RECENT ARTICLES + PODCASTS

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...

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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.