Roxanne: Podcasting from my closet in Northern Japan. This is reimagining hustle, a podcast for entrepreneurial parents, creating a life where business and parenthood live peacefully in the same space. I’m your host Roxanne Merket, a mom of two micro-business coach and serial entrepreneur on a journey to prove that it is possible to do what you love without sacrificing all your precious time.
Let’s do this.
Welcome back to Reimagining Hustle. I am very delighted to introduce my guest today. I have Candice Bakx-Friesen with me. Candice, how are you?
Candice Bakx-Friesen: Hey, everything’s great.
Roxanne: Good.
So I am, I will be the first to admit because I think it’s important to know when other people mess up. So I have totally blown it. And you have been so, so gracious, Candice and I actually recorded an episode about a year and a half ago, and it was right in the middle of my move around the world. And Candice, I lost your episode.
Like I it, I was telling you before we started the recording. My worst nightmare came true in that we had this great podcast recorded, and I thought I had it all scheduled and edited out, and then I just didn’t post it. And so, um, Candice, thank you for being gracious enough to do another one of these with me. And, uh, I mean, you’re, you’ve been so nice about it this whole time, so thank you.
Candice Bakx-Friesen: Oh, no problem. Technology’s awesome, but only when it works.
Roxanne: Yeah, that’s so true. Well, definitely I would love to blame this on technology, but this is like, this is 100% like me just overlooking it. And the only reason I bring it up is because I know that there are a lot of mom entrepreneurs listening to this. To this podcast and we think that we can have it perfect all the time and we don’t.
So thank you for giving me an opportunity to teach that by example. And also thank you for just again, being so, so gracious. So let’s dive in. I’m familiar with you because, well, I gotta listen to the podcast with you, but nobody else knows you here. So tell us about you. Will you tell us about you? Tell us about the work that you do, your journey to get there.
You do a lot. You do a lot of things. So will you tell us about, you know, all of it?
Candice Bakx-Friesen: yeah, yeah. Hustle is like my middle name. So, uh, yeah. So I am a entrepreneur. I live in Canada. Uh, I started my journey, I suppose, as a child already because my grandparents and parents. I came from a background of entrepreneurs. So you learn as you get older. Right. A a lot of lessons that, you know, they’re not gonna teach you in books.
So, um, anyway, fast forward. Yeah. I decided I was gonna become an accountant and I was gonna be like my aunt and she was the only one in my family that had gone to university cuz again, everyone else was entrepreneurs. And um, yeah, everything was kind of looking great and then I just decided. Uh, and part of that too was I was gonna become a career woman, not have kids, just focus and work and yeah, and then never say never, because obviously, yeah, I’ve got four kids and a husband, and life is good. So from there, yeah, I decided well maybe I’m not gonna become of an accountant. So I did still go to university, but ended up, long story short, through different couple of different paths I got into real estate. So I’ve been doing that for about 16 years. And within that, you know, people were asking me after the transaction was done, you know, you seem to know something about money, like can I ask you a question about money?
And you know, these kinds of things happen often. I think you need to listen to that and, and recognize that, you know, there might be something there. So then I became a money coach, um, which is really just helping people with finances and I’m not selling anything, right? Like obviously there’s a fee to go through coaching, but it’s not that I’m selling an investment, I’m not selling life insurance.
So there’s no bias, there’s nobody thinking, okay, are you just telling me this because you want me to buy, you know, a million dollar life insurance policy? Um, and I think, you know, 20 years ago the banker maybe did, did this role for people, you know, they would say, okay, you wanna get a loan. How are you gonna pay for it?
Let’s go through a budget. And, but now, you know, it’s like e-sign paperwork. You don’t even see a banker and, you know, so there’s this gap where people just don’t know who to talk to. Right. And, uh, and money’s a taboo subject, so it doesn’t come up at the dinner, uh, table with your family, your friends. So it’s something that people struggle with.
Um, and it’s not necessarily only paycheck to paycheck. You know, you could be doing well in life, but it’s like, what should I be investing in? Like, am I investing in the right thing? Um, so anyway, yeah, that’s been really good and uh, rewarding to work as a money coach as well. And then, yeah, we’ve got some other side businesses and my husband has a business as well,
Roxanne: So you really just have not escaped the entrepreneur world. You were, you’ve born into it and here you are in it again. That’s amazing. That’s amazing. So it’s so interesting hearing you talk about, um, being a money coach. Right? And so I, I, I think about. My husband and I had an interesting, I I, I’m not even gonna be so kind as to say an interesting experience.
It was a really bad experience with a financial advisor a couple of years ago and experienced exactly what you’re talking about, right? He, he tried to sell us up on all these things and we knew he was making a profit from, from him, and he wasn’t listening to the things that we needed. And so I think a money coach would’ve been such an interesting experience.
Such a, such. Positive, um, difference, I think. And so what kind of questions are people asking before they hire you? You know, they’re having all these internal questions and they’re thinking, I really wanna talk to somebody. Is a financial advisor the right person? Is a money coach, the right person? What?
Like what kind of questions are, are getting them to you?
Candice Bakx-Friesen: Yeah. A lot of times it’s just wanting to have those conversations. So feeling like you’re in a crossroads of not really knowing where to talk and who to talk to. Sometimes it’s spouses who don’t, or partners who don’t talk about money or they’re always fighting about money. So, so there’s the referee role in that
Roxanne: Mm
Candice Bakx-Friesen: to.
Help people sort of see the other side of things. So it can be entrepreneurs I’m working with and small business owners, uh, helping them obviously decrease expenses, increase income, um, you know, setting sales goals, all, all of those sorts of things. Uh, it could be an individual. I’ve run teens in money, so talking to teens.
Um, so those are kind of a few of the different areas that I.
Roxanne: That’s so cool. That’s so cool. And you talk about money being really taboo. How do you talk to your kids about money so that it’s not taboo for them?
Candice Bakx-Friesen: Yeah, so I think one of the biggest things that I realized was, well, two things. Number one, when kids say, how much did this house cost? Yeah, you gotta answer. You can’t say none of your business, because that’s a lot of where the problems come from, right? Is saying. We can’t talk about that. I don’t wanna talk about that.
And especially if you’re, you know, if you’re listening and you’re in the struggle, it’s really hard to feel confident to talk to your kids about money because you don’t want them to know, right.
Roxanne: Mm-hmm.
Candice Bakx-Friesen: things are going really bad or that it’s like, it’s very tight. Um, and I think the other thing that we have to kind of recognize is what we say about money, um, especially around, When we don’t wanna spend money. So oftentimes what people will say, and this can even be within, uh, again, a partnership. If one person manages the money, they might say to the other person, uh, no, we don’t have money for that. But, you know, maybe half an hour later, They’re going and buying something, right? And it’s like, wait a minute, I thought we had no money cuz you said we have money.
But you know, changing that to say, you know what, we’re choosing not to spend money on that right now because we have to pay for this or pay for that. So kids know, right? Like, kids recognize that there’s things that you have to spend money on. Um, so it’s not really a secret. Again, when, anytime you’re struggling, the first thing you do in any area of life is you kind of shut down, right?
So if you’re having, if you have trouble in your relationships, suddenly you start to kind of shrink back or trouble with money, or maybe you lost your job, shrink back. Don’t wanna talk to anybody, I gotta deal with this. Um, and yet, you know, that’s exactly the time when often it’s best to talk about your struggles.
Roxanne: I love that recommendation of just being really open. I feel like if we were, if we did that about a lot of things, We would solve a lot of problems just in general. Don’t make sense that it would apply to money too. I would love to know as a money coach. This word budget gets thrown around a lot and feels like a dirty word.
I feel like it’s like one of the B words that I say on the podcast is budget. And one of the B words I say on the podcast is boundaries. And those are the two B words that come up a lot of times. And so talk to me about budgeting just for a minute, because I feel like that’s one of the recommendations I see a lot is like, the first thing to do, the first place to get started is a budget.
Do you agree with that? Is that is, is that accurate? And will you tell us a little bit more about like your thoughts on it?
[00:09:21] Let’s talk about budgets
Candice Bakx-Friesen: Yeah, so everyone hates the word budget. It’s like, eh, it’s like this. Ball and chain boundaries actually would say is, uh, like one of the most important words because I think that’s where a lot of issues come in in life is people not setting great boundaries. However, around the word budget. I think if we just changed it to, we’re gonna create a plan. Budget’s a plan. So if you call it something else, suddenly that changes everything, right? So if I was to travel from Canada down to Florida, or doing a family trip, you know, I don’t just say to my kids and my husband, Hey, we’re leaving tomorrow. Well, let’s go. And I’m not planning the route, I’m not planning the money that we’re going to spend.
You know, you don’t just get in the car and just sort of drive and hope you get to Florida, right? And this is the same. You know, we can’t just hope that at the end of the year this all kind of works out and everything shakes out okay and it’ll all kind of work out. But that’s the attitude most people have around money.
Um, and it’s so easy to spend now, you know, it’s not like for my grandparents, you know, they’d have to get in the car. Maybe they’d see something on TV that they wanted. Get in the car, see if the store here had it. Probably not gonna travel, you know, 20 minutes to go to a shopping center. Maybe I don’t really want it anymore because it’s just such a hassle to get it right.
Whereas now, you know, if you want something in your sleep, you can buy things on Amazon already. Right? You don’t even have to mention your credit card and tap, tap, tap. You know, you leave the store and you’re like, whoa, how much did I even spend? Like, what did they ring up as the number there? Um, so it’s just so much harder to be really diligent about our money.
So if we think of that as. We know it’s a struggle. It’s, it’s harder than it ever has been, um, and it’s easier to spend. So let’s make a plan and let’s stick to it. And the more you plan, the better you’re gonna have success in anything in life. So, um, I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily the first step. I think right before that, what you didn’t really need to do is look at your numbers and that is just a matter, again, people hate doing it, but you have to recognize where is the money going?
And more, more times than not, people are like, I had no idea. I had no idea I was spending on that. I had no idea. Um, cuz again, it’s so easy to unconsciously spend. So yeah, it’s, it’s time to just get to that base of like, where am I at? Where are some things I’m doing really well?
Where are some things I’m struggling in? And now what’s the plan gonna be?
Roxanne: Mm-hmm. I appreciate you giving us both the first step and such a great reframe of calling a budget a plan. I feel like budget for me is one of those things that feels very, like you said, like a ball and chain, right? And so it’s not. I don’t know. Budgeting is, budgeting is tricky. I’m one who grew up with not a lot of really good money information and so this has been an interesting thing for me to learn about the last many years.
And so I love having this conversation with you where I can learn a little bit more. I would love to know, how would you talk to people who are like, well budget, it’s just like an expense tracker and I’m having a hard time shifting from expense tracking to budgeting because I feel like that comes up a lot.
How do you respond to that.
Candice Bakx-Friesen: Yeah, well I think that the difference in, um, just sort of tracking your expenses. And creating a budget. The difference and sort of the missing piece in that is what’s the dream, what’s the plan, what’s the goals? Um, so again, you know, if you take a, a nine year old, uh, I have a nine year old and I say to her, What would you like to do this year?
Here’s, you know, one to 50, list out all the things you wanna do. She’ll probably come up with a hundred things, right? She’ll say, I want this, I want that, I want that. Um, but you give that same list to an adult and they’ll usually come up with five things. Three to five things. So we don’t dream anymore, right?
We don’t really think of like, what do we wanna accomplish? And the years fly by, right? Um, we only have up a certain amount of time here. Hopefully more than less, but you know, you can’t wait to do all these different things. Right. So maybe it’s not an extravagant trip to Europe for three months. Right.
But what are some little things even that you can do? Um, maybe it’s a, a smaller trip. Um, Maybe it’s going to an escape room, maybe it’s dinner. You love going out for dinner. So figuring out what works for you and not what everybody else is doing, but creating even just some little plans and goals. So, you know, as you’re working hard in your job or as an entrepreneur, that you’re taking that time.
Right. Especially as an entrepreneur. Cause it’s just easy to work, work, work. But you know, Time block that time, whether it’s, you know, a quarterly year, once a month, and put some things in and make sure that they happen, right? Book them so they actually happen.
Roxanne: Mm. That’s such great advice. Ooh, I really appreciate it. Really appreciate it. Candice I would love to know you’ve had this, so you started out being raised by entrepreneurs. This, this was your whole world. You shifted. You had this aunt that I know was very significant to you, who really inspired you. You shifted to accounting, and now you’re back in this entrepreneur world.
You weren’t gonna have kids. Now you’ve got four kids. You’ve got like all of this, lots of change. What does success look like to you now and how has that changed in the last course of your.
[00:14:46] Success
Candice Bakx-Friesen: Yeah, I think that, um, more and more, um, I’m looking at things that are legacy based that are really important to me. Um, so the giving back, um, I know whenever, if I have, have ever gonna retire that I would just go straight into like volunteering full-time. And you know, there’s, I always say there’s probably something that you hear about that really like pains you, right?
Like it might be I drive past homeless people and it like, kills me every time. Or it might be, for me, one of the things is trafficking. Like in this day and
Roxanne: Hmm.
Candice Bakx-Friesen: age there should not be trafficking, right? So, so find those things, those passions, um, and make sure that that’s part of your life, even if it’s a little piece, right?
So right now I don’t do any significant anything with trafficking, but I know that that’s like a future thing. Um, but I do a lot of giving back in the community and that’s really important to me. So, um, so it doesn’t have to be kind of right now, but again, don’t just put everything off indefinitely. Um, so legacy is really a big part of what I view as success now, but I think just in general, um, success really has to be looked at holistically within your life so you can have business success, but if your marriage is falling apart, You probably aren’t feeling very successful.
So making sure that you’re taking care of like your body, your health, your mental health, um, having great relationships with family and friends, making sure you know everything’s good with the kids and you’re being intentional, I think is the key. So it’s really hard to have work-life balance as an entrepreneur.
You can have really good work life integration if you make it very intentional. So time blocking the date, night time, blocking stuff with the kids. Um, yeah, and just asking them, you know, what do you guys wanna accomplish? What do you wanna do? You know, and making sure that they’re, they’re realizing their goals and, and plans as well.
Roxanne: I love that answer. Legacy and a holistic approach to success. That’s, that’s really inspiring to me. I appreciate that. Candice, I would love to know on this entrepreneur journey of yours, How has being a parent through all of this changed you as a person?
[00:17:06] How has being a parent changed you?
Candice Bakx-Friesen: So, um, one of the things that, uh, makes things tricky in my life, I would say the hardest part of my life is that I have a daughter who has a disability. And through the teenage years, it’s been like really hard, you know, because everything’s kind of accentuated, you know, so bad behavior becomes, you know, hours of screaming and different things like that, that we have to deal with.
And so, um, I would say that’s, that’s the trickiest part, and I think through struggle. It really makes you appreciate the good times. You know, so sometimes parenting is so hard and it could be, you know, you have a troubled teenager or you know, your teen’s getting into drugs or, or whatever it is, right?
And you’re like, man, this is so hard. But you know, it’s the good. If everything was good, you wouldn’t appreciate it either, right? So getting through the struggle, it, it makes us, you know, depend on other people to help us. We need to talk about it with other people to kind of help deal with it. Um, but yeah, there’s lots of times where my parents have come in and they’ve said, Hey, we’ll take her for the night.
And it’s just been like this huge relief, right? Um, so I would say just. I think I’m more grateful. You know, I’m grateful when things are going well, um, when you’ve been through struggle.
Roxanne: Mm.
Candice Bakx-Friesen: And I would say the second piece, the second side to that would be I just have more patience, you know, like, In the end, what matters most is the kids, right?
The relationships I have at home. So if a sale doesn’t go well, or a customer isn’t happy, or you know, they’re, they’re frustrated with something, it’s like, you know what? You can only do your best and then you gotta move on. And in the end it’s just work, right? And things, it matters. Or the kids and the relationships that I have.
So, um, so I think that having kids has just. Probably calmed me down more as an entrepreneur. You know, not everything has to be top, top, top performance. Go, go, go. You know, I think I’ve sort of settled down and maybe that’s an age thing too. Um, and I think I’m a better and more understanding employer, you know, that my employee needs a day off.
It’s like, go ahead. Cuz again, like in your world, your kids matter the most or. Your sister’s getting married. Yeah. Go be there for her. Right? That’s what really matters. So I think that, um, we’re a better team, um, and we work better because we have that respect and, um, and that we just care about each other and, and respect each other and, uh, the relationships that we have outside of work.
Roxanne: Mm-hmm. I love, I, it feels. Refreshing to speak of it that way. I think there’s almost a, a permission to be a human again when you’re able to say this is the priority. And, you know, speaking of, you know, I, I did my best and if my best wasn’t good enough, okay. You know, and just there’s, there’s almost a, a freedom that comes from that.
And it was interesting, you know, we, this is an audio podcast, but I had the luxury of seeing you talk about it and I watched your body language just relax as you spoke about that. That was really a, a really cool experience for me to see that. And so I, I really appreciate sharing that. Do you experience guilt around parenting and entrepreneurship?
[00:20:28] Guilt?
Candice Bakx-Friesen: I think there’s, yeah, I, I think somebody would be lying to say that they’d never have guilt. Um, I try and look at the positives of things. So again, you know that my kids have had cool opportunities because I’m an entrepreneur. So, um, I’ve, I’ve gone to a seminar in Texas and I brought my son with me.
Right. Because we can Right. And we could kind of spend that extra time together and um, yeah. You know, I haven’t had to beg for time off to go to field trips and things like that. So I try and focus on that kind of stuff. You know, there’s days when, you know, I don’t see the kids, right? Let’s be honest. I’m just out working and I get home at 10 o’clock, they’re already in bed.
And you’re like, man, that was kind of, that was kind of lousy.
Roxanne: Mm-hmm. Mm.
Candice Bakx-Friesen: Would’ve liked to ask them how their day was today. But you know, you can beat yourself up, but it doesn’t do anything. It’s not productive,
you know? So if there is something that you feel guilty about, either you need to work through that and figure out, okay, maybe something has to change here or you need to move on, right?
But just sitting in guilt doesn’t, doesn’t get you anywhere.
Roxanne: Hmm. It’s such wisdom. just, oh my goodness. You’re just blowing my mind. It’s so wonderful. Candice I feel like you’ve already answered this question a lot, but I would love to ask you very pointedly, what do you wish people knew about being a parent and an entrepreneur simultaneously?
Candice Bakx-Friesen: I think that the, the biggest struggle that I’ve had, um, and that I see other people face is managing your time. Um, and sometimes that’s gonna mean that you need to get help when maybe you don’t want to. So, you know, the classic where a lot of women will start is, okay, I had this baby. I don’t wanna go back to work.
I have this cool business idea. I can make this work. Right? But it’s really hard to have a toddler running around while you’re trying to make sales calls, right? And they’re screaming, uh, or you’re nursing and you’re on a webinar, right? Like, it’s just, it’s
Roxanne: I’ve been there. Yep.
Candice Bakx-Friesen: Yeah. Yeah. We all, we all have, but we’ll never admit it.
Right? Like all of those kinds of things. So often we’re just trying to struggle through and then be like, I can do this and I can, but like asking for help is huge. So there, you know, people say to me often, like, how are you actually doing this? Well, I’ve got tons of help. Like, I’ve got people employed, I’ve got a house cleaner.
My parents are involved like, If any of those pieces weren’t there, I wouldn’t be doing all the things I’m doing. Right. So it always looks so easy on social media and you know, again, nobody talks about the struggles. You don’t see people crying and up all night wondering how they’re gonna make this all work.
So you don’t see the struggle. Right. But know that everybody has struggled, everyone is struggling. But if you could figure out a way to get help, even if it’s like, Hey, can you watch my kids or my kid for. Two hours or three hours, and there’s another entrepreneur mom, and it’s like, Hey, I’ll watch yours for three hours tomorrow.
Now you have three hours where you can get a ton done. So
Roxanne: Moms can do so much with uninterrupted time.
Candice Bakx-Friesen: Yeah. Yeah. It’s, it’s incredible, right? So if you could find some type of focus time, um, whatever that looks like, and however you’re gonna get people to help you. It could be a grandparent to friend, sister, um, but like, let’s stop trying to do this all by ourselves. Yeah.
Roxanne: am. I’m on this train. Absolutely. I’ll second that. Please stop trying to do it all by yourselves. Yes. Uh, Candice, you mentioned earlier in the podcast that you felt like Hustle is your middle name, but I wanna ask you a question about that word hustle because as you know, the name of this podcast is ReImagining Hustle.
The reason that I named it that is when I first started my entrepreneur journey, I was not a parent and I super bought into hustle culture. I loved it. It felt so good to me. And then I had my first child and my whole world stopped as it does, and I knew I had, I had to reimagine what hustle looked like for me.
So I would love to know how do you reimagine hustle?
[00:24:29] Reimagined Hustle
Candice Bakx-Friesen: Um, I think that probably again, you know, your perspective changes over time. So giving back to the community, doing a lot more of that stuff. I just have time more to do it because my kids are older. Right. Whereas when we were in the toddler years there, there’s no other time to do other stuff. You’re just like working or you’re with them, right?
Because they’re hanging on you or they’re, you know, you’re dragging them along on your leg. And so I think it’s just really looking at the season of life that you’re in and like you said, you know, knowing that hustle’s gonna look different and being okay with. Because again, when you can’t forgive yourself that you can’t keep up now like you used to.
Um, that’s again, it’s just too much guilt and um, it’s just distracting from getting stuff done. So I think it’s just really being true to like, where am I at? Life’s different now. That’s okay. And I’m just gonna do what I can right now and forgive myself and move on from the fact that these stages are just different.
Um, you know, it can also be that you are getting into the stage of life where you gotta take care of aging parents, right? Or different things come up and maybe your spouse ends up on long-term disability, you know, and now you’re caring for a spouse, like life throws, curve balls. And we just have to do the best that we can.
Roxanne: I appreciate that reimagined version. That’s really wonderful. Candice, before we find out where we can find you online, because we, we all need much more of you, will you give us a 30 second pep talk just for other moms on this journey?
[00:26:09] Pep Talk
Candice Bakx-Friesen: Um, I would say, That’s a really tough one because of course, like again, entrepreneurs are in such different stages. So I would maybe just say, you know, if you have this, this dream of where, what you would like to do, um, to figure out a way to pursue it. Because I think that there are so many dreams that die because people don’t know how they’re going to do it.
They’re not, they’re like, I don’t know how I can start a business. I don’t know where to turn to. Um, and the other problem in today’s world is that there’s so much information. But it’s hard to take action when you have so much at your fingertips. Like maybe I just need to research a little bit more and.
Maybe there’s a different way to do this and oh, this guy says I gotta do that. Oh, I gotta spend 10, 10,000 with that guy. And then I could get to that. You know, like some, at some point you gotta turn that all off and just think, how am I going to run this business? Um, and maybe talk to one or two people, but.
The amount of information out there is just, it’s too much. So, um, really look at what can work again in your life and, and pursue that dream instead of letting it die thinking, no, I, I don’t know how to get this dream off the ground.
Roxanne: Thank you for that. You’re speaking to my heart. These are the things that I feel really strongly about as well, so thank you for that. Candice, please tell us where can we find you online? We need more of you for people who wanna work with you. Where’s the best place to connect with you?
Candice Bakx-Friesen: Yeah, so, uh, I’m all over social media, so you can find me under my name, Candace Bakx Friesen, if it’s Instagram or Facebook. Uh, LinkedIn. And, um, my website for my money coaching is called Investor smarts.ca.
Roxanne: Awesome, and we’ll make sure that we link everything in a show notes. Candice, again, thank you for your grace, for your generosity and for the gift of your time yet again. I just, I, it’s interesting how, um, for me at least, I think that I really needed you today, like where I’m at in my life right now. I think I needed this and I, I know that all my listeners as well will definitely benefit from everything you’ve shared with us today.
So thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Candice Bakx-Friesen: Yeah, anytime.
Roxanne: Thanks for listening to Reimagining hustle with Roxanne Merket. If you like the show and want more, check out reimagining hustle.com and please leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. We’ll be back next week with another episode. See you soon.
