How to Balance Business, Motherhood & Joy | Dr NJoy Interviews Corean

Summary

Join me for a special episode where I'm featured on the "Journey to Joy Live" podcast discussing my journey from corporate executive to entrepreneur and caretaker. We dive deep into balancing leadership with motherhood, avoiding burnout, and my philosophy of putting the "living" back into "making a living." 

Learn about sacred brackets, keeping your receipts, and why joy is an act of resistance. This conversation explores how my experience as a caretaker to my mother with dementia has reinforced my mission to help others remember: there's never too late to dream, but there can be too late to do.

Chapters:

00:00 "Balancing Mom Life and Leadership"

04:45 "Motherhood and Career Balance"

08:40 "Challenges of Modern Motherhood"

12:21 "Balancing Work and Childcare"

13:00 Balancing Work and Personal Time

16:07 Keep Your Confidence Receipts

21:38 Nightly Ritual for Letting Go

22:52 Breathe, Prioritize, Act Before Too Late

28:18 Mindful Daily Self-Care Routine

29:37 "Parenting: Defining Your Own Journey"

32:08 GPS Dispute: Ignoring Directions

About Dr. NJoy:

Dr. Nina Joy Mena, affectionately known as Dr. NJoy, is a board-certified psychiatrist, author, and speaker dedicated to helping people shift from stress to joy. As the host of the Journey to Joy Live podcast, she empowers listeners to prioritize self-care, embrace resilience, and find balance in their busy lives.

 Through engaging conversations, expert insights, and her powerful INSPIRE-Joy Method, first introduced in the NJoyNAL, Dr. NJoy guides her audience to cultivate wellness across mental, physical, financial, aspirational, and social health. Tune in for real talk, practical strategies, and the motivation you need to live a life full of joy.  More info at https://www.drnjoylife.com/feed. 

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review and share with a few friends so we can all help each other Remember to Live.

To connect with and learn more about me and how I am Remembering to Live, you can find me on Instagram @coreancanty or at coreancanty.com.

To work with me and explore freebies, check out: https://coreancanty.com/links/

If you are ready to re-imagine, re-claim and re-design your life, book a possibility call today.

Transcript

Corean Canty [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Remember to Live, where we explore the art of presence in an increasingly disconnected world. I'm Corine, your guide on this journey to living better. Through real conversations with real people living real lives, we uncover what happens when we stop performing our lives and start being fully present in them. Life doesn't wait for someday. Let's ditch the regrets and start showing up. So get cozy, grab your favorite warm drink, and let's dig in.

Dr Njoy [00:00:29]:
Some kids are running things. The boss mom blueprints. And I'm really excited to have a special guest, Corrine Canty. She's an idea catalyst, TEDx speaker and coach. Thank you for being here.

Corean Canty [00:00:45]:
Thank you for having me. I'm so excited for this conversation.

Dr Njoy [00:00:48]:
Of course. So other than what I mentioned, tell everyone who you are, why you are, all the things.

Corean Canty [00:00:56]:
Yeah. So I spent twenty years in corporate, media marketing, advertising, C suite executive, all the things. I left corporate a few years ago. I have two businesses that I own now. One is a consultancy where we use play and improv, and we go into organizations and improve culture. Mhmm. And the other is my coaching business where I help executive leaders and founders find their voice, amplify their message. I'm an official TEDx speaker and coach, so I also coach TEDx speakers.

Corean Canty [00:01:26]:
And so my life just kind of revolves around, you know, storytelling and ideas and how to use that to enhance our lives and our businesses. And I'm a mom of two.

Dr Njoy [00:01:36]:
Yes. That's why we're here. How old are your children?

Corean Canty [00:01:40]:
My daughter is 29 and my son is 22. So I've been a mom my entire life.

Dr Njoy [00:01:46]:
Awesome. Yeah. So you can definitely give some good advice here today because they are grown and out of the house, I would

Corean Canty [00:01:53]:
imagine. Well, my son's back in. He decided to teach college. So he's he's back at home in this economy.

Dr Njoy [00:02:01]:
And then there's that.

Corean Canty [00:02:02]:
Figuring out figuring out how to live real life in this world right now, you know, So it's a good thing that he can come back home and launch from home.

Dr Njoy [00:02:11]:
Yes. Awesome. Sounds good. Definitely appreciate it. So I mean, we're we're talking about raising kids and running things. My niche these days have been talking to the wife mom bosses, the mom bosses. We we all out here doing things, that's for sure. And when we throw kids into the mix, it can be a little bit hard to balance our lives because I mean we're the we're owners and bosses and CEOs in our business but we can at least sort of walk away from that you know if you clock out or you could somehow be away from that at certain points but as a mom nah, not so much.

Corean Canty [00:02:48]:
Not even not even when they're grown, right? So I was a mom before I was could legally vote. And so that's been my primary identity my whole life. And I do have a bonus daughter now who's still in high school, but we don't have any little kids in the house, right? And so they are more self sufficient, but you never stop being mom. I don't care how old, how old the kids become, you never stop being mom. And I'm also at this interesting time in life where I've also become my mother's mother. Oh, you're right. That's a whole other part of the journey. Yeah.

Dr Njoy [00:03:22]:
Yeah. That can be a whole episode in and of itself, but that is certainly a battle. And, I I feel that way in a sense with with my mom and mother-in-law because we we help them, but they help us a lot. It's our village. So Mhmm. It's kind of like a each other thing. But it can be hard if the person is the mother is dependent on you. Is she sick? Are you pretty much her caregiver?

Corean Canty [00:03:45]:
I am. I'm her caregiver. Her and her partner, she has dementia and just a lot of other health ailments. And so but the dementia is the hardest thing. I think nobody really prepares you for it. And so, literally, it's like becoming your mother's mother. It's kind of sometimes feeling like you have a toddler who's lived a long life and doesn't wanna do anything because they think they know, but they don't remember. So Oh.

Corean Canty [00:04:09]:
Yeah.

Dr Njoy [00:04:10]:
Yeah. And, you know, they say once a child no. No. No. Once an adult, twice a child. Have you heard that phrase?

Corean Canty [00:04:16]:
And, it is so true. It's so true. Life comes full circle.

Dr Njoy [00:04:22]:
Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. So it's it's a matter of, like, how do we deal with that to be able to keep ourselves and prioritize ourselves when we're trying to be literally everything to everyone these days.

Corean Canty [00:04:33]:
Yes. Yes.

Dr Njoy [00:04:34]:
Yeah. So while we're talking about that, can you share a bit of your journey in becoming a Boss Mom? And you can share however way you wish or mean, think that question means.

Corean Canty [00:04:45]:
Yeah. No. Well, since I've been a mom my whole life, through my whole career, mom has always been the first thing for me, right? So I had to learn to navigate a career from the very beginning in a way that allowed me to create the life for my children that I wanted to create. And so that also, I think, gave me a unique perspective in the corporate world because I ended up moving up the ladder pretty quickly because I had the best teams. And a lot of that was because I was very people centered, people first, because I needed to be. Right? I had things I had to do. I didn't have anyone helping me with the kids, so I had to have environments that were flexible enough for me to be the mom and be the boss. And so I realized that we all have things in life that we need.

Corean Canty [00:05:32]:
So early on, I started to think about how do we integrate life and work. We call it making a living, but we forget about the living part. Right? So how do we bring that back into making a living, which is what my leadership was anchored in? But I've realized that even through my whole career and doing my should career. Right? Like, you became a mom, and now you got to go do this, climb the corporate ladder, get the four zero one k, do do all the things.

Dr Njoy [00:05:58]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Corean Canty [00:05:59]:
Outside, I was always a builder, and I was always what I would call, like, my side hustle or my mind. It was like, oh, I'm gonna do this to pay for that tech camp or do these other things as a mom. But I realized once I took a break from corporate and started becoming my mom's caretaker and then decided to start two businesses, that it's always kind of been in me to start and build things and that I get enjoyment out of it. But I also had to kind of learn how to not necessarily be mom first at this point

Dr Njoy [00:06:30]:
as well. It's a

Corean Canty [00:06:31]:
new journey for me.

Dr Njoy [00:06:33]:
Yeah, to kind of put your career first or yourself first sort of, right?

Corean Canty [00:06:38]:
Like put Corrine first, Right? Because Yes. Who Corrine was. Corrine had babies. And so it was like, oh, but now they're adults and they're living their own life. And you know how when your kids are smaller and you're trying to juggle all the things and you're constantly worried about, I'm not messing this up, or I'm doing something wrong?

Dr Njoy [00:06:57]:
Mhmm. Mhmm.

Corean Canty [00:06:58]:
And all the times I knew I couldn't do all the things I wanted to necessarily do at home, and I would tell my kids, like, look, my job is to make you a self sufficient adult, so I'm doing the best that I can. Right?

Dr Njoy [00:07:09]:
Right.

Corean Canty [00:07:09]:
And now as adults, I realize that, oh, all those times I was so afraid I was messing up. Like, we were learning together and they actually paid attention to what I did more than what I said. Yeah.

Dr Njoy [00:07:23]:
Yeah. Yeah. That's true. For sure.

Corean Canty [00:07:24]:
Well, they did they did listen to some things. Oh, that did sink in. Oh, they are doing better than me in these areas. Right?

Dr Njoy [00:07:29]:
You feel good. Yeah. Yeah. That's a that's a really cool perspective, you know, just just being a mom first and then jumping into the career. And there's so many women who have that journey. And then for for me, I I just jumped right into the career. It was like all of my 20s was just all about I gotta get into med school. I gotta get into residency and then like while trying to tough that out.

Dr Njoy [00:07:57]:
I then I got online. It was like, oh, let me try to find a man. Let me try to find a husband and do all those things. But either way, I feel like it can be pretty stressful to try to just change your mindset of what you're prioritizing because I flipped a switch on, Okay. I'm no longer prioritizing my career. Yes. I wanna be the best doctor ever, but I really wanna focus on a family now. So I really switched to let me focus on my husband.

Dr Njoy [00:08:21]:
Let me focus on the kids. And then at a certain point when I realized I'm done making kids now, it Mhmm. Seemed to plateau. And then I said, well, let me start focusing back on the career. And then that's when the podcast started, private practice open, and things like that. So, I mean, that's just the thing. Life life changes as far as how you focus it.

Corean Canty [00:08:40]:
Yeah. We have all these different seasons, but the one unfortunate truth is that regardless of your motherhood journey, we don't live in a society that's set up to support mothers and especially working mothers. Right? Like we don't, we don't live in a society that makes it easy for us to follow this journey in a way that feels well for us and feels like we can do what we need to do for our family and home. It's always that constant battle of feeling like you have to show up more than everyone else and you have to juggle all the things. And, oh, by the way, go home and do the whole second shift because it is a full time job to be a mother and to have a home and to have a family. All the things. Right?

Dr Njoy [00:09:21]:
Yeah. And for some reason, there's, like, this fulfillment in doing it all even though we don't have to. But, like, my husband was out of the country for several days, and I really felt fulfilled. Like, I got this. I'm doing this. And I because I knew I had to kick up my my self care routine because these kids, they were gonna get to me, and I don't wanna yell at them or anything. So I ran a five k every single day. I made sure everything was prepared the night before for the next day, you know, being prepared and structured and organized way more organized than I ever have been.

Dr Njoy [00:09:51]:
And it worked out. Nobody got yelled at and and things like that. No stress. So it's like it's it. It felt fulfilling. But, you know, that was a short term thing. And, of course, there's moms out there that that's their lives.

Corean Canty [00:10:06]:
Yeah. Yeah. No. And I understand that. And I think part of the reason that was probably so fulfilling to you is because you had a tool belt. Right? It took me a long time to build a tool belt to even recognize what real self care is and to recognize that I have to fill my cup first because you can't pour from an empty cup. I spent way too long pouring from empty cups to everybody else, not only for, like, being a mother and my kids, but, like, pouring into everybody at work because I was a leader, because I was an advocate for women leaders. And there was a point in my life where Mhmm.

Dr Njoy [00:10:38]:
All

Corean Canty [00:10:38]:
of that all of that added up, I got burnout, had a health crisis, and I started to recognize that, oh, even though I was trained in all these well-being modalities and I was using it on everybody else, I was telling everyone else, rest, take

Dr Njoy [00:10:51]:
your time off.

Corean Canty [00:10:52]:
But I was the leader, so I felt like I always had to be there. But then I realized one of one of my team members was like, well, you realize you don't take any time off or you're always there and you're always available. We don't believe that we can as well. And when I when that that hit me so hard, like, oh, and then I learned to change it up and set my boundaries and take time off because I realized when you're in a leadership position, you give others permission to actually prioritize themselves in life if you lead from example, not from words or policies.

Dr Njoy [00:11:26]:
I love it. You know, I I see what what they were saying and what you're saying because my CEO, was on PTO two weeks ago. She said, okay. I'll be on PTO so we're canceling this meeting. I was like, how's she gonna be on PTO? She's a CEO. And I was like, wait. Wait. What am I talking about? That's great.

Dr Njoy [00:11:41]:
But it felt good. I was like, she's off. Just now. Right? And, you know, I don't have that issue. I'll take off if I need to. But it was just some sense of, like, like, empowerment that she was gonna be on PTO that whole week, too.

Corean Canty [00:11:55]:
Right. Right. And too many of us as women who are leading companies, have our own companies, running companies, we don't hold the space for ourselves.

Dr Njoy [00:12:05]:
And we need to do that. So while we're talking about this, as a boss mom, as you are, what's been the biggest challenge in balancing the leadership and work and just being at home and being president at home, being president at work, leader at home, leader at work?

Corean Canty [00:12:21]:
I think so I was early on early on in my career, I worked in advertising agencies, which if anybody's worked at an advertising agency, you realize, like, there's not really set hours. So I remember back having to go pick my son up from day care, and I would take him back to the building, back to the advertising agency and have him work there with us. So he's he used to always be like, that place always has the candy. And he was little because, like, everybody would come around, like, feed him candy and stuff. And I used to think that was the hardest part, like, having to take him back to work until I started working fully remote, which I did way before the pandemic. I worked for fully remote companies. I led fully remote teams. But then the work is at home.

Corean Canty [00:13:00]:
And at least when I at least when I left the office, I didn't open my computer again. Right? But when the work is at home, you really have to learn to be disciplined and to understand. Because it's so easy to just open up your computer and be like, I'll just knock this out right now. I'll just stay on until 09:00. I'll go eat and come right back. And you don't think about, like, I actually need time away to even think. Am I even giving my best ideas or doing my best work? Because our brains don't work twenty four hours a day, right? We need to experience other things. We need to have other stimulation to be able to even create new ideas.

Corean Canty [00:13:34]:
And so learning how to and I don't like the word balance. I think the thing that we really need to balance is our nervous systems. Yeah. We need to know that we need

Dr Njoy [00:13:44]:
to learn how to balance

Corean Canty [00:13:46]:
balance our nervous systems because there's really no such thing as, like, work and life. Right? When you say there's work life balance, it's such a fallacy because you're saying those things are separate. And you can't balance two things on a scale that are are of the same. So work is a part of life. And there's many other parts of life. And it's just how you understand a system that you can build for yourself. So whenever piece of that pie needs to be the priority, it is the priority.

Dr Njoy [00:14:12]:
Mhmm. Yeah. That's that's a really good point. I mean, finding the boundaries, like you said, with working from home and, you know, I'll come in like and say, okay, let me look at my schedule real quick and I'll log on and maybe an email might pop up. But I've gotten good at making sure I close out the email so that the notification won't just pop up in my face. So then there's that thing too. But yeah, that creating that boundary in that space is definitely important. But then understanding right, it's you're you everywhere.

Dr Njoy [00:14:38]:
So it's pretty much meshed in. So I I really hear you. Let's talk about imposter syndrome. Now have you ever struggled with imposter syndrome along the way of of being the boss lady that you are, and and how did you push through? Do you experience it now?

Corean Canty [00:14:53]:
Yeah. I don't experience it now because I I look at it a little bit differently. I think I think we all go through some version of this. I don't necessarily know if I like the label at this point in life. Right? But I think there's always a point where we feel like we're not enough or we feel like we're inadequate or we're or we're comparing ourselves to someone else. And

Dr Njoy [00:15:14]:
Mhmm.

Corean Canty [00:15:14]:
What I realized and when I started coaching on is I think a part of that, especially in women, is we don't do a good job of keeping our own receipts and reminding ourselves of everything that we've done. Right? And so I constantly coach my clients, start to keep your receipts. And and I really learned this lesson because when I when I worked in corporate, my boss, I kept advocating for the company to be like, we need to celebrate wins more. People need to celebrate their achievements. We need to pause. We need to do right? So I was advocating for the company, and he was one day finally like, okay. Fine. Fine.

Corean Canty [00:15:48]:
I get it. What do you wanna celebrate? And I was like, well, I did a lot of stuff. Right. Because we just do. Right? Especially when you're a mom and you're work you you just do. You just do. You just do. And so I coach people, like, at the end of every week, take five minutes and write down the things that you achieved for yourself, the things that you wanna celebrate.

Corean Canty [00:16:07]:
Because whether it's for your own confidence or you're trying to go for that promotion or you're trying to pitch and get some funding or you're trying to do whatever, to we think we can recall the good, but our mind only remembers the bad stuff. Right? We don't we don't categorize all the great things we've done. So it's hard to, like, pop up a list. We can pop up a list of our mistakes real quick. But to pop up we'll be like, oh, I knew I had that project. Oh, I knew I did something good. So keep your receipts. Like, have your own receipt jar because when you're feeling that doubt, you can pull out the receipts and be like, you know what? I don't know why I feel this way because I've done all of these things and it made a difference.

Dr Njoy [00:16:47]:
That's fantastic. So do you have a nice little jar? You write it down? Where do you write it down?

Corean Canty [00:16:52]:
I do. I keep notes now. Like on my phone, I'm like whenever I think about something, I keep the notes in my phone. It's just it's just important. I also have a joy jar, which I know you'll enjoy. Oh. I have a joy jar. So me me and my partner, we keep a joy jar and at the end of every week, we put little notes in it of, like, what was the joy, a little joy of the week.

Corean Canty [00:17:12]:
And so that way, whether it's throughout the year or at the end of the year, we dump it all out, just remember all the good things about the year. Because in life, that matters too, right? And especially right now with everything going on in the world, it could feel like there's no joy. And joy is an act of resistance. And so there's always joy. Like, duality is real. There can't be bad stuff without good stuff. So if we take a moment to search for the joy and find the joy and remember the joy, then we create more of the joy in our lives.

Dr Njoy [00:17:42]:
Oh, that's fantastic. Now let's go back to what you just said. You said joy is an act of resistance. So say more of what that actually means.

Corean Canty [00:17:51]:
So right now, there's a lot of things that can make us fearful, hopeless, concerned, uncertainty. Right? Yeah. And the easiest way for the people who are creating these environments to keep these environments are for us to let our nervous systems be under attack, to fall into the fear. Because when we're in that state, we can't think critically. Right? And so just allowing ourselves to receive joy and to find joy in that moment is an act of resistance against whatever the BS is that's going on in the world. Right? And it's okay to find joy. There are people who are in some of the worst conditions who still know how to tap in and find joy within themselves even if they can't find it externally.

Dr Njoy [00:18:40]:
Oh, yeah. That's fantastic. So that yeah. I I needed you to to go expand on that a little bit more because that's really all what I talk about, resilience, resilience. You're gonna experience challenges. Life is gonna be life and trauma is gonna be there to haunt you. But work, joy is work and that resistance really clears up and tells you that, hey, it's gonna take work because resistance is work. And when you have resistance, I always use the analogy of the weights when you when you're in the gym.

Dr Njoy [00:19:09]:
Mhmm. It feels hard, but you are growing from it. You're learning from it, and you're becoming better. So oh, yes.

Corean Canty [00:19:18]:
And the one thing I've learned now having adult children is if your children never experience you having joy, it will be hard for them to ever have joy.

Dr Njoy [00:19:28]:
Oh, yes.

Corean Canty [00:19:28]:
Right? They won't give themselves permission to have joy. And that's what we want the most. Right? We we do all this work and we work so hard because we're trying to build these lives for our children and we're trying to, you know, protect them, whatever we're trying to do to give them a good life, a joyful life. But if you never set an example that joy is important or that joy is a priority, they will never learn to prioritize it in their own lives.

Dr Njoy [00:19:50]:
They're watching us. They're watching us. So what are some practical strategies that we can use to set boundaries between being boss mode and mom mode and not having guilt because that mommy guilt is real. And I'm sure we can have that boss guilt too if we're feeling like we're not doing what we should do.

Corean Canty [00:20:08]:
Yeah. And I mean, I think there's always a little bit of that always. Like, even when my children are grown now, sometimes like, oh, I need to. I'm still I'm like, actually, I don't need to do anything. But in my mind, like, it's still there. I'm like, they're grown. They got this. But the one thing that I learned to do without feeling guilty is create that time for myself Because it it is setting example for them.

Corean Canty [00:20:30]:
It is allowing me to be able to show up in all the areas of my life so that I can take care of myself, take care of them, take care of what I need to do, build what I wanna build in the world, like, create legacy. The way I do that is what I call sacred brackets, which are the bookends of your day. Because even when you have small children, the two times that you can control are when you first open your eyes and right before you close them, no matter what. So even if you can't find a long time,

Dr Njoy [00:20:56]:
you

Corean Canty [00:20:56]:
can take five or ten minutes and land the bed. The baby can cry in the other room. It's fine.

Dr Njoy [00:21:00]:
Thank you.

Corean Canty [00:21:01]:
Thank you. And breathe. Like, breathe. Relax. Read a page of that novel you've been wanting to read. Write in your journal. Like, do something for yourself. Make sure you're filling your cup first before you pull in anyone else, even your children, which can be hard to do, when they're really little.

Corean Canty [00:21:17]:
But especially once, like, that that that age when they can make their own breakfast is, like, the biggest the biggest game

Dr Njoy [00:21:24]:
changer. Oh, yeah. My thirtieth.

Corean Canty [00:21:26]:
Right? And some people will start to get their morning routine right, but then they forget that you have to come back to yourself at night. Yeah. And if you don't hold space, not only to set up the nighttime for good rest

Dr Njoy [00:21:38]:
Uh-huh.

Corean Canty [00:21:38]:
But to let go of everything that's not yours. Mhmm. And so finding a ritual where you can let go of the day, you can let go of whatever work that you have, whatever you didn't get done on that to do list, whatever you thought you were supposed to do, like all the things that we lay in bed and stay up at night trying to check the boxes, like finding a way to dump it, get it out, come back to yourself, and do something else for yourself before you go to bed. Because if you get those sacred brackets right, it makes whatever happens in the middle a whole lot easier.

Dr Njoy [00:22:03]:
Oh, yeah. For sure. For sure. And you mentioned filling your cup first. And sometimes filling your cup first could be at night because whatever you do at night is helping for the next day because I've recognized that doing my running on the treadmill at nighttime definitely sets me up for a really good day, in the the next day. So, yeah, that's that's some good stuff. When when it's quiet, everybody's sleep or they're at school. It definitely works.

Dr Njoy [00:22:30]:
So any additional advice that you have for moms that just feel like they're constantly dropping the ball? You didn't mention earlier, not feeling like they're enough. I know I've had some moments where I just like, I'm doing so much and I know I'm great, but then even I'll feel like I'm just not enough. Maybe it's something someone said, but then my mind messes with me.

Corean Canty [00:22:49]:
Yeah.

Dr Njoy [00:22:49]:
What what's happened for you personally or, any advice?

Corean Canty [00:22:52]:
Well, the first thing I always recommend is first let's just breathe. Let's take a breath because our breath is our greatest tool and it's free and it will help us reset in the moment regardless of what we're feeling. But I think the greatest lesson I've learned, from becoming a caretaker to my mother is that there is no such thing as too late. So I'm witnessing real life end of life regrets. I'm witnessing that it's never too late to dream, but it can be too late to do. Like her brain and her body, there's things she just can no longer do and she won't be able to do in this lifetime. And so witnessing that reminds me even more to just remember what's important. When we're trying to juggle all the balls, remember some of them are rubber and some of them are glass.

Corean Canty [00:23:39]:
Just don't drop the glass ones. The rubber ones can bounce. You can pick them up later. So getting very clear on, like, what's really important and why are you doing all this in the first place and prioritizing that. Correct. And then redesigning your life around that and not the shoulds and not what society tells you you should be striving for, but, like, what you really want your life to look like and how you wanna live in your days helps you to feel a little bit better about those days when you feel like I'm dropping the ball on everything and I can't be. Let me just breathe and remember what's important, and being here, present in this moment with people that I love is usually top of the list.

Dr Njoy [00:24:16]:
Yes. Oh, yes. Yes. That's a segue into what I was thinking about when you were talking when I left my last job because I thought that was my dream job, and then now I feel like I'm living my dream job. So that's interesting. But when I when I left it, I spoke to someone and they says, well, you know, you're replaceable at work. You know, don't feel bad for leaving. Don't feel guilty for, like, anybody you feel like you you left with the work that, you know, you left them with because you left, but you're not replaceable for your in your family.

Dr Njoy [00:24:43]:
So you have to think about your family first. But what I was thinking about when you were talking is that, you know, for those of us, you you've got your own business. I've got my own business. We kind of are not replaceable in our own businesses. What do you feel well, how yeah. So tell me what you think about that statement when it comes to our own thing, which is why we feel like we have to do it all when we have to be present all the time.

Corean Canty [00:25:09]:
What I've learned in that is even more so because this is on me, I have to take care of myself. Because if I go down, like, there's not a team to back it up. Right? And so but that also means I get to set my own schedule. So if I'm doing going too hard and I'm then let me oh, well, I'm gonna clear my calendar for the rest of the day and take an afternoon. And so it's learning to listen to your body. Yeah. Because there's some days I feel good, and I might work all day, and it's because I choose to. Yeah.

Corean Canty [00:25:38]:
And that's the freedom of having your own business is it doesn't mean now you're gonna work one to five every day and, like, live this like, some people have it set up that way. Something's good for them. But there's gonna be long days. There's gonna be short days, but you get to choose. And if you tune in and listen to your body and when you start to get those whispers, because we get them, listen to them before they roar, then it's easier to navigate that because you know. And if you recognize, yeah, now I'm I'm irreplaceable in both. So that means I have to take care of myself the most.

Dr Njoy [00:26:11]:
Yeah.

Corean Canty [00:26:11]:
And that means that sometimes I have to shut them both down and just focus on me.

Dr Njoy [00:26:16]:
That's good. That's good. Because you need to be the most fulfilled and strong for for you in order to even be those things, to be the best mom, to be the best boss ever. So some good stuff. Now is there one mind shift, mindset shift that every boss mom needs to embrace to thrive in both parenting and leadership?

Corean Canty [00:26:43]:
That putting yourself first is actually the flex. Like, too often, we're putting ourselves last in both arenas. Right? We're doing everything for everyone else, everything, our clients, our teams, our business, our home, our family, and everything. And then we have nothing left for ourselves. And that's what leads to all the things we've been talking about, not even being able to show up and every all the chips fall. So, like, putting yourself first and learning how to be selfish, and selfish is not a bad word. Right? It's thinking about ourselves and what we need allows us to show up best in both places.

Dr Njoy [00:27:19]:
That's good. Learn how to be selfish because self care isn't selfish. So we have to be selfishly selfish with our self care in order to be selfless and be there for everybody else. This is everything that we're always talking about here on Journey to Joy Live for sure. Now any what's what's your self care routine? Do you have a particular routine? Does it depend on what's going on? Is what's your go to?

Corean Canty [00:27:48]:
So I I've gotten to the point where I give myself at least two hours in the morning. That's just for me. Oh. Do

Dr Njoy [00:27:54]:
you like the marlin?

Corean Canty [00:27:56]:
I try. I try to. In the wintertime, it's not as easy because I don't like when it's cold and dark and you don't want to get under the covers. In the summertime, it's much easier. But I do like to get up early. I try to get up between six and seven, and I like to have time for me. And I don't I'm not rigid because when you're too rigid, then it becomes an yet another thing where you feel like you might fail. Right? So if you're too rigid, like, I have to do these things.

Corean Canty [00:28:18]:
Like, I have to get up and I have to work on it. And after you say, if you don't feel like it that morning, then you feel like you failed something else. And so it's really more about that time and me not letting people take it. And so I have time in the morning and time in the evening that's just for me. And that's, like, my primary everyday self care. And then I make sure I get outside in nature, and I take walks, and I get the sun on my skin. And I pause, and I look at, like, right now, spring, and I love it because my partner's like, you're gonna go outside and look at every flower and every tree and every but, like, that's that's how I recharge. Right? Let me be present in the moment.

Corean Canty [00:28:51]:
Let me not look at my phone. What's the point of going out and taking a walk and looking at my phone? Just, like, let me actually get this good energy that nature has for me that's designed to recharge me and to heal me and to fill me up and just allow myself to be present in the moment as much as I can.

Dr Njoy [00:29:07]:
Oh, that's so cool. That's so cool. Alright. Well, is there any other nuggets that you were hoping to tell the audience here tonight about being a boss mom?

Corean Canty [00:29:19]:
I think it's I think it's make sure that you're defining success on your own terms. Make sure you're not striving striving for something someone told you success looks like and what your life should look like and what your motherhood journey should look like. Like, define it on your own terms. I think that's most important.

Dr Njoy [00:29:37]:
On your own terms. And I like that because that made me think of you know, when you look at other moms and what they're doing, you know, some some moms are pretty strict on things like, oh, I don't do screen time with my kids or I don't let them run-in the mud or whatever they might be. That doesn't mean you have to be that that way. If it works out for you to give your kid a device or a tablet or let them run-in the mud or let them, spill their food everywhere because you know you're gonna clean it up anyway, so just let them be messy. Whatever the case is, that's that's your mom journey. That's their mom journey over there. So I really love that just finding success on your own terms. And that's what makes me feel better because I've I I I don't compare it to what other moms would do.

Dr Njoy [00:30:18]:
I'm like, cool. That's what you wanna do. Do you. I do me.

Corean Canty [00:30:22]:
Mhmm. Mhmm. It's interesting. Well, I'll share one last little nugget Because I did for a long time because I became a mother so early, I think I messed up a lot of stuff. Right? And because I'm my children had to be self sufficient in areas early on, like my son he was like, you can do laundry at nine. You're doing your own laundry. Like, you have to learn how to do these things just so we can all, like, pitch in together. We were we we were a unit.

Corean Canty [00:30:46]:
And so it's interesting now that, like, he just graduated from college, and we were talking the other day, and he's like, mom, there's so many of my friends who don't know how to do things for themselves or figure things out. And so now he recognizes all those times when he was little. He's like, well, mom, you could just tell me because I know you go high. And my number one thing was like, you gotta look it up. Figure it out first and then come to me. Like, I wanted him to learn that. And now he's seeing how that paid off. And so those little nuggets and those ways that you realize we got to make life work for us actually helps our children recognize how life works for them.

Dr Njoy [00:31:20]:
That's so cool that your kids are at the age where you finally get that feedback of, you did a great job, mom. Thank you. Now I get it because you have to wait till they're a certain age before they get it. Right.

Corean Canty [00:31:29]:
Because there's there are almost stages of they have full resistance. Right? Full resistance, rebellion, revolution. They go through it. And you're just like, oh, is this ever gonna end?

Dr Njoy [00:31:40]:
Oh my gosh.

Corean Canty [00:31:41]:
And then and then you get to go on adult vacations and it's a whole new world.

Dr Njoy [00:31:45]:
Oh, that's nice. Yeah. Two days ago, because I always drive right out of the school and, oh, I drove left. Big mistake. My four year old screamed for twenty five minutes straight. He said he said, you went the wrong way. Turn around. Turn around.

Dr Njoy [00:32:08]:
I'm just like, how do you even know I'm going the wrong way? And and then I got off the freeway because it the GPS, called for it, and he just still didn't like it. He said, you need to turn around. You are going the wrong way. And luckily and I had my workout in like the day before, so I was cool. I was calm. I'm like you have everything you need. Go ahead and scream if you need to. I'm just gonna do what I need to do, but it's like I I wish I could have him say, oh, mom.

Dr Njoy [00:32:37]:
I appreciate you being so patient and being able to hold it together, and you are so amazing. He says that when I give him things that he wants, but Yeah. Yeah. It gets tough.

Corean Canty [00:32:47]:
One one day one day it'll pay off.

Dr Njoy [00:32:50]:
But the next day was great. I I had his blanket because that was the one thing he, screamed for. I want a blanket. I'm like, there's no blanket in the car. And then he screamed for ten minutes about a blanket. I had a blanket the next day, I had snacks and I had all the things and everything went great. Mommy you're my best friend so I get I guess that's the feedback. Alright well yeah so parenting is both a stressor and a joy.

Dr Njoy [00:33:14]:
I say that all the time, but it can be more of a joy than a stressor as long as you listen to your body, learn to be selfish, fill your cup, resist in that joy and all the things that we talked about. I really appreciate you coming on. Of course, I ask all of my guests because we're you're on Journey to Joy Live. What your personal Journey to Joy has been like?

Corean Canty [00:33:36]:
It's been great. I think this is I love having these conversations. I love helping women recognize that we get, we deserve to live too. Right. We deserve to live too. The regardless of who is depending on us, who we're responsible for, we also should live big, full lives.

Dr Njoy [00:33:58]:
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Awesome.

Corean Canty [00:34:01]:
Thank you so much for listening. I hope you learned something, laughed a little, and were inspired to show up more fully to your life. Send this to someone who needs it. Also, don't forget to like and subscribe so we could all help each other remember to live. And if you're looking for more life tips and inspiration, subscribe to Better, a weekly newsletter about finding your voice, believing out loud, and living better. Until next time, my friends. Sending you love and light.