In this solo episode of the Overgivers Anonymous podcast, host Angela Mondor (the Geeky Girl) discusses how to celebrate entrepreneurial freedom while avoiding the burnout‑inducing hustle culture. She shares how her definition of freedom has evolved—from being a "hockey‑mom" who needed flexibility for her children’s activities to now, with adult children and a husband nearing retirement, seeking shared experiences like beach outings, canoe trips, and Freedom Fridays. Angela explains how she and her husband have structured their summer schedule to create an extra day off each week, detailing the gear they’ve collected (cooler‑backpack, shade tent, air mattress) and the joy these moments bring to their relationship and as a stress release from business. She then shifts to practical advice: identifying one’s own version of freedom, prioritizing it, and using structured planning tools such as the Rockstar Planner and the Rockstar Success Circle to make that freedom possible. She cites a client who took an entire month off after pre‑planning in May, illustrating how intentional scheduling can enable larger breaks. Throughout, Angela emphasizes that freedom is personal, not a one‑size‑fits‑all, and encourages listeners to reflect on what fills them up, set small actionable steps, and reach out via email or the Facebook group for support. The episode ends with a call to action to join the community, access show notes, and connect for further guidance.
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Hi, and welcome to this episode of the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. My name is Angela Mondor, and I'm also known as the Geeky Girl. Today I wanna talk to you about celebrating entrepreneurial freedom. To me, success in my business is being able to enjoy the freedoms that entrepreneurial journeys give us. I am not the kind of entrepreneur who thinks that I need to be working 450 days a week, and I need to have all these— like, I am not a hustle kid. Okay? So if you're looking for the hustle, it's not here. Take the next door on the left. I want to build my business so that it not only brings in the income I'm looking for, but it also gives me the flexibility to do the things I want to do. Now, that's changed over the years. When I was younger and my children were younger, the flexibility and the freedom that I was looking for then is different than it is now. I was a hockey room mom. I wanted to be present for my children when they did all their sports things, the things that they did in school. I wanted to be the mom who showed up to do those things, and my business allowed me to do those things. Now my freedom's different. My freedom is completely different, and that's because my kids are all grown-ass adults and my husband is getting close to his retirement time, and so we're doing things a little differently. So last year my husband and I started this thing called Freedom Fridays. So if you don't know already, my husband is a teacher, which means he gets the summers off, which can be really interesting when trying to work while you have somebody also in your vicinity who is off on holidays the whole time. So I've restructured my business through the summer so that we can have some more fun together, so we can do some things that we want to do. And one of those things is Freedom Fridays. So we have done some really cool things with our Freedom Fridays. We have gone to different beaches around where we live. So we live in a very beautiful place. As much as Canada is known for being cold, where I live in Manitoba, we have so much fresh water. Like, our, our lakes are massive here, and there's tons and tons and tons of places we can go into for beaches. And so we've gone through and written down all the different kinds of beaches, you know, all the different beaches we wanted to go to. We found one last year that we ended up going back to multiple times because we really, really enjoyed the experience. And through that, we actually collected things along the way to make our experience on our Freedom Fridays even more fun. The first thing we collected was we got this backpack that is actually a cooler, and it has like— it's like a picnic basket, but it's a backpack, which was really awesome. It's got a beach blanket already in it, and you know, all the tools that you need to have food. And then of course, the place place that is cooler area for everything we have there. And then we added from there. Then it was like, oh, we need to have this and we need to have this. I am, as you can see, I have 2 colors. It's white and red. In fact, it's warm in my office right now, so you're seeing a lot of red. But the sun and I don't get along. I love the sun. I love the feel of the sun, but it burns me so fast. So we ended up getting a shade tent so we could take to the beach with us so I could spend more time out in the sun. And we've collected these things and they're inside our vehicle. We have a nice SUV that has storage inside it. So we have the, the tent in there, the shade tent. We also have an air mattress in there because we've— we did a road trip last year. We slept inside the SUV. This was— we were just having fun doing things and exploring the world. And this is what we have been doing to enjoy the time we have together. And so we do this on Freedom Fridays. And, you know, like with the road trip, that ended up being a whole weekend, but it started on Friday, so it counts, right? These things have strengthened our relationship and they have brought us joy. We have had fun, so much fun we've had. And I can't wait because next week, next, next Friday, this Friday, when are you watching this? Oh yeah, it's next week. This week? Doesn't matter. July starts up Freedom Fridays again for us. My husband is going to be on his summer vacation and we will be able to be doing our Freedom Fridays again. And we've got some neat things planned depending on how things shake out. It's been very, very rainy here. We normally don't get this much rain, and I hope beyond hope that things are going to be okay. But there's this really cool canoe trip that we're going to go on, that we'd hope to go on. As long as the water levels aren't too high, we can still go on it because you canoe through some caves. Anyway, I know I'm going on about it, but I got to tell you, these things not only have strengthened my relationship with my husband and have brought me joy because things I enjoy doing, but on top of that, It's a stress release from the business. It gives me another place to outlet the things that are happening. Now, I don't work on Freedom Fridays. Very, very rarely is there ever a time when I need to be contacted for the business. Everything is set up so that the Friday is off. It's like a Saturday or a Sunday, but it's an extra day. Okay? So if you're looking for more freedom inside your life, it's about figuring out what does that look like for you? And like I said before, it was spending time with my kids. It was driving them to their appointments. It was taking them to their soccer games, their hockey games, whatever the case may be, whatever it was they were doing. That was the freedom then. And my freedom looks differently now. Maybe you look at my freedom and go, oh God, who would want to go canoeing through caves? Like, that is the worst thing I could possibly think of. That's fine. Your freedom isn't my freedom. Your success isn't my success. So, but it's important for you to think, what is it that I want to do? What are the things that are going to bring happiness to me? And it doesn't have to be an expensive thing. I mean, sometimes I'd love to travel the world. We're not quite there yet, but, you know, maybe that's something that's on your plate. Or maybe you're more like, I just want to go sit in the park and read a book, or I want to have a bubble bath and read a book. Whatever. You guys know I like to read too. You got to think about what it is, first of all, that you want to do. What are the things that are going to bring you joy? And then it's about prioritizing your time and your schedule. Right? So you guys know I've talked about this before, but in the Rockstar Success Circle, of course, we use our Rockstar Planner. And because we are planning, it's really important to be able to take your time and make sure that you have the things that you need to have in place to afford you the freedom. Okay, that pre-planning is what's important, getting this stuff together so that you can take time off. One of my clients actually took the entire month of June off, knew what they needed to do to plan to organize everything they needed to do in May so that they could take the entire month of June off. Now, that might not be your freedom either. That might not be the thing that you want to do, but it's something that she wanted to do, and she traveled with her husband and went on a cruise and did a bunch of things. So whatever that freedom is for you, it's important to A, identify it, and B, make a plan. How is that going to happen for you? What do you need to change? How do you want to organize the things in your life and your business in order to make those things happen? Because we will prioritize the things that are important to us. But because we are overgivers and we put other people first, a lot of times we tend to sit back and go, it's okay, I'll do whatever. But when you actually take ownership of what you're trying to accomplish for yourself, not just financially in the business, but the other successes in your business, who you want to reach, who you want to, you know, whose life you want to impact and change, what is it you want to do? It's not just all about the money. The money is important. The money drives the business. Let's not forget that that's important. But it's equally important to remember that you have goals, wishes, and dreams as well. And in order to accomplish all of those things, you gotta plan for it. And planning doesn't have to be hard and gross and icky. That's not— it can be fun. Our planning parties are a blast. That's why we call them parties. But what When you take this time and you say, here's the thing that's important to me, and in order to do this, I'm gonna— it's gonna take this much time, or it's gonna take this much effort, or I'm gonna have to put these things in place in order to make it happen, then you can start to put together that picture of what you need to do in order to make that happen. And then that's how you find the balance. That's how you make sure that you have the freedoms that you want. You opened this business probably because you were sick and tired of working on somebody else's schedule. You opened this business probably because you thought that you could have something that was more meaningful in your life. And if you're stuck in a rut where you're just constantly doing what other people are telling you to anyway, you've got yourself another J-O-B. Sorry, but it's true. But you can change it because I did that first too. When I first started this business, I got— bought myself another J-O-B. But over the years, it has evolved and it's changed and it's grown. And when you understand what you need and what you want to have as part of your journey, then you can start to put the puzzle pieces together and say, you know what? Summer is short. You wanna work, maybe you wanna sit out on the deck in the afternoons. So how can I work just in the morning so that I can spend my time in the afternoon? Side note, yeah, that happens here a lot. What is it that fills you up? Why did you create this business in the first place? It's not just about the money. I know it's not just about the money. You have other wishes and dreams too. So how do you hit the dreams of the success of money that you want along with the dreams of the freedoms that you want? Pair those together, it's magical. Okay, it's possible. Happens for a lot of us. When you do this, you will see that you have more control, power, slash ability to create the world that you want in your own business. And I'll tell you what, it'll help you with that concept of how do I find balance between work and life? How do I feel like I'm not constantly in work mode or constantly in mom mode? There's lots of different ways that this works out. You might have— you will have, let's be honest, you will have a different scenario than I do. And there will be people who have similar scenarios to you, but our lives are truly unique, and the things that come up in our lives are in fact unique. Right now, in my situation where I have 2 adult children, one is not even living at home right now. She's currently working a summer job somewhere else, and my husband is about to take his summer vacation, and we're talking about retirement. You might not be in that place. In fact, you might not have children, or you might have an aged parent that you're looking after, or you might have, or you might have littles at home. There is so many different ways that we can manifest this in our lives, even if it's different. So don't base your freedoms on what I've talked about, but I hope that they inspire you to find your own freedoms, to find the things that you really look at and go, I want that, and then to find a way to make that happen. Now, if you don't like planning, or you've never planned before, or you've tried it and you hate it and you want help, the Rockstar Success Circle is the place to go. If you are looking for that, please let me know. You can drop us an email at clientcare@geekygirl.ca, leave a note below, comment underneath this video if you're on YouTube. The email is the best way to go, of course, if you're listening to us on the podcast. But I'm more than happy to share the information with you and let you know how you can do this in your life. All I ask is that you take a few minutes for yourself because you're worth it. Take those few minutes and say, what do I want? What is it that's going to fill me up right now in my life and my business? And then take some steps. Make some small things happen in your life that'll move the needle for you. I mean, it could be as easy as instead of finishing at 6 every day, I want to finish at 4. Whatever the case may be for you, find these little steps and start to implement them. And then When you do implement them, email us at clientcare@geekygirl.ca and let us know how it went. I hope you have a fantastic day and I'll talk to you next week. Thank you so much for listening to the Overgivers Anonymous podcast. Your support means the world to me. You can find show notes for this episode and other goodies at overgiversanonymous.ca. And if you enjoyed this episode or you enjoyed the podcast in general, why not join us in the Overgivers Anonymous Facebook group where you can connect with overgivers from all over the world? Head on over to geekygirl.ca/group.
