The Invisible Load of Modern Motherhood with Paige Connell

December 02, 2025

Paige Connell, mother of four and former Head of Operations for an e-commerce company turned full-time content creator now reaches millions with her honest, relatable takes on motherhood, marriage, and the challenges modern women face. In this episode, she joins Emma Lloyd to explore how societal norms quietly shape the standards women hold themselves to, and how these invisible expectations often create exhaustion, frustration, and resentment in our homes and relationships.

Together, they unpack the mental load, the gendered expectations behind it, and how couples can begin redistributing emotional and domestic labor through meaningful, constructive dialogue. Paige also shares her unconventional career journey, from studying broadcast journalism and working in entertainment, to pivoting into operations, to ultimately building a thriving platform that empowers women to name their experiences and advocate for equity at home and at work.

You’ll hear how she:

Grew up surrounded by working women and how that shaped her beliefs about success & motherhood
Discovered the “mental load” and learned to name and redistribute it
Built boundaries and reframed guilt by asking, “Would my husband feel guilty about this?”
Turned her postpartum reflections into a platform that helps women worldwide advocate for more equity
Guides couples to make the invisible, visible and approach household labor as a shared problem
Transitioned from a corporate executive to a full-time creator and what her revenue streams and day-in-the-life look like

Links

Guest: https://paigeconnell.myflodesk.com/freeguide

Follow on Instagram: @conscioussuccessco

Work with me: www.conscioussuccessco.com

Episode Transcript

Emma (00:00.206)
and we'll cut the beginning. So all good there. All right, so Paige, it's so good to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. I would love to just start our conversation way back before you were ever known by your social handle. She is a Paige Turner. So I'd love if you could just take us back kind of to the beginning and tell us a little bit about your upbringing. Where did you grow up? And also what was the expectation that you had and saw around?

Paige Connell (00:10.925)
Thank you.

Emma (00:28.78)
success, particularly as a woman that was modeled for you growing up.

Paige Connell (00:30.103)
Mmm.

Sure, so I grew up in Massachusetts and I feel like that does come into play here. I think with so many of these conversations, geography matters and the community you are raised in matters. you know, growing up, I had a mom and a dad who were both working full time. They both had careers that they really enjoyed and were proud of. And, you know, I always tell people, I never really knew any stay-at-home moms. I really didn't. I had maybe one or two friends who had a mom who worked part-time.

Maybe. But nobody who was a true stay at home parent and even looking back, my grandmother worked, my great grandmother worked, like everybody worked, right? And so in our home, in our community, in my life, everything I saw modeled for me, especially from women, was doing both.

Emma (01:11.16)
Night.

Paige Connell (01:18.179)
being a working mother, right? And having a career that you enjoyed, or at least that you went to, whether or not you enjoyed it, and also maintaining a family. And so for me, I am the oldest, I'm a twin, but I am the oldest of four kids. so there's four of us, our parents, until my parents got divorced a little bit later, and they were both working. And so we had au pairs growing up, actually. My mom had two jobs. She worked full-time, and then she did part-time work for the au pair program in...

Massachusetts and we had no pair growing up and so I always had full-time childcare and I never really thought any different than that. I thought that was kind of the norm because that's what I saw.

Emma (02:01.388)
Yeah, and it's so interesting how much of like what we see modeled and what we see as the norm, like that changes so much from culture to culture, right? And so for you and for me, you I also had two working parents. And so that was kind of just like this expectation that like, of course I would have a career and of course I should be the best in my career and go to the highest heights. And then I think it was like very surprising sometimes when you enter motherhood and you're like, my gosh, like this is...

Paige Connell (02:09.815)
Mm-hmm.

Paige Connell (02:17.655)
Mm-hmm.

Paige Connell (02:23.352)
Yes.

Paige Connell (02:30.423)
Mm-hmm.

Emma (02:31.51)
not necessarily something I understood that we were gonna have to balance both. And so I'm so curious to you, like, did you start to feel that friction at all when you became a mother or did it feel like something that you had the model of how to do successfully?

Paige Connell (02:50.883)
Feel like you can't compare the two because I actually think, I talk about this all the time, I think the expectations look very different today than they did in 1990 when I was being raised. And the expectations on parents and how involved they're supposed to be, what it looks like to be a good parent, right? I joke. My mom used to go grocery shopping and leave us in the car, right? Like just the four of us for like an hour, right? Like we'd just be in the car. Maybe, you know, I don't know.

Emma (03:13.902)
Windows cracked, you'll be bad.

Paige Connell (03:20.419)
And I was left home alone for the first time, I think maybe when I was like nine years old and my brother was like five, six, I don't know. And there was four of us at home by ourselves. And now I think if you heard that, you'd be like, ooh, I don't know if you should do that, right? But it was the norm back then. And so I actually think when I compare myself to my mom or to the women that I knew growing up, I think I hadn't modeled for me what it could look like.

I knew that it was okay and normal to have childcare. had no qualms about having a nanny or putting my kids in daycare. I had no concerns or guilt about any of those things, which was amazing. So I felt like I got to go into it feeling really confident in my decision to maintain a career and to have children and have childcare support. What I wasn't expecting was the sheer volume of work that I was going to take on as the default parent in our dynamic. And how much does

pressure society puts on women these days, and I think some of this also is exacerbated by things like social media, right? Which is like, the second you become pregnant, it's like the algorithms know, and you're fed a million different ways to be a good mom and how to be an awful mom, and all of them are the same somehow. It's like you're both a good mom and a terrible mom, depending on what's on your feed that day, and it feels really, really overwhelming. And I wasn't expecting that. I felt like I knew how to navigate

my job and my kids and my home and the time all that took. What I didn't understand was, I talk about all the time, but the mental load aspect, the pressure, the societal expectations, the bias, that was a part I didn't recognize. I think a lot of women will say, it's always been like that. And it's like, yeah, but I don't think people were explicitly talking about it as much.

Emma (05:07.234)
Yeah, and to your point, the expectations for what it means to be a good mother, especially with the advent of social media, has changed, right? If in the 90s, you could still be a good mother if you worked and left your kids in the car while you got groceries and you just made it work. And now there's so much in your face shaming about, you're a bad mom if you do this or that. It's almost like the line that we have to walk if you're trying to still fit into society's standard of what a good mom or a good

Paige Connell (05:14.093)
Mmm.

Paige Connell (05:26.615)
Mm-hmm.

Paige Connell (05:34.263)
Mm-hmm.

Emma (05:35.808)
wife looks like. It's just such a heavy burden to bear and it's one expectation layered onto another onto another where it's almost impossible to succeed if you're buying into that mentality.

Paige Connell (05:48.833)
Yeah, and you know, I think people often say, well, just like, don't listen to the judgment, you know, just get offline. And I think in an ideal world, amazing. Unfortunately, I think this shows up in the real world too, like in our real lives. And it always has, like there's always been judgment in parenthood that is not new, that's not unique. I just think there's a real spotlight on it now. And I also think the pressures are different, right? I think about things like soccer practice and you see videos of people saying,

these parents need to get off of their cell phones. And it's like, well, you know, they're at practice at 3.30. My parents were still at work. I walked to practice by myself, right? And then walked myself home. This parent is here because that's the expectation now is that they physically have to be here. And so what I actually think is happening is parents feel like they are constantly required to be in multiple places at one time. And that is stretching parents really, really thin these days. And I think...

the idea that you can quote unquote like have it all and for both moms and dads is putting a pressure on parents that maybe didn't exist before or maybe not in this way. It just looks different.

Emma (06:54.476)
Mm-hmm.

Absolutely. And I thought it was so interesting. Recently, you commented about a video that Alex Hermosy put about this advice that you should just outsource the low value tasks like cooking and cleaning in order to create more capacity for your career. And I thought it was such an interesting point that you pointed out around it was that for men, fine, it's just outsourcing a task. But for women, there are such deeply ingrained ideas of what it means to be a good mother, a good wife, is you're supposed to cook your kids

Paige Connell (07:02.819)
All right.

Paige Connell (07:22.947)
Hmm.

Emma (07:25.552)
organic home-cooked meals. You're supposed to do your husband's laundry to show him that you love him. And so for us, for many women, it's not just a simple productivity decision. It brings in identity and worthiness. And these are

that makes it way more challenging to just outsource making your kids' foods. I'm so curious, how have you personally navigated that tension between creating this capacity while also not wanting to do something that makes you feel like you're being not as present or as good, quote unquote, of a mother?

Paige Connell (07:41.035)
Mm-hmm.

Paige Connell (07:59.659)
Yeah, it's hard because I think there's the societal expectations and pressure that have been put on us. And oftentimes people will say, you know, in a comment section of one of my videos, what are you talking about? Like, who's telling you this? Nobody's telling you these are the expectations. But if you look back at any TV show you watched growing up, there are tropes, right, of what it looks like to be a good mom versus a good dad. Or you often hear people say, you know, my mom was the rock of the family. She held us up. My mom...

showed us love through food, right? And like we have all these ways that we talk about women and like the labor they do as being love, as being kind of the ideal version of motherhood. And we also equate a lot of these things with motherhood, not just being a woman, but with motherhood, right? Like you often see a picture of a mom and she's folding laundry or she's cooking, right? There's this expectation that in motherhood, those are your tasks. When in reality,

Those tasks have nothing really to do with motherhood other than the fact that there's just more to do. There's more cooking and more laundry. But it's not inherently part of motherhood necessarily, right? Like it's not part of raising a well-rounded healthy child. And so I think it's tricky because there's all this messaging we get that makes us feel a certain way about something, right? I said recently to someone, know, hair is a big thing where it's if I send my daughter to school with messy hair.

people will think that I'm not taking care of her well. If my husband does it, they will say, why didn't her mother brush her hair? And it's like this idea that it's my job to do, right? Like that she is a representation of me and we know that women are expected, we are expected to present ourselves in a certain way at all times, right? And so it's just such a layered conversation. And I think so often people try to kind of like boil it down to one thing.

And it's just so big, right? It's just like really big thing that is so connected. But I think what you nailed is that for a lot of men, it is as simple as cooking a meal, folding a load of laundry. And for women, it's tied to our value and how people perceive that we provide value for them.

Emma (10:06.35)
Mm-hmm, absolutely. And so do you think that you almost need to build a level of comfort with being misperceived or being considered a quote unquote, like bad mom in some ways in order to have your sense of like mental peace back and being able to make these trade-offs and decisions that really work for you in your home? Like, is that a part of it?

Paige Connell (10:29.101)
For sure, I mean, when I said I don't do my husband's laundry, it was insane, the reaction. And I was like, I'm...

Emma (10:35.362)
That is wild. My husband does my laundry. Like the fact that you got an insane reaction about that.

Paige Connell (10:39.299)
I mean, it was insane and I got national media coverage and I'm like, this is silly, right? I'm just saying, I do eight loads of laundry a week and the one load I don't do is my husband's and therefore I'm not loving, is essentially what the message was. I'm not loving him, I'm not giving him my love. And I'm lucky because my mom was never that.

Mom, like that wasn't, she had no problem outsourcing something like laundry or cleaning or cooking or any of those things. She wasn't like a homemaker in that sense. And so again, it wasn't modeled for me that that was how you show love. That was just like work to be done. And like anybody could do that work, including like me as a 10 year old folding my own laundry. And so for me, I always really felt confident in these decisions. I never questioned them. I never felt bad about it, but.

I think a lot of women do, and again, this goes back to kind of where you were raised, what's modeled, what is expected of you. But for me, I do believe for me and for many other women, you have to build up a tolerance for pushing back against these gender norms and ideas and feel really confident in yourself. So when somebody says, well, if your husband cooks dinner every night, then what do you do? You can ask yourself, would anybody ask that question of a woman who cooks dinner every single night?

Never in a million years would they say, if you're cooking dinner every night, then what's your husband doing? Nobody would ever ask a woman that question. So I try to reframe all the time. Somebody asked me how I don't experience mom guilt, and I do. I I obviously feel it. My way through it is I will literally talk myself off the ledge. I'll be like, when my husband feel guilty about this, would any dad feel guilty about this?

Do I feel guilty about this or do I feel like I'm supposed to feel guilty about this because of the messaging I've received? And if I don't actually feel guilty about this, then let's just keep it moving, right? Like go enjoy yourself, do the thing you're doing. And so I think it really is being comfortable having those conversations with yourself and actively choosing to not feed into it.

Emma (12:37.901)
Yeah.

Emma (12:48.684)
Yeah, absolutely. So much of the work that I do with my clients is on nervous system regulation and feeling safe and understanding when you feel triggered and dysregulated, perhaps by this like subconscious paradigm or conditioning that you hold and being able to find your center and regulate enough to be able to have access to your own conscious choice and values rather than just going by the conditioning. And I talk a lot about like, first meet yourself with compassion. Like it's human for me to feel like this as a mom who's trying to

Paige Connell (13:00.887)
Mm.

Paige Connell (13:15.927)
Hmm.

Emma (13:18.658)
navigate all of this in the world of social media. Like that's number one, compassion. And then two is curiosity, which you just talked about and modeled. It's like, okay, well, would the same expectation be held of a man? Is this even what I value? Do I choose to believe this? And really asking yourself those types of questions so that you can get back to like, what is true for me? And then can I act in alignment with that? What action can I take that it's in alignment with that? But it is kind of countercultural to do this to some extent.

Paige Connell (13:22.935)
Hmm.

Paige Connell (13:48.279)
Yeah, I mean, it's a lot of just walking, you know, I go to therapy and it's funny, because I will just like talk through a scenario and my therapist, think sometimes just like giggles at me, because I can see the whole, I can back up and be like, you know, I know it's a little weird that I'm hung up on this thing. And I understand logically that it's not tied to my worth. And yet I still feel it, right? I still feel it. And I think it's interesting because I think so often, you know,

Emma (13:53.944)
Yeah.

Paige Connell (14:18.435)
We individualize a lot of these struggles that women have and we say, you're holding yourself to this standard or nobody cares or just ignore the judgment. We say that and then we ignore the fact that, you know, there's an entire industry that spends billions of dollars marketing towards women to make them feel this way, right? So it's funny because I just recently

Emma (14:40.248)
Like don't make it a me problem when this is like a systemic thing with billions of dollars going to like brainwash us.

Paige Connell (14:45.155)
Exactly, even something like a birthday party. I was talking about birthday parties and somebody made a comment like, well doesn't have to be a Pinterest birthday party. And I said, I actually don't know that I've ever been to a birthday party that felt like a Pinterest party. Like I don't think those are real. And yet I know that since becoming a mother, I am fed that content constantly. So it would make sense that I'm feeling a pull.

to do it because I'm being marketed, right? Like there's money in this, people are telling me to do this. And then when women do it, we shame them and say, well, you don't need to throw a Pinterest party. And it's like, I know I don't need to, but like all of this subliminal messaging is coming at me and that is intentional, right? It's also like capitalism and like trying to me to spend money and all the things. I think, you know, when I say everything is so much.

bigger than like the individual like things that we tend to talk about. I really do think it's so much bigger than that. And if you can as an individual know that it's not probably just on you, but like zoom out and like look bird's eye view and be like, okay, like, okay, let's take a deep breath. Let's like take in the view from up here and decide how we go forward now.

Emma (15:47.8)
Yeah.

Emma (15:55.087)
Totally, and I think even when we can just see like, hey, there's no way that I like win in this system if I buy into it. It's like too much, not enough. Like you do the kid's birthday party to the Pinterest expectation and you're like, my gosh, what a waste of like your time and money and judgment from that. Or if you just like have a cake at a park and like put a few candles in it, it's like, my gosh, do you even like love your children, right? So when we can kind of see it's like, well, if you're constantly trying to...

Paige Connell (16:00.119)
Mm-mm.

Emma (16:22.51)
into whatever the moving target is of what you should be. Like you're always gonna feel like you're failing versus being like, okay, well, what do I value in my family? What do I actually think for me? What does it mean to be a good mother? How do I wanna raise my kids? What are my value systems? I'm curious to hear from you. Like when you have kind of deconditioned yourself from some of this or looked at it at this like systemic level, how do you define a good mother and a good father for that matter?

Paige Connell (16:51.821)
You know, I think the definition is so different for every family, right? So I think that's the thing. We all have different values. We all have different versions. And I think so much of it also comes from how we were raised, right? Like my version, maybe of being a good mom looks different than my husband's. Maybe ideas of being a good dad. And because it's based on how we grew up, right? Like what we liked, what we didn't like, what was good, bad. And so for me, I want my kids, like for one of the things I really want my kids to be able to do is

Emma (16:59.33)
Mm-hmm.

Paige Connell (17:18.465)
I always tell my husband, I'm like, I want them to want to hang out with me when they're 25. I want them to want that. Yeah, I want them to like want to call me and want to come to my house and want to hang out with us. And like, that's what I want. I want to get to a place in life where we teach them to be good people and hold them accountable to that. But also in a way where they genuinely enjoy spending time with us. And I know you can't be your kids best friend and all of our, all four of our kids are so different. And I'm like,

Emma (17:22.889)
that is success. Yeah.

Paige Connell (17:48.187)
one of them is not gonna wanna hang out with us. that, you know, it's just gonna be what it is. But, you know, I want, also for me it's really important as a mom for them to feel like they can come to me and talk to me and trust me. And it's funny, somebody was like, you know, you don't want your kids to be scared of you. And I was like, that is something I am not worried about. Because my kids are not scared of me at all. Which is like, but growing up with Boomer parents, right?

Emma (18:11.437)
you

Paige Connell (18:17.981)
A lot of us were genuinely nervous. Like if our parents found out about something we were nervous about, would we be in trouble? What would that look like? I got grounded so often as a child. I don't blame my parents for that. I think it was the parenting style. for me, it's, know, my mom made a comment at one point and she was like, I just think you're not strict enough. And I was like, I'm not trying. I am strict, but like I'm not trying to assert power over my kids.

I'm trying to teach them. And so for me, being a good mom is like holding my kids accountable, teaching them right and wrong, making sure they're healthy and happy and thriving. And that's ultimately for me, the thing that makes me a good mom. And whether or not I don't worry about the over the top birthday party or the fancy lunchbox meal, like they don't care. They just, my kids just don't care. They care much more about, you know, every day they ask me, is it a home day today?

Like, is it a home day? Like, they just wanna hang out at home with our family. And I'm like, for me, that tells me that I'm doing a good job.

Emma (19:18.414)
Yeah, and I love how clarifying that is to be like, okay, if my goal is to raise kids who want to spend time with me when they're 25, what are the things that I need to do now to end up at that, you know, hopeful destination? And it is like, yeah, making your...

a place where they feel safe and comfortable sharing with you and they feel like you're present and able to see and support them while also holding accountability around things. And so I love that. It's like really getting clearer on what that vision looks like and allowing that to really define that for you. And that's gonna look different for every person. I was...

Paige Connell (19:37.858)
Mm-hmm.

Paige Connell (19:52.354)
Hmm.

Emma (19:56.503)
recently at a party with friends and one of the women there was talking about how her father-in-law who had four kids, one of which was her husband, was like bragging or talking recently about how he's never changed a diaper in his life and like in a comical ha ha way. And you know, I know you talk a lot about how millennial dads are doing way more, like three times as much as their dads ever did around the house to, you know, help and raise their kids. And yet still so often

Paige Connell (20:13.549)
Yeah.

Emma (20:26.656)
there's so much resentment from women towards their partners and feeling like my gosh, they don't do enough. They don't do as much. How do you think about this? Why do you think so many women still feel resentful even though their husbands are so much more hands-on and so much more present than was ever modeled for them?

Paige Connell (20:29.251)
Thank

Paige Connell (20:45.155)
I actually think something you just said is one of the reasons, which is, you know, a hands-on dad. There's still terminology that separates the expectations, right? Present dad, hands-on dad, active dad. It's like, what? Like, present? They just simply have to be present? Like, I've been present from the get-go and I never am not present, right? I can't go to the bathroom in peace, right? So I think the reason, the true reason women still feel resentful is because despite the fact that men have made progress, it's not nearly enough and there's still a...

Emma (20:53.795)
Yeah.

Paige Connell (21:14.593)
disproportionate amount of work that women are doing, whether it's the mental load, the childcare, the domestic labor, and the majority of women are working full time, right? So women have also advanced within their careers and what they are doing outside of the home, and men have not nearly caught up. There's actually this economist, Claudia Golden, and she did work on the birthrate crisis and how the birthrate is dropping globally, not just in the United States. And one of the things that she cited was that the...

increase in workplace participation or workforce participation for women, like it's a line up and drastically, and men's participation at home is pretty stagnant. It has not caught up, right? And so women have taken on so much more work. And so I always say to men, I understand how frustrating it is that you are doing better than the generation before you. When you walk through the grocery store, you get applause for holding your kid's hand, and then you come home and your wife tells you it's not enough.

I understand how.

Emma (22:12.482)
and she's a nag and she's bitter. Yeah.

Paige Connell (22:15.231)
understand how that's confusing and frustrating and it leaves you feeling like you can't do good enough. I understand that. However, on the flip side of that, your partner is likely in a position where she is taking on a disproportionate amount of work, not just for the children but for you, because when women marry men, they gain work in the home. They gain like an hour of domestic labor, cooking, cleaning, laundry, et cetera.

And even simple things like when women marry men, now she's expected to buy her mother-in-law a gift on Mother's Day. Like he stops doing it, it's now her job, right? So they gain work. And so yes, you might change half the diapers, but she's still doing exponentially more. And so she's resentful because oftentimes what she's doing, and I think this is the key to this conversation, a lot of what women do is invisible to everyone else. It's invisible labor. And so it doesn't have...

a monetary value placed on it. People don't see it. They don't acknowledge it. They don't thank you for it. Right. And so women are expected to do these thankless tasks that never end. And they are constant and always going and going and going. And their husbands are over here saying, I'm such a good dad. I changed the diapers and

Emma (23:26.048)
and they're getting applauded in the grocery store. Meanwhile, all that they're doing is unseen.

Paige Connell (23:31.283)
Exactly, so, and again, changing a diaper is visible, right? Like seeing somebody change a diaper, but not seeing the person who researched the sleep schedule and the feeding schedule and which diaper they should purchase and making sure to restock it every time it's running out and making sure that you have the right size diaper, right? Like knowing they're leaking overnight, so you need an overnight diaper now. Like that work, that is invisible. So you change the diaper, but you don't know where we buy them. And that's the disconnect.

Emma (23:57.045)
Mm-hmm, right, and that's the difference between the mental load, which is invisible, and domestic labor, which is the changing of the diaper. It's like everything that goes into even figuring out what that diaper needs to be and what the overnight needs to look like or when you need to size up.

Paige Connell (24:04.406)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Paige Connell (24:12.105)
Yeah, and the thing about the mental load that I think is tricky is that it actually encompasses a couple of different things. So there's cognitive labor. So like the actual work you're doing, the cognitive work you're doing, and the planning, the anticipating, all of those things. There's another piece, though, that I think often is missed, which is the emotional labor part, which is, you know, I am

For example, I am packing four extra snacks in my bag because I know my toddler has been really picky recently. And so while normally I would just pack X, I'm gonna pack X, Y, and Z because when we get to gymnastics and they're grouchy and they're waiting for their brother to finish his class, I need to have options. And what I'm really doing here is like mitigating what could end up in a tantrum. And if there's a tantrum, then I'm gonna have to emotionally regulate this toddler. And...

That's emotional labor, that's work that I'm doing on behalf of this other person. And then I have to also keep myself chill because that's so dysregulating, right? In a public place and all the things. And I think oftentimes in these situations a dad will say, what's the big deal, just pack goldfish. And she's like, it's not, yes, in theory I would love to just pack goldfish, but I'm trying to plan and anticipate what could happen so that way I don't have to also do this emotional labor with our toddler later on.

because that creates more work for me down the road. So I'd rather like front load the work and then absorb the impact, right? So I think it's just really complex. And I think as women, going back to kind of what we're taught, we are taught oftentimes to prioritize others, feelings and emotions and wellbeing above our own, which is why we talk about like women being martyrs for their families, right? They are taught to prioritize their children and their partner and their family over themselves. And so,

I think that comes into play here too, which is that idea that I have to give of myself to other people in order to be qualifying as a good person.

Emma (26:04.94)
Yeah, absolutely. so much of the work that I do at Conscious Success and with my clients is about how do we create success that doesn't require self abandonment, right? And so if so much of being a martyr mother is like, don't have any needs, don't have any sense of self, abandon yourself, shrink yourself in order to be good. And we see that in so many different places and in career as well. And so I think that what you're talking about to be like, okay, no, actually, we need to find a way here.

Paige Connell (26:13.827)
Mmm.

Paige Connell (26:19.501)
Yeah.

Emma (26:35.084)
to be able to also mother in a way that doesn't require us to martyr as well. And I think that that requires also making what's invisible visible and figuring out different ways to share it so it doesn't just all fall on us to do everything. And so I'm so curious to...

Paige Connell (26:49.805)
Yeah.

Emma (26:54.174)
understand more about how do you help women and couples to figure out how to make that visible and how to actually divide it in a way that feels equitable so it's not just the woman martyring and self abandoning.

Paige Connell (27:09.057)
Yeah, so I think these conversations are hard. I tell people that all the time. is, I mean, you brought this up in the first question. I mean, it is so deeply ingrained in who we are as people and what we saw and what we believe matters. And, you know, one of the things I remember my husband saying when we were having these conversations in our relationship was if I would talk about the domestic labor or needing more help, he would say, it feels like you're saying I'm a bad dad.

And I was like, I'm not saying you're a bad dad. I am saying I need you to do the laundry, for sure. I'm not saying you're a bad dad, right? I am saying I'm feeling resentful, but I'm not saying you're a bad partner, but I'm telling you how I'm feeling, right? So this conversation can bring up a lot of emotions on both sides of the conversation. And to your point, I think it's important to validate those, which is, know, if your partner gets defensive, which they might when you start a conversation like this,

Defense is a normal reaction to criticism and critique. Like if you ever have received a bad review at work, you know you feel defensive and you want to defend yourself. These things happen in these conversations. I think what I encourage people to do is be aware of that and know that these are roadblocks and talk about it as it's happening, right? So before you sit down with your partner saying like, know that you might feel defensive when I bring this up and I don't want you to feel that way. I want us to have a productive conversation. So let's just try and like lay out the foundation here.

But the first step I always tell couples to do is to set a goal together. So before you even start making the invisible labor visible or talking about who does what, make a goal together. So you should have a goal for what you're looking to achieve. Your partner should have a goal for what they're looking to achieve. And you should have a goal as a couple. And you have to make sure that all of these goals are somewhat like aligned towards the same thing. So for example, someone's goal might not actually be to share the work with their partner.

They might not even want their partner to touch anything. They don't need that. But they wanna feel acknowledged and they wanna feel valued and they wanna feel seen, right? That might be your goal. That might be the goal of the conversation for you. I remember my husband's goal was simply that he wanted us to have more fun. He's like, I feel like we're not having fun. I feel like we're talking logistics all day. I feel like we're fighting about the dishwasher. I feel like we're not having fun. And I want us to get to a place where we're having fun again. As a couple,

Paige Connell (29:30.603)
You know, we we both said, like, we don't feel like we have any time. And I feel like a lot of dual income homes feel like this, where it feels like you have, like, absolutely no time for fitness, for hobbies, for friendships, for each other. And you're just so wrapped up in work and kids and life and all of the things you have to do that it can really feel like there's just like no time available. And so we set these goals, you know, to figure this out together. And then we approach the invisible labor.

as us against the problem, as opposed to us against each other, me versus him. So we've set this goal and now it's our job as a couple to try and get there, right? To try and achieve this goal. And so now let's look at the work. Let's look at the work that's required to manage our home and our family. Let's put it on paper. And I recommend you can do this a couple of different ways. I sometimes advise people for the next two weeks, every time a task or thought pops into your brain, write it down. Piece of paper, notes app, reminders app.

whatever works for you, Excel spreadsheet, just write it down. Every little thing, buy a present for so-and-so's birthday, book reservation for a haircut, whatever. Write it down, respond to email, fill out form, all the things. Write it all down, make it as visible as possible. And then when you come together, you sit down and you see all the work. And what that does first and foremost is it validates the feeling of overwhelm, because you're like, of course we're overwhelmed, like look at how much work we have on our plate.

And then it also allows you to start building systems and strategies to tackle it together. And you might find ways to work, you know, smarter, not harder, right? Like, can we batch certain things? Can you take on certain things? Can I take on certain things? You can also do something like Fair Play, which is a book by Eve Radsky. She also has a game. And I think that's a really great place to start. It's where I started. And I don't follow the system to a T, but this is also something I tell people. Take what works from a method or a system, leave what doesn't.

Right, don't force your family to fit into a specific method if it doesn't work for you. Don't force it. Take what does work and use that. And so once you start doing this though, you can talk about your strengths and your weaknesses, what you like, what you don't like, and just really work through what it would look like for the two of you to have a conversation about what it looks like and how it can feel fair and supported on both sides.

Emma (31:48.225)
Absolutely. Yeah, and I love everything that you said there. mean, two things come up for me. One is, again, that's like compassion to be like, my gosh, look how much we have on our plate. Like, of course we feel overwhelmed. Like, just validating that again. And then the curiosity is like, how can we partner together sitting on the same side of the table, looking at the problems in front of us as a team? And what might that look like? And how can we batch? Like, again, whether it's in business or in parenting, like taking that perspective intact is just so much more likely to get you to making positive

Paige Connell (32:03.875)
Mm-hmm.

Emma (32:18.158)
of change versus stuck in this dynamic where you're fighting one another. And I thought it was also just so interesting what you say about this like acknowledgement piece, because I have twins. I know you're a twin. have almost two year old twins. And you know, when I when they first came, my husband returned to work. And for a little while, I was on mat leave. And so the distribution of work was unequal, but it was kind of okay, because I wasn't working, right. And then when I returned, all of a sudden, I was like, Whoa, this is a lot.

Paige Connell (32:18.883)
Mm-hmm.

Paige Connell (32:42.36)
Yeah.

Emma (32:47.96)
but I still had more flexibility. work for myself, I have my own business. And so to some extent, like it was still okay. And he did a lot around the house. But what I really realized was at the core was like, I wanted him to acknowledge like how much I did, like him just saying like, I see what you do for our family. Like you're a super woman. I love you. Thank you. Like it was almost that than I needed more than it to be even Steven. And it took us like playing that and seeing that and visualizing it and having him recognize it that almost shifted so much of it. And that's not to say that that's the same for everybody.

Paige Connell (33:03.265)
Yeah.

Emma (33:18.064)
I think I came into it having a pretty equal distribution of labor in our marriage, but that was like such a part that I didn't understand I needed for the longest time.

Paige Connell (33:27.287)
Yeah, and you know, it's hard because I think oftentimes having these conversations almost feels like you're admitting that you failed, right? You're like, we didn't do it right. Like we took a wrong turn. And I think that's why it's so hard for couples to express this to even just other people, right? I remember for a really long time, I didn't tell anyone that we were struggling with this unequal division of labor. And I think also there's some sort of shame because a lot of couples who feel very egalitarian before kids, there's data to show that they...

are no longer egalitarian after kids, that that is when gender norms come into play. And you alluded to this, but maternity leave is a big part of that. The fact that we don't have paid parental leave for all parents and the fact that women, paid or unpaid, are taking the leave puts them in a position where they take on a disproportionate amount of work upfront. And I always like to use doctor's appointments, right? There's so many doctor's appointments in those first few months. You go to all these doctor's appointments and maybe you go by yourself for most of them.

Emma (34:17.741)
Yeah.

Paige Connell (34:22.435)
and then you go back to work and then somehow now you're like the doctor's appointment person because you've already been to all the doctor's appointments and you're the one who's already talking to the pediatrician and you've built a relationship. Like now for the rest of these 18 years, you will be the doctor person. And it's like, wait, we need to step back and look at that, right? Look at that, be aware of it. And oftentimes it happens so subtly over time and...

even if you were a egalitarian going into it, it shifts. And then I think it feels very hard to get back on track and it feels there's a layer of shame to it, which is like, oh, we were doing so good and somehow we fell off the tracks. And so I think that's one of the roadblocks to people actually getting to this conversation is you have to admit a little bit that you have to repair something that broke in a sense. It's not broken, but like something happened and you wanna repair it.

That can be tricky and it's hard to admit that. And again, we live in a world that tells you the individual it's your problem to figure out as opposed to recognizing that, something like the systemic barrier, the fact that men don't have parental leave is a huge aspect of this conversation.

Emma (35:31.841)
Absolutely. Yeah, and I think just also learning as people, but as women in particular, that when something doesn't feel good, like you're allowed to trust that inner knowing and act on it versus internalize it as like, I must be the problem, right? It's like, if something doesn't feel good, it's because I'm not capable of doing it all. suck versus being like, no, something doesn't feel good. That's an invitation to advocate, to have a conversation with your partner, to change, to iterate on what could a future look like that might

Paige Connell (35:46.241)
Yeah.

Paige Connell (35:56.225)
Mm-hmm.

Emma (36:01.804)
work better for each of you. And I think so often I see this with my clients. It's like that feeling immediately turns into shame before we even externalize and look at the real problem or potential solutions.

Paige Connell (36:14.337)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Emma (36:17.11)
Okay, so I'd love to just switch gears for a minute and talk more about your overall career path. So take me back to, I understand you studied broadcast journalism in school, is that right? And did you wanna be a broadcast journalist or growing up as a kid, what were your career aspirations? What did you think you'd be when you grew up?

Paige Connell (36:19.596)
Sure.

Paige Connell (36:27.843)
I did, I did.

Paige Connell (36:37.219)
thought I would be a lawyer. And then I realized very quickly I did not want to be a lawyer. Like as I got to high school, was like, yeah, no, I don't think I want to do that. But I took broadcast journalism or I took public speaking in high school and I took a journalism class and I liked it. And it was at like the height of E-news and I was like, that looks glamorous, right? Like that looks great. I kind of want to do that.

Emma (36:38.935)
Okay.

Paige Connell (37:00.551)
And so when I went to college, I studied broadcast journalism and I did a bunch of internships at news stations and radio stations and I really enjoyed it, I loved it. And after college I ended up moving to Los Angeles and working in the entertainment industry for a bit and did on camera work and off camera work and yeah, I loved it but it didn't pay very well. And it's a grind, it's a very specific lifestyle. My friends who actually went into kind of news were living in Topeka, Kansas and then they would move to

Emma (37:20.024)
you

Paige Connell (37:29.743)
the next bigger city and it was a lot of moving, it was a lot of being away from family and I wanted something a bit more stable at the time. I didn't want that version of it. so, so it put on the back burner for a little while, but that is what I went to school for.

Emma (37:45.783)
And it's so interesting that.

I mean, probably even at the time that you went to school, I don't think we really even had Instagram or certainly not content creation in the way that we have it today. So it's not like you could have thought like, maybe someday that's a career path, right? You knew you liked public speaking and journalism and broadcast journalism and E-news, but I think it's so interesting when we look back so often, I find that the people who are really in alignment in their careers and moving in towards a vision of what they really want and working in their zone of genius,

Paige Connell (37:54.742)
No.

Paige Connell (38:03.885)
Mm-hmm.

Emma (38:17.264)
you see these like little threads that go all the way back where it's like you might not have been able to see it back when you were a kid that this is where you would end up, but it makes perfect sense.

Paige Connell (38:27.351)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's, yeah, when people ask me like, how did you get comfortable speaking on camera? I'm like, I literally, I went to school for this. I did, I didn't work in the industry for a very long time, but you know, I was trained and like, you don't forget some of it. Yeah, it, go ahead.

Emma (38:41.858)
Yeah, it came back. And so I was just curious, like, how did you, so you were doing that and then you transitioned into e-commerce or operations? Like talk to me about, you made the decision, okay, I need to make a little bit more money. I don't want to constantly be moving to like Topeka, Kansas. Like, what was that middle part between, okay, I studied this and obviously now you're a content creator today, but talk to me about that middle section of your career.

Paige Connell (38:51.32)
Yeah.

Paige Connell (38:54.784)
Yeah.

Paige Connell (39:10.743)
Yeah, so I was living in Los Angeles and I, you know, I actually like when I was in middle school, high school, I had the same dream every other millennial girl had, which was to be the woman from like 13 going on 30 and be like a magazine editor, right? Like everybody was a magazine editor in New York back in the day and they were so fashionable. I feel like every movie growing up, it was that.

Emma (39:25.711)
huh.

Emma (39:29.71)
So see you.

Emma (39:33.378)
And we had Carrie Bradshaw, right? And she's living in New York and like writing and fashionable.

Paige Connell (39:38.175)
And Andy, what was her name, Andy from How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. it was, you know, I think I was like, I either want to be a lawyer or I want to be that. And then when it came to real life, I was like, okay, I'm going to go to LA. I'm going to work in television. And I did, and I liked it. But I've been with my husband since high school. And so we were doing long distance. I was making no money. And I decided to move back to Boston. And I was like, you know, what do I want to do? And I actually accepted a job being an operations manager for this like cookie company.

Emma (39:41.668)
Yes?

Paige Connell (40:08.323)
And after I accepted the job, I had been interviewing at this other company that was a startup. They were custom clothing for men, but they were cool and they had a unique team and I felt like a lot of opportunity for growth. And even though I didn't really know what it was, and they called me like the next day and offered me a job. And I had this like crisis of conscience where I was like, I can't go back. I already accepted the other job offer.

And my husband was like, you're not starting for three weeks. It's fine. It's a cookie company. They'll be okay. You'll be okay. It's fine. Just do what you want to do. And so I did it. I rescinded my acceptance and then accepted the other job. And I started in a sales role, which meant I was literally working with men who were like C-suite executives, measuring their body and helping them design custom suits. And that was my job. And...

But I quickly went through kind of the different roles. I was in sales and then I ran partnerships and then I was the director of retail and then I was the president of the company. And so I just kept going up and was overseeing the team and the company and it was a startup and I really enjoyed it. And I am eldest daughter energy. I'm a doer. Give me something to do and I'll do it. I don't need to know how to do it. I'll figure it out. I will check a box. I'm happy to get it done. And I think that served me really well in this job, but.

It didn't feel so off the beaten path because I was like, you know, it's different. It's not an office job. It's not corporate. It's, it's kind of in fashion. And I really liked that. And so I ended up working for that founder across multiple companies for 10 years, in the, it's how I ended up, it's why I ended up being a content creator. because we, after 2020 and everything shut down, we had to pivot our business model and we became,

essentially an e-commerce aggregator. So we ran multiple e-commerce businesses and a few of them were kind of, for lack of a better way to describe them, like funky Gen Z brands. And they use TikTok. And when they would see a organic TikTok video go viral, sales would spike. And I remember one day being like, you know what? I'm gonna post a video on TikTok and try to figure this thing out. And I didn't tell anybody, I didn't.

Paige Connell (42:17.865)
say I was doing it, I was like, this is super embarrassing, but I'm gonna try it. Which is why my handle is not my actual name. I did that and it kind of just took off. I had my full-time job and I was doing content on the side and that is really how it happened. It was just kind of like organic evolution.

Emma (42:39.182)
And so was there any part even like maybe subconsciously where you were like, okay, yeah, I want to test this for the company that I'm working for to understand it better. But maybe I also see being able to leverage the journalism and public speaking skills to do it in this new way and channel. Was there a part of you that's like, maybe this could be a revenue stream or a path to build my own business at the time that you started? No.

Paige Connell (43:04.707)
No, I had no idea. I had no intentions. I truly, even like what I was gonna post, I was like, I have no idea what to talk about. I was like, I will talk about being a working mom because it's what I know. And it's easy to talk about. It's nothing too personal. I'll just talk about that. It very quickly took off. And I think as soon as that happened, I realized, once it started to click for me, I was like, okay, actually, I'm enjoying this. This is very fun.

It kind of makes sense. get it. Like I get how I ended up here. Like I always had this appetite for this kind of work. And I started to see the opportunity that was presenting itself to me. So I will say like I very quickly got to that place, but I didn't start it with any kind of intention like that. And I'd probably say for the first three or four months every day, and like every time I posted, I was like, I really hope nobody sees this in real life because I will be so embarrassed. But eventually they saw it.

Emma (43:59.311)
Totally, I mean

So many of my clients who have aspirations, maybe it's to build a company or a personal brand or building a personal brand is a part of building a lot of companies these days. But especially when they're still in corporate or have a full time job and doing this on the side, there's a lot of fear that comes up of being seen or not knowing exactly what their niche is or what to post about. some of it, like you can only really figure it out through putting something out there and learning, but overcoming that block and that fear of having someone

Paige Connell (44:08.643)
Got it.

Emma (44:30.96)
who works with you or a friend see that? I'm so curious, like how did you get over that fear? Did that feel like a big thing to overcome? Or you're like, no one's gonna see it. Click post.

Paige Connell (44:33.303)
Mm-hmm.

Paige Connell (44:42.307)
Yeah, I think because I started on TikTok, I felt like most of my community really wasn't on TikTok. I was like, they're not here. This is not where they live. But then, 2022. So I had been on TikTok, which should have told me that people would be on TikTok yet, because I had consumed TikTok. I'm the coolest millennial. Yeah, no, I downloaded it.

Emma (44:48.652)
Mm-hmm. What year was this?

Emma (44:58.474)
Like I'm the only one on TikTok. No one else I know is on there.

Paige Connell (45:05.357)
during the pandemic as everybody else did and thought it was funny and silly and something to do because we were all just a little locked in our houses. And yeah, but I very much felt like, you know, people aren't really gonna see this. Once they started to see it, it was definitely, I had to kind of post like nobody would. You know, they say like dance like no one's watching or whatever the saying is. It's like, I really had to do it as if no one else was watching and assuming they wouldn't see it. And because otherwise,

Yes, you get into this position where you're protecting your image, protecting yourself, protecting your ego, and I didn't want to do that. I wanted to share in an organic way. I wanted to share in the way that I would talk to my best friend. I wanted to be able to have that kind of conversation with somebody and say, how much are you paying for childcare? A conversation you don't have, and being like, how much are you paying? Because it's how much I'm paying. I wanted to have that conversation without any sort of shame.

And so I just had to do what we talked about and to like talk myself off a ledge and be like, nobody's gonna see this. No one's gonna see this. It'll be fine.

Emma (46:07.822)
Thank you.

And so from the beginning, you were kind of talking about your experience being a working mom and all of that. Did you know this kind of whole conversation around systemic inequality and the mental load, like that was going to be a part of this conversation or that just kind of came about and clarified as you went?

Paige Connell (46:26.219)
Yeah, came about, you my very first post. So I would say that when I think about my content pillars today, there are certain things that I'm known for and that I try to focus on in a meaningful way, which is systemic barriers. So cost of childcare, lack of paid parental leave, right? All of these things. The mental load is one of those things. And then just working motherhood and like logistically how to make it work. Like, what do you do? What are the systems? How do we...

get all the laundry done in a week without feeling like we're drowning in a mountain of laundry. What does that look like? So my very, very first video, I talked about the cost of childcare. And I had no intention on that day of talking about the cost of childcare or no intention of what my content pillars were. I didn't know what a content pillar was at that point. No, and honestly, sometimes they are defined for you. As I would share things, I would see what other women were resonating with.

Emma (47:07.394)
Yeah, you don't start with all your content pillars defined.

Paige Connell (47:18.957)
I would understand where my unique perspective was, right? And what my unique skillset was too, because I didn't realize that I had a knack for saying things in a way that other women couldn't articulate it, right? Like that is one of the most common comments on my videos was, my gosh, you said what was in my brain that I could never say before, that I didn't know how to say, I didn't know how to communicate. And I probably...

from my journalism background, like that was part of what I knew how to do, was to take an idea and communicate it to mass amounts of people so they can understand it. And so, you know, but over time and sharing, I just started to share bits and pieces of my life, what I was going through. And when I first started posting, my youngest was probably six months old. So my fourth baby was six months old. I was postpartum. I had just gone back to work at like eight weeks postpartum. And we were very much in the thick of...

figuring out our relationship and the mental load dynamics in our relationship. We started that work in August. I started posting end of October. And so I was not talking about that and I didn't feel like I had a good grasp on it. I felt like I was figuring it out. The very first time I posted about the mental load and domestic labor inequalities like within my relationship and shared in a candid way was an entire calendar year later. And I shared it just to say, I was trying to tell other women like, I got to this point in my relationship and this is what we did. And this is how we changed it in a year.

And I had no idea what kind of response it was going to have. And it went viral. And I was like, my gosh, this is crazy. And I found that I was then drawn to learning more and absorbing more and having more. Like I could have talked about it. I still do every day all day. And I found how connected it was to everything else. Like I talked about childcare already, but I.

I hadn't put the pieces together about how like childcare and paid leave impacted the mental load. And I think part of that was because I was in it like other women. I was so deeply in my own life and trying to figure that out that I couldn't zoom out and see all the reasons it was happening. And then once I was able to walk through it and come to a place of balance in my relationship and my life, I was better able to view it from that perspective and then start to unpack it. And that's really all I tried to do was like unpack these ideas one by one.

Paige Connell (49:38.615)
for myself and then ultimately hopefully for other people.

Emma (49:42.637)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that, you it sounds like you kind of found a sense of like purpose in it as you went, like sharing your own struggles and journey and realizing that that's helping so many other people. And I think so many times, you know, women, my clients will be like, I don't know what my purpose is, or like they try, they're trying to like figure it out at the start of like, what should my perfect career path be? And I think in this example, so much of it was like,

Paige Connell (50:05.271)
Right.

Emma (50:08.94)
this experimentation and feedback that you were getting from how it resonated and then your own journey and being able to like translate that in a way that felt.

organic and aligned and authentic. And so it sounds like it wasn't like you were some mastermind sitting on the starting line being like, I'm going to create, I'm going to build an audience of 300,000 people and or whatever across multiple platforms. It was like, okay, this feels like the right next step. And I'm going to try this and like, let me keep like flowing and iterating based on how that, how that goes.

Paige Connell (50:42.731)
Yeah, very much. I mean, I learned. You get feedback very quickly on social media. My therapist always says nobody was meant to receive this much feedback about themselves. Because it's a really interesting job where, yeah, all day long you're told what people like or don't like about you and your message and what you've said and how you look and all the things. But the beauty of it is you get quick, real-time feedback about things. And I was getting feedback about everything. And I was learning.

Emma (50:51.414)
Hahaha

Paige Connell (51:11.299)
I was learning, people would say, hey, you said this thing, have you ever considered X? And I'd be like, oh, I hadn't. I should learn, I should understand that. should read the book they recommended or listen to the podcast or talk to the person, whatever it might be. And through hearing feedback, I was not only able to tailor my messaging, but also take different paths to learn new things and hone in on what I felt like my power was within this space, my purpose in this space.

I tell people all the time, my goal is not to tell you what equity looks like for your home or to tell you what's gonna work for your relationship. My goal, my goal when I post content is to help women articulate what it is they're experiencing so they can have more productive conversations with their partner and better advocate for themselves. That's all I wanna do. I'm not telling you that you shouldn't do your husband's laundry. I'm not telling you what 50-50 should look like in your relationship because that's an impossible task.

I solely want to women in particular articulate their lived experiences and advocate for themselves and build stronger, happier relationships. Like that is my goal, both in motherhood and in marriage and so, and in the workplace. But that is my goal and so like if I come back to my purpose, I look at that, right? Like if I'm like, does this video serve that purpose? And what am I doing when I share this content? Like what is the purpose of this? That is ultimately what I'm trying to do.

Emma (52:39.502)
Yeah, and I think that that comes through and that's why it resonates so much. You're not just speaking at women and telling them what to do and having this pedestal one up one down dynamic. It's very much a like me too and allowing them to feel seen and less alone and put words to their internal experience. And so you said your youngest was six months at the time, your mom of four. You have a job as the head of operations at this e-commerce company.

Paige Connell (52:49.347)
Mmm.

Emma (53:08.536)
You're now posting content online. Like, how the hell did you have time for all of this to like build your audience alongside your already very full plate?

Paige Connell (53:19.651)
actually tell people I think it was such a beautiful thing that I had a full-time job because I wasn't too focused on the content. It really was just fun for me at that point. I was just enjoying it. It was almost like a hobby, right? When you're deep in postpartum, it's like you have no time for a hobby. So if my hobby was solely just posting online and kind of building this community in a way that was very low-lift, that felt great. And so I always tell people, and I used to tell people at the same time, I...

People can't probably can't see this, but like I have my phone in my hand, my water bottle, this is my tripod. I would lean my phone up against my water bottle. I would have an idea. I would film it. I would take two minutes to film it. I wouldn't edit it. I would just post it. And I was like, I took the pressure off of it. I wasn't trying to make it perfect. I wasn't trying to make it pretty. I wasn't trying to feed an algorithm or meet a specific audience or drive sales. I was just taking what I was thinking and.

putting it out there and seeing if anybody else felt the same way. And I think because that's how it was, it took the pressure off of it and I didn't spend that much time on it. I really didn't. was like, for better or for worse, I do now, obviously, that it's my full-time job. But I wasn't putting pressure on it in a way that made it feel time-consuming or like a second job. And it really came last on my list of things every single day of like what to do, but I was enjoying it so much that I always found time to do it. And it would really be in these like,

small moments you would see me sitting in my car and typically it was like, the baby's napping in the back. I can't get out of the car anyways. Like just post a video, right? Like just do something. And so I encourage people who do want to create content in any way, like take the pressure off as much as you can. Even if it's not content, like take the pressure off. Things won't be perfect when you first do it, but it's better just to do it and you know, put in the reps, right? Like the more I did it, the better I got, the more I learned, the faster I was. And yeah, I mean,

Eventually it started to take up a lot of time and space and I got to a point where I was already considering what it would look like to leave my job and then I got laid off. So it was kind of like a beautiful, know, it all happened how it was supposed to happen. But I was tapped. I was at a point where I was tapped out. I was doing a ton of podcast recordings. I was going to events. I was speaking. I was creating content and I was really burnt out. I was working till like 11 o'clock every night and I had a baby and it became unsustainable. But I would say that didn't happen.

Paige Connell (55:38.627)
probably for a full year. Like it probably took a full year before I got to that point where I was like, okay, no, this turned into a job.

Emma (55:43.522)
Yeah.

Yeah, well, I I love that what you're saying initially, it's like that gave you energy that felt like an outlet. And because you weren't putting all these expectations about it, needing to be perfect and overthinking everything, it could just feel kind of like easeful. But as that took off, that took a greater, greater share of your time and energy that became like a choice point where you're like, okay, I need to take a look at whether this is sustainable. So at that point that you got laid off, did you already have or see like a viable path to replace

Paige Connell (56:07.512)
Yeah.

Emma (56:14.959)
you say your income as a content creator? Like what did that look like?

Paige Connell (56:18.787)
I had already replaced my income with content. My thing was, people talk about the golden handcuffs. mean, there's no 401k or health insurance. There's none of those things. And so that was worrisome to me. And the other thing about content is your pay is really variable. And the way brands pay or even platforms pay you, you might do a brand deal in July, you don't get paid till December. And it's like the money is very...

tricky, right, the money aspect of it. And I'm a person, I am very type A and regimented, I've always had a really steady job. And so the idea that I wouldn't have that was really anxiety inducing for me. It's something I worked through in therapy a lot because I had this like insecurity around that where it's like, but what if I don't make enough next month or what if this doesn't go well? And so even though I had more than replaced my salary, I still didn't feel confident in leaving my job.

And so it's kind of a blessing they let me go because I don't think I ever would have. I don't think I ever would have left. I would have had to triple or quadruple my salary and that wasn't gonna happen. I think, yeah, that was tricky for me, but I had done it. And so when I got laid off, I was so lucky because I had a team and I remember talking to them and trying to help them find new jobs and do everything I could for them. And once we were all laid off together, because the entire team basically got laid off. And so I was like,

I'm here to help you all because I actually don't have the pressure of needing to immediately replace my finances. And that felt like such a blessing at that point in my life because I had four young kids and a home and all the things. And so I felt really, really proud that I'd built that and put myself in that position where I had that security for myself. But I was still really anxious about the transition and really unsure if it was the right path forward. Even though I could see the dollars were there, I was still really.

I'm hesitant to go full force at it.

Emma (58:12.461)
Yeah, and it seems like that was kind of a nudge from the universe, like do it, jump, like, okay, we're gonna make the decision for you kind of thing. yeah, you're like, okay, well, let's at least test this out for a little while. I'm curious, so, you know, what do your various revenue streams look like today? And what percentage of revenue would you say come from each of those buckets?

Paige Connell (58:15.554)
Yeah.

Paige Connell (58:19.565)
Basically.

Paige Connell (58:33.995)
Yeah, I have to do a breakdown for this year, but I would say probably 80 to 90 % of my revenue comes from brand partnerships. so paid brand deals, you I try to work with partners that are aligned with what I do and are like no brainers and things I actually use and love. So I work with care.com. Most of them reach out to me and I now have a manager. So transparently sometimes I don't know, but most of the time, like most content creators, probably it's like 80 % inbound, 20 % out.

Emma (58:50.731)
And do you reach out to them or they reach out to you?

Emma (59:02.433)
Mm-hmm

Paige Connell (59:03.483)
And you know, which is great because we're all aligned, right? So, you know, if I'm doing a meal delivery kit or a childcare service, I work with a lot of nonprofits. I work with a lot of political organizations that are advocating for affordable childcare. Like I'm very lucky that a lot of the work that I do is just so, my manager always says, she's like, what you do is so unique, but we get to work with really cool people because it's not just working with your favorite vacuum, right? It's like working with an organization advocating for childcare. Like that's so specific.

But I'm lucky in that sense that I built this really specific niche where I live. so, yeah, 80 to 90 % are brand deals. And then there are affiliate links, right? You do affiliate, I do a little bit of speaking. That's a very small percentage. And then you have things like Substack where you have paid subscribers, right? And so the bulk of it though, oh, and you get paid from the platforms, which is...

I think people assume content creators make a lot of money that way. Last year it was a larger percent, last year I it was 25%, this year it'll probably be less than 5 % of my income because it's really variable and they base it on virality. How many views, how long they watch, who commented, what country do they live in. It's so specific and so.

Emma (01:00:04.983)
Good

Emma (01:00:20.182)
Thank

Paige Connell (01:00:22.423)
I had a video this year with like 10 million, 15 million views and it made the same as a video with like 200,000 views. I'm like, this doesn't make any sense, right? Like it doesn't make sense. But I do get paid from that as well. So there's like multiple different revenue streams there.

Emma (01:00:36.045)
and have you overcome that fear of like, it could all disappear tomorrow, or what if I don't make it next month? Has that like evened out over time or that's still something that you continue to navigate?

Paige Connell (01:00:45.143)
continue to navigate that. Yeah, because it still is very, very variable. I'm working on getting better. It's still been less than a year since I've been doing this full time, so I'm still just building up my tolerance for that. Also building up, what does it look like to build my own revenue stream that is owned by me and not dependent on an algorithm or a brand? And what does that look like? But I've never, quote unquote, had to sell to my audience.

really being intentional. I try to be so intentional about what I do and what I don't do. But yeah, I'm building up that tolerance and I'm in a position where I have a partner with a really steady job who has the health insurance and all the things. And so I try to remind myself that it's fine. But yeah, I'm definitely still working through it. And I think that is one of the hardest parts about being a solopreneur or any of those things. It is up to you.

to continue to drive this business. And for the last 12, 15 years, it was never my job to drive the business. I was a cog in the wheel. Now I am the wheel. I, that is a very different place to be sitting.

Emma (01:01:54.114)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think so many of us can glamorize it or say that we'd want that. But then when you look at the reality of what that means and what you have to hold, oftentimes we have to build our tolerance and our capacity to get there and to build towards that. Because otherwise, subconsciously, we're going to go into self-protective strategies or just not be able to handle that level of risk or exposure or what that looks like.

Paige Connell (01:02:05.667)
Mmm.

Paige Connell (01:02:18.039)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Emma (01:02:19.927)
curious what is like a day in your life look like now that you've gone full time into content creation.

Paige Connell (01:02:25.997)
So for better or for worse, I am the default flexible parent in the sense that I am physically with the kids most of the time because my husband has a blue collar job that is very rigid and not flexible. And so he wakes up before any of us wake up. So I wake up in the morning, I give myself like 30 minutes to try and do all the things I need to do. So I wake up, I wash my face, I get dressed, all the things. I tell the children to get back in their rooms 100 times. I'm like, it's not time to wake up.

Get back in your room. Because inevitably somebody's sleeping, but like one's awake and three are asleep. And I'm like, go back in your room, quiet, be quiet. And it's usually just my three year old. She's the youngest and she just like, she's like, I just wanted a hug. And I'm like, I know, but you gotta go back to bed. And so in the morning, my priority is I pack their lunch lunches. So their lunches are always made. I pack their lunches. I pack their backpacks. I make breakfast. And then I go upstairs and all my older kids get themselves ready, but I get the youngest ready.

Emma (01:03:00.471)
you

Paige Connell (01:03:21.987)
And then we come downstairs, eat, mad dash to the bus stop, daycare drop off. And so that's like 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. It's a blur, you know, it's just like getting kids out the door. And then, yeah, and then I work. But because again, I'm the default parent, you know, on an average day like today, my five-year-old does speech therapy three times a week. So I picked her up at 10.30, drove her to speech therapy, waited at speech therapy, drove her back, and I'll bring my laptop with me.

or work that I have to do and I'll edit it or I'll write emails or anything from literally the parking lot or wherever I am. And then I come home, I get a couple chunks of time to work, I make lunches, I fold laundry, and then most days my husband's home like 3.34 and then we are both dividing and conquering. It's like he's at therapy, I'm at dance, he's at baseball, I'm at gymnastics. We are just kind of...

passing ships for like the four to seven p.m. time. And we also divide and conquer, even when we don't have activities, like he'll cook dinner while I'm picking up the kids, or I'll cook dinner while he's picking up the kids. And we just kind of go back and forth. And then, mad dash to bed. When the kids are asleep, we sit on the couch and watch TV, and I usually have my laptop with me. So I do a lot of work at night. Like most of my work happens on the couch at night. I film content during the days, because...

I need sunlight. I film content during the days and I do my like deep email work. Like anything that requires me to be like focused and like deep has to happen at night because during the day I'm just being pulled in like too many different directions with the kids. And so it's amazing because I have so much flexibility now to do that. But it is still also hard because I feel like I am juggling a lot of different things. And then I end up working till like, you know, 10 o'clock at night.

Emma (01:05:09.833)
Yeah, no, and that's a trade off to be like, okay, I need to be able to have a sustained thought and I'm the default parent and doing all of that during the day. But it's incredible that while being the default parent, you're able to still have the flexibility to build this in the pockets of your life that work for you. And I'm sure as your children continue to go through different stages or get older, maybe that will evolve or look a little bit different than it does today.

Paige Connell (01:05:27.512)
Yeah.

Paige Connell (01:05:34.539)
Hmm, I think so. Yeah

Emma (01:05:37.887)
What are you working towards right now? Like what's the next aspiration or the thing that you're really building towards?

Paige Connell (01:05:43.939)
Yeah, you know, I've been doing this full time for a year now and have been spending the last year trying to figure out who I want to be in this space and what I want to achieve and how I think I can achieve that. And so I've really been trying to listen to my audience this year and understand how I can meet them where they're at. And so for me, my goal is to, you know, I know I already have a very well established brand of who I am, right? Who I am, but I would love to build something that lives outside of me.

and where I can be a facilitator for it and to build it, but that it's not just me, because right now I am the business. And I don't mind that, but I think it's also, it's a tricky place to be where you feel like every day you have to show up and show face and smile and have something to say. And I want to build something that lives outside of me that still serves the same purpose of what I've been trying to do. And so I think that's what I'm most excited about is figuring out what that looks like.

building whatever that is and biting the bullet. You know, it's funny, I just said like, just do it with content. Like I've had so many ideas and I'm in the phase where I need to just do it and just do the thing. But yeah, I'm excited for what the next version of this looks like, the kind of more robust version of my work looks like because I think it exists and I think it's important and valuable and.

That is what's on the horizon. And I think my biggest limiting factor, I tell everyone this, is simply time. I think as a mother to four young kids, you my oldest is only eight, time is precious and I only have so much time. And it's a point in time where it's like very high needs on me physically. like, just even like the speech therapy, it's like, want to be with her at speech therapy, but that means three days a week, there's like a two hour chunk of time that I just don't have for anything else.

And I'm trying to reconcile my ambition and passion and drive with the fact that I have very limited time.

Emma (01:07:40.78)
Yeah, and.

I think some of that just recognizing the season of life that you're in, like to the point we were just saying before, it's like, it's not going to be forever that your kids are this small and dependent. And it's like, yeah, you have these career ambitions, but trusting that like your career can be long. are going to be different chapters and like not losing the momentum or taking incremental steps towards that, but not expecting that you can do everything all at once because that leads to burnout and that leads to unrealistic expectations that cause a lot of stress. So just giving, sounds like giving yourself that grace.

Paige Connell (01:07:50.232)
Yeah.

Paige Connell (01:07:57.955)
Mm-hmm.

Emma (01:08:11.895)
to be like, okay, I'm in a season where that might just not be possible and that's not a personal failing.

Paige Connell (01:08:16.907)
Yeah, yeah. Where I'm like, I'm still not sleeping through the night. I don't know. Everybody promised me I would be, but it's like, with four kids, somebody wakes up at some point every single night. So yeah, I try to have grace with myself and remind myself that even if I was still in corporate, I think there would be things that I would pass up right now because of the stage of life that we're in. And even with the most supportive partner, young kids demand a lot from parents.

Emma (01:08:19.922)
Now, like, let's start there.

We have.

Paige Connell (01:08:46.729)
I know this, I talk about it all day and I still struggle with it but yeah, I'm just kind of reconciling that for myself.

Emma (01:08:54.977)
Love it. Well, this has been so great. I'd love to just do a quick five close on five quick questions. What does conscious success mean to you?

Paige Connell (01:09:00.685)
Sure.

Paige Connell (01:09:07.767)
You know, for me, I think what it means is that I had some sort of say in it, which is that I think my career up until this point, again, because I was a cog in the wheel, it felt like I was beholden to someone else and my success was dependent on their success. And I feel that way a little bit too with social media, which is like, you know, I am feeding an algorithm and some days the algorithm likes this and some days the algorithm likes that.

I want to be kind of at the helm of my success and define what it looks like for me and feel like I'm in control of it. And I think that is one thing that conscious success would mean for me is just that I was really consciously deciding what it looked like and I was in charge of how that happened.

Emma (01:09:57.282)
Love it. So even the people like you that we admire who are constantly articulating our innermost thoughts in such a beautiful way, even those people are growing and evolving. So I'm curious, what is one area of your life where you're currently being stretched or learning something new right now?

Paige Connell (01:10:12.919)
I'm not doing a good job of prioritizing myself physically, like mental health-wise, in the sense that like pre-kids, I went to a fitness class like every day. And I loved it because it meant that my phone was in another room. Because I've always been very type A, like I need to answer an email as soon as it comes in and I need to text the person back. And my only escape from that even in my 20s was like, if you're in a yoga class, you can't have your phone. Like they'll kick you out. And...

Emma (01:10:39.469)
Yeah.

Paige Connell (01:10:40.099)
I loved that. I loved being able to kind of shut myself off from the world for an hour or two or whatever it is. And I don't do a good job of that anymore. And I always find an excuse not to do it. I'll be like, yes, I could fit in a yoga class, but I could also go grocery shopping. And it's like, no, like, ugh. So I'm working on that. That is something I'm working on. And I think the further I get away from the baby stage, the more I've been able to do it. And the more consistently I've been able to practice it, but it's still a practice and I'm still working towards.

figuring out what that balance looks like.

Emma (01:11:12.203)
Absolutely, Seeing the value in that and holding the boundaries around that and actually prioritizing it in such a busy life is hard to do and so important. I'm curious, is there a book that's really stuck with you over the years? One that you constantly reread or recommend to others a lot?

Paige Connell (01:11:28.075)
I don't reread books, but Fair Play is a book that did change my relationship. is what I honestly credit Eve to my career. I've told her this, like she and I have had a lot of conversations. I mean, her, listened to Eve Radsky on a podcast before I gave birth to my fourth and it was like a light bulb went off in my brain. Like she just unlocked something in my brain and I was never able to go back.

Emma (01:11:33.153)
Yeah, me too.

Paige Connell (01:11:54.491)
Like it was like she just unleashed it within me. Like I really do believe she's the reason I even have this career because if I hadn't had that spark, I don't think I would have had this consciousness around this topic. And so that book I recommend to everyone, not because it's a perfect book or a perfect system, but because I really do think the work she did there was so impactful, especially for women. And so I recommend it all the time.

Emma (01:12:17.953)
Yeah, and I love what you say. She acted as this like catalyst that something unlocked in you and you're like, then that is.

my intention so much for this podcast is to showcase women like you and your careers to act like that for someone else and to be that light bulb moment because it's so hard to be what we can't see or if we don't have that inspiration or that catalyst to be like this, this is what I want to go towards. We often don't know, right? So that's so great to hear. Who's someone in the world today that you admire for how they live, lead or succeed and what is it about them that really inspires you?

Paige Connell (01:12:39.638)
Yeah.

Paige Connell (01:12:52.717)
You know, my younger sister is very good at sticking to her convictions. And so I admire that a lot. So it's not necessarily in her way to lead, but in the way that she knows exactly how she feels about something and she sticks to it. And she does not let somebody pressure her one way or another into thinking differently or to changing her behaviors. And I am such a people pleaser. It is insane.

And maybe because she's the middle child, she just like didn't get that gene. I don't know. But I admire that a lot. I'm working towards building that skill set up myself, which is that, which I don't, I think is a skill set, right? She has a skill set that I don't have. And I'm working to build it. And so I really admire, yeah, I admire that.

Emma (01:13:38.925)
that you can build.

Emma (01:13:44.109)
And how beautiful to have an older sister admire their younger sister. Last, yeah, don't tell her, don't let her listen to this podcast. Last question, if you could give your 10-year-old self one piece of advice, what would it be?

Paige Connell (01:13:48.557)
I would never tell her though.

Paige Connell (01:13:59.491)
you

I, again, people please are type A eldest daughter. I probably would have told myself to chill out. Like, in the sense that like, it's okay. Like I felt so much that I had to have perfect attendance and I had to do everything right. And I held myself to a really, really high standard and I kind of wish, and I learned this in my 20s, so like I got there eventually, but I kind of wish I just like.

enjoyed it a little bit more. I didn't take it so seriously. And I think it served me well, but I wish I could go back and be like, it doesn't matter. Like the perfect attendance doesn't, like you're allowed to be sick. You're allowed to be sick, it's okay. I wish I could go back and say that to myself. I don't know that she would have listened, but I think it would have helped.

Emma (01:14:38.506)
and

Emma (01:14:50.477)
Beautiful. So this has been amazing. Where can our listeners stay connected to you and work with you or find out more?

Paige Connell (01:14:58.391)
Sure, I am on all social media, at She's a Paige Turner. So Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, et cetera. I'm on Substack. I have a newsletter where I try to post kind of longer thought pieces, but also like hacks on how I use my reminders app or how I manage certain things in my life for those who are interested in longer form content. And you can also find me on LinkedIn at Paige Cannell. So I am pretty much everywhere.

Emma (01:15:21.933)
Well, thank you so much for joining us. It's been such a treat. And yeah, thank you again and have a great rest of your day.

Paige Connell (01:15:28.653)
Thank you.

The Invisible Load of Modern Motherhood with Paige Connell

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