💻 Career Compass #2
Diving into the paths of other modern millennial women.
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In case you missed the inaugural issue last month, Career Compass is a new addition to
for 2024: a monthly series exploring other women’s musings, meanderings and methods for navigating life, with a focus on their career paths. Through short interviews with twenty- or thirty-something women, we’ll explore linear and non-linear career paths, how they approach work to make it work for them, and the blurred lines between hobbies and hustles.💻🧭
Our guest for March is Malin Linnéa Innbjoer Rich, Founder of Spruce and Patch, an online quilting store, as well as Business Generation Manager at a management consulting firm, and Trainee Personal Performance Coach. Yes, that’s right, there’s nothing this woman cannot do. To add to all that, she’s in the first year of motherhood, having welcomed a bundle of joy into the world last summer, so has plenty to keep her busy.
But Malin’s ethos is more aligned with the notion of slow living than life in the fast lane. Whether that comes from her Norwegian roots, the influence of Surrey’s green landscapes where she is now based, or the reality of being a new mum, here she shares warm-hearted insights on how we all might think about having a healthier mindset to the pressure of always being “on”.
Malin and I met as next-door neighbours and coursemates at uni, studying Politics and International Relations. Although we came from different countries, with different mother tongues, after a few coffee dates we felt like kindred spirits. Fast forward ten years, and I was maid of honour at her beautiful wedding to another important person she met while studying. The paths life take us down are endlessly fascinating to me.
Anyway, on with the show!
Thank you Malin for being a guest on The Navigation! Could we start off with you sharing some musings on creating your own business, while on maternity leave, and why now felt like the right time to do something like this?
Thanks for inviting me Lauren!
So, I’ve always had a lot of interest in the creative world and liked making things. At times I’ve almost been surprised that I actually ended up in a more corporate career. Then when I went on maternity leave last year, I saw it as an opportunity to make the most of having some time to do something different to my usual 9-5 job. That’s why I really got started and took the chance to set up an online store for quilting and quilt fabric. Although I knew I’d be busy with the little one, I hoped the break from work would give me some headspace to explore other things!
I like the ambition! And could you share a bit more insight into the meanderings that led you here?
With my corporate job, it tends to occupy a lot of my time. Not only within working hours, but also outside of those where in the evening I might still be thinking about a meeting, or using my mental energy to prepare for something the next day. Before going on maternity leave, I didn’t really have the energy to start something later in the evenings. Which I’ve sometimes felt guilty about - the hustle culture of today tells us there’s no excuse not to start something on the side, and if you really want to do something you should work in the night after your full time job in the day. It got to the point where I found this rhetoric really overwhelming; it never felt manageable for me. I wanted to go fully into something, not have it on top of something else. Some might question my logic, with having to get used to a new little human in my life, but I felt maternity leave could give me that chance!
In terms of the more practical meanderings for how I went about setting things up, I think it was about three months after having the baby, I started looking into the basics of what is needed to set up a business. How much you need to earn before you notify the tax office, how to go about purchasing fabrics from wholesalers, and other practicalities that go on behind the scenes.
It became a bit of a circle, where each step was interlinked with another, so it was then about trying to figure out where to start first. It actually became quite intense because I would jump on my laptop whenever the baby was asleep; I didn’t know if I’d have ten minutes or one hour, so I couldn’t procrastinate. It pushed me to get things done while I had the opportunity. I managed to set up the web page, order some fabrics, update the social media platform and put together a bit of a business plan within these pockets over time over the course of a few weeks, after having the idea in my head for quite a while.
When it launched, it felt like such an achievement!
I love that you’ve been able to find that sense of freedom through maternity leave, and work on this passion project in the pockets of time that the little one’s schedule has allowed.
In recent years you've also been studying to become a coach, so this isn't the first time you've explored something away from the day job, albeit something quite different.
If others are dreaming about doing something similar, but can't quite get started, do you have any tips or coaching style questions that might be helpful to think about, to spark motivation?
Yes, it was about two years ago now that I signed up for The Coaching Academy Personal Performance Coaching Certification Training, and it was a decision I made after speaking to a coach/therapist during a challenging time at work. I was in a real client-facing role, and having to attend loads of meetings all the time, and be really switched on. It felt pretty demanding, and perhaps not the best position for me.
I’d been thinking of trying coaching for a while because I’d always quite enjoyed goal-setting, journalling, project management, and a good vision board! There were a lot of overlaps with these and the role of coaching. So after speaking to the coach/therapist, we mapped out what I really wanted to do, and what I wanted to prioritise at that time. Once I decided to focus on coaching, and started looking into it, I found the cost to be quite prohibitive. But a short while later I got a bonus at work (which is a perk of the corporate world!) and instead of spending it on lots of small things, I decided to use it to make this investment in coaching.
Now, I’m not yet certified, because when the little one came along last year I had to put a pause on my studies, and I haven’t had time to complete all the practical assessments etc. But I feel okay about this - I’m not putting any pressure on myself to get it completed within a set time frame. At the end of the day, there are so many approaches and techniques I learnt through the lectures and guidance from the course that I found really helpful to use myself. I actually learnt so much about myself, and I still continue to use these techniques as a form of self-support even now.
Perhaps to be a really great coach I should be demonstrating more determination to get this completed ASAP, but it’s more important to me to have gone through that whole process and be using what I’m learning. The approaches and techniques I’ve learnt have been helpful both in my career, especially dealing with tough situations or challenging days, but also in my personal life. Becoming a better listener, and improving my communication skills, making people feel seen and heard. All of this is so interesting to me, and is now really key for how I interact with people.
For anyone interested, The Coaching Academy headquarters are in London, but it’s a global organisation, and the course consists of a number of online lectures and workshops, plus live online seminars. In addition to the modules, you need to complete practical assessments which are reviewed by the professional experts. So it is a lot of work, and you need to commit hours to it on a weekly basis. But at that time in my life when I started the course it was the perfect focus for me to have alongside my day job - a side project I could enjoy, and that felt right for me, rather than overwhelming. A welcome change to the corporate environment; it helped me get through the week feeling as though I had achieved something, and learnt something exciting, for myself.
This is also how I feel about The Navigation!
Yes! So I worked on this for around a year and a half, but then found out I was pregnant and in the first few months I felt very nauseous, so struggled to keep up with the same pace of studying. Conducting the practical assessments in particular was really challenging, and even more so since I’ve had the baby. I need to dedicate a full 30 minutes of concentration and commitment to clients, plus prep time, which isn’t practical at the moment, but hopefully in the coming months I can pick this up again.
Going back to the part of your question about sparking motivation, I guess the key question to ask yourself is whether the thing you want to do is actually something you want to do; or is it something you feel you should do, or something that others expect you to do. I tend to find that if it’s something that you truly want to do, the motivation should be easy to find, and if it’s not, maybe you need to interrogate why not?
And maybe sometimes it is something you really want, but the procrastination could be a sign of fear, or perfectionism, around that thing. If that’s the case, do your best to shed it by dipping your toes in the water, just trying something small, see how it goes!
📝 A few of my favourite coaching questions that could also be used as journalling prompts:
What is possible?
What if it works out exactly as you want it to?
What is the dream?
What is exciting to you about this?
What is the urge?
What does your intuition tell you?
Thanks Malin, it’s so interesting how you’ve approached your coaching journey so far, and can see the benefit in your daily life, separate to it being a potential career path for example - which at one point I remember was something we’d talked about you wanting to do.
I think the advice of digging into why there might be a lack of motivation, or a reluctance to get started with something is really key too. When I first started The Navigation I felt quite wary of telling people, of sharing it, and really that was all linked to sense of fear - of it ‘failing’ or people judging my thoughts, or the quality of my writing. And I still get that feeling now, sometimes. But I guess it’s remembering that the enjoyment I get from this, and the enjoyment readers hopefully get from it, should outweigh that negativity.
As a new mother, I'm wondering how having a little bundle of joy in your life has changed your approach to thinking about work, and exploring these new opportunities?
The process of becoming a mother changes you in loads of ways, both in terms of missing your old self, how you used to feel, how you used to be able to move your body, which for many can feel harder after childbirth.
But I think the reason why I went ahead and opened an online store for quilting and fabrics wasn’t necessarily because it was the perfect time - arguably it’s the opposite, just having had a newborn! But for me it’s been such a big shock to the system becoming a new mom, that it was really important to me to grasp onto something that was for me, and felt like something the old me would do.
Getting on the laptop for ten minutes here and there to research how to set up a web page, or learn about email marketing, became such a welcome break for my brain, and offered some variety to thinking (well, worrying!) about how long my baby’s nap was, has he fed enough, and how long should his wake window be. You become a real nerd for baby knowledge, and there’s so much to learn you can constantly be reading up and learning about this new life. But doing something different is a nice way to hold onto to the parts of me that are “just me” and not “mom me”.
It’s also taught me a lot about procrastination. I never enjoyed deadlines - not because I was always late with them, but finishing work with a deadline hanging over me never felt comfortable. That said, the idea of wanting to start something, but that something not being concrete, can sometimes be difficult without a deadline. It was important for me to just try. As I mentioned earlier, I never know if I have ten minutes or half an hour so I might as well just try and get something done when I can!
Also, going back to an earlier point, maternity leave for me has felt like a really nice break from corporate life. Whether I’m in the office or working from home, my job has always taken most of my daily brain power - I want to do well in my job, give it my all, but that doesn’t leave much brain space for other projects or even hobbies. Switching off has usually been about relaxing, but one of the key things I’m learning now is that I was previously thinking that the side hustle had to be something that was a big deal, with a lot of pressure on it. It had to be the new thing that would become my livelihood etc.
Now I’m realising that I can just do what I want for as long as I want, without the pressure of it needing to be the next big thing. Too much pressure removed the element of fun from a side project, even with coaching at times, and I don’t want to lose that fun this time. If I realise it’s not for me, there’s no harm in letting it go. At the end of the day you’ll always learn something, and that’s the important thing. Keep learning, and exploring. So often we get too strict with ourselves, which defeats the point of why we started exploring something in the first place, and it becomes something you then don’t even want to do any more.
Another surprising feature of motherhood is how my baby is a reminder to not be so serious all the time. If I’m stressed, or running late, he picks up on my vibe and himself can get a bit fussy. But if I just stop for a few moments to smile at him, he’ll then just totally forget that he’s upset, he’ll start laughing, and he never stays angry, serious or upset - like we often do as adults. He can be crying one moment, and happy the next - he’ll never hold a grudge all day for me putting him down on the play mat for a moment while I make a tea, even if he’d have rather have stayed in my arms. As adults, we too often dwell when someone makes an off comment or does something to annoy us. It’s a sentiment I want to carry with me; don’t let one small thing ruin the day, week, or month.
And with the mindset of just having a go at something when I can, now I’m thinking about all the other things I could try out, which is such a freeing, exciting thought. For example when I was planning my wedding back in 2022, I loved it! Now I’m thinking maybe I could be a wedding planner one day. And maybe I will try that, and maybe I won’t, let’s see how much time I have! But the feeling I have that I am free to do it if I want to - that is a wonderful sensation. I think if we all had this feeling we might be much happier.
Ultimately, since having my baby I’m trying to take off the pressure of having to succeed with whatever project I’m working on, whether it’s a coaching certificate, an online quilting and fabric store, or something completely different. I just want to allow myself to learn and try new things. For so long, having the pressure of doing things perfectly has stopped me trying many things. Becoming a mom has given me a new perspective; I no longer have to strive for perfection. I’m trying to embrace a much more relaxed approach and moving away from the hustle mentality that I thought was a ‘must’ in order to succeed in my 20’s.
It has felt quite freeing to take away the pressure of ‘making it’ or building something that ‘takes off’. It doesn’t mean that you stop trying new things, but it doesn’t have to be so serious - I think there is a lot of pressure on people in their 20’s and 30’s today to ‘do it all’, and succeed as quickly as possible - ideally by creating our own business, passive income stream or at least something different than a corporate job. But having a 9-5 job can also be really good, and I have started to see people on social media creating content that shows not everyone needs or wants to travel the world while building a dropshipping business or being an influencer.
So for now I’m really enjoying my maternity leave knowing I have my job waiting for me. And when I have some ‘me time’ I can continue to learn about the quilting and fabric community, further growing the online store, or something completely different I stumble across!
Malin, you are so wise! This has been a joy, hearing all your insights and especially how your approach to hobbies and hustling has changed since the little one came along. I’m so excited to see what comes next for you, to watch the growth of Spruce and Patch, how you progress with the coaching certificate, and see you how navigate the return to work later this year.
Before I let you go, do you have any Cultural Compass style recommendations to share with readers?
Yes! I have a few podcasts relating to what we’ve talked about, which is probably the easiest format of content for me to engage in at the moment.
🎧For coaching: The Wholehearted Business Show
🎧For quilting: Quilt Buzz
🎧For life!: Dr Gabor Maté on Feel Better, Live More, with Dr Rangan Chatterjee
🎧For pregnancy: Meditation Mama
Amazing, thank you! Enjoy the rest of your maternity leave, and I hope you find lots of pockets of time for leisurely quilting! 🧵
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A little bonus…
Are you a new mum looking to treat yourself to a new read, or perhaps thinking about some Mother’s Day gift ideas? Well the lovely team at Bookshop.org are offering the chance to win a £250 gift card with the purchase of ANY book TODAY!
Check out The Navigation Bookshop here for recommendations from this newsletter (and if you do buy any new titles via this link, as an affiliate I may get a small commission).
Inspiring!!
Congrats!!!!