Having business AND a life

April 5, 2021

Today, we have a very special guest—she is the principal of the Port Macquarie Performing Arts Studio, director of Morgan Media, a podcast host, a speaker, and a business coach.

Meet Stacey Morgan, who is doing so much more than teaching dance. Stacy is mentoring young people for life and using her model of education to scale success. She's a role model for young people and for parents who want to run a business and have quality time with your family.

For Stacey, she found her 'thing' very early in life - loving dance and having the joy of learning and growing and competing together with a tight knit group of friends. She danced professionally for a few years and then later took a pathway into education and landed a dream job with the Royal New Zealand Ballet company. Moving back to Port Macquarie she started a dance school in her garage - which after Day 1 needed to move to a bigger premises! She has gone from success to success - but on the way had to learn a lot (often the hard way) about how to maintain a healthy lifestyle balance - which is where her business direction is moving now.

She's got a lot to share with other parents in business who want to get that balance right!

If you're in a position where you're wanting to get a lifestyle balance, I highly encourage you to take the Lifestyle Design Quiz which gives you a free personalised report analyzing your strength profile and your focus for growth. It will also give you some coaching questions to get you really clear on your next smart steps.

Let's get into the podcast...

Here's the highlights:

[03:55] My mentor's influence gave me the confidence to really step out. I took brave steps in my career. The more important lessons were the life lessons: confidence and self-worth, making a dream, and making it happen.

[06:39] Dance changed so much of my sense of self. But dancing professionally made me feel fear. It was another thing to dance for your employment. Your body was your instrument; there were consistent judgment and critique.

[09:10] Dance is not just about the dancers. It's challenging in this day to live up to the ethos that every child is an individual. As teachers, it is important for us to see their individual strengths and weaknesses and nurture those.

[10:03] Parents these days have higher expectations on getting involved in what happens in the classrooms. It's a delicate balance of looking out for the students first and foremost and of making parents understand what's happening in the classroom, especially from the business point of view.

[18:50] There was a time when I was burning the candle at both ends, trying to be everything for everyone. But it was all me. My expectations of myself. But as I had my other kids, my attitude towards babies and business.

[20:58] What I've learned from doing it wrong for so long: We can do it all but we cannot do it all at the same time. You need to compartmentalize the things you want to do in life. Create strong boundaries and work hard to keep those.

[21:22] How to Run a Successful Business and Still Have a Life: a community to share wins and challenges and taking away that 'mom guilt' for pursuing a business or something that you like.

[23:46] It's about giving yourself some grace and understanding that it's okay for you to have time to focus on something while you're not doing the other.

[26:44] Podcasting: It involves many different steps. The strategy to get your podcast out there is just as important to get it recorded.

[28:37] Success is like me riding the bike. If I have time to ride the bike, that feels like success to me. If I got my to-do list under control, if I am able to do time management and be able to do what I want, that for me is success. Success as an educator to me is creating connections to make sure the kids are interested in learning and improvement.