This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey there, what's up friends, it's Chris Guillebeau with Side Hustle School. I'd like to welcome you to another episode of Throwback Thursday slash Where Are They Now? Where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved quite a bit since we first featured them. We've had all kinds of interesting segments this year. Last week was the Craigslist photographer, the guy who starts a business, or starts a photography side gig by posting on Craigslist.
Really interesting evolution there for him. An Australian woman who draws houses. All kinds of things, as I said. Well today, in our latest feature, we'll hear from Lori Mahalik-Levitt, an attorney in Washington DC who has created a course called Mindful Return. And for sure, a lot has happened with her since we first featured her back in episode 255.
Some really fun updates here. So let's hear directly from Lori and I'll come back at the end to wrap us up. [Music]
My name is Lori Mahalik-Levitt. I live in Washington DC. I run a company called Mindful Return.
And my side hustle was featured in episode 255. Before, I was a healthcare attorney and I'm still a healthcare attorney. I'm still a partner at a global law firm. But I'm on a 50% schedule now, down from 60% whenever we last spoke. Mindful Return is a program that helps employers to retain their top parent talent.
And it helps new parents to return to work after having a baby. So much has happened with Mindful Return since I was last featured on the show. Initially Mindful Return was a program just for moms and employers started requesting a side of the business for dads so that they could benefit as well from this transition resource. And I partnered with a wonderful guy from Bank of America to create the dad version of Mindful Return. About a year later, we also launched a version of the course for parents of children who have special needs.
So back before Mindful Return was just one course, one program, now it's three courses. One for moms, one for dads, and one for parents of special needs children. Back when we recorded a couple of years ago, there were about 400 moms who had taken the Mindful Return course. And now over a thousand new parents have taken the program. We ran some data back in January of 2020 on the thousand plus people who have been through Mindful Return.
And we found that 85% of those people were still with the employer that they were with whenever they took the program. And 93% are still in the workforce. So I like to think that Mindful Return is actually a very effective retention tool for employers. In terms of pricing, Chris was poking fun a little bit at the $99 price back then. The course price is now $199.
So we've increased the price to show more value. And we've also started doing more live and remote trainings for employers. Very recently, we've been doing webinars and group coaching sessions for companies whose parents are really struggling with this whole working from home with kids during COVID thing. There's a lot of work going on there as well. The reason that there actually is a special needs parent version of Mindful Return is the Side Hustle School podcast.
There's a wonderful woman, Mia de Reyraj, who listened to Side Hustle School, said, oh my gosh, this is totally a resource that all parents need. And parents who have special needs, babies and toddlers and children actually have different needs from parents of typically developing children. And she sent me an email and said, I have no idea if you'll respond to me, but I heard you on Side Hustle School. And I would love to talk to you about the idea of creating a course for parents of special needs children as well. And I responded to her email, and we launched into a wonderful partnership.
Before coronavirus, I'd say that Mindful Return's biggest challenge was really getting through the layers of authorization it sometimes takes for a company to decide to offer the program, even if it's employees are enthusiastic and even if everyone's on board. I had a law firm sign up at the end of 2019 that had honestly been planning to offer it and working toward offering it for two years. So I'd say bureaucracy internally within companies is probably one of the bigger challenges. I think that's really the same during this COVID-19 era. Authorizing spending is a challenge at companies, especially where everyone's trying to cut costs and not sure what the economy will bring.
But I'd say that parents are really, really suffering right now with schools and day cares being closed. And so I say that helping them is exactly the type of thing that would save employers money right now. My number one piece of advice is to help people in the space that you know best. So I personally have had the most traction with Mindful Return, with law firms and professional services organizations, because I'm a lawyer in big law. I get the billable hour.
I know how to operate within there. So if you find a need and your company or your side hustle is working to address that need, I'd say to target your fix at the space that you are most familiar with and where you have the most personal contacts. - All right, thank you so much, Lori. Really excited to hear her updates. By the way, she also has a book out called "Back to Work After Baby, How to Plan and Navigate a Mindful Return from Maternity Leave." And she mentioned to us that a lot of the employers who are paying for her course, or are paying to support their employees, are also purchasing the book and she appreciates their support.
Now on a personal note, I'm always happy to hear how listeners and case studies, people that we featured throughout the years have found each other, just like you heard here. I get a lot of emails about this. It's one of my favorite things about making the show. So in this case, it's just wonderful to know that there is now a course for parents of kids with special needs. And partly that came about because listeners were out there taking action, right?
That's what I always say. Inspiration is good, but action's better. That listener followed up with Lori. She followed up with them. Now this course is out in the world.
She also mentioned in some other notes with us that she has since increased the price of her course from $99 to $199. So effectively she has doubled it there. Well done, Lori. Yes, it is a challenging time out there, of course, but as she points out, this project or this course is going to help with employee retention. So if an employer out there isn't willing to invest $200 in keeping on a valuable employee after they have a child and take maternity leave or paternity leave, maybe it's time for those valuable employees to look elsewhere.
$200 does not seem like a high price to pay, especially if you want to help your employees be more productive, more effective, but just also have better overall wellbeing. So I'm grateful to Lori for helping us out with this segment. Keep up the good work over there. We will be doing these new segments throughout 2020. Let me know what you think and who you'd like to see featured from our archives of more than 1,000 stories.
It's actually, well, I was gonna say it's more than 1,200 stories now, but it's 1,200 episodes 'cause we're doing a lot more question and answer this year, but still well over 1,000 stories. 2020 is our year of interaction. If you have a question, if you'd like to update us about your hustle or tell us about your mindful return, just come to sidehustleschool.com/questions. And today's show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/12581258. Thank you so much listeners.
Be sure to do something today to get closer to a goal you believe in. I will be back again tomorrow and I hope you'll join me. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
From the Onward Project.
