Laila Sultan is a certified life coach, NLP practitioner, wellness coach, and Dare to Lead™ facilitator. She’s also a mother of two and ran a successful staff recruitment agency serving Australia’s education and not-for-profit sectors.
With 10+ years in the corporate staffing world and an MBA in Entrepreneurship & Innovation, Laila has sat in boardrooms, led recruitment strategy, and lived the demands of career and caregiving. GO MAMA is her most personal work yet—a culmination of her lived experience, professional expertise, and deep passion for reshaping how mothers thrive in leadership.
Laila Sultan:
Foreign there’s more opportunity to model finance and money management and the relationship that you have with money in a blended family than you would in a traditional family.
Laura Jenkins:
In the blend is a podcast series that helps parents and step parents navigate life in a blended family. Join me as I speak with experts and guests to get practical advice on how to create a more harmonious blended family life. Having grown up in a blended family and now a decade into raising one of my own, I bring a personal perspective to these conversations, and we dive deep into the unique dynamics, logistics and challenges of raising a blended family, from new partners to juggling mixed finances, we will help guide you through it today, on in the blend I’m joined by someone who knows first hand the juggling act of motherhood, leadership and life in a blended family, and who’s on A mission to help mums do it all without burning out. Laila Sultan is a certified life coach, NLP practitioner and wellness coach. She’s also a mother of two, an MBA graduate and a former recruitment agency owner who spent over a decade helping women step into careers and salaries that match their worth. Growing up in a blended family herself, Laila brings a deep understanding of the unique challenges that come with them. Through her work with go mama, she’s helping mothers and stepmothers gain the clarity, confidence and financial freedom they need to thrive, both at home and in their careers. In our chat, we’re talking about the power of financial independence, the importance of blending money conversations and the small but mighty steps every Mum can take to build stability for the future. Let’s dive in. Welcome, Laila, it is wonderful to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for joining me.
Laila Sultan:
Thank you for having me happy to be here now.
Laura Jenkins:
Laila, you have shared that growing up in a blended family has really shaped the way that you today, co parent and lay those foundations for your own family. Can you tell us a little bit more about those early lessons and how they influence your approach today
Laila Sultan:
Absolutely. So I think there’s, there’s probably three things to cover here. One, I think the most important is that growing up in a blended family with a step father and a stepmother really taught me that love is a behavior and it’s not biology. I had a really wonderful introduction to a blended family with my mother remarrying first, and they really set the context up well for me when I was seven years old, when they remarried my stepfather asked me because my grandfather had passed away, but he asked me for my mother’s head in marriage, which was so sweet.
Laura Jenkins:
How gorgeous.
Laila Sultan:
And you know, after they walked down, my mother walked down the aisle at the wedding. I was a flower girl, and I walked down the aisle, and we exchanged vows as step father and stepdaughter, and he gave me a necklace that I still wear today. It was just really such an inclusive you know? It was really folded in so beautifully into our new family dynamic, which was wonderful. So he felt like, my father, right, like, and they did a really good job in setting the scene for that. And I think on the other side of things, my father’s side, very religious and Islamic, and it was, it’s not seen to be appropriate to have a divorce and a child from a previous marriage, so I wasn’t invited to that wedding, and I met my stepmother post wedding at the honeymoon. I came in at the honeymoon, like at the later stages, so that clearly, obviously didn’t set myself up well, and I two very distinctly different paths that I can see now as a mother myself and a divorced mother myself, as to how that affected me as a child. So really setting up the context and from the get go is really important. And too, I have a very diverse family background, so my dad’s side, as I said, Ismaili, which is a small sector of Islam, and my mother side is Christian, and my grandmother and her side is Buddhist. So have lots of different religions in my families as well, and we’re all spread across the world. So I grew up with my mother in California, and. And she’s half Korean, half Scottish. And my father was a, you know, was a really successful businessman, jet setting all over the world. Mainly stayed in Papua, New Guinea for the last 30 years for his business. And Pakistani men. So, culturally diverse, religiously diverse. And I think in the way that I benefited a lot from having such different perspectives. So I feel like I’m having worldly view on things that I don’t think most children are able to get, because you generally have the family nucleus, and you have, you know, your one fit set of family values, where I had so many, I think where I would do things differently with my children if we were to remarry, is if one set of parents had a religion, I would be open to them Talking about the religion absolutely and just be encouraging curiosity for my children, not pushing any of my, I guess, religious beliefs on them, but practicing out on spiritual I’m not, I don’t follow any specific religion, but I would, you know, I would live out our family values. But when it came to religion, or if I met a friend who was really religious and really interested about it, I would just encourage curiosity about it. That’s the second thing. The third thing is geographically, that was really isolating for me, to have two parents in different countries, and I was normally old as well. So for us moving forward, it was always really important for me to have my partner, I to be living close by and for ease and convenience, and also, it’s really important for me for them to have just as much time with their father as they did with me, because I see us as equal parents. I didn’t get because I was raised in California with my mother, and I could only spend school holidays with my dad, and that really impeded on my relationship that I was able to build with with my father, and I think especially for girls as well, that relationship with their father and the influence it has on how they choose their partners, I Think we said about, you know, really building that bond early on. So whilst my children are only two and four, I know it’s very odd to be to give 50% custody to their father, but I’m really strong on having equal parenting and shared parenting rights with my children.
Laura Jenkins:
Really fascinating. Laila and I think it’s interesting that those those experiences you’ve had yourself now shaping the way that you go about your life and the decisions that you make. And really fascinating hearing you describe the two different experiences that you had being a step child with both both parents remarrying. So I’m sure that there’d be lots of people listening who would identify with that. And the 5050, thing, I think, is, is a really interesting point two, and that geographical boundary can make things quite difficult. We’ve talked about this a little bit before on the podcast, where you might have one parent who lives in the UK or elsewhere, and it really can be be difficult if you’re not able to do that, that back and forth as easily. So So I hear what you’re saying. There definitely so very interesting background that you’ve shared. You’ve shared that you’re also divorced and you’ve got two children, aged two and four. So I can imagine that you’ve got your hands pretty full there. On top of that, I know you’ve also got a pretty busy work life as well. So you’ve got over a decade working in recruitment. You got an MBA in entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, rather and innovation. So and now you’re running this beautiful business called Go mama. How do you think your professional experience has shaped the work that you’re doing now?
Laila Sultan:
I think there’s so many different things that are involved that have led me to this path. I can’t say there’s just one thing specifically, it’s both professionally and life experience. So in the decade of recruitment that I had, I really noticed a shift in motherhood, and there’s a real cultural shift over the last two years and and what I’m calling the era that we are mothering in today. I’m calling that modern motherhood. So I’m a millennial Gen Y ish mother, and my mother and the mothers before my generation, they uh. Um, were not parenting in the same era and that they didn’t have internet. They were taking there were so many more stay at home moms. They were re entering the workforce after maternity leave or carers leave in more part time roles, lower level. Now we women have come a really long way with more executive representation of females in the workforce. We’re so much more career oriented. We have way higher salaries than we used to. They’re comparable to our male counterparts. Or we’re, you know, the bread winners now the family too. So so there’s been this really major shift of women in the workforce, but we’re still having children, and we’re still seen as the primary carer, and we’re still running the household, and it’s becoming this really unsustainable thing, because on top of it, we have the internet as well. So it’s like we have so much access to information that actually builds too much pressure. And so now you see mothers, who are, you know, just over analyzing everything, because everything we do is going to screw up our child. We know too much now, right? So high whilst we’re carrying these massive jobs, and we’re also having children a lot later. So between ages 40 and 45 that age group has quadrupled in childbearing in the last 10 years, and a lot of it is due to the fact that we have so many different fertility options now, and there’s companies that in the US that are actually subsidizing freezing your eggs so you can continue working and on your career trajectory before making the commitment to have children. But so what we’re seeing now in the workforce is women in really high pressure roles, basically taking on them what traditionally is the male role in a household while still having that primary care role and that household manager role. And I really want to make a difference here between primary care and household manager, because I feel like that often gets looped up into the raising the kids, but there’s two separate full time jobs, running a house and raising our two full time jobs, and I want to make that clear.
Laura Jenkins:
I hear you there. Hear you there, Laila.
Laila Sultan:
Yes, and it’s coming from someone who’s very who’s never been a domesticated person. I’m not good. I just hate applying myself to that task of running a house. It’s a really unsustainable shift that is happening, and you’re seeing a lot of women burn out. And there’s so many women who are in peak parenting and peak career and constantly getting into that perimenopause and that menopause stage of their life as well. And I think wellness was never a part of the language with our mothers, but it really is essential. And learning how to do things a lot smarter, and doing things without the mum guilt and without the societal pressure and without the cultural pressure that we’re that we’re bringing on to ourselves. Because, you know, our generation has only seen what our mothers and fathers how they did it. So that’s naturally how you model it. And so, you know, our mothers tend to over extend themselves and over function for everyone else. And you know, it’s really go Mom is really helping to break that cycle, and really helping to bring in a bit more organization and equality back into the household, to really suit where modern motherhood is going.
Laura Jenkins:
Wow, I love that Laila, and I think it’s a really good distinction you make there between the two roles, and you don’t really realize until you find yourself as both a mum and someone running a household with children in it, of what’s involved, the sorts of things you don’t fully grasp until you’re actually there and living it. And I think it’s a it’s just immensely helpful the work you’re doing there to sort of help women create systems and and and manage their world more seamlessly. Because it’s a lot.
Laila Sultan:
It is, it is, and partly, I think part of me is it’s really driven from just the knock back I got in motherhood, you know, I don’t know whether it’s because I grew up an only child and I didn’t have to compromise for anyone. I didn’t, you know, have the could, it just could be selfishly driven. But when I had kids, I was like, what? All the time. Like, I’m literally, just really knocked me for sick. And so I just thought, oh gosh, this is, well, this is not going to get easier, so I’m just gonna have to level up. Yeah, yeah. I think I just was not, I wasn’t prepared.
Laura Jenkins:
And then you can throw a few step kids into the mix too, and there’s a whole other dimension there as well. So I know, as well as helping women and managing all the things, you’re also very passionate about financial freedom for women and for mothers in particular, and stepmothers. So tell me why that is a passion of yours, and perhaps why it’s often one of the more overlooked topics.
Laila Sultan:
I think it’s a cultural thing too, or, sorry, it’s a generational thing. So because so many mothers take the economic risk of taking time out to look after kids or stepmother is coming into the picture, and if they’re inheriting it, they’re obviously inheriting a step child or children, and their mental load has just really doubled as well. And we are the ones that take the economic risk of pausing their career or taking a really long time out of the workforce to raise kids, which is such an honorable full time job. But we’re the least protected. So, you know, we have super gaps. We have patchy leave on our savings, you know, assets not in our names as well. That’s a really big one too. And, and then when you just get caught up in busy life, especially when you’re blending family, your schedules are just insane. And it’s that forever, you know, we’ll sort this out later. Promises of, you know how this is going to get distributed, or what we’re going to do about you going back to work. And, and it’s, and it’s really, it’s really not talked about enough the risk that mothers take whilst we’re whilst we’re doing the most important roles in society, which I think is very undervalued and we’re the least protected. So I think financial freedom really isn’t a luxury for mothers. I think it’s, it should be talked about as safety. It should be talked about as giving you options. And I think that it gives, I think that it gives mothers the ability to parent in the way that they are in accordance to their values and not in accordance to somebody else’s earnings.
Laura Jenkins:
That’s that’s so true. I think, knowing, thinking back when I came into the relationship with Matt over 1112, years ago, now, there’s, there’s a lot to absorb, from a financial perspective, when you’re starting a relationship with somebody who’s got children and and even if they don’t have children and you’re just starting a new relationship, there’s a lot of questions that really do need to be addressed, but are often hard to ask, especially in the early stages of a relationship. And yeah, I hear you, it’s so important just to get clarity on that and make sure it’s not something that’s pushed to the side, like you said, oh, we’ll work it out. We’ll work it out. And and then, yeah, it’s really easy to never really get very clear on that. So, super important fun conversation
Laila Sultan:
You know, it’s easy to put it on the back burner, because there’s never fun conversations to have there. It’s, you know, it’s like doing your will, but you have to, or you could just ride your CV or update your CV. It’s just so easy to put to the side.
Laura Jenkins:
That’s right. And so when you were working in recruitment, I imagine you would have seen women quite often who were seeking high those higher salaries. How does that inform your coaching work now?
Laila Sultan:
So there are two ways, essentially, that I have seen where women can earn more, two common ways. I should say there’s lots of different ways, but two common ways, and that is to just ask for raise, which men are way more likely to do still is ask for a raise than women, and these are on two different fronts, so asking for a raise from your current manager in a current role, or asking for or negotiating on salary when being offered or being considered for a different role with a different organization. So men are always been more willing to negotiate with salary than women when I whenever I offer a job. Also, another way to increase your pay is by changing jobs. So when you’re. Applying for another role. Hires and employers understand that in order for you to leave your current role, there’s got to be some incentive, and that’s generally it’s going to be an increase in pay, so you know, and that has to be comparable to the sort of role that you’ve been doing, obviously, and ensuring that you seek the role as well, that you’re going to be paid that based on your experience. So those are two really common ways to increase your earnings by way of your current professionalism or your current career.
Laura Jenkins:
Yes, yeah, that makes sense. And I know as I’ve gone through my corporate career, I’ve noticed that there can tend to be that two to three year period where people start to switch to the next thing, where they’re maybe hitting that ceiling in their organization and then looking to increase their salary via a move. So it happens. So coming back to the blended family piece, I know you’re not in a blended family now. Or although you grew up in a blended family with the step parents on either side. Did you? Did you hear your your step parents and your your parents talk about money? Or do you have clients who are coming to you with any of their their concerns from a blended family perspective.
Laila Sultan:
So I certainly heard my parents talk about money and two different completely different money mindsets. And this is where I go back to my family being so diverse, which was so great for me now that I get to have these different perspectives. So my mom’s side of the family, my mother grew up in really lower class family, very humble beginnings. My grandmother was an immigrant. Grew up in in a very dangerous part of LA and money was really scared. So there was this real fear around money whenever it was brought up. And then my dad’s side, who was a businessman who, you know, had a big risk appetite, he would just talk about it all the time. It was just part of the family conversation at dinner, you know. And so very different, very different money mindsets. And I think, you know, they never spoke about money to get, never heard anything, any of them speaking together about money. But I think from a blended point of view, I would argue that there’s more you can do, there’s more opportunity to model finance and money management and the relationship that you have with money in a blended family than you would in a traditional family. You just have more variables, right? So for instance, you can there’s if you have four different parents, you have four opportunities to negotiate a deal on let’s say so you’ve got, like, your little economy happening, and you’ve got more vendors, you’ve got more suppliers. So for me, I the way that I’m modeling Money and Finance and abundance with my children is that I’m not giving them money for chores. That’s just what you do in our family, that’s called teamwork. So you’re not going to get money for mowing your our lawn, but you can get money for mowing your neighbor’s lawn, where you can get money for hiring your sister to mow your money your neighbor’s lawn, and get a cut from that. So say your step brothers mom’s new boyfriend just bought a new I don’t know, hedger you can just go, go and negotiate, see if you can borrow that new hedger and use it to hedge your neighbors, you know, their gardens. And what I would say about that too, is, don’t make it easy for them. Say, Okay, oh, it’s all How much are you charging to hedge the gardens? All right, all charging two bucks to hire it out for you. You know, make it. Make them look they can learn the cost of the cost of equipment, the cost of goods sold. They can learn they have got more people to negotiate with and do deals with. Really about treating your family like a little economy and an ecosystem and doing what you need necessary for your team, your little company, or your little economy free of charge, because that’s your family, and that’s what you do. But from a business perspective, if you want to earn money because you want this one thing, or you want to be able to do that, then you’ve got lots of opportunity and lots of stakeholders to be able to do deals and negotiate with.
Laura Jenkins:
oh, that’s fabulous. I am going. To be thinking about the economy analogy. I really like that one. And I’m also going to take a leaf out of your book there, Laila on the on the chores. I think I’ve been. I’ll put my hand up and say I’ve been a corporate for for paying for the things that happen around the house. But I love that thinking.
Laila Sultan:
Yeah, I say that now, but when they’re old enough, and I’m just running out of pulling my hair out because I need my MO my lawns mowed.
Laura Jenkins:
Well, in the meantime, you’re, you’re raising these budding entrepreneurs anyway. So I love it. I love it. So what about your own non negotiables? Laila, when it comes to financial, financial boundaries or any other practices that you personally like to live by to protect your family stability.
Laila Sultan:
I think I’d say two things here. One is, I have all of my estate planning in order. So I’ve done my will. I’ve done my advanced healthcare directive. I have all of my assets in my name. If anyone you know, I will always have a prenup if I ever date again, or if I wrote, you know, Mary again. So that is a non negotiable. And secondly, I will always talk about money with my kids. It’s something that I think culturally in America is is more appropriate to talk about in society. And I think Australia is a lot less inclined to be open about speaking about money. It almost feels like it’s a dirty word here. So anyone who comes into the family from a blended perspective will need to be transparent and open about shared costs and and resources in that way, and I really want to model that to my children. I think it’s really important for them to have a sense of agency and personal accountability with money. So often I’ve seen women come in to interview they need a job because post separation, and they just weren’t aware of their finances. They didn’t know their numbers. You know, the partner did all of that, and they were looking after the kids and and it was really put them on the back foot. So really teaching my kids, you are you? This is your this is your responsibility. This is your duty. You need to be completely aware of your cost of living and what it takes to get what you want.
Laura Jenkins:
Fabulous advice there, Laila, and I think you’re a smart cookie as well for keeping your own financial house in order at this stage in your life too, and being really mindful of that no matter who comes along and you’re you’re absolutely capable of of living the life you want with or without anybody else. So very, very good stuff there.
Laila Sultan:
So I will do one more thing on that. I heard something really interesting from a famous divorce lawyers on a podcast, and he said that the younger generation are starting to get way more Prenuptial agreements. They’re called binding financial agreements now, and you can get a prenup at any stage of your relationship. It doesn’t have to be before marriage. It could be while you’re married too. It’s just a little bit harder to do so depending on your circumstances. But he said, Look, you have a prenup in place. Everyone has a prenup place. You either choose to write it or the government writes it for you, and I thought that that put it in it affected really, really well.
Laura Jenkins:
I’ve not heard that before or thought about it in that way, but it sure does well. Laila, we’re almost at time here, so I’ve got one more question I want to ask you before we finish up, and that is, if you could wave your magic wand and create one big change that would help mothers, especially those who are either co parenting or they’re in blended families, if to help them thrive in both their life and leadership, what would that be?
Laila Sultan:
I would say default paid parental leave with super for both parents and funded Return to Work pathways, including a transition month. And so what a transition month is, is um. Some really progressive, awesome companies out there who are paying women their full pay, whilst phasing them back into their desired hours, into into their job. So maybe starting at very minimal hours, like 10 hours a week, and then phasing it up to however many hours they want to return at, but giving them a good month to just readjust in that way, because it’s a lot and in there’s only about 60% of employers in Australia who provide additional paid parental leave on top of what the government pays, and the government pays has increased the paid parental leave this year. However, with the cost of living, it’s just it’s really not enough to be able to have sustainable amount of time with a new pub out of the workforce and be able to, you know, bring that mother back into the workforce confidently. So yes, I would say default paid parental leave for both parents and funded Return to Work pathways, every company.
Laura Jenkins:
Oh, here, here, I vote yes. Laila, give them more. Give them more time to wrap their head around the life admin piece as well, which comes with it. Well, it has been such a joy chatting with you today. Thank you so much for joining me. And if anyone would like to connect with Laila, we will be sure to pop a link to her socials and her website in the show notes. Thanks again, Laila.
Laila Sultan:
Thank you, Laura. Appreciate it.
Laura Jenkins:
I just love today’s chat with Laila, and I especially love her thinking around treating your family like a little economy and raising those budding entrepreneurs. I hope our chat has sparked something for you too, whether it’s about taking that first step towards financial security, modeling good financial independence for your kids, or simply rethinking what might be possible for your career. Thanks again for listening, and I’ll see you next time. Thanks for listening to the in the blend podcast. The show notes for this episode are available@intheblend.com.au and if you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe and please rate and review in your podcasting app. You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
Laila Sultan:
Foreign there’s more opportunity to model finance and money management and the relationship that you have with money in a blended family than you would in a traditional family.
Laura Jenkins:
In the blend is a podcast series that helps parents and step parents navigate life in a blended family. Join me as I speak with experts and guests to get practical advice on how to create a more harmonious blended family life. Having grown up in a blended family and now a decade into raising one of my own, I bring a personal perspective to these conversations, and we dive deep into the unique dynamics, logistics and challenges of raising a blended family, from new partners to juggling mixed finances, we will help guide you through it today, on in the blend I’m joined by someone who knows first hand the juggling act of motherhood, leadership and life in a blended family, and who’s on A mission to help mums do it all without burning out. Laila Sultan is a certified life coach, NLP practitioner and wellness coach. She’s also a mother of two, an MBA graduate and a former recruitment agency owner who spent over a decade helping women step into careers and salaries that match their worth. Growing up in a blended family herself, Laila brings a deep understanding of the unique challenges that come with them. Through her work with go mama, she’s helping mothers and stepmothers gain the clarity, confidence and financial freedom they need to thrive, both at home and in their careers. In our chat, we’re talking about the power of financial independence, the importance of blending money conversations and the small but mighty steps every Mum can take to build stability for the future. Let’s dive in. Welcome, Laila, it is wonderful to have you on the show today. Thank you so much for joining me.
Laila Sultan:
Thank you for having me happy to be here now.
Laura Jenkins:
Laila, you have shared that growing up in a blended family has really shaped the way that you today, co parent and lay those foundations for your own family. Can you tell us a little bit more about those early lessons and how they influence your approach today
Laila Sultan:
Absolutely. So I think there’s, there’s probably three things to cover here. One, I think the most important is that growing up in a blended family with a step father and a stepmother really taught me that love is a behavior and it’s not biology. I had a really wonderful introduction to a blended family with my mother remarrying first, and they really set the context up well for me when I was seven years old, when they remarried my stepfather asked me because my grandfather had passed away, but he asked me for my mother’s head in marriage, which was so sweet.
Laura Jenkins:
How gorgeous.
Laila Sultan:
And you know, after they walked down, my mother walked down the aisle at the wedding. I was a flower girl, and I walked down the aisle, and we exchanged vows as step father and stepdaughter, and he gave me a necklace that I still wear today. It was just really such an inclusive you know? It was really folded in so beautifully into our new family dynamic, which was wonderful. So he felt like, my father, right, like, and they did a really good job in setting the scene for that. And I think on the other side of things, my father’s side, very religious and Islamic, and it was, it’s not seen to be appropriate to have a divorce and a child from a previous marriage, so I wasn’t invited to that wedding, and I met my stepmother post wedding at the honeymoon. I came in at the honeymoon, like at the later stages, so that clearly, obviously didn’t set myself up well, and I two very distinctly different paths that I can see now as a mother myself and a divorced mother myself, as to how that affected me as a child. So really setting up the context and from the get go is really important. And too, I have a very diverse family background, so my dad’s side, as I said, Ismaili, which is a small sector of Islam, and my mother side is Christian, and my grandmother and her side is Buddhist. So have lots of different religions in my families as well, and we’re all spread across the world. So I grew up with my mother in California, and. And she’s half Korean, half Scottish. And my father was a, you know, was a really successful businessman, jet setting all over the world. Mainly stayed in Papua, New Guinea for the last 30 years for his business. And Pakistani men. So, culturally diverse, religiously diverse. And I think in the way that I benefited a lot from having such different perspectives. So I feel like I’m having worldly view on things that I don’t think most children are able to get, because you generally have the family nucleus, and you have, you know, your one fit set of family values, where I had so many, I think where I would do things differently with my children if we were to remarry, is if one set of parents had a religion, I would be open to them Talking about the religion absolutely and just be encouraging curiosity for my children, not pushing any of my, I guess, religious beliefs on them, but practicing out on spiritual I’m not, I don’t follow any specific religion, but I would, you know, I would live out our family values. But when it came to religion, or if I met a friend who was really religious and really interested about it, I would just encourage curiosity about it. That’s the second thing. The third thing is geographically, that was really isolating for me, to have two parents in different countries, and I was normally old as well. So for us moving forward, it was always really important for me to have my partner, I to be living close by and for ease and convenience, and also, it’s really important for me for them to have just as much time with their father as they did with me, because I see us as equal parents. I didn’t get because I was raised in California with my mother, and I could only spend school holidays with my dad, and that really impeded on my relationship that I was able to build with with my father, and I think especially for girls as well, that relationship with their father and the influence it has on how they choose their partners, I Think we said about, you know, really building that bond early on. So whilst my children are only two and four, I know it’s very odd to be to give 50% custody to their father, but I’m really strong on having equal parenting and shared parenting rights with my children.
Laura Jenkins:
Really fascinating. Laila and I think it’s interesting that those those experiences you’ve had yourself now shaping the way that you go about your life and the decisions that you make. And really fascinating hearing you describe the two different experiences that you had being a step child with both both parents remarrying. So I’m sure that there’d be lots of people listening who would identify with that. And the 5050, thing, I think, is, is a really interesting point two, and that geographical boundary can make things quite difficult. We’ve talked about this a little bit before on the podcast, where you might have one parent who lives in the UK or elsewhere, and it really can be be difficult if you’re not able to do that, that back and forth as easily. So So I hear what you’re saying. There definitely so very interesting background that you’ve shared. You’ve shared that you’re also divorced and you’ve got two children, aged two and four. So I can imagine that you’ve got your hands pretty full there. On top of that, I know you’ve also got a pretty busy work life as well. So you’ve got over a decade working in recruitment. You got an MBA in entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, rather and innovation. So and now you’re running this beautiful business called Go mama. How do you think your professional experience has shaped the work that you’re doing now?
Laila Sultan:
I think there’s so many different things that are involved that have led me to this path. I can’t say there’s just one thing specifically, it’s both professionally and life experience. So in the decade of recruitment that I had, I really noticed a shift in motherhood, and there’s a real cultural shift over the last two years and and what I’m calling the era that we are mothering in today. I’m calling that modern motherhood. So I’m a millennial Gen Y ish mother, and my mother and the mothers before my generation, they uh. Um, were not parenting in the same era and that they didn’t have internet. They were taking there were so many more stay at home moms. They were re entering the workforce after maternity leave or carers leave in more part time roles, lower level. Now we women have come a really long way with more executive representation of females in the workforce. We’re so much more career oriented. We have way higher salaries than we used to. They’re comparable to our male counterparts. Or we’re, you know, the bread winners now the family too. So so there’s been this really major shift of women in the workforce, but we’re still having children, and we’re still seen as the primary carer, and we’re still running the household, and it’s becoming this really unsustainable thing, because on top of it, we have the internet as well. So it’s like we have so much access to information that actually builds too much pressure. And so now you see mothers, who are, you know, just over analyzing everything, because everything we do is going to screw up our child. We know too much now, right? So high whilst we’re carrying these massive jobs, and we’re also having children a lot later. So between ages 40 and 45 that age group has quadrupled in childbearing in the last 10 years, and a lot of it is due to the fact that we have so many different fertility options now, and there’s companies that in the US that are actually subsidizing freezing your eggs so you can continue working and on your career trajectory before making the commitment to have children. But so what we’re seeing now in the workforce is women in really high pressure roles, basically taking on them what traditionally is the male role in a household while still having that primary care role and that household manager role. And I really want to make a difference here between primary care and household manager, because I feel like that often gets looped up into the raising the kids, but there’s two separate full time jobs, running a house and raising our two full time jobs, and I want to make that clear.
Laura Jenkins:
I hear you there. Hear you there, Laila.
Laila Sultan:
Yes, and it’s coming from someone who’s very who’s never been a domesticated person. I’m not good. I just hate applying myself to that task of running a house. It’s a really unsustainable shift that is happening, and you’re seeing a lot of women burn out. And there’s so many women who are in peak parenting and peak career and constantly getting into that perimenopause and that menopause stage of their life as well. And I think wellness was never a part of the language with our mothers, but it really is essential. And learning how to do things a lot smarter, and doing things without the mum guilt and without the societal pressure and without the cultural pressure that we’re that we’re bringing on to ourselves. Because, you know, our generation has only seen what our mothers and fathers how they did it. So that’s naturally how you model it. And so, you know, our mothers tend to over extend themselves and over function for everyone else. And you know, it’s really go Mom is really helping to break that cycle, and really helping to bring in a bit more organization and equality back into the household, to really suit where modern motherhood is going.
Laura Jenkins:
Wow, I love that Laila, and I think it’s a really good distinction you make there between the two roles, and you don’t really realize until you find yourself as both a mum and someone running a household with children in it, of what’s involved, the sorts of things you don’t fully grasp until you’re actually there and living it. And I think it’s a it’s just immensely helpful the work you’re doing there to sort of help women create systems and and and manage their world more seamlessly. Because it’s a lot.
Laila Sultan:
It is, it is, and partly, I think part of me is it’s really driven from just the knock back I got in motherhood, you know, I don’t know whether it’s because I grew up an only child and I didn’t have to compromise for anyone. I didn’t, you know, have the could, it just could be selfishly driven. But when I had kids, I was like, what? All the time. Like, I’m literally, just really knocked me for sick. And so I just thought, oh gosh, this is, well, this is not going to get easier, so I’m just gonna have to level up. Yeah, yeah. I think I just was not, I wasn’t prepared.
Laura Jenkins:
And then you can throw a few step kids into the mix too, and there’s a whole other dimension there as well. So I know, as well as helping women and managing all the things, you’re also very passionate about financial freedom for women and for mothers in particular, and stepmothers. So tell me why that is a passion of yours, and perhaps why it’s often one of the more overlooked topics.
Laila Sultan:
I think it’s a cultural thing too, or, sorry, it’s a generational thing. So because so many mothers take the economic risk of taking time out to look after kids or stepmother is coming into the picture, and if they’re inheriting it, they’re obviously inheriting a step child or children, and their mental load has just really doubled as well. And we are the ones that take the economic risk of pausing their career or taking a really long time out of the workforce to raise kids, which is such an honorable full time job. But we’re the least protected. So, you know, we have super gaps. We have patchy leave on our savings, you know, assets not in our names as well. That’s a really big one too. And, and then when you just get caught up in busy life, especially when you’re blending family, your schedules are just insane. And it’s that forever, you know, we’ll sort this out later. Promises of, you know how this is going to get distributed, or what we’re going to do about you going back to work. And, and it’s, and it’s really, it’s really not talked about enough the risk that mothers take whilst we’re whilst we’re doing the most important roles in society, which I think is very undervalued and we’re the least protected. So I think financial freedom really isn’t a luxury for mothers. I think it’s, it should be talked about as safety. It should be talked about as giving you options. And I think that it gives, I think that it gives mothers the ability to parent in the way that they are in accordance to their values and not in accordance to somebody else’s earnings.
Laura Jenkins:
That’s that’s so true. I think, knowing, thinking back when I came into the relationship with Matt over 1112, years ago, now, there’s, there’s a lot to absorb, from a financial perspective, when you’re starting a relationship with somebody who’s got children and and even if they don’t have children and you’re just starting a new relationship, there’s a lot of questions that really do need to be addressed, but are often hard to ask, especially in the early stages of a relationship. And yeah, I hear you, it’s so important just to get clarity on that and make sure it’s not something that’s pushed to the side, like you said, oh, we’ll work it out. We’ll work it out. And and then, yeah, it’s really easy to never really get very clear on that. So, super important fun conversation
Laila Sultan:
You know, it’s easy to put it on the back burner, because there’s never fun conversations to have there. It’s, you know, it’s like doing your will, but you have to, or you could just ride your CV or update your CV. It’s just so easy to put to the side.
Laura Jenkins:
That’s right. And so when you were working in recruitment, I imagine you would have seen women quite often who were seeking high those higher salaries. How does that inform your coaching work now?
Laila Sultan:
So there are two ways, essentially, that I have seen where women can earn more, two common ways. I should say there’s lots of different ways, but two common ways, and that is to just ask for raise, which men are way more likely to do still is ask for a raise than women, and these are on two different fronts, so asking for a raise from your current manager in a current role, or asking for or negotiating on salary when being offered or being considered for a different role with a different organization. So men are always been more willing to negotiate with salary than women when I whenever I offer a job. Also, another way to increase your pay is by changing jobs. So when you’re. Applying for another role. Hires and employers understand that in order for you to leave your current role, there’s got to be some incentive, and that’s generally it’s going to be an increase in pay, so you know, and that has to be comparable to the sort of role that you’ve been doing, obviously, and ensuring that you seek the role as well, that you’re going to be paid that based on your experience. So those are two really common ways to increase your earnings by way of your current professionalism or your current career.
Laura Jenkins:
Yes, yeah, that makes sense. And I know as I’ve gone through my corporate career, I’ve noticed that there can tend to be that two to three year period where people start to switch to the next thing, where they’re maybe hitting that ceiling in their organization and then looking to increase their salary via a move. So it happens. So coming back to the blended family piece, I know you’re not in a blended family now. Or although you grew up in a blended family with the step parents on either side. Did you? Did you hear your your step parents and your your parents talk about money? Or do you have clients who are coming to you with any of their their concerns from a blended family perspective.
Laila Sultan:
So I certainly heard my parents talk about money and two different completely different money mindsets. And this is where I go back to my family being so diverse, which was so great for me now that I get to have these different perspectives. So my mom’s side of the family, my mother grew up in really lower class family, very humble beginnings. My grandmother was an immigrant. Grew up in in a very dangerous part of LA and money was really scared. So there was this real fear around money whenever it was brought up. And then my dad’s side, who was a businessman who, you know, had a big risk appetite, he would just talk about it all the time. It was just part of the family conversation at dinner, you know. And so very different, very different money mindsets. And I think, you know, they never spoke about money to get, never heard anything, any of them speaking together about money. But I think from a blended point of view, I would argue that there’s more you can do, there’s more opportunity to model finance and money management and the relationship that you have with money in a blended family than you would in a traditional family. You just have more variables, right? So for instance, you can there’s if you have four different parents, you have four opportunities to negotiate a deal on let’s say so you’ve got, like, your little economy happening, and you’ve got more vendors, you’ve got more suppliers. So for me, I the way that I’m modeling Money and Finance and abundance with my children is that I’m not giving them money for chores. That’s just what you do in our family, that’s called teamwork. So you’re not going to get money for mowing your our lawn, but you can get money for mowing your neighbor’s lawn, where you can get money for hiring your sister to mow your money your neighbor’s lawn, and get a cut from that. So say your step brothers mom’s new boyfriend just bought a new I don’t know, hedger you can just go, go and negotiate, see if you can borrow that new hedger and use it to hedge your neighbors, you know, their gardens. And what I would say about that too, is, don’t make it easy for them. Say, Okay, oh, it’s all How much are you charging to hedge the gardens? All right, all charging two bucks to hire it out for you. You know, make it. Make them look they can learn the cost of the cost of equipment, the cost of goods sold. They can learn they have got more people to negotiate with and do deals with. Really about treating your family like a little economy and an ecosystem and doing what you need necessary for your team, your little company, or your little economy free of charge, because that’s your family, and that’s what you do. But from a business perspective, if you want to earn money because you want this one thing, or you want to be able to do that, then you’ve got lots of opportunity and lots of stakeholders to be able to do deals and negotiate with.
Laura Jenkins:
oh, that’s fabulous. I am going. To be thinking about the economy analogy. I really like that one. And I’m also going to take a leaf out of your book there, Laila on the on the chores. I think I’ve been. I’ll put my hand up and say I’ve been a corporate for for paying for the things that happen around the house. But I love that thinking.
Laila Sultan:
Yeah, I say that now, but when they’re old enough, and I’m just running out of pulling my hair out because I need my MO my lawns mowed.
Laura Jenkins:
Well, in the meantime, you’re, you’re raising these budding entrepreneurs anyway. So I love it. I love it. So what about your own non negotiables? Laila, when it comes to financial, financial boundaries or any other practices that you personally like to live by to protect your family stability.
Laila Sultan:
I think I’d say two things here. One is, I have all of my estate planning in order. So I’ve done my will. I’ve done my advanced healthcare directive. I have all of my assets in my name. If anyone you know, I will always have a prenup if I ever date again, or if I wrote, you know, Mary again. So that is a non negotiable. And secondly, I will always talk about money with my kids. It’s something that I think culturally in America is is more appropriate to talk about in society. And I think Australia is a lot less inclined to be open about speaking about money. It almost feels like it’s a dirty word here. So anyone who comes into the family from a blended perspective will need to be transparent and open about shared costs and and resources in that way, and I really want to model that to my children. I think it’s really important for them to have a sense of agency and personal accountability with money. So often I’ve seen women come in to interview they need a job because post separation, and they just weren’t aware of their finances. They didn’t know their numbers. You know, the partner did all of that, and they were looking after the kids and and it was really put them on the back foot. So really teaching my kids, you are you? This is your this is your responsibility. This is your duty. You need to be completely aware of your cost of living and what it takes to get what you want.
Laura Jenkins:
Fabulous advice there, Laila, and I think you’re a smart cookie as well for keeping your own financial house in order at this stage in your life too, and being really mindful of that no matter who comes along and you’re you’re absolutely capable of of living the life you want with or without anybody else. So very, very good stuff there.
Laila Sultan:
So I will do one more thing on that. I heard something really interesting from a famous divorce lawyers on a podcast, and he said that the younger generation are starting to get way more Prenuptial agreements. They’re called binding financial agreements now, and you can get a prenup at any stage of your relationship. It doesn’t have to be before marriage. It could be while you’re married too. It’s just a little bit harder to do so depending on your circumstances. But he said, Look, you have a prenup in place. Everyone has a prenup place. You either choose to write it or the government writes it for you, and I thought that that put it in it affected really, really well.
Laura Jenkins:
I’ve not heard that before or thought about it in that way, but it sure does well. Laila, we’re almost at time here, so I’ve got one more question I want to ask you before we finish up, and that is, if you could wave your magic wand and create one big change that would help mothers, especially those who are either co parenting or they’re in blended families, if to help them thrive in both their life and leadership, what would that be?
Laila Sultan:
I would say default paid parental leave with super for both parents and funded Return to Work pathways, including a transition month. And so what a transition month is, is um. Some really progressive, awesome companies out there who are paying women their full pay, whilst phasing them back into their desired hours, into into their job. So maybe starting at very minimal hours, like 10 hours a week, and then phasing it up to however many hours they want to return at, but giving them a good month to just readjust in that way, because it’s a lot and in there’s only about 60% of employers in Australia who provide additional paid parental leave on top of what the government pays, and the government pays has increased the paid parental leave this year. However, with the cost of living, it’s just it’s really not enough to be able to have sustainable amount of time with a new pub out of the workforce and be able to, you know, bring that mother back into the workforce confidently. So yes, I would say default paid parental leave for both parents and funded Return to Work pathways, every company.
Laura Jenkins:
Oh, here, here, I vote yes. Laila, give them more. Give them more time to wrap their head around the life admin piece as well, which comes with it. Well, it has been such a joy chatting with you today. Thank you so much for joining me. And if anyone would like to connect with Laila, we will be sure to pop a link to her socials and her website in the show notes. Thanks again, Laila.
Laila Sultan:
Thank you, Laura. Appreciate it.
Laura Jenkins:
I just love today’s chat with Laila, and I especially love her thinking around treating your family like a little economy and raising those budding entrepreneurs. I hope our chat has sparked something for you too, whether it’s about taking that first step towards financial security, modeling good financial independence for your kids, or simply rethinking what might be possible for your career. Thanks again for listening, and I’ll see you next time. Thanks for listening to the in the blend podcast. The show notes for this episode are available@intheblend.com.au and if you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe and please rate and review in your podcasting app. You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.
