherhood chucks that at you.

8:27What an incredible episode. I hope you loved it too. If you've got this far, then I am guessing that you did. So make sure that you share it with a friend and subscribe so you never miss an episode. And I will see you Thursday for more. See you next time.