Pass me the wine. Pass me the edibles.

I've never done a single drug in my life, but some days I'm tempted to start. I do live in Canada where pot is legal.

I wasn't prepared for this.

Every day I wake up before the sun to attempt to squeeze in some semblance of a morning routine.

• Meditate.
• Drink my lemon water.
• Ride my Peloton bike or take a strength class.
• Journal.
• Set intentions.
• Take my supplements.
• Tackle this blog, or newsletter, or prep for a podcast, or review endless amount of videos or scripts for client work (that I LOVE!) all before 8am strikes.
• Or maybe laundry is calling my name

8am..

• I wake up my 6 year old
• Slug my green tea
• Sit down for 30 minutes to log into 4 different places to print his 10 worksheets for the day.

Luckily I have a husband who gets breakfast on the table as he's trying to tackle the tech team for our clients and weigh in on his equity deals.

9am it's game on!

Virtual school starts. Johnny can't log on. Jimmy gets kicked out. The teacher can't get O Canada to play, so 21 children stand up and belt it out. 

And so it beings:

"Mom the teacher changed the sheets. I need you to print this one now.

Mom, what's 5 + 5?

Mom, I'm supposed to go into Epic books. What's my password?

Mom, I have to finish those 3 math sheets from last week and then I can log into prodigy.

Mom, I'm hungry.

Mom, I got kicked out by accident.

Mom, oops.. I meant to hit the button to mute myself and I hung up.

Mom, where's the cat? We're showing our cats on camera!

Mom, it's lunch. I know you're on a call, but this is my lunch time. She let us out early.

Mom, where's dad?

Mooooooom! Why do I have to do this?

Mom, where did my teacher go?

Mom, I'm confused at what I'm supposed to be doing?

Mom, I'm don't want to eat that. Can I have pizza?

Mom, WHYYYYY do I have to go to school everyday?

Mom, Joe read 47 books, how many did I read?

Mom, I need a glue stick. No, not that glue stick you got me. Do we have another one?

Mom, you need to print my art sheet.

Mom, where did my dragon go? I had it on the paper!"

I was naive when I thought that we could work from home, and our child would sit beside us, follow on screen, and we'd live in harmony. 

Instead it's a constant trade off between me and my husband for time, and LORD HELP US if we have a joint call together. It's a lot of bribing, finger pointing, and interruptions, and the hardest part. It's not my son's fault. Home, his safe haven, his fun palace, has now become work as it intersects. Some days we laugh, some days we rock it, some days we cry. 

Here's what virtual schooling and running a kick ass business taught me the past few months:

1. I feel lighter because I'm moving so much.

Before we'd book back to back client calls, webinars, and client work. We'd almost brag about how quickly we could get things done and keep the excellent value. Now I sit for about 15 minutes at a time.

I'm printing sheets, uploading sheets, logging our son in, helping him with work throughout the day, making him food,  and taking him on 2- 15 minute recesses where we bike, walk, or kick the soccer ball. I feel more mobile and it's helped me shed light on how much I need to move and get outside in the sunlight.

2. I've learned to set boundaries like a Mo' Fo!

This past weekend, I put an autoresponder on my email. I let everyone know that I'm unplugged and not working. Clients send me a lot of things on the weekend as they are navigating this landscape. People reach out for connections and to speak at their summits.

I get a lot of requests. I could work 24/7, even with a solid team in place, and that's a blessing that I don't take for granted. Because the weeks are so busy, I need that time to re-charge. I've learned that I'm a go all-in-er. I won't just open one email. I'll open them all, and then it starts a chain of discussions. It's not that my clients expect a response, it's that I can't stop myself unless I have a boundary.

I've also learned to set boundaries with processes. When my son and I were doing worksheets together this past summer, we covered the whole Grade 2 curriculum in 2 months. We were a great team! When things online don't work, I have to resist the urge to say, "Log off. I got this. Let's do it my way." 

3. I've finally learned how to recover.

We take off every Friday. One week out of the month, we become tourists in our own land. We've booked cottages in Northern Ontario, get aways to Ottawa, Great Wolf Lodge, Niagara-on-the-lake. The secret sauce of performance is recovery. The beauty of virtual school is that we can do it anywhere. The beauty of entrepreneurship is that we can do it anywhere (with internet that is!)

This time has taught me to be patient with myself, give myself and other grace (his virtual teacher is a gem), speak clearer, grow my son's independence (he's gets really mad when I make him figure out how to navigate the list above), appreciate my husband as my best partner in life, and dream HUGE again.

To see the world, our home, and all we have is a blessing. My problems would be someone else's dreams. To have the income and flexibility to travel is a blessing. One that I don't take lightly.

We worked our ass off for this. Don't just work your ass off for the sake of doing it. Attach it to meaning. Attach it to a dream. 

Running a thriving business and schooling virtually isn't easy, but we're doing it aren't we?!

We're superheroes!

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* Craving flexibility? Book a 30 min strategy call with me and I'll tell you how to take your successful business online.