More Than a Mom
Season 2 Episode 6 with Kohli Flick
In this episode of No Permission Necessary, Jill and Molly sit down with Kohli Flick, business owner, entrepreneur, and founder of Beckett Hitch and BH Co., for a conversation about motherhood, business ownership, selfhood, delegation, physical transformation, and taking up space.
Kohli shares the real story behind opening a store with an eight-month-old baby, no family nearby, and no safety net. She reflects on what that first year cost her, how she learned to build a team, what it took to shift from working in the business to working on the business, and how parenting revealed patterns she had to confront in herself.
The conversation also explores what it means for women to stay connected to themselves outside of motherhood, marriage, business, and family roles. Kohli shares how reclaiming her health and confidence helped her take up space again, and why No Permission Necessary means claiming the space you want without waiting for approval.
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Molly Bierman (00:00)
Welcome to No Permission Necessary. We are so grateful to have Coley, who is the founder and owner of Beckett and Hitch, a beloved Baltimore home and gift shop, and its sister apparel store, BH Co.
Beyond entrepreneurship, Coley is a wife, a mom, a daughter, and a friend who believes there's always a little room for fun along the way. In her spare time, you can find her needle pointing, traveling, and embracing her newfound love of weightlifting, because apparently that's what being a woman in your 40s looks like now. Welcome, Cole.
Jill Griffin (00:29)
Welcome to No Permission Necessary. I'm Jill Griffin.
Molly Bierman (00:31)
And I'm Molly Bierman.
Jill Griffin (00:33)
Real conversations about recovery, identity, success, relationships, and the pressure to hold it all together.
Molly Bierman (00:39)
From two behavioral health experts who've lived it.
Jill Griffin (00:41)
No perfect answers, no polished performance.
Molly Bierman (00:44)
This is no permission
necessary.
Jill Griffin (00:45)
No Permission Necessary.
Molly Bierman (00:48)
welcome back to No Permission Necessary. I'm so excited today to have Kohli Flick on, who is a business owner and entrepreneur in her own right. And we're gonna jump right into it.
so Kohli, you opened a store with a baby and no safety net. What
Kohli Flick (01:05)
Yeah. Yeah.
Molly Bierman (01:07)
did that first year actually cost you and what did it look like?
Kohli Flick (01:13)
what did it cost me? Probably any awareness of the first year of my son's life. it I feel like it actually it added so much more than it cost me. that being said, I probably don't have a lot of like highlight reels from the time my son was young.
it's just a lot of putting out fires, both at work and at home. he was I think eight months old when I opened our doors.
I took every meeting with my landlords with him strapped to me in a baby bjorn because we don't have any family in town. We had
negative zero dollars. So like there was no babysitter. I remember my mom talking to me on the phone saying, well, what are you doing with him when you go to this meeting? I was like, he's coming with me, like no other options.
Molly Bierman (02:11)
Yeah.
Kohli Flick (02:12)
I opened with myself and two staff members and this really lovely, beautiful idea, 100% based on lies that movies and TV have told me about how you can be a mom.
And like have a business, and the baby will just sleep in the corner and it'll be so cute and magical, and you'll, you know, like live your best life. so he was in daycare three days a week because that's all they had open. And honestly, that was like a stretch to even that was a hope and a prayer to be able to pay for that. So after the first day of him being at the store with me, I called them and I was like, we need full time. This is not gonna work.
He's not a baby that sleeps in the corner.
Molly Bierman (02:53)
when you told me this story, I was floored because
Kohli Flick (02:56)
Hey.
Molly Bierman (02:57)
I think I didn't realize the level of struggle from the beginning. And I think that's what we're always, surprised by, you know? And that's what our listeners have really been, you know, yearning for is.
so it didn't always look
perfect.
Kohli Flick (03:11)
Yeah.
Yeah. I guess I'll add a little bit more background to that and
Molly Bierman (03:14)
Yeah.
Kohli Flick (03:14)
say that my husband also works outside of DC so he is gone on a good day 12 hours a day, on a bad day 18 hours out of the day.
so that also at that time included like him leaving before our son woke up. So I was waking up and changing and feeding and getting myself ready and taking him to daycare. And then I was the one that picked him up from daycare and went home and cooked dinner and gave him a bath and most nights put him to bed. And then my husband rolled roll in. so I was doing all of it. and then
Ari also developed reactive airway syndrome, which is like viral induced asthma essentially for babies. Most of them grow out of it around between like three and five. so starting at seven months old, he was on a twice daily preventative nebulizer morning and night, even like when he was healthy.
and he also had lots of ear infections.
so he also never learned how to
like sleep train or put himself to sleep because when you laid him down, he would scream bloody murder because his ears were full of fluid. and then he also would just fall asleep in our arms with the nebulizer treatment. so it was a situation. But like it just was what it was as it was happening. So, you know, my one of my good friends from college, her mom says nothing to it but to do it. And so that was kind of like my mantra, like
This is what it is, and we're just gonna keep plowing forward and doing it because no other option. Yeah, like what else?
Molly Bierman (04:47)
What else is there to do?
Jill Griffin (04:48)
Well, yeah.
when you're in it, you're just doing it. You just that is there is no other choice.
Kohli Flick (04:54)
Correct.
Yeah. Like when we were going through it, it just was what it was. And now looking back on it when I tell the story, I'm like, hmm, it's it feels a little dramatic. But like at the time it just was our life.
Molly Bierman (05:06)
So taking that mantra essentially just needing to do it, what does that look like? What does bootstrapping actually look like on a random Tuesday? Not in your business, just in your life? Like,
Kohli Flick (05:18)
Yeah.
Molly Bierman (05:18)
how does it look today?
Kohli Flick (05:20)
I mean it looks different every hour of every day. like so was yesterday t no, today's Friday.
That's what Tuesday looks like.
Molly Bierman (05:34)
So true.
Kohli Flick (05:36)
so like you know, a random Tuesday can be maybe getting breakfast with my friends, or maybe going to the gym to work out in the morning and then like getting some work in, and then there's some kind of fire to put out. Like the desktop computer in one of my stores this week decided it was no longer gonna work.
I've had multiple computers just be like, we're done here. And then they stop connecting to the compute to the credit card machine, which means that we don't get to take money, which means that I don't get to pay bills. So you know, it's like,
my entire day gets blown up talking to IT. Now, this Tuesday was awesome because I actually have somebody in the store who is IT capable and she's 24 years old and she was like, No problem, I got this, and was on tech support, But I just feel like at
a certain point early in this journey, as soon as I was able to not commit myself to anything, I kind of stopped committing because there was always something that came up that derailed everything.
Molly Bierman (06:35)
Mm.
Kohli Flick (06:36)
so flexibility was my biggest asset in being able to just kind of choose my adventure as it came about.
Jill Griffin (06:44)
That's one of the things I
Molly Bierman (06:45)
So
Jill Griffin (06:45)
see people really struggling with is allowing for that space, especially people who are trying to start their own business or are in a management position. It's like, I don't have time for anything. It's like, because actually you need a lot of nothing time on your calendar because that time will get filled by someone or something that is going off the tracks.
Kohli Flick (07:09)
Correct
Yeah. I feel like it's been interesting watching my peers kind of age up into where we are now. in that nobody's really doing what we originally set out to do in our lives and our jobs anymore, like what we love doing. And there are definitely people that are not that are
Like no longer satisfied with where they are because they have been promoted up, which means that you're now like managing people and you're no longer doing the creative stuff. And as you keep getting promoted up, you get taken further and further away from whatever. And in some cases, good, but I went to art school, so a lot of my friends are creatives, and so like they no longer get to do that type of thing. And so then the struggle becomes like.
We we didn't sign up to be managers or business leaders. So what are we doing? And who are we in this realm?
Molly Bierman (08:00)
How has that impacted you? Because you started boots on the ground, pretty much grinding out every hour of every day. Like probably even just in the last few years where I felt like when I would go by the store, I could probably see you pretty frequently. And now that would probably be a rare occasion that I would go by and you'd be
Kohli Flick (08:18)
Yes.
Molly Bierman (08:18)
in
you know, front facing customers. So what has that what have you lost because of that and what have you gained because of that?
Kohli Flick (08:25)
Yeah, so I opened in Beckett Hitch in 2014 and I was in that store full time until probably three years ago, past couple of years. and I really I had a focus of trying to get myself out of the stores.
mainly because there's so much other background work to do and to be able to continue growing the businesses and the business, like I needed to work on it and not in it. Because when I'm there and I'm working in it, like it's great and I get to see people and I really miss interacting with people and making those connections. And that's definitely like my biggest loss from not being there.
there's so much other minutiae that goes into running the business.
but I worked really hard to be able to put a team in place that could run the stores separate from myself so that they were their own entities. So it freed me up to do other things.
Jill Griffin (09:17)
How did you learn that you needed to transition to working on the business versus in the business? Because I find that to be a major sticking point for a lot of entrepreneurs that need that want and need to get to the next level, but they stay stuck because they can't outsource. And so what does that look like outsourcing tasks to other people?
Kohli Flick (09:39)
Yeah. well I'm terrible at delegating and I'm I'm an only child. so it took me a long time to delegate. It probably started with people taking things away from me. my
Ride or die, second command. her name is Jen Booth. And once she started working with me, she kind of started taking things from me.
Molly Bierman (09:58)
Mm-hmm.
Kohli Flick (09:59)
and I trusted her enough to let her do that. Like there was something about her in the beginning that I was like, okay, it'll be okay.
but I feel like I definitely reached a point where like I knew that something needed to give and I knew that we needed to grow. Like there, we were definitely at a point where there needed to be more, but I couldn't figure out necessarily how to get there. and kind of probably around that same time, 10,000 Small Businesses, which is I don't know if you're familiar with the program, but it's run through Goldman Sachs and Babson.
their big thing is teaching people how to work on their business, not in their business,
but you know, it's so much better if you just do it on your own as opposed to asking for help because then you get to take all the credit for it.
Molly Bierman (10:42)
Isn't that the truth? And that
Kohli Flick (10:44)
Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Molly Bierman (10:45)
really is like letting the ego go to be able to allow somebody else to do it. I mean, I am so
Kohli Flick (10:49)
Yeah, it's
Molly Bierman (10:50)
confident in my work husband, like I could give him anything. Some days, as in yesterday, I called him at 5 p.m., you know, gearing up to go on vacation. So obviously I'm anxious, I'm stressed, and now I'm putting that all on him. And so I'm calling him and trying to offload all these things. And he's like, look, it's five o'clock.
And I know you're going on vacation, but you need to chill out and it's gonna be fine, you know?
When we move into Kohli for you, you said the most humbling part of parenting is the mirror that it puts up.
So
Kohli Flick (11:21)
Yeah.
Molly Bierman (11:22)
we've heard a lot of how you know our employees can do that for us and what that looks like in the business. But what did parenting show you that maybe you didn't want to see?
Kohli Flick (11:31)
Yeah. God, it showed me a lot. it's shown me how ineffective procrastination is, how ineffective chaos is, that like I actually function better when things are clean and organized and not just, you know, like I know where things are, but
Not in like the best way possible. And that having routine actually makes things calmer and more rational. I also learned a lot about myself personality-wise. there are some very strong traits from my mom's lineage
that I thought I didn't have. And then as soon as I became a parent, I was like, I I think I'm doing some of these things.
Molly Bierman (12:21)
Yeah.
Kohli Flick (12:22)
and trying to figure out how not to do them and work through them. both in my marriage
and parenting.
Jill Griffin (12:29)
What what would be an example of that?
Kohli Flick (12:31)
number one would probably be like getting pissed off and then just like shutting down and freezing everybody out
Jill Griffin (12:36)
Yeah.
Kohli Flick (12:36)
as opposed to actually addressing the problem. and stomping around and thinking that that's gonna solve anything.
that is probably one of the biggest ones, and I still struggle with that at home. although
Molly Bierman (12:49)
Same.
Kohli Flick (12:51)
I do love a rage clean, like I never do better cleaning
Molly Bierman (12:54)
Yeah.
Kohli Flick (12:55)
than when I'm pissed off. I am so productive in my house when I'm pissed off. but
Jill Griffin (13:03)
It's so interesting as a therapist now because
I there's so many things as a mother that people just don't warn you of before you
become a mother. Like maybe because it's just so all-encompassing, But I think the awareness that we have once we become parents around how we were treated as a child and how we were parented.
And also it opens us up to see how we also have parts of our parents, right? In ways that we can't really grasp until we are parenting another human that is like us.
Kohli Flick (13:38)
Yeah, a hundred percent.
Jill Griffin (13:41)
And so I think the healing is in that awareness, but then okay, how do I shift this? That's the intergenerational.
shift that then gets to happen.
Kohli Flick (13:49)
Yes, yeah. And you know, my parents don't talk a ton about their childhoods. but I do know that they both independently and as a couple worked really hard to generationally change patterns and situations.
so it's just interesting to me like how they decided that they were gonna change their lives and learn all this stuff
because I I am very aware that I was raised very differently, not just economically and what I was exposed to, but socially, emotionally then they were both raised.
Molly Bierman (14:24)
you wrote something on your form that Jill and I really haven't been able to stop thinking about, which is that women need to be more selfish and less tied up in their families. Help us
understand by kind of making the case of what that looks like.
Kohli Flick (14:40)
Okay. So
I just I think that women like lose themselves and their families and it becomes their whole personality. And
This is our only time on earth, right? So, and like I've told my son that before, you know, when he's been struggling with something or something's been happening, I'm being and I'm like, listen, I get that this is your first time doing this, but this is my first time parenting. It's also like my only time on earth. And I don't necessarily think that I should have to like give up what brings me joy and learning and exploring and hanging out with my friends and traveling and doing stuff for 18 years.
Because you're here. Like we need to figure out a way where we both get to live our lives and experience this time and get stuff out of it either together or separately. And like I'm a person, not just your mother.
yeah, like it
Jill Griffin (15:35)
That is gonna strike some chords with some people. Some people are listening
and they are like, Wow, this lady, but I'm sitting here like preach sister.
Molly Bierman (15:45)
Same, same.
Kohli Flick (15:47)
I get that it's polarizing.
Jill Griffin (15:48)
Because it's true.
And so I wonder, like, who told you that it was selfish maybe during this journey, like to do what you did, to open up the business when you had a newborn? 'cause I'm sure you weren't maybe as confident about this when you were in your first year of being a mother. Or maybe
Kohli Flick (16:05)
Yeah.
Jill Griffin (16:06)
you were.
Kohli Flick (16:06)
I no one told me it was selfish. I definitely have a handful of friends who don't work outside the home, which is great.
at some point one of them said in a conversation, like, this isn't my time. It's my time to raise my kids, and like I'll do what I want later. And I was like, like I wanted to die. I'm sorry.
Molly Bierman (16:31)
So true.
Kohli Flick (16:32)
because I was like, but this is your life, man. Like
Molly Bierman (16:38)
Mm-hmm.
Kohli Flick (16:38)
I you have to be able to do both. And not to go back to my parents, but kind of. So, like my my dad is retired with he was a surgeon and a professor. So he traveled a lot and lectured a lot. And my mom traveled with him. So even though my mom was a stay-at-home mom, she definitely set the precedent that like I wasn't her whole world. She and my dad had a life together, very much outside of me that I was not a part of. And that they were gonna leave me and go.
Go and travel. Like
Jill Griffin (17:09)
What lessons do you feel like you learned from that?
Because I
Kohli Flick (17:11)
Yeah.
Jill Griffin (17:12)
feel like in terms of the foundation that sets for a child, like you also have to have a secure attachment to your parents to be like, they're gonna leave, but they're gonna come back. And like that's
Kohli Flick (17:21)
Yeah.
Jill Griffin (17:21)
the whole point of parenting is to instill that. So
Kohli Flick (17:25)
Right.
well I mean like when we were home, like we had family dinner every night. So even though my dad was oftentimes gone before I woke up in the morning, like he was home at seven o'clock, seven fifteen at night, and we would have family dinner and then
he would take me to the hardware store with him on the weekends and we would do projects together. there I have no sense of that my dad wasn't around or involved, which I think is amazing considering like the amount that he did work.
but yeah, just like when you're there, the quality time is there. Cause I think that you can be surrounded by parents that never leave you but are not connected.
Molly Bierman (18:06)
And still aren't present.
Jill Griffin (18:06)
That's overwhelming.
That's overwhelming in a different way, I think,
for
Kohli Flick (18:10)
Yep.
Jill Griffin (18:11)
people.
Molly Bierman (18:11)
Yeah.
Kohli Flick (18:11)
Yes.
yeah. I think that separation from both your children and your spouse is important. You need to be your own person.
Molly Bierman (18:21)
Yeah, but finding out who you are separate and apart from
all of those, you know,
relationships is important.
Jill Griffin (18:25)
Rolls.
Kohli Flick (18:27)
the end of the day, all those other things can walk away and you're gonna be the only thing you still have to spend the rest of your life with.
Molly Bierman (18:35)
Mm.
Kohli Flick (18:35)
So
Molly Bierman (18:36)
Mic drop on that.
Kohli Flick (18:38)
Yeah, like make sure that you still like yourself.
Jill Griffin (18:42)
So let's do a little rapid fire. We like doing this.
Kohli Flick (18:44)
Yeah, okay.
Jill Griffin (18:45)
So I w I want you to finish the sentence.
Kohli Flick (18:48)
Yeah, god.
Jill Griffin (18:49)
Being selfish actually means
Kohli Flick (18:52)
Strength.
Jill Griffin (18:54)
what's one thing that nobody warns you about?
Kohli Flick (18:58)
How I feel like there was maybe some warning for this, but like when you get to somewhere you didn't even think you would ever be able to get to, you're just like so easily, but what's next?
And it's really hard to, at least for me and my personality, to not continually be like,
What's next? Where are we going? What's happening?
And I I think that's good. I think that's what provides the drive. I think that's how you keep moving forward. But being able to actually like sit and reflect and appreciate where you are and where you come from and giving that space and time to actually be like instead of I I feel like we constantly are seeing like the opportunities and the failures and the growth that we could have as opposed to the growth that we have had yet.
Jill Griffin (19:50)
Analyzing. Yeah.
Versus just being in it.
Kohli Flick (19:53)
Correct
Molly Bierman (19:54)
The
last question I have, you had mentioned that your body transformation along with your business transformation and your parenting transformation has really been powerful for you. So
Kohli Flick (20:07)
Yeah.
Molly Bierman (20:08)
how do you feel in where you are in life today? And like what has actually changed for you physically as well as, you know, alongside of all the other areas we covered?
Kohli Flick (20:19)
Yeah, yeah. So I have struggled with my my weight my whole life. As my dad will say, our family is not blessed with high metabolisms.
And then with, you know, GLP1s coming on the market a couple of years ago. I had some friends that started using it. I was also.
At that point, the heaviest I had ever been. And I was like, This isn't good. And daily in my head, I was like, You're gonna die. And I didn't have any
Pre-existing health things, all of my numbers were still good. I wasn't on any systemic medicine, but there's no world in which that wasn't going to start happening. and so I hate medicine because again, I don't like not having control. And I feel like my body should just be able to do what it needs to do without the help of anything else. but which isn't true, medicine is good. so
Molly Bierman (21:08)
Yeah.
Kohli Flick (21:09)
I had seen a couple of people start using it And it has transformed my life. the the ability to quiet the food noise and not constantly be talking about it and not constantly be in a conversation and evaluation with myself about like.
I feel this way, so I'm gonna eat this.
Like quieting the food noise and giving me a little bit more structure and I feel like power in my life has been beneficial. Also, as I had gained weight and gotten to my heaviest, I had removed myself from socially doing things, from being the face of the business. In that time period, I also opened an apparel store, which I didn't fit in anything in. I didn't want to
be the face of that business, which I think is really hard when you own a business not to be the face of it, especially in today's times. but most importantly, like I wanted to be there for my son. it goes back to like, am I gonna have a heart attack? Am I gonna have a stroke? Like I wanna be there for him and his life. And I don't want to die and I don't want to get all these systemic things. And so I've lost in the past like
Two years, a little over 70 pounds at this point. I weight train, I work out with a trainer, I go to the gym,
and but it's given me like the confidence that I had back.
and the ability to just kind of like move around in a way, not not physically, but just like emotionally move around in a way that I kind of had not
Molly Bierman (22:37)
Mm.
Kohli Flick (22:38)
for a really, really, really long time. it's also a really strange experience being able to like go into any store and
Try on something. Like they're gonna have my size. It's not gonna be a struggle for them to find it. I'm not gonna have to wear whatever is available. I actually get to choose.
Molly Bierman (22:59)
Mm-hmm.
Kohli Flick (22:59)
the flip side of that is that much like the bakery food buying experience when everything is available to you, as opposed to only a few things being available, it is hard to get a grip on.
Like choosing what you need as opposed to what you can have. Uh-huh. So that's a
Molly Bierman (23:17)
Mm-hmm.
Kohli Flick (23:19)
something we're working through at the moment.
Molly Bierman (23:22)
I mean, it's so powerful. And I know that Jill speaks so much about this on the pod, but I just felt it was not everyone feels comfortable about sharing their journey through their physical body. And I'm just so grateful to be able to like sit and hear your experience and understand how it's transformed you.
So in closing, what would you say, we do this with every interview that we do and every episode, what does no permission necessary mean to you right now? And what do you want to offer our listeners as their permission slip?
Kohli Flick (23:54)
Yeah, I think it means that you get to take up the space that you wanna take up. Like you don't have to ask for anybody's approval to be who you wanna be or
You know, explore what you want to explore. Obviously, there are some asterisk with that, but like find and claim your space. Be your own person. have conversations with the people around you. They're gonna be affected by it. But like, if you feel like you need to.
Step back from your business and work on yourself mentally, physically, and you've put people in place to kind of run it so that you can then come back into it when you're ready, to reinvest in it, have that conversation, take that space. same with your family. Like, we can't show up a hundred percent of the time for a hundred percent of the people in our life. So if you need to take the time, the space, and you
have the privilege of being in a situation
Jill Griffin (24:44)
Yeah.
Kohli Flick (24:45)
where you can do that, find a way to take that space and feel good about taking that time and permission for yourself.
Molly Bierman (24:54)
Thank you so much. It's been such an honor. And in next week, guys. No permission necessary drops every Tuesday. If you have not given us a follow yet, follow us on Instagram, YouTube. If you're looking to find where Kohli's socials are, you can find her on Instagram, you can find her on Substack.
And she will also give you some fun dinner recipes. We'll have that all in the show notes. And we'll see you next time.
