In this episode of Before We Get There, host Nicholas Braman sits down with Eliza Koo, founder of Tender Loving Milk and an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant. Eliza shares her journey from a corporate career in B2B tech marketing to becoming an entrepreneur, driven by her passion for supporting new mothers. They discuss her gradual pivot into lactation consulting, her insights on parenting, and the life lessons she learned from building her own business. Eliza also opens up about the challenges of balancing family and entrepreneurship, her evolving perspective on success, and her future goals to expand into life coaching for working mothers.
Topics Discussed:
- Transition to Entrepreneurship: Eliza’s journey from corporate marketing to founding her own business, Tender Loving Milk.
- Building Tender Loving Milk: How she launched her lactation consulting service while juggling a full-time job, clinical hours, and motherhood.
- Defining Success Beyond Money: Insights on balancing purpose, family, and professional fulfillment as an entrepreneur.
- Challenges of Parenting and Family Dynamics: The role of supportive partners and family in raising children and balancing business and parenting.
- Future Goals in Life Coaching: Eliza’s aspiration to expand her services to help working mothers navigate major life transitions.
Follow Eliza:
- Instagram (Lactation Consulting): @tenderlovingmilk
- Instagram (Life Coaching): @eliza.life.coaching
Additional Resources:
Nicholas Braman: Welcome to Before We Get There, the podcast where we explore people’s journeys. I’m your host, Nicholas Braman. And today I’m joined by Eliza Ku, a former B2B tech marketer turned entrepreneur. Eliza is the founder of K2B. Tender Loving Milk, where she provides personalized lactation consultations, guidance, and workshops.
In this discussion, we talked about how she made the decision to give up a high paying corporate job to start her own business, the challenges and fears she’s pushed through, the differences between working for someone else versus yourself, parenting, what successes, and much more.
I wanted to ask you, as I think we’ve had fairly similar career paths, both being in marketing, specifically in B2B tech, but now you’ve pivoted to starting your own businesses and how has that gone for you? What’s that been like? What started it off for you?
Eliza Koo: Yeah. So I guess it’s like. I would say the transition is like four layers to that.
The first layer is when I was doing my corporate, I was in my corporate life. And then now I went to the, into my own entrepreneurship. So what I can summarize right now in my entrepreneurship journey now is, I don’t know, I just felt, I just feel that sense of achievement and it’s more meaningful and it’s more aligned to my core values a little more in this journey of my life, obviously.
Everything’s like a one man show right now. I don’t have a team. I had and I was in like corporate. One thing though, I’ve, what I’ve learned so far after working for myself for about a year, it’s even though it’s a one man show, but collaboration still matters a lot, especially in my area of work, like really helping families, new families, most of the time.
So I think collaboration matters a lot. Um, and I think also um, It’s not like I’m very confident. It’s more like having the courage to try new things. As I think confident, no one has the confidence right away. It’s always like the baby steps to get there, being brave and being courageous to try new things.
And try from just trying something that no one had tried before in my current space in my new business.
Nicholas Braman: And so for, for a while you were doing your, you, I mean, maybe we should go ahead and introduce your company that you have now, which lactation consultant, Craig.
Eliza Koo: Yes, so I’m a lactation consultant and in length it’s international board certified lactation consultant as IBCLC and I founded Tender Loving Milk.
Nicholas Braman: Yeah, that’s great. And so you were doing that for a while while you were still having your corporate job.
Eliza Koo: Yeah. So actually I started, I founded Tender Loving Milk while I was working full time. So that was around 2021, I think. Yeah, 2021. So at that point I was working full time. I was, um, volunteering to help breastfeeding moms.
And I was like also clocking my clinical hours for the certification and doing my studying. And also that the time I had two kids and I was pregnant, I saw lots of things going on. And that is also the point that I understood what anxiety really is, because there’s so many things I’m just never really hearing on in my life.
But, but yeah, so that’s where, that’s how I started. I didn’t really pivot right away. I pivoted gradually.
Nicholas Braman: But was being an entrepreneur or owning your own business, something that you had thought about for a long time, or did it just reach a point where you’re like, I need to change up from my current career.
Eliza Koo: So I always wanted to do my own business and I’ve been doing a lot of my little side hustles ever since I was like early twenties, I was doing my full time work and I was like trying new businesses here and there, one of the things that I One of the interesting business I tried before is video editing services for like small businesses and companies.
So I did that with my sister and we just had some fun with it. But yeah, I’ve been always wanting to do my own business. It’s just that I didn’t know what I wanted until like my second child. And I didn’t know it’s going to be in the parenting space as well.
Nicholas Braman: It’s good. It’s something that you have first, a lot of firsthand experience in.
So translate over. And so you going through all of that preparation and volunteering and studying that you had to do while keeping your full time job, were you fully committed to starting the business and quitting the corporate life at that time, or were you still thinking to do something on the side?
Eliza Koo: No, I, I was so confused for the past two, for the past two years when I was in my corporate lives before I made the switch. So last year, in 2023, yeah, I would, I said, I set for the examination to be an IDCLC and the results will only come in like in June and June. Was the month that I’m gonna, I, I, I gave up, I gave birth to my baby, and then I had that four month maternity break, right?
So I had the for ation and I was going through my maternity leave and I still didn’t even know whether I wanna do this full time or not. So it’s like really, really up to the last minute, in the last point that when I asked myself, do I really wanna go back to the corporate space? Something that, that didn’t really align with me anymore.
So I, I guess it could be, I could talk about what are the signs or symptoms that. really popped up, right, for, for me. So, so I really lasted to the really last minute. When I ended my maternity leave, I decided, no, I can’t go back when I go back. So when I thought of going back, my entire body just shrink and, oh, no more confidence, the self esteem isn’t there anymore.
Versus when I was like thinking, okay, can I start this full time now, since, since right now things are, A little bit stable, even though I have had a young and something and then my body and then I responded with like so much excitement and I feel so much like my mind was so expensive to towards the idea of helping families full time.
So I took that as a little signal like, actually, I know what I want. It’s just that sometimes it’s just that. I almost made the decision to go back to corporate because of societal norms or like it’s safe, right? Like financially it’s safe. Yeah. So it’s really tough. I’m not saying like, it’s super easy to just fit a, it’s like, it’s a high paying job in tech to do, to do entrepreneurship.
So I, I even went through a lot of crying, a lot of uncertainty. So it’s really not like anything. See anyone sees, Oh, I just switched it immediately. No, it took. Well. Months of uncertainties and, and like I mentioned, crying and a lot of like questioning, what is this? What’s that purpose? There’s everything.
Nicholas Braman: Yeah. So it sounds like you really listened to your inner feelings about what was going to make you the most happy and where you wanted your future self to be and what made you feel fulfilled.
Eliza Koo: Yes, even though you saying that it sounds easy, but it’s not to many people. Yeah, it wasn’t easy, but the thought of doing my own business has always been like when I was My early twenties.
It’s just that it took me like two to three years to really finally make that decision. I made that decision only in the last part, last minute, because everything just felt.
Nicholas Braman: And if you don’t mind sharing, were you already earning income from being a lactation consultant before you quit your corporate job?
Or was it like, no, I’m just going to go with this and make it work.
Eliza Koo: I was earning a little bit, but it’s nothing close to what I, what I’m earning my corporate. And it’s just a little side pocket money. It’s just nothing much. It’s just. You know, enough money to pay like for groceries. That’s all. It’s a huge jump.
I would still think it’s a huge jump. I would think not many people will be able to be ready for this shift. Entrepreneur, to, to entrepreneur, if they are not regular in what’s their relationship with money, what’s their money mindset and what do they define success and what is important for them. So it’s really a lot of inner work, heart and mindset as well.
And it’s, and yeah, it’s really a journey. Journey. Yeah.
Nicholas Braman: And so now it’s been a year, looking back after a year after your big jump, do you feel that you’ve been successful? Are you where you want to be?
Eliza Koo: You know, recently I still have doubts on am I successful still? Because I’m still not earning as much as I did in corporate, but Recently, I’ve learned from some, from this friend in life that there’s a lot of currencies in life and money is just one of them and currencies in life that recently I found on actually freedom, flexibility, and so blessed to be able to be present with the kids, something so difficult for many parents to do that.
On the surface, I look successful, but there’s always up and down, internally, on the back, behind the scenes, like, sometimes I still doubt myself, but sometimes it’s just the stories I’m telling myself in my head that may not be true, but, but overall, yeah, more fulfilling, happier, and I feel like I can make a living.
Nicholas Braman: Yeah, I really like that about there being more currencies than just money. There’s other facets of life that are equally important and you need to have a combination, which may be different for everybody, but of freedom, of passion, of family time, of feeling fulfilled in your work, as well as earning enough to put food on the table.
And pay your bills. So when you have those moments of doubt or thinking, did I make the right choice? How do you push through those and how do you work through them?
Eliza Koo: Well, okay. First is the community of lungs that I’ve actually, they are very generous with their thoughts and feelings towards me. Can I help them or I help them to be, to achieve their own personal breastfeeding goals.
They always came back and tell me how much I’ve helped them. And that is the driver, that factor that, oh my God, okay, I make a difference in summer’s life. So that was the one that put, so that factor pushed me, and I think also family support, especially my husband, whether he’s so supportive in, in my journey to be an entrepreneur, though he’s, he also went through a couple of this, this serious discussion with me because to him, he wants to be able to support.
me in my dreams, but he also want to make sure that he is able to support the families, keeping the throat and everything. So yeah, we have had to have difficult conversations, but just so to assure him in, in what I want to do, like he does, he sees potential in my business. It’s just.
Nicholas Braman: And so do you have goals or a.
Place in mind that you want to get to in three years, you know, five years that you then will feel like, Oh, now I’m successful. Now maybe hiring more people, earning a certain amount of income, building, uh, your business to a certain stage, or like more going with the flow and seeing what happens.
Eliza Koo: The old me would have told you, well, this is what I want.
I want to build and expand my business, hiring so many people. It’s really the present, the here and the now, as long as, of course, I will have some plans and strategy and everything, but as long as whatever that I’m progressing with my certain activities and projects that excites me and lights me up.
Somehow, the path just lays for me, moving forward. I used to plan my life in Excel sheets back then when I was like in my early 20s. Like, this page, I need to be doing this and everything. It’s good as a guideline, but I know like sometimes if I were to obsess over like certain achievements and put so much attachment in the outcome.
And in the process of it all, I really enjoy it and losing, losing myself. I don’t think that’s worth it. Right now, back, I don’t think that’s worth it. So yeah, now things are going good at the most. I’m just going to see how can I expand my business to help more families, maybe even beyond breastfeeding, like recently I’ve been, I have this webinar to teach parents on baby sign language, and it’s nothing to do with breastfeeding and there are so, there are so many sign language.
It’s. Uh, for that. So parents right now, at this era, they’re so willing to learn different things and I know in the parenting world, there’s so many to learn just for one child, but yeah, I think I can expand more beyond breastfeeding, but the main focus is going to be breastfeeding.
Nicholas Braman: So on those spreadsheets from your early twenties was quitting your nice B tech marketing job and becoming a lactation consultant in any of those sheets?
Eliza Koo: No, none. I think that Liz stopped at 20, 26 years old or something like, Oh, I didn’t get married, have kids, just work a full time job. That’s all. Um,
Nicholas Braman: so going back to more kind of the business side of things, I think. We experienced in our corporate jobs as well, when you have a small team or when you work in a startup and you’re growing that there’s always more you feel you could be doing, or you need to figure out how to prioritize what’s most important based on the resources you have, what’s going to have the most impact.
I would imagine being an entrepreneur, that’s even more, especially with your experience coming from marketing, you probably have tons of ideas of what to do, but you are doing it all by yourself. Yeah. Um, so how do you balance your time? Do you ever feel that you’re not doing enough? What’s that like?
Eliza Koo: Yeah.
Um, this is depends on what, what, where’s that context and background in, in, in, uh, space that the people are from. So for me, I’ve been leading and building team marketing teams. And this means that I wasn’t hands on for the last couple of years. So it’s a little bit more corporate strategy, planning, and it’s like a lot of talented marketers to do all this, all the hands on work, and it’s tough, it’s tough for them, and it’s, and it’s, Whenever, when I’m doing it all by myself, I have to be the hands on one.
And this means that over the past few years, there’s, there are a lot of changes with certain marketing platform features, modules, and I was really struggling, especially on the marketing operations side, because I always, I know I’m not good as numbers and data and those data mining and things, and I have to be the one doing, and it’s really tough.
And like I mentioned as a marketer, actually most of us have lots of ideas on how to grow the business, right? And through this all, I actually got myself overwhelmed and burned out, even as an entrepreneur. Because I feel that I was rushing to gain, to increase my income and help more families and adding too much on my plate.
Without. Knowing whether is this going to be successful or not, just keep adding on and adding on. And I have a burnout and I have that poor little panic attack here and there because too many things actually make me struggling. So what helped me is one of my life coach actually told me this analogy, which is the parking lot analogy.
So we have so many ideas, so many things that we want to do and feel that we need to do, right? So think of this as one idea, one car. And you have all these cars that you have. You can just park it in your parking lot, and you can just, and every day you can just go in a parking lot and just drive one car out.
The next day, you feel like driving the other car, which is going to do another idea, you just go and drive the other car. So your ideas won’t go missing. Your idea is just going to be there in your parking lot. It’s just that at that point, at certain point, I feel that if I can manage certain things, I will just focus on that thing and just go drive with it.
You know, go back and do it. It’s tough at first because if you’re into like, this is this whole human design and everything. I am someone that do a lot of things at the same time. Um, and this is something that I really have to learn the hard way. So sometimes as humans, multitasking may not be really multitasking.
We’re just task switching. And that is really not productive. So you should think about it.
Nicholas Braman: Yeah. So thinking about anxiety and stress. Do you feel it was, you had more during working for a corporation or more being an entrepreneur?
Eliza Koo: It started when I was in corporate. And I didn’t know that it was anxiety back then.
Um, but it’s just little, this alert signals that my body has been telling me like, My life right now, whatever I’m doing, it’s not aligned with what I truly want. So it is more during my lunch.
Nicholas Braman: That’s so the parking lot analogy is a great analogy. And you mentioned a life coach. I’ve never worked with a life coach before.
What’s that process like and how does it help you?
Eliza Koo: Yeah. So life coaching essentially is helping. It’s really, it’s really guiding people to polish their thoughts. and find ways to transform their mindset to be even more high functioning and, and help them to go towards their goals, go towards whatever goals that they want.
So the difference with, um, for example, like therapies and life coaching, therapy is more like healing the past. This is something that I’ve learned from my life coach back then. Therapy is more like healing the past. Life coaching is more like future focused. Yeah, and there are, like, blocks that may stop you, as in, like, there are blocks that may hinder you from moving where you want to go, like, for example, many people do have self doubt, or imposter syndrome, or, like, all this.
They need, people may not realize, but they may benefit from like life coaching to really crumble all these blocks down to be able to move past it, not from, not move past it, but to really embrace and acknowledge and find ways to really move towards their goals, but they have to first identify what are their blocks and life coaching can be there to help them with.
Nicholas Braman: Oh, that’s great. So going back to, you mentioned previously that your circle of mothers that you’re working with has been so supportive of you. As well as that time, um, when you were deciding whether or not to become a full time entrepreneur, one of your goals or things that, you know, made you feel passionate when you thought about is to help families.
Can you expand on that a little bit more? What is it about, you obviously have a very beautiful family with, uh, the three kids and your husband, but what is it about working with other families and helping them with some of the issues that, that is fulfilling to you?
Eliza Koo: Yeah. I stepped into help them from a, a breastfeeding support perspective.
And the amazing thing about that is because I always, I’m there to help them in the most vulnerable stage of their life, which is usually the first few months, right? And this is the point that many, I learned a lot from the families that I helped because firstly, I do see families with very supportive husbands.
They want to be there to support them. The wife, sometimes they don’t, they may not know how. So I’m there also helping the dads to find, to coach them, like, Hey, this is like the certain things that you can help your wife. And I don’t know, like, this just gives me a lot of, because I don’t only help the mom, I help the husband to know what to do to help his wife.
And that is a lot because moms going through freshly in their postpartum, they’re going through a lot of physical recovery and then this whole emotional, emotional changes. And some moms. They also go to a lot of identity, like questioning the identity. Oh my god, suddenly I’m a mom. Am I really super ready for it?
So that excites me a lot because I’m able to be there to help the dads too. And to even not only the dads, but also other family members. Sometimes, the grandparents will be like listening in and everything. And, and it’s not to, and it’s not to contradict anybody. It’s more, you know, telling them, like, not telling them, like, just sharing with them the pros and cons of certain breastfeeding decisions or anything.
And, and it’s up to them to decide.
Nicholas Braman: And, No, that’s, that’s great. For me, being a fairly new dad, two, two years old now, I’m like, I think you mentioned earlier that you’re someone who is, I think the city always wanted to be a mom and have a big family. And for me, that wasn’t the case. I’ve always gotten along well with kids.
I’ve always enjoyed being around. I would be the uncle running around with all the nieces and nephews and cousins and things at family gatherings. But I never had a super strong desire to, Oh, I want to make sure I have a big family when I, uh, after I get married and that sort of thing. So we actually waited until fairly late in our lives, relatively speaking, um, to have our kid a couple of years ago.
But I’ve just, first of all, I’ve found that it’s the best thing that’s, that’s ever happened to me. I love being a father, but I also realized I had no idea about pregnancy, no idea about breastfeeding and everything else that goes along with it. We did our training, we did some classes and that sort of thing, which was helpful, but Now looking back, I realized that the time before during pregnancy is the scariest part as a dad, where you have, I guess somewhat as a mom too, where you have no control over what’s happening and you just have to wait.
You can only support emotionally and with things relatively to make the mom comfortable and prepared. But compared to after the baby come out, I can get hands on. And change diapers, and do feedings, and put the baby to sleep, and all these sort of things. But it’s the part before that where I felt a bit helpless.
Have you heard other dads talk about that kind of thing?
Eliza Koo: You’re definitely not alone, which is why, just now you mentioned you’re drawing classes and everything. My heart light up like, my god, yes! As in like, joining classes sometimes assures debts a little bit more because of your knowledge and being educated on what to expect.
So now there’s, I just want to applaud you there, like. Joining classes, yes, that’s good. Um, but yes, there are debts that Um, like, like I shared earlier on, dads now like modern families, right, they are always very keen to their wives, their partners. Sometimes they just don’t know how and attending conferences is one thing and also finding the right information online.
Sometimes it’s really tough, right? So many conflicting information, conflicting information online. Back then, when I was my, um, first child, we attended pastor’s as well. But we didn’t attend breastfeeding class because I thought breastfeeding was supposed to be neutral and I, my body will know, I will know what to do, um, vice versa, right?
With my third child, we ramp up on the classes that we attended. Oh, really? Yes, for my third pregnancy. Oh, that’s interesting. So, because I don’t want, because for my first two, I was so lost. I just trusted the entire process of it all. And I lost my autonomy as well. Because I want to do certain things with my birth, I want to do certain things with caring of the baby, but I didn’t know what is, what is.
What is the right way or the evidence based way? So for my third pregnancy, I really went all in and spent more expensive investments in classes. This includes like late childbirth classes. Can you imagine for my third pregnancy that I, I went to go learn how to, like, how the body reacts during birthing.
So I, I went to a class taught by a doula by doula, and I invested a doula to be at, to be with us during my birth. And yeah, at that point I was already an IB csis. So I know about breastfeeding.
Nicholas Braman: So, yeah, that’s really interesting that after you’ve already given birth to two kids, that for their third one you went back and you actually sound like you were more rigorous preparation period.
Yeah.
Just in general, uh, I’m still on my first kid. We’re in the middle of deciding whether or not we’re going to try for another one. But how different were the, not just the birth part, but the kids in general? I, I think I’ve heard quotes where people say when you have the second kid, it’s not just twice as hard, it’s exponentially harder, the more kids you have because they all, Need attention and there’s, it’s so much harder to, to get a handle on whether that’s just so many more things to do when you’re taking them out somewhere or all that sort of thing.
So how, you guys, how are you guys coping with that, with having the three kids? And what was the differences between having one and two and three?
Eliza Koo: So coping with three kids, I would say it’s okay. So two kids versus three kids, three kids is a lot more. I wouldn’t have done it so without the help of my family, and my in laws, and my mom, and of course with the help of my husband’s pretty, pretty hands on too.
I think we are made to, to survive in a village, not just by ourselves. I mean, because this modern society, like, always, with ourselves and depending, and it also depends on what’s your relationship with your, with your in laws and, and sometimes I have like friends who I expect they’re just here by themselves without the help of the family.
Just so that’s one consideration. Um, another consideration is then sometimes I also, you know, have that conversations with friends like, do you want to have two or three kids because of, I don’t know, like societal pressure? Or you truly want to have kids out of love and the growth of the family.
Sometimes this question is that I would encourage people to really think deeper. Why do they want to grow their family? Is it because really, truly they want and it’s aligned with them? Or it’s the society tells you to? Because every time, like with parents, with one kid, um, the main, their main sharing with me is, every time we go to family gatherings, people will ask them, when are you going to have your second?
And sometimes they don’t even want to think about it because they may they may feel that only one is enough. And some people, they’re like, Oh, yeah, they really, really want a second. So that’s so different to what your body is telling you and what your instinctive reply is instead of what others should tell you.
Nicholas Braman: Actually, I think you just made me have a revelation when you said, Do you want to have a second kid? Because of love. And I just really, I never thought about it that way before. And I realized I love my daughter so much and seeing her grow up so far these two years has been so amazing. Why wouldn’t I? If it can be done again, why wouldn’t I want to do it?
So, thank you for Oh my
Eliza Koo: god, you got your answer. Oh my gosh, I’m happy for you.
Nicholas Braman: So then, you have been, you, running the business, you’re, now you have, your oldest one is in school already.
Eliza Koo: Yes, six years old, yeah.
Nicholas Braman: Yeah, and so then your middle one is in kindergarten.
Eliza Koo: Nursery. Nursery, okay.
Nicholas Braman: And you’re home with your youngest one.
How do you structure your day and your work so that you actually carve out time to work?
Eliza Koo: Yeah, so my life got a little bit more stable after my kid turned six months old. Then that’s when I really ramped up my appointments outside. And I made sure not to go through the rat race again by rushing through the rush hour every morning.
So I, I set, I can, I set the start time of my day to be like 10 a. m. or 11 a. m. sometimes just to not do the rush morning hours. At that point, my, my two older kids would have already been in school and I have helped at home with my third child. So I have a helper and sometimes my mother Kate will come by to help as well.
So yeah, I’m just blessed with good food at home. And yeah, so I dictate my working hours like from 10 a. m. and all the way to like late afternoon. to go out and have fun. So, so yeah, there are, there’s some structures. And one mistake that I did last time was like, I, because I was so bogged down like, I’m like, I’m like my own boss.
I need money every day right now. I need appointments every day. I need to reach the five pillars. And then I got burned out. So why, why don’t you That was a mistake. Working Mondays to Fridays outside, helping families. And it’s actually a li liberous job because I’ll be like bending down, helping with mums, with breastfeeding, carrying babies.
It’s actually quite tiring on my back. And I decided to have one day work on, work from home. And that helped me a lot. I could clear a lot of my admin stuff, my social media marketing, and, and yeah, just sit down one day, work from home. And I think entrepreneurs should be able to do that. Like, like other people with like their own disaffections, setting aside how to do what matters most can be helpful instead of like, why do you want to leave your corporate job who’s just like sucking you dry?
And then you’re going to your own business and you’re like layering on more stress for yourself. What is that difference then? Like why you make that shift? If, if, if you’re going to like, want to care for yourself in that sense.
Nicholas Braman: Yeah, I think I’ve always had that in the back of my head when I, when, you know, I’m not planning to start any business or anything, but when I think about being an entrepreneur, one of the things why I’ve, I’ve told people in the past, I am, I am not somebody who’s always said, Oh, I really want to work for myself.
I want to be my own boss, that kind of thing. Because one of the things I enjoy about working in a, in the corporate environment is you have your set. scope of responsibility and you don’t have the pressure of being the CEO, the founder responsible for everything. And I think I’m able to set boundaries and turn off the work brain after work time is over, although sometimes that’s pretty late, but whereas if I was the only one doing things, I feel like I would always.
Feel pressure and be like, Oh, I should be doing more. I should still be working. I’m not doing enough. And that’s, that’s great that you’ve learned to manage that and set your work environment in a way where you don’t feel that all the time.
Eliza Koo: And it’s also a little bit of a mindset as well, right? Like why, like this is whole like hustle culture.
And does it mean that you like, like people, myself included back then, I think that I should do more. So I can earn more, but that’s not necessarily 100 percent true.
Nicholas Braman: Yeah, eventually you start to get diminishing returns if you’re overworking yourself or you’re not happy or you’re not as productive because you’re working too much.
So going back to, it takes a village to raise kids and you have support from your mom and that sort of thing, we’re in a similar situation. Right. Mother in law has been helping us a lot. She’s actually living with us now. And of course, we have a helper as well, but I’m getting better at it. But one of the challenges I had, especially when my daughter was very young, was giving up, I don’t want to say control, but I guess responsibility of caring for my child.
So both a little bit of feeling guilty that I’m not doing everything for her, but then also fear of not being. What if something happens? What if what the other person is doing isn’t the best for my kid? Have you ever felt that way?
Eliza Koo: Yeah. So what you shared is around that, that guilt, right? Um, I did felt that way, especially for my first child back then during confinement, uh, we have, we had a confinement menu.
And this is very common. I’m holding my baby. I was holding my baby’s crying and then confidentially took over. Baby stopped crying. And I was like, Oh my god! Baby hates me or something. It might not do anything right or whatever. And what I’ve learned is babies do feel the energy and vibes. Around them and I may have been feeling anxious.
Baby may have felt that from me. That baby in the was fussy as well. So I, and with help with families, with helpers, myself included, I was so adamant that I don’t want my kid to be so close with the helper. And sometimes back then, as a new mom, I know I’m not alone in this, but I do feel moments of jealousy and my kid prefers from one else.
And throughout the years, I’ve learned that our kids will always know who their parents are. And when we go and parent from a place of scarcity or like desperation or like, you know, that the whole like, um, world. Instead of going in and stepping in from a place of love, centeredness and groundedness. Um, what fuels.
right for you, and what is more sustainable. So this is something that I’ve learned in the long run. Like, right now, if my kid prefers someone else, at that moment, it’s what the kid wants. It’s nothing to do with me as a person. It’s just that situation. The kid is reacting to that situation. And as parents, as parents, we all know, we always know, like, we set certain rules and instructions, and the kid may be just reacting to the boundary that they’re in.
you are setting, then it’s not, it’s, it’s not your time. Um, and this is what I’ve, I’ve learned and, and I would rather spend more quality time from a place of love and groundedness, rather than, oh here you go, I need to spend three hours with the kid, just make sure that I’m there present to, to fulfill my, my own like expectation of being a good parent.
That is, is, I don’t know, like, to me it doesn’t align at all. It’s okay if sometimes I spend time, not away, but just really step back to, to find a bit more of myself, to, to ground myself and then step in again. It’s okay, you don’t need to be there 24 7 with a child that is. Children are supposed to grow up in a village, to support and other caregivers serve their purpose in their, in your case.
And I like, for me, my kid’s life and they can learn serious values from everybody, not only from me. But, of course, Jeffrey, you mentioned about that control, right? I initially, my husband and I, initially, we controlled a lot in terms of the way our kids should be taken care of. Um, sometimes I was thinking, because other caregivers, when they care for our kids, they always have to remind myself, they will care for them from a place of love as well.
So, If certain ways that we want the caregivers to manage stresses them up, then they be, will they be at a very good place in their mind to really give their 100 percent of love for their grandchild, for example, or even like stressing caregivers. Sometimes we may not know that we are, but I don’t know.
This is what I’ve learned throughout the year. Hey, actually, they do have their different ways and To care for the child and the child actually knows who have, which caregiver have what patterns or that as they grow up, they will be able to negotiate certain ways out of it, but it’s all learning opportunities.
Nicholas Braman: Yeah, I, I really like that point about scarcity. I, I had a similar situation and had to change my thinking with. My daughter, because yes, there were quite a few conflicts about how things should be done and when she should go down for a sleeve, when should we give her a snack, just all the little normal things.
But, and I, luckily I haven’t had as much a problem with jealousy because my daughter is very sticky too. So, so I haven’t had to deal with that as much, but again, I just had to have that change my mindset and realize there’s another person, this grandmother in her life that loves her so much. And the benefit of that far outweighs any of the small little things that maybe bug you or bug me or aren’t exactly the way I would do things.
But it’s a great thing that she has another person and not just her two parents that are with her basically every day taking care of her. And so that was helpful to me to get over that feeling of, it’s really positive to have this person here helping out when things aren’t exactly how I’d like them to go.
But then on the other hand, I think with, especially with grandparents, it can be quite challenging. They’re a different generation. The way of parenting, um, was a lot different back then. Have you had any challenges with that and how have you dealt with them?
Eliza Koo: Yes. One of my, I don’t think it’s like a huge challenge.
It’s just that it doesn’t align with what I, I would parent. Recently, I have this, um, baby son language webinar where I talk about especially for children. Uh, and my stance was My stance is to don’t easily say out, be careful to them because the words, be careful. May not necessarily be truly helpful for toddlers because they know they won’t know what to be careful of.
What if there’s a sky falling or, you know, Because they’re just like playing or climbing around, right? So, but then, you know, the older generation, even like myself, sometimes we’ll just blurt it out. Oh, be careful, be careful, be careful. So, this is just one, one little small ways I can think of that, that doesn’t align with me.
But it doesn’t mean that I, I gonna, I don’t know when to like confront this. That helps the grandparents to do that because they do it out of love, even like telling kids not to run and everything, but kids are made to explore and run around, um, but it’s out of love. And it also depends, right? Like sometimes I counsel some mothers, if they find that certain boundaries that this put out is being, it’s being like stepped over.
You as a parent have the rights, even though it’s very difficult, especially in Asian families, right? You have, the parent have the rights. So to explain what that boundary is, oh, rather the other person takes, you know, is it has no control. But even saying out what your boundary is sometimes can be very challenging for parents with this type of conversation with grandparent.
But then this is, this is really mainly whether husband and wife are aligned in this. If it’s the person. Who needs to communicate to whoever must be your own parents. If it’s your own parents, they just do that. That’s the safest way for sure.
Nicholas Braman: Yeah, definitely. I’m going back to the, not saying be careful.
What’s the alternative? What are you supposed to say?
Eliza Koo: Yeah. So I’ve read somewhere, either you step back and assess, is the child truly in danger? If it’s danger, then of course we’ll help the child and be careful because there’s a hole here, you’re going to fall down. So instead. Either support them or problem solve with them.
Like, recently I’ve learned, Oh, it seems like you’re very high up there in the playground. What, how do you think you’re gonna come, how do you think you’re gonna come down? Or using this leg, using this hand to problem solve with them. Instead of saying, be careful. Or you can be even very, be very specific.
Oh, look out for the little pole there, or look out for the hole there when you jump over. So they will know, oh yes, they will know they have to be captured. This whole, there’s a slew of like research and articles online on this saying, be careful. So I think it’s interesting, justice, just, we’ll go just to do, be careful saying, be careful to the children.
Nicholas Braman: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s important. I find even with my daughter, not to be super stereotypical of being the dad, I think I am less cautious and protective. Certainly, very grandma, obviously, especially, but mom sometimes too. And I almost feel like sometimes I have to go out of my way. To let her be in, not dangerous situations, but in, let her explore, let her play the way she wants to play outside.
Last week, we were, went for a walk on the railway corridor right after it rained and she was splashing in all the puddles. Nice. And it wasn’t, certainly if the other caregivers had been around, it wouldn’t have done that. Yeah. Allowed to happen. But I think trying to find that balance, I met her find, find that balance as well.
I don’t want to get fearful and be afraid of things or be afraid of trying things or having fun or that sort of thing.
Eliza Koo: I love that for you. I am the one. Well, who pushed the boundary for my kid for play exploration. So yeah, just do assess the danger. But yeah, I let them play out in the rain, time around barefoot around the playground.
So, yeah,
Nicholas Braman: that’s great. And you also mentioned just now making sure you and your husband are on the same page. Now we’re having a lot more years of experience parenting than me. You have like formal discussions about how we, what decision or what way we want our kids to be parented, or is it just natural?
And you guys are a great team. So you initially already know what the other one wants.
Eliza Koo: For those who know, uh, know both of us, we bicker a lot. It’s not, it’s not like huge arguments or whatever, but we bicker a lot. And we learn from, and we learn from there. We learn each other’s style and like mindset or even perspective.
I would say that’s better than not even communicating at all. And it varies from, from couples to couples, right? So for, for us, we learned through bickering and I’m not saying, I’m not saying that throughout the years we have had, everything was very smooth. No, we do have like our ups and downs, especially when it comes to parenting spouse, when our little baby goes to like toddler and then toddler, there’s so much difference on newborn parenting.
So newborn parenting and toddler parenting is really very different. And. What I see, not personally for me as well, what I see many parents do suddenly find that, eh, there’s some differences in parenting styles out of a sudden when the chick goes, start becoming toddlers. And this is a time that if, if you can communicate, but otherwise, like me and my husband, we just bicker our way through.
Not bicker our way through, but still willing to learn what is best for our child. So,
Nicholas Braman: so that’s like healthy bickering?
Eliza Koo: I would think so though, in the midst of it. I really hate that with the distribution. Ah, yeah. But I think it really helped us, at least we air it out. I’m not saying I’m not encouraging any everyone to cor , but that’s our, that seems to be our style,
Nicholas Braman: but I’m curious, how do you do that and not let it escalate to the point where it’s more than bickering?
Eliza Koo: I was saying it’s also like respect for each other. Yeah. And because we, okay, so firstly it’s respect for each other. So obviously no name calling or whatever. That’s our personal attachment already. And then next is, Oh, I know based on my experience with working with therapists and everything for like, in my line of work, like I do need to know the therapist and who are the therapists, but just conversations and this thing, the repair work is really important.
Um, and. I guess I have a higher ego than my husband. My husband is the one who’s always willing to do the repair work for us. And this is something that I’m still learning. I’m still learning. I find that helps a lot. Like, especially both parties are willing to repair and then like just It’s really tough but to drop the ego because Ego shouldn’t be like running our lives.
It’s more out of love. Love should be running our lives, not the ego. So different thing I’m also learning, but my husband is always there to do the report and I’m, I’m glad about him.
Nicholas Braman: That’s yeah. But, okay. So now let’s talk a little bit about moving forward. What will success look, look like for you in the future?
So you’ve made this big career change to have this healthy thriving family. What is on your mind to accomplish in your future? And what are the important areas that you’re going to focus on for yourself?
Eliza Koo: I think success will look like for me, it’s both re learning to To do, okay, this is going to be sound really, really rural, but more freedom to find myself.
And this means that going into more, being with nature a bit more, being with myself in nature a bit more, and really asking myself tough questions when it comes to like maybe meditating or reading more book, but more time to find myself while having like a business, so that’s like success to me. That’s right now.
I don’t have time to do like finding self, but to me it’s like, I’m in that stage of building that business self.
Nicholas Braman: So I think that’s great from a personal side. And then how about for your business? You said, we, we mentioned it a little bit earlier. You don’t have maybe specific metrics, but are you looking at just continuing to help more and more mothers and, and fathers?
Or are you looking to move into different areas of their lives that you can support them with? Yes.
Eliza Koo: Yes. Something that I’m very, very excited is to incorporate, um, life coaching mainly for working mothers at this stage. But who knows in the future I may, I may do it like for parents in general. But right now I want to help more, uh, like coaching working moms a bit more because of the huge life transition.
From a pregnant mother, to a mom with newborn, and then to a full time working mother at work. So it’s a huge transition in a very short amount of time. And a lot of people do struggle with that, myself included. So I want to be, I want to help more working moms and life coaching.
Nicholas Braman: Yeah, actually I was, when my wife was pregnant and we were going through and we’d go to the baby fair and we have, uh, baby care classes and, uh, Confinement nanny services and all this.
And I was thinking a lot of these businesses are one or maybe two time customers, and then for the rest of the people’s lives, they’re not going to need these kinds of business services again, right? So maybe with life coaching, you already have that relationship from dealing from working with them when they were new parents, and then it can continue on to other aspects of their life.
Eliza Koo: Oh my God, when you say that, it sounds so right for me because recently for the past few days, I’ve been thinking what kind of life coach I want, who do I want to help? And I started at a working mom, but I was still very unsure, but since you laid it out, God, it sounds, I don’t know, it sounds, oh my God, like things are clicking.
Nicholas Braman: Yes, it sounds like, it sounds like a plan. Thank you again so much, Liza, for talking to me today. Is there anything that else you’d like to share? Uh, where can people find, uh, your social handles? And if they want to learn how to work with you, uh, where do they go?
Eliza Koo: Yes, you can find me at Instagram at tenderlovingmilk.
I’m super active in there sharing all things around breastfeeding, motherhood and baby. And for life coaching, you can find me at Eliza dot life coaching. That’s my Instagram handle. And I share a lot of self care, personal growth, self improvement stuff in there. So I’m really excited to do more content in that part.
Nicholas Braman: All right. Fantastic. It was great talking to you.
for listening to Before We Get There with your host, Nicholas Braman. Please like and subscribe on YouTube and your favorite podcast platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts. You can also find us on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook at Before We Get There Podcast. New episodes are released every Thursday morning.
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