For our fall podcast hiatus, Sarah’s on a break so she can focus on writing. In this first update, she shares how much changed even in the first week of making a decision to pause—and why making space was so important. (Plus, a huge piece of hers was published in Harvard Business Review the week she decided to pause—coincidence? You decide!)
WORK SMARTER.
We do things differently here. If you reject the status quo of motherhood, if you're a parent that doesn't need any more "hustle" advice, or you want to be around people rethinking work and parenthood, get on our private newsletter list.
The Next 90 Days—Episode #128
What will you finish by the end of the year? We’ve got 90 days left. Here’s how I think about planning and structuring the fourth quarter of the year—and what to be aware of as we head into the year end.
Pivot or Pause: Inside A Hard Decision—Episode #127
As we gear up for Fall, I feel the urge to stop this podcast for a while. To be honest, it scares me a little—I can’t stop, can I? I took this question to the group of smart women in our online Startup Pregnant community group and got a ton of wonderful feedback. Here’s what’s happening with our podcast for the coming season, and why the format (and release dates) are shifting a bit.
Got A Business Or Parenting Challenge? Submit Your Question & Be Featured On The Podcast — Episode #126
Every week, I get questions from listeners about business, life, parenting—and more. And I want to answer them! From building a company vision to dealing with burnout to negotiations in your partnership, I’m willing to go there and share everything I know. Here’s how to get access to the exclusive, private podcast.
Entrepreneurs, Burnout, and Breaks: Why Resting (and Pivoting) is Essential — Episode #125
We’re back from summer hiatus, and it was wonderful. In this episode, I share how we set up a family sabbatical, why breaks are essential for entrepreneurs, and what’s next on the horizon for Startup Pregnant. If you’re struggling with entrepreneur burnout, if you’re in need of a break, or you’re curious about what’s coming up next on the show, come join and listen in.
Summer Break? Where Do the Kids Go While Their Parents Work and Other Thoughts On Summertime — Episode #124
Startup Pregnant is taking a summer break! That’s right, we will be off for the month of August, but back to you with fresh weekly content in September. For this summer’s final podcast, Sarah digs into: the real life struggles of being a double working parent family over the summer, the breaks she wishes she’d taken as a new mom and business owner over the past few years, and explains why literal brakes—like on cars—are the real reason we can get so much done.
How to Focus When You Feel Totally Overwhelmed or Unclear — Episode #123
Motherhood, work deadlines, unexpected projects—chaos can descend quicker than you can make your morning coffee. Here are three tools we love to regain focus and clarity.
Win More Business, Make More Friends, Get More Money — Episode #122
Today Sarah shares a simple and universally applicable tool which is the best way she’s found to develop more empathy and more understanding and to arrive at a place where we can have better conversations. It’s the same tool that Sarah has personally used to grow her business, taught to her mastermind students, and to her speaking audiences around the world.
Redefining Startup Success: Shutting Down A Lucrative Startup — Episode #121 With Allie Siarto
Allie Siarto built a company that was extremely successful, by all of our current measures of success. She even had an offer in hand to buy the company—and then she hesitated. She decided to walk away, and rebuild her business and life from scratch. Here’s why.
Ask Me Anything: New Private Podcast for Patreon Backers
What was the...
Beyond Mom: Exploring and Nourishing Our Non-Mother Selves — Episode #120 With Randi Zinn
After losing her father at the tender ago of 25, Randi Zinn moved away from a traditional path in media to instead follow in her “fascinating hippie visionary” entrepreneurial dad’s footsteps. She depicts with honesty and vulnerability the struggles she felt leaping into a world she wasn’t prepared for and how her current success is most clearly understood alongside her several years of “non-linear” progress. After the birth of her son, Randi turned her passion for yoga, hosting events, and spirituality into uncommon and highly successful in person events and retreats. It was not until she was part way through throwing one of these mixers that she realized the business she wanted to create was staring right at her: Beyond Mom, a website, book, and community dedicated to exploring and nourishing our non-mother selves.
The Myth of Equal Partnership in Parenting — Episode #119 With Darcy Lockman
“Two-career couples have the assumption going into having a family, ‘Of course this is equal co-parenting. It’s 2019. What else would we do?’ But it so rarely plays out that way.” Despite the hope for equal partnership, it’s often mothers who are still doing the lion’s share of the unpaid, invisible labor of managing children and the home. Why is this?
If You Work Hard Enough You Can Do Anything, Except Get Pregnant: A Journey Through Infertility — Episode #118 With Lucy Knisley
Her whole life, Lucy Knisley wanted to be a mother, but when it was finally the perfect time for conceiving, it turned out to be harder than anything she’d ever attempted. Fertility problems were followed by miscarriages and her eventual successful pregnancy was plagued by health issues and led to a dramatic near-death experience during labor and delivery. She chronicled this experience and more in the book that she recently wrote called “Kid Gloves: Nine Months of Careful Chaos.” The book is funny and terrifying and informative and useful and real and raw, just like our conversation with Lucy today.
Ambitious Entrepreneurship + Parenthood: When Two Moms Co-Found a Startup — Episode #117 With Sonia Chang
To be a working parent is to constantly feel like you’re missing out on one piece of your life: your work or your family. Or is it? Playfully co-founder Sonia Chang created a company with another mother and intentionally changed their workdays away from the normal 9-5 to be present with her children throughout the week while simultaneously pursuing a highly ambitious business plan for their startup.
Crossing the Threshold to Motherhood: Ceremony, Ritual, and Healing Rites of Passage — Episode #116 With Kari Azuma
What happens when someone who has always known that they wanted to be a mother—that they were born to be a to mother—has a deeply traumatic birth? How does it impact how she views herself, her child, and processes her new role as mother? For Kari Azuma this led to postpartum depression and “a full blown identity crisis.”
The Myths of Miscarriage, The Lean In Fallacy, and Mothers’ Rage — Episode #115 With Katherine Goldstein
Katherine Goldstein found our she was pregnant as she was trying to launch a podcast about how mothers experience bias and discrimination in the workplace—making the issue front and center in her life. Yet she experienced trauma and blowback despite the knowledge. Today we still force women to wrap their miscarriage and fertility traumas into a bow—“But now I have a baby, so it’s all okay”—to make it palatable to the public. Award-winning journalist and podcast creator Katherine Goldstein goes deep with us on so many of the most pressing topics for working mothers and holds nothing back. Between her research, the data, her own experience, and her reported experience of hundreds of moms, Katherine is waging war against cultural forces holding mothers back from being their fullest, most ambitious, most rage-filled selves.
From Unexplained Infertility to Planning a Small Business Maternity Leave — Episode #114 With Reina Pomeroy
Reina began life as a Social Worker and side hustler with an entrepreneurial spirit. Quickly after giving birth to her first child, she realized that her time and energy were too precious to spend on work that was not aligned with her heart and soul. After founding her thriving business, Reina and her partner decided to have another child only to be diagnosed with unexplained secondary infertility. After years on that journey, we speak to her now, on the precipice of delivering her second child and preparing her business for her maternity leave.
How to Raise Successful Children: Trust and Respect in Parenting, School, and Business — Episode #113 With Esther Wojcicki
Esther Wojcicki is considered the most influential educator in contemporary times. She is the pioneer of Moonshot Thinking and her pedagogical philosophy is being adapted by national and global education programs. On top of this, she is the mother to three astonishingly accomplished adult daughters, including a medical professor at UCSF, the founder of 23andMe and the CEO of YouTube. Yet, her framework for promoting strong, independent, capable young people is surprisingly simple and straightforward. What can we learn from Dr. Woj and implement in our own lives to benefit the young people among us?
Universal Paid Family Leave By 2020: Meet One of the Women Pushing for Our Rights — Episode #112 With Fabiola Santiago
Why is the United States the only developed nation without any guaranteed family leave? How did we fall so far behind Europe, Canada, and South America? And who is suffering the brunt of the impact from this lack of policy?
Data Driven Parenting: An Economist on Breastfeeding, Sleep Training, and Vaccinations — Episode #111 With Emily Oster
After disrupting the fear-based pregnancy advice space with her first book “Expecting Better”, Economist Emily Oster is back, applying her data-driven decision making to parenting with her second book, “Cribsheet”. Many of her conclusions will surprise you: like who is the biggest beneficiary of breast-feeding, who is correct in the sleep train or not debate, and how to understand the full body of research around vaccinations. If you’re like me, you’ll appreciate Oster’s warmth and candor about her own parenting experiences and you’ll leave this interview feeling informed, empowered, and confident in your own parenting choices.
The Perfect Mother Myth — Why You’re Not A “Bad Mom.” Episode #110 with Dr. Alexandra Sacks
In our culture, mothers are divided into two camps: the “Perfect Mother” or the “Bad Mom.” This false dichotomy robs women of a shared language to speak about motherhood as it really is: an expansive, grey emotional zone of swirling, conflicting feelings. Dr. Alexandra Sacks guides us a through a new way of looking at motherhood through the lens of “matrescence” — or the natural psychological experience that is the identity transition into motherhood.
Both Co-Founders Pregnant? How Pregnancy Can Move Business Forward — Episode #109 With Elena Rue and Catherine Orr
The two co-founders of StoryMine Media were already parents and they’d done the pregnancy thing before. But then they found out they were both pregnant at the same time. Listen in to this joint conversation as we talk about what to do if both co-founders are pregnant and how this can affect your business planning, strategy, and plays.
Optimize Your Fertility + Heal Your Body. Episode #108 with Lisa Hendrickson-Jack
Lisa Hendrickson-Jack shares about taking the time to learn about and understand our cycles, optimize our fertility and gain information about our bodies.
APRIL: Amy Schumer, Women and Doctors, and Being the Expert of Your Body — Episode #107 With Sarah Peck and Cary Fortin
Do you find space to advocate for yourself in medical situations? Sarah + Cary discuss owning your expertise (you ARE the expert of your body), the dangers for women in a world designed for men, motherhood as a pathway for healing, how to reduce traumatic births, and why we are so fired up about our female elected official here in the US and abroad. News, media + podcast recap in a special April preview + highlight episode airing April 1, 2019.
JOIN THOUSANDS OF PARENTS
WHO WANT TO RETHINK “HOW IT’S ALWAYS BEEN”
Transformative conversations at the heart of working, parenting, and better living. Sign up to join us.