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In This Episode
Putting yourself first improves your happiness and relationships, especially with your husband and family. Whether it’s starting a business or turning passion into profit , Hashem has been preparing you through life’s small and big moments to live your dream life. Follow the advice of Franciska, singer, podcast coach, and CEO, on planning your business to acting with intention so you are on your way to become the ultimate mom/wife-preneur.
Highlights
00:49 Franciska is an international artist and performer. She helps women develop their businesses through audio, video, and social media services.
01:59 When Franciska helps her clients, she makes sure to ask them if they feel nervous, scared, or anxious to do something that is fulfilling to them, which are connected to marriage and dynamics of their families.
04:02 Franciska and Rebbetzin Bat-Chen agree that everyone should prioritize and put themselves first.
06:59 Rebbetzin Bat-Chen shares that when she used to set goals, she would relate them all to her husband’s goals but it didn’t have to be that way.
09:09 Knowing how to communicate what you want with your husband and family is important so that everyone wins.
09:29 Guilt is a self-sabotaging mechanism that prevents you from achieving your goals or doing anything positive.
11:18 Do things with intention. Hashem has a plan for you and paves the steps to live your dream.
13:11 It’s important to plan your days, weeks, and even months with intention because it sets you up for success.
13:46 The two types of dynamics in marriage. Through Connected for Real, Rebbetzin Bat-Chen helps deal with the type where the woman is on top.
14:38 We can only control our own thoughts, actions, emotions, so it’s better to focus on ourselves than the things we cannot control in our spouse/partner.
15:31 Modeling is one way you can help, teach, and inspire others to be better versions of themselves.
16:55 Controlling spouses spiritually can translate into the spouse’s professional, emotional, and other important areas in life, which can turn into a disastrous relationship.
18:19 When we are too attached to the results of what we want, we forget about the work that we do and the importance of the journey. Doing what Hashem wants us to do with intention and proper planning will remove our worries for the future. He’s got us!
19:42 After overcoming the fear from the shift in dynamics of starting your own business, one must recognize that there are new routines and changes that are needed for your business to thrive.
21:30 Making your passion into your business is a long process but the first thing to do is to be clear about what you like doing and/or your service/s.
25:28 Rebbetzin Bat-Chen advises that you pick one thing, whether it’s a hobby, business idea, or service, and stick to it.
Links
Franciska: Website | Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn
The Franciska Show: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts
Cathy Heller
5 Surprising Ways to Improve Your Marriage
Marriage Breakthrough Retreat
Let’s Connect!
Connected for Real is on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn
For more information about Connected for Real, visit the website!
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REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Welcome to the Connected For Real Podcast! I’m Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman, a marriage coach for women in business, and my mission is to bring God’s presence into your life, into your marriage, and into your business. Let’s get started. The following is one of the many conversations I had with experts and professionals about real life and how it affects marriage. Let me know your takeaways on Instagram or Facebook, @connectedforreal. Enjoy. And we are live. Hi everybody. Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman here, together with Franciska and she is going to introduce herself. She is awesome. Go ahead. Tell us what makes you so awesome and why I like you so much.
FRANCISKA
Thank you so much Rebbetzin Bat-Chen. It’s such an honor to be in your group doing a live on your podcast.
FRANCISKA
It’s such a pleasure and honor to be here thank you for having me. My name is Franciska. I started out as a singer, composer, moved on to producer, podcaster and now coach where I help women make a ton of money in the arts fields, where it’s connected to audio, video and social media.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Ooh. Awesome. So when I was a guest at Franciska’s podcast, that was a highlight for me. That was super cool. We got to talk about what she does and what I do and how they intersect. What I do is I help women love their marriage and really transform their marriage into the next level and the most beautiful thing it is. We were talking and you said that some of your women are scared to go and be success—They’re so worried about if I go out of my comfort zone, it’s going to shake up the equilibrium. So tell us a little bit about that.
FRANCISKA
This is something I’m realizing on my end. Meaning, when I’m speaking to women, they’re not coming in as with saying, “I really want to be a famous singer, famous podcaster, or build a huge brand” but, “I’m nervous my husband is going to feel threatened.” That’s not how this starts. This is something that I’m observing on my end, and I’m figuring out based on the way they’re speaking, their fears and how they’re so comfortable in just the mommy space with their passion being a hobby and their music or their teaching is just something they do to fulfill themselves. As they speak, I try to ask them questions where they can really ask themselves or really go deep and figure out—are they just trying to stay in a space that feels safe and comfortable to them or is there something that they’re scared of? Something there might be a fear that may be preventing them from going for something they really want to do, which they clearly express when they speak to me, that they want to go do something and it’s so uncomfortable and scary. Based on our conversations, we discover and unfold that there are lots of fears connected to the marriage and the dynamics inside families. Naturally orthodox women—we’re raised and we’re trained—I don’t want to use the word groomed here but we are really molded to fit a certain role and if you haven’t been taught that in school, then it was in seminary, maybe somewhere else and maybe it’s your husband telling you have to fit a certain role.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Or your parents.
FRANCISKA
I guess I didn’t have that growing up so much, so yes. It definitely can start at home. You are absolutely right. It starts all the way from the beginning “Who do you want to be when you grow up?” “I want to be a mommy.” So once a woman decides, “I’m going to go and pursue something that’s important to me—something I feel is my tafkid (mission)” or something—”I have to go do—” Things can change. Dynamics can change. First of all, just practically speaking you need to start prioritizing your work. So putting in the time, which means taking the time away from other things—and if you’re already a mom with a family that automatically—before you’re even making any money, making an impact, or building your brand, you have to first put in the work.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
You have to put yourself first, which is the biggest, scariest thing. Before you even do anything, you first have to actually put yourself first in the priority list, which is a very long climb from where we are to begin with. Yeah, naturally. Most of the time.
FRANCISKA
Sometimes, I spend an entire session with a potential client or a client just trying to get them to answer what do they really want, and they cannot answer that question. “It’s this, and this, and this, and this,” and I’m like, “But what do you want?” or, “Why do you want that?” Just getting down to the basics because it’s so removed. Like your sleep, your nutrition your exercise, your self-development, your spiritual development, your relationships–everything’s on the back burner when you’re especially post-Covid, especially if you had anything else going on in addition to Covid. Illness, unfortunately, any financial issues, or any educational developmental issues—maybe situations in your family changed. Death, birth, or other things, and that drastically your marriage or you missed certain events in your family because no one was around. That drastically changes the dynamics. For myself, personally, I had a baby six months ago and now my kids are at school. This is my third day, and it’s kicking in—the fact that I’m going out of survival mode and I’m like, “What do I need to do right now to start refueling my cup because I was running on adrenaline for the past six months on my own–I mean, with my husband but there was no support around. Absolutely no support, and it’s kicking in. It’s so painful and hard. [Laughs]
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yes. Yeah, it’s been difficult. This is one of those things that you either were in a good place and so you were stuck together in one house for a long time and trying to survive it together, or you were at each other’s throats trying to figure out how to find some alone space within that squishy space. They’re both okay. They’re just what is, and it’s not something that reflects that something is not okay with you but it just is. What do we do with that? Some people are trying to compare themselves to others and seeing other couples. Facebook is a great place to go see how everybody is doing fine, except me, then just remember everybody’s human and they’re all having things. Even the best couples are having a hard time but it’s what you do with it and that’s really important. So one of my problems was when I was setting goals, my goals were all related to my husband’s goals. I wanted so badly to help him, to do for him, and to empower him that I had absolutely no goals of my own. Even when I had to come up with my own goals, they all had to do with him and it was really hard to separate the two. “You mean, I actually get to think about what I want?” That was very hard. It took me a long time, and even now I’m just like, “Wow, that’s really cool that that’s what I want.” By me doing this and really getting out of my comfort zone, putting myself out there and starting this business, I have gained so much understanding of the power that it has on your marriage when you put yourself first. That’s exactly it. We think that in order for our marriage to be successful we need to put ourselves down, let everybody step on us, and just make sure everybody else is happy and just I don’t know the word for that but really appease everyone. “Guilt also plays a role in priorities.” Yes, because when you put yourself first, the first thing that comes into your head is, “This is wrong. It’s not supposed to be this way,” but that’s because that’s what the world is telling us. The world is saying everybody else has to come first, but I heard Cathy Heller saying something amazing she says, “You don’t have to put yourself on fire to keep other people warm,” and she had to go through that understanding and really put herself first. When you take care of yourself, then everyone around you wins. It’s a total win-win, and that’s what is so amazing. When I work with my clients, one of the first things we do is we put into place the one thing that you’re consistently going to do for yourself because you need it, because you want it, and then we align. By the way, we’re not doing it against everyone else. I’m not stealing time for my husband or my kids to go pray. I made sure to talk about it with my husband and to talk about with my kids and say, “This is important to me and we’re all going to work together to make this work,” so it actually built us and unified us in a way because I actually had what to say and I was able to communicate it, but first I had to know what I want that’s the hard part. What do you say about the guilt?
FRANCISKA
So guilt is one of the first things or skills that I would recommend anyone mastering. There’s almost nothing positive besides Rosh HaShana and Yom Kippur times (The High Holidays) time, where it belongs. That’s part of redemption and part of your avoda (self-work) to cleanse yourself or anytime you need to apologize but any other time, there’s no positive use to it. It’s there as a self-sabotaging mechanism to prevent you from doing anything positive. It keeps you down. Ask yourself, “Why am I feeling guilty?” Is there anything positive that this voice in my head is trying to do, or is that my bad voice inside me keeping me down so I don’t get up and do something positive about it? So I learned about guilt on a new level after my first daughter was born because I couldn’t be a mom to her 24/7. I needed an eight-hour break during the day because when she came home it’s not like the night was a walk in the park, so I had to outsource that and then I felt so guilty. I’m paying for someone to watch my child. I’m not with her, which according to some people is horrible. What am I going to do with my time that’s going to justify that? I have to do something so amazing right now because me sitting around when I was pregnant is not good. My guilt started eating me up. It’s great because once I acknowledged what was happening, I was able to create a plan, start being proactive about things, and that’s when I started my journey with lots of the stuff I’ve been doing.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I love how intentional you are. When we were talking off camera, and I said I love everything about the design, the photography, and the level of artistic whatever—everything is just so beautiful and so put together and you said it’s all intentional and I love that because really amazing things don’t happen by accident. You have to think it through and really make choices along the way that work with your brand. I’m really impressed with the fact that you also do it with other parts of your life. Where you’re really intentional about once you figure out what the problem is, then making a road map, and getting yourself out of it is amazing.
FRANCISKA
Thank you. Thank you very much. In general, nothing in our life is by accident. If people believe in accidents and the Big Bang Theory then that’s how your life is but if you think Hashem has an intention and purpose for every single thing, whether someone cut you off in line or—everything happens for a reason, and you start implementing that and being proactive then that’s a way to live.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I love that. I love that. I also bring Him into every interaction, and I find that somebody said today—I don’t remember what the meme was but it reminded me that I always say thank God I have a God because I don’t know what I would do without Him. I just don’t. There’s something so grounding about knowing that. Oh, yeah. It was a meme about like, “Oh, the world is going crazy,” and then it’s a Peanuts thing. Then he says, “Oh, at least Hashem isn’t changing. He’s the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow,” and that was so beautiful. That’s exactly it. I love that.
FRANCISKA
Also, it’s really a coping mechanism to be able to accomplish—to still be a mindful and present mother, do all the things that a mom needs to do, build a business, be a great wife, and all these things. If you’re just going with the flow, you might not be able to check everything off your list at the end of the day but if you plan your days, plan your weeks, and months very intentionally, it’s a way to set yourself up for success instead of just having excuses—just throw everything out and there will be tons of things thrown at you as a mom, as a wife, as an entrepreneur, and if you’re not prepared, you’re gonna shut down.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Yeah, I love that. I love that. Yesterday, I had a client who said he’s not religious enough. In marriage, there are two types and I deal with the type that the woman is on top. There’s either he’s on top and I feel like a failure and nothing, and I’m always being blah, blah, or I’m on top and I’m trying to help him. I’m trying to tell him. He’s not enough, and so I’m sort of pushing him down by trying to help him, and it’s not really working. In both situations, they’re not good but the one I really focus on is the one where we’re on top because that’s where I used to be and it’s just how it is. That’s how I had to grow up and find the things that work for me. Ideally, you should be equal, right? That’s the ideal. So she says, “He’s not religious enough. He’s not healthy enough. He’s not successful enough—I said, “Notice that you’re using him as an excuse. If you want to get more religious, and he’s the one holding you back, that’s just an excuse. You have what you can control, you can control your thoughts, your actions, your emotions, your everything. You can control what you can control. You can’t control him, so stop trying to change him and focus on yourself.” That was such a breakthrough for her, and the same thing—the amount of excuses we use for, “Oh, I’m not going to do that because it’s going to hurt his feelings that I’m on live and he’s not, or that I’m getting 10 people watching and he only gets three,” and whatever it is that is happening there, it doesn’t have to happen. It’s not a good, healthy situation. When the way to solve that is just pull everything back and say, “Where do I have control? What can I control? Where’s my power?” and when I do that, then I can do anything except change other people.
FRANCISKA
Well, you could change by modeling or inspire other people by modeling.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
So that’s one of the emails that I wrote recently it was like, “The magic only happens when you’re not trying to make magic,” and that explains exactly what I’m talking about. It’s like, “You will be able to change him when you finally stop trying to change him but you can’t do it to show him, to teach him. You have to really do it for the true reasons. Then somehow, magic happens and he’s finally free to make his own decisions and then he joins the club and even if he doesn’t, you’re still way more happy. You don’t expect it to happen. It just sort of works itself out. It’s amazing. Hashem made this world so awesome.
FRANCISKA
It’s so awesome. Based on what you just said, and it’s very, very intertwined religiously, especially the way we were raised. I don’t know if chabad—we apply them to this specifically because I don’t know if that’s how they’re raised but anyone in the Litvish world or where men have to learn–ideally, that’s what you have to do in your life, and women are raised or taught to believe that their Chelek in olam haBa (their share in the next world) is based on their husband’s spirituality. Now, what does that turn a marriage into? A marathon where the wife is the police officer for the husband’s spirituality, and if that’s not a recipe for a disastrous relationship then I don’t know what is. If that’s our ideal or the environment we’re setting up for a marriage spiritually, then that will translate into professionally, emotionally, and all the other areas so I disagree–maybe somewhere that works one way or another but anyone going into marriage or—I would educate in the opposite way. You earn your own Chelek in olam haBa (their share in the next world) by your behaviors, by your actions, by your abilities, by your opportunities in life not on somebody else’s because that’s going to turn you into a police officer into a controlling spouse.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Right. There’s a beautiful saying that we learned in our marriage class. It was the first class. It was, “In this world you have to worry about his Olam haZe (this world) and your Olam haBa (next world), and that’s how you be a good wife.” You make sure he gets fed, he has what he needs, he has this Olam haZe right here. He has everything he needs right here in this world, and you will get your Olam haBa. If you worry about his Olam haBa then you’re not going to have this or that Olam. You’re not going to have anything because you’re going to mess it all up. You’re going to be fighting all day and at each other’s throats here, and then in the next world you’re just going to be like, “Huh?” or whatever. It wasn’t worth anything. That’s also what when you’re attached to the result—in coaching we call it attachment—there is such an attachment to the result of “We need to end up with a big table full of all the greatest delicacies up there in the next world,” and forget about it. Just do your work. You’re here to work here. You’re not here to worry about what are you getting out of this. That’s really not the best way to do it, and I agree, that is by the way, one of the things I see with my clients is that they worry about what will be and the answer is don’t worry. Just don’t worry about it because what you’re here for is work. I’m here to work on my marriage, on myself, and if I’m doing my job right now, it will all work out at the end, but thank you that was a beautiful, beautiful comment.
FRANCISKA
Let’s just continue on from where we started off where the dynamics—where you have to prioritize yourself in order to start building your business. So we’re going for what you want to create and then there can be a shift in dynamics, where you went from stay-at-home mom completely dependent on your husband financially to suddenly you’re bringing in income and you need him to take over certain home responsibilities or you need to outsource help. First of all, the fear of that potentially happening can prevent anyone from just starting but once that does happen, you have to realize, “Okay, things are changing.” How do we create new routines or new expectations—even though I don’t the word expectations—but how do you create a new environment for this to thrive, for this to work, for there to be tons of mutual respect, for there to be tons of goodness come of it because that is good when a woman is taking care of herself first? So once you go for it, there needs to be structure that is built again proactively and intentionally for that to thrive because once a woman is professionally or financially thriving, either she needs to learn how to translate it into her home life or needs to be taught to her. It’s not just something you fall into and sort of gracefully know how to handle and navigate. There are new routines and new behaviors and new things that need to be implemented.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
And by the way, this is where a coach would be so helpful because I know from my experience, I love learning. I’m always picking up and I’m hearing podcasts. I’m constantly learning, learning, learning, and it’s great to learn, but sometimes when you need to know what to do next, you just need somebody from the outside to say, “This is what you need to do right now,” or, “This is what you need to let go of,” and that is one of the biggest help. I got a coach six months ago. I just finished my six months, and it was absolutely amazing because it really put me on the right track, and it made me very confident about what I’m doing as opposed to before I was sort of fumbling in the dark doing all the things trying to sort of pick and choose what was working for me. Now I feel a lot more grounded. So if you’re in that place where you’re feeling you’re going through a transition or you would to go through a transition, that’s a good time to get a coach, my friends. How would you start?
FRANCISKA
Start exactly what?
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
Prioritizing yourself, start a new business, or start moving towards the direction of your passion—
FRANCISKA
It’s an extremely long process. I wish I could say, “Oh, this is how you start,” but number one is really getting clarity on what it is you like doing, what it is people paying you to do–that can be separate things and for creative women, there’s usually a list of 20 things and half of the job is narrowing it down to the things that you can actually build upon and monetize, or people already see you as a professional in a certain area. For example, I could be talking to someone and I’m like, “People are happy to pay you for this, and they’re so happy to pay for this. Why don’t you try to sign up for a new course so you could develop your 25th skill because you think that’s going to make you money?” Last week, I just spoke to someone and I was like, “Why are you working so hard on this thing? This group it has to be perfect and this launch—” I said, “There are people right now waiting for you to offer them something today.” He messaged me three days later, he’s like, “Oh, I already signed up a person and I’m speaking to five more people this week.” So a big job for creatives—anyone who’s doing something a little out of the box or something on their own and entrepreneurs all fall into that category, narrowing it down really focusing in and getting clarity. Very often, for super talented people—they have to separate their dream projects from their monetizing skills, as I would classify them, because they may be different one. For once, you might not want to monetize your dream projects. First of all, it’s really hard. It can be really hard unless you have a big brand, and number two, you don’t want to put the expectation of selling it if you just want to put your heart and soul into it without having to commercialize it. But if you do use your skills you do have that people are thrilled to pay you for, and then you take some of that income and pour it into your passion project—first of all. it can bring you to a place where people will pay you for your passion project but also it will keep the light, joy, and happiness with that. We don’t want to spoil it until it’s ripe enough to earn on its own. So that’s some of the work we do.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
I like that. I like that. So I would say, “How would you start with one thing? One thing that brings you joy and makes you really, really happy, and it has nothing to do with your business or anything else it’s not a chore it’s not a thing it’s think about it really hard one thing that you could do every single day for 15 minutes or less,” and it’s so individual for each person that it’s not something that I could say like, “Oh, you should journal,” ”You should pray,” “You should take a nap,” “You should eat salad,” or, “You should take a shower.” I mean, there was one lady I worked with who said, “Putting on my contacts instead of my glasses makes the entire day different,” and that’s something I can’t relate to because I hated my contacts and threw them out probably less than two minutes after I had a wedding. I really couldn’t stand them, but for her it really made a difference. There was another person who did one YouTube video of dance every single day. Oh, I had one lady who took upon herself to drum every day because drumming makes her happy, and really just 10 minutes of drumming, and it changes everything. When you put what makes you happy, the thing that fills you up as number one priority today—every single day and track it, so that you actually know when you did and when you didn’t do it, you will see side effects to that because you’re finally filling yourself up and it’s been empty for a while because it’s just part of life. That’s how it is we get into these ruts of running, running, running, and just getting things done and that’s okay. It’s part of life, but it’s also time to get out of that, and be able to really thrive. So that’s the one thing I would say—is pick one thing and stick to it.
FRANCISKA
Yours was definitely more practical. That’s what I tell people when they ask me—
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
No, but it’s good. I think it’s always good to have different people giving different advice. It’s really good to have multiple people and that’s why I love having guests on my show because when I was doing videos on my own, it wasn’t flowing as much. It wasn’t coming out. I had to say things multiple times for it to be just right, and my perfectionism was getting in the way. Do you want to tell us where to find you?
FRANCISKA
Sure. So I’m on Instagram @franciskamusic. Facebook: Franciska. I run the Entrepreneur Facebook Group where we do lots of trainings on business stuff, and things to do with audio, video, social media building—that kind of stuff. I provide tons of free content that’s awesome for anyone who wants to use it and run with it, but the clients I work with I’m extremely exclusive about who I do work with, I need them to be on a certain level of professionalism, of commitment, and I take those women and we go for it. We run to the moon and back.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
That is amazing. Thank you so much to Franciska, who is amazing, and everybody should be following her and be her friend. I am, and I’m super happy so thanks so much.
FRANCISKA
Thank you. Thank you. It was such an honor.
REBBETZIN BAT-CHEN GROSSMAN
And that’s it! Thank you for listening to the very end. I would love if you can leave a review and subscribe to the podcast. Those are things that tell the algorithm, this is a good podcast and make sure to suggest it to others. Wouldn’t it be amazing if more people became more connected for real? And now, take a moment and think of someone who might benefit from this episode. Can you share it with them? I am Rebbetzin Bat-Chen Grossman from connectedforreal.com. Thank you so much for listening, and don’t forget, you can be connected for real.