What a year it’s been! As 2024 comes to a close, Avram and Rachel reflect on the biggest lessons they’ve learned—from potty training chaos to business breakthroughs. In this episode of the Babies and Business Podcast, they dive deep into what worked, what didn’t, and how prioritizing family, self-care, and clear business goals helped them thrive. If you’re navigating life as a parent and entrepreneur, this episode is packed with relatable stories and practical strategies to inspire your journey into 2025.

Show Notes

Key Highlights from this Episode:

• The Gonzaleses discuss why fitting everything else around family not the other way around is key to a happy, balanced life.
• Discover how prioritizing rest, gym time, and creative solutions (like earplugs!) helped them recharge.
• Avram and Rachel talk about evaluating who you spend time with, ensuring relationships are energizing, not draining.
• Learn their “so that we can” strategy for creating meaningful, achievable goals that align with their priorities.
• The couple share how hiring help and refining processes allowed them to focus on high-level tasks and scale their business.

Mentions & Resources:

Loop Earplugs – A brand of adjustable earplugs used for noise reduction.

BNI Networking – Business networking organization mentioned in relation to fostering relationships.

Digital Harvest – Avram and Rachel’s SEO digital marketing agency

B2B Expo Albuquerque – Event for entrepreneurs and professionals, featuring workshops, exhibits, and opportunities to connect and grow your business.

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Episode Transcription

Avram Gonzales: Last day of 2024. We’re back with more podcasts. Lessons learned. It’s been a big year for us, huh?

Rachel Gonzales: Huge.

Avram Gonzales: And I’m sure it’s been for you, Mr. or Mrs. Listener. Uh, we want to reflect back on 2024 and look at some of the impactful things that occurred in our life and what we learned from them. And so I’m a big believer of, ‘Mistakes versus Mentors’.

You learn in different ways. You can learn it on your own through trials and tribulations, or you can learn it from somebody else. And, you know, I think mentors take many shapes in life.

Rachel Gonzales: Absolutely.

Avram Gonzales: Sometimes it’s just a good friend.

Rachel Gonzales: Yep. And it can be a simple thing that they say. It does not have to be, you’re sitting down with them, you pay them, nothing like that. It doesn’t have to be that. If you’re out there looking for ways to improve or get the answers and you’re just looking, you’ll see it everywhere. They’re everywhere.

Avram Gonzales: they are. And speaking of mentors, when we reflect back on 2024, One of our greatest mentors is the youngest member of our family.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: So this year on June 15th, our son August was born. And in looking at the four or five big lessons that we learned this year that we’re gonna share with you today, a lot of it came directly back to the birth of our second son and you know, things that, that occurred leading up to that.

And of course, after that.

Rachel Gonzales: Absolutely. You think about it and when your family grows or something changes in your life, you do have to reassess, is what we’re doing working and what would we do differently from our experiences in the past? So that’s really what we did this year. And we’re really excited to share what it is that we have learned.

And we hope that you can take what we’ve learned and see how it can apply in your life and look at stuff that’s happened in your life. And then gain something from that. Maybe it’s perspective and look to the future with how you can make things happen. You know, if you’re somebody that hasn’t been able to make goals happen, you set goals, but they don’t really happen.

Maybe this can help you maybe have a reframe.

Avram Gonzales: I think we’ve powerful in regards to that today. I know that we have some lessons that we learned that pertain directly to our family and how we’re gonna operate moving forward. We have some big stuff around self care. I think every mom, dad business owner probably lacks in this department to some level. And we’ve extracted something here for you today. Another big thing was our relationships, just, you know, in general, both personal and business.

And of course, we’re going to wrap some stuff up with our biggest business lesson, which I’m excited to reveal.

Rachel Gonzales: I’m really excited about this.

Avram Gonzales: let’s talk about family first. We’ll start with the family and then we’ll make our way all the way back around to business. Should we just start with the

Rachel Gonzales: Absolutely. Let’s do it.

Avram Gonzales: Okay. So the lesson that we learned in regards to family is.

That you can fit everything in around family, but you can’t fit family in around everything else.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah. And what that really means is, you know, if you have stuff with your family, like, Yeah. For us, we don’t really have like events necessarily that we take our children to like soccer and school and all these different things because they’re too young right now. But when you think about all the things that you want to do with your family and you schedule those first and then you look at all of the other things, it’s easier to make those other things fit as opposed to the other way around.

So if your schedule is so full of business stuff, where does your family fit in? Well, maybe it doesn’t. But also maybe your priorities are a little bit different. Maybe you don’t have a huge priority around family. I mean, if some of you, if most of our listeners probably have a huge priority around families, but sometimes we, that’s not the priority or we haven’t figured out yet that it is the priority.

Avram Gonzales: And that the fact that it’s the lack of priority is why we’re continually failing on thos
e goals possibly.And, and as we’ve spoken about on previous podcasts, I think two episodes ago, when stuff is handled in your family unit, everything else just seems to go better,

Rachel Gonzales: Oh yeah,

Avram Gonzales: right? So there were a couple things that came up for us that made us realize, well, yeah, we have to, we have to schedule this way versus the other way around.

One of those was potty training.

Rachel Gonzales: Yes.

Avram Gonzales: potty training our now two and a half year old influenced everything about our schedule.

Rachel Gonzales: Oh yeah. I mean, if you just count just the couple of weeks up to a month, I think it was up to a month for us because we had done it over Labor Day weekend, we’d started the journey, that you just have consistent time for them, him, whoever your child is at home where they are close to a potty, they can go naked or whatever that looks like for you and your family.

And it really did change everything. When we thought about going out, What are some of the different considerations we have to take?

Avram Gonzales: well so one of the big things was is I ended up doing almost all or all of the grocery shopping.

Rachel Gonzales: You did.

Avram Gonzales: Versus, we usually kind of split that.

Rachel Gonzales: Right, but for me it was like, I’m home with a baby. A baby baby. Because he was like three months, uh, June, July, August. Yeah, he was like three months old at that time. And he was just getting to the point where things were getting consistent with maybe some more sleep, and some eating, and so you were really in charge of that.

But some of the things that it changed was like, you would go out grocery shopping with him, which is, you know, Some of the things we do to keep him entertained and doing other things out of the house. You would stop at the bathroom first off and let him go potty and you’d prep him for how loud it would be in a new space and all the different things and understanding that this was such a new thing for him, but really keeping that forefront in our minds

Avram Gonzales: Well, then it was like, you know, we can’t go stop at three places or four places right now. It’s gotta be just one and home. So, yeah, we had to like rethink everything about our schedule. That was just the home front, but then that impacted how I scheduled business meetings, that impacted how I was scheduling time at the gym, like basically everything,

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah, yeah,

Avram Gonzales: right?

And that was just like one small example. But there was another big one for you.

Rachel Gonzales: yeah, you know breastfeeding was also a big thing It was it took different kinds of consideration and then the emotional side and it fed into the business So it it changed how I functioned in the business because there were so many frequent feedings and then naps and all the different things But the benefits of breastfeeding for me the emotional side was that I actually got to accomplished it. I’m successful at having the opportunity to breastfeed him and it working and not being super painful and feeling like I needed to quit because it just wasn’t working very well. So that’s been amazing. And I have felt like I’ve been able to, um, gosh, There are just so many things that I’ve been able to do and it takes less time and thought.

Because when you go out with a kid that’s breastfeeding, you don’t have to bring all the gear to feed them with a bottle. So there’s, that’s the wonderful thing. So, of the things that we’ve done this year that really influenced us is, we’re really prioritizing family and the time that we have with our family and our boys.

And if it goes over like a nap time or it goes, or feeding, you know, All those different things, that influences whether we do or don’t participate. . For the first couple of months of the year.

Avram Gonzales: I think there are 2 days this year where Lincoln went without his nap. And that was like, that was the sacrifice we were willing to make, that was like 4th of July.

Rachel Gonzales: And then I think it was, uh, balloon fiesta a couple of

Avram Gonzales: times

a couple times.

Rachel Gonzales: So evening and then mornings and stuff.

Avram Gonzales: And so, everything else has gone around that though. You know, it’s like, we don’t, we don’t go out anywhere.

We’re home by 5:36.

And we’ll talk

about

Rachel Gonzales: Our boys deserve to sleep

Avram Gonzales: we’ll talk about that a little bit more and the impacts it’s had on our relationships.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: But I think the, the next thing, so maybe we, we restate that, right? So, our lesson from family this year was that you can fit everything in around family, but you can’t fit family in around everything else.

It just doesn’t work.

Rachel Gonzales: Not for us.

Avram Gonzales: Not for us. So, this one’s about self care, for lack of a better label.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah. Putting ourselves first, putting on our own mask first. Name it whatever you want.

But it’s being willing to say we have needs and they deserve to be met.

Avram Gonzales: so the lesson we learned this year was that mom and dad need personal time to rest and recharge.

Rachel Gonzales: Mm hmm. And for us, it started with the gym. Initially. Back in 2022.

Avram Gonzales: It’s True

Rachel Gonzales: So it did start there.

Avram Gonzales: It did.

Rachel Gonzales: And that was the one thing we got.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah, it wasn’t the rest, we just cut the recharge. And I think that we got away with it for a while with one child not having date nights. Not having, scheduled downtime for one person or the other. You know, like,

Rachel Gonzales: It was easier to say, okay, I’ll hold him for a bit. You go take a break or vice versa. But then it just, you add one more, one more variable and you’ve got a lot more variables.

Avram Gonzales: hmm, and I think the thing that we realized is that you just start to go too long without this self care or this time that you can afford each other and then you find yourself in a desperate need suddenly one day and so big things that we’ve done this year are adding date night.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah. Big deal.

Avram Gonzales: I mean, we’ve been doing that now.

We’ve had some interruption in schedule over holidays and things like that

Rachel Gonzales: Sure, but it’s very, very seldom, and it’s much less.

Avram Gonzales: But we’ve had this now for like, four months? Five months, maybe?

Rachel Gonzales: something like that, yeah. Well, and just keeping in mind too, the thought about self care is that it’s, it’s really, really important, we have found it to be really important, because raising children is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Let’s be, let’s just be real about that. They’re with us, we love them, and they deserve the care that they require.

And we’ve got to remember that in a marathon, you’ve got to stop for a break, you’ve got to eat, you’ve got to go
to the bathroom. Those are the basic things that when you’re thinking about that, about a marathon versus a sprint.

Avram Gonzales: Mm

Rachel Gonzales: So we’re pretty quick with a sprint. So there are some things that we’ve done that contributed to our self care, us taking care of ourselves, the things that we’ve chosen to do this year that otherwise were not the same, or weren’t happening.

You know, you mentioned date night. There’s one thing that, it’s a tool that you use, that you found, that really helps you calm down or also just not get to your limit when you are needing to be with the boys and it’s just not the ideal volume that you’d like.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah, I’m like, heavily stimulated by too much noise. Especially when I’m already at a certain threshold. So my cousin Emma visited, like, back in April or something like that. And she had these little earplugs, these loop earplugs and I was like wait, those aren’t sound canceling. She’s like no like they’re like regular earplugs and then You can turn up or turn down What amount of sound you will let in so you can still hear what’s going on.

I was like, that’s brilliant

Rachel Gonzales: And they’re really comfortable too.

Avram Gonzales: So I got some of those earplugs and I mean I use them every single week through different Circumstances and what does it allow me to do? I can still hear My kids, I can, I’m still aware of what’s going on

Rachel Gonzales: They’re safe because you can, you can hear what’s going on.

Avram Gonzales: But I don’t have to take the brunt and be the punching bag for that sound when I can take it

Rachel Gonzales: Right. You just get, you go from zero to a thousand really, really quickly if the level is too high. So there are times when I’ll notice that you’re just, you are. You might as well just be trembling for how I, I see that you’re feeling and I’ll just say, Hey, go put your earplugs on. And it’s like, I’m shocked if they’re not in your pocket for one and that you could just pop them in.

Uh, but it does really, really help. So that’s one of the things that you’ve found out about yourself. And then for me, I found that I just needed extra sleep. And in a house where the baby is sleeping in the master bedroom for the naps, Lincoln has run of the house. He has his room, the living area, all the different places, and then

Avram Gonzales: Office is being utilized as an office.

Rachel Gonzales: Office is being utilized by you.

I need a nap. Where do I go? Well, we found a solution. I go to the garage. We have a couch in the garage. It’s fabulous. And I’ve been able to get some rest. So, I’ve, that for me is, when I’m at a certain level, it’s probably because I’ve not had enough sleep. we are taking care of that now with me getting more sleep at night.

August eating at 10pm and then 6am so I’m getting a really good block of sleep. But sleep for me is where it’s at. I gotta have sleep.

Avram Gonzales: think we’ll maybe round it out on this one is something that I realized this year was you get to a certain point where you literally can’t see for yourself what you require. And it does take me coming in and saying, okay, this is not working. Here’s what I need you to do

Rachel Gonzales: Well, and you also say, Hey, go do this, I’ve got the boys. Or, go do this, you know that a nap could help me. We’ve talked about that. You can afford that for me. Sometimes there are times when I’ll skip the gym in the morning. Lincoln doesn’t even see me and that’s normal for the gym days. So I will go out, take a nap and I will come into the house.

Like I came back from the gym and he doesn’t know any different. So it does create that space for me.

Avram Gonzales: And we did another episode, in the past about sleep. I would definitely go check that out. We’ll put it in the show notes. If you go to babiesandbiz.com/64, this is episode 64, you can see all the show notes, other things that we’re talking about here. let’s move to the next one, but yeah, lesson from self care, mom and dad need personal time to rest and recharge.

So let’s talk about relationships, then we’re going to round out with some business stuff.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah. So, you know, we found ourselves auditing who we spend our time with, like we would our bank account

Avram Gonzales: Why?

Rachel Gonzales: because just like money, which is a. finite amount. Our time is also finite. And we found that spending time with certain people, it just zapped us of that energy. So not only did they not add energy to us, they took way more than we had.

So sometimes we’d come home deficit

Avram Gonzales: Yeah, well,

Rachel Gonzales: in the red. so we, we were able to find out who it works for us to spend time with. Sometimes it’s those people that have kids. And understand our schedule and our priorities.

Avram Gonzales: so it’s these conclusions that Rachel’s talking about that came from the necessity to audit our time. Because with a second child, then it was, you know, Even less time, right? Even more squeezed. And then, as you know, having young children, you, you kind of lose the time that you would have in the evenings to do other things, because you’re going to be at home.

The majority of the time

Rachel Gonzales: You can’t go out and spend the time with other people and do the different things unless they’re going to come to you. That’s an option.

Avram Gonzales: And, you know, here and there you can go out and do that, but, as you know, you pay the price the next day or the next two days if you go past bedtimes. Like, you can do that, but you’re going to pay for it.

Rachel Gonzales: I know I do. If I, gosh, if I have an eight hour stretch and I can go to sleep and I choose to stay up two hours into that eight hour stretch, oh boy.

Avram Gonzales: pay for it, right? And so,

Rachel Gonzales: And not just the next day. For me, it’s, it could be weeks before I make that up again.

Avram Gonzales: it’s true, and so, it was from being so squeezed that we would look at it and be like, you know, I’ve got a meeting scheduled with so and so. And it’s like, you look at it and go, well I got other things I need to do right now because time is squeezed. We’ve discussed this over and over in every episode we’ve done so far.

And there’s probably somebody else I’d rather spend the time with.

Rachel Gonzales: Right. Well, when you’re squeezed, it’s like, okay, so if I can only do this and this and this, And I only have X amount of time, what are those things that I can fit into that time

Avram Gonzales: And you start chopping. And you start getting, like, in a weird way, kind of ruthless about it. So we realized that there were, you know, People that we’re spending time with, who don’t have kids,

Rachel Gonzales: Yep.

Avram Gonzales: who, because they don’t have kids, don’t understand certain things. Like, well, we got to get back by a certain time, or we got to think about food, or we got to think about an activity for them to do, or this, that, and the other.

And because they’re not of the same mind, they get less of the time. And it’s not, it’s not a personal thing.

Rachel Gonzales: No way. Well, and then also we became really aware of those people that they’re just not our people. You know, for one reason or another.

Avram Gonzales: you might like some aspect of them that really draws you to them. But Maybe that’s the only box that they really checked, right?

Rachel Gonzales: But honestly, when I’m exhausted, if it’s someone that
doesn’t fill me up in some way energetically, it is so exhausting to come away from that and feel like yet again, I have to pick myself up again.

You know, sometimes you need those people that they don’t have to give. They just need to not take energy.

Avram Gonzales: it just became so obvious who those people were. After all of our time got taken away.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah. Right.

Avram Gonzales: And I, and I think that’s just where the lesson came from is because of the time squeeze, then we started looking at it and then we made these realizations. And so I think what I pose to our listeners is you can audit and you can look at this stuff before you don’t have the time and, and choose these relationships and things that are really fill you up.

I’m just realizing, you know, with some of our quote, best friends that we have now, if it weren’t for things like BNI, we wouldn’t see them hardly at all.

Rachel Gonzales: Correct.

Avram Gonzales: And so when you look at the next five years, and you know, if you see your friend once a quarter or once a month. I mean, you’re only going to spend that much time with them.

That’s interesting. So then you start talking about taking time away from those really great friends and giving it to, to new people or people that maybe don’t check all the boxes.

Rachel Gonzales: Right.

Avram Gonzales: That’s like, if you, if you were talking about that, how you spend your money, you know,

Dave Ramsey would go nuts on you.

Rachel Gonzales: right. I just think right here is we’re just suggesting that possibly you look at what it is that you want. Priority is family and you want to spend that time with those that you love. That could be your family, that could be the person that you’re with, your spouse, and then who else?

There are only a couple of other people that make the cut right now. That won’t always be the case, but for right now, who is that? And be willing to say, this does work for me, or this doesn’t work for me. Maybe you have a sister that’s really toxic, why are you hanging out with her? Why are you spending your time with her?

If you come away and you feel drained and maybe a little bit depressed and all sorts of stuff are happening, maybe just take a break for a bit and see how that feels. I have ten siblings. I don’t enjoy all of them. I connect with two sisters and a brother right now, and that’s it. I have, I have seven sisters and three brothers.

I don’t connect with everybody. Uh, my parents are past, so I can’t connect with them, but make those choices. Is the only reason why you’re spending the time with the people that you’re spending time with is that they are your blood, or you’re obligated to. Those are kind of bad decisions, or bad reasons to make those decisions.

Avram Gonzales: Well, I looked at like, even my BNI stuff that I’m doing, and people that are in my group, as an example, it’s like, well, you’re going to mesh with certain people really well, and others you’re going to, you know, get along with. Or maybe you don’t get along with them, but those people that you’re really going to limit your time with.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah, and really spend time with those that you do mesh with because I, really, we want to do business with the people that we know, like, and trust. So put more time into that so that they can, and you can, get to know, like, and trust them more.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah, so the lesson, you have to audit who you spend time with like you would your bank account. Otherwise, you’re gonna be broke. All right, this one’s the one we’ve all been waiting for. But everything kind of leads to this because all the stuff that we talked about informs the the business lesson

that we, I think it’s not that we learned it as much as we lived it.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah.

Avram Gonzales: So have you ever had a goal that felt pretty When we say hollow, flimsy, like, you know, you should have one, so you put something together. I mean, you might even put quite a bit of thought into it,

Rachel Gonzales: And maybe it sounds really good.

Avram Gonzales: yeah, or it makes sense with where you’re going.

But then you never get there, or you hardly take any steps towards getting

Rachel Gonzales: there

Right. And you look back maybe at whatever checkpoint you have, maybe it’s quarterly, maybe it’s yearly. And you see, Oh wow, that didn’t happen yet again. What are some of the things that we do when we see goals aren’t happening in our life?

Avram Gonzales: Well, we have to evaluate why we want them,

Rachel Gonzales: Right.

Avram Gonzales: and why we want them. and what are our priorities?

Rachel Gonzales: And does it really matter? Like if it’s still not happening, is this really the heart and soul of what we want? Is this embodying what we want? Yeah. Right. So, you know, what we’ve found is when we’ve made goals that have this. That follows this

Avram Gonzales: format,

Rachel Gonzales: format. If we have a goal and then we say, so that we can X, they always

Avram Gonzales: or because?

Rachel Gonzales: want this because we want this so that we can have this or do this. It happens. So we have

Avram Gonzales: example is, if we go back like five years, when Rachel joined the business, one of the first questions we had to ask was, How much money do we need to make in the business, so that we can support our household? We had to kind of find the magic number so that we weren’t drawing too much money, or whatever.

And we found, at that time, years ago, we just needed to make 13, 000 a month in the business so that,

Rachel Gonzales: The bare minimum,

Avram Gonzales: so that we could, I think we were trying to, it was

Rachel Gonzales: whatever it was, we just remember that that sum.

and,

we got it.

Avram Gonzales: and that would provide enough for our household for us to be comfortable and not be overdrawing and things like that.

Rachel Gonzales: Right. And this year we had a goal. And it was actually a goal for before we had August. A financial goal. And we made it actually to the dollar

Avram Gonzales: Which is weird.

Rachel Gonzales: Probably about a month before he was

born. And it was really exciting. We were so stoked. But it was because we had After the goal, it was because. The goal, because, x, y, z.

Because we need to replace me in this role, or we need this, or we need to hire. Whatever that is, it was always followed with a reason why.

Avram Gonzales: Well, in this case, it was, and if you go back, we’ve got another episode, we got, we was, you know, getting ready for baby, part two. The second edition. Haha. So you go back and see that. We did a lot of budgeting and a lot of planning for all the things that would come up as a part of having another child.

And that, along with the already established budgets and things we had in the works. Further informed our business goals that then you know would take all this other staff

Rachel Gonzales: Well, and absolutely. So very, very excited about
that. And that was one of the breakthroughs that we had was we realized how we set goals that actually got accomplished because we’ve had, we set goals, we’ve had goals that haven’t been accomplished that go months and quarters and years that don’t get done.

And we, you know, we look back and we’re beating ourselves up about it. But really when we get down to it, if it doesn’t have the because we do this so that, or we do this because. It doesn’t really happen because it actually aligns with our goals, our actual hard and fast goals.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah We feel like we need to accomplish these things and therefore it occurs.

Rachel Gonzales: And then we do it. So we wanted to talk about some of those things that actually were what transpired this year.

Avram Gonzales: Mm hmm.

Rachel Gonzales: We needed Avram more in the business.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah for a lot of different reasons. I’m the one that’s gonna create all the processes.

Rachel Gonzales: You’re a strategist.

Avram Gonzales: I had the vision for how we’re going to continue to get results for our clients in this new age of AI. A lot of things changing, blah, blah, blah. I’m the one that’s best suited for business development and I need to be talking to a lot of business owners.

So I needed more time specifically.

Rachel Gonzales: Absolutely. So I was able to afford you that. And what’s really cool about our relationship and what we want from our relationship, I want to be a mom more with my boys. I don’t actually want a full time job in our business. I do love the things that I do in the business and I, I’m going to continue to be part of the business on the financial side and the project management side, but not on the day to day, necessarily.

I can do those things at any time of day. So that was a huge thing. And we accomplished it. You got more time in the business. and I got more time in our household. There was another thing that, you know, we really didn’t know how we were going to get consistent child care. It wasn’t working with family.

Free isn’t always free. We’ve had, we have an episode about that too. We hired our nanny in April, actually on April Fool’s. That was her first day. And we have never turned back. It is amazing having a nanny. Lincoln loves the nanny. We love the nanny and it’s really changed our ability to have more time, more focused and concentrated time in our business to really get where we’re going.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah Yeah. I mean, That’s, that’s been hugely influential when we looked at, so the goals we need to make and dah, dah, dah, dah. What was the big constraint? Time.

Rachel Gonzales: mostly my time, because if we didn’t have the baby or it fell through, sorry, babysitter or that fell through, then I was the one taking care of the children and oftentimes I wasn’t the one doing the checklist stuff. That’s really important. Actually getting the thing going and moving forward

Avram Gonzales: There a lot of that would start to fall when we couldn’t have the child care consistently.

Rachel Gonzales: Right, and then I would get, I would get some kind of purchase and then it would be knocked right back down, you know. So it wasn’t really great. And then another thing that we did was we hired additional people this year and it has been a true game changer. It’s also contributed to more of your time being spent in the higher level stuff.

In our business, in the structural stuff,

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. So we had, we had a key role that we, uh, were not able to replace. So somebody that didn’t work out last year, you know, they’ve been with us for like four or five years. There was nowhere else for them to go in terms of upward.

Right. Um, they got a great opportunity with another company and said, you know what?

You got to take that right? And also the type of work that we’re doing here is changing with AI and and it wasn’t what they wanted to do and it’s like, look, this is thank you for what you’ve done and go forth and prosper. So what that left us doing, though, is looking at the different things that that person fulfilled in their role, and we took those roles over.

We split them, you and me. For a year.

Rachel Gonzales: yeah. Oh boy, what a grueling year.

Avram Gonzales: What a grueling year. And again, it was the time constraints that were imposed on us by having a second child and all these other things that we talked about that made us look at really closely Okay, not, it’s not, can you do it? It’s who else can do it and should do it.

Rachel Gonzales: And what’s wonderful that we found out was we simplified the tasks actually, the specific things and the processes enough that we could bring somebody on and train them to do it even better than we could because if you’re doing it, if you’re doing anything at 20% or 10%, 15%, whatever percentage you’re doing it at, If it’s not a hundred and that’s the only thing that you focus on and you bring somebody in and that’s all they focus on, even if they did it at 75% as good as you, it’s still better than you because it’s more than what you can give it.

So we were able to get real clarity on those things, those roles, the specific tasks that they would be doing. And we are so ecstatic about the results that we’re already receiving.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah. I’d love to give a shout out here to our two newest team members. That’s Barbra and Glen, who are just cranking out all this amazing content on behalf of our clients and Digital Harvest our business. And the Babies and Business Podcast. So you see any of the posts and stuff coming up lately or the blogs that is all Barbra’s doing.

And I bet you can tell if you’re a longtime listener, it’s gotten a lot better cause I’m not doing it anymore, right? We spend more time cooking up better topics and things like that. Versus doing the writing itself who, you know, somebody else is better equipped and more interested and excited about it than you probably are as a business owner

Rachel Gonzales: And more creative. They can be more creative, give more time to it. You know, it’s been really, really awesome.

Avram Gonzales: I don’t think we actually like said what, what our lesson was, but to, To, you know, it’s the lesson that we put was like, first you gotta get clarity, then match actions to goals. And the secret statement that Rachel gave you was, so when we do, we do this so that we can blah, blah, blah. And you connect your aspiration, your goal to something real tangible.

Something that you, I think, feel like you need to do.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah. If you have energy behind it, you know, we need this or else like if that answer is we, we need this or we’re in the poor house, we need this or our mortgage will default. We need that. Like I hope you’re not in that situation where it’s that dire. But sometimes it is those circumstances that are make it or break it that get us to move our butt.

Avram Gonzales: Yes, yes.

Rachel Gonzales: And those are powerful and those things are lessons. I’m hoping again that those are not the lessons that you are learning here or from your life, but just really, really excited to hopefully give you some tools that can help you out in, in accomplishing those goals that you have and reassessing. If you have goals that haven’t been accomplished, bag them, put them in the garbage, and pick new ones.

Because if they’
ve not been happening, it’s not, they’re not aligning with what you really, really want and what is going to get you that fulfillment in your life. That’s it. Period. Don’t feel bad about it. Chuck them.

Avram Gonzales: So good. What a year 2024 has been.

Rachel Gonzales: Yes.

Avram Gonzales: not without its own ups and downs, you know, but it sure beats like four years ago, don’t it?

Rachel Gonzales: Oh yeah. Well, I just feel like we’re so much different. It’s really cool to see the relationship that you and I have. And how we support each other as partners, not just in business, but in our life and with our children. And, um, it’s just been a really fun adventure with you.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah, likewise, likewise. Well, we always ask for this. We have something different that we want to share with you today. If you’ve been listening now past couple episodes, you know that we are going to be sharing the Babies in Business Podcast at the B2B Expo in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Wednesday, January 15th.

That expo is all day long, all business professionals welcome. And it’s at the Albuquerque convention center. We’re going to have this really fun activity at our booth and we’re looking for some local support. Okay. You’re going to come in, you’re going to in front of everybody. Okay. This is a challenge.

This is a contest.

There are, there are prizes to win. All right. You’re going to take a baby doll. You’re going to change it’s diaper, you’re gonna change it’s clothes.

Rachel Gonzales: And put clothes back on

Avram Gonzales: put them back on, all while answering questions rapid fire from me or Rachel. The fastest times at the end of the day win some great prizes.

And it’s gonna be a ton of fun. We’re hoping to have A hundred or more meaningful conversations that day with local entrepreneurs and business owners. So,

Rachel Gonzales: And laughs. Gosh, come on. If for nothing else, just come down and laugh with us because it’s going to be hysterical. I dare say

Avram Gonzales: it is, it is. And I think if there’s one thing entrepreneurs love, it’s a good challenge and some competition. And I expect to see that in full force. So, we’re going to be there on Wednesday, the 15th of January. The booth number is booth 19.

Rachel Gonzales: At the Albuquerque convention center.

Avram Gonzales: And it’s the B2B Expo. You can look that up online and register for that. I believe registration is online and, um, I actually don’t know if there’s a fee or not.

Rachel Gonzales: Yeah. I don’t know either. I know parking might have a fee, so

Avram Gonzales: So,

Rachel Gonzales: come out and have some fun.

Avram Gonzales: So, with that, thanks for listening to our podcast yet another week, another year down. So, happy 2025.

If you haven’t already, go to Spotify or Apple Podcasts, wherever you listen to this. Leave us that five star review. Leave a comment. Okay, people love to read, love to read your comments, find out what’s in the podcast for them.

With that, we’ll see you next year.

Rachel Gonzales: We do have a community question is going to be up on social media and in the blog. What are you proud of that you have accomplished in 2024? We’d love to hear it. We’d love to hear what you have accomplished because it’s really great to shout people out.

Avram Gonzales: Yeah, brag about it, we’d love to cheer you on. Thanks for listening.

Rachel Gonzales: Bye for now.