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How Childhood Stress Affects Adult Health — Episode #206 with Michelle Stephens

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Dr. Michelle Stephens, PhD, CPNP, RN is cofounder and chief nursing officer of Oath Care. Her experiences as a pediatric clinician, early childhood stress scientist, and mom deeply inform how she leads and builds in healthcare technology. In this episode we talk about Michelle’s career journey from pediatric nurse practitioner to healthcare startup founder — and what she’s learned along the way.

How The Patriarchy Takes Root In Your Mindset

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The way we collectively talk about, think about, and treat women seeps into our own brains. As a result, many women internalize specific beliefs about their worth, value, and creativity. Here are three key ways the patriarchy takes root inside of your own mindset. 

This Mom Matched 3500 Parents to Give Them Childcare in the Pandemic

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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

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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.

Why Do I Feel So Bad? Pandemic Parent Burnout and The “Five Layer Dip”

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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.

Creating Outrage As A Marketing Strategy

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Over the last week, the internet has popped up loads of articles about influencers behaving badly—in one case, the queen of relatability and toxic positivity shared casual, demeaning remarks about her hired help, then offered a non-apology that involved throwing her own team under the bus, then deleted the bad posts, and—wait for it, I’m sure within the next few days, tears will be next. There will be tears, and a public apology (a “real” one), and a vow to do better. It strikes me that this is strategic, because we’ve seen this playbook before. It’s a marketing strategy, and you’re being played.

Cassandra Speaks: Women and Our Right to A New Form of Power

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It’s time we talked about what power looks like for women, and how we claim our right to power—specifically a new feminine form of power. For centuries, we’ve told men’s stories, and we’ve told stories about masculine power. That power looks like power over other people, like strength, coercion, domination, and defeat. Women have fought for years to do all the things that men have done, Elizabeth Lesser writes—to vote, to lead, to have sex, to lead universities and companies and societies, to have babies, to leave the house, to leave marriages. But it’s time to move into a new form and vision of power. Here’s what it might look like.

Dr. Shani Cooper: Pregnancy, Birth, and Private Practice in 2020 — Episode #177

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Navigating business challenges while navigating pregnancy is tough—navigating pregnancy, business, private practice, and doing it all in a pandemic is extraordinarily difficult. Dr. Shani Cooper, the founder of Root and Soul, runs a holistic health, wellness, and birth support practice based in San Diego. She was also pregnant in 2020, and a member of The Wise Women’s Council last year. We found a few moments to catch up about the year we had, and what it was like to be pregnant, give birth, and run a business in a global pandemic.

We Need Women’s Leadership Now, More Than Ever

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We need your leadership from where you are—as you are. We’ve known for a long time that we need much more diverse leadership, that we need women’s leadership, and that we need new models of power. As Elizabeth Lesser says, we need to embrace “power to,” not just “power over.” We need truth telling, and we need new visions. We need you, your work, and your brave new thinking. We need you to show up. We need you to be who you really are, not what an archaic model of power and “leadership” tells you to be. Take care, take the rest you need, take action, and show up. Even and especially as you are.

Areas of Control: A Coaching Practice (Plus, Something To Look Forward To) — Episode #172

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In a year with a pandemic, wildfires, the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and more, it can be easy to fall into despair, sadness, or anger. Even if you’re reading this years from now, things can go wrong—and they often do. People pass on, projects go under, businesses are forced to change. Part of the work of being human is reconciling with all that is beyond our control. Here’s a practical exercise to understand what’s within your control, and how to use it.

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