People ask Emily this question everywhere she goes. At the coffee shop, from friends, from friends of friends. How do you do it all with five kids, two businesses, homeschooling, and a travel schedule most families would call insane? For a long time she had a version of the answer. This weekend, the real one finally clicked. In this episode, Emily shares the epiphany that stopped her in her tracks at her son's baseball championship and the one mindset shift that has quietly been holding her steady through what is, right now, a genuinely hard season in her business.

This episode is for the ambitious mom who is currently in a hard part of motherhood, a hard part of business, or both at the same time, and is tired of being told to grit her teeth and white-knuckle her way through it. Emily walks through why the hard parts of both motherhood and entrepreneurship are not in the way of the woman you are becoming, they are what is actually building her. She names what hard seasons actually do for you that the easy stretches never can, why the resilience you build in one part of your life pours straight into the other, and the question she is asking herself right now instead of "should I just burn it all down." She also shares the specific year that broke her wide open as a mom and built the exact CEO she is today, the difference between morning-routine questions and the question that actually matters in a hard season, and an invitation to lean into your current hard part instead of waiting it out.

Questions Answered in This Episode:

• What is the epiphany Emily had this weekend at her son's baseball championship?
• Why are the hard parts of motherhood and business not in the way of the woman you are becoming, but actually what is building her?
• What can you only learn about yourself in a hard season that you can never learn in an easy stretch?
• Why does leaning into a hard part of motherhood make you a stronger CEO, and how does the same work in reverse?
• What is the specific year that broke Emily wide open as a mom and built the exact CEO she is now?
• Why is the morning-routine question the wrong question, and what should you be asking instead?
• What is the one question Emily is asking herself right now in a hard business season instead of "should I just burn it all down?"

THE CEO BESTIES MEMBERSHIP:

A Membership For Ambitious Women Building Profitable Businesses Alongside CEO Besties Who Get It.

Join the membership: https://theceobesties.com/membership/

CONNECT WITH EMILY:

1. ✨ Website: www.emilycollins.com
2. ✨ Instagram: @heyemilycollins

What if the difference between the entrepreneurs who actually make it and the ones who quietly fall away has almost nothing to do with strategy and almost everything to do with how their brain has been wired over a thousand tiny moments? In this episode, Emily shares an internet story she came across about a dad who raised three boys who were all millionaires by 30 with one rule: when they turned seven, they were no longer allowed to complain. She tells her kids the story at their Saturday morning family meeting, watches her nine-year-old declare on the spot that he is never complaining again, and then turns the lens straight onto entrepreneurship and what the grown-up version of complaining actually sounds like.

This episode is for the ambitious mom who has caught herself recently in the I-wish, the if-only, and the when-things-slow-down loop and is starting to wonder how those quiet little complaints might actually be shaping her brain. Emily walks through why complaining puts you in the victim seat, what gets wired when you stop, the adult versions of complaining that hide as venting or wishing or commenting on someone else's life, and the reframe she had with her boys this morning that took her from irritated mom hearing the 57th complaint of the day to a mom on a completely different mission. She also draws the line her oldest drew this morning, from a single family meeting all the way to playing for the Yankees someday, and challenges you to draw your own line this week between a single moment of catching yourself and the version of your business and life you are actually building.

Questions Answered in This Episode:

• What is the no-complaining rule, and why does it actually wire a child's brain (and yours) over time?
• Why does complaining put you in the victim seat, and what gets wired when you do it on repeat for years?
• What are the adult versions of complaining that don't even sound like complaining at all?
• What changed for Emily after she told her kids this story at their Saturday morning family meeting?
• How is the way you respond to a flopped launch, a slow month, or a hard no actually the result of a thousand tiny moments you have already trained your brain on?
• What is the reframe that took Emily from irritated mom hearing the 57th complaint of the day to mom-on-a-mission in a single conversation?
• Why don't thriving entrepreneurs and present moms actually have fewer hard things happen to them than everyone else?
• How do you draw your own line this week from a single moment of catching yourself all the way to what you are really building?

Mentioned in this episode:

Episode 60: My 9-Year-Old Is Already a CEO

Episode 57: What Happened When I Asked My Kids for Feedback

THE CEO BESTIES MEMBERSHIP:

A Membership For Ambitious Women Building Profitable Businesses Alongside CEO Besties Who Get It.

Join the membership: https://theceobesties.com/membership/

CONNECT WITH EMILY:

1. ✨ Website: www.emilycollins.com
2. ✨ Instagram: @heyemilycollins

You are not the same woman you were three years ago. You are not even the same woman you were six months ago. You have grown, you have evolved, you have outgrown things, and you accept that as part of being human. So why do so many ambitious moms expect their businesses, their motherhood, and their daily lives to stay frozen in place? In this episode, Emily brings back the tagline that started this whole podcast for her, "Let's have all the conversations and break a few rules," and then she walks through five of them.

This episode is for the entrepreneur mom who is tired of following rules she never agreed to in the first place. Recording late on a Maysember Monday after a playoff baseball game, five months postpartum, and admittedly running on fumes, Emily lays out the five rules she is actively breaking right now as the CEO of her life and business: two business rules, two motherhood rules, and one life rule. She walks through what pivoting actually looks like when you have outgrown the version of yourself who built your business, why responding to every DM is survival dressed up as service, how she stopped buying her kids stuff and ended up with calmer holidays and more inventive kids, what changes when you talk to a four-year-old like he is a real person, and the one rule underneath all of the others that perfectionism keeps trying to quietly enforce in an AI era where the internet is starving for something that actually feels human.

Questions Answered in This Episode:

• What does it actually look like to pivot your business when you have outgrown the version of yourself who built it?
• Why is responsiveness not the same thing as value, and what changed for Emily when she stopped answering every DM the moment it came in?
• How did Emily reframe gift-giving for her kids, and what did her family actually choose when she sat them down and asked them?
• What happens when you start talking to your kids like real people instead of managing them, and why does the same principle apply to your marriage and your friendships?
• What is the quiet, sneaky form perfectionism takes for ambitious women, and why is the polished version almost never the version that lands?
• How do you tell the difference between rules that are actually yours and rules you picked up along the way without ever agreeing to them?
• Why is breaking the rule that doesn't belong to you part of the work of being the CEO of your life?

Mentioned in this episode:

Episode 60: My 9-Year-Old Is Already a CEO

THE CEO BESTIES MEMBERSHIP:

A Membership For Ambitious Women Building Profitable Businesses Alongside CEO Besties Who Get It.

Join the membership: https://theceobesties.com/membership/

CONNECT WITH EMILY:

1. ✨ Website: www.emilycollins.com
2. ✨ Instagram: @heyemilycollins