S3, Ep. 125- Updates With 2 Kids And $300K In Sales

Leah Gervais: Hey everyone, welcome back to the show, Leah here. Hello to those of you that are tuning in live as I record this. I’m so excited to be here with you today for this pretty personal episode, which is sort of an update from a lot of things. It’s kind of been a busy season of life. I have a six month old baby, which has been amazing, and I wanna share a little bit about the transition from one to two kids, even a little bit about the end of my second pregnancy. 

Um, maybe a bit about my birth. I don’t know how interested people are in that. With my first son, I did like a whole episode on it, and part of that is just for me just to be able to go, to look back and, you know, remember it also vividly. Um, and so I could, might talk a bit about that.

And then I’m just going to share a bit about where my business has found itself in this transition of life, and just some thoughts I have about motherhood and business as it pertains to this season for me. So I asked a question on Instagram stories to hear what you guys would be most interested in hearing, and I’m going to answer a little bit about that. 

So let’s dive in. I hope everyone’s doing well and enjoying the new year so far. Um, it’s been a great new year for us. I have to say, I’m enjoying this winter so much more than last year. Last year, this time I was newly pregnant. And I have to say, through both of my pregnancies, my first trimesters with both of them have been worse than anything else, worse than birth, worse than postpartum, worse than the newborn phase, worse than the third trimester.

I really have enjoyed my second and third trimester, so much of both my pregnancies. Um, so my first trimesters are just terrible. And last year I was in the thick of it and it was dark and we were in an apartment with not a lot of natural light, and my son would nap. My toddler would nap until like three 30 or four in the afternoon, and then I would just, he’d wake up and it would be dark out, and I was like, oh my gosh, like four hours of day left and it’s already dark out. 

And it just was, it was tough, I, it was like really the first time I experienced seasonal depression. I typically actually enjoy all seasons. Um, but last year I did not. This year we really are, though we’re having a great time and it’s really snowing this year, which it hasn’t for the past few years.

And my child is into sledding and we go to Central Park all the time and play in it. So, um, I hope that your new year has been, or your year so far has been as wonderful as ours has. But let’s rewind a little bit. So my second son, my baby, was born at the end of August. Um, incredibly, both he and my older one were both born on exactly 38 weeks plus five days to the day, almost to the hour. my water with my first son broke right around 1230 in the morning, and it was like 1250 when my water with my second son broke. 

So I went into labor the same way on exactly the same day at pretty much the same time. And my births were very similar. It’s pretty evident to me that that is exactly how long my body needs to make a baby.

Um, and I won’t get too much into his labor. But up until then, over the summer I was preparing for my second maternity leave, and there was so much more about this time around that I felt clear about and confident about. And it was a lot, I just knew what to expect so much more. I think some of the things that really helped were, um, having very intentional savings. So the first time I kind of like saved up different amounts of money, you know, we had a night nurse and I saved up for that and I just saved up for like a cushion. 

But this time I had all of the exp expenses, my biggest expenses, PrepU into a savings account that I needed to pay for over the first three months of my baby’s life. So like three months of team payments, three months of coaching payments, three months of ads, which are what I spend the most money on.

I had no intention of my income, like completely stopping while I was with my baby when he was a newborn, thanks to my, my passive income that didn’t need to happen. But I certainly did not wanna have the pressure to make $300k in sales or anything like that during the time. And I did pause on quite a bit of coaching work. Um, so I just didn’t wanna have any pressure around like my business expenses not being paid during that time. 

So that felt really, really good. And what we did was we ended up pre-selling my mastermind for people that were sure that they wanted to join the 2025 cohort, um, over the summer. So we allowed them to join and apply in July and August. And that was, I think, a really great process for everyone involved because it gave people in my mastermind more time to prepare for the program and we gave them support to help them prepare in advance for it.

Um, we also offered a more extended payment plan since they were committing so far in advance. I also think it was helpful for them to plan things further in advance. We also have several members that were pregnant and had babies, so they also didn’t wanna think about this too close to the date. And it was helpful for me to know exactly where my mastermind stood before I even had my baby, let alone before the year started. And, uh, we got a record number of applications, so much so that it’s, it’s a bigger group than we’ve had. 

So I ended up splitting, offering double calls because I wanted to make sure everyone got enough time every week. So that worked out really, really well. And we also had our best launch ever, I believe, of scale, your side hustle that, uh, June right before I had the baby, which was a huge way that I was able to kind of like secure my team while I was gone because, um, Abby, my co-coach handles a lot of scarier side hustle. She’s very involved in it, she leads it really, I kind of am like her assistant in it. 

Um, and so having such a successful launch at that time was really helpful because it just kind of carried her while I was on maternity leave. So we ended up making over $300kin sales while I was in my third trimester of my pregnancy, which is gobsmacking to hear, honestly, when I say it out loud, it just feels like I cannot believe this is my life and that that happened. 

And I’m very, very grateful that my business got to a place where I was able to do that. And the things I really can attribute to that, being in my third trimester of pregnancy and having these results were first and forever, I will say it till I’m blue in face, if you do not have a stream of passive income set up in your business, you are borrowing time from your future self. 

And you know, I had a lot of years where I didn’t set this up because my business was doing so well, focusing on my services. I was coaching a lot. I had masterminds, I had group programs, I had one-on-one coaching, I was doing BIP days. It was great. It was a very exciting season. I was watching my business flourish before my eyes and I didn’t have kids.

And you know, we didn’t, like, I, I was a newlywed. I really just had so much time and space to pour into it, so I didn’t really feel like I needed it. And, and I, I guess I didn’t. But I think whenever you feel that point of like, I need this because my business cannot continue to sustain solely on my time and energy, um, it’s kind of too late at that point because you do it, it and it’s not too late, right? You can always do it, but it does take a bit, uh, I mean, it just takes some upfront grunt work to really set this up. 

And if you’re in a season where you’re just completely fried, it’s really hard to find that time because you’re probably burned out. You might not really be profiting anything, right? You might like making a lot of money, but if you’re spending it all, then there’s only so much that that helps with.

Um, and that was kind of my situation. I mean, I, it took me probably, it took me a while to really get my passive income systems profitable and to the well oiled machine that they are now, which is another reason why it’s important to start sooner because it does take time to get in momentum and to test and optimize things so that they are functioning so much like clockwork. Um, but that was a huge reason that our launches went so well. I mean, it wasn’t, I didn’t make $300k in sales passively, right? I made it through sales. Um, but our $300k in sales were so effortless because of our passive income systems. That makes sense. 

So that was a huge reason for it. And then I also believe that, and this is no mystery, right? The reason that my programs sell so well is because we have incredible testimonials and success stories.

Our coaching actually works. And I think that people are feeling a bit more distrustful mistrusting of the internet right now. I think that, and I have a lot of, I mean, I’ll in a nutshell, here’s my theory on that. I feel like everyone and their mother became an entrepreneur or an online business owner during the pandemic because it was very easy to do so. 

And at no fault of their own, I don’t think this was done maliciously, but I think a lot of them have a false idea of what it takes to really build a sustainable long-term business. Because it was so easy to do during that time period that the expectation for what it took to maintain it, what is, is off. And so then you have people paying those people whose businesses kind of took off during the pandemic to teach them how to build one, but they don’t really know how to build one that sustains different waves of the economy, different seasons of the, of the economy, and just things that now aren’t as simple or quick.

They don’t really know everything that goes into it. And so I think the reason our clients do have such good success stories and do have such testimonials is because they’re willing in the way I, you know, teach them is to build things with a much more focus, excuse me, a bigger, stronger focus on your foundation. And that might take more time than some of the overnight success stories you see online, especially than you saw online during the pandemic. 

And that’s okay. We don’t, we’re not in a rush if this is something that you really want to be your legacy and you want to sustain your livelihood and your family’s livelihood. And I think a lot of those kinds of overnight quick win accounts on Instagram are talking about how they are now. A year ago they wanted to start an Instagram just to help pay for groceries.

And now they’re making six figures. And that’s amazing. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I’m not shaming these people, but my clients are not looking to help pay for groceries. My clients like paying for their kids’ schools and saving for their five 20 nines and taking their families on vacations. And they’re the breadwinners in their marriage and some of their husbands are completely reliant on them, and they’re the only providers for their families. So we’re not about the overnight quick wins. 

And I think that that’s why our success stories are so strong. So between my passive income system and I think just the legacies my programs have built, which also as a side note comes from not having the inclination to create something new all the time. And I think that that is really hard to do in your creativity, the temptation to jump around and see something new and fun and you get inspired and you wanna do something new is hard to resist.

But it’s really, really critical both for your business’s growth and for the success of your clients. I mean, if you’re offering new things all the time, it’s confusing for them. They’re not sure what they need. You don’t really have enough capacity to pour into a program to make it excellent if you’re doing something that is spreading you thin. Um, so I think that, you know, my mastermind Scale your side hustle has been around for years and years and years before the pandemic, both of them. 

And I think that that helps them sell and helps them sell so easily. So my third trimester ended strong. Um, my pregnancy ended strong. It was a more tiring pregnancy certainly than my first, I think just by nature of, you know, having a toddler and also being in my third trimester in the summer was hard. It was hot.

I was having predominant contractions at like 32 weeks. I mean, when my son, I felt like I had no pre-labor signs at all, my older son at all. And so when my water broke, I was so stunned. And with this one it was the opposite. I feel like for two weeks before I was like, this could be happening literally any minute. like every day kind of felt like Groundhog Day. ’cause I was kind of preparing to go into labor at any minute because I just kept having these signs. And, um, so in that way it was very different. 

But let’s talk a little bit about postpartum. So one of the questions we got was, um, what was, what has been easier, the transition from zero to one versus one to two? And I would largely say that the transition from zero to one was harder for me, actually, I think my husband would say one to two.

And I’ve actually heard a therapist say that she commonly sees that that zero to one is harder for the mother because she goes from being so independent to not independent at all. Um, but with only one kid, the father still has some sense of independence. He’s still the secondary parent. But then when you have two kids, you know, he loses all sense of freedom because one of you is always on. 

So I think that my husband might have said that two has been a little more chaotic for him, but in general, I have definitely found having a newborn the second time around to be worlds easier. I mean, everything about taking care of him has been light years easier. Breastfeeding has been a breeze in comparison to what it was my first time around. He isn’t taking a bottle, which is a little bit of a challenge just because I’m, I, you know, I’m kind of tethered to him, but I love that.

Um, but overall, I mean, just very, very easy, you know, no longer researching the doom scrolling, the Google Dooms, um, just kind of trusting myself and what I think is best for him. He, and that’s been very easy for us, which is lucky, but very easy. Sleep in the newborn phase was still tiring, but not, it did not gimme like the existential sense of dread that it did the first time around. I felt like the first time I really had to kind of like hack it. 

Like I was constantly googling how to have my newborn sleep more and sleep conditions and better onesies and the Amazon purchases at 2:00 AM and all that. And I think this time I was really just surrendered to the fact that he’s a newborn. He’s not gonna sleep that much. He needs to eat a lot and it will get better, and it really naturally did.

So overall, I felt like I was a much better mom the second time around. There were, of course, other challenges, just like the logistics were a lot harder with two than they were with one. I mean, just trying to figure out how to take care of a toddler and a baby and me and our dog and our household and, and my business and all the things. Um, it was just huge, it was a lot more complicated, I would say, than the first time around. 

Um, but that would really be kind of the only thing that I found particularly harder. Um, and so overall the newborn phase was great. And what I did with work was the first two months I took pretty much entirely off. Um, I had substitute coaches come in for my high level programs. Um, I paused with some of my one-on-one clients and just completely, and then of course had my passive income streams that, um, really, you know, sustained me during that time.

And then once my son was two months old, with the two to four month period, I did start working again gently, but I really was more sustaining things than actively selling or launching things quite as much. If we did sell anything, it was just repurposed from something we had done before. 

So I wasn’t creating a ton of new content and things like that. Um, and then just right around, I would say about a month, well, kind of like the beginning of the year, so, um, maybe my son’s four to five months I have started ta you know, doing more proactive things with work, which has felt good. But I think that the challenge I’m currently facing, I’m sure a lot of newer moms or just moms with babies can relate to this. And this might be a bit more specific to me because something about my personality is that I’m just a very extreme person.

I am not, uh, I’m all or nothing. I don’t like to do mediocre or I don’t like to do moderation. It just doesn’t work for me. Um, I get obsessed with things, I go all in and frankly, I, you know, I think my parents were a little bit like, Leah, you have to chill out when I was a kid. But I think it’s really, really served me as an entrepreneur because it, it, I never go half with things. Either I do things or I don’t. And that has been a, you know, great trait because I’m not like constantly dipping my toe in things and wondering and backpedaling and all of that. 

So with work and two kids and how my lifestyle is set up, many of, you know, my situation, we, I choose not to have a nanny and I love that, but it’s hard to be all in at work and all in on motherhood.

For me, I’m still kind of finding my footing with that. I think now that my son’s around six months old, um, it’s feeling a bit more natural to feel more all in at work again. Um, but it’s hard, it’s hard to kind of find to navigate, you know? And I think because of my choices and honestly being like last year, for the most part, I’ve really been able to kind of have the mindset of like, I’m all in on motherhood. 

That is my biggest priority is being with my kids, my son as much as possible and, and baking with him and going to the park with him and doing all the things with him and my business was almost my side thing. And I almost feel beyond privileged to say that because my business averaged 50 K months all year last year, and I really was able in a sense to somewhat coast, you know, and, and I’m very, very grateful for that.

I mean, I think that that speaks to my philosophy of having a long-term sustainable approach to business because my business isn’t that complicated. You know, on the front end we have my passive income funnels, and then on the back end we have like two or three programs that are very beloved and popular and have great reputations. 

And so I didn’t really need to reinvent things last year. And between the two of them working as well as they did, my launch is continuing to work. Um, I was, I was really able to kind of have that mindset and the only thing I did last year is I created my passive park sales course, which was huge. 

And I’m very, very grateful that I did create that because I think it’s been really helpful for my clients and I’m grateful that I have something that I can serve people with that’s kind of between my mastermind, which is a very intensive commitment and program, um, that I can still help people see how I run my business and what they can do for theirs without it being that big of an investment.

So that was really the only big thing I did last year, and I just did that through taking a couple days where I blocked out pretty much the entire day. I got childcare from my toddler on those days. We did this over maybe like three days over the course of two months where I just banged it out and, um, just focused on nothing else but that. 

And that was really it. And I can feel myself now at around six months wanting now to get back into this all in feeling with my business. I love my business, I love my work and I love creating and doing new things and growing, and I kind of have that itch and I’m still honestly figuring out how to be all in, in business and all in, in motherhood. Um, and I do think you can do both. And I think now that my son is six months old, you know, things are a little bit less insane.

Um, but that’s kind of where my head’s at is just figuring out how to be all committed into both. And the way I’m doing that, I think the way that, you know, I’ve been able to quote quote coast while my business has been bringing in so much, it’s not like I don’t work, I just, I’m very, very, um, to be honest, I’m a very good coach. 

So I’m able to just serve my clients in a very efficient way. Um, and really I could sustain my business with really giving, you know, a few hours a day to it for quite a while. And so now I’m trying to find out time. I’m fine. I’m carving out time every week to focus on the growth of my business, not just the sustaining of it, not just the existence of it. Um, and that’s easier said than done both emotionally and logistically.

You know, it’s finding the way to find that time that still honors my priority of being a stay-at-home mom. And it’s also logistically something that I wanna figure out. You know, I don’t have a nanny and I want it that way. I’m definitely not against babysitters here and there and childcare here and there, but, um, my son isn’t taking a bottle, so it’s not like I can ever really be away from him for two to three hours at a time. 

But I think just having clear time management and clear strategies about what you’re working on is the key. And the thing I’m falling back to, which has always worked for me, is to get very specific on the part of your business that you’re growing. If you’re in the beginning, don’t, don’t, you know, disregard this, you kind of have to grow everything all at once.

But I would say once you’re at like 150 to 200K a year, the key is to look at a very specific piece. Whether that’s what your lead generation is, what you’re doing for your sales process, what you’re doing for your delivery, how you’re nurturing, really there’s, there’s five pieces, right? Lead gen, top of funnel, nurturing, middle sales, right in the middle. Then on the other side, delivery and client experience. 

And we just perfect one of those at a time. And that’s what I’m doing. And I just think for the last year I was really able, I mean, I just had built all five of them to be so effective that I could really just continue executing on them. And now I’m picking one and I’m gonna focus on it in the bite-sized pieces that I can and more to come on that. I will keep you guys in the loop, but that is my little update on how two kids are going. 

That’s my update on how business and motherhood is going. And I’d love to hear from you guys, what if this has made you, where have you felt the same way? Um, and what takeaways do you have from this? What have you, what, where are you at with your motherhood and entrepreneurship relationship? So message me on Instagram. Thank you guys so much for tuning in.

Lots of love to you all. Oh, and because I am going to reopen things and just kind of speed things up, go to leahgervais.com/waitlist and you can get, I’m gonna, I’m going to do some new client work probably in August, so if you wanna get on the waitlist for that, now’s the time to do so. Um, and if I have anything open up between now and then, um, the wait list is always the first to know. 

So if you are interested in a VIP day or you know, shorter intensives, if I have the capacity, we reach out to the waitlist. Okay, everyone, thank you so much for tuning in. Have a great rest of your day and lots of love.

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