Entrepreneurial Fears? Silence Your Inner Critic & Take Bold Action Now | Shayna Bergman

Manouchka: Hey Boss Mama, welcome back to the show. This is the space where we explore building a business you love, raising your family, and creating a life that works for you. I’m your host, Manouchka Elefant, marketing coach and fellow mom entrepreneur.

Today’s episode is for every mompreneur who has ever felt stuck between chasing her dreams and juggling everything else life throws her way, motherhood, leadership, business, and the mental load that never quits.

So here’s today’s big question. How do you find the courage to leave security behind and take the leap into building your own business, especially when you’re already stretched to your limits as a mom?

To help answer that, I’m joined by someone who’s been in those exact shoes. Meet Shayna Bergman, a leadership and mindset coach who works with parents in executive and entrepreneurial roles. After years in the corporate world, Shayna made a bold pivot, launching her own coaching practice while raising her two young kids.

She’s someone who has mastered not just the logistics of entrepreneurship, but the emotional rollercoaster of it too.

In this conversation, we’re diving deep into how Shayna knew it was time to quit her corporate career and the hard truths behind the decision, the mindset shift she had to make before launching her business, and the power of working through the inner critic that so many moms face when trying to balance leadership and family life.

If you’ve ever felt paralyzed by fear or struggled to trust yourself enough to take the next big step, this episode will feel like the deep exhale you didn’t know you needed.

Manouchka: Hello Shayna. Thank you for joining me on the Hey Boss Mama podcast. I’m really excited to have you here because I know you have a lot to share with our audience.

Shayna Bergman: Thank you for having me too. I’m excited to be here.

Manouchka: I’m really curious to know, how was your experience setting up your business? Because you came from the corporate world where you had a big position.

And during the pandemic, like I think many moms who were in this situation, you were like, wait, what? I can do all that work and do it for myself rather than for someone else. So tell us what happened.

Shayna Bergman: So yeah, like a lot of people during the pandemic, I think a lot of us had awakenings during that time.

For me, I was killing myself at work. I was working full time plus. I had my daughter in virtual kindergarten at home. I had my son in diapers. My husband was here too, and we were juggling all the things.

I found myself not only teaching my daughter kindergarten and changing diapers all day, but also leading big meetings. Then I was working until three and four in the morning, pretty much nightly, just to get my work done because I was obviously a little bit busy during the day.

There were several moments during that time when I said to myself, I am working so hard and somehow I’m doing okay, but I’m doing it for somebody else. And I’ve always had this other dream. I wonder what it would be like to work for myself. That was a constant narrative I heard in my head the whole time.

Then I had this one conversation with somebody that I worked with who was unkind, is the nicest way I can put it. I left that call and it was like the straw that broke the camel’s back.

He said something to me in a certain way, and I said to myself, I don’t need this. I don’t need to be here dealing with people like this when I could be doing this for myself, helping people that speak to others that way. Because this was somebody who was a leader.

And I said to myself, I know that he’s stressed. I know we’ve got a lot going on, but that didn’t need to happen that way. I would like to be on the other side, helping people that are influencing others all day long, leading others all day long, and juggling all the things I’m juggling.

That’s when I decided, I’ve got to go into this other business that I knew I was meant for. I knew I was meant to be a coach the whole time. I just hadn’t been able to pull the trigger just yet.

Manouchka: Wow, that’s quite incredible. I love how you had the virtual kindergarten going on in the background and you still managed to do everything you had to do, but it did require a bit of sacrifice, right?

So when you decided to start your business, you had the aha moment, but then what happened? Because from having the idea to actually implementing and setting everything up, there’s a huge jump.

Shayna Bergman: Thank you for recognizing that, because I don’t know that everybody realizes the courage it takes to do that.

So for me, I had that pivotal moment, and I knew I wanted to be a coach. I had known this since I was a little kid, that I wanted to help people in this way.

But I didn’t want to just call myself a coach and not have the training, background, and certification. So already I had this hurdle in front of me, which was: I can’t do it until I’m trained. And what does that mean? That means it’s another time investment when I have two little kids. It means it’s a financial investment. Plus I have a full-time job, I’m running my kids all over the place, and I have my own life too. I have a husband. There’s a lot going on.

But I decided that if I was going to do this, I had to get the education first. It was really important to me to do that, to make sure that I was serving my clients appropriately.

I was going to weekend classes, night classes, studying on the side, practicing coaching with different clients, and this was on top of my regular job.

But it was so important to me. My best friend said to me, it’s like you’ve had this whisper for all these years, and now it’s become this really loud voice. And that’s exactly what it was. I have to do this.

Because I wanted it and because it was really fun for me, I didn’t find the extra work to be that hard, actually, because it was the thing I wanted to be doing all day anyway.

I went through that program with the promise to myself that if I was going to invest the time and money, I was going to leave my corporate job.

That’s a very hard mindset shift to make because what that meant was I was walking away from success, so they say. Security financially, but not really, though that’s what we think. I was walking away from predictability. I was walking away from a regular paycheck. I was walking away from a lot of perks and benefits. I was walking away from amazing people, a team around me, somebody to call when something broke. There was a lot that I was leaving.

But for me, I knew how much was possible on the other side, and so I hired a coach because I needed somebody who could be very objective with me and challenge me and ask me questions to make me think differently than how I was thinking.

We’re human. Our brains are designed to keep us safe. They’re designed to help us avoid risk, and that’s what my brain was doing too. So I needed somebody to challenge that regularly, to pull me out of this mindset of, but I can’t, but it’s too hard, but what if?

So we played out all that stuff. We played out all the worst-case scenarios. We played out all the what-ifs. And we played out the dream vision of what it could be.

It was through that year-plus-long journey for me, just to make the mindset shift. The tactical stuff, setting up the business and the bank account and all that, wasn’t even the hard part, although that’s hard too. The hard part was shifting my mind from what I thought was a stable, secure way of operating into, now I’m going to do my own thing, and I’m part of supporting my family, so I have to make it work.

Manouchka: Yeah, that’s really, really good the way that you explained that because I think so many moms are like, oh yes, I’d like to, but it seems easy to say that. Then they realize it takes a lot more than just saying it. There’s a lot of work behind it.

And so much of that work is in our own mindset. That’s the difficult thing because getting the bank account and the admin sorted, you just have to tick boxes and fill out forms, right? But when it comes to the resilience and the confidence, I think that’s the hardest.

It’s really knowing that you have something to offer, trusting that you have clients that are waiting for that, but they need to get to know about it, and that you need to have that level of belief in yourself so that other people are going to be like, yes, I believe too.

Shayna Bergman: Absolutely. And I think that’s a huge piece because if I come into client conversations and I’m not confident, they can tell. They can feel it.

I have to come in knowing I can change your life. And I know that now. That confidence is very clear. But I had to spend all that time, over a year, building that up.

Which is why, for me, the education was important. And once I was learning the tools and the techniques and the skills, I could feel that confidence building.

But yes, to your point, in our minds sometimes we think, oh, it’s no big deal. But then when we’re asked to take the leap, to make the jump, all of a sudden it becomes really hard. And it is hard. It does take courage and bravery and faith and trust in yourself and an inner knowing.

And I say to people all the time, for me, I had to have no plan B. It’s funny because I don’t coach that way. I don’t typically coach with just plan A. But for me, the way that I work, I knew I had to go in with, I will make this work no matter what.

And I didn’t really even have to do it with that much conviction because it’s been really easy, to be honest, for me. It’s been joyful and easy and fun. But before all of that, before I knew it was going to be that way, I had to go in saying, I’m all in. I am all in because I believe that this is going to work.

Manouchka: Yeah. Here it’s really important to understand how we function, because there are some things that will work for you and not necessarily for your clients. And from one client to another, I’m sure it’s also different.

And also, although you wanted to become a coach, you also got a coach yourself because the role of the coach is not to know how to do everything. It’s to be there to accompany people in what they’re trying to achieve, right?

Personally, I’ve been working with a coach as well, and I can see the difference. It’s just incredible, having someone that I can talk to very openly about everything that is going on. It’s so useful, and it has such an impact on everything that I’m doing in my business and my life.

But it’s like a psychotherapist needs to have their own psychotherapist. It’s normal for coaches to have coaches too.

Shayna Bergman: Absolutely. It’s a misconception too, where people think, oh, you must know all the things. You must have it all figured out. Of course not.

I try to self-coach. Maybe I know a little bit more than somebody who’s not a coach, but I still need somebody outside of myself. I still have a coach. I’ve had a coach for years, and shout out to Kelly because she’s incredible. I talk to her every week.

It is having that other person who can peek in, who knows you and learns you, who can know what your patterns are and your habits, who knows your strengths, who knows where they can push you, who knows how to show up for you, and who can help you do things that you think are impossible or too hard.

You typically walk away from coaching conversations feeling, in a way, exhausted because you’ve stretched your brain beyond what you thought was there, excited because you see possibility, challenged because somebody has asked you things that you’ve never asked yourself, and you start to see doors open when you thought doors were shut.

To walk away from conversations like that is so empowering, especially as a mom, especially when you’re constantly giving everything to everybody else for much of the day. To be able to look inward and say, I have more, there’s more for me, and to allow somebody to be on that journey with you and help you through it, it is literally life-changing.

I don’t know that people always realize it. Just try it. And if you don’t like it, that’s okay, but try it.

Manouchka: Yeah, completely. And so when it comes to mindset, that’s one of the big things that you help your clients with. What do you do when there’s a lot of uncertainty and people are like, oh yes, I would like to, but I’m not sure? What’s your technique with that?

Shayna Bergman: That’s everybody. It’s very human to do that.

There are a lot of different tools and techniques that I use, and to a point that you said earlier, it depends on the person. Everybody’s needs are very different, and the way that I coach them is very different. But there are some themes that we see across all people.

I’ll share with you something that I do with pretty much every client, and that is the concept of working on the inner critic.

The inner critic is that little voice that we all have in our heads that says to you, you’re not good enough, you’re not smart enough, you’re not pretty enough, you’re not likable enough, you’re not tenured enough, you’re not an expert enough. It’s constant.

And we all have different versions of the inner critic in our head. That is typically one of the biggest obstacles that holds us back from doing what we want and getting what we want, because we listen to that voice as if it’s the truth.

Now that little voice is important because it’s been there our whole lives. It has kept us safe many times. It has kept us protected. And it has kept us playing small.

So to start to recognize that little inner voice and what it’s saying, and how we can start to quiet it so that we can do the things we want to do, that takes a lot of work.

I spend many sessions with my clients unwinding that concept. It’s funny because a lot of people come in and say, I don’t have that. And then sure enough, they have multiple voices that they’re hearing that are the ones, as I say it, driving the car. When really, you want to be the one driving the car. You don’t want that little voice to be the one driving the car.

So how do you start to learn to quiet it so that you can take back the power and do the things that you want to do? I still struggle with it too. I’m human. But because of the practice of it and the constant awareness of it, it allows us to start to take action in a way that we’re not used to doing, because we learn how to tell it to be quiet much quicker. So we can move faster much quicker. But it comes with a lot of practice.

Manouchka: Yeah. But once we’re aware of the way that we psych ourselves out and slow ourselves down, once we have that consciousness, we can act on it.

Shayna Bergman: That’s exactly right.

And I tell people all the time, the first piece is the awareness, the consciousness. It’s, oh, that’s there. Now I know, and I can identify it.

So once I’m aware of it, then there’s another step, which is becoming accepting of it. There’s a lot of acceptance we have to have. We have a lot of heavy judgment of ourselves and of others. And when we have heavy judgment, that’s something else that gets in our way and can keep us playing small.

So it starts with awareness. Then it’s starting to accept what is. Accepting, okay, maybe we’re not the best at that thing. Okay, maybe it’s accepting this is hard. It’s becoming okay with it. It doesn’t mean that it gets easier or that we’re pretending it’s something it’s not. It’s just accepting what is.

And when we’ve taken those first two steps, then it’s easier to move into action. That’s where the action piece happens. And then when action happens, you start to see momentum pick up.

Momentum is fun because it’s almost like a runaway train, in a good way, where you’re like, wow, there’s all this stuff I can do. What else can I do? What else can I do?

And when that happens, it’s this amazing thing to watch and to see what you’re capable of that you just never saw. All of a sudden, the world is your oyster and you see so much more for yourself than you saw earlier in that process.

But it has to happen in that order, and that’s where having somebody by your side can be very helpful.

Manouchka: I also see how it can be dangerous, because it can become a rollercoaster. We doubt ourselves, and then suddenly something unlocks and we’re like, oh yeah, it’s working, I’m going to get this. You get the momentum and you’re on that high.

Then something doesn’t work the way it was supposed to, and you crash. Again, the inner critic, the self-doubt, until you’re able to get back up. I feel like when you’re working with a coach or you’re part of a mastermind that can support and cheer you on, then you’re able to even out the lows and the highs.

It’s still important to enjoy the highs, but be mindful that it’s a high, so that you’re managing to find that constant balance between effort and rewards.

It’s going to be a rollercoaster, but you have to know how to manage that with your own emotions.

Shayna Bergman: Yeah, absolutely. And I think what you’re describing, anytime we do something new, that rollercoaster is part of it.

I know people early on, when I started my business, would say, how’s it going? And I would describe it just like that. It’s a rollercoaster.

I do think it’s important to start to find that middle ground. And to your point, the awareness of what the highs are and being prepared that there are going to be lows on the other side too. That is part of how we even it out, the preparation and the acknowledgement that that’s what it’s going to look like.

At the same time, the lows, I always look at them as learning opportunities. It’s like when people ask me, what do you think about failure? I don’t really believe in that. I really believe that anything that doesn’t go the way that we anticipate is a learning opportunity. It’s simply information for us to gather.

Being able to recognize that this is part of the cycle and part of the journey is the first step. Then the other piece is that I think it’s really easy to get into a negative space when something doesn’t go the way we think it’s going to go, or when we’re disappointed by the outcome of it.

So I like to think about this idea that there really are no mistakes. There are no failures. Everything is a learning opportunity.

For me, when something doesn’t go the way that I anticipated, or I’m disappointed in the outcome, I look at it as data. If I can take the emotion out of it and simply say, okay, what am I learning here so that I can pivot and change it next time, it removes some of the weight and the pressure.

The truth is the only person really putting weight and pressure on the expectation is me. And so if I can recognize that, then I’m able to say, what am I going to learn and how can I tweak and change?

Again, I think it’s a practice. It’s not like, poof, now it’s easy. But through practice, that has become very much one of my mantras, just try it again. Try it again, because I know that there’s something there. I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t believe there was a reason behind it.

Sometimes you just have to try a couple of times, and you’ve got to be willing to learn and then try again, and learn and try again until it becomes what you want it to be.

If we can remove the emotional pressure from that journey, it can become fun rather than this very stressful experience.

Manouchka: Yeah, definitely. Over the years, I tried a few different businesses and things, and every time I put the pressure on, it always came from within. I would make myself crazy, being like, oh, but it’s not as good as it should be, it’s not as perfect as it should be.

I should actually take the time to reflect, am I doing it again? But it was never coming from other people. People were cheering me on, and I was the one creating that internal bubbling of, it’s not good enough, it’s not good enough. It goes back to the inner critic, right?

Shayna Bergman: A hundred percent. And you said it perfectly. That’s exactly what I was thinking.

You did two things. One, you recognized this is my pattern. So here I am doing it again. Am I going to let myself do this again? And two, that’s my inner critic. Okay, so let me turn that down a little bit so that I can keep focused on the thing that I want.

I think part of it too is recognizing maybe this isn’t working, and that’s okay. Sometimes we have to say, it’s time to throw in the towel. This is not what I want it to be. This isn’t what I was envisioning. I’m going to put that on a shelf. I’m going to step back and reflect on what I want. Do I want to keep doing this? Do I want to try something new? Do I want to pivot?

Every part of it is a learning experience. It’s all learning. But, to your point, it’s exactly when we start to say, oh, I’m not doing it, here I go again, I’m not good enough for this.

It’s normal to do that. And even as you said earlier, being surrounded by other people who are doing something similar, or who are in a similar boat, can normalize it for us. That’s important too, because you’re going to be hard enough on yourself.

You need people around you who are going to say, yep, I’ve been there. Keep going. You’ve got it. We support you. We’re here for you. We see you. How can we help? That’s an important part of the puzzle too.

Manouchka: Yeah, definitely. And I think one of the things that layers on top of the entrepreneurial experience is the motherhood piece.

I find now that I have to be much more understanding with myself and really rethink my expectations because things are not going to happen as quickly as they normally would.

Also, just being tired. Like today when we got on the call together, I was like, I’m sorry, I feel like some details are going to escape my mind because I’m just exhausted. My son woke up a few times during the night, and I wouldn’t mind being in bed right now, I’ll be transparent about it. But I’m also really happy to be here and have these conversations.

How do I juggle my own emotions in a way where I’m able to do everything? It means I have to be a lot more lenient with my expectations for myself, and it’s going to get messy.

Shayna Bergman: It has taken me a really long time to figure that out. That willingness to just say, this is going to be a messy moment, and today is going to be a little bit harder than yesterday because my kid was up all night.

I think the first part is awareness of this being the season of life that we’re in. When you’re a mom, you’re juggling a lot of things. And just when you think you’ve figured it out, it evolves because your kid has evolved. Then you figure it out again, and then they change again and you have to pivot.

So I think recognizing this is a season of life. It’s not always going to be this way. There is beauty in it. It is messy. It is hard. It is stressful. It is wonderful. There are all kinds of things that happen during this time.

It’s just saying to myself, today is not going to be as productive as I thought it was going to be. And I have to remind myself that there is productivity in rest. There’s productivity in stepping back. There’s productivity in taking a moment or taking a nap.

It’s really hard when that’s not how our society and culture defines productivity.

Especially on my entrepreneurial journey, when I don’t have somebody else’s deadline, it’s even harder because I have to hold myself accountable for what I want. It’s in the moments when I’m tired because I was up with a sick kid during the night, or when I’m stressed because there’s something going on in my children’s lives that’s stressing me out, where I have to give myself the grace to say, today’s going to look a little different than what I thought. And that is okay.

The only timeline that I’m running against is my own, and it’s made up. I think we sometimes imagine that there’s this timeline of life and we have to have certain things done by a certain time, and it’s not real.

So to recognize that things will happen in the time they’re meant to happen, which might not look the way that our brains think it’s going to look, that acceptance can go a really long way.

What’s interesting now is that it is when I step back, slow down, and rest, that I have some of my most genius thinking and my most genius ideas. It’s not when I’m consciously thinking. It’s like a subconscious thing that happens.

People say they have great ideas in the shower. I do too. You’re not even focusing. You’re just cleaning yourself, singing along to the songs in your head, and all of a sudden this genius idea comes up because you finally relaxed.

There is so much productivity in that. If I could impart one thing to anybody listening, it is to know that this is true, and just try to allow it. Know that productivity looks a little different from how everybody typically defines it.

Manouchka: Sometimes things just don’t go according to plan because we realize we need that moment for something else.

Last Sunday, I was supposed to have the day for myself to work and skip on a birthday party and things like that for kids. I was like, that’s fine, there’ll be tons of them. He’s only one anyway, right?

Then my partner was like, are you sure you don’t want to come? And I was like, I’m actually so sleepy right now. I don’t think I’m going to be productive at all.

I didn’t enjoy the party because I was too tired, but I still enjoyed being with my kid and my partner, and that was the fun part. I got home and ended up working until 11 PM. Then I had that thing of the deadline, and so I was productive. You see what I mean?

Shayna Bergman: Absolutely. That’s a great description because it really shows how we think it’s supposed to look a certain way. Then the day gets thrown on its head, and then we pivot and adjust.

Moms are the most powerful, incredible creatures on this earth. The amount of things that we can juggle and get done is unbelievable, and I think we often underestimate that.

I’ve said to many clients, look, the fact that you got out of bed and took a shower today is incredible. Celebrate that. If that is all that you did, it is a great day. You will have a different day tomorrow.

We always compare ourselves to the best, 100 percent, fully on version of ourselves, and we forget that some days we only have about 10 percent to give. And if we only have 10 percent to give and we give 10 percent, we’re giving 100 percent of that day, and that’s enough.

We have to remind ourselves of that.

Manouchka: Yeah, that’s really cool. I love that because it’s definitely something I’m going to apply. Looking at my day and feeling myself out for how much I have in me today, and it’s going to be like, oh, I only have 10 percent, but I’m going to give that 10 percent and that’s going to be a hundred percent today.

Shayna Bergman: Exactly. Because you can’t give more than what you don’t have. And anything after that is going to be diminishing returns. So if you can recognize this is all I have and I’m going to give it, great. Done. It was a great day.

Manouchka: Yeah, definitely.

One of the things I want to explore with you also is meaning and fulfillment in our work, because I know this is something that you help your clients with.

I feel like a lot of people go towards entrepreneurship thinking these elements are going to be easy because when we go into entrepreneurship, it’s either because we already have a passion that we want to turn into our full-time job, or we think that because it’s going to be on our terms, it’s going to be fulfilling. But it’s not necessarily that simple, is it?

Shayna Bergman: It’s not.

I see people across the board, and probably about half my clients are entrepreneurs. I think sometimes we think that if we turn our passion into our job, everything is going to be easy. But oftentimes what happens is once we turn the passion into a job, the thinking around it shifts, and the passion is no longer fun. The fun of it was not having to put pressure on it.

So I think it’s important to examine how much you’re willing to work for the passion. Because you have to be prepared to know that it’s going to shift and it’s going to change the way that you see it.

A lot of coaches that I work with, and friends of mine who are coaches, end up a little disappointed in the coaching business because they realize that coaching is a very small part of their day. A lot of their day is the business.

That happens, I think, with anybody who is pursuing a passion. You have to realize the passion is part of your day, but it is not all of your day.

There’s the other stuff, like how am I going to get the word out? How am I going to tell people what’s going on? How am I going to handle the financials? How am I going to pay the bills? What about all the IT needs I have? There is nonstop stuff that has to happen.

So you have to prepare for that. Now, for me, I’m combining a lot of passions. Not only do I love coaching, I love business. So for me, there’s a passion in both and an enjoyment in both.

But I think it’s really the preparation and knowing that that’s going to be the case. It’s not always as easy as snap my fingers, one, two, three, I just do the thing that I love and poof, now I’ve created this business and this job for myself.

There’s a lot that has to go into it. And I think there’s also some recognition that at some point you can start to hand off the stuff that you’re not good at or that you don’t like, so you can really focus on the thing that you want to focus on. But that doesn’t come immediately. That typically comes over time and with proof of concept.

Manouchka: I think a lot of people, when they get into business, think, oh, it’s okay, I’m going to outsource all the things that I don’t like.

But unless you already have a big budget that you’re able to burn through with these kinds of things, you need to have the money-making machine working first.

And even just knowing what your standard is for how you want things done. I’m actually going through this right now because I hired an editor for the podcast and I didn’t really give him that many instructions because I thought, he knows what he’s doing, right?

Except he didn’t at all, because he didn’t know what I wanted. So the experience was just terrible. I thought, oh, it’s going to be so much easier once I outsource. No, it turns out I’m going to learn how to do it myself first, and then I’m going to find someone who can do it for me, and I’ll know exactly what it is I want.

But it also means I need to be generating some money for that because if I want a certain level of work and a certain quality, that also requires a budget.

So there’s a whole piece around managing my expectations about how things are going to get done, but also just understanding that there are going to be some adjustments over time. Not everything is going to be perfect from the beginning. And again, I’m going to learn through it.

Shayna Bergman: The first time I had a babysitter come to our house to take care of my daughter when she was little, before I had my son, we gave the babysitter every single detail. Here is how you have to hold her when you feed her. Here’s how she likes her diaper changed. Here’s where the lights have to be when she goes to sleep. Here’s the order of the songs that you sing. Here’s how you sing them. Here’s what you have to say before bed.

It was a never-ending, ridiculous list of what we needed because we knew exactly what would make her happy.

I think sometimes we think of our business as our babies, and I do too. This is, I joke, my third baby. So when I hand it to somebody, I have to know that I have to hand it to them with the same level of detail and expectations that I had with my kids.

And I have similarly learned where I’m like, oh, you do this thing, so you’ll know what to do. Then it’s not what I expect because I didn’t give them any instructions about my expectations of how I wanted my baby handled.

So now when I hire somebody to do something for me, I treat it the same way I treated my babies when I had babysitters come over. Here is everything that I expect. Here’s what I’m looking for. Here’s what it needs.

Of course it’s not going to be exactly like that, and I have to be realistic too, but I want them to treat it with the same love and care that I have as I have birthed this business. I have poured blood, sweat, and tears into it. I want somebody else to treat it with the same TLC and take care of it the same way.

I think as women in particular, we don’t want to seem like we’re asking too much. We don’t want to seem overly assertive. We don’t want to be unlikable. All these things that we have in our head, and it prevents us from asking for what we need. Then we’re having to deal with a product that we don’t like or ask somebody to do something again.

So I would maybe just have anybody who’s listening think of it like your baby. This is your baby. So what would you say to somebody who’s coming over to take care of your child? Handle your business the same way. Here are the things that I want. Here’s what I’m looking for. Here’s what it needs.

Manouchka: So basically, when you had your first babysitter, you handed her a standard operating procedure list.

It’s something that I’m trying to think about when I’m doing certain tasks. I’m actually taking out an Excel sheet and I’m like, okay, standard operating procedure for this and that. I’m doing it right now with my emails and things like this.

And I’m like, okay, this makes sense for me now also because I’m on mom brain and sometimes I forget how I’ve done something. When I’m ready to hand off certain aspects of the business, then I’ll already have those sheets ready. Having the SOPs is just going to make so much sense when that happens.

Shayna Bergman: Absolutely. And you know what I think you’ll find too? When you find somebody who’s going to partner with you on whatever task it is that you’re outsourcing, the best ones are going to say, I’ve got it. I see your SOPs. Have you ever considered trying this?

Then they even up your game from what you thought was best. I’ve had babysitters do the same. They’ll say, I know you did this with her, but have you tried this? And you’re like, oh my gosh, what a great idea. Thank you. That is the best kind of partnership.

Manouchka: Can you give us a little bit more context around the coaching that you do and examples of parent entrepreneurs that needed a little bit of coaching, and how you managed to get them through their misbeliefs or self-criticism?

Shayna Bergman: Absolutely.

I typically coach parents who are in leadership roles. So the people that come to me are often experiencing burnout. They are trying to find balance. They are trying to get to whatever is next. Many of them are looking to make a leap out of something they’ve been doing for a long time into something that’s more entrepreneurial. Or some of them are already entrepreneurs and they’re trying to up their game.

I have clients who run businesses and are opening other franchises or other parts of their business or other locations of their business. They’ve figured out how to do it in one place, and now they’re figuring out how do I expand into others, and how do I do that in a way that doesn’t mean I’m having to give more time and more energy? How do I take what I’ve figured out and replicate it or duplicate it and hand it off to somebody else who can take it and live out the dreams that I have for it?

That seems easy when you talk about it, but at the end of the day it really does mean that somebody has to basically start from scratch again in many ways. The idea of that feels heavy for people. It feels like a lot to have to go through all those beginning steps that they’ve already put behind them and do it again.

But what people forget is that because they’ve done it once, even with mom brain, they’re able to do it quicker and better in many ways. They’ve already learned and grown from the mistakes. So it’s starting to shift your mindset into, what’s possible when I can get through these initial stages, and these initial stages won’t feel the same as they did the first time. They’re going to feel different.

Maybe they see new dreams for their business, or they see different avenues they want to pursue, but life is getting in the way. They’ve got kids, family, and other needs. So they find that rather than maybe doing something that will up their game, they’re choosing to do laundry because it’s easier.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just a matter of being intentional with where you’re putting your time.

One of the concepts that I teach most of my clients is the concept of conscious choice. I take them through what’s called the seven levels of energy. They take an assessment and understand from that assessment when they’re at their best, what is happening for them in terms of their motivation, confidence, energy, and engagement with what they’re doing, and how do they continue to tap into that so that they’re able to grow in the way that they want to grow.

Recognizing that stressors are common, they are normal, and they’re going to hit their stressors, it’s really understanding, okay, when I’m in a moment of stress, when things feel hard, what is my typical habit and pattern? And then how can I move to a place of conscious choice?

When we become intentional about what we’re doing with our time and our choices, all of a sudden we feel more fulfilled because we’re doing things from a place of intention rather than from a place of habit. And as humans, we easily fall into habit.

A lot of what I do with my clients, especially my moms who are entrepreneurs, is to help them understand that piece. Because when they understand that and understand themselves and their habits, it’s almost like they can catch themselves in it.

They can start to say, oh, there I go again. I’m doing the thing I do. I always go to laundry when something feels hard. I’m not going to do the laundry right now. I’m going to make myself work on this thing for 10 minutes, and then I can do the laundry.

It’s little tiny bite-sized shifts that we start to make. Then we look back and say, oh, that wasn’t so hard. I can do that again tomorrow. Or I can do it for a little longer. Or wow, look at what I could do. Now I feel momentum. I don’t want to stop. Laundry can wait. I’m going to do this other thing.

It’s just through that process of trial and error, and being willing to play, and being so aware and so intentional, that we’re able to start to see what we’re made of. Without that, we fall back on our habits and patterns because that’s what our brain does.

Manouchka: Mm-hmm, absolutely. I just find it incredible how being intentional is crucial because I see so many moms, personally I do marketing coaching, right? So I see a lot of moms who are like, oh, I’ve started my business and I’m on Instagram and I’m chatting in some groups and things like that. I’m like, yeah, but what’s your strategy behind it? Are you intentional with the time you’re spending on that marketing?

Because they’re like, I’m not getting any results. Well yeah, because you’re just shooting in the dark. You don’t have a strategy. You’re not being thoughtful with what you’re trying to achieve, because all those efforts have to go somewhere. They always have to lead toward that same goal. So having the time to really think about it and being intentional, that is crucial.

Shayna Bergman: Absolutely. And I say the same thing to clients.

Clients will show up for a coaching session and they’ll have these powerful breakthroughs and aha moments. But I say to them, simply showing up for the session and then going back to what you’ve always done isn’t really going to get you very far.

It’s when you take what you’ve learned, and that means taking notes in the session, processing what we’re talking about, and actively engaging. Then you’re holding yourself to what you say you’re going to do.

My clients always leave a session with, here’s what I’m going to work on practicing between now and when I see you again. Because if there’s no practice, you’re not going to get better. It’s no different than playing sports or playing an instrument or anything else that you want to improve at. You have to practice the thing.

If you’re not doing that and you’re simply just thinking on it, it doesn’t allow you to actually get where you want to go.

So I think it is that intentional willingness to say, I’m going to choose to do this thing that maybe feels hard or feels different or feels new. And of course it does because you’ve never done it before. But I’m going to put energy and effort behind it, and I’m willing to do that because I want to see change. I want to see growth.

Manouchka: Yeah, completely.

I have one last question for you. One day when they’re all grown up, what do you wish your kids would say about you?

Shayna Bergman: Oh, I love that question. That’s a really good one.

I hope that they would say that I was a model for them of what life can be and how fulfilling it can be, and that I showed them that they can do anything that they want to do even though it might seem hard.

And that mom was brave. She leapt. She took this crazy big jump out of something that seemed very stable and did it when they were little. And that they watched me do it. They watched the ups and the downs and the trials and the tribulations and the celebrations. And that because of that modeling, they can do the same thing for themselves.

Manouchka: Oh, beautiful. I love it. I love that answer.

I’m asking this at the end of each interview, but every time I get goosebumps.

Shayna Bergman: It’s such a beautiful question, right? Because I think so many of us, as we are on these journeys, it’s impossible to not have those little people in the back of our minds as we make every decision.

Everything we do, I always tell my kids, even when you don’t like it, everything I do is for you. I think that’s part of our journey doing this, right? It has an impact on our kids. I think we recognize that.

Manouchka: Yeah, and I think there’s also a big difference here between moms and dads when we go into our own businesses.

Maybe it’s a stereotype I have, but I feel like moms, we’re doing it so that we have more freedom to also be with our kids and be more present with them. And I feel like dads, they might do it more in terms of ego and one day I want to have a legacy.

But I feel like moms, it’s more in the present. I want to have more time now. I want to be a role model now. So yeah, different approaches.

Shayna Bergman: I couldn’t agree more.

I found that even in my leap, that was so much of my reason. It wasn’t even that I’d have more time with them, but it was that I’d be present when I’m with them, that the time would be quality time with them.

I remember one of the first days after I had resigned. I picked my kids up from daycare and we were driving home, and I looked in the sky and saw clouds, and one of them looked like it was in the shape of Mickey. We were going to Disney World shortly thereafter, and I said, you guys, look at the sky. Do you think that looks like a Mickey Mouse cloud?

And my daughter said, mommy, you’ve never noticed the clouds before.

It was like, I had picked them up a million times before, but I was always thinking about the meeting I had to go to, or the meeting I just came from, or what I needed to do that night. I was present in a different way.

So the time was more meaningful. I think that’s been the biggest shift for me, and I think a lot of people see that too.

Manouchka: Yeah, that’s incredible.

Shayna, where can everyone know more about you and connect with you?

Shayna Bergman: You can go to my website, which is shaynabergman.com. You can also find me on all the socials, which is @shaynabergmancoaching. Please connect with me. I always put out little tidbits and fun things and what’s going on in my life and what I’m working on.

I offer a free download, which is Five Ways to Cure Your Imposter Syndrome. It’s on my website, and it is something that we all have as much as we don’t want to admit it. We all have imposter syndrome, especially as we’re trying new things. So I recommend getting that guide, and that will automatically get you onto my email list.

Manouchka: Thank you, Shayna. It was a lovely conversation. I had a really good time, and I’m sure we’ll stay in touch.

Shayna Bergman: Sounds wonderful. Thank you so much. This was fun.

Manouchka: Whoa, what a powerful conversation with Shayna.

I hope you’re walking away with fresh clarity on how mindset, courage, and intentional action are the real superpowers behind launching and sustaining your dream business as a mompreneur.

Remember, it’s normal to feel pulled between the business you’re building and the family you’re raising, but you don’t have to navigate that tension alone.

If you’re ready to stop spinning your wheels and start moving forward with more confidence and ease, here’s what to do next.

First, check out Shayna’s free resource, Five Ways to Cure Your Imposter Syndrome. It’s linked in the show notes, and trust me, every single one of us has battled that inner critic.

Second, come join us inside the Hey Boss Mama Facebook group, where you’ll find other ambitious moms just like you, cheering each other on, sharing real talk, and supporting one another through the ups and downs.

And as always, if this episode gave you even one aha moment, I’d love for you to share it with another Boss Mama who might need this today. Your shares help us grow this community of empowered moms, and for that, I’m so grateful.

Until next time, Boss Mama, you’ve got this!