Gen Day is an author and the founder of the influencer management company 'Day Management'. So when it came to the decision to have a baby, that's when 'The Juggle' of a working mum well and truly took off!
Gen talks us through her birth story today from losing 2 litres of blood in hospital but still sending emails to learning to leave the office behind when her toddler needs Weetbix.
Tiff and Gen share the things they've outsourced to help them as they run big companies while juggling the mum life.
LINKS
CREDITS
Host: Tiff Hall
Guest: Genevieve Day
Executive Producer: Rachael Hart
Editor: Adrian Walton
Managing Producer: Ricardo Bardon
Find more great podcasts like this at novapodcasts.com.au
Nova Entertainment acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land on which we produced this podcast, the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respect to Elders past and present.
Hi, and welcome back to Bounce Forward with me, tiffl. I'd like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land of which I'm recording this podcast, the Warudari people of the Cooler Nation. I pay my respects to elders past and present. Today I have Genevieve Day joining me on the podcast. She founded Day Management, one of Australia's first digital talent management agencies, in twenty fifteen. She has been recognized for her work by the Australian Financial Review Fast one hundred and she was named in Forbes thirty Under thirty. In twenty twenty four, her debut book The Juggle launched, interviewing well known founders and business minds on how they mix career and family, while sharing her own story as both founder and mother.
Jen Welcome to Bounce Forward.
I'm so excited to have you here now you're the author of The Juggle, to ask you what does your life look like juggling your career and your gorgeous little son Henry.
Now, Oh my gosh, it is such.
A juggle, and I think it's something that every working mum and even stay home mum can relate to.
Basically, at the moment.
My son is fourteen months old, so is at a beautiful stage where he can't communicate, but he loves to try and be independent, So that in itself is a fun day to day challenge.
And I run an.
Influencer marketing and talent agency call Day Management as well, and we have a team of eight employees we look after over fifty talents, so quite a big business in that capacity. So we try and you know, smash everything into each day and definitely don't do it perfectly.
Wow, how do you like, what's your childcare situation?
Like?
How do you juggle that? For example? Just the practical side of it.
Yes, And I love talking about this because I think from the outside, everyone's day looks so perfect and like, how are they doing it all? I have him in daycare two days a week, and then we have family support two days a week as well, which we're so lucky and privileged to have our parents willing and able to look out. And then we on the Friday's, my partner and I kind of do a split work day in a Henry Day.
So basically I have four days.
A week of like full support and then get three days of beautiful Henry time.
That is a juggle itself, just juggling the schedule of childcare and carers around work, juggling. So there's a juggle on top of the juggle, isn't there. It's just so difficult. I want to go back to your pregnancy. What was your pregnancy like, Yeah.
We started trying, I guess a couple of months after we got married. We always knew wanted to have a family, but I've been running this business now for nine and a half years, so we knew that it wasn't as simple as like putting in your request from that leave and having a baby. So we kind of approach it quite pragmatically, thinking, all right, so if I'm going to be pregnant, out of the game, not, as you know, able to do as many things because I have a baby. So we actually employed a general manager in the business and kind of tried to time everything around the pregnancy, which you know is also really hard to time when you're going to fall pregnant. But during that process, we were kind of putting these steps in place to have support and help with the business. And I also just felt this like overwhelming fear that this impending baby is going to get in the way of all my career ambitions and everything I've been working so hard for was going to you know, come to a halt. So well, the pregnancy itself was lucky to be straightforward and not too many complications.
I kind of felt like I had this big ticking.
Clock of the nine months of like, I going to get everything done before this baby gets here, because who knows what's going to happen with my career.
Yeah, it's really hard, and I felt that myself. When I was pregnant with my first Arnold. I was running a online fitness business, and you know, I had staff relying on me, and I thought and plus I do all the fitness videos myself, and I had a big, horrendous pregnancy, so I was like, oh, how am I going to get back into work? And I remember sending emails from the hospital after I had Arnold, you know, I was working from the hospital bed. And I regret that, and I didn't do it with my second. Did you take maternity leave?
It's so interesting that you say that you regret that as well, because I was the same I even they had the best laid plans and had all this like extra hands on the business and support. We had some things pop up with work while I was doing like a contract negotiation, and I've given birth twelve hours beforehand, and my birth was a little bit prickly. I actually hemorrhaged and lost almost two leads of blood and like, so I wasn't in the best situation to be emailing about like a contract dispute.
But that was kind of my reality.
And a lot of people that are interview in the books are the exact same thing that you just said, that they took no time off.
They went straight back into.
It out of a fear of necessity or that scarcity mindset that you know, other people will get opportunities over us if we don't say yes to everything and be available. And I think that's some that I also really regret, and I would definitely do that differently.
What have you learnt from being a working mum now? Like, what are the biggest lessons and takeaways?
That's such a great question.
I think perspective is such a beautiful gift, isn't there the second that you have kids, you're like, Okay, life isn't just about me, And that's brilliant. And I feel like pre kids, you're able to be quite selfish and you just think about your own schedule and what you want to do, and now it's not about us at all.
It's all about the baby.
And it's kind of been like a beautiful shifted perspective, especially in my work life. Things obviously are important, but you walk in the front door and you have to leave it all behind because I'm like, I can't be stressing about this. I have a fourteen month old demanding five week bix right now.
Yes, can you switch off? I struggle.
I only struggle, like I've got work group WhatsApps and they go off constantly twenty four to seven, because line, as you know, never sleeps, yeah.
And I find myself like checking it in.
Between, like getting a meal, getting in a snack, like putting her down. My youngest is too. I don't know, can you switch off? Do you struggle with that as well?
One hundred percent?
And it's so tricky being in this online world because you're always available, and you know, campaigns go live at eight pm at nine and someone's on set filming and you have to be contactable. So I'm actually really bad at that too, and I think I catch myself in those moments where I'm like playing with the Fisher Price farm, but I'm checking my phone at the same time, and I'm like, yeah, it's the cow, says Mood. I'm actually emailing about something at the side. So I would like to be a more present parent with that kind of stuff. But it's really really hard.
It's really hard.
Do you have any tips for like balancing that side of things.
Work and your beautiful child? Like how do you do that?
Do you put your phone in a drawer and just go, I'm not looking at it and you know an.
Hour I should do that.
I feel like I should really throw my phone out the windows sometimes. But yeah, I think I almost do the reverse where I try and run my personal life like a business itself, and that in a way is allowing me more balance because I get to then structure my weeks and even if it's personal time like booking in something for me like a pilates class, or booking in time with my husband and everything like that, if it's scheduled the way that my work life is scheduled, I'll actually stick to it.
And then that way I can kind.
Of get that like three sixty view of the week and think is this balance or have I chipped too far to work? Or have I not done enough to tick off my career goals this week? So it's definitely not perfect. But I find if you run your home life like a business and you know, outsource what you can and see where you can put your energy in the most valuable places, that's really helped me.
That's really good advice. That's really good advice. You're outsourcing, big fan of it.
What are some of the things that you've outsourced that you think, Oh, that's that's a bit weird.
Like I outsource indoor plants, Like got a.
Plant lady to come over and like love that put plants all around my house. So I just failed it like more oxygen.
And just it looked beautiful.
But that's probably the weirdest thing I've ever outsourced.
Like what about you? What do you outsource?
Definitely food for us was a big one, especially starting solids, and I was reading all the books and I wanted to be like I really wanted to be that mum who was doing the organic bone broth for seven hours on the stovetop, but I was like, I didn't have the.
Time talk to me about it.
Yeah, yes, and I love it and I love all like the science behind it. So we just bought like the La Puree packs so they have all that in there, and it was amazing. And so things like that where I can make life easier but not feel guilty that I'm like shortcutting you know, nutrition and anything else like that too.
It's massive.
And then also we got a cleaner and like that's a luxury again and a privilege. But I'm like, I don't have time at the moment to be scrubbing toilets.
If I have as a waste of your energy. Yeah, and I.
Know everyone can do that, but we kind of like where can we budget and like cut and trim to allow that expenditure. Yes, to spend more time as a family in quality time.
Yeah, I love that. I love that.
So when my husband and I when I got pregnant the second time, I looked back at like my previous mistakes of like not taking any time off and just I rushed back to exercise.
I got a few injuries and blah blah blah.
And I was like, I said to my husband, ed, We're going to do like a mental wellness plan going into the next pregnancy, and we're going to know exactly, you know, how to prepare for life with a baby, what support we need to give each other, what support we need to outsource, like all that, And I listed everything and then I circulated it to grandparents and friends and everyone knew when they were on pickup for Arnold, my son is seven, You're at school, and you know, it was a bit of a roster. You know, what things did you did you talk to your partner about when you're preparing for the baby and your career and you know what sort of conversations did you have with your partner.
Yeah, I think the luxury for us is that my husband also works in the business now.
Oh so it is amazing.
It was so great because I mean we're on the same page and like building to the same goals. Whether previously it's like trying to build two big careers at once, and there's like a wrestle then, isn't it. It's like, well, I need you home at this time, and he's like, well, I've got a big meeting as well. So that was a really tricky thing before he joined the business about two years ago. But we had a lot of conversations about rest and about time off, and I stupidly worked until I was thirty.
Nine weeks pregnant.
Oh my god.
And I also like, I just looked so ridiculous. It's quite comical looking back. And it's funny because I got this phone call in my pregnancy is saying do you want to come and host this industry TV show? And I was like, oh, dream opportunity, Like, of course I'd love to do that. They said, great with film in September, and I said, oh, my due date is September ten, but yeah, I'll do it on the first of September.
So like I put.
Myself in those situations where I was, you know, saying to my husband, we have to rest, we have to put time aside to rest, but then telling other people, of course, I'll do this opportunity because what if they never asked me again, They've lost my chance. And so I really went against my own advice and my own planning there, and I probably had about three days of like maternity leave before the baby got here, which wasn't enough time. And then similar to you, I kind of worked in the hospital afterwards as well. But I think we tried to structure a couple like eight weeks of maternity lea with the baby, and it was quite funny. I said to my husband, like, I actually just can't even talk about work. I need to just be completely shut off from it. And that was the rule, because I can't do things half.
Half the baby bubble yes.
And I really wanted to be in it.
Now, I'm just going to leave my chat with Jen there and come back with part two. Thanks so much for listening to Bounce Forward. I love having your company, so please dm me on Instagram at tiphaul Underscore XO and let me know what topics you'd love me to cover. Don't forget to rate and review me on the podcast out Speak soon.
Happy Days,