Here's a Method That is Helping Moms to Regain Their Time and Energy with Maria Tedjamulia

Christine Li  0:01  
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 107. 

And it's our last episode of the year 2022. Woohoo. If you've ever questioned whether you are making the right life or career move, or if you've ever feared that you wouldn't be able to fit all the things you wished for into your one life, you're going to enjoy my wide ranging conversation with my special guests today, Maria Tedjamulia, she is a very passionate and lively mom of five, she's got five children 11 years and under. She is the founder of several businesses, and the creator of the business mom, MBA. As a mom of so many children, and a woman with so many different business goals and dreams. Maria knew that she needed to have the right systems in place, so that she wouldn't fall victim to being completely exhausted and overwhelmed. And that's become her current passion to help women know that they can have the family and have the career and do it all. Well, her favorite business is the one that she has within her own four walls. You're going to hear lots of different personal and fun stories that she generously shares with us about the different moments in her life where she realized she could actually do it all and go for broke. Let's go listen to how she made her journey in this episode now.

Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped 1000s of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they can begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn a powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important, and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy, and how you can create success on demand. 

Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast. Hello, everybody. We are in for a treat today because we're going to learn all about running a family running a home and doing it with ease and a lot less stress because of my special guest, Maria Tedjamulia. She's the expert on all of this. And she's terrific. And we're going to learn so much from her. Thank you for being on the show, Maria.

Maria Tedjamulia  2:56  
Well, thanks for having me. Christine. I just am so grateful to be here talking with you and be learning from your job.

Christine Li  3:03  
Thank you, we're gonna learn from each other. Please share with us. Let's start with the family side of things. How did you get to be the mom of five? And how did you get to love being a mother to?

Maria Tedjamulia  3:16  
Absolutely so I am a mom of five, it's my favorite job in the whole world. My oldest is 11. And my youngest is one. And you know my whole life. I wanted to be a mom, I a couple of months back I was over at my parents house going through some old boxes. And I found some of the old paperwork from elementary school, you know what I'm talking about, like those little papers that your parents hold on to. And on it, it said as something that has always rang true to me and said that I wanted to be a mom when I grew up. Why that is I think that in large part is because I had an amazing mom growing up. She wasn't perfect. Our house wasn't immaculate, she was often just running here, there and everywhere lived in the car. But I always knew that she loved me and she was always encouraging my brothers and sisters and I to grow. And I have since then just felt super passionate about motherhood and wanting to do that. However, in my journey to motherhood, I ended up discovering this part of me that I didn't realize I was so passionate about and that was business. And so it's been an interesting and joyful and beautiful journey. discovering how to apply my passion is for business into my home and applying the principles of home life back into my business and seeing how both my business and my home are elevated by working together and and rising together. It's it's pretty cool. Pretty, pretty amazing to see.

Christine Li  4:48  
I think when we first met a couple weeks ago and you described this blend that you have of home and work systems and mentality I was fascinated And I knew immediately that I wanted to have you on the show to describe all that you knew for our listeners, because many of our listeners are parents, and busy and wondering how am I going to get some more time and some more energy and some more peace, perhaps in my family and in my space? So I'm so glad you're here to share with us all the details. Thank you, could you You're welcome. Thank you for being here. Tell us how your journey was maybe before you started a family? What was your schooling? Like? How did you figure out? You want it to be more in the business direction?

Maria Tedjamulia  5:40  
Sure, sure. I actually started off college with a very clear purpose. As I said, you know, growing up my number one goal was to be a mom, I, I knew I wanted to have a big family. And so I kind of planned out my life accordingly, you know, what I'm talking about, you know, when you graduate high school, they say, What are you, you know, what's your path, and you're able to list off like, all the things you're going to do, right? And for me, it looked like this, I was gonna go to college, and halfway through, I was going to meet my prince charming, and we would get married. And then after I graduated, I would graduate with a practical degree, that could be a backup for me as a mom, but but in reality, what I ended up doing is just being home raising babies, and having a husband who just brought home the bacon, you know, that was what seemed like the ideal pictures like for me at the time. But what happened was that I found myself as a fifth year senior in my undergrad graduating with a degree in biology, I had wanted, I had pursued biology teaching, and, and realizing that number one I wasn't married. Number two had no prospects in sight, and definitely was not going to be a mom anytime soon. And on top of that, I found out that I really didn't love any career options and biology like I had pursued them. I looked into research and teaching and, and I knew I didn't want to go to med school. So I was like, What am I going to? Do I have a degree that I don't love any career paths from, what am I going to do? What happened was that during this last semester of school, I found myself walking around the halls of my university. And I saw on the door, this thing that said, the Student Service Association, and I was actually having that prayer in my heart, I was like, what if I do, what if I do what I do, and I saw this, and it kind of felt like this neon sign that's like, come in this room. And I walked in there. And I began to serve. And as I served, I discovered this passion for kind of these businesses things, then that led me on to ended up I ended up landing a job in sports marketing, because of a project that I was involved with in that service opportunity. And all of a sudden, this new, right world opened up to me, it's almost like when you walk into a room, and the lights get turned on, and the colors are so vibrant, and you're like, Oh, I never knew this room existed. And that's how business felt like to me, and marketing. And I found that I was really good at it, too. And so after I pursued this job, I wanted to continue to grow in it. And again, I still was single, no prospects in sight. But I started to lean more into this, like, wow, like, I might be able to have a career in something other than being a mom. This, let's see about this. And so one thing led to another, I just, I decided to go to business school, I got my MBA, and or started my MBA. And during that time, I continue to take classes that just lit me up, that inspired me that really said, you know, you're on the right path. But there was always there was this little something that was part of me that was always kind of holding back. And in that whole journey. I was like, I was always thinking, Well, you know, if I were to do this, would it be okay if I did this? And was mom like, what if I were to be a corporate woman would that really align with my desire to be a stay at home mom someday, and there was always that little piece that was holding me back from ever going full into my career. And I was sitting in this meeting with other of my peers. This was towards the end of my first year of my MBA, and there was a woman of very successful woman who I really respect, who was a mom and who had grown kids and who was also leading the world's largest women's organization at the time. And one of my colleagues raised her hand and said, you know, how do we reconcile she was actually feeling same way or similar that I was about feeling like I was holding back because would make we're aligned with this future that I was hoping to have. So this peer of mine asked a question related to that. And this leader, she said, quit holding back, ladies, like quit holding yourselves back for this future that you don't know if it is going to become a reality. She said, whether it's you're waiting to be married, if say you really want to be married, and you're not married yet, don't be making your decisions based on this future that you don't know. Or if you wanted to have children, or if you know, there's all these ifs, like, what if? What if, what if she said, Go for broke, ladies go for broke. And I remember I actually wrote it down. And I still have the journal that I wrote it down in this a go for broke, something changed and be in that moment, something changed, where I realized that what I had my passions were not dependent on an outside identity. My passions were what God put in my heart and the talents and gifts that he's given me to bless the lives of others. And if I pursue those other things will will just fall into place. And if it's meant for me to be a mom, someday it will work out. But if it's not, at least, I'm still living my truth, living my purpose. Well, in that moment, as I started to live life a little bit differently, and more into who I was, it was interesting, because just a few weeks later, after that, I ended up going on the first date with my now husband, our pads aligned, and we ended up having a very quick dating and courtship, because it was just right, we just clicked and he was finishing up his MBA. And so we had shared that passion for business and, and since then we have built businesses and built our family simultaneously. And it has been beautiful. And that's one of the things with my MBA. That's one reasons why I created my MBA was because I want my kids to know that there are ways for you to be able to pursue your passions. While being a mom, I know too many women out there who have had these big dreams and goals and visions of what they want to do and things that they know and gifts that they want to serve with. But they say, You know what, like, I can't they say, I can't do that. Because I'm a mom, I don't have extra time. I don't have any extra money on my budget. I'm maxed out like I'm falling asleep on the couch at 7pm when my kids are going to bed because I don't have any energy. I mean, I'm here to say like, actually, like, there are ways to overcome that there are ways to systems so that you can live that passionate life that you want to live in and be a rockin awesome, mom.

Christine Li  12:37  
That is amazing. And I'm thinking about how many people can really resonate with at least part of the story that you lived in terms of doubting whether all the visions that we have for ourselves can fit in one life or can fit on the path that we're currently on. And the fear that kind of comes in an intrudes makes us nervous makes us not really fully show up maybe even in a class or on a dating app or something like that, that there's so many ways that we can interfere with our own expansion. And I really am thankful that you came on the show and gave us full force, your story of opening up and saying it's okay for me to expand. It's okay for me to show my gifts, use my talents, and go big go for broke. I love it. Love it. Love it. So tell us more about mom, MBA and maybe the back ground story of you as a mom and then connecting the NBA talents you have into your home life.

Maria Tedjamulia  13:43  
Sure, sure. So mom and BA came about her actually, when I was eight months pregnant with baby number five. So before that I have I co founded several businesses. In the past, I've co founded a nonprofit for women, I co founded a multimillion dollar tech company, as well as some other ventures have taken us in to do some pretty neat things. But when I was eight months pregnant with baby number five, those other ventures were kind of just running themselves. And I was going through some bills at my home, I was going through my own home systems and found this medical bill that popped into my mailbox and found that it just looked off. You know, it was one of those weird when you look at your medical bills, and you're like this could be like legit, like how much I owe, but maybe it's not. And here in the United States, if you're in Canada or other countries, you know, your health care systems are a little bit different. But here in the United States, insurance is kind of the Wild West, at least in my opinion. So I thought well, you know, I'm just gonna double check this. So I pulled up my commission of benefits and looked at the compared to the bill and sure enough, the hospital was asking me to pay 10 times the amount that I owed and that my insurance was like, we already paid this, like, you shouldn't be on that. So it took some back and forth. And eventually, you know, I was didn't have to pay the as much as the hospitals asking me. But in that moment, I felt so grateful for the business, the background that I had, that I knew how to look at my bills, I knew what the numbers meant, I knew that there was there certain systems that I had personally in place in my home, so that I could do that. And I thought, well, like, I wonder how many moms are just overpaying their their bills, they're just writing out a check, because they don't know about this, these other pieces right there explanation of benefits, etc. And, and it got me talking with other moms. And as we had, as I dove deeper into these conversations with these other moms, I realized that a lot of women in particular, are not trained in the financial pieces of their household. That's I mean, it's not really something that you're on teaches you, I mean, your mom will teach you usually how to scrub the bathroom, how to cook, how to do laundry, how to do cleaning, like those things that you've really external. But the more fine like the business up says, I don't remember, my mom gave me a checkbook. But a lot of these are pieces of financially, I had to figure out the Hard Knocks way or through business school. And so after having these conversations and validating that, wow, like, this is really a thing. I had some moms asking me like, well, I need health care, how can you how can you help, I need this in my life. And so that was where Mamma Mia was birth was when I was eight months pregnant with with baby number five. And, and since then, we have been I at least I have been on the mission of being able to help moms get on top of these busy juicy details. Because to be completely clear with with everyone here that the only reason why I've had the time. And to be able to do what I've been able to do the money to be able to pursue some of these, these business, the passions or these other things in my life. And the energy to do it is because I've had home systems in place. Like that's really what it comes down to at the end of the day. And so I want to be able to enable others to be able to pursue their passions by getting these systems in place to.

Christine Li  17:22  
Okay, great. Can you give us an example as I'm not a naturally systematized person? So I'm curious for myself, what's the range of systems that you teach people and you help other moms implement into their own homes?

Maria Tedjamulia  17:36  
Yeah. So what I like to start with our systems, I like to look at the systems that can't be undone when your toddler runs in the room, okay? Because, I mean, how many of us are kid on top of our laundry and 10 minutes later, somebody I don't know, goes out in the mud, and you end up with this huge mess in your laundry room, right? Or in your dishes and whatnot. Like it's just ease those things easily get undone. But wherever I like to start us with our papers, actually, our files and our are really important things that we may be, don't naturally, you know, find urgency for one of my favorite authors, teachers, coaches of all time, this Dr. Steven Covey, and in his book of Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, he talks about the Eisenhower matrix, which is a matrix, if you look if you think about a box with four spots in it, and on the one quadrant are things that are important. And the other quadrant or the excuse me the other axis because we want one axis is things that are important. The other axis are things that are urgent. So there's important, not important, urgent, not urgent. And as moms we often spend our times everything that's urgent, whether it's important or not important, we are often just running our lives on those things. But what happens though, is that there will be points in our life whenever the things that were not urgent, but are important will end up all of a sudden become full of this. An example of this is when a couple of weeks back, my sister in law was in a really bad car accident. Her car rolled three times slid 100 feet, all the airbags deployed, she walked away gratefully with not too many issues, but they found themselves having to find all of their insurance information, all of their you know, just these pieces of their life or her social security card like there's just like these little pieces of your of your life documents that you need. That she was like I gotta find them. Where are they at? And at that moment, knowing where her insurance but knowing that she had insurance and make sure it had good coverage and then also having access to Her personal information was really, really important. Whereas, you know, before that accident it wasn't. And so that's what I'm talking about are those those pieces that all of a sudden become urgent. You also find things become urgent when somebody dies. I don't like going there with a lot of people, because I know it's not what a lot of people like to talk about. But it's part it's a fact of life people people pass away. And if we don't have some of these important pieces put into place, it can make a really, really stressful time in your life. So I like to start there with mom MBAs like, okay, what are the things that are important, but maybe aren't quite urgent, but that could quickly become very urgent, if you don't have it? Like birth certificates, social security card passports, also your health documentation? Did you know that if you have a kindergartener who are a kid who's about to start kindergarten, you need to have their immunization record on hand when you register them for kindergarten, as well as you also need to have the birth certificate. So where do you keep those things and so those things, also your career documents, estate plans, you'll do your last will and testament, those kinds of things. I like to help moms, get those pieces put into place, get your ducks in a row, right out the gate. Because if you're able to do that, you've got something done that something really, really, really important done. And nobody is going to be able to come and just undo that at least super easily, you know, and you don't really have it's one and done. It's nice to have those kinds of things in

Christine Li  21:27  
life. That sounds like a big win. Because I know with working with a population of people who procrastinate that things like important documents really seem overwhelming. They seem like the thing that never really fits into your schedule, because you've got the daily grind running. So I feel like that would be a really important thing to have a new mom or a mom with several children and feeling overwhelmed to have done have taken care of. So thank you for explaining what you do.

Maria Tedjamulia  21:58  
Yeah, you know, what's interesting about that issue is that sometimes we think, oh, like, well, I know where it's at, it's in a pile underneath my bed, or I've got, you know, I kind of have a filing cabinet, whatever, but not having those important pieces on row. I like to think of it as kind of like that that gas burner in your kitchen, right? Have you ever had a gas burner that just accidentally kicks on the other the other week actually had one of my kids accidentally knocked one of our gas burners, and it was leaking gas. And it was slow enough that I didn't quite notice it until I went back into the kitchen. And it was about to do some cooking. And I was like, Oh my gosh, like, my house is not gonna explode because of the gas thing. But, but not having those important things done, our brains know that there's something important there that needs to be done. And, you know, when we procrastinate it, when we don't do it, whenever we try to ignore it, it's like that little gas leak that may not seem like much in the moment. But over time, builds up, builds up, builds up builds up, and then has the potential to really explode in our faces. If we don't confront it and take care of it before it gets to that point.

Christine Li  23:11  
It really is such an important insight. And I love how you bring the brain in there and how the brain knows when there's an open system and open loops, something that's not yet finished, it's really potentially going to blow up in your face. So thank you for driving that point home too. Could you share some success stories of your clients and what you've seen women be able to do once they have their systems in place?

Maria Tedjamulia  23:37  
Yeah, absolutely. So one of my clients that I've worked with recently, so I help moms get on top of their money and their time as well. So their documents is kind of a, it's just kind of a first step. Like if we're able to get on top of your documents, you have a quick win, get on top of that you feel real good. But there's more than just your documents, right? It's getting on top of your schedule and your money and your personal energy. And so I was helping a mom with her back to school systems back in last fall. And as we were going through putting her back to school system she went from, she has she has three kids, three kids, and they were her kids are teenagers, as well as preteens. And when we first started to meet, she was filling the pressures of you know how it is with your kids. As they get older, their schedules become almost as busy as yours, right? You got all of the sports practices and things and you're also trying to stay on top of this. When they get older. They have like electronic assignments that you've got to log in and and so she was feeling super overwhelmed like how am I going to have time to do all of these things? How am I going to keep track of all of these assignments? How am I going to be keeping it all together and as we work together and breaking it down, I was able to help her walk through the steps of being able to kind of pick it from building this like this overwhelming project or like feeling overwhelmed to break it down. And how we did that was we walked moms through a three step process, I like to call it a three step process with, we first was we gather. And if moms out there, if you are feeling overwhelmed by anything in your home, this, this system will apply, whether you're working on your, you know, cleaning up your house, like trying to clean up a basement, or you're trying to clean up your time and your schedule, right, or your money or anywhere in between. So just think about this in something that you might be feeling overwhelmed with. So when you first do it, the first step is to gather. So with this mom, particularly what we did was we helped gather all of the, the outstanding pieces of her schedule, right? I had her gather up her kids schedules, bring them in, okay, what are all those sports schedules? What are what are all of her other commitments? Like? What are the things on her schedule, what's going on with her husband was going on to her family, and had her gather her scheduled for the next school year? Right. And as we gathered them together, then we went on to the next step. And the next step in the process is to sort. And it's important that we gather things together, but then to find common themes throughout, right. And so we sorted them, we sorted her schedule and said, Okay, what are the things that are, you know, well prioritize them with with things that are important and things that are not important? Are there certain things that you can cut out your schedule? And then also, okay, what are the things that you're doing at home? Where are we? What are the things that you're doing outside the home? What are the things that you're you need to travel for, have the sort now also by child and help to break it down so that it was more manageable, and tangible, and within the things that sometimes our schedules can feel a little bit intangible, because it is time, right time is not necessarily something that is like a cup that you can pick up, right, because you have to try to do your you got to do things to make it more tangible. And so we help make her time more tangible by by sorting. And then the next thing that we did, the next step is we took action, because in each, whenever you're going through a process, you can gather things, you sort them, but then you usually requires the next step of action. And with her time, what we did is when we went through, and we put it onto her schedule, we made a schedule that worked for her. I'm a huge fan of time blocking, or a modified time blocking and creating a schedule that is that crea instead of it being super rigid at you know, 1pm every Thursday, I'm going to do laundry, no, no, no, like, let's create blocks of time that you can, you know, realistically get stuff done. And so we helped create a block schedule. And at the end, after I was walking through the process, she just was like, I did not know that I could have extra time in my life. I didn't realize that I had extra space here. Because when she was trying to manage everything, you know, with between a Notes app and our calendar app and her brain, just like all kind of mixed together. It just felt so overwhelming. But when we put a system in place that she was able to, you know, implement and now she's able to upkeep. She's like wow, I actually have more time with my family. I've got more time to do something else. And and it's been fun to see her lean into that extra Joy space, or unicorn spaces. Some people call it now that she's had that extra time.

Christine Li  28:25  
I love it. What is the effect been on you to help these women find their unicorn time and space?

Maria Tedjamulia  28:31  
You know, the focus has been on me to be able to help moms find that unicorn time is that you know, I am a firm believer that, that each of us have special gifts and talents that we've been put on this earth to share with others. And whenever I see those ripples going out, see these women living into their truth, living, loving motherhood, and loving their life. It just brings me so much joy. You know, there's something I think about seeing other people happy that just multiplies your own happiness. And for me, that's really what it comes down to.

Christine Li  29:05  
I love it. I love it. I can feel your joy rippling through today's conversation and in your work. I appreciate your work so much. Thank you so much. Let's help people connect with you. Let's explain to them how they can get into mom MBA, how they can stay connected with you how they can potentially work with you. Can you describe that as well?

Maria Tedjamulia  29:27  
Absolutely. Well I love helping moms from all walks of life. Whether you are an entrepreneurial mom, or whether you're a stay at home mom or work outside the home mom, mom MBA is here for us all because we are all on some level running our home. I like to call his chief home officers we are all chief home officers at some level and degree and a great way to get started as we talked about today it was getting those systems that are important but not urgent. certainly get some traction on that something that can't be undone. So you could feel like If you're winning at home and truly have a really important win, or a home and so I have a free resource for you guys, I would love to share it with you and you can go to mom nba.com Ford slash Doc's DLCs. At that website, you can download the top 20 family docs, you need to have like just like if you're wondering like, well, I don't even know where to start. I don't even know what documents are most important, which ones aren't. This is where you want to go, mom mba.com forward slash docs. And you can download that list there. Also, throughout the year, I run different courses that we can that we do group coaching, where I will help walk you through putting together your home systems, whether it be your document system, your time system, your money. I'm also a master certified financial coach on top of my MBA. And so I always love talking about money. And so even if you need that safe space of just somebody to talk about your money with specifically your home finances with, that's what I help and love helping moms with. So also you can connect with me over on Instagram, where we posted different information and resources for y'all. It's I'm at at mom underscore MBA on Instagram. So at mom underscore MBA, and yeah, that's, that's how you can connect with me.

Christine Li  31:20  
That's fantastic. Maria is doing wonderful work in this world. She's got programs running throughout the year, so make sure to stay connected with her on Instagram and get that document at the mom. nba.com/. Doc's D O C S, for your top 20 family documents. It sounds like a wonderful, free resource. Thank you for sharing that gift with us today.

Maria Tedjamulia  31:44  
You're welcome. And I hope that you all take take advantage of it. When we're able to make those important wins in our home systems. Something clicks inside of our souls mom's like that, I can't explain it until you experience it. But when you start putting those systems in place, life starts to open up in ways that are so beautiful and helps you be able to find more space in your life for those passions that are uniquely yours.

Christine Li  32:13  
That is beautiful. What a wonderful way to wrap up this wonderful session with the wonderful Maria. Thank you so much Maria for sharing your gifts with us today. You are really rocking it and I can't wait to connect my audience with you and your work going forward. Thank you so much.

Maria Tedjamulia  32:30  
Thank you, Christine.

Christine Li  32:32  
All right, everyone. That's a wrap for today. Remember to subscribe, rate and review this podcast. If you love what you heard today. I would so appreciate it and I'll see you next week when the new episode drops Take care.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. We'll talk to you soon!

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