Balancing motherhood, marriage and your business without burning out

Speaker Kelly Alhooie shares a personal account of balancing motherhood, marriage, and entrepreneurship without burning out. She contrasts building her first company (Orthopelvic Physical Therapy) out of pain with intentionally building her second company (Pelvibiz) around a deep why (her mother’s sacrifices), and describes a practical habit—blocking self-care and work on Google Calendar (e.g., gym, meals, beach)—to preserve energy, prevent resentment, and sustain growth. She names COO Julia, gives concrete schedule details, and urges listeners to block time on their calendars as a non-negotiable plan.
Questions this video answers
Julia
Four and a half years
Starts work at 6:00am and stops at 8:00pm
5:00am
Seven days a week
Chapters
Time management. Let's talk about it. If you guys are struggling, being a mom, being a wife, taking care of yourself, helping out with the kids, running a business, okay? Maybe helping out with a dog as well. All those things take work, effort, energy, and every single person needs attention. And you also have to learn how to give to yourself. This is a very hard lesson that I've learned. And today is going to be a personal episode on the journey that I've continued to go on and continue to dive into to truly understand the patterns of building businesses and what it takes to build a successful business. And I say that in quotes. So if you guys are watching this on YouTube, you can see me do air quotes, okay? And by the way, if you're listening to the podcast and you haven't watched YouTube, please go over to YouTube and subscribe. Subscribe at Pelby Biz. Please do that. Okay. That being said, let's get into it. So what I realized when I first. When I first built my first company, and it was a physical therapy practice called Orthopelvic Physical Therapy. When I built it, it was purely out of pain. And I kind of recognized that as I was going through the journey, but now I really understand that it was purely out of pain. Every single day, day was pain, pain, pain, pain. And I thought that was just part of the process because I was in a painful situation and painful state, meaning I was in a place that I absolutely hated. And so I knew the only way to get out of that situation was through me being successful. Okay? Meaning ak helping a lot of people to be able to afford a different life. Okay? And I just this week had this epiphany. My coo, Julia, okay, she decided. She's like, kelly, you know what? We're gonna. You know, I've been really changing just in general. Like, I've been changing my lifestyle. I've been changing my whole self. I've been, you know, going to the gym every single day. But she's like, we're really going to put this down on a calendar? And you guys are going to be like, okay, great. What's significant about that? But what we did is it wasn't written. It wasn't like I wrote down a Word document. It was on my freaking Google Calendar. And there is a difference between my Google Calendar and me writing it down on a piece of paper, because I will lose that piece of paper in two seconds. The Google Calendar, however, does not get lost, and it will ping you on what to do. And to me, this was an epiphany today that I was like, oh my God, this thing pings me, like, and it just tells me what to do. Who on here that's listening would love to have someone just tell them what to do? Me. Okay. We don't have to think. And then I started. So this is what happened. This is what happened this week. And I want to bring this to your attention because I think this is a massive lesson. So on the Google calendar, by the way, I start work at 6:00am and I don't stop until 8:00pm, p.m. at night. Okay. And I would say over the last six months, I have just been just going, going like those hours. Just going, going seven days a week, by the way. Seven days a week. Not five, seven days a week. Okay. And I will just sporadically fit in my workouts and then like, you know, maybe fit in my eating somewhere. And it wasn't like there wasn't a system to it. And then sometimes I would feel guilty about going to work out because I had so much to do to catch up. I say catch up. That's how it feels, right? We all feel like we're behind. We're not really behind. It's just that we have a lot on our plate that we're trying to problem solve at the time. And we feel we don't have time to take care of ourselves, but the reality is we do. It's just that it feels less painful if you handle the problems of someone else than of taking care of yourself, if that makes sense. And so what we did, and this sounds so simple, but I'm telling you guys, I would use this hack. Okay? What? We actually blocked my schedule out and said, jim, eat. Like we literally put eat on my calendar. Okay. And Julia blocked it for like an hour and a half and then eating for another 30 minutes, so gave me two hours. Oh, and then I also put beach so that I, you know, I live right by the beach. So it's like, go to the beach, Kelly. You're right there. Okay. So what I did was my brain had to restructure because how I built my first business was purely out of pain. So in my head, and I need you guys, this is very applicable to you guys because in my head I thought if I am not in pain every second of the day, then I am not growing a business. Because that's how I grew my very successful business the first business around. Because I was just constantly okay with being in pain. Like me being in pain knew I was growing. And I say pain not Physical pain, I mean, sometimes, but, like, mental pain. Like, there's just so many problems that you have to solve, right? And, like, being in a location I didn't like, like, it was just a whole situation. That's the pain that I'm talking about. Okay? And here, by the way, I got positive reinforcement there, because pain equals success in my head. But here, I want to build the second company different. Now, for those that know, I've had Pelvibiz now for four and a half years. I've been growing it in conjunction with orthopelvic. It's insane. I know. Okay? But I really. When I went full force into pelvis, I really wanted to do it differently to make sure that I wasn't building a company out of pain. I was building a company because it truly resonated with me, and it truly was my driving force of my deep why. Which for me. My mom was a single mom. She did everything to make ends meet. And I had a learning disability growing up my entire life, and so I had to do things differently. So I had to try harder than every single person. And my mom. Watching my mom go through the struggle of being a single mom with three kids and her working four jobs and all the things, I mirrored that same behavior when I cut out of PT school, I had four jobs for four years straight, okay? Because that's what I saw my mom doing to make more money, you just get more jobs. That's what I thought. Because that's just what my family did. We were very. We were not, you know, well off, okay? So I just thought, like, that's just how you do this. And my deep why is I don't want women to go through the. The intense amount of pain that I went through to build business, number one, okay? I don't want women to go through the intense amount of heartache and pain that I saw my mom growing up go through constantly. Now, my mom, by the way, you guys know my mom. She would never say that this. That she went through intense pain or whatever. I know, though, just by watching her, she doesn't have to say anything, that it was insane what she did. Insane. Okay? She would sleep, like, three hours at night. She was a teacher. She worked at Chick Fil A, scrubbing the toilets. She worked at my gymnastics gym just to be able to pay for my gymnastics. She did whatever it took. She did whatever it freaking took to be able to make sure that us kids had what we, you know, needed minimally to have. And it was insane. And I just don't want women to have to go through that. So that is my very, very deep why? Not that I'm like, oh, I think I'm good at building a business so I'm going to be a coach and just sell people some program. No, I have a massive reason behind it and that's why I'm so passionate about it. And you can't, you can't train this passion. It's, it's just in you. And for me that's like, that's where this, this coaching thing comes from and strategy and like change. It's really just life changing. Like I'm, I just feel like I'm a life changer. That's. I don't even call myself really a coach because I feel like that's so overused. But, but you gotta like, you gotta have a deep why, right? And so my point to this is I'm obsessed with doing what I do every single day and I want to make business fun, enjoyable and do it with amazing people. That's what I realized for business number two, if you're not cool and you're not willing to work seven days a week and put in the effort because you have such passion behind it, you cannot be on Pelby business team. You just can't. If you're not an A player, you don't work out, you cannot be on Pelvi business team. Okay? These are just called standards. We have standards and I really uphold them now that I can in this company. Okay, if like, like I, I need you guys to have this for your business, okay? I need you to have this because if you don't have it, you're not going to have a business. And so I'm saying this because if I set the standards that high then I have to live up to that. And sometimes you keep setting this bar higher and higher and you're like shit, how am I going to do all this? So my point is going back to the schedule is I wake up at six or I don't even wake up six, I wake up at five, I start work at six and you know, I go till eight. And so at six o' clock we started blocking out immediately this is what I do. And then around like 10, 11, I'll go work out and to. And I always was afraid of that because I felt like I would lose my focus and lose my concentration and then wouldn't be able to come back. But instead what I realized of this just booking this out on Google and it pinging me saying like you it's basically telling me, like, I don't have to think like, kelly, go to the gym. Okay, cool. My schedule says that. I know because we plan out my schedule, so I know if I'm doing what's on my schedule that the business is going to move forward. I don't have to, like, guess. I don't have to have anxiety over it. I don't have to be like, oh, this isn't gonna work. I know it's gonna work because we set the schedule to make it work. Does that make sense to get the things done? And so, like, it was just like an aha moment to me where it's like, no, go to the gym now. Okay, well, I gotta go to the gym. So I went to the gym, and then it's like, okay, go to the beach. Okay, Then I went to the beach, because the beach is gonna calm my nervous system. Gym hypes it up. Beach is gonna come. I come back, and then I do the second half of my day, right? And I feel good because I gave to myself constantly instead of giving to all my people constantly, and then not giving anything to myself. And then I become resentful. That's what happened in the first business. That's what happened in the first business. You become resentful because you give to every single person and you forget about yourself because there's 20,000 things to do. And I'm telling you this because, again, it was an aha moment for me that most business owners, you guys are not recognizing this yet. You're not recognizing it, but I'm telling you, just being able to block out your calendar and plan it for the week, saying, this is what we're going to do. And whether or not you have admins, whether or not you have providers, if you block out their schedule and they just follow the calendar, that's the plan. How could you not grow? How could you not change? How could you not love your life? How could you not be successful? Okay? And by the way, I have to say this, too. I used to classify success as how much money you made, Okay? I now classify success in my second company as how much fun we can have and how much we can enjoy what we do. Because you can have all the money. I had it, okay? And you can have all the money, but you can absolutely be completely miserable, or you can grow something that's truly amazing and have fun while actually doing it and be able to continuously push a boundary and be so proud of yourself while actually taking care of yourself in the process. So that you don't go hard for a year and then be like, hell, I'm so burnt out. I can't do this anymore. And some of you guys, that might be seven years. I mean, that's what I did. Seven years. Just bam. Just straight. I didn't take care of myself at all. Did not take care of myself at all. And now it's like, complete opposite. I'm taking care of myself. I'm going to networking events, hanging out with girlfriends, like, doing stuff that's fun, that fuels my cup so that I can keep going. And I have a very deep why behind it. And so I'm making this podcast today because I really want to bring personal lessons that I personally have experienced through lots of success and lots of failure. There's both to the story, and I would love to see you guys shine by literally just doing one thing. One takeaway today from this on Sunday, go to Google and every single block. It could be two hours, three hours, one hour, whatever. Put in something that you believe will move the business forward. And then when you see that pop up on your screen or pop up on your phone, you have to go do it. You cannot negotiate. You just have to take action. And most of y' all want to negotiate. You want to say, I don't know, I'm going to do that. Yeah, I'm going to come up with something. I'm going to go do something else, because this is more important, blah, blah, and you negotiate. No, the plan is the plan. Stick to the plan. If you stick to the plan and you do it repetitively. And by the way, it is so hard to stick to the plan repetitively because I was like, wait, you're now taking two hours of my day, Julia, out of my schedule that I would just grind. And I got to do the same, same level of work, but in two hours or less. Like, two hours or less. And she's like, yeah, that's what you're gonna do so you can take care of yourself. I'm like, oh, shoot. How am I gonna do this? So now I gotta level up and I gotta think about ways. It levels me up. I gotta think about ways how to be for more proficient. How do I get those two hours back, right? And that's the level you need to operate at. That is the level. So hopefully this is really helpful and insightful today, guys. Please learn from my mistakes or, you know, just the things I've been through. And please go block your. Go Google Calendar so that it pings you and just. Just set it there and just go and do it and don't negotiate with yourself. That's the biggest thing.
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