In 2015, 7 and 10 mothers with kids younger than 18 were in the labour force. That's up 47% since 1975. Now here's another stat for you. In 1946, only approximately 9% of women were childless, which has more than doubled since them. Now neither of these stats actually surprised me in the slightest. You see, I grew up with a mom who gave her a per career to be at Staya Home Mother, and

the very next generation, me, has decided to not have kids at all.

I recently sat with her and asked her why she gave up her career, and she looked to

me so mad or effectly dead in the eyes and said, well, there wasn't a choice.

It was expected of me.

Through my own personal evolution, I totally could relate to the pressures of having children. I was brought up in the same traditional Greek family and throughout my childhood and during the eight years I was a stay-at-home wife. I thought I was gonna have children. It was expected and the truth is, I didn't even question it. Until we actually started quest and over time my desire to be in business overpowered my desire to be a mother. But I was ashamed. I was ashamed to say it out loud in fear of judgment, in fear of judgment on my womanhood. In fear, I would be perceived as not being nurturing or not caring or loving. And you want to know the worst part of all of that I

didn't fear that judgment from my husband I feared it coming from other women so I just hit it but times have changed now it's not as rare to say that you choose a career over motherhood in fact it's now tipping the scale in the other direction and being a work in women is celebrated now I was in in line at Buffet once and the woman behind me in light conversation said she was just a mother. Now she wasn't saying it because she didn't love it. In fact she'd been when she spoke about her kids. So one ear does she say just? And that's when it hit me. We women are so concerned about what other people think of our choices, that we seem to feel like our choices are not of value. And I think we all just need to stop. We need to stop judging and have an opinion on what any woman chooses to do. Whether you choose to be a stay-at-home mother, a working mother, or choose to not have children at all, no answer is right, wrong, or easy. And so my hope is that in opening up this discussion, we women can begin to see that this might not have to be a battle we fight. This is not the white walkers versus the night's watch. We can be allies and support and lift each other no matter what we choose. So today I wanted to do a different kind of show. I wanted to bring on women with different stories, but ultimately women who have the same message, their choices like for so many of us, weren't easy. Okay, first up, I'd like to introduce to the phenomenal Lillian Garcia. During Lillian's first marriage, she thought she didn't want children, and even Cyclops couldn't compete with how laser-focused she was on her career. And, well, it paid off. WWE host singer and speaker, this woman has performed in front of hundreds of millions of people, and has been featured literally everywhere. But despite her historic rise, her marriage took a fall. But every story has a silver lining, and for her it led to finally meeting and falling in love with a man of her dreams. And that's when she realised she actually did one children, just not with her first husband. But as life would have it, after endless attempts to conceive, they finally were told they couldn't. And it hit hard. So after careful consideration, they decided to adopt, but that plan was put on hold when her dad fell ill. Once he sadly passed, she evaluated her life once more and came to the conclusion that she was no longer in a place to raise a family. Yes, it's safe to say this woman of impact

shows what it means to truly have the courage and strength

to make the choices that are right for her.

I'd also like to introduce to you

the sweetest human being on the planet,

Sanya Hatta,

wife and co-founder of their purpose-driven company Thrive,

the number one rated conference for entrepreneurs

and business professionals. Along with her husband Cole, their mission isn't only to show how to build and sustain a full-purpose business, but making your money matter in order to create a positive impact around the world, making their message and their voice fresher than Wigley's gun. Now, apart from running their thriving business, through their organization, they have not only helped build roofs, bathrooms and water filtration systems for an orphanage in Mexico, but have also teamed up with pencil and promise to help build schools. And as if all of that wasn't enough, she is first and foremost importantly a mother to two ridiculously cute daughters, she bravely shares in a war and vulnerable way on her website more than just a mama that being a wife, mother, boss, partner, friend, sister, daughter and leader is far from easy. Yet, this woman of impact shows that what it means to truly have the courage and strength to make the choices

that are right for her. So guys, welcome to a very special edition of Women of Impact. Wow, what an intro! Now I can take a breath! Oh my, geez, that was beautiful. I was emotional. I was like, How me sad, everything.

Well, thank you guys for being here.

Your story's even in the intro, just doesn't do it justice. And so I really want to take this time to dive in deep and talk about the stories and the things that you guys have gone through. How did you feel growing up? What was your perspective growing up of having children? Well, it was, I came from Serbia when I was four. And so being an immigrant, it was basically, you have to work really hard your whole life. You save your money, you get married, you buy a house and you have children. Like it's just standard. That's what they all do. And really back at home, my dad's one of eight. And so you want to have a big family. So I've always known that I wanted to be a mother and so I've have my two beautiful girls and I cannot even explain where I am in my life right now. I never would have thought I would be where I am. I think that seeing my mom work two jobs her entire life to support us and my dad but But I did know that the day that I had children that I wanted to be able to go to their performances, their plays, or go to, you know, a gymnastics show, or anything that they were doing, I wanted to really be a part of it, you know, come a soccer coach. And I want to have the best of both worlds. I want to work because I really, really enjoy it. I try to stay at home on thing and I just, I lost myself and so I really wanted to see if I could pull off both and it's definitely been really difficult. But I'm trying, I'm trying to figure it out every day. You've said so many great things here that you've kind of like brushed past, and I just wanted to be wine, because so you said that you were stay at home mother for a while. Was that initially your dream? Yes, because I thought that if I devoted all my time and it was the stereotype when you see people they're like, oh, I'm a mom this is what I do and I make meals from scratch and I play crafts all day and I you know it's there there is the Pinterest mom and I um it wasn't for me but it is for some of my friends and they enjoy every minute of it and I admire them for that I just I really don't enjoy cooking at all and I tried to do the whole

cooking meals from scratch and being, you know, that perfect mom. But it actually was more damaging to

my husband and my children by me trying to be this person that other people looked at me as.

And I realized, okay, you know what? Instead of me cooking this meal, I'd like to go out and have dinner with my family.

I don't have to prep, I don't have to clean up, and it's really quality time that I have with them so that I can give the business the attention that it needs versus trying to pull that all together. There's so much that is ingrained into a woman's mind while they're growing up that you have to follow this model. And I think it's really detrimental to girls and I don't want my girls.

...