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She is sure, she is true, she is straw is straw,
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she is true, is true, she is praise, pray, she is.
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Pes, she is you.
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Hello, everyone, welcome to today's Word of Mom Radio. Here
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on the Word of Mom Media Network. I'm your host,
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Dory d Carlow, and you know we are here week
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after week, show after show, breaking those myths a mompreneurs
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and business women, especially those of us building our businesses
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from home, that were just dabbling between bake sales and
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getting our nails done. We're not. We are smart, we
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are savvy, and we are sharing the wisdom of women
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in business and in life. And I'm looking forward to
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bringing today's guest into our business spotlight. Leslie Lane is
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the founder and lead photographer Studio thirteen, a certified woman
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owned business in Indianapolis. A third generation photographer, Leslie transformed
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her family's legacy into a modern, agile brand by leading
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a team of independent creators. She's one of a few
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women in commercial photography and is known for helping businesses
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elevate their visual presence. Passionate about mentorship, Leslie empowers the
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next generation of freelancers by sharing her journey and fostering
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growth in the creative community, and I can tell you more,
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but it would be much more interesting to have her here.
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So with all that being said, Leslie, welcome to Word
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of Mom Radio.
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Thank you, Doria. It's such a pleasure to be here
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with you.
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I'm really looking forward to learning more about you. So
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I would love for you to share your journey that
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led to the creation of Studio thirteen.
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Yeah, thank you. So grandparents were photographers. They did portrait
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wedding photography, and then my mother and my stepfather they
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did commercial photography. But life happened many many things between
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recessions and bad marriages and all that happened, and so
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I had to recreate my brand into the company that
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I have now and realizing that people are doing business
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a lot differently now than they did back when my
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parents and my grandparents did business. And so I have
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taken the business from being a big operation where my
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parents had eleven employees at one time, and then me
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getting fed up with the industry and saying I'm never
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going to take any more employees, just me and one
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person and I'm done to growing into the leadership role
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and saying hey, I've got more business than I can
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physically shoot myself instead of just saying no, I'm not
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available or referring it out to somebody else. What if
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I start training freelancers to do work with me and
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show them how to do it in a way that
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matches my business prowess, and then the business stays in house.
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I don't have to pay a full salaried employee. They
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all do it on a contract basis, and now I'm
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able to scale the business without having to worry about
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the extra investment w two employees. So that's how I
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got here.
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Such a great way to do it. Focusing on brand
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support and client services in this economy, I think is
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kind of one of the things that's helped you become
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as successful. How have you managed to.
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Do that well? Photography went from being a science, you
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know when we're shooting film and processing film, and then
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the digital cameras were so big and they were so
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cost prohibitive to now you carry one around on your phone.
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Got to say, I'm pretty sure my grandparents didn't see
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that coming, and so it really has given us an
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opportunity as creatives to be more so, if you want
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to differentiate yourself from an influencer or you want to
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differentiate yourself from a hobbyist, you have to be not
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just a creative photographer, but you have to be an
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asset to their business. And so what we do is
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not just provide these services where they know that if
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they have a last minute shoot, I've probably got somebody
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that can handle that, because it's not all on my shoulders.
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But also, let's just say that your administrator's overwhelmed and
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the idea of scheduling fifty headshots in a day is
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just more than your administrator can do. Well, I've got
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an administrator that can do that for you, and she's
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set up a way of doing a digital online platform
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for each individual business to send out to their associates
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so that the administrator doesn't have to handle all the
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shooting scheduling. So just whatever the company needs, whether it's
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a full creative shoot or just help with the scheduling,
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we've got a solution that takes that burden off of
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them to be more than just a great photography firm.
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That's awesome.
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How did you manage to do that? I mean, but
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really to have you know, commercial photography going on on
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a ten ninety nine basis with freelancers all over. How
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did you manage to put all of this together to
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create that backup team that you have now as your
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business keeps expanding.
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Yeah, well, necessity's the mother of invention. So I have
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I had a wonderful full time employee that was my editor,
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my best friend, and the nana to my children because
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that's what they called her. And that's kind of what
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made me decide, Hey, I'm done. I'm just going to
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float the rest of my career. Me and my thirty
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year assistant I've had, We'll just ride off into the sunset.
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And then the universe had a different plan, and she
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contracted breast cancer and died twenty six days after her diagnosis.
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And there's nothing that will turn your life upside down.
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Then your business partner, your friend, and the fake grandmother
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of your children leaving this earth. And so my adult children,
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you know, they were in their twenties at the time.
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My daughter came to me and she goes, Okay, this
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is terrible, but you can't keep doing business like this.
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You've got to figure out a way to balance work
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and life because you haven't done it my entire life.
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And so my daughter actually came on board for two
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years and she helped me transform my business, setting up SOPs,
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setting up job descriptions, helping me figure out how can
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I do this in a manner that will not only
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help me retire earlier, but will help me have a
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better life overall. And so she's gone now, but she's
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still on my board of directors, so she still helps
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me not only grow the business, but she keeps me
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accountable to make sure that I don't overwork because that
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is my tendency. So I had a lot of help.
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My mom is a great asset to me. My daughter
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is a great asset to me. And without them, I
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would not be here today.
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That's a wonderful thing to hear, especially word of mom.
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Two of my threach children at one point we're working
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with me in different aspects of business, and there's something
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special when you have that opportunity to work with your family.
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And lucky you, I mean, my mom didn't live long
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enough to see what I was doing in that aspect.
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But good for you. You are one of really the
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few women in corporate photography and a certified woman owned business.
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So how is that kind of fueled what you're doing?
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Well? Because of the way that corporate photographers work. It
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is super hard for women to do this because somebody
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has to be taken care of the children. And so
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where wedding photography and portrait photography you kind of do
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that nights and weekends, corporate photography is all eight to five,
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and so if you don't have a great support system,
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if you don't have whether it's family helping you or
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a husband that's a partner that's helping you, it's really
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difficult to do. And I always had those things, always
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had a great support system. But I just feel like
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that because of that, it holds women back in this field.
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And so when I came into it, my dad did
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it before me, and so it was a natural transition
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for me to be in the corporate world. I love it.
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It's all I've ever wanted to do. But I think
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that I continue to be one of the few women
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that do it because America still sometimes falls back to
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the nineteen fifties mentality that women are expected to work
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and to take care of the home and to take
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care of the children. Oh my god, what are we
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having for dinner? And so I'm very, very grateful that
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I have been able to do this, but I feel
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like that I continue to be limited commodity as a
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woman in commercial photography.
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I can absolutely see what that point is. And it's
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so funny. Our theme song now was gifted to us
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from Smith's sisters in the Sunday ri but in the
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beginning of Word of Mom and I know you'll remember
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this song, I used to sing, I could bring home
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the bacon, try it up in a pan, and never
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let you forget who I am because I'm a woman,
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wom an. And I remember that commercial growing up as
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a kid, and there was the woman in the corporate
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suit with her briefcase in one hand and the frying
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pan and the other. But it was the idea of
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letting her not forget you're a man, you know, because
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she's a woman. And then I was like, no, no, no, no,
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let you forget who I am because I'm a woman.
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Because again, I grew up in the genera you were
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one or the other. I just turned sixty five, and
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so many women that I know that made the choice
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of going into business because it was a one or
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the other back then, and now they look and it's like, yeah,
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I'm so glad I did it. But I never got married.
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I don't have any kids. I'm now doing grandchildren and
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loving life with that, and have been a morepreneur since
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nineteen ninety four and championed women who build their businesses
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while raising a family. And we don't have to give up.
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We don't, And it is having a good support system.
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Your kids will get to school eventually and be in
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school from eight in the morning until three in the afternoon,
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and you can do things during the daylight, corporate photography,
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stuff like that that require those hours, and it doesn't
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always mean having to have a nanny and stuff like that.
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That's what play dates were for after school and things.
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I worked with a woman. We had a woman's group
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and each one of us took the kids one day
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a week, so nobody had to pay for babysitters, and
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we kind of swapped things around so we could all
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do what we had to do because there's great support
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out there. So for you, how have you managed? It
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always cracks me up when people say the work life balance,
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because it's.
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Not balancely ot, you know.
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So have you kept all the balls in the air?
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Leslie? Well, I was very, very fortunate that the business
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actually paid for me to have childcare on site. So
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because I own my own business. I definitely took advantage
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of that, so to speak. And so that's the first
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way that I did it. The other way that I
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did it is my assistant Tina that I told you about.
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She had my back and so you know, if there
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was a job or something that you know, didn't line
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up with the children's schedule, she would be the one
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to go pick the kids up from school that day.
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I also had a studio at the time. I work
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out of my home now, and I have worked out
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of my home for quite some time, but my children
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would come to the studio after work, and so, you know,
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having the children in the business makes it a lot
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easier when you're trying to get that balance because they're
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coming home, they're doing homework on my desk while I'm
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doing this work, or you know, maybe they're in the
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studio with me while I'm shooting. And so that was
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an amazing opportunity that so many people don't get. So
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it was just I don't know, I look back on
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it with great fondness. I don't know that my children
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share the same fondness. Because you have to be an adult,
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you know, you can't come in the business and run
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around screaming your head off. You know, you've got to
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come and you've got to behave, and you've got to
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you know, do homework, shake a person's hand, you know,
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know exactly how to behave. But I did the same
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thing with my parents, and then my parents did the
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same thing with their parents. So just grateful that my
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business lined up with, you know, being able to have
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children in the business.
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On that note, think of what Leslie was talking about.
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We're going to take a quick break to say thank
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you to our supporters and we'll be back here in
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just a moment. On Lord of Mom Radio. She is brave,
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she is bold, she is you, and we want to
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tell your story. Are you ready to share your journey
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with us on Word of Mom Radio. Go to wordommradio
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dot com and register as a guest. We want to
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tell your story because when you win, we all win.
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In twenty seventeen, Unsilenced Voices was formed to help survivors
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of domestic abuse and gender based violence worldwide. The organization
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currently serves sier Leone, Rwanda, Ghana, and the USA. In
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twenty twenty two, Unsilenced Voices gifted over thirty three thousand
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dollars to survivors. In the USA and in Siri Leone,