If you’re a mom running a business, you know the drill:

Work like you don’t have kids.

Parent like you don’t work.

Smile like you’re “balancing it all.”

And underneath? The mental load never shuts off. There’s always another decision, another kid need, another email, another thing you “should” be doing for your business.

In this episode of the Serendipitous Rebel Podcast, Krystal and Wendy sit down with Kathy Stowell, business coach for moms who coach and host of the Mom Coaches Getting Clients podcast, to unpack what it really looks like to build a sustainable coaching business as a mom — one that honors your values, your capacity, and your actual life.

This episode is for you if you’re a mom entrepreneur, midlife coach, or service provider who’s tired of trying to meet everyone else’s expectations and is ready to build something that feels aligned and doable.

The Mental Load of Mom Entrepreneurs

Krystal names what so many of us live every day:

“We wanna talk about just the real conflicts that mom entrepreneurs face, the emotional labor, the capacity shifts, sometimes the guilt, and why traditional definitions of balance simply don’t apply here.”

Whether your kids are little or grown, the emotional and logistical load is real. You’re juggling:

• Family needs

• Client work

• Marketing and content

• Home management

• Your own health (usually last)

Add in the online business world shouting that you “should” be on every platform, in every program, and scaling yesterday, and it’s no wonder so many women feel stuck in survival mode.

Perfectionism Is Heavy — and Optional

Kathy’s favorite place to start? Releasing perfectionism.

She shares a phrase from her twenties, when she and her friends would do their nails before going out:

“It’s good from far, but far from good. And that’s okay, right?”

That became her philosophy for business and life. She talks about sewing her own clothes — not perfectly, but joyfully — and embracing the wabi-sabi, the beauty in imperfection. Her husband even nicknamed her “Wabi Cathy” as a loving ode to her quirks.

As entrepreneurs, perfectionism shows up everywhere:

• Refusing to publish the post until it’s “just right”

• Recording the same Reel 15 times

• Judging every brand photo with a microscopic lens

Krystal ties this directly to body image during a recent brand photoshoot:

“Real women have the wabi-sabi-ness. Real women have the kinks and the things that they get to own.”

Perfectionism doesn’t protect us. It just keeps us from being visible.

Simplicity as Strategy: The Four-by-One Plan

To move out of the overwhelm, Kathy leans on simplicity — not just in parenting, but in business. She introduced her Four-by-One Plan for coaching businesses, which works beautifully for any soul-led service provider:

1. One Clear Niche + Signature Offer

   • “I help [who] with [main struggle] so they can [result].”

   • For coaches, she suggests at least a 3–6 month package — the “big kahuna” offer you’re always guiding people toward.

2. One Weekly Love Letter (Email)

   • Choose one day a week.

   • Write like you’re telling a friend, “Oh my God, you’ll never guess what happened this week…”

   • Share a story or insight, then do what Kathy calls “content yoga”: stretch it into a gentle CTA inviting them to work with you.

3. One Weekly Piece of Core Content

   • A podcast episode, blog, or live video.

   • Again, pick a day. Let it anchor your week.

4. One Primary Social Media Platform

   • No need to be everywhere.

   • Show up 3–5 days a week to share “bliss crumbs” — small, valuable pieces that point back to your email list and core content.
     

For the Serendipitous Rebel ICA — midlife female entrepreneurs who are tired of Franken-businesses built from everyone else’s advice — this kind of focus is everything. It cuts the noise and gives you a simple, repeatable rhythm.

Balance Is a Myth — Think Trimesters Instead

We love Kathy’s reframe on “balance.” Instead of trying to keep everything perfectly even, she compares it to standing on a balance board at the gym — your body is constantly making tiny shifts to stay upright.

She breaks the year into three-month trimesters and invites clients to choose:

• One value to celebrate this trimester

• One main business event (like a launch or promotion)

• One creative outlet to prioritize (sewing, gardening, painting)

• One self-care focus using her S.H.O.E.S. framework

This trimester approach lines up beautifully with the SAVOUR Method — stepping out of your comfort zone with intention, honoring your energy, and building in celebration as you go, instead of treating success like a finish line you have to crawl to.

The S.H.O.E.S. Self-Care Framework

Kathy’s self-care framework is simple and powerful: S.H.O.E.S.

• S – Sleep (quality and quantity)

• H – Hydration

• O – Organic Living (time outside, what you put in and on your body)

• E – Exercise

• S – Stillness (meditation, quiet time, lying on the bed with your kids)

Instead of trying to “fix” everything at once, she has clients choose one to focus on for a trimester. From there, she leans on tiny, doable steps — borrowing from the Kaizen philosophy of small continuous improvement:

• Swapping one nightly scroll for a cup of herbal tea

• Bringing a small glass of water to your desk each morning

• A five-minute walk outside between calls

These aren’t rewards you earn after you hit a revenue milestone. As Krystal points out:

“These things are foundational, but I think often they’re treated as the reward after some sort of a professional achievement.”

You build a sustainable, profitable business by protecting the human running it.

Modeling Alignment for Your Kids (and Yourself)

One of the most powerful threads in this conversation is how our businesses model possibility for our kids. Kathy grew up watching her mom run a sewing business from home — listening to the hum of the machine, seeing clients arrive, and later watching her mom prioritize tennis, bridge, and hikes with friends.

She didn’t experience that as neglect. She experienced it as expansive. As Wendy says:

“If they see a strong, independent, passionate person, ‘I want to be like my mom too.’”

Releasing guilt around our work is part of rewriting the narrative of what it means to be a mom and an entrepreneur. You’re allowed to design a business that fits you — your values, your capacity, your season of life — and trust that everyone around you benefits from that alignment.

Your Next Step: Create Space for Simplicity

If this conversation has you craving white space, clearer strategy, and a business that feels more you and less “Frankenstein’d from every course you’ve taken,” you don’t have to figure it out alone.

At Serendipitous Rebel, we help female entrepreneurs:

• Cut through the noise and simplify their business model

• Build strategies that support both income and lifestyle

• Integrate self-care and celebration into the way they work, not as an afterthought
  

💛 Explore the SAVOUR Mastermind Retreat for an immersive, soul-aligned reset, or apply for 2:1 Personalized Business Coaching to get tailored support built around your strengths, values, and season of life.

Your business gets to be simple, sustainable, and successful — and you don’t have to sacrifice yourself to build it.

We absolutely loved this conversation with Kathy, and we hope you did too! To learn more about Kathy and her business you can find her at the following:

Website: Bliss Beyond Naptime

Facebook: Mom Coaches Getting Clients

Instagram: Kathy Stowell | Business Coach for Moms

Youtube: Kathy Stowell

Podcast: Mom Coaches Getting Clients