She Quit on Me in 4th Grade.

Now She Runs My Operations. Here’s What I’ve Learned About Working With Family.

This episode almost didn’t happen.

Not because we were nervous, or because there was anything uncomfortable to navigate — but because we kept waiting for the right moment to sit down and do it. Then a client named Elsie asked me directly: “Could you share how you and your daughter work together? It seems like it’s going well.” And that was it. Automatic yes.

So here we are.

I sat down with my oldest daughter, Lilly McCue — Director of Operations and Marketing Operations at Amber McCue — and my business partner and longtime friend, Joanna Tiger, to have a conversation we probably should have recorded a long time ago. Because a lot of people ask me about this. And I think the answer surprises them.

Working with family isn’t just possible. For us, it’s been one of the best decisions we’ve made. But not because we’re lucky. Because we’ve built it intentionally.

Here’s what I’ve learned.

It Started Earlier Than You’d Think

Lilly was nine — maybe ten — when she started working with me. We were sitting at the kitchen desk in our Maryland house, and she was pulling quotes to tweet on Hootsuite. Yes, really. That long ago.

From there, it evolved. She packaged client gifts. She eventually joined our photography business in a recruiting role. She left to try corporate (she was number one on the leaderboard — just not fulfilled). And then she came back, and she’s been growing with us ever since.

There was also a moment there — fourth grade — where she quietly stopped doing the gift packaging. I was preparing to have the hard conversation. I’d rehearsed it. And then she walked in and told me she was done. She beat me to it.

The way that played out actually set the tone for everything that came after. Calm. Direct. No drama. A natural ending that left the door open for every new beginning.

The One Thing That Makes It Work: Communication Before It’s Needed

When Lilly eventually left for a corporate job, it wasn’t a surprise. There was no “two weeks notice and then she was gone.” There was a conversation, then another one, then a transition — proactive, clear, and handled with enough runway that no one felt blindsided.

That’s the standard we hold across the whole team. And it’s not just because we’re family. It’s what you’d want from any working relationship. You want to know before someone’s out the door. You want people to feel safe enough to say, “Hey, this isn’t working for me,” before it becomes a problem.

What family adds is an existing foundation of trust that makes those conversations easier to start. But it also means the stakes can feel higher if you let things fester. So you don’t. You just talk.

Clear Roles. No Micromanaging. Full Trust.

One of the things Joanna pointed out in this conversation — and I think she nailed it — is that Lilly and I share a particular trait: we both pick things up and figure them out as we go. We’re not waiting for all the conditions to be perfect. We’re moving, and we’re course-correcting as needed.

That works because we’ve built the scaffolding to support it. Our roles and responsibilities are clear. When something is Lilly’s, I don’t touch it. (The team would very much prefer I keep my hands off anything I haven’t been specifically assigned to. I was reminded of this during a recent Substack setup. Point taken.) When something is mine, Lilly’s not hovering. We trust that the work is getting done — and more often than not, I wake up to find things have moved forward in ways I didn’t even know we were working on yet.

That’s the goal. A team that doesn’t need you to hold it together. One that runs.

What “Family Culture” Actually Means

There’s a narrative out there that “we treat our team like family” is a red flag. I’ve heard it. And I think I understand why people say it — because when communication is bad, boundaries are unclear, and trust hasn’t been built, layering a personal relationship onto a professional one can make everything messier.

But that’s not an argument against family culture. It’s an argument for doing the work to build a real one.

For us, family culture means: we start our meetings with a real check-in because connection matters. It means no one’s pretending to be a different version of themselves at work. It means assuming positive intent — always — so that “I can’t get to this today” never gets interpreted as anything other than exactly what it is. It means you can raise a concern, disagree, push back, and still know you’re on the same team.

Joanna said it perfectly: “There’s no work Amber, and personal Amber. There’s just Amber.” That’s the throughline. You can’t really separate it. And I’ve stopped trying.

What I’d Tell Someone Considering This

If you’re thinking about bringing a family member — or a child — onto your team, here’s what I’d offer:

Have the conversation before you start. Whatever you’re worried about — bring it to the surface now. What happens if we disagree? What if it doesn’t work? What does “this isn’t working” look like, and what would we do? Getting those conversations on the table before day one means you’re not navigating them in the middle of a busy month.

Get clear on roles from the beginning. Not because you don’t trust each other — but because clarity is what allows full trust to exist. When everyone knows what’s theirs, no one has to hover.

Know that life will show up at work, and work will show up at life. Ideas will bleed into dinner. Personal conversations will spark business strategy. Your sisters will tell you to wrap it up because they can’t contribute. That’s fine. It’s actually part of the fun.

And finally: be willing to have the “you might need to quit me” conversation. I’ve said it to Lilly before — genuinely, with love, as her mom. There have been seasons where something else was right for her, and I wasn’t going to hold her back from that. The fact that there’s nothing in the business that could damage our personal relationship is one of the greatest gifts of doing this work together.

The Thing That Surprised Me Most

We spent a good portion of this episode trying to pinpoint what, specifically, makes our dynamic work. And what we kept coming back to is this: there’s no hard line.

The roles have dotted edges. The schedule has flexibility. The rules are mostly unspoken because they’re built into how we show up for each other. After a certain time, we’re not pinging each other. If someone’s on vacation, they’re actually on vacation. If a plate is too full, someone says so, and someone else picks it up without making it a thing.

None of that is documented. It’s just how we operate. And it works because we’ve built the kind of trust where you don’t need every rule written down. You already know.

That’s what I want for every team. Not the family part — though for me, that’s a bonus I’m deeply grateful for. But the trust, the clarity, the communication, and the genuine investment in each other’s success.

Build that, and the rest follows.

📖 Want to build a team that runs without you? Explore the AI Clone Team: aicloneteam.com

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

 Hey, hey, so excited to be here with you today. We have something fun planned. We’ve got some guests, and this episode is being recorded at the request of a client who said, “Could you share with us how you and your daughter work together? And how does that go? It seems like it’s going well.” And I think it is.

We’re gonna hear what Lily has to say. So with me on this episode today, we’ve got Lily McHugh, my oldest daughter. Hey, Lily. Hello. Thanks for having me. This is my first time on the podcast. It is the first time on the podcast. We’ve been wanting to do this for a long time actually, so when Elsie requested it, it was an automatic yes.

And Lily started with us, with my consulting company, pulling quotes to tweet. So it was that long ago. Fast-forward through a lot of journeys, she joined our photography business team and started in a recruiting role there at a season when we were growing and needed a lot of help, and I knew she would be excellent at that.

So she dove in and owned it. Fast-forward to today, Lily is the director of operations and marketing operations at the consulting company. Again, full circle. And there’s also a third person here with us today. Joanna Tiger, my business partner and longtime friend, has been with us this entire journey. So Joanna, so excited you’re here.

Thank you. Thank you. I’m so excited to be here. I also think, Lily, in all… Like, you’ve know- obviously known Amber longer, but this is the first time I’ve been on podcast I think. Or did we do one for Amber Portwood? We d- we totally did an episode. Yeah. It’s one of my favorites. I remember it, and I know exactly where I was sitting.

Yeah. It was only one though. Yeah, only one and a long time ago. Yeah. We may do more of this. Yeah. And Joanna’s gonna provide color. Like, if we forget something and she’s got extra stories. You know how you’re just kinda going through life, and Joanna’s… So every now and then she pops in and is like, “Did y’all forget?”

Like, oh yeah, we did. It’ll be your side, my side, and Joanna with the truth. Oh, no, no, no. With the truth. I love it. It’ll be me with another side, let’s say that. Oh, my gosh. So Lily, we’re gonna start with the beginning. Well, you know, I kind of shared the origin, fast-forward from here to there, but when we started this journey, do you even remember how this started?

I vaguely remember. I have flashbacks, but I always forget when it started. I feel like I was, I wanna say, like, 10 years old. Yeah. Nine or 10 years old. I think so. It was like- You were maybe nine. Yes. Okay. That’s what I thought, and I was like, “No, that’s too young. It s- can’t be it.” But I think that is it. I remember learning Hootsuite, for sure, which sounds crazy right now.

But I remember learning Hootsuite. I remember putting together kind of like a client directory for you, and those are my core memories for the first, you know, jobs I had with you. Oh my gosh, that’s so funny. Even though we were operating remotely in the consulting business from the very beginning, I still wanted a print copy about all the information I could have on my clients so I’d it at my fingertips, and Lily put that together for us.

One of the other things you did early on that I almost forgot about was packaging the gifts we sent to clients each month. Oh yeah, forgot about that. And that’s so funny to see the evolution because I still oversee that, but we’re not packaging it up by hand anymore, which is- Yeah … nice. Which was nice. I honestly think that that leads us to the moment I fired you.

Yes. I think it was a quiet quitting/fire situation. Quiet quitting turned official quit, actually. Yeah, turned, “We have to draw the line here.” So Lily was responsible for packaging those gifts that I would send to clients each month as a part of one of our experiences, and she kinda stopped doing it. She got really bad at it.

So you’re right, maybe it was more quiet quitting, but I was observing it happening. I’m like, “No more, no more.” I cannot handle this any more. And let me know if your recollection is the same, anyone, but I was getting ready to have the hard conversation, and just as I was going in to do it, I had built up, practiced in my head, she quit.

I officially quit. I told you, “I don’t wanna do this anymore.” Yeah. But maybe I said it and you’re like, “Mom, I already quit.” I feel like we should layer in that Lily was probably, like, 10, or like- … 11. She… This is… She was not, like, an adult No She was, like, a 4th grader. I already quit. Which makes the way that you approach a conversation like that so much more impactful and important.

I had to be… Couldn’t ruin… Like, it’s not, it was not a big deal by any means, but so I wanted to be very cautious so that it didn’t traumatize her. That’s so funny. I don’t think… It doesn’t sound like it did. No, not- I think it traumatized you more. It sounds like you were like, “Wait, you’re quitting?” You don’t wanna work with me?

Yeah, it may have. No, I remember it all being very low pressure. Like- Just natural. And it’s, it, that’s how it feels natural now too, but just spending time together, enjoying talking about work, just ends up doing work together. Even as, you know, like the fourth grader, I would imagine I’m sitting with you in your office while you’re working from home.

It’s just so natural, right? And so it makes sense it was a natural beginning and a natural end. What a cute image, actually. So we had, at the time we were living in Maryland, I had an office, a space there, but we also had a desk in the kitchen, and you would set up at the kitchen desk and do your work, your work.

Aw. And yeah, I was at the, in the office. It was fine. We both had our spaces. You’d check in. Is this right? Aw, that is super sweet. I love that. Yeah. I remember actually wanting to double check that quotes were, like aligned or it was an okay quote for your Twitter for Hootsuite. That’s so fun. Yeah. I also think there was a time when in the photography business, Joanna, do you recall as well when Lily, we were working together but she had to quit because work activities?

Yeah, I feel like when you were doing some of that hiring you then had to step back from it. Mm-hmm. I remember, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think what happened is that I was working a lot for the photography business in college, and then I got my first corporate job out of college. Yeah. And I… There was no… That was full time, and then I w- I stepped away from my corporate job and, y- you know, everything- Yeah

changed from that. But I think that was the reason why I stepped away from the photography business. Right. Yeah. Yeah. You had a full-time corporate job outside of FreeBee, and I remember talking with you about that and you were like, “I just wanna see what I can do outside of my mom’s business. I just wanna see, like, you know, what it feels like to work corporate and to try this on.”

And, and you did, and you did really well there I remember. Yeah. Yeah. There was one month I was, yeah, I was number one on our team, which was great, and I said, “Okay, I did it. It’s time to come back.” Mm-hmm. And we were like, “Come back. Come back. Please come back.” Actually Amber and I were like, “Mm-hmm. Yeah. This is all working as we planned.”

It’s looking good. I lo- yeah, ’cause Lily grew into… So you were, were doing the recruiting and the hiring, but then you evolved into, okay, other project management, leading some customer service activities, resource management. I mean, it just continued to grow. One of the nice things about your expertise, you’re pretty adaptable.

You’ll step in anywhere, which is really a great trait to have on small teams or busy- Yeah … dynamic teams as well. Something I notice you both have in common, ’cause it’s not a skill that is, like, one of my strengths, is Amber, you’re like, you have the idea, you are ready to go. You don’t need all the pieces in place.

You just have the idea. You know things will fall in as needed, and we’ll figure it out as we go. Lily’s a lot like that. She’s like, “Okay, I’m just gonna pick this up, and I’m gonna figure it out as I go.” And the opposite, I’m on the other end going, “Well, wait a minute, what about this and this and this? And I need to know this and I need to know this “, and that’s not a strength of mine, so it’s something I admire in both of you that you

And you, you do it. You always manage to, like, “Okay, we’re gonna figure it out. We’re gonna get it done,” and it, it gets done. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Most of the time it does get done. That’s so true. We do all play- Okay … to our strengths, and it makes me think about how to clone yourself and how you taught me that and how I watched you.

It’s so true. You were there from the very beginning of that, hearing and watching- Mm-hmm … that in action as well. That’s so fun. Okay, honest answer, Lily. Would you work for me if I were not your mom? Yes, I totally would. I absolutely would. We know I’m comfortable quitting and you’re comfortable firing me.

So there’s no pressure. I enjoy this. I love the work. Absolutely. You’re a great leader, great boss. Hmm. Is there anything that when we disagree, or can you think of a time when we’ve disagreed and you’ve thought, “Ah, I really disagree with what she’s doing here,” or it was awkward for you to raise something or raise an issue to either Joanna or I, really?

I don’t think so. I mean, I can absolutely think of times where I’ve disagreed, ’cause that’s super natural and that happens. I think having a personal relationship actually helps and supports that too, because I have a fuller context and understanding for any situation that’s coming up that I may feel strongly, you know, one way or another towards.

And so having, like, a close relationship helps, but it also makes it easier to know how and when to check in, and, like, the level to push and communicate, “Hey, I think you should consider this” or, “What about this?” It just makes it easier almost in that regard. Rather, if I was just going to, you know, a leader at another company that I don’t have a close personal relationship with, it would almost make me feel more in my head.

I don’t know the context. I don’t know if we have … You know, I can come and voice my concerns in a s- you know, a safe or comfortable place, so it makes it easier, and it feels safer for sure. I love that. I once heard a business owner say You know, there’s philosophies around treat your team like your, their family, or we’re all family at this company.

And one of my core values is absolutely we are family. And it was interesting because I heard a leader say, “I ditched that belief. This is work. This is not my family. I have to be able to have hard conversations, and I have to be able to say goodbye to people when it’s not working.” And I reacted that, to that completely differently, ’cause I’m like, yes, I can still treat people with all of the things that I would my family.

Like, we think about even customer service. Okay, what would I say to my sister or my cousin? And similar philosophy, because I think back to those times when I’m like, “It’s not working. We gotta just talk about it. We just gotta talk about it.” Yeah. But I think that’s a core value in, we had it in the photography business with your, you know, boudoir BFF at Amber mCcue.

It’s just we treat each oth- I’m not actually family. I feel like family. I’m not actually family. But I’ve known both of you forever and worked with you and partnered with you, and it just feels like family. It’s just, that’s just how we treat each other, and we- Mm-hmm … we talk to each other like we would want to be spoken to, and we are kind.

Yeah. And yeah, we approach everything with, between us and between the team, we’ll figure it out. Yeah. Mm-hmm. You are family- I think- … Joanna, also. Gotta throw that in there. I was fishing.

Going back to what you said, Lily, about it almost makes it easier, but I think part of it’s because we do have pretty open communication in a family environment, and then it carries over to the work environment. If our family dynamics weren’t so open, it might be harder or vice versa. But I was thinking about communication and how, for me, that is one of the key things that makes any team work, but especially this.

Like, w- when you were going to corporate, it wasn’t a surprise. It wasn’t like, “Okay, I’m leaving in two weeks. Good luck.” It was proactive. It was, “Okay, I might need to make these shifts. I’m likely making these shifts. Okay, it’s happening.” Mm-hmm. And okay, we knew it’s coming. We know it’s coming. And it’s not, “It’s happening, goodbye.”

It’s, “It’s happening, let me… You’re ready. I’m gonna make sure you’re ready.” So that is something that works because we’re family, but I think that is something that you want even if you’re not family. Yeah. Like, I’m gonna know because we have a good rapport on the family side. But even if we’re not, it’s good to know before an employee is, “Peace out,” and then you got, you know.

Yeah. I agree. I, I mean, I think about, I feel like I hear this kind of as a red flag or when companies say, “We treat our people like family,” I feel like I hear that, “Oh, look out for that. That’s a red flag.” I wonder, that’s not a red flag to me, but it seems like it is, or is a concern for others. And I wonder if that’s because of just, like- core communication problems or boundary, struggles with boundaries- Mm-hmm

and things like that generally, where when you add in and kind of layer personal relationships to it, it can get a lot more challenging. It just kind of like shines a brighter light on those, you know, struggles or issues. And so maybe it’s easier just to wall it up and say, “Work and life.” Yeah. But I think it’s a really beautiful thing to like kind of let your worlds collide, and it’s kind of just like makes your community larger.

You do have to have a strong foundation of communication, of boundaries, of trust- Mm … of integrity, of all of these things that you do need anywhere, whether or not you’re mother-daughter or anything. Yeah. But it, it just almost makes it more, more important. It’s making me wonder and think through examples.

Maybe you’ll have one. Is there any time in our personal lives where work was intruding, where it felt like, “Oh, gosh, we’re do- we’re trying to do something personal, and here we go with work again”? Or it could go the other way, too, “We’re trying to work,” and, “Oh, great, here we go with family stuff again.”

Absolutely. But I can’t think of any glaring examples. I can’t think of anything that caused an actual rift with anyone, anywhere. Like, I think about sometimes our personal conversations, we’ll just get a spark of an idea and we’re like, “Oh, what about this for this, this for work?” And then we’ll be sitting with my sisters Audrey and Harper, and they’re like, “Okay, come on, wrap it up.

We can’t contribute here.” Mm. And I, that’s the only thing that comes up, just because ideas flow naturally, and so sometimes I feel like personal conversations will bleed into work ideas, and they’ll be annoyed. But it’s never, it’s never severe. It’s never, you know, intrusive really in work or life or anything like that that I can remember.

Yeah. There are times when I’m on vacation but you’re not, and Lily’s gotta work. I’m like, “Oh, she’s still working?” And then there are other times when I’m not working or I’m waiting for Lily so we can go do something, and she’ll like, “Okay, five more minutes,” or yeah. You’re like, “Wrap it up over there.” Ready to go do something.

That’s so funny. Jo- Joanne, I would love to know from your perspective, too. I feel like we do talk about our personal lives a lot on work calls or things like that. What’s, like, your perspective on that? I think it’s, like, just the most natural thing, ’cause like especially with Amber, there’s not, like, work Amber and then personal Amber.

There’s just Amber. So she’s showing up as Amber in everything she’s doing. So that natural thread of, like, family, community, care, connection is- there, and there’s never a time where we’re, like, chatting. And I also enjoy, like, the top of all of our meetings. It’s like part of our structure that we do a little personal catch-up, and there’s never a time where I’m like, “Oh, I shouldn’t talk about this.”

It’s like, “I can’t wait to talk about this.” Yeah. So ’cause it’s such a, like, safe, supportive space for each other, and I love hearing what’s going on in everybody’s lives and being able to support you, like, outside of work, too. Like, things you got going on and personal projects and that sort of stuff. I think it’s, it’s never a time where I’m like, “Ugh, can we just get to the meeting?

Can we get to the…” Never. Yeah. Mm-hmm. We have a whole episode on our meeting structures and that, that piece that Joanna was talking about. At the beginning of the meeting we do check in and why. It’s not my natural go-to. I kinda had to work to understand and appreciate that, but I think it has big impact, and we’ll, in the show notes, link to that as well, to that episode, for anyone who wants to check out that meeting structure.

It’s super helpful, and some resources around that. I was actually recently in a meeting where we did not ha- or we were in the middle kind of getting started on that five-minute, you know, just check in time, chit-chat, and it was cut off intentionally, and I felt it in the meeting. It was such a shift. So I think that time is so important.

I agree, and usually, even though we’re checking in, I’m, I- usually, I’d say 95 to 98% of the time, even though we have a pretty substantial check-in at the beginning, the meetings are typically so well-run that we still end on time, and we placeholder and identify when we need to, you know, carry over the conversation.

What would you tell someone who’s about to hire family or their child and/or a, a child who’s, uh, going to work with their parent? What guidance would you have for either person? Hmm. That’s a tricky question. I would first say, “That’s so exciting. That can be super fun,” and I really have only seen it be fun.

But that will be awesome. I guess my advice would be to, if they have any concerns or, you know, worries, I might try to talk about it from the jump, um, and say, “Okay, I’m honestly so ex-,” and are, you know, “We have a past or a history of experiencing this. How do we mitigate that here?” I would recommend to do a little bit of reflection on your relationship and see if you can talk about anything that you’re worried about before bringing work into the mix.

Just to, you know, start off on that foundation of trust and communication, and it’s all on the table. You’re starting from the same place, and I feel like a common fear of people working with family members is, what if we get into a fight, you know, in one location and it bleeds into the other, or it just, you know, it worsens it?

And I feel like we’ve never really experienced that, and so I think communication and having a strong relationship anyway supports that or helps avoid that. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I’m sitting here wondering how unique is this? Like, I don’t know many other people who work with family this closely really. Mm-hmm. So I’m wondering if they experience it the same way or what their challenges are, because I’m going, we don’t really have…

We don’t have, like, big hurdles or things we have to work through often or disagreements really or… Mm-hmm. So I- and I’m trying to pinpoint what are we doing exactly that sort of, you know, sets us up for that, or is that very common? I don’t know. I- I haven’t worked with other family members before. I don’t know.

A couple of things we do that I think work for me well, and again, this goes back to almost any team, but our roles and responsibilities are pretty clear, and I am not touching those things that usually, I mean, maybe every now and then, but y’all know it’s a rare occurrence that I’m, that I’ll jump in and do something that is not mine to do.

We don’t want you to, Amber. Don’t touch it. Don’t touch it. Don’t touch it. Oh, my gosh. I was actually thinking about that as I was setting up Substack. I’m like, “Oh, here I am. Nobody here to tell me if I break it.” Uh-oh. You still have the keys to the car. Exactly. But I think, yeah, I would not step in. If someone does something that was mine, I don’t mind.

So okay, good. But I also think the time differences may help. So we are pretty clear as well on, like, if I am sleeping, there was a time when I would feel pressure, like you can’t sleep. Everybody’s awake. Everybody’s on. Everybody’s still going. And I don’t feel that pressure because I know things are taken care of, and when I am awake and everybody else is sleeping, so those boundaries are kind of nice, and like I have this quiet time to work.

I don’t expect anyone to reply. There is a few-hour overlap in the evening where I do have to say, like, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, guys. Everybody’s on. I gotta stay plugged in before bedtime.” But that’s a, a different challenge. But I think staying in lanes, roles and responsibilities, knowing, not micromanaging, like being able to fully trust that they’ve got it, everybody’s doing what they need to do and probably more.

Like, some days I’ll wake, I’m like, “Oh, I didn’t even know we were working on that. That’s awesome.” Yeah. Yes. I- that brings up something for me, too, where it’s not only about your relationship with family to having that kind of successful relationship, but also your relationship to work, and is this… Y- you know, I feel like a part of the reason why this ticks so well in our dynamic at Amber McHugh is it’s not like a J-O-B to anyone.

We’re all invested in the success of, of, uh, all of our clients. We’re passionate about the work and, you know, what we’re learning all the time and implementing, and I think that’s a big part of it, too. I think it would be a different dynamic if it was- somebody on the team who was just, who, who didn’t match that energy or that passion.

And I think that makes a big difference too. We’re all genuinely interested and excited about what we’re doing here. It’s not a, you know, punch in, punch out feeling. Mm-hmm. You’re not counting the hours to the end of the day. Yeah. That’s so good. And honestly, if I did feel that, if I did feel like, “Oh, Lily’s not excited about this,” or anyone on the team, I would have that conversation, ’cause that’s gonna impact all of our energy.

So you’re not feeling it. Maybe you should look for something else. And there has been a time where I have said, “Oh, Lily, you’ve gotta quit me. I don’t want you to, but you have to.” Do you remember that? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. You’re like, “This isn’t, this isn’t it.” But- Ah … yeah. And that’s how you would wanna care for your family member.

That’s how you would want, you know, to be cared for as an employee. As a team member, you want somebody to see you, know your interests, and just value, you know, want what’s best for you either way. Yeah. That’s so true. Curveball question. Has working with me changed how you see me as a mom? No, not at all. I think that, like Joanna said earlier, you are one.

It’s not like we have a work relationship and a mother-daughter relationship. It is just very natural as one. Yeah, no, not at all. Maybe I c- like maybe in the beginning, and I’m mostly just saying that ’cause I can’t really remember and I was so young. But I think it’s always been very natural. Like, you working from home, I just see you in your work element anyway.

You know, it’s just, it’s never been a stark difference for me, like a hidden life. It’s always just been- Mm … I’ve always had a peek behind the curtain. I mean, it’s just been fluid, and like who you are in one area is the same as you are in the other. No, yeah, even when we talk about work, like I said, in personal conversations, it’s very fluid and natural, and it’s not, there’s no hard line or difference for me.

Mm-hmm. Joanna? Mm-hmm. Has… When we’re in a work environment, it’s probably the same though, but that’s all just one. Does it ever, “Yeah. Oh, wait, she just went into mom mode”? Or- No … is there ever a tone? No, yeah. No. Never. No. In fact, I would almost say I have a memory, and I think it was maybe Lily, or it may have been Audrey, but we were at the house in Maryland, so this was like early, early days.

And I feel like one of them, Audrey or Lily, had like a $100 bill that they were playing with. Literally a $100 bill, or maybe it was a $20 bill. And I remember being like, “What? You’re gonna lose that money for sure.” And I remember saying that to you, Amber, and this was like a mom moment and a business moment and a teaching moment all in one.

You were like, “She’s gotta learn how to handle money and be responsible with money.” And anyway, so, and I remember being like, “My mom wouldn’t even give me…” I maybe had a dollar to go to the ice cream truck, and I better bring back 13 cents, you know? Like- It was such an eye-opening thing of like, oh, look at, this is like such a mom teaching moment of like money is just money.

It kind of comes and goes. You need to learn how to handle it. You need to know what it looks like, and you know what it… But also a business moment too because all that stuff kind of plays in, and I remember being like, “Oh, what a…” That’s just, I don’t know. It was a, a learning thing for me, and also to see you being a mom and teaching about, I don’t know, about money and all this stuff.

I just thought like, “Oh.” So I think if anything, there’s like overlap there, but it’s all fluid and the same. Yeah. Mm-hmm. It does. It pulls through on both sides. It’s so true. I remember that, that moment. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I still have debates about that. We used to. He actually, I think we’re more aligned now.

Yeah. I love that so much, and I guess I wanna revisit my answer, my answer to your question just now because I admire you so much and respect you so much as a parent, where seeing you and respecting you as like a leader and someone I want to learn from on the business side of things is, it’s just like an added bonus as well, where I, I’ve seen modeled for me like the, the type of leader or business owner I want to become, someone I wanna learn from.

And that I feel very strongly about like leadership, about leadership values and styles now because of that, and I’m, I’m really grateful for that. So I think if anything, it’s been an added bonus for how I see you and how I, you know, respect you and what I can learn from you. So yes, in a positive way.

Thanks for sharing that. That was fun to hear. Yeah. Well, change of direction. Uh-oh. What’s the worst… This is the time to really… You might have to think on this one ’cause there’s not really, you know, there’s nothing I’m sure. But what is the worst business advice I’ve ever given you? Worst business advice.

Or you could flip it to life advice ’cause sometimes they overlap. I… Oh, gosh. I can’t think of any business advice that I’m like, “Oh, that was, that was not good.” But what I’m thinking about is you encouraging me or maybe even like just supporting me, not even encouraging me to go to my corporate job, and maybe that was it.

Oh. It’s like I… You should’ve told me I don’t need that. It’s okay. It don’t prove anything to anybody. I think w- we… Oh my goodness, this is so funny because you were saying, “Okay, I’ve proven to myself I can do it, and now I’m ready to come back to working with a different kind of business.” Yeah. And that was interesting to me ’cause I’m like, “Oh, interesting.

Proving to yourself you can do it. Yes, go do it if you want. I don’t…” I wish you would’ve stopped me. I wish you would’ve stopped me and saved me from that time. I love it. Oh, cold calling is not for me, but that’s okay. You know, we… So you work for a couple of companies. Lily doesn’t just work with us, but she works with a couple of other teams as well, and I’m friends with one of the owners from the other company, Lisa from Studio Grow.

And it’s funny, every now and then, Lisa and I catch up, and, you know, there isn’t a lot of overlap in our conversations, uh, in terms of the detailed work, but strategy, there- we’re talking about all of those things. And also every now and then, Lily, I’m like, “Oh, man.” I can distinctly remember when Lisa heard that you were doing this.

She’s like, “Why? Why doesn’t she work with you?” I was like, “She’s doing her thing.” And she’s like, “Oh, man.” I just, her reaction was like, “She’s gonna wanna come back.” I mean, if Lisa had tell me that then, I would- I know … I don’t know if I would’ve done it differently … you gotta check in with Lisa on some of this, like.

Yeah. Well- It’s always interesting in hindsight, though. Yeah. In hindsight, of course, it feels like, why didn’t you stop me? But when you’re on the precipice of it or you’re about to do it, it’s exciting and new and a challenge and something you need to try, and it’s not until you do it that you go, “Oh. Hmm.”

Yeah. For me. You were really great at it. Yeah, you were great. I mean, I don’t know about really. I was good there for a minute. I was best at one point, but it’s- … I don’t know. Um- Yeah, she was leaderboard great. Yeah, I was number one leaderboard. Yeah. But, and it, it was incredibly competitive, so that was hard.

But – Nice job … it’s, it’s so stressful, stress-inducing. But yeah. It reminds me of like not only the type of, like, work-life balance I wanna have, but again, the type of leaders I wanna work with and team members I wanna work with and things like that. Yeah, I’m very grateful to just have that knowledge. So when I am looking or kind of experimenting with other workplaces or teams or anything like that, I already have a little bit of a standard or an expectation for leadership style and culture, for sure.

Yeah. Is there an unspoken rule in our working relationship that we’ve never articulated until now? Hmm. What goes unsaid? That you can’t go again. Y- again, you can’t touch the CRM. Don’t get in business campaigns. That’s not viral. That’s Joanna’s, by the way. No one’s ever said it until right now, but- Oh, that I can’t touch it?

I don’t think so. Oh, or that just Joanna… Oh, you can touch it, but I can’t? I don’t know. I don’t wanna touch it. Joanna really should be the only one. No, I don’t wanna be that, “Lily, you guys can get in there all you want, but just let me know what you do so that when I…” I love that. I love it. I think there are some rules that are unspoken, but they’re not like rules really.

Like, we know after a certain time- To not be contacting each other. We know if one of us is on vacation, you’re on vacation. You’re not- Yeah … available. We know when to, like, just take the ball and run with it or when we need to check in with each other. There- these are not things that we talk about, but we kind of know.

I think there are also unspoken things of, like, if Lily’s super busy with something or her plate is getting really full, she, I hope, knows she can ping me on anything, and I will pick up whatever I can, and vice versa. I, I do that often. I’m like, “Lily, I’m… Like, I can do this, but I can’t get to it till this time.

If you can do it before then,” you know. But it’s not like… They’re not hard and fast rules. They’re just the ways that we know how to show up and support each other. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I would say- That’s really good … maybe that’s one of our rules, that there really are no hard stops. And, you know, there aren’t really, like, hard lines.

They’re all maybe dotted- Mm … because you have to be fluid. Yeah. Right? And especially in, like, a fast-moving team, a small team, you have to be fluid. And you have to have a general understanding of, like you said, who’s doing what, who is responsible, but be willing to be flexible and support your other team members when you have to be, you know.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. One of the things I think we have articulated before, but we really just live it, is the assuming positive intent, which I think goes a long way. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah, that is crucial. If Joanna says, “I can’t do that,” I would never… It would never even pop into my mind to think anything negative about that.

I’m like, “Oh, if any…” Mm. I’m… The only negative thing where I would be like, “Oh, no, is she okay? What happened?” It’s like, “I gotta help her out. I gotta get in there.” But it’s always positive. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. What are we missing? What advice would you give someone who’s considering working with maybe specifically a daughter or, you know, a child?

Ooh. A child. There’s labor laws. Makes me feel youthful, a child. Well, get a role description in place- There we are … if you’re gonna put your minors on payroll, number one. But as you- they grow and evolve, one thing that comes to mind is that I worry. It’s another layer of consideration. Like, okay, part of your…

A big piece of your life where you spend a lot of your time now, I have responsibility for still. So there’s a separation of responsibility as a parent from it is just business and things are gonna happen. So I have to separate that sometimes of, okay, I’m worried as a mom, but I put on a separate hat as an owner, and we’ll have two separate conversations.

So sometimes it’s like, “Oh my gosh, Lily, that’s a great opportunity.” You have to quit me. Like that isn’t mom hat, and that’s me being really sad as an owner. But again, you’d do that for anyone, but I think you, emotion pops up and worry and, you know, parent, aunt, mom feelings pop up. So knowing that and knowing when to articulate that and be aware of that, knowing that those feelings will potentially come up, that extra pressure maybe also, but an excitement and fun.

And I will say that being open communication, like going back to that fourth grade Lily, “Okay, we’re gonna be thoughtful about this. We’re gonna be mindful about it. She’s pretty much already quit, but I still have to really say it. She’s fired.” And then- I’m already out of here … I quit. If you didn’t notice, I already quit.

Oh. Um, but- Wow, I can’t even imagine saying that as an adult. That’s so funny. It was a very calm, quiet conversation. Very calm. We both knew. Okay. But there was a coming back. So acknowledging that life will happen and, okay, being adaptable, being amenable and, and not really wanting to damage any relationships ever really, but because it is family, being so much more mindful of that.

So knowing that there’s nothing that could happen in the business that would be so awful that it would h- hurt a personal relationship. And I think in general that just gives, that’s a good knowing to have. And then the last thing is dipping a toe in. Like, “Okay, test it out. Let’s try this. Let’s see how it works.”

And if it doesn’t work right away, that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a no, it just means going back to what you said, “All right, let’s have a conversation about how we work. This is what we’re doing. Does this work for you? This doesn’t work for me.” And there’s no judgment in that, again, in any partnership and relationship.

It just kind of is what it is. Now how are we going to choose to navigate? So having open conversations around that. Oh, forgot the last one. It’s all right. I had two more but we’re gonna go. We’ll just leave it at that. We’ll put it in the show notes if it comes to her. Or a follow-up, because I love being here on the show with you both.

Yeah. This is fun. I do too. It’s so fun, so natural, so great. Yeah. My one last thought is I would say I also feel that responsibility, especially working with teams outside of our Amber McCoo community that, but people who still know you. Yeah. It’s a, that’s an added responsibility, right? I’m not just a reflection of myself, but I am a reflection of you as well, and you know all of these people, all of these leaders.

So that is absolutely something top of mind for me too. But it moves me in a positive direction, as a positive force to, you know, towards, like excellence. But yeah, something to be mindful of too. This just sparks something for me. I wonder if people listening, if clients, how they feel, like knowing like Lily’s in the mailbox, and if they have an issue with Lily or if they…

Not that this has ever, ever happened, but if they are n- like, what? Then what? Like, “I can’t believe she said that to me.” Yeah. Do they hold back because they know? Oh my goodness. Yeah That’s a good point. Uh- I don’t think, I can’t even imagine that would ever… ‘Cause your community is so, this community is so wonderful and supportive and loving, and they’re all a reflection of, of you and what you’ve built.

Um- And what, and, and the values that we have, right? And, and that’s why I think it’s so important for all companies to be clear on their values, so you know, okay, this is the type of community we are, this is how we operate. And it’s not gonna work for everybody, but if it doesn’t work for you… That’s one of the things, too, when I went through a season of migraines or, you know, if, if I’m sick one day, I, the guilt I felt, oh my gosh.

Like, and then you go to that moment of, okay, if someone is angry with me because I had to move a call, not that it happened very often, but when it did, oh, I felt that pressure. If someone is angry with me for that, what am I gonna do? Like, we are just… A- and Joanna, I mean, we’ve had so many experiences like that in customer service- Yeah

on the 3B side. Like, “Oh, we’re sorry, that’s just not what we do. We’ll refer you to someone great who does do that thing.” But then you just know it’s not a values alignment, so that’s interesting. Yeah. Mm-hmm. But I hope, don’t hold back. We… If you can’t tell, we’re okay with the open communication. We like constructive conversation, and it challenges us.

Like Lily, pulling us to the better, pulling us- Yes … places. Absolutely. Let us know, and if you don’t wanna let, email us at the inbox, message someone. It’ll be okay. I’ll cover my eyes. I’ll cover my eyes. The… Oh, I do get positive messages, though. You raised a good one there. Aw. Mm-hmm. Feel like I didn’t even do anything, but I’ll take it.

Thank you. Thanks everybody who said that. Aw. Yeah. I feel that way about, um, all your kids, Amber. You- your kids are really, they’re just spectacular humans, really. Really, really. Man, it’s stressful. A whole ‘nother episode there. The worry, and now, like I look at the different ages. I’m like, oh, I worried at this point, I worried at this point.

15, Audrey preparing for college. I mean, we’re this close. Like, oh my gosh. Uh- Wow. Yeah. I guess I worried a little. Um- That’s funny. I don’t see the worry. Good. I don’t feel the worry. No, not at all. Good. In a positive way. Like- Yeah. It- I feel- Like healthy, not- Yes … stressed. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good. I, I’m not, hopefully I’m not putting words in your mouth, but…

No. It feels good. Aw. Yeah. We did it. Our first podcast episode with Lilly and all three of us on the Right on Time podcast. At least that’s what we call it today. And we still work together. We still get along. Most days. We’re gonna keep working together for a little while. Mm-hmm. I’m sure Lilly’s gonna quit on me at some point.

It’s gonna be okay when she does. I’m sure. I’m sure the day will come when I come back- Not anytime soon. It’s not in the cards right now. Good. Immediately- ‘Cause we love working with you … that just made me sweat everywhere. Oh, no. Gotta… There… It goes back to Oliver Burkeman, and The Antidote is the book, and he talked about the research in that book of, I don’t wanna manifest it, but just for a minute, every now and then think, “What will happen if?”

Because when you do that little bit of scenario planning, it doesn’t hurt so bad if it ever actually happens. So we’ll be ready for anything. Mm-hmm. But we’re glad you’re here, Lilly. I love you guys. Thanks for this. Thanks for the entire community. It’s so great. Yay.