#32 - Ashley Chang - Reclaiming Sundays: The Power of Executive Assistance for Ambitious Parents

In this episode of Rediscovering Connection, Shelley Doyle speaks with Ashley Chang, the pioneering Founder and CEO of Sundays, an innovative service providing executive assistance specifically for working parents. Ashley shares her motivation behind starting Sundays, inspired by her mother's experience balancing career and family in the tech-driven environment of the San Francisco Bay Area during the 80s. 

Ashley delves into how Sundays alleviates the mental load for parents by handling life operations, or "life ops," allowing them to reclaim time for what matters most - family and joy. 

We explore Sundays strategic decision to employ local parents who understand the nuances of family life in North America.

Our conversation also touches on Ashley's personal journey of learning to delegate, the role of social media in building a business, and developing systems that are right for you and your family.  

This episode is made for you if you're striving to balance a demanding career and a satisfying family life. Insights including Ashley's approach to marketing through LinkedIn, conducting quarterly time and energy audits, and creating systems for successful families to thrive.

Find Ashley Chang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleymchang/
Or visit https://withsundays.com/

Episodes You Might Enjoy:

• #29 - Christina Marz - Coaching and Healing with Horses • Listen Now  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywwR0lQJjV0&t=1s
• #28 - Emilia Salhotra - Leading HR Transformation in a Global Landscape • Listen Now  https://youtu.be/KA1_fS5W9PM?si=vQHvgGCYh_ih5WwK
• #31 - Dr. Kiffer Card - WORLD FIRST NEW Social Connection Guidelines are launched in Canada • Listen Now https://youtu.be/SmOfm6d0KA4?si=zib89OLmZFvDeRJr

---
I hope our conversation inspires you to rediscover connection in your personal or professional life.

Subscribe now and let the magic unfold.

Love & sparkles,
✨Shelley

About Your Host

Hi, I'm Shelley Doyle, a Social Wealth Strategist and Connection Coach. I empower remote and nomadic founders and leaders who crave deeper connections to activate their social wealth, so they can feel trusted, supported, and truly connected—both online and offline—no matter where they are.
Discover More.

I combine cutting-edge research on social wealth, social wellbeing and social capital with two decades in corporate communications to deliver mind-shifting talks, workshops, and programs around the world.

Find me at TheCommuniverse.com and on LinkedIn.

Global Workshop Tour "Beyond Screens" begins September 2024.

To hear when new episodes drop, subscribe to my weekly newsletter, or check out recent episodes.

Transcript

Shelley: 0:00

Hello and welcome to Rediscovering Connection. I am Shelley Doyle. And this podcast is all about speaking to innovative founders, leaders, community builders, and researchers who are on the cutting edge of connection. Maybe they found new ways to connect in their own lives, or they're finding ways to help their clients connect. Um, my guest today is one of the latter. So she's really finding ways to help her clients reconnect with time and actually get time back in their lives. for the people that matter the most. Welcome Ashley. Thank you so much for being with me today. Do you want to start by just giving us a little bit about what, what you do and really your motivation, why you started doing this work?

Ashley: 0:47

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me, Shelley. I really appreciate it. Um, so I am the founder of a company called Sundays and Sundays is an executive assistant service for working parents. So our goal is to, um, take off the admin work, uh, off parent's plates so that they get more focused time back at work and more quality time back at home. Um, and the reason that I was drawn to Start Sundays is actually my own mom. She was a computer scientist in the eighties in the San Francisco Bay Area. Um, and as she started to have kids, she felt like she really couldn't do both family and work and she had to make a choice between them. Um, and she chose to stay home with us, which I am super grateful for all the time that I got with her. Um, but I think she missed out on a little bit of personal fulfillment. She could have had outside of the home. Um, and. The world has missed out on generations of what women can contribute to the workforce when they are able to be a part of the paid workforce. And so I've always been really interested in this. I joined the tech industry, same tech industry in the same location about 25 years later. Um, and I saw so many women, um, start to have to make the same choice. A lot of the smartest, um, and most driven people I knew as they had families, um, ran again into this wall of balancing family and work, um, and had to choose between family or work or are constantly feeling like they're failing at both. Um, And so that was really what drove me to start Sunday is I started by just interviewing as many parents as I could about what makes it so hard to balance both and what works or what doesn't work. And, and ended up with what we do today, which is we have a team of executive assistants. And they are all based in the US right now, and they're all other parents so they understand the same struggles that are. Our clients are going through, um, and then we help them with what I call life ops. So all the things that underlie keeping your family running, like making sure dentists appointments get scheduled, or you get signed up for sports leagues next season, or you're ready for the holidays. Um, and hopefully give parents that time back for doing things that they really care about. I

Shelley: 2:57

love it. I love it so much. And it's such a different, different slant on it. Cause there's like quite a lot of, um, virtual assistant companies. And as a coach, I've been introduced to quite a few of these companies. One of them that did sound amazing, it outsourced. Um, so all of it's in all of its VAs were based in the Philippines. I, I, I had a VA here for a while. And I really did appreciate having that closer touch point with people who are, uh, like physically here. Was that an intentional decision to employ local VAs?

Ashley: 3:35

Yeah. Um, so when we first started, we experimented with hiring people in other countries, and I think, um, there are a lot of amazing people in other countries that can do great work. Um, but there's so much cultural knowledge that comes with what it takes to raise a family here and how our school systems work and how summer camps work and things like that, that, um, it's really valuable to have that firsthand knowledge of experiencing that yourself and, um, Making, yeah, understanding exactly how those systems work so that you can help other families with it. When we were, um, looking at hiring people from other countries, we felt like it would be like a lot of training, um, in order to get them up to speed and, and also just needing that kind of constant reminders because it's not a part of their day to day life. Um, whereas for our team here, it is something they're personally experiencing. And so they're really prepared and really able to be proactive about those things.

Shelley: 4:29

So are they typically

Ashley: 4:30

moms? They are almost all moms. We have one dad on our team today, and we're definitely interested in bringing more, more dads on to, um, but a lot of really awesome moms. And we hire most people, um, part time so that they can have flexibility in their day where they can still pick up their kids from school or get to a soccer game or something like that. Love

Shelley: 4:52

it. So yeah, so what I was leading to, I think with the talking about the other VAs, it's always business outsourcing. So this is, this is a really different, it's just not something I've heard before, like obviously a lot of, a lot of people that I know and I have had cleaners in the past, haven't right now and I'm confused as to why that is not the case. And that, but, but other things like, yeah, life ops, you call it, which I love, life ops. It's like how to have that managed efficiently so your day to day, your kids are in the camps that you wanted to get them in because that's on somebody else's to do list at the right time. Cause I know like just to get my kids into swimming, um, swimming lessons, it's like 6 a. m. You have to be on at 6 a. m. and you have to have the lessons that you want in your basket and press go. Otherwise, no chance, right? So somebody else could be doing that

Ashley: 5:46

on your behalf. Exactly. Or yes, it's at 6am or it's at like 10am in the middle of your work day and you're like, I have a big presentation, but I will secretly be on my phone trying to get into these lessons. So yeah, exactly that type of work.

Shelley: 6:02

And something that really spoke to me, um, which you shared quite candidly on LinkedIn some months ago leading up to your wedding. Um, you shared that everything was going great, like your business is thriving, and yet your body is speaking to you and telling you that something isn't right. So you are obviously working yourself to the ground. Yeah. Um, and then there was a big reminder of the work that you're doing, right? And it's like, how do I, do I live? The work that I'm helping others. So tell us a little bit about that.

Ashley: 6:37

Yeah. I mean, I, so I came to this problem by realizing that it was a problem that so many parents were running into and not necessarily by being an expert at delegating myself. Um, and I think that very similar to many of our clients. I, I like to do a lot of things at once. So I was like starting this company, it was planning a international wedding. Um, and I. And things were going well. So I was like, Sundays is, is working really well. We, um, have a lot of really exciting clients that we're working with and we're starting to grow the team. Um, and at the same time, I was doing a lot of stuff on the personal front too. And, um, and I set these kind of. Arbitrary deadlines for myself where I was like before the wedding XYZ must happen. And for months, I was like, okay, 90 days, 60 days, like 15 days. And so I like put all of this pressure on myself to get these things done. And in some ways, pressure is good because it gets done. helps you move faster, but, um, but I wasn't doing it in a way that was scalable. So at the time, like every, especially on the Sunday side, every single thing was running through me. Like we had 15 people on the team, every person reported to me, every client, um, question or complaint got like escalated directly to me, even if it was really minor. Um, and I. Literally just like my body could not handle the stress of like every day trying to do this, all of those things to just like, keep everything afloat. In addition to trying to grow the business. And I, um, ended up with not an ulcer, but like almost an ulcer where I was, I literally could not sleep at night. Cause I was like having such severe stomach pain. And I don't know if this has ever happened to me, another person to you, but another person on my team said this happened to her too. And it's like, Um, it was like really severe pain. I was like, I like, do I need to go to the hospital? Or like, is this something that will like, I'll overcome. And so I ended up going to the doctor and she was like, do you know what the cause of your pain is? Like, there isn't really a medical reason. It's actually just like the stress that you're putting on yourself that causes can cause like a bodily reaction. So, um, kind of hit this point right before, like literally the day before we're flying to the wedding, I was like, I, Must go to the doctor today because otherwise I think I'm like, not going to be able to be present and enjoy the wedding. So it kind of a, a rock bottom right there. Um, and it was a good lesson for me and, and actually learning to delegate and give other people ownership and responsibility too.

Shelley: 9:14

And I just think it is the way of so many coaches, like we, we teach what we need to learn. And I think that is a truth.

Ashley: 9:26

Yeah.

Shelley: 9:26

Uh huh. And our passion comes from our pain. So you saw the pain in your family from, from your mom and you thought, I want to do this. I want to be able to do this right. So you set yourself up for success when you, when you start your family. Um, and something that just came through when you were saying about the 90 days, 60 days, 30 days, you come from a product background. So presumably you're used to those products sprints. And those preparing to launch sprints. So you're, yeah, yeah, yeah. So you're in that mindset for launches. Yeah. How did it feel to then go, okay, maybe we're not going to hit these milestones. Maybe I need to give myself more grace.

Ashley: 10:06

Yeah, I think that, um, well, I think one thing that was interesting is like, we actually did hit a lot of the milestones that I wanted to, but then I was constantly kind of like moving the goalposts. I was like, okay, we did this. Like, what's the next big thing we can do? Um, And I think a lot of people who are used to being in this like, like, high achieving mindset do that a lot where they're like, Okay, what's the next big thing and you don't stop to like celebrate the accomplishments that you have. And, and so. And also when you're at this really early stage of starting a company, you actually don't really know what milestones are realistic at all. You're like, well, let me just throw something out there and hope that we get there. Um, and so now I'm trying to be, I think it's easier since we're at a later stage of the company, but trying to be a little bit more realistic with like, I know what things can get us to be certain milestones now. And do I even have enough time in my own day to do that? Or do we have enough time across our team to be able to get to those milestones? That These specific points. So, um, both just being more realistic. And then also, as you said, giving myself and the team more grace to, um, accept when maybe we're learning something, but we didn't, we didn't hit the exact

Shelley: 11:22

milestone we were hoping for. So let's talk about time. So now you had that deep, deep learning and you started to delegate. I guess, how does it feel to actually be living what you've gifted your clients, what you've gifted the mums that then have time back to have with their families? How does it feel to have, like, sorted that out for yourself and relinquished some control and now you have some time, perhaps more time for your relationships, for your new marriage and all of those, all of those things that you really wanted to be able to prioritise?

Ashley: 12:03

Yeah, it is such a relief and just like so much more joy in my own day to day. Um, it's definitely slow work in progress where I'm learning what it takes. Um, and it, it took a lot of work to get to this point where even once I realized I need to hand things more things off, it's not an, it's not like tomorrow things are just handed off. It's. Like you have to find, for me at least, it was finding the right people, building trust with those people. Um, luckily we already had some people on our team who were in great positions for that. Um, and then figuring out what systems to put in place so that they can have the ownership that I want them to have, but I still have the comfort of knowing things are going well. Um, and so there's a lot of work that goes into building those systems too. But now that we are a few months into that, I, it's. improve my days like a thousand percent where I really enjoy and look forward to like every day getting to start work and every day, um, hearing from the people who do have those ownership, that ownership now and how things are going and how they're feeling and growth in their own careers, which is really exciting.

Shelley: 13:10

Beautiful. Um, we, we have spoken a little bit about, um, about channels. And I wonder if we can just go back to that, um, uh, topic that I'm really passionate about and interested in right now is social wealth and how we build social wealth into our, into our lives. And one of the foundational pillars is personal expression. So it's finding ways that we feel able to express ourselves. Authentically fully. Um, yeah, I wonder, I wonder if you want to speak to that about any of the ways that you found you feel really natural because being a founder of a company, you don't necessarily prepare yourself to be at the spokesperson at different and like, where's your comfort levels in terms of being that being that the face of Sundays.

Ashley: 14:00

Yeah, um, it's really interesting. I think when I come from a product background, and so I really hadn't done any sort of like marketing before starting Sundays. Um, and I, at first I was not prepared, but the more that I got into it, the more I realized, like, you kind of have to be your company a little bit, at least in the beginning, because if you don't tell people what's happening, like what you're working on, no one is going to find it. Um, and I think, especially people who have like a product or engineering background, a lot of us come in thinking like, I will build this great thing and people will love it and they'll buy it. Um, that's not actually how it works because people can't. love it and buy it if they don't know that it exists. Um, and so there's this process of helping people find, like, find out that it exists. Um, and I, what I really love, I think my also a mindset shift I made was I was like afraid to do sales and marketing because it felt like very sale y and I think a lot of us don't like Being sold to, um, but a reframe, I think that's been really helpful for me is thinking of it more as, um, helping people who have a problem, find a solution to their problem. So I'm not trying to convince people that this is the, that don't have this problem, that they need it. It's mostly finding people who already are suffering from this problem and trying to help them find the right solution, whether that's working with us or setting their own systems or something like that. Um, and so. I went through a big journey of learning marketing. At one point I literally would have in my days, like a block that said do marketing, and then I would get there and be like, Oh my gosh, what do I do? And, and I started experimenting with different ways to get the word out. Um, and ended up focusing on LinkedIn. Um, basically I did these like short two week experiments and a few different channels. Um, and LinkedIn was the place where. I could get the fastest feedback and also, um, LinkedIn, I really like because you start with a network of people who already know you personally and that you've spent years probably developing relationships with and, um, whether they're a customer or not they're generally supportive of you, um, Doing this work. I hope, I think maybe you found this as well, where people are just like, wow, that's really cool that someone I've known for years is like going out on their own. Um, and so, yeah, what I, and LinkedIn has been a journey. I started just like, I'm going to post every day for two weeks and see what happens. Um, And got really positive feedback just in that quick, uh, quick experiment. And then now, um, it is our, by far our main marketing channel for Sundays. So, um, I post, I try to post every weekday and then I don't look at it. I don't look at it at all on the weekends. And, um, And then have developed kind of a marketing strategy around, um, the types of things that I post, but also I personally write every single thing that is that we put out there and, um, take a lot of pride in making sure that it. Feels like it's coming from me personally. And that has led to connect. I think I was telling you before we started recording that, um, it's, it is blown me away how many amazing people I've been able to connect with through LinkedIn and build, um, what at this point feel like long term relationships with people that I just met on the internet, which I had never had an experience with before.

Shelley: 17:20

Beautiful. And yeah, I have a note on my fridge, no email or LinkedIn at the weekends. So I'm the same as you and that's it. We have to play with these, not only these kinds of tests for different social platforms, but boundaries. on ourselves because as business owners, it can be all consuming and like the tendency, the temptation to just check your phone and just this and just that. But, uh, yeah, like you, I know that I need that decompression over the weekend, particularly. Um, I do sometimes try and do it from say four o'clock in the morning. weekdays as well. So I can be really present with my kids once they're home from school. Um, and just, yeah, testing and feeling into what actually makes us feel healthy and recharge, recharge. So the next day when we, we're ready to start again, we're actually ready to start again because we have had that conscious pause.

Ashley: 18:16

Yeah. I think it makes so much difference. I actually have this, I have this sticky note that says end the day on my, um, desk and that's something I've been working on. And I think I've gotten better at is just like on a, um, day to day basis of like, actually like the, the to do list is never ending. It will always be there tomorrow. Um, but giving myself the time back on a daily basis to really. Reset and be able to come the next day with energy. Cause I think for a while I would work, I would just keep working all night. And sometimes maybe there's a big project where you need to push through for that, but, um, you don't need to do that every day. And being able to actually, I think energy is our most valuable resource. So, um, figuring out what it takes to. recharge and be able to start Energized is really valuable.

Shelley: 19:06

And just thinking about the topic of time, like what kind of feedback are you getting from clients? Like how, because this is such a new service, what are your clients saying?

Ashley: 19:18

I think that the biggest thing that we help people do is, is reduce their mental load where they can just like give something to us, and we can take it and run with it and they're like okay. Shelby has this handled now, uh, and that's really valuable. And also, I think people who work best with us kind of loop us in really regularly to their day to day so they'll send us like a text message on a daily basis. The like just kind of forward things to us throughout the day and then we set up times to check in with them and be like okay tell it let's talk through like, is this a priority. Um, one thing last week, I was really excited. Um, one of our clients started a new executive role. And one of, one of my big goals is to help get more moms into leadership roles, because I think that's how we can reshape how, how we work. Society overall thinks about balancing family and work. Um, so we had a client who has been prepping to start this new leadership role for a couple of months and working with the person on our team. Um, and she has three kids, they live in Manhattan. Each of the kids does like three activities every week. And so, um, normally the mom is like super involved in planning that and has that kind of running in the back of her mind every day. And she called us last week in her first week of work and said, I haven't had to think about the kids at all. Like I'm so confident that you have it handled for me that I feel really good and really confident in my first week of work, which I thought was really fun.

Shelley: 20:41

Amazing. So, um, yeah, I guess what, what's, what's next for you? Like, what's your, what's the next big thing that, um, that is really gonna help you to thrive personally or professionally? Um, knowing all what you have learned up till now, is there something that That you're striving for.

Ashley: 21:04

Yeah. Um, that is a good question. I I'm expecting my first in early next year. And so a lot of what I'm thinking about now on the personal side is like how to use more of these systems that I've been learning from all of these other amazing parents. And we've been building for the parents we work with in my own life. It's it's just so interesting to see all of the components already that, um, I'm thinking about differently than I was before. Um, so. Yeah, trying to figure out the right systems for our family going forward, which has been really fun. Something I did at the beginning of, um, This delegation period I've been in was I did this thing called a time and energy audit and basically for a couple of days I tracked what I would do what I was doing every 15 minutes and I would just like write a list of it and then at the end, um, wrote like How does this affect my energy? Like, does it give me energy or does it take away energy? And then, um, how valuable is this in terms of like, how important is this, um, either to the company or to my personal life? And, um, that kind of gives you these quadrants where you end up with like things that are important for you to do, things that are important, but somebody else can help you with, um, and then things that maybe you can just. Um, and so I think that was a really interesting check in for me personally of like what, whether my time was aligned with what I wanted to be doing. Um, and I hope to continue doing that on like a quarterly basis or something to figure out as business and family evolves, which areas I want to lean into and lean out of more.

Shelley: 22:45

Yeah. I love that time and energy audit. I Um, I have something similar like a joy o meter and we'll do it for spending time with people and it's like some people are very time poor and it's like well what about if you just go around for a 30 minute coffee like would that be a worthwhile commute and time with each other or are you better off saving that time in the time bank and then catching up for a couple of hours and having a more deep dive interaction. Jen. Jen. And then with my kids, I do it with money, like they get, um, they get money for when they read books. They'll get a dollar. So encouraging them to read. And then when they go to spend the money, it's like, okay, let's think about how much joy you're going to get out of that thing. Like they just bought this little motorbike thing and it's like, not, not, wasn't very expensive, but like thinking, are you going to get the value out of that in comparison to these other things? And yeah, I love that. The idea of, um, really analyzing that and make more intentional choices of our time and, um, and investment as well. Really like that. Um, yeah. Thinking on that, is there, is there another tool that you could share with busy moms out there that are really struggling to do it all, that could, they could think about either outsourcing something or doing something a different way, um, to help relieve that time pressure?

Ashley: 24:11

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, I think that. Other things that I've seen, I think it's just like building systems that work for your family. Um, so one thing in particular, and we do this a few ways, but, um, like meal planning is one of those things that is constantly, um, on parents minds as, as they live their lives and eat and try to get their kids to eat too. Um, and so I think figuring out a meal planning system that works for your family, that is. Fast is something that's really valuable. So we, some families we work with will have very particular meal planning needs and we will like do spreadsheets with them where we're like, okay, are we getting all of the macros that you want it or something like that? Um, but then for most families, I think there are a lot of, there's like great apps out there that can actually do a lot of the meal planning for you, where you upload your own recipes and you build a plan for the week. Order groceries and, um, those can be really, those can really save a lot of time. So we use an app called maple, um, pretty frequently for that. Um, there are others that might have different needs, but I think figuring out even like one small system that works for your family can be really, really helpful. Um, other things we're trying to do are build out like. Um, guides or checklists where we think of like everything you might need to think of. So we have one that we built for Halloween, where we were like, here are all the things that go into making sure your family is ready for Halloween. And it's like, it's brainstorm costumes, think about like face paint. Um, but also like make sure that you check the weather and you have a backup outfit in case, um, in case it ends up not being, not being good weather or like look for routes. Um, so those are things where. We're trying to identify everything that you need to do so you don't have to think about it. I think it's like that free thinking actually takes a lot of energy. A lot of times, like actually executing the tasks is not as time intensive as, um, as remembering all these things you need to do. So, um, for us, we think building out these systems of, of processes you do every time you run into the holidays or every time you run into summer camp planning can save a lot of time.

Shelley: 26:21

So good. So good. And we did get into a habit of, um, family meetings when we lived at the eco village. So there they would do it every Friday was like a heart circle. So we got into the habit of doing that. I think weekly became a bit. too regular for such a formal meeting, um, with the family. So we still have like breakfast on a Sunday and we'll kind of have a bit of a, um, uh, routine when that happens. Um, but yeah, otherwise, when you were talking about the meal planning, like our system in our house, which has just evolved naturally, I always do the grocery shopping and then my partner will like see what I bought and then he'll do a meal plan based on what is there. So kind of the other way around to the apps of like going to buy things, but that seems to work for us. Um, yeah, he's the, he's the key chef in our house. I'm the commis chef. So.

Ashley: 27:18

I love it. Yeah. Yeah. I think that makes a lot of sense. And people, sometimes it's just like some people just have like a whiteboard that they use, but having that system that works makes sense. And I love the weekly meeting as well. Um, We right now we don't do as much of the like coaching on changing your behavior, although that is a big shift that we see most successful families do. Um, and I think the, the weekly meeting is really interesting. I have done that with my partner. On occasion, but we struggled to do it on the weekend because we were like, we really just want to be relaxed for the weekend. Um, but then sometimes the week feels super busy to get it in. So, um, but a lot of families that I know, and also a lot of families who are able to successfully outsource do this kind of planning between themselves. So they know what their priorities are and they can identify things that are not as good of a use of their time.

Shelley: 28:09

Yeah, I just, one thing that's coming up, when we did have one of those weekly meetings, when we moved, um, back to Langford, uh, the school that my daughter goes to, they don't allow Pokémon in the school, like, there's just no, nothing against Pokémon, they just don't allow toys. Got it. And my daughter, they used to, they used to trade Pokémon cards at her old school, so she was like, really sad that she didn't get a chance to like, use this big collection of cards. So we were like, okay, let's launch a Pokemon club. But that came up in one of those family meetings. It's like, is there anything that's, anything that's come up for you that you just want to like share with us and like a really kind kind of invitation to share? So those kinds of things come to the surface then it's like, it's giving the space, giving the invitation to share, um, can be really revealing.

Ashley: 28:55

Yeah. Super interesting. And how do you involve the kids in the meeting usually?

Shelley: 28:59

Um, yeah, so we, so we all sit in a four and we use something as a talking stick. So, and this came from the eco village, so we would take turns and we would say, maybe we'd start by saying something we're grateful for to kind of just get the flow of conversation moving around. And then we'll say, is there anything coming up for you? Anything that, that happened that was great this week or anything that wasn't so great or anything that you just want to share. And then we'll just take turns talking and just see what kind of naturally comes. I love it. That's really great. Is there anything that you haven't shared today that you think I can't leave this conversation before sharing this with whoever might choose to listen to this conversation?

Ashley: 29:44

I think that what we've been talking about is just like the value of, of time and, and energy. And I think that, um, what I've seen from a lot of the most successful families I've worked with are that they. give themselves permission to value their own time, um, and, and yeah, pay for time back if that's what is needed, um, or figure out a system between themselves where they get some time back, um, for personal time and for family time, um, and I think just, It's okay to value your own time and to, um, and to use that to do whatever connection you need. So, um, if anybody is looking for a little bit of permission, please take permission from me. Um, and even if it's just to experiment with that and see how, um, how it works for you and how you might want to evolve it over time, I think that, um, it's. It's so valuable.

Shelley: 30:47

Well said, well said. And I guess on this, in the same breath, like what I'm doing is helping people to reconnect with friends, with Connections that maybe were a big part of their past and with technology, what it is today, there's really no reason why they can't be a part of our current present, if indeed there is that alignment, maybe you're at the same stage, maybe you're both having children at the same time and you haven't been connected for a while. So I'm helping people to find ways to reconnect and really rekindle some of those really nourishing. Um, relationships in their lives, but time again is a big reason why that comes up again and again, why we're not doing this, especially if we're, you know, high achieving business people. And we've invested so much in the business and financial wealth. Unfortunately, that, that comes as sometimes neglecting our social wealth and our social well being. So having some of that time back to reinvest into the relationships that matter can really serve our present and our future selves.

Ashley: 31:55

I love Ashley, it's so important.

Shelley: 31:56

It's all linked in. Well, it was so beautiful getting to know you a bit more, Ashley, and I wish you every success. I'm excited for this. I'm excited to share this with so many busy moms and dads that I know that could benefit from having this kind of service. So yeah, really excited to see what, to see where your journey, where your journey goes. Congratulations.

Ashley: 32:18

so much, Shelly. And I really appreciate you having me, um, I think these conversations are so valuable. So recommend listening to all the rest of them too.