These stereotypes are outdated. Sure, the working hours may have some truth to them but the idea that the team around you isn’t vital to your personal success, or that if you’re working hard enough you shouldn’t have room to live life outside your business, is a harmful narrative.

The reality is that juggling life and work involves spinning plates for everyone – there are just more plates when you’re a founder. Through starting a family and founding a business, my personal ambitions align closely with my business’s mission – to achieve my goals while prioritising my wellbeing.

And that leads me onto Heka. Heka was founded to flip workplace benefits on their head. The days of 48-hour redemption for 50% off a coffee, or a pizza party in the office every Friday when the team is racing to finish their tasks before the end of the week, does not measure up with the idea of modern wellness. They’re too static, uncontextualised and impersonal. Importantly, they don’t give employees a sense of wellbeing, which should be the whole point.

Heka promises true wellness rewards, not for hitting a specific sales target, but simply for being a real person with your own needs. We’re thrilled to offer a range of benefits across 5,000+ products and services, and counting, from sports massages and physiotherapy to protein-packed gourmet ready meals, fertility treatment, or eye care. It’s a flexible one-stop platform for employees to access support they genuinely desire; a service we believe will help every employee manage their work performance and wellbeing.

The juggling act: Founder and Mother

My personal and work life hasn’t always been smooth sailing. In 2021, when I had my first baby, I was determined for my working life to remain the same. Outwardly, I found myself trying to reassure Heka’s stakeholders (including myself!) that a baby wouldn’t change my role in the business and that I could be both a mother and a founder simultaneously.

While this is true, it’s not true instantly – I had seven months of postpartum anxiety to recover from. One of the challenges of becoming a first-time mother was learning my limitations, from the fatigue and aftermath of childbirth to a new nighttime regime. Eventually, I took a step back and let Alex, my husband and co-founder, run Heka from the early months of 2022.

By the time we welcomed our second baby, in 2023, we were infinitely more prepared. This time, I knew Heka was in a place to thrive without 100% of my focus and energy; we had Alex running the ship and a fantastic group of talented people I trusted to run the day-to-day.

Looking back, I don’t believe there was a right or wrong decision around either birth. My first taught me the importance of taking time for yourself, that wellness and motherhood are more important than replying to emails, and that if you can prioritise yourself in the short term, your business will benefit in the long run. My second taught me that it’s ok to let go, that you don’t have to do it all by yourself, and to trust the experience and expertise of the team you have built.

Lessons learned: Follow the plan, stick to the rules (you set yourself)

As 2024 heads towards completion, I continue to push the message that ‘you can do it all’ - you just need to do a few things first.

The importance of people

When you are pregnant, it’s not uncommon to feel like the odd one out, in the workplace or with family and friends. In the latter stages of pregnancy, you even start to feel alienated from your own body. At this point, the reaction of many women, as it was for me, is to go on the attack, to work harder in resistance to the change you know is just around the corner. But the adage is true: “work smarter, not harder”.

In this regard, hiring skilled people who believe in your brand mission will always be more powerful than the overworking of one individual. The people you hire and surround yourself with will forever be your business's largest asset. Treat them as such. I must mention the importance of a partner, confidant, or right-hand (wo)man. For me, Alex is all three, someone who shared my vision but had unique perspectives and ideas.

Follow the rules…

“Follow the rules”, we are told this from an early age. In my view, “follow the rules you set for yourself” would be better guidance. In other words, structure is important. When raising a business and a family, it’s an absolute imperative.

Through a process of flexibility, creativity, and a lot of trial and error, Alex and I have created everyday rules that, combined, form a system that works and works really well. The rules we’re living by at the moment are (mostly) set by our three-year-old daughter and one-year-old son.

An average day for us consists of a 5am wake-up, followed by banana pancakes & strawberry milkshakes, sunrise walks with our dog Conker, and then straight to the gym (or whichever patch of carpet is free enough from toys to perform a home workout), shower, dress, and dive straight into the working day.

Sometimes we’ll train again in the evening, sometimes we’ll go for a date night, and sometimes we’ll be up in the early hours getting our kids back to sleep. It’s never boring, but we do like to live full-on!

Find time for wellbeing

As a founder, it is easy to put your business before your wellbeing. As a mother, it’s easy to do the same with your children.

While, once again, it is a juggling act, I can’t stress enough the importance of carving out some time for yourself to focus on your needs. It may take some creativity with the diary, relying on some friends or family for the odd kid-free night, or an earlier wake-up, but finding time to concentrate on yourself is vital to how you perform at work or at home. Hopefully, your business or the business you work for has a sufficient service in place to help you.