Women Shattering the Glass Ceiling In Stilettos: Proud Female Breadwinners
Meet boss women who are changing up the traditional family dynamic and making more than their husbands!
It's no secret that the future is female! To highlight this true sentence, I would love to introduce you to Cayla Craft, Rachael Evans, and Kathryn Porritt. When it comes to the traditional family dynamic, these three women are loving writing their own stories and paving the way for other women!
California-based, Cayla Craft is a Wealth Coach & Founder of Mommy Millionaire. Before becoming a financial wiz, Cayla’s career began as an ER nurse. Today, this intelligent mother of three is helping other women sharpen and grow their financial skills. Cayla’s financial coaching has led her to make millions resulting in out-earning her husband in the process. Cayla is the proud financial breadwinner in her household and she loves every second of it!
Australia-based Rachael Evans is a woman who disrupted the male-dominated auto industry. This proud mother of a blended family of six has turned her career-focused goals into making millions for her family. Being the breadwinner, her husband works as an employee for her company. What you will soon come to learn is that their home is filled with support, love, and happiness.
Kathryn Porritt who is Australia-based as well, owns a very successful full-service marketing agency. Kathryn makes 10 times more than her husband who is an accomplished diplomat. Being a proud mother of two, Kathryn and her husband work together to create a positive environment for their teenage children.
Cayla, Rachael, and Kathryn are a friendly reminder that we can break normal traditions society has set in place. Filling their homes with love and support, they show that the man doesn’t need to be the breadwinner in every family. Keep scrolling to become inspired by these incredible, game-changing women!
Meet Cayla Craft
Before becoming a 7-figure earning mompreneur, can you tell our listeners your story and why you made the change to become the Cayla Craft we see before us?
I was working 12+ hour shifts 3-4 days a week. Nursing provided an awesome income until my son was born. Once he was born, I started experiencing mom guilt. I was spending all of my time at work when all I wanted to do was be home watching him grow. I started missing milestones and it broke my mommy heart. I loved my job as a nurse, but because I was missing so much I had to find a way to only work 2 days a week instead of 3.
I was looking for something different, something that would allow me to be home more with my son. I didn’t have a lot of options, but I knew I was great at sales. I wasn’t sure what to do and when the network marketing opportunity was presented to me, I got into one of the hardest businesses in the world. Which by the way, statistically speaking, it really is, it's not an easy business to get into and actually succeed at. It was the business that presented itself to me at that time and I made it work.
My first year I made $150,000 while I was learning the skill to rock that opportunity. Every year for 5 years my income skyrocketed. I skilled up even more, my community got even bigger and my faith grew and grew. For those of you in network marketing, you’ll appreciate this, I had a downline of over 90,000 people at one point. Over my career we have sold over $500 million worth of wellness products collectively.
I used all of the skills I had gained in network marketing to start Mommy Millionaire which became a multimillion dollar brand through podcasting, coaching, live events and e courses. What was supposed to be a side hustle to be with my son more, turned into this amazing business and created the lifestyle I live now.
Women.com is all about empowering women and providing them with a platform to share their messages and stories with the world. How does Mommy Millionaire empower women?
At Mommy Millionaire we not only give them inspiring stories to show them all the different wealth ways it is possible for them, but we put them in a community of ambitious faith filled women. We also give them the knowledge, strategy and connections necessary to get where they want to go.
Why do you believe males have dominated the financial industry for too many years?
It’s the patriarchy, for centuries women have been told their place in society has been only in the home. Talk, but don’t talk too loud. Be seen, but don’t be provocative. There have always been a lot of rules for women that don’t apply to men.
How does Mommy Millionaire Mastermind work?
I want to really explain what a mastermind is. I first joined a mastermind almost 5 years ago (networking) that led me to amazing investment opportunities and exposure to new ways of thinking. A mastermind is where you bring together like minded people who can strategize about business, give life advice, and help keep you accountable to not only your wealth goals but your family goals as well. Masterminds typically gather on a regular basis to collaborate, and problem solve. When used the right way, masterminds have an endless ROI.
The Mommy Millionaire Mastermind also known as M3 includes: twice a month live calls. On these calls you will get hot seat coaching. You will bring your problem and I will personally coach you through it. On demand training, these are collections of training on sales, investors mindset, money management techniques and so much more! We even have a process for weekly accountability!
What type of growth have you seen from your clients that invest in themself through Mommy Millionaire?
People who have followed my formula for looking at the skills that they hold, then skill up even more have turned an idea into multi million dollar brands. They use those skills to create opportunities for themselves and have had great success. They are all a part of the Mommy Millionaire community and have made lifelong friends and collaborators from it. I worked with them to help them create financial freedom and a plan for generational wealth. They didn’t get there overnight, but they committed to the process with me at Mommy Millionaire.
As Mommy Millionaire continues to flourish, you have begun to earn more money than your spouse. Interestingly, this dynamic isn’t commonly talked about. What impact has this had on your relationship?
I’ve actually been the breadwinner for 10 years. When it first started to happen, my husband struggled with it for several years. He grew up in a very traditional family where the man was in charge of everything finance related. After a few years, he started to accept me being the breadwinner through being exposed to other men whose wifes were breadwinners. At that time, he started to focus on the benefits instead of letting his ego take over. Now, because he has the financial space he’s focusing on building his own company that I believe will surpass mine in value when he sells it.
What have been some of the positive surprises that have come from this new dynamic?
A lot of healthy communication where we can literally talk about anything now. We are able to talk about our worst fears in complete comfort and awareness because our egos are no longer running the show.
Through your experience, why do you believe that we should stop and change the belief that the male of a household needs to be the breadwinner?
It’s crazy to think that only men would have the highest earning income in each household. Just like some men have the potential to make more money than their wives, some women have the potential to make more money than their husbands. Whoever can make the most should be maximizing their income potential. Period.
For those who are building themselves towards financial freedom, what was something you wish you knew when you began?
To never take advice from someone that hasn’t been where you want to go because not everyone wants to see you succeed, and that’s ok. It’s important to not let those opinions dictate the moves you're making. As long as you have faith in yourself and trust the process, you will come out winning. Even if you stumble and fail along the way, you learned something from it and that’s still a win.
Where can our interested readers go to become a member of the Mommy Millionaire Mastermind and become their own breadwinners?
Meet Rachael Evans
Your career has led you to disrupt the male-dominated auto industry. Can you please share your story and how your career led you to where you are today?
I’ve always been in some kind of sales, marketing, or mentoring, so when I found myself as the owner of an auto repair business in 2009, it was only natural to me that I would work in operations to grow the team and the business. Over a short period of time, what was a run down business became successful, and I was soon asked to help other auto repair shop owners in the local area who were struggling to make ends meet. Seeing an opportunity in the marketplace for automotive specific business coaching, I launched an online business coaching company in 2014, which is now a multi national, multi seven figure operation.
Women are always asked if they are going to put their careers on hold to grow their families. What’s your opinion on this question?
I believe it is a woman’s choice as to whether she will have a family first of all, and secondly if she will halt her career for a period of time in order to raise that family. I believe that whether a woman chooses to start a family in her 20’s, or wait until her late 30’s or 40’s, it needs to work for her. I had my first child when I was 25, and it was never a question for me to have time out of the workforce because I was going to be raising her solo.
Having a blended family of 6 children, how have you managed to balance work and raising your child? Can you provide any tips to our readers?
Even without a blended family, and just raising your biological children, things are noisy, chaotic, and fast moving. I have 3 biological children, and 3 step children, and my husband and I often comment that it is a rare moment indeed when all 6 of them are on an “even keel” at the same time. The most important things for me when parenting and working are schedules and boundaries. I work a 4 day work week and during school hours only so that I can still be there to do school drop off and pick up. The kids are aware that when they are at school I’m at work and that often means I can’t attend sports carnivals or school assembly, but it does mean they can have my full attention outside of those hours. My teams are also aware of these boundaries and know that once school is out, I won’t be online again until school is back in. I have a great General Manager who runs the coaching business, so 99% of business operations continue without me being present. I also make sure the things I want to achieve for each work day are clear so I can tick them off as done before I finish for the day. This way, I leave work feeling accomplished and my brain doesn’t continue to mull over things while I’m in Mommy Mode.
Being a pioneer, speaker, author, and advisor, as you continued to open doorways and disrupt the “norm”, how has your husband supported your success?
My first husband didn’t support my success and that was a large part of the reason for that marriage ending. After a lot of deep personal work, I was really clear on what support looked like, and how I would like to be treated if I was ever to be in another relationship. I wanted a partnership, where we were working towards the same common goals, and filling each other’s cups, not taking from them. My second husband and I do exactly this. He is my runway to take off from, my safe place, and my retreat. He’s my sounding board and my strategic partner. Since we began our relationship, and I’ve no longer had to make myself smaller in order to fit someone else’s model of the world. My businesses have flourished, and so have I as a woman, wife, and mother.
Through your experience, why do you believe that we should stop and change the belief that the male of a household needs to be the breadwinner?
That a man should be the breadwinner is an outdated belief constructed by the patriarchy, and designed to keep women subservient. While there is much evidence to suggest a man will earn more than $2 million more than a woman over a lifetime due to a woman’s child rearing years and pay inequality, women leave their school years more highly educated than men, and this is something we must leverage in order to be confident enough to ask for higher salaries. Even if we drop in and out of the employment market to have a family, the skills and experience we acquire across our working careers mean we are equally capable of performing the same roles as men, and should therefore be able to demand the same pay. The work here is actually for men to do; to be accepting of a woman being the higher income earner. I think many women these days, especially those like myself, don’t see breadwinning as a gender thing. We see it as an economic prosperity thing for the whole family.
Have there been any positive changes in your relationship that you want your children and the women reading to truly take away from your relationship?
One of my constant thoughts after the breakdown of my first marriage was that I wanted my children to see what a healthy, mature, adult relationship looked like. One that was a true partnership, where both partners encouraged and supported each other to be their best version of themselves, and one where neither partner exercised dominance over the other, or relegated them to home duties. I’m confident all of our children bear witness to this wonderful partnership I enjoy with my second husband. For all women reading this, I want you to know that whether you are single or partnered, you have the same rightful place in this world as a man does, and anyone asking you to be smaller than you are in order to fit their version of the world does not belong in your inner circle.
You are the host of the podcast, The Very Brave Podcast. What was the inspiration behind the podcast?
As I emerged from my divorce, and after a decade of helping men in business, I started to notice a new voice inside me, one who was more brave and bold than before, and she was saying very loudly “Speak to more women”. I’d been doing some research around what it means to be brave, and what it means to others, and I became quite dismayed that society seems to have a very masculine definition of bravery. Bravery awards are handed out for physical acts like rescuing people from fires and floods, and for acts on the battlefield. Given women very rarely find themselves in these situations as the rescuer, there was almost no mention of women as recipients of bravery awards. Knowing there were many times in my life where I’d considered myself to have been very brave - like when I decided to leave a marriage or when I started a business in a male dominated industry, I thought perhaps it was time a discussion was started about other forms of bravery that women were undertaking every single day.
What do you hope women gain from listening to your podcast?
The Very Brave Podcast shares stories of feminine bravery that will inspire women from all walks of life. It helps to redefine bravery not just as something physical, but is inclusive of acts of moral, spiritual and emotional bravery as well. It brings to the forefront situations the women listening may have assumed only they had experienced. It allows them to understand those things society tells us we must endure “just because we are women”, are often in fact situations where we have experienced fear, but summoned our courage and bravely stepped forward. These are conversations to celebrate.
Women.com prioritizes empowering women and sharing their voices with the world. Being where you are today, is there something you wish someone told you when you began your journey of financial freedom?
I wish someone had taught me when I was younger about the energy of money and how our own limiting beliefs can get in the way of us earning it and keeping it! To be truly financially independent, you need to create the space for money to come to you in abundance, and then you need to be really clear with what you will do with it once it comes. Money likes to work and not be wasted. You must have a plan for your money beyond what you need for survival. You must get clear on what your impact and legacy will be, and only then will you start to see more money than you know what to do with.
How can interested readers stay up to date with you and take advantage of your 1:1 Advisory sessions?
They can sign up for our 365 Days of brave to receive their daily message of Brave from the Brave Media Network team. And also visit https://www.bravemedianetwork.com/advisory/ to learn more about the application process for a 1:1 advisory session with me personally
Meet Kathryn Porritt
You own a successful full-service marketing agency. Can you share your story and how you became who you are today?
I had another business before this that was a successful eCommerce business. I had that for nine and a half years. And prior to that, I worked in shopping centres. So, I spent the first part of my career in events and marketing for shopping malls right along the coast of Australia. When I was on maternity leave, I started my first business. That baby, my daughter, is 16 now.
Can you tell us more about your company, Icons Incorporated?
With Icons Incorporated, I knew that I deliberately wanted to start a business that was in the luxury space where I could deal with many, yet fewer clients than I had done in the eCommerce business. We would literally be sending out hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of orders a day and dealing with a lot of clients (like 300,000 people) versus a handful. I deliberately wanted to do something where the revenue could be the same, but the margins were much bigger and I didn't have to deal with as many people. When I created Icons, I was truly able to create something unique, that catered to the most iconic individuals, and is extremely prosperous.
When people work with you, what do they come to learn?
Originally it started out as making high-end luxury websites and branding for really iconic personal brands, founders, and entrepreneurs. Almost instantly it worked, and I had a wait list of people wanting to work with me. However, as we continued to grow, what I also found was, it didn't seem to matter how well known the person was that I was working with, as I was doing their branding and their website it became very clear to me that they also didn't have their pricing structured well. They were also missing out on massive commercialization opportunities, partnerships, and other ways to really create wealth. And so we quickly pivoted the business to not only doing full service websites, branding, photo shoots and all of those things, but we also added representation. So that's what we've been doing for the last few years.
Being a successful businesswoman, you have made it known that you make 10 times more than your husband. How has he responded to this shift in the “traditional” dynamic?
Even from the very beginning of our relationship, we've just naturally fallen into this. I'm the workaholic in our relationship and I'm the one who does the hustle and those sorts of things. I'm also naturally more of the entrepreneurial person and the risk-taker in the relationship. I'm always off pursuing multiple endeavors and David's been very steady. He’s very much the rock of our relationship and has worked so hard to ensure that the foundations at home were perfect and steady. Even before we had kids, I think that dynamic was always there.
What positive surprises has this brought you and your husband?
I saw a quote from Bon Jovi the other day. Jon Bon Jovi was talking about his wife and how they've been married for 40ish years. We've been married for 18 years and we’ve known each other for nearly 22 years. Bon Jovi was describing that his relationship with his wife is very similar to the one that I have with David - where he's pursuing these millions of ideas and she's the one who's steadily stitching it all together to make sure that everything between them just works. That's been very much our relationship too. We are a great team and we've got a lot of respect for one another. We enjoy each other's company a lot, and we're great friends and that respect for each other and respect for the partnership, has served us really well.
Have you ever experienced a negative from this change in the traditional dynamic?
It is a thousand percent no.
Through your experience, why do you believe that we should stop and change the belief that the male of a household needs to be the breadwinner?
I think the belief that the male needs to be the breadwinner is almost ridiculous now. I read somewhere the other day that there are far more women now in this next generation who are university educated. Additionally, there are more and more women starting their own businesses. There are more and more women who are going to be executives and who see no limitations to what they can achieve. So isn't it absolutely ludicrous that we would have that very old-fashioned opinion that the man needs to be the breadwinner and that the woman needs to be the one who is caring for the children and making sure that the household chores are completed daily?
I would really love to think that this new generation that's coming through my children will do extraordinary things in their partnerships with one another. If they can just peel away that antiquated idea of the breadwinner role being reserved for men and that women are limited only to a role of caring for the children…it would be an amazing thing. The entire notion is just ludicrous…I don't have a better word for it.
Where do you see the future of women in business going?
I personally think that women are extraordinary leaders. If they can really tap into their creativity and natural instincts of being incredible visionaries, they can really move mountains. I just think that they are extraordinary. In most of my experience, I have represented a number of amazing men and women, and it's the ones who can marry the traditional feminine and the masculine in one person that creates a truly iconic and extraordinary individual.
What I'm looking forward to for women is that we don't need to be apologetic for being ambitious and achievers that are extraordinary at what we do. What I absolutely loathe is this concept that women need to be apologetic about their achievements, or they are expected to own their achievements but then in the next breath, they need to say what they're going to do with their wealth - which is always something to do with impact, etcetera. Now, while I am all for a woman using her wealth for impact, I don't see that same necessity of explanation when a successful man, like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos, is a part of the dialogue. However, when women like Melanie Perkins, Arianna Huffington, Sara Blakely or Oprah are pulled into a dialogue about their wealth, they seems to be this expectation for them to attach their success to impact and giving their wealth away. It isn’t typical to see most men doing that.
Generally, what I'm really looking forward to in the future is that more women can own their success. One of my favourite women in business, an icon that really owns her success, is Shonda Rhimes. In one of her beautiful speeches she discussed the beauty of bragging as a woman and how we, as successful women, need to do more bragging and more owning of our success because it gives the evidence to the up-and-coming generation. Generations of women need to see that it is entirely possible for a woman to be gifted, ambitious, talented and successful and wildly unapologetic about it. Women are going to change the world by creating these extraordinary, innovative things and we're going to have a ball doing it!
Being a mompreneur, do you have any tips you would like to share with women on how to balance work and motherhood?
I've been really, really bad at this. I started my first business when I was on maternity leave with my now 16-year-old daughter, Penelope, and for the first nine and a half years of her life and for the first seven odd years of my son's life, I was running an extremely busy multimillion-dollar eCommerce business. It was very successful from the outside. I wrote books. I won awards. We were on the fastest growing company list and all sorts of other accolades. However, I really missed out on a lot of time with my kids. That was the catalyst for me…I wanted to sell that business, move on, and move into something that was at the luxury level because I would never be the sort of person who couldn't work, or who doesn't work.
So I knew that I would start a new business, deliberately opting for one where I would have a lot more balance than I had when my kids were younger. To be honest, I like to work. I love my clients. I get up very, very early in the morning excited about my work. Because I'm in Australia and my clients are mostly in the US and Canada and the UK, I get up very early. I have all of my meetings with clients and my team from all over the world and I'm usually finished by about two o'clock in the afternoon. That works so well for me because then I can see the kids at their hockey games and their soccer matches and I can get them to a lot of the things that they need to get to while still really dedicating myself every day to my business, my clients, and my team.
Finally, I have a bit more time for myself and for my husband - adding a little bit more balance into my life. But, balance for me is a constant pressure. It's not pressure from anyone else, but from myself, because I am such a hard worker and I'm really ambitious and I like to win. So it's really something that I've got to work on every single day -to just stop and spend time on things that aren't work-related.
Where can our interested readers go to learn more about you and your company, Icons Incorporated?
www.iconsincorporated.com and www.kathrynporritt.com.