"I Lost Confidence": New Parenthood's Toll on Creative Entrepreneur Danielle Clarke

Ian Paget: Right. So I've just hit record. For people watching this, I did initially have a plan for this conversation, and we were going to talk about branding and going into Danielle's story and journey as I would normally. But prior to hitting record, we both started talking about our journeys as a parent. My daughter is six now, and Danielle is in the very early days. How old is your little one now?

Danielle Clark: So he is seven months, but he'll be eight months in about 10 days or so. Yeah, he's not far off.

Ian Paget: So in your world, it's all still very new and very fresh. Is this the first podcast that you've done since being a mum? Okay, so we get the fresh interview. Like I said, I did originally have a plan for this, but I think it'd be really good to talk about this process.

Danielle Clark: Yes, it is. Yeah. Absolutely.

Ian Paget: Prior to being pregnant and giving birth to a child, you were working, and still are working, as a brand identity designer. You work in branding strategy and graphic design. Is that right?

Danielle Clark: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. It's funny, isn't it? When you hear labels and titles, you think, does that really sum up what I do? And I don't think any title would ever fully sum up what I do, but yeah, brand identity.

Ian Paget: You're similar to me. You do a lot more strategy than I do, but it's strategy, design, and then you've got your podcast as well. So it's pretty full on. You're doing a lot, and you've gone through that. And then obviously you've gone through the whole growing a human inside of your body and adjusting to that. I'd be curious to know how you prepared for that because you obviously would have needed to wind down at some point, and you've been on maternity leave essentially over the past seven or eight months or so.

Danielle Clark: Yeah, yeah, yeah. How did I prepare for... I'm trying to think because it's all a bit of a blur, if I'm honest.

Ian Paget: I think, I mean, I can share some of my perspective. My daughter's now six, so this was quite some time ago now. But for me and my daughter's mom, we're now separated. But my daughter's mom was working prior to getting pregnant. And then we just agreed between us, you know, I'll do the work, you basically quit your job and then raise our daughter. So we did it that way where she didn't need to worry about work because I took that responsibility. I don't know if your partner has taken any of that responsibility as well.

Danielle Clark: Yeah, so we are both self-employed. Oh God, yeah. So, you know, I think back to some of the conversations that we had. We always knew that at some point we wanted to have a family, and it's always different as a woman because you've got a biological clock. I'm getting towards my late 30s now, and women are having children later and later, but it was something that we knew that we wanted, all being well. We talked about what we'd do in terms of just making sure that we don't live beyond our means. That was a big thing. We don't really splash out on takeaways, neither of us are big drinkers, neither of us smoke. We don't really go out very much. It all sounds quite boring actually, but...

Ian Paget: This is real. I think it's good that we're being real.

Danielle Clark: It's, yeah. And so we've got savings. If we need something, we can afford to do it. And I actually sat down when I found out I was pregnant and started Googling how much it costs to bring up a child on average. Apparently, while they're a baby, not a lot. As they get older, things get pricier. But we kind of did the maths around what we'd need, what bills would go up, childcare when he starts nursery was a big one, then later on in life, school trips and things. So we had a bit of an overview as to what it was actually going to cost. And once we saw it on paper, we realized it wasn't actually that much more in the early years. So we had that conversation. Then when it came to talking about maternity leave, that was really complex because being self-employed, but also the fact that I am a director of my own company, and it's a company of one, I don't think HMRC knew what to do.

Ian Paget: Hehe.

Danielle Clark: So luckily, I've got a really good accountant, and she was really, really supportive. I think that's something I'd say to anyone that's self-employed, that's thinking about having a family: make sure you've got a good accountant. She is worth her weight in gold. She's been incredible. And without her, I don't really think I'd have got maternity pay. I know a lot of women that are self-employed that have tried to get maternity pay, and it's been so complicated that they've ended up not doing it.

Ian Paget: Can I briefly ask you a couple of questions? So you operate as a business, I guess, because I'm a sole trader, so I don't charge VAT or anything like that. So you've only been able to get this because you are operating as an actual business. How does it work with the maternity pay? Because I didn't realize that you could gain access to that. Are the government paying that? Nice.

Danielle Clark: Yeah, yeah. So the way it works, it's really complicated, but in a nutshell, because I pay and have paid contributions, National Insurance and things like that, even though I'm self-employed, I'm entitled to maternity pay. I don't think a lot of people know that. I don't think a lot of women know that.

Ian Paget: I didn't realise that. I would have assumed that it was like you would have to do it out of your own funds being self-employed.

Danielle Clark: Yeah, no. So there's this form that I had to fill in, and bearing in mind, I'm heavily pregnant, not very well. No one likes filling in forms at the best of times, but I had to fill in this form, and it was like 30-odd pages long. Anyway, I filled it in, sent it, and then HMRC said to me that the company that I was director of needed to pay my maternity pay. They were like, "We see you're a director of Danielle Clark Consultancy. They need to pay your maternity pay." And I was like, "That is a company of one, and I own that company. So how's that going to work?" And they kept saying it. So, to cut a long story short, my accountant had to speak to two other accountants to find out what it was I needed to do. And it turned out that I needed to apply for maternity pay through payroll. It was a whole different procedure. But because I had the right people around me, it meant that I could get it. Now, I know someone else that's self-employed, and she just didn't bother because it was so complicated, and she didn't know what to do, and she didn't have anyone to support her. Without that, because it's not a great... it's not a monumental amount of money. It does help, but it's not a lot. I think without that, it almost puts people that are self-employed into real financial difficulty when you've just had a child, when you know that your finances are going to be hit anyway. So, yeah, it's been stressful. That was really stressful, but thankfully I had a good accountant, so I managed to get it.

Ian Paget: It's good to know that that is a possibility for anyone that's considering it, because like I said, I had no idea. Obviously, I assume that you can't do it if you're a sole trader, but being a director, you can. Interesting. Because you're still paying National Insurance, so technically you have the rights to it.

Danielle Clark: I think you can, Ian. Yeah, it's to do with your National Insurance contributions, and I think there's potentially something else, but... Yeah.

Ian Paget: Interesting. When my daughter was born, I was still working part-time for a company, and I did get my paternity leave. It wasn't long, like two weeks, something like that. But that was a nice thing to get that they offered me.

Danielle Clark: Two weeks is crazy.

Ian Paget: Yeah, it's not long enough, and it's why I eventually decided to take the leap. I was working part-time anyway. I was only working for that company three days a week, and then I was working for myself the rest of it. But my daughter was the primary reason why I decided to eventually take the leap and work from home. It was because of all the little videos that kept being sent to me from my daughter's mom saying, "Look, she did this little giggle today," like silly little things. But from my side, I just did the maths and I worked out how many projects do I need to get each month to replace my part-time salary. It was ridiculous. Once I sat down and did the math, I'm like, "What am I doing? Why am I working for someone else?" Because it was literally like two projects or something like that to replace it.

Danielle Clark: I figured out what my necessities were in terms of my outgoings, like all the things that I needed to live. Nothing lavish, but just survive and thrive a little bit. And when I got it all down on paper, I was like, "Actually, this isn't that much. If I just get a couple of clients, I can do this." And then before I decided to go fully self-employed, I also saved a six-month runway. So I made sure I had six months of bill money absolutely covered so that in the back of my mind, it took the pressure off. It was like, "Okay, if I do not get a project in the first six months," which, when you put it like that, it's like, "Of course I'm going to get a project, of course I'm going to get clients in six months." But if I don't, it's going to be okay. I've got some security. And it stopped me from knee-jerking into jobs that I didn't really want to work in, clients I didn't really want to take on. I've been in the corporate world. I've worked with clients and had bosses that weren't very nice and used to make my life difficult, and I used to feel shit going into work. That was one of the reasons. Having been made redundant three times in my career, I decided that enough was enough, and I was going to take back control. It was an amalgamation of things that led me to becoming self-employed. But now I have a child, I can absolutely see why you decided to become self-employed having your daughter, because they change so quickly, so rapidly. Everyone says they do, and then you have one, and you're like, "Wow."

Ian Paget: My daughter is six now, and I don't know where the last six years have gone. It's just been an absolute blur. So I can't imagine, for you, it must feel like you were only pregnant like two weeks ago.

Danielle Clark: It does, it does. My pregnancy wasn't... I mean, some women say they really enjoy being pregnant. I didn't. It was difficult. There was a lot of nausea and discomfort and extreme fatigue. I remember sitting on a Zoom call with a client, and I wasn't yet on maternity leave because the idea is that you stretch it out for as long as you can, as close as you can, rather, to your due date. And that's what I did. So, while I was expecting, three, four, five months in, I was absolutely exhausted and still having to work. I remember being on a Zoom call, sat in this very chair, at this very desk, and being so tired and just wanting the call to be over so I could just go and lie down because I was so tired. I didn't even have the energy to sit up in my chair. It's like a tiredness I've never experienced before in my life. It just sucks every ounce of energy from you. Luckily, being self-employed allowed me to be able to go and take a nap after meetings. If I was having a bad morning, because I had really, really bad morning sickness—in fact, I wouldn't have called it morning sickness, it should have been called all-day sickness—but things like that, being able to be like, "You know what, I'm having a really rough day. Work is just not going to happen today. I'm going to contact my clients and just say, can we postpone this or I just need to rest or whatever it is." Being self-employed allowed me to do that during my pregnancy, and I think about women that are employed that have to do that. It's really difficult, really, really difficult. I salute any woman that continues to go to work throughout their pregnancy because it's really tough, especially if you have a tricky pregnancy.

Ian Paget: And how are you finding it since your little one's been born? You're seven months in now. What you're doing now, I consider this work. You're sitting down, you're presenting your professional front. Have you needed to do any work around that time with your son, or have you been able to fully take the time off?

Danielle Clark: So up until, we're in November now, time of recording, but up until last month, I wasn't doing any work.

Ian Paget: Okay. I know you did speak at the Morpalooza event. I can't believe it. You're there in your suit, looking great and being on the stage, sounding great, and then off the stage, you're with your little one. Full respect to you for doing that.

Danielle Clark: Thank you, Ian. I appreciate that. When I got the email from Mike, because he received my out-of-office saying that I was enjoying being a new mum and I was out of office on maternity and I'd speak to him next year, he was really shocked that over here we can take up to a year off. I think he's still trying to process that because I don't think they get much time off in the US.

Ian Paget: It's hard, because one year is not even long enough really, because your body is still repairing itself. And it's just adjusting to the sleep. There's so much that you go through.

Danielle Clark: Yeah, it's major. Now that I'm a mum, I realise just how monumental it is that as a woman, we're able to grow a life and grow a whole organ to sustain that life. And then there's this expectation to be firing on all cylinders and getting our bodies back to how they were before, and emotionally being okay, and physically. It's just not possible. I had a bit of a blip before doing Morpalooza because I'm going to be super honest now, but becoming a mum made me lose confidence. It made me lose confidence in my abilities. It made me lose confidence in the way I look and the way I carry myself because physically I've changed. I put weight on. I had to kind of check in with myself and go, "Could I really expect to have a baby and grow a human being and not expect to see a difference or feel a difference?" I had to check in with myself and give myself a bit of grace. When Mike sent that email and asked me to come and speak at Morpalooza in London, I was kind of humming and hawing about going because I was worried. I had a moment where I was like, "But do I still remember? Do I still remember my stuff? Can I still talk about branding and business and values and all that sort of stuff?" And of course I can. It's just because I've been thinking about baby stuff naturally for so long that part of me was worried about how I would come across. But I think it's really important to talk about it and to share it because I know I'm not the only mom that feels like that. In the creative industry, there's so much of what we do is based on opinion and gut feeling and knowing when something's right. If you're not feeling confident and secure in yourself, you second-guess yourself even more. You don't always have the guts to back up what you're saying if you're not feeling like, "Yeah, that's the right answer," or "This is what I know and believe about how something looks or sounds." Because that's the thing with creativity, it's all very subjective, isn't it? There's no real right or wrong answer. So, yeah, I had a bit of a wobble before Morpalooza, but I thought to myself, "Hang on a minute, Mike's asked me," and I need to remember that. Then I thought the way to make it work is to bring family with me. So I spoke to my partner, and he was all for it and very happy to support. So him and my son came along, and we turned it into a little family break, and it was brilliant.

Ian Paget: You know what I think is important? It's the exact reason why I thought, "Let's scrap the ideas I have. Let's just record this," because we were both talking about this. I think what makes it even more important that you were there is that you've been through this, and it's a human experience. Whether you're male or female, I know men obviously don't give birth to a child, but if they are with their children's mom, they would experience that and they would be around that. I think it's so important that it is spoken about. I think it's really nice that, because I know when you came on, you're like, "I'm so tired," and I'm like, "Let's talk about it. Let's be real and raw," because it's conversations like this that actually help people. I'm a single parent. I literally raised my daughter on my own. I've got 50/50 custody of her. That was really hard to get. I haven't spoke about it much on the podcast, but that sadly had to go through the family court system. That cost me tens of thousands of pounds. I lost a lot. I lost the house I bought because I needed to pay for the legal fees and stuff like that. It's not nice to go through that, and you're still trying to run a business on the side. Adjusting to being in a situation where you do have this normal family life where you're sharing responsibilities to, "Right, it's all on you now," and adjusting to that. I found that really challenging as well. Men also go through these things but don't necessarily talk about it because socially you feel like you have to pretend everything's okay. But that sort of imposter syndrome that you have, I have the same. I haven't done my podcast properly in like two years, and I'm trying to get back to it, and I'm trying to do it in a new way because the world has changed so much in two years. The process for recording podcasts, putting out podcasts, what people expect, how people consume content has changed so much. It's really daunting. There are whole new groups of people that are doing what we were doing.

Danielle Clark: Yeah.

Ian Paget: I think it's important to be real about it.

Danielle Clark: Yeah, but this is the thing, because we kept it real. I said to you, "How are you feeling? Are you okay? Do you still want to chat?" And you said you were excited.

Ian Paget: I am, yeah. It's funny because you were talking about the imposter syndrome. When I'm not doing this, it's like, "Who are you to talk to that person? Who are you to do this?" I've done cognitive behavioural therapy before, and it's the thoughts, behaviour, and... I can't remember what the other one is, but if you change the way you think from, "Can't do that, who the hell are you to be doing that?" to something more like, "You've been a designer for 20 years, you've interviewed 150 plus people, you've earned this. You're allowed to do this." If you reframe it, then it's like, "Yes, I can do it."

Danielle Clark: Yeah, you've got to reframe it.

Ian Paget: Maybe I do feel worn out and tired and feel like a rubbish parent for whatever reason, you still do it anyway and just be real because that's what people connect with.

Danielle Clark: Yeah, and there's something around that about showing up. Showing up on the days where you don't feel 100%, but you still show up. It's the way that you show up on the days that you don't feel like showing up that really shows who you are and your character.

Ian Paget: I haven't been showing up. I am now. You too, you know you're doing this today, so full respect to you. And talking about such vulnerable stuff.

Danielle Clark: I just think it's important. Especially now that I've had a child, I just think having been through that... my birth was difficult, traumatic. I had to have an emergency C-section. There's a lot of things that have happened. It took a really long time.

Ian Paget: Has your body recovered? Has it repaired?

Danielle Clark: It took a really long time. I remember coming out of, even before I came out of hospital, trying to sit up in bed after I'd had the C-section and not being able to do it, trying to get out of bed and just not having the strength in my legs or my core to walk properly. All I wanted to do was go to the loo. It's really, really hard. That messes with your head because all of a sudden you don't feel... I've always felt quite strong in myself. I keep myself fit and healthy, eat well. Health and well-being is very, very important to me because I feel like if you've got good health—and when I talk about health, I don't just mean physical health, they're all interlinked: your physical health, your mental health, your emotional health—you can't have one without the other. If you've got good health, everything else falls into place. At the point in my life where I'm needed the most, I've felt the most weak, the most vulnerable. I didn't feel strong, I didn't trust my body, and my emotions were all over the place because I'd just given birth. Then you're expected to look after this tiny human that needs...

Ian Paget: Which is also one of the hardest things you will ever do.

Danielle Clark: So yeah, it's taken its toll, but with that, I found this new level of honesty and vulnerability because I've been through so much but come through it, and it's made me... I've changed. I think having a child has made me... in a way, I've been born as well. I've become a different person, and I view things very differently.

Ian Paget: I feel the same about, even though I haven't given birth, going through the process.

Danielle Clark: Yeah, but men still go through a big, big change, cognitively, emotionally, hormonally. You still go through a big change. You haven't physically carried, but seeing yourself in this tiny little person, it changes everything. It's like nothing else matters, really, for me. He's my world, and he also gives me strength and confidence when I feel like I'm unsure about something or when I feel a bit of that imposter syndrome. My thought process goes, "Well, in a way, I'm doing it for him," because all of this is going to lead to...

Ian Paget: You know, I also feel that, and you wouldn't have experienced this yet, but there are things that you do that they watch and they observe and they see. I mean, some of it's bad things. It's like, "Where did you pick that up from?"

Danielle Clark: Yeah, this is why I need to stop swearing. I've been trying really hard not to swear on this podcast because I'm trying to channel it now before he starts picking things up.

Ian Paget: You can if you want to. But they watch what you do. I released a book about two years ago now, Make a Living Design the Logos. I started writing that before my daughter was born, or before me and her mum separated. Anyway, it was before life wasn't very easy. I remember finding it one day, and it made me feel sick looking at it. I thought, "I'm never getting back to that thing." But I decided that I needed to finish that because it was nearly done. A couple of people had asked about it. It was a weird thing because I felt like I got it out of my system, and I did what I wanted to do. I didn't care if anyone else read it. I just wanted to do it, and I felt like I did. But then it was more the case that people were reading it. So I decided I was going to finish it off. I made it a routine that every day I would sit down and work on it. This included evenings where I put my daughter to bed. She didn't want to sleep, so it was exhausting for me to physically get her to settle. Even after that, it's like, "I'm going downstairs, and I'm going to work for half an hour," rather than going straight to bed. That wasn't easy, but she helped me launch it. Then she got to a point where it's like, "I want to write a book, Daddy." "All right, let's get some paper." You know, fold it up into four and clip it. She literally writes these little books all the time. That's like Evie and Daddy. That was called Hiding Spider. That was called Cardo Meets Evie and Daddy. And she writes these little books all the time. You know the reason why she does that? Because she's seen me writing my book and getting it published and seeing it as a finished thing and talking to people about it. So I think there's an element of inspiring them as well. Because they do, they literally watch and learn everything.

Ian Paget: It's very easy to be depressed and stay in bed when sometimes it's hard. They see that as well. But if they see you working and trying and prioritizing them and stuff like that, I think it's really good for them. I consider that part of it. Something we're going to do—my daughter is six now—we started working on a project together, and we're going to publish a book together that's hers. It's going to be her story, but I'm showing her how. She just randomly spit out a story about kitties and ghosts and spiders and stuff. We planned it out on Post-it notes, and then I'll sit down on it. It's her ideas, but I'll restructure it, and then I'll print out big sheets, and then she can do the drawings for it. Then I'll scan it all together, and then we release it on as like an Amazon book. Not to sell it, just to show her the process, how it all works and stuff like this. I think it's nice. I feel very fortunate, and I believe that you will as well, that you've built a life where you can be there for your child, which people can't do, unfortunately, if they have a normal job.

Danielle Clark: That's amazing. What a lovely thing to do.

Ian Paget: They just can't do it. If they've got a normal nine-to-five, they have to pay somebody else to bring up their child. But it's the best thing ever to... it's half term. I've got no choice. I have to take the time. I have to plan around it. But I don't miss any holiday, any event. Literally, I can be there for everything. I haven't missed anything.

Danielle Clark: Yeah, and that's the thing. We haven't got to ask.

Ian Paget: Yeah, and you have the same situation. When you sit down working, yes, you're doing it for them so that they can have their lives. But just remember, they're watching you, and they're going to learn from you. We do the Evie and Daddy Show together because I want... I found it really hard to get comfortable on camera doing things like this. It's literally taken me like 20 years to get to the point where I feel comfortable doing this type of thing.

Danielle Clark: It was COVID that made me comfortable being on video. I just started doing it. COVID came along, and that was how everyone started talking to each other. During my daily walk, I found it easy to just talk to the camera and record it. I just started doing that and uploading it. It was quicker and easier than creating a load of slides for a carousel, and it felt more authentic. It felt like I was connecting better with people, especially at a time when we couldn't see anyone, we couldn't go out. It feels crazy now that that even happened. But yeah, it was COVID that got me comfortable being on video. Then before I knew it, I was having Zoom calls and prioritizing Zoom and Google Meet calls over phone calls with potential clients and prospects and people I was working with. Then before I knew it, I decided to do a podcast, and it just sort of snowballed. Now I don't even think about hopping on video.

Ian Paget: Do you want to share what your podcast is called and what it's about for people that aren't aware of it?

Danielle Clark: Yeah, absolutely. The podcast is called Build Better Brands. The reason I started it was because having worked with a lot of students when I was working at BCU, because I was a lecturer there teaching on the graphic design and visual communication course, and also there are always clients, I'm sure you'll be the same Ian, that you come across that you can't help, that you want to, but they just don't have the budget to work with you.

Ian Paget: Yeah, I have it all the time. Sometimes I do anyway. I've had a couple of times where it's like, "Look, how much can you afford? Right, let's do it." I've done that a few times when I've liked them, and I know that they're not taking advantage, and I know that I can make a difference for them. I'll work something out so it doesn't take me too much time, but I help.

Danielle Clark: Yeah. I kept getting lots of that, and I thought to myself, "I wish there was a way..." And then not just that, but coming across people through networking events or friends of friends that have got these ideas for businesses, they've got these passions, these things that they want to do. Year after year, it's like, "Have you started that business? What have you done?" It's just an idea, or "I can't do that." They just don't have the confidence to do it. So it's an amalgamation of all those reasons. I thought, if I just speak to lots of business owners—either people that have an understanding of brand and have built a brand with that background, or people that have got businesses that didn't really understand branding but have grown and developed really strong brands that have been successful, and their passion has become their profession—if I just interview lots of people like that and share that story, I'm going to help all of those people. Plus, I love chatting to people. I'm curious. I'm interested in hearing people's stories, learning about how they got to where they got to, but also sharing the ups and downs because it's never linear. It's always a bit up and down, and often there's been some hardships, some challenges that they've managed to overcome. I think sharing those stories are really important to inspire people. Not everything is rosy and fun and easy. I think sometimes, especially on social media, that's the side of things that we see very often. A lot of the young generation see this entrepreneurial world, and I think there's this notion that becoming an entrepreneur is really easy, and you can make loads of money really quickly. It's not like that. Running a business is really hard. So I wanted to share those stories and inspire people and get to know all these lovely people along the way. That's how it started. I obviously paused it when I discovered that we were expecting.

Ian Paget: It's going to be hard to get back to it, by the way.

Danielle Clark: Yeah, and I thought about getting back to it, and at the moment, I know that it's just not going to be possible. I'm just having a look to see what episode I actually got to. Maybe it was episode 50, I don't know. I've had to be real about the things that I'm going to be able to do and the things that I can't do. I think that's okay. I'd like to start the podcast again, but do I have time? No. Do I have the energy right now? Probably not, if I'm honest. But I'm more than happy to hop on someone else's podcast and have a conversation. I've got the time and energy to do that.

Ian Paget: Yeah, there's a lot of planning prior to the stuff that you need to do afterwards. You know what I think is important to mention? There are things that you will want to do, and it's very easy to say, "I don't have time for that." But something I've noticed is that things change and adapt, and sometimes you need to make something a priority over another. With my little one, when it's a half term, I obviously can't do... I mean, I probably could, but I don't have the energy for it. So I just prioritize the time with my little one, and I prioritize the small amount of time I've got left for my client work. That's prioritizing making an income. Making an income and care of my daughter. Once my little one went to school, initially I needed to do a lot of driving, which made it quite difficult because if you can imagine, I dropped my daughter off at school, and then I'd have like three hours, and then I'd have to drive back, which wasn't easy. But now, as of January this year, I live in walking distance of my daughter's school now, so we can walk to the school and walk back. So I have more time now than I did previously. That's why I'm like, "Okay, I need to get back to doing the podcast." It's something I want to do. It's still on my long-term vision. I started to get a bit of FOMO when I was seeing... I started to get the itch back, like I want to do it, and that's helped me get back to doing things. I thought I'd try doing it in a new way. That's why I'm doing video now, which I didn't do before, which slightly mixes things up. Doing the partnership with Mike has helped as well because that's given me a bit of... I don't know the best way of describing it... like pressure. Not pressure is not the right word because it's not like I'm feeling stressed about it, but like, "I need to do this because of this."

Danielle Clark: Urgency.

Ian Paget: Yeah, urgency. I think that's a better word, and having some accountability as well, because I want to keep putting out the podcast. I've got a reason for it now. I've bought new equipment, camera equipment. I've got this background thing so I can hide my daughter's mess when she's made a mess on the floor. I can just stick this in front of it.

Danielle Clark: Yeah, your camera is looking good.

Ian Paget: It looks like a brick wall, but actually it's just that I can fold it up and put it away.

Danielle Clark: Just a minute ago, you mentioned vision.

Ian Paget: Yeah, long-term vision. I think this is so important because you can... like I had a period of time where that wasn't a priority for me. Right now, this is what I was trying to get to. I went off topic. Raising your son is your priority right now. Building your business is not your priority right now. This isn't the season for that. This is the time where your son is small. He's going to be small only once. If you miss that, it's gone. Spend as much time with him as you can. Enjoy it as much as you can.

Danielle Clark: Yeah, yeah. That was part of, earlier on you were asking me about how we planned it, that came into play. I spoke to lots of other women that run their own businesses, and I got very different perspectives, and they shared what they did once their children were born. One of them was back at work within the first week of the son being born and was taking phone calls and had him in her arms because that was what she needed and I assume wanted to do. Another one took time off properly to be there for her daughter. I just sort of thought to myself, because I was worried about work, I was worried about disappearing. I had conversations with other business owners and said, "Well, what am I going to do about LinkedIn? What am I going to do about my podcast? I'm going to disappear for months and months and months." At the time when you're in the midst of it, and you've spent all this time and effort building up a profile, building up a presence, doing all this work, you weren't here yet, so I wasn't in that frame of mind. Now he's here, I look back, and I'm like, "Why was I... I can understand why I was worried and concerned, but at the same time, I'm like, you don't need to worry about that," because he's growing so fast, so much is changing, and all these little moments and memories and experiences that we're sharing are so precious, and there's just no way I'd have let work get in the way of that.

Ian Paget: Yeah, don't, because it goes so fast. It feels like those moments where you put your little one to bed, he settles, you walk out the room, and then you've got to go back and do that again and again. In the moment, it's like, "Kill me now," because I'm so tired. But when that's gone, you kind of miss it. I think it's really important to not miss it. Also, from their perspective, that's such an important stage of their life. You being there is the most important thing for them. So, things like being concerned that the audience goes... Something I found when I released my book, the amount of support I got from the community was just unbelievable, and I hadn't been doing my usual posting every day thing, so I was concerned launching that. But people don't suddenly forget you. People have their own busy lives. People don't even notice that you haven't been posting because there's so much content out there.

Danielle Clark: Although I did have some people notice. I must say I did. I posted recently saying, "I'm still on maternity. I've been doing blah, blah, blah, but I'll be back in Jan." And I had a few people going, "Oh, I was wondering where you were. I was just saying to so-and-so, I've not seen Danielle on here for a while." And here you are. So that was nice. But I don't have any of those feelings now. He's my focus, and I actually wrote a vision down. I've got it here on my desk next to me. I wrote it on the 2nd of October.

Ian Paget: Is this something you want to read out, or is it private?

Danielle Clark: It is private, but my vision revolves very much around my son now and all the things that... Yeah.

Ian Paget: Okay, you don't have to share it. It should. It's the same with mine around my daughter. She's priority number one. Everything has to be... she's the center of everything.

Danielle Clark: All the things that I want to do and for him, and the places that I want to take him, and important birthdays and things. So now, whatever, in terms of the business and what I'm doing, working with the right people and saying yes to certain things has to align with this vision and the way that I want my life to be. That includes being able to take him to school, being able to see his plays, being able to take him to special places on special birthdays, and all of those. It's about me being able to be present.

Ian Paget: That's the most important thing.

Danielle Clark: Yeah.

Ian Paget: That's the most important thing.

Danielle Clark: Yeah, and I think that's what I've learned, that I'm not going to miss any of that.

Ian Paget: Good.

Danielle Clark: Yeah.

Ian Paget: I think that's a great place to wrap up. Thank you so much for being so open and honest. I know that this is going to help a lot of people.

Danielle Clark: Thank you, Ian. It's been a pleasure.

Ian Paget: It's been a pleasure. Thank you.