You DON’T Have to Choose! Have It All on Your Terms with Cyndi Thomason Music That Inspires

On today’s episode, I’m talking to the amazing Cyndi Thomason, a speaker and thought leader in the e-commerce community, to talk about her brand new book Motherhood, Apple Pie, and All That Happy Horseshit and discuss the choice moms often face between continuing their career or starting their family and working from home. I start the episode by asking Cyndi where the amazing title for her book came from, and she shares a story from her corporate days when a board member used that phrase in response to a passionate speech she’d just made. She explains that the phrase stuck with her, and she eventually decided to transform its flippant negativity into something positive by using it as the title of the book. This leads her to discuss how the book originated from her desire to empower women faced with the choice between a corporate job and motherhood. Around twenty years ago, Cyndi herself left the corporate world to raise her daughter, and while it was the right choice for her, she shares that she didn’t expect how much she would miss the achievement mentality of her job and how lost she would feel without it. Her book, she explains, is about how to integrate motherhood, business, and time for oneself to avoid losing your identity to just one element.
Next, Cyndi and I get a bit deeper into her book as she introduces the concept of the sacred space. This involves finding an activity that lets you lose track of time and get into the flow without thinking about the stresses in your life, and then carving out time to stay in touch with it. Cyndi explains that finding and maintaining this sacred space will improve your ability to make decisions and feel fulfilled. We then move on to discuss Cyndi’s idea of rubber balls and glass balls (i.e. those tasks we can let bounce and the ones we can’t allow to smash) and how differentiating between the two and scheduling accordingly can be a major help in finding balance in your life. I then ask Cyndi about avoiding guilt for scheduling time for yourself, and we discuss the importance of setting boundaries, including between you and your kids. We both share stories about setting boundaries as parents to demonstrate that while it might be emotionally tricky, modeling boundaries will benefit both you and your children in the long run. And finally, we close the episode by discussing the framework Cyndi introduces in her book, especially the importance of true self-care, including real rest from stress and distractions, and of figuring out who you want on your team for your business and personal life, and reaching out to them for support and understanding.
You can come talk about motherhood, apple pie, and happy horseshit in the Amazon Files and Mommy Income community. You can join our Facebook group with today’s codeword APPLEPIE to learn more about bundling, ask questions, and participate in the conversation with other sellers. And if you’re ready to take your business to a whole new level, visit MommyIncome.com/Coach to schedule your one-on-one coaching call today.
 
This week on the Amazon Files:
The origin of Cyndi’s book and its title Parenthood vs. the corporate world
Finding your sacred space
Glass balls, rubber balls, and time-blocking
Modeling boundaries
Cyndi’s framework for integrating motherhood, apple pie, and happy horseshit
Defining and applying self-care
Developing your personal and business support teams

“We’re not built to always serve and always work and always consume. We are built for rest in some ways. And that includes not just sleep but rest from decisions, rest from bombardment and confusion, rest from the damn phone that’s literally an attachment to our hands.”
- Kristin Ostrander
 
Quotes:
“I’m like, well, what’s wrong with motherhood? And what’s wrong with apple pie? I mean, to me, it kind of symbolizes, you know, small business, and growth, and the effort and hard work. I mean, to me, it was always a good