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Intuition, Empowerment, and Creating Yourself Anew as a Mother — Episode #010 With Steph Jhala

Stephanie Jhala enjoyed a healthy, medically uneventful pregnancy. But at the very end of the planned home birth, something went wrong. Her baby was not breathing. After a transition to the hospital, Steph’s newborn daughter was on put on life support in the NICU, consigned to a cooling sack and connected to countless tubes. Doctors predicted her death.  But Stephanie knew instinctively that her daughter would be fine. And she was right. Her daughter improved by leaps and bounds, and is now a thriving, feisty 10-month-old. How did Steph access that intuition? How does she continue to trust and cultivate her mind-body connection on a daily basis? And how is she using the tools she learned in her business as a leadership consultant to become a leader in motherhood? In this episode we talk about intuition, deep listening, observation, and checking first with yourself as a source of wisdom.

Choosing the Simple Moments — Episode #009 With Erin Boyle of Reading My Tea Leaves 

Having children invites chaos into your life. So if your work focuses on minimalism and simple living, how do you align those themes with the bedlam of being a mother, a parent? As the mother of two children under the age of four, with a six-month old in the house, simple moments are even more precious to Erin. Today she shares how her background in history and public humanities led her to explore the idea of ‘living small.’ I ask Erin about her gentle approach to self-improvement and how she defines courage within the context of being a parent. Listen in to learn how getting comfortable with uncertainty a big part of parenting, why she cautions against speaking about pregnancy in universal terms, and how you can embrace the ‘idyllic and beautiful’ moments in your life.

Achieve More by Doing Less — Episode #008 With Kate Northrup of the Origin Collective 

Kate Northrup always knew she wanted to be a mother, and she pursued entrepreneurship partly because of the freedom it could afford her to be there for her kids. What Kate wasn’t counting on was the way pregnancy would change her drive and refocus her energy when it came to the business. She admits that it took her a long time to “get back in the game,” and that her husband and business partner, Mike, picked up the slack. But Kate credits having her daughter, Penelope, with initiating a personal evolution that allowed her to clarify her desires and ultimately renew her interest in the business and the way she thought about showing up for work in the first place. Perhaps there was something revolutionary here: because, as she shares in this episode, she found that she was able to achieve more even while doing less. And that some of her most productive weeks happened when she was working only 20 hours a week on the business. Today Kate shares her “shocking and awesome” birth experience, explaining how parenthood impacted her business as well as her marriage.

Healing from PTSD Through Yoga: Rebuilding War-Torn Colombia — Episode #007 With Natalia Quiñones

How do you work your way back after experiencing the severe trauma of a great loss? What if that trauma was wrapped up in living through an armed conflict, either as a victim or aggressor? And what if a culture of violence was the only life you’d ever known? The people of Colombia have been endured armed conflict since the mid-1960’s, when the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and other guerrilla movements began fighting for influence in the country. In 2010, Natalia and María Adelaida López founded Dunna: Creative Alternatives for Peace, to introduce basic poses to both the poor, mostly rural victims of the conflict and the guerilla fighters who once terrorized them. The yoga classes have proven to reduce the symptoms of PTSD and equip locals with the tools to heal themselves. Today Natalia shares the science behind yoga’s ability to heal, the similarities among victims and aggressors of the conflict, and her surprise at people’s capacity for change. 

Pregnancy, Divorce, and Being Knocked Sideways — Episode #006 With Tamsen Webster

Tamsen Webster, the Executive Producer of the oldest and one of the largest locally organized TED talk events in the world, is self-described as “pattern-driven,” and likes to have a plan. Today, we talk about her journey into parenting, and how her ideas for pregnancy (and even marriage) were very different than reality.She dove into her first pregnancy with a plan: she would have a natural birth and breastfeed her baby, as the research suggests. But nothing went according to plan. Even her work was wildly different than she expected when her boss changed while she was on leave. Tamsen shares her challenging parenting journey, admitting that having her sons “knocked her sideways,”—and that she unexpectedly became an entrepreneur as a result.

Ambitious Introverts: Hiding in the Bathroom — Episode #005 With Morra Aarons-Mele

Why do we only show outgoing, extroverted, and confident business people as the model for success? In a world where most successful entrepreneurs and business owners are afraid to show any weakness, Morra Aarons-Mele is a breath of fresh air. The mother of three kids and the founder of Women Online, an award-winning social impact agency, she’s a key fixture in the world of digital marketing, even though she does most of her work at home, in her yoga pants. She’s the author of “Hiding in the Bathroom: An Introvert’s Roadmap to Getting Out There (When You’d Rather Stay Home),” and admits that we’re all just faking it. In her work, book, and this podcast she explores how to harness the power of your “onlyness” and make the work environment work for you.

The Future of Work (and Feminism) Is Flexible — Episode #002 With Annie Dean

Thirty percent of talented women drop out of the workforce, not because they want to, but because the way work looks is outdated, flawed, and fails women and families on a regular basis. And a full 70% of those women would still be working if they had access to better (or any) workplace flexibility. What would it do for our economy and businesses if we weren’t losing so ambitious, committed employees so rapidly? The corporate world is stuck in a structural model that is a relic of the post-Industrial era. Today’s guest on the show is an entrepreneur building a simple, yet  revolutionary answer that makes the world fit women—rather than trying to make women fit into the world.

The Startup Parent Podcast: Why & How the Show Started — Episode #001 with Mattan Griffel

In this first episode, I give you a bit of the behind-the-scenes about why we started the show. When I interviewed at a Y Combinator backed startup in 2014, I was transparent about my desire and plans to start a family. Eight months in I was promoted to VP. One month later, I realized I was pregnant. The CEO, a great friend of mine, supported the entire process. Yet it still wasn’t what I expected. And that launched the start of a deeper desire to tell new stories about what it really takes to grow businesses and babies—and what’s been missing from the conversation. This podcast is the start of a conversation about the overlap between entrepreneurship, pregnancy, and parenting. Listen in to why we got started.

Launch Day! The Startup Pregnant Podcast is Now Live

For the better part of the last year, I’ve been interviewing women about their stories in entrepreneurship, tech, leadership, and parenting. We gathered sponsors in early April and started recording episodes in June. Over the summer, we recorded the first ten episodes, researched and studied the stories of some truly fascinating women, brought on a sound editor, and started piecing together the show. We just submitted the show to iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. Late last night, all three of them approved our show and we are so excited to say that the show is live!

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