Navy spouse Noralee Jones is the voice and influencer behind Mrs. Navy Mama, a brand that encourages self-care to help military spouses navigate home, marriage, and motherhood one duty station at a time.
You need to get to know her: she will be real with you about military spouse life on Instagram Stories, but then offer you thoughtful ways to overcome challenges over on her blog and in her Facebook group, all with the underlying message to nurture your self-care.
Here’s more about Noralee’s entrepreneurship journey:
The Beginning of Mrs. Navy Mama
Noralee was a career 9-to-5er, working as a speech-language pathologist and a mom who felt the nudge to pursue her purpose in a new way. She had never focused on writing before, but after guest blogging and watching other military spouses start blogs, she decided to take a blogging course and jump in. In the beginning, she wrote about many topics. But she found that self-care for military spouses was the one thing that she could talk about all day.
What Noralee Loves Most About Mrs. Navy Mama
Noralee loves doing her work for Mrs. Navy Mama because it’s a way for her to serve the community in a tangible yet flexible way. She works out of the home part-time and has four children, so this is something she can do in the evenings and weekends. She loves filling the cups of other women and feels that her own cup is filled in return. She learns from the spouses that reach out with questions and comments about military life. Best of all, she loves having the opportunity to meet other military spouse entrepreneurs across the branches that she may never have met otherwise.
Business + Life Harmony
Noralee doesn’t believe that there’s a true work/life balance. There are always ups and downs in the cycle of entrepreneurship and life. But, she sets specific boundaries around when she’s working and when she’s not. She hires a regular babysitter and has a house cleaner come once a month to do the deep cleaning. She stresses that it’s important to not feel guilty about hiring help so you can focus on the things that are most meaningful to you.
What a Successful Entrepreneur Looks Like
Right now, success as an entrepreneur looks like fulfillment in experiences and opportunities that she wouldn’t get otherwise. She’s been able to cultivate new skills, have different experiences, and become involved in a community that has helped her grow. She stresses that when a business is new, it’s important to measure success in non-financial ways. Success can come in many forms; it’s up to you to define it!
Organizations and People Who Have Helped Her Build Success
InDependent - InDependent is a non-profit organization that makes wellness accessible to all military spouses. She appreciates being part of their community because their thought processes and goals align with hers.
AMSE - The Association of Military Spouse Entrepreneurs has helped her come in contact with other business-minded military spouses who have enriched her learning and experience on her journey of building her business.
Military Spouses Who Have Found Her - Noralee finds inspiration in the stories that military spouses share in her community. What seem like normal, everyday military life stories have meaningful depth, and that keeps her going.
Her Biggest Accomplishment
Noralee’s is proud to have written her book, the Self-Care Guide for MILSOs. It was a big labor of love that took about eight months to write. The research she conducted while writing the book really helped her develop her expertise in the area of self-care.
Her Biggest Challenge
Being taken seriously. Noralee wants everyone to know that the numbers of followers don’t predict capability. If you give her a job, she will do it and do it well.
Her Advice for New Bloggers
Build a solid foundation from the start. Put in the groundwork to learn SEO and work in your niche rather than having to backtrack later.
Exciting Things to Come
She’s still working out the kinks, but she’d love to develop a companion resource for her book: a self-paced course on self-care that aids military spouses as they discover how they want to nurture their self-care and gives them the resources to do it.
Support She Needs Right Now
Noralee would love to have some help marketing herself as a writer, entrepreneur, and defender of self-care.
How Mrs. Navy Mama is Going to Change the World
Through the Mrs. Navy Mama community, Noralee is going to provide military spouses with the ability to make the most of their lives and not feel stagnant. Military life doesn’t have to dictate how you feel. You don’t have to put everyone and everything above yourself. There are a lot of different ways military spouses can take care of themselves, and Mrs. Navy Mama is there to show them the way.
Kimberly Bacso is an MBA who exchanged an office with a view for a life of adventure when she became a military spouse in 2001. She is the co-founder and operations director of InDependent, a non-profit on a mission to make wellness accessible to all military spouses. She is the managing editor of Legacy Magazine, a print publication celebrating service member families and the communities that support them. Kimberly is an experienced registered yoga teacher and a lifelong vegetarian who can often be found traveling off the beaten path with her husband and teenage daughter.
