Hello!
Hi! Welcome to my website!
I’m Lisa Palladino and here’s a little about me….
I’m a business owner, mom, former accountant, and music and nature-loving hippie.
I have an MBA and spent a decade working in finance and accounting at some of the best of the best in the NYC nonprofit world, where I got to help super smart and talented people do amazing things in the world, from putting on concerts to saving the birds.
I left my job in 2020 to start my own nonprofit consulting firm (yep, in the middle of a pandemic) so I could create my own schedule and stay home with my daughter.
Like everyone else, I’ve had my fair share of challenges during these weird pandemic times: stress, financial insecurity, childcare struggles, yada yada, you all know.
After years of being on a “traditional” career path where I had become quite used to the 9-5 grind (although I hated it), I had suddenly become a full-time mom AND a new business owner at the same time. I felt like I had all the time in the world and also no time at all - I no longer had a schedule forced upon me, but I didn’t have a clue how to plan and prioritize my time in this new life.
But after about 9 months of expert-level procrastination and un-productiveness, I had an epiphany:
I have an MBA and tons of experience solving problems for huge, complex organizations that are WAY more complicated than my 3-person household. I worked full-time while putting myself through college with a full-time course load. How is it that I can handle that, or the absolute chaos of putting together an annual budget for a nonprofit during the early months of the pandemic, but f*cking laundry or scheduling doctor’s appointments can get the best of me?!
Why am I not taking everything I learned in college and throughout my career about making really complicated sh*t run smoothly and efficiently, and applying it to my own life?!
So, I decided to embark upon the journey of managing and organizing my home and my life as if it were a business. I started making little tweaks here and there, and little by little, these tiny changes have started to make a huge difference in my life.
As soon as I started, I realized another important thing: I am not alone.
2 million women have left the workforce since the pandemic began.
And it’s hit moms extra hard. 1.6 million fewer moms were working in January 2021 as compared with January 2020 (according to the census).
What are we doing now? Homeschooling, potty training, cooking, cleaning, cleaning some more…being overwhelmed. Trying to find time to work, or look for work. Figuring out how to navigate the transition from “working mom” to “stay-at-home mom” in a time where the definitions have changed and in some cases completely blended together. All moms work, and all moms take care of their kids. Many of us work at home now. Lines are blurred, work/life boundaries no longer exist, and planning feels impossible because we have no idea what the world will be like next week, next month, or a year from now.
But, life must go on. We still have to get up in the morning, do ALL OF THE THINGS, and get to bed early enough to have the energy to do it all again tomorrow. All we can to do is try to make things a little bit easier on ourselves.
So, as I started working on making my own life easier and happier, I realized that I really want to help other moms that are in the same situation as me. Being a mom is hard enough. There are a million books and resources out there, but there is no playbook for the specific dynamic between you and your kid. And there is definitely no playbook for being a mom in a pandemic, or being a mom and an entrepreneur.
My hope in starting this website is that me learning from my mistakes and finding and sharing solutions as I go will help at least one other mom out there during these super hard times!