RECENT ARTICLES + PODCASTS
How To Escape “Good Girl” Brainwashing — 223 with Lisa Carmen Wang and the Bad Bitch Empire
“A woman steps into her full power not when she is finally given permission to do so, but when she realizes she never needed permission in the first place." — Lisa Carmen Wang One of our core philosophies at Startup Parent is that we don't have to do...
When Will I Get My Body Back? Motherhood As Awakening — Episode #221 with Amanda Montei
Stop. Touching. Me. What exactly are you allowed to say as a mother if you're feeling overwhelmed, over-touched, without a moment to yourself, at the beck and call of other people, and completely inundated with demands? You're not allowed to say that it's brutal—you...
Health and Wellness Advice Is Failing You. Here’s Why. — Episode Number 217 with Ali Shapiro
When Ali Shapiro battled cancer as a teenager, she received chemotherapy and radiation treatments. While Western medicine was able to save her life, it destroyed her health in the process. After getting a cancer-free diagnosis, Ali committed to understanding how to...
Unicorn Uterus, Surrogacy, and Triblings — All While Building A Fashion Empire: Episode #215 with Sarah LaFleur
Sarah LaFleur’s journey as an entrepreneur and parent hasn’t always been clearcut. In her first job out of school, Sarah was working at a management consultant firm. Early in her tenure there, one of the partners asked the employees, “which of you in here thinks that...
Building Your Village as a Mother — Episode #214 with Beth Berry
Beth Berry became a mother for the first time at 17, but it wasn’t until she got married that she fully understood the injustices around motherhood. As a teen mom, Beth had consistent help with her daughter because she lived with her family. Her family was a built-in...
“Grieving An Avalanche of Emotions” A Professional Ice Climber Shares How Motherhood Irrevocably Changed Her Career — Episode #212 with Majka Burhardt
Majka Burhardt is a professional climber and twin mom. The depth of emotions she felt when balancing career and motherhood was a challenge, as she dealt with the restrictions to her professional life, an avalanche of feelings, and learning how to let go of her desire for control.
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Stop Juggling Too Much and ‘Drop the Ball,’ Says The Cru Founder Tiffany Dufu
How did we get to a place where women are expected to do it all? Leadership expert and author Tiffany Dufu shares out to drop the ball, let go of the guilt, and remove the pre-set expectations that hold women hostage.
This Mom Matched 3500 Parents to Give Them Childcare in the Pandemic
Helen Mayer, a mother of young twins, was in the midst of building her first company when the pandemic hit. The pandemic shut down her company and took away her childcare, leaving her the stay-at-home parent by default. She needed childcare to get a new job. So she started organizing parents together to create childcare swaps by matching parents who needed care with local stay-at-home parents able to provide extra childcare in the pandemic.
Context Switching Between “Parent” and “Professional” Modes Can Be Exhausting — Vanessa Van Edwards Can Help
One of the hardest things to do as a parent is switch back and forth into professional mode. It turns out that you can project confidence and charisma through specific skills, and I took a deep dive with best-selling author Vanessa Van Edwards on how to switch into professional mode to let your expertise and confidence shine through, even after a tiring day of parenting.
Doing It All Is Not The Right Goal
Trying to “do it all” will get in the way of you accomplishing what you really want to with your limited (and very precious) time. In WWC, we teach you skills around doing less, finding focus, and figuring out what to say no to.
WWC Is Back! Our Community to Support Women in Leadership — Episode #186
The Wise Women’s Council is back and accepting enrollments for our Class of 2022. We only open once per year for enrollment, so whether you’ve been a longtime listener or a brand-new listener, check out our leadership incubator and community for executive, entrepreneurial moms navigating both life and business at the same time.
Black History Month: 55 Books By Black Authors On Business, Entrepreneurship, Parenting, and Culture
Every few weeks I see new lists of the best business books, the top business books, and other essential readings lists for entrepreneurs. Quite often, the lists are heavily populated with the same authors, and are often made up of a majority of one specific demographic and background. If you only read books authored by rich, white, married men with ample support systems and buoyed by inter-generational wealth, you’ll get yourself into an echo chamber. Here are 44 amazing books by Black authors and Black entrepreneurs to add to your to-be-read pile.
The 2022 Wise Women’s Council Is Now Open for Applications
The Wise Women’s Council is our annual leadership incubator for high-impact women navigating the big (and little) moves that come with building a career, life, and family. We are now accepting applications for our 2022 class.
The First Year of Parenting: What I Wish I’d Known — Episode #185 with Vanessa Van Edwards
Vanessa Van Edwards learned right away that being an expert in behavioral science did not translate into innate parenting know-how. Vanessa joined us earlier to talk about those first few blurry weeks of infancy and babies in Episode #104. Now, she’s opening up about the first year, explaining that while some phases do indeed “go by so fast,” others can feel like a slog, but telling parents that it goes by so fast is not, well, helpful. We dig into the nitty-gritty of the first year of parenting, what surprised us, what we wish we’d known, and the milestones most parenting books miss.
How To Find Exactly What You’re Looking for on Google
Struggle finding what you want on Google? Here are some delightful search hacks to seriously speed up your search game. I came across a Twitter thread by Chris Hladczuk with 8 Googling tips that I didn’t even know. They’re really simple but they could really speed up your searching.
The Outrageous Expectations We Place On New Mothers
You’re not insane, you’re not wrong, you’re not broken, and you’re not a terrible parent or a terrible worker if you’re having a hard time getting work done while also sustaining the full-time job of caring for a baby. Taking care of a baby is a huge job, one that requires the work of multiple adults. But instead, we ask women to do it all, without help or support, and then to work additional jobs on top of the round-the-clock work of childcare. It’s impossible.
Writing About Family Life on Twitter: Where’s the Line? — Episode #184 with James Breakwell
Growing up, James Breakwell never had to think about what jobs he wasn’t allowed to pursue. That changed when he had kids. As the father of four girls — one of whom recently said she wants to be a construction worker, and another who asked if she could be the Pope — he’s had to put himself in the shoes of the females surrounding him at home. As an author and internet personality behind the popular Twitter account @XplodingUnicorn, James is best known for his viral tweets depicting hilarious snippets of conversations with his daughters. In this interview with our first startup dad, he gets real about how he navigates building a public persona based on his family life — including how much to share and what to withhold.
Why Do I Feel So Bad? Pandemic Parent Burnout and The “Five Layer Dip”
Most of the parents I know are still not okay. When I think about why my brain feels broken and how tired I am, I start to see how this fatigue and burnout is part of a much larger puzzle. It’s not just the pandemic that wore us down, although that’s a huge part. Instead, it’s an amalgamation of many forces, all layered on top of each other. As a result, it feels like we’re carrying loads of sandbags around with us at all times. We carry the weight of all that we’ve been through. It’s a particular set of layers that I’m now referring to as the five layer dip. Here’s why we still feel so broken.
How Brands Mess Up Marketing To Women — Episode #183 with Amber Anderson
Creative dynamo Amber Anderson is the founder of Tote & Pears, a branding and marketing agency with a female focus. For her, becoming an entrepreneur was about more than the business. It was about creating possibilities for her family, establishing a set of core values for her family, and aligning her business values and family needs holistically. We first interviewed Amber on Episode #029 all about the birth of her son and her business. We invite her back to talk about what marketing to women looks like, how brands and agencies can better understand their target audience, and how to build a business that works for you and your family. Tune in to this episode to hear returning guest Amber describe how she aligns family values with work values, the rebranding of her marketing to become female-focused, and why she is committed to keeping work and home life intertwined (while keeping her work weeks around 40-50 hours).
Designing Business Structures for Resilience — Episode #181 (with co-host Cary Fortin)
If you haven’t heard the story of how the Wise Women’s Council started, listen in as we talk about what it took to create a program while five months pregnant and a young toddler at home. Business as usual wouldn’t work, so Sarah asked how to design a business and a high-touch mastermind community differently. The early version of the Wise Women’s Council was forged with a network of teachers and coaches, and has focused on resilience and flexibility since the beginning.