Life and Work with Chelsea Griffith

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chelsea Griffith.

Chelsea, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Hi! I am a proud wife to a successful loving and spunky Real Estate agent and business owner, and a mother of a beautiful son who is five years old and a daughter who is three. Most recently, I was a Social Worker in the schools for almost ten years. I worked in a high school for the majority of this time and spent a year in an elementary. During my time as a Social Worker in the schools, I worked with the administration quite a bit. I found myself really wanting to venture into the administration side of schools to make the changes I felt I wanted to see happen. It was then that I decided to go get my Principals License from Regis University and completed that program in the Spring of 2018. Like most working moms, there comes a point where you wonder if you will ever be able to juggle it all. The things you want to do in a career, keep the house together, manage a busy social calendar, and raise happy healthy little humans, and I hit that point right after finishing this program. I realized that I was missing out on raising my own littles more than I wanted by trying to just constantly do more and be more. Having my children taught me what it means to truly have patience and live completely in the moment when I was with them, but I wasn’t doing this for myself and what I really wanted. Having a realtor as a husband who runs his own team and makes his own schedule was very intriguing. I had visions, plans, and ideas for different things I could do but was just not making the leap. It was spring of 2019 that I decided I would take time away from being in the schools to focus on another area I had now developed a passion for, MOTHERS.

Over the course of this time working and serving others, I began to get an itch for wanting to help mothers along their journey of motherhood. Being a mom and raising children, helping other people’s children, and keeping all the things afloat that come with motherhood, is hard. I truly believe it takes a village to raise…. moms up! It is so much nicer to stand beside one another and have fun in the process of raising our littles and that was going to be one area I helped moms focus on. With all the “hard” that comes with motherhood, there should be fun for you too, right? I then started an organization called Happiest Mama On The Block 5280.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road to getting where I am today has not been perfect. Early stages of having children really rocked my world. The identity of one time being just CHELSEA changed immensely to “who am I as CHELSEA and now MOTHER and WIFE”. The work I did outside of the house, in the house, and in mental health was taxing. This juggle between it all is where I think moms just don’t give themselves enough credit to let some of it go and HAVE FUN. I found it hard at times to balance the problems that came up at work with students, families and staff getting in the way of my own happiness in raising my own family. I soon realized I wasn’t actually happy doing the things I at one time really loved, which was helping others. I knew this was an area I was good at, but I didn’t want to become burned out of it so I knew I needed a change of some kind. It wasn’t until I allowed myself the time to slow down and actually spend time thinking about my plans, that I realized I had some new really cool ideas! Also, I saw that the world kept spinning, schools still functioned, and I ultimately felt calmer and happier with my own family.

Advice to young women: Keep face to face connections going. These build character, teach you better skills of empathy, smiles are more powerful face to face than in an emoji. Be your true self in front and behind of a screen, it really will get you further to present who you are fully when you share the good, the bad, and all the in-between.

Please tell us about Happiest Mama On The Block 5280.
Dr. Harvey Karp wrote a book all around how to soothe a crying baby with 5 S’s, titled “The Happiest Baby On The Block”. It’s based on the natural responses an infant exhibit to conditions inside the womb. The five S’s are as follows: Swaddle, Side/Stomach, Shushing, Swinging, & Sucking. The idea of these is that you use a combination of them at times to help calm a fussy baby (I know they worked for me with two littles!) But let’s be real… all those things will work best if you are the happiest mama for that happy baby!! Here at Happiest Mama On The Block 5280, we believe that in order to have a happy child, you need to be a happy mama and that means sometimes putting yourself first. With that, we have come up with the 5 R’s to being the Happiest Mama On The Block and look forward to helping moms utilize all five!! Isn’t it fitting that R comes right before S then too in the alphabet!? Reconnect Rejuvenate Renew Rest Red Wine these are the Five. This will be a space where moms will find fun events, activities, classes, and articles, all to help increase their happiness through all of those R’s so they can raise happy, tiny humans in return!

I am most proud of this because its something I myself created. My ideas, my vision, my thoughts, my experiences, and my life over the last few years of helping others has led to this. I see Happiest Mama On The Block as being an organization that can encompass so much more than just moms. It will help provide moms with concrete tools to connect more with your child, your teenager, your spouse, your relationships with friends, etc. We will offer classes to help dads in these areas as well because moms are happy when dads help too! I took so much time when picking the R’s because I wanted them to be relatable in so many mom’s lives. The overarching theme to all these R’s can go back to RELATIONSHIPS. I feel this day in age relationships are so important and something we all are really wanting. As much as we thrive in the world of our digital use, I think we are starving and thirsty for opportunities for human interaction. My hope for Happiest Mama On The Block 5280 is that we do just that. Have real-life conversations with other moms, it can be digitally done at times too, but we will have an emphasis on face to face connection to happen and make sure it is valued and wanted.

Who have you been inspired by?
Finding a mentor and someone to be inspired by I think happens naturally over time. By this, I mean in different stages of your life. If you take the time to sit back and think about that, I bet you’ll find a mentor that came along at the right moment in one of those times for you. I have met some really great people in the line of my work that I would call mentors because they just gave me the time of day and sat and listened. There is true art in being able to listen and offer up advice without actually offering up advice if you know what I mean. I like to think I have done that well with others which has made me a good mentor to some individuals I have worked with. Doing this genuinely, and with an intent to help them feel valued and heard, often leads them to fulfill ideas of their own and them wanting to pursue those ideas. I network in social media (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.) but I do it specifically with a purpose, TO ACTUALLY CONNECT AND TALK. I like to friend, like and comment on people’s posts because I am genuinely interested in what they have to offer or the content they have put out there. Be Real. Be Intentional. Be Kind. And networking can be an awesome and a real bonus for you to find a mentor in it along the way!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.happiestmamaontheblock5280.com
• Email: happiestmamaontheblock@gmail.com
• Instagram: happiestmamaontheblock5280
• Facebook: happiestmamaontheblock5280

Image Credit:
The family pictures: Ashley Tiedgen

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