121: Starting A Business After Divorce with Brenda Rigney

• Transcript

  (Unedited Transcript)

  00:00:00] Hello friends and welcome back to the podcast. I am thrilled today to have a guest on to talk about her divorce experience, but really to dive into what it's like to leave corporate and start your own business. And I have had so many conversations with [00:01:00] clients that are going through their divorce process, thinking about how their current career really doesn't fit what their new life is going to look like.

  [00:01:09] Meg Gluckman: And they're thinking about starting their own business. And so I wanted to bring our guests on today to give us some ideas about how we can do that and how to really truly create a aligned business for our future. So today's guest is Brenda Rigney. Welcome, Brenda. Thanks for coming on. Thanks, Meg. Thanks for having me.

  [00:01:30] Meg Gluckman: And thanks everyone for listening. Brenda is a dream biz coach for midlife women entrepreneurs or emerging entrepreneurs. Those of you who are out there just thinking about it, thinking about leaving a corporate job and wanting to start your own business. She went from being the COO of an 80 million business to starting a company of one all in the same year that she got divorced and moved homes while raising [00:02:00] teenagers. That is a boatload. Yeah.

  [00:02:02] Brenda Rigney: And a golden retriever, I should say, too.

  [00:02:04] Meg Gluckman: And a golden retriever, too.

  [00:02:07] Meg Gluckman: So tell us a little bit about that

  [00:02:09] Brenda Rigney: story. Well, I have been in corporate leadership management positions since really right out of university.

  [00:02:16] Brenda Rigney: I started working with the Gap when I was 21, and they had a management in training program, and I thought, great, I'll do this while I'm paying off my student loans and thinking about going to law school. And I just fell in love with it. My family's background has always been in entrepreneurship, starting up their own businesses.

  [00:02:34] Brenda Rigney: And so being in conversation with my grandparents at the dinner table or hearing my parents, you know, like dealing with their businesses, it was just a natural fit for me and the Gap at the time. I mean, whatever our feelings are of the Gap now, but back then it was, you know, like red hot chili peppers doing the ads.

  [00:02:51] Brenda Rigney: Like it was the hottest thing. Everyone was wearing gap khakis and it was a great arena to learn about management and business and [00:03:00] leadership. And so I just immersed myself into that culture and that organization for the first 15 years of my career. We talked about this the other days for like my, drive for running businesses, et cetera, it was a perfect arena for me just to like, Like I said, immersed myself in it.

  [00:03:15] Brenda Rigney: But I think one of the things that I also cultivated with myself is just this constant drive to be doing things all the time. And so all of my jobs were about travel and opening up new markets like, Oh, we need you to go open up a location in Whistler or Montreal. Yeah. Do it new brand coming to Canada.

  [00:03:31] Brenda Rigney: Do you want to do it? Yep. Sure. Sign me up. And so I always was in that sort of startup mode and high growth company mode. And then after gap, I went on to other, you know, retail hospitality, but always like, , putting myself out there and kind of personal life second. And when it got to the point where, you know, somewhere in there, it got married, had kids, had dogs.

  [00:03:54] Brenda Rigney: You know, renovated houses, all those type of things. It just got to a point where the marriage was done. [00:04:00] There wasn't really any bad thing that happened. There wasn't any infidelity. There wasn't any abuse. I was like, you know, knocking on wood, like lucky that way. And my partner at the time was also lucky that way.

  [00:04:12] Brenda Rigney: But I think we just realized it came to an end. The big thing for me was, okay, what does this look like for me afterwards? Like I could get my head around the divorce, which sounds weird, I guess I'm a bit of an operations logistic person at the core. So for me, I'm like, okay, how am I going to like travel three weeks out Of the month with my job and raised two girls.

  [00:04:35] Brenda Rigney: That stumped me. I was like, I don't know if I can do this. And at the time my mom was living in Canada, she was only a few blocks away, but she was actually getting remarried and moving to Europe. My dad was in the picture, but he wasn't necessarily like the, the doting grandpa that took everybody everywhere.

  [00:04:51] Brenda Rigney: He's a great dad, but a great grandpa, but I couldn't count on him to be that surrogate parent for me. And I'm just like, Oh my gosh, how am I going to do this?

  [00:04:59] Brenda Rigney: I was [00:05:00] married in my, like, we were both like, you know, and he traveled a lot, his job. And so, you know, we always sort of coordinate, Oh, you're going away this week. Okay, great. I'll go. And sometimes it'd be like, literally like, okay, I'm taking a flight out Tuesday morning. You're coming back at noon.

  [00:05:15] Brenda Rigney: So you'll pick the kids up. Okay, great.

  [00:05:17] Meg Gluckman: And the kids were how old at this point? Like seven and nine.

  [00:05:21] Brenda Rigney: There's a lot going on. Yeah. . Like we had camps and sleepovers and, you know, all that stuff and, and all the sports and drama.

  [00:05:30] Meg Gluckman: So when you recognize that, okay, I can't envision how to keep flying, be away from home three weeks a month anymore. Was your first intuition, okay, I need to start my own company or was it, I need to find a different job that's going to be more stay at home?

  [00:05:48] Brenda Rigney: Yeah. So for me, it wasn't a different job.

  [00:05:51] Brenda Rigney: I was a senior executive and in the field that I was in, I knew that that would be a requirement. And if it wasn't a requirement to travel all the time, it was still a [00:06:00] requirement to work 50 to 70 hours a week sometimes. You know, and it was like, I was always in that high, those high growth organizations.

  [00:06:07] Brenda Rigney: So we were always doing big projects and that's what people hired me for. And I couldn't see myself doing anything different because then it wouldn't be me. I think the other thing too, is I worked myself up to this executive position. I couldn't like to take a step back. There was a huge, you can call it ego, but at the time it was like, I can't take a step back.

  [00:06:27] Meg Gluckman: Yeah. Interesting.

  [00:06:29] Brenda Rigney: The other thing that was also a reality for me, as like most women, let's go back to when I was on maternity leave, I just spent the last 10 years rebuilding my career because I had two kids back to back over a two and a half year span with mat leaves.

  [00:06:43] Brenda Rigney: And in Canada at the time, it's now 12 months, which is really great. But you know, when I was taking my leave, it was eight months. And dads weren't really taking parental leave in Canada. Now dads can get eight months, but. parental leave. So that wasn't really an option for my kid's dad at the [00:07:00] time.

  [00:07:00] Brenda Rigney: So that meant like I was out of my career for two and a half years. So for me, I was like, I can't take a step back. I just spent the last 10 years working my butt off, replacing those like three years, of lost income, , and rebuilding because, well, we talked about this the other day, like when I went on maternity leave and then started coming back, I like, I was interviewing with recruiters when I left.

  [00:07:21] Brenda Rigney: To go on my first maternity leave. I was a director, you know, making six figures. And when I was coming back, like they were saying to me, recruiters were saying, well, you probably can come back as a coordinator. And I'm like, what?

  [00:07:35] Brenda Rigney: Like that's not even a step back. That's like entry level. Like what? You're going to put me in at a 45, 000 job and not knocking that, but like, that's a serious pushback after only being out of the job market for two and a half years to have children. It's not like. Yes, my half my brain did leave me.

  [00:07:52] Brenda Rigney: We know that's true. And I did go through postpartum depression, but it's like I still can do what I do. So I think for me, it was like, [00:08:00] no, I'm not going to take a step back, but, and I'd always thought about the idea of opening up my business, but it was kind of like, oh, I'll wait until I'm like, 60, 65, you know, I'll be the consultant kind of like the, you know, like, you know, get a, work with a consultant agency to not even really my own business, but, you know, kind of be a contractor and work under someone else's banner.

  [00:08:20] Brenda Rigney: I thought about doing something like that. And I even had like some agency friends. It's always like when I was in those executive positions, you should come work for us, you should come work for us. But I, still didn't know what that looked like and I couldn't, it wasn't like I got divorced, quit my job and then started my business on Monday.

  [00:08:37] Brenda Rigney: I ended up taking a gap year, like a full year off, which, you know, is a bit of a luxury and a bit of a privilege. And I know that not everyone can do that. I dipped into my savings. You know, my retirement savings to do that and got some support from my parents, but it was one of the best decisions I made.

  [00:08:54] Brenda Rigney: And I'd never taken a gap year, right? Like I just literally went from high school and university to job, two [00:09:00] weeks vacation, things like that. Right? Like, so the whole year off, people were like, Oh, you're going to be back in like three months, four months. I'm like, what? It was hard sometimes, like around six, eight months, I was like, I really should go look for a job.

  [00:09:12] Brenda Rigney: And people would be calling me, recruiting me, like, to come work as a VP again. And I was like, no, sorry, I just, I need to take the full year and really think this through.

  [00:09:21] Meg Gluckman: Mm hmm. So the full year came when the divorce was happening to, to kind of like recover from the divorce.

  [00:09:29] Brenda Rigney: Yeah. So that was the other thing.

  [00:09:31] Brenda Rigney: So we were going through the divorce. Like we sort of decided in February, told the kids in May, and then it was, and we ended up deciding to stay together until the house sold. We owned our house because we didn't want to move out and have the expense and all that sort of stuff. And we didn't have the luxury of having a basement where one of us could like, you know, shift off in the basement and stuff like that.

  [00:09:53] Brenda Rigney: Like I hear some people do. So we were like, you know, he moved into the guest room. We're still on the same bedroom floor and we like live [00:10:00] together for another 10 months. But one of the things that was happening is, is that it was just like, it was dragging, , like the separation was official, but finalizing the divorce, getting what, and you know what, you're going to get the platter and I'm going to get the TV.

  [00:10:14] Brenda Rigney: All that stuff was just dragging. And his lawyer. was really like, like at one point we were ready to sign and then he threw in like this 23 pages of new clauses. And I was like, what? What? Like, we have to get on with our life here. And, and the kids need to get settled and they have questions.

  [00:10:34] Brenda Rigney: And this is like, A waste of time. And so I, you know, I think that was the thing for me is that I, again, operations, logistic hat, I wanted this done and I wanted us moving, starting to move on and getting into that next phase of co parenting because I could feel all the systems breaking down. We talked the other day, like the scheduling system breaking down and I'm like, okay, we're still living in the same house.

  [00:10:58] Brenda Rigney: Kids are still right there. Dog is still right there. [00:11:00] We still have to figure out who's taking who to the vet and dentist and all this sort of stuff, right? And it just seemed like there was this resonation to do anything. And I'm like, no, no, no. So I figured, we need to get this divorce done, house sold, us separating, , into our new homes, enter into our new life, and then get into defining this co parenting.

  [00:11:20] Brenda Rigney: Because I think we were just in this, like, purgatory, we're not married, and we're not co parenting, and we're not divorcing, co parenting, and it's just, like,

  [00:11:28] Meg Gluckman: this limbo land.

  [00:11:29] Meg Gluckman: I think that's such a great word. I don't think we talk about that time enough that purgatory.

  [00:11:35] Meg Gluckman: I think that's a great. It's a great word limbo land purgatory. Yeah, you can call it limbo land. Yeah, everything isn't done. There's a lot of things that are still undecided and you're waiting on timelines that might be out of your control like selling a property, or waiting for things to work through court.

  [00:11:55] Meg Gluckman: It's a hard time. Yeah. And I think that so many folks, [00:12:00] especially now with housing prices, just being so much higher, they are not quick to just, okay, let's go get to places as we wait for, you know, everything to settle. there's a lot of financial chips that have to fall into the right place to, to be able to go from supporting just one household to supporting two households.

  [00:12:19] Meg Gluckman: And. And just a lot of grace and compassion for everyone who is in that period of time where the limbo land, where everything is, is just kind of extra hard and not clear. It isn't the final way that things are going to be. And you're just kind of treading water a little bit.

  [00:12:40] Brenda Rigney: The reality too is, I mean, there's all the logistic stuff, but you're still dealing with the emotional piece.

  [00:12:44] Brenda Rigney: So it's like, when does the healing start? Because okay, you've agreed to get divorced and now we're living together because it just makes sense financially to do that until everything gets squared away. But there needs to be like this healing process and grieving [00:13:00] process and you know, all those things, right?

  [00:13:01] Brenda Rigney: And you can't kind of do it when you're like, you're still there.

  [00:13:06] Brenda Rigney: We're still like now, you know, six years later, like we're good co parents. And there are times where it's like when we're doing the kid swap and stuff like that. We still have to do that with one. Or, you know, meeting up for a birthday or things like that.

  [00:13:19] Brenda Rigney: That, you know, we're right in there still talking about the music that we like, those type of things and I never wanted to be like my parents, cause my parents also got divorced when I was two. And I think that like, that's just a sort of side note for everyone that's listening.

  [00:13:33] Brenda Rigney: I'm a child of divorce. My ex isn't, his parents stayed together, but we're not. Yeah. Yeah. And that's great. But, you know, I think from an example standpoint, not to speak for him, he never really sort of saw what that loving sort of definition of a marriage looks like. And then I never saw it because my parents got divorced when I was two.

  [00:13:58] Meg Gluckman: And

  [00:13:59] Brenda Rigney: it was [00:14:00] very contentious, right? Lots of, you know, arguments in the halls about alimony and this checks and stuff and keep going. Okay. Am I going with you? Am I staying? You know, like confusion. And I, I made a commitment to myself. I expressed this to my ex when we were going through divorce that I never wanted it to be like my parents divorce.

  [00:14:18] Brenda Rigney: And I will do whatever it takes and at times I probably acquiesce like quitting my job to manage the divorce process to get on top of things because I didn't want my kids to experience what I

  [00:14:30] Meg Gluckman: was going through.

  [00:14:30] Brenda Rigney: Like what I had gone through and you know, I'd gone to therapy and I'd talked to my dad for like 12 years, you know, so there's all those things that I just didn't want my kids to have to go through.

  [00:14:42] Brenda Rigney: And even to this day, I'm still. That person where it's like, you know, my kids might be frustrated with me or they might be frustrated with her dad. And I'm always like, your dad's still a great, whereas my parents never really advocated for one another. They just be like, Oh yeah, you know, that used to bother my, bother me about your mom or that used to bother me about my [00:15:00] dad.

  [00:15:00] Brenda Rigney: I always saw like my parents as being not great, but I've always tried with my kids since the divorce to just still make sure their dad is seen as a great dad. And I hope it wears off. I'm still a

  [00:15:15] Meg Gluckman: great mom. Yeah. That's just so critical and so huge. I often talk about shifting from a spouse mind to a co parent mind.

  [00:15:24] Meg Gluckman: And when you're talking like that to your kids, you are fully in that co parent mind. You're fully in that space what's best for the kids. The best thing for the kids is for them to have a strong, loving, healthy, supportive relationship with both parents. And if I can support that, then I am supporting my kids.

  [00:15:45] Meg Gluckman: So that gap year

  [00:15:46] Brenda Rigney: helped me build that foundation. Because, you know, there's the time leading up to the divorce, which was like years where we were just unhappy and all those type of things. And we didn't argue a lot in front of the kids. The kids were always like, the girls say that to me [00:16:00] now, like, yeah, you guys didn't fight a lot.

  [00:16:01] Brenda Rigney: Like it would have happened when we were asleep or whatever, but we just, we tried not to. And then, we're living together for 10 months going through this whole crunch of like the divorce. And then I had like, I really needed that 10, those 12 months of that gap year to just Cleanse myself, heal myself.

  [00:16:17] Brenda Rigney: How do I want to be a co parent? How do I want to show up? How do I want to be an adult now? We didn't get married when we're like super young. I got married when I was like 27, 28, but still, you're still kind of just figuring out your career and who you are and your values and living on your own and balancing your checkbook and nobody uses checkbooks anymore.

  [00:16:35] Brenda Rigney: But back then we still did. I needed to reassess, , what are my values? What's my, like, where do I see myself 10 years now? Like, you know, like in 10 years, my kids will have graduated from high school. They'll be well into college university.

  [00:16:46] Brenda Rigney: Where will I be? What will I be doing? Who will I be spending time with? Will there be somebody else in my life? And I needed that time to kind of go through all of it. There was a fabulous book that I read too at the very start of it, a friend of mine had recommended it. It was Lynn [00:17:00] Twist.

  [00:17:00] Brenda Rigney: The Soul of Money. Thank you. The Soul of Money. Oh my gosh. That was like the most cathartic read. I was like literally sitting on a lawn chair in my backyard. I read it like in like two days on a weekend and I just bawled my eyes out the whole time. Yeah.

  [00:17:14] Meg Gluckman: I think that that's just like a whole nother little tangent, which is divorce often is a point where our relationship with money shifts.

  [00:17:23] Meg Gluckman: Because we are really questioning a lot of our different values and things that we just took for granted as being important, we are now really looking straight on at and saying, is this how I want to spend my time? Is this how I want to spend my money? Yeah.

  [00:17:42] Brenda Rigney: Just on that note, I mean, that was one of the things that I learned because when we were married, there was always this bickering about money, how much money we have, who spends too much money on what.

  [00:17:55] Brenda Rigney: I love to spend money on vacations. I still do. I love to go away. That's like where I [00:18:00] love to spend my time and money, seeing new places and imbedding myself in new cultures. He likes to spend his money on Costco socks. I'm not trying to be critical one day you might listen, but whatever, just two different value systems.

  [00:18:13] Brenda Rigney: Right. And so when we got divorced and now I mentioned that I was like living off my savings in the first gap year. But then when I started my business, all that sort of stuff, I actually had way more access to money. This whole like, we don't have enough, we never have enough, we're just getting by, we're just living paycheck to paycheck, even though we had our own house, we both had cars, we both earned six figure salaries, this like, constant need to feel like we don't have money.

  [00:18:38] Brenda Rigney: But then when I was on my own, it was like, And looking at my investment portfolio all the time, like looking at the money coming in and out. And that's one of the things that Lynn Twist talked a lot about in her book, is the flow of money coming in and out and understanding it and where it is. Once I started adopting some of those practices, I was like, I actually have access to Enough money that I need for myself.

  [00:18:59] Brenda Rigney: It was [00:19:00] really weird for me. And it's still that way now. Yes, there's manifestations and affirmations about abundance and all those things that I love to bring in. But it was like, I actually have enough to do what I need to do. And so this whole, like I need to earn more, I need to get more promotions.

  [00:19:15] Brenda Rigney: I need to work more so that my boss sees more things and get bonuses, all that sort of stuff. That was really helpful for me in that gap year. Cause like I just, I basically set a goal for myself. I'm going to pull 60, 000 out of my retirement savings and live off of 60, 000. I had money that I needed for it to pay mortgage and all that sort of stuff.

  [00:19:33] Brenda Rigney: Like, okay, I'm going to live off of 60, 000. And I came under, I lived off of like 52, 000 for the year. And it's like, I can do this. I can do this on my own. And maybe I don't have to like also go and work in a corporate job anymore. Work for somebody else. Maybe I can start my business. Maybe I don't need to be working 70 hours a week to earn six figures.

  [00:19:57] Brenda Rigney: Maybe I could be working 25 hours a week to earn six

  [00:19:59] Meg Gluckman: [00:20:00] figures.

  [00:20:00] Meg Gluckman: So that was the point where you really seriously started considering just doing your own business. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember when you decided, okay, like I'm really going to do it. I'm going to, I'm going to dive into this.

  [00:20:13] Brenda Rigney: Yeah.

  [00:20:13] Brenda Rigney: Like I said, in my gap year, I really. Force myself not to like go for interviews. Recruiters were calling me. I was just like, thank you so much. I will call you in, you know, February the next year when my gap year expires. And everyone's just like, you're weird. I was like, whatever.

  [00:20:27] Brenda Rigney: Well, I mean, like there were some people like, Oh, you know, you gotta be careful. Like, you know, if you don't get employed, like you're not gonna have enough for retirement and done it at all. I'm like, okay, I got it. I got it. It's like one year out of a hundred, like my plan is to live to a hundred.

  [00:20:39] Brenda Rigney: So I'm like one year out of a hundred where I'm not hustling it. I think I'll be okay. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, but a girlfriend of mine who was a consultant, she said to me, listen, I know you're digging this gap year, but I have a friend who needs some extra help. You could go on as a fractional. You know, operations executive on our team.

  [00:20:58] Brenda Rigney: She really needs to do this [00:21:00] turnaround project. We don't have a capacity. Would you be interested? I think you'd be perfect for it. And it was like a little bit of a space in my gap year. Kids were kind of back at school. I knew I was going to be around in the fall and I was like, okay, I'll talk to them.

  [00:21:11] Brenda Rigney: So I did like kind of a three, four week project where I just went in and it would get, it wasn't like 40 hours a week. It was like maybe 10, 15 hours a week. But I billed out to be equivalent to like what I would be making as a COO because I was giving them that type of service. And it was awesome. I loved it.

  [00:21:28] Brenda Rigney: And I love the fact that I could go home and, and they're just like, do you want to come to our Monday meeting? And I'm like, if I don't have to, I don't want to like, can you just summarize what happened? And you know, as it was so great not to have to be on and that, that was enough. And then I, you know, and then I didn't do anything else still for like another three months.

  [00:21:47] Brenda Rigney: I honored myself and I went back to my gap year.

  [00:21:50] Brenda Rigney: Then, yeah, in March I started consulting.

  [00:21:52] Meg Gluckman: What I love about that is because often I will talk to folks who are thinking about leaving a career and they're [00:22:00] mixing things up and maybe they want a career in something totally different.

  [00:22:04] Meg Gluckman: And what I hear from your example is , I'm just gonna test this. Right. I'm just going to try this out. . I'm going to do a little experiment and see what I like about it, what I don't like about it, what I do differently. It's such a good practice because we can do thought experiments in our head over and over and over again.

  [00:22:22] Meg Gluckman: But until we actually get out there and just put our hands in it and try something for a little bit. We don't know if it's going to be what we like. Yeah, and I

  [00:22:32] Brenda Rigney: did that for the first two years of my business. My business was basically consulting, fractional consulting. I was like COO for hire and and I would go into like small, medium businesses.

  [00:22:43] Brenda Rigney: This was all referrals. So it was great for me because it was just like, okay, but it also wasn't full time work. It'd be like, okay, I'm working with you for three, four months. Maybe I'm not working again for another month or six weeks. So it was still good because I was still navigating this whole like co parenting.

  [00:22:59] Brenda Rigney: Are you taking the kids? [00:23:00] Am I taking the kids? All that sort of stuff, getting unpacked, getting settled in our home, like our new routines. Being accessible for the kids because yeah, now they were getting into teenagehood and, you know, crushes and heartache and bullying and, all that stuff.

  [00:23:20] Brenda Rigney: . And just wanting to be accessible for it and still not thinking because people are like, Oh, you'll, you'll go back. You'll go back. You'll like, you'll go back full time. And people were still offering me positions, which again, I'm very fortunate for. But I was just like, I, there's like no way, I don't think I could have done it.

  [00:23:34] Brenda Rigney: And then the other thing that happened too, within like all of this is Boom. Perimenopause. I can't work past two o'clock. I can't be functioning before 10 a. m. Like it was, you know, people are like, oh, you're just like living the life here.

  [00:23:49] Brenda Rigney: And I'm like, no, no, no. Like I literally could not show up for an eight o'clock meeting. And I was insomnia where I couldn't, you know, be. In bed by 8 o'clock, and then up at 1 o'clock [00:24:00] in the morning wide awake.

  [00:24:02] Brenda Rigney: Yeah. So, you know, the fact that I was doing fractional work for a couple of years and doing this consulting was amazing because it was, I meant I could be in and out setting my hours with my clients. If it meant I had to pull a full day fine, but then I didn't have to work for another 2 or 3 days. And it was, it was perfect that way.

  [00:24:18] Brenda Rigney: And it also, it was good because I didn't, I didn't have to I didn't do the website. People would even ask me, do you have business cards? I'm like, no, I have nothing. And so I didn't put any expenses or overhead into my business. I was taking money out of the business and paying off my divorce.

  [00:24:35] Brenda Rigney: Putting money back into my retirement saving, like getting whole again in those areas working on my health, my wellness, because again, those years leading up to the divorce, I was kind of like sometimes living off of Doritos and red wine and not working and I was traveling a lot. So now it's like working out more and I had a personal trainer.

  [00:24:51] Brenda Rigney: And so it was like, this rehabilitation . And I made a commitment to myself, this is how I've lived my life for the last 50 years. What are the next 50 years going to look like? [00:25:00] There's some things I want to repeat from the last 50 years.

  [00:25:02] Brenda Rigney: Like what were the good things that I want to repeat and put into that next 50 year basket. And then that's the other stuff. No more. I got rid of like the obligations. I got really clear because people used to, you know, I lived with like guilt, shame, whatever of like, well, this is how we've always done it in our family.

  [00:25:17] Brenda Rigney: Or this is always done it with our friend group. And I'm like, bye bye no more, no more. It's like that whole Marie Kondo thing. Like if it doesn't give you joy, move on. matter what it is in your life. Yeah. I did a big cleansing. I worked on meditation. I took an EFT tapping certification. I got really into somatic practices and really started connecting more with my thoughts and my body and how my body operates and making decisions from those two places versus what someone else told me I should do.

  [00:25:47] Meg Gluckman: I'm feeling

  [00:25:48] Brenda Rigney: guilty that I was, you know, should or shouldn't do that. Now it's like, I got really clear on what my yes was and then COVID started. . So, you know, then my business went down, but [00:26:00] then it also picked out one of my clients was a healthcare client. They were frontline to COVID response in Western Canada, and they needed help.

  [00:26:09] Brenda Rigney: And my job, my, my business had plummeted. So I went back in and did more fractional, , I actually like went in and started doing like a Monday through Friday job. And I did that for about eight, 10 months. During the, like the hot spot of COVID but it was great for me cause it just kept the lights on and kept things going.

  [00:26:28] Brenda Rigney: And then I went back into my business full time again.

  [00:26:30] Meg Gluckman: What was that like for you to have the business kind of tank and then come back out, you like a little rollercoaster action, how, how was it riding that for you?

  [00:26:41] Brenda Rigney: I had basically just made a commitment, like, like I said earlier, like I'd set a vision for myself, a 10 year plan.

  [00:26:48] Brenda Rigney: Where are you going to be in 10 years? And so I'd already defined it and it wasn't about it's going to be a straight line. It was just like. Okay. So I, I [00:27:00] lost as part of my business, like, this is where I'm gonna be in 10 years. So just keep focused on the horizon.

  [00:27:06] Brenda Rigney: And I, I guess at the end of the day I also kind of knew like, hey, you know, like I could also be a barista at Starbucks.

  [00:27:11] Brenda Rigney: Mm-Hmm. and nothing. Not at the baristas at Starbucks. It's not an ego thing for me, but it was just more like, like, Hey, if I need to go get a job at Starbucks, but hard to do in during the pandemic, but like, I will figure out how to make money.

  [00:27:24] Brenda Rigney: I think that was the thing I can from the Lynn twist book is that you can figure out how to make money. It's going to be different and it's going to feel weird and you may have to do some of that thought work and that somatic work and you're going to have to look at your money beliefs. But I was in that work.

  [00:27:39] Brenda Rigney: So when it hit, I was like, Okay. You know, at the time I did the fractional ops job with healthcare provider. I started a podcast. I was still coaching some people on the side. There were all these people losing their jobs. And I was like, okay, I'm going to start a podcast all about how to identify what makes you unique and how to showcase your unique and talk about your [00:28:00] personal brand.

  [00:28:00] Brenda Rigney: And then I start, people were like, can you coach me on that? And I'm like, sure. So then I started creating like a four session coaching program. And I just started doing that on the side.

  [00:28:08] Brenda Rigney: And then when I decided to walk away from the fractional job and I was like, I'm going to be a business coach.

  [00:28:13] Brenda Rigney: I went into that space.

  [00:28:15] Meg Gluckman: I think that for so many of us that decide to start our own businesses doing that money mindset work Because cash flow is not uniform in businesses.

  [00:28:27] Meg Gluckman: I mean it just isn't and if you aren't Okay with that. If the numbers really throw you off a lot, it's going to be super hard. It's going to be super hard. So I feel like that is part of the initiation of owning a business , is really having to get comfortable with numbers moving around and I like to say I'm giving my brain the the plan and we put it on a shelf But like Starbucks was the plan.

  [00:28:57] Meg Gluckman: I always talk about Trader Joe's. I'm like Trader [00:29:00] Joe's is the backup plan Like I'll just go work at Trader Joe's But it's like as long as I know like that's there It could happen. It wouldn't be the end of the world. Right. And, and I'm just going to keep plugging away at my business until I need to take that plan off the shelf might never need to take it off the shelf, but it's there, but I'm, I'm at peace with how the money is going to go up and down as I build this business.

  [00:29:26] Brenda Rigney: Yeah. So two things that you're just saying, like getting clear around your money beliefs and your money blocks you may have some inherited viewpoints and that's fine. Acknowledge it. You know, thank that person. You don't have to go up to them, you can just like write a note, toss it in the fireplace, whatever.

  [00:29:45] Brenda Rigney: But, now is an opportunity to define it for yourself. And you may have to reeducate yourself because that was the one thing too, like when I sort of talk about after my divorce, I realized I had access to money up until that point. Part of [00:30:00] my ex's value system was money comes, I can't speak on behalf of him, but it always like in our marriage, let's just say our marriage value system around money was that money was scarce.

  [00:30:09] Meg Gluckman: It's

  [00:30:09] Brenda Rigney: hard to come by. We're just holding on. Which was not true, we lived in a good area, we sold our house, we got over asking, there was a bit of a bidding war, like, we were good sure we had some debt from a renovation and stuff like that, but, I mean, like, we were fine, and we were able bodied, and, you know, we have to sort of look at our privilege that way, and so, I, No, that I was okay, but I didn't when I was in the marriage.

  [00:30:34] Brenda Rigney: And so I had to rebuild that value system for myself. And one of the ways that I also did it is I started relooking at like educating myself around money. So I took an investment planning course. I went to a Tony Robbins.

  [00:30:46] Brenda Rigney: I think it was like 250 bucks for four people. It was like a Like a four ticket purchase. We had to bring friends. There's like four of us that went, and there was a guy that was speaking. Phil Town is his name, and he's an investor.

  [00:30:59] Brenda Rigney: [00:31:00] I, immediately loved everything that he was saying. So I signed up for his program, which was all around investment planning. And like up until then, like, I was like, literally I was doing the good girl thing.

  [00:31:09] Brenda Rigney: I was taking 10 percent off my check every, you know, every paycheck with my companies and putting into my RSP or your 401k plan in the U S, but I wasn't really looking at it. And it was all in these like, you know, safe bet mutual funds, just doing its thing, not really earning anything. And then I went to his like four day workshop and I was like, Holy crap.

  [00:31:27] Brenda Rigney: I have like so much, but like, so then I started working on my investment portfolio and I was literally earning about like 7 percent return by the time I applied everything that he told me about in those four days.

  [00:31:41] Brenda Rigney: I got in 18 months, my investment portfolio up to 24 percent return. So again, it was like, I can make money. I'm not even working right now. I'm on my gap year and I'm like, Not like traditionally working. And all I knew up until that point was like slogging away at [00:32:00] the job, working 70 hours a week for somebody else, puffing myself all across like on planes and going to, you know, everywhere doing things for an employer.

  [00:32:08] Brenda Rigney: And I was like, Oh my gosh, there's another way that I can be making money. This whole divorce thing for me, I know sometimes it can feel like it's the end of the world and like it's done, but it opened up a ton of possibilities for myself. And not to say that if I was still in the marriage, would those possibilities be gone.

  [00:32:28] Brenda Rigney: I don't know if I would have gone to the Tony Robbins thing. I don't know if I would have met the Phil Towne thing. I don't know if I would have done the next thing. I don't know if I would have even read the Lynn Twist book. And so there's a whole bunch of possibilities that can open up.

  [00:32:40] Meg Gluckman: And I just like got shivers because I just was thinking about how you're going to pass all of this onto your girls too.

  [00:32:47] Meg Gluckman: Already have. You know, and it's just like their life is going to be changed. Yeah.

  [00:32:52] Brenda Rigney: Because

  [00:32:53] Meg Gluckman: of it.

  [00:32:53] Brenda Rigney: Yeah. I already got the portfolios going, got, you know, my daughter had her first job working at a bakery. I'm like, okay, [00:33:00] 30, 30, 30, 30, you can spend 30 goes into this type of account. 30 goes into your long term investment portfolio that you don't touch ever because basically it is truly your retirement fund.

  [00:33:12] Meg Gluckman: Yeah. I want to make sure we have some time here to talk about how you help other women start their businesses and really create. Businesses that are true to who they are and are sustainable for themselves. Tell us a little bit about how, how you work with folks.

  [00:33:30] Brenda Rigney: Yeah. So and thanks for that that prompt because it does sound like we could probably have another like series of podcasts.

  [00:33:36] Brenda Rigney: Yeah, so for me, my business is all around so I work with midlife women entrepreneurs or, and you said it earlier, emerging entrepreneurs. So those women that are still in their corporate jobs that are like, should I leave? Should I not leave? I'm really not happy. Should I try and go for that promotion?

  [00:33:50] Brenda Rigney: I've been waiting five years for it. I'm like, it's not coming. Or when you get it or whatever, you're still not going to, you know, and it's the pay equity gap, all those things. [00:34:00] So there, and there are stats are showing like a lot of midlife women are very, you know, unhappy about being in their corporate jobs.

  [00:34:06] Brenda Rigney: They're thinking about something next and it's not necessarily tied to the divorce prompt, but as we've talked about, it could be paired up with that. So those are the women that I work with, but I work with them specifically. Like there's business coaches out there. There's health coaches, et cetera. I'm still the business coach.

  [00:34:22] Brenda Rigney: I will help you start up your business. You don't need to build the website. You don't need to get the business cards. Let's just talk about getting a viable offer going. Who's your niche and how you can start talking about it. And once you start seeing money coming in and you can start managing your cashflow, yes, okay, now we can start looking at where you want to make investments in your business, but you can easily get, I love to say, you know, and, and this might be hard for some people to get their head around again, based off of like, well, maybe they're only making 65, 000 right now, but I know that you can get up to a hundred thousand without really any technology.

  [00:34:55] Brenda Rigney: Like maybe just like email, a Calendly link and maybe an Instagram page. [00:35:00] You can easily get up to a hundred K and I know that there's lots of people out there that are talking about how to get to seven figures. When you get up to seven figures, you got to start hiring a team of people. That was the one thing that I also carved out with my business. I've been leading and managing people for 37 years. I don't want to do that anymore. I don't want a team of like 20 people working for me.

  [00:35:18] Brenda Rigney: And like I've had coaches say to me, Oh, well then, you know, like, you know, Brenda, you're on the cusp of like getting to like, you know, 700, 000, a million, like you're gonna have to hire some people. I'm like, I don't want that. I'm actually really happy with my business being 250, 000. It's enough for me to live off of, enough for me to take really great trips with my kids, enough for me to like invest in good advertising promotions for my business and then to put money into my retirement investment portfolio, which is another way to make money.

  [00:35:43] Brenda Rigney: So I sit down and I work with my clients around. It's not just like I have to go from corporate job to starting a business. It's like, like, where do you want to be in 10 years? And there's a lot of different ways that we can get there to get to that 10. It could be looking at your investment portfolio.

  [00:35:59] Brenda Rigney: It could be [00:36:00] maybe you need to go on a board, you know, as a board director, you could be making 50 to 80, 000 if you were a VP in a company and women are hot commodities on boards right now. So, you know, if you're a CIO too, if you're a woman CIO, that's a hot job on a board, let's get you in a board position.

  [00:36:17] Brenda Rigney: You know, and then it's like, Oh, but I want to still have my business. Great. Well, you probably only have like, you know, a board director position, five, 700 hours a year. You still got time to run your business and still take vacation with your kids. That's cool. Yeah. Lots of different ways to look at it.

  [00:36:31] Brenda Rigney: Lots of different ways to look at it. And, and so that's how I work with the women in my in my business. I have a community, a membership that people can join in for 5 a month. Cause I don't want there to be a barrier for women talking about getting into entrepreneurship or just talking about business, you know, forums out there, 5, 000 a year memberships for, you know, two 50 a month, all those things.

  [00:36:53] Brenda Rigney: I love it. I know the people that are facilitating it, they're doing great things, but I'm also, I made a commitment that I want more [00:37:00] women in business, more women in leadership, more women on boards.

  [00:37:05] Brenda Rigney: I don't want anyone to feel like there's a barrier to starting their business.

  [00:37:08] Meg Gluckman: I love that so much. And I think we need spaces where we can really talk about it and ask questions. I mean, there's no reason that we should know because we haven't tried this stuff before, but I think when everybody in our friend group or our family are all nine to five kind of folks and nobody else has you know, gone off on their own.

  [00:37:29] Meg Gluckman: I think it's really critical to have a community that we can be in. And we learn so much by watching how other people, build their business, what they try, what works for them, what doesn't work for them. Like, it's so helpful to watch others too.

  [00:37:43] Brenda Rigney: And again, these are midlife women. So there are their parenting, they may have aging parents.

  [00:37:48] Brenda Rigney: I've had mentors come in. There's this woman I know, Krista, she has a coaching program called the Death Apprentice. It's all about how to navigate aging and death and [00:38:00] estates and wills and all this stuff with your parents. Cause they don't tell you anything. And then it's like, it's all on you to like deal with it.

  [00:38:06] Brenda Rigney: And it's mostly the daughter that's dealing with it. No offense to the sons out there. . Yeah. I used to work in senior home care, so I can say that that's a true stat. You know, so, and I've brought in like dating coaches. Cause my women are like, that come into my community, they're building their business and maybe they've gone through a divorce and now they want to get back into dating, but they're like, okay, how do I do that when I'm also building my business and

  [00:38:27] Meg Gluckman: let's talk about it.

  [00:38:28] Meg Gluckman: Yeah. Full life. . We bring our full selves to building businesses. Yeah. Exactly. Oh, so good. Okay. So tell us the name of the, the membership program, and then I'll put the links in the show notes for everybody.

  [00:38:39] Brenda Rigney: It's called the Aligned AF community. So it's all about like, just get it aligned. Right. And you were saying earlier for me, if one thing that I want the women in my community to get really good at, it's learning how to say no.

  [00:38:51] Brenda Rigney: And that your yes becomes meaningful because what you're saying yes to is completely aligned to your vision, your values, and your goals.

  [00:38:59] Meg Gluckman: No

  [00:38:59] Brenda Rigney: regrets, [00:39:00] no obligations.

  [00:39:01] Brenda Rigney: It's like, set some boundaries. Let's figure out how to set boundaries. Let's keep contracts in place.

  [00:39:05] Meg Gluckman: Yeah. All those things. so much, Brenda, for coming on and sharing so much of your story. And I think it's just so helpful. To hear folks that have gone through a divorce and come out the other side and , what helped support them through it.

  [00:39:21] Meg Gluckman: And the personal development, that's a piece of it. I think for everybody, everybody that navigates a divorce, that's, that's a piece of it. We, we change and we grow as we go through it.

  [00:39:32] Brenda Rigney: That is the investment. I think that's like, you know, what I would say. It's like my biggest investment over the last six years was at a new couch maybe, but you know, it was really myself.

  [00:39:43] Meg Gluckman: Yeah. Investing in ourselves. I love that. I will put all of Brenda's contact info in the show notes. Thank you again, Brenda. Really appreciate you. Thanks, Meg. Take care. All right. Thanks all. Thanks for listening. We will see you next time.

This week's guest Brenda Rigney shares her story of leaving a corporate career, starting a new business, and navigating divorce, all while raising two kids.

We chat about…

• Why she decided to leave her executive corporate position.

• Going from COO to gap year to consulting to starting her own business.

• Why Brenda always wanted her kids to think their dad was awesome.

• Building a new relationship with money, assessing financial priorities, and managing money during and after divorce.

• The importance of taking time & space for healing (especially through perimenopause).

Helpful resources shared by Brenda:

Soul of Money by Lynne Twist

Invested by Danielle Town & Phil Town

Learn more about Brenda’s 1-1 coaching and Aligned AF Business Coaching membership program here.