The Glamorous Life of a Work At Home Mom
This is Lee up at 501 am wondering "WTH am I not snuggled up in bed with my Kindle???"
For 6 straight weeks I’ve gone to bed about an hour before Nicholas gets up for school. I tumble into bed with my mind running full speed and exhausted. Within 90 seconds I’ve fallen into a dead sleep for the next 6 blissful hours. Only a fire or major earthquake can wake me at this point, and since we’re in Texas and earthquakes don’t exist so those firemen better have tried their damnedest before waking my ass up.
My mind stirs before my body can even be coerced into moving. And while I had my iPhone turned down to the notch above complete silence, the steady ringing that usually starts after 10am slowly brings me to consciousness. Before I even get out of bed, I’ve used that magical phone to read all the anticipated emails from the 11 different email addresses I monitor, and find that no life altering love note has been sent. Instead, I have a barrage of “Get your $17,000 Government Grant Today” and “I am a Nigerian Diplomat…(that thinks you’re a dumb ass that’ll give me your life savings)” emails polluting my over populated inbox.
Disgusted with you low life spammers, I pull on whatever tank top and pj bottoms I had stripped off & thrown on my side of the bed last night and wonder why everyone feels the need to put on fresh clothes every day. Really. We would save lots of electricity, water, and detergent as well as help our environment by not contributing excessive waste water full of contaminants. So you see, Iam contributing to my kids’ cleaner future.
Half conscious, my main concern after relieving myself of the ocean that somehow flooded my bladder – isn’t brushing my teeth, eating a full balanced breakfast or cleaning up the Legos I just stepped on, but rather how fast can I turn on my computer so that I can:
- See how many more spammers have hit me in the last 4 minutes
- Check each and every one of my accounts I use to monetize my sites
- Check my analytics to see how many of you have taken the time to visit me today
- Open up Tweetdeck to see who wished me goodnight so I can play favorites with them
- Coach via email and Skype
- Then I write, and write, and write (mostly between 12am-6am)
As the hours melt away, I have read new “monetizing” options, made new internet alliances and tweeted my favorite stories of the day until it’s time to pick up Nicholas. Now those of you who’ve followed me on Twitter know that I often debate on whether to change out of my 2-3 day old pj’s in lieu of something more parent-teacher friendly in those rare moments I am almost too late to the school and have to run out of the car screaming at the top of my lungs to get his teacher’s attention before she walks him inside. The pj’s always win and though I was born in the 70′s, my spirit must have come from the days of bra burning because unless I know I’m going to have to face another adult, I am not strapping my boobs in. Damn it, that’s one of the few perks of working for yourself and by yourself. I certainly didn’t take this on for the fame & fortune…oh wait, I did for the fortune.
I know, I know. When you look at my picture, you think, “That can’t be the same lovely girl who looks so clean & well kept who’s writing this.” Yes, I clean up nicely and yes, I even have clean clothes in my closet thanks to the laundry Nazi in our house, but one of the few things that we bloggers and internet warriors don’t often talk about is the life we lead when the cameras are turned off and we’re trying to produce our next affiliate product, website or a few simple blog posts. You hear all the time of the magical stories of success and a balanced life of carpooling and volunteering while creating money out of thin air, but you don’t often get to see the long hours and sleepless nights because the Guru’s are afraid they’ll look less credible, meanwhile you second guess yourself and wonder why you can’t pull your shit together and why getting your business off the ground feels like you’re in a hot air balloon with an elephant strapped to it. The fact is, that we all go through this and I still choose to put in the long hours today.
You are bombarded from these so called ‘Gurus’ that tell you how you can make $1,000 a day every day with no experience and by working just one hour a day. And if you give up those precious 60 minutes of your daily routine, you will be rich beyond your wildest dreams because you will be the only one that knows the secret sauce to making money because if you order right now, you will get that secret sauce delivered to you for only $47! And by this time tomorrow, you’ll have so much money you’ll be wiping your butt with it. And the money will keep on rolling in ‘automatically’ because you’ll just put the system on ‘auto pilot.’
Can you make a million dollars on the internet. Absolutely. Many of us internet warriors hack out an amazing living. We make more money in a month than most people make in a year. We are less stressed and have a better quality of life than the average human being on this planet. But it takes an insane amount of work and drive when you first start out.
While everyone else is slumbering away peacefully in their beds, I’m here typing to you at 4:03am. I’m not complaining one bit. But the life of a www warrior is not some fantasy to be sold in a box that can be upsold with the click of a button. It is hard, rewarding work that requires self sacrifice, extreme focus, and business sense. Whether you have a brick and mortar business like I have for almost 5 years or an internet business like I do now too: without employing basic business skills, you’ll fall into the 85%+ that will fail.
You can fumble around in your business or you can reach out for help. There’s an unlimited amount of resources available to you, but the question is: Where do you start???
After you figure out which route you want to take in business, you should try to make contact with a Guru or a coach in that same type of business that is doing well and an effective teacher. There are countless business owners, both brick & mortar and internet based, that are phenomenal business people and terrible at teaching. If you are looking for recommendations, feel free to email me at Lee (at) TruthParlor.com and I will give you some of my personal favorites based on your direction.
Public Service Announcement: I have committed to a large coaching and mentoring project for a major telecommunications company that has me tied up through the end of October. The good news is that I will give you tons free advice on managing & growing your business during this time. The not so good news is I won’t be available as a full time coach again until that project has successfully been completed.
Be on the lookout for my online calendar which will give you the dates I am available for coaching. I have a few individual clients that will have completed their sessions in the next few months, so I will have openings after the end of October.
Good night and I wish you a day full of toothpaste and body wash tomorrow.
I love this post! So much! You’ve described my day to a T! It’s funny because I don’t really have PJs anymore- more like dressy sweats and bed sweats.
LOL. Kim that is so funny. I mainly have Yoga pants that are transitional. I can wear them around the house or put some earrings on & now I’m dressed up!
It is indeed funny. But just a piece of advise, don’t forget to manage yourself also. I believe that even if you’re just at home you still have to look good. You might be astonished later on that you yourself couldn’t identify who you are.
im like that as well too but the only difference is i still work at an office and i too dont have to worry about the bra, one of my perks too!
it’s crazy how much time you spend to make sure you have what you need, and want. But it’s cool knowing that everything you’ve sacrificed will come back and reward you later on.
the guru’s that claim you can make money just by spending 1 or 2 hours doing this and that is just scamful at it. we all know, including the guru’s” that it takes pretty much your whole day lol (something close to that)
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I like the term “WWW Warrior”! I’m not fighting as hard as you; with 5 homeschooling kids I can only manage 1 website, 1 blog, 3 email addys and my clients. But I sat down to have dinner w/my boys yesterday and realized that I still had on my p.j.’s! I had a sweat shirt over them but I had been in and out of the hse several times and had completely forgotten! Which of course means I hadn’t showered…I also hadn’t eaten…These things are happening more and more. I thought it was because I’m getting older and therefore more forgetful. But it’s really because I am a WWW Warrior! Yeah Baby!
LOL. Listen, I bow down to anyone that can home school 1 much less 5 kids! So if you can handle that AND manage all of the WWW activities, you are a goddess my friend!
Me and my girlfriend are into this Work At Home programs by selling affiliate products online, we also maintain an online store ‘