THE CATALOG
We’ve talked to hundreds of women and parents about the future of work, family, gender, revolutionizing paid leave, establishing new rules of work, reinventing the way we do life and family, and more. Here’s where you can dig into our comprehensive library of resources and listen to the in-depth conversations, all by topic.
PREGNANCY
The Fatigue is REAL — Pregnant women and new moms deal with fatigue on a grand scale. Our bodies are doing a lot of work, and we are sleep deprived like never before. So, how do you function? Is there anything you can do to manage the exhaustion? Episode #085 with Cary Fortin.
So Many Rules! Caffeine, Alcohol, What’s Okay? — Conventional wisdom—and most official recommendations—tell us that we must become strict, perfect, and flawless when we’re pregnant, because otherwise every little thing could “harm the baby.” But what do the data really say? Professor Emily Oster, economist, joins us to share where we’re overblowing it, and when we need to pay attention. Episode #080 with Emily Oster.
Prenatal Nutrition, Mindful Eating, and Common Sense — Lily Nichols is a pragmatistic—and a realist—when it comes to food. Rather than try to supplement like crazy, she says what she likes to do is “reverse-engineer a prenatal diet from the context of getting most of—if not all of—your nutrients from the food itself.” The problem with conventional policy and food guidelines is that they are outdated and don’t reflect the science. In fact, the current recommendations were designed for men and then adjusted mathematically for a smaller frame—and then modified again to account for fetal growth. Episode #043 with Lily Nichols.
High-Risk Pregnancy and the Mind-Body Connection — After being diagnosed with endometriosis, Parijat and her husband sought out a specialist and started fertility treatment. After an intrauterine insemination that ended with an ectopic pregnancy, they tried again with IVF. Ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome was just the first in a series of eight complications that Parijat endured during the pregnancy. She was forced to stop working at six weeks—and her water broke at only 23 weeks and two days. Episode #049 with Parijat Deschpande.
The Three Most Important Words We Need To Use When Talking About Pregnancy — There are so many variations to pregnancy, parenting, birth, and motherhood. Yet we forget to listen and judge those that don’t fit into the straight-jacket of our current model of motherhood. Instead, we need to speak first using the words “In my experience,” telling our own stories and listening deeply to the variations that come from millions of women, each telling their own stories. These three words are critical for any conversation. We can’t strive for the “one perfect woman” archetype anymore; there are multiple stories of what it looks like to be a parent and to be an entrepreneur, and there isn’t one size that fits everyone. Episode #013 with Sarah Peck.
How Pregnancy Can Move Business Forward — These two co-founders were both already parents, and they’d been pregnant before. Then, they both found out they were pregnant again—at the same time. Elena Rue and Catherine Orr decided to use the double pregnancy to dig in and create systems for longevity in their business, and set up a structure that would let them be parents, entrepreneurs, and pregnant. At the same time. Episode #109 with Elena Rue and Catherine Orr.
FERTILITY
The Myths of Miscarriage: Katherine Goldstein on Mother’s Rage and The Lean In Fallacy — What happens when you get pregnant as you are trying to launch a podcast about bias in the workplace against mothers? Journalist Katherine Goldstein shares how the dominant cultural story of what pregnancy should look like sweeps stories about miscarriage and fertility trauma under the rug. “As long as you have a kid,” is the rushed, important part, as though that’s the only part of the journey worth looking at. Episode #115 with Katherine Goldstein.
Unexplained Secondary Infertility: When It Took 3.5 Years For The Second Kid After An Easy First — “[Unexplained] infertility is an emotional journey, like just not knowing and the doctor saying, ‘We don’t know what’s wrong with you essentially. You look healthy. Your husband looks healthy. Everything looks fine, but we don’t know why nothing is happening for you… I felt like my body had betrayed me, and the first around, it went so smooth that I was like, ‘Why can’t I get this done again? Why can’t my body naturally conceive?’” Episode #114 with Reina Pomeroy.
Rainbow Babies and Pregnancy Loss: 1 in 100 — Though stillbirth is fairly common (impacting about 1 in 100 pregnancies in the US) it is a painful topic of conversation. But Christine McAlister likes talking about Maeve, the daughter she lost, to keep her memory alive. In fact, Maeve inspired Christine’s business, Life with Passion. We need to talk about the hard things, because life is a hard thing, and pregnancy is all about life. Christine shares how she moved forward despite a devastating pregnancy loss, and what it looked like to try again. She also shares the story of her thriving business and how she built it. Episode #090 with Christine McAlister.
Unexplained Infertility and Letting Go of Control — Tracy Candido and Karina Mangu-Ward are both very driven women with Type A personalities who bring intention to everything they do. So when they were struggling to get pregnant and came to realize that Tracy had unexplained infertility, the couple had to develop new skills around patience and asking for help. In Karina’s words, they had to loosen their grip on what they could manage and control and be ‘at peace in the chaos.’ They also share their unique perspective on 50/50 parenting and what they’ve designed in their household. Episode #032 with Tracy Candido and Karina Mangu-Ward.
The Invisible Emotional Weight of Infertility — After seeing the doctor for preliminary tests, “Anne” (an anonymous guest) learned that she wasn’t ovulating. She was diagnosed with unexplained infertility. At the moment in time we recorded this episode, she finds herself stuck between hope and full mourning. She is always carrying the invisible emotional weight that comes with not knowing what the future holds. Episode #026 with Anne (Anonymous).
If You Work Hard Enough You Can Do Anything, Except Get Pregnant — What happens when the medical establishment ignores your concerns, complaints and symptoms? Lucy Knisley had doctors telling her everything was normal, but her experience of trying to concieve was riddled with losses. Finally, she was diagnosed with a collapsed uterus, making implantation difficult to impossible. After a surgery, she was able to conceive, but the resulting pregnancy and birth were so challenging, she and her partner ultimately decided one kid was all they wanted to have: it was too risky to try for more. Episode #118 with Lucy Knisley.
BIRTH
The Fourth Trimester: How to Better Understand Birth and the Postpartum Periods — It seems obvious that sustaining a wound the size of a dinner plate would merit extensive physical therapy and a long period of rest and healing. But because new mom wounds are unseen, we push ourselves to ‘get back to it’ as soon as possible. Paradoxically, despite doing one of the most tremendous feats of the human body, foundational postpartum care (like having someone cook healthy meals or getting regular bodywork) is seen as an unnecessary luxury. Kimberly Ann Johnson, author of The Fourth Trimester, contends that the first six weeks after childbirth are critical to a woman’s long-term health, and the work we do recover from the physical and emotional trauma and connect with our bodies is a necessity—not an indulgence. Episode #094 with Kimberly Ann Johnson.
Healing from Childhood Trauma and Grief — One of the unspoken parts of giving birth is the deep psychological connections to our own parents and mother that we may uncover during the process. Iman Gatti shares an exceptionally courageous journey of self-healing after the unimaginable pain and loss of her own mother when she was a young child. She spent a decade in therapy and other recovery modalities, and then started a business supporting women in their own journeys to healing, forgiveness, and self-love. Iman shares with us the surprising ways that pregnancy and birth were a portal to deeper healing. Episode #106 with Iman Gatti.
Birth As A Portal And An Invitation — We know that pregnancy and childbirth is a time of profound transformation for women. Beyond the physical changes we experience, giving birth affords the opportunity to let go of our past selves and emerge as something new. But could birth be just as powerful for fathers, co-parents, and our communities at large? Yes. Sarah shares how tapping into the wisdom and energy of new life can have a ripple effect, if we let it. Birth can be a portal and a source of power, signaling a time to let go of what no longer serves us and rise up as a new iteration of our creative selves. Episode #087 with Sarah Peck.
Crossing the Threshold to Motherhood: Ceremony, Ritual, and Healing Rites of Passage — Kari Azuma was a successful leadership coach for five years before the traumatic birth of her son in 2015. Navigating and healing from her postpartum depression and “full-blown identity crisis” were among the most challenging experiences of her life, but also informed what she views as her life’s work. Today, she celebrates and shares the idea of motherhood as a rite of passage—and is reigniting a quest for ceremony, healing, and powerful ritual during this important time for Western mothers. Episode #116 with Kari Azuma.
MATERNITY LEAVE
Planning Ahead for Maternity Leave as an Entrepreneur — Maternal health expert Arianna Taboada shares her advice around planning for maternity leave as an entrepreneur, discussing how to assess both your personal and professional needs. She speaks to the psychological transition back to work after giving birth and the opportunity for entrepreneurs to phase in gradually. Arianna shares her personal parenting journey, and explains how her business changed in light of being a new mom and moving to the US. Listen in to understand Arianna’s policy research around access to leave for self-employed women and learn why maternity leave is a human rights issue. Episode #065 with Arianna Taboada.
Preparing for Maternity Leave: Two Friends, Four Very Different Leaves — Over the last three years, Cary and Sarah have each taken two leaves, but they’ve been different each time. We share our experiences as entrepreneurs, employees, and freelancers—and how we’ve stitched together our leaves, despite the abysmal policies in place to protect working parents. On this edition of The Friendship Series, we talk about parental leave, our frustration with the wider culture’s response to taking time off, and the bizarre series of myths we hold about motherhood. I share the details of my first 12-week maternity leave working for a startup, explaining how the policy took shape as I lived it and why I negotiated the option to work at 50% for an additional three months before getting back up to full speed. Episode #086 with Sarah Peck and Cary Fortin.
Taking a Maternity Leave When You Run Your Own Product-Based Business — Any entrepreneur will tell you that stepping away from your business for a full year is not really an option. So how do you design a maternity leave that works for you—when ‘leaving’ in the true sense of the word is out of the question? Stacey Trock argues that the answer is in scaling back. You don’t have to put your baby in daycare immediately, nor is it necessary to abandon your work completely. Entrepreneurship is about controlling your own destiny, so why not design your own maternity leave, saying YES to the things that generate revenue and help your business grow, while stepping back from the things that don’t? Episode #031 with Stacey Trock.
Revolutionizing Parental Leave with a Workplace Advocate — Becoming a parent is a transformative experience, one where most people are left in the dust to figure out work and stay “caught up” amidst this major life transition. What if we flipped the script? For Karina Mangu-Ward, her company created a Workplace Advocate: someone dedicated to keeping you up to date, and able to communicate your point of view in your absence. The result? You can return to work engaged and empowered, not belittled for having a child. Episode #033 with Tracy Candido and Karina Mangu-Ward.
Universal Paid Family Leave By 2020: Meet One of the Women Pushing for Our Rights — “One in four people {in the US} who give birth go back to work within two weeks. That’s horrendous.” Fabiola Santiago is on a mission with Paid Leave United States (PL+US) to right that wrong and to provide high quality paid family leave for everyone. The current lack of paid leave is most harmful to two groups of already vulnerable populations: women of color and low earners. She shares how our staggering maternal death rate for women of color is exacerbated by a systemic lack of leave and support for new mothers and how low-income earners do not have the flexibility to survive on anything short of full wage replacement. Episode #112 with Fabiola Santiago
POSTPARTUM
Postpartum Recovery: Nutritional Health and Healing as a New Mom — We place a lot of emphasis on planning for the perfect birth and making sure that our bodies are healthy during pregnancy. We don’t spend enough time or attention on how to recover—our bodies, our energy, our psychology—after the baby arrives. Lily Nichols, dietician and nutritionist and bestselling author of Real Food For Pregnancy, shares with us the important dietary needs we’ll have as new moms, and how to support the nutritional demands our bodies will have. Tune in and hear how best to prepare for the postpartum experience. Episode #059 with Lily Nichols.
Postpartum Depression, Daycare and Whether or Not to Be a Parent — What if you’re doing everything right—exercising, eating right, self-care and meditation—and you’re still not okay? After Kathleen Shannon gave birth to her son, Fox, she was doing all the things, using every strategy in the Emotional Resilience toolkit, and on the outside, she appeared to have it all together. But she just didn’t. Though she didn’t realize it at the time, Kathleen was suffering from postpartum depression. Episode #051 with Kathleen Shannon.
How to Prepare for the Postpartum Overwhelm: My Favorite Three Lists — People want to help, but they don’t always know what to do. It’s no fun for you as a new parent to explain your needs over and over again. That’s where the 3 Essential Postpartum Lists come in. Here are three simple documents that will protect your time and energy—your most precious resources—in the early postpartum days. Use these lists to communicate your boundaries and expectations, to save you energy, and to help others help you when you need it the most. Episode #046 with Sarah Peck
The First Weeks of Parenting: What Nobody Tells You — So many parenting books begin with some version of this deceptive, awful phrase—they all say this one dang thing: “After the first few weeks…” But what about THE FIRST FEW WEEKS? The first weeks are some of the longest and most challenging of a new mother’s life, from healing physically and emotionally processing the birth experience, to being up all night with feeding and sleeping, to raw nipples (if you’re breastfeeding), to trying to understand why obnoxiously loud shushing works for some babies to sleep, to feeling like basic things you assumed you could do are completely beyond you. For so many new parents, the surprise of not being even able to feed oneself or eat enough food while having a baby around—a baby that sleeps, a lot!—is a shock to the system, and is really hard to figure out. Vanessa Van Edwards first joined us on Episode #096, where she shared her business and leave goals at 34 weeks pregnant. Six months later, she joined us again to share what really happened—and what she wished folks had told her. Episode #104 with Vanessa Van Edwards
Building a Postpartum Support Team & Roadmap to Recovery — The sad and scary truth is that postpartum care in the U.S. is abysmal. In other countries, new mothers are provided with four to eight physical therapy sessions and their healing is monitored. In the States, however, we get a single 20-minute appointment at the six-week mark. Period. So, what can you do during pregnancy to prepare for the first weeks and months after you’ve given birth? How can you build your own support team to get through the challenging period of brand spanking new motherhood? What might a roadmap to recovery look like? Episode #062 with Sarah Peck.
Postpartum Recovery: Being an Athlete Before & After Pregnancy — If you’re a new mom and an athlete, it can be tempting to hit the trail or the gym asap after the six-week checkup. You want to regain a sense of normalcy and working out is likely a big part of your identity. But it’s incredibly important to be cognizant of what your body just went through and give yourself the time to regain your core strength and allow the pelvic floor to heal. You may even have to relearn the correct use of certain muscles in order to avoid injury. Episode #061 with Dr. Shefali Christopher.
IDENTITY
Redefining Motherhood: Matrescence and Debunking the Myth of the Perfect Mother — What do we call women who experience emotions ranging from complete joy to anxiety to ambivalence in new motherhood? In the words of Dr. Alexandra Sacks: totally normal. In her work studying “matrescence,” or the identity transition to motherhood, Dr. Sacks shines light on the wide range of these normal emotions that tend to be hidden from public view. Some of these very normal and natural feelings include: fear of childbirth, disappointment in learning your child’s sex, not enjoying the work of childrearing, feeling disconnected to your baby or your partner (or both!) during what you thought was supposed to be a deep bonding moment, and much more. Episode #110 With Dr. Alexandra Sacks
Intuition, Empowerment, and Creating Yourself Anew as a Mother — Motherhood transforms you. There is no ‘bouncing back’ to your previous life. Being a mom requires that you ‘transform forward,’ creating a new, better version of yourself. And the feminine qualities essential to motherhood—loving, caring, nurturing, listening—also happen to be the qualities that the world is most yearning for in business, politics and the social sphere. Episode #010 with Steph Jhala.
When Motherhood Breaks You — Artist and PhD candidate Peng Scheerer’s experience of giving birth was a brutal, life-or-death situation that unearthed a childhood trauma—leaving Peng depressed and suicidal for a full nine months afterward. But after working through the psychological pain, Peng has emerged stronger than ever. She has regained her artistic voice and is working to break down the cultural construct that paints femininity as faulty or weak. Peng joins me to explain her change of heart around having children and discuss the challenges associated with parenting and pursuing a career as a freelance artist. She shares her incredibly traumatic birth experience and discusses the identity shift that came with pregnancy and motherhood. Episode 067 with Peng Scheerer.
Pregnancy, Divorce, and Being Knocked Sideways — 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. She dove into her first pregnancy with a plan: she would have a natural birth and breastfeed her baby, as the research suggests. Her employer was supportive, agreeing to a shifted schedule when she returned from maternity leave. But nothing went according to plan. And later, when she returned to work, Tamsen discovered she had a new boss who wasn’t okay with the predetermined agreement. “Once you’ve been through a series of things that are so defying of … what you thought you could handle, it resets your horizon—higher, broader, better.” Episode #006 with Tamsen Webster.
PARENTING
What Surprised Me Most About Parenting — I asked the Startup Parent community to share what surprised them most about pregnancy and parenting. These are the responses everyone shared. Episode #070 with Sarah Peck.
Hacking Parenting, Mindfully & Intentionally — Motherhood is wildly unpredictable, and it is easy to feel incompetent if your baby doesn’t behave the way the parenting books promised. Part of it is about learning to live in the moment and accepting that your experience is okay, even if it’s different from what the experts advertised. Asha Dornfest, founder of Parent Hacks, started an online community about making parenting easier when she became a mom and felt abandoned by the experts. Desperate for practical advice, she created a community where parents could swap useful tips and share creative advice. Episode #076 With Asha Dornfest.
Becoming A Parent And Entrepreneur At The Same Time — Danielle LaPorte shares her parenting and entrepreneurial journeys, explaining how the two paths coincide and develop together. She offers her insight on parenting, speaking to the phases, the physical exhaustion and the decisions of what to share (and not share) with your kids. Episode #034 with Danielle LaPorte.
Choosing The Simple Moments — 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. She shares how her background in history and public humanities led her to explore the idea of ‘living small,’ and she shares 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. Episode #009 with Erin Boyle.
Data-Driven Parenting — 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. Episode #111 with Emily Oster.
Motherhood Makes You Better At Work — Parenting changes you, but not in the ways you might expect. Amy Henderson, founder of Tendlab, talks about how motherhood can make you better at your job. Episode #101 with Amy Henderson.
RETURNING TO WORK
The Fifth Trimester: Asking for What You Need — Most new moms head back to work about 12 weeks after giving birth. The problem is that this is often several months before women are physically and emotionally ready. Scientific data and anecdotal evidence point to the six-month mark as the time when moms start to feel adept again (and for some women, it takes longer). The United States is one of the worst countries in the world (it’s in the bottom three, in fact), offering zero paid maternity leave for new parents. This often puts women, partners, and children in tricky to dire situations that don’t help with those early days of recovery and new life. Episode #004 with Lauren Smith Brody.
Transitioning Back to Work After a Career Break — If you’ve taken a career break to raise children, reentering the workforce can be a challenge. Though motherhood is arguably the most difficult—and important—job on the planet, it isn’t a paid position. And the gap it leaves on your resume often seems to erase the experience you had before becoming a mom. How do you rebuild your confidence as a competent and capable career woman? And how do you prepare yourself emotionally for the transition back to work? Episode #075 with Rita Kakati Shah
4 Ways to Get Better at Saying No — There is power in the word NO, just ask any toddler! But if you’re anything like me, the disease to please often leads to a default YES—or at least a MAYBE. Problem is, that results in total overwhelm and resentment. No one wants a life controlled by the whims and desires of others. So how do you put yourself back in the driver’s seat and get better at saying NO? Episode #040 with Sarah Peck.
Work Life Balance is a Myth — The strive towards some sort of perfect work/life balance is a myth and a fruitless exercise. Life is always changing, and our goals—many of them—are often in tension with each other. That tension often creates interesting results; for example, many women have shared that they adore their businesses and work lives, and their families have created a hard edge and new set of boundaries in how they approach work. Instead of some idealized “balance,” we strive to find the right fit for us as individuals, in this moment, in this season. Episode #015 with Sarah Peck.
Fostering a Community of Breastfeeding & Pumping Mamas — Breastfeeding can be really challenging and really isolating. The onus for us is that what makes it easier is being connected to other women and other mothers who’ve been there. Amy VanHaren is the founder of Pumpspotting, a community and organization that supports breastfeeding mothers and creates community for new moms to connect, share—and feed. Episode #079 with Amy VanHaren,
How Motherhood Makes You Better at Work — How will motherhood change me? Will I be different? Will I end up on the “mommy track” and never want to work again? Expectant parents and people considering having kids know that parenthood will change them, but they don’t how. Today we are going to take a look at the story that gets shoved at pregnant women (and really, at all women). The story goes that when you’re just waiting to become a mom, and once you do become a mom, you won’t be interested in working outside the home anymore. The prevailing story is that motherhood will change you, and not in a good way. The ambitions and dreams you cherished pre-kids become uninteresting to you. Because you become uninteresting. Episode #101 with Amy Henderson.
WORK IS BROKEN
The Future of Work (and Feminism) Is Flexible — 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. Annie Dean is the Co-CEO of Werk, a company that pre-negotiates flexibility with top companies and creates a standard model, with definitions, of what flexibility looks like in the workplace. For too long, the idea of flexibility has been poorly defined, and they quickly changed that. Episode #002 with Annie Dean
What Work Looks Like Today Is Broken — We’re seeing the results of a broken workplace with the amount of people dropping out, the lack of diversity in the workplace, and more. Work is especially broken for women. And when we layer in parenting, and we try to make all of it fit together, within the paradigm that currently exists, well, what we see is that across the board, it doesn’t fully work. In this core value, we take the stance that what work looks like today can be wildly improved on. We believe that the future of work can be far better than what we see today. Episode #018 with Sarah Peck.
Not Your Typical Schedule: Lean In to Business Freedom — Part of the appeal of entrepreneurship is the freedom to set our own schedules. Yet many of us fall into the trap of keeping traditional hours, feeling obligated to fill our days with eight-plus hours of nonstop work. What if we leaned in to the freedom and flexibility that entrepreneurship affords? What if we took advantage of opportunities to do things for ourselves—outside of both work and parenting? And what if that made us BETTER business owners and moms? Episode #093 With Emylee Williams.
Startups, Sane Hours and the Beauty of Choice — People will tell you that the early days of your startup will require 80-hour work weeks, that you won’t see your friends and family. But here’s the thing: You always have a choice. If there’s 80 hours-worth of work to be done, you can slice that up into two weeks. Or rather than doing it all by yourself, two or three people can work together. Laura Roeder founded her startup, Meet Edgar, while she was pregnant. She took three months off during Edgar’s first year—and came back part-time for the first year of her son’s life. Laura chose entrepreneurship because of the freedom and flexibility it affords her to choose sane work hours and make time for her family. Episode #055 with Laura Roeder.
Ambitious Entrepreneurship + Parenthood: When Two Moms Co-Found a Startup — Sonia Chang left the corporate world to pursue her longtime dream of becoming an entrepreneur and she co-founded Playfully. One of the fascinating things about the company is not the product— although we’ll talk about the product on the show—but the fact that it is co-founded by two moms who work a very different schedule by design: they agree to meet three times a week in-person, but the rest of the work that they do is done around their kids. Episode #117 with Sonia Chang.
Bringing Work and Family Together Through Entrepreneurship — Amber Anderson’s water broke at just 31 weeks, and her son Kayson spent three weeks in the NICU. When Amber’s maternity leave was up, she decided she simply could not choose between work and family. She wanted to be there for her son, so she chose entrepreneurship out of necessity—to create a new model that would weave work and family together. Episode #029 with Amber Anderson.
REINVENTION: WORK, PARTNERSHIP, PATRIARCHY
Create a Systems Manual and Operating Best Practices for Your Family — Renée Warren applied a business philosophy to her home life by holding meetings and setting goals based on their values. And that changed everything. Episode #074 With Renée Warren
Drop The Ball: Redefining What It Means to Be an Extraordinary Woman — Women feel the constant pull of unspoken expectations: be the best wife, mom, employee, boss. Author of Drop The Ball, Tiffany Dufu, on telling ourselves a different story, starting at home. Episode #028 With Tiffany Dufu
The Myth of Equal Partnership in Parenting — “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? Journalist and Author Darcy Lockman explains the research behind why partnerships are still so unequal, what to do about it, and why women feel so much rage as a result. Episode #119 With Darcy Lockman
Overthrowing The Patriarchy — 40% of American households believe that it is bad for society if mothers work. Because sexism is a global phenomenon, you might believe this statistic to be universal as well—but it just isn’t. In fact, this kind of maternal bias against women in the workplace is a strictly American phenomenon. Diverse cultures from deeply feminist Iceland to ‘one-child policy’ China simply do not have stay-at-home moms. This interview with Pando Daily founder Sarah Lacy looks at how this staggering statistic manifests itself in the our culture, from the wage gap to maternity leave policy to overt sexism on the job. I ask her about the need to dismantle the patriarchy and her experience of maternal bias in the workplace. Episode #023 with Sarah Lacy.
BUILDING BUSINESSES
Hiring People Who Are the Right Fit — How can you be sure you’re hiring the right person? Or that you really want to work with a particular client, for that matter? Val Geisler has learned the hard way, by giving contractors a chance when they didn’t honor her time and taking on clients who raised a red flag early on. And while there is no magic formula for identifying who is the right fit and who isn’t, Val can tell you what to look out for—and when to listen to your gut. Episode #039 With Val Geisler.
Getting Back to What Matters with a Rebrand — Rebranding your business is a risk, especially if what you’re doing is still making money. How can you be sure it’s time to shake up the status quo and shift your focus? Tara Gentile can attest to the fact that there is no easy framework for making that decision. But a good place to start is by asking the question, “What is the company that I really want to build?” Tara has spent the last year getting back to her original mission, getting clear and focused on the legacy she wants to leave behind, and rebooting her business to emphasize the community aspect of her small business network and give members access to the collective intelligence of the group. Episode #037 With Tara Gentile.
Designing Your Vision, Mission and Values — Few of us would set off on a road trip without a GPS. Yet many online entrepreneurs hang up their shingle without a clear idea of what they stand for or who they want to serve. After a couple of consults with potential clients who weren’t the right fit, Toi Smith designed and published a vision, mission and set of values that clarify her intentions, eliminate the noise, and distinguish the clients she is interested in partnering. Episode #041 With Toi Smith.
The Science Behind Decision-Making and How to Get Good at It — Michelle joins us to discuss her career arc, defining coaching as a profession and describing her transition to a private coaching practice. She explains her approach to decision-making, the distinction between the quality of a decision and its outcome, and the role of intuition in the decision-making process. Episode #047 With Michelle Florendo
Achieve More by Doing Less — “My greatest satisfaction has not come—ever—from doing more. It’s come from being really present doing the things that matter the most.” It’s hard to argue with Kate Northrup’s contention that the eight-hour workday doesn’t work from a productivity standpoint. Study after study shows that only three (or so) of those eight hours are productive ones, and I think we can all get on board with the idea of getting better results—while putting in less time at work. The problem is, how do we shift that mindset? How do we shift the idea that tells us the only way to get what we want is to do more and more work? Episode #008 With Kate Northrup.
Lessons Learned From Launching the Startup Parent Mastermind — I walk you through what it takes to put together a mastermind and explaining why I chose to do it now—in the middle of my second pregnancy. I discuss the lessons I learned about lead time and marketing, discussing exactly how I went about promoting the soft launch. Listen in to understand how building a niche audience served me in finding the right people for the mastermind group and learn why you shouldn’t give up after one launch! Episode #068 with Sarah Peck.
The Science of Personality and Why It Matters for Your Business — Vanessa is a journalist turned researcher who got curious about what makes people tick, and she believes that when it comes to business, personality is not a nice-to-know, it’s a need-to-know. Vanessa leverages her knowledge of personality science to hire for the right fit, create a supportive work culture, and get the best out of her team. Episode #096 With Vanessa Van Edwards
Disruption: Managing Your Career — Whenever I feel stuck or I’m looking for a mentor, career-wise, one of my favorite things to do is to identify people whose careers I really admire, and watch them from afar. I study how they work, what they’ve done and what changes for them over time. I learned about Whitney Johnson after I read her first book, Dare, Dream, Do. It’s about building dreams for your life, and it has so many useful applications for that time period of transition in your career after becoming a parent when you can dream up what your future life can look like. Episode #105 With Whitney Johnson
FRIENDSHIP + COMMUNITY
Culture Change Starts With Stories — Stories are the first part of culture change. In order to create a new future, part of the process is unearthing all of the stories of what’s happened, and what’s happening. So much of the stories of motherhood and parenting are hidden or silenced, not public. To change the narrative of motherhood, we need to start by first telling the stories of what motherhood looks like, from a place of truth, honesty, and compassion.
Connection, Friendship and Kindred Spirits — If you’re busy with work, busy with your kids, busy with life—it can be tough to prioritize friendship. And social media complicates things by making it seem like you’re in touch when you’re not actually connecting. Episode #054 with Sarah Peck.
Build Your Own Mental Health Toolkit — Life is an emotional roller coaster, and resilience is about handling the ups and downs without being swept away. Pregnancy and parenting present a brand-new set of challenges, and it’s incredibly valuable to have a mental health toolkit that equips you to navigate the sometimes-bumpy ride. Here’s five of the resources I keep in my own “mental health toolkit,” and how I develop resilience through these restorative practices. It’s important to recharge your batteries and stay sane, as much as possible, despite the stress and sleep deprivation associated with being a new mom. Episode #064 with Sarah Peck.
The Power of Sisterhood And Community — Nisha Moodley came to understand the power of sisterhood by accident. She started a group coaching program simply because she was out of one-on-one slots and something magical happened: The women involved experienced profound, lasting transformation. Since then, Nisha’s work has come to focus on the power of women in groups to create a nourishing container that supports growth and expansion—a place of sensitivity, resilience, and compassion where women can rise in leadership. Nisha explains how she facilitates connection with groups of women, both in-person and online. She shares her pregnancy and parenting journey, including the messy experience of dealing with a lot of repressed anger and what it taught her about her values. I ask Nisha how her business has changed now that she’s a parent, and she offers insight around society’s responsibility to take care of mothers. Episode #069 with Nisha Moodley.
Cultivating Adult Female Friendships — If you are working parent, chances are that career and family dominate your time and attention. Yet we all know the immense value of cultivating friendships with other women who share similar circumstances, interests, or values. We explore how to maintain existing friendships, how to nurture new ones, and what to do when friendships change. Episode #083 with Cary Fortin and Sarah Peck.
How To Make More Friends — How many people do you consider true friends? Maintaining meaningful friendships as adults can be a challenge, especially if you move to a new city or change jobs. I have a few strategies that I’ve used to help deepen the quality of connections. If you want to take a proactive approach, here are my favorite ways to make new friends. Yes, it takes work and commitment, but the benefits far outweigh the initial discomfort of putting yourself out there. Episode #084 with Sarah Peck.