Most Kiwi business owners do not struggle with ambition. They struggle with capacity. It is one thing to build a business. It is another thing to build a business while raising young kids, protecting your relationship, and keeping the wheels on at home. In this Beyond the Numbers blog, Anna Heath and Mathew Gebert share what it really took to grow their work while still choosing family. Not perfectly. Not without stress. But with clear decisions that made life feel workable again.
Here are the key lessons, with a focus on the family and business balancing act.
Accept that “doing it all” is a season, not a strategy
Early on, Anna was in full hustle mode. The practice grew quickly, and her time in the business ended up far heavier than expected. Then life layered on top: pregnancy, maternity leave, and the realities of being needed in two places at once.
A lot of owners get stuck here because they assume the only options are:
- push harder, or
- pull back and sacrifice growth
Anna and Matt’s story shows a third option: redesign how the load is carried, so the business and family do not compete every day.
You might consider:
- Naming what season you are in (build, stabilise, simplify).
- Asking what is sustainable for the next 6 to 12 months, not forever.
- Dropping the idea that balance is daily. It is usually weekly or monthly.
The real turning point was building support before the crisis hit
When Anna knew maternity leave was coming, they did not wait until she was exhausted. They built internal support while she was still present. They developed a team member into a practice manager role, shifting day-to-day operational decisions away from Anna. That meant Anna could step back from constant interruptions and still trust the business was being run well. This matters for family life because it is not just time that burns you out. It is the mental load. The feeling that you are “still on” even when you are at home.
Practical moves that help:
- Identify the repeat decisions you make every week and hand them over.
- Give someone authority, not just tasks.
- Create one clear escalation point so your phone is not the escalation point.
Childcare is not just a cost, it is a capability decision
They made a deliberate call to hire a nanny, even though it felt expensive at face value. Their logic was simple: both were self-employed. If either of them lost a day of work, it could cost more than the weekly childcare bill. More importantly, it protected their ability to work with less stress and more consistency. This is a helpful reframe for any business-owning parent.
Instead of asking, “Can we afford childcare?”, you might ask:
- “What does childcare allow us to protect or grow?”
- “What does it save us in stress, missed work, and relationship strain?”
- “What does it give our kids in stability?”
The biggest shift came when they redesigned roles at home
The moment that really changed the game was when Matt stepped away from full-time building work and became the primary parent.
This was not framed as failure or “someone stepping back”. It was framed as a strategic choice:
- Anna was deeply fulfilled by her work and the business model was strong.
- Matt was falling out of love with his work and the hours clashed with school life.
- Their family and relationship were paying the price when they both tried to do everything.
They described how, when both were working flat out, they were passing each other like ships in the night. Tired. Snappy. No real quality time with the kids or each other.
Once Matt took on the home base, the benefits stacked up:
- The kids got more calm, consistent parenting.
- Anna could be fully present at work without guilt.
- The mental load dropped because home logistics were owned by one person, not shared vaguely in the background.
This is not “traditional” or “non-traditional”. It is simply what worked.
A useful exercise:
- List everything that keeps your household running.
- Decide who owns what, end to end.
- Remove the grey zone where both assume the other person is thinking about it.
Guilt is real, but it is not a business plan
Anna named the hardest part clearly: being torn between growth and motherhood.
That tension is common for parents in business, especially when you love what you do. You want to be present at home, but you also want to build, lead, and create.
What helped was not trying to eliminate guilt. It was creating a setup where guilt had less room to grow:
- better support in the business
- clearer roles at home
- fewer “scramble” moments in the day
If you are carrying guilt, it might be signalling:
- the system needs redesign, not that you are doing it wrong
Time management was less about hacks and more about boundaries
Their approach to time was not fancy. It was practical.
Anna’s side:
- Clear structure in the week.
- Dedicated admin blocks so work does not follow her home.
- A preference to be “mum at home, clinician at work” rather than blending everything.
Matt’s side:
- Lists by category to get tasks out of his head.
- Family responsibilities come first because that is the role he is in.
- Pressure-based execution: he meets deadlines, often close to the line, but reliably.
The deeper point: time management worked because the household model supported it. Without that, no calendar app in the world saves you.
The win was quality time, not perfect time
They did not talk about building a perfect routine. They talked about building a life where:
- the kids are not rushed constantly
- the parents are not exhausted all the time
- the relationship has more breathing room
- work feels purposeful, not punishing
That is the bar many families actually want.
A simple question to bring it home:
- “Are we building a life that feels good most weeks, or only looks good on paper?”
A supportive next step
If you are running a business while raising a family and it feels like too much sits on your shoulders, it is often a sign the structure needs adjusting, not that you need to push harder.
Curious how this could look in your world? Let’s chat. Sometimes a few practical changes in roles, support, and weekly structure can give you back time, headspace, and a better kind of momentum.