As a mum-of-four and a successful entrepreneur, there’s not much Janine Allis can’t do.
WATCH BELOW: Janine Allis reveals the REAL reason why she joined Australian Survivor
The businesswoman co-founded Boost back in 2000 with her husband Jeff Allis by her side, and the pair turned it into a multi-million dollar empire.
At the time, she was a young mother of three – all under the age of six – and later revealed she was still trying to work out who she was as a person, let alone as a mother.
“I certainly had no experience in business, I had no one around me with experience in business, so it was basically common sense. I just went for it,” she told Kidspot.
In another chat with Sunshine Coast Daily, Janine said that the whole “work/life balance thing” was a myth, and the way she managed to build a business and raise her family was by making sacrifices.
“You can only really do one thing well at a time. That is the reality. In my early days of Boost it was all-consuming – working 150 hours a week; there was no time for friends or to socialise,” she said.
“It was literally just the children, my husband and work. But I wanted to be a mother and I wanted to be a businesswoman so I had to find a way to make it work.”
Janine currently has four children; Samuel, 32, Oliver, 26, Riley, 24, and Tahlia, 14, and has previously credited her appearance on Australian Survivor to her kids.
“[My son] never knew me as a young person who pretty much travelled around the world for seven years and roughed it,” she told AAA.
“He sees me as the person who flies around the world business class, loves to stay at five-star hotels, and likes to shop.”
Janine added that Survivor helped her kids realise she was more than simply their mother, and that it showed them just how strong she is.
“I think the fact that a woman who is well past 40 can actually stand up to the challenges and the environment, I think it is inspiring for them. They say I am tougher than they thought.”
As for the big age gap between her kids, Janine admitted on the I Don’t Know How She Does It podcast, that when she was 39 and on a business trip in South Korea, she booked her husband in for a vasectomy reversal when she felt the sudden want to have another child.
“I know it sounds a little bit weird but that is how it felt and by this stage my poor husband – I had sent him off to have a vasectomy,” she said.
“So he had a reversal and that didn’t work so it took three years before this gorgeous little girl came into our lives,” she confessed.
With her eldest already having children of his own, Janine told Kidspot that she felt “really lucky” to be able to expand her family.
“Tahlia’s been a wonderful addition to our family. I’m really lucky,” she said.
“My older kids taught me a lot about being present with my kids. And you always hear people say, ‘If I knew then what I knew now I’d parent differently’ … well I get the gift to do that.”
